Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 5: Work

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
By Somber
Chapter 5: Work
"Step one... stay alive. Step two... I dunno. Step three... profit!"
So. That's Hoofington. The Hoof. Or 'the Core' if you were talking about the inner city where all the technological marvels were supposed to be. Glory had been filling us in all morning as we continued along the decayed road. But now, as it rose into an overpass, I had my first look at the city. And I didn't like it one bit.
The Core of Hoofington lay on an island surrounded by sluggishly flowing green fluids swirling with noxious pink contaminants. With such limited space, the buildings within the Core rose higher and higher until the tops disappeared into the cloud layer. Some buildings ended in broken-off spars, while others leaned precariously against their neighbors. Clouds of green clung to the black, crumbling spires, and if there were pegasi in those clouds... well, good luck to them. The entire Core was backlit by a perpetual green glow that pulsed and flickered like a heartbeat. I could barely make out the skeletal remains of a bridge several miles ahead of us beside a large oval structure.
On the sides of the river were the boroughs, the suburban sprawls that had once held the populace. Far less resilient than the skyscrapers of Hoofington proper, they formed a thick belt of crumbling buildings and blocked roads. With the exception of the highway cutting towards the Core, I couldn't see a way through it. The river flowed to the north on our left, the sprawl changing into more industrial-style buildings. To the right were more dead trees and raider territory. I could barely make out the top of a large building to our southwest.
But what mattered to the three of us was the massive square building beyond the overpass. The building was surrounded by a berm of scrapped carts, sky carriages, and other debris. Four large turrets clung to the corners, sweeping their long barrels back and forth. Bright neon lights flickered in the rainy gray weather: 'Megamart', they said, and beneath that in bright red paint was 'Finders Keepers'. Unless I was mistaken, this was the headquarters of the Finders.
We approached under the ominous gaze of the turrets. Each barrel seemed a match for Deus as we walked along the crumbling highway towards the gate. The half dozen ponies looking boredly at the small trickle of traffic perked up at the sight of the three of us. "Entrance fee," a unicorn mare said as she looked over my barding. Her green hide was mottled with the oddest brown and gray splotches.
"We have to pay to get in?" P-21 said skeptically.
"Five caps a head. Ten per Bessy. Or you can just become a Finder for the discount price of a thousand caps. You don't like it, pick a direction and start walking," she said matter-of-factly.
One of the guards looked closer at me and then broke into a grin. "Hey, Keystone! It's her. Security Mare!" The others took note as well and immediately started to chuckle and talk to each other. I could have found DJ Pon3 and punted him clear over the Core. They were saying it like I was Superpony. "Bottlecap wouldn't mind if we gave her a pass."
The camouflage mare looked at me coolly. "So she killed those psychos at Pony Joe's. That's not so much," she said as she looked me over. I half wanted to agree with her. I also didn't want to give up any caps just to get inside.
"Hey, I couldn't just let them hang out along the roads. Pretty sure you folks need them," I said as if it wasn't anything at all, but from the looks I'd scored a win. I grimaced, not happy with the role, but if it'd save me some money...
It looked like I'd managed to say the right thing. "Go in. Make sure you talk to the manager. She was talking about you earlier," Keystone said as she stepped aside and let us in. "Fire a weapon and bring the wrath of Gun down on you."
"Nice job, Security Mare," P-21 said once we were past, as we approached the front doors beneath the buzzing neon sign.
I snorted. "Shut it."
"You can be sore about the reputation or you can use it. Not both," P-21 replied casually. I stuck my tongue out at him, much to Glory's surprise.
I was surprised that the interior more resembled a junkyard than anything else. Piles and pallets of scrap lay in carefully stacked rows. There were perhaps a dozen booths with vendors hawking their wares. I saw a drum-fed shotgun and promptly started salivating. There was a crude medical clinic set up over by the pharmacy, and their advertisement of 'radiation purging' appealed more than the shotgun. A row of cots served as a hotel of sorts, and there was a kitchen. Overhead rested 'Gun', a huge cannon mounted in a ceiling turret. I didn't even want to imagine... okay... in my imagination the sight of it firing was pretty cool, but I'd be happy putting off witnessing the reality. Thing looked like it fired I-beams.
There were also probably as many ponies here as there were in Stable 99. They moved in small clumps, keeping a wary eye as they looked around. Some were obviously raiders, and I had to glance up at Gun to remind myself to behave. Most appeared to be fairly benign, talking and laughing with each other while they swapped stories and goods. Two well-dressed fillies were escorted by a dozen bodyguards as they chattered on about 'slumming'. Six ponies stomping in full power armor were given a wide berth as they seemed dead set on buying every grenade and missile they could get their hooves on. I felt a stab of guilt at the sight of four Crusaders walking out with a bag full of canned goods, though at least they weren't the ones I knew.
"It's a regular slice of the Wasteland. I wonder where the Enclavers are?" P-21 said, frowning as he looked at a bin full of grenades. "Where do they find this stuff?"
"All over," a lemon-furred blue-maned mare answered brightly as she approached us. She had three bottle caps for her cutie mark. She wore a slightly off-color navy blue vest with a name tag that read 'Hello, my name is Bottlecap, your Megamart Manager.' "Hoofington had more military bases around it than any city in Equestria, on account of the enemy constantly attempting to disrupt research and development. After the bombs fell, the ordnance just sat around in hidden caches and arsenals. We pay top caps for any and all war materiel." Her eyes looked at my security barding and she smiled. "Ah, you're the mare who cleared the Manehattan highway!"
Okay. Maybe there was a security discount or something. It was the only silver lining I could see. "Yeah. It's not a big deal. It just sort of happened," I said with an awkward smile. She gave me a very calculating look that made me shift awkwardly. "I mean, they were just raiders. Anypony would have killed them."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken," she said as she looked at me with a cool little smile. "Anypony would have given them a wide berth while they tried to extort my caravans. You were the one that shut them down. Perhaps not a big deal to you, but we've lost six caravans in as many months. Trade to Tenpony and Gutterville was down to a trickle." She reached into her vest and took out a small plastic bag filled with caps. "Consider this a 'thank you' from the Finders," she said as she tossed it to me with a smile.