• Published 9th Sep 2012
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The Maiden and the Serpent - Hustlin Tom



Before Equestria, the Royal Sisters, the Elements of Harmony, there was humankind. But not for long.

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Chapter 1

Today hadn’t been all that satisfying, as par usual. All the computers had crashed for the third time this week, the experimentation of combining lion and scorpion genetic material had proved near disastrous, and I had been working all day with a migraine I so lovingly received from Mother Nature for who knows what reason. I was off hours now, and I found myself in one of the many observation decks overlooking the underground city that had been my home for all of my life. I could see all the people down below, walking about, walking to work, coming from work, just standing around talking and laughing. Some were in the designated botanical gardens, the children playing in the nearby parks with their parents watching. People watching had become one of my earliest pastimes; experiencing their humanity from a bird’s eye view was exhilarating and heartwarming all at once. As long as things were right down there, I could know that everything here in Vanguard was just fine.

My coworker and friend, Ahmed, came alongside me as I looked down. He looked down below with me for a little while, and then he looked back to me. “You look pensive,” he finally said.

“Yeah?”

“My grandfather used to look like that a lot. It’s the expression that people seem to get when they’re about to open up their mind to others.” He rested his elbow on the railing in front of us while he continued to look down at the people below, “Penny for your thoughts?”

I sighed, “What are we doing here?”

“You mean us?”

“No, I mean all of us. Humanity: what are we doing? We’re basically sitting in a badger hole and doing nothing. Why aren’t we trying to contact other bunkers and their refugees? Why aren’t we trying to retake the surface? What is the point of us if we’re not up there?”

Ahmed rested his head on his hand as he thought. “Alright, so yeah, we all started a war with each other, we all goofed up, and we batten down hatches. You may want to remember that after the dust settled there was nothing good left up there, right? No grass, no trees, no water, not even a Sun to bless the dirt with its rays. This may very well be the last outpost left on Earth. Radiation, starvation, and a lot of other things could have already gotten to other bunkers, or even worse. Yeah, we found the Spatial Tessaract, and we can do almost anything with the radiation that comes out of it, but I don’t think we’re ever gonna retake the surface.”

“But we are trying to go back, aren’t we?”

“You want my opinion?”

“I know I’ll get it anyway.”

“It’s a fool’s errand. We should try concentrating on digging deeper into the earth so we can get more room for our growing population, or better means of detecting surviving water deposits, not using our precious resources and time creating random freaks of nature with genetic manipulation.”

“Even if that testing is what has given us a means of creating viruses that make us more resistant to radiation?”

Ahmed looked over at me with frustration, “Yeah that’s fine, but still, that seems to be the only thing this project has accomplished. It’s like we’ve had our fun trying to piss off each other, so now we’re just trying to piss off God by budgin’ in on his territory.” He sighed, and then he flung his hands up in the air, “Well, whatever. I’ll leave you to your thoughts. By the way, right after you left shift, there was a personnel wide announcement: be in the Gamma test chamber at 0900. They want everyone as witness for our next big step in offending nature.”

“0900?”

“Yeah. You know what I said about pissing God off? Academics board really wants to stub his toe: they say they have ‘created a means of spontaneous nucleic generation by atomic stimulation via Tessaract radiation’: the really fancy way of saying we’ve entered the age of Frankenstein.”

“Creating life from scratch? I can’t imagine all the ways that can go wrong,” I muttered.

“Neither can I. See you then?”

“Yeah. See you Ahmed.”

“Later, Red.”

I smiled as I saw him leave through the reflection of the glass in front of me, and then I paused to take a passing glance at my long red bangs. I walked out of the observation deck into one of the nearby elevators. As I got out, I thought about what I might make for dinner that night, and as I opened the door to my suite, I was greeted by violet eyes, a tiny white fluffy frame and pink hair. “Hello Mother! I missed you so much!”

As I leaned down to pick up the little filly, I couldn’t help but smile as she leapt into my arms. “Hello my little Dawn. Did you enjoy your day?”

“Yeah, it was ok, but it wasn’t fun for a long while because I had be quiet; first because Dusk was so sleepy. I don’t care if she’s little, no one should have to sleep that much!”

“She’s still growing. You used to be like that too, so continue being considerate to your sister. Understand?”

Dawn gave a little huff, “Yes, Mother.”

“Good girl. What was the other thing you had to be quiet for?”

“The bad men were doing insack..enstep..inceptions.”

“Inspections?”

“Whatever.”

“Did you do what Mommy taught you?”

Dawn nodded her head vigorously, “Yes! I went into the closet and hid behind the clothes and didn’t make a sound!”

“Good girl! Now, why don’t we have something to eat?”

“Oh yes! I’m starving! If you hadn’t said ‘food’ I would’ve starved to death!”

I chuckled at Dawn’s childlike hyperbole, “I doubt that.”

“Ok, you’re right. Still, I’m hungry!”

“Well then go wake your sister while I warm up some asparagus.”

“Oh Mom! Asparagus? Can’t we have those wedgie things made outta potatoes?”

“French Fries?”

Dawn wiggled her legs in glee and excitedly jumped up and down, “Yeah, yeah! Those.”

“Perhaps some other night.”

“Oooohhh!”

“Whining won’t make me change me my mind, now go wake your sister.”

“Fine,” and with her disappointment made fully evident to me, she trotted into the back closet where little Dusk was sleeping.

I knew it was against protocol to maintain relationships past scientist to subject. I also knew it was against protocol to take test subjects past security screens and take them into my own home. I had kept these two, Dawn and Dusk, for my own private battery of tests, and I also wanted to see how well they could fully integrate with a human. I was placed over a batch of one hundred or so of these little ponies, and I knew that ultimately each would live out their lives in a pen, being poked and prodded, tested and retested, with no love or pity spared any of them. And then I saw these two. They weren’t really special by any means; no evident beneficial mutations, they weren’t even unicorns or pegasi. They weren’t any stronger, more intelligent, or really even special in any way. And yet…

There was a knock at the door. I froze. I saw Dawn and Dusk walking out of the closet, little Dusk’s mouth opened wide with a great big yawn. I put my finger to my lips and motioned for them to get back into the closet. Dawn quickly rushed Dusk into hiding, and knowing they were safely out of the way, I made my way to my front door.

As I opened the door, I was greeted by two security guards. “Good afternoon ma’am.”

“Is there something I can help you both with, or is one of you the wingman for the other?”

“Funny. We’ve come to inform you of an important Academic board experiment tomorrow at 0900.”

“I know of it. Thank you for the courtesy of informing me.”

“Very well. Good night ma’am.”

The door slid shut, and I gave a small sigh of relief. That was almost bad. “It’s okay to come out now,” I quietly called out, and Dawn’s and Dusk’s heads poked out from the closet door.

After we had finished dinner, I was thrown for a surprise by my little ones.

“Mommy, why do you never talk about your job?” Dusk asked.

“Now why would you want to know about something boring like that?”

“You never talk about it.”

“Well, what I do is help people. By helping people, I can make them happy.”

“Mother, I have a question,” Dawn quickly spoke up.

“What is it Dawn?”

“Mother..Are we..people?”

I stopped. The question had finally come. It would have come eventually, but I had always hoped it wouldn’t have happened.

“We don’t look like you, and we can see little boys and girls playing outside the windows when the bad men aren’t around.”

“We see their mommies and daddies,” Dusk added quickly, “but we never get the chance to go out and play like they do. Are we weird? Do we have a Daddy? Why don’t we look like the boys and girls out there?”

It took me a while to come up with any answer at all. Then, I found what I was looking for. I opened my arms up to them and I hugged them both. “Dawn, Dusk, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. You don’t have a Daddy. You can’t go outside because it’s not safe for you to be out there.” I squeezed them even tighter, and as I did I smiled, “And even though you may not look like me or the little boys and girls out there, you are both my little girls, and I love you very, very much.”

“But Mommy, are we people?” Dusk anxiously asked as she shook my arm with her hooves.

“What does it matter if you are people or not? I love you, and that’s what matters. Now how does some ice cream sound?”

Dawn shook her head vigorously, “Yeah!”

“Yes please!” Dusk quickly chimed in.