> Spirit of Science
>  by Yunnan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: A Scientific Proposal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



“While curiosity and the human need to understand are powerful driving forces behind science, the role of pathos and ethos in inspiring young scientists cannot be underestimated.”




*	*	*


Allen McMurray struggled to breath. He sat against a cabinet door, letting the coolness of the metal soothe his feverish head. Gasping for air, he could feel his chest labor to rise and fall with each breath. Just as he felt like he was going to finally suffocate, coughs racked his febrile body. Each spasm twisted and contorted his insides, but they did their job. Once pain subsided and he could breathe again, he foggily took note of the coppery red cloth he had used to shield his cough. An ounce of fresh bright-red sputum stared back at him. Allen was slowly drowning in his own blood. 

The metal cabinet and linoleum floor were so very cold compared to his skin. Unconsciously he drew the thin red linen blanket tighter around him. Somewhere in his addled mind he recognized that the sheet used to be white. It did not matter what color it used to be. Eventually, the Red Plague stained everything with blood. 

He was so tired. He wanted nothing more than to lie down on the cold linoleum floor. The only thing keeping him from not doing so was the fear of not waking up. Also, the whole drowning in his own blood feeling was much worse lying down.

A cold draft blew over him as the vents in the laboratory kicked on. He tried to reach out and draw his feet underneath him for warmth when he saw something terrifying. Dark bruises covered his skin, and his fingers had turned black. His mind reeled as he started to panic. It was DIC. Disseminated intravascular dissemation, the random hemorrhaging and clotting of the blood, marked the terminal stage of the plague.

Allen McMurray was going to die.

Feeling the hot blood-red tears stream down his face, he regretted not taking the ponification serum when he had the chance. He did not know where he was, but there was no serum here and no hope for him to recover from the fatal disease on his own.

If he could breathe right, he would have been sobbing. Instead, his chest tightened, making the drowning sensation feel worse.

He heard familiar voices. It sounded like the others who were trapped down here with him. They seemed so far way. He tried to look up, but he no longer had the strength to do so. His body felt numb and distant.

Alisha and his girls… he would never see them again. Sure, he may not have been the best father… Maybe… maybe it was for the best. 

The world around him faded, and Allen felt weightless.


*	*	*


Ten months ago it was another humid, oppressively warm May afternoon. Sunny, too, if one looked intently through the orange-tinted, smog colored sky. Allen McMurray took off his glasses and wiped the sweat off of his brow as he started up the car. He leaned back and sighed, feeling the flow of the freshly filtered chilled air drive away the heat from his flushed cheeks. Looking at the mirror, he fluffed his sweat-matted greying-brown hair. His grey-blue eyes, bloodshot from the long hours he was working, followed his hand’s every movement. 

Somehow, Allen could not believe it was only May. When he was a kid, this kind of oppressive muggy weather was only seen in August. Of course, there were EPA regulations and concerns about the environment back then, too. However, regulations were bad for business, and business… well, business paid the politicians.

Allen removed his stethoscope and his heavy white coat, laden with his tools, notes, and his half-eaten lunch, and placed them gently on the passenger seat. As he drove away from the hospital, he sighed at the joggers that were running on the campus. The smog level today was “moderately dangerous.” There was nothing “moderate” about the smog. If you could not see the sky or the sun, then any activity outside was deleterious for one’s health. Allen was dourly watching his future patients. One day he will be responsible for their care when they were inevitably treated for cancer.

What a shame.

At least there were some bright sides to his day. After being at the Cleveland Clinic for nearly a month now, Allen was starting to get both his clinical practice and his research laboratory going. He was particularly excited about the latter—it was the primary reason for him spending the majority of his adult life as a student. Within a few days, his grant money would arrive, and he will be able to hire a technician and a post-doctoral student. Then he’ll have a true lab and will be able to get some real research done. After 14 long years of training, he would finally have his own research, his own project, and, soon, his hand selected personnel. It was totally worth every year of his training.

A jingle from the car’s telecommunication system broke Allen’s reverie. Most vehicles nowadays had an artificial intelligence to control most of the cars functions—even driving if the owner felt comfortable enough with that prospect. Allen had personally never been comfortable talking to a disembodied, unemotional intelligence, so he had those functions removed from his car and his Personal Everything Digital Assistant (PEDA). His car’s telecommunication system had been reduced to nothing more than an elaborate, if archaic, blue-tooth technology.

At any rate, an unlisted number was trying to get ahold of him through his PEDA. Allen pressed a button on his car’s terminal to answer.

“Hello, this is Allen McMurray.”

“Al, man, how have you been?” Allen’s eyes darted from the road to the terminal’s screen. A powerfully built man in a physician’s white jacket with a military haircut grinned back.

“Marcus Gunn,” Allen couldn’t help but to smile, “I haven’t heard from you since… well, wow, since I started my fellowship. How’ve you been?”

Marcus bellowed his signature baritone chuckle. “Well, you know, the usual. Living the dream, saving lives. Getting up to my elbows in guts to patch a guy who thought that badminton was best played with a live grenade.”

Allen rolled his eyes. Some things simply never changed. Both he and Marcus were medical school colleagues and had been practically inseparable the first two years. Impressively charismatic and a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge (no doubt in part to his freaky photographic memory), he had been one of the exceedingly rare medical students who rarely had to study. If it were not for Marcus’ tutelage in the first years of school, Allen and, probably several others he surmised, would have floundered. 

Of course, Marcus had a big ego. He was a military trauma surgeon, and the ego came with the field. As far as Allen was concerned, though, Marcus had earned it from his talent, only to have it reinforced from his military service.

“I never really understood why you became a trauma surgeon, Marcus. If half of the doctors had your memory and thoroughness in my field, we wouldn’t be having so many issues with patient care.”

“Gotta heal with that steel, man. It’s the best treatment in my book. Besides, with med school pricing being as they were, there was no way I’d be going to med school without being paid by the military.” That was very true. If Allen had not been admitted to a government sponsored MD/PhD program, he would not have been able to afford the mouth-dropping cost of tuition. Of course, with the right credentials, money, and a bit of perseverance, any well-to-do kid could become a physician—but they were often dangerously underqualified. They generally pursued medicine for all the wrong reasons: prestige, money, family tradition, or, worst of all, family pressure. Poorer, but passionate and bright, students like Marcus and Allen either had to take crippling life-long debts or had to sacrifice years to military, to research, or to a small town rural health practice.

At least Allen enjoyed his research.

Allen looked down at the monitor to see Marcus waving his index finger as he waxed on. He had been speaking the entire time that Allen was lost in thought. “…now, I’m just a humble patriot who just so happens to have the lowest mortality rate in the army.”

“Uh-huh. So, I take it things are going exactly as you wanted,” Allen said as reached for a sip of tea from his thermos.

Marcus beamed, “You could say that. Speaking of things going well, I heard through the grapevine that you finally got that research position that you’ve been wanting.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy about it to be honest. Been lookin’ forward to finally starting my career.”

“Well, Al, I got a thing that may just help you jump start it.” Allen took his eyes of the road and gave Marcus a quizzical look over his glasses. Marcus just chuckled and said, “You know, I really missed that look. Yes, I am serious. I am a member on the military’s research council after all.”

Allen nearly gagged on his tea before replying, “You? On a research committee? As I remember, unless a patient was involved you could barely reason your way out of a paper bag.”

“Now, now,” Marcus chided jovially, “I just offer my hands for field testing new technologies. I have no interest in that R&D bullshit anyway. Still, though, I think I have a position that would interest you greatly.”

“Marcus, I already have my dream position at a very reputable institution. There’s nothing that the military could offer that would make me change my mind. Besides,” he looked over his glasses, “you know how I feel about the military.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a borderline hippy and a chink lover, I know.” Allen could tell Marcus was only half-joking. In this day and age, criticizing government programs and supporting an end the Sino-American arms race was seen as un-capitalistic, possibly communistic, and definitely un-American. At least they still had first amendment protection, relatively speaking. “Besides, Al, that doesn’t matter. This is a National Institute of Health endeavor.”

“Let me guess, the NIH is distributing military research funding now.”

“You could say that.”

Allen lifted his glasses and massaged his eyes momentarily in contemplation. He sighed and said, “If it was anyone but you, Marcus…. Fine. Let’s hear it.”

“So, I was reading some of your papers from your PhD and your fellowship. You still working on that gene therapy “cure” for sickle cell disease?”

“I think you know that Romberg has already beaten me to it.” Allen couldn’t help but to feel frustrated after he said that. Gene therapy is a field where scientists and physicians attempted to treat simple genetic DNA diseases. The disease Marcus talked is theoretically easy to treat with gene therapy—and should have had a solid therapy at least 30 years ago. However, that was not why Allen was frustrated. He had seen, even been at the forefront of many advances in the field during his PhD years. Treating and potentially “curing” life-disabling mutations in DNA was about to become a reality.

However, Allen was not able to follow up on his PhD research. His career path required him to perform 5 years of medical training after his PhD. In the meantime, a research competitor, Rose Romberg, had taken his work and developed a drug for market. 

“So, I take it you’ve decided to change fields then?”

Allen shook his head. Marcus was very naïve when it came to research. “She may have taken my work and developed a drug based on it, but I still the know the ins and outs of that vector. It’s efficiency to modify DNA is pretty pathetic. Even after the FDA lost a lot of its funding, I’m sure Romberg had a hell of time getting that to clinical trials. Regardless,” Allen smiled broadly, “I spent most of my fellowship cooking up an improved vector. I can’t wait to see her face when it gets published. It’s so simple she’ll die from embarrassment that she didn’t think of it!”

“Hmm, I take it you’ve already sent the data out for publication?” Marcus inquired.

Allen sighed before saying, “Yeah, but my reviewers don’t believe the idea and want me to confirm it in a dozen more ways. Unfortunately, that takes time, money, and hands. All of which I am still waiting on.”

“Damn, man. That’s pretty raw. From what you told me of that Romberg woman, do you think she’s trying to beat you to publication?”

“I blacklisted her from reviewing my work, but I couldn’t blacklist all of her collaborators.” Allen shrugged and added, “I bet she knows, but I know my old lab won’t give her the vector components until we publish. It would take her at least a year or two to develop the components herself, so I’m not too worried about it.”

Marcus nodded and said, “You sound happy with your vector, but what if I told you that there is good chance it will be obsolete next year?” Allen’s attention snapped to the screen where Marcus was smiling smugly. Marcus continued confidently, “I think you should know that this research opportunity will revolutionize gene therapy.”

Allen cocked his head, attempting to decipher Marcus’ words. “What do you mean?” Allen asked coolly.

“I mean what I said. The details are… unfortunately classified.”

“Of course,” Allen deadpanned.

Marcus’ genial tone was gone. He was all business now. “However, I will tell you that, if this project goes as we expect, you and the other researchers in your field will be old news.” 

Allen stared solemnly at the road. “You’re saying that, whatever this mystery project is, it will so revolutionize the field that my project will not be guaranteed funding with my next grant from the NIH. Marcus, not only is that very unlikely, but that’s too deep considering your lack of understanding of research politics.”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. That’s the inside scoop from my superiors. I’m just watching out for you, buddy. Besides, your old friend Romberg has already signed up.”

Allen’s blood turned to ice at those words. Of course she was involved in this. She was the gene therapy researcher. With her gargantuan lab and extensive network of collaborators, she could easily capitalize on this new “mystery technology.” It was already hard for researchers to compete with her, but with such an advantage there would be no way that a small start-up lab like Allen’s, could keep pace with her output. She was also savvy enough that, even if Allen could produce a novel spin on the whateverthingy-technique, she would probably beat him to a second publication.

“Also, Al,” Marcus added, “the bigwigs at the National Institute of Health and in my committee only wanted to hire Romberg’s group. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you this chance.”

Allen nodded in appreciation. “You’re a great friend, man. Send me the details and I’ll talk it over with Alishia tonight.”

“Not a problem, Al. I’ll talk to you soon.”

As the phone disconnected, Allen leaned back into his seat and let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Alishia, his wife, was going to kill him.


*	*	*


Allen had had a rather hectic week. Convincing Alishia that joining the NIH’s oddly named “Project Poni” (since when did they start having code-named projects anyway? It was starting to sound more military-controlled by the day) was Allen’s wisest career move had taken several evenings after his talk with Marcus.

Of course, Allen could see why she was upset. When they had gotten married, Alishia had given up a promising career in engineering to follow him to the-middle-of-nowhere, Indiana when he started medical school. No doubt, she would have expected Allen to make a similar sacrifice to keep the family together—and rightfully so, Allen supposed. However, this “Project Poni” was an exception. Not only did his career depend on what new technology this project was developing, but, in an indirect manner, his family’s safety also hinged on the project.

Project Poni was an all-out arms race against the Red Plague. 

The project was a surprising coalition between America, China, the EU, and Oceania to develop a vaccine for the new deadly virus. Considering the magnitude and brevity of the vaguely described research project, it was surprisingly easy for Allen to bargain for an unheard-of first year sabbatical from the Cleveland Clinic. He would be, after all, their representative in the largest international research effort in history. It was just like his old mentor’s mantra: success in science depends 20% on research and 80% on how you sell that research to reviewers. 

Even after safeguarding his Cleveland Clinic salary and position, with a new modest salary bonus from the NIH, Alishia had still been resistant to the idea. Several things about the project had bothered her: the vague details of the project and goals, the oddly short timetable of the project, and the fact that Allen would be away for several months. 

Alishia had always been more perceptive than Allen in the nuances of such issues, and he usually took her advice to heart before making decisions as dramatic as joining Project Poni. However, Allen was certain that this was the only action he could take. The project offered him career security and an opportunity to develop a vaccine or a treatment or whatever he was developing (Alishia did have a good point there, he supposed) for the most dangerous virus to emerge in history. Allen would be lying to himself if he couldn’t admit that he was curious as to how such an endeavor could incorporate a tangential field such as gene therapy.

It had taken several discussions, with Allen re-emphasizing that the project would be finished in 6 months—successfully or, more likely, not—before he could finally draw a reluctant acceptance from his wife.

The morning he left, his 11 year-old twin daughters cried the entire trip to the airport. This was the first time their dad would be gone for such a long time. The less rational part of Allen wanted to stay home with them. It had only been a few hours and he already missed his daughters. 

Allen forced himself to think on the positives of the day. After all, today was definitely full of firsts. This was Allen’s first visit to the NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. He was involved in the first project at the NIH’s newest research building. This was also his first ride in an armored car with his first thorough secret service pat down… and his first stern-faced secret service chauffer. 

However, it was definitely not the first time he had to share a ride with a certain Marcus Gunn that couldn’t stop talking long enough to catch his breath. 

“So I’m looking at this new army recruit, and then back to his chewed up arm, which I might add, some genius didn’t think to pack in ice, and I ask him, ‘I guess you didn’t think to turn off that Humvee before “changing the oil,” eh?’” Marcus broke in a rather goofy grin, considering the topic, before continuing, “Turns out, Al, that his buddies thought turning on the Humvee while he was doing maintenance was a hell of a practical joke.”

Allen snorted and shook his head in despair. “So, tell me, are all the boys and girls in the army a wizard like that idiot and his friends? I’d like to know that our life, liberty, and pursuit of processed algae snack cakes are in capable hands.”

Marcus slapped his knee and started to laugh. Allen was a bit confused. He wasn’t trying to be funny. The sarcasm was exactly how he felt about the armed forces in general. “Al, my man. The stories I could tell! Actually, there was this one time a chucklehead had a pelvic purity ring that got caught in a…”

Allen continued to nod and shake his head as he let attention drift away from the conversation. It was nothing against Marcus, but he did have a tendency to talk without picking up cues that his audience could be less interested. Surgery, especially trauma surgery, was not that compelling to Allen. There was no puzzle to it, no moment of clarity when a diagnosis was reached. It was essentially all staple guns and cross stitching as far as he was concerned.

A few minutes later, the car was slowing as it approached a rather remarkable building. The building was massive, easily taking up a diameter of five city blocks. Its height was slightly less impressive, but it was difficult to gauge how many stories the building was tall due to its unique façade. Rounded chromed durasteel girders loosely spiraled around the exterior of the cylindrical structure, creating an image of a whirlwind or a vortex of some kind. The windows, tinted a perfectly reflective resplendent sapphire blue curved with the chrome girders, further adding to the illusion. 

There was something about the coloring of this building that stood out in Allen’s mind. He noticed how perfectly it reflected the orange, smog-colored metropolitan sky. Instead of being orange, however, the windows’ reflected a bedazzling azure of a noontime day that so rarely appeared anymore. The clouds were likewise reflected in their pearly white majesty. As for the rounded girders, Allen had first thought those to be chrome, but they also did not reflect the sunburnt sky. Instead, they were painted, or perhaps, formed of some material that attempted to mimic the purity of the reflected clouds. It was a good attempt.

Still, the building seemed strangely out of place compared to the rustic multicolored concrete/steel architecture of the older buildings that surrounded it. It was the jewel of the Bethesda research park.

As they pulled into the expansive circle drive, Allen’s reverie broke enough that he realized Marcus had been uncharacteristically silent. Marcus’ face wore a calm scowl as he watched a group of Chinese Secret Service escort their scientists and politicians into the facility. Allen knew better than to antagonize the “patriot” so he let the silence hang until they too were being escorted towards the building. 

The main entrance to the building proper was housed under the lip of the upper stories. As Allen and Marcus’ entourage passed by the support pillars, they entered a strong, steady breeze that blew across the path. Allen found himself commending the architects—the wind tunnel effect was a nice touch.

As they entered the expansive reception area, both he and Marcus could not help but to let out a low whistle. This place was ritzier than any hotel he had ever heard seen. The walls were made of a milky white marble, inset with golden trim and design flairs. The ceiling was a mosaic of art and colors that represented the various aspects of the life sciences, with, of course, their American heritage and history. Underfoot, he could feel the plush, exotic feel of the royal azure and scarlet carpet. Undoubtedly, this was America shamelessly flexing her cultural muscles for the world to admire. 

The two men were escorted to one of the many reception desks in the large reception room. A well-built bellboy and a female receptionist greeted them. Oddly, the first thing that Marcus did was salute. Confused, Allen looked closer at two’s faces. Sure enough, there was a near invisible dimple above the left eyebrow on both the receptionist and the bellhop. The dimple was the processing portion of a subdural neural implant. It was really fascinating technology that was just becoming available to the consumer market. The chip synapsed with both the optic nerve and the frontal cortex, which gave the implantee a personal heads-up display that was controlled by decision impulses from the higher reasoning centers. When combined with the military channel worldwide wi-fi, military personnel could access classified information and receive orders on the fly in any region of the world. It had been military standard for more than a decade.

Using his own chip, Marcus had probably ID’d one of these two as a superior. The receptionist spoke evenly while glaring daggers at Marcus, “Dr. Gunn, at ease.”

Allen, their escorts, and several of the guests had been staring at Marcus. Seeing a military man in full formal attire saluting a receptionist was, well, awkward to say the least. At least no one listening seemed surprised that the staff was undercover military. Allen could not help but wonder if that would affect the quality of the food they’d be offering.

Marcus, albeit nervously, relaxed. The superior/receptionist, acting as if nothing had happened, passed a folder and a temporary ID badge to Marcus, “Dr. Gunn, here is your identification badge and itinerary for the day’s events. Will you be needing any lodging for tonight?”

“Ah, no… ma’am, I’ll be heading back to the base after this.”

“We hope that you enjoy your time at NIH Vortex Laboratories,” The receptionist replied with a lukewarm smile and an icy stare. Then, ignoring Marcus completely, she turned to Allen. “How can I help you today?”

“Allen McMurray, from the Cleveland Clinic. I should be on the list of assistant professors.” The receptionist made a show of looking up Allen’s information on the terminal, but they both knew that she had identified him moments after he had walked in the main door.

After “finding” his information, the receptionist produced a folder and a holographic ID badge. “Dr. McMurray, here is your itinerary and Vertex Laboratory Identification Badge. The details concerning your lodging and laboratory space are included with your itinerary. Your bags will be delivered to the apartment this afternoon. If you have any questions, please call the support number or return to the lobby.”

Allen thanked the pseudo-receptionist and walked with a stricken Marcus towards the conference room. Allen could not help himself. He said, “You know, Marcus, for being such a smart guy, you act really stupid sometimes.”

“Shut up, Al.”


*	*	*


Allen greedily loaded his third plate of fruit from one of the many hors d'oeuvres tables in the reception area outside of the main auditorium. 

“Al, you better slow down, man. I really don’t want to take care of the mess if you get sick.” Marcus chided. 

Between handfuls of pomegranate seeds Allen replied, “Do you know how hard it is to find most of these nowadays? I haven’t seen a pomegranate in a decade, and it’s been years since I’ve eaten a kiwi that wasn’t made from flavored, processed algae.”

“I can hear that, it’s been a while since I’ve had real bacon, too.” Marcus waived his bacon wrapped scallion to emphasize the point. “Still, man, you’ve only eaten fruit. I’m really starting to get worried that you have gone full blown hippie on me.”

Allen waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, c’mon, you know me better than that. I never really cared for meat at all, even at med school.”

“You still ate it though,” Marcus poked.

“Yeah, but that was because I didn’t know how to cook, and I was paranoid about protein deficiency after biochemistry.”

“Sure, sure. Hippy.”

Allen and Marcus stared at each other, both smirking for a few moments before laughing and heading out to mingle with the other guests. There were several famous scientists that caught Allen’s eye, particularly Dr. Chuang Tse, renowned for synthesizing the entire human genome from scratch, and Dr. Ben Jones who was a genius at developing and designing new proteins and cellular pathways. Those two were on the fast track for Nobel prizes. 

Allen realized that, if Jones and Tse were recruited with Romberg, this project was not about developing a vaccine for the Red Plague Virus. The World Health Organization must be worried that a vaccine could not be produced by the coming winter. There was no other explanation for why they would resort to such a drastic measure like gene therapy, especially on the unheard of scale of chromosomes and pathways.

He did not have too much time to muse on this development. The welcoming and keynote presentations were to begin in a few minutes, and people were already filing into seats in the auditorium. Allen absent-mindedly followed the crowd into the expansive room. After taking a good look around, he decided that the place was simply too patriotic. Thick banners of red, white and blue hung limply on the walls and across the presenting stage. They clashed rather horribly with the mahogany paneled floors and seats. Wait. What the hell?  Didn’t Mahogany go extinct 7 or 8 years ago? Where did they get the wood and why would they use such an awful combination?

Allen decided he didn’t want to think about it and took a seat in the scientist-specific section in the middle of the room. American and European military officers began seating themselves to the right of the scientists, and the Chinese military officials took up residence to the left. The two sides never glanced across the scientists to take note of the other. True to form, the scientists were fairly intermingled between Chinese and Westerners. For the most part, collegial attitudes between scientists still ignored patriotism. Even when they didn’t, one still read the competition’s papers and looked for every chance to pick their brain.

On stage, high-ranking diplomats began to fill chairs under their representative flags. In addition to the prominent USA and Chinese flags were the EU, Australia, Independent Korea, Japan, Oceana, and India. However, there was one flag that stood between America and China that Allen had never seen before, and underneath it was an ornate sky-blue/gold cushion instead of a chair. The flag had a field of sky blue, with a central black crescent pedestal supporting a golden orb. Six rays of gold radiated from golden orb to the edges. Within the golden orb were two… swordfish circling around a hexagon? Allen strained his eyes, but he could not make out the details of the coat of arms at all. The price of sitting in the back of the auditorium, he supposed.

Curious as to how long he would have to suffer through the proceedings, Allen opened the folder that the receptionist had given him and looked over the itinerary. There were to be 5 presenters. The first two were, of course, the Lady President and China’s Chairman of State. Following this would be a discussion on state of research into the Red Plague with the esteemed NIH director Tim Watson. The last two speakers were quite strange. The Keynote Speaker was a “Princess Celestia” representing Equestria? That was a strange name for a country, especially since he had never heard of it before. The last speaker, one “Twilight Sparkle,” a leading scientist of the same country, would be presenting details on Project Poni.

Equestria. Project Poni. Someone had a sense of humor.

The auditorium was nearly full. Allen decided to pull out his PEDA (Personal Everything Digital Assistant) and flip it open. After briefly moving his fingers across the touchscreen, the holographic emitters sputtered to life. In air above his lap a transparent screen and qwerty keyboard appeared. In a flurry of finger movements, Allen searched political and common databases looking for any history of the country called Equestria. Of course, the searches yielded a plethora of horseback racing legends and descriptions of parts of the USA, but there was no indication that any country of Equestria actually existed. Even a descriptive search of their flag turned up no results. 

The lights in the auditorium began to dim slightly. With a wave of his hand, Allen dismissed the holographic terminal and put away his PEDA. Tim Watson, a wizened man easily in his seventies, walked onto the stage and to the podium. 

After settling his notes and waving for silence, Dr. Watson began, his clear voice conveying the sharp intelligence of the NIH director, “Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, military advisors, politicians, and,” he made a strange gesture to no-one in particular, “friends, I welcome you to the National Institute of Health Vortex Laboratories. It is an honor to be here today, in front of the world’s brightest and most innovative minds in medicine and the life sciences. For those of you who may not know me, I am the director of the NIH and will be serving as the master of ceremonies for today’s activities.

“Before I introduce our esteemed representatives of state and begin the proceedings proper, I wanted to take a moment to explain the mission of NIH Vortex Labs. The ‘Tex, as some of us have come to call it, represents an evolution of the average think tank. Unlike the traditional think tanks that either analyze data or attempt to craft new social policy, the Tex’s role is focused towards direct application. In the case of health, this application is the accelerated development of new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics. I think that you will find, during your orientation later this afternoon, that we have spared no expense to create an environment that is capable of rapidly developing new treatments to answer any global health crises.

“And we are in the heart of a global health crisis today. The hemorrhagic Red Plague Virus has shown itself to be a tremendous threat to humanity. I will save the details for my talk later this morning, but suffice to say this virus has killed over 2 million Americans and 165 million people worldwide since its first victim some five months ago. Even with our best treatment modalities, we are still only able to save 20% of our patients, and most of the survivors suffer a shortened life due to severe organ damage.

“That is why we have called upon you, the brightest minds of the world to develop an ingenious way to protect against a disease for which no vaccine can be made and no treatment is effective.

“And on that note, I would like to introduce our esteemed dignitaries this evening.”

Allen mulled over what Dr. Watson implied about the vaccine development failure as the director introduced the diplomats. Interestingly enough, the mysterious Equestrian seat was not included in the introductions.

Allen groaned softly when Dr. Watson invited the Lady President to give a welcoming address. It was nothing against the President in particular. Allen hated politicians in general. They had charisma in spades and were usually intelligent enough to navigate the landmines of their career. However, they lacked either the will, wisdom, or simple vitriol to do anything to actually help the American people. 

Added to the fact that each politician’s election campaign was “supported” by corporations and their interest groups, it was not surprising that the politicians did not help the people. If they betrayed their backers, who would support their re-election? Who would protect their fragile reputations from smear campaigns and the propaganda of their competitors who were often bought by the same goddamn companies. Their intelligence and charisma were wasted on progressing their own selfish careers. In some sense Allen could see why. Any politician who actually grew a backbone and tried to change the system was thoroughly disassembled by the press and the media. The political rebels always fell on the fast track to unemployment.

Because of this, Allen was not much surprised when the Lady President’s words were vague, fluffy, and weightless. Her entire speech was designed to bolster moral and to reinforce America’s greatness. Wonderful. Allen would have preferred to have his 30 minutes back for a quick nap.

The Chinese Chairman of State, however, was a bit more entertaining. China still retained elements of its communistic heritage. While they did allow for multiple party elections, the same people were invariably re-elected. Vladimir Putin would have been proud with the Chinese adoption of his post-communism model. 

The first thing the chairman did was to make fun of America’s inability to handle such a simple matter as developing a vaccine for “a dainty little virus.” According to him, America was great at handling big things such as “this remarkably overcompensating shrine to science,” but the little things have always given them trouble. After thoroughly rebuking America, the chairmen went on to discuss the achievements of the Chinese people in last 50 years with special emphasis on the development of the first green Thorium Nuclear Reactor power plants and the laudable accomplishment of synthesizing the entire human genome from scratch. In closing, he urged his constituents to show the Americans the true genius and industry of the Chinese people. According to him, this vaccine will not be possible without the Chinese.

Allen did not agree with most of the things the chairman said. In his heart, he still believed that America had a better social system—at least Americans were not freedomless drones like the average Chinese citizen. Sustained innovation and discovery could not be forced, but had to evolve organically. Americans were just, for the most part, unemployed by artificial intelligences. 

Still, he found the chairman’s speech much more entertaining than the Lady President’s. In particular, watching the pained, white-knuckle rage reactions from Marcus and his military goons to the chairman’s speech was well worth the price of admission. While Allen doubted this antagonizing would amount to anything, he secretly hoped that it would light a fire for more research and development funding for the academic sector.

Dr. Watson shook hands with the chairman as he took the podium. Arranging his notes, Dr. Watson began his presentation. “Please offer another round of applause to our esteemed guests for their thought provoking, and I’d say rather inspirational words.” Polite applause echoed throughout the hall and as it died down he continued, “While the holoprojectors are warming up, I want to take a moment to remind all of our collaborators that this is an international effort. The Red Plague is a severe threat to us all, especially to our neighbors,” Allen twitched involuntary when Dr. Watson forced that, “in Africa and Australia who are beginning their winter. Much like the flu, this virus seems to be rather seasonal and—oh, look at that! The projectors are up!”

On either side of the stage and in the center above the flags, bright holographic displays lit up with the director’s slide show. Dr. Watson clicked past a few different slides until he landed on a slide that displayed the Red plague infection hits throughout the world week by week since its discovery. Nodding in satisfaction, Dr. Watson turned, looked up at the audience and continued, “As I was saying, the virus appears to be seasonal and wintery much like the influenza virus. Suspicions were initially raised about the emergence of a new virus in early November when flocks of birds were found dead throughout the American Southwest. The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, in Atlanta immediately began processing specimens and tracking the distribution of the disease in birds. This should not be a surprise to anyone seated here after the historic West Nile Virus epidemic in 2003 and the Avian Flu epidemic of 2021. 

“Before the CDC could get a handle on the nature of the virus, the first cases of a severe lower respiratory disease were documented in Los Angeles. The patients originally complained of fatigue, cough and a characteristic red eye symptom where blood vessels randomly break. The natural history of the disease was quickly found to begin with these symptoms before developing into a hemorrhagic, necrotic pneumonia. Between 24 and 36 hours after the onset of the pneumonia, small-scattered purple lesions developed throughout the skin of most patients, which was a consequence of systemic blood vessel rupture. At this stage of the disease, nearly all patients expire from systemic shock due to blood loss, disseminated intravascular coagulation, or acute organ failure.”

Watson paused, his excited and dramatic personality subdued by what he was about to say. “By the time we understood the natural history and the near 100% mortality rate of the virus, it was too late to institute an appropriate quarantine. From trans-pacific flights and bird migrations in the old and new worlds, the CDC and World Health Organization could not control the spread of the virus throughout Asia and Europe. With the best local quarantine measures available, causalities and infections were limited but still staggering. As of yesterday, roughly 165 million individuals have suffered from the disease worldwide. Of the 10,063 American cases only 97 individuals have survived the acute stages, and the overwhelming majority of these are suffering from chronic multiple organ failure. Mortality from organ failure complications and the initial disease combined are estimated to be around 99%.

“Folks, we may be looking death in the eye as a species. While we can hope that the virus mutates into a less virulent form, placing hope on that possibility is precarious at best, but foolishly lethal at worst. Even if the mortality rates turn out to be less severe than expected, economic and political collapse is a major concern, hence the investment of our esteemed guests and representatives in uniform.”

Dr. Watson, decidedly tired of being dour, continued to talk about the virus in great detail describing each facet of its understood biology with great enthusiasm, awe, and fascinated trepidation. The virus, appropriately named Red Plague Virus or RPV, was a segmented RNA virus like the flu and the notoriously hemorrhagic Hantavirus. From genetic studies performed at the CDC, it seemed that at some point a Hantavirus and influenza superinfection occurred in cattle or rodents in the American Southwest. The resultant virus from the mixing of viral genes became the first RPV. 

Essentially the genomes of the flu and Hantavirus were shuffled like a deck of cards and the RPV got a royal flush in terms of infectivity and lethality. From the flu, RPV inherited the ability to infect via coughs, sneezes, and saliva. Hantavirus gave it the ability to invade and destroy blood vessels, leading to the red eye, hemorrhagic pneumonia, and eventual organ failure. Nature had truly an elegantly efficient virus. For now though, birds and cattle were suffering far worse than humans.

Dr. Watson had gone over his allocated time limit by five minutes, but no one had complained. This was his program, after all, and at least he was entertaining. At some point he decided to wrap up his talk and said, “Now, I need to leave time for our two most important guests of the evening. I’m sure you have questions regarding their rather unique names and country of origin, but they’ll be the ones to address that. 

“Before I turn it over, I want to re-emphasize two key points from my presentation. First, attempts to propagate RPV for a live vaccine or to establish an efficacious protein vaccine have proven fruitless. Despite their best efforts, the CDC and World Health Organization Vaccine Task Force have been remarkably unsuccessful in making a vaccine for distribution. Additionally, NIH efforts to improve palliative care for hemorrhage and organ failure as well as new medicinal antivirals have also shown little success. Second, we need a plan B, since failure of our usual methods may cost our civilization its very existence.

Dr. Watson was working himself up like a conductor at the end of a grand symphony. As he chose his next words, his hand flowed with his voice, and Allen could feel himself captured by the emotion of the moment, “The plan B that we are proposing is not popular in the NIH or between our collaborative countries. It is a last ditch effort to save us in case our vaccines and treatments fail. It is gene therapy on a scale hitherto thought unimaginable. It will undoubtedly strike the greatest ethical debate in our brief existence as a species. It will create a means to change ourselves so that the virus cannot infect us and will not destroy us.”

The crowd sat in silence for a moment, stunned at the bravado of the words and the impossible mission of the maiden project of the Vortex Laboratories. Then, slowly but building, members of the audience stood, and a thunderous crescendo of applause roared throughout the hall. Even if the project sounded impossible and even though it would likely never take off in the public perception, Allen found himself hoping and trusting that the NIH director was right.

Allen never implicitly trusted anyone. It was a scary feeling, but he hoped with all his might that Dr. Watson was right and they could do the impossible in six short months.

Dr. Watson waved for silence and for everyone to be seated. After he deemed the auditorium quiet enough, he began to speak in his more regular master of ceremony voice, “And with that, I would like to introduce our keynote speaker for the morning. She is the head of state of an aptly named country called Equestria. Beyond that, I believe the rest of the introduction is best left to her majesty, Princess Celestia of Equestria!”

Allen was expecting something strange based on the names Project Poni and Equestria? When he heard soft clicking behind the curtains of the stage he thought for sure it would be some strange foreigner on a horse.

The truth was more to take in than he and, gauging by the collective gasp, the audience expected. Before them, in front of the other dignitaries stood an alabaster unicorn with large unfurled alabastor wings. Her mane and tail, colored in greens and blues of the ocean with a wave of pearly pink, seemed to flow in an invisible wind and sparkle like sunlight reflecting off of the sea. Upon her head, breast, and hooves she wore simple gem encrusted golden jewelry. On her flank was a strange tattoo. Allen’s best guess was that it was an Aztec sun symbol, but he was not sure why a princess would display such a thing in public. 

Allen’s mind was racing. Was this a practical joke—Allen wouldn’t put it past a character such as Dr. Watson—or was this equine princess actually the princess of a country? Were they aliens? Unlikely, he supposed. Why would aliens have need for an obviously equine form? If they were native to Earth, how did humanity not know of them? Surely they would have left some archeological evidence of existence.

Looking around the room, Allen saw Marcus’ face reflecting confusion and a sense of betrayal and fear. Allen’s own feelings about the situation were fairly mixed. This was going to be an interesting speech at least.

Looking back towards the stage and the princess again, he inadvertently locked eyes with the princess. It was only for a fraction of a second, but that time seemed to stretch for minutes. Those magenta eyes were impossibly old, and the wisdom of generations served to hone her gentle gaze. Her gaze and posture conveyed a sense of both regality and compassion. She stood patiently in the awkward silence, allowing her audience to adjust to her extraordinary presence. 

There is a magic moment in beginning speeches. A time where the presenter has given their audience enough time to settle and prepare themselves but has not allowed them to become restless in boredom or anticipation. Princess Celestia effortlessly found that perfect moment and began to speak, her elegantly soft voice reinforcing Allen’s perception of her nature. Without aid of microphones or speakers, her voice filled the hall with its almost musical tone. “A most wonderful morning to you all, my sapient brethren. It is an honor to have this opportunity to meet with the greatest minds of the human species. Truly, humanity has progressed significantly since my kind’s self-imposed isolation began over three thousand years ago.” 

A gentle, yet reassuring smile spread across her muzzle. “I am sure you have many questions regarding myself and how we came to be involved with the international effort to aid your species. I will do my best to answer these in the time we share together this morning, but I must ask for your patience. The history of humans and equines is long and poetic, but I am afraid I will need to omit most of the truly eloquent and moving stories for time’s sake.

“According to our ancient oral legends that were passed from generation to generation before being committed to scroll and book some two thousand years ago, humans and sentient equines discovered each other near the end of the last great ice age. An ancestor of mine, Snowfall, the elder alicorn—that is, a pony with both a unicorn’s horn and a pegasus’ wings,” Celestia wiggled the tips of her wings before folding them on her back, “saw that the resourceful humans were running out of food to scavenge and hunt. Indeed, the ice and snow had lasted long enough that there were no longer any fruit bearing trees or animals that the humans could hunt. Taking pity on humans who were unable to sustain themselves on the frozen grasses under the snow, Snowfall entered their camp. Surprised and elated at the good fortune of food wandering to their camp, the humans thanked their gods and surrounded the elder alicorn with their spears. However, before their spears could strike her, Snowfall consumed herself and the camp in a magical fire. The fire warmed the shivering bodies and hearts of the humans and melted the snow beneath their feet. 

“When the magical flames dissipated, Snowfall was gone—her existence used to fuel the magical flames—but the fields and forests for as far as the eye could see were verdant, bearing fruits of all kinds. The humans, amazed at the wonder that had graced them, tossed aside their weapons in celebration and thanksgiving. Cautiously, the other ponies approached the human settlement to pay their respects to their elder. The humans welcomed them. Both equines and humans ate well for the first time in months thanks to the sacrifice of Snowfall.

“So began the long and verdant relationship of humans and ponykind. For the most part, humans and ponies maintained a pleasant relationship that was necessarily distant due to the inability of our species to effectively communicate. 

“However as time went by, humans began to lose touch with their environment and the species they depended on for food, clothing, and companionship. After discovering how to tame the land with agriculture and domesticate the wild species they relied on to support their burgeoning populations, humans began to create more useful tools to protect their fledgling cities from famine and war. While those of us alive now may consider those weapons and tools crude by today’s standards, they were true marvels in the eyes of my people and the humans who made them. In such a short period, humans had gone from a species struggling to survive to master artificers that could control the world around them.

“Truly, the magic of humans is your ability to craft machines to ease the burdens of life.” Celestia paused in thoughtful silence for a moment. Allen shook his head and stretched as if waking from a dream. He and the rest of the audience had been entranced by the princesses’ story. Even Marcus was lost in quiet contemplation. The break in her story did not last very long, however, and the princesses’ words drew his attention back to her.

“Unfortunately, all eras must end, and the era of peaceful coexistence between humans and ponies was no exception. As humans began to exhibit control over more and more of their world, a dangerous ideology spread throughout the human civilizations. The leaders of the city-states believed that humankind was granted divine stewardship over the land, sea, and all of its inhabitants. As a consequence, humans began to capture and breed into servitude and ignorance our cousins: donkeys, oxen, swine, and horses. Out of fear, we hid ourselves in secluded vales and woods to hide from humanity’s sight.

“In retrospect, that was a foalish idea. Humans were quick to forget about the benevolent, intelligent equines and when they would stumble into our herds, they found us fantastical and frightful. In time, human crusades developed against species that were intelligent and enigmatic. It started as sport among the elite of the human nations, but it quickly became a supported routing of the ‘demons in the forest.’

“So, the ancient Equestrians left their homestead and traveled around the world for a hundred years, searching for a place to call their own. In our journeys we saw that the same fate was befalling many of the other sentient species. Humankind, it appeared, had universally grown frightened of any species it could not bring under its control. 

“Eventually we did fine a suitable place to live. An island continent untouched and unknown by humanity,” the princess said as she walked behind the podium for the first time in her speech. A beautiful aura sparked into being from the base of her horn and flowed to the tip. A golden reflection on her alabaster coat indicated that the podium’s screen was also covered in an aura. The holographic projectors hummed to life and showed a live satellite feed of the Pacific Ocean. Except now the ocean had a landmass similar in size to Australia resting between the doldrums and northern latitudes in the North Pacific. It was surprisingly close to Hawaii.

“Once we were settled, we sent our best alicorns, pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies to gather the other intelligent species that were being persecuted. Only a few returned, but they brought with them the warrior-like gryphons, the shamanistic zebras, the long-lived European dragons, the mighty minotaurs and centaurs, and the remnants of the other sentient hooved species. However, for every species that answered our calls, many more were never heard from.

“Eventually, we could not wait any longer. Three generations of my family weaved their life magic together to create the two barriers that have protected our island for over three thousand years. The first barrier was designed to prevent the island from intrusion from humans or their machines. The second barrier masked our presence from the world. 

“For thousands of years, we watched the world change as humanity grew and evolved, and, as humanity changed, so did we. Ponykind learned from humans. Earth ponies’ natural empathetic abilities allowed them to develop skills and tools to cultivate food and establish a mercantile system to support our growing country. The pegasi’s dominance of the clouds and factories based on the industrial revolution gave us control over the weather and seasons. Lastly, the unicorn’s mystical abilities and natural curiosity allowed us to unlock many of the secrets of nature to understand the workings of reality. 

“Of course, humanity was always the true innovative genius in the animal kingdom. Throughout history they have developed technology and explored fields of science that continually leave us in awe and amazement. 

“Ponykind, on the other hoof,” Celestia covered her mouth to conceal a giggle. The audience nervously chuckled with her. “I apologize, I was trying to give my entire speech without using any equine expressions, but, alas, it appears the alfalfa’s gone sour!”

Allen didn’t even know what that meant, but he still laughed regardless. A handful of others also thought it was funny. Apparently the princess had a lighter side to her after all.

“It also appears that my time is about up. Let me finish by saying that, despite learning how to control nature, ponykind tends to respect nature and has consistently refused to abuse our power over it. While the technology and science exist to build factories and mega-farms, most ponies find satisfaction in using their own hooves to till the soil, harvest their crops, and create their artisan marvels. Ponies understand that we are a part of nature and cannot separate our livelihood from the earth and sky. Besides being herbivores, our outlook on technology is perhaps the largest distinction between equines and humans today.

“As I mentioned earlier, we have waited in isolation until human culture was accepting enough to welcome us as equals in your rich international community.” Celestia closed her eyes briefly and then opened them to look over the crowd. “I only wish we could have waited for that day. My sister, Princess Luna, and I saw the suffering that the Red Plague has already caused and, most undoubtedly, will cause. After conferring with the elected Equestrian High Council, we reached a unanimous decision. Human suffering would be too great if we passively watched the Red Plague sweep the world. Equestrians will therefore offer our magical abilities to be used with human ingenuity and engineering to develop a vaccine and a cure for this awful disease. 

“Acting with this intention, we deactivated our ancient cloaking shield and met with the international community’s heads of state.” Princess Celestia’s voice was still soft and kind, but undercurrents of hope and expectation were building in her tone. “Today, I come before you, the most enlightened individuals of your age; the best of humanity. Will you level your spears at me like your ancestors did to Snowfall? Or will you accept me and my people as friends and equals?”

A pause followed by a slow crescendo of applause was her answer. It was significantly more subdued compared to the response Dr. Watson received, but that was human nature, Allen supposed. The people gathered at the hall knew that their lives were in danger of the red plague and were willing to not look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. Even Allen, who held fairly liberal views, had a difficult time trusting that the princess did not have an ulterior motive such as revenge, which would be appropriate if the tale of her species’ history was true.

As Celestia made a regal bow and took a seat on the cushion under flag, Allen saw, for the briefest of moments, a somber, but hopeful expression in her otherwise serene demeanor.

Allen sat in quiet contemplation. Celestia seemed to appreciate and take hope in humanity’s openness to her story and proposal. However, in Allen’s opinion, she had to understand that her audience would be guarded against such an altruistic offer. It was human nature, after all. Perhaps, in Celestia’s mind, humans were willing to stay their spears, but were not yet ready to embrace her kind as equals. Ponies would be the tools to humanity’s salvation.


*	*	*


There was something strange about the last presenter of the morning. Twilight Sparkle was a lavender-colored unicorn mare with a darker hued mane. From Dr. Watson’s impressive introduction, Allen would have assumed that she was a rare polymath since she had written treatises in the fields of astronomy, anatomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and, albeit more dubiously, magic. She had trained under the brightest minds in Equestria and was held to be one of the greatest thinkers of her generation.

That was very high praise, especially coming from a research paragon such as Dr. Watson. Allen and the other scientists, true to their training and nature, expected to see an extraordinary set of presentations from the nervous mare. If she turned out to be anything less than a polymath savant, her audience would be picking their teeth with the bones of her research and academic ambitions.

Needless to say, Allen was expecting some light entertainment before lunch. 

The beginning of Twilights first presentation of two was less than inspiring. The mare was visibly shaking and stuttering from nerves like she was a first year graduate student. When Twilight began to meekly introduce her research topic, she got distracted with attempting to bring her presentation up on the holoprojectors. As she grew more frustrated, her voice descended from softly stuttering to an incoherent mumble at her notes. Allen could see panic start to creep into her expression. He was waiting on the tears to flow.

The tears never came. Instead, Twilight closed her eyes for a moment, calmly removed her scarlet horn-rimmed reading glasses, and judiciously slammed a forehoof onto the podium. The resultant boom stunned the snickering audience into silence as the holoprojectors came online with her presentation.

Without missing a beat, Twilight launched herself into her first presentation. Allen could not believe his eyes. She quickly regained her composure and soon the purple unicorn’s voice commanded a confidence that could only be born of years of lectures and presentations. He found himself listening intently, quickly forgetting his initial misgivings.

Her presentation started with a simple demonstration. She asked if the audience believed in magic. That question was answered with bellicose laughter from the audience. A ruby light enveloped her horn, and she disappeared from the stage. A heartbeat later, a group of scientists in the back row jumped and yelled in surprise. Twilight Sparkle had appeared behind the scientists. Once they had settled down, she asked for two volunteers and teleported them and herself back onto the stage. Twilight explained that she understood if people thought her magic was a simple parlor trick as that is the only magic humans know. As she levitated the two volunteers, both of which were enveloped in a red aura, back to their seats, she said that such magic is commonplace in Equestria, and deserves a proper scientific explanation for its origin.

For the past four years, Twilight had been attempting to understand how a unicorn could produce magic from the nervous system that weaved through their horns. She was quick to emphasize that, while Equestrian understanding of the brain drew largely from humanity’s, equine neurology still lagged considerably behind modern human science. Regardless, the work she had done in those years was impressive. Between her and her assistant, they have mapped several of the nerves in a unicorn’s richly innervated horn to specific regions of the brain and had done rudimentary characterization of the unusual chemicals released by the horn nerves. She ended her presentation by providing a prototype mechanism for how the unicorn brain could manipulate the world through magic.

For the most part, the data and interpretation was meticulously done, almost neurotically. While Allen could not vouch for the research’s validity since neurology and…magic…were well outside his field, he did find that the prototype mechanism was too far-fetched. Twilight had studied anatomy and chemistry here, but she believed that somehow, a unicorns horn could, through hand waved quantum physics, manipulate the world. Based on her research so far, Allen thought it was ludicrous and naïve to make such a leap in hypothesis.

Apparently others thought the same. When Twilight invited the audience to ask questions, a man instantly stood up. Allen recognized him as he was one of Rose Romberg’s pet PhDs. He started, “Dr. Sparkle—“

“Actually, it’s just Twilight Sparkle,” she rebuked kindly. “We don’t have the formal graduate education that humankind has developed. Ponies that enjoy academic pursuits in Equestria tend to join universities for self-education or a career. We really don’t hand out honors or anything like that.”

“Ah, my mistake.” The man coughed nervously. “At any rate, I was curious why you thought that Quantum Mechanics could explain some of the connection between neural physiology and the materialization of magic?”

Allen sighed a little that a geneticist was asking this question instead of a neurologist, but at least it was asked. To Allen’s great surprise, Twilight took the question at face value saying, “That’s a great question! I know there is much work left to be done before my model can be fully tested—especially since we are still trying to understand the unique neuroanatomy of our horns—but for now I consider this a highly organized flowchart of what needs to be studied to fully understand how unicorn magic works. Granted this is mostly conjecture as appropriate experiments to test quantuam mechanics in generating magic are very difficult to design, but I hypothesize that quantuam mechanics are necessary for the…” Twilight then proceeded to describe her hypothesis in a detail that Allen and, presumably, Romberg’s post-doctoral fellow could not follow. Several neurologists and, based on their questions, physicists asked Twilight follow up questions. While her answers seemed to satisfy the researchers’ concerns on her model, without hard data the model simply was not sold.

By far her discussions with neurologists on neuroanatomy and brain chemistry were much better received. Many were excitedly discussing if similar, but functionally different, pathways could exist in humans. If so, what would their function be? Obviously it would not be “magic.”

The last person to stand up and ask a question was a Chinese researcher in the front row. Indigently, he rapid-fired a question in mandarin to Twilight. Before the last syllable left his lips, she had already started replying in mandarin back to him. Several Chinese military officers broke their stoic façade and yelled in surprise. American researchers and military personnel burst into laughter as they applauded the lavender unicorn. Eventually, the entire audience was clapping and laughing, even the Chinese!

Twilight, for her part, blushed immensely and motioned for the audience to settle down. Allen whistled softly to himself. It was difficult to give a presentation to some of the most respected scientists in the world. An amateur presentation would be destroyed. While her research was interesting and her model a bit far-fetched, Twilight had still earned the begrudging respect from hardened researchers. That is no small feat. Allen, for one, was ready to hear what she had planned for this “Project Poni.”

Once silence had finally fallen, Twilight began, “Now, onto what we have all been waiting for—the details on Project Poni! Before we begin, I wanted to reiterate a few things and to make a minor apology.” Twilight organized her note cards and levitated her glasses back onto her muzzle, “Don’t worry, this will be brief.

“I wanted to first apologize for how vague the project description was that you received. Until right now, the details on the project were held in confidence between our countries and their head health representatives. I was told by the American President and the Chinese Chairman to reemphasize that the contracts you signed prevent you from discussing anything you learn or discover here at Vortex Laboratories to any non-Vortex employee until precisely 12:15pm Friday, May 19. That means, for the next two weeks, you cannot mention any research or, more importantly, the existence of Equestria or us Equestrians until our public announcement at that time. 

“There’s also a list of incarceration parameters and fines involved if anypony was silly enough to do that, but I don’t imagine that’ll be a problem.”

Ah, the wonders of government work. Allen must have glazed over that clause when he signed the paperwork a few days ago. A few groans from the audience meant he was not alone.

Twilight smiled, “Don’t worry about that, my friends. Two weeks will pass in a flash. Besides, it’ll give us time to learn from one another. As part of Project Poni, each laboratory will be assigned a pony scientist from one of the great Equestrian Universities.” With a flash of her horn, the holoprojectors revealed another, smaller auditorium that was filled with ponies! Ponies in all shapes and colors waved at the monitors and stamped their hooves in excited applause. 

“We hope that you’ll take this opportunity to learn about us equines as we look forward to learning more about your diverse cultures. 

“Now, onto the project itself,” Twilight said as she ignored the hushed murmurs in the human audience. “As Dr. Waston eloquently stated in his presentation, the goal of Project Poni is to prevent infections from and to design a treatment for the Red Plague, which is most likely fatal to humans otherwise. Current treatments cannot cure the illness and the virus eludes our collective abilities to study it to make a vaccine.

“The solution to this conundrum was discussed at length between our heads of state and our highest ranking government scientists.” For the first time in her presentations, Twilight left the podium and began to pace at the edge of the stage. “For several days we debated the best way to research a cure. Eventually we discarded all options save one, and it was not a popular option, even among Equestrians. However, it alone would be able to both prevent and cure the Red Plague. I use the word cure literally. Treatment implies that it may not eliminate the disease.”

Twilight stopped pacing and looked out into the crowd. “I reemphasize that we, humans and ponies, do not know how this virus works, where it invades, or how it gets into human cells. If we had years to study it, then such a drastic procedure would not be necessary. Furthermore, we know that, through some uncertain mechanism, equines are immune to this disease.

“The NIH, CDC, World Health Organization, Chinese Research Commission, and the Equestrian High Council of Science and Technology all agree that, in lieu of a vaccine, the best way to save humanity is to create a gene therapy cure that will transform humans into ponies.”

Twilight’s words hung in the air as she faced the crowd solemnly. Allen looked to the Lady President and the other heads of state. They were all somber, even Celestia. As the shock of her words faded, the audience began to argue amongst themselves and gesture at the stage. 

As people around him yelled and debated with each other, Allen sunk melancholically into his chair. When he saw Dr. Tse and Jones, he knew something strange was going on, but he never thought that Project Poni would be this ridiculously ambitious. After over a half century of dedicated research into the gene therapy, science was just about to cure simple one gene genetic mutations in people. In six short months, the heads of government thought that they could jump from that to radically changing humans into ponies. It was pure science fiction fantasy at best, a deluded pipedream of a doomed species at worst.

Perhaps, Allen mused, a pipedream is still something. The human spirit was strong, and, if history was any indication, humans were diehard survivalists. Even if 99% of the human race were annihilated by the plague, the remainders would strive on and rebuild. This Project Poni would be humanity’s defiant stand to save as many lives as they could. If it failed, it would still be a heroic effort that symbolized humanity’s unwillingness to succumb silently to the nature’s whims of extinction. Allen, at the least, felt proud to be a part of that effort.

Yet, if it worked…. Allen felt mixed emotions at the thought. So many more lives could be saved, and, if enough were turned into ponies, perhaps that would allow for some “herd immunity” protection for the rest of the humans. Still, he could not imagine anyone willing to trade their humanity, something that defined their very existence, for a vaccine. If he or his family were dying of the Red Plague, however, perhaps then a cure would be worth the effort.

While Allen sat pensively, the audience had slowly become quieter, likely with calm urging from the stage. After the people in front of him finally sat down, Allen saw Dr. Watson standing beside Twilight. They had both been waiting patiently, painfully, while they let the audience’s undoubtedly anticipated reaction calm down.

Eventually everyone had sat down, except one American soldier in formal blues, one man that Allen knew very well, a man that was going to allow a testosterone-driven rage to guide his judgment instead of reason.

“Major Marcus Gunn, MD, United States Army. Requesting permission to speak freely.” 

Dr. Watson replied cordially, “This is an open science forum, sir. Your opinions are your own and should not reflect on your peers or country.” He looked at the Lady President for confirmation, and she nodded her head in agreement. 

“Thank you, ma’am.” He relaxed from his at-attention stance after saluting the president. “I believe that I speak for the majority of people in this room when I say that, proposing to turn people into horses to treat a disease, is an insult to humanity and an abomination of ethics! Are we really supposed to believe that this is the best and only option to deal with this virus?”

Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but Dr. Watson gently placed his hand on her head to quiet her. This was an intra-human concern after all. “First, Dr. Gunn, these beings are ponies, and calling them otherwise could be misconstrued as offensive,” he rebuked kindly. “Second, I need to remind you that this decision was not made lightly by the international research commission. Twilight will be discussing several other options and their critical shortcomings later—”

“This is the definition of unethical!” Marcus shouted. “This cure as you call it will strip people of their humanity. We’ll be essentially killing who they are at the very core of their identity. We don’t have the right to do this to people! What right do we have to play God?”

Soft applause reinforced his argument from many areas of the auditorium. Allen regarded Marcus coolly, but he could understand Marcus’ argument from an ethical perspective.

“I understand your argument, Dr. Gunn. In my earlier talk I mentioned that this would cause the greatest ethical debate in history, and I was not being dramatic in saying so. While I am not a physician, I do believe there is part of your oath that you should consider, ‘I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.’ 

“Dr. Gunn, if a single parent with three children caught the plague, are you saying that he or she should rather die with human dignity instead of living? I’ll grant you, it won’t be a human existence, but at least it is a life!”

Marcus was fuming. “That is not what I am suggesting! Why are we even considering this when we should be throwing all of these resources and money at making a treatment or, better, a vaccine?”

All eyes were on the stage. Watson and Twilight locked eyes and nodded in agreement. With a flash of her horn, the holoprojectors sped through Twilight’s presentation and stopped at a simple bar graph. The bar representing the cost of vaccine and therapy research covered the range of the scale. The cost of Project Poni was insignificant in comparison.

“Since we realized the devastating potential of the virus four months ago,” Watson explained, “the international community has spent this much money pushing for a vaccine or a therapeutic. We expect the amount spent to triple by the beginning of winter. Project Poni, on the other hand, has the estimated total cost seen here. The cost of this building was not factored since construction started before the conception of Project Poni. Dr. Gunn, the resources provided to Project Poni, while impressive, are insignificant compared to the vaccine research. 

Dr. Watson clasped his hand solemnly in front of him. “None of us want this project to be necessary. I would rather see a vaccine made, but as time goes on and no progress is made, it would be foolish to not attempt the impossible when the possible will likely fail.

“As a single father of three, I won’t watch my children and grandchildren die from the plague because we were too dogmatic to consider non-traditional alternatives. A life as a pony is better than a needless death as a human.”



> Chapter 2: Social Science
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



	Science is not performed in a vacuum. Science is instead a social drama replete with stories of the clashing of egos, the forging and breaking of alliances, the affairs of both academic and personal scandal, and the natural struggle of working with the same people everyday. It is such an interpersonal endeavor that, truly, the most boring aspect of science is the mundane experiments which every scientist has performed a hundred times over.




*	*	*


“Al, we’re leaving,” Marcus stated as he grabbed Allen’s arm and dragged him away from a group of scientists. Twilight’s seminar had just ended and many of the scientists were talking excitedly outside the auditorium.

“What do you mean, leaving?” Allen struggled against Marcus’s powerful grip, but eventually managed to break his hold. Allen faced him and asked, “What are you talking about?”

Marcus’ fists were clenched, his knuckles going white. “You heard what that pony was talking about in the auditorium. They’re trying to exterminate us!” While Marcus was talking, Allen was looking him over. His face was red and sweaty, his pupils dilated, and Allen could easily see his pulse throbbing in his neck.

Allen put his hands up and said calmly, “Marcus, I think you’re trying to have a panic attack. Take a deep breath and talk to me. Why do you think Twilight was—”

“Wasn’t it obvious!? I mean—” Marcus backed up and took a deep breath before continuing somewhat slower, “Look, Al, doesn’t this entire thing seem fishy to you? Why would ponies come out of hiding to help out humans? I’d rather think they’d be out for revenge. That’s what I would do.”

Allen nodded in agreement. “That thought did cross my mind. However, did you listen to Twilight’s last talk at all?” Marcus looked at Allen incredulously. Allen returned the look over his glasses. “Most of the presentation was about alternatives to Project Poni. She brought up every reasonable alternative and a few that were far more radical before dismantling each one. Hell, she even pointed out the flaws in this project! What am I supposed to do when a neurotic pony systematically discounts every viable alternative that I could come up with?”

Marcus snorted. “You walk away. Simple.”

“Absolutely not, Marcus, billions of people will die if we don’t do something.”

Marcus slammed a fist into a table he was standing next to. Plates clattered and cups were spilt. “You don’t understand, Al! Billions of people are still going to die if this Project Poni actually works. Sure, the brave ones will die of the red plague, but the rest? They’re going to become ponies. They’ve essentially died as far as humanity is concerned.”

People in the crowd were starting to stare at the two of them, but Allen was starting to get aggravated himself and did not care that they were making a spectacle. “Marcus, you’re a goddamned physician! How can you so casually disregard the lives of people?”

“No, you don’t get to say that.” Marcus shoved his finger in Allen’s face. “That is my line. Listen to yourself, Al! If Project Poni doesn’t work, then humanity dies of the plague. If it does work, then we’re assimilated into a herd. Either way humanity will die!”

Allen pushed Marcus’ finger away from his face and countered with, “Absolutely not! It will buy time for the vaccine effort and save the people who would otherwise die. Hell, it may even provide some amount of herd immunity!”

Marcus was furious. “You don’t actually believe that load of horseshit. You said it yourself; you’re only here to advance your career! Don’t try to claim the high ground against me!”

Now it was Allen’s time to be upset. He spoke without thinking. “Yes, you’re right. Originally, I wanted in on whatever research that Romberg was doing. At the time I thought this was part of the vaccine project. Turns out, I was wrong. The vaccine and drug research are flopping, and we could easily be the last line of defense between suffering on an unimaginable scale. I am not leaving this project, Marcus. I’m doing this for my family, for people who are going to die of the plague, and, damn it, I’m even doing it for you.”

Marcus shook his head and laughed. “Like hell if I’d take it anyway. No, I’m a patriot, and we patriots die for what they believe in. I’d gladly die of the Red Plague because I believe in humanity!”

“I’d like to be there when you do,” Allen scoffed.

“Whatever.” Marcus waved his hand as he turned to walk away. “I had thought that you’d be different from the other scientists seeing that you’re half physician. Turns out you’re more a scientist than I thought. Unlike you scientists, I have ethics and I understand what I believe in. You don’t even know what you believe.”

Allen bit his lip. He wanted to yell, to shout back that he did believe in something, but he knew that would have made the spectacle even worse. Already, a crowd of people were watching Marcus stomp off towards the exit. In particular, Allen saw Romberg staring at Allen with an amused smirk on her face.

Instead he just whispered, “I believe in humanity just as much as you do…”


	*	*	*


Allen glumly stared out at the Washington DC skyline. After his argument with Marcus, he had lost any interest with talking with other people and instead found a lounge near his lunch meeting where he could sit and contemplate in silence. 

Bitterly, he still thought Marcus was being too simple-minded about the serum’s potential. Patients always had the right to refuse treatment, even with the still-hypothetical ponification serum. No one would, or rather could, force anyone to undergo the transformation. The serum would only serve as an escape from an otherwise unavoidable, remarkably painful, and slow death. Of course, it would come with its rather unique and permanent side effect.

Allen tapped his fist to his head lightly. Why did he never think of things like this when he debated people? If he had time to think, he was sure Marcus would have seen reason. He sighed and reminded himself to do better next time. Maybe he would call Marcus in a few days after he had some time to cool off.

A soft female voice interrupted his reverie. “You look like you have a little raincloud following you. Is something the matter?”

Allen forced himself to smile and said to the voice behind, “Well, a friend and I were having a rather heated debate, and… I said a few things I regret.” He turned to see who was talking to him and fell off his bench in surprise when he saw a pair of gigantic goldenrod pony eyes staring back at him!

Except, he never hit the ground. He was surrounded by a soft amber glow and lifted back onto the bench. “Th-thanks,” Allen nervously said, a little shocked that she had stopped his fall with magic.

Wait, magic? That was tangible goddamn magic!

The sandy colored unicorn mare, with a braided Persian orange mane and tail, lightly blushed and said, “It was my fault for surprising you.” She held out a hoof, “My name’s Papyrus.”

Allen mentally snapped himself out of his thoughts and gently shook the velvety fur above the hoof. “Allen McMurray, pleasure to meet you.” The mare looked a little surprised. Noticing this, Allen let go of her forehoof and said, “Feel free to sit down and join me. I could use the company.”

Nodding her thanks, she sat down next to him, looking more like a dog sitting than a pony in Allen’s mind. A really large dog that was as tall as him when they were both sitting. 

An awkward silence followed as they both tried to come up with something to say to the other. Spontaneously, Allen started to chuckle and Papyrus gave him a quizzical look. Feeling like he should explain, Allen said, “Sorry, I was just thinking about how awkward that hand/hoof shake was.”

Papyrus smiled brightly, “Yeah… ponies where I’m from don’t normally shake hooves or anything like that. We usually just introduce ourselves with a nod and a smile. Still,” she nervously added, “I-figured-might-as-well-try-out-the-human-custom—ha-ha.”

“I appreciate you trying to make me comfortable,” he replied honestly.

She looked like she was about to say something else, but both of them heard voices and hoof/footsteps approaching behind them. Turning, they saw that a small group of people and ponies were heading for the conference rooms by the lounge.

Allen stood up, saying, “Looks like lunch is ready. You in the Stratum 4-iota research group, Papryus?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Then let’s go find us a spot to sit down and eat.” Allen smiled. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”


	*	*	*


“I’m a bit surprised to see you here, McMurray. I didn’t think the NIH offered post-doc fellowships for a project like this.”

Allen glared at Romberg, who was tying her curly blond hair in a bun while passively smiling back. There were more than 40 people in the conference room. Out of all of the people he had to sit across from, why did it need to be Romberg? Assigned seating be damned, Allen thought miserably.

“Not all of us were lucky enough to go from first year medical student to principle investigator in 9 years like you, Romberg.” Allen replied, struggling to smother the disdain out of his voice. 

“It’s true that luck does play some part, but you can’t expect all MD/PhDs to be as driven as I was,” Romberg said as she shrugged and looked at Allen intensely. Although she easily had 20 years on Allen, she didn’t look a day over 40. Her face and intense azure eyes were the same as when he had seen them at his first conference some 10 years ago. Added to her looks, she could hold a trustworthy and sage-like countenance that lulled the unwary into a sense of security.  

Allen had fallen for that trap once. At his first research convention, Romberg approached him and asked all sorts of questions about his generation 6 spumavirus vector research. Even though he had been exquisitely warned not to talk with Romberg by his old advisor, Allen had felt that he could trust the seemingly kind-hearted PI, and they had talked at length about his project and his goals. Turns out, Allen’s old advisor was right. Five months later, Romberg had stolen and published his project, and he had to start a new project from scratch. A single half-hour conversation had cost Allen almost two years of work and had extended his PhD by three years.

Needless to say, if looks could kill, Romberg would have been dead long before Project Poni. Instead, she was very much alive and enjoying herself at Allen’s expense. 

“So, McMurray,” Romberg said as she opened her box lunch, “If you’re here for a post-doc position. I’m sure I have room somewhere in my lab…” she pretended to think intensely, “Oh, yes. That’s right. We had to leave our dishwasher back at Mayo. I’m sure you’ve had much more experience than him considering he was just an undergrad.”

“Funny.” Allen replied dryly. She wasn’t going to get his temper to flare so easily. “Actually, Rose, I’m here as an assistant professor.”

“I know that,” she snapped. “However,” she waved her plastic knife across the room, “Every PI, post-doc, student, and technician here was handpicked by me to work on this project. I can’t help but notice that you and the ponies are the only ones that don’t work for my collaboration. Tell me, assistant professor McMurray, where is your lab?”

Instead of answering, Allen took a bite of his garden salad. Romberg chuckled, “You came here alone? Without even a technician? That’s hilarious! Tell me, what do you expect to accomplish without any lab hands?”

“But he does have a technician,” a familiar voice said to Allen’s left. Papyrus regally took a seat on the cushioned bench next to him as she gently levitated her salad onto the table. “All labs have been assigned pony technicians to aid them and to facilitate in interspecies dialogue. I’ve been assigned to Dr. McMurray,” Papyrus said as she held a hoof proudly to her breast. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” Romberg said as she took a bite of her sandwich. 

Papyrus stared at Romberg with a look of confusion. Meekly she asked, “W-what do you mean?”

Romberg wiped her lips with a napkin and glared at Papyrus. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she said icily. Looking back at Allen, her countenance softened dramatically, and she assuaged, “Even with your… “technician,” you’re going to have a hard time producing data. If I must collaborate with you, I want to make sure you aren’t wasting both of our time.”

Allen smelled a trap. He studied Rose over the top of his glasses before saying, “What are you proposing?”

“Simple. I transfer one of my best technicians and a post-doc over to your lab. Between three people, I imagine you’ll actually be able to get good work done.”

Papyrus looked like she was about to cry or jump over the table and assault Romberg, Allen was not sure which. As he turned to pat her on the back and reassure the beige unicorn, he replied, “I appreciate your offer, Rose, but I think Papyrus and myself will be productive enough on our own.”

Rose called his bluff and said, “But I insist. In fact I’ve already transferred them to your lab. Stratum 4-Iota, right?” She pointed to his right.

Allen could feel the color drain from his face. Sitting to his right were a portly 50-year-old man and a woman that was about Allen’s age. Both had expressions of surprised betrayal etched on their face. Apparently, Romberg had not thought it necessary to let them know before this moment.

“Rose… I don’t think they agree with your decision,” Allen said slowly, sharing the same mortification as his new lab personnel.

“They’ll get over it.” She took a bite of her sandwich and looked, for the first time that morning, generally pleased. “Wow, that’s a really good sandwich. I think its real chicken, too.”


	*	*	*


Allen stretched out on the bench with an exhausted sigh. It had been a long first day, and this was the first moment he had to himself since before lunch. The entire afternoon had been one meeting after another, covering everything from submitting animal research protocols to building security to, finally, the nitty-gritty details on how Project Poni was to be organized and operated. Besides the series of Project Poni meetings, the only meeting he had found remotely entertaining was the primer on Equestrian culture and science. Allen still marveled at how ponies were capable of so much without the utility of thumbs!

He took a deep breath and enjoyed the heavy scent of flowers in the humid spring night’s air. The colors of early twilight lit up the gigantic central park at the center of the Vortex Laboratory facility. Thanks to the domed glass skylight that arched over the park, the evening’s lightening reminded him of sunsets back when he was a kid, before the smog had discolored the sky. As he lay on one of the many public balconies overlooking the scenic garden below, his mind idly thought of what kind of ponies Alisha and his girls could become. He could only imagine Melody’s and Harmony’s faces when he told them he was working on a way to turn humans into ponies. It was going to be a challenge to keep mum on the reality of Project Poni for a whole two weeks!

When he heard the sound of approaching hoofsteps, Allen sat up and motioned for Papyrus to take a seat across from him at the table. She looked around quizzically before asking, “Where are Argyle and Rinne?”

She was referencing the lackeys that Romberg had assigned to his lab. “This technically isn’t a lab function,” Allen said as he rummaged in his backpack for his thermos and yixing tea pot. “I wanted a chance to get to know you before we started working together. I guess you could think of it as an informal interview over tea,” Allen said with a chuckle.

Papyrus’ ears folded back and she looked dismally at the ground. “I… I suppose you’re also trying to find a way to kick the pony out of your lab.”

“What?”

“Everypony has been talking about it all day—it seems nopony’s PI wants us around, and none of us can figure out why!” She looked at Allen with a resigned expression and sighed. “Go ahead. Do your interview and find your excuse.”

Allen was not surprised. Having a temporary worker assigned to your lab was akin to having a thief file your finances. They could be honest with their dealings, or they could be waiting for a chance to make off with your capital. The capital in this case was proprietary research data. He scratched his chin and said, “Hmm, I am pretty new to this PI thing, so I may be missing something that they aren’t. However, as far as I’m concerned, me wanting to kick you out of the lab couldn’t be farther from the truth.” He started to pour the hot water over the leaves in the teapot. Papyrus bemusedly watched his hands as he arranged the small cups, reservoir, and teapot. “How much do you know about my history with Dr. Romberg?”

“Not much, really, but I can see why you don’t like her though. She’s a poisoned apple.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Allen chuckled. “Well, the labs where I got my PhD and did my fellowship in were direct competitors with her mega-collaboration. I don’t know how pony science works, but in human science, labs compete with each other to make discoveries and understand how the world works. The more discoveries you find, the more papers you can write. The more papers you write, the more likely you are to get funding from places like the NIH, and the more likely you are to have a successful career. 

“However,” he continued, “there is healthy competition and unhealthy competition between labs. I’m sure you have noticed, but Rose has an army of PIs and researchers that work under her, as well as an extensive network of collaborators. She is quite skilled at finding out what other labs are doing and beating them to publication.”

Papyrus looked genuinely surprised and a little appalled. “That is nothing like science in Equestria! Ponies, whether they are students or faculty, are paid by the university they work at. They don’t need to publish papers as long as they work hard or teach students or, really anything. As long as somepony contributes to the university, they’re guaranteed a job.”

Allen whistled softly before replying, “I wish we had that kind of structure to our science. It would make my job a lot simpler. Still, I doubt humanity would have come so far if we followed that method, though. Competition is the mother of ingenuity, after all,” he said as he poured the tea first into the reservoir and then, from the reservoir into the two small cups. He passed a cup to Papyrus who enveloped it in an amber field.  

“Sounds to me like it would slow everything down,” she said as she smelled the hot tea cautiously, her golden eyes analyzing the contents of the cup, “Things get done a lot faster when ponies work together than when they work apart.”

“You would think that. However, it’s much the opposite. Competition drives labs to publish papers quickly to prevent other labs from beating them. Most labs will form collaborations with others across the world and they’ll share the success of the publication.” Allen shrugged as he cupped his tea with both his hands, “I suppose you could say that competition fosters collaboration.”

Papyrus grinned knowingly and crossed her hooves. “That may be true until you get a collaboration network that works to exclude competition.” Allen was about state a counter-argument when Papyrus stared him dead in the eyes and said, “Like Romberg.”

Allen sat in stunned silence for a moment. Did that really just happen? Did a pony just put Allen in his place? “Well played,” he conceded gracefully before teasing, “I must admit, you have some gall to talk like that to someone who isn’t sure if he’s going to hire you.”

“You can’t fire me anyway,” she said as she swished the contents of her cup thoughtfully, “I’m being paid by Equestria. Rinne and Argyle, likewise, are still being paid by Romberg. We don’t have to worry about repercussions when we mess with the boss.” There was a mischievous tone in her voice.

That confirmed Allen’s worries about Rinne and Argyle. He would have to keep an eye on them after all. To Papyrus he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it goes both ways.”

As Allen moved his teacup to his lips, Papyrus asked, “Don’t humans normally give a cheer before they drink?”

Smiling, Allen replied, “Usually, yes, but it’s normally reserved for special occasions and is better done with alcohol.”

“Oh…” 

“However…” Allen drawled, “since this is an interview and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t let you into the lab, I suppose we could drink to that.”

Her braided orange mane fell over her shoulder as she cocked her head and regarded Allen for a moment. She looked back at her cup and then to Allen before asking, “You really don’t mind that I’m in your lab?”

“To be honest, the other two work for Romberg, and I need someone I can trust. Pony, human, sentient sea urchin—I don’t care.” Shrugging he added genuinely, “Besides, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interesting in learning more about you ponies.”

The unicorn brushed her braid back to the left and smiled appreciatively. “That means a lot more to me than you know, Dr. McMurray—”  

“Call me Allen, please.” When he saw her surprise at the informality, he added, “I’ll be working right there with you in lab, not lording over you from an office.”

“Well then, hmm…” she said thinking aloud. After a moment she nodded and looked the man in the eyes. “In that case, Allen, I think I will offer you something that nopony has offered their PIs yet.”

That piped Allen’s interest. He tilted his head and asked, “What would that be?”

“While you and the other PIs were stuck in meetings all day, the pony technicians and I went out to meet our labmates.” While still thoughtful, the cheerfulness was noticeably absent from her voice. “Most were not happy to have us around and were less than interested in even having a conversation with us. I could tell Argyle and Rinne were trying to accommodate me, but they were still cold and distant.”

“Probably because they didn’t want to be there either,” Allen thought aloud.

“Perhaps. At any rate, I haven’t heard of anypony being treated like they’re an equal. But, here you are, talking with me over tea like we’ve been colleagues for years.” She paused pensively and then said, “You seem different from the rest of the humans, and because of that I’m willing to offer something no pony has offered to any of their labs: the friendship of a pony.”

Allen looked over his glasses at her with a deadpan expression as he said, “You realize I’m married, right?”

“I—what?” Papyrus’ face rushed between expressions of surprise, confusion, and a deep cherry red embarrassment before Allen dropped his façade to laugh at her expense.

“You should see you face! It’s priceless!”

Papyrus drooped her ears and refused to look at Allen. 

“Relax, Pap, it’s all in good fun. Besides, you are right,” she turned her gaze back onto Allen as he continued, barely able to keep the bitterness from his voice, “I don’t have any friends here, and I managed to piss off the only one that I could openly talk with about the project. Most importantly, though, I need someone I can trust in the lab.”

Allen brought his teacup up to the one she had been mindlessly levitating for several minutes. “To friendship?”

“To friendship.” They clanked their cups and drank the fragrant osmanthus Oolong tea. Its flavor harmonized well with the thick scent of the flowers from the garden, at least in Allen’s opinion.

He saw the unicorn give a shudder after she finished drinking the tea. “Something wrong?” he asked. 

“It’s bitter…” She grimaced as she smacked her lips. “Would you happen to have to any sugar?”

“Ah, I’m sorry about that. I don’t usually drink my tea with sugar, but if you want I can make a sweet herbal tea for you.” She nodded gratefully and Allen pulled out another teapot which he filled with leaves and water. “Oh well, I guess I should have used this tea from the start. I had thought that the Oolong matched the evening better than my fennel-peppermint mix, but I always forget how bitter Indian Oolongs are. It’s a real shame that China closed their tea exports.”

“You mean human tea doesn’t usually taste like that?”

“Absolutely not! Chinese and Taiwanese Oolongs are some of the sweetest and most complex Oolongs around. However, ever since Taiwan was “reclaimed” by China, there hasn’t really been any tea made for export. For the last 5 years or so I’ve been getting all of my stock from India and Africa. Although they’re definitely getting better, they have a long way to go before they make an Oolong that can compare with the East’s.”

Papyrus seemed to only be paying half attention as she rubbed her hoof over the rim of her cup. “Huh, you sound like you really like your tea.”

“Yup. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a kid.” Allen had to admit, he did tend to get carried away with his obsession at times, and in the last 5 years it had become an almost prohibitively expensive hobby. There had been one incident where Alisha had confiscated Allen’s credit card over a few kilos of tea he had imported from Nepal.

Allen figured he might as well change the subject while the tea brewed. “Say, Pap, I have a question for you. What does your—uh—flank whatchamacallit mean?”

“You mean my cutie mark?” He nodded, but the mare gave an unexpected forlorn sigh. “To be honest, I really don’t know. I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to figure it out.”

That was surprising. If the primer on Equestrian culture had taught Allen anything, it was that Equestrians normally spoke with great pride and excitement about how they got their marks and what they mean. 

“That’s strange. From what I’ve heard ponies usually get their cutie mark after they understand what their talents are. How do you have it and not know your talent?” Papyrus gave Allen a pained look like she really didn’t want to go into the topic. Allen placed a reassuring hand on her hoof and said, “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to help you, Pap. Besides, a good PI will try and help the people in their lab anyway they can.”

Papyrus nodded her appreciation at the gesture and, after a few seconds, agreed to discuss her story. As she thoughtfully sipped at the sweet herbal tea that Allen had poured for her, she told the PI how her best friend and she were the first two fillies to get their cutie mark in their class. Apparently they were both avid fans of a book series about an adventuring pegasus archeologist. When their teacher had assigned an essay to help the students discover their talents, the two ponies delved into archeological literature at the Canterlot library. In retrospect, Papyrus admitted she should have known that the documents would be very dry and boring reads, and her friend was willing to give up on the project out of frustration. 

However, Papyrus said that she knew just how much her friend wanted to be like Daring Do, the archeologist in the books, so she refused to let her foalhood friend move to a different project. Eventually the two of them had found a beautifully illustrated book about an ancient and very dangerous Zebabrian temple. Her friend loved that book so much that she spent years looking for another copy.  

Papyrus seemed to enjoy talking about her foalhood, but when the topic turned back to her cutie mark, her excitement started to dwindle. “When we finished our essays and were heading home, we discovered that our cutie marks had appeared. Hers was obviously archeology related—a chisel and a brush. Mine on the other hoof…”

“Is an open scroll of papyrus with a blue quill hovered as if to write,” Allen finished for her. Realizing her predicament, he added with a sigh, “Both of which can mean any number of things.”

Papyrus nodded solemnly and took a drink of her tea before continuing. “Since I wasn’t quite sure what my talent was at that point, I decided to try a bit of everything. I joined my friend for a brief archeological stint in Zebabre; tried my hoof at writing but couldn’t stand the isolation from other ponies; became a librarian; worked as a scribe and an aid for the Equestrian High Council Chancellor; managed bank accounts; studied magic at Canterlot Magic Academy; and, hay, even ran a Quills and Sofa store for a few months. Recently, I joined Canterlot University to try out science and alchemy, but I still didn’t feel anything special in the work I was doing.”

Allen leaned on the table and thought briefly before asking, “I take it that’s why you volunteered to join Project Poni?” Papyrus nodded and he followed up with, “What were you looking for in the other jobs?”

“To be honest, I really don’t know, Allen. I was just hoping to find something that felt right.”

“Did you have any difficulty doing your job or getting along with the other ponies?”

“Not particularly. I guess I’m intelligent enough to handle most responsibilities and tasks, and I would say that making friends has never really been a problem for me. Leaving them behind when I change careers however…” She shook her head softly, her braided Persian orange mane bobbing up and down. 

“I can see that is hard on you.”

Papyrus looked Allen squarely in the eyes and smiled knowingly. “You don’t need to treat me like a patient, Allen.”

Allen rubbed the back of his neck nervously and chuckled. “How did you know?”

“Eclectic knowledge—I suppose I’m a bit of a renaissance mare with how many careers I have had. I worked as a hospital clerk for a short time a few years ago. Physicians and nurses always have a different tone of voice when they talk to patients than when they talk to each other or the staff.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” Allen said as he poured himself and Papyrus another cup of tea.

“You didn’t, but I do appreciate the thought.” She held the cup in between hooves and talked into it, “It’s something I’ll figure out eventually.”

“I’ll still think it over, Pap, and, perhaps I’ll be able to point you in a new direction. That’s a promise.” Allen chuckled as a peculiar thought crossed his mind, “Who knows? Maybe you’ll join my lab when this is all said and done?”

“We’ll see, doctor. From what I’ve heard and seen about human science so far, I’m not sure I want to be involved after Project Poni.”

“Challenge accepted, Papyrus. I’ll see if I can’t change your mind.”


	*	*	*


Allen’s head throbbed dully as he ambled out of his small apartment into the Vortex’s dormitory corridor the next morning. His “interview” with Papyrus evolved into the mare taking him to a nightclub on the Vortex’s recreation floor. Nightclubs were not his idea of a relaxing time, but when Papyrus insisted that she share her culture with him by partying with the ponies, Allen could not resist an opportunity to learn more about the enigmatic species. After all, he had secretly planned to back out of dancing and drinking by hiding in a corner and people—err pony—watching to his heart’s content.

However, Papyrus had none of that. Within seconds of entering the rave, she had telekinetically pulled him by his tie to the bar and ordered him the Equestrian signature drink: apple cider. Even though Allen had laughed at the seemingly benign name of the beverage, he had fallen in love with its taste immediately. It was unlike any cider he had tasted before—more of crisp, succulent nectar than the thin over-sweetened beverage he had expected. According to Papyrus, this was a prized artisan craft in Equestria and was difficult for a pony to get more than a mug during any cider season.

He was halfway through his third stein of cider, enjoying the company of the other ponies and the small number of humans at the bar, when Papyrus magically gripped him again by the tie and brought him to the dance floor. It was at that moment when he realized that Papyrus had forgotten to mention a very important characteristic of the cider—it was as alcoholic as it was succulent.

Between the cider, the fantastic music of the pink and white DJ ponies, and Papyrus’ insistence, Allen not only found himself dancing in the crowd, but also enjoying himself immensely. As he reminisced, the night still seemed surreal to him—he usually hated dancing, especially in a crowded area like clubs. He had to give the mare some credit. With the exception of their wedding night, not even Alishia had managed to get Allen to dance of his own free will. 

As he walked into his lab, Allen brought his mind back to the present. The lights were already on. Someone or somepony had wanted to get an early start. Allen silently closed the door behind him, and tip-toed around the corner to get a look at whom was in the lab. To his right, he did not see anyone at the lab benches, but as he looked left towards the office space, he saw Argyle—the portly, balding lab technician that Rose had assigned him. It appeared that the technician was harmlessly setting up his workstation. 

Allen walked around the corner and waved at Argyle. “Good morning, Mr. Robertson.” 

Argyle started and turned to look at Allen with his hand on his chest. “Jesus! It’s only you, boss. I didn’t hear you come in—you’re going to give someone a heart attack sneaking up on them like that.”

“Don’t worry, I get that lot,” Allen said as he placed his suitcase on the desk closest to the aisle between the office and the workbenches. It was the only desk he could keep an eye on from almost anywhere in the lab. “I’m surprised to see anyone in this early, I must admit. Normally people try to show up late to lab meetings,” he finished with a chuckle.

“Don’t I know it,” Argyle agreed. “Still, it feels kinda weird to do anything without moving in first, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmm?” Allen said as looked over at Argyle’s desk. The tackboard was already full of pictures of him and his family on camping trips and various sporting events, as well as a few paraphernalia of what Allen assumed was his favorite teams. His three kids were all nearly full-grown. “You have a nice looking family, there, Argyle.”

“Yeah, my wife and I have been rather blessed.” He pointed to one of his two sons, and beamed proudly “This here is my oldest son, Mark. I’ll be damned if he isn’t one of the smarted kids I know—way smarter than his dad. He’ll be going to Notre Dame in the fall. I think he wants to follow in his Dad’s footsteps and learn some science while he’s there.”

Allen cocked his eyebrows at that. “I take it he got a sports scholarship, then?”

Argyle grinned knowingly, “You betcha. He’s a great linebacker. More talented than I ever was at football, I’ll say, but he’ll never hear that from me!”

“It sounds like he’ll do well over in Indiana.”

“Yeah.” Argyle looked down at his desk, visibly saddened. “Turns out, though, his graduation is this upcoming weekend.”

Allen’s heart went out to the man. “I’m sorry to hear that, Argyle.”

Argyle shrugged and forced a smile. “Yeah, but it’s the price we pay to work with Rose. Sometimes we just have to give up family time if we’re close to publication. After 12 years of it, though, you get around to accepting that.”

Allen wanted to help him out by letting him have the weekend off, but there was no way he could justify it. The research already had to be done at impossible speeds, and the project expected every lab to pull long days and work on the weekends to finish on time. Vacation simply was not an option. 

Frustrated, Allen went back to his desk and moving papers and folders from his bag into his desk drawers. He grumbled, “I really don’t understand why Rose assigned you to me. I mean, hell, if she knew your kid was graduating she should have kept you in her lab. Surely someone could have taken over your responsibilities for a weekend.”

Argyle sighed and said, “You don’t know Rose very well, boss. There are a lot of benefits to working in her lab, and we’re usually doing really exciting stuff. It’s just that, well, there’s a lot of people in the lab to keep track of, so some important things fall through the cracks.”

“Still, that’s not right. Believe me, if I could afford to let you go see your son, I absolutely would, but we’re such a small lab that I need everyone here in order to attempt to compete with Rose.”

Argyle stopped unpacking and looked at Allen sincerely. “I appreciate the thought, boss, I really do. Truth be told, once I heard about Project Poni, I expected this. So did my family for that that matter.” They worked in silence for a while, until Argyle inquired softly, “Do you have a family, doc?”

“Please, call me Allen. I’ll be getting my hands dirty with you in lab, not hiding in an office like the older PIs.” Argyle was a bit taken aback by Allen’s bluntness, but nodded. “Yes, though, I do have a wonderful family—a feisty but brilliant wife and two adorable and quite mischievous little girls. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering why you weren’t putting up any pictures on your desk.”

Allen stopped what he was doing and thought to himself. No, he had not thought to bring any pictures of the girls or Alisha with him. To Argyle he said, “I normally just store my pictures on my PEDA, I guess. They take up less space that way.”

“Hmm, I suppose that works, but it’s not quite the same, is it?” When Allen looked at him with a confused looked on his face, Argyle explained, “I mean, you have to go hunting for the pictures on your PEDA. They aren’t always there for you like if you hang them up on your wall. Besides, won’t it be a long six months without seeing their faces?”

“I suppose you have a point.” Way to guilt trip the boss, Allen mused to himself. He was saved from responding by hearing the lab door open and the voice of two women talking.

“I don’t see why you have to come and wake me up,” the first voice sounded irritated, “I would have made it to the lab meeting at some point.”

“But, it’s the first lab meeting, Rinne!” Allen immediately recognized Papyrus’ voice. “You can be late to that!”

“It’s at nine in the morning. Rose at least held them in the afternoon,” Rinne huffed as the two of them turned the corner into sight. Rinne was frizzy red-head who was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. By the looks of her long, tangled hair and ripped jeans, it looks like Papyrus did not give the girl much time to get ready.

At least she had remembered to wear closed toe shoes, Allen thought.

“Actually, Rinne, I’ll probably have our meetings in the afternoon, too,” Allen said as he gathered what he needed for the meeting. “However, I figured we should probably meet earlier this morning since it’s the first day.” 

“Fine, whatever. I’m here, no thanks to your little pony. Where are we having this thing, anyway?” 

Allen pointed back towards the entrance door. “In the office that would have been mine if I cared to use it. There’s a circle table that should fit the four of us.” As she was about to storm off that way, Allen added, “There’s still time if you want to go and grab a coffee from the break room—unless you like tea, of course. I’ll be making plenty of that at the meeting.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she grumbled. 

Allen exchanged looks with Papyrus, who was wearing a white lab jacket with her cutie mark stitched onto the pockets. Papyrus shrugged and said, “I dunno. She was like this yesterday too.”

Argyle groaned. “Get used to it guys, she’s always like this. About the only person she doesn’t go out of her way to upset is Rose.”

“Hmm, I do like her choice of clothing,” Allen said as he pointed to his black polo and jeans. Looking at Argyle, he said, “You don’t need to dress up in khakis and a nice shirt, you know? Might as well be comfortable and not get your nice clothes ruined by the chemicals. Besides, it won’t bother me if you look less professional.”

Argyle chuckled and said, “Yeah, yeah, but I’m used to wearing business casual at this point, and at least I won’t wear anything with that many holes in my pants. I’ll guarantee you that, boss.”

“What about me, Allen?” Papyrus asked.

Allen walked over and felt the thick, but remarkably soft fabric of her lab jacket. “Where did you get this, Pap? This is nothing like the cheap throw-away jackets that we have here.”

“Actually,” Papyrus blushed a little bit, “I heard that the Princesses commissioned a fashionista to get our sizes and make them for us. There were a few hundred of us, so I can only imagine how long it took her to make all of them!”

Artisan crafts indeed, Allen mused to himself. He’d love to have a jacket that could last him more than a few months before the damn thing ripped. Even his medical white jacket was cheaply made. As were most things in the world nowadays, he supposed.

“You need to wear this jacket at all times in the lab, mostly for your own safety.” She looked a bit confused at the double standard, so he added, “The rest of us have clothes we can remove if we get acid or a mutagen on us—which is why I’m not making the others wear their jackets unless they want to. Besides, you might be able to get a chemical stain off of your jacket, but good luck getting it off of your fur.”

After securing Papyrus’ agreement, Allen looked at both her and Argyle, put his hands together and said, “Well, then, I’ll go and get us some breakfast and put the water on the boil for tea. I’ll see the both of you in a few minutes.”

*	*	*

This was it. Allen’s first lab meeting as a PI. Was he nervous? Absolutely. However, he was much more excited about presenting the project and picking the minds of his lab mates. 

Assuming, of course, Rinne was going to show up to the meeting. It was over 15 minutes after the lab meeting was supposed to begin, and she was still missing. Only after he and the other two had eaten their bagels and made a fair bit of small talk did the prodigal daughter wordlessly return and take a seat. Allen was tempted to ask Rinne if she had drip brewed the coffee herself milliliter by milliliter with a filter syringe, but managed to restrain himself. 

“Alright, gang, now that everyone is here, let’s get this this started.” Allen set his PEDA to presentation mode, and a project flow chart aligned with the different stories of the ‘Tex floated at the center of the table. “This chart is the same one that Miss Sparkle and Dr. Watson presented at the principal investigator dinner yesterday where the details on Project Poni were discussed. I’ll leave it up for you guys to look at it while I go through some trivial nonsense the administration wanted me to discuss.”

He pulled out a sheet of paper from his bag and scanned it quickly before rolling his eyes and tossing it aside. He leaned on the table and said simply, “Look, you’re all adults and you know your way around a lab.” Papyrus cocked her eyebrows and Allen amended, “Well, most of you do, at any rate. I trust that, between the three of us, we’ll have Papyrus up to speed in no time.

“That said, I’m not going to enforce all of the safety rules, but I trust you to make your own judgments. For instance, if you’re going to play with caustics and flammables, you might want to wear your lab jacket. Personally, I recommend using gloves whenever you’re doing benchwork, unless you don’t mind mutagens. Then, by all means, go skinny dipping into the ethidium bromide.” Allen was proud of that joke, and at least Argyle chuckled to it. Rinne, on the other hand, rolled her eyes, but Papyrus was just very confused. Unfortunately, it seemed he would have to go light on the science humor. “All I ask,” he continued, “is that you do two things for me. First, wear long pants and closed-toe shoes, if applicable, so that the administration doesn’t get on me, and, second, wear the disposable lab jackets and gloves in the tissue culture room to prevent infections from ruining the samples.

“Moving on, I’m also supposed to tell you all that Papyrus isn’t allowed below the second floor of the ‘Tex until after next Friday. If you want to hang out together before then, I recommend you do it at the recreation areas on the second floor. I hear that they have restaurants, a park, a theater, and, apparently, really good shopping.” Allen chuckled lightly as he added, “There’s probably no good reason to leave the ‘Tex unless you want to do some sightseeing, really. It’s like a small city here.”

“Now that we’re done with that, let’s move on to the more interesting topic—namely, how Project Poni is going to function.” As he pointed towards the third floor mission, he saw the other three lean in to listen intently. “The third floor is shared between experts in biochemistry, molecular biology, and genomics. Their responsibility is to design a novel biochemical pathway that will force human cells to undergo controlled chromothripsis and genomic reconstruction to match that of Equestrians, or, if you prefer, Equus Equestia.”

Argyle whistled at that, but Papryus raised a hoof and asked, “So… what does that mean?”

To Allen’s surprise, Rinne crossed her arms and answered the question rather bluntly, “It means they’re going to try and blow up all 46 human chromosomes and stitch them back together to make the 64 chromosomes found in ponies. It’s PFM if you ask me.”

“PFM?” Papyrus inquired.

“Pure Fucking Magic.”

“Oh, well, that makes a lot of sense then.” Everyone stared at Papyrus’ serious demeanor as she continued, “Then I have to ask, why are the human PI’s in charge of the project if it’s all done with magic?”

Argyle burst out in howls of laughter and started slapping the table. It took all of Allen’s self-control to not join the older technician in laughter. Instead, he held out his hand and said, “It’s just a human expression, Pap. Rinne meant she had no idea how they’re going to manage that.”

“And you do?” Rinne countered.

“I have a rudimentary understanding,” Allen commented thoughtfully. “I don’t know if you remember, but Dr. Ben Jones is famous for creating novel enzymes. Hell, he practically cured Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakobs when he made the ‘Amyloid Annihilator’ enzyme, and that is just one example.”

“But, boss,” Argyle interjected, “That’s just one enzyme, and it took him two years to make, let alone verify. How’s he going to make all the proteins we need to coordinate such a mess?”

“Well, it’s a bit outside my field, but I imagine that since the technology and theory behind novel protein creation has been established since then, progress should be much faster. Not to mention,” Allen scratched his chin nervously, “He’s in a similar position to Romberg as he has his armada of collaborators and representatives of his competition to work with.”

“Don’t put yourself on too high a pedestal, there, McMurray.” Rinne retorted.

Allen dramatically played like her words cut deep before leaning back onto the table and continuing, “At any rate, in addition to Dr. Jones, they also have the epigenetic expertise of Dr. Chuang Tse.”

“Epigenetics? I thought he was well known for synthesizing the human genome from scratch?” Argyle asked.

Rinne nodded, but spoke bitterly, “Yeah, that was a side project of his. Amazing what you can do with unlimited resources and personnel in China.”

“Look who’s calling the kettle black,” Allen quipped, already getting tired of Rinne’s negativity. 

Almost growling, she retorted, “Yeah, but at least Rose pays our people enough to live on, and, as much as we would like it, we just don’t have unlimited government funds to play around with.”

Papyrus interjected softly again, “If you don’t mind me asking, what is epigenetics, exactly?”

Argyle scratched his comb-over and said, “To put it simply, it’s modifying the proteins DNA wraps around to control the cell’s DNA. It’s a lot like flipping on or off a light switch. If you flip it on, the protein or enzyme is made from DNA, and if you flip it off, production stops.”

“Huh, then I must be missing something,” Papyrus thought aloud. “Surely there are more differences between humans and ponies than just rearranging and turning on different parts of DNA.”

“Absolutely,” Allen agreed. “Dr. Tse has a tremendous task ahead of him. Not only does he need to create a chromosome of DNA that codes for all of Dr. Jones’ enzymes and codes for the epigenetics that ensure that each enzyme is made at precisely the right time, but he also has to account for all the tiny differences between human and pony genomes. Somehow, he’ll add those DNA sequences to his synthetic chromosome, and, at the right time, they’ll be clipped out and pasted to complete the pony genome.

“If it works, this will be quite the elegant solution—we can transform humans into ponies, and the new ponies will retain some uniquely human variants of shared genes. I suppose it’ll actually strengthen the variety of the pony gene pool.”

“At the cost of our own,” Rinne muttered under her breath. Allen saw Papyrus flinch slightly at Rinne’s comment, but he chose to ignore both of their reactions.

“At any rate, that’s what they’re doing downstairs. Now here, on our floor,” Allen pointed to the fourth floor, “we’re in charge of creating a formulation and a vector to deliver the new chromosome to every cell in the body, which I admit is a tall order.” Argyle and Rinne nodded in agreement. “No one has successfully found a way to deliver a gene therapy vector evenly. There has always been a subset of cells that are not altered, and, more dangerously, cells that get a double or triple dose of the vector by random chance. Thankfully, we have a group of Equestrian collaborators who will… um…” Allen motioned for Papyrus to comment.

Thankfully, she took the hint. “They’re developing a Springmare spell matrix that will enhance the entropic dispersal of the vector to ensure even and perfect uptake of the vector. Additionally, the Springmare matrix can be incorporated into most other matrices that the ponies on the 6th floor may need to develop.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Allen had no idea what a spell matrix was, and, judging by looks on the other two humans, neither did they. Better to ask for a full rundown later, he figured. “In addition to our labs and the equines across the floor, there are also a suite of pharmacology labs that will be working with us to formulate the finalized vector as well as an immunology lab we can consult so that our vector doesn’t outright kill our patients. Until we reach that stage of development, however, they have been assigned as extra manpower to the third floor research, for obvious reasons.

“I’ll get back to our specific research in a moment, but first I want to go through the other floors to outline the resources we have available to us. The 5th floor is exclusively for animal models to provide pre-human safety experiments as well as in vivo proof of concept studies. The 6th floor hosts the majority of the endocrine, neurology, and magitechnology labs. In addition to assisting the lower floors, they’re also studying and comparing differences between human and pony physiology and will be instrumental for determining the efficacy of the final ponification serum. The 7th floor is largely tech support, administration, and some bioinformatics, but the 8th and 9th floors have been called the ‘Citadel.’

“The Citadel, from what I’ve been told, is a small, fully furbished hospital as well as a small scale translational laboratory and factory. They’ll be producing pilot study batches of pontification serum and will be the site for the safety trials in healthy humans. Also, if you get ill at anytime during your tenure here, I have heard that all medical expenses have been waved if you use the Citadel’s services.”

Considering that free medical care was unheard of outside the military, both Rinne and Argyle were pleasantly surprised at the news. Argyle even joked about flying his son over here if he got a sports injury at summer training camp. 

After entertaining some light tangential conversation about differences between Equestrian and American health care, namely how cheap Equestrian health care was compared to crippling cost of American hospital bills, Allen dragged the other three back to the topic at hand. “Alright, everyone. Let’s get back to business—namely discussing our battle plan for the next couple of months. As expected, Rose and I had a few disagreements on what kind of vector we should develop for the synthetic chromosome, so we’ll be taking a different approach than her.” When he saw Rinne raise her eyebrows at that comment, Allen asked her, “Do you know anything about Rose’s Vaccinia virus vector?”

Both Argyle and Rinne groaned. Reluctantly, Rinne responded unenthusiastically, “Yeah, we know about that. It’s been a side project Rose has been working on for years. If we ever get any undergraduate or high school summer students in the lab, she always throws them on it because no one else really wants to touch it.”

Argyle nodded his agreement before adding, “Everything about that vector is a pain in the ass. Not only is it hard to modify the DNA due to size of its genome, but it grows slowly in tissue culture, and it tends to fall apart unless you freeze and thaw it just so.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” Allen said with a grimace. “So, I take it she’s only using it because it can store a lot of DNA?”

“Well…” Rinne frowned, not really wanting to share her thoughts.

“That’s not quite the entire story,” Argyle said quietly. “It’s been heavily modified to not cause a sustained infection or an immune response at all. Also, we’ve added proteins that allow it to cross the blood-brain barrier and infect most cells. Even after the modifications, it still doesn’t really infect neurons in the brain or most types of muscle very well, though.”

Allen nodded slowly. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. “Ok, so now it makes sense why Rose was pushing the Vaccinia virus vector so hard at yesterday’s meeting. She is using Project Poni as an excuse to finish developing this platform—even though she’s ignoring all of its downsides when it comes to manufacturing and administering it to patients.”

Rinne threw her hands into the air and leaned back in her chair. “What choice do we have? Vaccinia is a poxvirus. They’re the largest human virus vector we understand! We need its huge DNA capacity if we are ever going to fit a whole synthetic chromosome in a vector.”

“But they can only hold a few hundred thousand DNA bases,” Allen countered calmly. “If Dr. Tse is as legendary as he seems, then he might be able to compact all Dr. Jones proteins and the differences between human and pony genomes into that amount of DNA.” Allen shook his head dismissively, “As far as the project is concerned, Rose is gambling on a miracle with that vector. I’m expecting the final chromosome will tally in the millions or tens of millions of bases—not thousands. A Vaccinia vector simply will not be able to contain that amount of information.”

Papyrus, who had been quiet for a long time, asked the question that Allen was both expecting and dreading. “So, if we aren’t using Rose’s virus vector, what are we using?”

Chewing on his lip in thought, Allen debated how much he should share with Argyle and Rinne. Deciding to play it safe, he said, “It’s a vector I was working on during my fellowship. I was part of the medical nanotechnology research division at John Hopkins, and my project dealt with increasing the size and loading capacity of medical liposomes.” For Papyrus’ benefit, Allen explained, “Liposomes are kinda like simple cells. They have an outer membrane similar to what a cell has, but usually contain drugs for diseases like cancer. If you add the right kind of proteins to the membrane, you can target them specifically to any kind of cell—such as cancer or stem cells or really anything. They’ve done wonders with reducing the side effects of chemotherapy.”

Argyle smiled, “That’s really old technology, boss. I remember back when it was brand new. There were a lot of people trying to standardize the liposome storage capacity, since the size of those things varied so much. In the end, all they could reliably make were miniature nano-scale liposomes. How did you manage to increase their carrying capacity while preventing massive size fluctuation?”

“I had a lot of help,” Allen admitted sheepishly. “The lab I joined had several ideas, but no one was interested in focusing on such a high risk project. I took a gamble and trusted the experience of the people I was working with. Luckily, things paid off for all of us.”

“Still, though, what did you do to increase their capacity?” Rinne asked, seeming genuinely interested.

Allen looked down at his PEDA and shook his head. He could tell Rinne and Argyle were honestly curious—as any scientist should be. If he were in their position, he would have been asking a flood of question as to how the enhanced liposomes worked. Still, a nagging voice in Allen’s mind reminded him that Rose had also been just as benignly interested when he explained his first project to her so many years ago.

“I’m afraid I’m still bound by my old contract with John Hopkins. I can’t discuss how it works until they receive patent pending status.” 

Allen saw Argyle nodding but he had an unreadable expression on his face. Rinne, on the other hand, was more visibly aggravated. She stared at Allen intently and asked bluntly, “So, you expect us to work blindly on a vector we don’t understand? Tell, me, McMurray, what happens if we run into issues making it? How are we going to troubleshoot the problems?”

“I’ll take care of any troubleshooting with regard to the vector,” Allen declared as he typed a few things into his PEDA. “I’m forwarding the protocols to making the vector to you, Rinne. All of the components are coded and should be in the -80 freezer. We should have enough of the frozen core components that we won’t need to make more immediately, but we should still get the cell lines up anyway. However, I still need you to purify the homing protein we’ll be adding to the membrane—”

Allen was interrupted by Rinne pounding her fist on the table. “So, you’re going to treat me like a technician, then? Mindlessly running experiments for you?”

As he addressed the upset Post-Doc, his voice was stern and even, “No. I am giving you control over the most important aspect of the project. I need you to purify the homing protein—”

“What, pray-tell, is this supposed homing protein?” Rinne was getting more and more frustrated.

Allen knew he could not worm his way out of this one, so he acquiesced. “It’s an antibody that activates the low-density-lipoprotein receptor. In case you don’t know, LDL is—”

“I know what LDL is, McMurray. Its bad cholesterol, and every cell in the body has receptors for it.” She stared at Allen for a few moments, angrily tapping her finger on the table. Eventually, she huffed a large sigh and sat back in her chair, saying, “I suppose targeting LDL receptors is a smart idea. Makes me wish we had thought of that.”

Allen politely nodded to her compliment before addressing the three of them, “This is how I envision things happening this week. Rinne, you’ll be teaching Papyrus basic tissue culture technique as you make the homing protein. After you finish that, I’ll walk you through the vector assembly protocol, and then we’ll start the in vivo mouse trials. In the meantime, Argyle and myself will go through the lab and take inventory. Argyle, you’ll be the one in charge of ordering supplies and taking care of the mouse colony.” 

Argyle reluctantly nodded his head, not looking Allen in the eyes. Allen looked over at Rinne who was tapping her clenched fist repeatedly onto the armrest of her chair. She was looking blankly in the direction of Papyrus’ cutie mark. The unicorn, for the most part, was staring sadly at the desk in front of her.

The lab meeting was not supposed to end like this, Allen fretted internally. He was supposed to inspire and motivate everyone to do their best in the upcoming week. Where did he go wrong? 

Allen tried to be chipper and sound excited to motivate the others. “Alright, everyone. Let’s get to it. We have a busy week ahead of us, but, if we’re lucky, we’ll have data before anyone else on the floor!”

Allen’s efforts were in vain. After the three of them had apathetically shuffled out of the office-turned-conference-room, he was left alone with his thoughts. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, this is how PIs felt after every laboratory meeting.


	*	*	*


The rest of the week was one of the most awkward experiences in Allen’s life. Everyday he felt like he could not relax and enjoy being around his lab members. In his opinion, there was definitely more going on than his lab simply acting strange in front of the boss.

For instance, he could understand why Rinne was avoiding him. Undoubtedly, she saw through his ruse and knew that he was purposely withholding information on the vector from her and Argyle. When Allen was around Rinne, she tended to only talk to Papyrus as she showed the mare how to handle human cells in the tissue culture room. Otherwise, she remained quiet and standoffish unless Allen directly spoke with her.

Papyrus, on the other hand, spent most of her time learning from Rinne. Any time Allen had an opportunity to talk with her, the unicorn was understandably frazzled and exhausted. From experience, he knew that spending the entire day observing, learning, and then performing experiments was draining on a person. Considering that Papyrus needed to use telekinesis to do any delicate motor work with the human-designed instruments, he imaged that the extra strain of magic use further taxed the mare. Still, she had remained rather supportive and encouraging towards Allen. In her opinion, he was just adjusting to his newfound role as a PI and only needed to get used to how to direct people according to their talents. While her words were of some comfort to Allen, she was rarely free or of lucid enough thought to give him any solid advice.

Argyle was, if anything, a direct foil to Rinne. He was amicable and would talk about most any topic at great lengths with Allen. This was great for the first couple of days when they were taking inventory as it kept the process from being dull. However, as the week went on, Allen noticed that many of Argyle’s “chores” such as mixing up fresh solutions of buffer, ordering supplies, and keeping tabs on the mice colonies were not being completed. Instead, Argyle tended to spend his time with his PEDA on social websites, talking with his family, or bothering Allen while he was working on validating the vector. Allen would have thought the technician bored to death if it was not for that fact that he was skirting his responsibilities. As much as Allen wanted to reprimand him more fiercely for neglecting his duties, Allen was conscious that doing so could easily drive the technician away from him. He was not sure which option was worse: silently supporting indolence or potentially severing his last guaranteed source of socialization. 

Saying that the status quo of the lab was unstable would be an understatement. Just a few days later, the Thursday of the first week, the situation began to unravel. 

The day had begun benignly enough. Allen was usually the first person in the lab, but that morning he had walked in to find Papyrus sleeping with her muzzle amidst protocol and basic cell biology books. After gently waking her up, he shared half his thermos of strong, bitter morning tea with the exhausted unicorn. Of course, the pony needed to dump a small river of sugar and cream into the cup before she found it remotely drinkable. 

Over tea they made some small talk about the lab and how Papyrus was holding up. While she had found the work enjoyable, if tiring, he was surprised to discover that the mare particularly liked working with Rinne. When he inquired further, all Papyrus said was that he should get to know her better, and he would see that there was more to the “ice princess” than first impressions would indicate. 

Perhaps she has a point, Allen thought to himself as he went to check on the progress of the pony’s homing protein cells in the tissue culture lab. After donning his laboratory jacket and gloves, he opened up the incubator to be assaulted by a horrifyingly familiar smell.

Moldy hay.

Cursing profoundly, he took out each of the cell culture dishes to find that they all had blooms of fungus growing in the yellowed solution. As he set about making a bleach dilution to clean the incubator, he heard the door open. Papyrus’ face poked quizzically through the cracked door. She had obviously heard Allen’s loud and quite explicit rant.

Sighing, Allen said, “Go ahead and grab your tissue culture jacket. I’m going to need your help.”

“What exactly happened, and why does it smell so… mmm, delicious in here?” she asked as she donned her garb.

Allen looked at the mare over the top of his glasses skeptically. “You honestly think this smells delicious?”

“Well, sourhaiut is an acquired taste, I suppose, but it is the regional dish around Neighlin.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Allen replied in a deadpan voice. “Actually, Pap, we have huge fungal infection in here.” He passed a tissue culture dish to Pap for her to examine. “Full adult blooms in every dish. All of the cells you two have worked on all week are ruined.”

Papyrus was quiet for a moment before asking meekly, “Did we do this?”

Allen passed her a spray bottle and asked her to start spraying bleach into each of the tissue culture dishes to decontaminate them for disposal before answering her question. “No, the two of you probably didn’t cause this. Odds are, the incubators weren’t cleaned or maintained before we moved in. Plenty of time for mold spores to—” he opened up the water reservoir and immediately regretted it, “germinate and take over the entire fucking water reservoir.”

Coughing at the stench, he poured a liberal amount of bleach into the reservoir and placed the pan onto a counter. In the meantime, he started to disassemble smaller components of the incubator to drop them into a bucket of alcohol to soak.

For the next two hours, he and Papyrus went through the entire tissue culture room and sanitized every surface first with alcohol and then with industrial-grade-knock-your-socks-off-eat-through-metal-one-of-a-kind fungicide and spore-cide cleaner. By the time they were done, the tissue culture room reeked of booze and vinegar’s steroid-pumping, fungus killing cousin.

If justice had a smell, it would be that combination of chemicals.

As Papyrus and Allen were putting away the cleaning supplies, Rinne walked in the door and nearly gagged at the smell in surprise. “What the hell happened in here?”

“Massive fungal infection. I’m surprised you didn’t smell it earlier,” Allen said matter-of-factly.

“I’ve had a cold.” Allen stared at her, trying to see if she was being serious. She stared back just as intensely, saying, “I’m personally surprised you didn’t call in the Vortex Cleaning Corps. They could have saved you a few hours.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure they did a great job sanitizing our incubator here when it was installed,” he replied dryly. “Don’t forget, Rinne, they’re government staff. Quality and excellence in their work isn’t exactly their forte.” 

“You know, technically we’re all paid by the government through our research grants.”

Allen rolled his eyes at the quite true comment. Papyrus tapped his hip with a hoof and asked, “So what do Rinne and I do while the incubator is drying and resetting?”

Allen though for a moment to himself before replying, “Well, without the homing protein, about the only thing we can do is verify that the vector can reliably carry large chromosomes.” Rinne perked up upon hearing this, but he quickly added, “That I have been working on while you two have been growing cells to produce the homing protein.” 

What he did not mention was that the vector was having some difficulty encapsulating large chromosomes. Smaller ones such as number 22 or even the moderately large number 7 were packaged without any issues. The largest human chromosomes, namely 1 and 2, however, were only being packaged with, at most, 10% efficiency. While Allen doubted the project’s synthetic chromosome would be that large, it did raise some concerns about the integrity of his vector. His experiments back at John Hopkins indicated that it should be able to hold more material than that, though.

Rinne looked both exasperated and fatigued. “Look, McMurray, I don’t know if Papyrus told you this, but I really hate the monotony of cell culture.”

“So does every Post-Doc,” he replied. “Tell you what, once you finish this, I’m putting you in charge of the mouse studies.”

For once, Rinne genuinely smiled. “I appreciate it, but if it’s not too much to ask, I’d also like to help you with any troubleshooting you have to do with the vector.”

Allen made a pained face. On one hand, he knew he might need a fresh pair of eyes to find any obvious problem in his design that he would otherwise overlook, but he could not risk Rose finding out about the workings of his vector until he presented it at next Saturday’s floor meeting. While he could tell Rinne was genuinely interested in working with him, he absolutely could not risk the red head or Argyle accidentally or purposely tipping off Rose. He would not have another one of his inventions stolen by that woman!

“I’m sorry, Rinne…” was all he could say.

“Fine, whatever.” Rinne turned to Papyrus and asked the mare, “Did the two of you throw away all of the cell nutrient media that was in the fridge?” When she nodded, Rinne laughed and said, “Joke’s on you, McMurray. Those were the last bottles of cell media. We can’t do a damn thing in the tissue culture lab!”

“What!?” Something snapped in Allen’s mind, and he screamed, “ARGYLE!”

On the other end of the lab, he heard the sound of a chair crashing to the ground. After a few seconds passed, a limping Argyle hobbled over to where the others were standing.

Allen was furious. “Would you care to explain why we don’t have any cell nutrient media?”

Feebly, Argyle answered, “Because there’s a shipping delay?”

Allen glared over his glasses and the balding man shrunk back. “That’s bullshit and you know it. I told you to order that back on Monday when we finished inventory. Even with a shipping delay it would have been on your desk at the latest by Wednesday morning! So, tell me. Did you order the media yet?”

Argyle’s reply was barely above a whisper, “Um, no. Not yet.”

Allen took off his glasses and grasped the bridge of his nose in anger with his gloved hands. Between clenched teeth he said, “Get out of the lab, Argyle. If you’re going to be useless, go be useless in your own apartment. If you feel like actually contributing, come back in the morning.”

When Allen opened his eyes to see Argyle just staring at him in surprise, Allen said, “Did I stutter? I don’t want to see you until tomorrow! Get out!”

As Argyle scurried out the door, Allen turned towards the other two. Papyrus had a mortified look on her face. Rinne, on the other hand, was quite amused. Apparently, she had been waiting for someone to chew the balding man out. 

Pointing to Rinne he said, “You’ve done good work so far, so go and treat yourself to a coffee and relax for a few minutes. When Papyrus and I get back from spending an arm and a leg at the lab supply venders downstairs, I need you to start thawing cells again.”

As he walked to the door, removing his gloves and throwing his blue tissue culture jacket on a lab bench, he heard Rinne give a heavy sigh. At least she was smart enough not to protest the topic further.

*	*	*

“By Celestia’s penetrating horn, I can’t believe you did that to Argyle.”

The comment had caught Allen off guard. It was the first thing Papyrus had said since they left the lab, and he had not expected her to say something so vivid while they were browsing in the supply store. After expending most of his frustration and anger on Argyle, he found he was too emotionally drained to feel any measure of regret. However, in the wake of his emotional fatigue, introspection was starting to poke at his conscience.

“I will admit I could have probably handled that better,” Allen turned away from the refrigerator stocked with merchandise to look first at Papyrus’ sad golden eyes and then at her hooves. He sighed and said, “Look, It’s not like I hadn’t been pushing him to do his work all week. As long as he got it done before it inconvenienced anyone, I would have been happy.”

Papyrus frowned. “I’ll admit I haven’t had a chance to talk with Argyle as much as you have, but he seems to be rather distracted about something. Besides, why would Romberg have kept Argyle around if he was lazy?”

Allen perked an eyebrow as he pulled out some bottles of media and saline from the fridge. “If I didn’t know any better, Pap, I’d say you’re starting to sound more like a human than a pony. It didn’t sound like ponies would throw their own out on the street for not doing their job.”

Papyrus blushed immensely and stammered, “I-it’s not like that at all! If somepony isn’t doing well with their job, they’re normally reassigned until they find a position that they can do. Besides, that was just my thoughts on observing you humans! Honest!”

Allen laughed and patted Papyrus on her head. Her Persian orange mane was softer than he expected. “Sure, sure. That totally isn’t your inner human desperately trying to get out,” he teased to Papyrus’ obvious chagrin. 

As he picked up his basket and continued to browse the rest of the store for any other supplies they might need immediately, he told Papyrus about Argyle’s situation with his son’s graduation and how important it seemed to be for the man. After hearing about this, Papyrus asked why he did not simply give Argyle a leave of absence to go home and celebrate with his family. In her opinion it seemed like the obvious solution since he would come back rested, clear-minded, and ready to work.

Allen could not dispute her logic. Earlier in the week he had assumed that Argyle would pull his weight and Allen would not be able to afford to let him leave. Considering how useful the technician had been so far, having the man take a few days off would not affect lab performance much at all. It could only help.

As he paid the cashier three times the actual cost of the supplies, the cogs of his mind were turning. At this point, he was absolutely sure that Papyrus had an uncanny ability to understand people. Not only did she intuit how far she could tease and poke Allen during their “interview,” but she had also made quick friends with a misanthropic ice princess, understood that Argyle was troubled without so much as talking to him about it, and, at this moment, was doing her best to subtly cheer Allen up.

If his dysfunctional lab was going to be successful, he realized he needed to capitalize on the unicorn’s rare talent. 

After he loaded up her saddlebags with what they bought, the two of them walked through the second floor shopping area. After walking past an electronic store, he stopped and said thoughtfully, “I think it’s time we rearranged duties in the lab. What do you think, Pap?”

Smirking, she said, “I think that’s the best idea you’ve had all week.”

Turning towards the store, he said, “I’m putting you in charge of ordering supplies since—” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Papyrus shake her head, and he stopped midsentence.

Tapping a hoof on his stomach, she said, “That ‘I’m the prince of the lab and you’ll do as I say’ attitude is the entire reason why you have had all this trouble. You need to talk to people and find out what they are passionate about doing in the lab instead of just assigning them roles.” Dropping her voice, she added a bit sadly, “Remember what you told me during our mock interview: ‘A good PI will always look out for and help out the people that work for them.’”

Allen stood in stunned silence. What had happened to him? In just a short week of being a PI, he had lost touch with what he had considered to be his cardinal lab virtue. There was no way he could place the blame on Romberg. It was completely his fault for letting his paranoia of her stealing his research affect how he treated his lab mates.

Deflated and now completely emotionally drained, he sat down on a nearby bench. Numbly he asked, “Well, in that case, what would you be interested in doing in the lab?”

Patting his back reassuringly, Papyrus said, “I’ve always had a knack for bookkeeping, so I’d be more than happy to take over most of Argyles old responsibilities as long as I’m able to learn more about human science from somepony.”

“So, you still want to do some experiments of your own, I take it?” She nodded in response, and Allen’s mind started to trudge through how he was going to rearrange the rest of the lab responsibilities between Argyle, Rinne, and himself.

“You know, you should probably ask Rinne and Argyle what they want to do before you go and assign them things they will probably hate,” she said coyly.

Allen’s eyes went wide, “How did you know what I was thinking?”

Smiling, she said, “I didn’t, but I could make an educated guess. You are more predictable than you think, Allen.”

Taking the teasing in stride, Allen found himself smiling with the unicorn, but he still had one nagging question on his mind. “Pap, I want your honest opinion on something. If I let Rinne work with me on the vector, do you think she’ll give the information or the components to Romberg?”

The pony shook her head. “She’s quite upset with Romberg over being transferred to your lab. Still, I think you should talk with her about it when we get upstairs.”

“I’ll do that, then.” Surprising even himself, Allen took to a knee and gave the unicorn a grateful hug. “Thanks for helping me get my head on straight, Pap.”

“Of course. That’s what friends are for, right?” she said with a smile as she patted his back.

Allen tilted his head towards the electronic store and said teasingly, “Well, Miss Lab Manager, I believe there’s still a few dollars left in the lab’s coffers. What do you say to purchasing a PEDA for your new position?”

“That sounds like a splendid idea, my dear gentlecolt, but I’ll take care of the cost myself.”

As she looked through the different models of PEDA in the store, Allen stared at her cutie mark pensively. A blue quill hovered as if to write on an open papyrus scroll. The pieces of a different puzzle were starting to fall into place.


	*	*	*


Papyrus’ discussion with Allen could not have happened at a better time. As the two of them returned to the lab, they saw a distraught Rinne packing up her things. She said that she was beyond talking with Allen about the project and was going to go back to Romberg’s lab. Allen wanted to try and dissuade her himself, but, before he could dig himself a deeper hole, Papyrus pushed Allen out of the lab and made him wait in the hallway. 

He was the last person Rinne wanted to talk to, Allen supposed. If his suspicions were correct, the poor woman was probably splitting, and Allen had not exactly been supportive and caring enough to be viewed positively. Perhaps it was better if he let Papyrus smooth everything over before he talked with her. 

For over an hour he thought through the events of the last week. What a monster he had become! Never once did he ask Argyle or Rinne about their areas of expertise, their ambitions, or even their thoughts on the project. Of course, he thought dourly, at the time he thought he could not trust them or let them develop any kind of relationship with him as either situation could have given them the leverage to glean information about the vector. Inadvertently, he had created a laboratory culture where asking questions was discouraged, and he alone controlled every aspect of the research.

Of course Argyle and Rinne would rebel against such an environment, albeit in their own separate ways.

Eventually, the door to the lab opened and Papyrus invited Allen inside. Rinne’s cheeks and eyes were red and puffy, her red curly hair tangled and mussed, and her black blouse covered in fine sandy hairs from Papyrus’ pelt. Allen felt like a stone was dropped into his stomach. He had no idea Rinne had been holding back such emotions.

Allen pulled over a chair and sat down in front of Rinne. Forcing himself to look into her eyes, he gave a heartfelt apology for being so uncompromising and guarded about the project. He honestly wanted to make amends and change how the lab was managed, so he invited her to criticize or question anything she felt like. 

Boy, was that a mistake. For nearly ten minutes Rinne went on an emotional rollercoaster tirade about Allen, Romberg, and the entirety of Project Poni. All Allen could do was listen, and what he learned and inferred greatly surprised him. Of course, much of the criticisms she directed to Allen were similar to his personal thoughts, but he was stunned to hear the poor girl had been a post-doc in Romberg’s lab for over seven years! According to her, many of the insights and advances in the spumavirus vector research based on Allen’s PhD project came from herself. Needless to say, she felt like she should be the one run running the lab, proving that she could be a PI. Instead, she was forced to work under someone she viewed as out of touch with the current trends in the field.

Based on his limited experiences with the post-doc and her apparent reluctance to stand up to Romberg, Allen inferred that the girl did not think she was capable of handling the responsibilities of a PI position. Why else would she stagnate in a lab for seven years and bitterly complain about injustice when she seemed to have no drive to go out and make her future? She was definitely smart and resourceful enough to succeed...

Allen made a deal with her. In return for her staying in the lab, he would be forthright with all aspects of the project, allow her to pursue independent research related to his vector and Project Poni, and, most importantly, he would be willing to write a letter of support to help her find grant funding as a junior faculty PI after Project Poni. That was the extent of what he could offer the post-doc, and, judging by her expression, it was more than Romberg had ever offered her. When she accepted his offer, Allen breathed a sigh of relief.

He had given her all the tools she needed to become an independent principle investigator after Project Poni. It would be up to her to determine if she was confident enough to capitalize on her own potential.


	*	*	*


When Allen invited Argyle to a private conversation in the conference room the following morning, the technician’s apprehension had been palpable. Of course, the older man could not have been expecting a straightforward apology and an admission of error on Allen’s part. Allen had the luxury of seeing his flabbergasted expression twice that morning when he insisted that Argyle take the weekend off to see his son’s graduation. When the technician argued otherwise and tried to be stubborn about Allen’s generous offer, the PI simply told him that he needed the time off to think about what responsibilities he wanted to pursue in the lab.

It was not like the technician could say no. Allen had bought his plane tickets already. 

After Argyle returned from his mandatory vacation late Sunday evening, he and Allen talked at length about what his old responsibilities in Romberg’s lab were and what he would like to do in his new lab. As it turns out, the gentleman had never been a lab manager, but instead had been the protocol expert of the lab. When he was not teaching newer lab members the arsenal of techniques and experiments that Romberg’s lab employed, he was performing experiments at the behest of Rose herself!

After his conversation with Argyle, Allen was not sure what to think about his situation. Rose had lent Allen two immeasurably potent research personnel. Although Rinne had her fair share of personal issues, she was likely the only person in the world that understood Allen’s personal research methodology and style, and Argyle, while needing a heavy hand for direction, was a living encyclopedia on every aspect of Romberg’s lab.

It did not make any sense. If Rose had wanted to see Allen fail or to obtain his novel research vector, why would she give him the two people that could best ensure his chances of success? Perhaps his hypothesis about the professor had been wrong all along…

At any rate, Argyle had agreed to train Papyrus and to help her manage the lab in addition to performing any priority experiments Allen needed. It was the perfect arrangement for both Argyle and the unicorn.

Meanwhile, Allen was “collaborating” closely with Rinne. When he had first explained the vector’s simple modification, her eyes had lit up and the two of them had spent hours brainstorming ways to stabilize it in order to reliably carry large loads of DNA. The vector itself was relatively simple, being based off of the red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the body. Those cells were essentially bags of oxygen carrying proteins. They have no nucleus, no DNA, and are practically a natural liposome. Allen’s old research was to take the proteins that allowed the membrane around the red blood cells to be large and incorporate them into liposomes. The end result was a liposome that, while smaller than a cell, was several times bigger than the nano-liposomes currently used in medicine. The real genius of the technique was incorporating an antibody binding protein into the liposome membrane. From there he could attach any antibody he wanted that could target any type of cell in the body. That antibody would take the liposome to those cells. If it worked as planned, the liposome vector could transport any size fragment of DNA into any or all cells. 

Much like Legos, the vector was elegant and quick to assemble if one had all of the pieces purified and ready to go. In contrast, the Vaccinia virus that Romberg was developing took between 1 and 2 weeks to make and purify since only living cells could produce them.

The entire week the lab worked like a well-oiled machine. Between Argyle and Papyrus, the homing protein had been purified, the laboratory restocked, and the mice prepped for vector safety and efficacy studies. Rinne had suggested and implemented some incredible changes to the vector—such as stiffening up the membrane by adding some cholesterol and increasing the proportion of saturated membrane fats—that not only allowed it to carry the largest chromosomes, but also further standardized the size according to electron micrographs.

Most importantly, however, everyone was talking and laughing in the lab. In one week they had gone from walking on eggshells around each other to teasing and cracking jokes about one another. Rinne, in particular, had a decidedly macabre sense of humor that Allen could not help but laugh at, even though it often made his inner physician weep.

On Friday the 19th, after sending his weekly progress report to Romberg, Dr. Watson, and Twilight Sparkle, Allen decided that they should celebrate their newfound camaraderie and efficiency by taking a field trip to a local English pub for lunch. This way they could all see the first impressions other people had about their research and the existence of ponies in general.

Of course, Papyrus could not be with them physically, but Allen had a plan to account for that.


	*	*	*


“Alright, Mr. Greybeard, why don’t you put away that old thing? You’re obviously too senile to know how to use it.”

Allen glanced up from his PEDA and rolled his eyes at Rinne. “So I forgot to shave this morning? Just give me a few more minutes, and I’ll finish calibrating the holotransmitter,”

In response Rinne closed Allen’s PEDA, thereby shutting off its holographic interface. “By the time you get that archaic thing up and running, Al, I’ll be giving you your last rites. Let me show you how we youngsters do it.”

“I’m just two years older than you,” Allen grumbled as Rinne took off her pendent PEDA and laid it in the center of the table.

Pressing the central button, the holoprojectors on the sides and upper surface of pendent flared to life. The PEDA’s artificial intelligence asked in a British accent, “You rang, Madam?”

Argyle started coughing on his beer. Struggling to speak between the coughs and laughter he asked, “Good heavens, girl! I don’t know why you kids treat your PEDAs like servants!”

It made perfect sense to Allen. She had issues being directly assertive around other people, so of course she would use her PEDA as a means of venting that frustration. The only reason why Rinne had taken to teasing Allen in such a manner was because he let her. It was a delicate balancing act to try to bolster her self-esteem without becoming either a doormat to her remarks or another support idol such as Papyrus.

Even now, Rinne could not stare down Argyle or at the least laugh it off. Instead, she scrunched her face and played with her red hair as she ordered “Jenkins” to call Papyrus and set up a one-way videoconference.

Papyrus’ awestruck voice rang clearly from the PEDA, “Wow, this is amazing! I can see all of you and the entire pub!” She whistled, “It’s really crowded in there.”

“That’s because it’s lunchtime, dear,” Rinne said matter-of-factly. “Did you set yourself up with some snacks and things for the show?”

“Oh yes! I got a daisy and daffodil sandwich, some delicious sourhauit, and a bottle of Fillydelphia malt cider.”

Allen tapped his fingers on the table and chastised the pony, “Be careful with that sourhauit there, Pap. If we get another tissue culture infection, I’m blaming you.” A mischievous chuckle was his response from the PEDA. He rolled his eyes.

“So what exactly is this malt cider you’re talking about there?” Rinne inquired, a curious tone in her voice. “It sounds suspiciously like beer.”

“Oh! It’s similar to apple cider—you just ferment malt made from barley or oats instead of apples. It’s really bubbly and refreshing on a hot day.”

“Still sounds like beer.”

“Uh… what is beer exactly?”

As Rinne and Papyrus debated the difference between beer and malt cider, Allen looked over his shoulder to get a glimpse at what Argyle had been staring quietly at the entire time. On the holoscreens in front of them, the noontime news was broadcasting the Red Plague crisis in southern Africa, South America, and Australia. A few weeks ago there were only isolated cases, but as their winter began in earnest, hundreds and, in some areas, thousands were being diagnosed with the practically terminal illness each day. Worse, sporadic cases in Europe and America were popping up too. Allen chewed his lip as he saw that Cleveland had a few cases in the last week, too.

“They’ve been running stories like this all week,” Argyle explained. “I know my wife is starting to have second thoughts about letting Mike go off to college this year.”

Allen shook his head and sighed. After taking a sip of the watery brew he shared his thoughts, “You know what, Argyle, I’ve been thinking of asking Alisha to homeschool our daughters this year. I just don’t want to take a risk of them catching the plague. 

The older man wiped some foam from his mouth and nodded in agreement with Allen. While his son Mike was an adult and could make his own decisions, Argyle was also considering homeschooling his other sons. Neither of the fathers wanted to see their children afflicted with that horrible disease, even if they were able to make a cure. 

Since they were discussing the plague, Allen figured it was a good time to ask the question that had been bothering him since the start of the project, “Do you think that people will actually take the serum as a vaccine? I know perspective changes when you’re dying, but when you’re healthy?”

Interlacing his fingers, the older man sighed and said, “Take a look around this pub, Al. We’re not exactly near the National Mall, and the people show it. I count maybe two suits, a couple of business casuals including ourselves, and a lot depressed people drinking with friends to forget their troubles. Make no mistake, these people are jobless and are desperate to find some sort of fulfillment and meaning in their lives. If they think they can find it in being a pony, you damn well better think they’ll try.”

That was exactly what Allen did not want to hear, but, coming from Argyle, it felt like the truth. “Be honest with me, Argyle. If we pull off the impossible, would you ever take the serum?”

The wizened man thought for a moment and then said softly, “No. Not as a vaccine at least. If my family gets sick this winter then I’ll probably take the plunge.” Allen nodded his head to the man’s words. While Allen was not sure if he could do the same, he could not help but to admire the old man’s devotion. “I suppose,” Argyle continued, “the reason why we don’t want it now is because we wouldn’t get much out of it we don’t already have.”

Allen weighed the man’s words but ultimately disagreed. “That’s true to an extent, but there’s another reason why I wouldn’t take it. Call me naïve if you will, but I believe humanity can overcome this and really any challenge with enough ingenuity. We’ve done it in the past, and we’ll continue to do so in the future. I would prefer to continue being a part of that legacy and to not casually throw it away because life isn’t easy.”

“Aye, but not everyone has that perspective.”

“Hey boys,” Rinne chimed just loud enough for them to hear, “I think the show is starting!”

Sure enough, the holoscreens were showing the president’s seal and announcing a broadcast from the Lady President. When the seal disappeared to reveal the president, Allen was surprised to find her behind a podium bearing the United Nations crest.

“My fellow Americans and the international community, I come before you today to discuss two matters of worldwide importance—matters that will forever change the dynamics of our global community.”

The first “matter” that the president was talking about was nothing new to anyone at Allen’s table. President Finley discussed the red plague’s impact on the world, and the feared economic and social repercussions should a vaccine not be created before the virus returned to the developed countries in the winter. Apparently, not only will people die, but some rich kids will be upset that they could not sell their merchandise in a post-societal collapse economy.

Go figure that government policy still revolved around money over people’s welfare.

The second one, on the other “hoof” was much more relevant to the lab group’s interest. “The international research community has agreed that traditional methods to develop a vaccine or even a drug for this disease have been, by and large, unsuccessful. This situation has called for drastic measures and for support from the newest members of the international community.

“Who exactly is this new nation? About one month ago a new continent appeared roughly 100 miles northwest of Hawaii—and I already know some conspiracy theorists are thinking that it’s Atlantis, but that is not the case.” That was an awful joke, Allen grumbled internally at the president. “Within a few days, envoys from the new continent had met with myself and my Chinese counterpart to offer their support in developing a cure for this plague. 

“I believe that a representative of their fair country should introduce the international coalition’s hope for a cure. It is my honor to introduce one of the leaders of the nation of Equestria, Princess Celestia.”

The screened panned between the president and members of the United Nations applauding as the doors to the great hall opened to reveal Princess Celestia in her regal glory. Averting his eyes purposely from the holoscreens, Allen watched the pub’s mixed reactions of shock, fright, and disbelief as excited words bounced between tables throughout the hall. Slowly, person by person, the cacophony dimmed and replaced by an almost serene amazement and captivation by the holoscreen. Hazarding a glance, Allen once again found himself lost in the compassionate, calming, seemingly age-less gaze of the princess. 

Shaking his head, he managed to break the tranquil thrall. Looking down at the PEDA, he whispered softly to Papyrus, “Is she using magic, Pap?”

Her reply was little above a reverent whisper, “No, but she is as compassionate and wise as she appears to be. She is the reason that Equestria has been peaceful for over a thousand years.”

A thousand years… that’s enough time for a dictator to make every mistake and then bury them in the sea of time—if a pony could actually live that long, Allen supposed. He was not able to think more on the subject before the princess began speaking, drawing his eyes once more back to the holoscreen.

“Greetings, people of the world, I am Princess Celestia, one of the two rulers of our peaceful and secluded nation of Equestria. Undoubtedly, you have many questions regarding our existence, and in time we hope to answer them. For now, I ask you to understand that we are as native to this planet as yourselves and that our self-imposed exile was for our protection during the age of human exploration and colonization.

“We come before you, our brothers and sisters with whom we share this once verdant Earth, with more than an offer of peace and good tidings. My sister and I have seen the suffering endured by your people by the Red Plague, and we fear the desolation it would leave in its wake if no cure can be found. No species should be subjected to so much suffering, especially one with individuals as noble and creative as your own.

“In an effort to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring, our greatest scientists are working together with the brightest minds of the human race to develop a cure to save your species.” The princess’s kind and regal demeanor gave way to sadness. Her melancholy reverberated through Allen, tugging at his heartstrings. He was afraid of what she would say next because of the pain it brought her. “Unfortunately, the cure is not as simple as we hoped. Equines, such as myself, are immune to the virus. We do not get sick from it. Despite the best efforts of human and pony scientists to find alternatives, the only reasonable means of curing the virus is to change humans into ponies.

“And we do not have the right to ask that of any person, be they human or pony.”

The princess let her words drift for a few moments as she visibly tried to hold back tears of her own. Allen heard a handful of people in the audience cry themselves in lieu of the princess doing it herself. The PI could feel sadness welling up in himself, too, but he knew it was not entirely his own. He found himself wondering how the alicorn could convey such emotions so vividly to those who watched her. A dark thought crossed his mind. What if the princess’ emotions, seemingly pure and genuine, were in actuality artificial and manipulative? Regardless, though, Papyrus did seem to trust her implicitly.

The princess had regained her composure and her soft voice drew Allen away from his worrisome thoughts. “Although it is not much, our country of Equestria will offer several amenities to those who undergo the transformation for medical or vaccination purposes. While this will not offset the personal cost of choosing the transformation as a cure or a vaccination against the plague, it is the right thing for us to do.

“To this end, we will be establishing, with the permission of the hosting countries, Conversion Bureaus in city centers throughout the world. The bureaus will be designed to fulfill multiple roles in the communities they serve. First and foremost, they will serve as education centers where ponies and humans can learn from one another. Secondly, they will help the newly transformed ponies adjust to their new bodies and reintegrate into society. In addition to hospitals and certified clinics, the Conversion Bureaus will also be a distributer of the Ponification Serum that is currently in development. Vaccination with the serum can be obtained after completing a two-week educational class on the ponification process and Equestrian culture, and, should the communities around a Conversion Bureau be declared to be in a state of emergency regarding the plague, they are given the power to administer the serum as an immediate treatment to those who request it.

“In short, these bureaus are focused primarily on education and exchange of culture between our species, but have secondary roles in helping to curb the spread and suffering of plague. 

“Lastly, it has recently come to my attention that many people may be worried about stigma and discrimination regarding being or becoming a pony. To help alleviate this, Equestria is willing to work with host countries to provide dual and/or single Equestrian citizenship for anypony. There will be opportunities for the newly transformed ponies to establish a new life in Equestria should they feel discriminated against in their home country.”

Allen felt his jaw drop at those words. Princess Celestia had just offered a new life for those who were unfortunate, jobless, or simply disgruntled with human politics and existence. As the princess continued to describe the beauty and serenity of life in Equestria, he could not help but to think of the stories that were once told about America. At one time, America had been thought to be the land of opportunity where riches were waiting to be made through hard work and the streets were literally paved with gold. Of course, such stories never panned out, and Allen seriously doubted that Equestria could live up to reputation that the princess was building. 

Surveying the crowd, Allen saw many people gazing at the holoscreen in wonder and excitement. Their thoughts were clearly laid out on their faces—“At last, here’s the opportunity I’ve been looking for!” He counted that for every three people that were excited about the princess’ proposition, there was a person who was reserved and contemplative and another who had barely constrained indignation that a dignitary could expect such a thing from people.

Even Rinne, he noticed, was caught between contemplation and pleasant daydreaming of being a pony in Equestria. Allen exchanged a worried look with Argyle, and the technician simply sighed and shook his head. The older man had expected this outcome.

Unable to hold back his frustration, Allen wiped his eyes and stared pensively at the PEDA lying on the table. The princess knew that humanity, including him, could not afford to stop creating the ponification serum. Yet, the princess went out of her way to offer a vision of hope and a future in Equestria for anyone willing to take the vaccine! He was forced to admit that the prospect of living in the described verdant utopia was appealing to a part of him, but he still knew such a promise could be nothing more than a wishful pipedream. 

While Allen had his reasons for being able to resist such an opportunity, how could the average person say no to such a wonderful vision in case it was true?

Unconsciously, Allen clenched his hands into fists and bit his lip. If Argyle and, he shuddered to think about it, Marcus were right, what was going to happen to humanity and the human spirit?