Slaves

I was walking through the main corridor on the first storey of Stable-Tec’s research and development division, Cherry following several metres behind me. The building brought back unpleasant memories, and my left ear seemed unwilling to stop ringing ever since I entered this place.

This time, I was much more prepared. Not only did I now understand the robots’ weak points, but I had my enchanted, explosive crystal bullets. While the explosive shells had done the job, they were far from ideal. After all, there was a reason that, normally, only high calibre rounds ended up with such a load. A shotgun shell just didn’t impart enough energy on its projectile to truly take advantage of the explosion. That, and the type of explosive in shells used had to be a different, weaker kind.

I shook myself out of my gun-related reverie as I spotted a nearby hostile bar move. I motioned Cherry to wait where he was. I had no way of telling if the enemy was on this floor or the one above, but I knew to be careful. Steps echoed down the hall, but I didn’t know how close they were. Damn my maimed ear. My caution proved justified as a protectapony walked around the corner. I destroyed it with a single 12 gauge slug, not wasting any of my precious specialty ammunition.

Those were reserved for sentry bots, which could cause serious damage and easily put us in extreme danger. Luckily, I had a strategy to deal with them, a fairly simple one at that. I would teleport behind them and shoot one or two explosive rounds into their power source. Once they would collapse, I would unplug their weaponry in order to make sure they wouldn’t be a threat again. Plus, it made the job of Star Seeds’ underlings easier when they came with their workers to dismantle the robot for spare parts.

For simpler robots like this, pulling out the spark battery would be enough, along with the magical fusion cells. The latter I mostly kept for myself, ordering Cherry to put them in his saddlebags. Studying this spell seemed like a good idea, at least while I had as much free time as I currently did.

It was odd to have any sort of time off, as I was technically a slave. However, Star Seeds just didn’t need anything more done ever since we had arrived in New Detrot. He spent most of his time alone in his quarters, studying various documents that the two of us had extracted from three different research facilities. There was a fourth that he wanted to check out, but since it was nearby, it could wait for now. Since it didn’t specialise in plant-related spells, only general arcano-mechanic research, it really wasn’t a priority.

All I needed to do was remain nearby on standby. He had plans for buildings, but for that he needed materials and machines. Those couldn’t easily be shipped all the way over to New Detrot from Fillydelphia.

Why he chose this place—out of any other—was something I occasionally wondered about, but ultimately I didn’t want to bother discussing anything with the stallion. He was just too much of a headache.

“Are you alright?” asked Cherry, picking up a magical fusion cell from my telekinesis. I realised I’d kept it in place for the better part of half a minute.

“Got a bit lost in thought, sorry,” I said before making my way down the corridor again.

Him and I had gotten… professionally close. We weren’t friends or anything, but we had a certain trust in each other. He trusted me to keep him safe through work and not treat him like a slave, while I trusted him to do what I told him and not stab me in the back in some vain attempt to flee. He understood that his current life was much better than anything he could otherwise ask for, and that trying to attack me would likely just end with him dying.

In spite of that, I didn’t trust him with his own weapon. The only reason I let him carry my loaded guns was because he was an earth pony, and it would be difficult for him to use the heavy guns with only his hooves, and without going prone. Hopefully, that should give me enough notice in the event that he would attack me.

In theory, I understood that he wouldn’t kill me, even if he could; not everyone was as open to killing for their own benefit as I was. However, I knew exactly what I would do if I were in his shoes, and it didn’t reassure me in the slightest.

I kind of regretted not being closer to him, but any attempt at a conversation would just end up in awkward smalltalk. At the end of the day, he was my sla— subordinate, and I was his superior; it made sense we couldn’t—

Suddenly, as I walked past a closed door, the name engraved on it caught my attention. Arcane Spark. It had been years since I’d last heard of her, and the name was itself enough to spark my curiosity.

I pushed the door to her office slightly open, fairly certain that there wouldn’t be any danger in there. For this building, I’d found my EFS to be reliable, as every single turret and robot showed up on it.

Of course, I still wouldn't take any unnecessary risks. Motioning Cherry to stand behind cover, I quickly wove the intricate pattern of a short teleport and swung the door wide open, ready for anything that might pop up. Even as nothing showed, I didn’t release the energy, holding onto it just in case.

“What in the starless hells…” I murmured as I entered the room, still on high alert. After a dozen seconds or so, I carefully cancelled the spell, seeing as the room remained empty.

Arcane’s office wasn’t what I’d expected. Her desk was an absolute mess under the thick layer of dust. Papers were strewn around haphazardly, each filled in with various amounts of mathematical notation, the vast majority of which I didn’t recognise. Amongst them stood a Stable-Tec terminal. On the shelves behind it, stacks of notes lay among disorganised books, cups and many different writing utensils.

I didn’t know what I would have expected to see here, but it certainly wasn’t this. In this horrible mess, I’d never be able to find anything interesting at all. Well, sifting through the notes and papers would be easy; they contained nothing I could understand anyway. There was just so damn much of the stuff that looking through individual notes would be enough work to dissuade my curiosity.

I was ahead of schedule, but this seemed like an awful lot of work that I just didn’t feel like doing, especially not right now, not even to sate my mind’s appetite for interesting knowledge.

Just as I was ready to leave the room, it struck me that the terminal on her desk was still active. Seeing the state of her office, I doubted her home folder was organised in any decent way either, but I decided to give it a shot regardless.

Unsurprisingly, the terminal was locked, so I tried to connect my PipBuck and run the script Lockpick had thrown together for me; it was a simple program and required lots of user input, but it would allow me to crack the terminal’s password fairly quickly.

Or so I thought. Five minutes later, I’d almost run out of attempts and had to back out of the terminal in order to avoid locking myself out of it.

For some reason, the hints it had been giving me hadn’t worked out; they were misleading, wrong even. The best I had managed was two out of twelve characters matching—and even then, it occasionally claimed the password was longer or shorter than that. I’d used the script several times as practice, and this was the first time it had bugged out in such a spectacular manner.

As I aggressively pressed the power button with my hoof—this piece of junk didn’t deserve the gentle touch of my telekinesis—I hit the eject key, and a holodisk came out of the device. I raised an eyebrow and picked it up in my magic.

I couldn’t help my curiosity as I inserted into the side of my PipBuck, before extending the ear piece from the device and into my ear. I pressed play, then headed for the room’s exit, Cherry in tow.

“Good morning, Director Apple Bloom,” a mare that I recognised as Arcane Spark spoke up.

“Good morning. You wanted to speak to me?” replied a mare in a heavily accented voice that seemed to clash with her position in the company.

Walking down the corridor, I motioned for Cherry to follow me from further away.

“Yeah. Just before we start, I need to let you know that I will be recording this conversation, just in case they ever delete my memories.”

Who did what? Was that a thing before the bombs fell?

There was a bit of a silence before the director spoke up again, her voice hesitant. “I… see. Ah understand, but… and don’t take this personally, but are you sleeping enough?”

“Hardly.”

There was another break in the recording before Apple Bloom said, “Ah think it would be more than alright for you to… take a bit of a few days off, given what you’ve recently been through.”

“I’d rather not.”

I motioned Cherry to stop as I turned a corner, using SATS to shoot a slug into a ceiling-mounted turret.

Apple Bloom’s tone grew even more concerned. “Are you sure?”

I waved around the corner, and Cherry trotted up to me.

There was another small silence, which Arcane broke. “Director… last week I came home to find my wife’s brains plastered on our living room wall,” she said, placing slow and deliberate emphasis onto each word.

Wife? How long after those memory orbs had this recording been made?

Arcane continued, “Whenever I close my eyes, I see that scene again. Whenever I take any sort of break, I start thinking about it again. I start thinking about what I did wrong. I start thinking about how I should have been there for her more. I start thinking about how I shouldn’t have let them delete any of her memories. I start thinking about how I shouldn’t have taken part in that stupid program. I start thinking about how her suicide was my fault. So please.” She paused for a second. “Let me deal with my personal life as I see fit, Director.”

I finished climbing a set of stairs, getting to the second storey. At the far end of this floor’s central corridor, I spotted another turret, with enough distance separating us to make me reconsider using the shotgun. It was only forty metres away, but that was already starting to be difficult to hit with a 12 gauge slug.

I could get closer to it, or I could take a few shots. It wasn’t like the gun lost all its power and accuracy over such a distance, after all. However, both of those might trigger a response from the turret, and if I could avoid getting shot at, I would. I asked Cherry for my rifle chambered in .308 and took aim.

Right before I pulled the trigger, Apple Bloom broke the awkward silence. “Alright. What did you want to talk about? You said it’s important.”

“Finally,” Arcane mumbled to herself. Then, speaking up, she continued, “I’ve discovered a major security vulnerability in our systems. I’ve been able to prove that the hash function used by the current version of Stable-Tec OS is flawed in that it doesn’t fulfil the pre-image resistance property, allowing for linear-time attacks. Our only silver lining is that, by default, offline attacks are intractable.”

“Miss Spark…” Apple Bloom said in a flat tone. “It’s too early in the morning to throw this much technical jargon at me all at once. Could you repeat that a bit slower?”

Arcane sighed. “Most passwords can be cracked within a hundred attempts, faster if the attacker is clever or has a dictionary. Essentially, it’s possible to tell how many letters in common a random guess has with a given password.”

“Oh, that is bad,” said Applebloom. “Good thing that password hashes are inaccessible to anything but the system itself, or we’d have an even bigger problem.”

“Yes, what’s worse is that, in theory, it’s possible to gain that information without even looking at the hash directly.”

The two continued on to talk like that, getting more and more technical as the conversation went on and Apple Bloom came to understand the extent of the risks. Eventually, it was revealed that Arcane had already started working on a fix, and it wouldn’t take her more than a week to finish.

“Proving that this next version doesn’t have any flaws is going to be the hard part,” said Arcane. “It’s always a pain to prove anything useful at all about hash functions.”

Apple Bloom made a sound in agreement. “But there’s also the issue of getting the patch out in the first place. Updating every single critical system is going to be difficult, and if we make it sound too urgent, some malicious ponies—or worse—might catch on and find a way to exploit it. There’s just too much risk involved.” She sighed. “Whatever, I’ll figure something out, you do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

“I will. Our conversation actually gave me ideas for things to check for, and I’m glad I recorded it. Have a good day, Director.”

The recording ended there. It seemed like the patch had been finished, but it clearly hadn’t been deployed to many terminals, just like Apple Bloom had predicted. I wondered how close to the end of the war that conversation had happened. Clearly, Arcane’s terminal had been fixed, but most weren’t. Maybe at some point they decided it just wasn’t worth it?

About an hour later, I was done with the building, having cleared the entirety of its defences. After I finished, I decided to pay Arcane’s apartment a visit. Her terminal proved itself just as difficult to crack, so I went to work on her safe instead. It took a while, but I eventually managed to get the lock open, finding some bits, jewellery, and memory orbs inside.

I didn’t bother knocking before barging into Star’s office. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, but he spoke before I could, “So, Sonata, what was so important you couldn’t just tell me telepathically?”

“Another three slaves died just last week.” I stared daggers at him.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s unfortunate. The weather hasn’t been treating us well.”

“Don’t act like you’ve had nothing to do with it,” I shot back. “You’re the one sending them to Detrot for spare parts in this weather. Can’t your plans wait a month or two?”

He faked an indignant huff. “I am simply doing what needs to be done. And no, they can’t. The sooner I get those greenhouses set up, the sooner we can start producing food. Every day we wait is another day ponies starve in the wasteland.”

I groaned. It was always the same with him, and he completely refused to change anything. Every day, he would send out most of the overseers with their slaves to get materials in the Detrot ruins. Unfortunately, none of the train tracks or metro lines were in good enough condition to use, so they ended up pulling carts themselves. Meanwhile, Star Seeds stayed holed up in his warm office, studying old books. Of course, none of the masters ever suffered from the cold, either.

Also, a few groups would stay behind and work on the buildings he needed. There were plans for proper housing, water towers and of course greenhouses.

“You still haven’t told me why you decided to build the wasteland’s future ‘primary food source’ in the Frozen North. Aren’t there any better places? Ones that aren’t, you know, freezing?”

“I haven’t? That’s a shame. You should have asked sooner,” he practically purred.

I stared him dead in the eye. “I have. Now tell me.” I didn’t have any leverage, and he was in no way obligated to comply, but I was still done putting up with it. “I know there has to be a reason. You’re no fool, even though you act like one.”

He smirked and took a sip from his tea. “You flatter me, but I suppose I can tell you. You’re right that the climate up here is far from ideal for agriculture.” He smirked at me. “However, there are other boons to this region. For one, it is one of the least inhabited places in Equestria. There just aren’t many scavengers, bandits, or raiders to come and mess with a new settlement.”

“Well, you’re right about that, but it’s hardly the only relatively deserted place in the wasteland.” Admittedly, all other similar places also had something that made them inconvenient, one way or another. Radiation, cold, flora, fauna, among many other things.

“Well, there’s more. He floated a map that he had framed and hung on the wall, pointing at the northeast corner. “Here is the old Hoofer dam. It’s currently out of commission, but can easily provide a lot of power if we fix it.”

He tapped a location straight to the west of here. “This is the quarry of Marey. It is a pre-war gem mine that’s barely been touched since. If we get that up and running, we will be able to produce all the heating and light talismans we need. I’m looking into ways of weaving more complex spells into them, like growth acceleration, light, and heat.”

I was starting to see his point. “Not to mention,” I said, “Old Detrot is very much a treasure trove when it comes to old world technology and materials.” It wasn’t anything close to the likes of Hoofington, but it still had much to give.

His smirk grew into a wide grin as he nodded. “Exactly. I’ve searched for years, and this is by far the best option, despite its many flaws.”

“Still… Isn’t there anything you could do that would make them die less? Any sort of compromise at all?”

His smile turned into a slight frown, and he let out a barely audible sigh. “Trust me, if I knew how to utilise my resources better, I would be doing it.”

I couldn’t help but wince at him referring to ponies as ‘resources’. “What about repairing the rails and getting a train on them? It should be doable.”

“Oh, it’s on the list, but we need ways to produce food first. Repairing it immediately would take way too much ponyhours.”

“What about the small airship in the crater? From a distance it looks in decently good shape.” Iron had seen it when she’d gone to clear one of the buildings of any defences.

Star Seeds shook his head. “I think you know why. Sending ponies to get it out would kill more than it would save. Who knows if it’s even salvageable? The airship itself is also highly irradiated, though on such a small scale, I’m pretty sure I could remedy that problem with a bit of magic, at least to render it usable.”

I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether or not it was worth going down this path. My apprehension must have been clear on my face, because Star Seeds gave me an expectant look. That seemed to be enough to get me talking. “Iron could do it. Well, actually fixing it might be too difficult, but she could probably gauge whether it’s fixable or not. I would do it, but she understands arcano-mechanical engineering much better than I do.”

He raised an eyebrow and looked at me like I was insane. “You think I would give up one of my best assets to try and fix an airship?” He set down his cup, leaning forward. “You know I had to call in favours to get her out of Crow’s stock, right? You may not be getting paid, but I still paid quite a bit to obtain your services.”

“I’m not talking about giving anything up. You see, this body has mutated, and radiation barely affects us anymore; in fact, it’s slightly beneficial.”

That only caused him to raise his other eyebrow. “I don’t know if I believe that. You know that if you kill yourself, your friends are going back into slavery, right?”

“You don’t need to remind me. I know our body, and I know we’ll be alright. Just give her the order, and she’ll do it and be just fine.”

He gave a short shrug. “That would actually solve a big problem for me. I just think she will be pretty mad that you convinced me to give her more orders, especially some as dangerous as those.”

I just shook my head, feeling a small smile creep up on my muzzle. “Nope, I have a way to hide certain memories from her.” I could even forcefully take over, but I hadn’t really tried that yet; no real opportunity. I didn’t dare tell him the pony who’d taught me those tricks. The tall, green alicorn had told me to keep it a secret, after all.

Star Seeds nodded. “I see. I shall keep that in mind.”

I looked over Iron’s letter one more time. I couldn’t help but worry about her. The risks she had to take for this prick were immense. Getting irradiated when fixing an airship? What the fuck?

Not only had she entirely lost her appetite, but bleeding from down there? Apparently, her body was resistant to radiation now, so she dodged the majority of symptoms acute rad poisoning brought. Still, it clearly still affected her in some ways, and I hoped she would be alright.

I shuddered at the thought of being in her shoes. I’d heard that radiation was a pretty big issue in Fillydelphia, but I had to hope it was mild enough to not worry about it.

Thankfully, though, by the time she’d written the letter, her job was already done. She had explained the technical details of the airship to me, but they went over my head entirely. All I understood was that the craft was rather small, and that she knew which talismans needed replacing and repairing, and which worked fine.

Despite the horrors of radiation poisoning, the thing that she complained about the most was the fact that none of her previous drinking buddies were in New Detrot anymore. Especially after Star Seeds’ takeover, a lot of the inhabitants and regulars had left the town.

I folded the letter and put it in my drawer. By now, the other fillies in my room were all gone, most likely playing in the internal courtyard, shielded from the rest of this abhorrent settlement.

Everypony else who was taken to Fillydelphia ended up becoming a slave. Everypony except foals, who were secretly taken to this building and given regular school lessons. Red Eye himself taught us, and only some of his most trusted underlings were allowed to guard the building. Apart from me, there were three foals.

At first I’d tried to talk to them, but I was by far the oldest. Not only that, but they came from a completely different world than I did, and had a tendency to stare at my few scars.

So, I’d started spending time alone, reading shitty novels. Everypony knew to leave me be. With today being entirely off, nopony would bother me here in the common bedroom. Or rather, nopony would come looking for me.

I headed out of my room and towards the stairwell. Underground, there was a storage closet that had caught my eye on my many aimless walks through the school building.

I’d been stuck here for the past six months or so, and about a month in I had already memorised the layout of the building perfectly.

Frankly, I knew this wasn’t a bad life in the slightest. I had everything I needed given to me on a silver platter and didn’t have to concern myself with anything. But I just couldn’t stand the boredom.

Fortunately, I was really good at picking locks.

Unfortunately, they were careful to not give us any materials that could be used to make the tools needed to pick a lock.

Normally, one of my favourite improvised tools was a wheel spoke bent at a slight angle, but any thin bar made out of solid enough material could do the job if I was able to bend it into shape.

However, even bobby pins were difficult to get by, and they were by far the worst possible improvised tool that could theoretically get the job done… Given a terrible enough lock.

That in turn forced me to attempt something that Iron had made me realise was theoretically possible: picking locks using telekinesis only.

And so, I’d spent three months coming down here several times a week and trying to open this simple padlock with nothing but my magic. Many headaches later, I finally got it open for the first time.

Normally, practising picking a single lock over and over was a horrible idea; you’d get good at opening that one lock, but you wouldn’t really develop your skill in general. However, I didn’t really have a choice. Most other places were well-guarded, and I’d get noticed if I spent too much time there. Here, I wouldn’t. Besides, this was more about improving my telekinesis than my picking skill.

Once I got it open, I would just keep it on me and practise whenever I was alone.

Feeling rather proud as I daydreamed about my accomplishment, I found the storage closet. A few seconds later, my favourite padlock was open, and inside I found my leather jacket and ten millimetre pistol in its holster. I’d stolen them from a slaver on my first trip outside.

Putting both of them on, I made my way to the emergency exit. It wasn’t directly guarded, as it was a locked, solid steel door. I only had to worry about a patrolling pony turning the corner and spotting me, which severely limited the amount of time I could afford to spend on this lock.

Once I got the practice down, translating my old skills to the new method was easy, and this lock barely stood a chance. The first time it took me two extremely stressful minutes to open it. Now, a dozen times later, I could do it within a few seconds.

I stepped out into Fillydelphia proper and started trotting… somewhere. As usual, I couldn’t help but worry that my absence would be noticed. I reminded myself that, if I hadn’t been found out yet, after my many trips outside, I would most likely be safe.

I hadn’t just been going on leisurely strides while out here. I’d been looking for ways to escape this cursed city. Today, I didn’t really have a plan for what part to explore.

In my current get-up, I blended in as a handler. Not only were my leather barding and gun a dead giveaway that I couldn’t be a slave, but my weak, thin build and scar-free hide also showed that I’d never worked any hard physical labour. Oh, and there was also the fact I wasn’t wearing any sort of restraints.

Fortunately, it seemed that nowadays I could pass for a petite, young adult. The extra centimetres I’d gained over the last half year were enough to make just the difference, but I also realised I probably wouldn’t grow much more. Not that I minded; sneaking around was easier with my build and fur colour, and I was far from actually little. I’d just grown up surrounded by tall mares, so being slightly shorter than average felt odd.

However, I couldn’t just walk out of Filly; leaving through the front gate wouldn’t work. While most ponies barely noticed my presence when I was walking around, passing the guards at the entrance would likely result in me being asked a few questions. If things went south, they could end very poorly for me. They might even end up thinking I was a slave and tossing me in with the rest.

Besides… leaving without Petal and Banter felt wrong, even if they would eventually be freed once Iron was done with her contract. I had a vague idea where they were being kept, but I needed a safe route to an unguarded exit before I could attempt anything. I knew there had to be some way out of here without going through the main gate.

The underground tunnels below the city could definitely work, though I had yet to find an entrance to them that wasn’t welded shut or impossible to get to.

Another option was to leave through the old city. The slavers had currently only fenced off those areas, as opposed to building a wall around it. The reason for that was simple; I’d… overheard it when Red Eye talked to one of his trusted underlings. He planned on having the entire city walled off in the future, not just the small part currently being used. It would be a waste of time and resources to build a proper wall, only to tear it down again when it was time to expand.

Thinking about the sheer size of that… I had to admit, the ambition was itself impressive and made his grand plan seem… feasible. Even his goals to restore Equestria to its former glory through hard work and necessary sacrifice would be admirable if it wasn’t for his methods.

At the end of the day, I was a wasteland mare. Life had taught me to selfishly look out for myself first and foremost. So while I would have considered it awe-inspiring if he was as selfless as he wanted his underlings and slaves to be, it was hard to see him for anything else than what he really was. A horrible slavedriver.

Thankfully, he didn’t spend too much time talking about his dreams of the future, only occasionally devolving into ramblings about it during class. Whenever he did, I was worried that my true feelings would come to the surface, and that he would get tired of playing nice.

In general, I wasn’t a great pupil. Frankly, I was just so behind on every subject that I wondered why he even bothered teaching me. I knew less than even the youngest of the bunch, who was half my age. I had to admit, I was very worried he would suddenly decide that I wasn’t worth the effort and just make me a regular slave. In all likelihood, I’d just be sent to Petal and Banter if that was the case, but that wasn’t a great option either.

Distracted by my thoughts, I accidentally made eye contact with a slaver. Instead of panicking, I just nodded at him in greeting and continued on my way. I’d gotten into the habit of pretending to be one of them, and found it surprisingly easy to blend in. No one would question me about where I was going if I just acted confident enough.

However, as I turned my attention away from him, he caught up to me, putting his hoof on my withers. “I could use some help, are you busy?”

“Kinda… Why, what do you need?” Internally panicking, I still managed to answer in the most non-committal manner possible.

“I need to talk to somepony about something real quick, could you look over my stock for a while?”

“Uh, I can’t, my boss—”

“It’s only fifteen minutes. Just tell her Crow Call needed your help, and you’ll be fine. I’ll vouch for you, I promise.” He tried to flash a reassuring smile at me, but I could tell he was in a hurry.

“I… uh… okay.” This would probably be the easiest way to get out of the situation. Still, why did I have to meet his gaze? Stupid mare.

“Perfect! They’re all inside the factory. Just get on the catwalk and you’ll have a good overview.” He pointed to the entrance he had been standing in front of prior to my arrival. “I’m counting on you,” he said before disappearing around the corner of a building.

Sighing, I stepped through the back door and quickly found the stairs leading up onto the catwalk.

For the next quarter hour, I stood above the factory floor, watching over the slaves as they went about their labour. At first I was worried; what if they suddenly refused to do the work they were supposed to?

However, not a single one of them slowed down noticeably. Not that I could tell if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing; after all, I had no clue how this place worked. The process seemed simple enough. Some slaves would pour molten metal from a vat into a recipient, left it to cool for a while, and then put it through some kind of machine, out of which it would come out as an I-shaped beam.

Eventually, I relaxed a little and found my mind drifting. Crow Call… that name rang a bell, but I had no idea why.

Oh, right. Iron had told me about him. He had been her master while she was still in Filly. According to her, he was a spineless fool. From my brief interaction with him, I had a similar impression.

I remembered now. She’d used harsh words to describe him, but hadn’t seemed very hateful at all when she did. Like she was talking about a lovable idiot.

I sighed. I really missed her, and talking to her through letters just wasn’t the same. The last time she’d been in Fillydelphia had been over four months ago. Meanwhile, I got to see Petal and Banter every other week.

The rest of the time flew by, and I was suddenly snapped out of my thoughts by Crow walking onto the catwalk. “Ah, I can’t thank you enough…” He furrowed his brow. “I just realised I don’t know your name. Would you mind telling me? I can’t thank you properly otherwise.”

Remembering I was supposed to appear in a hurry, I started heading towards the exit. Thankfully, I’d given this question some thought while he’d been away and replied with as little hesitation as possible, “I’m Shackles.” Kind of a generic name for a slaver, but hopefully it wouldn’t draw any attention.

“Well then, Shackles, thank you so much!”

“Glad to be of help.” I turned my head towards Crow as I passed by him, giving him my best relaxed smile. “But I really need to get going now,” I added before continuing towards the stairs.

“Hold on, give me just another moment. What do you think of working under me? I could really use some assistance with my stock. You’ll probably know that I’m one of the more important ponies around here, so it would be a good opportunity.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I have to decline,” I answered as nicely as I could, internally panicking.

“Give it a bit more thought, please. Just a single day.”

Was he really this desperate for an assistant? I turned my whole body around to face him, in hopes of making myself clear. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“Why not?”

“My boss wouldn’t like that. She’s very… strict about things like that.”

“Oh, I’ll talk to her if that’s the only issue. Who is it?”

No! I wanted to shout, but stopped myself just in time. “T-there’s no need, really.” Fuck! Why did I have to stutter? Pull yourself together, Lockpick.

“Why not? You seem like a bright young mare, why not try to fulfil your potential?”

“F-fine, I’ll ask her myself, but no guarantees.”

He gave me a bright smile. “If she says no, just let me talk to her. I know she’ll change her mind.”

Why was he so fucking insistant? In this disguise, I was just some average, inexperienced slaver. I wasn’t supposed to catch anyone’s eye, even if ponies might eventually realise that nopony actually knew me.

Still… tomorrow was another day off. So if I came in, worked with him, then said I preferred my previous work, that would be fine, right? Or would it only make my situation worse? I had no time to reflect on that.

“A-alright,” I stammered. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I really need to go now.”

As I left him behind, I started walking around the town again, careful to avoid anypony’s gaze and to look as busy as possible. The rest of my trip went by without issue as I wandered around the smaller, empty streets, pondering my options.

I could always ghost Crow Call, but that might run the risk of him asking around for me, which in turn would make it harder for me to blend in like I had been. After all, if too many ponies realised they didn’t know who I was, my cover would be blown. Frankly, I was almost a little surprised that it hadn’t already become an issue.

It would backfire completely, and I would be found out. Who knew what Red Eye would do once he caught on that I had been leaving the school building?

Then again… I was astonished nopony had ever noticed my absence before. I had a slew of excuses ready for the day somepony asked me where I had been all day, but so far I hadn’t needed them.

A younger filly would just get a slap on the hoof and be given extra attention to make sure she couldn’t escape again.

I, however, was no longer just a young filly and had already been encroaching on the border to adulthood. I still wasn’t a mare by most standards, but there were some slaves here who weren’t much older than me.

What if he’d just decide I wasn’t worth the trouble? I already wasn’t the best of his students and generally did not enjoy class. So why would he go the extra mile for somepony like me?

No, my safest bet was to help out Crow Call and then lay low for a few weeks.

I walked behind a group of three slaves, each pulling a cart full of scrap metal. We were headed for Crow Call’s factory.

A mare was starting to lag behind the group. I approached her and spoke gently, “Hey, I know you’re tired, but this is the last stretch. After this you’ll get to rest. The sooner we get there, the sooner you’ll get to sit down and breathe.”

I hated every word coming out of my muzzle. I wanted to tear out my tongue for saying that. And yet, I did it anyway. It needed to be said, though. If she lagged behind, everypony else would have to wait for her. The entire group might get punished—thankfully not by me.

Or worse yet… I might get found out. I despised having to think like that, but in this situation, I had to place my own survival above the comfort of others.

Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t really hurting her by saying that. I didn’t like following Crow Call’s advice, but it was also the most equine way of ensuring things would go well.

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know her name. Crow had told me, but sometime along the day, I’d forgotten, which made me feel even more guilty for what I was doing.

Eventually, we arrived at the factory, and I instructed them to place the materials on the haphazard pile near the smelters. Soon after, Crow Call entered the building.

We would then escort the slaves back to one of the common areas so that they could eat and sleep. Few were the captives like Iron who were ever allowed to roam semi-freely.

That confirmed my suspicions that escaping would be feasible. After all, it showed a lack of confidence. In theory, if you knew that the slaves wouldn’t be able to leave Fillydelphia, it wouldn’t matter where they went. If they missed a shift, it would be noticed.

Suddenly, Crow spoke up, snapping me out of my train of thought. “So, have you decided?”

I turned my head towards him. "Give me a few more minutes to think about it."

I was stuck. I didn't want to accept his offer. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be a great idea; disappearing from the school for entire days was risky even when I did so scarcely. Not to mention, I would only be available to work on days without class, which would complicate matters significantly.

However, the drawbacks of not accepting were significant enough to make me hesitate. First off, now that I knew he was watching me, I was really paranoid about leaving the school again. After all, if even an idiot like him had noticed me, and had realised I was mostly just walking around… What was stopping smarter ponies from noticing me too? And chances were, they wouldn't buy my excuses.

And if I stopped my weekly trips, there was the risk of my absence being noticed. Mostly by Crow, but maybe somepony else had picked up on my presence. Occasionally working for him would definitely lower suspicion.

Besides, I wasn't making much progress in my investigation. The issue was that the best areas for finding an escape route were heavily guarded. I was able to walk around the centre of town mostly unnoticed, but if I approached the outskirts—specifically the gate or the fence at the back—guards always eyed me suspiciously. That might only be my imagination, but I hardly dared snoop around those areas for any amount of time. That left me with less obvious plans, but I was starting to run out of options. I kind of understood why Iron had left this place like she had, instead of escaping like I knew she could.

Having an official identity here would definitely allow me to walk around those areas without risking too much.

Fuck, I couldn't believe my train of thought. Why was I actually considering this? Was I really willing to hurt others for the sake of my family and myself?

But… I'd already done things like that. There weren't any instances of me enslaving anypony, but I knew very well I was willing to step on others to survive. Even if I didn't pave the way, walking it had never bothered me.

I thought back to Trotnot, and how willing I was to let those foals fend for themselves. I may not have hurt them myself, but I was damn willing to let them suffer. I wasn’t a weirdo for having this attitude—if anything, playing hero was what weirdos did.

I had no issues taking a good deal, even though I knew the merchant was probably making a mistake. I had no issues picking a place clean, even though I knew we didn’t need more caps to live, even though I knew somepony else would starve without it.

No, I really had no issues with pushing back others to get ahead in life, if it was needed for my own livelihood or that of my family.

Yes, working as a slaver was quite a bit more fucked up than refusing to risk my life for a stranger, but I wouldn’t be enslaving anypony, and this was only a temporary measure.

It was finally time I accepted this part of myself. After all, Iron was willing to go back to her old job for Petal and Banter, so why wouldn’t I make a move as well? Make the load easier on her. If we escaped, she could kill her boss and disappear as well.

There was just one problem that made this impossible… If I started missing lessons, Red Eye would definitely notice. “I’d like to, but I really can’t abandon my previous boss. I know you could flex your authority, but it just wouldn’t feel right, you know? So, the best I could do is one, maybe two days a week, and I imagine that wouldn’t work for you.”

There simply was no way around that; I’d get noticed, and then Celestia knew what would happen. As I realised that, it really struck me what I’d been considering. Was I really this ready to drive slaves under the shitty pretext that I hadn’t been the one who enslaved them?

“Oh, that would work for me,” he said.

I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a loud, “Huh?” before quickly composing myself. “What do you mean? What’s the use of an assistant who can only help out once a week? Why do you want to take me under your wing this badly? Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, mind you.”

“Well, it’s to teach you the ropes of the job, have an apprentice.” He lowered his tone, leaning in towards me. “Not many masters understand how to get optimal efficiency out of their stock. They believe simply whipping them harder will somehow make it easier.” He shook his head. “No, the trick to efficiency is making them believe they are doing the job willingly. And I would like to teach you.”

A chill ran down my spine at the implications, but I ignored it in the moment. “But why me?”

He chuckled, then his smile turned to a smug grin. His eyes became sharp and his face full of confidence. “Oh, Lockpick, it’s because he asked me to.”

I gulped and felt my heart skip a beat. “W-who asked you?” As I said that, it struck me what name he’d addressed me by, and I realised just how screwed I was.

Realisation must have dawned on my face, because he said, “That’s exactly who. He noticed you weren’t the best student and was considering sending you to your family. The other option was to continue your education in other ways.” After he said that, his expression returned to the soft, dull one that he so often wore.

Struggling to make sense of the situation, I tried to say something, anything. He simply kept up his calm smile, and I realised just how badly I had underestimated him, how badly Iron had underestimated him.

After what felt like hours of internal conflict, I finally managed to formulate a question. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why jump all those hoops?”

“So that you would give some thought to the idea. After all, if Red Eye gave you the option to become an overseer just to keep your liberty… you would have declined without thinking, wouldn’t you?”

He had a point… But I couldn’t, this was just way too messed up. Or was it? Whether or not I accepted this offer, ponies would suffer. However, if I did become a slaver… I could treat those ponies right, couldn’t I?

I let out a sigh. “I see. I take it I would be allowed to leave once Iron’s contract is over?” Of course, I would try to make a run for it before that.

He nodded, and I agreed to his terms. I felt horrid, like I’d betrayed one of the most fundamental principles of being a pony, but no matter how I thought about it… this was the logical thing to do.

I was sitting alone in the slaves’ common area, a large warehouse which was currently empty. More specifically, I was in a small sideroom. The reason for my presence was because Star Seeds had asked me to spend my time on standby here. I suspected it was to remind the slaves that they were being watched, but I hadn’t bothered asking.

I was reading a book, but time didn’t seem to fly, each page taking an agonisingly long time to get through. The book itself wasn’t particularly boring, I’d just been reading so much that the activity had lost most of its fun.

Seven or eight months ago, reading was something I did with pleasure. Sure, it was also to pass time, but just having that free time to pass was pleasant. Nowadays, though, it was something I had to do between orders. Something I did while on standby. Given that, over the past two months, I only had something to do once a week, it quickly grew to be nothing but a way to kill time.

I just wasn’t made for such a boring and inactive life. I needed to be doing something. As a result, I’d started a hobby of repairing old guns to a usable state. I trained some new spells as well; I’d learned to recharge spark batteries and fusion cells—the way they held their charge was fascinating—and had learned to prepare crystals to hold simple spells. The same exact trick I needed to create special variety bullets for my rifle.

After those two, motivation left me, and I found myself tending to my other hobbies, growing more and more bored as even they lost what made them special.

Worse yet, I didn’t have anypony to spend time with. Cherry and I hadn’t grown any closer, and most of our conversations still stopped at smalltalk. Even getting drunk with him wasn’t particularly fun. At the end of the day, even though we were both slaves, we weren’t equals. I was above him in the hierarchy, and that would forever stop us from getting closer. The same applied to the other slaves, except worse, as they didn’t even work directly with me.

The inhabitants of New Detrot weren’t much better. The few that remained after Star Seeds’ de facto takeover weren’t very open to conversation with the pony who was essentially his second-in-command, even though in practice I had no say in what happened—not that they understood that. Even most of the Talons were cold to me, and I regretted that my… acquaintance Grover had left a few months before my arrival. I’d only shared drinks with him a few times, but he was alright. I’d accidentally opened up a little too much when talking, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I closed my book, clearly unable to keep my train of thought hooked on the rather uninspired—though far from bad—storyline. Instead, I sat there for some amount of time; I lost track entirely, letting my mind drift wherever it wanted.

I had to admit, I was a little jealous of Sonata. She at least had Star Seeds. Their conversations weren’t usually all that amicable, but they were deeper than anything I’d had in months, if not years. After I’d gotten the small zeppelin in the Detrot crater repaired enough to be moved, the two had started discussing Star Seeds’ plans and the reasoning behind them.

Frankly, I didn’t care about them at all, I just wanted to find my friends safe. However, I did yearn for someone to have any sort of deeper conversation with.

That was why, when a slave mare popped her head into the room, walking over to me and chatting me up, I didn’t immediately tell her to fuck off. I didn’t recognise the mare, which meant she had to be from the shipment that was supposed to arrive today. Thus, even if my conversation with her would likely end up in pointless smalltalk, there was at least the chance of her seeing me as an equal.

“Hey, I’m Crystal,” she said as she sat down next to me. Her attitude struck me as notably bright, especially for a slave. Though given that she was sent here, it meant that she’d been causing trouble for the slavers over in Fillydelphia, which in turn meant she was probably crazy.

I pushed that thought out of my head. She was talking to me, no use preemptively judging her. “Iron Sights,” I replied quietly.

“Happy to meet you. What’s it like being a slave in here? Is it any worse than Fillydelphia?”

I almost wanted to tell her the truth, that I didn’t really know. I decided against it, instead opting for what I had observed. “It’s tough. They don’t work you to the bone in terms of how long you have to slave away each day, but the cold makes everything so much worse. The silver lining is that you’re not quite treated as expendable, as long as you behave. But fuck around a bit too much, and you might find yourself spending the night outside.” We really couldn’t afford casualties, even though we only got the least useful slaves.

“I see,” she replied in an all too lively tone.

I looked her in the eye, and she smiled. “How are you so chipper? Do you know something I don’t?”

Crystal shrugged. “I dunno, I just find solace that our masters are just as much slaves as we are. Helps me keep going.”

Oh, so she was crazy. “Maybe for the lower rank overseers, but the rest are most definitely free.”

“Oh no, they may not be slaves in the same way as you or I, but even they are slaves to their destiny.”

Definitely crazy. “So what? Their lives still suck infinitely less than ours, don’t they?”

“Maybe, but they’re under the assumption that they are free, that their actions have consequences. We are free of that delusion.” She sounded so confident that she gave me pause.

However, what she said was so utterly ridiculous that my brain caught up with it sooner rather than later. “You’re… saying that their actions don’t have consequences?”

“Maybe in the short term. But fate is like gravity. You can try to escape it, you can climb as far as you want. Eventually, you’ll get dragged down to where you belong.”

Just for a second, I decided to humour her. This was better than just smalltalk, after all. “You’re ignoring pegasi in all this.”

“Oh, some ponies definitely feel the pull of gravity less than others. Some can stay afloat most of their lives, even, only to eventually come down.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, of course, we all die one day, but that’s hardly fate.”

“Death is also not what I am talking about,” she said with a smile. It had been reassuring previously, but now it almost grated my nerves a little.

“Then what? What are we all destined to do?”

“That depends on each and every individual. No two of us share the same fate. All we have in common is that we are bound by it, our lives determined by it.”

“Bullshit, I’m here because of my own decisions and my own star-damned fuck-ups.” I was here because I wanted to keep my friends safe. I was out in the wasteland because I made the decision to step out. Candy was killed because I refused to follow that alicorn. I caught her eye because I was too good with my magic, with no care for any attention it might attract to parade it around. Everything in my life was a direct consequence of my actions.

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Why do you think you can be free of your destiny when you’re not even free of your masters?”

“But I am free! I chose to be here, and I chose to help Star Seeds. I’m not a slave.” I didn’t care anymore, I was right and she was not, and she needed to understand it.

“But you are,” she continued, her tone as calm as always. “Fate has you well in its grasp.”

I stood up, towering above her, but she didn’t seem to be scared. “The fuck do you know about me? I’ve lived my entire life doing everything I could to remain free, and I’m damn good at it. Once this job is over, I’ll do whatever I want with no care in Equestria.”

She calmly met my furious gaze, her lighthearted smile was completely gone, replaced by a sad, solemn smile. “That’s the feeling I have from the way you talk. Gravity’s very heavy for you, isn’t it? Poor foal.”

She was pitying me. This fucking cunt was pitying me. This slave was pitying me. I threw my hoof at her face with as much force as I could muster, knocking her to her side. “Fuck you, I don’t need your star-forsaken pity.”

She looked into my eyes before averting her gaze, tears forming. Served her right.

Exiting the room, I came face to face with another buck I didn’t recognise. He looked confused and out of place. “Out of my way, slave!” I shouted with much more venom than was deserved for what was effectively an innocent bystander.

Scrambling to comply, he fell to his rump as I exited the room before regaining some of my senses and teleporting away.

That evening, I got drunk enough for three, but no matter how much whiskey and wine I drank, the misery and loneliness just wouldn’t leave me be.

Footnote:

New Perk: Rad Foal — As you go through the increasingly devastating stages of radiation sickness, your body heals faster and faster.