Chapter Thirty-Three: The Past Lives Again
“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry … um … Twenty-Eight Thousand, Four Hundred Ninety-Eight … Eighty-Nine. Date: Third of Sun’s Height, Fourteen Twenty-Five ACL. At least, that’s what my PipBuck says. I must admit I’ve lost track of dates and times. That’s why I’m recording this, though. Oh, this is Chief Researcher Fable Park. Forgetfulness seems to be the challenge I’m tasked with tackling. Sure, it’s not as glamorous or exciting as the previous tasks this lab was tasked with, like keeping everypony in the Stable from suffocating or starving, but I believe it’s important nonetheless. The lab has to find something to do, or else become obsolete like the gardeners. Now that we’re fully integrated with the plant life of this Stable, all our resource problems are solved. It’s just that ponies have been becoming more and more distracted lately. I forget things often and have trouble staying focused. There must be some way to get things back on track. Just because we don’t need to work hard and fight for our lives now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t maintain that mentality. Some claim it’s better to just embrace this deadening of our senses, but I disagree. Also preposterous are those that claim the plants are to blame. Ridiculous. The plants have saved us. Luckily, those who would speak out against them are now locked up safely in security. Um … what was I saying? Oh, yes, the memory problems are my new task to tackle. Fable Park, signing off.”
Now that the business with the Black Skulls was taken care of, Rare, Ache, and I were listening to the recordings from Stable 65 again as we travelled. The chief researchers’ notes told the story of how the Stable dwellers had become the plant creatures we’d encountered. At the time of this last recording, the ponies had been locked underground for seventy-five years and they’d already transformed their bodies to survive. The voice we heard was unlike any we’d heard before, not made with pony vocal cords. They were plant-ponies already, but they still had their intelligence, though that seemed to be slipping away from them. Surely Fable Park or somepony had realized what was going on, but if they had, then why hadn’t they stopped it? Was it already too far gone, or did they refuse to go back because of some misplaced trust in the plants they’d created?
Whatever had happened in the past, the three of us now had a plan for the future. And a destination: the LuxuriMane shampoo factory. We’d be returning to Stalliongrad, which worked out well since I’d be glad to be rid of the megaspell currently resting in my saddlebags. I knew that it had only been used as the template for the plants of Stable 65 and that the scientists there had taken crazy liberties in changing things, but it still made me uncomfortable to have something associated with what had happened there so close to me.
The journey from Vanhoover to Staliongrad was a long one, and one with very little in between. For a ten-day journey, we’d need some supplies, and we headed to the same place we’d gotten them last time. Price Slasher’s shop in Burnside was a trusted place to stock up, even if going there often led to doing some job or favor for the mare running it. I didn’t mind so much, since I considered Price Slasher a friend, but if she wanted us to transport things to Stalliongrad this time, I would probably say no. The only way we’d be able to take it all would be to fasten it to Rare’s Steel Ranger armor. It’d worked last time, but had also impeded her ability to fight, something we couldn’t have if we were likely to run into heavily-armed mercenaries and raiders or alicorns.
Burnside seemed a bit on edge as we arrived, as if everypony was worried about something. Rare Sparks waited at the gates as usual, though no merchants rushed to sell her their wares this time. The markets were still noisy and crowded as Ache and I walked through them, but there was a tension in the air. As we entered Price Slasher’s shop, I realized what was different. All the lights were off, the space illuminated only by candles and a gas lamp.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked Price Slasher, whose face was eerily illuminated by the candle she was standing over.
“The last fuel station nearby has dried up,” the mare explained, “The Regulators are rationing electricity until a new source of fuel is found.”
“Does that mean the radiation fence will go down if new fuel isn’t found?” Ache asked in horror.
“The radiation fence is powered by the prison’s microspark reactor, but that requires most of its output. The other electricity in Burnside is provided by generators that run on petrol,” I explained, before turning back to Price Slasher, “Do the Regulators have a plan, or are they just hoping to miraculously discover a new fuel source?”
“So far as I know, the second one,” Price Slasher harrumphed, before smiling, “Maybe they’re waiting for the Wasteland Doctor to save them.”
“If I ever meet DJ Pon3 …” I complained, though the title he’d given me did have its perks as well as drawbacks, “Just what am I supposed to do? Scour the ruins of Vanhoover for a fuel station that hasn’t been looted yet? Sure, I’ve seen plenty of the city in my time outside of the Stable, but we’re preparing to leave for Stalliongrad, so it’s not like just keeping an eye out will be much help to Burnside, given that it’ll probably be some time before we’re back here.”
“Actually, I have an idea,” Ache spoke up, “On the way into Vanhoover, I spotted an abandoned fuel tanker on the highway not terribly far from here. Have you heard of it?”
“I haven’t actually, but I usually stuck to the fuel stations whenever I looked,” Price Slasher admitted, “Where was this exactly?”
“On a bridge over the river. There were a bunch of ships jammed up underneath,” Ache said, remembering it exactly as it’d happened without any of the fuzziness and revisionism that ponies had to deal with when remembering things.
“Oh, that’s why nopony has been there,” the shopkeeper said, her face falling, “Caravans never travel that way because those boats are a den of feral ghouls; they call it The Nest.”
“Do you know a better source of fuel?” I asked.
“Not really,” Price Slasher shrugged, “But good luck getting anypony to join you trying to get to that. Most ponies would rather travel to the other side of Vanhoover and haul the fuel back, and some are, than go near The Nest.”
“Well, we’re not most ponies, are we, Wasteland Doctor?” Ache asked me with a challenging grin, “What are ghouls compared to alicorns?”
“Alicorns!” Price Slasher exclaimed in surprise.
That would take some time to explain.
***
“… Is it working? Been so long … How’s it go? Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry … something. Date: Twenty-Third of Fading Light, Fourteen Fifty. Likely the last recording I’ll ever need to make. Everything is perfect, but we have the opposite problem from when the Stable was sealed. There’s too much oxygen; we need more carbon dioxide. The Stable door can open now, so we’ve opened it, solving the problem. It’s only partly opened, to unseal the Stable. Why would we ever want to leave when the Stable is perfect? There is no life out there, only in here. Here we’ll stay, safe forever. Fable Park, signing off.”
So ended the recordings I’d taken from Stable 65. It explained why the Stable had been opened when we’d arrived, and the final transformations of its residents. Chief Researcher Fable Park had sounded even less like a pony than in his earlier recording. He was more like the creatures we’d encountered by this point, and it didn’t seem like it would be long before the transformation to mindless plant creatures was complete. I was glad they hadn’t wanted to leave the Stable, otherwise I’d always be worried about running into the horrors elsewhere in the Wasteland.
Not that there weren’t plenty of other mindless monstrosities wandering around the Wastes, like the zombies we were about to encounter. As Price Slasher had predicted, nopony was very keen on the idea of going to The Nest, even if it meant the chance to retrieve petrol, whose price had skyrocketed as the demand rose. It was just Rare, Ache, and me observing the bridge and stack of boats from a distance; it probably wouldn’t be long before DJ Pon3 came up with a name for our group to go with the Wasteland Doctor that I could then use to refer to us.
The fuel tanker was just as Ache had remembered, and it was quite impressive she’d seen it, given how far away we’d been when we’d passed it the first time. On most bridges that hadn’t fallen apart, ponies had cleared away the auto-carriages or train cars to make it easier for traders to pass over, but this bridge was still crowded. There were plenty of auto-carriages still present, rusting where they sat, as well as several semi-trailer trucks, including the one with the fuel tanker.
Beneath the bridge was a pile of barges, boats, and other watercrafts that had become wedged under it a century ago and rusted together: The Nest. We were too far away yet for my EFS to pick up individuals, but I could see the zombies crawling over it. It was no wonder that ponies had avoided the place when there was an easier place to cross not too far upstream where the railroad passed over the river. We weren’t here to cross the river, though, just to get fuel from the tanker. Rare had two giant drums hanging from her armor for the petrol we could scavenge, and Ache and I both had smaller containers like the ones Price Slasher had given me when I’d scavenged for her. We’d had to buy them, and they hadn’t been cheap given the demand at the moment, but they would more than pay for themselves if we were able to reclaim enough fuel to fill them. All together the three of us would be able to transport 128 gallons, and with the current rate for petrol set by the Regulators at 115 caps per gallon, we’d make a fortune from this.
I’d considered using my sniper rifle to take out some of the zombies from a distance, but once we were in range, there were too many things in my way to make it worthwhile. Though we were still a reasonable distance from The Nest, its reputation had kept ponies away from the entire area and the road was thoroughly clogged with auto-carriages, stunted trees blocking off attack from any direction other than the road. It would be rather tight fighting on the bridge, but I was sure we could handle it.
I drew my combat shotgun as we approached and red pips appeared on EFS. Rare startled me as she detached the drums hanging from her armor and they banged against the concrete, but she had the right idea. Ache and I removed our own fuel containers as well, setting them next to the big drums. It was tense as we moved toward the tanker, waiting for the moment that the ghouls noticed we were here and everything became chaotic. We didn’t have to wait long.
As we passed an armored semi painted in the Equestrian Army’s colors, the first zombie crawled up over the edge of the bridge. I fired my combat shotgun twice, though once had been enough to blow off the top of its skull. Almost immediately, a second one appeared on the other side of the bridge, and Rare took it out with the shotgun on her armor. At the sound of the two bodies bouncing down the stack of boats, strangled cries went up from the horde of ghouls beneath us.
The banging of rotten hooves on metal accompanied their rush to get to us, and Ache, Rare, and I tried to get in position the cover all approaches without becoming separated. I fired my shotgun as the first few began to climb over the edge or jump up, flapping mostly useless pegasus wings. Likewise, my companions fired their own weapons, but the ghouls kept coming. We were prepared for this level of combat, but we’d also expected the rumors of how many ghouls were here to be exaggerated. They weren’t. An endless supply seemed to stream up from The Nest, soon jumping and crawling over the piles of bodies. I swung to fire at ghouls coming down the bridge instead of over the side, and when I turned back the wave coming at me was two layers thick.
I emptied my combat shotgun into them again and again, but every time that I had to reload, they managed to inch a little closer. Despite our best efforts to cover each other, three ponies were just not enough to keep them all at bay forever. All of us but Rare had to reload our weapons fairly often, and she had to stop every so often lest the components of her weapons overheat (though she did have secondary weapons to fall back on). The zombies, in their mindless drive, needed only to get to us, and they could strike out with broken teeth and limbs. The danger was not that they’d be in any great position to hurt us individually, but that they could overwhelm us, even Rare Sparks in her power armor, with sheer numbers that seemed to not be letting up at all.
I reached into my saddlebags to reload my shotgun and found that I was all out of shells. Away went the shotgun and out came my ripper. I took a step forward and didn’t have to wait long before the zombies were in striking range. The blade whirred to life as I depressed the button on the hilt and swung it through the air. I sliced through the first zombie’s neck with a satisfying crunch and continued the swing to lop off the forelegs of another one rushing toward me. With an upswing, I bisected the two-legged zombie’s head before swinging the weapon around at another.
Ichor sprayed as I continued my rampage, swinging the chainsaw-sword at anything that moved. At my back, Rare and Ache continued to fire at the oncoming horde until Ache ran out of ammunition as well. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her striking the ghouls with her hooves, shattering bones and twisting off their heads with her unnatural strength. I didn’t see much else of what my friends were doing, as a ghoul jumping for my head reminded me to keep my focus on the fight in front of me. The ghoul tried to bite my ripper as I swung it at it, and the spinning blades took off everything above its lower jaw.
Ghoul bodies and body parts piled up, and to keep from being attacked from above, I gingerly climbed the mound. A zombie crawled over at me and I swatted it away with my ripper, the blades catching and sending it flying into a bus. Another feral ghoul tried to jump past me, and I swung my ripper into its desiccated torso, intending to bisect it. Instead the ripper’s blades ground to a halt and stuck in the ghoul’s flesh, a small light at the base blinking a few times feebly before going out. It had run out of power, but before I could replace the microspark cell, the ghoul changed course and jumped toward me, the weapon still embedded in its side. I struck out with my hooves, knocking it off the pile and into the crowd of oncoming zombies.
Now without my primary ghoul-killing weapons, I had to improvise. I noticed the skeletons of raiders nearby had some broken bottles protruding from their saddlebags. As a ghoul pounced at me, I bucked it with my hindhooves and took off toward the skeletons. A few of the zombies pounced over the mound of bodies I’d left toward my friends, but most of them followed me, the closest moving object. Luckily, there was a (mostly) intact bottle of whiskey in one of the saddlebags, and I hastily stuffed a rag into it before setting it ablaze with the lighter from Stable 65. I clambered up onto on auto-carriage as I threw the Maretov cocktail back at the crowd of ghouls. The fire spread quickly among the close-packed bodies, and soon they were all aflame. I stayed out of reach of the flames from atop the auto-carriage, prodding the zombies with a broken speed limit sign whenever they tried to crawl up with me.
At last, the storm subsided, leaving behind a carpet of charred ghouls. I climbed down and found my ripper, replacing the microspark cell as I glanced warily around at the empty bridge. When I returned to my friends, Ache and Rare were finishing off the last of the ghouls attacking them. There were still a few hostile marks on my EFS, but all but one of them seemed content to stay put in The Nest for the moment. The one ghoul that did want to challenge us still climbed over the edge of the bridge.
“Glowing one!” Rare yelled in warning as it appeared.
Indeed, this zombie was glowing a sickly green, and my PipBuck’s radiation meter rose. It galloped toward us, knocking the other dead ghouls aside as it charged in a straight line. I jumped aside before it reached us and swung my ripper around through one of its forelegs, severing it completely. Glowing ichor splattered across the pavement as it stumbled and fell and my PipBuck clicked angrily. The ghoul managed to turn itself around and crawl toward us far faster than I expected, and I backpedaled. Once I was far enough away, Rare fired a grenade from her armor at the creature, blowing it in half. Still, the glowing one crawled toward me with its one leg, and I sawed its head off with my ripper. Though it was now unable to move, the head continued creepily to chomp at me until I knocked it off the bridge.
“Is that it?” Rare asked with a laugh when no more zombies approached us.
“That’s more than I’ve ever seen, except around Tartarus,” I said as I pulled a RadAway from my saddlebags and drank it down to quiet the radiation sickness warnings from my PipBuck.
“There must be a faulty microspark reactor on one of the boats drawing them here,” Rare said, “That’s why The Nest exists in the first place. If we don’t want them to keep rebuilding their population, we should shut it down. If it’s a model I recognize, I could do it, but I doubt I’ll be able to fit through that maze in my armor or get back up without taking a swim.”
“I can do it,” Ache offered, “So long as you give me directions over the radio. I’m not affected by radiation, so it’s a better option than having you do it, Doc.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I admitted, “Just be careful. There’s still some ghouls down there.”
With a nod, Ache took off down into The Nest while Rare and I retrieved the fuel containers from where we’d set them. According to the gauges on the tanker, it was slightly less than half full of petrol, more than enough to fill what we’d brought several times over. All the internal components were working properly, and the fuel flowed easily into our containers. While the big drums were filling, Rare and I did a little exploring. As she headed toward the front of the tanker, I headed in the opposite direction.
I wanted to check out the Equestrian Army semi we’d passed on the way to the tanker, hoping that it had some useful loot. The tractor of the truck was hanging half off the bridge, having not fallen into The Nest only because the hitch had held and the trailer was counterbalancing it. The back of the trailer was supposed to swing down into a ramp, but the controls were nonresponsive, chiming with a tone that seemed to suggest I didn’t have permission whenever I pressed a button. There was another entrance to the trailer, a door near the front of the right side, hanging out over The Nest. Carefully, I entered the truck’s tractor and crawled across, holding my breath at the sound of the vehicle shifting as my weight unbalanced things. It continued to hold, though, so I exited the passenger side door and followed the ramp to the trailer’s door, holding tightly to the railing along the outside.
The trailer door opened easily, and I stepped into the darkened trailer, illuminating it with my PipBuck’s lamp. It was hard to see anything, so I made my way to the back of the trailer before taking a closer look. The controls on the inside responded to me and the back of the trailer opened, letting in some light. It was mostly empty apart from some crates filled with ammunition and weapons. A desk with a chair and radio controls and a counter with a sink and hotplate attached to the walls led me to believe that this had once been a kind of mobile command center.
Near the back of the trailer was the skeleton of a unicorn, the uniform having rotted away over the years, but the armor still intact. Carefully, I removed the torso armor from the skeleton, brushing away the dust that had once been a pony. It fit me well, and now I had two pieces of my motley collection of armor that matched, at least.
A banging on the side of the trailer caused me to jump, and Rare Sparks’s head appeared through the opening at the back a second later.
“Come quick!” she said before darting away.
Hastily, I shrugged my doctor’s coat back on over my new armor and threw my saddlebags on my back before leaving the trailer. I hurried toward the tanker, where EFS said my companion was, and drew my magical energy rifle. She’d said nothing about trouble, but I wanted to be prepared. When I got there, Rare was standing next to the tanker’s tractor, her helmet off and grinning excitedly.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking around for nonexistent danger.
“This truck, I think I can fix it!” Rare said gleefully, pointing at the one attached to the tanker.
“You can?” I asked in confusion, “What? How? Why?”
“It’s powered by a microspark reactor. It’s broken now, but from what Ache’s been telling me about what she found down below, I think I can repurpose some of the parts from the boat’s reactor to fix this one up,” Rare explained, “If I can get the engine working again, we could drive this entire tanker to Burnside!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When was the last time a vehicle in the Wasteland had actually moved? If anypony could pull it off, it would be Rare Sparks, but it just seemed too fantastical to be true. There were over four thousand gallons of petrol in that tanker still, and the thought that we could take it all back to Burnside in one trip was too much to imagine.
“What can I do to help?” I found myself saying.
***
Miraculously, everything went according to Rare Sparks’s plan. I was still in a slight state of disbelief, even when riding in the truck as it puttered down Vanhoover’s streets. It was late afternoon by the time Rare finished her repairs, but even so we knew we’d never make it back to Burnside before nightfall. The truck had the ability to go higher speeds than we were moving it, but there were too many obstacles in the way. Auto-carriages and debris got in the way, and we had to frequently get out to clear a path. Eventually, though, as Celestia’s sun began to illuminate the cloud cover, we drew near to Burnside.
The guards at the outer barricades were completely in awe at what they saw. They had no idea what to make of a moving semi-trailer truck, and many pointed their weapons at it in confusion. After we explained the situation, though, they helped make a gap in the barricade to get the truck and its precious fuel through while others ran to tell the other members of the militia and the Regulators what was coming. By the time we passed the third guard post, a crowd had formed around the truck, following it to the settlement and looking upon it in wonder. The rest of the barricades were already open by the time we reached them, and we had no trouble making it to Burnside’s gates, though the crowds slowed us down even more than the obstacles on the streets had.
At the entrance to Burnside, a group of Regulators was waiting for us. It wasn’t unexpected by any means, since we’d caused quite a stir and they were the ones we were supposed to sell the fuel to, but I’d never seen so many in one place outside of their headquarters. After instructing the militia to guard the fuel tanker, they asked us to come with them. Rare Sparks hung back as usual, but I beckoned for her to come with us, and nopony objected when the Steel Ranger entered the settlement. If they did, I would have had words for them, given that she was the reason the fuel they needed for their generators had reached here in the first place. The Regulators led us to the headquarters where a conference table was set up. Five of the Regulators sat on one side while the rest stood in the back. and Ache and I sat on the other side with Rare next to us.
“You realize, of course, that there’s no way we can pay you all at once for the petrol you’ve brought without placing Burnside’s economy in jeopardy?” the lead Regulator opened the conversation.
“Of course,” I replied. There was no way we could carry that many caps anyway. By my estimation, we were owed over five hundred thousand of them for what we’d brought, and I had no idea what I would do with that kind of wealth even if I could pack it in my saddlebags.
“That’s not to suggest we won’t pay you,” another Regulator hastily added, “Trade is what Burnside is built upon, and the Regulators, like all whom we deal with, must honor our agreements. You will receive everything you are due, but in time. Until then, a contract of our debt to you will be drawn up and you may withdraw funds from the remaining balance whenever you please, so long as it won’t destabilize Burnside’s economy.”
“Of course,” I said again, “We’ll need some caps right away, but most of it will go back to Burnside or its citizens immediately.”
“Oh?” the lead Regulator said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, as often as we come here, I think it’s worth buying a permanent dwelling to stay in when we visit,” I said, looking to my companions for confirmation, “It wouldn’t need to be ready right away, just by the time we return from Stalliongrad. Obviously, this means that Rare Sparks must be allowed to move freely in Burnside; no more waiting outside the gates.”
“Yes, I see. That can be arranged,” the lead Regulator said, uncomfortable at the idea of allowing a Steel Ranger within the town, but knowing that there was no denying the demand given the situation, “How many additional caps do you need? I assume they are for supplies for your journey?”
“Some of them, yes,” I said, “But we’ll also need a sizable sum for other things. We’ll need beds, metalworking tools, a refrigerator, a power armor rack if you have one, and that’s just a start. I’ve got an idea, but I need to talk things over with my compatriots before we know exactly what we need.”
Rare and Ache both looked at me quizzically, wondering what exactly I was up to. We’d talked about buying a place in Burnside on the way here, but not about the other idea that had solidified in my mind only when we’d arrived at the settlement. A home in this former prison was fine, but we spent much of our time out and about. Rare rarely complained about having to sleep in her armor, Ache needed little sleep and didn’t feel the elements anyway, and I had my tent and bedroll, but I was sure my idea was better. I just needed some help to make it a reality, but what were friends for?
***
After getting some sleep in one of Burnside’s hotels, hopefully for the last time, we spent the rest of the day working on my plan. The three of us spent most of our time out in the Wasteland, so we needed a home we could take with us, and I knew just where to get the components necessary to make that happen. We began by reinforcing the semi-tractor that was now unhitched from the slowly draining tanker. The one thing there was no shortage of in the Wasteland was weapons, and we needed to armor up the truck to keep it from being disabled by a stray shot from a raider or mercenary. We also created a makeshift plow and attached it to the front of the truck so that it could shove obstacles on the road out of the way on its own. It allowed us to move much more quickly when we finally left Burnside the next day, guards watching in amazement as we passed through the barricades and they closed them up behind us.
When we left Burnside, we took more than just the truck with us. Over the rear wheels we’d built a temporary place to hold all the supplies and equipment we’d need to complete the next part of the plan. We returned to The Nest with the truck, which was still free of zombies thanks to Ache’s deactivation of the microspark reactor there. After removing the sturdy reinforced wheels from the Equestrian Army truck’s tractor, we detached it from the trailer and let it fall into the river. The trailer we would keep, and we hitched it up to the previous tanker truck.
The rest of the day was spent using the supplies we’d bought in Burnside to turn the army trailer into a home. Beds were lined up against one wall, along with the refrigerator to store food for the kitchenette. We’d be able to have food that wasn’t raw or prepackaged a century ago and lay down to sleep on something other than the ground. There were also other amenities added, such as chairs, brighter lights, and an old jukebox. To allow travel between the tractor and the trailer, Rare built a walkway on the tractor matching the one we’d dumped into the river. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t herself be able to take advantage of all the amenities of our new home immediately, since nopony in Burnside had a power armor rack to sell. We knew we could find one in Harmony Tower, though, so she wouldn’t be trapped in her armor for long.
The next morning, we were ready to depart for Stalliongrad at last and took one last look at our work. I was quite proud of it, actually. We’d created a home that matched our lifestyle, that would move with us even between cities. It looked ready to take on the Wasteland, and I was looking forward to the trip to Stalliongrad that would take two days instead of ten. Rare and Ache had insisted on christening the vehicle, and despite my protests, The Clinic was now painted on the side, in honor of my title.
And so we left Vanhoover in our new home, bouncing along the abandoned road to Stalliongrad. The Black Skulls and the Northern Lights Coalition would be waiting for us, but we knew where they would be. We knew where one of their headquarters was now, not just a settlement or raider camp. All we needed now was an army of our own to face the legion of mercenaries and raiders facing us, and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad would owe us for delivering the megaspell they’d asked for. Things were looking up.
Level Up
New Perk: Ears Like a Bat – You are far more likely to hear enemies sneaking up on you.
Apparel added: Equestrian Army Combat Armor Torso
New Quest: To Face a Coalition: Assemble an army to fight the Black Skulls and NLC in Stalliongrad.
Barter +3 (44)
Melee Weapons +8 (75)
Repair +18* (63)
Speech +2 (75)
Unarmed +1 (34)
*The Tinkerer