Follows A Little Spark: Sc.08&09


                                            “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

                                            >The palace smithy mare looks up at you with a flat expression.

                                            >”I mean no, brother. You got brain problems too?”

                                            “Why the fuck not?”

                                            >”Unstallionlike language ain’t doing you any favors in my book.”

                                            “I don’t give a damn!”

                                            >”Now you’re just being hysterical.”

                                            “Didn’t you fuckwits get the memo?”

                                            >”Yep, and I don’t care. I got limited time and resources here. ‘S far as I’m concerned, I ain’t got enough’a either to indulge your little pet fantasies. ‘Zecutive decision.”

                                            >Even with her forelegs propping herself up on the edge of her desk, she still doesn’t come to your eye level. Despite this, she wears the most contemptuous yet complacent expression you’ve seen on a pony. Never have you met someone so short yet so smug.

                                            “It’s not even a big order.”

                                            >”It will be, after all the times you gotta come back because you screwed it up.”

                                            “I’m working with Princess Twilight, you really think the measurements are wrong?”

                                            >”This is in your writing, not hers, so absolutely. Stallions ain’t good with numbers.”

                                            “I’m the one who came up with them!”

                                            >The earth pony puts on an exaggerated show of thinking, dropping one of her forelegs to the floor while caressing her chin with the other hoof. “Well, just maybe they could be right. There’s always a chance you screwed up writing down your screwed up measurements. A few of them might have ended up being what you actually want.” She resumes her propped-up position. “Too bad what you want ain’t what you need.”

                                            “If you really want, I’ll have you look over the math yourself.”

                                            >”What you need ain’t in the math, brother. What you need’s in a mare’s house, and my forge ain’t that.”

                                            “Jesus christ.”

                                            >”Poor thing’s deluded enough to make up words. Now quit bothering me, I’ve got a heavy workload.”

                                            “I’ll give you a heavy workload...”

                                            >”Innuendo ain’t doing you any favors either, brother.”

                                            “What?”

                                            >”Typical stallion, trying to sleep their way out of what’s good for them.” She leans forward on her forelegs and glares at you. “No pony would bed a damn dirty ape like you anyway, not even in the dead of heat. Scram.”

                                            >If she were a pegasus, you wager you could break her neck right there, but even then it would just make your problems worse. You spin on a heel and storm out of the smithy.

                                            >This ordeal was, at least, a step in the right direction. She actually spoke to you.

                                            >The carpenter had just brushed you off, telling you to talk to the quartermare.

                                            >The quartermare is the one who’d sent you to all the shop bosses in the first place.

                                            >The tailor had been the only one to listen. You finally have a set of clothes that isn’t patterned after a suit.

                                            >You find your way back to the stairs that climb to the area of the palace containing your workshop. A nearby guard stares at you; it was your third time through here in half an hour.

                                            >Fuck them, too. A rumor had started spreading that you’d have killed Twilight if not for Celestia’s timely intervention, and you’re pretty sure of its vector.

                                            >Odd timing, considering Twilight has been spending more and more time with you, working or otherwise.

                                            >Maybe that’s the reason, what do you know?

                                            >Catty stallions and dismissive mares, what did you do to deserve this?

                                            >Ah, right. For once in your life, you made the mistake of asking for responsibility.

                                            >With all this runaround, you can’t even dodge it.

                                            >You finally reach your workshop. Twilight’s there, her hindquarters turned to you as she looks over something on the big square workbench in the room’s center.

                                            >You change your stride to make as little noise as possible with each footfall. She’s so engrossed in whatever she’s looking at that she doesn’t notice you come up alongside her and flick some of the primaries of a wing.

                                            “Hey.”

                                            >She jumps a good two feet away from you, looking at you wild-eyed.

                                            >You did have a bit more edge on your greeting than you wanted.

                                            >Twilight tilts her head as she looks you over, once she’s recovered her wits. “Is something wrong?”

                                            “I’m a big disciple of the ancient tradition of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’. I’m trying to fake being calm.”

                                            >She looks at your balled-up fists. “You’re doing a bad job of it.”

                                            “You’re not supposed to be able to read my body language yet.”

                                            >”I’m a quick study.”

                                            >You screw up you face in a confused grimace.

                                            “Is that a-”

                                            >Twilight’s wearing a slight smile.

                                            “Heh, a’ight. You got me with that one.”

                                            >”Seriously, what’s wrong?”

                                            >You relax your fists, stretching and working your fingers.

                                            “In the past couple days I’ve gone from benign curiosity to object of scorn in this palace. Turns out asking to be taken seriously has its drawbacks.”

                                            >”Are they refusing to help you?”

                                            >You nod glumly.

                                            >”I could talk to them, they wouldn’t-”

                                            “No. Stop. I didn’t get out from under Celestia’s wing just to huddle under yours.”

                                            >Twilight extends a wing, looks at it quizzically, then back at you. Her face suddenly lights up. “Oh, right. Sheltering. Common saying.”

                                            “Uh, yeah.”

                                            >”Sorry, I’m just thinking about, well, this.”

                                            >She starts circling around the table to you, staring at the large sheet of paper that had occupied her attention when you entered.

                                            “You literally have wings, don’t tell me that’s not a natural turn of phrase.”

                                            >”I wasn’t born with them, Anon.”

                                            “Huh. Wild.”

                                            >She reaches your side. ”Anyway, I was thinking about this… thing. You describe it as a device like the generator we’ve been working on, basically. I get that it works backwards – power in to turn instead of turning to power out – but that’s just it. Isn’t that all? What’s giving you trouble?”

                                            >Ah, the servomotors whose parts you’re denied.

                                            “It needs a feedback sensor. Tells it where it is. I can’t make Hall sensors or photodetectors so I need to make these dumb inter-meshing electrical contacts, embedded in two glass plates that rub against each other. The miniaturization spell we’ve been testing will work well for that, but they wear down in time, and making them smaller makes them thinner, so they’ll wear out faster.”

                                            >”And you want to avoid wear.”

                                            “Just like in everything we’re doing. Precision’s the whole point. It’s like when you move a leg, your body knows where the leg is still. That’s what it is. Kinesthesia. Motor needs to know where it is for appropriate precision. If it wears down, it loses precision. Besides, I don’t have the means to make a controller for it.”

                                            >Twilight stares at the page for a few more moments. “The come-to-life spell can account for the controller.”

                                            “We need twelve for a single hand. That’s with only three fingers and a thumb.”

                                            >She looks down at your hand. “No, we’ll do it like some birds. Two fixed and two digits that could be opposed or not.”

                                            “Alright. Add a thirteenth for the wrist. That’s a lot of information channels for the spell to track just for activation. Another thirteen for position sensing. You said the more the spell needs to manage, the harder it is to cast.”

                                            >”Anon, if there’s no other way, then we’ll make do. It’ll be difficult to animate, but not impossible. It’ll still be a lot easier than if I tried to cast the spell responsible for the motion itself as well.”

                                            >There was still another problem here she’d told you.

                                            >You can’t remember; your mind felt overfull.

                                            >Too many other things you’re ignoring.

                                            “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. We’re not even here yet, we...”

                                            >You wipe your face, then reach out to roll the paper up.

                                            “Getting ahead of ourselves.”

                                            >You put it on a shelf underneath the desk, with all the other large sheets containing your designs and calculations.

                                            “We can’t make any because we’re not going to get the mounting hardware or shells.”

                                            >”I’ll go talk to them-”

                                            “And what would that solve? If anything they’d respect me even less. At least leave me my pride, damnit.”

                                            >”If there’s no other way...”

                                            “Do you think this was set up?”

                                            >She looks at you, confused. “Sorry?”

                                            “Like, is this a test or something? Is Celestia getting back at me for challenging my isolation?”

                                            >”A test maybe, but revenge definitely not. That’s not her way. And I don’t know what she’d be testing you on.”

                                            “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. She wanted to shelter me, so I don’t think she’d suddenly drop it all in my lap. But the timing’s suspicious, Twilight. All this shit started happening just two days ago, and it all happened at once. Maybe it’s just one pony behind it.”

                                            >She shook her head. “I guess it’s possible...” Then she looks back up at you. “But don’t you have other things you need to be doing than inventing conspiracies?”

                                            “Don’t remind me. I’m still working on the Appleloosa thing. I can make and remake systems, but there being living, breathing peo- er, ponies involved, that’s, uh, it’s throwing me. It’s a totally different kind of pressure. Even with Luna’s help something’s just not clicking. It should be as easy as just moving things around, but these reserves are in-place for reasons. Should I just be taking them? Will the ponies I’m inconveniencing dislike Celestia for it? I can’t have my first job in her service bring her disdain.”

                                            >You sit heavily in your chair and slump over the desk, head in your hands.

                                            “I’m not cut out for this. I was never management material. Celestia made a mistake.”

                                            >Twilight looks at you sidelong. “Don’t say that.”

                                            “Well then I made a mistake in making her think she made a mistake.”

                                            >Twilight looks you up and down, then sighs. “Anon, I’ll tell you something it took me a long time to understand, so accept the hard-earned lesson without argument. Celestia is generous with, ah, mistakes. I don’t think she’s going to punish you for not getting it right on the first try.”

                                            “Mmph.”

                                            >You look over and meet her eyes.

                                            >”I’m worried about you.”

                                            >You manage a thin smile.

                                            “Join the club. There’s two other members already, and if there hadn’t been, there’d be no reason to worry in the first place.”

                                            >She snorts. “Not three? You have ponies looking out for you, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t look out for yourself.”

                                            >To this you don’t reply.

                                            >Twilight looks at you for a few more moments, before shaking her head and walking back around the table, this time to where the half-assembled generator sat.

                                            >Her hooves against the floor echo around the room.

                                            >You’d never really appreciated how far away you could hear a pony coming or going in this palace.

                                            >Your bolt upright in your seat, drawing a strange look from Twilight.

                                            >How did you never think of that?

                                            >Celestia’s ‘prankster skills’… Ponies can’t really be stealthy, not inside a mostly stone palace like this. Any stealth is good stealth; she must have found a way to get around unnoticed.

                                            >You don’t have hard hooves, you have fleshy feet. And socks, to boot.

                                            >You just needed to know your likely targets and their nighttime schedules, and a capable light source for navigation.

                                            >Fortunately, one of the few ponies who liked you would know all the goings-on of the palace at night; that could cover the former.

                                            >The latter was sitting in a drawer in your room, as it had been since a week after your arrival.

                                            >Just needed power.

                                            “One thing at a time, Twilight. Lets finish that generator.”


                                            * * *


                                            “Alright, now duplicate this part here; commutators tend to wear out so we’ll need to pull this side out and put a new one in once in awhile, if we can’t fix it. Other side shouldn’t need it.”

                                            >Twilight looks it over. The requested part represented about a third of the whole structure.

                                            >”It’d be easier if we just had the parts in question. Duplication is more difficult the more complex the object is.”

                                            “Uh, alright. Yeah we can get this apart again easily enough.”

                                            >You dismantle that third of the machine quickly; you’d designed it for rapid breakdown, but mostly it was thanks to the experience of having to rebuild it several times before already, when Twilight asked about little details or wanted to record something.

                                            >By now, she has more notes on this thing than you do.

                                            >Once the central assembly is removed, she puts her horn near it, and squeezes her eyes shut.

                                            >While the object and her horn both glow, nothing happens immediately.

                                            >You look over to her and notice her straining. You reach out to stop her when suddenly.

                                            >POP.

                                            >BANG.

                                            >A rapid displacement of air is followed by the sound of parts hitting the workbench.

                                            >You look back and see a perfect duplicate of the entire center assembly, sitting on its side next to the original.

                                            “Well, that’s the biggest thing I’ve seen you clone so far.”

                                            >”Don’t ask me to do much more than that.” Twilight wobbles on her feet slightly.

                                            “Can’t think of anything I’d need to. Well, as long as you have a spell that can repair things.”

                                            >”Of course I do.”

                                            “That’s just what I like to hear.”

                                            >The two of you rebuild the section, and place it back in its proper position.

                                            “Remember the power levels we agreed on.”

                                            >”I have to do this by intuition, Anon. I can’t give an exact output any more than you can push on something with an exact force.”

                                            >You smile at her.

                                            “I have faith.”

                                            >After a moment of staring at you, she smiles back.

                                            >”I’ll get it done.”

                                            >She looks at the generator, and closes her eyes once more.

                                            >The small shaft starts spinning, very slowly at first, then increasing.

                                            >You can hear the other parts spin as well, just as they should.

                                            >Even if it was way noisier than you’d like.

                                            >Eventually, Twilight’s horn stops glowing. The magenta glow on the shaft is replaced with a softer, golden one.

                                            >”And done,” she says, then looks at you and beams. “Should last for quite awhile!”

                                            “Well, it ain’t over ‘til… I’m not sure if you have a version of that saying.”

                                            >You get up from your chair and head over to the door connecting your workshop to your bedroom.

                                            >Twilight follows you, but stops at the door. “Ah, Anon, are we done here?”

                                            “Nah, sec, lemme get something.”

                                            >She remains outside your door as you move to our nightstand and pull out a drawer.

                                            >You grab your dead smartphone and show it to Twilight as you walk back out of the room.

                                            >Her eyes light up. “Anon, is that-”

                                            “Yeah, and this is how we’re going to see if everything we did meant anything.”

                                            >You walk back to the workbench, and pick up a loose, hastily-arranged cable made from a duplicated end of your USB headphones, attached to posts on a boxy extension off one side of the generator. You plug it into your phone, and put the phone on the table.

                                            >Twilight’s face is close enough to the dead screen that her breath is fogging it up

                                            >You’re just trying to look as relaxed as possible as you sit back on your chair.

                                            >After a couple seconds that feel like hours, the screen brightens slightly.

                                            >An empty battery sign appears, flashing yellow.

                                            >”Yes!”

                                            >Twilight jumps back, then starts trotting in place.

                                            >”Yesyesyesyesyes-”

                                            >You lean back and release a breath you didn’t know you were holding, then look over to Twilight’s infections reveling. Then you jump over and sweep her up in a big hug.

                                            “Holy fuck I can’t believe we actually did it!”

                                            >When you release her again, she’s frozen in mid-stride, two hooves planted and two raised.

                                            “Oh, ah, sorry.”

                                            >She puts all four on the floor and looks at you. She’s still grinning like a madmare

                                            >”I’m happy I could help.”

                                            “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

                                            >She walks back to the table, staring at the phone’s screen while the battery charging animation loops.

                                            “Ah, this generator is a little more noise than I’d like. And we still need to get it under the desk.”

                                            >As soon as you finish speaking, the whole contraption – including your phone – starts floating, surrounded by a magenta glow.  Twilight places them all under your desk, on one side of the big shelf, after you scramble to move your planning paper and notes.

                                            >When you stand again, a small pink dome forms over the whole thing, significantly reducing what noise isn’t transferred through the desk’s frame.

                                            >You poke the barrier. It feels like glass.

                                            “I’m, uh, I gotta get in there to actually use the power.”

                                            >”Don’t worry, I can take it down as easily as I put it up.”

                                            “I’ll have to get you for that.”

                                            >”Yeah.” She suddenly looks at the ground, realizing what that meant. “Ah. Sorry.”

                                            “Nah, don’t worry about it. I don’t think I was going to do anything with it for a bit anyway. Like we were saying, I have other things to worry about right now.”

                                            >You tap the charging phone.

                                            “But having this back is going to be a big help. Calculator, camera, voice recorder, notepad, it’s got all sorts of useful stuff.”

                                            >”I can’t wait to see it work.”

                                            “I’ll show you everything, when it’s ready. ‘Til then, I don’t know, lets do something. Kinda hungry, honestly.”

                                            >Twilight smiles, then heads for the exit. “I’ll treat.”

                                            >You can’t stop grinning as you follow her out.

                                            >You’ll show those fuckwits in the shops, soon enough.

                                            >First, it’s time to blow off steam with your friend.