Oliver had no weapons as he made his way into Alexandria. He slowed his ATV as he neared the square, not wanting to seem hostile. Being a doctor often conveyed protection (at least when dealing with an honorable enemy), but taking advantage of that protection required that you make yourself obvious. The enemy couldn’t even be blamed if you didn’t make it clear enough, and they mistook you for a combatant.
So he wore the white jacket he had come in, smeared as it was with ash and smelling like charred flesh. It wasn’t as though they’d had the time to wash it. There were ponies back in the city that might be in critical condition.
That didn’t mean he had come in completely unprepared. Once Joseph had learned of his intention, the unicorn had switched gears completely, working with Alex on a way to mitigate the danger of his mission. Unfortunately a few more hours of flying time hadn’t been enough to invent some magical force-field he could hide on his person or anything like that, but it had been enough for something else.
His first preparation didn’t go on his person at all; it would go in him. The invention was apparently used for locating HPI hardware even when it traveled vast distances or deep underground; a battery-powered radio beacon small enough he had literally swallowed it. Along with a few drugs he had taken to alter his digestion briefly, that would mean at least two days when the others would be able to find him, no matter where the hostile ponies took him.
The second device was a little more mundane; an audio bug he would conceal in the many crevices of his surgery kit. It didn’t have the greatest range, but Joseph had explained that he had put a repeater in the ATV, which would use the- technical magic he neither understood nor cared about.
For Oliver wasn’t terribly concerned with anything other than helping ponies in need. Only when that was done would he be able to consider the ponies of this “cult,” and judge their cause.
After Joseph had given him everything, the others had said their goodbyes. Moriah called him a “fucking idiot,” while Alex just gave him a hug and a strange promise. “It won’t get you the way it got them,” she had whispered into his ear. “You’re one of mine. I promise, I won’t let it keep you.”
He hadn’t known what to say to that, so he just waved and drove away, his electric ATV pulling a little trailer behind it filled with his medical gear.
Thus, he found himself approaching the library.
The public library looked exactly as he remembered it, with one important difference; there were armed ponies standing around it. As he approached, several ponies emerged from inside, not all of them immigrants he knew. He kept his eyes open for Sky or Adrian, but saw no sign of either one.
Ryan met him on the sidewalk. The dark purple unicorn had swapped out a pair of baggy pants for nothing at all. Nor was he the only one who had made similar moves away from human clothing styles. He could see the unicorn's cutie mark now, a broken crown of gold in a style he'd never seen before.
Oliver could see at least a dozen different ponies, and most of them were unfamiliar. They hadn’t been part of the group of immigrants that had made their way into Alexandria. Where the hell had they come from? “I’m here.” He got off the ATV, switching its motor off and leaving it parked right in front of the steps. He moved very slowly. He felt all the eyes on him, though none of the ponies raised weapons. A few, including Ryan himself, were unicorns. Why bother with guns when you had a thaumic projector on your head? “I’m unarmed. Here to help with your injured. Let Adrian go.”
Ryan nodded very slightly, and the gathering of strange ponies moved very subtly to surround him. None got close, but they formed a loose ring, ready to spring if he tried to bolt. Oliver was fast, and he was strong. These ponies would not be so easy to escape from.
Of all the faces he actually recognized, only Carol and Ryan had ditched their clothes. The others, such as bulky Abrams, remained dressed as they had been. Was this his way of telling the Equestrians from the humans? Did it even matter which was which, if one group was helping the other?
“Of course. He is inside, with the injured. Is that large box for healing?”
He nodded. “It’s a field surgery kit.” He made to reach for it, but Abrams stepped up to block the way. There was something strange in his eyes, something Oliver couldn’t quite place. It unnerved him all the same, sent a shiver down his spine.
“No need to carry it, human doctor. My ponies will get it.” He made a gesture, and one of the unicorns he hadn’t seen before lifted the box in her magic, hefting the huge surgery kit as though it weighed nothing at all.
Unicorn levitation was incredible stuff.
“How is their condition?” Oliver followed Ryan as though he had just arrived at his shift in Mercy General. It didn’t matter that he was surrounded by dangerous cultists, and might never escape. It didn’t matter that at least some of them might be from another world. All that mattered was healing.
“They are alive,” Ryan answered, flicking his tail in a shrug. Watching him, Oliver found that all the pretended awkwardness was gone from his appearance. He didn’t stumble anymore, didn’t pretend to trip on his hooves, or let his horn spark with random magic. He moved smoothly, more smoothly than anyone in Alexandria ever had. His sense for health told him that he was observing the movement of a healthy, adult native who had never known another body.
They were in trouble. Not only were they outnumbered, but they were facing down unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies that understood how to be what they were. It was a good thing he didn’t have to concern himself with how to win. Alex would worry about that. He only had to do some healing.
They passed a charred pile on the dry grass, surrounded by stones. It still smelled like charcoal and burning plastic. He didn’t concern himself with that, not yet. There were bigger problems to worry about.
He found Adrian waiting for him in the entryway, in worse condition than Oliver had ever seen him. This said a great deal, since he had operated on his wing with only the preparation of a few medical books and had nearly watched him die under the knife.
Adrian had sweat on his brow, and shook on his hooves as though he were terrified of something that Oliver himself couldn’t see. His heart pounded in his chest. Yet there was no sign of physical distress on him, apart from a few bruises and some feathers out of place. Nothing to explain the look of horror on his face.
Oliver realized with another wave of icy chill to his soul that he recognized that look. It was the same one all these ponies wore, though for most of them it never left their eyes. “There we are.” Ryan stopped, and Oliver stopped beside him. “We’re here. Your friend is safe, just like I promised.” He turned. “Adrian, you are free to go.”
The pegasus looked up towards Ryan, shaking the whole way. It seemed as though he was fighting every part of it, and losing all the while. He shook, and Oliver feared he might bite through his tongue from the violence of it. Eventually his body steadied, enough that Oliver could make out halting words. “I do not want to leave. I would rather stay with you. I would rather serve.”
Ryan raised his eyebrows, in exaggerated surprise. “Really?” He glanced briefly to Oliver, meeting his eyes with a satisfied sneer. “You’re free to go, Adrian. Are you telling me you don’t want to go?”
Adrian lifted one hoof. The gesture was small — only a few millimeters. Oliver wouldn’t have noticed at all if he hadn’t been looking for something like it. He held up the hoof for just a few seconds, then put it back down where it had been resting. “N-No. I… do not… wish to leave. The others have been… deceived. I would rather stay. I would rather help… protect my home… from them.”
Oliver had never seen anything more horrific in his life, and only last night he had watched a good friend's neck break right in front of him. He would've turned and ran right then, heedless for his chances, except that there were still ponies in danger. He had volunteered to come here. He would see it through, regardless of the consequences.
“He will be happy for your service,” Ryan said, then. “I was true to my word, pony. The pony Adrian has been released, he is free to go. We cannot be blamed for the choices he makes.”
Oliver felt revulsion as he watched. Adrian's eyes were helpless; his body plagued by constant twitches and strains. It was like watching a miniature seizure. He knew what it must be; the poor pegasus was prisoner of his own mind. Could the others be as well?
Oliver’s mission changed then, even though he made no sign of it. He had come to treat injured ponies, and that he would do (assuming they even existed). Yet beyond that, there was a far greater sickness to cure. These ponies had an infection of the soul, one he felt no less clearly than the injuries he had seen Alex acquire on the way to Philadelphia.
He had been helpless to treat her mortal wounds, though he had not needed to. Somehow he doubted Adrian or any of the others would overcome this strange domination on their own.
Would he be next? If the process made a pony shaky and unsteady as it had made Adrian, he couldn’t possibly be expected to accomplish anything medical once it happened. That could mean only one thing: he had time. He would probably have until he finished doctoring before they tried it. That meant he had to come up with a cure before they did.
Could he? Oliver knew little of magic and nothing of what it could do to twist a pony’s mind. How could he possibly cure an illness he had never before even observed?
Just because he never had didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. It was his sacred oath. It was his cutie mark.
“You’ve done something to him,” he said, slightly louder than he needed to. Not because he really thought confronting Ryan would do him any good, so much as because he wanted the others to hear. “He’s shaking all over. He’s struggling. Adrian doesn’t want to stay. Release him.”
Ryan shook his head. “I have been true to my word, doctor. Now will you be true to yours?”
Oliver frowned, then nodded. He glanced sympathetically towards Adrian one last time, then turned away. “Take me to them then. These injured ponies.”
Ryan led the way through the library. Oliver tried to take everything in as he walked. There was something different about the place, though it was hard to say exactly what that something might be. Only when they reached the children’s section did he realize what it was. All the Equestrian books that had been there, the red-covered “Read First” section, were gone. Their shelves and piles were deserted. There were no other Equestrian books; the rest were all kept in Alex’s enchanted saddlebags. All the tablets and kindles holding the digital copies of the books they had managed to copy were gone too.
He didn’t comment on this, though, not as he was led to a pair of cots and a pair of ponies resting on them. They didn’t look familiar, their faces strange to him. Nor did they look good. One, a cream-colored pegasus mare with an upside-down umbrella for a cutie mark, the other a large earth pony stallion with a white and brown coat and a hammer mark. They had been bandaged badly.
“Your cult doesn’t have a doctor?”
Of the crowd of ponies that had been with him, only Ryan and Abrams and the unicorn mare he had never seen before remained. Abrams carried a large rifle, and seemed the only one armed near him. He looked ready to use the gun at a moment’s notice.
“Our cult-” he practically spat the word. “Had one until five months ago. She was killed by a human machine, intentionally. We have others, but none are close enough to help now.” He gestured towards them. “Heal them. If either of them dies, so will Adrian. If they both die, so do you.”
Ryan turned away. The unicorn set his medical supplies down at his hooves and made to follow. “Stay with him, sister Light Spinner. He may need your help.” His eyes met Oliver’s again. “I will be back for your report at nightfall. It would be best for all of us if you have finished by then.”
He left. Oliver’s “guards” moved to surround him, even as he went through the motions of opening his tools, sterilizing his hooves and preparing to work.
Field surgery on a species he barely knew, with the pressure of his own death and that of a friend weighing on him? Simple! Having to solve the problem of apparent mind control during that same period? It couldn’t be that much harder, could it?
It was going to be a long day. At least his radio transmitter was one-way. It would be good not to have to hear anypony say “told you so.”