The door to Stormfront’s heavy equipment and transportation motor pool maintenance wing opens as the yellow cream mare mechanic slogs in with her eyes barely open. She pauses a couple dozen steps in past the threshold and takes a long pull from her massive mug of coffee balanced on her left forehoof. She grabs it with her teeth, and then quickly takes over holding it with her fetlock as she tilts her head back and downs almost half of the container in one quick chug. She starts walking forward again as she lets out a sigh of contentment, resulting in a light puff of visible breath escaping her lips from the heat of the drink she just consumed, and the relatively cool temperatures of the maintenance wing sector of the compound.

The underground motor pool maintenance wing roughly covers the size of a full hoofball field. With bays set up along the majority of its perimeter, most of which are tailored to one kind of equipment or another. Various sized wagons. Sky wagons. There’s even locations for Super Sentinels and full sized tanks at the far end. And of the bays, most of which have something in them patiently awaiting their turn at maintenance, upgrade, or repair, only a few of them show any recent work as there’s an obvious backlog developing. The central portion is wide enough to allow traffic, even with the various vertibuck landing pads set up along the length of the wing’s center line. The side opposite of the equipment entrance doors, a set of vertical monstrosities large enough to allow the vertibucks to fly out at the same time a tank is being brought in or out while open, has a collection of shipping containers that function as a depot to allow the contents to be accessed and distributed from there.

She stifles a yawn with the mug, already debating on going back and getting more coffee, before she actually opens her eyes enough to look towards the center maintenance area where she was heading. Only to find the lights are all already on at her destination, ready for work to begin.

However, she drops her coffee, and her jaw, to the floor as she sees what’s in the middle of the maintenance landing pad where she was headed in sleepy zombie mode.

A vertibuck.

Normally this wouldn’t be a concern. Vertibucks need work on them periodically anyway. In fact, this very vertibuck, yes, it’s definitely the same one judging by the serial numbers along the tail fins, is the one she was intending to work on today. But, instead of coming in and getting to the process of narrowing down its problem, and then, hopefully, fixing said problem, her plans for the day have been entirely derailed.

By a tiny pegasus buck in an oversized flight suit who seems to be tightening down the last bolt on a hatch before closing and securing the access port.

Her cobalt blue eyes enlarge to the size of dinner plates as she grits her teeth in frustration and shock. She starts running towards the apparent disaster as she finds herself now entirely awake, and angry, as she screams, “Newbie! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”

Gearing, sans head gear, turns around and waves at her as he says, “Hiya, Hammer! I’m just getting it back together.” He shrugs. “I came in and found it in a buncha pieces so I figured I’d try and help out while you all slept.”

She sits down and puts her hooves up to her face as she screams, “Are you kidding me?! It took me two days to get that entire assembly off and apart!” She waves her hoof at him menacingly as she moans, “Now I gotta take it apart all over again!”

Gearing looks over at her and tilts his head as he asks, “Why?”

She starts walking up towards it as she scowls. “Look, newbie, I know you’re trying to be helpful and all, but this isn’t the kind of thing you should be doing. Especially unsupervised! I took it apart to figure out what was wrong with it so I could fix it…” She sighs in resignation as she realizes there’s no point in getting riled up now, what’s done is done, but hopefully she can prevent such ‘good intentions’ from screwing her over in the future. She takes in a deep breath before she says in a slightly calmer tone, “Sometimes you have to break something, in order to put it back together and get it working. You understand?”

Gearing tilts his head as he points a hoof at her. “Well… yeah... but I don’t see why you wanna go through all of that again though?” he says in a tone of clear confusion.

She opens her mouth to say something, but a voice comes out from the cockpit, and magnified over the vetibuck’s external loudspeakers, “We good to give it a try, Nitro?”

Gearing closes the hatch completely and hops away from it as he nods and yells back. “Yeah. Spin’er up and see if that took care of it, Jitterbug!”

“Roger… Stay clear, I’m giving her some thrust,” Jitterbug replies from the cockpit as the vertibuck comes to life and starts hovering, blowing wind a variety of directions. Then it goes forward a bit, turns around, and comes back. It passes the landing pad before Jitterbug takes it into a maneuver that makes it jump up towards the ceiling, nose first. The short maneuver, thanks to the enclosed space, results in it spinning around and falling back down, again nose first, before gliding back towards the landing pad. She slowly sets it back down on the docking port as she says over the speakers cheerfully, “Looks like we got it, Nitro!”

Gearing grins and waves at the cockpit before turning around and looking at Hammer. Only to find the yellow cream mare sitting on her haunches with her jaw hanging open loosely at what she’d seen. She slowly drifts her eyes over to Gearing before asking, “Since when are you such an expert on vertibuck archano-tech thrust technology?!”

“Last night,” Gearing replies flatly.

She shakes her head a few times and she holds onto her face as she asks softly, “Am I dreaming?” She taps her cheeks a couple times with her hooves. “Is that what it is? Have I put in so many hours that now I’m fantasizing about problems just fixing themselves?”

Gearing scrunches up his face to the side as he says, “That would be cool… but weird… But cool…” He shakes his head and points at the vertibuck as he says, “But me and Jitterbug fixed it.”

Jitterbug comes fluttering out of the vertbuck in her flight suit as she shakes her head. “Oh no, you’re not pinning this on me!” She looks over at Hammer and points at Gearing. “This was all Nitro. He did it himself… He would have even flown it, or tried too, but I refused to let him.” She tucks her dark gray mane back into her cap as she says, “I only agreed to help him for the test flight portion.”

Hammer looks between the two and asks, “The hell was going on with it? It seemed to work and then not work, completely at random. I finally took it apart so I could test each and every piece as I put it back together.”

Gearing opens his mouth to say something, but stops. He scrunches his face up one way then the other. After a bit he sits and taps his forhooves together sheepishly, “I don’t know the names of the things that were needed to be done. I just went by the diagrams… but the thingy that plugged into the doohiky got out of calibration and that made it rattle and smack another thingy, that knocked that out of alignment so in the end it broke a capacitor.” She stares at him stone faced and he adds, “Well… the capacitor worked... just that little leg piece that holds it to the board? It broke. So it would have power as long as it wasn’t moving, but if it shook it would break the connection. Since the break was at the board, I just soldered it back on… then fixed the other things so they wouldn’t do it anymore…” He shrugs. “Turns out it was just a worn out washer that caused the whole mess.” He grins widely as he says, “I replaced that too, got it from one of those jars you keep all the loose screws and such in.”

Hammer stares at him for a few moments before saying, flatly, and with all sincerity, “Horseapples… If you really managed to fix that shit, I’ll kiss you full on the mouth.”

Gearing walks over and pops the access hatch of the vertibuck as he digs around in his flight suit. He produces a rust covered, broken in half, rubber washer as he points at the fresh replacement. Then overs her a magnifying glass from the side of his modified hoofball helmet, that he has sitting nearby, as he points at the connection point. “See… it was this one here.”

Hammer quickly zips over and looks in for herself. She pops on a flashlight, holding it in her mouth, and gives it a discerning eye as she asks around the flashlight, “Dith tha firth time you thodered uh ‘lectronic?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve been dabbling for years… Take electronics apart and put them back together to see how they work. That sort of thing.”

She slowly pulls back, grabbing the flashlight from her mouth with a hoof, as she’s hanging out of the access panel and looks him over as she asks, “How the hell did you track this down?”

Gearing points over to the side where a pile of books lay open across a couple improvised tables made from weapon crates, ammo boxes, and general shipping crates. “Well, you had the manual. So I just did a little light reading and tried to back trace where the general culprit was at.” He shrugs as he says, “I was sure it was an electrical issue, so that narrowed it down a lot… And with the parts you’d taken apart, I figured it had to be in that module you removed… so it narrowed it down pretty quickly by factoring in what you had already been doing.”

“That manual’s over 700 pages thick with small as hell print! How’d you get through that in one night?! You call that light reading?!”

Gearing sheepishly taps his forehooves together as he says, “Okay, I’m a nerd, I like to read, alright?” He looks over at the books and adds, “I haven’t gotten through all of it yet, just the thrust mechanics diagrams and electrical plans really.” He waves over towards the other books and avoids eye contact as he says softly, “I kind of… had to use the other books to figure out what some of it was talking about… Soooo many acronyms… so many…”

Hammer slowly starts growing a grin across her muzzle as she looks at Jitterbug. “Is it working? Is it really working, Warrant Officer?”

Jitterbug shrugs and nods. “As far as I can tell, yeah. Last time I was in’er it wouldn’t do that rapid climb without losing power and altitude, so that most likely got it.” She looks back and forth before she says, “Going to need a few more test flights just to make sure. So far so good though.”

Gearing hops around on the tips of his hooves as he asks excitedly, “Do I get to fly it? Are ya gonna teach me to fly it?”

She smirks as she looks at him sideways, “Easy there, Nitro. I know you’re all pumped up and ready to go all the time.” She rolls her eyes and looks over at Hammer before she finishes, “But the rest of us need sleep, and you need a hell of a lot more training before anyone’s going to let you in the cockpit for test flights.”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he turns and starts walking over towards the pile of books he’d accumulated for the project. “Aaawww. It’s going to be forever before I get to the really good stuff.” He walks across the platform, then hops onto the armor plating of a tank parked next to it before jumping to the other side and fluttering over by the books.

Hammer sees the tank dip slightly under the pressure of his weight and she calls out after him, “Buck, just what has your momma been feeding your heavy ass?”

Gearing looks over at her and stares her straight in the face as he says, “A steady diet of guilt and high expectations.”

Jitterbug giggles as she nudges Hammer in the side. “That heavy enough for you?”

Hammer grins as she watches Gearing sort through the books. “Mmmm I think so…” She trots over to the improvised workbench by Gearing as she watches him organizing the books and start reading the technical manual for the vertibuck, beginning from page one. She stops next to him and stoops down a bit as she says softly in his ear, “Hey, Nitro.” Gearing turns to look at her and raises an eyebrow.

His eyebrows jump up and his eyes open to their fullest as Hammer grabs him by the cheeks with both forehooves, leans in, and gives him a deep tongued kiss as she tilts her head into it. She pulls back and grins at him with her eyes practically sparkling as she says with a gasp, “I was promised I could take a day off once this was fixed, so now I’m gonna go get some real sleep!” She kisses him on the nose again before she turns and starts quickly trotting towards the door. “I’m coming, bed. I hear you, baby! You queen-sized double-layer-down goddess you!” She starts running as quickly as she can as she squeals in delight, “Come to momma!”

Jitterbug flutters near Gearing, who hasn’t moved at all since the surprise was sprung on him, as she asks softly, “You… you okay, Nitro?”

Gearing continues staring off into space for a few more seconds before he puts a hoof to his chin and nods lightly. “Sorry… I was just thinking… and trying to figure out... just how long her tongue has to be to do what she just did…”

Jitterbug giggles as she scrunches up her face, “Eeww… Tee emm aye, Nitro… Tee emm aye!”

Once they are inside of her office, Bottlecap closes the door behind them and asks Gearing, “Would you like something to drink while we talk?”

Gearing looks around the office slowly as he shakes his head. “No. Thank you. But, no.”

Gearing’s eyes sweep across the room as he quickly takes in the small room. Having killed someone in front of this very store, and put someone inside the store on the same lineup, in the same day he could be forgiven for quickly looking for murder holes, hidden turrets, or other signs of this being a trap. Especially given this Bottlecap is a pony he’s never met before. But, no. The only thing hidden in here seems to be the way the water dripping down into the metal coffee can near the cot in the corner is getting in. Besides the hole in the ceiling that said water was invading the office through that is. Great, it’s raining again. Just another glorious day in Hoofington! he silently complains as he can’t help but mentally trying to trace where the water could actually be coming from, as roof leaks have a tendency to run from their actual entry point to where they drip down from.

Hey, stupid, we’re not here to fix her roof! the little blue pegasus in his head grumps as it bucks him in the side of his head repeatedly.

Dragging his attention willfully from the poorly maintained gap, he starts paying attention to the rest of the office. Though, judging by the cot in the corner, he realizes this is more than just an office, and is most likely Bottlecap’s private room. Or as close as anyone is going to get around here. The room, while in need of some real work, also shows that she’s pretty much done the best she can with what’s available. She even has a collection of books on a shelf by her desk. Not the ratty kind that he’s seen in some even better conditioned offices that he’s been in recently. Ones that he’s quite certain that are actually legible and ready to be enjoyed. But beyond functional items, like the cot, refrigerator, terminal on the desk, and a safe, there’s a collection of oddities that he can’t quite understand why she has in her room. Hanging up on one wall near the ceiling is a plastic banner two centuries past obsolescence.

Then there were other examples of this office’s previous tenants. All as mind-boggling to Gearing as the banner. Awards for capitalistic achievements measured in sales. One for the last employee of the year the store would ever have. There were even other advertisements hung up around the walls that he didn’t see the use for. But his eyes stop dead in their tracks when he sees a photo with a mass of Equestrian Defense Force soldiers in their standard issue green combat armor. And, even more eye catching, is the group of two toned equines with them, making up the other group. Red on White.

Zebras. Ones that had undergone a process to change their black stripes red to differentiate themselves from the rest of their people. Red Stripes. Candy Stripers. Proditors. ‘Traitors’. It was all a matter of perspective. But Gearing knows that group were some of the loneliest equines in the world. Despised by their own home country for ‘siding with the enemy over their own people’. Not trusted, harassed, and looked down upon by most in Equestria as well. They got it from both sides. Despite what they had done for Equestria. Fighting. Dying even. For a country that, as a whole, neither trusted them nor liked them nevertheless. All because it was what they thought was the right thing to do. Following their conscience instead of doctrine. For that, they’d earned his admiration at least. And, for that, and other reasons, he would never tolerate anyone hating them simply for being zebra. He traces the group of Proditors to the side where, in the middle where the two groups merge, one of the red zebra mares is giving a joyful hoofbump to a red-headed curly-maned mare with large purple glasses.

Twist. One of the practical living legends known as Macintosh’s Marauders, lead by Big Macintosh himself, until his death. He never got a chance to meet any of them in person. The dice never rolled that way. But it was impossible to live anywhere in Equestria and stay away from the constant bombardment of propaganda surrounding them. The Ministry of Image made sure of that.

The caption under the picture unnecessarily tells him what he already knows, but manages to draw a sneer of contempt for its blatant shameless exploitation of service members: Macintosh’s Marauders invade Megamart with the Red Stripes. Great deals ensue.

Gearing shakes his head with disgust as he snorts. Then he goes back to looking at the picture. His eyes are drawn to the zebra side of the image. And eventually settle on a mare in the second row near the outside of the group. The smirk on her face is like she has a secret that she’s trying hard not to let slip, but that she can’t wait for the time to come when she can let it out. Her eyes are a dazzling blue. A diamond blue that seems to radiate out of the picture and defy time itself as her eyes have refused to fade with the rest of the picture. Even with all of the time that’s passed. He keeps looking into her eyes, captivated, until he’s finally pulled out of his trance by Bottlecap calling out to him.

She has the refrigerator open and is holding up a bottle of Sparkle Cola as she asks with a curious expression across her face, “You okay? You sure you don’t want something to drink?” Gearing quickly shakes his head in response as she pops the top with her teeth, pocketing the cap as she walks around her desk and takes a sip as she watches him carefully. “You’re not at all what I had expected.” She sets the bottle down on the desk as she adds, “He’d said you were a pegasus…”

Gearing looks back at the picture as his eyes dart around its surface. He looks over at the edge, looking for that mare with the nearly hypnotic blue eyes. But, can’t find her amid the crowd. He blinks a few times after failing to immediately spot her again, and instead turns to look at Bottlecap. The tone of doubt in her voice reveals her suspicion of him and makes him wonder if she simply brought him in here to get the two groups apart before yet another fight breaks out in the middle of her shopping market. Gearing fans out his right wing, lifting the cloak as he says, “And right he was.” He gives the picture one last fleeting look as he can’t help but feeling, deep down, that something’s wrong. A sense that something’s missing. And it’s not simply what he’d just seen disappearing. And the fact that he can’t think of what could possibly be missing to cause this feeling, troubles him even more.

She raps on the desk for a few moments before she says, “I must admit. I was a bit confused by the situation.” She looks him over as she asks, “Would you be willing to elaborate on your request to me a bit more?”

Gearing waves a hoof as he shrugs. “I need information. I want to know where these slavers and raiders bed down. If your caravans are getting hit by them, I wanna know where they’re going missing.”

She slowly takes a drink from the bottle as she looks him over, then comments after setting it back on the desk, “Short Road has already told me how you’ve used the information they’d given you…” She taps her forehooves together on the desktop as she says, “Tower Towing?”

Gearing nods. “Entire operation shut down. I didn’t keep a head count of all of the ponies released, but it was quite a few.”

“Yet you didn’t take anything from anyone, so why are you doing this?” she asks without even trying to hide her suspicion from him anymore.

He takes in a deep breath and sits down as he says, “That is a really long story probably… But it’s something that needs doing. Equestria needs to get fixed if it’s going to survive. And that’s going to require a lot of muck raking.”

She raises an eyebrow as she asks, “And you’re doing all of this out of the goodness of your heart? Entirely for free?”

Gearing chuckles as he looks around. “I wouldn’t say free… that wouldn’t be accurate.” He looks at her as he grins. “A wise friend of mine once told me, if you’re really good at something, never do it for free.”

A slight smile cracks across her muzzle before she asks, “So… what form of payment do you normally prefer?”

Gearing rubs a hoof over the back of his head as he chuckles. “I guess they’re using caps these days, huh?” The comment causes Bottlecap’s eyebrow to jump up to it’s highest as she’d been in the middle of taking a sip from her bottle. But he shrugs as he says, “Mostly I try for things I need to get my next jobs done.” He bobs his head around as he says, “Keep the cycle going but with enough excess that I can keep going even if things don’t turn out in my favor.” He waves a hoof at her as he says, “Could definitely use some leads on equipment and the like. And that’s going to require payment.” He points off to the door as he says, “I’m already working with Patches to try and get a new set of armor for myself.”

Bottlecap looks him over as she folds her forehooves on the desk and asks, “What happened to the set you had before?”

Gearing lets out a sigh then slowly takes the improvised cloak off, tossing it to the side as he looks her over. “I got shot down out near the Freight Cars’ territory… and the skywagon I was pulling detonated… causing part of the building to fall on me.” He shrugs as he starts rummaging in his saddle bag. “It’s scrapped. Better to entirely replace it than try to fix it at this point.”

The pupils of Bottlecap’s eyes seem to have shrunk to pinpricks as she looks him over. Regardless of what she thought he was going to look like, this obviously isn’t it. The obvious tell tale signs of many layers of damage on him aside; the crystalline shimmering green wings are like nothing she’s seen before. Outside of stained glass windows. But, despite the rampant questions such a sight would draw from most, she’s a shrewd enough mare to know better than commenting on such painfully obvious discrepancies between Gearing and the rest of equnity. After a few seconds of shock, she shakes her head and asks, “So why were you threatening to kill that buck? Are you going to go after ever bounty hunter that’s after Security?” To Gearing’s instantly raised eyebrow she adds, “That’s what that argument was about, right? Security?” She lets out a sigh as she looks over at the cot and says softly, “That’s who all the trouble around here the last few days has been about.”

Gearing glances over at her and tilts his head as he asks, “Do you really wanna know what got him on my list?”

Bottlecap looks him over as she thinks it through. “Probably not… but let’s hear it anyway.”

Gearing stops sorting through his bag and looks at her as he says, “The fucked up bounty aside, he’s intending on dragging her all over Hoofington and charging folks for the opportunity to rape her.” He shakes his head. “And that shit doesn’t sit well with me.”

Bottlecap regards him as she asks cautiously, “So… you’re not going after the bounty yourself?” She looks him over as she says, “From what I hear you’re quite capable.”

“Nope.” Gearing quickly shakes his head. “From what I know of her I think she’s just what Hoofington needs right now. Hell, Equestria as a whole even. But, if anyone does claim that bounty, well I’ll have no problem what-so-ever sending them straight to hell.” He looks off to the side as he says, “Besides, from what I heard there’s several bounties around this area already with some truly scummy individuals that need to be removed.”

Bottlecap taps her forehooves together as she says, “There are quite a few, though how ‘justified’ they are, I can’t really tell you for sure. All I do is make the connections between bounties and bounty hunters. You’ll have to make that decision on your own… However…” She pulls a drawer open and pulls out a piece of paper as she looks it over. “The Finders have an outstanding contract on a particularly bad piece of work.” She puts the piece of paper on the other side of the desk as she says, “The sick bastard is a serial rapist that has a penchant for burning his victims… Alive. He’s not really picky about his targets, and he’s made enough enemies that the bounty’s substantial…” She looks over at the paper as she sighs. “Given how badly Security needed money, and her ability to take care of other contracts, I was going to talk to her about it… but…” She waves a hoof to the door before rubbing her face with it. “That fight and the bounty on her head pretty much ruined that idea.” She shakes her head as she groans, “She’s got bigger problems to deal with now than this.”

She reaches over and taps on the paper as she says, “If you can take care of this, you’d be helping out a lot of ponies in the process.” She gives a wry smile as she adds, “And make a healthy amount for your other endeavors to boot.”

Gearing grabs the paper and starts looking it over as he asks, “Any other information on them? And dead or alive?”

She smiles lightly as she says, “Dead, definitely dead. And either bring back his head, or his mark to confirm the kill.” She frowns as she says softly, “As morbid as that sounds…”

Gearing nods and stows the paper as he says, “I’ll get to work on it. I already met one bounty hunter that was looking for a new target, so maybe we could head out tomorrow and get this taken care of for you.”

Bottlecap smirks. “Don’t be so hasty… he’s a real piece of work and not to be underestimated.”

Gearing shrugs. “The more they need to be removed, the sooner it should happen… I’ll take a look into it tomorrow. Maybe by then I’ll have some better equipment.” He rubs a hoof through his mane as he groans. “Or at least a few leads on the components we need.”

Bottlecap rattles her bottle, swishing the remnants in the bottom before downing the remaining amount of it. “Tomorrow isn’t that far away now, you know. If you need some rest there are cots for rent.” She sets the bottle down as she says, “With our contacts the Finders can point you in the right direction of most supplies.” She looks up at him and raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Do you have a list of what you need? I can ask around while you’re getting ready to hunt down Cookie.”

Gearing nods and goes through his bag again, finding the list that he was looking for originally and passing it over as he says, “Yeah, here’s the written list. I already have a copy on my PipBuck.”

She starts looking over the paper as she says, “This is a lot of equipment…” She raises an eyebrow as she asks, “You just fetching this for someone else, or for your own purposes?”

Gearing shrugs as he says, “I made an agreement with someone that I could stay as long as I wish, if I help fix the bunker up.” He shakes his head. “The place is an absolute mess from lack of maintenance and upkeep.”

She looks up at him as she asks, “You must know what you’re doing, to even ask about some of this so specifically… You know much about the software side of things as well?” Gearing nods and grins. “Encryption and the like?” He nods again. “You any good at it?”

Gearing smirks as he leans sideways and looks over at the wall. “Oh… that’s a tough one to answer… The short answer is ‘No’, with a long answer of ‘Yes’ with a ‘but’…”

“But?”

Gearing shrugs and looks at her as he says, “Given enough time, and the proper equipment, I could eventually crack even government level encryptions.” He grins widely, “Equestrian or otherwise…” He lets out a sigh as he frowns. “But I don’t have access to any of the equipment that would be required to chug through that. At least nothing substantial. Not yet anyway. And I certainly don’t have the time to try and crank through it with lesser equipment.” He looks her over as he tilts his head and asks, “Why?”

She waves it off with a hoof as she replies quickly, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Somepony I know just came across a rather problematic large encrypted file and it crossed my mind I could make things easier on her and introduce you two…” She gives the faintest glimmer of a smile as she says, “Don’t worry, she’d be willing to pay, and I’m sure you two could have worked something out.”

Gearing nods as he looks around. “I’ll let you know if anything changes. But I’m not going to lie about it; the odds aren’t great I will anytime soon.”

She smirks as she looks at him. “Well, thanks for not trying to blow smoke up my tail… I know there are those who’d lie about it just to get access to it so they could try and sell whatever it is themselves.”

Gearing smiles back as he nods slowly. “Because information is a commodity.”

She grins at him. “Exactly.”

Gearing slowly looks around the office as he says, “Speaking of… is your group here able to handle large amounts of salvage at a time? Or should I limit how much I bring at once?”

Bottlecaps eyes practically sparkle as she looks at him. “You have so much that you’re worried about flooding our markets?!” she asked with a more than pleased tone.

That’s funny, I thought Nahlah was the only one that purred, the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments as he looks at Bottlecap suspiciously.

Gearing bobs his head side to side as he says, “No… It just so happens that I seem to run into entire groups of assholes at a time… and considering how much I can carry, I go ahead and bring whatever of value with me.” He points out into the shopping area as he says, “My friends are out there now trying to hock the load I brought in today.” He chuckles as he can’t help the grin on his face so he directs his gaze more at the floor. “Yeah… I don’t really envy her at the moment. That’s a lot of running around she’s going to have to do to unload it all.”

Bottlecap taps her forehooves together slowly before she asks, “So you’re with the grumpy blue buck and the blue pegasus mare?”

Gearing groans as he slowly looks up and over at her. “Yeaaahh… crap, what happened?”

Bottlecap waves a hoof dismissively as she says, “Oh, nothing. I was just alerted by security that they’d come in with a substantial arsenal.” Her lip curls into a smile as she adds, “And were wanting to trade it all… and apparently she’s been going through the entire floor space swapping with the different traders.” She nods her head slowly with approval as she says, “Trading is good. We need more trade coming through here… much more.”

She looks him over for a few moments before she asks softly, “Would you be willing to tell me where the ‘raider nest’ was that you acquired most of that bloody gear from?”

Gearing walks over by the desk and shows her his PipBuck as he marks the general location of where it was. “Around here. They were set up to attack an approaching convoy.” Bottlecap looks up at him and raises an eyebrow, and they share a smile as he finishes, “Their ambush didn’t go the way they wanted… obviously.”

Bottlecap nods as she says, “I’ve heard of a few travelers getting robbed, or out right entirely disappearing, in that area. I’ll make a note of it…” She looks up at him as she’s looking around for a scrap of paper to take down the information. “Do you know how many it was? It always helps to know how many have been removed from an area, and how many may be left.”

Gearing rubs a hoof over the back of his head as he lets out a gush of air. “Well. I’m not entirely sure… Was a bit hectic and I was trying to hurry up and catch back up with the others… a couple dozen?”

She raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Couple dozen?”

“About three dozen, yeah,” Gearing says with a nod.

Her eyes jump wide open as she drops the pencil she’d grabbed to write it down. “Nearly three dozen?! By yourself?”

Gearing looks around the room and pulls back a bit as he says defensively, “Well, yeah, but I wasn’t stupid enough to try them all at once!” He points at his PipBuck and circles the area. “They were spread out so it was easier to pick them off one by one. Or, at the worst of it, smaller groups.”

“That’s still rather impressive… and explains the haul your group brought in,” Bottlecap replies as she looks him over.

Gearing looks over at the wall where an old map of the city hangs, with far newer, possibly updated, information scrawled across its surface. He motions towards it with a hoof before looking at her. “And the more kinds of information I have, the easier it makes it for me to actually succeed. The bigger the group, the easier it is to find a place to toss a wrench into their workings… Disrupt things.” He looks over at her as he sits down and continues, “A couple of names I’ve heard crop up repeatedly are Red Eye, and Usury who’s apparently in a place called Paradise… You know anything about them?”

Bottlecap’s eyes go wide as she asks, “You going to try and add them to your bounty list? As impressive as taking down three dozen bandits might be, that’s still a tall order.”

Gearing shrugs as he smiles. “I was thinking more along the lines of finding ways to screw up their lines… With any business venture there’s always going to be the source, the seller, and the buyers… Do enough damage to any one part of the supply line and the entire thing would collapse… You remove the source, there’s nothing to sell… Remove the seller, and the buyer just isn’t getting their goods… remove the buyer… and demand falls.”

Bottlecap taps her forehooves together as she gives him an appraising look with a growing smile. “You seem to understand a lot more about trade and economics than most ponies.”

He shakes his head. “Not really… but a supply line is a supply line… and I don’t see a commerce supply line being any different than a military supply line. If they aren’t getting what they need when they need it, it can bring everything to a grinding halt. Whether that’s a box of Sugar Apple Bombs to a hungry pony at a store, or ammunition to soldiers on the front line… Disruptions in flows can be catastrophic.”

He pulls up his PipBuck’s inventory and starts scrolling through double checking a few components that he wants to make sure are on him as he asks, “So what all can you tell me about them? Anything? What about this Usury that’s got that bounty out on Security?”

Bottlecap lets out a sigh as she taps her forehooves together and obviously has some kind of internal struggle as she looks at him. “I can tell you a lot about her, because she’s my sister.”

Gearing looks up at her as his eyebrows jump up in surprise. He wasn’t expecting this turn of events. He’d had a long line of questions that would probably come across as a bit too snarky, especially with her name being a loan-shark’s hallmark that keeps reminding him of another loan-shark that he’s planning on removing soon.

Uhm, yeah, don’t mention that part… and… maybe we should definitely focus on one of our alternate approaches to problem solving… You know… with them being sisters and all. The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head chimes in. Unless she actually asks you to do it that is, in which case it’d be a lead round well spent… even if that isn’t the best solution for bringing down the system…

“Well…,” Gearing starts. “I could use any information you’d be willing to give me. But I can understand if you don’t want to harm your sister’s business.”

Bottlecap shrugs before she says, “I can tell you what I know, what you choose to do with the information is up to you… There’s a lot, how much time do you have?”

Gearing grins as he says, “Well, I had plans for working on making myself some equipment tonight… And I got Cookie to deal with tomorrow, but I don’t sleep much, so it’s up to you, really.”

A smile crosses her muzzle as she says, “What a coincidence, neither do I.”

While the conversation with Bottlecap had been enlightening, and spawned many ideas for what he could do with the current situation to try and break the status quo, it did take a while. And by the time he got back to Patches’ booth, once again in his cloak, she wasn’t too happy with him. Mainly because she’d thought he’d taken off without stopping by first. But, after buying a few items, he goes over how he was planning to manufacture himself a full-head helmet out of the various components that included: the helmet he’d left at the other vendor when he got distracted by the disgusting white buck, a collection of scrap electronics from common household items, the face and muzzle section of what used to be a Steel Ranger power armor helmet before something tore it to pieces, and a pair of sunglasses he’d picked up from a miscellaneous shop vendor that was a bit grumpy that all he’d bought from her was a cheap pair of glasses.

As he shows her his haul, Patches shakes her head and waves a hoof over all of it as she says, “I really don’t see how you’re plannin’ on makin’ a functional helmet like what you’re describin’ out o’ all o’ this… a bit o’ extra head armor, maybe. But fully functional?” She grabs the sunglasses and holds them up with her levitation field, rotating it in the space between them as she stares at it and asks, “And what the hell you gonna do with these?”

Gearing grins at her as he says, “You’d be surprised what I’m pretty good at jury-rigging together with parts. Trust me; I know what I’m doing. It’s not the first time I’ve had to improvise repairs.”

She sets the sunglasses back into his pile of supplies as she says, “Well, alright Mr. Knows-it-all… Tell ya what… you can use my equipment… and if you can get that thing workin’ like ya describin’, and show me... Well...” She looks at him and smirks as she says, “I’ll help ya find the rest of what ya need, free of charge! Cuz I don’t think ya can do it!” She reaches over and taps his shoulder as she says, “But if ya can’t you gotta draw me up some diagrams of that there ya wearin’.”

Gearing looks at her hoof on his shoulder then up at her as he asks with a raised eyebrow, “There a time limit on this?”

She waves it away. “How ‘bout a week? If ya need more parts, that’s fair, but don’t go tryin’ to buy another helmet and tryin’ to say you done made it. I’ll know!” She turns and starts walking away as she says, “I’ll go let the night detail know you’re cleared to use my equipment so they don’t shoot ya somethin’.”

Gearing chuckles as he sits down at the small work table with the little light on it. “That’d be appreciated… Thanks.”

She spins around and starts walking backwards as she calls after him as an after thought. “Oh! And I think I got a lead on a fire suit jacket… They’ll be gettin’ back with me tomorrow.” She spins back around and waves as she says, “Night!”

Gearing waves it away and gets to work. Not even an hour goes by before the tan mare security guard from that morning walks by with a set of rifles on her battle saddle. She pauses as she sees him hunched over the tiny table and asks, “Hey… Patches said you were working on something special… how’s it coming?”

Gearing turns to look at her, then holds up the mostly disassembled section of the face guard, with all of the plates removed to give access to the circuitry underneath. He holds it up to his own face, then taps on the side as he faces her. The lenses of the metal mask blink rapidly a few times, then glow a faint gentle red, looking out at her like they had red glowing eyes. “Decent progress. Thankfully what circuitry damage there was was so obvious it wasn’t hard to fix, instead of wasting tons of time trying to back trace minor faults in it.”

She blinks a few times at it and, after he clicks the button again to turn it off, shakes her head as she smiles. “Well, I hope that’s worth missing a night of sleep over, cuz she’s not going to let her booth be confiscated during normal open hours.”

Gearing nods as he goes back to working on the helmet pieces. “Oh, it’ll be worth it once it’s done. No problem there.”

She waves and leaves him to it as she continues doing a quick patrol of the floor.

The obnoxious white buck with the whiney voice, that’d been told to leave Megamart, sits on a wagon fender by his haunches in the alcove of a bombed out building. He and his four companions crowd around a small campfire as he tosses one small bit of wood after another into the fire grumpily. More as an idle act than feeding the fire. All while the Hoofington weather proves its disdain for surface life with a steady rain and random flashes of menacing lightening.

The black stallion in the brown duster takes his hat off and rubs his mane with a hoof as he says, “I hope we have enough supplies to get this done. I’m really tapped out.”

The brown buck to his right nods as he looks over at the white stallion, who is taking up almost one whole side of the fire himself as he sits with his back to the concrete wall of the alcove, and comments, “I just wish we could have got some decent food to go with all that ammo we bought.”

The white stallion looks over at them and tosses another stick in the fire as he stares out past his friends at the rainy night beyond. “We’ll have so much money we’ll be able to buy all the top notch food we want when this is over. We had to spend everything, or else we wouldn’t have been able to buy all that special ammo they had…” He lets out a sigh as he grumbles, “We didn’t get a whole lot to begin with, but something is bound to work on her.”

The white buck holds up a metal apple as he grins. “And the stun grenades weren’t cheap, but we only have to catch her with one to end this whole thing and start our own gravy train!”

The brown buck frowns as he asks, “That again? Seriously? You already got that one crazy looking buck pissed off at you over that.” He turns his head and looks over his shoulder at the darkness beyond the small firelight as he asks, “You sure we shouldn’t keep going?” The weather seems to agree with the ominous statement as a flash of light and a crack of thunder echoes out across The Hoof, lighting up the night sky before he can say anything else.

The white stallion shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “I’m not going any further in this shit ass weather. No point in getting sick.”

“But… what about-”

“He was just talking out his ass!” the white stallion cuts him off. “He probably wants the bounty for himself and was just trying to scare us away.” He waves a hoof dismissively, “I asked around, he was still hiding in the manager’s office when we left. We’ll be fine. He’s probably back there in a cot in Megamart pissing himself hoping we don’t come for him…” He nods as he says, “He’s probably thankful security showed up when they did before we did something. Chicken shit…”

The brown buck slowly shakes his head as he says, “I don’t think so… He was way too calm for that. Something’s up with that buck, I tell ya. We shouldn’t be just sitting here waiting on him to ambush us.”

The white stallion waves a hoof as he gives him a wide smile. “You woooorry too much. What the hell’s he going to do? Mean stare at us from under that ratty blanket of his? Couldn’t even afford a proper coat or cloak. Tell ya what… once we get the bounty, I’ll use part of my share and put a bounty on his ass, then he can see what it feels like to be Security for a bit.” He starts laughing as he waves his forehoof dismissively as the sky lights up from a lightning strike somewhere. “Trust me, that’s the last we’ll see of that dumbass!” The respectable micro explosion of thunder crashes against their eardrums and nearly drowns out the end of his sentence.

A crack sound comes from behind the white stallion as small fragments of cement scatter out and fall down behind him from an unseen source.

The white stallion’s forehoof flops down onto his hindleg, as the massive grin on his face slacks and he starts leaning backwards.

The brown buck starts straightening up as he asks, “Hey… you okay over-” He stops mid sentence as a trail of blood comes from under the white stallion’s mane’s long bangs, right between his eyes, and breaks around his muzzle into two separate streams as he starts falling backward off of the wagon fender. The sudden motion backwards exposes enough of his forehead in the campfire light that they can see the small circular red source of the blood stream currently covering the front of his face.

And after he’s slumped backwards entirely, and is no longer blocking their view, they get a clear picture of the concrete wall of the alcove behind him. It’s then that the source of the recent rock disturbance becomes clear as they see the bloody pockmark in the concrete surrounded by bits of the white stallion’s mane and gray matter.

The others jump to the ground and roll away from the fire as the black stallion screams, “Sniper!” They all start crawling around on their bellies, kicking and throwing things onto the fire to snuff it out and kill the light as they try to stay out of sight.

“Where’d that shot come from?!” the brown buck asks as he looks around in a panic.

“Hell if I know, I never heard the shot!” the black stallion replies.

After the fire’s out, they crawl around their small camp, and further into the alcove until they have managed to crawl into a pocket underneath a fallen concrete pillar and can be sure that no one could have a direct line of sight to them without making that turn. Which would let them see each other easily. They stay there all night, watching the white stallion’s body, as they dare not go to sleep for fear of whoever got their friend will get them in their sleep as well.

---

Footnote: Mass Augmentation thresholds set, please stand by. . .

Gravity Differential alignment at 50%

Gravity Differential alignment at 62%

Gravity Differential alignment at 75%

Next Chapter: 52 Learning Curve Estimated time remaining: 31 Hours, 57 Minutes