There's a Monster Pony Outside My Window

by Halira

Chapter 12: A Glimpse into the Future

"Do I need to repeat those numbers again?" Miss Newman said over the phone. She waited a moment, then nodded. "Good. I hope you enjoy your money. Now, I need a hotel suite in a good part of town, room service fully covered—something that can hold three adults and three children. I prefer one big suite, but we can divide it into two rooms if needed—and it needs to be a hotel, not a motel, got it? That means there should be no outdoor access to the room. I would book it for three days, just to be safe, starting tonight. We might check out earlier, but three days is a safe number. I know this isn't cheap, but I think what I have provided you more than makes up for it."

Wendy sat and waited as Miss Newman spoke to her landlord. Charlotte was leaning against her side that didn't have the cast. The other two girls were huddled up against Charles. It seemed like Miss Newman was getting them all out of the house for the time being, and her landlord was footing the bill in exchange for the winning lottery numbers and a list of winning sports scores. It was very shady, but it seemed like the source of Miss Newman's income. Wendy supposed that if you could travel back in time, that would be the quickest way to make a quick buck.

"Thank you, Jim," Miss Newman said, wrapping up the call. "I will contact you with new numbers in three days. And Jim...don't double-cross me. I'm not someone you want to be on the wrong side of. You treat me well, and I keep you rolling in money. Triple-check to make sure those IDs will look good for the police. If you need more money, you know where you can contact me."

Wendy again silently questioned trusting Miss Newman. She was just making threats over the phone and was effectively rigging gambling for this man. Would the older woman make threats against them as well? Technically they were under threat from these ponies. This could still be some elaborate and over-complicated setup, but Wendy couldn't think of anything Miss Newman could gain by staging all of this.

Miss Newman finished the call and hung up the phone. "If I recall the details correctly. You were planning on moving in a few months, over the summer, once the kids were done with school. I think it would be wise to advance that timetable. The ponies will have a hard time traveling across the country. Making the move now may be all that is needed to ensure your safety, especially if you don't move to the same neighborhood as you did in my timeline. I can have Jim help with a down payment for a place and travel expenses; he is about to win the lottery, after all. Or I could give you all the winning numbers for the next drawing, but those numbers become less and less reliable the longer I'm here—butterfly effect and all that. It also delays us leaving, and that's not advisable. Unfortunately, I don't have similar records for the Florida lottery."

"Florida doesn't have a lottery," Charles said.

Miss Newman pursed her lips. "It doesn't? I must be misremembering things. I'm very certain it does in my time; perhaps it just hasn't been instituted there yet."

"What's to stop them from just going back in time again?" Wendy asked.

"They can't, they stole the method to get here from me, and they don't know how to replicate it. Even if they could, they won't get a chance because when they return home, they have a very nasty surprise waiting for them," Miss Newman replied. "If we stall them long enough, they will be forced to go back and be captured immediately. There is a time limit on how long it can hold them here, a little less than a month. We just have to keep you safe until then. We could also find and destroy their anchor stone and send them back immediately, but I don't have a clue where that might be."

"How do you know all those winning numbers? How did you know you could get that property manager to help you? Plus, we haven't even decided to go to Florida. How did you know about it?" Wendy demanded in quick succession.

Miss Newman leveled a cold gaze on her. "I have on my tablet one month's worth of newspapers from the Denver Post that I downloaded from their archive before I left. Don't ask me what a download is; just understand I have copies of all those newspapers. They tell me all those numbers. They also tell me that in my timeline that property manager commits a murder-suicide in two weeks due an argument with his wife about his gambling debt."

Wendy gasped and covered her mouth in horror.

Miss Newman pointed to her tablet. "Now, that tells me he is a desperate man with a gambling addiction. That was something I could leverage. Things like that are why I brought those newspaper copies. Knowledge is power, and even forgotten headlines like that can be powerful information. I see this as mutually beneficial between him and me. I get what I need, and he hopefully doesn't go into so much debt and despair that he feels the only way out is killing himself and his wife. I'm pragmatic, but not heartless."

"Shouldn't you be concerned about changing the past or something?" Charles asked worriedly.

The older woman shook her head. "Not unless there is some obvious negative impact. I already told you, what happens here has a zilch effect on my timeline, and it has already been altered."

"So you just go into the past and mess with random things?" Charles asked.

Miss Newman hung her head. "No, I developed this method of time travel after borrowing some information from a friend about her time travel exploits. She had built upon someone else's work, and I built upon hers. I planned to use it to save someone important to me by rescuing them right before they died and bringing them back to my timeline with me. However, I soon learned that canceling her self-sacrifice could have doomed that divergent timeline. It was something I could see the cause and effect of, and I'm not going to doom billions for the sake of one, even her. I should have destroyed all records and materials for time travel, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. In the back of my mind, I was still thinking it might someday be useful or that I would find a solution to save her without dooming her timeline. But these bastards broke into my vault and stole it from me. They'd never be here if I did what I should have and destroyed it all, so them trying to kill your daughter is indirectly my fault, and I'm deeply sorry for that. I'm doing everything I can to fix that mistake."

"So why didn't you bring reinforcements or some super-powered high-tech future weapon?!" Wendy demanded. "You brought what, that little computer, some clothes, your necklace, a Bible, a shotgun, and a big chunk of quartz. How are you supposed to defend her with just that??"

"That hunk of quartz is my anchor stone. It's what keeps me here," Miss Newman explained calmly. She then turned away. "As for the rest...I was pressed for time. I had minutes before I would have lost the ability to follow. I had no time to prepare, and I didn't have time to deal with the inevitable arguments that would have erupted about chasing after them. I gathered a few things that would aid me, left orders to guard the return point, and left before they could argue."

Wendy and Charles looked at one another, then back at Miss Newman.

"You came here with no plan," Wendy stared with her eyes leveled on the time traveler. "You came here without any freaking clue how you are going to protect us. You've just been winging it from the start!"

Miss Newman scowled. "I do have a plan. That plan is to stall them out and deny them any opportunity to strike. Moving you from here to Florida accomplishes that, and you were going to end up moving anyway. Plans don't need to be complicated."

"I don't want to move! My friends are here!" Andrea protested.

Miss Newman leveled a harsh glare at Andrea, but then softened it. "Andrea, my version of the future you is the shield and the spear of your family, their guard, and their protector. Sometimes being a protector means doing things we don't want to do. I know you don't want to leave your friends, but your baby sister and the rest of your family are in danger. You don't want them getting hurt, right?"

Andrea sniffled. "Why are you here instead of me if I protect us? Does she not care?"

The old woman shook her head. "No, she cares. My necklace wouldn't work on her. She'd have no way of getting around here unnoticed. I'm not sure the method of getting here would have worked for her either. It has to do with the type of pony she is; they can be very disruptive to spells—she'd have been very effective in dealing with their unicorn. Believe me, if she could, she would be here kicking those ponies' flanks so hard they would regret ever being born. She used to be a government agent, so you better bet she knows how. You don't have to follow that same path, but I know you have protection in your blood."

"What about me? Would I come to kick their butts too?" Kristin asked, unable to resist hearing about her future self too.

"Not so much, dear. My version of you isn't that type of fighter," Miss Newman answered. When Kristin looked disappointed, the woman lifted the girl's head with a finger. "She's a lawyer, a family law and civil rights lawyer, and she fights her battles in the courts. Most fights that matter need ponies like her. You don't have to grow up to be a lawyer if you don't want to. I know that you'll be great, no matter what you choose to be, because you're a smart girl. I do want you to know she's a good pony who makes a difference in many people's lives, and I know you'll end up making a difference too. Though I would at least consider going into law, your little sister needs you to help clean up her mistakes."

Charlotte whimpered. "I make mistakes?"

"Yes, you make more mistakes than the rest of your family combined," Miss Newman answered. Charlotte started to cry.

Wendy went red in the face. "You can't say something like that to her! She's a child!"

"I'm not finished with what I'm saying," Miss Newman said in an emotionless voice, then refocused on the youngest child. "Charlotte, do you know the difference between an amateur and master?"

"What does am-mat-tour mean?" Charlotte asked, fumbling the word.

"Someone who knows how to do something but isn't very good at it," Miss Newman answered. "Do you know the difference?"

"The master is good at it and the other one ain't," Charlotte answered confidently.

Miss Newman chuckled. "Well, yes, that is true. What I'm getting at is how the master managed to become so good. The master has failed more times than the amateur has tried. My version of you has made more mistakes than you could believe. At times, she has gotten disheart-... she has gotten very sad because of that. However, she always ends up trying again, learning from each mistake, and becoming wiser and more knowledgeable along the way. You're your family's biggest headache, but they still follow along without complaint—or little complaint anyway— because they know that at the end of each road you take them down, no matter how bumpy, you're going to do something great that no one has seen before. You're a master of so many things, but you're also a fool who is wise enough to admit she makes mistakes. Those ponies that want to get you are totally jealous of how great you are."

Charlotte stared, her young mind unable to process that monologue. "I don't know what all that means."

Miss Newman choked back a laugh and ruffled Charlotte's hair. "Admitting you don't know something or understand is the first step in learning. Do what you do, and don't ever get discouraged by failure, and you'll end up great."

"Okay," Charlotte replied, nodding her head.

The old woman looked at the three kids. "How about you three go play in your rooms while your parents and I talk. Is that alright?"

The three girls looked at their parents.

Wendy nodded. "Go ahead, but no going outside." The three girls instantly left the couch and scattered to their rooms.

When they were sure they were all gone, Wendy focused her eyes on Miss Newman. "You didn't mention what Charlotte was a master of or any type of career like the other two."

Miss Newman shrugged. "Do you want to really know when ponies hate her so much that they are willing to go back in time to kill her? Let's leave the subject alone. This Charlotte is going to have a very different life, most likely, so let's focus on giving her a chance to live it and see what happens, shall we?"

Motherly instinct made Wendy want to know, even if she was afraid of the answer, but she had a feeling she'd get rebuffed. "What should we be doing now?"

Miss Newman gestured to the bedrooms. "Packing."

Comments

[Charlie_K]

First we got Terminator vibes, and now we've got Back to the Future vibes. Dare I ask what others 80s icons you're going to be referencing into the story in the coming chapters? Something along the line of Ghostbusters? Robocop? Beetlejuice?