CHAPTER 5: A Town Called Goodsprings

Slipper was lounging casually on the desk as we walked back into the facility’s lobby. She stared intently at a pre-war book laid out in front of her. She addressed us without looking up from the pages. Her tone was incredibly casual.

“Welcome back,” she said and flipped a page in the book.

“We got the schematic,” I told her, “And a little thing for ourselves.” Slipper looked up from her book as the sound of Thirteen’s legs scraping against the tiled floors entered the room.

“Huh...” she gaped, open mouthed at the robot.

“Yeah, this is Thirteen. We found him deep inside,” I told her. Slipper managed to shut her mouth after that. A few seconds passed and she shook her head a little. Seeming to come to her senses she reached into one of the saddlebags that laid next to the desk. From it she produced a small box with a couple of wires sticking out.

“Well isn’t that, er, interesting.” Slipper motioned for me to come closer. As I did she dropped down from the desk and pulled at the PipBuck. Before I could protest she had the small box plugged in and was messing around with the controls.

“Hey,” I blurted out.

She hushed me and said, “I’m getting the schematics off, relax.” I let her do her work and a minute later she had taken off the box the backed away. She turned away from us briefly and stowed the box safely in her bag. After she closed her bag, she looked back and placed a small pouch in front of us. “Here’s your one hundred caps. Thanks for your trouble.”

“Okay,” I said as I picked up the pouch of caps. “I’ve got a question about those schematics. Iron Giant doesn’t really sound like a sprite-bot.”

“Well, be that as it may, it really isn’t any of your business.”

“Hey, we almost died for that thing,” I told her, raising my voice.

“Yeah, we did,” Rimfire spoke up, her voice uneasy.

“Regardless, it really is none of your business. Now to conclude our business, I’ll lead you out.” Slipper put her bag over her back and began to walk out the door through the mine.

“Wait,” I called out to her.

She turned slowly, her smile having faded from her mouth. “What?” she asked.

“Who do you work for?”

“I work for the Kid and his gang,” Slipper said nonchalantly. She hurried to get us out of the mine. As soon as we got outside, Slipper’s posse assembled together and they left us, Slipper waving goodbye as they walked off. The mine door clattered with the wind against the frame as we stood there in the valleys, looking at the red, dusty hills.

“What do we do now?” Thirteen asked.

“Let’s work on heading up the Galloping Stretch,” I told him.

Rimfire and I began to pick our way out of the hills and back onto the road. Thirteen’s steps began tentative and slow, but eventually he was able to keep up with us.

As the hills started to thin and the Galloping Stretch came into view, Thirteen spoke up.

“Why do we go up the road?” He asked.

I turned my head back to him and cocked a slight smile. “Oh yeah, I suppose I should tell you. Rimfire and I are on our way to find a misplaced package that seems to be causing quite a stir in New Pegasus.”

“Why do you want to be a part of that?” He asked.

The concrete of the highway began a small ways ahead as I spoke back to Thirteen, the hills having finally given way to the plains of the wastes. “Well it seems like a good way to make a few caps, my friend.”

Thirteen could hardly contain a scoff. “It also sounds like a good way to die.” Thirteen stopped and stared at the wastes ahead of us as he crested the last hill, his head downcast. “So this... is what it looks like.”

“What?” Rimfire asked.

“This is my first time being outside, Rimfire, in almost 200 years.”

“What was it like?” I asked Thirteen. “Knowing what was happening outside?”

Thirteen was slow to reply to me. “At first it was terrible, after the scientists all died I was the only one left. I thought I was the only one left in the world. Eventually my mind turned inside and I forgot the outside world. Only when you came in did I wake once more.”

“That’s terrible,” I said bluntly.

“It was terrible, but I’ve had my time to mourn. Now it’s time for me to live.” The dusty highway stretched on an on towards the horizon as Rimfire, Thirteen, and I took our final steps towards the grey, concrete top. “As my memory returns, I remember how this place used to look.”

“Thirteen,” I began to speak, “what do you plan to do now?”

He didn’t speak for a while. “If I had to do something,” he said, “I’d see how the world changed. There really isn’t much out there for a robot spider.”

“What about your family? Don’t you want to know what happened to them?”

“I know what happened,” he said solemnly. “They died, and 200 years later, I’m still alive. Now I must move on.”

“But-” I started to say, Thirteen cut me off.

“What do you want to do, Rimfire? You haven’t spoken much.”

“Me?” she asked. Thirteen managed a small nod. “Well let’s see.” Rimfire’s voice was full of venom. “Short never really asked me what I wanted to do, so I’ve got to think on it. Ah, yes, I know. I’d like to just survive. Not being killed by some mangy robot or big ants or even by another pony would be peachy.”

“What the hell, Rimfire?” I asked incredulously. “You getting scared or something? You going soft on me?”

“Fuck off, Short,” she muttered.

“What’s your deal, Rimfire? Everyone’s going just fine! There’s nothing we can’t handle in these wastes!”

Rimfire jammed a hoof into the dirt. “You stupid cunt! What the fuck is wrong with you? That security robot almost killed me!”

“There is no almost! It did or it didn’t, Rimfire.”

“You’re an ass,” she muttered barely above a whisper. RImfire put her head down and picked up a slower trot.

“I take it you two aren’t love-birds,” Thirteen commented.

I sighed. “Not so much, Thirteen.” I paced a little to catch up to him. “Why don’t you tell us what you want to do?”

“I want to see what changed,” he said flatly.

“What changed?” I asked.

“Already the land is so different from what I used to know. What happened to my home? My friends? I lived in the San Palomino my entire life. This is where I belong.”

“What was it like?” I asked. “Before the war, I mean.”

“It was pleasant. I was raised in a modest house in the Las Pegasus suburbs. You knew every pony in your neighbourhood so there was never a dull summer’s night. My parents in particular always threw excellent potlucks that everyone wanted to attend. It was one of those that I met my future wife.”

“Your wife? What was she like?”

“She was beautiful. No mare I ever met had a coat like hers. The softest, cream-colored coat unseen anywhere in Equestria. I remember the smell of her styled mane even now. Red with the tiniest hint of pink running through. It always smelled like fresh-cut flowers. Her name was Rose and I can still remember the very first time we met, at that potluck.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yes. I was trying to get a little bit of Fortuna’s mashed potatoes and something slammed into me from behind sending me and bowl flying. After I cleaned the potatoes out of my eyes, I saw Rose standing in front of me. She yelled at me for ruining the potatoes.” Thirteen made a mechanical grating sound, almost like a chuckle.

“How about where you worked,” I asked. I was hoping to hear a bit about the ministries of old.

“You mean the factory?” He asked. “Well, Rosie and I got married near the end of high school, and college was a rush for me, but then the... Zebra incident happened. Now I can’t really say for sure who shot first, but I remember what happened after. I remember that a few months before our college graduation that the damn stripes burned down Hoofington.” One of his legs stabbed violently into the concrete, sending chips flying. “The ministries began offering huge funding and scientists to anyone who could start making weapons and the like immediately. The only ponies around here with that kind of cash was the casinos, so they began to build facilities under the desert. I think they were afraid the Zebras might attack here, and since there wasn’t a big Army base around they had to build the guns to protect themselves.”

“I heard a little about Hoofington, but never about Las Pegasus being big on development,” I told him.

“Yes, it was kept as tight a secret as possible. All of my friends and I applied to work in the facilities. It was good money, and damn were we mad at the Zebra. Due to me getting a degree in Engineering I was hired at the Robotics Factory you rescued me from.”

“What were you working on?” I asked. I hoped he didn’t think I was prying.

“Personally I worked on making robots more mobile. All robots either used treads or some sort of jet propulsion, but those were not good when the going got rough or steep. You see these spider legs? My design.”

I went for broke. “What’s the Iron Giant?”

Thirteen stopped in his tracks. “That was never my department. I don’t know anything.” His reply had a frantic quality to it. After a few seconds of stillness he began to walk again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about that.”

“That’s fine, Thirteen,” I consoled him. “Just one more question. How did you become a robot?”

Thirteens’ head drooped as he thought the question over. “Yes, I do remember that day clearly. I had just come in and grabbed a cup of coffee when my supervisors and a few ministry agents came in. One from Morale and I think one from Wartime Tech. They asked me if I was ready to serve my country. What could I say but yes?” Thirteens voice began to pick up a rasping, wavering quality. “And then they took me along to a room with a tub of some strange liquid and told me to get in, and not to ask questions. I asked what would happen if I backed down and they said that wasn’t an option anymore. So I had no choice but to get in the strange tub and then they began to hook me up with wires tubes. After that is kind of a blur, just pain and darkness, and then nothing. I woke up sometime later and was forced to obey, to become a weapon.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him truthfully.

The sun was fading into the horizon as we walked north along the Galloping Stretch. The sky in to our side picked up a hue of reds and oranges and the sun set. It had been hours since we’d left the hills and the facility behind. Rimfire had been unusually silent and sulking.

“It’s getting late, we should find somewhere to rest,” I said to the others.

“But where?” Thirteen asked. I rubbed my chin a little and tried to remember any maps of the area I might have seen.

None coming to mind, I shrugged and turned to our robot companion, "Don't you remember any towns from before the war?" Thirteen strode to the side of the road and stuck one of his claws into the dirt. He carefully drew what looked like a crude map into the dirt. Over a pair of inverted V’s he pointed.
“Here’s where we started, the Colt Mines, and up here,” he pointed towards a few squares he’d drawn, “was a small town. It was called Goodsprings. I took my family there once.”
“Is it far?” I asked. “We don’t want to be out here so late.”
“Should be... another mile? My memory of geography isn’t what it used to be.” I nodded and looked at Rimfire. Her gaze was off and distant. I gave her a quick little nudge. Her eyes widened and she shook her head a little.
“What do you want?” She barked.
“We’re going to Goodsprings,” I told her.
“Fine,” she said.

It didn’t take long at all to start seeing the buildings of Goodsprings off in the distance, they stood in defiance to the flat plains of the San Palomino. Fires had been lit around the small town, and a few ponies could be seen walking between the buildings.

As we got closer, we could see time had not been kind to the town. Buildings that hadn't already been reduced to rubble were riddled with bullet holes. The ponies that walked around were lightly armed, if at all. Two ponies were waiting for us around the ring of bonfires. We stopped ten paces away from them. One of them was an older stallion, his face hidden behind long white hair and a thick beard that nearly touched the ground below him. The other was a middle-aged, earth pony mare who had a hunting rifle in a battle saddle. She waved a few strands of hair from her once vibrant mane from her face. Both of them eyed Thirteen warily.

“What’s your business in Goodsprings, strangers?” The older stallion asked.

“Looking for a place for the night,” I told him. “Got anywhere we can stay?”

He and the mare looked at each other quickly. His gaze slowly returned to us. “I’m afraid you won’t want to be here long, stranger. We’ve got bad news coming our way.”

I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” the mare said, shooting the stallion a warning glance. “And yes, we’ve got room for travellers like you, food too.”

“Yes,” the stallion amended. “Please, follow us.” The stallion and mare led us into the ruined town. Ponies gave us a moderate berth as we walked by, not even looking in our direction. Soon enough we found ourselves around a campfire and the stallion was giving us cans of pre-war food.

“I never got your names,” I mentioned as I peeled open the can of beans.

“Oh, I’m Peach Fuzz, and this is my daughter, Apricot.” The mare dipped her head lightly.

“Pleasure to meet you both,” I said. “I’m Short Change, that’s Rimfire, and the robot is Thirteen.”

Rimfire was eating with her head down and she was turned away from the fire. Peach leaned close and whispered to me.

“Something wrong with your friend?” He asked. I shook my head.

“She’s just tired, I think,” I told him in a whisper as well. He leaned back and resumed eating. “You fellows don’t seem to have much arms around here,” I said aloud.

“You’re right, and it’s no end of problem,” Peach said with a sigh.

“Dad!” Apricot admonished him.

“You have problems here?” Thirteen asked. He was standing between Rimfire and I, a can of food sat in front of him. He was looking at it with what looked almost like longing.

“Oh, we have fair share, same as anyone ‘round these parts,” Peach said.

“What kind of problems?” I asked.

“Raider trouble,” Apricot said. “They just won’t leave us alone.”

“We could help you with that,” I offered up. Rimfire got to her hooves and began to trot away. I got up to follow her, leaving the others by the fire. As I followed her she ran faster and faster the closer I got.

“Rimfire, what are you doing?” I yelled after her. She stopped in her tracks, and I was able to trot up to her. “What’s wrong with you?” We had reached the ring of bonfires that surrounded the small town.

Rimfire turned to me, her face full of disgust. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked. “What’s wrong with me? Well shit, Short, maybe I just don’t want to die for some strangers.”

“What?” I asked dumbfounded.

She stared at me, mouth agape for a few seconds before she spoke. “Are you that dense? Whenever something like this happens you nearly get us killed! You volunteer us for the dangerous shit.”

“What? Danger is a part of life in the wastes, Rimfire.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me that, Short,” she snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare.” She had advanced to me and had her hoof at my throat. “I was born and raised here, I know danger! You lived in a cushy fucking stable, you bitch. Do you even think about anyone but yourself?”

“Of course I do! I want to help ponies when I can,” I explained.

“Oh come on!”

“Are you that selfish you wouldn’t help others?” I asked her. I turned to walk back into the town. A sudden weight crashed into my back sending my tumbling forward. The same force rolled me onto my back. Rimfire was glaring at me, death in her eyes.

“You think this is a game, Short? Is that right?” She was yelling at me, flecks of spit fell on my face. I could feel my chest tighten reflexively. “You think the good guy always wins? The day is saved?” She whipped one of her forelegs across my face. “You’re a real dumb piece of shit, Short.”

Her horn began to glow and I felt cold metal on the side of my head.

“Don’t do it, Rimfire. Knock it off.” I heard the hammer of my gun cock back. Rimfire’s body was trembling.

“There’s no reason in the entire world why I shouldn’t put a bullet in your head,” she said softly. “Not a single one.”

“Do you really want to kill me?” I asked.

“I want to live,” she said flatly.

For a minute she stood over me, holding my revolver against my head. Both of us staring into each other’s eyes. Without warning the dropped the gun to the ground beside me and walked off me.

“I’m not going with you, Short. Give me my caps. I don’t want to deal with this shit anymore,” she said finally. Using my magic I reached into my saddlebag and grabbed the half of the caps and tossed them in front of her. Then I picked up my gun and put it in its holster. Rimfire had grabbed the caps and was placing it in her bags.

“I hope you’re happy,” I told her.

“Not likely,” she said finally and turned. I turned back and walked back to Thirteen.

Only Thirteen was left around the fire when I got back. He had opened his tin of beans and had spilled the contents on the dirt in front of him. I laid my things down across from him.

“Rimfire not coming back?” he asked. I shook my head. Using my magic I unrolled my sleeping bag and began to crawl inside of it. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and forget Rimfire.

“Don’t think so,” I said gruffly.

“Peach and Apricot will be back in the morning to tell you the whole story,” he said. “They said to have a good night.”

I laid out by the dying fire and stared up the stars. It felt like the entire world was resting on my shoulders. I closed my eyes not expecting sleep to come, but it crashed around me and I fell into a deep slumber.

My first experience in the morning was a hoof shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see Apricot’s frowning face staring into mine. The sunlight behind her was burning my eyes and I shut them quickly. Apricot gave me another shake.

“Get up,” she said. “They’ll be here soon!” I slowly opened my eyes again to see that Apricot had backed off a little and was standing next to Thirteen. He was still standing next to the toppled can of beans. I rolled myself on to my hooves and stood up, stretching my legs and back.

“Who’ll be here soon?” I asked her.

“The slavers,” she said with a worried tone.

“Yes, Short. The slavers.” Peach trotted up from behind me. “You offered to... help us.”

“I sure did and I intend to stick by that,” I told the stallion. “Tell me a little about them.”

“They’re some gang of rough ponies that started coming around last week,” Peach said. “They said if we didn’t give them what they wanted, they enslave or kill us all. We couldn’t even come close to pleasing them. Today’s the day that they’re coming to finish it off. Their leader goes by the name Blood. They’ll be here any minute.” Peach pointed back towards the Highway and we could see a rising cloud of dust not too far away.

“I’ll meet them at the outskirts of town. I’m going to take care of this. Thirteen, stay back to cover me if things turn sour, okay?” I asked. Thirteen gave a curt nod. I slung my shotgun over my back and hung my revolver around my waist. Peach and Apricot gave me tear-stricken looks as I walked out of town. As I passed the ponies who lived in the small town, each of them had desperate looks in their eyes, holding whatever guns they had close.

By the time I had reached the extinguished ring of fire, the slavers were only seconds away. They slowed as they saw me, and I held my ground. All of them stood in a ‘v’ behind the burly mare with a muddy brown mane and blood-shot eyes.

“The fuck is this?” she asked. Her voice was dry and cracking.

“You can’t hurt this town,” I told her.

“Yer’ a damn loony,” she said with a small laugh. Her laugh sent her chest into convulsions.

“You must be Blood.”

“Damn right I am, and I’m going to take this town one way or the other.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because that’s the way things work, shithead.” The ponies behind her looked a little uneasy as Blood continued to talk to me.

“But it doesn’t have to be like that, we could be better,” I told her.

Blood gave a quick grumble. “Could we?” she asked.

I gave her a little smile. “Yeah, we could.”

“You know, I’ve never really thought about that,” she said. She motioned for one of the stallions behind her to come up closer. I tensed my muscles ready for an attack, but it didn’t come. When the stallion got near she put a foreleg around his neck. “Did you hear that, Barley? We don’t have to be bad ponies anymore. We can be nice. What do you think about that?”

“I think it sounds... interesting,” he said quickly, unsure of what to think.

“Yeah, it’s interesting all right.” She took herself off him. “However, that’s not quite what we do. We aren’t good ponies.”

“You could try,” I suggested.

“You could try this,” she said. “Barley, take him out.” Barley used his mouth to grip a bat he had tied across his back and brought it forward. Before I could even reach for my gun he was swinging it against my skull. The bat connected with a solid thwump that sent me tumbling head over hooves.

I couldn’t move my body an inch as pain flared through every nerve in me.

“Holy shit, Barley. I think you killed ‘im,” I heard Blood say, her voice was quiet to the sound of blood rushing to my ears. “Well, time to kill.” I felt the world go dark.

The sun was setting when I regained consciousness. I sat up and noticed that there was no weight on my back. They’d take my shotgun. Luckily enough they hadn’t seen my revolver or gone through my bags with any real effort as I still had most of my things and caps. I looked back to the town, it was silent.

I stood up shaking, nothing felt quite right yet. Careful to avoid tripping, I started towards the small town. As I passed through the houses and rubble, there were no ponies left alive. Dead bodies were strewn about. Heads, legs, and horns lay in separate piles from their bodies. No place in town was safe from carnage, no pony either. Not even the foals. A few of the ponies had been burned at the stake, the charred bodies still hanging on wooden posts.

I saw Peach’s and Apricot’s bodies in an embrace, bullet holes in both of their heads. But that wasn’t the end. As I reached further into the town, I saw a familiar friend laying on the ground, his body destroyed.

Thirteen had seen some fighting from the slavers. Two of his legs had been broken off. His pinecone like abdomen had seemed to explode and the edges had curled over itself like a ruptured gun barrel. As I got closer, his remaining legs began to slightly sway, as if clawing at the sky.

“Thirteen?” I asked.

“S-short,” he sputtered.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“I’m scared, Short,” he said right back to me.”I don’t want to die... not y-yet.” And that’s when it hit me, I’d killed Thirteen, and all the ponies here. It was all me. And I would have killed Rimfire too if I hadn’t pushed her away.

“No, I can get help,” I said, my eyes starting to let tears run down my cheeks. “You’re going to be fine.”

“No... I’m d-dying here... now.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I...”

“Thirteen, you just have to hold on, okay?” I was kneeling right next to him, my hooves on his chest. “Thirteen?” His metallic legs no longer clawed the air, his eyes had gone dim.

I’d caused the last thing that cared for me to die.

END OF CHAPTER 5
No level gained

Author's Notes:

I really like how this chapter turned out. Big thanks Sna_fu and Wolfram