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Mad Science: Chapter 1

By: -IceMan- on Dec 2nd, 2012 | syntax: None | size: 39.18 KB | hits: 1,028 | expires: Never

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Mad Science
An Anon in Equestria Story
By IceMan
Chapter 1
“Mom, do you think Dad’s going to be happy to see us when we pick him up?” you ask.
>“I don’t know, Anonymous dear. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic.”
>You gaze outside at the looming grey clouds, drizzling a bit of rain onto the car windows.
>Your father has been away for almost six months now doing research in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
>He’d sent you lots of pictures: pictures of giant red spiders and beetles, monkeys swinging from tree to tree like acrobats in a Russian circus, gigantic flowers the size of your head, and all sorts of other amazing things.
>You hope he may have brought back something from the jungle for you.
>You roll up to the airport and jump out of the car, smooshing your face against the glass of the arrival terminal.
“Do you see him yet, Mom?”
>“Not yet. Wait, there’s Dr. Lambert.”
>Dr. Lambert was one of your Dad’s colleagues, another biologist.
>Even at the age of seven you enjoyed hearing them discuss new species found all of the globe, genetic sequencing, and the myriad other topics of field biologists over the kitchen table.
>He was wheeling a black suitcase out of the terminal.
>There is something wrong, though.
>He should be happy to be back home.
>Instead, he wears the glum look: eyebrows down, mouth in a slight frown like a fish.
>As soon as he spots your mother, he rushes out, his bag bumping behind him on the cracks in the concrete sidewalk.
>“Oh God, Dolores,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
>“What?” Mom replies. “What’s going on?”
“Our guide . . . he had to take us to the eastern border of the Congo, where the rebels are. He said it was a short stop, just a day, no more. But then they came. A massive rebel force swept over our camp. John didn’t make it. We couldn’t find him in the scramble. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
>Mom’s face turns completely white.
>“Anonymous . . . go – go sit in the car.”
“Does this mean Dad’s –” you start.
“Yes, but, sweetie, just go sit in the car for now,” Mom consoles, beginning to sob.
>Dr. Lambert puts his arm around her, and just repeats, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
>Five years later.
“Mom? I’m home.”
>You gaze around the empty foyer.
“Not that you ever are.”
>As usual, your mother is at her second job.
>By day, she works six hours as a secretary at a local printing firm.
>By night, she works in a stem cell laboratory.
>Since you were nine, you were always left home alone in the evenings.
>You didn’t mind, though.
>Bread was always on the table, and frozen dinners were always in the freezer.
>You lug your backpack upstairs and begin to work on the calculus problems you received from your mathematics teacher.
>Though you were still forced to sit with kids who could barely do basic algebra, you still got a bit of mental stimulation from those precious sets of equations.
>As you scribble down the answers to a particularly difficult differential equation, a knock comes at the door.
>You head downstairs and fling it open.
>A police officer stands in the doorframe.
“Is this the residence of Dolores Neizvestnyy?”
>You nod.
>The officer gets down on one knee.
>“I have some bad news, son. Your mother was in a fatal car crash on the freeway. We wanted to see if there was anyone –”
“My father’s dead too.”
>“Oh.”
>The officer shuffles his feet.
>“You’d better come with us, kid. We’ve gotta sort out your situation.”
>From the cloudy skies, the rain began to fall.
>That same year.
>“Look who’s here. Little Anon, walking home from school. Little freaky Anon with no friends.”
“Stuff it, Terrance.”
>Your path home to your grandmother’s house unfortunately took you along the same route that a Terrance Grissom took home as well.
>Generally, you timed your journey so that you were always about ten minutes behind him, but your mathematics teacher didn’t have any more calculus exercises for you to do.
>Terrance grabs your backpack by the strap along the top.
>“I could kill you right now, and toss your body in the creek. No one would ever know,” he whispers into your ear.
“They’d find you. You’re not good at hiding things. And you wouldn’t be able to hide the guilt.”
>He shoves you to the ground and presses his foot onto your back.
>“Ya know what I hate about you, Anonymous Neizvestnyy? You always have the right answers. Too bad you never share them with anyone.”
>Terrance pushes down a little harder.
>“Freaky little Anon. Probably would be in college right now if the school system wasn’t holding him back. Why couldn’t you be like the rest of us normal people and fail a few times? Then maybe you’d get some friends.”
>You can barely breathe by this point.
>Maybe he is going to kill you.
>With what little oxygen is reaching your brain, you begin to formulate an escape.
>You can’t lift him off you.
>He’s too strong.
>His leg is too far away for you to bite him.
>Wait!
>You have your pocket knife.
>You always keep it on your person to open the cans of tuna Grandma puts in your lunch.
>You squirm down to the pocket of your jeans and grab the little oval-shaped lump, then flick open the blade.
>Terrance immediately releases the pressure.
“I’m not afraid to use this. And then I’ll claim self-defense if I kill you.”
>“Okay, okay! Easy, now. I didn’t mean it – ”
“Doesn’t matter to me anyways. I am a freak. And I don’t need friends.”
>Four years later.
>It is a rainy day in February of your senior year, and you have been mandated to meet with the school psychologist.
>As you crack open the door to his office, a glass box like a cuboid fish tank, he greets, “Hello, Anonymous. Please, sit.”
>He motions to the plush black leather office chair in front of his steel desk.
>“Let’s get the basics out of the way, yes? You live with your grandmother. Your parents both died tragically when you were much younger.”
>You nod.
>“I’m very sorry about that, Anonymous. I imagine that was quite traumatic for you.”
>You gaze out the window.
“It was. But I have gone through the five stages of grief by this point. Unless you are of the camp that feels that is false. Psychology is such a messy science.”
>The psychologist smiles and waggles is finger.
>“Too smart for me. Too smart for all of us! Your intellect constantly blows your teachers away, yet they accuse you of not trying in their classes. You rarely turn in work, you’re always questioning them. And yet, you get astounding scores on tests without studying. I’m just looking at your scores from Advanced Physics here: 100%, 99%, 99%, 100%, 97% – slipped up a bit there – 100%.”
“There’s no need to talk about my record. I assume you want to talk to me about my behavioral issues. Why I don’t turn in work?”
>“More than that. You seem to think that everyone is dumber than you.”
“They are.”
>“And you might be correct, but it’s not okay to outwardly display that.”
>You consider this.
>“There’s more. Anonymous, do you consider anyone on campus to be your friend?”
>You pause and think for a moment.
“No. No, I do not.”
>“Do you, perhaps, wish to have any friends? You can be completely honest with me. Say what you like.”
“No. Not with the morons that populate this school.”
>“That’s what I was afraid of. Anonymous, it is not exactly mentally healthy for an adolescent to have no one whom he considers a friend.”
“I don’t need friends,” you growl. “I don’t need other people to survive.”
>The psychologist interlaces his fingers.
>“What is life with your grandmother like?”
“Quiet. Grandmother prefers to leave me alone. She doesn’t like speaking English, or cooking anything other than food from the ‘old country.’ She insists on doing everything traditionally. I have to handle a lot of things myself. If it weren’t for me, we probably wouldn’t be paying electric bills or have any internet or phone service.”
>“Death often leads us to become quite mature in a short period of time,” the shrink muses. “You see the others as childish, irresponsible, unintelligent, and dependent on others. You made yourself. You constantly went out and did what most children could never do. And that is to be admired. But scoffing at those around you is not.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to suddenly turn into a nicer person overnight.”
>“No. You’re not; you’re right. But, at the very least, you need to put up a show that you don’t, for lack of a more eloquent way of putting it, hate everyone’s guts. That means doing your homework, even if you already know all the answers, and at least trying to be nice to your peers and teachers. And, maybe, who knows! Maybe you’ll find some that like you back.”
>All that passes between the two of you is patter on droplets on the roof.
“I don’t wish to re-learn what I already know. Is there any way I could possibly get moved into the early graduation track?”
>The psychologist shakes his head.
>“The school doesn’t have the resources at this point. We’ve never had a kid like you, Anonymous.”
“And I don’t like the idea of putting up a façade for people. It’s lying.”
>“It’s the only way to get by in this world. We all have to deal with people we don’t like.”
>The rain falls down.
“I guess that concludes this session.”
>“If you ever need me, I’m always here.”
>You turn to leave.
“Oh, and I’d be happy to discuss the latest developments in psych if you’re ever interested,” the doctor adds. “I haven’t had someone to talk to about the news in my field who really understands it for a few years.”
>Eight years later.
>The present day.
>“I’m sorry, Anonymous. I can’t authorize the department give you any more of the money that was donated to the Department of Physics and Astronomy for your research. You’ve already consumed ten thousand dollars, much more than the department ever gives to most students.”
“But that’s ridiculous. Most of the other graduates are working on worthless experiments, and here I am, slaving over something which could completely change our ideas of the multiverse theory, and I’m given the short end of the stick!”
>“I’m still not going to authorize it. Whatever more money you need, you’ll have to get from your own funds.”
>You storm out of your professor’s office.
>He’s always so stubborn, never putting any faith in you.
>It doesn’t help that the university you are working for pays its football coach at least five times that of its professors.
“A research institution my ass . . .” you mutter as you head downstairs, though internally you rationalize that more money is spent on research than it is on sports.
>It’s always been that way for you, the idiots of the world getting the easy hand up while you scrambled up the cliffs on your own feeble strength.
>Unless you could build a ladder, you think, chuckling a bit to yourself.
>No government agencies wanted to give a grant for your cutting-edge research, and now not the school was denying you a single penny.
>Next they’ll probably shut off the electricity to your office and laboratory in the basement.
>You walk into your cramped office, decked with posters of particle physics equations and lists of bosons, quarks, and leptons, and sit down in your hard plastic swivel chair to begin sifting through the days e-mails.
>“The Physics Dorm is hosting a party!” one proudly declares in its opening message.
>Of course it is, you’ve seen the hundred flyers plastered just on your floor.
>Something to not go to while you work on your project.
>Someone raps on the door.
>“Hello?”
>You spin around in your office chair.
“Ah. You must be the new undergrad intern,” you say.
>“Yeah . . . uh, is there anything I could do?” the short, thin student replies. “My name’s Robert, by the way.”
“Not today. No one comes in on Friday afternoons, for the most part. And I prefer not to be bothered. I have important calculations to run.”
>“Oh . . . alright then.”
>The intern softly shuts the door.
>You’ve already placed his name in the short-term memory pile, to be forgotten in a few hours.
>You run a few more checks on some equations and programs, testing the viability of your experiment for the umpteenth time, and then walk out of the office and to the elevator to the basement.
>As you head down, you check your watch.
>It’s only 11:00 AM.
>It’ll be a long workday, then.
“I’ve done it! It's finished!”
>You are Anonymous, and you are a genius, a fact of which you remind yourself at least once a day.
>For the last six months you have been constructing a dimensional transporter in the basement laboratory of your university’s physics department, a room which you accepted gratefully, for, as you also remind yourself often, no other student truly understood your intellect and classes bored you.
>You like being in a quiet place, where you can just think and work undistracted.
>The room is dark and grimy, with a grey scuffed concrete floor and fluorescent lights which only illuminate the room about halfway, as it is currently almost 1:00 AM.
>Every whiteboard is covered in red, black, and blue scribbling of complex diagrams and mathematical formulae, mostly large rings with arrows pointing at them and large advanced calculus problems spreading over half the board with the answer circled in a big looping stroke.
>In the center of the room was your creation: a great metal ring with two big tesla coils (or at least, to a layman, that’s what they appeared to be) pointing to the center from the left and right sides and a large glowing cylinder protruding from the top.
>A little ramp leads up to a steel platform at the bottom of the ring, and a large red fuse box lever pokes out from the side, currently in the off position.
>It is made of ramshackle parts you have scrounged from the school’s outdated cyclotron, pieces of the cheapest stainless steel you could find, and dozens of wires spreading everywhere like cobwebs on an old house.
>This monstrous device is your baby.
>This is your dimensional transporter, created to send its user across universes.
>You raise your hand and wipe the beads of sweat off your brow.
>The final screw was in on the plating surrounding the particle accelerator.
>Giggling a bit, you climb down from your ladder and place the drill you were carrying back in the toolbox.
“Now to see if it works,” you say to no one in particular.
>You walk over, don a yellow rubber suit with a big black radiation symbol on it, and slip the plastic-screened hood over your head.
>Then, you grab a small canister of compressed air and slip it into the suit's backpack, which causes the helmet to pressurize with a comforting hiss.
>With the suit on, you are safe from most forms of radiation.
>Opening a small wire cage, you coax a white rat from the vivarium out and grab its long pink tail.
>Frightened, the animal squeals as you yank it around to break a cracker from your pocket on the bottom of the ring and tie a bit of red rope around its leg.
>You release the rat, and, as it begins to munch on the cracker crumbs, you pull the switch.
>Two blinding flashes, almost like those of an arc welder, race around the ring.
>The transporter begins to hum and spark as about 300 million volts of electrical energy arcs around the ring in the form of electrons, smashing into each other at the two focusing coils.
>A bright spark leaps between the two coils, followed quickly by dozens more, collecting in the center of the ring.
>Eventually, a small glowing blue hole appears, then begins to grow, consuming a disc of space inside the ring.
>The rodent screams in fright again as the disc scrapes his back before disappearing in a burst of blue-white sparks.
>You then tug on the rope. The rat comes back out of the portal, still squealing its head off, but otherwise unharmed.
“It works!” you shout happily as you shut the portal off. “Everything works exactly as I predicted!”
>A mile-wide grin covers your face behind your protective screen.
>Almost skipping, you walk over to your desk and grab a Geiger counter.
>Outside, the radiation measures just over 200 roentgens.
>Well, isn’t it nice that you have your radiation suit?
“Now to check inside the transporter,” you once again say to yourself, humming a little bit of Mozart to yourself as you step inside the ring.
>You really wished you had made that switch was secure.
>For many days later in your life you would wonder how everything would have been if you had just checked the switch once more.
>You were almost 99% sure you had secured it, but Fate is a gambling woman.
>As you step onto the platform you barely hear the switch suddenly click down into the on position.
>You remain oblivious to the crackling of the accelerator as trillions of electrons go speeding around you, causing the focusing coils to glow and spark, and your last words in this dimension are:
“Hm. The radiation levels seem to spiking, what’s going on?”
>Maybe it was your excitement, maybe it was your pride, but whatever the case, Anonymous the genius had just made the biggest foolish blunder he could ever make.
>To say the travel was painful would be an understatement.
>This is like the time you were welding two pieces of steel together and a bit of molten metal burned through your epidermis.
>Except this time it's everywhere.
>The inside of the wormhole, for that is what you have created by blasting a point in space with high energy particles, is an intense shimmering blue white, much like the portal you created.
>Your Geiger counter clicks rapidly as it is assaulted with energetic subatomic particles.
>All that comes out of your mouth is a soundless scream, while your eyes glaze over with fear.
>There doesn't appear to be any air outside of your radiation suit, and the inside is quickly becoming stale with carbon dioxide.
>A little LED in the right corner of your helmet is glowing red, indicating your compressed air canister is empty.
>Great, not only are you going to suffocate, but you will be dead between universes.
>No one stays in interuniversal space for long before the high energy particles slowly erode the structure of anything of any size that collides with them.
>After what feels like a second, or maybe it was a billion years, you suddenly feel pulled towards an exit, and, in a similar timeframe, you are pulled through a second portal and land on your back on solid ground with a loud thump.
>You swear as your spine slams into the dirt, and you begin to cough.
>Your lungs feel like a thick claw has grasped around them, squeezing them like a blunt guillotine.
>No air!
>Brain shutting down!
>Must get helmet off . . . .
>Blackness embraces you.
>Above you, the portal closes in a flash of sparks, lighting some of the dryer brown blades of grass on fire, scorching the earth below it, and igniting a nearby dead tree.
>Back on Earth, your precious transporter has overtaxed the physics building's electrical grid, and the fuse for the basement breaks.
>The transporter emits one last gasping burst of sparks before the portal closes on that end as well.
>The best way to get a rescuer's attention if you are lost in the middle of nowhere is to create a giant column of smoke, you would later recall.
>The burning tree near you would have to suffice.
>A billowing plume of soot soon rises from your position, attracting the attention of this universe's denizens.
>They quickly drag you away from the burnt area and bring a raincloud over to extinguish the fire.
>"Maybe we should take off his hat?" someone suggests, and they yank off your helmet.
>"It's knocked out! Check its breathing and somepony get a bucket of water!"
>"On it!"
>"It's still breathing!"
>"Come on, whatever you are, wake up!"
>You feel a hard object hit your cheek, then ice cold liquid pour down onto your face.
>"Wake up!"
>Painfully, you manage to wrench your eyes open, though you wish you hadn't.
>Standing in front of is a crowd of pastel colored, big-eyed horses is staring at you, and the world around you appears to have had the brightness turned up about two times.
>The garish colors sear your retinas.
>You had considered the possibilities of infinite alternate universes since you learned of the theory at the age of twelve, and it looks like one of the possibilities is staring you straight in the face.
"How strange . . ." you mutter.
"What is the mass and charge of an up quark?" you spit out.
>It's a universal constant: the perfect way to test where you are.
>Except, all these creatures are giving you look as if you were speaking gibberish.
>"A what now?" an orange horse with a yellow mane and a Stetson hat asks.
>"He doesn't seem quite right," a white one with a purple mane says. "Just look at that hideous yellow outfit."
>"Quit talking crazy and get to the point: who and what are you, how did you get here, and what do you want with us?" a cyan one with a rainbow mane asks.
"Denizens do not seem to have knowledge of quantum mechanics," you mutter to yourself quietly.
>As you scan the scene in front you, you flip around and see the portal is gone.
"My portal!" you roar.
>You let out a stream of obscenities.
>"Hello?" The rainbow one is speaking again. "You haven't answered my question."
"And you haven't answered mine. Maybe that's too advanced. What is the current age of the universe?"
>"We don't know." Now a purple one is talking.
>Well that's just perfect.
>You don't even know what universe you're in, and can't even say you proved or disproved the multiverse theory if you manage to get out of this madhouse.
>Hoping for salvation, you look up at the sky, which is a brighter shade of blue than you remember.
>The clouds are oddly perfect, like lambs slowly wandering the sky.
"God," you pray. "I know I haven't been your most faithful servant, but, please, end me now."
>Just like every other time you have prayed, you receive no answer.
>Now the natives are looking at you funny again.
>Standing up off the ground, you attempt to dust off your radiation suit.
>Most of the dirt remains stuck to the rubber.
>You take a deep breath and begin to expunge the deepest and most specific definition of your place in the universe and your species.
"My name is Anonymous. I am a human, Eukaryota Animalia Chordata Synapsida Mammalia Primata Hominidae Homini Homo sapiens sapiens. I am from the planet Earth, Sol System, Local Interstellar Cloud, Local Bubble, Orion-Sygnus Arm, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, the Universe."
>The horses continue to look at you oddly as a wide range of strange multi-syllabic words spills from your maw.
"Of course, none of those things mean anything to you. I imagine that, even if you had discovered them, you would call them by other names," you finish.
"I am a university student studying theoretical physics, particularly the realms of teleportation. I had finished constructing a transporter when it somehow managed to turn itself on and bring me here, wherever this is."
"As for what I want with you, the answer is nothing. I want to go home and report that my invention works, then drown myself in liquor so that I forget this entire experience."
>"Well, I could try to teleport you home," the purple one says.
>You notice this horse has a horn, the same color as the rest of its body.
>Great, so unicorns are real now as well.
>You aren't particularly in the mood to question how a society with little to no knowledge of quantum mechanics or astrophysics will be able to transport you through inter-universal space.
"Very good then,” you state matter-of-factly. “Do so immediately."
>The horse's horn begins to glow with a purple aura, and you feel a pins and needles sensation around your body before suddenly being transported into a similar burning hot, airless environment.
>You appear again in a great flash . . . about ten feet from where you were.
"Well, that appears to have been ineffective!" you shout back to the crowd.
>You are stuck here.
>Suddenly, that realization hits you in the gut harder than before.
>The six horses at the front of the crowd walk up to you.
"Please, leave," you croak. "Go away."
>You think of a time when you were constructing a small robot at the age of 10.
>You had all the wires in place, all the lines of computer code working perfectly, but, for some reason, the whole thing just wasn't running.
>You must have checked everything a dozen times, and yet it still was not working.
>You had no one to help you; your parents did not understand what to do.
>"Why won't this just work!" you shouted to the heavens in anguish, kicking the robot over and stubbing your toe on shiny metal skeleton.
>A plastic rectangle fell off, and suddenly you noticed you had forgotten to put the batteries in.
>From that point on, you would always recall that feeling of helplessness and anger when things just weren't working for you.
"I had everything for me. I was about to make the breakthrough of the century," you hiss.
>In times of stress, fear, and anger, the frontal cortex of the human brain, which controls rational thought, tends to shut down, and processing functions are turned over to the amygdala, responsible for emotional responses and "fight or flight" reactions.
"And you animals stole it from me!" you bark, your teeth bared.
"Now I'm stuck in some alternate dimension, surrounding by colorful talking horses -"
>"Ponies," the pink one pipes up.
"Shut up!"
>You whirl around, a murderous look in your eye.
>She shrinks back a bit.
>"Mister . . . Anonymous, was it?" the purple unicorn inquires.
>You nod.
>"My name is Twilight Sparkle. If you need anything, I live in the tree in the center of town."
>She walks away, quickly followed by the six other ponies.
>You wallow in your misery for a while longer.
>Everything is gone: your accomplishments, all wiped away in an instant.
>You need options, and you need them quickly.
>1. Continue wallowing in anger and misery.
>Not the best option, but that's all I can do right now.
>2. Run away.
>Where to?
>Behind you is a large expanse of dark green forest.
>Some crows flap up from the woods, cawing.
>In front of you is a little town, made of half-timbered houses with technicolor roofs, like the tips of crayons poking out of the box.
>Run there and you bring about option 3.
>3. Take up Mrs. Sparkle's offer.
"It's the only option I have."
>If there is one thing you do like about this universe, it is the silence.
>As you walk down the dirt path leading towards the town in the distance, your only audible company is the soft rustling of the wind and the distant chirping of songbirds.
>You have always enjoyed silence.
>It gives you time to think.
>It gives you time to plan out your options.
>What am I going to do after I reach Mrs. Sparkle?
>Ask for a place to stay.
>Find materials for a new transporter.
>Go home.
>Is that even possible?
>It is only impossible if you do not try.
>You eventually reach the outskirts of the town.
>You know, I could have at least ended up in a more interesting universe than this one, you think to yourself.
>I could be in the universe where the dinosaurs were never destroyed, or the universe where the atomic bomb was never dropped on Japan, or something at least somewhat relatable.
>Not this Equine Paradise.
>It also suddenly came to your attention that these ponies also speak English.
>How that even works, you have no idea.
>It's an alternate reality, and, as you mused earlier, anything that is feasible could occur.
>As you shuffle through the streets, you see ponies doing their daily business: selling vegetables at a market stand, painting a picture of the market, running, laughing.
>It's sickeningly quaint.
>As much as it bothered you that there was so much suffering in society, that was the status quo.
>You had come to accept that the world was dark, cold and generally ate people up and spit them out like a child biting into something that tastes foul.
>Glancing around over the rooftops, you catch a glimpse of some leaves and branches and make off in that direction, remembering Twilight's advice.
>As you walk away from the market, the din of the hustle and bustle is muffled and all you can here is the crunching of your hazmat boots on the dry dirt.
>You march up to the front door of the treehouse and lightly rap on the door.
>Faintly, you hear a young boy's voice shout cheerily from inside: "I'll get it!"
>Now standing in the open doorway is a small purple and green talking lizard.
>Fantastic.
"Hello. Is Miss Sparkle home?" you inquire.
>The little lizard simply stares at you, his mouth agape.
>He manages to force his jaw shut with his claw and yells back into the house: "Twilight, there's a shaved talking monkey from the circus here to see you!"
>"Be right down!" Twilight replies.
>"Come inside," Spike stammers to you, and you step through the threshold into a large library.
>Every corner of the inside of this tree is loaded with various vibrantly colored books of myriad shapes and sizes with titles ranging from "Elementary Cooking" to "Necromancy in a Nutshell" to "Rulers of the Griffon Kingdoms."
>On a small table is a wooden bust of some equine creature, surrounded by a few stacks of books.
>The walls are unpainted wood, showing off the growth rings of the inside of the tree.
>A staircase leads down to a basement and up to a small bedroom.
>Twilight steps down the flight of stairs leading up.
>"Hello, Anonymous. Are you feeling better?" she asks.
>That's not what you came here for.
"Why do you care about my 'feelings?'" you snap, your anger suddenly returning. "I barely know you!"
>"Well, excuse me, just trying to be nice!" Twilight retorts.
>You sigh.
"I apologize. I'm still not in a very good mood, if that isn't obvious."
>"I understand, but, please. We just want to help you!"
"Okay. And you can, at least somewhat. I need a place to stay, and I need some tools. Then I can get working on getting home," you explain.
>"Well, I've just sent a letter to Princess Celestia about your arrival; we can visit her in a few days and get a few things sorted out," she reveals.
>Who she sent the letter to is irrelevant.
>How long are you going to be here?
>How long until you can start working on getting home?
"How long specifically?" you demand.
>"Three days."
"Okay," you reply once again.
>There is a pause in the conversation between the two of you.
>"So, Anonymous, what exactly are you?" Twilight suddenly asks, breaking the silence.
"I am exactly what I said I was. I am a human. Eukaryota Animalia –”
>"Okay, you don't need to list off all that again," she says, cutting you off and smiling a bit.
>You smile back.
>"So you truly aren't from this universe?"
"No."
>"Then, tell me all of it: everything about how you got here and the entire history of your people."
“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself here. I have only just arrived, and you’re already asking for the entire tome of history that is contained within my head.”
>"Sorry. I'm just curious. Do you have anything better to do?”
>You run your hands through your hair and look at the floor.
"The second part is a long story. That one will have to wait for a bit. But I can tell you my history - or at least, how I ended up here."
>You take a deep breath.
"I had known for a while that a theoretical way of creating a wormhole was to put enough energy into a single point of space. The question was how much, and I calculated it to be on the order of 152-times-ten-to-the-eighteenth electron volts. To produce that kind of power, you need a particle accelerator, so I scavenged one from my university's old medical labs, attached two focusing coils to the middle so the energy would be guided to a single point in space, and tested it just a few hours ago. It worked. Then I decided to just check for any radiation spikes - I did not want the user to have a higher cancer risk from using it - and, somehow, the transporter must have turned itself on. And what happens next you already know," you explain.
>"Well, I know we don't have any ‘particle accelerators’ here," she replies, and you frown a bit.
"That makes things more difficult," you lament.
>Not just more difficult, practically impossible.
>It took teams of scientists and thousands of dollars to produce a cyclotron, even a small one.
>A challenge then.
>You accept.
"I need a place to stay," you state.
>"You can stay downstairs in the laboratory," Twilight offers. "We've got some blankets and a sleeping bag we can lay out until you get some more permanent arrangements."
>You think for a moment, pondering whether or not you should maybe get a hotel instead before realizing you have no money to rent a room.
"Yes, that would be excellent. Thank you for your hospitality," you proclaim.
>Another awkward pause passes between the unicorn and the human.
>"So . . ." Twilight begins. "You said you would explain your world's history to me."
"Yes, I can do that. I am not so sure how long it will take me, but I will do my best. How about this: if you want me to go more in depth into something, I will, but I will try to explain it all in as briefly as possible."
>"Okay."
>You admire this little unicorn's curiosity, as you have never had someone to share knowledge with or someone who is genuinely interested in your intellect.
>Once again, you inhale deeply, and begin the story of humanity.
>You speak of the rise of the human species from early hominids, to the rise of the first civilizations, and are beginning to break into the rise of Persia when night begins to fall and your stomach growls.
"I think this may have to be our stopping point for now; I need something to eat," you announce.
>"I know exactly where to take you; I think I should introduce you to your rescuers," Twilight responds.
"That's right. I never properly thanked you for that. I was a little too focused on my predicament, I guess, to even notice you saved my life," you say.
>"Are you still angry?" she asks.
"Somewhat, but not at you. You are not to blame for my misfortunes. It would be illogical and pointless to be angry in this situation. It won’t solve anything. I more feel a sense of . . . cosmic irony. Like someone, somewhere is watching and laughing at me for where I am now."
>"Anonymous, are you even sure that a second transporter will even take you home?" Twilight inquires softly.
"No. But that does not mean I should not try."
>"Let's go get some dinner then," she finishes, and the two of you walk out of the library.
"Where are we going exactly?" you ask as you step out until the chilly evening.
>"Sugarcube Corner," Twilight replies, looking back at you. "I've been planning to meet with the girls there tonight; they'll probably understand why I'm late when you show up."
>You cringe a bit at the name.
>Get used to it, Anonymous, you tell yourself.
>This world has different patterns than home.
>Twilight slowly comes to a stop.
>"You may want to take off whatever it is you're wearing."
>You notice that you are still wearing your radiation suit.
>"Go put it downstairs," Twilight suggests. "I'll wait here."
>You walk back inside and down the stairs to the basement.
>The room is dark and a bit musty, with reddish purple wood walls.
>It is filled with several instruments, an electrocardiogram machine, a blood pressure monitor, and an electroencephalograph monitor, and a few drawers which, upon opening, reveal some art supplies and basic tools.
>While interesting that the World of Ponies has these technologies, they are of little use to you in your endeavors unless you decide to scavenge them for scrap metal.
>You see your reflection distorted like in a funhouse mirror in the shiny stainless steel medical equipment.
>Expressionless, you stare at your pale, gaunt, unshaven face and the mop of messy hair on your head for a second before stripping off the radiation suit, which sticks to your body and comes off with a wet slurp from the slimy layer of condensation on the inside.
>Underneath it, you are wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans, wrinkled and damp from being under the wet rubber for so long.
>You also have no shoes, as they would not fit under the hazmat boots.
>They are comfortable work clothes, comfortable studying clothes, and comfortable clothes in general.
>Why bother being fashionable?
>The little film badge on the front is completely white, though you are not surprised by this.
>Interuniversal space is likely to have lots of nasty radiation pockets.
>As you walk upstairs, you catch a passing glance of your reflection again.
"Alright, ready to go," you tell Twilight, who is pacing around outside.
>"Good! You look . . . rugged!" she exclaims.
>Ignoring the comment, you maintain your expressionless face and begin to trudge into the night.
>A few ponies are out as well, wandering the streets.
>Sugarcube Corner is a large house made of what appears to be gingerbread, mortared with cake frosting, and dusted with sprinkles and powdered sugar.
>The lights are on inside, illuminating the ground in front of the edifice, and you hear the faint pulse of an electronic beat coming from the upstairs.
>You stop for bit and stare at the scene in front of you.
>"Anonymous? Is something wrong?" Twilight asks.
"No, no. Just processing everything for a bit."
>She gives you an odd look before opening the door to the restaurant and stepping inside.
>You follow through the entryway.
>"Sugarcube" barely describes the amount of sweets in this place.
>A bakery by day, you guess.
>The interior is cheerful and brightly colored, and several displays for various baked goods.
>At least a dozen multicolored fruit pies sit in a glass case and several frosted cakes lay on porcelain plates in another.
>The music appears to be coming from a small staircase leading up to the upper floor.
>"The party's upstairs, Anonymous," Twilight tells you before clopping up the stairs.
>You sigh.
>Anonymous, if you are going to be here for a few months, you need to be at least acquainted with a few people around you, no matter what their social life may be like, you remind yourself.
>You steel yourself and plunge into the rumpus.
>Stomping up the stairs, you abruptly bump your head on the doorway and enter the room rubbing a fading crimson mark your forehead.
>"Hello girls," you hear Twilight say as you enter.
>"Hello, my dear!"
>"Hiya, Twilight!"
>"Hi."
>"Howdy!"
>"Hey, you're late! What's up?"
>Eventually, they notice you.
>"This is Anonymous. He's calmed down a bit now, and just wants to meet you guys more appropriately," Twilight explains,
"Yes," you reply. "I apologize for my actions earlier today; I wasn't myself. I had just been thrown out of the world of my family, my friends, my successes, and into a world that is completely different and illogical to me with no way to return. It was just an insult to injury. I am the only one to blame for why I am here. Furthermore, you ponies saved my life, and for that I am forever indebted. I still want to return home, but I know that I am not going to be able to do that unless I have the ability to get the materials I need."
>Silence from the six ponies in front of you. The music seems to have stopped as well; someone must have turned it off when you began to speak.
>"Welcome to Equestria, Anon!" the pink one says finally. "I think you're going to like it here more than you think."

create a new version of this paste RAW Paste Data

Mad Science
An Anon in Equestria Story
By IceMan

Chapter 1

“Mom, do you think Dad’s going to be happy to see us when we pick him up?” you ask.
>“I don’t know, Anonymous dear. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic.”
>You gaze outside at the looming grey clouds, drizzling a bit of rain onto the car windows.
>Your father has been away for almost six months now doing research in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
>He’d sent you lots of pictures: pictures of giant red spiders and beetles, monkeys swinging from tree to tree like acrobats in a Russian circus, gigantic flowers the size of your head, and all sorts of other amazing things.
>You hope he may have brought back something from the jungle for you.
>You roll up to the airport and jump out of the car, smooshing your face against the glass of the arrival terminal.
“Do you see him yet, Mom?”
>“Not yet. Wait, there’s Dr. Lambert.”
>Dr. Lambert was one of your Dad’s colleagues, another biologist.
>Even at the age of seven you enjoyed hearing them discuss new species found all of the globe, genetic sequencing, and the myriad other topics of field biologists over the kitchen table.
>He was wheeling a black suitcase out of the terminal.
>There is something wrong, though.
>He should be happy to be back home.
>Instead, he wears the glum look: eyebrows down, mouth in a slight frown like a fish.
>As soon as he spots your mother, he rushes out, his bag bumping behind him on the cracks in the concrete sidewalk.
>“Oh God, Dolores,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
>“What?” Mom replies. “What’s going on?”
“Our guide . . . he had to take us to the eastern border of the Congo, where the rebels are. He said it was a short stop, just a day, no more. But then they came. A massive rebel force swept over our camp. John didn’t make it. We couldn’t find him in the scramble. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
>Mom’s face turns completely white.
>“Anonymous . . . go – go sit in the car.”
“Does this mean Dad’s –” you start.
“Yes, but, sweetie, just go sit in the car for now,” Mom consoles, beginning to sob.
>Dr. Lambert puts his arm around her, and just repeats, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

>Five years later.
 “Mom? I’m home.”
>You gaze around the empty foyer.
“Not that you ever are.”
>As usual, your mother is at her second job.
>By day, she works six hours as a secretary at a local printing firm.
>By night, she works in a stem cell laboratory.
>Since you were nine, you were always left home alone in the evenings.
>You didn’t mind, though.
>Bread was always on the table, and frozen dinners were always in the freezer.
>You lug your backpack upstairs and begin to work on the calculus problems you received from your mathematics teacher.
>Though you were still forced to sit with kids who could barely do basic algebra, you still got a bit of mental stimulation from those precious sets of equations.
>As you scribble down the answers to a particularly difficult differential equation, a knock comes at the door.
>You head downstairs and fling it open.
>A police officer stands in the doorframe.
“Is this the residence of Dolores Neizvestnyy?”
>You nod.
>The officer gets down on one knee.
>“I have some bad news, son. Your mother was in a fatal car crash on the freeway. We wanted to see if there was anyone –”
“My father’s dead too.”
>“Oh.”
>The officer shuffles his feet.
>“You’d better come with us, kid. We’ve gotta sort out your situation.”
>From the cloudy skies, the rain began to fall.

>That same year.
>“Look who’s here. Little Anon, walking home from school. Little freaky Anon with no friends.”
“Stuff it, Terrance.”
>Your path home to your grandmother’s house unfortunately took you along the same route that a Terrance Grissom took home as well.
>Generally, you timed your journey so that you were always about ten minutes behind him, but your mathematics teacher didn’t have any more calculus exercises for you to do.
>Terrance grabs your backpack by the strap along the top.
>“I could kill you right now, and toss your body in the creek. No one would ever know,” he whispers into your ear.
“They’d find you. You’re not good at hiding things. And you wouldn’t be able to hide the guilt.”
>He shoves you to the ground and presses his foot onto your back.
>“Ya know what I hate about you, Anonymous Neizvestnyy? You always have the right answers. Too bad you never share them with anyone.”
>Terrance pushes down a little harder.
>“Freaky little Anon. Probably would be in college right now if the school system wasn’t holding him back. Why couldn’t you be like the rest of us normal people and fail a few times? Then maybe you’d get some friends.”
>You can barely breathe by this point.
>Maybe he is going to kill you.
>With what little oxygen is reaching your brain, you begin to formulate an escape.
>You can’t lift him off you.
>He’s too strong.
>His leg is too far away for you to bite him.
>Wait!
>You have your pocket knife.
>You always keep it on your person to open the cans of tuna Grandma puts in your lunch.
>You squirm down to the pocket of your jeans and grab the little oval-shaped lump, then flick open the blade.
>Terrance immediately releases the pressure.
“I’m not afraid to use this. And then I’ll claim self-defense if I kill you.”
>“Okay, okay! Easy, now. I didn’t mean it – ”
“Doesn’t matter to me anyways. I am a freak. And I don’t need friends.”

>Four years later.
>It is a rainy day in February of your senior year, and you have been mandated to meet with the school psychologist.
>As you crack open the door to his office, a glass box like a cuboid fish tank, he greets, “Hello, Anonymous. Please, sit.”
>He motions to the plush black leather office chair in front of his steel desk.
>“Let’s get the basics out of the way, yes? You live with your grandmother. Your parents both died tragically when you were much younger.”
>You nod.
>“I’m very sorry about that, Anonymous. I imagine that was quite traumatic for you.”
>You gaze out the window.
“It was. But I have gone through the five stages of grief by this point. Unless you are of the camp that feels that is false. Psychology is such a messy science.”
>The psychologist smiles and waggles is finger.
>“Too smart for me. Too smart for all of us! Your intellect constantly blows your teachers away, yet they accuse you of not trying in their classes. You rarely turn in work, you’re always questioning them. And yet, you get astounding scores on tests without studying. I’m just looking at your scores from Advanced Physics here: 100%, 99%, 99%, 100%, 97% – slipped up a bit there – 100%.”
“There’s no need to talk about my record. I assume you want to talk to me about my behavioral issues. Why I don’t turn in work?”
>“More than that. You seem to think that everyone is dumber than you.”
“They are.”
>“And you might be correct, but it’s not okay to outwardly display that.”
>You consider this.
>“There’s more. Anonymous, do you consider anyone on campus to be your friend?”
>You pause and think for a moment.
“No. No, I do not.”
>“Do you, perhaps, wish to have any friends? You can be completely honest with me. Say what you like.”
“No. Not with the morons that populate this school.”
>“That’s what I was afraid of. Anonymous, it is not exactly mentally healthy for an adolescent to have no one whom he considers a friend.”
“I don’t need friends,” you growl. “I don’t need other people to survive.”
>The psychologist interlaces his fingers.
>“What is life with your grandmother like?”
“Quiet. Grandmother prefers to leave me alone. She doesn’t like speaking English, or cooking anything other than food from the ‘old country.’ She insists on doing everything traditionally. I have to handle a lot of things myself. If it weren’t for me, we probably wouldn’t be paying electric bills or have any internet or phone service.”
>“Death often leads us to become quite mature in a short period of time,” the shrink muses. “You see the others as childish, irresponsible, unintelligent, and dependent on others. You made yourself. You constantly went out and did what most children could never do. And that is to be admired. But scoffing at those around you is not.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to suddenly turn into a nicer person overnight.”
>“No. You’re not; you’re right. But, at the very least, you need to put up a show that you don’t, for lack of a more eloquent way of putting it, hate everyone’s guts. That means doing your homework, even if you already know all the answers, and at least trying to be nice to your peers and teachers. And, maybe, who knows! Maybe you’ll find some that like you back.”
>All that passes between the two of you is patter on droplets on the roof.
“I don’t wish to re-learn what I already know. Is there any way I could possibly get moved into the early graduation track?”
>The psychologist shakes his head.
>“The school doesn’t have the resources at this point. We’ve never had a kid like you, Anonymous.”
“And I don’t like the idea of putting up a façade for people. It’s lying.”
>“It’s the only way to get by in this world. We all have to deal with people we don’t like.”
>The rain falls down.
“I guess that concludes this session.”
>“If you ever need me, I’m always here.” 
>You turn to leave.
“Oh, and I’d be happy to discuss the latest developments in psych if you’re ever interested,” the doctor adds. “I haven’t had someone to talk to about the news in my field who really understands it for a few years.”

>Eight years later.
>The present day.
>“I’m sorry, Anonymous. I can’t authorize the department give you any more of the money that was donated to the Department of Physics and Astronomy for your research. You’ve already consumed ten thousand dollars, much more than the department ever gives to most students.”
“But that’s ridiculous. Most of the other graduates are working on worthless experiments, and here I am, slaving over something which could completely change our ideas of the multiverse theory, and I’m given the short end of the stick!”
>“I’m still not going to authorize it. Whatever more money you need, you’ll have to get from your own funds.”
>You storm out of your professor’s office.
>He’s always so stubborn, never putting any faith in you.
>It doesn’t help that the university you are working for pays its football coach at least five times that of its professors.
“A research institution my ass . . .” you mutter as you head downstairs, though internally you rationalize that more money is spent on research than it is on sports.
>It’s always been that way for you, the idiots of the world getting the easy hand up while you scrambled up the cliffs on your own feeble strength.
>Unless you could build a ladder, you think, chuckling a bit to yourself.
>No government agencies wanted to give a grant for your cutting-edge research, and now not the school was denying you a single penny.
>Next they’ll probably shut off the electricity to your office and laboratory in the basement.
>You walk into your cramped office, decked with posters of particle physics equations and lists of bosons, quarks, and leptons, and sit down in your hard plastic swivel chair to begin sifting through the days e-mails.
>“The Physics Dorm is hosting a party!” one proudly declares in its opening message.
>Of course it is, you’ve seen the hundred flyers plastered just on your floor.
>Something to not go to while you work on your project.
>Someone raps on the door.
>“Hello?”
>You spin around in your office chair.
“Ah. You must be the new undergrad intern,” you say.
>“Yeah . . . uh, is there anything I could do?” the short, thin student replies. “My name’s Robert, by the way.”
“Not today. No one comes in on Friday afternoons, for the most part. And I prefer not to be bothered. I have important calculations to run.”
>“Oh . . . alright then.”
>The intern softly shuts the door.
>You’ve already placed his name in the short-term memory pile, to be forgotten in a few hours.
>You run a few more checks on some equations and programs, testing the viability of your experiment for the umpteenth time, and then walk out of the office and to the elevator to the basement.
>As you head down, you check your watch.
>It’s only 11:00 AM.
>It’ll be a long workday, then.

 “I’ve done it! It's finished!”
>You are Anonymous, and you are a genius, a fact of which you remind yourself at least once a day.
>For the last six months you have been constructing a dimensional transporter in the basement laboratory of your university’s physics department, a room which you accepted gratefully, for, as you also remind yourself often, no other student truly understood your intellect and classes bored you. 
>You like being in a quiet place, where you can just think and work undistracted.
>The room is dark and grimy, with a grey scuffed concrete floor and fluorescent lights which only illuminate the room about halfway, as it is currently almost 1:00 AM.
>Every whiteboard is covered in red, black, and blue scribbling of complex diagrams and mathematical formulae, mostly large rings with arrows pointing at them and large advanced calculus problems spreading over half the board with the answer circled in a big looping stroke.
>In the center of the room was your creation: a great metal ring with two big tesla coils (or at least, to a layman, that’s what they appeared to be) pointing to the center from the left and right sides and a large glowing cylinder protruding from the top. 
>A little ramp leads up to a steel platform at the bottom of the ring, and a large red fuse box lever pokes out from the side, currently in the off position. 
>It is made of ramshackle parts you have scrounged from the school’s outdated cyclotron, pieces of the cheapest stainless steel you could find, and dozens of wires spreading everywhere like cobwebs on an old house. 
>This monstrous device is your baby. 
>This is your dimensional transporter, created to send its user across universes.
>You raise your hand and wipe the beads of sweat off your brow. 
>The final screw was in on the plating surrounding the particle accelerator.
>Giggling a bit, you climb down from your ladder and place the drill you were carrying back in the toolbox.
“Now to see if it works,” you say to no one in particular.
>You walk over, don a yellow rubber suit with a big black radiation symbol on it, and slip the plastic-screened hood over your head.
>Then, you grab a small canister of compressed air and slip it into the suit's backpack, which causes the helmet to pressurize with a comforting hiss.
>With the suit on, you are safe from most forms of radiation.
>Opening a small wire cage, you coax a white rat from the vivarium out and grab its long pink tail. 
>Frightened, the animal squeals as you yank it around to break a cracker from your pocket on the bottom of the ring and tie a bit of red rope around its leg. 
>You release the rat, and, as it begins to munch on the cracker crumbs, you pull the switch.
>Two blinding flashes, almost like those of an arc welder, race around the ring. 
>The transporter begins to hum and spark as about 300 million volts of electrical energy arcs around the ring in the form of electrons, smashing into each other at the two focusing coils. 
>A bright spark leaps between the two coils, followed quickly by dozens more, collecting in the center of the ring. 
>Eventually, a small glowing blue hole appears, then begins to grow, consuming a disc of space inside the ring. 
>The rodent screams in fright again as the disc scrapes his back before disappearing in a burst of blue-white sparks.
>You then tug on the rope. The rat comes back out of the portal, still squealing its head off, but otherwise unharmed.
“It works!” you shout happily as you shut the portal off. “Everything works exactly as I predicted!” 
>A mile-wide grin covers your face behind your protective screen. 
>Almost skipping, you walk over to your desk and grab a Geiger counter. 
>Outside, the radiation measures just over 200 roentgens. 
>Well, isn’t it nice that you have your radiation suit?
“Now to check inside the transporter,” you once again say to yourself, humming a little bit of Mozart to yourself as you step inside the ring.
>You really wished you had made that switch was secure. 
>For many days later in your life you would wonder how everything would have been if you had just checked the switch once more. 
>You were almost 99% sure you had secured it, but Fate is a gambling woman.
>As you step onto the platform you barely hear the switch suddenly click down into the on position. 
>You remain oblivious to the crackling of the accelerator as trillions of electrons go speeding around you, causing the focusing coils to glow and spark, and your last words in this dimension are:
“Hm. The radiation levels seem to spiking, what’s going on?”
>Maybe it was your excitement, maybe it was your pride, but whatever the case, Anonymous the genius had just made the biggest foolish blunder he could ever make.
>To say the travel was painful would be an understatement. 
>This is like the time you were welding two pieces of steel together and a bit of molten metal burned through your epidermis. 
>Except this time it's everywhere.
>The inside of the wormhole, for that is what you have created by blasting a point in space with high energy particles, is an intense shimmering blue white, much like the portal you created. 
>Your Geiger counter clicks rapidly as it is assaulted with energetic subatomic particles.
>All that comes out of your mouth is a soundless scream, while your eyes glaze over with fear. 
>There doesn't appear to be any air outside of your radiation suit, and the inside is quickly becoming stale with carbon dioxide.
>A little LED in the right corner of your helmet is glowing red, indicating your compressed air canister is empty. 
>Great, not only are you going to suffocate, but you will be dead between universes. 
>No one stays in interuniversal space for long before the high energy particles slowly erode the structure of anything of any size that collides with them.
>After what feels like a second, or maybe it was a billion years, you suddenly feel pulled towards an exit, and, in a similar timeframe, you are pulled through a second portal and land on your back on solid ground with a loud thump. 
>You swear as your spine slams into the dirt, and you begin to cough. 
>Your lungs feel like a thick claw has grasped around them, squeezing them like a blunt guillotine.
>No air! 
>Brain shutting down! 
>Must get helmet off . . . . 
>Blackness embraces you.
>Above you, the portal closes in a flash of sparks, lighting some of the dryer brown blades of grass on fire, scorching the earth below it, and igniting a nearby dead tree. 
>Back on Earth, your precious transporter has overtaxed the physics building's electrical grid, and the fuse for the basement breaks. 
>The transporter emits one last gasping burst of sparks before the portal closes on that end as well.

>The best way to get a rescuer's attention if you are lost in the middle of nowhere is to create a giant column of smoke, you would later recall. 
>The burning tree near you would have to suffice. 
>A billowing plume of soot soon rises from your position, attracting the attention of this universe's denizens.
>They quickly drag you away from the burnt area and bring a raincloud over to extinguish the fire.
>"Maybe we should take off his hat?" someone suggests, and they yank off your helmet.
>"It's knocked out! Check its breathing and somepony get a bucket of water!"
>"On it!"
>"It's still breathing!"
>"Come on, whatever you are, wake up!"
>You feel a hard object hit your cheek, then ice cold liquid pour down onto your face.
>"Wake up!"
>Painfully, you manage to wrench your eyes open, though you wish you hadn't.
>Standing in front of is a crowd of pastel colored, big-eyed horses is staring at you, and the world around you appears to have had the brightness turned up about two times.
>The garish colors sear your retinas.
>You had considered the possibilities of infinite alternate universes since you learned of the theory at the age of twelve, and it looks like one of the possibilities is staring you straight in the face.
"How strange . . ." you mutter. 
"What is the mass and charge of an up quark?" you spit out. 
>It's a universal constant: the perfect way to test where you are.
>Except, all these creatures are giving you look as if you were speaking gibberish.
>"A what now?" an orange horse with a yellow mane and a Stetson hat asks.
>"He doesn't seem quite right," a white one with a purple mane says. "Just look at that hideous yellow outfit."
>"Quit talking crazy and get to the point: who and what are you, how did you get here, and what do you want with us?" a cyan one with a rainbow mane asks.
"Denizens do not seem to have knowledge of quantum mechanics," you mutter to yourself quietly.
>As you scan the scene in front you, you flip around and see the portal is gone.
"My portal!" you roar.
>You let out a stream of obscenities.
>"Hello?" The rainbow one is speaking again. "You haven't answered my question."
"And you haven't answered mine. Maybe that's too advanced. What is the current age of the universe?"
>"We don't know." Now a purple one is talking.
>Well that's just perfect. 
>You don't even know what universe you're in, and can't even say you proved or disproved the multiverse theory if you manage to get out of this madhouse.
>Hoping for salvation, you look up at the sky, which is a brighter shade of blue than you remember. 
>The clouds are oddly perfect, like lambs slowly wandering the sky.
"God," you pray. "I know I haven't been your most faithful servant, but, please, end me now."
>Just like every other time you have prayed, you receive no answer.
>Now the natives are looking at you funny again.
>Standing up off the ground, you attempt to dust off your radiation suit.
>Most of the dirt remains stuck to the rubber.
>You take a deep breath and begin to expunge the deepest and most specific definition of your place in the universe and your species.
"My name is Anonymous. I am a human, Eukaryota Animalia Chordata Synapsida Mammalia Primata Hominidae Homini Homo sapiens sapiens. I am from the planet Earth, Sol System, Local Interstellar Cloud, Local Bubble, Orion-Sygnus Arm, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, the Universe."
>The horses continue to look at you oddly as a wide range of strange multi-syllabic words spills from your maw.
"Of course, none of those things mean anything to you. I imagine that, even if you had discovered them, you would call them by other names," you finish.
"I am a university student studying theoretical physics, particularly the realms of teleportation. I had finished constructing a transporter when it somehow managed to turn itself on and bring me here, wherever this is."
"As for what I want with you, the answer is nothing. I want to go home and report that my invention works, then drown myself in liquor so that I forget this entire experience."
>"Well, I could try to teleport you home," the purple one says.
>You notice this horse has a horn, the same color as the rest of its body.
>Great, so unicorns are real now as well.
>You aren't particularly in the mood to question how a society with little to no knowledge of quantum mechanics or astrophysics will be able to transport you through inter-universal space.
"Very good then,” you state matter-of-factly. “Do so immediately."
>The horse's horn begins to glow with a purple aura, and you feel a pins and needles sensation around your body before suddenly being transported into a similar burning hot, airless environment.
>You appear again in a great flash . . . about ten feet from where you were.
"Well, that appears to have been ineffective!" you shout back to the crowd.
>You are stuck here.
>Suddenly, that realization hits you in the gut harder than before.
>The six horses at the front of the crowd walk up to you.
"Please, leave," you croak. "Go away."
>You think of a time when you were constructing a small robot at the age of 10.
>You had all the wires in place, all the lines of computer code working perfectly, but, for some reason, the whole thing just wasn't running.
>You must have checked everything a dozen times, and yet it still was not working.
>You had no one to help you; your parents did not understand what to do.
>"Why won't this just work!" you shouted to the heavens in anguish, kicking the robot over and stubbing your toe on shiny metal skeleton.
>A plastic rectangle fell off, and suddenly you noticed you had forgotten to put the batteries in.
>From that point on, you would always recall that feeling of helplessness and anger when things just weren't working for you.
"I had everything for me. I was about to make the breakthrough of the century," you hiss.
>In times of stress, fear, and anger, the frontal cortex of the human brain, which controls rational thought, tends to shut down, and processing functions are turned over to the amygdala, responsible for emotional responses and "fight or flight" reactions. 
"And you animals stole it from me!" you bark, your teeth bared.
"Now I'm stuck in some alternate dimension, surrounding by colorful talking horses -"
>"Ponies," the pink one pipes up.
"Shut up!"
>You whirl around, a murderous look in your eye. 
>She shrinks back a bit.
>"Mister . . . Anonymous, was it?" the purple unicorn inquires.
>You nod.
>"My name is Twilight Sparkle. If you need anything, I live in the tree in the center of town."
>She walks away, quickly followed by the six other ponies.
>You wallow in your misery for a while longer.
>Everything is gone: your accomplishments, all wiped away in an instant.
>You need options, and you need them quickly.
>1. Continue wallowing in anger and misery.
>Not the best option, but that's all I can do right now.
>2. Run away.
>Where to?
>Behind you is a large expanse of dark green forest.
>Some crows flap up from the woods, cawing.
>In front of you is a little town, made of half-timbered houses with technicolor roofs, like the tips of crayons poking out of the box.
>Run there and you bring about option 3.
>3. Take up Mrs. Sparkle's offer.
"It's the only option I have."
>If there is one thing you do like about this universe, it is the silence.
>As you walk down the dirt path leading towards the town in the distance, your only audible company is the soft rustling of the wind and the distant chirping of songbirds.
>You have always enjoyed silence.
>It gives you time to think.
>It gives you time to plan out your options.
>What am I going to do after I reach Mrs. Sparkle?
>Ask for a place to stay.
>Find materials for a new transporter.
>Go home.
>Is that even possible?
>It is only impossible if you do not try.
>You eventually reach the outskirts of the town.
>You know, I could have at least ended up in a more interesting universe than this one, you think to yourself.
>I could be in the universe where the dinosaurs were never destroyed, or the universe where the atomic bomb was never dropped on Japan, or something at least somewhat relatable.
>Not this Equine Paradise.
>It also suddenly came to your attention that these ponies also speak English.
>How that even works, you have no idea.
>It's an alternate reality, and, as you mused earlier, anything that is feasible could occur.
>As you shuffle through the streets, you see ponies doing their daily business: selling vegetables at a market stand, painting a picture of the market, running, laughing.
>It's sickeningly quaint.
>As much as it bothered you that there was so much suffering in society, that was the status quo.
>You had come to accept that the world was dark, cold and generally ate people up and spit them out like a child biting into something that tastes foul.
>Glancing around over the rooftops, you catch a glimpse of some leaves and branches and make off in that direction, remembering Twilight's advice.
>As you walk away from the market, the din of the hustle and bustle is muffled and all you can here is the crunching of your hazmat boots on the dry dirt.
>You march up to the front door of the treehouse and lightly rap on the door.
>Faintly, you hear a young boy's voice shout cheerily from inside: "I'll get it!"
>Now standing in the open doorway is a small purple and green talking lizard.
>Fantastic.
"Hello. Is Miss Sparkle home?" you inquire.
>The little lizard simply stares at you, his mouth agape.
>He manages to force his jaw shut with his claw and yells back into the house: "Twilight, there's a shaved talking monkey from the circus here to see you!"
>"Be right down!" Twilight replies.
>"Come inside," Spike stammers to you, and you step through the threshold into a large library.
>Every corner of the inside of this tree is loaded with various vibrantly colored books of myriad shapes and sizes with titles ranging from "Elementary Cooking" to "Necromancy in a Nutshell" to "Rulers of the Griffon Kingdoms."
>On a small table is a wooden bust of some equine creature, surrounded by a few stacks of books.
>The walls are unpainted wood, showing off the growth rings of the inside of the tree.
>A staircase leads down to a basement and up to a small bedroom.
>Twilight steps down the flight of stairs leading up.
>"Hello, Anonymous. Are you feeling better?" she asks.
>That's not what you came here for.
"Why do you care about my 'feelings?'" you snap, your anger suddenly returning. "I barely know you!"
>"Well, excuse me, just trying to be nice!" Twilight retorts.
>You sigh.
"I apologize. I'm still not in a very good mood, if that isn't obvious."
>"I understand, but, please. We just want to help you!"
"Okay. And you can, at least somewhat. I need a place to stay, and I need some tools. Then I can get working on getting home," you explain.
>"Well, I've just sent a letter to Princess Celestia about your arrival; we can visit her in a few days and get a few things sorted out," she reveals.
>Who she sent the letter to is irrelevant.
>How long are you going to be here?
>How long until you can start working on getting home?
"How long specifically?" you demand.
>"Three days."
"Okay," you reply once again.
>There is a pause in the conversation between the two of you.
>"So, Anonymous, what exactly are you?" Twilight suddenly asks, breaking the silence.
"I am exactly what I said I was. I am a human. Eukaryota Animalia –”
>"Okay, you don't need to list off all that again," she says, cutting you off and smiling a bit.
>You smile back.
>"So you truly aren't from this universe?"
"No."
>"Then, tell me all of it: everything about how you got here and the entire history of your people."
“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself here. I have only just arrived, and you’re already asking for the entire tome of history that is contained within my head.”
>"Sorry. I'm just curious. Do you have anything better to do?”
>You run your hands through your hair and look at the floor.
"The second part is a long story. That one will have to wait for a bit. But I can tell you my history - or at least, how I ended up here."
>You take a deep breath.
"I had known for a while that a theoretical way of creating a wormhole was to put enough energy into a single point of space. The question was how much, and I calculated it to be on the order of 152-times-ten-to-the-eighteenth electron volts. To produce that kind of power, you need a particle accelerator, so I scavenged one from my university's old medical labs, attached two focusing coils to the middle so the energy would be guided to a single point in space, and tested it just a few hours ago. It worked. Then I decided to just check for any radiation spikes - I did not want the user to have a higher cancer risk from using it - and, somehow, the transporter must have turned itself on. And what happens next you already know," you explain.
>"Well, I know we don't have any ‘particle accelerators’ here," she replies, and you frown a bit.
"That makes things more difficult," you lament.
>Not just more difficult, practically impossible.
>It took teams of scientists and thousands of dollars to produce a cyclotron, even a small one.
>A challenge then.
>You accept.
"I need a place to stay," you state.
>"You can stay downstairs in the laboratory," Twilight offers. "We've got some blankets and a sleeping bag we can lay out until you get some more permanent arrangements."
>You think for a moment, pondering whether or not you should maybe get a hotel instead before realizing you have no money to rent a room.
"Yes, that would be excellent. Thank you for your hospitality," you proclaim.
>Another awkward pause passes between the unicorn and the human.
>"So . . ." Twilight begins. "You said you would explain your world's history to me."
"Yes, I can do that. I am not so sure how long it will take me, but I will do my best. How about this: if you want me to go more in depth into something, I will, but I will try to explain it all in as briefly as possible."
>"Okay."
>You admire this little unicorn's curiosity, as you have never had someone to share knowledge with or someone who is genuinely interested in your intellect.
>Once again, you inhale deeply, and begin the story of humanity.
>You speak of the rise of the human species from early hominids, to the rise of the first civilizations, and are beginning to break into the rise of Persia when night begins to fall and your stomach growls.
"I think this may have to be our stopping point for now; I need something to eat," you announce.
>"I know exactly where to take you; I think I should introduce you to your rescuers," Twilight responds.
"That's right. I never properly thanked you for that. I was a little too focused on my predicament, I guess, to even notice you saved my life," you say.
>"Are you still angry?" she asks.
"Somewhat, but not at you. You are not to blame for my misfortunes. It would be illogical and pointless to be angry in this situation. It won’t solve anything. I more feel a sense of . . . cosmic irony. Like someone, somewhere is watching and laughing at me for where I am now."
>"Anonymous, are you even sure that a second transporter will even take you home?" Twilight inquires softly.
"No. But that does not mean I should not try."
>"Let's go get some dinner then," she finishes, and the two of you walk out of the library.
"Where are we going exactly?" you ask as you step out until the chilly evening.
>"Sugarcube Corner," Twilight replies, looking back at you. "I've been planning to meet with the girls there tonight; they'll probably understand why I'm late when you show up."
>You cringe a bit at the name.
>Get used to it, Anonymous, you tell yourself. 
>This world has different patterns than home.
>Twilight slowly comes to a stop.
>"You may want to take off whatever it is you're wearing."
>You notice that you are still wearing your radiation suit.
>"Go put it downstairs," Twilight suggests. "I'll wait here."
>You walk back inside and down the stairs to the basement.
>The room is dark and a bit musty, with reddish purple wood walls.
>It is filled with several instruments, an electrocardiogram machine, a blood pressure monitor, and an electroencephalograph monitor, and a few drawers which, upon opening, reveal some art supplies and basic tools.
>While interesting that the World of Ponies has these technologies, they are of little use to you in your endeavors unless you decide to scavenge them for scrap metal.
>You see your reflection distorted like in a funhouse mirror in the shiny stainless steel medical equipment.
>Expressionless, you stare at your pale, gaunt, unshaven face and the mop of messy hair on your head for a second before stripping off the radiation suit, which sticks to your body and comes off with a wet slurp from the slimy layer of condensation on the inside.
>Underneath it, you are wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans, wrinkled and damp from being under the wet rubber for so long.
>You also have no shoes, as they would not fit under the hazmat boots.
>They are comfortable work clothes, comfortable studying clothes, and comfortable clothes in general.
>Why bother being fashionable?
>The little film badge on the front is completely white, though you are not surprised by this.
>Interuniversal space is likely to have lots of nasty radiation pockets.
>As you walk upstairs, you catch a passing glance of your reflection again.
"Alright, ready to go," you tell Twilight, who is pacing around outside.
>"Good! You look . . . rugged!" she exclaims.
>Ignoring the comment, you maintain your expressionless face and begin to trudge into the night.
>A few ponies are out as well, wandering the streets.
>Sugarcube Corner is a large house made of what appears to be gingerbread, mortared with cake frosting, and dusted with sprinkles and powdered sugar.
>The lights are on inside, illuminating the ground in front of the edifice, and you hear the faint pulse of an electronic beat coming from the upstairs.
>You stop for bit and stare at the scene in front of you.
>"Anonymous? Is something wrong?" Twilight asks.
"No, no. Just processing everything for a bit."
>She gives you an odd look before opening the door to the restaurant and stepping inside.
>You follow through the entryway.
>"Sugarcube" barely describes the amount of sweets in this place.
>A bakery by day, you guess.
>The interior is cheerful and brightly colored, and several displays for various baked goods. 
>At least a dozen multicolored fruit pies sit in a glass case and several frosted cakes lay on porcelain plates in another.
>The music appears to be coming from a small staircase leading up to the upper floor.
>"The party's upstairs, Anonymous," Twilight tells you before clopping up the stairs.
>You sigh.
>Anonymous, if you are going to be here for a few months, you need to be at least acquainted with a few people around you, no matter what their social life may be like, you remind yourself.
>You steel yourself and plunge into the rumpus.
>Stomping up the stairs, you abruptly bump your head on the doorway and enter the room rubbing a fading crimson mark your forehead.
>"Hello girls," you hear Twilight say as you enter.
>"Hello, my dear!" 
>"Hiya, Twilight!" 
>"Hi." 
>"Howdy!" 
>"Hey, you're late! What's up?"
>Eventually, they notice you.
>"This is Anonymous. He's calmed down a bit now, and just wants to meet you guys more appropriately," Twilight explains, 
"Yes," you reply. "I apologize for my actions earlier today; I wasn't myself. I had just been thrown out of the world of my family, my friends, my successes, and into a world that is completely different and illogical to me with no way to return. It was just an insult to injury. I am the only one to blame for why I am here. Furthermore, you ponies saved my life, and for that I am forever indebted. I still want to return home, but I know that I am not going to be able to do that unless I have the ability to get the materials I need."
>Silence from the six ponies in front of you. The music seems to have stopped as well; someone must have turned it off when you began to speak.
>"Welcome to Equestria, Anon!" the pink one says finally. "I think you're going to like it here more than you think."

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