Swift wakes up and summons an instant frown across her muzzle. Before the sun has even thought about trying to start its daily grind of fighting the cloud cover in its bid to illuminate the surface. She quickly shuts off the annoying high pitch alarm screeching out of her PipBuck, that’s quickly getting on her nerves, and lets out a sigh as she stays lying on the pile of straw. Taking quick stock of where she’s at, she finds that she’d really rather not get up at the moment. With the comfortably warm straw supporting her weight under her, and practically swallowing her, she has a lot of delightful reasons to stay where she is. Especially the slowly breathing blue buck she currently has wrapped up in her forelegs as he’s peacefully sleeping. She lets out a sigh as she knows she needs to get going. They all need to get going. Yes, they have obligations to get to. Yes, there are those that are counting on them. But, in this moment, with her husband held so closely to her, the one thing that comes to the forefront of her mind has nothing to do with any of that. And everything to do with what she doesn’t feel at the moment.

Namely her three children so far away in Stable 68.

She can’t help but smile as she thinks of the last time she was in a similar position to how she is laying now. With Handy held close to her in a comfortable bed. But, her three children aren’t here this time. They aren’t clamoring over both of them, and snuggling in between them as they share in the mutual joy of their company. An adventure here and there, and getting to test her skills, and improve, is all good and well. But that’s not what’s making her wake up at the moment. That’s not what’s actively motivating her to get going now instead of snuggling into the straw more and dealing with everything later.

The need to get this over with, so she can get back to her family in Stable 68, kicks her into high gear as she realizes the sooner she gets this mess over with, the sooner she can get home.

But that doesn’t mean she can’t have fun along the way.

A smile crosses her muzzle, before she leans over and starts slowly nibbling on Handy’s ear. Ever so slowly. And, as he starts stirring, she escalates her affections until she’s kissing and nibbling her way down his neck and to his shoulder.

Handy takes in a deep breath and blindly gives her a slowly growing smile as he asks, “Swift, you trying to start something here?” Then he actively pulls her close as he leans in and gives her a few random kisses on whichever part of her he can reach at that given moment: causing him to trail kisses around on her shoulder and neck in the process.

“Mmmhmmm,” Swift says as she pulls back just enough to give him a full on lip mashing kiss.

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

She lets out a light snicker as she pulls back a bit. “Getting you up.”

Handy gives her a crooked smile as he says, “Yeah, well, congratulations… because I am… and it’s your fault.”

She giggles as she leans in and kisses him on the nose. “Oh, don’t I know it…” She gives him a kiss on the cheek before hopping up and away from the stack of straw. “Well, now that it feels like you’re entirely up and awake… I’ll go wake up Dandy so we can go.”

Handy flops into the straw and goes limp as he groans. “Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to wait until I’m not going to worry about tripping myself…” He chuckles before he says, “But you keep teasing me like this, and I’m gonna tie you up.”

Swift hops back over and manages to stealth kiss him right on the lips. “Go ahead, keep on threatening me with a good time.” She giggles before jumping back and away from him before he can grab her and pull her back into the straw pile.

She looks around in the dark loft of the barn and says quietly, “Just stay there… I got an idea.”

“Oh boy… I know that tone,” Handy says with a smirk as he simply relaxes back into the straw.

Swift hovers and flies closer to the second pile of straw, then lands as quietly as she can. She looks around, and makes sure Dandy is still where she is by keeping an eye on the blue indicator on her EFS. She quietly walks over to the stacked improvised wall of boxes and crates not far away, and hunkers down on the other side of it. After going perfectly still, she starts listening in the dark, focusing all of her attention towards the stack of straw that she’s sure Dandy is buried in.

Swift puts her forehooves up to her mouth, cupping it to try and magnify the sound in the direction she wants, and calls out with a sharp shrill cry that is such a perfect imitation of a fussy foal wailing in the night it would be excused if anyone thought she’d been using an audio recorder. And not simply her own memory and vocal cords. “Waaaaa wa wa waaaaa waaaaaa!”

Handy sits up instantly and looks around the pile of straw they’d slept in, in the direction of the noise as his ears twitch around.

“Na-wha-What?! What?! Fuck-nah-wha?!” Dandy screeches as she blows out of the pile of straw and sends fragments sailing in a variety of directions as she makes a crater in the middle as if a volcano had just exploded. She hits the floor of the loft on her hooves wide eyed with her tail standing straight out, spins around in the dark, then starts backing up, causing herself to involuntarily sit down before she starts kicking herself further backwards with all of her legs while still seated. “Wha?! No! Too soon, not now, what?! No!” After she scrambles back all the way to the wood frame of the barn’s roof, she looks around as she yells, “What the hell’s going on?!”

Handy uses his forehooves to hold his muzzle as tightly as he can to keep from laughing before he clears his throat and calls over to her. “Hey, Dandy, you okay?”

“Did you just hear that?!”

“Hear what?”

While Handy has Dandy’s focus, Swift hops up in the air and quickly flies low to the floor and back as she swings around the large straw stack and starts hiding there.

“A fucking baby! I just heard a fucking baby! I know I heard a foal crying!” Dandy yells as she looks around quickly.

Swift has tears in her eyes as she fights to keep herself from laughing. She swallows a few times before calling out with a choke that she tries to disguise with a cough, “Oh, y-yeah… I had dreams like that too… Don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal when you’re pregnant.”

Dandy pops up her little orb of light and runs around the loft, looking behind the boxes and inside of the crates. “Where’s that baby? I know I heard it!”

“In your tummy?” Swift offers helpfully as she covers her eyes with her forehooves and has a hard time breathing as she forces herself not to laugh.

“Nah, that’s bullshit!” Dandy starts hopping up and down before she walks over to the larger straw stack where Swift is hiding. “You know what?! You know that contest you two were going to have if we find out something happened to Lodestar?”

Handy peeks around the straw stack at her and raises an eyebrow as he asks, “Uh, yeah, what of it?”

“Well now it’s a three way, and I’m gonna kick both of your asses in it! I need something to kill!” She walks over to and down the stairs as she grumbles. “Motherfuckn’sonsabitchin piece of shit!”

Swift rolls over and yells out after her. “Oh, that’s okay, that’s just the mood swings, Dandy! That’s normal too!”

Dandy’s response is the light winking out as she lets out a string of unintelligible screeching at the universe.

Handy and Swift snicker as they hold each other and bury their laughter in each others necks.

“Well I’m fucking wide awake now. No way I’m getting back to sleep after this shit. Let’s get out of here!” Dandy calls as they can see her light spell kicking on again through the cracks of the floor boards.”

“Mission accomplished,” Swift says quietly with a grin.

A moment later Dandy yells up through the floor, “Would you two come on already!?” A loud knocking sound comes from the floor under them as Dandy uses her spell to pound on the wood of the loft’s floor from below. “I swear if you two start fucking, I’ll leave you here!”

“Alright, alright, don’t have to get your tail in a twist,” Swift says with a giggle as she hovers down from the loft with Handy following at a steady trot as he carries the lantern Exuberance had provided them. As he’s passing the fragment of the skywagon, he sets the lantern on it in the relatively same area that Exuberance had left it, but currently turned off, before he follows Swift to the barn’s front double doors.

Before they even get far from the hunk of rust in the middle of the barn, Dandy quickly pushes open one of the doors and walks out into the misty night as she circles around to the side of the barn.

Handy’s the last one out, and calls out to them in a loud whisper as he shuts the barn door, “Hey, hold up a minute.”

Dandy turns around with a scowl, and watches as Handy looks around, then starts circumventing the barn, only to start walking over to a small stack of crates and barrels next to the building. Handy turns and waves them over as he says, “It’s probably going to be a bit, lets fill up whatever we can with water so we’re not having to drink out of a toilet or something.” He looks through the inventory sorter of his PipBuck, then pulls out a small cloth bundle from the top of his saddlebag and sets it onto the crates with a familiar metallic jingle.

Dandy walks over and looks him and the bag over as she asks, “What’s the bag of caps for? There’s been more than enough rain, they said so themselves. And they already said you can have what you want.”

Handy grabs the ladle from the water bucket, and starts dolling out water from the rain barrel into various bottles he pulls out of his saddlebag. “Even if that were true, I’m not a thief. I haven’t had a chance to ask them if I can fill up my canteen before leaving, and I don’t want to wake them up just to ask.” He shrugs as he looks back and forth between Swift and Dandy. “Besides… Like we all know, they could really use the money.”

Swift grins widely, then walks up and starts kissing on his cheek and neck. “You know, Mr. Handy Hooves, you can be a real sweetie when you want to be.” She starts gently nibbling on his ear. “Mmmhmm delicious…”

Dandy can’t help but giggling as Handy gets flustered and even spills a bit of the water he’s scooping out. She quickly pulls out a few of her own, including some empty potion bottles, and sets them out for a quick fill up as well. Which Handy does quickly top off, and does the same with the containers Swift produces.

Once finished, and everything is stowed away properly, they go ahead and leave. But before doing so, and because Handy wanted to make sure the Roots knew what had transpired, he lays the water dipping ladle across the pair of bags of caps that they placed onto the crates that are next to the rainwater barrels. His hope is they’ll know what it was for. But, at the worst of it, they’ll simply find the bags of caps, one from him and one from Dandy, and not know why the money was left behind. Especially if the water levels in the rain barrel return to being completely full. Which, given Hoofington’s weather, especially around here lately, is a high probability.

They don’t get very far before Dandy drops the light spell, casting them into darkness, and they begin traveling slowly by carefully picking their way through the nighttime wastes.

The first indicator of the sun deciding to start to wake up was that their little search party could see what and where they were walking easier as the ambient light started increasing. They continue trotting along as they look around for anything out of the ordinary with Swift in the lead.

Regularly Swift checks her PipBuck map and compares it to the paper one that she’d drawn with the additional map details that Exuberance had expected Lodestar to take. It’s more than a little confusing to her, and at one point, where there is a seemingly massive arc and detour from what would normally be a straight line, she decides to try and figure out why Lodestar was so set on avoiding a certain collection of buildings.

So with the sky still pretty dark, Swift has the others continue on the way to the next point of the arc and takes flight. She flies straight towards the collection of buildings not far away, that they would be passing through if they were going straight to Stockyard without making the detours, and carefully zips around in the air. And, once she gets enough altitude to look over the collection of stone and brick buildings, or what’s left of them, she gets a perfect view of why Lodestar decided to avoid the place like it was ground zero for a detonation.

Because it looks like it was.

There’s a massive sinkhole that seems to have eaten up an entire industrial complex and the surrounding buildings. But, according to her PipBuck, it’s not as massively radioactive as it would be if it had received a direct hit. Although the hole’s not quite big enough for a balefire bomb blast anyway. But the devastation is undeniable. Around the periphery of the crater the buildings slowly tilt and teeter perilously towards the center of the hole. Even as she’s watching, she can see pieces falling off where some combination of rot, decay, gravity, or simply wind provides just enough force to make different things or pieces of buildings fall off and into the deep hole. From her best guess it’s either some kind of underground complex that caved in, or there was a natural pocket in the ground under the buildings that finally decided to stop supporting whatever it was holding up.

Regardless of the reasons, the center of the crater is one giant jumble of construction material, vehicles, furniture, and other items of ancient pony life all reduced to so much landfill garbage.

As Swift is trailing her eyes over the expanse of destruction her eyes are drawn to the far side where the crater has grown so large that it has completely eaten the buildings that were on that side of the hole. And, indeed, she can see where the growing sinkhole is in the process of trying to eat the street between it and the buildings on the other side of said street. She hovers there looking around carefully and her head suddenly jerks up higher to look at the building directly across the gap as something draws her attention. A moment later she cuts altitude, flies over to the building closest to her and makes her way to the other side of its roof.

She flies over to one of the many mostly broken walls, and hides behind it as she pokes her muzzle around just enough to see beyond and towards the other side of the crater again. Once in a position that she feels comfortable enough staying in, she trails her eyes over to the building she’d seen earlier, and carefully starts looking it over. After a few more moments she pulls back and groans as she says, to herself as no one else is around, “Well, fuck… maybe later…” Then she drops down and zips through the large holes in the buildings as she flies away and returns to Dandy and Handy.

As she’s coming in for a landing near the front, Dandy asks, “What’d you see? Any idea why Lodestar would make this detour? It’s a real time waster.”

Swift looks between them as she nods and points back towards where she’d come from as they are reaching the peak of the detour’s arc. “Giant ass sinkhole. The entire area’s unstable, it looks like it’s getting bigger by the second.”

Handy looks over in the direction of the buildings blocking the view to the hole and nods as he says, “As good of a reason to avoid it as I can think of too.”

“It gets worse,” Swift adds with a frown.

Dandy stops and looks between Swift and the crater’s location as she asks, “Worse? How worse? Like industrial waste ‘worse’? Pack of ferrals ‘worse’ or what?”

“Just don’t say-” Handy starts.

“Raiders,” Swift replies and, from the sudden extra sour look on Handy’s face it’s clear to everyone she’s simultaneously finished his sentence for him.

“Raiders?” Dandy asks as her ears perk up in alarm. “You sure?”

Swift nods as she points off towards the building she’d been spying on. “Yeah. It’s hard to miss their handy work. They have the place decorated up like some kind of macabre museum.”

Handy puts a hoof to his chin as he nods. “Yeah, the unstable ground would be bad enough, but having a raider nest near it?” He nods a few more times before tapping on the ground with a hoof. “That’d more than explain this ridiculous detour.”

Dandy looks around as she says quietly, “Yeah… that makes sense… but…” She trails off as she says, “I don’t know.”

Swift flutters over towards her and starts hovering in front of her face as she asks, “What’s up?”

Dandy looks between them then points towards the crater. “If Lodestar knew there was a raider nest there, I don’t see why he didn’t report it.” She looks back and forth again as she nods. “It’s typically common courtesy for the caravanners to share that kind of information so they know to avoid it so they don’t become some psycho’s midnight snack.”

“Maybe he didn’t bother because it’s on the way from Stockyard to the Roots’ place, and he didn’t figure it was relevant because practically nopony goes out that way,” Handy offers.

Dandy bobs her head around. “I guess that makes sense… But I’ll make sure to put in the report when I get back to Megamart. Don’t want someone to establish a new route only to get turned into a snacrifice.” She grins widely as she says, “Besides, someone might be willing to cough up some caps to have it cleared out, and that could turn into a very nice payday!”

Swift snickers as she shakes her head. “Is the only thing you think about is money?”

Dandy shrugs as she says with a grin, “Hey… a gal’s gotta eat.”

Swift smirks as she turns to look in the direction of the raider infested building in the distance. “Well, let’s get going. We’ll add them to the list and come back after we find Lodestar. Because I could really use the exercise.”

Handy hangs his head as he groans while continuing to follow Swift, “I hate raiders… soulless monsters…”

Swift hovers over near him and smiles as she says, “Hey, at least you won’t have anything to feel guilty about afterwards, right?”

Handy looks up at her with his eyes narrowed as he says bitterly, “We probably wouldn’t have to kill them if we could cure them. They aren’t in their right minds right now. It’s the disease; you know this better than anypony.”

Dandy rolls her eyes and waves it away with a hoof. “Wish all you want to, there’s no cure once somepony goes raider. There’s no coming back from it.” She shakes her head. “They eventually die from the disease itself, from an infection they get from not taking care of themselves, or from someone or something else killing them because they’ve gone so beastie that they don’t or won’t defend themselves properly.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Handy snaps at her as he gives her an exceedingly dark glare. One that doesn’t match his normal personality and disposition and causes Dandy to shift uneasily as she starts paying very careful attention to him.

Swift’s focus jumps from Dandy to Handy and she frowns as she lets out a sigh. She looks over at Dandy and says softly, “Actually… there is.”

Dandy’s eyes go wide as she looks between the two then stares at Swift. “Wait, what?! How do you know this? Where? Who did it?”

“I was infected,” Handy says bitterly as he closes his eyes and looks away. “It’s a fucking nightmare.”

Dandy looks at him and narrows her eyes as she says, “But… you don’t look it. How’d you-”

“Gearing cured Handy,” Swift adds as she lands next to Handy and starts nuzzling him.

Dandy’s eyes bug out as she blurts out, “Gearing?! How the hell would he know how to do something like that? You have any idea what a cure like that would be worth?!”

Swift looks at her and snaps, “There’s more important things than money you know!?”

Dandy shakes her head and waves it away as she says, “Forget that. Without raiders trying to eat everypony they can get their hooves on it’d free up resources to actually rebuild properly. Trade would be able to take place easier. Lives would be saved!” She looks between them and raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Why the hell would he keep something like that to himself? Why didn’t he at least talk to Bonesaw about it? Hell, the Collegiate would probably pay him for the information if that’s what it would take to get him there.” She shakes her head quickly as she says, “Something just doesn’t add up…”

Handy shrugs. “Don’t try to understand the mind of a machine, they aren’t ponies and don’t value pony lives like we do.” He waves it away. “It’s all math and calculations to them. For some reason he’s decided not to share it.” He shrugs again. “He’s obviously bugged and broken but there’s no fixing him.”

Swift opens her mouth to say something but is interrupted by a screech from Dandy before she gets the chance to utter anything.

“Ex-cuuuse the fuck out of me, but who are you to deny his equinity?” Dandy demands as her eyes narrow at Handy.

Handy rolls his eyes as he directs his focus elsewhere. “Oh goddesses another one…” He waves a hoof weakly at Dandy and says with a blatantly condescending tone, “Look, I’ve had the same arguments with Gearing himself. And I’m tired of it, okay? A machine is a machine and it doesn’t matter how good the programming is, that is all it is and all it ever will be. Nothing more.” He waves her away with a hoof again before he adds, “I don’t care how good he is at plowing fields, it’s just in his programming, nothing to do with feelings. You wouldn’t call a PipBuck a pony, and it’s hella smarter than most ponies I know… so I don’t see what the hang up is on calling him what he is… a machine.”

“He’s not a machine!” Dandy retorts.

“The hell he’s not!” Handy replies as he looks at her. “I mean just taking one look at him and you can tell that; how could you possibly be confused? It’s not even a pony-like protectapony. He’s gotta be an early model or something.”

“Oh what the fuck… You just looked at him and just decided he’s a machine? I’ve done a hell of a lot more than just look, so I know!” Dandy says with a scowl.

Handy slaps a hoof over his face as he groans, “I don’t need to know about your masturbation habits with a robofetish, alright? Keep that shit to yourself.”

Dandy’s left eye starts twitching as she growls at him, “I meant talking to him, you simple minded jackass!”

Handy’s hoof slides down his face enough to look at her as he says flatly, “I’ve talked to him repeatedly, what about it? It’s always arguments and bullshit…”

“Machines don’t feel pain,” Dandy yells at him as she rears up and comes back down with both forehooves to smash the ground as she hops closer to him.

“Of course they do, they have their own damage indicators so they know when they need repairs,” Handy says with a rolls of his eyes.

Dandy sits down and stares at him as she says, “No, that’s a damage indicator. That’s not a sensation of pain.” She looks between the two and asks, “How many AI do you actually know. Have you ever even met any?”

Handy and Swift share eye contact for a moment as they try to figure out how to answer the question without giving too much away.

“Two,” Swift blurts out. “We’ve only met two.”

“Not including Gearing,” Dandy adds.

“One then,” Handy says as he follows Swift’s lead. “A Stable Tec AI that got herself a protectapony body. Why?”

“Because I’ve seen and know of several…” She waves off to the east as she says, “There’s Cerberus over in Meatlocker… While I wouldn’t trust him without his combat inhibitor, he’s still pretty loyal and, although he comes across as an absolute jackass, he’s still pretty decent overall… Then there’s a sentinel away far down south on the grounds of an old mansion. He constantly patrols the grounds, but doesn’t hurt anyone if he doesn‘t have to.” She smiles as she says, “He’s actually pretty sweet. He has his own flower garden that he tends to between patrols and he’s even been known to give a fresh flower to those he likes every now and then…” She shakes her head as she says, “And there’s several others I’ve run into with merchants, Steel Rangers, and others…” She raises a hoof as she says, “But out of every single one I’ve known, can you guess how many can sense pain? I mean true pain?” After a moment of not getting a reply, she continues, “Zero. Not a fucking one of them. They all know when they’ve been damaged, and at the worst of it it’s an annoyance for them. But that’s it. It doesn’t cause problems and they don’t have dread about getting injured. They don’t avoid injury and take longer to do a task simply to avoid injury, because they know they can just fix themselves afterwards. It’s not really an issue for them. It’s an inconvenience.”

“What are you talking about?” Handy asks with a raised eyebrow and a clueless expression across his face.

Dandy takes in a deep breath as she closes her eyes. She opens them and asks, calmly, “If a pony gets injured, and loses a leg, and they can’t heal him… So he ends up with a prosthetic… is he still a pony?”

Handy frowns as he says, “Yeah, they are. I know some look at it otherwise, but that’s just being a dick about it. He’s still a pony at heart.”

Dandy nods before she asks, “And how far does a pony have to go with prosthetics, how many do they have to have, before you no longer consider them a pony?”

Handy’s eyes go wide as he says, “They’re still a pony… it doesn’t matter. They were born a pony, they’re still a pony at heart.”

“So even if they’ve lost their entire body? To war, injury, disease, whatever? If they’ve lost everything. Whether all at once or as time went on, they’re still a pony?”

Handy nods and actually gets an indignant look across his face as he says, “Of course they are; why would you treat somepony like that just because of their misfortune or what they’ve been through?”

“Then why do you treat Gearing like a machine?!”

“Because he is!” Handy says with an overly exasperated tone of voice.

Dandy stares at him for a few moments, before looking back and forth between him and Swift. “No Handy… he’s not.” Her horn glows and in front of her a glowing number ‘1’ pops up in between them. “First, he actually feels pain… I’ve been with him when he’s been shot and burned. And it hurt him. A lot. But he fought on anyway. And, afterwards, he had to stop and recoup. A machine wouldn’t do that, they’d just carry on and repair along the way to their next task.” A number ‘2’ pops up next to the ‘1’. “Secondly, healing potions actually work on him… Tell me, when was the last time a skywagon busted and broke down, and you could just pour a healing potion on it, and it actually fixes itself…. Never, right? That’s because healing magic doesn’t work on machines.” She taps on the ground repeatedly. “But they work on Gearing!”

A glowing number ‘3’ pops up as the first two numbers slide to the side so it can take center stage. “Thirdly, his PipBuck?” She points at the ones Swift and Handy are wearing. “It actually shows his current relative health and it updates in real time.”

Swift looks at her and raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Okay, how do you know that? He’s really secretive about his PipBuck.”

Dandy looks at her deadpan and replies, “Because after fucking me into a delightfully buttery puddle of bliss, he cuddled with me. And even though I couldn’t really move and, as giddy as I was, I kept asking to make sure he was okay. And to shut me up he let me see his PipBuck’s health monitor.” She looks over at Handy and narrows her eyes as she says, “And, I was actually right. It ratted on him that he was still injured. But, as I watched, it was monitoring how quickly he was healing. And, in some cases, I could feel his body bend back into shape as the monitor showed the same thing. And, in case you didn’t know, a PipBuck doesn’t monitor machine health. Machine maintenance systems see it as damage, and have very limited separations between different classification.”

A large number four pops up in between her face and Handy’s as she says, “And lastly… He has fucking implants.” She stares at him for a few moments in silence before saying, “Machines don’t have implants. They have components. They have upgrades. Gearing has actual implants.” She taps on the ground a few times before she says, “And, to make matters worse, they aren’t all working. He wouldn’t say how many he has, or which ones aren’t working, but from what I’m getting I bet it’s several. And, most likely, very important ones.”

Handy looks her over and says softly, “That’s…. that’s bullshit… no way.”

Dandy leans towards him as she says softly, “I bet if his skin implant was still working, you wouldn’t be saying such stupid shit about him… because then he’d look like a pony at least.” She pulls back and says with a biting snarl, “Since that’s all you seem to pay attention to: looks.”

Swift crosses her forelegs as she asks, “Wait, hold on, time out.” She looks between them then leans towards Dandy as she asks, “What do you mean, ‘skin implant’? He’s never had one of those.”

Dandy looks at her and narrows her eyes before she asks, “And how long have you known him?”

“About three weeks,” Swift replies.

“About a month,” Handy says at the same time.

Dandy looks between them then leans in and asks softly, “You do realize he’s over two hundred years old… right?”

Handy and Swift share sideways glances as Handy says, “Well… that’s… I mean…”

“Gearing had said his implants were knocked out by some kind of weapon, and they haven’t all come back online yet,” Dandy adds. She shrugs as she says, “I don’t entirely get it, but he said something about his systems getting gummed up and having a hard time purging whatever it is out… and he explicitly mentioned his skin implant being one of the ones that’s not currently working.”

“Why’s that sound familiar?” Handy asks as he looks at Swift.

Swift lets out a sigh as she looks at him. “Because he’d said damn near the same thing to us before… remember? On the way to Megamac? When he almost fell on his face?”

“Oh…” Handy replies as his eyes start slowly growing in size.

“Yeah,” Dandy adds as she pulls back and stares at him for a moment. “So, you already knew… yet you still have been treating him like this?” She shakes her head. “Damn, it’s a good thing he’s not the violent vindictive type or he’d have probably killed you for constantly calling him a machine.” She shrugs. “If I was in his position, I probably would have already done it… It’s gotta suck bad enough being what he is… but having dumbasses constantly questioning his equinity?” She shakes her head. “Damn… a pony can only take so much of that shit before snapping.”

“What do you mean, ‘being what he is’?” Handy asks as he’s struggling to come to terms with what he’s hearing.

Dandy stares him in the eye, slowly narrowing her focus as she tries to will the information into his thick skull. “That Gearing is a pony… A cyber-pony… That he’s been through some deepest level of Tartarus type shit during the war that’s resulted in him getting so massively augmented.” She turns her head and snorts as she says, “I bet they used to consider him a hero back then. Considering what he’s survived and had to of done to warrant such massive augmentation…” She waves a hoof weakly at Handy as she adds, “They wouldn’t have wasted so much tech on some nopony, so he had to be somepony of importance to justify the expense.”

Handy slowly sits down as he says, “That… that does make sense…” He looks over at Swift and raises an eyebrow as he asks, “Why didn’t he just say so? Why come up with that other nonsense?”

Dandy leans towards Handy and asks softly, “Tell me… How’d you start treating him when you first met him? Did you treat him like a pony, or like a machine that you could do what you wanted with and then just get pissy when it didn’t do as it was told? Did you treat him with some common civility, or like a slave? How about some basic goddess damned respect?” She waves a hoof at him limply, “I mean, I can guess the answer, based on your attitude, but maybe you should think about that. And, any problems you two have, think it through entirely, and how you’ve been treating him.” She sits back and puts a hoof to her chest as she closes her eyes and says softly, “Because when I first met him, I just talked to him normally. Struck up a conversation. And I found him to be a perfectly enjoyable equine for company and conversation.” She shrugs and waves the same hoof around as she adds, “And all it took was treating him with the same civility I’d give anypony else…”

Dandy stares at Handy, as he’s looking at the ground and trying to process everything. “Let me put it to you this way…” When Handy looks up at her, Dandy adds, “Gearing only has a problem with ponies that he has a problem with… Raiders, slavers, people trying to kill him or those around him… that sort of thing… so if you two are having a problem… maybe you should ask yourself why… because chances are, it’s on your side of things, not Gearing’s.”

She looks away and waves a hoof as she says quickly, “And no, I’m not simply saying that because he practically plowed me into a coma… I’ve had sex with assholes before, and I still call them out on their bullshit… sex is sex and it has nothing to do with sudden loyalty to them.”

“Uh huh… like who?” Swift asks with a smirk.

Dandy bobs her head around as she thinks. “Well, Starshine’s a perfect example. Hell, we still shack up every now and then even though they’re a manipulative condescending fuckwad.”

Handy looks at her and asks, “And just why would you keep going back to somepony like that? What’s he do, manipulate you into it?”

Dandy looks at him, then over at Swift and gives a mischievous grin as she says, “Starshine? Well she’s very good at being manipulative… and not just mentally, I mean she’s flexible enough that she can reach around back-”

Handy uses one forehoof to slap across his face and the other to wave at her quickly as he says, “Okay, okay, I get it… yesh.”

Dandy leans towards Handy and says softly, “Look, I don’t blame you for not wanting to listen to me because we’d just met… But you really should think things through regarding Gearing.” She pulls back and waves a hoof. “But, how are you going to feel about yourself when, and if, later on you find out I’m right?” She partially closes her eyes as she asks, “Didn’t you just comment about how it’s not right to treat somepony like that because of the misfortune they’ve been through? Well, you’ve been doing exactly that.” She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath before she says, “Look, I’m not trying to put you down or anything… You don’t even have to like Gearing, if your personalities are just butting heads like that… But… you owe it to yourself to sit down and have an actual conversation with Gearing. Find out what he’s really like. If you have to, pretend you’re talking to somepony inside of a set of power armor… Just treat him with the same level of civility that you give others, and I promise you, you’ll meet a Gearing you didn’t even know existed.”

Handy lets out a sigh before he asks, “And how do I owe it to myself? Why’s that so important?”

Dandy shrugs. “Maybe it’s not. But, I’ll tell ya, Gearing’s one hell of a great friend to have on your side.” She puts a hoof to her chest and says, “He jumped into oncoming fire, and used his own body to shield me from Cookie’s flamer… Despite how much it hurt him.” She tilts her head and asks softly, “Tell me… have you given him any reason to be willing to do the same for you?”

Handy looks at the ground as he says lamely, “That still doesn’t explain keeping the cure to himself though…”

Swift steps next to him, and envelopes him with a wing as she starts nuzzling his neck. “Handy… He only had enough for one dose…” Handy practically turns to stone as his eyes go wide. Swift nuzzles him some more as she says quietly, “There was only enough material in the lab to make a single dose…” She shakes her head and buries her face in his neck as she says, “He doesn’t know where to get the rest of the ingredients, and doesn’t even know what they are called. I don’t know all of the specifics behind it, but if he ever gets the right materials he can make more… As far as I know he’s been constantly looking wherever he goes.” She shrugs lightly, “And he won’t know it until he finds it and examines it.”

Dandy looks at her for a moment as she raises an eyebrow. “That’s weird… though I suppose if he’d found it once, he could find it again…” She shrugs. “And without actually having the cure, no one would believe him about it, and he probably knows this.” She runs a hoof through the mane on the back of her head as she sighs, “So he’s probably keeping his mouth shut until he can prove it… no reason to get everypony pissed off at him because he can’t deliver on such a promise.”

She sits down and starts tapping on her muzzle as she says softly, “Though that explains why he went ballistic when we found that raider nest… He’d already run into it before and didn’t want it to spread…”

Handy looks over at her and asks, “What do you mean? What’d he do?”

Dandy looks at him and gives a sheepish grin as she says, “He kind of… uh… turned the entire building into a crematorium… Incinerated the whole lot of them at once.”

Swift smirks as she looks in the direction of the sinkhole crater. “Well, maybe we can have Gearing help us out with that building then. Ask for some of his patented advice and just call it a day next to the bonfire.”

Dandy looks between them. “You’re not going to feel morally conflicted knowing there’s a cure?”

Handy looks at her and gives her a crestfallen expression as he says quietly, “As somepony who’s been through it… I can tell you… I’d rather be dead than be infected with that shit. If there’s no cure, which without the supplies there isn’t… it’s kinder to put them down instead.”

Dandy nods as she turns and starts walking along the path again. “Well, that’ll be helpful.” She smiles over her shoulder at Handy as she says, “Hey, think of it this way, you and Gearing can bond over the campfire.”

Handy scrunches up his nose and mouth to the side as he says with disgust, “I’d rather a campfire I’m sitting near not involve burning corpses… I don’t think that’s an atmosphere I’d want to use to try and get all chummy with someone around.”

Swift and Dandy snicker as they continue on along the path laid out by Exuberance.

A short time later, when they are coming down the other side of the detour’s arc, Dandy lets out a groan as she swears, “Awwwww fuck.”

Swift flies up from where she’d been talking to Handy and hovers over her as she asks, “What’s up?”

Dandy stops in her tracks and points off not far in front of them as she asks, “Somewhere around here is where we’re supposed to be going through, right?”

Swift hovers in front of her, and looks where she’s pointing as she says, “Yeah, why are you- fuck…” She finishes with a mutter.

Handy starts walking closer as he asks, “What’s going on?”

“Stay right there, Handy!” Swift commands as she points a hoof blindly in his general direction. But, despite getting a sour look on his face, he does actually comply.

Though he also expects an answer pretty damn quick.

And he gets it as Dandy’s horn glows and, not far ahead in the dead grass, a traffic cone gets lifted up in the air. And, under the traffic cone, is a nice collection of grenades, with a wire connected from them and leading to a pile of bricks on the other side of the barely worn path.

Swift starts flying and hovering over the area in general as she says, “Yeah, this area’s booby trapped pretty good…” She flies a bit more to the group’s left and her legs hang down limply as she lets out a sigh. “Yeah… and there’s a lot of blood over here… like… way too much blood for anypony to walk away from under their own power… and pieces of clothing and other small bits of gore.” She hovers in the air, getting as close to the ground as she can without touching down as she adds, “I see ammo casings, and other signs of a fight too… Yeah, this was some kinda ambush.”

Dandy carefully takes apart the grenade bouquet, and puts each newly acquired metal apple in her bag after making sure all of the stems are properly secured and attached. “Any idea how long ago it’s been?”

Swift pulls back a bit higher as she bobs her head around. “Rain aside, even with it getting spread out, it still changes color and coagulates… From the color and look of it… I’d say a couple days, max, no more.” She slowly starts turning and following a set of drag marks in the dead vegetation where bits of plants are smeared with blood here and there and the vegetation has been bulldozed over by something getting dragged over the ground.

“Don’t tell me…” Handy says with a groan as he watches Swift fly through the air.

Swift lifts her head up and looks in the general direction of the trail as a frown crosses her muzzle. “Afraid so...”

Dandy follows the direction both of their muzzles are pointed and lets out a sigh as she says, “Fucking raiders…”

Swift shrugs as she says, “Well, looks like they’ve been pushed up higher on our priority list.”

Handy looks at her and raises an eyebrow as he asks, “What makes you think this was the caravan? Or that he’s even still alive, if it’s not?”

Dandy looks at Handy and grins as she asks, “Does it matter? I mean, this can’t just be a big coincidence. Considering the timing, location, etcetera. But, even if it’s not, it’s the strongest lead we have now. And, if he’s dead, well…” She shrugs as she looks up at Swift. “I believe we agreed on a competition on how many skulls we could pop?”

Swift smirks as she flies around in figure eight patterns above them. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Handy points off towards the sink hole in the distance as he asks, “Well, how are we getting over there? They probably have traps going this whole way.”

Swift nods as she looks around. “Yeah, I wouldn’t doubt it.” She points back the way they had come. “Let’s go back and skirt around the sink hole. We should be able to come at them from a safer angle that way.”

Handy’s eyes go wide as he asks, “D- didn’t you say the whole area was unstable?”

Dandy starts walking by him, going towards the way they’d come, as she asks, “Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained… right? Besides, I really need to kill something right now…”

Swift giggles as she flies past Handy, and directs her muzzle towards him while keeping her eyes trained on Dandy, and says mischievously, “Yeah, those mood swings can be such a bitch, can’t they?”

Dandy hops up in the air and lets out a high pitched squeak before she comes down and slams her forehooves in the ground. She starts stomping with each hoof as she says repeatedly, “Killkillkill killkillkill!” and starts marching away with a scowl on her face.

After carefully getting out of the ambush zone by having Swift lead the way back where they’d come from, the group suddenly changes course in towards the sinkhole just past the apex of the detour’s arc. She continues leading the way by hovering just off the ground as she carefully keeps an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

Which is a slow grueling process given the amount of rubble, debris, and out right trash littered everywhere. Anything that looks like it is large enough to hold a mine, grenade, or other type of bomb gets lifted or moved by Dandy at a distance using her levitation field. And Dandy is more than happy to comply. As it’s not only a matter of general safety, but the couple fragmentation mines that she uncovers, then disarms, make for welcome job bonus pay.

While walking through an alleyway between the buildings that are blocking their view of the raider nest Swift is taking them to, and the buildings blocking their view of the constantly growing closer sinkhole, Swift decides to take another route.

The alleyway ahead continues to narrow with various junk and debris, and some of it doesn’t look as incidental as she would otherwise like. She especially doesn’t like the random refrigerator sitting there with its door closed and pushed up next to a dumpster. She could fly up and over it, but two of the group are bound to the ground, and there’s no telling what might be over there. So she opts for caution.

A move that is praised by Handy as they turn and head into the stone building through a back door that’s missing it’s actual door.

Once inside of the old building, they quickly look around to decide which way they should go. Water damage has made part of the wall separating this old shop from the one next door fall down around the middle point. Making the closed and, oddly, locked door right next to it not only unnecessary but completely useless. Whatever was in the shop for sale some two centuries before is completely unknown as the metal shelves, at least what are left, are entirely bare. As they are passing through it, Dandy makes a quick detour to the counter along the left wall as Handy and Swift go towards the hole in the wall on the right.

A musical chiming sound echoes out, and draws both of Handy and Swift’s attentions as they are climbing the rubble pile that marks the path into the next building.

Dandy gives them a sheepish grin as she’s hovering a bobby pin and screwdriver in the air in front of herself. She quickly stows them, then hovers out the contents of the cash register as the other two stare at her in disbelief. After floating the bits, pair of bobby pins, and a pack of two century old gum out of the cash register and into her bag, she starts following them into the next building. “Hey. It’s here. I’m here. That can’t be a coincidence,” she says with a growing grin as she’s climbing up and over the rubble pile after them.

“You know, if you loot everything on the way in, you might be too bogged down to run away if we run into some real trouble,” Swift says with a smirk.

Dandy grins at her and shrugs as she says, “Hey… the day I find something in a cash register that’s so heavy, that it makes me have a problem walking… is the day I fucking retire… Because the only way I’m carrying something so heavy is if it’s actually worth the weight… So, yes, please, let me find a giant mound of gold. I will gladly suffer through such hardship!”

They share a snicker as they continue through the shop next door, but then Swift zips over and wraps a hoof around Handy’s neck, putting him into a chokehold as she pulls him back into an unwilling reared up position. His eyes bug out and he starts kicking feebly as he gurgles and chokes as he’s steadily pulled up and backwards and almost flat on his back. After actually getting him on his back, at her hindhooves, she lessens her grip and he chokes and yells, “The hell was that for?!”

“She just saved your life… You need to be more careful, Handy,” Dandy says as she trots over quickly and looks at the doorway that Handy was just about to enter. Handy looks over at her as he slowly rubs his neck with a forehoof and arcs an eyebrow. As he’s watching, Dandy’s horn glows and a matching overglow comes from the other side of the door as a few mechanical noises squeak out. A moment later she hovers in a double barreled shotgun from the other side of the door that had been attached to the wall, and sets it at their hooves. A moment later she disconnects the tensioning mechanism that had been connected to the trip wire that was laying across the threshold that Handy was about to set off.

As Handy’s eyes bug out, and he’s shocked enough that he pauses rubbing his neck, he stares at the device that had been set up to shoot someone in the head if they walked through.

Dandy starts stowing the items as she says softly, “Ya need to watch where you’re going through here. Walk slower if ya have to. These things aren’t anypony’s friend.”

Handy frowns and looks away as he says softly, “My eyes aren’t as good as Swift’s. She’s always had good vision.”

Swift pulls him up into a seated potion, then leans over and gives him a soft sweet kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I got you…” She gives him another kiss before she smirks. “I told you a while ago, I’d take care of you.” She helps him up to his hooves and grins as she says, “No one’s aloud to take you out but me.”

Handy smirks and rubs his neck some with a hoof before he asks, “Couldn’t you have just said something instead of trying to string me up with your forelegs?”

Swift reaches over and gently rubs his mane, slowly becoming more abrasive as she says, “Didn’t have time for you asking ‘Why?’ first, so no.”

The pair stare at each other and start snickering before they continue on and begin picking their way through the slowly crumbling buildings. Again Swift takes the lead as she keeps an eye out for traps and tripwires in the dim light inside of the building. They end up having to wind up and through a few of the floors in some instances to find the next crossing point without going outside otherwise. And after more time than they’d thought they’d have to spend just to get there, they make their way out of one of the more intact structures, and into a building that has already mostly collapsed and disappeared.

Most of it is hollowed out and only the outside shell remains, and even that isn’t entirely whole as the southeast corner has entirely fallen down and collapsed into a pile of blocky rubble.

Dandy looks back through the collapsed wall, out into the massive sinkhole not far away, and asks, “Well, what do you guys wanna do from here?”

Swift looks across the street at the old government building four stories tall and lets out a sigh. “Yeah, we probably want to figure that out now…”

“That is a lot of red,” Handy mutters as he turns his head back and forth and peeks out from their current vantage point at the same building Swift is looking at.

Dandy turns back towards them and floats out the pack of gum she’d claimed from the cash register and pops one of the pieces in her mouth as she looks across the street. Before she even starts chewing she comments, “Definitely raiders too, judging by their choice of decorations.”

Handy looks at her and the pack of gum, before he asks, “You seriously going to eat that?”

Dandy looks at him and asks with a grin, “Why? Want a piece?”

Handy gets a disgusted look on his face, and shakes his head as he pulls away from her.

Swift grins at her and raises a hoof, getting a piece of bubblegum magically flicked into her mouth in return.

Swift and Dandy sit there chewing gum as they slowly look the building over, and Handy looks at them with an incredulous scowl.

Dandy slowly blows a bubble, lets it pop, and then pulls it back in to continue chewing. After a few vigorous chomps she says, “Either that place is packed to the gills with raiders, or it’s going to be a wide open space full of them that’s going to make it a massive battleground…” She looks across the street where a park bench has been up righted, and somepony has been splayed out on it, with their body, what’s left of it anyway, pinned to the table with spikes made of rebar. The guts of the buck or mare, it’s impossible to tell from what’s left, have been spread out and hang around like garlands from one spike to the next. Though the majority of the flesh seems to have been removed from the body before it was strung up and it’s mostly a rotting skeleton at this point.

“I don’t need your fancy PipBucks to tell me this place is absolutely lousy with raiders…” She chews a few more times slowly, deliberately, as she says in a groaning tone, “This is gonna be fuuuuun.”

Swift pops a bubble before she asks, “Hey, I thought you wanted in on the contest, you’re not getting cold hooves now are ya?”

Dandy grins at her as she says, “No way. I’m just not a fan of potentially going against more raiders than I’m prepared to handle.” She pops a gum bubble before she says slowly as she tries to do the mental math, “I’m not sure I brought enough ammo with me for this…”

Swift looks at her sideways and grins as she says, “Well, that just means me and Handy will be taking care of more… If you can’t take the rest of them on, that gives us a bit of an advantage, then. Doesn’t it?”

Handy pulls out his Proditor’s Gladius and looks at it as he says, “Well, thanks to those Wild Ones, I have plenty of 12.7mm ammo for my pistol. So there’s that at least.”

“Not going to just crush their head in with that mallet of yours?” Dandy asks as she points at Handy’s custom pneumatic massive hammer on his back.

Handy bobs his head around. “It’s great for a couple at once, but I have no intention of getting swarmed and eaten alive. Besides, this’ll let me fight on the run if I need to.” He looks over at the building and lets out a sigh. “Something tells me there’s going to be a lot of running and fighting coming soon.”

The other two look at the building and nod simultaneously in agreement as they slowly examine the building turned macabre museum.

Handy takes in a deep breath and says softly, “With all of these raiders, I just wish we had a way to thin them out. There’s no way we’re going to be able to just sneak in, get Lodestar, if he’s in there, and get back out without fighting them. And once we start it, it’s going to be one hell of a party. They’re like roaches and will be coming out of the woodwork…” He sighs as he says, “We just need them all gone. Maybe find a way to get rid of them all.”

Dandy’s apple flavored bubblegum bubble prematurely pops, and her eyes jump to their max size in sync with both Handy and Swift’s, as a breathy synthetically modulated voice speaks from mere feet right behind them.

“Somepony call for an exterminator?”

---

Footnote: ‘credential matrix’, sync failure. Retrying. . . please stand by. . .. .

Error . . .

Fragmentation errors in ‘credential matrix’ detected . . .

Error . . .

Parity check failure . . .

!!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

Next Chapter: 62 Justice or Just Us Estimated time remaining: 23 Hours, 38 Minutes