Neighfair Command Center

If I’ve learned anything in a week, one thing comes to mind right off the bat. Neighfair and Chicacolt are like night and day… You see, I look out over the river and I see the crumbling skyscrapers, burnt out buildings and rubble strewn across the banks of the river that the city took its name from. But Neighfair is something else. It’s old, sure, but it’s held up incredibly well over the centuries. In essence it’s a picture of a past that died in smoke and fire.

But it's not the river that’s the border. If anything all it does it muddy where that line sits. The wreckage of the Chicacolt takes that border and twists it; on one hand the front half of the ship appears pristine after the steam-cleaning it received after the boilers blew… But on the other hand it’s sticking straight up out of the riverbed, bobbing around in the choppy water of the Chicacolt River.

But none of that has been a bother. Instead I’ve been questioning morality for the last week. You see I’ve been raised to regard all life as precious and full of value, regardless of appearances. Yet I found it easy to sacrifice one pony simply because he was in a position of convenience to my goals; that single action flies in the face of how I’ve been raised… And while I should feel like shit I don't. Instead I feel at ease regarding the course of action that I followed, and that is simply terrifying. So once more I find myself staring out of the dirty windows lining the command center hoping to have an epiphany that will vindicate my decisions.

So far, however, those answers haven’t been forthcoming. What did come to me was a simple realization; I’m being watched.

“You’re still upset about Spark.”

I turned and leaned against the window, turning my attention to the old stallion who had apparently decided to join me. “What do you got for proof Gramps?”

In response Gramps pulled out a small black notebook. “Your journal.” He retorted, tossing me the small book. I turned the book over in my hands, having only found it and its blank pages in a storeroom the day after Spark gave up the ghost for my sake. “It seems you’re more honest with that little book then everyone else around you.”

“Can you blame me?” I snapped. “In my experience I can’t expect for someone to be there when I need to vent.”

Gramps mulled over my words for a few moments before he silently surrendered and took a place next to me at the window. “You’re right… Damn, I’ve had three years to get ready for this conversation and I still don’t know what to say.”

“Then keep it simple.”

“I’m sorry.” Gramps sighed. “I should’ve come back sooner to make sure you were alright… Hell, I even convinced your parents that going back for you wasn’t a good idea. We left thinking you would be fine and I came back to a bitter and cynical young colt. And then I got shot when those humans grabbed you and didn’t get back up to help you.”

“Can I back up for a second?” I asked.

“Sure, go right ahead.”

“You got shot!” I insisted. “Who said you had to get back up?”

“It’s my standard.” Gramps retorted. “I’m gonna stay down unless everything else that’s important to me is taken care of.”

“At least we still agree on that.”

Gramps offered a curt smile as he seemed to relax. “At least we do.”

The two of us just stood for a few minutes before I finally decided that it was too quiet. “You don’t know what else to say.”

“Nope.” Gramps replied. “But I’ll bet you don’t know what else to do either.”

“And you’d be right.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

“Honestly?” I wondered aloud. “I’m tempted to beat that cocky grin off your face.”

Gramps nodded at that. “And you’d be well within your right.”

“I know I would be. It’s just you did a good job on teaching me to respect the concept of ‘time and place’... And I do still need your help dealing with this Enclave clusterfuck.”

“Dusk, leave the logistics and planning to Jericho, Specter and Kovac.” Gramps said. “You just make sure they’ve got the ponies to pick up the guns when the time comes.”

“See, that’s the hard part.” I replied. “Who do you go to? It doesn’t seem right to go to Patch and ask for a chunk of her security staff.”

Gramps must’ve known something, judging by the smirk plastered across his face. “I’ve been doing some research into the salvage yard that the Chicacolt was laid up in, and it looks like they had airships regularly come in with old and worn-out equipment. If one was on the ground when the bombs fell it could be made airworthy-”

“And we could arm it as a gunship.” I said as I cut Gramps off.

“Exactly.” The old stallion said as his wry smile grew more defined. “Kovac already gave us a Vertibuck to take us there. We leave in twenty minutes.”

“I can live with that.” I said. “I’ll go find-”

“No.” Gramps said, taking his chance to shoot down my idea. “We can’t risk everyone right now, there’s just too much work to do to get the stuff here working. It’s just you and me that are checking out the yard.”

“You and me?”

Gramps nodded. “You know it. Besides, didn’t you just say you needed me?”

I offered my own smirk in return. “Damn... You still know how to get me on-board for your little side trips.”

“You’re right.” Gramps pointed out as he pushed away from the window. “But you haven’t changed as much as you think.”

“Oh really?”

“Really.” Gramps added. “So are you coming? I’d figure you’d want to try and prove me wrong at some point.”

***

Somewhere northeast of Chicacolt

“Are you sure you don’t know why it went to some small scrap joint?” I yelled over the pulsing noise of the Vertibuck’s blades.

“I’m positive.” Gramps called back. “There’s nothing in the records to say why some yard called Nuts and Bolts got the ship. The records about them I’ve dug out suggest they didn’t have the equipment to even break the Chicacolt up. And here’s the kicker. The navy sent a shit-ton of bits with every hold order.”

“If I’m following this right, it sounds like the Navy officially sold the Chicacolt for scrap… But was really paying to keep her stored on private property?”

“You got it.”

“Then how the hell did the navy get away with it?” I asked.

“Even back home they’ve always had a bit more leeway than any other branch.” Gramps replied as the helicopter shuddered and the doors slid open. The two of us hopped to the hard gravel below the doors and stood looking at the yard office until the beating of the Vertibuck’s propellers became nothing but a quiet companion to the lifeless expanse of ground. “But even I’ve got to admit that keeping an obsolete cruiser hidden from the bookkeepers is a bit much.”

“There’s a lot a bits to keep track of in the budget.” I retorted. “I can’t be that hard to hide a bunch of bits.”

“Maybe in the middle of a war it would be.” Gramps pointed out. “But the Chicacolt got laid up a decade before war even broke out. You can’t expect me to believe that the navy could hide major expenditures of bits on a monthly basis during a time when they’re probably not spending jack shit. Even the worst accountant would see something was up.”

I made my way over to the office door and tried the knob. It turned with little resistance and I pushed the door inward, revealing a dust-covered desk by the entrance. While covered in grime, there wasn’t a sign of any other clutter or disorder. And now that I think about it, the windows are still in one piece.

“Something else Dusk?”

“Two centuries and some change, no sign of looters?” I said, pointing at the grime-covered windows and then the desk. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right.” Gramps muttered. He walked past me and ran his finger along the edge of the desk, revealing the shiny lacquer that hid beneath the surface. “And two hundred years of grime shouldn’t come off that easily. Someone’s been here… Might not have been recent, but it was recent enough.” He said as he walked around the desk. He looked over the surface for a moment before he slid open the center drawer, and I was drawn to the shiny pistol he pulled out.

“Who the hell keeps a polished sidearm these days?”

“No clue.” Gramps dropped the magazine out and slid it back in as he started looking over the texture on the grip. “This is an officer’s pistol. Works fine, but it was never used…”

“Alright, let’s back up.” I insisted. “We’ve got an untouched building outside a major metropolitan center. Now you find an untouched and unused military sidearm in the front desk? Gramps, I got a news flash for you. Nothing here makes sense!”

The old stallion nodded in agreement and put the pistol back in the desk. “We need to see if there’s any records here that are still readable.”

“I’ll check out back.” ‘Out back’, as it turns out, used to be a garage if the roll-up door is any giveaway. But instead of carriages or shelves loaded with tools there were crates and filing cabinets spread among five neat rows. I tried opening one of the cabinets, but the drawer held fast. I kept moving down the middle row trying the latches as I went and found similar luck. I finally made it to the crate at the end. I flipped up the handle and tried to pick it up only to rip the handle off instead. “What the hell?” I got down on my knees and ran my finger on the underside of the lid, feeling around for some sort of release.

Instead I ran my fingers across a smooth section of what felt like glass. I heard a beep, then a latch unlock and the top of the case popped up. I opened it expecting to find papers… But found a large red breaker that came through the bottom of the case. I glanced over at the lid and saw the glass that I had felt. It covered a small black casing fitted in where the latch should’ve been located. A bundle of wires ran out of it, along the side of the lid, down the back of the case and into the floor next to the breaker. “It’s a fingerprint scanner…” I muttered. “So then what does this go to?”

I yanked the breaker up and threw it across it’s travel lock. It took a few seconds, but the file cabinets that wouldn't budge began to slide into the floor one after another until they formed a staircase leading down to a heavy bank vault door. As I stared into the room below Gramps stuck his head out from next to one of the ‘steps’. “Did you do that?”

“No, it was my evil twin.” I replied.

Gramps rolled his eyes and waved me on down as he made his way over to the vault door. “I know I’m getting old and all, but I think we’re well in the realm of weird.”

As I studied the door I saw another fingerprint scanner, but instead of being hidden it was built into a panel on the wall. “Watch this.”

“Watch what?” Gramps asked.

I started with my thumb, but the scanner flashed red. I could almost feel the stare burrowing into my skull as I pushed my index finger onto the scanner. It flashed red twice before changing to a solid green, followed immediately by the whirring of tumblers as the vault locks came undone. “That.”

“Well… You can open a secret vault with your fingerprint.” Gramps muttered. “I’m not liking this at all.”

The door the vault finally swung open and revealed a rusty elevator door. “You and me both.”

While the door was rusty, the elevator car most certainly wasn’t. Sure there were some papers in the far corner, but the pale blue-navy blue paint combo was as spotless as the day it was first rolled on. I stepped in behind Gramps, and watched him hit the down arrow before… Well, nothing. You’d figure the doors would at least close.

“So how about that weather?” I asked, sounding as innocent as possible.

Gramps shrugged and hit the button again, and stayed silent as the door slid shut. Split by the doors was a logo of an anchor sitting in a snow pile. “I’d say it’s good enough to break out the sandals.” At least he’s still got a sense of humor…

“Lets be serious for a minute.” I interjected. “What do you think the logo means?”

“The anchor is the navy logo.” Gramps pointed out. “I just don’t know about the snow... Could be a cold storage facility and someone got a bit artsy.”

“Then who gets creative in the navy?”

“...Alright, good point. Our navy is full of a bunch of stiffs.” I heard a ding and the door slid back. The lights started flickering before they finally lit up a foyer in a pale white light. The walls weren’t painted in the same navy colors; there were polished steel girders and cleaned concrete that made up the walls of the room.

While clean, the foyer was completely empty. No desks, chairs, cabinets, or decorations. But there was a windowed bulkhead in the far wall and some dripping pipes hanging from the ceiling. “Who puts a window in a bulkhead?” I thought aloud.

“No clue.” Gramps replied.

thunk thunk thunk

“You hear something?”

Gramps nodded. “Damn right I did.”

thunk thunk thunk

I swung the shotgun off my back and clicked on the tactical light. “Want to place a bet?”

“Will someone just get me out of here?”

“Oh shit…” I muttered. “There’s someone down here.”

Gramps looked around the room before his gaze settled on the bulkhead. “Something tells me that ain’t a door.”

As we got closer to the door I took some notice of the window. At first glance it appeared to be frosted glass, but I noticed the crystal pattern that came along with ice. “Son of a bitch… Is that what I think it is?”

Gramps went right to work on the glass and had it cleared in a matter of seconds. “Porter?”

“Of course it’s a cryo-” Wait, he didn’t answer my question. “Who the fuck is Porter?”

“Dusk, Meteor? You’re both still alive?”

“How does he know who I am?” I asked.

“Porter, just sit tight. I’m gonna get you out.” Gramps said, trying to sound reassuring. “Dusk, you’ve got more experience with cryo pods. Would there be a manual release?”

“How would I know?”

“Right…” Gramps muttered. “Cover your eyes Porter!”

Now I know Gramps is a strong stallion. But to watch him start blasting a bulkhead with magic and then peeling it back like it was a sardine can is high on my list of shit that I don’t expect to ever see.

“Dusk, watch out!” Gramps yelled. He flung the door back and made a crater in the wall with it.

While I was distracted he reached in and hauled out a stallion wearing a black wetsuit-looking thing that clashed against his canary-colored fur and red mane. “How do you know this guy?”

The stallion looked up at me with a weird look stuck on his muzzle. “Dusk, did you hit your head or something?”

“Look, Porter… We got a lot to talk about.” Gramps said, trying to pull a reassurance act.

“If you say so boss.”

“Wait, boss?” Now that I think of it I called Gramps that when I was little… “It couldn’t be.”

“Dusk? Look, I know how things seem-”

“How they seem?” I retorted. “There’s not ‘seem’ to deal with here.”

“Dusk, please-”

“No, fuck you!” I yelled. “I’m the only one who ever called you ‘boss’.”

“Well I got it from you Dusk.” Porter added. “I just don’t see what the problem is.”

“Of course you don’t see the problem.” I spat. “Gramps you bastard, you fucking replaced me!”

Author's Note

See, that's the truth that hurts. Getting replaced by a family member who you at one point idolized. That's Dusk's problem right now. Sure he's conflicted but he'd have never thought Gramps would've replaced him. So next chapter the good General will have some explaining to do. From there we'll see more of our "cold storage" facility, find out who Porter is and why he's been on ice for so long, and start our trip to the frozen north.

In the meantime, anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker