“Dreams are your territory, not mine. Outside of my own sleep, I’m worse than useless. Here, though.” There was no delay like when Jackie had changed. One second she was an Alicorn, and the next she had her own batwings and her horn had vanished. It was not really all that different: Archive didn’t actually know what being a thestral felt like, so the sensations were entirely imagined.

“I’ll… consent you’ve actually created a shared dream.” She sounded reluctant. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to buy everything you’re selling, though. Sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare.”

“You’ve only been back on Earth a few months, I get it.” They reached the top of the library. Up here a perpetual full moon shone as bright as a noonday sun on the glittering glass roof. Glass it might be, and unsupported by any visible means, yet she stepped out onto it without fear. The physical laws had always been more like guidelines in the dreamworld.

“And you’ve been here longer, I know. Don’t tell me you came all the way out to Motherlode just to rub it in.”

“Not exactly, no.” There was only one feature on the roof: a doorway. Ordinarily the heavy stone gate was shut, and no power in Archive’s range would open it. This night though, the door had swung open a crack, and the indomitable beyond shone through. “Your first lesson about the dreamworld is that everything is constructed of thoughts, and all thought is as real as the will behind it.”

“More hippie stuff.” She stopped again. “Is there any evidence-based stuff up here?”

“Sure.” Alex sat back on her haunches. “Since everything in here is just about thoughts, you can see all the thoughts that compose something if you look at them correctly. Other intelligent beings might resist you, but nothing else will. Structures, objects, and figments might even fade away if your scrutiny is too intense. But I won’t.” She shrugged her wings. “Look into my mind.”

She instructed the thestral in the method, and was grateful Jackie had no question. She was just quoting another book, and had no way of performing the act herself. If Luna’s written words hadn’t made sense, Archive might not have known what to do to help explain.

She knew when Jackie had succeeded. She felt the touch of a spark on her consciousness, not unlike what Sunset Shimmer had taught her to do in the physical world (though the reverse). In a few seconds, Archive found her mind wandering back through time. Past her march through winter, through her time in university and living with Cloudy Skies. Through all of the jobs she’d had, through her numerous dangerous missions with the HPI. Past the time she visited Equestria, all the way to her meeting with Princess Luna. The memories could go no further: Archive had not existed to have memories before then.

Only seconds passed before Jackie stumbled away from her, her wings lifting to separate herself. “My God… my God… my God…” she repeated, over and over. “How many years was that?” She dropped out of a standing position, panting heavily from the effort.

“Not quite three hundred.” Archive shrugged her wings.

“Ponies live that long? But…” she trailed off, answering her own question. “Lots of them died. But you still…” She shivered. “What are you?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for a long time,” she answered, frowning. “I guess you could say I’m the memory of Humanity. I was created to make sure the ponies that came after us would remember us. Keep our accomplishments… not repeat our mistakes. And most importantly, to protect ponies like you.”

There was silence for several minutes. Jackie never looked at her, didn’t even open her eyes. Archive supposed she was trying to sort through all she had just seen.

Her eyes widened suddenly and she lurched towards the closed doorway. “That’s it out there, isn’t it?” She flared her wings. “The Skein. You know about it. You know… everything…”

“I know lots. Not everything.” Archive retreated as Jackie advanced, keeping herself between the thestral and the open door.

“An infinite world made of every sleeper’s dream.” Jackie gestured, and the door swung open. Light poured in, nearly blinding. “The Skein is arranged by the emotions the dreamers feel. If you dream about this, then that part out there… it’s–”

“Intelligence. Creativity. Love.”

“Well, I’ll have a long way to go.” Jackie flared her wings, advancing towards the opening. “I’m asleep too, right? My dream is out there somewhere. I can already feel it pulling me… it’s easy to find your own dream.” She flashed her fangs, though not at Archive. At the opening. “Now that I know what’s been tormenting me, I can send it straight to hell.”

“Careful!” Archive raised one hoof, trying to shut the doorway. But her world or not, a door into the Skein was the domain of magic she did not have. Perhaps a real alicorn could imitate it, but she wasn’t one yet.

Of course, there were ways she could get Jackie to stop. Killing her would wake her up, that was the simplest. But some way that would be to make a friend. “You don’t actually know everything you just saw in me. Your brain isn’t made to dump stuff into. I don’t know how long it’ll last! You might keep my knowledge until you wake up, or… maybe just until you leave the library! You can’t just go off to fight–”

“I’m leaving.” Jackie continued to advance. Archive’s back was nearly to the doorway. She could use it, now that it had been truly opened. “I’m going to kill that demon and end my nightmares. Thinks cuz I’m young it can eat my soul in little pieces, does it…”

“At least be sensible about it!” Archive pleaded. “Don’t go alone.” The pact they had made required Jackie to defend her, but there was no reason it couldn’t go both ways.

That stopped her. “You want to come with me?”

“Hell yeah.” Archive gritted her teeth. “That alp has been torturing one of mine. Just… let me change first. I’m not a thestral, so I’ll be stuck as whatever I am once I leave my own dream.”

Jackie nodded, impatient. Archive changed in an instant. Not back into her Alicorn shape, useful as it might be. When it came to dreams, what you really were mattered more than just what you could twist yourself into. Truth had power here. If she fought as a lie, she would fight without the strength of the ideas she represented.

The transformation was swift. Fur faded from her body, even as she rose up onto two legs. Her mane turned into a ponytail almost long enough to touch the floor, remaining as green as it had been. Her eyes too remained the same, unnatural though the shade might be for a human.

She had taken this form once before, in a fifties-style diner to fight a demonic being out of Equestrian lore. When she took it this time, she took up armor instead of simple clothing. Thin silver chain mail, with plates etched in gold. In her sheath was not a sword, but a thin leather book. A crest of her cutie mark worked itself onto her breastplate, as well as etching smaller versions onto her cape. She had no helmet.

“Alright.” She towered over the thestral, even at the height of a teenage girl. One hand tensed in a white leather glove, while the other rested gently on her book. “Let’s go see what your nightmares look like.”

Jackie retreated a pace, though not for long. “Okay Alex. I’m ready.” She stuck a hoof outside, finding it passing through the empty air. “Uh… you didn’t know how to fly. I guess that makes sense, since you don’t have wings, but… is wanting to fly enough?”

“For you it will be.” Alex glanced out at the opening, then lifted her book into her hand. “Not me. You know what I know, don’t you?”

Jackie shook her head. “I only know the pieces I happened to glimpse by accident. I didn’t see all of it! There was so much!”

“Well, being a batpony means you can cheat the rules here. The rest of us can only do the things we actually believe we can.” She leaned down. “I think I may need to ride. If I blow all my magic just getting there, I won’t be much use to you in a fight.”

“Ride?” Jackie raised her eyebrows. “You’re a freaky giant.”

“Just make yourself bigger!”

Jackie tried. She got a little older, and gained perhaps eight inches of height as she reached full maturity. She kept growing, as though she were an Alicorn but only in proportions. Another foot, a few more inches… then she could go no larger. Archive knew why: mere knowledge wasn’t enough in the dreamworld. Belief, confidence, and willpower were important too. A vast increase in one would not magically improve the others.

It was a good thing she was coming with her. Jackie would get creamed otherwise.

Damn her library for being located high in the Skein’s “heaven”, where other such enlightened dreams floated. If she jumped, the fall would wake her up. “Can’t get bigger?”

Jackie shook her head. Her voice answered a little deeper than before. “I feel stretched. I feel like any bigger would rip me in half.”

“You probably used lots of your energy putting yourself in my dream in the first place.” Archive pondered, then shrugged. “Well, if you can’t get any bigger…”

She could’ve returned to her normal body, that would’ve been small enough to ride on a huge thestral’s back. But tiny earth ponies weren’t good fighters, and also weren’t what Archive really was. Lonely Day’s body was a very weak symbol.

But if Jackie could grow her body, Archive could shrink hers. She ditched the plate-mail, shrinking rapidly. The links of her chain-mail became thin and delicate, flashing silvery with gold trim. She let stockings replace most of the chain. Her book remained, though it shrunk down to the size of a child’s diary.

What was she now, eleven? Wiry and thin, though shadows of the valkyrie she had been were still there in her, strength that would come in just a few years of growth. She was a tall child, but not as tall as an Alicorn.

“You think I’m small enough now?” Her eyes were still fierce, but her teeth were a little crooked. She gave herself some dream-braces. “I made myself as light as I could.” She held out one thin arm. “Any more and I’ll blow away in the wind.”

“You think you’ll still be able to fight like that?”

Archive’s voice was a full octave higher, but she didn’t hesitate. She drew out her book. “This is my sword and shield. Humans have always been small and weak. Didn’t stop us when lions still ate us.”

Jackie shrugged. “Hop on, then. But… you better know how to ride bareback, cuz you’re not putting a damn saddle on me.”

Archive hopped up, swinging one leg over Jackie’s back. “Is this good?”

“Get that twig you call a leg away from my wings!” She stepped forward towards the opening, taking up the whole thing now, spreading them to flex. “I know I’m not really flying, that I’ve just got to want to fly… but I still think flying uses wings, so… I’ll still need them. That’s how that works, isn’t it?”

Archive climbed up Jackie’s back, laying across her body and wrapping both arms around her neck. She strapped her book down, pulled her cape higher about herself, and nodded. “Should be. Just don’t make any sharp turns! I’ve read all about horseback riding, but… you’re not exactly a horse.”

“Got it, girl. Hold on!” She jumped.

Through the Skein they raced. At first their journey was mostly down, since Archive’s regular library dream was nearly opposite in the dream-world from Jackie’s. Archive worried they were falling at first, but she couldn’t get her spellbook into her hands for fear she would be torn right off Jackie’s back by the blowing wind around them.

They touched down, and she had no time to disembark. Jackie wanted no delay, and so did the entirety of their running for them. Winding paths they passed, racing through sleeping kingdoms as numberless as the dreamers who had spawned them. Each realm brought them closer to the nightmares of Jackie’s night.

Archive found herself feeling impressed: Jackie didn’t stop once to catch her breath. She seemed to intuitively understand what Archive’s knowledge had shown her about the place, even if much of the rest of her life had slipped in one ear and out the other.

They passed through a gaping portal to the underworld, then through river Lethe into blackness eternal. Just as Archive’s dreams of knowledge and enlightenment had floated in the ethereal sky, so nightmares could be found in the underworld.

Residents of the Dreamlands did not intrude upon them, recognizing the pair as powerful dreamers with important business. Archive waved politely to them from her perch, shouted greetings on Jackie’s behalf, but could do nothing else. The thestral seemed afraid that if they didn’t move fast, morning would come and she would lose this opportunity to fight her nightmares.

They were in a hollow cave, with huge sides sloping up into the darkness and thousands of bats in flight. Archive could not see in the gloom, so she conjured a mote of light to follow them in the air using a unicorn spell and her spellbook as the foci instead of a horn. Unlike the magic of a thestral, any “spell” she cast was really just an effort of will, the spellbook channeling it into reality. She could not use it to change herself, or to change the dreams they passed through. Only thestrals could do that.

She couldn’t have said how long the journey took. Time was a funny thing in the Dreamlands, where months might seem to pass in the space of a night. Such stretched time was generally the domain of powerful bat-ponies, though even they usually lost most of these memories when they returned to the waking world, only taking them up again when they slept. Truly they were the demigods of their own world, as real within itself as the physical.

She couldn’t help but feel a little envy at the possibility swimming all around them. Possibilities never open to her, any more than the clouds above were open to her in waking life, or creating enchantments. Being a pony wasn’t fair. Humans didn’t have that level of specialization. Archive couldn’t help but feel the human way of doing things was the superior one. Anyone could be anything. Ponies… not so much.

Every dream had a doorway, though they were sometimes so wide you could stumble in without realizing. In Jackie’s case, the doorway was a mirror, dropping them onto the floor of a bathroom. A hotel bathroom, located in some strange pre-Event hotel.

Archive rose to her feet, pulling the armor briefly looser about herself and wishing she had the time to shower. They’d been on the road for at least a week now. Suppressing the need for food and water had taken enough of her willpower that she hadn’t managed to hide the sweating and smell. “Where do you think it’s hiding?”

“Outside.” Jackie stepped forward, taking the doorknob in her mouth and twisting slightly to one side. It swung open. The room beyond also belonged in a hotel, with muted carpets and nondescript paintings of calligraphic Japanese characters. The bed was unmade, with a suitcase perched atop it and dirty clothes all over the floor. Like someone packing in a hurry.

Archive hadn’t even seen it happen, but the thestral was back to normal size. Her ears drooped as she retreated from the front door. There was no balcony to hide on, only a window the size of the entire back wall. It was night outside, the city full of lights. A room-service plate sat on the couch, its contents stale and emanating a rotten-fish scent powerful enough to cover up the sweat of unwashed horse and preteen. “Tell me about your nightmare.” She lifted her book into her hand, letting it fall open into her left. With a word she worked a shield-spell as unicorns used it. The book glowed white as though it was a horn, and a pale white glow indicated the edges of the shield.

Its protection seemed to help Jackie remember what they were doing here. “I found it… my first night. Found the door, kinda like in your dream. Didn’t know where I was, so I wandered. Seemed pretty cool at first, honestly. Walked down to the coast. Thought it might be a good idea to swim, and suddenly there was this great beach. It was so good to be human again, even if I knew I was dreaming.”

Someone knocked on the front door, a triple-pounding so loud that the whole building seemed to shake. No words. Water seemed to rush down the hallway outside, pouring through the open crack. The door seemed to strain a little against the hinges.

“You went to the beach.” Archive’s voice came quieter, more slowly. “Did you get bitten by a shark?”

“No. That would’ve just been one nightmare.” She jerked forward, extending one hoof. Almost as though she wanted to open the door. No, that wasn’t quite it. Like she couldn’t help but open the door. She fought it, but not well. Only the back of Archive’s shield kept her from making it further, surging briefly white where she pressed against it.

Archive felt a shiver pass through her, and she started flipping pages to the space in back, where Equestria’s measly provision of attacking spells were located.

Someone pounded on the door. Water poured in again with each strike, rushing across the room in a wave. It struck the white of the shield, parting to either side. “I think I know what found you!” She turned her head, facing Jackie. “You can break free! You must’ve known that, if you wanted to come here and fight!”

“I th-thought I could…” Jackie struggled, pressing herself against the shield, straining. It looked as though it cost her physically not to answer the door. Her ears flattened, but Archive’s shield held.

“Look at me.” It was not a request. The sound of pounding on the door, the rushing water, all of it faded. Archive drew in the air with her hand, calling forth Sunset’s spell that showed sympathetic connections. Jackie had but few threads on her soul, and most trailed off invisibly. One, thin as twine, made a direct line into Archive’s own chest.

Another was thicker than an anchor rope, tugging her inexorably towards the doorway. “Every dream’s been tightening the noose,” Archive said, feeling suddenly more urgent. Her friend had already started to drift away, back towards the shield. Outside it, the door seemed about to buckle.

“You can’t have her!”

“C-Can’t… Can’t…” Jackie was crying, though that didn’t stop her from fighting the shield.

“You will!” Archive reached out, placing a hand on Jackie’s rump, right onto her cutie mark. “Jacqueline Carter!” The pony froze, glancing over her shoulders to meet Alex’s eyes. “Remember.”

Time blurred. Archive watched the life play out in a matter of seconds. Growing up in St. Louis. Her mom helping her sew her own costumes for Halloween. Her first girlfriend. Conventions in handmade cosplay. Finally getting into college at UC Denver. Then her arrival after the Event. Stumbling half-starved into the city, finding her way to the mining camp.

Jackie’s eyes widened. The cord that bound her to Archive had only thickened a little, but it looked more like steel cable than twine. Again the knocking came, but this time she only twitched one of her legs, then held still.

“Stay back.” Archive flipped past the useless Equestrian ‘attack’ spells, pitiful beams of force that stunned or confused. Nothing lethal had been included in the magic, at least nothing that was meant to be lethal. She flipped past those pages to the back ones, which were scribbled densely in her own hand. Hundreds of rotes had been written there, each one more complicated than the last. Many were Joseph’s, while others were her own creations, dreamed up in the idle time when she could do nothing but think.

Archive knew all that the Equestrians had seen fit to teach them. When it came to human knowledge, she knew… considerably more. “I know you’re out there Charybdis! You keep your fucking hands off my kids!”

She didn’t wait for him to come in. Instead, she lifted her free hand, extended her palm, and read. In the compression of the dreamtime a hundred-thousand runes appeared in the blink of an eye, knotting themselves up into a higher-dimensional plane as twelve different spells.

Alone, each one was harmless. One pulled thermal energy out of the air. Another converted that energy into magic, which passed through a regulator spell into a simple charm meant to improve the power of other basic spells. An intricate cantilever of a nuclear-radiation cleanup spell had an unfortunate negative side-effect that it produced radiation when it got too close, which another spell– and so it went. It was not the magic a mortal wizard might cast: it was the kind of spell a computer might optimize out of the sum library of all magical knowledge.

Outside the shield, the air caught fire. Glass all over the building exploded, shattering huge chunks that plummeted down towards the ground. Wood, carpet, and paper were atomized. Concrete melted. Seawater sublimated.

There was no door anymore, just a round hole about twenty feet in diameter that cut through the floors above and beneath and out into the empty air beyond, then on through nearby buildings. The whole structure shook under the force, but didn’t fall. Not right away.

Something screamed as it died. Limp tentacles boiled away in the air. The air filled with sizzling steam, roiling against the sphere that sheltered them.

During the blast, Jackie had been pulled forward, threatening to pass through the shield. She was tugged along by the sympathetic connection at her soul until the slack ran out, and she stopped against Archive’s will.

Jackie was still there, so Archive knew who won. There was bleeding at her chest, as though a huge chunk had been ripped out. No more strange connections. She dropped to the ground, bleeding badly.

Archive was on her knees too, all the strength gone from her. She hadn’t held back. Trying to cast a spell like that in real life would probably have killed an Alicorn.

“I… I’m dying…” Jackie choked and coughed, whimpering.

“Yeah.” Archive nodded. “But you won’t die. You’ll wake up. And I’m in your dream, so… I’ll wake up too.”

Jackie shivered. “Will it… Will it come back?”

She panted, barely able to respond. Her hands were on the ground, legs spread in weakness. She could barely hold her head up. “It won’t be… able to find you… unless you find it again… Monsters like that aren’t… meant to be in mortal dreams… You had to tie it to you first.”

“That’s good.” She smiled, curling up as she died. “Th-Thanks Alex. You’re… You’re a good kid.”

The world ended.

Jackie and Alex couldn’t help but become friends after that. Jackie still had to learn most things on her own, but at least her time with Archive had given her a head-start. They continued to use dream-sharing over the next few weeks, until Jackie felt confident enough in her abilities that she didn’t need someone around to protect her.

It was better sleep for all. Archive had no spell that could make the bat-pony magically not nocturnal, but at least what little sleep she got wasn’t being interrupted by nightmares.

Archive’s work had been too good: no shreds of the connection to Charybdis remained on the pony, and so there was nothing to follow back and deconstruct. Had he been planning to take over Jackie as he had taken over so many others, or just been tormenting her for the glamour it brought him?

Her trial period without work had ended the next day, and Alex joined a mining team beside everyone else. Every afternoon became the same routine: zip into a jumpsuit, tie a bandanna around her mouth, and venture into the earth.

She re-learned coal mining techniques she had only ever read about in history books. Wooden supports, lanterns to burn off the damp, and not much else. Every day they emerged coughing and covered in dust. Their group would separate by sex, then strip and wash in a nearby mountain river. It was freezing, but a hell of a lot better than spending the entire day covered in coal dust and smelling worse.

Archive had heard of worse lives. She would’ve taken them somewhere else to live, vanished into the night, were it not for Jackie. The thestral knew the truth about her now, and in the subsequent nights, learned about the saddlebags and all they contained as well. With a friend in her confidence, Lonely Day could start to pick up on the details she had only suspected.

Her hasty calculations had been correct: after the initial sign-on bonus (given entirely in company store credit of course) had been burned, miners could no longer survive on the wages they made. It seemed as though store prices had been carefully chosen. None were high enough to arouse suspicion. But when taken together over a long period of time, the consequences were obvious.

As per the contract, an employee who reached the end of their term but who owed money to the company would be automatically renewed. Thus it was, the Refugees living in constantly-growing debt without any hope of escape. They were slaves.

To make matters worse, Jackie’s trouble breathing was not unique. Limited protection and constant exposure to coal-dust meant there were no old miners, nor were there any that had worked for more than a decade or so. Had they all moved to bigger and better things? Day doubted it.

Wage-slavery was bad enough, but the fact that slavery was also an eventual death-sentence was more than she could allow. It had to stop.

There was no simple way. The Frontier Mining Company kept over a hundred Refugees from starving. The coal it mined helped make steel in Radio Springs, as well as keeping the lights on. She toyed with the idea of organizing a union, but eventually tossed it aside. These miners had nowhere to turn for support while they demonstrated, summer or no summer.

After a month or so of living and working there, Lonely Day had her answer. The Frontier Company sold almost everything to Radio Springs, and they depended on a rail company out of the city to survive. She was willing to bet that if the city applied enough pressure, it could force the mining company to change its ways.

That, of course, meant getting back to Radio Springs. Alex toyed with the idea of simply walking there, but of course that would’ve made some level of hostile intentions apparent. Better to do things as naturally as possible.

So she spent a week telling everyone that she planned on going during their next day off. A week offering to buy things from town and bring them back, a week taking requests and orders and making it very clear what she intended to do. That day, she made special preparations for her visit to the shop. Well, mostly Jackie and Ezri. They would not be used against her tonight.

She stopped by the company store the night before her trip, after her day’s work. Water alone was insufficient to get out the coal dust, and like many of her peers she generally saved soap for special occasions. She did tie back her boyishly short mane with her bandanna, as many of the other miners did.

There was lively conversation in the store, as always. She waited patiently as most of her fellow miners used their day’s earnings to buy cheap corn whisky, shivering at the harsh smell as bottles opened.

Eventually she made her way to the front of the line, and smiled politely at the stallion behind it. “Howdy!” She gestured at the sign with train tickets on it. “I’d like two round trip tickets to Radio Springs, please.”

The stallion’s name was Ronald, though she suspected he actually went by some Equestrian name he didn’t share with them. As with most of the staff, any attempt she made to sense his human past showed her mind only a blank. “Ah, yeah.” He made his way over to a dusty notebook, flipping it open with his magic. “Tomorrow’s morning train, right?”

At her nod, he continued. “Sorry, miss. We’re all sold out.”

“What?” She tilted her head to one side, raising her voice so that everyone in the back of the line could hear her. “It’s not even a passenger train, everybody knows you just ride on top with the coal. We both know nobody ever buys a ticket to Radio Springs.” Then loudest of all. “Are you saying we aren’t allowed to leave?” Archive put some of her power into the words, tugging on the attention of every former human in the room. A crowd of miners drinking at one of the tables stopped. Conversation in the line died.

Ronald was completely unaffected by Archive’s magic, as she had suspected he would be. Even so, he couldn’t ignore the stares. “W-What? No! Of course not. It’s just… we’ve got lots of cargo to send on that train, and two more ponies just wouldn’t fit.”

“Okay.” Alex advanced with a smile, as much the innocent filly as she could manage. She was a terrible actor, but only Ronald would see. “I’ll leave on the midnight train. You should still be able to fit us on tomorrow’s midnight train back, right? Since everybody knows the trains always come back almost empty.”

Someone coughed.

“Uh, y-yeah… course. Though same day, there’s the, uh… service fee. It’s four times the regular rate.”

That would’ve made it well out of her financial reach, if she were a regular miner. Fortunately for her, Alex hadn’t spent very much of her bonus. She had bought only staples, preparing them in her own kitchen.

Alex reached into the satchel she was carrying with a dramatic flourish, setting a tightly bound bundle of company notes onto the counter. “Regular rate is 400 for a round-trip ticket, so the sign says. I’m getting two tickets, so that’s 800. That there’s 6120 notes. I’d like my change exchanged for Radio Springs Marks, please.”

She heard somepony gasp, and she wasn’t surprised. Every dollar of her bonus sat on the counter, along with every scrap she had saved. It might be more money than any of these miners had ever seen in one place since they started working here. So far as company store credit could count for money.

“Y-Yeah… of course. But this is, uh… more than I’m allowed to deal with.” He reached for the bundle, but she took it back off the counter before he could. “Why don’t you come with me into the back? We’ll, uh… talk about it there.”

“Sure thing.” She grinned, then glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry to bother everyone. I’m just so excited about going to Radio Springs tomorrow with my sister. Look for us on the train tonight!” She waved, following the increasingly flustered stallion back behind the counter.

The back room was mostly for storage, and shelves of general goods took up the space. Alex followed Ronald past it all into a cramped office, sitting down before she was invited and waiting as he made his way to the other side of the desk. She kept smiling. “You can’t go to Radio Springs,” he said, with a voice that would brook no argument.

“I can, actually.” She gestured at her satchel. “I’ve got the money for a ticket. I’ve got the day off. Is there something else I’m missing?”

“You don’t understand. You aren’t allowed to go.” He brought up a worn-looking document from the drawer, setting on his desk and thrusting it towards her. It was the contract. “Read page four, the blue section.”

She flipped and started reading. As she did, he continued: “Now, this isn’t the first time somebody’s made a mistake like this. In the interests of good service…” He took another stack of money from the desk, perhaps five hundred company dollars. “If you were to… publicly reconsider your plans…”

Alex read the highlighted section. Sure enough, it stated that no contracted employee could leave the grounds at any point, until their first contractual term was complete. There was only one problem: it hadn’t been in the original contract. Several sections in fact hadn’t been there.

Alex sat up, pushing the paper back. “Excuse me, Sir.” She lowered her voice. “I didn’t sign this contract.”

“Y-Yes, you–”

“No, I didn’t.” She was no longer smiling. The list of ways this company was exploiting its miners grew ever-longer. “This clause was not present in the version I signed. I read the entire thing before I signed it.”

“I– I assure you, it was there. You simply didn’t notice–”

She shrugged. “Go ahead and have someone get it. I didn’t just sign my contract, I initialed on every page. That way, I’d know if parts of it got switched. You can look it up. It’s filed under Saludiv, Kristy.” She leaned back, though she hadn’t sat in one of his chairs. “Go ahead and get it. Midnight train isn’t for another five hours. I’ve got time.”

“I see.” He made no move to get up. Instead, he reached for a phone. Well, something like a phone. The simple devices had lines only connected to other parts within the mining company’s offices. They were more like intercoms than telephones, with tinny voices and only one-to-one communication. “Boss. Got a miner down here named Kristy Saludiv. She’s insisting on a train ticket.”

Alex was beginning to regret not just running for it in the middle of the night. “I’ve got other p-people to help.” He rose to his hooves. “Wait here. The director will be here to speak with you in a few minutes.” He left, locking the door behind him.

It was about at that moment Alex realized she had probably made a mistake. Sure, the mine had a posse that patrolled the surrounding wilderness to wind up “runaways,” but she might’ve been able to slip past them! She could’ve tried publicly walking to Radio Springs… but if she tried that, they might just kill her, claim that “bandits” had gotten to her.

If it came to the worst, Ezri and Jackie could probably stay hidden for two weeks. Maybe three, if they were really careful with their rations. Could she reach Radio Springs and find a dragon in that long?

How many of her cards did Alex want to play?

The door did not open for several minutes. She spent those minutes humming "Sixteen Tons," and wondering if she might have to use some fists she didn't have to get out of this. By the time somepony finally arrived, Alex had more or less decided she would cave. This was too much resistance to be worth dealing with, it was going to put them on edge. She would give it more time, find another time to get out. It wasn’t as though telling the dragon now would make much difference.

The knob turned, and several ponies came in. One was the director, a pony she had heard about several times but never actually spoken to. A pair of larger stallions accompanied him, one of them pulling an apparently empty ore-wagon.

None of them spoke to her. Alex rose to her hooves as they filled the room, looking at the director. “What’s this?” She kept her hooves firmly planted, so much as the ground here would give her strength.

Director Sloan sighed, taking the seat on the other side of the table that Ronald had used earlier. “Something I didn’t want to do. Kristy, right?” She nodded.

“Have a seat.”

The stallions were only partly dressed. There were no unicorns among the group, but there were earth ponies. Heavy objects sat within the open ore-cart, glinting in the electric light. “Forgive me sir, but I’ll have to decline.” She took another step towards the wall. “I’ll not put myself within reach of those two.”

He sighed again. “I see. Well, we’ll get to the point, Miss Saludiv. Your sister’s with us, is she not? Your cooperation would be most advisable, for her sake.”

Alex was not a very good actor. Even so, she tried to seem afraid. She didn’t move closer to the goons, or the chair that sat between them. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I would like you to sit down,” he said, gesturing again to the chair.

She sat, right where she was presently standing. But only just, her rear-legs ready to spring at the slightest sign of motion. Alex did not want to die today. “Okay. Then what?”

He sighed again. “You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I just wanted to buy a ticket to visit Radio Springs for the afternoon. Your stallion wouldn’t let me. Even showed me a fake contract that looked a little like mine, ‘cept it was way different. All the important parts were changed. Just a few words, but…” She tapped the side of her head with a hoof. “I’ve got a good memory.”

“Indeed.” He shared a glance with the “goons,” then looked back to her. “I’m afraid you’re more trouble than you’re worth, Miss Saludiv. Cooperating with us is the one way you have of ensuring your sister–”

“You didn’t find my sister,” she interrupted. “And you won’t find her, either.” She rose. “Let’s not play games, Mr. Director. I’ve dealt with slime like you before.” She spread herself out, arching her back. “If you want to end this without any trouble, let me go. If you want to kill me, then say so.” She grinned. “You could try.”

The director sighed. Alex expected this to be the end of their conversation. After all, he was within his rights to terminate her employment at any time. If he was worried about the discontent she might sow among the other miners, then he could dump her to the wilderness and send his “bandits” after her.

She had known the moment she saw the goons and their cart Director Sloan would not be taking the easy way out tonight. “If you insist.” He flicked a hoof in her direction. “Let’s get this over with.”

Archive filled herself with knowledge. Most human martial arts were near-useless as ponies, but the principles they taught still had merit. Centering oneself, that state of mind where the fight became a flow that one swam in instead of a property of the exterior world.

With the thrill and the danger, Archive broke through the barrier between herself and her earth pony nature and pulled strength from Earth’s bones. The lava that beat in its molten heart was her anger, righteous indignation at all the suffering her ponies had felt working in this mine.

One of the stallions brought down a bat towards her head. She rolled easily out of the way, letting it splinter harmlessly on the ground even as she kicked the other, square in the chest. He went flying, smacking into the desk and the director behind it. Both went tumbling, the director swearing beneath the flurry of hooves.

Archive brought her other leg down on the handle, snapping it off with little resistance. “If you capture me, you will pay in lives first!” she called, as loud as she possibly could. The strange magic of her office had no effect on these ponies to make them stop to listen: none were from her Earth.

Maybe the stallion had expected an easy fight. He hesitated, retreating a pace. “Uh, boss?”

“Do it!” he called, clambering over the edge of the desk. “We don’t have a choice now, dammit!”

He charged. Maybe this thug had experience roughing ponies up. Mostly they were newly returned humans, clumsy and weak. Alex had been fighting for three centuries. She had been trained by humans, computers, and Equestrian soldiers.

Archive rolled into the charge, sliding a leg between the stallion’s and striking sharply at bone. It snapped like a twig, and he tripped over her into the wall. The whole thing shook with the force he had gathered, probably enough to have incapacitated her if he had been able to use it.

Earth had no biases when it came to the affairs of its own children. It would kill one as easily as the other. Archive stepped past the moaning stallion, pausing only long enough to strike him solidly on the head. Just solidly enough to knock him out.

Alex kicked the nearby bookshelf with all she had, knocking it tumbling towards the desk. It exploded, sending ledgers everywhere and scraps of wood falling.

The other goon emerged from the wreckage, still clutching a length of metal rod in his mouth despite all he had suffered. Resilient. She gestured at his fallen companion. “That’s you, fool! Put your weapon down!”

He did, though he tried to put it down into the side of her body. She dodged easily, put a hoof right into his side, and let another blow slide harmlessly off her neck. The metal bar dented where it had struck her, not leaving so much as a welt.

She could see his face clearly enough to see his eyes widen before she kicked him again, near to where she had struck the first time. Only this time she didn’t hold back, and she felt ribs crumpling even as he slammed into a portrait. The glass protecting it shattered, and rained down on top of him where he fell.

She was so intent on the goons, she didn’t notice the director. She heard the echoing report of a gunshot, and looked up to where he was standing across the room. She felt the sting at her chest, and glanced briefly down. The bullet had stopped on her coat.

She looked up, and took a step towards him. “Do that again.”

Director Sloan looked half-mad, his clothes covered in splinters. He leaned against the rubble, holding a rifle in both hooves. It was pointed right at her chest. He fired again. Again the magic of the earth caught the bullet on her flesh, though this time it made it far enough to draw a little blood before it stopped. She reached for more, begging the earth to give her what it could… and found there was no more to be had.

Her connection with Earth was completely gone. It wasn’t the normal feeling, when she ran out of magic. She tried to find the beating heart of Earth and found she couldn’t.

His next shot went right through her, spraying blood on the rear wall. She kept advancing on him, forcing herself to smile.

Alex had been shot before by long-bore rifles. The shock shut the organs down, tore through everything. The pain was almost beyond description, a single white-hot knife in her insides. He aimed a little higher, towards her head. “G-Go… Go to–” Blood choked out as she spoke, right along with the words.

He pulled the trigger.