Chapter One: Leaving The Stable
"I just don't know what went wrong!"
Velvet Remedy was a very pretty mare who graced the Stable with her wonderful singing. Today, her voice was playing through my pip-buck as I was reading. The music became extremely distracting, the flow of Velvet's voice smooth like, well, velvet. I wished that I hadn't alienated myself from the thought of actually talking to her. Even imagining it excited me, but she was nearly 7 years older than me, keeping the memories of the awkward gestures I made when I was younger fresh in my mind.
I switched off the radio, trying to put the thought out of my mind. I knew that the chances of Velvet being both attracted to mares, and attracted to me was low, but the idea of it was so exciting that it had lingered for years. Hoping that I could leave to find something better to distract myself with, I checked the time on my pip-buck; 15:34, less than an hour before my shift was over. However, the boredom would only have to last for a little while longer. Lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice that somepony had entered the room, her voice startling me once, and then twice, once I recognized it,
"Hello, I need some help with my pip-buck, and I was told that is where I could find it,"
Velvet Remedy was standing by the doorway, and I was sitting there, staring at her like an idiot. After the passage of a few seconds, I stammered,
"What can I help you with?"
"I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it, but the thing won't even turn on. I'd appreciate if you could replace the padding as well, it's started to wear, and it chafes a bit on my fur," she paused, "Are you all right? You seem on edge."
Speaking both to her and myself, I responded, "Fine, I'm fine. Uh, when did it stop working?"
"I noticed it a few hours ago, but I hadn't looked at it for a while before that."
Leaving my seat, I asked, "Could you raise your foreleg, please?"
"What? Oh, here."
I unlatched her pip-buck with my magic, carefully sliding if off her foreleg. Holding it in the air and angling its screen towards me, I pressed the power button.
ERROR: NO BOOT DISC FOUND
I turned it in her direction, "Is this what it said when you tried to turn it on?"
"One and the same message."
"Well, I'll try to figure out what's wrong. You probably should go; I'm sure that you have better places to be."
"Not really, I don't have anything planned,"
I talked to myself in my head, Now is the time, Littlepip.
"I don't, either," I matched with, after a moment of silence, "I don't think that there's anything else you can help me with, so, you can go."
"All right, thank you for your help, and thank you, for fixing my pip-buck, in the future, I mean. Goodbye, have a nice day!"
She disappeared through the door, and I wondered if her remembering my name was a good or bad thing. The awkward mess of words before her departure aroused the slightest sense of suspicion in me, before it faded.
I turned around, levitating the pip-buck to a nearby table. I gathered every tool that I would need, and began the process of breaking the pip-buck apart. I won't include the technical details, but over the course of 30 minutes, I eliminated the possibility that the problem was with anything but the pip-buck's data storage. It was unlikely that anything else could have been accidentally (or intentionally) damaged, but even less likely that the drive would be both intact and not working. Slowly, I made a connection that should have been easy: the drive had been intentionally disabled. Although this was obvious, I dismissed it, because Velvet Remedy would have no reason to do such a thing.
Velvet was an artist, one of the many in the Stable, who among the others, gave the rest of us motivation to keep working towards the future, following the overmare, blah, blah, etc. In some fucked up way, it worked. Velvet's music was a big part in me not sinking into depression, something the Stable was famous (among itself) for. The empty wall of the pip-buck maintenance room could use a mural, hell, half of the Stable could use murals, but it would just be another patch on the Stable's flawed society. Why did ponies in Stable II become depressed? They were stuck between the Stable and the outside world. Their only purpose was to live, work, reproduce, and die.
Sometimes the walls themselves were unsettling. There was nothing beyond them but caverns and support structures. Beyond the door, there was only death. Leaving would mean being slaughtered by savages, or dying to radiation, chemical weapons, viruses, and everything else released during the war.
I realized that the end of my shift had passed, and I much preferred to continue investigating at home, so I left the room. Luna (as in Lunar Eclipse, the pegasus, quite distinct from the former princess), my adopted sister, was another large part of my motivation. She had managed, through terrible conditions, to find some kind of meaning in the Stable, even without submitting to the overmare's authority. Her ridiculous ability to survive was inspirational.
Speaking of Luna, I wondered where she was. If she had time, she could possibly add some insight into the mystery of Velvet's pip-buck. Reaching the elevator, I pressed the recall button, and waited. What did I like about Velvet? Her hair, her face, her voice and way of speaking, her... The elevator arrived with a "ding!". The doors opened, revealing Luna, apparently waiting for me to enter.
"I was on my way to see you," she began.
I stepped through the doorway, "Was there something that you wanted to do?"
"No, that's why I'm here."
"Good, Velvet Remedy stopped by a while ago, and something's wrong with her pip-buck."
"And?"
"And what?"
She paused and assumed a silly look before speaking, "Was there something that you wanted to do?"
"Oh, it seems like someone tried to erase the hard drive, but I can't think of why."
"Do you mean that Velvet tried to erase the hard drive?"
"Why would she do that? What reason could she possibly have to erase a pip-buck, then lie to me about it?"
"Why would somepony else erase her pip-buck? Before we keep speculating, maybe you should try to recover some of the data."
"That's what I was going to do anyway, but I wanted to see if you had any ideas about it."
She, in a rare moment, was irritated with me, "I do; I have the idea that you can't bring yourself to think that Velvet was lying to you."
I wanted to make a retort, but I couldn't, because she was right. I decided to terminate the subject with an apology before the elevator became any more uncomfortable,
"Sorry, you're right. I just can't imagine her lying."
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but said, "It's fine, but I don't want you to feel bad about it." her usual, calm demeanour returned, "Let's go home, and then we can talk about that hard drive."
I gave a small grin. Her comforting helped, but I still had the feeling that something was wrong with how I liked Velvet. I had felt it many times before, but I was never able to pinpoint any reason that I shouldn't even try a romance with Velvet, so I kept the unrequited love with me for years.
"Seriously, you have to either say something to her, or let her go," Not this talk again, I wondered how I let myself be given dating advice by a pony three years my younger, "You can't just keep dancing around her forever."
"How? I don't even know if she likes mares, how can I figure that one out?"
"You could try asking her," I sighed, before she smiled at me and said, "but whether or not she does, she'll probably like you, as a friend or a marefriend."
"I don't want her to just be a friend!" I looked around to make sure that the hallway was empty.
"If she doesn't like mares, then she'll have to be. Whether you like it or not, sex and attraction are vital parts of a functioning relationship."
I felt my face become warm, "It'll take a long time for that to not be problematic between me and Velvet."
"Maybe you should start that time now, then?"
Luna had been angry since "someone", but she was good at hiding her emotions.
The rest of our walk to our quarters was uneventful, aside from the introspection resulting from Luna's love lecture. I needed to actually interact with Velvet outside of coincidental meetings. The goal for the near future became both clear and terrifying. Thinking more about this during the recovery of the pip-buck, I, for a brief moment, felt confident that I could, in fact, talk to Velvet Remedy. My fear returned soon, as I thought about the details of what I would say to her. Abridging these, I had no idea what I could do about Velvet that wouldn't be awkward or too forward.
"Done! We just have to wait... seven hours, twenty minutes for the results," I said.
By happenstance, Luna's more broad technical skill had helped more with the process of recovery than my specialized knowledge of pip-bucks. Now, we just had to find something else to occupy the next seven hours and twenty minutes, or until we went to sleep. Luna wanted to watch some of those old movies she liked, and I didn't have anything more pressing to do but join her. We watched Twilight, and Echo, the former being a documentary, and the latter being a batpony romance movie. Luna claimed that Echo had a much deeper message, but her explanation was beyond my understanding. After the second movie, she went to bed, and, soon after, I did so as well.
*** *** ***
Leaving bed, one thing was on my mind, and I nearly jumped out. I checked the terminal we had used to interface with the pip-buck, finding that the recovery was complete. I mounted the drive, and began looking through its files. It was all personal data, but I realized that I didn't really care about it anymore. Why should I let some data push me around?
Echo was a great movie, despite my apparently partial understanding of it. Luna was still asleep, despite the length since she went to bed. I entered Luna's room, and noticed that something was wrong. As I inspected the room, the walls and ceiling began to drift away, leaving the floor and its dependants in a lightless void.
Time flew forwards, and, in the entrance level with Luna, I saw that the Stable's halls were empty and dilapidated. Rust ate at the metal parts, and the surface of the concrete slowly cracked into nothing. Stable II was no longer a place to live; now it was only a concrete shell filled with hollow, shaped steel. The machines had no circuitry, the only ventilation was natural, through the no longer sealed caverns and broken floors.
Luna led me, and we walked for minutes. Our path began to blur, the corners becoming fluids, the halls twisting in every direction. Eventually, we reached the doorway which once was the only point of access between the Stable and the outside world. The door itself was not visible, the doorway filled with a blinding light that my vision could not penetrate. Luna looked at me, and led me into the light.
We emerged in an aboveground-style room inside of a larger building; one of those that only gets built above the surface, before the war. Through what can only be described as a vision, I saw a massive plain of cracked rock and soil, ending in a cliff not far from us. Desks and metal boxes were scattered throughout the room, some organized and others clearly thrown around by shock. Papers were strewn across the floor, creating patches of white on the grey flooring. Facing me, Luna touched her forehead to my horn, and the world turned to white.
*** *** ***
Waking, two things were on my mind, the first of which was the great sexual pleasure I was experiencing, which was odd in itself. The second was the vision of Luna's face coming so close to mine. The combination of the two created one of the most unusual experiences in my life up to that point. As both faded, I was left in a confused stillness. Leaving bed, I contemplated the experience of my trailing dream. It had been so memorable that I had forgotten all of those proceeding ones. Why did ponies spontaneously have orgasms while asleep? This trail of thought was ended by the smell of an already cooked breakfast that wafted in when I opened my door.
"Good morning! Since you were asleep, I started breakfast, then I finished it, too."
"Breakfast isn't finished until you're finished eating," I pointed out, the food still intact.
Her face assumed a slightly awkward smile, "I always find it disturbing how the same sentence can mean so many things."
We both sat down at the table across from each other and began eating.
"Is that like the thing that you talked to me about last night? What you said Echo was about."
"You're right, and you should read more about it. There's also a lot of things about similar subjects I think you'd be interested in. We should go to the library after breakfast, since neither of us have work today."
"That sounds great," I responded, as I chewed on a piece of bacon.
The Stable's food engineers certainly wished that we could supplement our diets with grass, but I greatly enjoyed the fruits of their hard work towards keeping our food supply diverse and edible. The table was silent for a few minutes as we continued to indulge in those "fruits". Theoretically, the Stable was a perfect place to live in the post-apocalypse, and during this moment of peace, I felt almost fine with living here.
After finishing breakfast, Luna continued talking as she waited for me,
"So, what have you been read-", she stopped, "Can you hear that noise?"
I listened for a few seconds, and heard what sounded like muffled speaking.
"Outside?"
She nodded. We both stood up, my meal still unfinished. Luna walked ahead of me, arriving at the door first. She opened it, and unleashed a tidal wave of noise. Ponies were gathered around the door, but soon created a bubble around us once it opened. Luna and I moved through, me feeling like we were in some kind of trouble. Although the voices mostly drowned each other out, I could make out a few words in the now quieter, surprised crowd,
"That's them," "How could they let this happen?" "I still can't believe it."
A familiar voice pierced the noise,
"Make way, move away from the door, we will handle this with the authority of law."
The overmare emerged from the crowd, entering our bubble of isolation. My eyes widened in surprise; we were really in trouble. She looked at both of us sternly, and asked,
"Do you know what happened last night?"
We looked at each other, then at the overmare,
"No."
"No."
"When you carelessly removed Velvet Remedy's pip-buck, she used the opportunity to leave the Stable!"
My mouth stuck open in shock. What the fuck? Why? How? What?
What left my mouth was more of an overlap of each previous word into a mess of syllables. Luna stood completely still, and said nothing. I could feel the overmare's anger, and the anger of every other pony surrounding us. We were fucked.
Luckily for us, the overmare regained control of her emotions, and began speaking more coldly,
"I will have to spend time deciding what to do with you two, but for now, the crowd will disperse," she addressed the crowd, "I understand your anger, but we must leave these to ponies to law and order, meaning that, according to the laws of this Stable, we cannot disturb them, no matter how much anger we may feel."
Murmurs filled the air as the crowd reluctantly began to disperse. A few ponies began to back away, and soon the whole had left. The overmare simply shook her head, and walked away with all of the other ponies.
A resounding "Fuck." came from Luna's mouth.
*** *** ***
"It was so overwhelming that I forgot to talk. She could have been more prudent in addressing the mob," Luna complained.
"What are we going to do now? I have to assume that the news is widespread, and both of us are going to be disciplined, either by Stable Security or by public opinion."
"I expect it to be both."
I sighed. We stayed in silence for a while.
Suddenly, Luna had a simple idea, "What about the pip-buck? We haven't checked it since last night."
I raised my head in recognition. We raced to my terminal, with which the pip-buck was interfaced with. I didn't know what I expected to find, but I knew it had something to do with Velvet leaving. Velvet, leaving? All of the one-word questions from before surfaced again.
I sorted the files by "last accessed", and watched as they all sorted, from the newest and most intact, to the oldest and barely readable. The first file was encrypted, with what I wasn't sure. The second, an audio file. The rest descended into data corruption, even the third file being unrecognisable. Velvet had apparently used the first two files fairly recently before she brought the pip-buck to me. I let the file play, hearing the voice of Velvet,
"Hello... nopony."
"I don't know why I'm recording this. I guess I just want some closure with the Stable."
"Tonight, I'm leaving, and leaving this thing behind, too."
"If I walk anywhere near the exit, I'll set off so many alarms that security will catch me before the door can open."
She sighed,
"Rosebud."
"That's the key. It took me a while to figure out, but I found something in the Stable's computers."
"Well, more like somethings."
"The first was a message. A message from the outside. The second was the Stable's door override, and its decryption key."
"There are ponies out there, not savages, ponies! And we're hiding down here while they die up there."
"They're dying from disease, starvation, not by any weapons but guns, probably."
"It's habitable up there, it has all been lies. Everything that we've been taught is a lie."
"I don't know why, but we've been told that the outside is death for Stable ponies, and that only savages live up there!"
"I'm going to clean this pip-buck before I give it to pip-buck maintenance, Littlepip. That's her name, Littlepip. It doesn't matter if I tell everypony, or leave a message behind, the overmare will just brand that as lies. My only option is escape, and I can't let anypony know what I'm doing. I've copied the message onto external storage so that somepony else can look at it."
"'My pip-buck stopped working a while ago'. That's all I need to say before I can leave. Just a few more words to the guard, and I can escape. I might as well end thi-"
The tape stopped. We looked on without words. We had the override code for the door. We could leave. There were ponies out there. Velvet was out there. Whatever happened next would change the course of my life forever. If I modified our pip-bucks, Luna and I could make our way through the Stable's sensors without being noticed. She knew enough to keep us alive out there. The pieces came together in my head, and the question I hoped for came,
"Well... do you think that we should follow her?" Luna asked, with a worried expression.
"Yes."
"I knew that you would agree with us!" she exclaimed, "I'll have to steal at least a year's worth of medication. We'll have to dehydrate most of the food we bring. We'll also have to-"
I interrupted her before she rattled off everything we would need, "Do you think that Velvet prepared before leaving?"
"If she didn't, we need to prepare if we want to help her. Even with a head start, she can't outrun us if she's undersupplied. Although, it will be easier for her to move than for us to find her."
"When did you learn so much about the outside?" I teased, "I guess you really do know everything."
"We should start by making jerky now, so that it has time to marinate and dry in the oven. Next, we should plan out everything else. They let me take my prescription from Medical without supervision, and later tonight is a good time to betray that trust."
The old drug cabinets in Medical were simple enough to take from, if you had access, which Luna had. Her medication, in particular, was used only by her in the entire Stable, making it a rather unknown substance, and it wasn't very useful for anything else but prescription.
Despite the more disagreeable aspects of the Stable, requisitioning oft-used supplies was a very pleasant and smooth process. The process for food was almost entirely automated, so I simply had to go to the cafeteria and use up some of our extra food rations for the meat. By the time that anypony could realize what we were doing, we would be long gone.
Luna stayed behind and prepared everything for when I got back. As I walked through the halls, I garnered many glares and much staring. Reaching the cafeteria, most of the conversations I overheard were about Velvet, Luna, and me. I, evenly dividing Luna's and my rations, requisitioned eight steaks, gaining an odd expression from the pony behind the counter. I shrugged, "Guests.", and walked home.
Luna chopped the steak into slices, placing them in a large jar, which she explained was full of salt water. Now, we only had to wait for that to be ready for drying later. Meanwhile, we began discussing things other than jerky and medication. I explained my plan for disabling the Stable's pip-buck tracking, so that we could simply disappear inside the Stable, then be discovered outside.
Luna, in turn, gave me advice for disabling the guard: basic anatomical knowledge of the arteries in a pony's neck. She, after some convincing, made me practice the procedure on her. I successfully blocked blood flow enough to only theoretically knock a pony unconscious, as I wouldn't actually do that to Luna. The time between the beginning of my telekinesis spell and the unconsciousness had me worried. According to Luna, the spell caused a slight choking sensation, which might be problematic with a guard wearing a pip-buck. I supposed that we would have to see what happened when I did it for real.
If there were two guards, Luna could buck one while she was distracted by the other guard's newfound condition. If there were more than two... we would have to improvise. For a while after disabling the guards, there would be nothing in our way but the door, the opening of which I had already readied my pip-buck for.
With the escape itself planned, we each packed our own saddlebags. The rest of what we needed was inside of our quarters. I packed an extra jumpsuit, two full canteens, two bars of soap, some books, a chest-mounted toolbelt, and other various items.
*** *** ***
Hours later, it was time. We were leaving the Stable. The hours before are irrelevant, mostly being preparation and overall inconsequential talking. I hoped that a hundred years had really been enough to at least partially civilize the outside. I also hoped that we wouldn't be caught before we left. We made it to the elevator without anypony passing by, and set it towards the entrance floor. My stomach filled with butterflies as my home passed by. Soon, only one sliver of it was left to cross as the elevator gave a final ding!.
I went first, looking around the corner. Finding nothing, I nodded to Luna, and she followed me down the hall. We had a limited amount of time until the news of our disappearance climbed the ladder of command. Continuing, we briskly walked until we arrived at a door emblazoned with a single word: EXIT.
It was time to put my telekinetic ability to the test. Luna hid around the doorframe as I tripped the override switch. The door opened with a whoosh! followed by a clunk. The two guards, a mare and stallion, immediately looked at me. I answered their questioning gaze with,
"I'm here to do maintenance on the door controls; to make sure that nopony else opens it."
"We weren't told about any maintenance," the mare said, "Wait, aren't you that pip-buck technician?"
"Yeah, she is! Let's call this in." the stallion said, straightening up.
My horn lit up in a glow, prompting a confused response from the now ailing stallion, "What the hell?" he gasped.
Luna ran through the door, moving towards the mare. Her left forehoof connected with the poor mare's face, knocking her unconscious in one hit. Meanwhile, the stallion weakened to unconsciousness, but not before he could press a button on his pip-buck.
Alarms began to sound.
"Shit!" I exclaimed. My magic dissipated from the guard's neck.
Luna watched the doorway as I began to work, plugging the pip-buck into the door control panel. As I entered the commands to access the override code, a voice boomed through the loudspeakers.
"Littlepip, Lunar Eclipse, yes, those are your names. Do not continue what you are doing. If you leave, you will not be allowed back in, even if you find Velvet Remedy. Think of your mother. Velvet made the choice to leave behind her friends and family, but you don't have to. Surrender, and you will be treated fairly."
'Fairly' under the definition of tyranny is not an offer that I am willing to take. A quote from the book I was reading, which at this moment I gained context for. Luna scoffed. I continued, completing the procedure. The door mechanism clicked and whirred, along with the computer. Long-unused circuits and servos activated, creating a musical of various digital and mechanical noises.
A deafening, grating noise filled the room, as a hydraulic press pushed Stable II's massive steel blast door outwards. Luna flinched. The scene inspired awe for the sheer scale and engineering of the Stable. The great door was giant like its enclosing structure, but so much simpler. It was a cork, nothing else, but it was also our and our ancestors' salvation. Once the door slid outward, an arm extended into view and pulled the door out of our path.
Nothing stood in our way. Luna and I hesitatingly looked at each other, and I took the first step.
A cavern loomed across the boundary of the doorway. My first step onto the rock gave me butterflies. It was time to leave this place behind.
"The Prench have a saying for that kind of problem: 'Cherchez la cavale'."
The 'cavern' turned out to be a poorly lit cellar with a floor which happened to be occupied by rock, due to the deeper excavation of the Stable's door. In front of us, two heavy cellar doors were inset in a metal outcropping. Luna, the larger pony, took the main force of the doors, and I helped, at her side. They swung outwards, and we filed out of the cellar.
I hadn't settled on any particular imagining of what the outside world would be like, but I had imagined something like this. A plain of greyish desert spread far across the landscape, interspersed with trees and bushes. As my vision drifted upwards, vertigo disrupted my balance, my eyes settling on a high mountain-city, nested in the nearby mountain chain. My Stable's protective mountain seemed so insignificant compared to it.
The mass of clouds above created a ceiling for the outside world, the likes of which I had never seen before. I had seen the outside in movies and pictures, but seeing it with my eyes was entirely different.
We weren't dead yet, which was a good sign, and a sign and that Velvet wasn't either. There was a long road ahead, one that would certainly take much of us, and how much that would be was to be seen. I looked across the horizon for any kind of hint for where we should go. I could see a ruined village not far from where we were. Behind us was a building, built over the cellar.
"I wish that I could fly," Luna suddenly complained, "I'm a pegasus and I can't even fly properly. Maybe out here I can learn."
"Well, you aren't leaving me behind, yet. This seems like a good place to start. Nopony around, an open field; it’s perfect."
"All right, let's do this." She started to flap her wings in unison, lifting her off the ground. For a spontaneous trial, she was doing great. As she flew higher, she began losing her balance.
"You're doing good!" Just as I finished talking, her left side twitched, rolling her body leftwards as the unbalanced force of her right wing sent her spinning. She completed a quarter-rotation before landing hard on her side.
"Are you all right?" I asked, running over to her.
"I'm fine, maybe we should stick to walking for now."
She stood up, and shook some of the dust off herself. We'd have to clean that later. Despite her accident, she was smiling. This was an opportunity she rarely had in the Stable.
"Let's look through this building; we might find something useful." Suddenly, a gunshot shattered the peaceful air, the bullet digging itself into the ground near my hooves.
"The house!" Luna shouted. We ran into the empty door-frame of the building, disappointed to see natural light piercing the roof and walls through the decaying wood. The walls weren't much for stopping bullets, but they kept us out of sight. The shooting hadn't progressed past the first bullet, so we started to look around. The first floor was mostly empty, with only a kitchen, ransacked bedroom, and an empty front room. Luna was the first to go upstairs, the steps creaking as she ascended. I followed suit, and we looked around the second floor. In the room furthest across from the stairs Luna discovered that,
"There's a desk with a terminal," I walked towards her voice, "The drawer is locked," she fiddled with the terminal, "and so is the terminal." The desk was well-preserved in comparison to the rest of the building, still retaining most of its color and hardness.
"Let me look at it. I'm sure that I can get it working."
I tried to break through the computer's security, but it was too difficult to do from the terminal itself. I broke open the case to access its components directly, but found that the disk was encrypted,
"Whoever owned this was didn't want anypony else to access it." I took out the hard drive, and put it in my saddlebag, just in case I thought of something. "They didn't want anypony looking through their drawer either."
"Can I have a screwdriver?" Luna requested, as she sat in front of the drawer, the desk against the wall.
I levitated it out of the toolbelt hanging off my chest into her waiting hooves. She jammed it between the drawer backing and the desk, pushing it down, hard. The drawer snapped out with a crack. She pulled it out completely, and inside was a revolver, a holster, and what looked like a preserved box of ammunition. She sat down, and opened it with her hooves. She inspected a hooffull of bullets, nodding at what she saw.
"The bullets are fine, .357. The pistol is a unicorn model; you have to use it."
"Like, for shooting ponies?" I said nervously.
"If we're in danger, you have to promise me that you'll use this. We have to defend ourselves if anything bad happens." That was easy for her to say, but not for me to accept.
Reluctantly, however, I agreed, "I guess I'll have to use it if I don't have a choice." I levitated the holster, and played with the straps until I got it on. I slid the revolver into the holster, it slotting in perfectly. What was it like to kill another pony? Don't think about it, Littlepip. Just don't think about it.
She looked at me for a few more seconds, before inspecting the rest of the house. In total, we found a rusted mouth-held knife and sheath, an unusable box of ammunition, a rifle decayed beyond repair, and a pile of books decayed beyond recognition. Luna took the knife.
The clouds had momentarily parted, giving us a better view of the sky and sunset.
"It's beautiful," I said.
"Yes, it is."
Luna and I sat next to each other, watching the sun disappear below the horizon, through a window. Luna took off her saddlebags, took out a bottle, and swallowed one of the pills inside. She drifted asleep, and I didn't move, to not disturb her. Eventually, I followed her into sleep.
*** *** ***
There was no sunlight when we awoke, only the gray diffraction from the barrier of clouds above lit the floor of the earth. I woke up first, my shifting quickly waking Luna.
"What time is it?" she attentively asked.
I checked my pip-buck, "6:34."
Nothing is sacred, everything is free for negation! This particular quote came from a pivotal moment in the book I was reading. I didn't understand a lot of it; Luna's favorite books were always complex, but, just like Echo, this was still entertaining. The story itself still made sense, even if I misunderstood some pieces of it here and there. I wondered how Luna perceived the world. Did she feel emotions and thoughts in the same way that us other ponies did?
Anyways, now was a good time to depart from the house. After an hour of rest and conversation, we both felt energised enough to walk to the nearby town. Our breakfast consisted of beef jerky, the one food supply we had brought. I wished I had at least brought some fruit, even though it was perishable. At the time of decision, though, I thought that it might have made the following meals less appealing.
Our journey to Ponyville contained no more surprises, the area around the ruins proving to be mostly safe. It seemed that the gunshot we experienced was an isolated incident, at least outside of the town itself. I had taken the liberty of downloading pre-war maps from the Stable's computer, and determined that where we were going was once named Ponyville. This was the town whose residents evacuated to the small farm under which our Stable was excavated.
We were never taught much about history in the Stable. We knew that there had been a nation that created the Stables, and that it was ruled by two Princesses, who kept it peaceful, until they didn't, and then the world ended. That was essentially my knowledge of the old world outside of private study, which still didn't amount to much.
Reaching the edge of the village, the poor state of the buildings struck me. This place hadn't been populated in a very long time, probably since before the war. Following one of the dilapidated roads, we continued towards the heart of Ponyville.
As we walked, something caught my eye: a round, white building. I had seen carousels in pictures before, and they were the closest thing to the structure that I knew.
"This place looks interesting, we should check it out before we leave."
Luna nodded, and we headed inside. The interior was falling apart, but the basic structure remained standing. The first floor contained an assortment of ruined dresses and other outfits, draped over pony-shaped mannequins. One metal cabinet remained intact.
I tried to open it, but it was locked. I decided to put an old trick of mine to the test. I pulled out a screwdriver, and requested a bobby pin from Luna. She obliged, and I put the two in place. After some fiddling, the lock clicked, and I opened the container with a whoosh.
Inside was a perfectly preserved piece of clothing. I unfolded it, revealing it as a wonderfully made and designed dress.
"Beautiful," Luna commented.
It was beautiful, like a sunset across a desert.
*** *** ***
We left the building, satisfied that there were no more pretty dresses to collect. Across the street, I could see another pony. I pre-emptively drew my revolver, pointing the barrel towards the ground, remembering the basic safety rules from the Stable's shooting range.
"Hello?" I asked the figure.
Its odd saddlebags clanking, it turned around. The voice revealed it as a him, saying, "Don't shoot! I'm friendly."
He spoke in a strange accent, supplementing the I with a mixture of I and ah, along with other subtle differences from the Stable's speech, making his similar to accents I heard in old movies. His body was covered shoulder to hoof in various objects, from pots to bottles filled with ubiquitous-looking liquids.
Behind him, a huge metal sheet reflected his junk-covered behind to us. A rifle sat on his back, connecting to a mechanism which ended just below and in front of his mouth. I had read about these, called "battle saddles", which allowed non-unicorns to mount weapons on their back, then manipulate them from their mouth and hooves. Many had the capability of aiming within a narrow cone, allowing non-unicorns to be just as dangerous with a firearm as a unicorn.
"Who are you?" I lamely wondered.
"My name is Scrap Pile, I'm a travelle-, scavenger. Like, looking for things to sell."
Sell? There was organization out here after all.
He continued, "It's not often I see Stable ponies, didn't know there was one 'round here.
It was Luna's turn to speak, "You've seen us before?"
"All over the place, those things were everywhere, ah, the Stables I mean."
"Were?"
"A lot of them have opened up, I see less and less of you guys nowadays. I've been all around, so I see a lot of things like that," he paused, then spoke, interrupting Luna before she could finish asking another question, "I don't suppo-"
Bang!
He was cut off by a bang! of what I presumed to be gun-sized proportions. The bullet tore through his armor of scrap, landing somewhere in his barrel. Luna and I ran for cover behind him, between two buildings. Another bang! sliced the air. I cocked the hammer of my own gun, ready to do what was necessary.
Around the corner crept a mare. I would like to say that I hesitated, but I didn't. She had no time to fire before the bullet pierced her neck. She screamed, dropping the rifle from her telekinesis. The screaming, it was horrible. I held her in my forelegs, and I screamed, too.
*** *** ***
Mom used to be wonderful. She would do her best to keep us happy and well-raised. When Luna was born, she volunteered to raise her. A few years later, my father died. Both of us were devastated. Luna was too young to ever know him, but he was a wonderful father, like Mom was a mother.
Mom was always proud of us, even when I was sent to pip-buck maintenance. "You're doing what nopony else in the Stable can, you should be proud!" I supposed she was right. There were a few things in the pip-buck that nopony else knew about, but it still wasn't fun.
Mom was supportive of me, but she didn't ever push me enough. She never got me to talk to Velvet, for one.
I hoped that Mom wasn't taking our leaving hard. We had left without telling her. I wondered what she felt when we let Velvet escape. I hadn't talked to her in some time before we left.
What would Mom think about what we had done, so far?
*** *** ***
Magic isn't just the application of force, it's purely essential. I was never particularly skilled with magic, only ever being able to use it for 'applying force'. Not many unicorns learned to cast more than simple spells, but I didn't learn any at all, aside from telekinesis. I could make myself more useful with tools: hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, etc.
Now, I was carrying another kind of tool. The mare died quickly, but painfully. Scrap Pile had disappeared, further into Ponyville. Nearby, we found a partially-renovated house, its frame re-covered by wood. Inside, we found all of the mare's former items.
Luna put on a leather jacket, saying that the Stable jumpsuits may as well say "I'm stupid" on the back. I kept mine uncovered, as the only other clothes were on the two corpses outside. She offered me the jacket, but I joked,
"We might as well let the smarter one have the jacket. It has wing-holes, anyway," I assumed a faux-disgusted expression.
We collected some food and other supplies, then left. We would have buried her, but we didn't have a shovel. The mare's sad little house would decay, like everything else, and it bothered me, a lot.
The rest of Ponyville was similar to the round building; through the windows I could see more dilapidated creations of the old world.
Luna and I discussed the next step of our search. We didn't even think of doing anything else but find Velvet, as we didn't have anything else we needed or knew to do. Luna suggested that the west would be an even worse desert than it was before the war, making it unlikely that Velvet would go there. I spotted the perfect place -- a rail depot east of Ponyville.
We could follow the tracks from the town east, then find something. What would be at the station was a mystery, but I hoped that Velvet would be smart enough to go that way. I wasn't sure. I was nervous that we were going the wrong way, and that we would never find her.
*** *** ***
"Are you okay?" Luna asked, after we walked for a while.
"I don't know how I feel. It just happened so quickly, and I want to feel bad, but I just did it. I killed her on instinct, and I don't feel it!"
She hugged me, "It's okay to feel bad about it, you have to try to feel something for me, all right? I don't want you feeling like I used to."
I cried. I cried for a long time, and Luna stayed by me.
Through my teary eyes, I saw something on the eastern horizon. A stripe of color sat upon it, before which a mirage of water formed.
"Look at that," I pointed out, "Civilization."
*** *** ***
Walking towards the town, I noticed another shape in the distance, moving towards it. I suggested that we look at it, to confirm that this was, in fact, a town.
We approached it, and saw two ponies pulling a cart covered by a tarp. As we got closer, thunder blasted my ears, and the sand was kicked up all around us. An excruciating pain kicked through my shoulder. We were being attacked, again! Swinging my head in the sound's general direction, I could see that, in the sky, a pegasus was firing on us, and probably the caravan, as well.
I was helpless, we were all about to die. My vision started to fade. Somehow, a gunshot rang out next to me, then, once my ears stopped ringing, silence cast its hood over me. This expedition was doomed.
Luna was over me, trying to stop the bleeding, certainly, but sleep felt really appealing right about then. Terror was replaced with slow breathing, as I slipped into unconsciousness.
"Stay awake... the shooting stopped!" her voice bubbled and whispered through my head.
Luna never did clean off that dirt, did she? Now I would have to clean off my own dirt. I laughed, before letting everything fade away.
*** *** ***
I awoke on a bed, with a red mare standing next to me. Luna appeared above two, along with the orange pegasus from earlier. I squirmed.
"Take it easy, the anaesthetic is wearing off, you'll feel a little woozy," the mare said.
"Whhoo are yoouu?" I mumbled, my throat dry.
"I'll go get some water. I'm Candy Heart, the nurse here, in New Appleloosa." She walked away for a second, and put a glass of water to my lips. I drank it down quickly, thankful for the cool sensation.
"What's he doin' here?" the words stumbled out of my mouth.
"Ah'm the pony who shot you. Sorry about that, mah name's Calamity," the rust-colored stallion answered, his accent thicker than any I had heard in person, before.
"Why di' you do it?"
"Ah thought y'all were raiders, sneakin' up on that caravan. Ah watch the outside of New Appleloosa, and shoot anypony who tries to slip one on us."
"Excuse me, but I'd like to talk with her, Calamity," Luna interjected.
"I see why they call you Calamity," I giggled, my speech starting to return to normal, the anaesthetic wearing off.
"Are you feeling all right, Littlepip?"
"Never better. How's my shoulder?"
The nurse responded, "We got the bullet out, and gave you some healing injections. It shouldn't take more than a few days for you to be fully healed." I noticed that she had a slight accent, similar to the ones I had heard in the wasteland, but it was softer, subtler.
"When can I get out of here?"
"We'll need to give you a brace, then you can leave whenever you like. Calamity already paid for your treatment, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Pay? When I came out here, I expected worse, somehow."
She looked confused, and Luna explained, "Stables aren't like it is here, we get ration cards; there isn't money."
The nurse nodded, "Right," going to fetch the brace. She placed it on my foreleg, latching the device around it, transferring the support of my leg from my shoulder to my midsection. She helped me off the bed, and I groaned in pain, as my hoof hit the ground.
"It'll be sore for a week, even after it's healed, take it easy with that leg, you don't want a muscle tear."
"Right, I'll do that, thanks."
The room was surrounded by beds, themselves enclosed by moving curtains. Near each one was a cart, some surfaces empty, and others covered with medical supplies. Candy Heart led us to the door, revealing a sand-swept deck which emerged from the ground.
"This is the Helping Hoof Hospital, the primary health clinic in New Appleloosa. If you ever need more medical attention, feel free to come back," Candy said.
"Thank you, very much," Luna responded, smiling at Candy.
"You're welcome, it's my pleasure," Candy said, smiling back.
"So, uh, what now?" I asked.
"Right now, y'all are gonna come with me to Old Appleloosa. Ah'm pretty sure that Ah tracked down your missing mare. Your friend here told me all about her, once Ah explained how sorry Ah feel for shootin' at ya. You need money out here, anyway, so it's an all-round good deal."
"You found Velvet, how?" I excitedly asked.
"News is that Old Appleloosa has secured the employment of a very good performer. Ah heard about it just before you ponies arrived with the caravan. There's a train going south to Old Appleloosa, soon. Ah'll talk to the mare in charge, and get you two spots in their cargo security."
"Security, us?"
"It's just a formality, New and Old Appleloosans never ran into trouble with the train."
Luna asked, "What do you trade with Old Appleloosa?"
"Just supplies, we never take slaves, if that's what you're asking."
"Slaves?"
"Shit! Ah didn't mean to say that. Stable ponies don't like slavery, right? Neither do we, but we make it a habit to do what Red Eye tells us, and he wants supplies and transportation for Old Appleloosa, which has a lot of slaves. We get our share, and don't complain."
"So, Red Eye, is some kind of slave-owner?"
"Slave-owner? He's more like the slave-king. Got a whole army of ponies, griffons, and who knows what else keeping the slaves in line. He owns Old Appleloosa, and controls a lot of Fillydelphia, south-east of here."
"Can't you just stop transporting for him?"
"We're surrounded on two sides, and he has more trains than our two. Our only options are to take it, or get packing, and ponies out here ain't willin' to leave this place, it bein' so built-up and all."
"That sounds like a tough situation," gears spun in my head, "When is that train leaving?"
"8 AM, tommorow."
"Is there anything to do in the meantime?"
"Well, since you're Stable ponies... There's a Stable under the old station, and nopony has figured out how to get inside. It's right next door, if you're feeling up to it."
"Well, looking at it can't hurt," I looked at Luna, who thought for a second, and nodded.
She added, "I'm sure there's something interesting in there."
"I sure hope you can get it open, Red Eye's forces have tried it, but couldn't."
Luna thought out loud, "Why would Red Eye try to get into a Stable?"
"I don't rightly know, supplies, maybe? There's gotta be plenty in there. We'd better start now, it's noon already."
I realized something, "Noon? I've been unconscious for a day?"
"Right on the spot."
I wondered why I hadn't asked this before. It was the second most obvious question for somepony coming off an anaesthetic in a strange room, right behind "Where am I?"
"If we open it, would Red Eye get whatever was inside?"
"Yeah, but they'd probably pay you a fine sum of money, or you could just close it up again, Ah won't tell. Ah could organize the town to scavenge it, too. We wouldn't mind walking away with it, although Red Eye may not like that."
I had a bad feeling about this, but we didn't have anywhere else to go, and, if Calamity really was trustworthy, there wouldn't be a single issue.
*** *** ***
I asked the nurse, and exploring the Stable was an acceptable exercise, as long as we stayed out of danger. She said that walking around might even help the accelerated healing process.
The Stable's entrance was on the lowest basement floor of the station platform. The station was designed (or redesigned, maybe) to accommodate large numbers of ponies, including a cargo elevator, still working, after all this time.
The platform was a massive, concrete structure, still perfectly intact. The main floor was filled with crates, barrels, and pallets carrying all kinds of supplies.
"We use this place as a storehouse, it was used that way before the war, too."
We took the elevator down, and arrived in a musty room. The Stable door loomed over us, embedded in the concrete wall. On it, the number 14 was carved. Beside the door, a simple control panel waited for instructions. I pressed the intercom button, and got no answer.
"We tried that already, never got a response."
I plugged my pip-buck into the panel, then began inputting Stable II's override code. Lights flashed on, and, for the second time in my life, I witnessed a Stable door open. The gear-shaped door was pushed out, and pulled aside, although not into a concrete case, as it was in my Stable.
"Wow, that was something," Calamity said, amazed.
Stable 14's entrance airlock was waiting for us. I gulped, nervous about what we would find -- and what we would do with it. I trotted inside, anxious to start. The lack of a greeting was worrying. At the end of the airlock was a heavy door, which opened with ease. The entrance level was empty, upon first inspection. The lights were still on, and the walls were decently clean, both good signs.
We continued searching. The medical room was devoid of ponies. A computer was standing by the wall opposite from the door. I walked over to it, and inspected it for the 'on' button. The screen flashed to life, as I accidentally activated the terminal. Various options filled the screen. I selected the first, 'Stable-Network Emergency Alert System'
Stable-Network System -- Error: The Stable-Network is heavily damaged --
Please, somepony, if you can see this, open the door, let us out, please please please please
It wasn't what I expected, although it was what I probably should have. I exited the menu, selecting the next, 'Medical Logs.'
It contained years worth of data, ending at '9/4/1147.' I chose the first entry, which appeared on the screen.
Got new samples today, they say its from the classroom on Level 7. Fuck, the children shouldn't have to deal with this shit. Thankfully, none of them were in there, but thismeans that we'll have to start moving up to Level 6, soon, and nopony wants it to be any more crowded.
Clearly missing something, I skipped over dozens of entries, landing on '2/16/1145',
Update: the residue seems to reproduce at a rapid rate, somehow breaking down everything it touches, like a cancer, but worse. It affects non-organic materials too. So far, we've found that it will eat through steel, titanium, and copper. I hope that the team we put together can contain it. It would be awful if it got someplace we couldn't reach.
'2/11/1145'
A maintenance mare found something on Level 16, a mass of black residue on one of the terminals down there. I've been too busy to make entries during the time that we've been studying it. The mass keeps growing, eating through the terminal, and its slowly engulfing the thing. It contains some signs of genetic material, but we cant really figure out how it reproduces. It seems to be more like a virus than cellular. It eats something, reproduces, then eats more. It only has a simple 'protein' coat, but we've seen all kinds of things that make it up. I've never seen an organism like this. Magician on level 20 said it was from them, but it shouldn't be out here.
Disturbed, I left the terminal alone. We left the medical room, setting our path to the elevator; it still appeared intact. As the doors opened, I could see the aforementioned black residue covering the inside. The partially-consumed body of a pony sank into the floor, and another into the wall. I yelped, stepping away from the door. The door closed, and I sighed heavily.
Before leaving, we copied all of the data from the medical terminal, to look over later. I raided the medical cabinet, just before I forgot, finding some labeled vials (which I didn't care to bring with us, after seeing the elevator), various clean needles, and a roll of bandages. On second thought, I left everything I found in the cabinet behind. We sealed the door behind us, hoping that we hadn't brought the black mass closer to devouring the surface. I worried that we could have awoken something very dangerous.
After we recovered from the experience, Luna asked us, "Should we announce it?"
"It might cause a panic," I responded, "We don't know what might happen."
"If we don't do it, then, how long do you think it'll take for that stuff to spread out here?" Calamity protested.
"Even if they tried to fight it, they might just make it worse; they might spread it out here. Stable 14 couldn't stop it, so they may not be able to, either," Luna said.
"What if we tell the town, and encourage a quarantine?" I said, "They'll know, but the Stable will stay closed. They can study the logs, and try to find a way to stop it, in the meantime."
"That sounds like a good plan," Calamity agreed, "Eclipse?"
"It seems like a perfectly logical conclusion."
We agreed on it, and moved to address the town. At the top of the railhouse was a large, metal bell, used primarily when a pony needed to talk to the other townsponies. In this case, it was Calamity talking. After we rang the bell, a crowd formed in front of the railhouse.
Most of the ponies seemed clean, and none wore ragged clothing. Their fur was healthy, and I saw no other signs of any kind of poisoning. We really had found civilization out here, although it was a shame that Velvet was still missing. Soon, we would find her, I promised myself.
Calamity spoke to them, "An expedition into Stable 14 has been done," the air filled with gasps, "And we found something dangerous. Inside is a black tar, which eats everything it touches, then expands,
"But, we shouldn't panic, the Stable ponies who opened the Stable suggest that we quarantine it until we study the data they collected."
The crowd murmured among itself, some ponies suggesting ways of fighting the "tar", all falling flat in face of Calamity's description. After a while of conversation, the crowd disbanded.
"So, now what?" I wondered, out loud.
"Ponies will discuss it, and after a while, the Council will come to an agreement."
Luna asked, "The Council? As in, elected officials?"
"Yup, we have a council of ponies who make all the big decisions. Who we don't trade with, where the trains don't go, what isn't allowed, things like that."
"Interesting."
Calamity began leading us to the wasteland equivalent of rented apartments. The streets were bustling, maintaining a constant drone over the jewel of the desert that was New Appleloosa. Along our path, we bought food, in exchange for bottle caps, which gave me a few ideas for how we could make money. Carbonated drinks, one of the vices of the old world.
I was relieved when we finally arrived. The building was constructed from adobe, matching the sand. Calamity paid for a room for Luna and me, while he slept alone, somewhere. There was only one bed, but I was all right with that.
By the time we arrived, it was late in the afternoon, and my wound was already feeling better. The day had been as eventful as the last, even more so. I was tired, so I went to bed early. Drifting asleep, I thought of the events of the past few days. In that time, I had fired a gun, killed a pony, almost died, made up with the pony who almost killed me, and almost released a bio-weapon under a town. A day ago, I had found knocking a pony unconscious unusual, and now I was a murderer.
In all respects, I was adjusting quickly to the outside world.
