//------------------------------// // Chapter 61 // Story: Fine Print // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Tracy yanked off oversized clothes as he ran, ditching his shirt and jacket in the hall between his office and Janet's. The pants were a little more stubborn—he couldn't get those off without stopping. The sound of running, terrified people followed him like a wraith, so close it sounded like they might tackle him at any moment. But none did, and he made it all the way to his office, passing dumbfounded coworkers and confused secretaries along the way. By the time he kicked the door shut, he could hear a distant siren, probably the building's ordinary security system. A few seconds later, the sprinklers clicked then started spraying water all over the place from overhead. Did someone trigger that on purpose? Last he checked, those sprinklers didn't use any sensors or emergency switches, but required actual flames to shatter glass tubes inside. What do I do what do I do what do I do...? Tracy stood still in front of the mirror against his door, staring at the terrified pony's reflection on the other side. Not even in his worst moments had he ever seen a whole pony on the other side. But then again, he had a room full of witnesses to attest what had just happened. While he stared, Tracy shook at the confining pant legs, dislodging them from a body not meant to hold them. He had to run, obviously. He had to put as much distance between himself and Apex as he could. The shouting and confusion continued outside his door. There was no telling how much longer it might continue like that. Water sprayed down against the wall, turning the fancy docked laptop into a piece of sparking e-waste. I didn’t get to choose, he thought, to the tune of screaming and splashing water. It slid down his coat and wings, hardly even considered. Too bad I can't fly. I might be able to get home. He didn't have a window, but the building had plenty of exits. A plan seized him then, a plan so utterly insane that he could barely even entertain it. He couldn't take off yet, that much was obvious. But he could fly, once he got going. There are twelve floors. If I can get up to the roof, I could fly all the way home. It wasn't even ten minutes away by car. If he could do laps around Ponyville, he could make that. The door banged open, and Janet burst in. She was soaking wet, makeup smeared down the sides of her face. Shadows flickered in the space behind her, and for a moment Tracy imagined he could see a beak there. Was his transformation contagious somehow? No, he was just projecting. Janet smacked the door closed behind her, then loomed over him with arms folded. If she'd looked big as a hippogriff, now she towered like a giant. A very angry giant. She screamed for almost thirty straight seconds, and he couldn't make out a single English word. What little Spanish he remembered from high school suggested most of it was profanity, though. She caught herself, resting one hand against the door behind her. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" she finally asked, breathing heavily. "Nothing intentional," he said, exasperated. "I'm out in a week. One more week, and this would be over." Janet laughed bitterly. "No end to it now, pendejo. No end ever. I did good by you, kid. Now you..." She slumped against the wall, landing in a growing puddle on the floor. The energy was already leaving her. "Last year, fulfillment had an intern who melted a copier. I did not imagine anything worse could ever happen." Tracy had to hop up onto his desk to reach his phone. Unlike the laptop, it was waterproof, and the screen still lit up despite the moisture. "In my defense, I didn't set off the sprinkler, or knock over the wall." It sounded stupid even as he said it. But once the words were out... "Forget the fucking sprinklers," Janet snapped. "I'm talkin' about therapy for my people. You shouldn't exist—none of it should. I know you're not a demon, stupid little horse. Don't know what we do with you now. Forget what management thinks from Steven—what kind of men in black you figure come drag us away?" "Us?" He dried the phone as best he could on some carpet on the far side of his office, then fumbled around with his hooves. When he brought this thing into Equestria, it felt easily double this size, obviously expanded to make it easier to use with hooves. Navigating to the phone app was agony. "Shouldn't you be joining the mob or something?"  She sighed again, even deeper than the last time. "Whole campus is evacuating. Security doesn't know what the hell to make of it, I think they're reading it as a gas leak from fabrication. God knows how they'll explain a disconnected building getting 'gassed.' According to policy, they'll sweep the building, getting everyone out. Police will be called—hazmat might already be on their way. Assuming they don't call the men in black." "You're still helping me." He grunted in frustration, then gave up and just slid it along the ground towards her. "Can you call Rose for me? Or just text her... she should know what's happening." Janet took the phone, but only tucked it into her pocket, rising to soggy feet. "We need to get out of the building. Did you drive?" "I was thinking I could fly. I just need something tall to jump from. If I could get to the top floor, I could glide home." He nodded towards his keys, anyway, sitting beside the useless laptop. "I need to get back across. I'm not sure... maybe the door will fix me again? But I'm not sure what would be waiting for me if I did come back. Everyone in this whole damn building is going to see me." "And... about a hundred cameras." She scooped up the keys, then brandished her own. "Fly across all of San Jose. If you weren't about to start an urban legend before—hello moth man." He nodded weakly. "You shouldn't help me. What happens to you after all those cameras show us together?” "Too late for that, amigo. Those visits I made to your place were all recorded. Even if HR doesn't know what I saw, they know I cleared you. Pretty sure whatever unmarked van boys come to look into this will dig that up." She hurried across the room, bracing up against the door. She peeked outside, then stepped into the dark hall, illuminated only by red flashing emergency lights on the exits.  He followed, keeping pace far better now that he wasn't trapped in those ill-fitting pants anymore. She was right about the evacuation though—he didn't see another soul on this floor. He could hear some moving on the floors above, and panicked voices still echoed from places he couldn't see. "I don't know what they'll do to us. Maybe prison for you, maybe dissect me..." His imagination spun faster and faster with every step. By the time they made it to the emergency stairwell, he'd already conjured up a whole secret agency, watching for alien creatures that appeared on Earth. Obviously they must exist, if magic did. They'd find him, and make him disappear. Spookiness demanded it. "Alternatively, that won't happen," she said. They hurried down the stairs. There were loud voices in the stairwell, and soon they came upon the back of a crowd. Janet pointed, and they fled onto a lower floor. Not before several people saw them, and more scattered, screaming and pointing. "I'm fucked at Apex, obviously. Whole department will probably get restructured. What, you think the police are going to arrest me?" Tracy didn't have a clue where they were going, but Janet seemed to. They crossed the abandoned floor of another department, this one without the puddles of water everywhere. But there were wet spots on the ceiling. They'd have their own water-damage soon enough. "Maybe. They'd think you... helped me or whatever. You knew 'what I was' and didn't tell anyone. You're a..." But even as he said it, his fears seemed dumber and dumber. People weren't at war with ponies—they didn't even know ponies existed. If it weren’t for his transformation during a meeting, they'd probably just think he'd escaped from a petting zoo or something. Or maybe a circus. Janet laughed. "I could just abandon you. But you need a key for the roof. Lucky for you, I have just such a key." They reached another stairwell, on the other side of the building. Janet poked her head inside, then gestured for him to follow. They ran up the stairs, a task far easier for her than it was for Tracy. It wasn't like he couldn't move on four legs anymore—he'd mastered all four ways of pony movement now, even the tricky gallop. But these stairs were a human's distance apart, not a pony's. They passed plenty of other workers along the way. "Get away!" Janet shouted, or something similar. "Other stairs! Don't get near it!" People obeyed without question, often just changing direction and running the other way.  Janet grinned with increasing smugness each time it happened. "Just sound like you know what you're doing," she said. "Too bad that won't work to get us out of the building. Otherwise we could just drive you back to that house. What exactly will you do when you get there? You think you can reverse this somehow? Or were you always this way?" "I wasn't. I never lied to you, Janet. But after all those people saw me—after causing this disaster. Apex is done with me. It's probably not even safe for me to stay on Earth anymore." More and more people seeing us together. I sure hope you don't go to prison over this. Tracy slowed as they neared the top, the climb draining him more and more by the step. How much could one pony walk before they collapsed?  "I feel that," she said. "Probably smart. Melting right in front of us like that... there's no way you don't get vanished into some nameless military base somewhere. Might happen again. Might be contagious. Hell, it better not be." Finally they reached the roof, and Janet produced her keys. She fished around with the gigantic ring. "Lucky for you I've got this master. Management doesn't know it exists, except now they will." It clicked, and they stepped out onto the roof.  The gigantic rooftop AC units were silent and still around them. Gigantic pipes provided constant obstructions to his line of sight. Still, he didn't need to stay here for long. Once he got to the edge, he could take a running jump, and fly home. "I'm sorry for ruining your life," he said, struggling along behind Janet. Climbing ten human stories was so much harder than it looked. "And maybe the company too. I know you... cared about... Apex." She shrugged one shoulder. "I give it 50/50 they give me more money than I would've made in ten years to keep my mouth shut. Either that, or... maybe Nick Fury shows up. I saved a thousand people from the 'demon'." She laughed, patting the wall with one hand. It wasn't even half her height, probably only there to obscure view of the air-conditioners from the ground. It was taller than Tracy, though low enough that he could make the jump. He took a few steps back to do exactly that. Then his back legs gave out under him, and he collapsed to the ground. A wave of tiredness crashed into him all at once, powerful enough that his eyes lost focus and his tongue went numb.  Janet turned, dropping to one knee beside him. "What's the matter, Tracy? Sure might want to take off around there. I hear an awful lot of sirens." The world swam. He fought against the exhaustion, tried to stand. But this wasn't one night he'd gone without sleeping. It was months. "Ever...wake," he mumbled, twitching one leg towards the stairs. "Left it—" He collapsed into blissful unconsciousness.