JULY 5
US Independence Day came and went uneventfully. Sorry, any Americans reading this. I'm sure there were ponies somewhere across your country having the same feelings I did on the first.
The one thing that I did do during the Fourth was mull over the population that was left, of both Canada and the US. And, I guess, the world in general. Simple math led me to believe that the three of us in ... dare I say it... Ponytown... were quite literally one in a million, each of us, if not rarer - possibly even one in two million. Unless there were some people in the area doing the same thing as us - surviving - except for the reaching out and trying to make contact part.
That would mean between 17 and 35 people... ponies... existed in my country. The concept gave me chills, to say the least. There was no delusion in me that maybe there was a limit to the extent of the phenomenon. If my father on Vancouver Island on the other end of the country was gone (he never answered his phone, emails, or other means of contact, so I put 2 and 2 together and got 4), and there was a complete lack of a 'disaster response', or any kind of response, from other regions - the USA or even overseas - mean that the most plausible answer was that what we were experiencing was representative of what was going on worldwide.
"So you're suggesting there's only 350 ponies at most in the United States?" Swift said at breakfast when I mentioned this.
"And at most 7500 in the entire world," Jeff finished the arithmetic. "That's not a promising statistic."
"I don't mean to be such a downer," I said. "It just came to me when I was thinking about the US yesterday."
"It's probably wise to keep it in mind," Jeff contributed. "To know what our odds are. In finding others, that is."
"If distribution didn't change, proportionally, we should still see more ponies here than anywhere else in the country," supplied Swift.
"Do we want to venture into Toronto any time soon?" I asked. Both of my companions shook their heads. Especially with our mystery visitors - who'd yet to respond to our calls - the topic was a non-starter. "Fair enough, I just thought I'd ask."
"What we will do is keep doing what we've been doing," Jeff said. "Agreed?"
"Yeah," Swift said, and I nodded in response. Casting out in an arc to try to locate food, supplies, and other survivors was still on the table.
"It's my turn today," he said, rising to his hooves, "but I think two of us should go and leave Buddy with whoever stays back. Reason being, the SUV is on its last legs. We need to find a diesel or electric car - maybe one of each - and today."
"I can come," I said, as Swift almost stereoed, "I'll go." We looked at one another.
"How do you do rock-paper-scissors with hooves?" I quipped.
"Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock," she corrected me. "And sadly I have to admit you can't. Flip a coin?"
"Do you remember where any money is?" I asked. "I know I haven't touched any in 6 weeks."
"In the cash registers," she shot back, rolling her eyes.
"They empty them when they close for the night," I pointed out.
"Ladies," Jeff stressed. "Let's not get testy."
Buddy suddenly got up and went over to the spotting stand. There, he took one of the handheld radios in his jaws, pulling it free of the charging cradle, then walked over to Swift and deposited it at her hooves.
I jokingly sneered at him. "You just like her better 'cause she's who you met first."
He gave out his little 'huff' sound as he curled back up in the common area.
"I guess that's settled," Jeff said with a smirk. "I'll go warm up the car while you get our stuff, Miss Quill."
Swift rose to her hooves and picked up the radio in her magical grasp, turning it on. "Try not to wreck the place, Stormy," she grinned.
"Ha ha," I rolled my eyes. Walking back to my room, I muttered "Traitor" at the Dalmatian in my path, getting a 'huff' in response again.
While I was neatening out my bed, I heard Jeff come back in. "Uhm... are either of you playing with mobile technology? Like remotely operated devices?"
"What? No," I heard Swift say from her room. I poked my head out of my area to look at Jeff.
"In that case, I, um, I think we have a visitor," he said, gesturing toward the front of the store.
Moments later, the three of us were crowded around the window in the spotting stand, looking out across the parking lot in the early morning light.
"How far away?" Swift wanted to know.
"It was crossing the grass between the road and the parking lot when I spotted it," Jeff said, waving a hoof in the mentioned direction. "I don't see it now."
"Give me those," Swift said, pulling at the binoculars, even though the parking lot was barely 400 meters across.
"Don't you have a super-sight spell yet?" I asked.
"Hush," she said as she levitated the glasses to her face.
"There it is," Jeff said, his foreleg nearly knocking me over as he pointed across my field of vision, in a different direction. We swiveled that way and saw a... something making its way down the traffic lane.
"It's going for the entrance," Swift said, still looking through the glasses. There were murmurs of agreement that our plan to put our 'front door' far away from our living spaces was validated.
The three of us looked at one another for a moment. "Are you not feeling what I'm not feeling?" Jeff asked us.
"It's not giving off that weird vibe," Swift said, clearly with immense relief. "Does that mean it's not 'Them'?"
What 'it' was, from all appearances, was a cart a little smaller than a quad or side-by-side ATV. It was all black and had no place for a person - or pony, for that matter - to sit, though it looked like it had been repurposed from something else that once had that capability, or maybe it was the offspring of a bomb disposal robot and a Mars rover. There was a bulky section near the middle, and something on what appeared to be the cargo platform. There was also a camera pylon ringed with LED lights (which weren't lit up, being daytime).
"I don't know what it is," I said. "What do you want to do if it tries to get in?"
There was silence while we all thought about that situation. Finally, Jeff spoke up. "I'll draw its attention while you two get in the SUV with Buddy," he said. "Meet me at the city hall down the street after I shake it."
"Forget it," Swift said. "We're not splitting up. And if it doesn't have that anti-magic ray, we're not backing down. I don't see any weapons on it, either, and - wait. It's stopping."
"Where?" I said, pressing my face against the glass. The entrance was hard to see from this angle.
"Right by the sign," Swift said. "It's unloading the platform with a robot arm. Putting stuff on the ground."
"Let me know when it leaves," Jeff said, plucking the radio out of Swift's bag. "Or stops unloading and sits there, or whatever."
"What are you going to do?" Swift demanded. "You are not going out there."
"Not while that thing's still doing things," Jeff said, descending the staircase. "But if it leaves, or moves back and parks in a non-threatening manner, I'll risk it."
"Stormy, tell him he's crazy."
"We're all crazy, Swift," I said. "Just tell us what it's doing."
She fumed in silence for a couple of moments while Jeff trotted off toward our access to the entrance door. Since I couldn't see anything from my vantage point, I took a moment to ensure the main radio was set up to talk to the one Jeff was on.
"It's backing up," Swift said. "Looks like it's empty. The arm is folded up again. Still backing up. It left a whole bunch of stuff on the ground by the curb."
I told Jeff as much on the radio.
"Tell him not to go out there yet," Swift insisted.
"Is it staying there?" I asked.
"Still backing up," she said. Finally I could see it past the arc of the building's glass again. Indeed it was backing up, and looked like it was empty - a flat platform on six soccer-ball-sized wheels (spherical, too - I wondered if they could spin in all directions like some of those futuristic forklifts I'd seen on How It's Made once). It continued to back up and climb the curb, going up the grassy area between the parking lot and sidewalk, and then out into the street. Only then did it turn, and start moving down the traffic lanes at a greater clip.
"Move," Swift demanded as she pivoted. "I want to see where it heads."
I ducked aside and keyed the radio. "It's on the street now, Jeff," I said. "Heading west on Kingston, over near the lights now."
"Okay," he said, and as the squelch noise indicating he'd let go of the mic crashed across the radio, I realized another receiver was also making noise. I reached out and touched the volume knob on it with a hoof, and realized it was the undecipherable signal from before. It was stronger than I'd ever heard it.
It was indeed telemetry, between the little robot and whoever was controlling it.
"Dang! I lost it," Swift sighed. "It went past the Burger King and out of sight."
"Probably going back home, wherever home is," I said. "Or their temporary staging area. If it's the group we encountered the other day, they must be a long way away."
"Ladies," Jeff said over the radio. "You are going to want to come and see this."
The three of us stood and stared at the collection of items piled by the door. It looked like a Salvation Army food bank donation bin had been upended.
"Pancake mix?" Swift asked, turning a five-pound sack over and reading its label. "Powd... ohh, powdered milk," she added in a tone that crossed between longing and eagerness.
"This looks like one of those battery-powered coolers," Jeff said from the other end of the pile. I went around to his spot and indeed, it was a larger, sturdier version of the 'electric ice chest' I'd kicked out of the SUV before leaving Mosport. Mine plugged into a 12 volt car socket - this one seemed to have a battery backup and digital readout, plus a retractable cable.
"Swifty, we need some dexterity over here," I spoke up.
She came over to us. "There's a half-dozen boxes of cereal and a bunch of tins of coffee and tea... whoa!"
"I don't think either of us can deal with that latch with hooves," Jeff said, nodding to the car-door-like handle on the top of the portable cooler.
"Child's play," Swift smirked, magicking the case open. A small cloud of vapor floated away as the lid hinged up and revealed the cache inside.
"Cheese," she said. "Orange and apple juice. And what's this... medication?"
A vial, representative of nearly a dozen others, floated up between us. "It's antibiotics," I said. I reached in and picked out another, different-shaped bottle. "This one is a multi-vitamin."
"Quite the care package," Jeff declared.
"Was there a note or anything?" I asked, looking around. Swift had set the penicillin back down and was rooting through the rest of the box.
"Didn't see one," Jeff shook his head. "No bugs or traps either, though I'd only recognize them if they were blinking and beeping like in the movies, probably."
"There's chocolate in here," Swift exulted, half-in-half-out of the cooler, forelegs on its edge and head stuck inside it.
"We need to move this inside and catalog it," I decided. "I'll handle that while you guys go on the run."
It took the better part of an hour for three ponies and two pushcarts to do what the robot had accomplished in five minutes.
Eventually, we had all the items inside on the common area floor. Buddy examined it with his nose while the rest of us stared at the massive haul.
"This kind of makes our scavenger hunt easier," Swift said brightly.
"Indeed," Jeff agreed. "We should be good for food and such for at least a few weeks. We'll know more precisely once Stormy has it all jotted down."
"Aye aye, captain," I quipped, putting a hoof to my forehead in a mock salute.
Swift smirked and rolled her eyes. "We should go," she said. "Probably going to take a while to find two good vehicles."
"Oh!" I called out, having almost forgot. "To take out my ham radio from the SUV, just go under the hood with a ten-millimeter wrench and-"
"I've got it," Jeff smiled. "Looked over it a few days ago. Trust me, your baby's in safe hooves."
"Okay," I said. "Have a good drive. And if you see a Model S-"
"Give it up, Stormy," Swift groaned.
I didn't know if our benefactors didn't realize we were sitting in the middle of what used to be a grocery store (among other things), or presumed we'd ransacked it already. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have realized I asked them for food or other supplies (if in fact this was indeed from the creepy folks that visited the power plant the other day).
All told, besides what was already described, we had six cans of powdered drink mix (kind of like Kool-Aid, which made me smirk at the thought of 'drinking their Kool-Aid' - a little morbid, I know, but whatever); powdered/dried food of various kinds (eggs, fruits, oatmeal, and such), three cases of US MREs; six battery-powered LED lamps on towers, and a big battery box that could recharge them and the cooler - guess they hadn't seen our generator setup; various kinds of meds, some of which were duplicates of what we'd picked up from knocking over various clinics and vets, some which was new to us (like iodine tablets - for combating radiation sickness?); water purification gear, from tablets to charcoal filters and such; some survivalist books and pamphlets - a lot of which we could have written the book on by now, but thanks anyway guys; shampoo, shaving kits, and sewing kits - again, did they not notice the building we were in?; a couple of tool kits, a bunch of rolls of duct tape, and of all things a Coleman stove with several bottles of gas. Near the end, I was wondering if some bureaucrat hadn't just been dumping the contents of a 72-hour-kit into the robot's cargo bay.
Oh, and finally, a note, which had been tucked into the cooler where the cable reel was. I guess they figured we'd check there early on.
Survivors:
As you suspected, we are indeed aware of your presence. However, our situation prevents us from taking anyone in. Our own supplies are meager as it is.
Despite this, as a show of good faith, we have shared some of our stores with you. Please use it to your advantage.
I'm going to share something else with you, and I trust it will go no further than the person reading this. We are spread too thin to deal with you right now. Do not consider this a sign of weakness but of priority. We need to know how you are managing to survive at your location with the resources you have on hand. But there are other survivors we must contact first, and other situations we need to deal with.
You can continue to use the radio if you like, but we will not answer except in this fashion. Expect to be in touch soon, but how soon, we cannot say.
Stay alive, survivors. You may be the answer to our mutual continued existence.
--X.
Well then.
I frowned and put the handwritten letter on top of the cooler.
That's a fine how-do-you-do. 'Go away, you're not the big fish in our pond.'
I didn't know how to feel about that. If it indeed was the same group that had descended upon the nuke plant, they were to be feared - or maybe at least respected. But they had shared supplies with us, as we'd asked. So they weren't all that bad.
Unless this stuff is poisoned or drugged. I looked out over the cache and had a sudden vision of passing out, faceplanting in a plate of pancakes, and waking up who knows how much later milling around in a stockyard pen with a tag on my ear.
Shaking my head to rid myself of the mental image, I looked over to Buddy, lying in his usual spot.
"Wanna test any of this, pal?" I asked him.
I swear the dog actually rolled his eyes at me, then looked away.
"Fine, then," I said. I rooted around until I found the case of granola bars, pulled out the chocolate chip one, and tore the wrapper in half with my teeth.
"Pfeh," I declared, spitting out little bits of foil wrapper. I wish I could get better with my hooves.
Taking a chomp off the bar, I chewed on it a bit and swallowed. So far, so good, and it didn't taste too bad, either, if only a bit old. Not quite stale, but not fresh either.
"Do I look like I'm dyin'?" I asked Buddy. He looked over at me, sighed, and looked away again.
After washing it down with a drink of water, I decided the stuff was probably not going to kill us - or was slow-acting, anyway. I busied myself with putting the goods away in our "cupboards" and other storage places. It took a couple of hours, but finally everything was stowed.
And now I had a huge amount of cardboard boxes and the occasional hunk of foam packing to get rid of.
As I looked out over that particular mess, I could almost feel the light bulb come on over my head.
It was late afternoon before I got done setting things up, and just my luck, I heard a loud grumbling sound just as I was getting ready to put my work to the test.
It wasn't my belly reminding me I'd only had breakfast and a granola bar that day, nor was it Buddy declaring his assessment of how sound my planning was. It was a very distinct noise.
The sound of a Detroit Diesel engine at about half-throttle.
I turned and looked into the distance, and saw a battered old blue-and-silver pickup truck heading south on the side street, coming my way. It crossed the highway and aimed for the mall parking lot, as did another vehicle following, a white ... ggkk... Prius.
The two vehicles at opposite ends of the automotive spectrum roared and/or barely perceptibly hissed to a stop one story below me on the apron of the auto bays. My ham rig's antenna was on the roof of the truck, the cable snaked in through the partly-open sliding back window.
Jeff revved the truck's motor a couple of times, causing my ears to fold over and all the windows in the store to rattle. He grinned and shut the motor off, then climbed out of the vehicle, followed shortly thereafter by Swift exiting the Prius.
"Now that's a motor!" Jeff exclaimed.
"It sounds like a bus," Swift said with a sour expression.
"With good reason," I called down to them. "Those engines are used in heavy industry all the time. Whoever left that truck behind put some serious work into it."
"Why are you up there?" Swift said. "It's a cloudless day."
"Come around this side," I said, nodding to my left. They walked around the cars and the side of the building to see the loading dock filled with boxes, foam, and other soft-ish debris I was able to accumulate.
"You didn't answer my question," Swift said. "What... oh, no."
"Oh yes," I smiled, unfurling my wings. "Don't worry, this is how stunt people do this."
"Pastrana had a whole shed full of foam blocks," Jeff nodded with understanding.
"Exactly," I said, pointing a hoof to him.
"Stormy, none of us know how to set broken bones! Especially on wings!" Swift said rapidly.
"Then catch me before I hit!" I shot back, and before my mind could argue, I commanded my hooves to send me over the edge.
"Here you go," Swift said, bringing some freshly mixed Kool-Aid to me from the kitchen.
"Thanks," I said, cradling the glass in both hooves.
"Can I say 'I told you so' yet?"
"No," I said perfunctorily, from my lying-down position on my futon.
"Can I say 'I wish you'd waited until we got a camera ready'?" Jeff said, barely hiding a snicker.
"Shut up," I mumbled.
It was about thirty minutes after my attempt to fly. Yes, sadly... attempt.
Swift giggled a little. "You looked like a baby hummingbird," she said, fixing me with a sympathetic look. "I do have to admit your pile of boxes did cushion your fall."
I couldn't help but replay my mind's eye image of me suspended in mid-air above the loading dock and its half-acre of debris I'd tossed into it as a makeshift safety net. I was flapping my wings furiously but getting no lift at all from them. As my point of view began to rotate from my rapid descent, I heard a gasp and a wince and had enough time to think This is gonna hur- before I was... caught, actually, as I'd suggested to my friend, in a yellow cloud of magic. Which only slowed me down enough to make crashing into the boxes noisy rather than noisy and potentially painful.
"You do owe me now, you know," Swift said. "I saved you from picking foam chips and cardboard out of you-know-where for weeks."
"Thanks," I grumbled. "I was sure I could make it work. I mean, how hard can it be? Flap and fly, right?"
Jeff got up and walked away. Swift knelt down beside me. "There's probably a little more than that, Stormy."
"I guess," I sighed. "For another day, then. Anyway. I didn't tell you what all I found in the care pallet." I recounted the items and finally the note that had been tucked in with it. Her reaction was much like mine.
"I'm not sure how to respond to that," she said when she digested it.
"I guess... we don't," I shrugged. "At least not for now. Keep surviving, hope they don't bring their code-brown-ray back, and keep our distance?"
"For now," Swift nodded. "But we should probably prepare for them to contact us again. Sounds like they will eventually."
"Oh, I don't doubt that. But you're right. We need to be ready for it."
Swift smiled and stood up.
"But did you have to get a Prius?" I asked.
She froze and turned around. "What?" she said, as if understanding my question was a struggle.
I stuck out my tongue. "Those things are ugly. With a capital ug."
"My mom had a Prius," she said, turning her jaw upwards and sounding perturbed. "It was a fine car."
"We have the pick of the entire world. If you have your heart set on an electric, you can do better than a Pr-"
Jeff came back at that moment, interrupting me by dropping something from his mouth onto the futon in front of me. I looked down as Swift looked over as well.
National Geographic's Birds of North America and a battery-powered DVD player with screen.
"Somepony needs to study," Jeff said with a smirk.