//------------------------------//
// Chapter 25: June 28-July 2 
// Story: The Last Pony on Earth 
// by Starscribe 
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June 28, 2015

Dear Journal,

Welcome to the city of trees! Most trees per capita in the world, that’s what the sign says! I guess it’s… probably not true while we’re here. Two more ponies in one place probably changes the population a great deal. God, what I wouldn’t do for a whole capita. That’d be a colony. Probably plenty of ponies who know more about running things than I do. Let someone better take over. I’ll fix your cars.

Okay, probably can’t count on that. Won’t be boring. Got into the new city, totally different wildlife here. Not as many big predators, lots of raccoons and squirrels and stuff. Few bobcats, but they’re smaller than we are (barely). Guess the natives did a little better here than further south with all this nature around.

Found Joseph’s building, intact. No signs of habitation yet, but we haven’t searched very wide. Went in, found the power dead, and the backup generators (pretty much anything communications-related has them) out of fuel. Brought in gallons and gallons and the office was in business again. Turned on my big boom-box again, because how better to attract the ponies than with awesome tunes. Can still hear the radio broadcast from LA, and the satellite signal is coming in clear.

Not really sure what Joseph did for most of the day. I’m going to call it computer magic, if that’s okay. He’s doing something he thinks will keep the system working longer. Disabling things that would shut the satellites down as the GPS starts to drift, stuff like that. “It’s not a perfect fix” he says over and over. Keeping this station powered is going to make a huge difference for the satellites up there. It has programs to do… something something… course corrections… science stuff.

It all sounds like magic to me. The one question I keep coming back to is: how long will it last? A few more months? Years? I got an encouraging answer, or at least more encouraging than having a new pony delivered to you in a near-fatal aircraft accident. He says that we’ll probably still have some use of the system ten or even twenty years from now, because science science smart pony reasons.

Whenever someone gives me an estimate like this, I cut it in half. Five years of global communication. Five years to travel far and wide and bring the ponies in to build a community. Would it be possible to fix the problems with the GPS network the same way? We’d probably need to visit several different stations to do that. How many solar panels would it take?

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. Here we are moving through the state like we’re the masters now. Everyone else is gone, so we’re free to do what we want with what’s left. But is that even really true? Maybe there are thousands of ponies we haven’t found yet, like… if the depopulation was concentrated somewhere close to California and spread out over the country, so that the east is still full. Not sure why we wouldn’t have heard from them by now…

NYC. Got to go there soon as we can. If the depopulation was even across the globe, then we’ll find more ponies there than anywhere else in the US. Hopefully they made a way for themselves all this time. Wonder if they’ll want to start a colony with us.

Digression. Tomorrow we’re going to find some solar stuff. Have to convert another truck first. Joseph can earn his keep and levitate the panels in while I work. We’ll blanket the roof in the things. Getting power to last at night would be harder, but… one miracle at a time. We’re trying to work fast, after all.

Probably will be too tired to say much these next few days, but I’ll make sure to if anything important happens. No meaningful news from home, so that’s probably for the best. Huan keeps me company better than Joe could. He’s a good dog.

—A

June 29, 2015
[The following entry is not typed, but written in large letters, still taking up the whole page but better looking than the last ones]

Dear Journal,


Joseph is such a lazy jerk! Couldn’t be bothered to do anything useful. Doesn’t work nearly hard enough. Stupid sitting on his stupid computer all day. He came with me to the warehouse, but only after I’d already found it. Mostly I used a forklift to do the work, after I converted the damn thing. Remind me again why I bother keeping this guy around? Impossible to get along with. If Sky were only here. We could play monopoly until Joe decided to pull his weight.

—A

June 30, 2015

Work work work. Flat roof solar on top I’ve been working all the livelong day. Joe just puts them up there and I do everything. Run out of room. Will have to use stands on the ground too. Can’t break the panel. Rechargeable tools all by myself. Velcro and hard work. Smell like death, way more humid up here. I knew Joseph wouldn’t come up, ditched the shorts while I was working, so damn sweaty.

Useless. Is it him or me?

—A

July 1, 2015

[Particularly sloppy]

No work like stallion’s work. No stallions work. Solar panels going roofside signals. No satellites wish Sky. Hugs





July 2, 2015

[typed entries resume]
Dear Journal,

I thought about cutting out the last two entries, didn’t seem like they were adding anything constructive to the journal here. It would actually be more work to take them out though, since I just wrote right on the pages. Whatever. Just skip over a few dumb pages. Way easier than what I did.

Nothing’s better to get through stress than hard work. It was harder to do everything without another pony to help (like Sky), but I didn’t really want to be around Joseph. Got the whole roof done, and that’s enough power to do plenty of stuff during the day apparently. The whole building is filled with those UPS battery things, and Joseph has already written a program to shut everything down at night and start it up again about ten once the sun’s come up in force.

Not a perfect solution, but we don’t have too terribly much time to devote to this. I find myself more and more grateful for all those green energy subsidies before the Event. Solar tech has come a long way, and now there are panels everywhere right for the taking. I keep this kind of work up, and I’ll be an electrician yet.

I wonder what our union seal would look like. Maybe some hooves and horns and coils of wire or something. Not that unions really make sense when there aren’t even enough of us not to go extinct, and at present I am totally unwilling to help bolster those numbers.

How anyone else could even consider. Damnit, Sky! How can you be thinking… it’s only been a month! Were all those nihilist philosophers right all along? The human animal, that’s all we ever were. Not me, dammit. Never me. If she wants a tiny horse for a boyfriend, then more power to her. Not me.

Sacremento always had fewer people than Los Angeles. I would count myself lucky if we could find just one. We haven’t yet, though I have seen evidence that a few shops and things have been looted. Grocery store was broken into, so that’s a good sign. Maybe our rock music scared them away. I’ll switch to the national anthem, maybe. Something safe.

Joseph is having more trouble than he initially thought he would integrating with the satellite network, but he says it’s “inevitable” he’ll figure it out, working from within the network and not having anyone trying to shut him out. One or two more days, tops. I still need his help with anything that requires anything more than tacit precision, but I’ve been making do. You wouldn’t believe how much work can be accomplished with some simple levers and dragging and your mouth. Industrious little horsy, that’s me.

Not by choice. I’d probably have finished yesterday if I’d been human, with hands and without distractions. Whatever. If I’d still been human, there probably would’ve still been other humans, and I’d still be working the garage. I miss my friends. I miss my mom, my sister. I hope they’re okay. Maybe I’ll be able to make a trip up to Oregon soon, check to see if they made it.

Shut up, it’s not impossible! It might be genetic! Neither Joseph nor Cloudy Skies have any relatives nearby, so how would we know? And Moriah, well… relatives are the least of our unanswered questions about her. 

Learned from Cloudy about things back home. Lake is drying up; she gives it another month before it’s totally dry. There are a few smaller ponds in town, but none terribly close. Either we’ll need much more power (and a few industrial water extractors), or a way to syphon water from the river. We don’t have any plumbers, but she said she’s going to find the nearest access to the river and see what sort of flexible hoses she can find around the city. Maybe we can daisy-chain some fireman-style hoses and a few industrial pumps. It’s not like water for the cattle has got to be sparkling like dew literally sucked from the air.

Moriah is up and moving, walking short distances. Sky says she’s “doing super great”, but that she’s tripping over herself like a foal and she probably won’t be able to walk properly for another week or so. None of her memories have come back either, except one: there is something important in the plane. She seems to think it may’ve survived, and wants to make a trip to get it.

Sorry Moriah, but that little plane has probably washed out to sea by now. We plan on taking a trip to find out, but only after we make it back home. If it hasn’t washed out yet, I don’t think another day or two will make much difference. Not that I think it’s likely anything could’ve survived. Maybe if she was carrying something in a fire-safe, but otherwise not a chance.

We will make something of this world yet. There have got to be others out there somewhere. We’ll find you, ponies scattered to the winds. Whoever, whatever did this to us, we’ll show them we can’t be stamped out so easily.

—(not) Lonely Day