//------------------------------//
// Mercy, Mercy Me 
// Story: Salvage 
// by Rollem Bones 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 1: Mercy, Mercy Me
"I'm no hero."
 
"Good morning Equestria! This is your friend Curtain Call with the morning weather report; looks like we're in for another overcast day with a ninety percent chance of confrontation and a high mortality rate for all you fine ponies out there today. So wear your barding and pack your pistol, mares and stallions. Now back to the studio with your host, DJ-Pon3!"
 
While I rambled to the air, I looked out over the rubble of Manehattan's West Side; the crumbled, crumpled mess of structures from that bygone era I called home. That is, if one considers three walls, a half a roof, some bed, a bookcase filled with scrap and an ancient radio a home.
 
Not that I was complaining, it may have all been junk, but it was my junk. Some call me a scavenger. I hate the term. I'm a salvager. I venture forth into the remains of the old world in hopes of using the scrap left behind to build a new one.
 
The radio sparked and crackled with DJ-Pon3's broadcast of a long dead crooner tune out over the wasteland. The sound jarred me to my senses but my stomach's irritable bitching directed me to semblance of focus. I looked at the scratch marks on my wall. It was trading day. I needed to hurry and grab whatever I felt like parting with if I wanted to catch Summer Bounty's caravan.  Catching up, when I considered my lack of food stores relative to my piles of electronics, seemed a better plan than learning to enjoy wiring with wine sauce.
 
My bookcase runneth over with the spoils from a Spark-King Radio shop. A radio, a few collected wires and connectors, even a heavyweight spark battery thrown in for good measure could keep me fed until the next caravan passed me by. I stuffed all of it into my saddlebags and hung them on my barding.
 
I liked my barding. It was simple, grey and brown sackcloth with some dull metal plates sewn on the outside. The lack of color did a better job of hiding me out in the city than my own red coat. Some years back I had my cutie mark stamped on the flank plates. The little comedy mask still smiled while his tragic sibling wept on. Was it vain? Probably. Did it look good? Definitely. I topped it all off with an old world hard hat. Most of it was still as yellow as my mane, despite the dings and dents from years of abuse. It didn't look like much, but my hat kept my skull in one piece on more than one occasion. I couldn't trust my life to anything else in the world more than that hat.
 
 
Crossing through the west side of Manehattan was like crossing over a minefield. Except that with a minefield you can at least predict the direction of the things which want to kill you. If I was to catch up with Summer Bounty on time to be able to eat for the foreseeable future, I had to make it across some particularly troublesome sections of the shell of a city. The standing walls, half present stores and office structures, the occasional home that still sat stolidly amid the brick and mortar high rises that once were, each one held a million different potential dangers. They also made for best friends when you were a loner who didn't exactly want any of those million dangers to come swooping in and picking you off out in the open.
 
The walls that still stood made for good protection. Stick alongside them; keep an ear and an eye out, and a pony does just fine.  I poked my head around a corner to look for manticore, raiders, or just about anything that looked to make me dead far faster than I felt necessary. Three raiders in the piece-meal armor that seemed to make up the most of Manehattan's raider chic fashion plate cross the street a few blocks from my position. Unfortunately for me, I was too far away to hear what they were saying even if they were speaking at all.
 
I parked my flank on the pavement and looked at the half torn picture of one of the old ministry mares; the pink one with the big eyes looking down at me.  "Don't suppose you can keep an eye out for me and let me know when those ponies have cleared out?" I asked the poster.
 
The poster didn't answer back. I waited a little longer, trying to listen for the raiders just around the way.
 
The poster folded, flopped, and fell to the ground. Maybe the poster was trying to answer after all.
 
I looked at the dingy paper as it hit the dingier road.  I admit I was surprised it didn't fall down earlier.  For a moment I had wondered why it was still standing in the first place. I had gotten so used to those posters over the years I'd sort of figured they would always stay up.  Shaken from my pause, I decided to peek around the corner again, to see the tail of one of the raiders disappear from view and grant me my opening.
 
 
I scrambled down a half story pile of rubble to the usual meet point; a wide avenue that countless traders had cleared and reinforced over the decades since the bombs blasted Equestria to bits. Say what you will about the wasteland but in the end you had to admit it liked its trade routes. The pile of rubble I had climbed down was but one walling off the street and creating a single pass through the concrete canyon. From my position, I could see anything coming up from either direction for a good, safe, distance.
 
Two black dots appeared in the distance. They grew into two figures and then into the two familiar shapes I was expecting; an orange unicorn pulling a cloth covered cart. Alongside her was her bodyguard, a griffon by the name of Cutter. The two had been my main connection to the world at large for the past year or so of my life in Manehattan. I owed them, mostly Summer, my survival.
 
"Call!" Summer shouted as I trotted over, laughter in her voice the first living emotion I'd heard in weeks. "You come all the way out here just to see little old me?"
 
I held a hoof to her nose. "No words, my dearest," I spoke low, stared her in the eyes with enough worked smolder to start a bonfire. I leaned to her ear and whispered, "I want you. Nay, I need you. I burn for you, your presence, your everything. Never leave me."
 
She burst into laughter and pushed me away. "You only love caps."
 
"Too true," I agreed, laughing along with Summer "But such is a love that lasts eternal."
 
I circled the cart, my pokes at the tarpaulin covering the wares stopped by little bursts of golden magic. "What've you got in there you keeping from your oldest friend's eyes?" I asked Summer, walking back around to help her out of her cart harness.
 
"Lots, but I want to see what you have in your bags first. You know the policy, show me yours and I'll show you mine," Summer told me, taking the liberty to take my saddlebags up with her telekinetic grip.
 
I didn't object to the perusal, this was a ritual we had played out a hundred times before. "Got some wiring, most of it in usable condition. Clean and strip a few others and some yokel will part ways for it even if it's not worth a cap. Some small arms ammunition, most of it for holdouts. Somepony had cleaned out the heavy stuff before I got the chance to loot it."
 
A pair of chunky orange battery packs floated up out of the pack. "And some arcane energy cells for a beam gun," Summer said with a sly grin. Behind her, Cutter watched the packs from behind a pair of reflective sunglasses and her usual stony expression.
 
Cutter never did speak when I was around. She was some mercenary Summer picked up a while back. She was hard to read, but not impossible to work. A big beam gun like the one she carried must have been a thirsty beast. With safety being such a concern in the wastes, especially for long distance trading, battery packs were always big ticket items.
 
"So what's on the menu?" I asked, slipping over to the cart to take a peek at the goods. "I'm looking for food, but you should already know that. Got any other goodies in here?"
 
The cart was packed, but most of it I knew to be fairly useless to a pony in my position. After all, I sold much of it to her in the first place. I did see a bundle of food, mostly prewar cans and jars sealed up tight. If it was any sign of how pointless this whole back and forth was, it was that Summer already had a parcel set up for me the same way I knew what I was giving to her. Old friends make quick trades. Still, I saw a yellow kit bag tucked in the corner. Curious, I reached for it.
 
A growl stopped me mid motion. I looked back. Cutter stared out at the middle distance. Summer was just stacking up my offer with a small grin. I decided to leave the bag alone.
 
"You want something special, Curtain Call?" Summer appeared beside me. "Cause I think I might have something right up your alley."
 
She bumped me aside with her flank and her horn flared with magic. Out from the cart floated a small terminal screen on a foreleg clamp. I had seen them before, a PipBuck. Fairly rare technology and nothing to scoff at.
 
"A PipBuck?" I scoffed, "Really? You expect me to believe you're just going to pass on one of these out of the goodness of your heart and a bag of scrap?" I chewed on my tongue and gave Summer a raised eyebrow to tack a few more question marks onto my statement.
 
Summer looked away for a split second and I pounced. "It's busted, isn't it? Just a piece of junk you were looking to foist on some rube?" I asked, leaning closer to the mare. "I guess in this case I'll have to be your rube. Because I'm taking it, and my food, and an invitation for you and your pet rock over there to stay the night."
 
Summer sighed as I took my prizes to stuff into my now empty saddlebags. "I'd love to, Call," She told me, with a lingering exception left to hang in the air. She shared a look with Cutter and started to frown, "Believe me, I could use the fun, but I have to make time. I've got to get a stock of goods up to a settlement northeast from here. Word is it's new and the poor saps haven't all the gear they need, but they got a lot of caps they don't need. I'm looking to get in on the ground floor."
 
I nodded and gave a shrug to hide the hurt. Summer was a busy mare, I understood, but I'm a social stallion and it's been a lonely time in Manehattan. "Good luck, don't do anything I wouldn't,"
 
"Don't think I could," came Summer's reply.
 
We both stood and looked at each other for a long moment. The wind whistled through the buildings. Dust spiraled on the ground. And we just looked.
 
Cutter coughed. Summer and I looked down in unison.
 
"On our way back," Summer said, "We'll stay then. We'll have a haul to go over and I'll want to do it with you."
 
Both of us laughed as our minds jumped to the same place. "Okay, okay," I said, gathering up my goods. "You know where I am. I'll still be there by the time you get back. Good luck out there, both of you," I bid them, starting toward the rubble wall of the avenue.
 
I stopped and pointed at Cutter. "And you, don't talk so much."
 
Call it a hunch but something told me that someone was sticking their tongue out at me the moment I had my back to the two party caravan.


I have liked entertaining ponies ever since I was a colt. I traveled with my mother, my father bit it thanks to some bastard's booby trap. It wasn't a good life, nopony in the wastes has a true good life, but mine was as good as I could get. She sold what she could salvage, I sang, danced, told jokes, dragged them by their saddlebags, whatever bit of attention I could get for her and myself meant caps for us.
 
Sometimes we found something real special. My favorite was a book called "Greatest Plays for the Smallest Stage". I read it cover to cover, again and again and then some more until I knew it by heart. I played the parts, all of them, for the ponies when they traded with my mother. I was too young then for the realities of the world to be understood, but funny thing is, even when I learned how shitty the world is first hoof, I kept on playing the parts, only now in order to give ponies a chance at ignoring it all for a while. When I figured that out, that's when I got my cutie mark, the little masks on my flank. Just like the cover of my book. So you see, I knew that entertaining was what made me feel special, even if circumstance tells you otherwise.
 
Knowing that, it isn't hard to see why I was upset then at my radio listening for the evening getting interrupted by the crash coming from the bottom floor of my little hideaway. Right in the middle of hearing some news about a Stable Dweller doing some impossible sounding crap and there goes some kind of clatter and clank. I heaved a sigh, turned off my radio, and slunk out to listen in on the sounds below.
 
Around my neck hung my Sharp Retort. I wasn't about to go out against a suspicious noise without some form of protection. In this case, a bit with a pair of long spikes on either end set up like tusks. I picked it up off a caravaner a few years prior. It's kept me safe when things have gotten too close for comfort.
 
I was right, clanking and clattering. Somepony, or ponies were making a racket in the first floor of the bombed out building I called my hidey-hole. It didn't take long for whoever it was down there to start yammering, and I love it when they talk.
 
"There ain't shit down here!" shouted a stallion, the frustration in his voice made me grin. I'd picked that place clean months ago. "Was that scavenger you saw another one of your ghosts there, Cloves? Fucking dumbass."
 
"Just keep looking, limp prick. I know I saw something duck in here. I know it," came a mare's shrill reply.
 
"Hey, found stairs. Going up." A third voice, another mare, spoke up. Either she doubted I was on the second floor, or she was just too stupid to avoid shouting her plans. I didn't have time to ponder too much, there were more pressing matters coming up the stairs.
 
I got ready. Behind the door of my room, I waited and listened to the hoof-beats of the pony coming upstairs. I also listened to the insistent beating of my heart as it attempted to bludgeon its way out of my chest. I peeked and saw the mare as she rounded the staircase. She was tall, her fur a dingy white. Her mane was in a tangled mess of brown and black. The barding she wore made mine look high class; tire wheels at her shoulder, strips of cloth from a warehouse worth of clothing, and a thick leather band around her barrel. I was more concerned with the pair of heavy spikes that jutted from a strap around her cannon.
 
I crouched behind my door and waited. My heart beat a dance number in my chest. I heard the deafening rush of blood in my ears. I was terrified, but when I got to the heart of the matter I knew it was just pre-show jitters. At heart I'm a showpony. I can improvise when the time comes and the curtain was about to be drawn.
 
"Hey there, fancy meeting a mare like you in a dump like this?" I spouted, springing up from behind my door and leaning on the open hole where a window used to be.
 
She stopped and snapped toward me at speeds somewhere between crazed and rabid. She didn't hesitate, swinging her leg and the wicked spike attached to it right at my head. My heart fluttered. I loved it when an ill-thought out plan came together. I kicked with my front hooves, hard. The door swung out and into her. They never expect that I rigged the door to open backwards. I'm not a bulky pony by any means, but I'm still an earth pony, and I'm stronger than I look. That and she was caught off her guard. Okay, a lot of it was her caught off her guard. All the same, I pinned her against the wall, her head caught in the hole, her spiked leg flailed wildly. She struggled, grunted and tried to buck me off her as I pressed the door against her. She couldn't cry out, only gasp as I pushed the air out of her.
 
I had to be quick, I knew I wouldn't have much time to wait this out, or talk it out. It isn't like these raiders tend to enjoy a good hash things out with words session anyways. I kept my weight on the door, on the struggling, gasping mare, and took Sharp Retort into my mouth. I jabbed upwards, where her muzzle meets her neck. She went still, I went still, her blood began to run down the spikes of my weapon, dripping onto the doorframe. Her muzzle opened but only a gurgle came out. Her eyes stared, wide, but I doubt they were looking at anything. I tried to shush her, hissing through my teeth. I shoved the points in deeper, just trying to make it faster. I just wanted her to just die already but she kept fighting. Her friends could be coming up the stairs at any moment.
 
Eventually she stopped, her body going limp and heavy. I slid Sharp Retort from her throat and she fell to the floor with a lifeless thud. I didn't have time to take a moment for her, but I wanted to. After all, just because I can do something doesn't mean I have to like it.
 

The stallion came up after the partner that would never come. I darted behind my bookcase to watch him pass by. I saw the cutie mark on his flank. He walked to where I propped the dead mare's body. "Hey, moron, you come up here to take another nap?" I know a lot of these raiders were thick, but this was a special kind of thick.
 
"She's dead, Riot," the third voice, the other mare I guessed as Cloves, returned. "Somepony's up here." The mare was a unicorn, smaller than the first but she floated a heavy looking cleaver beside herself. It spun lazily in the air as the mare stopped just in view of me from my blind. This threw a sizable wrench, or more appropriately cleaver, into my operations, but I remembered I had one advantage. I knew the terrain, and I had physics on my side.
 
I shoved my bookcase hiding spot. I put every bit of muscle I could behind it. Turns out that all that random junk lying around gets very, very heavy when it's all piled up on a bookshelf. I landed on the back of the shelf as it fell with a cacophonous clatter on top of the unicorn. She let out a yelp before the crushing weight pinned her and took the wind out of her. Her magic broken, the cleaver hit the ground. I kicked it away when I charged the stallion. I didn't have time to check on my work, all I could do was move forward.
 
The stallion turned to see what had just happened. He found out very quickly that I did. I ducked down and caught him under his chest, and bucked. He went up, but more importantly, he went backwards. I caught him square in the belly with Sharp Retort. A spurt of blood hit my eye, blinding me. It hurt like hell and I staggered back. Fortunately, he did the same, and for him, back meant out the missing chunk of my wall. He danced on his hind legs, teetering on the edge, and then he was gone. I heard the smack on the pavement below and dashed to the hole to look. The pool of blood and the way his neck bent at a strange angle gave me no small flutter of hope that I had won
 
That's when I heard the groan behind me. I forgot about Cloves. I wheeled around, expecting to meet one very angry raider or a flying cleaver or both.
 
I met instead with a pony struggling to pick up a very heavy bookcase and quite a lot of radios.
 
I sighed. In the rush, I can hurt and I can kill. Anypony can to survive. But the scene in front of me was pathetic. I trotted over to the bookcase and stood on it to press her down. I jabbed one of Sharp Retort's spikes through her ear and into the floorboard to keep her down. The act was cruel and petty but I was angry and that colors one's perspective in a moment.
 
The unicorn's shriek rang in my ears and she tried to buck the bookcase, the junk, and I all in one go. When she realized it was futile, she stopped. She was smarter than the others.
 
"Go on and do it, asshole," she hissed at me, her eye narrowed in a mixture of uncertainty, fear, and all out hatred.
 
"You wish, darling," I hissed in her ear, pressing down on the bookcase. "I just wanted to let you know that I don't appreciate ponies trying to raid my house. It bugs me. Just a little bit, you know?" I forced myself to speak with overacted geniality.
 
The cleaver started to move again. I twisted Sharp Retort. The cleaver stopped.
 
"Tut tut, don't go getting ideas. Now, I'm going to be a good guy here. I'm going to let you go, and you're never going to come back, okay? Sound peachy keen fabulous?"
 
The unicorn tried to nod but just pulled on her own ear. She managed to hiss an angry affirmation though.
 
I am a pony of my word; let that be known, because I did push that bookcase off her. With the bookcase gone, it would not be too hard for her to stand up and leave. At least, it would have been if it wasn't for her ear being pinned to the floor by Sharp Retort. I didn't pull it out though, no. I was angry, and like I said, that changes things. She struggled to keep her eye on me while I took up her cleaver.
 
One quick swing later and the unicorn was free.
 
She yowled. There was blood. I dropped the cleaver to clatter on the floor.
 
 I smiled to her. "Run."
 
Thank Luna she listened.
 

It took a few hours to clean up. Get my bookcase right ways up, get all my stuff back together. I looted the bodies, that's not as bad as killing them. They aren't going to use them after all. Least that's always what I told myself. As hauls go, it was not much. The cleaver was a rusted piece of junk, I was surprised it even allowed me my psychopathic scare tactic with the unicorn. Their armor was all a bust. I took it all anyways, tucked it away for next time I go find Summer Bounty. A handful of caps and a bit of Dash rounded out their possessions. I took it all. I dragged their bodies to an empty place down the road. I didn't want them around.
 
Dinner was good, for a broad definition of the term. I kept it down; don't know how I did though. The radio was better but I only half listened. I looked out from my hole in the wall. The blighted, blasted wreckage at night. The terrible things that I knew were out there so unapparent from my perch. It made me want to laugh. So I did. I laughed. I laughed loud. I didn't even stop when the tears started coming.
 
"Stop crying. You shouldn't have let that bitch go."
 
A voice over the radio cracked and popped across the the tinny airwaves. The voice dragged across my ears like a rasp. I couldn't help but look at the little flashing dial that sparked in time with the voice. I'm not insane, I thought. I was just alone and I needed to think and sometimes you need someone to bounce ideas off of in order to keep your head. Everyone needs friends. I just made my own.
 
"She's going to get friends. You know she is. She'll be back. You'll die. You done fucked up, Red."
 
I gritted my teeth and looked down at the floor. "Not right now," I replied, "She won't. I took out her friends and left her with a message she won't soon forget. I'll be fine."
 
"Fat chance of that. Should've run off with your little marefriend. Shame the better part ain't still-"
 
"Enough!" I shouted at the radio and smashed it to the ground. "I won't. Don't go there," I told the now silent lump of metal and wire. "I've got this all under control. I just need some sleep. I just need a little sleep and I'll be fine by the morning."
 
I paced the floor of my apartment, periodically checking out the gaping hole to the dimming light outside. "Just a one act play. It's over now," my reminders were sounding more hollow the more I thought of it.
 
"Stupid fuck," crackled a radio. "Lock your door and get ready for a sun up surprise. You know it, I know it, everyone here knows it. I'm looking out for you, Red, but you're the only one that can save your ass."
 
I swallowed the lump sitting in my throat. I looked down at the PipBuck I bought earlier. Solemnly, I rolled the device underhoof, thinking about where it came from and how it may have gotten in Summer's cart.
 
"Don't ignore me," the heavy rasp clamored for attention. "You should be half out of the East-side by now. Gangers travel in packs, you know that."
 
I laughed to myself and pushed the PipBuck aside. With the help of the weight of my actions, I fell into the old mattress I called a bed. "Go to sleep, Radio. Just go to sleep."
 
 
I woke in a cloud of comfort. Surrounded by the soft, silken wrap of a blanket and upon the softest mattress I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. A pillow that smelled like grass and flowers, perfumed and cold and it immediately set off every warning bell in my head. I didn't own blankets like this, I barely owned blankets at all. I certainly didn't have a bed that could redefine soft. I threw myself off the deceitful furniture and snapped my head back in forth to grab my bearings on where my, extremely kind, kidnapper had taken me.
 
It was a stateroom. Larger than my hidey-hole and decked in deep reds and golds. The bed was a monstrous four post affair with a heap of swirled blanket in the middle where I had been cocooned. The dim lighting came from flickering lanterns attached to the wall that made the shadows dance and stretch about the rest of the room.
 
I walked around the bed and stopped to stare at the portraits on a writing desk at the end of the bed; gilt framed but with their photos so cracked and worn their images were impossible to make out. One of them sat face down, the frame broken. I reached to right the frame but hesitated. A tinny voice in the back of my head told me to let it lay. So I did and turned away from the desk.
 
"Hello!" I called out while walking down the one hallway that seemed to lead from the room. The hall was similar to the room, rich and dark and just a little too large for comfort. I passed door after door, each closed and not a one seemed to budge when I had tried to open them. So I was left with calling to the sky in hopes of finding the owner of the finest house in the wastes.
 
My walk was interrupted by splashing water. I looked down to see my hoof in a puddle that threatened to consume the hallway. Following it back, the water seemed to be pouring from under a door marked with a "No Admittance" sign. Not being one to care much for such trivialities, especially when my curiosity was piqued the way this house was doing, I chose to ignore the sign.
 
I stared out into a rainstorm and immediately regretted ignoring that sign. The door now open, the house fell away and I fell face first into a deep mud bog. I thrashed to my hooves and looked up, blinking into the rain that fell with piercing force against my hide. The house was gone fully now, I looked back and forth for the hallway but was only met with endless darkness, mud, and more rain. I ran and ran and chased what wasn't for what felt like an hour. Only then did I sit in the mud and try to reclaim my breath. I felt like I was going to drown for the rain and exertion.
 
A sound wove its way through the downpour, slithering into my ear from somewhere behind. It cracked and hissed and popped in a way that sent a severing terror up my spine. I looked. A cable, animate from some unseen puppeteer, spitting sparks and cruelty from its severed end, rose like a serpent in front of me.
 
It struck.
 
Everything went dark.
 
I heard the word, "You."
 
 
I woke up hours later to the sound of my own screaming. The morning routine is still the morning routine and I took care of it as much as the ritual took care of me. Some dried up radhog to start, sink water to wash the blood and dirt off, some more sink water to drink with a radaway chaser.
 
I hit my radio to get the morning sound, but was met with nothing but static. Using my far-reaching mechanical acumen, I hit the radio again. Still not a sound came from the streamlined little box. I changed up my repair regimen, this time hitting the radio, but harder. It still didn't work. Giving up, I pitched the old radio through my empty space where a wall should be and I turned to one of the other radios I had salvaged over time. The new one popped, and fed me a static fizz. I chewed on my tongue a moment, contemplating broken radio number two, but my luck came around after last nights overtime and it spat to life, once again playing DJ-Pon3's broadcast. The sweet sounds of the morning DJ and his music took my mind off last night's dream.
 
"See? Right up there" A familiar voice spoke outside. One I had hoped not to hear too soon. My ears turned to catch the sound, the rest of me followed soon after. I stepped over to the edge. Down below there was about six or seven ponies, one of them a unicorn with a single ear.
 
"Well damn," I commented to my newest radio, "Turns out she has friends. Who knew? Oh yeah, me."
 
I looked down at the ponies and they looked back up. I up in my hidey-hole, they on the street. Me, clean, but without my barding or weapon, they heavily armed and bearing a certain pungent odor of rage and hatred. It was a silent moment, one shared between all of us. The moment communicated through us in the way that moments tend to do. This one in particular said that I was about to die a horrible death.
 
I looked back upon what I could technically call a life and decided that dying was not in my best interest. I took quick quick stock of my enemy. They had guns. One of them had a really big gun rigged to a battle saddle. I didn't wonder about their condition since I expected that those raiders would be more than happy to demonstrate their firearms for me.
 
I bolted for my barding. Hard hat first, and a good thing, as a falling chunk of upper floor decided it would be fun to outlast the world blowing up but not a few hundred bullets. The piece of plaster hammered off the top of my helmet. The world started buzzing, blurry and swaying. I forced myself into my barding, ducking under the metal lined cloak and tightening the strap of my saddlebags with my teeth. Rare is the time I wish I were a unicorn, this happened to be one of those times. The shooting continued outside, and I stopped to think of why they were firing when they should've known it'd be impossible to hit me from down there. I took Sharp Retort in mouth, and headed to the door.
 
Funny thing about doors, they are hard to open when a pony the size of an independent landmass is standing in the way.
 
He was blue and his mane was very white sticking out from under a black beetle helmet. That was the first thing I noticed about the earth pony that filled my doorframe. The second thing was what he was wearing on his back. It was a battle saddle, a big one, but it only had one gun barrel on the right side. The other side, what I could see of it, was a barrel. The third thing I noticed was that he had just kicked the door in. I noticed this about midway in my flight from door to wall.
 
Once again, I had to thank my helmet. I took this blow better than the unexpected plaster, getting to my hooves and could watch the big guy take his first steps into my hidey-hole. Number four on the noticing things list, he had a PipBuck on his foreleg. Unlike the one I bought from Summer the day before, this one had working light. I kept an eye on my exit options. At the moment they consisted of; over, or under, the big blue stallion, out into second story air, or off the mortal coil. At least it was multiple choice.
 
"So, you're the little pony that cut off Cloves' ear? I can't say that that makes me happy." Big Blue could talk, though his voice sounded like he gargled coal this morning.
 
"Furthermore, this was after you decided to end the lives of two of my gang. Now, I cannot help but feel that you were trying to send me a message with these actions. I ask you to forgive my ignorance but I could not ascertain the meaning of this message on my own, so I requested Cloves show me to your homestead in order to question you directly so as to ensure there is no misunderstanding between us." Big Blue could talk a lot. I found myself just a little disturbed at how erudite he was for a raider. I am a firm believer that the big ones should not have good diction.
 
"That was all in self defense; believe you me, big blue. Your guys attacked me first," I defended myself in as pathetic and abrupt manner as I could. However, for a bit of additional back up, I inched my way towards the open. Slowly and surely as I kept talking, to keep the big guy distracted.
 
"I don't need some kind of turf war with a gang of raiders, you stay away from me, and I won't hurt your gang, how's that work? Live and let live? Or is that too much to ask from some raiders, even if they clearly have more brains to work with than most."
 
Big Blue laughed. It was musical in a gravelly sort of way. "You're an awfully prescient little pony," he remarked with a single, large step. I shrunk back, closer to the edge. "It is too much to ask, I'm afraid. You see, now I need to send a message just in case word gets around that I am not a stallion worthy of respect and fear. You understand, that is the message you sent, and we cannot have anypony getting the wrong message now, can we?" He spoke, he stepped forward pushing me towards the edge.
 
My back hoof hit something, I looked, it was the PipBuck. It caught my attention, and it caught Big Blue's. We both stopped at looked at it for a moment. When I looked back to him, he seemed amused.
 
I thought for a moment, maybe I could use the PipBuck as barter so I could keep at least some of my internal organs. After all, Big Blue had one, probably knew how they worked, and it interested him. I knew the look of a buyer when I saw it.
 
"Go on, take it," his words cut my brain off at the pass. "Do you even know what you could do with one of those?" He laughed again.
 
Now I was going to keep it regardless of how many organs I lost, this was a matter of spite. I stood my ground, rose up to not look nearly as petrified as I was and slowly put the PipBuck on my forehoof. Congratulations, Call, I thought to myself, you are going to die wearing a useless accessory. Good for you.
 
"Scorch, can I shoot the prick, can I?" the unicorn whose ear I trimmed, Cloves, lost her patience. She had brought a shotgun this time, levitating the firearm with particular attention given to the space currently occupied by my head, a space she hoped to clear very shortly.
 
At least she gave me big blue's name. I liked knowing the name of my killer.
 
"Do not interrupt me when I'm talking, bitch!" Scorch turned on the unicorn mare with a snarl. Cloves did me the biggest favor of my life; she pissed off her boss. I couldn't tell if the unicorn was offended or not, because I took the opportunity that was presented to me and tossed myself over into the mercy of gravity.
 
Falling backwards, I was granted the admittedly impressive view of the gout of fire being spewed out into the air after my departure. I got a good solid second of watching the pretty fire before I struck one of the waiting raiders. The wind was gone out of my sails, I saw stars, my body shouted, I shouted. The pony under me didn't say anything but I wasn't about to find out why not. I twisted and turned, bucked to my feet and made a break for it. The other raiders must have gone inside with their leader, I couldn't have considered myself luckier for the all of two seconds it took before I felt the piercing sting of shotgun pellets on my back. I pitched forward, only staying on my hooves thanks to pure, unadulterated fear. The chorus of additional bullets joined the shotgun once the first verse ended. I didn't plan on sticking around to listen to the coda.
 
 
Armor saved my hide, literally in this case, but that does not mean getting shot is painless. I found myself in what I could call some kind of a lobby. There was a big desk, shaped like a C, I knew that because I was hiding in the concave side of it. The light was low, this building was mostly intact and all I had to go by was the dim lights of a few Sparkle-Cola machines that stood sentinel long after they had any real use. It was impressive how they still kept power for so long after all this time. It was strange comfort to know that at least some things were built to last.
 
I had gotten my barding off and was inspecting the series of welts that now peppered my back. I sighed, thankful that none of the shots actually got me. I hadn't grabbed any of the few healing potions I had back at the hidey-hole. It took a moment for that to process before I cursed the fact to the nopony listening. Everything I had was now in the hooves of raiders. My healing potions, my food, my radio collection, those magazines with the surprisingly informative articles, all of them gone. I groaned, the pain both emotional and physical, as I took a break to curl up on the dirty floor and feel sorry for my stuff and myself.
 
When I got around to checking my saddlebags, I took stock of my inventory. One battered reinforced leather barding, one hard hat, my Sharp Retort, my favorite book, and a broken PipBuck on my wrist. Well fuck me several ways from Sunday. At least I had the essentials. Packed back up again, I hefted to my hooves and mentally shushed the protest put on by my put upon spine. I was a salvager, and I was going to do what I was good at, salvage.
 
The Sparkle-Cola machine was my first target. I was impressed yet again when I got close to them. There were three of them, all of them giving off a quiet hum of arcane power and a soft glow, but not only were these ones working, they were in perfect condition. All of the other ones I'd seen in the wastes were long wrecked by time and ponykind. I took a moment of reverent reflection on these casks of cola. Then I immediately beset upon them to get at their contents.
 
They were too easy to get open. Easy as in they just swung open to show their perfect emptiness to me. "You, my good machine, need to learn that it's not what is on the outside, but what is inside that counts," I chastised the machine and checked its brethren. All of them bore nothing for me but one rather curious conundrum.
 
It may have been the throbbing pain, or my staving off the further realization that not only have I lost everything, but I also have a very angry and disconcertingly well spoken raider who wants me dead, but I was finding this puzzle of the machines the single most interesting thing in all of Equestria. I sat in front of the three machines and looked them over. Perfect condition, but nothing inside.
 
"How do you exist?" I asked the machines, "and why do you mock me by having nothing to salvage?" The machines stood silent in their smug rejection of me.
 
Denied a drink, I pushed to my hooves. Bruised and battered, my wounds were beginning to catch up with me. I didn't want to see the giant bruise my back must be by now, or the potentially cracked ribs. Ignorance is painful, painful bliss. Now that I was up at least, I could push myself forward and maybe to some sort of not cheating vending machine.
 
The first floor had nothing but junk, junk, and more junk, oh, and a clip for a nine millimeter pistol. It stops being strange after a while, but it serves as a good reminder that the old world may have been more trigger happy than we were. I had better pickings in the basement. Not much, since it seems someone had already gotten into everything down in the lower archive rooms and the stacks of old terminal equipment. I found some pieces of old electronics and stuffed them away. Summer always had some customers that picked through her supply while she was away from me. If I was going to start fresh, I'd need a guaranteed trade good. Shame I only found one on the whole floor.
 
I gave up. Not for the first time in my life, and not for the last, I gave up. Something was busted up inside me, and without a healing potion, there was nothing I could do about it. I hobbled my way back up the stairs and back to the embracing curves of the old lobby desk. I can't say I was surprised that sleep caught me there, because I never even noticed I was tired.
 

It was night when I woke up. My body decided it wanted to be a good alarm clock and wake me up with the sound of pain. I grumbled and groaned, moaned and mumbled to the ceiling. Celesta strike me down here, or Luna, or luck, or the angry gods of Sparkle-Cola if they aren't too busy manifesting mysterious vending machines to fuck with pony's heads. I did get to my hooves eventually, and steady enough to keep on trucking just a little farther, just enough to sate my curiosity.
 
I left my temporary refuge to slink under cover of darkness back towards my hidey-hole. I hoped the raiders had gotten bored of stealing everything after I took my early leave. My hopes were answered this time. There wasn't a single pony, earth of unicorn, to be seen at my hidey-hole.
 
It was on fire.
 
Not much to say or do when you watch everything, nearly everything, you had going up in a crackling bonfire. So I felt it was fitting that I didn't say a word and just sat to watch it all, jaw somewhere at floor level. The magazines, the radios, the food was now either somepony else's or it was kindling.
 
I didn't know what to feel. I didn't feel anything. Not anger, not sadness, certainly not happiness, but the whole of it, the sudden, awe inspiring whole of it just sucked the emotion out of me. I continued to stare at the dancing of the flames for Luna knows how long. It took the crack and ruin of the second floor collapsing into the first to shake me from my stupor. Slowly, very slowly, I got up. I sniffed a little, having caught some soot in my eye, obviously, and of all things, smiled. As I turned my back on home I said goodbye to my old friend. "You were a good house."
 

Back at the temple of the more dickish vending gods, I curled up to sleep again. It was a dark sleep. Deep and still, and good and you're so far gone you can't even begin to want to go back to being awake. It was the kindest, sweetest sleep I could have asked for. Dreamless, I experienced mind-expanding clarity in the backs of my own eyelids.
 
Unfortunately, the good things in life never last. Never, ever last, and once again I found myself cursing my luck when I felt a chilling cold against my forehead. It sent a shiver through me that jolted me to wakefulness. I opened my eyes.
 
A unicorn looked down at me from on top of the counter. She magically held a bottle of ice cold refreshment against my head.
 
"Hi there," she said, "Sparkle-Cola?"