//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Transmission 
// Story: Viral 
// by AnchorsAway 
//------------------------------//

Trotter had never wanted to kill something so badly. 
It sat there, waiting, taunting him. 
He wanted to let it die — slowly. 
“Come on you stupid piece of junk.”
Trotter reached out and gave the offending computer screen a healthy thwack, his hoof smacking the side of the unit. His lanky face was awash with the display’s sickly glow, his eyes blinking against the bright backlight amidst his dark surroundings. The main power was still out.
“Stars, what good is new tech if it doesn’t even work? Just print the bloody analysis,” he groaned, longing to rip the offending terminal from the desk so he could throw it down the side of the mountain. 
The computer had been uncooperative all afternoon, and Trotter was at his whit’s end. He needed to step out the lab, to get some fresh air and caffeine, and to decompress for a while on the surface. But he had to get the sample analysis printed now. He had to show Dr. Haze. She would want to see this.
With the Wonderbolt's body moved to Level Four, he had quickly begun a more in-depth examination. He had been sweating in a biosuit for the better part of twelve hours.
Trotter hated them, large puffy garments pressurized and sealed against contaminants. They were bulky, and the air feeds made walking about the equipment a chore to manage. Trotter was thankful the hard part was over, the suit’s hanging in the airlock and the sample from the Wonderbolt sitting inside the analyzer. Now if he could only get the report to print.
No network printer detected.
“What do you mean no printer detected!” he finally burst, shaking the screen. “It’s plugged in right beside you, you stupid mangle of copper and silica!”
Trotter’s hooves darted across the keyboard, punching the keys harder and harder with each keystroke. He was having enough problems as it were: a dead Wonderbolt, an undetermined infection, no power, no AC, and now a useless computer.
Trotter checked, then rechecked the printer, following the data cord to the computer port, finding nothing out of place.
“Forget it,” he said, his hooves up in defeat. “I’ll just send the file to my office terminal.”
The mouse slid across the desk, Trotter’s eyes following it as he clicked through the various network links connecting the entire facility. The pathway to his office was here somewhere.
“Let’s see, Bio-lab 2, storage bay, Bio-lab 8, break room, public service office, Stardust’s terminal…” He rattled off the network paths as he scrolled down the list. 
Unmapped Server
“Unmapped Server? I don’t remember you being here.” Trotter clicked on the unfamiliar pathway. “Network must have reset security with the power outage,” he gandered. “Maybe my terminal got mixed up,” he told himself with a scratch of his hair-speckled chin.
He clicked on the server, finding only a single file contained within.
Tenochtitlan Basin Sample.
“Tenochtitlan Sample, I don’t remember the CED every working out of Caballo?” The little backwater country skirting Equestria’s southern border was more jungle than civilization. And the Tenochtitlan Basin took up almost seventy-percent of Caballo, a near-impenetrable barrier of overgrowth.
He opened the hidden folder, the digital list expanding across his screen.
“Woah,” Trotter whistled, scrolling through the terabytes of data files. “Somepony has been busy. There must be years of trials here.” 
Who could have been running so many trials? Certainly nopony he knew. It would have been a massive operation.
He selected a file at random. “An audio recording? Maybe a log?” He was too far invested now to turn back. He opened the data file.
“Starting viral incorporation trial number seven,” the voice on the recording played. “Trial seven will be using the new incorporation serum to reprogram the Tenochtitlan sample. See addendum on the Equestrian Defense Coalition Caballo Expedition.”
“Solar?” Trotter could recognize the mare’s bristly voice anywhere. “What is this? What have you been working on?” he asked himself, clicking through the rest of the files. The mare had never been one for secrets. Yet, why had this been hidden away? 
“Progress has been hampered by several undeterminable effects of the virus. As described in my last log, the viral lifecycle is still far too fast to reprogram the cell receptors properly. I’m hoping the trial seven inhibitors can get ahead of the virus to prevent cell death while still allowing viral incorporation into the genome. I wish I had more time to test the incorporation agent, but the Defense Coalition insists I move forward. Can’t say I didn’t tell them it wouldn’t work. They're not going to get results they’re asking for if they keep rushing this.”
“The DC. What do they have to do with any of this?” 
Trotter clicked on another file. 
Tenochtitlan Basin Sample Report.
The biologist scanned the data, his eyes running down every data column.
“I…I’ve seen this before.”
Suddenly his hooves were flying across the keys. “I just had it. Where is it, where is it?” he hissed through gritted teeth. He had to be sure. 
“Wait. Got it!” he breathed as he pulled his file onscreen.
Wonderbolt Contagion Sample – Second Lieutenant Thundercell.
Line by line, he scoured the two reports placed next to each other. And as the more he read, the more he realized why the “Basin Sample” was so familiar. It was identical to his report. 
Now he knew why the server had been hidden. 
And why nopony was meant to find it.


	 
Whiplash knew he wasn't dead; the pain alone told him that. 
It was an orchestra of sensation, resonating and echoing within him, overwhelming him. He desperately tried to claw his way from the black, murky depths — a faceless, empty void, save for the tendrils of agony extending their grasping feelers from the ether. 
He was getting flashes, glimpses of the place outside this infinite empty: a demon lunging at him, a bright flash, pain, walls crumbling around him, a filly’s scream, hooves yanking him from rubble. He wanted to wake up, for the lurching darkness to stop. He had to climb higher, out of the bottomless void.
But the higher he rose, the worse the pain became. Each inch closer to the blinding light of the waking world was an eternity of suffering. 
But he endured, fleeing the enveloping darkness — darkness filled with the roar of jets and the gnashing of teeth. He would find no peace down here; it was time to wake up.



“Ohhh–” Whiplash groaned weakly, stirring the sheets that covered him. The pounding in his head was unbearable, and he wanted to vomit, which he proceeded to do, somehow finding the strength to throw himself over the bedside railing and heave the contents of his stomach onto the floor. 
Bile spilled over the polished linoleum, splattering against the apricot hooves of the pony lounging by his bedside. The young stallion jumped in his seat, pulling up his soiled hooves as Whiplash let forth another burning wave. 
“Sweet Celestia, Whip, what in Tartarus?!” Clipper cursed, holding Whiplash up as he heaved a final time and collapsed back into the hospital bed. The IV stand rattled noisily beside him, his unbound foreleg tugging at the clear plastic tubing that snaked to a vein. It was burning under his skin. 
“Hold still, you’re going to rip out your IV,” Clipper warned. But the pain was the last thing on Whiplash’s mind.
“The filly,” Whiplash croaked weakly, grasping the railing with a hoof encased in plaster and wiping his mouth with the other. Eyes, red as cherries, rolled wildly in his sockets. “Where’s the filly, Clip?”
“Take it easy, Boss.” Clip presented a glass of water. 
Whiplash snatched it out his hooves, gulping it down greedily, letting it drip down his chin. 
“You’re going to be ok; you’re safe. We’re in Canterlot Hospital.”
“No,” Whiplash waved Clipper off, breathing heavily as the drained glass rolled in his lap. “There was a filly. What happened? Where’s Thundercell and Feldwing?” The questions were flowing forth like a river overrunning its dam. “The thing?”
Whiplash’s head spun like the fan overhead. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. His ears were buzzing worse than a hive of bees, and all around him, ponies were in a state of frenzy, much akin to the little yellow bugs. 
Nurses in pastel-colored scrubs galloped through overcrowded wards while the cries of the sick, injured, and the dying filtered in pitifully. They were everywhere, crammed into every room and corridor, the hospital overrun, and past capacity. 
Outside his room, past the bleary, grey eyes of Clipper and the chaos, Whiplash watched a stallion clutching his small colt in his hooves, both sitting against a pillar. He could tell they were both crying, though he could not hear them over the awful commotion, each clutching the other tightly while a baggy-eyed doctor collapsed beside them. The pony curled up his hind legs, holding his face in his hooves as his eyes searched the stained linoleum. His once alabaster lab coat was stained deep crimson.
“She’s dead.”
“What?” Whiplash snapped back to Clipper, his weak voice reaching him through the clamor. The stallion, young enough to have been his own, was drained of color, like the hue had been washed from his coat, leaving behind a bleak and faded presence. Gone was the cocky young flyer; only a shell-shocked colt remained. 
“Thundercell is dead, Whip,” Clipper repeated. He wearily sat back down in his bedside chair, careful to step over the vomit. He rubbed his hooves together as if to stay warm despite the tepid room, his eyes glued to the floor tiles. “I’m not sure what they’re going to do with Feldwing. I found him holding what was left of her.”
Thundercell, dead?
He was still trying to understand the words. Whiplash shut his eyes, almost wishing to return to the void he had so desperately wanted to escape. He just wanted to sleep, to pretend it had all been a nightmare. But reality held on desperately, blissful sleep miles away and unattainable. 
Whiplash’s eyes burned as if sand was poured in them, and he quickly blinked the tears away. He wouldn’t let Clipper see them. Whiplash wiped them, spotting a slash of copper mane peaking several beds down. 
That was when he saw her, the filly from the motel. She was two beds away, passed out, but mostly unharmed from what he could tell. Her forehead was scraped and bandaged, her matted copper mane spilling out the gauze and over the pillow propped under her head. Whiplash was jealous of her slumber.
“I got there right as it happened,” Clipper finally continued, his eyes, raw from lost sleep and burning tears, now drained. “I still can’t believe Feldwing could have done it.” He choked on the words.
“Feldwing?” Whiplash croaked, the name slipping through his lacerated lips. “What happened to Feldwing, Clip?” He reached out with his good hoof, grabbing his comrade. Quick tremors rose and fell from Clipper, and Whiplash could feel that he was crying, too. “Tell me what happened.” 
“He shot her,” Clipper sniffled, wiping his reddened face with a wing. “Feldwing shot her right there. They were screaming, both of them.” He struggled to find the right words, his lips wavering. “Something had happened to her. It was like she was changing.”
“Changing? How?”
“I don’t know,” the young stallion wept, pulling at his cropped mane, tugging on the short strands. “I just kept trying to contact Command. Some ponies with an airship and biohazard gear finally showed up, but they took her body.”
Whiplash could barely understand him now. He was little more than a blubbering mess.
“The Brass showed up and took Feldwing someplace else. They just kept grilling me for hours. And nopony is telling me anything. I think he is in trouble, Whip,” Clipper broke down, letting it all out. “When they let me go, they told me you had been brought here. I thought you were dead. It wasn’t until after they hauled Feldwing did they tell me some ponies had found you, pulled you from some ruined motel rubble and airshipped you here. What happened out there? What hit us?”
“It’s still pretty fuzzy,” Whiplash quickly lied, though images of the black creature assaulted him. He wasn't sure why. But there was something about the creature he felt he better not reveal. 
“Crashed somewhere in the center of town. Heard a filly trapped beneath some rubble in a motel and figured I had to do something,” Whiplash told him, looking toward the filly’s bed. He massaged a very tender bump on his head, wincing. “Must have come down around us just as I pulled her out.” There was no mention of the creature, though Whiplash almost wondered if it had all been a hallucination, phantoms of shock from the crash. He had flashes of the beast, vaporized by the shot, torn apart by the arcanic energy of his MAG, struggling for the door with the filly clutched in his hooves as everything fell.
Clipper stood up and began to pace, trotting between Whiplash’s bed and his neighbor, a pony heavily bandaged and cast. “I’m telling you, Whip, something isn’t right. I think Command knows it, too. Nopony knows what is happening around here,” he scoffed, his tears dry and his temper burning. “Nopony will tell me anything, and they won’t let me talk to Feldwing.”
“Where is he?” Whiplash asked, propping himself up in his bed.
“I don’t know,” Clipper admitted as he continued to pace. “But the DC grilled me for hours. I was only just cleared to leave, came straight here.”
Had he been out that long? I would have been a whole day.
“What did the Defence Coalition want from you?”
“Everything. It was these two weird ponies in suits. Cotton-something and a mare called some sort of tree; I can’t remember.” Clipper was spinning in circles now, his words short and quick. “Kept asking what we saw. What did I see? What attacked us? Did I get a good look at them? Did we have physical contact with the bogeys? Was Feldwing acting weird before hoof? Why would he shoot his wingpony?”
“Why would he shoot her?” Whiplash breathed.
Clipper clutched the edge of the bed, his hooves holding on tight as if he might float off if he let go. “He was so calm when they lead him off, Whip. Said he had only tried to help Thundercell, to keep her safe from whatever happened to her. He kept murmuring something bit her, was changing her,” he spewed. “We shouldn’t have been there. I think we stumbled into something we shouldn’t have, Whip, and the Defense Coalition knows it.”
Clipper was staring at him, his bloodshot eyes wide and tired. Whiplash knew at least part of what his wingpony had said was true. He had know the instant the creature attacked him. This was no unfortunate incident; his team had been thrust into a situation nopony had any interest being in. And he and the filly had come face to face with something they should not have even seen.
“Go home.”
“What?” asked Clipper in disbelief. “I sit by your bed over a day, and you wake up and tell me to go home. How hard did you hit your head?”
Whiplash shook his head. “Go home and rest, Clip. Things will get worse before they get better. We’re going to be taking things one day at a time till everything gets sorted out, and you need to sleep.”
Clipper lifted his hooves from the bed railing and took a step back, shuffling his hooves. “I swear to Celestia, your worse than my old dad sometimes.”
“Well just don’t expect me to tuck you in and read you a bedtime story,” Whiplash grunted as he shifted his bruised body. “Rest. I have a feeling those DC ponies you met will be back, probably to me next. We need to watch what we tell these ponies.”
“And what do we tell them?” Clip wondered, his voice low.
“Only the facts.”
“But we don’t have any of those,” Clipper hissed.
“Exactly. We saw some weird light in the sky before something knocked out Thundercell. The electrical activity fried my suit. Nothing more; we didn’t see anything else.”
Clip’s eyes bored into him, probing him. “But did we see something? That thing tore your engine like a hot knife through butter. Don’t you think we should at least let somepony know?”
“We only risk getting caught up further in whatever is happening. Trust me, this thing is way out of our hooves as it is. It was the same deal during my time in Saddle Arabia.”
Whiplash had learned all too fast the Defense Coalition was not to be trifled with. Their will to keep Equestria secure and safe knew no cost. They had little oversight, a practically unlimited budget, and operated outside the normal confines of the Royal Government. 
There had been many a blind eye turned to clandestine operations during the Saddle Arabia offensive. Controversy always popped up every few years to their secretive nature and lack of oversight, but it was usually quickly buried in the papers and even within the Ministries.
“Listen carefully, we need to stay out of this, Clipper. We don’t want to be caught up in this.”
Clipper worked his jaw, mulling over what he heard. He looked over at the filly, still sleeping soundly in her bed. Whiplash wondered if his wingpony could trust him after all of this.
“Ok,” he finally said. “If you say we need to keep everything low, then that's the story. We saw some strange lights, that was it.”
“Thank you,” Whiplash said. His promise meant a lot. “Now go home, and don’t tell anypony anything else. Got it?”
“Got it," he sighed. "I sure hope you’re right about this,” Clipper spoke sternly, reaching down and picking up his coat. “I think I’m going to go pass out in my bed like you said. I need some beauty rest.” 
“I don’t think all the sleep in the world can help your ugly mug.”
“Your one to talk, old goat.” The young stallion cracked a weak smile. “I’ll swing by first light tomorrow.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Whiplash replied, holding up his broken foreleg and wiggling his casted wing splayed across his back.
Then he was gone, Clipper disappearing into the throngs of ponies.
The chaos returned, the cries of the injured and the loud calls of the doctors and nurses treating the wounded rebounding. Whiplash eased himself back into his bed, wincing at the pain in his wing. 
He didn’t want to wonder that it might be a miracle if he ever flew again. Nothing could prepare him for what he might have to decide between if one of the doctors ever got around to him. He might just have to choose between carrying around a crippled wing for the rest of his life or cutting the loss. Wing breaks were a terrible roll of the dice, the delicate bones always a significant undertaking to repair, even with spells. 
Whiplash rolled gently onto his side to allow his wing some room, clutching his broken hoof to his chest. His eyelids were tired, and it felt like lead weight hung from them, slowly pulling them closed. Whiplash didn’t want to return to whatever nightmarish sleep he had awoken from. But he was suddenly so tired.
“Does it hurt?”
The little voice was barely a squeak.
Whiplash slid open an eye.
The filly was awake, sitting up in her bed and clutching her blanket tight. Her wide eyes peered over the bandaged pony between them, looking at Whiplash’s wing.
“Not really,” he grumbled tiredly. Probably because of whatever else was in his IV bag had deadened the pain. 
“It looks pretty bad,” she said, voice soft and innocent.
“That’s cause it is.” Whiplash rolled back over. Despite pulling the helpless filly from the rubble and destroying whatever demon had tried to end them both, Whiplash was in no mood for needless banter. And if he was candid with himself, he had no care for kids. 
That wasn’t saying he faulted the little one. Stars, she had it worse than he could have, remembering the mare in the motel, face down beneath the rubble. 
But in his years, Whiplash had never been comfortable around foals. There was some disconnect he had come to find between such carefree creatures and himself. Probably because he had never wished for one of his own, every relationship he had nothing more than a passing fling. 
The nasty little spawn were also a constant nightmare at every Wonderbolt rally, always trying to touch the JUMPsuits or hang off them with their dirty filth-ridden hooves. 
“Thank you for stopping the monster,” the filly told him.
“There was no monster kid,” he tried to persuade her. “It was all just a bad dream. Just go back to sleep,” he sighed, his body deflating. “I’m really tired, kid. Could you leave me alone for a while, please?”
“That wasn’t a dream,” she insisted, matter a factly. “It was real. I saw it fall from the sky.”
Whiplash cracked his eyes back open. What did she just say?
He rolled back over, propping himself up with a hoof. “You saw it fall from the sky? When?”
“I heard this sound like thunder, like when the pegasi bring the rain. Did you know that pegasi control the weather?” she said, her eyes mirroring her astonishment of the fact.
Whiplash wasn’t about to feign amusement. “I know they do, kid, I’m a pegasus. What about the monster? What did you see?” he said, adding a little abrasion to the question. 
The kid recoiled at his harsh words, creeping back under her blanket. She gave a small whimper, covering her face in her blanket.
“Wait, no,” Whiplash groaned and rubbed a hoof across his face. “I didn’t mean that. I just really have to know what...” 
But he could see that it was no use, the filly throwing her head beneath her pillow.
Why was this hard, Whiplash wondered? Were all kids like this?
“Hey,” he said softly, his words tender. “What’s your name? Do you know your name? Of course she knows her name you featherbrain.
The filly gave no indication of coming out, though he knew she could hear him. 
“My name is Whiplash,” he offered, painfully pulling himself to sit up. 
A wary eye peaked out beneath the pillow but made no move to come out.
Whiplash looked around, surveying their surrounding, their ward alone holding nearly a dozen tightly cramped beds. The only window was at the end, a portal of waning sunlight settling over Canterlot.
“You know,” Whiplash offered. “It can be kind of scary for me in the hospital. I bet if I had a friend it wouldn’t be so scary.”
The pillow finally moved, the filly rubbing a hoof absently. “I’m Rose Point,” she said softly. “But my mother called me Rose.”
“It sounds like she chose a really cool name, Rose.”
“She said it would always help me find my way if I was ever lost.” Her words carried a weight even Whiplash, who had no experience with kids, could sympathize with. “I don’t like this place either,” she whimpered.
“Maybe we can watch over each other,” he offered. “I could tell you all about the weather ponies. I used to be one, you know, before becoming a Wonderbolt. How does that sound?”
She shrugged. “Ok, I guess.” He had to admit it did little to cheer her up. Not that he could blame her. 
“Can I tell you a secret?” she suddenly asked, whispering.
Whiplash nodded. 
“I ran back into bed when I saw that monster fall from the sky. I don’t think I should have seen that.”
“Why?” he asked precariously. “Where did it come from?” He was on the edge of his rail now, holding it tight and leaning closer. What did she mean from the sky?
She clutched her blanket tight, a spasm of shivers traveling down her spine. “It came out the sky,” she said. “From the hole in the stars.”