Mad Science: Chapter 11

Mad Science

Chapter 11

 

By IceMan

 

>“Well done, young Anonymous, well done,” someone says from behind you. “That was a most excellent little show.”

>You whirl around to see . . . well, you can’t exactly tell what in heaven or Hell the creature is.

>He (you assume it is a he based on the male tone of voice) is a long, serpent-like creature with a goat or a horse’s head, one horn replaced with a deer antler, one bat wing, one bird wing, a bird claw for one hand, a lion’s paw for the other, a lizard leg, a horse’s hoof, and a dragon’s tail.

>He’s holding a small golden-rimmed teacup, filled with a bit of dark, steaming liquid.

>Finally, your brain catches up with what you are observing.

“Discord,” you snarl.

>“That’s right.”

“This is your fault. You –”

>You have an almost overwhelming urge to tackle this deity and wring his hairy, fat neck out like a wet towel, watching as his eyeballs slowly bulge out, but you just barely manage to suppress it.

>It’s well that you did, otherwise you might have turned into a talking pumpkin or banished to another dimension, you would later realize.

>“Up-bup-bup! Temper, temper, Mr. Anonymous,” he says, downing his drink and throwing his cup away, which explodes into confetti when it hits the wall, rather than simply shattering.

>“I assure you that this lovely little bit of chaos was not my doing.”

>He draws a cross over his heart, but you have no idea whether or not he’s lying.

>“If anything, I’ve come to help you, Anonymous.”

“I doubt that.”

>You stare once again at your smoldering, sparking transporter, ruined beyond repair.

>It would take months to re-build what has been broken.

“I thought you were imprisoned, anyways. I saw your statue!”

>“Well, I guess the history books haven’t exactly caught up with my exploits yet,” Discord explains. “You see, a few months back your dear friend Twilight and her gaggle of sycophants decided to release me from the stony lonesome to see if there might be a chance at redeeming me.”

>At this point he starts guffawing as if he just told the world’s funniest joke.

>“As if I could possibly be fixed like a broken toy or something. Ha! I’ve been living my life out at the house of the pegasus Fluttershy. I almost considered revealing myself to you when you came over a few days back, but that just wasn’t the right moment.”

>You recall what sounded like a war happening at Fluttershy’s when you went over there.

>“But enough chit-chat. Let’s cut to the chase. I want to –”

>The basement door slams open, and Twilight rushes down.

>“Anonymous, what’s going on? I thought I heard – Discord,” Twilight says.

>“Hello, Miss Sparkle! Care for a spot of tea?”

>The Lord of Chaos summons three tea cups, identical to the ones he had before, filled to the brim with piping liquid.

>One floats over to you and bumps against your head; the other heads over to Twilight and dumps its contents out onto her head.

>She just barely gets out of the way before the scorching liquid spills all over her head.

>“What do want?” Twilight asks with a snort.

>She then notices the smoking transporter.

>“And did you do that? Do you know how much time Anon –”

>“For the last time, no! I did not wreck Anonymous’s little machine. He did that himself. Tried to send himself home and ended up nearly burning down your house.”

>“Is that true, Anonymous?”

>You stare for a moment at Twilight, considering what to say.

“Yes. It is true. I . . . I realized I would never see you or anyone else here again, so I just decided to head home. And, unfortunately, it was not about it being too painful to say goodbye, or anything like that. I just wanted to leave and be rid of this world.”

>“So, even after all this time, you still didn’t care about any of us, did you?” Twilight asks, frowning.

“Twilight, I will always have been honored to have met you, and forever in your debt for your hospitality while I have lived in this universe.”

>You hear a sniffle; Discord is . . . crying?

>“How touching,” he whimpers, blowing his nose into a pink tissue like a trumpet. “But enough of this.”

>He reverts back into a more serious facial expression, and teleports the tissue away with a snap of his clawed eagle talon hand.

>“You two can deal with your relationship problems later, what I need to do now is coerce Anonymous into a deal that’ll he’ll end up regretting.”

>You raise an eyebrow.

>“Alright, you may or may not end up regretting this deal. But first . . .”

>Discord reaches out his claw again, and, with another snap, creates a shimmering fluorescent pink portal out of thin air and rifles around through it, as if he were searching for something lost under the couch.

>With a cry of “Ah-ha!” he pulls down on something in the ether.

“What was that?”

>“Just a bit of guaranteed causation. I’m just making sure we end up at this point.”

“What do you –”

>All the pieces click into place.

“That lever wasn’t loose. You pulled it.”

>“Right again! Wow, you’re on a roll today,” Discord says.

>“What lever?” Twilight asks.

“I’ll explain later.”

>The urge to strangle him returns.

>He pulled the lever on your transporter, the one back on Earth, while you were checking the radiation.

>He sent you here.

>He’s responsible for this.

>But then another thought occurs.

“You can travel through space and time. And across dimensions.”

>“You’re doing quite well, Anonymous. Quite outdoing Miss Twilight over there. She never seems to figure out my puzzles in time.”

>“If this is some kind of trick, Discord, we’ll put you right back in –”

>He seals Twilight inside a giant red bubble, silencing them.

“That wasn’t necessary.”

>“Trust me, it was. Now, listen up. Here’s what I can do. I will make you a little portal back to Earth, right to the time after you left. But you’ll need to do something for me.”

“Fair enough. What do you want?”

>“Well, I don’t actually want anything. I’m a near-omnipotent being with the power to do whatever I want, kapeesh? What I need to know is what you can give me.”

“I can create virtually any technology that existed on Earth. Equestria is certainly more primitive than my homeworld. I can build some of the finest technology for you.”

>“That could work . . . . Yes, that could work. Here’s what I want, Anonymous. I want you to build something new.”

“New to Equestria? Very well.”

>“No, not new to Equestria. That’d be too easy. You won’t learn anything from that. No, I need you to build something that’d be new to Earth.”

“What? That’s impossible!”

>“No. No, it’s not. And you know it. You’re very smart. You know that. Don’t be like the Purple Pony Eater in the bubble over there.”

>Discord waves cheekily at Twilight, who is still fuming inside her prison, now flipped upside down and floating near the ceiling.

>“There is definitely something in that brain of yours that you can make for me. Because, let’s face it, anything that you could make from Earth, I could already make myself. Watch.”

>With a few snaps of his fingers, he summons a VW Beetle, a laptop, an elephant, and two bananas from the void, then banishes them back to where they came.

>“You make something neither of us have ever seen, and I’ll give you a one-way ticked back to Earth. Sound fair?”

“Fair,” you relent.

>“Good, now shake on it.”

>Discord spits into his lion paw and puts it out for you.

>You reluctantly grab it, and shake his hand.

>“Good. You have as long as you want, Anonymous. And, now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.”

>A set of railroad tracks suddenly appear in the laboratory, followed by the blare of a steam train whistle.

>A black locomotive rumbles down the line, sending the papers scattered all over the laboratory flying, and Discord grabs hold onto one of the box cars.

>“We’ll be in touch!” he shouts as the train and the tracks disappear into confetti with a flash of light.

>Twilight, as well, is freed from her prison, and teleports herself down from the ceiling before she crashes to the ground.

>“Alright, Anonymous, start talking,” she says.

“I don’t have anything else to tell you other than what you already know.”

>“You’ve got to know something. Why was Discord here? What was the lever? Why did he want to cut that deal with you? And . . . and . . . why didn’t you want to say goodbye?”

“For the last time, I don’t know why Discord was here.”

>“And the lever?”

“The lever on my original transporter. I thought I had left it loose, but, well, it turns out my fate was manipulated by an omnipotent being of chaos.”

>You sigh.

“I don’t know what he wants by having me invent something, nor do I have any idea what or how I could create new technology. Even this –”

>You kick your blasted creation, causing it to release a brief shower of orange sparks.

“– Took months of time and thousands of bits to build. And it didn’t work. So why he expects me to be able to even possibly be able to build new technology, let alone new Earth technology, seems strange.”

>“He does that. He’s just a trickster. He gave you a deal he knows you have no way to complete, just to watch you squirm. But, you haven’t answered my last question.”

>You lean against your wrecked transporter.

“I’m sorry Twilight. As I said, there wasn’t some . . . idea that I didn’t want to goodbye, or anything like that. No, I was ready to leave. I know that hurts to hear, probably much more than even a farewell, but . . . . Logic, rather than emotion, dictated my actions. And that I can’t apologize for.”

>“I thought we were friends.”

“Friends?”

>“Yes, friends.”

“I don’t know. It is true that I appreciate how kind you have been to me in this rough time but –”

>“Friends, Anonymous.”

>You blink.

“Very well.”

>The clock on the wall chimes eleven.

>“You should get some sleep. It’s late,” Twilight advises.

“Alright. Good night.”

>“Pleasant dreams.”

>Twilight blows out the candles as she heads upstairs, leaving you in the dark.

>As you tuck yourself into bed, your eyes water up, and you begin to weep into the pillow.

>It’s all gone.

>There’s no hope left for you to ever get home.

>It was all for naught.

 

>No.

>Red lines run far and wide and fast and deep

>Logic and chaos should never mix.

>Something snapped within you that night, like an icicle falling from a rooftop, spearing a small child.

>Desperation takes control.

>A plan you once considered beyond possibility has reached the realm of possibility.

>You are a god among men.

>And yet gods must fall.

>Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

>Not even death will stop you.

>You will conquer chaos, and bring logic.

>Or you will be consumed.

>No.

>The cold hand of fate slithers by.

>Progress must be made.

 

>Awakening the next morning, your eyes rapidly shift around the room, looking for any possible sign that yesterday’s events were merely a particularly traumatic dream.

>Unfortunately, that is not the case.

>Your transporter remains in a blackened wreck of steel parts.

>Furthermore, last night’s dreams gave you no ideas for a new device.

>One was particularly frightening.

>Two Anonymouses stood in front of you as you hang off the edge of a cliff.

>One, dressed in the yellow hazmat suit with the helmet under his shoulder.

>The other, crawling on the ground, clothes tattered, skin pale as aspen bark, hair covering his face like a shiny, stringy mask.

>You reached for the hand of the hazmat Anonymous, but the tattered Anonymous kicked you off the ledge and into a steel room.

>Sparks fly everywhere and the floor was hot, like a gust of scorching air from an oven.

>Many of the doors had fallen off their hinges and a black, oil-like substance was spilling from some of them onto the floor.

>A door exploded in a burst of orange cinders, and the pale Anonymous burst through clutching a bloody dagger.

>Red circuit lines shine like lines of burning gasoline.

>As he plunged the knife in between your ribs, you woke up, covered in sweat, shivering, and whimpering like a dog on the Fourth of July.

>After both your body and your thoughts tossed and turned for almost an hour, you were just barely able to return to sleep.

>But a good night’s rest still did not solve the predicaments you were in.

>You had, even if you were to be optimistic, a chance so slim that it might as well be disregarded.

>It wasn’t that you didn’t have ideas; no there were technologies that did not exist on Earth that you had ideas of how to make: warp drives, cold fusion generators, and many other powerful devices that would revolutionize technology.

>But you had no way to build them here in Equestria, and not enough time or resources to go through the process of designing, testing, and redesigning complex pieces of technology in a society that had barely reached the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution.

>Heading upstairs, you hope that you might find solace in Twilight’s books, as you usually do.

>But, unfortunately, not even they can provide any comfort at this time.

>As you peruse the section of books on magic-related topics, you realize you’ve read every book concerning the origins of magic and its capabilities.

>Though you assume that there are other libraries in Equestria, you do not have the means to visit them, nor do you have a feeling they will provide the answers you seek.

>It was more of a curiosity than anything, and probably not worth the effort of bothering Twilight to take you on a trip across Equestria.

>You are without purpose, with nothing to even simply wait for, and only the prospect of fifty-odd years of life in this cursed land of talking horses.

>Flipping through “Telekinesis and Other Spells for Mules: A Guide to Basic Spellcraft,” hoping that there may be a few more answers inside, a loud, firecracker-like bang causes you to jump and sends the book tumbling to the floor, where it lands with a thump.

>You whirl around to see Discord, looking as if he was caught sticking his hand in the cookie jar, and . . . Fluttershy, giving a glare that could fell a small pine tree.

>“Now, tell him what he needs to know, Discord!” she orders.

“What’s going on?” you ask.

>“I knew something was up when dear Discord here came home last night laughing,” Fluttershy explains. “He said he’d played a mean trick on you, and, fortunately, I was able to coax it out of him. So I decided to bring him over here this morning to have him make up for being such a meany.”

>She turns her gaze onto Discord.

>“So, listen up, mister! You’re going to tell Anonymous what he needs to know to give you want you want.”

>“Alright, fine,” Discord relents.

>He snaps his fingers, summoning a large black book and a small pair of librarian’s glasses, which he sets upon his snout.

>The being of chaos licks a talon, and begins to thumb through the pages, shouting “Aha!” when he finds what he sought.

>He gives the book to you, revealing a circular diagram.

>It is a schematic of a spherical object with two concentric rings floating around it and what appears to be a glowing core of some substance or energy.

“What is this? I can’t read the writing; it’s in some language I can’t understand.”

>“Fine, I guess you’re not familiar with Lower Ancient Equestrian, for such a little smarty pants,” Discord says. “This is a magical reactor.”

“What does it do?”

>“I don’t know, and that’s the problem! This book is five thousand years old, and the author left it as his last great work. But he never built it. All he did was come up with the design.”

“So, why do you want this? Why did you expect me to find the design for this device and build it?”

>“I didn’t!”

>Discord chuckles.

>“That was the point. Ha! So you’d be stuck here forever.”

>He wipes a happy tear from his eye.

 >“I mean, there might’ve been a chance if you looked in the right places, like, oh, I don’t know, the secret libraries of Canterlot University, but that seemed a bit unlikely to me. Hahaha!”

>Fluttershy glares at him again, and he immediately silences his laughter.

>“Anyways, if you can build that, then I’ll let you go back home. No tricks. No strings. Just build me a magical reactor and get it to work.”

>You study the designs for a moment.

“I need you translate this to English.”

>“No. That’s for –”

>Fluttershy stares him down.

>Discord does his magic, and all the runes change from illegible characters to Roman letters.

“Thank you.”

>“That’s the last bit of help you’re getting from me, not that I can give you any,” Discord says, then turns to Fluttershy.

>“And don’t you give me that look, missy. If I give him any more little tidbits of information, then this whole deal loses the challenge.”

>“If you don’t help Anonymous if he needs it, then I won’t let you come to tea with the animals for a week!” Fluttershy says.

>Discord shrinks back.

>“I’ll be good.”

>“Good. Now let’s go home. I’m sure Angel’s missing me.”

>Fluttershy and Discord disappear with a pop, leaving behind only a few strands of confetti.

>You are left studying the schematic, now laid bare for you to examine further.

>The first problem arises with the materials, some of which you are not sure even exist, like “emerald ebony” (used as the metal casing of the reactor) and “pearl tears” (used as focusing lenses).

>After about an hour of trying to decipher the machine, you finally do get an idea of how it is supposed to function.

>The reactor produces three focused beams of magical energy from three batteries, then strikes a small crystal at the center, producing some effect.

>That “effect” was left untold by the author, who, as Discord said, had not actually built the device.

>At that point, Twilight returned home from whatever morning errands she was running with Spike.

>“Hi, Anonymous. Whatcha reading?” she says in greeting.

>Spike heads off to the kitchen, presumably to get a snack of some kind.

“I’ve found something – or, well, I was given a schematic for a machine that Discord wants me to build.”

>You explain what happened between Discord and Fluttershy, and then between the three of you to Twilight.

>“So Discord wants you to build this magic reactor? And you have no idea what it’s made of or what it does?”

>You nod.

>“Well, I can at least start looking up the materials. I think I’ve heard of pearl tears somewhere. Here, let me check the History section.”

>Twilight ambles over to that section of the library, and levitates a thick red book down from the top shelf.

>The title is “Ancient Alchemy: Classical Alchemical Materials and Their Effects.”

>“Here we go. Well, it looks like pearl tears are . . . just beads of glass that have been cooled in enchanted water.”

“Any particular enchantments?”

>“It doesn’t say. What about in your book?”

“I’ll check.”

>“Also, “emerald ebony” is just copper that has turned green.”

“Interesting.”

>The entire device is just made of common materials, the only problem being the crystal at the center.

“Any idea what an Eye of Knowledge is?”

>Twilight flips through the book.

>“Nothing. It’s not even mentioned.”

“Then there’s still one piece missing to this puzzle.”

>But, even so, you now know how you could build, and even improve upon, this device.

>You can replace copper with steel.

>You can replace enchanted glass beads with glass lenses.

>The entire device will be more efficient, cheaper, and easier to build.

>Once again, you have purpose.

>You will get yourself back to Earth, back to where you belong, out of this world of chaos and disorder, and back home.