The newcomer was a strange one. He didn't talk, but he stared intensely and unblinking into Rainbow Dash's eyes, and he would sometimes bang his fingers on a small book-like thingamajig he had brought, which then seemed to talk to the others for him. A strange one indeed. His gaze would flicker when she adjusted her position, but Rainbow Dash felt sure that he registered every detail. She felt scrutinized, but more importantly she felt challenged. Defiantly, she flinched and stared straight back at him. Two could play at that game, and she wasn't about to lose. Eventually, he broke off his stare by blinking. Rainbow could have gone on for a while longer, but she let herself relax, satisfied with her victory.
Aw yeah. I still got it.
She didn't quite know why, but she liked this new guy. Sure, the other two had been kind to her as they pandered to her every need, but she liked challenges, and even something as small as a staring contest was refreshing – by far preferable to staying in bed all day with nothing to do just because her hide hurt a little. Besides, it just hurt more when the bedsheets came into contact with her skin, so she'd rather be up and about anyway.
The newcomer turned away and listened to the doctors talk for a while – for some reason, he didn't give off an aura of being a doctor himself. Perhaps it was because he looked too disheveled in comparison? Whereas the doctors seemed quite well-groomed and clean, the new guy had small, disorganized tufts of hair sticking out of his face – not unlike how Rainbow herself currently looked. Alternatively, perhaps it was because there had been something in his eyes that told her he was thinking of more important things than Rainbow Dash's health. There, she had seen the spark of a burning determination, as if he was boldly standing against impossible odds. A spark that made him seem far braver than his crouched posture implied.
Wait. Is he acting brave because he thinks I'm dangerous?
As Daniel reached over to feel the effect of this 'non-Newtonian gas cloud' surrounding the pegasus, it seemed to him that she was returning a favor by making herself seem small and harmless. She had lowered her head to the floor and bent her front legs – almost as if imitating a kneel. This close, he could see more details – including several scratches on her slightly singed skin, owing to her trip into the bush. Sure enough, once he had gathered enough momentum petting her side, his hand slowed and stopped – he couldn't even pull it away. He pulled harder, and the only reaction was the sound of the wooden floor creaking.
Was that sound made by me pulling myself down, or by me pulling her up? he asked himself. Newton's laws of motion would imply that as long as he was applying a force to the gas, the gas should accelerate out of the way unless something applied an equal force in the opposite direction. And yet... he wasn't lifting her. She didn't even seem to budge, as if the now-solidified gas wasn't really connected to her body at all. That meant it was connected to something else. He moved his free hand closer, intending to find out where, exactly, the gas had solidified.
The pegasus had turned her head and watched closely. Unexpectedly, she bent her hind legs, lowering herself to the floor and away from the hands, resulting in Daniel instantly loosening from the gas' grip and therefore launching himself backwards, landing clumsily on his shoulder. Luckily his laptop had been taken out of its harness, otherwise it likely would've hit him straight in the throat.
WHAT?! his internal monologue screamed at him. Even if the gas had somehow redistributed his applied force to the floor or something instead of lifting the pegasus, it should at least have constrained it, not just followed suit when it moved! This is not how the world works!
Flora didn't appear shocked – she simply laughed lightly and stretched out a hand to help him up, which he gladly accepted. Tarry, however, seemed to have realized the physical inconsistency of what he had just seen. He looked stunned, eyes glazed and mouth wide-open as his brain obviously reached for an explanation just beyond its grasp. The pegasus, on the other hand, looked insecure, face showing her evident concern that she had hurt him by accident. Daniel caught himself assuming universal facial expressions again, but for some reason, the notion didn't seem quite that far-fetched anymore. He picked up his laptop and gestured towards Tarry.
“You said you had someone else investigating the gas?”
Tarry jerked back to the real world, blinking and looking around, confused. After taking a deep breath, he nodded.
“Yes, Christina is currently doing tests with the lab equipment at the station.” He shook his head. “I don't think she'll find anything though; she tried once before, but concluded that her samples were simply too diluted to react. I think she'll find that the gas loses its properties once it gets too far away from the animal. It makes some sense – it doesn't smell, doesn't seem to pose a problem if you inhale it, and...” He moved closer to the pegasus and excitedly waved his hands around on half a meter range. “And it doesn't seem to spread! Perhaps it's an alien, like you said – some futuristic technology, like a shielding device or something, must be protecting it.” His eyes opened wide in realization and he started laughing. “That must be why we can't x-ray it!”
They couldn't scan it? Even more curious. That would imply that however the shield worked, it had the ability to either disperse or absorb the x-ray's photons. Considering the fact that could still see the creature, that meant that the shield had a frequency – or frequencies – associated with it, determining that photons from the visible light spectrum could get through, but not necessarily more energetic beams – like x-rays. Perhaps, if those frequencies were variable, it could even turn invisible.
Not so defenseless after all, I see.
Daniel's knee-jerk hypothesis was that his hand had been caught by some sort of tractor beam, but as he considered it, the way its effects were activated was inconsistent with such a device – then it should have deflected the hand from the beginning. No, the most likely hypothesis was probably that the others had been close to the truth all along – a dilatant non-Newtonian gas simply kept close by a containment field of some sort. Essentially, the pegasus was wearing a bullet-proof, radiation-proof balloon to protect herself. He theorized that most modern human weaponry would be useless against it, which was probably why it was equipped in the first place.
But then, how had she received those burns and scratches?
Flora didn't quite get why the mood had serious'd up so much when Daniel fell to the floor. In most research groups she had been in, that would have been considered something funny – something to laugh off, but both her companions had instead gotten silent and shocked. Well, she wasn't about to let their lack of humor rub off on her – she still thought it looked pretty funny, so she had let herself laugh as she helped Daniel to his feet. It was particularly surprising that Tarry didn't laugh – whenever he wasn't talking about the pegasus, there seemed to be no end to his terrible jokes.
I guess the poor sod has horse issues. Perhaps it's a male jealousy thing.
She shrugged off her thoughts as the men seemed to finally have found their way back to reality. Tarry had started to parrot Daniel in his rant on about aliens being at work, though she couldn't understand why that kind of hypothesis should be taken more seriously than her 'magic!'-instinct. She couldn't see any technology on the pegasus. Presumably, neither could anyone else. Besides, she considered it a common saying that any sufficiently advanced science would be indistinguishable from magic, so she didn't see the big difference. Might as well entertain oneself with the more fun view.
She kept a sigh suppressed during the silence that followed Tarry's grand revelation. Sure, the gas cloud around the pegasus was weird, but it's not like that was something new – they'd known that for a day already. There was no need to act more surprised than he did yesterday, at least.
Oh well, Flora thought. It wasn't her job to handle the physics aspect of it, so she didn't mind leaving the apparent gas excitement to the guys. She was more excited over it being able to use its relatively flexible bone structure to pick up a cup and drink from it – without spilling, even. That made it at least as capable of tool use as chimps, even though it lacked fingers. The question was; was it a coincidence, or was it taught to do that? If the latter, then by whom? Not by Tarry – he had seemed as surprised as she when he saw.
She had begun to see how the others might have been led to believe it was an alien, though she still found the idea silly. An unknown Earth species wasn't unheard of, but an unknown Earth species evolved enough to use tools – that was unheard of. Even though it could have used its wings to cover larger distances than normal mammals, Flora couldn't think of an area near the Swiss-French border which could be considered “unexplored”, so wherever the pegasus' home territory was, it had to be far away...
If it's able to learn English, then it can answer so many questions...
Nothing.
Christina let herself lean back in her chair and let out a massive sigh. Being used to handling medicine and doing blood tests, it felt weird for her to be disappointed in negative results, but the whole day had been spent testing, and the whole day had been wasted. This time she was fairly confident she hadn't accidentally diluted the gas, but it the results still indicated it was nothing but your average mix of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and a few other gases which together were commonly referred to as “air”. Investigating pegasus gas leakage wasn't even part of her job description – she was now slightly behind on her normal duties, and would likely have to spend the evening working to catch up. Normally, she didn't mind her slightly bureaucratic job – keeping journals was an integral part of minimizing risk when dealing with medicine – but right now she envied Tarry for getting the position where he could delegate to her and instead play with the pegasus.
She moved into her own office, ready to begin the document that would chronicle their encounter with the pegasus. Other than keeping it fed and clean, it hadn't required any real treatment, so they hadn't really thought of it as a proper patient requiring its own journal – after all, it didn't exactly have ID documents to refer to – but she had received a text from Tarry telling her he had decided it should have one. “Doctor's orders,” he had called it.
After booting up her computer, she started to work.
Journal 1286: Entry 00001
Patient ID:
Pegasus Pegasus
Description:
Patient found in LHC tunnel along with patient Daniel Arming (J1284) at the ALICE access point. Unknown how patient got there. Patient has second degree burns on most of body, apparently resulting from fur and feathers being burnt away. There was a liquid helium leak in the access point, but the patient seemed not to have received frost burns, unlike J1284.
Blood test confirms hemoglobin in bloodstream.
Attempted x-ray was inconclusive. See attached images. Patient does not show sign of damaged bone structure.
DNA tests falsified hypotheses of relations to canines and insects, but were inconclusive with regards to large bird, equine and primate DNA. Biologist Flora Randell has decided to classify patient under a new genus and defined it as "Pegasus Pegasus", meaning she believes its common equine ancestor is quite far into the past.
Additional physical parameters of patient detailed by doctor in attached audio file.
Speculation: Despite DNA test result, patient is probably related to horses in some way. The patient may be intelligent. Further testing required, and to be carried out by biologist Flora Randell.
Treatment:
Cleaned singed skin with an antibacterial blanket to speed healing. Kept patient fed and hydrated, mostly with water and apples. Let patient rest in bed at doctor's residence, as patient's home is unknown. Patient seems to be recovering well.
Short and concise, and apparently covering everything relevant. There was, of course, more to say, but things like 'it looks cute' simply didn't fit a scientific journal. With her pegasus duties done so quickly, she could catch up with the rest of her job before she called it a night. First order of business was to check if she had any appointments tomorrow that needed to be prepared. After verifying on her schedule that she didn't, she checked her emails.
There was one internal CERN newsletter detailing what workforces would be required to work on reparations, which didn't concern her. One request for a hematological test – which was what the lab was designed to do, so no surprise there – and three emails entitled 'UPDATE: Pegasus gas properties.' The sender was no great mystery – apparently, the owner of Daniel@arming.com had acquired his own email server.
As Christina read the emails, her smile gradually widened. While she had been busy not getting anywhere in the lab, the others had acquired yet another team member and were hard at work getting experimental data from the gas cloud. They had been industrious; Daniel had already run some regression analysis on the fluid mechanical properties of the gas, though it was still incomplete.
'Sorry for making you do the boring bit,' the email read, 'but would you mind consolidating the attached data in the journal entry? We're a little busy trying to convince the pegasus to run into heavy things right now.'
Boring bit? Writing the journal itself might not be all that interesting, but the data she handled was. As an academic, she could hardly have hoped for more. She looked at her computer clock – 19:30. She could procrastinate lunch for a few more hours.