Arthemis: переводы

→Beside the barrels were the refrigerators. They were lined up like soldiers wearing uniforms of discolored white except where they were stained with blood. Trembling, I approached one of them, my skin crawling as I stepped onto the sticky, wet floor. I reached out telekinetically to open the first refridgerator, feeling a sick terror at touching it even with my magic. It was locked.

→The basement was an abattoir. Blood both new and very old stained the tile floor in splatters and streaks, running towards the drain embedded in the center. Bodies of ponies lay on the tables, carved not just open but apart. Skinned and flayed, the meat removed. I recognized the dead from Arbu and the bandits alike. The remains of more ponies were piled in barrels in a corner.

→There were three ponies in Helpinghoof Qwik-Kare. They were chatting around bowls of stew, cigarette butts and a game that involved black chits with white dots. They looked like a family, one of them a mare hardly older than a filly, just barely old enough to have her cutie mark. And, I noted, her Arbu mark. They also looked like guards. Either way, they never saw me pass.

→Grandpa Rattle looked about nervously. “Y’all git. Hear me. Git!” Then he shambled back into the shadows. I considered following him, then turned and galloped silently for Helpinghoof.

→The basement? In the Qwik-Kare. Where they kept the bodies they were going to bury tomorrow. I had a sudden, dreadful, sinking feeling in my heart.

→“Take a look in the basement, iffin ya don’t believe me. But don’t say I ain’t warned ya.”

→“Shussh. They don’t know this old man c’n still pick a lock,” he told me, astutely judging not only what I had seen but what I had made of it. “You and yer friends wanna high-tail it on outta Arbu. This is a no-good place.”

→I nodded. Night had fallen during our battle on Bucklyn Cross. I looked about. All the stores were closed up, but there was light pouring between the boards covering the windows of Starbucked. I contemplated heading there, but decided that I didn’t want to break into anypony’s home. Instead, I made for the comic shop with its collapsed front wall. I could hear the snores of the merchant, but I was so weary and emotionally exhausted that I could sleep through a firefight.

→“I’ve seen this sort of thing before. As much as I hate it, I think it’s time to call the Ministry of Peace. They’re the only ones who seem to be able to deal with Wartime Stress Disorder.”

→“Well, that and the other thing. Apparently, while I was in surgery, ponies from the Ministry of Morale paid her a visit. According to Sis, they were asking all sorts of questions about Darling. Weird things, like what she’d said at her birthday party and about her internship last year with Four Stars. Sis was freaking out. I think… I think she’s losing it.

→“Sis is here, looking more depressed and anxious than ever. I don’t think she’s been sleeping. I told her the doctors all say I will be fine, I’ll be up and about, good as new, by the end of the week, but I don’t think she was really listening. I’ve been shot, and that’s all she seemed to be able to focus on.

→“While I was in surgery, my Stable-Tec broadcaster went off. I missed the call, but that’s okay. According to the message, this is just some sort of test run, like those fire drills they used to make us do in school. I’ve decided not to mention it to my sister. She’s already too much of a mess.

→“We had had a doozy of a storm the night before. And when I got there, Sunny Suds’ Laundromat was a complete disaster. Turns out Jamocha Joe was right about that fucking huge-ass billboard of Mr. Beans. Damn thing came crashing down this morning, a good three hours after the storm had passed, tearing through Sunny Suds’ roof. The ‘murder’ victim, turns out, was Mrs. Weather’s fucking poodle. She was screaming and hollering at Mr. Beans, so red-faced I thought she would explode, claiming that he murdered her poor little walking piss-dispenser. Like he was the one who left her damn dog in the laundromat while she popped out for a cake. I can’t say I didn’t laugh.

→The light from the pyre danced into the sky. As if summoned, a streak of green and gold appeared, whirling and pirouetting amongst the flames.

→In the end, only two of the Bucklyn Cross ponies surrendered. We let them go in one of the Cross’s boats. I watched them as the crane lowered them, shuddering under waves of deep hurt at how very few ponies were in that boat.

→Xenith was tending to Velvet Remedy, who was breathing heavily as she slept. The bullet had lodged inside her flank, and Velvet had spent the battle digging it out while Xenith applied healing potions and zebra poultices as needed. Velvet would be okay, but she had lost a fair bit of blood and needed to rest.

→Calamity flapped his wings and the Sky Bandit lifted away from Bucklyn Cross. The rest of us huddled in the Sky Bandit, which was now considerably more riddled with bullet holes. Next stop, Calamity insisted, we would start putting on armor. While we still had much of a passenger wagon left.

→Freefall, just for a fraction of a second but long enough for the pony in my head to be convinced that I was falling to my death. Then I hit the metal girder. I opened my eyes, blinking, my vision still swimming with foreign colors and shapes from the blinding strobe spell. I was laying on one of the understruts that had formed a latticework beneath the Bucklyn bridge, looking up at the underside of street.

→Another bolt of electricity lashed out, this one hitting me square in my breast. My body locked up in intense pain. My magic imploded and the dart gun went tumbling down the stairs. I teetered, gasping, and fell back through the window.

→I felt a cold breeze and could clearly hear the sound of SteelHooves’ grenade machinegun as he battled knights with a fraction of the skill but just as much ridiculous firepower. When I dodged into the interior of Bucklyn Cross, Calamity had been swerving through the air, dealing with the two remaining sentinel tanks, the ones I’d missed.