//------------------------------// // Second Sun // Story: A Playback // by Comma Typer //------------------------------// The typhoon is a fury against the station’s weather instruments, but under a ginormous canopy, a little hovertruck already floats, unmoved by the storm’s advances, stolen from a recent border attack. It’s armored to the brim, with narrow edges for windows. Under the threat of being wounded by their standard issue weapons, the cuffed stranger is taken inside. The windows provide little light. The pitter-patter of the rain against is a muffled yet infinite pattern of random drums attempting to soothe everyone to sleep, to varying degrees of success. Clean whites and silvers dominate the aesthetic, with guards watching their pseudo-prisoner and the accompanying bag closely. Before the day ends, a request is made to open said bag. The request is granted. Finally, it is not the gentle drums of rain against metal but clutching what lies past zippers and latches—only then, does sleep arrive. In the nadir of slumber, the storms stop. The Sea of Clouds is passed. It’s a miracle that she survived, she repeats to herself in her head and with her mouth. It’s to live long enough to be somewhere else, wedged between a dozen blocks of samey urban centers and high-rises, punctuated by a dozen plazas where statues look to the heavens, glorified machinists dealing with wires and holograms for greater independent automation. She coughs at the smog and the glow of uncontained magics, ignoring the statues' plaques of platitudes after seeing the first few; she gives silent thanks to far-off Gerwin for gifting her an anti-rad suit for the visit. Few citizens still mill around on monochrome gravel. Apartments stop at a uniform height; any bars or diners or soup kitchens take up the facades. Not a single short structure is in sight; everything imposes itself on her small stature. Trucks fetch crates of who knows what, all while police look down on them with nothing but guns and hulking hovertanks, their hungry power usage cracking and rehsaping the ground as they pass. For the twentieth time, after another failed connection on her wrist screen, she accosts a bereted worker probably walking to work. She looks young like her, but smoky shadows hide her vitality, assuming she has any. Her sunken eyes look like they’ve dug a quarry out of her sockets. "Mare on the street," Cauliflower asks, invading the other's beak with a microphone to make the interview obvious. "What do you think of the circumstances here?" She keeps walking. She doesn't turn her head around. "Great, really." "What do you mean by that?" Cauliflower keeps up the pace. She overtakes her interviewee, thankful again, this time for some exercise. "You know, great. That's the word." "What’s going on here?" "A lot; we make a lot. We make much food and arms. I like to thank my supervisor." "What do you think of the Integrateds' rule?" She shrugs, passing under a streetlamp. A camera hangs underneath; over it lies a balcony where a policegriff watches, speaking something to his wrist. Her interviewee has already scurried away. The curfew sirens ring, cuing the policegriff to descend, perhaps ask the strange interrogating visitor questions, but Cauliflower also scurries off, thankful for a third time, this time that the exit gates loiter nearby. When she finds herself on the passenger side once more, the truck soon going past the Syndics' gates, a hail of rockets twinkle in the sky, speeding past them, into the walls of the crumbling nation. Holes and weapons fall, the emblem of a descending mountain omnipresent on their clothes. Gerwin’s face is implacable. His driving is undisturbed. "Don't look back," he says. "They can see you." So she doesn't, keeping her eyes forward against the mass of soldiers wading through from the trees, unable to pry the ache out of her nostrils or her brain that the Reconstruction Authority bear arms here, too. "We’re not gonna meet them?" "Not her, maybe," he says as they enter another forest. A withering complex of empty apartments should lie up ahead. The topic turned to the last side, The Popular Alliance of Restorationists, led by none other than someone calling herself Miss Aris. "Not fond of diplomatic approaches. Best you can get is a call from her. We rest here, then at Burning Light village, we'll meet with her flunkies." "I can still ask her constituents." "What’s left of her constituents? Brain rot all souped up on wrath." A sharp left turn is made; Cauliflower bumps her head hard against the galss; she holds on tight to her seat. "The Storm King’s been dead for decades now. Stop beating a dead horse. They keep doing it." At that, she cringes, though it’s not the first time this trip. Earlier, she spotted banners of the Storm King's face drawn crudely, contrasted too much by blazing headlights. Red slashes split his smiling face. "You’re a reporter on the frontlines. Won’t be worth it if you get squelched. You're lucky your screen works offline. Do not think of letting me speak for you if you die. Who will trust me? I know my reputation, and I am sure the international community is not so keen on me. Now, what will you do about them? I hear of the Reconstruction Authority… my contacts grow less. They’re a fifth side or four-point-five. The RA buy too many guns from me. I refused once. The Romanticists—those who still like me—tell me the fighting stopped on their side." Date Line hasn't responded. No one has, ever since the connection seems to be severed. And now—"The Convocation? You're… you're selling weapons to them?" "The RA, not the Convocation themselves. They’re detached, maybe enough to go rouge.” "They’re… but I was—" “I’m not blaming you. I make mistakes, you make mistakes. Some mistakes end with more creatures dead. You learn to live with that." He stops the truck in the middle of a knoll. ""We’ll set something up. Instant soup’s fine. You don’t mind pork flavor, no?" In a poor state wishing poor taste to wash her worries away, she’s led out into the little rain that’s going on. The windshield surely didn't show any signs of droplets. Up the stairs, they set up shop beside a dozen pillars past worn-out first floor patios flooded with gunk. A back-up generator has its flip switched to bring light into the empty quarters, the fridge turning on and the window’s defenses glowing bright with defensive magic proofed against lasers and bullets. A few minutes later, dinner smells good for Cauliflower, which is soup cooked over a stove, made from instant powder. Gerwin didn't tell her about the noodles, so it's a welcome surprise, watching the little long things float around like cute animals. It may be dirty to compare them to worms, but worms, too, look adorable, with how small and wiggly they are. Tonight, she gets to eat cute food, a cold comfort from the siege just hours ago. She takes a sip. Bland and watery, but a hint of onion is there to be savored. In her chest, pain blooms. She's off her chair, she hits the floor, dust and metal rub her eyes, a dozen scorches assault her. The hearing-nothingness makes way for, "Cauliflower! Get down!" Her table vibrates, she grips it for stability. Windows blast open, shards fly open, liquid flies open from her own body, something bleeds. There is a ringing when she is carried; she feels him taking her over, planting her underneath cover—the same table where suitcases that can fall on her for safekeeping. "Stay here!" She sucks in a batch of breath, grabbing it like she's never had oxygen in a thousand years. Under a table, clutching the bits of bricks and the table for safety. Likely an ambush is ongoing, definitely with the word gotten out that she's on the loose, a loose cannon journalist on a crusade to expose their evil deeds. Amid the crumbling building comes rumbling from outside, muffled voices and orders. She clutches the pistol in her holster. "Maglev arties!" yells Gerwin, all his coolness vanishing. "They think we’re Syndics! Stop! Innocent civilian here!" Hums blast against the wall, blowing against her hiding body, scraping her inches across the floor. Scorch marks against the concrete, where blood is found there. "Miss Aris, it’s me!" "Yeah, you," a crack of a voice bellows out. From Cauliflower's under-the-table vantage point, a drone flies off from a fresh hole in the wall. The screen turns on, and she can barely see a face flickering on it. "I don’t know what you're planning to do with having the Convocation intervene, but I didn’t know they’d be bringing in little Gerwins like you! Of course, you’re old and stubborn, and I can cultivate these merc newbies to be more loyal than you. We can't have remorse turning you astray when total annihilation is at claw." "It's by design," Gerwin replies, rock steady. "You can tell that to everyone else. I have… a plan I'll discuss with you. It involves the Reconstruction Authority and everyone else. I'll round you up, every one of you. Consider it my last deal. I will leave after." Gerwin's out of the place, just like that. Her only contact stands too far for help. There's been no talk of a plan. Questions threaten to spill from her muzzle. She taps the wrist screen, lets it open up and record. NO CONTACT ACCESSED slides through like ticker tape. She swears to herself to write down the rest later. Aris chuckles, her laughter hollowed out by tinny speakers. "Since when were you leaving?" "Since today. Further details, I'll tell you when I make up my mind." "You’ve been playing all sides, birdie." In spite of her mechanical, artificial drone nature, Miss Aris waltzed around in the air; it is life to an otherwise gray automaton. "I should’ve seen it earlier. Even that  pro-yeti… wimp?" "It's good business to keep all you fighting. It's gun-running 101. I can't go all in on an eventual loser." "Hmph. So bold to the face of retaliation. Yet… hmm, you have something else in mind. Why would you tell me all this if you know it will paint you in a bad light? Hmph." The drone swivels, tinting itself red on the screen. "Very well, you and your mare under the sheets will be safe until then. As for the Convocation… we shall continue it elsewhere, hm?" Silent nods, from a head and a drone, then they leave. Through the gaping hole in the wall, Cauliflower sees another side, another army—the telltale helmets of the Convocation or their Authority, bearing those humming lasers and phasers, having evolved into triangle-laden warriors that can be mistaken for the Alliance themselves, judging by Gerwin's past descriptions of their "soldier caste." It is not long until the fighting erupts again, the distant throes and klaxons of another earthquake to cut another patch of ground in two kilometers away. Only then can she stand up on her wobbling hooves, on the ground of dust and dirt and broken windows and blood dripping down her mouth. Columns shrivel up in front of leaked magic from once-glowing window. "You’ve done more than enough," he says to her, gliding his way to her, panting and clipping a battery out of his gun. The room's debris is in smolders. "I can arrange a transport with the contacts I've got left. You’ll be headed back up north, through the Sea of Clouds." "Not yet," she says. Cauliflower stands up, careful not to break the table she half-stands on for support. "What plans do you have for Aris? The whole region? I want to cover the full story, get all the records I can make." "Records of what? How much are you going to risk your life out here for a couple of news stories? How will you survive long enough, even with me, to stay here for a few more days then survive long enough to report to Equestria? Will you get any connection here, for one?" Something boils within her; something wicked comes. "I’ve made it out of worse scrapes before!" "Gambler’s fallacy," he says. The hum of his gun goes with a click of the claw. "There’s always the one hit where you go unlucky." The notion lies preposterous. Here she is, at the precipice of a major Equestrian and creature-ist development for the rest of the world. There may be no more refugees to interview, very few civilians to talk to— Cold steel looks at her hard. It whirs and hums, charging up. That fear snakes up her heart, out of her eyeballs, out of her mind. That fear tells her of death at the claws of her former protector. "Take a walk outside, Miss Cauliflower. You can use some relaxing." Another click to charge the gun up one more gear. Her hooves stumbles outside, into chunks of concrete, gripping her saddlebags until they're numb and blue and she yearns for bleeding, crashing into a bush. Past the truck, past the dirt roads, past the Storm King's likeness, away from the clearing of towers that watch her flee with her tail behind her legs, a spiritual deluge damages her sense of direction. Whipped by hard rain, Cauliflower finds cover by a little tree, then an emptied tent. Creatures lie dead inside. There's no bloating; must've died just hours ago. No bullet wounds; brains must've been laser- or phaser-fried. From their clothes and their packages, she scavenges scrapes of biscuits and water along with a raincoat. She sits, drying herself off from the twilight rain. Her sight adjusts to the site around her: the rain against her, the craters she sits before, the splinters of metal and wood, abandoned guns—all smashed, any extra ammunition all down the drain, batteries having long conked out in the drenching, earsplitting downpour, the perfect scenario for another ambush. Her breathing gets livid as she picks up a splinter of metal, then a bit of cloth. Dried blood ran down from it once; the rain hasn’t washed everything away. Whose blood, she can never find out. A name, a face, gone in a second she couldn't attend. "You say hi to them," told Gerwin some days back, halfway to the Syndics' gated borders. "Greet dead bodies?" she replied in horror. That horror had been running on empty as of late, what with the griff's nonchalant chatter about tragedies rubbing off on her. It was unnerving, feeling it creep up on her. Gerwin snickered. "You were in conflict zones before. Don't tell me you haven't seen a dead body." There rippled in her history white flowers and a whirlwind of visits, heralded by a single funeral. "I've seen my aunt… in a casket." "You told her things, didn't you? Told her dead body some hopes and dreams?" She'd said them, touched the picture of Aunt Echo's serene face from her glory days. They were horribly cliché. I will miss you… "Yes, you did," Gerwin continued. "What'd you do with the bodies you saw before? The Problems over in The Griffish Isles, that assassination attempt on the dragon lord… you were there, you saw dead creatures. What did you do?" A tragedy stayed bottled up in her insides. Other creatures, no blood relations, no friendship forged, not a single word spoken save for orders or screams. Outposts sought her out once in the Isles long ago, curious to see her reaction to a sergeant limped over a chair. "This one's Pacer. I just got past training, and… hey, it was Nightmare Night. So I'm out there, stranded, and I got old Pacer with me. The griffons there got a couple Equestrian turncoats. He has the bright idea… 'Why don't we scare them?' That's what he did. Got a paper bag lying around, got a marker. Won't you believe it?" He poked the dead stallion on the face, with a stick. "Scared 'em straight. 'Trick or treat!' Stole their food before they got the chance to send the alarm. Yeah… Nightmare Night's just next month, Pacer! What's your next brilliant idea?" Gerwin snapped her out of the reverie then. Harsh words were said about staying alert in case she could see cover up his blind spots. The speechless faces in the tent call out to her, of a happening untold. Or the sense of it, a common thread or gist that led her here soaked in water, knee-deep in a dissipating land. She taps her screen once more. Under a tent, the saving of her voice records as well footage of the dead. Her voice is calculated, planned, waterfalling out of her tongue. "I’ve been with the leader of the Integrated Syndicals, Ebbing Lane. It turns out that most of the initial reports were true, that she’s a pony… but she’s also scared, burdened with her own cause falling apart. She and everyone else… she knows what she has is crumbling. They want her head, but after that, it won't matter. Not too much, at least. I've seen an attack as we were leaving… the RA going at them, blatantly disobeying Convocation orders… at least I hope that's the truth... it's disgusting either way. "But her… I saw her passion, although it ebbs. For ideas and beliefs, there may be tons of arguments, but on the ground, she musters the will to hold on while her aides and her colleagues and her laborers tells her to surrender, to not cause anymore… revenge… I… I don’t know. It’s not something… I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes…" The footage will yield the peaceful faces when played back. Only now does the earthy smell of rain make way for the stink their bodies let fester.  "Not much to lose now. It seems like I won't be getting the usual chats over tea anytime soon. If you’re hearing this and you're not some washed out mercenary, I've survived. I've won. I implore you, every single one of you, to act… somehow, some way. How? I don't know. But something must be done… let them rebuild in peace. As for me, I'll be staying here. Gerwin has something. He'll tell me the details. I might be here for a few more hours or a few more days. Or weeks. "Oh, right… it'll all be done when you're seeing this, so good luck out there. Or good luck, me."