Dead Cat Bounce: A Fanfiction Fanfiction

Chapter Five: Pegasus Device

Actaeon led us up to one of the bigger cardboard-box structures in the complex.  We followed the snow tracks down a colorfully painted hallway. A long, kid-friendly mural stretched along the empty corridor. Colts and a clown played ball by the lakeshore as ladybugs and aphids did a cute little Lindy Hop on a lilypad.

Maybe it was just because I didn’t have the innocence of a child or something, but I thought that was a really poorly thought-out mural. I mean, what was that trying to say? Play with your food?

When we got to the end of the hallway we turned right to face the foyer of the factory.

Welcome to:

THE RAINBOW FACTORY

Manufacturer of Organic Foods and Solvents

BUILDING 4 DIRECTORY

Floor 1

↑     Main Lobby

←   Break Room

→    Daycare Facility

↑     Factory Floor

←   Maintenance

Floor 2

→   Management Suites

←    Visitor Center & Museum

“Why did they have a visitor center?” I said. “This is a company town!”

I impersonated a factory worker. “‘Well gee there, squirt, your mother and I are off to work in the Rainbow Factory, but don’t worry, we’ll be just be down the hall. Be good at daycare today, and maybe when we get off work we’ll take you upstairs to see the museum like we did yesterday and the day before! Wouldn’t that be fun?’”

“Maybe it was part of the town’s culture?” Romeo said. “Like Rainbow Factory Building Four wore blue hair nets and Rainbow Factory Building Number Three wore red hair nets. There’s probably a museum for each building.”

“Yeah, and when the Factory Two Conveyor Belts beat the Factory Four Quality Control Inspectors at foosball there was rioting for three days,” I said.

“Hey, don’t joke about that. Eight ponies died.”

“Who builds a factory on top of a mountain, anyway? This whole place is stupid.”

“There was probably some sort of magical jet stream or whatever that made the factory more efficient. Or maybe the products would explode if they weren’t built on a mountain,” he said.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, yeah, that’s why it’s called ‘magic’ and not ‘chemical engineering.’”

Actaeon started squawking to let us know it had a lock on the Brony.

“Okay, three beeps high, two beeps low. He’s on the second floor,” I said.

“Wait, I thought three beeps high, two beeps low was ‘Calibration Required for Multilateration’?’’

“Yeah, it was,” I said, “but I changed it two weeks ago. Now it’s ‘Positive Altitude, Distance and Azimuth Indeterminate.’ I had to rearrange all the squawk codes because I forgot to put in one for ‘Low Battery.’ Didn’t you get my note?”

“No, I never did.”

“Oh, well I guess that explains why you were ignoring the ‘Discharge Inhibitor Overfill’ warning squawk.”

“Wait, what?” he said as the saddle dropped to the floor. “You replaced ‘SSD Core Temperature High-Normal’ with that?”

Romeo pulled a buzzing module out of the Actaeon box, and he tapped the module’s contacts against a metal railing. A red spark leapt from one of the contacts to the railing, and the buzzing stopped. He plugged the thing back into the Actaeon box.

The box let out a squawk and three clicks.

“Is this still ‘Reintegration Successful’?” he said.

“Yeah. Don’t worry not all of them got changed.”

“…okay,” he said as he put his saddle back on.

“Look, trust me,” I said, “it’ll all make more sense when you look at the note I wrote.”

At that point I actually realized that the revision actually didn’t make much sense at all. I could have just added ‘Low Battery’ at the end of the catalogue instead of bumping everything down to put it at the front. But “never let them see you sweat” is like the third rule of friendship communication, so I kept my mouth shut.

_____

We made our way up the stairwell. The staircase ended in the lobby of the factory museum. We paced around the lobby as we made a wide sweep on Actaeon. When both our boxes faced the long corridor to the management suites, Actaeon switched to squawking low beep, three clicks.

“Wait, why is it squawking ‘Logarithmic Meter Range-Up’—I mean, okay he’s ahead of us within five hundred meters in a thirty degree cone,” I said. “That means the management suites. We can hit up the gift shop later.”

The further we got down the hall way, the more red cups littered the floor. Somepony had made little cup walls and little cup pyramids. By the time we got to the end of the hall we were walking through a tiny temple complex made out of plastic cups.

A sloppily written banner hung over the entrance to the management suites.

The top line read “ E ∆,” and beneath that was the motto “Non Legitur.”

The eyes on a miniature metal pony lit up.

“Welcome to— Welcome to— Wel—” said the door robot. “To complete verification— To complete verification— Please insert—” The voice broke into static for several seconds before returning with heavy feedback. “Please— Please recite pi to fifteen digits.”

“Pi to fifteen digits? Why on earth would anypony memorize that? Fifteen is stupid! That’s more than you’d ever need, ever!” Romeo said.

“It’s Epsilon Delta, remember? Of course it’s stupid,” I said. “And actually, fifteen digits is not all that long and there are certain applications in which it can be—”

“Okay, then recite it!”

“Just because I don’t have it memorized doesn’t mean it’s not important.” I said and pouted.

Then brilliance struck.

Finally, I thought. Finally, after all this time, it pays off!

“Wait, Romeo, I got this. Give me a beat.”

“A beat?”

“Yeah, a beat. Bmp bmp bmp tsh.”

Jaw open, he stared at me. Never breaking eye contact, he stomped out a rhythm.

Bobbing my head in time, I approached the door robot.

“Yeah.

“Okay.“I got this pi shit backwards and forwards.“Check it out.“I did three chicks then I pointed at the door,“one walked in and that made it four—”

“ERROR: Password ‘Okay-I-got-this-pi-shit-backwards-and-forwards-check—’ not recognized,” said the robot.

“Oh, fuck this,” I said and turned around to kick down the door.

“Break— Break-in detected. Initiating lasers,” said the robot.

With a rusty screech a multi-barrel laser cannon dropped from the ceiling and began to spin up.

“Why couldn’t you just say the numbers?” Romeo said as we bolted for the stairwell.

“Because that’s not how mnemonics work!” I said. “If I could just say the numbers I wouldn’t need the rap!”

“Why did you memorize the rap?!”

“I thought it would be useful. I thought it would impress somepony.”

I felt kind of bad that we destroyed the Great Pyramid of Kupfu in our escape, but I would have felt worse if it wasn’t for the fact that I was about to get lasered.

We took cover midway down the flight of stairs.

“You could have just written it down and read the numbers,” he said. “You didn’t need to kick down the door! What were you thinking?”

“I wanted to do the rap. It didn’t like my rap, and that made me mad.”

There was an electric screech and a loud pop. I peeked my head around the corner to see what was up. The laser turret dangled from its fixture, and tongues of flame darted from the barrels. The door was covered in soot.

“Well, that was a freebie,” I said.

“It figures they didn’t bother to see if it still worked,” Romeo said.

We walked back up to the door. The body of the doorkeeper robot was wobbling on its floor mount, and it spun around and around, back and forth, on the creaky fixture.

“Buy some apples!” the robot said. “Buy some apples! Buy some apples! Buy some apples! Buy some apples?”

“Um, I’m here to buy some apples,” I said.

“Apples! Apples! Apples! Apples! Apples! Apples! Apples! Apples! Papaya!”

The door swung wide open.

_____

The Bronies had turned the management suites into makeshift dormitories. They were pretty lived-in, and I estimated maybe seventy ponies had been staying there for at least a few weeks. The sour scent of expired bodyspray still lingered in the air, but it looked like it had been a couple days since anypony was last there.

Bronies were sloppy packers. They took their stuff, but they left the mess, which was substantial, behind. It was the kind of thing that would have given a hotel maid a cerebral aneurysm. They were staying in the trashed-out ruins of an abandoned factory, though, so I can’t really blame them for not caring to “leave nothing but hoofprints.”

Midway through the management wing was an observation lobby that looked over the factory floor. In another age, capital would gather in this room to lounge on chaises longues, drink champagne martinis, watch the proles labor, and toast to the end of the middle class.

So unfair only they got to have all that power, I thought.

I imagined myself riding around on a sedan chair, smoking a cigar, and twirling a diamond-tipped cane. A tiny street urchin hobbled up to me on crutches. I motioned to my porters to stop. “Pwease, guv’na. Me gran’s in the ‘opital, and me lih’ul sistah can’t afford no more gruel t’ eat! Alms?” he said. I tossed a bit onto the cobblestones.

“Keep the change, kid!” I said.

“What?” Romeo said.

“Oh, nothing. I was just imagining life in a better world.”

Outside the window, a massive, impractical-looking device dominated the factory floor. Through the scaffolding around it we could see it was full of exposed gears, fan blades, and spiky-roller-crusher things. Hooked chains hung from a ceiling crane above a rusty entry chute. Hoses radiated out from the device and terminated at various smaller processing stations throughout the factory floor.

“Well, that’s a mutilation waiting to happen,” I said.

“Maybe, but those are just its guts,” Romeo said. “Most machines look like horrible nightmare octopuses on the inside, too. Scavengers must have taken apart the housing and all the guards and stuff that keeps you from getting ground up into goo.”

Actaeon’s squawking grew louder as we approached the end of the hallway. The squeals and clicks switched to a continuous buzzing tone when we got to the door to the Junior Sales Offices. We knew he was behind this door, but he had no way of knowing we were there. Thanks to Actaeon, we had the element of surprise!

We kicked down the door, and we got ready to kick that Brony’s ass!

But it wasn’t a Brony! He was a she! And she was a pegasus!

_____

The pegasus walked up to us on arthritic joints. She had a dingy, graying lavender coat and a dingy, graying blonde mane. Fatigue, born from a frail, aging body and a life lived in bitterness, was evident on her hollow face.

She was burned out, but she still burned. Her merciless and dissecting gaze worked us over with unforgiving rigor. It was unnerving. Her sky-blue eyes were so flat and uniform they’d look more natural on demon-possessed doll than on a living pony.

A contemptuous, disapproving frown formed on her face. It was a look I’d come to know very well.

She said something, but I couldn’t hear her over Actaeon’s squawking.

“What?” I said.

She said the something again, angrily this time, but I still couldn’t hear her over Actaeon.

“What? You have to talk louder,” I said.

She said the something while stomping and flaring her wings. I still couldn’t hear her.

“That’s a good start, but you—wait, hold on. I have an idea,” I said. I hit one of the toggles on my saddle and Actaeon went silent. “Okay, you were saying?”

The pegasus was shuddering. She took a moment to compose herself, and the expression on her face simmered down to cold hatred.

“Hörspen ponies?” she said.

“Yes, but how did you know we—” Romeo started to say.

“I didn’t,” she said, “but I guessed on the assumption that the only ponies equipped with battle saddles who wouldn’t have already used them on me would be Hörspen ponies.”

She pointed at a desk and walked towards it. “Come with me,” she said. “If you’re from Hörspen you will want to see this.”

I started followed her, but I startled when I noticed the bloody and barely-breathing body of the Brony we had been chasing was slumped over next to a shattered window. A rock had bashed in his skull. The window’s glass covered his body.

“H-h-hill Witch…” he rasped before he keeled over.

“Is this what you wanted to show us?” I said and stopped, pointing to the glass-covered body.

“No. That’s unimportant. Come here,” she said, but she did look a little proud that I noticed.

“How did you even get in here?” Romeo said. “The only entrance to this part of the building was the one we went through.”

She froze mid step, hung her head down low, and sighed. She gestured at the shattered window with a wingtip.

“Stop asking stupid questions, and read what’s in the damn briefcase,” she said.

On the desk was metal briefcase holding a thick dossier. I took a peek at the cover letter.

“Wait, are they using the Jazz Calendar?” I said.

“That’s what the HJN 11968 means, yeah,” Romeo said.

“Why is everypony using the Jazz Calendar these days?”

“Because the astronomical events the old calendar was calibrated on don’t happen anymore. If we don’t make the switch to the Jazz Calendar in the next fifty years, the days are going to start shifting and we’ll start having time problems,” the pegasus said.

“But it’s so stupid with its arbitrary huge-ass numbers!” I said.

“Take it up with Mr. Jazz,” she said.

Bros,                                                Apr. 4, HJN 11968

its like babe central back in Fetty.

sucks to be you biyotches! boom roasted!

Okay so theres like five places worth talking about in Berlaska.

I ranked them in order of shit wreckableness.

1. Horntopia is a unicorn only city. Everpony hates them

so we can just reck their shit.

Red Cup says that they  pay us extra for unicorns,

so we should wreck their shit.

1. Horspen is the southest one. Theyre pussies

and we could totally wreck thier shit.

Only reason were not wrecking their shit first

is because its earth ponies and we want the unicorns more.

1. Halibut City has good cherrychangas

but thats all thats important.

Has a gang, not a big one. Its a big city

but its out on the steppe so

we can just park outside and wait on their shit.

1. Drive-Thru Canyon is no fun. It’s all one tough gang.

1 on 1 they would probably wreck our shit. But well have

backup so whatev. Its gonna suck but at the end of the

day that shits gotta get wrecked.

1. CrasherSmasher stay away from this place there shits wrecked

theres details and shit inside

                well be in Berlaska for the invasion next month in the

meantime go party with these muppets and

make sure the shit in these documents is correct

a squared plus b squared equals c squared,

your bro, Polo Stripes

PS The Squid got Ice Blocked. he totally beefed it.

The intelligence was frighteningly accurate. I did hate Horntopia. They were fucking snobs.

_____

Romeo and I went over the documents in the dossier. The Bronies were planning on getting their whole gang together enslaving everypony in Berlaska. We had no idea why, and it didn’t look like they had any idea why either. None of the Brony bosses seemed to care, not even the Brovost. I think by the time they read the words “wreck shit” they were already on board.

Some of the documents in the dossier looked a lot more professional than the bragging, squabbling internal memos of the Bronies. These documents were straight and to the point. They had to be from outside. Concrete objectives and itineraries were laid out in a strictly compartmentalized way. The Bronies were told what they needed to do and no more.

From the bits and pieces, I was able to infer that this was about a lot more than rounding up slaves. The Bronies were to cooperate with other gangs as well as mercenaries. Internment camps were to be built for the slaves on site. Foundations were to be laid for what I guessed would become some sort of massive infrastructure project later on.

According to the documents the invasion should have happened weeks ago. Even though they stood on the shoulders of giants, it looked liked the Bronies fucked it up. Whoever was behind all this must have been pretty pissed.

Why on earth would anypony waste resources on conquering Berlaska? I thought. Do they need to make the world’s largest sno-cone or something?

“Oh, hey, look at this!” Romeo said. He lifted up the dossier binder. There were seams along the inside of the binder’s coverboard.

“Secret panel?” I said. “Secret panel!”

We tore along the seams in the tacky marbled paper endpaper, and sure enough it was a secret panel! The panel was locked in place by an internal latch. It looked to be airtight.

Romeo read aloud the message painted on the panel. “Warning! Definitely not Epsilon Delta secret documents! Do not open! Not documents! Do not open this!”

“Open it!” I said. “Open it! Open it! Open it!”

I shoved Romeo out of the way, and I pulled down the cover on the secret panel. I kept tugging until it the latch gave way with slurpy pop and the panel slid off its oiled rails. The secret compartment was filled with a mysterious white powder that got all over me and the desk. Taped to the back of the panel lid was a note:

roses are red

violets are blue

you are already dead

omae wa mou shindeiru

The white powder began to sizzle and blacken.

Uh oh.

It’s funny how life can be that one moment you think everything’s good, everything’s fine, and then the next moment you’re on fire.

Oh fuck, I’m on fire, I thought. Oh fuck, fire. Fire! Fuck!

At some point I found myself on the ground with the pegasus using the body of the dead Brony to smother the flames. I wasn’t sure how I got into this position, but I wasn’t paying attention because I was too busy being on fire.

“Mmph—it’s out,” I said. “You can stop—”

She rolled the corpse over my face.

“Okay—ow—stop, there’s glass—”

She kept rolling and applied more pressure.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Romeo said.

“Just make sure he drinks lots of water and he’ll be fine,” she said as she got up and walked back to the desk.

I was feeling pretty good for having just been on fire. Everything was going to be all right. I just had to drink water.

“Also, don’t pick at the skin when it starts to fall off unless you want scars,” she said.

“I-is it going to hurt?” I said.

“Yes. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a lot. And it’s going to itch. It’s going to itch worse than anything in your life.”

“And, of course, you are going to pick, aren’t you?” she said and glanced over to the charred remains of the Bronies’ dossier. “It’s something you just can’t help, hmm?”

“That folder was important, wasn’t it?” I said as I got up and walked to the smoldering table.

“Yeah, Charlie, I’m pretty sure it was,” Romeo said.

We turned to the pegasus. Before we could speak she flared her wings to interrupt us.

“I would rather address your concerns about who I am and what I want now, in advance, rather than have you ask questions,” she said.

“Whatever floats your goat,” I said.

“My name is Rayleigh. I am not a Dashite,” she said.

Rayleigh turned to face us in profile as proof. Yep, her cutie mark was there all right. Thought it might be more accurately described as just a “mark.” I mean Romeo and I both have pretty abstract ones, but hers took the cake. It was just a line-drawing of hexagon with a circle in it.

It was kinda sad, really.

“I chose to be here,” she said. “My relationship with the Enclave is one of mutual disinterest.

“I was a biomedical molecular genetics research scientist. I worked at the laboratory upon the Mont Ventoux summit. The laboratory was destroyed in a disaster, and along with it my life’s work.

“There’s simply not enough time for a specialist like me to start over. I’m too old. I have no place in academia anymore. There is no room for me in my old life.

“What I saw on Mont Ventoux changed me. When the skywagons came, I chose to walk down the mountain. The alternative was to stand at a lectern and foalsit.

“Ultimately, we can only choose between boredom and suffering in life, and it’s the first that I find intolerable.

“I have been stalking these Bronies for several weeks now and I have learned things that Hörspen will want to hear about. And since you just destroyed the evidence, you should take me with you.

“I want to travel with you because you still have something to lose. The Bronies conspire to murder or enslave your families. You have a purpose, and I want to experience having that again, even if I do so vicariously.

“And, perhaps most of all, I’m lonely."

“There, is that a satisfactory apprisal?” Rayleigh said to conclude her recital.

“Wow,” I said, “you sure are a very comprehensive-minded and existentialist pony.”

She tried to look impassive, but the down feathers at the base of each wing ruffled in appreciation. She just barely managed to suppress a self-satisfied little squeal.

Tut mir leid, Frau Rayleigh, I thought, but I don’t think you can be das Überpony and bitch about not having choices at the same time.

“Quick question,” Romeo said.

Rayleigh slumped in frustration and disappointment. “Yes?” she said.

“How’d you take out that Brony?”

“Dive-toss bombing.”

“You had a bomb?”

“No, I had a rock,” she said. “Dive-toss bombing is a delivery technique in which you use momentum from your dive to impart additional—”

Rayleigh’s expression soured when she realized that Romeo had just roped her into teaching him something.

“You know what?” she said. “It might be easier if I just demonstrated.”

She leapt through the window and took to the sky on unsteady wings. With an ungainly pass over the debris field she picked up a rusty metal stool from the junk pile. She struggled to gain altitude, but soon enough she disappeared into the cloudlayer.

A lavender streak dropped from the clouds and speeded towards us. It broke off at the last moment, but the stool it was carrying didn’t. The stool hurtled past our faces and with a tremendous crack buried itself deep into the drywall behind us.

Rayleigh slowly circled back around in a wide arc. Staring Romeo in the eye the whole while, she landed in front of us. Nopony said anything. There were no sounds save for Rayleigh’s labored panting.

I didn’t really understand what she was doing in the Snowdark, but I figured it was a bad time to ask.

_____

We decided to take Rayleigh with us. I was sure under that gruff, wrinkly exterior she actually had a heart of gold, and Romeo always believed in second chances.

We made our way back down Mt. Moriah. If there had ever been Watercress chips or Strawberry GeckO’s in the Snowdark, the Bronies had long since eaten them. Also I figured it was probably important to let Hotel Hotel see that briefcase.

It was bad luck that the dossier had to get burned, but the briefcase was still very important looking. The scorch marks on the briefcase even made it look kind of badass, like it belonged to some high-power executive who got shot at when he did action business.

I figured that between it, Rayleigh’s testimony, and the respect and trust I commanded in the community, I could make a pretty good argument for why Hotel Hotel shouldn’t get angry at us for not bringing back any snacks.

But first it was time for small talk and bonding!

“So, Rayleigh,” I said, “you like science right?”

“I said I had been a scientist,” she said.

“Romeo maintains the centrifuges that are used for the all the biological safety investigations in Hörspen.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Perhaps you’d like to visit the lab? I can show you around,” Romeo said.

“My interest was in research,” she said.

“Is that a no?” he said.

She whipped her tail in irritation.

“Do you want to come visit the reactor, then?” I said. “You can see the Cherenkov radiation and everything.”

“No,” she said.

“Please? It’d help keep me from having my day ruined by my cowoker. Spending every day with her is torture.”

She stopped walking, but we didn’t notice that until we realized she had fallen behind. She leapt up and flew around and in front of us, and she blocked our path so that we had to stop with her.

“Tell me, Charlie,” she said, “do you hate your life in Hörspen?”

“Oh, totally!” I said. “The food’s gross, it’s always dark, nearly everypony there is a moron, and there’s Flanders.”

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

“Well, no, I mean I really just wish—”

"I’ve lived a long time, and in that time I have traveled many places and done many things,” Rayleigh said. “And throughout all of that, I have observed that, without fail, all of the ponies I have known had held their existence in abhorrence. It appears you are no exception.”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but—”

“Think about that. Know that you are not the first that has cursed his existence many times and said to himself over and over again that he was the most wretched of mortals. Isn’t it funny, then, that with all of these miserable and hopeless souls so few of them have killed themselves?”

“What—”

“Isn’t that just ridiculous? If you hate this burden so much, why not throw it off? Why  detest, but then insist on keeping such an existence? Why do this? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us and hug him close to your bosom till he has gnawed into your heart.”

“What—”

"I have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the world; therefore, take my advice: think it over.”

She wouldn’t say another word to us all day. Sure I didn’t understand what had just happened, but I had to be patient. It would just take a little coaxing for her kind soul to shine through. The friendship we were going to share would be worth it.

Plus she was a pegasus, and it would be totally awesome to have an Actaeon module mounted on an aerial platform. I just had to earn her trust, and in no time at all we’d have the world’s first flying FDm 550!

_____

“… and that’s why you should wear an Actaeon module! It’ll be like AWACS!” I said.

“AWACS?” she said.

“Airborne Warning—”

“And Control System,” she said. “Yes, I know what AWACS is. This is not AWACS.

“There is no battle management system to speak of. There is no beyond-visual-range detection or identification. There is no ability to track and identify multiple targets or even friendly units at the same time.

“At best Actaeon is a glorified fish finder. A fish finder that only works after you’ve already found the fish.

“And you expect me to put on twenty-five kilograms worth of deathtrap and fly around waiting to get shot at or stung by draculas for your shitty little pet project?

“I don’t think so.”

Does every pegasus pony I know have to be a colossal, soulless bitch? I thought. I’m not sure why she wants to follow us around if she’s just going to harsh our mellow like that every chance she gets. If she does that again we’re leaving her.

_____