Chapter 4: Take a Little Trip (20 AE)
Whenever Alex was stressed, she went to her garden.
She hadn't had a talent for it before the Event. She had killed everything she touched back then; in the days when she had fingers and toes on the end of her limbs instead of hooves.
Magic had changed that, much as it had changed everything. Alex's little home was located in downtown Alexandria, and was one of the few homes with enough of the expensive real estate to have a garden out back. Oliver had done most of the planting, though he rarely had the time to tend the garden anymore.
Ever since Alex had retired from her office as mayor, she'd had a lot more free time. More time to read, more time to work with the HPI... and more time for gardening.
"I'm sorry," Alex said to the weeds, resting a hoof against the stem of a huge mustard. "But you can't live in here. This soil is for my garden." Under her persuasion, the roots relaxed their grip on the soil, and she was able to tear them easily from the ground and toss them into her wheelbarrow-wagon. She would take them out of town when she was done, to let them take root in empty soil. Thus was her agreement with the weeds.
"Don't you ever say I don't take good care of you," she said to her tomatoes, brushing against the plant with her side. "We both know you'd have been eaten by ants by now without my help." The tomatoes said nothing, but Alex could feel their gratitude. It was enough.
She smelled Arithmetic coming before she saw him; the sweat of summer and the musk of a healthy stallion and the exhaust fumes of biodiesel. Gone were the days of twelve years of public school education: Arithmetic was an apprentice at the biofuel plant, and he brought the stench of chemicals with him.
She heard the squeak of the gate and turned, stepping out from between the rows and grinning at him. Cody had grown tall, like his father, though he had his mother's mane. Like most ponies these days, he wore little in terms of clothes. Just a labcoat she knew wasn't for show, cut so as to reveal the beaker and drawing compass he had for a cutie mark.
"Afternoon, Mother." He met her hug, though there was a measure of awkwardness to it. He wasn't just taller, but older. He looked more like her older brother than her son. Alex didn't care what things looked like, she knew better.
"You reek. What is it today?"
"Sodium hydroxide, like most days." He sighed. "You'd think there would be a spell for the smell."
"One day." She let him break away, not wanting Cody to feel any more awkward than he already did. It might be the last time she saw him for weeks, after all. "Did the funding meeting go well?"
She didn't even need him to open his mouth to see the answer written in his body. His ears flattened and his tail tucked in. "I'm sorry."
"They're so stupid!" This time, he was the one that reached out to embrace her, not the other way around. "No vision! Our plant isn't sustainable and everypony knows it! Our power needs are increasing by ten percent every single year, we can't keep ramping up production like this or in ten years nopony's going to have anything to eat! Not to mention-" of course, he did mention it.
He went on and on. Alex didn't listen because she understood – she didn't! Rather, she listened because she loved her son and she loved her city. She understood the basics: the city was getting its electrical power from wind turbines and steam. Every year the steam turbines got less reliable, and precision-manufactured replacement parts simply weren't available.
That meant that more and more of their needs were being met with "primitive" steam generators, burning farm waste and construction waste. "But it doesn't work forever! We can't get enough farm waste to run everything forever. It's only the ruins of old buildings keeping everything running. You have to put energy into the system from somewhere, and the sun just isn't keeping up!" He continued, explaining his solution in a level of detail that went way over Alex's head.
"Against such stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain,” Alex supplied. Cody stopped ranting, staring openly. Alex just shrugged. "How much money would you need to get your project funded?"
He sighed, patting her on the back. "I know you wanna help, but... it's more than you have, Mom."
He was right. Alex's disposable income was almost nonexistent. Granted, money itself was a fairly new thing in Alexandria. Other settlements had their own answers, but Alexandria used the electronic meal chits out of Raven city. They were just plastic, but they were also impossible for anypony to fabricate. Plus, they had a commodity value, since they could be traded back to the HPI in exchange for new electronics or even meal rations.
Alex had made a fair amount of them during her time as mayor. She didn't leave them fluid, though. Alex had invested every chit. Investment was a sensible choice when your lifespan stretched into perpetuity. Unfortunately, that meant she lived in the closest thing to poverty in the short term.
She had another source of income, however. "How much would it take if you could get the prototype manufactured for free?"
Arithmetic stopped, his expression twisting into his "concentration face." She stifled a giggle with a hoof, since she knew that would stop him from taking her seriously. Eventually he said, "My funding request was for ten thousand chits. I could probably... three thousand? We would still need to get the enchantments done, and to hire enough pegasus ponies to move the clouds..."
"Could you get your funding approved for that much?"
He nodded. "Easily. If I already had a working prototype, even without the enchantments... there's no way they wouldn't."
"And you've got blueprints? Sketches?"
He nodded again.
"Get them to me. I'll get you your prototype. Though... if your sketches aren't perfect, you're gonna get some angry phone calls."
"Phone calls?" He raised his eyebrows. "Not visits from a messenger?"
"Nope." She nodded. "I've got friends with hands. They'll use the phone. Though for something really important, they visit." She grinned, though the subject was more bittersweet than anything. "I'm expecting a visit this evening, actually."
He tensed, glancing fearfully over the plants and out to the sidewalk as though he expected an HPI field-scout in full armor. He wouldn't have been far wrong, if it wasn't for the fact that HPI visits only came at night. "They're coming today?"
"After dinner." She turned away, back towards her garden. "Get me the designs. I'll see what I can do about your prototype."
Several hours later, after Oliver came home from the hospital, after Alex served dinner and she said her farewells, she stepped out onto the cool of the porch to wait. She had already donned her vest, as well as the cybergauntlet, its plastic yellowed with age.
Of course, she didn't need the gauntlet to hear her old friend coming. It wasn't Taylor's fault; wearing a hundred pounds of armor hardly made it easy to move silently. Hydraulic servos wooshed and buzzed with every step, though even that wasn’t the first thing she felt. Her first sense of Taylor's approach was the sense of nothingness approaching from the street.
Most ponies couldn't sense the imprint of a CPNFG closer than twenty feet or so. Alex's senses were better, largely from exposure. Since her retirement, she had spent more time around CPNFGs than any other pony she knew of. Alex clicked the door locked behind her, then hopped down onto the path through her garden. The weight of her SER (standard equine rifle) seemed heavy on her shoulder, despite being made mostly from plastic. The weight came from the fact she might be using it tonight.
Even so, her smile was genuine as she looked up towards Taylor Gamble. HPI field-scout armor had grown significantly bulkier over the years, so much so that power support had been incorporated. Of course, the weight had been added for good reason: field-scout armor had the latest in CPNFG designs, small and efficient enough that a nuclear reactor was not required. It was like living inside a walking submarine, but at least you weren't tethered to a reactor. "Evening Taylor." She waved.
Her friend raised an arm, waving back. "Hey tiny horse. How's life in the big city?"
It was pretty dead at night. Amber street lights burned in the city's center, but very few were out and about who didn't have bat-wings. Ponies were diurnal; few fought their natural rhythms forever. Alex herself relied on her supernatural endurance to not feel tired. She shrugged. "Same as always. Bigger and bigger every day."
Taylor wasn't a young woman anymore. Though Alex's appearance hadn't changed in the slightest, the human behind the armor was in her forties now. Both of them had been parents, though only Taylor looked it. She still acted much the same, even twenty years later. She reached down to pat Alex's head with a glove, something Alex did not allow from just anyone. "You'll be building skyscrapers in no time."
Alex shrugged. "Probably not. Skyscrapers don't make much economic sense when land is so..." she trailed off. "You don't care."
"Not really." She laughed. Her voice didn't sound so strangely modulated as it had through earlier versions of the armor. It was still being electronically reproduced, but she appreciated the improvements to the system. Most of all, she appreciated the clear helmet that let her see Taylor's face. This was intentional: the HPI's way of showing whatever pony stumbled upon them in the field that they were indeed human. "Big night tonight. You ready for a long flight?"
"You know how much I love Hummingbirds."
"Not today." Taylor gestured, and they started walking together down the street, human and pony alike. "Albatross."
Alex felt her eyebrows go up. "Really? That serious?"
Taylor nodded gravely, and there was no smile on her face then.
* * *
Alex wasn't surprised to find another of her nonhuman friends waiting with the Albatross outside of town. She rarely saw Blacklight under any other circumstances, as occupied as she was with the concerns of her brood. Typically whenever Blacklight wanted anything done in town, she used one of her numerous drones.
They were like the drones used by the HPI, with one meaningful difference: they were alive. Sapient? She was never quite sure on that point. She could see a half dozen or so of the changelings Blacklight called drones, standing at attention as though creatures of perfect discipline.
Lonely Day had tried to figure out before which drones were intelligent and which weren't. Just over a hundred of them worked throughout Alexandria, as helpers and assistants and caretakers to the young or elderly.
She greeted Blacklight with a hug, looking up and up and up into her face. To see her now, there was no doubt at all in Alex's mind that she was talking to a queen. Blacklight towered over ordinary ponies, her body lean and elegant and her mind vast.
Blacklight had been a little girl once. There was still a little of that in there somewhere. It wasn't as though anything had happened to erase that person. Rather, it might be said that the rest of her had grown so much that the human she had been was eclipsed.
"Late night for a pony." Blacklight's voice echoed strangely, just as it always had.
"Taylor only gets me for important things." She grinned. "You too. You usually send drones, but you don't often come along. Aren't you needed in your hive?"
"My daughter's skills are sufficient for an evening." She gestured vaguely out into the wilderness. Alex knew she was looking at her hive, about a dozen miles away.
"How is little Evoli these days? I don't think I've seen her since last Christmas."
Alex nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the drones answered before Riley could. It spoke with a child's intonations, though like all adult drones it had an adult, vaguely female voice. "I'm great, Lonely Day! I'm so glad you asked! Mother thinks I'll be ready to find a male next spring if I'm lucky! Have you seen any?"
It took her several seconds to collect herself enough to respond. She wasn't entirely sure what the distant nymph queen meant, but she had a fair idea. "None in Alexandria. I hear there are more changelings on the east coast. Maybe you can convince one of their males to join you?"
Alex knew little about how things really worked for the Changelings. Riley had been her good friend all the way through childhood. She had grown up at a frighteningly accelerated pace, looking larger and older than herself after about a year. Once she had found herself a mate of her own species...
Riley had grown reticent about the specifics of her differences. She had remained in the colony for nearly a decade, but spoken little about what her new "family" was like. Alex was one of the few ponies that had ever been inside the large mansion she'd claimed just outside the city, or the even bigger industrial complex after that. Even after visiting, she hadn't really felt like she knew.
What she had learned, she had learned from spending time with Blacklight's young daughter, Evoli.
"This conversation is useful," Blacklight interrupted. "We will continue at a later time, Evoli. Day and I must travel or we may not arrive in time." She gestured to the ship, and as one the drones (including the one that had spoken a few moments before) turned and marched into the open belly of the Albatross. Taylor was already gone, and that left only the two of them.
Alex had to hurry to keep up with Blacklight's long, graceful strides. "Will she really be ready by spring?"
The queen beside her hesitated. "I am... uncertain. If she were a drone, she would have matured years ago." She smiled, and for once Lonely Day recognized the expression perfectly. It was exactly the expression she might've worn, if she were talking about Arithmetic. "Evoli fancies herself a queen already. She spends night after night fantasizing about establishing her own hive somewhere. She insists she wants it to be just like mine; cooperation with Alexandria has allowed us to grow strong, and she would like to grow strong as the partner of some other city."
"More ponies are sorely needed." Alex tried to mask her hesitation.
If Blacklight noticed, she did not react. "Yes, they are. We are not many – yet not all of us have cooperated so well with ponies. I sometimes speak with other queens. Some have... hostile mindsets. I do not wish Evoli to become like them."
Alex made herself sound joking when she responded, but she wasn't really. The laughter did not reach her eyes. She had no illusions about being able to fool the changeling queen. She couldn't even lie successfully to her son, let alone a being that literally fed on emotions. "You don't imagine a world ruled by changelings? Your dependence on emotions means you couldn't ever replace them, but... you're strong. You could try if you wanted."
They climbed the ramp. The Albatross was fantastically large, longer than most houses and taller too. It would've dwarfed a 757 several times over. Alex knew it rose well above most of the trees here, what trees there were. Only the elemental might of its thorium reactor generated enough energy to keep such a monster airborne.
Queen Blacklight went only so far as the ramp before she stopped, looking thoughtful. When she spoke, it was with obvious deliberation. As though she wanted to be honest, but was afraid of the consequences if she did. "There are some who think that way. I... might have myself, if it wasn't for Adrian. If it wasn't for you. I think hostility or control would undermine everything that has made us successful so far. I think if we gave ponies a reason to fight, they could drive us to extinction if they wanted."
"There are not many, but some of the queens pretend to control. They imagine us superior to those who had been made ponies. Our superiority, they suggest, gives us the right to Earth."
"Yet we aren't really in control. Who would love us if we tried to force ourselves on ponies? Who would respect us, who would be amused with us, and all the other food we need? Nopony. If there is a way to force food from a pony, none of the others have learned it yet. Threaten a pony's life and you can get her to say whatever you want, do whatever you want. But without sincerity, it isn't food."
"Ponies have to mean it or we can't eat it. That means only two options. Either we lie, and deceive ponies into thinking we're somepony else-"
"Like the Equestrian changelings did," Alex supplied. She hadn't known that twenty years ago, before she had read the library. Now she had read every book, and remembered each perfectly. Including all the little obscure details and hints, which she could now connect and correlate between each volume if she wanted.
"Like them." Riley shook her head in disgust. "Or we could find a more optimal solution. Here in Alexandria, I think I've found it. Make friends with ponies – send the drones to be obedient helpers wherever help is needed. Visit often, cooperate. Become so indispensable to the city that they cannot help but love you."
"You didn't have to do all that for me to love you." Alex rested her head gently on the Queen's side. There had been a time when she had been taller, and could stroke Riley's wispy mane. Not anymore. "You've been a friend since we found you. You saved my life, and many others. Maybe even the world."
Riley did not pull away from the contact. Where showing physical affection with political leaders might've been a ludicrous concept in the human world, it was more than desirable here.
One of the little secrets Alex had learned but never mentioned was that Blacklight could make far more use of her affection than any other pony. A single gesture from her could go further than the adoration of an entire crowd.
Lonely Day didn't understand why, but she didn't really care. What did it cost her to be kind?
The Albatross was airborne. Alex had been so enraptured with the conversation, she hadn't even noticed the change.
It was Taylor's voice over the PA that liberated her from her reverie. "It's going to be over an hour to Los Angeles," she began. "But if it's the same to you, I'd like to get the briefing out of the way. Well... same to you, Alex. Riley has already heard it."
"Or I would not have come."
"Yeah, that." Taylor sounded annoyed. "Why don't we all meet in the conference room? We can plan from there."
"On our way." Alex rose, walking past Blacklight with clanking hoofsteps. She spoke much lower, almost in a whisper. "Guess we probably should."
"Yes." The queen rose. Together they made their way to the briefing room.
Alex was not enthusiastic about whatever mission was serious enough to require their resident changeling queen.
Yet, if she had to do something dangerous, she could think of few ponies she would rather have at her back than Taylor and Riley. Even if, technically, neither of them were ponies.
* * *
"And you're sure this is safe?" Alex had to scream over the rush of air from outside. It wasn't the sound of motion; their Albatross Carrier was holding steady in its perch, resisting the gale at about a mile of altitude. Alex indicated the harness on her back with a flick of her head. Taylor had strapped it down tightly, a set of hard plastic saddlebags that had replaced her usual gear.
It had a weighty, expensive feel to it, the body as black as the night outside. She couldn't even count the straps that were holding it to her. It felt secure, but she loathed the idea of having to remove it without a unicorn's help.
"The E.A.D.H. has been extensively tested!" Taylor wasn't at the controls but standing close, near the open ramp. She was secured with sturdy cable clipped to the ceiling, though one arm was tight on the handholds. "You could be a block of pony-shaped lead and it would still put you down in one piece."
Alex went over the controls in her mind again, the lengths of control cable on each of her forelegs. One would deploy her chute, the other would blow the explosives on the emergency chute.
Alex had been skydiving before, decades and decades ago. But that had been before the Event, a single tandem jump with an instructor. Instead of an instructor, her companions were a changeling queen and half a dozen drones.
The hardware was already on the ground, along with the captured ponies. In theory they were going to be the cleanup crew, preparing the living ponies beneath for containment and extraction. In reality, there was no way to know for certain if enemies had managed to escape detection. She might be dead in five minutes.
What would it feel like to hit ground without a parachute? How long would it take her to wake up?
Lonely Day banished the thought with a shiver, edging towards the opening and the howling wind beyond. Her steps were unsteady even with the rough surface, but she never stumbled. As she advanced, a changeling stood beside her, using its own weight to keep her steady through every faltering movement.
She stood on the edge of the void. Even with night vision goggles over her eyes casting the world in green, she saw nothing beyond but emptiness. Her legs started to shake and she nearly collapsed, her whole body buzzing with frightened energy.
"I'll help you down!" Riley shouted from beside her. The changeling wore nothing but a very large rifle slung over her back, secured so it wouldn't be swept away when she jumped. No parachute, no armor. "I won't let anything happen to you!"
"I'll be fine!" she shouted back. "Just push me!"
There was no hesitation, no counting to three. Blacklight shoved hard, and Alex went tumbling out into the void.
She screamed; the air stole her breath. She kicked and flailed and somersaulted through the air. What way was up? Where was the Albatross? She might've lost control of her bladder at some point; if she had, the air stole that too.
She vaguely felt movement behind her, saw a faint glow come upon her accompanied by a loud beeping sound from her goggles indicating the presence of thaumic radiation. Her wild motion in the air was swiftly replaced by a more guided, directional plummet. She was moving down.
In the air beside her, she saw a flash of black and clear wings, and Blacklight's grinning face. Or had it been a drone? It was hard to tell even without the air blasting in her eyes.
Her fall couldn't have lasted that long, even though her fear had. Her earpiece squawked with a synthesized voice. "Reached designated deployment altitude!" Something exploded from behind her. First came a minor tugging, and a second later she jerked painfully backward against her harness. The straps groaned against the weight of her body but held in the end.
She was dimly conscious of servos behind her, guiding the parachute down towards its programmed destination. Alex let herself hang limply in her restraints, watching the altitude drop in her HUD and bracing herself for a landing.
She didn't really need it. As she got closer to the earth, she felt strength radiating up towards her, strengthening her and making her feel awake again. Where are you, Earth? She saw it in her mind, a graveyard of ruined buildings in the distance and rolling desert hills before her. The computer guidance within her vest directed her towards empty ground.
Alex did not roll as she struck, though she had been told to. She landed on her hooves, and suddenly couldn't get at the memory of what she was supposed to do. Her limbs might've broken from the shock, probably would've if she hadn't been an earth pony.
Instead, Lonely Day called upon the strength of the earth. A single moment stretched into a little infinity, and her perception changed. Far, far below, she felt the beating heart of the planet, an unimaginably vast mass of molten-temperature metal compressed into solidity by incomprehensible pressures. Further up, columns of semi-molten rock flowed in inexorable currents, moving sometimes slower than her perceptions and in other times much faster. Further still she found the stones, some hundreds of millions of years old.
Lonely Day took in the endurance of those stones. Her bones briefly hardened like steel, her tissues becoming as rigid as crystallized carbon.
The frozen moment passed. Instead of bones breaking, the ground she had struck exploded outward in a crater of loose sand and dust. Lonely Day knew of no other pony who could call upon the planet as swiftly or as completely as she could, just as she knew of no healer as skilled as Oliver.
When the Earth gave you a blessing, it was yours. Forever.
Behind her, something landed on the soil. She smiled as she saw Blacklight. "Impressive landing," Alex said, over the faint whirring of servos as her parachute retracted.
"Practice." Blacklight gestured, and her drones landed on the ground beside them. "Ready?"
She didn't feel ready. Yet as she let the earth flow into her, even her resolve returned. "As I'll ever be." She didn't unclip the Equine Airborne Deployment Harness, preferring to keep its armored form about her, but she did detach the rifle and sling it where it was within easy reach. "I am now."
"Then we have work to do." A little ways up a hill, and Alex could see the signs of battle. The ground was blackened and scarred, and here and there she saw the wreckage of a drone, or a dark bloodstain on the soil. There were no bodies.
Alex was grateful for the night. Even with it, she could make out the familiar outlines of her city in the distance. The skyscrapers of downtown looked much as they had, at least in the distance. She wondered how bad the damage from the fire had been. Closer, she realized with some horror that she was already within the area that had once been the city. Fire had consumed much, but here and there she saw a length of pipe or the wreckage of a car emerging from the desert.
Twenty years had taken the wreckage of a flame-consumed neighborhood and swallowed them. Had she not known what to look for, she might not have known where she was.
"Why do you think the fight happened out here?"
Riley did not seem to hesitate before answering. But then, she almost never did. "They must have been on the move. They finished whatever purpose they'd been put to in the city and started walking to their next destination."
"Across the desert?" She shivered involuntarily. "It's almost summer. There's no water. It had to have been a hundred degrees."
The queen shrugged. "Those captured by Abaddon are less than drones to them. My drones are my children, and I long for each to grow into themselves. Abaddon do not care. They view their supply of slaves as endless and grow stronger from their suffering."
"How do you know?"
She couldn't read Blacklight's expression. "I remember. Our origin is... similar. Both of us are unwelcome in the world of matter and form. We- the changelings of Equestria, I mean... they came because they wanted to be a part of it. Abaddon came to destroy what they could not have. They will unravel every thread in the tapestry."
"You are welcome always, my daughter." Archive's words were not her own. She did not resist. "Your children also, they are of me."
Blacklight did not seem confused. Though she met Alex's eyes, Alex had the feeling the changeling queen was seeing through her. Blacklight was more than used to speaking through others. "Thank you, Keeper," she lowered her head reverently. Were those tears in her eyes?
"Its like, however, we will not abide. The abomination rises to new atrocities. If we locate this one tonight, we will not merely destroy it as we did the last. We will make it suffer first. There will be penance for its debauchery."
Lonely Day wished she knew what the voice meant when it spoke with her mouth. What debauchery? What was it talking about?
She soon learned. They found ponies first, surrounded by a protective circle of security drones. Each one had an electric collar about its neck.
"They're sedated," Taylor explained. "The new anti-thaumic compound I told you about. Magic requires conscious stimulation to be effective. When exposed to thaumic radiation, the compound breaks down into several powerful sedatives. The more magic they try to do, the more sleepy they get."
"I will not be able to recover them in unconsciousness." Blacklight's voice seemed unmoved by the wreckage of battle. "They must choose freedom or I cannot give it."
Taylor's voice came through clear. "I know. Don't do it yet. They're not the reason I brought you. I could've had one of the construction bots scoop them up into a shipping crate and fly it to Alexandria. They're only secondary to your being here."
"When we get to it... I want to see you do it." Alex's voice was tentative. "I need to know how."
Blacklight raised an eyebrow. Well, she looked like she would've. If she'd had any. "A mere pony couldn't help them. No amount of repetition will teach you."
"Not if they were human." She spoke with confidence now. "Those are mine. You've got to show me how you do it."
Blacklight shrugged. "No harm in watching. But... not yet." She moved forward again, and Alex followed. Around them, drones both organic and mechanical watched the movement of every tree, the swaying of every blade of grass. Her own eyes, weak in darkness, saw clearly with the help of her goggles. Every patch of heat glowed to her eyes.
She'd had no idea just how warm changelings were until tonight. She supposed it had been bias on her part to expect anything else.
It wasn't long before they came upon the reason for their mission. "You're near the corpses. There are a few live specimens further on."
She saw them. There was no heat in the corpses, though she realized with growing horror she recognized what she was looking at.
They were human. No, that wasn't quite right. They had been. Foul fluid pooled beneath them, a soup whose color she could not distinguish through the uniform green and blue of her goggles. Limbs didn't so much rot away as they crumbled away, as though they were made from sand instead of flesh. Through the strange decomposition, Alex could yet make out more troubling details.
Though humanoid in principal shape, the corpses had no hair on their heads, which had become bulbus and elongated. The eyes were much larger, and the fingers appeared webbed. Strange membranes or cilli emerged from the mouth, out from very sharp teeth that seemed more filed than transformed. It was hard to tell, but the corpses seemed to have more limbs than they should; tentacle-like manipulating appendages protruded from various points on the chest. The number and location of these appendages was not consistent between them.
"What is this?" Archive did not need to be instructed to say those words; she felt them herself. Rage boiled in her chest, but she forced it down. Rage would not serve her until the need to be clear-headed had passed.
"We found them this way," Taylor responded over the radio. "We have never seen anything like it. Despite the frightful state of those bodies, they were 'alive' this morning. We can't do a serious analysis ourselves; Commander Clark is afraid their mutations might spread."
"This isn't what happens when humans are exposed to the thaumic field." Alex was not asking a question.
"No." It wasn't the human on the radio who answered, but the changeling at her side. "I would guess these beings live and function perfectly well outside any artificial protection."
"See for yourself. Take a look at that large container, the one surrounded by class one drones. I'll have one of them switch the lights on when you get close."
It was like watching a car accident, horrified at what she knew was coming but unable to look away. Lonely Day put one hoof in front of the other until she had passed the rapidly rotting bodies, gone from dirt to many-times cracked cement, and come to stand beside the container.
She felt much better to have the watchful eyes of a dozen drones upon her, both living and artificial. The IFF chip in her cybergauntlet would protect her if the drones started shooting.
The container proved to be fairly small, about seven feet square. Alex couldn't have guessed where they got a clear container of that size made of plexiglass, but she didn't feel the need to ask. Rather, the breath was stolen from her lungs as the lights were switched on and she saw what was inside.
Lonely Day had long since grown accustomed to the twinge of fear that came from spending time with changelings. All ponies felt it at first, enough that some rare few even fled or reacted with hostility upon first encountering one that wasn't pretending to be somepony else.
That was why, in Alexandria, changeling visitors always pretended to be ponies. It did wonders for their public image, and only when in private with those who really understood (like this moment) did they reveal their true selves.
What she felt upon seeing these creatures was far worse. It was the same feeling, but an order of magnitude greater in intensity. Alex tensed, but her rational mind would not bow to the pressure to flee. She dug her hooves into the ground and forced herself to see.
She wished they were dead. They stuck wetly to the side of their tank, with tattered rags clinging to their bodies. The extra limbs held them to the glass, though even their human limbs didn't look quite right. She saw no hair on their bodies, and their eyes were utterly black. If there was intelligence somewhere, she couldn't see it. It was impossible to guess what race they had been, though they were all now unnaturally pale. She saw veins pulsing through the skin in places, never the same between each individual.
"There are... six of these creatures." Blacklight's voice was measured. "There are very few of you in your shelter, yes? I understand you have a scheduled breeding program that prevents the expansion of your population. And that no member has ever been unaccounted for." This much at least, she said in a respectful, approving tone.
"Yeah." Taylor didn't hesitate. "We've lost people on missions, but we always recover the bodies. Human corpses must be... burned. None have been unaccounted for. We wouldn't let that happen to one of our own."
"Is this what happens to corpses?"
"No." Her voice was firm. "Nothing so consistent as this. More importantly, they do not respond unless other sapient life is within their physical perception. My drones have been watching these for hours. They tried to get out, tried working together to break the container. I was never present, but they've remained biologically active this entire time."
Alex looked away, yet in the corpse of her city she could find no respite. Dead buildings reminded her of the dead, millions and billions in number, that had been buried there. What about the people chilling in morgues and hospitals all over the country at the moment of the Event? Why had she never heard about this?
"I never heard about bodies doing anything but rot. We've found a few, mostly bones. They just look like dead humans."
Now Taylor's voice came halting. "It doesn't happen to the people who died before the Collapse. It doesn't seem to happen to everybody, either. Nor does it happen to anyone who dies and is kept within the CPNFG. But... in the early days, before we improved the technology, a few died to magical exposure, when their suits failed. Ponies were usually involved."
"There are no records because the ponies usually died too. We recovered their suitcam files remotely. When we did... we sterilized the area with drones. We have no record of any sapient creature ever surviving an encounter with them." Taylor sighed. "We didn't think it would happen again. Our thaumic armor is two generations more sophisticated. We can walk around in Alexandria for God's sake, so long as we stay away from that university and nobody tries to levitate us or whatever. It hasn't happened. As I said, we incinerate the dead. I know it's hard to see, but look. They've all got uniforms, see?"
She didn't want to turn around, but she did anyway. Sure enough, she could see some common traits to the fabric, each stained so thoroughly with filth their color was lost. Yet Archive's memory was perfect now, and she didn't need very much to tell what she was looking at.
"Those are... naval uniforms." She walked around the tank. One of the creatures tracked her with dead eyes; none of the others bothered. "They belong to the... this one still has a patch..." She froze. Archive recognized it.
"Taylor. I need you to tell me that there were no other organizations like yours before the Event. I need you to tell me nobody else could build the CPNFG. I need you to tell me and for it to be true."
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The plot thickens...
What...
Kill them. It would be a mercy.
Looks like somebody somewhere's been magicking magic that should not be magicked.
The question occurred to me recently on what would happen to humans who died just before the Event. Surely there had to be some people around the world who got in car crashes or other accidents, died on operating tables, had heart attacks, etc., within the hour or so before transformation begun. Wondering if the recently-deceased would have been lying there for new ponies to see on May 23. But that's really a moot point this late into the universe's establishment, I guess.
These ones in this chapter... I wonder if the recognizable patch isn't that of a submariner, or perhaps from some isolated country like North Korea?
Well... Frig. First off, I love your changelings. Few authors have managed to portray changelings as having alien mindsets AND without making them seem OP as well as you have. Every time Blacklight has made a full appearance, I feel something different about her compared to the rest of the characters. Just a wee bit out of place. Kudos to you. All of the kudos.
Secondly; I love Archive. That gentle reassurance to Blacklight, the fury at seeing what happened to it's own. We haven't seen a while lot of it, but what we have has been rather defining.
Thirdly; well [apples]. Now I really want to know what happens next! This development... a less successful take on HPI's attempt? A splinter group? This is pretty awesome.
Plot chickens strike again.
Were the mission planners fans of Isaac Asimov? And did that make these guys the Second Foundation to the HPI's First Foundation?
If they've been hidden away for twenty years unknown to the HPI until now, does that imply that they were equipped with everything they needed in an underground bunker somewhere?
That seems strange given the HPI's difficulties obtaining everything they need though, and the naval uniforms kind of suggest nuclear subs or ships instead, so... would it instead imply that their generator failed early on, and there's a whole faction of Abaddon-controlled mutated humans?
And I wonder were the raiders mentioned in the previous chapter Abaddon-controlled ponies? It didn't really seem like there was much of anywhere to go even if you managed a successful raid on Alexandria, so mind-control might make more sense of it.
Good to see Riley seems to be doing well at least. Amidst the Lovecraftian horrors and Arithmetic implying the beginnings of the downfall of advanced industry, it's nice to see something going right...
Hmm. I a bit sad that we went from 5 years AE to 20 years AE, but this this new plot seems interesting. I am still wondering, is Archive a part of LD or is LD more like a vessel through which Archive functions.; or maybe the lines are a little bit blurrier then that?
Umbrella Corp marine division?
6512799 I'm sort of getting a "nuclear sub eventually failed" vibe here myself. A nuclear-powered submarine can pretty much generate oxygen and potable water indefinitely; it's food, fuel for the reactor and maintenance for equipment that are the limiting concerns.
If they had some sort of CPNFG device that gradually lost its functionality....
Abbadon.... I know it's Hebrew but my first thought was warhammer 40K
And naval uniforms...... The Philadelphia Experiment?
6512611
Yeah, definitely will have no mouth and I must scream scenario
6512633
Keep your magics away XD
6512924
Yeah, that's what I was leaning towards as most likely.
You know, on top of all that, it also occurs to me that the name we know for the Abaddon that's definitely around is Charybdis, a name associated in human mythology with either sea monsters or whirlpools...
Two possible theories:
The better theory is that another group of humans had Anti-thaumic technology, and survived until now, and something happened to them.
The other is that something, or someone, figured out how to grab humans as they come out of the preservation spell's temporal displacement. They're wearing what appear to be naval uniforms? I seem to remember Starscribe stating that if you were in a moving vehicle at the time of the Event, the whole vehicle and all of it's occupants get shifted together. So what about an entire moving ship?
6510760 may haps a controlled release similar to prescription? Some "pranks" actually seem quite practical , like the sharkpony could be used as a delegate if any intelligent water species pop .
Sadly I do not have the vision to know the consequences of what we are seeing here.
I've recently had an epiphany. It would be entirely possible for Firebrand or Silver Quill to meet the ponies of Alexandria. How??? let me explain. All of the Brony Annalists are people from our world right??? Well, collectively, as a group, they've created their own little bit of lore that's entirely separate from, yet still tied to, that of the show. For example, most of them, apparently, have the ability to travel between dimensions. And a common hang out for the Brony Annalists is a little place called the Rift Café.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/the-rift-cafe/images/8/85/Full_Background.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/325?cb=20150829031623
It exist outside of any universe and just sits there in the vast void between any dimension. Also, many of them have traveled to Equestria and, to a lesser extent, even the EqG universe. I know the world they travel to is the Equestria from the show because, every now and then, an annalist will insert themselves into the background of a cannon event from the show (like Pinkie Pie singing to the buffalo in Appaloosa for example). You know what. Rather then trying to explain it, just look at this chart I drew.
lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gfYi8KcpCIU/VhmYA-My_0I/AAAAAAAAB_w/uuKEZ3kVaeo/w913-h685-no/the%2BMLP%2Bmultiverse.jpg
Just to clarify, PAP means "Ponies After People". EqG, of course, means Equestria Girls. And by Equestria Prime, I'm referring to the world we see in MLP:Fim. Now, I know all of those annalists are just roll playing and I shouldn't take anything they do too seriously. However, bear with me here, If you were to take their lore at face value and accept it as the 100% gospel truth, it would mean that not only is Equestria real but it's right next to our own universe. That's most likely not true, but it's still fun to think about. going though this story, the alternate earth (before the collapse at least) was so similar to our Earth and the alternate Equestria was so similar to the Equestria from the show, that they absolutely have to be nearby their real world and cannon counterparts. By the way, bear in mind that the chart I drew was only what I was able to fit on paper. Odds are, there's hundreds of thousands, maybe even billions of other universes similar to ours, or to Equestria. Some examples would be the alternate Equestria for "Fallout: Equestria" or the alternate Equestria and Earth from "Anthropology". By the way, the people from the Rift Café meeting the ponies of Alexandria would be an awesome idea for a fanfiction (non-canon as it may be). If only I could think of a way to make it work. UUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRGGGGG. I'm THINKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I got nothing. I don't know how to make a plot-line out of it, but it would make an interesting basis for a fanfiction.
Well, I have no idea what to think, unless this means Shadow Speaker and crew have finally surfaced.
At first, the description of mismatched limbs made me suspect draconequii. Doesn't seem so likely now.
The HPI say that humans invariably die when exposed to magic, and I seem to recall that fatality is pretty much instant. But what about micro-doses, like in the case of a slowly-failing CPNFG as opposed to catastrophic failure? And can a human body adapt to function on magic when its soul has left?
... Are they zombies?
Also, I wonder whether this is going to be a part of a central conflict running throughout the story, or whether Lonely Day is going to be dealing with world-ending catastrophes on an episodic basis, given how long she's going to live. The former would probably feel more satisfying, but the latter seems more likely, unless this time we get to see a plot that takes decades or even centuries to resolve.
6513863
... They must have had prototypes to develop right? Might make sense to put them on one of the many nuclear powered ships out there. Maybe the early models weren't as effective as first believed? Still, that makes a lotta sense.
6513536
Mlp doesn't exist in this universe
6513536 Best attempt of making the MLP multiverse, eh?
Adding Our Earth there makes me remind of my Multiverse Supercluster.
MLP Annalists hanging around a Universe-independent café? Woah, that's something I'd do.
6513966
You misunderstand. I'm not talking about the "Ponies After People" universe specifically. I'm talking about the multiverse. That is, the sum total of all universes. Let me rephrase what I said above. In our universe, where Bronies do exist, there are a bunch of YouTubers who analyze MLP. According to their videos, many of them have the ability to travel between dimensions. Therefore, if the "Ponies After People" universe is relatively close to our own universe, It's entirely possible for people like Firebrand or Doctor Wolf to hop over to their version of Earth and meet the ponies of Alexandria.
6514087
Oh, I think I get it now
6512696
My first thought was the Pingers from Seveneves who survived under the seas.
6513034 I thought the same, Abbadon The Despoiler. Which is almost kinda apt in this situation xD. Love w40k <33
6514331
I'm not even a fan of chaos or the black legion myself
It strikes me that without Google the chances of people knowing what she's referencing (Friedrich Schiller) will decline exponentially with time. Hell, things like movies, music, and fine art will forever be her private reference pool after a while, outside of the odd Returned Film/Music/ Art buff. At least she could transcribe the entirety of any book she's read, and even translate it but I doubt that she could even come close to re-creating "Citizen Kane", "Hey Jude", or "The Creation of Adam" in their original forms. Even the HPI would be hard pressed to save that last one outside of photos. Granted it's a minor thing when compared to "I will outlive my child and husband, and possibly their bloodlines", but it's just another thing to get used to.
Holy fuck! Shit just got REAL and DISTURBING!! I don't know what those things are, but KILL THEM WITH FIRE!!! T__________T
When I read this I thought of one thing, Dagon.
6513709
"Abaddon" was the term Riley used to refer to things like Odium earlier, so it's either the one associated with Shadow Speaker (Charybdis, according to Joe), or another one.
Welp... this isn't a good sign at all, at all. I'm suddenly very, very glad Blacklight's along for the trip. Reinforcements are going to be needed on this, it feels like.
6514489 Cthulhu fhtagn r'lyeh wgah nagl
Woah. Fifteen year timeskip already. We're going to be covering a lot of ground in this story, aren't we?
I approve of Alex's plan of investing her money wisely for the future. Anyway, I'm rather curious about Cody's power generating project. Sounds like some sort of hybrid technomagical design?
Oooo, that's a nice development.
Riley has some intelligent drones at this point? Awesome.
There are some hostile queens out there? Well, that's not good.
Impressive.
Oooooo. That's a nice confirmation from the Earth.
Hostile undead aquatic humans? Okay, that's so much more not good than the hostile queen changelings.
Uh oh. I suppose the problem is that if there is some organization out there that failed, it might have failed in such a way that it could have left large numbers of these horrors behind?
That is mildly disturbing indeed. The positive side is that Blacklight gets to be even more awesome, I love this character by now. I like how you switch to 'Archive' when something 'concept-related' crops up. And of course Blacklight, now with acknowledgement. And changelings pitted against changelinges? Now that will be interesting. And end in tears.
I do hope though that this new supernatural horror will be dealt with sooner rather than later... as interesting as it is, it detracts from the fight against the new world as such and the coming conflicts between the new ponies and emerging civilizations. The characters tend to loose some of their depth (Blacklight seems immune to this effect, more yay!) in the face of these immortal foes and overwhelming odds. And I love your characters.
There's a lot to take in here. A short-sighted city council, a more sophisticated HPI, Lonely Day the prophet of Earth, and what I can only describe as eldritch mutant zombie humans.
I'm... really not sure what to make of this. I understood all of it, but I'm hesitant to come to any conclusions. I'm going to wait and see on this one, especially the answer to Alex's last question.
Starscribe, I'm sorry to say this but, I'm leaving this story. the reason I like The Last Pony On Earth so much is because there was a constant dramatic tension created by the fact that we didn't know how everyone had disappeared or why the few people left had become ponies or anything else about how things got to be the way they were. In short, it was a mystery story. A quest for answers. Plus, without the support of millions of people, the Earth as a whole had become a hostile world to be survived in rather then lived. The next story, Founders Of Alexandria, was also a really engaging read because, while not as subtly woven in, there was a definite threat in the form of Odium. The stakes grew higher with every chapter. What kept me reading that story, just like the one before it is that, I didn't know what would come next. I new the main characters had a lot to lose and I legitimately wanted to see if and how they would make it out okay. After this story though, four chapters in and I still haven't seen any signs of an overarching conflict. I've never been a huge fan of time jumps in stories and, as a final nail in the coffin, I really don't like the longer chapters. It's easiest for me to stay focused on a story with frequent bite sized chapters rather then dumping these huge ones on us all at once every week. I need to clarify that it's nothing against you personally or as an author. I've just lost my investment in this story. As such, I'm leaving.
However, before I go, I have one last question I probably should have asked back during the first story. Why is Alex's dog named Huan??? I just started taking a Spanish class in school and one of the first things I learned was that Huan is the Spanish form of the name John. Considering Alex has never been alluded to having Hispanic roots or anything like that, I've got wonder why she gave her dog a Spanish name. Why not just name him John???
6522642 bye
6512850
I totally agree with you. First thought that ran through my head was Umbrella. Either that or Aperture.
erictrulson.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the_most_awful_company_ever__by_yikiho-d5sznoe.jpg
6522642
Huan its not a spanish name. Juan its a spanish name
6510765
I have a feeling he'll be back before we know it...
6511428
Ponytown is the name of a settlement from another side-story. Those characters may've chosen a "silly" name for their town, but considering lots of people are giving themselves silly names too, it hardly seems out of place.
6512696
The bodies of the dead would've been left right where they were when the Event happened. All the morgues and mortuaries and hospitals of the world would've had human bodies dead there. Whether the thaumic field would've done something mysterious to them at that point is now not known, though there was no mention of mysterious attacks or freaky creatures until now. Alex seems surprised to be encountering them, which would either mean that bodies don't mutate without having actually died in the field, or that the dead were somehow coordinated and avoided exposure.
6512751
By the end of the story, I have a feeling we'll get to see what happened to this group in detail. Tragic details revealed at seven! Or... whenever they come up in the story.
6512799
Yeah, advanced industry was bound to end without the population to keep it going. Hopefully something survives out the other end, when we can no-longer mass produce advanced alloys and semiconductors. Besides the HPI hiding in a hole somewhere, I mean...
6512827
This seems like the sort of question this story will answer. Unfortunately the time-jump we've seen here is only the first of many to come. I've got 10,000 years to cover. If I want to live long enough to write it all, it means skipping around and just looking at the highlights, unfortunately.
6513120
The real question is: Which would be worse? If an organization from before the Event went rogue or failed after a few years, or if some force could grab humans as they returned? They both sound pretty horrifying.
6513145
Indeed, that sharkpony would be pretty useful. And pretty cute, though that might just be a personal bias on my part...
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mlpfanart/images/a/a8/Shark_Pony_RIG_2.png/revision/latest?cb=20130813133518
6513536
Someone could write a story like this, yes. It's clear that other universes exist. I doubt such a story would be canon so far as the main story was concerned, but it might be very entertaining nonetheless.
6513863
I wouldn't want to reveal spoilers about my plans, but I will say that I would be pretty unsatisfied with just one world-ending catastrophe after another. Alex is going to live a very long time (unless some monster kills her and ends her story before 10,000 years, perhaps forcing some other pony to take her place as Archive), so she's likely to encounter all sorts of problems. I hope to be able to tell lots of different kinds of stories. Not all of them will be world-ending drama, but I hope all of them can still be interesting.
6514439
I expect many books may survive, since the printing press is a simple technology and won't ever be lost entirely to ponies. Art, music, and movies are another matter. Eventually Alex might be able to re-draw any piece of art, or re-sculpt any sculpture, but I'm not sure she'll devote the time and practice it would take to learn when she has so many other things going on. Movies and music... well she could sing, but she can't bring those back. Hopefully the HPI's digital archives don't die. If they do, much of earth's creations might be relegated to existing only within Alex's mind forever. : (
6514489
orig15.deviantart.net/c18a/f/2008/027/0/5/dagon_by_onikaizer.jpg
6518478
I have a feeling we'll know soon enough! Just a few hours from now in fact.
6522642
Did you actually read this chapter? Because if you didn't see the conflict in the story, you didn't read this chapter. It's in there, I promise
Of course it's your prerogative if you wanna stop reading. As to Huan: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Huan. It's nothing to do with spanish names.
6536655 maybe giver her a side chapter or something? Some delegated task from Day maybe?
6536655 6511428
Didn't see this 'til now. I wish fimfic had better notification settings.
For serenade, if you don't want to read the side story in question... the pony who named Ponytown is a bit 'silly' indeed. Flighty you might even say. Think Pinkie Pie turned down to about a 7.5. But not literally flighty - that's her friend's role.
I really love how you write changelings!
I've heard a lot of head canons about them, but this is one of the few I really like.
Intriguing. Some other bitter force at play?
Farther, mate. If they can't sense it closer than twenty feet, that means they can sense it farther away, but not right on top of them... O__o