Eric stayed up all night, Jacob with him. Mostly he kept watch at the doorway, and checked on Danielle where she slept on one of the chairs. No one came to use the computers, or to find the missing ponies. If only they had a specific list of targets, they might’ve been able to call in threats or something, get people out of public places.
They sent a few covert warnings, in ways Eric explained would be “very difficult to track.” Jacob didn’t understand what he was doing, so mostly he watched. He searched police department email addresses from various cities, and typed up the most comprehensive warning he could. Would anyone believe them? Would Sunset catch them and punish them as traitors?
The second one was a resounding no, at least that night. As Jacob searched and typed, Eric dug through files, searching for a list of targets, searching for anything they could use. After many hours, he slammed his head on the desk, whimpering. “I tried, Jacob! I tried, but it’s just not here!”
Jacob jerked into a sitting position, wiping a little drool from his mouth. “W-wha?”
“It isn’t here. I used every search I could think of, short of reading it all myself. Dug around in the metadata, poked at the security… nothing!” He shoved the keyboard away.
“You really didn’t find anything we could use to stop this?”
“Nothing.” He sighed. “Their laws and code of conduct is as complex as any big country’s, but I got the gist of it. Only Celestia herself can change regents. It isn’t an elected position, she can’t be impeached or deposed. You can read over it yourself, see if there’s something I missed, but… it’s clearly a monarchy. Not a constitutional one, either.”
Jacob felt like his head was full of cotton. “Well, if Celestia really was thousands of years old, she probably would know better than regular ponies…” He shook his head, trying to dislodge the sleepiness. His horn hurt whenever he did, but in this case that was an advantage. “I’ll read it when I have time. Put it on my drive or whatever…”
“Sure.” Eric did a few more things on the screen he couldn’t see. “It won't help us, though. Not unless we could bring Celestia here. But I don’t think we’d have had this problem in the first place if she was here.”
“Is there… anything else?”
He shrugged. “Nothing I could find in one night. Not to mention that most ponies don’t seem to trust Harley much. Even if there is something, she might not have access.”
“True.” Jacob got to his hooves again, clutching at the edge of the desk. “Nothing interesting? No hidden files, or future missions, or…”
Eric hesitated, considering. Eventually he turned around, hands going to his keyboard. “Just… something strange in the filesystem. It’s probably nothing, but…”
Jacob walked over, looking over the screen. “Explain it like it’s 5AM and I don’t know anything about computers.”
Eric grumbled, his wings flaring briefly. “That’s code for ‘I’m lazy and don’t want to have to think about it.’”
“I did say it was 5 AM.”
“So, you know that files have more to them than the parts you actually use, right? Like, if you have a song on your hard drive, there’s maybe a few and maybe quite a few bites holding additional information. The Linux distribution running on—”
Jacob put up a hand. “Skip all that. What did you find?”
“Every file made before three months, fourteen days ago is a little larger than it should be. Everything newer than that, no problem.”
Jacob thought back. It didn’t take much consideration. “That was the fall of Unity. Maybe… its computers were better or something?”
Eric shook his head, bringing up a console window with a few lines of text. “I tested that theory. I output the raw bytes of a few different files. See this string?”
He read it, or tried. It wasn’t exactly English. “
6861636c2062672076706763206f706720686564646d20616e206e7667666f202037352e393532343333202d33322e343634383937
. The hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but it’s the same in every single file from Unity. Maybe nothing… some kind of OS overhead unique to their custom kernel or whatever. Maybe not. Probably not what we need, but you did ask for everything.”
“If it was a code, could you break it? You’re the one who was good enough at patterns to notice it in the first place.”
Eric pressed print, waited for the printer to spit out a copy of the message, then closed out the computer. “Not tonight. I think we’ve done all we can for one night.”
“Probably for the best we’re not around, anyway. If they start tracing that something happened, at least we don’t want to be in the lab when they come looking. We can’t very well stop Sunset if she turns us to stone.”
Jacob caught a few hours of sleep before his morning shift. There was no way to catch up on all the missed sleep, as much because there was work to do as it would be suspicious if any of the night’s activity had been detected.
The day passed without the slightest hint of trouble, either for them or the surface world. Jacob spent that day in the clinic, hiding his exhaustion with frequent cups of coffee and doing menial medical work.
He got off as soon as he could, and started searching for the one pony he knew he could trust to be furious about what Sunset was doing and want to help: Elise.
It took some time to find her. Like most ponies (including himself on good days), she lacked a talent that could be directly applied to daily life. That meant a basic assignment based on her race and Imperium’s very real survival needs, which for her was in a field.
Jacob rarely had time to visit the farms anymore, but even he was impressed with what he found as he wandered in the direction he had been told she would be working. What had been solid stone was now broken into soil, sloughed into clear furrows and lined with irrigation ditches. The soil was rich and dark, and seemed almost to hug his hooves as he walked, cool and comfortable.
He was tall enough to see over the working ponies, most of which were naked and splattered with dirt. Jacob could only be glad he wasn’t one of them yet.
Elise was pacing through the young trees in the growing orchard, without any visible tools other than muddy hooves. What was she doing, anyway? He squinted, but even with his glasses it was impossible to guess. She didn’t seem to be weeding, for there were no weeds. She wasn’t fertilizing, though he had heard disturbing rumors about so called “night soil” being used all over the fields. So what was she doing?
“Ho, Elise! Got a minute?”
She looked up, looking suddenly self-conscious. Her ears flattened, tail tucking between her legs, though she wasn’t nearly as minuscule by comparison as she had been when they first met. “You never come out here.”
Jacob scanned the trees around her as he advanced, searching for ponies who might overhear. He didn’t see any. Whatever work there was in the orchards, it apparently didn’t take that many ponies to do. “What’s the point of planting an orchard? Don’t most fruit trees take years before they give you anything?”
“Not to a pony.” Elise reached out, yanking on one of his arms. Though he had to stoop for her to do it, the strength was tremendous, and he was forced to stumble along behind her. Twenty feet or so down the row, they came to a tree a little taller than he was, with tiny buds bristling from some of its bushy limbs. “See that?”
He nodded. “It hasn’t even been three months. I didn’t know earth pony magic was that good. I guess it does explain how such a small population of farmers fed a whole country like Equestria without modern fertilizers or genetic engineering. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“I figured.” Elise sat down by the tree, staring up at him. “If you’re hoping there’s something I can do, there isn’t. They let me work, but they don’t trust me. My actions got ponies killed…” Her ears drooped again. “Not only that, but I’m the one responsible for this escalation. It wasn’t the ponies that started by attacking as many innocent civilians as possible, that was us.”
“From what I can tell, my infiltration cut the ties between an extreme appointee and the moderate homeland that was keeping her wrists bound. In some ways, everything Sunset does is my fault.”
Jacob sat down across from her, against another nearby tree. He couldn’t put his weight on it, for fear that the delicate trunk might snap. “That doesn’t sound rational. Taking the blame for Unity is one thing, at least you knew what you were doing. Sunset and the ponies who helped her are responsible for their actions, not you.”
She shrugged, looking unconvinced. “I know you care about your patients, but I doubt you came out here to inquire after my psychological health, Lifeline.”
“Not you too with the nicknames.” He folded his arms. “Eric and I don’t plan on sitting around and doing nothing about this. Sunset went from protecting innocent people to attacking them.”
“You think an awful lot of yourselves.”
“Didn’t you work for guys who destabilized entire countries with just a few well-trained agents?”
Elise grinned ruefully. “No, that’s the CIA. Completely different organization. We have the better dental plan.”
Jacob tensed. “How can you be so calm? You know what’s happening up there, same as we do! You should be just as upset.”
“I am contemplating. Every angle I’ve considered is a no-win scenario. To betray this place to my organization would be a slaughter.”
He nodded. “They did try to kill us with a dragon monster yesterday. They probably already know where we are.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Elise rose, eyes scanning the orchard around them. Jacob jerked, realizing he had been ignoring their surroundings since he had sat down. “I believe any attack on Imperium would involve a nuclear device. Deep underground like we are, no access to the surface… a minor earthquake would be an issue for the geologists, and conspiracy theorists would talk, but it would probably be enough to kill even the most dangerous individuals.”
He shivered. Even the attack on Unity hadn’t been nuclear. Could unicorn magic heal radiation sickness? “What do you think of Sunset’s plan? Will your people forget about us if there are a million ponies in the country, and they’re impossible to contain?”
“No.” No hesitation. “We had a contingency for runaway infection. Jurisdiction would transfer to the National Guard for containment. We’re talking martial law, curfews. FEMA gets involved. My department is removed from every responsibility except finding and destroying the source. The… five hundred agents, last I was there… would all be looking for you. For us, now.”
“Could we surrender?”
“Remember the part about the nuke?”
He stood up, kicking at the ground in frustration. “That makes as little sense as what Sunset’s doing! If there are millions of ponies, it’s already impossible to contain. They’ll do magic, they’ll spread it… they can’t be planning on murdering millions of citizens!”
“No.” She watched him from her place, still calm. “But if we had the power to spread it once, we’ll have the power to do it again. They won’t allow it.”
“I don’t suppose your people had a cure to being a pony in those top-secret labs of yours.”
She laughed again. “Unfortunately not. We had a test that could identify people likely to be resistant to magic, but that might not even be useful. Unless you know more about the biological weapon.”
“Only that it’s contagious.” He turned, staring up at their artificial sun. Pony magic could be astoundingly powerful. How much good could it be doing if they didn’t have to hide in a cave? “What would you do? If you were in charge, I mean.”
Again, she didn’t hesitate. “If ‘Equestria’ is a real place, I would take my entire population there immediately. Wait until the public is adjusted to the presence of ponies, and the hunt for Imperium is abandoned. Thirty years ought to be long enough.”
“Thirty years,” he repeated, dumbfounded. In thirty years, his sister might very well be a grandmother. His whole world would be gone. “What if we can’t get back?”
“Then… try and get mixed up into the victims. They’ll find us eventually—but there’s no reason all the ponies we helped out of containment have to die. Move somewhere smaller—this place is a liability. Ditch anyone without essential skills, then weather the storm. If we can.”
He nodded, then dug out a sheet of printer paper from his pocket, opening it for Elise to see. “Do you know anything about code breaking?”