Chapters The Maiden and the Serpent
Today hadn’t been all that satisfying, as par usual. All the computers had crashed for the third time this week, the experimentation of combining lion and scorpion genetic material had proved near disastrous, and I had been working all day with a migraine I so lovingly received from Mother Nature for who knows what reason. I was off hours now, and I found myself in one of the many observation decks overlooking the underground city that had been my home for all of my life. I could see all the people down below, walking about, walking to work, coming from work, just standing around talking and laughing. Some were in the designated botanical gardens, the children playing in the nearby parks with their parents watching. People watching had become one of my earliest pastimes; experiencing their humanity from a bird’s eye view was exhilarating and heartwarming all at once. As long as things were right down there, I could know that everything here in Vanguard was just fine.
My coworker and friend, Ahmed, came alongside me as I looked down. He looked down below with me for a little while, and then he looked back to me. “You look pensive,” he finally said.
“Yeah?”
“My grandfather used to look like that a lot. It’s the expression that people seem to get when they’re about to open up their mind to others.” He rested his elbow on the railing in front of us while he continued to look down at the people below, “Penny for your thoughts?”
I sighed, “What are we doing here?”
“You mean us?”
“No, I mean all of us. Humanity: what are we doing? We’re basically sitting in a badger hole and doing nothing. Why aren’t we trying to contact other bunkers and their refugees? Why aren’t we trying to retake the surface? What is the point of us if we’re not up there?”
Ahmed rested his head on his hand as he thought. “Alright, so yeah, we all started a war with each other, we all goofed up, and we batten down hatches. You may want to remember that after the dust settled there was nothing good left up there, right? No grass, no trees, no water, not even a Sun to bless the dirt with its rays. This may very well be the last outpost left on Earth. Radiation, starvation, and a lot of other things could have already gotten to other bunkers, or even worse. Yeah, we found the Spatial Tessaract, and we can do almost anything with the radiation that comes out of it, but I don’t think we’re ever gonna retake the surface.”
“But we are trying to go back, aren’t we?”
“You want my opinion?”
“I know I’ll get it anyway.”
“It’s a fool’s errand. We should try concentrating on digging deeper into the earth so we can get more room for our growing population, or better means of detecting surviving water deposits, not using our precious resources and time creating random freaks of nature with genetic manipulation.”
“Even if that testing is what has given us a means of creating viruses that make us more resistant to radiation?”
Ahmed looked over at me with frustration, “Yeah that’s fine, but still, that seems to be the only thing this project has accomplished. It’s like we’ve had our fun trying to piss off each other, so now we’re just trying to piss off God by budgin’ in on his territory.” He sighed, and then he flung his hands up in the air, “Well, whatever. I’ll leave you to your thoughts. By the way, right after you left shift, there was a personnel wide announcement: be in the Gamma test chamber at 0900. They want everyone as witness for our next big step in offending nature.”
“0900?”
“Yeah. You know what I said about pissing God off? Academics board really wants to stub his toe: they say they have ‘created a means of spontaneous nucleic generation by atomic stimulation via Tessaract radiation’: the really fancy way of saying we’ve entered the age of Frankenstein.”
“Creating life from scratch? I can’t imagine all the ways that can go wrong,” I muttered.
“Neither can I. See you then?”
“Yeah. See you Ahmed.”
“Later, Red.”
I smiled as I saw him leave through the reflection of the glass in front of me, and then I paused to take a passing glance at my long red bangs. I walked out of the observation deck into one of the nearby elevators. As I got out, I thought about what I might make for dinner that night, and as I opened the door to my suite, I was greeted by violet eyes, a tiny white fluffy frame and pink hair. “Hello Mother! I missed you so much!”
As I leaned down to pick up the little filly, I couldn’t help but smile as she leapt into my arms. “Hello my little Dawn. Did you enjoy your day?”
“Yeah, it was ok, but it wasn’t fun for a long while because I had be quiet; first because Dusk was so sleepy. I don’t care if she’s little, no one should have to sleep that much!”
“She’s still growing. You used to be like that too, so continue being considerate to your sister. Understand?”
Dawn gave a little huff, “Yes, Mother.”
“Good girl. What was the other thing you had to be quiet for?”
“The bad men were doing insack..enstep..inceptions.”
“Inspections?”
“Whatever.”
“Did you do what Mommy taught you?”
Dawn nodded her head vigorously, “Yes! I went into the closet and hid behind the clothes and didn’t make a sound!”
“Good girl! Now, why don’t we have something to eat?”
“Oh yes! I’m starving! If you hadn’t said ‘food’ I would’ve starved to death!”
I chuckled at Dawn’s childlike hyperbole, “I doubt that.”
“Ok, you’re right. Still, I’m hungry!”
“Well then go wake your sister while I warm up some asparagus.”
“Oh Mom! Asparagus? Can’t we have those wedgie things made outta potatoes?”
“French Fries?”
Dawn wiggled her legs in glee and excitedly jumped up and down, “Yeah, yeah! Those.”
“Perhaps some other night.”
“Oooohhh!”
“Whining won’t make me change me my mind, now go wake your sister.”
“Fine,” and with her disappointment made fully evident to me, she trotted into the back closet where little Dusk was sleeping.
I knew it was against protocol to maintain relationships past scientist to subject. I also knew it was against protocol to take test subjects past security screens and take them into my own home. I had kept these two, Dawn and Dusk, for my own private battery of tests, and I also wanted to see how well they could fully integrate with a human. I was placed over a batch of one hundred or so of these little ponies, and I knew that ultimately each would live out their lives in a pen, being poked and prodded, tested and retested, with no love or pity spared any of them. And then I saw these two. They weren’t really special by any means; no evident beneficial mutations, they weren’t even unicorns or pegasi. They weren’t any stronger, more intelligent, or really even special in any way. And yet…
There was a knock at the door. I froze. I saw Dawn and Dusk walking out of the closet, little Dusk’s mouth opened wide with a great big yawn. I put my finger to my lips and motioned for them to get back into the closet. Dawn quickly rushed Dusk into hiding, and knowing they were safely out of the way, I made my way to my front door.
As I opened the door, I was greeted by two security guards. “Good afternoon ma’am.”
“Is there something I can help you both with, or is one of you the wingman for the other?”
“Funny. We’ve come to inform you of an important Academic board experiment tomorrow at 0900.”
“I know of it. Thank you for the courtesy of informing me.”
“Very well. Good night ma’am.”
The door slid shut, and I gave a small sigh of relief. That was almost bad. “It’s okay to come out now,” I quietly called out, and Dawn’s and Dusk’s heads poked out from the closet door.
After we had finished dinner, I was thrown for a surprise by my little ones.
“Mommy, why do you never talk about your job?” Dusk asked.
“Now why would you want to know about something boring like that?”
“You never talk about it.”
“Well, what I do is help people. By helping people, I can make them happy.”
“Mother, I have a question,” Dawn quickly spoke up.
“What is it Dawn?”
“Mother..Are we..people?”
I stopped. The question had finally come. It would have come eventually, but I had always hoped it wouldn’t have happened.
“We don’t look like you, and we can see little boys and girls playing outside the windows when the bad men aren’t around.”
“We see their mommies and daddies,” Dusk added quickly, “but we never get the chance to go out and play like they do. Are we weird? Do we have a Daddy? Why don’t we look like the boys and girls out there?”
It took me a while to come up with any answer at all. Then, I found what I was looking for. I opened my arms up to them and I hugged them both. “Dawn, Dusk, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. You don’t have a Daddy. You can’t go outside because it’s not safe for you to be out there.” I squeezed them even tighter, and as I did I smiled, “And even though you may not look like me or the little boys and girls out there, you are both my little girls, and I love you very, very much.”
“But Mommy, are we people?” Dusk anxiously asked as she shook my arm with her hooves.
“What does it matter if you are people or not? I love you, and that’s what matters. Now how does some ice cream sound?”
Dawn shook her head vigorously, “Yeah!”
“Yes please!” Dusk quickly chimed in.
The Maiden and the Serpent
“Thank you all for coming to witness this most momentous occasion,” the head of the Academic board said through the speakers. The biogenesis chamber from which the man was speaking was behind a thick layer of glass. The chamber had initially been a cage for more aggressive and large animals, but had been retrofitted to accommodate the large machinery needed to channel and direct the life-giving Tessaract energy. It had been chosen because it was the most heavily shielded and reinforced from the inside; we knew for sure what we were creating, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
“Today, we fully transcend our status of being merely human,” the board member smirked, “and today, we will create life. Now, let us begin.” He motioned to the technicians behind him, and they opened up the energy conduits. Everyone was furiously beginning to scribble notes; so was I. Power poured into the glass cylindrical tube in the corner farthest from us, and the technicians responded by adjusting the various switches and dials in front of them.
“Increasing energy output to chamber. 30% and rising,” declared one of them.
“Energy flow stable. No fluctuations,” spoke another.
“We have a 0.57% deviation from the genome blueprint. It won’t be exactly as planned, but it will be alright,” exclaimed still another.
The experiment was well underway, when further complications began to arise. “Energy output stable, but we’re not getting the exact resonances we want.”
“3.52% deviation from genome blueprint. I don’t think we should continue sir.”
“Proceed as planned,” idly spoke the Academic board head.
Over the loud speakers I heard a cracking and then a breaking sound, and one of the technicians stood from his chair, “Sir, one of the resonance mirrors just shattered! We won’t be able to adequately control any power disturbances if we continue!”
“We have many backups. Proceed.”
“Sir, we have nano movement: the atoms we’ve created are beginning to form the appropriate DNA chains for life.”
“Board head, we have over 15% deviation from genome blueprint! We must do an emergency purge!”
“Proceed, damn you! We cannot make advances in science without some risk!”
That’s when all hell broke loose. Levers began to go up and down of their own accord, dials began to spin erratically, even the lighting in our chamber above was flickering at sporadic intervals, as if some rambunctious poltergeist were wreaking havoc throughout the room.
“Total mechanical failure! Switchboards are inoperative!”
“The deviation just skyrocketed! 67.83. 93.21! 156.31?! That’s impossible!”
“Power fluctuations off the scale! Everyone evacuate the room!”
The board head pointed to the man who had last spoken and said, “Do that and I’ll revoke your license to work! We’ll see this madness through! We are the masters of our fates, and we will triumph!”
“Deviation at 888.88.”
The power to both rooms went out simultaneously, and we were left in the darkness. The emergency power did eventually kick back on, and with it so did the speakers. Smoke from fried circuitry filled the area, which ventilation would eventually get rid of.
“Did we do it,” I heard the Board head say between coughs, “What’s the status of the chamber?”
The other technicians were recovering, and the one closest to the chamber looked inside. “Sir, we’ve..I don’t know what we’ve done.”
“What the devil do you mean? Have we created life or not?”
There was a crackling red aura within the chamber. Red points of light traced erratic patterns through the tube. First they transformed into oversized multiplying cells, each the size of a softball. The cells were consumed by a ruby colored fire, and replaced with a foreboding cloud of energetic gas, which in turn changed into a disembodied elephant trunk that wailed triumphantly. Reconstituting again, the crimson fog formed a human arm whose palm reached for the glass and gently touched it while a pair of disembodied lips spoke, “Shalom, Guten Tag, Konichiwa, Salutations, Buenos Dias, Bonjour, привет, Ro Crow Snow Joe, Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong.”
“What the hell is it,” one of the scientists below asked, voicing the opinion of just about everyone in the room below and the room where I was. The Board head looked at the now swirling formless cloud with wonder and manic glee, “We’ve done it. We’ve not only created life from nothing, we’ve created cognizant life. We’ve become gods, and it is wonderful.” He reached to the glass and touched it, and in response the cloud formed a six fingered hand of energy that touched the glass as well. “What are you,” the Board head whispered.
The six fingered hand regressed into the ruby colored cloud, which in turn transformed into a book. The book exploded into millions of scraps of paper and blew about in a nonexistent windstorm. In the imaginary gusts within the biogenesis chamber, the strips blew into a readable letters, “I am chaos. I am disorder. I am discordant. I am discord. I am Discord.” The gale forces winds instantaneously froze in midair, and then burned away to become the crimson cloud once more.
The Maiden and the Serpent
“It’s not right. I don’t like it at all,” Ahmed muttered, “Why does it figure that our next big project would also be a shape-changer?”
We were both off our shifts and we found ourselves in the observation deck again.
I shrugged, “In this crazy universe, wonder what our odds were?”
“At least this time we’re prepared.”
“Prepared? How?”
“Remember a couple months back when the Academic Board commissioned the creation of those hivemind symbiotes?”
“Oh yeah, those things. I heard the bio-tech guys raving all about them. ‘The next big stage in evolution’, ‘the ultimate survivors’. Hell, I even heard them call’em ‘Darwin’s species’.”
Ahmed snorted over some of the more cheesy titles, “Someone puts too much of their time into poetry rather than science.”
“Whatever happened to those things? Did they die out? The irony would be staggering.”
“The little abominations started growing past our control. In the gene shop we called them ‘Changlings’, and boy was that true. At the beginning everything was fine, no trouble at all. It was directly after we gave them the second round of Tessaract radiation and the mutagen cocktail that things got weird. Their whole physiology began to change, same with their minds. They we’re actually horses initially, and they quickly began to evolve the hivemind abilities like we wanted, and they even started to gain sustenance from emotion rather than food like we planned.”
My eyes widened, “That’s phenomenal! What happened afterwards?”
Ahmed sighed and lean on the railing, “Well, the simplest way to put it was they simply didn’t stop evolving. Then their bug parts started becoming more and more prominent. We only realized how deep of crap we were in when they gained immunity to their electric shock cages. It was even worse when we found out about their shapeshifting powers. Must have come from the whole adaptation ability to begin with. We lost good people trying to clean up that mess after they locked that part of complex up for quarantine.”
“How’d you get them?”
“We didn’t want to use fire except as a last resort, but we ended up using cold instead. We found some old cryo-cannons and used them to ice the drones, which was the easiest part honestly, taking out the dumb ones. The smart ones, ooooooh, they were infinitely worse. The Queen and the candidates for Queen were still independent thinkers, and they organized the drones into deadly hunter packs.”
He paused, and his eyes glazed over. “I almost didn’t make it out of there, you know. I got stabbed right in the gut by a drone. Didn’t see him coming. They took me to their Queen, and it was then that I found you don’t necessarily have to be a human woman to be a complete bitch. Her eyes were cold, cold green. She had a cutthroat sense of royalty about her, and so much mad arrogance. She was going to have the drones tear me apart, with me cursing all the way. She would’ve too, if the rest of the clean-up crew hadn’t have arrived then. They hit them with some kind of compound they had just brewed up to lock up part of their shapeshifting powers. Then they locked them up in cryo-sleep, and they put them in a hole that none of those damned rejects could get out of.”
“Tartarus?”
“Yeah, probably the product of another of our ‘esteemed poets’. Should have just come right out and called it ‘Hell’. To get there, we had to go up to the surface in heavy duty rad-suits, drive about 30 kliks north and west, and we placed them down deep in the earth where they’d never be found and where no tremors could wake them from future drilling.”
“Did you get vacation for medical leave?”
“One month was all, and my gut still gives me crap about it all the time. I’m getting too old for this, and I never wanted to be a scientist to begin with! I really despise the caste system the Academic Board has been allowed to put in place.”
“But the Assignment Protocols have kept everyone employed and fed for the past 60ish years,” I asked, taking on the role of devil's advocate.
“Call it what you want. Dress up a pig and give it lipstick, but a pig is a pig, and those codes don’t let people be happy. If I was born two hundred, hell, even a hundred years ago, I could have gotten any job I wanted.”
“What job would you have wanted?”
Ahmed shifted his gaze over to me; his face was veiled in suppressed embarrassment, “You promise not to laugh?”
“Only if it’s not funny.”
“I always wanted to be a painter.”
“Really?” I asked, completely stunned by this unexpected revelation.
“Yeah. I even painted with whatever I could find until they employed me at 14.”
We said our good nights, and I made my way to the elevator.
“Hey Red!”
I turned to look back at Ahmed, “What?”
“We all had dreams as kids. What about you? What did you want to be?”
I had my own bout of embarrassment to overcome, and I flicked one of my bangs out of the way of my vision, “Well, I always wanted to be a storyteller.”
I made my way back to my apartment. Dusk and Dawn were happy to see me. After we finished dessert, I felt like practicing my little used talent. “How about we have a little story time?”
“Is that something from the television?” Dusk asked inquisitively.
“No silly! A story is something that you make up for fun! I tell it to you, and you imagine what I’m talking about.” I said as I tussled her mane.
The three of us went back into the closet where the girls bedded down for the night. Dawn looked up at me, “Soooo..what’s the story?”
“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there lived two princesses..”
The Maiden and the Serpent
From the personal records of the Academic Board Head
Regarding Project Ascendance; Two weeks after Biogenesis.
Subject 2396, self-identified as ‘Discord’, shows marked increase in cognitive function in several fields of knowledge. Its knowledge is..hodge-podge at best, though. Struggles greatly at basic sequences in mathematics, but readily, if not easily, understands the quantum mechanical and chaos theories. Bizarre behavior tics include finishing others’ sentences, speaking of unconnected events from history of which we have provided no education of, and pressing discussions into the subject of pineapples and other fruits. Also seems to have a penchant for shapeshifting into its educators, to the majority of their discomfort.
The holding chamber’s scans of the subject yield intriguing results. The majority of other creations after experiencing Tessaractal irradiation either have a constant level of Tessaractal resonance or gradually declining resonance. Discord, on the contrary, has gradually increased in power since his inception, and shows no sign of stopping. This must be monitored intently, but these are glorious days!
Four weeks after Biogenesis
Subject has gained leaps and bounds in the arts of logic and deduction, along with the studies of psychology and philosophy. Readily quotes the likes of Sigmund Freud and Voltaire word for word from their studies and treatises, but we have never exposed him to any of these materials. Has demonstrated abilities related to Tessaractal energy manipulation, including levitation of objects and transmutation of butterflies seemingly from nowhere. It has even begun to demonstrate, unbelievable as it sounds, reality warping abilities. When presented with a Sudoku puzzle just yesterday to test its ability to deduce patterns and sequences, it simply touched the paper with a frog’s hind limb, and the numbers on the page jumped off the paper itself to dance in a circle while playfully reciting ‘Ring around the Rosie’.
I believe that the subject has the ability to directly tap the laws of probability and manipulate them as he sees fit, usually to either the most outrageous or ironical ends. This hypothesis might explain his lopsided education, impossible knowledge, and almost obsessive compulsion for all things chaotic and disordered. I remain positive of what we could learn from it, but my doubts grow; if he is not even subject to the most fundamental order of the universe, that of random chance and of cause and effect, how can we hold sway over him?
Regarding Tessaract Power Core Initative
Power cores for Tessaractal radiation have been greatly desired since we discovered the anomaly seventy years ago. Today, we have finally completed the project. Six batteries have been created already as prototypes, and so far they have been quite effective in both their output and stability. Six seems to be the most..harmonious number, as their output was disappointing and they were unstable in function until the sixth power core was created. As it seems we should not interfere with a truly good thing, six batteries it shall remain. They will be responsible for powering all the research labs in Vanguard from now on; a great feat, as we are running out of fissionable material for our nuclear reactors.
5 weeks after Biogenesis
After hours, when tests have been completed, Discord will..for lack of a better term, ‘flicker’. Security footage of his chamber shows that for a random interval of time, sometimes as little as a microsecond, or as long as fifteen minutes, Discord’s astral cloud will fade temporarily, and then seemingly return. When questioned about this new, relatively odd behavior, it simply says it was ‘going out for a stroll’. We’re not sure what it means, but literally anything is possible with this creature.
The Maiden and the Serpent
Today was my turn to try and teach Discord. I was apprehensive to say the least. No one I knew enjoyed his company, and I’d wager that everyone but the Board head looked on the crimson maelstrom of Tessaractal energy with absolute repulsion.
I entered the chamber through the decontamination airlocks, and looked on my surroundings. The room remained the same as before, however there was a new quality to it that I didn’t like; some omen filled the air with a sense of impending dread. The feeling made my stomach tie itself into notes. I sat down on the plastoid chair that was provided for the human teacher and waited for the red flowing sphere before me to respond.
After a couple seconds of silence, I spoke. “Good morning, Discord”.
The cloud congealed into the face of a wizened old man with grey hair and a large distinctive nose. "What do you mean?" the old man’s face said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
“ ‘All of them at once,’ said Bilbo,” I quoted back.
The old man’s face grew a cheeky grin, “So you know ‘The Hobbit’. It’s a splendid tale.”
“Let’s try to stay on topic. Today’s lesson—“
“Is about multiplication tables. Yes I know. I felt it while it was being written up by your computers,” the cloud off handedly dismissed me with the waving of an albatross’ wing, “I’d like to talk about something else. Why not humanity?”
It seemed like a reasonable request; shouldn’t any child want to know more about its parents?
“Alright, I’ll allow it. The human race—“
“Known scientifically as homo sapiens are allegedly believed to have evolved on the planet Earth from their primate ancestors a little over 200,000 years ago and achieved full sapience sometime around 50,000 years ago. Really, it’s hilarious how you so readily accept fiction as fact.”
“It is fact Discord.”
“Really? Were you there?”
“..No.”
“I was. Was your instrumentation accurate?”
“It is accurate, yes.”
"Wrong. I may not like a fully step by step process, but I know how your science works. Given several different facts you simply keep those facts which support your hypothesis and throw the rest to the way side. When even more data is collected that counters your whimsically scientific guess, you reject it simply because it cannot be right, because it disagrees with your order of things.” The cloud chuckled, “Order. There is the biggest joke of all!”
“You cannot reject order or reason fully. Without it you can’t make your way through life or understand it.”
The red cloud fell to the floor all at once and reconstituted into an exact replica of Ahmed. I did my best to suppress a tiny gasp, but Discord must have heard it, because he grinned all the more. “Isn’t it true that man always asks ‘What is the meaning to life?’ It’s extremely arrogant of you to do so. Even in your simplest questions you strive to maintain some order in your world as you squirm in the dirt like worms. You assume that there is a meaning to life, that you can categorize and order existence as you can see fit. Don’t deny it! Order runs through your very blood.”
Discord/Ahmed made to sit down on thin air, and amazingly the air held him up without any visible means of doing so. He stroked his black chin stubble, “As it happens, you all have stumbled on the truth quite by accident. I guess even a blind squirrel can find an acorn now and then. There is a meaning to life: and it is chaos! Without chaos, the universe would have remained as an ordered sea of unreality, with nothing ever occurring at all, just eternal void and furious silence. The only reason you and I exist is because I happened . Nothing would have happened had not the ‘self-causing cause’ have occurred, and with my ascendance the stars came to life, the planets formed, and ultimately I created the human race. I am chaos, and chaos is god.”
“Then why would you ‘create’ us at all if all we ever do is ‘squirm like worms in the dirt’?”
Here I was chilled to the bone by his response.
Discord/Ahmed looked to the ceiling questioningly, and then he shrugged, “Because it’s funny! But I grow weary of this little game, and I don’t like toys that are boring.”
I left that day with my mind troubled, and my heart full of fear. I knew now that Discord would not let things continue as they were, as it was in his nature to be chaotic. One day soon he would come into conflict with humanity, and if something was not done very quickly, we were all doomed. Maybe we were doomed from the moment we set out to create a new life. That doesn’t matter now, I thought as I made my way to the observation deck to meet the real Ahmed; we made the mistake of creating him, and now we had to find a way to fix that mistake, no matter the price.
The Maiden and the Serpent
I found Ahmed waiting for me in the observation deck. When he saw me, he half jogged/half ran to me and gave me a huge embrace. “Thank God you’re alright,” was all he said.
I was absolutely confused by his extremely unusual display of emotion, but also by what he meant by ‘Thank God you’re alright’. “Of course I’m alright. What’s going on?”
“People are disappearing. Random people are just flat out vanishing into thin air, with no trace left behind of who or what took them. I was afraid you might be next.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Almost two days. No one’s been told until the higher-ups can figure out what the hell is going on in order to keep people from mass panic. There’s absolutely no pattern; any time, any place, men, women, children, even unborn kids are being swept up and taken by the Devil for all we know.”
I was stunned to silence, but then I began to think. “No pattern,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Ahmed, is the wing where you kept the Changelings still quarantined?”
“Yeah, standard procedure is for a wing to be purged, wiped clean of any impurities, and a six month wait period.”
“But would the equipment and experimental tech still be there?”
“Yeah, but why? You’re not making any sense.”
“Ahmed, do you trust me with your life?”
He looked at me with realization coming to his eyes, “So..this is life and death, isn’t it?”
“For everyone.”
“Then yes, I do trust you.”
“Discord. Discord has to be the one responsible for the disappearances. I just came from a session with it, and it basically out right said it was bored with our existence, and you know how much power it has.”
“Okay. Do you have a plan?”
“...Yes.”
I led Ahmed back to my apartment as quickly as possible. With the door closed and locked behind us, I called out, “Dawn, Dusk, please come here! There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Slowly two heads popped around the corner of my closet door, and soon those heads were followed by the bodies of my wonderful daughters.
Dusk ran up to me and gave my leg a hug with her two front hooves, “Hi Mommy! How are you?”
I lied, “Everything is going well Dusk.”
“Who is this Mother,” asked Dawn as she yawned; I obviously woke her from an afternoon nap.
“Dawn, Dusk, this is your Uncle Ahmed, and he has come to give you a little checkup.”
“Hold on,” Ahmed said as he waved his arm and brought his other to his forehead with a sigh, “can we talk about this? Privately?” He walked away from the girls, and I told them to stay there for a minute as I followed him. He began to quickly whisper to me, “Red, what is this? Standard protocols not aside, this, whatever it is, is a bad idea. How could you take them out of the sample pool and raise them as pets? It’s against regulation!”
“Ahmed, shut up and listen to me,” I whispered agitatedly, “These two are like daughters to me, and what I’m asking you to do is check their bodies for compatibility for Tessaractal mutation. If we can do it, they may be our only means of stopping Discord. We just need the proper chemicals, and a large source of Tessaractal energy to do it! Right?”
“That’s a gamble at best, and if it doesn’t work, these fillies may end up dead or wishing they were.”
“I know the risks, but this is even more important than that! We’ve unleashed a monster who can literally change reality on a whim into the universe without any means of checking its power, and that cannot be left as it is.”
“So you would sacrifice these fillies to save us all,” he replied.
I looked over to my dau-, the subjects, and they looked back at me. What could I see in their eyes? Hope? Worry? Childish happiness? No, the most gut wrenching thing I saw in those eyes was trust. Not just any kind of trust, either, but the trust between a child and its mother, and I was about to betray that trust completely. “Yes, I would.”
Ahmed looked at me and sighed, and then walked back towards the two fillies. Ahmed took out a device from his lab coat that would check their genetic makeup for the possibility of beneficial mutation. Dawn looked up at Ahmed as he got on his knees to do the examination, “There aren’t any shots, are there?”
“No, I’m just checking you for any bad germs is all.” The readings came back with 92.4% possibility for beneficial mutation. Ahmed scanned Dusk as well and the readings were even higher, 95.8%. Ahmed whistled in astonishment, “I’ve never seen anyone as healthy as you two are!” He looked up to me, and I nodded my understanding. It seems that Providence was on our side in spite of everything.
Ahmed got to his feet and made for the door. “Aren’t you going to stay any longer, Uncle Ahmed,” Dusk asked inquisitively. Ahmed looked back at Dusk and put on his best smile, “I’m sorry kid, but I’ve got some work to do. But first I need to have another little talk with your..mother before I leave.” We went outside my door, and locked it behind us. “Red, keep them safe through the next inspection shift tonight, and I’ll have everything ready in three days, provided I don’t disappear too. Be careful, alright?”
“You too,” I said without even thinking. My head was foggy, but I made sure to tell the subjects we would be going for a trip in three days. And as I put them to bed, I made sure to tell them that I loved them, and that I would never let them go.
The Maiden and the Serpent
The days passed quickly. Too quickly.
I was giving the subjects their breakfast; a large helping of French fries, and some cucumbers, when I received the message on my communicator that I had simultaneously been hoping for and dreading; It’s time .
I got them loaded into their old test crates which they had lived in before I removed them from the sample pool, and I placed them onto a small grav-dolly. I told them that as soon as we left the apartment they couldn’t make a sound until we arrived. I took them through checkpoint after checkpoint. It was a normal day; nothing unusual at all happening; completely and utterly normal. The anticipation and eminent dread of Discord acting on his veiled declaration of war on mankind was freezing my blood. We reached the lab sector doors. They were deadlock sealed and the door lights were glowing red; it looked as if it were still quarantined.
I knocked on the door three times, and whispered into it, “Knock knock. It’s me. Scientist level access requested. Callsign: Maiden. Open up.” For a moment there was no response at all, but then the door lights flashed yellow for emergency access and slid open. I pushed the grav-dolly with my precious cargo into the wing, and the doors closed quickly behind me.
“It’s okay to talk now,” I said to the subjects; it hurt for me to call them that now.
Dawn spoke first, “Why is everything so musty in here? Does Uncle Ahmed not clean very well?”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Dusk whined.
I sighed with frustration, “Then why didn’t you go before we left?”
“I didn’t have to go then, but now I do!”
“When we get there, you can go.”
“But I have to go now!”
“Just. Please. Hold it!” I said with a little too much sting in my voice I realized afterwards.
The two crates in front of me went silent, and I knew I had upset both of their feelings greatly. I wasn’t sure what to do now; apologizing would make me even more emotional and it would be harder for me to do what I needed to do next, but not apologizing would be even worse. I felt absolutely awful when I didn’t apologize at all. I’m a horrible mother, I said to myself. No, you’re not their mother at all, my rational side spoke up; they are the products of two gene donors and of the machinations of science. You hold no bond to them. Throw out all emotion; it’s a simple equation. Subjects plus irradiation equals means of stopping Discord, simple as that.
We entered the Test chamber. Two small pods had their hatches prepped and opened, awaiting their sacrificial offerings. Ahmed stood nearby, his face stoic and unmoving, as if the face I saw before me were instead the black hood of an executioner, tossed forward in time from the Medieval Ages. He motioned me to come closer, and he took me off to the side to divulge the details of our task at hand. “I’ve prepared a genetic solution that will be..intriguing, to say the least,” he whispered to me. “Normally, we choose one of several possible branches in the subject’s genetic code. I’ve decided to keep them strictly horses, but because of their near limitless potential, we’re pushing their boundaries to those limits.”
“What are you proposing,” I whispered back.
“A binary gene splice. In most cases, a recipient of Tesseractal radiation can only receive one beneficial mutation, whether it be wings, horns, whatever. These two have the capacity for two beneficial mutations. With both wings and horns, they can literally do anything, though there might be some..unforeseen consequences.”
“Side effects?”
“You care about them. You don’t want to know all of the things that can go wrong. If this doesn’t work, we’re all boned as it is anyway. We either have one high risk shot, or no shot, no hope. I still need some time to prep the necessary serums, so say your good byes now.”
“Ahmed, what side effects? Don’t treat me like a child. I can take it. Why should I say good-bye?”
He sighed and looked at me, his eyes communicating to me the pain he felt in delivering his professional opinion, “Assuming the procedure works absolutely perfectly, they will never be able to live normal lives ever again. Their bodies will be mutated to such a degree they will be never be able to reproduce. Their minds will be exposed to things that will change their perceptions of reality forever. The price for this forbidden knowledge is either temporary or permanent amnesia, and to what degree of severity, I can’t guess. They may never remember you ever again.”
We were silent for several seconds, as I struggled with this knowledge. “Do you want to continue with this?” Ahmed asked me.
I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to stop this whole mess right then and there. I wished this were someone else’s life in some other place. I wanted to escape this mad nightmare, but I couldn’t. That’s when I heard a little voice in the back of my head. It was a tiny but resolute voice; You have a responsibility; it is your duty to act accordingly. This world needs a deterrent for Discord, and these fillies will be the solution.
“For mankind,” I solemnly said.
“Alright,” he replied, “Go say goodbye. Those girls need their mother.”
I started to tear up, and I turned to explain to my two little ones why they had to be forced to grow up and do the hard things in life.
The Maiden and the Serpent
I opened the doors to the subject’s..my daughter’s cages. They shook themselves and stretched their legs while getting a bearing on their surroundings. I looked over to Dusk and quietly spoke, making absolutely sure my tone was calm, “You can go now, sweetheart, but don’t wander off and come back quickly.” She timidly walked around me and made for another hallway we had passed on the way to the test chamber. I squatted down to Dawn’s eye level and I gave her a hug. I never wanted to let her go; I never wanted this for her or her sister. “Mother, I don’t understand what’s going on. Why are you acting so funny?”
“Sweetheart, there is something very important I have to tell you. My friends and I, we made a really big mistake; we did a really bad thing, but we can’t fix it.”
She looked at me, worried confusion evident in her face, “But Mother, you’re a grownup! Grownups can fix anything!”
Dusk had come back at this point, and she was even more confused than her sister, “What’s happening?”
“Mother says she did a bad thing, and she can’t fix it!”
Dusk gave a little gasp and shook her head, “No way! That can’t be true!”
“I’m afraid it is, Dusk,” I wearily said.
“But if you can’t fix the bad thing, who can?”
I strengthened myself as best as I could, but even though I tried my hardest to remain calm, my next breath went into me sounding like a rattle, “I need you two to fix my problem for me and my friends.”
Both the fillies’ eyes widened in awestruck surprise. “We get to be like grownups now?” Dawn asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s going to be really tough, but I know you can do it.”
“You really think so Mommy?” Dusk looked up to me with innocuous ecstasy.
I faked my best smile, and put as much confidence in my voice as I could, “Of course.”
The crimson miasma that was Discord pulsated. Everything was in place now; here was the Rubicon to cross.
It was finally time. It was time to toss out all of the old toys.
The cloud pulsated frenetically as it slowly moved toward the containment door; every part of his being sung with joy for the events about to take place. The door, 3 inch triple A grade Osmium alloy was instantaneously transformed into a huge slab of butter, which Discord made short work of with a half dozen butter knifes. Alarms blared and shrieked to signal the staff of a break out of their prized creation; those cacophonous wails were like those of the angry damned souls of Hell itself. It was beautiful music to Discord; but this was only the prelude.
So many tried to run as it glided blissfully about. A woman shrieked in terror as the blood colored sphere of boiling energy approached her, and even as she turned around, she was transformed into a Raggedy Ann doll, still full conscious of who and now what she was. The doll ran for her life to cower in some corner of one of the facilities, and as madness slowly crept its way into her now cotton brain, she ripped herself limb from limb.
Elsewhere, security officers attempted to surround and incapacitate the red cloud, only to find that their bullets and lasers phased right through the astral abomination, and in turn their weapons were replaced with Candy cane replicas, and their very bodies were reconstituted into sentient licorice. Panic quickly gripped the likes of everyone, and Vanguard, last known home of humankind, was in the grip of madness itself, in the clutches of an artificial mad god. The trees in the botanical gardens had uprooted themselves to walk about, crushing absolutely anything that stood in their way. People fell from above, jumped from any structure they could find. Screams filled the air, as did bubbles two feet in diameter, some bubbles larger still housing captive humans. They tried everything to escape, but the bubbles were unbreakable from the inside. As soon as the bubbles and their occupants reached the cavern ceiling of the communal areas, though, they would pop, leaving for a 4.4 second dive through empty space. It was raining men.
The insanity of reality continued even as the silence of the dead filled every inch of the now empty rathole humanity had made for itself, and for a solitary instant, Discord was satiated.
Until he felt them. Two humans yet remained. That would change; everything changes when Discord is Lord.
The Maiden and the Serpent
It was time. There was no delaying now. I gave each of my daughters the biggest hug I could. “I love you both very much. More than you will ever know.”
Dawn flicked her ear in confusion, “Mother, I don’t understand. You act like you’ll never see us again.”
I was absolutely distraught, but I couldn’t show it, not in front of them. I stood and allowed Ahmed to take my place. He ushered each of them to their pods, and they trustingly obeyed. I turned my back to them, and the tears began to flow. That’s when I saw the security alert on a nearby console: Subject 2396 had breached his pod and escaped. Containment efforts had failed. It was coming. Discord was coming. “Ahmed! We’re out of time!” I yelled.
“Oh shit.” he half hissed/half sputtered.
The girls gasped and looked over to me, “He just said a naughty word,” Dusk exclaimed.
Ahmed locked the door to her chamber, sealing her in. Frantically, Dawn looked around, at the cage, Ahmed, and me. I saw in her eyes that my betrayal of her trust was complete, “Mother, what’s happening?!”
“I’m sorry Dawn,” I said through tears, “Goodbye.”
Dawn’s chamber sealed, and Ahmed rushed over to the instrument panel. “We have to make up for what time we’ve lost. Beginning initial serum delivery.” Through the opaque glass we could see the bodies of the two fillies crumple to the floor as the sedative in the mutagenic compounds began. “Beginning primary tessaractal bombardment. Red, hold the meters steady. I need to prep something.” I took the console, while I saw Ahmed run for a small industrial refrigerator unit. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes to see the dials in front of me, and I yelled over my shoulder, “Ahmed, what are you doing?”
“Getting insurance! I don’t know if it’ll work or not, but our monster just might have a silver bullet. The shape lock compound worked on the Changelings, and I hope to hell it works on it as well. How’re we doing?”
I looked over to the two chambers, and already the changes were becoming evident. From the head of each of the fillies was rapidly growing a large horn. Not only that, but their entire physiological structure was quickly changing; their bodies were growing at an accelerated rate toward their peak condition. “Good! Injecting secondary solution now!”
Over the intercom a harsh mechanical voice spoke, “Warning, unlawful Quarantine Breach. Repeat, Quarantine Breach.”
“Damn it all, it’s here!” Ahmed shouted.
The second round of tessaractal irradiation began, and wings sprouted from behind the shoulder blades of the two ponies. They stood as tall as me now; they had grown so much in so little time. A light on the panel winked on, letting me know that all necessary programmed thought related to restoring the planet and creating a society had been relayed into Dawn and Dusk’s brains. I cued a microphone embedded in the console that would patch into each of their chambers, which would feed any last instructions I had for them to enact.
I took a ragged breath, steadied my voice, and spoke into the microphone, “This is your Mother. You are the only ones of your kind. You must stop the chaos being created by Discord, the spirit of disharmony. The surface above is dead, but you can bring new life to it, where others can live and be free from Discord’s tyranny. You are responsible for the Panrestoration. Live in peace with others, and know your Mother loves you.”
“Red, look out!”
I turned just in time to see the nightmare crimson cloud behind me holding a large novelty anvil over me. I leapt over the instrument panel just in time to avoid the anvil crushing me to death, and I hit the floor hard. The wind was knocked out of me; wheezing I turned to look behind me as the red cloud lazily approached me. “This will all be over soon, and then there will be no one to undo my glorious work.”
Discord produced a lion’s paw from out of its substance, and it brought it up to strike me down. Just as it began to swing its arm, there was a small popping sound followed by an audible hiss. Discord turned the back of its appendage, and out of the back of its hand was sticking a hypodermic dart, its contents fully dispensed into the flesh being created by the crimson cloud. “What,” the crimson cloud said, its fury steadily growing with every second. We both turned to see Ahmed, the dart gun still held aloft in his hands.
“What have you done,” the cloud roared, its outer surface boiling with palpable rage. “I used your silver bullet on you,” he calmly replied. The paw began to shake violently, and Discord held it up as if it had a face to look at the dart with. It screamed a primal, absolutely irrational wail, and it shot blood red lightning from its epicenter toward Ahmed. Before I could even shout ‘No’, Ahmed was gone; transformed into ruby colored dust. Even with his last few moments of existence, Ahmed fired off one more shot with the dart gun, and it struck home, directly in the bright fiery core of the ethereal beast.
The cloud began to pulsate less and less; its fire seemed to die with each passing moment and with each pulsation, body parts spontaneously generated from the cloud. A goat’s cloven hoof appeared, then an eagle’s talons, followed by a bat wing, and then a downy wing followed shortly afterward. A brown furred body sprouted forth and conjoined all the newly formed limbs in a haphazard manner, from its hind shot forth a salmon colored tail with a white tuft on the end, and then a goat’s head with two mismatched antlers sprang from the neck. Whatever it was, the transformation seemed to be complete, and the abomination that had been energy was now given flesh.
It looked itself all over, as if even it wasn’t sure what it had become. It looked to me with its mismatched eyes and it glared angrily; the face itself would have been comical if I had not witnessed its true form and demeanor not but a minute ago. “You have limited me; locked me to one particular form which I can never fully be rid of. Creative, I must admit, but infinity remains infinity no matter what you try to subtract from it, and my power is absolutely infinite!”
It was exactly at that point that the both of us heard a klaxon sound. I looked to the chambers behind me, as did Discord, and we saw that the lights on each of the test pod consoles changed from red to green. Green. That meant-
The test pod doors unsealed and slid open. At first, neither of us saw anything at all, the steam from the pods obscured everything. Then, they stepped out. No longer were they the small fillies I had once known. With each step they took forth from the pods, the more they seemed to me like angels taking the guise of equine form. My Dusk, her hair and tail looked like it had been painted by God Himself, as it swirled with microscopic stars from across the cosmos. And Dawn, her hair and tail, vibrant pink as ever, seemed to radiate and flow with light, as did the rest of her pure white body. Both of their eyes were aglow with pure power; glory and life seemed to flow from them.
Discord looked at each of them in turn with an almost incredulous look, as if he wasn’t quite sure of what to make of either of them. “Now, what exactly are these two,” he asked with legitimate curiosity in his voice. It was accomplished; Ahmed and I, we had succeeded. We had done it!
I turned to the chimera behind me, and my smile was one of furious success and joy, “They are your end, Discord.” I turned once again to my two girls, and I saw that as soon as I mentioned Discord’s name, their muscles tensed, and their eyes managed to glow even brighter.
Discord looked at the both of them, each ready to fight until the very end, and he gave a little smile, “Finally, someone interesting to play with!”
The Maiden and the Serpent
The white alicorn fired off a blinding hot laser directly at my newly created corporeal form. Can’t say I really care for it; the body or the laser for that matter. It was like wearing a very itchy glove, but I must say I like the lack of symmetricality!
So, let’s see, light traveling at a constant speed of three to the order of ten to the eighth power meters per second with a distance of five meters gives me about 16.7 nanoseconds in order to react and avoid. Or what if I didn’t avoid it? Hmm. Fifty-fifty choice. Unless I chose both. Oooh, that’d be interesting! Fifteen nanoseconds to decide now. Oh why not? I guess I’ll dodge it.
I teleported just a meter to the right. The dark alicorn was using her powers to grab hold of my shadow, trying her hardest to keep me restrained. Another laser, another 15 or so nanoseconds. It seems it’s time to pull another trick out of my exceptionally large and nonexistent sleeves! I went two dimensional, becoming one with my shadow. A full half second of surprise from the dark one and I slipped away down the hall. Now was as fun a time as ever for a game of tag!
Oh, I’m going to love these new toys! No, these two are something more than the humans! They are almost as powerful as I am! These two are my new playmates! They’re going to be so much fun! I burst out of that ridiculous hallway and soared skyward toward the roof of the cavern above. They followed of course on their large wings. They telekinetically tried to grab me; and I of course avoided them, because what good is a game of tag if you get caught to early?
The two winged unicorns barrel rolled in the air, each firing energy bolt after energy bolt after the deranged draconequus. I watched it all through the security feeds. It was absolutely impossible! Discord was dodging everything Dawn and Dusk tried to hit him with, and they in turn dodged everything he dished out; oversized Lincoln logs, palm trees, even a giant albino whale! Dawn transformed into a beam of pink light and zigzagged around the falling objects. Dusk teleported around the objects for all of them to fall to the cavern floor. Discord flew up through the cavern ceiling, passing right through it towards the surface above. Dusk ripped the rocky surface of the ceiling apart with her newfound powers and Dawn sped through the hole with Dusk closely behind, who then closed the hole behind her.
I found my way to master control of Vanguard eventually after the janitorial drones had cleaned up the..the..well, everyone. Since the system recognized me as the last living human being, I was granted unlimited access to every project and every place. I had the freedom to go anywhere, to do anything. But my thoughts were turned upward, to the world beyond.
I was able to send up probes to the surface, and I saw nothing but darkness. Then, there was a flash in that darkness. A rainbow kaleidoscope pinpoint filled the screens of master control, and it exploded. Pure light! I saw a statue for an instant through the light. It was the mismatched body of Discord, encased in rock. Yes! They’d done it! The plan could actually go on!
I found the old missile console, and ordered the missile doors to open. With the bay doors open, Dawn picked up five of the missiles, each of them nuclear and each several tons in weight, and she launched them into the sky. With another stroke of her power, she propelled a gravity bomb directly between them all, and she ignited them. Yellow light cascaded into the probe’s visual sensors. Dawn was creating a sun! She was containing the reaction and stabilizing it, shaping its core and stabilizing the electromagnetic fields surrounding it. Solar flares temporarily covered the entire surface of the new heavenly body, but under Dawn’s control, the sun eventually rested.
I turned the sensors to the moon to catch Dusk in the middle of fragmenting it and crushing it. All part of the plan. To maintain the balance of Earth and its orbit around the old sun, the mass of the moon had to be changed so the new sun and the new moon itself would equal the old moon’s original mass, or the Earth would be tossed into the darkness beyond the Solar system itself, forever drifting in its angle of departure through the silent vacuum. Dusk tossed the unneeded mass of the moon out into the darkness beyond and shaped the rest back into a spheroid shape, like it was as easy as shaping silly putty.
With their jobs done, they came back to Earth. They stood on the barren ground, the sun and moon in perfect harmony, which created a twilight never before seen by any eyes. Another flash of light, and what I would see filled me with joy. Green! Green grass! As far as the eyes could see! Forests spontaneously appeared from gray nothingness! My Dawn and Dusk were using the very forces of creation itself to remake everything into a beautiful paradise. Blue skies filled the screen. I could see my girls there, radiating the Tessaractal batteries’ power over the entire world, bathing everything in the rejuvenating rays. Hope, life, joy! It was all possible again! The Earth was no longer dead. It was alive again! The planet was restored.
It was time for the exodus to begin. I opened up all the locks on the doors of the habitation areas. They deserved to see the light now, to experience the real living world which my race had robbed them of for so long. I ran out to see it for myself, and there they all were; ponies of all kinds, griffons, dogs with ape-like proportions, buffalo, hydra, manticore, kappa, dragons, minotaurs, and so many other species walked or flew out to the twilight beyond. Dawn and Dusk ushered them all out and teleported the aquatic creatures into nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans. They were the last ones out.
I ran up to them both and I gave them each a huge hug. “You did it! You both did it! I’m so proud of you!”
They looked at me, each with a smile on their faces, and Dawn said, “It’s our duty to help all beings. There’s room for everyone up above, even for primates like you. Come, join us!”
My smile faded. Oh, Ahmed. You were right. Damn you, you were right. I stepped back from them, and did my best to recompose myself, but I couldn’t help the tears that came to me. Dusk came nearer to me, and she wiped away my tears with the tips of her wings, “There, there! There isn’t any need for tears now! You can find happiness above.”
“No. No I can’t. I’m the last of my kind, and I’d be killed as soon I stepped foot onto the surface.”
“We can guard you, keep you safe and happy. Our mother would have helped anyone, and we would do the same.”
“No. I couldn’t. Please. Just please..leave me be. I will keep anything from ever finding this nightmarish place ever again. Just..do what you mother told you. I’m sure she’d want you to help others, to help them find a new start on the surface above.”
They nodded in unison. “We accept your decision. Thank you for your sacrifice,” Dawn declared.
“No, thank you two. For everything. Goodbye.”
They waved me farewell, each with their right wing. “Goodbye.. Oh! We’re so sorry, we never asked your name.”
“Lauren.”
“Thank you, Lauren.” They turned away, towards the light of the surface beyond, and they were the last living things I ever physically saw in my mortal life.
Years went by. I of course grew older. I saw my imminent death yawning before me. I wouldn’t let anything near this place for its own good, and I wouldn’t let some little thing like death stop me! I found a project buried in the medical bay; a way to cheat death itself. I uploaded a copy of my consciousness into the databanks of Vanguard’s computer network, and I had my consciousness inscribed onto nanoparticles that would emulate my personality. I became something different. I became a nano-ghost. And then, I rested.
Years went by like minutes, and centuries went by like hours. Every time I awoke, things got worse and worse. Though the maintenance drones had done their best to restore her over the years, even they broke down, and Vanguard was left rotting from the inside out.
Then one day, I saw something new. Something I thought I’d never see ever again. A human! A flesh and blood human. As impossible as it seemed, there he was, undeniably existent. Maybe he was a descendant of some surviving colony? I have to see for myself, whoever he is. I know one thing for sure; he has to exist here and now at this time for a purpose.
I’m sure of it.