The trip back to the warehouse was uneventful. Lilium had bade goodbye to her friends at the Library before leaving, and had found all of them to be shaken but alive. Faulkner had seemed to be the most affected of all of them, and her relationship with her mother seemed to have changed. Lilium was not sure if it was for the good, but Morgana knew that it was. Many decades before she had seen that same look of reserved pride in Aeschylus’s eyes.

Morgana herself had not been affected mentally by the ordeal, but she had sustained some level of physical damage. Her MHI body had been able to withstand the extreme heat it had generated, but the alteration had induced changes in her robotics that required a complete recalibration. It had been her intention to complete that lengthy process upon returning to Roxanne’s warehouse, and to think while she did so.

After several hours of transit, they were once again in the low hallways that led to the complex of robotically-maintained warehouses. The fog that had been there before had lifted in some spots, but grown far thicker in others. The inadequate service lights cast strange wide glows through the mist, causing the pathway before them to look alien and bizarre.

Initially, there were only three of them- -Morgana, Lilium, and Elrod trailing behind them; two Twilights and a potato-man. When they were within meters of the warehouse, however, Forth emerged, seemingly from nowhere at all or from the mist itself. Her broken body had been fully repaired, and her motions were almost spritely as she landed and trotted to Elrod’s side.

“That lifetime guarantee really pays for itself, doesn’t it?” joked Morgana.

“It sure does. But I thought I was dead for sure. I am glad to be alive.”

“You look nice,” said Elrod. “Much more…having skin.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Forth tilted something off her back. “I got you this, too.”

Elrod picked it up, finding that it was a completely new trench coat.

“For me?”

“Your old one is full of bullet holes. This one is new.”

“I can see that.” Elrod took off his old coat and threw it away unceremoniously. He then replaced it with the one Forth had given him. “It’s warm,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome!”

“Aww, that’s sweet.” Lilium smiled. Morgana did not; instead, she kept her eyes forward, seeming deep in thought. Lilium grew concerned. “Morgana?”

“I’m not the person you should ask about gestures being sweet or not.”

“I wasn’t asking. I was asking if something was wrong.”

“Wrong? What’s wrong is that I almost got us both killed, and for what? A name. And about sixty four new questions that I need to answer.” They were approaching the door, and Morgana opened it before walking in to the warm and well-lit warehouse. “I just need some time to think.”

“MORGANA TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”

Morgana looked up, just in time to see a fist slam into the side of her face. The arm connected to it was filled extensively with cybernetic muscle, and despite Morgana’s comparatively short stature the blow had been aimed precisely and without any difficulty. Morgana was knocked off balance and onto the floor, but as she tilted she saw a pair of green-lensed eyes, a mop of blond hair, and a Hawaiian shirt.

“Boss!” cried a voice. Valla appeared from behind the crates and grabbed the much shorter man. Physically, she was far more muscular than he was, but at the same time much less strong. He could easily have pushed his way out of her grasp, but instead allowed himself to be restrained.

Morgana picked up her head and looked at them. “Moonlight.”

“You goddamn bitch!” Tears were streaming down Moonlight Elderberry’s face. “I- -I hit you! Do you have any idea what that is like? For a pacifist to have to do something like that?!”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because you deserved it!”

“Boss! Calm down, please! You’re losing your center!”

“My center can go to the eight dark-plane for all I care!” Moonlight pointed at Morgana as she stood up. He took several steps forward as Valla lessened her hold on him. “You deserved it! I’ve never struck anyone at all, except in self-defense- -but you DESERVED it! For what you did to my sister!”

A blue flash came from around one of the boxes. Roxanne appeared and jumped onto one of the nearby crates. “Whoa, whoa! Moonlight, what the fuck? I’ve never seen you like this! I mean, she totally deserves it, but- -”

“My sister! Jadegow! It’s your fault! It’s YOUR FAULT!”

Lilium stepped betweenhim and Morgana. “Hello myname is Lilium,” she said quickly. “We haven’t met yet but I’m pleased to meet you, and I can clearly see you’re very passionate about your sister. Which is completely reasonable. But we’re not going to make any progress here unless you can explain what’s going on- -and we can’t do that if you’re hitting my friend like that!”

“She’s a horrible friend!” Moonlight pointed at Morgana again. “My sister thought she was a friend, and now…now…” Tears fell from his eyes, but he took a deep breath and pushed his hands together. “But you’re right. No progress can be made with a mind clouded by rage. I’m going to be cloudy for a long time. Just hold on for a second…”

Lilium waited. Roxanne jumped down from the crate and stood beside her. “Moonlight,” she said. “Fucking hell…it’s that bad?” Moonlight did not answer. He just nodded. Roxanne turned to Morgana. Her expression was grim and hateful. “You got Jadeglow killed, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Morgana. “I did.”

“No you didn’t,” said Moonlight. He looked up from his momentary meditative state. “That would be too simple for you. Nothing is ever simple for Morgana Twilight Sparkle. Live, dead, dead, alive…you can’t even give her one or the other.”

“For the record, I never intended for her to be shot. But I did see the wound. I’m going to assume that it just barely missed her processor?”

“No. Her processor was destroyed, as well as five of her six memory cells. The last one almost got cut in half. There was almost enough…”

“Almost enough for what?”

Moonlight shook his head. Tears were now streaming down his face, and he was starting to blubber. “They…they restarted her program. There was enough there for that…but she’s not the same. Years of memory…decades…gone. She didn’t even recognize me. And her personality…it’s not…”He broke down completely. Valla put her hand on his shoulder, and Moonlight turned around and hugged her, burying his face in her midriff.

Morgana lowered her head. “Damn it…”

Roxanne turned slowly and pushed past Lilium until she was within inches of Morgana, glaring down at her. “You fucking piece of shit failure,” she said, her voice low to the point of almost being a whisper. “Jadeglow was your friend- -OUR friend! One of VERY few people who would even bother to talk to you, and you dragged her into this shit? You dragged THEM into this shit?” She gestured toward Valla and Moonlight, and then at Lilium and Elrod. “And me…but I could tolerate that. Because sometimes the world goes to shit. But Jadeglow? Did you even stop to think? Did your sick little mind somehow justify it? What the hell did she ever do to deserve this?”

Morgana lifted her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. But like you said. Sometimes the world goes to shit. Even for people who don’t deserve it.”

Roxanne looked shocked. “You- -”

Morgana pushed past her. She approached Moonlight.

“Just stay away from me,” he said. “I don’t…I don’t want to hit you again. I feel dirty…”

“It’s not like I felt anything. And I’ve had much worse done to me in the past twelve hours. To be honest? I was sure she was dead. But I ignored it, in favor of more pressing concerns.”

“You…you…”

“Because the dead have no value. You know that, don’t you? Once they leave this world, they’re gone. How many times have you told me that? That we shouldn’t mourn those who become ‘integrated with the cosmic consciousness’? Or is it harder when you put it in practice?”

Valla frowned deeply. “Morgana, that’s enough. Don’t be a bitch about it.”

“I will be a bitch if I want to. But that’s not the point. The point is that I thought she was dead…but now I know she’s not. She has value again. And I need to make this right.”

Moonlight turned away from Valla’s stomach and looked at Morgana through watery eyes. “What? How…?”

“Look. I don’t care if you never want to see me again. I can tolerate that. I’m used to friends starting to hate me. It’s an invariable fact of life. But I don’t want to leave this without closure.”

“You don’t want to leave any negative energy behind…”

Morgana shook her head. “No. I don’t. Please. I want to see her.”

“I think you’ve done enough,” said Roxanne.

“No. I need to apologize. To help if I can, even though I’m not sure if there’ll be anything I can do. Right now. Before I do anything else. Because Roxanne is right. Jadeglow was my friend. And maybe still is. I don’t know.”

Moonlight wiped his face and took a deep breath. “Yeah, man, I get you,” he said. “This weight, this hatred, I can’t carry that through life, you know? I don’t think she can either…and I don’t think you can. Or you shouldn’t. I’ll take you. You can apologize, if you want.” He leaned down until he was nearly at eye-level with Morgana. “And she’ll forgive you, because she was always stronger than me. But I don’t think I will. Maybe not ever. She was a beautiful, peaceful pony…and there’s no excuse for what you did to her.”

“I know that,” said Morgana. “But I can’t change the past, now can I?”

Moonlight sighed. “Nope. You can’t. But I guess you can try to help the future along. And I can dig that.”

Elrod sat in the center of a clear spot of the floor, staring into the inside of his damaged operator mask. He would occasionally lift a hand to interact with what he was seeing, but spent most of his time slowly scanning through data.

Morgana and Moonlight had departed, and the remainder of the group had remained in the warehouse. They had separated as they saw fit. Forth sat facing the warehouse door, watching it with an unpleasant expression that implied that she felt as though something had been taken from her. Lilium had gone off with Roxanne, and Elrod was distantly aware of them speaking, their voices muffled by the old furniture and dusty crates that filled the dimly lit storage area. Vall had remained behind as well, and she was pacing nervously through the same clearing where Elrod was sitting.

“Damn it,” she said, turning toward the door. “I should have gone with them! What the hell was I thinking?!”

“Morgana insisted that the two of them go alone,” replied Elrod. He remained more focused on his work than on Valla, but he gave her the courtesy of at least listening tangentially.

“Morgana insists a lot of things. Damn it! It’s just the two of them!”

“Morgana can hide her metadata.”

“Well that doesn’t help Moon, now, does it?”

Elrod looked up at her and removed his operator mask. Valla grimaced slightly. It was quite apparent that she found Elrod severely unattractive, but Elrod did not mind. She was human, and therefore he found her moderately hideous by definition alone. “And you would have helped how? That’s one of those questions you’re not supposed to answer. Because you wouldn’t. Aetna-Cross knows you, and probably me, and knows to watch for a Twilight with a Blossomforth.”

“I know.”

“So more of us would just have thrown it off.”

“But they know Moonlight too now. If they see him with her…”

“They won’t. Or maybe they will, and they’ll both get shot.” Elrod shrugged, and Valla stared aghast. “Regardless, Morgana is durable. And your friend seemed to be so as well.”

Valla laughed weakly. “Sure. I mean, when they came for me, I nearly pissed myself. And they beat me…hard. But when they came to ‘talk to’ Moonlight, I was in the bar. He didn’t flinch. I mean, it was just after he heard about poor Jade, but he doesn’t really get angry…still…”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say none of those guys will be walking for a while.”

Elrod attempted to smile. “See? They’ll be fine.”

“They’ll be fine…bullshit.” Valla crossed her arms and shook her head. “Complete bullshit. None of us are going to be fine. I mean, have you seen this? Any of it? I can’t even go home. I might not ever be able to, because next time it’s going to be a lot worse than a beating.” She groaned. “This is what I get for associating with her…grandma Ruth warned me…”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Not bad?” Valla suddenly seemed to become angry. “What the hell do you mean ‘not so bad’?!”

“Well, at least we’re among friends. And Morgana’s working on it.”

“Working on digging this shithole deeper, maybe.” Valla put her hand to her forehead, pinching her brow against the headache that was forming beneath it. “How are you so calm about this?”

“Because I’ve seen worse.”

“Liar. We’ve got all of Aetna-Cross after us, and I think Morgana’s even deeper than that. What could be worse than that?”

Elrod looked her in the eyes. “I witnessed the extermination of my own people.”

Valla winced. “Fuck. You really are a refugee, aren’t you? I heard Moonlight talking about it…from the Middle West?”

“You might say that.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t actually that bad. Although I do miss them sometimes.” Elrod shrugged.

“I really thought we had moved past that sort of thing. Damn it.” Valla sighed. “Well, you’re right on that part. It isn’t that bad. But it’s still shit. Jade’s already torn up, real bad, and Moonlight’s a mess…at least Roxanne’s safe, though. I got the impression she’s the one they’re really like to put pressure on.”

“Which is why she is here. And you also. But we’re working on it.”

Elrod picked up his operator mask, and he watched Valla’s deep blue eyes follow it. Before he put it on, she interrupted him.

“Why does your opmask have a bullet hole in the center?”

Elrod turned over the mask, looking at the front as though he had seen it for the first time. “Oh,” he said. “I got shot in the face. It’s not a big deal. The mask still works.”

“Are you joking with me? Because this is REALLY not the time.”

Elrod did not answer, nor did he need to. Valla was suddenly distracted by the warehouse door sliding open. She turned expectantly, smiling as she did so- -but her smile quickly fell away and was replaced by a frown, and her posture became far more aggressive. It had not been Moonlight or Morgana who had entered, but instead, a tall Rarity sauntered into the room.

“Detective O’Toole,” said Forth. “You’re back from Hartford.”

“Lynnette, please. O’Toole is really such a dreadful surname.”

Valla stepped over the boxes toward the door and loomed over Lynnette. The difference in size was substantial: as a centaur, Valla stood at least eight feet high, and Lynnette was just under half her size. Still, when Valla saw the Aetna-Cross symbolism on Lynnette’s armor her face blanched slightly.

“And who the hell are you?”

“My name is Lynnette.”

“Yeah, you said that. And you’re from Aetna-Cross.”

“I am. I am also the one who sent for you and your associate to be brought her. To put this simply so that you might understand it, I’m working off the books as a favor to a dear friend.”

Valla raised an eyebrow. “You’re not talking about Morgana, are you?”

Lynnette appeared deeply insulted. “What do you take me for?” she cried, her voice becoming slightly shrill.

“I take you for an Aetna-Cross putz who suddenly isn’t working for Aetna-Cross.”

“Would you rather I turn you in?”

“No. Because I’m not really partial to torture. Not that kind anyway. But the fact that you’re here means you’re backstabbing your own company. And I don’t like that.”

“Then you’re excessively persnickety and it’s no wonder you can’t find a husband.”

Valla was severely taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“It may also have to do with that horribly tacky cybernetic body.Now move. For the sake of honestly, you are barely of consequence to me and I don’t find your presence terribly beneficial.”

Before Valla could react any further, Lynnette pushed her way past and toward where Elrod was standing. Valla and Forth looked at each other, and Valla slowly turned to follow Lynnette while Forth continued to watch the door.

Lynnette approached Elrod. “Mr. Jameson.”

“Lynnette. Morgana told me to watch for you. She gave me an end of a thread, whatever that means. We can open a transmission whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m more than ready, mostly to get this over with so that I can go home and take a long bath. I’ve just been to Hartford, after all.”

Elrod nodded and slid on his operator mask. He accessed the internal program that linked it to Morgana. It was complex and well-encrypted, and he had very little understanding of how to use it. So he transferred it to Lynnette, allowing her to conference the transmission.

Lynnette immediately grasped the thread and opened the transmission channel. The air across from her seemed to flicker and spark, and Morgana emerged onto the floor. Valla approached and stood near her; her cybernetic eyes allowed her to see the projection in the same way that Elrod was able to see it through the operator mask.

“O’Toole. I see you’re back.”

“Indeed, darling. And I see you’re not.”

“No. I’m on my way to an Isabelle RedHeart Memorial subunit.”

“Why? If you’re injured- -”

“I am. But it’s not me I’m worried about. Let’s just say I’m following a lead right now, okay?”

“Very well. Depending on the subunit, I doubt Aetna-Cross will be there. I don’t think they expect you to be enough of an idiot to try to visit a hospital right now.”

Morgana nodded, not wanting to prologue the argument. “Did you find your contacts in Hartford?”

“For the most part, yes. Save for one. Unfortunately, it seems he succumbed to a drug overdose. A pity, as he was a good man. I did not managed to speak to him.”

“Did you find anything useful?”

Lynnette sighed. “Nothing terribly of use, no, I’m afraid. I did manage to ascertain that Aetna-Cross has resorted to securing our borders in an attempt to find you. Your primary predicted path is east, to Nigeria. Even reaching the transcontinental tunnels would be almost impossible.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m not done here.”

“Nor would you be able to. As I said, if you bothered to listen. But that becomes an advantage. They seem to think you’re trying to escape, and their perimeter is widening. I don’t think they realize just how rash you truly are.”

“Well, like you said. It’s an advantage.”

“For now.”

“Anything else?”

“I did find something odd within the contractor circles. I learned about a substantial bounty.”

“On me? That’s not a surprise.”

“No, darling, I don’t mean the glaringly obvious one. There was a second bounty. Monsanto is offering a sum of two hundred million vod for…something.”

“Something?”

“I have no idea what, oddly enough. No one seemed to know. Which makes the bounty seem awfully pointless.” Morgana’s eyes slowly turned to Elrod, and he looked back at her. Lynnette clearly noticed, but continued. “I also found one more thin. Here.” An image appeared beside Lynnette. It showed a human dressed in dirty, red-striped body armor. Although he had an extensive beard, Elrod immediately recognized him.

“That’s Caleb,” he said, turning sharply to Morgana. “The leader of the agroterrorists. I think you killed him.”

“I remember him. But why is he important?”

Lynnette smiled. “I’m surprised you were tricked so easily, darling! Because this man isn’t named ‘Caleb’, nor does he have any faux-hillbilly moniker. It appears that his identity was a cover.”

“A cover for what?”

“This man was actually named Mercucio Deltorro. His criminal record is extensive. Most of the convictions were for fraud.”

“A conman.”

Lynnette nodded. “A conman turned mercenary. He spent ten years with one of the Scarlet Grid breakaway factions.”

“Before he became an agroterrorist?” asked Elrod.

“He never was an agroterrorist, was he?” asked Morgana.

Lynnette’s smile faded. “No. Certainly not. The terrorists you’re referring to are very much real, although their organization is far too small to be of any real consequence. But Deltorro was not one of them. He was a plant; an agent of Aetna-Cross.”

“So you must know him,” suggested Valla.

“Certainly not. As connected as I am, I’m not privy to the majority of the Corporation’s secret projects. This was apparently one of those.”

“To sabotage Monsanto?” asked Elrod.

“Perhaps…”

“No,” said Morgana. “His job was to locate and recruit natural-born humans.”

The room fell silent. Valla was the first to speak. “Fuck. What for?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, darling, I think you’re devoting too much time to conspiracy theories. What we need in this instance is hard evidence, not gut feelings.”

“Like I said. I’m working on it.” Morgana turned to Elrod. “Right. I never thought I’d be commanding a team. How’s your part coming along?”

“I finished the analysis while you were talking.”

“So you have it?”

Elrod nodded. He spread out his hands, and he space in front of him was filled with a set of complex diagrams centering around a large reconstructed karyotype.

“Holy shit…” Valla stared wide-eyed at the readouts, and then at Elrod. “What the hell is all this?”

“Genetic analysis of a blood sample. Supposedly. The one found at Hexel Shining Armor’s apartment.”

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“I made it. This used to be my job. Except with soy.”

Morgana approached the projection, staring at it intently but clearly not fully comprehending what was displayed on it. She turned to Elrod. “What’ve you got?”

“Well, first I went through to see if it belonged to a natural-born human.”

“Not likely. I could have told you that.”

“But you didn’t. And you are correct. It is neither natural nor human. Look.”

Elrod tapped the hologram and it shifted. The chromosomes separated and opened, displaying individual genes and annotated areas. The annotations further expanded until nearly every part of the genome was marked in various shades of red and orange.

“That’s not normal.”

“No, it isn’t.” Elrod pointed at one of the innumerable red marks on the genome. “These are areas that show evidence of transgenic manipulation.”

“No human has that many alterations,” said Lynnette, staring just as intently at the display as Morgana but understanding it only marginally more. “Not even military shock troops have that many.”

“Nor do they have the diversity. Look.” Elrod shifted the image again, showing a chart that displayed a substantial amount of data around specific listed sequences of genes. He pointed at a group of them. “I cross referenced the style of the techniques based on the promotors and residual patterns. This group here by style is very, very old.”

“What do you mean old?” asked Morgana.

“As in these techniques are obsolete. They were common once, but they’ve been replaced by better things. The same is true from here, here, and here, but these are all from different eras.”

“So it’s old.”

“Only if it existed before the end of twenty first century. And again in the twenty fourth, the twenty sixth, and- -”

“Like I said. It’s old.”

“No.” Elrod shook his head. “Here. Look here.” He expanded one region of the genome and pointed at a complex set of sequences. “This. This is new. There are several of these.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lynnette.

“Yes. I know this technique. It was used to make agromorphs.”

Morgana turned sharply. “Where does that put it?”

“This style is fifth-generation or later. So the last seven years or so. And it’s not on record. This is still proprietary to Monsanto. No one else in the world has access to this technique.”

Valla looked utterly confused. “What the hell is an ‘agromorph’?”

The others ignored her. Morgana continued to stare at the data, but spoke without turning away. “So this genome was engineered centuries ago…and in the last seven years?”

“That would be my guess. I suppose the changes could be more recent, but the Monsanto technique can do all of this with vastly improved ease and efficiency…so if they had access to it, why not do it all that way?”

“But what does it all do?”

Elrod sighed. “That I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re supposed to be the geneticist here.”

“I am. In soy. Plants. And one project in poultry. I know the techniques, but not mammalian genomes. Although if it helps, that’s what this seems to be. Sort of.”

Valla leaned down to look at the projection. “Is there any way to reconstruct it?”

The ponies and Elrod looked up at her. “Reconstruct?” asked Morgana.

“Yeah. You know. Like in that science fiction book, the one with the dinosaurs. Find out what they looked like from the genes. Or what it belonged to.”

Lynnette sneered. “If he doesn’t even know how the mammalian genome works, he can hardly tell you what it looked like.”

“No. I can. Because it didn’t look like anything.”

“Wait,” said Morgana. “What do you mean ‘didn’t look like anything’?”

“I mean what it sounds like I mean.” The image shifted to a karyotype. “I know enough about the genome of animals to know that this one is vastly incomplete.”

“How can it be incomplete? Did the sample degrade?”

“I assure you, it did not,” snapped Lynnette. “I took it myself, and I am quite familiar with my craft. I assure you, it is complete."

“I think she’s right,” said Elrod. “The genome just…isn’t. There’s nothing in between. Just genes. But not enough to actually make any sort of living organism. Most of it is related to hemopoiesis, but that’s about it. Muscle, liver, neurons, none of it. No genes for it. Maybe enough to make simple cells…”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. No living creature could have this DNA. There just isn’t enough there.”

Morgana and Lynnette looked at each other. Neither of them spoke, because neither of them had an answer to where this blood had come from, what it belonged to, or how it had ended up as a single spilt drop in Hexel and Jillian’s apartment.