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// Your Call Is Important To Us 
// Story: The Longest Highway 
// by Jay911 
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OCTOBER 21, 2015
9:46 AM
15 miles southeast of Fairbanks, on Alaska State Highway 2

"Hey, what's this?"
Max glanced over to see what Duncan was referring to - the two switches below his seat cushion. "Air ride seat," he said plainly.
"How do you - oh!" Duncan said, as he pressed one of the switches and descended suddenly with a noise beneath him like a leaky tire. Pushing it in the other direction, a hissing sound could be heard, and he slowly rose. He fiddled with the adjustments a few times before moving on to the other switch. "Oooh, lumbar support. Wait, do horses even have lumbar?"
Max shook his head a little and focused on his driving. In the back of his mind, though, he was wondering if seat adjustments might make it more comfortable for his equine shape to sit in the seat. It was already pushed as far forward as he could make it, and higher than he normally would have used, so that he could see over the dash of the rig.
"I've never ridden in a semi-truck before," the professor said unnecessarily, as he surveyed all the controls surrounding him and Max. "Are they all like this or just fire trucks?"
"There's some extra stuff in here, but for the most part it's just a regular tractor," Max explained. He took a hoof from the wheel to point things out. "The emergency light controls, siren, radios, and the satellite phone. Most everything else is stock."
"I see," Duncan nodded. He looked over the radios. "So this is how you called me, huh? I was answering you on a walkie-talkie I found in the guard shack. That must have been why you were coming in loud and clear long before you could hear me."
"Guess so," Max shrugged. "How did you keep it working all this time though?"
"Oh, it takes regular batteries," Duncan said, turning in his seat as if to go into the sleeper cab and retrieve his duffel. "I'll show-"
"Maybe at a rest stop," Max interrupted. "I want to keep us between the ditches for now."
"Oh, right. Understood." Duncan grinned. "But you could get us out if something went awry, couldn't you? Superman. Super horse."
Are you gonna be like this all the way? Max wanted to ask but didn't.
"So. Satellite phone. Does it work?"
Max thought for a moment on what to say about that. "Sort of," he finally decided upon. "I was able to dial out, but got no answer at my parents' place, so I didn't bother trying other numbers."
"Maybe they're out. Or maybe their power's out," Duncan said, trying to be optimistic.
"Yeah, sure. Maybe."
Duncan leaned back and put his forelegs behind his head. "You know, when my cellphone went offline - erm, often because I forgot to pay the bill, being focused with my lesson plans and all - it'd take a call to the operator to get it back working again."
Max gave a humorless snort. "I doubt Iridium has anyone standing by to take our call right now."
Duncan shrugged. "You never know unless you try." He suddenly leaned forward, picking up a pen (having been shown the artificial-dexterity manipulation tools by Max earlier), jabbed the '0' key, and hit Send.
"Wait, that's not going to-" Max began, but was cut off when the ringing tone started. It rang several times, long enough that it seemed as though the attempt was going to fail.
Then, rather abruptly, somebody answered. The voice was male, though it was also a little higher than human men had sounded - but this was familiar to both people in the truck at this point. The speaker sounded a little tired; clearly he wasn't synthetic. "Iridium network operator; this is Joseph speaking." Then, without invitation: "What broke this time?"
Max and Duncan stared at one another, dumbfounded. After a second, Duncan blurted out, "Uhmm... the whole world I think? Hello?"
Max cut in. "Do you know what's happened? Everywhere we've been, all the people are gone."
The phone produced a series of muffled French obscenities, before the speaker seemed to collect himself enough to reply. "You just arrived, didn't you? I don't have the time to explain the whole universe to a new-arrival every ten minutes... Alex wants this damn thing running, she can take the... hold on a minute, new ponies. I'll transfer you to somebody who has the time to answer your questions." The line went quiet, except for the sound of out-of-tune hold music.
"Ponies?" Max said aloud, looking at himself and then Duncan.
Duncan shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess. Small horses... ponies, right? I'm more interested in the fact they knew we 'just arrived'. Sounds like this is a well-known phenomenon."
Several minutes later, the music abruptly ended. "Hello? Are there still ponies on this line? If you're still here, I'm sorry about my friend. Joseph gets more selfish the closer to morning you catch him." This time, the speaker was clearly female, as well as young. A teenager?
"Hello!" Max said urgently. "We're here. My name is Max - Max Morley. I'm a firefighter from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. I have another per- ...pony here with me named Duncan MacAllister. He's a university professor from Fairbanks. Look, I went to bed in May and woke up six days ago. Duncan remembers nothing from May to mid-June. And of course we're 'ponies'. Do you know what's happened?"
The speaker on the other end was silent for several moments. She sounded far more compassionate than whoever it was who answered. "The short answer is yes, though not as well as any of us would like. I'm afraid you might not believe me if I told you, though. Unless..." There was a pause. "Have you two seen anything unusual yet? Animals acting strange? Or strange lights around you, things moving... probably not flying yet..."
Max said, "We're in Alaska. Some of the animals are hibernating, I figure. I'm actually surprised I didn't run across any elk or deer though - I've driven over 500 miles and not seen anything. I don't know if they vanished too, or they're hiding, or what." He paused, then said, "This is gonna sound stupid, but I had a weird dream before I woke up the first time. I saw about a million unicorns all gathered together doing something, then there was a flash."
"Unicorns, huh? No, that's less unusual than you might think. What you saw may very well be an actual event, just... not one that happened on earth. I know this is going to sound crazy, but you deserve to know so I'm going to tell you anyway. On May 23, 2015, the earth was struck with a wave of radiation deadly to human life. Our nearby neighbors, aliens that look like you do now, like all of us do, intervened to stop our extinction. That intervention involved changing us into these new bodies, bodies adapted for survival in the thaumic field, as well as sending most of us forward in time. The fugue you experienced is typical, it will not happen again. Once you're in normal time, you're here to stay, and you won't change bodies again."
"I know this sounds completely insane. Frankly, I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen the proof with my own eyes. We still have it. Artifacts from the world that saved us. Recorded memories you can experience for yourselves, of what their world was like. Books written about how to use your new bodies, and all their fascinating powers. I'm coming to you from Paris, Illinois. It used to be a butthole in the middle of nowhere, but now it's one of the biggest colonies there is. We've got about twenty ponies here, and facilities for more. You said you're in Alaska... that's outside the distance we can fly to pick you up. But if you make your way down here, we can give you access to everything I mentioned. You don't have to take the crazy things I said just because somebody said them."
Max looked at Duncan, trying to gauge the professor's reaction. He was just staring out the windshield, but his focus appeared to be mostly internal.
"Illinois," Max said. "Well, we're heading south already, and my plans were to find people with whom I could meet up and survive. I guess meeting up with ponies will do just as well. I don't know what kind of resources you have, or if you need anything, but I have a semi-truck full of medical-" He muttered the next four words. "-well, human medical supplies, firefighting and rescue gear, lighting and electrical, and a bunch of military prepackaged foods and water. I don't know if you need any of that. Like I said, my plan was to pick up anybody I come across who needs help, and go to someplace where we can survive. I guess that's Paris. I have no idea how long it'll take us - we've averaged about 250 miles a day so far. I don't know if the road will get rougher the further south into civilization we go. But I'm willing to give it a shot if you'll have us."
"Absolutely," the pony on the other end answered without hesitation. "We can use all the manpower we can get. If you've got the skills to get down here safely, than you've got skills we can use. There's room for you if you can make it. I'd like to be able to send transport for you, but... by the sound of it, you're more competent than anypony I could send to get you. I'll text you my number when this call is over. Feel free to ask if you ever need information. The world is changing all around us, so don't be surprised if you encounter something that shouldn't have been possible. Lots of things that didn't used to be are happening."
"Fair enough," Max said. "We'll do our best. It might be useful if we knew what to prepare for on the trip down. Or is 'lots of things' as specific as you can get? Do we need to arm ourselves?"
"I sure as hell hope not," the voice began, though she didn't sound very confident. "If you have to stop while traveling through big cities, you actually probably should keep a weapon handy. I've heard stories of stray dogs and other urban predators going feral and attacking ponies. I'm not sure how reliable those reports are, but I have heard them."
"I'm sure you already know you shouldn't eat meat. Most newcomers figure that one out pretty quick. You can eat everything earth horses can, which means you shouldn't starve if you've got grass around. I don't actually recommend it; it's not the tastiest thing in the world. So far as supplies... food is still pretty common in most areas. Might need something to purify water if you don't enjoy diarrhea. Most people don't."
"That's about it. If you wanted to make lots of ponies very happy, you could see if you can find a gearbox for an industrial wind turbine, preferably one megawatt or better. I don't actually expect you to be able to bring something like that... we're talking five to ten tons here. But if you did, you'd be our hero. Hell, if you even tell us where to find one, we'd love you forever. And if you can't find one, we'll take whatever else you can bring. We're pretty good for food and water here, so focus on non-perishable items. Farming equipment, industrial machinery, or seeds. Things like that. Plus all the warm bodies you come across. You wouldn't believe how few of us there are. Well, maybe you would. It's not more than a few thousand, on the whole planet. But more every day, so... your chances get better the longer you're out there!"
Max found he was nodding through some of the topics discussed, pointlessly since the conversation was audio-only, of course. "We'll definitely try. Like I said, I don't know how long it'll take, but if you're going to text us your contact info like you said, we'll try to keep you posted on our overall progress. So, then... I guess we'll be off. Thanks for answering and for all the advice, um..." Max realized he hadn't caught the younger ....pony's?... name.
"Alex. Everypony just calls me Alex. Well, except for the ones going with this whole new naming scheme. They call me Lonely Day. Either one works, though I prefer the first one. Seeing as it’s real and all. Good luck, you two. I’ve already got your number now, I’ll text you mine." The line went dead. Sure enough, within a minute, a new text message had appeared, containing a satellite phone number.
For a long moment, both men - both ponies - remained silent. Then, finally, Max looked over at Duncan.
"Wow."
"Wow," Duncan nodded.
"So."
"Did you hear her say 'a few thousand' on the whole planet??"
"That's insane," Max answered, trying to keep driving, as he had somehow succeeded in doing throughout the phone call.
"What - do you think she was lying? Or crazy?"
Max barked out a single laugh, shaking his head. He waved a hoof at himself and Duncan. "Are you kidding me? She - and Mr Friendly at the beginning there - they knew too much about what we're going through, for them to be making shit up. It's way too much of a coincidence. I think we have to believe them."
"So we're ponies now? For good?"
Max's head swam with that concept. "Seems like it."
Duncan shook his head. "It defies the laws of science."
Max chortled again. "You weren't listening, Doc. She said all kinds of things we aren't going to believe are possible now. And she talked about 'our powers'." Max tossed a hoof towards the spire sticking out from Duncan's forehead. "Wanna bet you have some special ability now?"
Duncan reached up to touch the horn, eyes crossing as he tried to focus on it.
"Never mind that right now. Do me a favor and grab a pen and paper and write this down before I forget."
"I can do better," Duncan said, turning to reach his duffel. He extracted an iPad and mashed a hoof on the power button, then realized he needed something smaller than hooves to work the display. "Ergh, hang on."
"Just use a pen and some paper," Max insisted.
"I can get this," Duncan said, taking up a pen, but using it to slide the unlock screen of the tablet away. He opened up a notepad app and said, "Ready, shoot."
Max repeated the items Alex had spoken of during the phone call - items that their colony could use. "That's our shopping list," he said when Duncan had it stored. "Consult it every time we stop and see if we can cross anything off. And take down the number she texted us, too. I want a backup in case this phone's memory gets wiped." I wanted it on paper for the same reason, he grumbled to himself, but let Duncan have his moment with his electronic devices.
"We also need to figure out a course to Paris, Illinois. So put on that list a road atlas. Or, better yet, a GPS. If the satellite phones work, maybe GPSs do too."
"Got it," Duncan said.
For the time being, though, their situation hadn't changed. They were getting close to 50 miles outside Fairbanks by this point, and had over 250 more to go to the border between Alaska and the Canadian Yukon territory. Max kept going as quickly as he dared, but was likely to see at least 4 more hours of highway unravel before him, before he could rest.

A couple of hours had passed, and the two men left one another to their own thoughts.
So this is me from now on, huh? Max ruminated, letting his eyes drift down to the orange-furred hooves resting on the truck's steering wheel.
This wasn't some kind of crazy mass hallucination. It was real, and it was going to demand its acceptance. He was going to have to deal with having a tail getting in the way of sitting down, and walking on all fours at a height barely half that of what the world had been designed to work with.
Not to mention he'd had his last ever steak, to hear young miss Alex tell it.
Max let his mind drift, wondering what the future would hold for a world populated by small horses instead of humans. Would chairs change? Would they live in stables and eat (and bed down on) hay? Or would they try to hold on to their humanity as long as they could, stubbornly sticking with a world designed for bipedal creatures with opposable thumbs?
Whoa, he said to himself, shaking his head. You're getting a little too deep there. Focus on getting down the road.

Duncan had settled down somewhat - though his excitement for the road trip was simply replaced with excitement over the revelations that had come from the phone call.
"There's so many bombshells in what she told us," he declared, adopting an awestruck, hushed tone. "Let's start with the concept that aliens helped us. The biggest question mankind has ever wondered the answer to, has an answer. And mankind... is now ponykind. And like you said, things which have no business being possible are about to show up. She made mention of thaumic fields. Now unless she's a fellow follower of Pratchett and is just talking out of her... well, if she genuinely had that term delivered to her by our 'alien benefactors'? That means magic exists." Duncan rubbed his chin with a hoof. "I wonder if that means that magic can be scientifically quantified like any other energy source?"
"Sounds like you have a new field of study, then," Max smiled.
"Don't you know it!" Duncan gushed. "'Recorded memories you can experience as if they were your own'. We're talking about things that belong in the realm of science fiction. I dare you to tell me you're not excited."
"I think I'm still trying to take it all in, Doc," Max responded. "Between worrying about icy corners and an elk finally making his first appearance, I'm too busy to get excited."
"Oh! Of course," Duncan said. "I'm sorry. Am I disturbing you?"
"You know what? Normally I'd say yes, but the fact that we're probably the only two people left in Alaska, giv'er. I don't care. I'd much rather have you talk my ears off than sit here wondering if I'll ever hear another voice again."
Duncan looked mildly embarrassed. "Sorry," he said.
"Don't be, I'm serious," Max smiled. "I admire your enthusiasm. I just need you at about a 7 instead of a 10. But I understand it." He decided to change the subject. "Can you open that map and give me an idea of what we're facing on this leg?"
"Okay," Duncan nodded, working to perform reverse-origami on the booklet that had been sitting on the dash. "Let's see... We're on the 2, right?"
"Yeah. Just passed the Johnson River about ten minutes ago."
"Okay, I have it. There's... not a lot. A couple of tiny villages, some really straight sections of road, and then you cross the Robertson River, and parallel the Tanana River for a while. You come across Route 1 to the south... let me look... no, that doesn't go any further south than Anchorage. After that, the 5 goes north, obviously we don't want any more north... then it gets all twisty again right to the border. ...Huh. Interesting."
"What is?"
"The Canadian border patrol station isn't at the Canadian border. It's about... a hoof's width... let me see... 20ish miles?... inside Canada, in a town called Beaver Creek."
"Beaver Creek?" Max repeated, snerking. "Of course it is. Well, the odds are overwhelming we won't be finding anybody there anyway."
Duncan shook his head. "Gotta keep your spirits up," he insisted. "We need to assume there's going to be survivors everywhere we stop. Call out to them, search for them, bring them with us. You heard what she said. Paris needs as much population as we can find."
"And supplies and equipment," Max said, letting his mind drift back to the 'shopping list' Alex had mentioned. "It might be difficult to pull at first, but I think I have a solution for that, when we find ourselves at a truck stop or a big city."

The 'twisty section' was both twisty and hilly, and significantly dropped their average speed, putting them definitely in the five-hour-to-six-hour window for arriving at their stopover point.
"Oh shit!" Duncan said at one point, jabbing a hoof toward his side window. "There they are!..."
Max glanced in that direction and involuntarily let his hoof off the accelerator pedal. In a meadow off to the right side of the road, a herd of nearly twenty elk were grazing. They snapped their heads up nearly in unison and stared at the truck as it roared by, several hundred yards away.
"He-ey," Max cheered, raising a hoof. "Good to see you guys made it! I was startin' to get worried about you."
As the truck passed, the animals returned to their previous tasks, disinterested in the first movement they'd seen other than themselves in the past 5 months.

Finally, at nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, the truck grumbled its way up the incline leading to the border between the United States and Canada.
Do countries even exist any more, if we're all ponies, and 'all' is one millionth of what Earth's population used to be? Max found himself wondering.
He was snapped out of his internal monologue when he realized Duncan was talking. "Sorry, what?" he said.
"I was saying, are we going to stop?"
Max looked up at the small structure squatting in the late afternoon gloom ahead of them. "Sure, why not," he said, slowing the truck.
They left the truck running - Max, by reflex, put on the hazard lights, in case somebody came across them parked on the road. He was having a hard time getting used to the concept that such an encounter would be few and far between, if at all, any more.
The United States Customs Port of Entry building sat entirely within the Alaskan side of the border. True to Duncan's earlier statement, a roadside sign told them that Canadian Customs was 20 miles further up the road. There were no vehicles at the crossing except their own, and no signs of use or occupation.
"See if there's an open door," Max suggested, while he walked around the other side of the place. On the inbound side, he indeed found access into the structure, and called Duncan over.
Inside was a lobby with counters for visitors, immigrants, and the like to discuss their cases with border patrol or customs agents. The countertops were well above head-height for ponies, so Max needed a boost from his riding partner in order to scramble over it and unlatch the side door from within the office area.
"Nothing much here," Duncan observed, wandering through the offices. "Looking like it was pretty quiet when it all went down."
"Yuh-huh," Max agreed from another part of the building.
"Do ya suppose they had any warning?"
"What?" Max called back, sticking his head out of an office door.
"Did anybody know the world was ending?" Duncan asked, looking at a family photo on an agent's desk. "Like, did they get the kind of warning we'd've had in times of war? Or even like a solar flare. Far as I know we would've had at least some warning that one big enough to disrupt electrical was going to hit."
"I sure didn't," Max commented.
"Me either, but maybe our time-jumping meant we missed it."
Max had gone back to searching through the rest of the building. "I don't get that part. What did sending people through time accomplish? Other than to disorient us all by having us wake up alone."
"Who knows. Like the young lady said, though, they supposedly have information that will explain it all to us when we get there."
Duncan had left the photo behind and continued through the offices as well, and met up with Max near the back door. "So, nothing here?"
Max shook his head. "Not that I can see, but I do want to try and get into something back here." He turned around and led Duncan to a cabinet in a back storeroom.
"Wow," Duncan said, raising his eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"You heard her. Arming ourselves is probably a good idea if we have to pass through cities. Plus, we have wildlife to think about this far north."
"Yeah, but..." Duncan held up a hoof and wiggled it back and forth. "How're either of us going to work 'em?"
Max shook his head. "We'll figure that out later. For now, we have to figure out how to get inside."
Duncan shrugged. "Use that crazy strength of yours," he said. "Melt the lock with your heat vision."
"I don't have hea-" Max scoffed, then stopped talking as he realized Duncan was on to something. Max didn't need to find the gun cage's key, nor a tool to help him defeat the locks. He just had to breach its protection. He turned around with his hind legs facing the wire cabinet. "Okay, stand back. I don't know where parts might fly."
Duncan backed up behind a desk and crouched low. "Don't wreck the guns."
"Yeah, like I have that kind of precision," Max said, grunting with exertion on the last two syllables, as he reared up and kicked with all his might. The cage rattled with a mighty clang, but still held, even though it was seriously deformed.
"Are you okay? Can you try again?" Duncan asked.
"Fine," Max said, lifting a hind leg and shaking it, then the other one, to get the stinging sensation to die down. "Here goes."
Again he bucked at the cage, and it folded over even further. Repositioning to try from the other side, as if to bend it back into shape, he bucked once more, and the entire mass tore free from the drywall and collapsed in a messy heap.
"Wow," Duncan observed as Max tried to pick through the mangled debris. "I'm glad you're on my side."
"Help me collect these," Max said, yanking shotguns out of the cage as carefully as he dared. "Find something to carry them in. And any spare ammo."

The truck was back underway, its new cargo stowed in the sleeper under the bunk mattress. It rolled down the hill and past a rest area bearing a sign that said YUKON - LARGER THAN LIFE.
A short distance down the road, another sign read: MAXIMUM 90.
"Let me convert that into American for you," Duncan said, reaching for his tablet computer.
"Doc, relax," Max said. "We just stole six shotguns from a government office and we're about to bust an international border without reporting to a customs agent." He turned to face his co-driver and grinned. "I ain't worried about no speed limits."
"Oh," Duncan said, sitting back in his seat. "Right."