Slipstream was the first to wake in the pool room. Her eyes darted around the thrashed interior, checking for any movement as she had learned to do. After a moment, she rolled to her hooves and gave Ghost, who lie beside her, a soft nudge. “Wake up,” she whispered.
There was a yellow explosion of pony to her left and Slipstream cried out, backpedaling and tripping over Ghost to land painfully on her back. She looked up at Sulfur, who stood tensely with her battle saddle trained and coat ruffled form sleep. “Don’t do that!” Slipstream cursed, rolling to her hooves while a confused Ghost gave his head a clearing shake.
Sulfur sat back and flipped the safety on the bit. “Sorry. I heard a sound.”
Slipstream chuckled dryly. “You’re a light sleeper.”
By now the whole room was stirring from the commotion. The other two mercs blinked sleep from their eyes while Litebrite just curled herself into a tight ball. “Three more minutes,” she moaned, voice muffled by her tail. Dodge and Shortfuse picked themselves up, the well-armed pony stifling a yawn. The only one who hadn’t stirred was Jet, who still snored loudly; propped up against the far wall, she had slept in the most awkward of positions.
Shortfuse climbed to his hooves and lolloped over to the sleeping mare. “Jet,” he said loudly, prodding her shoulder. “Jet, wake up.”
Slowly, the mare’s eyes slid open, bloodshot and dead-looking. She tried to stand but flopped like a wet rag onto her belly, tongue lolling out. “Ugh,” she moaned.
Slipstream prodded Litebrite awake and pointed towards Jet. “You were wondering what Jet looked like off of Dash?” she implied.
Litebrite’s eyebrows knitted as she watched Jet fumble drunkenly in her saddlebag. “Yeah... she needs somepony to help her with that addiction.”
Finally, Jet withdrew from the bag with a familiar-looking inhaler and held it to her mouth. She let out a sigh as she took the dose, immediately perking up. “Really,” Litebrite whispered. “I doubt she even gets stimulation from it anymore. I bet it’s just keeping her brain running at normal speed. She probably can’t think at all when she’s off it.”
Jet looked up at them, appearing her normal, twitchy self. “Somepony talking about me?”
Litebrite shook her head. “No,” she lied easily.
Jet gave a shrug and sprang to her hooves. “So what’s the plan?”
Coal bent over and began digging in his own bag. “I’ll tell you what my plan is: food.” He upturned the bag and dumped a dozen cellophane wrapped cookies onto the stained floor. Tossing one to each of his colleagues, he tore open his wrapper.
Litebrite’s breath caught in her throat; she froze, unable to think straight as she watched Coal take a bite of the delicious-looking cookie. A moment later she broke the trance and lunged forward. “No!” she cried sprinting over to the pony and planting a solid kick on the side of his muzzle before he could swallow. Chunks of cookie and saliva flew as Coal’s head snapped around from the unexpected forehoof to the cheek.
He threw down what was left of the cookie and swung back at Litebrite, who ducked. “What the fuck!?” he bellowed, going for another swing.
Litebrite hopped back, dodging another snout-busting hoof. “The cookie!” she managed to get in before he struck her square across the muzzle. She fell back, feeling like a freight train had just hit her. She rolled onto her back with a cry and gagged at the taste of blood in her mouth
Coal advanced for another strike but Sulfur and Mudbath pulled him back. “Lay off her,” Sulfur said angrily. “You’re twice her size.”
He turned on her. “She hit me! How the fuck do you want me to act!?”
Literate sat up slowly, trying to act tough and fight back the tears. Her snout burned like fire and she was pretty sure that Coal had broken her nose. “The cookies,” she repeated. “They’re poisoned.”
Coal froze his argument with Sulfur and turned to her, now looking skeptical on top of angry. “What?”
She motioned to the cellophane wrapped cookies, now abandoned on the floor. “There was a terminal in the clinic.” She winced at a sudden throb in her head. “There’s chlorine in them.”
Slipstream pushed up beside her. “What?”
She exhaled in exasperation. “I found a terminal in the clinic with a bunch of records on it. It said those cookies had been poisoned with chlorine.”
Coal went white. “Excuse me.” He coughed, looking around nervously. “I’m going to go make myself throw up...” He looked to Litebrite, who had sat up and was clutching her nose, trying to quell the steady drip of blood. “I’m... sorry about that.” He didn’t sound genuine. With an annoyed snort, the pony trotted swiftly to the other end of the room.
Ghost trotted up, levitating a healing potion. “Is it broken?” Litebrite gave him a nod. “Okay.” He uncorked the deep purple portion and held it out for her. “Take a swig; it should set you straight.”
Slipstream listened to Jet and Shortfuse arguing about explosives as she waited for Litebrite to finish with the potion. “So,” she said business-like when the mare had re-corked the bottle. “You said this terminal was in the clinic? And it had data on it?”
Litebrite nodded, wiggling her nose as the potion did its work. “Yeah... I take it you want the files?”
“Yes.” Litebrite gave Ghost a look that the pony knew well. “That’ll be your job. You can take Coal and head back to the clinic to get those files, then meet us down on level three.”
Ghost sighed. “Right.”
* * *
Coal caressed his stomach as the hydraulic door closed behind them. “I think some of that chlorine still got to me.”
Ghost shot him a worried look. “Does it burn at all?”
The merc winced again. “No, it’s just one hay of a bellyache.”
“Okay... I don’t think you swallowed any so my might just be experiencing the placebo effect.” Ghost started forward, throwing a skeptical glance at Coal as he followed. “But tell me if it gets any worse. If you actually did swallow some, chlorine’s some really nasty stuff.”
Coal walked silently behind Ghost, mentally bashing himself with every forward step. Litebrite had saved him from a most painful possible death and he had gone right back and broken her nose. This could really dock his pay — he had just hit a pony he was supposed to be protecting.
He looked up just in time to bump into Ghost, who had stopped in the middle of the hall. “What’d you stop for?” he asked irritably. There was no reply from Ghost, so Coal trotted forward and gave the white unicorn a light tap on the side of the head. “Hey, what’s fucking wrong with you?”
Ghost had stopped at a cross in the hallways where one merged into another at a T. Something was incredibly wrong... The hall ahead was completely clean apart from a few specks of rust on the floor and walls. He turned back to the way they had just come to see a solid layer of dust and rust covering every surface.
“Hey!” yelled Coal, giving Ghost a shove that knocked him sideways into the wall. “I’m talking to you! What’d you stop for?”
Ghost pointed at the floor; there was a near-perfect line where the dust stopped and clean floor began. “I-it’s clean...” A green bar appeared on the E.F.S. of his PipBuck and he took an instinctive step back. Whatever it was, it was coming down the dirt-free hallway. “Something’s coming,” he warned.
Coal immediately mouthed the bit of his battle saddle and the rifle on his back gave a click. “vhere ith it?” he asked.
Ghost pointed off to the right at the wall and traced the shape with his forehoof as it moved on the E.F.S. Ghost readied himself as the target neared the corner and Coal tightened his grip on the bit.
A Mr. Handy unit drifted into sight, humming silently to itself as it cleaned the wall with a feather duster attachment. One of it’s three robotic eyes spotted the ponies and it began to happily float over to them. Coal growled but Ghost shook his head. “No, don’t shoot it.”
“Why hello!” the robot greeted cheerfully, holding out the feather duster attachment in greeting. “Mrs. Snowglobe, I see you are enjoying an afternoon stroll with you foal. I must say it’s a most beautiful sixty-five point two degrees, as normal.”
Coal shot Ghost a confused look. “Mrs. Snowglobe and her foal?”
One of its eyes swiveled around. “Why, just this morning, I received orders from the maintenance terminal to clean all of level two.”
“When was the last time the halls were cleaned?” asked Ghost.
The robot hummed for a second. “Ninety-two years ago.”
Coal thought Ghost looked rather spooked as the white unicorn opened his mouth to ask another question. “Who gave the command for you to do the cleaning.”
“Maintenance command terminal two,” was its reply.
Ghost rolled his eyes. “Which pony issued the command?”
Another whir. “I am sorry, Madam, but the command was not issued under a specific name. I would assume Rickets sent out the command—after all, he is head of maintenance.”
Ghost shook his head, unsettled. “Right, well, continue cleaning.”
Mr. Handy bobbed up and down. “Yes Madam.” It floated back a few feet before stopping to address him again. “And may I suggest dropping your foal off at the children’s center on the third floor? Blossom has started her very own foalsitting operation for working parents.”
Ghost actually laughed as Coal gave the robot a shooty look. “No thank you.”
The robot turned and began to float cheerily away, humming to itself. “Ohhhhh, I’ve been cleaning up the haaaalways— Ooh?” he stopped over a crumpled skeleton, brushing carefully around it. “Why hello, Mr. Quill. It appears you have no vitals. May I recommend you go see Dr. Sparks in the clinic for a checkup?” The skeleton was silent. “No? Okay, well take care, Sir.” The Mr. Handy left the skeleton and resumed its cleaning.
Coal gawked. “What the...”
Ghost watched the robot go. “I have no idea... but somepony programmed that robot to clean this floor.”
The merc just shook his head, then reached back and dug in his saddlebag, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. He pulled a single cigarette from the pack and returned it before tossing a lighter to Ghost, who involuntarily caught it. “Light me,” he said.
Magically flipping the lid and sparking the wheel, Ghost lit the kerosene wick. “You smoke?”
Coal held the cigarette to the flame with his mouth and puffed it once. “Yeah; Sulfur wont let me do it around her though. Says it’s ‘unprofessional’.” He took the lighter and returned it to his pack. “Thanks.”
Following the signs along the walls pointing to the clinic, Ghost didn’t have much of an issue finding the section. The clinic had not yet been cleaned by Mr. Handy and, unlike the hallway, was a mess of rust and dirt... and dead ponies.
Spotting the terminal in the left corner of the room, Ghost made his way over to it while Coal poked around the clinic. As Ghost sat down to extract the files from the terminal, he was hit by a sudden wave of dizziness. He caressed his head for a second before pushing the odd feeling away. Plugging the PipBuck into the machine’s interface, he selected the transfer. A little percentage appeared and blinked to one. He sighed. This transfer would take a minute.
Coal poked around in a far corner. Spotting a medical box, he nosed it open only to see that it was empty. He puffed his cigarette irritably and moved on to sift through a drawer of medical tools. After a moment’s search, the drawer didn’t yield anything useful either. Although to his luck, the one below that sported a few tablets of Buck. He took another drag on his cigarette, then realized he was just sucking air. Going cross eyed, he looked down at the blackened tip, which had somehow been extinguished.
“What the fuck?”
Ghost’s Pipbuck blinked with the message ‘Transfer Complete’. He disconnected it from the terminal. “Got it,” he declared. The PipBuck beeped quietly, drawing his attention back to the screen. One of his own, custom programs was flashing a warning at him. ‘Warning:’, it read, ‘Dangerous abnormalities detected: Oxygen level - 66%’.
Ghost blinked, then looked up at Coal, who stood with his back to him. “Hey Coal,” he called worriedly. “Put that cigarette out.” Looking back to his PipBuck, he was surprised to find the oxygen level now at seventy percent.
Coal turned to him, a lighter in his grasp. “Damned thing blew out,” he said confusedly, flicking the lighter.
Ghost cringed back. “Don’t do that!” The PipBuck beeped another warning. He took a deep breath and his vision went screwy.
Coal gave him a look like he was crazy. “Well why the fuck not?” He spun the sparker again but nothing happened. He glared at the lighter and gave it a shake. “Why won’t this piece of shit work?” He went for another strike.
“No!” Ghost yelled frantically. “The oxygen levels! They’re—” Coal spun the sparker and a blossom of flame appeared in his hooves. There was a sudden rush of air and Ghost took the one moment he had to dive down behind the desk, cramming himself into the enclosed space where a chair would normally push in.
The entire room went up in a roar of flames. Ghost closed his eyes at the blood-curdling scream that echoed from the walls, almost unheard over the blaze. Licks of hot flame shot under the desk and charred his coat and lit his tail aflame. He hurriedly beat the flames out.
Then, as fast as it had come, the inferno was gone, leaving the room still and quiet apart from a quiet crackling. His PipBuck beeped and he looked down at the reading. ‘Oxygen level - 11.2%’
Cautiously, shaking all over, Ghost crept out from beneath the desk, nearly choking on the hot air. He dared peek over the top of the now-blackened terminal to see a charred shape lying in the center of the floor, surrounded by burning papers and debris. “Coal!” he cried, hopping over to the desk and scrambling over to the cooked pony.
Coal’s sightless eyes rolled in their sockets as Ghost bent down over his form. “What the fuck?” Coal managed to produce in a little more than a gurgle. His insides felt all wrong. He couldn't breathe; his lungs wouldn’t draw air. None of his limbs would respond to him. “What the fuck?” he repeated.
Ghost knelt by his side, fighting back the urge to vomit. There was absolutely nothing he could do here. Not even a healing potion, or ten, could save this pony; he looked like a gingerbread pony that had been left in the oven for too long. What little hair still remaining was shriveled and blackened and his skin was a violent red. Coal gave a wheeze, and his eyes twitched once more... then he was gone.
Ghost scrambled back, shaking his head wildly. “No. Nonono no!” He had to go find the others — had to get out of here. Nothing was right! Nopony was supposed to die! He backed out of the blackened clinic into the spotless hall. He had to find Slipstream.
* * *
Slipstream watched with skepticism as a Mr. Handy passed them on the stairwell. “Where did all these things come from?”
Jet rapped on the robot’s dome playfully. “I dunno’, but I like them.”
“Please do not do that, Madame,” it said calmly. Jet giggled.
Litebrite shied past the robot and scurried down the rest of the steps to the third level. “Well I don’t like them. They weren’t moving around when we came here and now they are. Something started them and I don’t like it.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dodge comfortingly. “There’s six more of us around.” He gave her a light smile. “Besides, I’m not scared of robots.”
She returned the smile half-heartedly. “Thanks.”
Jet bolted ahead of the other six and bounced in front of the sign above the door to the third level. “Entertainment!” she said with a mile-wide grin.
Shortfuse fell in beside her and shot a wry look. “You do realize that everything on this level is probably going to be dead and scary?”
She bobbed her head. “Probably. I’m just trying to be positive.”
Sulfur pushed between the two and hit the door control. The door slid halfway up, stuck, then ground before sliding the rest of the way up.
This floor had not yet been cleaned. A dirty, double-width hallway spanned ahead for a length of about four-hundred feet. Across the ceiling, yellowed signs pointed off down different corridors and hallways, and at the very end of the large hall was a single door; a sign above it read, ‘Theater’.
“Celestia,” Slipstream whispered, walking through the door. “A whole floor devoted to entertainment. These must have been some happy ponies.”
“Sure,” Dodge chuckled dryly. “Until they all died.”
Jet looked around, frowning. “Do we have any idea where they put the orchard in this place?”
Litebrite thought for a moment. “Probably a couple floors down. They purposefully put the orchards further down to keep them from the radiation on the surface. It was all theoretical at the time, but Stable-Tec did their math.”
“What do you think’s going to be left of the orchard anyways?” asked Slipstream with a sarcastic air to her voice. “They need ponies to maintain them. it’s going to be one giant mulch pit if we find it.”
All through the exchange, Dodge had been watching them with a confused face. “Orchard?”
“Oh, yeah,” responded Litebrite. “They were underground apple orchards for the Stables. They made their own food down here so they could keep the doors sealed as long as they needed to. Of course, the Stables were packed with tons of canned and freeze-dried food as well, but those were usually saved for special occasions. Most Stables ran out after the first twenty years or so. I read an old terminal a while back; the first occupants were talking about how they’d eat all the good stuff and what did it matter of the ponies after them had to live off of nothing but apples. They would be dead, so they didn’t care.”
Dodge made a shocked face. “That’s-that’s terrible. It’s like the Wasteland today. I thought ponies form before the war were supposed to be generous.”
This time Slipstream replied, shaking her head. “No, not much has changed in ponies in the last two-hundred years. The only difference is that there aren't any laws keeping them from doing the things they didn’t do back then.”
Litebrite gave a shrug. “I heard that long before that, ponies were good. They shared and cared and all that storybook stuff. I think it all went down the drain once the resource shortages started. It’s crazy to think that coal could do such a thing to Equestria”
Slipstream nodded in agreement. “Coal and gems; that’s all it took.”
Sulfur looked irritated. “Are we going to stand around all day talking about something that happened two-hundred years ago, or are we going to look for whatever you ponies wanted to look for?”
Slipstream sighed. She had thought the grudging mare had began to open up back at the Overmare’s office. Whatever change she had shown earlier was not here now. She turned and looked down the length of the hallway, picking off signs along the length: ‘Lounge’, ‘Bar’, ‘Arcade’, ‘Pool’, ‘Library’. The sign reading ‘Lavatories’, was the closest, on the left side.
It seemed everypony had taken interest to that particular sign. Jet was the first to step forward. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have to go.” A murmur of agreement passed among the seven ponies and they all wordlessly decided on the unofficial bathroom break. Mudbath, Dodge, and Shortfuse went right, to the door adorning the sign with a cartoon stallion; the rest went left.
“Hey!” echoed shortfuse’s voice from the other bathroom. “They have working plumbing in here!”
“Yeah,” came Jet’s voice from a stall adjacent to Slipstream’s. “Remember how the plumbing was totally backed up in the that other one.”
Slipstream tried to ignore her, remembering the rather unpleasant event.
The seven of them conjured back in the hallway one by one. Sulfur had been the first out and, predictably, Dodge was the last. “Have some trouble?” Jet teased as he emerged.
He gave her a wry look. “You try fitting in a stall wearing this battle saddle.”
Jet just snorted and did a little prance around him. “I’d like to tease you about something else but I can’t think of anything.”
Slipstream stamped her hoof for attention. “Could we all focus please? We don’t know how many levels this Stable is and I don’t want to spend a month down here figuring it out.” This drew their attention, and Jet bounced once more before landing on her haunches, intent. “Okay,” she began, looking for a starting topic now that she had the attention. “Let’s check what we can on this level.”
“Split up?” Jet asked for her.
Slipstream gave a nod. “Yeah, split up. I’ll go with Mudbath, and Dodge.”
Jet pulled Shortfuse to her side. “I call Shortfuse!” The yellow stallion looked at Slipstream from the red mare’s embrace and shrugged.
All the while, Litebrite had been looking around skeptically. “That leaves me with...” she cast an unanticipating look to the silent yellow mare who stood alert. “Sulfur...” She raised her hooves in mock cheer. “Yay.”
Sulfur gave Litebrite a nasty look. “If I were allowed to, I’d smack you across the muzzle. Don’t be so quick to assume I’m a bad pony.” There was a brief silence in which Sulfur glared around at all of them, silently daring anypony to say otherwise.
“Welp,” Shortfuse declared, breaking the tense silence, “me and Jet are gonna’ go check out the arcade.” He wasn’t too eager to hang around with the rest much longer; he wanted to spend some time alone with Jet. Maybe they could talk... Maybe he could try his luck.
Slipstream drew Dodge and Mudbath to her side. “Since we’re the larger group, we’ll hit the end of the hall.” She received a murmured agreement from Dodge and a single nod from Mudbath. She rolled her eyes, and led them off down the hall. Shortfuse and Jet followed a little ways behind, leaving Litebrite and Sulfur alone.
Litebrite studied the signs ahead, trying to avoid the yellow unicorn’s gaze. It had seemed rather cruel of the others to leave her, the most timid of them, with the foul tempered merc. She was already bad enough with interactions as it was, hanging around a semi-sociopath would not help.
“How about the pool?” Sulfur offered genuinely. Surprised, Litebrite looked to the yellow mare, then to the second sign on the right marked, ‘pool’. Tensely, Litebrite nodded.
Sulfur found herself fuming as she walked beside and slightly ahead of the gray mare. Litebrite was treating her as if she were some monster, some... thing to be feared. Sulfur could see Litebrite in her peripheral vision, eyeing her skeptically. She looked and Litebrite hurriedly looked away.
“You know I’m not a bad mare,” she declared irritably, slowing to fall in beside the other mare.
Litebrite gave her a little frown. “Y-yeah?”
“No, I’m not.” They turned at the sign marking the pool and started down a short passage. “Just because I act mean and scary and violent doesn’t mean I like to hurt ponies.”
Litebrite maintained the same, disconnected expression. “I guess...”
“Look,” she hissed angrily, losing her patience. Litebrite shrank back and Sulfur immediately folded her ears in submission. “Look,” she said, more calmly this time. “I’m a mercenary — it’s what I do. The pony I am depends on the pony who’s paying me. I’ve been hired by saints... I’ve worked for monsters.”
Litebrite flicked her ears. “And you did whatever they wanted?”
“I did what they told me to—that’s how it works. I get used like a fucking towel, a tool to fix their problems with a bullet or earn them a pile of caps. And then they skim off the top of that that pile of caps for me and the whole damn thing starts all over again.” She huffed. “It’s too damn bad the only ponies with enough money to hire a merc are usually complete scum. I ran with a caravan for a while, and those were the best of the worst years of my life.”
Litebrite was now paying close attention. Something in the mare’s voice was different. The normal anger and condescending feel which normally accompanied the merc was gone.
“Most ponies stop caring after they’ve seen what I’ve seen, done what I have done.” Hardly even noticing they’d stopped in front of the door to the next room, Sulfur continued her rant. “But I care. Every day I wish I could forget it all, forget it all like all the other ruthless, soulless ponies in the Wasteland. Just like me, they’ve stolen, killed, killed foals, mothers, families, but they push it aside. Like Coal, he could rape a mare and make her foal watch then kill them both and laugh it off over a bottle of Wild Pegasus that night.” She sniffed. “But no, I feel for every pony I hurt, everything I do. And it builds and builds until all I want to do is end it, put an end to my life in this shitty, fucked up world we live in.” Sulfur leaned back and took a shaky breath before leaning up against the wall, eyes closed.
Litebrite was struck wordless. A pony she had recently thought to hardened killer was just... just a mare. Just a mare in a bad way. And that mare had just poured out her heart to her and she didn’t have a single thing to say in return. “Uh,” she started lamely, “am I supposed to say something here?”
Sulfur jabbed the door control and steadied herself as the door hissed open. “No... sorry for... venting all that in front of you.”
“Apology accepted?” she said in a question. She paced into the room ahead and the motion sensitive lights hummed to life.
“Whoa,” whispered Sulfur, back to her normal self as she stepped onto the tiled surface.
For a few seconds, all both mares could do was stand and balk. the tiled room spanned seventy feet long and fifty feet wide. In the center was a large, rectangular pool filled with murky, light blue-green water. At the deep end across the room was a rusted diving board and lifeguard stand. Closest to them, little ripples broke the glassy surface of the pool near the edge, accompanied by the tired hum of a water pump emanating from a panel in the floor. Many of the turquoise tiles layering the floor had been cracked and broken, the same with the ones on the walls. And unlike every other room they’d been to in the Stable, this one homed no skeletons.
Litebrite crept forward and accidentally brushed a bullet casing with her forehoof. It skittered across the tile and dropped into the pool with a little, ploop. A piece of paper showing big, hoof-drawn, black letters had been pinned to a wet floor sign set up at the pool’s edge. Litebrite read it aloud. “Due to recent accidents pool is closed. Sorry!”
Sulfur walked forward, squinting around. “Oh, this kind of pool...” she rolled her eyes. “I thought this was a pool table room.”
Litebrite looked at the smooth surface of the water and laughed a dry laugh. “I can’t believe there’s still water in here.”
Sulfur trotted over to the lifeguard stand and began rummaging through an old saddlebag hanging from the second step. “Well, something has to be working because the water is somewhat clean. She jeered under her breath when the bag yielded a Sparkle~Cola. Something beeped below her hooves and she realized she was standing on a removeable panel. Curiously, she stepped back and levitated the lid up. Below was a large pipe and a meter, beside that was a small terminal screen embedded in a steel panel, a warning blinking on the screen.
Warning: weekly maintenance check overdue by 92 years and 3 weeks
Warning: water pump under stress, please check for blockage
Warning: Chlorine source depleted, water may contain harmful bacteria
Filter status: ERROR- no filters detected
Water temperature: 60.2 degrees
She shrugged and returned the cover.
Litebrite circled to the shallow end and approached the edge. Through the water, she could see the white tile below, but not in the deep end. She dabbed experimentally at the surface. “It’s cool.”
Sulfur turned around, a Sparkle~Cola hovering by her side. “What’s cool?”
“The water.” Skeptically, Litebrite looked to the water, then to her grimy coat. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘why not?’ Reaching back, she undid the straps on her barding and shrugged it off. The weighted bags stuck the floor and sent a reverberating echo around the tile-lined room.
Sulfur frowned in her direction. “What are you doing?”
Litebrite nuzzled into one of the pockets of her saddlebags and pulled out a rectangular bar of soap. She set it down at the edge of the pool and flicked her tongue to clear the taste. “What does it look like?”
Sulfur’s ears perked at the sight of the misshapen white bar. “Where’d you get that?” she asked with mild awe.
Litebrite cocked an eyebrow and pointed towards the bar of soap; Sulfur nodded at the gesture. “It’s lye soap — I made it,” she answered, taking the first step into the pool. “It’s a mixture of some pre-war chemicals and lard.”
Sulfur grimaced. “Lard?”
Litebrite shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a little crude, but it’ll clean the color right out of your coat, figuratively speaking.” She marvelled at the feel of the water as it reached her belly. It had been... months since she had bathed last — not just a wipe-yourself-down-with-a-wet-rag kind of bathe, but really bathed.
“Are you sure this water’s safe?” Sulfur asked with skepticism, levitating a small orb of the murky water in front of her face.
Litebrite just shrugged and waved her tail through the water, watching in mild amusement as it left a trail of dirt in its wake. “It can't be any worse than water in the Wasteland.”
Sulfur scoffed. But she had to admit, the gray mare had a fair point. “Well, you do your thing and I’ll keep watch.”
Litebrite dunked her head and came up, sopping mane obscuring half her face. She put on a frown as she looked up at Sulfur. “What the hay do you have to look out for?” she asked with exasperation. “I know you mercs are supposed to be all tough and business, but come on.” She did a little bounce in the pool. “What’s it going to hurt?” Knowing that Sulfur wasn’t out to beat her to a pulp or anything, Litebrite now felt much more comfortable around the mare.
Sulfur tried to fight the temptation, but found the effort pointless. Knowing she would probably regret it later, she magically unfastened her saddlebags, battle saddle, and lightly armored barding and let them fall to the floor.
Litebrite balked at the yellow unicorn. Previously she had called Sulfur many things — crude, angry, hardened, short-tempered, cynical, but she had never expected to add ‘hot’ to her list of vocabulary for the mare. Sulfur was well muscled, but not so much as it was painfully apparent. Her long, dark brown mane hung down to the left of her neck and worked in nice contrast to her yellow-orange coat. She was slim, but not too slim, and further back her flanks rounded quite nicely. Her cutie-mark was of two flowers; one was white and elegant, the other warped and dead. The two were wrapped around one another in a sort of opposite harmony. Her belly and both flanks adorned many, long and rippled scars that were slightly off-color from the rest of her coat.
‘Hot,’ Litebrite repeated in her mind. Her gaze remained fixed on the eye-drawing mare as she sashayed to the edge of the pool.
Sulfur tested the water and looked up at Litebrite. The gray mare’s eyes were fixed on her, wide and distant. A dreamy expression adorned her face, accompanied by the tiniest of smiles. “Litebrite...”
The sightseeing mare jumped and tore her eyes away from Sulfur’s flank to look into her hazel eyes. “Huh?”
She shook her head clear of her mild suspicion and stepped right up to the edge. “Nothing.” She closed her eyes and jumped, plunging under the surface. Opening her eyes briefly underwater, she caught a glimpse of something on the bottom, but hurriedly closed her eyes to the irritation of the water. She burst out on the surface and shook her wet mane from her eyes. “A little chilly.”
Litebrite laughed at the brown wake of dirt left in Sulfur’s underwater path, then turned away and scooped up the soap from the lip of the pool. “So, not to pry,” she implied, beginning to lather herself up, “but how’d you get those scars on your flanks and belly?”
Sulfur groaned at the memory. “It’s not a very nice story.”
“Well,” She stopped rubbing the soap into her mane and looked to the unicorn, “if you don’t mind telling, I’d like to hear it.”
Sulfur magically snatched the bar from Litebrite’s grasp and set to cleaning herself. “Well... before I decided to start selling myself as a mercenary, I was a slave.”
Litebrite raised an eyebrow. “You, a labor slave?”
Sulfur smiled sadly and shook her head. “No... I was the other kind of slave.”
“Oh...”
She glanced back at the length of deep scars horizontally across her middle. “The story behind them is a lot less impressive than you’d think.” She flushed. “One night, there was this real rough stallion — rough as in, the kind that could drink molten steel and piss ice cubes. He was wearing those horseshoe attachments—the ones the curve out in claws... Well, he never took them off, and he had a firm grip and a hard thrust.”
Litebrite winced. “That’s...”
Sulfur chuckled falsely to cover her embarrassment. “That was the most painful lay ever; he left me hurting in three places.”
Litebrite didn't know what to say as she stared, slightly open-mouthed as Sulfur magically lathered soap into her mane and tail. “That... That’s terrible.”
“Yeah..” She perked. “Hey, you asked for it.”
“I wasn’t expecting that.” She kneaded her hooves below the water. “I thought you were going to give me some gory battle story or something.” She paused again to marvel at Sulfur’s endurance. “How can you act so... normal, after... something like that?”
The mare thought for a moment. “Well, I guess that I know it’s over, and I’ll never have to deal with something like that again.” She looked back and swished the soap out of her tail. “Though after all that, I sort of lost my thing for stallions.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Litebrite cheered.
“Here.” Finishing with the soap, Sulfur tossed it back to Litebrite.
Not expecting the sudden toss, Litebrite sprang into the air to catch the bar, and missed. She flopped back down on the pool’s surface with a splash and the bar of soap landed with a smaller splash in the deep end. The gray mare came up with an exasperated expression that seemed to say, ‘really?’
“Oops,” Sulfur said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Litebrite waved it away. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it.”
Before Sulfur could answer, Litebrite took a deep breath and dived. Swimming down through the murk, she cracked her eyes to see her progress. Hurriedly, she closed them again to the irritating water. Something in the sediment stung. After a moment, her hooves bumped the bottom and she began to search for the square shape. Her hooves bumped over something hard and she spared a peek in the mid-darkness.
Six skeletons lay on the smooth tile below her, all set in different poses of calm, as if they had simply fallen asleep. Litebrite screamed, torrents of bubbles rising from her mouth as she kicked at the skeleton right below her. Her hoof busted through the old ribcage and stuck between the reverse ribs and the pony’s spine. She tried to pull away but her hoof only lodged further in its ribcage and the skeleton’s weight held her down. She kicked and bucked at the skeleton, which at this point seemed to be smiling at her, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pull free.
Suddenly, the screen on the PipBuck of the skeleton holding her lit up murky green and a single message flashed on the screen.
‘Goodbye’
She took a breath to scream, only realizing at a tearing pain in her chest that she was breathing water. Her vision went alight with colorful specks and darkness seeped in from the corners of her eyesight. her diaphragm heaved once, twice, then a third time before exertion shut down her body.
The world went black.
* * *
A slow smile spread across Jet’s face as she looked around the arcade; it was the sort of smile that would give even the most wasteland-hardened pony nightmares.
The arcade was a big rectangle with a dividing wall down the center. The walls here were the normal gray with a spot of rust and the dull lights above provided just enough light to see. The place was something most foals would only see in their wildest dreams. A low hum started from an electrical box by the door and, one by one, the arcade machines lining the walls flared to life in a barrage of multicolored lights, all tinged with a medium hue of green.
Shortfuse really didn’t give a damn about games (or anything electronic for that matter), but even he had to marvel at the pre-war gem. He looked over at Jet, who was now practically salivating.
“There was this bar I used to hang at,” she said in barely-subdued bliss, “and they had one of these. It was the one where you shoot the parasprites away from the picnic...” She sprang up and grasped Shortfuse by the shoulders. “Do you know who had the high score!?”
“You?” he offered.
She shook him violently. “No! Barry did! Barry had the high score! But now I can finally beat him!”
“But if—” She dashed off, nearly pushing him to the floor. Shortfuse made no effort to complete his sentence. Boredly, he made his way over to a game that’s main plot seemed to be about dirt. Jet had already started the parasprite game and was gazing intently at the screen. He started his game and lasted a whole twenty seconds before the little balloon animal thing ate him. A gloomy eight-bit theme began to play and the loading screen popped up. ‘SHF’ held the top position and the runners up were ‘POO’ and ‘ASS’. Below those were ‘MFD’ and ‘JUD’. At the very bottom there was ‘SUK’ and ‘+ME’
Shortfuse sighed. Ponies then were just as foul-mouthed as they were in the wasteland today. His thoughts trailed away as he looked back to the top initial. SHF... Those were his initials. He blinked, and at that exact moment, the machine gave a blurp and the screen filled with static. The original image re-formed, only now, the top score was by JUD. “What the...” He took a step back, refusing to blink. After a moment, the screen flashed a bright green, then went out. He blinked again. “Okay?” He glared. “Was I that bad?”
Jet was still over on the other side of the arcade. There was no fun to be had here, so he made way for her, only to trip on something and land flat on his face. “Give me a break.” The stallion picked himself up and look back at what had caught his hooves. A skeleton’s disconnected leg had been the source of the trip up, its owner lying a few feet away sprawled on its side. He gave the skeleton his best motherly look. “You shouldn’t trip ponies, it’s rude.” Chuckling at his wittiness, Shortfuse half-staggered over to where Jet was perched on the game machine.
Jet was having a blast. She expertly piloted the little wagon back and forth with the joystick and constantly mashed the big red button to the right. She kept her eyes glued to the screen, tracking every invading parasprite, every shot fired. To her surprise, she lasted much longer than previously thought. Following tradition, she thumped the side of the game angrily when her little wagon blew up and and she lost her last life. “There.” She cast a mischievous look to Shortfuse, who had watched for at least a good ten minutes. “That should do it.”
The score screen blinked up and she turned back to it. Smile freezing on her face, Jet cried out and backpedaled frantically. From spot one to ten, the initials ‘BAR’ had been entered, the lowest of the scores being over a million points. “No!” she screamed at the screen. “No! Not here too! Barry I’m going to murder you!”
“Jet,” shortfuse said worriedly, taking a step towards her. “Jet, calm down. It’s probably just a coincidence.” He didn’t think so one bit, but he wasn’t going to voice it. He eeped and jumped away when she ripped the two automatics from their leg holsters. With a scream, she emptied both clips into the game, reducing it to a smoking heap of broken glass and metal.
“His name was on all the scores!” she panicked. “How’d he get here!?”
Shortfuse placed a gentle hoof on her back and led her away. “It’s nothing... You know what it is?” He forced a laugh. “I’ll bet you it’s Ghost, sitting somewhere with that PipBuck of his plugged into a control panel. He’s probably laughing his tail off right now.”
She nodded unsurely and looked around. “Is it just me, or is this place a little creepy?”
“No, it’s not just you.” He cast another look around to confirm his thoughts. “Something seems off about this place.” His mind screamed for him to try something. Now was his chance.
Jet pulled the inhaler from her bag and took a deep pull. She closed her eyes and sighed, letting the high sink in. “I swear I’m building an immunity to Dash.”
“Well, yeah,” responded Shortfuse. “That’s what happens with drugs. That’s why ponies get addicted, ‘cause they keep trying to get that first high and it never happens...” He decided to go for it. “So, Jet. I was just—”
“Ooh!” she cried, darting off to one of the larger games. “Let’s try this one.”
He stomped a hoof and swore under his breath. “Okay, sure.” By the time he reached her, Jet was mashing the start button, her previous shock from seeing Barry’s name on the game completely gone.
This was a sort of shooter game, complete with plastic guns. The name of the game flashed across the screen and Shortfuse brought his hoof up to meet his face.
“ZEBRA INVASION!!!” A throaty voice blasted from the low-quality speakers over the sound of explosions. Jet took one of the fake pistols and passed the other to Shortfuse. He fought the urge to walk away as a pixelated pony general’s face appeared on the screen and began to talk, mouth flapping up and down while little sound lines blinked in and out to let you know that he was yelling. “There you are soldier!” he bellowed. “Zebras have invaded Equestria, and we can’t stop them without you!”
“This is pathetic... I feel like I’m a foal.” He looked over at Jet, who was examining her pistol with an unimpressed expression.
She gave him a hearty shrug. “Let’s just have a little fun.”
The game started and next thing he knew, angry-looking zebras were popping out of barrels or out from underneath enchanted cloaks and shooting guns at him. He shot at one, but only managed to hit the pony in the background and lose five health.
Jet groaned from behind him. “You suck at this.” She snatched the pistol from his mouth and and floated them both aloft, decimating anything to come onto the screen.
“Yeah!” the general boomed in the background. “Take that you coal-hogging Stripes!”
“Jeeze,” shortfuse muttered. “This was a kids game? No wonder Equestria turned out the way it did.”
Jet nodded, eyes lighting up with every flash of the screen. “Yep.”
Shortfuse shuffled his hooves. It was now or never. “So, Jet,” he started unsurely. “I’ve known you for quite a while now and I was just thinking that...” He trailed off, thinking.
“That you want to get under my tail?” she finished for him, placing down the two pistols and letting her character die.
Shortfuse spluttered. “Bwah-b-b-no! Why would I—” he cut himself off. “Well, that would be a bonus, but... No! That’s not what I was asking!”
She wasn’t convinced. “Right, and I’m a zebra.”
He winced at her blunt words. “I’m not lying. I like you.” Shortfuse had no idea what was going wrong. The mare’s sudden change from cheery, to angry and harsh was totally unexpected and a card he had never seen her play.
“Really,” she scoffed, “I’m not buying it. Look at me; I’m a damned junkie with a body that hasn’t been ruined by drugs yet. What sort of a stallion would like me for anything other than a living, breathing, pleasure toy?”
He gave her the most genuine of looks he could muster. “Do I look like the average stallion to you?” He laughed cruelly at himself. “I — I’m a half-crazy pony who blows things up. I’ve had to pay every mare I’ve ever been with.”
Jet flared her nostrils. “So what!? Do you think I’m some sort of prostitute?”
His plan was falling in shambles around him. The little pony in his head had stacked the blocks up all nice and neat and now they were tumbling down around his hooves like a failed game of Jenga. “No! I wouldn’t give you money to rut with me!” He realized what he had said a second too late. “Oh ponyfeaters...” He scurried backwards as fire burned in the mare’s eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
Her whole body trembled as she pulled a snub revolver from a smaller holster. “I thought I knew you, Shortfuse.” Tears ran into her her eyes as the weapon jittered in her grasp. “Well screw you!” She swung the pistol aside and fired it past his head. “You come near me again and I’ll shoot you right in your stupid face!” She shoved by him and stalked towards the exit.
Shortfuse watched her go in shock, hopes smashed into the finest powder. “What... Shortfuse... What did you do?”
* * *
“I wonder how they made their alcohol?” said Dodge, watching as Mudbath poured himself another shot of the light-amber liquid from behind the bar counter.
The old merc grunted and downed the shot. “Very slowly, ah presume.” He frowned and swirled the bottle. “This stuff’s all watered down.” He let out another grunt and propped himself on the gray, steel counter, much as a bartender would do.
The bar was a gloomy place, even with the lights on. half of the fluorescent tubes had been removed from their housings, and the far corner where a one-eighty table seat hid, there were no lights at all.
Mudbath skirted the pegasus skeleton slumped over the bar. A decayed fabric patch dangled from what was left of its Stable one-hundred barding. ‘Salt’, it read. Dodge gave the skeleton an uneasy look as Mudbath slid a shot to him over the bartop. “It ain’t great,” he said, giving a half-shrug, “but it’s booze.” He turned to the rows of shelves behind the bar and began rummaging through empty or broken bottles.
Dodge drank the liquid slowly, noting its odd, musty taste. It left a moldy feel in the back of his throat and left his breath feeling minty. He smacked his lips. “This stuff’s a little... off.”
Slipstream finished digging through an old box under the bar table and looked to Mudbath. “Hit me.” He slid her a glass and she snatched it up from the table to taste. “Not bad,” she commented. “It’s better than nothing. Some Stables didn’t even have alcohol.”
Dodge made a face. “Well that sucks.”
Slipstream turned her focus to a swinging door behind the counter. A faint, green glow crept out from below the crack at the bottom. She made her way over to the door and gave it a push. The door swung open unopposed with an overdramatic creek. Inside was a small room. A twin bed sat shoved into the far corner, and a dresser sporting two framed pictures plus a lamp atop it sat beside the bed. On the opposite wall was a small table. A terminal rested on its surface, the source of the green glow.
Slipstream was drawn first to the portraits. The left one showed an older, white pegasus stallion with a gray and white slickback mane sitting next to a smiling charcoal colored unicorn mare. Two pegasi colts tussled on the ground at their hooves, one white, one charcoal. The other picture was just a closeup portrait of the charcoal mare. Her sea-blue eyes sparkled with joy and her brown mane shone in the artificial light. ‘My Fall Winds’ was inscribed on a small golden plaque at the bottom of the frame.
Unlike just about every other part of the Stable, this room had carpet: blue. Slipstream crossed back to the center of the room and spun in a slow circle. There was a one-way window embedded in the same wall as the door, looking out over the bar; that explained the mirror on the back wall behind the counter. Through the window, Slipstream watched as Jet stalked into the room. She practically flamed to the bar and took a seat, beating her hoof on the bar. Mudbath set out a glass and poured her a generous portion.
Slipstream turned away, remembering she had forgotten to check the drawers on the dresser. She slid open every drawer in turn, but they proved to hold nothing but the Stable barding. With mild frustration, she shoved the drawer closed, shaking the dresser. The picture of the charcoal mare teetered and fell on its face with a tinkle of breaking glass. With a worried feel in her heart, she flipped the picture back up, but the glass and paper pulled out and fell to the top of the dresser. A yellowed paper stuck to the back of the picture drew her eye. She lifted the paper gingerly from the glass and unfolded it to reveal old, faded ink.
‘Salt, you’ve always been an amazing pony, and I’ll always remember our time together. But I just can’t hide it any longer. I don’t love you anymore. You used to be happy, fun. What happened to the stallion I used to know? Now, you never leave that gloomy bar and I haven’t seen you smile in what feels like years. But let’s face it, you’re older now, and I’m still young. I still have a chance to find the very special somepony to love for the rest of my life. I was going to outlive you, and we both knew it. I can’t love a pony I know is going to die and leave me alone in my years of age. I’m sorry, but this is the end.
~Fall Winds’
With a courteous nod to the bad-off stallion named Salt, she safely stowed the note away in her saddlebag. Leaving the dresser, she decided to try her hoof at the terminal. To her luck, the terminal had no password and granted her easy access. With a few keystrokes, she brought up the root menu.
>Sales
>Residents restricted from alcoholic beverages
>Recent shortages
>#unnamed
She didn’t even bother to check the first two, instead, skipping to the third.
‘Due to Recent shortages, I’ve had to water down the liquor, and ration it too. I don’t think the Overmare realizes how important liquor is to some of these ponies. For some reason, those ponies that run the small brewery down on the maintenance level had to slow production. If they don’t get their act back together soon, my regulars are going to start going into depression -- get violent. Shit, Tape practically lives here; she’d sleep here if I didn’t kick her out at last call. They should have seen the look on Tape’s face when she got a shot of that watered-down whiskey. I thought she was going to break down and cry.
I did save one bottle of the stuff though. I put it under the bed, just for emergencies.’
Slipstream moved to the unnamed file.
‘Shit... There’s something wrong with that new stuff they’re supplying me with. All the ponies that have been drinking here recently ended up in the clinic yesterday with bellyaches... Tape died. Celestia, she died. Dr. Sparks said it was a blood infection. I thought the new stuff tasted a little dull at first, but now that I think about it, the stuff tastes minty. I took a few shots to see if I was right. I normally don’t drink, but I had to see. It took an hour, but I got a wicked bellyache and then got really dizzy, then tired. I’m going to be tearing somepony a new one for this. I lost my favorite customer because somepony got stupid in the head. For now, I’m shutting down the bar until this whole issue is resolved.’
Slipstream felt bile rising in her throat. Reflexively, she gagged. She lurched a second time and her stomach contents spattered to the floor.
Quickly, she left the terminal and remembered to retrieve the bottle from beneath the bed before trotting swiftly back out into the bar. Her haste drew the attention of the three ponies sat around the serving counter. “If you drank any of the booze, cough it up,” she commanded. “It was poison.”
Jet gave her an evil look. “What?”
“I just read the bartender’s terminal. It said that the liquor was poisoned.”
Mudbath gave her a look of absolute repulse, then turned to glare at the half-empty whiskey bottle. “Well,” he grunted, “if ya’ll’d give me some priv’cy, ah’m gonna’ go lose everythin’ ah had fer breakfast.” He growled something incoherent and trotted off for the corner of the room.
Jet just dropped her head to the table and huffed. “What’s the point? I’m just some stupid sex toy.”
Slipstream gave her a scrunched face. “What?”
The red mare waved her away. “Nothing... Yeah sure, I’ll spit it up in a minute.”
“Say, weren’t you with Shortfuse?”
Jet winced. “Yeah, I left him in the arcade... Bastard,” she added under her breath, unheard by Slipstream.
“Well, is he okay?”
Another glare. “Yes, he’s fine.”
Slipstream disliked Jet’s tone, but didn’t press.
Mudbath returned, passing Dodge on the way to the door. He trotted back up to the bar, looking a little green. Slipstream produced the bottle of dark-amber liquid she had acquired from under the bed and slid it to the old merc. “Here, you should hold on to this.”
His eyes sparkled a little and he stowed it in one of his saddlebags over his armor.
A random thought struck Slipstream as she threw a quick look over the brown stallion’s combat armor. “Why are you the only one who wears armor?” she asked. He cocked his head at her. “You know, you're the only one who wears it. Coal and Sulfur don’t wear armor.”
He shrugged. “Don’t like gettin’ shot. Them others, they’re young’n good at takin’ bullets. Ah been shot enough times to figure haulin’ some extra weight is worth keepin’ my flesh.”
Slipstream looked consciously back at her flanks, unprotected apart from a layer of leather barding in which she hung her saddlebags over. “I tried wearing armor for a while—never really could stand it.”
Dodge poked his head around the corner from the hall. “There’s really nothing but bad liquor in the bar, what do you say we move on?”
Mudbath nodded with a guttural sound and exchanged a glance with Slipstream. She nodded and the two made their way to the door.
Jet remained where she sat, not even bothering to lift her head from the table. “You three go... I need some time to think.”
Slipstream really didn’t want to leave the mare alone, but previous experience told her that Jet needed to be left alone when she was having one of her... Jet moments. If she said that she needed some time alone, then she did. “Okay... Well, catch up soon.”
Jet waved her away irritably. “Whatever.”
* * *
Ghost sprinted through the main corridor on the second floor.
Lost. He had actually gotten lost. In a Stable! He had absolutely no idea how out of it he was to have gotten lost in a Stable. He rounded a corner to another, shorter hallway. Relief filled his limbs at the sight of the downward stair ahead. But as the opened hydraulic door neared, he skidded to a halt, stopping mere inches in front of the break in the floor.
“Don’t try it,” he said under his breath, glaring at the doorway. He put his hoof through the doorway, then hurriedly pulled it back. Cautiously, he stepped forward, listening closely for any sounds that could prove dangerous. Taking a deep breath, he darted forward through the doorway.
Something wasn’t right about this Stable. Strange things happened here. Doors moved all on their own. Robots activated themselves. The clinic had filled itself with oxygen. Staying wasn’t worth it. Better out and clueless than here and dead.
He descended the stairs in a sort of lollop, trying to catch his breath. His limbs ached, and the whole left side of his body stung with the memory of the blaze. Rounding the one-eighty bend in the middle of the stairwell, he finished the descent to the third level. Going through the same precautions with the door on this end, he darted out into the double-wide hall.
At the end of the long hall, in front of the door at the very end, he spotted three of his companions. “Slipstream!” he hollered, running for her.
Slipstream, who had been talking to Dodge about the locked theater door, turned to see Ghost bolting towards her. “Slipstream,” the white stallion panted as he stumbled to a stop in front of her.
She gave him a baffled look. “Ghost, your accent’s showing though... What—” She stopped when he turned to a sound and gave her a view of his left side. His normal, white coat was charred and patches of flesh poked through here and there. His mane had been blackened and curled near the tips, and his tail seemed to be missing about six inches. The barding he wore — a padded, black leather piece — was cracked and wrinkled from char. But worst of all, the hair and skin along his neck and face had been burnt away completely, leaving red, angry flesh below.
“Ghost?” she repeated, “what happened?”
He took a shaky breath and blinked at the irritation in his left, bloodshot eye. “I... we... fire-oxygen.” He sat back and winced. “Explosion.”
Slipstream steadied him with a caring hoof. “Ghost, you need a healing potion.”
He looked confused. “W-why?”
Dodge shot him an exasperated look. “Maybe because you look like a pony-kabob?” Slipstream passed Ghost a healing potion. The singed pony took it with a blank expression. He had to be in shock.
Mudbath clicked his tongue at Ghost’s expense. The merc looked back to the theater door. A paper had been taped over the switch. ‘Theater closed due to radiation leak.’ Boredly, he swept it aside and tired the mechanism; it was locked. With a smug smile, he extracted a screwdriver and bobby pin.
“Where’s Coal?” asked Dodge, looking around as if he expected to see the mercenary hiding just out of sight.
Ghost took another deep breath. “Dead,” he said between gulps of healing potion.
Mudbath snapped the bobby pin off in the lock. He and Coal’s relationship had been strictly business, but it was still a small kick to the stomach to hear that he was dead. Shaking his head clear, he produced another bobby pin and continued working on the lock.
Slipstream was perched somewhere between confused and angry. “Dead? How is he dead?”
“I-he—” Ghost cut himself off. ‘Use your words,’ he told himself. “We were in the clinic... For some reason, the oxygen level in the clinic was very high—combustibly high... Coal tried to light a cigarette.”
Dodge scrunched an eyebrow. “So what did that do?”
Ghost took another swig of potion. “Oxygen is a gas; if you fill a room with it , nothing will happen, but if you mix some carbon and nitrogen into that gas, you get flammable, semi-breathable air.”
“So you’re saying that, air, killed Coal?”
Slipstream’s face had gone white. “Just like Dr. Sparks.”
Now it was Ghost’s turn to be confused. “Like who?”
“Litebrite told me what happened to a pony named Dr. Sparks — she worked in the clinic. Litebrite said that she left her last words on that terminal, that she died from oxygen levels in the clinic.”
Ghost’s mind began to wander. ‘If Dr. Sparks had—’ He shook it away. There was a more pressing matter at hoof. “There’s something wrong with this place, Slipstream... I think we should leave.”
She scoffed. “Leave? What, are you crazy? We haven’t even been here a full day yet and you want to leave?” Ghost tired to speak but she cut him off. “By the way, did you get those files from the terminal at the clinic?”
He tapped the PipBuck irritably. “Yes. But, Slipstream, I don’t think you understand. The oxygen levels in the clinic were rising while we were there. Coal lit that lighter and it sent the whole room up. Slipstream, he died. Died.”
She only sighed and gave him a tender look. “We can’t let a freak accident turn us away.”
He lowered himself close to the ground. “That’s just the thing. I don’t think that it was an accident. The oxygen levels weren’t constant — they were rising. That means that it only started rising once we entered the clinic and something had to activate it.”
Slipstream trusted Ghost completely, and found reason in his fears, but she ignored her better judgement and held her ground. They couldn’t leave. “I’m sorry, Ghost, but we’re staying.”
The locking mechanism gave Mudbath a satisfying click and the door hissed open. The quiet merc allowed himself a smug expression and sidestepped to look into the dark theater. Slowly, his jaw lowered and the screwdriver clattered to the floor. “Shit.” The rancid smell of rotten flesh carried on the breeze was enough to make him gag.
Ghost tensed suddenly, causing Slipstream to worry. “What is it?”
He looked at the readout on his PipBuck, hardly even noticing the rad meter as it clicked warningly. “My E.F.S. just lit up. There’s too many hostiles to count.” Red bars almost completely filled the little dial on the device.
Dodge’s ears perked. “Excuse me?”
“Y’all better get ready,” Mudbath said quietly, a twinge of fear in his voice. His battle saddle gave an audible click as he mouthed the bit, eyes boring into the darkness. He could sense no movement, but it was if he could feel a presence.
Slipstream readied her battle saddle and Dodge’s weapons gave two metallic clicks. Ghost levitated out his pistol and gulped. “What’s in there?”
Bravely, Mudbath stepped forward. “Nothin’ good.”
Suddenly, a projector set upon a table in the middle of the room activated. A ghostly white light blinked to life on the fabric projector screen set up in the middle of the stage.
Slipstream walked up beside Mudbath. “What the...”
“The E.F.S.,” Ghost pressed, looking around through the darkness fearfully.
The projector clicked and a picture of a bunch of happy cartoon ponies lining up to a stable door far away in a mountainside blinked to life on the screen.
“Hello!” a pre-recorded, cheery stallion’s voice crackled from overhead speakers. “If you are here, that means that you have been accepted into one of Stable-Tec’s state-of-the-art fallout shelters. Also, if you are watching this video, then you are essential to the survival of ponykind.
“Now that the door has been sealed, the overmare is in charge.” The image changed to an elegant-looking mare with a flowing mane. “Her word is law.” A thunder sound in the background while a cell door popped up on the screen. “Now you must know, there is a very good chance that everything and everyone you knew on the surface is gone, and Equestria is completely destroyed.” A cartoon mushroom cloud. “In the Stable, you will live a normal life, complete with working, sleeping, and eating.” A depiction of every act popped up as he named them off. “Just like everyday life! As a resident of the Stable, you will be expected to perform the everyday duties to keep the Stable running smooth.”
“Slipstream,” Ghost pressed, watching the little bars in his E.F.S. spread out. “We can’t be in here.”
She ignored him and walked further forward. He stuck by her side worriedly, trying to ignore the steady clicking of his rad meter. Dodge fiddled with his firing bit, not liking the darkness of the room around, despite the glowing projector.
“...Your family will live in the Stable, and maybe one day, the door will be opened and the repopulation of Equestria will start. Now be aware, you most likely won't live to see the surface again. Now that the door has sealed, you will never leave— never leave— never leave—” The pictures continued to change on the projector, but the tape malfunctioned.
“never leave— never leave— never leave— never leave—”
Dodge felt his breathing quicken. “I really don’t like this.”
Mudbath moved closer to the projector, squinting against the light escaping through the air vents in the side of the device. It changed to the next slide with a click but there was only a single row of text that read missing slide’. The tape continued to spurt the same two words over and over again.
“Can we please shut that thing off?” Dodge asked.
There was a zap and a click from above and the grimy lights in the ceiling flickered on. Ghost would have preferred they stay off. Now that there was light, the full seriousness of the situation set in. Were his PipBuck not reading his vitals, Ghost would have assumed his heart had stopped. Dodge’s minigun blared to life and the grenade launcher thumped. Desperately, Ghost activated S.A.T.S. to give him some time to think.
The theater had once been the finest shade of gray. An aisle led from the door to the center of the theater—the aisle they had taken—between numerous rows of gray, mildly-padded seats. At the front was a small stage, worn and rotten from years of use and age. The second worst part of the theater was its presence. It looked as if shredded hunks of pony had been blasted around the room with a party cannon. Dried and rotten intestines hung from the seats like strips of jerky. Chewed and broken bones were scattered about like some raider’s unfinished game of pickup sticks. It was too bad all of it wasn’t dead...
A meaty circle of at least thirty ghouls stood around the group of four, trapping them near the projector. The freakish creatures stood watching, decayed faces covered with expressions of blank huger. Dodge and Mudbath had already opened fire, and Slipstream was in the process of reaching for the bit. Ghost felt incredibly insignificant in the midst of the others with his silenced ten-millimeter. Nonetheless, he triggered three shots on the face of the nearest ghoul and closed the program.
The world started moving again as two of Ghost’s three bullets splattered the rotten brains of the ghoul across the seats. Slipstream grasped her bit and fired as fast as the semi-automatic weapon would let her. Dodge’s minigun hacked a trough through the horde, shredding ghouls and seats, sending a mixture of blood and shredded foam into the air. Mudbath was neither gaining, nor pushing them back; he laid down a steady strafe with his battle saddle-mounted assault rifle.
Ghost magically reloaded his pistol, having dropped three more. “I told you three no!” he hollered. “I said no! But did you listen!? No!”
Slipstream growled as she reached back and jacked another magazine into her carbine. “I get it, okay!” To her horror, more ghouls were popping out of dark corners or from behind seats and wings on the stage. “We’re outnumbered!” she screamed to the others over the sound of gunfire. Dodge’s only reply was a grunt as he sent a chain of grenades blasting through the rows of seats.
Ghost turned in time to see a one of the ghouls reach Mudbath and tackle him from the side. The two crashed into the projector table and sent the projector crashing to the floor in an explosion of sparks and smoke from the shattered bulb. Ghost hurriedly shot the attacking creature off, but two more took its place, biting and ripping at the mercs unprotected throat.
Ghost hopped into S.A.T.S. and managed to end one, but totally missed the other, instead pitting the ground. Improvising, he lunged forward and planted a heavy downward hoof on the snapping ghoul’s head. There was a wet crunch and it went limp.
Mudbath let out a groan as Ghost pulled him to his hooves. “Well that hurt.”
“Come on, stay on your hooves!” Ghost turned the pistol and blasted a springing ghoul point blank range. Although the weapon made hardly a sound, blood and brain spattered his coat.
“Horseapples!” Dodge took a step back, now relying on the grenade launcher. The barrel of his minigun spun down, orange-hot and smoking like spent candle. “We’re screwed!”
Slipstream ejected her empty clip and tossed her head around, frantically searching for escape. There was one option and one option only. “Make for the exit!”
Ghost contradicted her in his mind. They would never make it. There were too many between here and there and even more on either side. About this time, he was wondering why in all of Equestria there was a locked theater full of ghouls in a long-dead Stable.
He fired the last four shots from his pistol and backed up against Dodge and Slipstream. The four ponies now had about four feet of unoccupied space, beyond that...
Mudbath stood protectively in front of the three as they tried to reload. His assault rifle useless, the barrel bent and pinched, he had now drawn a rough, one-foot blade from it’s sheath on his left foreleg. If he was going down, he wouldn’t die with the rest of them. He would die in their contract, protecting them: a real mercenary.
Then, from the doorway, there was a vicious battle cry, one that Ghost and Slipstream knew well. The red blur of Jet appeared in the doorway. Her horn glowed as she levitated two automatics in the air and her face glowed with the semi-crazy anticipation of battle. Had the ghouls’ rotten brains possessed even the tiniest spark of preservation instincts, they would have fled.
Her pistols lit up as she practically flew into the theater, cutting down rows of ghouls only just turning to face the new meat. They spattered and collapsed like sandcastles under the bore of a fire hose as she wielded the weapons like flashy batons. The automatics clicked on empty and she tossed them aside without a second glance. Instead, she drew two, curved blades from their sheaths on either side of her flanks, taking two ghoul heads as she levitated them aloft. The mare spun like whirlwind, hacking anything within a three-foot range of her deadly weapons.
Dodge took the distraction to reload his grenade launcher and fix the broken feed to his minigun. Mudbath just stood where he was, balking. He looked down at the dull blade in his mouth, then to Jet as she decapitated three ghouls simultaneously. She did a sideways bounce that ended in a pirouetted before leaping over a row of seats with a shower of blood from her own, bloodsoaked coat. Mudbath looked back to his single, dull blade. “Damn...”
It wasn’t long before the five cut down the remaining ghouls. Jet finished last ghould with a series of tiny cuts that sent it to the ground bleeding out like sopping rag, then sat down as if she had just taken a warm bath, (technically, she had) her face adorning an airy expression. She blinked blood from her eyes and tried to shake some of it from her mane. “I wonder if this place has showers,” she wondered aloud.
Ghost tried to avoid stepping in the small streams of blood that flowed down in the inclined concrete. “There are usually public showers near the living quarters.” Jet just made a pouty face and looked at her ruined coat again.
Slipstream said nothing. She rolled back on her haunches and tried to slow her breathing. She watched as Mudbath grimaced at the tear of skin along his neck—just about the only place he didn’t have armor. Generously, she passed him a healing potion, leaving her with only three left. He took it with a thankful nod and uncorked it with his teeth.
Wanting to be sure that there were no more nasties, Ghost checked his E.F.S. Luckily, there were no more red bars, just five green ones. He looked away, then did a double-take. Five? Counting the bars again proved no better, giving him the same number as before. “Guys,” he said quietly, “there’s six ponies in this room.”
Jet squinted at him, then counted everypony with a hoof, ending with herself. “You mean five?”
He reloaded his pistol. “No, six.”
The bloodstained mare’s eyes widened. Ghost jumped as one of the bars moved to the right. He tracked it to the source, but the view was blocked by Dodge.
A throaty laugh filled the space of the theater, causing everypony to jump. Weapons clicked as a pegasus ghoul sashayed over to them. “Well it’s about time,” she croaked in a light, ghoulish voice.” She stepped over a decapitated ghould without casting it a second glance. “I was asleep,” she clarified. “The other’s didn’t wake up; I guess I’m just a light sleeper.”
The ponies around Ghost readied their weapons, but he threw up his hooves. “Wait,” he whispered frantically. “She isn’t feral.”
He could tell she had once been a pretty mare. She wore the tattered remains of Stable barding over what was left of her golden coat. Very few strands of her black mane and tail remained, those one’s having grayed slightly. She scratched her chin and gave them a pleased grin. “Did Ricket’s finally get his rump down here to fix the door?”
Dodge opened his mouth, most likely for a prying question, but Ghost slapped a hoof over his mouth. “No, but Rickets sent us,” Ghost answered.
Dodge batted Ghost’s hoof away and glared. “What was that for?”
“You could set her off.” Ghost continued on the clarify at Dodge’s baffled look. “The reason ghouls go feral is because they lose what makes them, them. Their soul dies, leaving nothing but the most primal instincts in the brain. I’m pretty sure she’s stuck in the past, or for her, the current. If you break it to her that she’s not what she thinks she is, or that she’s a ghoul, you could cause her to go feral.” Dodge seemed rather confused but he didn’t bother to go further in depth. Instead, he looked to the others. “Just let me do the talking.” To the ghoul. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before... You’re uh...”
She gave him a foul look. “I’m Sunspot... You know, the pony you hear on the Stable broadcast every day.” She sang a few notes that sounded like a pony was playing a violin with a hacksaw.
Ghost fought back a cringe and put on a fake smile. “Oh yes, right, how could I have forgotten?” He cleared his throat. “I’m here to file a maintenance report. Think you could spare a moment to tell me what happened?”
“Oh of course, if it means getting Rickets in the pin.” She cleared her throat—a sound like nails in a blender. “We were told from a message on out PipBucks to meet at the theater for a small safety presentation. You know, because of all the accidents and problems with the reactors. You know how those ponies died. Anyways, we show up for the presentation, but they must have gotten the tapes wrong because it was that one they showed my mother and the rest of the ponies when they first came to the Stable like half a century ago or something like that; I wasn’t even born then. I don’t know why the overmare was worrying about safety. It’s probably because she’s new and isn't used to running the Stable yet. Ponies always seem to get hurt or die in funny ways here every one and a while; it’s nothing she should stress too much about.
“No, ever since Ricket’s mother—she was the old overmare.” She started into space for a moment. “Ever since Birch went on this trip that she was a bad mare and a murderer, things have been a little weird. She started this intercom broadcast thingy from her office, but then she stopped it and security stopped by her office but she was dead. They said she committed suicide but some ponies didn't seem to think so.”
Ghost wasn’t sure whether or not he should interrupt the rambling ghoul or not. After all, she hadn’t spoken to anypony in decades.
“So this new girl is acting really strange. I really don’t think she’s quite right in the head. You see, I was talking to Salt the other day about it, and he said—”
“Um, Sunspot,” Ghost interrupted as politely as possible. “You’re getting way off-track.”
She jumped. “Oh yes, sorry. So, yeah, we all showed up for this safety presentation but it was the wrong tape, so we were all going to leave, but then the door wouldn’t open and we all had to wait here for them to open the door.” She rolled her eyes, thinking. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a nice stallion on level five and I’m already late.”
She went to push by for the exit, but Ghost blocked her path. “Wait. Is there anything else?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Oh, well if you must insist. Some of the ponies said they were feeling sick after a while. And Fall said that it felt like there were worms squirming her belly, but I didn’t feel anything.” She pushed past Ghost and trotted swiftly for the exit. “I really must be going.”
“Okay...” said Slipstream skeptically. “Goodbye?” She looked to her four companions. “Will she be okay walking through the stable?”
Ghost seemed skeptical. “No, she’s probably going to see something that will make her go feral.”
Through the final bits of conversation, Mudbath had been skimming through one of the shot ghoul’s PipBucks. “Hey, Ghost,” he gruffed. “This pony’s got audio files in this thing... You take this stuff, right?”
Ghost gave an almost-shameful nod and opened the panel on his PipBuck to make the transfer. It took him a moment to transfer the files, in which the other four just sat quietly. Finally, the PipBuck blinked with the transfer complete message and he was able to disconnect it.
Jet stood up and tried to shake some of the blood out of her mane, but by now it had began to clot and stuck fast. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I'm getting out of here...It smells.”
No reply was needed, together, the five left the theater. Ghost darted through the door as fast as he could, drawing a squinted eye from Slipstream. Mudbath trotted up beside Jet and gave her a courteous nod. “That was some nice bladework.”
She gave him a look suggesting he take something of his and shove it somewhere else. He hurriedly backed away and fell in beside Ghost. “What’s her problem?” he asked.
Ghost just shrugged as they paced down the hall. “Something’s bugging her.”
Slipstream skimmed the signs as they walked. “What do you say we hit up the lounge?” The murmured agreement set her mind; the lounge it was.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them shook as an earsplitting blast sounded from ahead. A blossom of flame appeared around the edges of the door to the arcade a second before it was blown out of its frame. It shot across the hall and smashed into the adjacent wall. The rest of the sight was lost as a thick, white smoke filled the hall, obscuring any forward vision.
Slipstream mouthed her her firing bit skeptically. “Now what?”
Jet stepped forward, worry niggling at the back of her mind. “Was that the arcade?”
Dodge spun his minigun, which seemed to be becoming a habit. “Yeah.”
A pony’s silhouette appeared in the smoke, lit by one of the hallway lights beyond. The others tensed, but Jet simply stood where she was. The black shape took on the color yellow as it cleared the smoke. The yellow buck gave a half-smile as he trotted up to them, his red mane frizzled and singed.
“The door closed,” he said sheepishly. “It wouldn’t open, so...” He smiled wider. “I picked the lock.... with a high explosive.”
Jet stomped towards Shortfuse, turning his smile upside-down. “Shortfuse!”
He took an unconscious step back. “Y-yeah?”
“I thought you were dead!”
Ghost nudged Slipstream in the direction of the lounge. “Come on, let’s not be around for this.”
* * *
She was drowning. She tried to breathe, but couldn’t. She tried to move, but couldn’t. It didn't matter whether her eyes were open or shut, her vision was a blur of red and blue lights on a black background. There could only be one explanation: she was dead. That was it, she was dead.
Suddenly, her body lurched and her lungs heaved. Slowly, the feeling crept back into her limbs and she was able to open her eyes a crack. And she could see light, light so bright that she had to close her eyes again. The first thought that came to mind was that she was cold, but only on one side. For some reason, her back and neck were surprisingly warm.
She churned her hooves feebly, feeling as the tips slid across smooth tile. “Wha... what...” She ran out of breath and choked on liquid in the back of her throat.
Sulfur jumped. The gray mare stirred in her grasp and the merc was filled with an immense relief. Hurriedly, she shifted her posture away from Litebrite and withdrew her foreleg from over her neck.
“What happened?” Litebrite managed to groan. She tried to lift her head but only managed an inch before it flopped back down.
Sulfur brushed the mare’s mane away from her eyes. “You nearly drowned.”
With a slight grimace, Litebrite rolled to her belly. “Drowned?” She looked over to the pool, which was perfectly still, a sheet of glass that reflected the lights above. It all came rushing back, and with it, came the tears she was unable to shed before she was sure she’d die. “Oh...”
“I saw the bubbles, then you didn't come up.” Sulfur forced a laugh to try and break the tense mood; it didn’t work. “I’m not a very good swimmer... I got down there and you were stuck in a damned skeleton... How’d you manage that?”
Litebrite slid her head back and forth across the tile. “I’m not too sure.”
Sulfur lifted herself to a sitting position. “It took me forever to get you up. I thought you were dead at first. I could have sworn you’d drank half of the pool.” Another forced laugh. “I got you to start breathing again. You’ve been out since then.”
Litebrite’s mind reeled. She had stopped breathing? Stopped breathing! Sulfur—the bad-tempered merc—had saved her life. “How... How did you get me breathing again?”
“You, uh...” Sulfur actually blushed, “you ever heard of mouth-to-mouth?”
Litebrite smiled a devious smile and sulfur jumped like she’d been poked with a sharp needle. “No!” The merc went a deeper red. “No, not like that! It was strictly to keep you alive.”
The gray mare just smiled wider and closed her eyes. “You wouldn't be blushing if you weren’t embarrassed. And you wouldn’t be embarrassed if you weren’t thinking about more than just keeping me alive.” She opened her eyes and looked up at Sulfur. “I read some old books on psychology,” she said apologetically.
Sulfur wanted to dig right through the floor and bury herself. “Well how the hay are you supposed to not think about kissing a mare when you have your lips pressed to hers?”
Litebrite felt brave enough to try and sit. On weak muscles, she managed to push herself up. Vision blurring, she swayed, but Sulfur offered a steadying hoof and she was able to stay up. “Thanks...” There was nothing stopping her now; the time was perfect. “I’m not going to lie. When you stripped off your barding, I was sizing you up and bidding my chances...” A blush. “I probably would have let it slide... but then you saved my life and I know you thought about kissing me.”
Sulfur opened her mouth then closed it again, at a loss for words. Was this really happening? “Is this how you normally tell a pony you like them?”
“What, you mean, dive underwater and plan on holding your breath for as long as possible to build some suspense, then accidentally get stuck and nearly die?” She absolutely marvelled at Sulfur’s dumbstruck expression. “No, never tried it that way before.”
“You evil mare!” The merc fought to keep the smile off her face.
Litebrite only seemed to smiled again. “The soap — I had two more bars in my saddlebags.”
Sulfur didn't know whether to be flattered or angry. “What... You mean, you?” She spluttered incoherently. “I’m a mercenary. A pony-killing, contract-bearing mercenary.”
“So? You also have a heart.” She leaned heavily on the yellow mare. “Not to mention you are damn good looking.”
Sulfur felt her resistance crumbling. “What about the scars?”
Litebrite’s eyes were practically sparkling. “They work for you... and they really turn me on.”
Sulfur forced herself to shut off her emotions. There was no way she could get into something with a pony she worked for; it was unethical. “Alright, well, let’s go find the others and get you rested.” Leaving Litebrite to sit on her own, she levitated her stuff and began to suit up, first her barding, then the battle saddle. Casting a look back to Litebrite, Sulfur figured the near-drowned mare would be in no condition to carry her own barding. With a generous shrug, she levitated Litebrite’s own barding over and draped it over her back.. The weight of the new bags took her by surprise.
“What the hay are you carrying in these things?” she asked, shifting the bags’ weight uncomfortably. “Rocks?”
Litebrite managed to stand. “No, just general stuff. Tools, healing potions, supplies. You know, stuff.” She was slightly put-off by Sulfur’s sudden impartial attitude. She was wondering if she had gone too far, or too fast.
Trotting over, Sulfur offered Litebrite her shoulder. “Well you have heavy stuff.”
Together, the two mares left the pool. It was slow moving at first, but by the time they reached the main hall, Litebrite was able to walk fairly normally.
Earlier, Sulfur had felt an explosion somewhere in the Stable; she now knew its source. The entire hallway was littered with debris and the door to the arcade lay in a mangled heap against the opposite wall.
Litebrite frowned at the surroundings. “Weren’t they supposed to be somewhere around here?”
Sulfur examined the surrounding walls. “Yeah.” Something peculiar stuck out to her. A rough arrow was scratched into the rust on the wall, pointing down the short hallway to the lounge. “Well, I take it that’s a fair clue.”
Litebrite nodded, but didn’t give a reply. Her mind was off somewhere else. It was only now that she remembered her real reason for drowning. It had been the PipBuck... The PipBuck had told her, goodbye. It knew... Maybe the PipBuck didn't know, but something did. There was something here — something conscious — something that had enough sense to know she was dying. And if it was smart enough to taunt her death,then what else could it be capable of? From what Ghost had taught her, she knew that PipBuck’s could be tracked, and if a pony was good enough, accessed from another terminal or PipBuck. Something had said goodbye, and it had known she was dying, and it had known she could see it. It was intelligent.
The lounge door hissed open ahead, breaking her daze.
The lounge was a fairly comfy place. There were scattered cushions and even a couch with only one bloodstain. Litebrite was pleasantly surprised by the presence of carpet. Sure it was gray and dirty, but it was carpet. Usually, Stable-Tec wasn’t too keen to anything but steel. The carpet had to have been custom, most likely added by the later occupants.
The others were already here and had tidied up a bit. The room’s skeletal occupants had all be piled in one corner beside a crushed mini-bar. Ghost was having a heated conversation with Slipstream while Dodge sat a short ways off, listening. Shortfuse and Jet sat at opposite ends of the room, the red mare purposefully not making eye contact with the buck. Mudbath sat alone at the base of the couch, having already noticed their entry and hardly paid a second glance.
Sulfur squinted, she counted the ponies in the room, coming up with only six. “Where’s Coal?”
All conversation stopped as they all became aware of the two ponies’ entrance. Sulfur led Litebrite all the way through the door and it slid shut on its own behind them.
“Scaving for drugs or cigarettes?” she added with a scoff.”
It was Mudbath who decided to answer. “Coal’s dead,” he said bluntly. “Tech pony said he burnt to death.”
Sulfur blinked. “Really?”
All around nods. “Sorry, Sulfur,” Ghost muttered. “I tried—”
“Good.”
The white unicorn’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”
Sulfur shrugged. “He was scum. That pony had so much bad karma that he was bound to choke on his own tongue and die.”
Litebrite half-stumbled to the middle of the room and sat down heavily. Dodge seemed to notice and gave her a worried look. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her neck, feeling her still slightly-damp mane. “I almost drowned.” Tossing her head in Sulfur’s direction. “She saved me.”
Slipstream gave Ghost a shove that knocked him off balance before looking between Litebrite and Sulfur. “Oh, so you two get along now?”
Litebrite giggled. “You could say so.”
Sulfur gave her a nasty look, (Although it was fake) and furrowed the carpet underhoof. “Keep that cheeky stuff up and you’ll have a few bruises to add.”
Slipstream laughed and lightly shook her head. “Sort of getting along.” She looked around at everypony in turn. Shortfuse, singed and blackened from the explosion. Jet, angry and rather sick from the poisoned whiskey she had failed to cough up. Mudbath, bitten, cut, and sore. Ghost, still half off his rocker. Litebrite, nearly drowned. And on top of all that, Coal being dead. They were exhausted. This Stable was giving them all a good bucking. If she didn't know any better, she’d say it was doing it on purpose.
“So,” said Slipstream loudly. “Who wants to call it a day?” She paused, looking up at the fluorescents. “Or night.”
* * *
Ghost lie awake in the darkness of the lounge. His PipBuck glowed faintly, lighting his face a ghostly green. The others were all asleep. Slipstream had taken the couch, leaving him content with the carpet just below. Mudbath slept alone, up against the wall to the left of the door. Dodge had the other side, his minigun and grenade launcher still tethered to his back. Sulfur and Litebrite slept together; the merc had slung a hoof over the gray mare’s neck. Jet and Shortfuse slept against opposite walls.
He flipped slowly through the collection of audio files he had obtained from the Ghoul’s PipBuck. He selected the very first file of many and queued the playback. A light, mare’s voice began to play over the speakers. “Um, hi. This is Sage, you know, in case you didn’t know. Well, of course you didn’t know. So, I just got this new audio recording software installed on my PipBuck. So now it can record audio files. I guess I’ll take some here and there. Maybe I’ll have something interesting to pass to my foals, whenever that’s gonna’ be.” The recording ended with a two-toned beep.
Not wanting to listen to the everyday life of a Stable mare, he skipped to one of the files near the middle. “I actually spoke with Sunspot today! Sure it was only for ten seconds, but she talked to me.” A little squee. “And she said my name!”
Not far enough, he skipped a few more down.
The mare’s voice cut in mid-cry. “Yes,” she gasped, before emanating a blissful whimper. The cries gave way to heavy breathing. Ghost keyed out of the file. ‘Who the hay even records something like that?’ he thought to himself. The next recording proved much more useful.
“Sometimes I swear, these Stables were built to fail. We’ve been having rolling blackouts ever since the new overmare took over. Me and a few other ponies in maintenance have have checked it again and again and we’re sure there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the reactors, but something’s making the lights go out.”
Ghost let the next file play on its own.
“Ugh, work was terrible today. Salt was complaining about sound from the theater leaking through into the bar. Can you believe we actually pulled the paneling off the load-bearing walls and stuffed the spaces between the supports with soundproof insulation? Salt better be pretty damned pleased with himself; he cost me a day I was supposed to have off.”
“I had to manually override the door to old Mrs. Rivers’ room today. Again. For the third time this week. She says the door keeps locking itself and it won't let her out. I think it’s horseapples. You know what I think? She’s old and lonely and wants attention, and she gets that by locking her door and then calling for help like she can’t get it open. Well if she does it again, she can sit in there and rot until she opens it herself. I’m not doing it anymore.”
Great, just great.” She made a hacking sound in her throat. “We’re having troubles with the water piping in the living quarters and maintenance levels again. And who do you think Rickets sicked that job on? That’s right, me.”
Ghost was finding the mare’s life rather ordinary as he keyed the next file.
“Damn. I’d give anything for my tools right now. Me and like, fifty other ponies are called here with this PipBuck command, and it turns out, they're playing the wrong damned tape here. Then, the door breaks! The stupid thing won’t open. If I had my tools I could have it open in a jiff, but those are on my bed two levels below... Oh well. I sent an error report to Rickets’ terminal with my PipBuck; he should be here soon and have the door working again.”
Ghost positioned himself more comfortably on the floor. “Here we go,” he muttered quietly.
There was a general murmuring in the background of this tape. “I don’t get what the issue is. Why isn’t anypony here yet? You'd think that fifty ponies ponies trapped in a room would be major priority.”
“Celestia... It’s hot in here. Sunspot’s mane has literally deflated. And. She. Is. Pissed. I don’t blame her either... Some ponies have tried yelling for help or are talking about breaking down the wall or the door. I don’t think I should tell them... Talking about it seems to calm them a bit. They don’t need to know about the insulation, or the fact that its impossible to get through the walls with no less than a plasma cutter.” She trailed off for a moment, allowing the muttering in the background to be heard. “I know what that little dial on my PipBuck is now... It’s a rad meter.”
Ghost felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.
The clip opened into a coughing fit. “were—” Sage broke off, hacking at a lump in her throat. “We’ve... My PipBuck’s saying we’ve been here for almost thirty hours. I’d heard about radiation before, but I’d never experienced it. My PipBuck’s still ticking away, which means there’s still radiation in the theater. I can only guess it’s excretion from the purifiers; those are the only things I know of in the Stable that might deal with radiation. But why the hay is there radiation here? It has to be coming through the vents.” There was a long silence, the only audible sounds were heavy breathing and the distant coughing of many ponies. “I know this may sound crazy,” she said so quietly it was hard to hear, “but I think the Stable’s forgotten about us.”
“We’re all sick.” Sage’s voice was considerably deeper, and had a rasp to it. “The radiation’s doing its job. My...” She paused. “My hair is falling out. Whole clumps of it.” A whimper. “I’m going to die in here. I don’t want to die.” She tried to continue, but was overcome by rasping sobs. The recording cut out a moment later.
Ghost looked forebodingly at the last file. He knew he didn’t want to, but there was no way for him not to listen if he didn't want it to bother him all night. It was a lose-lose situation.
He selected the file.
“What is living?” There were no longer any noises in the background, only silence. Sage’s voice had deepened further and her voice now rattled like a can full of rusty nails, empty, and near-void of emotion. “Most of the others have stopped talking to me. They were okay for a while, then they sort of just... faded. Then they started eating the dead ones.” A long pause. “Sunspot’s not like them yet, but she’s in denial. She doesn’t seem to know what’s really going on.” From this point, the tape played on quietly for several minutes. When Sage spoke again, her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “I’m scared. I-I think I’m becoming like the rest of them—the empty ones. they just stand there, staring off into space. It’s like they’re dead... but they aren’t really dead. I can’t remember my own name. I feel that I could hold on if only I could remember my name. Who am I? I don’t... know... who... I... am. Somepony, please tell me who I am. What’s it worth holding on if I can't even remember my own name? If I don’t even know who I am? I’m just going to fade away, end up like one of them... one of those... zombies. I feel that if I even close my eyes... I’ll be gone.”
Sage whimpered quietly to herself on the tape. “But what’s the point of holding on?”