//------------------------------// // 29 - Ad Nauseum // Story: Closing the Barn Door // by David Silver //------------------------------// Twilight visited like the little fuzzy angel of malfunctions every few days. Sometimes every other day, sometimes she'd wait almost a week. But she'd always come back to knock out the camera. Their response time was improving, just as they hoped. It stopped being a surprising thing. The pony that emerged to reset things looked more bored than anything else. They'd come out and press the one button to get it going again and go back. It was boring, mundane, and they were very used to it. Aunt powered around the small hut, preparing lunch. "It's so nice to be able to live a domestic life. I was becoming convinced that just would not happen." Stan was seated on a rock that made for a chair. "This is taking longer than I originally 'xpected. But it's working, I think?" Applejack tapped the sheet metal they had used for their little shelter. "When we got to makin' a proper shelter, that felt like a bit of a hint. We're raiders what just prank a security camera. Kinda low key raiders, if ya will." "Disabled." Twilight sprang through the door, which was more of an opening in their ramshackle walls. "They should be up in 30 to 60 minutes." Giddyup turned towards her. "You appear happy." "Because I am." She moved to sit near where Aunt was cooking. "It may be a silly thing, but I'm really helping, and that... matters." Daffodil clopped her hooves in a firm strike. "Right. Is this the time we attack? I'm tired of lurking out here, instead of being in the vault." Aunt swiveled with a tray of steaming food. "After you eat." She set it down near the center of the hungry creatures there. "Then you can play." Stan picked up the steaming potato, even if it was likely hot, and took a bite out of it with a wet crunch. "Eat up then," he got out with a full mouth. "We want to be ready when they come to check on the camera." Twilight floated hers over to chew on. "This is the part I do not help with, right?" Daffodil waved a hoof. "Eh... You've done a lot, but we don't want to blow a hole in any pony today, just subdue them. Let us handle it." Skyline dropped from the roof to the doorway with a soft thud of a graceful landing. "And by 'us' you mean mostly Stan and I, perhaps with some help from Giddyup." "Ready to assist." Giddyup wasn't eating, that wasn't a thing he did. He instead moved to the doorway to stand next to it. "Objective: Subdue but do not harm." Stan nodded into his meal as he wolfed it down. "Yep. We let them come out into the shack and grab 'em. We ain't tryin' to hurt nobody today, just pin them down." Skyline grabbed his portion. The heat had little chance to burn the metal of his hand. "The vaulters are soft. They don't know what a real fight is, and we won't even show them, not right now." Stan dropped the other half of his potato, apparently satiated. "I'm not trying to punch off my pony kill card today. Giddyup would be mad fer basically 'ever." "Correct." "He ain't even fightin' it." Stan rose to his feet, using Giddyup as a willing grasping point for the motion. "The rifle will be just for intimidation today. Skyline, you're more--" "--I got it." He crossed his blades with a feral sneer, exposing his sharp teeth. "I'll put the fear into them, but no soft vault blood today." Applejack let out a sudden sigh. "You two go on. Don't feel right attackin' them, even if we don't plan to hurt 'em." Daffodil threw her head towards Applejack. "What she said. They're my family... Even if I'm really mad at Overmare Mare, that doesn't excuse hurting any of the others... I probably wouldn't even hurt her..." "That's so sweet." Aunt produced a biscuit she had hidden away. "This is for you being a good filly." Daffodil squinted at the held biscuit. "I'm not a foal. You don't have to bribe me." Twilight raised a hoof. "I will gladly accept it." And soon she was chewing contently on the sweet treat. "Mmm." The others left her to her distraction. Skyline peeked over his shoulder. "Where did she hide a cookie of all things? We haven't even seen one in basically forever." Stan shrugged as they approached the hut that would hold ponies. "It's probably super preserved, and really old. Still, a taste of the old world. Hope Twilight enjoys it. Mildly irradiated, but nothing beyond what most food has these days." "What is that?" Stan came up short for just a moment. "I forgot you could not know that... Shit, you're lucky you haven't run into it so far..." "Run into what? We should focus on this right now, unless this is a problem the vaulters will have for us?" Skyline tossed a sword up just to catch it in his agitated energy. "Or not?" Stan rushed up to just beside the door to the hut. "Shhh." He could hear the elevator chugging slowly upwards, carrying a likely bored engineer up. Skyline launched up with a great leap to the root of the hut and sank down against it. "Again," grumbled the technician as he emerged. "We should just put another button..." With little clip-clops, he approached the platform that had the controls. "Beep beep beep," he said without needing to say it. "And..." Skyline swung down and through the window, shattering it in a spray of shards of glass. He grabbed the pony by a shoulder with one hand, the other raising a blade to his throat. "Don't even think about moving." "U-uh! Please... don't hurt me... I thought about running." Tears began to run freely. "I didn't mean it! You said not to think of it, and that made me think of it! I'll be good!" Stan took a more sedate step out from around the corner, rifle raised at the panicking pony. "We don't want to hurt you, but we will it we have to. Just keep it nice and easy and everyone gets out of this just as healthy as they got into it." Skyline kept the blade raised and ready to cut. "Is the elevator still working?" "Y-yes! It'll work until somepony goes back down, then the doorpony will lock it up. Please don't hurt me!" The pony lunged, shoving Skyline back in a moment of surprising strength that let him get a screwdriver in his mouth. "I will defend myself!" He jabbed it in Skyline's direcion with a scowl of desperation. "Back off!" Skyline crossed one sword in front of himself as he, slowly, drew the second free, almost daring the pony to do something to stop him. "If this comes to a fight, you won't win." Stan gave a little jerk of his gun, pointed at the quaking earth pony. "Step away from the elevator. We need to have a chat with a certain mare." He took stiff little steps from the elevator. "The guards will be here as soon as they hear an attack is happening." Skyline sliced not even an inch from the pony's suddenly flat ears. "That was very not subtle." Stan turned his gun at the elevator. "Expect company." Skyline kicked the guard ahead to crash to the ground. He brought down the hilt of his right sword, smashing the poor pony unconcious with a sharp blow. "Better to not have you involved." He turned to face the elevator. "Come on." "I don't think I will." It was Overmare Mare. "What, did you expect me to send my guards? You're obviously capable combatants. The elevator is locked. Go away." Stan directed his gun at the unconcious pony. "You don't care what happens to him?" "You are presenting a moral dillema, but one with an obvious conclusion." The voice grew louder, leaning in perhaps. "Risk the life of one, or the lives of many. Would you choose any differently?" Skyline reeled back a leg, ready to kick, but he resisted it with a grunt. "Are you going to send another, or just give up and wait for us to bust in there? Your vault looks pretty, but not self contained. You sent Applejack for a reason, and gonna bet it wasn't because you just felt like it." "Traitor." "Hm?" Skyline scowled at the elevator. "Big words, considering you're the one not paying me for the job I finished for you. One of us is a jerk, and it isn't me." "As much as I want to see two ponies argue... Look, we got three ponies now that just want to go home." Stan rolled his hand at the source of the voice. "You don't want trouble, great, neither do we. How do we get them home? I'm not looking to adopt." "You shush! Your poisonous words are exactly what we were warned of." Clops were heard moving away from the microphone, then her voice, quieter in the distance. "They knew the other makers would betray us!" Skyline squinted at the voice as if it were entirely mad. Stan didn't share that look. "I get it." "I doubt that." She was growing louder, coming closer? "But I'll humor you with concrete and steel between us, lying human. What do you 'get'?" "Ah talked with Giddyup--" "--Present." Giddyup had snuck up on them, walking without noise or fanfare. "Him." Stan rapped a knuckle on his troublesome, if loved, companion. "There was a group of humans in charge of the whole pony thing, and they had outside help. Plenty of places for wires to cross. You got word of being shipped off to be a show. Ah got a question though, really botherin' me." "Go on..." she prompted through clenched teeth. "Hey." Skyline waved his blade at the elevator. "If you thought he was part of that, why would he be part of the group saying not to go." "That's easy." Stan shrugged, but kept his gun trained at the elevator. "She had made up her mind before we even left. Before we even said hi, probably. Did they say somethin' that scary? Anyway, that ain't the question. The question is why did you even want us to go at all? Coulda murdered me real quick, ended that whole mess." "Tempting... But no, I could not. That other angry voice is one reason why. Well trained, and a pony. Harming him would lower morale, and he can defend himself, without any ammunition, and quietly. We are not prepared for that... If it came to it, he'd make a mess of my guards, and they don't deserve that." Stan chuckled in his gravelly voice, as befit a ghoul. "Coulda just told us to go away and not come back. If ya paid me what I was owed, which you did at that time, it's what I woulda done. Been a lot simpler for everyone involved, ya know?" "Why do you care?!" she shouted into the microphone. "We don't have great wealth for you. We have nothing you want. Go away." "I care." Giddyup advanced towards the voice. "Because I care, he cares." "Stop givin' it away." Stan patted the top of Giddyup. "He ain't lyin' though. I'll be sad if he's sad, and he'll be sad if we don't see this through to the end, even when money's not in it for me. That's what friends do." "What do you know about friends?" she asked in an icy tone. "The human lack of friendship is what reduced your world to ash, and left it for us to eventually claim." "I know enough to know your ponies up here deserve better." Stan nudged the sleeping technician with a foot. "Poor guy was just doin' his job. Either way, this place is not that secret. Even if ah left, yer time is limited. I'd say the other ponies have a better chance. They're makin' friends instead of hidin' away. They'll have backup when things get rough."