The City Upon a Hill

by GaPJaxie

Chapter 5

She broke that promise. They all did, in the end.

First it was little things. She was on the other side of the planet, visiting a greenhouse or an animal sanctuary or something. Time zones were difficult. The only time she and Rainbow could talk was three in the morning for her. So they texted instead, and sent pictures. Then she didn’t always answer her text messages promptly. Because she was busy caring for new animals, or meeting new ponies.

Weeks went past. She was having so much fun exploring the Garden. She barely had time for her commlink. When she did reply, the messages got shorter. More cursory. Polite. Until one day, when Rainbow was sad, she set a special alarm for 2 AM so she could get up and call Fluttershy when she was awake. The alarm went off in the middle of the night. She sat up in bed, and started the call.

Angel Bunny answered, with a stylized rabbit avatar that spoke in speech bubbles. He said that Fluttershy was busy right now, and that she wasn’t wearing a commlink, but that if Rainbow had a message, he’d be happy to summarize it for her. Rainbow repeated that she wanted to talk to Fluttershy. Angel repeated that she was busy.

Then Rainbow saw Apex standing in the doorway. He was watching her. Because it was 2 AM, and she was not supposed to be awake at 2 AM. Sleep was very important for her to get better.

So she thanked Angel Bunny, and hung up. She crawled back under the covers and shut her eyes.

A little while later, Apex shut her bedroom door.

Rainbow continued to get worse. Three red pills four times a day wasn’t quite enough anymore. She also needed a blue one every morning, and two yellow ones with meals. Her head felt fuzzy all the time. She kissed a stallion she barely knew, one who was more than little older than her. A few days later, she slugged one of her teachers. Technically, robots weren’t ponies and so it wasn’t assault, but it made the other students uncomfortable. The school system had finally had enough. She got moved to the “special” class.

Home wasn’t any better. She cried. She raged. She screamed obscenities at her mother. Then she cried again, and said she was so sorry and she’d never do it again. Then she did as she was told. She knew that disobedience wouldn’t help her. Laziness wouldn’t help her. Being stupid wouldn't help her. Lack of discipline wouldn’t help her. She had to want to get better.

Months crept by. Rainbow stopped going out after school. The medication made her sleepy, so she tended to stay in her room a lot. Until, suddenly, it was only two weeks until her 16th birthday.

“We’ll skip the party, of course,” her mother was saying over dinner. Rainbow wasn’t hungry, but when her mother looked at her, she ate her springrolls anyway. Her commlink beeped, and a little green light flashed. “I don’t think you’re really in the mood for it.”

“Yes, mom.” Rainbow stared at her plate. There was a little bit of springroll left on it, so when nopony was looking, she leaned down and licked the plate.

She felt her commlink buzz again. A red light flash. “If you’re hungry, Ms. Dash, I can make you another one,” Apex offered from across the room. He didn’t have to look at her.

“Oh…” Rainbow lowered her head. “No. Sorry. I just… spaced out.”

“Mmm.” Her mother went on. “And we’ll be adding another closet upstairs. For your familiar, whenever they arrive. Just somewhere for them to stand when they aren’t needed. Do you want it attached to your room or just in the hallway?”

“Actually, I was thinking about it, and uh…” Rainbow coughed. “I don’t want a familiar. Apex does a great job taking care of the house, and, like. Two servants? The house isn’t that big. It just seems like…” She poked at the plate with a hoof. “Kind of a waste.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her mother chided her. “It’s a machine that exists to grant your every wish. You’ll love it. Every filly dreams of the day they turn 16.”

“I don’t…” Rainbow tried to clear her throat, but the sound emerged as something between a grunt and a whine. Like she was in pain. “I don’t want one. They won’t be able to help me, and… and it’s useless.”

Her mother sighed. She reached out to rest a hoof over Rainbow’s. “I know how you feel, dear.”

Rainbow’s head lifted. “You do?”

“Yeah, I do.” Her mother’s tone softened and she lowered her voice. “It’s a big responsibility, being in charge of a sapient creature. It’s hard not to always worry about if you’ve hurt their feelings, or if you’re using them right, or if you’re making the most you can of the life they’ve given you. It was scary for me too, when I was your age.”

“Oh.” Rainbow laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s uh… that’s it. I just don’t know what I’d do with them. Can’t… you know.” It took her a moment. “Stick them in a closet.”

“I understand.” Her mother smiled and patted Rainbow’s hoof. “You know, right after I got Apex, he gave me a heck of a scare. I couldn’t face him for three whole days.” She looked across the room. “What was it you said again?”

“I said, ‘I love you, master,’” Apex replied. “And I do. You are the brilliant light that makes my life worth living.”

“Can’t imagine why that freaked me out.” Her mother giggled. “So what you’re feeling is perfectly normal.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah!” Rainbow coughed. “But it’s still stressful. And I’m kind of in a fragile way right now. And all. So maybe you could talk to Celestia and ask about a delay, or…?”

“I could. But I don’t think I should. And you know why?” Her mother turned in her chair to face Rainbow head-on, and lifted her second forehoof so both held her daughter. “Because I think it’ll be good for you to see that you are up to the responsibility. You’re a little troubled, Rainbow, but you’re a good pony deep down. You don’t think Celestia would give one of her children into your care if you were a crazy pony, do you?”

“No, I… no,” she croaked. “Of course not.”

Rainbow stared at her mother. The wheels in her head turned. She saw what was and what would be.

If she smiled and agreed, then in two weeks, a steel pony would arrive to watch her at all hours. They would stand by her side. They would watch her as she took her pills, they would watch her as she ate, they would count the beats of her heart when she ran. And there would be no more pictures. A thing whose eyes were cameras didn’t need them. It would already have all the pictures. All of them all the time.

If she scowled and told her mother off, then there'd be another screaming fight. It would escalate. She would say hurtful things. Then that night, when she alone with her guilt, she’d regret them. There would be pictures of her, face twisted into a mask of rage, screaming at the one pony in this world who loved her despite everything. And then she’d agree, and the steel pony would come just the same.

If she made an excuse, there would be pictures of her lying. Everypony would know. She was out of options and out of time. So she did the only thing she could do.

“I want to take up a hobby,” she blurted out abruptly. “Something I can do at home. Keep myself busy.”

“Oh, uh…” Her mother paused, frowning at the abrupt change in topic. “Alright. What did you want to do?”

“Cooking. I want to learn to cook.” She cleared her throat. “And, baking. They’re different. And I like bread.”

“Um… Well, sure! Okay. That actually sounds really healthy.” Her mother nodded, her tone turning upbeat. “I didn’t think you had any interest in cooking.”

“I didn’t. But it’ll be good for me.” Rainbow lifted her head and looked head on at Apex. “And I don’t want any help. I want to order the supplies myself, and assemble them myself, and do the recipes out of the book myself, and if I mess it up than I mess it up. Learning to do it is the fun. There’s no point if you teach me.”

Apex looked at Rainbow’s mother, who nodded. He nodded. “As you desire, Ms. Dash.”

“Great.” Rainbow took a breath. “Can I start tomorrow?”

And so it came to pass that Rainbow placed a ridiculously large order for cooking supplies. There were piles of ingredients and the latest tools, all stacked up in the kitchen. She planned to bake a dozen loaves of bread every evening, she said. It would make her feel better. She repeated that, until her mother left for the evening, and Apex went upstairs to do the laundry.

Then she went to her room, and got the old spark generator she’d been given as a toy when she was twelve. She brought it down to the kitchen, then grabbed the two enormous sacks of flour she’d ordered. She hurried with it all downstairs into the gym, and blocked the door with an iron bar from one of the exercise machines.

The building’s fire alarm started going off immediately. She laughed. Then she tore the cover off the wind tunnel’s control panel and smashed its wireless card. The screen flashed as it switched over to manual controls, and she cranked the wind speed to its highest setting.

“Ms. Dash!” Apex called from the other side of the door. He skipped the just-shouting phase and went straight to shouting at her as he tried to bash the door down with his shoulder. “What are you doing!?”

“I’m proving…” She briefly searched for the right term on her commlink. “A danger to myself and others. Somepony who obviously, obviously,” she tore the first bag open and emptied it into the wind tunnel door, “cannot be trusted with serious responsibilities.”

“Ms. Dash, that is not going to burn, it is going to explode!” Wood splintered under his repeat assault on the door. “You are going to kill yourself and everyone else on this floor!”

Dash hesitated. The wind tunnel ahead of her was full of swirling white clouds. Then she laughed. “I’m the only one on this floor. But let me guess. Implying I’m committing murder made me more likely to obey, right!?” She kicked the second sack of flour in. The air in the wind tunnel was full of thick white drifts.

Rainbow looked down at the spark generator in her hooves. It was only then that she realized it had no timer, or remote trigger, or other way of setting it off from a safe distance.

So she backed off to the far side of the gym. She twisted the knob to turn it on, and sparks climbed up its two prongs. She stared at the wind tunnel door ahead of her. “It’ll be fine,” she said gently. “It’ll all be fine.” She pulled her foreleg back to throw.

Apex smashed a foreleg through the door. Instead of fumbling to remove the iron bar, he pointed his hoof straight at Rainbow Dash. She threw the spark generator.

There was a loud bang.

Comments

[KMCA]

God dayum!

I wanted this story in all its darkness... I'm not sure if I should regret this or not.

[TheAccidentalBrony]

She broke that promise.

Yep. This had to be the first sentence of this chapter.

[Zaten the Changeling]

There was a loud bang.

Well, that’s never good.