Author's Note
If you think I give a damn about what you think of this story, you're WRONG! HAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA
Ok read it now
Containment Breach
Lipid couldn't shake the feeling that something was off when he went to work that day. As he parked his carriage, the usually bustling office building was deadly quiet.
He scanned his employee ID and pushed open the door with his magic, only to find the reception area emtpy. Usually, a young, pretty, dumb mare would be at the front greeting ponies as they made their way to work.
Shrugging it off, he trotted into the elevator and pressed the 98th floor. He was up there in a matter of minutes (modern spellwork was truly amazing) and stepped out to find the workspace more or less empty. Lights were on, but the usual hubbub of ponies putting drops of liquid into vials and heating beakers filled with strange liquid and ponies looking into microscopes simply wasn't there.
He rounded the corner and found his team of ponies (all unicorns) all in the conference room.
"Good morning." He cheerfully greeted. They all looked at him like schoolchildren being caught trying to steal candy from the teacher's desk. "What's wrong?"
"Well. Um." One of the mares stepped forward. "We've got reason to belive that, uh, one of the experiments may have, uh, I belive the technical term is gone to shit."
Lipid was taken aback. "What makes you say that?"
Everypony pointed at a fat dead stallion in the back corner.
"We found traces of Experimental Type 12 in Membrane's system." Agar Plate said. He was usually considered the second in command, though Lipid liked to think of him as the assistant to the team leader.
Lipid pursed his lips. "Do you think it's out?"
"Well duh. It was an experiment to see if we could have an incubation period while still maintaining the ability to transmit between ponies." Jains rolled her eyes. "You're really terrible on keeping track of things."
"Now listen, Jains. I can't keep on top of everything we do here at A4 Labs." Lipid laughed nervously. "Well anyways. If it's just Membrane and maybe a few janitors and us who now have Type 12 in our systems, we can still keep a lid on this."
Prion shook her head. "Afraid not. We dragged him in here. Look at that window." She pointed outside of the room using her clipboard, which she had been tapping on.
The Manehattan skyline stretched outside, the morning sun reflecting in strange ways off the windows on the other buildings. In the lab, one of the glass panes were shattered. "What's that?"
"He collapsed, and a few samples are missing. Put the pieces together." Jains added an 'ugh' for effect.
"Who puts a biological weapons reasearch center in the middle of a city?" Lipid tried his best to sound genuine.
Putrid Material piped up. "Well, sir, you suggested the location to the board of-"
"Shut up you useless piece of shit, you're wasting our oxygen and should just kill yourself." Lipid said simply. Putrid just looked at him flatly; he probably had to endure this abuse for awhile now. "First thing's first. We need to keep this under wraps. The Pegasi and Earth Ponies are coming here for a summit next week and the last thing we need is for them to find out that a killer virus is on the loose. Not a word about this to anyone."
"Not a problem for Membrane." Somepony muttered.
"Now. When we finally DO release this information to the Central Government, we'll also need a good cover story for them to operate under that has some basis in science." Lipid paced back and forth. "Prion, you try to think of something."
She just sighed and trotted back out into the lab.
Lipid put his hooves together. "Jains, get me a list of symptoms. On the double. Agar, try to see if we have a neutralizing agent so we won't have anything to worry about."
"Right away." He galloped away.
Lipid, Membrane's dead body, and Putrid found themselves alone in the room. Putrid spoke up. "I could help clean this mess-"
"Shut up, Putrid. Actually, you know what, carry a plant around so you replace the oxygen you steal from us. I know its not original but you dont deserve a better insult or an apostrophe between the N and T in 'don't' you stupid idiot." Lipid slammed the door closed.
"There's good news, and there's bad news. Which do you want first?" Jains sighed, sitting across from Lipid's desk.
Lipid absentmindedly waved a hoof. He had spent the last few hours doing practically nothing, alternating between the construction of a giant tube city for the lab mice and beating a paddle ball. "Give me the bad so the good will cushion it."
"So the bad news is that the disease is extremely deadly, and if it doesn't outright kill you, you'll lose a large portion of your lung function for the rest of your life." Jains began. "The good news comes in two parts. The first is that the experiment was a total success, and the incubation transmission is no longer just a theory. The second part is that when the Pegasi and Earth Ponies come to Manehattan, they'll unknowingly bring the disease back. Type 12 has some horse flu-like diseases and it'll probably give them a false sense of comfort until it's too late."
Lipid nodded. "If I play my cards right, I could become a hero of the Unicorn Nation."
Jains turned and looked off to the side at some indiscernible object.
"Well, you better go help Agar find that neutralizing agent..." Lipid ordered. "Oh good, Prion, let's see what you've got for me."
"I think I have a few really good zingers." She straightened out a small packet of paper against the desk. "First one, we can say the Pegasi or Earth Ponies have deployed a bioweapon against us and play the victim card."
"Good good, let me hear the others."
"There's one where we could say that a pony was having a rare Timothy Hay soup and they became patient zero..." Prion pushed her glasses up her nose. "Or. How about this. We could bribe their media into publishing conspiracy theories about how Type 12 is a lab accident from us unicorns and we can use it as validation that they're out to get us. Coupled with bribing the regulating bodies on the rules of war, this could be a very promising alternative. Or the last route-I hear that Commander Hurricane is a very controvertial leader. We could play their media to politicize everything and draw their attention away from us, and that could actually take out the Pegasi for once and for all, and we could finally focus on crushing the Earth Ponies. You know, the only reason we haven't won and put them back in their place is cause we're all fighting two enemies at once-"
"Why don't we just do all of that? The more we subvert them, the less chance they have of finding the truth." Lipid grinned evilly.
Prion was aghast. "No, wait, that'll be a mess! Hey, I'm just a microbiologist working to end civilization as we know it, this is politics! There's no guarantee that each plan will work individually, and they sure as hell won't work mushed together like this-"
"Thank you, Prion." Lipid yanked the packet out of her lap. "You're dismissed." He watched her storm out of the office (paying attention to her flank as she left) and leaned back in his chair to wonder about what a 'hell' was.
About a month later, the office that the bioweapons had been dismantled and turned into an accounting office. Lipid and his team had been moved to a far better location...the cellar of a bar. Now, whenever they fancied a drink, they just had to go up a flight of stairs and bring it back down. Who knew alchohol and mass murder worked so well together?
Lipid and Prion were enjoying a drink together after a hard day's work, and they were looking over a report from the Central Government.
"So." Prion began. She then paused for an awkwardly long time.
"You gonna say something?" Lipid sipped his beer.
"Yeah, then I realized that if I did, I'd conveniently die from the virus." Prion mumbled. "And by that I mean the central government will come down here and kill me."
"I know what you mean." Lipid sighed. "At least Princess Platinum managed to come out on top for the most part."
"You mind telling me what's been going on?" Prion asked. "And I do mean to pry. I did come up with the contingency plan after all. We've been stuck down here for two moons."
"Sure." Lipid took a long sip. "So when the pegasi and earth ponies first found out about the virus, remember the bribe to the Pandemic Patrol?" Seeing her nod, Lipid continued. "Well, its a good thing those idiots are more concerned with money than saving lives, cause, heh, they told everypony to calm the hell down and act like nothing was wrong. The disease actually spread quickly, and then a lot of ponies started to die and the war's basically been put on hold."
"Wouldn't they trace it back to us?" Lipid asked, crumpling the report before unceremoniously tossing it in the trash. "Score."
"Well Princess Platinum's made a very public statement saying that the pegasi engineered a bioweapon and brought it here during the summit." Lipid smiled smugly. "I told you doing everything would have worked. Well, mostly. There's a few idiots in tin foil hats from each faction that say we're responsible. But what the gov's done is that they have big international organizations like the Equestria Bank make announcements that bend the truth slightly, and then state run media uses these trusted sources to bend the truth even further. Nopony knows whats actually going on, and it just makes everypony point hooves at each other."
"A superb case of villainy." Prion chuckled. "If it wasn't clear already, my character's a bitchy mare that feeds off drama and gossip."
"We're going to start the next phase in the plan soon." Lipid smiled. "The unicorn nation is going to have extreme quarantine, we're going to literally lock ponies into their homes. Of course nopony else in the other nations will know and we can just fudge our numbers. So while they're all freaking out over the new killer virus rampaging around the countryside-"
"There still will be idiots who claim that it's no more dangerous than a common cold." Prion cackled. "More deaths!"
"Naturally. But image this. Our official numbers are showing that we're beating the virus, and we can start saying that we saved the world. The investigation can find some stupid reason for the beginning of the pandemic, maybe an interaction with a filthy yak or a crazy pony drinking bat soup, and we'll be able to claim that we're the world's foremost experts on curing the disease. This'll put us on the top to rule over the earth ponies and pegasi once more." Lipid slid his mug down the bar. "Another round!"
Prion leaned back, pushing the stool onto two legs. "We could harvest some of the more rebellious ponies' lungs for our own citizens."
"Just write the ideas down before you forget them." Lipid caught his full mug sliding back his way. "Honestly, you can tell the idiots that toilet paper will save them and they'll believe it."
