Pegasus Device: Reckoning

Despite the eerie green glow that suffused the room, Cloud Cover sensed a great darkness around her.

She opened the ‘Appendix B’ folder again and tested the edge of the papers, checking to see if any were stuck together. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense. She reread the title of the first page; ‘Contingency B’.

“B,” she said aloud, as if it would bring understanding to her like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle fitting into place. It did not. “Why does it start with ‘B’? Hold on…”

She rifled through the stolen saddle bag and pulled out the other red folder she had pulled from Climate Sciences, and read the line again. It very clearly stated that there were two contingencies. Yet, here, in the Director of Logistics’ office, where all of the Corporation’s activities are coordinated and directed, there was only the second one.

She put the Reckoning folder back and read the appendix again. She held a hoof to her muzzle and frowned. This wasn’t complete. Not that she particularly wanted to read any more of it; the plan outlined before her filled her with disgust. For a moment, Cloud Cover felt ashamed to have wings.

The contingency she had found was nothing short of high treason to the Crown. There was lots of jargon and militant terms in it that she had to guess at, but the general outline was there. It was a four step program, and the step’s names were haunting to Cloud Cover, harkening back to the last minutes of her life as a free Pegasus.

Clear. Withdraw weather support from major authoritative locations, and let them fall to immediate and violent weather changes. Pack up all Auxiliary Factories for transport.

Fly. Transport all Auxiliaries, having them return to the Meganimbus, spaced equally out around the city.

Fall. Descend on highlighted objectives--towns and resources, mainly, with some targeted locations that were of no other significance--and secure them for the Flock.

Complete. Something about a ‘Safety Zone’ here, though Cloud Cover didn’t understand most of the terms. It seemed to be describing some type of protective dome, powered by the Auxiliary Factories with the Corporation’s headquarters as an anchor.

There were then some sentences describing post-Reckoning management decisions, and words like subjugation and separation leapt out of the page at the mare. But it wasn’t enough. There was clearly more direction that needed to be explained, and even she could figure that out. You don’t just make an isolated pocket of civilization and expect it to work like society always has. So now, not only was Cloud Cover missing the first Contingency, but she didn’t even have the follow up to the second.

She dropped her head into her hooves, whimpering. It was not a cry from sadness, nor of fear, but of exhaustion. She had made so much progress but felt like she was getting nowhere. None of the documents had any official signatures or other damnifying marks save for the letterhead. If Cloud Cover was going to be trying to tell this story through a storm of disreputation from the Corporation, she needed it to be concrete.

She heard laughter come from outside the door and reflexively skirked down under the desk.

She also needed to be alive, and she chastised herself for not really prioritizing that. She dropped her head back and let it rest against the solid leg of the desk, and brushed her greasy mane from her eyes. She had been away from home for a long time. She had slept for an indeterminate amount of time, though she didn’t really count the drugging as restful sleep. And now, she had been moving swiftly and sneakily through her personal halls of hell, driven forward by an eighty-twenty split of curiosity and anxiety. She wasn’t sure which one was the majority, though from how she felt now, she had a good guess.

How did I get into this? The thought cut at her. She had arranged the interview, after all. She had figured that she was safe, and that the Corporation had forgotten about her; a broken filly who could not find anyone to believe her save for a friend, a colt, who had suffered just as much. And then, after a year, a filly without even a friend.

“Oh, Corona,” she said, the word sliding out of her mouth drenched in pity. She had the luxury of time’s passage now, and hardly ever remembered the day she came home from begging and found him cold on his mattress. He had asked her just a week before if she thought suicide was courageous or cowardly.

She didn’t remember what she had said to him then, but after that day, she had considered him a coward. Losing her only friend had hurt so much that she thought she would have keeled over and died then too, and she had blamed him, blamed him until she didn’t miss him, blamed him until she didn’t think about him, blamed him until she had forgotten him.

But now, after the way her ‘day’ had been going, she started to think that maybe he wasn’t a coward. That Corona had stepped across a threshold into a world unknowable, of his own volition, was perhaps a courageous thing to do. Whether it be Tartarus, or some world in the heavens, or just nothing, the uncertainty of it all had always terrified Cloud Cover, which was why she carried on. But wasn’t that what courage was? Doing what needed to be done in spite of the fear you felt?

So am I brave or a coward?

She didn’t know.

She realized she was having this internal conversation while hiding under a desk in the dark, because she chose to stay in a city that hated her, because she was afraid of an afterlife, and thought she was probably a coward.

She then realized she was under this desk because she had walked back in the very same building that had been the source of all her problems. She had looked the owner of the whole place in the eyes, accused them of wrong-doing, and then had continued to look for proof of said wrong-doing while they were actively trying to kill her, and thought perhaps she was courageous.

She listened, and heard no conversation outside the door, and stood up, and began to look around the room.

There had to be something else--especially in a room as important as this--that could help her or help her case. She checked the time on one of the many screens and found that it was about half past four in the morning. Hopefully, she thought, that would mean less workers around on this floor. Maybe Gentle had even gone home for the day?

“Does Gentle even have a home?” Cloud Cover wondered aloud, rummaging through the desk’s drawers. There was nothing except for more pencils and notepads. She ignored them; she had one on her flank and that was enough for her. Smiling at her little joke, she checked the back of the room, where she seemed to always have the most luck.

Below the screens there were some filing cabinets and a low cupboard. She made for the cupboard, tired of flipping through papers no matter how incriminating they might be. She swung the first panel open and saw a number of strange gadgets. Most of them looked dusty and broken, or had a sticky note on them with phrases like ‘useless’ or ‘DNU’. The shelf below them had more of the same, with some old clip-on radios mixed in for variety. She closed the panel and opened the next one, and gasped.

There was an amulet on the top shelf, by itself, resting on a single manilla folder. It was some bastardly mashup between magic and technology; a hard metal frame around a chipped and uneven gemstone that pulsated slowly with a light pink light. It wasn’t large, though, only about the diameter of a bit. Cloud Cover picked it up and looked closer. The gemstone was hollow, she saw, and the glow infused it. It was the same texture of the magical aura that illuminated a unicorn’s horn when they cast a spell, and it swirled lazily within its crystalline prison. The necklace was a series of burnished aluminium clasps locked together.

“Oh, what the hell,” she said, pulling it over her head and pushing her short mane up through the chain, and she let the pendant rest against her breast.

She did not feel anything save for a slight puff of disappointment, though secretly she was thankful that nothing crazy had happened. She opened the envelope and read it.

“Oh, cool,” she said. It was, indeed, a unicorn spell; a teleportation one, at that. By crushing the gemstone against her body, the spell would be released and she would be teleported… where?

She read the document again, and shifted nervously. It was apparently a prototype. The idea was she could just think of where she wanted to go, but hadn’t been tested. There was more jargon, but she was tired of trying to interpret it. She decided she would keep it regardless; she had an escape route now, regardless of where it actually put her.

She sat down and thought. She could, right now, use this weird little device and be free. She could maybe think really hard about Canterlot, the Princess’s Throne Room, the head of the Royal Guard, and be right there. She did have some information, after all, and she expected the Crown to be fairly wary of the Corporation ever since the Inspection. Gentle’s influence did not likely reach all the way to the sun and the moon.

She held the pendant to her chest, pressing it. She felt the sharp metal edges irritate her coat. She just needed to smash it, and her nightmare would be over.

She thought maybe that would make her a coward, and let go of the pendant. It dangled loosely beneath her neck.

It also meant that she had an out if she did get caught. So she could be courageous, and find the smoking gun; a page with Gentle’s seal, a set of orders from the Directors, something. And if she got caught on the way there, she had a way to get free.

She had a way to get through the Rainbow Factory.

Cloud Cover walked through the hallway quickly, but with purpose. She did not need a disguise now, and from her years as a reporter she knew that often looking like you belonged was the best way to be accepted without question. With the pendant bouncing lightly against her as she trotted down the white halls, she figured it was worth a shot trying that theory out here. Gentle had been working in her office during normal hours when Cloud Cover first got here. For her to be up now would be ridiculous, especially since so far Cloud had not heard any alarms or racing ponies frantically searching for her.

An employee rounded the corner, walking silently, and Cloud Cover realized she would now have to test her theory.

They looked at her, and they smiled politely.

Cloud Cover smiled politely back, and briefly wondered what her heart was doing, pounding away in her throat.

They approached closer, and the other worker--a mare, Cloud Cover saw, with dark blue fur--squinted at her.

Cloud Cover looked ahead down the hall, still smiling. Strangely, her heart appeared to be beating in her head now.

“I like your necklace!” the worker said. She sounded tired.

“Oh, thank you, it’s just something I found at a market sale,” Cloud Cover lied. She sounded tired too.

The other worker resumed her quiet walk and Cloud Cover continued smiling to no one, until she rounded a corner and realized she was not paying attention to where she was going and wasn’t sure where in the office she was.

She stopped, and looked at one of the doors. It was not one she recognized, and she turned around and hopped up into the air, flying to give her legs a break. It wasn’t a huge issue; she could just go backwards until she found the hallway she remembered.

Right before getting to the intersection where she had turned, she heard voices. There was a voice that appeared to be reasoning with the other, and there was a voice that was quiet, cold, and lifeless.

Gentle’s voice, Cloud Cover realized. She looked left and right, finding one door with a dark window. She zipped over to it and tried the handle--locked. She looked up and saw another one of those cold-blasting vents. The voices were getting louder. Her face twisted as she considered the option. It was incredulous. It only worked in stupid action movies. It would never hide her. The voices were right near the corner now. It was her only option.

She shot up to the vent and tugged it, finding the covering to be fit snugly but with no fasteners. She pulled it off and looked. The size of the exchange was just large enough to possibly fit her before it narrowed into smaller, more reasonable ducts. She flipped upside down and backed upwards, holding on to the vent cover for dear life. She wouldn’t be able to affix it from the inside, so she held it up to the exchange as hard as she could. One of her hind legs had slipped inside a duct and immediately it began to hurt from the freezing air blowing against it. The rest of her was twisted and one foreleg was bent such that she was pretty sure it might break if she thought about moving the wrong way, but she was hidden. She thought. Hopefully.

The voices rounded the corner and walked down towards where she had been not moments before, and she listened. It was definitely Gentle’s voice, but she didn’t recognize the other.

“...Primaries One through Thirteen have arrived at their locations and have begun operations. Their regiment commanders have all stated no issues with departure, and arrival is going smoothly. We expect the rest to be in position in about an hour.” The voice was subdued, but had emotion. Cloud Cover saw them as they came into view beneath the grating. It was coming from a brilliantly-white stallion with a long cobalt mane that was messed up and greasy. He had a pair of broken glasses, but didn’t seem to mind. “I hope this report is satisfactory to you, Ms. Butterwing.”

“Yes, Foresight, it’s excellent. I would expect nothing less from you,” she said, and Cloud Cover suppressed a gasp of surprise. It sounded like Gentle was actually proud. “All precisely on schedule. Tell your team that I said their work has been competent.”

“Gentle! Gentle, we have an issue!” A different voice, a mare’s, came from further up the hall.

“I appreciate the report, Foresight. I believe at this point your team no longer requires your guidance?”

“You are correct, Ms. Butterwing.”

“Great. Go rest, there will be much more I need you to do later.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Ms. Butterwing.” Foresight’s voice was grateful, not as if he were relieved, but as if he had been given a great gift. “I shall await your call when we can begin next phase.” This last sentence sounded sad, almost sorrowful.

Cloud Cover watched as the white pony turned around and walked off, and his spot was replaced by the pegasus mare she had heard a moment before.

“Yes, doctor? What is it?” Gentle’s voice lost all trace of the emotion it had a moment ago. “You’re dancing like you’re about to wet yourself. It’s important, then?”

“Yes, Gentle! I had returned to the medical suite to prepare it for the surgical team.” At this, Cloud Cover’s heart stopped, and she closed her eyes. Please, for the love of Luna, don’t hear me, she thought. The doctor continued, though she had calmed down and forced a more professional speech. “When I opened the door I found the failure had escaped from its bindings, and Chaser was dead.”

“Hmm. I see. Was there any lipstick on his cock?”

Hey, Cloud Cover thought, insulted. That’s your first reaction?

“No ma’am. Fractured skull and brain hemorrhage. The bindings weren’t undone, either. It must have slipped out and surprised him.”

“Sounds like he should have taken the blowjob, I suppose. Honestly I can’t blame him for it getting out. I wonder why it is that every twenty years, a failure manages to escape captivity and wreak havoc in this building.” Gentle sighed.

“Sorry ma’am?”

“It’s nothing. Go to security and find out where it went. Get a team--not an individual, a team, tell them I said team--and capture it again. I will go wait in the medical suite myself. If they haven’t brought it there in 30 minutes, I want you to come back to fill in for it. Understood?”

“Y-uh, yes ma’am. On it. Bye.” The doctor leapt into the air and soared off quickly. Cloud Cover didn’t blame her.

“This place has some weird fucking curses to it,” Gentle mused, walking slowly down the hall.

Cloud Cover waited inside the air exchange for far longer than she needed to, but she wanted to be absolutely sure that Gentle had gone. By the time she finally shimmied down, her forelegs were cramping painfully and she had lost all feeling in the rear leg that had been jammed down the freezing duct. However, she was indeed alone, and she knew her potential frostbite was worth every extra second spent hiding. She fit the cover back on and took off down the hallway, flying hard and fast. If there was going to be a time that Gentle’s office was empty, it was going to be now, and she didn’t want to waste a moment getting there.

After another few minutes, and two haphazard corners that she had to backtrack through, she finally found herself facing the grey door. It was eerie to her, its plainness contrasted by the evil she perceived to be behind it. The words “Head of Rainbow Production” stared her in the face, and the voice of a little filly in the back of her head screamed at her to stop, run, flee, anything but open the door.

She tested the handle, and it turned freely.

She pressed open the door, and it swung open easily.

She stood tall in the doorframe, looked inside, and found the office empty.

“Thank fucking Luna,” she said, and she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, locking it.

She took her time to float around the office, allowing herself a moment to check for anything that stood out to her. The cupboard at the back of the room was large, and didn’t appear to have a lock. She supposed she could hide in it if she needed to, and tucked that idea away for later. The desk was almost identical to the one in the Logistic Director’s office, though absent the massive stacks of papers and folders. It was neat, with a phone, a stand for business cards, and an ink fountain for an expensive looking quill.

Cloud Cover was in the middle of considering ‘picking’ the locks on the desk drawer when something in the corner of her eye distracted her. She rotated and found that the flash in her peripheral vision had come from the jar of Spectra on the shelf. The rainbow liquid was swirling slightly, warping reflections from the ceiling lights as its scintillating fluid danced in its jar. Cloud Cover looked around, wondering what had agitated it. She hadn’t touched anything yet, and though the Rainbow Factory tower was built of clouds, they were not just the average everyday cloud that would be affected by a breeze. And yet the rainbow twisted along, unaware and uncaring that it had no right nor reason to do so.

She moved closer to it, wary of the jar. Was it a trap? Some trinket designed to captivate a foolish mare and lead her to her doom? She reached for it, and set a hoof on the jar lid.

The colors slowed and stopped.

“What the fuuuuuucccckkkk,” Cloud Cover said under her breath. It was then that she noticed that below the jar, under a thin layer of dust, there was another one of the red Reckoning folios, and her eyes widened in surprise. She gingerly lifted the jar up and, when no alarms had gone off that she could hear, slid the folder out and replaced the jar. She looked at it when she placed it down. The colors didn’t move.

She shook her head and shrugged it off as another one of the oddities of this clearly-damned building. She moved over to the desk and set the folder down, open, and began to read.

“Contingency A,” it started, and she felt that was rather reassuring. She continued reading.

“Having outlined the reasonings and rationale behind the need for these Contingencies, the author of the paper feels the urge to state the importance of them. These are the only two options for survival of the Reckoning by any species on the planet. With so far as models are accurate and predictions correct, these two scenarios will be not only possible, but work as intended for their duration.

“The first scenario presented, titled ‘Contingency A’, was designed around a moral standpoint. It is far more expensive in terms of labour, cost, raw resources, legality concerns, diplomatic relations- but will result in the least death.

“The second scenario presented, titled ‘Contingency B’, was designed around the most efficient use of currently available resources, and can be implemented relatively quickly with proper investment in equipment and training. However, it is more of a ‘bare minimum’ in terms of its protective capabilities. The City can be saved at the cost of the planet. Ethical liabilities require the author to state this scenario should only be enacted if for some reason the first fails or becomes impossible for alternative reasons.

“In the first scenario, there are many objectives to be completed. First would be the coordination of talent and expertise from various organizations and cities. Second would be diplomatic missions to non-Equestrian locations to express the importance of the Contingency and the danger of the Reckoning. Third would be the mass movement of life from spread out locations to what we shall term ‘Refuge Cities’, where they can be made safe.

“Then, once all the pieces are in place, the Meganimbus should be split, fracturing Cloudsdale between each Sunspout. Each piece, which we term a ‘division’, would be equipped with the technology outlined in pages 16 and 17, and then delivered to the Refuge Cities listed at the end of this appendix. The disruption of the Meganimbus should alone buy the world about a decade’s worth of time.

“At the Refuge Cities, the wind shields can be deployed on small scales, covering their locations from inclement weather. The spaced out nature of the cities, and the shields, and their conversion of energy from Reckoning systems to power their shields, should diminish the Reckoning and result in less severe systems across the globe overall. Decreased atmospheric energy would, as well, reduce the time span of uncontrollable weather to only a century. There may not be any ponies left who remember the world as it was, but of the survivors, their parents or grandparents would have. This scenario also lends itself to easier societal reconstruction post-Reckoning.”

Cloud Cover wasn’t sure how she should feel. On the one hoof, she had found her smoking gun: at the bottom of the page, a large red ‘REJECTED’ was stamped, with a signature that very clearly--though flourished--read ‘Gentle Butterwing’. But on the other hoof, she had found that the Corporation had discovered a way to save most of the world--or at least, most of the creatures that lived on it. Further paragraphs described how the weather would be survivable in certain alternative conditions, too; there would be no mountains laid low by ice, no oceans obliterated by sun, no canyons filled with rain.

Why had she rejected it? Cloud Cover couldn’t figure it out. The Corporation could have redeemed itself from any history it had of wrong-doings with this. It would be a hero, having figured out the hulking giant of the Reckoning and fell it by organizing and orchestrating the Contingency.

Was it to keep Cloudsdale together? Was that it? She could see it, but it didn’t quite feel right. Even Gentle would know that her business couldn’t sell weather to a dead world, and at the end of the day, the business was more important to her than the city. It had to be; Cloud Cover had come across far too many instances in her career of CWC activities done to the detriment of someone or something on the Meganimbus. Smog runoff dumped under hospitals. Unmaintained liquid thunder pipes routed through schools.

Orphan rainbowification, she thought, remembering why she was even here in the first place.

It didn’t matter why, she supposed. She had her proof, and now she needed someone to prove it to. She put a hoof out to gather up the folder, when she heard a click. She froze, and looked up.

The door had just been unlocked.