19. Removing Day
Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies
Removing Day
"You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere."
— Richard Nixon
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 7:00 A.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Kansas University Medical Center, Fourth floor
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Agent Anacostia woke to the muffled chirp of her phone, and the painful realization that she had just spent another night in the hospital, although this evening had been spent on the floor with the stack of cushions that Goose had collected.
And, to her embarrassment, with Goose as a pillow.
“Did I do something wrong with your phone?” whispered the dark pegasus through the stylus in her teeth. “I was just looking up zoos when it started making noise, so I pushed stop. I didn’t look up any naked people pictures like you warned me about but there’s a lot of them.”
Karla was just starting to relax into her warm nest of cushions again when Goose added, “And some of them were with ponies.”
All thoughts of going back to sleep for a while with the furry pegasus as a pillow vanished. “Give me that!” she hissed, grabbing her government phone and unplugging it from the power cable. It took a few moments to find the browser cache and wipe it, although nothing was gone forever on a phone, and she seriously thought about just ‘accidentally’ wiping the memory. It would only take a few touches, and she could blame the pony having done it by accident instead of her own instincts to keep pony-porn off her government-issued iPhone. Then again…
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she added in as reassuring tone as Karla could manage. “There are some strange people on our planet, and— Wait. People with earth ponies or Equestrian ponies? No, no, no. I don’t want to know. Somebody with a computer probably put together pornography of you an hour or two after you arrived. I mean Equestrians, not you personally,” she added at Goose Down’s obviously flabbergasted expression. “Oh, God. This is too much to explain before breakfast.”
“I wish we could go to the cafeteria,” said Widget with a yawn from the nearby bed. Both of the beds had been cranked down to their lowest height out of deference to the pony patients, which had impressed Granny Smith with the practicality, and made it more difficult for Widget to tunnel underneath the mattress to figure out how the mechanism worked. And most probably to take it apart.
“It’s a fairly long walk,” said Karla now that she was feeling more human. “And you would probably get mobbed with reporters. The hospital staff is keeping them off this floor, but down in the lobby it looks like a congressional hearing.”
“Oh.” Widget’s ears drooped, but quickly perked back up again. “Oh! We’re going to the ballbase stadium today, aren’t we? And you were going to show me your car!”
“Baseball, yes, and can I get some coffee first?”
- - Ω - -
It turned out a shower was on her list also, by unanimous vote of the room. Since her own apartment was too far across town, Karla was thankful that the hospital room had one, along with shampoo and conditioner, although she was missing her clothes once she stepped out of the tub.
“Oh, pardon me, Miss.” The rear end of the pony surgeon was within touching distance when Karla cracked open the door of the bathroom, and her clothes were hovering in front of him. With one last glow of blue magic, the blouse and associated clothes floated over to the door while Doctor Stable pretended to be interested in something on the other side of the room. “Just a minor cleaning spell, and I left your weapon alone, since I understand that’s a sensitive spot with you humans. Have to keep them covered, like your delicate bits. Seems a little odd for us, but I suppose that’s because we really can’t cover our horns without affecting our spellcasting.”
“I understand. I think,” added Karla as she slipped into her underthings. “Where are the girls?”
“Next bathroom over, in the empty room.” The unicorn poked a hoof in the general direction of the doorway. “Widget has a half-dozen nurses watching after her, and Granny Smith is critiquing. Think she rather enjoys it, as a matter of fact.”
“She reminds me of my grandmother,” admitted Karla.
“Mine too,” said the doctor, who she had actually begun to think of as a doctor over the last day. The unicorn remained outside the bathroom door until she was dressed, but stopped her before she could leave. “Could we talk privately for a moment, Miss Anacostia? Widget took all of her little devices with her and your phone. If you’re worried about other eavesdroppers, I’ve always got—” Doctor Stable’s horn lit up and a faint shimmer lit up the area just outside of her arm’s reach, making a full sphere that muted the sounds of the hospital corridor outside to faint thunks and clicks.
“That’s… impressive,” admitted Karla. “Are you in the spy business too?”
“Medical privacy,” he responded, looking slightly embarrassed. “Although you can’t be a physician to Equestria’s greatest unsung heroes and their families without writing a few reports that start, ‘Dear Princess Celestia…’”
“True.” Karla nodded and adjusted her blouse in the bathroom mirror. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Where are you planning on taking my patients this morning? Because you twitch just under one eye whenever you talk about it.”
“I…” Taking a breath and checking the shimmering magic around her, Karla decided to skip several minutes of denial and obfuscation in order to cut straight to the point. “I’m taking them to the FBI Field Office in Missouri, which is outside of the restraining order. Some of the higher-ups think they can convince our guests to fly to Washington and be… paraded around as VIPs I think. They don’t mean any harm by it; they’re just convinced they are right and nobody is going to talk sense into them.”
“I see.” The doctor had a very compassionate look, even with the wildly different features that Karla had been getting used to over the last few days. “And I thought we had difficult nobility in Equestria. Do you agree with them? Well, of course not. Otherwise you wouldn't be so tense, I suppose. And taking my patients straight back to Raindolph would probably get you fired, right?”
“It would be a pretty thick black mark on my record,” she admitted. “Almost as bad as…” It took a much deeper breath for Karla to continue. “Did you know I almost shot Widget when I first met her? I was hungover, short of sleep, and in a very bad mood when my boss dragged me out of bed on my day off and sent me up here.”
“Then you saw this alien creature all covered in bandages and beeping machines,” said the doctor in a very compassionate tone of voice. “I hate to admit it, but I was hiding from the humans for a time when we first arrived. The first human I saw was covered in pony blood, bent over Widget’s body and shouting into a little box. I… panicked. I reacted by diving into a bush and hiding instead of thinking. It was not the act of an intelligent creature, or a physician.”
“A human being is intelligent,” said Karla. “People are dumb, panicky animals. It’s from a movie, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
The doctor nodded, but with a thoughtful frown. “If Widget and Goose are delivered to your police office, listen to your superiors, and still want to return to Raindolph, would they be prevented from doing so?”
“I… don’t believe anybody in our agency would be so foolish as to detain them against their will,” hedged Karla. “Hopefully.”
“I don’t think detaining them is a possibility.” Doctor Stable brushed Karla’s short hair back with a brief touch of magic while he straightened up and actually smiled. “As long as you are willing to transport them back to Raindolph, that is.”
“Oh, of course.” Karla winced. “I really don’t think I can go against my orders, though. And I’m certainly not going to fight my fellow FBI agents.”
“You won’t have to.” The doctor turned to open the bathroom door, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. “You do know what Goose is, correct?”
“A cute little fuzzball with huge wings?”
As Karla tried to puzzle out just what seemed to be so serious, the doctor continued, “She’s the little sister of a dozen or more older brothers, uncles, and cousins, all of whom are in the Royal Guard. She’s wanted to be a guard since she could walk, and she’s wheedled and begged her big brothers for training every day and night since. She’s a remarkable young talent, and if it wasn’t for her ouranophobia and a certain reluctance among the guards regarding mares in that position, she would have breezed through the Academy and taken a position at Luna’s side. For star’s sake, both Luna and Pumpernickel trained her.”
“So she can fight?” asked Karla.
Doctor Stable shook his head and dismissed the odd magical sound shield around them. “Take care of my patients, Miss Anacostia, and see that they get back to Raindolph. I’ll stay here with Granny Smith for the second portal when she has recovered sufficiently. And do try to be safe.”
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 8:30 A.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph KS
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
It was a little weird to feel like the party for the ponies going home was the end of a roller-coaster ride, but Dakota Henderson was feeling oddly let down by this morning. Sure, he could go out into the crowd and take photos of the various VIPs mingling with the ponies, but there were already a half-dozen professional photographers all operating under the authority of the KC Star with some sort of pony pool arrangement, much like the SF Chronicle had its pool of one lone indian for the last few days.
There was a sense of completion to his musing. All of his photos had been uploaded to the Chronicle’s server, the goodbye gift of paper 3x5 glossies from Walmart had arrived, and he had gotten them tucked away into Lucky’s bottomless saddlebags. That left Dakota casually walking around the crowd, getting both wide shots and close-ups of individual ponies next to their various stacks and bags of human souvenirs.
With practice, he could pick out the individual ponies in various spots around the yard and vicinity getting ready for their departure. Sparkler and some of the other teenage ponies were trying to figure out how to pack one of the smaller large-screen televisions for shipment, along with a stack of freshly purchased/donated/begged DVDs to their side that was almost as tall as they were, although he could not see a DVD player anywhere in the collection. Lyra was sorting through her own loot pile of plastic dolls, trying to bring it down to a size she could carry on her back, while Trixie was arguing with Lucky, most likely having something to do with the Winnebago next to them, and how difficult it would be to fit through any return portal. And quite possibly, if she owned the vehicle in question.
He was just getting focused in on the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who in turn were being photographed by the cute redhead from the Kansas City Star, which would have made a good ironic picture of a picture bit, when his phone rang. He let it go long enough to finish the shot, then hooked the phone under his chin.
“Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, Fowler here.”
There was a pause, a faint giggle, then an older woman’s musical voice said, “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I was calling Mister Henderson, the photographer who has been—”
“That’s me, ma’am. Sorry about that.” The voice was obviously a pony, since people were incapable of sounding constantly like they were about to break into song at the slightest whim. “What can I do for you, young lady?”
“Could you direct me to a photographer able to videotape an event for us? They would need a camera that did… why do you call it videotape when there’s no tape?”
Caught off-guard, Kota said, “It used to involve magnetic tape, but we’re all digital now. My camera can even shoot video. I can probably explain better in person. What did you want me to film? I mean video.”
“It might be a little dangerous,” continued the voice. “I mean I hope it isn’t, and I don’t think you will be hurt, but I’d feel a lot better if I had an unimpeachable witness on this trip. And Grace gets so sick when we travel.” There was a short huff of air over the phone. “She said you used to be a soldier.”
“There is no such thing as an ex-Marine, ma’am. But if you’re doing something dangerous, don’t you want one of the regular soldiers to guard you?”
“I really don’t want this to be official.” There was another short huff of breath. “We’re going to Kansas City to pick up Widget and Cadet Goose from some people who may not want to let them go. If they do, no problem. If they don’t—”
“You want proof that you didn’t start it,” said Dakota while he was putting his camera back into the bag. “No harm, no foul. Yeah, I can do that, as long as there’s no gunfire. Do you need me to jog up to the highway to meet you?”
“No, just get ready. We’ll pick you up.”
It took just a few minutes to get all of his gear stowed, his knapsack on, and the camera bag slung while he was walking down the gravel driveway to the road. Despite RCPD’s best efforts, Highway 77 was a sluggish mess of cars again. People were idiots. They were willing to drive and sit in their cars for hours just to catch a glimpse of the ponies going home when they could have turned on the television to see as many as they could imagine, in HD. A trip to Kansas City was going to take forever, unless the Army was going to let them use a helicopter. He turned at Nick’s tank to look up the gravel stretch to where the roadblock was, then back at his squat black friend, who was leaning out of the turret hatch and waving with a gleeful grin.
“Ho! Tonto go into town to find bad guys?”
“No, Tonto no go into town,” quipped Kota back. “Bad guys always beat up Tonto. You want to find out what bad guys are up to, Kemo Sabe, you go into town and get beat up.”
Nick gave a loose salute through his chuckling. “Yeah, I’m one hell of a Lone Ranger. You out here looking for Blondie?”
“She’s back watching the speeches by the barn,” said Kota, jerking his thumb in that direction. “I’m waiting for a pony to pick me up for a trip to KC.” His phone promptly rang, and Kota scooped it up in one hand. “And that’s her. Good morning, ma’am. Where did you want me to go to be picked up?”
“Right there is good. Do you have everything you need to make videotapes of our visit?”
“Yep.” He patted the knapsack on his back. “Along with a few tricks that have come in handy in the pas—”
There were feathers involved, although he did not really comprehend them until later. All he could see for a split second was white, the impact of an aluminum rail right around his thighs, then he hit the lawn chair. The whole chain of events took only a fraction of a second before leaves and twigs from the passing trees went scattering in all directions, and the pony chariot rocketed into the open sky.
“Grace calculated that it will take a little over an hour to reach the hospital,” said the otherwise ordinary pony sitting in the lawn chair to his side, seemingly completely unfazed by the lack of solid ground below the perforated aluminum mesh of their conveyance. “Of course, that’s assuming we can find it from the air. That will be cutting things a little fine, but we didn’t want to take off early and raise too many questions. Breath mint?”
The unicorn in the golden armor to his side seemed to be Specialist Rose, if Kota remembered correctly, and if the staccato pounding of his heart was not affecting his memory. That would make the two pegasi flapping away in front of him Left and Right, the empty lawn chairs to their sides for Widget and Goose’s return to Randolph, and the slightly damp spot he was sitting in a natural response of being scared out of his wits.
“So I take it we’re not driving?” he managed weakly.
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 9:00 A.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Kansas University Medical Center, Fourth floor
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
“The reporters are monitoring FBI frequencies,” said Agent Karla Anacostia in the hospital room where she was huddling with the two young mares and trying to fight back a bad case of the butterflies from their actions so far this morning. “They just about have to be. Or…” She held out the GoDark bag to Widget again and gave it a shake. “Any other souvenirs you’re holding out on us?”
Widget closed her eyes and concentrated, making the pale blue light of her horn highlight her face. “Nothing in the immediate vicinity. And the bag is suppressing the devices inside to the point where I can’t hear them either. Can I… um… have that bag when I go home?”
“Let’s not try making another run at it again right away. I almost got trampled by photographers the last time we tried to make it to the car,” said Claire. “There must be a hundred pictures of me with my hands up, trying to stop the stampede from flattening Widget when the elevator doors opened.”
“The higher-ups don’t want us to clear the press out of the hospital,” huffed Karla. “Bad publicity. The other agents can’t make a path to the driveway because the reporters are swarming everything with sunglasses and an earpiece.” She tapped the microphone clipped to her blazer in thought. “Agent Hallman is going to give the order to try again shortly. We can’t even have a car idling outside to pick us up because it gets just as swarmed. Maybe if we had a sheepdog to herd them somewhere.”
Granny Smith chuckled from the next bed over, and shook her head. She had become a lot more active over the last day, and Karla was going to miss the old mare. There was no way the FBI would assign a local agent to this task again when there were so many worthwhile agents in the national office who deserved to have ‘On the alien’s protective detail’ somewhere in their personnel folder. Even if Widget and Goose were overjoyed about being hustled off to D.C. and Karla could return to her routine, her life would never be the same again.
“You girls sound just like Twilight and her bunch when they’re planning something,” said Granny Smith once she was finished chuckling to herself. “What you need is my youngest granddaughter. She’s a sneaky one. Them other fillies she runs around with get into more trouble than a pack of timberwolves. If’n I saw them three all hunched over talking among themselves, I’d know there’d be something blowin’ up or catchin’ on fire pretty soon.”
“I don’t think the Agency would like it if we set a fire as a distraction,” said Karla.
“We don’t want anypony to get hurt,” said Widget.
“Or any flying,” said Goose.
“Wait a minute.” Karla bit her bottom lip and concentrated. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. The reporters know the FBI is taking Widget out of the hospital, so they’re watching us, and they know Goose is her guard, so they’re watching her. Have you ever heard of the Kansas City Shuffle?”
- - Ω - -
“This is insane,” murmured Goose, who was huddled next to Karla’s leg in a mass of dark trembling as the elevator doors began to close. “I can’t fly around the lobby. I’ll get frightened and freeze up.”
“It’s a huge open area, but not as bad as you think,” said Kara in as much of a reassuring tone as she was able. “The skylights are thick enough to bounce hailstones, and the roof has three inches of concrete and steel to separate you from your phobia. There’s no way you could get blown away by an errant gust like you did when you got your cutie mark. There is literally no way for you to wind up in the sky. You might as well have an anvil tied around your legs.”
The trembling slowed, but the solid pressure of a heavy batpony pressed against her thighs did not abate while Karla continued. “I saw you flying for those little kids. All you have to do is make a few long, slow circles around the lobby while all the reporters and photographers snap away. Then when Claire texts me, I’ll make a break for the front door. That will be your cue to follow, land at the doors, and we’ll run outside and jump in the car where she’ll be waiting with Widget in the back seat. No flying outdoors needed, and you’ll have all kinds of pictures for your Princess Loony—”
“Luna,” grumbled Goose. “They’ll photograph my… naughty bits,” she added with a bit of a slump. “The other guards will stick my pictures on the bulletin board!”
“Just keep your tail down,” said Karla while the lights moved down the elevator indicators. “Besides, you’ll be home before any of the papers with the pictures come out.”
“What if I can’t land?” asked Goose with almost a plaintive whine. “My talent is gliding. I could be making circles up there for hours.”
There really didn’t seem to be a counter for that particular point, or at least one that did not seem totally off the wall and insane. Still, it had to be asked. “How much weight can you carry while gliding?”
- - Ω - -
A reporter’s instincts had to be listened to in order for them to be any good, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had tuned Liam’s instincts to acute precision. There were only so many ways for a patient to get out of the hospital, and he had volunteered to cover the walkway going out to the parking garage, so there was no need to complain.
He still snuck a look at the group texting window on his phone every minute, just to ensure he was not missing another attempt by the FBI to smuggle out their pet alien without some serious questions being asked. And pictures taken. An alien, an actual real, live alien, and they were just going to let it get away!
The elevator bell dinged at the same time his phone chimed, making Liam try to look at both. There was almost nothing to see of the nurse pushing the wheelchair out of the elevator, since she had a gauze mask and blue mob cap over her short hair, but the kid in the Pediatrics chair was even more difficult to make out with all the bags of medical equipment in her lap. A baby blue blanket surrounded the poor thing, tucked in on all sides and with only a few balloons tied onto a plush pink unicorn tucked against her head as a pillow to cheer the most probably cancer treated child on her way home. The nurse murmured a few words of encouragement as she pushed the wheelchair along, giving Liam a brief nod as she moved toward the second-floor walkway headed to the parking garage.
“Big announcement in the lobby,” read Liam as he finally managed to get his phone out. “Can see a pony and FBI. Lucky schmucks,” he muttered, resuming his position. Once the FBI decided to move the wounded alien again, he needed to be ready to notify the rest of the reporters.
He never even noticed the departing ‘child’ peer over the back of the wheelchair at him with the stuffed pink plushie tied to her horn.
- - Ω - -
“He didn’t notice,” whispered Widget once they got on the other side of the steel breezeway door. “How could he not notice? I’m a unicorn with a unicorn on my head!”
“People see what they expect to see,” whispered Claire back. “He saw the unicorn plush, and whatever shapes he saw under the blanket that didn’t fit into his head as some kid from pediatrics he classified as the plushie. My mom taught me about it once, had some video with a bunch of kids throwing a ball around in a room. You don’t even notice the guy in the bear costume walking through the room in the middle of it all, because the human brain can only see what it expects, and filters out the rest. Now hush while I find her car.”
Several pokes of the unlocking key fob later while darting around the parking garage later, Claire hustled the wheelchair over to a perfectly ordinary Ford Taurus and yanked open the back door.
“It’s a car!” said Widget entirely too loudly for their present sneaking. “Can I see the engine?”
“You can see the back seat!” hissed Claire. “Get in, and stash your crap!”
There were six bags of hospital medicine, self-adhesive binding wrap, an extra ankle brace, several plushies signed by every nurse and doctor on the pediatrics floor, various circuit boards from unsuspecting equipment, and the GoDark bag with all of Widget’s bugs to get stuffed in after the clumsy unicorn. It only took an extra second to yank the blue blanket out of the chair and toss it over her, although she popped right out from under it before Claire could push the empty wheelchair to one side for eventual pickup by the nurses.
“Can we bring the wheelchair?” she whispered while tucking the pink unicorn plushie (with balloons) into the trunk. Widget had at least paid attention to that part of the plan, and had the one side of the back seat folded down for access to her loot storage chamber before she had even gotten settled. Each bag of loot followed the plushie in rapid array, surrounded by Widget’s pale blue magical aura.
“It won’t fit, you crazy fuzzball!” Claire flung herself into the driver’s seat and jammed the key into the ignition. “I don’t even know if there’s space in the trunk for Goose now. We have to get down to the driveway before Karla gets eaten by reporters. Seat belts!”
“Got it!” called out Widget to the clicking sound. “Are we going to have a car chase?”
Claire did not respond at first, since she was tearing off the gauze mask and scrubs. Thankfully, one of the nurses had laundered her clothes during her visit, but there was no pocket in her shirt, so she was reduced to holding her debit card in her teeth as she eased the bulk of the heavy Taurus out into the concrete maze of the parking garage.
“I hope not,” she called back. “I gotta pay to get us through the exit first, and… We’ll wing it from there.”
And contrary to Claire’s worst expectations, getting through the pay booth at the exit went as smooth as silk. She stopped the borrowed government vehicle just outside of the booth’s wooden arm, got out her phone, and pressed send on her text message.
The reporters were about to go nuts.
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Last of the cached chapters.
Note for a later chapter.
"Goose." Karla took a long, deep breath and tried not to shout her question in front of Claire and the rest of the crowd in The Cheesecake Factory where they were having their We-Got-Away-From-The-Hospital-And-Need-A-Break-Before-Kauffman-Stadium meeting. "Why didn't you tell us that the other ponies were sending one of your flying pegasus-pulled wagons to KU Med with your replacement guard? We could have sent Widget back with them!"
"Well." Goose licked a crumb of cheesecake off her nose with that terribly long tongue that still gave Karla a little whisper of 'Aliens! Aliens! in the back of her head. "I thought about it. But the rest of the FBI agents seemed so sincere, and they were trying so hard, and I really didn't want to take away from their jobs. I mean they went through all this trouble for us, and they would have been so disappointed." There was one quick 'glaump' of the remaining cheesecake piece on her plate and the dark batpony took a drink of her soda to wash it down. "Can I try some of their strawberry cheesecake next? And get another Sprite?"
Nope, just an eye from the sky (in the chariot) of a trained Marine/reporter.
Too bad lady, you brought up the 34th rule, you get to explain it.
It'll be the latest classical adaptation, Flight of the Stun Guns
Oh yes. The best way to hide something? Move it two feet to the left and slightly behind something else.
Soldier.
9591292
'tis what I'm here for!
Pretty much every con in existence depends on the mark ignoring pertinent details in favor of what they’re expecting.
Ah, the Kansas City Shuffle. A rogue's favorite dance.
I hope Goose can find some therapy for her fear of the sky. Then again, she's probably had access to such without much avail.
I've probably said it before, but I'm loving this story, and I will be eagerly awaiting your next installment. That being said, this does not mean I want you to rush, take as much time as you need. I've got plenty of other things to read until then.
Sincerely, BirdsBooksBrownies
P.S. say hello to Twilight for me
9591310
Important lesson #1-Never open any portal you can't close.
Important lesson #2-Never open a first portal anywhere that is larger than your head.
Important lesson #3-Never open a first portal anywhere that isn't in a secure location (deep underground, lots of nasty weapons pointing in the general direction of the gate, only one way in or out, and several methods to make sure nothing escapes).
Important lesson #3a-And, preferably, opening a first portal anywhere shouldn't even be done on your planet.
"NICE TO HAVE YOU IN TOWN, TONTO!"
9591292
Well, yeah. And it'd be even worse if she says so on live TV. I mean, imagine this scenario for a moment: You're a bureaucrat doing this whole PR stunt with the first live, friendly alien. You're on live TV, watched by the entire world, you walk on stage all smiles, walk straight up to the little unicorn that you believe is going to make your career for life... and then the little unicorn, this adorable little unicorn, still recovering from her injury, begins bawling her eyes out and begs you to finally let her go home to her parents.
That's the part of this plan that still confuses me. It seems to rely on the idea that everyone is just going to watch, smile, and let everything happen to them without complaint, including the pony being kidnapped. But it's one thing to keep a little pony prisoner in some deep, dark dungeon to press for information and deny you any no idea where she is. It's another when your entire plan is to publicly parade her around. Everyone is going to know where she is. Everyone is going to know she is not okay with this. And once everyone does... well, it's your political reputation against a little diabetes inducing unicorn.
I don't care what political spectrum you are from, everyone is going to be out for your blood. You might as well be kicking a puppy on live TV. And then the leaders of the alien world show up somewhere in Kansas, a camera is pointed at them, and five minutes later social media is going crazy with both the video of the crying unicorn and the alien leaders asking why you are keeping one of their children prisoner and demand you return her.
At this point your career and reputation is already shot to pieces, your party is going to disavow having anything to do with this (whether they actually did or not), the opposition will jump on you like a school of sharks smelling blood, even the majority of other nations are going to be throttling you screaming "what the hell are you doing!?" and the only way you will get out of this with any modicum of safety is if you zip it and hand over the unicorn without a single protest and go hide in the most remote villa you have.
I predict 5 chapters
9591432
The Equestrians' required knowledge and skills being narrowed down to the point of allowing them to forge new spearheads in the field is not exactly a bad thing though. Our knowledge being divided among various groups of experts requiring very specific facilities to manufacture the equipment for our soldiers is a cost of the advances in our technology, not an intentional design. If an army finds a way to create a weapon that can be manufactured by its soldiers in the field, you can bet that every military in the world would be all over that weapon like bees on honey. It would completely rewrite the rulebook of infantry logistics.
I always find it bemusing that, whenever a story features both ponies and humans, there is always someone who finds it fitting to complain that the humans have not been portrayed as special / hypercompetent / perfect / superior enough in any and all categories. It's like the story's quality is wholly dependent on how much "humanity fuck yeah!" has been crammed into it, regardless of how relevant it is to the overall themes of the story, and is the only thing worth talking about. It's kinda embarrassing to watch, honestly.
At least they didnt have the chariot park up a few blocks away out of sight on a roof the teleport people to it straight out of the room. Or even to the actual roof depending who is having a crafty smoke up there. Combine with the stelth spells and pegasus silent flight, given Luna theyre letting the FBI carry though, just to demonstrate how horrifically bad an idea it is.
Noone ever has to know that Luna is in Da House?
9591406
Which makes it puzzling that they prioritized getting the child. An adult you can passively threaten. Smile for the camera and you'll get to go home shortly. Don't. Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?
You can do that to a child. But maybe they think they can buy her off with a piece of candy and a pat on the head?
I'm with everyone else who thinks this is incredibly stupid. Where I differ is that I don't actually find it that hard to believe. History is full of supposedly intelligent people doing incredibly stupid things.
Just look at all the people who still think a socialist system is the best possible system despite us having run that experiment over and over and never having it come out the way it was supposed to.
9591561 Widget's not like eight, she's more on the low side of eighteen, with impulse control issues. Which most eighteen-year-olds have, come to think of it.
9591537 Well for starters, only a few unicorns can teleport. None of the ones that made the trip qualify. Two, Goose has a lot of dots in Stealth, but no dots in Stealth-Other for a bright pink target. Three is... well, Goose is holding out a bit, as previous note.
9591536 There's always either A) Humans are OP, nerf! Nerf! or B) Ponies are OP, nerf! Nerf! or some combination of the two at once. I just ignore those.
9591406 That's why those interviews are always given in a controlled environment, with a script, and trusted media who know when to turn off their cameras or else.
9591394 Yeah, I dated myself.
9591535 Picture a group of naked Army soldiers dropped onto an uninhabited world, then six years later when the rescue portal opens, being greeted by the muzzle of a loaded M1A2 tank.
"Identify yourself!"
"21st TSC, Fourth Armored, and where in the fuck did you get that tank, soldier?"
"Made it while waiting for you, sir. Come on in, and we'll show you the aircraft carrier one of the Navy SeaBees got started. To be honest, the hardest part was the drydock."
9591535
There is an entire Genre of books over at Baen.com that center around a population of modern humans being dropped back in time with an intact if small, technical base. And doing things like building a working airship within four years.
The best known would be "The Ring of Fire" series that starts with 1632
They are worth reading just for the incredible amount of historical research that was put into the books.
9591260
I know, just what I figured Spike would tell Twilight...of course if she knew for certain she'd faint before or during trying to go to Earth to get one for herself.
9591385 "Important lesson #3-Never open a first portal anywhere that isn't in a secure location (deep underground, lots of nasty weapons pointing in the general direction of the gate..."
Does a tank count?
Nick could do nothing for one long heart-pumping moment as the massive coils of tentacles started to grab for anything they could reach inside the empty metal seed barn, resulting in several of the screaming armored unicorns being hoisted up in the air at about the same time the dangling earring attached to Rick's earlobe conveyed Grace's breathless voice in a breathless screech of, "Load sabot!"
"Load sabot?" he responded automatically.
"Sabot confirmed!" barked PFC Harvard as the rhythmic sounds of the M1A2 ammunition doors somewhere behind and below him cycled. "Sabot up!"
"You can't possibly think of firing the main gun into there!" shouted Carlos O'Mera from the other hatch. "You'll hit one of them!"
"Shoot!" screeched Grace's voice from the dangling earring on Nick's ear quite possibly loud enough for Carlos to hear. "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot the bucking--"
"They must have opened their portal into the wrong fucking dimension!" snapped Nick while fumbling inside the ammunition can at his side for the first link of .50 cal ammunition that his practiced reflexes wanted loaded into the commander's M2 Browning right now. "Target the center of that damned portal and fire!"
"On the way!" bellowed Corporal O'Mera right before the deafening crash of the 120mm smoothbore cannon.
They were far enough back from the empty seed storage barn that the expanding gas from the sabot round did not follow the depleted uranium dart though the open metal doors, but merely kicked up a massive cloud of loose grass and dust. Ten pounds of metal moving at just a little under a mile per second made it seem as if some alien god had drawn an incandescent glowing line from Four-One, across the open section of the farmer's yard, into the barn, and to the center of the glowing portal, with expected consequences.
Chunks and pieces of tentacles went splattering everywhere, and the metal components of the building followed, kiting up into the air like fluttering pieces of razor-sharp confetti. The unicorns who had been opening the portal were thrown around also, although a rapid count of noses and glowing horns allowed Nick a brief breath of thanksgiving that he had not somehow managed to vaporize one of the guards with an unlucky shot, or even clock one of them with a portion of the discarded sabot 'shoe' that peeled off from the penetrator rod in the first hundred feet or so of travel.
Then the churning mass on the other side of the portal began to thrust groups of new tentacles out into the devastation of the ruined metal building.....
9591595
If you know how to weave and plait grass etc, then you can be armed within seconds with a sling and rocks, with foot protection in minutes and clothed in an hour or so. In order to withstand full spec traning, the human has to be exceptional to start with, you can easily find 1%s there.
And those guys are deadly.
9591406 This. This comment. All the yes.
9591632
The tentacles coalescence in a huge hand, that wiggled its fingers as if to check that all of them were there while a whinny voice from the other side of the portal said. "Really now. And I thought Twilight was bad. Some ponies, and shaved monkeys, just can't take a joke."
9591580
It's still excellent standup material.
9591252
But now I don't have anything to look forward to anymore.
9591536
Humans politicians! Oh, my!
...
...
...better?
9591667 With luck, I'll have the first chapter of Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons up tomorrow.
9591696
WOOT!
9591406
Something ive been saying for a few chapters now.
9591655
Specialist Grace's voice came over Nicks earpiece "shoot him again."
Confused he started "But..."
Before she cut him off "It's just Discord you cant hurt him but a few rounds of your ordanance might discourage his pranks like hitting a naughty puppy on the nose with a rolled up newspaper."
9591580
That works for a single controlled interview, not a political parade where you want to show someone -or somepony- off, much of which will be livestreamed by the present press.
9591310 Alondro is not a learned habit, and more an addictive substance.
YOU ARE HOOKED ON THE DRUG NAMED ALONDRO!! (Charlie Sheen also wants some, but he can't have any! So there!)
9591917 Ask your doctor if Alondro is right for you. Common side effects include greatness, awesomeness, a tendency to create new words like awesomeness...
9591881. Wasnt even thinking of the CO2 powered ones but the compressed air ones
9591535
You're confusing two very different things here. There's a massive difference between the ability to produce something in the field and the ability to design something. While there is substantial work being done on field fabrication with 3D printers (which is still dependent on electronics transported forward) and there may be a future path to more flexible forward fabrication, that's not a reduction in complexity but an increase. Those production systems are substantially more complex and require a massive base of specialists to do everything from building the machines to engineering the things the soldiers can make with them in the field.
Yes coordinating specialists takes effort, but the net result of that effort is an overwhelming advantage as we've seen repeatedly throughout history when major technological asymmetries have met in war. Weather we're talking about the logistics behind Roman conquests or the US military running over the Iraqi military, that back end complexity provides a disproportionate advantage on the front lines.
9591881
That doesn't excuse your behavior. If you didn't have time to address a problem in detail you could have very easily said so and come back to it later, but instead you have blown off legitimate criticism with flippant comments that fail to even acknowledge the core argument being made or outright ignored it. This is further compounded by the fact that you consistently engage with the yes-men and many people making jokes which further cements the impression that you refuse to acknowledge that your work can have flaws. Finally, assuming your claim here is true, you have plenty of time to do some serious thinking about the criticism while driving which is clearly not happening based on your failure to give an intelligent response.
9591632
Sabot rounds XD
Sabot is really fun to say.
Whoops, looks like the gig is up.
Yikes. So, not a good kidnapping target, then.
Nice to see that the cavalry have a plan for how and when to arrive.
9592088
You seem intent on assuming that these particular ponies are a society of primitives, disregarding evidence to the contrary. The show canon does not apply, as we are dealing with an alternate universe. Simply because Equestrian technological paradigms did not follow the path of steel, you assume that they must be inferior. Everything the ponies have done follows simple magical concepts applied in a practical and skilled manner. Very believable in the hooves of highly trained military personnel.
You seem intent on disliking this story, and I am uncertain why. For sure, demanding that the author rewrite his story to sooth your preconceived notions seems rather presumptuous.
9592088
Our design and production systems are more complex, yes, but that is my point: It's complexity is not an inherent strength. The Equestrian's 'tribal' production level is more simplistic, true, but that is not a weakness, that is a strength. Consider, the Equestrians can produce a spear tip that can pierce, with some difficulity, the armour plating of a tank, and armour that can resist armour-penetrating rounds. The ability to reduce the knowledge and material needed to allow such equipment to be produced in the field is a massive advantage, not a disadvantage. Not just on the production front, but also on the design front. If an enchantment is simple to learn, then more people will be able to learn it. If more people are able to learn it, more people will be able to use it as a base to design something new. If that new something is also simple to learn, then the cycle repeats.
Our technology is more complex because it needs to be more complex to accomplish what we want it to do. But if we were able to simplify our technology, we would. Simplicity is not a weakness, nor is complexity a strength.
I call this operation hide in plan sight.
9591632
I'm also waiting for the OSHA rep to be there, and going "you do realize that this is massively dangerous, none of this equipment is certified for the job you're doing, and there may be a slight possibility of tentacles?"
"Well, yes. And your point?"
"Just wanted to point it out," the OSHA rep smiled. "There's some paperwork, which is basically 'you know what you're doing is dangerous,' and I've put in an order for a drum or two of water-based lube, just in case this turns into hentai. 'Cause I swear to God that I've seen comics that have started out like this."
This is good stuff and I’m eager for more!
9591536
9591580
It's not really so much whether it's the ponies or the humans that are OP. I've read and enjoyed both kinds of stories. If I really think about it, I usually like an OP human in Equestria, or an OP pony on Earth. It probably deals with the tendency to root for the underdog, and also deals with a trope called "Inverse Ninja Law."
But this story isn't really about individuals. It's about two cultures clashing, socially, technologically, and so on. The clash itself can be seen as an extended battle scene, and the Equestrian guards and human military powers certainly see it that way based on how they keep trying to prove themselves superior to each other.
And I personally like my fight scenes to be balanced. Each side can have different... "stats," like one opponent can be more fast or agile, and the other can hit harder and take more damage. But if one side easily defeats the other, its not very satisfying.
I just have one question. What the hell was in that text Claire sent?
9593065 Nothing complicated. Just something like "I'm in front of the lobby with the door open, come running out with Goose and jump in." I thought it was self-evident, but I guess not.
9592913 Me too, I can hardly wait to see how it turns out.
9592907 I'll admit to having a little bit of OSHA in me too when watching movies and trying not to call out "Handrails, for God's sake! And cover those chemicals before somebody.... Oh, too late. The paperwork on this is going to be a bear."
9592867 No, that would involve something like "Ok, now climb into the giant plush unicorn that we pulled all the stuffing out of and hold really still while we transport you and little Tiffany here out to the car."
"Can I keep her?" asked Tiffany, looking up with big eyes.
"No, she has to go to her home," said Karla, although weakening fast under the plaintive stare. "Maybe for an hour or two, " she finally admitted.
9592347 Naaa, it's not that bad. Goose simply has gone through advanced Lifeguard training. Only the kind that doesn't involve swimming.
9592020 If I remember right, a compressed-air rifle was taken along with the Lewis and Clark expedition, so they've got a history.
9592673
You don't have a technical background, do you? If you were an engineer like me, you'd know full well how critical that coordination is and wouldn't be pressing this issue.
Anyways, the first thing to remember is that the OP nature of magic is a problem here as you yourself have pointed out, so handwaving that as an agrument is an inherent contradiction. If you gave us access to that OP nonsense, it would immediately be applied to everything which means they would be completely helpless since it would have the effect of reducing their spear to the same level of uselessness as what the Greeks used thousands of years ago.
Furthermore, we would rapidly exceed them in our ability to abuse magic precisely because of our industrial specialization. A combination of magic and computer specialists would get supercomputers analyzing the nuances of magic which would let a new breed of magical engineers design the most perfectly engineered form of it to every application. They would then work with a range of other engineers to make machines to perform magic more perfectly than any pony ever could, and industrial engineers and technicians would use those machines to apply a better enchantment than the unicorns put on that spearhead to every single bullet, vehicle, and missile we make. On the other end of the equation, our soldiers don't have to spend time learning how to make things so they can instead spend that time perfecting their mastery of war and make themselves more effective than the ponies there, especially when you have to train large numbers of recruits quickly. The net result is a massive advantage precisely because of that specialization and coordination which is exactly why societies with more specialization have consistently crushed societies with less when they came into conflict.
9593100. Even if they aren't that old the idea of killing someone with a compressed air rifle definately goes back to the turn of the century. Doyle had Moran using one in the "Empty House".. though the idea goes much further if you consider blow guns as a variation..
I too am looking forward to the chance for Goose to cut loose
9593126
The way they described magic in this story, I have to wonder if humans already have their own sort of magic that's inherent to our society, which unicorns can't use. Maybe no one in Equestria could ever make a computer because they only work by using human magic.
9593155
That's an interesting premise you could definitely do neat things with, although you'd need to do some serious thinking and world building first to figure out how that interacts with all our various forms of technology (we have a lot of layers of machines building machines after all) and where the breakpoint is since you'd have to make it something in what we think of as physics that is actually magic.
9593126
Not engineering, no, just a bit of ITC. I know how critical coordination is for our technology, I'm not arguing that it isn't critical, I'm arguing that this level of required coordination is not a strength. Just a requirement. If we could manage to reduce things down to one person being capable of handling every part of it, we would.
And I'm not arguing hypothetical future scenarios, just what we have here and now at this point in the story. If we're arguing hypotheticals, one can easily throw in the counter hypothetical "but what if you can't create a machine to print enchantments? What if a biological person is required to do magic?"
9593127
Compressed air rifles are well over two hundred years old, Napoleon ordered any enemy soldiers caught with one to be executed as assassins due to the use of high powered air rifles during the war.