Of Two Worlds

“Aurora? Aurora are you awake down there?”

Hoofing hay fry crumbs out of her cream chest fur, Aurora Burst slouched forward in her chair and looked back at the darkened basement stairwell with annoyance.

“It’s six at night. Of course I’m awake!”

Hoofsteps made their way down the stairs. “Really? I’ve caught you sleeping this late before!”

“Whatever.” She turned back to the workbench in front of her with a huff. As her horn illuminated with a light blue aura, she levitated a small screwdriver from the other side of her workbench to her.

The distinctive crunch of hoof meeting metal erupted from the base of the stairs. “What the?! What the hell is all of this?”

She turned and saw her roommate at the other end of the narrow room, knee deep in a box of wiring and other spare parts. “Watch out for the boxes,” she deadpanned.

He scowled and gingerly stepped out of the box. “I probably could have if it wasn’t lit like a damn dungeon in here!” He gestured angrily towards the sole light source in the room, a magnifying lamp bolted to her workbench. Stepping around the pile of boxes, he made his way across the small basement that pulled double duty as her bedroom and workshop.

He waved a hoof at a trash can choked with Hay Burger wrappers and bags. “Fast food again?”

She rolled her eyes. “Anything else Dad?.” She pulled the lamp closer to her muzzle and squinted down at a small mass of wires and metal between her hooves.

The lanky grey pegasus raised one eyebrow. “Yes, please clean your room.” He looked back at the stairwell. “Lest you be crushed to death by some newfound mountain of crap you’ve drug down here.”

“Free spare parts over safety.” She brought the screwdriver down on her target. “Did you actually need something Double? Or did you just come down here to gripe?”

He sighed in. “Actually no. It’s the first. Rents due.”

She floated the tool back to the bench and leaned back in her chair, rubbing a hoof over each eye. “Really? The first already.”

Double leaned against the wall. “Losing track of days?”

She sighed. “Just a lot of really long nights.” She nodded over to a set of shelves next to her workbench. On the top few were rows of toasters, blenders, lamps, cameras and all other sorts of household appliances, each sitting neatly arranged with a billing invoice on top. On the lower few saw a myriad of broken items, each taped with a repair order.

He whistled. “That’s a lot of orders.”

She shrugged. “There’s a lot of ponies in Manehattan. Bits have been great though.”

He gave her a cheeky grin. “At least I know you can make rent.”

She shot him a sideways glare for his humor. “Have I ever been late?”

“It was a joke Aurora.”

The glare faded as a frown tugged at her muzzle. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

He gazed around at the sparse, brick walled basement. It was nothing more than a simple room, barely wide enough for her small cot and a walkway. At one end was the stairs descending from the house above. Stacked around the end of the stairs was the heaping pile of boxes he had stepped in. At the other end, her workbench and the shelf with her orders. The bench was a chaotic heap of screwdrivers, pliers, bits of wire, circuitry, instruments and other parts and tools he was unfamiliar with. Despite the mess, in the bit of time he had spent watching her work she never seemed to hunt for anything. She always seemed to know exactly where the part or tool she needed was.

As he scanned the room, an object under her cot caught his eye.

“Have you made any progress on your personal project?”

Double jerked back as the screwdriver she had been diligently manipulating plummeted to the table and a giant smile spread across her muzzle. She catapulted out of her chair and towards her cot, tail swishing back and forth excitedly “I have!”

He fought back a grin. Awkward to adorkable in one question.

It had taken a while to get used to the stone faced, green maned, blue eyed unicorn who had answered his newspaper ad about a basement rental. He’d fully expected some sort of early college age Pony to show up to his door, worldly possessions in their saddlebags and ready to negotiate the price. Instead he’d opened the door to a fully grown mare, easily in her late twenties and three months rent in hoof.

After signing the renters agreement; he’d watched wide eyed as she silently started dragging boxes of tools, shelving and all other manner of work implements from her moving cart to the basement. An offer to help had been met with a brief head shake and downcast eyes. He wasn’t even sure she had a bed until he saw the cot floating along behind her during one load.

Despite the gruff exterior, she was a good roommate. She always had her rent on time. The coffee shop he owned demanded very early hours and she was always quiet when he slept. Early on, questions and greetings had produced little more than a grunt or curt answer as she went back and forth from the basement to deliver finished repair orders to clients.

In the months to come, he’d slowly managed to coax more out of her. Random kitchen encounters had revealed how she ran her own home pickup and delivery repair shop. A few quick ciders in the kitchen one night and she had briefly mentioned that she was from Canterlot and that her parents were teachers of some sort. That was as far as he’d been able to delve into her past. Most questions about her family prompted little more than a shrug and a quick retreat to the basement.

Nothing opened the unicorn mare up more than asking her about her work. One question about how a radio worked and her eyes shot open like a filly on Hearths Warming morning. He’d learned more about vacuum tubes and circuit theory than he had ever cared to. Most of it flew far above his head. She’d occasionally run off on tangents about electrical theory and particle behavior without realizing his eyes had long since glazed over. Still, he always listened. It was worth it to see her smile for a change.

She rummaged under her cot and emerged with her project. Floating it over to her workbench, she set it in front of them with a beaming grin. It was little more than a metal disk, about the size of a dinner plate with a rounded metal edge that circled what looked like a rounded, shattered pane of glass. Four small legs propped the disc up. Extending from one end was a single cable, which connected to a small metal cube covered in dials and a black screen.

He looked it over and nodded. “So...does it still not work?”

Her grin evaporated as she blew him a raspberry. “I’m making headway smartass.”

“Oh? The last time you were ‘making headway’ we ended up with a part of a screwdriver embedded in my espresso machine.”

“Could have ended up embedded up your flank…” she mumbled, clearly loud enough for him to hear.

“What was that?”

“Nothing! Nothing”. She shot him a wide fake grin before looking back down at the disk. “Seriously though, I can get items where I want them now within a few square feet.”

“That is progress.” He gazed down at the disk. “So you really think you can get this thing to a point where it could teleport something long distance?”

She looked back at a tattered, half incomplete leather bound book sitting on her cot. “If my ancestor’s designs work how he thought they would, yes.”

“How many greats did you say he was?”

“Four greats. Grandfather on my Mom’s side. I think.”

“You think?”

She shrugged.”We didn’t keep the best records.”

He remembered the first time he’d caught her tinkering on the thing. Back then it was little more than the disk frame and a box of parts. As usual, all she’d said was that it was something she was working on for herself. It wasn’t until the same night they’d shared the ciders that she divulged what its purpose. Apparently it was supposed to allow any unicorn to transport an object to anywhere they wanted, given sufficient magical power. Like most non unicorn ponies, he was largely ignorant of the intricacies of magic. It had taken him by surprise to learn that this wasn’t something they all did. It wasn’t until he really thought about it that he realized he had never seen any of his unicorn friends teleport anything. He’d heard stories of the Princesses doing such things, so he had assumed any of them could do it. As it turned out, only a fraction of a percentage of unicorns had this kind of talent.

“Wanna see it?”

He nodded. “Sure. Do I need a magic shield around my flank?”

She rewarded him with a legitimate smile. “No. Watch this!”

Her horn lit up and she levitated a small bundle of wire from her work bench onto the glass face of the disk. Turning, she began manipulating the dials on the box. The screen lit up as walls of text scrolled by as she changed the settings. She had explained to him how it was some sort of information about the area around them and how it stored some sort of data about the transmission but he’d gone cross eyed before she had finished. Eventually as she got the dials where she wanted, the scrolling stopped and a set of numbers blinked on the screen. With that, she turned and a beam of magic shot from her horn to the disc.

Almost immediately, the bundle of wires fizzled out of existence and a moment later, reappeared above her bed with a small snapping sound. As they tumbled to the cot below, the box emitted a small, high pitched tone.

He turned to look at the box. “That’s new.”

She nodded. “I added a wave sensor to the control box. It helps me analyze the transmission wave and do troubleshooting.”

“That’s handy. How does it work?”

She nodded her head at the box. “It’s like a radio antenna. When the item is teleported, it emits an energy wave. The sensor picks up on that, theoretically even at very long distances.” She brought a hoof up to scratch her ear. “I can’t figure out how to attenuate it though. If I test it with something even a little bit larger, the stupid thing screeches it’s head off.”

He walked over to the cot and examined the bundle of wires. The pile looked distinctly smaller than before and there were far more pieces. “It doesn’t quite look the same.”

She walked over and joined him. “No, it’s still not working perfectly.” She looked up at him with a wide, excited grin. “But I’m getting closer.”

He looked back at the bed and down to her. “And you’re sure this is worth it? I know that thing’s been eating up most of your extra bits.” She had mentioned early on that a lot of the components in it were pretty exotic.

She walked back to the workbench and flopped down in her chair. “I do. I really think this could change how we move things across Equestria. No more need for the train or mail ponies. No need to wait for packages!” She was positively beaming at the possibilities.

“If it’s that big a deal, why don’t you take this to a research lab? Or to the Princesses or...something? You could probably get help. Money.”

Her smile evaporated immediately. “No. I want to figure this out on my own.”

He shook his head. “But why?”

“Double...”

“But…”

Her eyes snapped up to his. “Double. Please. Drop it. I need to do this on my own.”

They locked eyes for a moment before he sighed and scratched his head. “Ok. Ok. I’ll drop it.”

He made his way back to the base of the stairs and stepped over the boxes at the base. He looked back to see her hunched over her workbench, exactly as he’d found her. “Just promise me you’ll clear these boxes? I don’t want you to trip.”

“Yup.”

He sighed internally as he hoofed his way up the stairs. Baby steps.

(Several months later)

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Double shot up in his bed, heart pounding as he was ripped out of sleep.

He winced as his wings shot forward to plug his ears against the piercing screech that had woken him up.”What the hell?”

He rolled out of his bed and made his way down the hall and to the kitchen. As he approached the basement door, the noise got noticeably louder.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

He opened the door to the basement and ran down the stairs. He arrived to see Aurora sitting in her bed, staring at the teleporters control box as it floated in front of her in her magic. The grid on the box was visible and text was flying across the screen. He made his way over to the side of her bed. The screech was painful at this distance.

He grimaced and looked down at her. “What the hell is happening?”

She shook her head and yelled, “I don’t know!”

She shook the cube in her magic to no effect. He was considering throwing it against the wall when the wailing suddenly stopped.

He pulled his wings out of his ears. “What in Celestia was that?”

She jumped out of bed and floated the box over to the workbench. “I have no idea. I was sleeping when the damn thing started going off.”

She started fiddling with the dials as paragraphs of information scrolled down the screen. He was internally debating whether to complain about being yanked out of bed in the middle of the night by her pet project or just go back to bed and do it tomorrow when her magic dissipated.

“That’s…”

He snapped back to attention and looked over at her. “Aurora?”

“No way.”

He moved to stand beside her. “Aurora? What’s wrong?”

She looked from the screen to him, open mouthed. “Double..there was a transmission.”

“Ok. Did it go off in the middle of the night?”

She shook her head. “No. Not from here. From somewhere else. The sensor logged a successful transmission.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Double...something else was teleported in Equestria and if these readings are right...whatever it was, it was enormous.”