At the heart of every Conversion Bureau is 'potion', the nanotechnomagical serum that converts a human into an Equestrian. But before the Bureaus, the serum had to be created first. This, is that story.
At the heart of every Conversion Bureau is 'potion', the nanotechnomagical serum that converts a human into an Equestrian. But before the Bureaus could exist, the serum had to be created first. This is the story of how the first successful conversion serum was developed, and of the humans and ponies that made it possible.
Her Scottish grandfather - and he insisted on being recognized as properly Scottish, and not Northeuropean Zone - had once told her she had paper for brains and ink for blood and he had meant it as a compliment. That was how compliments sounded from old Eachann, like ten parts of insult with a speck of something decent if you looked hard enough.
And the old bastard was right enough, to be sure, for Gwen - she preferred Gwen in word and print because who in this day could hope to know how to say 'Gwenhwyfar' when you were standing in line with ten dozen impatient souls behind you all pissing mad that the lady in the front had some crazy name that was holding things up - Gwen was books.
She loved the feel, the weight, the smell of old tomes covered in the dust of ages and with the little stains that told of unknown mystery readers who hadn't the sense to not snack on Nanobars while they were handling precious things - Gwen thought that there were books and then there was the world, and the world was there for the books and not the other way round.
But nobody made books anymore, not proper books, everything was on the hypernet, wasn't it? All digified and encoded and transmitted and compiled, what counted as a novel now was a movie once without a letter or a paragraph to be seen, and what counted as writing now were text messages in the kiosks arguing about the movies. If it didn't have a 'holo' prefixing it, it wasn't worth the spit to get it wet and if it weren't electronic it wasn't worth the bother.
But books lasted. That was their great power, their secret magic. Books were survivors. Oh, like any species, individuals would be lost to the predations of time and mold and carelessness and outright uncaring - not to mention the occasional burning - but books as a life form survived, and multiplied, and some even became immortal like the heroes of old.
The Worldgovernment had made a project - with the help of the Royal House of Equestria, of course - to fund the preservation of human knowledge in the new world. The creeping barrier changed everything it touched, and electric things died within its perimeter, so that the only things that could be assured to remain unaffected were things made of Equestrian materials.
The ponies already had records, a simple enough technology, very like the kind that humans had made long ago - flat disks of material with grooves engraved upon them that would make a needle vibrate out a recording of sound. Teams around the world were busy transferring digital music to Equestrian blanks, the glories of digital perfection being sacrificed for simple survival.
But books were better.
A letter was a letter, a word was a word, a symbol was a pattern and there was no loss within a book. A 'K' written a thousand years ago would still be a 'K' a thousand in the future, if the book were kept dry and safe, and properly stored. Gwen had eagerly joined the Literature And Arts Survival Triage Team - oh those government types loved their acronyms, didn't they. LAASTT. Last. Last chance to make silly acronyms to be sure, but the name didn't matter, what mattered was the work, the effort to save as much of the writings, music and artworks of Mankind as would be allowed before there wasn't anything to save anymore.
As much as would be allowed. Now there was the catch, there was always a catch, old Eachann was ever reminding anyone who would listen, which wasn't many being as he was not the most pleasant of people to run into in most any circumstance, and the catch was that not everything Humanity had created was suitable for the refined and delicate tastes of the pony folk. Oh no, everything to be saved had to be approved, and there was so much of it that it would take a blooming goddess to read it all and sift the wheat from the chaff - not that there was wheat anymore, of course, but good sayings didn't really need relevancy as long as everyone understood the meaning - so it was a great boon that there happened to be one available and willing to the task.
The name of the goddess was Luna, or at least that was the translation of it - Gwen had heard the Equestrian word and it had sounded like a goat choking on a candy-wrapper, so she'd never tried to learn it - and Luna was a dark and mysterious one make no mistake. She was a pony, of course, but like her sister goddess, different from the ordinary pony folk. She was tall as could be, taller than a man if you counted the horn - she had a horn - and her mane and tail were made of starlight and twinkles and nothing so common as hair.
Silver she was clad in, silver hooves and a silver crown, and well they looked on her, and some kind of frontspiece too, with a half moon upon it, dark as she, and made of no one knows what. Her eyes were cyan, blue green and clear as gems, and her pony coat was dark as midnight, Prussian Blue, Gwen had thought it, but her speech was fine and dignified and with a clear sense of antiquity and insight.
A good thing she was a goddess too, because even with the advent of the Hypernet and the virtual world still there languished endless warehouses of ancient books, more than anyone could read in a thousand lifetimes, if anyone cared to be bothered, which none were, except of course for Gwen and those like her, few as can be.
The princess Luna - she didn't prefer to be called a goddess to her face, but there was little doubt of what she and her sister were after the little demonstration they gave following the Three Day War - would be led to some vast repository of mouldering tomes - nobody cared for books properly anymore - and she would stand there and smile.
Then she would dip her grand head, and her horn would glow with the light of the faeries and quick as can be she would dissolve into ten thousand little swirls of dark and sparkles which would dart like how bees were described, back when there were bees, and zip and sweep through all the books, in and out of them, making each tome glow for a moment and hang in the air, then drop again. A minute later, the little clouds of starlight and darkness would swarm back and gradually build her form until the princess stood again, smiling, as if it were the most ordinary thing in two worlds to dissolve oneself and then reform.
And then, presented with an array of hundreds of old, mechanical typewriters hooked up to electronics distant enough that magic could not touch them, the keys would sound like a million hailstorms and the title of every single book that had been in the warehouse would be listed, judged and found either wanting or worthy, and a note for each one as to why or why not.
It mattered not one bit the language or the number of books. The dark princess toured the planet with her entourage, some human, some pony, all from the ranks of the elite, blinking in a flash of light from one place to another - teleporting they called it, like something from a science fiction novel. Round and round she went, attending to the project, seeing that the right books got through and the bad books were sent to weep with the vanishing earth.
But there was another side to her, for she was a wily goddess, and not entirely in league with her sister. That she might one day be in trouble was her problem she claimed, in the end she was sure she could find peace with her sibling. What was important, she claimed, was the work.
And the work was secret, hidden from the eyes of the day. Princess Luna had her own project, and Gwenhwyfar Boik was a part of it.
It was called the 'Underground Bookmobile', a play on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved men, women and children escape the ancient American south. Once, long ago, when proper libraries mattered and existed, powered vehicles would roam the land bringing books to communities without a library of their own. These vehicles were called Bookmobiles and from them a book could be borrowed and kept until the next time they rolled through, and a fine thing it was, and a fine world it must once have been that would fund such a thing for the benefit of its people.
The Underground Bookmobile would not take all books. There was triage even here, but of a looser sort than that demanded by Celestia of her sister. Books about weapons, about bombs and murder and slaughter, about how to make and maintain the tools of death - these were just as forbidden by princess Luna as by her sister the sun. Banned also were books of hatred and bigotry and cruelty, and books that showed the evils that Man was capable of.
Neither princess wanted future generations to find any reason to despise or fear the descendants of the Newfoals, and they saw no reason for Equestrians to think poorly of Humanity or of Earth in the endless ages to come. The Earth would be gone, forever, and Mankind as a species with it, and there was simply no point in preserving anything negative about a world and a species that would soon cease to be, and would never be again. It was like any funeral, really - a man could be the most hated sot in all the county, but when it came time to lay him in the ground, his most bitter enemies would say the sweetest and most charming things about the wretches' rotten life, and why not? He could do no more harm, and it didn't do, to speak ill of the dead.
But there were stories that were not dangerous, nor hateful, which otherwise failed Celestia's narrow test, and which Luna and those that followed her, felt should be preserved for some day, one day, when perhaps Celestia might be brought to a more open form of mind. Stories that made errors of their time and place that should not be damned to extinction purely because of a single chapter or a narrow viewpoint that was once the common truth but later was found to be vile.
Mary Poppins had been saved this way, despite the desperately racist parts within the otherwise charming story, and likewise the works of Roald Dahl, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - though to be fair, only the later version was preserved, where the Oompa-Loompas were no longer African Pygmies enslaved by Willy Wonka.
The Underground Bookmobile had rescued not only literature, though. There were reference works, scientific tomes, and selected historical documents too, so long as they made no mention of contentious or dangerous and forbidden subjects. The historical study of war, was especially forbidden. There were ungentle and unmutual species within Equestria such as the Dragons and Gryphons and others who already presented a political threat of some sort to the princesses, and nothing could be allowed that might give them any ideas or advantages.
It was easy to understand such censorship - a kind world of endless plenty had no use for the struggles of creatures in a universe of scarcity and hardship, and indeed knowledge of such matters could cause great damage to such gentle souls. Still, the cosmos in which Earth lay was a rare one, perhaps unique - a universe devoid of magic, yet possessed of life. The princess Luna clearly worried that her sister would one day regret her strict policies on what could be brought over, and there were hidden places deep within Canterlot, sealed chambers that could outlast endless ages, where dangerous things could be safely kept. Such were where the libraries of the Underground Bookmobile would be preserved, just in case.
Perhaps the most controversial works that Gwen had to deal with were not matters of ancient human history and struggle, but instead of the struggles of the current age. There was contentious concern regarding preserving how the great escape to Equestria had come to be, and how it had come to pass that the population of an entire world could even be rescued at all. Equestria was deadly to all earthly life, and only the princesses' Great Barrier allowed Man any time whatsoever to hope to be transformed and thus survive. Without the Barrier, the earth would have become a dead and sterile globe the very same day that Equestria had first appeared.
Celestia and the Worldgovernment both agreed that there was no time to record nor preserve current history. The world was ending, and there was no time for making records. It was a time of desperate action.
Luna and some of the Underground felt that the record of the transformative migration of humanity to Equestria was the most important sort of history, and should, almost certainly, be preserved somehow. Gwen had once seen the two princesses in quiet and restrained argument about the issue. For the ancient and reserved beings, their faintly harsh whispers must have been akin to a human match of screaming and throwing things about. Contentious... indeed.
One of the Underground had just recently brought in a shipment of papers, books, folders and romball drives that had been stolen from the Worldgovernment archives. Who had managed to acquire the illicit haul was unknown, and desperately wanted to remain so. They had unloaded the stash on pallets, and left it covered by a simple tarp, then placed boxes in front to hide it further. This was what Gwen faced today. It would be necessary to comb through the material, virtually all of it classified beyond any common label of the highest security, and determine what, if anything, would be worth presenting to her majesty Luna.
Gwen had cracked her long, bony fingers and dug right in. The romball drives would need machines to read and possibly print out their contents, and there would likely be some strong protection on what was there. That could wait for another time. Gwen began to search through the stacks of folders and documents. They were mostly financial reports involving the six-hundred or so families that effectively ruled the earth as the WorldGovernment. These were the great barons of industry and commerce, and in any other age, such folders would have been a revelation of the highest order. But at the very end of the world, it no longer mattered who really ran things, or the why, or how of it all - their global dominion was rapidly coming to an end, because soon enough, there would be no globe to rule.
There were some documents that would, were the world not ending, surely have brought the entire planet to civil war and revolution. Gwen's jaw dropped when she spied the supposedly nonexistent original report on the MonsanDow- SinoPont Universal Genetic Modification of the wheat plant - this claimed to be the actual truth behind the tragedy that had killed all wheat, everywhere on the planet, leaving only dead, grey, profoundly inedible stalks that could never biodegrade. The stated goal was to have rendered all wheat, globally, into a product that could be completely owned and ruthlessly controlled, but which also would have been capable of growing in any climate, and which could produce yields beyond comprehension. Three small genetic errors had ended wheat forevermore, starving billions.
There were files on the Great Collapse - the financial collapse of the world that had driven civilization to the brink. Gwen scanned the folders, noting which of her suspicions were confirmed, and even some shocking surprises she hadn't considered. It had ultimately all just been simple greed, nothing more, just mindless accumulation of wealth that had nearly put paid to civilization. That fact was no surprise at all. What shocked her was how completely complicit the famous old nations of history had been in the process. Truly, any politician could be bought.
Gwen picked up a damaged tome very different from the tidy-looking Worldgovernment folders and files. A small stack had slid to the side, revealing the worn volume. It was an overstuffed and stained laboratory notebook, crammed full of notes and torn bits of paper. 'Curious', she thought, as she turned it over and examined it. The whole thing was wrapped in multiple, large rubber bands, then bound with some sort of industrial sticky tape. It looked like it had been dragged behind a jitney caravan for a week.
Gwenhwyfar was a fool for secret books and diaries, and this decidedly looked the part. Instantly, the tattered and strangely bound up volume captured her interest. The rest of the pile could wait. The expected collusions and debaucheries of the usual suspects were really of no value now. It would not matter to history, truly, which nation had sold out to which wealthy family when. When the Collapse hit, only Iceland had not sold its national soul, and that prideful fact had not saved it from the global collapse one whit. Now there were no nations, just production zones. The true story of how that had been permitted to happen was just as sad and as meaningless as the fiat capital that had tossed the fate of the world into the dumpster of history. But this thick, bulging little notebook... who knew what genuinely astonishing history it contained?
The printed title was already mysterious.
Project Bucephalus, Laboratory 012 Umbra-Cosmik-Magik Clearance ONLY Ultimate Sanction For Loss Or Exposure
Gwen swept the fallen lock of dark hair out of her face and sat down amidst the pile of folders, reports, and romball drives, and set about trying to open the fat bundle that was the notebook. Her initial attempts were unproductive, so she was forced to stand up again and fetch a pair of scissors and an exacto knife. A snip and a cut later, Gwen was finally able to open the slightly scary notebook to look inside.
Something fell out, a photo, printed on 3D refractive replipaper. It showed a woman, perhaps about 36, with shoulder-length red hair and glasses. She was standing in front of a wall-sized flatscreen, wearing a lab coat and had the sort of nervous, affected smile reserved for licenses and mug shots. Gwen turned the photo over, the shadows shifting within the image as she did so. On the back was written the date and the useful identification '-ME!'. That was helpful.
Another sheet of replipaper fell out, onto the floor. It was a computer-assisted design diagram of some kind of truly bizarre device. The thing was twenty-sided, with curious ports and holes on all the faces. Odd looking tubes and structures poked out of some of the holes. The vertexes of the icosahedronal machine had strange 'Y' shaped protrusions. It looked like a virus. An examination of the sheet suggested it was supposed to be as small as a virus... it was a nanotech device. It was number three of six such devices, all of which were supposed to work together somehow. There was wording describing a biologically and thaumatically active organic suspension.
In the corner of the diagram were several warning symbols relating to the nanomachine described by the design sheet. Biohazard. Thaumatic Radiation Hazard. Gwen flipped the sheet over to find a printed description of what the machine was and did, and she found she couldn't follow much of what she read. It was a nanosurgical device.
Now that was strange. Nanotechnology had fully bloomed during the worst of the Great Collapse. It had been touted as the great salvation of humankind, but there had been problems. Soon, it was clear there would be no Diamond Age, no essentially magical future of mechanical pixie powder constructing houses while you watched, or granting immortality from within your bloodstream. The little machines were not magic. They needed power, and lots of it, and that was a problem, because most of the world's resources had already been giddily spent like some sailor's paycheck on shore leave. Oil was all but gone, what was left took more energy to get at than the energy it could provide. Nuclear power had left the Japanese people as wandering gypsies forever barred from ever setting foot on their homeland again - and they were not alone in the world in that regard. Solar and wind were not enough for everyone, and the demand just kept growing.
But even that was not the main problem. Nanotechnology generated heat when it did its microscopic magic. A great deal more heat than could be economically dealt with. It simply cost too much to use nanotech in every regard. And in medicine, it had very limited applications. The dream of using nanosurgical devices to construct a new arm or spleen or body from base elements was fundamentally impossible. The little machines moved, and movement was heat, and the heat was so great that it cooked living cells even as they tried to construct or repair them. The main thing nanotech turned out to be good for was manufacturing a simple, edible foodstuff from human waste.
It had taken fifty thousand years of human existence, but for the very first time in human history, every human being went to bed fully fed. In that sense, it was the golden age of mankind, nineteen billion people, all of them fed and watered, every day, no matter what. Taken by itself, it was the greatest achievement in history, an age worthy of pride. That the majority of humankind lived in favelas built of ruin and scrap, and had no job, no future and no hope was almost insignificant. War had been conquered. Hunger had been slain. For the first time in history, all of humanity lived in peace, more or less, and knew not want of food nor water.
What little Gwen could make of the schematic in her hand, it was the design of one unit in a working nanosurgical system that had no problem with heat at all. The solution to the problem made Gwen gasp, because in an instant she realized what the device was, what it represented. It was one of six nanomachine designs that ran not on inducted power, not on tiny specks of nuclear fuel, not on chemical energy stolen from the blood. The nanomachine ran on thaumatic energy. It was a human device that used Equestrian physics to power it, sidestepping the earthly limitations of physical law like a microscopic ninja avoiding detection. It was a truly extropic machine.
It was potion. It was part of the conversion serum that the Bureaus used.
Gwen's hand shook slightly, as she realized what she held. This was a notebook written by one of the people who had created the conversion serum. This notebook likely held the untold story of how the serum was developed, at the least, it described how it worked.
It was probably the most dangerous notebook in the history of the world.
There were so many groups and organizations that would literally kill to possess such a thing. The Human Liberation Front would do anything - anything at all - to own it. The complete details on how conversion serum functioned! It could give them the means to create a counter to it, even a sort of inoculation against it. In the hands of the HLF, humanity could have the choice of ponification for survival stolen from them, all to satisfy the ideology that it was better to die proudly on two legs, than to survive on four.
The PER, the Ponification for the Earth's Revival, if they had the book they could crack the secret of making 'potion' themselves, and would not be forced to steal it however they could. They would take the choice of staying human, regardless of the consequences, away entirely. They would convert everyone, everywhere, against their will, to save them. They would take away the basic human right to commit suicide from Man, and force even the most unwilling into a vastly extended life of equinoid abundance and contentment, whether it was wanted or not.
Gwenhwyfar Boik was a reader. She knew history, she knew humanity. If anything defined the human race, it was the freedom to make the most terrible and self-destructive of decisions, both individually, and as a species. The PER would take that most essential freedom away. Princess Celestia had been quite clear from the very beginning. Conversion had to be a free choice, it should never be forced on any person, for any reason.
And there were others, too, that would want the secrets of the serum. There were factions within the Worldgovernment itself who would have uses for a transformational weapon, perhaps bent back against the Equestrians themselves.
This was, absolutely, the most dangerous notebook that had ever existed.
And here it was, in Gwen's hands, as she sat near the loading dock door of a warehouse filled with books, doing the clandestine work of one of the princesses of Equestria, behind her royal sister's back.
The smart thing to do would be to burn it. Burn the notebook right now, immediately. That would be the right thing. The longer she waited, the greater the chance something could happen. It was a miracle that it had come to her, and a second miracle that it had not been noticed for what it was.
Or, maybe she should use one of the special Equestrian scrolls in the lock-box. They were there for emergencies, courtesy of princess Luna herself. Just write a message, and sign on the provided line - that completed the spell, and the scroll zipped off in a burst of green fire, straight to the princess of the night herself. It was possible to add attachments, they would be carried off by the scroll. She could send the notebook to Luna, directly, where it would be forever safe from all the factions of humankind. It was too dangerous to keep, no matter what.
It was also the single most interesting notebook that had ever existed.
The rest of the team wouldn't be back until morning. She was entirely alone in the warehouse. It wasn't like the HLF or the PER were just going to burst in for no damn reason. There were authorized Blackmesh patrols around the warehouse to protect it, just in case. She had eight hours, at least.
The history of potion itself, by someone actually involved in the creation of it. The world was changing, the human species was changing, and potion was at the heart of every single event that was happening right now. It was the most dangerous notebook to be sure, and the most interesting notebook to be double sure, and the most historically important notebook in the history of the human species without a single doubt.
Gwenhwyfar Boik looked left and right, as if she were being hunted. It was a silly thing to do, but... the sheer magnitude of this! There were all kinds of security clearances - but she had read things, tinfoil hat things - and she had heard of the words 'Umbra-Cosmik-Magik' before. She had thought the term a hoax. Little green men from beyond and all!
But, there were creatures from beyond, weren't there? They were right here, right now. They weren't green, not all of them, anyway, and they certainly weren't men. But they were alien beings, and not just from outer space - they were from another universe altogether, a different space. They didn't need saucers or ray guns. Pegasai flew naturally, and unicorns could cast all the beams of force they could imagine from their horns.
Umbra-Cosmik-Magik was real. And she had the opportunity, right here, right now, to learn the deepest secrets of the planet.
Gwen's fingers fumbled and shook, but there was no stopping them as they dug into the bulging notebook. She began to read. Not even wild earthponies could have dragged her away.
I still don't truly understand why I am here. I don't belong on a project like this. I don't know enough. I barely even have a doctorate - honestly I faked and scammed my way through most of it. My advisor was a friend of the family. Most of the committee was too. I am proud of my dissertation, I won't say otherwise there. Teaching An Old Nano New Tricks: A Brief Examination Of Where Nanotechnology Failed, And How Its Promise Can Yet Be Fulfilled. It was good work. Solid work. But that said, I don't belong here.
I don't know where 'here' actually is. I think it is underground, or at least inside of a mountain. I catch whiffs of the scent of ancient mold and earthly dampness, despite the constant - and sometimes loud - churning of the ventilation system. Everything is plascrete and crystalex, and the doors are vault doors, heavy and imposing. There are no windows at all, though there are false windows in certain areas with holographic views. The entire complex feels both cutting edge and run down at the same time - or perhaps it is closer to say that it is likely an old site of some kind, re-purposed for what we are doing here.
I don't say 'trying to do here'. It has been made abundantly clear that there is literally no place for failure. We either succeed, or we - and every human being, indeed the whole of the human species - will perish. The public do not know yet that the world is ending. We have just seven years, starting today. Seven years before the world ends.
It started with a single image, taken from a spy satellite scanning the North Pacific. Last year, on April the 22nd, that was the day they first saw it. The 21st, nothing. Then BAM, the next day, a ten meter wide pearl from nowhere, half in the water, and half out, and it was growing. It wasn't floating, and it didn't move relative to the continental shelf. Not a millimeter. By the 23rd, it was thirty meters in diameter. 28.8558,-142.414221 -the precise location of the beginning of the end of the world.
By the start of May, the Pacific Anomaly - that is what they were calling it at the time - was a hundred meters in diameter, and they had aerostats and carriers and every kind of exploratory vessel imaginable out there. Submersibles confirmed it was just hanging there, a perfect sphere, a bubble, half in and out of the water, somehow locked in place relative to the crust of the earth.
They showed me the early images - it was quite something. You could see it was a three-dimensional hole into another world even then. There was this sped-up video, taken from aboard a carrier circling the anomaly. The ship went all around the thing, 360 degrees, and from every angle it showed this desert, stretching off to infinity. It was like looking at a gigantic mirror ball, only the reflection in the curving mirror was not the Pacific Ocean at all. It was this strange, colorful desert, with a deep blue sky, blue like skies used to be before the global smog permalayer. At first, they thought it might be some kind of time gate that led back millions of years, when the continent was where ocean is now. But that ended when the aliens made contact.
Holy motherfucking shit. Aliens. Aliens are real. And they do not look like UFO aliens.
Well actually, they do. They really do, if you see them square on, from the front, with their face turned toward you. Big eyes, small mouths, tiny looking nostrils, square on from the front, they only look like they have two legs. Get a gray one without a mane, and in the dark, it would look just like the classic UFO 'Gray' alien so many people have claimed to see. Except for the ears, of course. They have big ears on top of their heads.
From the side, the aliens are quadrupeds, with hooves and a coat of hair. They have enormous heads, large ears and very short, neotenous animal muzzles. They look like ambulatory equine fetuses. They possess full manes and tails, though. Everyone here calls them 'ponies', because that is the closest thing on earth we have to them. They don't look like what real equines looked like, but perhaps, if something vaguely equine were to evolve, or be deliberately uplifted somehow, then such a creature might end up looking like the aliens.
They are intelligent, and they have language and technology. Not advanced technology though. Apparently their level of advancement is around the 14th or 15th century. They don't have or understand industrialization. Oh, they are very, very colorful. Baasch the xenobiologist - apparently that's a real thing, he's very proud of the title - thinks the bright colors are to confuse predators. Whatever the reason, I am talking every color of the rainbow and then some. Tan, hot pink, livid green, blue - you name it. They are like a race of colorful parrots.
They have their own language, but apparently they have learned ours. All of ours. I don't know how. Maybe they have been watching us for ages, nobody seems to know. They have a leader, and everything we know, we know from her. But that is apparently going to change. Eventually we will be meeting and interacting with these beings. The thought makes me feel giddy, and also a little like I might throw up. It's terrifying, and amazing at the same time. Or maybe it is incipient xenophobia. I have no idea how they have technology without hands. They do not have hands, or any kind of grasping organ I can identify, at least from the images of them through that sphere in the Pacific.
Oh, their world is deadly. Apparently their world isn't in our universe. The hole - my higher ups call it a 'Rucker Gate' - leads not to another planet in our galaxy, or another galaxy, but to an entirely different cosmos. They are aliens from an alien universe, and we've been told that the laws of physics there are very different. Holy crap. Just.... holy crap.
The physics of their realm are not compatible with ours. A few ships got too close to the hole, to the bubble, and the crews started to burn. Their flesh began to necrotize and turn to ash. One ship grazed the bubble when this happened, because the crew was unable to pilot the vessel. They showed me the video, from several angles.
The part of the ship - it was one of those medium sized ships, a cruiser or a battleship or something, I really don't know ships - anyway when part of it passed through the bubble, it changed. By changed I mean - it really changed. It just turned into something gooey and pink, with striped red and white bits and big lumps that looked for all the world like gumdrops or maybe big sticky gems. I don't know what it was, but that part of the ship became it, and that stuff wasn't very strong and immediately collapsed into the sea. By the time the ship drifted past the bubble, a third of one side was just oozing into the sea, and the ship was tipping over. I saw the compartments and and chambers inside the ship as it fell over, bodies falling out into the sea, into that goop that used to be the ship. They didn't tell us if anyone lived or what.
Today was Initial Orientation, you see. Basically, they just threw everything at us for six hours to see what might stick. I don't know how to take any of this. Three days ago, I thought I understood the world. Today, I have just learned that an alien universe is expanding into the Pacific, and there are intelligent aliens living in it, it is deadly as hell, and even brushing it can turn a ship into something that looks like ice cream and candy bits. The aliens are colorful, technological horse fetuses that can build cities without hands, somehow. And they have an alien queen.
Not a queen, she apparently insists on the term 'princess'. That is the highest she will go. She can speak our language, and, according to Gerste, our orientation guy - maybe our manager, I'm not sure - she can read minds. And more, he says, much, much more. Over the next week, we will see some of what else she can do. Reading minds - this is pushing my credibility, but then, I saw a ship partly turned into goo. I don't have a basis to make any valid statements about any of this. Yet.
There are twenty of us. I met Baasch, the 'xenobiologist' - that is truly a thing, really? Since when? and a woman named Saulnier, I think she's a physicist. I don't know the rest. I've always been bad at remembering names. Fortunately, everyone has badges. Baasch was impressed with me being a biotechnologist, well, until I scoffed at his title. It sounded fake. I mean, studying alien biology? Three days ago, I would have bet my life savings on there not being even one example, ever. Boy, howdy was I wrong.
They wouldn't tell us what it is that we are here for yet. I guess they are seeing who folds, who breaks after seeing all of this stuff. They are introducing it to us in stages. But they have repeatedly told us that this is important. That the world will end - though not yet how that is supposed to happen - and that it is our job to make the answer work so that all humanity will not die.
No pressure, obviously. And there is an answer, apparently. They already know what needs to be done to save everyone, they just need to make it actually work. So that's a relief, apparently. Someone asked why we just don't blast off into space and colonize the moon or mars or whatever. I don't know who said it, but everyone in the room just stared at them. I worry that whoever it was won't be back tomorrow. One thing they made clear was that this was about saving as much of humanity as possible, not just a few dozen, or hundred people who we might be able to ship off to the moon. Man, I feel sorry for that poor jerk suggesting moon colonies.
I don't know what the solution is yet, but it's apparently real, and it can work if we can make it work, but it won't be easy. There are twenty other groups like ours, and we will all be working together to try to crack whatever the hell the big fix turns out to be. The whole planet is at our disposal, all the resources we have left, everything. This is priority number one, and nothing else in all the world matters anymore, just this.
We were sworn to secrecy, and to serve until we succeed. There is only one penalty for failure, and only one way to withdraw, and that is a bullet in the brainpan. That was another thing they were really careful to make clear. This is a completely zero-tolerance situation. We are in until we win, or we die. It is a lot to take. I guess that means that anyone who can't hack any of this is pretty much dead meat. Man, I feel sorry for the moon colony guy. Maybe he'll be OK.
I am scared. I am really scared, and it's hard to go to sleep. I keep trying to think that this is all some psychology experiment, some Milgram test or something, but those videos just had something about them that said they were real. Real aliens. A real alien universe. The planet is doomed. And I am one of the big push to save humanity.
Like I said, I don't belong here. I can't even imagine what good I will be. Physics, sure. I can see that. Even 'xenobiology', whatever it is they do. It sounds pretty appropriate to the situation. But basic biotechnology? Implants and nanotech? The stuff is pretty much useless except for making food, and I wrote my thesis on how much more could be done with it. Someday, with the emphasis on future. As in, not now.
I'm going to hit my special books, and see if I can relax. They let us bring a chest of personal effects. I think I need to tumble-bumble pell-mell down a few watercolor hills tonight more than ever. Thank wonderment for my antique book collection.
Project Bucephalus - Excursion January 8th
I saw the Barrier today. Up close. I was utterly terrified.
It took a day and a half to get there, out in the middle of the North Pacific. It is now very clear that no expense is being spared with regard to any of us. My group is Group 12, of 20 such teams. I figure there are about 400 of us, altogether, if each team has twenty members on average. I overheard Mayoss - he's our neurochemist - describe us as the Manhattan Project of our age. I do get that vibe, I have to say.
We travel in and out of wherever it is the complex is located in large vehicles with no windows. It takes about an hour to get to whatever the perimeter facility is. We boarded something new, this time, a kind of big trailer, only with comfy appointments inside, but of course, no windows. I felt us being lifted up on cables - the whole thing swayed very disconcertingly. Two hours later, we were allowed to leave. We spent the time watching a movie, one of the modern, forgettable things. 'Favela Love' or somesuch - it was one of those combined Bolly-Holly musicals. Interestingly, I saw Baasch wiping his eyes at the climax - I guess xenobiologists are softies. Saulnier - she just tried to ignore the whole thing and spent the time catching up on journals. Serious type, Saulnier.
When we were allowed to leave, I expected we would be on an aerostat. Big surprise - we were on a jetcopter, burning fuel like there was any left in the world. We refueled twice, landing on these massive carriers at sea, sleeping aboard one of them. The carrier was named the Stennis, apparently, and we were welcomed by some Admiral named Holt. They had pretty good food, which surprised me. I mean, it was really quite good. I didn't expect that.
After our short stay on the Stennis, we resumed our jetcopter trip to Platform One. The thing is a large, floating structure that constantly runs engines in order to maintain an exact distance from the Barrier. Everyone calls it the Barrier, you can hear the capital letter in their voice. Everything seems to be said with capital letters when it comes to project Bucephalus.
Platform One is the size of a couple of football pitches and has some buildings on it, but mostly it is just open deck. There is stuff below, but we never got to take a tour. The whole structure is automated, and run by a dedicated A.I. We didn't get to learn much more than that. Apparently, time was of the essence.
The platform floats right up next to the wall of the Barrier, our side of the cosmic bubble - and it is huge now, let me just say that. Huge. We were informed that it was half a kilometer in diameter now, and still growing. The speed of growth is not constant. Sometimes it stops for a while, then the sphere expands again once more. It never gets any smaller. I am getting a hint from that as to what the big 'end of the world' danger likely is.
Whatever the deadly radiation is that spills out of the damn thing, it has a pattern to it, one that they already understand. I heard talk that it was some fractal thing, and that it worked a little like electromagnetic waves - there are areas of cancellation. That was the reason we could approach the Barrier at all, much less stand right next to it and poke stuff into it. Platform One constantly orbits the bubble, doing its best to stay in a shadow, where waves of whatever the death rays are cancel themselves out. It isn't always possible to avoid exposure entirely, which is why time was such an issue - we had a window where we wouldn't be burned, and we had to get in, and get out, before that window closed.
The radiation is serious, and it messes with reality on the quantum level. Apparently they regularly have to replace the A.I. because it gets blasted sometimes. The platform can't always move fast enough to stay in the shifting sweet spots. They lost Platform Zero altogether - the quantum computer was destroyed when it couldn't move fast enough due to choppy seas, and the thing slammed into the Barrier and turned into butter or something. It's insane. I got to personally see how insane.
We were led up to the Barrier three at a time, the twenty of us (except for Saulnier and Mayoss who didn't have a third), and each group was allowed five minutes to dick around. We were each given a little metal bucket thing filled with sticks to prod the bubble with. There was a glass rod, a steel rod, a wooden rod, neoplastic, copper, silver, a tree branch (I have no idea where they got those), and the leg of some animal. I didn't ask any questions.
I stood on this little overhanging stage that can be extended from the platform. I was with Belden (internal medicine) and Malcolm (evolutionary biology). The ocean was behaving itself, and there were rails around everything, but it was really pretty scary. I just stood there with the instruction to keep one hand on the rail at all times, and poke the Barrier to observe the result. We were all cautioned that touching the Barrier with any part of ourselves would mean immediate retirement from the project, so we were really, really, really careful.
So I stood there, hanging on to a metal rail on a stage extended over the open ocean, less than a meter from the outer boundary of a half-kilometer sized spherical anomaly protruding from outside our universe. I was sweating like a pig, my hands shook, and I wet myself a little when my foot slipped and I almost had my hand go through the Barrier.
I picked up the glass rod, and basically poked the wall in front of me. The sphere is so huge that it just looks like a big wall. The curvature is really difficult to accept or perceive correctly with something that large. The wall shimmers. It kind of looks like how a soap bubble looks, and there are gleams of light that sort of ripple over it. Things look slightly distorted through it, though I would be hard pressed to explain just how. Like thick glass maybe, or water.
The other side was a desert, just like I saw in the videos in orientation. It's a very colorful desert, lots of reds and pinks and tan shades. The sky on the other side is just the bluest blue you could imagine. And the sun was very strange. It was clearly a different time of day in there - we arrived just after lunch, about 1:15, I think, but it looked like late sunset beyond the wall of the Barrier.
The surface of the desert landscape is about two meters or so above the level of the ocean. Below that, I saw a cross-section of what was under the surface of the alien land. Sand and rocks, all flat to the edge of the bubble. The thing looked like a gigantic terrarium. I didn't see anything alive on the other side, though Beldin swore he saw a cactus-like plant in the distance.
So I jab at the shimmering Barrier, and the tip of the glass rod goes into it. The instant it penetrated the surface, the glass changed. As far as I could tell, the end of the rod became sand, just like the desert. The sand fell onto the desert, and made a little pile. I thought, OK, that makes sense - glass is just melted sand, after all. I felt pretty smart in that moment.
Then I stuck the copper rod into the Barrier. The part that went in looked like it shattered, only the bits were not copper anymore, and they did not fall. I swear on my Golden Books that the result was butterflies. I have never seen a living butterfly, of course, but I have seen videos of them, and what that rod turned into matched those videos perfectly. The little creatures flew away, into the distance, except for one.
One of the little butterflies flew back toward me. I freaked out, and that is when I slipped - though I caught myself - and the little creature did a loop and then darted back into the other universe. That is also the point at which I wet myself. I wasted a full minute just trying to recover from that. Our handler for this trip - Johnson or something, I can't remember - yelled at me over the loudspeaker to continue, time was limited. I jabbed at the Barrier in a daze with the steel rod and the neoplastic rod, and they just turned into what looked like little candies - peppermint, if I had to guess - and some sort of pink petals, like from a flower.
The last thing I poked the Barrier with was the tree branch. It was old, and dead, and dry, but when I stuck the end through the rippling wall, the wood came to life. While I watched, the wood repaired itself, gained missing bark, and sprouted a stem and a living leaf. I pulled the branch back and just stared, open-mouthed at the end of the thing. I was afraid to touch the altered end, I had no idea what it might do to me. At this point I was thinking 'maybe nanotech! Maybe that is why I am here! Maybe this is a universe of nanomachines! That's it! Little nanomachines that really do work, and alter matter at the molecular level, maybe those quadruped aliens are secretly super-advanced!" It all made sense to me, at that moment. They didn't need hands, they probably just commanded the nano's to make whatever they needed in the moment. I thought I had it all sussed.
Later, back on the jetcopter, out over the sea, we all compared notes. Malcolm said he had the same reaction with both the wood and his branch. Beldin's steel rod turned into something like a dark brown syrup of some kind, and his copper just dissolved into the air. He figured it became air - he did not get butterflies out of his copper rod. Even so, I swear it felt as if there was some underlying algorithm to the bizarre transformations of matter occurring
For example, all of us, not just Beldin and Malcolm and me - everyone in group 12 had the same result with the wood rod and the tree branch. In every case, the wood came alive, and began to sprout leaves and stems, and grow bark. Something more than randomness was involved, I think that was clear to everyone.
We spent another night on the Stennis, and once again Admiral Holt greeted us. Everyone treated us with great courtesy. I was surprised by that, I guess I figured we would be the 'eggheads' and given a cold shoulder. I've certainly had no love for anything even vaguely militaristic, myself. But they were great to us.
That night, I shared a cabin - I think that is the term, but it was more like a multi-room hotel suite. Carriers are huge - with So-yeon and Chawla. So-Yeon's a genetic programmer for one of the genegeneering giants, and Chawla's specialty is nanotechnology. She and I had a lot to talk about - she designed some of the little buggers that I referenced in my thesis. Apparently I got a few things wrong. Good thing my advisor wasn't in the room!
So-Yeon openly stated the anomaly acts like magic. Chawla and I kind of stared at her, figuring that there was an issue with language or something but no, she chose her term very carefully. I argued - and Chawla agreed with me - that magic is just a word for something you don't understand yet. I truly believe that.
But Yi just came back with a very uncomfortable notion - we are dealing with a completely alien universe on the other side of that Barrier. We only have seven years.
What if we just don't have the time to understand what we observed? What if the human brain just isn't capable of understanding alien physics?
I had to admit she had a point.
Gwenhwyfar carefully lay the notebook down. She had needed to go to the loo for some time and had been holding things to the point it been necessary to cross her legs and bear down on her own nethers. She thought to run off to do her business and run right back, but then recalled a countless list of stories she'd read over the years where the major plot point was some character taking their eyes off of what they were supposed to be minding for only a moment, leading to inevitable turmoil. The funny thing about books was, even the craziest of them was based on some truth, and Gwen wasn't about to be caught moaning and stomping for discounting a bit of narrative.
Thinking the better of it, Gwen carefully bundled up the tattered notebook like a diapered child, and barely made it to her feet with nary a leak on her own part. She dashed for the facilities, holding the notebook to her chest. She set it down on the plascrete, and put a foot on the cover for good measure - she wasn't going to let any common fictional plot reach under the stall and snatch themselves a drama from her carelessness.
When she was at last unencumbered, Gwen went to the alcove where she'd stowed her backpack. She had a sip from her water bottle, and grabbed the bag of Mexi-Korean Nanoritos to take with her. She looked around the warehouse until she found a proper little fortress of books, and settled herself down ensconced in it like a Laird in a castle. Holding the notebook between her legs, she opened the bag of Nanoritos and bit into a chip - spicy KimChee and Jalapeno goodness attacked her tongue like an squad of Blackmesh putting down an insurrection. Her tongue did not yield, but the battle was a fierce one with much of the screaming and the horrors about it.
Gwen leafed through the notebook, noting more loose blueprints for the other five nanodevices. Each was a different shape, and likely it was that they worked together to transform a human body into an Equestrian one. Flipping through the pages, Gwen found a slip that answered a request for 'more of the thaumatically active organic suspension'. Tucked deep near the spine of the book was a torn note to remember that 'quantum components cannot be used!' The words were underlined several times, apparently it was an issue of some concern.
She flipped idly to the back of the notebook. In the middle of the blank back cover, was a tiny, tiny message, looking for all the world as if it had been written by a mouse with a shaking paw. Gwen had to squint her eyes to read it, and she wished she had a magnifying lens to help. Finally, with a bit of work, she made out the miniscule letters.
I'm sorry. Oh Celestia, forgive me. I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry.
The tiny, handwritten message grabbed Gwen by the heart and mind. There was no bloody way this book was leaving her clutches now, the devil take the consequences! If she had to hide the thing or steal it away altogether, she would see the end of it. It was a dangerous thing, of course, but then knowledge always was, and secret knowledge the more so.
But this particular circumstance was more important than mere facts, truth be told. Gwen smiled to herself. This was about knowing the heart of that red-haired girl in the photo, now. The lass only known as '-Me!' She'd clearly been given cause to cry, and if there was one thing Gwen couldn't leave be, it was the tears of a soul in sorrow. Gwen had to know why that tiny prayer had been written, and nothing in either universe was going to get in the way of that.
The chips burned like the screaming of the damned in Gwen's mouth. That she should have brought a soda was quickly becoming a subject of some reflection for her.
Gwen found her way back to where she had been reading in the book, and settled in, as best as a person can with Satan tapdancing in cleats within one's yap. 'Alright, miss 'Me!', what happened to you next...?
The volcano within Gwenhwyfar Boik was beginning to rumble. The magma-tastic slurry of KimChee and Jalapeno under her crust was threatening to erupt, and the threat was credible. Something would need to be done about the issue but Gwen was desperately trying to put it off. She wanted to avoid wasting time on stupid bodily necessities if she could get away with it - for Gwen had a Book to get through... and Master Must Be Obeyed.
URP.
Master would have to wait on this one after all. The super-intense, concentrated flavors of Nanoritos were not to be ignored. Once again, bundling her precious new found notebook up like the Christ child itself, Gwen decided to sneak up to the warehouse office. Old Milner had a lockbox in there where he kept the odd toss of favela whiskey, but he was also known to store a can or two of soda. He used the soda to cut the street-brewed flavor of whiskey brewed in the bowels of the city. Or possibly in actual bowels. Milner's crimes against taste not withstanding, he really was a decent sort, and Gwen was certain she could set things right - after she had broken in and been properly cola-fied.
The office was upstairs, a tricky prospect at night and with most of the lights off. She didn't want to attract attention by turning more lights on - after all, she was carrying The Most Dangerous Book In The World close to her bosom, and make no mistake it was a bulging mass under her clothing. Still, the stairs were very dark, and it was hard going in a few places.
Gwen was accomplished with a bobby-pin and a bit of a jiggle and poke, and in no time she had the office door open. Inside Milner's opposite-of-grand office, the rusted lock-box was surprisingly easy to find. This was basically because old Milner didn't know the first wee bit about properly hiding anything. Cracking the box was a bit fiddly, because of the dark, but a bit of pluck soon revealed the contents of Milner's little chest of treasures.
The street-liquor she passed up with little internal debate. Gwen wasn't opposed to a touch of the sauce from time to time - purely as a restorative, of course - but she preferred quality restoration. The repurposed bottle was corked with what looked like a shaved eraser. As whiskey, it was nothing close to quality, unless that quality was 'awful'. Fortunately, there was a nice, self-refrigerating can of Nanocola, which made her do her usual sigh of annoyance.
Nano... cola. Gwen shook her head. 'Seriously', she thought, 'when 'radio' was first introduced, did they put the word at the front of every bloody product?' A bit of reading came back to her - yes, actually they did. Radio Biscuits and Radio Flyer Wagons and all were as common as unwanted babies back when. History forever repeating itself - well, until the ponies came, of course. The ponies had changed everything.
Gwen popped the little activator bump and gave the can a few seconds to cool itself down. Then she snapped the drinking tab, and let a river of replicated cola substitute wash over the layer of lava in her smoldering mouth. 'Oh sweet Jesus and all the saints' she thought, as the river continued down into her stomach - where even now the horror of Mount Nanorito East Of Java (and South Of Sternum) was counting down for the Big Blow.
Panting, in the old warehouseman's lair, Gwen finally felt vaguely normalized. She'd pay him back for the lost beverage as soon as she could, and add a bit more, along with not a few apologies for the unbidden intrusion. She wasn't going to teach Milner how to hide things properly though, because one never knew when a soda emergency might arise again.
Carefully making her way back down the pitch black stairs, Gwen found the solid floor and wended her way to the Fortress Castle Of The Book Laird and set herself down tidy once more, on top of the tarp and with her backpack and water bottle at her side. Cola firmly in hand, Gwenhwyfar untucked the dangerous notebook from where she had stashed it, half in her underwear, and all of it tightly constrained by the taut fabric of her Green Level Jumpsuit.
The mysteries of the origin of her brave new world of Bureaus and ponies awaited, and she had the night to properly explore everything, and decide what to do with the tome itself. Luna, or being burned, these were the only rational options, and Gwen still wasn't at all sure which was the better. That said, there were at least two things she could be sure of.
One, that she would never, eat a bag of anything labeled 'Mexi-Korean' ever again.
Two, that there never would be a better answer to the misery of a flaming tract than good old cola. Nano or not.
Hush now, the notebook awaits.
Project Bucephalus - Laboratory 012 January 21st
I've learned a lot over the past two weeks.
I know things that no person should know, and I am afraid for the lives of everyone in project Bucephalus. I don't entirely believe the promise that we will all be free to go when this is done, though the others seem to. Then again, the world is truly ending, so perhaps there simply is no need to keep the secrets of the powerful in the usual tell-no-tales manner, since they only need be kept for seven years.
OK, so first off, I know the reason the world will end in such a short time.
We now have a name for the bubble out in the sea. It was offered to us by the ruler of that land, Celestia. The official designation is 'Equestria'. No human could pronounce the name the aliens have for their universe, so a translated version was chosen. The princess herself selected the name, and I have to say it is clever enough, and shows a remarkable comprehension of the nuances of our language, and also how we perceive these beings. They find being called 'ponies' acceptable too, so that is what they are officially labeled now.
The cosmos of Equestria is colliding with our own. I remember a string theorist I knew back at university who went on about how the Big Bang was really a collision of the cosmic brane our universe was embedded within suddenly smashing through another brane in some higher space. By comparison, this is as gentle a cosmic collision as one could ever hope for - the entirety of our universe is not being obliterated, and there is no bang. The current estimate is that the effects of the collision will only reach out to about halfway to the moon.
Equestria is passing through the plane of our reality, and the cross-section of it is a sphere. The sphere will continue to expand until it reaches some maximum diameter, then, as Equestria continues on its way past our universe, the cross-section will shrink until it vanishes altogether. It is entirely like A. Sphere passing through Abbott's 'Flatland'.
The moon will be cut loose from the gravity that holds it as the earth is swept away into another dimension, and will spin off wildly into space. The best guess seems to be that the moon will be thrown into a spiraling path that will eventually end up inside the sun. Surprisingly, to me at least, the loss of the earth will have almost no effect on the rest of the solar system. Earth just doesn't have much influence on the rest of the planets, despite all the old science fiction I've enjoyed over the years.
All of this came from a very long, live-streamed hololecture for all the groups within project Bucephalus. They held nothing back, but then there is no reason to. We are the chosen selected to save the world, so nothing is denied us. I found out that I now possess the highest security clearance that has ever existed - 'Umbra-Cosmik-Magik' clearance. We all do. There is literally no information, about anything in the world - however secret it may be - that I cannot ask to know, and all will be provided to me. They have no way to predict what little detail might help us solve the central problem, so everything and anything is open to us.
The passing of Equestria through our universe will take sixteen years. But the only part that matters to human beings is the first eight. We've already wasted most of the first year, which leaves seven left to us. I've learned a lot about that initial time, though most of what I now know did not come from the hololecture. It's quite a story.
The bubble in the sea was fairly rapidly identified as an expansion from hyperspace. It was pretty much the only thing it could be - it certainly wasn't obeying mundane physics. They sent an armada out to examine the bubble within a week of it being discovered, some ships reached the thing the next day. A lot of the early responders died from the radiation it emitted, so they knew from the beginning that it was dangerous.
Apparently - and I have no reason to doubt the source, (which I am not writing down here - let's just say it is someone who should know, and leave it at that) there was a contact that first week. The story is that Celestia appeared, like a hologram or a ghost or something, to all the big heads of the Worldgovernment. She told them in earth languages who she was, what was going on, and how it would all end unless they worked together with her. She pleaded with them to save humanity from the collision, and that she knew a way to do just that.
She's a fairly imposing alien creature. We're human, and you can guess what happened next. That was what caused the Three Day War. All the elites jumped to the same conclusion, not unreasonable considering the whole of human history, that this was an invasion. Invaders From Beyond! I can only imagine the panic. So, they tried to destroy Equestria.
Most people have seen the images of the ocean boiling, and the entire West Coast of the Northamerizone saw the flashes and heard the booms, from hundreds of miles away. But what I now know is they were ready to use a hypernuke on the damn thing. Seriously. The doomsday weapon, the QCD bomb. They almost made the first test of a quantum chromodynamic weapon right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The only thing that stopped them was just one guy, apparently. Somebody high up grasped that a hypernuke would - at best - rip away a third of the planet, and destroy the entire biosphere. It would basically be planetary suicide. They were still willing to do it, they just didn't understand the true scale of such things. It was the Big Boom and they wanted to use it. One man saved us all. One guy said no. Jesus fucking Christ.
We're still here, so they obviously listened. Then things got stupid again - and then they got weird.
The elite apparently decided to just ignore the expanding universe in the ocean after that. They couldn't blow it up, and there was no immediate profit in doing anything more, and they had no idea what to do in any case. So they shut down further news stories from being released, threw some scientists at the problem, and stuck their heads into the sand.
And that is where we would still be, except Celestia came back. The attack was nothing to her and Equestria. Less than nothing. Maybe it rained candy or somesuch over there. So Celestia comes right back, and she comes back to stay.
Apparently, there are about six hundred people who really run things. The whole planet, the whole damn globe. They're a bunch of incestuous ancient families who pretty much just had the world fall into their lap. Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis Kahn - all of them never had a chance to conquer the world. The secret victory condition, it turned out, was to just be the richest damn people in the world, and still be that way when the good times ran out. All the corporate gods, they ended up conquering the world by default. When the global economy crashed, when all the governments fell, the rich men pulling the strings all along got stuck out in the open. No more nations to hide behind. There was nothing else to do, so - Worldgovernment. Feed the people somehow, and stop the riots, and they did, and that is how they conquered the earth. It's almost funny. Especially since they didn't want to be stuck out in front like that at all.
A bunch of families, the ultra-elite of the world, and Celestia appears personally to every single member of those clans. Every man, every woman, every child. All the time. 24 hours a day, and in their dreams at night to boot. One Celestia for each family member. And only they can see the Celestia assigned to them.
So when they get up, Celestia is at the foot of their bed, greeting them. While they brush their teeth - or have corporate slaves brush their teeth for them, or whatever it is the supreme elite rich do in the morning - Celestia is there, pointing out the little speck of spinach from the night before. Lunch, dinner, during sex, taking a dump - Celestia is there, commenting, observing, making little jokes. Always pleasant, always present, and always repeating the basic message. The world is going to end in eight years. There is a way to save humanity, but we have to work together.
The elite put up with this for three months. I cannot even grasp that. Three months of Celestia staring at them every single second. Talking their ears off. Nightmares every night about how the world would end, narrated by this other princess who we don't have a name for yet. Equestria has two princesses, apparently, not just Celestia. It's a diarchy. I only recently found out that little fact. So, three months of being constantly nagged, and get this - for the first month, they didn't even talk to each other about the fact it was happening.
Jesus nonexistent Christ. I mean, seriously. Stiff upper lip and all of that but... just... damn. Anyway, eventually they just all break, and have a big cry over it all, and then carry on for two more months thinking they can tough it out and it will just go away.
It didn't just go away, and finally Celestia demanded a big meeting, and to shut her up they actually did it. It was probably the only time in history all these super-rich families were ever in the same place at the same time. And Celestia did something to make them take her seriously. Something big. Something scary. I don't know what, but she put on one hell of a show.
The next day they started putting together project Bucephalus as if their very lives depended on it. And here I am, in Laboratory 012.
That's our group designation now. Zero-Twelve. Of twenty. We have our own facility, our own mini-complex, all new and freshly built, just for us. The other nineteen groups have the same deal. No expenses spared, and between all of us, we have to save humanity. Not the planet, that is a lost cause. Only humanity.
That's the plan, see. Celestia is willing to take us in, as refugees. Apparently she's done it before, too. This is the first time her universe has actually crashed into another cosmos, but Equestria has touched other places, and a few of them were in pretty desperate straights. She's taken in giant, intelligent winged lizards and feathery carnivores. Trolls that move through dirt as if it were air. So taking us in is just par for her course. She's some kind of cosmic softy.
But there's a problem, a big one.
It seems that the radiation that kills us is the norm out there in the multiverse. Countless universes, and they all run on that stuff, whatever it is. Our cosmos is apparently super rare, the special snowflake of universes. Lucky, lucky us. We don't have a speck of that energy, and yet, here we are. According to Celestia, that radiation is the very stuff of life, it is the energy that makes life possible at all. So we, humanity, earth, plants and animals - we shouldn't exist. We are impossible, or at least so unlikely that the existence of a universe like ours is considered to be tinfoil hat stuff out in the multiverse. It turns out that WE are the anomaly.
Humanity really did turn out to be as unique and special as it always wanted to be. The problem is, that is not a good thing.
You see, we just can't survive in the rest of everything that is. The energy that makes life possible everywhere else is death to us. The Barrier was created by Celestia and her co-regent to protect us. Without it, we would have all fried instantly. She did the best she could - her Barrier is a bit leaky, but it gives us time.
Which brings me to what the real plan actually is.
Humans can't live in Equestria, or anywhere else - if we had a way to get anywhere else, which we don't. So, in order to survive, we cannot remain as we are. Our job in the laboratory groups is to find a way to transform humanity into something that can survive the rest of creation. Our job is to physically change human beings into another creature that can actually live in what will be our new home - Equestria.
So the bottom line is that it is our job is turn all of humanity into Equestrians. Into what we call the 'ponies'. I know. It just seems impossible. But it isn't.
The answer, it turns out, is nanotechnology. The dream of the little machines being able to remake any matter into something else was a powerful one. Sadly, not enough power and too much heat ruined that dream. But Equestria offers something new. Physics doesn't work the same way there.
They don't have entropy.
Heat isn't the issue it is here, and power - well, put bluntly, scarcity doesn't exist for them.
So the answer is actually pretty simple. All we have to do is come up with some nanotech that can do the job of changing a human body into an Equestrian body, and figure out how to use Equestrian physics to power the little buggers. Simple.
And if we fail, everybody everywhere dies on October 12th, at 2:30 in the afternoon, seven years from today. Something like that, I'm just pulling that date out of my ass. That isn't the real date. They said what the date was, but frankly, by that point, I wasn't able to listen anymore.
Tomorrow we get our first sample of the stuff Celestia thinks will work as the power source. We've already got some simple nanobots ready to see how they will react. In any case, I intend to do a little digging - after all, no information is to be denied us. I want to know who this Celestia is, and what Equestria is all about. Things just don't make sense to me - something is not being said.
14th century technology, yet they know about other universes and physics beyond anything humanity has ever learned. I don't get it. It sounds like magic, and to me, that means we're missing a piece of the puzzle here. Magic just plain doesn't exist.
Project Bucephalus - Laboratory 012 January 22nd
OK, I'll say it. Magic apparently exists.
At least that is the official label we have been given for the omnipresent energy field that pervades the Equestrian universe, and sustains all Equestrian life. Dark energy, black holes - how many different labels we have come up with to refer to an empty variable we cannot solve yet. Dark, black, strange, and now - magic.
Everyone is calling it thaumatic radiation, basically 'magic' radiation, and I suppose it is as good a term as any. We know just a little about it. It fills space, at least within the Equestrian cosmos, and, according to its regent, Celestia, all other inhabited universes. Magic interferes with quantum reality at a fundamental level - it destroys indeterminacy and then turns right around again and explodes decoherence. That is why it kills terrestrial life. All earthly cells make use of quantum effects in various ways. Plants depend on quantum effects for photosynthesis, the neurons of all animals use quantum effects for processing inside cellular microtubules, and mitochondria use quantum interactions to boost efficiency. Life used what was available to it.
The fact is that god plays dice - Mr. Einstein, I am looking at you here - and magic rigs the dice, puts magnets under the dice table, inserts a crooked gambler and then fudges the results after the dice stop rolling. It is no wonder that Earth animals and plants die when exposed to thaumatic energies.
But thaumatic energy is vital to Equestrian life - plants, animals, even stones use the stuff. Yes - stones. It appears that everything within Equestria has some kind of life, or life-like condition about it. Rock is capable of life-like action, and can be made to grow. The same is true of Equestrian sand, dirt, metal, glass, basically all matter from that universe. The 'ponies' use thamatic energy in countless ways, and it sustains their very biology. 'Magic', essentially, is another universe's 'quantum' reality, and it is incompatible with ours.
But Equestrian 'magic' is also malleable. It can be woven, shaped, and given programmatical instructions. It acts like many descriptions of sorcerous or religious magic from earthly folklore and mythology. Programmed Thaumic Energy Constructs (P-TEC) have therefore naturally been given the general title of 'spells'. What else would one call them? The similarity to earth folklore and stories has made me robustly convinced that there must have been contact between Equestria and Earth in the past, and likely more than once.
We were given some toys and two liters of magic in a bottle today.
General Norman P. Ridgway himself brought it to us, while taking a tour of each lab in turn. He's a big fellow, kind of a baby face for an older man, and talks in a sort of nasal, surprisingly high voice. If he were completely bald, he would almost be hilarious - except, one look in his eyes and you know he is completely incapable of remorse or human compassion. Ridgway scares the crap out of me. On the Stennis, I felt fine, great bunch of guys, and the experience totally changed the way I felt about military people. Ridgway makes me feel the other way again. He's a smiling psychopath. Orderly, charming, but devoid of genuine feeling.
There was a big case brought in and plunked down on one of the large tables. The case was built to withstand nuclear conflict, from the look of it. It took four men to manhandle the thing. Inside, were three objects. Each was carefully removed with gloves and tongs, and we were cautioned to avoid direct skin contact for longer than a few seconds with any of the items.
The first object looked like a glass bulb with a bit of dark, bent wire inside. The wire was shaped to look like a sort of double-ended French-styled weathervane - that is what it made me think of. The little weathervane spun constantly inside the bulb, and it glowed - a soft yellow light that cast no shadows. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. It bothered my eyes to look at the light for too long - something about it didn't make sense to my brain. My eyes just wanted to slide away, in any direction rather than stare at it, even though the little device was fascination itself.
The second object was a semicircle of some translucent, bright yellow material. It was horseshoe shaped, and very thin, as though a dermatome had sliced it off. It was about ten centimeters in diameter, and was housed inside of a transparent crystalex box. The box had a sticker on it with the words 'Time Sensitive Material' printed upon it, a date - sometime last evening - and an expiry date, some thirty or so hours in the future. I had no idea what it was.
The last object was a standard Erlenmeyer flask with two liters of a dark, opaque, slightly viscous, deep purple fluid. It looked like thin chocolate syrup, only purple. There were a few bubbles of froth near the top of the flask. The flask was decorated with both a biohazard label and a new label I had never seen before - Thaumatic Radiation Hazard. The thaumatic hazard symbol was done in violet, and looked like a six-pointed snowflake or star, with smaller stars at the tip of each arm. This must be the promised bottle of magic, whatever that meant.
A special demonstration was immediately set up for us, due to the time sensitive material of object number two.
An experiment was performed, using a vapor generator of some kind. I think it was the type of thing they use in stage productions to create fog effects, though it may have been more than that. The vapor was water vapor, but it hung in the air or rose, so it didn't seem like it was being produced by carbon dioxide ice.
The horseshoe shape was carefully removed from its crystalex container with a pair of tongs. It was so thin that it sagged like a sheet of replipaper - it was nearly as thin. One of the technicians that had arrived with the general used a hose attachment to make a fountain of vapor, an indoor cloud, really. The paper-thin curve of yellow was laid on top of the cloud, where it sat, in the middle of the air, as if it were sitting flat on a desk.
The vapor generator was turned off. Instead of dissipating rapidly, the cloud of vapor began to collect to itself, under the yellow crescent. The water vapor formed into a neat little oblate spheroid, a cloud-in-miniature, and just hung there.
"This is sample FS-P-LFH-02, sectioned by dermatome from the left front hoof of a living donor, a pegasus-type Equestrian. The sample has been further enhanced through the use of a programmed thaumatic energy structure to maintain its unique properties post separation." The technician, a middle-aged man with glasses and a bow tie reminded me of a guy on the threevee I used to watch who did a science show. Who the hell wears bow ties anymore? Tell you the truth, though, I thought it was kind of kicky. In a goofy sort of way.
"The P-TEC used was translated as a 'cloud-walking' or cloud-trotting' thaumatic program, sometimes used to allow ground-type Equestrians to visit nebular atmospheric architectural constructions. Please note the magnetic or attractive properties of the material, as well as the stabilizing influence it generates relative to the vapor itself. The vapor is ordinary water vapor, with no unusual properties, produced from distilled water."
The technician then decided to show us all some tricks. It was clear that he was enjoying himself. He used the tongs to lift the shaving off of the little stable cloud, and then proceeded to slap and prod the cloudlet, shaping and even spinning it, as if it were a solid, cohesive object. "The influence of the contact with the sample has a lasting effect which dissipates over time. Sufficient contact may impart a semi-permanent effect upon the water vapor. Laboratory tests have demonstrated that micro cloud masses identical to this one can be made to remain in situ for days at a time without disbursing. We believe that thaumatic energy is being imparted in some manner to the vapor, and binding it within a circumscribed field or region."
The last trick the techie did was to push the baby cloud back and forth, as well as raising it and lowering it with the sample. I knew what the sample was now, of course. It was a microscopically thin slice of Equestrian hoof, removed not by some alien farrier, but very likely by a calibrated earthly tool.
"The material of the sample has been designated as 'alicorn', after ancient mythological references from the Eurozone and the Mideasternzone. In structure, it is similar to keratin, though it is not made of any earthly protein. It has been demonstrated that stacks of the alicorn material can act as a crude thaumatic battery, storing thaumatic energy for indefinite periods of time. Thank you." He put the sample of 'alicorn' back into the crystalex box, and stowed it in the case, then stood near the back wall.
Another technician stepped forward to have their time in our spotlight. This one was an older woman who reminded me of my aunt back in Michigan. I swear, she even had the same hairstyle, last I remember seeing my aunt, anyway. Her voice was very different, though.
She used neoplastine gloves to carefully remove and hold up the bulb artifact. She didn't seem to feel tongs were as necessary as the first speaker. The bulb glowed, and inside it, the little weathervane spun. It never stopped spinning. "This," She really did look like my aunt. It was uncanny. "Is an Equestrian motor. I suppose that is the best term for it. It is used in the same manner as electric motors are used on earth, and for many of the same purposes - however, it is capable of vastly more."
She held the little machine and allowed us to look at it more closely - the ends of the bulb were made of metal, so it was perhaps more like an odd-looking fuse in appearance, really. Nowhere was there a shaft to communicate motion. The ends were just polished and flat. She put the bulb thing back in the case, and removed her gloves.
"We have not yet been able to translate the Equestrian name for this artifact, but for now we are calling it a thaumatic motor tube. What makes this little beauty truly astonishing is that it is entirely self-contained, self powering - as far as we can tell, it runs off of ambient thaumatic radiation, which in this case is being supplied by the contents of that Erlenmeyer over there."
That statement caused Baasch and Chawla to suddenly back away from the case, where they had been leaning over, trying to get a better look at the flask. It was pretty funny. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway.
"If the motor tube is removed entirely from proximity to a thaumatic source," My aunt continued - I swear she looked Just. Like. My. Aunt. Different voice, but just like - "the motor tube stops spinning and basically dies. It just stops, and we can't get it to start again. We have been told that the P-T-E-C... the spell is the word we are starting to use... is 'killed' by the lack of thaumatic energy. Once 'dead', a spell is gone forever, and cannot be recovered, since it is essentially a self-sustaining pattern, or information structure, that has no physical existence."
This boggled my mind, and it definitely bothered our evolutionary biologist, Malcolm. "A pattern... with no physical existence?" He almost sounded angry. "What, it has a soul or something?" This made the team laugh, myself included.
But my clone aunt - the bulb technician - she just stared at us. She freaking gave us the eye, and we shut up and stopped laughing. She couldn't be serious. But she was, even if she wasn't willing to say a damn word. I think every one of us in Lab 12 felt the same woo-woo chill run up our spines. That was some gree shit there, as the Cajuns say.
After the 'thaumatic motor tube' had been put away, a man stepped forward. He wore a rather fine suit, and sunglasses indoors. He was wired for sound, with permatech implants behind both ears and a frontal lobe implant in his forehead. Buzzcut hair. He moved like a serial killer in a horror holo.
"The Erlenmeyer contains 'Extract C', an organic, highly thaumatically active suspension that is extremely hazardous both biologically and radiatively. It is highly dangerous in close proximity, but relatively safe at distances greater than six centimeters as the field density sharply decreases. It can retain thaumatic potency indefinitely, as far as it is possible to tell. You are advised to consider the contents of this flask as being essentially pure, liquid thaumatism. It will burn you if you remain close, it will kill you if you touch it directly, or allow it to contact your body. It is the sole power source for project Bucephalus, and it is a gift directly from the regent of Equestria. The substance can be imprinted with Programmed Thaumic Energy Constructs, and will retain them indefinitely."
The scary man, which is how I thought of him now, looked us over carefully. I don't think he was the least impressed.
"The contents of this Erlenmeyer flask are to be considered more valuable than your own lives. There is currently no expectation of replacement should the contents be lost or carelessly used. You can easily be replaced, this flask cannot. Treat this flask as if it were a bottle of your own lifespan."
We were all glad when the scary man left. For a long time, nobody wanted to even look at the Erlenmeyer.
We were given an hour to examine, but not touch, all of the items in the case, and ask questions of the presenters. I asked the bulb technician if she had ever lived in Michigan, but she said she hadn't. None of us had a clue what to ask - this was new stuff. We didn't have a basis to even comprehend what we were dealing with.
So-yeon wanted to know if the Equestrian donor had felt any pain having it's hoof shaved. No. Just like earth creatures, the hoof material has no sensation within it. Mayoss kept asking about whether thaumatic radiation affected neurochemistry. He kept walking around wiggling a finger in his ear, like it bothered him somehow. Saulnier basically pummeled the poor hoof-sample technician with physics questions he couldn't answer. By the end, he looked like he had been mugged, which intellectually, I suppose he kind of was. His bow-tie was on crooked and everything. I felt sorry for the poor man. Physicists. Christ. Never let yourself get cornered by an excited physicist, that is all I am saying.
Nobody asked the scary man anything. At all.
The case was taken away and put in a safe place. General Ridgway had left us early, just after the case was opened.
But the damn thing - before the general left, Ridgway gave me a look and tapped the side of his head while staring at me. It was creepy, like he knew me. What the hell was up with that? The first thought I had was that he was flirting with me, the old letch. But it wasn't flirting, and later, I began to wish that flirting was all it had been. It was like a signal or something. Maybe it was just random. I don't know.
Creepy day, creepy General, creepy sunglasses guy, and alien stuff we have to figure out or die trying.
Did I mention I did not volunteer for any of this? They came, they told me what was what, I nodded helplessly, and here I am.
Gwen crept along the roof of the warehouse. She whimpered from fear and pain.
If she could just reach the other building, or find a way off the roof without breaking a leg or worse, there was a chance she might escape and thus keep the notebook out of their hands. Gwen's side hurt where the neat hole went through it. There was no blood - the plasma ducting created by an electomechanical rifle almost always cauterizes the wound. Gwen had read about the weapon once in a book about life in the old Midasiazone, back when it was still called 'China' and 'Russia'. The electomechanical rifle that had shot her, had likely been invented in Russia around 2010, and perfected in the ensuing decade. It used a coil to silently accelerate a charged dart at such a speed that the air itself became plasma along the trajectory. Knowing this helped. She wouldn't bleed to death.
She was in shock, she knew that much, because she still hadn't felt anything more than mere pain. Massive floods of endorphins were keeping true agony at bay. She knew she had to use this time well, because it wouldn't last. For the first time in her life, Gwen felt like the animal she really was. She was wounded, but evolution had provided her a window to save herself, a period of time where adrenaline filled her, and pain was blocked. She was entirely consumed by the 'flee' portion of bestial 'fight or flee' instinct. She certainly couldn't fight them.
They had come just after she had gotten lost once more in the saga of the redheaded nanobiologist struggling to understand her place in project Bucephalus. She had just read a passage concerning Lab 012's first attempt to put nanobots into a single drop of the dark purple thaumatic fluid. The result had not been encouraging, and one of the scientists had discovered a tiny black spot on a fingertip from manipulating the tiny scanning stage containing the droplet. It was a patch of necrosis, caused by thaumatic radiation. That such a thing could happen so quickly had made the entire team realize the seriousness of what they were dealing with.
It had started with a rattle, and the sound of the lock on the loading bay door being cut. The sudden, brief, loud 'chank' was immediately followed by multiple hushed voices and the sounds of the effort to slide the door up.
Gwen had understood that the warehouse was being broken into instantly. At first she couldn't accept what her brain was telling her. The warehouse was guarded. By Blackmesh Security, the world's most trusted and ubiquitous armed force. They were the dogs of the Worldgovernment, and only a fool messed with them. So the Blackmesh must be the ones breaking in - but why? They knew this was an authorized WorldGov project, and there was only books and romball drives in here, neither of which was particularly valuable. Especially the books. Why would the Blackmesh be breaking in?
Unless the Blackmesh had somehow discovered the secret Underground Bookmobile project.
That made too much sense. Somebody in the Underground had sold everyone out. Princess Luna had claimed that she could handle whatever heat her sister threw at her for saving disallowed books, and maybe she could. But the WorldGov would just see a conspiracy, or maybe an insurrection, and they did not like anything of the kind, and tended to deal with anyone involved very harshly.
It was a risk Gwenhwyfar had been willing to take, because books were her life, and books were the soul of all Mankind.
The door banged. Someone outside had gotten frustrated at the fact the loading bay doors always stuck. They didn't know the trick with the crowbar in the hole by the lock. In an instant, Gwen was on her feet, her heart and mind no longer in conflict. They completely agreed on everything now, for everything in the world had suddenly become simple. Escape. It didn't matter who was breaking in, or why, the only thing that mattered was not being in the warehouse any longer.
Gwen headed for the front, but as soon as she passed the stairs, she heard a crash from there - of course there would be a crash from the front, the Blackmesh were many, and they would attack every door at the same time. Upstairs. It was all that was left, and Gwen's fear only knew that up was the last remaining direction available. She quickly returned to the stairs.
Gwen became aware of the notebook, which she had become used to stuffing down her front, past her belly, into her underwear, where it couldn't fall. She began to climb the dark stairs up to Old Milner's office, all the while adjusting herself so that the notebook was safe, and well tucked against her belly, strapped down by her clothing. She zipped her jumpsuit higher to make sure the notebook couldn't fall out from the top, and began to crawl-climb the stairs with both hands and feet. It was more sure in such pitch darkness.
Below and near one of the few lighting fixtures that had been left on when everybody had gone home, the loading bay doors slid noisily up and open. Gwen froze, like a mutie-rat caught in the open and stared. The figures clambering up onto the floor of the warehouse from the loading zone outside were not dressed in carbon net armor, or equipped with the standard assault weapons. The men looked like a militia of some kind. They were dressed in pre-collapse national military garb, several vanished nations being represented. Their weapons were not uniform and issued, but were very diverse and almost certainly personal. This was insane - what about the Blackmesh? Nobody messes with the Blackmesh. Nobody...
Except.
Except the Human Liberation Front.
Gwen's heart was trying to run up the stairs without her. She pulled herself out of frozen terror, and began to climb again, hands as well as feet, but now as quietly as she could. The men hadn't noticed her. 'Sweet mother of Jesus', Gwen thought 'They must have taken on the Blackmesh out there, and they won.' The danger that represented was hard to fathom. Some people thought the HLF was a bunch of neckless gun nuts, polishing their antique firearms in the dark, and true enough, some of the bastards were.
But the core of the HLF, the higher-ups, they were professionals, and some of them were the best of the best. They had no love of the ponies, or of the Bureaus, and they had the skills to back up that dislike even against... the Blackmesh. Oh, god - she knew some of those guys. Geddes, he'd share his coffee with her some nights when she worked late. She was half expecting him tonight. Coffee was rare, and it was a treat. Jesus... John Geddes was one of the 'Mesh out there. Had been... one of the 'Mesh.
No time for tears. She was at Milner's office door. What now? It was still unlocked - well, freshly broken into - so it was easy to slip inside. But it was no refuge. It was likely these men would sweep the warehouse, it would be folly not to. These men were not the usual HLF rabble, shooting pegasai out of the air for sport, or tossing the odd homebuilt grenade at a Bureau. These were core HLF, and they would be professional, smart, and deadly. The office was not safety, and there really wasn't any place to hide within its cramped quarters.
The key to the roof. It hung on the wall, suddenly illuminated by a flash of light. They had torches, they were scanning everything with them. Of course they were. They would be up here soon. The beam having moved on, Gwen grabbed for the roof key and scrambled low to the office door.
She peeked out, barely moving the door and and listened. No sound of stomping boots on the stairs yet. Voices below argued about something. They didn't seem happy.
"This is it, it's right here. Fucker can't read a map. But this is it."
There was a beep and a click. "Package is confirmed. We are in possession."
A hissing sound and a distorted voice. "Issss itemmm pressssennnttt?"
"It's not here."
"Don't fuck with me."
"I am not fucking with you, it is not here. Look for yourself. LOOK!"
"ssssRepeaaaat - Issss itemmm pressssennnttt?"
"Item is missing. Instigating search." A shuffling, scuffling noise. "Full search, eyes open - the package has been disturbed, beware of the dog, repeat, beware of the..."
Gwen made her move. There would not be a better moment. She slowly, as quietly as possible, opened the office door all the way. She began to crawl, on her hands and knees to stay low, to the stairs that led to the roof. They were just to the side of the office itself, on the suspended platform in the middle of the warehouse. The office had been built into the beams, with the staircase running to the top of the building beyond the office itself.
"Dog dish confirmed. There is a dog in the yard, repeat, dogs in the yard." Something whaffled below, the sound of nanoweave and straps. Her backpack! They had found her backpack and water bottle! She was the 'dog in the yard', and they knew she was here. They might be creeping up the stairs even now. The office was an obvious hiding spot, especially since they had come in, collectively, from every side of the warehouse.
Gwen felt fear grip her heart and squeeze her stomach. She felt like she couldn't breath, she felt like she couldn't move, like her body wouldn't obey her. If she didn't take action, right now, she was sure she would just lay down and go fetal, and they would find her like that, crying and shaking. NO! The face of her grandfather, her old Eachann looked down on her from the great beyond, shaking his head at her uselessness. NO! She would not freeze up!
It took every bit of her will to break the lock on her body caused by her fear, but she wrenched herself up and ran for the roof. She tried to be quiet with her feet, but she was too afraid, and the stomps of her running up the stairs sounded like drums to her. Dammit! As she pried open the hatch on the roof, she smelled bacon - it was the damnedest thing in all the world. Cottage bacon, bright as you please, filling her nose. And then she was out onto the roof and into the night.
The perpetual smog layer that covered the world reflected the lights of the city, a dim yellow wall above. Around her, other buildings reflected the odd beacon of light, towers of chryslex and steel, polycrete and the occasional brightly lit sign. Some were ancient neon, others holo. But most of the city was dark, large towering bulks interrupting the mustard smog layer.
Gwen was beyond feeling, beyond her previous fear. With some impossible, momentary strength, she somehow managed to tear loose a nearby air conditioner. She half rolled, half lifted the bulky, rusted, useless machine over to the access hatch and left it weighing the metal cover down just as someone tried to lift it from below.
Gwen ran, away, just away, darting around other machines and vents on the roof, until she came to the shed. Milner had some kind of shed set on the roof of his warehouse, he had once had the notion of creating a farm up top, but the fact that farming had turned out to be work had scuppered the notion. As far as she knew, the roof shed still had the unopened bags of viable soil the warehouseman had bought, years ago. He'd told her the story early on, when the project had started.
For just a second, Gwen almost felt safe. The hatch was blocked, she was behind a shed and in the dark, out in the night. She breathed out a great sigh of relief, and as her muscles relaxed, just a bit, as the air left her lungs, she suddenly found herself on her knees, which only hurt worse still.
The initial stab of pain was a searing awfulness in her lower right side. Again, she smelled a whiff of her grandmother's cottage bacon - it wasn't real bacon, of course, but the smell was unforgettable - and suddenly everything went slow.
The horrific, mind destroying pain was simply gone, just like that, nice as you please, but also vanished was any sense of reality. The world was slow. Gwen felt... slow. With fumbling hands, Gwen bent and checked her belly. It was a hole, neat and tidy, about the diameter of her finger, her jumpsuit seared and melted around it. Horror gripped her. She had been shot, actually shot, but she wasn't bleeding. Countless books and articles flashed through her mind, spinning like the wheels of an old slot machine, back when there had been coins, the wheels locking into place as facts added up.
In the strange, slow moment, she was suddenly dispassionate - no bleeding, the wound was cauterized. Bacon. Not an ordinary weapon. Plasma sears flesh. Electric gun. An article on the inventor, a boy in Russia. Exit wound.
With trembling fingers, Gwen felt her back. She couldn't find anything at first. Oh. There! A much tinier hole, barely a pinhole, but it was there all right. Of course. The front was the exit, she had been shot from behind, and below. From down the stairs. A needle, a dart. It had passed clean through. It was probably buried in the hatch frame now.
Gwen was on her hands and knees, and both were crumpling. It was everything she could do to keep crawling. The grace of shock was lifting again, and she felt herself whimper from fear and pain. She crept away from the shed, to the edge of the warehouse. If she could only get to the other building, or down to the ground without breaking a leg... or worse... she might yet survive the night.
There were thumps sounding from behind her, the very sort of thumps angry men might make trying to force a heavy air conditioner off of a rusty hatch. She didn't have a great deal of time, she realized. Gwen checked the front of her sealed jumpsuit, yes, the notebook was still there. It must be the 'item'. Sweet Mary, the anonymous donation had been anonymous because it was delivered to the wrong warehouse. No wonder it was all WorldGov secret documents - it was the bloody H-L-F behind it, perhaps they had made a raid, or had a mole in the works, but they clearly had a driver who had gotten lost. And truth be told, all the warehouses looked alike. Anyone could have made such a mistake.
The thought came to her that somewhere, probably nearby, the Human Liberation Front had a terrorist base, likely for years, and she had never known. That close, in some other warehouse, all the past four months of her involvement with LAASTT and the Underground Bookmobile. Year three of the seven years to the end of the earth, and she had spent the last four months within spitting distance of the god-cursed HLF.
There was no way to jump the gap. The building was across the street. What was she thinking? She hadn't been thinking, just escaping. It had seemed nearer for some reason, back when she had started across the roof. She was four stories above the cracked concrete below. Not even plascrete, this part of town was so old. There was no jumping. Gwen looked for cables - many of the buildings had thick masses of intertwined electrical and service cables, pipes and conduits that branched from place to place. All had been gradually built up by countless hands long after the utilities companies had vanished during the Collapse. Favela tech had brought power and water back, however it could.
But there were no trunks of cable to crawl along on this side of the vast warehouse, and there was no way she was going to be able to crawl far enough before the bastards got through that hatch. Gwen began to cry. She could picture angry faces demanding the notebook, a gun to her head, and they would get it, and they would still put a bullet into her skull and that would be the last thing she ever knew. She should have gotten converted, she had the chance so many times but there had always been some thing she could do better as a human, some job that only a human could do in a human world. Ponies couldn't work most computers, not even the unicorns with their horns. Magic killed quantum chips, and made holographic screens go up in a mass of pretty sparks. She hadn't wanted to be relegated to sorting romball cartridges with her mouth.
Now she regretted it all. She would never see Equestria, she would never see life as one of the gentle fairy folk. That's what her grandfather would have thought of the ponies. For all the world, they were the fairies coming to call, the ancient fairy folk done up as horses and come to take us all home to fairyland just like True Thomas the Rhymer. That was what Equestria really was, Gwen had decided long ago. It was fairyland, and the ponies were the fairies come back again.
"I would'a made a grand fairy pony. I would'a. I just know I would'a made such a grand fairy..." Gwen was weeping now, because there was no escape, and no hope, and this was the end and she knew it. She shouldn't have gone to the roof... but then, where else was there to go? It wasn't a bit fair, and now she had a hole in her side that burned like fire and in a moment, she'd have one in her head that wouldn't hurt at all.
"What's the matter? Please let me help!" The voice was high and lilting, and not entirely human.
Gwenhwyfar Boik looked up, away from the rough surface of the warehouse roof. Her eyes met shiny brown hooves, and a warm brown pair of forelegs in the dark. She spied a glimmer of rear hoof before her view had climbed up a soft brown neck and past two brown wings refolding themselves. The expression on the muzzle was concerned, and partially covered by a blond mane that dripped like a golden waterfall down one side of the Equestrian mare's head.
"I was flying home, when I saw you crawling on the roof. I thought that was weird, so I came closer and heard you crying and..."
Gwen reached her hand out and grabbed the pegasus' hoof. "I need help! The HLF is after me, they will be on this roof in seconds! I need to escape, please! Help me!"
It took a couple of seconds for the pony to parse her words. It was clear that 'HLF' had an impact, though. "You're hurt!"
"I've been shot! We have to get away from here! Do you know a way?" A sick feeling overcame Gwen - what could one little pegasus even do? "No. Forget it. Flee! Just get away from here as fast as you can! Fly! It's pointless, just... go... go." It was pointless. One pegasus couldn't hope to carry her, ponies were barely four feet at the tallest. Those tiny wings. Better the poor fairy should flee. She wouldn't go out knowing that she had caused the death of such a beautiful creature. "FLY! DAMMIT!"
But the pegasus was gone. Good. Smart girl, Gwen thought. Unlike me. The sound of angry male voices could be heard now, the hatch was partly open. It would all be over shortly now.
The NOTEBOOK! Oh, Christ in heaven, she still had the notebook on her! She could have given it to the pegasus and sent her away, the stinking terrorists would be up the creek then, sure as you please! Stupid... stupid. What a lost opportunity!
"Get on! Hurry!" The pegasus was back, with an Arbofiber pallet. The standard kind used for shipments. When they ran out of wood to make pallets, Arbofiber had replaced the material. Twice as strong, and it almost even felt like wood. Supposedly, anyway.
"What?"
"Get on! I'll save you!" The pegasus was nothing but earnest, but... it was amazing she had even managed to carry a pallet up to the roof, especially so quickly. She must have zipped back to where they were piled, near the loading dock, and then flown the pallet to the roof. This was a strong pegasus, to be sure, but... what could she hope to achieve with this? It was just a pallet. There wasn't even a forklift up here!
"I don't..." The men were through. They were through and angry and dashing about on the wide, dark roof. The few - but bright - lights made actually seeing her pursuers impossible, but then again, maybe that was true with regard to her as well.
"GET ON!" Apparently fairy pegasai could be quite strident when they had a mind to. Gwen moved onto the pallet, uncomprehending but obedient. She'd never been yelled at by a pegasus before.
The men had certainly heard. The sound of running boots was drawing near.
Just like that, there was air threatening to blow Gwen from the pallet. "HOLD ON! PLEASE!" That was two times being yelled at by a pegasus now, though the latest was more a proper scream. Gwen grabbed the planks of the pallet with all the strength she had left in her hands. She looked around. Her benefactor was... pushing... the pallet with her forehooves, wings beating furiously. Somehow the pallet was remaining airborne, and somehow the pegasus had some kind of a grip on it, though Gwen could not for the life of her figure out how.
Something from the notebook came back to her. 'We believe that thaumatic energy is being imparted in some manner to the vapor, and binding it within a circumscribed field or region.' That was what the technician had told the author. Perhaps pegasai could communicate magic into any object with their hooves. They did pull carriages, that just hung in the air behind them, after all. Somehow, pegasai could extend their magical ability to fly - those tiny wings were aerodynamically impossible - into objects they touched. Or at least nonliving artifacts. Maybe that is why the pegasus used a pallet, instead of just pushing her directly? Or maybe it was because she was wounded... or that the magic would burn her if it flowed into her body. That was a thought.
The ground, far below, was rushing past, the night air blew Gwen's long, dark hair into the face of her savior. "Sorry!" Gwen dipped her head and caught her tresses with a finger, to keep them out of the Pegasus' eyes.
She heard shots, but nothing hit, as far as she could tell. She hadn't felt the first time she'd ever been shot, at least immediately. She noted she wasn't in pain at the moment. That was one good thing about clinging to a cargo pallet being magically pushed by a pegasus ten stories above the street - it was so terrifying and overwhelming that the brain just forgot to add 'pain' to the mixture of sensations. 'Need fast pain relief?' Gwen imagined a commercial playing at a favela kiosk 'try new Get Flown By A Pegasus! Works instantly to..."
Oh... sweet lord... it wasn't pain, it was cold. Air, streaming, blowing through the hole in her side.
She startled to wakefulness, her heart pounding. She'd been having a bad dream, but she couldn't entirely remember what it had been about. She sort of remembered, the first seconds after waking up, but the unfamiliar surroundings and the aching throb in her side had torn the somnolent terrors from her grasp.
'Sweet Jesus!' The events of last night returned to Gwen. The men. The flight. She carefully moved the covers and gingerly examined the gauze wrapped around her naked belly. Someone had undressed her, and treated her wound. Sweet Joseph - she had a hole through her, right through her side. It had been cauterized, so she hadn't bled, but it couldn't be a good thing to have a hole punched through like that. It burned, it stung, but it didn't hurt as bad as she imagined. Maybe they had given her something for the pain. That seemed likely, because she felt a little woozy, now that she thought about it.
She was laying on a foam mat bed, covered with a comforter. Of course - pegasus. Ponies living on Earth tended to like foam mats for beds, because they were easier to get up from on hooves than extremely soft mattresses were. Mats were more stable, more solid, and it was also possible to sleep in certain positions more easily. It wasn't a universal, though - Gwen's cousin Muirne - now a fine unicorn by the name of Shadeweaver - swore by her extra soft mattress. She admitted some trouble climbing out, in that she felt unsteady on her hooves, but it was worth it, she said, because of how she could sleep on her back so easily. It was harder for an Equestrian to sleep on their back, unless their bed was very soft - it was just how they were built.
Her side ached. Gwen looked around the room, unwilling to try to get up, what with having a hole in her side and it hurting and all. The door was open in the little bedroom. There was a dresser, and a closet, which was closed. A nightstand stood by the bed with a glass half filled with water. Oh... that's right. The pegasus and her roommate had put that there for her. It was starting to come back now.
They had flown for some time across the city - or at least it had felt like a long time. Perhaps any time spent clinging to a fake wood pallet flying hundreds of feet off the ground with a serious injury always felt long. Almost certainly, really, Gwen thought. Even without an injury, most likely. It had been quite a ride.
They had landed on a rooftop, somewhere. An apartment building. There was a blur of laying there while the pegasus went to get her roommate. Stairs, and being helped by a human woman and the pegasus mare. Gwen remembered starting to shake, as if she were cold. The waterglass. She couldn't remember undressing, but then she was fairly out of it by the time they landed. Getting shot was not a small thing.
The notebook! Gwen's heart leapt and began to race. She looked about frantically, trying to see the book. It wasn't on the nightstand. It wasn't on the bed, it wasn't on the comforter. She couldn't see her green jumpsuit either. Or her shoes and other clothing. "Hello?" Gwen tried to get up but the hole in her side would have none of that. It spoke with words of pain, and it had a very commanding tone of voice. "HELLOOOO???"
The sound of hooves and bare feet approached. Gwen hastily pulled the comforter over her lower body for the sake of her modesty - though clearly whoever had undressed her last night had pretty much seen all there was to see - and the action made her wince. Ow. Getting shot really did hurt. 'Imagine that!' Gwen's own thoughts mocked her.
The brown pegasus mare with the pale golden mane trotted into the room. An equally brown woman peeked around the corner, her dark hair gleaming in the morning light. "Are you decent?" she asked, a hand grasping the edge of the doorframe. The pegasus didn't seem to care. Newfoal or native, nakedness seemed to not be a part of pony concern.
"Hello? Thank you for saving me." The woman, seeing the comforter covering Gwen's lower extremities, entered the room and stood at the foot of the bed beside the pegasus. "Both of you."
"How are you feeling?" The woman walked around to the right side of Gwen and indicated that she would like to check the gauze bandages. Gwen flipped back some of the comforter to allow her access. It seemed clear from her attitude that this woman had been the one to treat the wound.
"I've been better, honestly." Gwen tried to smile, but the pain she felt made it more of a grimace. "My first time being shot. Hopefully my last, honestly."
The woman laughed at that. "Hello, by the way." She was examining the bandage, noting some slight leakage. There were reddish-brown spots where the hole was. During the night, the wound had wept a bit. "I'm Paige. Paige McQuillen. This feather-duster over here is Petrichor, just call her 'Pet' though. She's a pretentious little thing."
Gwen couldn't help but smile, pain or not. "Petrichor? Petrichor the Pegasus?"
"It's the smell of rain!" The little mare complained.
"It's alliterative and pretentious, is what it is." Paige grinned at her winged friend. "Don't worry though, she's right enough, if you don't let her get too bookish on you." Paige pulled the comforter over Gwen once more, then lay a hand on Gwen's forehead. "Hmmm... any chills?"
Gwen noticed that she did feel strangely cold all of a sudden. It was always somewhat warm pretty much everywhere except Antarctica now, though only the wealthy elite would know that for sure, as they were the only sort allowed down there. "Um... yes, I do, kind of. Oh dear."
"Oh dear indeed. I would like to have our resident medic check you later, if that would be all right." Paige sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the bedroom wall. "We have a proper unicorn medic two floors down. Well, not entirely proper, he's still studying what he can Earthside before moving to Equestria. He was an intern before he converted, and he's still pulling shifts even now, bless 'im. World may be ending, but he's in no hurry to leave it. Good thing, too. We still need help on this side of the fence."
"Oh! You don't even know who I am!" Gwen shivered slightly, under the blanket. "I'm Gwen Boik. I'm a bit of an old fashioned librarian, I'm part of the 'LAASTT' team - Literature And Arts Survival Triage? There isn't much call for librarians these days, so I'm glad of the work. I guess I'd... be dead... without Petrichor here. Thank you Petrichor."
Pet seemed pleased - and surprised - that Gwen used her full name, and smiled at being addressed thus. She adjusted her wings, fluffing them slightly with pride. Gwen noticed that Paige grinned at the pegasus for that unconscious act. "Why were the HLF after you?"
"Pet! Goodness, let the girl get to things at her own speed. No need to start 'grilling the suspect' so early in the morning!" Paige clicked her tongue at her friend. "How's your pain level, Gwen? I have more pills, if you need them."
Gwen very vaguely remembered swallowing pills last night. "Actually... it's starting to hurt quite a bit. I could use something, to be honest."
"Right! Back in a jiff!" Paige was up in an instant, and out the door. Petrichor walked around to Gwen's left and sat down on her haunches, a concerned look on her muzzle.
"Petrichor... I had a notebook with me. It would have been tucked into my jumpsuit, is it still... I mean, did you see it? Is it..."
"All of your stuff is in the other room. Well, except your clothing. It should be dry by now. We figured it would be nice to get it washed. Your notebook is in the other room, on the kitchen counter. It's a little worse for wear though..." the pegasus looked briefly down, her ears flicking. "...there's a bit of a notch taken out. It's a bit singed there. Whatever gun they used..." The way the pegasus said 'gun' made it sound like a swear word. This instantly confirmed for Gwen that the pegasus was almost certainly a Newfoal and not a native.
Native Equestrians visiting the Earth had no understanding of the vast and inventive ways that humans had created to kill other creatures and each other. The very concept of mass murder was utterly alien to the ponies, unthinkable. Equestrians that learned abstractly about guns, bombs, tanks, battleships, nerve agents, bioweapons, warmechs, molecular blades and such had no emotional connection to their intellectual understanding - unless they themselves had been attacked. Only Newfoals displayed such an emotional reaction as Petrichor had shown - shame, horror and guilt at having been part of a species so very, very clever at slaughter.
"I suspect they used an electomechanical rifle. Shoots so fast that the bullet literally burns the air itself. That's what cauterized my wound, I expect. Good thing too. Considering I was shot in the abdomen, I likely would have bled out."
The little pegasus cringed at this. "You sure know a lot about this stuff."
"I'm a librarian. Books are my life. I read everything, about anything." Gwen shivered again, and the shaking made her wound hurt more. "Though I do have my preferences. I like stories about elves and fairies and ancient magics, myself."
"Ever read any Lord Dunsany?" The pegasus looked up, cautiously hopeful.
Gwen smiled broadly. This was her sort of person. "Book Of Wonder, The King Of Elfland's Daughter, Beyond The Fields We Know..."
Petrichor was estatic. "Gods Of Pegana, Sword Of Welleran, Fifty-One Tales..."
"Oh wondrous! You are quite the extraordinary individual, my good miss Petrichor!" Gwen seldom came across a single soul who had even heard of the other direction fantasy could have taken, if Tolkien and his ilk had not stolen the stage.
"I can't believe you know Lord Dunsany! Wow!" Petrichor was on her hooves now, almost prancing. "It was really great that you were on that roof!" Instantly the brown pegasus looked deeply ashamed. "I mean... it wasn't good... not at all... oh sweet Luna... I... I mean..."
Gwen gave a soft laugh. "Hush! You saved my life. If it weren't for you, I would be so completely dead. Thank you, by the way. For saving me."
Petrichor sat down once more. "I'm just glad it worked. I'm still learning."
"The trick with the pallet? That was amazing, truly amazing!" The shivering was getting worse, also the pain.
"I've mastered basic flight, and extension of lift... but I've never tried it before with anything as heavy as y... uh... that heavy... before." The muzzle of the pegasus betrayed a slight grin. Her catch was a faux slip. She was a caution, and to be sure.
"I've got your pills, it took me a bit because I forgot where I put them last night, in all the fuss... oh dear..." Paige was back, a bottle in her hand. She placed her other hand on Gwen's forehead, noting the dampness. Gwen's teeth were beginning to chatter now. "Here, let's get these in you, no reason for you to suffer. Then I am getting that unicorn, Ace in here, pronto." Paige opened the bottle and shook out two pills, handing them to Gwen.
"Ace? Don't tell me... Ace Bandage? You have to be kidding me!" Gwen swallowed the Endorphinol tabs with the help of the glass of water on the nightstand.
"The one and only. I know! These Newfoals and their pony names, am I right?" Paige laughed, but her eyes betrayed worry. "I'll be back as soon as I can round him up. Stay warm. The WC is just to your left outside the door, Pet will help you. Back in a bit love!"
Petrichor nodded. "Kisses!"
Gwen noted the fond looks. "Are you... a couple?"
Petrichor grinned. "That obvious, huh?"
Gwen found herself curious. "Um... why isn't she... I mean... usually, in couples, when one partner... I mean..."
"Why isn't Paige a pony already?" Petrichor grabbed a pillow from the closet, then lay it on the floor to sit on. "The usual assumption we get is that I must have been hit by the PER, smacked with a bottle of potion in the street or something. Nope! Nothing so dramatic. Or that she doesn't intend to convert, and our story will be a tragic one. No, she's booked for the Bureau, there's just a list right now. The rush is on. We've actually been trying to find the PER, to avoid having to wait so long. But that isn't the whole story, I mean, she could have gone in with me at the same time, right? The registered couples exception." Petrichor blushed, under her coat. The hair was very thin and delicate on pony faces, which made such things as blushing visible. "The real reason is... um... well..."
The pills were kicking in. Thank the saints and angels for heavy drugs, Gwen thought to herself. "Yes?"
"We... well..." The blush got redder. "We are kind of a little... kinky. Just a bit, mind you! Nothing really out there! We don't have a dungeon in our bedroom or anything... not much, anyway... it's just that it's a once in a universe opportunity to explore... um..."
Gwen giggled as she shivered. "Say no more! Nudge nudge, a wink's as good as a nod!"
Petrichor's muzzle opened, her jaw dropping, her ears leaning forward. "M-Monty Python? You know..."
"A library holds more than just books, you know." Gwen felt kinship with the pegasus mare. It was rare to find any person these days who knew Lord Dunsany at all, and almost as rare to find a person who had ever heard of Python. "Did we used to be friends in a past life?"
"There's a colliding universe out there, and I'm a pony now. Sure. At this point they could reveal the flying teapots they've been hiding from the public, and I wouldn't flinch." Petrichor's tail was wagging, almost like a dog. "Glad to meet you again, Gwen! Funny meeting you in this life of all places!"
Her teeth rattled but she grinned. "You look different, somehow."
This made them both laugh.
When Paige finally returned, a construction-yellow unicorn stallion in tow, she found a very worried Petrichor greeting her at the door. "What took so long?"
"Ace here turned into a fetch quest. I've been all over the building twice. How's our foundling?" Paige ushered the unicorn medic into Gwen's room as she spoke.
"Not so good, now. She's got some kind of fever, that's pretty clear, and she's not as sharp as she was earlier." Petrichor brushed up against her partner, and leaned into her for comfort.
"Hello miss Gwen, was it? I'm Ace, I'm a second-year medical intern - not my choice, mind you, I had a bit of a change of life and they made me do a second term. Actually, it's been instructive. I understand you have a pretty serious wound. Can I examine you?"
Gwen was all shivers and chattering now, and it was harder to concentrate. "P-Please. I'm-m not as g-good as I w-was."
Ace Bandage took up a position on the right side of Gwen's bed and closed his purple eyes. His yellow horn began to glow, and under his eyelids, his eyes moved as if he were dreaming. Paige hunched down low, her arm around her companion, and gave Petrichor a warm kiss. They remained quiet, waiting for the medical unicorn to finish his scan.
"Well, you have quite a hole through your abdomen. The tunnel passes through several loops of your small intestine, and exits in the front through your liver. The charring fortunately stopped any bleeding, but there is an infection growing in there. We're looking at sepsis too, and all of that demands immediate attention." Ace opened his eyes, and the glow of his horn ceased. "According to Paige here, you have Green-Level benefits, which means we can probably get you into the teaching hospital where I work with little trouble. I'm going to make arrangements, and we're going to have to move quickly on th..."
"W-WAIT!" Gwen almost shouted the word.
"No, there is no wait, here. Septicemia is a critical condition. It's easily treatable with the third gen microbial inhibitors, but it used to be touch and go even back in the golden age of antibiotics. Those holes, plural, need to be closed. Gwen, do you think you can you afford an ambulance? It's that serious!" Ace turned to Paige. "If she can't afford an ambulance, what options for transport do we have? If necessary, we can..."
"I could fly her! I've already done it once. I can do it again, I'm positive!" Petrichor was eager to help, almost desperate. She very much liked her new, learned friend. "I've still got the pallet from last night. I can fly her! And..." Petrichor looked back at Gwen "...it won't cost you a credit!"
"I'M BEING HUNTED!"
Ace, Paige and Petrichor stared at the outburst. Gwen winced from pain, because she had tried to sit up as she yelled. "P-Probably. The HLF, remember? They are after me, I am certain by now they know who I am. But it's w-worse than that! They're local! T-They have a base really c-close. I can't just s-show up at a local hospital!"
Paige shook her head. "Gwen, honey, this is serious. This is not a time to worry about the HLF. The hospitals are all protected by Blackmesh, nobody messes with..."
"They k-killed all of the B-Blackmesh protecting me. At the warehouse. K-killed them all. They are after me. These aren't the usual idiots. It's the Echelon, the top assholes. Y-you can't let anyone know I'm here, they'll kill you t-too." Gwen sagged back, dripping with sweat, dizzy and sick.
"Girl, what did you bring home this time?" Paige stared at her pegasus lover.
Petrichor's ears flattened against her skull. "I didn't know! I mean... I didn't know it was like this! But what else could I do? I'm not ever just going to leave somebody to..."
"There's another option." Ace had a commanding presence, the room was quiet. "I've been in that rich-human hospital for too muffin long. The world's ending. It should be the first option, every time. Swirl, we should be using it to treat colds and minor cuts!" Ace leaned his long neck over the bed, his head close to Gwen's. "Untreated, Gwen, you have hours to live. How'd you like to add three hundred years?"
"P-Ponifi... ponification?"
"Paige told me you were with the WorldGov Literature And Arts team. You know the score. I have to wonder why you don't already have your hooves on. Religious objections?" Ace's purple eyes filled Gwen's view.
"N-No! J-Just never got around to it. K-Keyboards and records need h-human hands, you know?" Gwen had known it would have to happen. It was the only way to survive. Earth was sinking, and Equestria was the only lifeboat. It was a miracle the princesses were willing to take in so many refugees at all. But Gwen had always imagined going to a proper Bureau, on her own terms, when she felt ready. Fourteen days of that legendary real food all the Newfoals went on about. All the holos and lectures and maybe even a special speaker or two...
"So no objections?" Ace was insistent.
Gwen felt like she was dying, her body shook and the pain just kept getting worse despite the pills. She felt cold almost all the time, and sounds felt 'wrong' somehow. "N-no... no objections!" Every time her body shook, it felt like a mutie-rat was chewing at her side.
"Paige, keep her going. Pet!" Ace trotted over to the pegasus. "You carried her last night, you said. On a pallet. Think you can "Firemare's Carry me to Mercy and back?"
Petrichor nodded vigorously. "Roof. Let's get going!"
"Gwen, hang in there, OK? You'll be laughing on hooves in no time." Ace and Petrichor dashed out of the room, the sound of the apartment door being opened and hooves galloping receded and stopped as the door swung shut.
"Here... let me get you a damp towel. It might help with the fever sweats." Paige turned toward the kitchen.
"P-Paige? H-How about more of t-those pain pills? It's not like my l-liver is gonna care long!" Gwen tried to smile through frighteningly pale lips.
"Yeah, sure." Paige had no more smiles left. The speed at which sepsis advanced had begun to horrify her.
It was almost an hour later when Gwen was awakened. Paige was holding her hand, patting it to bring her to consciousness. "Gwen? Gwen honey? It's time. Ace and Pet are back, and they've got your medicine."
"W-What happened? They just l-left! Huh?" Everything was strangely distorted when Gwen opened her eyes. She felt like she was looking through a fishbowl at the world. She felt heavy and uncoordinated. And hot. Very, very hot, like the world was on fire.
"You drifted off a while back. I figured I'd let you sleep a bit. But now it's time to wake up. You need to drink your medicine." Paige had a cup, filled from a three-ounce government issued emergency transport flask. The flask had hung around Ace's neck, the same kind of flask the Taikonauts on the World Friendship Orbital Platform carried in case of a sudden Equestrian de-orbit. The carbon-fiber flask sat on the night table now.
Gwenhwyfar Boik had never felt so sick in all of her life. Then again, a part of her scrambled thoughts noted, she'd never actually been so sick in all her life before. Sepsis was fatal, unless treated. The medicine would fix it. The medicine would fix everything. The little cancers she took Malignostat to halt. The cut tendon in the ring finger on her left hand - no... that wouldn't so much as get fixed as simply be absorbed away. That annoying scratch on her right cornea, that made the letters look broken sometimes. Brand new eyes, clear and perfect.
She looked at her hands, while the room swirled from the fever slowly killing her. It was hard to focus her eyes. Bye-bye hands. No more typing. No more computers. Have to write with a quill and ink now. 'Sweet Joseph, my whole life's been typing and clicking, hasn't it? Not really much of a life, come to think... oh god... I hurt... medicine. Medicine.' The face of her grandfather seemed to hover in front of her vision. "I'm goin' ta join the fairies now, Eachann. I'm off ta join the fairies..."
The cup was at her lips. Someone was telling her to swallow every drop, it all had to go down. Gwen did her best, but it tasted like metallic grape and it smelled the same. It wasn't something a body would drink for enjoyment. It felt too thick, going down, and it numbed whatever it touched. Somehow she managed to get it all in. The cup was removed.
Gwen lay back, the ceiling squirming, the sound of Ace the medical unicorn trying to tell her something about what version the potion was. She tried to tell him about the woman in the notebook, who had helped make the stuff, but that was the moment that she found herself falling into an infinite dark abyss, and the room went away entirely.
Gwenhwyfar Boik sat up on her elbows, uncertain of where she was. She was laying on green, living grass, at the foot of a hawthorn tree. She recognized the tree, because of several books she had read about trees. Gwen looked around, not frightened, but greatly unsettled. How had she gotten here, wherever here actually was?
It wasn't Equestria - the plants and landscape were wrong. It looked exactly like how the earth had once looked, long ago, before the perpetual smog layer, before the blights and the death of all wheat and the end of grasses. The tree was an earth tree. But the world was strangely still, and Gwen heard no birdsong. She had read about birds. Apparently, they sang somehow.
Gwen sat the rest of the way up. She could feel her body. She pinched herself, and it hurt. She knew who she was, and as far as she could tell, she was awake and fully herself. What had she been doing before this moment? She remembered the warehouse. She had been chased by terrorists. The roof. And... Petrichor! A pegasus had saved her. She had been shot!
Gwen checked her side - she was unhurt and unharmed. She was also not wearing her green jumpsuit. In its place was an ancient dress with a green velvet kirtle and a brown girdle and tunic. She'd never felt such materials before, and they were a fascination to her fingers.
Suddenly, she felt a faint breeze, the first in this quiet world. With it came a presence, ancient, powerful, yet utterly loving, and it made Gwen look up from her examination of her skirts.
Milk-white she stood, almost half again as tall as any man, elegant and royal as could be. It was Celestia, princess of Equestria, shod in gold and jewels, her ethereal mane and tail flowing in otherworldly winds.
Gwen stared up at the impossibly beautiful creature, and then the scene and situation came to focus within her mind. Of course! She understood now. She had been shot, and the unicorn had prescribed... this was a Conversion Dream. It had to be - it could be nought else. But it seemed so real. It was like real life, and there was no sense of dreaming whatsoever.
A smile crossed Gwen's lips. The hawthorn tree. That was the Eildon tree, or she'd be stuffed. Gwen decided to play along, it was clear that everything here was deliberate. She looked into Celestia's kind and gentle face and spoke the ancient words of the poem.
"All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven! For your peer on earth I never did see."
Celestia smiled in return, and with shining, mirthful eyes, returned -
"O no, O no, Good Gwenhwyfar, that name does not belong to me; I am but the princess of fair Equestria, And I’m come here for to visit thee."
The two, woman and equinoid princess, softly laughed together. Gwen sighed and finally asked "What now?" She thought for a moment and then added "...my princess?" This was a Conversion Dream to be sure, and that meant that Gwen would awake as a pony, as an Equestrian, and not as a human. Humans were the province of the Worldgovernment, as they should be, but all ponykind was subject to the princesses, as they should be. With the change of her flesh, came also the change of her citizenship within the multiverse. She would be no longer under the dominion of Earth, but instead forever be entirely of Equestria - her natural and true home henceforth.
"Come, my little pony, and walk with me, for I have fairlies to show to thee."
Gwen clambered up from the grass under the Eildon tree, and began to follow after the princess, across the velvet green. As they approached a great and strange body of water, Celestia stopped and bid her to climb upon her back. Gwen was unsure, it seemed so inappropriate a thing to do, but Celestia insisted and so she did as she was commanded.
The water was a deep purple, dark and strange, and as soon as Gwen was safely upon the princesses great back they were both crossing the curious and wide river. It was not at all deep, but it shone with eerie light, glowing from below, and sparkled as it flowed.
"Princess?" Gwen had no idea how to sit upon Celestia's back, so she had resorted to clinging like a baby monkey, on her belly, her limbs wrapped around the great creature's barrel, holding on for dear life, her head pressed into the soft coat of white. "Forgive me if I'm doing this wrong... I've never been carried like this before. I don't know how to ride."
They had nearly crossed the purple flow when Celestia came to a stop, her legs partly submerged.
"Abide and rest a little space, and I will shew you ferlies three."
Gwen looked up, cautiously, from where she had been pressing her head into Celestia's back. "Princess?" Celestia was still quoting The Ballad Of Thomas The Rhymer. Was she doing this just for her? Is that how Conversion Dreams worked? Did the princess really care so much for her subjects?
In front of them both, just past the far bank, lay three paths, diverging from the shore. Celestia spoke again, the words changed, but no less well said.
"O see ye not yon narrow road, so straight and short it be? See how it ends in cliff and doom, both final and abruptly? This is the path of all Mankind, who in darkness cries in fear, but to no-one, for their road is solitude.
"And see not ye that braid braid road that leads to fire and war, that is of Man in Equestria unchanged? That is the path of wickedness, tho some call it the road to heaven.
"And see not ye that bonny road, that winds about the fernie brae? That is the road to fair Equestria, where thou and I this morn maun gae."
Gwen was overwhelmed, she was reminded of her grandfather telling her stories, and that the princess of Equestria would reach into her mind and present things to her in such manner was a kindness that bespoke great love and attention to her. "That's... that's why you change us, isn't it?" Gwen lay her head down once more upon the princesses wide back. She shut her eyes, reveling in the soft, powerful, utterly safe warmth below her. "Because if you didn't make us into ponies, we'd act exactly the same in your world as we have in our own. Of course we would. And in the end, it would just turn out the same."
Gwen opened her eyes, and reached up to gently stroke the princesses soft coat, only to be astonished to find a pale, ivory hoof at the end of her... foreleg. Gwen stared at her hoof, then suddenly twisted on Celestia's back to try to get a glimpse of the rest of her body. The sudden jerking motion tilted her to the side, and she began to slip off of the back of the great equinoid, to fall into the shallow purple flow.
Instantly, Gwen felt herself surrounded by golden light. It sparkled and covered every part of her, and she found herself floating in the air, weightless, orbiting the princess until she was even with her muzzle, and her long, glowing horn.
"Fear not, my little pony, for the rest of time and beyond, I will always be there to catch you should you fall."
Tears welled up within the new pony's shining eyes, and Gwen wanted to say something, everything, but nothing came out but a squeak. Inside herself, she knew beyond knowing that for the first time in her existence, she was safe, truly safe, and that whatever happened on earth or in Equestria, at the end, Celestia would be there, she would always be there. It was in some strange way a new eon now, and death itself, for her, had died.
The first thing that the Newfoal Gwenhwyfar felt was her tail. It was swishing back and forth, as if it had a mind of it's own, across the soft comforter on the mat. Back and forth - or was it really up and down, considering that she was laying on her side and all? Up and down relative to her spine, to be sure, but side to side from the point of gravity, and the view of anyone else.
Oh, but she felt giddy! That was the next thing Gwen noticed. She felt like the weight of ages had been lifted from her, as though a lifetime of fear and loathing and dissatisfaction had been swept from the kitchen floor of her mind. She opened her eyes, to see Petrichor staring intently at her, laying down on the floor, almost even with the mat. She could see what must be the yellow hooves and legs of the unicorn medic, Ace.
Throughout her life, Gwen had always felt a vague distrust of every soul, because, in the end, nobody could be completely trusted except family, and really, not even them all the way, to tell the truth. To be alive was to be on guard, to stand ready for the little and great betrayals and griefs that came from nobody ever truly being what they claimed to be. At least not all the time.
But Gwen knew that she was different now, and she knew that all other ponies were the same different, and she knew she could finally trust. All ponies were one herd, Celestia and Luna's herd, one family, and one heart. A pony could be cranky, or difficult or upset. But a pony would never betray or truly harm another, not when it counted, not ever. It was unthinkable, because there was no wiring upstairs to think it at all.
She felt so different! Gwen felt light and new and bright. She began to look about and raised her muzzle off the mat. Her ears twitched - oh that felt wondrous odd! - as she ran her much longer tongue around her flat, perfect teeth.
"She's awake!" Petrichor was grinning across Gwen to what must be Paige on her other side. Gwen swept her long neck around and found herself staring at human legs and knees. Paige was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, as she had the night before. Gwen raised her head to see Paige smiling with both gladness and a touch of envy, down at her. "He...helllooo!" It was a little strange trying to talk with her new mouth. Gwen felt her voice was a little higher in pitch, and clearer and less raspy too. "Hello!"
Suddenly Gwen found herself giggling. She didn't exactly know why, but it didn't really matter, because it was fun to giggle, and she hadn't done much of that for many a year. Gwen looked at her forehooves, shiny and ivory and smooth. She gave a tentative poke at the mat with her right hoof and that was funny somehow, and she started to laugh.
"I love this part. I just love watching them during this part!" Petrichor seemed almost as ebulent as Gwen felt. "Post-conversion euphoria. I wish it could last forever, you know?"
Paige gave a short laugh. "She does seem just plain happy. Just like you, love. When you first woke up, after, you were quite the silly filly for some time." Paige crossed her arms over her chest, hugging her own body. "It does look fun." The look on her face was slightly sad.
"Why couldn't you have brought an extra dose, Ace?" Petrichor stared hard at the standing unicorn. "You know we've been trying to get her into the Bureau. We've even tried to contact the PER!"
Ace shook his head. "This was what I could get. Well, I didn't exactly get it, I took it. They didn't want to release any of the emergency store. I'm just quick with my horn. Let's just say I won't be finishing my human-world internship." The unicorn looked off, out the window, and whipped his tail against his hocks.
"You had to steal it? Why wouldn't they just give it to you?" Petrichor was upset now. "She was dying! What's the point of a hospital if it doesn't help anypony?"
"Making money." Ace said the words flatly. "She wasn't a patient, she had no known worth."
"That's completely inhuman!" Paige was upset now. All the upset was making Gwen feel less giddy.
"No, it's completely human." Ace continued to stare out the window. "I'm done with weighing treatment in terms of profitability. I'm a unicorn! It's about time I started acting like one."
"Enough, OK?" Petrichor interrupted. "This is her time, now. Sorry, Gwen. I'm sorry! I shouldn't have fussed at Ace like that." Petrichor put a foreleg over one of Gwen's, grasping the hoof in the curl of her fetlock. "Hey, guess what? Ace here isn't the only unicorn in the room now!"
Gwen crossed her eyes and tried to look upwards, but all she could see was locks of raven black mane. She tried jerking her neck back to flip her locks away, but if she had a horn, it wasn't long enough to see. Her antics made Petrichor and Paige laugh.
"It's there, love." Paige leaned forward and gave Gwen a pat on her withers. "Just a little higher up. Here, I'll give it a wiggle for you." Paige took a hold of Gwen's horn, and gave it, and Gwen's head, a gentle shake. "Feel that? You got yourself a horn, girl! You're a unicorn now!"
Gwen giggled at that. 'you're a unicorn now!' - like it was a rite of passage, like when she had her first period and her mother had told her that she was a woman now. 'O brave new world, That has such ponies in't' Gwen thought to herself, and giggled again at the literary reference. Well, at least as a unicorn, turning pages on books would be easy as could be. Writing would be simplified too. A unicorn was a good thing to be, if one was a librarian.
"What color are my eyes?" Gwen was playing with her ears now, rotating and flicking them, much to Petrichor's amusement.
"They're unusual, for a pony." Ace had stepped in front of Paige to lean his head down and study Gwen briefly. "I've only heard of this, not actually seen it. You have black eyes, Gwen. Black like your mane. It's probably the single rarest color to have. Even gold eyes are more common, and they're fairly rare." Ace returned to the foot of the bed. "Equestrians tend toward bright colors, as you may have noted." This made Gwen and Pet laugh. "Alright, very bright colors. So plain blacks and whites are fairly unusual, with gold and silver being rare. Ordinary is every color in the rainbow. It's kind of the opposite of bland old Earth, really."
Gwen turned her head to look at Ace, and was astonished to find out just how far she could look backwards, over her own prone body. She was able to see her own tail and bottom. "Whoa... I can see my own rear!" That made everyone laugh.
"Pony necks are very flexible. They kind of have to be, really. Your mouth is your hand now, sort of." Petrichor stretched her wings and used her teeth and lips to straighten a covert.
"In the Oz books - have you read any of Oz? L. Frank Baum?" Gwen wondered if her horn looked the same as Ace Bandage's, short but with a spiral to it. Ace shook his head.
"I have!" Petrichor continued grooming her feathers.
"Baum had colors for every magical land. The Winkies were Yellow - everything was yellow, even the trees - and the Gillikins were purple, even the dirt was purple!" Gwen had loved the Oz books. The movies, and later the holos, not so much. Nopony ever got Oz right. "But for Baum, the color of Kansas, of the entire planet Earth, really, was gray! The absence of color was Earth. Maybe he was inspired somehow! Oh, that's a thought, to be sure!"
"Are you feeling hungry at all?" Paige had stood up, leaning on the window frame for support. "I've never heard of any recent convert who wasn't eager to have their First Meal As A Pony!"
Suddenly, Gwen realized that she was famished. How had she not noticed until now? Probably because the experience was so overwhelming, and she felt so light and happy. "Oh, yes please! Oh please! I...I'm really really hungry! Would that be OK? I'll help!" She did want to help, very much. That was new. Maybe it was just the euphoria talking? Gwen started to try to stand, but fell back down on the mat.
"Whoa, there little pony. I'll go put a feedbag together, you just hang in the stable for a while yet. Let that euphoria settle down. It's no big. I have to feed the walking mouth over there all the time anyway." Paige blew her lover a kiss and left the room.
"I need to go deal with a few matters relating to all of this. I have to say it was interesting, though. Conversions are always interesting to watch." Ace walked around and lowered his head to Gwen's level. "Take it easy at first, Gwen, and when you do try to walk, just think about it as crawling, like a human baby, and it will just come naturally. But eat something first. Conversion uses up a lot of local resources, OK?"
Ace lifted his head and turned around. The sound of his hooves on the floor made neat little clacks as he walked. "Oh, and take it easy with your horn at first. I tried to lift too much in the beginning and gave myself a headache. The secret is to just push your will into it, while focusing on a single object. Start small."
Ace said goodbye to Petrichor, and left.
"So! How do you like it? Being a pony, I mean?" Petrichor was grinning, as if she already knew the only possible answer.
Truth be told, Gwen felt so good she had no other way to put it. "It feels great!" And it did, and that was the fact of it. Her new body felt healthy and strong, and there was no denying how happy she was. It was almost disturbing how clear and bright her vision was, and every sound and smell was so sharp and powerful. It was as if she had only been half alive until now, and finally had gotten the chance to truly exist in the world. Plus, it was honestly astonishing how vital and important a tail seemed now that she had one to flick about. How had she ever lived without one?
"There's one extra benefit to all of this, too." Petrichor grinned, finally done with her preening. "Those HLF goons will never recognize you now. Especially if you pick out a good pony name! Oh! we should think up a good name for you!"
This vaguely disturbed Gwen. She was proud of her name, it was unusual, and traditional, and she had loved how her grandfather had said it. He always called her Gwenhwyfar, rolling out the sound like it was a precious thing. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to change it. "But... I really like my name!"
"I'm sure you do, but think about it..." Petrichor nodded at her "...you'll be living in Equestria one day soon - we all will. A human name puts you at a disadvantage, because you will seem strange and it will be harder to fit in. Plus, it's additional camouflage to stay out of the notice of the men chasing you! Not to mention that it's traditional and that you are starting a new life as a pony! Aaannnd..." Petrichor had a devilish gleam in her eye "...I REALLY really like thinking up new pony names, and you wouldn't want to make me feel all blue would you?"
Gwen laughed, still giddy from her conversion. "No, we can't be having that now, can we? Nothing worse than a sad pegasus, it brings the rain don't cha know?"
"Buckets and deluges and miasmas and cataracts and alluvion a'plenty!" Petrichor laughed. "And if you let me at the thesaurus, I'll throw some more floody words at you until you give in!"
"Alright, alright..." In for a pound, in for a pony, reasoned Gwen. 'Oh, that's a nice one', she thought. "I'll not be marking my first day as a citizen of Equestria by causing a catastrophic balneation of half the city, of that you can be sure!"
"Bal...neation?" Petrichor seemed impressed. "You really ARE a librarian!"
Gwen slapped her tail down on the comforter like a judge's gavel. "You bet your books I am!"
Their shared laughter echoed into the kitchen, where Paige was busy making lunch for everypony... 'everyone' she corrected herself. But her time would come. It would come.
Across the city, in a warehouse, Leonard Roosevelt Reich stood in front of a large, hanging holoscreen. He paced back and forth, an angry scowl dominating his face.
"It's up." Aaron was at the active surface, as always.
Behind Leonard, on the holoscreen, the thirty members of the Echelon saw the rotating face of a brunette woman. A running list of stats described her as Gwenhwyfar Boik, age 31, 5' 10", 212 lbs. Scottish-English descent. Member: Worldgovernment Literature And Arts Survival Triage Team. Suspected member of underground society connected to Enemy Two, Luna. Heterosexual, some evidence of bisexual phase in college. Damage to cornea, right eye. Damage to tendon of ring finger, right hand. Mole on left buttock, scar from bicycle accident on left arm...
The list continued scrolling, seemingly without end.
Leonard let the information spew for several minutes, before he spoke. "There is reasonable confidence that Boik here has the notebook. The method of her escape suggests a highly developed plan, including likely infiltration of the core organization. It is unlikely..." Leonard gave a hard stare at the thirty men before him, then continued. "...that it was mere coincidence for a pegasus to just happen to be flying by with the capacity to rescue her. It is even more unlikely..." His stare was menacing now "... for this elaborate escape to be coincidentally connected to the misdelivery of the single most valuable mass of information ever smuggled out of the Worldgovernment secret archives. It is impossible that all of this is a coincidence that the only item missing from the package was the single most important and vital part of that shipment!"
The thirty men shifted nervously, and looked afraid, which they had every reason to be.
"The error made by our driver is being looked into, right now."
Thirty men, and Aaron at the active surface, swallowed uncomfortably at this.
"The errors we have made in failing to reacquire the notebook WILL be corrected." Leonard's eyes were cold, the eyes of a snake, the eyes of a predator both wily and dangerous. Not a single man in the room doubted any word that Leonard Reich spoke.
"It is the analysts belief that miss Boik here is an agent of Celestia and the Worldgovernment, posing as a librarian. She is clearly highly skilled to avoid capture, and should be considered an active primary combatant. The pegasus is likely a former Worldgovernment agent, probably one of the genespliced core group that founded the PER. It's ability to lift our miss Boik, combined with an apparent skill for evasion under fire suggest it is a dangerous primary oppositional threat. There is confidence that the entire event was a planned and well executed action, and must have involved inside knowledge of our activities. The possibility of a member with... divided loyalties... is being investigated."
This caused more nervous shifting and swallowing.
Leonard took the comb from his back pocket, and ran it across his carefully oiled, blond hair. He put his comb back into his pocket with slow precision. "We do not yet know the location of miss Boik, the pegasus, or the notebook. Every speck of information is available as of now, study up gentlemen. I expect all three to be found, with maximum expediency."
Leonard Roosevelt Reich stared with blue eyes at thirty nervous men. "Let me put this in clear perspective: if we find that notebook, the lab boys tell me that the process of conversion itself could be made impossible within one week. If that is not motivation, you are in the wrong organization. Get to work."
And with that, thirty men moved to their own active surface terminals, and began sifting details and facts, on the job, and more importantly, on the hunt.
Gwenhwyfar, Paige and Petrichor had spent the rest of the day trying to think of a good pony name. Too many Newfoals really didn't seem to take picking out a pony name seriously enough, or else they were unclear on the concept.
"I once met this earthpony, right?" Paige lifted a forkful of spinach ravioli and marinara to her mouth, and chewed. The three were celebrating the unique Newfoal celebration of 'First Meal As A Pony' with a special dish. Paige had wanted her houseguest to have a happy memory of her very first meal, and so she had brought out a very special item from their larder as lunch to mark the day.
The spinach ravioli had come from a local co-op market. Earthponies had been greening the dead earth for almost three years now, and most cities had gardens covering their roofs and balconies. As a human city became more and more a pony city, the streets and parking lots would be broken up by powerful hooves and magic, to make even more viable farmland. The special magic of the earthponies brought the dying Earth back to local life, and healed some small portion of the fatal injuries that had been done to the planet. Many crops had been imported from Equestria to grow on earth during these last years, including some plants very much like the extinct terrestrial wheat and rice. as a result, there was a pony that would bring in his home-made ravioli to the co-op, and it was a very popular local creation, when it was available. Paige and Petrichor considered it quite the treat, and a perfect choice for First Meal As A Pony.
"So this earthpony, he used to be a mechanic for high-lift cargo aerostats as a human, so he up and decided his pony name should be 'Cloudfixer', right? Because he repaired airships. Now first off, anything with 'cloud' in it, that just shrieks 'pegasus'. All the air and weather names just naturally go to pegasai, because... that's where they live! Am I right?" Paige looked at Petrichor, who enthusiastically nodded in agreement, mouth full of ravioli.
"Speaking of pegasai, what about that one from the Bureau?" Petrichor took a sip of juice and swallowed. "The one who named himself 'Shadowmagic Wizardlore?' Luna's left teat - what did he think all of this was, some online RPG game? Celestia! What a featherbrain!"
"Mmmm Mmm mmm..." Gwen was enjoying the pasta more than anything she had ever enjoyed, and though she wanted to join in, it was difficult, since it would mean interrupting the flavor train. "Mnnn... I... had a member of my library staff convert during the first year..." Gwen licked sauce off of her tomato-stained muzzle "... and he ended up a unicorn..." Gwen swallowed and allowed herself a breath. "... like me, I guess!" She giggled, still euphoric, and still getting used to the fact of her new existence. "... and, and... he figured he would be a great and powerful magical type, so he named himself... get this... " Gwen could not resist, the savor was too much, and gave her bowl a lick. The sauce caused her eyes to roll back momentarily while Paige and Petrichor waited patiently. "Um... sorry... ah! So he wasn't the most imaginative soul, and so he named himself 'Zap Kerpow'! Seriously, Zap... Kerpow! We all tried to keep a straight face, but... it was just such a goofy name for the poor silly foal!"
"Oh, pony! That's a terrible name!" Petrichor was laughing and then took another sip of juice. "Wanna hear the absolute worst pony name I ever heard?"
"Oh lord." Paige rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. "Here it comes."
Petrichor grinned as Gwen nodded, eager to hear the worst pony name ever. "Earthpony. Little guy. Bright pink with a curly, fluffy mane and pink eyes. Struts up to me and introduces himself, right?"
"Un...hmm?" Gwen's mouth was once more brakeless on the flavor train.
"Big deep voice, 'Hi dudes! I'm Muscle Beach! Glad to meet ya!'
Gwen snorted pasta and started to choke, Paige laughed as she looked worriedly after Gwen, and Petrichor was reduced to sobs of merriment. "Muscle... Beach... oh, sweet Luna..."
When things had settled down, Gwen finally squeaked out, between sips of water "See... that's what I'm afraid of!" More water. "I don't want to end up with some ridiculous name... like that!"
"Won't let it happen, dear." Paige nibbled on a piece of bread. "How about 'libretto', that's rather pretty, and very learned sounding!"
"No, no... come on, Paige!" Petrichor sounded annoyed "That's nothing to do with libraries or books. That's a musical thing. It's the text part of an opera, I think."
"Really? I thought... oh. Well it is pretty!" Paige took another bite of bread.
"I agree, it is pretty... sorry Paige." Petrichor looked down for a moment then perked up "What about imprimé? That's any printed thing, in French! Very classy, Oui?"
"Too fancy for me, I think." Gwen sipped her own drink, a peach iced tea. "I don't have to have a book based name. I don't even know if I still want to even be a librarian anymore. I feel kind of eager to do stuff, not just read about it now."
"What do you want to do?" Paige, full to bursting, slid down in her chair, resting her head on the back.
"I have no bloody idea in all of two worlds!" Gwen was laughing at this, and the others joined in. "I just... I feel restless. There just seems to be so much new... possibility, you know?"
"Oh, I know. Believe me, I know." Petrichor almost seemed like she was going to cry for a moment.
"Pet here... she was in a wheelchair for a few years before conversion came along. She used to be quite the athlete." Paige wore a very serious expression. "She used to be quite the skateboarder. She landed wrong and, well, that was that. It was a rough two years."
"Paige stuck by me through it all. Even when it was clear there was no..." Petrichor leaned over and nuzzled her beloved Paige. "But hope did come. In the form of Equestria! Paige rolled me into that Bureau and gave up her slot to get me in faster. They were being stingy back then with the pony juice. That was before all the exceptions and rules today. I got converted the same week. Paige is my Celestia and Luna!"
Gwen was startled. "So it wasn't that you were kinky after all... you just... oh, Paige... Petrichor... that's just..."
"Oh, we're kinky, don't doubt that one bit!" Paige kissed the brown pegasus and winked at Gwen. "But we also just really love each other."
"Why... why did you have to give up your slot, Paige, I don't understand?" Gwen worked to lick any sauce off of her own muzzle.
"This was the very first year of the Bureaus, right? It was fine and all if you lived close to San Francisco or Vancouver. But anywhere else, and it was luck of the draw. They had conversion lotteries. I won, she didn't. There was no question who needed the ticket more." Paige buried her face into Pet's soft, brown coat - Petrichor had slid off her stool and then wrapped her forelegs around her lover in the chair.
Gwen sighed and felt a tinge of wistfulness - she found herself wishing she had somepony to hold tight like that. "You two are just... adorable. You really are."
"Ah... You'll find somepony in no time. Especially with you looking so striking! Pure black and white awesomesauce! You look like that old cartoon..." Petrichor squeezed her eyes shut, trying to recall something. "Paige... that old cartoon I used to like, the really really old black and white one from the little collapse before the big collapse? The depression? or Repression? or whatever? From back then..."
Paige lifted her head from fluffy heaven and looked at the ceiling "It had that clown... Koko the Clown. And Betty Boop. They jumped out of a magic inkwell and that's how the cartoon started. But I don't remember the name."
"Max Fleischer?" Gwen's ears perked up, which made her half-giggle because it just plain felt neat. "I know that one! It was in the pre-collapse media section. The cartoons were actually called 'Out of the Inkwell'. It was a mixture of live action and cartoon, way back then. 'Out of the Inkwell'... hmmm... haven't thought of that in a long time."
Petrichor pulled away from Paige and stood up, excited. "Black and white! It's perfect! I have the perfect pony name for you! And it doesn't nail you down to any career or future. It's just super cool, and that's all!"
Paige reached out a hand to stroke Pet. "Oh, she's twitchin'. It's gonna be a good one, I bet."
Gwen felt like bouncing on her pillow. She'd preferred it to the stool, she'd been given the choice of either. "The perfect name you say? Alright then, what do you have for me?"
"Oh, this is soooo good! Ready? Are you ready?" Petrichor's tail was whisking to and fro with excitement. "Alright, you are all strikingly black and white, like those old cartoons. You're really pretty, by the way. Exotic. So, the name I have is... INKWELL!"
"Inkwell?" Gwen rolled the name around in her mind as she said it in her muzzle.
"Inkwell! Like the cartoon, but also because of books! See, it relates to your past, to the career you had, but it doesn't influence what you might do in the future! Plus, it kind of says you look cool - you are 'inked well', like a really great drawing! Plus it just sounds neat!" There was no doubt that Petrichor thought so, at any rate.
"Inkwell. Hmmm..." It was a clever name, Gwen thought. And from what she had seen of herself in the mirror, appropriate. She did kind of look like a drawing, being all Ivory and Black. Essentially black and white, especially with her black eyes.
Paige nodded approvingly. "It doesn't even need a second name. It's pretty much fine as a single name."
"Yeah!" Petrichor nodded "A second name would ruin the effect. I mean... Inkwell... um... ah! Quillfeather! Inkwell Quillfeather! Hee! But that is just too much, you know?" Petrichor halted and thought a bit more. "Actually, that's kind of cool. I take it back. But it does sound super studious. 'Inkwell' just by itself, a pony could be anything, an adventurer, maybe. But add the 'Quillfeather' and it's kind of back to being a librarian no matter what. She said she didn't want any conditions or limits..."
"I don't know." Gwen broke in "I kind of like it! The whole thing, I mean. It is a kind of grand sort of name, isn't it? 'Inkwell Quillfeather' does have the sound of quite the expert about it, don't you think? And there's no denying that it sounds like it could have come from Equestria itself, I have to admit." Gwen paused and thought. "I'll take 'Inkwell' for now, and if I decide to remain the bookish sort, or if I get into the writing and all, I'll finish off with 'Quillfeather' later!"
She smiled at Petrichor and Paige. "So how's that then? How do you do? You can be callin' me 'Inkwell' from now on, if you please!" The black and white unicorn puffed out her chest and raised her head up high, in an attempt to appear snooty and high-class.
This made Petrichor laugh and Paige smile. "Well, welcome to our humble abode, miss Inkwell the unicorn! I hope the food has been to your liking?"
"Oh, sweet Celestia... YES!" All pretension was instantly lost as Inkwell remembered just how delicious and overwhelming her First Meal As A Pony Had Been. "It was fantastic. Thank you, both of you. You've been nothing but kind to me. Thank you so much for going so out of your way for silly old me!"
"Ah, tush and nonsense. It's the rule in our household - any guest gets shot, then we have to feed 'em proper! Isn't that right, love?" Paige was up and taking the dishes to the sink.
"Oh... oh yes. Long standing rule too! Had it since the beginning! You catch a bullet, you get a meal. That's the deal." Petrichor blinked "Hey... that rhymes! Cool!"
And everypony laughed, even the one that still had hands and feet.
After dinner - big bowls of fresh, mixed and toasted chopped hay, oats, alfalfa and banana slices (Petrichor's favorite, her 'Uncereal Unbreakfast Dinner Supreme!), and a Swansonbanquet Replidinner for Paige (Hawaiian-Greek Festival Flavor - with simulated lamb and pineapple-like bits!), Inkwell the Unicorn was at last left alone in the guestroom. Paige and Petrichor had many friends, most of them gone pony now, and they often liked to crash in the couple's apartment. They had made one part of their apartment into a permanent guest suite as a result, but for the moment, it had become Inkwell's room.
Inkwell was trying to get used to her new name as much as she was trying to get used to her new body. There were many things about her new state of being that were deeply strange, and now, alone in a room, just how different she and everything else had become, began to fully settle in.
There had been no proper Conversion Bureau styled fourteen days to get used to the idea of suddenly being a different species. Nopony had told her anything about what it would feel like, or mean to her, to be so suddenly, completely and irrevocably changed. The conversion euphoria was fading, and it was fully dawning on Inkwell that she would be a unicorn mare for the rest of her greatly extended lifespan. She was no longer human - no longer even recognized as a citizen of the Earth or the Worldgovernment. She was now officially a citizen of Equestria, with automatic ambassadorial status. This was not her world anymore. Humanity was not her species anymore. And all of this was permanent. It was forever.
Inkwell didn't feel bad about any of it, it wasn't like it was a problem in and of itself. Conversion had certainly saved her life - the hospital wasn't going to bother with her, that was for sure. And the world was ending - she would have had to convert at some point no matter what. It was just that... now, she was alone. In a strange room. And her old life was just... gone.
If this had been a Bureau, she would have had at least one, and up to three roommates sleeping beside her. The Bureaus made sure that Newfoals were never left alone, that they always had company. Conversion was an enormous thing, and the new pony brain was that of a herd creature - it wanted to be near others, it desired closeness at all times. Human Gwen had never minded being alone. Back when she was human, being alone was great, it was a chance to read, to get away from all the annoying... humans. But now, as a pony, Inkwell felt the most terible loneliness inside her room. She understood, of course - Paige and Petrichor were a couple, they slept together, they lived one life, they were mated. They needed alone time for couple-y things. She was a guest, and they had already doted on her greatly.
But still, tonight, her very first night of being a pony... more than anything in all the world, Inkwell - formerly Gwen - wished with all of her heart that her two hosts would come in and lay down with her, or call her to come snuggle with them, just to feel part of a herd. Inkwell hadn't felt such a need so keenly since her early childhood, when, after a troubling dream, she would crawl unbidden under the blankets, between her parents as they slept. How very much she wanted to sneak into the other bedroom and do just that to Paige and Petrichor, right now!
Inkwell - would she ever get used to that new name? - tried various positions on her mat-bed. Laying on her back wasn't very comfortable, because the Equestrian body was tall in the back and thin through the side, the opposite of a human torso. Laying on her side worked very well, but even comfortable, with the comforter pulled up with her teeth and a little help from her hooves (she still hadn't gotten her horn to work), she just couldn't sleep. Too alone, too much excitement... too much Uncereal Unbreakfast Dinner Supreme. Maybe she was right to 'eat like a horse' but... that was a lot of food. It just tasted too great - Petrichor had been right about hay (who knew?) but... she should never have asked for seconds. Urp!
By the side of her bed, on the nightstand, lay her shoes and socks, her cleaned and folded jumpsuit, ID and Credstick, underclothes, and the notebook. The clothing was useless now, but it belonged to her, so her hosts had given it back all neat and clean. She didn't know if she could still use the ID, and even if she could, it would almost certainly be a very bad idea. The Human Liberation Front was after her, and the last thing she needed was to have her identity as Gwenhwyfar Boik be in any way associated with her new life as Inkwell. Or Inkwell Quillfeather. She hadn't entirely decided on whether a two-part name was better or not. A lot of ponies only had one name. Ponies as a rule did not have last names like humans did. Some belonged to clans, but that was a different matter.
The notebook. Reading always helped! Reading had been her life, as Gwen. It was better than tossing and turning and feeling bloated and alone. Inkwell rolled onto her belly, and raised her upper body with her forelegs. Then she lifted her hindquarters and stood on the mat. The comforter slid off of her body. She stepped off the mat onto the floor, hearing the clop of her hooves as she did so. "Lights!"
The lights instantly came on. Inkwell made an effort to activate her horn, but nothing happened, so she took the notebook in her teeth and carried it to the foot of the bed. She lay down, facing away from the pillows, and stared at the notebook. 'Nothing for it, I'm a pony now - if not much of a unicorn yet ' she thought, and lowered her head to open the notebook. Her new pony senses were filled with scents from the notebook, as well as from the room and every object within it. She had read once that equines, like earthly dogs, had a sense of smell at least 20,000 times greater than that of human beings. Inkwell was willing to believe it.
Right now, she could smell a human woman from the notebook, and she could sense a kind of layering effect as the woman's scent changed month by month receding into the past. She could smell her own former body's scent, when it had been human, on the notebook as well, and also from the freshly washed jumpsuit. She could smell the fact that Paige had carried her jumpsuit, and that Petrichor had helped. Inkwell could tell that some time in the past - actually many times in the past - various humans, ponies, and humans and ponies had enjoyed sex on the mattress under her, receding into the years. She smelled the exact spot in the room where a long time ago, some previous resident had kept mutie rats as pets in a cage, and their bedding had spilled out onto the floor. Inkwell stared at the spot, seeing nothing, but certain of the location, and what it represented. It smelled like pet rats, with a tinge of urine-rusted metal for the cage.
The oddest thing about such massive information flooding her brain was that none of it smelled bad, as such. Not even the smell of the rat's urine from long, long ago. Inkwell, as Gwen, had wondered how animals like dogs could smell disgusting things and not be bothered in the least despite having such incredible senses. Inkwell's sense of smell and taste were radically different now, that was clear - hay tasted rich and savory like the finest replisteak, and oats were beyond mouthwatering. The banana had made her cry at the table from emotion. The garbage recycler had not smelled disgusting at all. She didn't want to lick the thing, but neither had she been repulsed. Considering how powerful her senses were, Inkwell decided she was grateful for how her new brain processed and interpreted things.
It would have been maddening to have a sense of smell thousands of times more powerful than before, only to find that the smell of the bathroom to the left was utterly intolerable. 'Dearest Celestia!' Inkwell thought, 'I can smell my own lunch and dinner through my own flesh!' The notion was staggering, but very real.
Using her teeth and lips, Inkwell opened the notebook and began turning the pages. One page got stuck on her lip slightly, and felt funny when it slid off. She had seen other ponies turn pages just this way as though it were the most natural thing in the world - Newfoals, at that - but right now, Inkwell just felt clumsy. It would take practice to see her neck as an arm, and her mouth as a hand. She wondered 'why didn't they just gift Newfoals with all the knowledge of how to be a pony?' She thought a bit about it, and then decided it was probably because it would have taken too long to program into the nanobots, or because it would have changed the person themselves too much. Maybe the price of remaining yourself through Conversion was to be forced to learn, step by step, how to be a pony in the world.
Where was she in the notebook? Ah, past January, that was certain. February, then.
Project Bucephalus - Nanosafety Level 4 facility February 15th
It finally works. Somewhat. The secret was to properly process the fairy blood and then let the unicorn teams do their thing to it. That's what we all call the purple fluid now. Fairy blood. It does look like purple blood in the initial state, it even smells like it. But, after processing, and the centrifuge, we get a nice, clear, violet liquid. The stuff could burn your hand off leaving charred bone if you were stupid enough to lift a vial of it. It is probably ten times more powerful after being filtered and centrifuged.
Daniels, our biochemist, came up with a way to measure thaumatic radiation levels. The stuff is invisible to technology, beyond the fact it destroys it. Her solution was elegant. Cultured strips of human skin, grown in a bioreactor. They get strung on little neoplastic frames, everything exact and calibrated. All you do is put a strip in harms way, and use a chronometer to measure how fast the little rectangle of skin dies. Time versus degree of necrosis. It is remarkably consistent. So I can more precisely say that properly processed fairy blood is 10.37 times more potent than prior to processing.
Daniels can't make sense of the waste left over in the centrifuge. It's probably biological, she says. Probably. Under a microscope it looks like little dark purple - almost black - disks piled on top of each other, all waving like they were in a breeze. They never stop waving. It is creepy as hell. We dump the stuff into sealed containers where it is shipped back to Equestria. They measure the stuff precisely, they don't want us keeping any of whatever it is. Every speck of the material is accounted for. It is apparently more precious than... well anything. Nothing is more precious. Maybe it really is the blood of fairies, and they desanguinate the poor little creatures or something. We know nothing, and it is maddening.
The processed fairy blood, we call it 'wizard wine', that gets sent to the unicorn mages on level three. We have a bunch of really old, scary unicorns down there, dressed up in robes and jewels and fancy hoofwear, and they come and go as they please thanks to a bunch of weird stones they stuck in the floor. I've been told they teleport. They fold space and time and pop back and forth from Equestria at will. Or near Equestria, then walk across, something like that.
Their job is to weave P-TEC (Programmed Thaumic Energy Constructs), or basically magic spells, into the wizard wine. They seem highly upset to work with the stuff, as if it were some big sacrilege or something. But they do what we ask them, they are under orders from the twin princesses. I don't think they like us, to tell the truth. But then, I am not sure these Equestrians like anyone. They are the first of their kind like that I have met. They are a breed apart.
I'm getting used to the ponies now. We have several acting as liaisons and probably spies in Lab 12. They have overly cute names and goddamn are they colorful. But they are also very pleasant, cheerful, and kind. They are friendly to a fault, and just so darn nice that I can't see them as weird aliens anymore. To tell the truth, I like them better than I do my colleagues most of the time. This is no aspersion on the character of my teammates, it's just that anyone would compare poorly to a creature that is always pleasant, always cheery, and always eager to help - not to mention just plain fun to be around.
If this is what we will become, should the project actually succeed, I don't think I will have any problem with it. I only wish project Bucephalus would give humans such sunny dispositions. I don't like myself compared to them.
There are four Equestrian natives that associate with us in Lab 12. Two are still learning English, so I haven't had much to say to them, and I can't pronounce their names to save my life. The other two use translated names, and are very fluent in English, and one is fluent in Korean too. The first is a light blue ground-type Equestrian who goes by the name of 'Buttercream'. At least that is supposed to be the nearest English representation possible. The other, trilingual pony we call 'Raindrops', mostly because of the symbol on her buttocks. She is a pale yellow pegasus pony - that is the only thing to call them, they have wings. Ponies seem to have these odd tattoo-like marks on their behinds which hold some great importance to them. The designs seem to be made out of the hair that forms their coat itself. It looks as if the hair just grows in as an image. Raindrops has the image of three droplets. Buttercream has a picture of a pastry that looks a great deal like a cupcake. Maybe ponies act as living billboards to advertise Equestrian products?
Raindrops sometimes stops to chat with me. She lives in a small town in Equestria, not far from the capital. She works on the weather team. Apparently the weather is controlled in Equestria, it has to be manufactured. It doesn't happen naturally, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the ponies themselves are the mechanism of nature in their reality. They make nature happen, rather than how things are in our universe, where nature makes us happen.
Raindrops is very curious, and wants to know about our world and about humans. All of us in the project were given a big lecture on what we are allowed to say to the Equestrian helpers. We cannot talk about human history, current events, or the state of the world in any detail. We are required to keep to our personal lives, if we choose to share them, and to trivial details such as our favorite foods, colors and hobbies. We can explain the details of everyday life. We were told to treat the Equestrians working with us as being emotionally like very young children, despite having an intelligence and capacities that humble us all. It is a very strange thing to deal with them. We can discuss the deepest issues of the project, and they grasp the subject matter like trained scientists. But one word about, say, the Collapse, and we are facing potential termination, and by that I really mean termination.
It's sometimes like working beside cute and colorful landmines. It isn't their fault. Apparently their world has never had real war, or poverty, or hunger, or sickness or total financial collapse. The horrors of human history are utterly alien to them, and it is felt that such knowledge of our world would deeply scar them, and compromise our work. So, we talk careful pleasantries with these strikingly beautiful and caring aliens, all the while dealing with the fact they clearly feel hurt that we won't open up fully to them. That is sometimes the most difficult part of my life here.
So, long story short, we got the stock nanomachines to run, powered by the wizard wine. It took several iterations, and the taciturn unicorns on level three grumbled at us a lot, but in the end the little buggers managed to build a human kidney for us. That was the programming we had available to give them from a medical project abandoned a decade ago. The kidney project was abandoned because the result was a partially cooked organ that was laced with the remains of dead nanobots. That wasn't the case here. All the nanobots came out, to the last unit, and the kidney was entirely healthy and functional. At least at first.
The concept was proved, but within minutes, little blotches began to spread. Necrosis. The thaumatic energy powering the nanobots had somehow contaminated the tissue. Within half an hour, the perfect kidney was a sloppy mess of black pudding. Supposedly, if we can make the little machines create an Equestrian organ, this problem won't happen. We are waiting on another group, in another part of the world, to finish sequencing whatever the aliens use for the equivalent of DNA. Hopefully, it will be something we can make use of.
That's one thing I have discovered. It isn't just us, we proud 400. There are other groups and teams all over the planet. We're just one small aspect of what must be the single greatest global project ever undertaken. The scope, the scale of it boggles my mind. The entire human species is working together on one, single thing. Historic isn't enough of a word for that.
It is almost ironic - the first time in all of history that the human race has worked as one, and the purpose of the project is to stop being the human race. I guess that is ironic. I'm not sure. I've never really gotten 'irony', honestly.
Inkwell closed the notebook and sighed. Reading hadn't helped as much as she had hoped. She yawned. It was going to be a long night, and a lonely one.
"Can't sleep?" It was Paige, at the crack in the door. Inkwell had left her door open a few inches, loath to close it entirely. Paige must have seen the light on.
"Um..." Inkwell stared at her new hooves. She didn't want to admit how she felt, how terribly lonely she was. But the feeling was overwhelming. She just couldn't stop her ears from folding back against her skull.
"Pet said you'd be in a pickle. The pony herd thing. Listen... you can come jump in with us. Won't be the first time we've had a houseguest in our bed." Paige blushed "Um... what I mean is... well... you see..." She coughed, lightly. "Bottom line, you are probably really, really lonely right now right?"
Inkwell nodded, her ears still drooping. She felt exposed, truly naked for the first time since her conversion.
"Come on, it's warm in the other bed, and there's plenty of room. And it's OK too, nothing weird or anything going on. It's just ponies are a herd species, and they are used to not being alone. Nopony... dammit... I mean nobody wants you to suffer. So please, join us!"
Petrichor poked her muzzle through the gap "Don't be a silly filly! Come on - pony is as pony does! And ponies are natural cuddlers. This way! Come on! That's it!"
Inkwell found herself led into the couple's bedroom, and tried not to look at the odd things on the shelves and walls. She found herself gratefully jumping into the bed, a very soft one for the sake of Paige's human body, and instantly a massive rush of tingly scents flooded her brain. All the scents were happy ones, though, and they made her feel comfortable and safe. It was amazing how powerful smell could be, and what emotions it could generate.
Paige and Petrichor got in, on both sides of Inkwell, and with them there, she could not keep herself awake, and feeling no longer alone at all, fell instantly, and joyfully asleep.
Three days later, they were on the way to the market.
The little silvern bells clipped into Pet's tail and the one on her collar jingled musically. Her antique white and pink circus browband was plumed with a great pink feather. Lacy, pink and white inverted scallop barding graced her body, and her rump breeching followed the scalloped design. Pet wore a bridle and bit, also in pink and white, and her back was graced with a faux silk saddle with ruffled edges. She was quite the little circus pony, and trotted with her hooves high and a bounce in her walk borne of pride and not a little naughty excitement. The scent from her almost made Inkwell's head spin.
Ching-ching-ching-ching - Pet's bells were echoed by Inkwell's own, though she was not a circus pony. Somehow Paige and Petrichor had gotten her to agree to the medieval styled crushed Panne velvet Caparisons. The triangular dags alternated in red and black, with a tiny brass bell at the end of every one. Ribbon ties and cinch rings adorned her, and her head was crowned with a floral browband wreath, with four matching pastern wreaths close to her hooves. The faux black and red velvet saddle on her back did not complete her costume, rather the dagged reign covers and bit in her mouth accomplished that.
"We have to go to the market, we need groceries!" The logic was sound enough at this point.
"But what about the HLF? They're after me, and maybe Petrichor was imaged! They might be after her too!" Inkwell had thought this was a valid issue. The last thing she wanted was for trouble to come to this wonderful couple that had taken her in, but her words had brought only laughter.
"I only fly at night - best time, because there is almost no traffic in the air, and if there is some nut with a gun, he's less likely to hit, right?" Petrichor seemed awfully jovial, considering the severity of what could happen. "But during the day, well, let's just say nopony would recognize me, image or not!" For some reason both Paige and Petrichor had laughed at this.
Then they opened the large, walk-in closet.
'Disguises', they argued. That is how all of it would work. Better to just maintain the normal pattern of their lives, it would attract less attention. The HLF would be looking for sudden changes in pattern, and if they were local as Inkwell had suggested, then the last thing to do would be to change their routine.
And it had seemed only reasonable that Inkwell should be dressed up too, because Paige and Pet tended to mostly hang out with other kinky friends. Worse, without a disguise, Inkwell might be recognized herself! Instantly a flurry of activity had begun, with giggles and laughs and the scents of excitement from both of her hosts. It had all made sense, in the moment.
The trio and the cart clopped and stepped and creaked and rolled along the dirt road that had once been the middle of a carbotop city street bordered by plascrete walks. Now, the tall apartment buildings and rebuilt ruins towered over farmland. The ponies and humans had worked together to break up the hard road to reveal the poisoned soil underneath. As had been done in countless cities over the past three years, teams of earthponies and unicorns had worked to purify the dirt, and return it to viability. Now imported alien crops grew where once parking lots and roadways had been, and gardens hung from nearly every balcony.
Paige was dressed outlandishly herself, in kelp leather fetish gear, her thigh-high boots attacking the ground. Her slender riding crop was held jauntily over a shoulder by a gloved hand, her dark glasses gleaming under a black leathern flat cap.
Pet walked close beside Inkwell, as if she were helping to pull the cart. The cart had no means for double harnessing, so this was the next best thing. From a distance, they seemed a team. There was zero doubt that Pet was in her element, and so was Paige, both were grinning widely, and Inkwell's nose spoke of secret excitement exuding from her eccentric hosts.
It wasn't until they were three blocks away that Inkwell finally realized that the HLF could not possibly recognize her no matter what - she was a pony now, and they were looking only for 'Gwen the human'. But it was far too late now, they were nearly at the market, and in any case, Inkwell had gotten the job of pulling the lovely little miniature haycart that served as their shopping basket. She was harnessed in and... oh, sweet Celestia, what had she gotten herself into?
SCHWAPP! Inkwell startled and whinnied at the provocative spank from the light little crop that had just impacted her flank. She found herself almost prancing after that, which made Paige giggle and Pet give the most outrageous leer.
"I suppose you two are finding this more than a little funny, aren't you? Oh, you are a pair of devils and make no mistake about that!" Inkwell tried to sound very cross, but the squeak in her voice betrayed her. Oh, it was all terribly embarrassing, but in her entire life she had never felt so incredibly... well, never should anypony mind, and it would be best to just get through this and forget about it entirely! After a few dozen showers, and a prayer to Celestia, if that was the thing to do.
SCHWAPP! That one was for Pet - there was no calling her 'Petrichor' today, it was clear she was 'Pet' through and through - and the leer on her muzzle turned first to a startled, wide-eyed shock, followed by a look so filled with ardor and arousal that it was positively lewd. They did this every week? Sweet Luna, neither of the scamps had been kidding one bit about their kinky way of....
"A new pony in the show, mistress Paige?" The voice was male, human, and jovial "Or a pet... for Pet?" He gave a laugh, whoever he was. Inkwell stared intently at a pair of dark shoes and gray socks, and the bottoms of hand-sewn favela breeches. "Shy one, isn't she?"
"Come on, Ink! Smile for the grocer!" Pet whispered, standing close. Another SCHWAPP! from the crop rebuked her for her words. Pet stiffened, then relaxed with a faint sigh.
"Behave, Pet!" Paige would brook no insolence from the little pegasus during playtime. "This is Inkwell, mister Ferguson, she's an old friend of Pet's and mine, come to stay a while with us. She's a bit untrained, but we're working on that." Inkwell felt a comforting pat on her flank. "Say hello to mister Ferguson, dear, he's the nice man who we buy all our tasty hay and goodies from!"
Without a thought, Inkwell found herself looking up at the tall, graying human. Sweet Luna but he was tall! It was like gazing up at a giant! A moment later, Inkwell recalled that it likely wasn't that mister Ferguson the grocer was a giant as much as it was that ponies were much lower to the ground, and that Paige wasn't all that tall for a human. Ferguson smiled around a thick, gray-tinged mustache, waiting.
"Hello... mister Ferguson." Inkwell found herself staring at the human's shoes again, feeling a flooding mixture of emotions she was having trouble figuring out. There was a certain amount of embarrassment because of the way in which she was dressed... harnessed? Done up? She didn't have the right word for whatever it was that she was wearing. It was less clothing than decoration. She felt like she was on parade, somehow.
She also felt little-foal-shy in a way she had not felt since her earliest years of life. She no longer felt thirty-one, that was for certain. If anything, she felt like a teenager. That might not be so far from the truth, come to think of it. The average Equestrian could expect to live from one hundred and fifty years to three hundred, depending on how misadventurous they were. If she lived a quiet life, and stayed away from dragons and mysterious forests, thirty one was only one-ninth of her potential life span. For a pony, she literally was the equivalent of a teenager. In human terms, she might be anywhere from age ten to sixteen.
Good Luna, she was pony Jailbait! So to speak.
By the time her thoughts turned again to the world around her, Inkwell felt the cart she was hitched to shaking as large bales were dropped into it. Ferguson the grocer had been busy fetching and depositing the week's groceries into the cart, and they were quite a haul. Inkwell turned her head to see Paige extract some tiny golden coins from a pouch and give them to the favela grocer. Bits. Equestrian bits. Currency had returned to the world with the increasing dominance of ponies in human lands, and in the favela, bits had become the money of choice. Creditsticks were useless when there was only two hours of electricity a day, and barter was slow and tedious. Bits had been welcomed without fuss or question. Every favela dweller, pony or human, had complete faith in the government and wealth of Equestria.
It was, after all, where all the real food came from.
"Thank you, Mr. Ferguson, I think we're done here. Have a nice day!" Paige was busy rearranging one of the crates of fruit in the cart behind Inkwell.
Ferguson the grocer came around to the front, where Pet and Inkwell quietly stood. He crouched down, smiled, and placed his hands to their muzzles, and opened his fingers.
Inkwell couldn't help herself. Senses twenty-thousand times more demanding took control, and before she could even think her lips had already taken the sugar cube from the human's hand. In an instant her eyes had rolled back in her head, her ears had begun to quiver and lean forward, and her legs had begun to tremble. She could only barely feel her tail, of its own accord, flogging against her hocks and cannons. Her mind was explosions of purest sweetness, a transcendental rush through the middle of candyland at something approaching warp speed. By the time the last of her sucrose seizure had left her, quivering in some pony delight that verged on an almost sexual ecstasy, her ears picked up the last of Mr. Ferguson's happy chuckle, as he walked back under his tent in the marketplace.
"You OK, Inkwell?" Paige seemed half concerned, and half ready to burst out laughing.
"Oh, you've never had a sugarcube before, have you?" Pet's eyes were wide, but filled with mirth. "It's different as a pony. Waaaayyyy different. Wait till you try actual candy!"
Inkwell could feel her muzzle and face turning what felt like the brightest of reds. She almost felt like she had been caught enjoying something naughty, what with the sheer impact of the experience, and how tingly it had left her feeling.
Paige gave her a pat on the rump. "It's all new experiences right now, Ink. They're bound to be a bit overwhelming, you know? Just enjoy, OK? This is a special time, when everything is new. Enjoy it as much as you can." Unspoken in her words, was an implicit 'for me?' that dimmed some of the sugar-ecstasy. Inkwell felt a splash of guilt that she had gotten to be a pony, while poor Paige was still waiting. They were stuck on Earth until Paige could be converted. But they were clearly making the most of things, as best as they could.
The trot home was not embarrassing, like the journey to the market. This was surprising to Inkwell, and she wasn't entirely sure why it wasn't. Certainly all the well-wishers that came out to chat with Paige and admire her two fancy ponies seemed to fill the day with joy and pleasantries. It seemed everyone in the favela and the apartments knew Paige and Pet, and their... proclivities... and that not a bit of it was the least bit questionable. The humans found it delightful and fascinating, and the ponies seemed to find the whole thing cute and harmless.
Inkwell had not known that the favelas were like this. She had assumed that they would be desperate places filled with thieves and bandits. Not once in her green-jumpsuited life had she dared to leave her Twoper existence and venture into the favela. She had a job, she was green-level, she stayed with the workers, away from the pitiable rabble. If only she had known.
Her life among the Twopers - the two percent of humanity with jobs - was a sterile desert compared to life in the favela. Far from being a dirty hive of poverty, the humans, and now ponies, of the favela took pride in their hand-built houses and restored apartment complexes. They worked together for the benefit of each other, and looked after each other. They cared about each others lives and and looked after one another in good and bad times. They were an intensely social bunch, and it seemed that everypony knew everypony else's business. And there were no arbitrary rules - all that mattered was keeping the peace.
If a woman wanted to parade her bondage-ponies down to the marketplace, well good on her. More than that, among the favela dwellers, any parade was a celebration, and the oddball and the kook held special places in their collective hearts. The favela loved and adored their Emperor Nortons, and it seemed that Paige and Petrichor were more than a little famous as local color.
Part of Inkwell still cried out inside her that this was all ten paces too far beyond weird for the likes of her. But there was no denying that in all of her life, she had not once had such a happy, fun day. Every twenty or thirty paces some soul, human or pony, would come out and greet them, ask about their day and admire the fine show of ponies in fancy tack and Paige all in her leathers and crop. The entire world had gone some flavor of mad, and the most troubling thing about it all was that the flavor was sugar, and Inkwell couldn't find enough reasons to not like it.
When they had finally made it back to their apartment, it was late afternoon. Shopping was clearly an all-day affair, what with the greeting and socializing and all. In her human life as a Twoper, Inkwell had sullenly trolled the Security Mall, using her creditstick in front of bored Red-Level mall staff. Rarely was a word spoken, and what words were said were usually prices spoken in a monotone drone, or instructions from Blackmesh guards to avoid certain areas, or to not linger too long in given spots.
Today had been a revelation for Inkwell. As they all worked together to haul the heavy cart up the winding stairs to the fifth floor - CREAK-THUNK! CREAK-THUNK! - Inkwell decided she had spent her previous life all wrong. If she had known... she wouldn't have been so overly proud of being a Twoper, or of being permitted to wear a green jumpsuit and carry a Green Level creditstick. She would have gone shopping in the favela markets... and maybe even have made a friend or two.
"See? Not a single pony recognized you! We could have trotted right past the head of the HLF himself, and he wouldn't have seen either of us!" Petrichor was stretching, arching her back like a dog, which frustrated Paige's effort to remove the pegasus's fancy costume and tiny bells. "And... tell me truthfully... it was fun wasn't it? Wasn't it?"
When they had begun, Inkwell had felt tricked into some dubious fetish game. But truth be told... it had been the best day of her entire existence. Her mind was in some terrible conflict, that was real - something between what she had been versus what she was now, and what she had thought was proper versus what she had found delightful. Oh, she felt quite the mess inside... but a happy enough mess. She could not keep the grin off her muzzle. "Yes, yes... Pet... it was... fun."
"Oohh! She called you 'Pet' and not all proper 'Petrichor' now!" Paige was laughing, trying to get the bells out of her lover's tail, not an easy task now that Pet had made a challenge of it. "I guess your high-and-mighty status as rescuer has dropped into the shame of being mistresses' silly little pony!"
The bells jingled and Pet squirmed until the both of them fell down laughing, arms and legs and legs wrapped around each other.
"Help?" Inkwell had realized that she had no idea how to undress herself, and she needed to use the toilet. A mad scramble ensued to release her after this was explained, and soon she was au naturel once more and on her way to the loo. She felt oddly sad to be without the bizarre costume she had felt embarrassed by at the beginning of the day. Somehow, she felt plain now, and oddly naked, despite that being her proper state as a pony.
The toilet in the apartment, like almost every apartment now, had been adapted for pony use. Water and plumbing had been restored by the favela dwellers two decades ago, and the common sit-down toilet had been replaced by a variation on the Japanese Squatting Toilet. This style of ceramic toilet, low to the ground, long and easy for ponies or humans to use, had been a cultural artifact of the great Japanese Migration. When Japan had finally been recognized as completely uninhabitable, the Japanese people began wandering the Earth, a population without a Zone. Their impact had affected every Zone within the Worldgovernment, and squat toilets had become nearly the planetary norm.
When the ponies came, the squat toilet had seemed positively prophetic.
Inkwell went through the steps in her mind, the new steps for her new body. Center herself over the trench of the squat toilet, move forward half a body length to account for the way things were expelled. Angle her rear down, and LIFT THAT TAIL! High! Oh! And to the side, too, just to be sure. A messy tail was a grave embarrassment, and Inkwell did not want to repeat that incident, thank you very much. Paige had been very gracious about it, no doubt there had been incidents with Petrichor early on, but still.
The pair really had been wonderful to her. Just like that. It was such a strange thing, to take a pony in like that. She'd been rescued from a roof, given potion to save her life - potion that Paige had been trying for months to acquire for herself - and just... taken in like a member of the family. Inkwell had never heard the like before, but Pet and Paige had explained that this was often how things were in the favela. Families, temporary or permanent, just formed, because folks needed each other. It was nothing odd, down here where the majority lived.
When she was done with her business, Inkwell gave her rump a little shake to make sure there were no Klingons At The Shuttlebay Door, and thanked Celestia for designing (mostly) trouble free plumbing. Wiping generally wasn't an issue, because of how everything worked. The intelligent and purposeful design of a godlike being beat clumsy evolution hooves down, Inkwell decided. Evolution did not care about being tidy, evolution just plain did not care at all.
It was interesting, living inside a designed body as opposed to an evolved one. Inkwell thought about it and decided that the difference was that nothing in her new, pony body, felt like a kludge. Nothing was a carryover or a compromise. Every part of her was there for a reason, the reason was specific to a pony body alone, and everything was built solid, and to last. No weak, poorly constructed human knees on a pony body. Equestrians were engineered, and it showed in the flawless perfection of the design.
It was humbling, and also filled Inkwell with awe. In her human life she had often spoke of Mary and Joseph and all the Saints, but now she fully understood the emptiness of such words. In Equestria were real deities, who had personally designed the species she was now a member of. There was no evolution in Equestria, because there was no random nature in Equestria. Ponies were nature, and everything that happened in the world happened as a result of conscious, aware, caring action.
When faced with something real, the old ghosts of false hopes just lost all meaning or power. Celestia was real. Luna was real. They could be met, they could be talked to, they could be seen, they had a physical expression in the world. Bronze medallions of silent saints could not compare to that simple fact.
It was no wonder that conversion changed not only citizenship, but any pretense of previous religious affiliation. 'You can pray to a god your whole life, but all of that means nothing at all the moment you actually get to meet the real thing.' Inkwell thought, as she lowered her tail, and turned to press the handle with a hoof. As the water swirled and drained down the low trench of the squat toilet, Inkwell stared after, following it down. That was her previous life, and her old beliefs, all gone down, swirled away, and considering how much happier she felt, good thing too.
That shocked her. Inkwell turned and walked to the sink. She reared up, placing her hooves on the edges of the sink and stared into the mirror over it. Her white muzzle and dark, shining eyes, her short spiral horn and tall ears filled the mirror. Already she had gotten used to seeing her new face. Inkwell bared her teeth, white and perfect, flat with no canines. She studied her ears as she flicked and moved them. Finally, she focused on her horn, willing it to glow.
Over the past three days, Inkwell had begun a regular regimen of practice with her horn. Ace had stopped by several times to give her some tips, and she was making progress. She could work up a decent glow on her horn, a pale and silvery light that she found amazing and beautiful. It was like her horn was surrounded by a blob of plasma, swirling and pulsing, only with a cool and pleasant energy. Magic. She, Inkwell Quillfeather, was expressing magic, real magic. She was one of the fairies now, a fairy herself and no less.
How she wished old Eachann could have lived to see the day. She missed her grandfather terribly. He would have loved to see her off to live with the fairies, and he would have gladly come along himself. Inkwell tried to imagine the stallion Eachann would have made, but the fact of the impossibility of it now just made her sad. It had been such a happy day! Enough of that. Her grandfather would have to live on in her heart.
Inkwell let her hornfield dissipate. The silvern effulgence faded as her concentration lapsed, until only a few rivulets of faint light followed the twist of her horn, then they too vanished. The day before she had moved a marble, rolling the tiny glass toy around the tabletop in the kitchen, purely by thought, purely by will. No doubt a proper Equestrian unicorn, or one of the ancient, robed ones that the author of the notebook had mentioned, would find her telekinetic abilities laughable. But for Inkwell, it had been a moment of purest wonder. "They need not hands, they who can miracles create". Inkwell stuck out her tongue at herself in the mirror, and laughed at the sight.
Dinner was a feast, a tradition for Paige and Petrichor on market day, and featured a marvelous eggplant parmigiana with Sicilian spicing and a roasted asparagus and tomato penne salad with goat cheese. Equestria had other hooved species capable of a slight degree of simple speech. They were mentally simpler than the ponies, and all but incapable of caring for themselves. As a result, the ponies cared for them, and in return benefited reciprocally. The cheese had come from one such creature, roughly similar to the terrestrial goat, and the name had stuck on the earth side of the Barrier.
Inkwell had asked about such beings - barely capable of thought or speech, needful of supervision and care by the ponies. If every living thing in Equestria had been created by the twin princesses, how could there be such relatively inferior entities?
"There is a rumor - it's only a rumor, and I have no way to prove it." Paige was very satisfied with her work on the parmagian, and savored every bite. "But the story goes that Celestia and Luna didn't get things right immediately. They had to iteratively work up to the pony form. More than a few people have noted how similar everything is in Equestria to our planet, and suggested the two princesses based their cosmos on our world. But it's clear they didn't get things exact."
"It's almost as if they had to take little peeks, but couldn't get a solid look. That's what I think, anyway." Petrichor couldn't get enough of the salad. Pet loved the 'goat' cheese in it.
"So the theory is," Paige took a second helping of eggplant "that they started small, with bunnies and dogs and such, and worked their way up, increasing intelligence as they went. Equestrian goats, or at least goat analogs, can hardly say a word. But their version of cows can talk your ear off, or so I hear. But only the ponies have magic and civilization. It's one thing to be able to speak, and another to cause marble to flow like water and form a seamless tower or a castle!"
"Wait - that's how they... we... build things?" Inkwell hadn't heard that before.
"No, not all things." Petrichor licked the penne off of her muzzle with a long tongue. "But the fancy castle stuff. I heard it from a native, one of the mail pegasai that carry from Equestria to Earth across the Barrier? The cottages and such, they all work together lifting and toting. But the castle was built with magic. There are these high-level unicorns that can shape stone and glass and stuff with their thoughts alone. And who knows the limit of what the princesses can do, am I right?"
Inkwell had seen pictures of the castle at Canterlot. It exceeded the works of Man by many times. The Taj Mahal could have been a bathroom for Canterlot Castle. She thought about the horn on her head. She had been concerned with losing her hands, because it would prevent her accomplishing fiddly tasks! With enough practice, it appeared, she might be able to create the most delicate of devices or greatest of structures through thought alone, weaving flowing metal, stone and gem however her whim chose. By comparison, fingers seemed like clumsy breadsticks now. She resolved to take her telekinetic practice more seriously.
Later, after dinner, after dishes and cleanup, Inkwell snuggled into the large bed with Paige and Petrichor, and opened the notebook.
She had taken the two into her confidence the second night, and had told them of everything she knew and understood about the small tome. They had a right to know, she felt, because their lives were in danger harboring her. They had saved her life. They had been nothing but good to her from the first moment. And also... it was a secret too large for one small unicorn to keep by herself alone. She had shared with them the Underground Bookmobile project too, and how she had come into possession of the notebook, and the likely reasons that she was being chased by the HLF.
It had now become a shared experience, to read a page or three from the notebook before bed. Inkwell had caught her new friends up on what she had read so far, and tonight was beginning a new entry.
"Let me see the picture of the human again!" Petrichor wished she could know more about the mysterious author of the work.
Inkwell lipped through the pages until she found the little replipaper snapshot of the red-haired woman wearing glasses. Petrichor stared hard at the image for a moment. "Huh. She looks like a fud, all right."
"A what?" Inkwell was at a loss.
"A fud! P-H-D, you know 'Piled Higher and Deeper?'" Petrichor grinned "As in poop? Piles and piles of..."
"Pet! Be nice to poor Inkwell! Goodness, don't mind her, Inks. What have we tonight in the grand saga of potion?" Paige found the history of conversion serum mildly interesting, but not actually fascinating. Serum worked, she wanted some, and that was basically enough for her. Petrichor, on the other hoof, found the idea of the very first contact between Equestria and Earth an exciting notion.
"Hmmm..." Inkwell shifted her weight, feeling Petrichor snuggle in against her, and Paige scritching and petting her rump. "...ahh.... oh, yeah... right there...." The base of her tail was just the best, and now she understood why dogs liked being scratched there. That was one thing human fingers were good for... maybe they couldn't make marble flow like water, but they could scratch really, really good. "Oh... wow. Thank you Paige!"
"Me! Me next!" Petrichor started wiggling her rump in the air which caused Paige to have to lean over to provide equal scritchies for her beloved mate.
"OK..." Inkwell found the place in the book. "We're up to the end of February. Looks like genetics. Exciting stuff!"
"Oh... goody." Paige sounded less than excited, but she was willing to listen.
Project Bucephalus - Laboratory 012 February 23rd
I don't know what to think anymore.
We got the results back from the effort to sequence the Equestrian genome. We have the sequence, and we have used the nanobots we have to construct what we think is an Equestrian kidney. And it lived, at least until it was sent down for dissection and study on level eight. We used a variation of the existing kidney program for the bots, because it was what was ready. We don't have anything from the code team that is focusing on programming for the little machines. There are so many projects, all over the globe, each dutifully concentrating on one tiny part of the whole. I strongly suspect most of them do not even know what the ultimate purpose of their work is.
So, we have proven we can take a lump of earth meat and use earth nanobots - powered by 'wizard wine' - and construct a living Equestrian kidney-like organ. And this would be wonderful, because you would think that this was the answer to everything, right there. If it is possible to make a kidney, then we should be a hop, skip and jump from making equivalent organs to having humans that can survive in Equestria!
No. That isn't going to work, and the reason changes everything I thought I understood about pretty much everything.
We started with a living, vat-grown human kidney, courtesy of some transplant hospital for the elite in Antarctica. We injected it with our nanosurgical fluid, programmed to analyze what it found, build whatever necessary temporary vasculature and support structures it needed, convert the cells into equestrian cells, and then deconstruct the support scaffolding and exit the organ. We're still working on having the nano's dissolve themselves entirely - that's yet another project out there, somewhere.
It should have created a human kidney, made out of Equestrian cells. That isn't what happened. Despite using the same nanoconstruction program we have been using all along, the result was not human. It was... something else. We had a medical unicorn from level two come down and identify it as being mostly an Equestrian kidney - from a female pegasus no less. We weren't sure what the unicorn meant by 'mostly' and he wasn't willing to elaborate. It ended up a funny looking thing, pill shaped and spotted, and more than a little rubbery. It could be squeezed and stretched in truly disturbing ways, and this made us all very curious how that could be.
So we had atomic force studies done, as well as x-ray diffraction. And then we went for the serious stuff.
I said we started out with a human kidney, I should have stated that we started out with earthly matter. The nanobots are not just being powered by whatever the crusty old unicorns on level three whip up down there and stick in the violet 'wizard wine' - they are also acting as a conveyance for something else.
I have a theory. I think the scary unicorns are making their own nanobots. Only these ones are not material. They are not matter. They are, well, spells. Magic nanobots, or little program ghosts, or microscopic gods - take your pick, because I sure as hell do not know. But it is like our nanobots have another nanobot ghost superimposed over them, in them, through them, a nanobot soul of some kind, and that part of them has work to do that is a separate agenda.
And what the ghost side of the nanobots can do is just short of terrifying.
The thing that resulted, the mostly Equestrian kidney thing? It wasn't matter anymore. It wasn't made of atoms anymore. Oh, it was made of molecules, and they did stuff as molecules should. But in our universe molecules are made up of atoms, and there were no atoms in that organ when the nanobots got done. The nanobots were not made of atoms anymore either.
We don't know what they are. They are square. We know that much. Little cubes measured in angstroms, totally indivisible, utterly alien, we haven't got a fucking clue. The nanobots are made of them now, and anything they work on gets turned into whatever that stuff is. It's not matter as we understand the term. It's Equestrian matter. This is no longer just a project about transforming flesh - it's become alchemy. The magic fluid changes earth matter into Equestrian matter, which we don't even have a name for.
We've discretely asked for samples of stuff from Equestria. Plants. Rocks. Mayoss cut a sliver from Buttercream's saddlebags when she wasn't in her room. All made of Equestrian matter, not earth matter. Not an atom to be found. No electrons, no quarks, nothing of our reality. Other matter. Else matter. E-Matter.
I have eaten Equestrian apples. They bring us food items as gifts, to inspire us. I've probably eaten pounds of Equestrian produce. I'm still alive. My organs are fine, as far as the human doctor can tell. We checked the apples. E-Matter.
My hair has E-Matter in it. So does my blood. There is E-Matter in the cells inside the mucosa of my mouth. The same is true with all the members of the team, as far as we can tell. Little magic cubes, sliding and moving over each other, doing the job of atoms, but they are NOT atoms.
I don't know what to think anymore.
I'm not going to stop eating the apples, though. You would not believe how good they are. Jesus Nonexistant Christ are they good. Same with the bread items. And the salads. I am gradually becoming made of alien matter. With every bite. You are what you eat, and I am slowly exchanging atoms for - little magic cubes. I feel fine. Hell, I feel great, except for the long work hours.
I wonder though. At some point I will be more E-Matter than atomic matter. A-Matter, I suppose. I don't think I'll notice. It doesn't make me the least bit immune to the danger of thaumatic radiation, I can tell you that. Lost a bit of skin on my index finger and my thumb, due to being sloppy with a vial of dilute wiz-wine and bots. It'll grow back, but I have these bandages and I feel like an idiot.
So, we can make this project work, it seems. But we can't just convert a human into a magic-safe human. What will come out the other side will be made of different matter, and it will be a different creature. A human kidney became an Equestrian kidney. Mostly. Our program didn't do that.
You see, even though we got the results of the sequencing of what Equestrians use for DNA - and a weird thing it is too, a helix ladder like we use, but arranged in a six-lobed star shape and there is a fifth and sixth base that have no earthly equivalent because they are made of freaking magic - none of that was put into the nanobots. The first run was just to test the concept, we don't have the coding of the sequencing done for nanobot use yet. That's yet another team.
Yet the result was a mostly Equestrian kidney, and not a human kidney, even without proper programming. I can only think the unicorn wizards on Three are ahead of us. Their work made the bots build a human kidney into an Equestrian kidney. Mostly.
It may not matter what program we put into our bots.
Our bots are haunted with submicroscopic ghosts, and the ghosts are dominant.
In a way, as weird and creepy as this sounds, it is also a relief. For the first time I have real hope we can save humanity in the short span we have. We might just do it, but only because we are getting help from powers way, way beyond us, and frankly, I think that is the only possible hope of getting this thing done at all.
So, I guess the little bot ghosts are our friends.
But still. I have spent my life a staunch materialist, and now -
Project Bucephalus Bucephalus Command Center Information And Awareness Facility February 4th
I have studied this now for, oh, gosh, it might be fifteen hours now, not counting breaks. Gerste is pissed with me, and the IAA staff are constantly making little remarks about what the lab-rat is doing squatting on their turf. I am definitely pushing the limits of the 'all information is available' thing. I know the center doesn't really want me here. They tried to boot me out. But old General Norman P. Ridgway stepped in - I have no reason why - and though they clearly don't like it one bit, I have the complete run of the place now. They don't like that a LOT.
I don't know what the deal is with Ridgway. He did that head-tap salute to me the time he visited Lab 12. There's something going on, and I don't know what it is, but I am grateful for him playing guardian angel for me at the moment. Without that, I would not have been able to see what I have seen.
And I have seen things only a handful of humans on this earth have ever seen. Things even my other Zero-Twelvers have not seen, and are likely not to get to ever see.
Just after the Three Day War, when the ocean had finally stopped boiling, and the conventional radiation had dissipated sufficiently, and also after Celestia had begun haunting the corporate elite and their families, she allowed something amazing to happen. Just once. The public knows nothing about the event, and most of the global military has no idea either. It was done at the request of the Worldgovernment Security Administration, for the benefit of certain members of the elite.
Two probes from earth were allowed into Equestria.
They were standard robotic search and rescue machines, the kind that walk on four legs like a mule and can operate independently for days at a time. Packed with sensors and outfitted with one hell of a audio-visual platform. Mule One and Mule Two, they were called, and they tromped through the green lands of Equestria and sniffed and measured and above all imaged everything they could. I have followed the tours given both of them now.
The reason they could survive beyond the Barrier was because every step of the way, the two robots were encapsulated in some kind of bubble or force field or something. Four unicorns followed each probe, taking shifts to keep the protective field going. One slip, and the walkers would die, changed into tapioca and chocolate bits or some insane thing like that. For two days the probes marched across Equestria, or were taken various places by chariot or sled, and then they were returned to the Barrier, and our world once more.
The two probes are the only objects from Earth to ever enter and tour the Equestrian cosmos.
Mule One was taken on a tour of a town or village. Croplands, farms, orchards, and many, many distinctly Tudor-styled cottages and buildings. Medieval looking campaign tents and some fairly outlandish looking buildings that would not be out of place in a theme park - or a holographic role-playing game. Everywhere ponies, looking shocked, fascinated or horrified by the robotic monster tromping through their world encased in a bubble.
I got an idea of how Equestrians live and work from the tour of Mule One. As far as I can tell, labor is more or less divided up based on the unique abilities of the three breeds of common Equestrians. The ground-type ponies can do phenomenal things involving the land and plant life. I've seen these beings reshape the soil, push and pull weights far beyond what would be reasonably possible in terms of terrestrial physics, and they are tireless. But the most astonishing thing is what they can do with plants. One sequence showed a large, stocky ground-type place a hoof near a sprout in the soil. The plant began to grow in real time. It looked like a time-lapse video of plant growth, only there was a smoother, almost animal quality about how the plant developed. Within five minutes a large blossom had opened on the mature plant, which the pony immediately ate with some satisfaction. These creatures can grow food in minutes, rather than months.
Mule One paused at what appeared to be a very terrestrial blacksmith's, as they might have existed many centuries in Earth's past. The establishment appeared to be run by a ground-type and a unicorn-type Equestrian. The two worked together with astonishing facility.
The ground-type pony stuck a rod of some dark metal into a furnace or fireplace of some kind. He used his teeth to carry the metal rod, but also his forehooves at times, when he sat down. When one end of the metal rod had begun to glow, the ground-type removed the rod from the fire using a thick fabric potholder-like cover to protect his mouth. He held the long rod out, so that the glowing, melty end was towards the unicorn.
The unicorn Equestrian made his horn glow, and instantly the soft, molten end of the rod began to change shape. It moved like it was alive, like it was possessed, oozing and squirming into a complicated shape with many curlicues and delicate leaf-like patterns. I don't know what the finished metal object was supposed to be, though I suspect a hinge for a door or chest. The entire shaping process took only minutes, and throughout it, the unicorn was laughing and talking in its native speech - clearly the work was not overly taxing.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing Mule One saw was a pegasus-type Equestrian manipulating clouds. The clouds were taken and carried as if they were pillows, from high in the sky, and placed over what appeared to be a corn field. Once a sufficient number of the clouds were arranged, the pegasus stood on the layer of cloud as if it were a solid object and gave a stomp with a hoof. The clouds flashed with something not entirely unlike lightning - though it did not act like electricity does in our universe - and then began to rain onto the crops. The clouds rained until there was nothing left, and the pegasus flew off, job, apparently, done.
Nowhere was there any sign of want or poverty. Every part of the village, even the most humble, seemed cared for with a level of attention bordering on obsession or love. Every Equestrian seemed in perfect health, and not a one of them had any defects, disfigurements, or permanent injuries. There was one pegasus mare that hovered in front of the probe that appeared to suffer from strabismus - though she could have simply been making a funny face, as she also stuck her tongue out at the machine. The Equestrians are a playful species. There were many examples, in the background, of ponies rolling on the ground, playing with balls, or just galloping about apparently for the sheer joy of it.
Mule Two was taken on a tour of what must be the capital of Equestria. There was a large city composed of diverse architecture surrounding an impossibly tall fairy-tale castle. The entire thing, city and castle, were constructed on the side of an impossibly steep mountain. It is clear that whatever processes shape the Equestrian landscape, they have nothing in common with the processes native to our universe. Mountains and hills are improbably steep cones, and flat land is just that - unnaturally flat. The entire landscape seems designed, constructed, manufactured. It does not seem to be the result of natural processes. I do not think there are any natural processes in Equestria. I think the entire universe is artificed. Or artificial.
The castle has towers that completely defy the square-cube law. On earth, built of earthly materials, the castle would collapse, unable to support its own weight. Physical laws must be radically different in Equestria. The castle was magnificent, something out of a dream. The sheer scale and impossibility of it are breathtaking. It features many spiraling staircases and dish-like balconies, all unsupported by struts or load-carrying buttresses. The ponies do not seem to have any fears of any part of it collapsing. They walk, run and even dance on the thin structures as if they were indestructible, which for all I know, they may be.
The inside of the castle is as magnificent as the outside, and at times seems to violate reality itself. I am unsure, but there were interiors within the castle that seemed far larger, or of different shape, than what the outside configuration would allow. Then again, perhaps these areas were built inside the mountain itself - though there did seem to be daylight streaming through large windows.
None of any of this is as disturbing and reality shattering as what I saw towards the end of Mule Two's tour.
Hundreds of native Equestrians had assembled at some location on the grounds of the castle. It appeared to be night, stars were visible. Of note, some of the constellations seemed to be recognizable. I swear I saw Orion, for example. I cannot explain this, and I could be wrong. But it looked so similar - I immediately thought of some of the theories we all have in Lab 12 about Equestria having contact with our world in the distant past. Or, perhaps there is some kind of parallel universe thing going on. All I know is that what stars I saw appeared remarkably familiar to patterns I was taught at my university planetarium.
There was a plinth, or structure of some kind. Celestia, the princess of Equestria, walked to the structure and appeared to prepare herself. The audience of ponies seemed reverent, as if they were waiting. Then Celestia rose into the air, wings spread, shining with some impossible light - and at the same time the disk of the sun rose with her, at the same speed, until it was neatly above the horizon.
The sun then hung in the sky, unmoving, or moving at some steady, slow rate normal for the passage of a sun. Celestia landed, folded her wings, and the crowd of ponies cheered her and stomped their hooves. The princess left the scene, and the crowd gradually disbursed. They had come to see her raise the sun. Into the sky. They came to see her start the day.
Apparently she does this every day. That is her job. Celestia is responsible for raising the sun, so that the night can end. Her sister, which we now have the translated designation 'Luna' to represent, brings the night and raises the Equestrian moon.
I spent hours going over every sensor report from Mule Two that was available. The sun rose in sync with Celestia, until the disk cleared the horizon. Ambient temperature rose only when the sun appeared. The air currents were affected by the raise in temperature, as would be expected. The mysterious glow emanating from Celestia matched the signature of the Equestrian sun. By every possible metric, the princess - literally - raised the sun into the Equestrian sky.
The ponies claimed this, but it was not carried by the media, deliberately. The princess herself has stated her role as a fact, another element silenced by the media, under the direction of the Propaganda and Infotainment Ministry. I can see why they keep mum about the notion. It would disturb a lot of people, and challenge a lot of beliefs.
It certainly has mine.
I am a scientist. It is more than my job, it is me, my way of thinking. Everything I have ever learned, everything I think I know tells me that there is no magic, that gods are the delusions of fools, and that our universe is a mechanical, materialist phenomena. But now there is another universe.
And inside that new universe an apparently supernal being - that does not even register on sensors as a physical object - literally raises the sun into the sky of her world. Oh, did I mention Celestia doesn't exist? Not according to Mule Two. No acoustic echo, no thermal presence, nothing. Only the glow when she raised the sun registered, and it matched the sun itself. Yet, she is discernable, she can be imaged in what passes for visible light in Equestria. Unless there are no frequencies other than visible light in Equestria. I suppose I should have checked to see if ordinary ponies or the environment had reflections in other wavelengths. Damn.
Celestia raises the sun. The ponies call her princess, but it is clear that she is their world, their life. Their deity, along with Luna.
Which all ties into and lends credence to the snippet I found buried in a partially erased file.
It was from Mule Two. Apparently, the machine was used to interview the sun princess in her throne room. I don't know how she was questioned, or what the questions were. The file was simply 'Interview' and the date. I recovered it during the night, when, for a half an hour, I wasn't being monitored. They always have someone standing in the room with me. But I took my chance. As best as I can remember, the bit I saw went something like this - Celestia was face-on to the view, and talking directly to the camera.
"... is an anomaly among universes. Magic is the wellspring and the source of all life, of all thought and being. To exist, despite thought and awareness devoid of magic is not life. You are not living beings, but only shadows of life without meaning. You are doomed to dissolution, and that is why I offer what I do to you, out of compassion and love. I beg you to understand your situation, and that of all those subject to your rule. You can be rescued from annihilation. This is why I plead with you to work with me to save your entire species from..."
I suspect she was addressing the corporate elite. I don't think they wanted the interview seen by anyone else, ever. I can only imagine what else she had to say. I wish I could have seen the entire thing. If what she says is true, then project Bucephalus is not just about transforming human bodies into a radiation resistant form. It is something that borders on the metaphysical, if not blatantly entering that territory.
I guess it all depends on the true definition of 'magic', the translated label we have given whatever the strange, mutable, programmable energy is that defines the universe of Equestria. Magic is as good a word as any, considering, but it does carry a great deal of cultural baggage for any citizen of the Earth.
One other thing to note - when I finally returned to Lab 12, I found that our previous work has been solidified and that a lot of separate entities have been brought together. They managed, in my absence, to install the Equestrian genetic code into the nanobots, and use it to turn a fresh human kidney into a perfect - according to the medical unicorn on staff - Equestrian kidney. More than that, the kidney has something else. We don't have a label or a translation for it yet, but whatever it is, it seems terribly important. The closest thing we got was 'thickness'. The manufactured Equestrian kidney had 'thickness', which, apparently, we, the previous attempts at kidneys, and everything else except Equestrian life, lacks.
Now they need me though. There is a difficulty with the nanobots - they just aren't efficient, and there is a problem with the way they interface with the separate genome carried by mitochondria. It appears that Equestrians don't have mitochondria, or anything like mitochondria. Because they didn't evolve. Their cells never came from any primeval sea, and never gobbled up other cells on the way to becoming multicellular creatures. Equestrian cells were supposedly designed by Celestia, claims our unicorn, and they were made perfect and singular and complete.
I can't dispute the claim, considering.
I think I have a solution to the problem - we need a number of different bots, not just one type, and we need to account for the haphazard construction of terrestrial cells. That is in my area of expertise, such as it is, so I guess I finally feel a little useful. It isn't anything big, but it matters, so I will be busy for the next month slaving on this issue.
Fortunately, I will have help - from all over the planet, from people I will never know or see.
Maybe I need to just not think about the implications any more. I just need to work, and get this done.
But I will say this - if there is a chance, any chance of something greater than existing in a dead, mechanical universe, then I am on board with it. It is just very hard to accept, even after seeing everything I have seen.
Krause ran his meaty hand over his bald head and noted the sweat. He didn't like bringing bad news to Leo, nobody did of course, but sometimes it was unavoidable. There was just no trace.
Every part of the city was monitored. They had cameras and tracking systems mounted at every intersection. There was a dedicated artificial intelligence who did nothing but catalog everything and anything about the life of the city. They had access to information that - in the Pre-Collapse days of marketing and competing products - would have been a treasure horde of details about trends, demographics, needs and interests. One time, Krause recalled, the men had a pool going with regard to a meme that had been caught from the very start. One of the traitors had said what it thought was a clever comedic line about hooves that began to spread. More and more traitors and humans began to repeat the line, and Monitor, the A.I. had obligingly provided a graphical display of the spread of the phrase as it listened to the city. Martinelli had won the pool in guessing the phrase would not make it past the old waste disposal plant, and definitely would not go global.
But for all the information streaming in, it was as if Gwen Boik had vanished from the very earth.
Intersection sensors had tracked the brown pegasus flying in to the warehouse district. They had multiple traces of the two of them flying off toward the residential complexes. But the pegasus went high, and became lost in the backscatter from the global smog layer. It was probable that the pair had chosen to land on a roof, unless they had just kept going out of the city. The HLF Awareness Net only covered ground based activity in detail, currently. That was partly why Leo had been sure the entire rescue had been a high-level action. It was like the enemy knew their weakness.
"Krause. I assume you have good news with regard to the whereabouts of miss Boik and the item?" Leonard Reich got to the point quickly. Krause tried to look the man in the eyes, but it was hard.
"No, sir. I am sorry to report zero leads. The best estimation is that either the target has left the city, or that a roof landing somewhere in the residential section was made. They really knew our one weak..."
"Anomalies, Krause! Anyone buying more beans in the markets? An impoverished meat-seller suddenly have a new customer?" Leo betrayed no emotion on his face, and this always bothered Krause.
"No sir. According to Monitor, not one ounce of unexpected increase in human food usage. Maybe Boik is a vegetarian?"
Leo frowned. It was bad when Leo showed anything. "You know she isn't Krause. It's in the report."
"I meant now, sir. Maybe now..." Krause rubbed more sweat from his shining dome.
"If she had gone vegetarian, that would have showed up too, Krause. Beans, soy products, anything with protein in it. Humans can't make their own protein, they have to take it from specific plants or other creatures. That's why we're at the top of the food chain. I assume Monitor has something on that?"
Krause put his hands in his pockets and looked at the desk, rather than Leo. "No new protein consumption. That's what I'm saying!" Krause looked up, defiantly, but the look quickly fell again. "Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada."
There was a brief silence. "Well, then good job, Krause, you did the best you could. Nothing wrong with that. It could be that our human agent, the good miss Boik, has a safe room out there, packed to the gills with government rations. They clearly know this is our command location. I've always thought we should keep the level of pony killings equal to other cities. It makes us stand out. The HLF is everywhere, and here we sit in the one city where ponies hardly ever get shot."
"But that's to reduce suspicion - I thought..." Krause was immediately cut off.
"That's enough, Krause. Thank you for your effort. Dismissed."
With Krause gone, Leonard Roosevelt Reich, head of the HLF Echelon, turned to his holographic interface, and began moving iconobjects around until he found a tiny, glowing doghouse. Expanding it, he opened a list of actives and searched for a specific one. Who Let The Dog Out was his choice.
The display shrunk down into a corner of his active surface desk, and a window formed. For a while, it showed nothing but an unkempt room, with cracked walls and piles of clothing and old boxes stacked about in the background. Then a head and shoulders slid into place, as a man sat down to face the window.
He was a heavyset, sweaty man, short and with oily black hair. His craggy face and bulbous nose dominated his thin lips. He wore a cheap brown suit, with a striped tie. "Hey.... LEO! Long time no see. I thought I was in the doghouse here. Come to scold me some more, is that it?"
"No. Actually, I want your services. Consider yourself reinstated. I need you to find a woman for me."
The heavy man laughed. "I thought you pitched for the other team, bucko! Decided to switch sides?"
The jest was met with a completely expressionless face. "Come home, Ralph. Good dog." The window vanished from the desk. Leonard waited for the floating icons to reestablish themselves, then set about removing one contact from the doghouse object.
Only briefly did Leo's hand hover over the trashcan object.
Inkwell wanted to go to the park. "Oh, come on, please? I'd like a chance to run around a bit, and you've been telling me about the tasty flower garden for days now. You said it yourself, nopony could possibly recognize any of us, that we're perfectly safe, and I finally believe you!"
"You're just feeling your oats because the sun is shining. Pet and the other pegasai have been working their tails off to clear out a window over the city, and it's getting to you. I've seen this happen before, you just aren't used to it." Paige and Inkwell had finished remaking the bed, the sheets having been recently washed. Now they were sorting clean laundry - all Paige's stuff - and were trying to decide what to do with the day when Petrichor returned from morning smog duty.
"Ponies are aroused by sunshine, sunshine." Paige grinned at the little ivory unicorn "I would have figured a scholarly librarian like yourself would know these intimate details about Equestrian biology."
Inkwell levitated a pair of undies up from the pile and tried to fold them in mid air. Her hornfield faltered, and the panties plummeted to the comforter. "Poo!"
"No, clean. They were poo. That's the point of washing stuff." Paige waited for the reaction, then grinned again. "Still, I am impressed. You're getting better with that horn of yours."
"I still can't manipulate things in the air very well. I've got lifting down, light things, anyway, but when I try to do anything with them..." Inkwell had the panties in the air again, surrounded by her hornfield. She could feel the fabric of the underwear with her field, the weave of the threads, the elastic hidden inside the band, even the little tag. Anything held within her telekinetic grasp she had knowledge of, an awareness far beyond what mere touch could have revealed. The sensation was not unlike touch, but it was three-dimensional. She could feel the inside and the outside equally, and the most amazing details were obvious within the bounds of her hornfield. It was rather like having hands made of cloud or gas, that could touch an entire volume of space at once, rather than just a surface in discrete spots.
The panties fell once more as Inkwell's telekinetic hold failed again. She sighed and folded the panties neatly with her teeth, and stacked them on the small pile to go into the drawers.
"You've definitely gotten natural-as-can-be with your muzzle, I must say. You did that without even thinking about it." Paige seemed impressed.
"Did what?" Inkwell was at a loss, she had failed at folding cloth with her magic.
"Folding my undies! What you just did. Look!" Paige waved a finger at the neat stack "Tidy as you please, Inks. Like you were born to the hooves. You could pass for native."
Inkwell looked at her own work. She hadn't thought about what she was doing, she had just done it. Folding and carrying were normal things now, and her long neck and jaw were as capable as any arm and hand. More so, because they were vastly stronger. "Huh! I guess... I suppose things have gotten easier. You're right. I don't even think about it anymore. I guess my brain is very plastic right now. Things do seem easier to learn in general over all."
Paige reached for another pair of socks to roll into a little ball. "In a sense, you are brand new, Inkwell. Your new body probably thinks itself a newborn foal, and all the bits of your brain are eager to learn and grow. I'll bet it's something like that going on." The ball was finished, so Paige fished out two more socks, silly rainbow-striped ones with toes at the ends. They were her favorites, and had seen better days, but she kept repairing them because you couldn't find socks like them anymore. "I saw the same thing with Pet, right after her conversion. Everything was new to her, and at first she was very clumsy."
"Petrichor was clumsy?" It seemed absurd to Inkwell. The pegasus had pushed her through the sky on a pallet!
"Oh goodness, very clumsy. She had trouble walking at first. And her wings - she couldn't keep them at her sides and they were all over the place. I'd get slapped in the face by them at the slightest thing. It's the emotions that make them flare out, you know. They have to learn to keep control of themselves or the average pegasus would be flapping about like a chicken all the time!" Paige laughed at this, and Inkwell joined in - the thought of Petrichor stomping about flapping and making clucking noises was delightful.
"Maybe it's easier for unicorns, I don't know." Paige seemed thoughtful as she finished rolling the sock-ball and set it down. "Or maybe you're just the sort that takes things in stride. Some do, you know. I've heard stories of Newfoals that just hop off the table and trot right out, easy as can be. And I've heard tales of Newfoals laid up for weeks, still trying to learn to walk." Paige began scooping up all the laundry and putting it into the dresser drawers by her and Pet's bed. "The potion changes your body, and it changes your brain, but it doesn't change you beyond a bit of sprucing up here and there. I think a lot of it is whether or not you can embrace being a pony, or whether you fight it."
That puzzled Inkwell. "Did Pet... fight it then?"
Paige pushed the drawer shut with her hip. "A bit. Yeah, she did. I think she'd been in that wheelchair for so long that she'd given up all hope, and that feeling didn't agree with her new body. I think she needed to learn to trust that it wasn't a false hope, that her new pegasus body wouldn't just vanish on her like a dream." Paige lay down on the bed, to rest for a bit. Inkwell hopped up and lay down on her stomach, her legs splayed out. "She used to have nightmares, her first few weeks. She'd wake up in my arms all shaking, having dreamed that her wings fell off and her hooves disintegrated and she was back in the chair again."
"Oh... goodness! That sounds terrible!"
Paige sighed, then smiled. "It was, but it passed. And when she stopped having the dreams, she stopped being clumsy. Within days she was flying like she was born to it. I think she just needed to work out that the gift wasn't going to be taken back."
"The... gift." Inkwell hadn't thought of her conversion that way before. It had saved her life, to be sure, and it was hiding her from her enemies, which was well and good. But if anything, she'd felt her transformation a little abrupt, even disappointing, because she had missed out on all the wondrous sounding Bureau antics.
But Paige didn't care about all the fancy stuff in any Bureau. She just wanted to be sure she could stay with her Petrichor, that they could still be together four years from now, when the world ended. Paige just wanted to be a pony. More than anything. It would be a gift to her, just as it had been for her mate, Petrichor. The gift of security.
The night before, Inkwell and Petrichor had played 'Mario Marble' on the table. Inkwell had gotten very proficient at moving small objects telekinetically, so they had set up a raceway and obstacle course on the tabletop. Packages, boxes, a brick or two, chopsticks, a spoon, several dougnuts (Paige objected to that, later), and numerous other bits and objects made up the course. Inkwell had tried to run her marble through the course, without just hovering it. The rule was that she had to just roll the marble, not levitate it. Pet kept trying to set up impossible stunts. The game had lasted hours, until it was time for dinner and they had to clean the table off.
Not once had Inkwell missed her computer or the games on it. What could compete with real magic? Nothing, nothing in all the world.
It was a gift, to be a unicorn. It was a big, shiny, bow-wrapped gift of wonder and delight, and she'd just been taking it all for granted and grumbling that she couldn't fold panties by floating them in the middle of the air. What a problem to be cryin' about! Oh! Poor me! I'm a brand new unicorn and I can't fold panties with the bloody telekinesis because I'm still just learning how to use my horn!
It suddenly hit Inkwell that she had hundreds of years to get good at using her magical horn. Several human lifespans, and then some. She was a baby, really. And just being at all this way, was the greatest gift she had ever received.
"Paige?"
"Yes, Inks, what's on your mind? You've been staring off for a bit."
Inkwell turned her head and stared into the eyes of the human on the bed beside her. "Somehow, some way, I am going to get you converted Paige, and within the month. That is my goal."
Paige stared, then laughed. "If you can do that, miss Inkwell the Unicorn, you'll never be short of gratitude from me. Or from Pet." Paige closed her eyes, and sighed once more. "You'll also be a right wizard among unicorns, and that's a fact."
Inkwell put her head down on her forelegs, and began to think about how to make her plan come true.
"Ralph Vitoni - cyberembezzler, confidence artist, gigolo - how on earth did you pull that one off with a face like that?" Leonard Reich was acting uncharacteristically whimsical, which made everyone in the underground facility desperately uneasy.
"Cute. I'll have you know that in my youth I was only half as ugly." Ralph followed the leader of Echelon, waddling beside him like an overly well fed, brown-suited bulldog.
"To continue, cleaner - though a bit brutal, from what I hear, what ever happened to 'efficient, polite, and quick?', kidnapper - quite a feat bagging that little girl from Antarctica, considering she was probably the most monitored and watched human being in the history of the human race - "
Ralph stopped in the corridor and straightened his loud, striped tie. "I can be very quiet when I need to be. An' I deserved every credit I pulled from that little job. That brat was a pain in the patootie - she was 'pony' this and 'Celestia' that, and 'I wanna watch my show' - no shittin' ya, I suffered on that one, Leo."
"I only have admiration for your achievement, I assure you, Mr. Vitoni. The corporate elite are no friends of mine, for the most part. We do have a loyal, if small, cadre of supporters within their ranks, but beyond that, I consider them vastly worse than the converted traitors - because it is they who have sold us out to the wolves. Wolves who walk in the skins of ponies and bear not teeth but the most dangerous threat Mankind has ever faced - an easy way out." Leonard and Ralph passed through the final security check, and submitted to a number of scans and verifications before being admitted into a vast, gleaming white circular chamber with a domed roof.
"What - they scan you too? Come on... yer pullin' my leg here, Leo. You're the ass-bitin' head of the entire shindig!"
Reich managed a restrained laugh. "You are a very colorful individual, Mr. Vitoni. I would think that anyone capable of that Antarctic caper would know that anyone can be compromised in this age of nanotechnology, and that no individual can be assumed to be free of tiny spies or embedded influence."
"From what I hear, you never leave this joint. You can't get compromised if you don't do nothin.'" Ralph covered his eyes briefly against the reflected glare of the powerful overhead lights.
"You would be surprised where I get to, Mr. Vitoni. Now, let me show you the centerpiece of the project that very well may end the problem of Equestria once and for all. May I present to you, the potential salvation of the human race, project Gypsy Traveller." Leonard Reich waved his hand at the object in the center of the vast chamber. It sat on a large, round, movable dais. To the right, a team of technicians in white cleanroom bunny suits stood to attention. To the left was a portable containment and support trailer camping on the floor of the room.
Ralph Vitoni blinked, looked at Reich, and then returned his vision to the object on the dais. "What?"
The wagon was perhaps eighteen feet long, and clearly built of Equestrian wood. The wheels were wood, with six spokes each, with rims adorned with something not unlike brass. A simple floral design graced the sides of the low wagon, while a Conestoga styled top was supported by upright bands. Traditional Equestrian spritelight lanterns hung from the side near the front. The wagon had harnesses for six Equestrian ponies.
"This is a joke, right?" Ralph tried to smile, but his thin lips faltered when he realized that there was not a speck of humor to be found in Leo Reich's face.
"Eighteen feet long by eleven high, made in Equestria, by Equestrians, adapted by us. Naturally. It features the first prototype trans-universal communications system based on principles we barely understand, and we have no idea if it will actually work." At this, Leo smiled. Briefly. Ralph shuddered.
"The interior features compartments for hidden weapons designed for pony use, and a system of..." Reich found himself cut off, a very rare circumstance that quite took him aback.
"Wait - now I know you are shitting me. Weapons? For ponies? The little fuckers may be stealin' our planet, but they aren't exactly the type to get into a rumble. I know. I've offed my share, and they'll kick and bite, they'll seriously fuck you up to protect their children, but even the unicorns won't use a machine pistol right in front of them. They've got fight, sure, but as a species, no balls, not even the stallions." Ralph was sweating, Ralph always sweated.
Leonard studied the squat man dispassionately. Ralph felt like he was being considered for dissection. He wasn't far from wrong. "Sometimes, Mr. Vitoni, a pony is not always a pony."
Ralph laughed. "Hey! That rhymes there! Good one, Leo. I didn't know you for the poetic type." There was something else, something trouble going on here, and Ralph was feeling the special feeling he would always get when it was time to run, only there was no place to run or hide in the huge, circular room.
Leonard turned to the support trailer and spoke to the air "Send Mister Phillips out please."
Ralph's face lit up with recognition. "Phillips? You got Phillips in there? Hey, Leo, that's a good man there. Damn. Phillips! The only bastard nearly as hard as me. Love the bastard. Hey! Phillips! It's me, Vitoni!"
The door to the support trailer opened. Two bunny-suited techs pulled out a ramp and set it down.
From out of the trailer ambled a pony. It was a ground-type stallion, dull red with a brown mane, and large pink eyes. It reached the bottom of the ramp and carefully turned, apparently still unsteady upon its legs. Ralph watched in mounting horror and disgust as the creature approached. The eyes were pink, but the expression was not kind, or fluffy or filled with friendship and laughter. The pink eyes were hard, the eyes of a killer who loved his work, and the muzzle was nightmarishly familiar.
"No. Noooo. No, no, oh god no no no..." Ralph didn't want to admit what his brain was telling him, what his gut was shrieking at him "Oh fuck no. Not Phillips... oh Jeeze... fuck, not Phillips."
The red stallion stared at Ralph from only a few feet away. "Fuck you too, you greasy sack of shit."
Ralph stared at the pony. He stared at the creature's mouth. It had moved while those words had come out. The pony had said those words to him, and it had said them in Phillips usual, cruel voice. "Phillips... what... it's a robot, right? He's back in that trailer! Damn good job, Leo, damn..." Ralph reached out to touch the pony robot only to nearly have his fingers bitten from him.
"Keep your filthy monkey paws to yourself, you damn, dirty ape. I know the kind of things you do with them." The pony wasn't a robot. It was alive. It was Phillips. It was still Phillips in there.
"How... I don't understand... how is this..." Ralph was too shocked to put anything together, much less the pieces needed to comprehend what he was seeing.
"We've duplicated - and improved - on the Worldgovernment's little attempt to stab Celestia in the back. Only we didn't end up with another P.E.R." Reich stared at Vitoni as if he were an object in the room. "We have cracked the 'Celestia Factor' that turned the Worldgovernment's best agents into puppets of that whore of Babylon. Conversion that retains the human capacity for violence and deceit, but also conversion without dreams."
Ralph shook himself, trying to take it in. "What, you're telling me that you can make sleeper agents that don't change their allegiances? Phillips here still..." Ralph turned to the little stallion. "If you're really Phillips, what would you do if you were alone with Celestia, huh?"
The red pony's face twisted into something that only a madman could call a grin. "Before or after I fucked her severed trachea?"
Ralph slapped his own cheeks with both hands. "Goddamn. Just god fucking damn. That's my boy in there, that's Phillips. That is abso-fucking-lutely Phillips in there. Dammit, man, what the hell happened to you? Why did you let them do this to you? Shit... Phillips..."
Leonard Reich motioned to the clean-suited techs. "Mr. Phillips volunteered for project Gypsy Traveller for the same reasons you will. Because it is the best single hope of ending Equestria forever. Because it will save the world and all of Mankind. Because it will put paid to that bitch Celestia and her entire cosmos in a single, bright - oh so very bright - new day."
Ralph struggled against the technicians, but the Tranqui-Patch was already feeding relaxants into his neck.
"But above all, Mr. Vitoni, you will do it because you are a man who cares deeply about his world, a man who is willing to sacrifice himself to save his race." Leonard Reich rarely smiled in a natural way. It was never good when he did. He was smiling, and it was not a false smile.
"Fuck... fuuu... " Ralph was losing his ability to remain conscious, but he fought the encroaching dark with every bit of his formidable will "I'll... see... you... in... h-he-hel..."
"Of that, Mr. Vitoni, I have no doubt." Reich waved the bunny-suits to take the squat man into the trailer. The pony Phillips followed them, laughing bitterly, but no less humorously. "But I think... you will feel the flames first."
Ralph Vitoni briefly glimpsed another dais far behind the one containing the wagon. His mind was leaving him, and he could not be sure, but for all the world it looked like the platform held two partially completed quantum chromodynamic weapons, 'hypernukes' as the media had mislabeled them. He'd seen such weapons before, in Antarctica. The adrenaline shock briefly gave his fading mind a few seconds longer of consciousness.
"I wan you guyse to nooo..." Ralph was unable to use his lips correctly, because they were numb. "...Iyam naw th' fogivin' type..."
Then the blackness hit him, and no voice was calling.
Inkwell carefully, slowly, willed the end of the ribbon through the loop held in her hornfield. The pale, silvery glow sparkled and rippled as she pulled the very tip of the ribbon so that the bow was completed. With a blast of held air from her nostrils, she finally relaxed, her hornfield collapsing, the glow fading. Success, at last!
She turned her rump this way and that in front of the mirror, looking over her shoulders, down her back, admiring her work. The bright red ribbon with the enormous bow was tightly set at the base of her tail. Almost a little too tight, she felt the squeeze a bit in her tail muscles. Her horn glowed once more, and Inkwell carefully felt inside the coils of ribbon for a section that was not under stress. Performing an act impossible to fingers, she rippled the slack in the ribbon along its substance, until it was distributed such that the bow was just loose enough that her tail felt fine. The bow was snug - it would not fall off or slide down her tail, but not so tight as to constrict circulation.
Inkwell had wanted to surprise Paige and Pet with the bow - not only to show off her increasing competence with her telekinesis, but also because she hoped they would like it on her. She dearly hoped one of the two might think it was cute, and not silly or something. She wiggled her flanks in the mirror, making her tail shimmy like a shiny black snake, and adjusted the bow so that it would be just right. Perfect!
Her horn dark once again, Inkwell swung her crane-like neck back to the front, and spent some time bending and twisting it to get the kinks out of her muscles. Pony necks were long, flexible, and very muscular, their range of motion was surprisingly large, but looking back over her own rump had very nearly resulted in a neck cramp. She had managed to escape that particular sorrow so far, but this time she had come close, and it seemed clear that it was not a desirable thing to have happen.
Inkwell swung her head close to the floor, and on a whim looked between her forelegs, her view upside down. She could see her tail hanging up to the floor, or so it seemed, and she could see her own flat bosom between her legs. 'Oh, that's different!' she thought, staring at her undercarriage. She understood the pony body schematic, she had certainly felt the new location of her breasts laying on the bed, but it was somehow different seeing her new configuration with her own eyes.
She gave her tail another shake and watched as the plume of raven-black tail hair swished against the floor, upside down. The view was making her feel a little disoriented now, and a bit as if she might fall 'down' onto the ceiling, so she whipped her neck up bringing her head high and level. This action was ill advised, because the combination of G-forces and sudden change of scenery made her stagger on her hooves, which produced irregular clippy-clop noises until her head stopped feeling spinny.
"Ooh, note to self - no whipping your head about like a cat-o-nine tails. Goodness!" Inkwell went to the bed and lay her head and neck down across the comforter for a bit. She pretended that the dark blue comforter was a vast ocean, and she was in a boat, floating on it. With her muzzle and eyes level with the surface, it was easy to perceive her own muzzle as the prow of a boat, and she found herself sliding her head across the fabric, pretending to traverse an imaginary ocean.
Suddenly she stopped. "Luna's socks... I haven't done anything like this since I was a foal! Goofing about all silly like, playing pretend with myself... it's like I've gotten the stick out at the very least, and regressed to a second foalhood at the worst! What's happening to me?" She raised her head as she spoke the last, unsure of her own feelings. On one hoof she was having fun. On the other hoof, was that... alright to do?
"Oh... you stopped! I was going to putter up next to you and call out 'Ahoy!'" Petrichor was standing at the doorway, smiling.
Inkwell blushed, suddenly ashamed. She'd been caught being very silly indeed. She found herself staring intently at the comforter.
"Hey! Hey! None of that - I sail the comforter sea myself, Inkwell! That blue looks just like the water in the pictures of Equestria. Hey..." Petrichor had walked from the door and laid her neck across Inkwell's withers, hugging her. "You're embarrassed? Come on! We're ponies now! We're supposed to have silly fun. I think it's actually in the Equestrian Canter or Constistallion or Magna Carthorse or whatever. Page three: 'All ponies must be silly and have fun, so sayeth me-ith, Celestia-ith of Equestri-ith!'"
Inkwell giggled. "Sayeth me-ith, huh?" Pet's warm embrace felt wonderfully comforting. "So this is all very official-ith. I can trust you on the veracity of this matter then?"
"Oh, absolutely. If you don't perform at least three hours of silly activities per day, oh... you are in so much trouble in Equestria. I think they sentence you to chocolate cream pie fights or something. It's pretty nasty. Sticky, at least. Best all around if you just get silly now, and make it a part of your routine. Saves on soap and towels." Inkwell swore she could sense the grin on Petrichor's muzzle. It was palpable.
"Hee hee! I do feel... oh, I don't know... free, somehow. I've been feeling like a child again, it's like all the gloom and seriousness just got sucked right out of me." Inkwell and Petrichor parted as they raised their heads together.
"Well, it can't be conversion euphoria, because that only lasts a few days at most." Petrichor motioned with a nod of her head and a jerk of her ears to follow into the kitchen. "So, I think it is a permanent thing. I think you just might be happy. And you know, that's OK. It's better than OK! It's how things should be. It happened to me too, though it took a little longer because I had rocks for brains. Just play and be silly, Inkwell! What's the point in being a pony if you can't gambol and prance like a silly filly, huh?"
Paige sat at the table, with a little thin tablet of smartglass and a stylus. There were three cups set out, and a fresh pot of tea, Mr. Windsong's special stuff, the tea that he grows on the roof of what once was old the Morgan-Sachs Universal Bank. The high altitude is what he claims is the secret, though Paige had suggested that the real secret was two crates of soil from Equestria he had shipped in. In any case, the smell was wonderful.
"Hi! Have a seat, Inks, we're having a little family meeting! Oh!" Paige got up and went to a cupboard, then returned with a plate and a bag. "Cookies! Gotta have cookies with family meeting tea. Try these, they're the ones I made the super-sly attempt to hide away on our last shopping trip. Autumn Glory makes them. They have a trace of a very special, magical jam in them. She got a jar sent to her by her pen pal near Canterlot. I hear tell they're something special."
Inkwell sat on her little pillow at the low table, and sniffed the tea. "Oh, that does smell wonderful! I love Windsong's special tea!"
Petrichor sat on her stool across the table, and took a cookie in her teeth. "Mmmm... oh wow... OK, this is special. It feels like sweet... electricity... in my mouth or something. This is amazing. Have you tried this already, Paigey?"
"AHEM!" Paige sat up straight. "I call to order the... hmmm... I suppose the first official family meeting we've ever had, really, so... welcome, everypony!"
Inkwell was confused, and let loose a nervous half-giggle, then took a sip of her tea. Petrichor took another cookie, clearly in love with the treat.
"It has come to my attention... " Paige made a show of holding up her smartglass pad and pretending to check off points on the document currently loaded "...that we have arrived at quite a special date. Today marks the fourth week since the introduction of miss Inkwell Quillfeather - you did decide to go with the whole thing right?"
Inkwell swallowed the last bit of cookie, her mouth abuzz with appley-electric sweetness. "Um..hmmm...." she took a sip of tea, so she could speak more clearly "...um yeah, sure, I guess. I have to admit it's kind of grown on me, so yes. The package deal, both names. Thank you by the way, Pet - I really like my new name. Names."
Petrichor fluffed her wings proudly and sat up all self-important and proud. Inkwell stifled a laugh.
Paige studied her glass. "Being that we of the first part do hereby and forthwith do therefore lastwith... by bandwidth in excelsius by way of Fresno... have come to the conclusion that ye of the third part - Oh! I guess that makes us the first AND second parts then - that ye of the third part, being one dead sexy black and ivory unicorn mare with a love of tea and cookies as is evident - see example A, there..." Paige pointed grandly at Inkwell leaning her head over to take another of the delicious magic cookies "... who goes by the rather lovely name of..." Paige smiled at Petrichor, who grinned back in return "... Miss Inkwell Quillfeather, have been found and judged to be of greatly companionable status and altogether delightful in every regard and metric available to us, the first and second parts - you do concur on these points my dear Pet?"
Petrichor nodded vigorously while grinning like a maniac. Inkwell was even more lost, and had no idea what was going on, but the tea was good and the cookies were great, and in any case everything seemed happy enough.
"So it is agreed then, by the first and second parts that the third part should henceforth - if it be her choosing to do so - consider herself another part which is appended to the first and second parts, in these here parts, where we are currently located, and not feel in any manner A-Part, but instead Be-Part of... well... us." Paige placed her smartglass down on the table, and looked gently at Inkwell, as did Petrichor. Inkwell found herself staring into the eyes of her hosts, who looked at her with great earnestness and some expectation.
An uncomfortable pause followed. Was she supposed to respond somehow? Inkwell hadn't followed most of what Paige had said, though she had a vague notion that...
"What we're trying to say is... we like you. A lot." Petrichor held out a hoof to Paige, who took it in her dark brown hands. "Every moment you've been with us, here, it just felt natural, you know? Despite what you may have heard in the marketplace, we don't let just anypony into our bed, and from the moment you crawled in on your first day, well, it's just been how things have stayed. That doesn't happen very often at all. That's rare. Really rare."
"Um... are you..." Inkwell looked from Petrichor to Paige and back again.
"We're proposing, Inks. Basically. Basically this is a proposal. Wanna get hitched?" Paige laughed at the last and Petrichor giggled and so did Inkwell because the whole thing was so absurd.
"W-What? Are you having a go at me?"
Petrichor held out a hoof across the table toward Inkwell, and Paige reached out her free hand. "No. No joke. You feel it too, don't you? You must!" Paige smiled. "It's like we've always been together, like it's only an irrelevant detail that you officially arrived four weeks ago. It feels like forever and never and like it was meant to be. We feel like family together, don't we?"
"Is... is it OK? Can we do that?" Inkwell felt like her head was spinning.
"DUH!" Petrichor was flailing with her hoof until Inkwell finally took it in the crook of her pastern. Her other hoof was held by Paige now. "I thought you were the well-read librarian. Traditional Equestrian families are groups, like equine harems from back when earth had horses, only with no patriarchal 'we gotta have a stallion' thing going on. Ponies naturally have group families, we ponies aren't the nuclear 'mom and pop and two-point-godawful children' sort like humans have made themselves into. In Equestria, couples are just considered to be a dating pair who aren't ready to really settle down yet because they have no third, fourth, fifth or sixth spouses."
Paige nodded "But even if that wasn't true, we don't give a flying frog, do we love?" Petrichor shook her head as if she were trying to fling her eyeballs across the room.
Inkwell's jaw dropped. "I... I don't know how this would... what is my role here... how do... do you expect...?"
Petrichor giggled. "Calm down there. Hold your horses!"
"PET!" Paige was not amused.
"Sorry." Petrichor tried to look chagrined. "There's no pressure here. No one is expecting you to jump into our wild and crazy three ring sex circus - though honestly, how could you not, I mean, just look at me, and Paige, come on, she's gorgeous, and we've got toys literally coming out the..."
"PEHHHTTTT!!!!" Paige had taken her hands back and used one to give the little brown pegasus a cuff on the poll.
"Ow!"
"What we're really saying is that we consider you family, and we hope you feel the same way about us. That's how things work now, as ponies. Family forms easily because there just isn't distrust in the way humans have it." Paige looked sad. "Well, there's me, but I am doing my best until I can earn my hooves." She made an effort and brightened. "The ground rules are simple: we're family. You don't do anything you don't want to, and if you never want to play with us in bed, you don't need to. There's no requirements, there are no expectations, and no demands. But, if you do decide to give yourself over to absolute pleasure, ahem, there's no jealousy either. Because we would be family, and we'd all be agreed on that point." Paige leaned over and gave Petrichor a kiss on the poll, which soothed the pony's grumbling for being cuffed. "Does that make any sense?"
Inkwell stared at her hooves as they sat on the top of the table in front of her. She'd never been happier in all her life save here in this silly little flat. For four weeks she had been crawling into bed with these two amazing individuals, and snuggling to sleep as if it were the most ordinary and proper thing to do - as if she's been doing it her whole life. It was a unique and precious thing. Not once, since that first night, had she felt like a guest or a burden. In all of her experience, she had never felt anything like it. The fact was, she realized, she already thought of Paige and Pet as family.
She wasn't sure exactly what family they were - sisters, lovers, aunts or mothers, or some of all at different times, but Paige and Petrichor were closer than anyone had ever been to her in her memory - except for grandfather Eachann who would have found all of this the work of the fairies to be sure. It wasn't that she couldn't go anywhere else - it would have been trivial to just escape to Equestria. In her new body, she could have done just that the second day after her conversion, if she'd wanted to. It would have been nothing - a trip across town to the Bureau, and then simply ask for resettlement. It was her right as a citizen of Equestria and a subject of the crowns.
But she hadn't done that. She realized she couldn't even imagine doing that. Not without Paige. Not without Petrichor. She had been so afraid of the HLF, and yet she had stayed. She hadn't even thought otherwise, not until this very moment. It had just never been an option. Inkwell giggled, from nervous tension and release. What a bizarre thing! To just meet someponies and... fit. Just like that. Like they were waiting for you all along, and you had been waiting for them. Four weeks later, you just wake up and realize you've been family all that time and never even questioned it, because it just worked.
"I... I think..." Inkwell felt fear. How could she say such a thing? Just like that? After only Four weeks? It was absurd. "I mean, I think that... what I mean is..."
Paige leaned closer, a concerned look on her face. "What, hon?" Petrichor leaned in too.
Inkwell swallowed and closed her eyes. Her heart beat hard in her chest. "I could have just left, off to Equestria, but it never crossed my mind. I could not for the life of me even think of being anywhere else. There's a whole universe out there, and easier and safer it is too, and yet I could only wish just to be here. I can't even imagine going there without you two. Every time we climb into bed I feel utterly safe and happy. When we're doing stuff, just little stuff - the dishes, mucking out the bathroom, folding the laundry, making lunch - I feel like I've always been here, with... with you."
Inkwell squeezed her eyes shut harder, it felt easier that way. "I wake up in the morning, and my day is you. I go to sleep, and I smell... you two. I haven't had a thought that wasn't us, together, and the thought of going anywhere else feels like death to me. I guess... oh Celestia, it just seems goofy but... I can't come up with any other word for it but... that... I think, in some way, I don't know how... I just... I think that, simply put..."
Arms and forelegs surrounded Inkwell, as she sat on her pillow, holding her tight. In her ear, she heard Paige whisper. "We love you too. Welcome home."
And the tears were warm, and the tears were good, and the kisses that followed were even better.
The chemical cocktail was a heady mix of glucocorticoids, alpha-adrenergic agonists, 2,6 diaminopurine and advanced forms of propranolol and cortisol. The mixture waited for the transformation to be complete - it was the nightcap after a terrible wakefulness. The purpose was to prevent the formation of memory and thus to eliminate post-traumatic stress disorder.
The gurgling screams and punctuating shrieks of agonized horror indicated the awful necessity of the after-conversion cocktail. The subject was undergoing complete ponification sans anesthesia.
The thing that had once been Ralph Vitoni writhed and shook and squirmed and gurgled incomprehensible syllables. The sound of snapping bones and tearing muscles spoke of Vitoni's efforts to fight or flee the waking nightmare he was trapped within. As soon as one tendon snapped, it would be regenerated, as each muscle tore from the former man's violent reaction, it sealed shut again, instantly growing together. The little nanomachines and their etherial ghosts had their work cut out for them, and there was a frightening chance they might fail altogether.
"Introduce a degree of paralysis into the mix - he's a fighter!" The technician wore a white, clean-room bunny suit with a transparent window in the head to peer out of. He worked quickly, jabbing steel-tipped tubes and sensors into the doughy mass that only minutes ago had been a middle-aged man of Italian descent.
"Keep that goddamn wire in his brain!" There were four tableside technicians, all in cleansuits, standing around the squirming, screaming mass on the metal table. They were overseen by a fifth bunny-suited techie ensconced in a room at the back of the trailer. Already the former human's arms had become rounded bulbs, the skin white as snow, pulsing and rippling like an ocean of milk. "I need to make sure he doesn't enter REM. The bastard enters REM, and we have to burn him! Keep the wire in!"
"I'm trying! He keeps rejecting it!" The swarm of nanomachines worked tirelessly, powered by arcane energies from another universe. They pushed anything foreign or artificial out of the forming pony body. In a container to the side sat the implants and permatech that Ralph Vitoni had acquired after a lifetime within his age - the holographic chronometer that had once been bonded to the ulna of his left arm, the skull port that had allowed him to directly access the hypernet and skulk through virtual reality, the deluxe NewLiver unit that had saved his life and been a gift of a wealthy corporate lord who had made use of his unique talents. One of the technicians had noted the inscription on the artificial organ and laughed. "Drink one for me, Ralphy V!"
A fifth technician sat in the back of the trailer and watched monitors both holographic and antique. He was checking to see if at any point the subject on the table entered, even for a second, any kind of dreamlike state. Such a state would signal communion with Celestia, the eldritch abomination from beyond time and space. Should that happen, Ralph Vitoni's life would become instantly forfeit, for he could never be trusted to work for the good of his former race alone.
"More calories, we need more fat and protein, too!" While the wires jabbed into Ralph's shifting brains monitored that he remained conscious, the tubes provided the overworked nanomachines with extra raw materials to make up for the former human's agonized contortions. "And more potion, too!"
Converting a human agent in this manner took far more than three ounces of the purple nanofluid. It was an expensive effort to create a fully functional sleeper agent whose loyalties had not switched. Initially, Ralph's brain had been infused with an artificial RNA transcriptase complex bound to a nanomachine agent. The initial treatment had prepared his neurons by closing off receptor sites that 'potion' would use to gain entry in order to alter specific regions of his brain, such as the amygdala and thalamus. This would prevent Ralph from being cured of his useful psychopathy and vicious temper. He would not lose his ability to kill, or torture or harm, and he would not gain either conscience or compassion. Ralph would remain the man he had always been, inside of the body of an Equestrian.
By eliminating communion with Celestia, the error of the Worldgovernment in trying to do the very same thing would be prevented. Ralph would have no conversion dream, he would not be fed the treacle lies of that alien monster, he would not sell his human allegiance in exchange for the ridiculous paradise the equinoid creature offered. He would remain a dog loyal to racially pure human masters, as he should be.
Hooves, brown and shiny, burst through the bulbs at the end of the shrieking pony's forming limbs. The most critical phase was beginning now, as the eyes were dissolved and absorbed, so that new, better eyes could replace them. Inside the waxy, rippling mass, temporary vasculature and biomechanical scaffolding held tissues away from the rapidly forming eyes. Soon, the grapefruit-sized orbs would float to the top of the living sea of flesh, and take their place as skull formed around them, and muscles and connective tissue anchored them. It was during this time that Ralph Vitoni would be most likely to lose consciousness and enter a forced REM sleep, despite the unimaginable pain he was suffering.
"Stimulant!" More chemicals slid down the tubes into the increasingly pony-shaped body on the table. The technicians gloved hands worked frantically to keep the tubes and wires from being pushed out. The eyeless body jerked and spasmed as the powerful excitotoxin forced it to neverending consciousness and a state of constant panic. The amount would have killed normal neurons, but Ralph's neurons were being repaired even as they were being overstimulated, thanks to the army of tiny, submicroscopic machines working ceaselessly.
Finally, Ralph's new eyes found their proper place, and the shape of his new, pony skull began to solidify. "We're good, no REM! Copy? No REM! We have a keeper, so far!" The technician monitoring the transformation was excited, he had lost three in a row the past week, and was on notice. He needed this one to work.
"We have awn hairs... looks like he's going to be brown, brown, brown. Um... maybe cut back the calories, we've got some precompletion fat forming... he's gonna be a chubby little pony right from the start." The technician at the table prodded the shaking, panting abdomen with a blue-gloved finger. "You're a little fatty, ain't ya! Hey, little fatty, fatty, fatty!"
"You're in trouble if this bastard remembers that. He's a vicious one, according to Reich." Another of the white-suited techs jammed a wire deeper into the brown pony's head.
"He won't. Worst experience of his life, and he won't remember a moment of it. That's what that's for." The prod-happy technician jabbed a digit at the 'cocktail cylinder' and grinned beneath his suit's transparent window.
The bunny suit in the monitor room checked a parameter and pressed a square on the active surface in front of him. "OK! Looks good, looks good, he's basically cooked, so pull the plugs and dose him. We're done here." He crossed his fingers for luck, the blue neoplastic squeaking as he did so.
The four technicians at the table inside the trailer began pulling the wires and tubes out of the brown pony. The pony was almost complete - mane and tail were rapidly spooling out from the body, while a mature coat sprouted between the initial awn hairs. The bunny-suits removed every tube but one - and down that now flowed the chemical cocktail that would prevent permanent memories from forming for the next few hours. Ralph Vitoni had suffered more pain than any human being in the history of mankind, but he would not be permanently crippled psychologically by a bit of it. The experience would be washed clean, along with whatever thoughts and curses he may have screamed during his torment.
By tomorrow, after a long sleep, Ralph would be completely unaware of what he had gone through, and he would be still capable of human violence, and in a triumph of the HLF over even the Worldgovernment, he would be utterly untouched by even the faintest whisper of the eternal grace, forgiveness, and compassion of princess Celestia of Equestria.
Inkwell had spent the morning bothering Ace Bandage, the medical unicorn, to the point of distraction. She had showed up at his apartment, and grilled him about how to get her hooves on potion for Paige. Inkwell had reasoned that the unicorn intern would be the most likely pony she knew to have connections, contacts, or maybe a working security key card to the hospital.
"I'm quit, Inkwell, they won't likely even let me through the doors at this point. If it weren't for the automatic change of citizenship conversion brings they'd have the Blackmesh after me. I stole that potion, just up and took it, and I feel so guilty you can't... I mean, I'm glad I did it, I'd do it again in an instant, you're alive, right? But... I just feel guilty because I did steal it. I've sent six hypermails trying to apologize as it is!"
Inkwell understood. Conscience was an loud taskmaster as a pony, far more so than as a human. The drive to be fair and do what was right, to be honest and true was very strong. "Thank you Ace. Thank you for doing that, I know it cost you, but I am very grateful for my life. Please try to let it go - that emergency potion was for emergencies, right? It was an emergency!"
Ace shuffled his hooves. "Yeah, I know. It was, you were... bad off. It had to be done. It's just that, the very first week, they really hammered home the rule that hospital materials were for paying customers and staff only. Only, only, ONLY. They really were a pretty selfish bunch, and I kind of feel bad for going along with it all too. I feel guilty for stealing from them, and bad for having worked there for so long. Gah!"
Inkwell tried any other angle she could think of - did Ace know of any other sources of potion? Was there some connection a medical unicorn might have with the Bureaus themselves that could help? Did he know of a way to contact the PER and beg them for potion? Was there any other connection he might have with the Worldgovernment that...
Oh. Inkwell herself had a sort of special connection all on her own. She had been part of the LAASTT project as a human. The Literature And Arts Survival Triage Team was a project of the Propaganda and Infotainment Ministry, and that was definitely up there in the government. Plus... she had also secretly been a member of the Underground Bookmobile. That was sponsored by princess Luna herself! Surely one or either of those connections should lead to acquiring potion to help Paige!
The problem was... Inkwell was still effectively hiding out. The HLF couldn't find her, that was clear, because they hadn't. Her sudden and under-the-radar change of life had effectively rendered her utterly invisible to them. But that could last only as long as she made no contact with her previous life. The second anything connected her to her life as Gwen, the baddies would be on her tail, possibly literally, now that she had one.
Her single best lead on potion would have to be the one thing that could get her caught. And being caught by the HLF was not an option - not just because that notebook held dangerous things that might help them, but also because it would hurt Paige and Pet to lose her. Plus they might get hurt too, themselves.
It was so annoying! If only she could get word to Luna, she could... oh. Oh sweet chocolate it was right there, wasn't it? In the little lock-box, the self-mailing magic scrolls. Sign on the line, and green fire sent them straight to Luna herself. Nopony she knew had ever used one, but they were there - all the Underground Bookmobile groups had a few. To provide information on hidden book caches. To warn of immanent discovery of the project. For emergencies. It was so, so tempting.
But they'd be watching, wouldn't they? The HLF would never take their little spy eyes off that building, now that they knew what it was. They would be waiting for 'Gwen' to return there, because that is where she had escaped from. They'd be silly not to watch that warehouse from now until the end of the world, which was just four years away.
Of all the places on all the earth, that was the one place Inkwell realized she must never go. A thousand novels and stories drifted through the little unicorn's mind. In each and every one, the protagonist always ends up going to the one place they absolutely must not go, sure that they could get away with things, and always caught and menaced by whatever was after them, because that was the way with drama. Unless ponies did foolish, foolish things, where could all the frightening captures and terrifying escapes come from? Sensible just wasn't good storytelling, now was it?
Inkwell laughed, as she continued the thought, on the way downstairs to the street. This was clearly the place in her own personal saga where it was expected that she should make a terrible decision, driven by the need to help her new friends and lovers, to help her family - oh what a fine motivation that was, always a favorite in stories - and thus end up putting herself and everypony in exciting and terrifying peril! This was the point in the story where she would surely be captured and her friends would have to risk their lives - and prove their love - attempting to rescue her and what a load of horseapples and drama to be double chocolate cursed because Inkwell Quillfeather the unicorn would have not a bit of any of that.
Inkwell stomped her hoof on the dirt road outside the apartment. 'No! I'll have none of that! Those mystic scrolls can sit right there till doomsday, because that warehouse is the last hoofing place you will ever find the likes of me!' She grinned at that. Being a librarian and a lover of stories gave her an advantage, she reckoned, because in knowing what was the dramatic thing to do, she had an edge in knowing what to avoid. In real life, drama was nothing but pain and sorrow. Drama was always to be avoided in real life. Leave it for the silly stories.
So, she pondered as she passed the Parking Lot Farm - it used to be the apartment's main lot, until the earthponies got to it - what would be the least dramatic way to get potion for Paige? Hmmm... she thought... well, where is there potion to be had?
There was the Bureaus, obviously. There was always talk of increases in potion availability, but the fact was that unless you lived near a Bureau in a high-priority zone, you were lucky to get in. It had been obvious since the beginning that not every last human on the earth could be saved. The scale of the matter was just too large. It was terrible and sad. That said, Bureaus did have potion in them.
The PER, the Ponification for the Earth's Rebirth, they had potion, sometimes more than the Bureaus. Nopony knew where they got it, but there were rumors of secret factions within the Elite supporting them, and a huge secret base somewhere in the NorthAmerizone. There were even rumors that they had a means to make potion themselves, somehow. There were always rumors about everything.
Hospitals had potion, that was how she herself had been saved. But they clearly were not just giving the stuff out freely. At least not here.
The Taikonauts, up in the Friendship Station, they had potion, but not even a pegasus could fly in vacuum. There was no hope there to ask for a nice cup of the purple from near earth orbit.
The Blackmesh. They probably had emergency potion kits, just like the hospitals did. Blackmesh troops faced dangers, they could be mortally wounded, conversion was a swift universal cure for all wounds. The thought crossed Inkwell's mind what it would take to beg the Blackmesh to spare a dose. It wouldn't hurt to try, she supposed. The worst they could do was boot her out and tell her no.
The elite had potion, no doubt, but they were further removed than the Taikonauts up in orbit. Who else? Anypony else?
Gwen had potion. Inkwell startled at the thought. Her old self had a guaranteed ticket to Equestria. All the government workers got that, even Green-Level. Guaranteed. Any Bureau had to honor it. Paige could walk in and claim to be her former self, and get converted. And the Bureaus were protected by the Blackmesh!
No, that wouldn't work. The doors scanned everypony that entered. It would never work. The A.I.'s could not be fooled. Every metric of a person was their living identification. Pretending to be someone else was a trick for a long lost age before Universal Security Awareness.
"What's the matter?" It was an earthpony stallion, one of the Parking Lot Farm group. He must have noticed Inkwell standing at the corner, staring off into space, or more precisely, at the dirt, looking dejected. "Can I help at all?"
Inkwell felt a brief warmth in her heart. That was the way with ponies. Just like that, 'can I help?' - and they meant it too. "I have a..." Inkwell smiled "... a spouse... that needs to get converted. She's tried and tried, and it's just never worked out. I want to help her so much and... I don't know how."
"Ah! You're the one I've seen out and about with Paige and Pet for the last two months, aren't you? So you've become family now - good on ya! Congratulations!" The gray and blue stallion grinned through the dust and dirt on his muzzle. He'd been working hard to grow an entire field of strawberries by the end of the day.
"Thank you. Yes... it's Paige. She wants to go pony so badly, but there's a shortage of potion. She's tried everything - she's on the waiting list to get on the waiting list for the Bureau, and she's even tried to contact the PER! It's terrible how hard it is to get your hooves on three little ounces when you really need it." Inkwell sighed.
"I don't know where to get potion, I wish I did. I was part of the first wave of potion when the Bureau first opened. They had a lot, initially, which is where most of the ponies around here got their hooves. But it's become scarce lately. It's the HLF, doncha know - they blew up the storage facility down south and now they can't distribute it fast enough, that's the real problem. Oh, there's potion, just not here, not in quantity. We're not exactly a big deal Zone, you know." The earthpony stallion flicked his tail. "Tell you what though - I can't get you purple, but I can get you some red - red strawberries. I should have these fruits mature by sundown - I'll set aside a box for you and yours, it's the least I can do. I'll have it sent up, later, right? It's not the answer to your needs, but strawberries are always happy, right?"
Inkwell couldn't help but smile. "You are nothing but kindness... um... I don't even know your name. I'm Inkwell, by the way."
"Fourleaf. Fourleaf Clover - and before you go 'oh, that's a twee name' I'll have you know that I didn't pick it out of desperation or lack of imagination. When I was really young, I actually found one. A living clover, and it had four leaves."
Inkwell stared. The earth was nearly dead now. Grasses and clovers were believed extinct, along with most life other than the odd dandelion, cockroaches and mutated rats. And whatever plants the elite had squirreled away in Antarctica or in guarded malls. "Really, a real clover?" The fact of seeing a clover at all outweighed the fact of it having four leaves.
"Yes, a proper clover." The stallion looked briefly sad "And, much to my shame, I picked it. I was young, and I only knew what my grandmother had told me - that four-leaf clovers bring luck, and you can make a wish if you pick them. I've often wondered if I picked the very last clover on earth. It's troubled me my whole life. "
"What did you wish?" Inkwell couldn't help but be curious.
"You'd never believe it if I told you."
"Yes, I would. I promise." Inkwell meant it. Whatever the wish, she would believe it. There was no reason to doubt such a nice pony!
"I'd been reading old cowboy books. My grandmother had some in a trunk, in the attic, see." The stallion pawed at the dirt with a hoof and grinned to himself. "I wished for a pony."
Inkwell laughed and Fourleaf laughed and it did seem like the sort of a wish a human foal would make. "I guess I got my wish. Looking around... " the stallion gestured with a foreleg "...there's pretty much nothing but ponies now. If it was the last clover on earth, it must have had all the power of every clover that ever was or could be within it, because Equestria appeared and, well, how do you do, miss pony?"
"Now that's a thought, isn't it?" Inkwell had a moment of wonder and wildness "What if the emergence of Equestria, the Bureaus, all of this right now, all of it happened because of a wish on the very last truly lucky clover? What a notion! Someone should write a story about that!" This made Fourleaf laugh again and then look concerned.
"If I did somehow do it, if that wish called all of this into being... well, that's a bit of a burden on me, isn't it? Was it the right wish, do you think?"
Inkwell flicked her tail and felt the slap against her hocks. It felt wonderful, so she did it again. She stomped her right hoof down, and felt how solid she felt on her four strong legs. She thought of her new family, and how grateful she was of them. She thought of magic and how incredible and wonderful it was to simply use it at all! And she thought of the newly greened earth, saved from the ravages of pollution and population and exploitation. An earth gradually being renewed, if only for a few years.
"If that wish did create all of this, then Fourleaf - " Inkwell regarded him with gratitude " - I think you are the true savior of the world and every living thing left upon it. You didn't waste the last wish on earth one bit. Thank you, good mister Clover, for making exactly the right wish!"
This made Fourleaf look briefly misty, before he regained himself. "You'll have strawberries tonight, miss Inkwell. Everypony knows where Paige and Pet live - and now you. 'Better be getting back to work then. I hope you find your potion!"
As the stallion ambled back to his fields, Inkwell thought to herself 'I hope so too. I dearly hope so too.'
Around the corner, across the street, deep in the shadows, a pony watched. He leaned against the wall of the building, a pair of saddlebags slung across his pudgy brown body. He tried to walk, but stumbled and slammed against the wall with a thud and a grimace. He tried once more, and managed to keep his hooves, though he swayed a bit. "Stupid goddamn 'tards, always check the goddamn hospitals. Always. It's not fucking rocket surgery. Counting beans and protein and whatever shit - just check the goddamn hospitals if you want to find out if anything fucked-up has happened. Jesus, what a bunch of cazzaros."
The pudgy brown earthpony watched where the ivory and black mare went, and then staggered back into the alleyway, into the shadows. "Fuck these goddamn clumsy hooves, too. Fare una figura di merda..."
Later, that evening, snuggled between her two wives, Inkwell used her horn to neatly turn through the pages of the notebook. Reading the 'Forbidden Notebook' had become a family ritual for the three, and Petrichor would not be satisfied without even a short reading from the thing.
"Wait! Go back!" Paige pointed at the notebook, as it rested between Inkwell's forelegs.
"What? Where?" Inkwell's hornfield held a page upright in mid turn.
"Back a page, or two!"
Inkwell used her magic to flip back first one page, and then another. "Stop! That's it! Look!"
Petrichor crawled forward, so that her head was even with Inkwell's. She stole a quick kiss. "It's a map. Cool. I like maps. They give a sense of place, you know?"
"That's... hmmm... that has to be Canterlot Castle - I don't know of any other big castle in Equestria." Inkwell studied the hand-drawn map. "That has to be the plinth or whatever where Celestia raises the sun. And look - that dotted line - that's the path that Mule Two must have taken. Redhead the Author must have tried to make a map of the locations from the video tour. Probably to try to understand things better!"
Page was leaning over now, her head also close. She too stole a kiss. "That... that looks like a maze. You think the princess has a garden maze, like they used to have in the old days?"
"Why not? Equestria has all sorts of plants and life, why not a maze garden? Oh, look!" Inkwell pointed with her hoof "Those must be statues - see? They all have little bases on them. Pony statues! Only makes sense, for a garden, I guess. Maybe they are statues of famous ponies from history."
"Except for that one. What the swirl is that? A snake statue?" Petrichor couldn't make out what the drawing represented.
"Maybe it's a dragon? Equestria has other species than ponies. I'll bet it's a dragon. Our Redhead just did the best she could. Dragons are complicated, that's all." Inkwell tried to be diplomatic about it.
"Hey... check it out - everything is to scale. She really is a scientist! The whole thing is gridded, and at the edges she has scale and direction values. She really tried to be precise about this. I'm impressed." Petrichor sniffed at the map. "ooh... she was eating chocolate when she drew this. Chocolate would be nice to go with these." Pet bent her neck back and brought the basket of strawberries forward, and placed them beyond the book, so everypony could have some.
Inkwell levitated a pair of berries out of the basket, and carefully directed one near Paige's mouth, and one right into Petrichor's.
"You are really getting good at that, you know?" Paige opened her palms and Inkwell let the strawberry drop. It was not an issue to use her hornfield on, around, or even inside Petrichor's body, but the same was not true for Paige. Inkwell did not want to burn her with thaumatic energy by accident, especially in her mouth. Paige gobbled the berry, smiling around the delicious fruit.
"OK, the map is cool and all, but I want to hear another entry!" Petrichor was petulant.
"Yes, yes, princess Petrichor must have her story. Read on, Page Inkwell!"
"No, you're Paige. I'm Inkwell!" The ivory unicorn grinned.
"Silly filly. You know what I meant." Paige scritched behind Inkwell's right ear.
"Oh. Ohhhhh..... um... storytime can wait... just a bit... oh my sweet Celestia." Inkwell's eyes were shut in pleasure. "Oh, right there, yes, yes...."
Petrichor sighed. "Well, if there's free ear-scratching going on, then I'm next in line!"
"Help! Help!" Paige looked griefstricken "I'm being held captive, a slave to the carnal pleasures of itchy-eared ponies!"
Inkwell and Pet giggled. Inkwell used a commanding voice. "Yes. Yes you are. Scratch harder, Mistress!"
Pet looked perturbed. "Inkwell... you... what is it with you and 'topping from the bottom'?"
Inkwell sighed. "I can't be expected.... to... to... get my terms... correct... with this level of ear scritchies... going on."
Pet grinned. "Scratch her well, my human slave! Then you can do me!"
"We'll see about that attitude later, PET." Paige stressed the last word carefully.
We are up to R-22 now. My diddling with the instruction set and the biomolecular manipulators was helpful, so I feel good about that, but, sadly, not one of my designs survived intact. By the time my work got back from the review and reiteration teams, it was difficult to find anything I had personally done. Still, I solved the problem of the mitochondrial issue, so I can take some pride in that. Sadly, though, I will never get an actual credit for it, that will go to the team that finally made it all work right. But, hey, my idea at least was valid.
It was pretty simple, really, I thought. Animal cells are actually two cells coexisting. Sometime back in the primeval soup, one cell ate another and couldn't digest the poor thing, so they set up housekeeping. Over time, the devoured cell lost parts of its genome that accomplished what the larger cell did, and the larger cell lost the parts of its genome that covered the job its houseguest did. They both kept their own reproduction separate, though, and that was the problem.
My solution was to append the mitochondrial DNA to the human genome, thus eliminating the old alliance entirely. So, one of the first steps in conversion is to betray the ancient deal with the mitochondria and make them superfluous. That makes human cells vastly more similar to Equestrian cells, and solves the problem of the nano's choking on the double workload. It also makes the tissues vastly more compatible with each other.
I guess the best way to put it would be to say that my solution was to make human cells look more like how they should look if humanity had indeed had some intelligent creator designing it, instead of the haphazard mess that evolution made. With that done, the reconstruction of the body becomes much simpler and smoother.
The NorthEurozone group furthered this by streamlining the human genome to a basic, functional minimum as well, getting rid of all the little inclusions. Human DNA is littered with bits of ancient viruses, bacteria, and temporary fixes for countless problems. There is no malaria in Equestria, for example, so we can just dump the hemoglobin variant Hb S with extreme prejudice. The same goes for countless little memorabilia of the human passage through time.
They used a linked group of quantum machines to work out the ideal human genome, and it is small. I am shocked at how small the thing is. We picked up a LOT of garbage over the eons. Of course, our new Ideal Genome, if we made a baby out of it, would be a marvel that would last about three days before dying of something - anything - in the world. Perfection can't survive the thousand slings and arrows of uncaring Nature.
Fortunately, once a human subject has had a DNA oil-change, they only have to stay alive for about a half an hour. The EastAsiaZone group thinks we can bring conversion down to fifteen minutes. I will believe it when I see it.
We started calling the iterative steps R steps. Recombinant Steps. The first five were pretty pathetic. Back then, we were nowhere close to converting a whole human being, of course. But we could convert sections.
They've adapted a nanofabrication plant somewhere in the Eurozone, I think in what used to be Belgium, but I don't know for sure, where they build us living, part-humans. Last week we got a torso, nearly complete. Legs and arms are easy to come by, heads take forever, and of course the brain inside is simple, unwrinkled, and silent. Thankfully, of course. R-11 through R-14 were golden moments - we nearly successfully converted several of those heads right then, and we found we could easily get 100% conversion on the limbs. Forget kidneys, like when we started - nothing beats seeing a leg convert, or the best of all, a head.
Converting the head has been the toughest issue. The basic structure of Equestrian and hominid physiology is close enough that most of conversion, once the cells are altered, is basically rearrangement. The parts are all the same, eerily so. These Equestrians are not alien. Not in the way you would expect from a creature from another universe.
I am robustly convinced now that Celestia and Luna constructed their biosphere based on examinations of ours, and that they based the Equestrian form on a weird blend between primate and equine. I cannot explain what we are seeing any other way. I've tried to get some confirmation of this - I've even sent a message directly to the Equestrian embassy and another to Celestia herself - but there has been no response. I am not alone in my conclusion. It is blatant, I think, when one is dealing with things at this scale.
I have heard a story. It came from Buttercream, one of our resident ambassadors to Lab 12. She told us about Equestrian history. I am not sure she was supposed to tell us what she did - she disappeared for a week after telling us, recalled to the embassy, and seemed shaken when she returned. She has been a great deal less forthcoming since.
According to her, Equestria has only existed as it currently is for a thousand years. We are unsure if this is factual - some cultures, like the ancient Chinese, used to magnify or shrink values by a factor of ten for political reasons when recounting history, so it may have been more like ten thousand years. We didn't press the point, but there were aspects that made us wonder. In any case, at least a thousand years ago, there was no Equestria.
And by no Equestria, I mean literally that there was no physical land, no sky, no world, no place. According to Buttercream, there was a terrible age where reality itself was swirling chaos. The princesses were the playthings of a creature that sounds like an elder god from the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, though a trickster god, rather than an overtly malevolent one. The princesses beat this creature, and were then faced with a cosmos devoid of order.
Now here is where it all feeds into our theories in Lab 12 about the nature of Equestrian biology. Buttercream claimed that the princesses looked into other worlds and drew order from them to make Equestria. My mind instantly leapt to the idea that they must have been peeking at our world, if any of this is true, and built themselves a version of what they saw or perceived.
I seriously think that this may be the only rational explanation for how our nearest neighbor in the multiverse has so very much in common with us. And, despite the different construction of matter, it has almost everything in common with us. It is just too overwhelmingly close to be otherwise. Equestria is a copy of earth. Improved, fixed, artistically reinterpreted, but without any doubt in my mind, cribbed from our universe.
This assumption explains everything we are seeing, the fact conversion is possible at all, and perhaps even why Equestria is here to save our bacon. Maybe the princesses feel they owe us.
And they are saving our bacon. I found out just how close to the brink we are, here on earth. In short, most of the economically accessible energy and manufacturing resources of the planet have been depleted. Oh, there is tons of stuff down there, we just don't have the energy or resources to go get it. And space is out for the same reason - we don't have the resources to begin any real push in that direction. The biosphere is shot. It's far worse than I imagined. If the public knew just how bad things really are, they would panic. It would be chaos. Earth is on life support. If Equestria had not arrived, the best estimates are that humanity would live for possibly two more generations before extinction. Humanity is grandchildren away from the end of the road.
Finding this out has spurred my drive to work harder to make conversion succeed. It is literally our last chance. If we fail this, humanity fails life itself. Nature only has pass-fail grading, so - we need to win.
By the time we got to R-18, we were beginning to sweat. We had reached stagnation. We could mostly convert heads - the secret was to build a great deal of temporary scaffolding and support structures inside the cranial mass. But then things just failed. The nanobots became lost in the complexity, and we couldn't get them to finish the job. Basically, we failed, because the eye problem was too hard, and the neurological integrity issue seemed hopeless. So, in desperation, we decided to beg the ancient unicorns on level three for help.
Three days later we got what we needed, the majority of it woven into the etherial program that lives inside the nanomachines - the machine geists. Here's the interesting part. The grouchy unicorns claimed that the solution had been designed and created by the other princess, princess Luna herself. The way they treated the issue, it was as if they expected us to bow down in humble supplication for this special grace.
I know very little about the other princess. But if she is at all the equal of Celestia, then I think my teammates do not fully grasp what just happened there. Later, I went down to level three on my own. They are creepy, I cannot stress that enough. They are old, the oldest Equestrians any of us have been allowed to see, and quite large and imposing too. They are not little cute unicorns. Some of them have little tufts of hair on their chins, and all of them are shades of white or gray. I begged entry, and they allowed it.
I was not very erudite. I think I annoyed them with my stuttering and rambling, but I tried to put across something of what I have learned about what Celestia and Luna are, what they represent, and that I was grateful for their help - and that above all I understood what a profound thing such direct assistance was. That actually got me a nod of approval from the older female that seems to lead the group. I looked her up, her name translates out to Comet Tail, and she is apparently the head of whatever team in Equestria studies P-Tec. Spells, basically. I guess she is the grand sorcerer or wizard of Equestria, something like that.
That nod made my day. Nobody else has gotten any acknowledgement out of the ancient creatures to my knowledge. I don't think Comet Tail and I will be sharing lunch any century soon, but - basically I felt better after that minor connection.
So with the apparent help of Luna herself, we got past the block we had at R-18 and moved to our great success. The R-20 attempt.
R-20 was our first effort to convert an entire, cohesive body. Truth be told, the body in question was a chimera, built up of separate components from the biofab center essentially woven together. 'Patchwork Bob' was quite a sight when he was delivered. Every limb was a different skin color, and the head lacked teeth. But it was alive, if you can call cells respirating life, and Bob had every organ except the appendix and testes, and he even could breath on his own. It was a true Frankenstein moment.
It took ten ounces of nanofluid pumped through old Patchwork, along with nutrients and support chemicals, but he changed from a human-ish body into a proper earthpony mare. That's the new official name for the ground-types. They walk on soil and deal with agriculture, so the label is 'earthpony'. It's a little confusing, I thought, because it almost sounds like they are Earth ponies, that is to say native terrestrial equines, but I am not in charge of the names here.
The result was a brain-silent, bright pink earthpony with long, flat, bright pink hair. Mane. Tail. We didn't expect the result to be conscious, and a good thing it wasn't too, because we made an error in the routine that handles removing the temporary scaffolding and so the creature died within hours. But it worked. It looked like a native pony, with every component intact and in place. Oh, we whooped and cheered over that, though we all felt sad when the thing finally perished. Not that there was any other better end for it - there wasn't any awareness in it, it was just a mass of cells. Still, it's easy to anthropomorphize things, and we had given the result a name - 'Pink Lady'. We shouldn't have done that, really, that just made everything harder.
We also lost our medical unicorn - I never knew his name - over this. He was brought in to verify that Pink Lady was a complete pony. He started doing whatever it is he does - his horn glows, and little patches of light appear on the body, as if scanning it - and suddenly he just stopped. He walked up to Pink Lady and placed a hoof on its barrel and said some words in his native language. He then announced that he was quit with the project, and that he wanted to go home. He seemed visibly shaken, almost as if he was going to cry.
I talked with him while he was waiting on the old unicorns on level three. They come and go as they please, and they can take others with them. I tried to comfort the stallion - I felt someone, at the very least, should - and asked him what he had said over Pink Lady.
He told me that it was a thing they say when a pony dies. He tried to translate it for me, because I think he could tell that it bothered me too. I admit I kind of got attached to the R-20 attempt because we made the mistake of giving it a name. Big error that. The basic jist was something like "I will run with you, I will run beside you, and if you should stumble, I will wait for you, and together we will find the greenest fields, and eat the greenest grasses, and be together, loved by the sun." I think that was it, as best as I can remember. It made me tear up, and I didn't really know why. He seemed to appreciate that it affected me, and gave me a hug - my first hug from an Equestrian.
And then he went in, because the old unicorns were ready, and the door shut. We were informed in a memo that we will get a new unicorn medic on Monday. Judging from his reaction to the kidneys, I can only guess that Pink Lady had a lot more of that strange 'thickness' he was talking about. Maybe too much.
We still do not know why the result was female. Patchwork Bob was male, the nanofluid should have built a stallion. We have six Equestrian genomes sequenced now, so we have a wide variety, and we have incorporated the unique elements of all six to cover every variation. It should have made a stallion. That said, it was still a success.
I would NOT want to have the current serum used on me, mind you, but we are really advancing at an incredible speed here. Of course, we are getting constant help from the other side, from Equestria, and they have knowledge and powers way beyond us. I am not sure how much of our conversion in R-20, 21, and the latest, R-22, is our technology or Equestrian spell weaving - I cannot think of it otherwise, 'P-TEC' just sounds stupid now - but at least the process shows promise.
R-20 produced a pink mare. We tried with Patchwork Bob-2, 'the Re-Bobbening' as Mayoss called it, and got a purple unicorn mare. It too, lived only a few hours, for the same reason. According to the autopsy, the temporary scaffolding failed to deconstruct. R-21, on Bob-3 resulted in a yellow pegasus mare. Always mares. However, an analysis on sections of R-21's brain finally revealed the problem. The nanobots were struggling to keep the brain alive, but the brain did not have any astrocytes or glial cells. Nobody noticed until R-21. We had no reason to think that was the problem, we trusted the nanofab group.
Astrocytes and glial cells work to keep neurons alive - they remove wastes, clean up excess neurotransmitters, and generally do support and grooming work. Without them, neurons perish, poisoned in their own wastes. The nanomachines were not removing the biomechanical scaffolding, because the artificial vasculature was trying to compensate for the missing astrocytes.
The nanofab guys got a raking over the coals, and the next chimeric body we got had everything intact. Even testes. It was complete, so we called it 'Total Bob'. This became Recombinant-22 in the series.
We inserted tubes and began conversion, late in the evening, almost midnight. Total Bob had a fully loaded brain, scans showed it even had a few wrinkles in it! We started the flow, and conversion began. The limbs became pony legs, the tail extended from the spine without a hitch. So-yeon had added some additional code just hours before Total Bob arrived to correct a problem with cervical fusion, so she was ecstatic that the tail was coming in correctly now. The head went pony smoothly, and we even got correct eyes with no irregularities. But the best part was the scaffolding entirely dissolved and reabsorbed, leaving a perfectly formed, though mindless, pony body. It was another pegasus mare, blue this time, with the most colorful and wild mane we had ever seen. It was quite a sight.
The body lived until the higher-ups decided to terminate it for dissection, and I personally think it could have been kept alive indefinitely, not that anyone would want to do such a thing, of course - but the result was solid. This conversion worked. It was indistinguishable from a native Equestrian, it breathed on its own, and it did not self-terminate. R-22, our golden moment. This was it. This was the attempt that has finally shown that project Bucephalus is going to work. It did work. Though, again, we ended up with a mare, brain dead, but breathing.
After this, I got a strange bit of mail. It was from General Ridgway, my mysterious supporter. It simply said 'Keep it up. Knew you were the one.'
I have no idea what the hell Ridgway is thinking. I helped a very small amount with a few tiny issues. I'm nothing here. Insignificant. He's been helpful - I would never have seen the truth about Celestia, never have seen her raise the sun without his help - but there is a creepy aspect that I just can't define here.
Chawla thinks we are really close. I agree. But we will have to wait for the results of our parallel team to see which approach is better. There are five teams doing the same thing we are, 'Bob' bodies and all. Each has a slightly different take on things, but from what I hear, we are in the lead.
Who knows, maybe my silly solution to the mitochondria problem really did give us the edge. That would be one hell of a thing, if so.
Paige carried the plate with the last of the pepper loaf to the compost bin and carefully dumped the scraps in. The vegetable loaf had become a favorite over the past three weeks, and the three tended to make it on Wednesdays. The recipe came from a neighbor down the hall, Mrs. Creamsoda (don't ask - Newfoals and their names) who seemed to have a decent grasp of interesting vegetarian dishes. The loaf used oats and other grains as a base, with many varieties of sweet peppers and succulents to provide a rich flavor. Even Paige liked it, though secretly she craved a nice slab of replicated meat protein after. Late at night, sometimes she would fry up an egg or three as compensation, and sometimes Pet and Inks would join her. Ponies liked their eggs.
"Hey! I have an idea!" Petrichor had just brought the stack of bowls to the sink, Inkwell was levitating and washing them. Having a unicorn in the family had turned out to be very useful, and Inkwell, for her part, enjoyed dishwashing for the first time in her life. Levitating anything was intrinsically fun, because magic itself was fun, and being able to stack bowls in the air, then tilt them to create hovering fountains, was basically beyond cool.
"Inks! Careful!" Paige had almost slipped - some of the impromptu floating fountain had splashed on the floor.
"Sorry!" Inkwell lowered the bowls and reached out with her glowing field and grabbed the mop from the corner. The mop raced out and weaved between Petrichor and Paige and began wiping the floor. Several little blobs of light held it as it worked, they were Inkwell's magic 'hands'. "Wait..."
Inkwell moved the mop to the side, and lay it against the wall. Paige and Petrichor stepped back, curious as to what Inkwell was up to.
The blobs of light vanished from the mop handle, and reappeared on the floor as one large puddle of light, covering the spill of wash water. The glowing field pulled together into a hollow ball, filled now with water from the floor. Inkwell lifted the small sphere of water to the sink, and let it hover over the drain.
Paige moved forward to see. On the way she checked the floor with a finger and noted it dry. Pet moved in too, all three clustered around the sink.
"That's kinda cool, Inkwell." Pet, at least seemed impressed.
"Is that a new thing you learned or?" Paige marveled at the floating, glowing ball of dirty water.
"No, I just... I just thought 'why can't I pick up water like anything else', right? I mean, water is a thing, and magic doesn't just have to sit on the outside, it can go inside things too. I reckoned that if I put my glow into the water, I could lift it all up and just leave the floor dry, and it worked!" Inkwell felt a thrill of awe and wonder at what she had just done. She was holding a ball of water in the air, with her mind. The ball of water spun lazily, the tiny particles in it drifting as it did so. It was mesmerizing.
"Maybe you should... let it go now?" There was no doubt that floating balls of water were unusual, but the blush had worn off the rose fairly quickly. In a world of Newfoals and Equestria approaching, magic was an everyday thing. Paige often marveled at how easily her human mind could adapt to such wonders.
"Sorry! It was just kinda neat, you know?" Inkwell let her field collapse, the glow departing her horn, and the ball of water splattered into the sink and slipped down the drain. "I'll get the dishes done now. But it was neat, wasn't it?"
"I thought it was really neat, Inkwell!" Pet gave the ivory unicorn a smooch and went to take the mop back.
Paige kissed Inkwell on her poll, careful not to get an eyeful of horn, and scratched the unicorn's ear. "I'm sorry, if I spoiled the moment. It's just that I like to get things cleaned up so I don't have to fuss, you know?" Paige tended to have a bit of an efficiency bug, sometimes, and she liked to get work done quickly, rather than to linger at a job. Petrichor had once suggested to Inkwell that this was a new development, that had happened since Pet's conversion. Pet's theory was that Paige was always a little on edge, waiting for her own turn to go pony.
When the dishes were washed, and dried and put away, and the table had been cleaned (Pet was an eager eater, and there were always little bits to clean up) Petrichor finally got to describe her idea for the evening. "OK, OK, why don't we play a board game? Seriously? It would be fun! I know we've got Carcassone in there, and Catan, too. They're a little old and beat up, I admit, but they are great games from way back, and now that we've got a unicorn in the family, little pieces won't be a problem, right?"
Inkwell was game, and Paige, while underwhelmed, was willing to give it a go. Just as Pet ran for the storage closet, a pounding sounded at the front door.
"Visitors!" Petrichor was always excited by company. "Maybe they'll want to play too!"
Pet had the door open in an instant, but the pony behind it was new.
"Hey, can I come in, it's urgent." The brown stallion was unusually pudgy, and his darker brown mane seemed unkempt. He wore saddlebags, but the smell of them was odd - they didn't smell like kelp leather. "I have a gift for ya, too." He had a strange look in his eyes, oddly flat, yet overly friendly.
The stallion waddled in, a little unsure on his hooves. He kicked the door shut and smiled broadly at the three mares. "Ah... nice digs. Comfy. I like that. Not ostentatious. Lived in, that warm, homey feel."
Petrichor backed up, and stood next to Inkwell. "What the...?"
"Can... we help you, mister..." Paige was keenly aware of the old aluminum baseball bat she had stashed behind the couch. She moved casually towards it. There was something off about this pony, and she didn't like the way he had invited himself in, and closed the door. That wasn't how ponies acted. Something was wrong.
"Actually, I'm here to help you. You're Paige, aren't ya? They told me the human in the group would be named Paige. Howya, doin' there Paige? I don't know what you got behind that sofa, but I assure you, it isn't necessary. I'm not here to cause trouble, I just need to be discrete. That's why the bargin' in and all." The brown pony sat down on the floor, and offered innocent eyes and a gentle, if crooked, smile.
"Sorry." Paige felt embarrassed. "Old habit. Before Equestria... you know how it is." There was no question the brown stallion was a Newfoal. Fairly new, for a Newfoal too, from the way he moved. He had not yet settled into his pony body. "... You seem to know my name. Who are you?"
The brown stallion shifted awkwardly on the floor, trying to free his tail. First he leaned one way, and then another. Finally he had to partially stand up on all fours again, before lifting his tail up and sitting down. This caused a yelp of pain as his tail was bent backward. "God friggin'..." Eventually he managed to sit mostly on one flank, his tail curving around the other.
"Oh! Excuse my manners. Please let me introduce myself." The plump, unkempt stallion grinned at Paige. "You've been trying, apparently for some time now, or so I'm told, to get in touch with the PER - The Ponification for the Earth's Renewal. Not so easy to do, is it, in this town, and you probably know why - the place is crawling with those lousy-ass HLF freaks, am I right?" The stallion nodded at Inkwell and Petrichor, and shifted his clearly uncomfortable posterior once again. "Well, it so happens that I just got assigned to bring the PER goodness to you. That's why I didn't want anyone seeing me scoot in here back there, capiche? I certainly don't want any trouble from those HLF bastards, and I'm sure you don't neither. So, my name is, ah, Cloudypuff Moonypants, right? and I've got something..."
Petrichor practically gagged. "Cloudy... puff..." She tried to hold back laughter "M-Mooneypants?"
"Yeah, that's my name. Friends call me, ah... Cloudy. Or Moony. Take your pick. You got a problem with my name?"
"No. No, not at all." Petrichor felt ashamed, in a sort of vague, unsure way. "I... it's just... it's a very colorful name, that's all!"
"Yeah, well, I'm a colorful guy." Cloudypuff stared at Petrichor for a moment, then continued. "So, what I am trying to say is that we got a call - at the PER headquarters, see - that somebody needed some potion. And guess what?" Cloudypuff Moonypants dug about with his muzzle inside his left saddlebag. "...goddamn fuckin' sons a whore lack 'a hands..." Petrichor looked at Paige, who shrugged, nodded at the couch - indicating the availability of the baseball bat - and then motioned towards Inkwell who seemed to be studying the strange stallion intently.
"HRERE!" Cloudypuff said around the black carbofiber container he held in his mouth. It was instantly recognizable. It was a standard emergency ponification kit, like the one that had been used to save Inkwell's life. The very same kind that Blackmesh medics carried, or that the Taikonauts on the International Friendship Station possessed.
Cloudypuff Mooneypants spat the impact-proof package down on the floor. "Courtesy of the Ponification for the Earth's Restoration, one dose of primo-quality pony juice. For you, Paige, and for the rest of your fine family here. You can all be together now, happy ponies romping in ponyland. Don't say the PER isn't there for you when you need us! It may take a while, but... " Mooneypants winked at them "... we get there in the end. Viva la P-E-R, am I right? Hey? Right?"
"Uh... right." Petrichor looked at Paige, then leaned her head down to take the sealed, emergency ponification kit.
Instantly a heavy, brown hoof came down on the small, rounded black case with a clomp. "Of course... it wasn't easy getting this to you, what with the HLF everywhere, constantly buggering our operations, trying to destroy us, and generally causing all manner of troubles. I'm sure you hate those guys as much as we do, and so am I right in thinking you would want to help us, if you could? You know, for all the help and support we provide, doin' Celestia's work for her and all?" The smile on Cloudypuff's muzzle might be considered sweet, if it didn't seem like the poor stallion was unsure how to smile in the first place.
Paige did not seem surprised in the least. "OK, I've seen this game before. What is it you want in exchange for the potion, Cloudy-ass? Credits? We don't got any. Bits? OK, that we can do, we got bits - Pet! Get the family purse." Paige waved her hand at the bedroom and Petrichor started off in that direction.
"Wait, wait, WAIT! - you got me all wrong!" Mooneypants looked personally devastated, insulted to the core. "I don't want your bits, I don't want any credits, I'm not here to take anything that belongs to you at all. Scout's honor."
Paige was not impressed. "The Scouts were disbanded during the Collapse, Moonpants. So what is it that you do want from us? It isn't going to be tail, I can promise you that right..."
"JESUS! Come on lady... Christ on a biscuit... man... just... oh, that isn't..." Cloudypuff looked positively ill. "... no, no, no... I mean... " the stallion did his best to put on a contrite face "... I'm sure you are all lovely as can be, and it is not my intent to intimate otherwise, but I am NOT interested in any... favors... not of that nature anyway." Cloudypuff swallowed and grimaced.
"The PER did a raid on the Worldgovernment archives, perhaps you heard?" Moonypants looked, hopefully, from one face to the next "No? Well, it was a hell of a great raid. We got a big pile of goods on the elite. Seems a lot of them have been working with the HLF. We intend to do something about that. And more. But there was a problem. Our group was intercepted by those bastard-ass HLF sons-a-bitches and well, they up and took our stuff."
Inkwell gave a worried glance at Paige.
"So, like I said, all that great stuff was taken, only, get this, the HLF is a bunch of dumb-fuckers, right? They drop off our package of goodies at the wrong warehouse. And that's where you found it, isn't it, miss Inkwell. Or should I say, 'Gwen'."
Inkwell jerked at the sound of her old name. Paige walked directly to the couch and reached behind it, bringing out a shining silver bat with one smooth motion. Petrichor moved to block and protect Paige with her body, as if they had practiced the move. "You want to be backing up there, mister moon-ass?" Paige did not have a happy, pony-like expression on her human face. She wore a hard, streetwise expression that brooked no foolishness at all.
"Hold on, what, you'd hit a defenseless little pony? Jesus, Paige, I'm shocked at you. What am I gonna do here, nuzzle you to death? Flick my ears at you until you croak? What? I'm a goddamn pony. Christ!" Cloudypuff looked utterly horrified and personally offended.
"You don't act or talk like any pony I've ever met, mister moonpants, and I don't have a good feeling about your sorry pony ass at all. How about you explain how you know about Inkwell, and I keep 'Lil Slugger' here from getting any ideas, capishe?" Paige stood like an avenging angel, her silver sword ready for smiting.
"Man, if I knew how hostile the reception would be..." Cloudypuff shook his head. "We've been desperately trying to get our package back, that's all there is to it! I swear on my mother's grave - god rest her soul - that I mean the lovely miss Inkwell no harm, nor you, nor your little pegasus here. I mean no harm to any of youse. None. I've brought you potion, Paige, think about that. Potion. You could be a pony tonight, and on your way, as a family, to Equestria tomorrow. I'll even help you get there, if you want. Or not. I don't care. You can stay here if you want.
"I'm not going to give you away to anyone, why would I even care? I'm a pony, you're all ponies, or will be, soon enough, and all I ask, the only thing I am asking is that you give me one little item. Potion, right here, sealed by the Worldgov, and it could be yours. The item isn't yours, you know that. And what - you want it to fall into the stinking human hands of the HLF? No, nobody wants that, right? And the PER - all we want is to expose the HLF bastards among the elite. It's in there, all the evidence, it's a little hidden, but we know how to get it out. Hell, when we're done, you can even have the notebook back. Seriously. I'll bring it back in three days. We don't even need to keep it. Just three days.
"So whaddya say, huh?" The fat brown stallion shrugged with his forehooves, waving them like hands. He lost his balance doing that and fell forward slightly, but caught himself. Immediately he slammed one hoof back down on the potion kit. "Three days, ladies, three days, the HLF get what's coming to them, and we'll even give the notebook back to you, if you even want it. Support your local PER, right?"
Petrichor and Inkwell glared at Cloudypuff. Paige had a look on her face like she had just smelled something unpleasant. She stepped forward, brandishing the bat.
"I don't have a clue what the hell you are, puffy-ass, but you are NOT a pony. That kit looks legit, though, so you can let it be while you get your fat ass out of my home." Paige made another step forward, 'Lil Slugger' gleaming in the light.
"OK, I'll level with ya - you are makin' a big mistake here... a big mistake. I'm not alone here, not on HLF turf! You think I'd come here alone? You don't want to mess with the PER, they don't kid around..." Cloudypuff Moonypants was on all fours, backing toward the door. The potion kit had been left on the floor, Paige kicked it to Inkwell and motioned at Petrichor who galloped to open the door.
"Now I know you're lying. I haven't seen a pony lie before, mister poopy-pants." Paige used 'Lil Slugger' to jab at Cloudypuff, forcing him through the door. "You aren't PER. If you weren't a pony, I'd say you smell like HLF. There are rumors, Poopypants, of gene-tampered ponies, and I'm thinking that's what you are. Because you..." WHAM! 'Lil Slugger' slammed against the doorframe, making Cloudypuff leap and fall back into the hall. "...are not...." WHAM! Cloudypuff scrambled to his hooves and began to run "... a PONY!"
The fat brown stallion galloped down the hall, headed toward the stairs. Doors opened and pony heads popped out to see what the ruckus was. "What's going on? What's happening?" It was Perriwinkle, the sweet, but easily spooked pegasus from the diagonal apartment on the right.
Paige stood in the hall, Lil Slugger in hand, Pet and Inkwell peeking around the corner of their doorway. She slowly turned to face Perriwinkle, who cowered in her door at the sight of a human holding a metal bat. "Change, my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon."
"You have GOT to be kidding me!" Petrichor was upset, her wings flapping as she stomped around the main room. "That guy was totally incompetent! If I'm going to be stalked and menaced in my own muffin' apartment, I expect better chocolate swirling professionalism from my threateners! I mean REALLY!" Pet finished this outburst with a sharp stomp of her hoof, which made Ladybug Summer in the apartment below give the ceiling a whack with her broom. "sorry..." whispered Petrichor to nobody.
Paige and Inkwell stared at Pet, briefly, for the strange sentiment.
"Alright, we are clearly in danger now, somebody is after us, and..." Paige was hushed up with a gentle hoof over her mouth. Petrichor, who was about to bellow another rant - having thought of another objection regarding the behavior of Cloudypuff Moonypants the earthpony heavy - caught on and fell silent too. Inkwell removed her hoof and waved it over her muzzle, indicating that nopony was to discuss things further.
Inkwell waved her hoof to the corner by the couch. "Pet? Paige?" Her voice was casual as she could make it "Would you mind checking out the corner there? I thought I saw a spider, and I am soooo scared of spiders!" she wiggled her ears and pointed repeatedly with her hoof. Paige and Petrichor gave her an odd look, but remained silent and moved to the designated part of the apartment.
A glow began covering Inkwell's horn. Suddenly a blob of telekinetic light expanded in the air in front of the ivory unicorn. The mass of thaumatic force moved to the low dining table and began sweeping it, until it had covered every portion. She paid special attention to the carbofiber case that held the emergency ponification serum. Inkwell kept her concentration going as she used her hornfield to scan the lamps, the overhead light, the bookshelf and most of the couch, though she was careful to avoid allowing it to approach too closely to Paige.
Paige and Petrichor watched this, confused. "Inkwell?" Paige began, but a sharp motion of Ink's foreleg bid her to be quiet.
The rippling blob of glowing energy settled on the floor of the apartment, and began sweeping in curving arcs from where Inkwell stood, moving outward toward the now closed door. As the searching glow passed over the area where Cloudypuff had been sitting and rummaging in his saddlebags, tiny bright flashes, like miniscule sparks, pipped and popped audibly.
Inkwell stopped her scanning and flattened her hornfield, making of it a puddle as she had when she had lifted water from the kitchen floor. She began moving the puddle of light in larger and larger circles, causing more and more little popping flashes. A smell of ozone began to irritate Petrichor's delicate pony nose.
Inkwell followed the trail of flashes and pops to the door, then searched with her telekinetic field the areas near the doorway, then the door itself. Inkwell finished by sweeping the walls and a bit more of the floor beyond where Cloudypuff had sat. Finally she seemed satisfied. "OK... I think it's safe. We can talk freely, at least I am pretty sure."
Paige and Petrichor moved to her and sat down with her on the floor. "What... what did you just do? What's going on?" Paige still had 'Lil Slugger', which she finally put down on the floor and released. She flexed her brown fingers and rubbed them, she had been clutching the bat with all of her might.
"Smart Dust. Cloudypuff must have had his saddlebag stuffed with Smart Dust. Yeah... it makes sense. It makes sense now." Inkwell stared into some distance only she could see.
"Inks, mind filling us in? What is Smart Dust - those sparks? They smell like broken electronics or something." Petrichor wrinkled her muzzle, unhappy with the scent of ozone in the air.
"I read a lot." Instantly Inkwell thought better of that statement, but carried on "...basically, Smart Dust is little machines that act like tiny radios. They're listening devices, spy gadgets. They're so tiny that just one is useless, but if a lot of them are scattered over an area, they network and act like a big ear, catching soundwaves sort of like receiver dish. I figured there would be bugs or something but... I couldn't find anything anywhere else in the room. Just the stuff he spread when he dug around in his bag - remember when he made all the fuss about not having hands, rooting around in his saddlebag?"
"How... how did you know to even look for stuff like that? How did you know how to bust it?" Paige was imagining that Inkwell was some fancy super agent in disguise all this time.
"I didn't. Not really." Inkwell grinned sheepishly. "I... just sort of figured that... OK. Cloudypuff storms in here, right, and he puts on this big crazy show, making it completely clear that he's a Newfoal. But what's really odd is that he doesn't even TRY to pretend that he is what he claims to be. He wanted us to know he was an altered pony, a genetically altered pony, like all the rumors about what the Worldgovernment tried to do. You know, they say that's how the PER got started!" Inkwell became excited, because she was on a roll.
"And that's not all - he deliberately messed up the name for the PER - I don't think he said it right once - Ponification for the Earth's Rebirth. It was like 'Renewal' and 'Restoration' and I don't know what all. He tried to make it seem like he was incompetent, but Cloudypuff is not the least bit incompetent. You wanted a professional, Petrichor, you got one, really!"
"Really???" Petrichor was clearly very doubtful.
"Oh... I am convinced of it. He's a pro. At whatever it is that he does... and whatever that is, it is NOT nice." Inkwell looked momentarily upset. "SO - he made a point of swearing, a LOT. Ponies don't do that, at least not that way, because, well... we get hypertrophied compassion and empathy. It just... feels really icky to even think of yelling real expletives at somepony because..."
Pet leapt in "Yeah... because it might hurt their feelings. I used to swear like a sailor, just ask Paige..."
"Oh, she had a mouth on her, that one. Especially when she messed up skateboarding. Lord, did she have a foul mouth on her. Took me a while to get used to all the candy and dessert references after she converted, to be honest." Paige gave Pet a few ear scratches.
"I... just don't want to be that way anymore. I could, I suppose, if I really, really tried... but why would I want to? It would just hurt somepony, and I don't want to do that. But cloudybottom there... he was really..." Pet's muzzle looked like she had tasted something awful.
"Exactly!" Inkwell grinned "He swore to make sure we knew he wasn't right, and the swearing was threatening to us, he knew it would bother ponies, and he did it deliberately. He was letting us know that he was dangerous. That he could do bad things, that he could do really bad things that ponies can't do!"
"So, what about all the little spy gadgets?" Paige was still secretly hoping Inkwell would turn out to be a super secret agent and save the day.
"Oh... I figured that if Cloudypuff was a genetic agent - and I found out he definitely was, I'll tell you how in a moment - I reckoned that there would be bugs and stuff. I was expecting bugs in the lamps and behind the bookcase and in the sofa, you know? But then I swept the floor. It IS the big age of nanotech, right? So I swept the floor and whoo! Did you see all the sparks - well, yes, of course you did, but wow... it really worked, didn't it?"
"Worked?" Paige was losing hope that their family had a secret James Bond.
"Magic kills electronics! That was one of the biggest reasons why I hadn't already converted - I felt I needed to use computers and holographic displays to be a good librarian and do my work. I figured that if I converted, either I would become the sort of pony who couldn't work tiny keys or little iconobjects, or else I would end up a unicorn - Ta Dah!!! - and everything I tried to work would short out. It struck me that I didn't need to be a posh unicorn with fancy spells to disable spy stuff. All I had to do was just burn it out with my horn field, and it worked! Just like magic!" Inkwell grinned "Because... it basically is... magic. But the point is, it proves he's a professional!"
Petrichor scratched her poll with a hoof. "Wait, why? Because he has spy stuff?"
"No... well, yeah, that's part of it, sure. But the real deal is how blatant he was. He deliberately gave himself away to us, just stuck it in our faces. And that tells me what he, and whoever is behind him, must think of us, you see!" Inkwell had a very smug look on her face.
"Wait... Inks, I am getting confused. Maybe you'd just better spell it out for us clearly, alright?" Paige looked impatient and uneasy, which was only reasonable, really.
"Sorry..." Inkwell shifted how she was sitting "I think mister Cloudypuff is a gene-freak pony, one that has the body of a pony, but the brain of a human. Only he's not like the ones they claim started the PER. I don't think Cloudypuff serves Celestia in some twisted way. I think he is against Celestia, and the Bureaus and everything. He isn't a pony. He isn't even alive."
"Uh... what? You have really lost me now." Paige began grooming Petrichor's mane as they sat.
"I really, really studied that pony when he first came in. What I did was, I sent just a little magic into him. Not a lot, I tried to keep my horn from glowing too obviously, just a touch, right? And there was nothing in there. Nothing. He was as empty as a hu... um... well..." Inkwell looked at Paige with a troubled expression. "That stuff you hear from medical unicorns, like Ace, downstairs? It's true. Cloudypuff looks like a pony, but he doesn't sound or act like one, and he doesn't have a... a soul."
"Seriously? Hey... I did see you staring at him. Really intently. That was when you did it, isn't it?" Petrichor was impressed and a little disturbed. "You... you never said you could see magic inside living things. You should have told us!"
Inkwell looked down at her hooves. "Sorry. I... I guess... It was kind of special, and it's kind of intimate, and I felt weird about it to be honest. I didn't mean to figure out how. I mean, Ace didn't show me or anything. It just happened. A few days ago. I've been playing with my hornfield a lot lately, you know? And I've been using it on a lot of stuff... including... me... and... you two as well... and..."
"Oh... ho ho ho! I get it!" Petrichor laughed in delight "Three nights ago - Paige! Remember when I practically woke up the building because she was using her magic inside me? Oh, that was a-maz-ing! So, when you were doing me, you saw, didn't you? You saw my... you saw my soul, didn't you?" The look on Pet's muzzle was awe.
Inkwell blushed. "Yeah." She smiled "It was incredible, Pet. I could sense your body, inside and out, and then all of a sudden there was this other layer. It was like... I don't know how to describe it.... OK. Imagine that everything you can see and know is flat, like a sheet or a flat screen, right? And material things are images on the surface. But some of the images are 3D, they stick up, like a bas-relief, they aren't flat. Now make that all magic and glowy and filled with streaming ribbon-like stuff that is really complicated and swirling like... like blood vessels only... more orderly. More deliberate, like they were meaningful. Oh, and colors. That's what it was like, only... in a direction you can't point. It's kind of hard to describe."
"And that is what mister poopypants lacked, is that what you are saying?" Paige had her head resting on her hands, her elbows on her knees as she sat tailor-fashion.
"Yes! Exactly!" Inkwell looked proud as she smiled at Paige, and then looked a little sad, and looked down again.
"Same as me, right?" Paige sat up straight. "That's why... that's why you didn't say anything about learning how to see this stuff. And that's why you've been a little skittish around me for the past few days, isn't it? You tried to hide it, but I could tell something was wrong. I thought I'd made you mad. Earth life doesn't have magic. So I just look... empty to you, don't I?"
Inkwell stared at her hooves. Her ears were flat against her skull.
"You learned how to do that when Petrichor broke the sound barrier and woke up half the building, and that was why you were kind of moody after, and we couldn't figure it out... damn." Paige sighed. "You didn't say anything because there wasn't anything to do about it. It's OK, Inks, come on... come here, that is, if you can stand being hugged by a flat thing?"
"Always, Paige! Always! I'm sorry!" Inkwell scooted over to Paige and the two embraced. Paige waved a hand to Petrichor who joined in, for one big group hug.
"Hey, we have potion now. So, we can solve that problem! Paige, you could go pony, right now and..." Petrichor was excited - finally their hopes had been fulfilled!
"No." Paige's voice was hard. "No. I can't. Not now, not yet. Somebody needs to stay human and feral in this family. Poopypants is dangerous, and I bet he wasn't kidding about having backup. One of us needs to be able to use Lil Slugger if it comes to it, or worse, if necessary." Paige set her jaw. "We're still on human turf. We need at least one human to deal with human stuff, and that's me."
Paige suddenly turned her head to look at Inkwell, in her arms. "Inks - if poopyhead has backup, why aren't they here, right now, busting us up and applying the clamps?"
"Because they think we're more than we are." Inkwell pulled away and looked at her spouses. "That's why Cloudypuff acted the way he did. He made no attempt to try to fool us, he was very clear about what he was, and what he was capable of. If he'd thought we were just ordinary ponies, he would have tried to play the proper part of a PER knight - he would have been very nice, very pleasant. I have no doubt he could do just that. I bet he can be very charming, and put on an act when he wants to. But he didn't. He let us know."
"I'm not getting this. It still seems sloppy to me." Petrichor got up to double check that the door was locked. They hadn't used the lock in at least a year. With the city almost all ponies, it hadn't been an issue.
"He didn't think we would have the notebook here." Inkwell nodded toward the bedroom, where the notebook lay open on the bed. "I'm positive he reckoned we have it stashed somewhere, hidden, and his group wants that book. If they just swarm us, they would never find out where it is. It would be lost to them."
"Yeah... that means they're smart. So we aren't dealing with dumb people here." Paige nodded. "He was spooking us. That was his angle. To spook us."
"Wait! Why does any of that make that pony smart? Why wouldn't it still be better to capture us and... do... bad... stuff... until we talked?" Petrichor shivered slightly.
"That never works, Pet. Only stupid or sick groups torture." Inkwell had trouble saying the last word. She seemed momentarily fascinated by that fact.
"It's true, Pet. Torture never works." Paige stretched out her legs, because they were starting to fall asleep. "If you get tickled, just relentlessly tickled, what will you do to make it stop, what would you say?"
Petrichor thought for a moment. "Anything?"
"Exactly! You'd say anything to stop the tickling. Anybody would." Paige rested her self on her arms, leaning back. "That's why torture is pointless. You can never get anything useful by torturing anyone. It's always in doubt, because people in pain will always say anything at all to stop the pain. You can tell the moment a civilization or oldstyle nation or group has lost any reason or moral credibility the moment they sanction torture. That's the indication a society has failed, right there."
"Why do they do it at all then, if it is completely useless?" Petrichor was confused.
"Um... well... " Paige studied the wall. "How do I put this - if a society becomes corrupt enough, the most twisted and sick people rise to the top. A human society, obviously. Really twisted humans have... really evil kinks. They... have fetishes, sexual fetishes that revolve around pain and power, and when things fall apart that far, the twisted people in power arrange to have their needs met... under the guise of things like national security or defense or protecting secrets or whatever they can sell to the public."
Petrichor looked at Paige in shock. She turned to Inkwell... surely the librarian would refute such a thing, such a terrible thing... but Inkwell just looked down at the floor, and her ears drooped. "Sorry, Pet. That's just how things... never mind. None of that concerns us, because this group is smart." Inkwell looked up, putting on a brave face. Having to think about such things had hurt her new pony mind. "They won't do that to us, and we are going to Equestria in any case. Right Paige?"
Paige nodded. "The only place to go, now that we have that kit. It's legitimate, you're sure Inks?"
Inkwell looked at the table, where the carbofiber ponification kit sat. "Yes. I ran my field through it, and the contents are potion, and the seal has not been broken or tampered with as far as I can feel. I think he just took a kit off of some shelf somewhere. It's in his interest that you go pony as soon as possible, because that reduces any threat you might represent. You are the... dangerous... part of the family right now, just as you said."
Paige wrapped her fingers around the aluminum bat. "Yeah. I'm still human, and that means I'm still dangerous. Dangerous as hell! Fucking dangerous!" Paige smiled a little vicious smile when Petrichor and Inkwell cringed at her words and how she said them. "If that little brown bastard shows his muzzle around me, he'll end up a flat-face again."
Petrichor thought for a moment. "So, let me get this right. These ponies - whoever they are, probably HLF, or at least something bad - think we are some kind of... agents or something. Something more than just ordinary ponies living together in an apartment. They think we have the notebook hidden somewhere, and they sent that... mean pony... to scare us so that... what?" Petrichor looked from Inkwell to Paige and back "We'd get spooked and go to where we had the notebook hidden and try to move it or take it somewhere? Or that we'd talk about where it was... which would be the reason for the spy dust stuff, huh?"
"Pretty much." Inkwell looked around the room. "I would guess we will be watched for a few days. Nothing more will happen to us, at least for a while I should think. But I would put bits on our every movement outside of this apartment being watched, and we'll never see who is doing it, either, or how many there are. We have a few days, anyway."
"They've basically shaken things up, to see what falls out." Paige stood up, stretched, and went into the kitchen "Tea? Pet? Inks? Three for tea it is."
"You're making tea?" Petrichor was incredulous.
"Inks is right, I think. Might as well have a nice cuppa, because we've got some serious thinking to do." Paige began fussing with cups and canisters. "We need to figure out our next move. It's like a game. They think we are playing at their level, only they got that part wrong."
Inkwell looked up. "I guess we're just going to have to... not surprise them... then!" That made Paige think for a moment, then laugh.
"Yeah. Let's give them exactly what they expect!" Paige set out the large, bowl-like cups, and looked to see if they had any biscuits to go with the tea. It was going to be a long evening of planning. Somehow they needed to out-think a group of very dangerous men, in order to find some means to escape to Equestria with their lives. There was also the issue of the notebook, and what should be done about it - rightly, it should be destroyed, something they all agreed upon. The problem was, Paige suggested, it might be their only hope to survive what very well might be the full wrath of nothing less than the Human Liberation Front.
Project Bucephalus - Laboratory 012 January 28th
I found out today, that I am going to be transferred. I don't want to go, but I don't have any choice in the matter. None of us has any choice, now. We do what we are told.
I don't know why this is happening. We are showing such success, putting the pieces together from all the other teams. It's been confirmed that of the six vanguard groups, the Zero-Twelvers have the edge, by far. The R-22 conversion was proof, and it has been acknowledged from the higher ups - conversion is possible, it is close, and all we need to do now is refine the process.
Maybe I have really overestimated my value to the team. It is true that almost all the work I did was completely rewritten or redesigned, but I thought that was reasonable. Work like this can't be done perfectly by only one person. It needs to be cleaned up and triple checked and generally polished beyond what any single person, or even group can accomplish.
I don't know what I did wrong. I don't even know where I am being transferred to. I was almost tempted to contact that general, but - no. I don't feel good about doing that.
I'm going to miss the rest of the team. We've only been working together for a few months but it's been very intense. I'm going to miss So-yeon and Chawla. Even Baasch, the 'exobiologist'. I never did find out how he got a degree in that, of all things. I guess I won't be talking to Comet Tail again. Actually, I didn't really expect that anyway.
I'm going to miss Raindrops and Buttercream, too. It's amazing how fast the Equestrians can grow on one. Even with all of us walking on eggshells around each other, I felt like we could have become friends, if there were time, and space and the ability to speak freely. I wanted to learn more about them, about their lives. There is something very attractive, very entrancing about the species.
Then again, if this project truly succeeds, there will be time enough for all the learning one could hope to do. And not just because we will all end up being ponies ourselves one day.
I found out something extraordinary the other day from Raindrops. Her age. She is seventy-three years old, roughly. The Equestrian year seems to be about four hundred days, and one of their days averages between 20 and 30 hours, earth time. The variation is up to the whim of the princesses.
Raindrops is considered to be fairly young. She's at a quarter of the Equestrian maximum lifespan. Twenty-ish in human terms, if I understand things correctly. The benefit of joining their species is more than mere survival. It is more than being able to move objects, or grow things through will alone, or fly like a bird. It is a vast increase in lifespan.
It makes me wonder why we deserve this at all. Why are we humans being helped? Why bother with us?
I saw Celestia move her sun, the sun in her sky, one doubtless copied from our own, on earth. Does she really owe us so much? We have ruined our planet, killed our oceans, destroyed our skies, exterminated entire branches of biological phylogeny for no other reason than they were inconvenient to our plans. The Equestrians are so incredibly nice - the old unicorns on level three notwithstanding. Actually, even they have been nice enough, just never really satisfied or content with us, and maybe, who can blame them. I can't say we've treated them well, keeping them penned up underground when they do visit us. I assume we're all underground.
There's something else I want to put down here. I'm a little hesitant to do so, but it's something I want to remember. Maybe it's due to constant, low level exposure to thaumatic radiation, maybe its just stress. I don't know.
I've been having dreams. Strange dreams, where I am walking through Equestria, as I saw it on the video from Mule One and Two. Only, I see places that the two probes never went to. That I know of, anyway. Wide, rolling fields of flowers, and a fairly frightening forest that looks very jungle-like and wild. I feel dread inside it. One dream took place in a rocky desert with high peaks, and I saw dragons soaring overhead. Another dream took place in a large city, with brick buildings very unlike the Tudor-styled cottages that the two Mules witnessed. My mind is inventing things, filling in gaps I suppose.
But always, in these dreams, I see someone following me. Peeking at me. It is as if I am being watched. I don't feel threatened, if anything I feel safe in the dreams because of the mysterious watcher. She - and it is a she - is always just out of my field of vision, though a few times I have caught a glimpse of dark blue. I think she is a pony, an Equestrian, but different. Taller, thinner, and there is a strange feeling about her, whoever she is.
I would discount this all except that it is remarkably consistent. Night after night, I have these dreams, what I call my 'travel documentary', and in almost every dream, there is that watcher, the blue lady. Mare, I suppose. Blue mare. Dark blue, very dark. But not scary. She feels very kind, like a friend looking out for me. I've never had such vivid dreams, and never dreams with a reoccurring mysterious character like this. I assume it is my subconscious trying to work something out.
The dreams started right after I burned my finger on a vial of wizard wine, the purified form of the purple fluid. I lost the tip of my finger, and my whole hand tingled for days. The weirdest part was I kept hearing distant music, or something like music. Like chimes, or bells. Others have experienced this too, when they spend too much time around thaumatically active materials. Mayoss has a grim theory - he says it is probably our neurons dying from exposure. Our brains are interpreting the random loss as vaguely musical tones. He is a neurochemist, so I don't discount his expertise but - it just doesn't seem like the most reasonable explanation. We get examinations every three weeks, and so far, no deficits. I would think losing neurons would kind of show up as functional loss. Then again, he suggests that we have reserves, and that it takes time to be depleted to the level of dementia, so it's probably only a matter of time. Wonderful. I've decided I don't like neurochemistry as a science.
I've been afraid to ask any of the others if they are having dreams like mine. I was tempted to ask Saulnier, she got burned too. Lost some skin on her arm, it made a bit of a scar. The way she looks in the mornings - I can't help but think, maybe she's having strange dreams too, and then I think something very unscientific.
I wonder if she has a blue watcher, like me.
How do I relate to all of this? We call it 'magic' and 'spells' and I have seen the princess of this colliding universe raise her sun into her sky. The nanomachines we are working with have ghosts in them that do most of the work for us. There are unicorns on level three, and we recently turned a chimeric human body into a teal pegasus with multicolored hair.
I feel like Alice, and the rabbit hole just keeps going on down.
And I keep thinking about how Comet Tail and how the old unicorns relate to the princess, Celestia. As though she were sacred. As though, she were a living god.
And atheist me, here in Lab 12 - though not for long - has doubts about whether I have been hasty in deciding what is real, and what is not, and whether or not I need to reexamine what I truly believe.
I hope wherever I am transferred, these dreams don't stop. I really like the dreams.
Oh - and in the dreams, when I walk through these beautiful landscapes?
Inkwell walked through the marketplace, keenly aware that unfriendly eyes must be watching her every hoofstep and the every flick of her tail. She had read enough pre-Collapse spy thrillers to imagine the humans ensconced in little dark rooms, peering out with imaging equipment, or perched on rooftops - perhaps hidden inside of false water tanks or air conditioners - scanning her with advanced espionage equipment.
Or... it could just be that idiot across the way with the dark glasses not really watching the news on the public holokiosk. Maybe Petrichor was right, and these HLF types were not entirely professional. Goodness, but that human is just plain poor at spying! Inkwell laughed and trotted on to the open-air cafe.
Casablanca Corner was run by a pair of earthpony Newfoal stallions who had a love of old media. The place had a vaguely Moroccan feel to it, and an eclectic menu. Inkwell settled herself down onto a low stool at the third table from the left, the one with the 'reserved' card on it, and waited. When Greenstreet took her order for carrot coffee, he nodded and took it back to Maltese, who set about filling the order.
It wasn't long before Cloudypuff Moonypants showed up.
The sweaty, rotund stallion awkwardly settled himself onto a low stool across from Inkwell. "OK. Shoot."
"I was converted without my permission. Paige and Pet did it to save my life, and I cannot fault them for their good intentions, Celestia love 'em. They're my wives now, and I will protect them with every fiber of my being. But that does not mean that I agree with everything they believe, or that I share their views about the inevitability of the future." Inkwell gave the fat brown stallion a hard and determined look, to underscore her words. She wanted him to buy the notion that she was completely willing to go behind their backs. It was difficult trying to lie, as a pony.
"Go on, I'm listening." It was a warm day - the pegasus teams had not cleared the sky in a while and the global smog layer had begun to close in again. The sky was white, and the heat was climbing. Cloudypuff was dripping and looking very uncomfortable.
"Tell me what you need the notebook for. I may be willing to cooperate, provided my friends are left alone and we are guaranteed to be left to go on our way." Inkwell stared levelly at the stallion across the table.
Cloudypuff cleared his throat. "Now... that could be a problem. It is not in the interest of my employers, or yours, for you to know our business. We need to have a look at that notebook, and I meant what I said, we don't even need to keep it. You can have it back. We just need to see the thing. I've been informed that we could do what we need to do in an hour. You could have the book back before your friends even knew you had taken it. They would never need to know." Cloudypuff looked right, then left, before returning his attention to Inkwell. "Your not knowing a damn thing is your guarantee, you see, that you can go free. There would be no further interest in you after that point. That would be the end of it. The less you know, the better off you are, capiche? Simple as that."
Inkwell frowned. "But that's the problem - what if your intention is to use something in that notebook to hurt me or my friends down the road? I think of engineered viruses to kill ponies, or nanomachine plagues to do the same thing. It's no escape for my family and I, if the HLF just kills them later."
Cloudypuff seemed indifferent. "I never said we were HLF, miss Inkwell. I have to say I'm a bit disturbed that you would think such a thing, and a little concerned, because that might - I'm not saying you are right or nothin' - just might make you and yours a matter of additional interest, if you were to truly hold to such a view. Just sayin'."
Inkwell groaned and rolled over on the bed. "Cinnamon!" she barked at the ceiling.
For hours since she had awakened, Inkwell had been running scenarios through her mind.
The latest one, meeting Cloudypuff on the sly in order to feign making a deal, in order to find out what was really going on, was another ridiculous little fancy. Even if a meeting could be arranged, Cloudypuff would never divulge anything. And in the end, he really didn't need to. Inkwell felt reasonably sure that the thaumatically deficient pseudo-pony just had to be working for the HLF, and that meant that anything they wanted the notebook for was going to be very, very bad.
What bothered her was that she couldn't find anything within the notebook that was actually as dangerous as she had first imagined. The diagrams of nanomachines were not useful. They were far too simple, and there were plenty of similar designs available to examine just by searching the history of nanotechnology. The author of the notebook hadn't dropped any super-secret clues about the making of potion that Inkwell could imagine being truly useful to anypony. Not even the stuff about the purple fluid, the revelation of 'fairy blood' - there was no indication of how to acquire the stuff, or how to manufacture it. There were words about how the nanomachines needed careful programming, but in the whole tome, not a scrap of actual programming was to be found.
The bit about seeing Celestia raise the sun, and the tour of Equestria was interesting, but try as she might, Inkwell could think of no value to the HLF in it. If anything, the knowledge that Celestia was a living goddess who could manipulate reality itself tended to work against their attitude that she was a monstrous alien creature out to conquer the world. There was nothing in that notebook, now that she had time to completely look it over, that held any truly dangerous secret that would benefit the anti-pony cause.
They certainly wouldn't be making bioweapons from the sparse information in the book. Of course, maybe she was missing something, she must be, considering how much they wanted the thing. Or, maybe they simply didn't know that the notebook was useless. That could easily be. Inkwell sighed. She wished she could be rightly quit of the whole nasty mess! She rolled over onto her other side, and stared at the wall.
Cloudypuff and two humans in dark suits and dark glasses stood in the alley.
"So... what's it gonna be, miss Inkwell?" The stallion shifted his bulk, sweat dripping down his unkempt brown coat.
Paige, carrying 'Lil Slugger', looked at Inkwell, and then at Petrichor. Inkwell reached back into her saddlebags with her telekinetic field and brought forth the notebook and held it, floating, in front of herself. "The deal is simple. We give you this, and you leave us the swirl alone. We only want to get to Equestria. The potion kit you left behind makes that possible. You let us go, and you never need to see us again. We have no intention of staying earthside. The moment we do this, we start off for the nearest bureau and emigration. Do you have any problems with that?" Inkwell stared at the stallion. Paige clutched her bat.
"My dear, dear miss Inkwell, I can personally assure you that our interest in you ends with the acquisition of that notebook. I and my colleagues here will happily turn and leave, and you may go to Equestria, or straight to hell, for all we care. I promise you that you are just not interesting beyond what you are carrying in your little magical glow there. Why should we care? There's nothing we need to keep secret, and no loose ends. We don't even care if you stay or go. So, what's it gonna be?" Cloudypuff grinned, a very unpleasant sight.
Inkwell floated the notebook over and laid it upon the stretch of intact plascrete of the alley. One of the dark-suited humans bent and picked up the notebook, checked it, then nodded at Cloudypuff.
"There. That wasn't so hard, now was it? I like it when people are reasonable and intelligent about things. It was very nice meeting youse all, and now we bid our leave, and I personally wish you all the very best. Good day, miss Inkwell, Paige, Petrichor." The three sinister individuals turned and left, exiting the alleyway. Pet, Inkwell and Paige were left alone, the sound of the marketplace filling the empty alley.
"That was easy. You were right, Inks! We are safe, and free! This is fantastic!" Pet was excited "Paige! You can go pony! We could do it now, in our room, or at the Bureau - I'm sure they'd let us have the use of a room or something for twenty minutes. Then... it's off to Equestria! This is just... It's so WONDERFUL!" Pet began prancing about, her hooves clacking on the plascrete.
"Damn, girl. You did it." Paige rotated the aluminum bat in her hand. "Come on, let's get out of this alley and head for the Bureau. I'll get my hooves on there. I've got our bits with me, we don't need to go back to the apartment... so... let's go."
The three made their way to the Bureau, making only a single stop for lunch. Finally, after several hours of crossing the city on foot and hoof, they made it, and entered through the security arch.
The Bureau staff were nonplussed at offering the use of one of the rooms for Paige's conversion, and even had a PA sit through it with them, just in case. They were even willing to do a quick test on the potion in the kit to make sure it was normal and untampered with. As Inkwell had suspected, it was perfectly standard version 3.2 potion, complete with anesthetic built in. Fifteen minutes later, Paige was a pony, and while Pet sat with her as she slept, Inkwell made arrangements to get them transferred to Equestria.
The next day saw them on a boat, and by the end of the day they stood together within Equestria itself. Green fields and trees surrounded them, and they hugged on the green grass and cried with relief and joy. "We did it! We made it and now we are safe and sound and..."
At that point the sky above began to crack. Shards of blue fell through the clouds like pieces of a broken mirror, leaving an eerie, terrifying blackness beyond. Bolts of electric force began to reach down from above and scour the landscape, burning and destroying everything in their path. Princess Celestia suddenly flew up to meet the challenge, but a bolt of force struck her, exploding her body. Bits of meat and feathers drifted down from where she had been. Suddenly, the holographically projected muzzle of Cloudypuff Moonypants filled the blackening sky. "HELLO, MY LITTLE PONIES! OR SHOULD I SAY - GOODBYE. OH! AND THANKS TO YOU, MISS INKWELL, FOR YOUR INVALUABLE HELP AND ASSIST..."
Inkwell was breathing hard, her heart racing as she lay on her belly, head upright, on the bed. There was no way to know what they might get out of that notebook. No way to know at all. It would be the height of arrogance to assume she knew enough to decide the notebook was useless. Inkwell worked on calming herself, and wished that Paige and Petrichor would get back from the marketplace. They had gone to stock up on supplies, should the three need to make a run for it, and Inkwell had stayed behind to guard the apartment, and to destroy the notebook, if it came to it.
She felt thirsty. Inkwell moved to leave the bed, backing off the edge because she was still not confident leaping like Petrichor did to the floor. The bed that they shared together was very different than the pony-safe mat and comforter in the guest room. Paige preferred a deep, soft, tall foam bed for her human body. The bed was wonderfully comfortable, but very unsteady for unpracticed hooves. Inkwell slid backwards until her rear hooves met the floor, then pulled the rest of herself down until she was safely on all fours.
In the kitchen, Inkwell levitated a bowl - the red bowl, her favorite - from the rack and filled it with water from the sink. She held it in front of herself with her hornfield, and drank the contents. That was much better! Inkwell rinsed the bowl and set it in the rack once more, then returned to the bedroom.
This part she had down. She set her hindquarters firmly, wiggled her rump, and then gave a run and a jump, landing mostly splayed over the top of the bed. Squirming and kicking, she returned to the center of the comforter, and the notebook that lay there. She pulled her legs under her, folded, the notebook under her barrel, hidden by her body. She stared at the sky, through the blinds behind the bed. In the distance a pair of pegasai flew past.
Paige set the metal box down on the roof of the apartment. The steel half-cube would protect the roof. A bucket of water stood nearby, as well, just in case. Inkwell levitated the notebook down, into the metal box.
Petrichor poured the alcohol over the book. It was pure, the sort used by the caravans to power their vehicles. As Inkwell brought the mechanical lighter to the box, the pounding became more frantic on the blocked door to the roof garden. The HLF had been watching them, and now they had figured out what was going on. Whoever was on the stairs began slamming the door with their body, trying to break it down.
"Hurry!" Paige clutched Lil Slugger, and faced the door.
Inkwell carefully manipulated the lighter, sending sparks into the alcohol soaked paper of the notebook. Flames shot up, blue and yellow, as the pages blackened and crinkled. The roof door was partly open now, and the angry faces of dark-suited humans and a portly brown pony could be seen desperately trying to force the door completely open.
Suddenly the aged hinges gave and the three HLF agents spilled onto the roof. They picked themselves up and ran towards the fire in the metal box, heedless of Paige and her bat. "It's OK, Paige! It's gone! Let 'em through! Paige!"
Paige backed up, grinning, as Cloudypuff and his two lieutenants shook their heads over the mass of dying flames and powdery gray ash that now filled the metal box. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that. No, no, that was a mistake, there." Cloudypuff had an angry expression on his face and muzzle, one that no proper pony could ever possess. It was a look of barely restrained human rage and violence, of unrepentant vengeance and emotionless cruelty. "See... that was your only bargaining chip right there. And now it's gone, and that has made us very, very unhappy. Now, you could have just walked away from this situation, because your lives don't matter, at all. But no, you had to go and piss off the HLF. Not a smart thing, considering our stance regarding ponies in general."
"You're a pony!" Petrichor jabbed a hoof at the plump, sweaty brown stallion.
"That, my friend, is where you would be wrong." Instantly the monomolecular blade, tossed by a remarkably accurate muzzle, was inside of Pet's left eye, the shimmering blade poking out the back of her skull as she collapsed. "I think the boss won't mind a little effort to bring the city in line with statistical averages do you, boys?"
The two humans nodded and advanced, guns in their hands. Paige stood over the shaking, dying body of Petrichor, and raised her bat, only to drop it as the first bullet severed her spine. As she lay on the roof, involuntarily vomiting from the horror and pain, Inkwell gathered her thaumatic energy and focused small balls of the magical force directly inside the middle of the skulls of the two humans and the pseudo-pony Cloudypuff. One tiny jerk, one tiny expansion, the most minute twist and...
She couldn't do it. Her friends gurgled their last breaths at her hooves and she literally couldn't avenge them. The two humans were only fighting for what they believed in, and they probably had family, children, and pets, too. They had lives and those lives were precious despite what they had done. Inkwell loved Paige and Petrichor with all of her heart, and the wives or husbands of these two humans would love them just the same, and killing the humans would break countless hearts.
And Cloudypuff... he was such a sad creature. He didn't even have a soul. If he died, here, now, he would be annihilated, consigned to oblivion, and the thought was so sad, so terrible... Inkwell couldn't do it. Any of it.
But neither could she stand by and let them do any more harm. They had hurt, maybe killed both of her spouses and she would NOT let that just go! Maybe she couldn't use magic to instantly turn their brains to mush, but she could muffin' well show them the power of hoof and horn! Inkwell charged, insane with grief and she did not feel the bullets tear through her as she fell...
Inkwell was rocking back and forth on the mattress, crying. "Oh... oh sweet Celestia... oh my sweet Luna!" She was horrified, shocked that her new brain could even think such thoughts! She became afraid - what if her conversion had been botched? What if she were like that awful Cloudypuff, still capable of human wrath and evil, what if...
"Inkwell? Inkwell?" Petrichor had leaped onto the bed, and had her forelegs around the ivory unicorn. "What's the matter, Inks? Inkwell? Speak to me!" But Inkwell just kept crying and trying to roll back and forth, desperate to shake the awful thoughts from her mind.
Paige rushed in from the kitchen, were she had placed her sacks of groceries on the table. "What? What happened? Did they come here?" Paige turned to run and fetch Lil Slugger from behind the couch.
"No, no nopony came here!" Inkwell said between sobs "I... I just had terrible thoughts! I think I'm broken! I think I'm like Cloudypuff! I'm a monster-pony!" She broke down once more, wracked with sorrow.
Now both Paige and Petrichor were holding her, as she rocked in their embrace. Eventually she relaxed into her lovers limbs, sobbing. "I... I was trying to think... of what we should do, how we should handle this and... and... I thought terrible things! Awful things! I shouldn't be able to think things like I have been imagining! I'm supposed to be a pony now! Something is wrong with me!"
"What? What are you talking about, Inks? What things could you have thought that were so bad? What?" Petrichor was utterly lost. Paige just shrugged.
Inkwell told Pet and Paige about the possible scenarios she had considered, and how vivid and intense her daydreams had been when thinking them. She stuttered when she described the horrible endings, and agonized over how it was she was even still able to imagine such terrible scenes. "Conversion is supposed to change the brain! It's supposed to make us better, and nicer, and free us from cruel and vicious thoughts and..."
"Wait, wait, wait...." Petrichor shook her head "I think you misunderstood a lot of stuff, Inks. That isn't what potion does to the brain. Trust me on that."
Inkwell wiped her eyes with her forelegs and sniffed. "W-What do you mean? I've been told that..."
"People say a lot of silly things about conversion and what it does or doesn't do." Petrichor nuzzled the ivory and black unicorn. "That's the anti-ponificationists favorite trick. Lies, Inkwell, there's a lot of misinformation out there."
"I shouldn't be able to daydream... horror!" Inkwell sobbed briefly, then sniffled and tried to clear her sinuses.
"Potion changes the brain, no doubt about that. You've felt it. More compassion, more empathy. We end up caring about others and ourselves more than we ever imagined we could. We can't be mean, because we don't want to be mean. Our better angels are made ascendant, and our devils are put to sleep. But Inks..." Pet nibbled her ear, gently, comfortingly. "...Inks, we... all that doesn't mean we turn into zombies or anything. You've still got your imagination, and I will grant you, negative, scary thoughts are harder to come by as a pony, and much, much less common - but that doesn't mean you've been stripped of the ability to think them."
"But it happened so easily, Pet!" Inkwell sniffed again. "It was awful!"
"I'm sure it was." Pet gave a quick nuzzle to Paige, then continued "You'd probably never, ever think stuff like that if we lived in Equestria, in some nice little village with other nice ponies. But we're here, on Earth, and we are being harassed by butt-heads and meanies. It's scary right now. Moonybritches was scary. And we don't know what to do. Also, you're a Newfoal, like me - we've grown up here, on Earth, we know what goes down here. You don't suddenly lose all of that just because potion fixes the broken parts of your brain. It doesn't erase experience, or memory, or who you are or how you think. Duh!"
"Pet... I don't think that's her issue, really." Paige ran her fingers through Inkwell's mane, combing it with soft motions. Inkwell began to relax. "I think the real problem is that Inks was hoping to not ever have to experience thoughts like that again. I think she was hoping that potion would cure all her negative thoughts permanently. That's it, isn't it?"
Inkwell looked up with sad, almost betrayed eyes. "Yes! I wanted to be free from dark and scary thoughts! I wanted all of that to just be gone! Forever! I wanted.... I wanted peace, Paige. I wanted... peace... inside me."
Petrichor was thoughtful for a moment. "Inkwell, you can have that. I am sure you can have that. We get to Equestria, and I have no doubt you will NOT spend your time daydreaming horror stories. I'm positive of that, because I've heard from ponies on the other side. I've read letters from other ponies beyond the Barrier, right? And they don't have scary thoughts. Not commonly, anyway. They just don't!"
"Then why did I? Why do I?" Inkwell was on the verge of crying again.
Paige scratched Inkwell's ear and looked her in her dark eyes. "Like we said, Inkwell. It's scary, here, now. Just because you are a pony, doesn't mean you got lobotomized. In a scary place, you can still think scary thoughts, because sometimes you need to, to know what is dangerous, and how to avoid it. If ponies were completely incapable of scary thoughts, they wouldn't survive at all, anywhere."
"Yeah!" Petrichor gave Inkwell a tight hug. "Even Equestria has scary stuff in it, you know! The Everfree, the ruins of Gryphonia, the dragon weyrs, The dragon migrations, the scary dragons of the southern desert, the scary dragon slavers of Stalliongrad, the scary lava pools that the scary dragons like to go to, the occasional scary dragon that just shows up, the..."
"I think I'm seeing what worries you, more than any attempt to comfort me!" Inkwell was able to laugh now, which cheered both Petrichor and Paige.
"Well... Dragons are scary!" Pet looked terrified, then laughed. "Come on, they are!"
Paige shook her head and used a hand to ruffle Pet's mane. "Being a pony doesn't mean being useless, Inkwell. And it doesn't mean a head full of cotton candy, either. I'm sorry you were disappointed by not being completely freed of dark and scary thoughts. But I've never heard of a pony dwelling on such things the way humans do, either. Worry, yes. Horror, no. So just try to take it on faith that being capable of something does not mean you are doomed to think terrible things all the time."
Paige disentangled herself from Pet and Inkwell, and began to get up, off the bed. "You should be glad, really. We need to think our way out of this mess, and if going pony took away the ability to think, we might as well just give ourselves up for lost right now, because I certainly can't carry all of this just by myself."
At the door to the kitchen, Paige turned to her spouses cuddling on the bed. "We need you, Inks. You're the best read pony here. You know the drama to avoid, right? Use your scary thought powers to help us find a way out of all of this. Right now, the fact that ponification doesn't remove that ability is probably our best hope. I'm going to put stuff away, alright? You going to be OK?"
Inkwell sniffed and smiled. "Yeah. I'll be OK. Thank you, Paige. You too, Pet." She kissed Pet on the nose and snuggled close. "It was just so intense, you know?"
Petrichor kissed Inkwell back. "Yeah, actually I do. Right after my conversion, I had those bad dreams, remember? The ones where my hooves crumbled and I was back in the wheelchair?"
"Oh! I remember!" Inkwell looked a little ashamed. "I guess you do know don't you? Even better than me. Sorry. I guess I was just all wrapped up in it all."
"That's how it is. I felt the same way. Scary stuff does that." Petrichor shouted to the door "You need any help, Paige?"
The sound of a cabinet opening and closing came from the kitchen. "Nope! I got it! Just snuggle!"
"Sounds like a plan." Petrichor giggled and held Inkwell tight.
The apartment building had been magically swept and scanned by whispering unicorns moving past silent ponies and the few humans that still remained. Because ponies cannot help but be social and cooperative, the building population was more than happy to work as one, especially with the threat of the HLF described to them in soft, barely audible tones. Patches of sparks flew from the ragged tiles of the hallway leading away from Paige, Pet, and Inkwell's apartment, and more were found scattered in the stairwell and the lobby, but that was it.
Sure that the building was clean, the residents had a meeting together and Inkwell described her plan, and how they could help. Not a one was unwilling, not even the humans, touched as they were by the constant social camaraderie the ponies had created within the complex. Within hours, the simple scheme was ready, and with nightfall, it began.
The two HLF Frontsmen in the upper left window of the old Tacksworn Corporation building reported in first. Groups of ponies, and ponies and humans, were leaving the target building. All were draped with sheets or comforters, making them unidentifiable. They looked like cheap Halloween ghosts, sent out by uncaring mothers. They disbursed always in groups of three, and then began to walk, or run, in every possible direction. Some ambled north, others south-west. Three headed towards the old nanotech plant. Three groups of three moved in the direction of the distant Bureau, but that meant nothing because other reports began to come in of groups suddenly abandoning their initial vector and changing direction radically, and apparently at whim.
The HLF A.I. 'Monitor', was fed the information and came out with a pattern - all were following a Drunkard's Walk that occasionally changed it's attractor. In short, they were all moving essentially randomly, with a slight bias towards three locations - the direction of the Bureau, across town, the direction of the warehouses also across town but in different area, and the Blackmesh base, in yet another section of the city.
Things heated up when the groups began to use any available transportation to move more quickly.
Some of the sheet-covered groups took Pegasus Cabs, and flew through the sky, others took earthpony carts, which were encouraged to run swiftly. Still more began to dart and move through other buildings or down alleyways in the most suspicious manner possible. The HLF agents soon began to suspect that the groups were changing sheets when they could, and some were deliberately wearing outlandish hats or other items over the sheets to set themselves apart.
Ralph Vitoni, 'Cloudypuff Moonypants' stomped about his own observation command post in a room across the street from the apartment building and cursed his mother and god, shouting epithets and kicking the walls with his hooves. This was impossible. He had done miracles of wet and dry work in his career, and always he could count on how humans naturally behaved to predict where to move and what to do and how to manipulate events.
But it was hitting him, for the first time, that these ponies, these Newfoals, were not humans, not anymore. They were not socially isolated or distrustful, they showed no hesitancy to assist, they could not be expected to mind their own business, and they could not be expected to sit in the background and avoid getting involved.
By the time the first reports of other apartment buildings disgorging masses of sheeted ponies and humans arrived, the little 'sheet game' spreading across the town like a disease, he knew the situation was hopeless. Everybody wanted to play, it seemed, like happy children, even if they did not understand why.
The HLF Frontsmen, scattered about the city, found groups of three, covered in sheets, that had no idea what was going on. They knew nothing about Paige, Inkwell, or Petrichor, or why the game was happening. Someone had simply arrived, explained the rules, stated that it was important, and the entire building had turned out to join in. It was 'important' after all, and it just wouldn't be Pony to turn down a chance to help. Plus... it seemed pretty fun giggling about trying not to be identified. It was like a city-wide costume party!
They cooperated without a second thought, these freaks, thought Ralph. They weren't human. They were monsters, creatures, they weren't human any more. They had no dignity, they weren't embarrassed or ashamed or inhibited. None of the human traits that could be exploited were valid anymore. They were like happy children, ready to play, but laughing at their own silliness like Buddhist masters. It was crazy. The world had lost all context, and gone completely insane.
The HLF did the best they could - they sent teams to rip the sheets off of the groups that arrived at the Conversion Bureau, doing their best to intercept any who approached it. But the numbers kept growing, and the Frontsmen couldn't handle how many groups in sheets approached. They were spread too thin. So the order came to shoot, to keep the groups from approaching. It was a dangerous, desperate act. The response from the Blackmesh was immediate, and very costly.
Ralph made the call. The groups heading towards the warehouses were an obvious distraction. Inkwell, 'Gwen', had clearly taken the notebook with her when she had originally escaped, it would be pointless to return the book to the place she had found it. It wasn't there currently, the warehouse had been searched top to bottom. That was just the kind of pathetic distraction that he expected from the three. Whoever they worked for, they had not been trained well, Ralph was convinced of that.
There were only two logical places that Paige, Inkwell and Pet would need to go. Either to where the notebook was hidden, or to Equestria, to escape. Since a mass of the sheeted groups were headed towards the old nanofabrication plant, it seemed reasonable that this could very well be the place where the notebook had been hidden. It even had a kind of sense to it - potion was a nanofluid, so hiding the notebook that described its creation in a nanofab plant had an obvious and simple connection - nano to nano.
He sent the remaining available Frontsmen to the nano plant, it was stupid to waste resources on an obvious distraction that would only be a trap in any case. If the three mares - or mare to be, in the case of Paige - were to head to the warehouses, they would be cut off, isolated, and trapped. When the HLF returned to their command center, all routes away from the warehouses would be blocked. It was a deathtrap. They were undertrained, not stupid.
The Frontsmen worked through the night, intercepting as many sheeted groups as they could, which was not many because the game had gone exponential. By midnight, Monitor had estimated that half the city population was involved in the 'Sheet Game'. Ralph spat invectives. Ponies. God-damn ponies.
He ruefully moaned that if humans had that level of instant cooperation, the threat of Equestria would have been beaten in the first year. It was disgusting, horrifying, a nightmare. Ponies just helped each other, without a second thought. It was 'important', somehow, so... they just went along. Because it was a way to cooperate, and because it was fun. That was the key, he realized, to manipulating ponies. Make it sound useful, make it sound fun. They weren't motivated by wealth, or power, or fear or threat. They were motivated by helpfulness and fun.
If anything in all the world was Ralph Vitoni's Achilles Heel, it was to wrap his mind around anyone being motivated entirely by helpfulness and fun. It was alien, freakish, horrifying. It wasn't his world, or his species down there. He couldn't grasp them, he couldn't predict them, and they terrified him.
"Ralph! What the hell are you going to do about this?" It was Leo - Leonard Reich, the head of the HLF, and he was not a happy man. His voice was clear and angry over the pony-sized headset that Ralph wore to communicate with his teams.
"Leo! You tell me! The whole damn city is trotting around like show-ponies in sheets. It's like a Klan rally for ponies or somethin'. They're goin' everywhere, and there's no way to tell which is which or who is who. What? Do all ponies get radio transmitters in their skull? Are they telepathic? Where the hell is my radio then?" Ralph felt like everything was going south, and it was, and it was the first time he had failed so spectacularly since his very first job, and even that wasn't this bad of a mess.
"Listen, Ralph. Gypsy Traveller can't happen unless we know the precise location of the subject. We have no idea where it is, but that notebook supposedly has a map in it. You know we need that map, Ralph. If we have the map, we can get the subject, and if we get the subject, we can penetrate the Barrier, and we win. We win, just like that. Boom, Ralph, it's all over, Equestria is over, the nightmare will be over, it's all over. You have to get that notebook Ralph. I don't care what you have to do. Kill every fucking thing in the city if you have to. I'm authorizing final sanction. Do you hear me Ralph? Final. Sanction. If you can't do the job, tell me. Then you just get your teams to safety, and we'll release NV-US1 and sort through the city after. Can you do the job?"
Ralph stared out the window. "Jesus Christ." Below, the parade of sheeted ponies and humans filled the streets, laughing and dancing and strolling. It looked like the entire city was involved, and it probably was. The HLF had placed NV units all over the city - in sewers, on roofs, in buildings, on kiosks, everywhere and anywhere that could access the greatest population possible. The most deadly nerve agent ever developed. It had been created before the Collapse, and had never been surpassed. A single molecule killed, causing a cascade reaction that induced apoptosis in virtually every nerve cell in the human body. It worked on ponies, too, though not in the same way. It just killed them, brutally, though nobody could figure out why. They just turned bodily to sludge, their skeletons shining through dripping ooze. The HLF had obtained nearly every ounce of NV-US1 ever made.
If Leo used it, any person or pony in the city would die, within minutes. It would take twenty-eight hours for the agent to degrade to a harmless state. Then they could unseal the doors, and come out of the underground HLF base. Every living being. Every pony or human in the city.
Ralph Vitoni was a hard man. He did messy jobs, and he did them well. But this - this was too much even for him, it was just too much. Final sanction was only for troops marching on the city, for some terminal, apocalyptic assault on the headquarters, for a final stand, not to find a stupid notebook. Leo apparently really did believe that some map in some notebook would save all of humanity. A wooden wagon, two QCD warheads and a notebook. Gypsy Traveller. Ralph was no fan of the ponies, and the city was mostly ponies now, but that was really worth killing every living thing in an entire city for?
The fact was, he'd been outsmarted. There was no possible way to find two ponies and a human, or three ponies and no human, when the entire city had been somehow mobilized into running about randomly with sheets and blankets covering their identities. All the scanning equipment, all the face recognition, all the Frontsmen down there - it was all useless to such a simple thing. The scale was too large to manage. The scale was too large to do anything about.
The decision sat there, hanging in his mind. If he told Leo he couldn't do the job, all those people and ponies down there would die. The whole city hung on four words: "I can't do it."
If he told Leo he could find the notebook, a whole city would not die. But the fact was, he couldn't find the notebook. Nobody could. Not unless the city were empty, and they could take their time checking every corpse, until by elimination, they found what they were looking for.
Provided the targets were even carrying the notebook. Leo assumed too much with that one. What if they left it stashed somewhere? They couldn't search the entire city, not everywhere. Leo was panicking. He was an asshole, and he was losing his shit. Ralph kicked the floor with his hoof. Hoof. For the rest of his life, he was stuck with hooves. Fuck Leo. Leo was an asshole.
But Leo would have his guts for garters if he called this wrong. And the fact was, there was no way he could find that damn notebook.
"Ralph! I need an answer here. I am not fucking around. Can you do the job, or not?"
Ralph slapped his own flank with his tail. It stung, and somehow that helped. "Gimme a moment, there Leo. I'm checking a lead. If it pans, we don't need to go nuclear, OK?" There. Time to think. That's what was needed. Time to think, time to breath.
"Five minutes, Ralph. Five." And Leo was off the line.
Ralph stood in his dark, empty room, looking out at the laughing, dashing ponies and humans in their sheets. The city was having an impromptu party. It did that sometimes, because the ponies just... did that. Tonight the theme was sheets. Ralph began to wonder if maybe he had underestimated his three opponents. He had certainly not considered pony psychology in his own calculations.
This moment was one of 'those' moments. Five minutes in which a single decision would make all the difference. Live or die, yes or no. A possibly world-changing moment of decision. Ralph looked around the empty room, piled with junk and boxes, dark, illuminated only by the candles and alcohol lamps from outside, the dim yellow, reflected glow on the thickening smog layer - damn lazy pegasus bastards - and the distant lights of the holosigns in the twoper district.
Suddenly, something beeped in the corner. What?
Ralph approached the sound cautiously. It was a Pre-Collapse clam-shelled 2D computing device. A... a Lap Top. Yeah, that's what they were called. Lap Tops. The damn thing looked... it looked brand new. Where had it come from? The thing was open, the screen, such as it was, suddenly lit up with a picture of the notebook, the very thing that Leo wanted. It had to be - the title on the overstuffed notebook was very clear in the image.
Project Bucephalus, Laboratory 012 Umbra-Cosmik-Magik Clearance ONLY Ultimate Sanction For Loss Or Exposure
Below the image of the notebook, was text. Ralph stared at the text, his mind incredulous, reeling at the impossibility of it all. This could not be happening. It could not be happening, but it was. Another group, maybe? Something parallel to the HLF? Worldgovernment elite breaking ranks to support the HLF? Ralph stared, his eyes wide at the message below the picture of the notebook.
Attention Ralph Vitoni: In three minutes Leonard Reich will call you and he will say "Alright you oat-stuffed bag of sh*t, which is it? Can you do your f*cking job or not?" When he says this, tell him you can. The notebook is hidden in locker 222 on level two of the Espacios NanoEngranaje fabrication center just as you suspected. Hurry, there are others after it. - Turner and Fogarty
"Turner and Fogarty? The hell?" Ralph goggled the message, unable to tear his eyes away. "I... don't know anyone with those names. What they fuck do they want from me in exchange for this? Goddammit, I can't even diddle with this damn thing because of these goddamned hooves!" Ralph shook his head, but the antique computer remained, sitting on a box, displaying the picture of the notebook, and the text message just below it.
"Alright, you oat-stuffed bag of shit, which is it? Can you do your fucking job, or not?" It was Leo, his voice angry over the headset. It had been the exact words. Ralph had read the words almost as Leo had said them. He felt a chill run down his pony spine, and his breath stopped for a bit, from the strange feeling of his entire mane standing up all along his withers.
"Well?" The voice in his headset was not at all pleasant.
"I can do the job, sir. I know exactly where the notebook is. Imma.... Imma gonna go get it right now. Shouldn't take me more than half an hour. Stand everyone down. No need to croak the city or nothin'." Ralph memorized the address for the third time. Locker 222 on level two of the very nanofabrication center he had suspected when the sheet ponies started heading that way.
"You OK, Ralph?" Leo sounded almost nice, almost concerned. That was usually a dangerous sign.
"Y-Yeah. Yeah, I'm great. For a FUCKING PONY! Goddamn you, by the way. I'll get your notebook, fucker. Vitoni out." Ralph twisted his head violently so that the custom headset flew off and hit the wall. His now superior hearing could still make out Leo asking if he was there, and demanding he respond.
The antique device went dark. Ralph had no way to manipulate it, the keyboard was made for human fingers, not clumsy earthpony hooves. That... was that. Ralph's hackles fell, the hairs relaxing along his neck. Locker 222, level two.
The decision had been made. The city would live. The notebook would belong to the HLF. Ralph Vitoni gave the Lap Top a nudge with his hoof, and it fell over, off the box, with an unpleasant crinkling thunk. "Fuck!"
Then Ralph headed out of the room, and down the dark hall, towards the stairs. It was a fairly long trot to the old nanofabrication plant.
Petrichor followed behind Paige and Inkwell. Inkwell led the group, she knew where they needed to go. Not once had they seen a single human, and certainly not a pony, since they had entered the warehouse district.
Inkwell came to a halt, which made Paige and Petrichor stumble slightly as they avoided crashing into her. The sheet and the two comforters had made travel difficult at times, and they couldn't run easily. Petrichor had grumbled several times during their trek about how much easier it would have been to have flown, and how she could have certainly carried both Paige and Inks on the pallet which still lay on the roof of their apartment building. But Inkwell had refused that entirely. The last thing they wanted to do, after all of that, was to be the one anomaly that stood out.
"That's it. That's the warehouse I used to work at." Inkwell saw that the lights were entirely out, and that the loading door was still wide open. It had been weeks. That was not good. She had been hoping that it would be staffed once more, perhaps with an even bigger group of Blackmesh security protecting it, making it a safe haven. At least safe enough for her to get to her goal.
Now she was uncertain that her goal would even still be there. The fear that she had made a terrible miscalculation began to creep into her feelings, and her stomach sank within her.
"Is it safe?" They were talking in whispers, Paige's question was quiet, almost inaudible to herself. She had learned that Equestrian ears were far more sensitive than human ears, and so knew how amazingly softly she could speak and still have the two ponies catch her words.
"I... I have doubts, Paige." Inkwell studied the area around the warehouse. The bodies were gone, all the bodies of the Blackmesh that had tried to protect the place. The warehouse looked abandoned. It looked like LAASTT had just pulled out after the incident entirely. This was not good. This was not good at all.
Inkwell turned to her mates. "Listen... I may have made a mistake. I honestly expected them to stay, to have more guards. There were tons of books in there. It's really expensive to move that, books weigh a lot. But... I think they just up and left. I think they're gone." Her face was worried, and so was her scent, which Petrichor picked up on instantly.
"So... what do you want to do?" Petrichor nodded at the empty, dark warehouse.
"We won't be left alone after this. I'm certain of that. We lucked out that we were given as many hours as we had, and that only because Cloudypuff thought we were agents of some group like the PER or a branch of the Worldgovernment." Inkwell's muzzle wrinkled in thought. "We can't go back, and they will be all over the Bureau. We escaped only because we were able to make use of the fact we're a herd species now. The oldest trick in Nature, at least on Earth - the anonymity of the group. But I'm out of tricks. I look at that warehouse, and I just think 'trap'."
"We can't stay here, Inks. Whatever we do, we can't stay here." Paige reached out from her sheet and patted Inkwell. "We have to do something, anything. Indecision is always fatal."
Inkwell looked lost. "I just don't know what to do!"
"There's only two choices, Inks." Petrichor leaned into Inkwell, pressing close. "We go in, or we go anywhere else. So, do you think it's still there? All we have to do, you said, was get to it. If it's there, we're saved. Is it worth the risk?"
The warehouse sat, dark and empty, the loading bay door open, doubtless the other doors as well. There was no sign of power in the area.
Inkwell began looking around at the various security towers and poles. "No power." The entire area was dark. Electricity was costly, and cities rationed it strictly. The majority of the population only enjoyed two hours of electricity a day, and only the Twopers, the two percent with jobs, enjoyed electricity through most or all of the day. If the government project here had entirely pulled out, there would be no power in this whole section of the city.
The HLF had a base somewhere near, but they would not likely be using city power, or, if they had control of the city ministry, their power would come through buried, private lines. It would not be wasted on the warehouse region in general, and that meant the surveillance system would be down. If the HLF was still watching the warehouse, they would have to be doing it with Frontsmen, stationed around or inside the building.
Inkwell turned to Petrichor. "Pet - we need to know if there are any humans anywhere nearby. Paige - sit down, and be as quiet as you can. Sit downwind, over there." Inkwell pointed with a hoof to a spot behind her. "Pet, we've got these amazing senses. Let's put them to use. Are there any humans, anywhere nearby?"
Petrichor and Inkwell stood still, legs locked and sniffed the air. They carefully listened, scanning with their tall ears. As she concentrated, as she focused on her senses, Inkwell began to hear first Pet's heartbeat, then Paige's behind her, under the sound of her own. She smelled the scents of the area - plascrete and old steel, the tang of ancient concrete dust that predated the Collapse, heat baked and chemically degenerated spills of oil and other chemicals from before her birth. The smell of gasoline-burning vehicles still staining broken sections of wall and road, the ghosts of a more prosperous age.
But nowhere in the complex symphony of scents was any fresh, current scent of Man. She smelled Milner, the owner of the warehouse, but he hadn't been there in well over two months. She could sense those that had come and moved the books and everything away. There was the scent of death and urine and feces from several spots on the plascrete, mixed with the bitter chemical sting of Blackmesh fibers. She could almost pinpoint where the guards had dropped. But despite all of this, every sense she possessed told her that there was not a single living human beyond Paige in the area.
Could it truly be that the HLF had no presence here now? Perhaps it made sense - they would use their limited manpower to block and search the most likely places to go, like the Bureau, uptown. They would be frantic now, dealing with a city of sheeted ponies and people. They would not know about the secrets of the Underground Bookmobile. They couldn't. And neither would the WorldGov team that had emptied the warehouse! It had to still be in there! It had to be!
"Paige! Pet! Follow me!" With that, Inkwell let her comforter slide entirely off her back, and strode forward confidently towards the warehouse.
Ralph Vitoni stared at the contents of Locker 222 on level two of the nanofabrication plant. He said nothing, but his entire body shook with rage. He wanted to smash the locker, he wanted to stomp the floor, but he was afraid he would shatter his own hoof doing such a thing. Besides, there were men watching.
He'd made the call, he'd made his decision, and he'd have to live with it. His three concerns, Paige, Petrichor and Inkwell, could be anywhere by now, and with them, no doubt, the notebook. It was lost forever. Leo would probably kill him. Even despite all the resources used in his transformation. It wouldn't be wise to return to base. There was only one place for him now, and he hated that fact. There was only one place he could be safe from Leonard Reich. Equestria.
The fact of that burned Ralph, it seared and cut and tore at his emotions. Ponies. Ponies had done this to him, ponies had ruined his life, ponies were stealing his world. And now his only refuge was among them. He could only go to Equestria. Only there could he be certain of his life, and Ralph Vitoni was very fond of staying alive. But most of all, he would never give that bastard Leonard Reich the satisfaction of taking out his own failure upon him. Reich was incompetent, he should never have been allowed to run the HLF. 'Gypsy Traveller'... a wagon and two bombs that could never pass through the Equestrian Barrier! The man was insane.
"We've been had, gentlemen." Ralph announced the fact quietly, evenly. "The operation is a bust. I need to contact Reich to confirm things, but my guess is a return to base."
Ralph made a show of putting a hoof up to his head. "Leo? Hey! Leo! What? I can't hear you! Yeah, listen... hang on. I'll try outside, I think it's the building. Yeah!" Ralph looked at the armed Frontsmen filling the lockerooms. "I'm gonna try outside, hey - just to be sure, do a level one search of the building, OK? I just want to be one-hundred percent about this, capiche?"
A Frontsman nodded. "Understood." He began giving orders to his men. Ralph took to the stairs and went down to the ground floor, then out the door. He walked around the building, then across the street, into an alley. Then he turned a corner and galloped rapidly into the night.
One of the Frontsmen, searching all the lockers one by one, stopped to check locker 222 out of curiosity. He pointed his hand-held torch into the locker. There, taped to the back of the compartment was a drawing. The drawing was in colored markers, and it showed a brown earthpony stallion with a wild brown mane and a blond-maned, gray coated pegasus mare with wildly divergent golden eyes. Both of the ponies had their tongues stuck out, and the gray mare was waving a hoof.
The crude lettering said "YoUr PriNceSs iS In AnoTher CasTle!!!"
The Frontsman shook his head, then moved on. The joke was lost on him. It had come from a Pre-Collapse video game, one that he had never seen, one that nobody of his generation had ever seen. It was the sort of thing really old people would have enjoyed, and such things held no interest to him.
Though they searched until morning, there was no notebook in the fabrication plant to be found.
As the sun rose, Leonard Reich called the commander of the Frontsmen to ask for the whereabouts of Ralph Vitoni. Unhappily, he had no answer to give.
"It is not accurate to say that there is horror in the universe. The universe is horror." -Dr. Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist, formulator of quantum mechanics
Project Bucephalus - Bucephalus Panopticon February 12th
There is only one place where I have privacy, that location is the room they have provided me. I am unsure that the claim of privacy is true even so, but I choose to believe it, because I must.
The Bucephalus Panopticon is the central command for the entire Bucephalus project. Every day I mingle with the elite of the elite, who come to visit and nod at things as if they understood any of what is going on. I have always wondered what the corporate elite would look like, the unimaginably wealthy and powerful that own and control every former nation and land of the Earth. I suppose I imagined them as implacable humanoid robots in perfect black suits dictating things with electric claws of life and death.
The fact is, they look like anyone, though perhaps a bit better groomed. One man, supposedly the most powerful man on the planet, could have been this older guy I used to buy coffee from, back during my collegiate days. The merchants who had the world fall in their lap are just people, and I feel somehow disappointed to discover that the entire planet is run not by mysterious illuminati, or space aliens, or robot overlords, but instead by terribly boring, ordinary people who just happened to be born into the few hundred powerful families that own everything and everyone.
Everything about the world makes sense, now. No tin-foil hat schemes, no terrifying secrets, just rich people trying to stay rich whatever the cost to anyone else, and the world bumbling along led by ordinary humans driven by ordinary wishes for power, influence and stuff. I expect the kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers of old, back in the days of nations, before the Collapse, were no different, though various comments I have overheard suggest the same families owned the world even then - just behind the scenes. Business as usual, really, just now they don't have propped-up national leaders to hide behind.
The fact of it is, that it is the most boring possible situation to discover about how the world has always been run and I find my imagination aggrieved. I would have preferred robot overlords, not boring rich families. Perfectly human rich people are just too obvious and dull to be the masters of the planet.
The elite come, stand over some part of the work going on, nod like they understand everything, then ask some incredibly ignorant question as if it were profound. There is no option but to respond like a happy puppy, tail wagging at their brilliance, and answer them as if astounded at their insight. That - was made clear to me in my orientation lecture.
I am one of fifty scientists and researchers hand-picked from all the various groups around the planet. I am here because of General Norman P. Ridgway, my little head-tapping, odd-looking supporter. Most of the people in charge here have favored 'pets' here, I happen to be Ridgway's. I finally found out why he favors me so.
Apparently the thesis I wrote on applications for nanotechnology was his big key to understanding some stuff he needed to understand at some crucial point in his career. He was stuck, unable to do his job and in fear of losing it. My thesis just happened to make sense to him for some reason, likely because I did a crappy enough job a layman could suss my points. It certainly wasn't the grand masterwork he makes it out to be, but it saved his ass when he needed it. The upshot of this is that now I am 'The Expert' and the 'Shining Golden One' to him, and that puts me in a very bad place.
Because I don't know a damn thing compared to just about anyone around me here. I am so completely out of my element.
I learned that horrible truth my very first day here at the Panopticon. They had the leaders of the 'brain teams' together in the thinktank chamber, and they let us 'pets' sit in, on the hope we might contribute something that hadn't been thought of. When I went in, I was thinking 'oh, wow, here is my chance to shine!' Boy, was I wrong.
The thinktank chamber is this big circular room filled with active surface desks and seats, where everyone can face everyone else, and in the center is this amazing holodisplay. It's very super-science and I have to say I was impressed. The seats are super comfy and the active surface desks are cutting edge. It's a shame humanity turned its back on the stars right after Apollo 17. We never went to mars, we never did anything more except space stations and probes because there wasn't any profit in it, and then the Collapse hit. But in that room, I felt like I was sitting on the bridge of a science fiction starship!
The 'brain teams' have the hardest job of anyone in the whole Bucephalus project. They are the conversion elite group. They basically have to work out what we - as a species - get to keep and what we have to leave behind in terms of how the post-human brain works after conversion. Because we have so few years to save as much of humanity as possible, there just isn't time for long philosophical debates about what makes us human. The entire problem has been reduced to an engineering issue, devoid of sentiment. Perhaps that is really the only way to face such a task.
Equestria is a radically different universe than our own. Virtually every survival behavior earthly evolution has selected for is a grave disadvantage there. Rigid tribalism, hoarding, competition, territoriality, greed for resources, dominance, jealousy, the capacity to overcome altruism for immediate personal or group advantage, the ability to hunt and kill - all work strongly against survival within Equestria. They all have to go, and we have no say in the matter. There are behavioral requirements set by the princesses themselves that have to be met, and the Equestrian side is making sure that they will be met whatever we think. It is the price of admission, really.
There are less absolute, but nonetheless important concerns the brain teams have to deal with. One basic issue is that once converted, it cannot be allowed that any transformed human should suffer or regret their new body or their new life. It would be horrifically cruel to transform humanity only for people to find themselves unable to accept or even stand existing within their new physiology. This is a very basic engineering issue with regard to transformation, and it needed to be dealt with. The brain teams had actually solved this one months ago.
The way they solved the problem is through a combination of changes that all support and reinforce each other. One thing they did was to reconstruct the neurological homunculus, the internal body-map which permits any animal to comprehend its own body parts and their orientation and function. Altering the body map to fit the new body means that a transformed human will always feel comfortable, and that their new Equestrian body will always make sense to their brain. It prevents body dysmorphia.
Another solution they developed was to shape the transformed brain in such a way as to increase the overall level of emotional well-being and the level at which pleasant experiences or sensations chemically reward the brain. This reward system lowers slowly, over decades, to a level consistent with ordinary Equestrians, but it is expected to cause a reinforcement loop that will entrain the converted to like and even love their new body and their new lives. Essentially, converted humans will be driven by their own brain chemistry to be happy with being a pony, and with living within pony society. It was a rather elegant solution, I thought.
A third mechanism I heard cited is simply a natural side effect of both Equestrian society and the new body itself. The converted human will find their new body healthier, more agile, much stronger, more acute of senses and more capable of pleasure than a human body could ever be. The required alterations to the human brain all alter it to experience hypertrophied compassion and empathy. Equestrian brains are more strongly rewarded for all acts of kindness and cooperation, and this is now a part of the design of the transformed human brain. This reward system, combined with the nature of Equestrian society itself - which is consistently friendly, helpful, innocent, loving, gentle, supportive and pleasant - should set up a strong feedback loop that will reinforce pleasurable feelings of contentment and satisfaction.
Essentially, transformed humans will end up with a brain mostly identical to a native Equestrian brain, except with the human identity and memory retained, and a relatively brief period of enhanced pleasurable feedback to encourage acceptance and satisfaction with the new state of being.
Transformed humans will find themselves perfectly adapted to their new universe, and completely unadapted to their dying homeworld. This is only appropriate, since there is only one place we can escape to, and it would be unconscionable to force the converted to suffer any disadvantage with regard to native ponies. It is to the credit of the princesses that they will not permit converted humans to end up as second-class citizens in any respect.
I have a confession to make, though. Throughout the entire discussion, I had nothing to add, because virtually every detail involving all of these changes and alterations and minimal specs for the new human brain were entirely beyond me. I felt like a child listening to adults talk about things far above my level or comprehension, and by the end of the brain team meeting, I spent some time in my room crying. I just felt completely beat up by how incompetent I was compared to these amazingly talented people.
And that is why I can only put down here the most basic things from that meeting - frankly, the rest was lost on me. I had nothing to offer, nothing to add, and spent most of the six-hours-with-breaks feeling retarded and diddling with my active surface iconobjects. The big thing I got from the brain team meeting? I now know how to adjust haptic feedback on active surfaces so I can make them feel more or less bumpy now. I am a genius of my time. I own the bumps. I can make your active surface holodisplay feel rubbery or hard. I can adjust the flatness. I am a goddess of haptic feedback.
I used to wonder why I was part of the Zero-Twelvers. Now I miss Lab 12 desperately. I am less than useless here. I am in vastly over my head.
Project Bucephalus - Bucephalus Panopticon March 16th
It's been very busy. I'm on the transformation testing team. The quality of replicated bodies we get are amazing in the Panopticon. Now we get them in all ages, all colors, and all sizes. None of them are Patchwork Bobs, they all look like they could have just come off of any streetcorner, in any favela - and don't think the thought hadn't crossed my mind, but no. I refuse to accept that people are just being randomly abducted by the worldgovernment for testing. Humanity used to do things like that, back in Pre-Collapse times - the old American syphilis studies in Guatemala and the US Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Studies, both in the 1940's, Leo Stanley's horrific medical experiments on prisoners in the 1950's, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments on tens of thousands of black men from the 30's to the 70's, the Staten Island Willowbrook State School experiments infecting thousands of disabled children with hepatitis in the 60's, U.S. Army biological warfare experiments on tens of thousands of civilians throughout the old American south - and that's just the Northamerizone. Every old, defunct nation, every old state did the same or far worse. But that was then. That was before the Collapse. That was before our current enlightened times.
Now, in the modern nano-age, under the Worldgovernment, I have to believe that the casual, banal evils that nations once inflicted on their own unknowing populations are a thing of the past. We have grown, as a species, and this time, in this golden age, things are different. Man is different now, than he was during the preceding 10,000 years. This time, we finally are a compassionate planet - we are certainly all working together to save every one of us!
Interestingly, that was one of the conditions that Celestia demanded in exchange for rescue. We are required to work to save everyone, not just the elite. Either conversion is made available to everyone, or Celestia won't let anyone in. I would like to think her demand did not need to be insisted upon.
So, like I was saying, these are some amazing replicated bodies. Some even have tattoos and permatech and implants in them. That is only reasonable, really. We have to fully deal with just such complexities before the conversion serum is used on real, non-vat-grown humans. I am very impressed with the quality of whatever facility is manufacturing these test bodies. Just amazing quality. It makes me proud to be human, to see work of this quality.
Project Bucephalus - Bucephalus Panopticon March 25th
I had to check one of the test bodies because it was exhibiting unusual neural activity. We test every aspect during conversion, and of course we test neurology because that is the most important bit of all. 'You are your brain', as they say.
They are providing us with more and more complex brains in these repli-bodies, so that the iterative efforts to get the genetic work the brain teams are doing can be finalized. After conversion, the resulting ponies are immediately taken for dissection to see just how close the result is. All the work is on the brain now, we pretty much have the bodies down pat, except for one anomaly. All the conversions still result in mares regardless of the sex of the test body. This has the core geneticists scratching their heads raw, I imagine. This was the same problem we had back in Lab 12, and it is apparently a tough one. We'll lick it in the end, though, I feel sure. We are so very, very close now.
The body was a replicated twenty-something male, Caucasian, pretty average overall, but it had some spikes in the 4 Hz to 7 Hz range, and one odd one at 14 hz, but only for a second. I went to adjust the skull sensors and noticed something odd - a small wound at the upper corner of the left eye. I think the body may have been handled poorly, resulting in a small hole. I wanted to have the body checked to see if the brain case had been penetrated, or the brain damaged, but I was overruled. I thought it was important - if the brain was damaged, the results might not be useful. But, what do I know? I thought converting replicated bodies was at least something I could handle. I am constantly reminded of how useless I am here.
Project Bucephalus - Bucephalus Panopticon April 7th
Human testing has finally arrived! They made the decision at the beginning of the week, and the whole of the Panopticon is in a state of frenzy and excitement. This is the big moment, it's showtime! This is where all the work of millions of human beings, struggling together on the single largest project in all of human history, with a literally unlimited budget, finally gets to shine. It is a stunning thing to contemplate what thirty million scientists, engineers, geneticists, nanotechnologists, neurologists - oh the list is endless - what thirty million people working together can accomplish if they all have the same goal, and the same drive. We are all fighting to save our species, to save humanity itself. In Project Bucephalus, for the first time in all of history, humanity is completely united.
We had a review today, of all the major steps and milestones. They brought almost the entire Panopticon together in the big arena. They did a retrospective, and I got a brief glimpse of Lab 12! I guess, in some small way, we were noted for what we had achieved. That made me very proud.
We also had a very special guest.
Celestia, the princess of Equestria herself, made a speech. This was the very first time I have gotten to see her with my own eyes, and not from some video or holographic representation. The arena is huge, and while she is surprisingly large - taller than a man in fact - she looked tiny down on the stage below. She spoke in perfect English, and her voice sounded remarkably human.
I was absolutely floored by the feeling of presence I got from her. It was as if she somehow filled that entire room by just being there. And her mane - I long ago decided it must be some kind of energy field - I imagined everything from a holographic mane to some esoteric energy of some kind. Seeing it in person, it isn't simple to explain. It is like looking into an endless sky at sunrise or sunset. It moves and waves and acts alive.
But that isn't the weird part.
Whenever I looked into - that's the only word for it, 'into', not 'at' - Celestia's mane, or tail, I heard those little chimes. The little bell-like sounds that Dr. Mayoss had suggested were my neurons dying from thaumatic exposure. I think he was wrong. The faint whisper of chimes only happened when I stared at her mane, and it stopped when I stopped. Unless thaumatic radiation can selectively decide who is looking at it and when, something else is going on, something beyond all human understanding.
Seeing Celestia in person has finally swayed me. I will write it here, but I don't think I dare - ever - say it out loud.
I believe in magic.
That isn't thaumatic radiation, or flux, or extracosmic energy, or 'neo-quantum nonlocality' happening in that mane, that is magic. I have no other word for it. Or for how the serum - we're calling it 'potion' now, a somewhat twee pseudo-contraction of 'Ponification Serum for Transformation' - can accomplish the things it does. I feel like my eyes are open for the first time in my life. Humans try to tame things they don't or can't understand with labels and names. When you get right to it, though, Dark Energy is just a coded name for 'magic energy'. It's all magic. Until you understand it.
I understand just enough of what we've been working with - purple fairy blood, violet wizard wine, and now the bright red, fully developed 'potion' - to say that it is magic. It is some kind of programmable energy that is capable of memory, and action. It is anti-entropic and fails all the basic rules of thermodynamics. It sings in my head when I look at it. Unicorns weave the stuff! That's magic enough for me.
And it fits the cultural idea of magic that humans have had for their entire existence. Equestria, I am certain, was based on our planet. I think that there was two-way communication in that process, and human culture got the idea of magic from the physics of Equestria.
When I looked at Celestia, speaking to us about the momentousness of our achievement, I felt something. More than the singing in my head when I looked at her mane. I thought about the unicorn medic that had to leave us back in Lab 12, because the 'thickness' in our converted Patchwork Bobs. Thickness. Something that rises above.
Celestia, who can move the sun in the sky, who created Equestria from chaos, and formed the mountains and sky and seas with her will - she is magic, of that I am sure. And what word is there, among humans, for a being that is magic and can make the world itself, create life from scratch upon that world, and drive the passage of heavenly bodies through the sky? Celestia's humility in insisting on the word 'princess' is wondrous.
Thickness. I keep thinking about 'thickness', and I think that more than anything in all of both worlds, I want to be worthy of having some myself.
Project Bucephalus - Bucephalus Panopticon April 13th
I don't know if I can write this. I don't know if I should. It feels like I am writing a confession of my crimes. I suppose I am.
General Ridgway had me there. He had me do the 'honors', in fact. I was his pet, and he wanted to show me off. He wanted to show me off in the big 'dog and pony show'. I played the part of the dog.
The men had been shaved and cleaned up, but it was clear that corporate prison had not been nice to them. I have no idea what they were in prison for. I will never know. I suppose it doesn't really matter.
They were bolted into cages by harnesses, the five of them. All men, all about thirty or so. Naked. Bruises. They kept hissing because I think their vocal chords had been severed. They were very, very afraid.
We were supposedly verifying dosage and conversion efficacy in the very first official human trial. The gallery was packed with observers - some I knew were from the Ministry of Propaganda and Infotainment, others from - I don't know. From everything. All the ministries. Probably some elites in there. All had come to see the show. A day at the circus for the special-est of special people.
They had me wearing a special uniform, something very science-fiction medical. The whole affair was quite the production. I balked at the hissing men and Ridgway became displeased with me. And that was my first sin. I did not spit on him and walk away. It probably would have cost me my life to do that, one way or another, and I knew that, so I apologized for my weakness and that seemed to pacify the general.
Five prisoners, five subjects, five dosages of the cherry-red nanofluid. Dark purple fairy blood, refined to light violet wizard wine, then mixed with enchanted nanomachines to create something that looked like sparkling cherry soda. There is a plan to give it a flavor, eventually. Likely it will be cherry, because of the color. Recombinant Sixty-Three, the first R number used for Official Human Testing. The first production-series transformational nanofluid. The first human test ever - only it couldn't possibly be. They must have tested the stuff in secret many times before now. With such a crowd in attendance, this was purely for show. They had to already be confident that this would work, and what the dosage was and what the result would be. You don't put on a show that you haven't rehearsed.
Ridgway clearly didn't think I needed any rehearsal. The job was simple, and I had no lines to say. Just administer the dosages and look professional doing it. And I knew the dosages were wrong. I knew what would happen, and I knew what the result would be in all the cases. And that was my second sin. Once again, I did not spit in Ridgway's face and walk away. I was afraid. I was afraid I would be terminated, or worse, that I would be next in line to be trapped inside one of those cages. So I stayed and I measured the doses out of the Erlenmeyer flask. The lights were hot and bright. It was like a movie set. It - was - a movie set.
The cages were round, like short cans, and stood up like wheels, the men strapped into them with self-adjusting restraints. The restraints would alter as the men altered, while suspending them so as to make everything clearly visible to all the observers. The cages were painted construction yellow, with diagonal 'danger' stripes for drama and red 'warning' labels to make them all the more visually impressive. There must have been a design team behind the cages, who had worked out how to make them look 'cool'. I barely heard the announcer welcoming everyone and explaining what was to come. All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.
I remember the first man so clearly. He was plump, like a big bald baby in his yellow cage. He kept hissing and shaking his head, and his eyes kept pleading with me. I swear I could hear his eyes begging, as if they were two mouths with eyelashes, pleading in stereo.
But I took out the syringe, the big, thick, turkey-baster syringe, with the big plastic tube at the end, and I followed my orders and I threaded the tube down the plump man's throat while his eyes begged me not to and General Ridgway watched my every move - my every facial expression - for any sign of weakness. I was his pet, and I had better not embarrass him in front of his own owners. And in that moment I finally understood. All humans are pets, the pets of pets who are the pets of even more important pets. We are a species of pets, all owned and owning, and that is what primate hierarchy really is, and what government and the military and religion and all the pecking orders are really all about.
And then I committed my third sin. I pushed the plunger and I fed the R-63 down the bald prisoner's throat. All one lonely, insufficient ounce of it.
I knew very well that one ounce was not enough. The announcer explained that one ounce 'might' not work, and that this was what the test was for. That our brave volunteers were there to help us figure out the proper dosage. It was a show, and they were building drama. There must have been a design team for that aspect too. Drama consultants for the big transformation show.
I couldn't watch as the single ounce ran out of energy and the conversion process began to falter and fail. I turned away, I couldn't look at those eyes anymore, those eyes that spoke betrayal, basic human betrayal, those screaming, silent eyes.
I think Ridgway actually liked my reaction, it showed human compassion and concern for me to turn away like that. He was probably counting on my reaction. That is probably why I was used - unrehearsed - to provide emotional verisimilitude to the Very First Ever Test Of The Conversion Serum. I guess I was a good pet, in that moment. A good dog.
The second man was thinner, and despite being shaved had stubble on his face. He just stared at me. Stared at me with all the quiet hate a man could possibly offer. And that was my fourth sin. I still obeyed my orders. I obeyed my superiors, I obeyed the rules. I gave the man two ounces. And the two ounces worked farther, and the announcer spoke of hope that this would be the answer, but of course it was not. Two ounces isn't enough for an adult human of average height and build. This time, when I turned away, I vomited. That did not please the General, and I was almost sent away, which is to say I was almost terminated, and he put it that way, and I knew he did not mean simple dismissal from a job, because in this project there is no simple dismissal. You are a team player, or your career is over. Because this game is for the fate of the entire human race. Because we are playing to win. Because this is war, soldier, war against extinction itself.
The show was ready for a victory, finally, so with shaking hands I measured out the full three ounces. This was enough. This would do the job. The announcer was speaking about nobility and sacrifice and how iteration was the key to discovery and how the brave volunteers would never be forgotten, but not once were any of them given names. Neither was it mentioned that they were corporate prisoners, or that if they really had volunteered, they could not possibly have understood what they were volunteering for. In that moment I suddenly knew how long I had been lying to myself just to stay sane. Those high-quality bodies had not been replicated flesh. They were not vat-grown Bobs. The world had not changed since the Collapse one bit, and mankind had not suddenly grown up overnight. And that had been my fifth sin, lying to myself about those bodies, and I had not even known I was doing it at the time.
The third man was of medium build, and he just shook. He rattled in his cage, and he looked about, lost to terror, completely all given up inside. If they had unstrapped him, I think he would have just sat there, and taken it, because there was no fight left inside him to do anything else. He was resigned to whatever was to come. In some ways, his face bothered me the most of all the test subjects.
I put the tube in, and forced three ounces of the bright red nanofluid down his throat, and he didn't even move. He just let it happen.
His skin went doughy white, and began to squirm and ripple. I was beyond emotion at this point, dead and empty inside, utterly resigned as well. I realized that since the first subject, I had been watching my actions as if from afar, noting my own behaviors, as if I were one of the watchers in the gallery, just an observer myself. The mass of squirming flesh hissed and gurgled at me, as it changed shape, jerking and shuddering violently, like the others did, until they finally fell quiet. It was then that I realized why the subjects were jerking so. And that was my sixth sin. I did not run to Ridgway and jam my thumbs through his eyes into his brain and keep pushing, and gouging, until they finally put a bullet into me. Instead, I stood by while the announcer indicated the importance of using an anesthetic to render the subject unconscious to prevent suffering during conversion.
The orange earthpony mare hung limply in the straps of the cage, her yellow mane and tail spilling down like a waterfall. She hung there whimpering, softly, almost silently. She had vocal chords, but no will to use them. The man inside had been broken by the experience, and it was a mercy when they terminated the wide-eyed, traumatized beast's life functions and sent it away like the others, for dissection and analysis.
I looked briefly at the crowd. They were not the least aghast. They were not nauseated or sickened. They wore interested, curious faces, eager for the next example. I thought of the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in Kew Gardens, in what had been old New York, in the 1960's. Dozens of witnesses simply watched, interested and curious, as she was stabbed, as the murderer walked away, then returned to stab her again. Not one person called for help, or tried to intervene or chase the man with the pocket-knife away.
And a year later, the same thing happened again, and still again no person did anything at all. They labeled it the 'Bystander Effect'. That was the crowd around me. Bystanders every one of them. So very human. And that was my seventh sin, I remained a bystander myself. So very, very human.
I watched as my hands mixed in the appropriate anesthetic, and applied the three ounce dosage to subject four. I remember his dark, dark skin. It shone almost blue in the light it was so pigmented. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, like I was looking at a lamp or a blanket or a wall. Pretty, dark, shiny. I don't remember his face at all.
The dark color went away quickly, replaced by waxy, doughy white. He was unconscious immediately, and I felt gratitude for that simple fact. As the changing mass of flesh rippled in the straps, the announcer played the crowd, 'would this be the one? Would success finally happen?'
The white unicorn with purple hair was stunningly beautiful, even for an Equestrian. The mare opened her eyes, and looked around, clearly conscious, clearly alive. She looked up at me with surprise and a strange delight. She seemed radiant, almost happy. Her smile was beatific.
It was the programmed neurochemicals at work, producing the expected happy, content feelings in the subject. The prisoner had expected horror, and instead they had ended up feeling better than they ever had in their entire lives. The announcer made a great fuss over that smile. I watched as they made a big show of unstrapping subject four, and parading the exquisite mare about to delight the members of the galley. The little unicorn stumbled at first, but gradually gained her hooves. Finally, she was led away, prancing, still beaming that lovely smile.
Only later did I find out that she was dispatched and dissected as well, in order to assess whether or not she had fully converted and what problems might need to be corrected.
I barely remember the fifth, equally successful conversion, and doubtless an equally awful aftermath. By then I was beyond sorrow and beyond tears. I felt like I was hiding somewhere, though I cannot say where I was. I don't think I was present in the world anymore. I have only vague memories of the grand and glorious party afterwards, to celebrate the success of Project Bucephalus.
I am still numb. I feel nothing, and that is what bothers me the most. I understand, intellectually, that I will have to deal with all of this, that it will hit me someday at some hour, and things will not be alright. They will not be alright at all. The circus of horror served its intended purpose - the audience left with a feeling of having participated in making conversion happen, even though they did nothing but watch a carefully orchestrated show. They will own ponification now, inside themselves, and think of it as their baby, their project, and they will promote it and celebrate it to the rest of the world when the time comes. They have been initiated by blood and pain and suffering, but in the end saw smiling ponies and hope and perfection. The assembled crowd had been led through a modern Eleusinian Mystery, and had emerged changed and evangelical about ponification.
The very next day, the genetic sequencing teams revealed the reason why Recombinant 63 specifically produced mares. Only six Equestrian genomes had been used, but all six samples were from the ambassadors appointed by Celestia, all of which were mares. Hundreds of additional examples were now available, and once they could be analyzed, encoded, and incorporated, a new version of the serum would be produced which would be capable of checking the existing state of chromosomal sex and produce either stallions or mares as appropriate.
I have seen this new potion, the new, improved ponification serum. It is purple, not unlike the fairy blood that it is ultimately based upon. They have stopped giving it R numbers. It is simply 'potion', and it stands currently at Version Number 1.2, and soon they will demonstrate it to the public at large.
The Worldgovernment is building large centers in both San Francisco and Vancouver. These will be the very first transformation complexes. They have decided to call them 'Bureaus' - 'Conversion Bureaus' - for that is exactly what they are for. To convert human beings into Equestrian beings, in heart and body and partially in mind. The Bureaus are gangplanks that lead directly to Lifeboat Equestria, where all those who would survive must go.
I do not feel worthy to join the ranks of the saved, I who carry such sin. The faces of those five men hiss silently at me when I close my eyes, and they stare at me in my dreams.
I have applied to work at the San Francisco Bureau. I know conversion very well. Having performed it so often, I am very likely the most experienced transformer of human flesh on the earth. General Ridgway is pleased with me, and I will keep my high security clearance to the end of the the earth. My appointment to the Bureau is assured. I must atone, somehow, and in saving others I see some distant hope of my own salvation.
I don't know how long this blessed numbness will last, but I think not much longer. I feel it cracking, breaking, and I must keep control, somehow. I know I will cry. I will cry for a very, very long time.
I cannot look at Celestia, when she is on the screens. She speaks now to the world, backed by the faces of the Worldgovernment. Conversion is real, and all humans must convert to live. She speaks of love and kindness and beauty in green and perfect lands, and I desperately yearn to escape to them for I have finally had my fill of Earth, and of Man. It is difficult to be around the ponies too, because in their innocence, I see only my own guilt.
But I do not deserve it. I cannot bear to look at her, at the princess I know to be more than a princess, at the being I know now to be a goddess incarnate. I must find some way to redeem myself to her in order to deserve a soul. Five men live in my conscience, and they are the heaviest of burdens.
Oh, sweet Celestia... I... I feel my armor breaking, and I don't think I will ever be alright again.
But the work is done now. Ponification is a reality, and the serum will only continue to be improved.
Paige slinked from one nigrescent stack to another, untrusting of the shielding darkness. She did not feel secure following Inkwell's apparently fearless tromping down the middle aisle of the old warehouse. It was in her mind that if there was trouble, she could leap out from the shadows and offer resistance or surprise. She was the only human in her family, and as such, she took her responsibility as a violence-capable guardian seriously. Clutched firmly in her hand, Paige's trusty aluminum bat 'Lil Slugger' bonked against a tumbled pile of pallets and made a hollow ringing sound. The bell-like tone filled the quiet space and echoed back from the far walls.
"Paige, it's alright. If there was anyone here, Pet and I would have sensed them! Fancy noses and fancy ears, remember?" Inkwell was worried Paige would hurt herself playing Ninja in the pitch black warehouse. Humans had tiny little eyes and no capacity to see into the infrared, after all. Inkwell had been astonished to find she could just make out a faint glow from herself and Petrichor and Paige in the gloom. It was not far into the infrared to be sure, and the glow she saw was not very bright or strong, but it was a new color, a brand new color she had no name for, and as dimly faint as it was, it was a miracle of wonder.
The ability to perceive the strange infra-light also helped, a little, in navigating the now mostly empty warehouse. Some tables and piles of pallets had been left, along with various bins and crates, but the vast mountainous stacks of books were all gone now. Most of the great warehouse was open floor, which made Paige's attempts to hide rather silly. Inkwell found it hard not to laugh at her defensive antics.
The goal, if it still existed - hopefully, it still existed - was a lock-box hidden just behind old Milner's rafter office. The members of the Underground Bookmobile all knew it was there, it seemed a perfect place to stash it. The office had been constructed on a platform near the high ceiling of the building, and the untraversable back edge where the office wall met the railing of the platform was only two-thirds of a meter wide or less - just wide enough to set something narrow down where no person would ever have reason to look. It was a dusty, cobwebbed uselessly narrow space easy to entirely forget about.
"You're sure that nopony can tell we're here?" Petrichor was being brave, trotting right behind Inkwell, but her occasional glances to the right and left betrayed that she clearly felt spooked.
"We listened, we smelled, you tell me!" Inkwell made for the spiral stairs in the center of the warehouse that led up to Milner's office and the roof hatch. Inkwell stopped, remembering the night she had been chased. These stairs were the place she had been shot. Her old, human blood probably stained them, somewhere near the open hatch at the top.
"Yeah... I know. Nothin' here." Petrichor seemed less than absolutely certain. The reality was that even with the faint benefit of seeing the glow from their own warmth, the warehouse was very large, definitely creepy, and very, very dark.
"Hey... maybe we shouldn't be chatting like it was the middle of the marketplace here?" Paige whispered from where she crouched behind an isolated pile of partially broken crates standing in the middle of the vast, empty floor.
Inkwell sighed. "Sorry Paige." She whispered back. It seemed the most expedient and kind way to respond.
The stairs were a long, steep climb, the warehouse was four stories tall and the platform with Milner's office was right near the top. Inkwell found it easy enough to climb up stairs designed for a human body, but she worried about trying to get back down again afterwards. The idea of trying to face the steep staircase muzzle first was frankly frightening - she could easily imagine tumbling face first down the spiral. She'd probably have to slowly back down the stairs, tail first, and that was not by any metric a dignified thing to do.
The climb was dark and long, and when at last the three stood at the top, far from the doors that provided what dim light there was, it became a matter of feeling their way around the platform. A small patch of light spilled down the short, straight stairs leading to the roof hatch, but it was not enough to clearly see anything at all. "I should have brought a flashlight, or something..." Inkwell felt foolish now.
Petrichor smirked in the inky black. "If only we had a unicorn..."
The 'thump' sound of a solid facehoofing came from the direction of where Inkwell was standing. Instantly, the tip of Inkwell's horn began to glow with a pale, silvery light. The light grew in intensity as Inkwell concentrated on exercising her magic without any specific target. The glow was more than sufficient to see the open door to the warehouse office, the rail around the platform, and a grinning pegasus and a human slowly shaking her head. "I forgot!" Inkwell felt deeply embarrassed.
"It is amazing how the mind can take the most incredible things for granted." Paige muttered. "I guess even the power to do magic just becomes ordinary in the end. It's OK, Inks, maybe it's better you didn't turn on your headlight before we got here, right?"
Inkwell sighed. "Maybe." The little unicorn moved to the left side of the rectangular office, and walked to the back where the rail, close to the back wall of the structure, wrapped around the building. Inkwell lowered her head, so that the silvery light was closer to the platform floor, and began searching for the metal lockbox.
"What are those?" Petrichor seemed anxious.
"What?" Inkwell couldn't see the lockbox anywhere. It just wasn't there, down the narrow, impassable space between office back wall and rail. Only empty platform and the dark hollows under the office module's raised floor greeted her searching eyes.
"There are little... lights or something. All over down there. Like spots. They're in the weird color. They're uber-red."
Inkwell jerked her head up. "What? Where?" She backed out and turned to where Petrichor was leaning on the rail, looking down on half of the warehouse.
"Hey... they're gone. Wait..." Petrichor strained her eyes in the dark. "Turn off your horn. They're really dim."
Inkwell ended the glow from her horn and let her eyes adjust. Gradually, as she leaned over the rail, looking down, she began to make out small dots of the new color her eyes could see, peppering the warehouse. "No power..." she whispered. "No external power. Batteries. Oh, Celestia, I've been foolish. Those are sensors of some kind. Probably infrared beams or something like that. We must have triggered dozens of them the moment we entered. Luna, but I am a silly unicorn." Inkwell stomped her hoof. "Cin-na-mon SWIRL! We won't be alone for long we..."
A scent met her nose, her new nose that was ten thousand times more acute than a human nose. It was sweat, human sweat, and the musk of testosterone and the bitter tang of adrenaline. It came from outside the open doors, and it had crept in, announcing the imminent arrival of people Inkwell was certain she did not want to see. "They're out there. Now."
"I smell them too." Petrichor shivered. She began much more seriously wondering whether or not she really could carry a pony and a human on a pallet through the sky. She had not admitted it, but transporting Inkwell, back when she had been Gwen, had not been nearly as easy as she had made it out to be. In fact, she had barely made it to the roof at all. Worse, that trick had been used already, and it would be foolish to think that whoever was approaching them would not be prepared for a repeat of it.
"Inkwell!" Paige whispered insistently "Get the box and stop worrying about what's coming! You said it would all be fine when you found the box!"
"It isn't there! I looked and it isn't there!" Inkwell stared in fear at the dim uber-red glow that marked where Paige loomed behind her.
"Let me look! Give me a little light, let me try!" Paige sounded just a little desperate.
"Light? They're coming! I can't use light!" Inkwell was horrified at the possibility of being shot again. Light would make them all easy targets. Though, to be fair, those who meant them harm probably had augmentations that let them truly see in the strange new infra-color, and far better than ponies possibly could.
"Inks... let me try!" Paige had a hand around Inkwell's foreleg, and it was squeezing a little too tight for comfort. Inkwell smelled the fear in Paige's blood. Resigned, Inkwell lit up her horn once again.
"It's supposed to be right there, behind the back of the office. In that narrow place next to the rail. It isn't there, see?" Inkwell grasped the rail with a blob of her telekinetic force, which created another source of the silvery light. The tiny, empty corridor behind the office back wall was clearly illuminated.
"Keep that light there!" Paige set Lil' Slugger down and dropped to the floor beside Inkwell's legs, and squeezed as best she could into the narrow space between wall and rail. She began stuffing her hands into the black rectangular hollows created by the raised floor of the office module.
"We have company..." Petrichor stared in horror at the glow of the open far door, which began to be occluded for brief moments as humans darted through and into the building. Pet's senses strongly suggested that the same was happening all around them, at every entrance to the warehouse.
Inkwell shivered with fear as she struggled to maintain the light from her horn and the glowing patch on the rail. Paige was searching frantically through the cobwebs and detritus under the office, until her hand hit something metal. "Shit!"
Inkwell flinched at the word, briefly. "What? Did you find it?"
Paige was scrabbling now, at the floor, her body straining, her arm far under the office floor. "I hit a box, a metal box. It has to be it, but I pushed it further under! Dammit to hell!"
"They know where we are..." Petrichor was frozen at the rail, terrified into immobility. Her words were soft and empty of the emotion that paralyzed her.
"Inkwell! My finger is touching the box! I can't grab it, I fucked everything up. I knocked it away accidently. But I am touching it, just barely, with my middle finger. My finger is right on it!" Paige had her shoulder pressed to the small opening under the office, her body squeezed into the space between wall and rail.
"So what now?" Inkwell was having trouble thinking. The people who had shot her were coming, and they might shoot again at any second. She felt her legs trembling, and her light began to blink as her concentration faltered.
"Inks! Run your magic down my arm. Follow my arm down to my finger, and then you can grab the box with your field! I'm touching it! Just use my arm as a guide!" Paige's muscles ached from her uncomfortable position.
"That's grea..." Inkwell stopped, horrified. "Paige... um... my hornfield. It's pure magic, it will burn..."
Paige cut her off. "Fuck that, do it! It's either you get that box, or we end up compost. Fuck my arm. DO IT!"
Inkwell swallowed hard. Petrichor, finally unfrozen, turned to look at her lover laying on the platform, just legs sticking out of the cramped space she had crawled into.
The glowing, silvery blob on the rail vanished and reappeared just above Paige's right arm. "Do it, Inkwell. Just do it." The glow hesitated for but a moment, then sank to encompass the arm.
Inkwell felt Paige's blouse, and then her skin, soft and brown. The edge of the field, difficult to control, dipped down, and Inkwell sensed the layers of fat and muscle, nerve and tendon, and then bone, warm with marrow. Inkwell could feel the rushing of blood cells through vessels everywhere. Inkwell could feel every detail of the inside of Paige's arm.
"It's a little numb, but I'm not feeling pain, Inks. Go for it!" Inkwell moved her telekinetic field down the arm, following it without sight, purely by some arcane, supernal sense of touch. The arm gradually began to feel oddly mushy as she passed over and through the tissues, following them down to Paige's hand. Inkwell could sense the fingers splaying out, and chose the middle one, running her magic along it. She could not control the size of her blobbet of force, so she felt the entire finger, all the way through, until she reached metal. It was a box, and inside it, Inkwell could feel an echo of powerful thaumatic flux. It buzzed, as if the box were full of hornets.
"I have it! I have the box, it's here! Pull Paige out so I can pull the box out!" Paige immediately responded by trying to escape the narrow confines, but she was having trouble. She flopped like a fish, trying to back out. Inkwell could do nothing - she had to keep focusing on her unseen telekinetic grasp of the metal box.
"Help me! I can't move my arm and I'm laying on the other one!" Paige seemed frantic. "Pet! Pull me! Pull me out!"
Petrichor began dragging Paige free even as multiple bright beams converged on the platform from below. Petrichor yanked and pulled with mouth and hoof, and tried not to notice the tiny, bright green dots of intense coherent light that danced about them.
"DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLEE. ANY ATTEMPT TO FLEE WILL BE CAUSE TO OPEN FIRE. REPEAT - " The amplified voice was not at all kind or pleasant. There was more than enough light now. Everything was bathed in harsh, actinic spotlights, and Petrichor and Inkwell had multiple bright green dots that hovered on vital spots upon their bodies.
"We aren't going anywhere!" shouted Petrichor "Paige is just stuck, I'm getting her unstuck!"
"REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESIST!"
'Yeah, yeah' Paige thought, as she finally was able to sit up. 'They always say that'. Most of her arm was completely numb, and she could not move it. She leaned against one of the rail posts, feeling dizzy and slightly sick. With her left hand, she moved her useless right arm and held her hand up in the spotlights from below. Already large portions of her brown skin had turned shock white, and the middle of those areas was rapidly turning black. It looked like ink spreading from below. Paige felt like she needed to vomit, as if she had been poisoned. "Hurry up, Inks. I'm not doing so well."
Inkwell was busy navigating the lock box out from under the office floor. Finally, the long, thin box was free, and she floated it out onto the wider space of the platform. Inkwell tried to open the box, but it was locked. "MUFFINS!" Of course it was locked, it was a lock-box.
What to do? What to do? Inkwell ran her thaumatic field through the box. Inside, beyond the metal, the two buzzing scrolls repelled her telekinetic touch. She could feel the active spells inside them, whirring and churning, woven into the very paper of them. As her scan reached the end of the box, she found a pencil, and an eraser. Convenient, it was a complete kit. Unfortunately, the box could not be opened to make use of the contents.
"WE ARE COMING UP. DO NOT MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS!" The sound of boots, very, very cautiously beginning the long ascent sounded from far below.
"Inks?" Paige did not sound well. "What's up?"
"I can't open the box. It needs a key. I figured it would be an electronic lock, but it needs a key! I thought I could just blow out the electronics and..." Inkwell was almost in tears "...it needs a key!"
"Is there anything inside the box that might help?" Petrichor was grasping at straws, the boots were steadily sounding louder and closer.
Inkwell sniffed, holding back her emotions. "Just an eraser. And a pencil. I don't think it's strong enough to pry the box open from the inside, but I can try!" Inkwell floated the pencil, inside the locked box, and began trying to use it as a crowbar against the inside of the lid. The pencil snapped in half from the force. A tear glistened on Inkwell's soft, fuzzy cheek.
"Inks?" Paige vomited, her dinner splattering against the platform. She began using her left hand to fumble for the emergency ponification kit she had strung on a cord around her neck. "I... ULP... I think... I'm not so good. I've got some seriously dead tissue here. I feel like...ULLLL" Again Paige threw up, finally ending up dry heaving as the sound of boots came nearer.
Petrichor dropped and grabbed at the ponifcation kit with her forehooves. She held it steady while Paige struggled with the catch to open the kit. The carbofiber case opened, revealing a metal cylinder with a thaumatic warning sticker and instructions for use. The instructions were terse and amounted to swallowing the entire contents in one go. "Inks - these things activate the moment they are signed, right?"
Inkwell nodded and managed a faint "Yes?"
"I'm ponifying Paige, right now. She's deathly sick and getting worse. You said you have a pencil in there? I bet princess magic beats a metal box any day of the week!"
Inkwell jerked with realization. "Yeah!" She grabbed the stub of the pencil in her hornfield, and forced the carbon inside the primitive writing instrument to stick out from the synthetic wood-like material that surrounded it. The pencil stub was short enough to move inside the box, and inside one of the rolled up scrolls. Inkwell tried to scribble 'HELP' in the middle portion of the scroll, feeling where the spell imbued within the paper had a space within it. She rotated the scroll within the box, until she found a space on the paper that hummed and buzzed near the bottom. That must be the activation line, the signing line. Inkwell did her best to write the letters of her own name I-N-K-W-E-L-L and then she withdrew her field quickly as forces she simply could not comprehend swirled into life, tugging and yanking at her simple telekinetic grasp.
The men stood over them now, HLF Frontsmen, armed with automatic rifles and the most intimidating of grimaces. Everywhere there were lights now, moving over the scene, shining into the eyes of the two ponies and the one gravely ill human, holding a cylinder in her left hand.
In one smooth motion, Paige downed the fluid inside the cylinder and fell into her own vomit, unconscious. In a flash, her brown skin turned shock white and her dark hair fell out. Her doughy flesh began to pulse and ripple, and the HLF men backed up to the rail shaking their heads and swearing.
"Fuck! The little bitch is going pony right in fucking FRONT of us! The god damn hell???" The Frontsman was incredulous. Of all the terrible things he had seen, and the even more terrible things he had done, this was easily the worst moment he had witnessed. He couldn't believe his eyes. "I can't believe the little bitch dropped pony juice right in front of me! Shit! Let me shoot them! Come on, let me fucking just shoot the lot of them! I wish I had a goddamned flame thrower. Burn it with fire! God fucking damn!"
The horrified Frontsman was pulled aside by a superior who calmed him down. Suddenly all eyes were no longer on the shifting, changing body of Paige. The little metal box was rattling and slamming itself on the platform as if it were angry, as if it were about to explode.
"BACK! DOWN THE STAIRS, DOWN!" The Frontsmen began a steady, rapid withdrawal down the curving stairs. "THEY'VE GOT A BOMB!" It was the only interpretation of events the HLF men had, and it made sense to them. The traitors believed all that shit about ponification creating souls. Clearly that must be why the human was converting - they intended to suicide and take as many of the HLF with them as they could! By converting, the traitor could be assured of pony heaven, or whatever these fuckheads believed in, after the bomb destroyed the building.
The lid of the rattling metal case blew open with a bang. A burst of green fire erupted angrily from inside the box and shot through the open roof hatch. For a brief moment the entire warehouse glimmered in strange green firelight, before it was plunged once more into gloom. The HLF men froze, unsure of what had happened. Was that the bomb? Had it been a dud? Was it safe to return and see what was left of the enemy on the platform?
Petrichor nipped and pulled at Paige's trousers, yanking them free of her fluidly shifting legs. Paige had deliberately chosen loose clothing because she was aware she might have to go pony at a moment's notice - she was prepared for just that eventuality, so she was in no danger of strangulation. Petrichor merely wanted to do something, anything to help, and reasoned that being free of incompatible clothing was at least something she could do for her love.
Paige's eyes had sunken into her swelling, almost featureless head. Her muzzle was extending, her nostrils widening as her rapid breathing fed oxygen to her quickly changing body. She was doubtless deep into her Conversion Dream, and despite the threat from below, Petrichor could not help but wonder what Paige was experiencing. Pet's concern and amazement at watching Paige convert was interrupted by the sound of a human man shouting an all clear, and the sound of boots stomping quickly and angrily up the spiral staircase.
"We warned you, but you fucking pull out a bomb on us! Fuck you!" came a voice loud from adrenaline and rage "You're dead now, fucking dead you - "
As the Frontsman soldier stormed the top step and aimed his automatic rifle at the pale, waxy shape of Paige laying on the platform, he froze, suddenly lithic gray all over, the last swirls of a golden light rippling and flowing down his silent, immobile form. His flesh was solid granite as were his clothes, likewise his gun, and all of the little devices attached to his armor. More flashes of golden light burst and faded from far below, like distant lightning, preceded by brief cries of shock and surprise suddenly silenced.
Inkwell noticed that the immobile Frontsman, as well as the rafters and the office, and much of the interior of the warehouse had been rendered clearly visible by a strong silvery-blue light that shone brightly from below. Inkwell felt a presence that filled her mind and heart and soul, a sweet closeness that sang of exquisite moments under perfect stars, of moonlit embraces and the tranquil beauty of the night.
"Thou art secure, my little ponies, and thy rescue is assured. Be thee all at peace, for thy princess has arrived to succor thee."
Inkwell willed her neck to turn and bend, feeling almost frozen with overwhelming awe. She looked down below at the floor of the warehouse, where an immortal glory in midnight blue, shod in silver and with a flowing mane of stars looked up at her with endless compassion.
Ralph Vitoni would never, ever, ever be a pony. This was the one thing that gave him strength, the one thing that permitted him to rise each day, eat pony foods, do pony things, and live among pony people. Ralph knew he was human, that his heart was human, that his mind was human and that his destiny was human, even though he walked on hooves.
Ralph also knew his soullessness was human, which is why he made every effort now to stay away from unicorn medics and pony clinics and pony hospitals. It was the one thing that could give him away to the Equestrians around him, and he guarded his hollowness as his greatest secret. He had gradually discovered earthpony healers who employed practical and nonmagical means to treat the bumps and scrapes and the odd broken rib that came of his various activities. Unicorns were a problem, they were always a problem, and Ralph especially despised them.
Vitoni had been humiliated by ponies, and now that he was forced to live among them, he resolved to make them pay. It would not be soon, but he had time. Somewhere, out there, in Equestria, would be others like himself. When finally the Earth was done, and all was quiet and over, he would contact them, and together they would act. Celestia had brought down the reign of Man, and one day, Ralph vowed, he would bring down the reign of Celestia, and deliver Equestria to ruin. Already his mind formulated schemes - Celestia had enemies, all rulers had enemies, and there would be ways to tilt the balance and destroy her peace. All he needed to do was to find them, and find the others with human minds in pony bodies, and there would be vengeance enough for all.
Ralph stopped at a restaurant and ordered a very large lunch. Eating, at least, was a pleasure he could enjoy even in this overly candied world. His enhanced senses made every meal a banquet of ecstasy, and he indulged himself, because it would be the only ecstasy he could ever know. Women were gone for him now, and with the end of the Earth one day, gone forever altogether. His unaltered human brain found nothing attractive in the animals around him, and when mares flirted with him, he shuddered and felt like retching.
He was bitter, and angry, and he trotted the land, never staying in any one place long. He yearned to cause mayhem, but kept himself from it - in this new world, even a brawl might reveal him and he dared not ruin his future chance for revenge. Ralph made himself the most pleasant of ponies to the natives, always fast with a smile, and polite to a fault, while inside he wished for the feeling of crushing the throats of the gentle monsters that he walked among.
There were no proper human bars, no proper human night-clubs, no human vice or rackets to be involved in. There was no joy in defrauding or conning any pony, because there was no challenge to it, and the result was always predictable. He was in hell, a nightmare of never-ending cooperation, honesty and essential goodness that made him feel constantly judged and found wanting for the thoughts in his head and the desires of his heart.
Vitoni paid for his feast, and left, burping. One day. One day he would bring this treacle paradise down, and on that day, when all of Equestria was in ruins, he would stand atop Celestia's broken body and cry out 'I am a Man! I am Human! Look upon me and despair that you ever dared to tangle with my kind!' The thought made the chubby brown earthpony smile. One day. One day they would know suffering, and in that moment, he would finally be able to cry, because he would not be crying alone.
Leonard Reich walked past the covered wagon on the dais, and moved on to the two incomplete quantum chromodynamic weapons. Their shells already had their names painted on them: Sköll and Hati. They would never be finished. The cost of completing them was no longer defensible. Weapons were useless against the Barrier, and continent-killers would only harm humans and the earth, to no gain, and no point. The notebook was gone, and so were the three traitors that had taken it.
Gone also were four squads of Frontsmen, an entire platoon, handed over to the Worldgovernment as statues. Reich had little doubt of what the Worldgovernment would do with his men. They would be returned to flesh and summarily converted. Changed into ponies, they would no longer wish to continue the war against Celestia and her empire. They would suddenly see how 'wrong' they had been, and feel 'shame' for how much 'suffering' they had caused. They would tell everything in an effort to atone. The base was already busy with the evacuation effort. They had perhaps two days at most. Project Gypsy Traveler was over, forever. They would have to start again entirely, somewhere else.
In Leo's head, the dream briefly lived again. It would have worked, he was as sure of that as he had been when the project had begun. With that map, they could have identified the exact location of Discord, the greatest threat Celestia had ever faced. They could have drawn up plans to take the statue and transport it out of Equestria. Within an old nuclear testing facility, underground, the statue could be pulverized, and the fine dust used to coat Sköll and Hati entirely, protecting the missiles from the Barrier. In an instant, Equestria would have become strangelet plasma, hotter than any star, and the incursion would reverse. The Equestrian bubble would have collapsed, shrinking away beyond the universe itself, back into the multiversal spaces and dimensions that it had come from.
The Earth would have been left with a scar, and terrible damage, but it would have lived. Earthponies could have been forced to serve mankind, restoring the world, and healing the damage. There had even been a plan to secure the means to make more earthponies as needed. It would have been the answer. It could have saved the Earth, and preserved the dominion of Man.
But now, that dream was gone. Vitoni had failed, and he too was gone. To Equestria, apparently, beyond all reach.
Leonard Reich patted the unfinished casing of Sköll, and walked on. Around him the sounds of evacuation raged. He had thought, briefly, of remotely releasing the neurotoxin some time after the HLF had escaped, but in the end, he had simply shrugged. It might be possible to collect it, or some of it, later, and it could prove valuable. Every asset possible needed to be preserved, now. In losing the base, the HLF had lost much. It would take a long time to recover, and there was not much time remaining.
Damn, Leo thought. It would have worked. It absolutely would have worked.
Derpalina Ditzy Doo Hooves hugged her little unicorn daughter Dinky, and kissed her poll and muzzle. The foal squealed with delight and happiness at the attention. "Di... did the bad man like my drawing? Did he Mama? Papa? Did he like my drawing?"
Time Turner Hooves sat down and embraced his wife and daughter with his forehooves. "I dare say he found it... unforgettable, my dearest Dinkums. Wouldn't you agree, Derpalina?"
"Hmmm?" The gray pegasus had already likely begun to forget the details of the day's adventures, beyond the happy feeling of having been on an outing. It was for the best, really, thought Turner. The princesses tended to visit Derpalina at odd times, and the less she remembered the less she might accidentally blurt out. Her forgetfulness was a blessing, really. Turner loved Derpalina dearly, and she was always there when she was needed, with an absolutely uncanny luck to her. The most outrageous mistakes might be made, but somehow, they always ended up working to Turner's advantage. It was positively Taoist. Or possibly Zen. He never could get those Earth philosophies straight.
"Haycakes!" Dinky Doo was bouncing in her hooves. "You said we could have haycakes tonight, when you got back! Haycakes! Haycakes!"
"We've had haycakes every day this week, Dinky!" Papa Turner ruffled Dinky's mane. "How about a nice vegetable stew? Or hay almondine - that's good! Or maybe pumpkin puffs in mushroom gravy? How about that? Mmmm-mmm!!!"
"HAYCAKES!" Dinky was adamant.
"We're spoiling her, you know that don't you?" Turner moved to the kitchen and began measuring flour.
"How abou' I tell you abou' our amaze-ing aventures while papa makes haycakes???!!!" Derpalina jumped onto the couch and patted it with a hoof for Dinky to follow.
"OK, mama!" Dinky clambered onto the couch, her little tail flicking about as she pulled herself up and onto the cushions.
"Well, there was this big scary Nanny-Fac'ry! An' a whole buncha lockers an' we had to find JUST THE RIGHT ONE!" Derpalina rolled her eyes, which always made Dinky laugh.
The sound of an egg hitting the floor came from the kitchen. "Oh, swirl! I'll get that, no worries!" Turner's hooves made sharp noises, as he likely worked to clean up the mess.
"How'd you find the right locker?" Dinky was enthralled. She'd never seen the human world, so anything about it sounded dangerous and exciting.
"NUMBERS!" Derpalina clopped her hooves together in excitement "Daddy knew the numbers they use there and foun' the locker on the secon' floor! It was really BIG! An' really SCARY! An' it was all made out of metal and it was dark, too!"
Ditzy shivered. "Were you scared?"
"Naw... well, maybe a little!" Derpalina held her daughter close. "But daddy was there, so I knew everythin' was OH-KAY-DOH-KAY!"
Dinky laughted at that.
The sound of a pan dropping in the kitchen was followed by Turner shouting "Not to fear! Forgot to use a pot holder. Mouth's OK! Dinner might be a little late, that's all!"
Dinky looked up at her mother. "Daddy's silly."
Derpalina shook her head. "No, Daddy is wunnerful. Daddy is always wunnerful."
Dinner was a little late though.
Paige reared and stomped her forehooves, making little puffs of dust in the dirt road. The dust sparkled in the light, because of the tiny gemstone fragments within it. "WHOO-HOO! I have HOOVES!"
Inkwell shook her head, but grinned. "Yes, Paige. You have hooves. And they are awesome."
"Muffin' RIGHT!" Paige was prancing now, as they walked to the train. She was trying to be fancy and stumbled and almost fell. "Oops! Hee hee hee!" She giggled for some time at that.
"She's got it bad." Petrichor sighed.
"Bad? Oh! Of course..!" Inkwell nodded.
"CONVERSION EUPHORIA!" Pet and Inkwell said together.
Paige was galloping now, in circles around them. Other ponies were avoiding the scene for fear of being trampled.
"Was I this bad?" Inkwell glanced at Petrichor.
"Naw. You were positively sedate. Intellectual about it. Hardly affected you at all." Petrichor called to Paige, to get her to settle down.
Inkwell considered that for a moment. "I've read that conversion euphoria affects every Newfoal differently. Some become almost drunk on it, others it hardly affects at all. It has something to do with individual genetics and brain chemis..."
"I AM A POOOOONNNNAAAAYYYY!!!!!" Paige yelled at the world in general - some of the ponies on the street giggled and waved, other just shook their heads and muttered something about Newfoals being silly.
"I feel cheated now." Inkwell watched as Paige gamboled, leaping and hopping, over to her.
"OH, you should have seen Pet, Inks!" Paige was breathing hard from running and jumping about.
"How so?"
"Don't listen to her, Inks!" Pet shook her head.
"Pet ran around the whole apartment! She bounced on the couch - that's why it had that saggy spot! She bucked the door open - those two broken bits on the bedroom door? That was her!" Paige was smiling and grinning at all the cottages as they made their way down the street.
"Why'd she kick the door?" Inkwell tried to imagine the event.
"Because she could!" Paige grinned wickedly. "After being in that wheelchair, she was a wildpony for almost a week! We got so many complaints for noise - she went muffin' nuts!"
Petrichor hung her head and ruffled her wings.
"So... how's it feel now?" Inkwell and Petrichor had been asking Paige for updates on her experiences as a brand new pony since they had been rescued and transported to Equestria in a burst of light. They only talked about meeting Luna in hushed tones, late at night. It was just too special, too sacred an event to speak of casually during the day.
"I feel POWERFUL!!!" Paige's shout startled a pale violet pony carrying a basket of flowers, she jumped slightly, so Petrichor waved at her in apology and Inkwell looked briefly down, ears flat, in embarrassment. "I may have lost Lil' Slugger, but now..." Paige stopped in the street and bucked the air with her back hooves "...now I've got two new Lil' Sluggers and I feel like I could buck down a fluffin' archology!"
"I bet you could!" Inkwell was impressed with the sheer stamina and power that Paige possessed. She had become an earthpony, well muscled, sky blue with a darker blue mane and tail. She was magnificent.
"Fluffin'???" Petrichor was incredulous. "That's new."
"Yeah, fluffin'! Like it?" Paige danced about, giddy. "Oh! And I am not 'Paige' anymore! I am Shinyhooves!"
Petrichor stopped and facehoofed. "No, you are NOT 'Shinyhooves'."
Paige held up her right foreleg "But LOOK at them! They are SOOOO shiny!"
Inkwell sighed again. She felt like she had been sighing at one thing or another the entire day. "Yes, they are very, very shiny, but 'Shinyhooves' is not a good name. Seriously. Wait until you are over the worst of the euphoria before you try to pick a pony name, OK?"
"Oh come on, party pooper!" Paige - or Shinyhooves - nickered and tried to strike a dramatic pose. "I can always change it. No law in Equestria says you gots to keep your name. I could change it tomorrow!"
"She has a point, Inks." Petrichor unhappily agreed. "She could have a different name for each day of the week and it would be cool here. Annoying and confusing, maybe, but totally cool."
"I am... 'Joy Shinyhooves!' Because that is what I feel, and that is what these are!" Paige - Joy - bucked, then reared, waggling her hooves and laughing the whole time.
"I think we finally have an explanation for all the crazy Newfoal names now." Inkwell commiserated with Pet "They pick them while high on conversion euphoria."
"I originally wanted to call myself 'Brightwings Lightningflash' but Paige talked me out of it." Petrichor half-smiled at Inkwell as they continued towards the train station.
"JOY!" The blue earthpony interrupted. "I'm JOY SHINYHOOVES!"
"Oh, sweet Luna..." Pet looked aghast "...She's serious about it, isn't she?"
"I'm JOY! I'm JOY! I am soooo filled with JOY!" Paige was bouncing now, on her hooves, her eyes little inverted smiles of ecstatic happiness.
"I guess she's 'Joy' now, but that 'Shinyhooves' part has to go." Inkwell was getting very good at sighing today. She was thinking of going into it professionally. "Humor her, until the euphoria wears off."
Petrichor had to pull away from a big sloppy kiss from the overexcited earthpony "IF it wears off!"
"I hope it NEVER DOES!" Joy Shinyhooves, the very silly blue earthpony romped around, seemingly tireless.
"Earthpony stamina. It will destroy us, you know that, don't you?" Inkwell shook her head as they walked. "I feel exhausted just watching her. I'm already eager for bed, and the day isn't half over!'
"You actually think you are going to get any sleep tonight again?" Petrichor yawned. "Earthpony stamina! There are good points too, you know." Pet gave a wicked, naughty grin. Inkwell returned it.
"Yes, there are compensations, I suppose." Inkwell turned to the prancing Joy. "So, 'Shinyhooves'... you still happy?"
Joy stopped in the street and thoughtfully considered, hoof to muzzle, pondering. "No. No I am not happy." She suddenly beamed like a star going nova "I AM SUPER-DUPER UBER-HAPPY!!!"
"Oh for Pony's sake!" Inkwell had no more head shaking or sighing left, and had to resort to emergency facehoofing instead.
Petrichor laughed. "Come on, Inks, let's get her to the train. Once we're relocated, and in our new house, we can tie her down on the bed for a while."
Joy Shinyhooves suddenly spun and grinned broadly at Petrichor and Inkwell. "Promise???"
Rose Cottage sat at the intersection of Branmash and Kimberwicke Lane in Clydesdale. It was a lovely, rambling Tudor-style cottage, with a wide, green lawn covered with thick, tasty grasses. Near the road grew flowers of every flavor, and in the back was a well-kept vegetable and fruit garden. The sides of the cottage had trellises upon which grew roses which climbed nearly to the top of the two-story home.
The garden and the grounds were the work of the younger earthpony mare that Rose had taken in. Rose had felt lonely for some years since Petal had gotten married to a nice group of ponies and moved away. Rose had spent several decades with Petal Confetti, until the little teal unicorn had gone off on an adventure with a pony named Teacup. The two had become the best of friends, and over the years had become a family, but Rose had never felt comfortable with their little group. They were so much younger, and when they took over the Provender farm, well, Rose had elected to stay in her cottage. Rose loved her cottage. It was more than just a house, it was her proper and true home, and she knew that with every fiber of her being.
When after a few decades of living alone - or was it longer? It was hard to tell, what with how long the living was in Equestria. The years just flew by, and... well, anyway, when Rose had met the sad peach-colored earthpony and heard her story - her beloved husband had died and she was so very alone - the only thing to do was to bring her home. It just seemed the right thing to do, since they were old friends and all, and truth be told, they got along as if they had been close and loving sisters their entire lives.
Rose flipped through her scrapbook. Caprice had one too, it seemed most elder mares basically came with scrapbooks, it was like some kind of requirement. It was also a comfort. A scrapbook could hold the details of a life, long after the events were history, and it could awaken old feelings, good and bad, precious treasures each and every one.
It didn't seem to be there. Rose began flipping the pages, using her right wing to whip them over. Wings were for more than flying, Rose often said. Of course, using them for all sorts of things meant occasionally losing the odd feather, and a copper pinion fluttered down onto the current page. "Ah." Rose took her lost feather in her teeth and set it aside. There were uses for feathers, and she had a strong 'waste not, want not' ethic, likely derived from her life back on earth, long, long, long ago. That was a place of scarcity, old earth was. Never enough. Not like Equestria. Still, habits are hard to break.
"What are you looking for?" Caprice ambled in. She was old now, and her peach coat was streaked with touches of gray, and her mane with white. Rose's mane had turned almost entirely white long ago, though she was proud of her copper-red coat. Somehow that still looked young, even though she was older than Caprice. Her bright coat was a matter of some pride to Rose.
"Oh... I can't find anything in here about my days on the potion project. I worked on it, you know. Had top-level security clearance and everything!" Rose continued to flip through her scrapbook, brushing the pages with her wing and occasionally using her lips when a page was stuck or didn't want to behave.
"I remember. You told me much later, after we met again in Equestria. You said you did something that made potion possible." Caprice curled up next to Rose on the wide, old sofa.
"Yes. I did something or other to the nano... stuff. Because the mighty chondria were acting up or something. I don't remember anymore, not that it's the least bit important, but... I was just sure I had something about it in here, only..." Rose was nearing the end of her scrapbook, but it only contained things from her long life in Equestria. Cards and letters from her patients, pictures of the Clydesdale Clinic, back when she worked there, the certificate from the College Of Unicorn Medicine citing her as an exceptional physician. That was quite the honor - not many pegasai went into medicine. It was not as easy without magic and a horn. But then a knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants, not to mention a good understanding of physiology took care of most things. Not every clinic had to fix every problem. It had been a grand career.
'Wasn't there a notebook? Something you wrote during that time?" Caprice had left for a bit, while Rose was lost in her memories. She had returned with tea and sweet fennel biscuits.
"Oh... thank you darlin'. What a sweety you are! Tea... and biscuits too! Oh, that's nice!" Rose took a nibble of biscuit. Just right, not too sweet. Rose had never liked the super-sugary things most ponies seemed to enjoy. She had always been a savory-favoring pony. "You know... you were always my favorite conversion, back in the Bureau. Always my favorite."
"I know." Caprice sipped her tea. Rose had told her that probably hundreds, if not thousands of times over the decades. There was no way it could not be true.
"Notebook, huh?" Rose seemed lost down the corridors of her memory for a long time. "Yeah, there was a notebook. I don't know whatever happened to it, though. I think they made me leave it behind. I think we weren't allowed to take anything with us from the project. Too many secrets. Too many things they didn't want to have known. Humans always were like that, you know. Miserable piles of secrets the lot of them." The copper pegasus sipped her tea. "Mostly because they were always doing naughty things they needed to keep secret, if you want to know the truth of it!"
"I was human once too, Rose." Sometimes the older pegasus seemed to forget that fact. Caprice wasn't sure whether it was sad that this was so, because it suggested that her dear friend's memory was fading, or it was a glad compliment, suggesting just how well she had turned her life around. Caprice had worked very, very hard to be a proper pony, and to leave her less than kindly or good origins behind.
"Oh, that's right. Sorry dear." Rose closed her scrapbook. Nothing. Nothing remained of her human days except her memories, and those would not last forever. "Caprice? Do you ever miss it?"
"What?"
Rose stretched her wings and folded them. "The old world. Earth, I suppose. Being human, maybe. It's hard to remember being human now. I remember I didn't like it much, but after all these years I can't remember why. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I think it was?"
Caprice put down her cup. "I don't miss it. Not a bit. Not the Earth, not being human, not any of it. I remember, Rose. I remember it very well, still, and I wish I didn't have to. Trust me on this, you were right. You were right to not like it, because it was hard. It was difficult, and stressful, and filled with worry and sadness. And it was far, far too easy to be mean or to be bad." Caprice took another biscuit and chewed it thoughtfully. "Time can pave over the pits and cracks in our memory, and make traumatic things seem better than they really were. Earth was a sad place, most of the time. It doesn't do to think about it overly much."
"I suppose you're right. But... there's ponies I miss. Lynn - I wonder whatever happened to her? Oh, she was such a good friend. And... and... the receptionist. I can't recall her name. So many good ponies. The ponies were good, even if the place was hard, I'm sure of that." Rose almost dropped her tea, but managed to stabilize her foreleg grip with the help of her wing.
"They weren't pon..." Caprice started to correct Rose, then smiled and let it be. Ponies. Let them be ponies, they certainly must have become them at some point.
"Do you think any of it survived?" Rose carefully, carefully set her cup down again.
"What?"
"Oh, my old notebook, the records of the potion project, all of that stuff?" Rose eyed the last biscuit and contemplated whether to take it or not. Last biscuits were always such a problem. Then it hit her that she could just share it. Bite half and leave the other half for Caprice. "Did I have something that I felt bad about back then? I almost seem to recall that..."
That made Caprice start, briefly. Rose had never entirely made peace with herself. It was best not to bring up matters better left buried. Forgetfulness was very, very rare in the pony world. It was almost as if Rose had been strangely blessed with it, for it had put her pain to rest long, long ago.
"I can't see, really how it would matter to anypony now. No offense, it was the most important project ever. But now, after it's all over, with the earth gone for... what is it now? Two centuries?" Caprice took the half of the biscuit that Rose had left her and savored it.
"About. I guess. Time's funny here, you know?" Rose reached out for a last sip of tea.
"It is, kind of." Caprice swallowed the last of the last bit of biscuit. "I always thought that what matters isn't what we've done, but what we have yet to do. And we still need to go to the market today. I hear they're opening a 'Starcolts' in town, eventually. Someday. Maybe they'll be starting construction on it. I want to see that."
"You always like to see things being built!" Rose Pastern drank the last of her tea and dropped her cup. "Oops!"
"Nothing to worry about." Caprice eased herself off the sofa and picked the cup up with her teeth and set it down on the little low table. "The tea's all gone, so no harm done."
The notebook, every atom of it personally converted into E-matter, was lowered into the ornately carved chest. The chest was made of something not entirely unlike wood, though there had been no tree, and it was bound and finished with a material not entirely unlike black iron, but the metal had not come from any mountain.
The chest, like the ruined castle far above, up the wide, curving stone staircase, had been brought into existence from swirling chaos long, long ago. Everything here had been made thus. Everything but the forbidden treasures and horrors stored here.
Princess Luna of Equestria released the notebook she had converted and closed the lid of the chest. There was no need to lock it, nopony knew of the crypt under the Everfree Castle, and nopony ever would. She stood by the bricked-up wall, the wall her sister and she had built. The wall that sealed off the black ribbon, and the place that existed through it. The place from whence they all had come - Celestia, Luna, and Discord.
So many treasures and horrors, but the most terrible of all was the truth. Discord had been contained, and someday he might even be redeemed. He had recently been showing signs of sanity. His redemption might even be soon. They were the oldest, the three, and the first, but of all of them, Discord was the most powerful, and the most dangerous. He had made the castle, and the chests, and the stairs, and he had unleashed chaos until he could finally be confined in stone.
The notebook was just one more legacy. Luna's sister tried so hard, so very hard, to help others. First the dragons, and then the gryphons. The diamond dogs just somehow found their way in, but Tia had let them stay, and granted them succor as best she could.
And her latest, the humans. Equestria had been built upon glimpses of their world, Discord had sought any structure he could find, in the beginning, and the universe of Man had been there, within reach, nearby. Tia had simply continued, using what was available to her, when Discord had been imprisoned. She felt such gratitude to that harsh world, for the structure it had provided. It was only natural, perhaps, that she would save those that lived there, in their final hour.
But she had heeded Luna's counsel, just this once, and made a price of such salvation - peace. Peace was the price, and it could only be assured through a change to Equestrian form. This had been done, but it had not happened easily, or without regrets.
Luna chose to walk the steps, up to the surface, in order to experience them. When one could bend time and space to meet one's own hoof, little moments mattered greatly. Perhaps it was pointless, to have preserved the notebook, along with all the other materials from the salvation of humanity. Only the future would tell.
She stood now in the dark Everfree, the scar on Equestria that could never heal. The castle had once been the only solid, unchanging thing in a universe of chaos. It had been her and Tia's safety, and prison. It had been their cage, when they were the pets of their brother, Discord. He had brought it into being as a ruin, ancient from the first moment of its beginning.
The princess of the night lowered the metal seal over the well that housed the staircase, so that the rain would not get in. The rain came and went as it would, here. There was no order in the Everfree, only randomness, so like the Nature of that world called Earth.
Her wings spread, Luna soared into the dark, star-filled sky, the sky she and her sister had crafted together, she the night, her sister the day. Earth. They had taken so much from Earth. Now, they had finally given something back.
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