Equestria Route Zero

Act Two, Scene Two – Lunar Church

I've never been great with injuries. Had I'd ever injured myself in fixing up the truck & moving a large piece of furniture, I would keep it away from my family, Applejack especially. As soon as she heard of any sort of injury from any one of us, she would start to panic & attempt to do everything herself while keeping us all out of her way because we could be a liability to the business if we attempted to work while injured. Usually whenever I injured myself, she would panic the most & run herself ragged trying to do all these deliveries & pick ups & try to maintain the actual store itself. Dependable is a quality I would attribute to my sister, but she does out-do herself one too many times, & not necessarily for the better.

Before us stood a tall quadrilateral structure, built out of a series of storage lots stacked on one another. No curves or any circular shapes could be seen on the building as we drove up & stopped just off the road in front of it. At its feet, some stairs grew out from the ground, leading to a central floor. We followed the steps, & on arrival to the floor, two storage containers were open, one leading into the depths of the building, another looking like a disused shop window. In that one, a man was busy painting over the wall behind the counter of the old shop. Looking around, each lot was divided by a thick steel pillar, a light suspended to each one.

“Is that it... over there?” Shining Armor said, pointing towards the first open lot. The hum emanating from the darkness probably suggested otherwise.

“I don't see any congregation.” With a building like this, I couldn't see how this could be a church.

“Maybe it's after hours. Let's see what that guy knows, I guess.” Following his gaze, we moved towards the lonely man, our footsteps echoing off the floor & into the cave system.

“Ah! Here for the night mass?” The man asked unexpectedly.

“Where's the congregation?” I asked. He turned to face us, shaking his head with glee & a small bit of laughter.

“I guess this must look pretty strange: a church without a congregation. When they first moved in here, man, this place was packed. They had a mass every night, two on Sunday.” He continued on with his work. “But it got a bit awkward to fit everyone in, & the numbers quickly dwindled. Once folks started to see it as a thing that was falling apart, they lost their centre of gravity, & they just started... wobbling... Then the preacher stopped coming too, but he left his old tapes. Same with the organist. & I found some old acetates in the Bureau archives, photos of people in churches. So I keep it running.”

Turning back to us, his face now carried a more solemn look. “You do what you have to, right?”

“Right now we have to find some Bureau documents.” Shining Armor pointed out.

His face changed once more, a more inquisitive look this time. “Oh, you're from the Bureau. I moved all those documents to unit C315, to make room for the mass. It's down at the other end of the building. Same floor. I need to get the night mass started, but you can borrow my keys.”

He held out a small key chain covered in roughly twenty keys of various shapes & sizes. I made to grab them but Shining was quicker.

“I'll go, you wait here. Rest your leg, you're looking kind of pale.” & with that, he left following the floor around the storage containers.

“Nice bloke.” I nodded my head in friendly agreement with the man. “Well, I'd better get this running.”

From behind the shop counter, he pulled up an old tape machine, with various wires & cables trailing out of it to somewhere else. Upon setting it up to his requirements, he pressed the play button. A few seconds later & homily music began to play, it's tune filling the air quickly, drowning out the humming noise.

“Is your whole family religious then?” I said for the sake of conversation.

“Oh, no. We're not religious. I just watched & listened while the congregation did all this stuff, &... I probably don't understand as much of it as you might think. Anyway, I know how to run the overhead projector & the tape player. At least I know enough to keep it going, right?”

Again, I nodded my head in agreement. I turned my attention back to the tape player, listening in to the words of the preacher.

“On this day, we celebrate with the feast of the worker of the world. &, on this day, other workers are also celebrating, workers who do not attend mass, or even like it, even workers who do not attend a Church at all, but who toil with clarity, with dedication, with perspicacity, who do as we do here in our Church, inasmuch as they reflect the activity of the Creator. As we do, they cultivate the earth, &, at sundown, they call the fruit of their labour 'very good'.”

I bent down slightly to rub my injured leg. “My leg is killing me.” The man laughed again ever so slightly.

“I bet everyone's telling you to see a doctor. Hey, I get it: too expensive. My dad cut his arm pretty bad on a job, but he stitched himself back up because we didn't have health insurance. But then his hand didn't work very well, & he got pretty depressed, & he eventually just sort of...” His voice trailed off as if the memory put him off talking about it. He cleared his throat & continued. “Well, I guess I don't know what he should have done. Who knows, right?”

“So, this is like a... hobby?” I asked.

“If you asked me what my hobbies were, I'd say 'card games, science fiction & perspective geometry'. But I run the slideshow, & I play the tapes, & I don't get paid for it. I take it pretty seriously, but nobody's telling me I should. Is that a hobby? Seems like their ought to be a more serious word for it.” He stopped talking for a moment & the homily tape stopped, & the humming of the building returned. “OK, that's it. Next, there are some rituals that you & I aren't allowed to participate in, I don't think. & I don't remember them anyway.”

My turn for a small laugh now.

“Hi. Got it.”

I turned around to see Shining Armor standing behind me. I never even heard his footsteps. “Got what?”

“What? I found what we came here to get. The file on street name changes.” He held aloft a small blue folder marked 'Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces'' & moved closer to me. “You don't look... good. Let's get back to the Bureau & get this straightened out. & then maybe we should go see that doctor the clerk recommended.”

Shining Armor took a hold of my arm, helping support me as we began descending the stairs. That was when the lights went out. The cave suddenly became pitch black. A cacophony of noise followed suit, & I was on the floor again, my leg crushed. In the distance, I heard a voice.

“Big Macintosh! Are you alright? What the hell.”

Weakly, I said “I'm OK.”

“I've got you. You're alright. Shit, your leg is pinned. I'm going to pull you out; we have to get you out of here. There you go, OK. Are you hurt? Can you put any weight on that leg?”

“It's all messed up.” My head began to spin.

“Here, let's get you onto the tram. There you go. Now, let's see if this thing has power.”

I opened my eyes slowly, bright lights from every angle hurting my gaze. Above me stood both Shining Armor & the man who played the homily tape. Shining was busy tapping the side of my head.

“Hey, old man. Look at me. Can you hear me?”

“What happened?” asked the man.

“I don't know. He collapsed. I think he blacked out – he was mumbling about the old mine for a minute. The old mine where we met.”

“I think I need to see that doctor.” I said weakly, trying to get up.

Shining Armor stood up from his crouching position. “Yes, you do. How do we get to this address from here?” He gave the doctor's card to the man for inspection.

The man shook his head. “Um, I don't know. It's pretty tricky going back & forth between... you know: here & there.” He gave the card back. “The Bureau's the only way I know. Some of those folks do it all the time. 'Commuters'. Just go back the way you came. Find the crystal, & then turn around.”

Shining Armor thanked him, & he helped pick me up from the ground. The way down the flight of the stairs was longer than I remember going up. We left the church, & headed back on the road.