//------------------------------// // Chapter 16: Sleepy Kansas // Story: There's a Monster Pony Outside My Window // by Halira //------------------------------// Charles' head drooped slightly, and he immediately jerked it back up.  They'd been driving for hours and had just recently passed into Kansas. The route through Kansas was flat and straight, and they could easily cross it in less time than it took to reach Kansas if they kept going. That might not be possible tonight. He was tired, and even though it was a short straight shot, he could still end up swerving off the road and hitting a cow or something.  "Miss Newman, are you awake?" Charles asked.  "Wide awake. It is hard to sleep with this diesel engine stench," Miss Newman replied.  He took a sniff. "It isn't that bad." "To a human nose, maybe," Miss Newman grumbled. "What do you want?" "We're coming up at a rest stop soon. I think we can sneak you to the restroom there so you can change back to human. Do you think you can take over driving after that?" Charles asked.  "No, I can't," Miss Newman answered quickly.  He sighed. "Guessing cars in the future don't work the same. They're probably super high-tech self-driving flying things." "No, the main differences are they are mostly electric and made of plastic with computers regulating much of the engine, but they're driven more or less the same and don't fly. You could easily operate a car from my day and age. Aside from getting used to the GPS map and the rearview camera, it wouldn't be that different for you. The reason I can't drive is that I don't know how to drive a stick shift. This thing is a stick, right?" Miss Newman replied.  "Yeah, it's a stick," Charles answered, bemused. "We might need to stop and let me nap at the rest stop then. Otherwise, I'm going to fall asleep at the wheel. I'd ask Wendy if she could take over for a few hours, but she can't drive stick properly with her right arm out of order." "How far away is the rest stop?" Miss Newman asked.  "Fifty miles, well, forty-eight now," Charles answered. "I haven't seen that car that was by the house or the black van. Can you tell if anyone is following us?" "I'm under a blanket on the floor; I can't see crap," Miss Newman answered in a half-snap. "I also already told you that I need to be human to be able to see if the ponies are up above." "Sorry, I remember that now. I'm just exhausted," Charles said as he shook his head in frustration.  "Are you going to be able to make it the rest of the way to the rest stop?" "If I keep talking to you. Talking helps keep me awake. I just worry about waking the girls or Wendy." "You falling asleep at the wheel is worse than accidentally waking them. Let's keep talking." Charles nodded. "Okay, no need to talk about anything important. I can't focus on important details right now. No philosophy or anything like that either." "I'm sure we can come up with something," Miss Newman gently said.  "Pony cars are practically the same?" Charles asked, figuring the subject was good as any other and had already been brought up. "It seems like you guys would have a hard time reaching the pedals, no offense." Miss Newman sighed. "Okay, cars designed for pony drivers have a slightly different driver's setup, but I have never driven one of those and rarely rode in one. I rarely go out in public as a pony since too many people recognize me, so my car is just a standard car built for a human driver. Cars built for human drivers are more or less the same. I have a niece who refurbished a classic nineteen-fifties Corvette with an electronic engine, and she drives around in that. There's apparently a market for refurbishing classic cars like that." "Would this car be considered a classic?" Charles asked, legitimately curious.  "Not iconic like my niece's car, but certainly a classic," Miss Newman mused. "They don't make smaller station wagons anymore, although I'm unsure why they fell out of style. They seem like an ideal family car to me. Station wagons in my day are all bigger, practically vans. My eldest daughter's bodyguard drives them around in a station wagon. Even though it is one built for ponies, it still seems like it is part tank to me." Charles was tempted to turn around and look at the pony. "Your eldest daughter has a bodyguard?" "Most of my immediate family does; hers are just more overt about it. The rest of ours keep out of sight—well, aside from mine. I live in a mansion that is crawling with guards. She's got more guards than me. She's considered more important." "Didn't you say these bad ponies chasing us stole from you? How did they manage that if the place is swarming with guards?" Charles asked, concerned.  Miss Newman sighed. "My best guess it was basically a suicide mission for them. They didn't expect to get away. They wanted to get in, eliminate their target, and accept that they might go down trying. They found a way in through the sewers and got lucky enough to stumble on my secret workshop. Once they discovered that, they changed their mission. When they go back, they aren't going to get out. The guards are waiting." "You just have time travel spells sitting around in your workshop?" She chuckled. "Truth be told, this time travel spell isn't the worst thing they could have used from my workshop; it was merely the most advanced thing they could figure out how to use in the limited time they had. If they had time to read my notes about it fully, they would have known how pointless this endeavor is for them and may have used the spell to go elsewhere. I can think of at least a dozen other places in time they could have gone that would have been better for them. People they could have rescued from imprisonment or death, things they could have stolen from the past, but they decided to go with the stupid and petty option." "So they could have gone back in time and brought Hitler or something back," Charles asked. "That seems dangerous." Miss Newman laughed. "I doubt Hitler arriving in the twenty-first century would be dangerous. Everyone is aware of who he is and wouldn't listen to him. No, if I were them, I would have gone for the mage responsible for turning millions into ponies and essentially bring her back from the dead. She is dangerous without needing an army. I may be one of the greatest mages alive, but she was better, maybe the best. I have studied her work. I have figured out some of how it works, but not the finer details of how it all does. I can copy things, but that doesn't tell me why they do what they do. It irritates me, having it all in front of me and still unable to understand all the interactions." "I thought you said it was a virus that changed everyone," Charles said.  "A virus that was carrying a spell. No normal virus could have done that. We went from human to pony in a matter of weeks. She had been secretly preparing it for over twenty years before releasing it." "But how was there a mage before there were ponies?" Charles asked, even more confused. "You said we don't interact with...whatever that energy you said was." He heard Miss Newman sigh again. "She was an alien from another world, trying to make more beings like her. She would have gotten away with it too if not for—" "Meddling kids?" Charles cut in.  "No," Miss Newman said with a hint of annoyance. "If not for some others from her world coming to search for her and uncovering what she was up to. They stopped the virus before it enveloped every corner of the globe." "Globes don't have corners." "You know what I meant," Miss Newman snapped. "Most of us who had already transformed chose to stay that way, although some changed back with those aliens' assistance. It was all a matter of personal choice, and the spell they used depended on you making that choice. I used to look down on those who changed back to humans, but I have revised my view in recent years. Those chasing us most certainly do look down on those that changed back. They have blind faith in pony superiority." Charles was unsure what to follow that up with. "What changed your mind?"  Miss Newman was quiet for a few seconds. "A lot of tragedy and hurt that I don't want to talk about." "Fair enough," he said, immediately backing off what was clearly a sore subject, even if it made him more curious. "You know all about my daughters in the future. Do I win the lottery and open a chain of burrito stands?" "No, but you both remain ponies. A side effect of the pony transformation was that it put you in the best health you could be at for your age, which was pretty enticing for older folks who didn't want a relapse of various health conditions. You continue to do electrician work even as a pony and later teach others how to do it when you get too old to be doing most of that work yourself. The world still needs electricians. Wendy largely retires and takes up gardening. The type of ponies you two change into have special magic that makes them very good with working with plants; if you didn't have a green thumb before, you sure did after. Not me though, I can barely keep a cactus alive." "We get to fly or levitate objects like you do, right?" Charles asked. "I feel gypped if all I get is I'm better at growing things than I was before." "Earth ponies are also strong—earth pony is the subtype's name and refers to their connection with the ground and soil. Anyway, even a relatively weak earth pony is still muscle-bound. Your wife in her nineties could probably bench press more than you could right now. You get that strength, and you get the green thumb—no actual thumbs though; no wings or horns." "Still seems like they get the short straw when it comes to powers," Charles muttered. "Not necessarily. The most powerful display of magic I ever witnessed came from an earth pony. Pretend all my magic is a jug of water. Heck, let's be bold and say a swimming pool full of water. Hers, by comparison, would have been every ocean put together. That's how small I felt witnessing her magic." "What did she do that was so impressive?" Charles asked, curious.  "I don't want to talk about it," Miss Newman said in a tired voice. "It's part of that tragedy and hurt I mentioned earlier. It would have been worse without her there, but it was still the worst day of my life." Charles glanced back briefly, but with her behind his seat, there was no way he could see her. "Is that the day you got that nasty scar?" "No, I got the scar on another bad day, but it wasn't the worst day. I got the scar in a fight where I was in over my head, but it was a fight I ended up winning. If you think this is bad, you should have seen the other guy." Charles wondered if she was in over her head with the current situation and if any of them would be walking away with scars like that or worse.  He decided not to focus on that. "Are you sure you know the way to this other place you think we can be safe? Sixty years difference might change some things." "If you can get us to South Carolina, I can get us the rest of the way. When I first set foot in the town, it hadn't had a new building or road built since the sixties. It will be more or less as I remember it being. They're good people there and will be happy to see visitors." "Why this town in particular?" he asked.  "It was the town I was mayor of. They won't know me, but I know the geography of the place well, and I know we'll find someone to help us. We just have to hide out a week, and then we're good. Given two days of drive there and two days back, we should only need to spend a single night. They won't be able to find us before their time runs out. The plan is simple but effective, and you don't even need to rush to move." Charles hoped it would be that easy. He'd call his boss and the kid's school as soon as he found a payphone in the morning to let him know they had to attend a funeral and they'd be back in a week. He didn't see where there could be communications, but he'd keep his fingers crossed.  Five miles behind the station wagon, a black van briefly opened its back door while driving down the road. A dark shape moved through the air and entered. "They're still ahead of us. I'd bet my right wing that she is with them, and they're running for Riverview. We take them out there. Keep on this heading, and keep out of sight."