Apocalypse After Us

I was so tired.

Every night I kept waking up in a cold sweat, feeling my sore muscles as the broken springs in my bed made my spine ache. Sure, I could have asked somepony to go to any spare room and drag an undamaged bed for me, but...

I just did not want it.

The cool dry air from the vent above blew my coat, forcing me to huddle myself even more in the already cold room.

The faster concrete walls of this place emptied, the harder they weighed down upon my mind. Before, there were about fifty inhabitants in this part of the block. Now it was just me and the echo ringing out here every night at the same time as I made my way towards the powder room.

Only a few places in the block had functioning lamps. The locals had to replace burnt-out ones with whatever they could—or, to be more specific, with old incandescent light bulbs produced in Stalliongrad. They were large and shone very brightly. And they were sort of nice warmers in the absence of central heating.

I had decided to take a different path; thankfully, nopony paid attention to what a lone mare was doing here.

I had replaced the lamps in my residential part with twinkling fairy lights. The illumination they provided was poor, but lovely.

Reaching out my hoof in the half-light, I felt the cold metal of a tap. There were two taps, but I never noticed the difference between them as both gave me clean ice-cold water. I had no idea why the water pipe in this place had been working so far. Maybe they just forgot to redirect water to some other place, or maybe they just did not want to see us more often than they had to. Who knew? I was happy we still had water in our rooms and fresh food in the cafeteria.

I was also fond of the fact that no-one came to see me. Even though I did not like loneliness, it was the most preferable choice now.

I took a half-empty bottle of medical alcohol from under a sink and poured a little bit over the old dirty handkerchief which I used as a rag to wipe the mirror.

The mirror was always clean. But just as I ran the rag over the smooth surface, I felt a bit calmer. Perhaps I was going crazy. Or had already lost my mind over the past year. I did not know.

After cleaning the mirror, I returned everything to its place. I put the plastic bottle under the sink and threw the rag on its edge, just to be able to repeat the whole process again next night.

When I put my hoof under ice water, I felt for some reason only how badly I was tired, the feeling instantly sweeping over me. Anyway, it would be no more the moment I went back to bed.

I finished washing and hastily wiped my face with a piece of a velvet curtain, once hung in a cinema hall and used by me for all manner of things, then made my way to a workshop, which was that very cinema hall.

And I could not help but feel that I was not alone tonight.

Today the cafeteria was less crowded than yesterday. Two or three ponies were out of sight. I did not know them, but I could work out how many ponies were left in the block.

Where once were five hundred ponies, now it was only eleven left. Except those who had already been off for their rooms, I saw eight or nine in the cafeteria. I was not counting myself; in fact, I did not even exist in a formal sense. Few ponies remembered me here. Maybe somepony in another block, but... Who cared?

Today they served the same thing as yesterday. As the day before yesterday. As the day before the day before yesterday…

I stared at my tasteless Shangai cabbage. Tough like rubber and smelling like old socks. Yum yum.

The remaining ponies dined at the last of long tables, which all had been brought outside and adapted to the needs of the community. There was never any talking or even chewing noises during lunch, breakfast or dinner. The dead silence, bereaved even of the scratching of spoons and forks on ceramic bowls, hung over the cafeteria just as in every corner of the three-storey block. Each of those who sat here tried to eat his portion as quickly as he could and crawl back into his quiet private space, hiding away from the others. Somepony spent his time scrabbling strange philosophical monologues about the meaning of life on the walls, somepony tried to make something useful—like a boiler, for example, to make at least one tap stream hot water. Otherwise, you always had to heat water up, but the voltage was applied only on certain days, usually in three or four hours at night. Of course, you might be satisfied with cold baths, but anypony would agree there was nothing pleasant in it.

There always was nothing to do. I used to have a friend who brought books. Lots of books. But it was so long ago…

However, he was not the only one who brought me something. Cans of paint, brushes or something like that would appear near the far wall every time they brought us food. The most important thing was to make sure that it appeared as if by chance without attracting anypony’s attention, even if others were absolutely indifferent.

Usually I left a note where I wrote about what I needed. And usually it was brought to me. The half-empty cans with remains of paint on the bottom, the dried-up brushes which I had to soak in a solvent for a long time, the different fabrics (sometimes in pretty good condition and untouched by moths) and stuff like that.

I needed all of these. Had I already mentioned that it was a terribly boring place?

“...’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!”

A creak of the door came from the auditorium, making me bounce back towards the dressing room. The moment I managed to make out a pony that in the dark looked like a stallion, I was glad I did not grease the door hinges.

Before the stranger who, like a bolt of the blue, had emerged here late at night could shout something to me, I was already barricading in the dressing room as I tore off my homespun dress. I myself sewed it from different fabrics: some part of it was the velvet curtains of the cinema hall, which was also a theatre at the same time, some part the denim which had once been a pair of old jeans. A stench of engine oil and petrol, as well as a slight smell of bedbugs, stank out the entire affair.

If it was one of the ponies I thought of, my barricade in the form of the old latch would not keep him out for long. However, it would not take me too long either. I just needed to change into more decent clothes.

My night visitor did not start to break down the heavy metal door, but instead loudly knocked three times. How odd. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you!” he cried. “It’s just—”

“What are you doing here at two o’clock?!” The dress was a miserable sight now: all ragged, crumpled. I had spent a whole week making it match my role somehow, but now...

I thought I was growling in anger. But the pony who came here certainly did not hear it. “Well, I could ask the same question to you!...”

“Take five steps from the door!” I cried to him and slightly opened the door. The stranger had really moved away; it seemed to be more than five steps, actually. The space was lit only by candles placed on the stage and a kerosene lamp inside the dressing room, but the latter was now behind me and did not allow me to see the face of the visitor. He could not see mine either. “For the love of goddesses, don’t you shout. Are you new here?”

“Excuse me dear, Miss! I’m very sorry, I swear,” he lowered his voice to a half-whisper. “I just have been watching you for a while—”

“You’re stalking me!” I hissed.

“No no, why would I!” he began making excuses. “I just live next to you, it’s a couple of rooms over there.”

“It doesn’t change anything! Besides, you owe me a new dress!”

“Speaking of your dress!” The pony immediately dragged in a new topic. “It’s amazing! I mean, to sew stage clothes from such materials and to make it look like the one worn by…”

What a flatterer. I did not mind him going on. After all, there was nothing wrong with me standing here in a dark hall at night and listening to praise from a perfect stranger, yes?

“Your acting is not bad, I must say.”

“Not bad?” I felt offended for some reason. Very offended!

“Well, you see, you still have not enough charisma for the role. You’re a mare while it is supposed to be played by a stallion. However, you have played very well for a mare, let me tell you! Even the grim is fitting!”

“How long have you stood there?” I pulled up the lamp to me and slowly began to work around the pony, trying to keep him within eyesight. The stranger stayed in shadows as if afraid of showing something. “An hour? Two? You know, it’s very improper to stand and stare at a defenceless lonely mare who tries to play one of the great and eternal classical monologues so late.”

“Mea culpa. But...” He made a step forward, only that the lamplight allowed me to make out the outline of his body. “I just couldn’t interrupt something so lovely.”

The exit now was behind my tail. My night visitor seemed to be aware of this and was trying to hold me somehow a little longer before I could vanish in the darkness. I did not know why he had decided to engage with me—but, frankly speaking, I did not want to know. Now I would have to look for some new place thanks to him, and I was not very happy about it. “Lovely?”

“It is of scarce occurrence to perceive somepony doing something with such dedication.”

Oh, he was a rascal indeed. But what flattery — horrid and terrible and loathsomely bloated, all-embracing, of a truly cosmic scale — flattery! What immoral and wicked pony one must have been to use flattery when conversing with a mare who had spent six months without any conversations! He literally forced me to stop dead and listen to him! My hatred was immense!

“Look, I know you have no reason to listen to me and talk to me... But maybe I can earn your trust somehow.”

“Why would you want my trust? It’s the first time we have met. The first and the last, luckily to us both.” I had to keep it together and resist his cheap tricks. For you know what would happen next? First we were to start talking, then to visit each other, then to become friends... Bleurgh!

“Your trust and friendship. Don’t you want to share your secrets with somepony as I do?”

“No. I don’t,” I tried to make my voice as persuasive as possible.

I remained in place, but he stepped close. “I think it is just impossible for me to believe you.” He seemed to be an earth pony one and a half as large as me. But I could swear the light did not let me see anything but his damned outline and body shapes. I was just talking to a shadow. Maybe I was crazy after all. “If you did not want to talk to someone, would you talk to me? You could go back to your apartment five minutes ago…”

“Okay, I give up. You win,” I sighed, and somewhat bizarre fatigue fell over my shoulders as soon as I had admitted that I needed to speak with someone. I, like, used to admit it when I read old books on mechanical engineering and thermodynamics during sleepless nights time and time again, but I could always convince myself that I would live without it. This was... weird. This was like the feeling of defeat after a long, hard, but still meaningless struggle. No anger, no rage, just fatigue. Had this Discord of a pony had to come here?!

“I know you won’t accept my friendship for nothing. It would be unfair of me. All in all, I stalked you, scared you and... What is in my power to do for you to start trusting me just a little bit? Look, I’d really like to be friends with you.”

“For me?” I was so puzzled at the question that I found myself putting the lamp aside and sitting down on the floor in deep thought. “Hmm, what you can do.”

“I cannot promise you to get a star from the sky or move mountains,” he chuckled. “But I surely can give it a try.”

“Keep your jokes, please. You’re only confusing me.”

“Does a pony of such wide interests like you have no problems that a pony like me could resolve?”

“Jokes and flattery.”

“Sure, I’m silent,” he replied with a shade of resentment in his voice.

There sure as hell was a lot of things that I’d wanted to get. Hot water, a five-star hotel suite in the Manehattan downtown, universal recognition, a special somepony who was also a DJ on the radio, and much of the other stuff granted to main characters in all sorts of stupid pulp fiction for mares which I’d been reading. So what? They may serve not the best food for reflection, but I too had not the widest range to pick from: either those or sex magazines (where did they get it, to start with?!) or volumes on applied physics.

“You know what? I think I know what you can do for me. This is certainly a bold request, but you have said I can demand anything.”

“Oh, don’t you torment me with suspense.” I wished I knew why every phrase he spoke sounded so bookish. I guessed one reason why ponies might speak like that, but I did not think he had been reading the great playwrights and poets for weeks before he started stalking me. “What is that you want? To bring the joy of love and tolerance upon everypony? To end up it all with sunshine and rainbows? To see the Second Coming of Celestia?”

“I told you to stop being fancy!” I huffed at the stallion. “No, I’m going to ask you for something really extraordinary. Those things you said — they’re just petty whims any filly from underground can handle in two months. But me? I got planned for you an important and dangerous mission full of adventure, pitfalls, pipe dreams and…”

For a moment I thought he smiled. Not that I had seen it plainly, but I could swear I felt it with my gut!

“You do have affection for jokes as I do, don’t you?” he asked.

“A force of habit from my profession, I guess...” I knew he tried to distract me with questions again. Scoundrel. “Nevermind, let’s be back to business.”

“I’m all ears,” he said in a suddenly serious voice.

“I need strings.”

A dead silence cloaked the hall, broken only by the slight humming of the air conditioner.

He seemed to give a neighing laugh. “Oh, you do?”

“Machine-made. G and A, though it would be nice to replace the whole set. My electric guitar is many years old—”

“Good. I’ll come to you tomorrow at the same time and give you strings. A whole set.”

“And what if you don’t come back?”

“Consider me a liar, a scoundrel of some sort, and despise me then,” he said and reached out his muscular leg, offering to bump hooves. “Deal?”

Bump. “Deal.”

What was the difference between chalk and whitewash used for covering walls and ceilings?

None, of course! Well, save for the fact that chalk was easier to work with.

Any normal pony would rather make drawings not on the wall, but on paper and use not whitewash or foals’ wax crayons, but sharpened pencils with the support of an eraser and a protractor. But I certainly was not looking for easy ways!

That stallion had not arrived at the time. So now I had every right to consider him a liar, a scoundrel, and what else did he say? Ah, yes, to despise him!

Of course, I was not surprised. Many ponies usually declared something bigger than they were or they could do; that was their nature. It was better to appear someone than to be someone; that was a slogan of their lives. And then they would lock ordinary ponies here to do all sorts of drawings or other mental work for them, or as they used to say, “to work out the resource spent on you by society.”

I had worked on a lot of projects. This drawing on the generations-old concrete wall was the most ambitious in the new history. Even the greatest geniuses of old did not dare to dream about such things, and—heck of a Discord, if it really worked, I might be considered a good engineer and designer.

It was simple. You had an excess of resources while somepony lacked these resources, so you just took your surplus and sold it to them. It was a common trade, and the stupidest foal in the world could understand its basic principle. But oh, how few ponies could understand that the real trade was not a salvation and not an option.

It was a means of enslavement.

Yeah, I had once disagreed with this statement. Back then it was about trading goods like TVs. What about water or food? What if the pony you were selling them to was not strong enough to take it away from you by force, but weak enough to give everything he had got for just a sip of water or a leaf of lettuce?

You got the point.

Sometimes I felt terrible about what I was doing. After all, I was a de-facto assistant to the enslavers. After all, I was responsible too…

A loud knock came from the metal door.

Did he really decide to come after all?

“Wait a second, I’m... I’m getting dressed!” I started running around the room, looking for an old drapery to hide the drawings from prying eyes. They were not ready yet. Nopony except me and him should not have seen them anyway.

At last, the cloth was found and the wall covered. I threw the organza shawl scooped out by one of my ‘friends’ over my shoulders, and went to the door.

I barely raised the door a halfway up when the stallion caught it with one hoof and pushed up in a single motion until it stopped. “As I have promised, here you go,” he said and handed me his other hoof gripping—I gasped in wonder—guitar strings. They were in a closed cardboard box with all sorts of erased drawings and quality marks. Since no-one both sane or insane would stick and draw them on an old box, I believed without hesitation that they were made at a real pre-war factory. The close inspection showed that I was not wrong. “So why do you need them?”

“Follow me!” I grasped the stallion by hoof and pulled him after me, unable to contain the joy inside. I would be playing tonight! Oh how long I had been dreaming about my personal orchestra of instruments to play music written by me and myself, with pain and misery, to sing a song composed by me. “Come on, what are you waiting for?!”

“It is so simple?” uttered the slightly embarrassed stallion, barely keeping up with me on the way to the cinema hall.

The hall itself was filled with the light of three lamps at once. Frankly speaking, I was hoping deep down that he would come, so I was prepared. I was not really sorry about wasting my supplies as the lamps could shine for a long time.

“You've been waiting for me!” He seemed happy. “So you believed me back then…”

I was prepared very well. I had even fixed up the wiring, which was the reason why the cinema outlets were working again. This place had certainly forgotten the light of bulbs countless years ago, but I needed no light. I needed the voltage for music!

“What are you up to play?” he asked me nervously as I quickly attached the new strings, tuning the guitar and other instruments. “Jazz? Rock’n’roll?”

“Honestly? I don’t know,” I answered with a smile, switching on the amp. “Neither. My original stuff.”

“May I listen to it?” he said, looking at me. I did not see his eyes, but I thought they were staring right at mine.

“You may even sing along if you want.”

I played a riff or two to check the guitar, and the sound of it was just divine. Perhaps I felt so just because the fulfilment of any dream seemed perfect to the one who went to it through all the suffering, but for me what I heard on that stage at that moment was perfect. My ultimate dream. The microphone sounded worse, but my voice was not the main thing. The main thing was my guitar.

“What is the name you will give this song?” he asked with genuine interest after taking a seat in the front row right before me.

“It has no name. Just listen to it!”

My lungs ached from excitement. I was shivering and dizzy, and I thought I had a blush on my face. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and licked my parched lips, probably spending all my remaining strength. Maybe I had been overzealous, but the result was worth it.

My night guest, who still did not bother to tell me his name, was in a complete stupor and just looked at me without blinking. Apparently, he also liked what had happened.

I put the guitar on the stage, trying to catch my breath. Playing all the right instruments alone was a pretty hard task that required a lot of effort, but I wanted to believe that I really did it.

The stallion still sat frozen in place and was staring off into the distance. At first I thought he was looking at me, but then I realized he saw something behind me. I wondered what it was.

And I felt cold inside me when I realized what he saw.

“Wow...” he finally mumbled in a barely audible voice.

“Don’t look at it, please,” I said faintly and collapsed on the floor, looking at my nightmare that looked back at me from the old cinema screen.

“Why?” cried the stallion, and in an instant he was next to me on the stage. “It’s... I have never seen anything like this! How? How did you do that?”

“It’s a long story which I don’t tell the first stranger I meet.”

“Remember what we agreed on? I give you strings, and no more secrets.”

“We agreed on friendship!” I protested.

“Do friends keep secrets from each other?”

“Of course. Otherwise there would be no friendship, would it?”

“You look like a smart pony to say such nonsense,” he smiled and sat next to me. “Listen, I’ve never seen anyone in our time who could draw a city, looking at which from different angles you would see a completely different shape. It is impossible to picture a city with non-Euclidean architecture on canvas, but you did it! This is... This is a cultural breakthrough for the entire pony civilization! Do you have any idea what you have created?!”

He kept praising me, saying how great I was, yet he had no idea how much I hated it…

I barely managed to flutter my eyes open, eyelids heavy like lead. I saw the same black ceiling in my room. I guess the nightmares kept getting worse.

So it was all a dream, wasn’t it? That I could play the guitar? That I could paint this horrible picture? That I finally found somepony to talk to in this place?

I thought tears were starting to stream down my face. I tried to restrain this moment of weakness for as long as I could, but then... then I just gave up.

I was a pathetic loser, unwanted and forgotten in this damned hole. All I had was a dream to get out of here, musical instruments that I played for myself and sewing skills. Oh, and a small desire to do theatrics to complete the scene.

Ever since I was a filly, I had been doing all this just because I could and wanted to. When you were locked up among a lot of parental things like your father’s guitar, books or painting supplies, you never wondered where your parents got all these things—you just put them in use. Your parents were too busy anyway, so why not to find a good use to their belongings?

Then I had grown up and joined everypony in work as I learnt various studies at the same time. We, as my dad used to say, never had enough good engineers. And he had done everything possible to make me that ‘good engineer’ of his dream.

Well, tell me, father... were you proud of me now? I wouldn’t say so.

Somepony caressed my shoulder.

“Why do you cry?” He wiped the tears from my cheeks with a dry clean handkerchief. “Does it hurt? Just tell me!”

“I’m totally fine...”

“If a pony is totally fine, she does not lose her consciousness and does not lie down for three days with fever, mumbling deliriously to herself about some nightmarish city…”

“I’m better now,” I said and tried to get out of bed, but my companion immediately stopped me. However, I would still have failed; I simply did not have the strength. “Well, maybe a couple more hours...”

“You haven’t eaten for three days. The doctors said you have a severe exhaustion.”

“They try to inject me anything?”

“They did. You were like you burned from the inside out, and they gave you something. I’m sorry, I’m bad at medicine...”

“And what did they say why I got exhausted?”

“Lack of sleep. And to be honest, I could tell that by the way you looked.” He seemed to notice that the expression on my muzzle had changed. “Why are you surprised?”

“I didn’t think they’d be helping anypony in our block. They just give you aspirin or activated charcoal, and that’s the end of their help. But to send medics…”

“Well, when you fell down unconscious, I flung you on my back and ran to the exit. So maybe it would have been as you said, but when they saw you, they all were in a panic. Look, I know it’s probably none of my business, but... who are you? I mean ... Why are you so important?”

“No way, bud,” I had suspicions that he was not a local. This accent, these manners... He was from the south, from a very faraway land. Clascow? Maybe. “You know a lot more about me than I do about you. It’s no good.”

“I only know your name...”

“But I don’t know yours. Spill it how things are in the south.”

“How did you know that I’m from the south?!”

“Think of it as a mare’s intuition. Please, come on! How are you used to live? How did you get there? Ponies don’t come here by choice...”

“Don’t expect my story to be long,” he said with a bit of blues in his voice and leaned back in his chair. “I was born in the town of Petrolstation, in the family of auto-mechanics. Well: my father was a mechanic, but my mother was his slave. Before me, she gave birth to some freaks or mares while my father wanted an heir to whom he could pass on the secret of Ignition.”

“Ignition?” I asked. I had actually talked to the locals several times, or as my ex-friends called them, ‘savages and barbarians wasting precious resources of the surface.’

“When I was like them, I worshipped the Eight Cylinders and the Angel of Full Tank. Our— Their religion was based on a couple of scrap papers from some ancient book on auto-mechanics. This secret of Ignition is no more than a skill to repair and put engines on new chariots, which has been passed down in our family from generation to generation…”

“Have you ever driven a car?”

“Oh yeah, I had my own war chariot, and I changed dozens of them when I was young and served in Impenetrable’s army.”

“Young? You’re, like, no older than me...”

“A colt becomes a stallion on a three thousandth day from his birth. The same time he swears an oath to fight in all wars for the glory of Impenetrable.”

“And how exactly does it happen?”

“Nothing complicated. You are shoved in a cage with a baby ant-lion and forced to fight until one of you dies. After that, you’re honoured to spend time with a mare. She’s usually brought straight to wounded and bleeding you. The seniors need to see what you’re worth, because if you’re weak in body at least a wee bit, you are mere meat to feed others—”

“Funny,” I decided to withdraw the conversation from this topic. “What did battles look like?”

“I was a kaze. I jumped from my meat-wagon onto a chariot of our enemies and dug my teeth into the driver’s throat. Eventually I was promoted to a harboomer, then a driver. I even drove a battlewagon once!”

“And what is it like... to kill someone?”

“Uh. Hm...” He was seriously puzzled by the question. “I didn’t give it much thought.”

“But there’s something you think about when you kill, isn’t it? Why, what for?”

“I did it to get into the Parking and to drive all over it on a chrome combat chariot, which always has a full tank of guzzolene, side by side with Impenetrable!” he exclaimed, then stopped short. “At least, it was so until the light of truth dawned on me.”

“What kind of light opens the eyes to all of you?” He was not the first who talked about some truth revealed to him. I had met a lot of these ponies before him. Perhaps four or five thousands.

“Well, eventually I became rich and respected enough to buy a slave. She was brought from some place in the north—”

“What’s the point of slave trade?” I interrupted him. “Many ponies in the wasteland are willing to part with freedom just for food and a sip of water.”

“Slavers don’t trade some ordinary goods. They trade rare mutations and, vice versa, a complete absence of ones. Ponies with some special skills or good appearance. This is a product in demand. But please do not interrupt me.”

“Okay. Tell me more. You bought yourself a slave mare from the north. And then?”

“She always had a book with her. An ABC-book,” he uttered the last word. “She never left it alone.”

“Did she teach you reading?”

“I learned by myself. It surely took me a while... Anyway, in a year or two I could read what was written on those scraps of paper.”

“So what was it?”

“That this ancient book is a manual for modelling.”

I thought I was going to laugh my flanks off.

“When I told them what it really was, they banished me. I wandered in the wasteland from caravan to caravan. Everypony needs grease-monkeys after all.”

“And how did you get here?”

“Caravans delivered guzzolene to your town and brought water back. I ran into one of these stuck in the desert. Their mechanic had fallen ill with night fever and died, the driver was eaten by ant-lions, and only two pony shooters survived. We agreed that I would help them to repair the engine and drive to their destination. Good thing they had a route map. And so I ended up here…”

“So what, they killed those two and decided to leave you to fix up cars for his personal army?”

“Not really. I asked him to take me. Your people is not like most of the wasteland’s inhabitants. You have knowledge. Books. Technologies. He said I’d have had to wait in Block B until he decided where I would be most useful... And so I met you.”

“Welcome to the block. I’ve been here six months.”

“You were born in this settlement. Why are you not with others?”

“There was a time when we were but a little group of ponies. Our numbers were twice as less as they are now. That was about three years ago. I was one of the first ones to come out, and guess who we found? The locals. Well, that’s what I used to call them. I’ve always thought they are the locals and we’re those who came later... The situation could get to bloodshed, but I did everything I could to avoid it. I taught them medicine and basic mechanical skills when my people hid underground, preparing to reclaim a place under the sun... In three months time these ponies, the ones above us, became part of us.”

“That simple?”

“My compatriots thought that we could win only through the blood. I believed that if we made the locals equal to us and didn’t force them to bow before us, we could live better. Violence... You can solve your problem with violence, but for how long? Those ponies were sick, drank dirty water and worshipped the radio tower outside. I won’t lie, teaching them was hard and they barely understand my speech, but I tried! After three months, they could make a simple bandage, clean water and finally stopped kneeling before that Discord of a radio tower, allowing us to take and use it for our needs. And now they’re part of us. You can’t tell which one was a savage and who lived all his life underground. Well, perhaps you can. You are one of them, after all.”

“But there are always those who want to take something by force. If not you, then from you. Maybe you were just lucky...”

“How long ago have you learned reading?”

“A year ago...”

“It’s quite possible for your slave to be one of ours. We have a good relationship with slavers. After all, we were the ones who taught them how to look after slaves so they could live longer. Yes, I don’t support slavery, but it was one of the ways to carry the light of knowledge further. From slave to slave, from trader to trader, from caravaneer to caravaneer... Another year or two, and there will be more southerners able to read and write. In a dozen years, if everything goes as slow as it is now, your people will be like us. I myself came up with this idea. Before I got here.”

“I don’t understand... You are an engineer, aren’t you? But you’re not bad in medicine, you can twang music and stuff...”

“I’ve been many professions. I was an archivist, a nurse, I even used to perform before we came to the surface. The only thing I’ve probably never paid much time is playing guitar and other instruments... Hey, don’t look at me like that. There’s not much to do underground. I was just trying to do something to keep me from getting bored!”

“Why are you here?” he whispered. “What did you do?”

“There was a revolution a year ago. He seized my father’s power, and I... I led those who were loyal to me and my family against him.”

“So why are you not their leader now? I don’t believe you could lose!”

“I could. And I did.” Those were unpleasant memories. “When my father’s brother seized power with the support of our soldiers... I raised all who I could, and went to him. Just to talk. He brought against me and the hundreds of ponies behind me a hoofful of soldiers, among whom were my sister and her husband... They were waiting for the order to shoot. I don’t know how long we stood in front of each other, waiting for the blood to spill, but when I heard one of them clicking the safety lock, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I told them to leave and I gave up. When the next day came I was waiting for the gallows.”

He was shocked. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I couldn’t let them die! Nopony! Discord take me, power is not worth blood!” I screamed. “I begged him to execute me but not to touch them. He decided to hang me on the very tower so that I was still alive when crows would peck me. When I heard his sentence, I said nothing. I could have asked those who believed in me to tear him apart, but I didn’t. Power is not worth any blood. Violence begets only violence. Maybe I did a very stupid thing back then, but could I live knowing that there was blood on my hooves? I have nightmares just because I failed those who believed in me, but if it had happened, I’d have rather hanged myself.”

There was a silence. I did not ask him where we were—the room around us certainly did not belong to me, as I thought before. We were on the surface, and right now it was a night. A moonless, dark, deserted night. I realised it when a gust of dry cold wind brought some sand into the open window. My friend got up from his chair and went to the door.

“Wait. Why did they leave you with me?” I prevented him from leaving when he opened the door, behind which I could see some part of a corridor brightly lit with electric light.

“They needed somepony to stay here for days. They were afraid your heart would stop or your lungs would fail. But now that you’re awake... I think I need to talk about it and get back to the block.”

“Why? Stay here and get some sleep. You can do what you have to do in the morning.”

“Really?”

“Sure, friend.”

When I said ‘friend,’ he seemed sort of... upset?

That was it.

They gave me half an hour to pack. A hot shower, a hearty breakfast and some new clothes. I did not believe this day would ever come, but they were able to find someone crazy enough to take this job. I just couldn’t believe it.

After I got into a skin-tight polo neck and drew a pair of trousers on my hind legs, I reached inside the cabinet and fished out my old, wrinkled grey gown. Despite I was an engineer as I was told by the test to determine my profession (if we were given a job according to our cutie marks, I would have been an expert on wet cleaning), I was fond of medicine. The sciences helped ponies, but this one helped them most. And besides, who would ever think of shooting at doctors? A doctor is a true jewel amidst the dirt of crossroads, and we also had a long-standing agreement with slavers.

They also gave me a PDA. As he had said, there was an emergency beacon on it to track my location if anything happened. Unfortunately for them, I knew something about computing.

And on top of that, a holster with a pistol inside. I never liked weapons. It was as much heavy and bulky as I was a pretty bad shooter. The latter, though, was the reason why they had been looking for someone to escort me. Oh yeah, according to scouts returning from around Equestria, those places got not a single drop of petrol, not to mention that it was highly unlikely for a car to overcome the mountain ranges.

Nevertheless. They could not find such an idiot who would agree to do it for almost a year—and here, just take it.

I was ready for a journey now. I had the gun, the PDA, some clothes and essential supplies: canned food and a ‘bottomless’ flask—a military flask that contained a small water talisman. You would be out of water only if you broke the artefact.

And I actually had my own plans for this journey. I would try to run away, to vanish in any large settlement, and voila: say buh-bye!

I threw my organza shawl over my head to cover myself from the midday sun and went to the outside gate. They usually did not put a lot of soldiers at the gates, and at the moment there was only one. I had always said that we needed to strengthen the entire perimeter, not just the inner walls, but he—my uncle—was not up to reveal all our cards to the outside world.

I said hello to one of the soldiers outside. I noticed how frustrating it was for him to talk to me. Maybe he remembered perfectly well how he and my sister were aiming at me, or maybe he still wished I had been hanged. I had no idea. I was going to leave this place, and I only wished I could have stayed and helped them.

Behind the outer perimeter, in the shade of a rock, sat a pony dressed in an old and shabby leather jacket with a police bulletproof vest. His muzzle was covered behind a ragged gas mask, and he was spending time sharpening his knife, only to test its resulting sharpness on his own body. He was a unicorn like me, yet he clearly prefered to hold the blade in his hooves.

And of all thing he sat there and cut himself. Seriously, he was a nut-case.

I knew he heard me talking to that soldier. With all his appearance, he wanted to show indifference to the world around, but his ears twitched as if trying to catch every sound.

“What is your name?” I asked him. Not that I really cared, but I had to travel with him for some time. Certainly not to the point of making friends, but still.

“Call me whatever you want,” he gravelled. His voice made my ears hurt. Hoarse, low, indistinct. Let’s just hope and pray this pony was not of those who liked to talk.

“Well, then...” And how was I supposed to call him? Mister Sadie-Maisie? Leather Jacket? Wheezy Voice? But if to think about it, there was one option. “Gas Mask. Are we going or what?”