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Lately, the girl has taken to sitting on the station’s dilapidated roof to watch the sun set.
The blistering heat clogs the inside of her helmet, pressing in on her head, but the ancient shingles are warm under where her feet scuff away at the few that remain. She keeps his jacket pulled tight around her shoulders, anyways, so it’s not like she’ll burn yet. Repeated exposure has barely crossed her mind. Besides, the light refracting through the glass and chrome of the city is a must-see for any zone runner this side of Route Guano.
In the recent months, the girl almost thinks she sees some green amongst the vast expanse of silver.
Out here, the desert is quiet. After all, who would pick radiation that rots your skin and rusted cans of pop when the city offers a roof over your head and the cleanest water the girl’s never tasted? She’s alone, in the zones, and it’s all her fault. Her fault to end them, her fault to stay.
If she thinks about it for too long, she’ll never stop.
As the sun passes below the tallest building, the girl lifts her visor with a heavy sigh, wiping sharp beads of sweat away from her eyes with a grimey glove. Every night is the same, but far be it from her to stop herself now. She eyes the growing pile of crushed sodas with vague consternation.
A sound pricks at her ears.
Instantly, the girl’s hand is on the butt of her gun, though she’s not even sure it still works, she hasn’t been to a machine to replace the battery in whatever gods know how long, and hadn’t needed to use it in even longer. The girl quickly flattens herself to the roof, feeling the support spars with her sneakers to guide her footing. Holding her raygun close to her chest, the girl stills her breath and listens.
It’s coming from the road, just to her north, at the perfect angle she can’t see. And it’s faint, just a barely there whirr. No guttural engines, no steady footprints, only a gentle pulsing whoosh.
So, carefully, and ever so slowly, the girl squares her shoulders, finds her perch, and peers over the corrugated tin.
It’s like everything stops.
The girl’s more than used to mirages this far out in the zones and even more used to ghosts, but she’s far enough from Zone 3 that shouldn’t be a problem, and she hasn’t seen the Witch in years. No, the figure approaching may well be flesh and blood, but the girl isn’t sure if she or her quarry may be dead instead.
She bites her lip, considering her options, before tossing a bomb in safety’s face without diving for cover.
“What took you so long?” she shouts across the sand, voice nearly betraying a desperate laugh.
The silhouette stops, grinding scuffed skate-stops into the disintegrating asphalt, and then, moments later, angles their helmet in her direction.
With one sharp movement, Show Pony flashes her a two-fingered salute.
There’s nothing left to do but hold up a spare can and beckon them closer.
It’s fascinating, watching Pony approach. Almost like nothing’s changed. Except that’s an extraordinarily stupid thing to believe, and it’s not like everything’s exactly the same anyway. Pony’s favoring their left leg, their right stiff and uncompromising. Long brown hair billows out behind them. Their gun is nowhere to be found.
The girl is so much older now, Pony so much smaller, and yet so much about them feels larger than life. Maybe it’s the weight of all that time and distance or maybe it’s just the absolute fucking relief filling her lungs as she watches Pony unlace their skates and scale the side of the station barefoot.
When they settle down beside her, the girl passes over her drink and Pony cracks it open with a nod, pushing the bottom of their helmet up to take a swig.
All at once, there is everything and nothing to say. The obvious questions (Where have you been? What happened to you? Why did you leave me?) bubble up and die in her throat with a sickly bends feeling that feels more like radiation sickness than she’d prefer. Pony, of course, remains steadfastly silent, sipping at their pop without so much as a hiccup. They’re still and lifeless as a statue, scars like the chipping of marble.
Distantly, the sun sinks lower, and the girl shivers.
And then, for the first time in living memory, Pony breaks the silence.
“I guess I should start with an apology,” they say, crisp and clear as a bell, flexing their toes against the shingles with a series of clicks.
The girl blinks. “What… what for?” Her voice rasps against the weight of her grief.
Pony chuckles, but their body doesn’t move. “You always liked to make things hard for us, you know?”
“I’m… sorry? I think?”
“Slow your rollers, Motorbaby, I didn’t mean it that way.” A shockwave ripples out through the girl’s chest. Motorbaby. Bright red hair flashes to the forefront of her mind, and she clamps down the memory before it has a chance to escape.
Kicking a shingle loose, the girl tries, “So how did you mean it?”
“Well,” Pony says, “I’m not the best at words…”
“I’ve noticed.”
Pony does smile at that, the girl can just barely see it under their propped helmet.
“What I mean is that… well, things were never exactly easy, but you just—” they ball their hands up, knuckles cracking “—you made everyone care, I guess. You made everyone wanna try.”
“Hey, don’t put this on me.” The girl gestures out at the Battery City skyline. “I was six.”
“No, no, I know,” Pony sighs, “but you did change us. It’s not like we meant to be revolutionaries.”
“You didn’t even come with them.”
“And I regret that decision every day of my fucking life.”
“Sorry.”
“No, kid, that shot’s already fired.” Scratching at their arm, Pony mumbles, “It’s not like you’re wrong.”
“Still.”
For a while, the girl suspects the conversation may be over here. This is already exponentially more words than she’s ever heard Pony speak in her entire life, and she worries she may have exhausted them already.
“What you did, Motorhead, was wake us up.”
The girl frowns. “How so?”
“We all knew how the zones could be. Even Poison, she figured it out quick, and from her mouth, Batt City was worse. But we fucking lived with it, because that’s what you do. You roll with the punches or get ko’d and left for dead.” It looks like Pony’s getting agitated, because their hands are flapping against their legs, wrists cracking. The girl reaches out to still them. She may not remember much, but Kobra swearing at having to splint Pony’s knees after a skating subluxation is a stark image in her mind. Pony nods.
“Anyway, then you came. Showed us it didn’t have to be like that. And sure, we were just a bunch of kids, but hey, trying and dying was sure better than leaving one more life in the fucking gutter.”
“Was it?”
“Was— oh.” Almost reflexively, Pony recoils from the girl’s grip, pulling their arms into themself. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re in the same boat as me. I just wanna know if you stand by what you’re saying.”
“Now? Hell no. But then? I sure as shit did. I would’ve followed them to the end.”
“So what stopped you?”
Pony snorts. “Twisted ankle, of all things.”
“What a way to go.”
“You’re telling me, kid.” Together, as if of one mind, Pony and the girl turn to watch the last of the sun’s searing rays disappear beyond the horizon. “We wanted to change the world. And we were young, and stupid, and then those Scarecrow fuckers went and took you and what the hell else were we supposed to do?”
“That shot’s already fired,” the girl echoes. She twists the can of soda in her hands. “I believe you said you owe me an apology?”
Pony nods. “Sure did. Mostly I just need to clear my conscience, though, if you’ll let me.”
“Whatever gets you through the night.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” There’s a pause, and then Pony’s reaching for their helmet, lifting it off their face and placing it in their lap. They cough uncomfortably. “I, uh, wanted to look you in the eye for this.”
The girl is rather taken aback, but then again, her evening’s already been so fucking weird.
Roll with the punches or get ko’d and left for dead.
She reaches out and grabs Pony’s hands.
Their eyes are brown.
“Kid, I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Where I was doesn’t matter to you because the answer will always be ‘away from where I should’ve been,’ and I can never forgive myself for that. I do not regret saving you that day. That is the one thing I can always hold onto. But leaving them, leaving the station, leaving you…” Pony chokes. “I couldn’t… I was selfish. I didn’t wanna live with their ghosts anymore. I left. I left, and I hate that I left, and I’m not gonna ask you to accept this or welcome me back into your life, but I thought you should know. It wasn’t you. I left.”
In the dying light of another killer day, the girl brushes a strand of Pony’s hair behind their ear.
“I left too,” she says quietly. “It’s okay. We can both be cowards.”
“Yeah. Sure can.”
And suddenly, Pony’s wrapping her up in the tightest hug she’s felt since Poison was still alive. They bury their face in her neck like a drowning man to oxygen and she finds herself grasping for the back of their shirt, clinging to it. Her anchor.
The wind whips around them, loosening the hold Jet’s jacket has on the girl’s shoulders, and so she ends the embrace to zip it up. Sleeves are too long for her by what feels like miles, but it’s warm and if she closes her eyes and imagines hard enough, she can almost smell him in the patches and the chipping paint.
“They were never buried,” the girl says eventually. “When I… when the city went boom, I was connected to their logs, their records. They never sent the body bags out, but they never buried them either. I don’t… I don’t know. Cola had their clothes. But I found Poison’s mask in a shop. Few years back. Don’t know what it means.”
“Hmm.” Pony purses their lips. “I think it’s beyond our hands. The Witch will guide them onward, and we can live on for their memories.”
“That sounds sane enough to be true.”
“Whatever gets you through the night, right, Motorbaby?”
“Right.”
And as the first stars begin to twinkle above them, the girl smiles and raises a can.
“To the Fabulous Killjoys.”
“To the Fabulous Killjoys,” Pony cheers.
A soft clink passes between them.
That night, the desert forgets silence.