Viral

by AnchorsAway

Chapter 8: Terrifying Tunnels

Trotter was sweating through his thin button-down.

His cuffs were damp, and his shirt was stained around his collar, a line of sweat encircling his thin shoulders. Beneath him, the subway car rocked and bucked again, jostling the small company of weary passengers heading home for the night. The tram suddenly rounded another bend, the train car tilting on it new, unworn shocks, causing him to catch himself quickly. He nearly flew out his seat.

“Stars,” he gasped, pressing himself back into his seat. His chest hurt from the relentless pounding inside, and his hoof desperately clutched his seat. The harsh vapor lamps outside the subway car threw the odd beam of light every other moment, illuminating the dreary interior with their sickly yellow glow. The air was stifling and dusty, coating the shiny new skin of the tram with a thin layer of dark grey, mulling its mirrored metal.

As they rocketed around another teeth-chattering bend, a great behemoth rumbled and roared in a side tunnel, it's growl reverberating through the darkness. It was lit with a fire of lights, ponies in orange vests, hardhats, and dust masks climbing over its twisting and complex surface. The monster growled, chewing through the formidable rock of Canterlot mountain with an insatiable appetite, its sharp teeth tearing at solid stone till it was little more than gravel.

Trotter had watched the tunneler slowly advance each trip, advanced day and night to finish the freshly commissioned line. The tunneler faded in the gloom, disappearing beyond the thick dust until only the clatter of the steel wheels on the tracks echoed within the sweltering subway car. The heat, however, was only half the reason for his uncontrollable perspiration.

Trotter warily glanced around the cab, eyeing the paltry few passengers. They were mostly coworkers from the CED: physicians, lab techs, pathologists, evening cleaning staff, and janitors. Canterlot was always expanding, a massive temple to their progress stretching around half the mountain. And all those ponies needed to travel about the city.

But the subway project was massive, and still years away from completion, only connecting a small hoofful of station reserved for royal government workers, the CED included. Trotter studied these unassuming ponies, watching them. His head was light and could barely breathe the dust-tinged air. He was sure he would be discovered at any moment. Did any of these ponies know what he carried in his saddlebag? Would they come for him? He had passed Solar as he left the CED, briefly mentioned he was off to deliver his report. Would she have seen it in his eyes, his deception? How could a pony he thought he had known so long be deceiving him, and everypony else for that matter?

He coughed, eyes tearing up as he covered his mouth with a trembling hoof, the heat and dust almost unbearable until he wanted to force the door open. He was sure he was going to suffocate from the intense tightness in his chest.

I can’t do this,he told himself. You’re way over your head here, Trotter.

His breaths were shallow, his eyes quivering in their sockets as he closed his eyes.

But no matter how tight he squeezed them, it wouldn’t stop, the anxiety rendering him a shaking mess. He couldn’t lose it now; he had to show them.

Reign it in,he told himself tuning out the clatter of the tracks. Just like she showed you.

He remembered vividly being so small, hardly a colt, whimpering in his tiny bed adorned with crescents painted with a pitted lunar surface. Then sompony above him, warm and calming, a tender hoof stroking his damp head that had tossed and turned on his pillow in the dark of the night.

Shh. Shh, his mother’s dewy voice shushed him, the chestnut mare kneeling beside him and clicking on a lamp. It was just a nightmare. You remember what mommy told you to do, right, when you’re afraid?

He remembered. Trotter would never forget.

Close your eyes and count with me.

He squeezed his eyes tight, so tight that dark and fuzzy strings of light danced behind his shut eyelids.

One, two¾the dreams can’t hurt you¾three, four, five¾you’re halfway there sweetheart ¾six, seven, eight¾just push the fear way¾nine, ten.

Ding!

“Canterlot Castle,” the recording mare announced overhead.

Trotters eyes cracked open, the stallion slightly more placid. The voice continued, only one or two other passengers hauling themselves out their lustrous seats that cracked and crinkled with fresh vinyl.“This is a secure station. Please have appropriate security credentials ready at debarkation.”

Trotter shuffled out onto the platform, the slick tile chilling under his hooves and wet with condensation. He was quickly scanned with a security spell by a royal guard, the giant pony dressed in kinetic armor rather than the traditional plated steel. The titular spear, too, was replaced by the MAG rifle slung at his side, its long flared barrel and bulky housing containing a buzzing storm of arcanic energy. Trotter’s CED badge, clipped to his breast, was given a cursory glance.

The security spell passed over Trotter, down his thin, elongate neck and over his scruffy back, revealing everything to the guard. A wallet, tuck in his button-down pocket, some keys clipped to the inside of the slim saddlebag buckled over his flank, containing only papers. The guard waved him through.

One of the castle staff was waiting for him like he had been told, a unicorn in a tarnished brass monocle sporting a red tweed accouterment. He was old, face wrinkled and gnarled with many years, a thick mustache white as fresh parchment covering his rough features. No words were exchanged, no greetings, just a gesture with a liver-spotted hoof to proceed with him.

They continued out of the station, passing more armed guards and revealing spells, entering through a nondescript steel door into an orange-lit corridor.

Gone were the white fluorescent, the stark deep blue they emitted. Sleek tile floors reverted to polished marble, dense carpeting separating their hooves from the chilly stone. Gas lights, remnants of a past era, ordained plastered walls, the flames flickering behind their glasses, illuminating the hoof-carved, embellished trim. A condensed beam of moonlight, thick as syrup, filtered through the stained glass stretching skyward to the enormous castle rafters. Banners of suns and moons strung from poles, motionless against the blackened ceiling, hung overhead.

This was not Trotter’s first time in Canterlot Castle, but he had never seen it at night. It was so quiet, almost empty, save for himself and his elderly escort. There was no hustle or bustle, no din of ponies chattering as they hurried to and fro to their meetings and delegations or royal duties. It was unearthly, and a shiver ran up his spine.

The olden pony stopped beside a massive door, the wood adorned with carvings of a sun and a crescent. He wordlessly beckoned Trotter to enter, stepping aside as the stallion gave the door a tentative push. It swung inward without even a creak, sliding effortlessly on its meticulously greased hinges.

The dining hall stretched before him, the massive chamber dominated by the table of expertly cut and glistening crystal. A fire burned in the enormous brick hearth, staving off the crisp autumn night with winter biting at its heels. And at the far side of the room, three ponies hunched over the head of the banquet table, conversely talking as they had not heard Trotter enter.

“Look at the lensing effect the video picked up at the edge of the anomaly,” the white-bearded pony told the two alicorns listening intently beside him. He was peering over the rim of his glasses perched delicately on his well-rounded snout, pointing Princess Celestia and Luna to the table surface with a hoof. “And here, the atmospheric boundary with the charged ionization. It’s like the end gate of a teleportation field, just like I assumed.”

“So thou is saying what happened to Ponyville was the result of a spell?” Princess Luna spoke, tapping an elegantly shodden hoof on the printout.

“This was cast?” Celestia leaned further in her seat, clutching the bright yellow shawl draped over herself, despite the intense heat of the hearth.

The older bearded stallion stood up, one hoof stroking his trimmed beard while the other mindlessly scratched at the woolen sweater vest covering his barrel of a chest. “It might be,” he reiterated with an unknowing wave of his hoof. “But the arcanic field had to have been enormous. We’re talking enough energy to collapse a vacuum. That’s the best explanation for the shockwaves that nearly leveled the Ponyville.”

“All that energy, too,” the blue alicorn added, “`twould be enough to disrupt the electrical grid, right Professor?”

“Definitely, but that still doesn’t explain whoor whatcould cast such a powerful-”

The stallion’s head popped up, finally noticing Trotter standing aimlessly a short distance away, where he had been listening intently as well. “And another guest? Were you expecting company, your Highnesses?”

Trotter froze, hot embarrassment flooding his face as he stammered. “Me – oh, I – the gentlepony at the door–” Not the best way to present oneself to the heads of the royal government he admitted.

“No, no,” Princess Luna quipped, hurrying around the table to greet vicariously. “Thou must be Trotter? From the CED, yes?” She extended a lapis shod hoof to shake his vigorously, his molars feeling like they would be shaken out. “Dr. Haze told us you to expect your arrival. You bring with you a report on the befoulment of the Wonderbolt.”

Trotter found the term “befoulment” less than appropriate, given what the Wonderbolt’s final moments must have been like. He hated to think about such morbid things. The autopsy had been enough.

Princess Celestia beckoned her sister and Trotter to the table. “Good, we’ve been waiting to hear your findings,” she sighed with relief, brushing an errant strand of mane swirling weightlessly in her vision. “Dr. Trotter, this is Professor Lakeshore, a former teacher at my school for gifted unicorns and a longtime friend. He has been consulting us with additional matters related to the incident if you don’t mind.”

“No, its fine,” Trotter cleared his throat after a cautious pause. If the Princesses could trust him, maybe he could be of help to him as well. “What is your area of study Professor, if you don’t mind me asking,” he added, carefully retrieving a folder from his saddlebag and setting it gently on the crystal surface of the table.

“Well,” the rosy-cheeked unicorn began, wiping his horn-rimmed glasses on his vest. “I taught arcane history at Celestia’s school before focusing my department to the Royal Canterlot University of Science were I expanded on arcane theory. The science behind the magic.” He slipped the glasses over his muzzle, delicately pushing them to the bridge of his nose with the tip of a hoof.

“The University?” Trotters eyes brightened. “Yes, Professor Lakeshore, now I recall the name. I believed I remember seeing you around the campus, some of my colleagues, I believe, even studied under you,” he said, a smile blooming behind his anticipation. “I major in pathology, just across from the arcane science wing,” he said.

“Right, with Professor Birchbark, the crazy mare with the long mane,” Lakeshore returned the hoofshake. “So many faces, perhaps I bumped into you at some point.” He pulled Trotter closer to the table, sitting beside the two Princesses. “Please, continue, I’m sure we're all eager to hear your findings. Don’t let my failing memories distract you.”

Trotter took a deep breath, removing several papers from the manilla folder. He placed the printouts across the table for his audience to see. The orange radiance of the hearth fire highlighted the lab reports: the numbers, the molecular reconstruction pulled from the samples, reduced to dull points on a paper.

“I ran the lab test gathered from the autopsy through the night,” he began. “It was very fortunate you called for our assistance with the matter as soon as you did. Initial results point to the Wonderbolt, Second Lieutenant Thundercell, being exposed to something viral in nature.”

“Have you identified it?” Celestia asked, levitating the printout to her face. Trotter wasn't sure how much the numbers meant to her.

“No, it’s not like any that we’ve identified before,” Trotter explained. “But less than twenty years ago we still barely understood basic virology, how they function, reproduce,” he said, running a hoof across the polished table surface. “It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this was something we haven’t come across yet. There are estimates from higher-level virologists that we only have cataloged or identified two percent of everything out there.”

“So what thou is saying is that we have hardly anything to go on,” signed Luna, passing over the printout. Trotter knew it did little to solve their mystery of the occurrence over Ponyville.

“I wouldn’t say we don’t have anything to go on, Princess,” Professor Lakeshore assured her, plopping down in a slippery crystal chair. “This is some good data, Dr. Trotter,” he nodded, lab printout in hoof. “Tightly bundled RNA strands, enlarged capsid head, numerous protein receptors,” he mulled over the data, eyes darting over the rims of his glasses by the firelight. He looked up. “I’m guessing from what I see that the symptoms were aggressive.”

Trotter involuntarily shivered, images of the Wonderbolt’s mouth, horribly crowded with knife-like teeth. “You are versed in virology somewhat, Professor?” he told him. “Tell me what kind of onset you believe would occur if somepony was exposed to this pathogen.”

Lakeshore scratched his chin, flipping through the rest of the analysis. “It looks…aggressive.”

“The symptomatic factor is a measurement we use at the CED to represent how soon after a contagions contractions that the infected present symptoms of the disease. Diseases like swamp fever and ponypox had a short symptomatic factor, typically a day or two,” Trotter explained. “Blue flu and the ruts have a longer period before the infected show symptoms, sometimes a month.”

“And this one?” Celestia asked.

Trotter turned through the data, though he had reviewed it so many times already. “Minutes,” he spoke. “I’m afraid aggressive is an understatement, Professor.”

“And the symptoms themselves?” Lakeshore wondered.

“It’s very early to make a complete assumption, but here is what we observed on the Wonderbolt,” he said, producing his report and passing it around. He wasn’t sure if he should have pulled out the pictures first.

“The victim experienced almost total loss of hair and mane, necrosis of the underlying skin turning it into a hard black surface, like a shell. Her skeletal and muscular structure nearly exploded from swelling. And then there are the teeth…” Trotter watched the pictures slide out.

“Sweet stars,” Celestia muttered, sliding the pictured back inside and closing the folder. She didn’t want to see anymore. “Now, the harder question, Trotter. Could the public have been exposed?”

“Not likely,” he shook his head. “It’s rapid onset symptoms would have been seen by now,” he cleared his throat. “A virus like this would have a substantial R₀factor, a measurement of how infectious a contagion is. From the evidence before me, I don’t even think this thing registers on our normal scales. A disease like this could infect a small population group in days, possibly even hours.”

“I guess that answers our next question,” Lakeshore ventured. “Could this potentially be a weapon.” Lakeshore slid him the picture he had been showing the Princesses when he walked in. Trotter picked it up, studying it. It was a picture, captured from far above the ground. The image was blurry, static threatening to make it unviewable. But it was saturated in purple light, tendrils of lightning encircling a deep blackness centered by the lens.

“What is this?” he asked.

“T’was captured above Ponyville yesterday morning by the same team of Wonderbolts as your victim,” Luna said, tapping her hooves together softly. “The Professor hath deduced it was a teleportation field, one so large it knocked out the electrical grid and caused widespread devastation.”

“But why?” Trotter exclaimed throwing the picture back on the table. “Who would do this?”

“That’s the question we are all trying to answer,” Celestia croaked, pulling her shawl tight. “So many possibilities. But I can tell you if what you say is true, then I fear somepony out there intended for this disease to spread within our borders.”

“It would be war,” Lakeshore gathered, his words hard upon his lips.

“No,” Celestia shook her head. “War is messy and carries an enormous undertaking. If they launch missiles, we can intercept them. Airships, we have air defenses. Our ports and shorelines are secure, nopony could launch an assault on our shores. But think about a biological agent,” Celestia asked of them. “One that could cripple the nation without a single shot being fired. And we haven’t got the foggiest idea about who is even capable of this.”

Trotter couldn’t wait any longer. He had to show them. “There was one other thing.”

"There be something else?" Luna asked perplexed.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Trotter cleared his throat. "To be clear, I'm not sure if what I did was even right."

"If you have anything to add to this discussion," Celestia said sternly, her tired gaze fixated upon the lanky virologist, "I suggest you bring it forward.

"You need not worry," Luna quickly added to her sister's harsh words. "We can assure thee we only want to see to the safety of everypony. What do thou have, Dr.?"

Trotter gulped, hoping her words were true and pulled the file out his saddlebag. He delivered it to Celestia with clammy hooves. “When the power went out at the CED, the computer server system was affected," he began. No turning back now.

"The security protocols were inadvertently reset across our file network from what I can tell.” He pointed to the printout in Celestia’s hooves. “I found this when I was printing the viral report this morning. It came off a hidden file network that was revealed when the security defaulted.”

Celestia studies the reports, her sister Luna peering curiously over her shoulder. The report contained another analysis, data that was familiar. Very similar, Trotter knew.

Celestia’s brow furrowed, scanning up and down the meaningless strings of data points. She picked up the viral analysis of the Wonderbolt, holding it up next to the new one. But Trotter was already aware of the revelation. The result we’re practically the same.

“Where did these originate,” Celestia asked in a low voice.

“I still know very little, but I believe it was created by the director of the CED, Dr. Solar Haze.”

“What is it,” Luna wondered. Trotter could see she was missing something.

“I can’t be certain,” Trotter warned cautiously, “but I think it is an analysis of the same virus from the Wonderbolt.”

“So why was it on a hidden network,” Lakeshore asked, boosting himself out of his chair, sweater vest stretched tight over his protruding pot belly.

“Because,” Celestia offered, “of this.” She held out the report, hoof pointing to the header. The date the test was ordered originated over a year and a half ago.

“You said you have never seen this virus before? Why is an identical sample labeled nearly two years ago on the CED file network? And why hidden on the Director’s server?” Lakeshore asked, bewildered.

“But it seems Dr. Haze hasseen this virus,” Trotter emphasized, his face like stone. “There were over a dozen of these reports, all with webnet receipts to an electronic address at the Equestrian Defence Coalition. She was trying to hide all of her data from us.”

Lakeshore’s face was burning red with fury at even the mention of the government agency. “Why would the DC be getting these reports in secret?”

“I think they are working with Solar to study it. I found other files mentioning an expedition force that was lost down in the jungles of Cabello. I think that is where they got the original sample.”

The red hot anger instantly melted from Professor Lakeshore’s face, the blood washing from the vessels until his rosy cheeks were white as clean cotton. “Caballo?” He looked faint, the orange of the parlor fireplace a dizzying spotlight in his rolling eyes. The aging stallion grabbed the edge of the table, hooves slipping on the crystal until Celestia grabbed him firmly to keep him from falling.

“Lakeshore, what is it? What’s wrong?” the sun princess gasped, holding the weak stallion up, his breath rapid and shallow.

Trotter quickly leaped in, steadying the graying stallion

Lakeshore steadied himself against him, sweat coating his brow and running down his flushed face. “I know. The expedition–” he gulped.

The Professor looked to the two alicorns. "I– I should have come to you sooner. I know sompony that might have the answers.”