Good Clop, Bad Clop

The first indication that something was going wrong was when the internet dropped out. The way the network at my job worked, if the connection to the internet drops out, so does the local network, but the local network could also fail on its own. So after checking everything on site and finding it all working, I told the secretary who handles these things to call the ISP and find out what was going on. That’s when I found out that the phones were down too. I told her to give me the number and I’d call on my cell phone, only to find out that didn’t have any connectivity either. It was about that time that I started wondering if something bigger was going on, a terrorist attack or something, but the whole building just held together and hoped that things would start turning themselves on again. For about an hour we just sat and chatted or read books until the power went out too. Then you could tell that panic was starting to set in. It doesn’t take long for people to lose it, and it didn’t help when we saw the first of them flying overhead.

I still don’t really understand how ponies fly. I don’t know a whole lot about aerodynamics, but stick wings on a horse and you don’t get a bird, you get a horse with two useless limbs. But when you see a troop of horses in the air flapping their wings, then you start questioning what you know. At this point, Occam’s razor was moving off “terrorist attack” and on to “government hallucinogen experiment.” For what it’s worth, when you’re picking the most likely explanation for something, “Inter-dimensional invasion by intelligent, magical, flying ponies” doesn’t exactly come high on the list.

When a police car pulled into the office park with lights and sirens on, everyone started milling about hoping to get some answers. But the cop who got out was visibly shaken. He wasn’t even a local cop from Westchester county; he was NYPD, out of his jurisdiction. By the time I got within earshot, I had gathered from relays through the crowd that there was a major war on, that it was something no one knew how to deal with, and that every country on the planet was about to fall.

“The military issued orders to all local authorities to take over and keep the peace, because civil authority was failing. I’ve never heard of anything like it. All communication was cut off from Washington outwards, and when the army tried to mobilize on its own, well, some of the stories I heard just have to be rumors.

“One of them said that when they marched on NORAD in Cheyenne, the ponies I mean, that we fired everything we had—guns, cannons, missiles—and nothing phased them. They were like armored tanks. I heard that in air combat they fly faster and turn better than our fastest jets. One report said that they saw an explosion like a rainbow spreading out from a single point, and it took out their instruments. The reports from D. C. were the freakiest of all. Apparently the Pentagon was turned into a flower garden, the Washington Monument is now shaped like a spirally horn, and the president and the cabinet found themselves teleported to an island in the South Pacific, where they’re awaiting pickup from a Navy transport. Nothing can get in the air anymore, they own that territory.”

As if to confirm his last statement one of the increasingly frequent groups of flying ponies circled down and hovered over us. I could see the ridiculous colors of their hides and how each was marked with a different symbol near their back legs. If evolution was selecting for camouflage, then they must live in an acid fantasy. But for a freak show, nothing can compare to hearing one of them speak. It’s not natural to hear unaccented English from a pony.

“Attention all humans!” the leader of the troop said. “Every one of you is to proceed south to the major city there, which is now to be known as New Canterlot. There you will be housed and cared for until you can be assigned to productive work for your pony masters. Nopony will force you to go, but all of your infrastructure is being cut off, so if you expect any food or water, you’d better listen! You may use the vehicles you have here, but must abandon them at the bridges and walk onto the island.”

At the phrase, “pony masters,” the crowd started to get restless. There’s an ornery rebellious streak in even the most civilized of people, and we were transforming from a group into a mob. We began yelling threats at the ponies, calling them freaks and telling them where to stick their orders. Someone grabbed a stone and hurled it up, not coming close to the height needed to hit anything. By now I had reached the cop and saw going for his gun. I covered my ears as he drew and fired.

The bullets did have enough height to reach the flying ponies, but not the speed or accuracy. The leader dipped and dodged like he was in The Matrix and never came close to being hit. It did piss him off though.

“All right, some human thinks he’s pretty smart, let’s get ‘em, pegasi!”

They dove to the ground and we scattered, running for cover. As I ducked behind a car I saw them grabbing the cop in their hooves. He was screaming, panicked. I was scared that they were going to drop him to his death, but instead they mustered in the air and flew off south toward New York.

New Canterlot, my ass.

We were still a mob, but now we had no target to attack. With no one really suggesting it, we broke up and got in our cars and did exactly what the pony told us to do, head down I-87 toward the city. We had half-formed ideas about heading there to fight or heading there to investigate. All of us were struggling not to admit that we were heading there to surrender ourselves out of survival instinct. Traffic was backed up for miles, and we never even got close to the bridges before we had to abandon the cars and start walking. The ponies were now all over, both the winged ones overhead and regular ordinary ponies patrolling the streets. Well, ordinary except for the colors and talking and conquering Earth parts. None of us wanted to get too close to any of them, though I did see some small children who got away from their parents and looked on with more curiosity than fear. It was a forced march, a queue like at an amusement park, except that there was no thrill ride at the end.

After a couple of hours with nothing to do but walk and think I got close to the river. I was sick of walking and my feet hurt. Here the ponies were actually engaging with us and talking. I was both scared and curious as to what they were saying. Then I noticed that these ponies were different. They were unicorns, and that scared me even more. The line between fiction and reality was being blurred, and the world was ending. Wasn’t it supposed to wait until December to do that?

Finally I reached the front of the line, where one of the unicorns was directing us behind a wall. It looked to me like a dead end, but people kept going in, so maybe there was some way out I didn’t see. As I walked to the wall, the unicorn’s horn was glowing and a quill pen and paper were floating in midair next to him, ticking off tally marks. I stopped and stared at the horn until finally he spoke.

“Go on, get in there. We need you in groups of no more than one-hundred, there’s a good human.” He was patient at least, didn’t get angry. As I made it behind the wall I did see about one hundred people and five more unicorns in a circle around the people. After another dozen or so people joined our group, the tallying unicorn gave a high sign to the five surrounding us. Their horns glowed, and I felt a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I thought I was exploding. I seriously for a moment thought that they had set off some kind of bomb and I was about to die, just experiencing time distortion as my nervous system reacted. Instead the after-effects were a dissipating cloud of smoke, sparkly lights, and the sound of tinkling bells. But we weren’t on the bank of the river any more. We were in an office building, and I could see from the window that we were somewhere in uptown Manhattan. I couldn’t tell how many floors were above us, but there had to be at least thirty below.

The desks and cubicles had been emptied of everything that would have suggested an office, and the room was dotted with sheets, blankets, and pillows, some of which bore the logos or names of hotels. All in all, it was a fairly comfortable prisoner-of-war camp.

Two more of the ponies were there, big ones with no wings or horns, just a couple of tough bouncer-types that you could tell liked to work out. One of them said, “OK, all you humans, you’re going to sit tight here until we finish taking over and get to putting you to work. Pick a bed for yourselves and stay there. We’ll feed you shortly. If you have to relieve yourselves, come to the door one at a time and we’ll escort you. Don’t cause any trouble and we’ll all get along.”

They did come in with food soon after that. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a few canned goods. As I figured it, they were raiding grocery stores for the food just as they raided hotels for the bedding. Presumably the fresh stuff would run out quick and then we’d all be on canned rations. None of us asked about heating any of the food up.

As night fell, we broke up into smaller groups. I found myself talking with a national guardsman who was still in his camouflage uniform and an acne-ridden young fellow who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. We were huddled in the dark and talking in whispers. The guardsman was telling us more about the fighting.

“They were incredibly efficient. I mean, we’ve got troops all over the place, some even in places civilians don’t know about. It’s been that way ever since the War on Terror started. OK, so I get the call up from the governor, but we don’t get many orders after that because some of them have taken out his office. We all head to the armory at West Point, but there’s a troop of ponies on the river bank. So we’re engaging them, right? Only no, because every weapon we have is just gone. The armory is empty, the supply closets don’t have any ammo, even my sidearm is missing, just one minute it’s there and the next I’ve got a holster full of air. And the troop, like it knows, just turns and starts marching down the road. A minute later, a squad of the flying ponies comes overhead and says, basically, ‘Head to New York City or go upstate and starve.’ Well, we all have survival training and if we’re going to re-group and figure out how to take back the country, we can’t be listening to them, right? So we head north, but we don’t get a mile down the road before another troop shows up and kicks the road to rubble. Just like bulldozers, man. No vehicle’s getting across that, so it’s either start walking not knowing where we’re going, or drive south and reconnoiter here. I think a few of the boys are still out there, but most of us came with. I don’t know how many guards they have here, but at some point we’ll rush them and see if we can’t take this building back for starters. We’ll fight a war of attrition if we have to.”

“But what are they?” I asked. “How did they get here? Are they aliens? Some kind of half-human soldier bred by a mad scientist?”

“No one knows. But, and this is all second-hand, from what I heard they had help at the start. I mean people, regular people who were telling them where to go and who were the big honchos in Washington and London, Moscow and Paris. Gave them maps and stuff. So either they are in cahoots with some party, or there’s some traitors to the race.”

“Aw, jeez, I can’t believe that. People would sell out the whole of humanity to some easter-egg horses?”

“Like I said, it’s just what I heard, brother. Some other guardsmen said they saw people in with the ponies, smiling like they were on the winning side.”

“Well, fuck!” I said. “I don’t usually believe in the death penalty, but treason to all humanity? As soon as we win we need to find out who they are and make examples of them.”

The kid spoke up for the first time. “Yeah, you got that right,” he said, but it didn’t sound like his heart was in it.

For two days we were kept as prisoners. Nothing to do except eat and sleep and go mad. The guards didn’t watch us too close and I couldn’t see that they had any recording devices in the room with us, so we felt free to plan our escape, though there wasn’t much of a plan.

“As near as I can tell,” the military man was saying, “those two are the guards for a couple of the floors, maybe even the whole building. But we can’t take them head-on. Even if all of us tried to tackle them, they wouldn’t budge. But we can get past, I think. So here’s what we do. Next morning at breakfast, when they come in to feed us, everyone who can just rushes past and out into the hall. We all go to different rooms and call for the people there to flee. It’ll be just like a spore burst—anyone who makes it to a room releases a hundred others. If we can clear the building, plenty of people should be able to escape. Once we’re out on the streets, we can re-organize and figure out how to counterattack.”

At that point the kid got up to go to the bathroom, and since that meant the guards could see us, so we made like we were sleeping.

When the morning came, we were all on edge. The guards came in with the breakfast cart, and as they moved into the room made an announcement.

“Good news, humans. The last governments of humanity have fallen and that means the new order has begun. Some of you might even see your new ruler, Princess Celestia, fairly soon—“

“NOW!” I called, and all of us started running into the hall. But that was as far as we got. There was another pony there, and she was twice as large as the others. She had a coat of pure snow-white and was adorned with gold. And, first among the ones I’d seen, she had both wings and a horn.

I found myself unable to move, and I saw the others who had made it into the hall frozen and glowing with an eerie light. She walked toward us and we were forced back into the room. Then she spoke, and her voice had the projecting tone of one who was used to giving orders.

“I trust that we’ll have no more trouble out of this room, now. You should all learn to do as you’re told and stay where we put you. Which you’ll soon have an opportunity to do, as we’re ready to restart the farms, where you’ll all be put to work so that every human has enough to eat. And so that my ponies can take it easy, you’ll be overseen by one of your own.”

She walked over to the young kid, and I understood. “You did well to warn the guards, young brony,” she said to him.

I snapped. I found that I could move again and I tore after him enraged. “You son of a bitch! You’re on their side?! I’ll kill you!” I tackled him and got in one good right cross. I don’t know if I broke his jaw or not but he’d be issuing his trustee orders with slurred words, I made sure of that. I wanted to lay into him more but the guards pulled me off.

“Oh my,” said the big white pony. “I had thought that the military man was the leader of your abortive resistance. But it seems that you have most of the spirit.” She looked me over, then said to the guards, “Bring him to my chamber.”

I started to run, but one of the guards produced a rope and lassoed me, then bound my wrists. I was force-marched up the stairs toward the penthouse. I’m in fairly decent shape, but I don’t relish walking up forty flights. About halfway I said, “Guys, can’t we take the elevator?”

“First, shut up. And second, we’re cutting off all your unnatural inventions. You want to get up high, grow some wings.”

When we finally reached the top floor I was shoved into a suite that had been made over into an ostentatious palace, complete with throne. A few minutes later the white pony flew in through the window and sat herself on the throne. She said to the guards, “Thank you, you can go now.”

As they left, one of them chuckled and said to me under his breath, “Better you than me this time, human.” I didn’t know what he meant.

The door closed behind me, and I was still in an ornery mood, so I ran toward the pony, only to be held immobile again by her telekinetic horn-power.

“Ah, ah, ah,” she said, “None of that. We’re going to be very close, you and I.”

“Humanity will never stop fighting you. We’ll fight until either you leave or the last one of us is dead.”

“I’m sure you think that, but any wild stallion can be broken. And I will break you.”

“To what purpose? Why invade us? What did we ever do to you?”

“Shall I give you the propaganda answer? Shall I tell you that we will make your lives better, that we will cut your work days in half and eliminate the artificial problems that plague your lives, like debt, war, political oppression? Shall I outline our plan to bring you back in harmony with nature and restore your happiness at the same time? All of that is true, but such a spirited one as you will know it’s not the whole truth. We invaded because we want power, land, and workers. You will work less, but ponies will work none. The poorest pony of Equestria—you are assuredly so ignorant that you don’t even know where that is—will be a noble lord here with servants to do his bidding. And as for me, Princess Celestia, ruler of the world, I will have known that I have provided for my ponies, while relieving them of their toils. And I will also have humans to serve me, of which you are the first. Indeed, you are to serve in a most special capacity.”

Summoning all my aplomb, I tried to sound rebellious. “Just try it, bitch. I’m not going to do anything for you. What ‘capacity’ did you think you’d have me in, because it’s not happening?”

She smiled a devious and confident grin.

“Concubine.”