Chapter 3: Meet Me In Saint Looie
Friday, 24 March 2017, 0700 hours
Captain Crane stood in the control room of the Mississippi Voyager, watching the Gateway Arch slide by on his left, with the decaying city of Saint Louis behind the Arch, glittering in the early morning sun. With the hippogriff in Control was his Third Officer, Harry Bell, who was the on-duty helmsman, and his Chief Engineer, Frankland (Frack) Larsen, both pegasi. Frack had been to the city the year before, and knew most of the ponies there.
“With this speed of advance, we should be where they are hiding out at within three hours,” Frack told his captain. “They took a golf cart and fled once everyone started walking south. Good thing the Ameristar is just a mile or so up the highway, and they were quick about bailing out.”
“When was the last time you talked to them?” Howard asked.
“About nine last night. They are doing all right, because last year they decided to set up the place as an emergency shelter, in case something happened to their main base in Earth City. Nobody foresaw this happening,” Frack snorted.
“I should say not. From what I have heard from both New Orleans and Rotterdam, opinions are divided as to what it is. New Orleans is saying it’s some sort of compulsion from a divine being while Rotterdam thinks it was a spell from someone with a lot of power, aimed specifically for the adults,” Howard told his engineer.
“Frick’s twitching over why the kids were not affected. Fred has an idea why Mary Sue wasn’t. He thinks it’s because she has a divine guide, a deity she prays to. For all I know, he could be right,” Frack said with a shrug. “What bothers me is that Rosa didn’t see anything beforehand.”
“She’s the kitten who gets advance notice, right?” Howard asked.
Frack nodded, his fluffy gold mane flying about. “That’s the one. She and her father hid for months in a hotel across the interstate from where everyone else lived, knowing when the coast was clear to snitch food and supplies from the Earth City crew. They broke cover when her father got sick.”
“How is she behaving now?” Howard asked.
“Concerned, but not in a panic. Sparky says she’s been drawing and coloring lots of jet planes, a king on a throne, boxes, crates and barrels with stuff overflowing from them, and one that bothers him the most is of a bunch of ponies bowing down to a red lump on a pile of something. Hard for a six-year-old to explain what she’s seeing, right?” Frack answered.
“You do have a point, Frack. In a few more hours, we’ll find something out,” Howard said, followed by a snort. “The way these rivers wind, it’s a long way from here to there by water.”
Just then, Frack tossed his head as Harry stamped a hoof and shivered. “That feels strange,” Harry said. “Where’s the storm at?”
“Not to worry, Harry. Just a flock of storm birds. I’m surprised it’s taken this long to spot any,” Frack reassured the other pegasus.
“Storm birds?” Howard asked. “What are they?”
“Birds the size of vultures that hunt in flocks,” Frack explained. “Working together, they can conjure up storms, small ones. They use lightning to make kills, then go down and feed.”
Howard nodded, realizing something. “Oh, okay. I know what they are now. We call them Ford birds.” he explained.
“Ford birds?” Harry asked as he moved the ship left, getting into the Missouri River’s muddier flow of water as they came up on the convergence site.
“Yep. Thunderbirds were already taken, so we took to calling them Ford birds,” Howard replied.
Frack and Harry just looked at each other before Frack managed to speak. “That’s worse than anything Frick or I could come up with…” he groaned.
“Don’t blame me, I didn’t name them!” Howard chuckled.
Three hours later, the Voyager was tied up at the Ameristar Casino’s dock, the four from Saint Louis gathered in the Lounge with the ship’s crew, explaining what they knew, which wasn’t much. “We were getting ready for your arrival. Our warehouse over at LaFarge has goods that were requested, and we hope you brought what we asked for,” Mary Sue told the group. “But, put that aside. Where did everyone go?”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Howard said with confidence. “I have heard that Rosa made some pictures. May I see them?”
“Of course, Captain,” Mary Sue said, nodding to Sparky, who used his electric-blue glow to open his saddlebag, pulling out a sheaf of coloring papers, putting them on the table.
The crew passed them around, trying to make sense of Rosa’s doodles. “What do these letters mean, Rosa?” Aaron asked.
The black and white kitten shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just something I see whenever I think of Daddy, or Aunt Suzanne, or Aunt Sadie, or Uncle Wilbur.”
“Wilbur?” Frack asked.
“New arrival. Showed up just after the first of the year. Heavy-lift pegasus,” Mary Sue told the group.
“I like him! He takes me for sky rides!” Rosa squealed.
“Does anyone have any idea what M.A.N.G. could possibly mean?” Captain Crane asked the table at large.
Doctor Macombe spoke first. “Back years ago, havin’ missed the Great War by bein’ in medical school, but graduatin’ in tahm to go to Korea, ah had to think mighty quick befoah ah got drafted and sent overseas. So, using some of mah family ties, ah pulled some strings and joined the Louisiana Air National Guard, risin’ to the rank of Colonel in it until ah retired back in ninety-foah.
“Now, it could be that this heah M.A.N.G. could be the Missouri Air National Guard. Ain’t no othah M states nearby, is theah?” he finished, sitting back some and sipping from a coffee mug held in his red glow.
A glance ran around the table several times before settling on Julia’s face. “Are there any major airports nearby?” she asked.
“Lambert Field is just down I-70 from here,” Zach the griffin said. “It’s an international airport. If there is a Missouri Air National Guard, it would be there.”
“How far away is it?” Howard asked.
“Not more than four miles away,” Mary Sue answered.
“Okay, then. Jason, knock together a quick lunch for us, then I’ll pick some fliers to go down and take a look. Any volunteers?” Howard asked before four right wings and two left wings went up, including his own left wing. “Frack, I want you to go, because you know most of them, and they know you. As for the others, let’s have lunch while I think. Deal?”
“Sounds good, Captain,” Julia said as the sound of meat hitting a frying surface came from the kitchen.
“Bambi Burgers?” Rosa said hopefully.
“Better than that,” Carroll said. “Jason is a great cook.”
“Woww!” Rosa squealed.
Noontime found Carroll, Frack and Bernie winging their way south along I-70, heading toward Lambert Field, which was visible in the middle distance. “When I was here before, I never had any reason to look down this way,” Frack told the others. “We were more focused on getting the dog and pony show somewhere above subsistence levels.”
Bernie let out a snort as she flew next to Frack. “I’m just glad you wound up in the right place at the right time. I don’t like the thought of drowning in my truck because I got tangled in the seat belt,” she commented.
“I’m just glad I caught you when Frieda cut you out. I knew there was something special about you. How long have we been happy with each other?” Frack asked.
“Not long enough,” Bernie answered.
“If you two lovebirds are about done, how about looking ahead?” Carroll said with some irritation. She was genderbent in the Return, and seeing others in love with each other irked her. She missed his (now her) family, a wife and a toddler boy, more than anyone suspected. “We need to find the Air National Guard building.”
“Right, Carroll. Let’s split up. You go to the south end and work north, I’ll start north and work south. Bernie, you start at the main terminal and work east,” Frack suggested.
“Sounds like a plan, Eng. Keep in touch,” Carroll confirmed as the three went separate ways.
Three hours later, they met on the east side of the airport. “Nothing. No sign of the Air National Guard. We’ve each searched the area twice,” Frack said as they rested in the shade of a parked jet in front of the FedEx hangar.
“There has to be something we missed in those pictures,” Bernie panted after draining a canteen. “Maybe she’s seeing something that WAS here, but isn’t now?”
“This building right here does not look new,” Carroll said, pointing to the FedEx hangar with a wing. “Maybe this WAS the Air Guard hangars, but got repurposed? Let’s call back to the boat and have them look at the pics again.”
Frack and Bernie both flapped a wing at Carroll. “Go right ahead. Let us catch our breaths and have something to eat while you call in,” Bernie said before digging into her saddlebag for a chilled thermos of mango juice.
Carroll broke out her radio. “Second Officer to Voyager. Do you copy?”
“I hear you. Go ahead, Carroll. Find anything?” Howard’s voice came from the radio speaker.
“Not a damn thing, Captain. Are there any other symbols that stand out on the drawings?” Carroll asked
“Let me take a look,” Howard said as they could hear him moving a few steps and a chair being pulled back. “Hmmm… One thing repeated in several pictures is a brown box with a yellow smiley face in it. That ring a bell to anyone?”
The three fliers in the shade of a jet went under it to look farther south. There, on the tail fin of a jet farther down, was a brown box with a yellow curved arrow in it, and along the fuselage was written two words, ‘Amazon Air’. “I think so, Captain. Let us have a little lunch, then we’ll check something out. Try to do some research on the Missouri Air National Guard. I don’t think they’re here at Lambert any more.”
“I think I can do that,” Howard replied. “Keep in touch. Voyager out.”
“Second out,” Carroll said before putting the radio away and removing some beef jerky to chew on, while Frack and Bernie had fish sandwiches. After the shade break and some small talk, the three flew south a few hundred feet, to the Amazon air distribution center. From the west side, one of the cargo doors was open, so they went inside.
There, the three found the devastation one would find from leaving a door open for almost two years in the presence of cardboard, namely one big mess. They also found something interesting and incriminating- footprints, hoofprints and claw marks in the cardboard, and the cardboard looked tossed around, like a bunch of ponies had searched that pile and others. “Ponies, we have discovered a clue. Now to figure out what it means. Let’s take some pictures before heading back to the boat. After all this searching, I can use a nap,” Frack admitted.
“Since when do you don’t?” asked Bernie in an innocent voice.
“Okay, you two… let’s move out!” Carroll said firmly, taking off, sounding offended at the two’s verbal play. She was, in fact.
As the three flew up I-70 back to the Ameristar, two sets of eyes looked up at them from the shadows of a tunnel that went under a runway, one large red set and a smaller green set.
“Good thing you noticed them and got the workers under cover in time,” the owner of the red eyes rumbled, a wisp of smoke curling up from a nostril.
“Cas, I wasn’t expecting help to arrive so soon! Last we heard on the radio, they were laying over in Memphis! Normal cruising would take over a week to get here going upriver!” whined the possessor of the green eyes. “While we have the chance, I can recall them back here!”
“No, Cor. Wait until dark before recalling them to the barracks. Tomorrow, we can send them downtown to search for more treasure. We have a long way to go before my hoard is complete,” Cas rumbled, clearly displeased.
Cor’s horn flickered a sickly green color for a moment as he sent orders. “Done. Think they will be back today?” he asked.
“Doubtful. If they came back, they could only search for an hour or so before dark. Early tomorrow would be my guess,” Cas said in a grumble, clearly not happy. “I’ll reset the illusions at the end of the tunnel, as well as the avoidance spell. The workers will ignore them, the others not.”
“Good idea, Cas!” Cor said in his usual sycophantic manner.
“Of course it is. I thought of it,” Casimir rumbled.
Over a very fine fresh hot dinner on the Voyager, the entire crew, plus the Saint Louis contingent, gathered to discuss findings. “So, you found evidence of pony activity at the Amazon Air location. What about the FedEx building, or planes and trucks nearby?” Howard asked
Carroll spoke up. “No, we didn’t, Captain. We had just spent the previous three hours searching the airport from one end to the other. We had enough endurance left to get back here. Best search in the morning, when we’re all rested,” she reported.
“I can see your point, Second. Tired searchers can miss clues. I suggest tomorrow morning, the three of us who stayed here go down to search, namely myself, Third Officer Bell, and young Zach. A fresh set of eyes may be of help,” Howard said to all.
“Plus, allow me to make a suggestion,” Bernie said, speaking up. “A pre-dawn overflight. As they say, thestrals do it in the dark!”
Howard nodded in agreement as he swallowed a piece of fish wrapped and baked in cornbread, something many aboard liked and Jason was a master of making. “Okay. You have the midnight to four watch in the engine spaces, then you head out and overfly the area until dawn. Come back and report any findings, then I’ll lead a party out. If needed, think you can be awake for a second shift searching?” he asked.
Bernie thought some. “I shouldn’t have much trouble, if I get some rest now. Have Jason leave a couple bottles of mango juice in the fridge and I should manage,” she told the Captain.
“Okay, then,” Howard said. “You do just that. See if there is any activity in the pre-dawn hours. Right now, any idea is better than no idea.”
“I drew some more pictures, Captain! Want to see?” Rosa said from her place at the table, between Sparky and Mary Sue.
“After we finish dinner, sure, Rosa! I want to see what you’ve been seeing!” Howard told the kitten in a bright voice.
“Okay! Can I have more fish, please?” she asked. At Mary Sue’s nod of approval, Sparky put another piece onto her plate from the serving platter with his glow. “Thank you, Sparky!”
After dinner, which she insisted on helping clean up (and did a decent job for a six-year-old), Rosa ran to get the pictures she drew that past afternoon. One pictured a large red object and a smaller green one with a crown in what Rosa explained as ‘a big, long cave’. “They's the baddies. The big one is Cause, and the little green one is either Core or Grimmer,” she explained. The next picture is of a black and white scribble riding a yellow and orange stick-figure with kitty ears, a tan and gray horse stick figure, and a large red-brown two-legged dog with a blue spot at her neck. “He can fix everypony, but it will take her to show him how to do it.”
“How can I do that?” Julia asked, looking at the crude picture.
Rosa tapped the spot of blue with a claw. “By making that sparkle! It’s pretty!”
Dr. Macombe looked at the picture, then up at Julia. “It sure does seem to me that once we find our missing clients, one way to fix what is broke with them has to be something that has to come from N’Awlins to me via the connecting crystals, of which I do not have one, but others do. Apparently, ah will know it when ah see it, but until then, nothin,” the tan unicorn with a gray mane said in his usual long-winded style, meaning he will say a hundred words when ten will do.
“Could very well be, Doctor. First things first is to make contact to see what is going on. We can’t fix it if we don’t know how it's broken, right?” Howard said after one of the cornbread fish puffs.
Julia spoke up. “I would like to know why me, Rosa. Why am I in the picture?” she asked.
The answer was quick in coming. “Because you’re SUPPOSED to be there!” the kitten said forcefully.
“Can’t argue that logic, not no way, not no how,” Doctor Macombe said with a chuckle. “One of my grandbabies was like that, and once she decided on something, get out of her way or get run over!”
“Good morning, world! At least it’s morning to me! I’m Captain Frick, filling in today for DJ WSU. She’ll be back tomorrow morning. Hear now the news!”
An outraged squawk was heard, followed by the sound of a wing hitting a horn. “You forgot about me, Screwball!” was plainly heard over the radio.
“Oh, yeah. Capo the red macaw is along for the ride. Everyone, pay attention to him, and you may hear some sense,” Frick said before pausing for a few seconds. “But, don’t hold your breath…”
“Screwball!” Capo squawked before leaving his perch on the microphone stand in a flurry of wings, going to the perch where his seed and water bucket awaited his pleasure.
“Damned feathered menace…” Frick grumbled before sitting up straight. “And now, the news!
“The Mississippi Voyager is currently in New Madrid, Missouri, on its way to Saint Louis and Kansas City. Bucking the Mighty Mississippi’s current is slow going. Now, going the other way is much faster!
“The Polar Princess should be leaving Belfast tomorrow after a little tweaking and peaking. Captain Haugen has told me he is eager to get back here, because he has yet to pick a house! Still plenty to choose from, but he'll have a lot of DIYing to do! Even Cornhusker House keeps me busy on weekends doing this and that, and we’ve been there for seven months already!” Frick said with a small chuckle before straightening out his papers. “In other news around the world…”
A sickly green glow turned down the volume on the world band radio. “We know that’s total bullshit, Casimir! They’re here already!” Coronavirus whined.
“So, what do you want me to do about it? Panic? That’s YOUR job, Cor!” the red-scaled dragon snorted, letting fly a cloud of smoke that had the pungency of gunpowder.
“What do you THINK I’m doing?” the green and yellow unicorn whimpered. “What are we going to do about the zombies? How did they ever find out about them? We have to get your real hoard built soon, and without them, it’s just too much for us!” Cor paced nervously, horn flickering.
“The zombie spell is quite specific. Anyone who I would consider an adult would be affected. What surprised me is the children there must be quite resourceful, to get the word out so fast,” Casimir thought out loud. “Not like it was back in Equestria.”
“But, what are your plans?” Cor begged. “How can we get out of trouble with the locals?”
“That’s not your job, that’s my job. Make sure the zombies are bedded down, ready to go early in the morning,” Casimir rumbled. Thoroughly cowed, Cor scuttled off to do just that.
Once alone, Casimir settled onto the floor of the tunnel, several large layers of carpet between him and the pavement. “Some days, I wonder why I followed Vladimir here from Equestria. Then something good happens, and I stop wondering. Here’s to a better day tomorrow,” he sighed as he curled up for warmth, tugging a thick composite blanket over him. “Next job, a fireplace…”
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Casimir the dragon? The closer he gets to his hoarde the harder he holds on to it?
Intresting choidce for the second guy, so many changeling distractions, and theres someone of power going to be most upset with them?
Zombies? At first, I think the dragon of St Louis would have Queen Marie’s interest. Now, I think he’ll have her attention.
11195226
You better believe it, fella!
i do so like a good puzzle.
and yet i am not liking the answer i am getting.
no i will post my guess , spoilers and all.