July 11, 2015
Dear Journal,
Not much to say, really. No word back from the HPI, assuming they’re even really a thing. House can’t keep up with numbers like this. It’s the water that’s the biggest problem; the AW generators just can’t suck anything else out of California’s dry air.
This is a terrible place for a colony. Even if it wasn’t for the dogs and the heat, most of our water was coming from aqueducts and other redirected waterways. None of that stuff still works when there aren’t any humans to keep the pumps running and decide when inlets should be opened and closed.
This isn’t like the north, we don’t have dozens of hydroelectric dams to keep things powered. What’s happening to that power anyway? Whatever, I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s not coming here.
Maybe the HPI knows. Maybe they’re the ones who took it. They couldn’t really have… portable thorium reactors, could they? They certainly had drone vehicles. It might be the large aircraft had a human pilot inside, or maybe it didn’t. Guess there’s no easy way to know.
We’re planning the route and the location for the future colony; the real one. It’s got to be somewhere really, really stable. There actually aren’t that many places that fit the bill. When we go, we’ll have every single one of us driving. That means I’ve started semi-truck lessons with every pony in our group. Daily, one hour. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun.
Maybe not, but fuel is limited. Even assuming we can make biodiesel or something, the sooner we actually leave the more frequently we can travel out for supplies and the more we can bring to the colony site. It will probably be our home for the rest of our lives, so we better choose somewhere damn good.
Jury’s still out on where, though. Not here.
—Day
July 14, 2015
Dear Journal,
Every day I’m more conscious of the need to have fun. Maybe I’m just going completely stir-crazy. The stress of these stupid people hanging over our heads. How much damage could they cause if they wanted to? They managed to search our home quick enough. Wonder why we didn’t find any footprints. Proof it wasn’t humans? Or just proof they were careful?
We have a spot picked out for the new colony. Lots of debate, mainly between rural areas and city. A city would give us the advantage of having structures already built as well as tons and tons of salvage. It would carry some disadvantages though, like fire vulnerability and distance from farmland.
In the end, our choice might not have been the most practical (I don’t actually know). We decided against the city in favor of a small town in an extremely rural area. How are we going to build a colony all by ourselves?
That’s a good question. I’ll let you know when we figure it out.
Oliver came with me to watch Sky do her thing with the animals today, which I thought was nice of him. He watched her trying to fly, and made some interesting suggestions. He thinks she’ll be better off if she starts from somewhere high up already, making the muscles stronger that way. He suggested jumping from a building.
Naturally none of us liked that idea. Like a baby bird, failure would mean certain death. Did she really want to chance flying on something I saw in a vision? Maybe she did too… I don’t actually know. She won’t tell me. Psh. I told her everything I saw! She’s helped me so much in other ways… of all the other ponies here, she’s the one I trust the most. Why won’t she trust me?
Oh, and some good news! The garden's doing really well! Er- half of it is? It's really weird, because we planted mostly the same things, and they've been watered by a sprinkler. Oliver says they just need "more attention" and the other half should bounce back. Guess I trust him; he is the expert gardener. He sure did miracles with that hospital garden. Pity we don't have enough water to give these plants what they really need.
—A
July 15, 2015
Dear Journal,
Finally finished getting the capacity of the house upgraded. Wired all the solar units from every house nearby. We’re losing current along the way, but even half or less is better than the nothing we were getting when those houses were just pouring into the grid.
Joseph and Moriah have become my work crew. It was just going to be Joseph (that damn horn!), but Moriah insisted on coming along. Said that “we wouldn’t need a pilot forever," so maybe she could be an electrician. Most of the time she was just making doe-eyes at Joseph, confounding the poor stallion and making it hard for him to work.
I do feel bad for her, though. Moriah has long since learned about the difficulties of being a quadruped, about using your mouth for everything and the velcro leg socks and all that crap. She’s also seen the way Joseph doesn’t have to worry about any of those things.
He tried to give her a magic lesson yesterday. I heard her screams from several houses away when she tried it. Oliver gave her more morphine than seems wise for a human, and that seemed to help. Even so, she hasn’t tried since. Is her horn going to heal one day? Oliver doesn’t think so, says the bone’s broken for good. Anything that heals is bound to come in weird if at all.
Of course, that’s all based on what he knows of Earth animals. We have no guarantee those rules apply to ponies. Maybe she’ll make a full recovery.
I can relate to the frustration of being a regular pony, Moriah. I don’t have a horn or magic either. You don’t see me consoling myself by manipulating a stallion who’s probably never had female attention in his life, though.
Shut up, don’t even say anything. I’m not going after any pony. I don’t understand the appeal, okay? I’m human. I’m human, I’m not an animal… I don’t think about ponies… dream about them…
Let’s move right along. Solar’s wired now. With the lot of them, we’ve got about twice the power we did before (during the day). We aren’t going to bother with wind, since our time here is so scarce anyway.
Honestly, I’m starting to wish that the HPI would just call already. At least then, for better or worse, the stress would be gone. Decide whether you’re going to help us or tell us we’re going to be left alone! The stress of not knowing is much worse.
—A
July 16, 2015
Dear Journal,
This disaster has been going on too long; long enough that all of us are feeling like checking on our families can’t wait. Moriah is more than happy to fly us there, but first we need to make it so she can fly.
Had her pick out the best tiny plane, spent the day on conversions. Good news is that the fuel seems intact. I brought this test-kit you can use to check the octane, and it looks like the storage tanks were built to insulate against the temperatures here. Score one for human engineering! Tomorrow she’ll try taxiing around the runway on her own, and even take a quick solo if she feels up to it. Joseph volunteered to come along, but we ultimately told him no. It would be best for all ponies involved if we take the smallest risks we can. Giving up a female would be tragic, but not as tragic as losing an entire breeding pair.
Not that there are any breeding pairs. Nobody’s tried… we’re still humans!
‘Cept maybe Cloudy. I feel like she never really went through the species (ect.) crisis that I had to struggle through.
Too bad there aren’t any stallions brave enough, eh? What a jolly mess we all are. All aboard the extinction train!
—A
July 17, 2015
Dear Journal,
It would’ve been Jennifer’s birthday today. I’m not sure if she’s even still alive to celebrate it, but I’m going to find out soon enough. Moriah made her first test-flight as a pony, this time with much better results. Guess converting it so a pony can use the controls really does make a difference
We’re refueled and ready to go. Barring unseasonal weather, we’ll be lifting off early tomorrow morning. Flying to Oregon. Probably not a same-day return trip. With any luck, there will be two fewer empty seats on the plane coming home. Having two more females would be fantastic for our chances, but I couldn’t care less about that. Those “females” are my family, damnit. I’m coming back with them. It’s going to be fantastic. I won’t care how disagreeable Moriah is or how obtuse Joseph acts. If I get them back, I can tolerate anything.
Maybe Moriah will be luckier than with her horn and come back with some family of her own. It’s hard to tell if she wants to; she sounds incredibly conflicted about it. I honestly don’t know if she actually wants them to be there or not.
Doesn’t matter what’s motivating her, though. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t check. Might as well fully utilize the benefits of a pilot while we have working planes. Also powered up the printer and made a simple flyer. “You Are Not Alone”, with directions here and our radio frequency. We thought about putting instructions for the satellite stuff on there too, but apparently Joseph has a custom app and the thing won’t work without it (not really sure the details, it’s kinda over my head).
Printed a few hundred and laminated them. That used to be so expensive. Expensive. We don’t even have a concept of money anymore. I wonder how long it will be before we do. Probably… not until we have a population bigger than a few. Goods and services, supply and demand, all that. Probably will need to think of something else to use. Gold and jewels are pretty abundant for us now, relative to the population size. Maybe I’ll go and see if Fort Knox really has any of that gold inside it one of these days.
Probably won’t be taking my diary with me. Too much chance something might go wrong, and I want my record to survive. I’ve given Sky explicit instructions not to read it, and to write in it only if something critical happens when I’m gone. She’s to call in that case too, though if we’re in the air we might not get it until we land.
Whatever, they’ll be fine. Just so long as those HPI people don't show up. That shouldn’t happen.
I’m more worried about myself. I feel like I’m learning the rhythms of this new body pretty well. Maybe I should wait awhile before going, until I know I’m going to be more stable. Nope. No more delays. Not one.
Please God, keep her safe. All of them. I don’t care if you burn my home to the ground and take away all our hard work. Just keep them safe. My friends are the most important thing in my whole world.
Only thing, really. You took away my whole identity. Seems like the least you could do would be to let me keep them.
—Alex