Luna fought the urge to curse as she looked out of the bunker’s rear door. The path ahead, if one could call it that, consisted of a short metal catwalk which joined on to a giant metal pipe that spanned the chasm. A couple of Chinese soldiers were patrolling up and down it as if it was a normal thing to do. Half of a fallen metal bridge was laying on the pipe, making Luna wonder if the simulation’s developers had just wanted to be awkward.

“That doesn’t look good,” Trixie said quietly from behind her. “Do you think you can get them with that rifle?”

Luna shook her head. “This is the first time I’ve ever even seen a sniper rifle in real life, and aiming with one is a lot harder than I expected. I’ll have to try it with the assault rifle.” She silently berated herself for not sounding more confident, but it was hard when she had no idea whether or not she was up to the challenge.

“Can’t I just blast everyone out of the way?” Sonata asked.

“Not yet, you’ll just bring even more people down on us,” Luna told her. “Get back a bit and give me some space. I’ll see what I can do.” She waited for the girls to do as they were told before raising her assault rifle. Nervous beyond measure, Luna held her fire until the two soldiers were just about to pass by each other.

A short controlled burst easily took down the first soldier. The second shouted in alarm and whipped out his own gun, but he didn’t manage to get a shot off before he was brought down as well. Luna kept her gun up, waiting with bated breath to see if anyone came to investigate the noise. As the seconds ticked by, she slowly accepted that no-one was coming.

“That was easy,” Trixie noted, relief clear in her voice.

“Let’s just hope things stay that way.” Luna refilled her ammunition from the dispenser before edging out onto the metal catwalk, keeping her eyes peeled for danger. Only when she was satisfied that it was safe did she gesture for the others to follow. “Be careful on the pipe. I don’t think I need to point out just how dangerous this is.”

Together, the trio carefully climbed onto the pipe and made their way across the chasm. Sonata wanted to climb the ruined bridge and see what was up there, but Luna refused; partially on account of how rickety it was, and partially because she could see a stone path on the far side that looked a lot less exposed. Getting pinned down once already had given Luna a much greater appreciation of cover.

The path zig-zagged its way up the cliffside, turning back on itself several times as it climbed. Luna kept her gun at the ready, obsessively checking for danger, but, despite her caution, it was Trixie who spotted the next threat. “Quick, get down!”

Luna instantly crouched behind the nearest rock. “What is it? What do you see?”

“Another big pipe, way up high,” Trixie replied. “There’s another soldier on it.” Luna was impressed. She had seen the pipe, further along the chasm, but she hadn’t seen the soldier. Just as she was about to peek around the rock, Trixie held a hand out to stop her. “You and Sonata stand out too much against the snow. I’ll let you know when he’s gone.”

It sickened Luna to dump that kind of responsibility on one of her students, but Trixie had a point. Time slowed to a crawl as the three waited impatiently. Luna could practically feel her nerves fraying with every passing second.

“He’s looking away, go!” Trixie hissed suddenly.

Luna didn’t need telling twice. She leapt to her feet and darted around the next corner, doing her best to go from cover to cover like a shadow. Every step, Luna half-expected a bullet in the back or an agonized yelp from one of the girls, but somehow the trio managed to make it around a bend and out of sight of the pipe without any problems whatsoever.

Soon enough, the path came to an end at yet another concrete platform. A series of platforms and metal staircases followed, though there was a distinct lack of soldiers or even any supplies on any of them. Luna found herself getting increasingly suspicious until, finally, they reached a small plateau. A single soldier was guarding a door set into the cliff face.

Luna and the soldier both snapped their rifles up at the same time, but before either of them could fire there was a rapid burst of muffled gunshots and the soldier fell. Luna stared dumbly as the man disappeared in a blue flash.

“Huh, I suppose it is a little easier. It’s still weird though.” Luna turned just in time for Trixie to hold out her own silenced pistol, having apparently snatched it from Luna’s holster without her noticing. It took the girl a second to realize that the other two were staring blankly at her, making her step back and eye them warily. “What?”

“When did you learn to use a gun?” Luna asked bluntly.

Trixie shrugged. “Uh, it wasn’t really that hard? Just point and shoot, right?”

As tempting as it was to exclaim that there was a lot more to using a gun properly than just pointing and shooting, Luna held herself back and holstered the pistol. “Good shooting. I’ll teach you correct gun safety later, if we have time. For now, let’s see what’s through that door.”

The inside of the Pitt was worse than Applejack had ever expected. Everything was covered in a layer of soot and grease, all exposed concrete and metal had been corroded by centuries of acid rain, and patches of metal filings and other detritus were dotted in places all over the ground. Even the air somehow tasted oily. Managing even something as simple as going for a stroll without getting a nasty injury or infection was going to be a challenge.

As bad as the surroundings were, the state of the inhabitants was even worse. Teams of half-naked slaves were hauling scrap, breaking down debris with sledgehammers and pickaxes, and using heavy-duty saws to carve vehicles and other large chunks of metal into more manageable pieces. All of the work was being done under the watchful eyes of patrolling raiders. Everyone, slave and slaver alike, was marked by sores and lesions. It was a miracle that disease wasn’t dropping people left and right.

“If you ask me, it looks like it is,” Adam said.

Applejack winced as she realized that she had spoken aloud and looked around to make sure that no-one had heard. Thankfully, it looked like the raiders were too busy to pay attention to what two random slaves were talking about, though that wasn’t likely to be the case for long. “Reckon we should ask one of the slaves how to find Midea?”

Adam nodded. “That’s our best bet. It’s a good thing we’re covered in sweat and muck from the journey over. We should blend right in.” A quick glance revealed that he wasn’t wrong. Applejack allowed herself a small smirk at the thought of what Rarity would say at the sight of her, despite everything the girls had all been through.

Finding a slave who could help was easy enough. The two asked a woman who had stopped for a water break, who directed them down a nearby alleyway. As they walked deeper into the Pitt, Applejack noticed that there was a whole multi-level network of walkways just like in Megaton, except that these were largely made from old scaffolding instead of just cobbled together from scrap.

After a few more stops to ask for directions, the duo found themselves outside a door to a particularly decrepit old building. Adam checked with Applejack before knocking politely.

“Just a minute!” The two waited patiently until a young woman opened the door. She was better dressed than the rest of the slaves, with baggy clothes that covered her entire body and a head wrap that hid her hair, but the dirt and pinched look in her cheeks left no doubt about her status. “Do you need something?”

“Midea?” Adam asked. The woman nodded. “We’ve been told to speak to you about some new work task?” In an undertone, Adam added, “Wernher sent us.”

Midea’s eyes widened and she stepped aside, holding the door open. “Come in, but act natural.”

Applejack didn't know how to act unnatural, but simply staying silent and following Adam inside seemed to do the trick. The room was spartan, with the bare minimum of furniture and flaking paint, but she didn’t have long to look around before Midea closed the door and turned to face the pair. “We’d better keep this quick. They’ll have seen you come in here, so they’ll come looking for you if you take too long coming back out. I have a plan to get at least one of you into Ashur’s palace, but we need to wait. In the meantime, you’re going to have to blend in.”

“Hold your horses, you gotta give us a little more than that,” Applejack interjected. “Why do we have to wait, and how exactly are we supposed to blend in?”

“The guards don’t really take kindly to workers just standing around. You’re going to need to look busy, or they’ll sniff you out pretty quickly,” Midea explained.

Adam nodded curtly. “So we’ve got to work. Simple enough.”

“Exactly,” Midea replied. “You two don’t look like you belong here, so I’m going to send you out to the old mill to gather steel ingots. It’ll keep you away from the guards.”

Applejack was about to cut in and ask again why they had to wait to get into the palace and get the cure for Wernher, but before she could even open her mouth the door was suddenly flung open. A raider wearing spiky metal armor swaggered in, looking the duo up and down before turning to Midea. “What’s goin’ on here? Who are these scabs?”

Midea flinched and shrank back. The instant that the door had opened her demeanor had shifted to scared subservience. “N-nothing, sir. I was just telling these new workers about the job the foreman posted.”

The raider smirked and gave the two another look over. “Oh yeah? So these are the ones goin’ out to the Steelyard, huh?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve told them what they need to do, th-they know,” Midea told him. “Ten ingots, as fast as they can.”

Ten ingots was news to Applejack, but she kept her mouth shut. She could do a little work before getting the answers she needed. Besides, she was well-suited to heavy labor, so Applejack didn’t mind doing it if it saved a sick and abused slave from having to.

A twisted grin spread across the raider’s face. “Well then, I hope you also said goodbye.” He laughed viciously, not bothering to explain himself, then snorted and jerked his head towards the door. “Alright, playtime’s over. Get back to work, grinders.”

Applejack hesitated, wanting to know what exactly she had gotten herself into, but there was no way she could drag the answers out of Midea with a raider watching over them. Biting back the urge to huff with annoyance, Applejack took the lead and headed outside before Adam could get himself lost. Once they were back out in the sickeningly greasy air, she confidently led the way through the winding alleyways and streets.

“How the hell do you know where you’re going?” Adam asked in exasperation.

“Ah pay attention to my surroundin’s,” Applejack said flatly. “There’s directions painted on some of the walls, Ah guess to make it easier for the poor folks who get dragged here to find their way around.” She pointed to a nearby wall. The word ‘Mill’ had been painted in four-foot tall white letters with a large arrow underneath. “See?”

Adam raised an eyebrow, then slapped a fist into his palm as he clicked. “Right, Midea said she was sending us out to the old mill. I guess that must be where the Steelyard is.”

“Seems likely.” Applejack quickly turned her focus back to looking like she knew where she was going, as if she was entirely used to the place and not an outsider. Eventually, the duo came to a squat building through an old gateway. A painted sign next to the door stated that it was the mill, but Applejack was pretty sure that the burning stench and deafening sounds of industry coming from inside were a dead giveaway.

Somehow, the inside of the mill managed to be worse than Applejack was expecting. Thick smoke billowed out of the building the moment she opened the door, the heat was so intense that she was drenched with sweat after only a few steps, and everything was tinted by a glowing orange haze. Peering through the murk, Applejack saw cages and shelving packed with various metal objects, piles of scrap ready for melting down, enormous crucibles containing molten steel slowly trundling around on rails bolted to the ceiling, and other machines that she couldn’t identify hissing and thumping away.

Adam said something about a foundry, but Applejack could barely hear him over the insane racket. He tried repeating himself but, with a raider looking over at the two suspiciously, Applejack cut him off and hurried to ask someone for help. After a little shouting and a lot of gesturing, the duo were directed to what must have been the foreman’s office.

The deafening sound of the mill was slightly muffled as the duo stepped into the office. A lone raider was waiting inside. He had a short blonde mohawk with a matching beard, heavily patched pants, a light sweat-soaked vest, and the same lesions that everyone in the Pitt seemed to have. The raider eyed the duo warily. “Can I help you?” He asked gruffly.

“We’ve been sent to work in the Steelyard,” Adam replied flatly.

The raider raised an eyebrow, then broke into a wide grin. “So, I’ve got two lucky scabs gathering ingots today, huh?” Applejack and Adam both nodded. “Ah, I guess enthusiasm’s a little too much to ask. Well, follow me!” The raider opened a door at the back of the office and gestured for the two to follow.

Applejack kept her guard up as they were led through a series of short corridors.

“Name’s Everett, I’m the foreman,” the raider said as they walked.

“I’m Adam, this is AJ,” Adam cut in before Applejack could reply. She realized a second later that her real name would’ve stood out like a sore thumb in this place.

Everett chuckled darkly. “I doubt I’ll need to remember your names. Most don’t survive their first run out here. Still, who knows, maybe you two’ll be different.” Before either of the others could reply to that grim statement, he shoved open a door and they were met with the sickening stench of death.

Next Chapter: Chapter 196 - REALLY Unsafe Working Conditions Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 31 Minutes