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Fulfilling the mandate of the expedition

by Cackling Moron

Chapter 1: #1

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Author's Notes:

It's a sequel to Home in that it is related to Home, but will not be continuing the events of that. Do you have to have read that one to understand this one? I'd say no, but I sometimes read serieseseses out of order so I can't be trusted.

I also wouldn't pay too much attention to the technical detail of the story - what they're working on is not the point. It's just an excuse for the story to happen. And I'm probably wrong about electricity or something.

Electricity was coming to Canterlot. And not just any electricity, wireless electricity. Very swish stuff.

The whole thing was a co-operative effort, which was kind of the point. Human visitors and ponies working together for mutual advancement and benefit, jolly cooperation, all that sort of thing. An outgrowth and actual, demonstrable result of continuing and ongoing diplomatic overtures, something that was going to exist tangibly rather than just potentially or on paper, like most of what had been agreed to be agreed upon eventually.

So a definite improvement.

The power itself came - or would be coming, soon, once everything was actually installed - from a plant that had already been set up discreetly at a safe distance away from any major population centres, currently being overseen by a reclusive and solitary Governing Intelligence named Don’t Bother Me I’m Working.

The ponies were not yet privy to the technical specifications of the plant, and its maintenance and upkeep was being generously provided by humanity, as a gift. They came in peace, after all.

What came next was the infrastructure to actually get the power to where it needed to be and get it to do what it needed to do once it was there, and this was rather more involved.

It being so involved, it also involved the ponies this time, partly because it was a question of manpower (ponypower?) but mainly just to make them feel less like they were having change foisted upon them by the interlopers.

This was about sharing, after all, and being friendly. Humanity was nothing if not friendly.

All The Colours Of The Rainbow was the name of the Governing Intelligence that was advising and assisting on this particular portion of the overall operation, the Canterlot portion, though it preferred being called ATC. Arthur, one of the two actual flesh-and-blood humans involved, saw no reason not to oblige it in this.

The plan was Canterlot first, thence to gradually roll it out further, as and when other towns, cities and so on signalled approval. Weren’t going to be ramming down anyone’s throat without permission after all, though it was hoped that seeing how simple and great it was in Canterlot would soften opinion and increase uptake.

Increased uptake represented increased cooperation, which in turn represented increased friendship. Increased friendship represented success.

And so it was that Arthur again found himself standing under alien skies in blazing sunshine, wearing his technicians’ jumpsuit and his toolbelt and his sidearm, blearily watching brightly-coloured magical horses doing stuff, wondering whether this was what he’d signed up for when he’d agreed to go on the expedition.

In fairness, he’d expected much worse and what he’d left behind was undeniably worse, all this magical frippery just came as something of a confusing shock to him, even after been here for however long he’d been in-world for.

A local crew of ponies - incongruously wielding roadworking tools, which still looked incredibly odd to Arthur, given that there was very little reason for them to have designed them the way they had - were doing the digging up of the road and would be doing the putting it back down again, once that step had been reached.

ATC’s had a dozen or so remotely operated bodies on-hand too and they were (it was?) also waiting, there to lay the cable which was there to carry the juice (as it was sometimes called) and also to handle the heavy lifting involved in setting up the actual power transmitters themselves, with Arthur right at the end waiting to hook it up and check it was working properly.

As far as divisions of labour went it was pretty good and had worked well so far. They’d already got coverage over a fair chunk of the place, nearing halfway towards completion once the present one was done with.

Of course, this did mean that while that lot were doing all that, Arthur was left to twiddle his thumbs and feel useless. He compensated by trying to look busy, checking and rechecking things he already knew were perfectly alright, ensuring that everything delicate or technical had been packed properly or was present at all. Everything was, obviously, and he already knew that, but that wasn’t really the point.

He checked his watch. Still not lunchtime. Soon, but not yet. He sighed.

“Heads up. There’s someone about to say hello to you,” ATC said. Arthur looked up to find one of ATC’s bodies stood there, head turned off to the side.

“What?” Arthur asked, turning to look himself, and seeing there one of the locals, approaching nervously. He did not recognise this one, but then again a lot of them kind of looked the same to him, colours notwithstanding.

One would have thought his time spent in-world would have knocked this inability to tell one from the other on the head, but no.

Arthur avoided development in better integration by avoiding having to interact with anyone he didn’t have to, particularly the locals, retiring to the crawler they were staying in for the duration of this project the moment work that day had ended and staying there until work started again the next. In this way and for this reason he still had trouble telling most ponies apart.

That they had unique personal logos on the side was something that had been pointed out to him, but was also something he consistently forgot to notice. Orientation had warned that insufficient contact with the locals would be likely to cause this level of unfamiliarity and - lo and behold - Arthur was living proof.

Still, none of that changed the fact that this particular pony was getting closer by the moment, nervous or not.

“Maybe she’s here to talk to you,” Arthur said, being that ATC was the one who tended to do most of the talking anyway. Though ATC’s body didn’t have a face they still managed to convey a lot of fairly obvious feeling with just a tilt of their head. The feeling in this instance was incredulity.

“She’s walked past, like, three of me to get to you. And she’s looking right at you. And most of the locals still don’t get what I am anyway. Come on, man, pay attention,” it said.

“Oh,” said Arthur. He supposed this was a good point.

By now the pony was close enough that keeping on talking about her would have been rude, so Arthur said nothing else and, not having much choice left given that she really homing in on him exclusively, turned to greet her. Or at least face her.

He saw then that she was smiling. Still nervous, yes, but mainly smiling. He did his best to smile back but in a contest between a pony smiling and a human smiling it wasn’t really worth showing up, honestly.

Arthur had a proper look at her, the discerning kind of look.

No horn, no wings, that meant...earth pony? He thought he remembered that from the briefing package. Still had the same huge eyes as all the rest of them.

And that smile.

No question who she was here for, now. She’d come to a halt basically right in front of Arthur, or at least right in front enough that she could still comfortably look up at him. He looked down at her. He wasn’t sure what was meant to happen.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Arthur said.

Here conversational progress halted. Arthur was acutely aware of the blatant attention not only of every single one of ATC’s bodies (which he knew for a fact the Governing Intelligence did not need to do and so was doing on purpose just to be a bastard) but also the clandestine attention of the pony workcrew, too.

Arthur swallowed, the heat of the day suddenly that much more apparent as sweat trickled down his back. Damn jumpsuit. Moisture wicking indeed - wicking it right down the crack of his arse, apparently.

“Can I help you...?” he started, leaving a void he hoped to God she would fill with a name.

“Baker’s Dozen,” said the pony, and it took Arthur a second to work out that this was actually her name, and not a non-sequitur. He blinked.

“Uh, can I help you, Baker’s Dozen? I’m Arthur. Technical Speci- uh, just Arthur, actually, don’t worry about that,” he said, mangling his sentence horribly. This was why he usually let ATC do the talking.

“Just wanted to say hi. Unless you’re busy, of course. You’re not busy, are you?” She asked, suddenly worried, eyeing the list that Arthur had been checking off from for the half-dozenth time or so. He eyed the list as well and then quickly lowered it.

“No, not really. Well, a bit. But not really.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” Baker’s Dozen said, nodding.

Another halt in conversational progress. Arthur swallowed. Baker’s Dozen scratched one leg with the side of another.

“Isn’t it lunchtime for you?” She then asked, which surprised Arthur a bit. Odd question.

“Soon, I guess. Why?” He asked, checking his watch. Still soon.

Baker’s Dozen’s nervousness seemed to crest here, albeit alongside what was clearly some level of expectant excitement. Plainly this was the moment she’d been building towards.

“I see you eat the same thing every day, thought you might be bored of it so I, um, got you this,” she said.

She then rummaged around inside the bags she draped over her - saddlebags, Arthur supposed.

Somehow - despite the physics involved really not working out at all - she pulled from one of the bags an extraordinarily ornate and delicious looking cupcake which she then handed (hoofed?) to Arthur. He needed both hands to take it. It was not small.

“Wow,” he said with full sincerity before remembering his manners: “Thank you. This is - well, I didn’t expect this. Just to ask, how did you know that I, you know, ate the same thing every day?”

It did seem an odd thing for her to be aware of. She wasn’t wrong, after all.

“Oh, heh, uh, I work near here and I see you when I’m going to my lunch,” she said quickly, eyes perhaps a touch wider than they had been a second previously. Not that Arthur noticed.

“Huh. Okay,” said Arthur, who bought this. After all, it sounded reasonable.

He then stared at the cupcake some more.

He was nonplussed.

It wasn’t that Arthur didn’t trust the local food, it was just that he trusted the standard rations more. As bland as they might be he at least knew they were and always would be safe and exactly what he would expect them to be. Which was, as said, bland, but if they stopped him being hungry who cared?

The cupcake was also very nearly the size of his head.

“...thanks again,” said Arthur.

His subdued tone and look of complete bafflement she mistook for disappointment, and all at once she was overcome with the worry that she’d made some kind of mistake.

“Do you like that kind of cupcake?” She asked.

Arthur had no way of knowing what flavour it was just by looking. He guessed chocolate but really, who knew? It could have been anything. Hundreds and thousands twinkled menacingly at him while icing rose in mighty, crenulated peaks. The most formidable baked good he’d ever held. Certainly he’d had to reach deep into his vocabulary just to imagine how it might be described.

“Uh, sure,” he said.

Baker’s Dozen brightened immediately.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Course. Thank you,” he said.

The pony looked delighted, absolutely delighted. Her expression was so potent it even managed to effect Arthur, the very corners of his mouth just quirking up a little. Not too much though.

Then came the supremely uncomfortable realisation that everyone around him - the pony who’d provided the cupcake, the work crew who’d dug up the road, several passersby along with all of ATC’s platforms - were all now just openly staring at him, not even pretending or being subtle, just waiting to see what he’d do.

“Would you like some?” Arthur asked, proffering the cupcake back towards Baker’s Dozen. Seemed selfish - not to mention difficult - to have the whole thing to himself, but the pony demurred.

“Oh no, it’s for you!” She insisted.

“I see. Thank you,” he said.

Arthur really, really, really hoped she wasn’t expecting him to eat the whole thing on the spot. For one, having an audience was horrifying. For another, he was truly unsure that he was actually physically capable of eating even half of it in one go, let alone all of it.

“I’ll - I’ll have it at lunch. Which is soon. You don’t have to wait around here if you don’t want to,” he said, hoping against hope she would leave. To his immense and immediate relief Baker’s Dozen smiled broadly and gave a nod.

“Sure, alright!” She said. “Wouldn’t want to get in your way anyway, this all looks, uh, really complicated.”

It wasn’t, really, but then again maybe only Arthur thought it wasn’t.

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

A fly chose the moment of silence that followed to buzz on in and try it’s luck in approaching the cupcake only to have Arthur waft it away. It left, saddened, but feeling better for having at least given it a shot.

“Alright. Okay! Well, I hope you like it!” Baker’s Dozen then said, giving Arthur a wave and trotting off. Arthur, utterly baffled, gave a limp return wave to her retreating back and then watched her continue trotting off until she rounded a corner.

“Since you’re open to sharing, can I have some?” ATC asked before Arthur had much of a chance to think too much about what had just happened. Arthur looked at the remote-operated, entirely-mechanical, utterly-incapable-of-eating body sideways, decided that it would be pointless rising to this particular bait and so instead looked over to the ponies and their tools.

“How you guys getting on?” He asked, causing them all to immediately resume working as though they hadn’t spent the last five minutes not doing anything.

“Tsch. Minor delay, there. Lapse in concentration. You’d never get away with that back home,” ATC said. Again, Arthur chose to just ignore the Governing Intelligence, instead focusing on the cupcake still lying heavy in his hands.

He stared at it, and the thing was just so present and weighty that he was fairly certain that it was staring back at him somehow, in some way a lesser cupcake simply wouldn’t have been able to manage.

“Where the hell am I going to put this thing?” He said to himself.

Next Chapter: #2 Estimated time remaining: 54 Minutes
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