//------------------------------//
// 2. Annapolis 
// Story: Railroad Seven-Three 
// by Defoloce 
//------------------------------//

The old get old and the young get stronger
May take a week and it may take longer
They got the guns but we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah we're taking over
Come on!

-The Doors, “Five to One”




"So, uh... which one of them is Melchior and which one is Balthazar?"

Gaspar had been watching to the sides and rear of the vehicle as Railroad 7-3 moved east on Route 50. Obstacles had pretty much killed anyone's ability to go highway speeds ever again, so it was slow going. There wasn't much to watch out for on the highway, though, with sound walls on the north side and the south side lined with trees, so he took his eyes off of the road and looked over at Melody, who had asked the question.

"She's Melchior, he's Balthazar," he said. "Your name is Melody, right?"

The pegasus nodded slowly. "For the time being, yes."

The big man's eyebrows lifted. "That ain't a pony-name? Sounds like one."

"No, it's uh... it's what my mom and dad named me."

He looked at her for a moment, considering something, then gave her a small smile. "Take this time to think up a new name," he said, looking back out over the road again. "Can't be havin' two ladies on this trip whose names both shorten down to 'Mel.' Liable to get confusing, you know. Seems to be gettin' harder to keep your real name anyhow, these days."

Gavel smiled. "You mean you three didn't just happen to have names that fit so well together?"

Gaspar kept scanning. His assault rifle was slung, but he was keeping it at the low ready, which was making Gavel nervous. "Code names," he said. "Every Railroad team has 'em, and we're always teams of three. Ain't much use for real names this close to the Barrier."

"So 'seven-three' is—"

"Seven is state number, three is team number. Maryland was the seventh state to join the union, we're the third team out of twelve operating in-state. Get it? Railroad Seven-One has the code names 'Moe,' 'Larry,' and 'Curly.'" The man snorted and smiled. "Lucky bastards. Seven-Seven is 'Athos,' 'Porthos,' and 'Aramis.' You get the idea."

Melody smiled a bit. "Thank you for taking us home, Gaspar," she said.

"You're welcome," replied the man, almost too quietly to hear over the hum of the tires on the road.

The pickup started to slow down a few minutes later. Sugar Spoon put her hooves up on the side of the bed to lean over and look ahead. A large snarl of abandoned traffic had jammed up the eastbound lanes of Route 50, forcing the truck to cross the grassy median to the westbound lanes.

"What's going on?" asked Sugar Spoon as she eyed the glut of stationary minivans, cars, and SUVs across the way. "I thought everypony was meant to keep moving on roads like these. Why are there spots where ponies just stop?"

"You want to know?" asked Gaspar.

She settled back down into the bed and nodded. Gavel's ears swiveled forward in curiosity.

Gaspar sighed. "PER attack. They like to potion-bomb people sitting in traffic. Makes for a nice big blob of cars full of people suddenly unable to drive them."

"That's horrible!" cried Sugar Spoon. She and Melody exchanged sorrowful looks.

Gaspar sucked on a tooth. "They don't do it much anymore," he said. "People got wise to it, and besides, there aren't enough folks driving nowadays to make traffic jams anyway."

The truck shuffled and shimmied over the median back to the eastbound lanes once clear of the blockage. There were still accidents and stray vehicles here and there, however, and the group couldn't get up too much speed with having to constantly maneuver. Gavel saw Gaspar's grip on his rifle tighten.

"Is there something we should be worried about?" he asked.

"Not in particular," he said, "it's just that slower is more dangerous. No fighter worth his salt likes bein' in a slow convoy, and the bigger the convoy, the slower it has to go. That's just a rule of nature."

Sugar Spoon cocked her head, not understanding. "Surely there's safety in numbers, right?"

"You think so? Back when ferries were running out of Rehoboth Beach, lots of ponies around here were trying to make the trip to the coast on foot. Hoof. Whatever. Anyway, they were ripe for ambushing, and that's just what'd happen. HLF had a field day back then, before the Railroad. The ponies..." He shook his head. "...they didn't know what to do. Our first couple runs, we'd see the odd caravan of ponies. They'd be dead on the roadside in a colorful little pile. Some of 'em still had their goodie-bags around their necks."

Melody looked at her sack of food and reading material that the Bureau had provided her. She swallowed a lump in her throat and hugged it tighter to her.

"The Railroad was born out of that," said Gaspar. "The carriages were supposed to just be for the Bureaus out west, for convenience. Celestia didn't know what humans were capable of." He gave a small, bitter smile as he scanned. "She thought she knew, starting out, but we surprised even her."

"Ah, I see," said Gavel. "'Railroad.' So it's like Harriet Tubman."

Gaspar tapped his own nose twice.


*          *          *


"Cordon One-Niner, Railroad Seven-Three, how copy, over?"

"Railroad, you are lima charlie, go ahead, over."

"Cordon, we've located your patrol, they're about two miles east of the 301 interchange. Battery died while they were siphoning fuel. We gave 'em a jump, they'll be traveling in convoy with us the rest of the way. They should establish contact of their own once they're charged up a bit. Over."

"Railroad, Cordon copies all. Thanks for the assist. Out."

Melchior hung up the radio handset and leaned out of the window. The rest of the group was helping the Cordon team rearrange medical supplies in their SUV, getting them out of the flatbed trailer it was towing and into the interior cargo space of the vehicle.

"Guys, your HQ is up to speed," she called out. "Good to go."

The three ponies were standing off to the side, watching the humans work. Melody sighed.

"I wish I could help them somehow," she said.

"We'd just get in the way," said Gavel. He looked over at Sugar Spoon, who was running a hoof through the grass of the median.

"Hey, I'm just a chef," she said. "About the heaviest thing I have to lift with my magic on a daily basis is canisters of flour."

The patrol out of Cordon 19 was a team of two men and two women. Gavel knew fatigue and stress when he saw it, and it was written all over their faces. Seeing friendly humans pull up must have been like water in the desert for them. They hadn't said much while the ponies were around, though that may have been because of more pressing matters at hand. It could also have been burnout, though. Gavel wondered when their last hot meal and good night's sleep had been. Melody had been right, he decided: he hated not being able to help.

He smiled bittersweetly to himself. As a human, he would have felt a passing regret, but it actually pained him now. Pony nature was going to take some getting used to.

After the medical supplies were loaded, Balthazar dusted his hands and gestured to the pickup. "We're mounting up," he said to the ponies. He and Gaspar followed behind them, unslinging their rifles and bringing them to low ready once more, their heads constantly turning back and forth as they walked along. All three of the ponies noticed that their escorts were never without their weapons, and all three found it a little unnerving.

Gaspar lowered the tailgate and the ponies hopped into the pickup bed once more. He raised the tailgate back up and then jumped in himself, causing the truck to sit down a little lower than it had before.

Balthazar laughed as he got into the driver's side of the cab. "Too many donuts, man, I'm tellin' you!" Gaspar grinned and swatted around at him through the open window. The engine started, and they were off once more, the Cordon patrol following behind them.

"Well, that was refreshing," said Gaspar.

Sugar Spoon lifted her head, catching a gust of a breeze from the side of the truck. "Hmm? What was?"

"Team goes radio-silent and it's not due to casualties," replied the man, once again not letting the conversation interrupt his scanning. "Usually it's bad juju."

The Equestrian's ears drooped. "Oh. I'm, er... I'm glad too, then." She put her head back down and murmured something.

"What was that?" asked Gavel.

"I... I said 'this place.'"

The two newfoals winced and looked to Gaspar. If he had heard, he made no indication.


*          *          *


It was a mile's detour north of Route 50 to get to the crash site. Railroad 7-3 and the patrol from Cordon 19 pulled up to the carriage from a small residential road. Everyone in the convoy dismounted, with the Cordon patrol hurrying to unpack supplies while Gaspar and the ponies surveyed the scene.

Gaspar slung his rifle and whistled. "I tell you one thing: if I ever had to convince you ponies to wear horseshoes, I couldn't say it's because you need the luck!"

In front of them, the broad air-carriage had landed and skidded to a stop in an open field surrounded by trees. Paths of orange packed dirt lead from the field to the road, and large herringbone-patterned tire treads ran all along the clearing. The ground was suddenly cast into shade. Melody looked up to see clouds gathering overhead. It was quickly becoming overcast.

"This is a construction site," said Gavel. "New houses must have been scheduled to be built here. These tire tracks are from heavy equipment."

"Freshly wooded and stumped," added Gaspar with a nod. "Soft dirt, not a thing to slam into. If you had to crash, you couldn't have asked for a better landing strip."

"Somepony out there's looking out for us," said Melody quietly. Sugar Spoon gave her a smile.

"I dunno about all that," said Gaspar as he walked away from them to help with the unloading of supplies. "If that were true, then why'd they crash in the first place?"

Sugar Spoon bristled at the comment, and Melody put a hoof on her shoulder. "Don't mind it, Spoon," she said. "He's heard about Celestia, but he doesn't know about her. He can't know about her, not really. No human can."

The unicorn looked over at her friend. "What do you mean?"

Gavel stepped up to join them. "There's the broadcasts on TV, the... well, I guess they're not commercials, since they're all that's on, but humans see Celestia and hear her voice, and she seems graceful and powerful, but it's not really conveyed until you're in her presence for the first time."

Melody nodded at that. "Exactly. When you take the potion, you... you kind of dream. Only it's real, but still dreamlike. Celestia and Luna talk to you, one-on-one, and you feel like you really get to know each other. It's... hard to describe. There isn't much talking, but there's a lot of communication. I never understood what Celestia was until I had that dream. Gaspar won't, either, until he has the dream himself."

They watched the seven humans approach the field, carrying boxes and bags with a red cross painted on them. Several ponies rushed up to meet them, some jubilant, others panicked. The humans began to split off as ponies led them to the remaining wounded, who were scattered around the hull of the carriage, its angular final resting position providing some impromptu shelter.

"Should we stay here?" asked Melody. She really didn't want to feel useless anymore.

"We could at least see if we can be of any help," said Sugar Spoon. "You never know."

They cantered across the soft dirt field, soon catching the notice of the other ponies at the site. When they reached the massive lean-to that the carriage had become, they saw a short line of ponies there under the carriage in various states of injury. Melchior and one of the men from the Cordon team were busy treating one pony, while Balthazar and one of the female Cordon members tried to keep the gathering crowd of ponies calm. A light mist was starting to form in the clearing as the sky darkened further.

Sugar Spoon swiveled her ears forward and began to catch snatches of the dialogue between the humans and the ponies.

"—husband is dying and there's only two medics here to—"

"Ma'am, your husband is stable, Mel triaged him earlier this morning. All of the immediate and delayed wounded were evacuated to the Conversion Bureau. We dropped them off ourselves, personally. Anyone we left here was capable of surviving at least until we got b—"

Another pony. "What about Mainsail? You left her behind and she died not ten minutes later!"

"She was expectant, there was nothing we could do for her. We needed room for the ponies that actually had a chance of being saved but couldn't wait for treatment."

"You're lying! I was human once too, you know, and I know how much humans like to lie! You just wanted her to die, that's all!"

"We know how to evaluate casualties, sir, and Mainsail would not have survived even a couple of minutes on the road anyway."

"You can just go... g-go... go jump in a lake!" The stallion who had spoken snorted and pawed at the ground; obviously his pony nature was getting in the way of expressing himself as he was used to.

Another mare came running up. "Sir! Mister Human! My daughter has a tummyache, do you have something in there for it?"

Yet another mare. "A tummyache? Lady, there are ponies dying over here, can't you see them? Wait your turn!"

"Everything we're doing here is just to get the more seriously hurt fit to travel. We are not equipped to treat everything here and now. We'll get you all back to the Conversion Bureau just as soon as we can, but you have to let us do our jobs."

The clamor went on. Sugar Spoon was getting the urge to leave; it was getting too unpleasant here. She found herself backing away, chuckling uneasily.

"I don't, uh... I don't think we can be much help here."

She felt her rump hit another pony. She spun around to apologize, but the pony she'd bumped into spoke first.

"You weren't on the carriage," she said. "Where'd you come from?"

Gavel and Melody joined Sugar Spoon as, behind them, the humans scrambled to calm down the ponies and see to the injured.

"We came with the humans," she said. "With a Railroad team."

The mare's eyes widened, and the wings on her back shifted a bit. "Railroad?"

Gavel and Melody looked at each other. Melody bit her lip.

The pegasus shouldered past Sugar Spoon and craned her neck to look at the humans. "There's a Railroad team here?"

A passing stallion's ear flicked in her direction. "There is?" He ran down into the shade of the carriage and jumped in front of the crowd facing off against Balthazar. "Take me with you, Railroad! Just take me the rest of the way!"

Sugar Spoon sucked in a breath. "Whoops," she whispered.

The crowd in front of the humans exploded, and they swarmed Balthazar, pawing at him and begging to be taken along.

"I'm a native Equestrian! I deserve to go!"

"I was first on the manifest for this carriage trip!"

"Well I was second!"

"Holy shit, we already have three passengers, and it's just the one truck!" shouted the man over the pony voices. "We can't take any more, or we would!"

"More lies!"

"Dump some of those guns and make room!"

"Why do they get to go? What makes them so special?"

A hoof pointed at the trio outside of the shelter. Melody's ears drooped.

"I think... we should go wait somewhere else."

Melchior was already standing up, passing off her duties to another Cordon member. She and Balthazar started edging their way clear of the carriage with the herd of ponies stalking after them, rumbling with malcontent. Once clear, she ran around the side of the carriage to see Gaspar and the other Cordon members gathering up ponies' personal belongings for shipment. The building fog was now thick enough to conceal the perimeter of the clearing; it now seemed as though they weren't surrounded by forest at all.

"Gas! We're leaving!" she shouted, not bothering to slow down. Balthazar pointed to the trio and waved them towards the truck as he too ran.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," chanted Gavel as they galloped back to the pickup, a small stampede of ponies hot on their hooves. Bringing up the rear was Gaspar, his slung rifle bouncing around on his back.

Sugar Spoon, Melody, and Gavel got into the truck bed, but immediately behind them more ponies started to pile in as well, pushing and shoving and standing on one another. By the time ponies had gotten to hanging onto the sides and attempting to crawl into the cab through the window (presumably to sit on the humans' laps), Gaspar arrived and started pulling ponies off, his big arms scooping up two at a time and depositing them firmly behind him.

The ponies vocalized their displeasure.

"I just want to get out of here!"

"Don't leave us!"

"Take my daughter, at least, she's just a foal! She doesn't deserve this!"

"You'll all get to Equestria, we promise," he said as he worked. "It's not safe to overload like this. As soon as these three are dropped off, we'll be comin' back to the DC Bureau for more, we swear!"

The ponies crowded the truck, but there was no motion to confront the big human directly. Gaspar flopped into the truck bed and knocked on the back glass window of the pickup.

"Drive, drive!" he shouted. Then, to the ponies: "We're sorry! Hang in there!"

Balthazar gunned it, swerving out of the way of the SUV and trailer as he U-turned the pickup back onto the road. Melody looked out behind them and saw the colorful array of newfoals sitting there forlornly at the roadside before the fog swallowed them up.

Gaspar unslung his rifle, which allowed him to fall onto his back and take some deep breaths. Sugar Spoon laid down next to him, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"Gaspar, I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't realize that would happen. I've never seen ponies act like that before."

"S'all right," he said between breaths. "It's the herd mentality. I've seen it a lot. When there's a lot of ponies together, it gets hard for 'em to think for themselves. They just wanna do what everyone else is doing, and ponies aren't equipped mentally to deal with emergencies like those. They panic, and survival instinct kicks in, emotions run high. It's all explainable."

"Still, I wish we could have taken some along," said Melody. "We could have made room!"

Gaspar sat up and brought his rifle to ready; resting time was apparently over. "I meant what I said about safety. Three ponies and one human is already pretty cozy. Even one more pony and one's liable to go flying out of the truck on a hard bump. Believe me, I wish I could help more too, but we can only do what we can."

Balthazar made the turn back onto 50 East. As Railroad 7-3 crossed over the Severn River, the back window of the cab slid open. The ponies were greeted with Melchior's face.

"Just talked with Balth in here," she said. "Shift change before the bay?"

Gaspar nodded. "Yeah. Shift change. Sounds good."

The ponies saw the off-road lights atop the roll bar turn on, shooting cones of white light ahead of the truck. The fog continued to thicken.