The Murder of Elrod Jameson

The ocean was less choppy under the overhang of the vast city overhead, but it was incredibly dark. There were no lights near the shore and amongst the vast columns that supported Bridgeport from its waters, save for the distant slit of weak gray light that marked a distant horizon and the edge of the city.

From these waters, Elrod slowly emerged. He walked slowly over the rocks and thick toxic silt, his body crackling and changing shape as the air pockets he had formed within his body condensed and then were eliminated entirely. One of his arms, his right, lay at his side unmoving. The other held one of Twilight’s rear hooves, with the rest of her being dragged across the rocks and mud below.

They finally came to the shore itself, a mass of jagged rocks that had been corroded from the acidic ocean and left with rims of rust-brown where the water lapped them. Elrod pulled Twilight onto the rocks and released her. Then he himself collapsed.

Time passed as they sat together. Within several minutes, Twilight’s body began to reactivate. Her body twitched and her eyes shot open. She looked around, confused and afraid. “S…spike?” she said, her voice wavering, “Starlight? Where…where am I?” Then it came to her, and she remembered who she was and what had happened- -all of it. She nearly wept. Instead, though, she turned her head. “Fuuuuuck me,” she said before vomiting out several liters of contaminated saltwater.

Twilight sat up and began scanning the area to see if they had been followed. Her internal chronometer indicated that almost an hour had passed since they had fallen from the Surface, so she was mostly sure that they had lost her. She still needed to check, though.

While examining her surroundings, she also checked herself. Her coat had been lost in the fall, and in a panic Twilight reached for her neck. The gemstone had not left her, and that was a relief. She looked down at her body and her relief fell slightly. She was certainly still alive, but in bad shape.

Her left front limb was missing and she had several less consequential bullet holes in her body. Her right wing was ravaged by plasma burns and the left had been ruined by the impact into the ocean. It was damaged beyond repair and fell limply at her side.

“Damn it I have water in my internal systems,” swore Twilight. “I’m going to smell for weeks!” She shook her wet mane and looked over at Elrod, who was passed out face-down on the stained shore-rocks. “Hey, trench, are you dead?”

“Surprisingly, no,” he muttered. “But I thought you were for a while.”

“My body is designed to survive a lot more than that. It still hurt like hell though.” Elrod struggled to sit up. Twilight watched. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Several things. Among them a three-mile fall into an ocean. Salty water is very bad for me.”

“Will you survive it?”

“Yes, I just need a minute. That, and one of the things they shot me with wasn’t a normal bullet.” He rolled over and struggled to remove his now hole-riddled coat. Twilight noticed that the holes in his coat did not correspond to the ones in his body, save for one point on his right arm. The hole was not only still present, but it seemed to be expanding. The flesh around the area had become flakey and black, and most of the muscle was gone.

“That looks bad.”

“It is bad,” said Elrod. “The bullet must have been tipped with herbicide. They were prepared for me. But it’s a limb shot.” He reached up with his free arm and grasped his right elbow. With one swift motion he pulled the arm free. It cracked at the poisoned area with little effort. Elrod showed no sign of pain, and he threw the now useless limb into the ocean.

“It’s not healing.”

“It will. But it will take time. I need fertilizer and real water. And somewhere warmer.” He looked at Twilight, who was now sitting on a rock beside him. “And the others? Forth, and the green pony?”

Twilight sighed and turned away. “Jade took a shot to the chest. That’s not good. I didn’t see it all, but that’s where the processor and memory compiler is located in her brand of body.”

“So she didn’t make it.”

“I didn’t say that, but…” she looked at Elrod. “I wouldn’t wait for her to come home.”

“And Forth?”

“I don’t sense her.” That was a simplification. Under normal circumstances, Twilight and Forth were always together. Forth existed within Twilight, but separate, on her own little island of Twilight’s physical platform. Twilight in general respected her privacy, but could always feel her. Now that island was empty, and Twilight felt profoundly alone. “But she’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. If I had any money I’d bet it on her.” Twilight reached for her cigarettes, only to realize that they had been in her coat pocket. By this time they had probably drifted most of the way out to Long Island. “Damn..."

Twilight groaned and turned to Elrod. “So. When were you going to mention it?”

Elrod turned to her, his eyes confused by far more cognizant than normal. “Tell you what?”

“That you’re an agromorph.”

Elrod shrugged. “I was hoping that it would not come up.”

“Really. So you thought the investigation would just go on while you keep a key piece of information to yourself?”

“Wasn’t it you who warned me not to volunteer information? The architecture of my consciousness is different from yours, but I’m not stupid. Monsanto has a bounty on me.”

“How much?”

Elrod looked at her suspiciously. “Are you intending to sell me out?”

“I just gave up my wings to make sure you survived a fall into the ocean, you ingrate. What do you think?”

Elrod frowned but nodded. “Sixty million vod for epigenetic markers of total death.”

Twilight looked out at the dark ocean and nodded. “That’s a lot of vod. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of a bounty like that.”

“It isn’t advertised. Not to anyone. Doing so would admit our existence.”

“It kind of defeats the point to have a bounty that you never post.”

“Monsanto agents know it. And if they knew I was alive, they would come for me. And I don’t want to die. I just want to live a normal life.”

“Well it’s too late for that.” Twilight paused. “What the high-commander idiot said up there, was it true?”

“Some of it was. And some of it was probably true thirty years ago. If you mean that I’m a plant, yes. Solanum tuberosum, although the genetic alterations are more than enough to qualify for a speciation event.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Twilight, looking at him. “Solanum tuberosum? That’s the scientific name for potatoes. You’re a potato.”

“In a loose sense, yes.”

“So Monsanto created an army of potato men to conquer the Middle West? That’s absurd.”

“But true. Or partially true. There were agromorph soldiers at one point, but not anymore. Not really. The technology to make us improved.”

“You were a geneticist,” said Twilight. “Meaning that Monsanto was using you as a worker.”

Elrod nodded. “That is correct. At one time, over ninety percent of Monsanto’s workforce consisted of agromorphs. In many respects we are an improvement over humans. I don’t really understand how we work, because I never worked on that project, but we never need to sleep. We don’t eat anything except fertilizer, water, and dim light. We are immune to disease and injury, and we do not require cybernetic enhancements to augment our intelligence.”

“And you just so happen to look like the High Chairman’s son.”

Elrod blinked, momentarily confused. “Oh,” he said. “Most of us look like this. Or at least the male-gendered do. Spitzer VIII was well-loved by many of us, and we have to look like something. I just copied the others.”

“It would have been a lot better if you could have taken a less conspicuous form.”

“It is very difficult to change out of it.”

“This is fucking weird,” moaned Twilight. She sighed and continued her interrogation. “And you left Monsanto. Let me guess. Searching for freedom, purpose, a home, love?”

Elrod shook his head. “Nope. All of those things are meaningless to us. I would have been fine to be a geneticist for however long my lifespan is. I was good at it. My team was working on an improved type of amaranth. Have you ever seen amaranth? It’s pretty. Red flowers, red leafs…”

“But you still left.”

“Because Monsanto tried to kill me.” Elrod looked at Twilight. “Hence the bounty. They killed most of us. Some escaped, but not many. I was lucky. I was in the fields when they gassed our facility. My entire team died, but I did not. I think I’m supposed to miss them, but I don’t.”

“One of the world’s leading agricultural corporations killed off over ninety percent of its workforce?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Any idea why?”

“Tetracycline.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tetracycline. It’s an antibiotic- -”

“Yes, I know what it is. But why does it matter?”

“Several of our critical genes were based on a tetracycline promoter. We normally require continuous dosing to live, and especially to reproduce. However, at some point, a mutation occurred on a rogue transposon. This was amplified several generations before anyone noticed.”

“Meaning that you ceased to need it,” said Twilight, “and that you could reproduce limitlessly. Water, fertilizer, dim light? It’s every city in the world.”

Elrod nodded. “Yes. And Monsanto knew that.” Elrod paused, and then sat up suddenly. As he dried, he seemed to be becoming more energetic. “Do you think that’s why they tried to kill me?”

“No,” said Twilight. “Stop and think, trench. That hole in your arm, that was a herbicide bullet, right?”

“Right?”

“So Monsanto knows what would kill you. But they never used it. What I think happened is that you saw something, and someone shot you with a bullet that was guaranteed to kill anything except whatever the hell you are.”

“Agromorph.”

“Exactly. They weren’t expecting that, and they weren’t sure what to do when you didn’t die properly. So they tried to use a proxy just in case.”

“The technomancer.”

Twilight nodded. “To cover their tracks if they fail, or kill you if they succeed. But then there was what happened on Level C…”

“They failed again.”

“Yes, but not at killing you. They weren’t trying to.”

“But I had a gun pointed at my chest!”

“Which would have done what? Can bullets even kill you?”

Elrod opened his mouth but paused. “I…I don’t know. I don’t really know how I work.”

“It wouldn’t have. That isn’t what they wanted. I was already suspicious of you. They wanted to out you to me. That’s what would have happened. You would have been shot by a hooker on Level C- -not an uncommon occurrence- -and I would see that you’re a potato-starch man.”

“Agromorph.”

“I think the idea was that they didn’t need to kill you. You’re inconsequential.”

“Oh. Well that makes me feel better.”

“It should. I think they decided that you don’t matter much and can’t interfere with whatever you’re doing. But by then, you had already found a detective.”

“One who will keep digging…” Elrod’s brow furrowed. “Even if I’m not human?”

“Like I said. You’re inconsequential. I don’t really care much about you either at this point. I care about the case.”

“But there’s no money in it.”

Twilight laughed. “You idiot. Let me let you in on a little secret. I don’t have a house. I’m homeless. Just the office. I don’t need to eat. All I need is rent and maintenance on myself and Forth, and I can afford that. I don’t do this job for the money.”

“But then why?”

Twilight sighed. “It’s something that comes with being one of the Mane Six. We’re not like the background characters; we’re born with specific personalities. I’ve tried for a long time to escape mine, but you can’t. No one can. Fluttershys will be prone to cowardice, Pinkie Pies to madness, Raritys to vanity, Rainbow Dashs to stubbornness, Applejack’s toward…Applejackness…and Twilight Sparkles toward obsession and curiosity. I love money, but this intrigues me too much. I can’t stop now, no matter what.”

“Then you’re still on the case.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.” Twilight stood up, but faltered. Her broken wings hung limply at her sides. With some hesitation, she disconnected them internally. The pair fell to the ground and rolled into the ocean. Elrod immediately began to crawl toward them, but Twilight stopped him.

“Don’t,” she said. “You couldn’t sell them anyway. Not with the Micronesian embargo in effect.”

Elrod seemed to recognize what she meant, and he pulled away from them as though they were diseased. “You’re an MHI.”

“I am. But you already knew that.”

“I might have.” He looked at the wings. “That means you might have some trouble getting new ones.”

“I know,” sighed Twilight. “I guess I’ll be running in unicorn mode for a while…”