Slalom
Slalom
Admiral Biscuit
The Hyatt had a large atrium, stretching from the second floor all the way to the sixth. It provided plenty of natural light, and an open, airy feeling that the other hotels nearby lacked. Balconies on the third through sixth floors opened onto the atrium, providing passers-by with a good view of the Baltimore inner harbor.
The only thing interrupting the view were the occasional concrete pillars, which were a structural necessity. Most people didn't really notice them, nor the delicate steel webbing tying them into the roof structure. If they spoiled the view, people just moved a few feet along the balcony.
•••
People in general don't tend to look up, so nobody noticed right away that there was a pony perched precariously on a steel truss six floors up, despite his yellow coat and maroon hoodie.
He took a few tentative steps towards the junction of beams atop the cement column, moving cautiously in order to keep his balance.
A moment later, still unnoticed by the few people far below on the second floor, a second pony joined the first on the slender steel support. She was virtually his twin, and had anybody below been looking up, they would have been unlikely to tell them apart.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Sure, it's good practice.” The colt took another step forward, edging ever so slightly towards the top of the column, the place where all the steel beams came together.
Had they billed themselves as a highwire act, they would have garnered a huge audience far below, but for now they continued doggedly forward, completely unobserved.
He reached the relative safety of the top of the column and scrunched himself into the beams, watching his sister's wavering progress until she, too, joined him.
“Good practice.” She snorted. “So now what?”
“Now, we can—“ He paused to consider.
“We can't go any higher, Pickle.”
“I know that.” That wasn't entirely true; the ceiling was still above. “But down and around.”
The two of them looked over the edge of their perch. The column they were sitting on wasn't the only one holding the roof up.
“They are like stone trees.”
“Without branches, though. That'll make it easier.” Pickle pointed towards the bank of elevators, and the sixth-floor hallway that crossed beyond. “What do you think, Bar, over there and under and back?”
Barley counted the columns, and nodded. “Backside of the first, then around twice.”
“One floor at a time, or it doesn't count.”
“Okay.” She studied the steel, how some places it went up at angles and other places it was flat, connecting one pillar to the next. How there were places where one could pass and places where one could not. “We gotta have an ending point. You can't have a race without an end.”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the open structure above the coffee stand. “What about there?”
“And we don't have sompeony to tell us when to start. It's not gonna be fair if you say it.”
“The elevators.” He pointed over to one of the cars as it rose. “The first one, we can go when it stops on the third floor.”
“Okay.” That was fair.
The duo spread apart to give each other a bit of room. Both were planning the route in their heads, considering where they might have an advantage over their sibling. Pickle was stronger, but Barley was more flexible, and either could win the race.
•••
The second elevator car stopped unexpectedly at the sixth floor. Neither of them had been paying it much attention; neither of them had noticed the worried security officer riding up—but he'd noticed them. It wasn't the first time that somebody had done something dumb in the atrium. By the grace of God he hadn't been there the last time, but he'd heard all about it and he couldn't help but wonder what he might do were he presented with that situation.
One part of his mind insisted that he'd do what needed to be done, that he'd shinny out on the beam and be a big goddam hero and maybe he would, but he'd already called the fire department and the paramedics and as he rode up, a worried eye on the two ponies atop the pillar, he'd been constantly repeating the mantra of first-responders the world over: please, not on my shift.
The elevator wouldn't go any faster, but his key at least guaranteed it wouldn't stop for anyone else on its way up. It was by pure instinct he grabbed it out of the slot before squeezing through the partially open doors, and then he was sprinting down the hallway, too late.
•••
Both pairs of pony eyes were focused on the first elevator car, slowly rising from the second floor to the third—and then it stopped.
“Now!”
Barley's ears perked, and she lept forward, off the column to the thin tracework of steel. Her hooves skidded on the smooth surface—she should have known that there was practically no traction from her journey to the column. Already her brother was ahead of her, edging to the left, but she had her balance and even if it was awkward she estimated that gains here would pay dividends later. She was on the most direct route, as long as she could keep her footing.
•••
The guard skidded to a stop. He was too late. There was no way he could head them off, there was nothing he could do but watch and pray. Off in the distance he could hear approaching sirens. If the two were just clinging to a beam or support, waiting for rescue, he could assure them that it was on its way, but they were racing, darting across the trusses from one column to the next.
His heart skipped a beat as a hoof slipped on the steel, throwing the pony off-balance, and he grabbed the railing as she recovered. That had been too close. . . .
•••
The third column was close, with its own tangle of steelwork, and there were no more beams in her favor. Her brother was above and ahead of her, but she was gaining already.
She twisted as she approached it, her hind hooves shoving off the beam as she snapped her wings open and gave one last kick for speed, then rolled back to level flight, her eyes already on the next column. Nobody was on the balcony, so she pulled her hooves up and rocketed across just above the railing, dropping back down as soon as her hind legs were clear.
Slaloming around the columns was easy, routine—they did it all the time in Hope Hollow, although usually with trees. She couldn’t get close to a tree trunk, on account of the branches, but she could get close to a support column, brushing her primaries against the concrete as she passed.
End columns were a different challenge. Instead of skimming by as close as possible, she would have to turn around, and Barley was already calculating the best way to do that without losing too much speed. A high bank, or cut wide and lose less speed?
Pickle opted for a high bank, rolling almost perpendicular to the column and fighting his momentum all the way around. He took the lead, but her wider path left her better set up for the fifth-floor slalom.
Gotta bleed off speed for the corners and get it back again, she thought. There wasn’t a rule about going up, just only going down one floor at a time. If she did a tight spiral climb, she’d finish the turn in a more stable configuration and have some altitude she could drop for more speed.
•••
By the time the twins crossed above the coffee shop—neck and neck—the first members of the fire brigade were rushing into the hotel.
Up on the sixth floor, the security guard slumped against the wall as the pair landed safely. What he ought to do was march down and tear a strip off their hides, but he just couldn’t. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he could move just yet. While the immediate terror of them plummeting to their deaths had been avoided, their race had left them with plenty of opportunities to smash into a column and then fall to their deaths, or take out some poor bastard who was walking along a balcony or even wipe out a waiter at the 300 club—they’d come out of the restaurant at not much more than table-height.
He did muster the energy to radio down to the front desk that the situation had been handled and the fire department could be dismissed.
•••
Pickle and Barley made quick friends with the fire fighters, and managed to get a tour of the fire trucks. One of them was a Pierce Dash CF that was very similar to a Matchbox fire truck Barley owned.
The winner of the race was never determined.
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Pickle and Barley, the Barrel twins
One of my early thoughts at the Hyatt was how attractive the atrium would be to pegasi . . . I discussed it with Shachza some years ago, in fact. It’s a big open space with lots of obstacles for fun flying, and places to rest, if one is so inclined.
There are ways to bypass the call buttons on elevators, which lets the elevator do things it wouldn’t normally do (for example, bypassing floors, as the security guard did). In fact, there are a lot of things you can make an elevator do if you’ve got the right kind of access to it. You can even override all the normal lower-floor stops and slam it full-speed into the bottom of the shaft, which apparently they do to test the giant buffers at the bottom of the shaft (I assume if the elevator breaks as a result of that test, it failed).
I honestly don’t know if firefighters have nets to catch people any more (like they did back in the day, according to comics, anyway) . . . I don’t know what the protocol would be for dealing with people on a beam, five floors above the floor. I would assume that there’s something, and anybody who’s a first-responder, let me know.
I do know that there’s a Matchbox Pierce-Dash fire truck model (released in 2008), and Engine 2 (which would be one of the engines to respond to the Hyatt) is a Pierce, although unlike the Matchbox model, it’s got a raised roof.
fire.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/firestation.jpg?itok=oxV1YAVp
Similar truck, not actually engine #2
Pony children doing children things.
I would say, that today, the services were the winners.
They didnt have to clean up the losers.
Not a first responder but have seen it happen long leaders and rescue harness, they tell you to keep calm stay put the responder gets up the ladder/hoist then when close the responded grabs you and locks you into a harness that's attached to them and a belaying system move you on to the ladder and then down
Aiet, small children with wings. Now with 120% extra migraines!
10430336
There's call buttons > control panel buttons > normal keys > fire department keys > cab-top controls > motor/machine room. (If you can get into the machine room, you can do *anything* with it. Though even the cab-top can override an awful lot of things IIRC...)
Someone needs to get the word out to the hotel staff: If you see ponies sitting up high, just yell up to them and ask them to show their wings. If they don't have wings, then you call for rescue. (Very few unicorns can teleport or know a spell to slow a fall)
Reading about a pony up high, as soon as I saw "yellow coat and maroon hoodie" I was like, Oh no, the friggin' Barrel twins. People are gonna flip a sh** at whatever they're gonna get into.
Atriums are to pegasi as swimming pools are to... well, all of the ponies.
Pretty sure that large inflatable bags are used nowadays.
At this point, I wonder who is going to invade the hotel's kitchen.
The entire staff will likely need a vacation at the end of this.
10430336
Upstream error on the final image.
10430654
and in some cases therapy after perhaps. Either from Dawww overload or the god I cant believe they did that
It's easy to forget that people are accustomed to thinking of mobility in terms of 2 dimensions, but with a flying creature, you need to be thinking in 3 dimensions.
The large, open atrium facing the harbor is definitely my favorite part of this hotel, none of the other hotels around the convention center really quite compare.
You make mention of Pratt and Lombard. I know we'll see the convention center in an upcoming chapter, but would we possibly be seeing the baseball field as well?
I suspect that some signs regarding what is and is not acceptable flight behavior in the atrium might be rather hastily procured. :D
As the guard reflected, there were, after all, all sorts of ways that could have ended badly, even if happily none of them happened here.
But, unlike the guard, I enjoyed the chapter. :)
Silly Ponies! You almost gave the security guard a stroke, a heart attack & an anurism!
*Boops Pickle & Barley on the snoot*
10430336
10430582
Given the acoustics in the big atrium, all the possible places for pegasi roost on all the girders, their bird-like gregarious nature, and latent Equestrian harmony magic, I would not be surprised if a spontaneous song broke out, much to the delight of all the other guests:
(Josu Elberdin - Ubi Caritas et Amor)
(Mark Miller - I Believe)
Of course, if there are any hippogriffs present, the songs would take a more nautical theme:
(Male Ensemble Northwest - Lament of a Fisher's Wife)
10431822
Regarding The Maretian, this is minor spoilers, but in two different parts of the story, dragonfly transforms into Beth Johansson and Daisy Duke. Also into Mark Watney himself at one point.
Alondro LEAPS from the top of the Atrium!
"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" *SPLAT!*
Random peoples, "OMGWTF?! He splattered all over the place! Gonna hurl!"
Alondro's bits of goo turn silvery...
Random peoples: o___o
Alondro's goo flows together as low, menacing, tones rise and fall.
Random peoples: o________O
Alondro's blobs form into a puddle and then a humanoid form begins to rise up out of it.
Random peoples: D: "HE'S A T-1000! SKYNET'S COME FOR US AT LAST!! EVERYPONY PANIC!!"
Alondro giggles at the fear and mayhem, for he's no Terminator... just pesky lil Jersey Devil. >:}
Sounds like everyone won...
Except for the poor security guard, who probably lost his nerves on the ride.
10430336
10432841
Part of me wants to see a one-shot about a human police department dealing with Equestrian tourists who get busted for their "innocent" shenanigans.
Maybe make ponies spend a half-hour sitting in a cardboard box labeled "BAD PONY JAIL".
Pegasi, bunch of troublemakers, cute ones though.
10433650
Noooo, not The Box! But since ponies are a lot like cats, a punishment box is no punishment at all. A more effective punishment would be a time-out corner; given their socially gregarious nature, forcing one to be alone is quite the ordeal.
10430342
Adorable, as pony children always are.
10430344
This is very true.
10430357
Yeah, I’ve seen videos of that type of rescue, as well. Usually off balconies or whatnot; I don’t know if that technique could be used indoors (you can’t get a ladder truck into the hotel atrium, for example), but then they might have extending ladders and a similar type of plan. Or, as somebody suggested below, airbags.
10430377
Adorably terrifying. Cute, innocent, and just jumped off a truss.
10430393
Yeah, I think the machine room is mostly the major prize, but with fire codes and building codes being what they are, if you can get to the special internal panel, I’ve heard you can make the elevator do a lot of interesting things (in the US; other countries may vary).
Probably the ‘crash into buffers’ routine isn’t one that you’d activate from in-cab.
10430452
Realistically, most ponies who aren’t pegasi probably wouldn’t venture out onto the steelwork anyway (likewise for other sapients who can’t fly . . . maybe Capper; cats climb things they can’t get down from). But you’re not wrong, asking a pony if they’re okay up there is probably wiser than calling the fire department every time there’s a pony in a high place.
Incidentally, my headcanon for the ‘few unicorns know a spell to slow a fall’ is because it’s mana-intensive, and not generally very useful. So only unicorns who are either in a job where falling is a real risk, or where they’re powerful enough that they’ve got mana to burn (Twilight, Starlight Glimmer) would bother to even learn such a spell.
10430496
Those two can barely be trusted in Equestria, where the bar is “The Cutie Mark Crusaders”; there’s no way they should be trusted on Earth without leashes.
Of course, ponies don’t think the same way as humans, and their parents (if they’re even at the hotel) likely wouldn’t have an issue with them flying in the atrium. They get in trouble, likely as not some other pegasus will rescue them.
And at the end they got to tour a fire truck, so really, everything turned out okay.
10430582
Not only is the swimming pool fun to swim in, but if you’re a pescavore, it’s also a really big live well. Besides the “don’t fly in the atrium” signs the hotel badly needs, “don’t put fish in the pool ‘for later’” should also be considered.
Also for the Kirin, “take all arguments outdoors immediately.”
10430647
That seems reasonable.
I’ve jumped onto a normal crash pad, but never an inflatable one.
10430651
Hmm, I hadn’t even thought of that. I would expect that most ponies are well-mannered enough to not raid the kitchen.
Capper might not be.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/6/24/1764748.png
(Of course, he could just be planning on snagging any mice who happen to be attracted to the food, and arguably that’s a service to the hotel. . . .)
10430654
Yeah. Or at the least a huge discount at the hotel bar and a one-month ‘no questions asked’ policy.
“Gimme a shot.”
“Ponies?”
“Yeah.”
“Take the bottle.”
10430781
Fixed, I think.
10430820
Sounds like they might need a pony psychologist.
(it’s similar)
10434846
I half expect the kitchen staffs to find a nice cupcakes waiting for them with a note said "Thank you for having us. PP".
10430826
Yeah, exactly. That’s sometimes hard for people to wrap their heads around, though.
10430896
The only other one I ever used was the Royal
CelestiaSonesta, and it wasn’t as good as the Hyatt. That atrium was awesome, as were the glass elevators and also in my experience the hotel staff was also excellent.10430907
Well, I’ve already covered ponies and sports and that was a bad time for humans. . . . Turns out a group of unicorns can make a football do all sorts of interesting things that a football generally ought not do.
10430940
It’s possible by the end of the pony invasion, the hotel will be filled with all sorts of signs, many of them oddly specific.
Probably fewer than he things, given pegasi. But still not none.
10431125
They did, and not intentionally at all.
Into the bad pony box with you
10431649
Ooh . . .
The pool video is actually on one of my playlists, ‘cause it’s awesome.
Turns out the other ones are, too.
10431836
I want to say that I’ve read up to at least one of those transformations, but I’m not entirely sure.
10434850
Paging Dr Wolf. Paging Dr Wolf.
10432417
testdrivejunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/1981-pontiac-t1000c-300x211.jpg
10432841
Mostly, yeah.
Except for the poor security guard.
On the plus side, if he’s man enough he can ask for cuddles and that will fix it.