The Night Sweep Hotel

by Sourberry

Cassette 3

The ascent of their metal capsule was marked with a hollow background whine, that faded in and out of earshot, yet if one were to lend their ears to it, they would find its presence constant. Lightning Dust could not help it; between the humming of Pinkie and the stark silence of Octavia, she was left with little else to focus on.

So she waited, in the hope that soon this journey would come to an end, and the elevator would arrive at the fourth floor.

“So,” Lightning Dust lost her composure at roughly the ten minute mark. “How's everyone's day been?” Her voice was wavering; close to breaking into pieces.

“Fantastical!” chirped Pinkie. “I've met new friends, I've explored the hotel, I’ve had fun, I've even baked some cupcakes.” Pinkie then gasped, turning to Octavia and laying her hooves on her side, “Thank you for the compliment about the cupcakes earlier! It really meant a lot to me, but I didn't get time to thank you earlier, and I forgot downstairs, so thank you now!”

“You're welcome,” Octavia smiled warmly, patting Pinkie on the side.

“So you have you met any new friends today?” Pinkie asked Lightning Dust.

“Well,” Lightning Dust thought for a moment, considering the absent-minded soul she'd met at the park earlier. “No,” she answer definitively.

“You can meet me then!” Pinkie wrapped an arm around Lightning Dust, who cringed at the touch. “And then we can be friends!”

“I don't think-” Lightning Dust was cut off by the loud clunking of the elevator arriving at its destination. “Finally!” Lightning Dust exhaled, pulling herself away from Pinkie and stepping out the elevator door.

Lightning Dust came to a complete halt just a few steps out of the elevator. Octavia skulked behind her, looking upwards. Pinkie bounced out after the pair to see what they were looking at, and found herself standing under an open night sky.

Skyward she could see the swirling dust of the cosmos and the moonless night sky; a thousand distant lanterns flickering in between trailing clouds of blue and silver. The platform the trio were standing on was no simple hotel floor, but a metallic grille suspended over a misty veil of unfathomable depth, supported by grand arches of slate that bent over the trio.

“This is bigger than I remember,” Octavia quipped.

“Are we lost? How'd we get lost going up a damn elevator?!” Lightning Dust snapped, taking flight and looking over the edge into the mists.

“Think of it like an adventure!” Pinkie lent on the metal railings and looked over the edge, cooing at the height they were at.

“I don't want an adventure! I want to find my room,” Lightning Dust barked back at Pinkie, lowering herself back to the ground and stomping away down the metal platform. The metal walkway the trio wandered down was not as along as it first seemed, but where it led to was only more disconcerting.

A sprawl of walkways stretched out before them, all at the same level as them, separated by giant pillars of dark metal. Panning away from this sprawl the group could see that some of the walkways went off towards distant walls. These walls were colossal in size‒ possibly hundreds of feet tall, and almost entirely made of slate, with edifices of wrought iron forming sloping entrances to where the walkways met with the walls.

Lightning Dust took flight and soared through the cold air of the superstructure. Ignoring the whining of the pink one, she beat her wings and flew over to the nearest wall entrance. When she landed her body was shaking from the chill, and her breath came out in clouds. A mantle of smooth and bulbous iron surrounded a door she vaguely recognised, but could not place where. Without further consideration she gave the handle a tug and pulled the door open.

She was greeted by the sickly sweet smell of baked cakes first, and secondly by the sight of a highly organized and well laid out living room, stocked with piles of books tactically placed about the living space.

Lightning Dust scrunched her nose up and pushed the door shut. “Ain't my room,” she huffed, taking flight a second time, and making the short journey to the next doorway along.
The iron mantle for this doorway was far more angular, and had an eccentric display of pyramids rolling out like coils along the tops and sides of the doorway, cascading all the way to the floor. Putting the confusing display aside, Lightning Dust tugged open the door to this room, wherein she found herself staring into a very sterile white room, laden with plastic curtains. Beyond the curtains she could hear the solemn bleeping of some electrical device. Rising above this noise came the arduously drawn out breathing of an old mare.

Lightning Dust shut the door forcefully, and without hesitation. “How vulgar,” she said under her breath, moving away from the door once her legs had returned to use.

Lightning Dust landed before the third door, its mantle shaped in the image of a roaring lion. She tugged the door open, to find inside a dimly lit workshop, redolent with the scent of oil. She shut the door and stared out at the doors and platforms along the wall. Along this wall alone she could count twenty. With a growl she took flight and leapt over to the next door.

Octavia and Pinkie had arrived at the nexus of the walkways, and were staring at a grand disk of polished metal. Etched into surface of the disk was a spiral of patterns and equine figures. At the edge of the disk were elegant engravings of ponies standing atop rolling hills and watching the sun crest the landscape. The heavens, settled above the hills, gave way to an intricate web of mathematics and equations, marking the beginning of the spiral. Half way through the spiral the mathematics gave rise to elaborate blueprints of rooms and incomprehensible structures, that ought not to be able to support themselves. At the core of the spiral was the open head of a metallic equine, its exposed cranium billowing back out the core of the spiral; locking in an infinite cycle with no beginning nor end.

A darkness began to spill out from the centre of the spiral, bleeding over the images and obscuring it from the starlight glow. Pinkie and Octavia cautiously retreated from the disk just as the machine descended before them. Wrapped and bound up in a mass of reed and twine there hung a giant construct of a pony. Its iron torso, forelegs and head were several orders of magnitude bigger than Pinkie and Octavia, though its hind legs were not present.

Walkways parted and shifted around the central disk, forming a spiral of platforms and staircases running upwards. The giant pillars were moving too, closing in around the pair and meeting up with the tower of stairs. Some segments of slate parted to reveal corridors beyond, now linked up with the new walkways, and the pair could hear the rattling of valves and pistons under pressure.

Lightning Dust swept right past the pair and landed with a stumble some feet in front of them, looking back at the huge slate pillars as they locked in together, sealing them in.

“What's going on? What did you do?” She demanded. Octavia and Pinkie hastily shrugged.

“How did you get in here?” The robotic voice of the machine before them boomed. The source of the voice came from all around them, though the constructed image of the pony had no mouth to speak of.

“We're lost-” Octavia started.

“We're really sorry,” Pinkie Pie tried to continue.

“Do you not know what havoc you could wreck here!?” The machine beseeched.

“We don't want to break anything, honest!” Pinkie pleaded

“You will though, in time, just by existing,” the machine said. Pinkies ears flattened as she bowed her head.

“Who- What are you?” Octavia asked,

“I am The Beacon of all True Forms,” the machine announced, loudly, and lifted its huge hoof as best it could. “And that,” it said, pointing the hoof at Pinkie, “Is an imperfect being.”

Pinkie held a hoof to her chest, wincing, with pinpricks of tears clinging to the corners of her eyes.

“Hey, shut up!” Lightning Dust spoke up, spreading her wings. “Not everypony is perfect! We all make mistakes. You don't get to talk to her like that!”

“I pick and choose no words; my supreme authority on this matter merely dictates the truth,” the machine answered back.

“Oh yeah? Where're you from? What gives you that authority?” Lightning Dust snapped back

“Both questions are meaningless,” the machine replied with a sweep of his hoof, “I have always been and cannot recall not being. If you wish, I can run a simulation of how I might construct myself.”

“You won't be doing anything of the sort ever again!” A mare yelled from above. Looking up the group could make out a pony standing on a platform high above them, next to a small grid of pipes.

“That's the pony from room six,” Octavia gasped.

“Your megalomaniac schemes are done! Finished!” Lyra continued to shout.

Lyra rested her hooves over the railings, and staring down at the group, while her cloud of magic drifted around the valves nearby. The cloud tightened its grip, twisted, and pulled the valves free.

“What're you doing!?” Lightning Dust shouted up at her.

“It was all a ploy!” Lyra shouted, the rest of her speech lost in the roar of rupturing pipelines.

The streams of cascading water slammed into the back of the machine with resounding force. The machine let out a horrific garbled scream of static and noise, and desperately tried to find purchase on the platform with its forehooves, only for them to crush straight through the flimsy metal. Its back erupted into purple fire and blue smoke as the sustained downpour pummelled it, shredding the twine and reed holding it up. In its death throes the machine let out a high pitched electronic whine and fell free of its bonds, smashing straight through the floor and prematurely exploding into huge fragments of fiery blue, before even reaching the mists below.

Lyra vanished back through the door she had come in from, leaving the chaos far behind her. The downpour was unending, as more leaks burst from the piping so did the integrity of the walkways crumble. Waves of water came rushing down the platforms, washing into the trio and taking them to their knees. Lightning Dust took flight, but found dodging the torrential downpours from above more trouble than it was worth, she settled her hooves back on the ground with the others, and the trio fought through the waves with grit and force alone.

They managed to ascend three flights of steps before the flow had become so powerful that they could feel the walkway buckling under the weight of the water. Making a snap decision the trio darted through the water stained tunnel of stone on their level. Lightning Dust lead the charge with her wings spread, racing down the tunnel and towards a point of light up ahead.

“I think I see a way out!” She shouted back to the pair.

A terrible shudder rocked the foundations of the building, sending cracks trickling across the walls and along the floor, stemming from the tower they'd just fled. Pinkie and Octavia felt themselves treading water moments before the wave struck them. Everything was awash in foam and water, yet behind them an even greater wave surged up.

Octavia reached the ladder where Lightning Dust had clambered up, and threw her hooves onto it, entangling herself upon it; then, content with her own safety, she held out her hind leg for Pinkie to grab hold of as she made her pass.

By the time the heavy wave struck, Pinkie and Octavia were half way up the ladder. The force of the water, and the rising current that persisted after, almost forced Pinkie off the ladder. Holding onto the metal bars with just her forehooves she cried for help. Octavia, who had just barely held on, disentangled herself and offered a hoof down for Pinkie. As Pinkie pulled herself up with Octavia's help, she felt something tug on her hind legs.

A pair of pink forelegs, like her own, had risen from the chaotic swirling mass of water and were holding onto her hind legs. She watched, paralysed with terror, as her reflection in the water broke the surface to greet her, with a sickly sweet smile on her lips.

“Fun,” the ghostly disembodied mimic of her own voice echoed, “Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!”

“I'm not going back with you!” She screamed, swinging her hind legs up and bashing the reflection in the face, causing it to explode in a gush of water.

“Pinkie, I'm just trying to help you!” Octavia shouted down at her, “Quit thrashing about!”

Octavia hauled Pinkie up onto the ladder, and, with great effort, managed to pull both herself and Pinkie up to the surface, where the soaked pair rolled out onto the moonlit grass above.

From their near watery grave below, the trio had emerged in a lush forest, surrounded by thick undergrowth, all lit up by moonlight breaking through the canopy.

Octavia was still trembling with adrenaline when Lightning Dust tried to get her attention.

“That was so,” Octavia spoke between deep breaths, her black mane a wild wreck of splayed black hair. “Exhilarating,” she stared at her shaking hooves with a wild grin. “It's been years since I've felt this kind of adrenaline. I feel so alive!”

Octavia rolled on her back in the grass, giggling loudly, pausing occasionally to kick her legs up in some dance of triumph. Pinkie sat up, tugged the back of her mane, and spat out water like a fountain. Lightning Dust grimaced at the pair of stooges and rose through the canopy for a better look at her surroundings.

The forest they were in was dense, but short lived, as it gave way to rolling blue hills under the moon. Just a short trot away from the edge of their forest was a modern looking road, sweeping through the valley between the hills, and terminating at a ruined building. Lightning Dust could tell it was a ruin even from the distance she was at; for a good two thirds of the building was not only missing, but scattered all around the valley surrounding the building.

Twirling slowly in the air she gave the horizons one last look over before dropping down to meet up with the other two.

“Well I can't see Canterlot anywhere,” she started, having found Octavia and Pinkie now both upright, with Octavia holding Pinkie in a comforting embrace.

Lightning Dust sat on her haunches, watching the pair laugh together, as a familiar clawing sensation raked her chest. Without a look back she plodded away from the pair, and towards the forest. Just as she reached the edge of the clearing she heard hoofsteps behind her.

“Hey! Hey! Where're you going?” Pinkie laid her hooves over Lightning Dust. The sensation wasn't as immediately repulsive as it had been before. Lightning Dust stood there and let Pinkie lean on her, edging her face closer and closer to her own.

“I don't know where I'm going,” Lightning Dust admitted, “You two looked like you did, so I thought I'd leave you to it.”

“But we weren't going anywhere!”

“That's not what it looked like from where I was sitting!”

Pinkie crooked her brow, blinked unevenly, and crooked her mouth.

“Never mind. There's some big ruins down the road.” Lightning Dust explained, the heaviness in her chest easing off. “It may have a map in it so we can figure out where we are, if you want to come along.”

“Sure!” Pinkie beckoned Octavia over and gave Lightning Dust a pat on the side. “And even if the map doesn't help you get home, we will!”

Lightning Dust hid her smile with a turn of her head, and the group made their way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, and out onto the road outside. Lightning Dusk looked left and right down the stone road.

“Now I don't know where this road leads to if we go left,” she said, stepping onto the road and turning right. “I couldn't see any buildings or anything, and the road eventually disappeared, so I figure it probably leads into a tunnel”

“So if we find nothing down here, we can always double back and take the tunnel?” Octavia asked

“Yup', that's the plan,” Lightning Dust replied as they trotted down the road.

The ruin was coming into clearer view now, and they were starting to pass by the debris; huge chunks of blown apart masonry and warped iron, as well as some smaller mechanical components none of them recognised.

They could see the road sweeping about and took them right up to the entrance of the building, but before they got there they saw the mangled sign that had been torn from the front of the building, and was now lying half upright in a grassy knoll.

The Brightstone Group Building

“I got an envelope from them once!” Pinkie commented as they trotted past it.

“What was it about?” Lightning Dusk asked

“It was just an envelope,” Pinkie said. Lightning Dust glanced back at her, brows knotting up momentarily in scrutiny, before shaking her head and returning her eyes to the road.

The building they stood before had seen far better days. Most of the the building was gone, and only one corner of it stood up, with all kinds of offices and meeting rooms exposed to the elements. The odd sheet of paper occasionally lifted from one of the rooms, and blown out into the air. The majority of the ground floor seemed to be in tact, and the concrete grounds surrounding the immediate vicinity of the building were strewn in rock fragments and sodden paper.

Very carefully Lightning Dust crept in through the shattered front doors, cautioning the pair behind her to be wary of the shards of broken glass everywhere. The front room was almost non-existent, as all the rubble from above had fallen down. Shockingly the two things that still stood standing were the elevators and stairs in the far right corner of the room, and the reception desk. Lightning Dust came to a halt as she realised that behind the reception desk stood a metal pony.

“Hello and welcome to the Brightstone HQ. I am Quinn, receptionist model three. How may I be of assistance today?” A female monotone voice came from the metal pony, a bar of light across its mouth illuminating with each word.

“I believe we're looking for directions,” Octavia spoke up, looking to her companions for confirmation.

“You are currently on the Desktop level, for administration and quick storage,” Quinn began to reel off. “For directions, and other local geographical data, you will want to take the elevator, or stairs, to level two,” without a break, the machine continued its spiel of information. “I regret to inform you that due to structural instability, the staff on that floor have been sent home for the day. Maintenance is to be scheduled shortly. The Brightstone Group offer their apologies. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“So is there nopony left here at all?” Lightning Dust grumbled, turning away to explore the remains of the floor.

“Incorrect,” Quinn replied. Lightning Dust stopped short of the desk. “There is currently one employee clocked in for work.”

“Who, and where?” Lightning Dust asked.

“Horace, working as lead designer in the Basic Systems basement.”

The basement was a different kind of sprawl to the dereliction above: large, overgrown vines, leaves and pale blue and white flowers grew upon moss that had grown over the vast majority of the room down here. Plant-life coiled around huge piles of green plastic boards and wiring, which were haphazardly dumped around the basement, like a landscape of miniature hills. Several parts of the ceiling had collapsed in, and tiny waterfalls ran into the room from above, granting life to the plant-life below.

“Hello!” Pinkie called loudly, her greeting punctuated with a loud crackle of miniature fireworks. Lightning Dust winced and frowned at her, ready to berate her, but was cut short by an unexpected reply.

“Hello?” Came a male voice from somewhere further in the room.

They wandered through the garden that had grown on top of the desks and piles of detritus, soaking in the rich aroma of flora, until they came to a large pit in the ground, with short flights of steps descending into it. At the centre of this pit was a large bank of machines, arranged in a semi-circle, each with their own grey slates that displayed constantly shifting algorithms and masses of text. Standing at the helm of this impressive device was a worn looking pegasus of a pale blue coat.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. “I wasn't expecting anypony to be here any more. I don't recognise any of you though; are you from the government?”

“The government?” Lightning Dust snorted, “Nah, we're just trying to find some directions out of here.”

“So you just stumbled in here?” He raised an incredulous brow

“Yup!” Pinkie chirped. “You're Horace, right? Did you build all this? The metal pony upstairs said you were a designer.”

“You're right on all accounts, madam,” he said, smiling affectionately up at the grand machine behind him. “But if you're lost, then I don't see how I can help you much. My life's work here has sadly come undone; it can't even design some floor plans any more.”

“What about a rocket?” Pinkie asked, grinning ear to ear.

“Pardon?” He asked, apprehension clear in his voice. Pinkie trotted right over to him, paying no heed to his comfort zone.

“I have a friend who needs to build a rocket to go and see his queen‒ she lives in the stars, ya' know‒ and he can't do it by himself! I was looking for Flim and Flam, but now I've found you! Isn't that great!? Now you can help instead!” Pinkie pressed her grinning face close up to Horace, who was now sat on his haunches.

Horace looked up at the large bank of display units and their walls of text. The culmination of his last ditch efforts to save a dead project was unsightly to behold, though not all of it was in vain; of that he was sure. With a sigh he stepped around Pinkie.

“I could use the break,” he said, his body sagging in exaggerated exhaustion, “Where is this fellow?”

“Back at the hotel!”

“There are many hotels here.”

“Wait a moment,” Lightning Dust interrupted, “You know about local area? Do you know where I can get a ride out of here? Preferably one northbound.”

“There's a train station not far from here, I think,” Horace winced, struggling to recall. “It should only be a short walk from here.”

“We could take a detour to it before we head to the hotel,” Pinkie offered.

“Good enough,” Lightning Dust exhaled a deep sigh of relief, “Thank you.”

“Is it fine to leaving this behind, unattended?” Octavia asked, looking up at the grand machine, and then around at the moss covered mounds of rotten scrap parts.

“Gone, but not forgotten,” Horace wistfully smiled at her, “When I return, I expect it shan't have changed.”

In short order the group were happily wading through the forest undergrowth outside for a second time, meandering through glade to glade, using rock formations and large, glowing fungi as landmarks to find their way. It was a group effort, with Horace rambling conjecture as to their current location, and the next way-point, and the rest of the group demystifying his ramblings.

Soon enough they came across a run down train station, which looked like it had been left abandoned for some time. The small building was the kind of sort one might expect in the country side, and was certainly not intended to handle mass transit of ponies. The roof of slate had holes in it, and they could see small mounds of it where sections had come loose, and the walls were simple wood that had rotten and aged over time. The platform itself, along with the rails, had a sparse littering of plants, but otherwise was vacant.

A loud whistle of steam heralded the arrival of a pair of lights upon the hillside, full and bright in the night, steaming towards the old station. From the moss covered old brick station a stallion emerged, pushing open the back door with a creak. He was dressed in a jarringly sharp uniform of blue, with fanciful gold chains. As he made his way across the platform the group could see his form flickering, as if it were projected like film. The stallion came to a halt by the platform, turned to face the oncoming train, and put his whistle to his mouth.

The old train had come to a complete stop, bringing with it a stiff breeze. A chill bit at them all, save for the spectral attendant, who, in his incorporeal form, did not seem phased by it in the slightest. The attendant gave his whistle a sharp blow and simultaneously every door on the carriages rolled open. The insides were, as expected, completely devoid of any passengers, drivers, or staff of any calibre.

“It's a shame to lose our fiery companion so soon,” Octavia intoned with a smile, “But you know what they say about flames that burn the brightest.”

“Aww yeah!” Lightning Dust laughed and raised her hoof. She tapped the same hoof on the ground and looked away for a moment. “You know,” she spoke slowly, turning her attention back to them “You could come visit me, anytime you're in Manehatten; just look for the apartment building with the orange flag, on the waterfront,” Lightning Dust held her head up and puffed her chest out, “In fact, I'm damn well inviting you over. Especially after the good you've done me.”

“We're only doing what any other pony would have,” Octavia smiled sweetly

“No, no,” Lightning Dust shook her head, “It's not just the helping hoof‒ you're right, anypony could have done that; it's for putting up with me. I've been a crummy tag-along. So, thanks for putting up with me. I know I wouldn't have.”

Pinkie flung her fore-hooves over her, and Octavia joined in too, ignoring Lightning Dust's squirming.

“Bleh! I didn't want you to get all mushy on me!” She pleaded.

“I'd love to come and visit at some point,” Octavia said, “I'm sure I could find the time”

“I've always got time! Parties too!” Pinkie beamed.

The attendant blew his whistle a second time. Lightning Dust shot the train a desperate glance, and then gave both Octavia and Pinkie a pat on the sides.

“Sorry to cut this so short. Thanks again!” She began to canter over to the train. “Come visit!” The train doors slid shut moments after she entered. “It'll be worth it!” She called from inside, hoping they could hear her.

The attendant gave his whistle a second blow and the train began to chug away, its engine roaring and its wheels grinding into action. The station slowly dragged away from her window and was replaced by the blue woodlands of the night. Lightning Dust took a seat and rested her head on the table. The inside of the train was mostly wooden, with lush blue carpet and padded seats, all lit up by the soft yellow glow of fixed lanterns that decked the carriage hall.

“What a weird bunch,” she mumbled to herself, rolling her head over so she could watch the scenery pass by the window, “New start,” she watched her reflection jitter, smeared eight times over the window, “New friends?” With a soft smile she closed her eyes and nestled her head into her forelegs. “Yeah, that's what I need.”

Slowly she faded into a restful, content daze, and watched as the trees faded away, and the train fall into the night sky from which she drunk deeply.