Star shook like a leaf as she remembered the crash and the sound of twisting metal, though she was very glad indeed that she survived it was hard to get the thought out of her head that if just one thing had been different, she very well could’ve died.
A small dirty blonde maned filly gradually walked toward her, having entered silently and she kept her head low so as not to startle the clearly distraught mare.
“Hello? Can we talk?”
Star flinched, but remained as calm as her nerves would allow. “What is it, little one?”
“Little? I might be just a filly, but I’m a respected member of the Wild Ones!” the filly angrily spat, but rapidly calmed down, centering herself with a small sigh. “Sorry. I get a little heated when ponies bring my size up. I just wanted a word with you, since you’re gonna be here a while.”
“Forgive me, but why is a filly your age doing with a Nomad clan?”
“I suppose it’s okay if I tell you. I was born into the clan, like pretty much all ponies my age around here. Nomads aren’t fans of sticking to any one place I have to admit, but we found this place one day and just sorta… stayed I suppose?“
Star seemed to relax a little, getting used to the filly’s presence. “Who rescued us, by the way? I was out of it for most of the trip here, but I’m led to believe it was you.”
“Me, my twin brother Cogwheel and the boss, yes. We saw the smoke from our perch up the way, and we figured we should intervene. My name’s Flywheel, by the way.”
“I’m Starry Night. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you showed up when you did.“
“You’re welcome. You’re lucky it was us that found you too, other nomad clans around here wouldn’t have been as forgiving.” Flywheel warned. “If you ever go into the City proper, cover your chrome, don’t use any enhanced abilities if you can help it, and above all, steer clear of the city police. They’re really obvious so you wont miss them.”
“Frankly, I’ll be surprised if I leave this room. That crash rattled me to my core and I can barely think without shaking like a leaf in the wind.”
“Understandable. Take all the time you need, and if you like, I can show you a place I use to get my thoughts together.” Flywheel said. “Just a thought.”
Matterhorn wandered through the main garage of the structure, eyeing up the multitude of heavily customized vehicles as he went. The livery and colors the vehicles sported were unfamiliar to him, and he had attempted to access the Crown’s databases remotely a number of times now, but was met with an unhelpful error message by his implanted terminal system.
He could see the closest net access point out the window and had little clue why he was disallowed access, and figured it was due to his net access code being no good out here. There was also the worrying inability to reach anyone back at base either, and they likely had no idea they had been shot down or even if they had survived.
They were cut off from all their support, their Intel, everything that made an agent a force to be reckoned with. All he had left was Lucky and his new friends.
“Impressive, aren’t they? Our cars and bikes I mean.” Golden Dawn said, appearing from a small office like space in the middle of the room. “Cobbled together from stolen, salvaged, and won parts from across the Rift Badlands.”
Matterhorn raised an eyebrow and looked at the car just in front of him. A smooth paneled, near jet black, two seat monster that was once a popular sports car driven by the young and dumb type. It was covered in aftermarket additions, many of which appeared to be advanced sensor clusters and ranging gear for the enclosed cabin.
Clearly this car was designed to go into a shootout and come out with its driver and passenger in one piece, and Matterhorn allowed himself to be impressed by the ingenuity of a Nomad clan. Most of the gear wasn’t even designed to be used this way, but they had somehow managed to make it work.
“I have to admit they are, yes. Are those Crystal Dynamics rangefinders in the place of wing mirrors?“
Golden Dawn looked surprised. “Yes they are actually. Pulled from the wreckage from a crashed Cargo AV actually, they wont miss them.”
“So you’re the mare to go to if someone, say, wanted to know a thing or two?” Matterhorn said cryptically. “Let’s say I need to contact a certain few ponies, how would I do it?”
“Well, this pony would have already figured out their access codes are no good out here, and they’d have to jack into one of the antennas to get a message out.” Golden Dawn said, smirking while she played along. “But I would warn that pony not to take too long if they went up there. There is the chance of a sandstorm showing up very soon and they wouldn’t want to be caught in that.”
“Good to know.” Matterhorn said appreciatively. “How’re our Netrunner friends?”
“Both are conscious and recovering well, at least until the stallion was restrained after attempting to beat one of our medic’s brains in.” Golden Dawn said with a mischievous chuckle. “The mare was VERY apologetic on behalf of her friend. Kind soul, that one.”
“Access has shown himself to be a hothead almost every time we’ve spoken, I will apologize on behalf of him as well if it helps any.”
“We’ve dealt with worse. In fairness, I’d expect no different from one of our own if they woke up in an unfamiliar place.” Golden Dawn said as shook her head in dismay. “By the way, I’ll have someone drive you out to an antenna if you ask nicely. Whoever it is you need to contact will probably be glad you did.”
“Would that be okay?”
Golden Dawn nodded, walked to the door and spoke a few hushed words to someone stood just out of sight. The burly biker pony from earlier, the one that’d brought them food then vanished without so much as a word, appeared around the door way and eyed up Matterhorn, his face completely flat and unreadable.
“Steel will drive you to one of the antennas we’ve had spiked for ages now, you’ll just have to jack in whatever comms gear you’re using to get a message out, keep it short if you can.”
“Yes. The longer you’re transmitting, the sooner local net-ops will close our exploits. It’s not a huge deal if they do manage to secure the antenna again, but it’d be a real hassle.” Steel pointed out, twirling a set of keys around his hoof. “It’s antenna A27, yes?”
“A27, B10, and F22 are all spiked if you need them, try not to burn them all though, would you?” Golden Dawn requested politely. “I could do without the complaints from the little ones again.”
“We’ll be careful.” Matterhorn promised.
“Shall we go then?” Steel remarked. “I’ll show you city folk what a REAL car’s made of!”