Those Thirty Days

  Keen stepped into her office, a routine so firmly cemented in her mind that she almost brought out her newspaper, only to realize after a second that there were more important matters to deal with. Taking our her materials, Keen took a deep breath in preparations for whatever lie ahead. She pressed the play button on the machine, not having taken the time the previous night to take out the tape. Sitting back in her chair, she waited for the machine to start playing. After a click, a pop, and the sound of something taping on the recording device that had been used, the recording started.

  "This is day seven for Project Solitaire. There isn't much to report that hasn't already been state. The ponies around here are starting to get a bit tired of this experiment, not entirely certain as to HOW necessary this project is. As it stands, we still are moving forward with the project until we reach the end goal. End of morning researcher notes, switching to in room audio." The distinct click of the audio feed switching once again came. The room was rather silent, though faint murmurs could still be heard over the microphone. Keen looked at the file on that day once more, though nothing new jumped out at her.

  "I am king over all of this land!" The pony in the chamber shouted, causing Keen to lower the paper and raise an eyebrow at the machine. "None dare defy my commands! Under me we will prosper in this good and rich land, where our crops shall grow tall in the fertile soil that abounds here!" The sound of movement. "I defy you, and all of your court!"  The stallion shouted back at his other self in a slightly lighter voice. "I have trained at High Horseguard, and I will not fall to you, for I am the hope of this land to escape tyranny as yours!" More movement. "Ha ha ha, you stand no chance against my army of well trained soldiers! High Horseguard wished it was as good... no no no!" A brief pause. "First you fall, then High Horseguard! Then I will be uncontested in my throne, and this land shall prosper under my guidance." Keen chuckled briefly. Even though it was sad how this pony had fallen to such a state, his antics certainly were entertaining, not to mention the fact he could probably make a fairly entertaining book with the ideas he had.

  "The subject continued rambling on throughout the day, much as expected if we are honest." Another stallion's voice interrupted. "He did take brakes to eat the meals provided, but beyond that, he has basically devoted himself to playing out this story of his. The team is rather divided on this aspect of the pony's reaction to isolation. It has been suggested that it is his coping mechanism. It makes sense, since more ponies would likely attempt to read a book or something of that nature in this position, if it wasn't for the fact that he has no access to anything except essentials for life. Some of the ponies have considered putting something extra in one of his meals, maybe some paper and crayons, or paints. The general thought behind this is to give him something a bit more constructive to do, but it has been agreed that that would taint our results. Maybe this self storytelling is tainting our results, but them again, we cannot stop him from talking to himself. This is the end night researcher's notes, and of day seven." Keen nodded to herself as the tape player rewound the tape to the very beginning.

  "And so the detective finished yet another tape in her investigation, inching ever closer to the truth of this case." Keen said with a smirk as she tried a bit of self-narration, though she shook her head and carried on without narrating the fact she switched out the tapes and had taken the file back up to look over the information on the next day.

  Project Status: Optimal

  Subject Physical Status: Sub-optimal

  Subject Psychological Status: Questionable

  No notes. Refer to tape of day eight.

  Keen looked at the page with curiosity, this being the first time the page didn't contain notes on the day. Keen finally just shrugged it off, pressing down the play button on the tape player. As the tape player began to play, her world suddenly went dark as a gigantic pain sprouted from the back of her head.

  Keen slowly opened her eyes, a gigantic headache greeting her as she did. Lifting herself up, her pushed the paper that clung to her cheek and looked around her office. Her things were scattered everywhere, her saddlebags thrown in a heap in the corner. Standing up quickly, she rushed around, quickly gathering what she had together into a stack, surprised to find the notes on Solitaire were are still in order in their file, with only the schematics and scant personal details on the subject having been scattered about the room. The tape player sat on her desk still, allowing with all the tapes, which was a welcome surprise, but as she searched her bags and other things, a horror dawned on her. The files on Illusions and on the F.R.I. were gone from her office, but what did remain, was a note stuck to the bottom of the lid of the tape player.

  'STOP THIS IDIOTIC PURSUIT.' The bold black letters proclaimed. Keen felt a twinge of suspicion in her gut. Removing the note from the player, she shut the lid, pressing the button, only to receive a screeching distorted audio feed with very intermissions of understandable clips of audio. Switching the tapes frantically, desperately trying to find a tape that wasn't ruined. To her surprise, she found that the tape for the thirteenth day was still good. Keen grabbed the folder with the papers on each day and quickly went to the thirteenth day, looking over it quickly, only to realize that it was covered in ink, not only that, but all the other pages had suffered the same fate. Keen sighed, looking at the remaining tapes, now her soul method of gaining information about the case.

Keen groaned, and for the third time, she put a tape back into its case. It appeared that many of the tapes had gone undamaged at first, but she found out that even the tapes that appeared to be largely undamaged eventually had a break in their audio. She opened the shelf, revealing the tapes labeled seventeen, only to close it again with a sigh of frustration, not feeling like going through those motions again. Standing up from her desk, she moved over to the window, opening it to allow the slightly fresher air inside the room, letting the cooler evening air relax her slightly. Looking around, she saw that already the streets looked quite empty, but then something caught her eye. A pony garbed in a lab coat ducked into an alleyway, obviously having seen her look out in a direction near him.

  Closing the window in a rush, Keen charged out her office door and down the stairs, making it to the alleyway where the pony had disappeared to. Much as she had expected, nopony was there, but she wasn't going to give up simply because they weren't in visual range. Charging off, she quickly checked each branching path from the alleyway, sure the pony couldn't have gotten far. As she turned another corner, she found herself looking at pristine metal, as if she were now...

  Keen's eyes went wide as she darted out of the alleyway, looking back to her office building, only to see a pile of rubble. A smirk broke out across Keen's muzzle as a faint realization came to her. These ponies knew what they were doing, but when they faced another pony that was wise to them, their tactics would be as impressive. Turning back around, she found her saddle bags which still contained all of the things for the investigation, though a note was now attached to the top of it.

  'Discard the contents of this bag if you wish to return to where you should be.' Keen chuckled at the slight hilarity in the situation as she removed the note and placed her bags on her shoulders. If these ponies could recreate a city block, she'd find where their influence ended. Galloping off in the direction she knew would get her to the edge of the city in about ten minutes. She'd find the end of this, and prove that these ponies weren't perfect, and that they couldn't plan for every eventuality.

  Keen stared in disbelief at the rubble before her. It was her office building's ruins, but that wasn't exactly what caught her off guard. What had caught her off guard was the fact that for the last fifteen minutes, she had been walking in the opposite direction of said ruins, and yet here she was standing in front of it yet again. Nothing was making sense, none of this was even slightly rational. Keen shook her head. No, they wanted her to think logically about this scenario so that they could play off of that. She was a highly rational pony, at least in her eyes, but for the sake of escaping, she'd have to use some rather complicated lateral thinking that might not make much sense to any rational mind. A pony thinking without any visible reason would most definitely throw them off their game, after all, nopony can plan for the unexpected. Keen started walking once more, a clear objective in her mind's eye.

  The alleyways multiple side paths were the same as before, except now the metal covered passage was expanding its influence. Keen stuck a hoof out over the metal, slowly setting it down, a cold shiver running up her as she did. Keen walked across the metal flooring towards the the dead end at the end of the path. The walls seemed completely solid, with nothing peculiar about them, but that was exactly what Keen found so strange about them, and what made them so perfect. Keen poked at the wall at the end of the path, smiling as her hoof passed through it, much as she had expected. Stepping through, she was met with a stairwell that led into some sort of underground structure that resembled the steam engine rooms she had seen on certain boats.

  Moving down the stairs, the air progressively got warmer as the ambient heat for the pipes and machinery permeated the air. There were gears and other mechanisms all around her, but not only that, she saw several physical spell matrices that bobbed up and down in the air, glowing with power. These object probably had something to do with the repeating scenery up above, though she couldn't tell seeing as she had never taken too much interest in learning EVERY spell out there, though some of the symbols that swam about inside and around the ball of mechanically maintained magic, including the symbol for, as she remembered it, 'Mechanisma', or essentially the sub-spell that turned mechanical energy into magical. She had been told that it was a difficult one to cast, though once you had it down you could use it on near anything, allowing massively perpetuated spell matrices.

  Moving on, Keen searched the room for some sort of exit, occasionally poking at the walls to check if they were real, though each one was as solid as the last. Keen eventually looked back at one of the matrices, checking it over for anything other symbols she recognized, though none stood out in the sea of swirling arcane symbols.

  Staring at the glowing mass, Keen slowly settled on a plan. Since this spell matrix contained some connection to why she was in an infinite looping segment of the city, and since there was no other visible way of getting out of this place, there was one thing left for her to do. Moving over to the first boiler, she smacked the pipe moving out of it off, repeating the process to all of the drivers of the spell. Soon enough, all of the room was shrouded in a hot cloud of steam, making it near impossible to see where anything was. Keen slowly made her way along one wall until she found the stairs to the outside. Moving quickly, she left the clouded room, surprised to find that none of the steam had come through the fake wall as she caught her breath and and attempted to cool down.

   Having finally caught her breath and cooled down enough that she felt like she could actually move, she noticed another peculiarity about the world, that being that the rest of the world she could see from her current position had completely turned into metal. Moving out of the alleyway, which was now revealed to just be a corridor, she confirmed that the entire area had turned to metal, and not only that, the entire area was devoid of features except for the small grouping of walls behind her. It was possible, she thought, that the spell matrices had also been attached to an illusion spell that made the area look like her home, even going to far as making physical building where there where none in reality. Now that the spell faded, she noticed the doorway on the far wall, which also confirmed that the spell had an infinitely looping layout to keep her inside for as long as it held.

  Keen galloped towards the wall, only to trip over a stone that briefly faded in and out of existence. Looking around her, the buildings that had once been there now returned as ghost images, and the true wall beyond shimmered as it partially revealed the falsified city beyond. Getting back up, she galloped at full speed, dodging the partially materialized buildings around her. Apparently the spell either had a latent magical charge with a sub-spell to unleash its arcane energy should the mechanical systems fail, or be disconnected, or somepony was repairing the system she had tried so valiantly to destroy. Jumping over a ghostly bench and through a store window, Keen pushed herself as hard as possible, sliding over the clock shop's counter before moving out the back door. Her lungs burned in effort, her legs screaming for her to rest as she came within two ponies length of the wall. Reaching a hoof out to push the door open, she found herself stumbling through the wall as the spell fully recovered, the world returning to its former state with only the briefest hints of the spell having a few hiccups as it returned to regular functionality.

  Keen slammed her hoof into the road in frustration, having worked so hard only to be denied her reward. Keen stood up and brushed herself off before turning around, moving back towards the alleyway. As she did a bright flash blinded her for a second. Blinking the blinding lights from her eyes, she looked back to where she had been going, only to find the city behind her was now replaced by a dessert, the heat in the area rising almost immediately, and without warning. Glancing over her shoulder, she confirmed that the entirety of the place was now a desert. Keen fell to her haunches, shaking in frustration ad sadness in equal parts, now farther from home than ever.

  Keen stood up, having stopped crying and shouting at the nothing around her. She took out the tape player, looking at it with an almost hateful glare, before letting out a sigh as she set it down on the sandy ground. She took out the seventeenth day's tape, putting it inside the player and pressed the play button after shutting the lid, letting the tape begin slowly before hoisting it onto her back as she began moving, her search for a method to escape continuing. She might just have to abandon all her things, but she'd at least have a few days more of knowledge about the project before abandoning it completely.

  "Day seventeen of Project Solitaire," the researcher mare began as her colleagues had all the days previous, "The pony continues his silent streak, more than likely having reached a satisfying ending in his long narrative. Some of the ponies in the team have considered taking the audio from the times we have him telling that story and putting it together into a series for future use, and not so much for research, but more for entertainment, seeing as the general consensus amongst the team is that it was an interesting story whilst it lasted. Not to mention  it had that rather interesting plot twist around, I believe it was , day fifteen." Keen chuckled slightly as the mare continued. If she could, Keen would see if she could get the recording of that and have the stallion give her permission to give it to Ink Blotch, she'd turn it into an epic worthy of the pony who had formed it. "To continue," the mare said, breaking Keen from her train of thought, "The pony, fortunately, continues to eat all of his food, meaning he won't be suffering from malnutrition anytime soon. I'm glad I'm not in charge of the budget, I don't even want to think how much we are spending on those supplements we cram into his hayburgers, salads, and drinks. The lower sector of the lab if filled with crates of the stuff, so much so you'd think we were attempting to prepare for the end of the world, and not just trying to ensure the survival and physical fitness of some pony who has already endured seventeen days alone. End of morning researcher notes, switching to in roo-"

  "Vile, we need to talk!" A stallion shouted from behind the researcher who had been recording her notes. "I've had about enough with this project, what we're doing here isn't right, and it isn't for the greater good as we keep on saying. We're just school foals satiating their curiosity on what will happen when we play with matches, and just like those ponies, we will get burned in the end!" Keen listened with interest as she realized that the morning researcher wasn't about to stop recording her notes, having most likely forgotten that she hadn't pressed the button.

  "I know that we are all stressed, and I also know that many of you want to stop this along with him, but we need to stay on task. We are already passed the halfway point, why would we want to stop now when within a few more short days we will be done with this project for good, and not only that, but in the right way." The morning researcher reasoned.

  "You don't get it, we are just done. If we could handle a few more days, we'd do it in peace, but we can't. This thing has gotten far too serious for us. I want out, and I know there are several more like minded ponies that, if they had courage, would ask for the same." The stallion claimed. "We want out, and we want out now!"

  "Fine, you can go, but you know what leaving the team means for you and your knowledge of this project." Vile state, her tone becoming darker. "Are you sure you want to have your memories removed simply because you're feeling a bit sick about your involvement with this project? That would be seventeen days you can't account for with your family and friends. Think how that would make them feel, and then think again about what you are doing." The stallion huffed.

  "I'd rather be unable to tell the ponies what I had been doing for these past seventeen days than have the nightmares that they'd bring to me otherwise! I'd like to be able to sleep at night, thank you very much!" The pony roared. "And unlike someponies hear, my conscience is potent enough that if it isn't at rest, I can get any rest. So take my memories if you want, but at least I won't have to deal with this for the rest of my life!" A moment of silence followed, and even without being there, Keen could feel the tension so thick that it could be cut.

  "Alright, you'll be released from this project and all memories dealing with it. Any other ponies who wish to leave now?" the mare asked, with another drawn out moment of silence following. "I hope the three of you are sure about what you are doing." She said, two other ponies having apparently joined up with the stallion. "You will be missed." Vile finished.

  "Yeah, but we won't miss it here." The stallion retorted. "I hope you never get over the nightmares this project gives you, it's the least you deserve from all this." With that, three sets of hooves walked away, a few murmurs audible in the background.

  "Everypony back to work, we are short three ponies now and we'll need to cover for them." The morning researcher, Vile, said in a voice than rang with confidence. "Let's get this over with so that we can go back to our families the right way." A few grunts of agreement followed as the pony walked back to the mic stand. "Hmm, that's odd, no audio from inside.. oh wait, forgot to turn off the mic. This is the end of morning researcher notes, finally switching to in room audio feed." She said, returning to protocol. With a pop the recording switched to the evening researcher's notes, whose reports were blander than dirt.

  Keen sighed to herself as the recording ended and the player began to rewind. At least now she knew that amongst the ponies that had been involved with the project, there were those that hadn't whole hardheartedly agreed with the principles and methods in play with the project. Maybe she'd luck out as well and find her way out through the help of a dissenter, though as she thought about it, the realization that all of the dissenters had probably already left made that option of escape through those means extremely unlikely, nay, impossible. Kicking the sand under her hooves in annoyance, Keen moved on, attempting to find a fake floor or something to show her where the spell room was, although, knowing these ponies, they wouldn't make the same mistake twice, which meant it would be all the harder to do the second time, if they hadn't in fact made it impossible.