“I want to see him.” Neil said, leaning against the door frame.
The walls had been covered with a plastic barrier; the whole apartment looked like the insides of an inflated balloon. A noisy fan blew gusts of mint-scented air over him, making his hair flow in all directions. Neil gave a step further and stared down at the nurse, her expression was one of immaculate neutrality.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t.” She said. That expression remained sculpted on her face, frightfully unchangeable.
“It’s been weeks. I am going to see him-” Neil forced his way into the hall, he was quick enough to avoid the grasp of the porcelain nurse, but not from the equally bland-looking security guard at the room entrance.
“Sir, please.” The guard barely moved. Neil felt those stony hands grabbing his arm.
“Fuck off!” He grunted, kicking one of the metallic frames that supported the plastic structure, a large bolt clinked on the floor followed by the frame itself. He didn’t expected to, but was glad to see that whole section of the structure collapsing.
The air ducts were yanked out of the ceiling and crashed loudly on the hall, ripping the plastic bubble that engulfed Paul’s apartment.
He soon felt his arm released, and without looking back at the domino effect that his desperate kick had generated, he pushed open the door to the room where his friend was being kept.
“Pa-” His words halted. He knew Paul no longer answered by that name. “Twilight?”
Unlike the rest of the apartment, the room was kept unchanged, except for the windows that had been shut and sealed. The medical equipment he had seen on the last time he visited his friend was gone, the bed covers looked untouched.
“Twilight, it’s me–” He said, trying to find any signs of her presence. “I know you can’t remember, but please, let me help you out of this place.”
He turned back to the door, the guard laid unconscious under a collapsed duct. Neil jumped over the clutter, checking the few other chambers. There was nothing to be found, except for boxes and more boxes of medical supplies.
“You’re wasting your time. She’s not here anymore.”
The pale nurse stood like a surreal statuette amidst the chaotic environment of torn plastic and twisted aluminum frames. A thin trail of blood ran down from her forehead, following the smooth curve of her nose, ending in a single droplet on her right cheek. She didn’t seemed to care, or maybe – Neil hoped – she hadn’t noticed.
“She’s probably dead and incinerated at this point.” Her lips twitched in a sardonic smile.
“Who the hell are you?” Neil felt a wave of rage and disturb rushing into his bloodstream. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
"What? Do you think we'd keep that thing here forever?" She shook her head.
His eyes fell upon a metallic tray where about a dozen injectors filled with a white substance were set. Neil stepped out of the supplies room, his hand holding a cylindrical mass of syringes.
The nurse stepped back, and for the first time her face was twisted in a non-controlled manner.
“Incinerated, you say?” Neil spoke calmly, not looking directly at her.
“It is n-not a certainty.” Her voice oscillated.
He gave small steps towards her, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling made the needles shimmer.
“Oh really?”
She was cornered.
“That’s what we’re gonna find out, isn’t it?” He jumped on the nurse, pinning her body against the wall. A sharp pain under his left rib made him gasp, something cold had penetrated the layers of his jacket and skin.
He looked down and saw a scalpel in her hand, the other end disappearing into his body.
Gritting his teeth, Neil grabbed her neck and squeezed it until the urge to breathe forced her to release the blade. He heard it falling on the floor, but dared not to look down.
“N-now listen up, you little piece of shit.” He hissed, pressing the syringes against the side of her neck as he partially released her. She panted, but did not moved a muscle. “Try to play the psychopath again, and I’ll give you an overdose of whatever is in these things.”
He felt a warmth under his shirt, but the wound was the minor of his worries at that time.
“I’m gonna ask just one more time.” The needles pierced her skin very lightly. “Where is my friend?”
“T-they took the specimen away two weeks ago. To a safer facility.” She said.
“They who?”
“Life Corporation. The company responsible for Animale. They took the specimen to their own laboratories, it was too dangerous to keep operating here. It was not a matter of choice.”
“Where is this laboratory?” The wound was starting to hurt him badly.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do fucking know where it is!” Neil cried.
“There are many of them.” She looked up into his eyes with an anger-fueled glare.
“Where?” He insisted.
“New Haven, Connecticut.” The nurse said with a tone of disgust. “You won’t ever find them – You won’t ever find anything. They will kill you before you even touch the sidewalk.”
“That’s very heartwarming. Thank you for the advice.” Neil smiled wickedly, backing away quickly. The nurse rubbed her neck, but the needles hadn’t done much damage.
“You're driven by childish emotions. You don’t know with who you’re dealing with...” She muttered.
“I’m about to find out.” He said, not bothering to look back.
She stared at the polished concrete wall of her cell.
Of course that they did their best to reassure her that she was in no way imprisoned. But as far as she knew, being locked 24/7 in a sterile room was anything but freedom.
There were the quarantine excuses, the biological instability excuses, and the excuses that made no sense at all.
But everything served a purpose, and those weeks alone were no exception. If in the early days after the ‘awakening’ – as she started to call the moment when she came back to her alicorn senses – her magic seemed absent, and her wings to be nothing but extra weight – now it all felt different.
Something had ignited inside her soul, she felt sharp again, with the precision of a blade.
She had the feeling that something odd was going on with those people responsible for her imprisonment. They no longer cared to experiment on her, they no longer tried to extract answers – it was almost as if they'd completely forgotten about her. But every day there was food and water, and once or twice per week they would stare at her through the round window at the door.
They emanated an aura of agitation, they hurried up and down the corridors paying no attention to anything but their own matters. Something was bothering their usual cold serenity. But that was beyond her understanding, and beyond the limits of her enclosure.
But her conjectures were mainly correct, and at least for the time being, those people were neglecting her existence – neglecting in a way that allowed her to plan things, and to put those plans in motion without attracting unnecessary attention.
That was the day.
She awaited until the two compartments where they placed the food and water were refilled – that was supposed to be dinner – so the next time she'd be checked would likely be on the next morning.
The alicorn ignored the food. Instead, she turned to the opposite wall – a wide, empty surface with nothing but a rectangular gap in the concrete near the ceiling that served as an air vent.
Her horn lit up in a swirl of magic – it was stronger than ever. The luminosity bathed the dim-lit cell in a violet glow.
She approached the wall and spoke, and as she did so, her words were carved into the concrete like one of her letters.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle. But here, I am nothing but a code – 06xSPRKL. They said I was someone else before, that my current state of being is nothing but a mistake to be fixed.
I don’t believe in what they say. Neither should you – whoever you are.
Don’t believe in anything they say.
Don’t ever let them say there’s no way out of this place.
There is a way out. I know.
I was the one who made it.”
Twilight stared at her own words for a while, and wondered if anyone else would ever read that. She wasn’t sure, but intuition told her that there were many in the same condition as her. And if those words could inspire any of them to fight back, it was already worth it.
Her eyes moved up to the air vent near the ceiling. It was naturally too small for anything larger than a mice to pass through. But its size wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.
‘Come on… You can do this. It’s not too different from the Crystal Caves’ She thought to herself.
Taking a deep breath, Twilight positioned her body in an attack position, her head lowered slowly, but her eyes remained focused on the gap. She felt the pressure building up inside her horn, undulating waves of energy reverberated around her, creating a capsule of violet plasma that accelerated with each beat of her heart.
‘You can do this… You can.’
The lights of the cell flickered, the fluorescent lamps buzzed in a high pitch and exploded, and still the cell was even brighter than before. The plasma surrounded her like a bubble, and Twilight felt her hooves leaving the cold floor. She floated in magic, ignoring the bluish flashes of electricity that escaped from the now exposed wires on the ceiling.
The sirens of the facility screamed in a desperate way, she could hear the hurried footsteps outside, she could feel the chaos taking place.
She lifted her head slowly, as any brusque movement could burst the bubble. All that concentrated power streamed into her horn. She spread her wings to keep her body balanced, the saturated magic of weeks of suppression was growling like an angered dragon.
They had reached her cell from the outside, there were bangs and shouts, but the pressure inside the chamber was so much higher that by the time they managed to open the door, a gust of plasma exploded on their masked faces, turning everything into ashes in a fraction of second.
Twilight gathered all her strength, knowing her own horn could explode when she released that spell.
Her glowing eyes were fixed on the air vent gap, and without further thinking, she fired.
A beam of fiery magic exploded, piercing the concrete and the many layers of stone behind it, it burned anything on its path at the speed of light. Melted rock oozed out from the diagonal hole that reached the surface. It was as if a laser beam had carved the escape route.
Exhaustion was all that remained in her body, but it wasn’t time to rest yet. Twilight crawled through the hole – it was quite narrow, but large enough for an emergency escape.
Midway to the surface, Twilight could see the night sky with a few lonely stars, and that was more than enough to put a smile on her face.
There was no way she could have been one of those human creatures before. She refused to accept such an absurdity.
Wouldn’t she remember? The slightest memory?
No… There was nothing.
Not from them – neither from Equestria.
Just a white void filled with doubts and fears she couldn’t comprehend.
Neil locked himself at home that night. He closed the curtains and locked all his windows.
His wound was more painful than ever, it would probably need stitches – but he had no time for stitches.
He removed his jacket and undershirt carefully, but every movement of his arm made him twitch. The wound itself didn’t looked that bad – it was a scalpel incision after all, but it felt like a thousand concentrated paper cuts.
It was no easy task to clean the skin around it, but he did so. Showering was the worst part.
Animale wasn’t the only drug he used to have at his disposal; the medicine cabinet on the bathroom wall was practically a private collection of prescription drugs. Neil Fleming was a pharmacy school dropout, he basically followed a chemistry-based philosophy, that anything could be produced if you had the basic compounds and a moderately decent knowledge.
He had both, so a dose of morphine posed no big challenge for him.
When the pain was finally eased, he allowed himself to sit in front of the television for a couple of minutes. It was one of those terrible habits he recognized but ignored – it was hard for him to fall asleep without the distant buzz of a television.
He would process the insane amount of information on the next day. Not that night – not at all.
Seldom he paid attention to the news, but a headline crossed the screen, and his eyes followed the words as they passed by.
‘Trail of light seen on the skies above New Haven and Milford’
“What...” He muttered to himself, raising the volume.
‘Earlier this night, residents of New Haven’s metropolitan area, Milford, and parts of Bridgeport have reported sightings of a peculiar ‘trail of light’ that lasted for nearly thirty seconds before disappearing.
Astronomical agencies haven’t detected anything out of the ordinary in New England’s skies, thus what caused the so called ‘trail of light’ remain a mystery, while some astronomers relate the phenomenon to rare atmospheric electrical discharges, and not a meteorite.’
“You must be kidding me.”
Connecticut.
As far as Neil could remember from his childhood years, it was a state he associated with rich folks, history classes, rusty-looking towns, haunted places and a rather unpredictable weather.
Although he was born in Boston, his first memories were effectively from the time his parents moved to Connecticut, where they settled for a couple of years before moving to New York.
In adulthood, Connecticut remained in his memories like a crossover state between a Massachusetts he'd never been, and a New York he called home.
Physically, the transition between the states was felt as soon as the bumps in the deteriorated highways of New York gave place to smoother roads that bordered an infinitude of towns with similar names, often ending with '-bury', '-ford', or '-field'.
Still, it was not until he found himself driving in circles around downtown New Haven that he realized he had absolutely no clue as to where Life Corporation laboratories were supposed to be.
Behind a brick-colored barrier of buildings a couple of blocks ahead, Neil saw what resembled the crown of that masonry tower in the Yale neighborhood; it overlooked the place like a totem of yore, an unmistakable presence watching from afar. Yale itself was an entity that permeated the city in such a way that sometimes it was hard to tell what was part of the campus and what wasn't. Through time it had spread in a network of streets, parks, libraries, and guardian towers.
If the research laboratories of Life Corporation followed a similar pattern, they'd have been built in or around the university. It was after all, logical to at least assume that the students provided a considerable portion of their workforce; younger professionals are easier to shape, they are more vulnerable to the winds of the outside world, and prone to swallow questions in favor of keeping their stable jobs.
Conjectures aside, he felt pulled towards the tower, taking the road near the school of medicine on his way north. A group of students were hanging around on the stairway, and for a moment he wondered if any of them had ever heard of Life Corporation. Surely they had. Neil concluded. It was very likely that one of them had been to the goddamn place, or even conducted part-time research there.
What sort of people did worked for that corporation? What did they looked for in their resumes? What characteristics? It was stupid to assume that every employee knew about the dirty stuff they were involved with. Actually-
"Watch out!"
Neil had only enough time to steer the car up the sidewalk. Another second on the street and he'd run over a guy who had just stepped on the crosswalk in front of him.
"Fuck!" He hit the brakes — the steering wheel inches away from his eyes.
Neil stumbled out of the car, waiting for the veins inside his skull to stop throbbing.
There was a pale-faced young man sitting on the pavement, scared to death but with all his parts connected to his body. Two girls helped the guy to his feet, the scream he heard prior was a woman's voice, so Neil presumed one of them gave the warning call.
"Are you okay?" Neil asked, approaching them. The hush of thoughts finally subsiding and allowing him to perceive the entirety of the situation. Chemistry books laid scattered on the floor alongside with pencils and something that once was a tablet. Both girls had the school of medicine brooch in their sweaters and judging by their faces, weren't quite happy with the idea of nearly witnessing a fellow student being crushed by a car.
"I'm so sorry, let me-"
"I-I'm okay — really — I'm fine" The guy stuttered, trying to gather his books but failing miserably.
"No, you're not. I almost killed you, man. You're definitely not okay." Neil said, picking up the books for him. "I'll take you to your next class or whatever, you're not hurt, are you?"
"No. Not physically, at least." He checked out his limbs and gave a nervous chuckle.
"Marcus, are you coming over to Prim's or what?" One of the girls asked, Neil recognized her voice.
"Uh, I don't really feel like, to be honest. It was a crappy day, ya know." He said. The girl rolled her eyes, with something of an 'I already expected this bullshit' expression stamped on her face.
"Just try not to die while we are away, alright?" She said. Marcus nodded and waved a shaky goodbye as the girls crossed the street.
Neil passed the small pile of books back to him, but not before noticing the odd assortment of advanced biochemistry and genetics volumes.
"Sorry for your tablet..." He added, pointing to the fragmented black screen the guy was pushing into his backpack.
"It can be fixed." Marcus said. "Look, I don't have any classes now, but I'd appreciate a ride back to my dorm. They just moved me to this fucking place on the other side of the campus."
"Sure, I'll take you there." Neil said, glad to see that his car looked as intact as Marcus. A little to the right and he'd have driven straight into a tree.
"Name's Neil Fleming." He said as they closed the doors. "I heard you're Marcus. That's not a common name, where are you from?"
"My family is half Italian, half Spanish. I'm from Pittsburgh tho."
"Hmm... Alright Pittsburgh fella, you'll have to guide me now, 'cause I'm already lost enough in this place." Neil said. "Been driving in circles since noon.
"Just turn left on the hospital road, it's a straight line from there." Marcus pointed to a road on the driving assistant map. "Ah... You weren't planning to go to Life's Labs today, were you?"
Neil paused for a moment at the question. The nurse's threats were still vivid in his mind.
"I- how did you-" He noticed the red pins still marked on the map. "Oh. This..." He sighed. "Well, that's actually the reason I have driven all the way from New York."
"Damn, and I thought I was having a crappy day. Life deactivated their base in Yale just yesterday. I lost all my research sponsorship — they sponsored a lot of us."
"They fucking closed?"
"Not really closed, but moved elsewhere. Since most of us study here, moving with them is not a possibility." Marcus shrugged.
"Why did that happen — I mean — why would they move away from the campus?"
"I haven't got a clue. But they're not moving away from the campus; they're moving away from the east coast, as far as I know. Something about taxes, I believe."
"Taxes... right. Can you show me were this laboratory was?" Neil asked.
"Sure, we'll pass right in front of it on the way to the dorms."
Pass 'in front' of it didn't quite grasped the concept of Life Corporation.
It was in one of those spots where Yale sort of merged with New Haven, behind what at first sight looked like the outskirts of a park. The main buildings were relatively secluded behind a generous layer of trees and a meticulously trimmed grass field that resembled a golf course.
Under the late afternoon sun the glassy facade of an empty building sparkled, the many structures were connected to each other through floating sections that seemed to defy gravity. Neil expected loudness, skyscrapers, helicopters — but only found an unsettling quietness that defied any suspicions.
It was silent in itself. Way too silent.
Marcus observed Neil's perplexity with a hint of curiosity. He had never seen anyone that interested in the laboratories.
"How big that thing is?" Neil asked, when they finally reached a corner.
"Well, it was their main research center outside California. I believe it is even bigger than it looks like; most of the buildings were outside of my reach anyway."
"What was your research about?" Neil glanced at the book covers again.
"The long term implications of progressive cellular alteration through nanotechnology."
"In urban English, please." Neil said.
"Basically, I was trying to figure out if the nanotechnology we use nowadays could have a negative impact in the long run. Lots of people have been using these things lately, and I think some of this shit can be dangerous." Marcus noted. "You know, shit like Animale."
"Yeah."
"I think I might know what you're talking about..."
Author's Note
Sorry for taking so long to update this story. It is not dead — I want to make sure y'all know that.
I might release smaller chapters with chunks of information, such as the Life Corporation's letters and memos. They'll go along with the full chapters to hopefully create a more intricate narrative.
