April 28, 3:15 AM

Try to Sneak Past (48%)

There were ways to deal with someone watching the entrance. But if they hurt someone, there would be more investigation into their presence. The only safe way to get in was to become unnoticed. And if something life-threatening happened to some random guard just doing his job, Wayfinder wouldn’t forgive herself.

“The point of these guys is keeping people in,” she whispered. “They’re trying to keep the infection from spreading. If infected people are going inside the lockup, I don’t think they’d care.”

Peter bit his lip. “We still have to get through the gate. It’s obviously locked.”

He was right about that. Yet it must open, otherwise the entire checkpoint and gate were pointless. The powers that be could’ve just sealed the tunnel with some heavy fences or welded sheet metal and been done with it. And if it a door could open…

She flicked the saddlebag open without looking at it, and floated something out from inside, then held it towards herself. She did have to look at it to read the pages, and flick through to find what she was looking for. A simple spell for unlocking things, among the earliest in the book.

“We could try to steal the key, or I could just use this.” She turned it towards him, so he could see the circular diagram on the reverse page. “See? Simple enough.”

Peter gaped. He pushed the book down with his hoof, so their eyes met. “Simple enough?” he repeated, indignant. “We know absolutely nothing about ‘spells.’ I’ve never done anything other than floating objects before, and making a bit of light. What makes you think this will work?”

She turned the book around. “Because everything I’ve tried in it so far has. Sunburst knew what he was talking about. And besides—” she pointed past the security booth to the gate. “Nothing in this says I have to touch it. Just focus on the lock clearly while I’m trying. I can cast it from right here. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just try something else.”

He circled once around her, finally settling onto his haunches looking the other way up the path. “So long as you hurry. That kid looks exhausted. Sooner or later, there’s gonna be a changing of the guard to swap him with fresh eyes. His relief will come from this side.”

Right. She took a few steps closer, while staying below the window of the booth. Though its sides were quite thick, perhaps deliberately insulated, loud music echoed out through the window. Thumping bass, blazing guitar, and still he struggled to stay awake.

“You’re gonna do more magic?” asked a feeble voice from over her shoulder. Hazel slipped off onto the ground next to her, staring at the book. There was something almost hungry in her expression. “Are you sure it’s real?”

I better be, it won’t work for me if I doubt it. The book was clear about that much—visualization of her intended result was vital to any spell’s success. If her view of the outcome was unclear, the magic would not know what to do. “Absolutely. Look at us, Hazel. We’re all magic now. There’s no mundane way to explain what happened to us. If the world is gonna do this to us, it’s only fair we take advantage.”

She set the book down on the ground in front of her, then turned her attention on the gate. She kept the diagram in view, trying to imagine it in the same light her horn projected. Unlock! Just let us in!

At first there was nothing at all, just a steadily growing light from her horn matched by Peter’s obvious unease. He tapped one foreleg on the ground, a little faster as the seconds passed.

Then she saw it: the image of a circular diagram filled her mind, the duplicate of the one in her book in front of her. It surrounded the door, barely visible. Her magic poured into it, growing brighter and brighter as the seconds passed. Wayfinder was pushing against something, an invisible weight just out of reach. She shoved against it, feeling her magical endurance leave her. That came with a faint pounding in her head, light growing dimmer as her magic left her.

This is why the book wanted you to practice first! Her horn flashed abruptly, and the gate clicked. The light vanished, turning the route to the tunnel suddenly darker. The gate began to swing inward by its own weight, one hinge squeaking.

Wayfinder dropped low to the ground, breathing heavily. Her head sagged, and she even imagined her horn visibly drooping from the effort. She flicked her tail towards the opening, her words stumbling over each other. “We… got it.”

Peter spun, mouth hanging open. To his credit, he recovered quickly, reaching her in a few seconds. He scooped the book off the concrete, stuffing it sideways into her saddlebags again. He nodded towards the clear path, urgent. “Come on!”

Until that moment, they could wait behind the booth, out of view of its cameras and not easily seen through the windows. Now the only way to go was forward, directly into the guard’s view. Wayfinder hurried, though her breath still came heavy and her head felt light. She’d actually cast a spell!

They reached the gate, and Peter nudged it open with his head, holding it open for her. Once they were through, he tugged it closed again, using a faint glow from his horn. It didn’t lock.

But Wayfinder didn’t stop to watch, she was still moving, keeping pace with Hazel. For once she was thankful the kid was a little slower—she was so incredibly drained that she wouldn’t have managed to gallop at her usual pace.

They made it about ten steps from the gate before an alarm began to blare, deafening in her ears. It came with a voice over the shrill mechanical wailing, a shocked and only slightly tired-sounding soldier. “Stop! Right there! Don’t move, or you’ll be shot!”

She turned to the side, and saw what he meant. Near the gate were a pair of heavy mechanical devices, covered in glittering lidar sensors—and topped with a pivoting barrel. There was one on each side, with a belt of ammunition feeding up from below. Bullets longer than her fingers used to be. Harsh spotlights came on, blasting towards them.

Peter slid to a stop abruptly. Hazel looked like she might keep running, but Wayfinder stepped over the kid, bringing her weight down on her back. Not a pleasant sensation, harsh angles and hard chitin on her own sensitive belly—but it worked. Hazel stopped.

“I’ll protect you,” she whispered, turning slowly towards the security station. “Keep low.”

The kid shivered with obvious terror. Wayfinder felt her nod, but no words came out.

Peter was the first to speak, lifting his voice the way many in the armed services could, somehow without distorting or sounding like he was yelling. “Return to your watch, soldier. We are not attempting to flee the isolation zone.”

The alarm dulled, though the spotlights remained. The mechanical barrels still pointed in their direction, each one making subtle adjustments to aim at them. That kid isn’t going to kill us, is he?

In the spotlights, the tunnel did seem unusually stained. Patches of concrete were stained with something brown and sharp-smelling. Little pits and broken sections of concrete might suggest weapons fired in this direction, or maybe just a long time since the city’s last maintenance.

“This area is restricted,” said the soldier. Much more disoriented than he had been, his voice nervous. “You aren’t allowed out this far. Didn’t you see the signs?”

Peter swore under his breath, glancing behind them. Wayfinder could imagine what he was looking for: somewhere to retreat from those weapons’ field of view. Once they could do that, they could run the rest of the way inside. No one would follow a few infected into the isolation zone.

But Wayfinder saw no obvious exits. Whoever put the checkpoint here knew what they were doing. The bike route ran under an overpass, with high concrete walls on either side. They’d have to make it all the way to the other side of the bridge to move aside. By then, they could be dead a hundred times over.

A few frightened seconds passed. Wayfinder stared down the tunnel, looking for anything they could use. She saw nothing but old graffiti on the walls of damaged cement. Past a few flickering amber lights the trail continued along the river, with homes and parks and civilization beyond. They were so close!

“You came from outside,” came the voice over the broadcast. No longer shouted—more like the speaker was talking to themselves. “Shit. You people… protocol says I have to… you approached the checkpoint. Damnit! I did not volunteer to kill someone.”

“Then don’t!” she yelled. “We’re leaving! We’re not going to hurt you or anyone else.”

“Sorry,” he said, voice halting. “Already called in with… I’m not even in control of those anymore. No way to cancel—”

Wayfinder screwed her eyes shut, shielding Hazel as best she could with her body. Not that it would make any difference, with bullets as big as those. They’d cut through her like she was paper.

“Run, stupid!” Peter shoved up against her, bolting down the tunnel. A desperate move, and a doomed one. They’d never clear such a long distance when a few bullets could kill them.

Motors hummed, Wayfinder saw the barrels twitch. I’m not dying here!

The world slowed. Weapons pointed down towards her, moved by unseen cables. Peter was nearly past her.

She reached for him, wrapping her foreleg around his retreating hindleg.

She wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. Sudden, overwhelming pressure, searing bright light—then nothing.

Wayfinder was nowhere. No light, no heat, nothing but the sharp angles of the insect beneath her, and Peter’s soft flank. Cold pressed in on her from all sides, and no breath came. She couldn’t even scream for air.

Then came a crack, loud enough to leave her ears ringing. Frost condensed on her coat, as though she’d been dumped into a freezer somewhere. Wayfinder wobbled, then flopped sideways, landing on grass.

Darkness closed in around her, all strength failing. She had seconds to see Peter rushing up to her, while distant gunfire barked through the air. Then she collapsed, and thought no more.

Wayfinder woke slowly. She felt the ground beneath her first: unnatural and lumpy, yet soft. She opened one eye, and found light coming in thin lines from somewhere across the room. But even looking towards it made her head throb. She closed her eyes again, tugging the blanket over her head and moaning loudly.

Something moved in the room beyond, hooves skittering over carpet. A weight shifted the blanket next to her, and a child’s voice sounded in her ear. Hazel. “Wayfinder? You’re awake!”

“Wish I… wasn’t…” she moaned, pressing her head to the pillow. Unfortunately, now that she was back in the conscious world, her body stubbornly refused to let her doze. The throbbing in her head remained, focused towards the front where her horn emerged from her skull.

“You saved our lives!” Hazel flitted around her, her wings buzzing loudly against her back. After a few seconds, Wayfinder heard something sloshing around, then felt pressure against her mouth. “Drink this! You must be dehydrated. Weren’t taking water while you were out…”

She took it, and drank. The water tasted stale, somehow, like liquid left out for too long. But she found she was thirsty enough that she didn’t care, downing the entire container in a few seconds. It helped, dulling the groans of protest from her stomach. The pain in her head remained. “How… long?”

“Two days,” Hazel said. “Almost three. But Wayfinder, you—that was amazing! The magic was so strong you got a tattoo!”

She opened her eyes again, reluctantly. They were in a basement somewhere, unfinished judging by the walls. Someone had tossed a few rugs onto the floor, and several piles of blankets and half-deflated airbeds scattered onto the floor. Trash filled the space, mostly empty brown rectangles covered in block letters. She recognized their own makeshift saddlebags near to where she’d been laying. Peter’s scent was on her, one of the few comfortable things mingling with all those stinks.

She slipped the blanket off herself. “What do you mean a tattoo?”

Hazel poked her butt—her flank, technically, somewhere she couldn’t see without twisting around. She moved slowly, and looked.

The kid was right, though “tattoo” wasn’t quite the word she would’ve used. The mark seemed to be growing right out of her coat, as though each section were perfectly dyed. How a symbol like that could remain crisp was beyond her—four points, like the corners of a compass, with yellow wisps rising up her side like a flame.

“We didn’t put it there!” Hazel said, pressing closer to her. “You have to believe me! I’ve just been taking care of you, Wayfinder, not—”

She put one hoof on the child’s face, silencing her. “I know, Hazel. It’s okay. I… think I know what that is. My spellbook talks about them, I just… didn’t guess what it meant, until now. It’s a cutie mark.”

“I dunno what that is,” Hazel muttered. “Is it good?”

Wayfinder shrugged. “My spellbook doesn’t explain what they are, only that adults always have them. It’s the ‘powerful connection each mare and stallion makes to Harmony.'”

She didn’t know what that meant, really. But she knew what she would do next.

1. Leave the basement and see the isolation zone for herself.
2. Wait for Peter to come back. She could search the book again for more on Cutie Marks.