9. Whatever It Takes
Meg was waiting, along with Celestia, for Twilight to return. She scrolled through news headlines on her phone. “Still nothing on the break-in yesterday.” She sighed. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow, when everyone shows up for work.”
Twilight walked through the door, with the two Secret Service agents right behind her. Celestia took notice and addressed them. “Did they finally cooperate?”
“No,” Twilight replied. “They’re in Tartarus now. Meg, were you aware that Eric Tanner knew you become a pegasus when you came here?”
Meg’s jaw dropped. “He certainly didn’t find out from me! You know that’s on a need-to-know basis with my co-workers.”
“Well, he knew,” Fowler said, “and that has decidedly put you in the category of ‘traitor’ as far as they’re concerned.”
Traitor? For all the reasons she had for keeping knowledge of her ponification to a select few, that hadn’t been one of them. Mainly, it was about avoiding the disruption to her life that public knowledge would create. Sure, she had revealed all to the senior staff of the convention, but there couldn’t possibly be a connection between them and those fanatics—right? “Did he happen to say how he knew?”
Reubens proceeded to sit on one of the two chairs present. “Not upon being asked,” he said. “But we have a lead we’re following. In fact, we want to finish up on that before paying them a visit in Tartarus.”
Celestia poured tea for the new arrivals. “You may take as long as you need.”
He took the proffered teacup. “Uh, what’s involved in paying a visit to Tartarus?”
“Twilight shall be the one taking you there,” Celestia said, giving a nod to the newest princess, “so I’ll let her explain.”
All eyes were upon her. “Uh, right. The Gates of Tartarus are a few hundred miles from here. It’ll be a short trip in the Zephyr—but you can skip that part. I’ll just fetch you once I’m already there. Anyway, once we pass through the gates, it’s about a half-hour walk to their cells.”
“And we’ll have to ‘walk’ past Cerberus?” Fowler asked.
“That’s right,” Twilight chirped.
“Couldn’t you just fetch us once you’re at their cells?” Reubens asked.
Twilight went blank for a moment. “I… don’t know if that’ll work there. It’s a different realm, where magic is quite limited. I’d rather not risk it.”
Meg wondered if Discord would know if it would work. But if it did, that be a way for inmates to escape—to the human realm. But it wouldn’t really work, she then realized. They’d only return to Tartarus once their magic bubbles expired.
“A walk wouldn’t kill us,” Reubens said, “and how could we miss meeting the mythological guard dog of Tartarus?”
“And those were minotaurs we saw?” Fowler asked.
Celestia answered this time. “Minotaurs have served as guards in Tartarus for as long as I can remember.” She smiled. “Which is quite a considerable length of time. Magic is weak there, but that affects them hardly at all.”
“And humans not at all.” Reubens rubbed his forehead. “Not that we doubt you, but we still want to see for ourselves what the cells look like over there.”
Celestia nodded. “Understood. If the conditions are not to your liking, you may take them back with you to your realm.”
Fowler walked over to the panoramic windows and gazed into the distance. Pegasi were still adding to the rainclouds over the farmland surrounding Ponyville. “Is there any point in asking how Tartarus got into our ancient mythology?”
“I’m afraid not,” Twilight said. “Even we don’t know its origin. It has always existed, so far as we know.”
“Of course not,” Meg said, sulking on her cushion. “Just like there’s no explanation for why Las Pegasus is so damn much like Las Vegas. Ancient history, recent history, doesn’t matter.”
“Isn’t it a pegasus cloud city?” Fowler asked.
“Oh, sure, there are differences but, trust me, the similarities overwhelm them. A long row of themed hotel/casinos, fancy shopping malls—hell, the blackjack and craps tables follow the exact same rules, as far as I can tell.” Her eyes looked up to the ceiling. “No smoking, though; but then, I’ve never seen a cigarette in Equestria. And the luxury suite we got upgraded to had indoor clouds. You could even dial up gentle rain over the hot tub.”
“Really?” Twilight’s face had that look. “That’s an awesome feat of cloud engineering. Why didn’t you mention that before?”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Rainbow Dash thought so too. And I had other things on my mind.”
“Indoor clouds that rain over a hot tub,” Reubens muttered. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“Did you mention a luxury suite upgrade?” Celestia asked. “That would be quite unusual. Those are reserved for well-known high rollers.”
“Yeah, I know,” Meg said. “Yet another similarity to Las Vegas.” She brushed that aside. “So here’s what happened. We stayed at Planet Do, a Daring Do themed casino—because Dash insisted, naturally, and we figured, why not?” She was looking at the agents as she explained. “When we checked in, we discovered we got upgraded, approved by ‘A. K. Yearling’ herself. She’s a part owner, apparently. Guess she had to invest her book profits somewhere.”
“I suppose so,” Jessica said, nodding. “Was she there?”
“Oh, yes. ‘A. K.’ was waiting in our suite when I returned from Canterlot. Turns out my sudden and very public disappearance had security searching high and low for me.”
Celestia sighed. “The blame for that bout of chaos must be laid at my hooves, however much Discord enjoyed doing it.”
“Are you sure Discord cannot come to our world?” Reubens asked.
“As sure as we can be,” Celestia said, offering a faint smile. “It is not in my power to stop him, should he be able and willing to cross over. The fact that he hasn’t is the best evidence we have that he truly cannot.”
“And I think it’s safe to say he’d be more than willing,” Meg added. “Anyway, she had an interesting observation after I filled her in. She pointed out that organizations that commit acts like this don’t take setbacks lightly.” She shrugged. “Take it for what it’s worth.”
Reubens got out his notepad once more. “An observation from A. K. Yearling,” he muttered as he wrote. “This will make for one interesting report.” He looked up. “I wouldn’t say she’s wrong, though, not if the rest of them are anything like the five we got.”
He started to put the notepad back into this suit, then hesitated. “Anything else I should be aware of?”
“Well, I did bump into Lyra at the Temple Shops—in Las Pegasus that is. She’s apparently considering doing appearances in our world.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Fowler said.
Twilight took mild offense to that. “Lyra does not have a hand fetish or an obsession about humans, I’ll have you know. But I did warn her about that, because it was only a matter of time before she’d learn of it. I’m glad she followed my advice to talk to you, Meg.”
“And I gave her some. Believe it or not, she wants to pander to those memes, play it up if it’ll get her more bookings. I told her to think hard on that.”
Twilight grimaced. “Yeah… I’ll try to talk her out of that myself.”
Meg turned back to the agents. “I know the mane six are off limits for brony conventions, for now anyway, but what about background ponies like Lyra?”
“I’m adding Trixie to that list,” Twilight said. “That’s why Rainbow Dash went to talk to her, to give her an invitation to see me. We didn’t know where she was until you stumbled on to her in Las Pegasus.”
“Wait a minute,” Fowler said. “Trixie, as in the Great and Powerful?”
Twilight nodded. “I think it may do her good to perform in front of a human audience who’d be more receptive to her talents.”
So when did you plan on telling me? Meg wondered. “Did she even receive your invitation?”
“Not exactly, but now that we know where she is, I’ve sent a courier.”
Meg couldn’t help her wings from sagging a bit. “I’m gonna have to talk to her at some point.”
Twilight put on her best fake smile. “Maybe?”
Meg desperately turned to Reubens. “Are background ponies off limits too?”
Reubens scratched his neck. “That’s not our jurisdiction, but I imagine it’d depend on whether things settle down or not.”
Meg could only wonder which outcome would be worse. “What about their conviction that they had kidnapped me?” she asked, changing the subject. “Did you ever find out what that was all about?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“They had to get my key card somehow.”
“They insist they took it off you.”
Meg rubbed her temples with her hooves. “Could someone please make sense of this?”
Fowler moved the other chair next to Meg and sat down. “Look, why don’t we try taking their statements at face value. What would it take to make that possible? Like, I don’t know, time travel. Crazy, I know, but we know it’s possible here.” She looked at Twilight.
Twilight’s ears went flat. “I didn’t want to bring that up, not without having more evidence first.”
Meg’s eyes bounced between the two of them. “Why the hell would I willingly go back in time so that I could be kidnapped?”
“Which was why I didn’t want to bring that up. We don’t know for a fact that you were, and if you never go back to that time and place, then obviously it couldn’t have happened.”
“Then I’ll make it real simple,” Meg declared. “Under no circumstances will I do so. Therefore, there must be another explanation.”
A cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake plopped down in front of Meg. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she said as the pink pony took a seat at her table.
Pinkie scrutinized her and rendered her verdict. “You’re not happy.”
“Is it that obvious,” Meg droned. The shake was pure bliss in her mouth, but it could only do so much. “Has Twilight filled you in?”
“Dashie, actually.”
“Good enough, I guess. I’m dreading going back to work tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t Steve be here to support you?”
“He’s helping the best way he can right now: by helping Twilight perfect her latest—” Meg hesitated and looked around the shop. She lowered her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “—time travel spell. It’s the only way to get to the bottom of this.”
Pinkie nodded sagely. “I see.”
Not for the first time, Meg wondered just how much Pinkie really did see, grasp, or understand. It was best to change that line of thought. “Too bad we can’t auction off one of these shakes. I’ve never had a better shake, but daisies are too risky and flowers don’t taste the same to humans anyway.”
Pinkie brightened up. “Not to worry! No daisies, no flowers of any kind, no gems, and no hay. Everything I bake for the brony auction will be fit for human consumption. Pinkie Promise!” She went through the motions, forcing a modest smile to Meg’s lips.
“A bit overkill, isn’t it?”
“It got you to smile!”
“I suppose it did,” she conceded and returned her focus to the shake in front of her.
The door opened and the mailmare entered. Pinkie leaped to her hooves. “One blueberry muffin coming right up!”
Meg looked up and saw Derpy coming straight towards her. She was in uniform. Did she have a letter for her? There was a first time for everything.
She took the cushion formerly occupied by Pinkie. “Uhm,” she began, “do you have a few minutes? The princess said I should talk to you.”
“You mean, Twilight?”
Pinkie brought a blueberry muffin to the table.
The muffin went untouched. “Yeah. I know what I said before, but Dinky would really like to meet a human. Could that be arranged, but keep her safe?”
She hadn’t seen that coming. “Of course that can be arranged. Humans aren’t really that different from ponies, you know. Plenty are friendly and trustworthy.” As much as she’d like to volunteer herself, it’d be hard to keep her true nature from the anxious mother.
“Would they—” She looked around and lowered her voice before continuing. “Would they know about her, like they know about me?”
Suddenly, the thought of being at work tomorrow didn’t seem so bad. As much as she’d like to sugarcoat it, beating around the bush would only backfire sooner or later. “Not as much, but, yeah.”
“How?” she whispered, her misaligned eyes pleading for an answer.
“I… I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
Derpy looked away.
“You’ll have to take it up with a princess.”
The mailmare stood up. “Already did.” She put the untouched muffin in a saddlebag and walked to the counter. After delivering the mail, she left.
Twilight levitated chalk to a set of equations on the blackboard, pointing it out. “I’m still not happy with this.”
“This spell may have fewer limitations than the one Star Swirl invented,” Steve said, “but a stable time loop cannot be guaranteed.”
She put the chalk down. “It’s not that. It’s just that I’d like a diagnostic component that provided data on why a time loop wasn’t possible. Otherwise, how are we to correct the problem and try again?”
“The ‘why’ is simple enough: the wave function of the time loop had an amplitude of zero, which meant that a stable time loop was impossible.”
Twilight walked back to the table and sifted through some scrolls. “Yes, I got that,” she said, frowning. “It still doesn’t tell us what to do differently to make it possible.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
She stopped sifting and turned to face Steve. “We need data. I think it’s time to start running experiments.”
“Actually attempt time travel…” He shook his head, smiling. “I know you’ve already done it once, but where I come from… it might as well be impossible, even if it wasn’t.”
She smiled in return. “Then you may the honor of designing the first experiment.”
He thought it over for a moment. “We need a device that keeps accurate time. A phone will do.” He walked over to the nearest of the bookshelves that lined the walls of the lower floor. “What if you took yours back in time and hid it here under these books…”
He lifted a couple of them with his magic, revealing a phone, and froze. “This really happened—will happen.”
“Time travel sucks, doesn’t it?” Twilight trotted over. “It isn’t mine. Wrong color.”
“It’s one thing to talk about time travel in a theoretical sense,” Steve said as he retrieved the phone, “quite another to see in action. Without magic, the only options for achieving it are so unbelievably impractical…” He woke it up and saw his home screen. “Appears to be mine. Big surprise.”
Twilight stood next to him. “Bring up the clock app.”
He did so. The time was off by over thirty five hours. “So you went back in time thirty five hours and change and put my phone in that spot.”
“At least we know the spell works.”
“Still seems weird, to see the results of an experiment before it’s conducted. Wait a minute… something’s not right.” He examined the screen more closely. “It’s had over a day to synchronize its clock with the network. It didn’t, because it has no signal. It’s not even on wifi.” He navigated to settings and looked up at Twilight. “Wifi’s disabled.”
He walked over to his saddlebags and got out his phone, the one that had yet to travel back in time. “This has a cellular signal and has wifi enabled.”
Twilight digested that information. “Traveling through time must break the wormhole your magic creates, like teleportation did before I came up with a fix for that.”
Steve put the two phones side by side on the table, and brought up the clock app on the younger one. “Thirty five hours, seven minutes, and twelve seconds. That’s the exact temporal displacement. The difference in battery levels is consistent with that.”
Twilight stared at the two devices—no, single device—with growing unease. Nothing stopped her from damaging the younger phone, even outright destroying it. Yet that was literally impossible; the phone was part of a stable time loop. Something would prevent that from happening, though she couldn’t imagine what.
This wasn’t the time to contemplate such experiments. “I’d feel better if we got your phone on its way back in time,” she finally said.
“I know what you mean. Let me first disable wifi…” He did so, then he looked at the alicorn. “Might as well do it now and get it out of the way. We know nothing will go wrong.”
“Right.” Twilight picked up the younger phone in her magic and focused on the spell, plugging in the numbers for the desired temporal displacement. Thirty five hours ago would be the middle of the night, so she didn’t have to worry about her earlier self. It all seemed quite convenient—but then, that’s what made it a stable time loop. She cast the spell.
Nothing happened.
“Something went wrong,” she said.
The older phone was still there. The spell had to work.
“Let me check the phone,” Steve said. “Maybe I overlooked something.”
He retrieved it from her magical hold. “This is the wifi settings screen. The phone was on the home screen when I discovered it.” He navigated back to home and returned the phone to Twilight.
She accepted it and contemplated the screen. “Which implies, had the spell worked, I would have noticed it being on the wrong screen and had taken care of it myself before placing it under those books.”
Steve shrugged. “The wave function explores all possibilities simultaneously.”
“And that implies that was not possible, that I would not have noticed and thus fix it myself.”
He shrugged again. “I’m not sure we could ever know.”
Twilight frowned. “Which was exactly my point.” It only made her wish all the more that time travel was impossible, or at least had never been discovered. “Let’s see if that solved the problem.”
“If not, we have thirty five hours to find the correct fix.” He tilted his head in thought. “But on the bright side, we will find one, because otherwise the time loop breaks.”
Or we could just do nothing and see how the impossible happens. She rejected that thought. If they wanted to test causality, it’d be better to do so under properly controlled circumstances—which this most certainly was not.
She cast the spell, and the room went dark. It was night. The spell worked.
A low-powered illumination spell provided just enough light to find the books Steve had lifted. She raised them and placed the phone under them. It was done. Resisting the temptation to look in on her sleeping self upstairs, she cast the return spell.
Steve reappeared in front of her within the once-again lit room. “No phone, so I assume it was successful?” he said more than asked.
“Almost too easy,” she replied with a lack of enthusiasm. “But why thirty five hours, seven minutes, and twelve seconds? Why not eleven seconds? Or thirty six hours?”
Steve shrugged. “I’m sure those were all viable possibilities, with more or less equal probabilities. One had to be selected when the wave function collapsed. Which one? That’s the uncertainty principle at work.”
Meg left Sugarcube Corner and launched herself into the air. She had no destination in mind; she just felt like being airborne. Once above the buildings, the work of the weather ponies became evident: clouds covered the far end of Sweet Apple Acres, and only the far end. She looked around and found the weather ponies putting rain clouds in place over farms north of the town.
She flew south, retracing her first solo flight, back when being a pegasus had been new, different, and exciting. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the newness had faded over the past year, but nonetheless it still left her feeling that something had been lost, never to be recovered. She indulged the nostalgia; what she’d do once she arrived, she hadn’t a clue.
Row after row of apple trees passed beneath her. No activity was visible, none of the telltale shuddering of a tree as it was harvested. She headed towards the homestead, not knowing who’d be there or if anypony would be there and not particularly caring. Maybe she could go check up on Fluttershy and see if she could use any assistance—that had been her second trip to Equestria.
Meg adjusted her wings and descended towards the homestead. Ponies were out and about. Colors made it easy to tell from a distance who was who. Applejack, Apple Bloom… and Fluttershy? They were standing around an oddly lumpy, purplish mound—was that Smooze?
Big Mac came out of the barn with a barrel on his back, a barrel that had clearly seen better days. He walked over to the mound and dumped the barrel onto it. Purplish goo oozed over it.
Yep, Smooze.
Apparently, it was useful to have an elemental vacuum cleaner—or whatever the heck Smooze was—when a landfill wasn’t handy. Not that she had any idea how garbage was disposed of in Equestria; she had never spotted anything that had looked like a landfill from the air. Magic must be involved, she decided.
Applejack greeted Meg as she landed. “Hiya, Meg! Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hey guys,” she replied. “Just stretching my wings. Keeping Smooze busy, I see.”
The red stallion turned to her with a smile. “Eeyup.”
“Fluttershy here came up with the idea,” Applejack said. “Thought it would do Smooze good to carry out a useful service to the town folk.”
“Well…” Fluttershy said, “he needs to get out and meet more ponies, and this seemed like the way to do that.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Meg said. Putting his insatiable appetite to good use? Sure, why not—so long as it could be kept under control. Too bad his magic wouldn’t work on Earth, assuming he could exist there at all; there were some EPA Superfund toxic waste sites he could easily clean up. He didn’t seem to care what he ate—so long as it wasn’t plain dirt, rocks, or water—and once his “digestion” was finished, he was back to his original size, conservation of mass and energy be damned.
She spotted the apparatus on top of a nearby crate, a jury-rigged affair consisting of a notebook computer, a web camera plugged into it, and a multi-crystal assemblage covering the lens of the camera. It was aimed in the general direction of Smooze. “Do you like helping ponies?” she asked him.
Two large eyes shifted towards her. “Yes,” an emotionless, artificial voice said from the computer.
That one word constituted half of the translating software’s current vocabulary, the other half being the word “no.” You had to start somewhere.
“Well, obviously,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes. “When all he has to do is eat!”
Applejack glared at her younger sister. “Be that as it may, he’s still choosing to eat only what we find useful for him to eat.” She turned to Fluttershy. “As much as I dislike saying it, Discord’s right. There’s nothing wrong with Smooze that a little friendship won’t fix.”
Fluttershy directed a warm smile at the purplish blob. “He really is a gentle soul once you get to know him.”
Meg walked over to the computer and watched the diagnostic displays of the translation app. “And hopefully many more ponies will have that chance once we finish this translator.”
“Yes,” the computer said.
Apple Bloom came up beside her and inspected the webcam. “Ain’t this what Twilight was working on when we, uh…”
“You took that little field trip to my office at work?”
The filly grimaced. “Uh, yeah.”
Meg didn’t press the point. The fillies had made their apologies long ago. “It is. The crystal matrix detects variations in the magical field, variations that Smooze can consciously generate, and converts them to light, which the camera sees and sends to the computer, where certain patterns are detected and mapped to specific words—just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ so far.”
Apple Bloom threw the setup a skeptical look. “That sounds mighty complicated, too complicated to work.”
“That could be said about much human technology, and yet it does.” Meg put a hoof to the trackpad and switched to a different set of diagnostic data. “Doesn’t mean it works the first time, of course.”
“You actually understand how this here contraption works, doncha?” she said with new respect. “Not the enchanted crystals part, obviously, but the rest of it.”
Meg shrugged. “It’s how I make a living in my world. There’s far more I don’t know; there’s way too much for any one person to ever know, even after a lifetime of studying.”
“You seem to know a heck of a lot more than Twilight did—and she had dozens of human books on this stuff.” The filly was looking up at her, the ever present red ribbon on her mane bending backwards.
“That’s not really fair, Apple Bloom. I’ve been using computers my entire life, for starters, and she is learning rapidly. Twilight wrote the code that does the pattern matching.” She gave a wry smile. “It was either that, or teach me the science underlying those enchanted crystals—an easy choice.” As it was, Twilight had spent as much time tweaking the enchantments on the crystal as on the software that interpreted the visual image those enchantments produced. “She wants to master programming anyway. I did warn her that would take years.”
Apple Bloom looked back at the computer. “Well, she is an alicorn now. She can learn it all.”
That was something nopony really wanted to talk about, that Twilight had become immortal, whatever that truly meant—not even universes last forever. Even so, an alicorn certainly had the time to acquire vast amounts of knowledge, if she so desired. Regardless, Meg suspected that not even an immortal can learn everything humanity has discovered or invented, never mind keep up with the never-ending stream of new discoveries and inventions.
The filly was looking at her again. “Do you think there’s a cutie mark for computers?”
Meg suppressed a groan. “I have no idea.”
It was the day of reckoning. Meg pulled into the parking lot at work. Vans from CNN, FOX, and MSNBC were parked at the edges of the lot, their microwave dishes aimed at some distant, unseen tower. The break-in had finally caught the attention of the national press. No camera crews or reporters were visible, which meant they were inside.
She was half-tempted to call in sick. It wasn’t much of a falsehood.
Perhaps it was better to use the back entrance. She drove around the building. She stopped. Several police cars were there. A car she recognized as Tanner’s was being loaded onto a flatbed truck. Other cars were parked nearby, the sort of nondescript, domestic sedans favored by the FBI. An officer spotted her. He used hand gestures to tell her to turn around. She backed up until she cleared that side of the building, then turned.
Was the Secret Service here too, because of the kidnapping attempt on Twilight? The turf battles would be hilarious if it weren’t all so serious. At least I’m not the “person of interest” this time, she thought as she parked her car, as far from those news vans as she could manage. They must have known Tanner was involved or had gone missing, or they wouldn’t be towing his car, but how many of them knew he was in Tartarus?
Meg approached the front glass doors. Everything seemed business as usual inside; that made sense, as they would try to minimize the impact on the building’s other tenants. She entered the building, went to the elevators, and waited with a few other people for it to arrive, none from her floor. Soon enough, it did. They all entered. Someone pressed three, another pressed two, then Meg pressed four, the top floor. Having to wait as the elevator stopped at each floor did nothing to calm her nerves.
After an eternity, she was the last one left in the elevator. The doors closed, and she began to rise. A few seconds later, motion stopped.
The doors opened, revealing the opposite wall and nothing else. Faint voices were audible in the distance.
Meg stepped out of the elevator. The main doors to the office space, normally closed and with access by key card only, were propped open—a huge no no. A police officer was seated in front of the doors.
He noted Meg’s presence and stood up. “Your reason for being here?” she asked.
What was my reason for being here? In light of everything going on, not to get work done, that was for sure. “I work here,” she simply said.
“May I see your key card?”
She dug it out of her purse and presented it.
“Meg Coleman,” read the officer. She looked between the picture and her face. Satisfied, she instructed, “Swipe it past the card reader, please.”
She did so, eliciting a thunk from the locking mechanism that served no purpose other than to verify her key card worked.
The officer returned to her chair, picked up a clipboard that was resting against it, and made an entry. “Please go to conference room Gamma. You are instructed not to talk to the press.”
As if I had any desire to. Returning her key card to her purse, she went through the relocked but still open doors. The voices had become somewhat louder. It sounded like a press briefing. Conference room Gamma was in that direction too. She went the other way, towards her office. The officer at the door didn’t notice—or didn’t care.
Her office door was closed and sealed with “crime scene” tape. No question it had been forcibly opened. “I guess I’ll just have to take your word for what had happened inside,” she muttered to an imaginary Twilight. There was nothing to do but go to conference room Gamma like she was supposed to.
Meg’s phone chirped. It was a good excuse to delay the inevitable a bit longer. She got out her phone and checked her email. It was from “The Section”—about Susie? “What the…”
She opened the letter and read it: This email’s headers have been forged. Don’t bother tracking down its origin. We have your niece. She is safe so long as you cooperate. You shall use your connections to the princesses to have our compatriots returned to us. However you managed to escape from us before, don’t bet on it working a second time.
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Uh oh. Looks like some people are playing with fire. Things are getting serious.
I suspect the kidnappers are going to learn to regret it when they discover just how serous things will be getting...
Meg, You are working with magic, you acquired a Cutie Mark, destiny is a thing now. Try not to taunt Murphy so much.
OH Buck, whoever kidnapped her niece is as good as dead now, maybe have DIscord look into the minds of those humans that they captured and he could find out who else could be working with those guys, that way they could find out where they took the Changeling-Meg and then track down where they could have taken Meg's niece.
Huh, here's hoping that Suzy is actually free and Meg learns that.
With a time-travel spell like that, wouldn't it be possible to effectively save scum the universe?
1. Make a plan where, if everything goes acceptably well, you hide an indicator token somewhere in the room where you're doing your planning (eg. A business card with the letter "A" and today's date drawn on it, inside the illustrated omnibus edition of A Brief History of Time and The Universe In A Nutshell.)
2. Check whether the token is there
3. If it's not, scrap that plan and come up with a new one and a new place to put the token. (eg. A dated business card with the letter "B" inside the keep case for the DVD release of The Terminator.)
4. Rinse, lather, repeat.
"Have our compatriots returned to us" says the unknown voice still seemingly lacking awareness that the lives of these people are officially over as there is no way they can live a normal life in any western country after this stunt.
Seriously, releasing them at this point can actually work in our protagonist's advantage. Those people are criminals in their own country and so they have nowhere to go. Their old lives are kaput. If this organization claims to be concerned for their safety, they'd have to take care of them, which means they can be traced to it.
Whatever this organization is, they are either backed by something really serious or have delusions of grandeur. Given how they spectacularly screwed up their burglary, seem to have absolutely no clue what Equestria is doing and lost 'their' Meg (time travel seems to be more likely now), I'm leaning towards the later.
Also, I initially forgot to post this comment I'd made while reading.
Actually, smartphones tend to keep terrible time because the companies that make them leverage the ubiquity of GPS as a clock source to pinch pennies on internal timekeeping hardware.
(Not that I blame them, given the obscene estimates for how much of your phone's cost is patent fees... over $120, for those who don't want to click the link.)
8725520
This would work, until someone became wise to it and swapped the place of the card beforehand.
Hmmmmm, so our bad guys are a a group of some kind. Interesting. and bringing up Time Travel, there's no doubt in my mind that's going to come back later.
8725625
Of course, but that's not really any different from how Hari Seldon's psychohistory depends on the population being predicted remaining ignorant of the results of psychohistorical analyses.
8725625
That would be impossible, as the entire point of the idea would be that, if all does indeed go according to plan (including nobody finding out to screw it up somehow), the card will be in the spot you indicated, no exceptions. If it's not, then you know something happened to keep things from being successful, and you abandon that plan, and you keep going through the process until you find a card. By process of elimination, you will eventually completely weed out all interference that would lead to a failure.
Well, they're dead, now. RIP, GG
8729528 But what's saying you'll ever find the card there?
Just finished binge reading this one and Destinies. I like it. But now I'm sad for I'll have to wait for the next publication.
Well, they are screwed now. They decided to involve innocents, and I believe the ponies will take quite the offense to that. Meg specially. This is not going to end well to any of the involved, that's for sure.
8733669
The fact that you're saying you'll put it there upon completion of the plan, and if the plan would be successful, the card will indeed be there. No outside interference can possibly interject if the plan would be successful.
8738738 But if there's never any successful plan, then you'll never see the card.
She is a traitor. She is a die hard fan who will be a pushover for the ponies.
She chose the ponies side over the humans.
Step by step instruction on how to return Susie
(Only works in third world countries)
1. Locate Susie (must be in third world country)
2. Roll a barrel of oil towards kidnappers
3. Shout loudly to no one in particular “oh wow these people found oil”
4. Put on air muffs to muffle the resulting eagle noise
5. Sit back and watch as the entire United States millatery invades the third world country to get every last drop of oil
6. Pick up Susie and leave in confusion
7. Get out before the United States takes all oil and destroys evidence with nuclear winter
Congratulations you have returned Susie