The memory of Celestia laughing echoed in my mind as I watched her interact with her subjects. It had to be so hard sometimes; unfathomable years of time, countless thousands, even millions of lives passing through her own, a brief breeze through her mane, on the way to a hereafter still millennia distant for her. Always the standard bearer for her nation and people-- "ruler" in every sense of the word, with noone but her sister to help her bear the burden; always having to smile serenely but rarely getting to laugh...

I shook off those melancholy thoughts when she addressed me. "So where were you guiding this little group next, Sir Arcturus?"

"I don't correctly know, your Highness," I admitted, stroking my beard. "When I was told there was a new wing of the Museum, I wasn't expecting quite so many sections to it."

"You can blame overwhelming enthusiasm for that," she said. "It's not often we stumble onto an entire new species from another world..." I nodded. I could certainly see that; I suspect that the Smithsonian back on Earth would receive quite an expansion if beings from another planet made a surprise visit. "If I might make a recommendation, there is one room we haven't opened up to the public yet. The museum staff have just gotten everything working, so if you'd like to get a private first look..." she winked broadly. Of course, the foals were practically bouncing in place at the idea of getting a super-special sneak preview, so we all said yes.

She led us through the wing to a door that led off the main corridor. Somehow, despite being the highly visible ruler of the land and leading a human and a troop of excitable preadolescents right through the middle of the museum, none of the crowds blocked or approached her or, for that matter, even paid her and our entourage any attention. I was about to ask her about this when I noticed a faint sparkle around her horn; she saw me take note and gave me a sly wink. Clever old girl. I guess you don't get to be a thousand plus years old without learning how to get around your own kingdom discreetly.

The door was locked, and blocked with a sign that read "not open to the public." Celestia whisked the sign aside and unlocked the door with a flicker of magic. The room beyond was pitch dark. Out of pure old homeland habit, I groped along the inside of the wall for the light switch... and found it. The lights fluttered to life in a low-ceilinged room the size of a high school gymnasium. There were signs of current construction; a few ladders and tools here, some drop cloths there....

And all over the room, screens flickered to life.

A communal "Oooooo" went up. I admit it, I let out a whistle myself. The room was bedecked in computer technology. I had lived through most of the home computer evolution, and I could see examples from every decade up in running. How in all Creation had they gotten such a complete collection? Were they opening up the portal underneath a Circuit City now?

I had the ominous feeling I needed to start asking some very discreet and pointed questions about the portal project, and soon.

 

"Good heavens," Cheerilee said. "Where... where do we begin?"

I was just asking myself the same question. My grab-bag of wikipedia-style information and random facts was like most Westerners when it came to the actual function of the machines and electronics we depended on. Desperately spotty. Between basic electrical circuits with little wireframe lines and symbols denoting batteries and switches and the microchip there was a rather large gap in my knowledge labeled with mental signs such as "here there be dragons" and "at this point a miracle occurs."

I decided to slog through it.

"Well, to begin with.. let's start with the basics. You remember the display on electricity, yes?" I started to ask Twilight for her magical markerboard again, but she stopped me. "I have something better," she said. She levitated something out of her bag and into my hand. I noted with some interest that several nearby screens flickered wildly. "Oh, Twilight!" Celestia said suddenly. "I forgot to mention--- no magic beyond this point, please, everyone." She nodded to the displays. "Certain kinds tend to make these devices... act oddly.--- No, it's quite all right, Twilight; it was my mistake."

I looked at what she'd placed in my hand. It looked like nothing more than a wide-tipped marker, one with some odd features added. There was a button right near the gripping point, and a small turnable knob on the butt end. I twisted it experimentally; the nib cycled through the colors of the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, back to red...

"It's a rainbow pen!" Pinkie pie exclaimed. "Twi and me invented it!"

"It was her idea," Twilight Sparkle admitted. "It's filled with a special mix made of rainbow juice. It'll write on anything--- even thin air."

I raised my eyebrows. "Just push on the button with your thumb to draw on the air!" Pinkie said, hopping up and down. I complied; sure enough, the rainbow pen left a thick, wavering line of vivid rainbow red in the air. I waved my hand, entranced; my fingers passed right through it. "If you wanna erase, just pull the knob out." I complied again, the tip turned gray. I ran it over the line and the pen seemed to.... there is no other word for it... slurp up the red rainbow line. "that way it saves ink!" Pinkie said, grinning.

"I looked all over for something like this," Twilight said. "Well, I noticed how you always seem to be talking with your hands, trying to sketch things out, and I thought... well...." she shrugged. "It was Pinkie Pie's idea to use rainbow juice for ink, I modified the pen so it would work like a miniature rainbow protruder and so you could choose the color...."

While she chattered I experimentally began drawing a few simple pictures and writing some random words in the air. I drew on the nearby wall, I even drew on my own clothes and hands. It worked perfectly on every surface... and soaked up the rainbow-glow with equal ease. I turned the pen over in my fingers, speechless. Celestia nudged me. "Now what do we say when someone gives us something like this...two words...?" she teased. I looked her in the eye. "Oh of course," I said.

I turned to Pinkie and Twilight, bent down to look them in the eye and held the pen up. "patent this."

"Not the two words I was looking for---" Celestia murmured, half amused, half miffed.

"Thank you's are in order," I said, "And thank you. But please, for the love of all things good, get yourselves a patent for this! Today! You two just became millionaires." I stood up and looked to Celestia. "Your Highness, you serve as a witness to this field test as proof of their claim?"

Celestia blinked. Glory be, I'd actually gotten a step or two ahead of her. "Yes, but why.. a patent?..."

"I'll give you a hint," I muttered, tipping my head back to the schoolteacher and her students. The foals were all cooing with awe and nosing at the intangible light-drawings hovering in the air. Cheerilee, however, had her eyes riveted on the pen in my hands as if she was a career chain-smoker and I was holding the last legal cigarette in the county. "Twilight," she asked in a slightly too casual voice, "Could I possibly persuade you to make, oh---" she glanced over her class and seemed to do a mental headcount-- "a couple dozen of those for me? I'll gladly pay whatever price you ask...."

Rarity heard this and the coin dropped for her... with the sound of a ringing cash register. "Twilight, Pinkie dear," she said sweetly, "Speaking as a businesswoman, if you don't patent that charming little device of yours I shall be morally obligated to kick both your plots."

Twilight and Pinkie looked at her, a bit shocked. Rarity spelled it out for them. "Girls, you've just invented a writing implement-- no, an educational arts and crafts tool--- that paints in any gorgeous color, writes on any surface-- even thin air-- and that can be used by anyone of any age. Artists, schoolteachers, parents, fillies and colts from all over Equestria will be throwing bits at you by the saddlebag-full." She grabbed the party pony and the librarian by the necks and pulled them in close, glaring at them both eyeball-to-eyeball. "GET. THAT. PATENT."

".......Okay," Twilight squeaked. Pinkie Pie just noddled frantically, too intimidated by the fashionista to speak.

"I think I'll be taking my pupil and her party friend to the patent office." Celestia said, amused. "If you don't mind me offering a lift to a couple of future millionaires, Twilight..." Twilight murmured assent, her eyes glazed over. I believe it was starting to dawn on her that she stood a good chance of becoming very, very rich, and she was very busy calculating just how many new books "saddlebags full" of bits could buy.

"How rich is a million?" Pinkie Pie asked, frowning thoughtfully.

"Lemme put it this way," Spike said to her. "Biggest. Party. Ever. Whenever. You. Want."  

Pinkie's eyes went wide. "OoOOOoooo," she said.

"Umm, before you go, we do need to do something about this," Cheerilee said. She waved her hoof at the glowing rainbow lines everywhere.

"Oh that's easy," Pinkie Pie said. She pulled a spritzer bottle out of her bubblegum-pink saddlebag. "just use rainwater." She spritzed a fine mist into the air. Wherever it touched the glowing lines, they dissolved into dripping sparkles and disappeared. She tossed me the bottle; I made myself useful spritzing my careless scribblings away. Cheerilee was beside herself. "And it cleans up with water," she said, clapping her hooves to her cheeks and all but weeping for joy.

"i do believe all the more haste is needed in getting that patent, Faithful Student," Celestia chuckled. "If you'll excuse us, I'll be taking Twilight and Pinkie Pie to the patent clerks. Carry on without us, we'll be back in a moment!" With that, there was a flash of alicorn magic and the three of them disappeared.

There was a moment of silence. Then a certain bespectacled little peppermint pony spoke up.

"Wow. What a twitht!"

I nearly choked.

After a moment of nearly strangling to death I managed to wheeze, "Let's see now, where was I...."

"Was sumfin funny, suh?" Pipsqueak asked, all innocence.

"Ahem. Why do you ask?" I managed to say.

His little grey and yellow fillyfriend pointed at my stomach with one dinky hoof. "Cause your TUMMY is going jiggly up and DOWN again," she said, utterly solemn.

I swear by the archives of Equestria Daily, those foals are going to be the death of me.

 

---

 

 

After I finally composed myself, I started my lecture. "To get right down to basics, a computer is a machine built to do math," I said. "It's purpose is to process lots of numbers, tons of numbers, huge numbers, and do them faster and better than any person-- or pony--- ever could. The first 'computer' was actually an abacus." I looked around to see if there was one on display, then went ahead and drew one in midair. "Has anypony here used an abacus?" Son of a gun if half the ponies around me didn't actually have one on their persons. I shouldn't have been surprised though; considering that their technological level, while averaging around the 19th century,  is incredibly scattershot. "Ah, well then, we'll skip over that part..."

"As time went by, humans invented more and more complex and fast 'computing engines'. Ones that ran on gears and levers, tiny mechanical parts.... then, people made ones that ran on electricity." I grinned. "Then they really started going places...." I drew a lightning bolt. "Lightning fast."

"Computers today all run on electricity. And they all work in pretty much the same way.... they crunch lots and lots of really big numbers, really fast."

"How fast?" Rumble wanted to know.

I thought of an example that would make an impression on a group of schoolfoals. "More math problems than all problems in all the math homework for all the foals Miss Cheerilee ever has in school in her whole life. In one second." A round of "OOOooooo"s greeted this. Miss Cheerilee gave me a wry look. I think she suspected me of calling her old. Or accusing her of being draconic with homework, perhaps.

Snips sidled over to one of the machines on display and gave it a look. "So, uh, d'you think one of these things could do my homework?"

"Ahem. No," Miss Cheerilee said, giving the ambitious young unicorn the stinkeye. Snips went "aww" and slumped in defeat.  

I laughed. "It wouldn't do you any good anyway, Snips," I said. "You'd have to know how to tell it what to do, and it would take you longer to learn to do that than to do the homework. Remember what I said a while back about how we all use numbers in base 10? Well, computers do everything in Base 2.... Binary. In fact, it's all they do... ones and zeros."

I drew out the numbers 0 through 10 in a column. "While we count this way...."

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

"Computers count this way....."

1         1

2       10

3       11

4     100

5     101

6     110

7     111

8   1000

9   1001

10 1010

I wrote out 000000 and pointed to each of the zeros. "We use the ones column, tens column, hundreds column, thousands column, and so on..... but computers see it as the one column, two column, four column, eight column, sixteen colum, thirty two column... and so on. So while we do this...."

   1

+ 1

----

   2

"A computer does this...."

  1

+1

----

10

"It means the same thing.... but you have to know how to tell a computer to take this, turn it into this--- " I drew an arrow from the binary numbers to the arabic numerals--- "Get the answer, and then turn it back---" I drew another arrow back--- "into this. And that involves all sorts of very special codes... what people call 'computer language.'

"Over time people developed very complicated computer languages to tell the computers how to do very complicated math. then they found a way to do it the other way around--- using the very complicated math to get it to do very complicated things. Like storing words and sentences instead of just numbers. Or drawing pictures. Or giving instructions to other machines. Then they made other languages that let all the heavy math stuff go on in the background without you ever really seeing it...."

"Till eventually they had computers and computer languages so complex and fast and powerful that they could do things like... this." I walked over to a familiar gaily colored cabinet and hit the 'start' button. The familiar opening riffs of the Donkey Kong theme began to play, and the titular ape made his appearance onscreen. The game began to play.

The children looked singularly unimpressed. With chagrin I recalled that they already had arcade games in Equestria. In internal function they were literally little more than the mechanical midway games of yesteryear back home, coin operated things of wood and glass and tin... but thanks to the addition of magic to the equation, they did a passing fair resemblance to actual computer games... circa mid 1980s or so, granted, but you'd be hard pressed to spot the difference. In fact they were superior in some regards; the magical animations weren't blocky and didn't move stiffly, for one.

"....Or this," I said without missing a beat, moving to the next display, clicking it on without looking. It beeped and booped and did nothing. I looked back; it was a bleep de blanked IBM computer, green monitor and all, blocky and chunky and at least a decade older than the arcade game and doing jack squat to look impressive.

".... Or this," I said, mentally grinding my teeth and trying my luck at the third one. this one was a pizza parlor game table. Remember those? Clear glass top, you could play the game while staring down through the grease-smeared glass. And was no more impressive than the Donkey Kong cabinet. Frustrated I tapped on the start button.... the machine switched through several low-quality games---

Rumble blinked and hovered closer. "Whoa, it can play different games?"  

Hah. Gotcha! "Yes," I said with some relief. "And it has no moving parts. Well, except for the buttons..." Curious, the foals pressed closer and pushed the button themselves, cycling through the games. I cast around for another display; this wasn't really illustrating the versatility or power of the computing age.

The foals weren't the only ones who were hard to impress. "Not to be rude or nuthin," Spike said, "But I'm really not seeing what's so special about these gizmos." He leaned back on the display behind him, eyes half-lidded in boredom. "I mean Twilight has done eeeyYAAAH!" The diminutive dragon leaped forward, yelling, as the display he was leaning against came to life... and began walking toward him, arms outstretched. Spike ran across the room, panicking, the automaton in hot pursuit. "What is it? Get it away!!" Spike yelped, trying to hide behind the others. Everypony else formed a wide circle around it, backing away nervously.

"It" was a 4 foot tall biped, resembling nothing so much as a miniature astronaut. It was built of smooth white plastic and had a visible LED "face" behind its black visor, and it walked with a smooth, fluid bent-knee gait. It stopped when it could no longer see Spike, and turned its head back and forth, looking around. I saw the word ASIMO written across its chest. It looked at me and said something in Japanese.

Oh. Dear. They stole an ASIMO?

"It's alive!" someone yelped.

"No, it is not alive," I said hastily. "It's a computer." in addendum, I looked at Spike and said "That's what is so special about these gizmos. They can be made into-- this." I pointed my thumb at the little lost Honda robot. It saw the hand gesture and waved at me. "There's a computer inside that little guy telling it what to do, how to move, where to go...a computer just like the computer in that game over there, or the one on that table over there." Asimo took a step toward one of the fillies; everypony started backward. "Don't worry, he's harmless. In fact, please be careful... he's very expensive and probably breaks pretty easy."  Very very very expensive, and I think it just might qualify as an international incident, kidnapping a robot from Japan....

Asimo glide-stepped over to Silver Spoon. She started to bolt. "Stay still," I ordered again-- visions of a billion-dollar robot being bucked to pieces by panicky little hooves dancing through my head. The little filly whimpered but obeyed. Asimo reached her... and to my astonishment, began unbraiding her mane. The robot then reached into a pocket in its side, produced a comb and began to comb out her tresses, saying something soothing in Japanese over and over. "My word, this must be a very new model," I said. "The latest I'd seen they were just learning to walk around and carry things...." The other foals exclaimed in surprise as the little mechanical man proceeded to groom their classmate. A few even waved at it, to try and get its attention; it would look up and wave back, then return to the task at hand.

"These robots are actually proof-of-concept," I explained. "They were designed by the Honda corporation, which is working on building robots--- computer controlled machines--- that can provide assisted living to the infirm and elderly. They're a long way from perfecting a robot nursemaid... but not as far as they were when I left, obviously." Apparently satisfied with its work, the Asimo put away the comb, gave a confused Silver Spoon a pat on the head, and walked back to where it had been originally standing.

"That's the advantage of computers; with a little work they can be made to control other machines. Nowadays there are computers.... microchips actually.... in most every machine, helping them run smoothly, monitoring them for problems, making them more efficient...or even acting as their brain." I searched the Asimo over--- thank God, an off switch. "For safety's sake I think this fellow should stay off the display floor. He goes toddling out in the middle of a roomful of museum patrons and starts brushing some dowager Duchess's hair he's liable to start a stampede. Say bye bye, Asimo." The robot looked up at me. Apparently this phrase was one of the few in its databanks. It looked at the foals, said "Sayonara," and waved.  The foals giggled and waved back. I quickly shut him off and set him up on top of an inactive cabinet.

I did a careful look around the room. To my relief I saw none of the current crop of military robots out. The curators had either not laid hooves on them yet or had enough sense not to put them up on display. Had Asimo instead been even one of the military's relatively primitive gun-toting robots or bomb-defusing models the disruption would have been a lot more unpleasant. I did however see my hoped for target: a late model home PC, computer desk and all. I turned it on and watched as it warmed up. (1)

"Computers are used for a wide variety of purposes," I said. My eyes roamed over the program icons on the desktop. Thank God again, it was a Windows computer, not some damnable Mac or doubly damnable I'm-too-hip-to-even-use-the-same-computer-terminology Linux piece of garbage.(2)  "Design, engineering, business finances, record keeping, word processing--- a fancy word for typing and printing--- art, music, games--- playing them, and even creating them..." I flicked on various icons, popping up windows all over the extra-large screen.

Now, this was more like it. My audience of fillies and foals, and one dragon, gaped in amazement as a flicked through a business spreadsheet, opened a word processor, fiddled with a 3d model in a rendering program, played a copy of "You're a Firework," popped up two or three opening game screens (hmm, Halo, and minecraft...), and printed a picture of one colt caught derping into the computer's camera. "With the right connections, I can even use a computer to talk to someone else on another computer. In fact that's what most computers on Earth are used for today... they're all connected together in a system called "the internet" that lets people communicate, work, and play together, even if they're on opposite sides of the world." I tried to leave it at that, but conscience dictated. "Mind, not all of the people on the internet are nice. Some are mean, some are stupid, some are disgusting, some are downright destructive and dangerous. You have to be careful who you talk to and what you share when you're online."

Applebloom looked puzzled. "How kin you share somethin' with somepony when they're on the other side of the world?" For a practical pony like an Apple, 'sharing' would be something of a more concrete concept.

"A good question, Applebloom. Well, you can share programs and files... programs like these games, or files, like this song or this picture." I kleeeked accordingly. "You can also share other things... like your address, or your password to your computer, or the fact that you're home alone...." I gave them a warning look. Several of the foals gulped. Equestria was an innocent world... but not that innocent, tragically. There were thieves, and violent ponies, and Stranger Danger was no stranger here. There were also more exotic dangers no child on Earth would even have to consider. "One of the rules of the internet is that you never ever share your personal information--- like your address, or your passwords, or your personal schedule--- with anyone. And little foals shouldn't go online without a parent or grownup supervising."

"Another thing you have to watch out for is people trying to share things with you that you don't want.... like computer viruses. You see there are some really rotten, terrible people out there. Cretins who like to break other people's stuff, because they think it's funny and that doing it makes them cool. We call these people JERKS. Along with other really nasty words that would get your mouths washed out with soap." There was some awkward laughter at that. "They make these little programs that, if they get into your computer, they can really mess it up. Sometimes so bad you have to erase everything in your computer and start all over from scratch. And what's worse, the programs will copy themselves from your computer, onto someone else's, all without you knowing it. They spread like the pony pox or the feather flu... that's why they're called viruses. You have to be very careful not to open any strange files strangers send you-- and you have to have an antivirus program to protect your computer from ones you never even see." I opened the Norton antivirus and showed it to them.  "The people that write these viruses are criminals, and when we catch them they go to jail for all the destruction they cause.... but it's like trying to find the first person in a city who had the pony pox. It's almost impossible, unless they really screw up. And there are so many of them out there that they'll never all be caught."

"That's.... absolutely dreadful," Rarity said. "I can't believe such petty ruffians actually exist!"

"Yeah, that sounds.... like too much," Spike said. "I mean, someone being that big of a jerk, just to be a jerk?"

"You mean like those teenage dragons on the dragon migration?" I pointed out. "Tell me, suppose you gave, oh, Garble, the power to smash someone else's stuff from anywhere in the world just by pushing a button?"

Spike's brows met in a line you could lay a level across. "Yeah, point made."

"Point in brief: the internet is an incredible thing, and has been used for good.. but it can be hazardous. It's not to be taken lightly."

The major portion of the room seemed to be filled with various electrical novelties and digital devices; cell phones, cameras, smart phones, iPads, handheld games, mp3 players, laptops, console game systems.... even some relics and offshoots, like 8-track players and that ill-fated 3d gameboy visor thing from a couple of decades back. I found that demonstrating many of the devices was a bit vexing: most of the ruddy things had buttons and switches far too small for hooves to manipulate, and the children found them boring and frustrating. We all had slightly better luck with devices with touch pads.... but it was still finicky work for them to use them.

They were a bit more interested by the cellphone display, especially once I showed them some of the features and explained how the wretched things, originally meant for simple mobile communication,  had eventually accumulated every conceivable gadget that the desktop computer had, and more... and how even more gadgets could now be downloaded as "apps."  "You mean you can... accessorize them?" Rarity exclaimed with delight. I could think of no better definition than that.

"Well, I certainly hope that the Princesses do manage to adapt these to Equestria," she said. It seemed so apropos; once suggested I simply could not picture Rarity without a stylish slim-phone next to her ear. But how would she dial? I wondered.

The displays seemed finished and well-secured enough, so at my suggestion Cheerilee let the children loose to wander the room and poke at the various hands-on items for a bit. Unsurprisingly they mostly clustered around the arcade cabinets; they were among the few things there with buttons large enough for them to manipulate without magic, and even at 8 bit resolution a game is a game. But a few did go nosing among the more interesting items. I wandered among them, answering questions here and there and pointing out the more interesting bits.

I came around one corner and was treated to the sight of Rainbow Dash rubbing her nose back and forth in random patterns across the screen of a mounted iPad. She was staring at the screen with cross-eyed concentration.

"Dash," I said, "What on earth---"

"Go 'way. Playing Fruit Ninja."  There was a 'hi-ya' and the unmistakable sound of a melon being sliced in half by a katana. I snerked and left her be. "Just be sure and wipe your nose prints off the panel before we leave," I said.

"Yeah, kay, whatever."

Several of the fillies were clustered around Diamond Tiara, who was admiring herself in the viewscreen of a mounted smart-phone. She was busy snapping photos of herself. I stepped in for a closer look and confirmed that yes, it is a pan-dimensional constant:

the little prima donna was making duck lips.

I made quacking noises as I walked past. She glared at me.... then went right back to pooching her lips at the camera.

I found Spike standing in front of another thin panel like the one Dash was rubbing pony boogers on. This one was sitting tethered on a pedestal. He was tapping the touchscreen with a claw and looking dissatisfied. "Having trouble, Spike?"

"Yeah," he said. "This iPad here looks like the one Rainbow Dash is messing with--- but it doesn't have any games or anything on it."

I picked up the gadget in question. "Oh, that's because it's not an iPad, Spike," I said. "It's a Kindle."

"And what's a Kindle?" Spike said.

"Basically, it's an electronic book. Or I should say 'reader.' You turn the pages, like this..." I showed him how to operate it.

"Neat. But kinda pointless. Couldn't you just get a regular paper book and save your money?"

"Well this holds more than one book, Spike," I said.  I took it back to the main menu and found the listing. "Hmm. This one's got quite a few volumes in it. Two or three hundred."

Spike's eyes went round. "Two or three hundred?? How many books can that thing hold?"

I looked it over. "Well, this model can hold up to six thousand volumes in it...."

Spike actually went pale; an impressive feat for a fellow that shade of green. "S-six thousand? That's more than all the books in the Ponyville library!"

I looked again. "Actually, no. This one can hold up to eight thousand books..."

"Eight thousand books??" I suddenly found myself trying to pry a small purple unicorn off both the Kindle and my arm. Celestia, Pinkie, and Twilight had apparently returned.

"GAH! Twilight! Good Grief!" I exclaimed. I managed to pry my arm, but alas, not the Kindle, free. Twilight sat on the floor clutching the kindle in her forelegs.

"You're not joking, please tell me you're NOT joking about this thing holding eight thousand books...."

I flexed the circulation back into my arm. "Yes, it's true," I said irritably. "But---"

"Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh..." Twilight babbled in manic glee. "I can carry my whole library anywhere I go with this thing!" She looked around at us, eyes wild and beseeching. "....I gotta have it. I want it. I need it."

"Dude," Spike muttered to me. "I haven't seen her like this since the Encyclopedia Equestria salesman came through town...."

"Oh dear. Let me handle this, Arcturus," Celestia said. She stepped forward delicately and lowered her head to Twilight's ear. "Twilight dear..." she said in her softest, most patient voice.

Twilight's head whipped around. "What?"

"Now I promise you, my most faithful student, when those are ready you'll be the very first one to get one...." Twilight whined and pulled the Kindle closer. ".... but it needs to be magic-proofed first."

"And it doesn't have any of your books in it yet," I added. "They need time to copy all the books you want and convert them into files.. but right now there aren't any at all you can put in there."

"And I'm sure they'll figure out a way to do all that very soon," Celestia continued. "But for now you need to take a deep breath, put the tablet back on the pedestal, and let go. Can you do that for me?" Twilight froze for a moment, whined, groaned... then nodded. She took a deep breath, set the Kindle back on the little podium, and slowly backed away. Celestia wrapped one wing around her pupil and gave her a nuzzle while I hastily turned the Kindle off. "There," she said. "Feel better?"

Twilight hung her head. "Sorry, Princess," she said feebly. "I don't know what got in me--" she covered her face with her hooves, cheeks flaming.

"Okay, that... was kind of scary," Applejack muttered to me. I just rubbed my upper lip fiercely and said nothing. These ponies could combine comedy and pathos like nothing I'd ever seen. "At least we know what to get her for hearthwarming day," I muttered back. The farmpony snickered.

"Heavens, Twilight," Rarity giggled. "For a moment I thought we might have to arrange a wedding for you and it."

Twilight shot her a dirty look. "Don't stand too close, Rarity," she said. "You wouldn't want to make Tom jealous." Rarity's smile vanished off her face like a light switch had been thrown. "We agreed never to speak of that again, Twilight...." The rest of the mane six giggled and snickered.

"WELL!" I said, doing my duty as a man desperate to sidetrack a fight developing between two women, "how did the patent application go?"

"Quite smoothly," Celestia replied. "I'm informed that the application is quite likely to go through without a problem, and soon. It's surprising how quickly such things can be expedited when a royal ruler is standing right there watching." She winked.

"I'm sure," I said wryly.

Twilight pepped up. "Yes, and we took the time to also make applications for a patent on the nib design, the ink formula, the resorber spell...." for once, Twilight's obsessive compulsive behavior had worked in her favor. More than one inventor had made some great new invention, only to have some slicker come in behind him, make a separate patent for some small but vital component, and steal the inventor's work right out from under them.

Sometimes I felt I was far too cynical for Equestria.

Then again, Applejack had nearly lost her farm to the Flim Flam brothers....

Pinkie Pie bounced in. "Yeah! And best of all there was a rich businesspony there named Hazbro who said he was really really interested in the Rainbow Markers and said for us to contact him ASAP 'cause we could all make oodles of money and he must've really liked 'em because when we left he was still drawing funny faces all over his carriage and his chauffer with the spare one we brought and..."

I found myself wishing I had something in hand to drink, simply so I could have done a proper spit take. An Equestrian pony named Hazbro...

"You mean THE Hazbro?" Applejack exclaimed. "The biggest toymaker in Equestria?"

Son of a gun.

Twilight actually grinned. "He even signed my Smarty Pants doll!" she pulled the ragdoll out of her saddlebag. Sure enough, there was a signature scrawled across its bottom.

While the girls started to chatter, I stepped over to Celestia. "Could I speak to you in private, please?" She nodded and followed me over to a secluded corner. "What is it, Arcturus?" she asked.

I hesitated, started to speak, hesitated again. Where to begin? "I think this will take more time than a mere moment's whispering," I confessed.

"Understood." Celestia looked over to the rest of the group. "My little ponies, I am terribly sorry but affairs of state require me to take your tour guide away from you." There was a chorus of "awws" from the younger ones. "Do feel free to enjoy the rest of the museum, and I hope we all get a chance to be together soon." There was a round of farewell hugs, and the rolling mob of pony made its way out of the electronics room.

Once they were gone, Celestia motioned to the guards. They took positions outside the doors, closing them, and the ones inside cast quick discreet privacy spells around the room. Celestia nodded her approval and turned back to me. "What is it that troubles you, then, Sir Arcturus?" she asked.

I took a deep breath...

 

---

 

1)In retrospect I was luckier than I deserved. I had not reflected on the fact that this was most likely a pre-owned model... and if it had belonged to a young male, more than likely had some fantastically nasty porn files floating around in it. This outing wasn't supposed to be THAT educational.

2)Shut up. Macs are nothing but PCs with a Nike swoosh on them. And Linux is pretentious crap; It takes some profoundly godawful design to make something so unusable that you can give it away for free and it STILL can't outsell it's massively overpriced competitors.