Somepony told me it's all happening at the zoo
For now, his name was simply Ben. He lived under a dome, which was perfectly right and natural and the way humans were meant to live, even if having that dome made out of shimmering blue not-quite-light was something new. And he was the recreation director because he didn't have to be.
Several of New Cynosure's residents were seated at one of the many breakfast tables. This was Ben's circle, the humans he had become closest to, and part of that was because there had been no requirement to do it. It had just -- happened. They had told each other their stories, these involuntary arrivals in Equestria, those whose incursions had been peaceful enough for the Princesses to place them in the 'temporary human settlement camp', a place which had no other formal name for the ponies who manned -- if 'manned' was even a workable word for their trio of species -- the place. (Ben had heard a few of the Canterlot Deportation Agency ponies refer to the area as 'the zoo' behind human backs and since that had been a new term for him, he'd had to ask a friend what it meant. He supposed he could have been offended, but... it was kinder than the name which would have been granted for a detainment area should the ponies have come to his world.)
And stories had been the first step in bringing them together.
Stories were encouraged. One of the two rulers -- the one for the cycle of the night -- had written a short guidebook which was meant to aid with adjusting to life in New Cynosure. In Ben's experience, instructions meant for survival, if provided by superiors, generally wound up getting you killed, typically on purpose and sometimes repeatedly -- but the pony leaders had different intentions in mind. According to some of the others, who were used to searching text for emotional residue rather than that of conspiracy, Luna's rules -- suggestions, really, but delivered with that certain something which made them more -- were not particularly well-written. They lacked an ability to connect with the human experience (but that was only to be expected). They were dry and formal and came across as something meant to be shouted more than read, but they did get the point across. And one of the first rules was to Tell Your Story as the first stage of connection. None of them had intended their journeys -- and so those travels had initiated in many different ways, most of which were unbelievable and remained so until the moment you heard the next story.
There was Laurie, who had fallen into a chalk painting rendered on the sidewalk in a place his friend Jake knew as 'the Bowery', a subsection of a larger living sector named Manhattan. (The ponies had a 'Manehattan'. Jake said he tried not to think about that too much.) Laurie called it something quite different and had her own words for the person she suspected had created the artwork, a piece some ten feet across which showed a cross-section of a Fillydelphia marketplace. She'd been leaning over to admire it, just starting to wonder why it seemed as if the work was lit from within, when something very large, very powerful, and very unaware of what the prodding near-spikes which covered its limbs had done, rammed into her from behind. Where Laurie came from, to stop dead on a city sidewalk was to draw absolutely no notice from all the other occupants, who would keep going as if nothing had happened -- and if you were lucky, what hit you would be roughly human in shape and not so strong as to drive you into the concrete. Laurie hadn't been lucky. And a split-second later, there had been no concrete.
David was the oldest resident -- at least in terms of time in the settlement. Twenty-four years old (and they'd just celebrated his birthday a week ago, with Ben finally familiar with the idea of such a party), but with nearly three of those spent in Equestria. His story was the simplest and, in some ways, the most baffling. He had been walking along the side of a road which went between a self-choice food supply area -- supermarket -- and his home. At one point along that road, there was a half-broken sign. At one time, it had said 'To Route 48', a notice for traveling motorists that continuing along that path would lead them to the more major highway. But the bottom half had broken off or been stolen to decorate a residence -- and all that was left was the single word: 'To'. It had been that way for four months when David passed it that day, and the former college student had often given himself a second of amusement by thinking about the possibilities created by adding something new to the lower half. Russia. Parts Unknown. Oz. He remembered saying "To wonder!" as he'd walked by the sign, a toast to possibility along with being an indication that the party he'd attended the previous night hadn't quite worn off... and his next step had hit mulch.
Kristi's people traveled through space using something they called jump tech: the speed of light was an absolute, but there was a means of taking shortcuts. A jump platform could deliver the user to anywhere in their known universe -- anywhere they had coordinates for, and getting coordinates for a new site generally meant either months of very careful mathematical calculations or asking someone else to get there the slow way. Jump tech had allowed humanity to colonize other planets -- but it was reliant on the sophisticated programs which tracked the changing position of every sending and receiving platform in an expanding universe. Kristi's humanity had found another species using the same trick. That species had declared war. And since the only means of speedy communication in a universe where lightspeed couldn't be broken was sending someone to give the news in person, one of the first strike techniques in any enemy invasion was cutting off the platforms, preventing the call for help while stopping any escapes. Kristi had seen the marauding party, scrambled to the nearest platform to yell for reinforcements, and found the programs corrupted by a virus. She'd thought she'd restored from backup. She'd believed she'd fixed everything. She'd volunteered to find out the hard way. And when the wormhole vanished, she'd taken a hoofball to the head. The referees were still trying to sort out the penalties.
Jake was the newest arrival at their table, and it had taken months to get any part of his story out of him -- months before he truly believed everything around him was real and no part of any conspiracy to break him. In Jake's world, he was part of an organization which existed to do something the ponies were trying to solve on their end: the protection and sealing of the barriers between dimensions. He'd worked and lived in a facility which had been trying to find a way to make those seals permanent: no part of the research team, just security for those who were -- there were others who wanted the walls to stay at least somewhat permeable and they were more than willing to use force in order to keep them that way. Jake had been off-duty when one of the experiments had gone wrong and delivered him to Canterlot -- and this was the part which had taken an extra three weeks to emerge -- nude. In his bathtub. Which had been filled with lightly-scented bubbles at the time, and also Jake. None of this had made a particularly positive impression on the pony he'd arrived in front of. A rather surprised and somewhat angry pony named Princess Celestia, and what had happened then was something they were still trying to make him talk about. The group gave him until autumn before he cracked.
And then there was Ben, who was trying to figure out which of them would make the least disastrous shortstop.
"It has to be you, Laurie," he sighed. "From what everyone's told me about baseball, being able to intercept the missiles --"
"-- balls, Ben," she interrupted him. She was a thin blonde, about a hundred and sixty centimeters tall, with darkly-tanned skin which never seemed to fade under the distorted sunlight the settlement received through the confining shield. Her eyes were different colors (left blue, right purple and grey, split on a diagonal) and her fingers seemed a little too long for her hands. "They're balls. Nothing else. They don't explode or come with onboard homing programs directing them at your head, no matter what Kristi thinks."
"Which is part of why your sports are boring," Ben groaned. "You still have to intercept them. And with your -- trick..."
"This?" she smiled, and took a bite out of the muffin she wasn't holding. The remaining portion continued floating in front of her scant lips.
"That," he confirmed. "You can reach out and catch the balls as they're coming, things which are beyond physical reach --"
"-- and that's just going to piss off everyone who can't do it, or bring in heavier hitters at the other positions. There's more tricks than mine in this camp, Ben, and if we don't keep it down to normal human abilities all the way through... it took long enough before the ponies would let us place a field at all: I'd kind of like to have it survive the first game." She spread her hands as she smiled: the muffin stayed where it was. "Besides, I'd rather pitch. My dad showed me old footage of Castro when he was at his peak with the Brooklyn Dodgers. I think I can at least do the elbow twist."
David grinned. "Always gotta go with the staff ace, Ben... Besides, as cool as some of the stuff a few people here can do is, we really are better off leaving it all out of sporting events. The unicorns understand Laurie and none of the ponies would freak if she played her tricks during a game. But if someone like Tess got involved..."
Ben searched his memory. Tess... one of the new ones, wasn't she? They were up to a hundred and fifty-three as of the most recent count: people came, sometimes people went as the ponies found ways to send them back, and others just -- left. Or at least tried to. "Tess... brown curly hair? A lot taller than me? With the -- oh."
"Right," David continued to grin. It was his default expression: most of the world amused him, no matter which world it happened to be. "Rather not have a ball hit through me, thanks. And everything behind me all the way out to the shield." Ben glanced over at where Tess was sitting. It was one of the newer tables, one of those where the proportions were almost right -- although a lot more work would need to be done before it would be sized for Tess. "Let's keep it down to the lie we all agree on as normalcy, okay?"
Jake glared at him, or at least seemed to do so behind the sunglasses which had been sitting on the rim of the bathtub. "Was that a crack?"
"Probably," David allowed. "Kristi, where did you want to play?"
His sometimes-girlfriend sighed. "Somewhere that doesn't still think baseball is a sport." Silver hair flounced as the lanky girl stood up. "I'm going up to the serving tent to see if there's any waffles left. Anyone want anything while I'm there?"
"Steak," Jake firmly said.
"Right. Anyone want anything which doesn't get us brought up on murder charges?"
"Fine," Jake grumped. "Rose petal salad. Heavy on the pinks --" Stopped. Frowned. Groaned. "-- we've got a hostile."
The table tensed. "Which one?" Ben asked. Jake had a way of seeing things coming before they got within normal viewing range.
"Dark blue," Jake said. "Unicorn, male -- crap. It's Crossing. Red octagon and all. Okay, who screwed up?"
Group blinks. "No one at this table," Ben said, and hoped it was true. "Jake, you're sure he's heading for us?"
"I'd love to be wrong," the dark man decided: hair more shadow-filled than any night, skin deepest brown, clothing always black because it was the only color he felt comfortable in, even if his former suits had been replaced by the looser garments provided for New Cynosure's males and Ben could personally never understand the dedication to black. Ben wore white every chance he got and took great pleasure in keeping it clean. "In three, two, one --"
And the too-familiar voice said "Ben." Addressing him by name simply as an identifier. No personal attachment was implied and none ever could have existed.
He turned. The unicorn stallion was standing directly him. With Ben seated at the wrongly-proportioned table, the one which forced him to stretch his legs out straight, the poor manufacture which sometimes came far too close to making him feel at home... in this position, the unicorn was slightly taller. And as always, dark blue. The frequently open dislike-on-up of humanity -- all the forms of it within New Cynosure, without exception -- made the CDA member hard for most residents to deal with. With Ben, the coat made it worse.
You are not my superior. You're just another kind of law enforcement, one which operates in the open, you have rules you actually have to follow and you won't break them...
Or at least hadn't so far.
"Crossing Guard," Ben replied. "Is there something I can do for you?"
The unicorn nodded. "You can be ready to go in four hours."
Ben blinked. No. No, I'm not ready. I -- and marshaled himself. "Reason?"
"Another one of yours," the senior CDA official said. "We're hoping you can talk to him. While he's still capable of speech --"
-- and Ben was standing, which put the unicorn's horn just below his chin. "Was anypony hurt?" He let the panic out into the open, braced for the answer he'd gotten far too many times. "Did you stop him before he did anything? Do you need any help treating the wounds, or did the zebras finally get the burn cream right? I can be ready to go in --"
The right front hoof came up: stop. "Disarmed before anything major happened. He scorched the side of a building before we arrived, but we recognized his weapon and got the barrel off the pistol body before he could fire again. Collected the grenades, took the little knives -- we basically stripped him all the way down in the middle of Trottingham and then someone checked him for metal under the skin. Nopony got hurt, and we're sure he's out of weapons. He would have used them by now. As for anything internal... nothing that worked on us. Will you talk to him?"
As if he had a choice. As if the talks ever did anything. "Yes. How did he come through?"
"Experimental technology. You'll look at it?"
Something else in which there was no true option. Ben was feeling closer to home by the word. "Of course. Why four hours?"
"We're still trying to talk to him. From what I was told, it's been completely pointless. It's the usual: ranting, screaming about having been drugged, refusing to cooperate with hallucinations -- and it got worse from there. We can't even get a name. But... they want to run through the complete line before they bring you in." The dark blue eyes narrowed, focused on Ben's smaller brown ones. "Not that you ever seem to make much of a difference."
"What was he wearing?" Behind him, Jake leaned forward slightly.
"You always ask that," Crossing said. "Every time."
Too many times. "Crossing Guard, I need to know. If it's black, I have a better chance --"
"-- indigo," Crossing told him. "And that's bad, right?"
Ben did something he never would have done at home: closed his eyes. No one used the moment to attack. "It could have been worse. But not much. All right -- four hours. My house?"
The unicorn snorted. "Your house..." The word came with extra disdain and more than a hint of invasion. "Fine. Be ready on time."
And he was gone. They all blinked the dazzle away.
Kristi sighed. "Warp, warp, warp... Ben, I'm sorry. Of all the crap you didn't need..."
"He's one of mine." Ben squared what little he had in the way of shoulders. "I don't have a choice. I'd better go get ready -- it's going to take a while. I've got to shave..."
"I've still got a few blades," David offered. "We'll drop by my place first and grab you one." Ben smiled his thanks. "Sorry, peeps -- looks like we've got to get the Rec Deck here ready for a meet-and-greet." With a small note of what was meant to be faith-boosting hope, "Maybe he'll be bringing back company..."
No. I won't. "It's possible."
"Or maybe," Jake said, "he'll be coming back to pack..."
Jake often lacked a certain something in the way of tact.
"Experimental," and Ben made himself shrug. "No way to tell and the ponies won't make me use it if there's a chance it'll blow up in my face -- which is most of what experimental does, Jake. Still -- wish me luck."
"Luck," Laurie softly said, and watched the two men leave.
David waved to the minotaur. It grunted, then waved back, the hammer adding an extra beat to the end of the cadance.
"You like them," Ben observed.
"Gotta," David replied. "They're the best things to hit this place since me."
It was hard to argue. New Cynosure had been through several stages of building, and most of them had been bad for the human occupants. When it came to construction, ponies simply didn't have the instincts required to design for a species with hands, and adjusting to one which averaged at least a foot taller than them (rulers excepted) hadn't come naturally either. The earliest homes had been meant as strictly temporary measures: surely the invaders would be gone within months (or moons) and so no real quality was expected -- something else which had made Ben feel somewhat at home. It made the first settlement buildings easy to pick out: they were the ones where the ceilings were too low, with door handles which were too blocky, designed more for mouths to grip than fingers. Benches close to the ground, chairs didn't worry about back support because the designers didn't sit. Showers were best not asked about. Under continued Equestrian construction, things had slowly improved -- but not too much: Ben suspected most of the ponies ordering the work didn't want the humans to get comfortable, along with resenting the fact that additional construction just kept on being necessary. Oh, humans went home sometimes: a new arrival would show up with a piece of tech that worked, or a spell would function under Equestria's rules... but the population still went up a lot more than it went down. A hundred and fifty-three was the record high. And today could see that number remain stable -- or go up by one, a group of friends, a family, something David called a tour bus...
(Up by one. His? Was there any chance?)
But the minotaurs had begun to receive their own incursions. From what Ben had been told, their peaceful ones were being allowed to freely live in that nation, completely out in public -- but he knew better than to trust rumors. What he dealt with was what he'd seen: three of them had come to New Cynosure to see what had been done in the way of building styles. And it had finally occurred to the ponies that the best designers for bipeds with hands might be the only Equestrian species Ben knew of which qualified on both counts. Several very long debates later, the ponies had (seemingly reluctantly) allowed minotaur construction crews into the area.
The only fault in the new buildings was that they tended to be geared towards those of greater heights. Tess was presumably comfortable in every way.
"I don't have to play contortionist to use my own shower these days," David grinned. "Plus the new ones are big enough for two... I'm telling you, Ben, you've got to get yourself a girlfriend just to enjoy the full benefits. Not to mention that it's about damn time already. You've been here nearly as long as me. You should be ready by now. You've watched enough of us, right? You've got to have the idea."
"I've got it," Ben admitted, scratching at his beard. Shaving. He only did it for this... "But it's hard, David -- not when anyone could go home at any time. I could -- 'make a connection' here -- and then the ponies would find a reliable way back to my world. I'd have to go and -- she wouldn't come. I wouldn't want her to come..."
He shuddered. It was something he had never done in public before coming to Equestria. Someone would have seen it, would have told others, and the risk...
"I still don't get it," David told him as they passed what was theoretically going to be the library. Two recent arrivals had shown up carrying something called an E-Book Reader. One of them had a solar charger -- and the databank had been full. Copying out was in progress, and the captured volumes would eventually be printed -- in theory. Something about Equestria allowed spoken languages to match: no matter where anyone came from, when they arrived, they found themselves able to speak the language of the nation they'd landed in -- and every human who showed up in that realm would share that language. But it didn't work on print: texts still had to be translated, and that was turning out to be all the harder when there was no way to verbally compare languages. And for those humans who'd shown up in the Griffon Republic and beyond -- they were locked into that speech. Teaching was easier there, but slow.
"In what sense?"
"Your world..." Ben had told David more about it than any of the others. Possibly too much. "Live every moment like it's your last, even when you get more lasts than the rest of us." Ben shook his head. "Even so, man. Better to have loved and lost... I never would have found Kristi without this, and if the ponies send me back, we still had our time. Use what you've got."
Ben had thought about it. There had been a four-day period during his detox when it had been all he could think about, and he had wound up tying himself to the bunk and screaming for no one to come near him, he wasn't safe...
"My time could be up today," he told the younger man. Technically younger, anyway. In one sense, Ben was just over three years old.
"Yeah," David admitted. "Mine too. And if it isn't? Then get up tomorrow and start looking." Passing the baseball field now, the white foul lines glistening from freshly-laid lime.
Ben got a little ahead of David, stopped, looked at home plate. David waited behind him.
"Tanya's pregnant. By Clark."
A very flat "...what?" acknowledged Ben's statement, quickly followed by "How far along?" Increasingly excited, "What's the due date? We're going to have a baby in this place, Ben! I know we've got three now, the ones who came through on their own, but -- a native-born Equestrian! That's a first!"
"Three months along." Ben's voice was stark. "The ponies don't know yet. They're going to try and hide it as long as they can -- but the ponies are mammals, David. They'll figure out a pregnancy eventually, faster than I ever would have before I came here. And then I think they're going to get angry, or at least the ones like Crossing will. Angrier than we've ever seen them."
"Why? Why, man? I don't get it. It's a kid..."
"No -- it's what you said."
David was confused. "A baby?"
"A native."
The resulting silence wasn't natural to Ben. Any such duration at home would have been broken up by something. Explosions. Weapons discharge. Screams of pain receding into the distance and you never asked whose, tried not to think about whether you knew the voice which was begging, telling those taking it away that it wasn't me, I'm loyal, I swear I'm loyal, you can't, I'm a good citizen, please... Voices which were always ignored.
"You know the pony policy," Ben said. "Back where we came from -- and nowhere else. Even if they have a reliable method of getting humans back to one world or more, they won't use it to shuttle all of us out because we could disrupt those places as badly as we're doing it here. Imagine dropping Jake into Laurie's world. Different histories, cultures kind of sounded the same on the surface until they actually started talking. He could fake it for a while, but eventually, he'd slip. Her in his... the instant she did what's natural to her, she'd be hunted. Clark's from one world. Tanya another. The ponies won't send them back to the same place and if a path gets found, they won't be allowed to stay here. Which one does the baby leave with? Can the baby leave?"
"What do you mean?" More confused now -- but part of that sounded as if it was being forced, like the man's brain was trying to hide the truth from him as a form of protection. "Yeah, the ponies would split them up, but the baby could take one of the roads --"
"I heard Crossing Guard talking to Centurion," Ben continued. "Sometimes the ponies can't send us back to a world we're not from. Something about connection. Like we're parts removed from a machine and we can only be plugged in one way. Is that inherited? Is the baby born with Tanya's connection or Clark's? Or is it connected to Equestria? Stuck here because it's a native, a true one, the first human child born in this world? Tied to it? What if the ponies found ways back for every last one of us -- and the baby is still here?"
The silence was weapons fire.
"They're going to be angry," Ben concluded. "Angrier than we've ever seen them." And continued the walk towards David's home.
After a minute, he heard the other man running to catch up.
Shaving annoyed Ben.
At home, he'd never had to shave. No facial hair had ever grown, much less the body equivalent. Detox had brought a large number of aftereffects with it, and shaving -- well, there were too many people who would have enjoyed seeing him bleed for Ben to ever treat a daily ritual of inflicting it on himself as normal. The beard had initially felt unnatural -- but it had been better than the process of removing it, something which was all too temporary. And so after a few months, he'd given up. Let the hair grow: it was easier to shape and trim than remove. It wasn't as if there were any others from his own world to report him, much less anyone he could be reported to.
But when someone from his world came through -- he shaved. It was the first step in the routine he had to go through before they would speak with him at all.
Ben checked himself in the mirror as the last bits of carefully-maintained mustache went away. There was a skin tone difference where the hair had been: enough sunlight got through the dome to allow some small degree of tanning. His own skin was pink, a still-sallow complexion set off by lank brown hair -- but a pink which those from his own world didn't achieve naturally. Only the few who went outside displayed it. His former profession would let him claim that status, but -- the two-tone look was harder to account for. Nothing to be done about it now.
His height had not changed, of course: he was average there. His build had. He was more muscular than he had been at home, had received more exercise here than there. His diet had also improved. The others complained about not getting meat: Ben had never sampled the stuff in his life. Processed algae shot through with nutrient supplements, with occasional treats of hydroponically-grown fruits. He ate a plant-based diet here and liked it. The stuff had flavor, worked with his tongue instead of deadening it so that he never quite knew what he was eating, or cared.
He still had very little in the way of shoulders. He tended to slouch, curling in on himself somewhat, as if trying to create a smaller target.
Ben looked at his reflection in the mirror, the one which was set a little too low. Exaggerated the slouch somewhat. A little more -- just another degree or two -- and there: the posture of someone desperately hoping not to offend, or get in the way, or be noticed. The typical home pose. In that, he could still pass.
Head hair next. Grab a large bowl, invert, and trim whatever stuck out.
Clothing. He removed his whites, reached under the bed for the minimal 'under' it possessed -- rolling out in the morning was easier than sitting up -- and pulled out the overalls. Shirt. Boots.
Sunlight acted oddly when it came through the blue dome. He'd been told the Princesses had chosen that particular unicorn to raise the shield which confined them because his field color was as close to a natural sky tone as possible, and it would make the residents of New Cynosure feel that much more welcome in their supposedly-temporary home. Those residents who weren't Ben, because sky was a concept he'd only started to grasp after arrival in Equestria. Before that, he'd had ceiling, and no light came through at all. His glimpse of a natural atmosphere and the colors within had been limited to the brief time he'd had before encountering his first ponies, and he'd been among the fastest to adjust when it came to domelight.
But when any kind of light hit his old clothing...
The garments were slightly metallic, as if the cloth had been covered in extremely thin flexible foil. And they were red. Oddly so, as if they reflected too much red back to the viewer's eyes. They gave off an aura of red while simultaneously seeming to repel it: any red objects he walked by became less so in his presence. And when domelight touched them, he seemed to violet the world around him.
He'd dreamed of violet once, although only as a step on the way to white.
Someone from his world. Someone carrying experimental technology. An invention which might send both of them home.
Indigo.
It could be worse. But not much.
Ben prepared. In every way.
He waited outside his little house. It was one of the earliest residences in New Cynosure. The proportions were off. Everything was difficult to grasp and he could hurt his hands by trying too hard for too long. It had a slightly crooked appearance and had clearly been built in the hopes that any resident would want to vacate quickly. Seven meters wide by three deep, two and a half from floor to ceiling.
At home, he would have been expected to share that half that with five others.
Crossing was generally punctual unless an incursion got in the way. This time, the CDA was having a slow day: the burst of light hit his closed lids right on schedule. "You're ready." A plain statement. "You know the routine. Hand on my back."
Ben stood up. "Where are we going?"
This got him a brief, sardonic laugh. "Hoping he'd calmed down enough to give the two of you somewhere comfortable? Not a chance. He's one of yours in every way -- and that means he's in the cells. Don't worry: I told all the new personnel to let you out at the end of it."
Ben didn't take the bait: simply nodded.
Crossing glanced at him as Ben carefully placed his hand in the center of the unicorn's back. "All of yours wind up in the cells, don't they? For a while. Except you."
Again, Ben said nothing. Here as with home, any speech could be twisted into an admission of guilt.
Finally, "He's stable," Crossing told him. "We followed your advice. We checked his food for poisons and when it came up empty -- barely: nopony understands how any of yours live on that stuff -- we gave him the rations he was carrying. Confiscated the drugs, but he'll stay on his own edibles for as long as possible. I'm guessing two days if he takes it slow. And that'll keep him from detoxing?"
"It depends on the drugs," Ben replied. "I'd have to get a look at him and see what he was carrying, but the chemicals in the food won't wear off until sometime after he runs out of it. If he was injecting or swallowing something else... no promises. And it's been nearly three years: I don't know what's been invented since I came here. If we're lucky, he'll be as rational as he's going to be."
"Rational." Crossing snorted. "Whatever rationality means for the humans from the madhouse..."
They went between.
New Cynosure existed because the Princesses had been fair.
There were humans who arrived by sheerest accident, the dumbest of luck, with no intent of traveling at all and no way home. They were confused, desperate, panicked -- but in those states, they had caused no direct injury, and inducing fainting in some of the natives didn't count. For the humans who hadn't meant to invade -- plus those whose planned incursions had been completely peaceful, but had found their travel method only worked in one direction -- for anyone who had come without intention to harm and kept it that way after arrival -- New Cynosure had been given over to them for as long as they needed it: roughly two square kilometers of land carved out of a wild zone, location classified, surrounding environment dangerous and if you found a way of breaking out, don't: everything beyond is hungry. As with many other elements of life within the semi-settlement, Ben had taken it as natural.
They were confined -- but within that confinement, they were free to live. They could talk to each other, raise and cook their own food, try their hand at building for those with the skills, recreate any technology which worked cleanly -- which had only begun when Jake had arrived, and he had pointedly told them that the journey from "magic-enhanced 1940s to current" (well, his current) was going to take more than he personally had, their new solar water heaters were going to remain at the pinnacle -- and as Clark and Tanya had proven, they could fall in love. 'Raise a family' was on the verge of being tested in a way New Cynosure had never seen: taking care of any babies to arrive via (temporary?) adoptive families was a natural duty of the group, but a true newborn... well, that road would probably be exploded under them while they were trying to walk across it. But the opportunity to find out had been there. Life in confinement -- but more life than might have been expected under harsher rulers and in nearly all ways, more than Ben had ever seen.
(He'd asked David about the settlement name once, as the most senior resident had granted it and therefore had to be the only one who would know what had happened to Old Cynosure. He'd been told David had chosen it to "find someone from my world who's seriously into garage sales and old comics at ten for a dollar." Explaining that had taken most of two days.)
The cells existed because the Princesses weren't stupid.
Others came who couldn't be sent home, and some of them destroyed their own technology in order to prevent it. There were those who had come to hurt those they'd been convinced they could defeat. To steal the resources of the land. Kidnapping of natives and horrors brought to those they took. Invasion with intent to conquer. To kill. In a few cases, to obliterate.
For some of those, there were the cells.
Ben didn't ask about the rest.
The facility was underground, which should have made him feel comfortable. The screams coming from the barred rooms did not.
"Working with the horsies, are we? Do we love them? Are we sleeping with them, you sick piece of --"
"Get me out of here! You've got to get me out! I didn't know it would explode, I swear, you've got to tell them, I was just collecting the blood for samples..."
"I'm coming for you when I escape, you and all the other sellouts! One of you is going to slip, and when I find out where you are..."
Ben had counted once. The opportunity had been there, for those he was brought to always seemed to be at the very bottom of the facility. There were four hundred cells. The Princesses had ordered the place built to overkill levels. The first time he'd been brought in to speak with one of his own, seventeen of them had been occupied, and the population of New Cynosure had been a mere six.
There were still four hundred cells in the facility, four hundred holding pens with soft yellow walls and bars which repelled any attempt to grasp them, gentle white lighting and orders spoken more than shouted. Three hundred and ninety-eight of them were filled, and nearly all of their occupants cursed him as he passed.
Crossing glanced back at him. "We're digging," the unicorn said, and left it at that.
"You could have teleported us to be directly outside his room," Ben said. It wasn't a challenge.
"I wanted to see if you recognized any of the voices, or if someone addressed you in a particular way. Especially when you're dressed like that." A nod to his overalls. "Some come through naked. We have a few common elements for all of yours: the detox, patterns of speech, a few expressions -- but we don't know. If they're starting to come through deliberately, they could try to mask any or all of it, even getting off the drugs before they get here. But reactions on sight -- those are more automatic. If we had any of yours and didn't know it, a walkthrough could have pinned them."
"There weren't any." A statement.
"No. There weren't." The same.
They were at the three hundred and ninety-ninth cell. No one was reaching for the low-set bars, placed at a height which allowed ponies to look in more easily than humans could look out.
"Yell if you need me," Crossing told him, and opened the door.
The man looked up as the cell slammed shut, and that was all Ben needed to know it was hopeless.
Hair short, the little that was present standing almost straight up. Trimmed to fit under a helmet.
A glare of angry superiority, fury over not just being in this situation, but having been denied the chance to execute everyone involved.
The white of the eyes with a faint tinge of brown.
And indigo. Armor removed, weapons stripped away (and there would have been so many weapons), but what had been underneath was all indigo, expensive materials perfectly tailored to the man's physique, completely different from Ben's own rough-cut itchy garments...
The prisoner's eyes narrowed.
"Name," he demanded.
Well, he's willing to believe I'm real. "I'm Ben," and it was his first mistake,
The man sat up straighter, enough to pull on the one handcuff attached to the bunk. A handcuff from home. The ponies had secured him with his own equipment. "Your name, citizen -- and I'm giving you more benefit of any doubt with that title than I've ever given anyone else in my life! The only reason I'm not executing you for treason just for walking up in the company of that thing is because you're the only clone I recognize as such in this place and there's the tiniest chance that you've been playing along while waiting for backup. Tell me your name and it'll be the first part of convincing me that you're not a traitor, gone native in -- whatever this place is. Name!"
Slowly, "Ben Ar QueDeeAr Three."
The man nodded. The appearance of cooperation calmed him, although not as much as the promise of a chance to torture Ben probably would. "Service group?"
"Formerly PeeElCee. Then -- part-time." A minor nod, as if communicating the rest of a sentence which couldn't be finished aloud.
"And that's what I have to work with," the man grunted. "I'd say it was better than nothing, but I've seen too many of yours... Those -- things..."
"Ponies," Ben supplied. "There are three distinct races. The ones with wings are called pegasi -- pegasus in the singular. Horns mean unicorns. Lacking both is an earth pony."
The man was growing calmer still: gaining information meant recon. "You're a Three?" Ben nodded. "Both since you went part-time?" And again. "So you died in the service of your home."
"I tried not to make a habit of it," Ben said. It was a permissible joke.
The man nodded, came very close to smiling. Ben tried not to let it give him hope. Knew better than to trust. "Phillip Eye BeeElEs One. IntSec. I'll do you the favor of not lying about that last part. I don't know your name, but I'm not assigned to missing clone cases. Not that anyone bothers looking when it comes to a red... How long have you been here?"
"Nearly three years," Ben answered. He won't try to execute me yet, he thinks he needs me -- but now he's going to see if he has other options.
"Any others?"
"Not from home. None who -- survived."
Phillip's eyes narrowed. "And they didn't survive because -- the ponies killed them? And didn't kill you?"
Ben let his posture curl in upon itself still more. "Sir, I need to talk for a time -- with your permission?"
A tiny I'm-dying-to-hear-this-and-you-will-too nod.
It was the most he could have hoped for. "I was the first to arrive. The circumstances are -- classified. Yes, sir, even for you. Direct orders." Which was just barely taken and not the least bit welcome -- or believed. "It was an experiment. I was assigned as first scout and recon..."
It was an accident. I didn't mean to come here. No one meant for me to come here. I had no idea where I was. I saw the sky. I saw trees and animals and clouds and a river. I had never seen any of them before and didn't know what they were. I nearly lost my mind.
"I encountered the natives. There were several dozen of them. They'd detected my arrival and came out to investigate."
A single filly came up to the river for a drink. Unicorn. Brown and grey, gold mane. No mark yet. She didn't see me: I was hiding behind a bush, shaking and trying not to scream. I didn't know what a bush was. I didn't know what she was. Just that she looked intelligent. Intelligence meant danger. Anything not of home was the enemy. Enemies corrupted. Enemies killed. I didn't know where I was or what she was, just that if she wasn't one of us, she had to be the enemy and when you found the enemy...
"Upon gauging how well I was armed and armored versus the forces I was facing, I decided it was best if I --"
-- pulled my laser. She was the enemy. She hadn't seen me yet. I had a bead on her, a fresh barrel and a pistol which probably wouldn't blow up in my hand on the first shot. One enemy down and who knew how many to go. Light was on me from above and it was so hot, I didn't know what the sun was, I'd lived under a dome my entire life. Always taught to attack the different. Kill on sight. Don't ask questions: a inquiring mind is asking after the next means of committing treason. Kill clones who are different. If you're different, hide it and hope no one finds out or they'll kill you. Four legs. Horn. Not a clone at all. The most different thing I'd ever seen. I had to kill her.
"-- approached them --"
She was drinking.
A fish swam under her chin and tickled her. She laughed. I didn't know what a fish was. I knew what laughter was because I was supposed to be happy all the time and you laughed to show you were happy, even when you didn't mean it or want to or never wanted to hear laughter again, but hers was real.
She sounded so young.
Our laughter is different. It's the laughter of fear. The sound you make when everyone is listening to you and trying to figure out if you're laughing hard enough, laughing just like everyone else, because any difference has to be investigated. We laugh because we don't want to die.
She laughed because something funny had happened.
I had a clear line of fire directly to her head.
I dropped the laser.
I didn't know why. I still don't. Maybe I never will.
It hit a rock. She looked up at the sound. And I stood up. She screamed. She backed away, but she didn't run. I took a step towards her, fell to my knees, begged for help...
"-- and made them think I was simply a traveler who had come from a great distance in peace. I can say that here safely, sir -- they haven't advanced far enough to create eavesdropping equipment. There are no bugs in here because they don't have them. Their cameras are limited to film: they're in the first stage of moviemaking, but electronic broadcast transmissions are beyond them. With no one listening outside, we're free to talk -- and they trust me enough to leave me with you. Their technology is more limited than you'd ever believe..."
I didn't realize how strange it was that she understood me. I only knew one language to exist: why wouldn't everything speak it? So I wasn't surprised when she called for help using words I knew. More ponies came. No CDA: they didn't exist yet. They didn't recognize my weapons, didn't know I was wearing any kind of armor. They had no idea what I was. They called to Canterlot, sent me there... and then the drugs, the hormone suppressants, the stuff I took every day of my life without knowing... as soon as I went on their food, once mine cycled out of my system, it all started wearing off...
"We've had more come here, sir. Some of them may been sent by the same experiment which put me here. Others -- accident. Ar En Dee not quite achieving what was originally intended. But they -- haven't survived. I wasn't high enough in clearance to know about the -- special nutritional boosters, but I figured it out when my body went into shock after not receiving them any more: it's why I told them to leave your rations with you. Some of the weaker ones die during the withdrawal. Others fight the ponies, and they're brought down by sheer numbers. I can't always get to the latter in time and the former... their medical technology isn't at the point of helping them, not when they're the wrong species for their doctors to treat. And some couldn't adjust to being outside: the weakest lost their minds before anyone reached them at all."
I thought I was insane.
I was seeing things that didn't exist. Creatures which couldn't exist. So I tied myself down as best I could, screamed at them not to approach me. The detox was making things even worse. I hallucinated. I dislocated my shoulder trying to escape from nightmares. And when it all stopped -- the ponies were still there.
Phillip was looking at him. Very carefully. Too much so. "You're the only survivor." Four words which didn't so much imply Ben had murdered all that came after as present the theory into court as the only evidence which would ever be admitted during the trial.
Ben's head dipped. "I tried, sir. Those whom the ponies didn't bring down to save themselves -- I tried to recruit them all. I told them how to live here. I did my best to help them through the withdrawals. I educated, I instructed..."
I kept count.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, I was the first. So far, twenty-eight have been identified as coming after me.
Five died during combat. They were trying to kill as many ponies as possible. Two were killed by the ponies: they had no other choice. One had his weapon overload and detonate after he pushed the last barrel too far. A fourth decided to take shelter in a cave to reload and didn't know there was a dragon in it. The last one went Suicide Express, thinking he was still somewhere within range of home: killed himself believing the memories would transfer to the next clone and he could warn everyone as soon as they got him out of the tank. He was wrong.
Seven didn't make it through detox.
Nine went insane and couldn't be brought back. Sun, plants, animals, outside. Their minds wouldn't adjust. They stopped eating. They rammed their heads against the walls. Then they stopped moving.
Five kept what reason they had long enough for me to reach them. I explained what life was like here. No monitoring. No one constantly listening to see if you'd slip up. No trials unless you'd committed a real crime. They listened to all of it. And then they took their own lives.
One made it out of the cells. I thought she was listening to me. She seemed to be adjusting. She addressed the ponies as if she was speaking to other clones, although she kept ranking them by their coat colors and those outside the clearance spectrum threw her, but I had the same problem when I got here. She hadn't hurt anyone when she arrived. She hadn't done any harm since. Crossing decided she could be transferred to New Cynosure. He teleported her in. I was walking her to the welcoming party when she grabbed a construction beam and attacked Paint Dabbler with it. She was screaming about rallying the revolution when they took her away. A few minutes ago, she screamed at me again. They told me she screams in her sleep.
And now I have you.
Ben sighed -- and straightened up. Phillip's eyes widened in shock.
"The only reason I keep these around," Ben said, indicating his overalls, "is because they're how my own people can recognize me. We have a unicorn who visits the human area regularly. She likes to try and make clothing for us -- says we're an interesting design challenge. And she can do things with fabric that machines can't. If I'd asked her for white -- white which looked like it could have come from home -- there's a chance you would have believed it. Maybe I could have been Ben You QueDeeAr Three. And then I could order you to do anything. But I didn't. Here, I'm just Ben. And you're just Phillip."
Silence. She had been silent too.
"I could lie to you in so many ways," he told the new arrival from his home. "Or I could do something you've never encountered before -- telling the truth of my own free will, without fear of execution from withholding or giving. So here's the truth, Phillip. In this place -- you're not totally free. Not even if you leave the cells, and I'm the only clone who ever has. They'll hold you with other humans because they're scared. And with us? They have reason to be. So far, everyone I've talked to came here by accident or experiment -- but for the second, the techs didn't know what they were aiming for. They haven't worked out where their tricks are putting clones because no one's coming back to report -- or if they are, then they're probably getting babbling lunatics back, or taking the ones calmly telling the truth and executing them for spreading ideas the population shouldn't have. And for this place? Equestria? That's the best piece of luck they could ask for. If the Yous knew what was here, they would invade, just to get the resources. In the name of having what others couldn't. I've been waiting for that, honestly. I've warned the ponies about it. I'm not the only other human here: you saw the others in the cells on your way in, I'm sure. Marched past to see if anyone recognized you. They're from other worlds -- so many other worlds... and some of those places produce nightmares. But ours? Is the nightmare. We are everything that could go wrong -- everything which already has. We live in the middle of an endless scream and tell ourselves we're happy because if we aren't, someone will kill us for it. That was your job, IntSec. Do me the courtesy of not lying about it."
More silence. A silence which echoed eight months into the past.
"You know how I got these, right?" Fingering his overalls again. "Got out of the Ay-Ars? I think my drugging was heavier then: I'm sure they give less to the higher clearances as they go up the ranks. A slower withdrawal. But I was on the stronger stuff, so some of the details are hazy. I'm pretty sure it was the standard story, though. I had a friend. A friend who wasn't our Friend. A secondary connection, the kind we all make even though we're told they have to be just that. And because I was close to my friend, I saw he was having thoughts which weren't allowed. Was going to do things. I turned him in before any of them could happen. And they promoted me for it. Our Friend spoke to me personally... it was the greatest moment of my life. Told me I could spend the rest of my lives doing the same thing to protect our home because I'd proven myself worthy. I gave two of them before I got here. I remember dying. You don't -- you're a Prime. They don't tell you that the tech transfers all the memories. I felt the hole being burned through my lungs, I didn't know if I was screaming from the pain or because the air was so superheated that it was venting out of my throat as steam -- and they pulled me out of the tank still screaming, threw the new overalls at me and told me to get into the transport and rejoin the firefight. As my reward for turning my friend in for treason."
Ben slipped the right strap off his minimal shoulder, pulled it back up. A nervous habit. One he'd thought was gone.
"Hazy details," he said. "Like his face. I don't remember what he looked like, Phillip. I can't even remember his name..."
Phillip took a slow breath.
"If there's a point," the other man said, "you'd better get to it. Quickly. Because if we were back home, if I had my weapons, you would have been executed on reflex by now and no one ever would have argued the termination as anything except justified."
Ben had known he'd lost the instant Phillip first looked up. He tried to remember that. "How did you get here?"
"Experimental tech," Phillip said. "Burnt out on arrival. I volunteered."
Pure volunteering wasn't likely at that rank. Ben's guess was that Phillip was working off a minor improper thought using service as penance. "Confiscated with the rest?" Phillip nodded. "Could you repair it?"
"Probably. I only had a quick look at it before the -- ponies -- showed up. It looked like the connections to the power cells burnt out, not the cells themselves. A little of the right wire and it would be fine."
"And what would you do if you got ahold of it?"
"Go home."
"And -- after that?"
It came out as one word. "Reinforcements --"
-- and then Phillip swore. "I wasn't going to say -- what did you do? Are you in my head? Some kind of unregistered -- as if there weren't enough charges -- your pattern is going to be scrubbed and I'll do the erasure personally before putting a laser through the head of Three and last...!"
Ben sighed, watched as Phillip twisted at his bonds. "I was a morale officer," he told the other man. "I kept clones happy, whether they wanted to be or not. They could have their arms blown off in a firefight: patch them up and make them happy about the sacrifice. Our Friend supplied me with the normal drugs. Dilute one of them enough and it becomes a basic truth serum -- one that mixes well into food, and the ponies know to put it there. It doesn't last long. Just enough to let me know what someone's intentions are. Yours are reinforcements. Invasion. Because there's a chance that this place makes clones think differently, even if it's only me -- and for one to step out of line is the worst crime there is."
"Release!" Phillip screamed at the handcuff. "Release, vat-damn it! Why won't --"
"-- because I told them how to short out the chip," Ben supplied. "Their tech is horrible -- but they're great with lightning. Not that you know what that is yet..."
More swearing. More twisting. Skin abraded around the cuff.
Eventually, Phillip sank down again, glared at him. "When I get out..."
"You won't." Ben sighed. "You won't be free. I'm not free -- not in one way. But it's not the one that counts. My body is confined. My mind can go where it wants to and no one threatens to execute me for it. I have more freedom than any clone. You can too. All you have to do is -- think a different way. Or think at all. But you want reinforcements -- and that means you'll stay here."
And then came the word he knew would come, the word he'd been expecting since he entered. The inevitable. "TRAITOR!"
It had been nearly three years. The word didn't make the fear come any more.
"If you live through the detox, we'll talk again," Ben promised. "Maybe you'll change your mind..."
Except that you won't.
He knocked. The unicorn let him out.
Crossing took him to the tech inspection area.
It was isolated. It was reinforced in dozens of ways, spells and materials and burial deep under the ground. The most secure areas were reserved for the devices from his own world, as they were the ones which went wrong in the most spectacular ways. And so the ponies were willing to leave him alone with the thing, because Ben was willing to take the risk and they knew horrible things could happen to anyone who observed.
And as he'd told Phillip, there were no cameras.
Ben looked over the strange geometries. He had no idea how the thing was meant to work: that kind of technology wasn't his specialty and intensely studying what his world sent across was a good way to go insane. But he could see how it was powered. And sure enough, it was a simple case of a burnt-out connection. A little wiring -- easy enough to scavenge -- and it could be fired up again. It might open a portal back to his home. It might explode. It could do both at once followed by five more things just for variety, most of which would create a radioactive wasteland because that was just style.
He sabotaged it so that it would never work again. Then he called to the ponies and told them it was another burnt-out lost case, best thrown on the pile with the rest. And waited to be taken back.
Crossing dropped by three days later, again at breakfast. The CDA representative seemed to believe that if he couldn't have a peaceful meal, then no one else should either.
"He's dead," the unicorn told him, seemingly uncaring. "He tried to escape from his cell. And he did better than most. He got outside, he got down the corridor, and then he decided that anyone else in a cell had to be his ally. So he got one of the doors open, and... he was wrong."
Ben asked the only question which mattered. "Was anypony hurt?"
"Nothing that won't heal," Crossing gruffly replied. "You did warn us -- but that one guard didn't take it seriously enough." There was no unspoken thanks for having tried in that, and Ben was sure there never would be.
"As long as you're all okay."
Crossing stared at him. Ben, who had been stared at by cameras which never blinked at all, simply waited it out.
"Right," Crossing said. "And you're still here. The only one from your world who's breathing at all."
More waiting.
"You don't think that's strange at all, do you?" Crossing challenged. "That you're the only one?"
"I think it's stranger," Ben said, "that you have so much trouble with it. Maybe you're just rooting for a complete count?"
The unicorn took half a step back -- and vanished.
Laurie whistled. "God, Ben, he hates you..."
"He needs me," Ben said. With a rueful smile, "And that's why he hates me."
He still lived under a dome.
The old one had been metal. This one... not quite light, something transparent -- but enough to keep him from being free, at least in the way so many thought of the word. But when he looked up...
Ben watched the sun as it slowly went across the sky. He'd learned about the phases of the moon. Seasons still took some getting used to: the most experience he'd had with cold before arrival was when Habitat Engineering screwed up and the air conditioning started operating at triple speed. But sun and moon... they were normal now.
Some in New Cynosure complained about what the dome did to their view of each, said unkind words about the color distortion. Others couldn't get used to the idea of how they moved -- or were moved. But with Ben... in his world, he'd never known either orb. For all he knew, someone back home was moving them the same way, waiting for clones to come out from under the confining metal and greet the truth without fear. Something which would never happen.
The ponies had asked Ben how he'd arrived in Equestria. They asked everyone that. And he'd done what his survival instincts had ordered: he'd lied.
Ben could teleport. A difference, one which would have had him executed. But he wasn't good at it. He had only done it a few times, had been lucky to survive all of them, leaving from areas where cameras had been destroyed and no witnesses remained, arriving in empty places chosen for just that quality. Four times in his life in total, with three explained away -- barely. He'd suspected IntSec was investigating, closing in.
The fourth...
...there had been a firefight. The rest of his team had already gone down. The enemy coming to finish the job. He had remembered his two previous deaths and the pain which followed him into the new clone body, agony which tried to return every time he slept. Instinct had taken over --
-- and something had gone wrong.
Or right.
He hadn't teleported since. In part because it seemed as if there was no need. But also because even if he decided to use it for the smallest of jumps, going outside the shield to a point he could directly see -- something could go wrong again. It could send him back. The only threat which would force him to try would be one which offered to return him home.
Ben didn't know if he'd been the true first from his world. Others could have arrived in the middle of wild zones, gone down the gullets of monsters before any pony ever saw them. He didn't want to believe he'd blazed any kind of trail for others to follow and given when all the incursions had begun, he personally felt he'd just gone across a barrier which, for unknown reasons, had lowered itself. But...
...the best thing he could do for Equestria was make sure it never came under true threat from those he'd left behind. And if he returned to try and prevent it from that end... executed. Brainscrubbed. Template wiped. No way to escape it. From this side, he could make at least a little difference.
He couldn't leave the dome without the company of those who held higher rank. He had to follow rules. There was a certain set of orders in place. And he was being observed for signs of turning -- of revolution, striking back, escape, treason. They all were. In that sense, everything was familiar.
But for now, he could think. He could see the sky.
And for Ben, that was enough.
Author's Note
All credit to HH (offsite) for the 'arrival in a bathtub' idea. (And to Phil Foglio before that.) The great and powerful Aahz has washed up on shore.
