June 17, 7:40 AM

Wayfinder shuffled unhappily into the “conference room” she’d planned to use to win over the most important ponies in Denver. Only now those ponies were waiting outside, and she faced someone altogether more dangerous.

The enormous earth pony pushed the door closed with a hoof, then settled the briefcase on the center of the table in front of her. It was lower than most, which made sense in a room meant for children’s birthday parties.

Way looked up at the stallion. “So do I—”

He held something against the side of the case, and a click echoed out from within. A screen waited there, along with a camera and a few naked batteries soldered into plastic. The screen came on in an instant, and she already knew who would be there. Her viewpoint was inside the tank, with the diffuse fog of an underwater view muting the colors. It looked even more like a prison from the inside.

“Outside,” Command sang. The melody came hollow through inexpensive speakers. “Watch the door.”

He nodded once, then moved past Way. The door opened and closed, and something slid up against it. Shouldn’t have done that. Probably could’ve stopped me from escaping by smacking me in the head before. But if you’re not close when I teleport, that won’t help.

“Well, Wayfinder. Here we are.” Almost no music that time, her tone as flat as a loaf of bread she’d stepped on. “You know why I’m here. Virtually. I had planned on dragging you down to the bunker this morning, except—”

She had heard, of course. That was the entire point of sending Sunburst ahead, all the risks he had taken. They needed to know that Way hadn’t abandoned them. She couldn’t enter the city. If Senator Gardner had tried to force her, Way would have to run. Granted, the space to flee was now a lot smaller than it had been.

“Well. I got the report from your… advisor. I’ll not waste your time asking you to explain what I’ve already heard. I’ll not even waste mine by arguing over whether any of it is true. Given the significant change in the Overgrowth, I’m willing to take you at your word. Wild magic from the infected and the dead coalesced into homicidal forces that killed as well as spreading the virus, continuing the cycle. You thought it necessary to put an end to that expansion, sacrificing largely uninhabited land for the benefit of all mankind. How noble.”

She zipped across the tank, so that her face pressed directly up to the camera, one eye nearly filling the screen. “Denver shouldn’t bear the weight of all the world, Wayfinder. More importantly, it was never your decision to make. There were no discussions about this. A religious sabbatical to the mountains, a few days of prayer—that sounds great on your reelection campaign. But whatever the hell happened to you—”

She moved a little lower, so Way’s view shifted to the fin along her head. “Your boyfriend was telling the truth about the wings, huh? Those look authentic from where I’m swimming. Did you know that would happen too?”

“No,” she said. And this time, there was no shame in it. “All of that was unexpected. I knew the magic was powerful enough that it might change me by using it. But the specifics weren’t on the brochure. Like the part where I would be trapped inside the Overgrowth, probably for the rest of my life.”

She felt something as she said those words. All it took was the idea of leaving to feel as though someone was watching her. The HVAC overhead got quieter, fading far enough that she could even make out the sound of bubbling and pumps coming through the speakers in front of her. It’s okay, I’m not trying to leave. I promised. The pressure lasted only as long as the idea remained in her mind. When it faded, the pain bubbled away with it. “I know what you’re probably going to tell me.”

Gardner zipped back up again, and a little amusement returned to her song, echoing through the tank. “Oh, you do? You know so much about my leadership preferences that you completely disregard my supervision of the city and take whatever actions you choose. So go ahead, please. Tell me what I’m here to say.”

“That I can’t be captain of Denver anymore. The city’s on the wrong side of the Overgrowth, and I can’t get anywhere near it. You’ll say those people outside are all going home, because the meeting doesn’t matter. Right?”

The fish opened her mouth and laughed. The speaker crackled with the sound of it, transmitted shallow and clipped over the line. She drifted upward out of view, her fins stretching out in the water as her body relaxed.

Way could only stare. Her wings opened halfway, though she wouldn’t have known how to fly away if she wanted to.

“Of course! The mare who lives in an underground aquarium thinks that the one running Denver ought to be personally involved in every action. It just makes sense when you think about it. Though… I will admit, there is a measure of inherent absurdity. If the situation were different, it might be enough that I finally tightened my belt and got out there to handle it myself. Er—metaphorical belt. Would have some issues actually putting one on, as you can imagine. Sounds painful.”

Senator Gardner settled back into her vertical, “standing” position in the water, running her hooves gently over her fins until they fell roughly the same direction in the water. “If you can maintain authority over this makeshift government you’ve assembled—I’m not particularly concerned if you do it from the police station or somewhere else. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that I have no reason to expect you to communicate truthfully with me anymore. I seem to have considerable evidence for the opposite right now, Wayfinder.”

What could she say to that? It wasn’t wrong exactly. Way could’ve told her, then had to deal with the inevitable refusal that followed. Ultimately, Sunburst was right about the need to contain the Overgrowth.

So she didn’t waste time with empty words she didn’t mean. Wayfinder had more respect for Gardner than that. “You’re right. I won’t say you should just forget what happened. I’ll say something else, though: we aren’t far enough along for you to replace me and have a stable Denver still standing on the other end.”

She saw the tension on the fish’s face, the way all those fins along her back went rigid. She kept going anyway. “The earth ponies are on track to have enough for winter barely. But without Sunburst and me, the expertise to repeat that doesn’t exist. But we wouldn’t last until next planting season without us, because Denver is only surviving on the supplies NATO is airdropping to us. Without soap and clean clothes and medicine and junk food, we’d have nothing to pay the police enforcing our government’s authority.”

“Thanks to you,” Gardner snapped. “Don’t think I don’t remember that particular change. We already had a system in place. It wasn’t pretty, but it kept people safe. You traded it to satiate your conscience, and now we’re dependent on the whims of a foreign power.”

“It was evil,” Wayfinder snapped. She rose out of her sitting position in front of the table, her voice echoing through the confined conference room. “And this won’t last forever. We’ll be collecting taxes on the goods produced, and on all our transactions once we go back to a regular economy. Sunburst says four months until we have enough reserve. I trust his numbers.”

“Six months,” Gardner sang back, almost mocking now. “How do we make it that long, Wayfinder? There is one development you might not know. You aren’t connected to the federal government as I am. Let me share it with you. They know we failed to hold the Isolation Zone. They know about the escapes during your… spell.”

That hit her like a sack of rocks. Way slumped to the floor again, her tail smacking down, wings splaying out to either side. The feds knew. The feds who had threatened to deploy military force to protect the integrity of the Isolation Zone. Who were rumored to still maintain submarines, aircraft carriers, and ICBMs across the country. She didn’t know how true those stories were, except. “We’re still here to have this conversation. They didn’t… they didn’t do it?”

Gardner laughed again, though the amusement was gone. Now it came out choppy and forced. “They didn’t do anything? We’re cut off, Wayfinder. Supply shipments might’ve been irregular and insufficient for our needs, but they were still coming in. Until a few days ago. No more natural gas from the pipeline we were still using. I’m sure they’d cut all our power if they could. You’re lucky they don’t have the resources to do anything else, or they’d probably have dragged you to Anchorage for a Tribunal. Resulting in your death on the road, if I understand what I was told.”

She puffed out her chest, zipping around the edge of her tank once, then twice. No words came over the microphone, just a self-satisfied smugness.

Then she stopped again. “News hasn’t leaked yet, Wayfinder. You and I are the only ones in the city who know. Your energy department still believes it to be a malfunction in the pipeline. They will discover soon enough, though. If the police learn what happened—what do you think they’ll do? We’re all fucked, Wayfinder. All the way to whatever alien world cursed us with this. And it’s your fault.”

No gas—that meant much of their power, and even more of their heat. Natural gas was one of the more reliable ways of sending energy between homes, one that hadn’t been interrupted by the end of the world. They didn’t have the electricity to use it for all their heating and cooking.

“Your friends from Europe don’t have another shipment scheduled. I’m not sure what could possibly possess them to give us another. And even if they could—I’m not sure what they could offer. They can’t sail a gas tanker to us. We’re all going to freeze. Starting with me, probably. This bunker has priority access, but we’re nearly out of diesel and the batteries aren’t enough for more than a day or so for the tank. A few cloudy days in winter without much wind…”

“There’s a spell to get you out of the tank,” she said. But before Gardner could resolve the shock on her face, Way was talking again. “You’re right, we can’t survive the winter without gas. I’m sure everyone in town thinks the power problems are because of the spell. When they realize our electrical supply won’t come back, it’s going to… it’ll be a problem.”

“What do you mean there’s a spell to get me out of the tank?” No song that time, just flat, toneless demand louder than anything she’d said so far.

Way continued, speaking a little louder. It was easier than it would’ve been in person. The case didn’t have the best speakers. “I know how I can get Europe to give us enough supplies to pay for the city’s next six months. I know how to get them to pressure the feds to turn our power back on.” She pressed right up to the case, whispering. “My team and I can make a vaccine. We’ve figured out a way. The first dose will be incredibly difficult, dangerous, and likely unethical. But after that—we can give them what they want.”

She straightened, spreading out her wings beside her. Where they opened, little leaves and twigs emerged, faintly green. She spoke normally again. “I can. This thing I’ve become is called an Alicorn, Senator Gardner. The non-causal energy—the magic I can throw around is an order of magnitude more than a unicorn. Probably two while I’m inside the Overgrowth. We haven’t actually… figured out what the limit is. So I’d like to ask you, please. Let me finish what I’ve started. I screwed up. I got things wrong. I should’ve realized how significant Sunburst’s magic was going to be. But it’s where we are now, and it’s given us an opportunity. Please let me use it.”

The fish didn’t say anything for almost a minute. She floated away in the water, fins drifting. Her face remained away from the camera. She hummed wordlessly to herself, melting through several melodies without landing in any specific genre. Finally, she stopped. “Some part of me wants to tell the city what you caused. That part wonders whether you’re telling me the truth, or spinning the last, desperate gambit you can think of. If so, the audacity is admirable. Look me in the face and tell me you’re telling the truth. Tell me I can see my boys again. I can leave this godforsaken fish aquarium. Tell me you didn’t make that up.”

Not the vaccine? Wayfinder had been about to present the summarized version of Ruby’s research, but—that wasn’t it. Though in a strange way, this answer intersected with that one too. “Yes, Command. It was part of Ruby’s research. Equestria has magic that can transform living things. The vaccine uses this technique. For you—we would need a different kind of enchantment. A spell on your body would unravel, probably somewhere far from water where you’d suffocate in the air. But if we put it on an object you could keep on your person, a gemstone, maybe a pearl—” That was the specific item the Equestrian book about Hippogriffs described. Though it would take some adaptation to scale down something as large as the spell on the Overgrowth down to a modest personal example.

“And you could do this?” With those… orders of magnitude you spoke of.

She nodded. “With some study and practice, yes. I couldn’t deliver the result to you in person, but it would just be—a necklace, say. You’d wear it, and would become like us. Then use it again to return to the water. But I wouldn’t be able until I finish with our vaccine. Like you said—we’re screwed right now. We have to get the power back on, and keep enough supplies coming in to keep order.”

“Could the same approach make one of us human?” she asked. “Into the people we were. I know we eliminated direct physical transformation to restore the infected. But if an item would work for me to make me walk on land, why not walk on two legs?”

“Maybe one day,” Wayfinder said. “I don’t know what is possible. But the magic to make a sea creature walk already exists, ma’am. I would be casting a known spell. The world NEM10 came from did not know about us. So they have no magic to make things into us. Maybe one day, if we make it through this winter and the ones that follow. It would be worth investigating.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the locked door. “With Sunburst’s help, I could probably recreate that spell in a week or two. But I will need to stay in charge of Denver long enough for that.”

Gardner shrugged both fins. “This committee of small leaders with the power to remove you—you’re the reason it can threaten your control of the city. Though I still have sway with the ones holding the guns. I can provide incentives, I can make sure they vote on your side. But remember: You’ve made me a promise, just now. I expect you to keep that promise. If you fail…”

The rest went unsaid. The screen went black.

The discussion that followed went about the way she’d predicted. The leaders of Denver were frightened, frustrated, and upset that they hadn’t been consulted about something so vitally important as her spell. No one had to say so, but they all realized that she was the only way anyone in town was going to survive the winter. The Chaos over the Overgrowth meant that many had fled the Isolation Zone, and some of them suspected punishment was coming.

She waited for someone to call for the vote of no confidence that Wayfinder’s own constitution allowed. But three hours of discussion later, no one had.

“I’m not sure what we’ll do to bring the power back,” Mr. Kim said, the engineer she had assigned to keep the lights on. It had been hours now, the questions were done, and the energy of the conference had finally died down. “I’ve checked our supply as far out as we dare. I’m not reading any malfunction, but only our local sources are giving us pressure. We should have enough for minimal heating if this keeps up, but our plant is cold. We can’t start it again, which means we’re on nearly no power until something changes. If people are just leaving the Isolation Zone, I think you should order an investigation. Send a team to trace the line as far as we can, find whatever blocked it or shut it down. Repair it, or report back with why they can’t.”

Wayfinder kept her expression neutral. She could do that. Though Kim had just handed her an opportunity.

1. Tell her leaders the truth about the federal cutoff, risking getting deposed but preventing the information from getting out some other way.
2. Buy herself some time by sending out a team. If she can get the gas back on before the information gets out, the federal shutdown won’t matter.