A physicist from Earth figures out how to travel to the fictional realm.
A physicist from Earth, following the destruction of his lab, travels to Equestria so that his life's work won't be completely destroyed. Will he ever find enough power to get back home?
With thanks to my editor and best bro, lunamoon0171 EDIT: lunamoon0171 was my editor for Chapter 1, and for no others. He's just got a lot on his plate.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Categories, characters and rating all subject to change at any time.
If you are reading this, then my experiment has been a success. I have proven that the world of fantasy exists! The fictional world is literally thought into existence, such that all worlds imagined, every beginning to a story, are conjured by the very fact that a person somewhere thought, What if…. Once I get these studies published, I will become the most famous scientist on Earth!
Dear reader, whoever you may be, God bless you if you have read this far. It means you believe me. Now, please help a nuclear physicist out; the journey from earth will exhaust my entire supply of U235, and I’m not sure if this world even has any uranium. Therefore, I need you to help me find enough power to send me home!
There was nothing Rainbow Dash loved more than flying. The exhilaration of wind rushing past her mane, the amazing view of the ant-sized ponies going about their individual businesses, and, most of all, the wild freedom of it all. Of course, if asked, Rainbow would simply state that it’s awesome. Giving elaborate explanations of things was for eggheads like Twilight. She didn't have time for any smart talk like that.
Today, Rainbow was trying to get all the flying time that she could before the prescheduled storm hit. Not that she couldn’t fly in a storm, but she just hated having to maneuver around lightning strikes. The storm is scheduled to come any minute now, she thought. Maybe I should start heading back—
The boom of a thunderclap startled Rainbow from her reverie. Looking up, she saw that the storm was approaching in full force. Great, she thought. She spun around, flying home as fast as she could, grumbling all the way.
A sudden, blinding flash of light caught her attention far below. Looking down, she saw a ring of charred trees, in the center of which was a spot of whiteness. Curious, Rainbow flew down and saw that it was the strangest creature she had ever laid eyes on. Clad from head to foot in white, it seemed to have two legs, like birds, but the similarities stopped there. It didn’t have any feathers, or even fur, except at the top of its head, where a shock of dark brown fur lay. She prodded it with a hoof.
The thing moaned.
Rainbow jumped backward into a tree, and was greeted with a cold shower of loose water droplets running down her neck. The figure sat up, massaging its arm where Rainbow had prodded it. Looking around, it slowly got to its feet (two feet, not four; how strange, Rainbow thought), and lurched unsteadily to the tree in which Rainbow was hiding. It began to hoist itself up.
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted. “I got here first! Get your own tree!”
In its shock, the creature fell off, landing with a thud. It looked up and saw Rainbow in her tree. Slightly irritated, Rainbow continued. “You heard me, find some other tree! Or can you even understand what I’m saying?”
The thing looked taken aback. “Of course I can understand you, I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.” It reached into a pocket on its long, white coat and pulled out a pair of spectacles. It put them on, and said, “In all my life, I never imagined that this would happen. A Pegasus! And one that can talk, to boot! A talking Pegasus!” At this, its eyes widened, its arms began to shake, and a ridiculous grin spread across its face; it looked for all the world as if it had just won the Equestria Lottery.
When he was finished, Rainbow asked incredulously, “What, you mean pegasi don’t talk where you come from?”
The creature chuckled. “Where I come from, they don’t exist, except in myths and legends, of course.”
“What kind of place doesn’t have pegasi?”
“A place called Earth.” The being suddenly looked somber. “It used to be such a beautiful place. Now it is overridden with greed, hatred and cruelty.”
Suddenly curious, Rainbow asked, “What are the ponies like from there?”
“Ponies? They’re mostly kept as pets. Personally, I’ve only met one or two.”
“What are you, anyway? No offence.”
“Me? I’m a human, also known as human being, man, person, and homo sapiens.” He (at least, Rainbow thought it was a he) smiled slightly. “I’m also an adult, a bookworm, a physicist, and, according to some people, a nerd.” His smile disappeared. “Oh God, my lab….” His eyes rolled back, and he fainted.
“Come on, Angel, you need to eat.”
Angel crossed his arms and shook his head. Fluttershy sighed. “Okay, then. You’ll just have to wait until after the storm is over.” She looked outside. The rain was still coming down strong, and showed no signs of relenting anytime soon.
Fluttershy started at a sudden, frantic knocking at her door. She heard Rainbow’s muffled voice coming from the other side.
“Fluttershy! I need help with something!”
Fluttershy opened the door, letting in a soaked Rainbow, dragging in a strange animal.
“He kinda passed out,” Rainbow said.
Fluttershy gazed quizzically at the figure. “Oh my…what is that?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno, he says he’s a ‘human’, whatever that is.”
“Well, let’s get him warming up before he catches a cold.” Fluttershy thought for a moment. “Maybe Twilight knows something about it?”
A few minutes later, the human was bundled up in a thick blanket, in front of the fire.
“I’ve never heard of these humans,” said Twilight, “and I’m pretty sure that Princess Celestia hasn’t, either.”
The three mares were sitting around the fire, each holding a mug of sparkling, sweet apple cider, Applejack’s specialty. As soon as Rainbow had left the man under Fluttershy’s care, she had flown as fast as she could to Twilight’s library.
A groan from the figure in front of the fire caught their attention. He shifted position and fell back asleep. In doing so, a small, leather-bound book slipped from his satchel.
Lifting the book up with telekinesis, Twilight said, “I wonder what this is. Hmm, it seems to be some sort of journal.” She flipped through it, stopping on a page that seemed out of place. It was the last written entry.
Reading aloud, Twilight began, “Thursday, May 20. My dear reader, if you are reading this, then my experiment has been a success. I have proven…”
Dr. Pascal Drake, PhD, had never experienced as much kindness from his peers, who had known him for years, as he was receiving from the three mares tending to him, who had known him for all of four hours. I could learn a thing or two from these ponies, he thought. Me and the rest of the Earth.
As he struggled toward consciousness, he heard a voice speaking. It sounded feminine, and had a light Canadian accent. (He immediately dismissed this thought; these equines wouldn't know Canada from Cambodia.) Listening more closely, he began to make out individual words.
“…and the results were astounding! I could see into the worlds of Harry Potter, Eragon, even Jason Bourne! Why, the implications of this are just incredible! We’re talking—”
Finally finding his voice, Dr. Drake spoke up. “Are you in the habit of reading other people’s journals without asking permission?”
All three ponies almost jumped out of her respective fur when he spoke. Dr. Drake managed to catch the book as the purple unicorn dropped it. He replaced it in his satchel as the two pegasi and the unicorn gradually calmed down.
“Oh,” the pink-maned pegasus stammered nervously, “y-you’re awake.”
“Yes, I’m awake.” Fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out his spectacles and put them on. “Now, I believe introductions are in order. I am Dr. Pascal Drake, PhD, MIT graduate, and ambassador from Earth to…this planet. And you are…?”
“Oh, I’m Twilight.”
“I’m Fluttershy.”
“And I’m Rainbow Dash!”
Jotting these notes down in his journal, Dr. Drake said, “Hmm…I feel like I've heard those names before….” His voice trailed off, and he pulled his laptop out of his satchel. He was shocked to see that he was still receiving the strong Wi-Fi signal from his lab. At least they haven’t destroyed that, he thought with grim satisfaction.
Her curiosity piqued, Twilight asked, “What is that? I've never seen anything like it.”
Dr. Drake glanced up briefly, and then resumed his search. “On my world, we call these ‘laptops’. They are a form of portable computer. Do ponies have computers?”
Twilight looked even more perplexed. “What’s a computer?”
Dr. Drake smiled slightly. “That’s a no, then.” He paused from his work to address her directly. “Imagine every single book, song, and basically iota of information, stored in a virtual database.”
“That would be incredible!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Maybe for an egghead,” Rainbow said to Twilight, earning herself a hoof in the ribs. Ignoring Rainbow, Dr. Drake continued. “On Earth, we call it the World Wide Web. Web, because it connects every computer in the world! A computer being a machine that can be used to determine things, that is. And, the actual connection, we call the Internet.”
A small pop from his laptop caught his attention. Glancing down, he saw that his computer was done searching. He scrolled down to a Wikipedia link, and clicked on it. “Hmm,” he said, “that must be where I've heard those names!”
“No. Freaking. WAY!”
Rainbow’s elated shout made Dr. Drake cringe. The physicist had always had sensitive ears; it was a wonder he hadn't stopped playing violin yet. In a moment of panic, he wondered if he had left his violin in the lab, until he saw on top of his trunk, near the door to Fluttershy’s cottage.
Rubbing his ears, he said, “Well, yes, to a moderately small portion of my world, you all are very famous.” He closed his eyes in concentration. “My younger sister, Megan, watched this show all the time when she was about eight years old, and I was about fourteen. That was twenty years ago.” He opened his eyes.
“In my world, Earth, every single pony in Equestria is regarded as no more than fiction. Megan wanted me to change that. So I drew up plans for a pan-dimensional traveling device. I was never serious about it until a couple years ago, when I decided to just go for it. As you can see, it worked!”
“Really?” Twilight asked, sounding excited.
“Which one of us was…your sister’s favorite?” Rainbow asked energetically.
Dr. Drake rubbed his forehead. “I don’t remember, it was twenty years ago; that’s about 7300 days!” He thought about what he just said. “Okay, that was really nerdy, but my point is that it was over half of my life ago. I suppose she might remember if I asked her, but as of right now, I can’t.”
“Why not?” Twilight inquired.
“I was going to wait until I had a stronger signal from this world; the stronger the signal, the less energy I need to connect to it. I ended up using a lot more fuel than I planned on, and I am now out.”
“Why couldn't you wait?”
Dr. Drake started. “I…I…”
Fluttershy, finally speaking up, said, “I think we've asked him enough questions for now. If you need somewhere to stay, you can stay here.”
Despite his distress, Dr. Drake managed a smile. “I don’t want charity, but I will pay it off to you somehow.”
Fluttershy smiled back. “I’ll think of something.”
From the journal of Dr. Pascal Drake, PhD
I do not know what the date is today, and I don’t care. It has been five days since I arrived in this world, and I now have a more permanent residence then Fluttershy’s cottage. I have been thinking about a way to get home, so I am developing an Elemental Sweeper: a device that will sweep the ground for iron, copper, chromium, nickel, cobalt, and other important metals. While I will be searching for a substance that will store enough energy to get me home, I might as well enjoy myself! So, I will be building a…new mode of transport. Drake, out.
Pinkie Pie was anxious to meet the new guy; it had been a month and she hadn’t so much as said hello! In her defense, though, he hadn’t even been into town yet, so his surprise welcome hadn’t occurred yet. It was Pinkie’s policy, however, that after one month, a party be thrown, whether the new pony had been into town or not. Well, that was actually something she had come up with just now, but that wasn’t the point; he had been here a month, and dag nabbit, he was getting a surprise welcome!
Everypony had been telling her not to go, however; some said he wasn’t even a pony! But you know better: Fluttershy wouldn’t have taken care of him if he wasn’t friendly and nice! So, here she was, bouncing down the trail that led to his makeshift abode. As his house came into view, Pinkie slowed to a stealthy crawl. She crept slowly towards him, and had almost made it to him, when her leg slid into an unexpected hole in the ground, and she let out a surprised, “Oof!”
Dr. Drake spun around, saw Pinkie sprawled awkwardly across the ground, and failed to suppress a chuckle. “Here, let me help you with that.”
“Nope! I’ve got it!” Pinkie said cheerfully, and managed to wriggle her way out of the hole. Brushing herself off, she said, “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! Who are you? What brings you to Ponyville? Why are you way out here instead of in town? What’s that shiny thing over there? Do you have anything that needs unpacking? How lomph ouf gufa tah?”
Pinkie had many more questions to ask, but she decided it would be too hard with a hoof—no, not a hoof. A paw?—anyway, it would be too hard to ask her questions with whatever that thing was over her mouth.
“No more questions, please. I am absolutely filled up to the brim with questions; I do not need any more.” Dr. Drake slowly removed his hoof-paw-thing-y from Pinkie’s mouth, and stepped back. “Now, did you need to see me about something?”
“Oh, yes!” Pinkie said enthusiastically. “You need your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party!” With that, she began opening her Party Pack.
“Oh, dear God, please, no loud, high-pitched noises, Pinkie Pie!” Dr. Drake immediately covered his ears in anticipation.
Pinkie paused and glanced up at him. “Why not?” she asked. “I like loud, high-pitched noises!”
“Yes, well, I don’t,” he replied tersely. Returning to his equipment, he queried, “How’s the Super Element Scanner doing, Twilight?”
On the other side of Dr. Drake’s house, Twilight responded, “The screen is fuzzy, and it keeps reporting various amounts of ridiculous names, like ‘neodymium’, ‘terbium’, and ‘thorium’.”
Dr. Drake started. “Neodymium? Thorium? Those are all rare Earth metals. Does that mean…is there any uranium, per chance?”
Twilight scanned down the list. “No, I don’t see any....There’s a ‘20-kg’ deposit of ‘radium’ somewhere thataway, though.” She gestured idly to the west.
Dr. Drake shook his head in frustration. “No, radium doesn’t have enough radioactive potential. I’d need about a ton of it, and that won’t fit in my transporter.”
Pinkie was watching the conversation intently; so intently, in fact, that she didn’t notice the figure sneaking up on the group….
“Okay, now it’s reading ‘pineapple’, ‘pudding’, and one ‘itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini’. What is going on?”
Dr. Drake jumped over and looked at the monitor. “I don’t know, it shouldn’t be doing that. This is total chaos!”
Pinkie immediately started jumping up and down. “Ooh, like that Discord guy?”
A voice behind them said, “Very good!”
All three of them turned around sharply to meet the figure. It looked like an entire zoo, combined into one creature.
“Discord,” Twilight hissed vehemently.
The draconequus chuckled. “Good, guess, my dear Twilight…but you’re wrong. I am not Discord.”
“And neither am I!” another voice proclaimed.
Spinning around again, the trio saw another draconequus, this one larger than the first.
Mildly frightened, Twilight stammered, “W-what do you want?”
The first draconequus replied, “We’re looking for our father.”
The second said, “We know you saw him last.”
“You will help us find him—”
“—and free him—”
“—or you will face—”
“—the full wrath—”
“—of the sons of Chaos.”
The last phrase they said together, as they had stepped closer and closer to the group.
They were the last words Pinkie remembered before she blacked spaced out.
Long ago, when Equestria was still young, the draconequi ruled the land with an iron fist. Chaotic, merciless, and cruel, the land quailed before its tyrannical king, Discord.
After millennia of Discord’s unbearable dominion, the Elder Ones, who ruled from behind the Veil, and were powerful beyond imagination, decided to bring about a new race to rule Equestria: the noble alicorns. Led by their king, Hemerus, and their queen, Nocturna, the alicorns met the draconequi in battle.
As the Elder Ones watched, however, they realized that it was a losing battle; the draconequi were simply too strong. So, they blessed the king and queen with the most powerful weapons known to ponykind: the Elements of Harmony. With them, the alicorns turned the tides of war and obliterated the bulk of the draconian army.
When they finally arrived at Discord, they were met with the most powerful force they had yet encountered. For every draconequus that died in battle, the draconian king gained said draconequus’ power. Even armed with the Elements of Harmony, the king and queen soon realized that they would never conquer Discord. And so, each monarch made a sacrifice.
King Hemerus, Lord of the Day, sacrificed his power such that his eldest daughter, Celestia, would inherit it. Queen Nocturna, Lady of the Night, sacrificed her power such that her youngest daughter, Luna, would inherit it. Finally, with their dying breaths, the two monarchs cast a spell that imprisoned Discord and the rest of the draconian elite in an alternate dimension in which time did not flow for the next twenty years, while the princesses’ powers grew strong enough to defeat Discord.
When fifteen years had passed, Discord’s two sons, Despair and Destruction, broke free from their bonds. They decided to attack each princess individually. The elder, Destruction, attempted to Ruin Celestia’s pure heart, while the younger, Despair, attempted to erode Luna’s strong will with Hopelessness. Both underestimated the princesses’ strength, and were vanquished. However, to this day, it is said that Princess Celestia’s greatest fear is the Ruination of her people, and that Nightmare Moon had succumbed to the Hopelessness of living in Celestia’s shadow.
When the twenty-year mark had passed, Discord escaped from his prison, and Chaos once again began to rule Equestria. Armed with the Elements of Harmony, the two princesses met Discord in battle. When the Lord of Chaos saw the Elements, he laughed in their faces, telling them of how their parents had utterly failed to defeat him with them. As strong as the bond was between Hemerus and Nocturna, stronger still was the bond between Celestia and Luna; wielding the Elements with raw power never seen before—or since—Celestia and Luna overcame Discord with ease, trapping him in a statue for all of eternity. And ever since, until the incident with Nightmare Moon, Equestria has been ruled in peace.*
* However, it has been said that when the time is right, the Sons of Chaos will once again walk the land, and free their father. Although powerful apart, legend has it that the three together are completely invincible.
Dr. Drake knew that he should be terrified, or at the very least, nervous. For God’s sake, the two creatures leading the three of them away were the sons of the God of Chaos himself! In actuality, he was almost catatonic with fear, but two decades’ worth of derision from his peers throughout secondary school, college, and his career, he had learned to master his emotions; to acknowledge, but not react to them.
As it was, he allowed a small amount of fear to sharpen his mind. Thinking rapidly, he realized that he still had an experimental weapon in his satchel. Maybe as a last resort…. He ran a mental inventory of his belongings. He had the Elemental Sweeper, his laptop, a lead-lined container, some water, and a random AA battery. I’m doomed....
Dr. Drake started. No, that wasn’t all he had. He also had a small device with an antenna and a single button. He checked his pockets; sure enough, it was still there. As stealthily as possible, he pushed the button.
A small ping alerted him that his ride was on its way. Now he just needed a diversion.
“What was that?” one draconequus—Despair, Dr. Drake thought—hissed.
“What was what?” Destruction demanded.
Despair paused. “I must be hearing things.”
At that moment, a small roar became audible, and was rapidly getting louder. Dr. Drake broke into a run, and vaulted onto his Jet-Pack Motorcycle 3000. Thankful that his radiation goggles were still on, he quickly extended the wings and spun around.
Having been caught by surprise, the Sons of Chaos were too dumbstruck to retaliate. Seeing that Twilight was the closest, he veered toward her and held out a hand. Seeing it, Twilight held out a hoof, and Dr. Drake swung her up and over into one of the twin sidecars.
Turning around so fast that he saw stars, Dr. Drake headed in to rescue Pinkie Pie. Twilight, regaining her senses, charged up her horn for an attack on the two draconequi.
Unfortunately, Destruction and Despair had also regained their senses, and began surrounding themselves with a cyclone. Vague memories from flight camp when Dr. Drake was fifteen suddenly kicked into sharp focus as he swerved around the cyclone. Twilight began to shoot beams into the cyclone, attempting to disrupt the wind rip.
In his desperation, Dr. Drake remembered the weapon in his satchel. Reaching inside, he pulled out the high-power stun grenade capable of reducing a grown man to a gibbering imbecile for a full week. He primed it and closed his eyes as tightly as he could, and then threw it toward the giant wind rip. “Close your eyes!” he shouted at Twilight, and yanked her down.
A powerful flash of light erupted from the cyclone, bright enough to be visible through the metal hull of the JPM. As soon as he was absolutely certain that it had died down, he leaned over the side to examine what had happened. He immediately registered two things.
(1) The two Sons of Chaos were heavily dazzled, possibly even blinded, and
(2) Pinkie Pie appeared to be having a conniption.
As it finally dawned on him what he just did, the JPM was suddenly sent hurtling through the air, crashing down next to Dr. Drake’s hut. Both he and Twilight blacked out on impact.
When he woke up, Pinkie Pie and the two draconequi were gone.
With a jolt, Twilight snapped her eyes open. She glanced around and was mildly confused that she was not in her bed at the library, but lying on the ground near Dr. Drake’s now-demolished hut.
She tried to stand up, and her skull immediately pulsed with pain. She slumped back to the ground and mumbled, “Oh, my head feels like it’s about to explode! Although, technically, a headache cannot literally cause one’s head to explode, but rather—”
“Yes, yes, I am quite aware of how a headache works. I had many when I was a kid, after all.” He paused. “I don’t think this is a headache, though, I think it’s a concussion.”
“A con cuss—ow!” Twilight attempted to say as another wave of pain hit her head.
“Don’t try to move, it’ll only make it worse.” Dr. Drake stood back, hands on hips. “You’re lucky it’s only mild. That crash had the potential to give you permanent brain damage. Wait here; I should have some ice in my hut.” He turned around and immediately froze. “Twilight.”
“What is it?”
“What do you know about perytons?”
“Uhm…they’re creatures that are hybrids of elk and eagles, are viscous predators, and are attracted to chaos magic. Why do you ask?”
“What would you do if I told you that there are four angry-looking perytons on their way to our current position?”
“Uh…panic?”
“Then there aren’t four angry-looking perytons on their way to our current position. Don’t move.”
He disappeared from Twilight’s field of vision, giving her a clear view of four angry-looking perytons on their way to her current position. She realized that her earlier statement was, in fact, false; she didn’t have the energy to do anything but just lie there, hoping the perytons didn’t spot her.
Her hope was in vain; the leader of the peryton flock let out a screech and swooped down to pick her up. She closed her eyes and regretted that she wouldn’t live long enough to help the good-natured physicist get home.
A bolt of white plasma struck the peryton when it was inches away from Twilight, knocking it to the ground. The other perytons, poised to strike, paused at the display of power.
“Back off,” Dr. Drake growled as he planted a single rubber boot on the downed peryton. “Back off, or this one gets it!” The perytons paused, as if they were actually considering it. Then, one of them screeched and dove, talons and hooves outstretched, toward Twilight.
“Oh no you don’t!” Dr. Drake shouted, and cranked the object in his hand up to full power. Another bolt shot from the object, even brighter this time. Twilight tasted ozone as the winged menace was struck full on by the high-amperage electricity. Within seconds, it had been reduced to a fine black powder.
The other two perytons, realizing what they were dealing with, screeched in unison and flew away. Their leader struggled to get off the ground, but Dr. Drake slammed its skull with the metal weapon, knocking it out cold.
He walked over to Twilight. “I’d better get you somewhere safe before more perytons get here. Sorry you had to see that.”
“Why…you…kill…?”
“Well, it was about to do something horrible to you. What was I supposed to do?”
“Where…you…go…?”
“I’m going to see if Fluttershy can do something about this annoying peryton.” He checked the power left on the strange device. “Damn, this thing took hours to charge, and now it’s all out.”
“How…perytons…chaos magic….”
“Yes, that is strange,” Dr. Drake admitted. “I had always thought that only Harmony magic could counteract chaos. Hmmm…. You say perytons are creatures of chaos?”
Twilight grunted in the affirmative; she had no energy to do anything more.
“Electricity, is very orderly…that’s how it gets energy, by ionizing the particles in the air, producing an electromagnetic field…. Whatever the reason, one thing’s for certain.” He looked Twilight dead in the face.
“I know how I can save Pinkie Pie.”
Chapter 7: Melodious Harmony, Realistic Fiction, and Orderly Chaos
Melodious Harmony, Realistic Fiction, and Orderly Chaos
As the great, glowing orb of Celestia’s power descended further in the sky, Dr. Drake waited. Twilight, having recovered somewhat from both the attacks of the Sons of Chaos and the perytons, had managed to get a letter written to the princess, and a royal escort directly to the palace was on its way in order to discuss possible courses of action.
In the meantime, Dr. Drake played. As his bow flew across the strings of his aged violin, the idle tune that flowed forth spoke of spring nights spent gazing at the stars. It was a not-very-well-known movement of a famous piece from Earth, but went unknown in the land of Equestria. It made him feel at peace every time he played it.
The soft, sharp sound of hooves on cobblestone caught his attention, and he paused momentarily. “Now, what would a pony such as yourself be doing this far from town on a fabulous spring evening?”
He turned around to see a startled grey mare with a black mane pulled out of her face and violet eyes. She had a treble clef cutie mark. She looked simultaneously frightened and awed by him. He already knew her name; he’d been doing his research over the past couple weeks.
“Octavia, I presume?”
“You…how…?”
“Never mind that. I must ask, though, what could have possibly brought you out here on such a fine evening?”
“Your music…I’ve never heard that piece before.”
He chuckled. “I’m not surprised; it’s not Equestrian in origin. It’s not even from this world.” To her perplexed expression, the physicist continued. “That was the violin solo from the second movement of La Primavera, ‘Largo’, by a composer named Antonio Vivaldi.”
“Who is that?” Octavia queried.
“Oh, he was just one of the most famous composers of the Baroque time period on Earth. La Primavera, or ‘Spring’, as is its translation from Italian, was—is—the first piece in his most famous suite, ‘The Four Seasons’. He also wrote more than 100 violin concerti, including the twelve found within ‘The Four Seasons’, and at least fifty bassoon concerti.” A sigh of nostalgia left Dr. Drake, and then he continued, “I used to play bassoon. What with my doctorate and my line of work, though, I could only keep playing one instrument.”
“Well…I play cello,” Octavia remarked in a passing tone.
“Oh, do you now?” the doctor said with intrigue. “We simply must play a duet together sometime, you and I. You know, I tried cello once. God, that was fun! Played it for a whole month! That, I guess, is one of only a handful of happy memories from eighth-grade orchestra. Tell me, Octavia, do you know of any other musicians living in Ponyville?”
“Well, there’s Lyra Heartstrings, she plays lyre. And my roommate, Vinyl—”
“Vinyl? Your roommate is the Vinyl Scratch?”
Octavia looked taken aback. “You know her?”
“Of course! She’s DJ-P0N3, isn’t she? Of all the background ponies, she and Derpy are the only ones who actually interact with the main characters! Someday, I will have to go to your house and meet her in person!” He then sighed inwardly. “Of course, if all goes well with the Princesses, I will be busy for the next several weeks.”
Dr. Drake suddenly jumped up. “Oh dear God, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Drake, but you can call me Pascal.”
She shook his greeting off. “What, in the name of Celestia, are you going on about?”
“The short story is that I discovered a formula for fiction-travel, and I came here.”
“So…,” Octavia began to say uncertainly, “you’re saying that me, Ponyville, the princesses…all of this…isn’t real?”
“On the contrary, my dear Octavia,” Dr. Drake explained. “This world, and its inhabitants, is as real as the person who first imagined it. It is as if the idea caused a seed to be planted in another dimension, which then grew into this. Many similarities exist, and yet this place also dreamed up its own unseen characters, people and ponies that wouldn’t exist if this was mere fiction.”
“So…what exactly are you saying?”
“Let me see here….” the physicist said thoughtfully. “Do you arrange, Octavia?”
Octavia looked taken aback. “Arrange?”
“Yes. Do you arrange musical pieces to fit unusual ensembles? If I was talking to Vinyl, a better term would be ‘remix’, but somehow I doubt you remix music.”
“Uh…well, Vinyl has done several remixes.”
“Well, this would be like that, then. She finds someone else’s musical work, and adapts it to fit a different format. At its core, the piece isn’t hers, but everything built up around that core is. This world, at its very core, is the concept of itself; everything else is reality.”
“Okay…I guess that makes sense.”
Dr. Drake sat back and inhaled deeply. “These sensations…the vibrant color, crisp sound, all of it…it’s almost too real to be real, though. I must say, for having sprung from the imagination of a person, this place is breathtakingly…well, for lack of a less repetitive word, real. Minus the magic, the mythical creatures, and ‘good trumps evil’ mentality, of course.”
“Sorry?” Octavia asked, but Dr. Drake didn’t hear her, for suddenly a pegasus-drawn carriage descended from the sky, landing directly in front of the pair of musicians.
“Oh, look at that, my ride’s here!” the doctor exclaimed, hastily putting his violin away. “It was nice meeting you, Octavia. May you have good fortune in your music!”
He swiftly clambered into the carriage, coming face-to-face with a white, blue-maned unicorn and a pink, pink-and-purple-maned alicorn. He chuckled aloud.
“I knew I was important, but royalty are escorting me to the palace?” He dipped his head in respect. “Princess Cadence, Prince Shining Armor, pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Doctor,” Cadence said in pretend exasperation, “there’s no need for formalities.”
“On the contrary, Prince and Princess, there is every need for formalities; why else call me by my title?”
It was Shining Armor who responded this time. “When Princess Celestia sent us to deliver you to the palace, she only said you were a doctor of some sort.”
The middle-aged physicist smiled at this. “Fair enough; I am Dr. Pascal Drake, but please, call me Pascal, Pr—Cadence and Shining Armor.”
“Thank you,” Cadence replied. “Now, if I may ask, what brings you to seek an audience with the Princess—and to have it granted?”
“You may. Now, Shining Armor, is it that you remain the captain of the Royal Guard?”
“It is.”
“Then, surely, you must know that the ancient Sons of Chaos, Destruction and Despair, once more walk this earth?”
“Of course, but how could you know that? That’s highly confidential information!”
“It was I who reported their reappearance to the Princesses, but that is neither here nor there; I have discovered an exploitable weakness.”
Shining Armor’s jaw dropped and Cadence had to ask the question burning through his mind. “How?”
“Even though my doctorate is in nuclear physics, I have been fascinated with electricity since I was—well, younger than our Cutie Mark Crusaders, actually. One of my greatest historical heroes was a man who revolutionized electricity, and could have done so even further. I essentially continued his work where he left off, and took a weaponized version of his greatest invention with me—after all, I could have been entering the middle of a battlefield.
“After Twilight and I fought with the Sons of Chaos—long story, I might tell you on the way back—we were attacked by a small flock of perytons, which are creatures of chaos, just like the draconequi, albeit less powerful. I took this weapon and fired full-power at one of them, and it disintegrated. I know it doesn’t—well, didn’t; it’s currently out of power—have the amperage to do something like that to a creature of chaotic origins, so it must be something else. Then it hit me: of course, it must be ionization! As the blaster supercharged the air around it, the ions polarized, becoming immaculately orderly on a molecular level.
“And although this prototype doesn't have the amperage to turn full-fledged draconequi to ash, what if I could build a version that did? That is why I’m seeing the Princesses.”
Princess Celestia sat, patiently, waiting for her audience to arrive. As soon as she had read in Twilight’s latest letter that this new friend of hers had discovered a method by which the draconequi might be defeated, she had requested that the doctor travel to the palace at once.
She heard the soft steps of his approach, and one of the guards said, “Halt! What business have you in the royal throne room?”
“I do believe I have an appointment with the Princess? I’m Dr. Drake.”
The two guards muttered amongst themselves, and agreed to open the throne room to him. As he walked in, Celestia recoiled mentally. As far as she knew, the long-dead human race was older even than the draconequi, having been displaced and exterminated centuries before the alicorn race walked the planet.
Dr. Drake walked about halfway down the throne room and knelt. “Your royal highness, Princess Celestia, I thank you for granting my humble request.”
“Rise, Doctor,” Celestia commanded. After the human rose to his feet, she continued. “Alicorns live to infinite natural ages. I have been on this planet since the Fall of the Draconequi, eons ago. And yet, in all my years, both past and yet to come, I never expected to encounter one of the human race.”
“Oh?” Dr. Drake queried, intrigued. “So humans once walked this planet?”
“Yes. They originated at least two millennia before the dawn of the draconequi, and were exterminated long before the first of my kind set hoof on this world. Or at least, so I thought. I must have been mistaken.”
“With all due respect, Princess, I highly doubt that. You see, I am not of Equestria, or even this entire planet. In fact, I am from the world that gave birth to this one: Earth.”
“Please explain, Doctor.”
The physicist grinned. “With pleasure, Princess. On my world, you, Luna, Twilight, Equestria, the draconequi, and the Elements of Harmony are all pure fiction. I discovered that all humans are capable of the power of creation, and thus, when the creator of this particular piece of fiction dreamed it up, it was actually created in another universe. I have since discovered an algorithm, allowing me to travel to this fictional universe. And so, here I stand.”
“This is all very fascinating, Doctor. Unfortunately, however, you are not here to discuss the origins of the world, are you?”
“Of course; I am here to present my findings, as well as a request. As you know, the Sons of Chaos have escaped whatever dimension in which they were imprisoned. They confronted myself, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie. Twilight and I were able to fight our way out, but Pinkie was captured.”
He pulled a cloth-wrapped object out of his pocket and continued. “As you also know, Twilight and I were ambushed by a flock of perytons. As you also know, I managed to kill one and take another captive. As you do not know, I used electricity to do it.”
He had finished unwrapping the metal weapon with which he destroyed a peryton. It consisted of a thick copper coil, ending at a large copper ball at the end. A handle was attached to the base of the coil, with a trigger and finger guard.
“This is a prototype of a weapon I intended to design before I left Earth. It basically sends high-voltage and –amperage electricity everywhere within a given range. Now, what electricity does to the air is polarize it, pull order from the chaos. Do you see what I’m trying to say here, Princess?”
“I do, and this is astounding! Now, you said you had a request?”
“Well, two, actually; the earth around this region of Equestria shows obvious signs of a high concentration of iron. I need iron, nickel, cobalt, aluminum, and copper to replicate these blasters, and smiths to smelt the raw ore.”
“Granted. And your second request?”
“These blasters will have to run on solar energy, and take weeks to fully charge. If we are to take on the Sons of Chaos without all of the Elements of Harmony, I will need as much power as possible, as soon as possible. I understand that you personify the Sun?”
“Yes, I can easily fill up your blasters.”
“Thank you, Princess. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” Dr. Drake smiled at Celestia. “Am I dismissed?”
Celestia smiled back. “You are. Do what you must to save our lost Element.”
Dr. Drake and the four Elements of Harmony (despite their best attempts, they were unable to convince Fluttershy to join them) trekked across the Equestrian landscape. The two Princesses had been searching the nation for any abnormal amounts of chaos energy, and had spotted a mountain of it to the far east of Canterlot. The motley band had travelled for almost a week now, each member having plugged his or her ears with moss long ago in order to block out Rarity’s incessant complaining.
Suddenly, the nuclear physicist halted, checking his Elemental Sweeper. Sure enough, the ridiculous readings were scrolling across the screen. “Girls, we’re here.”
“Oh thank goodness, my mane has gotten so unkempt, and—”
“Shut it already, Rarity!” Rainbow Dash called from the sky.
Dr. Drake had been opening up what seemed to be a large briefcase. Inside laid seven curious devices. Each one consisted of a steel casing surrounding a copper coil that ended in a large copper ball. The casings were rotatable, and a trigger protruded from each base. The trigger was designed to be used by hoof, hand, or magic.
They were Tesla blasters.
As the doctor beheld the weapons, he shook his head sadly. “If Tesla could see this, he would be so disappointed,” he muttered under his breath. Speaking up, he said, “Girls, here’s how you work the blasters. Step one, twist barrel to desired setting. Step two, aim at target. Step three, fire!”
Twilight still looked rather skeptical. “These are the Sons of Discord we’re talking about here. Are you sure these have enough energy to hold them off?”
“Combined, these should have enough energy to power New York City for a month. I think there’s enough juice in them to keep a draconequus at bay,” was Dr. Drake’s calm reply. “Sorry, New York is an Earth city; the Equus equivalent, if memory serves, is Manehatten.”
Four pony jaws hit the ground. Applejack was the first to recover, saying, “Well, I’ll be.”
Dr. Drake had begun distributing the gleaming weapons. “Now, there are seven of these things. One for each Element, and one for me. Since we are short two Elements, I will take one extra, and the other will go to—”
“Me! I’ll take it!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly as she idly twirled her own blaster. As it spun, she accidently pulled the trigger, sending a surge of yellow-white plasma into a nearby pine. The pine held its shape for a few seconds, and then collapsed in a pile of black dust.
“Yeah, no,” the physicist replied, thoroughly unamused. He lobbed the remaining blaster in the direction of Twilight. “Twilight, catch.”
“Now, here’s what we’re gonna do….”
The five of them were arranged in position. The two draconequi in the pit below had yet to realize they were there. Everything was ready.
“CHAAAAAAAAAAARGE!” Dr. Drake shouted, leaping from his hiding spot. Three other figures followed suit. The Sons of Chaos, not as caught off guard as the motley band would have hoped, merely pulsed the four beings away with an air wave.
Dr. Drake stood back up, snarling, and aimed his two blasters at larger draconequus—Destruction. Destruction merely laughed. “Foolish human. I’ve killed scores of your kind! What makes you different from them?”
“They weren’t from Earth,” the doctor growled, and then squeezed both triggers.
The huge draconequus was caught off guard by the sheer amount of force behind the weapons. He staggered back, off-balance.
At that point, Twilight threw a magical flare high up in the air. Shortly thereafter, a rainbow-colored shockwave could be seen, followed by an explosion. In an iridescent flash, a prismatic blur flew by and four cyan hooves impacted directly into Destructions side, half burying the draconian elite in the edge of the pit.
Despair began whipping up another wind rip, but the five destroying angels were too fast for him. The great draconequus screamed in agony as his body endured the equivalent of seven lightning strikes per second. By the time the human and the four ponies finished, Despair’s body was glowing red-yellow.
A brief flare of her horn and Twilight had located Pinkie Pie, and the group of ponies plus human rushed over to her. Without delay, Twilight’s horn flared red-purple, and the six of them teleported as far away as she could take them.
As soon as they were no longer in immediate danger, Rainbow, Twilight, Rarity and Applejack positively gushed over Pinkie, going on and on about how worried they were while Pinkie tried (without success) to reassure them that she was fine.
Dr. Drake, on the other hand, was examining the pit whence they had just come through a pair of field glasses. He was curious as to what would happen to the old god. All his questions were answered and all the chatter behind him ceased when a deafening explosion reverberated throughout the vale.
“What in tarnation?” Applejack asked incredulously, summing up how everypony felt.
“I don’t know, AJ,” the nuclear physicist responded. “If I had to take a guess though….”
The huge draconequus charged up over the edge of the pit. He had been bested by a puny mortal, and he intended to show said mortal what happened to those who bested him. “You little piece of nothing, I’ll--!” he shouted, then stopped dead in his tracks. There was no sign of the human or the five equines. However, there was a figure lying in the center of the pit, glowing with energy discharge. Without pause, Destruction rushed to his younger brother’s side.
“No…no no no no, what’s happening to you?” Destruction pleaded.
The smaller draconequus looked up at Destruction. “Brother…I am dying.”
“No!” Destruction said, clasping Despair’s lion paw in his own. “Don’t say that…you can’t die…Father told me to protect you….”
Despair chuckled slightly. “You could not have done a better job, Brother. That human…it is not of this world. It used technology from some foreign dimension…something against which I had no chance.”
“There must be something, anything!”
“No, nothing can save me now,” Despair said calmly. “Do you remember the day Father appointed us as commanders in his army?”
Destruction nodded, tears beginning to flow.
“That day, we swore to always be at each other’s back, and that, should one of us fall, the other would find the bastard who did it, and make him wish he were never born.”
“I remember, Brother,” Destruction whispered.
“Don’t let me die in vain, Brother,” Despair replied, his voice hoarse. “Take my power. Find the human. Tear its soul asunder. Avenge me….”
At that point, Despair’s eyes rolled up, and his body went limp, the glow slowly fading.
Without hesitation, Destruction ripped into his brother’s body, searching for Despair’s seat of power. He found it, and held it up, the object’s fierce glow rivaling that of the sun.
His heart.
Not wasting a second, Destruction opened his maw wide and swallowed the organ whole.
He gagged, not from what he had just swallowed, but from the sudden influx of raw energy. He held his talon in front of him and watched in morbid fascination as it doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size. His head ballooned out, causing him to cry out in pain. He loosed a skyward scream, followed by a massive explosion.
The now-gargantuan draconequus stood at the epicenter of the energy release. He looked around, seeing what he had been able to accomplish with just a minor drain on his power, and he laughed.
We are not Destruction. We are not Despair. We are not even Discord.
Lieutenant Commander Carmichael winced at the ferocity directed at his superior officer. They had just filed their report to the Director, and the Director was highly displeased.
The Director, in appearance, was every bit as immaculate as the former army general he claimed to be. He was of average height, with a close-cropped black hair and a crisp, three-piece suit. He had piercing blue eyes that made you feel like the deepest secrets of your soul were being pulled under a microscope, analyzed, processed, filed away for future use. The Director ran the place like an army, even going as far as to assign army titles to his subordinates.
And the Director was a man you did not want to cross.
Commander Johnson shuffled uncomfortably under the Director’s glare. “Uh…we, uh…blew the lab up, sir.”
Johnson’s head reeled as the Director backhanded him. “You imbecile! You had one job: bring me the Traveler. Kill the scientist, if you must, but bring the Traveler here.
“And you destroyed it!” The Director’s fury seemed to know no bounds. The slightly portly Johnson winced at the Director’s tirade.
The Director shot his hand out and grabbed Johnson’s lapels. He yanked the profusely sweating officer in until their faces were inches apart. His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “Commander, you have failed.”
With that, the Director shoved Johnson into a row of guards, who immediately restrained his arms. The director snarled, “I relieve you of duty. Take him to the Chamber!”
Johnson’s eyes bugged out as the guards began marching him down the hall. “No, please, not the Chamber! No…!” He continued to scream until he was too far away to be heard.
Carmichael merely stood and watched, and felt a grudging sorrow for his former superior. He knew all too well what happened in the Chamber; he used to shudder at the thought of it.
“Lt. Commander Carmichael!” the Director snapped.
“Yes, sir!” Carmichael replied without delay.
“You have one sentence to save yourself. Now!”
Carmichael had expected something like this. If he could not come up one sentence that would appease the Director, he would suffer the same fate as Johnson. He had prepared for this.
“We found a black box, and it contained the blueprints for the device, sir.”
The Director stared at Carmichael with that icy, piercing gaze, for an uncomfortably long period of time, as if discerning whether the inferior was telling the truth. Carmichael matched the glare.
Finally, the Director nodded, and said, “I hereby promote you to Commander. Take these blueprints to Smith, and for God’s sake, get me that goddamned device!” The Director spun around, waving his hand to dismiss Carmichael.
Carmichael had never walked so fast in his life.
Chapter 12: Stay Awhile -or- God Out of the Machine
Pinkie Pie was the best at throwing parties, but the “Welcome Back” party the Ponyvillians gave the motley band came pretty dang close.
Dr. Drake had never felt so stuffed full of amazingly delicious apple fritters, nor had he felt so exhausted from sheer excitement. The ponies were so relieved to have their little pink party house back that the party had already lasted several hours, and was still in full swing.
The hero of the mission, however, had mysteriously disappeared.
Dr. Drake sat in his makeshift abode, now running calculations and crunching numbers to figure out how much uranium he would need to make the jump between dimensions. Four-dimensional travel was really quite complex, not to mention five dimensions. If he wanted to get back home near when he left, it would take nearly triple the energy it took to get there. He sighed, rubbing his forehead with his fingers.
A sudden rapping at the door made him almost jump out of his skin. “Oh, c-come in,” he stammered, futilely attempting to clear off his work table.
A reddish-purple nimbus wreathed the doorway, and Twilight stepped in. “What are you doing here? Everypony’s looking for you.”
Dr. Drake chuckled, somewhat guiltily. “Erm, well, I was…um….” He floundered, at a loss for what to say.
Twilight glanced over all the scribbled notes at his work table. “You’re…you’re getting ready to leave us, aren’t you? After all you’ve done for us? You can’t just leave!” The lavender mare was getting hysterical by this point.
The physicist was taken aback by Twilight’s vehemence. “Whoa, there, Twilight…I’m going to be sticking around for a good long while, you can count on that.”
Twilight looked back up at him, eyes shimmering in the low light. “Promise?”
“Well, I still need to get the uranium for the trip home, and calculating the coordinates is probably going to take at least another week or so. Five dimensions, you know. God, now I know how the Doctor feels.”
Twilight’s look of distress morphed into one of puzzlement. “The Doctor? As in, Doctor Whooves?”
Dr. Drake nodded. “Except on my world, the Doctor is humanoid and fictional. And we call him Doctor Who.” He paused briefly. “Although, with the FIR Traveler, he could become less fictional. Hmm…”
“Anyway,” Twilight said, not wanting Dr. Drake to get distracted further, “Pinkie Pie promise you’ll stay for a while?”
The doctor smiled at the unicorn. “Pinkie Pie promise.”
Twilight stared expectantly at him.
“What? Do you seriously—Ugh, fine,” Dr. Drake said, rolling his hazel eyes in exasperation. Then, with the appropriate hand motions, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
When he was finished, the two scholars—one of magic, the other, science—stared at each other for an awkwardly long time. Then Twilight snorted, and both of them lost it. As they stood there, laughing, it occurred to Dr. Drake that he and Twilight almost seemed to fit together, like two adjacent pieces in a puzzle. Although he much preferred working solo, if he had had a colleague like Twilight, he was sure that his work would have been so much easier.
Maybe it still could.
“Hey, Twilight? How would you feel about helping me crunch some numbers for the FIR Traveler?”
Twilight’s head snapped up. “R-really? I’d love to!”
“Well, I’d better show you the ropes on FIR theory, then. Okay, first, just imagine….”
Man and mare discussed the Fiction Is Reality theory at length for the better part of three hours. Twilight learned much about conceptualizing the imagined, and gave many insightful comments that Dr. Drake had not yet considered.
Twilight broke off topic to interrupt the physicist. “Um, Doctor—?”
“Twilight, I’ve told you a million times, call me Pascal.”
“Um, okay…Pascal, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. Since that day when the perytons attacked.”
“Okay…?” Dr. Drake replied, not exactly sure where this was going.
“And then there’s all these things you’ve done, just out of the goodness of your heart. You didn’t have to help Fluttershy out with her animals, you didn’t have to rescue Pinkie, you didn’t have to save me. You are an amazing stallion—”
“Man,” the doctor corrected.
“—whatever. You are an amazing man, and I just wanted to say that I—”
This time, Twilight was interrupted by a massive shockwave that rocked the ground beneath them. Both she and Dr. Drake fell over. Dr. Drake was the first to recover, saying, “What the hell was that?”
His question was answered when a two-toned voice emanating from the town square reached them, saying, “Bring the human here, or suffer!”
Dr. Drake slung his satchel and ran out the door as fast as he could—which was actually not very fast at all when compared to a pony’s canter. Still, he was just within the edge of Ponyville by the time Twilight tackled him to the ground—close enough to see the behemoth of a draconequus in the town square.
“You won’t bring him? Well, we guess we’ll have to…persuade him to come,” it said, cackling maniacally. It searched the ring of ponies at the edge of the square, before lifting a carefully chosen mare high into the sky with telekinesis.
Dr. Drake recognized her dark gray coat almost instantly. Octavia.
“Twilight, get off me!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“Do you want that mare to die?”
Twilight hesitated.
That was all Dr. Drake needed to shove her off of him and allow him to sprint the rest of the way, shouting, “You bastard! Set her down!”
The draconequus turned to face the physicist. “Ooh, look who showed up. The human that bested our younger brother. The human that murdered him!”
With a snap of its lion paw, Octavia reappeared on the ground, visibly shaken. A white unicorn galloped up to her side, calming her down.
Meanwhile, realization overcame Dr. Drake as he realized just to whom he was speaking. “Destruction…?”
“Destruction is no more! We ascended when we absorbed our brother’s power! We are now Death, and Death shall be your downfall!”
Death’s lion paw glowed with black energy, lifting the doctor into the air. His satchel was tugged open, and the FIR Traveler flew out, landing in Death’s outstretched paw.
“Well, what have we here…a device to travel between worlds? How convenient…for us, that is.”
The paw closed, and Dr. Drake shouted, “NO!”
Death’s arm underwent a dramatic transformation, and in seconds, it had become a machine.
Death slashed at the air with a talon, creating a rift in space-time, and spat, “Go back to the hell whence you came, human!”
Death’s mechanical arm snapped to the side, and the physicist flew through the rift, which closed immediately afterward.
Carmichael stood outside the technician’s room, trying to decide whether to knock on the door. Axel Smith had always unnerved him.
Nobody knew anything of the superb technician, not even the Director, and the Director knew everything about everyone in the Order. When Smith arrived at the Order’s headquarters, he looked for all the world like the antagonist in that one ancient Sci-Fi movie—Sun Battles? Wormhole Fights? Star Wars, that was it—full-body black clothes, full-face mask, black cape, even a voice changer. Smith had been bold in his approach of the headquarters: he seemed to walk through the entire security system as easily as one might step around an obvious tripwire. The sentries tried to gun him down, but all of the turrets suffered simultaneous technical failure. Smith was untouchable. Smith was brilliant.
He had walked directly up to the intercom, had buzzed for the Director, and had said, in his gravelly, modified voice, “I’m applying for head technician.”
He had been immediately admitted to the Director’s office.
They had stayed in the office for hours. Nothing seemed to be getting done…until the power shut off. Everything in the tower had just died—phones, computers, holojectors, elevators, everything. It lasted for about twenty minutes, and then everything returned to normal. Smith and the Director walked out of the office, the Director obviously infuriated, Smith still wearing his expressionless mask, and walked to the thirteenth basement level, where everything electrical was monitored.
The next day, the former head technician, a subdued, scrawny man named Wilson, had been sent to Chamber, and Smith had replaced him. Every member of the Order feared and respected him; anyone who could frighten the Director that badly and not suffer his wrath was a force with which to be reckoned.
Hence, Carmichael’s hesitation. That, and the startling similarity between the respective intellectual prowesses of Smith and—
Carmichael’s line of thought was suddenly cut short when Smith’s deep voice spoke from the intercom outside his office door. “I know you’re there, Commander, and I know you don’t come down here just to chat. Although, God knows the scenery practically makes conversation in and of itself. Don’t you agree, Commander?”
Carmichael sighed inwardly. Smith’s unnatural sarcasm was probably his most distancing trait. “May I come in?”
“But of course, my dear Commander. You are always welcome here.”
Carmichael winced, then opened the door.
The main tech area was nothing special, just six rows of computers, three on each side of the door, with the testing area directly in front of the door. Carmichael hurried to Smith’s personal lab; he wanted this over with.
At first glance, Smith’s lab seemed to have a strange, looping paint job. On closer inspection, however, the loops were actually scribbled blueprints, formulas, and expressions. It made Carmichael feel he was in the home of a psychopath. Sometimes, he felt like he was right.
Smith sat at his desk, tinkering with metal, boxy object; his attempt at Drake’s so-called “FIR Traveler”. He always stayed long after all his inferiors had left to go to sleep. Not for the first time, Carmichael wondered if the man actually slept in his lab. Smith’s ever-present black, voluminous cloak billowed out behind him, fluttering in the breeze of a silent fan.
“May I help you?”
“It’s more of a matter of, will you accept a gift that should help your work along immensely?” Carmichael held the blueprints out at arm’s length.
Smith looked the plans over, then nodded approvingly. “They’ll do. You’re dismissed.”
For the second time that day, Carmichael rushed out of an office.
As soon as Carmichael left, smith spun in his chair to face his holojector screen. He ran a scan of the physicist’s documents, then began dragging and dropping equations into place, for the design of a scan of the planet’s surface for the otherworldly radiation released at the site of Drake’s lab. The Director was of the opinion that the release was due to the lab’s demise, but Smith knew otherwise. He knew that if he had a device capable of teleporting him from danger, even if it was unrefined, he would have gotten the hell out of there. If such a device was still in beta testing, it would surely leave behind a mark. Smith now had the means to search the entire planet for that mark.
Finally having entered the proper formula, Smith set the search radius to the United States and executed the program. A few minutes later, the scan was complete. A single, faded spot of red lay on the translucent blue partial globe: the location of Drake’s laboratory. Smith held his pinched fingers over the spot and spread them out, causing the map to zoom in on the still-fading radiation point.
As he watched, however, the spot suddenly flared up, glaring in his face. Smith flinched back, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. He could only come up with one logical explanation: the doctor had come home.
Smith sent an alert directly to the Commander, thinking, I hope you know what you’re doing, Natey….