The situation was decaying rapidly.

“You!” yelled Toxic Shock to one of the equidroids that surrounded him. He had barely arrived off the transport vessel, but even with a cursory look over the Frontier District Eight medical support facility, he already knew that it was mostly gone. “Seal the facility! Nopony gets in or out!”

“That is not possible,” said the nervous sounding AI. “If we seal it, the doctors- -”

“We need to up a quarantine and decontamination system. You! This place requires a level V quarantine.”

“We have attempted,” said another equidroid, that one male. “The provisional congregation has denied our request.”

“What the hay…” Toxic Shock knew why, of course. Frontier Hub Eight was a critical trade point, a juncture to the highly expensive frontier districts and mining colonies that lied at the edge of Equestria. The companies and governments that controlled it did not want to shut it down, because it would shut down trade through the hub and cost them hundreds of millions of bits per day.

They were idiots. Instead of doing what they needed to do, they had called in an expert- -but it might already have been too late. Toxic Shock had read the briefing aboard the supersonic airship that had pulled him out of the depths of the Wastelands to do another “government” job.

From what he had learned, the medical support facility had airlifted in a badly injured pony from one of the far districts. The patient had been infected with an unknown pathogen, one that, despite their thorough searching, the frontier patrol had not managed to find in any other individual. Treatment had failed, as had attempts to isolate- -or to even understand the nature of- -the pathogen, aside from the fact that it was some kind of parasite.

That, alone, was just a sign of incompetency. Unfortunate, but not unexpected from doctors who lived so far from civilization. Only a few of them had witnessed the continual diseases that ravaged the megacities, and Toxic Shock was sure that none of them could even fathom the contagions that sprang up endlessly in the Wastelands.

They had not been prepared. The doctors and nurses who had treated the patient rapidly fell ill, mostly with respiratory symptoms but many with cutaneous injuries identical to the first patient. The idiots had then continued to treat. Perhaps they thought they were being heroic, but they were just throwing their lives away.

“Send out a request,” said Toxic Shock. “Which district are we closest to? Atomic Metal’s?”

“You can’t be serious,” said one of the few pony doctors that had come to meet him.

Toxic Shock stared at the small stallion, his synthetic irises narrowing. “We need doctors,” he said. “Doctors who won’t get sick.”

“But demons- -”

“Don’t get sick.” Toxic Shock turned to one of the equidroids. “Gather up all the other bodies you can. Even if they’re not doctors. I have a code upgrade. And put in an order for hazmat suits.”

He stopped moving through the hallway and looked through the windows. Inside, he could see the patients. Their bodies were twisted, their skin stained with blood that poured out of their orifices. Many of them had become completely catatonic, but others had begun babbling, pulling apart their skin to reach the black material that was moving beneath their skin.

“Open the door,” said Toxic Shock. “I’m going in.”

“But- -the infection!”

Toxic Shock gestured toward his body. Eighty percent of it was prosthetic- -not that there had been anything wrong with his original body; he had removed it simply because flesh was weak and poorly adapted to life managing industrial processes in a region where all the filth and toxic waste of Equestria was dumped. The ponies that filled the wards of this hospital were in bad shape, but he had seen far, far worse things happen to those who did not adapt.

He charged his horn, and a translucent mask of magic appeared over his face. “There rest of my team will be here soon. We need to track down everypony they came in contact with. If they so much as looked at a pony, get that pony in here and isolate them.”

Up close, they looked even worse. Their bodies seemed bent, as if they were being forced into odd positions, and x-rays confirmed massive deformity to their skeletal systems. Many of them coughed continuously, sprays of blood pouring from their mouths as they did. If the cutaneous infection was anything at all like what must have been inside their lungs, those ponies had reached the ends of their lives.

The hospital was clearly understaffed. Most of the doctors lay in the corners of the room, their own bodies starting to succumb to the infection. The remainder were equidroids, but there were still precious few of them, far too few to care for the sick and dying ponies around them- -or even to remove the many dead.

“You,” said a hoarse voice behind Toxic Shock. He turned to see an ahuizotl, his coat formerly pale red but not having fallen out in most places, revealing ulcerated skin with black, complex-shaped objects clearly forming beneath his skin. His coat indicated that he was a doctor- -and the blood covering it indicated that, even straddling the border of death, he had not stopped treating patients. “Are you Toxic Shock?”

“That I am.”

“Thank the goddess,” he said, a thin trail of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. “I am Cuaitl. I am the one who called for external support.”

“Are you the head physician?”

“I am now.”

Toxic Shock looked at the creature, surprised that any being could stay standing in such a situation. From the way Cuaitl spoke and moved, it was clear that at least some parts of his body were no longer functional, including a number of nerves. The pain must have been excruciating.

“You have been exposed.”

The ahuizotl smiled, something Toxic Shock had not expected. “I have,” he said. “And I am dying.”

“But your still standing. We need to treat- -”

The ahuizotl shook his head. “No. I am already too far gone. Soon I shall see the sun again, and be with Her. I am sorry that my failure must now fall to you.” He reached into his pocket and removed a blood-stained medical projection pad. “My notes.”

Toxic shock took them, and as he did, he noticed that the ahuizotl had the incorrect number of fingers.

“Nothing we try works. Antibiotics, antiparasitics, nothing. The only thing keeping me functional is a massive dose of stimulants.”

“Have you tried surgical excision?” asked Toxic Shock, opening the notes and examining them. “Or, if you have any, nanotech meds?”

Cuaitl shook his head. “Yes. Surgery only results in infecting the surgeons, and nanotech accelerates the growth of the lesions exponentially. Even…”

Toxic Shock looked at the doctor. Ahuizotl rarely ventured into the Wastelands, but he could still recognize the look in the creature’s eyes- -one that was common across all species.

“What did you do?”

With a pain worse than what was wracking his body, Cuaitl withdrew an object he had attached to his back. A long, glinting, blood-spattered rifle.

“Even euthanasia doesn’t stop their pain…”

Farther in the back of the ward, away from many of the other patients, lay one pony who should have been in a far worse state than the others- -but was not. One who was actually beginning her recovery, even if the doctors could not comprehend the true implications of that.

Epicenter lay still, listening. She heard their voices, and the cries of the wounded who had not yet learned how to heal. She knew what they called her, and smiled at how pony parents sometimes had nearly prophetic vision when they selected their children’s names, and how cutie marks could sometimes be equally predictive. They called her Patient Zero.

She had become catatonic long before, but not because of the drugs that she had been given. They would have no effect on her now, and the pain would never stop. Not that it truly mattered ,of course. Pain simply meant that the repairs were working. Epicenter was not still because she was wounded. She was still because she was waiting.

So she simply stared up at the ceiling. Although her disease had taken her eyes, it had not taken her sight. Somehow she could still see. That was not at all a blessing, because it meant that she was able to see what was becoming of her once beautiful body, the changes that made even the equidroids stay far away from her.

It was the mental changes, however, that terrified her the most. She was beginning to forget why she had been afraid, and to see the world differently. The part of her that could remember was frightened, but she was rapidly becoming lucid, as if awakening from an absurd dream that had somehow seemed so real. The nature of the world, and of behavior, and of things themselves were becoming clear to her- -and somehow that was the most terrifying aspect of it all.