Апокалипсис после нас / Apocalypse After Us: Chapter 1

Blood dripped from under my armour onto the hot sand. I had a pair of ribs broken, but nothing more than that. Too little to worry about. I could still move, fight and drive.

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 01:56

Undoubtedly, the itch of burns and the smell of petrol coming from me were strong and annoying. Some could be long accustomed to this scent and a look of severe burns when the flesh began to look like molten rubber, contracting and cutting itself—but even those shied away from me and turned their noses. Like their muzzles could feel something other than concentrated snoot-snuff.

psychoshy 01.06.18 в 17:48

A few moments ago I had entered an old, dilapidated concrete building. It had once been a roadside diner, though its purpose did not really change with time.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:17

I loudly struck a metal disc hanging above the doorway. "Do work. For a car. Any job," were my words.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:28

The ponies squinted upon noticing me and returned to their business as if nothing had happened. Somepony was drinking booze, somepony sniffing snoot-snuff with a mask put on his face, but mostly they were arguing or eating maggots.

psychoshy 01.06.18 в 16:50

So either none of the locals had an extra car or nopony wanted to trust me a job. I could surely walk all the way back to the north on hoof, but it would take me a lot more time.

psychoshy 01.06.18 в 17:23

Not that I was in a hurry, though.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:37

When I was about to leave, somepony whistled. It was not a usual whistle of surprise or something, but definitely an invite to come closer. I turned around and saw a pony gesturing me to the corner. I made my way there, trying not to disturb the visitors.

psychoshy 01.06.18 в 18:24

The stallion sat on a mat spread on the floor and was dressed in a robe sewn from different pieces of pony skins. "Need a car, huh?" he asked. He wore a pair of lensless glasses on his eyes and had some sort of chip threaded into the bridge of his nose. I looked narrowly at three other ponies who were beside him, noticing their sloppy tattoos depicting a long set of numbers '1' and '0' and their brand marks in the shape of a chip. "Say something, Calculator divide you!"

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 17:34

They belonged to the Horde of Zinc Calculator.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:38

I nodded my head at the others. He took the hint.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 18:06

"Brothers, I'll ask you to leave for now. I have to discuss the will of Calculator with this infidel."

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:01

"And what we're supposed to do, Bit?"

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:01

"Go kick foals or something! Piss off!" He gave one of them a bonk on the head. Three stallions hurried away. Their boss gestured me to sit down.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 18:07

"A car. Full tank. No matter how many cylinders," I told him my terms.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:40

"I have an old buggy. There's enough guzzolene to get to Wild Appleloosa or so if you drive on the Black Road…"

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:06

The Black Road was an old caravan route from Fillydelphia to Petrolstation. It had earned its name for oil and turbid petrol that constantly poured from tank cisterns onto the sand, so over time a long black oily line appeared on the wasteland map.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 18:19

"No way. The Black Road is a bad choice. It suits battlewagons, but raiders will quickly intercept buggies or any other transport."

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:12

"Well, then you'll have to ask someone else for guzzolene. But I guess you're no stranger to this," he grinned at me. "And I'm no charity. Do something for Calculator the All-Cyphering, and the car is yours. I can even look if I have a couple of high-octane cans…"

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 20:03

My significant silence seemed to quite eloquently make clear all he wanted to get as an answer.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 20:23

"Okay, listen here. There's a heretic who stole from us a thing that we had to put onto the altar of Calculator. You bring this thing to me..." He showed me a hoofmade map with approximate search radius marked on it. It was some place in the middle of the desert nearby a dried-up riverbed. "You get the car. And yeah, I have one special wish for the case."

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 20:28

I took out my own map and began to redraw some notes from his. As I had no normal paints, I had to use my blood, the more so because it soaked the piece of paper pretty well.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 20:49

"This traitor has a son. Little cunt. He do love him so much, even more than his ma. Anyway, before you kill the heretic and return the artefact to Calculator, I want him to... suffer. Make it long."

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:57

"Show me," I put the map with some fresh notes back. "The car."

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 21:53

"Don't believe me, huh? Okay. Let's go. You'll love it."

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:13

[hr]

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 01:55

What did I see through the scratched glasses of my military binoculars?

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 22:46

The desert. The endless white sands which were carried to and fro by storms coming from the Boundless Sea every few days. Sometimes they swallowed entire settlements. Other times they opened the way to some new places—to the delight of scavengers.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 22:47

I used to know several ponies who dreamed of building a car that could cross the Sea. They believed that there was water and green forests, that all the joys of life they had only seen in old pictures were only waiting for them somewhere far away.

psychoshy 19.04.18 в 23:04

How funny.

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:14

I was looking around the area through my binoculars when I noticed a faint patch of light at the dried riverbed bottom. It was too far away and I could not say what it exactly was, but from a distance the thing looked like a trailer. It was about a kilometre or so.

psychoshy 30.05.18 в 21:04

On closer examination the trailer turned to be looking as if a routine landslide had discarded it down, and it hardly contained something valuable inside—or what I was looking for. The bastard and his pipsqueak could roam anywhere in these sands. And surely I might just slit those scouts' throats and steal their car, but in the place where I wanted to go nopony would appreciate that. I did not want any trouble.

psychoshy 23.10.18 в 04:14

The wagon and the ground looked like someone was here. At least, remains of a campfire on the sand and a cloth stretched to collect moisture had definitely appeared not so long ago.

psychoshy 07.06.18 в 12:07

Perhaps the campfire was a week-old. Only perhaps. But the moisture collector... I clearly observed the traces of night dew on it, and somepony should clearly have been around to collect the water.

psychoshy 23.10.18 в 04:25

I sniffed. There was a typical air: the midday heat, the burning hot stones, the dust... And a subtle odour of salt and a bitter-sweet smell of old bones above it all to complete the mix-up. However, there was something... weak, but something you could not confuse.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 22:18

The scent of morphine. Of hospitals. Of medicine... As it came from the trailer, it was dumped by the reek of something visceral.

psychoshy 25.05.18 в 02:02

I took the revolver out of my holster and cocked it. Approaching the rusty door, I lightly pushed it and it opened with ease. Someone had recently used it.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 22:45

I inspected the threshold through the open slit. There could be tripwires or something, and I would not want to die so stupidly.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 22:49

There were none. Frankly speaking, the fact that it opened inside was quite strange for these doors always opened outside. Somepony had altered it to make it more comfortable. Clever, but how much did it help him?

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 22:51

In a swift motion, I flung open the door and pushed my revolver forward. It was dark, stuffy and smelled of petrol and fresh shit. I went inside. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, but the place turned out to be pretty boring: the hollow shell of a trailer filled with some garbage like broken dishes, ragged clothes and Discord knew what else.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 22:57

There remained no furniture but only a plastic table and a couch with the pulled-out filler and sticking-out springs. I noticed a pouched pistol on the table, which I immediately attached to my belt.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 23:04

Two ponies sat on the couch. Both had a sick, skinny look, apparently suffering from hunger and lack of water. My first thought was that they were dead, but then I realised I could hear their low breathing.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 23:07

Well, okay. One was adult and the other a petty colt not worth even to be meat. If these were the two, the thing I was looking for could be theirs. I had to check this out.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 23:19

"Shhh..." hissed the older skeleton through his pitted lips like a snake. "Hush now…"

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 23:22

He looked at me with his blind eyes.

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 05:35

"You're one of them?" he croaked as he stroked the foal's head. "Those who worship the machine? The one which prints every day, which prints, prints, prints…"

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 05:33

"I'm on my own."

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 02:15

"Ah... Wanderer," he smiled, revealing his rotten teeth and gums. "I've got nothing for you, wanderer."

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 05:38

"You do." I took away his colt and put the small body on the table. He weighed probably a little more than a light machine gun.

psychoshy 17.04.18 в 05:44

The stallion cocked his head to the wall and silently laughed. It rather looked like convulsions, though you might consider it a good laugh for such an exhausted pony.

psychoshy 24.10.18 в 23:26