Days of Future Past

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I woke to find myself surrounded by darkness, nothing but darkness in all directions. “Hello?” I called, looking around quickly. I tried to lit my horn, and though I could feel the magic coming out of me I still didn't see anything. I reached up and touched my eyes, making sure they were open, and they were, I reached up and felt my horn, I could feel the magic field around my horn too, but still nothing, I couldn't even see my hoof in front of my face.

After a few panicked moments I heard a strange noise, making me jump in surprise and look around for the source.

EERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHh

A bright light started flashing behind me. I turned around quickly and found myself face to face with TT, her horn glowing white.

“Hello again Doctor Cane.” She said, smiling happily.

“T T! Where are we? What's going on? I need to get back and help Ruby! She's been taken by the Enclave.”

“I know Doctor Cane. Don't worry, for the moment she's safe.”

“That's an exaggeration if ever I heard one.”

“I promise, they aren't going to hurt her for the moment, they need her, and they aren't going to do anything just yet to compromise her.”

“You don't know what they did to her before!”

“I am well aware of her treatment at the hooves of Scourge Cloud and his minions.

“Then you know how important it is that I save her!”

“I do, and I'm sure you will.”

“Oh god...this is all my fault...” I groaned, slouching to the ground.

“You can't blame yourself for this Doctor Cane.”

“Maybe if I had stayed with her we could have gotten away.”

“They were waiting with two dozen soldiers to seize her, you would have only ended up captured as well or dead.”

“But...but...fuck...this never would have happened if I had been more careful!”

“You can't blame yourself!” She said again more firmly.

“The hell I can't! If I had argued against coming out here this wouldn't have happened!”

“You could hardly deny Ruby her desire to visit her parents with your newborn foal.”

“What about Brutus and Crackshot and Candy?!” I realized, jumping to my hooves again.

“The Enclave was after Ruby Star, not the rest of your team.”

“Maybe if we hadn't had Candy...” I said softly, starting to spiral backwards through events that would have prevented this.

“You both wanted to have a child, you had no reason not to pursue that desire.”

“Maybe...Maybe I shouldn't have come to the Wasteland at all...” I sighed as my mind backtracked all the way to the point I first woke up in the cryo pod.

“Come now Doctor Cane, you didn't exactly have control over that, and think of your impact on the Wasteland. You stopped the Pyro army, saved your brother...”

“VENTURE!” I yelled as I managed to shift the blame to before I got frozen, “if I had just seen the signs, I could have stopped him! I would never have been frozen in the first place, never have met Ruby, we wouldn't have had Candy, we wouldn't have been at the graveyard and she would never have been taken by the Enclave.”

“Doctor Cane!” TT snapped, slapping me with a hoof, “you need to calm down, you're getting hysterical.”

“I...I'm sorry.” I stammered, shocked that she would hit me, and only just now realizing how strange this whole situation was.

“You really think you not being brought into the Wasteland would have been better for everypony?” She asked angrily.

“Yes! Ruby is going to suffer terribly for it! If I had stopped Venture back then, all those ponies he hurt, the homes his army destroyed, they'd all have been fine. For the love of Luna, Explosive Blast would still be alive for CB!”

“Fine! You think you'd be so much better off?! Prove it!” Her horn started to glow brighter and brighter as she yelled angrily at me, until it was blinding again. Again I heard that strange noise...

EERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHh

The light faded slowly into darkness again, this time though my eyes snapped open to sunlight, and birds singing...I looked out the window from my bed and could see the park across the street, children playing on the swings and going down the slides.

I shot up in the bed, looking around slowly. It was my bedroom, the long room with the television mounted to the wall on the far side, the dresser under it holding a computer that was wired up to the monitor for watching movies or working later than I should have. The left wall had another dresser, the top two thirds of it painted red, the rest painted green, it was kind of ugly, but it had been a gift from a little filly to...

“Oh you're already awake.” Rosa said, coming into the room from the bathroom that was opposite her dresser. She was still wet from the shower and came over to the bed, rubbing her wet face against me, “how am I supposed to wake you up with my wet self if you're already up?” She asked, kissing me and moving to get dressed.

“You can always rub your wet self against my face and I'll be up.” I said, almost without even thinking. It was an inside joke, one that I wasn't sure if she really loved, or thought I loved and so always did.

When we'd first started hanging out, before we'd gone out, just work friends more than anything, I had fallen asleep at my desk, as I had hundreds of times in the past, but this time she came to check on me before she went home, and having just gotten out of the shower in the locker rooms she had come up to me and rubbed her wet face all over me to wake me up.

“Oh good, you're awake,” she'd said when I woke up at her rubbing, “I always wondered if rubbing my wet self on a buck would make em get up.”

“You can always rub your wet self against my face and I'll be up.” I had replied, half asleep. She had laughed for almost five minutes...and I was humiliated.

“Big day today.” She said, pulling a set of utility barding from her dresser and starting to pull it on, working her wings through it carefully.

“Yeah, I had trouble sleeping.” I said, laying back slowly, “I was up all night trying to put the finishing touches on the presentation for Ms. Fluttershy.”

“Yeah I know, I woke up at 3Am, 4:30 and 5:15 to find you still plugging away on your computer.” She said, gesturing to the wireless keyboard that sat on my bedside table, my pipbuck beside it.

I remembered this, I remembered all this, this was the day that I had been frozen...the meeting with Fluttershy, then I'd have lunch with Rosa, meet with some of the R&D guys in the afternoon to apprise them of any requests the Ministry of Peace might have felt were needed to the cryo program...But how was this possible? I could see so much so clearly outside, things I didn't remember, it was too detailed for a memory orb...what had TT done to me?

“So, come on, up and at'em.” She said, slapping my side playfully, “unless you think we should just go in late?” She asked, coming closer and kissing me teasingly.

I barely registered the kiss and she looked at me seriously, “Cane? Are you okay?”

“Uhh, yeah I'm fine, just preoccupied.” I shrugged, pushing myself out of bed slowly. I looked down at my matted coat and remembered what we had been doing the night before, Rosa's attempt to get me to stop working for the night, and she had succeeded...for a few hours.

“I'll go make breakfast.” She said, kissing my cheek and heading out of the room, closing the door again behind her.

“What...the...fuck...” I said as the door clicked, finally snapping out of it.

~You think you're so smart, you fix it!~ I heard TT's voice echo around the room.

Not sure what else to do with myself I got up and showered before dressing quickly and heading downstairs. I grabbed my pipbuck and put it back on, watching the data feeds come up as the HUD activated. I looked down at the display and was amazed to see it was my pipbuck. Now I don't mean just that it was MINE, I mean of course it was, Rosa had one but she mostly left it at the office. This one was my normal pipbuck...you know what, let me explain...

My inventory screen showed Ebony and Ivory, not equipped of course because they were at the office on my wall, more decorative than anything at this point in my life, but it listed my armoured barding, my healing potions, Rose's Thorn, all of them were listed as simply not equipped, and more amazingly, everything was still listed in Caps, though it seemed to be struggling to resolve that, the pricing glitching between Caps and Bits, I was amazed to see that stuff was a lot cheaper in Caps, made sense I guess. I walked downstairs, flicking through the screens to see my turret automation code, the decryption protocols for Venture's archives, schematics for weapons from Rosa's computer that had initial save dates of a week from now...it was surreal.

“Bout time.” Rosa said, sitting two plates of toast and bowls of oatmeal on the table. She put some brown sugar on mine before sitting down. She knew me so well. It made my heart ache, she was so happy and ignorant about what was to come.

“Hey Sugar?” She started, looking at me hesitantly.

“Yeah?” I asked, pouring us some orange juice and sitting down across from her.

“Uhh, maybe it can wait.”

I realized she probably wanted to tell me about the baby right now, but she was holding back for whatever reason.

“No no, what is it?” I asked curiously, smiling warmly. I vaguely remembered that last time I had let it go, figuring she'd tell me when the time was right, this time I was going to try pushing the issue a bit and see if the outcome changed.

“You have enough on your plate already today, it's nothing bad, it can wait until tonight.”

“Rosa, come on, nothing in my life is more important than you.”

“Well this might be...” She said softly, “I...I'm pregnant...” She grinned.

“You're what?!” I asked, jumping out of the chair, managing to put on a pretty convincing surprised if I do say so myself, “that's awesome!” I moved around the table and kissed her passionately, hugging her tight. “How long?”

“About three weeks.” She said, smiling happily and nuzzling my cheek.

“We have to get to work and tell everypony!” I said, bouncing back excitedly. It was weird, I knew how all this was supposed to play out but I was so excited still, like it was all new and unknown for me.

“Yeah yeah, just relax bub, finish your breakfast and we'll go.” She said, resuming eating.

We ate breakfast, probably faster than normal, and soon enough we were out the door, walking up the street towards the facility two blocks up.

As we walked I was happy to just be nuzzled up beside her, but something occurred to me...If this really was the past, I could fix things...I could stop Venture here and now...I could have my life back...Did I want my life back?

I reflected on the events of my life in the Wasteland, weighing the pros and cons. If I stopped Venture now, he'd never raise up his pyro army and kill so many ponies and destroy so many lives and homes, I'd never get to see Ruby or CB or any of my friends again, more importantly, I'd never know Candy...not that Candy at least...Rosa had a foal inside her that I knew would be a girl, I'd still have my baby Candy...but it was so different, none of it was easy...I had been happy in the Wasteland, beautiful fiancee, sharp as a tack adopted daughter, relative comfort, a new born foal that I loved with all my heart...But that was me being greedy...If things went back to the way they were I was allowing so much suffering. Rosa would suffer for losing me, then CB would lose her mother, Ruby would get taken by the Enclave again, to say nothing of the aforementioned countless ponies killed or abducted by the pyros.

“YO! Equestria to Cane!” Rosa shouted in my ear, snapping me back to reality. We were standing in front of the entrance to the office and a guard was looking at me expectantly. “Oh, sorry.” I pulled out my ID card and he scanned it, then shot me with a blast of magic energy from his horn, a spell designed to disrupt the magics of a Changeling. Satisfied that I was who I claimed to be he hit a button and the door opened for us.

“I know you're nervous about this meeting, but you were totally gone.” Rosa laughed.

“Oh I wasn't thinking about the meeting.” I said seriously.

“Well excited about the whole day.” She nodded.

“Wow, look who managed to show up on time.” Venture said, coming into the lobby, Fluttershy and two M.o.P. Scientists with her.

“Of course, it's a big day. Rosa and I are gonna have a baby.” I said, grinning stupidly at the group.

“Oh, how wonderful...” Fluttershy said softly, “congratulations.” She had something of a pained look in her eyes and I wondered briefly if she regretted never having the time for children herself.

“That's great!” Venture said, hugging Rosa and punching my arm, “and I thought she was just making it up when she said she let you sleep with her.” He said softly to me, smirking as he moved back, “you'll have to tell me everything later. For now, we have a presentation for the Minister.”

“Of course of course.” I nodded. For the time being I had to just run the day as it had been, or as close as possible, until I could get what I needed, “you're going up to the west conference room?”

“Yeah W308.” He said.

“Alright, I'll be along in just a few minutes, I just need to get my notes and everything off my computer and I'll be right there.”

“Oh of course,” Fluttershy said, “take your time, I'm sorry we arrived so early.”

“Not at all Ms. Fluttershy,” I replied, making her blush a little, “I'll be along quick as I can.” I said. They started towards the elevators and Rosa and I headed back the way they had originally come from. We made our way to the second floor and we stopped to say goodbye.

“Good luck today. Just relax and be your usual brainy self and I'm sure it'll be fine.” Rosa said, kissing me gently.

“I know, thanks for that.” I replied, “Uhh Rosa?” I asked as she turned to leave.

“Yeah?” She looked back at me curiously.

“Have a good day.” I said, wussing out of telling her what I planned on doing.

“You too.” She grinned, heading down to her office.

I walked up to my office door and pressed my hoof to the panel. “When I find myself in times of trouble, Princess Luna comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” I sang to the door and it opened for me.”

“Greetings Doctor Cane,” the computer said, “it has been 16 hours since your last sign off and 5 hours since your last system access, you have a meeting with the Ministry of Peace at 10...”

“They're already here.” I cut it off.

“Rescheduling.” It replied, “you are late for your meeting with the Ministry of Peace.”

“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes, “I need you to link to my Pipbuck, download the file 'Ven-Enc-One.DEF' and use it to access Venture's private servers. Pull everything from those servers that has to do with multidimensional theory, Mega Spells, genetic encryption, and anything to do with me that you don't already have in my public files.”

“Processing...”

“Also, the two assistants that came with Ms. Fluttershy, who are they?”

“Morning Star, a pegasus research assistant, has served as Ministry Mare Fluttershy's attache between the Ministry of Peace and Stable-Tec until recently when she was reassigned as Fluttershy's personal assistant.”

“And the other?”

“Name in register, Mint Berry, is unassociated with any known Ministry of Peace employee, unicorn or otherwise.”

“Is she just new?”

“Cross referencing Cutie Mark.”

I finished downloading my presentation and watched the computer scan through a database of Cutie Marks at an amazing speed. The middle monitor showed the mare's flank, her cutie mark was a balloon with a rose wrapped around the string.

“Potential match found. Partial Cutie Mark referenced in a number of news paper stories involving dissenters and Zebra sympathizers going missing, also 'unofficially' listed on a number of Ministry of Morale Black Ops reports, which of course we do not have, likely conclusion is that she is a Ministry of Morale plant.”

“Maybe Pinkie Pie is just putting her best pony on watching one of her best friends.”

“A distinct possibility.”

“Have you finished combing Venture's database?”

“Affirmative.”

“Copy the information onto the portable hard drive in slot B.” I said, moving towards the door.

“Copy complete.”

I grabbed the hard drive and shoved it in one of my pockets, heading off to the meeting.

//////////

The next few hours went just as they had the first time I'd lived this day. We talked about the cryo pods, went over the one working demo unit, the one I would end up frozen in, and how if the tests in the next week went well we'd be ready to mass produce hundreds of them within a month and have the first shipments ready a month after that.

It was coming up on noon by the time the meeting finished. Fluttershy couldn't say enough good things. She was so happy to finally have full cryogenic suspension technology so close to use.

“If you'll excuse me,” Venture said as the presentation finished, “I have to meet with the tech firm who's going to be building the pods for us and let them know about the specifics you've requested.”

“Yes, by all means,” Fluttershy nodded, packing up her paperwork and tucking it in a saddlebag.

“See you at one for lunch?” He asked me, “I want to know all about this baby thing.” He grinned.

“Yeah of course.” I replied and he headed out of the room, “Shall I escort you ladies back to your Sky Wagon?” I asked, looking back at the three of them.

“Oh, we actually walked here from the hotel.” Fluttershy said, “we're going to meet Twilight Sparkle for lunch to review the rest of your Cryo Pod data so that she can submit the requests to get you the freezing talismans you need to move forward.”

“Oh alright, well I'll walk you to the lobby.” I said, holding the door open for them and starting out of the room.

We rode down to the lobby and up to the front doors and out to the street outside the building.

“It was nice seeing you again Sugar Cane.” Fluttershy said, smiling happily at me.

“You too ma'am.” I nodded, making her blush again.

She started off down the street with the other two.

“Oh one moment Ms. Berry?” I asked. The unicorn looked back at me and walked back over to me, leaving the other two a dozen or so feet away.

“Yes?”

“I don't expect you to acknowledge who you truly are, or what pink Earth pony you may or may not work for, but, and I don't do this easily, this data needs to be seen by the proper authorities.” I said softly, slipping the hard drive from my pocket and holding it out to her. “My brother is a traitor to Equestria, and I can't stand idly by while he plans this.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked, taking the hard drive, but I could see the cold steel in her eyes, she was already planning her next moves with it.

“Just review the data and you'll see.”

“Come on Minty, we're gonna be late.” Morning Star called back to us.

“Right, sorry, coming.” She said, turning and starting off back to the other two and heading down the street with them.

I headed back into the building, but as I passed through the door there was a flash of light and I found myself standing, not in the lobby of the office, but some large circular room. A set of stairs in front of me went up to a column that ran through the centre of the room, top to bottom. It had a whole mess of controls wrapped around it and the very middle was a column of light.

“But Doctor...”

“Don't BUT me, Missy! You had no right to just take him and dump him back in the past like that. You know how important he is to the restoration of the Wasteland!”

“But he—”

“I said no BUTS!

“Actually, Doctor, you said—”

“Nooo! He has a life! A family! A child! Not to mention his grandchildren and their children!” I walked up the steps slowly and saw TT and Doctor... dammit I forgot to get his name... TT and The Doctor, seemingly arguing about me.

“Concussive Blast is too important to the restoration of the Wasteland to not have him in her life! Don’t you understand what you have done?”

“I know, he was just...”

“Just nothing.” The Doctor cut her off, “you were being incredibly childish and you know it!”

“Uhh excuse me.” I said finally.

“OH, Doctor Cane.” The stallion said, coming over to me and patting my shoulder. “So sorry about the trouble you ran into. My companion here got a little carried away with her privileges and let her bad attitude get to her. She should never have dumped you back into the past like that.”

“Wait...what? That really was the past?”

“Yes yes, but not to worry! I'll have you home lickity split and you can go rescue your fiancee.”

“What was all that?”

“Nothing dear buck! Nothing you need concern yourself with anyway. Just enjoy that you got to spend one last day with Rosalea, take it as the gift it is and move on.”

“But...”

“Ahh ahh, don't worry! We'll just nip you back to Ruby and Candy and you'll be in time for tea.” He moved around the panel, hitting a bunch of switches and levers and soon that strange sound filled the area again.

EERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHh

The column started to shift up and down, light pulsing through it, I realized TT's horn was flashing in time to the pulses of light. A few moments later the light faded and he nodded to himself, throwing a few switches and things went quiet again.

“Alright, off we go!” he said, starting for the doors, “I'll apologize to your friends for taking you away and then I'll be on my way again.” He walked out and stopped and I ran into his backside.

“Why'd you stop?” I asked, but looking out past him I realized the problem. We were looking at the hospital lobby, but it was dark, and a mess. Rubbish and discarded clipboards and coffee cups littered the foyer.

“Where is everypony?” The Doctor asked, walking out into the empty lobby and looking around curiously. “TT?” He called back into the strange control room.

“Sensors indicate only a number of Radroaches on the lower floors. There is also a non-feral ghoul scavenger team on floor six. Indicators for Concussive Blast, Ruby Star and Brute Force are all 20 miles West.”

“20 miles...they're at the old base?” I asked.

“Well you were attacked by the Enclave, perhaps your forces rallied there to push them back.” The Doctor said, getting back onto the ship, pulling me along and closing the door behind us.

“But that doesn't explain why the hospital is abandoned again.”

“Perhaps not again...” He replied, moving back to the console. He threw a bunch of seemingly random switches again.

EERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHh