39. Discovered Check
Twilight jabbed the pause button with her magic. “Can you believe this?!” She was glad she had sent Spike on an errand. On the large screen was frozen an embattled Energy Secretary Whitcomb, in the process of being grilled by Senator Routledge.
Luna remained calm. “This is why my sister thought I’d be in a better position to… explain things to you. She has been, perhaps, too effective in civilizing political discourse during my absence.”
The junior alicorn scoffed. “It couldn’t possibly have been this bad back then.”
“The noble classes, such as they were then, were more, shall we say, vigorous.”
Twilight wasn’t quite persuaded. “At least,” she said, pointing a hoof at the screen, “they aren’t lowering themselves to physical violence.”
“The non-physical can be just as damaging.”
That remained to be seen. What she was seeing had certainly justified her decision to decline their request to appear before that subcommittee to answer their questions, however much their media raked her over the coals for that decision.
As if sensing her line of thought, Luna said, “Sometimes you must suffer that damage, for the alternative could be worse.”
“Secretary Whitcomb sure is suffering,” Twilight said. She hit resume.
“It’s a simple enough question,” Routledge said. “How many people were turned into ponies?”
“As if ponies aren’t also people,” Twilight muttered.
“We did not turn any people into ponies.”
Routledge bore a humorous smile. “I am not suggesting that you, personally, did the deed, or anyone else in the administration, or indeed any other person at all. Clearly the deed would have been done by a pony. I personally witnessed Princess Twilight Sparkle do just that to the former Lord Tirek.” He took a breath. “So, once again: how many people have been turned into ponies?”
“I am not aware of a single human who has gone missing because they are now wandering the streets of Ponyville—or, for that matter, anywhere else in either universe.”
“And yet we have DNA evidence from a half-dozen ponies that says it did happen. Every single one had mitochondrial DNA that was indistinguishable from human. Two of them had substantial matches to the two human DNA samples that had also been collected. How do you explain that?”
Whitcomb shrugged. “I am not a biologist.”
“Why were two human DNA samples present at all?”
“I wouldn’t know. I run the Department of Energy.”
“Indeed.” Routledge leafed through some notes. “The Department of Energy has a facility in Bethesda. There’s a caged cockatrice there—harmless, fortunately, without magic.” He looked up. “What does that have to do with energy?”
“I… would have to get back to you on that.”
“There’s also a cockatrice DNA sample. Would it happen to be from that same animal?”
“Again, I’d have to get back to you on that.”
“That facility also has a large cage. Perfect for holding dangerous Equestrian monsters? I note that DNA has been collected from several varieties, including a manticore.”
He once again gave the ritualistic response: “I’d have to get back to you on that.”
The Senator hardly seemed to notice or care. “Getting back to the human DNA samples. Could you identify the donors? What better way to assure us that they are, in fact, still human and not, as you put it, ‘wandering the streets of Ponyville’?”
“Assuming they could be identified, that would constitute a severe violation of their privacy. They would be subjected to a media circus.”
“That would be the least of their problems if they were, in fact, wandering around some street on hooves. Nonetheless, I’d be willing to hold a closed session for that.”
“I do not know if they could be identified. That information was not present in the database, as you know.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Routledge dryly observed. “Nor were the identities of the other pony donors. Quite convenient.”
Whitcomb did not respond; there was no question to answer.
“Who authorized this DNA research?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Why was it kept secret?”
Twilight had had enough; she hit pause. “Do they even care about the truth?”
Luna first asked her own question. “How many can watch this cat-and-mouse game?”
“Cat-and-mouse?”
“Clearly, as you have noticed, the purpose of this interrogation was not to uncover ‘the truth.’”
Twilight turned off the monitor. “Any who want to watch it.”
Luna laid a wing on Twilight’s back. “I know you find this disturbing. It is clear my sister did not properly prepare you for this harsh reality.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Though, to be fair, it is a reality that has been expunged, more or less, from Equestria. Nonetheless, you must learn to acknowledge it, if not accept it, if you are to manage it successfully.”
Twilight pointed a hoof at the blank screen. “He didn’t even acknowledge the facts that don’t back his position!”
“Are you so sure of that?”
Twilight gaped at the elder princess. “What about the fact that no humans have ‘gone missing’ because they were turned into ponies? He simply ignored that!”
“Twilight, you must learn to hear what is not said.”
“Huh?”
“Routledge did not list any humans who have gone missing.”
“Okay…”
“He did not contradict Whitcomb’s statement; he wasn’t surprised or even bothered by it.”
“I’m still not getting it.”
“He replied with his own statement that suggested transformed humans have gone missing, but failed to show it. He knows none have gone missing; that is one item that was not said. And that’s more telling than it seems, as it is almost certainly the case that people go missing all the time for various reasons. He could have taken advantage of that, if nothing else; yet he did not.”
That does seem odd. Twilight ran through the rest of the exchange in her mind. “He’s ‘not saying’ that the identities of the transformed humans are known to the administration; that even though they’ve become ponies, they’re still living their human lives, because they’re not ‘missing’; and…” Her voice trailed off.
Luna patiently waited.
“…and he knew who Meg was when he met her for the first time at the Gates of Tartarus. Supposedly, that was because of her connection to the brony convention, but…”
“Or he knows of Meg’s dual nature and is holding that over Serrell’s head. Maybe. That’s what makes it a game. It’s hard to know who truly knows what until it’s over.”
“Some game.” Twilight hadn’t talked to the president yet. If this indeed was a threat directed at him, he ought to know; otherwise, it was a ineffective threat. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t taken advantage of random people who went missing; this was about the two people he and Serrell knew had been turned into ponies.
Luna looked up in thought. “The existence of this ‘mass media’ does significantly alter the game in ways I had never thought possible. The senator had the advantage here, almost absurdly so. I should hope the president has his own advantages that he could exploit.”
Twilight digested that for a moment. “It won’t be a game to Meg and Steve if their identities are revealed.”
“I appreciate you coming on short notice.” President Serrell got up from his chair, no trace of his earlier optimism remaining. He walked around the Resolute Desk. “Could we go to your castle? I want to ensure no one overhears our conversation.”
Twilight was about to object, that she could cast a privacy spell right here, but then she reconsidered. It wouldn’t protect against a recording device that was close by, and she had no means of detecting one. Besides, what was the harm in granting this request?
Serrell was standing next to her on the presidential seal. “Sure,” she told him, “we could do that.”
She did so, and returned to the bottom floor of her residence within the Castle of Friendship. Serrell looked around, having never been there before. “I know,” she said, pre-empting him. “It looks like the Golden Oak Library. We’re inside my castle.”
He leaned against a desk, there being no proper chair for him to sit in. “Have you seen Andy’s latest YouTube video?”
“I haven’t.” The former centaur was cranking them out twice a day. Apart from that first one, they had been inoffensive, like stuff about life in Minoa and the truth about his brother. The urgency to watch them had faded. Perhaps that had been a mistake.
“Can we watch it together now?”
“Uh, sure, just give me a second to fetch my phone.”
She teleported to her bedroom, fetched the phone… and hesitated. The president was not a young man; it was only right to get a chair for him. She teleported to a storage room, selected a chair, and teleported back to Serrell. He spotted the chair.
While he was sitting down, she said, “Let me bring up the app…”
And there it was. “Inconvenient truths,” she said, reading the title. Nope, not ominous at all.
She started the playback.
“One of the aspects of this modern world,” Andy began, “that has been the hardest for me to come to terms with, has been its systems of governance. Though I understand that Athens is considered the birthplace of democracy, that was far after my time. The world I knew only had kings and their equivalents.
“So imagine my surprise as I watched Senator Routledge lead an inquisition against the President’s men. This would have been inconceivable in my time, and not because television had yet to be invented.”
Serrell nodded. “Pay close attention.”
“It’s ironic, really, this talk about people who’ve gone missing because they were turned into ponies. I couldn’t help but notice that the senator all but admitted none had—gone missing, that is. I believe his words were, ’If they were, in fact, wandering around some street on hooves.’” Andy shook his head. “If?”
He theatrically sighed. “So where’s the irony? It’s this: five people did, in fact, go missing, and not because they were turned into ponies. Senator Routledge was aware of this fact, because one of them was a close associate of his—a ‘problem solver’ was how he’d described himself. Indeed, he claimed to have solved numerous problems in the senator’s most recent election campaign.”
Twilight paused the video. “I can see where this is going.” She met Serrell’s eyes. “You didn’t tell him to keep quiet about this?”
Downcast eyes. “I considered it, and decided that tipping him off to its importance might backfire.”
“It might have,” she conceded, small comfort that might be.
“The real irony is that his release was supposed to divert everyone’s attention from the human prisoners.” The president was showing every bit of his age. “It was a calculated risk. He didn’t mention them at this first press conference, after all. He’s not the type to volunteer information without good reason.” He sighed. “And it looks like he found one. In hindsight, it’s looking like a no-win scenario.” He waved a hand at the phone. “Hear the rest of it.”
Twilight could only assume it got worse. She resumed the video.
“By now you’re no doubt wondering, how did I meet this person? The answer: we were fellow prisoners in Tartarus. All five were incarcerated in the same building as myself. We had numerous opportunities to talk. They mentioned they were part of an anti-pony resistance that calls itself The Section. They jokingly invited me to contact them should I ever escape again from Tartarus.”
He sipped from a mug before continuing. “I’m declining the invitation. Yes, the good senator greeted me warmly enough upon my release, but it was the president who actually set that release into motion. I am not without honor, so consider this my effort to level the playing field in the president’s favor.”
Serrell shook his head. “The irony never ceases.”
“So how did five humans wind up in Tartarus?” Did he actually roll his eyes? “I assign no blame to Twilight for what she did. If they did to me what they had done to her, they would’ve wished they could spend the remainder of their lives in Tartarus. Believe it or not, they had actually tried to kidnap her at gunpoint. Thought she was helpless due to a supposed lack of magic.” A grim smile. “They were wrong.
“I’m sure there’s more to this story, not that I know much more. They claimed to have been interviewed by the Secret Service before being thrown into Tartarus. I do know they were eventually released to the custody of the Secret Service; indeed, they were quite certain that their benefactors would obtain their release.” He shrugged. “Evidently they were correct. And that’s all I know about that. Where they are now I have no idea.”
He smiled at the camera. “Don’t forget to subscribe, so you’ll be notified of future postings.”
The video ended.
Twilight remembered Luna’s lesson. “He didn’t mention any of the human prisoners’ names.”
“No,” Serrell said, “he didn’t. Nor did he mention his attempts to pump the agents protecting him for more information about those five—without success, in case you’re wondering. But none of that really matters. Whether it was a good faith effort to ‘level the playing field’ or not…”
“How’s Senator Routledge taking this?” Twilight asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
“He’s not letting the crisis go to waste, of course, claiming that Jackson is still very much missing, that he’d had no idea what had happened to him until Andy revealed all—not to mention plenty of outrage over my administration acquiescing over an upstanding American citizen being thrown into Tartarus over manufactured crimes.”
Twilight fumed. “Andy was repeating what that upstanding American citizen had told him. Is he accusing Andy of lying too?”
Serrell sighed. “With all due respect, Twilight, sometimes I think you’re too innocent for this. Like it or not, it’s how the game is played here, and I think it’s time to lay down all the cards and let what will happen, happen.”
Twilight had little doubt Luna would have completely understood. She hesitantly asked, “Which means?”
A grim smile. “Mutually Assured Destruction. Routledge did not sufficiently distance himself from the operation that kidnapped little Susie. And I’ll have made public all the details on what his upstanding citizens have done.”
Twilight was too shocked to respond.
“There will be collateral damage, unfortunately. He’s counting on that to stay my hand. I highly recommend you grant her family asylum until the dust settles. On the bright side, they could get rich off a movie deal for their story. You might want to mention that.”
“W-what about you?”
He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I’m not asking for asylum, if that’s what you mean. Articles of Impeachment have become inevitable, but Andy did do me one big favor. He justified your actions. Who knows? That may well make a difference.” He exhaled, ever so slightly slumping. “It’s now up to Fate.”
There was nothing worse than the shimmering eyes of a heart-broken filly. “Why not?” Dinky asked Meg.
“Well, the princess isn’t letting any other pony go either, because it has become too dangerous.”
“I’m sure the princess knows what she’s doing,” Derpy said.
Meg wasn’t sure how safe the convention would be for humans. Still, the Secret Service hadn’t vetoed Andy’s appearance yet.
It was time to play her best card. “You can still have a human-themed birthday party. I’m sure my brother would be willing to host it.” He’d better. She had better get around to asking him.
Pinkie arrived with a trio of shakes. Before she could set any of them down on the table, violent spasms caused them to fly away, throwing their contents across the floor. It could only mean one thing, and it terrified Meg. “A doozie?” she asked the spazzing pony.
Before Pinkie could answer, Twilight teleported into Sugarcube Corner and quickly spotted them. “Meg, we have an emergency. Serrell’s about to play his mutually assured destruction gambit. We need to see your brother immediately and get his family, especially Susie, to Equestria for their own safety.” She finally noticed tear-stained Dinky. “Oh, uh…”
“Thaattt… waassn’t… the… doooozzie!”
“Wait, what?” Twilight spun to the shuddering pony. “Doozie?”
“What could be a bigger doozie than this?” Meg asked. The bottom fell out of her stomach. “It’s me, isn’t it?” If Serrell was about to tell all, then so would the other side. The changeling gambit should have prevented that, but…
Pinkie became as motionless as a tombstone. “I think that’s it.”
Derpy threw a protective wing over her filly. “I… think it’s best we leave. Come on, Dinky.”
Dinky followed her mother out the door, her head hung low.
Twilight watched them leave Sugarcube Corner. “I’ll talk to them later.”
Meg collapsed onto a cushion. She could so use one of those shakes right now, but there wasn’t time. “Back to the castle?” she asked Twilight. That’s where those plaid pills were.
Twilight stood next to her. “No time to lose. I’ll teleport us back.”
She did so. Meg found herself in the alicorn’s residence. “Should I accompany you?” Twilight asked.
Meg shook her head. “I don’t see the point. They’re not going to come here right this second.”
“Nor is there need. We’ve got until tomorrow evening.”
Meg had nothing to say. Twilight teleported to where the pills were kept, and came right back with one floating in front of her. It floated over to Meg.
“I doubt this will take long.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
Meg swallowed the pill. She arrived in the living room of her brother’s house. Susie was watching some cartoon on the TV; no one else was in sight. Meg switched off her magic bubble’s invisibility. “Hi, Susie.”
“Meg!” The little girl ran up to her pegasus aunt, cartoon forgotten, and gave her a hug. “Anypony else with you?”
“No, just me. Are your parents around?”
Matt walked into the room. “Finally! We’ve been trying to get ahold of you. We couldn’t get through, could only get a busy signal, and I guess you haven’t been checking your emails until now.”
Meg looked up at her brother, blankly. “Huh?” Quickly she checked her phone. “Hundreds of missed calls? Dozens of messages?”
“You… might want to hold off listening to those.” His eyes meaningfully flicked to Susie.
Uh, right… She checked her email. “No, nothing from you, from anyone in the past few hours… wait, invalid user name and/or password?”
“Never mind that. Do you know an Eric Tanner?”
She looked up. Of course she knew him. He was the inside man at the botched ransacking at work, and one of the five human prisoners imprisoned in Tartarus. But more to the point… “How do you know of him?”
“Let’s talk elsewhere. Susie, stay here and watch your cartoon.”
Susie was reluctant to let go of the pony. “Do what your father says,” Meg told her.
“Okay…”
Susie finally released her, allowing Meg to follow Matt to the garage. Not a word was spoken until the door was closed.
“Yes, I know him. He was a co-worker at the D.o.E., until… he did something unwise.”
“And wound up in Tartarus? Had a cell near Tirek?”
The doozie kept getting doozier. Andy had never mentioned names. “How do you know this?”
“He’s turned up in the news, giving interviews. Insisting he had done nothing to Twilight, hadn’t even seen her until she suddenly showed up, kidnapped him, threw him into a dungeon, and ultimately Tartarus. Largely confirmed what Andy had said.”
Why now? They couldn’t have been reacting to Serrell’s tell-all; that hadn’t happened yet.
“He also claims that you are one of the two humans turned into ponies. The pegasus you were seen standing next to, in front of the Gates of Tartarus, was your pony form—though, he also added, that particular pony was obviously not you, so it had to be a changeling. He then basically said, though not in so many words, that this proves the president is in cahoots with Chrysalis.”
Meg collapsed to her haunches. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense? The part about the changeling? I know everything else is true!”
“No… no, it was a changeling, but not one of Chrysalis’.”
“Seriously? I assumed it was illusion magic of some sort.”
It was all falling to pieces. She’d been outed; that’s why her phone was tied up. Was her email hacked and her password changed? Were there mobs in front of her apartment? Serrell in cahoots with Chrysalis? The changeling gambit had not only failed, it had spectacularly backfired.
And she hadn’t even gotten to the reason she had come here. “It’s worse than you think. That’s why I’m here.”
“You didn’t even know about Tanner?” He turned around, hand to forehead, then turned around again. “Why are you here?” he flatly asked.
“Serrell plans on telling all tomorrow. Did you know Senator Routledge was connected to Susie’s kidnapping? Soon everyone will know.”
Her brother tried and failed several times to say something.
“Twilight’s willing to offer asylum for your family until this blows over. That’s why I’m here, to tell you this.”
Finally, Matt spoke. “Sounds like we’re not the only ones who’ll be needing asylum. Did they find out about Serrell’s plans and decide to preemptively take you out?”
Hooves over eyes. “I don’t think anything can surprise me anymore.”
“Tomorrow, huh? That’s all the time we have to decide and act. Assuming this latest fiasco doesn’t cause our glorious leader to move up his time table.”
Meg looked up. “Would he?”
“I’m not the one who knows a pony who can directly ask the president that question.” He sighed. “Look, come back in an hour with Twilight and I’ll let you know our decision. If we decide to accept her offer, she can start moving our stuff to Equestria at that time.”
“I’ll… I’ll do that.”
Meg invoked the return spell.
Twilight didn’t waste any time. “So?”
“He’ll let us know in an hour—but there’s been another development.” Meg gave a summary of the Eric Tanner development. “I think we should visit my apartment and see what’s going on—hopefully, nothing.” A foolish hope, she knew, given what was happening with her phone.
Without saying anything, Twilight teleported. Almost immediately she came back with two plaid pills in her magical grasp. One drifted over to Meg.
Meg didn’t take it just yet. She extended her wings. “Let’s arrive in the air outside, to get a bird’s eye view of the situation.” Twilight could teleport them inside later.
Twilight extended her own wings. “Good idea.”
Seconds later, they were hovering above the apartment complex. “Just great,” Meg muttered. It was a circus down there. Multiple news vans, numerous police cars, protesters, onlookers, and… the door to her apartment was open. A cop was standing guard outside. She cursed herself. “Shouldn’t have procrastinated on those shield crystals.”
Meg flew down to the carport. Her car was missing. “Wonderful.”
Twilight had joined her. “I’m so sorry, Meg. I’ll have Spike send a letter off to Celestia, so that Steve is informed.”
There didn’t seem much point going inside, not yet anyway. True, they were invisible, but they were not immaterial. Who knew how much activity was taking place in there right now?
No, she corrected herself. There wasn’t much point going inside now, not when they had time travel at their disposal. “It’s not a problem,” Meg said. “We’ll go back in time till just after you picked us up, and we’ll clean the place out—take the car too. Nothing of value will get taken by them.” She gave Twilight a hard look. “Any objection?”
“No, I’m fine with that. We’ll just have to find a place to put it where we won’t stumble on to it prematurely.”
“It’s a big castle with lots of unused rooms. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
They flew back up, to better survey the scene below them. It didn’t seem real to Meg. Sure, time travel would save all her possessions, but life as she knew it had just been destroyed. Maybe the reality of the situation simply hadn’t sunk in yet; time travel wasn’t going to save that. It might have made it even worse, for everyone will “know” they must have skipped town in advance of the outing. What speculation would that cause?
Could it actually be better to forgo the time travel and instead let it all get stolen or destroyed?
“I could really use one of Pinkie’s shakes,” Meg finally said. “Let’s head back.”
Twilight sighed. “Might as well, I guess.”
They both invoked the return spell.
Discord was waiting for them.
Twilight angrily approached him. “Now that you’ve deigned to show yourself, what’s this about the portal?”
“So Tirek had figured it out after all,” he dismissively said. “It’ll have to wait.”
“No. We’ll talk about it—”
The draconequus teleported next to Meg. “It’s time for you to meet your future.”
With a snap of his talons, the two of them disappeared.
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Ahem.... ****AAAAAHHHHHHH****
Ok, I'm good now until the next update and cliff-hanger.
I hate politicians. That is all.
Ahh, Eric, scummy hypocritical scumbag that you are. Accuse the ponies of lying and being up to no good, then lie through your teeth yourself about your own wrongdoings.
I hope karma strikes those who are playing these games soon.
Meg becomes an alicorn, too? Or too obvious?
I'm also wondering about the missing statement of Andy's which explains how Equestria speaks English.
Well, that's certainly going to be a big negative to any relationship with Twilight. And I can perfectly imagine she calling out the media in their monstrous behaviors every. Single. Time. she ever gives an interview, ever again.
9551930
I wonder when someone will call out the other end of this whole conspiracy theory. Right now, the prevailing murmer is that the Equestrians are responsible for the TV show, but I wonder how long it will take for someone to snap and accuse earth for spying on them. After all, Equestria didn't even know humans existed before this fateful encounter, yet earth has apparently known about Equestria for years. It would be very easy to turn the conspiracy theory around and ask what secrets the humans are hiding that allowed them to spy on Equestria, and some very private moments of their lives?
I am sorry for her brother an neice not really for meg or her husband because they were idiots who did not think things through at all.
9552071
You can admit someone made a hasty decision without losing all empathy for them. Meg and Steve have done nothing to deserve the level of hostility currently being thrown at them.
9551683
I suspect very powerful translation magic is involved, which changes how people remember their own language, so they only think it's the same.
9552230
Since in Destinies they still could be heard by Meg without her inside the magic bubble I doubt it. My pet theory: Discord did it because time traveling alicorn Meg told him to that.
9552296
But they get there and back via Discord's candy dispenser. If that is rewriting their brains on the way there, and on the way back, then being inside or outside of a magic field will make no difference.
Meg and her husband do not become human again they are connected to the magic field so they afre still ponies. They just look like humans.
Basicly if twilight used a spell to turn a pony into a human then they would be the same as Meg.