Somewhere in the darkness, the chemicals dream.
It will be the last raid, for that is what the Princess has ordered: the final instruction given to those recently-fired employees. The raid is also going to be in a location which the chemicals have never seen before (well, certainly not from the inside), it may find the chemicals up against previously-unimagined levels of opposition... things which seemed to indicate that an extra degree of planning had to be involved. The chemicals mostly know plans as something it personally happens to in order to make them go wrong, but does understand the importance of occasionally having to wait.
There will be a last raid, and then... after that, for the chemicals, there may be darkness. (It was trying not to think about that too much, and mostly failed.) But the darkness isn't something to be afraid of. The darkness is cool and comforting, a place where there is no pain, no anything -- except, perhaps, for dreams. And the chemicals have wondered if that's all life is, for life itself is chemical in nature: billions of interactions in the darkness, having electric dreams of being something more. But no one can tell it. And so it simply wonders in its somewhat different way, and waits to go back down into the dark for what may be the last time. Something it cannot truly fear, as long as Jack still stands in the light.
Perhaps that is why they both get along so well with the Princess, or at least what the chemicals feel is getting along. Neither can see her as a source of fear, nor does either one truly understand how rare that is.
The chemicals dream, for the body is asleep, and so Jack dreams. It is not transition: there is no communication and as with nearly all dreams, there will be no recollection of what had replayed upon the stage. But in dreams, the lines can blur, especially for the events which had taken place on both sides of the inner border. With the thoughts of a final raid on their minds, their last service to Equestria...
It sends them back, and so they dream together in the darkness.
"I was afraid of that," Victor had sighed. "And so were you."
Jack had nodded, and the movement had been a shaky one. The chemicals had been very detailed in their description of the previous night's events, at least within the eighty-four seconds which had been available. Just enough time to explain how and why their time had come so very close to running out.
"They knew someone was using the application formula," Victor had gone on, looking at Jack from across a short distance on the latest abandoned warehouse floor. "And that meant eventually, someone was going to try using the reversion vials as a weapon."
Jack had sighed. "Gas guns. It said it was like facing down a dozen Darkwing Ducks without the fashion sense, and don't ask me how it knows about that show. It had to abandon the mission: it knew that if any fumes touched it, the mask would just fall off right there and... well, it would have been me and a dozen guys who would have grabbed me, hauled me in to see him and after he was done with me, they would have switched to the other guns. And since the formulas are all we've got..." He had slumped against an exposed support girder. "Maybe we're done. Last night could have been it, and we're nowhere close..."
"Maybe," Vic had countered, "they just lost the only chance they had."
There had been a half-smile on the thin lips. But there was also a certain... tension.
Jack had blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I've been thinking about it for a while," Vic had said. "That this was pretty much inevitable. And since I thought about it, I've been working on a way to stop it. I just hadn't said anything because the formula was so tricky, and..." He'd sighed. "And because there's exactly one test subject. You're already being exposed to a lot of things, more often than anyone should. No matter how clean your blood tests are, this is something new. I know what I want it to do, what it should do. It's also asking you to stand in the middle of a brand-new cloud of compounds. It's another risk, and..."
A deep breath, and it hadn't done enough.
"If something goes wrong," Victor had told him, "it could kill you. But so would getting caught. So maybe this is where you stop, Jack. Because doing this next part might kill you, and having it go out into the field again when they know how to get rid of it will kill you..." It was getting very close to a plea. "Maybe last night was your luck running out. The signal to just -- stop."
Jack had briefly closed his eyes. There were times when he could do that and not see corpses. That hadn't been one of them.
"What is it supposed to do?" he'd asked, while already having a pretty good idea. And with that one simple question, the vow had been renewed.
"Immunization," Victor had softly surrendered. "If it works, then it's a two-stage treatment. Use the first stage in conjunction with the original formula and you'll bring it out, the same as usual. The other brings you back. But after that's done, the original reversion formula won't work any more. Just the new one. They won't be able to use the first vial group against it. But there's a lot which could go wrong, Jack. We still don't know about long-term effects from the first batch, let alone this. I've tested it as far as I could without human exposure. But when it comes to that, past what the math says it should do, all I know for certain is that the filters will let you breathe, the mask will let you see through it, and I'm not dropping you into a cloud of acid. That still leaves a lot of ways where this could make things worse. Especially -- mentally."
"It's my life," Jack had reminded him. "And if you made this stuff in the first place, you were willing to risk my using it."
The reply had been more than half a mutter. "Maybe insanity's contagious..."
Victor had fished in his pockets, removed two vials. One swirled with deep blue: the other almost shimmered in shifting yellows.
"Blue is first stage," he'd said. "Yellow is second. The change should be just about instant, as always. But the treatment is probably going to take a while. Unless it feels something bad happening, you have to stay inside the cloud until it dissipates." He'd turned to the box he'd left on the ground, knelt down next to it, opened the lid, began removing emergency medical supplies. Unable to look at Jack any more. "Last chance to back out."
"Vic..." Jack had started to take a step closer -- then stopped. "This is my choice. If it goes bad, it's not your fault. I'm the one who decided --"
"Just do it," Victor had said, removing a more conventional gas mask, placing it next to a chemical burn kit. "Just... do it already."
Jack had accepted the vials, which had been presented through a hand held behind the smaller youth's back. Slowly walked to the other side of the warehouse, then looked down at his palm, the new compounds next to the old. Taken out the mask, held it to his face, and... hesitated. When there was time in which to do so, he always did. Hesitated and looked at the slim back, the lowered head which would not look at him.
But Victor would turn, when he heard the glass break. Monitoring. He always did.
Jack had hesitated, because there was time for a last look. There was always a risk, and part of that hesitation came from the chance that it was a last look.
But he also always broke the vials.
A huge cloud had billowed forth: the last thing he saw before his vision began to recede and he found himself upon the stage, quickly explaining what they had to do. The chemicals had accepted it, even been hopeful, and they'd stood together within the cloud as that time of duality began to run out, the chemicals had forced themselves to wait for the full dissipation before risking movement, there had been no sensations of burning or illness or disorientation, just simply standing and waiting and then there had been a schoolhouse.
The fresh paint on the schoolhouse's outer wall almost shone with red under sunlight. Everything seemed to shine. Colors were more intense: the green had a brightness which the chemicals had never seen (except, perhaps, for tiny hints which were mostly buried in its own hair), the metal of the playground equipment reflected light with wondrous dedication, and the tiny horses (some with wings, others with horns) which stared up at it did so with eyes that displayed intelligence and expressions just starting to dart into terror.
The chemicals, which often found themselves emerging into the world during what might be seen as rather odd situations, thought about what it was seeing, and did so differently. Others might have screamed, questioned the reality of what had just happened, concluded that they, or perhaps the world, was insane. But the chemicals already knew that a good part of the world was simple madness, as was so much of life. And as for how it saw things... well, when you were dropped into a strange situation, you simply had to accept that and move forward, for what was stranger than life?
So in the end, what it saw was children. And it loved children, loved that some forms of innocence still had a chance to exist. But it also saw that those children were afraid of it, and it hated that. It never wanted to bring fear to any who didn't deserve the emotion. Children didn't.
It had an instant in which it could react before the terror spread enough to take over, a scent which the chemicals could not register jumping from little pony to little pony until the tiny herd fled as one. And so it did the only thing it could think of.
It looked the part of a fool, at least in some cultures. It resented being treated as one.
But it still began to dance.
The children froze. Watched long limbs canter, white fingers partnering with the air. Playground equipment turned into pivot points, slides (there were slides, and long ramps with multiple indentations for hooves to help the ponies achieve the heights) served as places for both stunts and pratfalls. For the chemicals looked the part of a fool, and so now they played the part. It happened without questioning how they had come to be at that schoolhouse, or how it could go home, for the children were what was important now. The chemicals often lived in the now, for now was all it had. And it never wanted those precious minutes to be a time when children were afraid.
One of the winged ones giggled at the capering. Another, lacking in wings and horn both, tried to mimic a step, and found that extra legs didn't allow for exact duplication. And the chemicals danced, something it hadn't been aware it knew how to do. (Perhaps it didn't. Perhaps it was simply making up movements and giving them a name, which seemed to be most of what dancing was.) It danced until the fear went away.
The children spoke to it, in the scant time they had before the schoolhouse bell rung to bring them in from recess, and it did not question why it understood them. It watched them go inside, unaware that they were about to repeat the tale to their teacher, much less the alert would soon be traveling across a continent. But before the one who had giggled left, she came forward. Came as close to it as any of them had, and shyly offered a gift. It accepted the token in the spirit with which that symbol of acceptance had been given.
It had stood in the sunlight for a few seconds, admiring the colors. And then it had remembered that there was supposed to be a second stage to this and Victor was probably wondering what had happened, so it had crushed the other vial. (A solo act this time: the original reversion formula neglected for a moment.) Stood within the new cloud, waited patiently, almost heard the beginning of adult shouts and then it was back in the warehouse.
Which was when it remembered its minor error.
Sorry! it called down into interior darkness, and used the older vial...
...Jack had blinked within dusty light as the mask fell away and Victor ran forward.
"What happened?" It was nearly a scream, and it would have been a fearful one. "I was hoping it had just slipped out while the cloud was up! Because when the vapor broke up, you were gone, and -- where did you come from just now? I didn't see you come in, you were just there, and --"
He'd stopped.
So much more slowly, "-- what is that?"
But Jack had barely heard him, for much of his hearing was turned inwards, listening to excited babbling about all the friends which had just been made.
(It shouldn't have worked. The chemicals were among the earliest entities to recognize that: it shouldn't have worked. So many of the travel methods never should have worked as they had, still more should have done something else entirely, with a significant remainder having resulted in nothing. It shouldn't have worked and eventually, there would be more of those who finally began to question why it had.)
The rest of his attention was reserved for the pegasus feather in his hand.
There were any number of ways to describe Ozzie and for those who had never bothered getting to know him, the majority would have been insulting. It was easy to create a picture of Ozzie: the hard part was in using something other than a target for the easel. In the social ladder of high school, Ozzie was the wet spot on the floor which you brushed aside before stepping onto the bottom rung. Ozzie had been designed by nature to be picked on, and nature had picked up a few assists.
He was short: more than a foot under Jack's height. His black hair was naturally oily, to the point where it had the sort of glistening which would only find appreciation by getting access to a working time machine. He was somewhat overweight, and that extra mass was all clustered in the belly. He was also nearsighted, had a nose which would only be described as 'beaky' if you had yet to gain awareness of the word 'dildo' -- the former was more accurate, the latter more amusing, at least from the sixth grade on -- and at some point during the many fights which his appearance had put him into, there had been a left hip injury, one which hadn't healed properly. It gave him an extremely distinctive walk, which just piled on top of all the other extremely distinctive things about him. Those looking to insult Ozzie often lost the chance because by the time they'd finished picking out an option, he'd already waddled into class.
Most people didn't talk to Ozzie: there might be words, but they didn't count as conversation. Even in his worst days, Jack hadn't bothered with him that much because there was such a thing as too easy. Nature had designed Ozzie to be picked on, because nature was kind of a bitch. There wasn't much point in piling on when sheer genetics had already outclassed anything you might do.
Most people didn't talk to Ozzie, and so they never found out just how sharp he was. How the only thing more pointed than his nose was his social insight, because the kid no one paid much attention to was constantly listening to everyone else. How he had a way of slicing into the heart of an argument, how a few words spoken back could potentially destroy... because within the confines of the school, Ozzie seemed to know just about everything about everyone. He knew about events for which he'd never been present. He had spied out secret relationships, cheaters, and always knew what the next day's lunch special was going to be. But for the most part, he didn't use that knowledge. He just listened, and learned about the lives he was never invited to share.
That lack of direct participation never truly bothered him. Ozzie had his friends, friends everywhere people didn't look: everything else was soap opera or, in an emergency, a reason to hit the alarm bell and get that breakup fight stopped. Ozzie had a quick mind, a surprisingly good heart, and not much of a sense for revenge.
Well... he had a little of that last.
The chemicals could think. But it thought differently, and that difference could mean that things which were incredibly obvious to everyone else needed to be explained to it. However, this also sometimes meant the reverse. And so during one transition, after it had gotten the chance to see Ozzie from afar and Jack had quickly explained about what had happened to the teen on that day, it had made an interesting observation.
"Looking good so far..." Ozzie whispered. Not that there was any true need to do so: it was just Jack and Victor with him in the park with the sun going down, a good twenty blocks away from the action. (It was potentially the last raid, and so Victor had oddly chosen to be in the general vicinity. He'd said he'd been worried, that he'd just had a bad feeling about this night. He was also half-bent under an unexpected and overloaded school backpack, unaccustomed to carrying so much weight.) "You're fine for places where it can get in. There's actually an overload there. The problem is going to be picking one where it won't be visible. There's just too much open to the sky in the outskirts. And it'll have to cross all of that if it tries to go in through the central section."
"Can you get into that part?" Jack quietly asked as they strolled down one of the side paths, heading away from the park's security cameras. He didn't have to worry about their looking too much like a trio of gang members: no self-respecting gang would have included Ozzie.
"I've got a shot if someone opens a door: I'm small and fast. But I'll get chased out quick." The short teen frowned. "No guards, but that's probably because just having people guarding this would look suspicious -- camera! Camera on the roof. Fixed angle. Vic, pass me that tablet -- okay, here: tell it about that, Jack: should be easy to go around -- oh, shit..."
Dark blue eyes went wide behind the thick lenses, and both of the other boys froze. "What's wrong?" Victor quickly asked. "Did someone spot --"
"-- cat." Ozzie shuddered. "Cat on the roof. I'm fine."
There had been a transition where the subject had briefly been Ozzie, and the chemicals had made an observation, one which had started with something nobody else had ever spotted.
"So everyone who gives him a really hard time winds up with a few dozen birds shitting on their car?"
Nature had designed Ozzie to be picked on and so as compensation, had thrown in something special: telepathy. But it only worked on birds. He talked to them, understood them, saw through their eyes (although as Jack now understood it, the colors were confusing and Ozzie sometimes had to wear a thick piece of glass called a monocle in order to keep the headaches from the overlapping vision down). Ozzie could control them directly, although he preferred to ask for favors because seizing someone's wings was just rude. And in a city where a human population of millions sometimes seemed to be matched by just as many pigeons...
He wasn't much of a fighter, although Jack was working on that: just the fact that Ozzie often used a cane for extra help on long trips meant that he was carrying a weapon to start with. For reasons beyond friendship, he didn't want to use his birds for direct offense: his telepathy came with a price and part of plugging into the nervous system of another was having his own create phantom echoes of what they were going through. (He had, after a while, told Jack that he'd been in a friend's head at the moment of their death, and then hadn't said anything else for two days.) But when it came to scouting, he was the best in the city. Possibly the world.
Most people didn't talk to Ozzie, and it was their loss.
"This isn't easy," he muttered as sweat joined the oils in his hair, gave it the sheen of black feathers. "I'm having problems with the smell. All of the blood..."
"It's a stockyard," Jack reminded him. A slaughterhouse. There were a few old ones scattered around the edge of the city. The active ones processed animals from a few chosen farms, with the results heading directly to restaurants and the wealthiest of dinner tables: in both cases, the consumers never served themselves. But some had been abandoned, and this was one of the latter.
It made sense, in a dark way. No one ever really paid attention to what happened at a stockyard: no one wanted to. The smells lingered and after too much time among those odors, you would start to swear that the ghosts did as well. (He was probably lucky that the chemicals wouldn't be able to register any of that. He hoped: technically, it had just about no sense of smell, and both had been waiting for that to bite them.) It would have taken a lot of work to make the place sanitary, but if it was just being used as a transfer point to get in and out of Equestria...
Or they just want to do the slaughter somewhere which already has the equipment.
"Any skylights?" Jack asked.
"I wish," Ozzie replied. "Not even on the tallest building at the center -- wait. Busted window. Hang on -- and doors, closed doors, too many closed doors and it's dark in here..." He groaned. "How much time do we have to keep searching?"
"I don't know," Victor quietly replied. "I can't monitor that from here: I can't load the same protections in when there's this little memory. I could have done it from home, but..."
Which made Jack glance at him. "You could head home," he told his friend. "Call it in. You don't have to be here."
Victor bent a little more under the weight of the backpack. Thin shoulders curled.
"I should." A plain statement.
"Why?" It felt like a natural question. "That's part of the deal, too. I'm the only one on the front lines --"
"-- I'll stay back," Victor said. "I'm just worried about this one. More than usual. Every time it goes into one of these labs, things get worse. The defenses are trickier, the guards are faster. And if this turns out to be the last time... I want to be close by, Jack. They won't see me. But if it uses the burner phone to reach mine, if it gets that bad, I want to be close. Okay?"
'Close by' had better mean half a mile. But there were times you couldn't argue with Victor. "Fine..." They were on the edge of an open field, and Jack paused. "Let's toss a frisbee while we wait."
Ozzie glanced up at him. (At least, Jack was fairly sure the short teen was looking at him.) "Why?"
"Because it'd be nice if one of you learned how."
Victor eventually snagged two catches, if only on the absolute ends of his fingers. Ozzie was a little too distracted to participate. And eventually, they all stepped into the shadows of the trees.
Ozzie finished marking the tablet's map, handed it back to Victor, looked up at Jack. "See you tomorrow."
It wasn't really an offer. More of a wish. And then Ozzie trundled off into the dark.
He's safe. A quick, involuntary look at Victor. And he'll stay back. We've never used the burner to call for help, because... Because anything where it would need help was a situation in which no help could ever come.
One more time.
He touched his belt buckle, took out the mask, waited for it to unfurl -- then turned it around in his hands, looking at the frozen features which were all the world ever saw. The face of a forever-grinning clown.
There were those who were afraid of clowns: Victor had said it was a surprisingly common phobia. Jack hadn't really seen the value in sculpturing a face to match: the blank white sheet had felt as if it was disturbing enough. But... there were those who did react with fear. With some ponies, the image presented could actually help a little: stark white skin and bright green hair was actually closer to what they knew from home. But for humans... some of them cringed. A little of that was appearance, more was a fast-developing reputation among those who were his, and most of the rest was the laughter.
Victor had recorded the laughter, and deleted that file within seconds.
I never see you this way.
It's always on the stage. Where everything moves, where you have a real face and you frown and roll your eyes and...
...weep.
He called inside himself, called down, and found only silence.
"What are you thinking?" Victor quietly asked.
The answer was the honest one. "What happens when it's over." Because they had found no one to take the burden, because there would just be another transfer point and more kidnappings and... more deaths.
Bodies in the dump.
"First," Victor said, "it gets through tonight." He glanced up at what little of the sky could be seen through trees and pollution. "It's dark enough. Ready?"
"Yeah. I'll brief it on whatever I can, and then you show it the map."
"Good luck," his friend quietly offered.
I'm not the one who needs it.
It was a strange sort of thought. Was it him who needed the attention of fortune, given what some of that regard had done? Was it them? When luck was wished for... who was it meant to help?
At least for now, it didn't matter. Philosophy wasn't his kind of subject to start with, and there were things he didn't want to think about.
He knew a way to stop thinking.
The chemicals weren't really thinking about the future, especially since it wasn't certain it had that much of one. The important thing was the now, because that was the best way to make sure Jack had a later. And in the here, now, and incidentally sneaking through what remained of the shadow-filled slaughterhouse, the chemicals were rather confused.
There should be more guards than this. By which I mean, strictly speaking, that once I got into the enclosed spaces, there should have been some guards. Someone to have a nice meet-and-greet with, because there's always this one person who feels I'm such an interesting personality to meet, he has to call all his friends in so they can say hello too. Usually with bullets.
But there aren't any guards. All the cameras I dodged were on the outside...
Well, all the cameras it could find. The chemicals might look the part of a fool, but it wasn't stupid. It was fully aware that cameras could be extremely small, that the tiniest glint of glass in the wall might indicate a transmitting lens, and the most advanced of those might not be registered by Victor's inventions. So it was searching as carefully as it could, while it slowly moved through the empty halls of the slaughterhouse. But most of what it found on the walls was well past glinting in what little moonlight came in through broken windows, because blood only glistened when new.
It was finding blood in what it considered to be strange places. There was supposed to be a central killing floor, and another area for butchering. But perhaps some of the animals had panicked, run...
Or some of this blood isn't animal.
It had asked Victor about how animals were led to their deaths, for the concept of a slaughterhouse was strange to it. The anticipated answer had been that every creature would have been dragged to its demise, bleating and screaming to the best of its wordless ability. But Victor had said he wasn't entirely sure: the genius knew much, but not everything, and mass killings simply (not to mention understandably) weren't his field --
-- but then he'd hesitated.
"I read once that they use a goat."
"Goat meat? Disgusting stuff. Or so I imagine, along with a nasty aftertaste of tin --"
"No. The goat is trained to walk in front of the herd. They're afraid, the smells have them freaked out, they know there's death around them -- but then they see something calm and self-controlled, which looks like it knows where it's going. So they follow it, to wherever that is."
"And then?"
"The goat's the only one who walks out."
The chemicals had been to Equestria: a place where herd mentality didn't always operate in the open -- but if you observed closely, it was possible to see how its machinations affected so much of native behavior. For ponies, it was a constant vulnerability, forever awaiting its chance to steal away personal reason and replace it with the group's mindless decision. But once you started to see it in them, it became so much easier to spot the signs in humans. That in times of stress, so many would stop thinking for themselves. They would seek out a leader, anyone who looked as if they knew what they were doing -- and then, even with the scent of death all around them and screams coming from ahead, they would follow.
And he wants to lead.
No -- he wants to be the one who thinks for others. The only one who thinks at all, while the rest of us simply react with fear.
I suppose that makes him the goat.
No guards. No (visible) interior cameras. Naturally the stockyard sections weren't going to be guarded by anything more than fences, but the building itself should have had more in the way of locks --
-- this is a trap.
Apollo? The betrayal never got the chance to sink in. No: this is too complicated. If that was the cause, then they would have known he was meeting me: simple enough to set something up there. This is him, and let's call it... learning from experience. He sets up a transfer point, I show up and shut it down... after a while, you'd start to anticipate this sort of thing. There's still cameras on the roof, and there may be a few in here which I didn't see, but there's no locks and no guards because he's very politely offering me an invitation to come in and...
And die, mostly likely. But how? An explosive set up to detonate as soon as it opened that one crucial door? Blades waiting to spring from the walls, taking off a head before its owner ever got to have a proper face? It struck the chemicals as being decidedly rude, somewhat practical, and rather likely.
It hesitated. Reached into a pocket, then pulled out the burner phone. Tapped out the message.
Building is a trap. Didn't spring it. Getting out --
And then it felt the vibration.
It was a familiar sensation, for it was not the first transfer point which the chemicals had tried to shut down, and so it knew what happened when the equipment started powering up. One of the scientists, someone it had been through the pleasure of a brief acquaintance with, had said it was all about vibratory rates. And so when the machines began to do their work, the air itself would be set to humming. The vibration passed through its face, grounded in hidden teeth and made its jaw ache.
There seemed to be a fair chance that this too was part of the trap: an invisible camera had seen it pause, realized the animal might not be willing to head towards the killing floor, and decided to present one more lure. It also could have been the first stage in stealing more children from their homes. And, since he would certainly appreciate multitasking, the odds felt rather strong that the vibrations represented both things happening at the same time.
I can save Jack if I leave right now.
But I'd be leaving the children behind.
It might not happen tonight. But eventually, there will be children, and parents who only know that they're the ones who were left alive...
Jack would hate that.
He would die to stop that.
Another hesitation, and then it tapped white fingers against the burner's cheap keys.
Doesn't matter. Transfer starting. Going in.
There were two more hallways. There were many more bloodstains, and the chemicals began to suspect that some of them had been arranged for atmosphere. And so there would be no explosives, no sniper waiting to fire -- well, not at the exact instant a final door opened. This was a trap, but it was also an invitation.
It would have been rude to decline.
The vibrations were increasing. The chemicals slipped a borrowed hand into a deep purple pocket, pressed the other against the wall and briefly allowed the shaking to travel up bone. Getting very close. The very next door, the one with light streaming through the crack between portal and floor, would put him at the heart of it.
The chemicals took a breath, while it still could. Apologized, because there might not be time for that later. And opened the door.
The light hit it, might have blinded just about anyone else -- but his friend had anticipated things like flash-bangs, and so a mere change in illumination simply darkened the inner viewing panel. It allowed him to see the machine, the computers surrounding a stage made of steel and titanium and things which shouldn't be shaking like that for very long. It was a strangely cold platform: the chemicals had gotten the chance to stand on it once. For the stolen, it would be their first contact with an equally cold world.
It could see an open expanse of floor, recently cleared of all but bloodstains. Several hooks still hung on ceiling-mounted chains, the apex of which was more than twenty feet above. There was a high-set walkway with accompanying railing about twelve feet ahead of it on the diagonal, which allowed people to circle the floor and observe from overhead. A door on that upper level probably led to offices, and perhaps a place from which to view cameras.
There were also five men. Two had guns. Another pair carried thick transparent body-height shields via inner-surface handles, a plastic dense enough to stop bullets, and they were holding the barriers in front of him.
"A clown," that man said, and the words carried a tiny hint of disappointment. "A goddamn clown."
The chemicals, which thought differently and so understood why the guns wouldn't be firing just yet, did the only thing which seemed appropriate. It bowed low, sweeping the one free hand out to the side while keeping the other in the pocket. It felt this did a lot to conceal its own disappointment, because it had somehow felt that if anyone was going to just come up with a great name for it out of nowhere, it would have been him.
"The," the chemicals began in half-mock offense as it straightened up, "'goddamn clown', if you please. And I'd say it was a pleasure, but it isn't, and I'd say this is long overdue, because it is, but mostly I want to say that your tailor is a genius. The lines of your suit! The way it perfectly sets off your eyes! The mysterious manner by which it somehow completely conceals the forked tail! How does he do it?"
It wished it could frown properly.
"...how does she do it? He, she... I'm not being sexist, am I? Someone generally needs to tell me about that sort of thing."
The man was staring at it.
The chemicals didn't take too much time for staring back. (It considered itself to automatically win all staring contests, as the visible part of its face never blinked.) It knew what the man looked like: just as tall as the chemicals were, but considerably burlier. It knew about the perfection of features which just might have been granted through knives, because this was one who would never allow himself to have a perceived personal flaw. The dark hair was beautifully styled, the suit was in fact divine, and only the clenching hands gave away the monster within.
What the chemicals were truly looking at (and no one ever caught it doing side-eye either) were the guns. The machine was running. The vibrations were in the air, and the chemicals were used to that. But they were also in everything else, and it seemed as if the snipers had never been at a transfer point before. The sights shivered and shook, red dots jittered in all directions. Above them, chains swayed and twisted.
Now where is the end of the nearest one? About nine feet from the floor...
"I wanted to get a look at you," the man said, "before you died. It's like pulling out a splinter. Someone can do it for you, but when the annoyance and chance of infection are high enough, it's better to watch the procedure. To make sure every last bit has been extracted and destroyed."
"Or tenth-bit," the chemicals remarked.
That produced a subtle nod. "I thought they'd sent you. The first two labs -- those could have been coincidence. But it's been clear for a while that you're targeting this, and on another's orders." There was no true curiosity in the next words. "Are they too afraid to cross themselves? They should be. I have some things waiting for them. Originally, I was thinking about a cell for you, but... it could hold other things."
And then there was a smile. It was an attractive one. It often featured prominently in those rare pictures which reached the public. It had been present on the face of a child, one who had been standing over a pair of graves.
"Imagine what an entire world would pay just to see the sun come up every morning," he said. "I have."
The expression faded. Mere money seldom made him happy for long.
"I wanted to get a look at you," the man repeated. "I rarely get splinters. There's a certain curiosity as to exactly what's trying to be irritating. And now that I've seen you for myself, without relying on the eyewitness accounts of those who fear simple laughter, it's easy to see what you are."
Large hands became fists, vibrated at the large man's sides.
"You're disappointing," he said. "Kill --"
Which was as far as he got, because the chemicals had been waiting for that. And legs which could not-so-casually absorb a twenty-foot fall were also perfectly capable of jumping some distance straight up.
The chemicals moved as bullets sprayed, bullets which didn't hit their target because the shooters couldn't adjust to the shaking. Grabbed the chain with its one free hand, brought the other borrowed hand out of the pocket, whipped the first of the treated cards (a nine of hearts: it tended to notice such things) forward as it threw all of its weight into the motion, trying to get the chain swaying just enough --
-- not all of the bullets missed. One of them slammed into its right leg, and so demonstrated exactly how resistant that clothing truly was. There was a roar of pain at an impact like an outraged hoof, something almost loud enough to break through the chemicals' desperate attempt to apologize, and there would be a giant bruise later. But the metal didn't penetrate. It simply hurt like hell, and the impact shifted the movement of the throwing arm.
As much as the chemicals had been aiming for anything, it had been the shooter on the right. Give that one something to dodge, take its attention off firing the gun, and an actual hit on any level would have been a nice bonus. It hadn't expected to accomplish anything in that department, and it didn't. The redirected angle went high and center, with the card bouncing off the wall behind the big man's head.
It then rebounded into the edge of his left ear, and sliced through most of it. The card thudded into the shield, and slid down just ahead of the bloodspray.
He howled. And the chemicals learned that when someone that important expressed pain, he immediately became the most important person in the room, because no one wanted him to start spreading that pain around.
The shooters instinctively stopped firing, turned towards him. Those with the shields clustered closer, and the one on the left let go of the thing, all the better to free up hands. There was probably an offer of first aid coming, along with a desperate plea for forgiveness. And the shock would wear off soon enough, perhaps they would simply surround him and get him to safety, or they might start shooting again --
--except there's one place they can't shoot at, isn't there?
It had both hands free now, and the chain had momentum. It also had one more chain between itself and the railing, plus it was rather good at jumping. And so it did something which it was completely sure it had just invented on the spot, because Jack's viewing tastes had never gotten around to something so ancient as men raised by apes. It swung enough to get an outstretched hand around the next chain, and then it pivoted its entire body around that and used the momentum to get its entire body just about horizontal before it let go and the chemicals, who were naturally the most fond of that branch of science, found itself being carried by Mother Physics over the plastic shields.
It landed behind the big man, who hadn't even had the chance to finish howling, and then it launched a rabbit punch into the left kidney.
There was another scream. And the guns came up because of course they did, and then the shooters froze because of course they had to.
They can't shoot at you.
There were other factors to consider and one was the arrangement of privacy, for the chemicals felt that this needed to be a much more personal meeting. As such, it turned its attention away from him for a second, just long enough to push one of the shielders over the railing: the plastic itself made for a wonderful surface upon which to conduct a pivot point, and a fall from that height meant living through the impact. Another moment was used for getting rid of both a gun and the person who might fire it because the chemicals knew that he tended to hire stupid and someone might be dumb enough to eventually convince themselves they'd lined up the perfect shot. And the world shook and hummed, the air felt as if it was trying to come apart, and then a huge fist went into the side of its head.
It staggered, about six feet backwards along the recently-cleared side of the walkway. The metal floor tilted and swayed and threatened to tip him onto the platform and possibly into Equestria, or at least did so within the sudden burst of dizziness which didn't want to go away.
"Oh," the chemicals declared. "You work out. Well, physical fitness over moral exercise --"
Another fist was swinging in, and the chemicals jumped backwards, then leaned left within the limited space, just enough to avoid a foot. (The shoes were also magnificent.) It was starting to recognize the style, or rather, the blending of them: you couldn't be in so many fights without trying to learn a little something about martial arts, especially when you were working on jokes about how so many were actually marital ones.
The big man swung again. The chemicals danced backwards, trying to keep its footing as the world continued to sway. Wondered if one punch had been enough to deliver a concussion. It was still conscious, and if it hadn't gone down from one punch, it seemed likely to stay awake for a while. However, it seemed that 'a while' might be defined as 'the second punch'. And the other two who were still on the railing were trying to swarm past their leader, but it was a fairly narrow space, made all the more so by a very big man --
"-- get the others!" that one snarled.
Oh. There's others.
That's probably very bad.
The one with the gun turned, went towards the door. The shield-bearer didn't seem to know what he was supposed to be doing. Those who had been knocked to the floor below mostly groaned, and one of those sounds had some interesting harmonics to it: he'd landed on the transfer stage, and the shaking was truly becoming bad now. Still, there was no need to worry about losing one of them, nor could the chemicals use the platform as a means of relocation: based on its previous experiences with the technology, actual transfer was probably about five minutes away. It was very unlikely that the fight would go for five minutes.
It was even more unlikely, should some of those 'others' be carrying tasers and have good enough aim to get in about six hits, that the chemicals would survive that long. And two would go down into the dark.
Another kick, another swing. It kept dodging, trying to reorient, recover, spot an opening, it had only taken the one hit but it only seemed to be a matter of time...
The big man, whose suit was now simply ruined by bloodstains, swung again, missed. And the chemicals looked into the furious eyes of an overgrown child, one who had once been told that there was something he might not be able to have, and so had spent his life making the world give him everything. Taking everything.
The next words emerged as the scream of that child. The purest of tantrums.
"OH WHY WON'T YOU STOP MOVING AND JUST BEHAVE?"
The chemicals' borrowed eyes blinked behind its face.
"Oh," it said, and didn't try to keep the bemusement out of its words. "I'll put away my little chemical advantage while you keep your extra hundred pounds and decade of combat training and then we'll have a fair fight, is that it?"
The roar which responded had gone beyond words, with the swing far too wild. The chemicals reached out, grabbed the still-moving wrist, and let momentum carry the entire arm into the wall. It heard the wonderful crack of knuckles breaking, although most of that was lost in the scream.
"No," it said as it tried to fight off the ringing in its loaned skull. "I think this is more of a come-as-you-are party, and this is how you made me. It would be rude to appear as anything except myself."
A white hand clutched at the railing for support. It was almost certain it hadn't told the hand to do that.
"I'll... I'll find out who you are," the man gasped. "Everyone around you, everyone you love --"
We fight for the ones we love.
The chemicals got its hand off the railing, launched a punch which did some damage. But it didn't seem to be enough. It hadn't been using the brass knuckles because they tended to make card-throwing more difficult. It didn't have the time to put them on now. There were others coming, it felt as if there was a new vibration entering the room and that could have been fast-approaching pounding footsteps, it wasn't sure where those were coming from and so it risked a glance down to the lower level, just in time to see where one of the idiots had decided he'd lined up a perfect shot, one which would avoid the hood and simply go directly through its face --
-- the lower level door flew open, nearly rebounded off the metal, and everyone looked. None of them could help it. When someone made an entrance like that, you had to look, and so both opponents saw the metal sphere fly through the air, slam into the hand of the shooter and adhere there, the thin layer of goo on the impact side attaching it to skin.
Two diodes flashed blue.
And then there was another scream, the gun falling to the vibrating floor as frost formed on the metal, as flesh blackened and the scream just kept going on...
"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" the big man screamed at the figure in the doorway.
The chemicals already knew.
It was possible that no one else did, for the configuration of that body had changed quite a bit. Wearing multiple layers of hoodies and sweatpants had bulked up the thin body into something more suitable for a tire company's mascot. The lower part of the face was covered by at least three ski masks, the hands were coated in gloves so thick as to turn any prospective punches into something very much like getting hit by a pillow which hadn't been getting enough exercise, and the eyes had ski goggles over sunglasses. There wasn't an inch of skin visible, which did an excellent job of concealing the identity of the person within and was probably putting him three serious exertions away from heatstroke.
There was also a scarf, and shoulder pads. The scarf seemed ill-advised.
"I'm -- !" the muffled voice half-declared -- then stopped. "I'm..."
The chemicals took some comfort in the thought that names weren't that easy to come up with. (It turned out to be an exceptionally brief comfort.)
"...Frostbite!" Victor declared, and the next spheres to be removed from the messenger bag were thrown at the computers as one of the world's worst battle cries sounded in the vibrating air. "Kiss your components goodbye!"
Cold cracked the screens. The platform, without a program telling it how to modulate the vibrations, began to shake all the harder.
"We've got to get out of here!" Victor's muffled voice called up. "There's some more swarming in! We don't have that long!"
The chemicals looked down at a friend, wondered if the layers had been given any degree of the bullet-resistant treatment. Thought about a limited sphere supply, and someone who had no idea how to truly fight. Someone who, quite frankly, was so bundled up that it was a miracle he'd managed the elbow motions of throwing, and the second sphere had wound up bouncing into the monitor.
Then it looked at him.
I don't kill.
But the police were his. The courts. The city.
We may not get a better opportunity --
-- but he could hear the approaching footsteps. Every second was crucial now. And with Victor here, who was doing this for the first and what had to be the last time...
"Thank you ever so for the invitation to the deathtrap!" it smiled. (It couldn't help it, really.) "Please don't mind my unexpected plus-one! Because you really have to factor for all the math --"
It jumped, just enough to kick the man in the head, noticed how hard it was to stay upright on the landing.
"-- including the part where someone finally takes your toxic part of the equation and rubs it out. You didn't quite lead me to the slaughter, did you? So go snack on a tin can until next time-- goat."
(It was the last mission. The final transfer point. Their concluding task for the Princess and Equestria.)
It vaulted the railing, staggered quite a bit upon landing. Did as much damage to the computers and machinery as it dared. And then it raced from slaughterhouse and stockyard with a friend at its side. But Victor wasn't used to the exertion, much less the layering, and so...
Eventually, they agreed to never discuss the ten blocks of shoulder carry again.
They stood upon the stage, with one nearly in the wings. After all, there was about to be a departure.
"Talk him out of it," the chemicals said. "Whatever you have to say. Tell him there won't be a fresh diamond supply for the spheres. Tell him he's not fast enough. Tell him he doesn't know how to fight. Tell him he'll get himself killed."
"I can try," Jack replied. "But I can see his face right now, with the layers coming off. He's on an adrenaline rush. Maybe the first of his life which doesn't have vials involved. It'll be hard to keep him from going for it again. It's like hitting --" and stopped.
"Your first real distance shot," the chemicals quietly finished. "Yes."
They had so little time, and some of it was expended on simply looking at each other.
"It's... all right," the chemicals softly said. "It's just darkness. I just -- without us, without having found anyone and it cannot be Victor... but -- it's not my decision, is it? You call me when it's time, and -- I go away. When it's time."
Its head dipped. Tears more real than mere liquid and salt began to moisten phantom eyes.
"So... if it's time..."
There would be no true movement, for the stage was what they made it. Wish to vanish, and the shadows behind the wings would beckon. Exit, stage right.
There was no true movement, and so it never heard the footsteps: there were none. It simply felt Jack's arms wrap around its body. The warmth, the welcoming, the gentleness of the hug.
It raised its true arms, reached back. And they stayed that way in agreement until it all went dark.
The bound human (wrapped in bungee cords this time, for that was what had been available) dropped from the ceiling, hit the floor of the Lunar throne room, and rolled a short distance before coming to a stop, wide eyes trying to reconcile the presence of the furious alicorn who had just flown off the cushions.
"Now I know he looks small!" came from the shadows overhead. "But you cannot throw him back. There is no weight limit on this sort of thing, nor do we have a restriction on deviancy. Meet the head of their biology team, Princess! He had some very interesting ideas on what to do with organs. Oddly, none of them seemed to include having those in his own abdomen impacted by my shoes. Several times. But without his twisted little mind -- I was almost tempted to open it up and have a look, but I decided against it, and I do not advise walking through his dreams unless your Most Royal Feedbag can also hold Most Royal Vomit -- the Foundation should go back to different forms of exploitation for a while. And extortion. But I already informed Crossing Guard about that last, and he'll have a briefing for you in, oh, probably about six minutes --"
"-- you were let go!"
Silence from above. It didn't last.
"Yes," the miffed voice said. "And not for job performance, either. Really, one could be offended, but --"
"Then why are you still doing this?"
She heard the breath, and the way that sound was changed by the filters of the mask.
"If one is made to retire from a paying job," the chemicals said, "and one happens to simply enjoy the work, then one finds a volunteer position and does it for free. Or three, because there was a trio of ones in there, and did I happen to tell you --"
"-- you are," she harshly cut him off, "trying to buy time in which to exist. You are trying to take over from Jack, and I will not let you --"
It laughed.
The sound flattened her ears, made her want to start flying just so she could free up her forelegs, lower her head and press hooves to block out more of the horrible mirth. It laughed on and on, and the scientist writhed to suit.
"You," the chemicals softly said from the shadows above, "are not the first person to think that. Shall I tell you what I told my friend? And what he told me in return? We have a little time, and I happen to think they're good words, as he accepted them immediately. Perhaps you will as well. But in the name of drama, let me rearrange the order..."
It would have been so easy to snatch it from its hiding place. Have it locked in a field bubble in front of her, to rip the belt apart and force the reversion gas into its lungs. And because she knew how easy it was, she waited.
"The first thing I told him," the chemicals began, "was my awareness of how the application formula works. He doesn't know how long it lasts before wearing off. He was afraid it could be permanent. That I could just... stay. But it's a skinsuit, Princess, one which prevents dead cells from falling away. That means not leaving evidence. And it would, after a few weeks, likely leave me coated in a very thin layer of rotting flesh. I already have enough troubles in making new acquaintances, thank you. Adding odor and a new kind of skin condition doesn't seem to help my chances."
The alicorn did something which was still so hard for her. She remained quiet.
"So, breaking up the order..." that other mused, "...here is what he told me. That before I came, Jack was... slipping. Not into the dark. Into madness. Frustration and grief and the horror of being the one who lived. But since my arrival, he's been -- getting better. Slowly. But during those times when I can't be called for a while, he starts to go down the slope again. It is my friend's opinion that my thinking differently is what allows Jack to think normally. He needs me, Princess. Someone truly needs me, and I can't deny that need. Not when it's him. Because... of the other thing I told my friend."
"And that would be?" the Princess finally asked.
"That I love him," the chemicals softly responded. "I love him like the sibling he lost, like the parents who birthed him. It's a poor child who decides to kill his family. I met one of those recently. And even without my having a name, not being quite sure who or what I am... I know that's not me. I love Jack, and I exist so he can live. Not merely survive, Princess, although that's hard enough in that city. Perhaps one day, if we win... he'll live. If I can dream of anything, then I'll dream of that. And so we go on. No more CDA backing us? No more jewels? Then someone still needs to be in the fight -- and we now know more about where those fights will be, since I have a friend remotely monitoring the pulls from the grid, until the generators come in. Someone needs to watch out for your little ponies from our side of the Barrier. And so that will be us, for as long as we can."
"Without payment," the alicorn eventually managed. "Without anypony else knowing about your service or acknowledging what you have done."
A simple "Yes."
"That," Luna declared, "is madness."
"Yes," the chemicals agreed from its place in the shadows. "Or heroism." Gas began to billow outwards. "I understand the two are often confused for each other..."
It vanished. The laughter remained.
He was still favoring the impacted leg. It made him move in unnatural ways, and he'd reached the point of asking Ozzie for the loan of a cane. The bemused teen had pointed out the need to fit such things to the user's height, reminded Jack of the difference between them and then, as it was a rainy day, offered an umbrella.
Jack was staggering down the school's hallway more than walking, and so he truly didn't notice when he went into the little blonde.
"HEY!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't see you, I -- I'm --"
"-- you," the angry (and somewhat nasal) voice declared, "are on top of me."
He desperately rolled right, and nearly went into two of the students who'd stopped to applaud.
"Let me get your books," he offered, trying to recover in any way he could when scrambling to his feet with a bum leg just wasn't working right now. "I'll just --"
"-- you've done enough. I've seen what you used to do to people, just another stupid athlete who thinks being able to do one thing is a license to bully --"
" -- I'm not an athlete any more."
The bluest eyes in the world looked at him through overly-round lenses. One slim hand went up behind her head, patted a few stray hairs back into the bun.
"Seriously?" asked the cutely nasal voice, which had never been heard cheering at any game.
"Not since the championship. I gave it up."
She looked at him across a tiny distance and endless seconds, as the crowd flowed around them.
"I heard what happened," she softly admitted.
Everyone had, and so Jack waited.
"I'm... sorry." And much more quickly, "But it doesn't give you the right to bully --"
"-- I gave that up too."
And now she seemed to be looking inside him.
"Why?"
"Because it was stupid."
She picked up her own books, straightened to her full lack of height.
"How are you going to get into college without basketball?"
"I think I've got other plans."
She shrugged. "I'm going for Psych." Watched him stand up, as Jack used a nearby locker for a brace. "What happened to your leg?"
His brain felt slow. Sluggish. As stupid as she probably found him to be. "Other plans."
"Right," she decided, tone dubious. Turned away, and began to head for a classroom door. "Later, Napier."
She...
She knows my name.
"Later, Quinzel."
She glanced back at him. The bun bobbed.
"Harleen," she said, and quickly closed the door behind her.
Eventually, Jack reached his own class, about two minutes late. The leg was still healing, and that had a way of slowing him down. But the dreams... those had brought him down to a crawl.
It was too dangerous now. It might be like that for a long time. He couldn't risk it.
But a long time didn't have to be forever.
The chemicals crouched high in the rafters of the newest warehouse, watching the activity below. It was staying out of the moonlight which streamed through the just-closed skylight on its left, and almost wished it didn't have to. The chemicals felt that just the right pose, against a backdrop of moonlight, would be rather dramatic. And also get it shot several dozen times, which seemed to defeat most of the purpose.
It kept looking at the men shifting around on the floor level. Watching to see if that highest level of competition was going to arrive: a chance to not only potentially fix everything, but find out how good it truly was --
-- now isn't that an odd thought. I wonder where that one came from?
Well, it didn't look as if it was going to happen tonight. Just a routine operation to shut down, and some unusual medical expenses to run up. And so white fingers reached into a purple pocket, extracted a deck, opened the lid and took out --
-- it looked at the near-mirror image in the center, for there was time in which to do so. Even in a life which was borrowed, using hours which had to be paid back, there was time for the little things.
The chemicals looked at the card which wasn't normally supposed to be in play. The random element. The thing which, under just the right circumstances, could turn the weakest hand in the world into a winner.
"Wild..." it softly mused.
As names went, it was something to think about.