May 22, 8:00 AM

Be a spy/diplomat with the isolation zone 48%

The temptation to remain in Starhall studying with Sunburst was almost impossible to resist. Here was a pony who knew everything about her powers, whose theoretical knowledge of the secrets of magic extended into questions she hadn’t even thought to ask yet, and who was willing to show her anything she asked! She could vanish into this place, and in a way it would be her second chance at university. Only this time, she’d actually graduate with useful skills, instead of dropping out and ending up waiting tables.

But no matter how tantalizing the thought, and how tempting the pony offering it was in terms of someone to spend time with, moving out here full time would be sacrificing what she’d already achieved. How could she walk away from the rest of the Isolation Zone, knowing that their supplies were running out and their connection with the federal government was growing more tenuous all the time? If she left, it would be abandoning those ponies to their fate.

And likely Starhall too, once the flow of food and other goods into Denver finally stopped for good, and the desperate ponies began to brave the Overgrowth in search of anything they could eat.

“Your way of doing things is better here,” she eventually told him. “I can see that, even if I don’t understand it all yet. The people outside are struggling. They aren’t growing anything. They don’t even know that the… earth ponies, have powers at all, except a vague understanding that they’re unusually strong. Most of the creatures with wings don’t realize they can fly.”

She touched Sunburst’s shoulder briefly, meeting his eyes with some difficulty. “I want to stay. But I can’t abandon all those people. So maybe… if we try the other thing. Maybe I could bridge the gap between what you’re building and the ones outside. But I’d like to come back often and see you. See—Starhall, I mean. Learn from you.” She tucked her tail between her legs, retreating from him another step. “I feel like… there’s so much more I could do with magic, and I’d like to learn all of it. Maybe you could keep teaching me? So that one day, when the disaster is over and we aren’t afraid anymore, I could live here.”

Sunburst wasn’t a complex creature. There was little he could do to conceal his disappointment in her decision not to stay. At least her second comment brought a little of the excitement back to his face. “Your magical talents will not have their full opportunity to develop outside an academic setting. But it’s wrong of me to assume those are the only talents you offer. Since the beginning, I’ve struggled to find a means to… safely communicate with those in power in this world. Perhaps you will be that bridge.”

She retreated nervously from him, her ears folding backward. Finding a way to share these ideas with the people of one town seemed easy. But putting him in touch with ‘those in power’ was a different question completely. She didn’t deny the possibility outright, though. “Do you know how to cure this?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at herself. “If you have that, I can probably get you a line with the president like today. Otherwise…”

He touched one hoof on her shoulder, turning her gently to meet his eyes. “Wayfinder. I do not share this with many from here—I know it upsets them. I don’t blame them. It’s painful to think about. It’s not something anyone wants to accept. I wouldn’t either, in your place. But you’ve had the wisdom to study and master incredible amounts of magic on your own. I trust you to be able to accept this too.”

She stiffened at every word, dreading what would come next. It didn’t matter how he said it—she saw Sunburst as an authority. No supercomputer data and no readings from a mysterious branch of the military would ever be more reliable than someone who’d grown up understanding magic.

“This pandemic releases magic trapped inside every creature it infects. But magic is like all other forms of energy; it can’t be created, and it can’t be destroyed, only transformed. It’s possible that one day, with the right study and experimentation, we could find a form that’s more familiar to the natives of this planet. There may very well be a body with two legs and two arms and hands, and a spell that can transform individuals into that form.

“Their magic, though—that’s not going anywhere. It stays with them. Any form that doesn’t let them express it is going to come apart like paper in the river. Life is never going back to what it was. A ‘cure’ that sticks your magic back into a neat little package and wraps it in pretty ribbons in your soul, it doesn’t exist. It can’t exist within the boundaries of magic as we understand them. So no… I don’t have that. Nopony ever will, no matter how much they study.”

He let go, expression suddenly stiff. “Is that what you want? To go back to life as it was? Whatever… human you were? The life they were living?”

She giggled reflexively at the question, before she could stop herself. Of course she had to explain. “If you asked me that three months ago, I would’ve told you yes quickly and been mad you even asked. Right now…” She took a few steps away from him, stretching low for a second, then rising up again. Her tail moved more quickly. “I grew up in my old body, and I thought I’d never want to be anything else. But I’m used to it at this point. I can understand if other infected feel differently.”

She floated a scroll out of her satchel with her magic, barely even needing to look at it as she turned it over in the air, unrolling it to glance at the surface, then tuck it away. “Anyone who can’t do this. It’s unfortunate, it’s downright unfair what they have to give up. But I didn’t have to, so I’m… okay with this. I’m not going to lose sleep knowing I can’t change back.”

She almost asked about the other obvious part of the transformation, the one so glaring in her new form that it had come to dominate once she got past the initial difficulties of being a pony. But the words wouldn’t come, not when this was a pony she was actually interested in. Maybe it didn’t matter why that part had changed—or maybe they would find Sam at some point, and he could ask.

Assuming the bird even cared anymore. “I’m happy with how I am. If you gave me a scroll right now that would make me back to how I was, but take away my magic, I don’t think I’d use it. I think there’s a lot of people who would, I’m just… not one of them.”

They were just words—but getting them out felt like removing a set of heavy saddlebags she’d been hauling for weeks. Her shoulders felt suddenly lighter, her back straighter.

Wayfinder was okay if she stayed a pony. Maybe that would change if the whole world got a cure and she was the only one refusing it. But based on what Sunburst said, that didn’t seem like it would be coming anytime soon.

The stallion brushed past her. “See, it’s exactly as I said! It takes a mind that is brilliant, flexible, and logical to master magic in the way you did. I knew it was safe to trust you with that particularly difficult truth. That’s probably not one we’ll be sharing with the people of the Isolation Zone right now. Even in Starhall, it’s not widely known. It’s a triage situation—we have to stop the city from freezing before we can worry about issues with the petting zoo.”

There were details to work out after that, of course—what would her role in the Isolation Zone be? How often would she report back? Were they trying to keep the town entirely secret? And importantly, how could she make the trip back safely, through the Overgrowth whose dangers were their entire defense mechanism.

Confidence with a few short-range teleports didn’t mean she was ready to just jump between locations—not yet, anyway. Apparently there were ways to make that easier, but they would take time, and she didn’t have a lot of that to spare if she wanted to get back without creating suspicion with the police.

There was going to be a little of that either way, considering what Ruby told her the next morning, when they were having breakfast in the central Starhall eating area.

“I’m not going back with you,” Ruby said. “Before you try and convince me, I—”

Wayfinder raised a hoof, gently easing her mouth closed. “It’s okay, Ruby. I didn’t think you would. We aren’t actually dating, that was just a lie to get the police to let you live with me. You don’t have to justify your decision to leave.”

She looked away through the room, to where Sunburst was speaking with a group of earth ponies near a doorway. But they were too far away for her to make out the words. “I know we’re not going to be together again. We’re just friends now. I can be happy with that if we get to stay friends, Ruby.” She held out her hoof, grinning nervously. “Is that possible? I’m gonna need somepony in my life to ask… all my girl questions. No telling if I’ll ever see my family again, so I can’t go to my sister.”

She let go, sliding away from the table. “I hope you’ll be happy here. And we can catch up whenever I visit.”

Ruby relaxed into her seat. She grinned. “I thought after you rescued me, you would—you’ve grown so much since this started, Wayfinder. I hope it’s not unkind of me to say it. You’re a bigger person than when you first got infected. Even though you’re… smaller than you were before. You know what I mean.”

She smiled back. Then she got up and left into the forest.

She hadn’t been given all their secrets on the first visit, though apparently Ruby staying behind did indicate a level of trust. Though no one would say so explicitly. If Wayfinder was some kind of traitor, her friend would be vulnerable to retaliation.

A moot point, of course, since there were no betrayals on her agenda for the return. Just a direct path back along a route she’d been told was safe. The residents of Starhall had a charm they all wore, one that apparently discouraged predators from attacking so long as it was kept alive with regular watering.

Importantly, it would also minimize the impact of her betrayal. Sure, a small team could share the charm, but more than a few ponies and the Overgrowth would likely not see the invaders as a neutral force.

It wasn’t even noon by the time she got her hooves back on the solid ground of the Isolation Zone’s flat roads, and about an hour later before she arrived at the barracks.

“Just you?” asked Lance, who happened to be lingering in the hall with Peter as she arrived. “Didn’t lose her, did you?”

Wayfinder turned her head down, in what she hoped was an appropriate and not suspicious amount of disappointment. “My trip was about Ruby saying her goodbyes. She’s not staying with me anymore.”

Lance heaved her modest duffel over her shoulder and onto her back. At her size, the petite mare couldn’t carry much with her. Less than Hazel probably could pack into saddlebags to travel. She whistled. “Well damn. After everything you did for her. She is okay, right?” The mare approached Wayfinder, poking her once in the chest. “You didn’t… lose her somewhere? Somewhere that we’re going to end up investigating in a week or two?”

Wayfinder laughed. “She’s fine. Still has one of the isolation zone phones, if you want to call her. We’re still good friends, just—”

A bug burst out of Wayfinder’s bedroom, buzzing across the intervening distance in a split second, before crashing directly into her. She hugged her with both forelegs, squeezing as tightly as any child could. “Big sister! I thought you were never coming back!”

“I was gone for… one night…” she pried her off with some difficulty, though not without letting her hold on for a few seconds first.

“Just making sure,” Lance said. “Have to ask with the people in here. There’s an unfortunate overlap in the traits that make a good officer and psychopathy, as it turns out. Glad to hear she’s doing good.” She turned away down the otherwise empty hall. “See you for class Monday, Blue.”

She vanished down the hall, leaving Wayfinder, Peter, and Hazel at the center of the room.

Peter waited until she was gone to say anything, following Wayfinder into her bedroom. “So Ruby’s out?” he asked, surprisingly intense for his usual relaxed attitude. “What the hell were you even up to, princess?”

She glared back at him, defiant. “I thought you didn’t want anything else to do with me? You paid your debt, and you got to cut ties. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He sighed. “I did want that. But the longer we spend here, the clearer it is that I’m back working for the same stupid assholes who got us in this mess in the first place. They botched containment, now they’re botching the response. But you… you’ve got ideas. Ruby is closer to a cure than everyone working in Bioscience in the old base, maybe closer than the whole CDC. And you know magic better than our entire paracausal research department. Figured it out to the level of personal teleportation. Even if I’m not saying it’s safe to bring Lance in—I know you wouldn’t believe me. But she was the most reasonable MP on base. Plus, they didn’t hire her for her ASFAB, if you catch my meaning.”

He looked at Hazel, then flicked his tail once and fell silent. “Point is, I’m not out. Whatever you’re doing, I still want to help, if you’ll let me.”

Wayfinder had a choice.

1. Tell Peter, try to use his help with her new assignment. He’s proven himself to be loyal.
2. Only Hazel gets to know, Peter can’t be trusted with anything big right now.