1 No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Ashes and Sackcloth
Chapter One: No Sleep Till Brooklyn

“So, what happened to this slob?”

I’m looking at the corpse of a man, maybe at the cusp of middle age, with a gaping hole in his crown. Doctor Harding, the lone medical officer in Ogilvie Station, was examining the dead man and making notes on his P-HAT, the portable, holographic, adjunct tablet that was popular fifty years ago for business professionals the world over. He gave me a quick glance, then typed in a few more notes before setting the pad down and removing his latex gloves.

“Poor sod was playing with his pistol,” he said, pointing out an aged, chemical propellant slug thrower, “dropped the fucking thing on the floor. Damn thing has no safety on it, so of course it discharges and cleans out poor, ole Dudley Donovan’s noggin clean out. I’ve been clearing fragments of the bullet for the last hour.”

“That poor son of a bitch,” I murmur, “civilian or military?”

“A civvie, Sergeant,” Dr. Harding told me, “of the plain and stupid variety.”

I nod, having met a few of those on my way here to the state of New York by way of Tallahassee. Or what was left of it. The Vultures had reduced that town into a slag heap, just before they moved their gargantuan nano-former machines over it. They never did get to terraform the place, thankfully. The Big Hit made that a certain impossibility.

“He got any family?” I ask.

“Nope,” the good doctor replies, “he was lastman in a party of fifty that made the trek up here. Came to see the ponies. Didn’t look like he had anyone.”

“I don’t know if that’s just luck or misfortune,” I comment, before looking over at the skeletal remains of another man, sporting a similar hole in his head, “same thing happened to him?”

The doc took a moment to look at the remains of the body I was talking about, “Nope, that unfortunate got hit by a Vulture Shock Lance.”

“Ouuch!” I exclaimed, “the poor fucker!”

“Eyup,” Dr. Harding adds, “that was what we found of him in the gullet of a Vulture shock troop. The bastard dropped when The Big Hit went down. Gut was still churning though; must still been digesting the poor fucker.”

“Sorry I asked,” I replied, feeling infinitely sorry. I had seen a number of my squad mates get gored through by the Shock Lances of Vulture shock troops. They weren’t really lances at all, but electrified barbs that settled on Vulture wings. A hot knife through butter would be the best analogy for how the lances would cut through human flesh.

“So, it’s true,” I continued, “the ponies are here, in The City?”

“That’s what I hear,” Doc said, “they’re moving me up to Midtown by morning. Ogilvie Station is getting shut down. I’m getting an escort across the Hudson, might be there by the afternoon. You heading that way?”

“Yeah, I am,” I said, “it’s about the only place where any sense of order seems to be. I figure of the ponies are as nice as the HAM radio reports are saying, then at least I can get a decent meal for my troubles and a soft bed to sleep in.”

“Sure beats sleeping in an old Army cot and fishing through MREs, doesn’t it?” Dr. Harding asks and I nod.

“Is there any way to Midtown on land?” I ask.

“Not really,” he answers, “everywhere else in the Hudson Exchange is teaming with Reavers. Almost lost more good souls to those cannibals then the Vultures. Why do you think I’m getting an escort?”

“Yeah, that would make sense,” I add, “fuck!”

That left me with but one option and I wasn’t really into it. I would need to find a tall building, if any were still left standing, and fly across the Hudson to get to Manhattan. Better still, I had to do it while navigating Reaver territory. Wonderful…

The Reavers are new to the scene. Just after The Big Hit, a lot of militias that were fighting the Vultures for the last fifty years disbanded. Some, like my group in the Southeast, settled into small communities and tried to raise whatever food the land could handle. It didn’t always work; The Vultures had done something to the land, saturating it with sodium or something, so a lot of ground was coming up infertile. Food shortages are plentiful.

In other places where militias were the only government in power, they tried to supplement meager ration supplies with “reconstituted protein.” i.e.: blended corpses. People eating them didn’t know the difference until the rations ran out; by that time, they gotten so used to the taste of human flesh, they started hunting others and consuming them. They overran the nascent militias in command and started gathering in bands as large as one hundred or more. People started calling them Reavers, after some ancient graphic novel concept.

In any case, they raid other human settlements, murdering innocents. I did hear a rumor once that a band of former militia members were going after the Reavers. I think they call themselves Belmont or something. Not something I would do; I’m just an old tech sergeant who strips down Vulture Basilisks for parts. Well, I used to do the for the Florida-Georgia-Carolinas Militia; I still tear down Basilisks, but now I do that to barter for whatever food and water I can get my hands on.

“By the way, Doc,” I begin, “you don’t have any need for some Basilisks parts, do you? I got some prime stuff.”

“Now that you mention it,” he starts, “If you got a sonic scalpel, I’d appreciate it.”

“A sonic scalpel, huh?” I say, “hold a mo.”

Searching around my satchel, I find the object, nothing more than a thin blade of titanium with a vibrating steel wire that rotates the length of the blade. I had just plucked out of a Basilisk I found toppled onto a abandoned house in Staten Island. I show him the blade and wait for his response.

“Hmm,” he muses, “quality blade, a full charge in the power pack, looks straight,” testing it out on a piece of Mr. Donovan, which cut a sizable chunk of the deceased skull off cleanly, “damn, boy, if this could cut the electrons of an atom off! You got yourself a deal. What do you need?”

“Some water,” I croak, “two gallons if you have that much. And some rations, preferably the beef and cheese or peanut butter and crackers. I’ve been living off of canned peaches and roast beef for the last month; if I see another roast beef MRE, I might get violently ill.”

I can hear the doctor guffaw as he reaches into a box labeled “FOOD, NON-PERISHABLE,” and he drags out a months worths of MRE packets. He places them on an empty surgical table while he fishes for some water. He comes up from underneath his laboratory sink with three liters of clear, iodine-treated water.

“Here you go, kid,” he says, handing me the supplies in a cloth rucksack, “you more than earned this. You kept me company for the last little while and even got me a new sonic scalpel. The last one fizzled on me last week. I don’t need these more now that this place is decommissioned.”

“Thanks a lot, Doc!” I cheer, placing my much needed provisions in my satchel, “are you sure you don’t me to spend the night? In case of those Reavers?”

“Don’t worry about it, Juno,” Dr. Harding says dismissively, “I’ve been safe here since The Big Hit. The blast doors could resist a Basilisk plasma cannon at full power for a standard hour; I don’t think those cannibals are going to be getting me anytime soon. And if those Solar Guards arrive tonight, they should be more than enough to handle some half-starved psychos with aluminum armor and iron hatchets.”

“You really think so?” I ask, “I haven't seen a real pony, let alone these alien- What do they call themselves?”

“Equestrians” The Doctor mumbled around the cigarette he was now smoking, “that’s what I heard. Said they come from a world where the Vultures destroyed their planet. Seem awful keen on helping us out.”

“Well, let’s hope so,” I say, “one group of marauding aliens was bad enough for one lifetime. I’d hate to be fighting another group of them.”

“From what I saw of their recon patrols,” Dr. Harding said, “I don’t think they're here to start anything. They look healthy, but they’re just as harried and weather worn as we do.”

We had a good laugh at that; the Vultures had come in on autonomous, aerial mobile weapons platforms that they called Basilisks. They also wore tightly woven titanium fiber armor coated in carbon-silicates. If they weren’t such murderous bastards, one would think of them as heroic soldiers of a gleaming, avian empire. If these ponies were as disheveled a lot as we were now, then God help them.

“Thanks for the vittles,” I tell the doctor, “I’ll be leaving now. Gotta see if I can make my way to the Hudson, get in the air, if I can.”

“You got wings, there, Juno?” he asks.

“In a way,” I answer, “managed to cobble together a working free flight airframe from various Basilisk parts. It’s heavy and flies slow, but it should get me across the river.”

Dr. Harding laughs but it doesn’t sound forced or derogative, “Good luck, kid. Maybe I'll see you in New Canterlot.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I reply, “so long!”

I give him a goodbye wave and then exit via the huge blast doors. They close behind me in a whine of rusted steel and atomically fused titanium plating. Even when I get three blocks away from Ogilvie Station, I can still hear the reverberating sound of the blast sealing shut, likely for the last time.

Avoiding the Reavers is one thing, finding a building tall enough along for me to glide off of on the shores of the Hudson River is another thing. The Vultures hated our architecture so much, that upon landing, they leveled almost all buildings in sight of their landings zones. Three quarters of Manhattan’s skyline was razed in a matter of minutes. Anything left standing has a high likelihood of being unstable or packed to the rafters with Reavers.

I thought back to my school days. I remember when I was four, the teacher showed us a picture of Berlin, Germany, circa 1945. The rubble of bombed out buildings, the corpses on the ground, the smoke filling the air, I remember it all. The recollection of that day comes to me because New York City now very much resembles post-World War Two Berlin. At least one hundred and fifty years have passed between then and now, but the comparison is uncanny. Most of the landscape is barren of anything upright; save for some debris and the few remaining street lamps, the land is barren. I don’t see how The Reavers can hide out here, given how desolate and exposed this place is. Maybe they hide in the sewers or in the old subway tunnels?

Well, if all went as planned, that wouldn't matter to me. I just need a building, preferably a tall one of a greater height than six stories, and then I could glide over the Hudson. With luck, a few thermals, and a burst of ions from the onboard engine, I could reach the wharfs of Manhattan Island. And it did appear that luck was with me. Standing in a pile of broken bricks and concrete was a lone apartment building. The front door had caved inward, but the fire escape on the side of the building was intact enough to let me climb my way to the fifth floor, wherein I scampered into a forlorn and empty apartment.

Walking the silent halls of the building brought a chill up my spine. While it appeared that the Reavers had not been this way, there was definite evidence of former lives lived here: a burned fashion doll, a badly sewn up teddy bear, a coffee table with several faded and yellowed books on it, the desiccated corpse of a dog. It was eerie, in that once, there were people here, living there lives and not fearing being eaten alive by Vulture Warriors.

After traipsing down several corridors, I managed to find my way to the stairs leading to the roof. The door to this stairway was sealed, a rusted padlock and chain keeping the door closed. I managed to force those open with a crowbar I found back in Charlotte, in the northern Carolinas. The door squeaked as I opened it, the rusted hinges protesting. Climbing the clean and evidently unused stairs, I begin to think of how life might have been before the Vultures showed. Then my mind gets turned to my first days on the battlefield, eleven years of age and frightened out my skivvies. I stopped thinking after that.

Like the entryway, the door to the roof is sealed by chain and lock. Unlike the entryway, though, this door was exposed to the elements. Large holes of rust have eaten most of the topmost door, the rest rusted through and weak. I kick my foot into the bottom half; it breaks like an over baked cookie. The chain and padlock offer no further resistance as I step out onto the roof.

The Hudson churned along sluggish, making its way through at least two or maybe three of the Five Boroughs. The building I was on was just close enough to the waterfront to ensure the river was always in view. No doubt that the building wouldn’t have this sight if other buildings had survived The War, but I didn't think anyone was around, or alive, to complain about it. I set my satchel, with it’s new provisions, on the roof. I rummaged around in it for several minutes, as the dying sun set, for my airframe. Once found, I began to strap it on around my chest.

This is where my luck had begun to run out. No sooner had the airframe been firmly lashed to my torso, did I hear the inhuman cry of a Reaver pack. It seems I stood out, alone on one of the last buildings in town. I couldn’t see them yet, but I was unwilling to take any chances. Strapping my satchel back on, I quickly made my way to the lip of the building. Eight stories down, five meters and closing was the largest pack of Reavers I have ever seen. There must have been fifty of them within line-of-sight and more were pouring out from manholes in the street. I needed to get off this building and over the Hudson, before the cannibals got here.

I tapped a button on the airframes harness; the wings spread out, hissing mightily on compressed air pistons. Once fully extracted, I turned back to the Hudson, it’s muddy brown surface lazing it’s way to the Atlantic. The cries of raving lunatics brought me from contemplation of the waterway. There’s nothing to it but the doing, so I put both of my feet on the lip- and fell.

In a moment, I was fully airborne, the wings of my airframe lifting me high above the ground and over the river itself. I chanced a look behind me to see I had missed death by mere seconds. Reavers were now pouring onto the roof of the building I just vacated. Their gaunt faces and gnashing brown teeth only served to make me hasten my glide across the river.

Halfway across the river, I received some company. The visor of my airframe indicated that I had contacts inbound, coming in from Battery Park. According to their profiles, they weren’t humans in airframes like me. Although, to be fair, an airframe like mine is rather hard to get, let alone build. Several minutes later, I was able to make out distant shapes on the horizon. Sure enough, they weren’t humans; they weren’t Vultures, either, even though they did have wings.

Soon, I was able to discern some detail of my presumed escort. They all wore gold, plated armor that, while tarnished, still gleamed in the dying light of day. They were uniformly white coated, with tails in monotone blue; their galea helmets showed a raised stripe of mane, also in monotone blue. They each wielded a modified Shock Lance, but none of those weapons were aimed towards me. As they began to pass me, at speeds that weren’t supposed to be possible with such little wings, I saw that instead of feet, their legs terminated in hooves. I had just gotten my first look at an Equestrian.

It wasn’t long, maybe thirty seconds at most, before they returned again, this time flanking me on both sides. The appeared in formation, six fliers spread out in a staggered line. The two at the top of the aerial column stayed well away from my airfoils wings. They seemed to be the commanding officer and adjunct of the squadron. I was proven right when the lead pony on my right tapped me on the shoulder.

Over the whistle of the wind, I heard the aviator shout, “Identify yourself!”

Shouting back, I replied, “Tech Sergeant Juno, under Perry, One-Oh-Eighty-First!”

The aviator nodded and spoke with their wingman. After a brief conversation, the commander spoke again, “We’re taking to our hospitality station in South Ferry. We’ll get you looked over by our medical team; afterward, if you’re cleared, we’ll see about getting a meal at the mess hall and maybe a bed in the hostel. It may be small, but it’s warm and comfortable.”

“It’ll sure beat sleeping on the ground!” I say, “I may have forgotten what a bed feels like.”

Author's Note

This story was inspired by an awesome dream I had the other day. I started writing it up as soon as I able to get back online. There's a lot of back story I have planned and alluded to but have yet to write it. That background work will get filled in as necessary. In any case, I hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment.