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Contraptionology!

by Skywriter

Chapter 8: 08 - Breakfast of Champignons (Honesty and Kindness)

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* * *
Contraptionology!

by Jeffrey C. Wells

www.scrivnarium.net

(with gratitude to the pre-reading powers of Akela Stronghoof and S.R. Foxley)
* * *

Part Eight: Breakfast of Champignons (Honesty and Kindness)

It was another beautiful morning at Sweet Apple Acres. The sky was a fetching shade of blue, the birds were hopping hither and yon doing their little birdy business, and the air was filled with lovely music.

More specifically, it was "Sweet Home Applebama", one of my personal favorites, blasting out over the old gramophone. And I was singing right along, wrenching bolts into place square in time with the music. I was building a thing, and that thing was good. Even if it did spark something fierce at times. And occasionally light things on fire.

Gone were the silly niggling cold-apple-cobbler doubts of last night. The minute I tacked my blueprints to the wall of this big old shed in the dim small hours before sunrise, I knew for certain I had something special and valuable to give the world. Were Mac and I acting a little strange? Absolutely. But that was understandable. We had been shown a better way by the Professor, and it was just taking a little time for our brains to adjust. No excuse to dilly-dally! To not share the Apple Family's brilliance with the world would be a crime, a sin, even. And so I set to work, putting tools to wood and torch to metal, and it weren't long before the raw fiery joy of creating something brand new, of making a thing where there never was a thing, filled my heart up almost to bursting. Did I still have questions? Yes. But my science could provide all the answers.

Out in the fields, I could hear big brother building, same as me, fine-tuning his own project by firing test shot after test shot from the hail cannons straight into the earth. Eventually he worked his way up from the gas-fired explosions of the cannons to some sort of voice amplification thingamawhat, his powerful hundred-decibel yawps shaking the walls of my work shed and bringing dust down from the ceiling each time one rang out over the orchard. Didn't bother me none. I mean, if he were some kind of scientific rival of mine or something, I would naturally be forced to destroy him for his impudence, but family ties are stronger than any force on this green earth.

I dropped my goggles back over my eyes and touched my torch to the sparker again, causing it to burst into a gout of orange. Eyes glimmering, I starved the flame down to a hard blue wedge and then spent a good minute just staring into it. That fire was me, I thought. Bright. Focused. Ready to impose my will on the world, to cut into it like a piece of copper tubing and shape it to the form of my dreams. Thank you, science.

Yes Ma'am, I continued to myself, my brain-fizz hissing bright, at this rate I'll have my quark cider ready to go by midday. Then I can rub them other ponies' faces in it when I come around to drop off their lunches. Can you imagine how them late-sleeper townponies are gonna feel when I reveal that my earth-shattering, science-fair-winning invention is done and ready to go with hours to spare? The thought of it made me want to laugh and laugh, and, heckfire, I saw no reason not to.

"Mwa ha ha," I started. "Well, shoot, that felt good." I took a deeper breath. "Mwa ha ha! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

I grinned crazily then, sucked in a whole lungful, and let it all out, banging my unoccupied non-torch-holding hoof over and over again on my worktable as I did so: "BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! A-HAHAHAHAHA! A-HA-HA-HA-haaa…"

Laws, what a feeling, I thought, letting the table take my weight for a moment. To have ultimate triumph practically laying in bed with you, stroking your mane and whispering sweet nothings. Once I got this last bit of copper pipe in order, all I'd need was some kind of metallic concave construction, like a broken pot or—

I felt a jerk on one corner of my science duds. I turned around, snarling at the interruption, only to see Winona, my very favoritest herding dog, holding a bowl in her mouth and wagging her tail at me with some kind of powerful hope that I couldn't quite place.

"Wonderful!" I said, grabbing the bowl up and dropping it on the table. "Winona, you're the best dog a pony could ask for, even if you do go tugging at my clothes when I got a cutting torch going. You gone and read my durn mind – this here is exactly what I need!" I studied it for a second. "Curvature's a little too wide, though. I'm a-gonna have to cut it in half." I applied the torch to it, quickly tearing a gouge in the metal.

Winona blinked at me, and then her ears drooped and she whined a little. She tucked her tail and laid down on the floor of the shed, staring sadly up at me. I scowled at her. "Oh, what now, dog?" I said. "Can't you see I'm on the verge of scientific breakthrough here?"

"There you are, big sis!" said Apple Bloom, appearing at the door of my shed. "I followed the sound of your maniacal laughter and—"

Apple Bloom stopped cold as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the shed, taking in the magnificence of my science fair project. Her jaw fell slack.

"Applejack?" she said, eventually.

"Yeah, A.B.?" I said, leaning in and continuing to cut at the bowl.

"Applejack, why did you move a water tower into the shed?"

I killed the torch, raised my goggles and looked up at my masterwork. I expect the sight of the thing would be a mite overwhelming at first glance. "Well," I said, "I started out just grafting a mess of business onto the old pot still I already had in here, but it quickly became apparent to me that the level of concentration involved in the production of large hadron cider is so gol-darn immense that I needed to work in larger quantities, to think bigger, as it were. So I had Big Mac drag in the water tower he's been coopering, and I done repurposed it for my boiler. See that copper sheeting on the bottom? Ain't it pretty?"

"Uh huh," said A.B., eyes wide. "And what about that big ol' fizzing thing?"

I glanced up at the big ol' fizzing thing, a full-on perfect picture of the inside of my own head. "That there is a hundred-plate fractionating bubble column with an additional mid-point feed, currently running on test mix. It's one heck of a power draw, but thankfully, we've got a tautline on the roof leading direct to the power plant at the dam. That place has electricity going spare! We got so much electricity I even set up a Jacob's Ladder over there in the corner, just 'cause I can."

Winona perked up and began barking at the corner where I keep the Jacob's Ladder, which was buzzing cheerfully as it generated arc after arc of white airborne current. Apple Bloom squinted into the gloom at it. "Sis, I think you're lighting the wall on fire!"

"Dang-blast it," I said, running over and patting the fire out. "Sometimes I wonder why I even have a Jacob's Ladder. Anyhow." I turned back to her. "The old industrial laundry mangle over there is now my revolutionary new fermentation vat, the polished glass case over on the other side is a proper spirit safe to accept the final outflow, and the final step, the last piece of my grand apparatus, is this honey here, the yeast supercollider." I gestured magnificently at the tangle of copper coils and wires, which had started humming ominously to itself.

"I ain't gonna even ask what that's for," said Apple Bloom, kinda nervous-like.

"Just as well. Your simple and child-like mind might downright boil over attempting to contain the idea it represents. Soon as I get this here concave deflector torched through and weld it onto the supercollider, I'll be ready to start manufacturing yeast quarks, and then, my absolute domination of this science fair business will be right at hoof. So, iffn' y'all will excuse me." I dropped my goggles back over my eyes, sparked up the torch again, and continued cutting. Winona started in on the whimpering again.

"Well, I'm sure glad you're almost done," said my little sis. "Y'all been so excited about this science business, ain't nopony been helping with the chores! Mac's been blowing stuff up out in the field, Granny's been cackling down in the cellar with the door locked, and you been here all night with this thing! I been gathering eggs and slopping hogs all morning, and if I can't get somepony's help dealing with them tent caterpillars on the zap apple trees, I don't know what I'm gonna mother of mercy sis, what are you doing to Winona's bowl?"

"Hm?" I said, snuffing the torch and giving the concave deflector a good rap on my work table, splitting the last bit of metal in two.

"You… you just sawed Winona's bowl in half!" said Apple Bloom. Winona whined, in what I guess was agreement.

"Oh," I said, inspecting my concave deflector, scraping a hoof across the word "WINON" A.B. had painted on the side some time ago. I guess the "A" was on the other piece or something. "I reckon I did. You gotta understand, sis, it was just the exact the perfect shape. Necessary casualty of progress."

"That was Winona's food bowl!" shouted A.B., stomping a hoof. "Did Winona even get her oats-and-eggs this morning?"

I thought for a while. I couldn't rightly remember.

A.B. bucked once in pure agitation at my silence. "No wonder she's all upset! A.J., what's wrong with you? What's wrong with everypony?"

"Ain't nothing wrong!" I said. "We's just all advancing pony civilization here, no need to worry."

"You ain't making me feel better, for all that," grumbled little sis, clucking to my dog. "C'mon, Winona, let's get some food in you."

"Never mind that," I said, waving her off. "I'll get Winona her breakfast just as soon as I get these particles accelerating. What I need for you to do is knock on the door to that cellar and find out what Granny's got cooked up for everypony else's breakfasts. Last night, I promised hoof-delivered meals to my whole little circle, and I ain't fixin' to renege on that."

I fumed, then, my eyes going distant. "I can just imagine what those backstabbing simpletons would have to say about that state of affairs. Typical Applejack, they'd say. Mouth writing checks her hooves can't cash." I snapped back to the present and fixed a glare at my sis. "So this breakfast distribution is gonna go perfectly, hear? I need your help on this, Apple Bloom. Or there'll be heck to pay."

"Uh," said Apple Bloom, edging toward the door. "Sure, Applejack. I'll meet you out on the east field. We can deliver breakfast together."

"Outstanding," I said, turning back to my work.

Without another word, Apple Bloom backed out of the shed. I could hear the door slam behind her. I turned back to the yeast supercollider. So close, so ever-loving close…

Somewhere behind me, I heard Winona start whimpering again.

"Hush, dog," I said, pulling a smoked-glass mask over my face, even as cobalt-colored light from the warming supercollider began seeping into the dark around me like an oil spill. "Almost finished here."

Science, I thought, as I fired up the arc welder. Got to love it.

* * *

So then it was later, the morning continuing bright and clear. I stood at the village overlook, sucking down lungful after lungful of cold, refreshing air and gazing down at little ol' Ponyville, my childhood-and-always home. The place was a happy bustle of industry, all them townponies skittering to the shops and back for the next critical component of their science projects. Here or there, a pillar of sweet white smoke or vented-out water vapor would trickle up into the sky, eventually mingling with and becoming lost in the cloud layer ringing distant Canterlot Mountain. It looked like paradise, and it was only getting paradisier. My heart swelled. I felt proud to be a pony, proud to be a part of this happy little community, and I was very much looking forward to subjugating all them peons, steamrollering over our old system of government, and replacing it with a new, entirely apple-based one. To be honest I wasn't quite sure how that even would work – possibly a "one-apple-one-vote" type deal – but there'd be time to figure that out once I crushed them all's under my hoof. It was gonna be a good day.

Somewhere behind me came the noise of heavy clunking and groaning; Apple Bloom, right on schedule. I turned around to see my faithful little sis struggling mightily against the weight of a couple sets of seriously overloaded saddlebags. To my ear, the bags clanked around a lot more than breakfast typically has a right to.

"Hooves to glory, A.B.," I said, "what the hay is in them saddlebags?"

A.B. gave one final mighty heave and dumped the whole caboodle at my hooves. "Apparently," she said, "these are omelettes aux champignons."

I inspected them cautiously. "Do they bite?" I asked.

"No, ya' big dodo. All that means is 'mushroom omelets', 'cept in French." A.B.'s fancy-talking wasn't a matter of concern (little sis has a fairly strong residual grasp of French from a wicked bout with the Cutie Pox a while gone now), but if Granny was cooking fancy too, then that was another story entirely.

I pulled open one of the saddlebags with my hoof, revealing a slick, polished surface of metal underneath the canvas, a big ol' steel egg-shaped thing, about a foot around. Looked like there were about six of 'em, all told. "Huh," I said. "I would have expected maybe some fritters and a travel carafe. What's all this business?"

Apple Bloom spat into the dust. "Granny's been up inventing these things all night. I guess they're some kind of automatic omelet-cooking covered delivery dish, or something. According to Granny, they're designed to sense when you start to get close to the pony they're for, and that kicks in the heat, so when you get there to deliver it the omelet is perfectly cooked right at the moment you show up."

"Ingenious!"

"No, it's dumb!" insisted Apple Bloom. "Fluttershy's cottage is too close, which means her omelet dish is already burning hot! I practically got me a sore from it! Not to mention giving myself lumbago dragging them all the way here from home!"

"Aw, poor A.B.," I said, tugging at her hair-bow. "Tell you what: you take two, I'll take four. That way we can make better time. And I'll get back to my project quicker."

"You got that yeast accelerating, then?" she asked, dully.

"Accelerating and smashed to quarks," I said. "I already got me a proof-of-concept batch fermenting, and after that it'll automatically unload into the boiler. That's the beauty of a good contraption, A.B. Once you get 'er started, you ain't hardly gotta do nothing! Leaving me plenty of time to gloat." I grinned wide. "Who should we gloat at first, little sis?"

"Well, I d'know about 'gloating'," said my sis, shrugging herself into her saddlebags, "but Fluttershy's dish is the one that really kinda stings right now. Can we unload that one?"

"Sounds like a plan," I said. "I want to see these so-called 'abominations of nature' with my own eyes."

* * *

I stared at the wretched-looking thing hanging upside-down from Fluttershy's forehoof. It gave a feeble little hack.

"Why are you showing me this?" I said.

"Because you said you wanted to see it with your own eyes," said Fluttershy. "I'm sorry, did I misunderstand?"

"No, no," I said, attempting to hold back a speck of gorge. "It's just that I'm typically used to seeing critters with two or fewer wings, and with all those wings being of the same general type. Not a couple butterfly ones and a couple bat ones all scattered around here and there. Another thing I am used to: critters whose left halves are pretty much the same as their right halves."

"My new natural order says that symmetry can be very limiting," said Fluttershy, sounding pleased. "We don't want to limit our little friends, do we?" She scrunched her snout up and nuzzled at the abomination. "Do we? Do we? No we don't!"

The abomination curled a single insect-like leg around Fluttershy's snout and then scuttled up her hair, finally coming to a rest on her ear and hanging there like the world's least-fetching earring. It hissed "in contentment", or maybe just "at me".

"So what is it, basically?" I said, cocking my head to one side and trying to figure the thing out.

"It's a butter-bee-bat," said Fluttershy. "I took unfertilized butterfly eggs, unfertilized bee eggs and unfertilized bat eggs, and mixed them all together to create a brand new creature."

"Bats don't have eggs," I noted.

"How little you know," said Fluttershy, fussing with the monster.

"So… that's your science project? A butter-bee-bat?"

"Oh, no," said Fluttershy earnestly, "Beebee here is just my cuddly-wuddly little prototype organism, isn't she? Isn't she?" She tickled at her ear-hanger; it hissed again, staring at me crookedly on account of it really not being able to stare any other way. Then Flutters gestured up to a nearby tree. "My science project is an entire swarm of butter-bee-bats."

I followed Fluttershy's gesture with my eyes to the leafy branches above me. Sure enough, hanging from the limbs like a whole mess of real unappealing fruit was a couple hundred hanging shiny cocoon-like things, each one swaying back and forth in the morning breeze. Each of the cocoons was connected with a thick vulcanized hose to a steaming, clattering engine of wood and glass hanging from the lowest sturdy branch.

"The moment the Professor spoke his wisdom, I had a vision," continued Fluttershy, behind me. "I've always been shy of making new friends, but that's because I've never literally tried making new friends before. And when the Professor told me to link butterflies and kindness together, I thought of how caterpillars turn themselves into butterflies while they sleep, in a protective shell called a 'chrysalis'."

"Uh huh," I said, still staring up at the tree and trying to imagine a couple hundred Beebees. I was not really liking the picture it made.

"That's when I thought of this contraption," said Fluttershy, fluttering over to the hanging device and gesturing timidly at it. "It's a recombination device that takes the essence of butterflies and combines it with the mixed essences of various other animals to create magnificent hybrids." Flutters screwed the top off a sampling barrel to reveal a mess of inky purple-black pudding-like stuff, which, without a lid, boiled and spattered into the air above it. She pulled up a hoof-full. "I've been piping this amalgamated essence into the chrysalises above, and after a period of incubation, it will eventually emerge as an entire army of love."

"Should you really be touching that, Flutters? Or… standing that close, even?"

"Oh, it's perfectly safe," said Fluttershy, dumping the goo back into the barrel and screwing the top down, then wiping her hoof on her already-stained work smock. "So long as you don't get it in your eyes. Then I hesitate to think what might happen. That's why I'm wearing my tornado goggles."

"But you ain't wearing them," I noted.

"Oh," said Fluttershy, blinking. "I hesitate to think what might have just happened there." She retrieved her tornado goggles from where they were hanging on a nearby branch (depositing Beebee in their place) and squared them over her eyes. "There. I estimate there's only a small percentage chance that I was just systemically contaminated by mutagenic substances."

"So long as it's a small percentage chance," I said. "Look, Flutters, if you're saying you can make absolutely anything in the world, so long as it's part butterfly, why in Equestria did you make… that?" I gestured kinda-sorta in Beebee's direction, still not wanting to look at it real close.

"Why?" snarled Fluttershy, her face suddenly twisting into a mask of rage, the little spinel butterfly jewel at her neck trembling as it did. "Are you questioning my scientific judgment?"

"Er, no," I said, stepping back. "Just curious."

"Oh," she said, returning to normal. "Well, as I said, making them part butterfly was a given, so that meant that my brilliant creations would naturally be able to fly." Fluttershy blinked. "Um," she said, turning her head away. "I mean… I guess they're pretty good creations. I don't mean to be boastful."

"Yeah, well, they ain't gonna stack up against my brilliant creation when the chips are down," I said. "But go ahead anyway."

"I'm sure you're right," said Fluttershy, staring at the ground. "Anyway, even though they were going to be flying animals, I wanted something furry and cuddly, too. And I thought it would be startling and confusing to the poor dears if the 'idea' of flying wasn't built in to their furry part as well. So I took a furry, flying creature – a vampire bat – and spliced some of that in, too."

"And the bee part?"

"I wanted them to be able to swarm," said Fluttershy. "That way, they'd all be able to work together to just overwhelm any target of my choice with love and kindness."

"So let me get this straight. You made a critter out of bees and vampire bats… to be nice to people with."

"Yes," said Fluttershy, nodding vigorously, her eyes wide.

I consulted the bubbles in my own head for a moment.

"I guess that makes sense," I said.

"I'm glad you think so," replied Fluttershy. "If you haven't already delivered breakfast to Rainbow Dash yet, and if it's not too much bother, please tell her that soon I will have something in a yellow-striped bat, if she's still interested."

"Hey, that's right," I said, looking around. "Breakfast. Where is that durn sister of mine with breakfast?"

"Over here, big sis!" came Apple Bloom's voice. In a second, she appeared over a rise in the path, still dragging the saddlebags full of breakfast devices. "I'm just getting harried by this rabbit here, is all!"

Sure enough, as she got closer, it became easy to see that part of the delay here was that A.B. was engaged in an active tug-of-war against Fluttershy's rabbit over Granny's dishes. "Oh, Angel," said Fluttershy, scornfully. "Don't bother poor Apple Bloom like that."

Angel gave Fluttershy a stern look, thumped his foot a couple times, and pointed at the covered breakfast plates.

"I know," said Fluttershy. "And I'm sorry. But I think Applejack would tell you that those dishes contain pony breakfast, not bunny breakfast."

"Hayseeds, Angel!" exclaimed Apple Bloom, straining against Angel's powerful rabbit leg muscles. "You'd think Fluttershy didn't feed you or something!"

"Actually, now that you mention it, I haven't fed Angel yet this morning."

Apple Bloom spun around to look at Fluttershy with a mightily shocked expression, letting go of the saddlebag strap as she did. Angel and the saddlebags went tumbling head-over-hocks, striking Fluttershy's breakfast dish against a stone in the process; it opened with a steamy hiss. Angel dove for the dish, but then, with a bright 'scree'-like noise, a falcon from Fluttershy's menagerie appeared, dive-bombed the exposed omelet, snatched it up, and vanished back into the air. Angel cussed a blue streak in bunny language, shaking his paw at the bird, and then proceeded to start chawing on the unyielding metal of the remaining dishes.

Apple Bloom's wide-eyed glare at Fluttershy had not faltered through all this. "Fluttershy," said A.B. "You didn't feed your pet neither?"

"None of them," admitted Fluttershy, bashfully, scraping her hoof in the dirt and looking away. "I've just been too busy with Beebee and her friends. Please understand that I'm only putting it off because I'm so close to ultimate triumph here."

"Yeah, A.B.," I said. "Quit hassling us grown-ups about this. You don't understand the fires of creation like we do."

"What I understand," said Apple Bloom, turning on me, "is that I'd maybe, just maybe, expect this kind of neglect out of you and Winona. But the Fluttershy I know would never not feed her pets."

"Apple Bloom," said Fluttershy, dithering a little, "Sometimes things come up—"

Apple Bloom stamped a hoof. "Not never!" she insisted.

"And just what do you mean by saying that you'd expect this sort of thing out of me?" I huffed. "I'm the most dependable pony in Ponyville!"

"Is that a fact, A.J.?" said Apple Bloom. "What happened to helping me carry these breakfast dishes, then? You were the one that offered it and everything, and then you didn't!"

"Forgot," I admitted, looking over at where Apple Bloom's overloaded saddlebags had fallen.

A.B. shook her head. "It's like overnight, the two of you got rude, and distractible, and just plain not nice! And the whole rest of the Apple Family's gone crazy except me! At this rate, I'm gonna get my Cutie Mark in 'dealing with total nincompoops' by lunchtime!"

"Speak respectful," I cautioned her.

"Ain't me you gotta worry about," she said. "Big sis, you and me's gonna get into town to drop off the rest of this breakfast, and meanwhile have a talk with Rarity or Twilight. This whole mess is starting to feel like a 'unicorn magic' thing. Maybe they can shed some light on it."

"Sounds like a plan," I said, turning in the direction of Ponyville and starting out.

"Help me carry some of these dishes!" squealed A.B., behind me, stomping again.

I stopped. I shook my head. "Right," I said, muzzily, gathering up a couple of the remaining sealed breakfast dishes, stopping to dislodge a clinging Angel Bunny off of one of them. "Of course. I'm gonna help my sister out. Because that's what I do. I help ponies."

"Okay," said Fluttershy, watching over us as we got all packed. "Have fun delivering the rest. If you, um, want to have fun, that is."

"This ain't about fun no more," said Apple Bloom. "And Fluttershy, before you do anything else with your… science… widget there, you are going to march on back to your cottage and get the pet food situation squared away, all right?"

"I think I should go back inside anyway and wash up," said Fluttershy, scratching at the bottom of one of her tornado goggle lenses. "I think I got something in my eye."

"Whatever," said Apple Bloom, squaring up her saddlebags again. "Just make sure you get 'er done. A.J., let's ride."

And so we did, taking a shortcut through Fluttershy's menagerie on the way down to Ponyville. The sound there was that of a haunted place, full of the wails and cries of hungry critters whose comfy little world had suddenly started to go wrong. It was a noise made up of a little sadness, a little frustration, and a whole lot of plain, naked incomprehension of why life had suddenly gotten so unkind on them. I had the urge to stop, to crack open the dishes and feed them buggers, least the ones that could eat eggs or mushrooms, but I couldn't; I was pride-bound to deliver these meals to their intended recipients. It hurt, but I couldn't stop. There was more at stake here than hungry animals.

We quickly left the menagerie behind, and as the wailing noise began to fade behind us, I found that I could shut out the memory of it with a little focused thought. What I couldn't ever quite think away was the pictures in my head of the quiet ones, the ones that just stared big-eyed at us as we passed, wondering why.

I found that I didn't know, myself.

Maybe my science couldn't provide all the answers.

Next Chapter: 09 - Everything is Catching on Fire (Generosity and Magic) Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 22 Minutes
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