Secantor's Escapees

by The Psychopath

An uneasy trip

The working shift was finally over after what seemed like several days. Milk and Verdure were completely exhausted from the incessant repetition and had only managed to scrounge up a few pieces for that day of work. Everypony began walking outside of the industry, several of them stretching and moaning in satisfaction as their limbs cracked and readjusted themselves. It was hard to tell what the time was without a clock thanks to the lack of any sunlight, but Verdure was certain it was late.

Verdure, himself, began to stretch out his muscles. “Ugh. I’m beat,” Verdure strained.

"Not yet ya ain’t,” the new supervisor minotaur mocked from within the factory.

Milk perked an ear back at the minotaur, but didn't turn his head back, speaking quietly as he ambled away from the drudgery. "You're telling me? Let's go get something to eat and then bed's calling my name."

“You’re right, but I already had an idea planned on where to eat.” Verdure smiled evily and tapped Milk’s foreleg gently.

Milk Spot's head tilted curiously. "Oh? Lead on." His steps got a little more spritely, trusting in his friend to show him to someplace worth visiting.

The two had a little romp through the rusty roads of the lower levels, but the trip was rather...dull. Not much was happening, save for the few, less upholding citizens walking about carrying boxes of unknown content. Verdure decided to break the tension with a bit of talking, his eyes catching glimpse of an unsavory establishment with revealing posters on its wall and a name flashing in pink then yellow then back again.

“So, how long has it been since you were transferred here?”

Milk's eyes wandered over the posters with an expression between disquiet and some interest. "Where are you… uh… Not that long ago." He frowned with concentration. "I'm just getting used to the new machine they put me in front of. You know how that goes? What is this?"

Verdure noticed his initial discomfort and immediately quelled his worries. “Bah. You needn’t worry about those places. Ignore them. They’re just a bit more...numerous, here. To put it simply, I’m just taking you to a new bar that opened up. Strangely, nopony has bothered to sack it yet, so I wanted to show you a classy joint before we--” Verdure’s ears flickered a bit and his attention became alert and stressed out. He started looking around quickly like some sort of small animal watching for predators.

The immediate alert of his friend put Milk into a similar ready state, eyes and ears darting about as he did a slow turn in place. His body compacted, fearfully shrinking while preparing to bolt off in any given direction. His mouth went dry and he licked his lips uncertainly. He had no idea what had set off his friend, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Verdure casually put a foreleg on Milk’s shoulder without looking away from what seemed to attract his gaze. Milk looked down at the foreleg, then back at his friend.

Milk's nervous gaze dropped down to that leg to see whatever was being pointed out to him, ears up and alert. Unfortunately, it was not a warning. Verdure pushed the unwary stallion into a pile of garbage that was sitting in the uneven streets and dove in after him. The green stallion poked his head out and narrowed his gaze to see a group of gang members coming around the corner of a shut down building with all entrances and windows boarded up.

These unicorns’ manes and tails were mixed with black grease and slicked back. Small gears were placed, vertically through the manes and tails to appear as though there was a line of machinery extending from their body. The hair was twisted within the center hole of each individual gear, preventing one from properly removing them without great consequences. They all wore copper colored suits they made with patchwork, and a few other unicorns had a shoe or two on their hooves, although these were in a sorry state and looked like nothing more than an eaten up cloth for moths to feed upon.

The supposed leader, a mare, wore contacts on her eyes to make them look like six-winged, iron gears tilted slightly on their sides. She was laughing with her rather large group of fifteen ponies while four of them carried bags on their backs. Verdure didn’t know what was in them and worried a lot about the possibilities as well.

Milk leaned forward as much as he dared without making noise of poking his snout too far out of the trash, peering at the curious ponies and the even-more curious packages they held. He whispered in a faint harsh whisper. "Who are they?" The soft tremble spoke of his excitement and dread. He wanted to know, but pain was a powerful deterrent.

“Neh. They’re just one of the local gangs who thinks they’re going to control the lower sections of Secantor. Um...I think they themselves the ‘Greasy Cogs’.” Verdure narrowed his eyes and looked around for something.

Milk tilted her head a little. "I see the cogs. What make 'em greasy?" A silly question, perhaps, though he seemed unaware of any jest in his words. "What are they holding?"

“Probably something they stole off of a convoy to the higher levels. They’re the only ones who do that. As for the grease, they tend to slather grease in their manes and tails. That’s what makes them all black and gross. You never met gang members who did that in your section? It’s a common practice.”

Milk shook his head. "I try not to get involved in that. I like my parts where they started." He closed his eyes a moment before curiosity bid him look again. "Sounds dangerous. What… What's in the convoys anyway?"

The stallion looked to his friend with a face of disbelief. “Really? It’s the parts we made and worked on that get stolen. They’re worth much more than the few miserable coins we’re given. Rare is the convoy that has fully assembled mechanics or toys or whatever else is made.” Verdure looked back at the group and rubbed his chin. “That being said, they usually come back bruised up from fighting off the escort. Here, they’ve got nothing done them. I’m worried that those things were deployed again.”

"Those?" Milk looked aside at his friend, then sank a bit into the garbage. "Those?"

“They...uh-oh. Dive!”

Noises of steam and clockwork blared violently into the air as red lights glowed from the nearby pillars, deafening the gang members and their vile obscenities. It seemed as though the lights were flashing in a manner resembling a lowering elevator, and elevators they were. Two very thick, metal doors opened up and folded to the sides of the pillar as several bipedal monsters walked out from them. Their movements were static and undeveloped, but their sheer height more than made up for the intimidation factor.

They were made completely from copper and iron, giving their bodies a brownish tint. Their arms were very long and clearly covered with rounded plates to cover the extremely thin limbs below them. The legs and main body followed a similar style, but the feet ended in flat sheets of metal. Their hands possessed four digits and appeared to have holes in them, and their main body was fit with a green screen protected by reinforced glass. Verdure never knew what the screens were for, and although he really wanted to get up close to see, these weren’t just basic automatons without heads. In place of their heads stood a tall, rounded shape with several aqua-green lights scattered upon them. It gave this abomination a full three-hundred and sixty degree view. It also allowed it to see the less armored rear areas where the gears could be seen working full time and expelling steam and vapor.

The gang members looked around themselves as they watched these constructs slowly surround them after leaving the elevators.

“That’s what I was worried about.” Verdure shrunk as he pointed towards the creations.

Milk nudged against his friend lightly with his body. "Are they going to be, you know… Killed?" Milk looked between Verdure and the hulking automatons as if unsure where to be focusing on.

“Not if they surrender.”

The voice of one of the automatons was put on an internal loudspeaker, deafening everypony in the vicinity.

”COPPERLINGS. YOU HAVE STOLEN A PROPERTY RIGHTLY BELONGING TO THE ANTI-COPPERLINGS AND THEIR ASSOCIATES. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE IN POSSESSION OF AN OBJECT FAR TOO COMPLEX FOR YOUR KIND. SUBMIT THE STOLEN OBJECTS IN THE NEXT FORTY SECONDS AND YOU WILL BE GIVEN ONLY A WEEK OF PUNISHMENT.”

Verdure tapped his right ear a few times and bared his teeth in irritation. “I hate it when they talk. It’s always yelling,” he whispered.

Milk trembled softly. "The shouting's the least thing they're ready to do, I think. I'd put the things down and give up while I had the chance…"

“If only they had your intelligence…” Verdure facehoofed.

“Ahhhh, go eat a nail, rustbucket!” the leading mare yelled.

The others each grabbed an object from the streets and tossed them at the bots, one of them getting a rusted pipe across its shin guards. The plates were thin enough that they bent from the impact and slightly damaged the support behind, making the machine creak in pain and tumble down like a log.

”AGGRESSION DETECTED! SOURCE OF AGGRESSION: COPPERLINGS. EXTREME PREJUDICE EMPLOYED.”

The machines raised their hands like a clock’s arms, then began to fire off multiple rounds from their fingers, the flashes blinding everypony. After a few short moments, the firing and fighting stopped, and a few of the machines were on the floor and damaged, as were the bodies of the ex-gang members. A few of the remaining machines picked up the bags of stolen goods and walked into the elevators with them. The others remained behind to inspect the surroundings first and verify the proper status of the unicorns on the floor.

“And that’s what happens every time they come. These things kill everything in violation of the ‘law’ and the curfews imposed upon us. I hate them all…” Verdure sighed.

Milk gave a numb little nod, his eyes riveted on the death before him. "They should have given up…" He pawed at the ground, moving the trash slightly. "Now they're dead…" He tilted his head a little. "Do you think it'll ever stop?"

Verdure shook his head gently from side to side. He felt a little watery inside, but held it in like he always did. “I don’t know. All we can do is dream for better lives and hope that Equestria exists. At best, we can at least hope we can escape this place and go elsewhere. WHo knows what lies out there?” the stallion looked upwards with hope sparkling in his eyes.

Milk sank a moment, almost lost in the garbage. "Let's do it." He leaned in a bit closer. "Let's find out. I… I don't want to be here, forever. Not like this."

“Well, I only know we can confirm if it’s out there or not by talking to the engineers below, but--”

”COPPERLINGS. YOU HAVE BEEN SIGHTED NEAR THE CRIME SCENE. ARE YOU PART OF THE PERPETRATOR’S GROUP?” one of the machines blared.

It somehow snuck near the two while they were talking. They hadn’t noticed the loud noises of steam whisking out of tight spaces and gears grinding against each other.

Milk jumped in place, trash falling off of him. "No, sir! We were avoiding the troublemakers, sir!" He crumpled to his knees. "Sorry, sir!"

The machine seemed to bounce slightly as its gears worked out the scene before it and the answer given.

”COPPERLINGS ARE IN PRESENCE OF LOCAL FILTH. TIME WITHIN PREDATES ARRIVAL OF THIEVES. COPPERLINGS CLEARED OF POTENTIAL CHARGES. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AT CURFEW OR PUNISHMENT WILL ENSUE,” it said before turning around and following its companions to the elevator with both unicorn bodies and bags in tow.

Verdure glared at Milk with a pushed up lip and narrowed eyes. “Brown nose,” he said with a faint tone of humor.

Milk watched the machine go before nodding at Verdure. "Better a living coward, for now… I'm serious, let's get… The engineers you said?" Milk turned in place in a nervous little way, seeing if anypony else was around.

“Yes. The engineers.” Verdure lift himself out of the junk and wiped himself off. “Perhaps tomorrow we can go down there and see one. For now, I believe it best to just go to the tavern I mentioned and relax a bit just to forget what we saw today.”

Milk shook himself like a dog, sending bits and debris all over before he looked faintly representable, if one discounted the odor that clung to him. "Alright, let's go!"