"I'm sorry, Mr. Finch. I don't quite understand everything that you've just had tumble from your mouth. The cell reception is probably cutting in and out because I could have sworn you said something like someone already living here that I'm obligated to have as an employee." Arlo rose himself from the frayed stool with stuffing spilling from its seams. The worn floorboards creaked underneath his weight as he lazily shuffled his shoes through the sand and trash. "How the Hell does…I mean, why am I only hearing about this now? How did the information of someone living out here just not get mentioned in any paperwork you made me sign my name on?"
"That's an…excellent question, Mr. Atkins." The lawyer paused to take a sip of something, making an audible slurping sound that Arlo could hear. "And here is my answer - I don't know." The estate's beneficiary could hear a hint of exacerbation creep into some of the syllables of the lawyer's tone, and he usually would have been sympathetic. Still, the anxiety from his newfound penury put those feelings on the back burner of his mind. At the front of his mind was the idea that someone was nearby - someone he couldn't see, but unless the man on the other end of the phone call was playing some cruel practical joke, Arlo had to accept that he was sharing this gas station with someone else.
It wasn't too bad of an idea. Arlo honestly could use someone with experience to run things for him, for he had no idea what he was doing out here. After so many dealings with neutral, cold legal eagles, some compassion and human kindness in this remote place were sorely needed. "Tell me, then..." The estate's beneficiary tucked the cell phone in the crook between his head and his left shoulder as he walked over to the front entrance of the shack where customers are supposed to enter and exit, grunting as he began taking off more of the wooden planks that barred the frame. "...about this 'second addendum' that my cousin-in-law sent out before she...how did she die again?"
"Uhm...this is embarrassing, I..." A loud thud came from the other end of the line, followed by the sound of slips of paper flipped around on a flat surface. "That doesn't...come up."
"Of course, it doesn't." Arlo sucked in a hiss of breath as he exerted some of his remaining strength that the drive had sapped in getting the last plank down. The plant fiber clattered to the ground with a dull thud as he opened the door, a desert breeze wafting through the opened frame into the sad shack. "So this second amendment that got lost in the mail long enough for the affairs of divvying up her estate to be largely settled; can you, please, tell me more about it?"
Another slurp could be heard from the lawyer as Arlo looked out to the abandoned gas pumps that needed refurbishing before he could profit from this place. He could take them out and replace them with bio-gas pumps, but the transportation costs to get that gas would have been astronomical, so he may have to settle for electric chargers. Electric vehicles might never have taken off, but maybe enough will drive them shortly - but probably not. "I'm looking at the testament of Ms. Rarity Pye right now, Mr. Atkins. It consists of a general financial agreement between me, Flim Finch -"
"Flim?" Arlo interrupted, picking up a conveniently placed broom collecting dust near the front door as he exited the shack to the gas pumps. He had nothing better to do in his mind than try and clean up the place, so he resolved to sweep up some of the piles of sand that had accumulated on the concrete that blocked cars' paths to the pumps. "Did you say...your name is 'Flim'?"
"Yes, and my brother's name is Flam. I will hang up on you if you make a joke, I swear to Celes- I mean, God." An irritated hum came from Mr. Finch, and Arlo got the message. "...a financial agreement between me, Flim Finch, and her that was drawn up after the opening of Shade in the Sand thirteen years ago, with a miscellany of revisions and modifications built up over the last decade. It is in the opinion of the law offices of Black, Finch & Web that Ms. Pye intended that control of her estate should be transferred to her aunt, and failing that, since the aunt was deceased, the aunt's husband, then the husband's brother, and finally the brother's son - you. With the codicil taken into account, delivered into my possession a few hours ago, it now establishes the presence of previously undisclosed 'mattress money' dictating a special allowance for you to live on and pay your employee's wage, Applejack. As prescribed by law, you are entitled to hear the contents within, and I can read it to you now if you are at liberty to do so."
"Go ahead," Arlo grunted in approval as the ruddy sun setting on the horizon cast a red shine on the darkening desert. If he wanted to be productive and do something to make his new property better marginally, he only had a little daylight left to do it. He shoved the old broom across the concrete with as much enthusiasm for the labor as he could muster, his attention more aligned on the phone call.
Audible throat-clearing noises could be heard from Mr. Finch before the speech began. "To my esteemed cousin, who I never got to know very well when I was Rarity Pye, but hopefully will become a fast friend once everything is revealed to him, Arlo Atkins, I bequeath, free of all taxation..." Throughout this speech, Arlo had a good idea of the face Mr. Finch was making if his tone was anything to go on - it was the face of a man who has been invited into someone's home to pet a very annoying dog. "...a sum of five hundred thousand dollars -"
"What?" Arlo dropped the broom. It made a plume of dust on the cracked concrete.
"-to be collected in a lump sum at any time-"
"What?!" Arlo brought another hand to the phone to stabilize his hold next to his ear.
"-that can be located in the basement of Shade in the Sand. There you will also find Applejack, who I hope you will-"
Click
The elevator was relatively easy to find.
From the moment Arlo got off the phone, a sense of euphoric delight cascaded through his system as he rushed around the grimy, dirty, abandoned wreck of a gas station, trying to find a way down to the basement. Half a million dollars lay beneath the floorboards, and to Arlo, a man who had only thirty dollars to his name at the moment, the enticing escape from poverty was a great incentive to speed. He found the back room of the shack and ran through aisles of high shelves filled with flaccid soft drinks, expired snack foods, old packages of cigarettes, newspapers with yellowing pages, and half-empty bottles of motor oil.
Eventually, the estate's beneficiary found something that looked very out of place from the rest of the gas station - something modern. The shack was as old as the highway it was built on, operated once by people from Arlo's great grandparents' generation - but Arlo was looking for a stairwell that ran down a dark nook to the basement, not an elevator. It was massive, like it was used to ferry vehicles to and from an underground parking garage, and once it was found, it dominated the whole room, as it was not built into any of the walls and just took up a good portion of the room's space. It didn't look old - in fact, it shined in the scant light coming in from the back room's door to the rest of the shack. There was only a single button on the control panel to hail the carriage, but it was two feet above his head, clearly designed for things of more oversized stature.
Now usually, Arlo would have taken everything strange about the situation in - the weird notebook, the sudden last-minute adjustings to the will of his dead cousin, who is dead for reasons no one knows about, the big elevator in the century-year-old desert hut, which hopefully went down to the basement that contained a friendly gas station manager and the financial salvation from poverty - and stepped back. Arlo would have liked to think if the circumstances were just a little different, he would have called back the lawyer, asked him some more questions (like the strange wording that his cousin's codicil contained), and given himself time to mull and compartmentalize all of the sudden realizations about his circumstances that were seemingly constantly in flux.
But Arlo was scared. He needed that money. All day his mind had been flooded with fantasized notions of starving alone, unwashed, homeless, and without any happiness left in the world. Having no money had that effect on people. So any hesitation the man would have normally felt from all of this oddness was brushed past, and Arlo happily lifted his hand over his head a good bit to press the button. And despite his earlier assessment that the shack was without power, the light behind the button lit up, registering Arlo's press. A hum, low but steady, rang out from deep beneath the floorboards, beneath the sand, growing louder as the carriage in the shaft presumably rose to the surface. The stainless steel doors slid down into the ground with a cheerful little ding to reveal sterile, mirror-polished slabs of metal paneling the walls, with a ceiling that projected ambient lighting from their in-built sockets.
Arlo did not question anything. He just stepped into the massive elevator carriage and pressed the only button that he could reach on the console that was also too tall for him, the one that made the box go down.
There was no way for him to have known that he was riding down to Equestria's secret base of operations for the invasion of Earth...
Choice 1: ...an invasion that's still a far way's away
Choice 2: ...an invasion that's halfway prepared for
Choice 3: ...an invasion that's imminent
Choice 4: ...an invasion that has already begun
"That's an…excellent question, Mr. Atkins." The lawyer paused to take a sip of something, making an audible slurping sound that Arlo could hear. "And here is my answer - I don't know." The estate's beneficiary could hear a hint of exacerbation creep into some of the syllables of the lawyer's tone, and he usually would have been sympathetic. Still, the anxiety from his newfound penury put those feelings on the back burner of his mind. At the front of his mind was the idea that someone was nearby - someone he couldn't see, but unless the man on the other end of the phone call was playing some cruel practical joke, Arlo had to accept that he was sharing this gas station with someone else.
It wasn't too bad of an idea. Arlo honestly could use someone with experience to run things for him, for he had no idea what he was doing out here. After so many dealings with neutral, cold legal eagles, some compassion and human kindness in this remote place were sorely needed. "Tell me, then..." The estate's beneficiary tucked the cell phone in the crook between his head and his left shoulder as he walked over to the front entrance of the shack where customers are supposed to enter and exit, grunting as he began taking off more of the wooden planks that barred the frame. "...about this 'second addendum' that my cousin-in-law sent out before she...how did she die again?"
"Uhm...this is embarrassing, I..." A loud thud came from the other end of the line, followed by the sound of slips of paper flipped around on a flat surface. "That doesn't...come up."
"Of course, it doesn't." Arlo sucked in a hiss of breath as he exerted some of his remaining strength that the drive had sapped in getting the last plank down. The plant fiber clattered to the ground with a dull thud as he opened the door, a desert breeze wafting through the opened frame into the sad shack. "So this second amendment that got lost in the mail long enough for the affairs of divvying up her estate to be largely settled; can you, please, tell me more about it?"
Another slurp could be heard from the lawyer as Arlo looked out to the abandoned gas pumps that needed refurbishing before he could profit from this place. He could take them out and replace them with bio-gas pumps, but the transportation costs to get that gas would have been astronomical, so he may have to settle for electric chargers. Electric vehicles might never have taken off, but maybe enough will drive them shortly - but probably not. "I'm looking at the testament of Ms. Rarity Pye right now, Mr. Atkins. It consists of a general financial agreement between me, Flim Finch -"
"Flim?" Arlo interrupted, picking up a conveniently placed broom collecting dust near the front door as he exited the shack to the gas pumps. He had nothing better to do in his mind than try and clean up the place, so he resolved to sweep up some of the piles of sand that had accumulated on the concrete that blocked cars' paths to the pumps. "Did you say...your name is 'Flim'?"
"Yes, and my brother's name is Flam. I will hang up on you if you make a joke, I swear to Celes- I mean, God." An irritated hum came from Mr. Finch, and Arlo got the message. "...a financial agreement between me, Flim Finch, and her that was drawn up after the opening of Shade in the Sand thirteen years ago, with a miscellany of revisions and modifications built up over the last decade. It is in the opinion of the law offices of Black, Finch & Web that Ms. Pye intended that control of her estate should be transferred to her aunt, and failing that, since the aunt was deceased, the aunt's husband, then the husband's brother, and finally the brother's son - you. With the codicil taken into account, delivered into my possession a few hours ago, it now establishes the presence of previously undisclosed 'mattress money' dictating a special allowance for you to live on and pay your employee's wage, Applejack. As prescribed by law, you are entitled to hear the contents within, and I can read it to you now if you are at liberty to do so."
"Go ahead," Arlo grunted in approval as the ruddy sun setting on the horizon cast a red shine on the darkening desert. If he wanted to be productive and do something to make his new property better marginally, he only had a little daylight left to do it. He shoved the old broom across the concrete with as much enthusiasm for the labor as he could muster, his attention more aligned on the phone call.
Audible throat-clearing noises could be heard from Mr. Finch before the speech began. "To my esteemed cousin, who I never got to know very well when I was Rarity Pye, but hopefully will become a fast friend once everything is revealed to him, Arlo Atkins, I bequeath, free of all taxation..." Throughout this speech, Arlo had a good idea of the face Mr. Finch was making if his tone was anything to go on - it was the face of a man who has been invited into someone's home to pet a very annoying dog. "...a sum of five hundred thousand dollars -"
"What?" Arlo dropped the broom. It made a plume of dust on the cracked concrete.
"-to be collected in a lump sum at any time-"
"What?!" Arlo brought another hand to the phone to stabilize his hold next to his ear.
"-that can be located in the basement of Shade in the Sand. There you will also find Applejack, who I hope you will-"
Click
The elevator was relatively easy to find.
From the moment Arlo got off the phone, a sense of euphoric delight cascaded through his system as he rushed around the grimy, dirty, abandoned wreck of a gas station, trying to find a way down to the basement. Half a million dollars lay beneath the floorboards, and to Arlo, a man who had only thirty dollars to his name at the moment, the enticing escape from poverty was a great incentive to speed. He found the back room of the shack and ran through aisles of high shelves filled with flaccid soft drinks, expired snack foods, old packages of cigarettes, newspapers with yellowing pages, and half-empty bottles of motor oil.
Eventually, the estate's beneficiary found something that looked very out of place from the rest of the gas station - something modern. The shack was as old as the highway it was built on, operated once by people from Arlo's great grandparents' generation - but Arlo was looking for a stairwell that ran down a dark nook to the basement, not an elevator. It was massive, like it was used to ferry vehicles to and from an underground parking garage, and once it was found, it dominated the whole room, as it was not built into any of the walls and just took up a good portion of the room's space. It didn't look old - in fact, it shined in the scant light coming in from the back room's door to the rest of the shack. There was only a single button on the control panel to hail the carriage, but it was two feet above his head, clearly designed for things of more oversized stature.
Now usually, Arlo would have taken everything strange about the situation in - the weird notebook, the sudden last-minute adjustings to the will of his dead cousin, who is dead for reasons no one knows about, the big elevator in the century-year-old desert hut, which hopefully went down to the basement that contained a friendly gas station manager and the financial salvation from poverty - and stepped back. Arlo would have liked to think if the circumstances were just a little different, he would have called back the lawyer, asked him some more questions (like the strange wording that his cousin's codicil contained), and given himself time to mull and compartmentalize all of the sudden realizations about his circumstances that were seemingly constantly in flux.
But Arlo was scared. He needed that money. All day his mind had been flooded with fantasized notions of starving alone, unwashed, homeless, and without any happiness left in the world. Having no money had that effect on people. So any hesitation the man would have normally felt from all of this oddness was brushed past, and Arlo happily lifted his hand over his head a good bit to press the button. And despite his earlier assessment that the shack was without power, the light behind the button lit up, registering Arlo's press. A hum, low but steady, rang out from deep beneath the floorboards, beneath the sand, growing louder as the carriage in the shaft presumably rose to the surface. The stainless steel doors slid down into the ground with a cheerful little ding to reveal sterile, mirror-polished slabs of metal paneling the walls, with a ceiling that projected ambient lighting from their in-built sockets.
Arlo did not question anything. He just stepped into the massive elevator carriage and pressed the only button that he could reach on the console that was also too tall for him, the one that made the box go down.
There was no way for him to have known that he was riding down to Equestria's secret base of operations for the invasion of Earth...
Choice 1: ...an invasion that's still a far way's away
Choice 2: ...an invasion that's halfway prepared for
Choice 3: ...an invasion that's imminent
Choice 4: ...an invasion that has already begun
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April 19
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