Chapter 23: Schrodinger's Pony

"Here, catch!" Dr. Hardy tossed a squishy stress ball across the lab table to Emmy.

It stopped a few feet from her head, suspended in the air by her glowing telekinetic field.

"Fascinating. And you can feel the ball, yes?"

Emmy smiled softly, and the ball elongated as her remote grip pressure increased. "Why yes I can, it's soft... and rather fun to squeeze."

Rubbing his chin, Dr. Hardy leaned back in his swivel chair and picked up another ball. "Tactile feedback. It makes sense, yet it's almost more amazing to me than your ability to manipulate objects at a distance." He glanced at Rainbow Dash. "Can you catch a ball too?"

Rainbow Dash looked offended. "I can catch anything you throw at me!"

He chuckled and threw the ball at her, which she deftly caught between her front hooves. She chucked it back to him with a fluid motion, then he spent several seconds scrounging on the floor for it after he fumbled the catch.

He made a wry expression. "You catch better than I do, and you don't even have hands."

Rainbow Dash had the good grace not to comment, but she looked immensely pleased with herself.

"Now try with one hoof please."

Rainbow Dash frowned a little. "Well, okay, but..."

He tossed it.

She caught it, and held it deftly atop a single hoof.

Dr. Hardy looked at the perfectly balanced ball. He reached out slowly, and Rainbow Dash held her hoof up to him with the ball on it. He tugged on the ball gently, feeling some resistance.

"Can you try to keep me from taking it?"

She curled her leg tight up against her body.

"No I mean... Like, hold it out just like you were before, but try to keep me from taking it without tucking your leg back."

"Uh, okay." She held her hoof out to him again.

Dr. Hardy gently grabbed the ball and pulled on it some more. The resistance was stronger this time, as if the ball had a magnetic attraction to her hoof. He pulled hard; the ball stayed stuck. "Most fascinating. It appears that even a non-unicorn pony has some close range telekinetic ability. That would explain the ease with which you carry and manipulate delicate objects without having hands."

"I could have told you that, doc," Emmy said, tossing her mane.

"Ah well, sometimes one does not know what questions to ask until a bit of investigation has been done."

Emmy cocked her head. "That's true enough. So, what questions come to mind?"

Dr. Hardy shrugged. "Who knows? I'll let you know when I have some. Medical probably has the most, they're still running genetic simulations on your blood samples. So, How about a high ball, Dashie?"

Dr Hardy and Rainbow Dash were still tossing the ball back and forth when the door to the lab opened again, allowing Celestia and Twilight to walk in.

"Ah! Just the two lovely ladies I wanted to see!" He dropped the ball on the floor and rushed over to greet them. "Welcome to Physics Engineering! Oh, and as I've explained to these two... please be careful what you touch, some things are inherently dangerous."

Twilight spoke up. "I do have extensive research lab experience, but many of your tools are different from ours."

Dr. Hardy waved a hand. "Not to worry, it is your special expertise that I am hoping to avail myself of."

Celestia smiled. "We will be happy to provide any assistance we can."

Dr. Hardy beamed. "Excellent! Please follow me!"

Rainbow Dash looked at Emmy, shrugged, and followed behind. Emmy dropped the stress ball on the lab table and joined her.

Dr. Hardy walked towards another door in the lab, talking as he went. "I have this project I have been working on, a portable plasma emitter. Up until now I hadn't had much use for it as it is extremely difficult to control..." He trailed off as they arrived at the door, which was marked with a large sign reading "CAUTION: EXPOSED HIGH ENERGY FIELDS".

He swung his badge at the red lock panel, which beeped and turned yellow. He tapped his code into the panel.

The panel beeped again, turned green, and the door opened.

Before entering, Dr. Hardy turned around and looked at all four of them. "Please be extra careful in here, some of this equipment retains a charge even when turned off."

He then led them through into a room about a hundred feet across, with various equipment and devices lining the walls. More equipment and lab counters were dispersed throughout the room, many holding machines and mechanisms of all types.

Dr. Hardy guided them towards one of the middle tables, which contained several small tubes the size of a pen.

"Plasma emitter modules. They are harmless without a power source, which is over here."

He picked a couple up and stepped to the next table, which contained a device that looked roughly like a flashlight. Picking it up, he carried both towards an open section of the room that contained a target.

"I was trying to create a beam gun, but the discharge disperses far too quickly. Stand back please."

He lifted the device, aimed it at the target, and pressed a switch. There was a loud humming buzz, and the ponies jumped a bit when a white cone of writhing light blasted from the end of the flashlight like a fan of uncontrolled electricity. The noise increased as the lightning crackled frantically, and then it all ended abruptly with a popping sound.

Rainbow Dash was entranced. "Wow, that was cool! What did it do?"

The scent of ozone hung in the air, but target was unscathed. A thin ribbon of smoke wisped up out of the device.

"Nothing except make a light show. And that's my problem. The plasma fires out into the air like lightning from a Tesla coil, but it does not retain any kind of form, and then the device overloads."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "How can we help you with this? It looks like it has potential, but I'm afraid we do not have much knowledge of your machines."

Dr. Hardy rubbed his chin. "Well, I can't seem to control the behavior of this device with my available technology. The plasma is too chaotic without using a control chamber, and the control chamber is so heavy that it negates any kind of usefulness I gain from having such a small emitter."

Four sets of eyes continued to stare at him blankly.

He took a breath. "Yesterday, when we watched Star Wars, I got to thinking. I'm fully convinced that the whole plasma gun idea was the wrong track. So, do you think you can use your unicorn magic to shape that plasma discharge into a single beam of energy, oh, about three feet long? I believe that should eliminate the overload pulse, and be sustainable until the nanocapacitors run out of juice."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "I think I see where this is going. You want to make a lightsaber?"

"Well, simply put, yes."

"Awwww yeah!" Rainbow Dash reared up on her hind legs and pranced about as if she were fighting, making buzzing and humming noises.

Emmy put a hoof on her shoulder. "Uh, be careful please. Dangerous equipment, remember?"

Celestia looked at the device. "Can I try it? I can attempt to modify a containment spell."

Dr. Hardy dropped the burned cartridge and slid a new one in. "Be careful where you aim it. This switch turns it on."

He held it in the air, and let go when Celestia's telekinetic field glowed around it. She held it several feet away, aiming at the target. Then she concentrated, her horn glowing brightly. A trail of sparkling magic streamed from her horn down around the emitter tube. She switched it on, and there was a sharp buzzing hiss as the glowing plasma rushed into the barrier field.

The field expanded, and the plasma beam inched out, creating a powerful yellow glow.

"It's working!" Dr. Hardy gasped.

"It's AMAZING!" Rainbow Dash added

The top of the field began to expand into an orb.

"It's... getting unstable!" Emmy squealed.

Before anyone could react, the containment field burst. The sound was like a cherry bomb going off, and the flash effect was much greater than before.

Emmy squeaked.

Rainbow Dash fell over backwards.

Smoke rose from the now-inert handle yet again, and Dr. Hardy spoke loudly over the ringing in everyone's ears. "Well, that was actually quite good for a start! Do you think we can stabilize it?"

Celestia blinked a little, the afterimage of the flash still etched on her retinas. "I... believe so. Twilight and I should be able to build a containment talisman, for such a small device it should be relatively simple."

"Excellent! Just remember, the containment field need only contain the plasma. We want anything else to pass through. The blade wouldn't serve much purpose if the containment field kept out anything you need to cut."

Twilight and Celestia both nodded. "Give us a couple hours, but we are going to need your help with your technology."

Dr. Hardy's grin widened. "Oh certainly. Want to get started now? It will be some time yet before Rarity gets back with the Equestrian gems. There's a brief meeting scheduled for after that, but we could totally work on this for awhile until then. I mean, this is going to totally kick ass!'

"I would prefer that we did not strike a donkey without good reason," Celestia said, her tone slightly worried.

"It's a figure of speech. It means it'll be really fun."

"Oh, well, I do believe you are correct, then!"

***

Several hours later, Jeff stood at the head of the table in the conference room, Celestia seated beside him. Rarity, Applejack, and the others who had gone to dig gems had finished getting cleaned up and were present also. Pinkie had gone as well, and seemed her normal self, bouncing about cheerfully.

"Thank you for retrieving the raw materials," Jeff greeted them. "And especially to you, Rarity, for heading the mission."

"My pleasure, darling," Rarity purred, happy to have had a chance to contribute.

The discussion continued for a time on potential weapons and strategy. Eventually, it circled back to The Gate itself.

"We still have no idea what caused the initial malfunction?" Jeff said.

"Actually, I think I understand what may have happened." The table grew silent at the sound of Dr. Hardy's voice. It was the first time he had spoken since they had entered the room. "I have been bouncing theories around in my head. It has to do with the design of the Oblivion Gates." He stood up, and walked to one of the large monitors, activating white board mode so he could draw on the touch screen.

"Okay. So, basic quantum theory. We know how all matter is composed of atoms on a low level."

Nods around the room from all present.

"The building blocks of atoms are protons, neutrons, and electrons." He drew a crude atom on the monitor with his finger. "Each subatomic particle is composed of smaller, quantum particles. I'm not going to list these out, because it gets confusing too quickly and it's not necessary for this explanation."

He wiped the diagram and turned back to the table.

"On a quantum level, particles no longer follow the laws of normal physics. They exist in multiple positions at the same time, or nowhere at all. They vanish from one place and appear in another instantaneously. And most of the time, we cannot be certain what position they are in without changing said position. This is called Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and it plays merry havoc with most attempts to create a viable quantum technology."

He drew a circle on the monitor.

"So, I suppose you all remember the QMI Bioscanner? It was only yesterday, after all," he chuckled. "Anyway, the QMI stands for Quantum Matrix Imager. It's based off the Magnetic Resonance Imager, or MRI, an older device that used a powerful magnetic field to align certain rotating particles inside your body, then knocks them out of alignment and records their behavior to create a three-dimensional image of the inside of your body."

Rainbow Dash frowned. "You lost me."

Dr. Hardy sighed. "Sorry Dashie, it only gets more complicated from here on out."

"Awww man."

"Don't worry about it, this isn't your area of expertise. Anyway, what the Oblivion Gate does is create a powerful chaos energy field within the sweep rings. Rather than trying to predict the position of any quantum particles, the field forces the quantum chaos of the empty space in it's core to align, somewhat like the main magnet of the MRI."

He tapped some more buttons and a video of the Oblivion Gate's spinning nested rings appeared.

"So we create a sub-quantum resonance field at one Gate, and duplicate at the other Gate. Once a certain proximity range is attained, both sides initiate a looping resonance frequency shift that slides slightly on each repetition until the two separate areas of space-time mesh and synchronize. But, when I went over the combined data from both gates, they both linked at slightly different resonance frequencies, one very early in the frequency shift cycle. That's something we hadn't prepared for. Our entire system was geared towards creating similar conditions and then linking up. We had no mechanism in place to PREVENT a connection that didn't match coordinates. It was not designed for security, not designed to prevent hacking. It never occurred to us that anything could even possibly hijack our link. No other technology on Earth is even capable of creating a Gate, let alone interfering with the operation of one. Well, that we are aware of, anyway."

"Not in Equestria either," Celestia said. "We have teleportation and portals, but we use magic. Your approach is utterly alien to ours, and I think a great deal more complicated."

"Yet there is a portal connected to Equestria right now," Emmy added. "Despite the difference in technology."

"But it didn't seem to be connected to anything technologically on the other side. Perhaps that area of space just happened to be similar to the point connection criteria?" Hamilton said.

"Stop pretending you know what he's talking about," McAllister grumbled. "I'm more than half convinced he's just making up nonsense at this point."

Dr. Hardy held up a hand, ignoring McAllister. "My theory is that Gate 2's scan function was noticed by an extra-dimensional entity, or entities, that brute forced a link. Once it locked on and opened, it was no longer seeking a connection with the other gate. Gate 1 then continued to widen the scan range until by random chance it connected to an area in Equestrian space-time that resonated, like Hamilton suggested."

Twilight scowled. "But by that ticket, Gate 1 could have opened into a volcano... or empty space... or... or..."

"Or a supernova, or a black hole, or most likely nothing at all." Dr. Hardy finished. "You are exactly correct. It was a potentially fatal oversight. It was pure luck, providence, or perhaps the mercy of a higher power which connected us to Equestria, and you. Otherwise we may have destroyed our entire planet. The link mechanism should have utilized an encrypted signal to prevent this, but it's all uncharted territory for us. Not to mention resonance encryption would be incredibly complicated."

He wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully for a moment. "Or, given what is happening at Gate 2... our planet, or at least our species, may be destroyed yet."

Celestia frowned. "And if yours goes, the active link to Equestria..."

"Yes. The link still cannot be shut down. Although the two Gates did not link up properly, Gate 1 is locked open until Gate 2 has closed, and we cannot access the island's controls remotely remotely to shut it down. So your world would eventually be next. I'm sorry."

"We could try flooding the gate valley with ocean water," Chris suggested.

"Wouldn't do anything helpful. The gate would remain there, and it would act like a drain. All the water would go straight through to Equestria. Not to mention I have no idea how we would fill the valley with water or anything else in the first place. It's above sea level," Dr. Hardy replied.

"And for all we know, the things coming through from Gate 2 may be perfectly okay with swimming, so possibly all we would do is make it harder for ourselves to stop them," Sanchez added.

"Well the water idea is out," Chris said. "I remember in Stargate SG-1, they talked about the Egyptians burying the Stargate. Maybe we could do the same with bulldozers, or concrete or something?"

"Good luck burying an anomaly of that size with a few bulldozers. It would take an excess of effort, and I tend to imagine the power of the creatures we are going against will not see it as much of a challenge to unearth it again. And don't even suggest blowing it up. The gate anomaly would remain open. It would just make it so we couldn't shut it down."

"Well what do we do then? Just roll in there and switch the gate off?"

"Yes, actually. I believe the systems can be manually rebooted enough to perform an emergency shutdown and sever the Gate connection."

"Oh, good. I was worried there for a minute, I almost thought we weren't going to be fighting our way through swarms of hideous monsters." McAllister said sarcastically.

"Well, we are still going to have to wipe them out regardless. They're hostile, we're going to have to deal with them before anyone else gets killed."

"Sounds great, Doc. Please tell me things are coming along well with the weapon mods?"

"It's not so much science as it is art, it seems," Dr. Hardy replied.

"We are working on it," Celestia replied. "We will find a way to help with our magic, and I will be right there with you when the time. Don't worry."

The pure earnestness in her voice disarmed McAllister completely. "I... Uh... Thank you."

Dr. Hardy continued. "And the sooner we get done here, the faster we can get back to it." He looked at Jeff. "Do you have anything else? We need to get back to the lab as soon as possible."

"Just one more thing. The handheld cellphone units that Rarity's gem procurement team dropped off in Equestria should be online soon. Once the relay station is up and running, you should be able to talk to some of your friends," Jeff informed them. "They'll automatically add to your contact list when they come online. It'll be text-only for now, we've managed to score a small bandwidth increase but not enough to create a fully functional connection."

"Who has them?" Twilight asked.

"Well, we handed them over to the Equestrian military right before we went gem hunting," Marky told her. "They were going to drop some in Ponyville and Canterlot. Some ProteC guys went to set up a solar-powered relay antenna in the hills near Ponyville."

"Sounds great." Twilight stood up from the table. "And Dr. Hardy is right, we probably should get back to work, if everypony is ready."

"Good luck, and thank you," Jeff said.

Celestia and Emmy stood, and left the room, headed back to the laboratory. As everyone else filed out to resume various projects, Dr. Hardy called out. "Hey Pinkie Pie, can I have a word with you?"

"Absolutely!"