Rubble sat at the table, staring blankly down at her bowl of apple flakes. Her eyes were half closed, and a lock of charcoal-colored mane slid down to block one half-lidded eye. Right as her head started to tip forwards towards the bowl, a loud electronic screech filled the room. “Gah! I’m up, I’m up!” she said, sitting bolt upright and flailing around for the alarm clock. Which, as her brain sped up enough to start recognizing her surroundings, was moving. “Dang it, Dulcimer!”

Laughing, the unicorn sat down across the table, her own bowl of apple flakes settling down as the silver glow of magic faded away. “Geez, Rubble. You stayed up all night again, didn’t you?”

“Did not.” The earth pony shoveled one spoonful of dry cereal into her mouth, crunching it and staring jealously at her friend’s bowl, wishing her own ration of milk hadn’t been used up yesterday. “Only until midnight.”

Dulcimer shook her head, levitating a sweet, dripping spoon of cereal. “At least you’re taking your job seriously,” she said around the mouthful. “So is that new apartment block going to have your name on it?”

Rubble shook her head, crunching another bite of dry cereal. “Nah. I’m just laying out the power lines. But that’s still important!”

“Speaking of important,” came a deeper voice, causing Rubble to turn around. “Have you two seen Sparks? The three of you have auxiliary security patrol starting tomorrow.”

“Sorry, dad,” Rubble groaned. “Security again? Didn’t we just do that last month?”

“It was four months ago,” Dulcimer said. “But I think Sparks is already down in Electronics Lab Three, Mr. Block. He skips breakfast when he’s in the middle of a project.”

“Thanks, kiddo. I’ll see you two in the armory at nine, ok?” With a professional smile plastered on his face, Cinder Block maneuvered his way back out of the cafeteria, nodding politely to numerous barely-awake ponies on his way.

Rubble groaned again, this time completing her faceplant into the full bowl. “Dangit, why security? It’s so boring. All we ever do is wander around the Stable. Hardly anyone gets into fights, there’s no irradiated monsters or zebra assassins breaking in to liven things up.” Picking herself back up from the bowl, she snorted out an apple flake stuck to one nostril. “Why couldn’t I have been alive fifty years ago?”

Dulcimer favored her friend with the look usually reserved for patients in straightjackets. “You’re insane, you know that? I’m quite happy life in the Stable’s not like episodes of Agent Muffin.” The gray earth pony waved one hoof dismissively. “Some days I don’t know why I’m friends with you.”

“Because no one else would help you try to build that ridiculous instrument on your cutie mark,” Rubble replied, grinning. “Come on, I need to bring my work down to Shovel and let him know I’m back on security patrol.”

“I’ll catch up. When I’m done with my delicious, milk-covered breakfast cereal,” Dulcimer taunted, getting another protesting groan from her friend.

Rubble trotted to the back of the cafeteria, dumping the uneaten food into the recycling chute. It had been a hard lesson for the first generation to learn, that absolutely nothing could go to waste, but after forty-five years in the Stable, recycling was a part of daily life. It was another thing that Rubble disliked about her life, the idea that nothing she ever got was really ‘new,’ everything had been used by somepony else at least once. Like the PipBuck on her fetlock, which had been her grandstallion’s, Stonewall.

Sighing, she trotted down the halls, heading for one of the several stairwells connecting the levels. Shovel was probably out in Expansion Two along with Blueprint, and they really hated her being late. Oh, they appreciated her work well enough, but Rubble tended towards being a night owl instead of an early riser like the rest of the construction crew.

She rounded the corner to find them right as her PipBuck beeped eight o’clock. “There you are,” Blueprint said. “Stayed up all night doing your plans again?”

“Not all night,” Rubble protested. “I did get a lot done, but, um.” She stopped took a deep breath, and spat out the next words as fast as she could. “Dad put me on security detail again.”

Shovel and Blueprint both chuckled. “We know, he told us already. Give me your work. If you keep updating them when you’re off-shift, just have your PipBuck transfer them whenever you see me during patrol, alright?” Shovel smiled, before reaching out a hoof to tousle Rubble’s mane.

“Geez, alright! Hoofs off, auntie!” Rubble backed away, shaking her head to try and get her mane back in some kind of order, and trying to ignore the snickering from the other members of the construction crew. “Here’s the file.” A few quick button presses on her PipBuck sent six hours of carefully detailed work over to Blueprint.

“Looks good. Go do your week of security, and then come on back, alright?” Blueprint grinned, holding out one hoof, which Rubble bumped after a moment. “You’re still the best on the team for knowing when a section’s going to collapse, and we’ll need that to start up Expansion Three.”

Nodding, the gray earth pony backed away. “Yeah, it’s only a week, right? No problem.” Walking back down the hallway, she eventually rejoined the pre-war section of the Stable, all metal walls and duller, scuffed surfaces. She sat down for a moment in the hallway, looking back at her cutie mark. “What kind of dumb cutie mark is a pile of rocks, anyway?” she muttered to herself. With another heavy sigh, she resumed her travel across the Stable.

Dulcimer and Sparks were already waiting in the armory, looking over the assortment of guns laid out on the counter. The blue unicorn sent a disdainful look in her direction before levitating a beam pistol next to his head. “Mr. Block? Where’s the ammo?”

Cinder Block stuck his head out of the back office, where the really impressive guns were stored. “It’s on the range. Everyone ready?” Dulcimer was already fiddling with a submachine gun, so Rubble quickly grabbed a battle saddle with a rifle. Of course, she picked that model because it had a bayonet. She knew just how poor a shot she was. “Good. Out to the range.”

The shooting range was the only part of the original Stable not covered in gleaming metal. Instead they had simply bored a mostly-square path into the rock, packed in some of the extra dirt, and left it alone. Paper targets, already rather tattered, swung back and forth as the door opened. They took their spots behind the counter, waiting for Cinder to unlock the ammunition lockers and pass out their ordinance. “Alright, you get only one clip each, so make every shot count,” he told the trio as he set magazines on the chipped plastic barrier.

Taking a deep breath, Rubble stared downrange at her paper target. The outlines of a zebra soldier were still discernible, though the head was nearly obliterated by now. She took the bit in her mouth and squeezed the trigger. Sparks’ target whipped back and forth as her bullet hit it instead. He glared at her for a moment before focusing, his beam pistol charring a pencil-sized hole in the paper. Dulcimer’s submachine gun chattered away, blasting a neat line of holes through the zebra’s flank.

Grimacing, Rubble corrected her stance and tongued the trigger again. A massive boom shuddered through the entire Stable, causing the lights to go out, and knocking all four of them to the floor. A moment later, both Dulcimer and Sparks horns glowed with light. “What in Tartarus was that?” Sparks muttered.

Without a word, Cinder was at the lockers, pulling out more rounds by feel. “Take these. That came from above us. Check the Stable door, then do a patrol sweep starting from the top level. I’ll meet you up there. Go!” Rubble almost fumbled the extra ammo for her rifle before getting it in place, and raced after the others, pausing only to grab a baton.

The Stable was dark, the only light coming from unicorns. Dulcimer was shoving her way through the crowd, the scrawnier Sparks following close behind her. Both of their weapons hovered above their heads, the magical glow shedding more light. In a matter of moments, Rubble was in front of them, her broader shoulders shoving through the crowds and shouting at everyone to remain calm.

They went up the stairs at a steady trot, stepping out onto the almost unused top floor of the Stable. Aside from the door, and the storerooms of surface supplies, there wasn’t anything up here, so it should have been silent. Instead, a multitude of pony voices were shouting and screaming, all of it jumbling together to be completely nonsensical. An earth pony stepped around the corner, wearing tattered clothing dotted with metal scraps, and paused. “For Luna!” she suddenly screamed, and charged forward, a cleaver clenched in her teeth.

Rubble fired on instinct, and for once, she hit the target. The rifle round smashed through the pony’s sternum, sending her crashing to the ground, the gleaming knife spinning across the floor until it stopped inches from her hoof. “We’re being attacked,” Dulcimer said, her voice a disbelieving monotone. “How could anypony get in here?”

Her question went unanswered as three more ponies rounded the corner, all of them wielding improvised clubs. They charged at the three security ponies, who opened fire right back. This time, both of Rubble’s shots missed, and she had to settle for impaling the charging stallion on her bayonet, accepting a painful whack across the back as he gurgled out his last breath.

More invaders were charging in, and Rubble darted forward, sticking to one side of the hallway to give her partners a clear line of fire. With her baton in her mouth, and the bayonet strapped to the rifle, she blocked and countered and stabbed and ducked, all of it in multi-colored shadows cast by unicorn magic. Somewhere after six, she lost count of how many of these bloodthirsty invaders had fallen to her, and it came as a surprise when the hallway in front of her was suddenly empty of living opponents.

Behind her, Sparks screamed, and she turned to see one last unicorn mare slicing wildly at him with a serrated knife. Without stopping to think about it, Rubble hurled the baton, hitting the attacker right in the tail hole, and distracting her long enough for Dulcimer to shove the submachine gun against her neck and hold down the trigger. Five rounds turned the unicorn’s neck into ground pony before it clicked on empty. “I’m out of bullets!” Dulcimer shouted, backing up and dropping her gun.

Silence ruled the hallway for a moment before the door to the stairs opened. Sparks nearly took off Cinder Block’s mane, the beam passing less than an inch above his head. “Sweet Celestia,” he muttered, staring at the carnage in the hallway. “What happened here?”

Sparks opened his mouth to talk, but the only thing that came up was bile as he fell to his knees. Rubble swallowed heavily, fighting the urge to empty her own stomach. “I don’t know, dad. We came up here, and these ponies were all shouting and attacking us. They all look half-starved and diseased.” She paled as another thought struck her. “Could we get contaminated by them?”

“Get ahold of yourself!” Cinder said. “Check the Stable door.” Rubble and Dulcimer both nodded, trying not to breathe too deeply, and started picking their way forward over the bodies of the dead. At the T-junction, they paused to gather their courage before stepping into the open.

They could barely make out the Stable door. The massive steel gear had been blown sideways, warped by the explosives used to breach the entry. The reinforced wall on one side was also cratered and cracked, leaving an opening wide enough to fit three ponies side by side. Weapons ready, they strode forward towards the door, letting Dulcimer’s silver magelight illuminate their path. From the door, the outside hallway faded into darkness.. More death reigned here, ponies too close to the explosives now splattered and charred, pieces thrown back all the way to the stairs.

“Well?” Cinder called to them.

“No more attackers here,” Rubble said.

“I hear more gunfire,” Dulcimer replied. “From up the stairs.”

Two sets of hoofsteps came from behind them as Sparks and Cinder moved up to the door to join them. “Alright. We’ll-“ He stopped as the lights flickered and most of them came back on. “Right. You three, go really carefully up those stairs. Make sure there’s not another group of ponies all set to attack us. If there is, get back here. We can hold them off here.” He started pulling out more ammunition for them, the 9mm rounds glowing as Dulcimer slotted them into her empty clips.

Rubble looked at the stairs, then back to her father. Her back ached, and she was feeling the pain of several shallow cuts on her forelegs from the combat. He gave her a reassuring smile, and tossed his mane towards the saddle shotgun he wore. “I’ll be right here. More ponies are on their way.”

The three of them nervously stepped through the shattered door of their home and towards the stairs. “You know how I said I wanted to see the surface?” Rubble whispered. “I think I’ve changed my mind.” Dulcimer just nodded.

Moving up the steps, they paused at every other landing, listening intently. The gunfire was sporadic, and as they grew closer to the surface it came interlaced with screams and shouts, still somewhat unintelligible. The room at the top had a giant hole battered through a side wall, either by explosives or angry ponies with bludgeons. The combat seemed to be coming from the rear of the building, so they picked their way through the rubble, carefully climbing over collapsed sections until they were up on the second floor.

Rubble knew they weren’t exactly being quiet, what with all the loose concrete underhoof, but the tan mare shooting out the window somehow hadn’t noticed them coming. Maybe their hoofsteps were covered by the loose bits still falling throughout the building, courtesy of the explosion? Either way, she stopped about a pace away, leveling her bayonet at the mystery pony’s back. “Lower the gun, nice and slow.”

The unicorn froze, the orange glow around her gun remaining, but she very slowly turned her head to stare at them before lowering the rifle to the ground. “You don’t look like a fanatic,” she said.

“Neither do you, but better safe than sorry. Dulce?” Rubble gave a slight flick towards the gun with one hoof, and Dulcimer’s silver glow grabbed the rifle and yanked it away. Sparks was already at the window, looking out on the combat below. “See anything?” Rubble asked.

“More crazed ponies,” he said. “Whoever the other ponies are, they’re smarter and better armed.” He backed away from the window frame to look at them. “I don’t think we have time to conduct an interrogation with them shooting up the street outside.”

“The better armed ponies are Roamers,” the tan unicorn said. “Like me. Those other ponies are fanatics. They go on about Luna, and how this is their divine duty, and nonsense like that. They’ve been real interested in this building for the last two months, but this is the biggest group we’ve seen yet.” She raised one hoof from the floor, gesturing to the Stable barding they all wore. “Though if any of us knew there was a Stable under here, maybe we would have too.”

Rubble stepped forward, raising a threatening hoof and causing the unicorn to shy away. “If you’d blown open the Stable, you’d be dead right now,” she said. The two stood and stared at each other until another trio of gunshots broke the silence. Rubble stepped back, moving over towards the windows and peering out. She took in the street, staring at the half-collapsed apartment building across the way. “Hey, Dulce, you think you could pull down that billboard?”

Sparks glared at her. “We all know I’m better with magic than she is,” he grumbled. As the combat continued to rage below, one side of the faded, bullet-scarred advertisement glowed with his yellow magic. It twisted, leaning towards them, and bricks started to tumble away as gravity took hold. The sign, along with several hundred pounds of building, crashed down in the midst of the attacking ponies. Several of them were killed outright, while others were merely injured, leaving them easy pickings for the other side.

“I just hope that was the right thing to do,” Rubble said. “Now, what do we do with her?”

Swallowing heavily, the unicorn remained silent as they argued her fate. “You can’t just mean to kill her,” Sparks said. “She’s disarmed!”

A nullifier ring floated out of Dulcimer’s barding. “We could take her back. Interrogate her.”

“If these townspeople are friendly, we’ll just anger them,” Sparks continued, his eyes flashing with anger, “and there’s no telling if that’s actually all of them down there!”

“It’s not,” the unicorn said.

“Shut up!” all three Stable ponies chorused in ragged unison.

Rubble put one hoof to her forehead. “I’ll wager, for the moment, that they’re friendly. We can’t just let her go yet, since she know where we came from.” She paused, and turned back towards the unicorn. “What the hay is your name, anyway?”

“Brass. I’m the one that fixed up all those guns and keep the town stocked with ammo.” She shrugged. “It’s a living.”

“Whatever,” Dulcimer said. “I’m going to take her rifle and help gun down the rest of those nutjobs.” Rubble paled a little at the thought of more death, but nodded. “Sparks, you want to help?”

His mouth opened and closed twice before he heard a scream of pain from outside. “I … yes.” Without another word, he moved to the window, his beam pistol floating off to one side as he fired down at the fanatics.

“So. Stable, huh? Lucky you,” Brass said, lowering herself to the floor. “These ponies seemed to know you were down there. Suppose you’re all going to come out now?”

Rubble just stared at her, silent as the stone around them, until Brass started shifting in nervousness. “Not my call,” she finally said. “Guess it’ll depend on how friendly your town is.” She glanced briefly at the window as Dulcimer gave a quiet cheer at landing a difficult shot. “And how many more of them are out there.”

“Fair enough.” Brass laid her head down on crossed forelegs, ears flicking with each thud of her rifle and zark of the beam pistol. “Hope you’ve got more food down there than we have up here. Right now, it looks to be an awfully lean spring until the crops come in. Even if we have less mouths to feed now.”

Wincing at the implication, Rubble shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re not exactly swimming in luxury down there.”

“Still safer than up here,” Brass said, sending a flat look at the window. Try as she might, the earth pony couldn’t think of a counter argument to that.

The borrowed rifle fired one last time before Dulcimer withdrew from the window. “They’re all down, either dead or unconscious. I’m not going to shoot a completely helpless pony on her say-so.” Now empty, the rifle was carefully strapped to her barding. “So?”

Rubble gave her an annoyed glance. “Why do I have to decide? You’re both older than me.”

“Because your dad is in charge of security, so you have more experience with this than I do,” Dulcimer said.

“More – what? My experience ends at helping Mai Tai stumble back to her room!” Rubble paced back and forth, seething. “Fine. We’ll bring her downstairs, let dad decide. But that means someone has to watch at the top of the stairs and keep everypony else out.”

Brass didn’t protest or fight as the earth pony slipped a restraining hobble over her forelegs, following them willingly enough as they picked their way back through the building. “You kids sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked as they paused at the top of the stairs. Rubble’s answered with a not particularly gentle shove. “Fine, fine. Just don’t make me make you regret this,” she muttered, picking her way down the chipped concrete steps.

At the bottom, they could hear muffled voices coming from inside. “Dad?” Rubble called out. “I’m coming back, with a … guest. Dulce and Sparks are staying at the top of the stairs for the moment.” The voices inside fell silent, so she guided the unicorn prisoner across the bodies of the invaders.

Inside, she groaned mentally. Yes, Cinder Block was there, along with the kindly, wrinkled face of First Strike. But beside them was the sourpuss face of their Overmare, Penny Pincher. “Why are they up there? Get them down here, so we can fix this!” One hoof waved in the direction of the door.

Rubble looked at the massive steel plug. Whatever those ponies had to breach the door had left it warped, bending the yard-thick metal barrier like a cheap aluminum washer. “Unless we have an industrial forge we can move up here, that’s not going to happen,” Rubble muttered.

“And bringing one of those … those monsters here in chains might be a good start,” Penny continued, oblivious to the way Brass’ ears flattened or the open disgust of Rubble. “But it’s only going to tempt more of them down here!”

“It only took them four tries to get in,” Brass said. Penny opened her mouth to continue, only to have First Strike shove a hoof in it. “There’s a village up there. Well, a small one, anyway. Roam never got hit with an actual balefire bomb, just a couple of regular missiles, so we can grow crops a little. These fanatics,” she said, nudging one of the dead bodies with a hobbled hoof, “have attacked us three times before. Smaller numbers, yeah. They were coming here, and we were just in their way. Last time, one of them must have found the way down here and made it back, because there were more of them than there were of us.”

Penny mumbled something around the hoof in her mouth, and after a moment of glaring it was removed. “How many villagers are we talking about?”

“Can’t be sure without counting the dead,” Brass replied evenly, meeting the angry stare with a nonchalant look of her own. “But there were fifty-seven of us, until those ponies showed up just before dawn.”

The Overmare considered this in silence. “Rubble, how certain are you that the door cannot be replaced? Even temporarily?” Her voice had that slow cadence that meant she was busy calculating every Stable resource down to the nearest fraction of an ounce.

Rubble glanced back at the door. “We might – and I stress might – be able to shove it back into place and put some shoring bars to hold it up. But whatever they used wrecked the wall, the opening mechanism, and warped the door, too. We’d need a brand new door, and I don’t think StableTec is going to ship us one.”

Nodding slowly, Penny looked down at her PipBuck and clicked through a couple of updates. She looked up and stared at Brass for a brief moment. “Take the restraints off her, Cinder, and bring her and your daughter to my office. I need to collect a few other ponies and I’ll meet you there.”

Father and daughter exchanged a nervous look, but Rubble nodded and pulled out the key to the hobbles. Penny was already walking away, horn glowing as she gave orders through her PipBuck to the Stable residents.

“Is that a good thing? Or is she planning to off me personally?” Brass asked.

“We’ll let you know,” Cinder answered. “Follow me.”

They took a slower, slightly circuitous route that avoided the main pony gathering places, but there were still too many ponies in the halls for Rubble to feel safe. Almost universally, everyone they passed stopped and stared, and either started blurting out questions or demands to her father, or else immediately ran off to add more fuel to the rumor engine. Sure, being on security detail sucked – all your friends avoided you until your week was over – but aside from Cinder, First Strike, and a few other permanent staff, everypony knew what it was like.

At the Overmare’s office, Boiler was already waiting. Rubble didn’t have the opportunity to work with the head of her division very often, but she knew him well enough to read the look of terror on his face. “Who’s that?” he asked as they walked up.

“Surface pony,” Cinder said.

“The Stable’s open?” Boiler asked in clear confusion.

Hold on, if he doesn’t know about the attack, then what has him so frightened? Rubble thought, fighting the urge to start scraping her hooves on the floor. She was a professional, not some teen full of nervous energy. The sound of a hoof scraping on the floor echoed through hallway, and all three turned to stare at her. “Sorry,” she murmured. So much for my professionalism, she thought bitterly as a blush tinted her face pink.

She was saved from further embarrassment as Penny rounded the corner at a brisk trot, Casserole at her side. Without saying a word, the Overmare stepped around them, unlocking her office and leading everyone inside. Taking her seat behind the horseshoe-shaped desk, she gestured the others to be seated. “I think a quick round of introductions is in order. I’m Penny Pincher, the Overmare. The white earth pony there is Boiler, the green unicorn here is Casserole, and the two gray ponies are Rubble and her father Cinder Block. Please, introduce yourself and tell us about the surface.” Each pony gave a small polite nod as their name was spoken, before giving their full attention to the newcomer.

The tan unicorn glanced around. “My name is Brass. I maintain the guns and make new ammunition for the village up above. I also hunt radroaches, wild dogs, and any other dangerous pests that rear their heads around Roam.” She glanced around the room again before taking a deep breath and focusing on Penny.

“Outside, the whole world above … it’s in bad shape. Raiders and bandits roam the wastes. The skies have been overcast for longer than I’ve been alive. Civilization is rare, though there are some worthwhile merchants. We’ve been living here for the last five winters, just barely making enough farming to get by.

“Those fanatics, well, they’re new. First batch of them showed up a year ago or so. Snuck in during the night, slaughtered ol’ Naval Orange and his fillies before anypony knew they were there. Each time they show up, it’s in slightly larger numbers. Wasn’t sure what they wanted until a month ago. They could have taken out half the town, but they were more eager to get past us and in here. Just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to kill somepony while they were at it.”

Brass swallowed heavily, closing her eyes as she framed the next sentence. “A year ago, there was near a hundred of us. We were starting to get something close to civilization again. There ain’t anypony left who can remember back before the war, and the bombs. Most of us came from families who somehow survived on the surface. A couple of us have parents who came out of Stable 98.” Her eyes opened again, staring at Penny. “We want to live in peace.”

They sat in silence long enough for Rubble to start scratching her mane, fighting the urge to fidget. When the Overmare finally spoke, she nearly jumped out of her chair. “Boiler, please tell everyone what you told me via PipBuck.”

The head of maintenance and construction still shot an uncharitable look at the surface pony. “That blast damaged a lot of crucial systems. We have workarounds for right now, but,” he paused to draw in a shaking breath, “the bottom line is that in six months, we won’t have power, water, or air.” Casserole gasped in shock, and Cinder’s eyes went wide. Rubble’s eyes were probably looking more than a little shocky right then, but the front of the Overmare’s desk wasn’t quite shiny enough to be certain. “If we can shut down portions of the Stable, we can extend that a little bit.”

“Abandon the expansions?” Cinder asked softly.

“Actually, no. We wired those up ourselves, and to my surprise, our standards are mostly higher than StableTec. There’s random shorts all over the Stable, but the important part is the generator. That blast warped some pieces we just can’t replace. So long as the generator is running, it’s going to get worse. The more power we’re drawing, the worse it’s going to get. Once the power goes, so does our water and food.” Boiler shrugged as he finished his report.

“How, um, how many ponies are down here?” Brass asked.

“Five hundred ninety three,” Casserole said. “All of us have some experience with useful skills, but we’re not used to violence. Is all of Equestria that bad?”

The surface pony stared at her, causing the mild mannered cook to start squirming in fear. “I’ve lived through thirty-two winters. I don’t know how many ponies I’ve had to kill, but I know it’s over a hundred. Maybe two.” She turned back to face the Overmare. “It’s kill or be killed.”

“That’s not a skill most of us have,” Rubble said.

“You must have gotten pretty good at it,” Brass pointed out. “That entryway had plenty of them killed by what looked like that bayonet of yours.”

Rubble looked down at the blade. Blood from the combat had dried, and was starting to flake off in rusty-brown pieces. Blood and other bodily fluids were splattered all over her coat and covered her hooves almost completely. Her stomach rebelled in an instant, sending her tumbling from the chair, dry-heaving bile onto the floor.

A comforting hoof rested on her shoulder, and she looked up into sympathetic brown eyes. “It gets easier, but never too easy.”

Nodding her thanks, Rubble lifted herself back onto shaking legs. “Sorry, Penny,” she whispered.

“It’s alright,” the Overmare said, though her face showed her doubt more openly. “The important question, then, is whether the surface here in Roam could support everyone from the Stable along with the villagers already here?”

Brass considered it seriously, face scrunched up as she tried to figure out the ability of the town. “The surface? Maybe. It would take work, a lot of work, but yeah. But … soon as six hundred ponies show up? With Stable equipment and fancier clothes? Every bandit, raider, and slaver in a hundred miles is going to hoof it in this direction.” She fell silent for a moment. “That’s what happened to 98.”

“You mentioned merchants,” Cinder said. “Where do they travel?”

“Well, the last three groups have come from the south. Somewhere around Fillydelphia, maybe south of it, heading up towards Manehattan.” Brass looked somber as she considered it. “But none of them have come back since we started seeing those fanatics.”

“Very well,” Penny said. “Rubble, since you, Sparks, and Dulcimer are the only ponies who have currently seen combat, you’re also the only ponies I can trust with this. Go south, find us somewhere safe, find us a way to get there. And come back to lead us to a new home.” Her voice cracked on the last few words.

“Not immediately,” Cinder protested. “No, Overmare, this is a security matter. If we’re going to send them out into the unknown, then by Celestia I’m going to make sure they’re properly equipped and armed for the journey. They need at least a day to recover, and I need at least a day to talk to some of these other townsponies about what they need to expect.”

Penny’s mouth opened and closed several times, but she finally nodded. “Cinder, draft more ponies, and have them take over guarding the stairs. You can personally escort Brass back to the surface and set a new security policy.” Her face fell, eyes gazing blankly at the monitors in her desk. “Dismissed. Boiler, please stay, so we can discuss energy rationing.”

With a protective hoof on her shoulder, Cinder guided his daughter out of the room. “Go back to the apartment, get a shower,” he said. “Get … whatever rest you can, alright?” She nodded wordlessly, turning away and plodding wearily towards the stairs. “Brass, if you’ll follow me?”

She passed dozens of ponies in the halls, ignoring their questions and oblivious to the wide-eyed stares at her bloody visage. Reaching her apartment, she stumbled inside, slamming the door closed on her aunt Shovel. The rifle and barding were dropped carelessly, abandoned where they slid off her body. The PipBuck followed it as she stepped into the shower. Icy cold water pounded into her back, slowly warming up as she stood there, pink runoff pooling around her hooves.

Shuddering, she grabbed for the shampoo, lathering furiously and scrubbing at every spot and stain. They washed away almost instantly, but the water still ran two hours later as Rubble continued to scrub, with skin raw and eyes leaking a constant stream of tears.