//------------------------------//
// Surviving 
// Story: Sunset: Stranded 
// by Viking ZX 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 16 - Surviving


Almost predictably, the door to the cistern was locked, secured by a simple padlock long-tinged with rust. Sunset gave it a quick look before pulling her prybar from her pack and driving it into the gap between the old wood and the latch holding the lock in place. A grunt escaped her lips as she heaved the end of the bar down, echoed a moment later by a quiet squeak from the wood as something began to give.

With a loud squeal the screws holding the latch in place separated, the latch breaking free of the door and the prybar dropping. She grinned, reaching out and swinging the now broken latch to one side.

“Gotcha.” Aged hinges squealed as she pulled the door to the cistern building open—or whatever it was. The pipes led right to it, so it was likely that’s what it was.

And I was right, she thought, playing the beam of her flashlight across the side of a giant metal cylinder. She stepped into the shack, rapping the end of her prybar against the metal. The sound that emanated from it was unmistakably a watery echo, long and drawn out. It was a water tank.

It was also largely empty, at least from the sound it had made “That could be a problem.” She could still fill her water jugs from the pond, of course, but the filtration would take time. Assuming the manor had been set up with a filtration system of its own, even if it was old it was bound to be much faster than her smaller system. But if there was no pre-filtered water in the tank, that meant either figuring out how to use that system … or using her own.

She took a quick look around the rest of the building, but it wasn’t much. Light was leaking in through gaps in the weathered boards, breaking the shadows up with bright lines. The pipes she’d followed up from the pond entered the shed near the door, angling upward as they neared the tank and entering it somewhere near the top. A small workbench lay nearby, its surface covered in dust and cobwebs. As was a lot of the structure, really. Hopefully whatever had made the webs wasn’t venomous. Or around in large numbers.

Still, there didn’t appear to be any obvious way to get into the tank, unless there was a ladder on the far side. She moved toward the pipes, only to stop as a glint of light caught her eye from the outer wall.

What is that? There was a sign of some kind hanging above the workbench, made of thinly-pressed metal with embossed letters. Sunset stepped up to the bench and wiped at it, sweeping a swath of dust and cobwebs away to get a better look at what was hidden beneath.

—pump system opera— She swept more of the dust away, her nose twitching and itching as it clouded the air. A second later she sneezed, the sound echoing inside the shack and stirring up even more dust. She waved it away with one hand, peering up at the cleared sign, translating the block text letter by letter.

“Pump system map,” she read aloud, the lines and arrows below the letter suddenly making sense. Then, a bit further down, in smaller print: “Pump system operation instructions!” The last word came out almost as a shout, and she pressed the point of a finger up against the first step listed below it.

“Activate source pump.” She glanced up at the chart of arrows, locating the box marked with that label and estimating its path back from the label marked “cistern.” As expected, the arrows matched the path of the pipes from the box by the lake. Which makes it the source pump, she thought, glancing at the rest of the instructions but then stepping back and moving for the door. Hopefully there are instructions there.

A minute’s walk later, she was no closer to finding out. Tiny waves lapped against the side of the pump box as she struggled with the lock securing it, but the box itself was made of concrete and metal, not wood, and the chain holding it shut was in much better shape than it looked. She gave her prybar another halfhearted pull, then sank back, frowning.

“Great,” she muttered quietly. “If I can’t get this thing open, then I can’t figure out if it’s usable.” She gave the chain around the access door a glare. “And there’s no way I’m going to pry that open. Or cut it with the bolt cutters.” Not with links thicker than my thumb. “If I had a saw maybe I could cut my way in, but it’d take … Wait a minute.”

As it turned out, it was four minutes. One to make her way back through the house—unlocking the front doors as she went—and to reach the workshop once more. Another minute to see if the saw there would start, which surprisingly enough it did at the touch of a button, growling and smoking as its internal combustion engine came to life. And the last two to haul the heavy thing back through the manor and down the the edge of the pond, still sputtering and rattling.

Okay … She lined the horizontal blade up with the heavy lock. Let’s see if this works. She squeezed the trigger on the grip down, and was rewarded with a deep throaty growl, the blade whining as it spun up to terrifying speeds. Here we go. A pad on the side of the machine was clearly for resting against her leg as leverage, and she leaned into it as she lowered the saw down toward the lock.

The whine became a shriek as the blade bit into the chain, kicking it to one side in a shower of sparks, then holding it there as the blade continued to chew through the metal. The spray of sparks bounced off the bricks at Sunset’s feet, winking out or hitting the surface of the pond with tiny puffs of steam. The scream of the chain being cut was ear-piercing, making her wish she could fold her stupid seran ears back and cut the sound out.

With a sharp ping the links parted, the chain jerking and flying to one side. She let go of the trigger immediately, the shrill hum of the saw winding down as the blade began to slow. There was a switch to kill the saw’s engine, and she flipped it, only for the saw to sputter back to life as the switch moved back to the “on” position.”

The second time she held it down until the motor died, and this time the engine stayed quiet when she moved her thumb away.

“Sun and moon,” she said as she got her first good look at what the saw’s teeth had done to the chain. And the door behind it. “Wish I’d had you in Holton.”

You could put in your third wagon, a voice in her head suggested. Take it with you.

“Fun idea,” she said as she crouched and grabbed hold of the chain, keeping her hands well away from the end she’d just cut. She could feel the heat coming from the links, and the ends she’d cut looked pretty hot. “But that thing is heavy.” Loading her wagon up with water would be weight enough, especially up and down the rises of the drive.

The chain slid to one side with a raspy series of clangs, its own weight assisting it in leaving the door behind. Sunset dropped it on the dock. Maybe in a few years someone would find it and piece together what had happened.

There! The door covering the source pump rolled roughly to one side, squeaking as it went. It stopped before opening fully, caught on something in its rollers, but she didn’t bother trying to force it the rest of the way. She could see well enough what was inside the box. A massive … Well, I guess that’s a pump. It didn’t look like most of the pumps she’d seen before, but in her defense, one didn’t see many as a student of— Well, in my position.

As with the cistern, there was a metal sign on the side of the box, held by screws and giving clear instructions for the operation of the pump.

Unfortunately, the first step called her thoughts to a halt. “Ensure the pump is adequately powered? Green for yes, red for no, yellow for faults?” There were two small lights on the pump’s side, right above an obvious control panel, but neither was glowing.

There was a substep. “Reset breaker?” What’s a breaker? There was a switch on the side of the machine, and she flipped it down and then back up.

Nothing. The lights stayed unlit. Sunset let out a sigh.

“Well great,” she said, letting a bit of irritation slip into her voice. “Just great. What a waste of my—”

She paused. There, below the instructions, lying at the base of the box and covered in dust, was a slip of paper. She picked it up, rubbing the dust from its faded surface. Someone had written on it, the faint scrawl almost illegible.

When batteries die, system switches to direct feed from windmill. Reset breaker twice to switch back to batteries after returning power. System will reboot.

I don’t know what some of those words mean … But I think this means it gets its power from batteries and the “windmill.” And if that is the windmill it’s talking about … She turned toward the nearest of the windmill structures, its blades immobile. Then that must be one method of generating power.

Which means I need to get that working before this works, and that’s only the first step in getting the water working. For a moment she sat there, debating simply giving up and just using her smaller, slower filter to fill the jugs one by one.

But this might still be quicker. Seran technology does seem fairly hardy, and I’m learning things about how it works. So … She rose, blood rushing into her legs. Windmill it is.

The windmill was further away than it looked, as well as taller, so it took her a few minutes more than she’d expected to end up beneath its blades. Once she’d arrived however, its function became all the more obvious, both from the breeze rippling the waist-high grass around it, and the large, if overgrown, box of what she suspected was equipment for managing the power output it delivered.

Electricity without a magic component. It seemed strange, but then it could be explained by most of the references to wizards and magic she’d found coming from the history of the planet’s most violent era. Maybe as a species they’d chosen to shun it, possibly with understandable reasons.

Maybe that’s my destiny here, Sunset thought as she walked around the base of the windmill. Figure out how the magic they’ve buried works and bring it back. A smile slipped across her face as she imagined it. Enlighten them and bring them everything they’ve forgotten. That would be a worthy destiny!

She’d almost completed a full circuit of the base of the windmill when she found what she was looking for. A massive lever switch currently in the down position, the grip between the two arms almost as long as her forelimb. Some of the crawling vines had partially grown over it and what looked to be block lettering below it, and she brushed the plant life away, feeling it give with small pops as tendrils tore.

“Blade lock,” Sunset read. A pair of arrows, one facing up and the other facing down, held more concealed text, and she peeled more of the crawling vines back, exposing what she’d already guessed at. “Down is locked, up is free. Right.”

She looked up at the blades once more. The windmill looked mostly operational, save for a few tendrils of the crawling vines growing over one of the lower blades, dangling leaves and feelers like some sort of green waterfall. “So I just … unlock the blades? It’s that easy?”

It can’t be. Sunset stepped over to the power box and took a handful of creeping vines in each hand, yanking the overgrowth away. The electric transformer—she wasn’t certain that was in fact what it was, but logic dictated it had to be close to a magilectric system—was largely unadorned, but a closer check did reveal a small metal door that flipped open to reveal small switches similar to the one on the source pump.

Breakers? Sunset’s forehead wrinkled as she read the block text printed on the inside of the metal door. “Oh! Breakers! Fuse switches!” Smaller and more compact by far than anything she’d ever seen in the Palace, but then again, the serans did seem to be quite a bit more technologically advanced in most areas.

I wonder what their airships look like? Her mind slipped back to the airships of the Canterlot docks, the biyearly airship shows and the constant bickering between the airship companies and the Equestrian Railway Service jockeying for price and convenience. Or for that matter, their trains? Without magilectrics, how efficient are they?

She shook her head, mane bouncing on her shoulders as she brought her thoughts back to the task at hand. You can worry about trains later. Keep your own train of thought on task. Although … She paused for a moment more. I should look into trains. I might not be able to pilot an airship, but if I could find a set of rails heading west, it might be a lot easier to travel.

Unless the Locust hit the trains too, she thought, her momentary sense of elation from the idea fading. With their tunneling ability, it’d be very easy to disrupt a rail network.

Still, it was an idea worth looking into. Later. Right now … Someone had left a note in black marker on the inside of the breaker door, likely the same someone that had left the note at the source pump. But even at a glance, it was an extremely helpful note. “To startup system …” Thank you!

Let’s see. All breakers down. Release blade lock, flip breakers in order, with a two second pause between each. If light does not turn green— She paused for a moment, locating the light. —or breaker refuses to activate, lock blades, bleed system, set all breakers down and repeat. After that, according to the note, a specialist had to be called.

“Okay …” she said slowly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Things here do seem built to last, so maybe I’ll get lucky?

Still, the first thing on the list was to check the breaker switches, and each one of them was already in the down position. So … She stepped over to the base of the windmill, right up the switch, and wrapped both hands around the handle.

Up we … go? She pushed upward, but the switch refused to budge. A second push brought about much the same result, her fingers slipping free without so much as a quiver from the switch.

She stepped back, wringing her hands slightly to press blood back into them. I didn’t miss a lock of some kind did I? A few vines still clung to the bottom of the switch, and she peeled them back, the plants giving off short pops as she pulled them away.

Nothing. No lock, and there’s nothing blocking the switch.

Maybe it just needs a bit more of a push. She gripped the lever again, this time bracing her whole body beneath it so that she could push up with her palms. And … push! Sunset shoved upward as hard as she could, arms and legs trembling as sore muscles quivered under the abuse. For a moment it seemed as though she was out of luck …

And then the switch gave with a heavy clunk, jerking upward with shocking suddenness. The stop was just as jarring, the impact slamming her palms and resonating down her arms, enough of a bump that she let out a slight yelp of surprise at the pain.

Her cry was drowned out, however, by the massive squeal from above as the fan blades began to move. Metal screeched, Sunset stepping back as turbines which hadn’t moved in who knew how many years slowly began to shift. For a few seconds it looked as though there wasn’t going to be enough wind for the machine to work, but then the vines across the lower blade began to tear loose, ripping away from the central shaft one by one, snapping as the fan-blades began to rotate. The loud squeal of unused mechanics began to fade as the blades completed their first spin, dying down to a faint metallic whine that clearly indicated the mill needed a bit of service, but hopefully didn’t suggest that it was a few rotations away from failing.

Sunset stepped back, watching as the blades completed a third rotation, and then a fourth. One of them was still trailing greenery from the vines that had grown over it, and as she watched a clump tore flee, flying away and fluttering to the ground. By about the seventh or eighth rotation the windmill seemed to have reached its top speed—or at least it wasn’t turning any faster with each successive rotation.

“Okay,” she said over the whoosh of the fan blades overhead. “Now for the transformer.” The light by the breakers was blinking, now, an on and off yellow. Caution, perhaps? She read through the instructions once more, squinting slightly as the shadows cast by the evening sun made it a bit harder to read. When had it become so late in the day?

One at a time, two second pause. She reached out, finger touching the warm plastic of the first switch. And … go! The switch clicked upward with a loud snap, so readily and easily that her finger had hardly moved.

One … two … She gave the second switch to the count of three to err on the safe side, then flipped it upward as well. The yellow light was blinking faster now, and she swallowed. I really hope that’s not a bad sign. Another three count passed, and she flipped the third switch up.

The light flicked yellow a final time, faded … and went green.

“Yes!” Sunset threw her hands up, rising and letting out a yell of triumph. “Take that!” She wasn’t sure who she was yelling at, or even to, but the outcry felt appropriate. “Step one down!”

She snapped the cover over the switches shut and left the windmill behind, blades gently spinning in the faint breeze. Retracing her steps back to the pond didn’t take long, and soon she was  crouched by the pond’s edge once more. One of the lights on the pump, previously dark and lifeless, was blinking a slow, steady red.

That means … She checked the handwritten note, her forehead creasing. Inadequate power. Her heart sank. Is the windmill not providing enough? Is there something wrong with the cabling?

As she was fretting however, the light suddenly switched to green. Still blinking, but green.

Or it has batteries, and they just needed to reach a sufficient charge. Slightly chagrined at her overreaction, Sunset reached out and flipped the breaker.

With a whine the pump came to life, the light ceasing its blink and glowing steadily. A quick, rhythmic thumping followed within seconds as machinery inside the unit activated and—hopefully—began pumping water up to the cistern. Metal squealed as Sunset pulled the door closed, quieting the roar of the pump to a dull hum. A gleeful laugh slipped from her lips, bubbling out across the pond. I did it! Fresh water, here I come!

As she ran up the brick path toward the cistern, a new sound rose over the faint hum of the pump. Cascading water, the sound echoing and bouncing, crashing down into a pool. The pump was doing its job, and the cistern was being filled!

But there was another surprise as she yanked the cistern shed’s door open. Light spilled out over her, the inside aglow from several bright bulbs. The sight was so stunning she actually stopped, staring at the bare bulbs heedless of the spots they were going to leave in her vision.

The windmill didn’t just power the pump! she realized with a start. Slowly she turned and looked back toward the manor. There, glimmering out of one of the upper-story windows and just barely visible against the evening sun, was a light.

I didn’t just turn the power back on for the water. The thought rolled through her stunned mind like a storm through a flight camp. I turned it on for the whole estate!

There are lights! Not just solar-powered lanterns, but actual lights. A vision of the shelf full of books she’d passed by earlier flashed through her mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay here for a few days?

Again she shook her head. Hooves on the task in front of you. Or hands, I mean. She stepped into the shed, the door swinging closed behind her, and moved over to the metal sign above the workbench, looking for the next step.

“Okay … step two …” Sunset ran her eyes down the block lettering, past the parts she’d already done. “Check filter box and remove settled sediment?” She flicked her eyes to the map, looking for anything that was marked “filter box.”

It didn’t take her long to find it. It was inside the manor, right next to the manor pump that gave the house its water pressure. Activating that was step four, the final step after step three: open valve from cistern.

Okay, that makes sense. Check the filters before opening up the water and sending it down the pipes. Though there would probably be a bit of water dropping out when she checked the filters anyway, assuming a closed system without any leaks.

Nothing about what she was doing was alien or obscure. Just … different.

But straightforward enough, she thought as she checked the map. So I need to check the filters, then come back here and open the valve, which is— She glanced at the side of the cistern. On the other side. Then go back and fire up the pump in the house, which should have power now. Easy … Wait.

Something about the map was clashing with her mental outline of the manor. She stared at it for several seconds, trying to work out what it was, before the answer came to her.

If that line heads straight back … then that would put the pump almost in the kitchen. That can’t be right. Which means … The skin on the back of her neck prickled.

The basement. The pump and the filters both were in the basement. Which made logical sense, except …

The Locust come from underground.

And you’re acting like a scared foal. She ran over the instructions once more, making sure she wasn’t missing a step, then turned for the door. It’s just a basement. You got the power on, so it’ll be lit and everything.

I’m getting my firearm. The shotgun, instead of the rifle. It was fully loaded and ready to go, and it had made a mess of the last wretches she’d run into.

Having that at her side would go a long way to making the underground basement feel a little more secure.

She retraced her steps through the house, stopping only once to check to see if the lights in the kitchen worked. A few flicks of the switches by the door confirmed that they did, and she left a trail of light through the house, marking her path with warm glows. After that, she spent a minute moving the wagon train up to the front door itself, and then, appropriately armed, she headed for the basement.

Hall lights or not, the creak the basement door let out as it opened made her skin crawl. Plain wooden stairs rose out the darkness of the basement, rising through shadow until they reached the doorframe. Sunset checked the wall on either side and found a switch. At its flip,  a single bare bulb came to life halfway down the steps, driving away the nearest shadows, but making those in the depths that much darker.

It’s just a basement. Everything else here has been fine.

Besides, if there were any Locust around, firing up that saw earlier probably would have caught their attention before this. The steps let out additional creaks as she moved down them, wooden planks settling under her weight. The basement smelled earthy but dry, a bit of a relief considering she was planning on activating the water system.

Dry means no leaks, at least not since anyone left. Or that there’s good drainage. Or both. The bottom of the steps loomed, the floor at the base made of bare, unadorned concrete. It was walled, but only for a few feet, opening up to black expanse that swallowed the light from the single bulb. The beam of her flashlight shifted back and forth across the walls, stopping as it lit on another switch.

I hope that’s for the lights in the basement. She let the beam move past the darkness at the end of the hall, catching glimpses of a wooden crosswork of some kind, covered in cobwebs and dust. I really hope that’s what it does. All the same, she tightened her grip on the gnasher as she reached for the switch.

Nothing jumped out of the darkness at her as she hit it. Instead the basement blazed with light. Dim light, by the comparison of the sun, but light all the same. Row after row of wine racks came into view, the bottles covered by thick layers of dust and cobwebs that were in some places so thick she wasn’t certain if there were bottles to be found beneath them at all.

Okay … that’s not so bad. She moved out of the stairway, getting a better view of the basement and taking a look at what she saw. All in all, it looked fairly normal, from the piles of unused furniture, to shelves that looked as though they held more canned goods—she filed their location away for later—and other assorted items that she couldn’t identify through the coats of dust, though some of them might have been iceboxes at some point.

And if I just turned the power back on … All four of the boxes were humming, lights glowing along their fronts. She gave them a wide berth. I don’t want to know what their insides look like if they’ve not been frozen for the last few years.

Locating the pump and the filters, it turned out, was easy. It wasn’t hard at all to spot the pump unit against the back wall, next to what at a guess was probably a storage tank of some kind for heated water, judging from the pops and clicks it was making.

I could have a hot shower. The thought almost distracted her from the next step in getting the water running. It wouldn’t be the same as having one with hooves, but a warm shower?

If her hopes were right, it was going to be hard to find a reason to convince herself to leave.

The filters were between the outer wall of the manor and the pump unit itself, and almost astonishing with their straightforwardness, to the degree that she likely would have been able to determine that they were clean even without the helpfully posted instructions. Though they did make it easier.

There. Water sloshed over her boots, joining the trickle for a nearby drain, and Sunset shoved the last filter back into place beside its fellows. All of them clean, and with spares nearby, no less.

Which sort of makes me wonder, she thought as she grabbed the gnasher from atop the pump and moved back across the basement. Why did they leave? Did they just not have enough food? Or was the manor too indefensible?

Actually, given the damage that was done to Holton, both of those last ones make sense. The Locust collapsed whole buildings and streets. This manor is large, but the Locust were an army. The only reason it’s not destroyed is likely because everyone left first, before the Locust had any reason to come here.

Of course, now that I’m here, and activating everything atop that, they might have that reason.

She gripped the gnasher a little tighter as she made her way back to the cistern. I need the water one way or another, and I’ve already come this far.

Valves open, she retraced her steps back to the basement, eying the light glowing from the top floor of the manor. It was glowing all the more brightly as the evening advanced. Once the sun sets, it’ll be like a beacon, and that might attract attention. I’ll have to check every room I can find and make sure all the lights are out. If they have windows, anyway.

Just one more thing to worry about. The pump in the basement was much like the one at the pond, and though the switch was in a different place, a few seconds after finding it the machine powered up with a whine, followed by a loud roar as it began to pump water into the manor’s pipes.

And now, Sunset thought as she rushed back into the kitchen, heading for the sink. The final test! She turned the faucet handle … and a blast of compressed air rushed out, hissing and popping. A spatter of water followed a moment later, and then—

“Water! Woooooooo! Filtered and everything! Take that, Princess. I got the water system here working. I—”

She ducked her head under the faucet, sucking up a deep mouthful of cool, clean water and swallowing it down. Was really thirsty, apparently.

She pulled her head out from under the facet, water running down her chin and neck. “I did it,” she gasped, the words sounding more ragged than she’d really meant them to. “I figured it out.” She ducked her head back under the facet, this time washing dust and grime off her face.

‘Sure, I had instructions,” she admitted as she pulled away, wiping at her face with both hands. The water was still sputtering down into the sink, bits of air probably clearing themselves from the lines after decades of being dry. A chunk of something brownish came after another blast of air, and her stomach flipped.

Don’t want to know, she decided after a moment. Probably just mud. I made sure the filters were working.

I really hope it’s just mud. The water looked clean enough now. She let it run. Her whole body felt fatigued and sore, everything she’d been dutifully not focusing on coming back with with interest now that the water was up and running.

After a few more seconds, she reached out and shut the tap, cutting off the flow. Better not waste anything. She sank back, leaning against the cookspace behind her and looking to her right out the rear windows. The sun was setting, the sky just catching its first tinges of red and orange.

I guess I could have spent the last hour or so sitting by the pond and watching water drip through that filter. Though in all likelihood she would have spent it examining the rest of the manor. But I would have to babysit the filter. Now I can just fill each jug in the sink and be done and ready to leave.

Tomorrow. After I check the house for anything useful. And get a full night’s sleep. And with the sun going down, I should probably check the rest of the manor and get any of those other lights turned off.

Somehow, the feeling of accomplishment from getting the water going had faded already, almost like it didn’t matter. Buried under all this other stuff I need to do to keep living, Sunset thought as she left the kitchen, heading for the main hall once more. Still, I did figure it out. Now I need to turn the lights off. Guess I’ll start at the top and work my way—

She froze, the door to the main hall halfway open under her splayed fingers. What was that? She’d heard something, she was certain of it. What, she wasn’t sure, but—

There it is again! A strange hissing noise, like steam being let out of a pipe, but … not. She almost couldn’t say what it resembled.

And there, partway through it, a familiar, faint, muffled sound.

Voices.