16. The New House In The Forest
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T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
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CROSS THE AMAZON
By Chatoyance
Chapter Sixteen: The New House In The Forest
It had once been a soy plantation. It had been built right during the Collapse, likely just before the Testicide Incident.
Soy had been one of the worlds biggest crops, but that ended when a genegineered variant was found to cause total sterility in males. The strain spread, inevitably, and soy developed a very bad name. Fields were burned, scoured with fire and plasma. But nothing can put the genii of genes back in the bottle once it escapes. This was before the Last Harvest and the end of wheat, but it foreshadowed that terrible event.
The plantation was compact, with two large silos and a processing center and a little green farmhouse. The once bright green was faded to a shade of olive-despair, but the house still stood. Beside the house was what looked like a broken windmill - there were no blades, just a tall tower of metal struts. The silos had partially fallen, the rivets giving out under the assault of time and weather. Calloway had parked the Big Truck in the shadow of the farmhouse, and had carried, after much coaxing and finally a bit of manhandling, Dropspindle into the structure.
They needed to sleep, they needed to eat and attend their hygiene, above all they needed a break to recover. Calloway had kept running due east for almost twenty straight hours - he could literally drive no more. When the leaning silos had appeared in the distance, he had diverted to them. On the infinite and flat plains, they were the only thing that stood out. He had shouted "Land Ho!" but Dropspindle had not laughed. She had not made a sound since she had finished her weeping. She had just remained still, mashed behind the driver's seat, voiceless and silent.
She was on the bed in the farmhouse. Calloway had laid her there after removing the dust shrouded bedcover first. The house was intact, if coated with the fine filth of abandonment. The front door had been locked, as if the owner had intended to return one day. It was hot, but the house provided shade. It had its own well, which much to Calloway's surprise still worked - thanks to a hand operated mechanical pump. There was an air conditioner, several in fact, but no power to run them. The food in the house was mostly doubtful, but he found a treasure trove of Nanobars and a later product Nanomeals, both of which had been advertised to last until the end of the world. The company had, somewhat ridiculously, meant the expansion of the sun in a few billion years.
Equestria had guaranteed that their commercial campaign had not been a lie after all.
Calloway worked to turn dry, packaged, vegetable soup into actual soup without a working stove. The result, made by soaking the Nanomeal package contents in a bowl of room temperature water was less than wonderful. But, as far as he could tell, it was edible, if ghastly. "Dropspindle? I made something not entirely like soup! Food! It's all vegetarian too!"
He sat on the bed, offering a bowl of desperation and food powder but Dropspindle only turned away. She stared at the wall opposite Calloway, barely breathing.
Calloway attempted to sip his creation, but choked on an undissolved bit. He set the bowl down on the nearby nightstand. "Dropspindle... talk to me. And at least drink some water. You need water to live."
The unicorn mare remained resolute in her effort to bore a hole in the peeling paint.
"Dammit." Calloway sat for a moment, looking out the dirty window. Brown land met gray-brown smog to the end of eternity. The heat wore at him, making him feel more anger than he should. "I get it. I really do. You're a pony, and ponies aren't built for taking out the trash - but god fucking dammit Droppers... that was definitely kill-or-be-killed! That was self defense! Those cock-sucking bastards hit us first! Why the hell don't you GET that?" He was breathing hard, partly from the heat and the stale air, and partly from his own frustration.
"Dropspindle: you did good! I... I just don't get how you can't understand that. You didn't do anything wrong. Those spells you did? They didn't hurt those men! You made glowy clothing and one guy naked. That was awesome! You scared 'em without hurting 'em one bit! It's their own damn fault they managed to plow into the last god-damned tree in the entire Amazon!" Calloway chuckled. "Hell...that was hilarious! The last damn tree on the entire continent, and they crammed right into that th..."
Dropspindle was off the bed and marching out of the room. She stood in the dining space, barely aware of what she was seeing. Calloway was up and after her, he stood in the bedroom doorway, watching.
Dropspindle suddenly kicked a chair. She raised up her hindquarters in a flash and bucked the chair into a cloud of dust and shrapnel. The bits of wood impacted the walls of the dining room with such force that some were embedded in the peeling wallpaper. It had looked like an explosion. It had almost sounded like one too.
Calloway picked himself up from where he had instinctively half-ducked, half-fallen. She was so fast, and even being just a unicorn terrifyingly strong compared to a human. Then again, being a pony, or at least pony-like, her species was built for power and endurance... just like horses on the earth had once been. Calloway did not dare to approach her.
"Fuck you, Calloway."
Calloway's mouth fell open. Ponies never swore. Not real swearing. Not ever. Newfoals, the recently converted, even the saltiest of them swore only in pastry. He had been told, by a disreputable - and clearly wrong - source, that native Equestrians didn't even do that.
Dropspindle walked to the door and smashed it free from its hinges with a single blow from her forehoof. The door cracked and hit the ground and lay broken in the diffuse daylight. She trotted out of the house.
Calloway didn't move from the bedroom threshold for some time. What had he done wrong? He'd tried to comfort her. He'd made her soup, as best he could. He had begged her to drink some water. He'd tried to explain things, and even complimented her on what she had done! She was the reason they were even still alive - he couldn't have gotten them out of that scrape alone. Hadn't he made it clear he was proud of her?
Ponies weren't helpless. That was a falsehood that some humans clung to. They could fight, if they were cornered. He'd read about a pair of earthponies facing down several HLF bastards in an alleyway once. They'd opened up several cans of high-grade whoopass on those anti-government terrorists and had left them in pain and stitches by the time the Blackmesh showed up. And the HLF men had brandished guns! How was what had just happened any different?
Yeah, it was very likely that some of those car bastards had died. You fall out of a speeding vehicle, you smash into a tree, there's a real good chance you aren't going to live through that. Last damn tree in the entire continent. Maybe the whole world. Calloway laughed again. Absolutely flat, utterly empty, and they hit the only tree left. Damn. Hilarious.
He had to do something. She was messed up, somehow. Those earth ponies in the alley, according to the article, they weren't damaged at all. They had seemed like any human coming out of a fight with a win against shitheads that deserved what they got. They weren't broken by the experience. And they were natives, too, like Dropspindle! Well, as far as he could remember they were. Maybe it was a unicorn thing. Okay, it was probably the killing thing, at least in part, but... there was no other choice. And she didn't kill them, bad driving killed them. And a tree. Arborcide. He chuckled again. The Revenge Of The Amazon. Trees Gone Wild. It was a ninja tree done leapt out and straight-up kilt 'em, officer!
No, no... this wasn't at all funny to Dropspindle. Something was wrong with her because of it. Something he didn't know how to fix.
Dropspindle's mother held her little filly in her forelegs, and pressed her head close. "Oh, sweetheart... my poor little dear." The kiss on her ear helped. Dropspindle continued to sniff. Billowstreak and Whirls hadn't invited her at all! Because she was a unicorn and not a pegasus. It had to be. It hurt so much! Always flying and there was NO WAY she could keep up! And they hung out in the tree tops and she couldn't climb and why hadn't they invited her? They'd invited Cherry Morning, and she was an earthpony! Earthponies weren't pegasuses-es neither, and neither was Zephyrnight! Hey! Zephyrnight was a unicorn! They invited him!
"Honey, you... sometimes you need to stand up for yourself."
"Mama?" Dropspindle snorted, but a big gob still managed to run down her muzzle. Her mother dutifully wiped it away with her pastern.
"You're a very quiet little pony. Such a good little filly! I don't think they meant to forget you... it's just that, well, sometimes, if a pony is too quiet and shy, they just aren't noticed as much. According to your teacher, you just sort of sit in the back, and you hardly say a word."
"But tha's no reason to forget me!"
"Well, my beloved one, yes, yes it sort of is. If you don't see something, or hear something, how do you know it's there? Hmm?"
"But I'm there! I'm there every day!" Dropspindle pouted, her ears at half mast.
"Yes. Yes you are!" Her mother groomed her mane for a while. It always felt so good when her mother groomed her mane. "But sometimes, well, sometimes a pony has to kick up a little fuss once in a while. Say something, speak up, or else they... they sort of end up not being seen. That's all I'm saying. You're a very good filly, and kind and sweet... but you could be just a little bit louder sometimes. Kick up your hooves! Flash your horn a little. Just a little?"
Dropspindle raised her weary, sweaty head. Her neck was stiff, and her body ached. The heat was relentless. The human's barn-thing offered only marginal comfort, and it smelled strange. Like whatever had once grown here, and been harvested here had been wrong, somehow.
That was what problems were, back in her rightful world. Being overlooked for being too quiet. That was a serious problem, worth tears and comforting. That was the Big Bad Awful Thing that could happen. Or not getting first place in the Macramé contest and feeling sad because you knew that if you'd only tried harder, and not gone on that picnic by the river and lost your special, magical, imported Jute that had come all the way from Griffonia... that maybe you would have won. That was some great cord, it glimmered like stars reflected in a lake when the light hit it. It would have taken the show, done up in Cavandoli style, all geometric and regular to show off the...
But not here. Not in this place. Here it was always a struggle of life and...
Those men. The mean men. Of course they were mean. They blew up the Mamá Gansa! Nice humans wouldn't blow up a pretty airship with a bright orange stripe across it. Or any airship. They were mean men. Mean.
And they would have done bad things if they hadn't been stopped. They would have... they would have done... very bad... things. And those spells were harmless, they were completely harmless. Fancy clothes... and no clothes. If anything, losing the clothes should have felt better, being so hot and all! Those spells couldn't harm anything, ever. Just make it prettier, or... or make it easier to undress. Kind spells. Helpful magic.
Who knew there would be a tree? A dead tree still standing? Why would the humans leave one tree standing when they cut down every last one of the others? Why do that? How could it live on its own? It would just dry out and...
Calloway. If only she hadn't tried to find him, if only she had gotten on that pegabus and... but then it would be the same thing, wouldn't it? If she had left him behind, wouldn't that have been the same thing as what happened to those men in the.... only it would have happened to Calloway instead.
No matter what, this world was determined to make her a... a... killer.
How could it be like that? How could there ever be anything that happened like that? What monster ruled this universe that even allowed situations where no matter what you chose, no matter what you did, somepony had to... to... die?
They said this universe, this human universe, didn't have any alicorns - or anything even like them. No princesses made this world. No princess designed the animals and the plants and the sun and the stars. It just... happened. It just all happened by itself, with nopony in control, all from chaos, like the Everfree. This universe was the Everfree universe, only... only even more so. That's what the instructor had said.
It was madness. It was an insane cosmos of horror. She'd just wanted to learn about Peruvian weaving! They had been trying to get everypony to accept the Newfoals, to see the humans before they were converted as being sort of like ponies. Which meant that Newfoals would only be even better, when they came, because they would fully be ponies then. How humans had families, and played games, and sang songs and... and made art. Pretty fabrics and wonderful designs and...
Fabric from another world! Designs and patterns from an alien universe! Even more marvelous than far Griffonia... and all she wanted to do was learn. Just learn a little about these things, because they were going to go away. The human's world had died, that was why they needed to be rescued, because the princess had promised them. Their world was going to go away forever.
Good riddance. Dropspindle clenched her teeth and howled through them. The tears came again, hard, and ran down her dirty cheeks. It was so painful, Celestia! It's been so difficult and so awful and all just to save one poor human who missed the bus and... oh, Luna! Sweet Luna, protector of foals, keeper of dreams, oh you helped once, can't you please, please help once more? Can you even hear us all the way out here?
This was much worse than dangling from a clockleg. There was no Luna here. Nopony was coming. Nopony would ever come to the rescue here.
How could the humans live like that? Knowing deep down that nopony was coming? Nopony cared. Nothing watching over except the chaos and the emptiness and the dark?
Dropspindle opened her thaumatic eyes and the daylit world became a dim and gray realm of translucent shadows. She looked at her own body, at her hindquarters, at her hindlegs... and she was still bright, still a glowing blue-white pony inside, filled with swirling arcane patterns, the very stuff of life, the essence of magic. She still had a couplement, she was still truly alive, and still a part of Equestria. She cried and cried at that, at the knowledge that despite everything, she was still made of eternal light, inside.
She raised her head, and looked around at the gray darkness. It wasn't entirely colorless, it faintly reflected distant magic. Her thaumatic eyes found the source. Equestria filled half of everything. Endless color and light and beauty shining beyond this dead, gray realm. So close, so huge, so incredibly magnificently near. Her heart yearned for home, for green grasses and bright flowers, for kind ponies and loving princesses. So close. So very, very close. So surprisingly close, oh... oh...
Uh oh.
Calloway adjusted the antique volume knob gingerly. The batteries seemed to still carry charge. He had thought the tall structure by the house had been a windmill that had lost its blades. It was in reality a vintage amateur radio tower - ham radio - which the owner of the plantation apparently had been involved in. Afraid to follow Dropspindle when she was in such a mood, he had decided to explore more of the house. There had been a pull-down staircase, and a low attic. Inside, he had discovered a fairly elaborate ham station, with a bank of batteries charged by something outside, on the roof... very likely solar panels which they had not noticed coming in.
The setup had been left seemingly in a hurry - a dry, caked coffee cup remained on a desk. It had once been full, over time all the fluid within it had evaporated, leaving a solid, rock-hard mass at the bottom. The radio set up was quite impressive. Calloway knew nothing about such machines, but with careful experimentation he had managed to turn the system on, and immediately had heard something. The radio was tuned to a signal already, almost certainly whatever the original owner had been listening to just before he had left forever.
Radio was rare. Almost all information was strictly regulated and sent through cables. Radio now was what it had always historically sometimes been - a rogue element within any attempt to button-down the world. From the repeating broadcast, it seemed that these renegade hams enjoyed using ancient callsigns and identifications that were now no longer valid or recognized. They clung to a lost and almost forgotten past - electronic Amish, medium-tech luddites, keeping a dead dream alive right under the nose of the all-watching, all controlling Worldgoverment.
" ...Knysna, ZS1NAT, Current Incursion Status Bulletin for the twenty-second of July CTZZZZZ CCKHHHHSSSSouth Africa, Year Five. ReporTZCZZZZZ KHSSSSS KSSSSSermed by official Worldgovernment channels. The Solar Princess presented a prepared statCHZZZZCHUSSSSSSS TZCHSSSS CTHXXSSSSollows now:
'Our sister and we have strived with diligence to hold back the advance of the Great BarriTCHZZZZZ CHSSSSSS KXZZZZSSSSSermit the Conversion and evacuation of our beloved earthbound citizens and citizens-to-be. But the Barrier possesses a life of its oTZCHHHHH PZSSSSS TCH TCHSSSSSSpand rapidly. Releasing of the Barrier will alleviate dimensional compression which would result in earthquakes, fractures of the planetary crusTZZZCHHHHHH TSSSS TSSS KCHSSSSSop when it reaches a new equilibrium, roughly located near the earthly Longitude of 4TCHHHHHSSSSS TSSSHCCCSSSS TSSSelp of the Worldgovernment and to follow the directions of the helpful Blackmesh forces during all evacuation and Conversion KCHZZZZ TZHSSSS CHSSSSS SSSS KSSSS'
TSSSSCHHHHpansion similar to the one that occurred last year. Blackmesh troops will remain until the very lasSSSSS KSSSSSTCHSSS TCHZZZ KSSSSSraft and passenger transports. It is recommended that CTZZZZZ CCKHHHHSSSS PZSSSSS TCH TCHSSSSnd to TZZZCHHHHHH TSSSS TSSS KCHSS at Cape Town. Refugee centers are alreaCHZZZZCHUSSSSSSS TZCHSSSS CTHXXSSSSuring this current expansion crisis.
Broadcast repeat of CHZZTZ ZZCHHHHHH TSSSSZZ CHUSSSSSSS TZCHSSSS CTHXXSSSSdred hours."
There was a pause, and then the transmission began again. The static was terrible, but Calloway had no understanding of how to clear it up. His hand hovered over the dials, and ineffectually attempted to randomly pick a control to diddle with. In the end, he lowered his hand. He had got it to work, he could control the volume. But everything else was unlike any technology he had ever been personally confronted with. There were no active surface interface panels, no holographic icons, nothing that made the least sense to him beyond numbers, and he was unsure what they designated. Radio was a mysterious magic he had never encountered except in old movies or books.
Finally, he switched the ancient device off. Dropspindle should hear this. The message repeated regularly, it seemed. Maybe she would know something more about what was being said, she was a native of Equestria, that was her princess talking.
But Calloway actually did have a very good idea of what the news report was saying - he just didn't want it to be true. It was too soon, it shouldn't be happening this early, should it?
The Great Barrier of Equestria almost always expanded at a steady pace of 0.64 kilometers per hour. Fourteen kilometers a day. Except when it didn't. It could lay dormant, remaining the same size for weeks or months, then suddenly increase in size over the course of mere hours. Or, it could remain constant for months and months until mysteriously expanding at a vastly increased rate, only to stop and pause once more. Some had speculated that the Barrier liked to rest, and digest its meals before it hungered once more. Some believed it was alive in some unthinkable way.
There were even those crazy daisies who had claimed to have communicated with it! There were endless stories and wild tales. But the Barrier had altered its progress before. Three times before - sudden expansions that gobbled hundreds of kilometers of the planet in mere days.
This explained too much. The 'Going Out Of Humanity Party' in Jaén. The sudden evacuation of Huancabamba that had started their journey. The terrible sandstorm with its howling winds. The desperation of the men who had tried to capture the Gansa, but had only succeeded in shooting it down.
Even the sudden evacuation of the soy plantation they were in. No person who still clung to the ancient technology of ham radio would leave any of this technological treasure behind unless they were fleeing for their lives.
Everyone had known about this for months. Everyone except him, hiding away, deep in his cave, deliberately thieving a vacation from his elite masters.
He had to find Dropspindle. Angry or not, hurt or not. He had to find Dropspindle now, and they had to get moving.
Because it was almost certain that ready or not, Equestria was coming for them.
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Yikes. You'd think after the sterilizing soy, they'd have grown a test batch of indestructible wheat. Hubris and money are a terrible combination.
Kotani really knows exactly what not to say to someone from a much nicer universe. Schadenfreude is not how to lighten a traumatized pony's mood.
And the Barrier is off its leash. This is not going to be fun...
Ruh-roh Raggy. Runaway expansion to 4-something longitude.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Longitude_%28PSF%29.png/220px-Longitude_%28PSF%29.png
If it's 40-something, that's the Eastern tip of South America. If it's 4 degrees, that's well into Africa. Given that they're on about Cape Town, it could be the latter.
¡The barrier is about to surge!
Yes, fuck you Calloway, you careless, lazy, heartless, thief monkey.
"Our world had a great civilization once. Then soy made everyone gay."
I just read this quite relevant news piece relating to this chapter's theme: ""Monsanto teams up with World Wildlife Fund to convert Amazon into giant GMO plantation". Quoting:
This bit information, even if not from this specific source, evidently is part of your research and one reason among many for this chapter, so nothing new here I guess. Truth be told though, in reading the above news I was shocked by how close it is.
And the more I think about it, the more this books' depiction of the barrier itself strikes me as a metaphor for the demise of human agriculture, more so in fact than the very scenario it's engulfing. Here, the barrier is clearly no more than the final nail in the coffin.
Clever! Really, really clever! Kudos, Chat!
Somebody needs to put the brakes on that Barrier.
I feel awful for both of them. Neither Dropspindle nor Calloway are dealing well with taking lives.