Imperatives

by Sharp Quill

29. Accommodations

Discord crossed his arms. “Simplification it may be, but it’s still true enough.”

Meg met eyes with Twilight, then said, “So… what’s the simplification?”

“I observe possible futures,” Harmony said, “as well as possible pasts, and choose which amongst them to become reality.”

“But time doesn’t branch…” And certainly not in the past. But Relativity pretty much required past, present, and future to co-exist. Kurt Gödel had even argued that General Relativity required that time does not, cannot flow. The only way anything could be possible would be… “Are you referring to superpositions? But the very act of observing collapses it. You can’t observe what might have been.”

Could a tree be said to smile? “Not ‘might have been’; once collapsed, only reality exists. But with our magic, one can observe, prior to the collapse and without collapsing it, the potential realities spawned by evolving wave functions.”

---

“What is your connection to the warehouse?!”

“What were you trying to accomplish?!”

“How did it go horribly wrong?!”

“Is Senator Routledge aware of your connection?!”

“Who’s behind the warehouse?!”

The questions came fast and furious from the press the instant they were allowed into the hotel conference room. The five from the warehouse were frozen, staring at the cameras as if they were a pack of timberwolves. Hurst tried to stare the press down, without much effect. Twilight wasn’t particularly enjoying it either, but at least she wasn’t bearing the brunt of it—and she had the option of leaving if it got out of hoof.

Hurst decided to take more direct measures. “Quiet!” she yelled. “Give me a chance to talk!”

Long seconds passed before the noise subsided. “Thank you. Now I’ve been told you’ve seen an alleged video of events at the warehouse.” The questioning resumed and Hurst held up a hand. Silence resumed. “Now I won’t deny a video was shot, but did you not notice the point of view was up in the air, close to the ceiling? A pegasus was involved. Hardly an unbiased source.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. That was the best she could come up with?

One reporter evidently felt the same. “No other observer present had mentioned any inaccuracies in that video.”

“It’s what wasn’t recorded that’s the problem. I tried to prevent the anomaly, by destroying the machinery that would create it!” She glared at the alicorn. “Twilight, here, prevented that. Furthermore, that machinery didn’t activate by itself. It wasn’t any of us—” she waved a hand at the five “—and the video proves that, so who did? Odd that the video, shot by an Equestrian, ends before that would be revealed.”

All attention focused on Twilight. Here we go again, she thought. “The past cannot be changed. I’ve already demonstrated that mathematically—which, I might add, has yet to be disproven by human physicists. Given that the anomaly did happen, the best one can do is to ensure that it happens on our terms.” She paused, then decided to continue. “What has not been mentioned before is that the magic ‘spell’ they were about to ‘cast,’ according to our analysis, would have destroyed the Earth in a matter of seconds. I was there to add an additional spell that would prevent that, giving us the anomaly that actually happened.”

Twilight glared in return at Hurst and the others. “But none of that would’ve been necessary if not for the research going on in that warehouse. None of you have so much as attended Magic Kindergarten. What made you think you were qualified to play with Starswirl-level spells?”

Hurst desperately jumped at what Twilight had said. “So you admit you operated our machinery, to create that anomaly!”

“I admit I cleaned up your mess, the best that it could be cleaned up. What were you even trying to accomplish?”

“We were trying to protect our world from you!”

Twilight sadly shook her head. “I have nothing more to say.” She invoked the return spell.

---

The Zephyr came to a rest in the darkened sky above Discordland. The theme park below was lit up, dispelling Meg’s fears that it’d be impenetrably dark under the recently raised moon. She used her telekinesis to put on a necklace holding one of Discord’s tokens, then another over to Luna. “This allows us to pass through the barrier surrounding the park.”

The princess took hold of it with her own magic and inspected it. “Curious.”

Meg floated over the third necklace to Fluttershy and placed it around her neck.

“You’re getting the hang of your magic,” the pegasus commented.

“Practice, practice, practice.” The newest alicorn went over to the hatch and opened it—this time using her hoof.

“You have made good progress indeed,” Luna said, making her own way to the open hatch. “Soon you will be ready to cast spells.”

“That’s what Twilight says too,” Meg said, then leaped into the open skies and began to hover.

Luna quickly followed and then Fluttershy. Their destination was ultimately the new hotel, between the park’s encompassing wall and the Everfree, yet still within the barrier. But first they had to go where the portal would open, and that should be outside the main entrance, the same spot Discord had placed it when the other end was in Athens, Greece.

Passing through the barrier was uneventful, and soon all three landed safely distant from where the portal’s materialization point. From this new perspective, Meg took in the hotel. It was hard to describe what it was made of, not from this distance anyway. It’s shape, on the other hand… “Okay,” she began. “So it’s not rectangular.” Or whatever the three-dimensional equivalent for rectangular was called, though the appropriate word to describe the hotel’s shape was obvious enough. “I sure hope it only looks like a Klein bottle and isn’t actually one.”

Luna was perplexed. “What is a Klein bottle?”

“Oh, just a four-dimension object whose inside is the same as its outside. The neck of the bottle doesn’t actually pass through the side… well, we can see that it does, though, can’t we? So it isn’t displaced in the fourth dimension and so it isn’t really one. I hope.” Meg looked at Luna. “Do you think he can actually do that?” There certainly existed extra dimensions in hyperspace in which to displace it.

“Not… that I know of.”

Meg focused on the ground floor. “If it was one, then the bottom would be open and the neck would join the sides at that bottom. Doesn’t really serve a purpose, though, does it? As a hotel, that is.”

Fluttershy frowned. “I don’t understand. Sorry.”

Meg sighed. “Don’t be. I’m not sure any of us do.”

Windows were evident starting about thirty feet up, apparently the start of the guest rooms. They continued all the way up and followed along the neck until it intersected the side. No question about it, gravity would have to shift, following that curvature, but that was definitely something Discord could do.

Speaking of which. “So are you going to show up, Discord, or are you avoiding me?”

Luna’s ears perked up at that. “Why would he be avoiding you?”

“He’s very sorry about that,” Fluttershy said. “He didn’t have a choice. Something about a time loop? Said you’d understand.”

A time loop? Well, duh. Yet Meg couldn’t deny that she ought to understand. But how could he possibly know that a botched voice synthesizer was necessary for the time loop… Luna was looking at her, waiting for her answer. “Because it turned out that he was sabotaging the voice synthesizer project for his friend, The Smooze. I’m guessing that was to prevent me from finding out about my ascension prior to it happening, because there’s another bucking time loop where I meet Smooze, as an alicorn, in the distant past.”

Luna blinked. “So why would that cause Discord to avoid you?”

Meg blinked in return. “Because I’m pissed off at him?”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So when did that ever matter to him?”

“Uh…” She wanted to say, “Since he was reformed,” but that wasn’t true, was it? Even reformed, Discord could still be annoying as hell and not give the slightest shit about it. And it wasn’t just herself that was angry; Smooze was upset too. Was Discord avoiding him as well?

An alarm went off on her phone. It was almost time to open the portal. Meg shook her head to clear it and looked up at the sky. “Fine. I understand time loops, so I provisionally accept your apology. Are you going to give the tour of the hotel or what? I’m about to have the portal opened.”

A flash of light and the draconequus was present. “I chose ‘give the tour,’” he said with a bow. He was in the same getup he had been in when Meg had first visited the theme park.

The alarm was still sounding off. Meg levitated the phone out of its holder and tapped it with her hoof.

Luna cleared her throat. “Meg, you have a decision to make.”

“I do?” She looked down at the floating phone. “Yeah, I guess I do.” The pendant was hanging from her neck, of course. She could chose to use it. Choosing not to meant Andrew and company will know she had become an alicorn.

Well… so what? She couldn’t hide it forever, and she was under no obligation to give Serrell abundant time to prepare for the inevitable news to leak out. In fact, she was getting rather tired of obliging others and getting little in return. “Decision made.”

She made the call to Sunset. “We’re ready for the portal.”

“Opening it now,” replied the unicorn and the call ended.

Not literally “now,” of course. Sunset had to go through the mirror first, obviously. Soon enough, though, the portal came into being. On the other side was Andrew’s living room, where the senior staff was present. Discord was instantly before the portal, but off to the side, and he removed his brown top hat and swept it in a welcoming motion. “Welcome to Discordland, the discordiant place in the multiverse!”

Penny was the first through the portal. “Are you supposed to be Willy Wonka?”

“Who is… ‘Willy Wonka?’”

Penny’s eyes opened wide. “You’re here too, Princess Luna?” She quickly bowed.

“No need for you to bow to me. You are not my subject.”

Discord stood gleefully, top hat returned to his head and both his paw and claw resting on his cane. “It’s a reference, my dear Luna, to a fictional character well known to humans.”

“He’s already pulled it on me and Twilight.”

“But only you got it, Meg.”

“So I’ll arrange a showing of the movie.”

Andrew, Tyler, Joe, and Elaine had all come through the portal, standing next to Penny, and all were staring at Meg. “You’re an alicorn,” Andrew stated.

“I am?!” she exclaimed in mock panic. “When did that happen?”

Discord was suddenly by her side and speared a gold-colored paper star onto her new horn. “You deserve an award for that!”

“Gee, thanks.” It didn’t feel that good. Not painful, but… not pleasant either. Meg went cross-eyed looking up at the offending piece of paper. It glowed turquoise and moved off her horn. She let it drop to the grass.

“Seriously,” Joe asked, “when did it happen?”

“Recently. No, I’m not giving details. Let’s…” She waved at the hotel and started walking. “Get started.”

Discord quickly took the lead as all headed in that direction. He maintained a stately pace, his cane swinging forward with each step. “This is my best work yet, if I say so myself.”

The “bottle” did not slim down as much as you’d think as it bent over, remaining thick enough for a circle of rooms even at its thinnest point. Well, not quite. It did thin down considerably right before it entered the base of the bottle, right below the lowest ring of rooms. Quite frankly, it looked like it ought to tip over, what with that neck being so large.

“Are you immortal now?” asked Elaine.

Meg groaned. Did they really have to go there? She had avoided that up till now. “I don’t intend to put it to the test.”

“That’s… not what I meant.”

Meg knew that, of course. “I really don’t know, and I’d rather not think about that for now.” Because the fallout would be bad enough as it was without that to make it worse. She remembered the questions asked of Twilight at Tirek’s press conference in Tartarus.

“Oh take it from me: you are. I was there when you met your future self, don’t forget.”

Meg glared at the draconequus, not that he would notice since he was looking forwards.

“You met your future self?” Andrew asked. “Really?”

Why did Discord have to pull this shit? They didn’t need to know this. “She—I—my future self—was human, in case you forgot.”

“I remember it perfectly. Taking your human form does not alter nor hide your new nature. You were quite clearly older than you looked. Much older.”

Something that was obvious in hindsight. Her future human self had no trouble manipulating the hyperspatial void, something no alicorn could do today. Even so, it still felt like she was missing something that ought to be obvious.

“How much older?” asked Andrew.

Discord looked up in thought for a second. “Not for me to say.”

Meg pointlessly glared at the back of his head again. He had no trouble blabbing about everything else! It was so… random! She rolled her eyes. Duh. Well, she’d just have to deal with the fallout. That was the choice she made when she remained an alicorn when opening the portal. Anyway, if she truly was immortal, it would’ve come out eventually anyway—like when she didn’t age. Maybe it was truly time to just get it all out of the way. That future self didn’t seem burdened by it.

“Enough about me. That’s not why we’re here.”

“I quite agree,” Luna declared, with the force of a royal decree.

Tyler cleared his throat. “Why are you here, Your Highness?—if I may ask.”

“You may. I am here to see for myself if it is suitable for our little ponies, once this ‘theme park’ is open for business.”

“What about the convention?” Andrew asked. “Will ponies be attending that? Other than as guests of honor, that is.”

Luna considered the question. “I would think so, but we shall see. That is why I am here.”

And the senior staff took it as settled, not saying anything more.

Now that they were almost at the hotel, it was possible to make out what comprised its surface: everything. Each patch, differently shaped, was a different something. Wood, of numerous species. Brick. Concrete. Paint, of countless colors. Grass. Ivy. Was that poison joke? Asphalt. Stucco. Water, that refused to fall down. Crystal. Spaghetti. Rubber. Cloud. Carpet. Fur. Granite. Star-filled night sky? Others Meg couldn’t tell what they were. No two patches were the same. It went up as far as she could make out, though thankfully the windows were just glass—or transparent, anyway. The patches all lethargically shifted about, much like the flower colors on Pandemonium Plaza. But not the windows, as far as she could tell. They were lined up and evenly spaced, as they should be.

The entrance was before them, a rectangular opening in the wall, far wider than tall, yet still towering above them. There were no doors, no way to close it off. It reminded Meg of numerous Hawaiian hotels, where the lobby was open to the elements. Weather would be even less of an issue here.

Inside… was rather conventional, actually. She looked questioningly at Discord.

“I took your advice,” he said, “and restrained myself in these more functional areas. Registration over there.” It could’ve been in any human hotel, apart from the obvious droids behind the counter patiently waiting in vain for guests. “Note that each station can be lowered to accommodate shorter species.” He teleported dozens of feet away. “And here are the transporter pads to various parts of the park.”

Meg quickly flew over to the nearest one. It looked exactly like something out of a Star Trek transporter room. No console though. Each pad was individually half-enclosed and labeled with a map of the park, and on each map was a conspicuous dot. “How does it work?”

“Simple. First step on a pad.” He did so. “Wait five seconds.” And five seconds after he stepped on it, he slowly dissolved, exactly the way it worked on the show, sound effects and all. A few seconds later, he returned, arms spread wide in celebration.

Andrew stepped up to a pad, but did not step onto it, and stared down. “Wow.”

“Uh, how fool-proof is it?” Elaine asked.

Discord looked offended. “I just used it myself.”

“I think I’ll channel my inner McCoy and just walk,” Joe said.

“Suit yourself,” the draconequus grumbled. “Back this way are the conference rooms…”

---

Serrell pressed play on the remote, starting the playback of the impromptu news conference. Twilight, since she had been there, had witnessed the beginning of it, if from a different perspective. It had all been the president’s idea to just release them, their only real punishment being having to deal with the press. Now watching their faces, she wondered if Tartarus would’ve been kinder.

He paused the playback, right after she had mentioned the previously unmentioned. “That wasn’t the plan,” he simply said.

“I know. I felt I needed to justify why I was in that warehouse, now that my presence there had been outed.”

He sighed in resignation. “I figured as much.” He continued the playback and stopped it again at the point Twilight departed. “But it led to that little exchange, which I think sealed the deal.”

The playback resumed, and from this point everything was new to her. The questioning got increasingly hostile. How did they get their hands on “Starswirl-level” spells? How much did Routledge know about this, as Hurst was his observer pick? How much did they really know about magic? Who was paying the bills? The answers were evasive at best. All except Hurst quickly followed Twilight’s lead and departed, pushing their way past the reporters. Hurst didn’t last much longer herself before doing likewise, the reporters pursuing her out the door.

Serrell turned off the monitor and leaned back on the sofa. “Those six have basically gone into hiding. A few news organizations, the ones that still do that sort of thing, have started digging into their backgrounds, who was paying for what, that sort of thing. The Russian observer, Egor, has fully backed you up—even if he gave a few details we’d rather he didn’t.” He smiled. “By the way, expect the Russian Federation to request formal diplomatic relations.”

The made Twilight smile in return. “I’ll be looking forward to it. Hopefully they won’t be the last.”

“I doubt they will be. However, concerning those inconvenient details…” He got up and started pacing around the Oval Office. “He mentioned Meg’s presence and her probable fate.”

“Yeah. That.”

He stopped pacing and gave her a Pinkie-grade smile. Twilight hadn’t seem him so happy in a long time. “Our favorite senator, when he wasn’t demanding answers to that warehouse that he absolutely positively had nothing to do with, effectively said good riddance to poor Meg—though in far, far more words. Can’t wait to see his reaction when the newest alicorn makes her first public appearance.”

What a change from when Serrell had first heard about it himself.

Even so, Twilight grimaced. “She’s not looking forward to that. She’s finding it awkward enough being an alicorn in Equestria because of the whole ‘alicorns are princesses’ thing—which she is not. A princess, that is. Nor does she want to be.”

“Huh. I guess I can see why that might be a problem for her. But that’s none of my business.” He resumed pacing. “But what is my business is dealing with how my world handles her ascension. It’s an interesting problem. I’m open to discussing it with her.”

It was true that Meg would have to deal with that sooner or later. “I’ll mention it to her.”

---

The neck of the “bottle” penetrated the wall above them, coming down until it touched the floor. Meg could swear there were elevator-like doors there. There was even a button to the side. She looked back at Discord. “Elevator, right?”

“Nothing gets past you, my dear Meg!”

“Just one?” Elaine asked. “This many rooms? Should be four, at a minimum.”

“And if this were an ordinary elevator, I would concur.”

Discord did not expand on that, so Meg took the bait. “So what’s special about this elevator?”

The draconequus lifted his cane and use it to press the unlabeled, purely circular “up” button. The doors parted immediately. He went inside. Meg followed him. The interior was as large as one would expect considering the diameter of the tube, enough to effortlessly hold a dozen people. Luna entered next, then the humans, and Fluttershy was last.

“Okay,” Joe said, “it looks like a perfectly ordinary elevator—to me, anyway.”

Meg didn’t disagree. Like with the main lobby, Discord had shown considerable restraint.

He got a grin from their host. “Looks can be deceiving,” he said and pushed the button labeled thirteen. The doors closed.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then Meg noticed that the floor indicator was incrementing—and picking up speed, as if the acceleration never ended. Yet it felt like they hadn’t budged an inch. At the halfway point, the indicator started decrementing with decreasing speed. No sooner had the indicator displayed thirteen, the doors opened, revealing a perfectly normal hallway—normal, that is, apart from its oddly high curvature.

Elaine was perplexed. “Still don’t see how this one elevator is sufficient.”

Discord tipped his hat. “Because there are twenty-three elevator cars, all sharing this one shaft!”

Now Tyler was perplexed. “And how do they get past each other?”

“Magic!”

Meg stepped into the hallway. “Welcome to the true ‘Magic Kingdom.’” Maybe Disney will be sued for false advertising. Eh, probably not. Doors lined the hallway in the typical hotel fashion; mirror-image rooms were paired off, putting their doors next to each other. Looking back, there was the elevator, and only the elevator, on that side of the hallway. Naturally, she thought, the tube isn’t wide enough here for rooms on both sides. Then she noticed the unlabeled, purely circular call button. She pointed at it. “Only one?”

“Obviously,” Discord said, rolling his eyes. “Whether you go up or down depends on which floor you select inside. What could be simpler?”

Penny shrugged. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

It was an interesting scheduling problem, and Meg briefly considered the algorithms needed to make it work. Sure, the individual cars could go past each other—because magic—but only one could be present, door open, on any given floor. Then she dismissed it, remembering who designed the system. After all, shouldn’t “Discord” and “algorithms” be mutually exclusive? Whatever.

She couldn’t see very far down the hallway, due to its high curvature as defined by the diameter of the elevator shaft. Discord turned right and walked to the nearest door. He swept a key card through the usual slot by the door handle—where did that key come from? Stupid question—and with a solid clunk it unlocked.

They all followed Discord into the room—a perfectly ordinary hotel room. Two queen beds. A TV. What channels does that get?

“So this is a human hotel room?” Luna asked.

“Pretty much,” Meg said. She went into the bathroom, also normal.

“And that, I assume, is a human toilet?”

“Sure is. Discord has done his research. I’m impressed.” Meg flushed the toilet. It made perfectly ordinary flushing toilet noises.

“What?!”

Meg ran back into the bedroom, Luna already having teleported there. Penny was standing in front of the window, curtains now drawn. What was Meg’s reaction too. Where the tube entered the “bottle” was plainly visible, as was the grass beneath it, except that it wasn’t down. It was straight out. Like gravity had been…

It clicked. “Thirteenth floor,” she began. “That puts us near the top of the neck, where it’s horizontal?”

Discord waved his cane, urging her to continue.

“So this room must be at the bottom, with a window facing downwards or close enough, and gravity is always parallel to the elevator shaft.”

“Excellent! Have another gold star!”

Before Meg could complain, he slapped another star onto her horn. Grumbling, she removed it. “I guess the weird view is a small price to pay for the thirteenth floor.”

“That’s why everything else is perfectly normal. What better way to commemorate the unluckiest number of all!”

Elaine raised a hand. “So… the other floors?”

Was that an evil grin? “That’s where things get interesting.”