10. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
══════════════════════
T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
══════════════════════
CROSS THE AMAZON
By Chatoyance
Chapter Ten: The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
"They told them fairy tales, made empty promises, and they just took what they wanted. People let them, because the bucks came in - money, back then, like your 'Bits' - and even with all the problems, that seemed better than nothing. They could buy sneakers and toilets and televisions and fancy cars. Eventually, the jungle was a desert, and everything ended."
Calloway crammed more of the recently replicated lasagna into his face. "And, of course, nobody could say anything, because if they did, if they were too loud about complaining..." He spooned another mouthful, chewed and swallowed "...then they were just 'disappeared' in the middle of the night. Same thing all over the poorer part of the world. The rich countries bought out or 'replaced' the governments, and brought them to heel. The Northamerizone was the worst offender in that regard. Really bloodthirsty about it... at least beyond their own borders."
Dropspindle forced another mouthful of the rather amorphous and ill-defined Vegetarian Entree down. The food printer made better stuff than they could scavenge, but it still wasn't close to real food. She knew that every bite she took - and she had to eat - would result in suffering later. She had alternated between terrible constipation and raging diarrhea throughout their journey. It was not something either of them liked to talk or think about. They just grimly dealt with it. But it was always in the background. And on the seats, and the floorboards, and recently, mixed with the dust. "Disappeared?" It sounded like magic.
"Killed. Taken out in the middle of the night, shot and buried in pits. Millions of people. Pretty common in the Pre-Collapse days. Kept the... um... 'Nikes', I think they were called, kept the Nikes flowing. Kept the oil flowing. Kept all the resources flowing into the wealthy nations. Pretty effective way to shut up complainers." Calloway was enjoying the lasagna. It tasted cheesy and meaty and filled with tomatoey goodness to his human palate. Dropspindle claimed it smelled like plastic and chemicals.
"How... how can you just talk about it like that?" Dropspindle's replicated vegetable mush was supposed to be 'garden fresh and delicious, a true natural bounty of flavor', which was why she had chosen it. The food printer had worked for almost two hours making all the little broccoli and carrots and celery and countless other vegetables, yet in the end they were just mushy, gritty manufactured gunk. At least her mess smelled better than Calloway's layered awfulness. And... it was an actual, hot meal rather than a wafer or a bar dug out of a neoplastic bag.
Calloway finished chewing. "Aw, that stuff doesn't happen anymore. No rich countries - no countries at all! Just Production Zones. A single world government, and everywhere is equally poor now... well, except for Antarctica... and the other places the elites have walled off. But there's no politics, we're just one big world now. Corporate Earth. The Worldcorporation. Everybody fed, everybody watered, guaranteed! No armies, no wars - a few riots now and then... humans are just cantankerous, that's just a fact - but hey, no Death Squads either. It's the Golden Age of Man, Dropspindle!"
"It's the end of your world! At least without Equestria and ponification." Dropspindle sipped some repli-cola. It was almost palatable.
"We saved the best for last!" Calloway grinned wickedly, sardonically, and laughed because Dropspindle clearly didn't understand dark humor.
Calloway and Dropspindle had followed the road that she had thought 'maybe' about. The going was slow, and several times Dropspindle had been unsure about where the road was at all. They had resorted to stopping entirely, while Dropspindle dug at the dust until she could get some sense of what was underneath it. Gradually, they had made progress, still surrounded by darkness, dust that looked like piles of snow, and countless specks in the beams of the headlights. The road curved and bent, and split again - but this time the edge of a sign had been visible at the turn off.
E s t a c i ó n 5
La instalación de procesamiento de crudo
pesado petroquímico Gobierno Mundial .
ADVERTENCIA : ¡ Autorizado Personel Sólo !
Esta instalación está protegido por las
Fuerzas de Seguridad Blackmesh.
"Calloway! It's an... an petroquímico... it's a... the-stuff-you-do station!"
"An old petrochemical plant! This is something I know. There's nothing left down here, but stations like this have quarters for visiting elite. I've stayed in places like this, at the pole! Jackpot, Dropspindle! Jackpot!"
Dropspindle's ears hovered between upright and low. Dust flaked from them as they quivered. "Is that good? Are... Jack's Pots... a good thing?"
Calloway laughed, then choked on dust, then coughed for a long time. "Yes. The best. A 'Jackpot' is a win. We just won the lottery." Apparently there weren't lotteries in Equestria. "It's a good thing. A very good thing!"
It took them some time to find the main offices. They had to ram open several chain-link gates and they got lost for a while amidst gigantic, rusting tanks. But they had hope, and their excitement carried their weary bones. Eventually, they found an entrance to the facility proper, and dragged themselves into a large, dark building. Dirt and dust sheeted from them onto the clean tiled floors as they made their way down industrial corridors. They removed their improvised 'goggles' and 'masks'. Dropspindle ripped the sock from her muzzle - and only pleading from Calloway prevented her from telekinetically deconstructing the soiled and putrid fabric that made it up down to its constituent molecules.
Calloway stripped down to his underwear. What he left behind was half clothing and half dirt, heaped in a pile in the hallway. His garments partially stood upright without him inside them. Even without his clothes, the dust was melded with his skin - rubbing his hand across his chest just produced new sheets of dirt. He made an effort to scrape some of the soil from Dropspindle's coat, but that only left him dirtier and she no cleaner. He gave up, and motioned for her to follow him. They walked down stairs into the recesses of the underground of the building. Somehow, Calloway restored power to sections of the building. Before the storm, a vast field of solar panels had stocked up still functioning storage batteries that helped power the old, abandoned petroleum plant. They had lights and air conditioning.
And working showers.
The water was stale, it had been stored for a very long time, forgotten, sealed away. It smelled strongly of iron and algae, but it worked efficiently with soap, and it graced them with some semblance of feeling clean. They showered together, in a large communal arrangement of nozzles and tiles, and both broke down weeping while the warm water ran over them. They coughed and sputtered, choked and vomited mud. They helped scrub each other, then scrubbed again. And yet again. It was as if the dust had become part of them - it seemed impossible to get rid of it entirely. But they persevered, and in the end, they laughed with relief.
"How much time now?" Calloway had come to rely on Dropspindle's ability with numbers.
"Five days. Five days until the Barrier now. Oh, sweet Luna... a bed. A soft bed. And I am CLEAN!" Dropspindle lay on her back, her legs splayed out haphazardly, wherever they flopped when she had impacted the covers. "And fed. Clean and fed and in a bed." That made her giggle. The giggle was a nervous one, and lasted too long. They were both beyond exhausted.
"Oh, Jesus Fuck... I am tired. That was just awful. Just hideous. God..." Calloway lay with one leg off the edge of the bed. He felt too weary to drag his own limb all the way on. "Shit".
"What?"
"I'm so tired, I can't relax. I thought I would just fall asleep, out like a light but..."
"My mind just keeps going on, about nothing. I feel... like something in me is still out there, pushing through the dust..."
"Please! Don't even say dust! Or dirt. Or anything like that. I can still smell it. It's way up inside my nose." Calloway honked into a hand towel he had kept from the shower, before their date with the food printer. The white towel was half brown from his coughs and sneezes into it.
"I can't smell anything anymore. I'm a little scared, actually. I don't think Equestrians are meant for this sort of thing!" Dropspindle laughed at her words - an odd laugh, Calloway felt. Strange and bitter and very human sounding. "At least I can't smell your feet anymore!"
Calloway gave a weary chuckle. "Yeah. Sorry about that. But... we made it. It worked."
"Yes. It worked." Dropspindle blew her own nostrils into a towel of her own for some time. The towel was as stained as Calloway's, perhaps more so. "Tell me about what you do. The thing that this place is for."
"What?"
"Tell me about your cutie mark. About your purpose."
Calloway snorted more mucus-y mud out into his towel, then wiped his nose. "Humans don't have marks. And it's not my purpose in life. It's just something I do because I get paid really, really well. I don't even like it. It was really boring to study."
"You... you do something you don't like to do?"
"Yeah! Humans have to do that a lot. Probably most Twopers have jobs they hate. Better than being one of the poor." Calloway finally dragged his leg onboard the bed.
Dropspindle was quiet for some time. "So what do... you do?"
"I'm kind of like a detective." Calloway rolled to face the pony beside him. Neither felt like enduring separate beds. Dropspindle never liked to sleep alone, and Calloway had started to feel the same. The sheer emptiness tasked him. "My clues are tiny specks in rock, and the crime is petroleum and history."
"A detective?" Equestria didn't have crime.
"A... a person who... solves mysteries and stalks people to find out who's cheating on who." The look on Dropspindle's face was precious. "Never mind. How about... a person who finds things? Yeah... a detective finds things that need to be found. That someone is willing to pay to have found. I find petrochemicals for the elite, and they pay me very, very well. There isn't much left anymore."
Dropspindle considered. "So, how do you find these... petrochemicals?"
Calloway scratched his head. God that felt good. His scalp itched, despite washing out all the dirt. "I look for fossils, really tiny ones, trapped in sedimentary rock. Ancient spores, pollen, chitin, diatoms - anything organic. It's all microscopic, it's not like dinosaur fossils or anything. Basically I hunt down signs of ancient forests and seas. Find the right places, and there's probably oil down there. That's the glorious career that is 'Stratigraphic Palynology'. Look for microscopic crap in rocks to tell rich people where to drill. It's a boatload of fun, let me tell you."
"In Equestria, nopony does things they hate to do. You get a cutie mark only when you've discovered the thing you love the most, the thing that defines who you are. See?" She rolled so that Calloway could see her mark. "Mine is a dropspindle - that's my name now, too. I don't just study weaving and fabric design and cloth and fibers because it gains me anything - it is my true fascination! I love how it is even possible to take wool or cotton or silk or coir or hemp or even just any kind of hair and turn it into threads and strings and yarns and... it's a true magic, a wonderment right there! And you can take that and weave it, or knit, or crochet, or do needlepoint or... you can do all sorts of amazing, incredible things and make the most wonderful bolts of gorgeous cloth! And there's the entire art of dyeing, and cloth finishing for effects and... it's just so beautiful! Oh, Calloway, you just can't imagine how incredible it is to start with a pile of raw fibers and end up with a bolt of something so lovely it can make a pony cry with delight!"
"Wow." Calloway rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. "The way you go on about... you really do love it, don't you? Cloth and stuff. I've never had that much excitement about anything I've had to do. Ever." He coughed into his towel for a while. "All ponies... are all ponies like you? Excited, happy about what they do? Don't you have any ponies stuck in dead end jobs they hate?"
"Why... why would any pony do that? I'm still not clear on why you humans do things you don't love."
Calloway sighed, and ended up coughing more for it. "B-because... because here, on earth, there's never enough to go around. Because here, the elites own everything, and if you want any of what they have taken for themselves, you find a way to do something they want. Not what you want. What they want. You do what the boss tells you. That's earth. That's humanity in a nutshell. Bosses and workers. Kings and serfs. Always been that way. Always."
"Haven't humans ever tried anything else?"
"Yeah. Lots of times. It never works. It always goes back to owners and wage-slaves. Or worse. Every single time. I guess we're just built that way."
Dropspindle coughed out some mud into her towel and lay back. "We'll find you some potion. Then you won't be built that way any more."
Calloway laughed. "When I'm a pony, I won't have to do work I hate anymore? Is that it? Am I gonna get one of those marks on my ass? I wonder what it will look like? A VR headset? It'll probably be my own ass. I'll have my own ass printed on my ass. My purpose in life."
"Stop that!" Dropspindle was finally feeling tired enough to sleep. "You be good to yourself. No more self pity, remember?" She yawned. "Once you're a pony, you'll understand. Life is fun! You act like life is a burden to you. It's supposed to be a joy, Calloway."
"Life is often a burden here. Really! It is. There's joy sometimes. But a lot of life here is not fun. I'm sorry, but..." Calloway yawned too. "...that's just how it is. Here. On earth. Believe me, I want fun. If being a pony is fun, I'm there."
"It is. It's fun." Dropspindle was beginning to lose it. "Unless you're here. Dust isn't fun."
Calloway rolled onto his side, Dropspindle pressed into him as usual. "No. Dust isn't fun. Not fun at all."
Calloway stared out at the reddish-brown nothing beyond the window. In two days, Equestria would come, the Barrier would roll right over, and that would be the end for both of them. At least they could face it in comfort and style - showers, food printers instead of rations, filtered air. The corner of the large observation window was piled high with fine, powdery soil. The dust coated everything outside. It was beginning to thin, enough to barely make out the large, empty, rusting petrol tanks through the brown 'fog'. In a week or two, the air might be clear again.
According to the map, the 5N just... ended, about forty-nine kilometers from Station 5. After that, there was... nothing. Nothing but desert and tree stumps. Desert for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. There were small villages, supposedly, if they followed the dry bed of the Rio Amazon. None of them seemed likely to have technology. The situation seemed utterly hopeless. They were out of fuel and running out of time. For three days they had searched the facility - what parts were accessible without having to go outside into that horrific ghastliness - and what they had found was a very large, very empty, very abandoned former petrochemical plant.
Calloway had found communication equipment, even a WorldGov Kiosk link. but with the power down for the continent, the cable was out. Radio wasn't a thing anymore - everything was the hypernet, and that required robust data transfer, and that meant laser cables and repeater stations. Radio. Waves through space. Microwaves and beams and... which did exist, just not here. Not at Estación 5. Somewhere out there must be an uplink center that could reach satellites in high orbit. High above Equestria's curvature. Those still remained. But who would ever imagine a day when the cable that ran from the repeater to the uplink center would end up without power forever? Nobody prepared for that. No power forever was unthinkable.
Calloway climbed the stairs back down from the observation tower. The stairs were metal and clunked as he descended. No more jitney. Dust for weeks. They could just start walking, but why? They couldn't carry enough food or water, and going back out into that? No. Pointless.
Here, when the Barrier hit, Estación 5 would probably be transformed into a palace. It was such a large facility. That was what Dropspindle thought. A palace. White marble and golden spires, drapes and stairways and lovely fountains, and a huge garden all around. She would be alone, but at least she would have a beautiful place to live in. That was something. He could leave her in a palace, at least.
And perhaps she could bury his ashes in the garden. Maybe a flower would grow.
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
575 users online
1,083,880 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I think it would be interesting to read about Dropspindle's poo problem... It's been a morbid curiosity building since 27 Ounces.
6172858
I honestly think that this is a very niche request. I know the perfect line to respond with. It's a quote from Rumiko Takahashi, from when she was asked by American fans 'If Ranma was in girl form and had sex, and he got pregnant - what would happen if somebody splashed him with hot water?'
"I don't think about such things, and you shouldn't either." - Rumiko Takahashi
6173018 Oh, come now: you know shame does not work on me. Ok, leave it up to my imagination... *Evil grin* Pony Projectile Poo Powered Pontiac Propelled Precariously Peeling Parallel Past Peaks Playing Pole Position to Plummets Perpetuating the Parched Protagonists' Path to Paradise.... Perhaps my Presumptuous Prediction is Particularly Preposterous?
6173216
Here - I'll make it up to you by posting my own personal poo problem, from several years ago:
You're welcome.
6173323 Oh, you misunderstand. I am not actually interested in poo; I am interested in how the two of them dealt with this situation. It's not hard to imagine that they did get to the point described in the opening scene, it's just hard to imagine what they tried before they came to that painful conclusion.
Maybe the word "eucatastrophe" would have explained better.
But we're now ten chapters in. Still no potion for Calloway. Driving farther away from the barrier, which means deeper into the Exponential Lands, and farther from any pegasi who could help them penetrate Equestria at a higher angle.
"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"
Almost time to start running, boys and fillies. Better get ready!
6173442 I don't think you understand the emotions attached to that speech. Calloway and Droppers are fighting nature, not people. When Sam said that, the “bad” he referred to was the extent that he had seen people willing to harm one another. Despite the pains that Calloway and Dropspindle are still going through, they both want to live and keep going. I know this because Calloway is still complaining about the shortcomings that only matter if he makes it to pony.
If however, in the next chapter he tells Droppers to head to another part of the facility so that she doesn't have to see him being incinerated by the barrier, and is consequently shinned in the kick for saying such, then perhaps making that comparison will be accurate. ;p
6173513
I believe that, in the context of the story, those two are connected. The cruelty of nature and man's inhumanity to man form a positive feedback loop. A harsh nature makes for a hard man, who exploits his fellow man and nature, which depletes resources, which makes more harsh nature, and so on.
Yeah, "life is fun" is a good philosophy, but it doesn't exactly apply to time spent in a continent-wide dust storm. I hope this won't have any lasting respiratory consequences...
Given the degree of distortion at work, Estación 5 may get stretched into an entire metropolis. An empty one. There really doesn't seem to be much hope for these two. The dust storm won't abate quickly enough, and the Barrier's progress may be halting at times, but it's inexorable. The only thing that might save them is a deus ex machina... but you've been winding the winch for just such an occasion.
6173533
I thought about that too, but didn't want to say anything in fear of giving the author terrible ideas, but since you said it; the salt in the wound would be that Calloway's lungs will get cleaned up if he manages to get ponified, but unless Dropspindle makes it to a trained medical unicorn, she may not ever taste or breath right again.
Wait what? Did it finally die from all the dust? It was working fine at the start of the chapter.
6176175
They had enough alcohol to make it to the abandoned petrol plant, but not enough to go on for the hundreds and hundreds of kilometers to anywhere else. The jitney - even if they could clean the intakes, is effectively pointless. No more roads.
This is a very well done story I think. Glad to have found it.
6181036
Welcome, and thank you!
My pattern matching brain cannot help but contrast this chapter with the two other entertainments I have ingested in the recent past involving driving a vehicle through a giant dust storm. Andy Weir's The Martian, and Mad Max: Fury Road.
In Fury Road, they went right through the storm at full speed, because it's the kind of movie you can get away with that in. In The Martian, he has to drive around, because losing efficiency in his solar cells is more of a concern than an interuniversal intersection pursuing behind him, since there are none of the latter on Mars. Here, they go through at a crawl because they must do so, but realistically.
Brave heart, Cal. Don't give up.