Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 51: A Good Day

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
By Somber
Chapter 51: A Good Day

"Hey, you know what this calls for?"

Maybe it was the lingering raw sensation of tearing a healing talisman out of my own body, or perhaps it was simply the aftermath of using a memory spell for the first time - and one thrown together on the spot, at that - but the scene before me really wasn't adding up. My eyes travelled from the comely dove-gray mare to my sheet-wrapped love. The former sat on the couch with her eyes oddly closed in an expression of amusement while the latter perched atop her stool with her legs and wings clutching her body so tightly that I wondered if she would simply implode. I slowly turned my eyes to Scotch Tape, who was focusing intently on her cup of steaming weed water, and finished my pan by staring at P-21 as he poured another cup and offered it to me, meeting my gaze. The concern in his eyes was unmistakable. My eyes returned to the mature pegasus, and I blinked twice, ignoring the cup. My brain hurt way too much for tea. "Um... sorry. I have brain damage. Say again?"
"My name is Dawn," she said amiably as she put her cup down on the table. The mare didn't wear any barding or carry any equipment. She appeared about the same age as Mom and Rivets had been. Mature, but not quite showing the same wrinkles as the Ministry Mares had. She must have barely been past foalhood when she'd been adventuring with Big Daddy and the others. Her eyes seemed to be closed in merriment. Even when she was looking at us, she didn't open them past the barest squints, but I didn't get the impression that she was blind. While her pale gray hide bore the scars of a few slashes and bullet wounds, they were old injuries. Call me an idiot, but I doubted she would try anything just now. "I heard that my daughter Morning Glory is a close friend of yours. I was hoping to see her again. I also wanted to meet her dear friends," she said as she smiled over her cup pleasantly. "Do you go by 'Security' or should I call you Blackjack?"
"Uh... Blackjack. That's fine," I said as I took a seat and shook my head. For some reason, my thoughts were all muddled. "And... ah... Glory," I murmured, looking at my friends. I glanced at her and saw the tiniest little shake of her head. "Anyone seen Glory? Is she in town?" I couldn't figure out for the life of me why Glory wouldn't answer, given her mother was branded with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark on her flank. Maybe this was another weird Enclave pony thing? Still, if she wanted anonymity, I'd try and play along; if Glory was going to undermine her relationships, who was I to stop her?
"Yeah. In town. That's exactly where she is. Uh huh..." I muttered thickly.
"Really? How odd I didn't see her there when I stopped through," the gray mare said with a note of amusement before taking a sip. "This is quite excellent," she told P-21. The blue stallion looked about, flushing awkwardly.
"Uh... Riverside... Town. Yeah... that town," I muttered.
"Right," P-21 said with a confused look.
"That's it," Scotch agreed. "She's..." The filly scowled in thought.
"Getting spare parts!" said P-21 as the filly blurted simultaneously, "Buying healing potions." The pair looked at each other in shock, and P-21 stammered, "I mean buying healing potions!" just as Scotch Tape spouted, "No, she's getting spare parts!" Both gulped, and Scotch Tape opened her mouth in time for P-21 to silence her with his hoof pressing to the filly's muzzle.
"I mean, she's getting spare parts and healing potions," he said finally. Scotch Tape looked up at him, then nodded quickly with a grin. I glanced at Glory, but only her eyes were visible, locked on the floor beneath her. For some reason, I could taste blood, and my head was really hurting. Wasn't the healing talisman supposed to take care of that?
"My. I'm so glad she's such a hard worker," Dawn said in that odd, cheerful way. "I'd hoped to learn more about her in town before I came here, but they were all so busy with the mess, and I understand there was an accident too?" Her smile disappeared, replaced with a sorrowful expression. "The Wasteland shouldn't claim lives before their time." Coming from anypony else, that line would have been pompous, even sanctimonious, but the pegasus practically glowed with sincerity.
Maybe it was the experimental spell that had given me a throbbing headache or the fact I could feel the knife blade between my ribs, or that for some reason I was tasting blood, but I looked dully at the gray pegasus. "Right. It's nice meeting you. If you'll excuse me, I feel like I need to throw up glass. Sorry. Dashie?" I staggered for the stairs, and Glory looked at me in shock, then walked over as if sure that Dawn was going to peer through her rags and spring upon her. I tried to put a hoof on the bottommost step, but somehow it moved out from under me, sending me staggering so I nearly landed on my face.
"Blackjack, are you alright?" Glory asked in worry, then ducked herself underneath my body and hoisted me onto her back. I didn't argue. My throbbing headache was getting worse by the second. I saw little drops of blood falling on her disguise as she carried my heavy body up, muttering, "Dumb question, of course you're not."
I just groaned, and the last thing I heard downstairs was Glory's mom saying politely, "What a curious young mare! I think she may look just like Rainbow Dash!" Glory laid me down on my bed, closing the door as we passed, and I felt more blood coming out my nose. I tried to send Lacunae a warning about Dawn and our story about Glory being in Riverside, but for all I knew I told her to kumquat the picklebarrel.
My EFS display was weird, with a dotted line around the head of the diagram mare and her eyes were two x's. Apparently experimenting with memory magic had some nasty side effects I hadn't anticipated. There were all kinds of other displays and warnings, but I just translated all that as 'you broke yourself again, idiot'. I wanted to throw up, but my brain didn't seem to realize my stomach couldn't, so all I was left with was a crippling nausea.
Glory rolled me onto my side and dug around in her saddlebags for a strange little light on a stick. She shone it in my nose and mouth and ears as she examined me. "Tell me there's a secret cheat mode that kills my sense of pain?" I asked pathetically.
"I wish. Professor Zodiac didn't give me an operator's manual," she said sympathetically, but continued with a concerned little frown, "I thought you weren't going to hurt yourself anymore."
"I promise, when my head is better, you can spank my fanny till it sinks in. My head... not my fanny... I..." I groaned, closing my eyes tight. "Memory magic is harder than I thought. I sort of hoped that all I had to do was touch her forehead with my horn and woosh, magic happens!" My exclamation sent a shiver through me. Quiet now, thank you.
"Don't you have a book on magic from Tenpony?" Glory asked in confusion.
"Yes. A book on beginner's magic. For beginners," I groaned.
Glory didn't give up, though. "Did you even look?" Oh no, she was using the 'Blackjack is not a smart pony' voice.
"Um... no?" I muttered as I covered my head.
She sighed and lay down next to me. "When you're better, your fanny is so getting it," she muttered as she held me gently and stroked my neck. The nosebleed had stopped, and the pain was receding a little. At least, I could pretend it was with her snuggled against me. "Did it work, at least?"
"I got into a memory... one of Shujaa's," and I retold it. Really, the whole pain thing aside, it seemed pretty senseless. A bunch of defecting enemies gunned down by an overzealous transfer. If I learned somewhere that Trooper Kill-all-zebras was sent by Goldenblood as a part of his master super sneaky scheme, I was going to flip a table or kick a hole in the wall or something!
"So they were robots that looked like zebras?" she asked with a small frown.
"I... don't think so. I mean, there were robot parts, but even if they were fancy and sleek, they were still metal. These were..." I paused, wanting to be sure. "These were cyber zebras. They had artificial organs and everything. Like me."
Project Steelpony. Had the zebras stolen it? Had Goldenblood actually given it to them? Or had the zebras developed their own line of augmentation research? For all I knew, Steelpony had been stolen from the enemy in the first place. But there'd been too much meat involved for them to simply be robots. Augmented zebras, though... a very unpleasant thought. I'd seen what Lancer could do with a rifle. I didn't even want to contemplate what he could accomplish with thumbs.
It was too much for a not-smart pony like me. So I turned, slowly... carefully... and faced her. "So. Care to tell me why you're not telling her who you are? I'd have thought you'd have been hugging and catching up on old times."
She closed her eyes with a sigh. "I know. And I should. I want to. But when I opened to door, I didn't think of how much I missed her or that I could finally get answers to questions I've had for years. I... I wanted to know why she was here. It felt... contrived. My mother coming out of the Wasteland after all this time looking for me?"
"Contrived? Please. I've seen Goldenblood. He's got contrived covering every inch of him. I don't think he could fart unless it was part of a greater plot. Your mom is just..." and I paused, frowning. What was it about her? There was something... I stroked her cheek gently. "Ever think that maybe this is just a coincidence? A good coincidence?" Despite the long odds, it had to happen occasionally.
"I did think that," Glory said shamefully. "And when I did, I wasn't happy. I felt... angry." She closed her eyes and scooted a little more against me. "She was just down there smiling. Like... like these years never happened. Like she was on her way home and decided to stop in and check in on me at school. 'No big deal. See you when you get home. Love you...'."
I thought about that. "Well, maybe if she knew you were you and what you've done since you've come down here..."
"Maybe," Glory murmured as she glanced at the door and then back at me. "But really... the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to believe she's here looking for me at all."
I didn't know what to say to that. I tried to imagine what it'd have been like for me if Mom left the stable one day, only to return several years later acting as if nothing had changed. I supposed I'd be pretty freaked out too, particularly if I were a magical copy of Twilight Sparkle. I sighed, nuzzling her ears till she eventually smiled. "Well, deal with it tomorrow. We'll find out why she's here and find out some way to explain all this to her," I said, brushing her rainbow mane with my hoof.
There was a soft knock on the door, and I looked over and tried to use my magic to open it. The jolt to my brain renewed my throbbing headache. "Yes?" I asked.
P-21 poked his head in, his voice low. "If you're done for the night, should I put our guest in Glory's room till she gets back?" I looked at Glory, who sighed, then nodded.
"Yeah, go ahead," I groaned, flopping my head onto the pillow.
"Right," he said, his blue eyes turning to Glory. "For what it's worth, I don't trust her." Was it because she was a mare? Glory just looked at her forehooves, as if hoping the answers would appear upon them.
He nodded to us and closed the door again. She slipped out of bed and locked us in before returning to my side. "Well, I guess it's a good thing you blasted your brain with that magic. Can't do anything naughty with Mom listening next door, right?"
I just blinked at her in confusion. She groaned and buried her face in her hooves. "Nevermind. Just try and get some sleep."
That was good advice. I just hoped that whatever was playing on the Psalm Memory Network would help with that...