Falling Into the Unknown

I opened my eyes and gazed onto the white ceiling. Rolling over, I noticed Azure and Amber sleeping on cots across the room. It was temporary, of course, but it was still a place to call home.

It had been about three days since the midnight attack on the train. Since then, we had finally reached Pullmare. Since then, we had done nothing,. Nothing except read and wait around. Well, they read. Apparently, the ‘translation spell’ covered books and written words, but I still had no interest in the types of books there. Therefore, I had played on my laptop a lot. I still wondered what I was going to do about electricity, although that could be solved easily – if I knew how to make a charger. The ponies here had electricity, as they did in the larger cities, but the power outlets looked more like four little holes in a square, rather than the two long slits and a hole that I was used to.

Overall, though, things were going good. The Royal Guard still had nothing on whoever the hell had attacked us, but I still knew that, when they found some, I was going to march into whatever fucking hole they were hiding in and put a bullet through their boss. Although that goal may be unobtainable, since my survival so far had been a matter of pure luck. I had counted on surprise and good cover more often than not, things that would be completely missing in a urban battle, if it was even going to be in an urban area. My only experience thus far with large-scale fights had been when those fucking bugs attacked, and those things had all the fighting intelligence of a pack of wolves. Either that, or their race was really fucking weak. Most of them, when I got hit by them, hit with the force of a 6th grader. Then again, that was understandable when the average pony came up to about hip-level in comparison to me.

Even though the past few days had been boring, there were a few scattered gems. For one, the local residents mainly stayed away from me, believing me to be some sort of… Monster would be too harsh of a word. Maybe outsider? Yeah that fit. Anyway, they had avoided me like I was carrying the plague, and that was fine with me. It left me with more time to sit beneath a tree and listen to music with my earbuds on. Occasionally, Azure or Amber would come and sit by me. At the very least, I was fine around them. They had proven to be two of five ponies I knew who weren’t either assholes or too goddamn cheerful. Not that I gave a shit about what the ponies thought about me. I would be perfectly happy to refute those notions of theirs, if it wouldn’t lead to them bugging e all day. Until one of them manned up and spoke to me, though, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

Something that bothered me, though, was their complete infatuation with their Princesses. I got the feeling that, if they disappeared for one day, all the ponies would probably self-destruct. Half of them acted as though the ground that the Princesses walked on was platinum, and the other half were too busy kneeling on the ground to notice. I mean, it wasn’t as if I was advocating joining the circle-jerk that I gathered the raiders were, but come on, there had to be some ponies out there that didn’t take the Princesses as if they were a pair of gods. The only ponies I had found who even came close to that were the Royal Guard, and that didn’t prevent them from acting as if they would get sent to the moon if they didn’t obey - which, I had gathered from several conversations, was the ultimate form of punishment in Equestria.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I noticed that Azure was slowly rising off of his cot. He groaned and stretched out his wings, moving his legs around to test out each one. Probably satisfied with his current state, he jumped to the ground.

“Good morning, Azure.” I said.

“Buck off.” Came the reply moments later. “I’m tired right now, and I don’t want to deal with your antics right now.”

“Azure? Using big words?” I said. “You should wait a couple years before trying to pronounce words like ‘Antics’, young pony.”

“Shut up.”

I grinned. Even after all these days, it was still fun to annoy Azure in the morning. Amber, on the other hand, was apparently a morning pony. She was practically ready from the moment she woke up, which I attributed to the fact that I still didn’t fully understand her. While I was close friends with both of them, I talked with Amber far less than I did with Azure.

Speaking of which, Amber slowly rose from the bed and immediately went to don her guard armor. She pulled it over her, slipping her wings into the slots, and then walked up to me and Azure, who was still struggling to put his on.

“Need any help, brother?” She asked.

“No.” The reply quickly came.

I waved my hand. “Don’t bother. Speaking of which, can you not bother me today?”

She blinked. “Why?”

“I’m going to be trying to find an electrician and make a cord to charge my laptop. Since I have about thirty-six hours of battery left, I need to find something to get it charged, and having some sort of expert make a custom cable for me would be pretty damn cool.”

“Whatever.” She said. “Remember, the bits you can spend are on the stand by your bed. You wouldn’t know that, of course, because you never touch them. Or interact with the town at all, for that matter. How are you going to find an electrical expert? This town probably has one out of a population of 8,000 ponies, so you’re going to be searching for a looooong time.”

I grinned at her. “It’s called terrifying the pony at the town hall into telling me. Haven’t you learned anything about me yet?”

“No, not really.”

I groped for the bag of ‘bits’ I had been given when I arrived here, to cover any ‘expenses’ that might happen. Since my arrival, I hadn’t even moved them from the top of the stand next to my cot, which expressed my interaction in the town up to this point in a nutshell.

I dropped my pistol into its holster, put the bag of bits into my pocket, and slipped my knife into its sheaf. Amber frowned at what I was taking, but I waved her off.

“What if a monster jumps out of an alley and starts abducting random ponies? Then who will save them?” I teased.

“The guards.” She flatly replied.

“Hey, don’t worry.” I said. “It’s only in case something bad happens.”

“Something bad always happens around you.” Azure mumbled as he finally finished putting the armor on.

I grabbed my laptop and put it in its satchel. The electrician, if any, would need a starting point, after all. I slung over my shoulder, the strap going right through the center of my chest.

With that, I walked out the door. Taking a moment to look at the sun, I saw that it had just risen, bathing the landscape in a golden glow filled with shadows. Some ponies were already up, walking the streets. A few turned to stare at me, and some even gave glares, but I ignored them. I was used to it by now, and it hadn’t bothered me in the first place, anyway.

I walked through town, ignoring the ponies who stared at me, headed for the center where I had seen what I assumed to be the town hall. After all, it’s in the center of town, it has a bell tower, and important-looking officials hanging around it. I was also introduced to the public there when I had arrived, but that’s beside the point.

I quickly found the tall building and entered, finding a small waiting hall devoid of anyone. At the end sat a pony at a desk, obviously completely bored. At least, I assume sleeping at your desk means that you’re either completely bored or worked the night shift. Probably both in this case.

I walked up to the desk and slapped my hand into the bell on this, startling the mare awake. It seemed they even had those annoying things in Equestria, one more point of comparison with Earth.

“What do you wa-” The mare began, but froze as soon as she saw me.

“I would like to know the location of a local electrician, if any.” I said in a polite tone.

The mare nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, uh, I’ll get that for you. Right away!” She zipped off, rusting though several filing cabinets before triumphantly holding up a sheet of paper. She rushed back to the desk and put the paper in front of me.

“The pony in question is named Bright Spark. He lives on the east side of town, 10th Street.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

I quickly walked out, breaking into a jog once I left the building. Several ponies gave glances to the running human, but most simply tried their best to ignore me. I could easily see the open malice and fear in some of the gazes thrust upon me.

I easily reach the street in question ten minutes later. The shop was easy to notice. First of all, most normal shops in the area weren’t fully lit up with electric lights. Even though ponies had electricity available, many simply stuck to candles and such, for what reason, I couldn’t tell.

I walked up to the door and knocked. Five seconds later, an orange unicorn opened the door. He was, needless to say, startled by my appearance.

“What- I- Who are you?” He said after a moment of stuttering.

“You can call me Tyler.” I said. “I came to you because I was told you had the most expertise in electrical stuff around here.”

He instantly lost his awkwardness and puffed up. “That’s right! I’m really the only electrician around here, too, so it’s not like there’s any competition.”

I gave a small smile. “Good! Tell me, how much experience do you have in making electrical wire? I need something to charge a device of mine.”

“Hmmm.” He said, apparently deep in thought. “Making the cable would be easy, but I’ll need to know what it’s supposed to connect to.”

“Certainly.” I said, keeping up my air of civility. I pulled my laptop out of its satchel and quickly pointed out the slot the charging cable went in. After he took half a dozen measurements (along with shining a light inside the small port and taking a few dozen drawings of it (how they write and grasp with their hooves, I will never know)), he started to heat a piece of metal up on the corner. In the course of a half-hour where I didn’t pay any attention, he started to make an endpiece.

“So,” I asked. “How do ponies make electricity?”

“It’s all magic-based.” He said. “We have yet to find a way to make it without either lots of lightning rods or magical converters. Although the pegasus up at Cloudsdale have found that Liquid Rainbows can store and generate electricity naturally, they have yet to find a way to easily harvest it. Most of it is dispelled naturally, giving Liquid Rainbows their special properties.”

“Uh huh.” I said, absorbing the information on whatever ‘Liquid Rainbows’ were, just in case.

After ten more minutes, he attached the copper head to length of wire surrounded in what looked like natural rubber. It figures they didn’t have the synthesized stuff that we used, so they used what they found. What most people don’t know is that almost all rubber that we use these days in things like tires is actually synthesized. Real rubber actually comes from a certain tree, and there’s not much of it that we can harvest. It also cracks at very cold temperatures, and melts in very hot weather.

The end of the wire (the wire itself (rubber included) was about a centimeter thick) had a small one-inch-by-one-inch box with the weird plugs that the ponies used on the end. The pony picked it up gently with magic, turned around, and walked over to the table in front of me.

“Want to test it out?” He asked.

“Sure.” I replied.

I picked my laptop up and opened the lid, pressing the power button to start it. Meanwhile, he plugged the cord into an outlet on the table, probably there for demonstrations. Come to think of it, I did notice wires running from the bottom of the table to the floor earlier. Once the computer was started up, I gripped the end of the cable and plugged it in.

Unsurprisingly, it was a perfect fit. When a pony had a special talent, apparently, it means they are VERY good at it. It appears all the measurements had paid off, as well as the diagrams. Immediately, the battery icon on the task bar switched from a regular battery to one with a cord on the side.

“It worked.” I said simply. The pony nodded, probably not even knowing what my computer was. “How much will it cost me?”

The pony gave out a small hum. “With the short time I spent making it, along with the few materials I used? Oh, I’d say around twenty bits.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a fair deal.” I reached down and grabbed the pouch, counting out twenty of them and handing the small coins to him. I packed my laptop as well as the new charger into my satchel. Surprisingly, it fit well, taking up the top 1/5th of the small bag, with the laptop occupying the rest, as well as the earbuds and my thumb drive. With a final wave, I left the store.

The eye of every pony in the street was instantly on me, but I didn’t care. I walked through the street towards the small building that we had claimed, quickly reaching it and walking inside. Both Azure and Amber looked up at me from their cots, books open in front of them.

“Hey guys!” I said. “I got the charger, and it works!”

“Yay.” Azure deadpanned. “Does that mean you’re going to-”

“Yep!” I said. I open the satchel, taking it off of me and grabbing the charger, my laptop, and the earbuds. I plugged the charger into the odd outlet on the wall, plugging that into my laptop, and then plugging my earbuds in as well. I scrolled through my power options before selecting ‘If Lid Is Closed’, scrolling through there and selecting ‘Do Nothing’. Now my laptop would remain powered and on even if closed, allowing me to enjoy my music in peace and quiet – well, almost.

“Tyler,” Azure said. “You’re going to break your eardrums if you keep listening to the music with the volume at maximum.”

“So?” I replied. “I like it like that! It drowns everything else out.”

The rest of his response was lost as I put the earbuds in, scrolled through my music folder, and selected a song.

I closed the lid as the song began to play through my earbuds, seeming to come from the center of my head. I closed my eyes and lay my head down on the pillow, thinking happy thoughts for once. Things were finally going my way, and I could only hope it didn’t end here.