//------------------------------//
// 15. On the Line 
// Story: A Ghost of a Chance 
// by Epsilon-Delta 
//------------------------------//

“Oh, hey! You actually came out!” Indigo spread her forelegs wide as if to hug the lieutenant. “I like you better than the last lieutenant already! What happened to the fat turtle guy, anyway? I’m guessing heart attack.”

“Lieutenant Snapping Turtle has been, shall we say, promoted to another location.” The new lieutenant sat down and moved her staff across her back yet remained resolute. “His methods gave abysmal results. Far too much unnecessary fighting broke out under his watch. My name is lieutenant Sour Sweet. Before you criticize me any further, I’d like to point out that there have been zero ghost or pollution-related casualties and no hostile engagements between Old and New Manehattan in the two years since I took charge.”

Indigo whistled, impressed by the stats.

Zest could see the brows of one of the soldiers drooping. Zest could just tell he was restraining himself from rolling his eyes like this was some talking point often used to nag him.

“I gotta admit, that’s better than old Turtle,” said Indigo. “Yeah, that guy sucked. You used to get an incident every month or so. Some poor idiot who breathed in the dirt he stirred up.”

“It was because you ghosts have no self-control,” one of the soldiers spoke up. “If you had even the tiniest bit of willpower to resist your urge to kill innocent ponies–”

“Look, you have no idea what it’s like,” Indigo’s voice began to freeze over.

“Yeah!” Zest nodded along with her. “I never hurt anypony. I do everything I can to avoid it.”

“I’m just saying. If I see a cake, I don’t kill anypony between me and it. So forgive me for not thanking a spook like–”

Zest shrank back underground upon hearing the S-word thrown so harshly against her for the first time.

“If I hear you speaking out of turn like that again, private.” Sour Sweet shot him a look as if trying to summon all of her restrained anger to just her eyes alone. “You know slurs are no longer tolerated. I’m sure the rest of your squad will thank you for landing them all mess duty. Everypony is dismissed. I’ll take care of these two myself.”

The other soldiers teleported out of there.

“I apologize for that.” Sour Sweet turned back to Indigo. “Changing the slovenly culture Snapping Turtle left behind will take some time to fix. I don’t stand by the statements he made.”

“Ha! She actually took our side!” Indigo clapped her forehooves together. “The last lieutenant never would have done that. I’ll give you that you’re better than him, but that guy kinda sucked so…”

“Yes, I’m aware of the reputation that I’ve inherited from him. I have no idea how one pony manages to be labeled both a coward and overly aggressive. The treaty signed between the two halves of the city says we’re allies yet he refused to treat you as such. I don’t blame you for being distrustful of me, but I will change things as much as possible.”

“Then why’d you yell at us for no reason before?” Indigo asked.

“For what it’s worth, I assure you I’m even more strict with my ponies. I want there to be minimal in-person contact but I’m working to install an entire phone system in Old Manehattan, connecting it to wider Equestria. You have no clue how much pushback I’m getting on that idea.”

Indigo nodded like she could relate. Zest was left wondering why anypony would have a problem with that idea.

“I understand being a ghost is more like a horrible disease afflicting you,” said Sour Sweet. “It’s not your fault you’ve become fallen beings. I wouldn’t hold the addictions of a drug addict against them, nor somepony’s disabilities.”

“Er. Thanks?” Zest tried to smile. It was more sympathy than she was used to from predeads.

“That’s what progress looks like, huh?” Indigo slapped Zest’s withers. “Another hundred years of this and we’ll be gold.”

“I do want to work with you all,” said Sour Sweet, “but sadly everypony seems to want to make that as difficult as possible.”

Working with them? It certainly felt nice to have a predead over the age of twelve who wasn’t shouting at her for a change.

Zest never once thought she’d be on such friendly terms with any part of the Equestrian military. Now that she was here, there was something Zest couldn’t possibly miss her opportunity for.

“Hey!” Zest dared to fly closer to her. “I know you’re just a lieutenant, but you guys need to be more worried about Crater Cemetery. Once they’re done with us, they’re coming for you predeads. You get that, right?”

“I do.” Sour Sweet nodded. “Believe me, you don’t have a stronger advocate in this city than me. The problem is I can’t get either side to cooperate. It’s not just New Manehattan. Most of the ghosts in this city still won’t speak to me. Getting information out of ghosts is like trying to organize a feline swimming team.”

“Gee. I wonder why we don’t like working with you guys.” Indigo put her hooves behind her head. “All you’ve done is make it illegal for us to go anywhere near you and pay ponies reward money for killing us and–”

“I’ll talk!” Zest raised her hoof. “Right now!”

“Alright.” Sour Sweet tapped the hilt of her staff against the ground. “I’m listening. What do you know?”

“Great!” Zest flew forward before Indigo could try and stop her. “Okay, so there’s this super-powered specter living in Crater Cemetery! She can mind control us with these chains from the shadow realm, the same ones the alicorns used to contain their prisoners! And maybe she’s from the shadow realm herself but also, it’s possible that big asteroid created her.”

“And?” Sour raised a brow.

“And uh.” Zest blinked then turned to Indigo. She’d thought that’d be more impressive!

When all she got from her senior was a shrug, Zest had no choice but to turn back to Sour and mirror the shrug with a deep frown.

“I already knew all of that but thank you for cooperating either way. If you learn anything new feel free to use the phone. If there’s nothing else.”

Sour Sweet raised her staff, getting ready to teleport away.

“Wait!” At the last possible moment, an idea came to Zest’s mind. “Maybe there is something you can look into for us?”

“Hm?” Sour Sweet lowered her staff.

“Do you know about Aria and Sonata?” “They used to be part of some cult that worships Golden Feather’s sister. Talking to everypony around here… it kinda sounds like they know something important or maybe are connected to Crater Cemetery in some way. We can’t research things as easily as you since we’re stuck out here in the post-apocalyptic wastelands.”

“Very well.” Sour Sweet gave them a nod. “Give me two days. I’ve been around you for too long already, but feel free to phone me whenever you have something to say. I’ll try to have a report ready for you in two days, miss…”

“Lemon Zest!”

She understood what Sour Sweet meant in cutting the conversation short, though. Zest could only spend so long around the living before the itch became painful. Already she felt like clawing out her brain.

Sour Sweet gave her a small salute and teleported away.

“That actually went pretty well.” Indigo nodded. “We accomplished stuff today! We’d better get back home before sunrise, though. It’s easy to get lost in the city during the day.”

Indigo flew out the door and Zest chased after her.

“You never answered my question,” Zest complained.

“Which one was that again?”

“Why don’t we have this setup everywhere? It can’t be that hard to get a phone line going to Maple Hill. I can go there for a little while. Heck, we could just hook ourselves up to the regular phone network and call whoever.”

“Because that’s not how things work.” Indigo shook her head.

“What do you mean?” Zest flew out into Indigo’s path.

“They don’t do it like this anywhere else because there aren’t any other massive death zones that they need ghosts to maintain for them.” Indigo pointed out towards their half of the city. “It’s like the second they need us it’s all ‘oh, now we can be reasonable!’ But every other instance, working with us is just ‘too risky’.”

“How can they still make that argument if cooperation is clearly working over here?” Zest asked.

“Look, the pony who called you a spook.” Indigo pointed back to the top of the wall. “Do you think he doesn’t want to cooperate with us because he’s seriously too stupid to think to use the phone that’s right in front of his face?”

Zest froze in place, stunned by the question, the implications slowly sinking in.

“Yeah, we’re dangerous to predeads. That’s the truth. But that’s not the reason these rules exist. Even the precious few ghosts who get over our addiction are treated no differently than you and me. It doesn’t matter if you change yourself or think of some gotcha way to live in harmony… because that’s not why they hate you.”

For a moment, all things appeared to be getting further away. A whole year of isolation did less to make the world of the living seem more distant than what Indigo had just said.

“Oh.”

Zest’s ears pinned to the side, and she looked back up at the wall. For the first time, she understood the reality of her situation. All those times she’d come up with ways to safely interact with predeads, only for the others to dismiss her made more sense. Something finally clicked with her.

It had never really been a matter of nopony coming up with clever tricks. That soldier who called her a spook would never be satisfied regardless of what solutions Zest came up with. Even having his superior trying to force him into cordiality wasn’t enough. None of that addressed the real problem.

“You know, I don’t think the S-word sounds silly anymore.” Zest lowered her head.

“There, see?” Indigo smiled, lightening the mood. “Now you can say spook.”

“Huh?” Zest snapped out of it. “R-really? Um! Spook.”

Zest whispered the word, half expecting Indigo to still get upset at her. Instead, she merely laughed and rustled Zest’s hair. Admittedly, that much did make her feel better. It was like she’d graduated in a way.

“But then how do we solve the actual problem?” Zest asked.

“Pfft! Already? You know, I like how optimistic you are!” Indigo laughed. “Most ponies would give up around now. But maybe you already helped a little today. She’s just a lieutenant, but you never know what’ll come from something like this.”









Sour Sweet could make a literal night and day comparison between Old and New Manehattan. She spent her nights on the north side of the wall, overlooking the mutilating scar the previous generation left on their once-proud nation. Twisted plants and mutants strangled each other over the choicest piles of trash in the nicest parts of Old Manehattan.

What little daylight Sour Sweet had was spent in New Manehattan, surrounded by perfect sterility. Not a single stain marred the polish of their glittering towers. Not a single piece of trash could be found on the smooth pavement of the city. Smog no longer blocked out the sky for any duration.

Hoping to draw comparisons to Toxco far away from them, no building would be caught without gardens hanging off its side and around its base. Trees lined all the streets so that the pristine glass of the buildings reflects verdant greens on the bottom and magnificent blues on top. Color and life surrounded Sour Sweet as she walked the streets.

She wanted to draw conclusions from the stark contrast between the two sides of the wall. From what little she gleaned, the ghosts preferred living in run-down buildings and toxic waste dumps, however. That much could hardly be called injustice.

As sunrise turned into morning, the streets of ponies just starting their days. Normally, Sour Sweet would get a chance to smile at the ponies whose work was just beginning while hers had drawn to a close. However, today she’d need to put in a bit extra before relaxing.

In truth, Sour Sweet’s wall was but a satellite of the main military base of the island of Manehattan. Albeit her station was far larger than the one she reported to. The office building she entered didn’t even stand as tall as her wall, let alone one percent of its length.

Even the interior of this office far outstripped the cramped and utilitarian confines of her own base on the border.

Well before noon, Sour Sweet found her way into the colonel’s office. He was the highest-ranked officer she’d be finding without going to the mainland.

The colonel sighed when he saw her. Sour Sweet took it as a point of pride that the colonel had grown to find her annoying.

For quite a while, they had something of a ritual to their meetings. The colonel would remind her that the lieutenant of the wall before Snapping Turtle had been killed by one of the ghosts. Now that she’d been in charge long enough to prove herself, to be able to counter that ghost-related deaths dropped significantly under her watch, he no longer wanted to have that discussion.

Sour Sweet had a similar resigned reaction upon entering the room, but not to the gruff colonel himself. It appeared her had something of a leech attached to him– a pony Sour Sweet recognized from the news and increasingly frequent visits to the base. A sleazy, black-haired stallion with his thinning mane slicked back had the colonel’s ear when Sour Sweet arrived. Being so close to the far larger colonel made him look almost sickly thin in comparison.

Sour Sweet recognized this second stallion. He was the head of the corporatist party. He’d been trying to weasel his way into the military’s ear after years of failing at politics. Thankfully, the colonel had taken his concerns with as little enthusiasm as he had for Sour Sweet. Yet at the same time, he’d never managed to get rid of him either.

“Sir!” Sour Sweet saluted the colonel.

The colonel motioned for her to be at ease.

“I hope it wasn’t some bit of activism that brought you here.” The colonel put out his cigar. “I’d prefer you do that on your own time.”

“My station is specifically to protect Manehattan from ghost-related threats,” said Sour. “That includes ghosts from Crater Cemetery. In my estimation, it’s the most significant threat. For that reason, I’ll take whatever action against them I can. Siding with Old Manehattan over them is the obvious decision.”

Second Term laughed at her statement. The arrogance in the chortle the senator gave made Sour Sweet’s eye twitch through her composure.

“Let me explain this, cutie.” The senator gave his rehearsed smile. “Crater Cemetery did us all a huge favor. The collapse of the Spectral Federation was a good thing. They were a major thorn in our side for years. Even just here in Manehattan– those spooks were able to strongarm our spineless senator into stopping construction on the Manehattan Yards project. Do you know how much money we lost because of that?”

‘We lost’. If it had been at all professional to roll her eyes, Sour Sweet would have done it.

Sour Sweet had plenty to say in response to all that but didn’t want to chew out a political figure in front of the colonel. That much, when she was on duty, was forbidden.

“Maybe I didn’t go to some military academy,” Second continued, “but I learned plenty about the art of war from business, Honey. When two of your enemies are fighting, you stay out of their way.”

Sour Sweet kept her mouth shut in a deep frown and merely turned her eyes to the guy.

Thankfully, the colonel took her side this one time.

“Thank you for your advice.” He waved him off. “Please continue, lieutenant.”

“Any action we take against Crater Cemetery now will pay off massively in the future,” Sour Sweet continued. “Turning a blind eye to a festering problem is exactly how Toxco–”

“The Manehattan Electric Company,” Second corrected her. “’Toxco’ is Equestrian propaganda. They weren’t blatantly evil villains who named themselves ‘Toxco’. Aren’t you a Manehattian? And yet the invaders have you spouting their propaganda? Do you see this colonel? What Equestria is doing to the minds of our foals in this government schools of theirs?”

Any Manehattian who still called them the Manehattan Electric Company was not to be trusted in Sour Sweet’s opinion.

A generation ago this pony would have been a corporate lord. With that door closed, he instead became a politician. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the distinction.

For a large portion of their history, the city-state of Manehattan had been an open and official corporatocracy, as opposed to nations that pretended to be a democracy. Those with the capital made the rules and wielded absolute authority. Near the end, Toxco had owned everything from the schools and media to the prisons and police. Anypony unconvinced by the former would have to deal with the latter.

After Toxco, most Manehattians believed that the experiment ended in disaster and wanted nothing further to do with the old system. The reaction to their collective trauma was to become overwhelmingly pro-Equestria and pro-democracy.

But ponies like him never went away. They were always looming in the background, waiting for a chance to seize power and restore authoritarianism. The Corporatist party had still yet to win an election, but they got closer every year as time healed the city’s wounds to sinister intent.

She hated to see him building any inroads at all with the military.

“Either way, we should have learned this lesson thirty years ago,” said Sour Sweet. “We didn’t want to go against Spatial Tear because it was more convenient for us to ignore her and look at the terrible price, we paid for that. Aren’t we just making the same mistake with Crater Cemetery?”

“False equivalency.” Second Term flicked his cigar, intending, but failing, to get some of the ash on Sour Sweet. “And you learned the wrong lesson, besides. The problem was that the Manehattan Electric Company sided with a witch, with the forces of darkness. You are the one refusing to learn from history, wanting to run in there and capitulate to these spooks.”

“The word spook is a slur.”

“I’m aware of that.” That smug little smirk!

“Do you have any idea how difficult ponies like you make my job?!” Sour Sweet raised her voice. “We could all be reasonable and cooperate and that’d save far more lives than your tough-pony act. But no! You have to–”

“Lieutenant.” The colonel didn’t raise his voice much.

Second was still smiling, thinking he’d ‘won’ that alteration. Sour Sweet had no choice but to let him believe that for now.

“Forgive me.” Sour Sweet composed herself.

“Thank you, again.” The colonel turned to his guest. “But I would prefer for you to wait outside.”

Thankfully, he felt victorious enough to oblige. Even with him gone, the colonel didn’t give her his full attention, instead of looking down at some papers.

“Believe me, I’ve heard your arguments.” He rubbed his forehead. “Unless you have something new to report–”

“I do. I finally managed to get one of the ghosts to cooperate with me.”

“Oh?” At last, the colonel straightened up and turned his ears to her.

Getting even that far was something the colonel had been utterly convinced was impossible. He told her as much two years ago when she’d been ‘promoted’ to wall duty. The deck had certainly been stacked against her, what with the reputation and culture Lieutenant Snapping Turtle had fostered.

The colonel didn’t need to know it was a worm friend who talked. He likely wouldn’t even know what that word meant had Sour Sweet brought it up.

“The cult of Night Feather appears to have close ties with the origins of Crater Cemetery,” Sour Sweet reported. “Two former members are in the city as we speak. My initial research shows we have a classified file on them. My station requires me to look into any ghost-related threats to our city. In light of that, I’m requesting access to the classified information we have on this cult.”

The colonel tapped his hoof a few times on the paper as he considered it. Each tap felt longer than the last as he let Sour Sweet’s shot dangle in the air.

“And are you going to turn around and give this classified information to the ghosts?” he asked.

“What? No! Of course not! Though I do think it would be helpful–”

“That’s enough.” He stopped her there. “I’ll have somepony else research this matter. Thank you for your report. Dismissed.”

“Sir! The chance to build a–”

“I said you were dismissed. Thank you.”

Sour Sweet clenched her jaw shut. She felt as though it were taking a vice grip to keep her face from contorting in anger.

Stiffly, she turned and marched out of there. The only thing keeping her from exploding as soon as she reached the other side of the door was the knowledge this wasn’t over. He may be too pig-headed to understand, but Sour Sweet wouldn’t stop here!









‘Save the activism for her own time’.

“Alright.” Sour Sweet sat down at her desk. She opened her draw roughly enough to scatter her supplies. She threw a piece of stationary down and picked up her pen. “Here I am on my own time.”

Nopony around here understood the importance of what Sour Sweet was trying to accomplish. Ponies were constantly working against her. If the colonel didn’t see the importance of this act, somepony else would. Sour Sweet could go over his head, over the military entirely.

At the end of the day, everypony knew it was the SA that called the shots. At the top of that hierarchy were the S-ranked ponies who had access to far more information than any colonel. The only question was which she should petition for aid.

One choice stood out as the most obvious. The youngest pony to ever reach rank S, known as a luminary prodigy. The most outspoken firebrand among them.

Dear Nailbat,