//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: A Queen is Made // Story: Viral // by AnchorsAway //------------------------------// Beep The computer chimed, stirring Dr. Haze, her head rolling in her forelegs on the cold lab table. Beep it insisted. You will want to see this. In the sealed containment lab behind her isolated workstation, the latest sample quietly spun to a stop in the analyzer. Dr. Haze raised her head sleepily, dredged from the depths of her (thankfully) dreamless sleep. Last night had dragged late into the morning, and she had gotten very little rest in the previous weeks. Solar patted down her messy hair and looked up at the clock. It was almost ten in the morning. Begrudgingly, she would have to wrap up soon; Trotter would probably be cooking up a storm upstairs by now. She had thought the Defense Coalition confiscating all of his research would draw too much attention, but she had no say in this matter. Nopony had any say against the DC. Honestly, Trotter, I have no idea why, she had expertly lied. She had gotten good at that. I'm sure it's for a good reason. Just let it go. Solar rubbed her eyes and placed a pair of glasses on her snout, turning on her stool to the computer monitor. Propping up her head up with a hoof, she scrolled monotonously down the list of data points and results. She had gotten all too used to her previous failing; this one should be no different. Trial 22 Result: Incorporation Successful - Genetic Matchup Complete Solar froze in her chair. Incorporation Successful. She reread the report, and then once more, over and over checking the result again and again. Success. Words gloriously coursed through her brain, filling her blood with adrenaline. She said the beautiful words, chanting them. Success. Success. Success. She let the word flow through her, silent tears welling from her eyes. Solar hopped off her stool, her lab coat fluttering in the filtered air as she pressed her face against the glass of the empty lab. She had done it. For once, she had accomplished what nopony ever would - or should. “What are you doing, Solar?” came the voice from behind. Solar spun around to face the intruder, startled. Trotter stood in the doorway looking at her, his face solemn. “Trotter? What are you doing here? How did you get in?” “I had some help from some friend of the Princesses. There outside right now if you want to talk to them,” he motioned with his hoof. “What is the meaning of this?” she fumed. “This is my private lab, Trotter. You have no right to be here.” “And you have no right messing with whatever is in there,” he told her bluntly, point a hoof to the sealed laboratory behind her. “The only reason you're even talking to me is that I convinced the Royal Guards outside that I could convince you to cooperate with us. We know the Defence Coalition put you up to this, Solar,” he said, the pain hanging on every word. Solar remained silent, a knot forming in her throat. There was nothing she could say to squeeze her way out of this - that much was clear. The gig was up. She knew she had finally been caught. “I’m doing this because I know - deep down - that we’re still friends, Solar,” Trotter continued, anxiously running a hoof through his hazelnut mane. “Do you remember that? Being friends?" he wondered. "Because I do. Just like back in university with the others. Help me get you out of this,” he pleaded through clasped hooves. “Tell them why you did this. Tell the Princesses why the Defense Coalition put you up to this?” "Oh." It wasn't an exclamation of surprise or defeat. It was a statement that they were finally going to have the conversation that they had been holding off for so long. Solar remained staring down at the floor. "You already know why, Trotter. At least you should know why I did it,” she said softly. The confusion of the lankey stallion’s face dawned in realization. “Oh. Oh, no.” He could see it now, the reasons and motives clear as the day outside the mountain facility. “You have it, don’t you? Just like Ember.” Solar still did not respond, but silently nodded her head, unable to look Trotter in the face. How could she, after the betrayals and the lies that she had kept. She backed up against her desk, holding her head in her hooves as she collapsed back in a chair. Her words cut through the tears forming behind her hooves. “After the funeral, I wanted to put it off for so long," she began. "Every day, as I sat inside that empty little room, I wanted to do it. ‘Tomorrow,’ I would tell myself. ‘I’ll run the test on myself and his dad tomorrow.’ I waited months, Trotter. Months.” Tears were rolling out her hooves as she continued, Solar lifting her tear-stained and puffy face. “But then the day that would have been Ember’s birthday, I finally did. And did you know what I found Trotter?” It wasn't meant to be a question he could answer. How could Trotter have known after all? “It was me,” Solar told him, the anger rising in her voice. “I was the parent who passed along the genetic abnormality to Ember. It was my genes that was the cause of his suffering.” “Solar, stop,” Trotter pleaded. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to him.” “You didn’t have to watch him waste away!” she screamed, the veins popping in her face in an explosion of primal rage. “You didn’t have to care for a sick foal while his father chickened out and disappeared in the dead of night! You have never had to bury a son!” “And you thought this was the best way to fix it?” he asked, unbelievingly shaking his head. “What choice did I have, Trotter?” croaked Solar, her voice cracking. “What choice?” “Do you remember what took him, Trotter?” asked Solar. “You examined him yourself, just after the onset of the symptoms. You saw the same husk of a foal I did as it progressed, and still, nothing we did could help him.” “It was his thymus,” he said uncomfortably. Solar still had the medical scan buried in a desk back home, the chest of a young foal with a bright glowing splotch, right between the breast bones of the chest a few inches below the neck. “But we couldn't have suspected it was genetic," Trotter interjected. "But if it were, that would mean–” “I have it too,” she revealed, a worrisome grin on her face. “Just like he did. And at this rate, it will kill me just as fast.” “That’s why you're doing this." Now he would finally understand. "They promised you something, didn’t they, the Defense Coalition. These ponies aren’t to be trusted, Solar,” he warned anxiously. She wiped the tears from her face, standing out the chair and turning to face the lab. “I’m not sure what they found down there in the jungle, what they found in those ruins, but it was old. But you should see it, Trotter," she cooed, almost seductively. "You would appreciate its complexities. Deep down, its design is perfect, almost as if it can be programmed, repurposed." There was no use keeping her secrets now; it was much too late for that. “They DC had their theories, had told me the stories and the legends. Told me to help them unlock its secrets.” “Its secrets?" Trotter asked, taking a tentative step toward the mare. "What you are talking about, Solar - its a cure? That's what you think this thing is?” “At the genetic level,” she answered, "yes. Gene therapy, unobtainable until now. Think about it, Trotter. A new age of medicine, free of disease, ailments, sickness.” Solar pointed to the lab behind the glass. "This thing, its the key to everything. It's like it was designed for this, infinitely mutatable, equally capable, waiting for us to discover it and dig it up." “No,” Trotter interjected. “This is wrong,” he said. “This is wrong, and you know it. You nor the Defense Coalition is qualified to play with something as powerful as this. You’re playing with fire," he told her, his words hot and sharp. "Didn't you think about why such a contagion was buried. Did you not hear what happened to the ponies that recovered this?" "I know you don't understand this, Trotter, but I-" She wouldn't get to finish. "It was Harvest." Trotters words severed the air like a searing knife. "What did you just say?" "It was Harvest who went looking for this thing in Caballo. And she is dead because of this thing. Don't you see that no good can come of this, Solar?" Harvest? It had been so many years since she had heard that name. No. It can't be. "Which is why I can't let you do this, Solar," Trotter continued. "I’m sorry, but I think it's time I let the guards in.” And with that, he turned for the door, leaving her by her desk, repeating the same name over and over in her head. Harvest. Harvest. Not Harvest. It can't be. She can't be dead. And it was only then, did Solar know what she had to do. Thunk! Trotter sank to the floor, his lab coat splayed over his back. Solar stood over his unconscious body, the heavy paperweight in her hooves splattered with flecks of red. She didn’t have much time. They would be coming for her soon enough. She swung the paperweight at the door handle to her lab, the heavy metal fixture bending and jamming under the strike. Immediately, hooves pounded on the steel outside, but Solar paid them no attention. Dr. Haze hurried into the airlock between the out office and the sealed lab. She didn’t even bother putting on a contamination suit; there was no time for it now, not for what she was about to do. Solar stepped in and entered the combination, the second door opening with a hiss. For good measure, she turned and smashed the keypad with the paperweight. Sparks erupted from the electronic panel. The lid of the analyzer slowly unfolded, revealing the vial of altered virus, a light blue substance swirling inside. The unicorn snatched it up greedily. Knowing what she needed next, Solar opened a drawer and fished out a syringe sealed in serialized plastic. One prick and it's done. One prick and it will all be over. I will not die, not here, not today. Not ever. It was the banging that dragged him from his world of pain and darkness. Bang! Bang! Bang! "Dr. Trotter? Dr. Trotter, is everything alright in there? Open the door!" Bang! Bang! Bang! It was only when he was able to pull himself onto his shaky hooves, did his vision nearly vanish behind a veil of red. It was blood, streaming down his face from the deep laceration across his head. His skull felt like it was about to split open, but it was a distant numbness compared to what he saw Solar about to do. Thump! He slammed against the window of the lab, the stallion struggling to hold himself up. One hoof was clutching the top of his head, blood seeping around his hoof and smearing over the glass. He could see her working quickly inside. “Solar, don’t do this,” he begged, his voice muffled by the protective glass barrier. Solar only hurried faster, ripping open a plastic package and extracting a syringe. Trotter tried keypad to the airlock, rivulets of blood from his head staining his coat and vest. The keypad did not respond, the power fried. He flicked on the intercom system. “Don’t do this Solar. We can fix this. We can fix you. But this isn’t the way.” Solar jabbed the syringe into the vial in her telekinetic grasp, holding it up to the light as she drew out an amount of the viscous fluid. “That’s where you’re wrong Trotter,” she said, eyeing him from behind the glass. The door to the lab entrance was shaking on its hinges now, being practically battered from the outside. “It’s the only way. I don’t have a choice.” Solar placed the vial of engineered virus back into the analyzer, gently closing the lid as if tucking a child into sleep. “There is always another choice, Solar. But this isn’t it,” Trotter tried to convince her, bloody hooves pressed against the barrier. He swayed on unsteady legs, his vision blurry and out of focus, though his mind was still greatly aware of his colleague's grave intentions. “This won’t bring back your son. You couldn’t save Ember. You have to face reality.” “Reality?” Solar asked, bemused. “You think I can’t face reality?” She pressed her face against the barrier, veins bulging angrily from her forehead. “My reality is a living hell, each and every day!” she cried, specks of saliva spraying the glass in front of Trotter. “I watched him die, slowly,” she seared through clenched teeth, “and I was helpless the whole time. “I am sorry for Ember, but is this what he would want you doing?” Trotter asked her, slipping to his knee. Solar scoffed. “And have you witness the same thing as I did Ember. Not a chance.” She finally could look Trotter in the eye, no shame no longer. “So do you still want to stop me, or will you help me?” she demanded. Trotter pulled himself back up, his bloody hooves smearing the glass with another crimson splash. “So help me, Celestia, you daft mare. If stopping you from making this mistake isn’t helping you, then I don’t know what is.” He grabbed a lab stool and raised it back over his shoulder, swinging it at the glass barrier. Thwack! It bounced harmlessly off the reinforced window. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! "Open the bloody door, Solar!" Again and again, he swung the metal stool to no apparent effect, not even a scratch. Solar backed away from the barrier, Trotter unsuccessfully to force his way in. “I knew you would never listen. But this is the only way.” She raised the needle. “No!” cried Trotter helplessly. "It's the Wonderbolt, Solar! The virus, it's what took the Wonderbolt! Think of what happened to the Wonderbolt!" But he was too late. Solar stabbed the needle into her neck, flinching painfully as she depressed the syringe. The light blue serum disappeared into her veins. What have you done? Solar let the syringe drop to the floor, a single drop of blue serum dripping from the tip of the needle. She lightly placed her hooves on the edge of the table and took a deep breath. She waited, eyes closed, fifteen seconds, thirty, one minute. She exhaled slowly. Energy seemed to be flowing through her, her muscles visibly tightening beautifully under her coat. “You see Trotter,” she said, stepping toward the glass. “This is the future of medici–” Crack! Solar stumbled and fell hard onto the cold linoleum floor. She slowly raised her head as a thin trickle of blood seeped from her nose where she hit the ground. “Solar, are you alright?” Trotter asked from behind the glass, hoof clutching the back of his head, the flow of blood ebbing. “Yea, yea. I’m just feeling a little lightheaded.” She reached up and grabbed the edge of the table, pulling herself up. Crack! The unicorn’s foreleg hung limp, the bone in her upper leg haven broken in half under her weight. “T-T-Trotter!” she cried. “S-Something’s wrong,” she called to him holding her broken foreleg. If it hurt, she didn't show it. She looked more confused than in pain. “Sweet Celestia,” he uttered under his breath. “Just hold on Solar, I’m going to get you help. I’ll get the guards.” Crack! Pop! Snap! Crack! Solar screamed a guttural cry as she collapsed onto the floor, her entire skeletal structure unable to hold its own weight. Ribs broke, and legs snapped. She was changing. Trotter watched the event unfold with horror as he stood helplessly from behind the glass. Orange hair that covered the unicorn began to fall to the floor in patches revealing shiny dark skin beneath. The mare’s usually glossy, ashen, grey mane unraveled, covering the linoleum tiles beneath her, leaving only bits and strands remaining. Her horn cracked and twisted, growing longer and warping until it was a jagged and wavy mass. Solar looked up, eyes full of uncertain, overpowering terror as teeth, sharp as razors and as long as knives sprouted from her mouth, her teeth clattering like dice on the ground. Tears flowed from her eyes as the pupils transformed from soft black circles into slits that shone green in the bright light from the lab. Across the mare’s back, wings, thin and crinkled like a bug’s, sprouted. The transformation was nearly complete. What had once been Dr. Solar Haze, Director of the Center of Equestrian Diseases, writhed, letting out a howl that froze Trotters blood. It raised itself from the remains of the husk it had once been and stood tall as an alicorn on legs black as night. Slowly opening its mouth, it revealed teeth terrifyingly long and sharp. It ran a long tongue over them, saliva dripping onto the floor of the lab. Mane and tail hung in patches, having morphed a shade of dark aquamarine. Dark green eyes of the thing that used to be Solar glowed with an unnatural light from behind the narrow slits that were pupils. It looked down at Trotter from behind the glass, cocking its head in curiosity. Trotter's audience to the shocking metamorphosis having been unable to move. Those eyes. Solar. He backed up toward the door, not daring to take his eyes off the abomination that had once been his friend. “Solar?” he spoke, barely above a whisper. "Solar, is that you?" Trotter, came a voice that seemed to resonate inside his head. Come to me, Trotter. “Solar? Is that you?” The creature's mouth had not moved, but he was sure he had heard the words, the voice burrowing into the back of his head like a bad itch. He wanted to vomit. The creature followed the pony with its staring eyes. Come to me, Trotter, so that you may feel what I feel. Come to me, Trotter, the voice called out again. The bright fluorescent lights in the inner lab suddenly flickered, the bulbs strobing in brilliant flashes. And with a burst of intensity, then went out, the creature disappearing into the gloom that enveloped the room. Trotter stopped. Where did she go? Whatever the virus had done to Solar had the same horrifying consequences he had seen in the dead Wonderbolt. If he let it, or Solar get out, the risk of infection or contamination was a terrifying possibility to Trotter. He had witnessed first hoof what it could do to a pony. Trotter weighed his options. He had to seal lab, that much was clear. Outside, he knew exactly where he could find the biological countermeasures, a failsafe if a lab were beyond containment. If he could activate it, he could seal off the ducts and throw the entire facility into lockdown awaiting decontamination. It was his only bet. Trotter backed slowly toward the door, the lights behind the barrier to the biolab still dark. The room was deathly silent, and he could not see Solar in the shadows. Abruptly bumping the counter behind him, a clipboard slipped off the edge and clattering loudly to the ground. He looked up, dreadfully aware of his fatal error. The glass barrier, which had warded off his measly attack with the stool, detonated. The creature leaped forth from the blackness and sunk its teeth into Trotter’s deliciously exposed neck. He let out a blood-curdling cry as all that was left of Solar bit into the flesh, blood pouring forth as if a pipe had burst. Let me save you, Trotter. Come to me, Trotter, so that you may feel eternity in your hooves.