Chapter 24: And Each Other
Agent Barton snapped the door to the unmarked truck closed with a characteristic click. For a few seconds he just stood there beside the truck, staring up at the sky and its spectacular aurora. Then the wind picked up again, biting through several layers of government-issued black coats, and he remembered why he hated traveling this far north.
“You know we’re not going to get anything out of them,” Agent Foster called from the other side of the truck, pulling her scarf tighter about her face. It wasn’t snowing—it actually didn’t snow that often this far north. But the wind lifted the upper layer from the snowdrifts, using each flake like another little dagger. “He doesn’t know anything. Nobody ever does.”
He pushed his glasses a little further up his nose, nodding reluctantly to his partner. “Still got to ask.” That was all they said on the way up the path. Not that they might be overheard by anyone local, Barton had already verified that there were only five members of Observatory staff still on location, and his skin told him the likelihood of encountering any of them out here.
Rather, he knew full well that the records of everything he said would be stored, examined, referenced. They would follow procedure today, just like they did every day.
Barton held the door for his companion, though it was more of an airlock and it beeped and hissed in protest every moment at being left open. Old tools and several pairs of snow boots had been left in here, waiting for their next time outside. Agent Barton left his boots on, irrespective of the mess they’d make. Foster did the same.
A few seconds later, the airlock clicked open. They didn’t make it five steps before Barton identified the person they’d come to meet with. Corey Jamison wasn’t much in terms of witnesses—a young male with an unevenly-shaved face and circles under his eyes. He pushed his chair back a little, sitting up behind his desk. “You guys actually made it.”
“We certainly did.” Agent Foster took the lead without a word from him—the tactic they always used with young men. Sharp suits and athletic women got better responses than grizzled old men. “Your directions were very helpful, Mr. Jamison.”
“Corey.” He sat back, relaxing a little. While Foster stopped just beside the desk, Agent Barton glanced around the lobby—it was one of the largest rooms in the base, at least from the metal shells he’d seen from the satellites. It had a balcony with a second floor, something that made him instantly uncomfortable. The lights were off up there, which made it worse.
Agent Barton pulled a smartphone from his pocket, swiping across its contents absently with one gloved hand. Well, with two fingers on his hand, anyway. The screen only responded to those two.
But he wasn’t texting, or swiping through some social media feed. Within twenty seconds he’d opened his interface with the Observatory, and not much later he started glancing through security cameras.
He checked each one in the lobby, then shut each one off with an unpatched exploit. One more from the list of government zero-days.
His real goal wasn’t checking the top floor—that only took a few seconds. Really he wanted to find the other four members of the base. It wasn’t hard—just looking for the sections with light showed him two were asleep, one was working on a snowmobile with a broken tread. Then the last one… there, in the cafeteria! He selected those cameras, keeping those feeds up on his phone while dismissing the others.
“This is my partner, Agent Barton. We’re here about the missing person case from last month.”
Agent Barton acted reflexively, blanking the screen while flipping the wallet open the other way to show his badge. As usual, the witness barely even looked at it. Just the appearance of being official was enough.
“Oh, good,” Corey said. “You’re here about reopening the search, right? Two weeks wasn’t nearly enough. His family deserves closure.”
“We received a very interesting testimony through your local sheriff,” Agent Barton said, tucking the phone away and making sudden, direct eye-contact with the witness. “That’s the primary reason why we’re here. To clarify some of that, and… to find your employee, if we can.”
“Is there somewhere private we could have the conversation?” Agent Foster asked. “I’m sure you trust your other coworkers—but we don’t want you to feel any pressure about what you might be saying. It will be just us.”
I can see what you’re doing, Foster. She hadn’t said “the three of us” which would’ve included the slab of muscle and gristle that was Agent Barton. Just “us.”
He rose from his chair, nodding eagerly. “Server room. That’s where Theo spent most of his time, and it’s where… yes, you’ll want to see that too.”
They walked. Barrow Observatory wasn’t a large facility, all things considered. It was never wise to build big when every crack in the wall was another opening for snow and cold to worm its way in and destroy. They sure knew how to heat the place—Barton was sweating by the time they made it to the server room, and they were struck with another wave of cold.
Not the outside—it wasn’t below freezing. But it did feel rather like going from an unheated swimming pool to a spa and back again. “Should it be so cold in here?” he asked, zipping his jacket closed again. It didn’t matter that the zipper was done up completely—he could get to his sidearm through the quick-release holster underneath, if he needed to.
“Better for the machines,” Corey said. “Don’t ask me why. Theo could’ve told you, but… you already know that. We’re still down our IT, so we wouldn’t want to chance anything that might break what’s still working.”
The server room made him almost as nervous as the lobby, with two rows of racks and equipment along the outside that cast plenty of unusual shadows. He let Foster start with the basics while he cased the room, checking each of its three doors and quietly locking all but the one they’d used to come in. There was no one lurking inside—despite his training, he didn’t really expect much of a fight inside an NSF-funded observatory.
By the time he made it back, Agent Foster had worked the witness through the uninteresting part of the testimony and into his recollection of the next day.
“These are the recordings,” Corey said, fumbling with the computer for a few more seconds. Without needing to be told, Foster already had her phone out on the table, and was recording everything. Barton watched the screen, using his own device to navigate to the same directory named there and start copying everything from a few levels up—but with low priority, so it shouldn’t be visible. Certainly not to someone who didn’t know why servers were kept cold.
The crackling buzz of a radio recording filled the server room, along with a distorted female voice. She sounded distressed, but also like she was trying to speak past something in her mouth, or maybe in front of it. The trouble was, Barton couldn’t make out almost anything the woman was saying. It was far too animal in its patterns, like she had decided to squawk instead of speaking.
What Barton heard—and he could see from the expression of his partner that she’d noticed it too—was the consistency of the speaker. There were distinct tones present, clear thought to the pronunciation. It was a real language, or at least a real conlang.
Their witness let the recording play without interruption, it wasn’t that much longer. Corey’s own voice came next, far clearer. “What? Whoever is spamming this channel with fucking birdsong, that’s a federal crime. We’re doing search and rescue, cut your shit.”
A brief pause, then, “It’s me, Corey! Corey, can you hear me?”
The tone matched the first speaker identically, except now they were speaking perfect English. English with a slight German accent, maybe? That matches our missing person. But it isn’t a woman. If they had been coached for that voice, it was damn near perfect. Only the slight obstruction sound to key a listener in to how fake it was.
“Woah.” Corey again. “Who the hell is that? You sound awful.”
“Theo,” she answered. “Listen, it’s a long story, but I can tell it when I get there! Just get me some spare clothes and maybe a frostbite kit at the observation tower.”
Agent Foster reached out, pausing the recording with one hand. “To confirm, Theo Pichler is the name of your missing person, isn’t that right?”
He nodded. “That’s our computer guy. Him.” He pointed to a bulletin board behind the desk, and the photograph there. It depicted an average-looking kid on skis, young enough to be Barton’s own son. Maybe a little dorky, but who else would want to winter in a place like this?
“Theo wasn’t funny, was he?” Barton asked.
Foster cleared her throat. “My partner means to ask if he was trans. Nothing in the profile we have suggests that, but…”
“No,” Corey answered instantly, with perfect eye contact and only a slight tap of one finger on the desk. He thought the question was stupid. “Of course not. Look right there. Go through his room if you want, but he wasn’t hiding anything like that. He was… average. Typical guy for one of the wintering shifts.”
“And how do you reconcile that with the recording?” Agent Barton asked. “Agent Foster, if you would.”
She knew exactly what to do, rewinding the recording to play the last few seconds again.
“Theo. Listen, it’s a long story, but I can tell it when I get there! Just get me some spare clothes and maybe a frostbite kit at the observation tower.” She paused it again.
“Does that sound like Theo?”
“I…” Now Corey hesitated, glancing back at the computer, shifting in his seat. “Yes. A little. Way higher, but… it has the same accent. And Theo was always pretty easy to get pissed off about one specific thing. I thought it might be… some kind of vocal distortion. I don’t know what shit his university put up on the observation tower, but I know it puts out radio bleed. That’s where he went missing from, like I said. Installing more tech up there.”
“Let’s finish the recording,” Barton said. “Before we go on.”
Corey pressed play, and his own voice filled the room again.
“Sure thing! God, you sound like shit. What happened?”
“Nothing you’d believe. It’s… incredible. The Observatory did something to the aurora. Opened up a… portal, I think. I know how insane that sounds, but I’ve got proof. I’m on the other side, and I think we figured out how to open it. I’m coming across.”
Their witness looked annoyed at those words, maybe even a little embarrassed. But Agent Barton and Foster went instantly alert as they heard it. Barton looked down at his cameras again, confirming that every member of the base’s winter crew was where he’d seen them last. They were.
“Sounds like you’re on the edge of insanity from cold. But I don’t care. We’ll get you sorted, Theo. Just hold on!”
The recording fuzzed with static for a minute, then went on for several minutes of Corey calling out for Theo. He yelled instructions for how to bundle up to survive the cold, reminding him to take his fluids and lots of other good advice for someone who’d gotten drunk and wandered out into the wilderness somewhere.
But the speaker hadn’t sounded drunk, no matter how crazy the witness thought her story had been.
“I know how crazy it seems,” Corey said into the awkward silence that followed. “I’m not trying to say you need to take that part of the story seriously. I’m just… Theo was my friend. He stayed through winter, not many people do that. They didn’t even find the body to send back to his family. Don’t we owe them that much?”
“You don’t think he might be alive?” Agent Foster asked, resting one sympathetic hand on his shoulder. He didn’t seem like he was faking his distress, certainly not from what Agent Barton could hear.
“Not unless he faked the whole thing, passed through Utqiagvik and fucked off home. But he wasn’t like that. Theo wasn’t a dick—he was a hard worker, and he kept his promises. If he couldn’t hack the winter shift, he would’ve just said so. He’s not collecting the bonus if the world thinks he’s dead.”
“We will look through his things—the Austrians want the whole story about what happened.” And we need to eliminate the chance that someone here murdered him.
But Agent Barton didn’t think much of that—the sheriff had. Though none of the scientists had been told, that was most of what the search was about. It was too cold to dig a deep grave, or for someone to flee very far without taking one of the base’s vehicles.
No missing gas, suggesting they’d been taken out for some illicit trip at some point. No bodies they’d been able to find, or unidentified people matching Theo’s description slipping through security at the miniscule airport.
“If there’s anything else you can tell us,” Barton said. “Anything you didn’t share with the police.”
“We won’t think you’re crazy,” Agent Foster promised. “It’s our job to investigate stories that seem impossible. That’s why you have us, and not just a detective from Alaska PD. Any insight you may have might be useful to this case.”
Corey shuffled uneasily in his seat, glancing up at Foster’s chest. The witness had been here through half of winter, and Barton could tell he didn’t have any female friends in town from that one look alone.
Finally he rose, walking over to the clipboard and reaching behind it. He removed a tiny square of paper, frayed on one edge.
“Theo had this stupid little Polaroid camera. He used it to take photos around base.” He pointed at the clipboard, and sure enough several of the photos there matched the size of the one he held.
“I found this one on the ground near the tower, half-buried in the snow. I can’t explain it. But I’m sure this was taken with his camera. I swear it isn’t fucking photoshopped or…” He handed it over.
Agent Foster’s eyes went wide, and she nearly locked up completely. Agent Barton actually had to walk over to her and take the photo from her hand, very gently.
It was hard to judge a fake at such a tiny resolution, though he had no doubt that the techs would be doing exactly that.
The photo wasn’t some blurry side-angle of a cryptid retreating, as so much of the garbage he looked at. Instead it was taken without backlight, with still subjects and a clear flash reflecting off several bits of metal in the background with their own shadows. Each one was another test of the images authenticity.
Barton hardly thought it would be necessary. The image depicted three… creatures. Quadrupedal. Two were strange to him, but one had the characteristic beak and wings he’d seen on some carvings. More importantly, that creature was also wearing an oversized pair of thermal underwear that barely fit on its back-legs.
They were nothing like people, yet they posed for the picture as though they were. Their colors were impossible, their shapes were uncanny—but Barton needed only one look into those eyes to know that these were no mere animals. He’d seen plenty of horses, and seen animals looking back at him.
Even the tiny photograph showed its own little social cues—the slight distance the bird-one had from the horse ones marked her as a stranger. The protective way the bigger male one had a hoof over the shoulder of the smaller, probably female one. Father, maybe?
“If you ask me to explain it, I can’t,” Corey said. “But I did go through Theo’s stuff. Not his computer—maybe you can get into that, I can’t. There’s no furry shit in his room. He’s not a weeb either.”
Agent Barton took the photo carefully on the table, spreading it out and snapping a picture with his phone. He returned it to his partner, while directing the message off to his superior.
“Thank you for sharing this with us,” Agent Foster said. “And we’re sorry for what happened to your friend. If there’s any chance of finding him, your cooperation has just improved it.”
“Finding a corpse,” Corey said darkly. “It’s been a month. There’s no food missing, so he isn’t hiding in an igloo or something. He’s dead.”
Agent Barton certainly wasn’t going to try and persuade him otherwise, even though all the evidence was working to do so. For once they’d encountered a witness who had actually seen something, and yet he seemed eager to convince himself that he hadn’t. So much the better.
His phone vibrated, and Agent Barton lifted it again. There was a single line of text there, one that would only stay for a few seconds. His commanding officer’s response.
“Sending a unit. Make something up.”
“We’re leaving the staff?”
“Don’t know who saw,” came the response. “I’ll give intelligence a head start.”
There was no need to respond, no useless formality over secure communication.
He nodded once to Agent Foster, and that was all the communication she needed. “Good news, Mr. Jamison. The department has approved a search. If you could warm up quarters for fifty people, that would be great. We’re going to do this right.”
“Because of that?” Corey raised an eyebrow. “I really don’t think—”
“Because we want to find your friend,” Agent Barton said, tucking the photo away into his wallet. “Not because of any specific piece of evidence. Now if you would be so kind as to lead us to his old quarters, I understand they haven’t been disturbed since the search…”
They didn’t land in some shady corner in the back of town, like they’d done in the Crystal Empire. As they closed on Manehattan, Sharp steered them towards a large dock on the far side, where dozens of other ships were parked and moored to each other well above the ground. There was no such thing as a crappy airship, though some of the ones visible from all the way up here were smaller than theirs.
But they were all nicer than theirs, with perfectly finished decks and the handiwork of large companies all over them. Many seemed to be a similar design, more a sailing ship given a gasbag for lift than something purpose-built for the air. They wouldn’t be able to get enough lift if they weren’t designed for it, right? I’m just imagining things.
“Hey Summer!” Edge called, waving her over from the helm. She crossed the distance, blushing just a little at Emerald’s knowing look. Her blush got deeper with the camera’s fake shutter sound. So she’d taken a picture of Theo feeling silly and embarrassed.
Were they official? Was she really in a relationship with a… pony? Summer didn’t want to think about it much. Maybe if she pushed the problem to the side for long enough, it would just go away, and she wouldn’t have to think about things like her intention to return home, and the physical changes that would occur when she got her body back.
She felt a sigh of relief as she stopped beside him, and Edge didn’t do anything to embarrass her. Not with Emerald watching, anyway. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, the filly made her feel far more self-conscious about her relationship than actually being in the relationship did.
“Before we land, I need to make sure you’re serious about capitalizing on Feather’s offer,” Sharp said. “We’ve had some evidence that… either they or someone who buys from them doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Going near them might be subjecting us to more pressure like that.”
“I realize that,” she said. “I still think we should take the bits we can get. A big city like this should have a really great resale market. All those bits can… pay for the rest of our trip, if Kate doesn’t do it instead. Hell, she might want to be part of it. Another try at returning home—she sounded like she’d want to go too, if she could.” But as Theo said it, there was nothing like confidence in her voice. That was what she wanted the letter to mean, but whether or not it actually did…
Sharp turned instantly back to his sailing, gripping the wheel a little harder with both legs and making the wood creak a little. Steering the ship for a pony meant holding himself above the ground with the wheel, and that meant Theo had to stand and look specifically at him from the side not to see the consequences of constant pony nudity. “I only ask…” he finally said. “Because if we’re taking the risk anyway, we might as well use some of those bits to stay at High Dock. You see it down there—those are private guards. This place is insured, and they’d be liable to replace the Horizon if something happened to her. Of course, if I can’t pay, they’d impound her. We’d need to have the bits by the time we left.”
“We’ll have them,” she declared, confidently. “Look, I’m not sure why you’re so… intense about Kate. But we can get our bits first. We’ll use her coupon, get our stuff, maybe even put the bits on board and pay off the harbor fee in advance. Would that make you feel better?”
“A little,” he answered. She waited beside him, hoping that her presence would prompt him to say more. But he remained stubbornly fixed on his instruments as the Horizon touched down, settling against the dock with a thump.
As before, she remained with Emerald when it came to the practical side of harbor arrangements. Refueling and deposits and all that were beyond anything she could help with anyway, so it was really just about keeping Emerald entertained.
These days, Emerald seemed interested in asking her about only one subject when they were alone. “So when are you gonna ask him out?”
She shoved her away with a wing, looking stubbornly up at the city around them. Far more than any they’d yet visited, Manehattan felt like stepping back in time to an America she’d seen distant pictures of in an occasional textbook. There was that famous photo from the end of WW2, with two people kissing… and she was thinking about it again.
She blushed, looking up towards the architecture. Impressive for what she’d known of Equestria so far in a way that had even more disturbing implications for what she understood about the nature of portal-linked Equestria and Earth. Canterlot had been more directly impressive because of how many rules of engineering it seemed to defy. It was advanced in its own way, building on slopes that should’ve sloughed their structures right off. This was something else—these buildings made perfect sense, except they shouldn’t be here.
“Well?” Emerald nudged up beside one of her legs, looking up hopefully. “You already know he likes you. He had a date for you and everything! That’s way braver than most stallions would be. Sharp’s an adventurer and everything… but sooner or later, you gotta tell him you like him too.”
“I have,” she finally said, though she felt like she was being waterboarded between each word. “Should you really be interfering in your master’s relationships? He’s… years older than you are.”
She shrugged one wing. “He asked for my help the one time, that means I get to. It’s only fair.”
Summer tried to think of a good argument to that—but she couldn’t. In the end, she just spun and looked away. “Oh, look! I think that’s Sharp calling us to go. You must be excited to visit Manhattan.”
“Manehattan,” she corrected. Then she spun, forgetting whatever awkward thing she might’ve been about to ask next. Summer followed, down the lower ramp and into the pony city.
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Part of me he still thinks his friend is dead considering all the evidence... but another knows how blind people can get to things that defy their understanding of reality. Just another way that skepticism can render one a bigger fool than naiveté.
About a third of the way through the chapter, I realized the agents were a man named Barton and a woman named Foster, I started replacing them with Hawkeye and Jane from the MCU, and things got weird.
The more i read this the more i'm loving it.
1st contact here we come! Woot woot!!!
I think the comma here is unintentionally inverting the meaning of the sentence.
Something tells me the agents know what really happened. Especially with another having disappeared through the portal. Perhaps they were an agent sent to investigate, or just another researcher. Covering it up too....
9777161
Also...Frozen wasteland...something tells me a certain shadowy villain may have been trapped on earth in this lore. Sombra was sent into an icy crevice no reason it can’t go both ways
Btw, it’s VSO/VSP (Village Safety Officer/Patrol) or State Trooper up here. No sheriff.
Do those agents know about the portal? Equestria? The Hippogriffs? Everything? More question asked.
That must have been some vocal distortion. Probably can't alter the pitch and stuff like that and there, instant female.
Well... I guess Austrian-Seaquestrian relations won't be great for the foreseeable future.
What could this all mean?
Kids these days. Bet she's waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask when the wedding will be. And when first baby comes out.
Emerald, ya gotta take a picture when Theo and Sharp does that. For posterity. Specifically, their's.
"Should you really be interfering with my relationships?"
Gotta be strong, Theo. Nip it in the bud.
What does NSF stand for?
I'm thinking that Barton is part of some Men in Black-esque organisation. I'm thinking about another Starscribe fanfic, where My Little Pony is propaganda to make people aware of another world - what's it called?
9777679
You're thinking of Friendly Fire.
In this case, the NSF is the national science foundation. A government entity that funds valuable scientific research. Very public, nothing shady about it. They paid my salary during my first few student research jobs.
9777756
Thanks. I wasn’t associating him with the NSF, by the way.
Huh. Wasn't expecting an interlude on Earth, but this is certainly the time to do it. Otherwise, we'd just have "Not much else happened on the trip beyond awkward romantic shenanigans."
Ooh, archeological evidence. Not surprising. If you find an old bridge, people used to cross it.
Feather HQ should be quite the sight, to say nothing of whatever might be waiting for Theo if she ever makes it back.
Agents, huh.
Mild concern.
Uh oh.
Yay, Cory gets to live. For now.
That seems like a bad bet.
9777279
TIL Alaska doesn't have counties.
9778439
Yup. Boroughs or unincorporated areas. (FNSB resident here)
When did this turn into an Avengers crossover?
Hey, just wondering would a small airport in northern Alaska even have security. I live in the largest community in Canada above the arctic circle and every airport up here other than the capitals of the Territories lacks security before boarding planes (and even when in the capitals you only have to go through security when flying south to a larger center).
9783466
That's fission, fusion's a lot better about the big booms.
I did, too, the instant I saw Barton's name--but putting myself into that mindset actually made the story more believable.
I'm also betting one of the pieces of equipment mention (when Barton was introduced into the story) was a collapsible compound bow.
I also wonder if Kate might be one of their agents who ended up
over the rainbow...no wait...that would be Asgard. They know she can't be there.or, "Kill 'em all and let Celestia sort 'em out"
Sorry, but I'm calling it here.
I was never hot on the idea of a needless sex change, but sense you put it in I haven't read much on the new 'experiences' he would be feeling, like for example using the bathroom. You need not go into detail, but you could have given some vague descriptions. Now that you're trying to get him/her into a relationship I feel as though you should've, at least, once included a section where he/she lets say explored her new body a little bit and stated whatever about the experience and that she ultimately liked it, and maybe even include that she repeated it. Once again you didn't have to go into detail for this stuff. You also could've have her imagine Sharp doing things to her and say whatever about that and that she ultimately wasn't against it. You did none of those things. You just magically make her not only against it but seemingly for it.
You made it VERY clear he did not like being turned into a female, and you've given NO clear account of him being gay. It's understandable he'd grow use to being female, but it's also MORE understandable that he'd still be attracted to females as lesbians are a thing and considering his origins it makes more sense, also growing use to something and completely abandoning how you lived years of your life are different things. In fact I think you mentioned he was attracted to women, could be making that up though.
Also I feel like you're glossing over a lot of other stuff, which is fine, just not when it's relevant to the story. I'm also not a big fan of Emerald, but only because she feels shoe horned in. Their ship got sabotaged and yet neither of them realize that if they died in the crash which was very possible, that a child would have to survive by herself in the wilderness. I think they'd be more outward in asking for freaking help. Especially after he used Celestia as a threat against the ambassador. The fact they still intend on going to Ares without help seems utterly RETARDED. The embassy basically said the nation was a huge trap, of which there was no escape, yet lets head there without help anyways. Bleh, just can't go on sorry.
9865938
Isn't checking own new body out is something any sane person will eventually do when realize that it'll stay like this for a while? Even more so in case of a sex change. It's one thing to see and touch and whole other one to actually feel.
Did we had to explicitly know that male human turned female ponybird attempted to masturbate? Well, some may want to know that. Some would like to read about that in the smallest details. I'd be fine with either. But no, we don't need to be explicitly told about all that.
Also, there's almost nobody absolutely straight. Being straight or gay isn't a check mark. It's rather a value in between with points close to extremums would never actually try to "switch", but at least thought about the experience a few times. Now imagine your whole body replaced with all that new chemistry and feelings, and completely alien brain which may have some instincts hardwired way stronger than ours. That alone might have pushed him closer to the middle and he keeps sliding closer and closer to the point where he would consider the possibility rather than immediately decline it.
I do agree about not asking for help, though. However, how could he know that Celestia wouldn't force him to stay and work for her either? Feels odd, but I can understand that desire to believe that fellow human may actually help while government will fuck everything up. Even though it's painfully obvious that CEO did nothing to get back through that portal herself and enjoys doing business on this side instead. Won't be surprised when read further and Feather end up being a trap.
Not securing any support for going to the mountain... Maybe he hopes that Feather will help him with that?
haha love it. thats my fav line out of this hole story so far.