April 15, 2025: 1:03 PM

“We have to learn what happened to us,” she finished. “How these new bodies work. Powers, if we have them. Magic that the unicorns seem to have. Looks like almost all of us turned out this way. Ruby will, I could see the horn growing. Whatever’s happening out there in the rest of the world—the more we can learn, the better we can survive.”

“I’ll share everything I know,” Peter declared. The keyboard glowed faintly just beneath his hooves. Though he sat with his ‘hands’ positioned directly above the keys, he didn’t actually touch the keyboard with them. He was already using his powers without even trying.

“There, I’m online. For what it’s worth. Let me take a look around…”

He opened several windows, flicking through several sites in turn. Way barely got a chance to read one webpage before they were on to the next one, then another.

“What does that—”

“Doesn’t look like it got out of the country,” he said, gesturing. “Impressive. Thought for sure it would’ve made its way south. Don’t want to know how they pulled that off.”

“What good does that do us?” she asked, leaning closer to squint at a headline.

“Canadian Army halts large caravan at Vancouver Crossing,” said one. “Americans are warned not to attempt passage under any circumstances. Lethal force has been authorized under—”

She looked away, whistling quietly. “No way they can hold back everyone. The US has a lot of people. Some of them have resources.”

Peter shrugged, spinning in the rolling chair so he faced her. Way looked briefly down, then away from him. So maybe some aspects of never wearing clothes weren’t her favorite. “Depends how willing they are to shoot people. Will you kill people to enforce a quarantine?”

Mexico might, depending on the circumstances to their south. Way might choke to death on the irony if she thought about it too long. Fortunately, the sound of screeching tires from downstairs prevented her from getting too far down that road.

It was the car—alone, not with a dozen police following, or worse. Though the screeching—that wasn’t his car, but the rusty metal hitch now attached behind it. The poor little Civic looked like it was going to explode under the weight. The back was absolutely packed with oversized canvas feed sacks.

Ruby emerged from inside. She glanced to either side before waving Sam out the other side. She seemed to notice Way watching from the upper window, because she leaned up and waved, letting the hoodie slip down and expose the slightly-misshapen face within.

Still cute, though. Those curls of orange would match her yellow coat well, when they finished growing. It’s not happening. She wants to be my sister. Nothing more.

Peter stood over her now, crowding close to peer out the window with her. His eyes lingered on the sacks. “I thought you were screwing with her—she actually bought farming supplies!”

Way nodded. “National emergency is gonna clean out stores. Might even be police there, stopping people from buying too much, throwing out anyone who isn’t a local. Inspecting things. But a farming store—Granite Bluff only had a handful of farmers. None of the other victims know our new diets yet. By the time they do…”

“You’re assuming we can eat those things,” Peter said, annoyed. “They fed me hay in containment. Fucking sucks.”

“And Ruby didn’t buy hay. If we were gonna do that, might as well just find some grass and graze. We’re not that desperate. Now you can use that magic to help unload. And get the fence back up, hopefully.”

They did exactly that, bringing everything inside, including the rusty old trailer. As it turned out, Ruby had maxed out both her credit cards buying it, along with using all the cash they had left from Dr. Zalenka. “Figure Chase Bank is gonna have a hard time collecting from a farm animal anyway,” she said. “Credit score is the last of my worries.”

They waited until dark to fix the fence. That way, Ruby could have Peter and Sam to help without attracting as much attention. They used chains and a few bike locks to secure the gate in place—there was no time for a proper repair. It would just have to stay broken, so long as it blocked the approach for anyone who didn’t belong there.

A few hours later, they gathered in the kitchen, experimenting with the taste of their new “rations” while discussing plans for the future.

“We keep our heads down for now,” Way explained, over a bowl of what she could only describe as lightly-boiled slop. It smelled vaguely earthy, and tasted about as good as a mouthful of gardening soil. Strangely, she kept eating it. “Peter got us online, so we can track what’s happening away from the cabin. There’s a nonzero chance my parents or my sister might show up here, but… I haven’t been able to get a call through to check on them.”

Peter’s unlocked version of the internet provided them with access to VOIP services—but neither her parents nor her sister answered. Either the phones were still down for them, or…

She didn’t want to think about it. The others had their own reactions—Ruby insisted her family were “somewhere nicer” but didn’t want to look for them unless she knew they were already infected.

Sam barely mentioned them. “Mom’s safer in Mexico. That asshole who—hope my father gets whatever you got, Way. Nothing personal or nothin’, but he deserves it. You don’t—except maybe you did, for making me taste this.”

He pushed the bowl away with one hardened claw, disgust on his face. “Absolutely vile.”

“It’s not that bad,” Peter argued, pulling it over to himself. “If this sucks, try hay. Dry grass, tastes like a mouthful of nothing. At least this has flavor. Earthy… it’s the boiling that makes it like this. We’ll work on it.”

And by we, you mean me. He even looked at her while he said it.

“But while we’re here, we have an advantage. We don’t have soldiers breathing down our backs, or anyone who knows we’re out here. We have time to learn how these bodies work.”

“You mean like,” Sam began.

Way didn’t even know where he was going, but she cut him off anyway. “Probably not like that. I mean the… what did you call it, Peter?”

“Noncausal influence,” he said. “It’s a bigger deal than being a horse, honestly. We already knew weird animals could exist. But this:” Way’s empty bowl lifted off the table in front of her. Peter watched it intently, apparently guiding it into the sink. He set it down again a second later, without breaking it. Somehow.

“Everyone here can do this, except maybe the bird. Measurements we took made it seem like it was the horn that produces the—energy. We never had time to test the limits of what we can move. Maybe we can stop bullets. Or maybe it’s like having hands, but worse.”

“I’m suggesting we don’t just take the next few days or weeks to sit around and eat through our supplies. We’ve got files from the supercomputer—we’ve got Peter.”

“And Zalenka’s notebook,” Ruby said. “Not looking forward to getting it out of the car. But we’ll need it to make sense of what was in the computer.”

“Wait, what?” Peter stared, his expression turning increasingly confused. “You have one of Professor Zalenka’s notebooks?”

She nodded. “It’s a long story. I think he tried to run away from the base before this all started. Ended up at the diner where I work, where he left it behind. Felt like it was intentional, but I don’t know why.”

Peter whistled. “Damn. There are some old coworkers of mine who would probably kill for something like that. Too bad they shoved me in a cage and left me to die, or maybe I’d be inclined to share.”

“But you won’t.” Sam said, rising from his seat at the same time Peter did. He moved slightly to the side, between Peter and the stairs. “You’re not going to tell anyone about us, right? We don’t need unmarked vans and helicopters coming for us.”

“Absolutely not, fuck those guys,” Peter said, exasperated. “If we find something in our research, something that seems like it might be vital to the human race or whatever—we can talk about how to share it. Otherwise, my lips are sealed. I’m not going back into a cage.”

“We should give plenty of attention to the other details, anyway,” Way said. “This—moving stuff around. Noncausal… magic. We should all be able to use it.”

“And while you’re learning, I’ll keep an eye on what’s happening outside,” Sam said. “I can watch the internet. Wouldn’t want to be hiding in this cabin looking like animals if they cracked a cure.”

Way didn’t laugh at the idea, no matter how remote it seemed. A cure—she wouldn’t let herself get too hopeful about that. The whole human race was out of its depth.

They spent the evening extricating Zalenka’s notebook from her car. Ruby stayed up most of that night reading it, and trying to make sense of the measurements the “resonator” had made along with the university’s supercomputer.

The sun was up again when she slipped into bed opposite Way, rousing her from uneasy sleep. Way rolled over to look at her. “Ruby?”

“I should’ve realized,” Ruby muttered. Was she even trying to be heard? “It’s so simple, so obvious. No one has any idea.”

“About what?”

Ruby flicked on the light, blinding Way and stealing any remaining tiredness. “That device you found Peter in, the one that was hurting him. I couldn’t figure out why they would be taking measurements at the university. Military has their own supercomputers, they don’t need time on ours.”

Way yawned and stretched, extending both forelegs to either side. She couldn’t sit up quite the same way, but she tried anyway, if only by reflex. “You figured it out?”

“The Resonator wasn’t measuring Peter, it was extracting something from him. Thaumic noncausal charge—magic. It was trying to use it on the school. Before you broke it and the readings stopped, I mean.”

“Use it,” she repeated. She flung off the sheets—then realized she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and replaced them again. “On the school? What does that even mean?”

Ruby shrugged. “Not the building, or even the people there. More like—the spacetime. There was…” she shifted in bed, moaning faintly in pain. Her hair was matted with sweat, eyes red and bloodshot. And she’d apparently worked so hard she lost about an inch of height.

“Something changing there. Not sure if it was the number of people or what. But it was getting worse, and they wanted to find a way to stop it. Or… deliberately make it worse? I need to do more reading.”

“Right now what you need is sleep.” Way clambered out of bed, sliding down the unusual distance to the floor before catching herself on just two legs. She couldn’t make it more than a step before she fell forward again onto her hooves. Her tail swished rapidly behind her in frustration. “Get some rest, Ruby. You’re still sick, remember. If the infection kills you, it transforms you into a horrifying monster.”

She chuckled, then flicked off the light. “Yeah. I remember. Thanks, E-Way. That’s such a silly name.”

“I’ll think of something better eventually,” Way muttered. “When I’m ready. Feels like if I choose a new name, it would be like admitting—”

Loud snoring filled the room, and Ruby fell sideways into bed. Good for her, she needed the rest.

Way found Peter already in the kitchen, trying and failing to turn scoopfuls of oats into—she couldn’t even guess what. Batter? It smelled okay, but looked like brown goop with bits of hard shell floating in it. “Morning, Way,” he hopped down from the stool he’d been using to reach the counter, facing her. “How’d you sleep?”

“Shit,” she answered, without thinking. “Can’t sleep the way I want with this body. Legs won’t go where they’re supposed to, and if I move too fast I crush my—” she trailed off, looking awkwardly away. “It sucked.”

“Takes some getting used to,” Peter said, apparently ignoring her remark. He gestured out the window, where it was still dark. “Planned to go for a walk before the sun came up, somewhere to practice, like you said you wanted. More interesting than a garage.”

“There are trails back there, along the creek. Eventually leads to a little waterfall.”

He grinned. “Perfect. We could get all zen, master the inner self, whatever.”

Way raised an eyebrow. “Even if we call it magic, it’s not really. It must behave according to predictable rules. If someone knew them, they could give us instructions.”

“What if I bring snacks?”

Way had to decide.

1. “Sure, we can practice together.” Maybe if she agreed, he would be more open about what the military was doing.
2. “No, you need to be honest with us…” There’s no way he didn’t know what Ruby figured out. He did seem desperate to leave the university…