GASP

The hospital wasn’t much better than the fairgrounds. While the plateau was a swamp of lawless fear and fighting, the hospital was well on its way there. Ponies were swarming the from doors, which were still open, but guarded by a large orderly with a makeshift truncheon. Spitfire landed out front and Redheart pushed her way to the doors, with ponies grabbing at her and pleading with her for help.

“Hold it! ID,” the security guard asked.”

Nurse Redheart presented her ID and waited while he checked she was, actually, a nurse. When he was satisfied, she entered and then Spitfire was stopped.

“No guests.”

“She’s not a guest.”

“Can’t favor any one pony over anypony else. She’ll have to wait outside with the rest.

“I need her.”

“I don’t care if you’re friends, she’s not a nurse, we’re already full, she stays outside.”

Nurse Redheart wracked her brain. She couldn’t work with just anypony. They were all panicked and didn’t know what was going on. She and Soarin were friends, and whatever affected Soarin hadn’t affected Spitfire. She was either resistant, or immune, and she needed that! She looked at Spitfire, who was making a circle with her hoof.

Redheart brightened as she got it. “She knew patient zero.”

“Who?”

“Patient zero? The one who started the epidemic?”

“The what?”

Redheart motioned at the crowd outside. “This? The pony who started all this sickness?”

“So?”

“So, if she knew the pony who started it, and was close to them, why isn’t she sick?”

“Hey, yeah. That’s a good question,” he said. He jabbed a hoof into Spitfire’s chest. “Why ain’t you sick?”

“How am I supposed to know? That’s what we’re here to find out,” she said, swatting his hoof away.

“You got some plan to eliminate ponykind from Equestria? Take it over for the pegasi?”

Redheart’s face dropped. “…what.” The crowd outside was murmuring, and Redheart and Spitfire weren’t sure if it was with him or against him. “Are you serious?”

“I’m serious about protecting ponies, yeah.”

“I need to study her, find out why she’s not sick, so I can synthesize an antidote for the sickness rampaging through town. I don’t need you to protect ponies from her, she’s not dangerous.”

“No,” he said, shoving Spitfire away from the door, “she’s not dangerous yet. Once we’re all weakened, then she’ll be dangerous.”

“So let me fix it so we’re not weak!”

“I’m not letting her in. Not without Dr. Hang’s approval.” The crowd outside cheered him.

“Oh, fer Celestia’s sake!” Spitfire yelled. She stepped forward and the orderly raised his club. She ducked in at him and he swung it, but she caught it with her wings, then used her hooves to yank one of his forelegs sideways. He lost his balance, she pushed him over to the ground, then punched him in the temple. He went out like a light. “Come on, Doc, let’s go get me checked out.”

The crowd outside was silent as the two walked inside the building, then swarmed in after them, screaming for help, forgetting the orderly and the fight that had just happened.

Redheart led Spitfire down the crowded halls. She brought her to a room filled with medical supplies and other tools, all meant for medical purposes Spitfire didn’t understand, but Redheart clearly did.

Redheart fussed about, grabbing needles, gauze, cotton balls, baggies, and many other things. She began to use them, one at a time, on Spitfire. She drew blood, she took a saliva sample, scraped her cheek with a toothpick and took a skin sample, asked her to pee in a cup, and many other things.

During her work, some ponies came banging on the door. Redheart went to check the window, but she ignored it when she saw it wasn’t a doctor, but some random ponies looking for help with their illness.

“I’m doing this for their own damn good, and all they’re doing it making it worse,” said Redheart.

“Ponies are out for themselves. They don’t realize the effort it takes to make them safe,” Spitfire said, but ended it with a cough.

“Getting worse?”

“Slowly but surely. Guess I’m not immune.”

“You might not be, but if you’re resistant, I might be able to work with that, nonetheless.”

“You think you can stop whatever it is?”

“I don’t know, but I know what we need to try.”

“Think you can make a cure soon?”

“Oh… I can’t make the cure.”

“What? But you said—”

“I said you can help us find the cure.” Redheart packed every sample she’d taken from Spitfire into a cooler. She filled it up with ice and forced it shut, then slung it around her neck.

“You’re going to leave and take that elsewhere, where there isn’t a swarm of ponies pounding at the doors,” Spitfire said.

“Yes, but not after we get you to Dr. Hang. If he can find any time to work with you, he might be able to make a cure.”

Spitfire breathed in, then slowly exhaled. Accepting death was difficult, but she had suspected she wouldn’t survive the illness. Anything that could kill somepony as hardy as Soarin wasn’t going to let her survive. “Alright. Let’s go find your Dr. Hang.”

“I am sorry, Spitfire. I couldn’t tell you the truth until I knew I had your samples in hoof.”

“No, I get it. It makes sense. For everypony else, let’s get this done.”

The pounding on the door interrupted them.

“I’m still not sure how we’re going to get this done,” Redheart said.

Spitfire found the emergency exit at the back. She cracked it open, and was immediately pushed back in by some other ponies barreled into the room, coughing and hacking.

“Please, *cough* help!”

“We can’t—” the other pony, who Redheart recognized as Dunkel, tried to speak, but devolved into a fit of coughing. He choked up green-tinged blood, and more green mist leaked out of his nostrils.

“Dunkel!” Redheart made sure her mask was firmly in place before she approached. She tried to avoid the blood, but she came closer. “Dunkel, where’s Dr. Hang?”

Dunkel looked up at her with bleary eyes. “The doc… *cough*” he pointed upwards. “Three… Wheeler…” He made an explosion noise, then coughed again. He fell on his side, despite the help from the other coughing pony.

Redheart could hear other hoofsteps inside the fire escape. Spitfire turned to her and grabbed her roughly by the hoof. She yanked her through the door and pushed her down the stairs.

“Wait, what about Dunkel? And Dr. Hang?”

“Listen, Doc, you can’t save them at this point. Dunkel’s already coughing up blood, his friend is dead, and died near your doctor. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a goner, and if he isn’t yet, he will be soon. It’s not a safe place to perform research, in any case. We gotta get you outta town, and that means we gotta get outta the building.”

“But I could—”

“You can NOT help them, you can NOT save them, and you can NOT save anypony else from this by sacrificing yourself. Get to safety, okay? I’m not wasting my life on anything less than the rescue of Equestria!”

Redheart shut up. Spitfire was right, she had to make sure a possible cure was made as soon as possible. She and her cargo were more important than anypony else.

Hoofsteps could be heard from above, as well as angry voices and a little bit of coughing. Hoofsteps sounded, and they sounded fast. Whomever was coming down the steps was fast, and they were being chased by other, less-hurried hoofsteps, but a lot of coughing.

“Hurry up, Doc, we got company,” said Spitfire.

“I know, I know! It’s hard with this box.”

“It’s gonna get harder if you don’t speed up.”

There was the sound of fighting, hoof striking flesh, then the sound of a beam. Redheart knew that sound! That was Dr. Hang’s surgery laser!

“Dr. Hang!” she yelled excitedly up the stairs. Spitfire tried to shush her, but it was too late. There was the sound of more beam slicing, then silence.

“Nurse?” His voice was hoarse, but it was Dr. Hang, sure enough.

Redheart climbed back up the stairs, but Spitfire pushed her back and stepped in front, leading the way back up. “Doctor, you’re alive!”

Dr. Hang’s hoofsteps limped down the steps. His left forehoof was injured, broken, then realigned, and his surgical mask was damp with strange fluids and blood, but he was alive, and he wasn’t coughing.

“Of course… I’m alive… I’m a doctor, not a petty… orderly.” He tapped his horn. “Surgery can be used to… harm as well as heal, when madness… takes hold. Where are… you off to, with somepony who is clearly… infected?” Dr. Hang’s horn flashed, and he scanned Spitfire. He shook his head.

“She’s infected, but she’s showing no signs of the disease save a mild cough. I think she is immune or resistant. She may even survive it! I took samples and am trying to deliver them to a hospital less… under siege.”

Dr. Hang tried to scan Redheart, but Spitfire kept pushing into the way. “Excuse… me, miss yellow.”

Spitfire just stared down at him.

“It’s alright, Spitfire, I’m not sick.”

“He’s got a nasty look in his eyes, Doc.”

“Doc? She’s not a… doctor. She’s… barely a nurse. We’re in the country, yellow, and… I get the dregs.”

“What’s that make you, then?”

“A pioneer of surgery! Too far above the others to be bothered. I can excise the source of this, but I’m not letting anypony else escape the city, only to drag the disease across the country.” He tried to grab the cooler from Redheart’s back with his magic. She held on and backed away.

“Doctor, no! Stop!”

He held on, almost lifting her off her hooves. “Give me the… samples, NURSE,” he said disdainfully.

That was when Redheart saw it. He wasn’t hoarse, he was holding back his cough. Every time he was pausing in speech, his chest was heaving. He was hiding his sickness! It had him as surely as it had Dunkel!

Dunkel’s body crashed down onto Dr. Hang. Dunkel thrashed on top of Dr. Hang, coughing and wheezing. He waved a hoof but didn’t speak, coughing up blood on top him. Dr. Hang’s horn lit up, and there was a sizzling sound. Spitfire pushed Redheart down the stairs insistently.

“Go! Go! Go!”

They raced down the steps, much faster than before. Dr. Hang’s surgical laser followed them, scorching the steps and slicing through the railing. He nicked Spitfire’s wing and she folded them in tighter, sticking to the outside edge of the steps.

“You can’t leave! You’ll… kill Equestria you stupid mare! You’re carrying… it, all over you…!”