June 11, 10:58 PM

Wayfinder followed Hazel through the tunnel, lit by the pale glow of white lights strung along the ceiling. Her pony nose made it impossible to fully ignore the sewage odor in the back of her nose, though it was by no means the only one. The green slime had its own scent, something harsh and faintly alkali, like the smell of the chemicals they used to clean her family’s old barn.

Not a bad smell exactly, though not one she’d expect living things to make. Mammals wouldn’t, but changelings—they were something else.

Way could already see where this was going before they reached the first door. One of many steel type common in critical infrastructure. Only this one led to a sort of—changing room? She couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. A concrete space, with a high ceiling and a few pieces of old, lifeless machinery against the walls. But whatever it was had long since fallen into disuse, and been supplanted by the room’s new functions.

It vaguely resembled places Way had seen in old Hollywood or stage productions, where the actors might prepare for their time to perform. A single row of stations, with various props and outfits arranged on the opposite wall, and personal effects on each. There were perhaps a dozen spots, each one with their own collection of items.

Nor were they alone. Several creatures looked up as they entered. Not all looked like Changelings, though Way knew better than to assume that was how they looked. The bug at the entrance had said something about ‘monoforms’ that stuck in her ear like a splinter. These people were creating their own slang. But if others treated them the way they had to Hazel before she discovered her—

“The kid’s back!” said a pegasus stallion near the door with a voice high and slightly shrill. “Wait, who’s that? Where’s the disgust?”

Sunburst raised his hoof as they entered. “If you mean at the physicality of the space, it’s really not that strange. I’ve seen inside a changeling hive before. This is—really not so strange.”

Inside a hive? But she didn’t get to ask that, because Sunburst’s words were already enough to make the whole room turn. Five different changelings, the pegasus, and something else so large she barely fit at her booth. Was that a yak? No, because magic flashed again and she became a bug too. The group retreated from them, backing together into a dense gaggle near the entrance.

Hazel bounced in front of them, sliding past Way and changing in a similar flash of green light. Back to herself. Hazel was definitely lighter than the other bugs. Her coat glittered like she’d bathed in wax and buffed herself every morning. “Don’t freak out! It’s my mom, everybody! She’s not dangerous. Just taste her—she’s not afraid of you.”

True. The fangs and black chitin and multifaceted eyes had disgusted her once, months ago. Today—she only saw frightened people hiding from a city that might not treat them with the respect they deserved. And a child who’d found a substitute for the parents who didn’t survive the pandemic. Wayfinder could live with that.

“Not afraid—kid, your mom is the fucking Captain. That’s Wayfinder Wisp,” the pegasus pointed at her with his wing, then flashed with his own little burst of green magic, changing like the others. “We’re so screwed, kid. She’s not supposed to know where—”

The door behind them opened, and a single enormous bug burst out the opening, levitating a piece of sharp metal in the space in front of him. “Felt something was wrong. Did we get another break in? Queen sent me to—” He froze, staring at the two of them from across the brightly lit dressing room. “Shit.”

Wayfinder couldn’t read emotions like a changeling, but she could see when a situation was rapidly spiraling. She stood up a little straighter, then spoke with the same tone of authority she’d been practicing with her aids, clerks, and assistants in the last few weeks. “We’re not here to disrupt your… operation,” she said. “Perhaps a tax stamp in the future, but not today. I suspect what you’re really after isn’t the money those customers are paying with.”

She walked slowly forward, one leg near Hazel. “I have a proposal for whoever’s in charge here.”

“The queen!” Sunburst added from just behind her, a little too quickly. “We won’t take much of her time. But there’s something we need, something only you can help us with. If she’s not interested, we’ll leave and you can keep your secret. This city has much bigger problems than whatever you’re doing down here.”

That provoked another few moments of deliberation between the bugs on the other side of the room. Wayfinder caught only one sentence through the whispers, more or less the same volume as everything else. “She’s already down here. Nothing else we could do to get rid of her.”

“The queen won’t be happy about this,” said the enormous pony, in his voice as deep as several trucks rumbling over a bridge. “Fine. This way.”

They followed, past staring bugs, through winding tunnels, until they came to an office. No doubt it had once been part of the original infrastructure down here, supervising who knew what. Now it was part living quarters, part insect hive, with concrete walls nearly covered in that semitransparent green slime. Someone had used it as a structural material, not just a coating over the walls. There were shelves now made from honeycomb, with a few openings on the back wall meant for sleeping.

And watching her enter, curled up atop a curved stretch of desk like a cat, was a bug. There was something different about this one, unlike every other bug she’d seen underground. She had a mane too, and a strange growth atop her head that might’ve been a crown.

“Queen, there’s—your sister brought them. They were already below hen I found them,” said their escort. Despite the title, he didn’t bow, just stood in the open doorway and looked vaguely ashamed. “Sorry boss.”

Which is it? Way held still, holding out a hoof to make Sunburst do the same. Just in time, because Hazel scampered forward to do the same. “Queen, this is the girl you sent me with. Remember? In the house? If you could trust her with me, you can trust her now.”

So it is the same person. Wayfinder didn’t stare. She might know this creature’s past identity, but she also knew enough to understand exactly what it was like. She watched with total neutrality on her face as the resting bug uncurled herself from the desk and fluttered down with a few flaps from larger, stronger-looking wings.

She landed behind the desk, on a comfortable looking pile of cushions and pillows that made her tall enough to see over it. Hard to miss that she was still smaller than Hazel. Her voice came out higher too, shrill.

“George, damage is done. Back to the floor. I know them. Or… I know one of them.” She squinted at Sunburst. “Were you in the backseat or something? I don’t recognize you.”

“I don’t know what—probably not. I’m Wayfinder’s executive secretary, Sunburst.”

The small, strange bug giggled, covering her mouth with the back of one extended hoof. “Sure, yeah Secretary. Call it that if you like. “And I’m Queen. That’s what everyone down here calls me now. And you’re Wayfinder. Wayfinder Wisp, right?”

The large pony nodded once, then turned back the way he’d come, leaving them alone to talk.

Way shrugged. “Some people have started calling me that. But you can just call me Way if you want. It sticks.”

“Way, why did my little sister take you down here? She should know that we don’t show our home to strangers. Especially strangers who happen to be the defacto dictator of Denver’s Isolation Zone.”

“I need your help. Well… not your help personally, miss… Queen. A handful of adults from your organization here. Preferably those with previous law enforcement experience, or lawyers, anything in that context.”

She explained the problem over a few quick minutes. Thousands of people with no records, who might’ve forgot a form one day or might be serial killers. “I’m trying to get the population in that prison as low as possible. That means I need someone who can help me understand who’s safe and who’s going to get out and hurt people.”

Queen considered the offer in silence for a few minutes. She levitated a narrow pad of paper out from under the desk, looking over it. After a minute or so of staring, she spoke. “I might have some people in mind. Did you plan to pay us? Or are you going to threaten us into sending help. You can’t think that will get you good results.”

“I’m not the old captain,” she said, without hesitation. “I’m not threatening you. If you want to refuse, you an refuse. We do have some useful resources to trade, antibiotics and blankets and—“

Queen’s wings buzzed briefly in her annoyance. So that gestured appeared to be universal between bugs. Useful knowledge. But also not even remotely what she was looking for. “Stop. We have plenty of objects. You want something more than our usual service, so you must offer us more than our usual fee. Denver’s captain, so you will have to pay us like it.”

“Mayor,” she corrected, doing her best not to mirror that same annoyance she heard from the other speaker. “This isn’t going to be a dictatorship. We’ll have elections in another eight m—”

Queen giggled again, high pitched and shrill. “Sure we will. Elections, of course. I believe you completely. I’ve got two lawyers and a cop who work for me. A few aids from the congressional hotel with law backgrounds. Not—their present occupations, as you can imagine. People don’t do the best treating us with basic human decency.”

Hazel cleared her throat loudly, buzzing into the air and resting her forelegs on the desk. Strange that she could be larger than the person who was once her older brother. But there were strange effects with age too. Or more accurately, some infected forms seemed to age differently than humans did, enough that an elderly senator sounded like a young woman from the command tank. “Don’t try to use that on Wayfinder, Queen. She took me in when she just had to drive a few feet and dump me out the window. And she actually cares enough to let me live with—”

Way reached out, resting one hoof on Hazel’s shoulder. She could understand her frustration, but if that got in the way of getting thousands out of jail. “Hazel, please. I’ll hear her out.”

That worked. The bug grunted once, then her wings flicked and she dropped back to the floor, falling quiet.

“We don’t need food or supplies. Guess you didn’t offer food—you have been watching my sister, so you know that part. I know we’re still depending on you people to do what you say you will, and I accept that. But if I get it from you in writing, that’s the best we can ask for.”

She nodded. “Alright. So what do you want instead?”

The queen didn’t hesitate. “Recognition for what we’re doing down here. We can get you a map of the territory we’re using. No one else was here. No raids.”

Wayfinder nodded. “Alright. Is that it?”

“No.” She gestured at Hazel. “My little sister wasn’t the only bug in this awful position. I want us to get a chance to talk to any bugs who show up in the future. If there… even are any uninfected people left. Denver doesn’t have the facilities to help them, we do. Or we’re… figuring them out. We’re closer than you are.”

That one hit a little harder. “This is a…” she glanced at Hazel, then back. “I’m not here to judge your solution to feeding the bugs living here. But I don’t want to promise we’ll do that forever. People shouldn’t have to work in a place like this to feed themselves. I see that as a flaw in Denver I would like to fix. Though since I can’t fix it today, I would—accept for any adults we discover. I am not sending children down here.”

“We don’t make kids work!” Queen said, indignant. “Ask my sister, or go with her and see where the other kids are living. You’re already here anyway.”

If there are kids down here, we have to know what’s happening to them. Way thought. But for now, she turned towards Hazel. “There are other children down here? And they don’t…”

Hazel nodded sharply. “There’s a guard at the door, at least there was last time. We can talk to them yourself, if you want. I’m sure Queen would let us go without sending a message ahead of us. Ask them yourself what they do down here. But… I’ll tell you what they’ll say. They eat down here. They miss their parents. They want to visit the surface more.”

Wayfinder glanced back at Sunburst. “What do you think of the offer?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Agree, but under the condition that you get to send teachers for the young bugs. If there are issues that can’t be resolved, we get to have another meeting to discuss how they’ll be housed.”

“We can agree to that,” Queen didn’t even wait until he was finished talking. “Please please please send help. I am not qualified to run a school or a daycare. Not qualified to run a brothel either, but here I am doing both.”

You look like you belong in school yourself. But true or not, she didn’t need to solve all of Denver’s problems in an hour. If she could get the prison emptied of people who didn’t belong there, she could tackle the bug situation later.

“Alright, Queen. Here’s how we do this. First I’ll meet the children and see how they’ve been treated. I’ll ask to make sure they aren’t—associating with your commerce. If I get good answers, you’ll introduce me to your people that you think have a good intersection of real experience and changeling emotional powers. If that works out, we’ll agree to your terms, and they’ll report to the courthouse tomorrow morning for our next batch of reviews. It will… probably take several days, so don’t assign them to anything else.”

Still, Wayfinder didn’t expect to find anything awful down here—if the bugs were trying it, they’d have far greater reason to panic at her arrival. Besides: Queen might lie, but she didn’t think Hazel would. Her little sister would’ve told her if something awful was happening.

So it was that the next morning found a new panel of experts assembled beside her review box as the unreviewed prisoners queued outside. One by one they entered.

“Emily Katrina, winged infected with blue pink coloration,” the clerk read, as the pegasus stopped before her with shivering wings and eyes that couldn’t meet hers. “Length of incarceration: two months, ten days.” Nothing else.

Wayfinder’s new panel looked like ordinary ponies: one unicorn, one elderly pegasus, one earth pony with a slight twitch to his expression and a habit of pacing. The three shared a single look.

“Why were you arrested, Miss Katrina?” Wayfinder asked.

“I was…” the pegasus began, voice shaking. “There was a bridge. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t see a sign. But the officer said I was trespassing. Dragged me to jail. Never saw a judge, never—”

“She’s telling the truth,” the elderly pegasus said. “She didn’t do anything else.”

“This pegasus isn’t violent,” the earth pony added. “No aggression.”

Wayfinder held up one hoof, adjusted the robes, then turned to the clerk. “The court will dismiss this case. Deputy, escort this prisoner to release processing.”

Not every case was so straightforward, of course. Plenty were unwilling to talk to her, or else lied with everything they said, leaving the determination of what they’d really done impossible. She would need to find a way to deal with those people too, eventually. But when the jail held hundreds who’d trespassed or got too drunk or didn’t file the right forms when crossing into the city, she was happy to drain all those first.

She got plenty of angry looks from the prison staff, and plenty more muttering at her reckless tactics. She didn’t need changeling powers to overhear the predictions about mass violence and crime when this was over.

But one day turned to two, then three and four, and the queue of poor souls waiting to be released drained away. Instead of overflowing, Denver would have mostly empty cells going forward. Many of those they employed to supervise prisoners could redirect their effort elsewhere. Many broken families were united.

The marching and protests outside the jail trickled away. Not everyone was happy—some families seemed to think their loved ones accused of serious crimes would be walking free too. But it was enough.

On the last day of Wayfinder’s makeshift judicial review, she returned home to find a message waiting on the laptop she now used to communicate with NATO. It wasn’t long, and didn’t request a call. “Provided intel suggests potential avenue for vaccine development. Next shipment will be contingent on digital delivery of context-violation books. Ongoing supply relationship requires ongoing vaccine development relationship. Provide your requirements as soon as possible so any material can be included in the next shipment.”

That was it. But that left her with a question for Ruby. So Wayfinder focused her attention on the Overgrowth, gathered her magic for a few seconds, and was there.

Part of her was still amazed each time it worked, even though it was exactly the thing she’d been practicing the entire time. An instant of intense focus, and she was on the other side of the city, tucked away in the back of the school library. No one even jumped when she did it anymore.

A two-legged canine creature organizing the books looked up as she appeared, then calmly picked up a textbook Way had dislodged with her arrival and returned it to the shelf. “Way do you need the mayor for this time?”

She didn’t answer, just shuffled past the diamond dog and down the hall, then up to the next floor where Ruby had her makeshift lab. To her surprise, Sunburst was there, arguing in a low voice with Ruby.

“We have to do this now. The longer other foci develop, the more entrenched they become. We have to rip them out! while we still can!”

“We need the magic,” Ruby sat at a desk with three scavenged monitors, and a laptop much nicer than the one she’d been working with in Granite Bluff, made from thick metal and covered in NATO markings. “There’s no way around it. An anti-causal event caused this in the first place, we can’t get a viable seed without a similar concentration. Those people working at labs all over the planet were never going to find this, because they don’t have the magic to actually—see it. We do. We’re the only ones who can.”

“You’ve got an audience,” said a male voice from the floor, one she’d mistook for an old blanket. But then the hippogriff shifted, and those cream-colored feathers opened, revealing the bright yellow mane and tail within weren’t just scraps of a hoodie.

“How long have you been there, Blazing?” Way asked.

He shrugged. “They don’t need me today. Just keeping Ruby company.”

Sunburst and Ruby turned towards her, and looked like they might just start arguing over each other.

“One at a time,” she said. “If you need me to resolve something, then…”

“We’re ready for the Overgrowth spell,” Sunburst said. “It took a few weeks, but we’re ready. Unicorns here have been collecting magic for it in a number of… concentration crystals. You gave me your word, Wayfinder. It’s time. But Ruby—”

“I think I’ve figured out a way to test our theory for a vaccine. Thing is—we need a metric assload of raw magic to do it. And an uninfected human, which—well, that’s the second problem. But it won’t matter if we don’t have the fuel. And if you spend it on something else, it took over a month to gather it the first time.”

“If making a promise isn’t enough,” Sunburst said, his voice a little lower, pained. “Think about it this way. Once the wild magic roots itself in your planet, it’s there forever. Magic from the deaths of… thousands of your kind, more. Magic overflowing with pain, grief, and anger, that will strike against anyone, and there’s no way to know just how strong they’ll get. If we do this, we can… isolate the danger, and contain it. If we wait, the opportunity is gone.”

Wayfinder had to decide:

1. Prioritize the vaccine. The human race needs it, magical dangers will have to way. Hopefully Sunburst will forgive her.
2. Complete the Overgrowth Spell. They can gather more magic for a Vaccine test later. She made a promise.