April 13, 2025 11:40 AM

Get his word, then set him free 93%

“Obviously we wouldn’t leave you in there,” Elliot approached the cage, studying its latches and locks. Getting this open wouldn’t take much effort, so long as his fingers still worked. For how long that would be true… “We’d still like your word that you’ll help us. If we open this, you answer our questions. You don’t attack or run off. Promise?”

The horse-creature stared up through the opening, huge eyes exasperated. “You shut down the Resonator and you’re letting me out of here. Like those assholes from Special Operations were anywhere near as accommodating.” He stuck his hoof forward against the bars. “I’d shake your hand, but you’ll see how inconvenient that is pretty soon. Looks like you’ll be keeping yours for—a day? Maybe? You got my word as a—whatever on God’s Green earth I even am anymore. My word as Magical Unicorn Emerald Horn.”

He retreated from the entrance a few steps. “I’ll be a lot less friendly if you leave me in here long enough that I’m standing in my own piss.”

Hardly a perfect arrangement. But this stranger wasn’t thrashing and howling and screaming trying to kill him. If ever he had a reason to trust, it was someone who might know more about their condition.

“Let me, princess,” Sam nudged past him, urging him back against the wall. “Not that you don’t know what you’re doing, I’m sure. But I know better.”

“Please don’t try to put my eye out with that thing. This could get ugly for everyone involved.”

“It could, but it won’t,” the green horse said. “If I was gonna get violent with you, you’d know already. It’s a helluva lot faster to kill someone with NEM10 than it is to create a viable body, as you’ve probably seen. I wouldn’t be sitting cooperatively in this nice plastic box if I was dangerous to human life. Intentionally dangerous, anyway.”

The box clicked, and the gate swung open. The horse stumbled out, but not for either of them. Instead, his eyes were only on the door. “Remember, no running.”

He shrugged. “I saw a bathroom on the left. We can talk as soon as I’m out.” They followed him there, out around the corner to the single restroom door. The horse-thing wasn’t quite as small and pathetic as Elliot might’ve expected up close. He was already as tall as his waist. If he were standing on all fours, he wouldn’t be that much taller than the horse.

“50/50 says he comes charging out of there and runs off,” Sam said, eyeing the door.

Elliot remained silent, and soon enough heard the facilities in use. “Doubt it. That machine hurt so much, he’s lucky it didn’t scramble his brains.”

A few seconds later, the sounds stopped, except for a light pattering on the door. “I’m not gonna run. You wanted answers, so here I am. Give it even odds we get vaporized before I finish explaining, anyway.”

Elliot tried to open the door, though again he found Sam got in the way, holding it open for the horse to step through.

No violence, no weapons. Just a vague expression of relief. “You can call me Peter,” he said, emerging in the chilly hallway. “The rest doesn’t matter anymore. And might not matter at all in the next little while. If we see those… apocalyptic-type countermeasures.”

Elliot shuddered, imagining what that might be like. Would their own government turn to nuclear weapons to contain an outbreak? If they did, would he even realize what was happening before it ended? A roar overhead like a jet taking off, a flash, then—

“Let’s assume it won’t go that far.” He retreated towards the booth, past the groaning scientists on the floor. There were three of them in all, each curled up with the same level of awareness of the other sick: not much. “You know what this is? You called it…”

“NEM10,” Peter said. The horse circled once around Elliot, tail whipping sharply behind him. He looked deliberately away, focusing on the booth. “Not my name, though. That’s what they called it. You see all the good it did them, too. Assholes in their PPE.”

He made his way over to the nearest fallen scientist, wrapped as she was in a lightly-inflated plastic suit. A filter on the back hummed away quietly, keeping the suit puffy and concealing the specific human form within. “Didn’t help though, did it? Shame I’m out, and you can’t do a damn thing to stop me.”

Elliot caught his shoulder with one hand, even faster than Sam. But the bird-monster had gotten distracted with something in the booth by then, he wasn’t standing close.

“Please don’t. We might need to negotiate with whoever sent them.”

Peter looked up, staring at her. “I can see why he calls you princess. Giving orders already. Don’t remember promising not to get even with these assholes.”

Elliot let go. He didn’t have the strength to resist him. Though somehow, he didn’t think he would have to. “I’m still waiting for you to tell us the rest. You know the name of the disease. You know anything else? Like what’s happening to us?”

Peter sighed, and turned his back on the scientists in their suits. “They might suffocate when those batteries die. Wouldn’t be as satisfying as sticking them in with the resonator, see how they like it.”

“She asked you a question,” Sam repeated. He emerged from the control room again, lingering in the doorway. “What’s happening to us, and how do we stop it?”

“Can’t,” Peter gestured in at the complex machine. “That thing was their best shot, and it couldn’t even stop these effects. Maybe there’s more on the supercomputer. But as to what’s happening to you, that’s easy. Same shit that happened to me.” He hopped forward towards him, turning sideways to pose. “Horse. Or… bird? That’s a new one. Either way. Guessing your flesh started melting the same time as your girlfriend here? And you’re not homicidal, so we’re probably in the clear by now.”

“Not my girlfriend,” Sam answered, backing out of the doorway. “We were roommates, that’s all.”

“Oh. I see.” He turned sideways, then winked at Elliot. “We’ll talk again in a week, when you’re as screwed as I am. Assuming we’re not atoms and stardust by then. Or shadows on the pavement.”

Elliot flushed, looking suddenly away from him. There was obviously no way in any universe he’d be interested in a horse, no matter what kind of weird sickness he got.

“Ruby will love that,” Sam said, speaking into the awkward silence. “You think there’s a cure on the supercomputers, perfect. You know how to get anything off of this? Are you a… scientist, too?”

Peter laughed. A surprisingly human sound, like so many other things he did. Other than the obvious. “Just a jarhead, unfortunately. If I mattered, they might not have stood by and watched while their freaky disease melted my insides.”

“Then we go back,” Sam said. “Ruby’s been alone long enough. I’ve got some questions for—”

Elliot stepped inside. “Hold on. I can dump whatever was in the last execution. Assuming this portable media has enough space, hold on. Gotta refresh my Linux commands. Been a hot minute.”

“Pretty and smart,” Peter said, following him into the control booth. “So I assume, when you finish mutating. We’ll see.”

Elliot ground his teeth together, squeezing one hand into a fist. “I was a dude yesterday, Peter. So you know.”

That brought him a moment of peace with the console, to go looking through the various disks and pieces of portable media there. He found a portable drive marked with a large number and plugged it into the console. Fortunately for him, the last user was still logged in.

Execution complete.

Error rate: .03%

Data exported to result.bin

As unhelpful as he had come to expect. Still, Elliot did remember how to mount external drives, and transfer files. Soon enough the enormous file was transferring.

At least Peter had given him some space. Not as much as he might’ve liked. Better if he stayed outside the booth completely. “We almost got eaten by wolves on our way in,” Sam said, leaning on the interior door. “Any idea what those were? Kinda looked like they were made of wood.”

Peter sat down, then shook his head once. “No idea specifically. Overheard the assholes talking about a few different ‘fatal mutations,’ I’m sure that’s what it is. When this disease sends you off to meet your maker, seems like everything goes to shit. All the… whatever it is… spilling around your insides has nowhere to go. So it warps you into something horrible. Dunno if there’s anything left of the original person in there. Frankly, not sure they knew either. They’re grasping in the dark, kids. Pretending they understand, when in reality they’re as blind as we are.”

The screen flickered, and a single line appeared. Elliot typed out the safe disconnect command, then tugged the drive. “We’re good to go. Unless you think we should grab this… resonator.”

Peter answered with a sharp kick, directly to one of the largest glass tubes. The metal within spilled out, spreading along the floor. He took a few steps forward, glaring at the device. A few more red lights appeared on its display, flashing angrily in their direction.

“We don’t want to be anywhere near that thing, ever. Pretty sure it would’ve killed me if I stayed down here too long. Like it’s pressing down on… something we need to live. Could try to ask them what they hell they were thinking, I guess. I was too busy screaming in agony at the time.”

When those batteries die, they’ll suffocate.

Elliot lingered beside the dead scientists, looking them over. He looked back at Sam, gesturing over. “Help me get them on their backs and get their masks off.” That didn’t mean he had to stay and care for them. They’d been willing to do something terrible to what sounded more and more like one soldier taken for no reason at all. Obviously not someone who knew anything.

“You’re actually gonna ask them? They won’t talk.”

“Not today,” Elliot said. “But in a few… weeks, you said? However long this takes. If they’re sick too, I bet they’ll be more motivated to find the cure. Do you want your hands back or not?”

He grumbled, retreating from them. “Whatever, princess. Just don’t going all Disney on me.”

He stood by and watched, disapproving. But he didn’t attack the helpless scientists, which was good enough. At least he wasn’t making anything worse.

Under their suits, the three looked as sick as any of the students above. Elliot and Sam dragged them over to the water fountain, before eventually leaving them there.

Despite his disapproval, Peter followed them out of the lab and up the steps.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, “How are you gonna get me out of this place?”

“Not… going to be much of a problem, I don’t think,” Elliot muttered. He held the door open, and they left together. “Pretty sure most of the school is infected now.”

“Shit.” He sped up, hopping up the stairs after them. He somehow navigated four legs without tripping over himself or falling. He didn’t wobble or clutch the handrails like Elliot had to to keep on his feet. But he didn’t exactly have the hands to do that, either way. “We should get the hell out of town then. If this thing got out, there’s no bloodless way to lock it up again. We don’t want to be in any city centers, especially this one.”

“We,” Sam said. “You keep saying that word. But we don’t know you. Why should we go anywhere with you?”

“Because I worked in the base they were studying it,” he said. “Assuming any of you stand a chance of surviving this, it will be because you had my help. And I’m so generously donating it, on account of you saving my life. I’d like to stop owing you, and I only know the one way to do that.”

Sam glanced back at Elliot, expression skeptical. “Not so sure about that one. If you work for the ones who did this, we probably don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Fuck Special Operations!” Peter exclaimed, just as the doors opened. A few of the nearby military people groaned and looked up. One even tried to reach for their sidearm, before falling sideways out of their chair.

“But I mean it,” Peter said, a little louder. “Their idea of helping me was sticking me in a mad science dog carrier to die. You people have two legs now, but that won’t be true for much longer. We’re in the same shitty boat.”

Elliot had to decide.

1. Tell Peter he’s not welcome, they don’t need a foulmouthed soldier’s help. Find somewhere to lose him in the school, then come back for Ruby.
2. Accept Peter’s help gratefully, take him away from school together. Time to visit the old family cabin in the mountains for a few weeks.
3. Peter can stay, but only if he wants to stay on campus. They’re sick now, but the place is filled with experts on what is happening to you. Running from them is running from help.