Loose Ends

The second I cross the event horizon it's all over. I'd gone in thinking Doc Wechsler was away from the entry point, but all he'd done was flip around and wait for me on the other side of the portal. When I arrive he's right behind me, ready and waiting, and he doesn't waste any time getting down to business. As I try to get my bearings, something hard and cold as steel slides between my ribs with mechanical precision, and my back arches as pain I don't know how to describe overloads my nerves. My Glock falls uselessly to the soft grass about a second before I do.

You'd think I was new to this kind of thing, but I'm not. I have no excuses: cloak and dagger have been my stock-in-trade for a long, long time now. Maybe too long.

I try to get to my knees but I can't manage it. He's missed my heart, but as I start gasping for breath I realize he's punctured a lung. If I'm very lucky, I might still survive this, but I'm not a man who's known for his luck.

"Walker here... I'm down," I whisper, hoping Control can still get my signal through the event horizon. It's all I can manage, though -- it's hard enough to just keep breathing, and the Doc isn't going to let me keep doing that much longer. When I try to say anything more, he kicks me, hard, right in the face. And again, for luck, I guess. And one more time, in the ribs -- and when he connects I hear something cracking in my chest. Third time's the charm, they say.

I don't feel charming. I spit out a tooth and lay on the grass, panting, bloody and beaten.

“Goodbye, agent,” I hear the Doctor say, his voice soft but very near. "The Queen appreciates your sacrifice."

I wrench my eyes open and lift my head to find him watching me, his green, acid stare as sharp and piercing as the shiv he'd buried in my back.

I can tell I'm starting to go into shock: he doesn't look like a man anymore, but instead some winged black shadow out of a forgotten nightmare. I shiver, and he smiles an ugly smile before he turns and runs, his research still tucked protectively under his wing. His arm. Whatever. I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing.

There are broken, static mumblings in my ear. Apparently the earpiece works across the event horizon after all. “Walker, this is Control. Abrams -- ETA five minutes. What’s your -- we can’t locate --”

“...doesn’t matter,” I murmur. I'm falling fast. Control probably can’t help me anymore, and I’m pretty sure nobody else can either. My head's swimming and my chest is on fire, and it’s getting harder to fight it. Any of it.

Besides, what the hell am I fighting for, anymore? Maybe I should just --

“What the hay -- AJ, git over here!”

I don’t recognize the deep voice, but it’s definitely not coming out of my headset. I hear someone approaching, moving quickly with a strange gait. Without warning I'm lifted to rest on my side, while a gentle pressure eases down on my back, covering the wound. I open my eyes again and blink, trying to focus, but all I can make out is a yellow hoof, attached to a red-furred leg, not far from my face.

Delusions. I know what that means. I'm losing oxygen. My lungs are probably starting to fill up with blood. If I don't get into a hospital soon I'm done for. Resigned, I close my eyes again. I feel time slipping away from me, but I’m not sure how much of it's passing between each of my ragged, crackling breaths.

I start to nod off, but a new voice, more feminine than the first, nudges me gently back towards consciousness. “...we’ve gotta save ‘im, but there’s blood everywhere! Y’all get goin’, find Twi and the rest --”

I wince, almost ashamed. I'm a federal agent; I'm supposed to die somewhere anonymously and quietly, not cause a public spectacle. I want to apologize to someone, but for some reason I can't seem to think of the right words to say.

Black clouds drifts all around me as more and more voices began to chatter. The sounds anchor me to reality, even as I wish they'd just be quiet. It'd be so much easier for everyone if they'd just let me go.

“-- Redheart, he’s over here, ya gotta --”

“...have to keep the pressure steady! I'll take over. AJ, get me another bandage, this one's soaked --”

They sound so concerned. It almost cheers me in a way to know that someone still cares about me. Jackie stopped years ago. Maybe I did too. It’s comforting, somehow, knowing I'm going to die in a place where people still care about me.

“Save it? How do I save it? I don’t even know what it is!”

“It’s okay,” I try to say, but I’m pretty sure my lips aren't working anymore. “Not worth the trouble. Just let me go.”

They ignore me and talk some more anyway. I hear some of it, not that it makes any sense.

“Over here, Twi! It’s tryin’ to talk! Can ya --”

“Highness, I’m sorry, but there’s just no way --”

“... Starswirl’s spell! What if I --”

“...don’t know. Isn’t that really dangerous?"

"...simply can't let the poor dear suffer like this..."

"...can I try on his glasses? Pleeeeease?"

“...don't have time. We have to try this now or we’ll lose him. Elements, stand with me!”

Finally the voices grow softer, much softer and darker and calmer and peaceful, so peaceful. I’d forgotten peaceful, forgotten how it felt, how it sounded, how beautiful it could be -- and how purple it was...

How purple it was?

Sure, why not.

It doesn't last, of course. Nothing ever does, but especially not peace, or beauty, or any of that. Slowly, surely, I begin to hear noises where there'd briefly been silence; I begin to sense light where once there'd been only dark. And purple.

And purple? Why purple?

I can feel my brows crease in a frown as the question crosses my mind, and that's the first time I realize I'm still alive. Every inch of my body aches, from the tips of my ears all the way down, but I'm alive.

Squinting against the unfamiliar light, I open my eyes.

Definitely a hospital. Not one I recognize -- truth be told, it looks a bit like something out of the 1950s -- but at least it means I'm in professional care. I lever myself up to a sitting position and --

Stare. I stare. I hadn't meant to, but when I reached to lift my sheets up and saw my hand, I saw something worth staring at, so I stare at it. My hand, that is. I stare at my hand. Rather, at what ought to be my hand, but isn't. At my hoof. Because it's a hoof, a horse's hoof, not a hand. Which it should be. A hand, I mean. Not a hoof.

I turn it around, fascinated, rotating it slowly around to get a good look. I reach up with my other hand, which also happens to be a hoof -- points for consistency -- and I knock them together a couple of times to get a feel for them.

Sure enough, they're just what they look like. Hooves. They're more sensitive than I'd imagined, but they're definitely hooves.

I peek under my sheets. Yep. Four hooves all told, not to mention a healthy-looking coat of dark brown fur, a salt-and-pepper tail, and a couple of other details not worth mentioning, though not necessarily disappointing. Like I said, points for consistency.

Just to be sure, I swish the tail. Yep, that's mine, too. How novel.

"Nurse?" I call out calmly. My voice is deeper and more graveled than I'm used to hearing, so I may have to cancel any plans for a singing career, but at least I can talk, even though I'm not very human anymore. "Nurse?"

Not hearing an immediate reply, I take a quick stock of the room I'm in. It's plain, with a simple bed, clearly made with equine proportions in mind. The windows are lower than I'm used to, but obviously the right height for an average-height pony. Shelves and drawers, all built at the same scale as everything else. I look down at my hooves again and take a long breath.

As a special agent, you train for all kinds of contingencies and you learn all sorts of skills, but the most important thing you ever learn is to roll with the punches. You learn to deal with what's staring you in the face, and to set your expectations aside, because your assumptions will get you killed. There's no point freaking out about losing an eye or a hand -- or even becoming a small horse -- when there's still a bad guy to bring down or a mission to complete.

I'm alive, and the Doctor's loose here, wherever 'here' is, with some incredibly dangerous technology. I have other questions, sure, but there's a bad guy to bring down and a mission to complete. I can freak out about hooves later.

And I probably will. Just, not now.

My timing's really good, too, because right as I'm making that decision, a petite equine -- call her 'pony-sized' -- with her pink mane caught up in a nurse's cap, pushes through the door and finds me sitting up.

"You're awake!" she gasps, and rushes to my side, her hooves striking against the floor tiles almost like women's heels as she moves. "You shouldn't be sitting up yet, you know," she says, pushing gently at my chest to get me back into the bed. "You were hurt very badly."

I suppose part of me should be more surprised at this than I am, but considering my current state, a talking nurse-pony really isn't much of a stretch. Roll with the punches, right?

I'm not sure how to play this yet, so I keep things close to my chest. "I'm okay, really, it's not a problem," I say, resisting her push. Either she's tougher or I'm weaker than I expected, but either way I'm only barely able to stay upright. "Look, I appreciate your help, but what I need right now is some information, and probably someone in an official capacity to talk to."

She frowns her disapproval but reluctantly nods her head. "All things considered... you're probably right. Okay. I'll let them know you're awake."

"Them? I've had visitors?" I ask, my attention caught. As weird as things had gotten, I'd give my eye teeth to see Abrams walk in that door right about now.

"Just for a few minutes," the nurse said, her stern look quickly reappearing. I smiled winningly, but she only narrowed her eyes at me and harumphed her way out the room.

Good enough. The sooner I get things straightened out, the sooner I get back on the hunt. There's a Doctor out there I owe, and I pay my debts with interest.