Heat
The night air greeted me like an oppressive wall as Gerardo's airship's door swung open, accompanied by a roar of wind and noise, red lights flashing irrhythmically outside the window. We had spent the last hour or so in sight of Ironridge, as a small tugboat flew out to intercept us, negotiate mooring, and lead us to our dock.
All the time, I had been trying to make out the city below. Although it was night, Ironridge was ablaze with illumination, reminding me of a bowl that had cracked and lost a quarter of one side and spilled all of its contents out in a flood. The ship's compass told me we were moored on the western wall facing down the mountain to the east, and I had looked out over a spider web of development as we flew. But light reflecting off the insides of the ship's windows had made it hazy, and I wanted to see the real thing up close.
"You didn't have to pay for mooring, you know," Slipstream told the griffon as we prepared to disembark. "I was happy to stay with the ship. And now we'll have to walk all across Ironridge to get these three where they're going."
"Tragically, Cold Karma don't like loiterers in their airspace," Gerardo replied, headcrest flopped. "They certainly are harsher masters than the Yakyakistan of twenty years ago. Well, come along. We've got a long way to hike, and less than four hours to do it."
"There's no public transit?" Ansel asked, stepping through the door.
"There is, but Gerardo's a cheapskate and-"
"I am not," Gerardo protested, silencing Slipstream with a feather. "And for your information, I'm factoring in us using it. We'll only be getting off to avoid-"
I stopped paying attention as soon as I could look about freely. We had backed into a gigantic roofed fixture on the mountainside, a three dimensional covered pier with layer upon layer of catwalks and walkways extending into the distance. On each level, ships rose or sunk into alcoves in the walkways, leaving fly lanes open between then like jam in a multi-decker sandwich. Huge support pillars ran up and down at catwalk junctions, encircled by roundabouts and holding the whole apparatus up. Floodlights attached to the ceiling, pillars and other airships provided illumination, and I realized the heat I felt wasn't actually the city: it was an exhaust vent on the ship across from us, positioned at a very inconvenient angle.
Flashing red lights lined the railings, keeping me focused on where I should be walking even as the industrial cacophony and sheer scale of the room threatened to overwhelm my senses. I stumbled out onto a solid branch of the pier, set my suitcase down and hugged my saddlebags, watching as Gerardo and Slipstream tied down and locked up the ship, a receipt posted plain to see in the window.
"Height-struck, are you?" Gerardo said once he had finished, noting the angle of Corsica's neck as she craned to take in the room, just like I had been doing. "Keep your eyes on this level. I know it's a sight, but you don't want to accidentally put those railings to the test."
A pegasus soared overhead, making me realize there were quite a lot of ponies flying, out in the distance. In a world this vertical, that would be a considerable advantage, indeed.
"Well, come on." Gerardo snapped his talons and started walking, grabbing our suitcases for us. "That took longer than I'd have liked, and we have no time to waste."
The heat receded as we followed a tunnel into the mountainside, wide and lined with concrete. It had slanted walls that made it a trapezoid, and walking lanes painted onto the ground in colors that showed up well under the blue-green light. Wind blew toward us, the end product of the underground's ventilation system, and advertisement billboards lined the walls, showcasing things that were surprisingly familiar: food, beauty products, home appliances. There were also plenty I knew about, but that were never seen in Icereach: foals' toys, theatrical performances, personal damages lawyers... It was a strange mix of normal and things that should have been normal but weren't, all in a tunnel that was at once far too industrial and commercial at the same time to ever be found in Icereach.
Corsica, I noted, was wearing a thin tailcoat dress that covered her flanks and kept her tail down without extending further forward than her barrel. I didn't question where she had found it, and she showed a few signs of custom handiwork to make it fit. Gerardo must have talked to her about her talent, after all.
For my part, I had done as he advised and chosen some contacts to turn my eyes yellow. It was hard to pick my favorite color, especially when orange and blue were on the table, and about five coin flips had been involved. Aside from that, all of us stank of deodorant, and my and Corsica's manes both had the greased look of ponies who were trying to use stallions' fashion to compensate for a long flight with no showers. Ansel's mane, annoyingly, looked perfectly fine.
It must have been a changeling thing. Shapeshift into a form with no mane, and all the dirt would just fall away.
"We'll be taking the train most of the way," Gerardo was explaining, setting a pace that was faster than I'd like, but not unmanageable thanks to my yak training. "Passenger vehicles that run on set tracks, in case Icereach tells you nothing. Right now, we're high up in the Day District, which is built into the mountain slope. And, unfortunately, we're clear on the opposite side of the city from our destination."
I focused on keeping up, half paying attention. The tunnel air had gotten cool enough that it wasn't that hot anymore... Cooler than Gerardo's airship, after the windchill. Corsica still didn't look like she was doing too great.
"There are lines that follow the Day District's curve, and they're the ones we'll be taking," Gerardo went on. "Fortunately, they do offer something of a view. At two points, we'll have to get out and walk for a bit to avoid security checkpoints-"
"To do what?" I shook myself back to the present, ears rising in alarm. "Avoiding security checkpoints? What are we, some kind of criminals?"
"No," Gerardo replied. "But a rule of thumb if you ever become professional adventurers is that while escorting young first-time visitors to Ironridge, security checkpoints are where everything goes wrong."
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.
"...Also, those are the points where proof of fare is collected," Gerardo admitted. "And their rates for anyone without one of those reloadable card things are atrocious."
"Cheapskate," Slipstream repeated.
"You'd be singing a different tune if you were the breadwinner in this crew," Gerardo insisted. "Besides, they stiffed me enough for mooring already."
"As long as we get there before it gets too much hotter," Corsica panted, lugging her overstuffed saddlebags, "I'll be good for anything..."
I had never seen a train before.
This wasn't like the airship harbor - I understood how a ship dock worked; that one was just massive. It wasn't like the advertisements in the tunnel, either: those were new, but all made perfect sense. But watching this chain of painted metal cylinders on wheels roll out of a dark tunnel in the wall filled me with an unspeakable sense of jealousy: it was big, it was mechanical, it was new, it was cool, and it worked.
Doors along the sides folded open, and a slow stream of ponies began to move in and out, looking for all the world like it was a normal thing to do. This train not only worked, but it served a regular, civilian purpose.
This was what Icereach could do, if only they would stop trying to stay where they were and actually finish a rocket for a change.
"Not that one," Gerardo instructed as I moved to get on it. "We're looking for southbound."
So we sat down to wait, and I watched the world go by.
This train station felt comparably large and busy to Icereach's market street, with occasional groups of friends chatting as they walked past and plenty of loiterers. Part of me tried to adjust my understanding of the traffic to compensate for it being four in the morning, and I had to remind myself that in Ironridge, night and day were basically swapped... which was odd, because I came from a city that didn't much respect the day/night cycle at all. I suppose I had just internalized that the rest of the world, the parts that lived aboveground, were actually up when the sun was up.
Ironic that I thought that now, when I was once again underground.
"So by Ironridge standards, is this a ghost town, or normal?" Ansel asked, apparently thinking along the same lines. "I can't imagine this place wasn't designed to accommodate more traffic than this."
"Completely empty," Slipstream replied. "Ironridge is busy, and this should be the start of morning rush hour."
Gerardo nodded in agreement. "Most anyone returning home after work isn't going to get off at a private airport, except for certain types who live on houseboats like yours truly. The bulk of passengers are carrying on through, or else got off already. We aren't that far from the end of the line."
"Or they haven't gotten on yet," Slipstream pointed out. "There's a lot of jobs here on the western face of the city. Most of the Day District's housing is clustered on the south and southwest. Though at least that might mean we'll have the train to ourselves once everyone else gets off."
Gerardo tapped a talon against the concrete floor. "Yes, hopefully. We shall see..."
A minute passed, and another train rolled in, this one moving in the correct direction. With a loud hiss, it came to a stop, and Gerardo guided us aboard.
I felt my whole body try to shift with inertia as the train began to turn. True to prediction, the train was packed: I had to share the new experience of standing in a vehicle that moved like this with the also-new one of being in such close quarters with strangers. Standing in line at the cafeteria didn't compare; that was one-dimensional crowding. As was sharing space on a bench. Here... Everywhere I looked, my eyes had nowhere to rest but on ponies.
Fortunately, Gerardo was a griffon and griffons were large and exotic enough to command a bit of space for themselves, so he had at least bullied us enough room that Ansel, Corsica and myself could stand and only bump into each other. I rode out the changes in inertia on swaying hooves, feeling a rhythmic clack-clack from something in the wheel system beneath me, illuminated by harsh blue mana light from above and staring at my reflection in a dark window, maintaining a wall in my mind between myself and the ponies around me.
No one was talking with each other, I noticed. About half of the ponies I saw wore heavy duty outfits that had to belong to mechanics or construction workers - yet still light and airy, designed not to be stifling in the Ironridge heat. They almost reminded me more of cloth armor plating than cohesive clothes. Another quarter wore light business attire, collars and ties and the like. The rest wore nothing. Even Slipstream had shucked her usual sweater; myself and Gerardo were the only fully-clothed creatures here.
The train pulled into another station, this one still underground, finally giving me something to see outside the window. The doors opened with a hiss, and ponies left and ponies entered, though there was a lot more of the latter.
Everyone kept their heads down, save for a few who glanced anxiously at signs. No one admired the architecture; the crossed beams of concrete that held up the vaulted ceiling. No one stopped to think about the fact that they were using a machine that could roll around a track the size of a city. I couldn't see their thoughts, but probably none of them imagined that if only we could build a track between two cities - hard in scope, but the technology was clearly there - airships would never need to make that journey again.
Instead, everyone avoided interacting with their peers as much as possible, as though it was their solemn duty to make this nothing more than a ritual to get from one point to another.
I almost considered speaking to someone to break the wordless noise of machinery. But, listening to machines was nice. And if that was the way things were done here, maybe blending into the local culture was the best plan for me.
The train started moving again, and just like that my vision was lost as we went into another tunnel. Ponies shifted in the car, those who were standing swaying with the momentum.
No one looked at each other. Maybe that was a good thing, because I was a batpony, and no one looked at me.
Three more stops passed, and after each one I re-evaluated my idea of how full full was. There was air conditioning in the train, cool air flowing in from somewhere, but even with it, the sheer body heat was probably worse than anything Ironridge's climate had to offer - Corsica's cheeks were visibly flushed, and I imagined mine were the same. Mares and stallions stood, sat and read books or newspapers, pretending their surroundings didn't exist. With this much crowding, I was starting to understand why making yourself invisible in this place was considered a courtesy.
So, I snuck into Corsica's shadow. She didn't much seem to notice, nor did anyone else, but Gerardo shifted over to fill my space and the space he had vacated was promptly used.
Maybe this was why I saw no other batponies on the train. They were all probably smart enough to do the same.
Then, the light changed. I poked my head up enough to see that the tunnel was behind us; we were now outside. Did I dare try to get up to take in the view? There was so little room...
I waited for the next stop, and my waiting paid off. When the train doors slid open, what felt like dozens of ponies exited, each concluding their journey in as much silence as it had started. Almost none got on, and by the time it was over there was just enough space that I could rise again.
Ironridge was... vast. I glued myself to the window next to Ansel and began taking it in as we accelerated again, a sight I had seen from above and afar but not yet with such a good angle. Across and below, a spider web of blue stretched out in a magnificent disk, darkened forests penned in by glittering, winding roads, cities within a city rising at the crossroads. Gerardo had spoken of Ironridge in terms of districts, and I could see the distinction clearly, the brightly-lit mountain slopes of the Day District coming around like pincers toward a pass where the mountain bowl joined the rest of the world to the northeast. But seeing it now, that was far too coarse an approach. The Night District alone probably held five or six substantial population centers within its groves, an illuminated tower marking one northern node. And if the Day District was big enough to completely encircle it, I was certain it would prove to be the same.
The train slowed again, and I was just starting to hope for another mass exodus when Gerardo poked me. "This is our stop," he mouthed.
"You'll pay for mooring," Slipstream breathed back, "in a place where we need to buy rail fare, and then you won't pay for the train."
"It's only a little walk," Gerardo urged. "And you wouldn't believe the savings. Come along, now..."
The train let us out into a terraced stone plaza, a warm breeze blowing across my mane. Beige cobblestone was lit by floodlights tinted to be closer to the color of the sun, artistic patterns in the floor forming guidelines that led the disembarking ponies toward staircases up or down from the platform. I could see pedestrian overpasses bridging above the tracks, and indeed I could see the tracks too, which at the previous stop had been recessed into the ground and out of sight. But what I wanted to see was the city.
I ran to the edge and put my hooves up on the short wall, finally staring out with no glass to separate me from my target. A million twinkling lights spread out below me, blue specks and gold pools amid the blackness, the Day District wrapping around the Night District like a hug.
The heat was humid, yet tempered by a stiff breeze, heavy enough that you wouldn't want to wear a hat without thinking. Overall, it wasn't that different from being in Gerardo's airship: livable without much discomfort, but I sure wouldn't want to exercise out here. My ears flicked in the darkness. I wondered how hot it would get come morning.
"What does that sight make you think of?" Gerardo asked, stepping up beside me with our heavier luggage.
I blinked, caught off guard. "The heat, actually," I admitted. "But the city... I dunno. I just wanna explore."
"So it's a good thing, then," Gerardo said. "You're intrigued by it, rather than repulsed."
I glanced up at him in concern. "Why would I be repulsed? It looks almost like the sky, except... made by ponies."
"There are some who don't see it that way," Gerardo replied. "If you stay in the city for any meaningful length of time, I can't imagine you won't meet them. But, at the end of the day - or end of the night, being in Ironridge - I've heard them out and still think this vista is beautiful."
"Why don't they like it?" I asked.
Gerardo drummed his talons on the railing. "Old things that have meaning. Some say they don't like what it stands for. Others prefer what they could have been. In a city this big, not everyone is bound to get what they want." He pointed to the right. "See that wall over there?"
My gaze drifted. Northeast, there was the gap in the Day District, the wide pass connecting the Night District to the plains beyond. Clockwise from there was a single tall mountain with a lighthouse on its keep, and continuing from there, a long, smooth, illuminated wall arced smoothly out from the mountain, meeting up with the full mountain chain and starting the Day District proper. Below the wall stretched the foothills of the Night District, and above it, I could see signs of illuminated metal framework, as if something very large was under construction.
"Once upon a time, that was a dam," Gerardo told me. "They called it the Water District. It held back a glacial lake, which provided the water for all of Ironridge, plus coolant for machines in the mines. The dam was one of the greatest feats of Ironridge engineering ever recorded. Today, that lake is gone, and where it once stood is the Ice District. Cold Karma built their headquarters up there, with a ready-made wall and everything. In a way, the dam's meaning hasn't changed a bit: it's still a symbol of the power of Ironridge technology. But that power is in different hooves than it used to be, and a lot of factions see it different ways. To some, it's the equivalent of having your flag stolen and flown by your enemy. To others, it's a mark of progress. There aren't many who can still see this skyline for the pretty vista it is."
He got up and stepped away. "Come. We've got a lot of ground to cover, and I don't want to set too harsh a pace if you're unused to the heat. But remember now what it's like to look at this city with awe and wonder."
For a city built into the slope of a mountain, the Day District was surprisingly vertical. The thought sounded silly as soon as I had it, but I stood by it nonetheless. Were I designing a long, shallow city with a lot of elevation change, I would mark it through with flat thoroughfares designed to let ponies travel the length without going up or down hills. But here, going up and down hills seemed to be all we were doing.
"How come... they couldn't just build a bridge... between that hilltop and this one?" Ansel panted, pointing back behind us as the road reached an intersection and turned downward again.
"Because when these were built, they didn't have our kind of trek in mind," Gerardo replied, patting the worked stone. "These roads are ancient. And it's only in recent times that many have concerned themselves with getting from one place in the same district to another. Ironridge's economy has always been divided by height - agriculture at the bottom, mining for ores higher up - and so earlier generations thought more about getting up and down the mountain than around it. In their eyes, why bother going from one height to somewhere else with the same height? The goods you'd have access to would be the same."
I listened, taking the stories in. The latticed architecture of the roads certainly intrigued me: everything was built in switchbacks, like a diagonal grid, such that most every intersection would give you a choice between clockwise or counterclockwise plus up or down. There were terraces, but they were hard to see when the height kept changing. The down-mountain side of every road, when it wasn't just a railing and a cliff, was covered in a mix of viewpoints, street signs and curated tropical gardens. Most of the mountain face itself was swathed with windows, and just about every intersection had a tunnel leading into the stone wall, ostensibly an apartment complex or office space or an indoor shopping mall or anything else of the sort.
Sometimes, the architecture was disrupted, like where the train tracks came through, or where a plaza had been deemed necessary, or for a bigger building that rose up for a while, deciding it needed more space. Everywhere, there were signs of things built in different eras: dark concrete with steel trim next to dusty cobblestone, carved murals next to screens depicting what I hoped was modern art.
It wasn't quite planned and ordered, but it also wasn't a sprawl of disorganized, organic growth. It was... harmonic.
I was interrupted from my musings by a dull thud behind me. Glancing back, I saw Corsica's bags on the ground, the mare herself leaning against a wall, looking flushed from the heat.
Gerardo was at her side in an instant. "You look like you could use a rest. The station we'll be boarding at isn't for another thirty minutes at this pace. Is everyone good with a break?"
"I'm not a wuss!" Corsica snapped, her dress soaked with sweat. "Just need some water..."
"I've got it!" Slipstream called, setting down her own bags and fishing out some bottles.
I frowned, realizing I should have been paying more attention to my friends. As Corsica drank greedily from an offered bottle, I quietly slunk over, picked up her discarded bags and added them on over my own.
They were heavy. And felt like they were ready to explode. Fortunately, I had my yak training to fall back on, but a lengthy uphill march in this weather with both of our luggage combined... probably wouldn't leave me with much focus for admiring our surroundings. And maybe I could use a drink too.
We started moving again. Corsica glanced at me, noting that I had her bags, and said nothing, which probably meant she was thankful but didn't want to draw any more attention to her plight.
True to my predictions, soldiering along with Corsica's gear plus my own took all of my focus and energy. Time passed in a blur until we were on the next train and already moving, our luggage placed in seats across from us, a water bottle under my wing and a stiff seat cushion beneath my rear. This train was far less crowded, and the air conditioning actually helped me cool off.
Nobody spoke as the night wore on and the train passed stop after stop. Sleep tugged at my eyes, but I kept myself awake, soaking in the sensation of the empty train around me.
Wheels clattered against the rails. The train slowed to a halt. Gerardo got up, Slipstream gently roused Ansel and Corsica, and once again, we got on our way. This time, Slipstream didn't complain about Gerardo's stinginess in walking past the fare zone change. I could tell that she was saving her energy, too.
From this angle, the dam was hard to see. We were far enough east now that I could look back and pick out the huge, boxy skyport where Gerardo had moored his ship, along with several others like it on the western edge of the ring. The sky might have been lightening in preparation for dawn... or was that just light from the districts? I couldn't tell.
The Day District's architecture was similar in spirit here to the last place we got off, though some notable differences showed themselves. Flat roads actually did exist, yet there were more points where large, external buildings caused the roads to break, and in some cases roads even went through the lobbies of buildings that were constructed above them. Often, the downhill edges were lined with stalls, many of which were closed or closing for morning, but appeared to sell things in open-air markets. The indoor areas looked notably more commercial than the residential zoning of the southern face.
The way Gerardo told it, the city used to be stratified by purpose going up and down, and that was the reason for the districts. I wondered how recent it was that the districts had started stratifying themselves internally the same way, and if that meant that the districts were now more like separate cities than interwoven sectors of a whole.
Onward we marched, gaining a lot more height than we lost. Once again, I carried Corsica's bags. My muscles protested, my mind narrowed itself into a focus, but I could do it. I had a rhythm going, and it was one I would need to keep up to reach my goal. One hoof, and then another... I wasn't just saying it to myself; I really could do this.
And then I looked at my friends. Ansel was managing alright with his own load. Corsica, despite carrying nothing, looked worse than when she stopped to rest last time, enviously watching me and Gerardo shoulder most of the group's gear and unsteadily dragging herself along.
I had no idea what it would be like in this climate to have a Yakyakistani coat like hers, but it was clear she wasn't going to ask for a break twice. Guess that left things up to me.
"I'm beat," I abruptly announced, falling over onto a nearby bench. "We're taking a break, or I'll start complaining loud enough they'll hear me back at that skyport."
Corsica and even Ansel needed no second bidding to follow suit. Gerardo glanced at us, evaluated our condition, and nodded.
"Don't you think you're pushing them a little too hard?" Slipstream muttered to him as we stopped to rest, water getting passed around again. "They're from the middle of a glacier, and this is a steep hike. It probably wouldn't be all that pleasant even in their preferred weather."
I curled up on the bench with my back to them so as to eavesdrop better while looking like I wasn't.
"Yes, I might be," Gerardo whispered back, pausing for a moment and probably checking if we were watching. "And if they really can't make it, then I'll do something about that. But I'll have a lot more peace of mind leaving those kids with a stranger in this city if I know getting around it won't kill them. I want to see for myself whether they're able to handle hiking the Day District at night. And while we might be able to pay our way through rail fare, you can bet this will make them remember the way to get around it if they ever need to move without any coin to their name."
My eyes narrowed. Sneaky griffon... That was actually smart, but it did make me worry about whatever he was worried about. I glanced at Corsica and Ansel; the latter clearly wasn't listening and the former was out cold.
"You still could have run this by me earlier," Slipstream quietly protested. "Back when we were planning-"
"Yes, but you hate good-cop-bad-cop routines," Gerardo reminded her. "Remember back in Ralianth when we had to con that rug merchant to get a lead on a cartel member for Winsom?"
"What's that have to do with anything?" Slipstream whispered back. "You could just straight-up tell them why you're worried."
"Or," Gerardo softly said, "we can leave them with this mistress, let Valey know what's going on so she can look out for them from a distance, and let them enjoy the city rather than raining on their parade from the very beginning."
Dark thoughts swirled in my head, turning faster the longer I listened. Ever since I told Elise that I wanted to go to Ironridge, ever since we agreed to come to this city, my paranoia had inexplicably stayed at bay. And now here I was, listening to my couriers talking behind my back about how this might not be an innocent research trip and there was way more going on than I was privy to.
Screw that. I had my bracelet. I had my unfinished inertial stabilizer rotor weapon. This was getting nipped in the bud here and now, and if Gerardo and Slipstream were doing something nefarious? Better to fight them while I had them in front of me than let a repeat of the Aldebaran incident happen again.
I yawned, stretched and made a show of getting up, walking right over to them. "Sure is a fascinating conversation you're having, there."
Both of them froze.
"Really." I raised an eyebrow. "Seasoned adventurers like yourselves never imagine that the kid with backwards ears might be able to hear what's going on behind her?" I tapped an ear. "It's not like I was passed out from exertion, or anything. I only stopped 'cause everyone else needed a rest."
Gerardo frowned. "I see."
"So how about," I said, lowering my voice as well and noting that Ansel and Corsica legitimately seemed to be out of it, "you remember my history with traveling with folks who are up to something and tell me what's going on behind my back."
"Halcyon..." Slipstream started.
"Well, you're certainly inquisitive enough to be an adventurer," Gerardo admitted, headcrest flopping. "If not knowing is going to keep you up at night, I suppose you might as well hear it: you probably aren't going back to Icereach any time soon."
I waited for him to explain.
He lowered his voice further. "How obvious is it, from within Icereach, that just about every last pony there is a native?"
"No one ever talks about it," I breathed back, "but I knew."
Gerardo nodded. "That colony doesn't much trust outsiders, and for good reason. Back when your current regime was founded, Ironridge and Yakyakistan were both looking for a place to bury some secrets they never wanted to let see the light of day. It was a very beneficial agreement, since they wanted a place no outsiders could mess with and Icereach wanted to be that place. But, since that time, both Ironridge and Yakyakistan have had some serious governmental shakeups. Elise and Graygarden worry that some of the new higher-ups might not even remember what it was that was sent to Icereach, let alone share the priority of keeping it a secret. Basically, they're worried that the Institute might get shut down."
I felt my eyes widen. The whole point of Icereach, hearing it from Elise, was to do nothing and stay frozen in time. But a useless organization getting shut down felt only logical. This was like... fantastical and ordinary logic collided, and ordinary won.
"They've been feeling this might be on the horizon for a while now," Gerardo admitted. "Especially after hearing about the current state of things from me. Most of Icereach's citizens would be happy to disappear even further off the map than they already are, but you three are foreigners and also young. No one thought that was a fate you would enjoy. It should go without saying, but the reason this concerns me is that if you do manage to get into trouble - which is sadly likely, with a curiosity like yours - Elise and Graygarden don't know how long it will be before Icereach lacks the political power to get you out. And even if they still have it, bringing you home may not be the best long-term plan."
I chewed on that, feeling vaguely like the floor had been yanked out from under me. It did make sense, though: we were being sent to live with a personal connection of Graygarden's, not a business connection. That had always seemed a little strange to me, but it made perfect sense if they were looking for someone whose loyalty wouldn't be dependent on political ties.
My thoughts went back to my many conversations with Elise, in which she told me about Icereach's vague history and its reasons for keeping secrets. If they thought true isolation was on the horizon, maybe jettisoning foreigners would be a thing they would do. And maybe it would be better if we were already established on our own when that happened, instead of becoming refugees again.
Elise and Graygarden were foreigners themselves, I remembered. Next time we met might not be in Icereach, but in Ironridge.
"This is how the Aldebaran incident started," I reminded Gerardo. "I've been here before. I go traveling, then find out something isn't as it seems. What else aren't you telling me?"
Gerardo and Slipstream looked at each other.
I swallowed.
"Plenty of doom and gloom about the overall condition of the world, I'm afraid," Gerardo said. "Much of it, I tried to make light of during tales on our flight here. Unfortunately, not a lot you'll be able to do anything about, unless you turn out to secretly be the arbiter of destiny in disguise. One bit of good news though is that we have some friends in the city with little power in the government but a whole lot of it on the streets. It's probably best not to get you involved with them directly unless you want to kiss any possibility of a safe and ordinary experience goodbye. You heard me mention Valey. She's the green-eyed mare you wouldn't want to be mistaken for. But, you won't be alone."
"Great," I said. "Exactly how I was hoping to start this adventure off."
"If you want to think about it another way," Slipstream offered, "your adventure actually started when you left the Griffon Empire nineteen years ago. Everything between now and then was just... a break."
Well, that sort of made sense. It was because I was a refugee that... No, that didn't make sense, I would want to travel the world no matter who I was.
Maybe being forced to travel the world wouldn't be so bad if it was what I wanted, though? The real reason this unsettled me was just because it was exactly what happened last time.
"Well, I'm fine," I sighed, straightening up. "And just so you know, I can handle the hike. How long do you think everyone else needs?"
"Hopefully they'll be ready to go shortly," Gerardo said, checking the sky. "Dawn isn't far away."
We reached the next train station after the sun had risen. Being near the eastern mountain face gave us the advantage of the mountain shadow; looking back over our shoulders allowed us to see the sun strike the tops of the western mountains, and then the Day District, and slowly crawl down towards the mountain floor. It was almost touching the Night District by the time we boarded our train. The temperature had slowly started to crawl upwards, but Gerardo told me that morning in the Night District was when it would become a true furnace.
The train slipped into another tunnel, turning slightly into the heart of the mountain. It was almost devoid of passengers, and climbed at a steady angle, moving straight and not stopping for a long while. Then, it started to turn, and it remained turning for so long that it had to be climbing in a helix.
It stopped in a station that was all blue steel and a small amount of concrete, completely indoors and much more industrial than anything I had seen so far in Ironridge. Several ponies got on. We kept going.
The train wound its way through a maze of metal that looked more like Icereach than anything, except blown up to a much larger scale. Steel support columns held up rafters that might have formed the ceiling, no light shining on them to let me see. Wide open spaces surrounded the tracks, a forest of supports preventing me from seeing most of the walls. From metal cavern to metal cavern we moved, baffling me at just how much steel someone had managed to produce.
Apparently, Slipstream was thinking the same. "How they can go from a wrecked economy to this in twenty years is beyond me," she mused as we rattled along. "After the Steel Revolution, the mines were out of commission. Feeding ponies took up all of the new government's attention. They had the horsepower, but building something like this so quickly... It just doesn't seem natural."
"Agreed," Gerardo muttered. "What I wouldn't give to get a look at some of Cold Karma's construction records for this place. That dam wall makes it impossible to see how big or finished it is from the outside, but it feels like one year it just sprang up overnight."
"And that space isn't being used for anything," Slipstream insisted, pointing out the window with a wing. "Look at it all! You'd need to excavate an entire mountain for all the iron ore to make this. It must have cost a fortune, but they're treating it like it's free."
"Maybe they just like the aesthetic," Ansel grumbled, massaging cramps in his legs.
"What do they do here, anyway?" I asked. "I've heard that they provide air conditioning for the city, or something, but not the specifics."
Gerardo tapped a window. "Yes, that's what they do. All forms of coolant. Liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, good old ice... Plenty of trade secrets, or course, but you can't hide something if you want to sell it to the public. Of course, there's also all the levers of power up here near the top. Governmental facilities and what have you... Some high-end housing, too, like where we're bound for. Three more stops, by the way."
"What do you have to do to get a house in a place like this?" I asked, deciding it was much more homey and familiar than the Day District despite Slipstream calling it unnatural. "Just pay a lot of money?"
"That, or get a favor from someone higher up," Gerardo explained. "And you'd have to want to live here, of course. Whatever the upsides, you're far away from all the stores and schools and centers of culture."
Maybe that would make it less competitive? I kind of wanted to live here. I leaned against the window as the train surged onward, letting myself get lost in the field of lovely metal. If my new life in Ironridge was in a place like this, maybe things wouldn't be so bad.
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uwu
Oof. "FYI this 'research trip' is actually you leaving home maybe forever." Would have been nice if Elise had mentioned that possibility—it might change one's packing/preparation to know they may not be able to come back. Wonder how/when Halcyon will break that to her friends...although with the way they are maybe they won't even care much.
Ooh, spooky steel of sus origin, mysterious constructions, strange things are ahoof at the Circle-K. Feels like all that steel has to be connected somehow to the rising heat...but it's also funny that it's from the megacorp that produces cold stuffs.
inb4 they're building an actual spaceship. or a giant mecha. or a giant space-mecha.
YEEEEEES PLEASE! I LOVE HER!
Definitely more of Fire's shenanigans! See? That explains everything! It's only a matter of time until we stumble into her dragon hoard.
HA!
Well, that's tempting fate.
I wonder if Celestia still has her suite.
11047025
You mean SUNBUTT?
11047033
yep!
So it seems that Sosa is no longer mentioned, while the Day and Night districts are now a thing, hmm, interesting.
11047007
And she mined up all that metal digging real deep! Maybe digging out till she's under the plains north of Ironridge or even below the Aldenfold, if such a thing is possible.
Guess we'll be seeing Valey sooner than expected.
Pfft. I remember being flummoxed at how quickly the tone of the story changed back then; your comic relief has gotten much better. Then again, I’ve also learned to appreciate the insanity much more.
I was about to apologize for incessantly harping on Valey, and then I saw that everypony else in the comments was doing exactly the same thing.
the more the old crew gets mentioned the more i become slightly confused on if they ever went and talked to starlight or not. also are the writs actually useless now, or did they fix the mountain magic? and lastly i cannot wait to see valey. love that bat.