//------------------------------// // Chapter 45 - You Will Remember Tonight // Story: Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// Everything was blurry around the edges, and my eyes ached. I think I was crying. "I don't understand," I said. I looked up into a face that, from this perspective, felt familiar. It was a mare, just a little past the prime of their life. She was trying not to cry, holding it back with a smile. "I know," the mare said. She was wearing a faded blue jumpsuit, worn and wrinkled. The air tasted just a little stale. "Why do I have to leave?" I asked, my voice breaking. The mare sighed and knelt down. "You remember what you learned in school, about how the Stable was supposed to protect us?" I nodded. "Our Stable, it wasn't... it wasn't built correctly," she said. "No, that's not right. We're lucky. We're very lucky. It's lasted this whole time, and we've been able to keep most of it running, but ponies aren't gods. Nothing we build is perfect. There are things we can't fix." "Why?" I whispered. "What if we just... what if we tried harder?" "It doesn't work like that, little one," she said sadly. "If it was something less important, like the coffee pot or the suit cleaner, we could do without. The filtration talismans make the air around us. The engineers did everything they could. We even tried reducing the strain by only running them every other day, but..." I sniffled and rubbed my eyes. The mare pulled me into a hug. "The ponies you're going with, they're taking you to run some tests. You'll be back before you know it." "You promise?" I asked. "You'll always have a home here," the mare promised. "Are you done?" another pony asked. I looked up at a mare in a white coat. Doctor Anamnesis. She looked a decade younger and much more alive than the last time I'd seen her. "We need to hurry this along." The mare holding me squeezed, and didn't let go. I watched her narrow her eyes at the doctor. "If you do anything--" "Save the threats," Anamnesis sighed. "I've already delivered the talismans you needed. I need my test subject now. That's the deal." The mare let go, and Anamnesis grabbed my hoof, pulling me away. "Come on," Anamnesis said firmly. She led me out of a huge, gear-shaped door, and onto the metal gangway beyond. I looked back at the mare who'd held me. She caught my gaze and looked away, her expression torn. Eventually, she slammed her hoof down on a button and an alarm blared as the door started closing. "My name is--" I started "I don't care," the Doctor said. "Names just complicate things. The last thing I need is you being emotional." I looked down and let her lead me away. Just before I lost sight of it for the last time, I turned back to the door as it clunked and hissed into place. The number, written in letters taller than I was, was the last thing I saw before everything went dark. "One-oh-Seven..." I mumbled, batting the memory orb between my hooves on the bed, careful not to damage it. "You okay?" Destiny asked. "I'm fine," I said, trying to mean it. "I have a certificate in being fine." "If you say so," the ghost said, bobbing in a spectral shrug. “Chamomile, I have never seen somepony abuse equipment in quite the way you do,” Herr Doktor said, shaking her head and looking at the readouts hooked up to the Exodus armor. “Look at this! A whole section of the armor is simply missing!” She slapped the replacement shoulder that the Ghost Bears had forged for me after it had been torn off and eaten by a cyborg werebear abomination. The crimson paint was already starting to wear around the edges, scrapes and chips showing on the bright surface. “I think I did a pretty good job,” I said defensively. “You did,” Destiny agreed. “Nopony could design equipment that would survive all you’ve been through and come out the other side factory-fresh. Not even me, and I’m a genius!” “A biased genius,” Herr Doktor sighed. “Thank you for taking a look over my stuff,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but I can’t think of a better pair of hooves to have working on this.” The scientist adjusted her glasses and looked away, blushing. “Yes, well. I suppose you are correct there. And with the assistance of the original designer, I should be able to fully restore even what the repair talismans couldn’t fix! Aside from that shoulder. Hm.” “Make sure you take a look at the Cryolator too,” I suggested. “It was slapped together by an Enclave scientist in the field, so it’s probably got a lot of problems.” Doktor nodded in agreement. “Yes. It is an elegant solution to the core issue that you lack the software to interface standard firearms into your armor.” “I also lack the skill to use them normally,” I quipped. “Something with a wide spray is just about perfect for me, even if it does eat through nitrogen tanks like crazy!” “I should be able to do something,” Herr Doktor agreed. Para-Medic nudged me from behind, putting a bottle in my hooves. “Drink this. And can I get another blood sample? There’re some really weird results from the test and I need to make sure you’re okay and didn’t get any weird surface diseases like wingrot or The Splashes.” I made a face. She’d had to use the biggest, thickest needle I’d ever seen to get a blood sample the first time. “Please?” she begged. “Fine,” I sighed. She brightened up and produced a needle she’d already prepped because apparently, I was too much of a doormat for my own good. I sipped at the drink she’d given me, which tasted like bad fake fruit and salt. “What is this?” “Just a little something to perk you up!” Para-Medic said brightly. “Some Radaway mixed with water and electrolytes and crushed-up vitamin pills!” “That’s exactly what it tastes like,” I said with a nod. “Make sure you finish the whole thing. You look kind of thin. Have you been eating right?” “Every single one of my bones was shattered and rebuilt,” I said. “I’m still sort of working my way back to a hundred percent.” “Oh. Maybe that explains all the loose calcium in the blood tests…” Para-Medic mumbled. “It’s nothing to worry about! You’re as healthy as… as…” she fluttered up and hovered, thinking. “I don’t really know what to use as a comparison. But I’m pretty sure you’re not dying!” “That’s great news,” I said. I did my best to sound positive. “It is.” Quattro walked into the hold, Emma hot on her heels and running past her to grab me and look me over, frowning and looking me over carefully. “You… actually look okay,” she admitted. “I thought you’d be a big mess of scars and trauma but…” “She’s got fewer scars than when she went down to the surface,” Destiny said. “Between the auto-doc treatment and taming her SIVA infection, she’s in better shape than any of you.” She managed to sound haughty about it. “It just proves that my technology was centuries ahead of anypony else’s!” “I was worried,” Emma said, sighing. She hugged me briefly, and I felt some of the tension drain. “It’s good to see you.” “Is Captain Glint going to come say hello too?” I asked. “She’s been making excuses not to come down here,” Quattro said. She leaned against a hospital bed and shrugged. “I think she’s afraid to find out what happened to Unsung. They were close, a long time ago.” “I hope Unsung was a better pony back when she knew the Captain,” I muttered. “We were all different ponies when we were young.” Quattro shrugged. “If you’re up for it, we could use a hoof with a mission.” I smacked one hoof into the other, cracking my neck and trying to look cool. “I wouldn’t mind busting some heads.” Quattro chuckled. “Don’t get too excited. What we need you for is more of an undercover operation. You haven’t been seen around Thunderbolt Shoals in a while, so nopony should know you’re working for us.” I frowned, my ears folding back. “Oh.” “Don’t look so down! Think of it as a blind date but you get to send White Glint the bill.” “Does that include drinks?” I asked. “Getting ponies drunk is probably the most honored and traditional way to conduct an undercover op, Cammy. Of course she’ll pick up your bar tab.” “Tell me more about this mission,” I said. I walked into the bar wearing somepony else’s work jacket. It didn’t fit me very well, but it probably would have been more suspicious if it had. I admit, I was a little fuzzy on the details of the mission. Some kind of security gig, but the pony couldn’t know what I was there for? Quattro had only given me a vague briefing and, I admit, I didn’t pay enough attention. Ever since I’d gotten back it felt harder to focus. I was physically drained, and I knew I should feel something but all my emotions were just… far away. I knew something that’d fix both of those problems. I sat down at the bar and waved to the bartender. “Can I get a vodka, neat?” I cleared my throat when he reached for the plastic jug of Cloudtato Nine. “Not that one, go for the Red Star.” The bartender shrugged and picked up the other bottle. I put a few bits on the bartop to cover it and downed the glass in one go. It tasted like rainwater with the faint lingering taste of hospital disinfectant, and made me feel warm inside. I put the glass down and motioned for another. “Well, you look like somepony who can hold their liquor,” the pony next to me said. I looked over at him. He was the pony I was supposed to keep tabs on. I’d chosen this seat for a reason. “It’s been a long… well, it’s been long in general,” I said. I put more bits on the counter, and the bartender coughed. “Hey, what’s this supposed to be?” they asked, holding up a bottlecap. I blushed and replaced it with a bit. “Sorry,” I apologized. I must have gotten some of them mixed up in my bag. I saw the other pony’s eyes linger on the cap while I put it in a pocket. “I’m Ruby,” the stallion said, holding out a hoof to shake. “Ruby Ridge.” I shook his hoof. “Chamomile.” I wasn’t feeling up to using a fake name. “You from around here? I don’t remember seeing you here before.” “I don’t come into town much,” he said. “I… can’t really stand the hustle and bustle. But sometimes you have to do it for the job.” I nodded. “Doesn’t that get…” I looked down into the glass. I could dimly see my reflection in the poor light of the flickering arc lanterns. “Kinda lonely?” “Sometimes!” he smiled sadly. “But I enjoy just… being out in the wild. Living with the work of my own hooves.” “I can appreciate that. You drink vodka?” I asked. “Is there anypony who doesn’t?” I finished my second glass. “Can I get a round for me and my new friend?” I called out. I was starting to feel a little better. The drinks were put down in front of us, and that’s when things start to get a little fuzzy and I can’t remember what happened after that for a while. I jerked awake to the absolutely lovely and bracing feeling of icewater being dumped on my face. “Bwah!” I gasped eloquently. I flailed at the air, trying to fight off my cold, wet attacker, but in the end I was the only one who was really cold and wet, making me the loser. “Oh dear, I spilled my drink. How careless.” I groaned and opened my eyes. The light shot directly into my brain and slammed into me like a sledgehammer. I rolled over onto my belly and moaned. “My head…” I whined. “Good morning, sunshine!” a cheery voice said, rough with age. I opened one eye to look. A pegasus mare old enough to be my grandmother was looking down at me. “I hope you had a nice nap.” “Where am I?” I looked around. The light still made my head pound, but it wasn’t so bad that I was going to-- actually, my stomach was a more immediate concern. I looked at the old mare with obvious panic in my eyes. “Bucket!” she snapped, pointing. “I just finished mopping up your first mess, I’m not doing it again!” I ran over to the bucket, and to put it delicately, I vomited a bunch. Then I looked up, starting to feel better, and another wave hit me. I spent a little more time emptying out my insides, and eventually there just wasn’t anything left to be sick with. “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling shaky. “Mm,” the mare said. I looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. I was in an old building. Not pre-war but it had to have been built right afterwards. The cloud walls were slowly decaying, and I could see almost as many patches where it was so thin you could see through it as I could see places where patches had been hammered into place. A big window made of carefully arranged shards of solid rainbow dominated the space, showing the sunrise and, behind it and cradling it like a mother with a foal, a huge white mare that was probably supposed to be Princess Celestia. “Is this a church?” I asked. “The Chapel of the Second Sunrise,” the old mare said. “The pony that built it claimed he had a revelation that the Goddess Celestia was still watching over us, even if she couldn’t return to save us yet.” “I hope nopony was holding their breath on that,” I mumbled. “Not many ponies still believe,” the old pony admitted. “More ponies end up like you, getting drunk and making a mess of things because they lost hope.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. She motioned around her. Furniture had been knocked over, books were lying on the floor, and a few vodka bottles were sad and empty and apparently I’d switched to the cheap stuff at some point. “Oh.” I blushed. “Let me just… clean some of this up.” I really hoped I wasn’t going to get cursed or something. I didn’t need a curse on me right now. I’d probably end up as some kind of shambling undead horror. My head pounded. I flipped over a pew I’d overturned and my ears started to ring. More accurately, the radio earpiece in my ear started to blare. “Chamomile?” Emerald Gleam asked, her voice buzzy and rough, the miniature radio having pretty awful reception in the Shores’ constant roiling storm. “Are you there? Do you have any updates on Ruby Ridge?” “One second,” I said, fumbling for the transmit button, then repeating myself once I’d found it. “Sorry, Emma. Just fumbled a little there. Uh. Everything’s… everything’s good! Situation green!” The old mare in the church looked at me like I was crazy. I held a hoof to my lips. “Good,” Emerald said. “How soon can you finish up?” “Soon!” I replied. “I’ve got to call you back. Right in the middle of something.” “Roger. Emerald Gleam out.” The radio clicked and went quiet. I turned to the ancient mare and gave her a sheepish grin. “Uh… did I come here with anypony? Maybe a stallion, sort of scruffy, about this tall?” I held up a hoof. “Him,” the old mare hissed. “He ran off with our coffee pot!” “Do you know where he went? I really need to find him.” The mare gave me a look. “If you help me, I promise I’ll get your coffee pot back,” I said. “It was a good coffee pot,” she said. “The kind with an automatic timer to turn it on in the morning and everything.” “And I’ll get it back! I swear!” She sighed and looked away. “You were mumbling something about the Hydroponic Co-op before you passed out.” “Right… right! Okay, I’ll be back, I promise! I just need to find him!” I shoved the stack of books I’d been holding into the mare’s hooves and ran out the door. “He’s not here?” I asked the farmer. He glared at me. “No! And you’ve got a lot of nerve showing yourself around here again! What do you have to say for yourself?” “Er…” I swallowed. “I’m sorry?” I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for but from his expression I had a long way to go to earn any kind of forgiveness. “Sorry’s not good enough! Not when I’m missing all my dang fertilizer!” “When you’re missing-- what?” I blinked in surprise. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Is that so? You just forgot about the way you broke into the Co-op and stole all them bags of ammonium nitrate right out of the communal tool shed?” He spat at my hooves. “You better start remembering what happened right fast before I start makin’ enough noise for the military police to drag you away!” “That sounds pretty bad,” I mumbled. “Darn right it does! We needed that fertilizer to keep the crops going through the winter! Hydroponic plants are a sight more productive than cloudfarms, but they need more care, and without a nitrogen source they won’t grow proper!” “Okay.” I held up a hoof. “You’re right. I messed all this up and I have to take responsibility. I was really, really drunk. That’s not an excuse, but it does mean I’m stuck trying to retrace my steps. If you can help me, I can get your fertilizer back.” He eyed me suspiciously. I smiled, trying to look confident. “Maybe I mentioned Ruby Ridge? Or at least a coffee maker?” He sighed, his wings drooping. “You didn’t say nothing about anypony named Ruby Ridge, and not much of what you were sayin’ made any sense. I don’t know about the coffee maker. You did leave a note behind, but most of it was crossed out and gibberish. Here.” He rummaged around in his overalls and produced a dirty piece of paper. I unfolded it and looked at the worst hoofwriting in the world. Mine. And it was so bad even I wasn’t entirely sure what it said. I could just barely make out two words. Stereo Shack. “I guess that’s some kind of lead,” I said. “I’ll be back. It shouldn’t be hard to find big bags of fertilizer, right? It’s not like they’re going to vanish in a puff of smoke.” He made an annoyed noise and tossed his head. “Just get out of here and don’t come back until you make things square.” “I am so doomed,” I groaned. I just let my hooves carry me through the streets. I had no idea where I was going. Stereo Shack? What did that even mean? And why the buck would I steal fertilizer? Was there some kind of secret grow-op somewhere in the city? Was it all some kind of drugs thing? I should have paid more attention to the briefing. I could feel the radio earpiece as an uncomfortable weight in my ear. I could call up Emma, tell her the truth about what happened and try to get it all fixed… The radio blared to life and I almost tripped and fell on my stupid face. “Chamomile, any updates?” Quattro asked, the weak signal making her voice crackle. I looked around frantically like she was watching me and ducked into an alleyway where ponies couldn’t see me. I don’t know why. It was just a sudden surge of anxiety. “Uh…” I hesitated. “Hey, Quattro. This isn’t a great time.” “I know. Emma’s getting worried. You know we’ve got a time crunch on this.” I had not known, but now I did and my nerves were getting even worse. I laughed, trying to sound casual and at ease. “Don’t worry. Everything’s… totally under control.” “You’re a terrible liar,” Quattro replied. “If you’re in trouble you need to tell us.” I bit my lip and kept walking, all the way down the alleyway, skipping over gaps in the rubberized plates where they showed live stormclouds below. I knew the best thing was just to tell her the truth. Admit where I’d woken up and get their help retracing my steps. I could always go back to the little Solarian church and ask them how to pray for divine guidance. I stepped out to the street on the other side of the alley, and I got a sign direct from Celestia. Stereo Shack, in big bright neon letters, powered by the static in the air and humming in the bright yellow color of sunshine. “I’ll call you back,” I told Quattro. “Something just came up.” I pulled the radio from my ear so I wouldn’t be interrupted and trotted over to the shop. It had to be pre-war. When I walked in, there was that smell of dust and rot and ruin that I was already starting to associate with sealed-off spaces in the underground, somehow transported above the clouds. The walls were full of half-empty displays with fading packaging holding inscrutable components. Vacuum tubes, lengths of wire, seventy types of small screw that were all subtly different. “Can I help-- oh. You.” The pony behind the counter glared at me, stomping out to put that glare closer to me. “We’ve met?” I guessed. “Oh, that’s rich,” she snapped. “And you know what else is rich? You! Because if you aren’t about to put a bunch of bits in my hooves, we’re going to have a problem!” “I’m getting the sense that I might have done some kind of petty crime here?” I guessed. “I sold you a spark gap generator and a bunch of capacitors and wire, and you just walked out without paying!” she yelled. “Do you have any idea how much that stuff was worth?!” I swallowed and pulled out my bag of bits. “This much?” I asked hopefully. She snatched the bag up and her expression immediately changed, the glare transforming into a smile so quickly the naked eye couldn’t follow the motion. She hummed happily to herself and went back behind the counter, dumping the coins out and counting them. “So, uh… was I here with someone else?” I asked. “You could say that,” the mare replied. “You were very close.” I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. Did I seduce him while I was drunk? I was very persuasive and charismatic so it was entirely possible. “Oh no,” I whispered. “Hey, it’s fine,” the mare said, with a shrug. “I mean, it’s not my thing, but no one will look down on you for being into griffons.” “...” I was struggling to come up with a reply to that. She turned and tossed my bag back to me. “Here. You can have the bottlecaps back. I don’t know why you’re hanging onto trash, but I don’t really care. You should know the bird you were hanging onto works at the strip club down the street, though. Make sure you get checked out for The Fluff.” “I… will do that. Thanks.” I said. I stumbled out the door. “What the buck did I do last night?!” Never before in my life had I been closer to death. Bright magenta and electric blue lights strobed along with the beat of the music, so loud that it shook my chest with every pulse like I was standing in a giant, dimly lit heart. It was a den of sin and vice and probably where I’d gotten the really cheap booze because I could see the plastic bottles behind the bar. None of that was what was killing me. The thing that threatened to strike me stone dead was my embarrassment that everyone there seemed to remember me. They waved and catcalled when I walked in. Most of them were also rubbing against each other. Somepony was getting preened right on stage! I didn’t even want to think about what was going on in the darker parts of the club where the lights didn’t reach. “Coming back to this city was a mistake,” I said under my breath. I didn’t know why I was trying to be quiet. The music was so loud that I’d have to make a real effort to be heard. “Oh hey, it’s you!” Someone made that exact effort. A griffon holding a tray walked over with the kind of sway in her hips that meant she knew how to use those thighs. “You’re looking a lot more sober!” Celestia help me she had the biggest, downiest chest ruff I’ve ever seen. You could get lost in it. Civilizations could rise and fall within it. I had to force myself not to stare. “Y-yeah!” I said, forcing another smile. At least no one was accusing me of a crime yet. “Let me guess, you came back just to see me again?” the griffon asked confidently. “Come on, let’s go to a back room. I know you don’t want to do that in public.” “That?” Oh no. Oh no. I’d slept with her. I was going to get The Fluff. I didn’t even know what that was, but it must have been pretty bad, and my body was already a train wreck! I mutely let her lead me away from the dance floor and to a private room, thick curtains across the walls and doorway cutting out almost all of the noise except a bass thump through the floor. “We need to talk about last night,” was the first thing she said to me. Oh no. It was even worse than I thought. “Did I get you... You know…” She blinked a few times, tilting her head. “In trouble?” she guessed. “Pregnant.” I whispered. “...So it wasn’t just the drinks that had you playing dumb, huh?” she asked. “You can’t possibly think two girls can do that.” “I’ve had a really weird couple of weeks and I’m not willing to make assumptions.” She gave me a long look and shrugged. “Fair enough. No. I’m not pregnant. Not that it matters, we didn’t even bang.” “...We didn’t?” She snorted. “You must have been really out of it. We came back here for a private dance and you just started crying and hugging me and talking about somepony you loved and how you broke up with her or something. You weren’t making a lot of sense at that point. Anyway, point is, cuddling costs extra, so if you want a shoulder to cry on, it’s gonna cost you. It’s rude to touch the dancers without permission.” “...Crying and hugging?” I asked weakly. “It was really pathetic,” she confirmed. “You were really drunk and your boyfriend ditched you, so I was gonna walk you home out of the goodness of my heart, but you wanted to do errands.” “Ugh…” I groaned. “I’m an idiot.” “Yeah, you are,” the griffon agreed. “But you did tip pretty well!” That explained why she’d pulled me into a private room before anyone else in the strip club could get to me. “...Are you okay?” the griffon asked. “You’re, uh, you’re starting to cry.” I sniffled. “No I’m not! I’m just… ugh! I’m such a screw-up! Everything I do gets messed up! I don’t even know where Ruby Ridge went!” “Is he the stallion you were with?” the griffon asked. She raised an eyebrow. “You said you were gonna meet him at the fuel depot.” “...What?” I blinked rapidly, not because I was tearing up but because something got in my eyes coincidentally when I was emotionally vulnerable. “Yeah. You came in here with your friend. You were partying and talking about taking back the city for the people, or some crap like that.” She shrugged mildly. “You were already kinda drunk so I didn’t pay much attention. I dragged you off for a private dance, or a private crying jag or whatever, and he said he was gonna meet you at the fuel depot near the docks.” “...But why would we need to take a bunch of fertilizer and electronics to the fuel depot?” I mumbled. “Oh. Ooooh. That’s why.” I looked at the barrels full of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, wired together around the coffee machine, whose automatic timer was counting down to brew up trouble. I looked up from the biggest bomb I’d ever seen to the giant tank of extremely-flammable fuel. “I didn’t think you’d get here in time,” Ruby Ridge said, patting me on the back. “For a while there I thought you were a cop!” “Haha yeah!” I laughed back at him. “Oh I am in so much trouble.” “The Governor has another few minutes to respond to my demands, and then if she doesn’t step down and give power to a democratically elected council, we’ll blow the bomb,” Ruby said. “Uh-huh.” I bit my lip, looking at the bomb. Could I disarm it? Punching it probably wouldn’t work and would just be the last mistake I ever made. It took a moment for his words to register. “Wait, but wasn’t she elected to her position already? I thought that was sort of how higher-up military positions worked.” “Well obviously the wrong ponies voted!” Ruby said, like it was obvious. “We’ll only let the right ponies vote in the election.” “Right. Right.” I fished my radio earpiece out of where I’d stashed it and stuck it back in my ear. “Hey, Emma? Quattro? You girls there?” Emma was there right away. “Cammy! You’re back! There’s only a few minutes left--” “I know. Okay so, I’m looking at the bomb right now. It’s active and counting down.” “That’s not good. We need to get a bomb disposal team there. Where are you?” “The fuel depot near the military docks. We’ve got like two minutes.” “That’s… I don’t know if we can get a team there in time!” “Can you walk me through disabling a bomb?” I asked. “Of course I can,” Emma said. “Just keep calm and we’ll make sure nopony explodes. The first thing you need to do, and this is critical--” A gunshot went off right next to my head. A bullet tore through my ear. The radio cracked and went silent. I saw my life flash before my eyes when the lead pellet bounced off the barrels, raising sparks. Nothing exploded. Yet. “You traitor!” Ruby Ridge snarled. “I thought you were with me! We had drinks together! You promised me you weren’t a cop!” I turned around slowly, blood trickling down the side of my head. “Did you just shoot at the bomb?” I asked quietly. “Afraid I’ll set it off, Pink?!” Ruby yelled. “I’m a hero! I’m going to free the Enclave from the military-industrial complex that--” I punched him in the snout to establish dominance. His head snapped to the side, and he fell to the ground, blood spilling out of his mouth. I’d hit him, like, way too hard. I touched my injured ear and tapped the radio. The casing cracked more just at the touch. I pulled it free and it was obviously broken beyond repair. “No problem,” i said to myself. “I just have to… I just have to disarm a bomb. I’ll either get it right, or I’ll make a mistake and never know about it.” There was one minute left on the timer. I looked at the wires, trying to figure out what was going where. Leads went to all of the barrels, and there was a box with a bunch of dials and spark batteries, and the coffee machine with a timer that was still counting down and how was it already down to thirty seconds?! I had to focus. I had to use all of my intellect and knowledge. I had to reach deep inside and find something better and smarter than all of the decisions I’d made today. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed, grabbing the coffee machine and just yanking it free from the nest of cables. I held it over my head, and it ticked down to zero. There was a buzzer. It started hissing and burbling, and hot coffee dripped down onto my forehead. The bomb didn’t explode. I sat down, hugging the coffee machine. “Here you are, dear,” the old mare said. She put a hot mug in my hooves. I took a sip of the coffee. It was black and bitter, with flavor that didn’t have depth as much as it had a yawning abyss of sensation bridged by sugar and caffeine to get you to the other side. “Thanks,” I said. “Sorry that it’s a little roughed up.” “I wasn’t actually expecting to get it back,” she admitted, sitting down next to me on the old pew. It creaked whenever one of us moved, not quite ready to collapse but complaining about being put to use. I looked up at the rainbow-paned window and just stared at it for a while. “You know, it’s funny,” the old mare said. “The pony who took care of this place before me, he told me the coffee was the most important thing we had!” “Really?” I asked. “Really. Not because it’s particularly good. I’ve had better coffee come out of a food processor in the belly of a cloudship. We don’t charge money for it, so it’s not like it helps with the upkeep.” “So why is it important?” “It gets ponies walking through the door. Not ones who are doing well, they’d turn up their nose at a bad cup of coffee even if it was free. But ones who are down on their luck? It’s a place out of the weather, a warm drink, that’s a temptation. You get used to seeing ponies down on their luck. It’s why I didn’t kick you out when you decided to spend the night in here instead of going home.” “Sorry.” She waved a hoof in my general direction. “I can tell you’re not in a good place. I mean, anypony can tell, but I can really tell. It used to be my job. Morale officer. Really a political officer, but we pretend the pink sash means we’re there to keep everypony’s spirits up and not just to report them for lapses of loyalty. Either way, you need to read a pony.” I swallowed. She laughed. “I’m retired, dear. I’m not going to put you on report. There was a saying we had, back then. ‘Where no counsel is, the ponies fall.’ More than anything else, it was our job to be there and listen when ponies were troubled. It’s something I like to think I’m still very good at.” “...If I talk about it you’re just going to think it’s stupid,” I mumbled. She reached out and patted my hoof gently. “To the Goddess, we’re all silly little ponies.” By the time I got back to the Raven’s Nest, I felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I don’t know if it was just because I’d been able to talk about it with somepony who wasn’t going to judge me -- heck, somepony I’d probably never see again -- but I was able to really open up to her. She hadn’t called me stupid. She’d just listened. And maybe she’d given me a little hope that out there, somewhere, Four was at peace. “Chamomile, there you are!” Emerald Sheen said, when she saw me walking up the gangplank to the old ship. “We were worried about you.” “I told the bomb squad to let you know I was okay,” I said. “Didn’t they pass it on?” “Yeah, but… you know. It’s one thing to hear it, it’s another thing to see you in person.” “Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you,” I said. “I just had to take care of a few things on the way back.” “No, I should apologize. We gave you a really tough mission, and we didn’t give you anywhere near enough support,” Emerald said. “We should have had somepony trailing you, but we were afraid Ruby Ridge would have noticed something was wrong, and we didn’t know if he’d actually gotten the bomb in place yet or not.” “Let’s just say we all made mistakes and move on,” I suggested. “That sounds good,” Emma said, with a smile. “I missed having you around. Quattro and I did a few missions, but it felt like something was missing.” “Something big to hide behind?” I suggested. “More like the big invincible pony that keeps taking out giant monsters,” Emma said, punching my shoulder playfully. “It is my specialty,” I agreed. She nodded and we walked up the gangplank together. “We got some good news while you were gone. If your radio wasn’t busted, we would have told you right away.” “Good news?” I thought for a second. “We’ve all become rich and can retire to a life of luxury?” “Even better-- well, no, actually, not better. But different. We found out where your dad is! You up for a rescue mission?”