The lights flickered on inside the small office as Ace walked behind his desk. Outside, the sun had already set behind the mighty Charleston Mountain, turning the entire western sky a brilliant shade of red and orange. The most wondrous sight however was the lone and ancient spire standing in the valley. Its top was accented with colourful neon lights, keeping the spirit of old Vegas alive throughout the valley and warning aircraft of the city's vital radio tower.
Ace levitated his cowboy hat off of his head and hung it up on his coat rack. He sat down at his desk and opened up the file containing the day’s paperwork. At the same time, his magic turned the office radio on. The familiar music made Ace smile as he took the first sheet out of the folder. As he picked up his pen and filled in the appropriate sections, he softly sang along.
“...you play forgiveness. Watch it now, here he comes. He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he… talks like a gentleman. Like you imagined when you… were y-o-u-n-g.”
Ace floated the finished form into the ‘out’ pile and looked down at the next sheet, his expression souring as he levitated the phone to his ear and dialed out. After a few seconds of the dial tone, Ace got an answer.
“Colorado Territories Rehabilitation Centers: Las Vegas Campus. This is Cotton Swab.”
“Cotton. I thought I specifically told you two weeks ago to send discharged returnees on the next train over here to get their stuff. Brian Lansing was discharged yesterday and his Honda is still sitting in my warehouse with all his crap. Where the hell is he?”
“Oh. Hi Ace, nice to speak with you too,” she said in a sarcastic tone. “Let me look him up for you…”
Ace tapped his hoof on his desk as the line went silent, his mood worsening with each passing second. The mare on the other end finally picked the phone back up.
“Okay... Mister Lansing was discharged yesterday at his own request. Reason for discharge: travelling to Los Angeles to see about family. Declined to have the recommended exit interview. I don’t know what to tell you, Ace.”
Ace growled and yelled into the phone in front of him. “I have had it with you guys’ negligence! I can’t keep cluttering my warehouse with these unwanted cars, hoping that the owners will come back for them some day. I need to know whether I can scrap these things or not. I’m coming down there tomorrow to speak with all of you. If you aren’t all crammed into the conference room at noon, somepony is getting gelded!”
He slammed the phone back down on the receiver and opened up his desk drawer. A bottle of pre-event whiskey and a glass levitated out and onto his desk. Ace let out a sigh and popped the cork off the top. The golden liquor poured into the glass, reflecting the purple magic off of it’s glossy surface. Levitating the glass to just under his lips, the frustrated pony swivelled his chair around to face the window.
“Always had a temper problem... You would’ve known how to calm me down.” Ace raised his glass. “If only you were here with me. See me through this bullshit, will ya Rachael?” Ace took a sip from his drink and turned the radio’s volume up.
---------------------------
You’re listening to LVS Radio One. Sin City’s number one for pre-event hits. I’m DJ Dirty Mixtape, Chicago’s freshest returnee, and you just heard ‘When You Were Young’ by The Killers. Be sure to catch the crew from the Hal and Bone Rush Hour show on the Grand Promenade tonight to enter for your chance to win a cash prize of a thousand bucks. It’s a beautiful eighty three degrees here in the valley and it’s just past seven on this clear Friday evening. Which means it’s time for Friday Findings! For you newbies, that’s where we play the latest pre-event song that we’ve never played before, downloaded off of one of our new local returnees’ music players. This weeks’ finding comes to us off of the Samsung Galaxy S3 of five-weeker Cathleen Bunt. This song first aired on New York City’s Z100 on October 29th, 5 Before-Event and quickly shot up to the 7th best song in America by 4 B.E. It’s the Far East Movement and Ryan Tedder with ‘Rocketeer’. Played first, right here on Radio One.
-----------------------------
The rec room of the rehabilitation center was as it normally was on a Friday evening: full of people taking a break from reality to enjoy themselves while the pre-event music played on the stereo system. A team of ponies played pool with a griffin duo. Another group played a tabletop rpg. Meanwhile, Max and Katie sat at a small table chatting over lemonade and homebrewed soda. Both returnees were in much better shape than when they first met. Max wasn’t even wearing a shirt, a clear sign that he was becoming comfortable with his new pony body.
"...It’s like what that old copypasta said," Max remarked with a shrug. "You can die a Danny Phantom, or live long enough to see yourself become the Fairly Odd Parents.”
“Oh man. Danny Phantom was awesome. Oh! And speaking of awesome…” The unicorn stuck her tongue out and stared intently at her drink. “I learned some precision magic this week. Check it out!”
Her horn began glowing a pale shade of blue as a couple of ice cubes rose from her glass. She bobbed her head around while drops of water began dripping off of the ice cubes, floating in the magic field around it. Soon after, the water droplets returned to the ice. They re-froze and began forming detailed features like eyes, a mouth, arms, and legs. The end result was an ice sculpture of an old cartoon character. “I’m Mister Meeseeks! Look at me!” she said in her best cartoon voice.
Max laughed and clopped his hooves together. “Haha! Amazing! I didn’t know you were into Rick and Morty.”
“I was. The fucking waiting for season two was driving me insane. And now? I’ll never be able to see it!” Katie ranted.
“They must’ve been giving us a long wait on purpose. Get more viewers by getting everyone to hype over it.”
Katie nodded and set the ice figure on the table. “But yeah. Teacher says I’m pretty advanced for a returnee. She said I could probably make a lot of money in precision work like jewel making, something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m amazed at what I can do with this thing!” She crossed her eyes to look up at her horn.
Max brushed his messy mane out of his eyes and looked at Katie, who was sipping her lemonade. “So I was thinking… We’re not gonna be in here forever. I was thinking we could take our first steps out into the world together. Get one of those apartments they give out to people like us and room together.”
Katie set down her drink and grimaced a little.
Was it something he said? Was it too weird to ask her to live together? Did she think he was hitting on her?
The young mare finally straightened her face and looked back at Max. “Sorry about that. This lemonade is really sour.”
Max let out a faint sigh of relief.
Katie pushed the glass to the side and looked him square in the eyes. “Is that even a question? Of course I’d want you by my side out there! Tell you what. I’m almost done with magic class, and you’re all done with… whatever earth pony things they taught you. I brought up jewelry making just then ‘cause teacher said there were a couple jeweler recruiters watching me practice today. She said they wanted to interview me. For a job position! So, how bout I go interview with them and we can walk out of this place in a week… together.”
Max’s eyes shone with hope. “That’s great! I can’t wait to see how they rebuilt the town.”
Katie played with the straw in her drink. “I hope I wouldn’t have to go to work right away. I really would like to go see if I could dig something out of the ground where my old house was. And like I said earlier, it would be nice to go to Yuma. Find some trace of dad.”
“Well…” Max said longingly, “If I go with you to Arizona, you have to go with me back to Illinois. My family made a time capsule when I was little. It was pretty airtight and water resistant, so it just might still be there. If I could just have a picture of my family to hang on a wall, I would be the happiest talking horse in the world.”
The unicorn held her hoof out. “Deal!”
Max extended his hoof and bumped hers. “You promise?”
Katie nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
The young stallion leaned back in his chair with a smile on his face. “So… you ever play ‘Just Cause 2’? That big open world game with the horrible voice acting?”
Katie pondered for a moment before snapping back. “Oh, that game? I saw my sister play it a couple- ah!” She was interrupted when the wing of a passing pegasus stallion hit the back of her head.
“Oh shit! I’m sorry miss. These stupid things have a mind of their own sometimes,” he said.
“That’s okay. I’ve heard wings are hard to control,” Katie stated before blowing a feather off her nose.
The pegasus folded his wing back in and turned back to the earth pony mare accompanying him. “So like I was saying, Brian left this morning. I kept telling him he’s not gonna find anything in LA…”
Katie turned back to Max and raised a brow. “Poor guy. I hope he finds something out there.”
"Oh well." She stretched her forelegs and motioned her head to the pool table at the center of the room. “Wanna go play the winners? I bet we can kick their asses.”
Max rose out of his chair with a laugh. “You had me at kicking their asses.”
-----------------------
The warm afternoon air lingered in the courtyard picnic pavilion. Many people were taking a break to have lunch, but food wasn’t the first thing on Katie’s mind. Max walked alongside her while she approached the meeting spot for her interview. “You’re gonna do great! I know it!” Max said with enthusiasm.
Katie felt a little uneasy. This would be her first job interview as a pony, and her second job interview ever. She’d spent a good part of the night talking to herself in the mirror, trying to make herself seem more professional.
She stopped a few tables down and took something out of her pant pocket. A cracked iPhone floated in front of Max. “Can you hook this up to your solar charger thingy? Battery is almost dead again,” Katie said. “You can play Angry Birds, just... please don’t look in my journal entries.”
Max took the phone in his mouth. “Sure shing. An gooh ruck!”
Katie waved Max off and trotted toward a couple of ponies sitting near the edge of the pavilion, looking out of place. A beige unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane wore a plaid patterned tie. His partner, a fairly small orange pegasus mare, wore a turquoise necklace.
Katie cleared her throat, getting the attention of the two ponies. They both turned around and flashed a smile at her.
Katie took a breath and smiled back. “Hi there. Is this the interview for Ivanpah Jewel Crafters?”
“This is!” the stallion exclaimed. “You must be Katie Whitford.” He and his partner walked up to her and extended their hooves for a formal hoof bump. “I’m Fault Line and this is Opal Gem.”
Opal bumped Katie’s hoof as well. “Glad to finally meet you. We saw you sculpting and we think you’re a very talented young mare.”
Katie couldn’t help but blush a little. “Oh, well thank you. I just followed the instructions my teacher gave me. I have to say, I’m very excited to be here. I always wanted to do something artsy for a living.”
“Well, then you’re in the right place,” Opal remarked.
Fault nodded. “We saw most of your handiwork from the observation window. We’ll need you to pass a little test, but before that, tell us about yourself.”
“Well…” she said as she took a seat. “My name is Katie Whitford. I’m twenty years old and I grew up in Boulder City with my parents and my sister. Though my parents separated before I graduated high school. Dad moved south to Yuma for work and I stayed with mom and Lissy before the event.” Her ears folded back in distress as she thought about her family. She sighed and refocused her mind. “Anyways, I’m artistic, very attentive to detail, and my only decent grades in school were my drawing classes. So I think it’s safe to say I would love to work in a jewelry workshop!”
“Well, the artsy types are just what we’re looking for here!” Opal said enthusiastically.
“Okay, Katie” Fault said while he floated a rock embedded with small orange crystals onto the desk. “This is a deposit of Wulfenite. It’s a lead molybdate mineral that forms naturally in Arizona and Nevada. It’s also very fragile, despite it having a surprisingly large density for an opaque tabular crystal.” He pushed the deposit in front of Katie. “If you can remove at least one of the crystals without breaking it in the process, the job is all yours.”
Katie focused on one of the larger crystals . Her horn and the gem lit up with a light blue glow. Katie focused the majority of her energy on loosening the stone’s grip by eroding the rock around the crystal. Rock dust fell from the deposit as the flat crystal began rocking back and forth. A couple seconds passed before the perfectly intact gem popped out. “Hah! I did it!”
Opal and Fault gave each other a mutual nod before Opal stood up and shook Katie’s hoof again. “Welcome to Ivanpah Jewelers, Miss Whitford.”
Katie gave a small squeak as a huge grin formed on her face. “Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I won’t let you down, I promise!”
Fault chuckled as he stood up as well and took a couple papers out of his bag. “Alright, let's calm down now. We would like to take you to the city and show you the workshop sometime. I just need you to sign this waiver for administrative reasons.”
Katie picked one of the forms and inspected it. It was a form from the returnee facility stating that the member would be going off campus for a maximum of six hours. As she read along, a certain clause caught her attention.
The Colorado Territories Rehabilitation Centers are not responsible for any mental episodes, injuries, or death of the refugee and/or other passersby when taken on a trip off campus. By signing this waiver, the refugee and the party releasing them for the time given, are hereby acknowledging this statement and cannot press any lawsuits against The Colorado Alliance Rehabilitation Centers or any of its subsidiaries and sister companies.
“Sorry Katie,” Opal said with a lopsided smile. “It’s just protocol.”
Katie snorted and signed her name on both copies.
“Excellent!” Fault exclaimed as he took the form back into his bag. “And you read the fine print too. Not many ponies do that.”
Opal chuckled and motioned to him with one of her wings. “He was an insurance adjuster before the event.”
“Every damn day it was a ‘You guys are con artists’ this and ‘I’m switching to Geico!’ that. I’m kinda glad that’s all over now. Our little family business receives much better reviews.”
“You two are a family?” Katie asked.
“Yep!” Opal exclaimed. “Fault Line and I were on our honeymoon when the event happened. Back then, we were Jim and Vickie Butitta. Twenty-two years later, we have two kids, a business, and picked out pony names for ourselves.”
Fault put his foreleg around his wife with a chuckle. “Opal ran an online jewelry business back in the day. We planned on opening a store back home in Minnesota, but... you know what happened. Anyways, we’ll run this over to the administration office and we can hopefully show you the shop tomorrow. Meet us in the atrium tomorrow and we’ll show you your first glimpse of the town.”
Katie gave a wide smile and bumped Fault and Opal’s hooves again. “Thank you so much. I’m so excited!”
“No, no. Thank you for being a part of our team,” Fault said before he walked out of the pavilion.
“We’re really excited to have you, Katie. You’ll make an excellent addition to our team,” Opal said while her wings flared out. “I gotta go get some paperwork filed with Fault. We’ll see you soon!”
Katie waved to Opal and turned to leave but froze in her tracks. “Hey, uh, before I go…” She turned back around to face her future boss. “Would… would I have to start on the job right away? I would like to take a trip to Yuma to try and find something of my father’s, and I promised a friend I would go with him to Illinois to get his family’s time capsule.”
Opal’s wings drooped to her sides a little as she gave her a sympathetic look. “Of course, Katie. I understand. Fault and I took a trip back to Duluth after a few years here. Many returnees make some kind of pilgrimage back home.” Opal approached her and gave her a hug with her wings. “The job offer will be open to you, so do what you have to do, sweetheart.”
Katie returned the hug. “I’m still looking forward to the tour, but... I promised my friend we would face the new world together. Can it wait a week?”
Opal gave her a warm smile. “Of course. I can’t wait to show you.” She floated a business card out of her bag and gave it to Katie. "Here's our address and our phone number... If you can afford a phone. We'll talk soon, hun."
Katie waved goodbye with a hoof and galloped back to the main building to share the great news with her friend.
-----------------
With his friend at her interview and all his racial classes done and over with, Max lay on the bed in his room with a notebook in front of him and a pencil in his mouth. Over the past month in rehab, the young stallion had finally gotten the hang of using his mouth as a substitute for his hands. He hummed a small tune while he attempted to sketch a pony. To Max, ponies were easier to draw than humans by a landslide. No hands, feet or other very small and detailed appendages. Compared to the drawings near the beginning of his sketchbook, he had improved dramatically.
Max almost jumped a foot in the air as a knock came from his door.
Rose stuck her head through the door and gave her patient a confused look. “It’s only two in the afternoon. What are you doing in here, hun? Shouldn’t you be playing pool with Katie?”
His ear twitched as he sat upright. “Katie is off at that interview I told you about. I think she has a good chance.”
Rose entered and walked up to him. “That’s great! But, I thought you guys were inseparable. Would she leave you behind for this job?” she asked, sounding worried.
“Oh no, no. We actually made plans yesterday about what we’re doing after all this.” Max’s ears flopped again as his face brightened. “Wanna hear about it?”
Rose sat on the floor in front of him. “You’re my last patient before my job rotation. So I’ve got all the time you need.”
“Yesterday when we were chatting in the rec center, we agreed to stick together out there. She said she was gonna go interview for that job today, and if she got it, we would apply for our discharge papers and acquire housing!”
“That’s great Max!” Rose shouted, clopping her forehooves together. “You’ll love it out there. It’s like an Italian city in the desert. It’s really pretty.”
“Really? No suburban sprawl? No Walmarts?” Max remarked.
Rose chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong, ponies still like to build their houses outside the city limits and retail stores made a comeback, but it’s eerily European now. Speaking of European, there’s this little marketplace by the train station. Roman’s Fruit Stand has the best grapes in the city. Remember that when grocery shopping.”
“Wouldn’t suppose there’s any good ‘tail bars’ around here?” Max said with a smug grin.
Rose gasped and looked sternly at the amused young stallion. “Who told you about that? That's not something you’re supposed to ask me. Why would you even want to go to a tail bar anyway? I thought ponies were ‘weird’.”
With a sigh, Max lay back down on his bed with an eye roll. “Okay, mom. It was just a joke.”
Rose stomped her hoof on the ground and stared the lounging earth pony down. “Don’t you ‘Okay, mom’ me, young colt. You need to know that ponies are still people no matter where you go. Tail bars are just as slimy and shady as any other second-rate strip club from the old Vegas!”
“Holy shit. What did I walk into?” Katie said from the doorway.
Rose turned away from the wide-eyed stallion to the unicorn standing behind her. She looked at Katie sheepishly and gave a half-hearted laugh. “This is… this is embarrassing.”
Katie giggled. “Nice to know the smut of Sin City never died, but that’s not what I’m here for.” She began to excitedly prance in place. “I got the job!”
Max leaped out of bed and wrapped his forehooves around her. “Katie, that’s awesome! I knew you could do it!”
Katie embraced her friend. “I’m gonna go check out the shop sometime next week! I’m so excited!”
Rose watched the two with a smile. “I think you two are ready for the world out there. You guys have made an outstanding improvement since you first showed up. And it’s not very often I get to see the making of a friendship either.”
“Let’s go get some lunch to celebrate,” Katie said.
Rose watched Max wave to her as his friend quite literally dragged him away. She turned around and looked at the sketchbook sitting on his bed. Curiosity got the best of her, making her open his sketchbook up to the page he was drawing on. She was quite impressed to find a very well drawn sketch of herself etched into the paper. It was a little cartoonish, but the resemblance was there (as well as her name printed under the drawing).
Rose set the sketchbook down on the bed and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her.