Equestria Route Zero

Act One, Scene Three – Timberwolf Valley

I’ve been working for the family store for roughly ten years now. Before then, I took up a plethora of jobs that ranged from the mundane right up to the insane. All got me money but I never found happiness in them. Since I took on the delivery aspect of Apple Antiques, I’ve felt better than ever. I ain’t ever seen Granny Smith smile so much with how much work I put into it. I suppose that’s what family does to ya, you can’t help but feel great around them.

I looked out of the truck cabin window. The “onramp” as that Sparkle lady put it was more of a dilapidated sawmill than anything else. Sure, there were rocks everywhere & large cave entrances here & there but nothing that even began to resemble a highway. At least the low hanging fog kept clear of this place for me to get a good look at it. Judging by the starry sky, it was clearly night, the little lights shining proudly on display for my eyes only.

Leaving the cabin now, with Winona at my heels, I could get a better look at the ragged ruins ahead of me. With it’s rotting wood, red paint peeling off, it looked like it should’ve been in a horror film or something that Applebloom would watch with her friends late into the night. It’s looming structure did little to bolster my hopes of finding the Zero in this place. Slowly, I turned to Winona & brushed some dirt out of her ears.

“How’s it going, Winona?” Poor girl, I can’t blame her for sleeping earlier after waiting for me for so long. “Hey, you got something in your ear. Not sure the lady was right about the Zero though.” I looked around me, the wind picking up slightly.

“Better look around, though. Must be down here somewhere” I hated myself when I said that. My doubt about the existence of this highway was increasing by the hour. “Better hurry, though. Weather’s about to turn.”

I walked into one of the cave entrances. With the number of cables running into there, maybe I could find someone & ask for directions to the mysterious highway. As I moved further into the cave, I followed what looked like the remnants of a mine cart railway, that following the same path as the cables, burrowing deeper & deeper into the mountainside. The cave got darker, it enveloped me, it ate me. I turned on the lantern the old man gave me but even then I struggled to see past a few feet at most. That’s when I started to hear another man’s voice.

It sounded… pained. It was in conversation, but not with another audible being. Moving closer to the voice, I could make out another light source ahead around a corner, the light parting as a shadow crossed it. The voices became clearer.

“No, it’s fine, I’ll figure it out.” I say voices because what replied sounded like static or a really deep electronic voice that you couldn’t understand from where I was. The man’s voice continued “I guess she can’t kick me out for another week or two.” I turned the corner to find a man facing what appeared to be a foyer area large enough to hold at least twenty people, but in a cave. His back was turned to me & I could see now that he was in fact talking into a cell phone the size of a brick.

“Yes, & I appreciate that but – OK, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Love you.” The man cut the call & put his phone away into a satchel bag. He turned to face me, yawning as he did so.

“Excuse me, sir, I saw the light was on & I’m looking for the onramp to –.” The man cut me short, his expression shocked by my being here.

“Are you here to kick me off the property?” His accusation made it sound as if he were expecting me or someone to ask him to leave said property but I really didn’t know what he was on about. Hell, did he even hear my sentence?

“Oh, no, no… I guess you don’t belong here either, do you?”

He continued with the accusations. “Do you work for the power company?”

“The power company? Oh, no, no. I once worked for an electrician for a few weeks, but I sort of drifted on before I really learned anything.”

He smirked at me. “I get it. You’re a nomad.”

Then I started smirking. “Ha. Well, I do drive a lot. Just me & the road mostly, when the sun is out.” What was this? We were talking as if we had been best buddies for a year & then some.

“You sound lonely.” He said this with a hint of compassion. It actually stopped my train of thought for me to even consider this statement. Was I lonely? I had Winona with me for the journeys, but when I wasn’t working, I had the entire family nearby for me. Was I lonely?

“Nah, I get by.” I straightened out & got back to the task at hand. “Here’s what it is: I drive deliveries for a shop called Apple Antiques, & I’m out trying to finish a job.”

“You’re making a delivery to the mine?” I don’t blame his confusion. I still didn’t know where I was going myself that night.

“Oh, uh… no.” I moved closer to the man. “I have a delivery for “5 Timberwolf Drive”, & I can’t remember ever seeing that address before. Now I heard that I need to take a highway called the Zero.” By this point, he was unfazed & still listening to me. Glad someone was in this place. “So I met this young lady, name of Twilight Sparkle, & she sent me this way, & so here I am. Uncommon place for an onramp, but that’s what it’s been like so far anyway with -.”

“What?” The accusation type of tone was back with a bite.

“Twilight Sparkle. Do you know her?”

The man laughed a single laugh quietly, almost in disbelief. “So you saw her. Tonight. I know Twilight. She was… she is my sister. I’m Shining Armor.”

He held out his hand, offering a handshake. I took it as I remembered something I was told by the girl. “Oh, you’re the one who fixes televisions.”

“That’s right. Did she tell you that, too? Of course she did.” He moved to the near wall, leaning against it, the look of disbelief still etched onto his face as he shook his head. He continued. “Twilight doesn’t lie. One time, when we were younger, she told me my dad had been in a terrible car wreck. There was crushed metal everywhere, & we’d be hearing it echo through the house for years, she said. I was very upset, crying, & then my dad walked in the door, just come back from collecting scrap metal to fashion into wind chimes.” He paused as he took a shaky breath, the recollection clearly getting to him.

“I was angry, but she said it wasn’t a joke, & it wasn’t a lie. At the time I thought she meant it as a riddle or a puzzle. But Twilight’s not a puzzle. She’s a mystery.” His gazed wandered off into the tunnels.

“So, maybe the Zero is down here somewhere.”

He considered this. “Maybe it is. Well, I won’t mind the company. I’ve got business down here myself.” He motioned to follow but stopped just short of the entrance. “I talked to Twilight earlier this evening, too. Or anyway, she talked to me; it’s hard to tell if she’s listening sometimes. Twilight told me I had to come down here to the old Timberwolf Mine. She said I’d find… something I’ve been looking for.”

I pressed him. “Where did you see her?”

“At my workshop. She just appeared. I hadn’t seen her since… a long time.” I took this as a cue that this was one subject that he was uncomfortable with discussing. “It’s not such a bad thing, you showing up now. All told, I’d rather not go down here alone. Your dog should stay up here, though. It’s no place for a dog.”

I hadn’t realised that Winona was still by my feet. Heck, the old dog had followed me into the mine without making a sound. I looked down at her. She looked up at me. I was not alone.

“This is an old mine. It runs pretty deep into the mountain & gets tangled. If we’re going to go down into it, find your onramp & whatever else, we’ve got to keep our bearings. I don’t want to get turned around.” He swivelled his waist, & pulled an electronic device of some sorts off the back of his belt. “I’ve got some gear here to measure conductivity, frequency response, stuff like that. Maybe we can find a way to put a signal out ahead, do some analysis & figure out what kind of topology we’re up against.”

“Topology. OK.”

He spoke proudly with his next sentence. “Topology. That’s the science of continuous space, my friend. That way this twisty maze of passages fits together.” Again, he motioned with his hand for me to follow him into the mine, the darkness of the tunnel eating him as I had been eaten earlier. I sighed & followed suit. This time, Winona stayed.

The cables continued, getting thicker as they went along, scaling the walls & ceilings of the tiny cavern. Every few tens of feet perched a speaker on a wooden pole, the dust sitting on their heads untouched for years. Eventually, the tunnel comes to a crossroad section, with the cables as splitting up, crossing each other as much as the floor of the cave network. Aside from the road we just came from, three others were present: straight on, right & left, although this one was blocked off by a rusted gate, a gate that looked in much more better condition than the wooden boards holding up the roof of the tunnel.

We paused here to decide our next move. In the dim light, I could make out a table & some chairs, unused for as long as the mine has been unused. On another table stood an old microphone, it’s own wire connecting with a system of other wires.

“That runs into the mines P.A. system. Do you think it still works?” Explains the cables, I suppose.

“Only one way to find out.” I leaned over the device, ready for my cue.

“Alright, give it a whirl.”

I cleared my throat. “Uh, is anybody down there?”

Silence answered. My voice was as quiet as normal. No amplification powered my voice.

“Nothing. Hm… Ah! There’s no power. Yeah, OK. Even when this mine was up & running it was tricky to keep stuff powered.” I said I was no electrician. Shining Armor continued his history lesson of the mine as he set to work getting the power up & running, cables being thrown about & put back into place in his wake.

“You know, the miners used to have to pay just to run the fans & the lights? Yeah, they got paid in these shitty plastic tokens – coal scrip, you know? & if you want to run the fans for a bit to clear the air up, well, you have to put a token in. My parents used to work here. I guess a lot of folks’ parents worked here…”

“Can we power it up?”

“I bet we just have to free up some power for the P.A. system. Everything is rationed. Here, set up that lamp of yours, & I’ll go unplug these ceiling lights.” He moved the untouched table towards the centre of the room & began to remove the bulbs.

In the light, I could finally get a good look at Shining Armor. He was around my age, & wore a striking white jacket with a pair of blue jeans that looked more of an antique than Granny Smith. Unable to think of anything to say, witty or otherwise, I cleared my throat, my nervousness getting the better of me even through that. The silence was then broken by the sound of the P.A. system blaring to life.

“I heard the speakers crackle a bit: it’s on now, right. Try something into the mouthpiece.”

I walked back to the microphone. “Well…”

We were hit by my own voice, the echo loud. Shining Armor was pleased. “OK, I hear you…” He pulled the device he’d shown me earlier & started fiddling with a few of the dials on its face. “We need to measure the echo time delay & figure out how deep the tunnels run. Just make some noises into the mouthpiece.”

Science was hardly my best subject in school, but I sort of understood the idea behind this plan. I rubbed my finger along the mouthpiece, the loud reverberations bouncing along the walls & ceilings. Shining Armor didn’t stop looking at the device. I hummed slightly, deeply. I moved it up into a whistle. Shining Armor’s device sprung into life, a sonar type sound protruding out of the tiny speakers on its back.

“Damn, that’s a long delay! These tunnels run deep. I bet some of them have ruptured or joined with a cave system.” He fiddled with the dials a bit more. “Alright, I set up my spectrum analyser, so just say something into the mouthpiece & we can get a sense of how narrow the main tunnels are. Don’t be shy, just say anything that comes to your head. Tell me a story about something – or what did you have for breakfast today? He looked excited for my part in this.

“Here’s a story.” The reverberations started again. “I used to work doing roof repair. We even fixed up a church roof once. It seemed like a big project, but doable. But I was too hung over & we ran late.”

Shining Armor nodded his head. “… Got it. Looks like the tunnels are pretty cramped… Yeah, low ceilings, hope you’re ready to stoop a bit. Eh, you’re probably used to it.” Admittedly, whilst I did slightly stoop normally, that was not because of actual stooping. Heavy lifting has it’s effects on the body.

He twiddled the dials once more. “One more test. We just need to know if the air is breathable, or if it’s too thin, or too dense. Just sit real close to the mouthpiece & breathe. I’ll measure the resonance of your breath with the air in the tunnels. Just try to relax. Try to breathe naturally.”

I calm myself down, & I close my eyes. Breathing as naturally as I can, I visually things. I think about the way that I sleep, the way that I rest & breathe in that time. I then think of myself, a younger version of myself, of how much fun I had playing in the fields out near our shop.

“Getting some pretty strong readings here. I think we’re in good shape, but keep at it for a minute!”

I continue my breathing, I think of a hot meal, a nice cold drink… I breathe a bit too heavily, a peal of feedback ripples through the cave, catching both of us off guard. I’m on my back when I notice the first rocks start to fall from the ceiling. What followed was darkness.