Chapter 2
True to her own intuition, Kelso was already regretting her decision to bring Pinkie Pie along; she would simply not shut up! Pinkie Pie had fortunately stopped talking directly to her, and was now riding along with her head out the window, oohing and ahhing at everything that they passed. It was almost like she’d never been in a big city before.
Kelso had taken to browsing the internet over her PIP as a distraction, preferring to allow the car’s autopilot to drive for her. They’d be at their destination soon enough, the sooner the better. The sooner she got back with the food, the sooner Pinkie Pie would be out of her hair.
Then, a thought occurred to her. She really wasn’t being very fair to Pinkie Pie. Sure, the earth pony mare was loud, and obnoxious, but she had to have some redeeming qualities, right?
‘Pinkie Pie?’ Kelso asked.
‘Yes?’ Pinkie Pie said as she pulled her head back inside the car and glanced over at her host, grinning widely and fluttering her eyes rapidly.
‘Uh...’ Kelso said. Oh what a great plan this was, start up a conversation and have nothing to talk about. ‘So, what do you do for a living?’
‘Oh! Well I’m a baker by trade, though I can pretty much cook anything!’ Pinkie Pie said with a smile. ‘Though I do have a lot of hobbies, including party planning, chemistry, making plastic explosives, decorating...’
‘Wait... hold on’, Kelso said, raising a hoof to stop her. ‘What was that?’
‘Decorating...?’ Pinkie Pie said in confusion.
‘No, before that, Kelso elaborated.
‘Party planning...?’ Pinkie Pie asked, not sure what Kelso was getting at.
Kelso opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped as her car pulled to the kerb outside of the Māo Xióng takeout restaurant that Viola frequented most often, though Kelso had never actually been here herself, she was taking a chance, Viola had really wanted those spring rolls, and Kelso would be getting them. Kelso looked up at the restaurant expectantly. Food was in her sights, and she opened the door and stepped out of the car and onto the kerb, shutting the door behind her and peeking back in through the window. ‘Stay right here, I’ll be back in a moment’, Kelso said as she trotted along the sidewalk and pushed open the glass door, a little bell ringing to let the owner know that someone had entered.
The restaurant was small, to be sure. Of course, it was a takeout place, how much space did you really need? As she looked around the place, Kelso noticed that the restaurant was decorated with paraphernalia from the Peking Republic. Good, the owner wasn't a communist. Though, Kelso was pretty sure that if he was a communist, he wouldn't own a takeout restaurant. The Māo Xióng owner was standing behind the counter with a bag of food in front of him. The Māo Xióng were a large, bear like people with black and white alternating fur. It was almost comical, because the owner looked to be incredibly uncomfortable; he barely fit in his own restaurant. The Māo Xióng species were much larger than ponies, and because of their large size, it made manoeuvring around difficult.
'Miss Kelso?' he asked in a thick accent.
Kelso nodded, and brought up the holographic display on her PIP. Since it was linked to the internet, she could debit her bank account directly and use it to pay for her food... at least, in theory.
'Cash only!' the owner snapped at her.
Right, this was one of those places. To be fair, there were only a few restaurants that she went to that didn't accept debiting of an account as payment. Kelso reached into her overcoat and pulled out her wallet, opening it up and removed a ten Equestrian Pound banknote and placed it on the counter.
'Thank you', the owner said insincerely as he took the money and pushed the bag towards her. Kelso took the bag and turned around and headed out. Unfortunately it seemed that not being a communist was his only redeeming quality. Kelso took one last look at the Peking Republic flag before leaving.
Unfortunately for the state of the world, the Peking Republic was not the governing body of the Māo Xióng people or, at least, not all of them. Fifty years ago or so, the Māo Xióng people were in the middle of a nasty civil war between the nationalists of the Peking Republic, and communist rebels. Things took a turn for the worse, and after a series of major defeats, the nationalist forces were pushed into a retreat to the only safe place they could go to, a place known as the Kowloon peninsula. With the communists right on their tails, the nationalist faction blew up most of the peninsula, causing it to sink right into the ocean, leaving only a fourth of the land that had once been the peninsula left.
To be fair, the newly created Kowloon Island, was still relatively large, you could have built three or four cities the size of Ponyville on the island and still have enough room for farmland to feed the population of all of them, but while Kowloon Island was large, it was nowhere near the size of the territory that had been controlled by the Peking Republic on the mainland. The victorious communists established a new government, the Māo Xióng People's Republic, with its so called ‘government’ friendly with the long time Equestrian Republic enemy, the Unified Præsidium of Socialist Republics.
Now, you want to talk about bad eggs? Then one needs to look no further than the Præsidium. Founded around the same time as the Equestrian Republic, the Præsidium arose after a popular revolt overthrew the Autocratic Czar Alexandre of the Cossack Confederation, the revolution of the east to match the Equestrian revolt against the princesses here in the west. The Republic of course, had been excited to hear of it, thinking that the Cossacks would be making the transition to democracy like they had. However, they did the furthest thing from. The Præsidium, with all its talk of equality and the unification of the workers, was nothing short of a hegemonic, totalitarian state. The Communist Party controls every aspect of the average Præsidium citizen's life, there is no freedom, there is no individual thought. There is only the party, and the state.
Kelso shuddered, and was thankful that she was Equestrian. She had not noticed that she had gotten back into the car, Kelso had been lost in her train of thought, and Pinkie Pie was sitting in the passenger seat to her left, looking at her expectantly, but waiting patiently for her to finish her thoughts before speaking.
'Hi...' Kelso said, giving Pinkie Pie a nervous looking wave.
'Hi!' Pinkie Pie said with a bright smile. 'What did you get!?'
'Oh... well', Kelso said, as she opened the bag to show Pinkie Pie the contents. 'I've got fried rice, of course... and...' Kelso stopped as she looked in the bag; she noticed that Viola's spring rolls were missing. Kelso frowned in annoyance, it was probably just an honest mistake, but the Māo Xióng owner had already been rude to her once today. She unbuckled her seat restraints and opened the car door to get back out. 'Hold this for me', Kelso said, handing the bag to Pinkie Pie as she headed back inside.
Pinkie Pie took a look in the bag at the large carton of fried rice. It smelled delicious, and Pinkie Pie's hunger was starting to get to her... just a bite couldn't hurt, she reasoned to herself as she opened the carton. The wonderful aroma of the fried rice filled her nostrils, she took a bite, and her mouth exploded. It was so wonderful! Another bite couldn't hurt, she reasoned, and before she had knew it. Pinkie Pie had eaten the entire carton of fried rice.
'Oops', Pinkie Pie said to herself as she discovered what she had done. It had been a large carton, it was supposed to feed four people, and she had just woofed it down without a second thought. Suddenly, the door to the restaurant flashed open, and Pinkie Pie watched as Kelso stormed angrily out of it.
'You better make sure you've got your taxes in order pal!' Kelso shouted angrily. 'I know you pay your workers under the table, so don't be surprised when the entire PPS Fraud Squad descends on you tomorrow morning!'
Pinkie Pie's jaw dropped open and she watched as Kelso slam the door shut behind her, the Māo Xióng owner continuing to yell at her in the gibberish that was the Māo Xióng spoken tongue. Kelso threw open the car door and sat back inside. She started up the car, bringing up a holographic control panel and pressing her hooves down on it, accelerating the car off down the road.
'What happened?' Pinkie Pie asked.
Kelso grumbled under her breath for a moment before replying. 'Greedy bastard! So I go back inside and let him know that I ordered spring rolls and that I think he forgot them... well he says that they weren't on the ticket, and if I want them, that I have to pay for them. Well I already paid for them on my original order! Which I tried to explain calmly to him; long story short, I have a bit of a temper, so when he accused me of trying to cheat him to get free food, I did not respond very well', Kelso said, finishing up her explanation and setting the car on autopilot. 'Well it's not so bad, Viola may be disappointed but at least we have the fried rice...' Kelso stopped herself as she looked over to Pinkie Pie, and discovered the empty carton sitting on the seat.
'I'm sorry', Pinkie Pie said, giving her an apologetic, and nervous looking smile. 'It was really good'.
Kelso sighed and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a stomach gurgling. Kelso was shocked, it wasn't hers; it was Pinkie Pie's. 'Oh don't tell me that you're still hungry!' Kelso cried out.
Pinkie Pie offered her another nervous grin and a small chuckle. Indeed she was. Kelso let out a loud sigh, Pinkie Pie was going to eat through her entire bank account, she could already tell. Kelso looked along the street and spotted a suitable substitute for Māo Xióng take out, a restaurant and arcade by the name of Port Pizza. That would have to do.
Kelso pulled into the parking lot, picking a spot and opening the car door. 'Come on', she said to Pinkie Pie as she stepped out. 'We might as well wait inside; this is going to take a while'.
Pinkie Pie nodded as she unbuttoned her seat restraints and stepped outside, following Kelso towards the door. 'Hey... Kelso? I'm really sorry', Pinkie Pie said apologetically.
'It's all right', Kelso said, offering Pinkie Pie a small smile. 'Was the fried rice good?'
'It was only the most delicious thing I've ever eaten!' Pinkie Pie said excitedly. 'So good in fact...'
'I don't want to hear any more!' Kelso said, interrupting the pink pony. She was already hungry enough as it is. Thoughts of food consumed Kelso's mind, so much so in fact that Kelso had not noticed that Pinkie Pie had referred to her by name, even though Kelso hadn't told her what it was.