All of us were frozen in place, except for One who was looking at the rest of us like we were crazy.

Thankfully, he had the sense to whisper. “Mister Dust, what are ghouls?” he asked with confusion in his voice.

“One, they are ponies who should be dead but aren’t.” The first few red bars started appearing on my EFS in the direction of the main part of the city. As time passed, more began to appear in my view.

Quickly looking around, I found a house with an open door and no red bars emanating from it. I pointed towards it with my hoof, “Quick and quiet! Everyone in there!” We all carefully made our way into the house, closing the front door behind us. It was a nice little home with a small kitchenette and family room, both still fully furnished, on this level with a staircase leading up to the second floor. Keeping my voice low, I said, “Flower, go check out and secure the back door. One, can you move this couch in front of the door?” One nodded and the couch was engulfed by his magical field. “Everyone, stay down and out of sight.”

I crawled over to the window and peered just over the dusty window sill. Looking down the street in both directions, I was looking for signs of movement or additional red indicators to fade into view on my EFS. Now that I was getting used to it, it was becoming second nature to check that before believing my own eyes. Fortunately, for right now, there was no movement on the street and just the same hostile indicators I had seen before. However, the low, raspy growls were still all around us and getting stronger by the second.

Brownie sidled up next to me and whispered, “Do ya got a plan, Dust?”

“Not really Brownie… I am going to go up to the upper floor and see if I can get a better view of the surrounding area. You got things down here?” I asked.

Brownie answered with his typical, “Eeyup.”

Keeping low to the ground, I crawled over to the staircase. As I was about to start climbing, Flower returned from the rear of the house. She smirked and said, “Ah did the best ah could with the back door. The kitchen table and anythin’ else I could move is blockin’ it.”

After nodding, I whispered, “Great. I’m going upstairs to see if I can get a better look. Help hold down the fort down here.”

I began to climb the staircase, stepping very carefully on each step. Two hundred years without maintenance of any kind probably didn’t bode well for the wood used to build these houses. Some of the steps flexed under my hooves, but the steps were remaining silent… for now. Some days the lighter build of a pegasus was a welcome trait. It would have been easier to fly, however.

After getting to the landing at the top of the staircase, I made my way to the bedroom at the front of the house. The room had obviously belonged to a young colt. What little color was left was faded blues mixed in with the white drywall and pink insulation where time had done its worst. The far wall was dominated by a large window. On one wall was a pennant that said, “New Flankfort Manticores”. It always amazed me what kinds of things survived in good condition and which things were basically dust after all this time.

Slowly and quietly, I made my way over to the window. There were no blinds or curtains, those having given up the fight a long time ago. In their place, however, was a thin layer of grime. It wasn’t thick enough to block my vision, but it was hopefully enough to hide any of my movement from anyone, or anything, on the outside.

Starting my scan, I focused on the directions indicated by my EFS. It would pick up anything long before I could actually see it. However, it also meant that I wouldn’t know which directions to prioritize. After checking several targets and finding nothing, I finally saw one of the shuffling zombies. It was in the backyard of a house across the street and several closer to the city. It walked right into a section of picket fencing and then began to repeatedly bump into it.

Snickering to myself, I continued looking at the EFS markers trying to match them up with an actual ghoul. It didn’t take long before I found a second shambling corpse, and then a third, and then a… oh shit. Quickly checking my EFS, the indicators in this direction had become less of a set of individual markers and became one giant red blob. My blood ran cold and any snickering I had started, abruptly stopped. A large herd of ghouls was headed in our direction.

Carefully, I moved back towards the staircase and made my way down the stairs. I avoided the steps that flexed under my weight before just in case they chose this moment to give away our location. In the living room, One was peeking out the window, and the others were hiding out of sight of the windows.

Slinking along the floor, I edged up next to One. Peeking above the window sill again, I looked back in the direction of the ghouls I saw upstairs and found that a handful more had appeared with the rest of the group.

One broke the silence, thankfully whispering, “What did you see Mister Dust?”

I glanced around at my companions, “Ghouls, and a lot of them.” Breathing in deeply, I then released a deep sigh. My exhalation had caused a cloud of dust to kick up from the window sill. I saw the little cloud make its way towards One’s snout. My blood froze as he inhaled at that exact moment.

My heart started racing when I saw One’s eyes squint and his mouth begin to open wide in the precursor breathing to a sneeze. I quickly clamped my hooves around One’s mouth.

“One, you can’t, try to hold it in!” I pleaded.

I felt his body tense and relax under his strain to fight the sneeze. Finally, after a couple of seconds, his whole body relaxed and he looked at me with relief in his eyes. I let go of his snout.

“Thanks Mister Dust. I thought I was going to… AHCHOO!”

The silence was deafening for all of several seconds. Then the raspy growls outside took on a more menacing tone. I glanced out the window and saw the herd of ghouls change direction and head towards our hiding place.

“Fuck… stay down and stay quiet,” I ordered everyone. The shuffling hoofsteps were getting louder with every passing second. Every pony dropped to the floor and hid behind whatever furniture was readily available. One and I dropped beneath the window sill and pressed up against the wall as closely as we could.

After what felt like an eternity, I heard the first hoofsteps right outside the window. They were slow and stuttering, but the first set were soon joined by others. The hoarse breathing of the ghouls was now plainly audible, even through the closed windows.

When the first ghoul bumped up against the house, the thump made all of us jump a little. My heart started pounding in my chest and I saw the worried looks on everypony’s face. The first thump was soon joined by a second, then a third, and a fourth. The individual banging sounds merged into one, non-stop thump against the walls, windows, and doors.

My mind was racing. We couldn’t stay in the house for long. It was true that if we could remain quiet enough, the ghouls would eventually lose interest and disperse. But something eventually would give away our position and that many ghouls would overpower our makeshift barricades.

I had an idea. Leaning in close to One’s ear I whispered, “One, I know you have strong manipulation magic… but how are you with small objects?”

He nodded his green head. “But Dust…” I quickly clamped his mouth shut. He just nodded his head again. I gestured towards the stairs with my snout. “Wait here for a second. When I signal, quietly make your way to the stairs.”

Staying low to the ground and trying to avoid anything that would make noise, I crawled over to the couch that Flower, Silver, and Brownie were hiding behind. “OK, I have an idea but we may have to do some cleanup afterwards. You guys OK with that?” They both nodded silently.

Looking back at One, I gestured towards the stairs. To his credit, he slunk down very low to the ground and nearly silently made his way towards the stairs. The thumping was at an all time high now until we heard the sound of cracking glass. The ghouls would soon be through the windows and they would probably see us huddling inside the house.

Leaning in close, I looked at One and very sternly warned him, “Follow my exact steps and take them nice and slow.”

I thought I saw his lower lip tremble a little, but he calmly whispered back, “You got it, Mister Dust.”

Very carefully, I made my way back up the stairs trying to remember which steps had the weaker wood. After getting about three quarters of the way up, I turned and gave One an air-hoofbump to help bolster his confidence. He returned the gesture, and put his foot down on the next step. The stair creaked liked a rusted hinge. My stomach dropped and everypony’s face turned a shade lighter.

The growling outside the house increased seven-fold. The intermittent thumping on the windows and walls accelerated to a fever’s pitch. One of the panes of glass shattered and tinkled to the floor beneath it. My friends clustered together behind the couch and drew their weapons just in case.

I silently mouthed to One, “Nice and easy. You can do this.” To his credit, One put a nervous smile on his face.

As we both cleared the landing, we heard the creak from the front door. With the age of this house, who knew how long the material would last. One and I, no longer in line of sight of the window, were able to walk, albeit slowly, to the front window I looked through before.

Now time for the trickiest part of my plan. I gently eased the lock on the window open and began to push it upwards. After a century and a half of neglect, the window’s track was rusted over. Applying consistent force, the window eventually began to slide open, but stopped after a few inches. I let go and it slid shut with a deafening bang. Putting my hooves under it, I lifted it again and tried lifting it further, but every little bit of motion began to make noise. Not wanting to attract any more attention than the ever growing mob of ghouls already was paying us, I stopped.

Reaching into my saddlebags with one free hoof, I pulled out a frag grenade. “One, can you hold the grenade in your magic, pull the pin and then drop it as close to the middle of the group as possible?”

One’s golden eyes rolled up in his head and his tongue stuck out. He was deep in thought. “I think so, Mister Dust.”

“Alright, I will hold the grenade here where you can take it and…” I was cut off by what sounded like a cannon going off. After listening to the echo of the report, I was able to make it out to the the sound of a .45 caliber Desert Griffon. Who in their right mind would be firing off that hoof cannon with ghouls around?

Unfortunately, our undead friends outside did not hear it, or didn’t care. But the group was still growing in size. I looked at One and he simply nodded in reply.

Holding one of the pineapple shaped grenades outside the window, I saw the light blue aura surround the grenade. After I pulled my hoof away, I watched as One pulled the pin out of the grenade the then saw the grenade hover a few feet away and then drop when the field disappeared. I yelled out, “Fire in the hole!” Grabbing One, I ducked us both down under the window. After several seconds, I was blinded by a flash of light followed by a deep rumble as everything nearby was bathed in orange. My body involuntarily shivered as I flashed back to my previous encounter with a grenade explosion.

I heard the cracking of the glass above us and felt the house shake under the assault of the grenade. After waiting for nearly a minute, I picked my head up and looked out of what was left of the window. All the panes of glass in the window had either cracked or blown inwards. I could see small shrapnel marks on the walls and ceiling.

Looking out the window, I saw a level of carnage I had not been expecting. The ghouls closest to the grenade has been blown apart. The further from the center of the blast you got, the more intact the bodies were. However, most of the group had died in the explosion.

I scanned around looking for markers on my EFS. The number of red EFS markers dropped dramatically after the blast. Based on the overlay in my vision, there were at most half a dozen ghouls left. That should be a reasonable number for us to handle hoof to hoof.

Climbing back down the stairs, One and I returned to the first floor. I saw my friends still huddled behind the couch, all of them nodding at me. The front door looked like swiss cheese. It was peppered with tiny holes, made by what shrapnel made it past the sea of ghouls that had formed. The window in the living room was gone, with glass shards splayed on the ground.

When we got down to the first floor, Flower walked over to me, grabbed my collar, and asked incredulously, “That was your fuckin’ idea? To blow up this part of the city?”

“Hey, it worked. There are only six ghouls left in this part of town and we can now leave and work our way towards the Stable-Tec building, can’t we?” I smirked.

“Celestia’s sake Dust… next time, I’m coming up with the idea!”

“Fine.” I didn’t hear her coming up with any ideas when things started getting bad. “One, can you please move the couch. Everypony, let’s go clean up this mess.”

After everypony else nodded in agreement, the blue magical field moved the couch out of the way. Before opening the door, I informed the group where the remaining ghouls were located and who should go for which target. Not sure of their fighting skills, I paired up One with Brownie and Silver was coming with me. Flower winked at me. Not now Flower, please don’t start anything now. Fortunately, she didn’t.

Brownie, Flower and One headed in their respective directions as Silver and I worked our way towards two ghouls who had gone around the side of the house and avoided the blast. Why they didn’t move towards the explosion, I didn’t know.

“Silver,” I said started as I handed her my pistol. She was trembling when she took it from my hooves. “Have you ever fired a gun before?”

“N...not… not really. My typical approach to a problem is to hide and wait for it to pass.”

“Ugh,” I grunted. “Alright, this will be your first lesson. You need to be able to defend yourself and the rest of the group. Long story short, put this in your mouth,” I said as I placed the firing bit between her teeth. “Do not point it at anything you don’t want dead. Bite when you want to fire.”

“O...o...ok Dust.” I felt so bad when I saw the look of pure terror in her eyes.

I peered around the corner of the house and found the two ghouls. They had both gotten into the backyard of the house but must have accidentally closed the gate behind them. The two were ambling around the backyard looking for something. This should be easy.

Leading the way, I slowly made sure the gate was latched securely and whispered to her, “Stay here, behind the gate. You’ll be safe that way.”

I took the suppressor for the pistol out of my saddlebags, I attached it to the front of the 10mm pistol. I moved to her side. “OK, first, make sure the safety is off. On the side of the bit there should be a small toggle you can feel with your tongue.” She mumbled an affirmative response back. “Up means the safety is on and the the gun won’t fire. Down means the safety is off. Use your tongue to move the switch down.”

She tried several times until I finally heard the small click of the toggle being moved into the firing position. Reaching around her head, I used my hooves to show her how to aim. “Simply look down the sights and line up whatever you want dead with the little orange tab in the opening.” I moved my head right next to hers so I could get a decent look at the sights with her. The close contact with her gave me a warm feeling in my cheeks.

“OK, ready to try pulling the trigger? Don’t bite down too hard, or else you’ll throw off your aim. Squeeze only as hard as necessary.” I felt the muscles in her jaw tense and heard the pop of the silenced round. I watched as it sailed high and to the right. “OK, not bad. Again, nice and gently when you bite down. It’s not a race.” We tried this several times. The rounds kept missing. Eventually, the pistol popped and the round flew true and got the ghoul right in the skull. A spray of black foulness erupted from the front of the ghoul and it fell to the ground, lifeless. Fortunately, the other ghoul either didn’t hear the diminished sound or didn’t care.

“Not bad… not bad… but we need to work on your accuracy.” I whispered to her. “Let’s try the second ghoul now. Try it again, but without my help.

I watched as she lined the pistol up and was aiming for the ghoul’s head. I could see she was trembling a little, but it was no where near what she had been like before. It took her a while to aim, but she finally felt confident enough and I saw her jaw clench. The pistol made the usual “pfft” sound a suppressor usually made. The bullet found its mark on the first try. The fence behind the ghoul was sprayed with black foulness as the ghoul fell to the ground.

She dropped the gun from her mouth and it clattered to the ground. “Dust, did I just? Was that really me?”

“Yes it was Silver. Not a bad shot either. Very nice. Now, don’t get too…” I started but was interrupted when she wrapped her hooves around me and gave me a hug. My knees started to wobble. Instinctively, I hugged her back. My body started to tingle all over.

“Ahem,” a gravelly female voice said, interrupted our reverie. It was Flower. Of course it was Flower. “The other ghouls are down. Are ya two quite finished or are ya goin’ to get a room?”

I nearly choked on my words. “No, we’re fine, right Silver?” She nodded back. “We’re ready to move out.”

After regrouping, we made our way towards the city proper. The cookie-cutter houses began to give way to small apartment buildings and commercial centers. All the buildings were in various states of disrepair. Some had even toppled over in the century and a half since the bombs fell. The entire time, I kept scanning my vision for EFS tags. There were red marks all over the place, but nothing that I could match up with an actual sighting. We all were keeping our eyes peeled.

Brownie broke the eerie silence. “Hey Dust, do ya have any idea where you’re goin’?”

“Not really. If you have a better idea of where this building is, I’m all ears,” I responded with an awkward laugh.

“Doesn’t that fancy Pip-Buck tell ya? I’ve run across other ponies who have found ‘em and they said they didn’t need maps anymore,” he asked.

I looked at the Pip-Buck. I was starting to wish that these things came with instruction manuals. The training we got on this kind of tech was woefully inadequate. There were so many features I’m sure I had no idea were in these things, much less knowing how to use the ones I knew about. Fumbling with the device, I looked at the map and flipped to a local mapping mode. A mess of green lines appeared on screen. There was one location marked off with something resembling a pushpin.

Where have I seen that before? “Brownie, you’re right. This has a mapping feature. The building is apparently,” I hesitated trying to get my bearings in relation to the map I saw, “that way.” I followed that with a gesture with my hoof.

The feeling of the city began to change again. Low-lying apartment complexes gave way to taller skyscrapers. Sprinkled between the spires were smaller commercial buildings which seemed oddly out of place. Some buildings had collapsed completely and blocked the roads we wanted to use. Several detours were necessary in order to reach the Stable-Tec building. I stopped looking at my EFS since the markers were permanent fixtures and it was impossible to know which threats were close or not. And the growls… it felt like we were always surrounded by the poor, dead ponies. That was probably the most unnerving part of the whole situation.

One broke the silence next. “Mister Dust, what happened here? Where are all the ponies?” he asked.

“They died a long time ago, One. A long time ago, two sides fought a big fight and used horrific weapons that killed many ponies. Not only did it kill ponies, but it also destroyed the cities that they lived in,” I responded very matter-of-factly.

“Why did the two sides fight, Mister Dust?” He was staring up at the tops of some of the skyscrapers and almost tripped over his hooves several times.

“Well, that’s an interesting question One.” I paused before continuing, “Some ponies say it was because the two sides hated each other. Others say it was greed. I think it was because both sides were afraid of each other and couldn’t face each other to deal with it.”

“Oooooh…” he hesitated. “Mister Dust, why can’t you ever answer me so I understand?” Everypony else laughed.

As we turned a corner, our destination appeared before our eyes. It was a brick- and glass-faced building that was three stories high. Unlike many of the surrounding buildings, the glass on the Stable-Tec building was mostly in tact. It had fared really well considering what most other buildings looked like after all this time. The recognizable circle and line logo was emblazoned on the two large, glass doors that graced the front of the building.

We pushed our way through the doors into the large atrium. Out of a misplaced sense of paranoia perhaps, we locked the door behind us. The atrium was impressive. It was an open air space with walkways for the upper floors running overhead. In the center of the room was a large statue of a blonde maned pony in a stable suit. There were several doors leading off the atrium in different directions. Behind the large statue was a metallic reception desk. The air had a musty odor and everything was covered in a thin, undisturbed layer of dust. Fortunately, the growling of the ghouls outside was much diminished behind closed doors.

Our hoofsteps on the tile floor echoed in the atrium as we made our way towards the reception desk. I paused to look at the map on my Pip-Buck and pointed in the direction of the pushpin marker. “We need to go that way,” I announced to the group.

The double doors opened easily. The security systems in this part of the building were disengaged not having had power for over one hundred years. We found ourselves in a large room filled with small dividers. A lot of ponies must have worked in these small stalls. All the terminals were powered down. Some of the desks still had piles of papers on them, faded and yellowed.

I was a little surprised when Silver had spoken up for the first time in a while. “Ummm, guys, where are all the ponies that worked here?”

The question made me stop in my tracks. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there must have been a lot of ponies that lived here, right? And except for the ghouls outside, we haven’t seen any others. No skeletal corpses or anything. So where is everypony else?”

"Maybe they all got out ‘fore the bombs fell?” Brownie asked.

“Have you ever found a city like that before? Any of you?” Silver pressed.

“Brownie, she has a point. We’ve scavenged a few towns over the last year or so. Can you remember a single time where there weren’t any skeletons? Everything we’ve found led us to think that towns were surprised by the megaspell bombs.” I nodded towards Silver, “She has a very good point.”

“I don’t rightly know. But now that ya brought it up, let’s get what we came here fer and get out. Now I got da creeps.”

Checking the map again, I followed the marker and entered a large conference room. The windows overlooking a small park were mostly intact, with only a few covered with spiderwebs of cracks. I stopped and looked around the room. “I don’t get it. We are right over the marker.” When it dawned on me, I facehoofed. “It’s not on this floor.” After grunting in aggravation, I spit out, “Let’s find the friggen’ stairs.”

We quickly learned why the building for such a large company was only three stories on the outside. There were 4 subterranean levels to the building as well. Not knowing which floor we had to go to, we started at the bottom. We eliminated this level as it seemed to contain only access rooms for the plumbing, electrical, and climate control systems. The next level up seemed more likely since it housed a lot of computer equipment.
“Mister Dust, I don’t like this. It’s too dark and too quiet,” One squeaked out.

“I know, One. I know. We’ll only stay as long as we need to,” I said as I patted him on his shoulder. To be honest, I didn’t like it either.

We kept following the ever present marker on my map. The level was a labyrinth of hallways, closets, and small rooms jam-packed with computers. The only other time I had seen so many computers in such a small space were stables. The dim, red emergency lighting brought back memories. Bad ones at that.

“For Celestia’s sake,” I blurted out, “feels like the stable all over again.”

Silver edged up to my side. “Dust, are you OK?”

The room started to spin a little and I found it hard to breathe. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be OK,” I got out between breaths. I heard footsteps echoing down one of the hallways. My ears perked up immediately. “Shhh!” I whispered to everyone.

Brownie looked around and said, “What is it Dust?”

“I heard hoofsteps. Coming from that way,” I said as I pointed down the hallway to my left. The hallway became engulfed in total darkness as the lights turned off completely.

We all gasped in surprised. Flower stammered, “W...w...what the hell is going on?”
The lights flickered back on a few seconds later. As I looked around to see if anything had happened, I saw a flash of yellow and green at the end of the hallway. I broke out into a gallop as I ran towards the sighting, “Muddy! Get back here!” I left the rest of my group behind.

My vision was now tinged with red and I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I was going to get him. I needed to get him. I had to make him pay for what he did to me! No… that’s not it. I need to get him back to find out what happened. Ugh! Why couldn’t I think straight!

I got to the end of the hallway and followed in the direction I saw Muddy go. Still sprinting as fast as my legs could go, I ran in the only direction open to me. When I got to the next intersection, I skidded to a halt and scanned in every direction. I heard the cries of my friends from behind me, but nothing else. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another flash of green and yellow. “Muddy, you son of a bitch! Get back here!” I took off after him.

This little game of cat and mouse continued for several turns. I had no idea where I was going, or even how large the floor was. All I knew is that I had to keep following Muddy. Eventually, I made a turn and was standing right in front of a doorway. “You have nowhere left to run Muddy!” I screamed.

I hoofed the activation panel and the door slid open in front of me. On the other side of the door was a small room dominated by the interface for a maneframe. There was a small table with some binders on it and not much of anything else. I walked in the room and the door slid closed behind me. Damn it! Muddy wasn’t in here! I ran back out into the hallway and looked down the hallways again.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” I stomped at the ground. The metallic ping echoed down the hallways.

Laughing, I heard a voice respond, “Updraft… I’m over here! Come find me!” It was Muddy.

My vision flashed red again. Galloping down the hallways, I followed the voice until I was faced with another door. As I reached out to hoof the controls, I heard a horrendous crashing sound on the other side. I withdrew my hoof, listening to the rest of the cacophony that emanated from the room beyond.

Once there was silence again, I hoofed the control. The door slid open and I was staring into what had to be a small lab. There was a large table in the middle with various scientific apparatus and cabinets lining all the walls. Or at least whatever walls were left. The far side of the lab was apparently missing. All that could be seen was the stony wall of a cavern where the last wall should be.

My heart nearly skipped a beat and my brow was covered with a cold sweat. My memory flashed back to the lab in the stable. Without realizing it, I drew my pistol. I was not going to be caught unprepared again.

Slowly, I stepped into the lab, being sure to check every corner, every dark shadow where a pony could hide.

“Muddy!” I hollered. “Where are you!”

I searched the entire lab. The cabinets were all empty and all there was nothing hiding in the shadows. I began to make my way over to the edge of the lab. I had to check to see if Muddy had hidden in the cavern as I had done.

The air in the lab had become cold and stale. With each step I took, I looked nervously over my shoulders. In return, all I saw was darkness and all I heard was my own ragged, shallow breathing. I got to the edge of the floor and peered over the edge. I flicked on the light on my Pip-Buck and shone it down into the blackness. It was deep, but besides stony walls, there was nothing else of any interest.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I turned off my Pip-Buck light and turned around to head out of the lab. The yellow face and green mane of Muddy filled my vision.

“Hey Dust. How are you doing? Ready for another fall?” he sneered at me. He reared up and shoved me over the edge. I fell over the edge and desperately grabbed for something… anything. My hooves found the floor to the lab and I grabbed on for dear life. There I sat dangling over the edge, my rear hooves flailing, looking for any kind of traction. There was none to be found.

With as much strength and volume as I could muster, I screamed out, “Somepony help me! I’m in the lab! And Muddy’s here!”

That sneering yellow face peered over the edge and laughed. Mockingly, Muddy repeated my words back to me, “Somepony help me! I’m in the lab! And Muddy’s here!” Returning to a normal tone of voice, “Nopony can hear you Dust. It’s just me and you. And I am going to have fun this time. It was too quick last time.”

Muddy began to kick at my right hoof. He was toying with me, moving it a little each time and laughing. After what felt like an eternity, my first hoof was kicked free. I tried to swing it back and regain a firm hoofhold, but Muddy kept kicking it back. As he fought off my one hoof, he began to kick away my second one.

As he kicked my second hoof clear, Muddy chuckled and said “Good bye Dust. Mind the gap.”

When my hoof was free, time slowed to a crawl. I felt my body fall away from the ledge and gravity began its irresistible pull on my body. I cried out, “Somepony help me!”

My vision was filled with a flash of pink as something grabbed my hoof. I heard a female voice, “Dust, it’s OK. It’s Silver. I’ve got you.”

My descent came to a stop. “Silver! Thank Celestia! Watch out for Muddy!”

She looked confused by that remark. “Dust, what do you mean?”

“Muddy! He was just here and he pushed me over this ledge!” I cried out.

“Dust. Listen to me. Muddy wasn’t here and you aren’t dangling over a ledge.” she calmly said.

“Wait… what?” I looked around. The cavern and lab faded from view to be replaced with a small room that appeared to be another computer room. I was dangling off the edge of an elevated walkway but my hooves were only inches from the floor. Letting go of the desk, I gently allowed my body to fall to the floor. “But Muddy was here and he… and I thought I was going to die again…”

My body slumped to the floor and I began to cry uncontrollably. My body shook with each sob as tears streamed down my face.

Silver sat down beside me, rested my head on her hooves and laid her head next to mine. “It’s OK Dust. It wasn’t real. And I have you now.”

We stayed that way until Flower, Brownie and One found us.

After calming down, I explained to everypony what I had seen and felt. Flower, in her normal, brusque fashion, simply said, “Dust, that sucks.”

“Yes, Flower, it does. Can we please get to the computer, get the information we need and get the hell out before I flash back again?” I asked with a hoarse voice.

I was still very anxious to be in a small, confined space. My heart rate was elevated and my brow was still covered with a fine, cold sweat, but I wasn’t hallucinating anymore.

We followed the marker on my map until we found the maneframe room, which I realized I had already been in. Of course, at that point, I wasn’t in the right state of mind. The room was much like I remembered it, but now I saw fine details I hadn’t noticed in my crazed search for Muddy. The biggest detail was that the screen for the maneframe had been busted.

“Son of a bitch. Muddy must have beaten us here. Fuck.” I kicked the maneframe. “Ouch! Son of a bitch!”

Silver placed her hoof on my shoulder. “Dust, calm down. Can you fix it? I mean, there are computers all over the place. Can you replace the screen?”

“Well, let me think…” At first, my mind was a jumble of anger at the hallucination, anger at Muddy making this difficult, and fear of enclosed spaces. However, as Silver kept her hoof on my shoulder, my body began to relax and my mind began to calm down. Could I fix the maneframe’s screen? Yes, it was possible. All I needed to do was swap out the screens, assuming Muddy didn’t do anything worse to it. “Yeah, yeah, I should be able to. All I need is a monitor from another maneframe. Let’s split up and look for one.”

One, Flower and Brownie went as one group and Silver and I as the other.

“How are you holding up?” she asked me with a look of concern on her face.

“I’m OK, considering. I mean, I really thought I was going to die again…” my voice trailed off. With recent events, it came crashing back on me that Silver somehow knew Muddy’s real name.

“I just wish I knew how to handle Clear Skies when I found him,” I said with a sigh while monitoring her reaction.

“I don’t know Dust. I still think this whole trip is unnecessary. Just leave him be and he can’t have a chance to get you for real,” she said with some real concern in her voice.

I stopped walking in the hallway. “Um, Silver, who is Clear Skies?” I asked.

“C’mon, Dust, you know who he is. He’s the pony that tried to kill you back in the stable. Are you sure you recovered from your hallucination?” she giggled nervously. Her body was tense.

“No, that was Muddy. I don’t know a pony named Clear Skies.” Yes, I lied.

Even in the emergency lighting of the subterranean levels of Stable-Tec, I could see the blood drain from her face. “What do you mean Dust?”

“Silver, I do not know a pony named Clear Skies. The pony that tried to kill me is named Muddy Waters. You called him Clear Skies that last night back in the stable. Who is Clear Skies?” I asked, with more of an accusatory tone than I really intended. “And why do you keep trying talking me out of finding Muddy?”

“Oh Dust, don’t be paranoid. I must have gotten the names mixed up. I must have heard Clear Skies from somewhere and just used that name by mistake. And as far as trying to talk you out of this, I just don’t want to see you get hurt… again.” I could tell she was a little hurt, or was it indignation, by the accusation.

“But Silver…” and then I was interrupted by Brownie yelling.

“Dust! We found a maneframe!” he hollered.

Silver took the opportunity to change the topic. “This is great! Let’s go get that monitor!” she exclaimed as she trotted out of the room as quickly as possible. Short of revealing my secret, I really had nothing else to use against her, so I’d have to figure out another approach.

After a short walk, we found the other group. They had found another maneframe and One was already trying to get at the monitor. “Don’t worry Mister Dust! I got this for you!”

I couldn’t help but to laugh a little. “It’s OK One, let me take care of it. Thank you though.” He was beaming at that comment.

It didn’t take long for me to open the panel and remove the monitor. These maneframes were meant to have interchangeable parts anyway. It would have been easier if I was a unicorn and had magic to manipulate the tools, but it didn’t take long for me to get the job done.

We made our way back to the original maneframe room. I got to work replacing the screen. Everypony was still asking if I was OK, and I responded to all their questions that I was. If this kept up, this would become very aggravating. After making the last connections and reassembling everything, we could finally access the maneframe.

After navigating a few menus, I found a listing of the dozen or so stables in the local area, including the one under Horseton. Working through each entry, we were able to narrow down the candidates to three stables north of Midnight’s shack.

Stable 104 was allegedly never completed so we crossed that one off our list. Stables 98 and 188 were operational. After hacking a security protocol protecting the details of the stables, we saw that stable 98 was a control stable with no remarkable features to it, but stable 188 was a research and development stable. One last report was made from 188 before all communications were terminated and it was reported they were researching the SPP towers. Wait a minute, why would stable ponies need or want to research the SPP towers. Further details would be held on-site only according the the report.

“Huh,” I murmured. “It appears we’re heading to a place called Whinnycrest.”

Brownie hummed to himself for a moment. “Hmm, I’ve hearda there. Never been there mahself. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It makes no sense they’d build a normal stable there, being miles from the nearest pre-war town. You really think Muddy went there?”

“It’s the only one that makes sense. There will probably be nothing in 104. Stable 98 is either abandoned or staffed by a full community of ponies including security. There is no way he is taking over the stable all alone if it is occupied. Besides, there’s nothing special there. Stable 188 might be staffed still, but they are developing something powerful, assuming it has anything to do with the SPP towers. Not to mention the fact that it is the only stable not anywhere even close to a large town,” I reasoned.

Brownie hesitated for a second. “Ah guess yer right. Alright ponies, let’s go.”

We carefully made our way out of the subterranean levels of the Stable-Tec building. I had never been so happy to see what passed for daylight down here beneath the clouds. Anything was better than dim emergency lighting in small, confined hallways.

As we walked out the front door, I asked, “Hey Brownie, how far from here is…”

I was interrupted by a metallic ping behind me. “What the fuck?” A couple seconds later was the unmistakable report of a high powered rifle. “Get behind cover everyone!”

The sniper wasted no time. We heard large caliber rounds impacting the brick, cement and metal that was all around us. The only problem was that with the echoing of the sound in the buildings around us, we couldn’t determine where the shots were coming from.
I heard a scream of pain. “Who got hit?” I screamed out.

Flowers gravelly voice was the first to respond. “I’m good Dust.”

Silver’s sweet voice was next. “I’m fine.” That was a relief.

“I’m A-OK too Mister Dust!” One called out with his usual enthusiasm. Thank Celestia.

Then silence, both from the sniper and from the ponies I was travelling with.

“Brownie? Brownie!” I cried out in a panic. “BROWNIE!”

Brownie’s pained voice finally responded, “Ungh! Dust, he got me...”

Keeping in cover as best I could, I made my way over the source of Brownie’s voice. He was lying prone on the ground behind a pile of rubble from one of the nearby buildings. He was clutching his hindquarters and there was blood seeping around his hooves. My heart dropped as I watched his body slump, motionless.

Level Up!

Stat:
Repair - 35

Condition Obtained
Bad Memories - When confronted with tight, confined, dark spaces, you suffer penalties to your SPECIAL. Perception -1, Luck -1

Author's Notes:

Major thanks go to Gamma Deekay.... he has been invaluable in getting my fic back on track!