I looked down at Box Cutter who lay spread-eagled on the clinic bed with an ice pack wrapped around his head. Bandages mummified his chest.

Me? I suppose I was better off. After a healthy dose of a super healing potion, the scabs on my leg peeled off, and the flesh beneath my blue and yellow jumpsuit went to a very interesting shade of pink. I got bandaged up and told to not run on it, though the itching was really starting to bother me.

It turned out that Box Cutter did in fact have a concussion. I was just glad that Lightning Twirl got him to the clinic fast enough for the doc to wrap his head in ice before the swelling began.

I sighed, safe from danger and impending doom … for the moment.

A peaceful yellow glow fell upon us from the lights above. The walls around us were patterned with swarms of butterflies of alternating colors of pink and yellow – insects that were probably long extinct. The ceiling was painted to resemble an open sky with sparse clusters of poofy clouds. I imagined that laying on a hospital bed in pain was probably better when your head was in the clouds.

I hoped the other ponies inside the clinic felt the same way. All around us, the clinic's clean, sterile halls were filled to the brim with Shift C’s wounded.

Behind the pink curtains surrounding Box Cutter's bed, I heard someone groan. Nearly a dozen of the engineering ponies suffered shrapnel wounds, second degree burns, concussions, broken bones, or a lovely pick-n-mix of all of the above. I was one of them, but I got off easily. I winced at the thought of my entire body getting cooked. Thankfully … nobody died, at least.

Excluding the members of C Shift, the stable was as healthy and happy as it could be.

‘For now,’ I thought darkly.

For the two centuries since the bombs fell, my stable had lived in relative luxury. Clean water. Working toilets. Hot baths. Fresh food – if colorless apples and genetically-modified veggies counted as fresh. We had it all. I wasn't sure how long we could continue living the way we did with the water talisman broken. Water was always recycled.

That poop water in your toilet? It's what you're going to drink tomorrow morning at breakfast. Not that it'll taste like anything, it was recycled and treated. But without the talisman, that poop water was still going to be poop water when you go for a drink tomorrow no matter what you do .

"What happened?" I asked Box Cutter, who, thankfully, was still conscious. “I tried accessing the systems but they were dark by the time I had my PipBuck up.”

"Shit if I know. My console was giving me crazy readings and the entire room started shaking." He sighed. “Then the catwalk fell out from under my hooves and, well, I’m here now.”

I furrowed my brows. "What kind of readings, though?"

"The water talisman just couldn't take it anymore I guess. It overloaded. There was too much pressure in the valves and it overheated trying to compensate. It started boiling the water instead of treating it."

Behind me, Dew Drops harrumphed. "That explains the explosions. But why? It's supposed to last us centuries."

It was a question none of us could answer. It was probably a question nobody in the stable could answer. Something like that was never supposed to happen. Ever.

"There has to be another way,” Dew Drops muttered, “There just has to be …" She turned to me, hoping that I’d say the same. I just met her gaze with worried eyes before looking down at the white-tiled floor beneath my hooves. A voice in the back of my head kept telling me that we’d be drinking poop water soon enough.

A few seconds of silence hung over us until Dew Drops sighed and shook her head. "All the engineering ponies are meeting with the Overmare later at midnight. You and I will be going, Red.” She peered down at Box Cutter. “Think you can make it, Box?"

"He needs to stay in bed," the doctor's voice said behind the curtains. Stitches, the stable's local equine fixer, pushed through the pink fabrics. She levitated a pen out of her white coat and jotted down notes on a clipboard as she gave the injured earth pony on the bed a look over. "Box Cutter hit his head pretty hard. He might lapse out of consciousness and hurt himself even more if he tries doing anything strenuous." Doctor Stitches gave the stallion a serious look. "I might even need to crack his skull open to relieve the pressure building up inside, or it might blow like the purifier downstairs."

Box Cutter's eyes widened in horror. "Just pulling your leg," Stitches chuckled. I glared at her and so did Dew Drops. She had that sick sense of humor that scared the hell out of you and made you even angrier after finding out your mom wasn't really going to die from cancer. The bastard. "You do have a concussion though, so you still need to rest for a bit, maybe even for a while."

Box Cutter groaned.

"Could be worse," Dew Drops grinned. "Your head could’ve exploded."

"Quit scaring me, this shit's serious," he pouted.

Dew Drops patted his ruffled, frizzy mane reassuringly.

"You'll be fine. Take it easy. Red and I are going to grab a bite before the meeting."

I bumped hooves with Box Cutter and left the clinic, Dew Drops taking the lead. We stepped out the door and I cringed as a pair of hooves wrapped around me.

“My baby, my baby!” my mom moaned, covering me with her feathers. The white pegasus – my mother – pushed me into the door and my bad leg rubbed painfully against its frame.

“Mom – ow – please –”

“I’m so glad you’re okay! I heard the explosions and I thought you were hurt! But my little colt is A-OK!” she cried, hugging me tighter as she smooshed my muzzle into her scarlet mane.

I rolled my eyes, wincing as my mother squeezed me to death.

“Miss Morning Dawn, your little pony got a boiling steam bath … you probably shouldn’t be touching him … at all,” Dew Drops advised, suppressing a giggle.

Mom’s ears twitched and she let go of me immediately. I glanced off to the side so that she wouldn’t see the annoyed look in my face, my flesh burning where the door grazed me. I smiled painfully at her. “I’m fine, Mom.”

“Did you have dinner yet? Curfew starts in an hour,” she asked, raising a foreleg to rub my shoulder.

“DD and I were just about to go get something to eat. Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’m fine, really … but the water purifier isn’t,” I said, frankly. “The water t- ” Dew Drops clapped my mouth shut with a hoof.

“The water’s going to be cold for a few days while we try to get the heater working. It blew out too when the purifier broke down. But we still have our reserves, so we should be fine for a while until we can fix them,” Dew Drops finished for me. I glared at her. “We’re going to a meeting with the Overmare later tonight. We’ll have it allllll fixed A-S-A-P,” she drawled.

“Oh ... okay,” Mom said, touching a hoof to her lower lip. “Wear your sealed barding next time you’re down at engineering,” she said to me as I nodded incessantly. “You two should go have dinner now, it’s getting late.” Mom glanced over her shoulder. “Love you, son!”

“Yes, Mom,” I said quickly, cantering to the door. I feigned a smile, relieved to finally have some distance between her, lest she smother me to death with her hugs. I trotted after Dew Drops who was already halfway down the hall.

“Love you!” I heard her call after me.

My cheeks turned scarlet and I waved goodbye, eager to catch up to my friend.

Mom didn’t leave until after I caught up with Dew Drops. The mare giggled at me. She must’ve thought that was cute. Well I’m not cute. I’m a full grown stallion! I fixed things! I’m an engineer, a repair pony, and a cynic … I’m a lot of things, but I wasn’t cute.

I let out a long sigh.

I knew that the meeting was going to be in vain. There was nothing else we could do. We didn’t have any extra talismans. Ours was built in, and was supposed to be built to last.

‘For Celestia’s sake, why now?’ I thought.

Eight generations ago my great, great, great … great whatever grandmother and grandfather fled inside our stable just as the bombs fell. It had been two hundred years since the green fires we read about in the books annihilated the earth above us. Even underground, you could still see the seismic aftershocks of the spellfire explosions above in the vicious cracks in the walls.

Two centuries of clean water had passed since then, and our talisman just so happened to decide to inconveniently break at the turn of the century. There was no going back. Its warranty was beyond expired.

‘Speaking of warranties … no.’

Stable-Tec, the Ministries – there was nothing left above ground. At least that’s what we were told. The history books told us that when the bombs fell, the earth split apart, oceans evaporated, trees disintegrated, and the world became a cold, empty crater devoid of life.

We were all that was left. Stable 91 was the only home I had ever known, and the only thing that kept us alive for so long was gone.

‘Goddesses help us all.‘

Dew Drops stopped suddenly and I bumped my head into her behind. I blinked, gasped, and took a step back. She glanced at me with a sly grin. Dew Drops swished her tail across my reddening muzzle with an elegant flourish.

“Pfft pwa –” I sputtered through her tail, my name beginning to match my likeness.

“Don’t look so down, Red,” she said as I groaned and cantered past her to the cafeteria. “We’ve lived here, our mothers lived here, and their mothers lived here. We’ll find a way, I promise.” Dew Drops bumped her flank playfully with mine and I winced.

“That hurts, you know?” I cringed as my scalded hide tingled and stung.

She just wrapped a leg around me. “C’mon, let’s get something to eat.” Dew Drops and I entered the cafeteria and found that it was surprisingly alive with chatter.

The air was tingling with a normality and an everydayness that made my mane itch. Dew Drops caught the eyes of a hoofful of ponies sitting at a table nearby when they saw her engineer jumpsuit. She gave them a hearty smile and the two of us made our way to the cafeteria line.

But before I could even lift a hoof, I felt something pull my tail. I glanced behind me and Amber Fields’ colt was peering up at me with wide eyes.

“Mister Dawn, is the water talisman broken?”

Pursing my lips, I glanced over at Dew Drops in hopes she’d answer for me. She mouthed no. I was awful with kids.

“I uh, no, it’s just …” I stammered, scratching my mane as I searched for a delicate way to word my answer without scaring him. Even for his age, he knew that the water talisman meant life, and without it, meant death. Or whatever he thought came after life. “The water purifier’s just broken,” I said, “We can fix it, don't you worry, kid!” I said, ruffling up his mane. “Go back to Amber and tell her that Box Cutter’s alright too, okay?”

“That’s what Miss Peach Petals said!” I sighed with relief when scampered off. Thank the Goddesses I didn’t make him cry.

Thank the Goddesses nobody else but me was worried. Overmare Peach Petals really knew how to keep everybody from freaking out and breaking chairs against the walls.

I heard Dew Drops chuckle. “And you say you’re horrible with foals. He’s not crying his eyes out thanks to you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s better that the kids don’t know how screwed they are,” I muttered. Dew Drops hooked her foreleg around mine and led me to the line like I was her foal.

I shrugged her off with a bothered look on my face.

“You’re so cute when you’re annoyed, Reddy,” she cooed, lifting an eyebrow at me with a smirk. “You really need to lighten up. We’re not dying any time soon.” The expression on my face persisted. She just pouted and wrinkled her brow.

“I’m two years older than you,” I pointed out for the millionth time, levitating a plate for her and then myself.

“And you’re still my apprentice,” she snapped, before craning her neck towards me so that we looked eye to eye. “And I’m telling you to lighten. Up,” I narrowed my eyes at her – but then I saw that the ponies behind us had their ears perked. Their faces went from oblivious contentment to that of fearful concern.

I sighed, grinning sheepishly. “Did I say we’re screwed? I meant we, as in Dew Drops and I, because it’ll be our shift that’ll have to fix the purifier,” I said forcefully. The ponies looked away and began murmuring to each other. “I wouldn’t want to make them shit themselves to death too soon,” I hissed, levitating up a hoofful of slightly over-steamed carrots, and a few slices of what looked to be hydroponically-grown squash onto a plate.

We took our seats next to another engineer pony from our shift. Star Glint and his marefriend, Lightning Twirl, were making cute little faces at each other.

I groaned, sticking out my tongue at them. “Yuck.”

Dew Drops watched as Star Glint gave Lightning Twirl a wet smooch.

“Aww!” Dew Drops crooned, wrapping a leg around me, pulling me close and puckering her lips.

I shrugged her off, again.

“Don’t be such a tease, DD, you’re making Red turn ... well, red,” laughed Lightning Twirl, as she swept a lock of her white mane out of her eye.

Star Glint chuckled with a devious grin.

“Yeah, how long have you two been friends? Ten? Fifteen years?”

I sighed, as Dew Drops bit her lower lip, suppressing a wide, sly grin.

“Eighteen,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the two lovers.

“Oh come on, Red, you two look GREAT together!” Lightning Twirl snickered. “Unless Red’s ... gay?”

I growled, “Gay? GAY? Me being straight or gay is the only thing fucking bothering you? Am I the only pony who’s bothered by the fact that our water talisman is broken?!” I hissed loud enough for only us to hear. I leaned over the table, glaring at Star Glint, who shrugged in response. If anyone should’ve been disturbed by what happened, it should’ve been another engineer pony like him.

Lightning Twirl stretched a feathered wing over her boyfriend.

“You need to lighten up –“

“I work down at engineering. Engineering. Keeps. Everyone. Alive. And now that the talisman’s broken, we can’t do that!” I whinnied, folding my forelegs across my chest as I sat down.

Lightning Twirl pursed her lips. “So you’re not gay?”

I sighed, levitating a carrot to my mouth. I munched on it bitterly as they waited for a response as they grinned playfully at me.

“There’s nothing wrong with … with being gay – and I’m not!” I snapped. “I’m too busy.”

And I wasn’t even exaggerating. I spent most of my free time tinkering with random bits of machinery I’d find or fixing other ponies’ broken things in my room over at B-Block.

I was B-Block’s handy pony. The red cog and wrenches crossed over my flanks reminded me of the years I spent trying to find my special talent. After failing time and time again, I finally found one, and all I was trying to do was to put it to good use.

I wasn’t really the nicest stallion people knew – but hell, I knew my way around a wrench and a screwdriver and I could fix almost – mind you, almost – anything, if given the time. Well, except for the water talisman. I had neither the tools nor the brains to do that anyways. That really bothered me. Maybe it was because an opportunity to get my hooves on something new to fix had slipped away? Fixing radios and terminals did get pretty old after the hundred-somethingth time.

Nah. Maybe it was because our water was going to be contaminated without a working talisman.

I sighed. “I can’t believe you guys aren’t worried about having poop in your water.”

Star Glint rolled his eyes, pointing at the bandages around his face.

“That explosion really got me, but I’m not letting it bring me down,” he said, “Everybody’s going to get scared if you are too. It’s best if they just knew that the purifier broke, not the talisman.”

Dew Drops rested a foreleg on my shoulder.

“So stop being worried. I keep telling you we’ll find a way but you won’t believe me.”

I opened my mouth but she cut me off, “When we work together, there’s nothing we can’t do,” Dew Drops said.

“Right,” I scoffed, levitating another carrot into my mouth. “I’m surprised how much control the Overmare has over the situation.”

“If a leader like Peach Petals tells her little ponies everything’s going to be okay, then everything’s going to be okay,” Lightning Twirl chuckled.

I thought, ‘Maybe we are going to be okay? Maybe we can figure out some way to purify the water ourselves.’

My ancestors couldn’t possibly have settled Stable 91 without knowing something like that would ever happen. Then again, for the millionth time, something like that WASN’T supposed to happen.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we aren’t going to fucking die drowning in poop water,” I said with forced enthusiasm.

“What’s with you and poop water?” Dew Drops asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

I shrugged, popping a slice of squash into my mouth. I levitated a cup of water and eyed its contents carefully before gulping it down.

“I’m going to go make sure they’ve got the pumps connected to our reserves,” I said getting up from my seat. Dew Drops wrenched me down back to my rump and I cursed under my breath as my bad leg bumped the edge of the seat.

“Don’t you dare think about going there without me. We never. Work. Alone. Besides,” she chuckled, “Just let the next shift deal with it. Let the ponies who didn’t get blown up with steam and shrapnel link the reserves.” She glanced at her PipBuck. “Their shift starts in 10 minutes anyways.”

I folded my forelegs over one another on the table and rested my head on my hooves. Dew Drops gave me a hug and I just sat there. My eyes caught Star Glint’s amused smirk, and I turned, sighed, and wrapped my legs around her.

“You should get some rest. The meeting is five hours,” Dew Drops said softly.

I got up from the table and, after waving my goodbyes, I was off to B-Block.

I opened the door to my room and stumbled in through the darkness. I unzipped my jumpsuit and left it strewn across the floor as I waddled over to my bed in my underwear.

I sighed, flicked my lamplight on, and rested a hoof on my blanket, about ready to go to bed.

Slinking into my mattress, I laid out my legs with extra care to not graze my hind left against something hard. I sunk my head into a pillow and stared blankly at the ceiling. I was actually glad Dew Drops stopped me before I could make my way to engineering again, because as I lay on my mattress, I realized that I was exhausted.

My room was pretty bland. I had a bed, a couch, a fridge, a closet, a bathroom, and a study table topped by stacks of books by the door.

I threw a passing glance at the swear jar sitting on my desk.

It was almost full.

Dew Drops thought it’d help cure my potty mouth. It didn’t helped much.

I sighed, and tried to close my eyes. But a nagging feeling in the back of my mind forced them back open.

I couldn’t help but stare at the shelf at the far corner of my room. It was my handy pony queue. I levitated a radio towards me from the pile and set it down at the edge of my bed, giving it a thorough look over. I needed to splice in some new wires. Looked like someone’s foal tried cutting it with scissors. I hoped they didn’t do that while it was plugged in.

I levitated it across the room back to its shelf and stretched out my legs, yawning. I scrutinized my hind leg and unraveled the bandages. The flesh under my coat was a very light shade of brown and the itching had subsided a while ago. I let out a sigh of relief.

Rolling over towards the bedside table next to me, I glanced at a picture frame of a foal, my mom, and a unicorn stallion I hardly knew. I didn’t know my dad too well.

‘You look just like him,’ my mom always told me. I had his brown coat and his red eyes. ‘We did look alike,’ I thought. My mom’s red mane and white coat were a polar contrast to my dad’s. I ran a hoof absent mindedly through my short, cropped, dark red mane. I did have her hair though.

My father died in an accident when I was just a baby.

Red Roan. That was his name.

I looked at the unicorn stallion in the picture. He looked happy, and I bet he enjoyed his job every day of his life until that pipe blew up in his face. Or so I was told. Funny, I had pipes blowing up in mine too earlier that day and nearly died myself. When I got my cutie mark and filled the horseshoes my father left behind, I never once thought that I’d ever die from doing it. I sighed, staring at the photograph. The white-coated pegasus mare – my mother – hugged me as I smiled a wide, toothless grin.

Only then did it really sink in that I could have died down there at engineering. ‘I could have died.’ I turned to the picture frame next to it and I saw a photo of myself, Dew Drops, Amber Fields, Star Glint, Lightning Twirl, and Box Cutter posing in front of a camera while holding the results of our Cutie Mark Aptitude Tests. Dew Drops was hugging me as I bumped hooves with my best friend. Amber Fields, Lightning Twirl, and Star Glint were jumping for joy behind the three of us as the camera pony snapped the picture.

My eyes focused on Dew Drops. I remembered what she was like back then. She was still the same smart, helpful, and humble pony she always was. I always admired her … and how fast she learned things. She’d glance at a manual, disassemble a radio once, put it back together, and reassemble it without looking back at the instructions. She was amazing in almost every way.

No. She was amazing in every way.

Me? It took me twenty radios before I finally memorized what piece went where and why. She taught me everything I knew. Actually, most of what I knew was a result of my apprenticeship under the younger, fully-fledged mare. I owed my specialization in electrical engineering to her.

I sighed. My mom loved her. I questioned if she loved Dew Drops more than I – ‘hah! Nah.’ But really … who wouldn’t?

Looking back now, I don’t think I would’ve gotten my cutie mark without her help either. My crusade to earn my cutie mark was one of trial and error. I spent a few years trying everything, but I didn’t enjoy any of those other ‘talents’ one bit. Drawing? I got good at it, but there wasn’t much to draw in an underground bunker. Cooking? Awful. I even tried working at the orchards, but bucking apples all day bored the hell out of me.

My mother never wanted me to work down at engineering ever since … Dad … but the satisfaction of watching a broken terminal come back to life was, to me, almost as intoxicating as the hard cider from the stable's orchards.

One day, when I was just a colt, and she, a filly, Dew Drops was replacing a light bulb in her bedside lamp. She was nice enough to show me what end went where and how I had to screw it in.

Not long after, my Mom watched me with uncertainty as I replaced a flickering lightbulb in our bathroom. From then on, I realized that fixing things was just exactly what I wanted to do. The CAT was a redundant reminder that I was going to be an engineer just like my late father.

I fixed Star Glint’s alarm clock. I fixed the sound system in Amber Fields’s quarters. I even fixed Peach Petals’ faulty terminal. All that mattered to me was being able to fix things that broke.

I’m Red Dawn, and I fix things.

If I were younger, I would've thought that I could fix anything.

My only regret was that I should have been there to lend Dew Drops a helping hoof. I was too busy wondering why the chamber's water level was receding until it was too late. Maybe if I had gotten there in time ... no. That day was been a reminder that some things were beyond fixing. That water talisman was beyond anybody’s expertise – invented by minds long dead and manufactured with arcane technology long lost.

And the rest of engineering and I had to focus on finding a solution to our stable's freshwater problem before everybody died from disease or dehydration – or both.

You couldn't really fix dead.

I rolled over in my bed and sighed as I levitated the picture closer to see the newly-formed cutie mark on young-me’s flank. It brought the slightest of smiles to my face as I laid my head back down on my pillow.

That day was probably the happiest day of my life. Well, finding out my mom didn’t have cancer was probably the happiest, actually, but that photo had to be the second happiest. My eyes stared longingly at the blue filly who hugged the brown-coated colt in the photo, and I closed my eyes.

If I died, I would’ve left all that. My mom. My friends. I thought about my mom crying as they fed my body into a cremator. I thought about my friends – Dew Drops – mourning for the pony that pushed them away every time he tried to get work done.

I could have died.