I remained crouched, ready to spring, as I stared at the panicking ponies before me. To be fair, it was only the black pony, the inspector that was actually panicking. His red coated companion had just taken a step back after his initial exclamation of surprise. Of the two, he struck me as the more intelligent, or at the very least, the more open minded. My immediate problem was to stop them from calling reinforcements.
"Shit, we've been told not to approach these things. Call it in! Call it in!" the inspector ordered, panic in his voice.
The red pony remained silent and still, making no move to obey. My guess was that he wanted to try talking to me before escalating the issue. Why the inspector himself wasn't trying to make the call I didn't know. Perhaps he was too panicked to think of using his own. Perhaps he was simply used to throwing his weight around. Whatever the case, I figured cutting the black pony off from Central would be for the best, so I lunged at him, knocking him backwards a little, while I grabbed his foreleg and unfastened his mapper/communicator. Before he could react, I sprang away again. He was now between me and the ladder, so that escape route wasn't the best for me at the moment. I tossed the mapper/comms unit down the corridor behind me, and with my newfound strength, that meant it went quite some distance.
"Call it in, Crimson, damn it," the inspector barked again, edging away from me.
"Oh, stick it, you domineering asshole," the red pony replied. "We are on the verge of making an important discovery and you are behaving like a scared foal."
Well, that was a better attitude! I could get to like this pony. I hoped the inspector would shut up and behave like a civilized pony for long enough for dialog to be entered into.
"Do not call it in if you value your life as it is," I suggested. I didn't mean it as a threat either. Who knows what Central's deniable branch would do to ponies they deemed to be exposed.
"You, shut up!" the black pony yelled at me, backing a step away from me.
"Calm down," I said, stepping forward, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. "I am not going to hurt you. I tried everything I could to avoid this situation."
"You stay away from me, you diseased freak!" the inspector yelled in response. Did this idiot actually listen to anything that anypony said? I could now understand the circular conversation this pair had been having before. The inspector had loaded a 'response program' into his conceited brain, and had been ignoring what the red pony was saying, responding with automatic denial. Now he was doing it to me. He hadn't actually listened to a thing I said. Screw him!
"Damn you, you obstinate idiot!" I yelled back. "You wouldn't listen to me when I tried to avoid this confrontation, and now you are such a self opinioned coward that you refuse to listen now that I'm up here!"
"Freak!" he spat at me, then turned, and bolted, leaping for the ladder to the lower levels.
He dropped through the hole, and a moment later I heard a sickening crunch, followed by a deathly silence. The red pony and I looked alternately between the hole and each other.
"That didn't sound good," the red pony finally stated, after several seconds of a silence that we didn't want to believe. "I'll take a look. Stay there, in case you startle him further, assuming..." Yes, assuming he wasn't... well... what we both knew he was: dead.
The red pony took the few steps towards the opening and peered down. With a hoof, he indicated I should join him, which I did, warily. I sort of trusted him, but wasn't ready to act on that trust yet. I didn't want to find myself being propelled down that hole after the inspector. Moving up beside the red pony, I looked down the hole, fully knowing what I was about to see, and there the inspector was, about three rungs down, hanging by his head. He must have missed his footing in his haste. His head had gone behind a rung while the rest of him continued downwards, resulting in him breaking his neck. He was dead: very, very dead.
"This could be a problem," the red pony stated the obvious. I shuddered. This was not an outcome I wanted.
"Why wouldn't he listen?" I asked. "Why did he have to kill himself?" Feeling a little light headed, I backed away from the hole, and sat. The red pony joined me, also sitting.
"I'm Crimson Garnet, or just Crimson, if you like," the pony introduced himself. I'd already heard the inspector call him 'Crimson', so his name came as no surprise.
"Aneki," I responded. "I wish I could say I was pleased to meet you, or more to the point, I wish we could have met under better circumstances."
"You've never seen a dead pony before?" Crimson asked, looking me straight in the eyes.
"Dead, yes, at funerals... and in there," I said pointing at the door to the biomass processing and reserve facility. "I have never seen one die though, or more to the point, never been there when a pony died."
We sat in awkward silence for another minute or so. Anypony would have thought we were on a nervous first date or something.
"This is awkward. What are we going to do?" Crimson asked.
Perhaps we could sneak off behind the ablutions block? I mentally slapped myself. Now was not the time for silly attempts at humor.
"I expect he will be missed," I started.
"Of course. Two go out, one comes back. Questions get asked," he affirmed.
"Is anypony going to accuse you of having a hoof in his death?" I asked. He wouldn't be in the position to call me as a witness.
"I don't think so. No one in the department really liked him, but none of us disliked him enough to wish ill on him. He was a nicer pony before he got his promotion. Perhaps we were all hoping he would return to his old ways." Crimson said sadly.
"I think a lot of ponies at Central could do with learning to respect others," I commented. "My recent tangle with them wasn't particularly pleasant."
Crimson nodded. "Would you tell me how much you claimed before was the truth and how much was a lie? I can understand you were just trying to get away from us before, but please be honest with me now. Did you really go into the biomass processing facility?"
I nodded, then slowly stood and walked the few paces to the door of the facility, raised my hoof to the button and pressed it.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the panel voiced, again. "Qualifications accepted," it stated, but the door did not move. "All other ponies must also present themselves for scanning or clear the area before the door can be opened," the voice added. Okay, that was new.
"It looks like it will only open if I'm alone," I commented.
"What makes you think I won't pass as qualified?" Crimson asked, standing, and approaching me.
"I heard you earlier. I cannot believe you haven't tried and failed before. Besides, I'm beginning to understand how this all works, and what its significance is."
"I'll get you to fill me in then," Crimson said, putting his hoof to the button.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the panel voiced, its intonation identical to every other time. "Access denied. You are not qualified to enter this facility. This access attempt has been terminated," it added.
"Well, there you go," I said, sitting down again, this time right in front of the door.
"So you really do have special qualifications that allow you entry," Crimson stated.
"I do, and it isn't anything I studied. It has more to do with what I have become," I explained.
"You mean you weren't always..."
"... a pony with a funny looking black body? A Hellspawn?" I completed his question. "No. Until around two months ago I was a perfectly ordinary mare that lived on the second tier and worked as a structural engineer for one of Central's contractors."
"Wow. Really? What happened?" Crimson asked, eyebrows raised.
"I walked into a this is classified, resulting in this is classified. After that, this is classified and this is classified," I responded.
"Oh, so you really do work for some part of Central I know nothing about." Crimson concluded.
"Nope. I escaped from some part of Central you know nothing about yesterday," I admitted, "but I did learn some secrets while I was in there. Basically, what I am saying is your life is now in danger, merely from meeting me. Anything I may tell you could only add to that danger."
"Danger from what? Is your condition really a contagious disease?" Crimson asked, looking somewhat concerned. I couldn't say I blamed him.
"Nope. I do not believe it to be contagious, especially after everything they zapped me with. Nonetheless if your legs start hurting a lot when you wake in the mornings, run for it, because this won't be far behind," I warned. "Now, I can tell you what you probably want to know, but I'm giving you the chance to turn and walk away right now. We never met. Your boss was a klutz and fell down the ladder. You have some awkward questions to answer, then you can go back on with your regular life."
"Or?"
"I tell you stuff they don't want you to know, after which you will never look at things quite the same. If you let slip with what you know to the wrong pony, you could find yourself recruited, or pushed from a tall building. I'm not sure what their policy is in that respect, but I can assure you, their intention was to literally vaporize me. They are very dangerous ponies."
Crimson fell silent, then settled to the floor beside me, again. His body language was one of uncertainty, but his actual actions suggested his mind was going to take a particular path no matter what the cost. Finally he spoke. "Aneki, please tell me all you know. At this point, it may already be too late for me. Despite the risks, I wish to know."
"Hmm, where, to start, where to start?" I pondered. "Okay, I'll start with what you probably wanted to know for the longest, with what I know about Biomass Processing and Reserve Facility No. 4."
Crimson nodded. He didn't have the expression of enthusiasm I would have expected from his earlier conversations, but then, the situation had changed somewhat. "As good a place as any," he agreed.
"Basically, the facility is a large storage tank within a larger, containment tank, which forms the outer shell," I explained. "It is full of pony waste, sewage, garbage and... bodies. This is where dead ponies go after their funeral. As well as the large tank, there are assorted processors and filters. That which can be salvaged is salvaged, and shipped off to other facilities. The remainder goes into the biomatter soup. From there it is converted to the stuff that is fed to the food generators all over H'ven, and pumped out. There is also extra processing that results in purified water, also pumped out as required."
Crimson rubbed his chin with his fingers for a few moments. "I can understand them wanting to be secretive about the dead ponies. Knowing that we are eating our own would freak some ponies out. Nonetheless, anyone who works at Central must at least understand that resources are limited and recycling is a must. I can't understand why they block us from entering for just that. What is it that you have that we don't, apart from that body?"
"There are other secrets I'm pretty sure they want kept that way. Did you also know that computers are actually made from the brains of dead ponies? I didn't think so. All the same I'm sure it's this body that is the key," I admitted. "I'm only beginning to understand what is going on myself. Tell me, Crimson, have you heard of modifiers?"
"What? Modifiers?" Crimson asked. "A modifier is just something that causes change. It's a fairly common word, although I expect it would see most use in scientific circles," he said, giving what I considered a generic answer.
"What about classified modifiers and how they affect every pony who lives in H'ven?" I asked. "Is that something ponies of your rank know about?"
"Sorry, I don't understand what you mean," Crimson said, affirming my suspicions.
"Ah, such a tangled web we weave," I mused. "Okay. First things first, or is that second or third by now? The Central you work for is not the power you think it is. It's nothing more than the public interface between the real power and the people. From what I can gather, the real Central, which, incidentally, refer to themselves as 'deniable', have secret facilities, labs and so on. I don't know how many there are, but they told me I was in one of Central's deniable facilities, the conclusion being that there must be at least two of them, and probably a lot more than that. It's all very hush-hush. The staff do not even know each other's names, instead all referring to each other by code."
"Go on."
"When I contracted... this...," I said, waving a hoof at my body, "I was taken there and observed, vivisected and so on for over a month."
"You were what?" Crimson gasped, eyes wide open. "Did I hear that right?"
"Yes, I was vivisected. They were studying my transformation from a pony into one of these Hellspawn things. As they planned to destroy my body when they were done, they didn't care about my wellbeing at all. I was kept sedated through most of it. Fortunately there was more observing done after the last vivisection, so I healed. It was only me growing resistant to their drug that allowed me to escape when they came to terminate me." I explained. The bit about drug resistance was a lie, but to tell the truth could cause a certain other pony trouble, should it ever be revealed.
"Anyway," I continued, "I learned a lot of dark secrets while I was there, mostly involving something they call 'modifiers'. These modifiers are some sort of tiny machine that can change, even rebuild a pony. The ones I heard about ranged from class one to class five. Class one are mostly harmless, and have to be directly injected into a pony for them to have any effect."
I extended my fingers and wiggled them at Crimson. "For example, these fingers are not natural to our species. They are created by a class one modifier that is injected into us at the time of our vaccinations."
"Really?" Crimson asked. I felt he was double checking if I was still telling him the truth.
"Yes, really. I have been totally honest with you since I was unable to escape."
Crimson nodded, and relaxed almost imperceptibly.
I continued. "At the other end of the spectrum we have the class five modifiers, which go out hunting. Unlike class one modifiers, that are under the control of ponies, class five are wild. Central neither understands them, or knows where they come from. I was first exposed to them while investigating structural damage down on sublevel seventeen. My legs ached for a few days after that. I then went down to sublevel nineteen, where the air was thick with dust. Apparently the class five modifiers are airborne. They also strip any material they need to perform their function from the surroundings, and lie in wait for their victim. Once you breathe a lungful of the buggers, you are done for. Going on how fast I seemed to be converted, they may well have attacked me directly through the skin too, although that doesn't explain why they left my head alone. The modifiers also caused major structural damage by stripping material in the area, in order to prepare themselves. As such, my body was modified with materials stripped from H'ven itself."
"Oh, hang on. Something about that story sounds familiar." Crimson said, again tapping his chin with his fingers, before lifting them to study them as if they were something totally alien. "Ah, I remember. There was a bulletin that was circulated a couple months ago, warning that there was toxic gas below sublevel sixteen, and that we were to stay away until given the all clear. That would correspond with your dust cloud."
"And you didn't wonder where the info came from, or who was fixing the problem?" I queried.
"It was not our department, and frankly, that's all we needed to know," Crimson admitted.
"Ugh," I muttered, clapping my own fingers to my forehead. It was a work ethic with which I was familiar. After all, I had always felt pretty much the same way. "Did we all make it that easy for the bastards to keep us in the dark?"
Crimson snorted. It was almost a chuckle.
"Well, to get to the point," I continued, "I think there are modifiers in that facility, so for safety reasons, an ordinary pony can't get in. A pony that has been converted, such as myself, is probably immune to further modifier action, or at the very least, immune to the sort that are being used inside there."
"So what you are telling me is that you are a maintenance pony, and that you may have been created by H'ven itself," Crimson summarized.
"Yup, it looks that way, doesn't it," I had to agree.