Twilight and her passengers arrived back in Meg’s home. She gave them a few moments to get their bearings. “I’m really sorry about that. It might be better to hold our next meeting in this realm.”

Steve joined them in the living room. “What happened?”

“Discord happened,” Andrew said. “I’m beginning to appreciate the difference between wish fulfillment and reality.”

“Ah,” he said with a knowing smile. “He can come on rather strong.”

“Should we be worried that Meg is all alone with Discord right now?” Elaine asked. “Why didn’t she come back with us?”

“To answer your first question,” Steve said, “she’s safe enough with him.”

“As for your second,” Twilight continued, “she’s working on a project with me right now—with Discord too, for that matter.”

“What kind of project?” Tom asked.

“One I do not wish to make public at this time.”

Andrew got down on his knees, to bring his head closer to Twilight’s. “Before you go, what do you think of our auction ideas?”

The alicorn mulled it over. “The cupcakes can be arranged, for sure; the cider, I’m not so sure about. Anything else?”

“Have A. K. Yearling do book signings?”

“Or Daring Do, if they’re one and the same,” Joe added.

She’s going to have to decide one way or the other eventually. But that wasn’t for her to decide—assuming the book signing tour would take place in this realm. It was part of the ongoing negotiations. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

There was several seconds of silence before Elaine spoke up. “How about a performance from Trixie? We can promise an audience who’ll appreciate her act.”

It was an intriguing idea. It might even be just what the show pony needed. If only she knew how to contact her. Even so… “I’ll have to get back to you on that also.”

“But you won’t make an appearance,” Andrew said.

“Not this time, not me or any other Element Bearer,” Twilight said. “It’s not entirely up to me.”

“Secret Service?”

The alicorn nodded. “They say it’s too high a security risk. After what I saw at the Late Show, it’s hard to argue with that.”

“Well, it is what it is.” Andrew got back on his feet. “We’ve taken enough of your time,” he said. “We’ll be leaving now.”

As Steve walked them to the front door, Twilight said, “It was a pleasure meeting you all. Work with Meg to schedule another meeting.”

“Will do,” Andrew said as he walked out the door, the others right behind him.

Steve closed the door, then turned to face the alicorn. “I guess that went well enough.”

“Discord wanted them to auction off the chance to meet him in person.”

“Really?”

Twilight nodded. She couldn’t help but notice that they hadn’t brought that offer up again.

He threw up his hands. “I’m glad I won’t have to deal with that.”

Twilight sighed. “Sometimes I think he was easier to deal with before he was reformed. Anyway, I better get back there.”

She invoked the return spell, and returned to an empty throne room. Assuming they must’ve gone ahead to Fluttershy’s, Twilight fetched her saddlebags, overstuffed with equipment, and flew over to her friend’s cottage.

Her descent had just begun when—no, no, no, no, no!

A few hundred feet into the Everfree, a few of the gnarled trees were engulfed in purplish gloop. The alicorn teleported in fury, appearing above the feasting blob. “Smooze! Cease and desist, now.”

A pair of eyes blinked at her in confusion.

“Twilight, it’s okay,” Fluttershy said, having just arrived at her side.

“Okay?”

“We asked him to.” She pointed below. “Let’s rejoin the others and we’ll explain.”

Fluttershy was already returning to the ground, where Meg, Discord, and… Zecora?

I leave this realm for only a few minutes…

Those eyes were still looking at her.

“Uh, never mind. Just keep on doing… whatever.”

She teleported down to the others, and promptly glared at Discord, whose face of innocence was crowned with a halo. For once, she had to admit, he probably was innocent. She turned to the zebra. “Your presence cannot be a coincidence.”

Zecora greeted her with a slight bow. “As you yourself so justly surmise, that I am the cause is no surprise. These trees here are diseased with a virulence that cannot be appeased. By culling those already ensnared, we hope that the rest may be spared.”

“That’s… justified, sort of.” She resumed glaring at Discord. “Couldn’t you have saved these trees with a snap of your talons?”

The draconequus put a paw to his chest. “And deprive Smoozy of the opportunity to put his special talent to good use?”

Special talent? That was one way to look at it.

“It was my idea,” Fluttershy said. “Zecora paid me a visit after Discord had left. She told me about the sick trees and the need to do something quickly.”

Assuming Discord didn’t create this “opportunity” in the first place. It would have been nice to know the nature of this infection. “Did you collect any samples for study?”

“Uh… no?”

Twilight looked to the zebra. “Zecora?”

A head shake was her reply.

The Smooze had fully engulfed the affected trees and the space between them. They were breaking down, sagging as they were attacked by powerful… what? How did Smooze digest? Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. It didn’t matter; fat chance of collecting samples now.

It was a distraction, anyway. Her eyes re-opened. “How are we supposed to conduct our research with him like…” She waved a hoof at the gloop-covered, slumping trees. “That.”

The butter yellow pegasus hid behind her mane. “Uh, sorry?”

Discord was looking off into the forest at something only he seemed to notice.

“Don’t look at me,” Meg said.

Smooze, of course, said nothing.

Twilight sighed and eyed the feasting blob. “I guess today’s session is canceled.”

Sugarcube Corner wasn’t busy, which suited Twilight just fine. “Hey, Pinkie,” she said, gaining the attention of the pink pony behind the counter.

“I know that face,” Pinkie said. “One cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake, coming up!”

A shake plopped down in front of her. How does she do it so…

Nope. Not gonna go there. Not today.

Twilight took the shake in her magic and seated herself at a table.

Pinkie sat across from her. “I didn’t think you’d be done so quickly with…” She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “You know what.”

“The unexpected intervened.”

Pinkie giggled. “With you know who involved, I should think so!”

“Not this time,” Twilight said, then she sampled the shake. “Probably.”

A pegasus mare and unicorn filly entered the store.

“Gotta go,” Pinkie said. She pronked her way back behind the counter.

Twilight focused on her shake, to the exclusion of all else. It was just what she needed. No humans, no human technology, no draconequus, just that wonderful combination of cinnamon, daisy, and vanilla, all wrapped up in cold, creamy goodness.

“Princess?”

There was a filly standing next to her. Reluctantly, she let go of the straw. “Dinky?” Her mother stood a few feet away, beaming an encouraging smile.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can!” she replied with artificial enthusiasm. Perhaps it was just what she needed, a foal’s innocent question.

Dinky briefly looked back at her mother for a final boost of confidence. “Do you think we’ll ever see humans in Ponyville?”

“That’s a good question,” she answered, stalling for time. The existence of humans and their realm had been announced a few weeks ago. The American Secretary of State had made a public appearance with Celestia at her palace. Even so, humans were no more wandering the streets of Canterlot or Manehattan than ponies were wandering the streets of Washington, D.C., or Manhattan.

“Maaaaybe you’ve met one already,” Pinkie said in passing on her way to the tables outside, making Twilight face-hoof.

“We would know, wouldn’t we?” Derpy said. “Aren’t they supposed to sorta look like minotaurs?”

Just then, Meg walked in. The Crusaders were close behind her.

Twilight was more worried about the Crusaders. She would have to carefully word her answers. “You would know a human if you saw one.”

That got Meg’s attention, of course, not to mention the Crusaders’.

Twilight continued. “But you’d never mistake one for a minotaur. Humans have yet to visit Ponyville.”

It was true statement, strictly speaking. Only Meg and Steve have been inside the town of Ponyville proper, excluding her castle or Sweet Apple Acres, and then only as ponies.

Scootaloo was about to say something, but Pinkie was suddenly in her face, glaring. Thank Celestia for Pinkie Sense and Pinkie Promises.

Meg walked over. “So when do you think humans will be seen in Ponyville?” she asked, smirking.

Her melting shake called out to her. It would have to wait a bit longer. “It’s hard to say. Crossing between our realms is not like taking a train to Canterlot.”

“What’s their realm like?” Dinky asked. “Does it really lack magic?”

“It sure does.” It was more complicated than that, of course, but going into that kind of detail seemed inappropriate for a filly.

“How can they do stuff without magic?”

“That’s rather hard to explain, but they do.” It was hard enough to explain even to some adults, as she’d had to find out the hard way.

“Maybe we should collect photos of that realm?” Meg asked.

Dinky leaped to conclusions. “You’ve been there?”

“I’ve… accompanied Twilight there quite a few times.”

That’s one way of putting it. Photos were a good idea, though, and there were already so many to choose from, there was no need for Meg to take more.

One of Derpy’s eyes was studying Meg. “I’ve been seeing you at the castle for, like, a year now.” She shifted her head, focusing her other eye on Twilight. “Ever since the time you talked to me about… you know.”

Twilight could no longer ignore her shake’s cry for attention.

“Shortly after… that,” Meg said, “I was tasked with providing insight into the human realm.”

“I-I didn’t cause any problems by refusing to go, did I?”

Pinkie slapped down another shake, just like the first, on the table. “For you, Meg!”

“Uh, thanks, Pinkie.” She turned back to Derpy. “You didn’t cause any problems,” she assured her. “Pinkie did a good job of explaining the situation to—uh, to the humans.” She smiled. “That’s my understanding.”

Dinky gaped in disbelief at her mother. “You had a chance to visit their realm, and you turned it down?”

“It’s not that simple, muffin. They asked to see me specifically. Didn’t they have a doll that looked like me?” Derpy looked at the princess for answers. “Why would they want to meet me?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked that. Twilight glanced at the glass once full of milk shake. I’m beginning to understand why Celestia eats so much cake. She exchanged eye contact with Meg, who was drowning her own sorrows in vanilla, cinnamon and daisy goodness. “I still don’t have an explanation I can give you.”

“And what if humans did come here to Ponyville? What am I supposed to do then?”

Unfortunately, that was a question that could be asked by any of the so-called background ponies. “Before I give permission for humans to come here, I promise to have an answer for you.”

Twilight was in her residence, working on a status report to Celestia about the trade negotiations, when a pegasus flew in from the hallway.

“I’m ready to go home,” Meg said.

Twilight put the quill back into its ink pot. The status report would wait. “So what do you think of Derpy’s predicament?”

“Honestly?” she said, sighing. “It makes me regret ever making that request.”

“Would it have made a difference if you hadn’t, once humans start coming here?”

Meg paced inside the perimeter of bookshelves. “I suppose not. We both know too many will seek her out. Others too. Time Turner will get sick of being asked about his ‘blue box,’ Lyra and her obsession with hands—”

“Blue box?”

Meg groaned. “I’ll explain that some other time.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “The point is that letting fans of that cartoon into Ponyville will be bothersome to many ponies.” That was an observation she had already included in her report.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any good solutions—or even some bad ones.”

“Luckily, we don’t need one at the moment, not so long as I have to personally carry every human and pony across. Let’s change the subject. What’s up with the Crusaders?”

The pegasus stopped pacing and returned to the alicorn. “Oh, that? I simply figured that if they’re so determined to earn, somehow, their cutie marks in my world, I should know what they have in mind and try to discourage them from attempting it.”

“You have my royal approval,” Twilight said only half facetiously. “Not that I expect it to have much effect on them.”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.” Meg shifted a hoof about the floor. “Right now, their focus is on helping Susie find her special talent.”

Twilight looked askance at her. “They know humans don’t have cutie marks.”

“And they would point out that doesn’t prove humans don’t have special talents—or destinies, for that matter.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ll go get a pill,” she said, ending that topic. She quickly flew upstairs to fetch a plaid pill from its secure place, and returned to Meg.

Meg brushed the offered pill aside. “There’s something I want to ask you about first—completely different subject.”

“Sure, no problem.” She deposited the pills on her desk.

Meg again was shifting a hoof on the floor. Something was clearly bothering her.

“That doll… Did you ever find out anything about how it got tied to that leak?”

She was looking at her with penetrating eyes. It’s almost as if she had stumbled upon something, but how could that be? “Why,” Twilight cautiously asked. “Is something going on with that doll again?”

“Nope. Not at all. Still an ordinary doll. Just curious, that’s all.”

What to tell her… There wasn’t a whole lot to tell. Once the flow of magic had been reduced to a trickle, she had discovered that the terminus of the leak was magically bound to that Pinkie Pie doll by means of a spell that Star Swirl had created. Somepony had chosen that doll. Only Celestia had she told, who had recommended keeping it under wraps, at least until Twilight could determine who had done it—and why.

So far, she’d come up with nothing.

“I don’t have anything to tell you,” she said as nonchalantly as possible. It was best to keep the status quo for now. There was no telling how Meg would react if she found out what was currently known, but without the still-unknown full context.

As if I knew how I would react once the full context was known.

The entities capable of pulling this off formed a very short list—that they knew of, and that’s what worried her and Celestia. Furthermore, none of them could have been at the right place and at the right time, never mind have had any reason to have selected that doll.

“Just wondering,” she said with a touch of forced casualness. “You can take me home now.”

Meg entered the conference room. A half-dozen people looked up at her. “Let’s get started,” Jake, their manager, said. She helped herself to a jelly doughnut and took a seat.

Everyone being present and accounted for, Jake started the ball rolling. “Eric, where are you on the xenon poisoning.”

Eric Tanner threw up his hands. “About as well as could be expected, given that we still have no access to a nuclear reactor, and it’s not like the Equestrians have a reactor either. The models could be garbage, for all we know.” He bobbed a tea bag in his mug. “It doesn’t help either that they won’t explain the underlying theory to us.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d complained about that. “And you still wouldn’t understand it if they did,” Meg said, not for the first time. “None of us have been to magic kindergarten.”

“They could at least try! We’re not idiots. We’ve answered enough of their questions about nuclear physics.”

No denying that; to begin with, they had to explain the problem. A civilian nuclear reactor needed to be operated at a more or less constant load. While the fission chain-reaction could be damped at any time, once damped an isotope of xenon would rapidly build up from radioactive decay, an isotope that readily absorbed neutrons, thus preventing the chain-reaction from restarting. Being radioactive itself, this isotope decayed over several days—but days in which the reactor sat idle.

The problem could be avoided by using highly enriched uranium, expensive and not an option for civilian reactors anyway, or it could be solved with a suitable spell that prevented the buildup of xenon but let other radioactive decay take place. That decay produced a substantial fraction of the heat, so not only must it be permitted, a longer term goal was to actually accelerate it. In an emergency, a spell could suspend all activity in the core, preventing a catastrophic meltdown. Spent fuel rods would power the required magic generators.

It was one of several applications of magic being investigated.

Meg put down her doughnut. “Possessing a horn makes a big difference,” she countered. “Theoretical mages are almost exclusively unicorns.” It was difficult enough for her to wrap her mind around the theory. Steve had told her that being a unicorn definitely made it a lot easier; but even so, he lacked the lifetime of experience of using magic.

Eric’s smile declared victory. “Well, there you go: almost exclusively.”

“I think you’ve made your point,” Jake said.

“Fine,” Meg said. “I’ll see what magic textbooks I can come up with.”

He gave her a level stare. “When do the rest of us get to interact directly with our pony counterparts? The secrecy ended weeks ago.”

“Eric, change the subject. That’s above our pay grade.”

Jake and Eric held a staring contest. This had been brewing ever since ponies were declassified. Meg wondered how much longer Eric would last, if he kept this up. Only the fact it’d be difficult to replace him had saved him so far, in her opinion.

“I’d still like to know—”

Meg’s phone rang, possibly saving Eric’s job. She answered it. “This is Meg.”

“You have a visitor waiting for you in the lobby, a Jessica Fowler.”

There was only one reason she’d fly out here to see her in person. “I’ll be right there,” she replied, and ended the call. “Sorry, but someone’s here to see me. It shouldn’t take long.”

Jake waved it off.

Leaving her half-eaten jelly doughnut behind, Meg left the conference room and rushed through the corridors. As she entered the lobby, Jessica stood up, holding a satchel. “Your office?” the agent asked.

“Yep.”

The trip back to her office was at an almost leisurely pace. Once they were inside, Meg closed the door. “We’re sound-proofed,” she said, pointing at a crystal on her desk that just began to glow softly.

“That’s new.”

“Twilight gave that to me about two weeks ago. So long as the door’s closed and it’s glowing, we could hold a rock concert in here and no one outside will hear a thing.”

“Same spell she used on your home office wall last year?”

Meg shrugged. “I guess. But you didn’t fly out here to go down memory lane.”

“I certainly did not.” She opened the satchel and pulled out the mysterious note, handing it to Meg. Apart from one of the hexadecimal digits having been cut out, it was intact. She also took out the magic generator she’d borrowed and put that on Meg’s desk.

“Here’s the executive summary. No fingerprints or trace of any kind was found. The paper is of the type commonly used for inkjet printers, completely ordinary. Not surprisingly, the ink was applied by an inkjet printer.”

Meg held the sheet with both hands, hoping against hope to see something she might have missed before. “That narrows it down to just about everyone.”

“We’ll be able to identify the specific ink used, but it’ll take more time—not that it’ll narrow it down that much more.”

“What about the binary data?” Meg asked, swiping a finger across the hexadecimal digits.

“The tools I could get access to couldn’t figure it out. It’s either random junk, or competently encrypted. I take it you had no luck, either?”

“No. But why send me a message I don’t know how to read?”

It was Jessica’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know.”

Meg opened a desk drawer and hid the sheet under other accumulated stuff. “So what now?”

“I brought this to the President’s attention.”

“And…?”

“He recommends enlisting Twilight’s assistance, but will leave it to your discretion.”

Meg slammed the drawer shut. “I did ask Twilight if she’d learn anything about the doll—without mentioning that message—and all she had to say was, and I quote: ‘I don’t have anything to tell you.’”

The agent closed the satchel. “That does sound like a non-answer.”

Hand went to forehead. “I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.”

Once she had gotten home from work, Meg spent more hours trying to decrypt the alleged message hiding in that binary data. Whoever encrypted it presumably knew how she’d go about decrypting it. Perhaps that was a false assumption, but a necessary one; otherwise, it was a lost cause.

So the sender wouldn’t create a new encryption algorithm from scratch. That would be idiotic. The most sensible option would be to use a standard, widely known means of encryption. There was no downside to that, as security came from the key itself, not the obscurity of the encryption algorithm.

If it was up to her, she’d use AES. How would the sender know that? She hadn’t a clue. Yet that was the least of her problems: if the encryption algorithm she’d use was not knowable, what about the key? A quick check showed the data was a multiple of sixteen bytes, consistent with AES encryption, so that’s what she’d go with. Unfortunately, that didn’t help determine the key length. There were only three possibilities, so that wasn’t too bad.

She tried everything as a key: actual passwords she used, birthdays, anniversaries, names of friends and relatives, schools she went to, driver’s license, credit card numbers, everything, in various permutations and hashed via various means to produce keys of 128-, 192- and 256-bit lengths. A freshly written script sped up the process.

All she got was more random junk as output.

Well, it ought to. Those items were either theoretically unknowable to the sender or knowable to everyone, and the goal should be an encrypted message that she and only she could decrypt.

Out of desperation, she even tried some randomly generated keys. Why not? Magic was involved, right? Or maybe not. That didn’t work either.

“You should take a break.” Steve was leaning against the doorframe. “Give your subconscious a chance to mull it over.”

She shoved her chair back from the keyboard. “None of this makes any sense!”

“Will you show Twilight that message?”

“It basically accuses her of lying to me. Kind of awkward.” She stood up. “Especially since she might be.”

“Take it up with Celestia?”

“What are the odds Celestia isn’t fully aware of what Twilight isn’t telling me, and her reasons for not telling me?”

“Vanishingly small,” he conceded. “And if she didn’t agree with those reasons…”

“Exactly, so she does.” She walked over to the window. “Besides, I’ve no easy way of reaching her except through Twilight. I’d have to ditch her, fly to Canterlot, and get past the palace bureaucracy.”

Calling her, or texting her, was not an option. Celestia had declined when offered her own phone. Only two ponies had a phone, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.

“Sounds like fun.”

When she didn’t take the bait, he continued. “Bring it up at the next scheduled meeting with Celestia? Put it to both of them at the same time?”

“Others are usually present, don’t forget.”

“Wait until after the meeting is over?”

She stared into the sky. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Is there a rush? Why don’t you wait until we get back from Las Pegasus.”

“Is there a rush?” She turned around, arms folded across her chest. “That’s kind of up to them, isn’t it? Whoever left that message.”

“It didn’t specifically tell you to drop everything and get the truth from Twilight, only that there is a truth. It certainly didn’t put a deadline on it.”

She threw up her hands. “So why inform me of that now, and not a week earlier or a week later.”

“I don’t know.”

“And what will they do next if I procrastinate too long?”

Steve did not try to answer that question.

Meg’s phone rang. She quickly walked over to pick it up. “Speak of the devil.” She accepted the call. “Twilight?”

“Go watch CNN right now.”

“She wants us to turn on CNN,” she said, walking past Steve towards the living room. Once there, she turned on the TV and changed the channel. A priest was being interviewed.

“…in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Only then did they know of good and evil, and thus felt shame at their nakedness. These ponies, not being children of Adam and Eve, do not possess this original sin, and hence lack this shame.”

Just wonderful.

She muted the sound.

“I certainly do know of good and evil, and I still don’t understand this obsession over nudity.”

“Twilight…” She needed this right now like she needed a hole in her head. “I don’t even know where to start. There are religious books you can read, but they’ll probably leave you with more questions than answers.”

“Like the Bible? Already read it. And the texts of many other religions. As they all describe mutually incompatible realities, most of them must be wrong—and that’s before taking into account the considerable scientific knowledge you humans have accumulated.”

It just kept getting better. “I really, really, really advise that you avoid this topic in public. It’s a no-win situation for you.”

“That’s why I called. It’s only a matter of time before I’m asked to comment on such topics.”

“You’ve got my advice.” Unfortunately, she was probably right. “Anything else? Sorry, but this isn’t a good time for me right now.”

“No, nothing that can’t wait. Talk to you later. Bye.”

“Did we forfeit our immortal souls when we became ponies?”

Meg glared at her husband. “Don’t you start.”

He held up his hands in surrender.

She switched to Fox. “Might as well see what other shit is hitting the fan.”

Commercials. More commercials. It was three whole minutes before they ended, revealing a panel discussion. In the corner of the screen was a projection of the hurricane’s path, due to hit land sometime tomorrow afternoon. The topic under discussion, according to the bottom of the screen, was that hurricane; not the sort of thing typically discussed by talking heads, but at least it was refreshingly non-equine.

She turned the sound back on.

“…no offer to help us. Wouldn’t it be ‘foal’s play’ for Rainbow Dash to divert or even destroy that hurricane? We’d certainly make it worth—”

She turned off the TV.