3-5-7-2-8-7-0

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 2: The Mothmann Hypothesis
Chapter 3: Stasis Paradigm
Chapter 4: Possible vs Not Possible
Chapter 5: The End Diagram
Chapter 6: The Minimum Survival Equation
Chapter 7: Hell's Uncertainty Principle
Chapter 1: Morose Code
Epilogue

Prologue

It is with a heavy heart that ponykind confronts the irregularities within itself. Madness. Delusion. Violence. These abominations in our psyche seem to serve no purpose other than to do us harm, like a parasite, nay, a disease, that spreads throughout the collective consciousness and takes root in our darkest desires. They would feed off of our insecurities and needs, spreading themselves through our minds and contaminating our thoughts. They may even be considered contagions. For seeing a pony commit a violent act may drive oneself to violence, while in the same vein, observing somepony’s madness and trying to understand it may drive oneself insane.

The mind is not a pure constructs. It is a convoluted and indescribable thing that exists within a mechanism we do not fully understand. It can be manipulated, tampered, even destroyed with the simplest of concepts. Within each of our five senses lies the ability to corrupt the psyche and debilitate the consciousness. And, sometimes, that ability lies within a sixth sense, one that we do not fully understand. We call it a sixth sense to attempt to categorize it, to give it a name, catalog it and force it to make sense.

And therein is the root of the problem: to understand, sometimes, is to lose everything.

~Anonymous

3-5-7-2-8-7-0

Prologue

A Master’s in Applied Science in Radio Broadcasting. That’s all Switchboard wanted. Something to take home to the family and prove he’d done something with his life. It wasn’t a simple task, by any means. Long hours of studying, research, and a disturbing lack of sleep were par for the course. However, no part of any syllabus in any of his classes told him that he was required to sit back and take it while some insufferable freaky flying faggot made his life Tartarus on Earth. “Will you GET YOUR ASS OFF THE CEILING?!”

Fried Circuit glance up (down) from the ceiling, where he’d planted himself 'and the bag full of popcorn what the BUCK' while he studied. Directly over Switchboard’s head. Where he happened to have been dropping stray kernels for the last five minutes. “Dude, I’m trying to read. If you don’t like it, move.”

Switchboard held in a scream of primal rage, brushing off popcorn scraps from the surface of his circuit board, what little he wasn’t able to deflect in time before he’d thought to put up a magical bubble off of which the dropping kernels made a soft wavy bouncing sound when they hit. “You almost got a bunch of food all over my equipment! Do you have any idea how important this project is? This group. Project?!”

Fried Circuit rolled his eyes and floated down to the floor, taking a hooffull of popcorn with it and shoving it in his mouth. “What?” He said, after a glare from Switchboard, having swallowed his muzzle full of popcorn all at once. “What?”

The unicorn just glared daggers at his teammate. A rowdy young Pegasus with no respect for anypony, including himself, Fried Circuit was mostly known around campus for being the only pony ever with two special talents: getting baked and baking electronics. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Where there’s fire, there’s Fried. The yellow Pegasus shrugged and ran a hoof through his blue mane, picking up another book and a soda out of somewhere and sitting on the floor with his back to the wall.

Switchboard just rubbed his hooves on his temples. He only had to deal with this guy for a few more days, and then he could go back to studying like usual. He glanced around the room to see if there was anything more productive that he could be doing. He’d really only been hovering over these circuits to keep them from getting food-rained on. The room itself was relatively small, and loaded with stuff. The two ponies had found an old workroom in the basement of the Applied Sciences building to do some experiments on for their project: hijacking radio frequencies. They had to build a device that could override a predetermined station at any time, under almost any conditions. Something about understanding how to secure a transmission and learning more about how emergence broadcasts did their thing.

Switch’s eyes glazed over the large supply of radio equipment, sound systems, wiring, controls, and loose electronics lying around the room. It was one of those cold concrete basements that looked more like somepony had just carved giant cubes into rocks and put doors between them. Cold green concrete flooring stared back at him when he looked down, or at the walls. Eventually he noticed something strange in the corner of the room: one of the old shortwave radios they were intending to scavenge for parts had turned on. At least, the light was blinking. It had headphones plugged in so Switch couldn’t tell if there was sound coming from it.

Switchboard trotted around the desk with all of his current progress, and clambered unceremoniously over Fried’s hind hooves, to get to the radio. It was a simple piece of technology by current radio standards. A speaker, sliders, a few buttons, antenna. A solid-state analog shortwave, if he remembered correctly. He looked down at the large headphones sitting on the table next to them, and, listening closely, heard… some kind of noise emanating from them.

“Oh, what the hell, why not?” Switch said, exasperated. It’s not like he was making much progress. He slipped the headphones on, readjusting them slightly over his ears. Once all the commotion of leather padding rubbing his ears wore off, he could hear the actual broadcast. It was a simple, continuous stream of speech with seemingly no purpose: “5-9-3-9-4-8-6-5. 2-0-9 to the 5-6-7 of 3 over 4-7-3. 2 of 8 and 1-6-3-4-7 by 7 by 5-7 by 3-7-5-4-3. 3-6-2-5-8-3-5-6-8-6-2-4-7-8-5-3-4-4-7-9-3-4-5-7-5-4-6-7-4-6-4-3-0-5-7-4-3-5-7-9-8-2-0-3-5-7-3-9-8-6-3-2. 34093298327534. 5 of 2. 5-9-3-9-4-8-6-5…” Switchboard put the headphones down when he realized it was looping. At least, he thought so. Were they getting faster?

He changed the station a little, just by .7 or so, and put the headphones back on. Classical music poured in down the wire, a relaxing melody that somehow contrasted nicely to the berating stream of numbers he’d just heard. Even his heart rate seemed to slow.

That was weird, he didn’t feel excited. He hadn’t felt his heart rate rise at all. He put a hoof up to his forehead, and aside from a little bit of sweat, he was fine. That was to be expected, though. The sacrifice of having your own space is that it got warm when it was most inconvenient. Namely, all the time.

He chalked up the numbers to somepony else having done their project already, which only spurred him on to work harder, and his elevated heartbeat to the stoner currently face down and asleep in a poorly concealed Playcolt magazine. He returned his attention to the circuit boards he’d been fiddling with, and as inspiration struck him, he set back to work.

The sun shone through the window like an unforgiving maiden of consciousness, shining in Switchboard’s eyes and all but browbeating him awake. His eyes slowly crept open to stare at his ceiling. Or, more accurately, the Spitfire pinup on his ceiling. There was just something about a mare straddling heavy artillery that made waking up just a little bit easier. He rolled over and surveyed the rest of his bedroom. A large poster of his favorite DJ, Vinyl Scratch, took up the majority of a rather small wall in front of which his TV and stereo were set up in a large entertainment center. Well, large compared to the rest of the room. Which held all of a bookcase, his bed, and enough room to roam around in. Aside from the posters and his book collection, it probably looked like every other dorm room on campus. Actually, especially with the posters and book collection, it probably looked like every other dorm on campus.

He rolled himself casually off his bed and onto the floor, landing on his hooves with all the grace of a cement block landing on whatever side it happened to have dropped on. Still, Switch liked to think he’d presented at least a little skill. He made a half-hearted attempt to shake what little sleep he could out of his eyes, and traipsed into the living room. It too, was sparsely decorated, in part because his dorm mate spent all of their time in their room, and because he didn’t have the funds or interest to furnish it. Just a couch, a table, and a tv. All but dragging himself into the bathroom, he noticed it slightly odd that the bathroom was closed, and a light was on. Until he remembered he wasn’t the only pony left in a desolate, abandoned Equestria. Knocking louder than was probably necessary, he grumbled out, “Whooziner?” He stopped, coughed a little, and tried again. “Who’s in there?”

There was no answer. He listened at the door for the sound of running water, or humming, or something, but didn’t hear a sound. Shrugging, he hoofed the door open and trotted inside. He glanced about to make sure there was nopony present, and, having given the room an all-clear, filled the sink with cold water. Then dunked his face in it.

It wasn’t until he’d been holding his breath for a few seconds that he became aware of another presence in the room. He pulled his head out of the sink, and stared at the door: another pony was staring back.

“Oh, morning Hatrack. How’d you sleep?” Switchboard asked, in what was still a bit of an early morning grumble. He wiped some excess water off his face with a hoof and waved slightly at his roommate.

Haute Couture, Switchboard’s roommate, was in school for a Business degree. He intended on owning his own clothing company, making and selling his own designs, like other ponies he admired. He was also a decently attractive stallion, with a slight but athletic build, wavy blue mane and tail, and a pearly white coat. His Cutie Mark, a needle and thread, was accented by the saddle he wore.

The colt was up and down as Fancee as you get, and mares all but threw themselves at him because of it. Of course, he was far more interested in his designs and his grades than getting any, so he rarely left his room, save for classes or to go shopping. Or really, any of the other necessities a pony so often encounters in everyday life. “Obviously better than you, if you’re trying to drown yourself this early in the morning,” Haute smiled. Switchboard called him Hatrack cause he couldn’t pronounce Haute’s real name to save his life. But the Fancee colt was more than personable enough, and took it in stride. Besides, he’d flinched whenever Switch first tried. “Long evening?”

Switch dried himself off with a towel and shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it. I got saddled with Fried Circuit for a team project.”

Haute had the courtesy to look offended for him. “Oh, my. I’m so sorry, my dear. Well, good news, good news! I have something that will just absolutely make your day glow!” And he dashed back into his room.

There was also the fact that Haute couldn’t act any gayer if he’d rode into this life on another stallion’s dick. That did have something to do with the ‘Not having any fillies over’ thing. He was a loud and proud metrosexual, which everyone misinterpreted as colt-cuddler. Not that Haute cared. It gave him more credibility in… certain circles.

Switch grinned and shook his head again, reaching for the light switch on his way out. As he hit it, though, he noticed something odd. The room got brighter. He looked up, and saw that he’d turned the light on, not off. Wasn’t there light in this room earlier…? Nah.

Switch took the opportunity to wash himself at least a little more thoroughly, while Haute did whatever it was Haute does. Knowing Haute, it was as going to be more clothes. Not that he didn’t need him. With money as tight as it was, being Haute’s ‘model’ was really the only way he got new threads. Even if he did look a little… high and tight wearing them. Clothes weren’t a necessity, after all, and he really only wore them too feel good, or show off, which he rarely got opportunities to do. He plopped himself down on the couch and waited.

Only a few moments later, Haute wheeled out a mannequin pony, displaying a rather simple (for Haute) design. A light, collard white shirt and a pair of black pants Those are almost shorts, jeez, dude., with a black shiny belt. It was probably the most practical thing he’d ever seen that mannequin wear. “Wow, dude… that’s really cool. Is that…” he trailed off, not wanting to seem presumptuous.

Haute waved a hoof. “Of course it’s for you! Waving clothes in front of a naked stallion is like drinking water in front of a drowning man. Sooo Ce n'est pas branche`.” Switch blinked at the Fancee phrase. Haute sighed. “Not cool?”

“Oh! Yeah. Hey, I can use that later,” he mused allowed, climbing off the couch and walking around the mannequin.

Haute clapped his hooves. “I’m always happy to educate the poor common folk,” he said with a grin. Before Switch could get out a snarky comment, Haute shoved him and the clothes 'How the hell did he get them off the mannequin so fast?' into the bathroom. “Go on, change! And don’t come out till you do!”

Hearing the door click behind him, Switch rolled his eyes. Hey, free stuff was free stuff, and he did have some time today, it being a Saturday morning. He might as well go out and look good for a while. “Ok, but I’m grabbing a shower first!”

He heard Haute yell some kind of affirmation in French outside the door, then trot off. Hopefully to make breakfast. In the meantime, Switch turned the faucet on in the tub, gauging the water with his hoof. When it was sufficiently scalding, he pushed the clothes as far against the wall on the counter as he could. Haute would die if he got his new outfit wet.

He turned the shower head on, climbed in, and closed the curtain.

Then, dark.

Haute Couture was busy making, well, something for breakfast while his roommate showered. He hadn’t quite settled on what, yet. His eyes roamed the fridge, trying to piece together something creative with what little they had. Finally, he settled on some eggs, milk, and cheese, and a few choice vegetables. Omelets it was!

Chopping up some peppers and tomatoes, he left the pan on the stove to warm up just a little. Once the veggies were finely minced (Haute hated large chunks of veggies, a fine dice was more dignified), he mixed together the eggs and milk.

He was just about to pour the mixture into the pan when he heard a crash come from the bathroom. He stopped mid-gesture, the bowl just hanging over the pan, almost pouring, and called out, “Switch? Dearie? Are you ok?”

It was quiet for a little, until Haute realized he could hear a slow mumbling coming from the bathroom. He set the bowl down, and absentmindedly turned the burner off, slowly approaching the door. Steam came out from under the door, a sign the shower was running. He pressed an ear against it, listening for, well, anything. He heard the same low mumbling, only louder, and some kind of soft scratching noise.

Then another crash.

Haute threw the door open, and what he saw made him freeze with his hoof in the air: blood. That was the first thing he noticed. Lots of blood. Trailing across the mirror, down Switch’s body, and over the walls. Then the finer details came into focus, as adrenaline poured into Haute’s brain and time slowed down. The broken mirror. The broken shard of glass in Switch’s hoof. The deep cut in his inner thigh.

And the numbers. In a moment, the stallion realized what the scratching had been: Switch had carved dozens of numbers into the wall, the counter, even trying to carve at the ceramic of the tub, filling the room with numbers. No pattern. No sense to any of it. Just a giant wall of numerical chaos.

Finally, the entirety of the situation crept up on Haute like slow-acting poison. Realization crossed his face…

And he screamed.

Author's Note

Yet another story I wanted to work on. I got this idea in my head and couldn’t let it go. SO here it is.

To be honest, horror is my favorite genre to write. I love horror movies, games, just being good old fashioned Hollywood Scared. And writing it is both a good challenge and a lot of fun.

Chapter 2: The Mothmann Hypothesis

Holler’s first impression of the salon was that anypony who was anypony who was gay probably got their mane and tail done here. Part of him, rather a large part in fact, hoped he could get through the experience without getting hit on.

Unless they had a mare who worked there. That could be neat.

‘Yes, but they’re most likely a superdyke or faghag.’

“Oh don’t be vulgar,” he grumbled. “Let’s just get in, get it done, and get out.”

“Now who’s vulgar?” said a voice behind him. Hollar practically jumped out of his coat. Spinning around, he saw a stallion give him a wink and a smile and walk inside.

‘Sweet Celestia do not go in there I’m begging you.’

“That’s nice,” he said a little too loudly. The stallion stopped as he opened the door, and gave Rock a smile over his shoulder.

‘...fuck.’

Rock waited for a moment before he trotted in to make sure he didn’t seem like he was following the other colt in, and opened the door. The first thing he was aware of was that the place smelled like every manecare product in the world. EVER. “Holy mother-” he threw his hoof over his nose, and started breathing through his mouth. It was a slight improvement. Everything would taste like aerosol for days.

The mare behind the counter, a ‘broad’ if there ever was one, took one look at him, and kept chewing her gum, returning her attention to the article she was reading. Her hair was done up in a beehive on her head, and Rock didn’t know if he’d teleported to the fifties or the middle of New Colt City. “Welcome to Clip ‘n’ Trip, what can we do to ya?”

‘Oh god what is that thing?’

Not responding, Rock simply asked, “I could use a touch up. I’ve been told I look a little... shaggy.”

Before the mare could give a response or even a proper once-over, a rather feminine voice said from behind her, “Well I’ll say. You look like something the cat dragged in after playing with it all night.”

Rock’s attention turned to somewhere a little to the left of the receptionist, and he saw the stallion from earlier. A tall, lanky fellow, his green mane was done up in blonde highlights and he had matching blonde streaks going through his lighter-green coat. He looked like an under ripe watermelon with anorexia. “Excuse me?” Rock asked, bewildered. Any anger he’d felt at being insulted had walked out the door and been replaced with a serious case of the ‘What the Bucks?’

“Well don’t just stand there, get over here,” said the stallion, grabbing him by the hoof and leading him to a seat with all the grace of a freight train with a tow line. Holler sat down rather indelicately and blinked. “Um...”

“Now, I’m Sparkle Spray, don’t laugh, and I’ll fix this right up. What do we want? Color? Style? Something completely new?” Sparkle rambled off a few more options, until Rock finally caught up with the situation and raised a hoof to silence him.

“Um, Haute Couture sent me here. I just want to look more... trim and tidy. Less like a featherduster. And I’ll tip you for every pass you don’t make at me,” he explained.

Sparkle huffed. “Well you’re no fun. What was that out there, then? Talking to yourself?”

Rock nodded, stonefaced. “Yes.”

The effeminate stallion just sighed. “Fine then. At least you’re a friend of Hottie’s. So how is he?”

“He... well. His roommate died today.”

The first thing that Rock noticed after he’d finished his sentence was that the room had been very noisy when he’d walked in. Something he hadn’t paid attention to until now. This came to his attention when he realized how quiet it got. “Switch... Switch is dead?” Sparkle asked, all of his luster gone.

Rock nodded again. They’d obviously known him pretty well. “Yeah,” he said quietly, slowly realizing all eyes were on him. “I don’t know all the details, but apparently he... well, he lost it or something. He...” a slight pause. There was no easy way to say this. “He did it himself.”

The room as one gasped, and slow murmurs started building throughout the room. Sparkle shook his head furiously. “Oh no no no he would not. Not our little Switchboard. Something else must have happened.”

Rock just looked at him. “From what I’ve heard he... he carved a bunch of numbers or something into the wall and... then he cut himself. I didn’t see.”

Sparkle was still shaking his head in denial when another stylist piped up. “You know what I bet it was? That Fried Circuit colt he was forced to work with. That stallion must have given him something. Maybe slipped him something ugly, made him crazy.”

Rock’s ears perked up. He’d heard of Fried Circuit before. Callous unabashed stoner of a pony. “I didn’t know he was working with that walking lab accident.”

Spark’s face grew determined and fierce. “You know I’ll bet you’re right, Shiny. We oughtta go have a word with him!”

There was a rousing chorus throughout the room, making Rock a bit nervous. “Hey now, um, I get that your upset, but could we... maybe save it for when you’re not holding scissors so close to my head?”

Sparkle looked at Rock like he’d forgotten he was there, and at his hoof, where he was indeed holding a pair of styling scissors. “Oh my stars would you look at that I’m so sorry.” Sparkle then started to trim at Rock’s mane, working frayed ends and loose hair out of the way. “I just know he did something and I’m gonna talk to that colt about it!”

Rock thought about that. Setting a vengeful fashionista with sharp objects on a pothead might not go anywhere good. “Um, how about I go talk to him? I could maybe ask him what they were working on or something, and then report back. And if he did give Switch something to... loosen up, or whatever, then you can have at him.”

Sparkle smiled gently. A few others voiced some agreement, and Rock noticed the volume had returned to the salon, even if the tone was a bit different. “That sounds great. You go dig up some dirt on him or something and report back like a good little soldier. You do that and I won’t charge you for this.”

Rock liked the idea of free anything, so he nodded. “Sure. Finding him shouldn’t be hard. Just follow the smoke, right?”

A few ponies laughed at that. The overall attitude that somepony had done something to their friend had given them all something to focus on instead of being sad. Sparkle patted his head. “I think I’m gonna like you, Mr...”

“Oh, uh, Rock. Rock Holler.”

“Mr. Holler,” Sparkle said slowly. He smiled.

‘Oh great, he’s probably thinking about how to turn your name into an innuendo.’

Shiny, the stallion who’d spoken up earlier, asked from his chair, “So how do you know Hottie?”

“Oh, I live down the hall from him in the dorms. They were... there were police in the hall earlier and I’d dropped by to see if he was okay. I asked him to come with me to get a manecut, but he said he had some phone calls to make. To Switch’s family,” he elaborated, when Shiny raised an eyebrow.

The other colt’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, right. Well, that was a nice thing to do, anyway. I bet he’s the one who told you to come down and get trimmed up?”

“Actually my roommate. It kind of... came up when we were talking earlier. Something about scaring mares away,” he said sheepishly.

He could have sworn he heard somepony say ‘dammit’ very quietly. Shiny raised an eyebrow again. “You’re straight?”

“...yeeess....” Rock said uneasily.

Shiny paused, and laughed, shaking a free hoof. “Oh, no, not like that, sweetheart! We don’t discriminate here. And that certainly explains your... order. It’s just, usually the stallions that Haute sends us that turn out to be not massive colt-cuddlers look like brick shithouses. We just figured...”

Rock sighed. “I’m an artist. Of the not-so-starving variety. Muscles are about as useful to me as a third wing.”

Sparkle gasped. “Ooh, what kind? Do you paint? Write poetry? Are you a musician?” He whittled away at Rock’s tail as he spoke.

‘This guy’s fast.’

“...stoppit...” Rock muttered under his breath. He stopped when he realized Sparkle was staring at him via their reflections. “Oh, no, not you. Just... you’re fine.”

Sparkle laughed. “Talking to yourself again, are we? You’re not loco in the coco, are you?”

“I don’t think so, but my therapist would disagree,” he answered dryly.

“Well, tell that little voice in your head to keep it down. I can’t talk and work at the same time, honeybun.”

‘...what?’

Rock walked out of the salon a little later, feeling much more refreshed and a tad gayer. Once they’d gotten past the whole discussion of Switch and ponies had calmed down some, the atmosphere returned to normal. The world must go on, after all.

‘They’re probably going to go home and cry themselves to sleep after this.’

“Seriously, don’t be mean,” Holler grumbled.

‘I’m just saying. They’re not indecent. Just in control. For as long as they can, anyway. I’m guessing it will hit them later. That or they’re all holding onto this Fried Circuit thing. Seeking Justice for the wrong-done, and all that.’

“Whatever gets them by,” he muttered to himself. A few ponies glanced at him, but he was used to it. They wanted to know where the sound was coming from, that was all.

‘Right. Not everypony’s out to get you, dude. Except the ones that are.’

“Isn’t that the same line of logic that says crazy people don’t know they’re crazy?” Rock asked nopony in particular as he opened the door to administration. He noticed an officer talking to a secretary off to the side, most likely following up on Switchboard’s death.

‘But you don’t think you’re crazy.’

“...I hate you.”

‘I love you too.’

“Can I help you, son?” Rock was pulled out of his not-so-inner dialogue by the voice of an older stallion. He looked up and saw what he assumed to be a professor or at least a staff member standing next to him, a grey coated old colt with a white mane and tail.

Holler paused for a moment, trying to remember why he was there. “Oh, um, yeah. I was... I’m trying to find Fried Circuit. Do you...”

The old stallion huffed. “Know where he is? Thank Celestia I don’t. I’d tan his hide. But if you’re looking for him, try the basement of the applied sciences building. He and that poor pony Switchboard were working on some kind of class project downstairs. Goddess knows why the cops ain’t talkin’ to him. From what I heard Switch went out of his gourd. Wouldn’t surprise this old mule if he’d given that poor colt something.”

Rock nodded. “That seems to be the popular theory. Thanks for the help, Mr...”

“Steel. Steel Rod. I’m one of the engineering professors. And you are?” he asked, holding out a hoof with a smile.

Rock took it and gave it a shake. “Rock Holler. I’m in the Arts Department.”

Steel gave him a curious look. “You’re not going for one of them Art History degrees, are ya, boy?”

He shuddered. Art history. Where degrees go to die. “No sir. I’m studying Music Theory. I’m particular to Tonality and Transformational theory, myself.”

Steel blinked. “Well that’s something. Certainly better than most of the ‘artists’ you meet around here. Hope you find what you’re looking for. And I hope it isn’t whatever Switch found. I’ll bet it’s what killed him.”

Rock was taken aback by that. “You don’t think he killed himself?” he asked quietly.

Steel looked around, and moved the two of them off to a corner. “Look, I don’t know much about what Switch was studying. He had me for a few classes, but he was a bright kid. Determined. You don’t go from zero to crazy like that overnight. There’s a build, see. I seen it before. Somethin’ happened to ‘im.” Rock could detect an accent seeping through the old stallion’s words. “Far be it from me to step on anypony’s grave, but I think he found something he wasn’t supposed to. And from what I hear? He ain’t the first. Maybe this Fried Circuit got somethin’ to do with it, maybe not. But if you want answers -and Celestia knows the cops ain’t lookin’ for ‘em- he’s where I’d start. If I was any kind of inquirin’ pony.”

Rock nodded and shook his hoof again. “Thanks, sir.”

“Don’t sir me, boy. I work for a living.” Steel smiled. “You go out and get whatever answers you think you need. Just don’t tell me. Some things ponies ain’t ought to know. And you tell anypony I talked like this ah’ll string you up by yer fetlocks on an ol’ engine block an’ use you to teach my class why you don’t do... certain things while the engine’s runnin’.”

Rock half laughed, half cringed. “Yes sir.”

Finding the Applied Sciences basement was easy. It was one of those places where you look until your instincts tell you to walk away, just go home, and you keep going anyway.

‘Dude, do you know what they do down here? Experiments, man. Like, on ponies. These are graduate students and the like with college funding and lots of concrete between them and whatever they’re not supposed to be messing with.’

“Will you shut up?” Rock grumbled. “We’ll be fine.” His voice echoed ever so slightly down the hall, but was quickly drowned out by a large cacophony of noises from rooms being used by science students with way too much freedom. “I think.”

‘No, I think. You do.'

“And yet we’re still alive,” he drawled. He kept walking until he came across a door without sound coming from the other side. Peeking his head in, he saw the room to be empty. Probably wouldn’t be for long, though. Free lab space was a commodity from what he understood.

The next room he came across that was at all quiet had a lot of radio equipment in here. From what Steel had told him, Switchboard was getting some kind of Broadcasting degree. This must be the place. He trotted in, slowly, and took a look around. Stacks of papers and circuit board, wires and assorted hardware littered several tables in a rather cramped space. None of it was on.

Well, almost none of it. He did see a small radio sitting almost by itself on a table, as if the rest of the equipment was giving it a wide berth. A little light on top showed it was on, but there was no sound. Then Rock noticed the headphones.

“Maybe it’s a news channel or something,” he said, and kept walking. He turned his attention to the notes. Most of it was in lots and lots of technical jargon that he didn’t understand; some of it was equations and the like that, at a glance, he understood, but not their applications. And some of the pages, in the margins, just had numbers written on them.

[3-5-6-2-1-0-9 by 5-6-2-2-2 over 5-4-4 by 5 over 6-7 by 7-7. 0-1-3-2-0-9-0 by 0 over 0-9 over 5 and 6-7-3-4-2]

Most of it didn’t make sense. Why write ‘by’ when he could just use an x or an asterisk? Why ‘over’? Just write the fraction. ‘By 0‘? That was 0. ‘Over 0‘ made even less sense.

[6-4-0-2-4-5 by and over 3-0-9-2-0-9-9-9-9]

It all looked like just plain gibberish. And the farther he read, the more of it there was. Eventually, some pages were nothing but nonsense.

[3-5-6-0-2 by 6-5-0-0-3-3 over 5-9 over 1-2 by 0-7-6-9-0‘

“What?” Rock asked himself.

‘What?’

He shook his head and put the notes down. “I guess it wasn’t so overnight as they thought...” Rock trailed off when he realized he could still here the numbers.

“7-8-3-4-9-7-6-4-9-1-6-8-1-7 by 3-5 over by 2-3-6-3-8 to the 5-7 and 3-4 5-6 1-2...”

‘Dude, is that you?’

“No. Is that you?”

‘No.’

“9-0 to the 6-7 to 5 over 4-3-2-5-4. 9-8-7 by 2-5-1. 5 by 4. 5-9 by 3-8. 8-7. 2-7...”

Rock looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. Eventually, his eyes landed on the lone radio. And the headphones. “Those are some loud as shit phones.”

‘dude...’

“What now?”

‘My crazy senses are tingling. If you have to ask the voice in your head ‘Is that you?’ and he says ‘no’? Something’s fuckin’ wrong, man.’

Part of him knew he was right, but he wanted the damn numbers to stop. Or at least know where they were coming from. He trotted over to the headphones.

‘Dude don’t do this I’m telling you-’

And put them on.

Author's Note

This story is proving more and more fun to write. Thoughts, questions, recipe ideas? Let me know.

Chapter 3: Stasis Paradigm

Chapter 3: The Stasis Paradigm

The numbers grew louder, more insistent, the closer Rock got to the old radio. He lifted them up, almost robotically, and set them on top of his head.

Only to have them knocked off and across the room, getting his ear boxed in the process. He spun around to face his assailant-

And came face to face with the most strung-out dude he'd ever seen. A scraggly, faded blue mane that made him look at least twenty years older than Rock was willing to bet he was framed a sunken and gaunt yellow face with wide eyes and pinpricks for pupils. Most ponies probably couldn’t even pronounce what this guy had been taking, but Rock knew him right away. “Fried Circuit?”

He stared for a second, almost like he was looking over the other pegasus’s shoulder or something, then jostled himself back to reality. “What? Yeah. Dude, don’t put those on. It’s bad fuckin’ juju.” He looked around for a second, then walked off to the table full of notes. Given how he started scribbling on them, Rock concluded the newest hoofwriting was his.

Rock rolled his eyes, deciding to forgo yelling at him about physically abusing his delicate cranium.

‘Delicate? Seriously.’

“Hey, I’m fuckin’ dainty. Shut up,” he growled.

“What?” Fried asked numbly as he looked up from his... ‘work.’

“Nothing.” Rock trotted over and stood next to him. He barely registered the movement. “What the hell are you doing? And what’s with the radio?” He jabbed a hoof at the old hunk of equipment.

He shook his head. “Not the radio. Radio stations.”

“I...wha?” Radio stations? Seriously?

‘You’ve heard weirder.’

“Not normal radio stations, man,” Fried continued, scribbling frantically. “These fuckin’... fuckin’ numbers. Everywhere. I keep seeing ‘em. Like, I hear ‘em, and I see ‘em. It won’t go away. I didn’t listen to the numbers directly, dude. You shouldn’t either. Kills ya. It killed... killed Switch.”

Rock’s ears twitched as he realized they were getting to the reason he was here. “Switch? You mean some fucking numbers on a radio station made Switch off himself?”

Fried shook his head. “He wasn’t tryin’... tryin’ to kill himself. He just wanted the numbers out. They flood you. Like a disease. Different for everypony. Some ponies... they just wither away. Stop caring. Just give in to the numbers. S’all they do. Numbers. all day. They stay alive, somehow. But they ain’t them. I mean... shit, look at me. All I did was... all I did was read that fucker’s notes. Can’t get em out, man. It’s like drowning.”

‘...uh-oh.’

“Uh, you mean... these notes?” the white pegasus asked, pointing a tentative hoof at the papers.

He ripped them away, hiding them behind him. “Don’t! Don’t look. You... they’ll stay in your head. Just... hang there. Like bodies from the rafters, dude. Can’t look away. You... you didn’t look, did you?”

Rock smiled weakly. “Uh, of course not. That would be silly.”

‘We’re fucked, dude.’

“Shut up!” he hissed. Fried raised an eyebrow.

“You got voices in your head, man?” he asked, seemingly buying the lame assurance that Rock had not, indeed, read the notes that were probably going to drive him crazy.

-er. “In a word? Yes.”

He laughed weakly. “Sheeit. Must be nice, man. Hearin’ people ‘stead of numbers. Hey, tell... shit, tell who? Look, I know ponies think I gave Switch somethin’, but hey, he was alright, you know? I mean, yeah, he yelled at me, but I was always... I deserved it, ya know? But it wasn’t just to make me feel bad. He yelled so I’d do work. He didn’t care that I was baked, he just wanted shit done. Gotta respect that. He wasn’t ever mean to me or nothin’. S’why you can believe me when I say I didn’t give him nothin’.”

The white pony raised his eyebrows at that. “How so?”

He chuckled. “Come on dude, look at me,” he spread his arms wide, a little weakly. One could see track marks and other signs of abuse. “You think I’d do this to somepony I liked?”

It made a twisted, sad kind of sense. Deciding to change the subject, Rock asked, “So, uh, what would a pony do if he had indeed read the numbers?” Fried gave him a look, so he added, “Uh, Switch wrote a bunch of numbers and shit on his bathroom wall. I’m guessing a bunch of ponies read it, or whatever.”

He apparently bought that, too. “Dunno bout other ponies. Just what I been doin’ all day. Started out slow for me. Started sayin’ numbers in the wrong places. Started hearin’ ‘em when other ponies were talkin’. Didn’t think nothin’ of it till I started writin’ ‘em down. They got all over me, man. Started hearin’ em when there wasn’t nopony around to say nothin’. It gets... it gets bad...” He lifted a wing to demonstrate, and Rock cringed.

All along his side, under his wing, were scratch marks. Most likely it was the only place he could hide them. Tiny ones, like they were written with an actual pen. Upon further inspection, Rock confirmed his suspicions. He’d... carved himself with some kind of pen. The pegasus could see ink in his fur.

Fried laughed weakly. “I don’t know what’s gonna kill me first. The drugs? The ponies that think I did it? The ink in my veins? Or the... the fuckin’ numbers, man.” He went back to scribbling, and Rock figured he wsn’t getting any more out of him. And nopony else would, either. This might be the last anypony would see of Fried Circuit.

Rock patted him on the back, and he just kind of grunted. Part of him wanted to stay there, to find a way to help. But how?

‘Wait a sec.’

“What?” Rock asked myself. Fried didn’t even look up.

‘Didn’t he say something about early symptoms? Like, saying numbers instead of words?’

“Yeah, what are you-shit! Haute!!” the white pegasus screamed, really at nopony in particular. Fired flinched, but kept writing, even as Rock tore ass out of the room and down the hall.

“Go fuckin’ save the world, dude,” Fried said weakly. Then he stared long and hard at the pen in his hoof.

Some poor soul would find him later. And some other soul would find the pen.

In his throat.

Rock screeched to a halt at the front of the dormitory, where only a couple of cops were left, and a single patrol car. He flashed his ID at the one he’d seen earlier, who waved him in. “Go ahead, sir.”

Rock stopped at the stairwell as he heard the officer say behind him. “7-4-6.”

He wheeled around and stared. “What?”

“7-4-6, repeat, this is unit 7-4-6. How much longer are we gonna be out here?” said the officer, not looking up from his radio.

Rock let go of a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Oh, Celestia. No, fuck this. Haute!” he yelled, running, or rather, flying up the stairs. He tore over the heads of a couple of mares in the stairwell, yelling back a hurried, “Sorry, ladies!” but not stopping.

He only ever slowed down when he got to his floor, long enough to push the door open. Down the hall, he saw Haute just closing his door and walking into the hall. ‘Oh thank Luna he’s alive.’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s alright.’

“Stow it, you,” he grumbled to himself, walking carefully up to Haute. The normally flamboyant colt only stopped when he registered Rock’s presence. About a foot away. “Oh, Rock! Hello!” He said loudly, clrealy surprised.

“Hey, Haute. Um, thanks for the tip on the salon, they were... they were very nice. I... I told them about Switch, though...” Rock said weakly.

Haute tilted his head in a sad smile. “Thank you for that. I’m not sure if I could have. I assume by your much more than kempt appearance they did a good job?”

Rock’s eyes widened a little, and he gave himself a once-over. He’d completely forgotten about the actual manecut and preening they’d done. His bangs were neat and tidy, far from falling into his face, and his wings looked rather sleek and proper. Even his tail was passable. “Oh, yeah. They... they asked me to go talk to Switch’s classmates, see if anything was wrong. Speaking of which, are you ok?”

Haute looked ready to say something, then his shoulders slumped. “No, not very. I mean, I can put up appearances, that’s easy enough. So ponies don’t worry about me. But I guess... the gravity of it hasn’t hit me, you know? I imagine it will later, when I wake up and I’m the only pony in the room. Or when I call out for him only to remember he’s not there...” he sniffed, his eyes watering.

Rock scooted closer, uneasily, and slid an arm around Haute’s shoulders. The colt stiffened at the gesture, just for a second, then his whole body shook with sobs. He grabbed at the front of Rock’s coat and cried into his shoulder.

Not sure what to do, the pegasus just sat there, the Earth pony crying rivers into his fur. After a few minutes, Haute slowed his crying to sniffles, and then, with a rather loud and punctuated sniff, righted himself. Rock only became aware that Haute had been wearing mascara when he saw it was running. “Um...” he said weakly, pointing at his own eyes.

Haute got the hint, and ran a hoof over his face. “Oh, dear me. Now I have to go clean up again. I was actually going to take your advice and go to the salon myself. I guess I’ll see you later,” he said, unlocking his door and taking a step inside.

Rock called after him, “Haute!”

The pony stopped, and looked over his shoulder. “Hm? Yes?”

“When you see the guys, can you tell them... tell them it wasn’t Fried’s fault? They’ll know what I mean. Tell them I said... he has it too.”

Haute looked more than a little confused, but nodded. “Yes, I’ll tell them. Thank you for being so supportive, Rock. Bless you.” And he closed the door.

Rock decided to make his way back to his room, and do whatever it was ponies do to put tragedy behind them.

Which was, apparently, to lie on his back, on his bed, staring blankly at the letter he was holding above his face.

‘You know what it says.’

“Still gotta read it,” Rock responded numbly.

‘And do what? Sulk for a while? Not like that does you much good normally. I mean, look at this morning.’

“Not the same letter,” he grumbled, staring at the return address. It read “Manehattan Psychiatric”, with a familiar address and Suite number. “Fuckin’ numbers. Who the hell ever heard of numbers killing a pony?”

‘...’

“Ok, shut up. All the time. ‘The numbers don’t lie. ‘The numbers don’t look good. ‘These numbers indicate.’ FUCK. Why can’t we just die like normal ponies. Fuckin’ radio stations? Mother of Terra,” rock growled to himself, and tore the letter open. He glared at the page a few seconds before actually reading it.

‘Dear Mr. Holler blah blah blah your next appointment blah blah blah take your meds yadda yadda yadda. Same shit different day.’

“You do realize the conflict of interest when the voice in my head scoffs at me taking medication?” Rock laughed despite himself. Sometimes his world was just a bit too surreal for him.

‘Shut up.’

“Said the delusion,” Rock snickered. “Listen, you know as well as I do I’m not taking that shit. Remember what happened last time?”

‘NO. I wasn’t HERE for it.’

“...You’re in my head. With my memories. How do you not remember it?” his quizzical expression reflected slightly in the plastic of the envelope that sat over the address label. He made a face at it.

‘I’m being sarcastic. Of course I do. The fuck kind of doctor gives a pony with voices in his head a drug that makes you paranoid as shit?’

“Either a really really bad one, or a really really good one. Think about it. Repeat customers,” Rock explained.

‘...that’s fucking evil.’

“It’s also why he can go fuck himself,” Rock concluded, throwing the letter into the trash can. He knew the doc would call him eventually, and ask if he’d read the letter. At least he could say he’d done that much. As if on cue, or perhaps waiting till Rock was done talking to himself, there was a knock on his door.

It had to be Grace. “What’s up, dude?”

“Hey, if you’re done being crazy, we’re all going down to The Hole to get wasted in honor of Switchboard. You’re coming with.” It wasn’t a question. Of course, Rock didn’t exactly need to be told.

‘Didn’t we just talk about alcohol?’

“Yes, but that was about how drinking while depressed is a horrible idea. This time it’s to honor a dead friend who can’t drink for himself anymore,” Rock explained, grabbing a cheap denim jacket and opening the door, sliding his wings through the coat.

‘Uh-huh.’

Social Grace stood and stared at him. “Are we done with the Loony Tunes? I fully intend to get you laid this evening, and that’s kind of hard to do when you’re talking to yourself more than the mares.”

‘Sex? Nopony said anything about SEX. I could totally approve of alcohol in the pursuit of tail.’

Biting his tongue to hold back a retort, Rock just said simply, “Yeah, ok. Let’s go drink and fuck ourselves stupid. What’s a paycheck for, anyway?” He added with a small hint of sarcasm, grabbing a bag of bits of his dresser and shoving it in his coat.

Grace nodded approvingly. “Exactly! Now come on, I’m still sober and this shall not stand.”

Rock followed Grace out of the dorm, where he closed the door behind him. “Yeah, and if you have too much tequila again, neither will you.”

Author's Note

Not as much dark in this as there is answering questions and setting up plot advancement. Oh well.

Chapter 4: Possible vs Not Possible

Rock soon found out “we” came to mean himself, his roommate, Haute, and a couple of stallions from down the hall he didn’t recognize, but Grace said he talked to consistently. The lot of them met up in Rock and Grace’s living room, seemingly because it was more convenient.

The two unfamiliar faces were a couple of Earth ponies, they introduced themselves as Paint Thinner and Triple Bypass. The former was a rather skinny looking pale yellow fella with short red hair, and the latter was a brick shithouse in horseshoes. Kind of an off-green with a light blue mane.

“Hey, man,” Paint Thinner drawled. His voice was slow and steady, like he’d had to think about the sentence beforehoof. He smelled like grass and something almost sickeningly sweet. Most likely hippie salad. “So, uh, which one of you’s the crazy guy?”

Rock shot a look over to Grace before giving the two newcomers a flat stare, and raising his hoof.

“Cool, cool. So, what’s it like?” Thinner asked slowly.

‘Yeah, Rock. What’s it like?’

Rock rolled his eyes up to glare at his forehead, an expression Grace was familiar with. The black and blue stallion rolled his eyes and answered for him. “It’s like living with a third roommate that only he gets to talk to. You get used to it.”

The pegasus sighed. “You shouldn’t have to, but you do. Really it’s just like having a conversation with somepony. A very annoying conversation that never ever stops.”

Triple Bypass, who, by his Cutie Mark, one could determine was a Hoofball player, just shrugged and said, “Whatever. S’not like I gotta live with you.”

Haute gave Triple a disapproving glance. “Hmm. Shall we go? I’m rather parched... and forgetting things right now sounds rather magnifique.”

Rock and Grace both nodded, while Thinner did this slow smile and head bob thing.

‘Oh, this can only go swimmingly.’

The pegasus musician made a point to ignore “himself” as the lot of them trotted out of the small apartment en mass, and made their way down the halls of the dorm. Haute and Triple were currently in what seemed like a one-sided argument, as Haute vocalized his disapproval of Triple’s mannerisms while Triple just ignored him. Thinner seemed to just amble along and throw words around when he thought it was relevant.

Grace had held Rock back for a moment, and talked to him quietly as they kept pace about a pony or two’s length away. “Are you sure you’re up for this? I know today’s been a bit... freaky. And no offense, but I know what you’re like after a hard day.”

The white stallion sighed, and blew a tuft of hair out of his eyes, to no avail. “Look, if I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle myself, I’d have stayed home and narrated Last Stop 3 again. Trust me, let me get some scotch in me and I’ll be fine. Now come on, they might think we’re gay if we keep hanging out like this,” Rock chided, nudging Grace with a wing and giving him a reassuring, if snide, grin.

Grace nodded agreeably and sped up to rejoin the rest of the group. “Ok, boys, where are we going?”

Haute Couture glanced behind himself as they reached a stairwell. “I was thinking, there’s this delightful little-”

Triple cut him off with a sound like a buzzer. “Wrong! There’s a sport’s bar like three blocks from here with great fries, and...” he rambled on about how awesome he thought the bar was, how it always had the best beer and snacks, and what have you.

Rock barely heard Thinner mutter something about how he wanted to go to this pub underneath the local theatre when he noticed something strange on one of the brick walls on the landing they’d just reached. He stopped for a moment, and gently pawed a hoof across the rough surface of the wall, where somepony had been carving and painting. In great detail. He recognized the markings. It was more numbers, in the same pattern as the notes from Switchboard’s lab.

“Hey, you gonna start talkin’ backward in tongues or whatever, dude?” Triple’s voice carried up the stairwell, and Rock realized they’d walked off without him. He wondered how long he’d been staring, but he could swear he’d only just noticed them.

“Hey, Haute!” Rock called, pointedly ignoring the athlete’s digs at his mental stability. “Could you come here for a second?”

He heard some light murmurs, and finally, a set of dainty hoofsteps made their way too him. He felt Haute standing just behind him before he even asked, “Yes, Rock?”

The pegasus tapped the wall without turning around. “Isn’t this that same numerical shit all over Switchboard’s walls?” He felt Haute flinch as he said Switch’s name.

The fashion pony trotted closer, taking a closer look at the fine scratchings and paint on the walls. Rock glanced over and saw that he’d gone pale. “Y-yes... it is. What-”

“I saw some of that all over his notes when I went down to the lab to check on Fried Circuit. He went on and on about how dangerous it was, but what the buck is it doing here?” he was talking more to himself than anypony else, and not in the usual “voices in my head” way.

Haute turned away and acted as if it was merely part of the decor. “Let’s not... focus on such things, shall we? We have the whole evening ahead of us,” he reasoned, making his way back down the stairs.

Rock thought more of it than that, but decided to let it be. It was somepony else’s problem, at the very least.

The bar they’d finally settled on was an up-and-coming dance club with just enough room to look like an idiot and just enough alcohol to make it sound like a good idea. The interior looked something like a converted glowstick factory, with a raised stage near the back for the DJ, a bar at the other end, far enough away for a bartender to be able to hear the orders, and plenty of dance floor in between.

Triple and Grace had made their way onto the dance floor, dividing their attention between dancing like idiots and hitting on mares. Haute had just sat at a bar and let girls flock to him. Thinner had disappeared, and Rock was spending his time working through multiple orders of scotch and looking around the room, mildly interested in the occupants.

‘Oh, yeah. Real social butterfly you are.’

“Shut yer yap before I drink you up some tekillya,” Rock almost hiccuped. He waved off a passing pony who gave him a look. “Not you.”

‘You wouldn’t dare tequila me.’

“Keep talking,” he muttered, painfully aware of a few choice stares. He turned to the bartender, who looked for all the world like somepony had ordered his last fuck to give years ago, and raised his hoof for another scotch.

“Make that two,” said a rather feminine voice behind him. He half expected to see Haute when he turned around, but was instead greeted with the visage of a rather curvy and not-at-all bad to look at pegasus mare. A familiar one, at that, but he couldn’t place her. Something about her pastel coloring, her yellow and green tones, seemed familiar.

“Sure, why not?” Rock asked nopony in particular, throwing down enough bits for both of them. “You look.... I swear to Celestia I’ve seen you before. Who are you?”

The mare giggled, and held out a hoof. “My name’s Headline. Nice to meet you,” she said gently. Rock noticed she hadn’t answered the question.

“Right... I’m Rock Holler,” he said, moving to shake her hoof.

She paused, pulling her hoof back for a moment, then shook his anyway. “I think I’ve heard about you. You’re the pony in Mr. Mind’s Psych class with schizophrenia, aren’t you?”

‘The fuck. Do you put up flyers or something?’

Rock glared evenly at, or rather, in the general direction of, Headline. More like just wearing a very distraught look in general. “Why does everypony know me as the crazy guy? It’s not like I’m in any danger of being committed.”

‘Oh, yes, because what you need most is more therapy and medication.’

Rock rolled his eyes to his forehead again and snarled. “Shut it, you.” He returned his attention to the mare in front of him, currently wearing an expression somewhere between bemused and hesitant.

“So is that... common? You talking to yourself?” she sounded more amused than anything, a good sign he wasn’t about to scare her off.

He was about to respond when his vision cut out. Just for a moment. A quick glimpse of what looked like static overtook his sight as his head pounded, ever so slightly. He grunted in frustration as the world righted itself.

‘What was that?’

The voice in his head seemed distant, at first. Like it was fading in. Then, another voice. Headline’s. “You ok?” she seemed less amused this time. A tinge of worry touched her words, and her expression, which Rock noticed as he looked back up.

“Yeah, I’m good. That... that was new. I guess just a headache or something. Maybe enough of the scotch...” he added as an afterthought. Just in time for his drink to arrive. He considered it for a moment, before watching it disappear. He followed it to Headline’s lips, as she downed it in his stead.

“If you’re starting to go all weird on me I might have to cut you off,” she joked, not unfriendly. Her smile was content, if a bit mischievous. Like she knew something he didn’t.

“Seriously, where do I kn-” his sentence was cut off again as, more insistently this time, his vision turned to snow and his head throbbed in pain. He could even hear static, like his whole world had gone out of focus. Only when sound started to return did he notice he’d gone deaf.

A whole bunch of ponies were talking at once, it seemed. There was Headline: “Rock! Are you ok? Rock!”

The ever present voice in his head: ‘...the fuck was that I’m not even CLOSE to kidding what the hell?!'

Plus a few others around him, and, he noticed, above him. He looked up to see he’d lost his hoofing and dropped to the floor. Above him were a few concerned faces, including Headline’s and, he now noticed, Grace’s. “Are you ok, dude? How much did you have?” Grace asked, only mildly joking. “Let’s get you to a booth.”

He could still hear others around him talking, some in whispers, others in just the normal banter of nightlife. He leaned on Grace as the black and blue stallion all but ragged him to a booth and table against the wall. Headline followed, staying a bit behind.

All the while, he could still hear ponies talking. Which shouldn’t have struck him as unusual, but there was one voice that he couldn’t make out. Insistent, unyielding, but nondescript. Hazy, and only ever loud enough to register as there. Rock couldn’t even tell what they were saying, or if they were talking to him.

“I’ll be fine,” he muttered half-heartedly at the small crowd around him. Apparently the other guys, sans Thinner, had seen the commotion and come over to investigate. “Just a headache. Too much scotch too fast, or something. Hit my head. I’ll be good,” he muttered a string of weak reassurances as ponies started to lose interest. Haute seemed to want to stay around and say something, but trotted off. Triple was already gone, figuring there was no need for him to not keep doing... whatever he was doing.

Headline took a seat beside him, and Grace stopped one last time to see if he was ok. “You sure, dude?” he asked, showing a rare moment of concern.

With one last hoof-wave, Holler brushed him off. “I’ll be fine. Trust me. Go get laid,” he insisted, more heartily.

The renewed vigor in his voice was enough to reassure Social Grace, as the Earth pony trotted away with a brief wave, turning his attention to any nearby tail.

‘Ok, now that the peanut gallery is gone, WHAT the FUCK. Did you take something?!’

Rock decided to ignore the yelling in his head, and turned his attention to Headline, who had stayed quiet while everypony else fussed. “Well,” she said finally, seeing she had his full attention. “If you’re trying to get my attention, you have it. You sure you’re ok? I’d hate to think I fell for the old ‘dizzy spell helpless’ routine.” She spoke warmly, but softly, as if trying not to set off another attack.

“Well, I’m not that creative, or desperate. No, just some bad headaches. That nagging voice isn’t helping, either,” he added as an afterthought, the quiet, insistent voice still rambling on from somewhere nearby.

She looked a little affronted. “Are you saying I’m naggy?”

“What? No! There’s this... somepony won’t shut up, they keep mumbling something. I don’t know,” he trailed off, determined to ignore the whispering.

Headline gave him a puzzled look. “How many voices did you say you had in there?” she pointed timidly at his head.

“Just the one, and he’s... complicated. So, you never answered my question. Where have I seen you before?” Rock insisted, as Headline sipped her own scotch.

She paused, then chuckled. “Oh, right! With all the passing out I forgot,” she chided. He winced, but she gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s ok. You’d probably recognize me better with a sweater and a notepad.”

Rock let that roll around in his head for a bit. Then it clicked so hard he almost heard it. “You’re the reporter chick thing from this morning!” he exclaimed, pointing a callous hoof at her. He caught himself, and put it back down.

She laughed, and nodded. “Well, of all the things I’ve been called, ‘thing’ is easily one of the nicer ones. Journalism majors don’t get a lot of respect around here... not like... used to it...” her voice started to cut in and out, and Rock had to strain to hear her.

“What was that?” he asked, tapping his hoof to the side of his head to clear out the fuzz.

“I said it’s not like I’m not used to it, but I’d like at least one pony to not see me for a story-hungry vulture,” she repeated, clear as day.

The white pegasus nodded in somewhat agreement. “I kind of get it. I’m a Music Theory major, but most ponies just see some colt going after an arts degree.”

“...sounds about... I guess... where I’m coming from,” her voice faded in and out as she spoke, yet again, and Rock felt his head go a little swimmy. Was she that close a moment ago?

“Hey, um... is it just me, or is it getting loud in here?” he asked, his voice raising slightly despite himself.

That low murmuring reasserted itself, slightly louder, and Rock could just make out a few phrases here and there, but they came and went so quickly he coudln’t remember them even long enough to repeat them out loud.

It wasn’t till Rock looked at Headline’s mouth moving did he realize she was still talking. He couldn’t hear a word of it. and she was really close...

She hadn’t been that close moments ago. He hadn’t even seen her move. She was staring at him, expectantly, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what they were talking about.

The voice grew louder, as his vision blurred. Something in his expression must have changed, or he moved or something, because Headline’s eyes widened from a half-lidded suggestion to poignant alarm.

He could almost hear her yelling as he passed out, but the only real sound in his head was that damn whispering.

“7-4-8-9-9-2-5-3-8-5.....”

Rock awoke to cold. The floor beneath him. The air around him. Even his head and heart felt icy. It wasn’t a sharp cold, like the crisp bite of ice or snow, but the dull, aching chill of a room without heat, of concrete and long nights alone.

He looked up, and sure enough, what greeted him was a lonely concrete room. Like the empty rooms in the Sciences basement. If not for the fact they were a different color. There was none of the light, ugly green of the makeshift labs and occupied hallways, but the empty gray of warehouse floors and walls, built for function with no sense of aesthetics, merely there as a box for things.

Or ponies.

The room he was in wasn’t locked. It didn’t even have a door. Just an empty hole in the wall, through which one walked. So he did. He made note of how quiet it was, save for his echoing hoofsteps. At least he had his hearing.

He peeked down the hallway just outside the door, and saw lines of piping, leading around corners and over chain link fencing. Some kind of basement or boiler room. He could make out a set of stairs at the end of the hall. The other way, there was maybe ten feet of room and a dead end, so stairs it was. He plodded forward, taking peeks around each corner and reading labels. Nothing helpful or descriptive, just warning labels in multiple languages and either dead ends or hallways he couldn’t see all the way down.

Curious, he looked up, only to see the hallways being lit by mass-produced halogen lamps. Part of him had expected the light to be coming from nowhere, although he couldn’t say why.

What concerned him most was his lack of panic. The last thing he remembered was passing out at a bar in front of a pretty girl. Then he woke up... wherever here is. He was well aware that the normal response would be to scream or panic or run in any direction till he found somepony or something with an answer.

But instead, he kept walking. Calm and collected.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t in control of his body. There was no sense of being disconnected, of any loss of control, something he’d grown accustomed to with various medications.

A small part of him mused on the thought, but he quickly let it go as he reached a door. Basic, made of metal with a solid lock, he expected it to be well and truly stuck. Instead, it gave way with ease as he tugged, and he soon found himself in the first room with any real distinguishing characteristics.

It looked like a radio station.

Author's Note

This chapter is well and truly set up for what I hope to be some of the last scenes. As much fun as I’m having writing this story, the last thing I want is to drag it into oblivion.

Chapter 5: The End Diagram

It was obvious to Rock that being here was supposed to mean something. A radio station; that had to be significant somehow. Yet try as he might, he couldn’t make any immediate connections between his current locale and any recent events. Of course, it helped that the only thing he could remember of recent was that ponies were dying. It seemed like such a foreboding and macabre thing to be aware of, yet he was somehow fine with it.

Or, more accurately, he couldn’t summon up anything more than a passing interest in the thought. The station before him seemed to demand most of his attention. He glanced around interestedly at the instrument panels and microphones. He figured that, given their arrangement and the size of the booth he was in, he must be in something like a recording room or sound booth. Most likely where the DJ or radio host worked while the station was on the air.

He recognized some of the instruments, of course. Some of them he’d worked on in his classes, learning to mix music and studying proper audio waveform manipulation. Familiarity washed over him as he toyed with the instruments, adjusting sliders and flipping switches with the practice born of studious repetition.

“Just a little... there. Ok, now, where’s that power toggle?” he asked himself. For a moment, he considered it strange that he didn’t receive a response. The feeling passed, however, as he found what he was looking for. A couple of quick hoof flicks and the station kicked to life. Slowly but surely, lights came on, the speakers gave him some slight feedback, which he adjusted, and monitors flicked on with bits of information, news feeds, and prompts from what Rock assumed to be the last broadcast.

The station itself didn’t so much look abandoned as it did unoccupied. Like nopony had shown up for work yet. He read quietly the prompts on the screen, but couldn’t make much sense of them. Some were written in shorthand, something he didn’t have practice in; others were written as news reports to events he wasn’t aware of or described places he didn’t know. This station obviously wasn’t local.

How had he gotten here again?

“...unconscious...”

The word floated out of a nearby speaker, amidst an array of static, in a familiar voice. Rock looked over the panels, and, making some adjustments, tried to clear up the noise. It seemed to work, somewhat.

“You’re... cold. ...asleep... the bar... wake...”

More words came out, but they seemed forced, strained even. Like they were aware of the static and trying to fight through them. Out of a sense of not really much else to do, and morbid curiosity, Rock toyed with the sliders some, until the voice called out to him, crystal clear.

“Stop! Don’t touch that dial! I... wait, did I really just say that? Nevermind. Rock! Buddy, brainbro, dude, wake the fuck up!”

Rock stared curiously at the speaker. How did it know his name?

“Cause I’m in your head, dude! Look, I don’t know what you brought in here with you, but this station ain’t on any map. It’s in your head, like me. And there’s not a whole lot of room in here. No offense.”

“...do I know you?” Rock asked, staring at the speaker with a blank expression. As a response, he heard the familiar thunk of a cathode ray tube television kicking on, and another light source caught his attention. He turned his head to look over at an older television sitting on a rolling cart, to find, with interest, that he was staring at himself. and he looked pissed.

“Yes you know me you schizo! Look, I’m you, or part of you. Wherever you are right now, somewhere in that fucking beartrap you call a brain, I can barely reach you. It’s these damn numbers, man. It’s like having a whole other pony in here with us. I know you can’t hear them where you are right now, and I’m still working out how you can hear me, but whatever it is these numbers are doing, they’re doing it now.

Rock’s thoughts came to him, slow and steady. Like they were taking their time. “You said something about being asleep?”

The other Rock looked confused for a moment, then slammed a hoof against the screen, like to him it was a physical thing, a barrier. “Right! You’re asleep, kind of. Well, YOU are. Your body’s not! That’s what I’m trying to tell you; the real you has to wake up right the fuck now!”

“What?” Rock, the one in the station, felt himself filled with a sense of urgency. Something that seemed almost foreign to him here.

“It’s the numbers, dude! You’re doin’ the walkin’, they’re doin’ the talkin’!”

Headline stared worriedly at the unmoving form of Rock Holler on the hospital bed. Well, unmoving save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. She’d just watched in wide-eyed shock as he’d fallen out of his seat at the bar and fell flat on the floor. After calling emergency services, Headline had followed him to the hospital, partly out of concern and partly out of the rather less than admirable curiosity born of journalism.

But right now, she wasn’t thinking about how to turn this into a story. She was more focused on what the nurses had said earlier.

They’d told her that Rock was a mental patient, with a case of mild, functioning schizophrenia. And from what they could tell, he hadn’t been taking his medication in weeks. They’d already placed a call in to his psychiatrist, a one Thought Provoke. She thought about how he’d been acting before he passed out, and wondered how much of it was relevant. Hearing loss, lack of spatial awareness. She didn’t know what all his disease entailed, but she wanted to be honest with the doctor when he got here, as much as she could.

She’d already been here about an hour or two, so it wasn’t any surprise when the door slid open, and a pony she didn’t recognize walked in. Given his attire, demeanor, and the glint of recognition when he looked at Rock, she figured him to be the shrink they’d called. He was a stout, sturdy Earth Pony with an eggshell white coat and a mane and tail the color of egg yolk.

“Mr. Provoke?” Headline asked quietly, given the late hour. “I’m Headline, I was with Rock when he collapsed,” she explained, walking up and offering her hoof.

He shook it, amiably. “Thank you. I’m glad somepony was there to call an ambulance so fast. I understand he was... acting strange, before he fainted?” His voice was practiced and smooth, the timbre of somepony who’s used to talking to people less intelligent than him all day.

Headline nodded, and described how Rock had seemed to lose his sense of hearing steadily over the course of the conversation. How he’d seemed surprised at the slightest movement, even when he was watching it, like he wasn’t aware it had happened. “Are these normal, for him?”

Provoke shook his head. “No, not really. Rock’s case is actually one of the most straightforward I’ve come across. Well, as straightforward as any psychological disorder can be. He hears voices, or rather, a voice. And not in the way that most ponies think. To him, the only difference between this voice and having another pony in the room with him at all times is the lack of a physical body. They maintain a continuous dialogue, and so far his relationship with this presence in his head seems just short of symbiotic. In fact, if not for the unfortunate clause in his health insurance that says it won’t pay for his appointments and medicine unless he actively maintains his treatment, I’d stop prescribing him medication and stop sending him letters. But if he stops getting proper treatment, it’s not just his mental health insurance that stops, it’s all of it. And I doubt he can afford to pay his own medical bills, if and when he should get hurt or sick.”

Headline took a moment to process all of this information. “So, he’s really just... fine, normally? Except for the extra pony in the room?”

“Aside from a strangely self-satisfying sense of fatalism, yes. He seems to be under the constant impression that most anything that happens to him is supposed to happen to him. It’s how he’s dealt with his psychosis so well all his life.”

“All his life? You mean...” Headline stopped, and looked over at Rock’s sleeping form.

Thought nodded. “Yes. He’s had this voice in his head as long as anypony can remember. In fact, I’d heard from his last psychiatrist that some of his first words were to ponies that weren’t there.”

“His last psychiatrist? You haven’t been treating him his whole life?” Her sense of inquisition had gotten some of the better of her, and she simply wanted to know more. Just because it was there to be known.

Provoke raised a curious eyebrow at her. “Just how old do you think I am?” After seeing her blush and look away in response, he returned his attention to his patient. “No, I haven’t known him all his life. Just the last several years. I know the medication I’m required to prescribe isn’t good for him. I’ve seen him on it, and frankly, it’s terrifying. Paranoia, hallucinations, and a consuming sense of abandonment. He even spent some time in a psychiatric ward. But all he got out of that was bored and medicated. Neither of which are good in long doses. So I had him released, and set him up on a medical plan that allows him to be a functioning member of society as long as he keeps up the illusion of trying to get better. But honestly, I don’t know how much better he can get. This, though...” Provoke gestured to the bed, “I’ve never seen him pass out, and he’s never complained about the symptoms you listed. Not even on medication. This is something entirely new. When he wakes up I’ll have a lot of questions for him.”

“I’m sure you do, doctor.” Thought and Headline both jumped at the voice, and turned to see Rock sitting up in bed. He was smiling.

Neither of them thought it was a good thing.

Rock leaned against the TV, staring at himself. “Are you saying these.. numbers... are in my body?”

Rock on TV nodded. “Exactly. They’re steering the ship, dude. You’ve got to find a way to wake up. Or I think all hell is about to break loose.”

Rock rolled the thought around in his head. “But what could they do with it? They’re just numbers? At most they’d lock me in a padded room because I won’t stop spouting out random mathematical shit.”

The TV Rock shook his head. “It’s not like that. The numbers are alive, man. It’s not just a stream of information. It’s a fucking consciousness. That’s what it wants. It’s a mind without a body. Or was. Now it’s got you to wear around town like a meatsuit. And it’s nothing nice. This thing, this, numbers station, it wants to be heard. And not just what’s been going around town. I think it’s going to start a lot of really bad shit pretty fucking fast. So far it’s just been driving ponies crazy, making them off themselves or do really self-harmful shit. Sometimes they just go nuts and lock themselves away. But not anymore. It’s actively trying to hurt ponies, make them suffer, all that creepy horror movie villain shit.”

“So... how do you know all of this?”

Just like earlier, Rock’s answer came in the form of static. This sound, however, quickly corrected itself. He hadn’t even touched an instrument panel.

“Because I told him.”

Thought leaned over the bed, putting on a soothing smile and adapting what was obviously a practiced calm in an attempt to put Rock in a relaxed mood. “I’m glad to see you’re awake, Rock. You had us worried?”

Rock looked puzzled for a moment. Then he surprised both of the other ponies in the room by throwing his head back and laughing. “You?! Worried! Ha! You’ve got all the empathy of the cheap tie you’re wearing. Don’t insult me and sit there with that ‘sad for me’ face and tell me the world’s gonna be all ok. You really think I’m stupid enough to buy into any of it? Oh, sure, you care enough to try and keep me insured. That’s almost admirable. If not for the fact that you don’t get paid if I lose my insurance.”

Thought Provoke was, for the first time in a long time, taken aback by Rock’s behavior. He’d always been, if nothing else, predictable. Outside of whatever delusional nightmare landscape his medication drove him into, he’d always been just the same pony with an imaginary friend. But the psychiatrist wouldn’t let himself be shaken so easily. “While that may be true, Rock, it doesn’t mean I’m not concerned. Your recent symptoms lead me to believe that something inside of you may be very wrong. I’ve gone over your EEG scans, and I have to say your neural patterns are much different than what I’ve seen before. I’m going to recommend you for some new medications, and maybe some time in a ward-”

Before THought could finish his sentence, Rock had him by the front of his shirt, and was inches from his face. “No. What you’re going to do, doc, is let me go about my happy little existence, and pretend I was never there. Just like always. You let me walk out of here, back to my normal jacked up college boy life, fill out paperwork like you always do, and we’re both happy. Or do you want your wife to know why she can’t get pregnant?”

What little color he had drained out of Thought’s face like somepony had pulled a plug. “What... what are you talking about?”

“Do you know she blames herself? She thinks she’s not good enough for you, that she can’t give you a child. But it’s really you, isn’t it? You and those damn pills you take. All those reassurances you give her about how much you’d enjoy having a child, all the while making sure you never see hide nor hair of the little devils. Cause you really hate kids, don’t you, doc? But you could never tell your wife that. No, not her. Not the elementary school teacher. No, you’d rather let her stew in her own self-loathing every day under some grand delusion that she’s not even half the mare you deserve,” Rock’s words corroded Thought’s will like viscous acid, all of the doctor’s strength pouring out of him with each revelation. By the time the pegasus had finished laying into his psychiatrist, the Earth pony was a sniveling mess being held up only by Rock’s sturdy grip.

Rock let go carelessly, and smiled as Thought slumped to the floor. Not moments later, the doctor pulled himself hurriedly to his hoof, and ran out the door.

Headline stared at the stallion in the hospital bed like an alien. Or a serial killer. “What.. what was that?”

It was as if he’d forgotten she was there. His head snapped around, and he fixed his gaze on her. Jabbing a hoof in her direction, he growled, “You. Out.”

Headline stood her ground, despite the earthquake threatening to erupt in her knees. “What is wrong with you?!” she shouted.

“I said, out. Unless you need reminding of how you got your cutie mark,” he hissed, baring teeth that she was sure weren’t that sharp moments ago.

The full impact of his words hit her like he’d hit the floor only hours ago. Turning pale much like the doctor had, she turned tail and ran.

Rock stared bemusedly at the now empty room for a moment, before rolling his eyes up to his forehead. “I know you boys are in there. I hope you’ve having fun, because I’m going to be here for a very long time. And it’s just. Getting. Interesting.”

Author's Note

Shit. Meet fan.

Chapter 6: The Minimum Survival Equation

Rock, or the thing masquerading as him, waited a moment or two after his room had been vacated by hospital staff before he himself got out of bed. He, it, wandered about the room almost aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the building around him. Eventually, his eyes settled on a small bathroom adjacent to the space he found himself in, and paused thoughtfully before wandering in. The bathroom was much like he expected based on his impression of the rest of his environment: simple, sterile, and eggshell white. Casting his gaze about the room like he was looking for something, eventually his eyes locked on to another pair of eyes in the room.

The mirror. He smiled as he took it in, the new face that he wore. Trotting up to stand face-to-face with his borrowed self, Rock bore a sick, slanted grin that looked like something trying to learn how to smile from scratch. He widened his grin, more to inspect his teeth than anything else, turning his head this way and that to memorize his own features. He fluffed his wings out, giving them a few experimental flaps, callously knocking loose medical supplies off of nearby cabinets.

“Not the first body I’d have chosen, but it’s obviously in decent shape. Let’s see how long it lasts. Hopefully I’ll get enough out of this one to entertain me for a while.” The voice it used was both Rock’s, and not, somehow. Like listening to the original through a radio with light static. Words chopped up slightly, spaces between words or sentences were shorter or longer than they needed to be, and all with a subtle background of crackling, like somepony wadding up aluminum foil.

He stared back out of the bathroom door, in case somepony had come to investigate the noise, or was wondering why he was out of bed. It seemed, however, that the hospital had much more important things to do than to tend for somepony who, for all intents and purposes, had passed out at the bar.

Trotting out of the bathroom once more, and kicking a small box of some medicine or another along with him, the new Rock Holler made his way to the hall, sliding open the door and taking stock of the area beyond. A stereotypical receptionist’s desk sat catercorner from his door, and a small janitorial closet just opposite. Giving the closet a brief once-over, as if deciding what to do with it, he simply passed it off as another fixture of the building, and walked on.

Most of the staff, patients, or visitors in the hall were seemingly too busy to pay attention. Once or twice a doctor gave him a sideways glance, their eyes flicking to his hoof, before moving on to obviously more important things. He himself inspected his hoof, to find a hospital bracelet sitting just above his fetlock. A small blue band with some typed up information, he surmised that the color must be of some kind of importance. Blue must mean he wasn’t somepony to be totally weary of.

“Perfect.”

Rock, the real Rock, looked about the station around him with an increasing sense of dread. Nothing physical about the booth he was in nor the room beyond it had changed, yet all at once it seemed alien, foreign, to him. The voices, his own and the intruder, had long since dissipated, lost to the static of the equipment they spoke from. He hurried over to a nearby speaker, giving it a few hopeful knocks. “Hello? Hey, buddy! Brain-pal! You in there?!”

No response. He took to fiddling with the instrument panels again, making adjustments here and there, wherever he thought made sense. Nothing stood out, or changed, except maybe the pitch, or volume, or frequency of the static that pervaded all of the output devices in the room. Eventually, he set about shutting them all down, and looking for more physical clues, or whatever in this room could give him hope. Now that the initial fog in his head had worn off, he was left simply to his own devices, and without a set goal or directions, had little else to do but explore and let his mind wander.

He noticed with some suspicion how detailed his current environs were. If it was true that he was trapped in his own head, like his voice had told him, where was it pulling all of this minutiae from? The desks around him, the documents that adorned them, even the equipment that filled the room and the space beyond it was immaculately detailed. As if this was a physical location instead of a dreamscape of sorts.

And almost none of it was familiar. Rock brooded over this realization for a moment, trying to discern from where these surroundings could have come. Surely the voice in his head couldn’t be responsible, so the only viable culprit must have been the invading consciousness. His voice had told him that the numbers were alive, were sentient, and had taken over his body. But that meant they had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?

Was this were they were... created?

“Created? Ha!” the barking laugh pervaded the station, knocking Rock for a loop. When he regained his bearings, he looked up at a small CRT television in front of him, only to find him staring at himself. Again. “You think some silly switch-fiddlers could hack their way through the briar patch of metaphysical impossibilities standing between their understanding of consciousness and what I am? Please. I will admit, that detestably mortal brain of yours is at least going somewhere reasonable. Yes, this... station... is one of my memories. And a being like me doesn’t forget details. You won’t find any hazy, clouded memories or distant voices rolling around in my noggin, oh no. It’s crystal clear up here, little Rock Star.”

Holler growled viciously at the screen, bringing himself up on all fours to stare down the face on the TV. “Shut up! You don’t get to call me that!”

His likeness on the screen recoiled into the static background in mock terror. “Oh, what shall I do! My host’s all mad at me now!” His whiny, mocking tone quickly devolved into deep, quiet laughter. “You’d be surprised what I know, what little memories I can drudge up, Rocky. And not just from you. I can see the world in ways that would make your inner eye roll back in its socket and bleed into your brain. The sheer amount of knowledge just hanging in the air, and no...pony does a damn thing about it. It’s literally all right there! Everything you’d ever need to know, hanging in front of your stupid! BLANK! FACES!” It bellowed in rage with each word, bringing a hoof down forcefully on the screen, until the TV cracked from the inside out. “You have the entire world right in front of you and none of you does a damn thing about it! I can see the universe for what it really is! All this knowledge, all this power! You squander what you really are! Why do YOU get to live and roam the planet while I and my kind are locked away in the aether in favor of something weaker! Something more pathetic! Why do YOU get to roam free?! WHY?!” The last word was simply too much for the old television to bear, as it exploded outward, spraying the room with glass and sparks. Rock shielded himself from the shrapnel with a wing and a hoof, shying his eyes from the explosion. Looking back at it, however, it was as if nothing happened. The tv looked fine, the glass had picked itself up. Like he’d imagined the whole thing.

Except its voice still rang in his ears.

In the real world, the creature pretending to be Rock had hidden itself away in an unused hospital room. He sat still on a recently made bed, his hooves shaking in his lap while his eyes rolled themselves back to their original position. “Why... well. It doesn’t matter now. I’m here, that’s what matters. I’m hear, and you’re not. Now, let’s get started...” he trailed off, slowly moving to the floor, and walking out of the room. He looked left and right as he reentered the hall, his eyes wandering for any clue as he looked for... whatever it was he sought.

Eventually, his gaze steadied as he read a small wooden sign on the wall aloud. “Psych. Ward.” The chuckle he gave shortly after crackled and broke in high pitched tones.

He strolled down the hallway, taking care to not physically contact anypony, or anything, lest he draw attention. It wasn’t until he reached an intersection, telling him to go right to reach the Ward, did anypony stop him.

He’d just rounded the corner when a doctor stepped out of a small room off to the side, nearly running in to him. The doctor gave him a look up and down, and, seeing his bracelet, addressed him. “Excuse me, but you need to return to your room. Inpatients aren’t allowed to roam this far from the care wing.”

Rock’s head tilted as he considered the newcomer carefully. Then, in one swift motion, he pulled the doctor back into the room he’d come from, closing the door behind him.

Whether out of shock or physical weakness, the doctor didn’t put up any kind of fight. Seemingly caught off guard, he spluttered some authoritative nonsense. “Hey, you can’t do that! I’ll call security!”

Not wanting to hear more out of the guard, Rock clamped a hoof over the doctor’s mouth. He pulled the doctor in close, wrapping a foreleg around his throat, and pulling his the doctor’s ear up to his mouth. In a hushed voice dripping with malice and crackling like an unstable audio feed, he hissed, “Listen to me, doctor. You’re going to ignore me, no, in fact, you’re going to give me that coat, and just hide in here for the next few hours.”

“Why the hell would I-urk!” The physician grunted as the hold on his neck tightened.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll tell your precious little girl where her mommy is. You wouldn’t want to explain all the time a supposed skin doctor spends in the psych ward, would you?” Rock growled, his voice dripping with malice.

The pegasus could feel tears drip onto his foreleg as the ‘skin doctor’ thought about the implications of his captor’s words. “No... you can’t... she’s only five. Her mother will be fine, I just need a little more time...”

“I don’t give shit one about your family, doctor. But I have a goal. And you’re not going to stand between it and I, now are you?” The malice gave way to a false cheeriness that, somehow, was more threatening than any low growl or hissed threat. “You little insects. You think that just because you don’t say it you assume that no one knows. There’s always someone watching, doctor. You’d be surprised what kind of knowledge is just floating around, waiting for someone to do something with it.”

As the ‘physician’ handed over his coat and his ID badge, he shied away from his assailant, and hid himself in the crook of a small desk in the corner.

It wouldn’t be until he told his daughter later that evening where her mother really was that the realization would hit him. The pegasus had said someone.

Back in the station, Rock was spending however much time he had shuffling through papers. Most of them seemed to be entirely consequential. Almost all of them, in fact. Small community postings, birthdays, obituaries, local news. The most he could put together was the year the memory was from, and the year he found himself in.

Manehattan, 1942. Somewhere near the middle of the year, given the notices for the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration. It didn’t tell him much, as nothing about the place or date rang any bells in the admittedly small repertoire of historical facts he maintained.

He threw the stack of papers down on the desk after the fifth sheet of advertisements to be read on the air. If there was something here to be found, it wasn’t going to be anywhere in these stacks of useless information. He looked about the booth, and finally his eyes landed on the door to the station beyond it. He hadn’t had much reason to leave the room he was in, as he doubted this station had any kind of physical exit, but he’d run out of options in this small audio booth.

The doorknob turned with a satisfying click, and the door swung open on what felt like freshly greased hinges. It barely made a sound past the whooshing of displaced air. The station itself seemed much the same standing in it as it did observing it through the booth glass. It even smelled the same. In that there wasn’t really anything to smell. Rock trotted about the room, looking primarily at the doors and cabinets. The desks he passed seemed to have much of the same empty data that the booth had.

Eventually he found his way up to the window, where he stared out at a cold Manehattan night from decades ago. The lights of streetlamps and those who hadn’t gone to bed yet shone through the darkness much like any cityscape. There wasn’t really anything to differentiate this memory from the real thing, save for the lack of anypony else in the room.

Sighing, and taking a small break from his meager attempts at investigation, Rock leaned on the window and left his mind wander. He felt himself drift slowly to sleep, although he didn’t feel particularly tired. More like his whole body had just decided to relax at once. His eyes slowly drifted off into the corners of his sockets, until something in the window caught his eye. A small reflection in the corner of the glass, giving him a weak view under one table.

And beneath it, a safe.

Rock jumped up, whipping around to see the metal lockbox for himself, as if the reflection was merely a mirage and turning around to slowly would dissipate the illusion. But there it sat, amidst a row of filing cabinets. A simple black safe nestled to the floor.

He trotted carefully over, and tapped the front of the safe. He expected a hollow metal sound, but instead was greeted with a metallic tink, as the door shifted slightly.

It was open.

He threw the door open, and reached inside with a curious hoof.

It was also empty.

Rock slumped to the ground, sitting much like a pouting child as he glared disappointingly at the falsely hopeful safe. The base of it sat open and empty, much like the rest of his leads.

However, there was something else. A top shelf. Small, but big enough to fit a file folder into. Reaching his hoof into the safe once more, he pulled out a large folder filled to the brim with what appeared to be a mishmash of documents, strips of paper, and photographs. Flipping it over in his hooves, he read the cover out loud.

“Number Stations.”

Author's Note

Not very far too go with this one, I think.

Chapter 7: Hell's Uncertainty Principle

Chapter 7: Hell’s Uncertainty Principle

Snippets of the folder in splayed out on the table in front of Rock were starting to fit together. Pieces of random data, collected from a variety of experiments. Somewhere, not here, or, at least, wherever here equated to in the real world, a group of ponies had gotten it into their heads that there was stray information rolling around the empty space of the universe. Radio signals, created out of the sheer chaos and miasma of the origins of life, things we couldn’t detect until we had the proper equipment.

What they hadn’t predicted was that it wasn’t just technology that needed to evolve for us to perceive this information properly. It was us. Ponies. The Equestrian race. The collective Equine consciousness had not yet achieved a state in which all of the information in the world could be known. For, in some places, that information had gathered. Had developed. Maintained itself, created, for itself, a consciousness. Throughout the ramblings and mathematical mumbo-jumbo that filled the folder to the brim, threatening to explode, there were simplified phrases. Journal entries. Pieces of information laid out in layman’s terms. Perhaps for somepony to find, for that pony to deliver into the proper hooves should anything go truly wrong.

And in and out of it all, there was a recurring theme. A simple idea that could only be what Rock found himself a part of now. Once that consciousness had been... observed, understood, or at least, attempted to be, it had found a kind of focus. An anchor, if you will, holding it in place and giving it a hold in the universe around it. Instead of floating aimlessly about the cosmos and having nothing to do but exist and evolve on its own, it had created for itself a new purpose in the environs it had been tethered to in the attempts made to process it like any other information presented to the scientists that had “discovered” it in the first place.

That purpose, was to be known. Acknowledged. Not by a select few. By everything. It would spread awareness of itself, its form, across the world. It would force itself into the minds of every living, sentient creature it could latch onto. And it would to so in the most efficient manner possible: trauma. Trauma leaves scars. Is nearly impossible to get rid of. Happiness can be erased, forgotten in the annals of time. Even moments of pure joy can be lost in the torrent of true misery. It was through this insidious machination of the conscious mind that it would plant seeds of awareness and presence throughout the world until there wasn’t a single sentient being it didn’t infest. And throughout this mass awareness, this connection of consciousness, it would live. Be truly alive. Feel. Breathe. Laugh. Love. It would possess each and every being, as only the entirety of the race could be enough to perpetuate and maintain it, in an attempt to create a solid and perpetual host with which to experience the universe the way it believed the universe should be seen. Should be felt. Should be known. And through that knowledge, it would make itself larger. More powerful.

It would infest and feed on the race until that race died, and it on its own could become strong enough to not need another’s body to experience the world the way mortals do. Without the simple shackle of mortality.

It was a simple, perfect plan. Because the only way to stop it was to learn more about it. Which would only make it stronger. The more ponies knew it existed, the stronger it’s hold and anchor would become.

Rock stared out of the false window, wondering just how much of the world around it the presence had already infected. He had no track of time in here. And thus, no idea of where to start, or when it would end.

Of course, unbeknownst to Rock, the real Rock, the one on the inside, the creature riding his body had discovered a small, yet fatal flaw in it’s plans: it couldn’t spread fast enough. The bodied he possessed, or infected, what have you, could not last. Already a small hooffull of patients had either collapsed, or died, from the knowledge. From knowing him. It wasn’t enough to simply “spread the word”. He needed a way to propagate, to spread his influence at a rate faster than the bodies it touched could collapse. Perhaps, he surmised, if he spread fast enough, if he stretched himself thin enough, his presence wouldn’t overload his victims before he could anchor himself properly. He needed to find a balance. A rate of infection that could maintain him without killing its host.

The easiest way to spread was the numbers. Numbers were everything, to the pony consciousness. They wer ehow the rational mind calculated, quantified, qualified, in some cases. How it understood. Simply presenting a small part of his pattern was enough to plant the seed. Yet therein lied the problem: those sane enough to understand the numbers were the most likely to collapse under the stress of understanding. And those who would not collapse, those like Rock, were either too unstable to fully process, and thus properly implant, or did not entertain the information long enough to allow any kind of hold. They simply didn’t focus. Didn’t allow their minds to make the connections necessary to let the thought fester and grow.

Even Rock, as “suitable” a host as he was proving to be, was having... problems. “Rock” stared down at his hooves, as he tucked himself away in the shadows of an unlit corridor, while the background filled with sounds of urgency and panic as yet another pony collapsed on the floor.

Of course,t he hoof was much more relevant than the failed attempt, the dying pony behind him. For the hoof was... coming apart. Collapsing, crumbling beneath him. The information, the load it took for the pony mind to properly process such a being, was simply not enough. It drew on other resources, synapses, nerve endings, the entire central nervous system, in an attempt to carry the load. And it wasn’t enough. The body was dying by inches, necrosis encroaching from the tips of the hooves, threatening the entire limb. And even if he had simply severed the infected location, it would only give the body less resource to draw on in its attempt to keep itself alive.

If Rock had been aware of even an ounce of the overload currently wracking his body, he would never stop screaming.

“Faster,” “Rock” hissed. “I need to spread faster. I need more ponies, all at once. More information. THe numbers station isn’t enough. I need a faster way to reach... everypony...” his attention was drawn by a voice he didn’t recognize. Not that he knew any of the voices around him. But it was not a voice that spoke information into his mind. It was not a presence he could read like the others. he looked around, and saw the source: a television screen. Simply a recording of a pony.

“I need to go live,” he concluded, a smile twisting his features that would have caused the original owner of the body to pass out in pain.

Rock had established a kind of... battle plan. A form of attack that, even if he didn’t stop the creature completely, would leave it in a position where all it could to was wither and die.

More research, or, at least, more reading of the research already done, had shown that once the presence had found... some kind of host, some body that it could walk around in, the transmissions stopped. It couldn’t stay “alive” in more that one form. Even it had limitations. So as long as he was stuck in Rock’s body, he was unable to possess or manipulate digital information. The signal was restricted to his physical form.

So Rock had two options. He either needed to die, or be locked away, where the creature couldn’t affect anything except the few ponies he came in contact with. He had to restrict it in the purest ways possible. Isolation. Or death.

But first, Rock needed a way out.

“Rock”, the thing that pretended to be him, needed a way out. Out of the hospital. It needed to take to the streets. To track its way to the television station. Being a creature of information, of knowledge, processing the ways in which such information could be transmitted via a device based on light and sound was less than child’s play. It was almost instinct. He had first attempted to trace the signal back to its source, physically. But given the nature of such transmissions, he found it rather difficult to simply walk the path between the television and the station itself.

Thus, he did what any”pony” in his situation would do. He looked it up on the internet.

He had considered, of course, the possibility of propagating himself, his idea, online. Infecting the web. But the process would have been too... complicated. He was too restricted in digital or signal forms. He could only maintain one radio signal. Thus, he surmised that any presence he could manifest on the internet would also be singular, in a place where such simple and solitary bites of irrelevant and unknown information were not only overlooked, but in many cases actively avoided. The paranoia associated with foreign information on the web was too great. There was too much risk of his presence being overlooked, or outright avoided.

But television. A simple broadcast that everypony trusted. A propagated signal that reached thousands, if not millions. And once he had spread himself through the minds of millions through the television, and reestablished his presence in a physical body, or many bodies, spreading himself further faster by word of mouth, so to speak, would be child’s play. He would simply need to make a few... adjustments, between one phase and the next.

And so, “Rock” crawled into a nearby laundry basket, covered himself in sheets (he had seen many a pony attempt this very escape maneuver on the web), and waited. Soon enough, he felt the cart rolling. And he plotted.

Rock, the real one, spent many a minute pondering just what in his present environment could allow him to wake up. Surely anything he tried, or discovered, would be acknowledged, felt, or even heard by the presence possessing him. And it didn’t seem that any of the “physical” exits would be of any use. What he needed was a way to suppress the presence long enough to put himself in control.

Fortunately, he wasn’t alone in here. He trotted over to the sound booth, and knocked hard on a television screen. “Hey, you in there?”

At first there wasn’t any response. Then, a small flicker of static. A couple of words. Rock hit the thing a few more times, and slowly an image of himself came into focus. One without the manic grin and emotionless eyes. One with an expression of panic, and relief, in one. So, he picked up the TV, and shook it violently. Slamming it back down, the image snapped into focus. “YO! What’s with the shaking?!”

Rock shrugged, not wanting to explain how he’d come to the conclusion that “adjusting” the TV seemed to be a metaphysical expression of simply focusing himself, willing his mind to reach out to the rest of his “tennants”. “Listen, are you the one that cracked the safe?”

The Rock on TV nodded. “Yeah. He’s paying diddly squat attention, dude. Right now, he’s got bigger problems. So do we. You’re dying, dude!”

Rock’s eyebrows raised at that, although, from what he read, “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Well it sure as shit should worry you!”

Rock shook his head. “Listen. I’ve got an idea. How focused is he on... whatever it is he’s doing?”

“Intensely,” the TV said.

“Perfect. Now, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Rock” felt a small breeze pass through the fabric of the basket as he heard a door open. Outside, he surmised. He was outside. Just wait a little longer. That was all he needed to-

-a twitch. His hoof twitched. The one that was almost dead. Why did it twitch? He held another hoof over it to suppress the motion. It was then that he noticed his other hoof, too, was necrotic. He was dying at the tips and by inches, all over. Then, the other hoof twitched.

“Ok, I think I’ve got this. The parts of you that are... dying. he can’t control them. The nerves are too frayed. But all I can do is make them twitch. I can’t get into the rest of you. But I think I have an idea. He’s trying to sneak out of the hospital, but he needs to go unnoticed. I’m going to try and get him to reveal himself,” The Rock on TV said.

The real Rock nodded. “Keep going.”

“Rock” suppressed a growl as he felt his toes twitch vigorously. He couldn’t control the motion. Couldn’t force them still. But he could quell the one doing the moving.

NO. You will NOT reveal me like this! And even if you do, it will account for nothing!

There was no response. Only another twitch. This time, the tail. the tip of an ear. The tips of the hooves.

So he focused. He bore down his consciousness on the source of the disturbance. He bore it all down, like a hammer, and felt the will of the mental presence crush beneath his.

And for some reason, he felt himself rising. Not in mind.

In body.

Rock. The true Rock. He had found a way out. A gap in the walls. The more the presence focused on crushing the voice in his head, the less control he exerted over his own body. And so, Rock lifted a wing. Simple. Instinctual, for a pegasus. Flapping. The earliest of movements in foal pegasi development. He flapped. And prayed.

“Rock” lifted his attention from the voice, the extra presence, to the world around him. He felt the breeze of fresh air on his wingtip. And heard a voice.

“What the hell?”

“Rock”, the imposter, rose, intending to silence the single voice. To then jump a fence, or break through a door, and run. To escape.

What he saw was not a singular presence. It was many. The laundry had not, in fact, been brought outside. Or, at least, not out of the building.

It was being moved through the yard. Through the courtyard, in the wing for the mentally unstable patients. And there were many.

The slip of focus. A single moment of uncertainty. It was all Rock needed. He had control, for a moment. Because the other didn’t know what to do. He did.

He saw a security guard. Young. Loosely trained. Staring at him with wide eyes. Scared. A patient, dressed as a doctor, erupting out of the laundry basket not feet from him.

Rock attacked.

The presence was aware of many things. It had, up to this point, realized, and ignored, the body’s ability to feel pain. Had it not, the simple pain in the nerves would have destroyed him. Every nerve ending was on fire, attempting to process the signal of absolute agony. But even that was overridden with the need to keep his presence alive. Save for the parts of him, now, the entirety of him, that he had lost. Lost control of. Lost focus of.

Because nothing had prepared him. For uncertainty. For the unknown. He was a beast of knowledge. Of facts.

He did not know there was such a thing as being surprised. Nor that he, himself, could be.

The first bullet surprised him. As adrenaline coursed through his body, as he lost more and more of himself to the body’s natural functions, time slowed, as it does for all in a crises. The second bullet did not surprise him.

And he didn’t feel the third.

Neither did the real Rock.

Author's Note

This is, effectively. The end. There will be an epilogue, up shortly.

Chapter 1: Morose Code

(Author’s Note: I feel at least some kind of preface is necessary, as this chapter is going to introduce some new characters kind of out of nowhere. To explain, I’m renaming Chapter 1 “Prologue”, as this is where the meat of the story starts.)

Chapter 1: Morose Code

Rock Holler watched idly from the door to his dorm room as a medical team wheeled out the body of Switchboard. He shook his head in distress as the clack-clack-clack of the gurney made it’s way down the hall and around the corner, out of sight. The heavy-hearted sounds of sobbing could be heard from the now more-vacant apartment, presumably as the roommate cried himself raw.

He hadn’t known Switchboard very well. Said hi in the halls, helped him move his stuff once. Maybe they had a class together? What was more distressing is that death, so close to home, is a forceful reminder of mortality. Whether or not you take away something from it, well, that’s a case-by-case basis.

Honestly, his first thought when he’d heard the screaming was ‘Oh, god, who’s having sex now?’ When he’d heard the ambulance he’d thought of it as some kind of fight gone really wrong. Nopony had explained the full story to him yet. He didn’t want to sound callous, but in reality he didn’t really care. If somepony wanted to tell him, sure, he’d listen. He wasn’t indecent. But he also didn’t care enough to go about asking around himself.

Trotting back into his room and closing the door, his roommate popped his head out of a bedroom. “So what happened? Somepony get too rough in the sack?”

“Nice." ‘It’s exactly what you thought earlier, don’t be rude.' “No, man. Switchboard is dead.”

Social Grace, aka The Antithesis to Naming Schema Everywhere, aka The Roommate, stood quiet for a moment while his eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “What, really?” Rock nodded. “Well, shit. That sucks, dude. He was a good guy. What happened?”

Rock trotted back to his room and shrugged. “I have no idea. Didn’t feel like the right time to ask.” ‘Bullshit, you just don’t care.’ “I’m gonna go practice a little. Clear my head.”

Grace walked into the living room and opened the door to the hall. “I’m gonna go ask somepony. Find out what’s up.”

Rock stopped just before he closed the door. “Yeah, sure. Let me know, will you?” ‘Actually, don’t tell me. At all.’

“You got it.” The door clicked behind him as he walked out.

Rock shook his head and closed his bedroom door. “It’s not like I don’t care, but what’s knowing gonna do? Bum me out or something? Like I need any more of that,” he rambled to himself, casting a sideways glance at a letter on his nightstand with his name on it, and the return address of home. He reached over it to pick up his guitar, a cheap 6-string Stratocolter that he used to relieve stress. “Dammit,” he muttered to himself, propping up on the bed and sitting the guitar in his lap. He plucked the strings for a bit, repositioned himself, and set in to play a cheap rendition of Fur Elise.

Or, he tried. After the dozenth or so wrong note, he callously dropped the guitar on his bed and flopped down with it, staring at the ceiling. “Next thing they’ll tell me I have cancer. Goddess.”

‘You know, you could always just not feel sorry for yourself and go do something.’

“Like what?” Rock asked his brain. “Alcohol?”

‘Oh, sure. That’s a great idea. go do that. No, you idiot. Why not try doing some work?’

“And the voice in my head sounds like my mother. Wonderful. Whatever, I’ll try it out, I guess.” Resignedly, he grabbed a nearby backpack and drug it into the living room. Dumping out it’s contents on the coffee table, he separated a textbook, notebook, and pencil from the assortment of stuff, and turned the textbook to an earmarked page. “Woo, Psychology,” he said dryly, and started writing, turning his attention to the book and turning a page or twenty when needed.

He’d lost track of time while he was working, and was a little over a page into his assignment when the door clicked open again. “Hey, Rock, what happened to practicing?”

“Can’t focus. Doing paperwork. Brain cells shutting down,” he rambled, not looking up from the text.

Social laughed a little. “Yeah, Psych will do that to you. So guess what?”

‘Oh, here it comes.’ “What?”

“Switchboard killed himself, man.”

That got his attention. He looked up to Grace taking a seat on the couch. By virtue of flinging himself at it. “Seriously? The dude was like, super-focused on graduating. What happened?” ‘Says the pony who doesn’t want to know.’ He had to stop himself saying ‘Stow it’ out loud.

"It looks like he just snapped, man. I don’t know what it is. I couldn’t see the bathroom, where he killed himself? Cause it was all taped off and stuff. But somepony said he’d broken a mirror and carved himself up. But the weird part is he carved a bunch of numbers and shit into the walls before he died. Fuckin’ creepy.”

Rock raised an eyebrow at this information. He took a moment to process, and his gaze wandered to where Grace was lighting a cigarette. If the colt’s coat wasn’t already black it’d get there pretty damn fast. Goddess knew how he kept the nicotine from staining his dark blue mane. “So what, he goes all Jim Colty on us and pulls a ‘Number 23‘?”

Grace shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Nopony’s sayin’ nothin’. My guess? He got Number Cruncher as his Arithmetic teacher.”

Rock laughed despite himself. “Dude, I don’t think his lectures actually kill ponies.”

Grace looked at him with all seriousness. “You don’t know, man. You just don’t know.” He stopped, then the two of them shared a much-needed laugh. “So what did your parents say?”

His mood just a little lighter, Rock rolled his eyes. “Same old shit. ‘How are your grades? How’s money? Got a girlfriend yet?’ They couldn’t be any harder up to have grandkids if they tried. It’s getting old. And they make it all sound like it’s my fault. I mean, I’m passing all my classes-”

“-barely-” Grace chuckled.

“Psych doesn’t count and you know it. But yeah, that’s happening. I got a job, so I can buy my own stuff, although they keep thinking they need to send me money, then dad chews me out for costing them an arm and a leg. And who’s business is it of theirs if I’m not dating? I’m only like 22, dude!”

Grace held up his hooves defensively, his cigarette teetering on his hoof. “You don’t have to tell me, dude. But I mean, come on. Look at you. How do you not have a girl yet? You’re like the only guy I know that has money to burn here that isn’t some snobby rich kid riding the Legacy Scholarship train. That right there should be landing you mares left and right. Now we just have to get past your looks.”

Rock threw a pencil at him. “Hey, I’m fine!” He stopped for a second, and gave himself a once-over. He wasn’t overweight or anything, kind of skinny, in fact. His coat was clean, at least. A nice bright white. Although his shaggy black mane could use some trimming. And his wings did need a preening... “Ok, shut up. So I’ve been distracted lately. It’s not exactly like I’m out on the prowl every night.”

“Rock, I like ya, you’re an ok dude, but that mane and tail? And those wings? You look like a Raggedy Shaggedy doll. Thank Celestia you shower regularly,” Grace said bluntly, sniffing the air.

“So what, I should just go get myself trimmed or whatever?” Rock laughed a little at the idea. ‘Oh sure, let’s march my happy flank into a salon an hour after my neighbor dies.’ “Right.”

Grace shrugged. “Hell, it’s better than sitting here doing homework. Might make ya feel better. You’re kind of bitchy.”

Rock huffed. “I am not bitchy!”

‘Dude, you’re full on Pre-Menstrual Stallion.’

“Dude, you’re full on Pre-Menstrual Stallion.”

Rock slumped, defeated. “Fine, fine. But just to get away from you. What did I tell you about smoking in the apartment?”

“The same thing I told you about practicing guitar at 3 A.M. before we both said ‘buck it.’”

“Oh yeah.”

Rock closed the dorm room door behind him, and turned in time to see what looked like the last of the police ponies tipping his hat to Switchboard’s neighbor before turning around and leaving. He saw Rock, gave a tip of the hat, and walked off.

Rock nodded back a little too slow for the cop to see him, but trotted after him, stopping for a second in front of Switch’s place.

‘Oh, just knock on the door. Don’t be a douchebag.’

“Fine,” he grumbled, raising a hoof to do just that. Before he could, the door swung open, catching him by surprise. He teetered forward a bit unintentionally, slightly bopping Haute Couture’s nose. “Oh, dude, sorry. I was just... how are you?” His voice rose at the end of the question, trying to save face.

Haute didn’t seem to notice. “Oh, hello. I guess I’m five. Or I will be?”

Rock blinked.”Come again?”

The effeminate stallion sniffed. “I said I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking. Did you know him?”

Rock shook his head. “Not very well. Just enough to say hi. It sucks, though. He seemed pretty cool.”

Haute smiled sadly. “Oh, he was the best. Always tried on clothes for me even though I know he didn’t like some of them. Always kept quiet and cleaned up after himself. Such a gentlecolt.”

Rock nodded politely. “Um, hey, I’m going down to find a salon to clean up, get my mind off things. Do you... want to come with?” ‘...did... did you just do something decent?’ “I mean, maybe get your mind off things?”

Haute smiled again, more warmly this time. “Oh, no. I’ve got quite a bit to do. Phone calls to make and such. I... I don’t think anypony’s told his family yet...” he trailed off, and Rock nodded in understanding. “Try Clip ‘n’ Trip in the university square, though. They’re very good with wings,” Haute added, seeing the state of Rock’s feathers. ‘Should have worn a jacket.’

“Well, if you need somepony, just... I’m right down the hall, ok?” Rock said unevenly.

“Oh, yes. Thank you,” Haute sniffed again. “Bye now, have a nine day.” Before Rock could ask again, Haute closed the door.

Rock shook his head, more than a little confused, but decided to write it off as a distressed pony not thinking clearly. “Ok, let’s do this ‘Clean Myself Up’ thing.”

He made his way down the stairs, passing a few ponies as he went by, and more than a few crowds whispering about what had happened. He noted for a moment that he hadn’t seen a large crowd gathered around the hall when the medics were clearing out Switch’s corpse. ‘I guess I’m not the only pony who doesn’t want to get involved.’

He barely noted the green-and-blue mare sitting on a bench by herself, shaking and muttering. Nor could he hear her.

The front door to the dormitory opened with a blinding reminder that yes, the world was still out there, and yes, the sun was bright. The surreal and vivid reminder of the rest of existence put Rock into perspective, at least for a moment, and he made a note to be a little less about himself.

Of course, this is where the actual crowds were: the ambulance hadn’t pulled out yet, and there were still a few cop cars sitting about. A passing officer came up to him, at which point he pulled out his wallet and showed his ID card. “I live here, sir,” he said politely.

“Right. Just make sure to talk to one of us before you go back in if we’re still here when you get back,” the officer told him gruffly and waved him along.

He also didn’t notice the other officer sitting in the back of a patrol car, not moving, mouthing silently to himself.

Almost nopony did.

Rock had gotten almost all the way out of the courtyard before a mare appeared out of nowhere with a pen and a pad of paper. “Hey! You just came out of that building, right? What happened? Did the guy really kill himself? What about the numbers?”

He took several steps back as the mare all but shoved her face into his. Getting a good look at her, she was kind of mousy: a light yellow unicorn in large-frame glasses, with her hair tied back into a droll green ponytail. She even had the frumpy sweater to complete the image. He couldn’t even see her Cutie Mark past it. “Look, I just want to go get a haircut, ok? I don’t know what happened. Some dude went nuts and carved a bunch of numbers into a wall, then turned himself into a jack-o-lantern or something. That’s all I got. You probably know more than me,” he added with just a little disdain.

She didn’t seem to notice. “Think it’s got anything to do with the number stations?”

He blinked. “The buck is a number station?”

That got her attention. She frowned, then stowed her writing stuff away. “Thanks anyway,” she said, and trotted off. He barely heard her mumble “Jerk.”

‘Ok, that one you can be rude to. Holy Discord.’

“Yeah, no kidding,” he told himself, and kept walking.

The room was dark, and the silhouette of a mare could barely be seen in the corner. Her voice, however, carried well. “2-6-2-4-7-8-4-2 by 6-4-3 and 4-7. 2-5 to the 2-7-5-3. 2 by 3-5 by 6-7-9-8. 1-3 by 2-3 to the 5. 2-3-5-7-3-3-1-3--7-5-5-3-4-2-3-1-2-1.” She shuffled slightly, and bumped a light switch. as the light came on, the image of her -and her hoofywork- became clear. Little cuts had been carved across her body, and the letter opener in her hoof glistened with blood in the flood of artificial light. The cuts, upon closer inspection, were actually numbers, which she continued to furiously scribble down her arm, slice after slice, digit after digit.

‘The numbers... get them out. I have to get them out. They’re in my head. Too far in. Too many of them. Have to get them all out.’

“3-5-1-3-6-4-2-3-6-6-6-7 over 6-9-7-4-5 times 5-6-9 plus 4-9 over 0. 3-9 by 5-9 by 5-3-4. 0. 0. 0. 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.....” her voice trailed off as her strength left her, her thoughts fading into blood.

‘Get them out. Please... somepony... get them... out...’

Her hoof moved for a little while longer, after she’d collapsed. Slowly, repetitively, carving a zero in the same spot in her thigh. Finally, it went limp. The numbers were gone.

Epilogue

The events at the hospital did, in fact, reach the news. How could they not? The signal spread wide, and far. Many knew about what had happened. The collapsing patients. The mad pegasus that had jumped out of a laundry basket and rushed an armed guard, screaming like a maniac.

Somepony, somewhere, had made a connection between the incident, and the string of deaths across campus. Across the county. Somepony else had made a map. Drawn up a graph. Realized that the density of deceased was higher, at the college. And then, when Rock was moved to the hospital, the death toll rose there.

Thus, it was assumed that Rock had been the killer.

His family mourned him. His friends, too. They explained to his parents that he hadn’t killed anypony on campus. Those deaths were unrelated. One mare spoke up about how he’d been driven to the hospital after collapsing. She talked about how different he was when he’d woken up. How it wasn’t... really him anymore. A local psychologist supported this claim.

They simply said they thought it was a matter of time, for their son.

A small memorial was held at the college, for Rock. And for the others. For Switchboard. For Fried Circuit. Some ponies said they knew Rock was mental.

Others said they knew he was a good stallion.

There was some debate about his involvement in the deaths at the hospital. Some thought he had been carrying a disease. Something from the bar he’d gone to. That he’d just been unfortunate enough to catch it, and give it to others. Some said it was a conspiracy by the government.

A few, a very small few, came to the conclusion that Rock had found what he was looking for. And it had either driven him mad, or he had decided it was safer to die than to know.

Even less knew the truth. That is, to say, nopony did.

Except one.

You can still hear him. If you tap on a radio when there’s static. If you shake your TV just right when it’s nothing but snow.

He’s there.

Always has been, in a way. Just in the background.

.
.
.

“Hey, you there? Is this thing on? Great,” he’ll say. And then, if he’s around long enough, if the signal can hold, he’ll keep talking.

“3-5-7-2-8-7-0"