All the King’s Horses
A Conversion Bureau story.
Chapter Seven: Silverfish
Soothing Salve looked up from the newscast which had drawn many spectators into the back of the old electric truck. After two days under the patchy sunlight, the four convoy vehicles were at last ready to make their nonstop drive to Portland. Beyond their isolation though, the world had been stirring. ‘Second Emergence’ it was being called, the day hundreds of new domes blossomed across earth, swallowing mountains, seas and cities. While it had seen a wave of animosity toward Equestria, so too had the conversion Bureau’s seen a massive panicked influx, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Ranging from stampedes on ration centres to an attack on a British bureau, the reporters seemed to milking the disaster for all the ratings it was worth.
Despite the flood of news, attention was gradually being diverted by the sounds of a one sided screaming match.
“Stay the hell away from me!”
Katrina stormed up the embankment, slinging another full bag of salvage into the truck and stalking towards the lead coach with her bodyguard close behind. Salve didn’t need to guess what the argument was about.
With her guardian stuck on permanent lookout duty, Kat had enjoyed nearly a whole two days of freedom, most of which she had spent scouting the washed out town with Fax. Though no expert in the puzzling field of human relationships, Salve was convinced that the youngster was trying to foster a bond with the so far oblivious courier. Now Sarah had once again become her sister’s shadow, interrupting the various strange balancing acts and nonsensical chatter that the unicorn assumed were part of some complex courting ritual.
Most peculiar was the entirely one sided nature of the disparity. Driven mostly by efficient protocols, Sarah rarely answered any question she perceived as irrelevant. When she did respond, the doll woman was very direct and had all the tact of a half brick.
On the hazy screen the newscast had begun to repeat itself, prompting most of the retinue to drift back towards their respective transports with the presumption that they should get underway. While Kat and her shadow boarded the lead transport, Simon sat down heavily next to the unicorn. Seeming more pale than usual, the pathfinder pointedly kept his eyes on the slowly drying city.
“Sah.” He started conversationally, sucking his bottom lip. “ ‘Cording to that plastic Jillaroo, I’ve been chasing Kat without knowing. What did she say? Oh yeah, ‘intercourse is ill advised at this time’...”
Snorting in surprise, Salve gave the man a look that managed to be both confused and disgusted in the same instant.
Simon’s strained smile was joined by a dumbfounded nod. “Yep. ‘Parently, unexpected pregnancy could significantly slow progress.”
There was an awkward moment of silence as the equine processed this. “It actually said that too you?”
“Yea wouldn’t read about it.” Fax sniggered, still not quite able to rap his head around the idea, “I didn’t even know the Sheila was interested.”
Unsure what she was expected to say, the unicorn tried to approach the issue from the outside inward. At least poor Simon was no longer totally oblivious to Katrina’s confusingly subtle approach.
“Well, were you?” She asked, breaking the moment of uncomfortable reflection.
Fax raised an eye brow, tapping a bottle of sterilised water, “Was I what?”
“Chasing her?”
This time it was Fax’s turned to snort in surprise, midway through a swig from the cantina.
“Strewth?!” he choked, “She’s, what? Half my age?”
“But she was chasing you right?” Salve reiterated, confusion deepening.
“Yes but... Look Brumby, it’s complicated.” Simon ran a grubby hand through his hair while trying to think of a way of phrasing the kind of psychological damage life in the ruff could cause.
“Ya’ve seen her scars? That kid’s got a lot more dents under the bonnet then on the paintwork, fair dinkum. Think about why that bushranger you’ve scooped up suddenly got all helpful yesterday. Ya think it’s because he had a change of heart? Or is he just terrified of being left behind?”
Shaking her head, the unicorn hopped down from the flatbed and onto the smooth black plaste-create of the road. In her short time beyond the protective walls of Equestria, the matron had learned so much from the humans she encountered. She’d seen the worst this world had to offer, and seen how some adapted to become just as cruel. Others simply endured, their spirit so easily shattered only to heal over and over, hardening into something deformed but indomitable. Even those who seemed out right evil relied on one another for strength. Perhaps it was that spirit of brotherhood, however fleeting, that Celestia sought to preserve?
“You’d better start up the lead coach, hun. Looks like everyone else is ready to go.”
--
Fax’s theory about the river source turned out to be right on the money. With the factory city gone the waters were noticeably receding, opening up long lost paths through the abandoned town. Now the old town bridge that ran alongside the mag-rail was accessible to the trundling mismatch of vehicles. With any luck they could be on the outskirts of their destination by the next morning.
Sarah was sitting near the front of the carriage, her charge pointedly ignoring the doll woman. As Salve snuggled down into her moderately comfortable den, ready for the last stretch of their so far enlightening journey, she cautiously glanced up the five strong rank of passengers. As the bus lurched into motion the pony considered just how little she knew about the strange girl. Even before last added layer of awkwardness, speaking to Katrina in the presence of the android was becoming most disquieting. Despite Kat’s assurance that the more gory aspects of Tristan’s tale were an utter fabrication, the daunting guard still unnerved the equine medic.
Of course using the Heart-Felt spell on humans yielded different results from ponies. Equines glowed in a silhouette of the physical body, wherein pain and injury showed up as throbbing colourful ripples in the subject’s aura. Humans on the other hoof were like towering sparklers, dancing with the light of chemical reactions and bio-electricity. But no matter the species, dead flesh had a universal texture too it; a black sickly void that hungrily sucked at the world. No matter what reassurances she received, Sarah was just plain ‘wrong’.
Finally beyond the grips of the debris filled streets, the convoy struck out across the unimaginably flat highway, aiming for the distant ring of clear sky above Portland. Night fell subtly across the passing landscape, only noticed by the travellers once it had become too dark to see their fellows properly. Throughout the darkened coach small wind-up lamps provided the only source of illumination, barely enough to see the outlines of now sleeping passengers. Stark LED light gave crisp edges to the sparse furnishings and etched the silhouette of the one figure to remain upright in the cabin.
From the depths of her cubby hole, Salve watched the expressionless face staring at Kathrin’s sleeping form. Jade eyes ceaselessly watched the steady rise and fall of the girl’s chest, blinking at her occasional twitches and mumbles seeping from dream land.
Precisely what put the pony’s mind on this particular path she couldn’t really say. What was clear to the equine was that this wasn’t the action of a machine on perpetual guard duty, this seemed more like a fixation. There wasn’t even so much as a glance spared for the road ahead or the other passengers.
Taking a resolved breath, the mare stood from her blanket and carefully stepped between the other sleeping bodies until she was next to the upright corpse. Maybe this was part of that ‘denial’ thing she had read about, but she simply would not believe that, after these past few days of observation, there was truly nothing but numbers behind those pained eyes.
The glow started gently, a soothing note floating in the air as the spell began to weave from the spirals of the unicorn’s horn.
Gradually the harsh light of the lamps was drowned out as another form of perception over took the mare sight. Beneath the musty folds of the thick barber coat the vial darkness of death sucked at the world, crisscrossed by glowing lines of silica conduits, cold and artificial. Slowly Salve drew her eyes upwards, past the empty abdomen, along a chest stretched beyond all capacity by a cold core of steel, finally resting on a brain that thrummed with the light of billions of tiny bits of information. It was like staring at a mega city from above, watching the transport links aglow with ore and materials feeding the factories and exporting product to the rest of the body. Clinical, precise, lifeless.
About to take her eyes from the autonomous abomination, something flickered beyond the grids of data highways. It had only appeared for the briefest of moments, a random flash of bio-chemical reactions, guttering like a solitary candle flame. Driving her thoughts deeper, Salve plunged after the fleeting outline of a mind. She felt its shape, its prison of glass circuits holding it back, as though a passenger trapped within the engine house of a train.
Withdrawing her inspection, the unicorn wavered as the interior of the coach returned. That spell was not meant for such deep incursions into complex beings, and as such the drain made her feel terribly woozy. But she could not leave things at that. There was something more here to be found, a mind pulling tiny leavers and moving the most inconsequential of decisions of this supposedly infallible machine. She needed to get deeper, to commune or at least asses its condition.
There was one possibility. In the near perfect world of Equesria there were rarely any times when an ailment could not be simply ‘cured’ or at least treated. The Equine body was incredibly resilient when compared to fragile humans, but there had been rare occasions when a terrible accident had robbed a pony of speech or hearing. The grate unicorn doctor, Heart Felt, whose namesake was carried on his first successful spell, had developed just the magic for this occasion. Listening Heart, a spell used to feel the emotions and diagnose even those in a deep coma, might be just the thing to explore this phenomenon further.
Once more the light of magic being woven into being pulsed though the silent cabin. Salve reached out as the spell completed and touched the spot where the fleeting lights had been dancing. What she found was most unexpected. There was a mind there, but not an entirely human one. Just as a bonsai tree can only grow as far as its pot dictated, so too had this proto-mind grown into the space untouched by the harsh programming. This realisation led to yet another; the body was sleeping, stepping down from its alerted state and allowing this ghost a greater freedom. At the moment it had chosen to watch Katrina as she slept, puzzling over strange sensations that defied its personal definition.
Most feelings this being experienced were being squelched under the confusion that a lack of understanding brought. How could one identify an emotion when no comparison existed? But overwhelming this was something it knew all too well. Loneliness.
Shutting off her magic and sidling closer to the stick like body, Salve lent her head against Sarah’s side, hoping to bring some iota of comfort to the creature. After a short while, a thin bony hand gently brushed against the pony’s withers, barely resting upon the teal fur.
As dawn broke some hours later, the row of transports drew to a brief stop, allowing passengers to stretch momentarily while the drivers switched shifts. Upon her sister’s waking, the silverfish of Sarah’s conscience slipped back below the surface as the body once again became alert for danger. Now barely on the outskirts of the town, Tristan took the opportunity to leave the convoy while the going was good. With barely more than a goodbye and a hasty ‘thanks’ to the unicorn who’d saved his life, the fiery maned biker stepped onto the road side and watched as the convoy drew away. Though far from disappointed in the departure of such a disagreeable man, Salve wished him the best all the same as they parted company.
Portland stretched out before the troupe, its winding streets dotted with elevated platforms, now free of the deluge that had once flooded the lower levels of the city. Beyond the dwindling muddy river lay their destination, the Bureau, the end of the line and the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of all present. And how daunting that chapter would turn out to be.