Equestria 1939 - Weird World War

Equestria 1939 - Weird World War
Celestia’s Gambit

You’re probably wondering why Sherbert Lemon was stuck in an experimental submarine under the Manehattan harbor with an Equestrian spy on a secret mission.

So was she.

It will make more sense if we go back a few weeks, to where it all began. It was her mother’s fault, after all. Even if she had been dead for over two years. Well, mostly dead.

Anyway…

“When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to the order of that of the sun, this contraction will continue indefinitely…”
— “On Continued Gravitational Contraction” by J. Oppenheimer and H. Snyder, September 1, 1939

Sherbert Lemon was crazy.

Not crazy in the kind of way that others wanted to take her to all the good parties, or even just going ‘tock’ when everypony else went ‘tick.’ No, she was crazy but just barely on the correct side of certifiably insane, much like every other core staff member of Q branch in Manehattan.

Of course, she knew that. She was not that crazy after all, just crazy in a way that could be turned to Equestrian society’s good use without endangering her own mental well-being more than absolutely necessary. And as long as she was just crazy, she could work on her projects. That gave her good incentive not to go insane. Plus, a great number of unicorns could be considered crazy by nature, so to not be crazy in one way or another would have been rather odd.

Now her mother, on the other hoof, had been just over the line of insane by a hair. If there had been an abandoned tower outside of Manehatten with the correct number of bats and a pipe organ in the basement, she would have purchased it in a heartbeat. Somepony else’s heart, of course. She had a jar on her desk, after all.

Admittedly, Dr. Vernier was a genius in addition to her relative insanity. Well, when compared to her relatives, of course. Where the rest of the Voltage family tree built elevators that went sideways or fruit-flavored wallpaper, Vernier was a surgeon who specialized in transplants. Mostly limbs, although there were a few organs in the mix. Also mostly volunteers, because it was amazing what somepony would be willing to risk in certain circumstances when the doctor only gives a few weeks to live.

Then one day, Dr. Vernier the Scientist became Madam Vernier the Wife, took a husband, and bore a child. Several months later, she just as abruptly turned the husband back into a solo act with a reasonable pension and good references which he used to marry again, with Madam Vernier as a bridlemaid.

Dr. Vernier returned to her research with a slightly less fanatical devotion to the advancement of science, somewhat on the order of a motorcar traveling down a mountain road instead of a steamroller, but her daughter was not neglected in the process. She was frequently seen in public acting completely normal at her mother’s side, and even took great pains to be a model sister when her remarried father produced a male child.

Years of child raising followed, with important members of the Manehattan scientific community quietly fretting as to what diabolical plan she was up to and wondering just why Sherbert J. Lemon acted so… normal.

If asked, under sufficient truth serum, Sherbert would have admitted she was constantly acting, from her first waking to slumber. She was a controlled experiment, after all. Contaminating the results with unreliable equine interactions would have been unthinkable. Her mother had been at the far far end of foalbirth age when Sherbert was born, and other than her brilliant half-brother Mixed State, there was little chance of adding another sufficiently intelligent young sibling into her life to share her scientific goals. Well, without some dramatic science.

So Sherbert Lemon studied at home, studied at school for a year at Oxford and Cambridge, and eventually studied at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, all the while accumulating a collection of unexploded laboratories and research topics that might be worth future expansion. Left alone, she quite possibly would have followed in her mother’s scholarly hoofsteps and continued to make her scientific peer group nervous by honing her skills until it was time to produce another generation of experimentation.

Then came the accident.

Realize that no matter what odd directions a genius takes, random chance in a sufficiently large population will include several other geniuses pointed in generally the same direction, or able to be pointed by sufficient power. Since Princess Celestia had that kind of power and more, Vernier’s research group in Manehattan consisted of like-minded but thankfully duller minds, working their way to develop a cryonic suspension process for the crystallization of future space travelers and decrystallization at the destination, no matter how many years that could entail. Exact details were sketchy, but suffice it to say their experiment failed in a lethal manner, and Vernier’s will specified a quite unique method of disposing of the resulting corpse. Over a thousand photographs were taken of her brain, one microscopic slice at a time, until her mortal remains were pulverized and her dust spread out over the ocean.

If society could be said to have a metaphorical reality as a larger entity, the general scientific community held its collective breath and watched to see how Sherbert Lemon would react to the death of her mother, perhaps with a lightning-tower and a surgical laboratory in the basement.

Instead, she accepted her mother’s vacant position at the Manehattan Institute of Inadvisable and Improbable Question Research (Q branch) and began a project investigating lipid membranes instead.

After a few months, the scientific community turned its attention elsewhere, convinced that the fuse on the interesting firework had gone out. Sherbert did not realize she had received her job offer from the discreet agency inside the Equestrian government because of Princess Celestia. Despite ruling a country and dealing with international diplomacy, the princess had time to appreciate scientific papers that she could not understand and believed that it was only pragmatic to keep such sharp minds on the inside of the government pointing out, instead of on the outside trying to break in. In addition, research into binding proteins and amphipathic reactions to thaumic charges in silicon wafers was being encouraged as of late, due to similarly unrevealed desires from the top of the mountain in Canterlot.

The Manehattan lab floor Sherbert worked in had five researchers when she started, which soon became four by way of promotion, then three from anaphylactic shock due to exposure to lipid stabilization fluid in a thaumically active matrix when one of her fellow researchers took a peek inside ACACD, her ongoing experiment. Two others departed for foreign projects, which left Sherbert to concentrate fully on her main project in a locked lab. There were no graduate students vanishing or twisted portals to other dimensions involved, so every fiscal quarter the director stopped by, made appropriate humming noises when looking at the portable steel chamber she was putting together, and left after promising to get the mare’s bathroom down the hallway fixed yet again.

Several years passed.

Political turmoil and world events meant very little to Sherbert other than to bother her with unnecessary columns in the newspaper. Research journals fed her intellect as much as the food service in the building sustained her body, or perhaps more since the journals’ contents were far more varied than her regular meals. And on days when she forgot to eat, she had relatives to remind her.

“Hey, sis.” A familiar young stallion tapped on the outer office door several times. “You skipped breakfast again.”

“Busy,” called out Sherbert from the lab bench, where she had a screwdriver in her mouth for storage. Several other tools glowed yellow as they orbited her head, taking occasional jabs at the chunk of electronics spread out on the table and leaving little wisps of vaporized solder wafting up in the breeze from the building air conditioner. The rattle of keys followed, and Mix poked his nose into the central chamber where Sherbert was working.

“Nothing’s on fire, at least. Can I bring in a cleared visitor?”

“How cleared is she?” Sherbert did not look up until the resonant voice of Prime responded.

“Everything.” The balding stallion could easily have been mistaken for a ragged panhandler or ditchweed eater, bitless and cast out of society except for a weekly ration of government oats. That is until he spoke, with a crisp Oxford accent and absolute confidence in every word. Genius had more than one aspect, which is why Sherbert Lemon had never pitted her wits against his. Prime managed the intricate coordination of the various scientific entities in the building complex with a skill that she never could touch, even if she had wanted to shoulder that responsibility.

And she had the sneaking suspicion that he understood far more than a few random words in her reports.

“Poland is getting screwed over and split between two vicious animals disguised as countries,” continued Prime harshly, taking a moment to check his watch. “I have a meeting with B-19 in ten minutes. All visas to Europe have been canceled in the most delicate way possible, and every Equestrian we can find is making their way back through England. During this troubling time, I expect every employee of the organization to contribute as much as possible.”

Sherbert wiped her soldering iron on the wet sponge and placed it in the rack before responding. “How are we assisting Germany?”

“We are not,” said Prime. “In any regard, in any way.”

“We are allies of Germany,” said Sherbert right back.

Prime shook his head, letting his ragged mane sway. “Officially, we will remain scientific allies and militarily neutral until all of our citizens have made their escape. The evacuation has been going on in secret for a few months, and there are signs that some Equestrians have been detained. It is critical that we do not make any kind of disturbance until their situation has been resolved.”

There was a whirring noise, and the teletype at the other end of the room hammered out a short staccato series of letters. Prime turned his head fractionally, regarded the teletype, and strode slowly over to tear off the most recent message. He regarded it for a few moments, then walked over to place it on Sherbert’s cluttered workbench.

ASK ABOUT ROOT STOCK END

“Young lady,” started Prime very slowly, “that is classified above me. Do not ask. A team from B-19 will visit in the next few days to examine her lab, so do not touch it. And the same goes for ACACD.

The teletype whirred to life, then turned off without typing a single letter.

“Exactly.” Prime regarded the dense column of bolted-together steel pipe that made up ACACD, from the first broad section of steel that looked so crude on the bottom to the new top section with modern plexiglass so the slow twitch and rotation of the razor-thin ceramic disks inside could be observed. External light slowed the chemical reactions inside slightly, but the inconvenience was acceptable considering just what options had been added. Normally, ACACD was stored in her private laboratory, but she was somewhat portable with an umbilical cable, squat wheels, and a rack of lead-acid batteries for emergency power, so Sherbert had given in to her request and given her free reign over the central shared laboratory space. There seemed to be an unasked question in Prime’s expression, but her brother jumped to the hint before she could craft a proper explanation.

“She wanted a dog, sir. We did not have the chance to finish writing up a proper report on it, but the dog was a stray at the pound that had been run over by an automobile last year… and she wanted a dog,” finished Mix weakly.

“A dog.” Prime raised one ragged eyebrow, then shook his head. “As long as ACACD performs well, she can have whatever pets she wants. Which brings us to the reason I am here today. This request is to be classified far beyond anything you have been exposed to before. Your brother has already agreed to our request and will act as liaison to several other unnamed projects during this time. If you turn down this request, you and your experiments will be removed to a secure location, and your communications with others will be monitored.”

“They are already monitored,” said Sherbert flatly. “The Institute does not conceal that from us, and I have maintained your security provisions to the exact letter and intent. You may make your request.”

Prime nodded. “And ACACD? I thought I had seen everything in your lab. In particular, I don’t recall ACACD ever being able to listen in on conversations before.”

“Her only output is the teletype. The dog is running her audio receiving system. She has a shortwave receiver on the top floor of the institute, and for the microphone on the top of her case,” said Sherbert. “We bought it from the Americans, and it works as well as the line we have tied into the building telephone system.”

Prime stopped moving. He did not appear to be breathing either.

“So that’s why you had me help connect that bundle of circuits down in the wiring trunk room,” mused Mixed State. “It did make the phones a lot clearer and stopped cutting off calls, but I didn’t think Mother would eavesdrop on everypony.”

“Mister State,” said Prime very slowly. “Are you telling me you tapped our institute’s secure phone system so—” He waved at ACACD in lieu of any more words or possible profanity.

Mix shrugged. Sherbert decided to follow her step-brother’s lead and shrugged also, but added, “She only can listen. She gets bored calculating range tables and analyzing weather patterns. I gave her the shortwave receiver last year, and the microphone is new. We’ve enforced a rule that it can only be used for information, so no visitors can trigger a command. We had to do that when she started listening to the Lutheran Hour.”

It appeared as if Prime was in pain, possibly his ulcer acting up again, but he swallowed hard and addressed Sherbert directly. “Miss Lemon, I have been directed to ask you for permission to use ACACD to decrypt German communications, in particular the military code used to communicate with the U-49 out in the Manehattan harbor. Is that possible?”

“Yes, it is theoretically possible,” said Sherbert.

Enough tension eased that Prime’s shoulders no longer seemed quite so rigid, and he took a deep breath, but before he could say anything more, Sherbert added, “No, I will not permit it.”

“But…”

“Germany is our ally,” she said firmly. “We do not read their mail. If that is all, I will begin preparations to move to another laboratory as you specified.”

Prime said more words, but Sherbert was not listening. She continued her work, the only thing that was important at the moment, until Sun outside the wide laboratory windows had descended to bring the interior space into shadows. Only then did she walk across the empty office to flip on the lights and consider the cold paper sack of burritos that Mixed State had left for her several hours prior.

She might as well have eaten the paper sack for as much as she could taste the cold Spanish food. Then she returned to her work.