//------------------------------//
// Part 8 (Cody) - Chapter 3 
// Story: Founders of Alexandria 
// by Starscribe 
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Alex returned to work a few weeks after that, though she ended up carrying Cody around with her much of the time. With a population as small as Alexandria’s, there wasn’t too much pressure from the other ponies, so long as she got the job done. And Alex could do that. She might not be an expert in any relevant subject, or even an experienced administrator, but the longer she worked the more she read, and anything she read stayed with her forever.

Keeping Cody with her was nothing like it might be if she’d been human. Foals weren’t babies, they weren’t mewling helpless things that wiggled a bit and occasionally pooped. From his first week, Cody could walk. By the time she made it back to work, he could run. That meant keeping him entertained in her office as much as contained, and it meant that whenever she went somewhere, he had to walk along. 

Whatever hope she had that her son might take more of an interest in Oliver’s work instead was quickly dashed—while Cody loved his father, he was also more than a little intimidated by the hospital and the terrible things that sometimes happened there. Oliver was fantastically skilled, but not every pony who walked into that building ever walked out again.

The next few years went pretty good, all things considered. Alexandria went from a few dozen people to a few thousand, both by attracting some not-insignificant plurality of new refugees and through its exceptionally high birth rate. Alex did not yet know if that number would be quite enough to maintain their human inheritance, all the working water and electricity and structures to live in. Only time would tell.

Whenever she was quite troubled about the fate of her town, Alex would leave the growing walls of scrap metal and debris behind, and walk out into the ruins of Illinois.

Cody came with her on one of these walks, after winning her fourth election to mayor. The colt insisted on wearing his ball cap whenever they left the city limits, just as Alex insisted on wearing her well-oiled and carefully modified P90. The submachine gun felt like nothing on her shoulders, not with the earth under her hooves.

Sometimes Alex found strange creatures outside town, or spoke with things that weren’t quite people.

Today she found herself gravitating towards the southern end of Alexandria, where another even smaller town had once been.

“It’s all… broke,” Cody said, stopping beside her and pawing at her leg—the only hint she needed that he wanted to climb up. She didn’t have any way of lifting him, since she lacked hands herself, but she could lower her shoulder, and that was enough. He was still small enough that she barely even noticed the weight.

Alex nodded. Some part of her suspected these old buildings had looked pretty bad even before the Event, though she had no proof of that. The town only had a few hundred homes, and as the years wore on the grass had swallowed the gravel roads between them. Now many structures were slowly growing a mat of thick plants. Grass crept up the walls, birds nested in the openings between missing shingles, and an occasional cracked window gave way to an entire ecosystem inside.

Alex had seen pictures of life after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, in the wide swathe of land considered too dangerous to live in. This seemed almost exactly the same: radiation made it impossible for humans to live, and so they’d left nature to take over.

It might’ve been peaceful in a self-defeating kind of way, if it wasn’t for the huge excavator parked maybe a thousand feet away, beside a mountain of dirt that would’ve towered over any building in Alexandria.  There was other construction equipment here as well, a large portable water-tank, several tractors, and several oversized fuel trucks.

Of course, where Riley got the fuel for all this was one of many mysteries with no answer. How she got the manpower was a little less mysterious.

Cody pressed down against her neck as the first of the changeling drones passed them—taller than Alex, with shimmering multicolored wings and no clothes to speak of. This one brought a jackhammer, while the one behind it carried a tightly-coiled spool of compressed-air tubing.

“Hey,” Alex said, mostly by reflex. Neither of them looked up, or so much as acknowledged she existed at all.

“Why do we let them live here?” Cody asked, apparently just as convinced that they wouldn’t be overhead. Either that, or he didn’t care about making them quite upset. He can’t understand the difference between changelings and ponies, can he? Her son wasn’t even four yet.

Still, Alex’s years had taught her a few lessons, and one of those was that she shouldn’t be afraid of whatever awkward things her kid had to say. At least I don’t have several of them like Sky does. How can she even cope…?

“Because they’re not scary if you get to know them,” Alex said. She followed behind one group, forcing Cody to look at them. Or she hoped he was—she couldn’t use magic to do it the way Moriah and Joe could do to Richard. “See how they’re not hurting you?”

“Because you,” Cody said. “If I was… alone, they’d eat me.”

“Pony meat is too stringy,” said a voice from a nearby building. It had been a house once, one of the largest and sturdiest in the area. Its windows were boarded up now, its garage open and inviting. “Now if you were a cake, then maybe you’d be in danger.” 

Chip wore a human hard hat, which meant that it was comically oversized but also gave plenty of room for his horn. From the look of it, he seemed to be directing the work, with a clipboard tucked into his reflective yellow vest.

How was I ever scared of these things? Even Monsters, Inc. did a better job than this. The longer she stayed around them, the more she could clearly detect the influence of pony instinct. The easier it was to ignore it.

The garage was a working construction workshop now, with tools in carefully organized sections and several generators and other pieces of large equipment outside. The fence had been dismantled, and huge pallets of metal and cement sat there, waiting to be used.

She felt Cody turn away on her head, and slide back down to her back. Maybe he was going to try and run. But she was equal to that, twisting to one side and then the other to keep him balanced. The movement activated another instinct in him, and he clung on, even though he clearly didn’t want to.

“We don’t run away from friends,” she said, gently. “The changeling just said he wouldn’t eat you. I don’t think he’d ever take another chance on something I made.”

Cody didn’t seem to understand, but Chip laughed politely. “A long way from home,” he said. “Aren’t there important things for the mayor to be doing? Not even that. President of the world. Maybe a tiny world, but it’s the one we’ve got.”

Alex shrugged, making her way over to him. Cody stopped struggling after a few seconds and just clung to her, occasionally peeking out with one eye to see what was happening. I am going to break you on this, kid. We can’t hate our own. “The world doesn’t seem like it will need me much longer. We’ve got a lot more people now, and they don’t much care about the ones who founded the place. I don’t get any extra points. I’m just a kid, and everything I tell them about Equestria is just a story.”

Chip wasn’t the sort of pony to offer helpful advice, or to argue with her. That was part of why she said anything at all. All he did was point to the side, at one of the drones. “Could be worse. Least you’re not them.”

Alex looked to the side, trying to place the drone for the first time. There wasn’t anything much to see about the two working drones—both had red fins and slightly reddish eyes, but otherwise they looked like any other changelings she’d ever seen before. There were a few more all around them doing other construction jobs. Probably Chip was out here supervising them.

“A drone? I don’t think that’s… possible. The Preservation Spell can’t kill you, the Equestrians were pretty definitive about that. It’s the crash or the fall or the starvation or the fire that kills you, once you land.”

“No.” Chip leaned in close, whispering into her ear. Cody quivered as he got close, but Alex didn’t even tense anymore. Yes, changelings were predators, but these would never hurt her. “You can’t be one drone, but you could be, like… a lot of them. At the same time.”

Finally Cody couldn’t take it anymore and hopped down off her back. He took one look around them at the other changelings, then darted between her legs to cower and whimper. But Alex was momentarily distracted. “How?”

He shrugged. “If you were a changeling, I could show you. Our minds are… connected. Males like me, we get maybe… I can do these six.” He pointed around, and at once all the drones dropped what they were doing, buzzing through the air and landing in a straight line. They saluted, perfectly in time with Chip himself. “See?”

“I know what you can do,” she said, scooping Cody close to her and covering his face with the back of one leg. This was probably a little too intense for him. Exposure to changelings was good, but scaring him for no reason… that would only leave him permanently scarred. “Or I knew Riley could do that. I didn’t know you could.”

“She taught me,” he said, blushing a little. His eyes darted to Cody, and he suddenly seemed to realize just how intimidating they were being. With no visible gesture on his part, the bugs scattered. Not back to their work, but to the huge hole in the ground behind him. The one with a ramp for heavy equipment leading into the dark. “Sorry about that, little guy. I just put the help on break.”

Cody actually looked up, eyes skimming the clearing around them. He let go of Alex, though he didn’t move out from under her. She didn’t force him. It was progress.

“You think they’re… one person, somehow?”

“Collectively,” he agreed. “Riley can get specific, since she can see the swarm all at once. I can only view the ones under my control, and six is the best I can manage. But I can see bits and pieces. Memories, fears, desires—their name was Flora Hicks. Now they’re Flora Hicks 1 through 42.” 

“That sounds…” Alex sat back on her haunches, suddenly leaving Cody nowhere to hide. But instead of panicking, he nervously made his way out a few steps. His eyes never left Chip, but the changeling did nothing threatening. “Grim.”

“Worse than that,” he said. “What do you think happens to that part of Flora when one of them dies? The best Riley could do was give her a purpose—drones want to be part of a swarm, just like all changelings. We need to be part of something bigger than ourselves.”

Not all that different from the rest of us. Alex rose, scooping up Cody with her nose and tossing him onto her back. She managed it on her first try, though he was inches from falling off to either side. Cody squeaked in protest, but ultimately was powerless to resist. “I am glad I’m not her,” she said. “Though If I trust anyone to help, it’s Riley.”

“And you help her,” Chip went on. “Our relationship with Alexandria is… well, Riley wants me to say ‘absolutely critical’ to everything we do. Without you, we all starve. Or we have to hunt. Neither is that great.”

Riley wants me to say. Something about their minds being in contact, probably. “You’re already too important for Alexandria to get rid of you,” she said. “Even when I’m not the mayor anymore. Work still needs to get done.” She looked down, pawing awkwardly at the grass. “I don’t feel so great about your drones being worked so hard if they’re all really… Flora Hicks.”

“Some aren’t,” Chip said. “Soon they’ll be Riley’s and mine. Or other males, if she ever gets any.” That tone clearly wasn’t one he’d been told to use by his queen, given how suddenly possessive and bitter he sounded. “We don’t resent you, Alex. Letting us help around town is a good start. Let us be seen, make ponies not be afraid of us.” He reached down, patting Cody lightly on the head. The colt recoiled, though he didn’t slip and fall off her back.

“I should go back to digging. This hive isn’t going to build itself.” He turned, indicating the largest tractor.

“You aren’t going to have a drone do that?”

His smile widened. “Are you kidding me? How many times will you get to drive an earthmover?”

None that day. Poor Cody was clearly at the end of his rope, even if being an earth pony meant more than enough endurance to last through the few-mile walk down from Alexandria and back. His steps were slow as they made their way up towards the town and its junk-metal walls.

Even so, he was the first to notice the slightly pink shape in the sky, swooping down towards them in a single smooth motion. He grinned and pointed. “Mom, it’s her! Aunt Cloudy!”

Aunt Cloudy landed gracefully on the dirt road, spraying up a little dust behind her in an obviously deliberate way before finally coming to a stop just a few inches away. As usual for Cloudy Skies, she was completely naked, though she could’ve at least brought a hat or a radio. She had none, nor any weapon.

But she can get away from just about anything. There aren’t many ponies in the world who can fly as well as she can. Being able to fly wasn’t exactly something you came back knowing.

Alex leaned forward reflexively, embracing her in a familiar hug. As usual, her friend smelled like lightning and the moisture of the upper air. Exciting and strange.

And never ever interested, Alex, so don’t even think about it.

She didn’t think about it, but she also couldn’t forget.

“You don’t have to be so prickly,” Cloudy said, glaring down at the gun slung over her shoulder. “What the hay are you going to use that for?”

Of course Cody demanded his own hug, which Cloudy promptly gave, scooping him up in her wings.

Alex waited patiently to respond—however much there might be some faint thread of jealousy that Cloudy was better at this, she was still a friend. Alex had a lot to learn from her. “Keeping Cody safe,” she said. “If I have to.”

“How many times do you have to, three miles from home?” 

Alex glanced out at the weeds and rolling grass, past a rusty tractor. “More than one.” She could’ve given her the precise details of each time—but once was enough. Cloudy didn’t approve of her work with the HPI, and she certainly didn’t approve of keeping a gun around a child. But Cloudy’s vision of their world as a utopia like Equestria just wasn’t realistic. “Where’s your spawn? Isn’t it about suppertime?”

Their world had monsters, on four legs and two. Odium might be dead, but its brother lived still, somewhere.

She nodded. “Adrian is home with everypony… except Surefire.” She gestured up into the air with a wing, waving enthusiastically. Far above, Alex could make up the faint speck of a young pony, fighting against the winds. Apparently the effort of landing was too great, because she didn’t even try.

“I wanna fly!” Cody protested. Before he could get any further, Alex scooped him up, returning him to his place on her back. This one thing, she wouldn’t allow. Even if Cloudy could carry him a bit, it was only his youth that made it possible.

You’ve got to accept what you are, kid. Just like I do. “Not today,” she said flatly, turning back towards the city. “Something happen?”

She giggled in response. “Does it always have to be something? Maybe I just wanted to say hi.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “I live next door.”

“Okay, but how much time are you at home?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Apparently that was precisely the admission Cloudy was looking for, because she reached down and mussed her mane. Damn Sky and how tall pegasus ponies could be. 

“I wanted to invite you to dinner, since Oliver isn’t back from Chicago yet.”

You’re worried about me. She could see it in Cloudy’s face, as much as her friend would never admit it. She wanted to refuse on that principal alone. But if Cloudy had done that to Alex, she probably would’ve died alone in an apartment.

“If you keep inviting me over, your kids are going to think I’m their older sister.”

Cloudy shrugged. “And who’s fault is that? Just grow up already, that would make things way easier.”

“Working on it.”