As he walked into the room, Doc Zed's eyes were drawn away from the table in the middle of the room to the brown cardboard boxes that lined the walls on the sides. There were quite a few of them—nowhere near enough to indicate that the ship was intended to be carrying these as its main cargo, but enough to show that they probably weren't just there for no reason. Whatever was inside, the filly who had been flying the ship was probably taking them somewhere. Curious, Doc Zed detoured over to the side of the room and, with a burst of magic, opened up the top of one of the boxes.

He raised an eyebrow. "Hrm...?" Inside the box, filling it to the brim, was an assortment of many-coloured jewels and gemstones, shimmering and glimmering in the light of the room. Doc Zed whistled and levitated a few upward. A ruby, a sapphire, and two emeralds twirled around in the air, casting their red, blue, and green shadows on the wall. After a few more seconds of looking at the stones, he placed them back into the box and then, again with his magic, re-closed the flaps so that the contents were hidden. Just to check, Doc Zed then opened another box.

Inside this box, however, was a variety of books. There weren't that many—it looked like only thirteen or fourteen of the large tomes were able to fit—but all of the ones in the box were dark brown hardcovers without dust jackets, and all of their silver-embossed titles were in the Gnostic script. Curious, Doc Zed levitated one upwards, one titled Predictions & Prophecies.

He flipped it open to a random page and was greeted by a black-and-blue illustration on the right-hoof side of a mare's silhouette atop the shape of a moon. It honestly could have been any of the moons in the system—most of them looked fairly alike, after all—but Doc Zed had an odd feeling that he knew exactly which moon it was. However, instead of pursuing this further, he put down the book back in its box and sealed it back up. He had already been made curious by the comlink in the middle of the room and he couldn't afford any more of his curiousness to be taken up by the books; those could come later.

Doc Zed walked over to the table in the centre of the room to look at the object in there which truly fascinated him the most: the comlink. The exposed part of the engine was great—now he wouldn't have to dissect the ship to get in there and work on some of its internals. And the gems and books were surely enlightening—the books in particular looked totally different from anything he'd seen, and were probably even more valuable than the gems they lay next to. But the comlink? There was that possibility of instant connection to wherever the filly—and the ship—had come from and maybe, finally, some answers.

Doc Zed looked down at the comlink. It was a primitive thing, especially compared to the state of Bureau technology in those days, but he luckily knew a thing or two about old models and could see that the brick-shaped screenless plastic rectangular prism before him was indeed a comlink. On one side was a round plastic speaker grill; on the other, there were just three buttons: a downward-facing triangle to start a call, a square to receive a call, and an upward-facing triangle to end a call. Or at least that's what Doc Zed presumed; if the symbols had nothing in common with old Bureau technology, then he didn't know squat. But since there didn't seem to be any way to select different comlink numbers, he presumed that the device was only intended to call another one much like it.

Deciding to stick with the tried and true method of trial and error, Doc Zed reached a hoof forward and tapped on the downward-facing triangle. Nothing happened.

He tapped the square. Nothing.

Then, he tried the upward-facing triangle. Nope.

Raising an eyebrow, Doc Zed looked around the device to see if there was something else. And, of course, there was: a black cable protruding from the side of the plastic brick. The stallion's eyes followed it as it snaked along and off the table, downward, and... ending in a plug. Just half a metre away from the plug was an electrical socket. Doc Zed rolled his eyes, smirked, and was about to take hold of the plug in his magic—

And then, above, he heard it. A faint tapping noise. Well, no, not tapping—knocking. He knew it was knocking—he'd been using this underground laboratory for years now, after all, so he knew what the sound of somepony knocking on his door sounded like. Since he lived alone, he always had to go get the door so as to not keep ponies waiting. Even if he was in the middle of doing something important.

Sighing, Doc Zed turned tail and trotted out of the room, down the hall, and out of the ship into his large cavern of an underground workspace. The workspace was basically a giant hollow concrete rectangle, six metres high and twelve metres long and wide, with only a few messily strung-up light bulbs and holiday lights duct-taped or otherwise fastened to the walls and ceiling. Lining the walls were workbenches full of tools and half-built (or half-disassembled) machines and inventions. Doc Zed walked past all of this, though, to the stairs that led upwards into his kitchen. He heard the knocks again, so he hastened his pace as he went through the living room and then nearly flung the front door open once he got there.

"Doctor Zed." Standing on his doorstep was a sky-blue earth pony mare with a deep blue mane and a flat, annoyed expression. Her face was lit up yellow by his porchlight; the night sky outside, however, was pitch black but for the pinprick stars.

Doc Zed blinked. "Oh, hi, Sue," he said stiffly. "What brings you here?"

"I'm not sure..." the mare started. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"Excuse me?"

Sue put a hoof to her forehead. "Sorry, sorry... anyway, I'm just coming by to see if you've seen my daughter Flight in the past day? She wasn't at home when we woke up this morning and we've been looking for her all day—Mary's at the market right now, I think..."

"Hmmm," Doc Zed hmmm'd. "Say, would you like to come in for some tea?"

Sue's eyes narrowed. "Okay, spit it out. What do you know? You know something."

"Or maybe coffee? Never been much for the stuff myself, but other ponies do seem to like it for sitting down and having a chat..."

"Doctor, please!" Sue said loudly. "My child is missing, and now you're taunting me!"

"Sue, your daughter... hmmm, what is the best way to put it?" Doc Zed leaned against the door frame. "Do you remember Kevin?"

Sue blinked. "Why, of course I remember Kevin. He was the sweetest little colt, bless his soul..."

"Kevin came back," Doc Zed said flatly. "There's some... complicated stuff going on right now, but basically the long and short of it is that Flight and Kevin are en route to Umberlight to pick up some parts for me."

"Seriously?!" Sue exclaimed. "Doctor, that's dangerous! Flight's just a kid! And Kevin? Nnnngh... I don't even know what to think..."

"Don't worry," Doc Zed said. "Flight has her comlink with her—you should be able to call and talk to her."

"We've tried... she hasn't picked up..."

"I'll tell her to, don't worry," Doc Zed replied, putting a gentle hoof on Sue's back. "They're gonna be fine and back here before you know it. Flight isn't so young anymore, though."

"I-I know, but..." Sue sighed. "I don't know why I trust you. You're ridiculous. You're a mad scientist, and a bit of an idiot."

"A lot of an idiot, if you ask me."

"Okay, a lot of an idiot. And yet... you're a good pony, I suppose. You've always been a great friend to Flight and our family."

"Yep," Doc Zed replied. "Again, don't worry—your daughter will be back here in no time, and with zany stories to boot! It'll be great."

"Well... alright," Sue said, looking up at him. "But if this ever happens again, without telling me or Mary... you had better friggin' bet there'll be hell to pay."

"I wouldn't expect any less," Doc Zed said with a smile.

"I'm gonna go tell Mary we can stop looking now," Sue said. "Thank you."

"No problem. Have a good night, y'hear?"

"We will... and you too." Sue stepped away and Doc Zed watched as the sky-blue mare trotted down the path and into the darkness that shrouded the road in front of his house. He took one or two more gulps of the crisp, cool night air and then turned around, shut the door behind him, and trotted through the house. Now that that distraction was over with... he had a date with a weird obsolete comlink.