In The Presence of Enemies

Several Months Earlier

Ponyville was nice and homey. The ponies, and occasional human, were all very friendly. It was weird, nobody seemed to be bothered by Sarah's rifle. He wondered why this was, and looked over at Sarah. Then he wondered where the rifle went. He remembered her putting it away on her back, but it seemed to have disappeared. After a few seconds of mulling it over and coming up with nothing, he guessed it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Sarah? I thought you had a gun."

"I do."

"Well, where is it?"

"What do you mean where is it?"

She was holding the rifle in her hands again.

Jordan blinked, did a double-take, did a triple-take, blinked, scratched his head, and tried to not be irritated by the smug grin on her face. He did not succeed. "How'd you do that?"

"The techies over at Aperture Labs would probably start geeking out about 'pocket dimensions' or something, so I'll just tell you that I have it when I want it, and I don't have it when I don't want it, and you and I probably don't want to know how that actually works. Got it?"

"Got it."

The rifle went away again as they approached a building with more humans milling about it than anywhere else. It matched the architecture, look and theme of the other houses in town, minus the armed guard standing at attention outside.

When they reached the door, Sarah sighed and asked "Chuck, what did you do this time?"

Jordan looked around. Nobody seemed to be responding.

"Did you put hot sauce in the drinking fountain again? Is getting living statue duty really worth it?"

"Let me guess. This guy's Chuck."

"Yeah. He ends up out here at least once per week," said Sarah she led Jordan and Lyra into the building. "He'd probably get kicked out if we were a normal militia."

"Am I being conscripted?"

"No. You're being green carded, as they say in the USA. Enlistment is optional, but common for reasons you'll learn later."

"Umm, is there a consequence for not enlisting that makes it common?"

"No. You'll understand, later."

They had now arrived and stopped in front of a desk which had a dark grey pony without wings or a horn typing at something that looked like a mix of a keyboard and a typewriter, if typewriters and keyboards had two inch wide keys. The motions of the pony typing were a little bit mesmerizing. They looked like a drummer playing the fastest, craziest drum solo ever. The pony even appeared to be using some sort of foot pedal on the ground. Or would that be a hoof pedal? wondered Jordan. There was a wide, flat, semitransparent glass sheet above the keyboard. Hoofboard? It probably has to be bigger because ponies don't have fingers. I should really ask what all of these are called.

Lyra placed the clipboard on the desk and spoke. "Hey, Rapid Beat. We've got the new guy."

"I trust you two have got this, and won't lead him too far astray?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah, if Rapid here would ever pay attention to anything else."

The pony in question made a hissing sound and bared their teeth momentarily.

"You tame the vicious beast and I'll go write our report. See you around, Jordan."

Without looking away from the sheet (Computer Screen? Ack! No more speculation!), Rapid Beat continued their typing with their left hoof, and picked up the clipboard in their right. They then stuck the clipboard to the screen much the same way one might a sticker. Jordan noticed that Rapid Beat had what looked like a laser pointer stuck to the side of their hoof, and was pointing it at different places on the screen. The lens seemed to change colors occasionally, and sometimes rapidly. If he were speculating, and Jordan forcefully reminded himself that he was not doing that, nor curious about all these things that were clearly human inventions adapted for ponies, he would guess that was a mouse. Again, he was not speculating at all. Nope.

"Alright. So, Jordan," said Rapid Beat as she looked at him briefly, "Lyra here forgot a question."

"Did not! You told me to let you ask it!"

Rapid Beat stuck her tongue out at Lyra then asked Jordan "What's your favorite color?"

"I don't really get the point of all these questions. ... Blue, if you must know, but why?"

"Because it may help us figure out where all you humans came from."

Jordan rolled his eyes and chuckled. Then he realized that nobody else was chuckling. Or grinning.

"Wait, seriously?"

Rapid Beat answered his question while continuing her constant typing. "Yes. Out of the thousand humans that have come here, there should be around fifty or so that like orange the most. There are none. The odds of that happening is something like one in a million billion billion. We don't know why, or what it means, but there it is. Along with most of the humans being from America, and the second most common being Canada. All speaking English. And English being almost exactly the same as Equestrian."

Jordan was surprised. Those were all some very good points, that raised some very tough questions. It was a bit strange that talking ponies, magic, flying ponies and being woken up by a girl with a gun were the okay things that happened today, and a simple question like "What's your favorite color?" was a little bit scary.

"Makes sense. Sortof."

Rapid Beat halted her typing for a moment and pointed at a few places on the screen again. Then she placed a glass sheet made of a similar material to the screen onto the desk, in front of Jordan. "Sign this, please."

Jordan did so, and Rapid took the sheet and stuck it onto the screen, much as she had the clipboard. "Congratulations, Jordan. You're now a legal immigrant, and most of the way to becoming a full citizen. Lyra, take him to Evaluation, please?"

"Yep. Come on, Jordan."

Jordan followed Lyra back out of the building.

"Evaluation?"

"To become a full citizen, we have to get your medical information and task proficiencies."

"Why do you need to know that I'm terrible at math to make me a citizen?"

"Because being unemployed as a human is illegal, comrade!"

Jordan stared silently at Lyra in fake horror at her blatant communism, while she held her poker face. "Just kidding. Mostly. If 'Homeless Bum' and 'Underwater Basketweaving Expert' are on the list of potential jobs, which they actually are, then it's basically legal to be unemployed."

"Really? Underwater Basketweaving?"

"Yep. We've only got the one, and she makes a killing as an underwater stage act in some places."

"And who's the Homeless Bum?"

"Can't remember his name, but he's over in Manehattan right now-"

"Manehattan?"

"-Yes. More weird similarities. Anyways, he keeps an eye on the streets and reports any unusual activity. Like a month ago, he basically saved the entire city by reporting that trash in the sewers had become sentient. No, I'm not joking. They actually had to evacuate almost a fifth of the city."

"That's..."

Jordan tried to think of something to say, but there wasn't really anything to say.

Lyra said something for him. "Crazy? Ridiculous? Awesome? Hilarious? Astounding? Surprising? All of the above?"

"All of the above."

They stopped in front of what looked basically like one concrete outhouse in a large row of concrete houses, only the others said "Entrance" or "Exit" while his said "New".

Jordan coughed. "Let me guess. This is an elevator entrance to a giant underground complex where they conduct all sorts of crazy science experiments."

"No, that would be those outhouses." said Lyra as she pointed to another row of outhouses about 40 yards away. "Those are for Aperture Laboratories, PONY division. This one is for the SCP Foundation, though there is a large underground tunnel connecting the two."

"What does SCP stand for?"

"I dunno, it's some nerd joke I think."

Jordan shook his head. "Down the rabbit hole, I guess."

Lyra opened the door for Jordan, and he entered. "Good luck with your testing! See ya!" she exclaimed as she shut the door.

There was a sink and a mirror, and a light in the roof, but no toilet, only a lever. Just out of idle curiosity, he looked into the mirror to see just what he looked like. I wonder if everyone's just too polite to point it out or if nobody cares that I have leaves in my hair from waking up under that tree. They did seem to be pretty used to this sort of thing, so I guess maybe it's both. Though there's something that's bothering me. What is it? What's missing? Jordan continued searching his face, then realized that he wasn't wearing his glasses. He retrieved them from his pocket, and smiled at himself. Perfect.

Jordan walked over to the lever and pulled it. The sink and mirror retracted into the wall, Jordan felt a few butterflies in his stomach as the elevator descended.