"We live in an age of poverty, greed, violence, destruction...How did it come to this..."

It was amusing, in a mildly cruel sort of way, watching Foxglove try to make up her mind about what she wanted to berate me for first. Between the blood splattered across my face and barding, the blackened scorch marks on my wings, the bandages obscuring my right eye, and the brown earth pony stallion dressed it beaten and scuffed barding that marked him as a soldier of the New Lunar Republic, the poor mare wasn’t certain sure what she was supposed to start yelling at me about when the three of us returned to where Arginine and I had left her. In the end, she seemed to settle for sputtering out half-completed questions about everything in turn before cycling back around all over again.

As humorous as the sight was, however, enough of the day had already been wasted as far as I was concerned, and it would be nice to make at least a little more progress towards our goal before nightfall, “the blood’s not mine, the black stuff will brush out, and I’ll have Lancet look at my eye when we get back to Seaddle,” I eventually informed the mare, hoping to stem the tide of questions I was being battered with. Then, as an added distraction, I gestured to the courser lieutenant, “this is Ramparts, he’ll be coming along to help. Ramparts, Foxglove. She’s better with a wrench and screwdriver than the average pony is at breathing.

“Let’s walk while you two talk,” I turned north and set a decent pace.

I left the storytelling to Ramparts, and let him explain to Foxglove what had happened at the Arc Lightning facility between us and the Steel Rangers. At certain instances, I suspected that this may have been in error, as there were a couple of points where I felt that the stallion was painting a much grimmer picture than had actually been the case. To hear him tell things, I’d been a one-mare wrecking crew, and not spent most of my time basically running and hiding while only fighting when I’d had to.

The instance at the end of everything where I had cut down a Ranger where he stood also remained―I felt―conspicuously absent from the accounting. I was fine with that. Frankly, it was the one part of the whole day that I’d just as soon forget myself. To help facilitate that, I drew out a bottle of Wild Pegasus and took several long pulls of the harsh amber fluid.

In order to further distract myself from those creeping memories, I took one of the recordings that Arginine had brought to me from Lightning Dust’s office and played it.

“Today marks a turning point for Arc Lightning, LLC!” a mare’s voice crackled over the speaker, sounding quite pleased with herself, “after years of R&D and testing, we finally have our prototype flight assistance module, the Gale Force! It gives any pegasus the ability to produce a force of two thousand wing power with a flick of their fetlocks. Ultra-light titanium alloy, integrated levitation talismans in the wings to allow for carrying heavier loads, and twin turbines for near-instantaneous acceleration! This thing is going to revolutionize the weather industry, mark my words! I’ve called a meeting of the shareholders for tomorrow, with a press conference scheduled to follow it. There’s no way I won’t get the green light to debut this masterpiece.

“I can’t wait!”

The recording clicked, signalling the end of the file. Well, from everything that I’d experienced first-hoof, I’d have to admit that the whole getup had lived up to this mare’s expectations. It sure had a lot of power behind it. Frankly, it probably was a lot more potent than was prudent, considering how quickly it accelerated. You’d have to be some sort of maniac to want to be able to go that fast that quickly!

I scanned over the other two recordings and played the next in the sequence. This time, the mare sounded considerably less elated, “ingrates,” she muttered sourly, “they’re all ingrates. Do you know what the shareholders told me? They said: ‘Lightning Dust, the Gale Force is too dangerous. You have to scale it back. Why not make it a flight assistance platform that just helps commuting pegasi fly long distances without getting tired? Maybe even as an aid to help crippled pegasi, like yourself! We’ll be able to sell thousands of them that way.’

“I didn’t pour tens of thousands of bits and years of my life into making a fucking crutch, you morons!” the mare spat viciously. Then she took a deep breath and continued her recording in a slightly calmer tone.

“This is ridiculous. I mean, I get that they haven’t seen the numbers that I have, but come on! They’re there if anypony feels like taking the time to look for them.

“Seventeen thousand,” she stated flatly, pausing for a moment before elaborating on the apparent non-sequitur, “that’s the magic number. It takes seventeen thousand weather ponies―minimum―to maintain Equestria’s climate.

“You want to know how many pegasi are in the Weather Service as of three days ago? Hmm? According to my father, who works in personnel management for the Weather Service hub in Cloudsdale, there are sixteen-thousand, four hundred, and seventy-one ponies on weather detail. That number is already less than what’s needed―at a minimum!―and even more pegasi are getting drafted for the war every month! We’re already starting to see reduced crop yields because they can’t keep up with rainfall requirements. It’s even worse, since a lot of the ponies who do the actual farming have also been drafted.

“We’re right on course for the first famine that Equestria’s seen since...since the fucking Wendigos! Like, we’re going back into myth and legend territory here; that’s how absurd this is. Which is why nopony wants to hear it when I try to explain to them why I’m developing the Gale Force explicitly for the Weather Service so that even a few of them can do the same amount of work as hundreds.

“Well,” the mare paused again, and then spoke in a slightly more hushed tone, as though she were imparting some sort of secret that she didn’t want getting out, “that and the fact that nopony in the news has even so much as mentioned how few pegasis are keeping Equestria’s weather going, or how food production is declining. The reports exist, of course, because the government is tracking that sort of thing; but those trends are exactly the kind of thing that somepony would expect to hear being reported in the media. Except that I’ve been told that the Ministries of Image and Morale are keeping a tight lid on that information. There are even rumors that anypony who isn’t deemed as being discrete enough gets what they know about it sucked right out of their heads!

“I’m at my wit’s end,” she sighed, deflated, “I don’t know who I can turn to. The board won’t sign off on a press release, and I had to tell a whole room full of reporters to go home because our project ‘encountered an unanticipated setback’. I don’t even get to announce what the Gale Force can do until I have it completely redesigned as some sort of fucking recreational vehicle! This thing is suppose to keep us all from starving to death, for Celestia’s sake.

“Maybe if I can get a message right to Luna about what I’m trying to do…

“I’ll probably just end up getting my brain sucked dry too, but I don’t know what else to do. Wish me luck.”

Well...that didn’t sound ominous at all. I was now quite curious to hear what was on the third and final recording.

“So...I woke up this morning to a message on my private terminal...from Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash, of all ponies. I don’t know how she found out, but she knew all about the Gale Force. It sounded like she’d even gotten her hooves on the technical specifications, because she was asking a lot of questions about the alloys we used...and how well they’d hold up under battlefield conditions.

“I told her that, hypothetically, the metal would stop most lighter rifle rounds, and was resistant to energy weapons―”

“Lies!”

“―and she seemed to like that. I told her that I didn’t recommend military applications, since the Gale Force only had enough power to last a few minutes, at most” okay, yeah, that would have been a very good piece of information to have right there before I’d taken those things into battle against Hoplite. If anything, ‘a few minutes’ was being very generous with the endurance time, “but, she said that could be taken care of, whatever that means.

“...and then she ordered five thousand of them, and included a short list of modifications,” I could hear the mixture of dismay and confusion in her voice, “I kept telling her that she wasn’t going to be able to integrate the Gale Force with that Shadowbolt barding her troopers wore, but she didn’t want to hear it. She also didn’t want to hear me tell her that my shareholders weren’t going to let me build it the way it was anyway.

“I don’t know how she did it, and I think I don’t really want to; but I got a call that afternoon from the chairman of the board: we were okay to start production immediately, and that collection and shipment of finished units had already been arranged through Wind Rider’s Wagons and Freight. All I had to do was call down to Reino and everything would be taken care of.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Rainbow Dash, but...okay, I’m in.

“Now to get ahold of my engineers and see what would need to be done to make those changes Rainbow Dash wants. If we can retrofit the prototype, that should save us some time getting the revised model into full production...

My eyes were rather narrowed by the end of that recording. There was something about this that struck a familiar chord with me, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it…

“She’s not wrong.”

“Gghh!” I jumped a fair distance into the air, whipping my head around to glare at Foxglove for having intruded so suddenly on my thoughts.

“Sorry,” she didn’t sound very sorry. This was likely the unicorn mare taking some measure of revenge for my having made her worry, “I was just saying that this thing really isn’t ideal for a fighting pony. But I think you figured that out,” she said, eying the blackened portion of my wing, “I mean, the power supply alone...it just uses a standard spark-pack, but with the sort of thrust that these turbines can put out, this thing would burn out almost immediately!”

“Yeah, it lasted maybe two or three minutes for me,” I confessed.

“And you were just flying around in a confined space where you couldn’t go very far. Imagine how short that thing would last in the open sky? In fact,” the unicorn paused, tapping her chin, “knowing the joules in a fully charged pack, and the wingpower these engines put out...you’re looking at something close to ten seconds, give or take, at full power.”

“What could a pony possibly do in ten seconds?” I asked, feeling my face contort in confusion. Rainbow Dash had ordered several thousand pairs of these super wings that would spend themselves completely in not much more time that it would take me to empty the magazines of both my guns? That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard!

Foxglove could only shrug. She had exactly as much insight into the mind of a pony dead two hundred years that I did. Though I was confident that she might be able to provide more assistance with contemporary matters, “I don’t suppose you can rein that thing in a bit? I like what it can do, but I could really use more than a couple minutes of use out of it. I certainly don’t need that much power all at once! Maybe, like, a tenth of that?”

She studied the set of alloyed wings that were floating in her magical grasp, “I can see what I can do. It’s going to depend a lot on how this thing is wired…”

“Well, I’d appreciate it. I, um, also wouldn’t mind another couple magazines of spark and explosive rounds when you get a chance,” I added with a little more trepidation. I was well aware of the production constraints that were placed on the mare where my ammunition was concerned. She needed both materials and time to carefully craft the specialized rounds. Neither of which I had given her in several weeks. In my defense, I was sort of up against the clock here where Arginine’s stable was concerned, and I had no idea how close to zero the countdown was…

“...I’ll add it to the list,” the violet mare assured me in a tone that indicated that she was irked by the growing length of that list.

By evening, I had decided that walking sucked, and I couldn’t understand how unicorns and earth ponies dealt with it. I stayed off my hooves as much as possible most days. Why bother walking when you could just fly everywhere? I had easily walked further in that one afternoon that I had in the past several years combined.

On the bright side, we had somepony else to cover a shift tonight, “Alright, Ramparts; you’re the new guy, you get first shift. Then Foxy, and then yours truly,” I said, culminating with a yawn.

The brown courser cocked his head and nodded at Arginine, who was himself already bedding down for the evening, “what about the big guy over there? Why isn’t he pulling a watch?”

So that’s what I’d forgotten to mention to our new traveling companion! Well, I’m sure this wasn’t going to make things awkward at all, “ah, right, yes. Well, you see, RG there is actually sort of, technically, my prisoner. Kind of,” I motioned at the large gray unicorn and pointed at my throat, “RG?” the stallion sighed and pulled at the scarf that concealed his collar, revealing the explosive device to the Republican pony. Ramparts’ was taking the revelation rather well. So far at least.

“You’re traveling with a convict?” he clearly expected a very good explanation. Boy, was he in for it!

“Technically...no. Not that kind of prisoner,” I corrected, gently tapping my hooves together, feeling like a filly who’d been caught filching sweets before a meal, “RG is from a stable full of ponies who have been mutating themselves into ‘perfect specimens’ and see everypony else in the Wasteland as being completely useless and inferior, and so they’re planning to slaughter us all so they can rebuild society themselves.

“Does that about sum it up?” I looked in the engineered stallion’s direction, meeting his cool amber eyes.

“It would take me most of the evening to correct all of the inaccuracies in your statement, and you would ignore everything I said anyway.”

I nodded, “I’m glad to see we understand each other,” I then looked back at Ramparts, “and so I’m dragging him along because I’m trying to convince the Republic to help fight them off, and I’m going to use him as a source of information so the Republic can plan their assault.

“Don’t worry though,” I assured the concerned earth pony, “he’s on a short leash. That collar is hooked up to my pipbuck here. If anything happens to me, or he gets too far away, or I just push the right button: POP!” I made a little exploding motion with my hooves. Then I dutifully kept my macabre little smile firmly in place even as my head flooded with images of my mother’s headless corpse slumping down to the ground. My wing very smoothly and nonchalantly reached into my bag and withdrew my whiskey bottle for a couple of slow sips.

“That being said, let me know if you see him do anything,” I said to the lieutenant, “he’s a genuinely smart pony, and the more eyes watching him, the better off we’ll all be until I can let him be the Republic’s problem.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ramparts said, his now much more suspicious gaze going to the unicorn, “is that why he looks so different? I assumed it was radiation or taint or something…”

“Nope, his kind did all that on purpose. That’s what a perfect pony looks like, don’t you know?” I took another long sip of the burning liquid, and relished it almost as much as the sharp glare I drew from Arginine. I put the bottle away and rolled over so that I wasn’t looking at either of them, “G’night!”

I stood looking into the gaping maw of the Old World bunker, my eyes keeping a close watch on the pipbuck’s overlay that was forever etched across my field of vision. No sign of any threats that the ancient fetlock-mounted computer could detect. Ambient radiation levels were notably higher than they tended to be in most places. There was little wonder why that was the case; the entrance to the bunker lay a scant few hundred meters from the edge of a crater that was clearly not a natural formation. Two more were visible further out to either side along the mountain range, but both close enough to suggest that they had been seeking the bunker as their intended target given that there was scant little else in the area to warrant any such strikes. This had been the site of multiple balefire missile impacts two centuries ago in those final hours of the Great War.

The revelation evoked a frown that creased my features. Most of those sorts of impacts in the Wasteland tended to be around major cities and those military facilities that the zebras had considered to be of tactical significance. I suppose that, in a way, an old armory could have fallen into the latter category; but a stockpile of weapons shouldn’t have been the sort of target that justified three of the massively destructive weapons the zebras employed. Only one had been used to devastate the entire city of Seaddle after all.

The zebras had wanted this place gone. The only thing that looked to have saved the installation was that it was housed within a mountain of solid rock, and that it seemed the zebras had not known the precise location of the entrance. They’d clearly known that the facility existed though, and its vague location, and that knowledge had angered them significantly.

What could possibly have been kept here to evoke such a reaction from the zebras? Ebony Song had told us only that there should be information inside that would lead to a significant weapons cache. Had this site been the location of that cache, then I would have understood why so many missiles had been used. Any weapons system potent enough to give the Republic a decisive advantage in their fight against the Steel Rangers would have been something that would concern the ancient zebra nation and prompt them to want to deprive any surviving enemy forces of their use.

But those weapons weren’t actually here, so why all of the special attention from those missiles?

My eyes darted briefly to Ramparts, but I suspected that the Courser lieutenant wasn’t going to have any answers for me. He hadn’t even known that this was the place I was coming to, and I could read on his face that he had no idea what to make of the surrounding landscape’s features either. Fine. It’s not like I wasn’t going to learn a thing or two in an hour anyway.

I conducted a quick cursory check of my weapons and made sure that the remaining pair of green banded grenades strapped to my Wonderbolt barding were secure and accessible. Then I looked over my shoulder, “Foxy, you’re behind me in case we need to get through any active terminals,” and her lance would make short work of any doors that were otherwise barred, “RG, you’re next. Ramparts, you’re the rear guard,” the earth pony stallion frowned in response to my order. He clearly wasn’t entirely comfortable being the subordinate in the group, despite his earlier assurances. I suppose that the habit was going to be harder to break than he’d initially suspected. Tough. This was my show, and he was just along for the ride.

Not that I didn’t appreciate having another armed pony along who knew a thing or two about fighting. At this moment though, much like RG, the earth pony was still a largely unknown quantity when it came to motivations and inclinations. I knew what he’d told me, sure; but I also knew that he was a member of an organization that I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted as much as I would have liked. I may have technically been a Republic citizen, and I was thankful beyond words that Princess Luna had returned to Equestria after so long and had chosen Seaddle as the site from which to start rebuilding Equestria…

...but ponies were still ponies, and I still remembered what the Republican Guard had done to Miss Vision all those years ago for the ‘crime’ of not having a place to sleep. I’m sure that there were genuinely good ponies who were serving in the NLR military, and I had seen that Ramparts in particular had a sense of decency about him under the right circumstances. I just wasn’t positive whether that had been the exception, or if it was indeed the rule where the stallion’s mindset was concerned.

I received confirming nods from the other three ponies as they took their respective positions. I took a deep breath and activated the pipbuck’s light as I passed through the cog-shaped opening.

Looking around, the first thing I noticed was that this bunker had not been opened through the ‘proper’ means. I was a veteran explorer of Stables, and I knew a thing or two about their basic operation―not nearly to the level that Foxglove did, of course―and it was clear that the massive slab of steel alloy that was the bunker’s door had been cut down, and not opened by way of the industrial sized drill mounted within the interior. Judging by the vast amount of scoring on the electrical panels on the interior of the entrance, I suspected that the reason the door had needed to be forced had less to do with a lack of permissions to access this bunker by the ponies who had looted it, and more to do with a failure of the local systems that should have otherwise been operational.

More often than not, even the abandoned Stables were still functional enough to open and close the entrance. Of course, I hadn’t yet encountered one which had been the target of this many balefire missile strikes. Dislodged ceiling plates and small piles of rocky rubble suggested that those nearby detonations had severely tested the durability of this facility. That being said―and given what I’d seen outside―I was suitably impressed with the skills of the engineers that had built this place.

On the opposite side of the room was an open shaft which had once upon a time been a lift. Judging by the warped state of the shaft, it seemed that this elevator had been a true casualty of the missile strikes and had either fallen to the bottom at the time of the detonations, or had been purposely scuttled by the ponies that had been here before us. In either case, we had not been left without a means of descent, as a rope ladder had been left for us to use. Well, left for the other three to use, anyway. I simple flipped out my wings, which were sufficiently healed for a little light fluttering at least, and drifted down the shaft.

It went down a good bit further than I would have expected. A typical Stable’s floors were pretty close together. This first shaft must have gone down a good thirty or so feet before I encountered the first level of the actual facility. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear that the front entrance of the bunker wasn’t a good indicator for how badly this place had been wrecked by those balefire bomb strikes. In fact, it wasn’t until I drifted down another two levels that I found a mostly intact portion of this place.

Here too were signs of ponies that had come before us. Like the massive cog which would have sealed the main entrance to the bunker, the doors that used to be here to keep unwary ponies from wandering into the deep shaft had been cut away and now lay in pieces in the corridor beyond. With a glance upward to ensure that everypony else wasn’t having any particular difficulty making their way down, I alit inside the dark passageway and began to look around.

Visible on a nearby wall was the faded image of the winged cloud and lightning bolt that was the emblem of the Ministry of Awesome. This was certainly the right place, it seemed. Though, I guess I really would have expected the Ministry of Wartime Technology to have been the mastermind behind any sort of high-end weapons development, it wasn’t all that surprising that the same organization which oversaw the crack flight elements of the ancient Equestrian military might be involved in the independent manufacture of arms for those soldiers.

I continued slowly down the corridor, mindful of my steps. A few meters further down, I drew up short, my eyes squinting at a placard mounted on the wall beside a door. Considering where I was, it seemed quite out of place.

MoP LNO: TREEHUGGER

I studied the nameplate for several long seconds, feeling my head beginning to cock to the side in confusion. While I wasn’t positive what ‘LNO’ might have stood for, the trio of butterflies that accompanied the other acronym left no doubt at all that ‘MoP’ referred to the iconic Ministry of Peace, whose logo could be found on just about every first aid supplies container one might stumble across while perusing the Wasteland.

Why would the department in charge of producing medicine be involved in creating weapons?

My curiosity getting the better of me, I tried my hoof on the doorknob, and frowned when it proved locked. With a grunt, I turned around, cocked my hind legs back, and delivered a fierce double-buck into the door. The aged wood shattered easily beneath the blow and I strutted in with a satisfied smile.

The interior of the office was just as dark as the rest of the complex seemed to be. The desiccated remains of several plants could be seen crumbled around their planters on and around the office’s desk. The terminal sitting on it was without power unfortunately, so I wasn’t going to get anything out of it, but I did spy a filing cabinet in the back of the room. Pulling open the drawers and pawing through the contents, I found quite a few aged files filled with all sorts of charts and records. It was the sort of thing that looked like it belonged in a hospital, and not a military bunker, but I supposed that even weapon designers got sick or hurt on the job. Maybe this was some sort of nurses office then?

Odd that there wasn’t any sign of a clinic on this level though. Odder still was that I noticed the information on one or two of those old files indicated that they were associated with foals. Surely there hadn’t been any children living here…

The thought still weighing on my mind, I left the out-of-place office and continued to wander through more of the facility. The rest of this segment of of the bunker looked to be dedicated to additional offices and conference rooms. Some of them were locked as well, but most weren’t, and none of them piqued my interest nearly as much as that first room had so I didn’t waste my effort searching them.

It was on the next level down that things got interesting.

Around the time I found some stairs and headed down the other three finally caught up with me. We’d still yet to come across any sort of threat, and I couldn’t see any red blips appearing on my EFS, so we were a little less on our guard. Honestly, I was starting to feel like this whole trip had been a waste of time. Even if there were any records here that told us where the cache was, I felt like that sort of information would have been stored on a computer terminal somewhere, and there wasn’t a single volt of power to be found in this whole place.

At least, there hadn’t been until Foxglove had caught sight of a faint green speck of light. Leave it to that unicorn to find the only piece of working equipment in the place.

It was located behind a collapsed segment of ceiling panels that had to be cleared away with RG’s telekinesis. Whoever had been here first appeared to have gone right past without catching sight of anything. When the debris was finally cleared away, the source of the light was revealed to be the controls for a hydraulically operated sliding door of the sort I was used to seeing in old Stables.

This was also the first sign of anything being powered that we’d yet found in the bunker. Feeling a little more optimistic about this trip, I depressed the button below the glowing light and stood back as the groaning machinery came slowly back to life. The door crawled reluctantly back up into the ceiling and revealed the first lit room that we’d come across. Though I suppose that calling the cavernous area beyond the door ‘lit’ might have been misleading. Three faint red lights glowed from above, bathing the room in a soft crimson glow that was only slightly better than absolute darkness.

Though, once again, I found myself thinking that this seemed to be a rather out-of-place room to find in an Old World bunker. The rest of this level had looked to have been living quarters up until now, containing bunk rooms and common areas of the sort I’d seen before in above ground barracks. Clearly, this was the level of the facility where the ponies that had worked here retired whenever they were off duty, but had been styled to specifically not look like they were living in a fortified facility underground. This room, however, looked like the same sort of utility or industrial complex that I’d come to associate with Old World shelters. Massive power conduits ran along the walls and ceiling. Convoluted webs of pipers and hoses flowed everywhere, feeding themselves into two rows of metal tables.

No...those weren’t tables, I realized upon closer inspection. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were, but there were a lot of wires and piping leading into each one of them. Even Foxglove, who was usually good about being able to parse out the function of any contraption she came across could only shrug at their purpose.

“There are panels and controls on the sides,” the violet unicorn mechanic noted as she inspected the first of them, “but it doesn’t look like they’re powered,” she frowned in frustration.

“Well, there’s electricity coming from somewhere,” I nodded my head back at the door that we’d come in through, “maybe you can find a way to divert it into one of these things so that we can find out what they’re for? These might even be what we’re after,” I noted, running a hoof around the side of one of them, “it looks like they can open…

“Some sort of high-security lock-box?”

“Maybe,” Foxglove nodded, though there was a note in her voice that suggested she wasn’t completely convinced about that. She squinted at some more of the machinery and motioned for me to bring my pipbuck’s brighter light over for her to use to get a better look at the equipment, “...that looks like a condenser...and this is some sort of pump…” she frowned, “if these are for storage, then they’re meant for something that needs a very specific environment.”

“Food?” Ramparts suggested, “giant refrigerators?”

“Kind of a waste, don’t you think?” I asked, “two hundred years later and we’re still eating Cram and Fancy Buck Cakes.”

“Something tells me they didn’t exactly plan for that stuff to last this whole time,” the Republican soldier pointed out. A point that I had to concede. But, even then, this seemed like a lot of effort to go through just to preserve some food for a bunch of ponies who weren’t even here.

That thought perked my ears up as I realized something which had been nagging quietly at the back of my mind, “...where are the bodies?”

“Huh?”

I looked around me, even though I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to suddenly spot a corpse nearby which had somehow gone unnoticed, “this place was sealed up, remember? So, where are the bodies?”

“They could have left and just closed the place up behind them,” Foxglove pointed out, “if somepony turned off the power here deliberately, that would explain why nothing’s running.”

“So...they turned off everything but the refrigerators when they left?” I cokced a brow at the mare and saw her nod her understanding, “I don’t think the power went out on purpose. You see how banged up this place is,” I waved a hoof towards the corridor and the debris that we’d had to move to get in here, “and all those craters topside. The offices look recently used, and the beds look slept in. Ponies were in here when the bombs fell; and I doubt they would have closed everything up the way they did if they really left without ever meaning to come back.”

“You think they got trapped in here when the power failed,” Foxglove said, rubbing her chin as she considered the theory.

“Well, maybe not exactly,” I corrected, “the door to this room still had power, so obviously not everything is dead. Maybe there were other things still working immediately after the missile strikes. In any case, there’s nopony alive here now, and I haven’t seen any bodies or anything.

“So where’d they go if they didn’t just leave?”

Foxglove looked around and nodded slowly, “this...could be a morgue,” she reasoned, “that would explain the machinery that looks like it’s supposed to control temperatures and stuff,” then her expression soured and she she shook her head, “that can’t be right,” she insisted, “it makes no sense!”

Ramparts looked at the unicorn, “what do you mean? A lot of places have morgues.”

“Well yeah, but,” the mare sighed, “look at this place; the main reactor is obviously offline,” she pointed out, pointing at the lights, “whatever’s keeping those lights on and powering that door has got to be some sort of redundant backup power supply.

“But why put one of those in a morgue? Besides, it looks like this was the only place that anypony did put in a backup. The front door, the elevators, none of those had reserve power supplies; just this room. Why would anypony go out of their way to build in emergency systems in the room where you’re going to keep the dead po...nies…”

Foxglove’s eyes suddenly grew wide and her head whipped around the stare at the nearest container. My own mind suddenly caught up with the unicorn’s train of thought and I too looked to the nearest sarcophagus. For that was what these things had become, wasn’t it? Foxglove was right: you wouldn’t create alternate power supplies to maintain dead ponies.

These poor souls had been alive when they went in.

Everypony was suddenly very quiet as we looked around the room which quite likely was indeed an unintended morgue now.

Ramparts spoke up first, “so, what? These things were supposed to keep ponies alive or preserved or something?”

The violet mare shrugged, “if it was possible to do that, I could see it making a lot of sense,” she said, “you wouldn’t need a lot of waste recycling systems or a lot of space allocated for food production. You could build much smaller Stables and still house a decent population. Not this bunker in particular. I only count twenty containers,” the unicorn shrugged, “I’ve never heard of it personally, but that doesn’t mean that somepony back then couldn’t have. In theory.”

“If anypony is interested,” the three of us were draw by the sound of Arginine’s voice, which was coming from the far end of the room. The large gray unicorn stallion was peering down at one of the containers. From here I could see a dim green glow reflected on his face, “it would seem that one of these units is still functional.”

I blinked, as did Ramparts and Foxglove. All three of us exchanged brief looks and then bolted for where the amber-eyed pony was standing. I was the first to arrive, utilizing a few deliberate strokes of my wings. Sure enough, I could see that, unlike the others, this contraption was still possessed of a glowing display panel and several pulsing lights of various colors. There was even a quiet humming sound coming from the associated machinery.

My eyes went to Foxglove, “are they still alive?!”

“Indeed,” it was the genetically engineered stallion who provided the answer instead, prompting an irritated frown from me. However, I suppose if anypony was qualified to assess somepony’s medical status, it was the pony who knew about pony physiology. Even if that knowledge had been gained through morally depraved means, “their health is reasonable, under the circumstances. I am not familiar with the protocols involved with such a procedure, but the breathing and pulse rate are steady; if very slow.”

He looked over at me, “though I should point out that power levels are reported to be dangerously low. This machine will not last for more than another month or two.”

“We have to get them out,” I said immediately looking between the pair of ponies, “tell me you can do that.”

The pair exchanged looks, “Without knowing the proper procedures, it would certainly prove fatal to try and bring this pony’s vitals back up to normal levels,” Arginine cautioned the violet mare.

“It has to be mostly automated,” she countered, regarding the machine with a practiced eye, “otherwise how were they going to wake anypony up if only somepony who knew what they were doing was required? Who wakes up the expert waker-upper?”

The large stallion considered the point and the then nodded his assent. Meanwhile, the unicorn mechanic set about scrutinizing the machinery and mumbling to herself, “somewhere around here there should be a...ah! Here we go,” she began examining a small control panel, “huh. Just one giant lever. That’s pretty simple alright,” she looked back up that the gray stallion, “just, keep an eye on things. This thing’s pretty old, and it might not work perfectly,” he nodded and turned his golden eyes to the display, watching it carefully.

“Here goes nothing,” Foxglove sighed and flipped the switch.

The device began buzzing loudly for several long seconds, drawing an anxious look from myself and Foxglove. Arginine’s eyes didn’t waver from the readout that he was watching. The sharp hissing of gases and whirring of motors started, and still the large stallion didn’t make a move. I blinked as an amber blip materialized in front of me on my pipbuck’s EFS. The stallion’s brow arched, “vitals...normalized,” he looked towards us, “their heart rate and blood pressure are consistent with those of a sleeping pony,” he confirmed, “respirations are nominal.”

A clicking of metal drew my gaze back to the container, and I watched as the top of it lifted suddenly an inch into the air, releasing a cool foggy mist of air. A moment later it slowly began to slide back into the wall. Approaching slowly in case there was any more to the procedure, I peered my head over the side and looked in.

There was indeed a pony in there. A rosy pink unicorn mare with a deep purple mane which contained a pair of teal highlights. She was laying peacefully on her belly, her head cradled in the crook of her forelegs. She was wearing a pristine blue jacket that was similar to the style worn by residents of Stables. Except that, instead of displaying a number that would have associated her with one of the Old World refuges, the back and collar of the garment was emblazoned with a purple six-pointed star that was flanked by a pair of wings and crowned with a silver horn. It was the mark of the Ministry of Arcane Science.

I found myself studying the symbol for several long seconds. Again, wondering why, if this was a bunker built and run by the Ministry of Awesome, members of other ministries were present? Even more thought provoking was that, unlike the office set aside for the MoP I had spied upstairs, I had seen absolutely no signs that MAS personnel had been working in this place in any capacity. Hopefully, this mare would be able to provide some answers to the questions that were buzzing around inside my head when she finally regained consciousness. I was just about to ask Arginine how long that was be when a soft moan from within the pod drew my attention.

The mare stirred ever so slightly, sighing. The four of us were crowded around the opening, looking inside, none of us certain exactly what we were supposed to do now that she was starting to wake up. No matter how I ran through it in my head, introductions were going to be...awkward, to say the least. I watched as the unicorn groggily lifted her head up from where it had been nestled in her folded legs and start to look around, and was about to introduce myself when her sapphire eyes suddenly snapped wide open with a jerk.

“Moonbeam!” she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright with such speed that all four of us recoiled back instinctively in surprise. The recently awoken mare looked around at us, “is Moonbeam alright?!”

“Uhh…” the question caught me off guard, since we were already so far off script from anything that I had managed to put together in my head about how this would go. I tried to get out some words, but I wasn’t fast enough it seemed, “who―”

“The lights,” she interrupted in a panicked tone, snapping her head upward, “power failure? But that’s…” she shut her eyes tight, bit her lower lip, and then vanished in a flash of cyan light, leaving behind an empty pod and four very confused looking ponies.

“What...just happened?” Ramparts asked, looking around the room as though he expected to see the mare nearby.

“I have no idea,” I admitted, looking around as well. However, unlike the Courser officer, my gaze wasn’t actually focused on any point in the room we were in. I was instead tracking the EFS floating in front of my field of vision. Finally, I found the direction of the yellow blip that didn’t correspond to any of the others, “she’s this way,” I informed the others, jogging for the doorway. It didn’t take very long to realize that the mare wasn’t on the same level that we were. The only question was whether or not she had gone up, or down…

A faint sound echoed through the silent corridors of the defunct bunker coming from off to my right, and a set of stairs that only led down. That seemed to settle that question and I motioned for the others to follow me as I alit and zipped through the narrow metal confines of the facility.

I maneuvered through a couple turns in the hall, finding the pink unicorn tearing apart a room that looked similar to the one that we had discovered her pod it. Only there were no contraptions like that one that had contained her. There were a variety of conduits and cables lining the walls, but they all seemed to end in empty alcoves. The mare was just finishing using her magic to rip the doors off of a final cupboard, snarling in frustration when she discovered that it, like all of the others, contained nothing inside of it except for a few dangling cables.

She then wheeled on me, her blue eyes cold as they narrowed themselves at me, “where is she?! Where’s Moonbeam? Where did you move her to?!”

“Look,” I began frantically, trying to redirect the situation onto a less irate track. She was clearly upset, and I just wanted to get her to understand that, whatever her frustrations, I had nothing to do with them, “I don’t know who―”

“Don’t play games with me, you MoA piece of shit! I have told you time and again that you will not make her part of your sick little project!” the mare snarled, advancing on me with such ferocity that I found myself taking several steps back, “tell me what you did with her, or I swear to Celestia, I will pluck every feather from your body and stuff them so far up your ass you will cough pillows!”

Wow. That was actually a very interesting―and vivid―new twist on what I had thought was a tired and worn out threat. Bravo, ma’am.

Wait, ‘MoA’? Why did she think I was―oh horseapples. The Wonderbolt uniform! If she really was that pissed off at the Ministry of Awesome, and was holding them responsible for whatever had happened to whoever this ‘Moonbeam’ was, then I might actually be in trouble. I really didn’t want to have to hurt somepony that I had just rescued; that felt like something I’d need to take a drink for later.

Three sets of hooves clattered in the doorway behind me, and I saw the unicorn’s eyes flashed towards them now. First there was the same rage that she had directed at me, and then confusion as she took in the way that all three of my companions were dressed, “who are you? What’s going on?” her eyes locked back on me again and became more focused as she cast her gaze over me, “you’re not MoA…”

“No,” I sighed with relief, finally seeing some progress being made here, “I’m―”

Before I could get another word out, the mare vanished in another sphere of blue light. Behind me I heard Ramparts groan, “oh, you’re shitting me; where is she now?!”

“Well,” Foxglove sighed, “this is the bottom floor, so ‘up’, I’d guess.”

Rolling my eyes, I hopped back up into the air and winged my way back up to the second level, tracking the position of the teleporting unicorn with my pipbuck. I discovered her back in the same room that she had woken up in. She was dashing between the other still-sealed pods, tapped futilely at their dead displays and snarling in frustration. Her eyes flashed to me once more when she noticed my approach.

“What’s going on here? Where’s everypony else, and who the fuck are you?”

“My name is Windfall, and I don’t know what really happened here two hundred years ago,” I explained, speaking quickly so that I could get everything out before the unicorn interrupted me again, “we only got here a few―” I wasn’t successful.

“What do you mean: ‘two hundred years’?” the mare said incredulously, “that’s not possible,” she insisted.

I managed not to let out an exasperated sigh as I took advantage of the opportunity to answer that the unicorn afforded me, “I know it’s hard to believe, but―”

“No, it’s not ‘hard to believe,” the mare corrected in an annoyed tone, glaring at me, “I said it was ‘impossible’, and that’s what I meant. It can’t have been two hundred years, because this bunker isn’t designed to last that long. This is a short-term sheltering facility only,” she explained, “five year lifespan on the main reactor, and a five year battery backup for essential systems. Ten years, max. That’s it.

“So try me again, but without the lying this time,” the mare glared at me.

“I’m not lying,” I insisted, returning my own fierce glare at the aggressive pink mare, “I’m telling you, it really has been two hundred years since the war!”

“And I’m telling you,” the unicorn shot back, stomping her hoof in frustration, “that I know for a fact that these hibernation chambers only have enough power to last a maximum of ten years! There’s no way for them all to have lasted for two hundred,” she jabbed a hoof at the one nearest her, “and all of the rest of them are powered down, so that means that they’re all awake somewhere, and I demand that you tell me where they are and where you’ve taken Moonbeam!”

“Look, I get that this is a lot for you to take in,” I said, reminding myself that this mare was a little out of touch with current events, and that what was going on had to be a bit of a shock for her. It wasn’t easy though. She was not a very friendly individual, “but I swear to you that it really has been two hundred years since the war. I can’t explain how your pod was still working if it’s only supposed to last for ten years, but it was.

“I don’t know where ‘Moonbeam’ or anypony else is,” the last was said with a note of uncertainty unfortunately, as I did have a few theories regarding her fellow bunker-dwellers.

The unicorn latched onto that trepidation, “where. Are. They?”

A little orange earth pony mare regarded me with a sympathetic expression and gave me a little mental nudge. I took a deep breath, “we think...well, we don’t think the rest of these pods are empty,” I replied softly, “I’m sorry.”

The mare’s eyes grew wide, first with confusion, and then with denial. Finally I saw the fear within them as she went to the closest of the pods and began to frantically manipulate the controls. Then they failed to respond, she became even more agitated and her horn began to glow. A matching aura enveloped the top of the pod and the room filled with the sound of protesting metal as the hatch was peeled away the lid on a can of Cram. My eyes widened at the feat of magical strength and I felt myself taking a step back.

Her eyes locked on the contents of the dead pod, and then her head began to shake slowly as she backed away, “no...no, that’s...that’s not possible,” she insisted in a voice that had suddenly lost all of its edge from before. Her head turned to the other sealed pods, and I could see the simultaneous desire to confirm the fates of their occupants, and the fear of discovering yet more of her dead comrades. Finally her blue eyes made their way back to me, “there’s a fail-safe...” she said in a meek whisper.

She was suddenly a very different mare from the unicorn that had been tearing this place apart and threatening me only moments ago. That was fair, I suppose. She had just gone from believing that the ponies she knew had simply been somewhere else to learning that they were all in fact dead. I took a deep breath and looked sympathetically at the unicorn, “I don’t know what happened here,” I told her once more, “but I am sorry.”

“I just...I don’t understand what went wrong,” she insisted, all of the strength seeming to leave her body as her hind legs collapsed out from beneath her. Her eyes quivered as she searched through her thoughts, “there was an alarm...another drill,” she winced, “at least, I thought it was a drill. I went down and a got Moonbeam secured…” her gaze widened and her head snapped back up, “she’s not here! She was here when I went into hibernation, but she’s not here now; somepony must have taken her!” she insisted.

To this I had no answer, “I don’t know who Moonbeam is,” I told the mare apologetically, “and if she’s not where you left her...then maybe some of the ponies here did wake up and leave,” I was doubtful, given the state of things in the bunker and the fact that she had been left here. I didn’t have any other explanation though if she was right about somepony else having been in this bunker who wasn’t here now.

Judging from the unicorn’s expression, I was of a mind to believe that she was sharing the same doubts that I was based upon the available information, “it still doesn’t make sense,” she said quietly, “how could my chamber have lasted for two hundred years if nopony else’s did?”

“I...might have an answer to that,” Foxglove said gently from the doorway. The pink unicorn and I both turned to see the other three ponies watching us. Our eyes were on the violet mare, “there was still some power in that other room, and a terminal,” she pointed downward, indicating the chamber that we had found the unicorn ransacking earlier, “does the phrase, ‘Tortoise Protocol’ mean anything to you?”

Initially, there was a blank look on the pink pony’s face, and then her expression blanched with fear, “oh, Celestia…” she whispered breathlessly, “she wouldn’t have...” her head started to shake in denial, “she couldn’t have,” then her expression hardened once more, “Rainbow Dash, you fucking bitch,” she ground her teeth and snarled up at the ceiling, “you bitch, you knew!”

Upon seeing the looks of surprise and confusion on our collective faces, the other unicorn took a deep, rattling breath, through her resurgent rage and explained, “the Tortoise Protocol means that the MoA determined that whatever attack the zebras were launching wasn’t something that Equestria would be able to stop. A full scale balefire deployment.

“Facilities subject to a Tortoise Protocol were supposed to go dark for as long as possible, or until they received the ‘all clear’ from an approved MoA source. Most of the places where this could happen had long-term support infrastructure, like a lot of the Stables and a few other key installations,” she seethed once more, “but Rainbow Dash knew that this wasn’t one of them!” her eyes closed tightly and she bowed her head, “the Protocol would have overridden the fail-safes on the hibernation chambers...instead of opening all of them after a maximum of ten years and letting us all out, the system would have started...triaging.”

The mare seemed unable to speak for a long while.

Foxglove stepped up beside me, and at my questioning look supplied the rest, “the computer showed me that it began cutting power to the pods, one at a time, based on the position and skills of the occupant,” my eyes widened in horror, “it didn’t open them,” the violet mechanic continued, “because a living pony in the bunker would have needed power to keep the air clean and water filtered; so the pods just...stopped keeping them alive.”

The other unicorn nodded, “this place wasn’t supposed to be a Tortoise facility,” she insisted quietly.

We were all quiet for a long moment. Then Ramparts cleared his throat, drawing our attention, “not that I don’t sympathize,” he said quietly, stepping over and leaning towards me, “but we do have a mission here.”

I winced. The Courser was right, and as much as I really didn’t want to have to bring up ‘business’ with this mare who had just started to come to terms with the fact that everypony she had ever known was dead and gone for centuries, there were a lot of pressing matters going on in the Wasteland above, “yeah,” I swallowed and spoke a little louder, “hey, um...look, I get you’re going through some stuff now, but this is kind of important: we need to know where the weapons you guys were building here were stored at. The fate of, well, the whole world sort of might depend on it.”

The pink unicorn looked up, a confused expression on her face, “weapons?” she snorted, “they weren’t building weapons here,” she insisted.

Uh oh. Ramparts and I exchanged glances before I looked back at the mare, “what? No, we were told that this place designed weapons for the MoA and that we’d be able to find out where they were kept. Look, I get that there was probably a lot of ‘hush-hush’ stuff going on back during the war or whatever, but we really don’t have time for that sort of crap. The war’s over, everypony’s dead, and we need those weapons to stop another war between a bunch of crazy technophiles and Princess Luna so that we can keep everypony else from being slaughtered by a bunch of Stable ponies who have some warped concept of ‘racial purity’. So, please, help us out here.”

Even as I recounted the situation to the mare, I couldn’t help but think of a time when all that had concerned me was tracking down the next band of raiders and removing them from the Wasteland. When had my life become so...weird?

The other mare blinked at me several time, and I could see her thoughts trying very hard to keep up with everything that had been covered in my statement, “techno...Luna...what?” finally, she shook her head and frowned, “look, I don’t know what to tell you: they didn’t build weapons here. This is the primary installation for Project Egghead: a joint MoA/MoP venture designed as a sort of...rehabilitation program for those suffering from severe mental impairments. The idea was to use artificial intelligence programs developed by the MAS to help them function again,” she explained, “in theory,” she stressed the word carefully, her eyes darting to the mark on the flank of my barding, “ponies with those new those intelligence programs could be used to control weapons platforms on a level close to something like a crusader mainframe, but the MoP refused to participate if that happened, so Rainbow Dash agreed to back off on that application.

“She was also supposed to not subject this facility to the Tortoise Protocol, but you can see how that went,” she growled. Then the mare took a deep breath and continued in a slightly steadier tone, “this was just a place where they were looking for ways to help really sick ponies get better,” she shrugged, “I’m sorry, but whoever sent you here was mistaken.”

Again Ramparts and I looked at each other, “could he have been wrong?” I asked the stallion.

The Republic officer frowned, “the coordinates he gave us led to this exact facility,” he pointed out, “how could he have been right about the location, but wrong about what was inside of it, especially when he’d sent a team here once before?”

“Wait,” the pink unicorn interrupted, “you’re not the first ponies who’ve been here?”

“No,” I admitted, “we’re a follow-up team. We were told that the ponies who were here before us found a powerful weapon prototype. We were sent to find out where the rest of them were being stored,” I frowned and looked between the other three members of our group, “Ramparts is right, this has to be where they went, so it has to be where they found the prototype,” I glanced back at the unicorn, “you’re sure that there wasn’t anything here that could have been used as a weapon?”

“Positive,” the mare insisted with a firm nod of her head, “the Ministry of Peace would never have joined in on the effort if that’s what was going on here, and Deputy Treehugger was adamant about that stipulation. We only worked on artificial intelligences and a few android bodies for the ponies that needed them, and none of those were even armed.”

I felt myself deflate. A dead-end. Great. My eyes darted briefly towards Arginine. The stallion didn’t look smug, exactly, but I could see that he was as satisfied at the stoic stallion ever looked at the news. He knew as well as the rest of us how important finding the tools that the Republic needed to fend off the Steel Rangers was integral to gaining Princess Luna’s help in fighting his Stable. No weapons, no help; unless I found some way to get to the Princess herself and beg really hard…

“What did those first ponies take?” the pink unicorn demanded.

Actually, “I don’t know exactly,” those details hadn’t really been anything that I’d thought to ask about. Ebony Song had said ‘weapons’ and there hadn’t really been any pressing need to seek any elaboration on that point, “but whatever it was, we were told it could be used as a powerful weapon.”

“Are you sure none of the androids were armed in any way?” Ramparts asked.

Again the mare shook her head, “no weapons of any kind; that was the rule.”

Crap. Still, we’d come all this way, “I’d still like to take a look around anyway. Maybe we’ll find some sort of clue or something. We’d appreciate your help, seeing as how you used to work here.”

The mare was silent for a long while, and then she gave a little nod, “very well. I can show you where the android bodies were kept. I suppose it would have been possible to connect weapons to them after the fact. Some of the designs the MoA sent here to test were rather...robust,” she said with a slight frown, as though a few theories were only just now occurring to her.

“Thanks. That’ll be a big help. Hey, um...my name’s Windfall, in case you didn’t catch it earlier. These are Foxglove, Ramparts, and RG,” I pointed a wing at each pony in turn.

The mare followed my pinion and nodded to everypony, “sorry about earlier. I’m...just a little worried about Moonbeam, she’s...she shouldn’t be left on her own for very long is all,” her body tensed up initially, but she quickly suppressed her growing anxiety and forced a pained smile, “my name is Starlight. Starlight Glimmer.”

I flashed her a much more reassuring smile. She wasn’t having a very good day. She’d just found out that everypony she ever knew was dead and gone, and didn’t have any clue what exactly had happened to this ‘Moonbeam’ of hers. Frankly, I was of the mind that they were dead too, but I doubted that was something this mare wanted to hear right now, “nice to meet you, Starlight. Tell you what, when we’re finished up with what we’ve got going on here, we’ll see if we can figure out where your friend is, alright?”

The pink unicorn swallowed, and nodded, “thank you.”

The five of us walked outside into the ruined corridor, and the recently resurrected mare faltered. Not because she had lost her footing, although Foxglove had moved in close to her side for support all the same. No, what had just happened was that the mare finally saw the state of the facility she had gone to sleep in. I was certain that it look very different from how she remembered. Her wide cyan eyes scanned over the collapsing walls and molding floors that had not weathered two hundred years of neglect well. Eventually she managed to overcome her shock and make her way forward again under her own power, but her gaze wandered continuously all the while.

“Um, Starlight,” I ventured, hoping to keep her mind off of her troubled thoughts in some small way by providing the distraction of questions to answer, “you were with the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, right?”

“Yes, I am, um…” she cracked a wan smile, “I guess ‘was’ is the right word actually. I take it the MAS doesn’t exist anymore?” I shook my head, and the pink unicorn nodded slowly, “makes sense.”

“Anyway,” I went on, “you said this place was run by the MoA and MoP. Why are you here? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Her smiled soured significantly, and her eyes looked fretful again. Good going, Windfall. Way to put her at ease with small talk, “I’m here as a, um, consultant, sort of. For a specific project. It’s, um...a personal interest really. I was here on vacation, actually,” she let out the emptiest laugh I’d ever heard, and her eyes were anything but happy, “I was originally going to go to the Crystal Empire, but I though: ‘hey, Starlight, just swing by Neighvada this time. It’ll be nice.’,” a lump was fighting a valiant battle in her throat, and it was unclear which way the outcome would eventually swing.

Horseapples. I really screwed this up somehow. Great going there, Windy. Want to just go ahead and trip the mare and give her a good swift kick up her nethers to round this whole mess out? Yeah, I could do that, or I could Be Pleasant! Today for once, and say the right thing, “believe it or not, I know what it’s like to wake up and find out everypony you loved is gone,” I said softly to the mare, drawing her bleary gaze, “it’s never really going to stop hurting, and I’m sorry for that. It’s not fair, and nopony deserves to have it happen to them.”

“So what do you do,” she asked in a shaky voice, “to make it stop?”

“You take it one day at a time. You set a goal. When you achieve it, you set another,” I shrugged, “it’s not a perfect plan, but it’s gotten me through the last eight or so years. Want to give it a try?”

The mare gave a little nod.

“Alright. Your goal for today: find out where Moonbeam went,” I folded a wing over the unicorn and gave her a firm squeeze, “after that, we’ll make another goal. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” a little yellow pegasus seemed to approve as well. My eyes looked back up at our surroundings, noting that we were back on the lowest level again already and heading for the room with the working terminal that Foxglove had found.

The violet unicorn motioned to the console, “I couldn’t get very far, I’m afraid. I wanted to see if you knew how to access the system before I tried getting around it and risking being locked out entirely.”

Starlight stepped up to the terminal and began tapping at the keys, “they gave me a fair bit of access. I think my MAS clearances should count for something too. Just give me a...there we go,” she glanced back at the violet mare, “what would you like to check out?”

“How about those android bodies,” Foxglove suggested, “you mentioned that some of them were fairly advanced. Maybe the Republic is using them as weapons somehow.”

“Alright,” the pink unicorn turned back to computer display and navigated her way through the directories. Everything seemed to be going well until she grunted and frowned, “odd...why is there a ‘restricted access’ marker on this file? I’m already pretty far in, there’s no reason additional clearances should be required. Hmm,” she tapped out a furious series of commands and was immediately rebuked by a sour pair of notes coming from the terminal, “‘authentication denial’? What?”

“You don’t have access to the files?”

“No…” the mare corrected, sounding slightly perplexed, “if my clearance level wasn’t high enough, the system would have said, ‘insufficient access’, and if I did something wrong, it would have said ‘authentication failure’. ‘Denial’ means that somepony is blocking me specifically from getting at this file.”

“Would it be because you’re just consulting?”

“There’s no reason for them to put a block like this in place to stop a member of any ministry with my authority from accessing files at a facility like this one,” the mare sneered at the screen as though it were offering her a personal insult, “only a few ponies in Equestria even have the authority to do it...Dash, what did you do? What were you doing with Moonbeam?” she once more set her hooves to the keyboard, her cold cyan eyes boring holes in the monitor before her.

Then she suddenly drew up short, “wait...that’s not...those numbers are wrong.”

“What numbers?”

“The ident code for the projects,” Starlight said, sounding much more distant and confused, “this file has the wrong numbers for…somepony must have gotten them wrong”she leaned in closer, her features contorting even more, “but this is the master copy. It hasn’t been altered in months...er, centuries, I guess. But the months before I arrived anyway,” her eyes closed and she bowed her head, “they lied to me...the whole time.”

I exchanged looks with Foxglove and Arginine as the three of us waited for any sort of explanation from the pink unicorn, but when nothing was forthcoming, I decided that we’d have to ask for her to elaborate directly, “bad news?”

Starlight sighed and looked back at the terminal’s display, “two hundred years, you said?”

“Give or take,” I said, nodding hesitantly.

“Then they’re all dead anyway. It doesn’t matter,” her expression was hard as she peered at the screen, “according to the system there were a half dozen different android bodies in the Workshop. I know where that is,” the unicorn stepped away from the terminal and walked past us, “follow me.”

I stared after the departing pony. I had seen the mare go through a wide range of emotions in the last fifteen minutes since we’d woken her up, from anger and rage all the way down to deep depression and sadness. Yet, just now I had seen her display a rather troubling degree of numbness. Troubling because I knew that there had been times in my own life when I’d felt that exact way before; and I wasn’t always proud of what I’d done under those conditions. On the bright side, the unicorn wasn’t visibly armed. Of course, I had no idea what sort of spells were in her magical arsenal, outside of the ability to teleport.

Well, the Workshop was certainly underwhelming…

We stood in the dark room, the only sources of illumination were the lights from our three pipbucks. The soft white glows swam over the contents of the room, painting a fairly clear picture of how little reward our foray into this bunker was going to reap. At least we had finally learned what the Republic’s team had initially found during their trip here all those years ago.

Of course, this only stood to raise more questions than it answered really, since everything that had been left behind by the Republic’s retrieval team looked unremarkable. This was just a room filled with typical examples of the sorts of roboponies that we’d all seen a hundred times in the Wasteland during our lives. There was nothing to suggest that these specific examples were particularly remarkable.

Though, I suppose that might have explained why they were all still here. Indeed, there was only one location where it looked like anything was missing. I inquired of Starlight whether there was anything to suggest what might have set the missing model apart from all of the others.

She frowned, “it’s hard to say,” the pink unicorn walked over, her horn aglow with cyan light as she inspected the area. Her attention settled on a nearby clipboard, which she picked up and inspected. After a few moments of scanning the documents on it, she scowled, “what the―redacted? They redacted the―” she snarled at the offending clipboard and very nearly threw it away. It was a very close thing that she managed to retain the presence of mind to keep it close and finish gleaning what she could.

“I’d never have guessed that Rainbow Dash could have pissed me off so much more when she was dead than she ever managed to when she was alive,” the unicorn growled as she looked back at me and held up the clipboard, “the model and specifications have all been blacked out. The only piece of information left is the fucking accounting code.”

“Can that help us somehow?” It was pretty clear from her tone that it wasn’t going to be of any real use, but I was grasping at straws here. We just couldn’t have come all this way only to walk away empty-hoofed!

Starlight snorted, “only if you’re looking to get paid for carting it around,” the mare sighed, “otherwise it’s useless.”

Foxglove cocked her head, “what do you mean?”

“When the ministries would need to ship a lot of sensitive items around Equestria, and they couldn’t get official government resources together fast enough to do the job, they’d turn to civilian shipping companies. The trouble was that a lot of times those shipments had to be kept a secret so that the zebras couldn’t find out about our sensitive projects; and that meant that those companies weren’t allowed to keep any real records of those jobs.

“It makes it kind of hard to get paid when the cargo you delivered ‘doesn’t exist’ on any official report,” Starlight raised an eyebrow, and I nodded in understanding, “so the ministries came up with ‘accounting codes’ that could be used to track those sorts of cargos without giving away what was in them.”

“But...wait,” I raised a hoof, “isn’t that good news then? If we have that code, then we can find out where whatever it was came from. If we go there, then we’ll find out what it was, and where any more of them might be!” things were actually starting to look up, for once.

“The whole point of this code is so that we can’t do that,” Starlight explained, “even if we knew what shipping company was used, the only record they would have of the shipment is this code, and maybe a date. What the cargo was, where it came from, and where it went wouldn’t be listed.”

“There’s got to be a record somewhere,” I argued, “you said that all of the other information was erased, but that means that there is other information that matches that code, right?” the pink unicorn nodded, but her expression remained dubious, “well, where would we find that complete file?”

“The Ministry of Awesome Headquarters in Canterlot,” she responded dryly. I bowed my head in defeat. There was no way that we’d be able to make it all the way to Canterlot and back in anything like a reasonable amount of time! “or, maybe,” I looked back up at Starlight, hopeful, “the regional hub here in Neighvada.”

I cocked my head, “wait...is this place not the MoA hub?”

“No,” Starlight shook her head, “this was just a small testing facility. I have no idea where their hub is,” fuck, “but I know where we can go to find out,” yay! “The Ministry of Arcane Science regional hub will have that information.”

“Awesome,” finally things were looking up! “And where’s that at?”

“Reino.”

Well...horseapples. This whole conversation has been one gigantic emotional rollercoaster, hasn’t it?

I mean, I suppose that there could have been worse places in the valley for it to be, but it was hard to come up with a specific location right off the top of my head. I looked at Ramparts, “well, on the bright side, we can swing by Santa Mara and drop you off to see Yatima and your foal,” huh. That was an interesting mixture of emotions on the stallion’s face. It was pretty clear that his desire to visit with his recently extended family was conflicting with his sense of commitment where his promise to me was concerned. I tried to put him more at ease, “there’s no reason for you to come all the way to Reino with us. I appreciate your help, but this isn’t your problem; not really.”

The courser frowned and nodded at Arginine, “aren’t you trying to stop his Stable from killing everypony in the Wasteland? I kind of feel like that’d be a problem for me.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Nor was I inclined to, since having the seasoned fighter with me in that dead city would be very welcome indeed.

“Excuse me,” Starlight ventured, looking between the two of us, “did I miss something? Who’s trying to kill everypony? You can’t mean that the war’s still going on after all this time…”

“Not quite, no,” I admitted. You’d think that I was getting used to explaining the whole deal with RG and the genocide his stable was planning. I was not, “one of the groups of ponies that survived the balefire bombs in the shelters you built thinks that they’ve created the ‘perfect pony’,” I pointed a wing at the gray stallion, “and their next step is to get rid of all the other ponies on the surface.

“We’re trying to stop it. It’s why we need to find these weapons, so that we can end the war between the Steel Rangers and the Republic so that they’ll fight RG’s Stable and stop them.”

“So...the war with the zebras is over...and now everypony is still just...fighting each other?” I don’t think that I’ve ever heard a pony who sounded as defeating as Starlight did when she summarized the situation that way. She was utterly dumbfounded, “...why?”

“Because your kind is flawed,” Arginine answered the unicorn mare, regarding her coolly, “your very nature destroyed the whole world. It lives on in your descendents even now,” his gaze shifted to me, “that is why we have undertaken our mission: it is the only way to finally break this perpetual cycle of war and death. Only a better breed of pony will be able to save Equestria.”

“I don’t believe that,” I snarled at the stallion, “not for a moment,” I returned my attention to the pale pink unicorn, “I won’t lie, it’s not pretty up there. It’s not going to be the Equestria you remember.”

Starlight stared at me, and I noticed her eyes wandering over my face, barding, and wings, “it does look kind of rough,” there was a flicker of a wan smile on her face, but it vanished very quickly and the mare stared down at the floor and was quiet for a long time.

“It’s not all bad though,” I offered helpfully, “I mean, it’s not like everypony is just running around killing each other all the time,” even if it could feel that way some days, “there are good ponies out there. Look...you can just show us where to find the MAS hub and we’ll take it from there. We’ll drop you off in Seaddle with some money and help you start a new life, if you want.”

She shook her head, “you’ll need to know the encryption protocols once you’re there. It’ll be a lot easier if I’m with you to get you in anyway,” Starlight shrugged, “it’s not like I really have anywhere else I need to be. Besides, coming with you might be the only way I’ll ever learn what happened to Moonbeam.”

“If you don’t mind,” Foxglove inquired, “who is ‘Moonbeam’? Were they a friend of yours?”

“She’s…” Starlight shook her head and sighed, “she was a...filly, that I worked with here. I told you before that I was a ‘consultant’, well, I was consulting on her case. She was part of a program that was supposed to help young foals cope with...deficiencies by using advanced AI.”

“You were hooking ponies up to computers?” The violet mare quirked an eyebrow.

“It was more than that. These were very...special cases, where the foals in question had suffered serious trauma that severely affected cognition, or even their physical development. Their brains just couldn’t...handle everything that was needed to keep them functioning. So we were using sophisticated software programs to take up the slack.

“Moonbeam was one of the most promising foals in the program. When she came in...she was unconscious, and couldn’t even breathe on her own. Within a few months, she was talking and using a robopony body to move around in. Her progress was...remarkable,” the mare was finally smiling now, her eyes glazed over as she relived the memories in her head. Then her expression darkened once more, “the MoA wanted to use her in one of their other projects. I wouldn’t allow it.

“I think that the MoA stole her, and was using her against my wishes. I just learned that they had switched her file with another filly in the program before my last visit. That means that Moonbeam might not even have been here when the bombs dropped. I need to know what Rainbow Dash did with her. The MoA hub will have my answers.

“So, I’m coming with you.”

Unlike Ramparts, I was less enthusiastic about having this pink unicorn tag along with us. While she clearly at least had a modicum of magical aptitude, it was highly unlikely that she possessed any real combat ability. There was a very real possibility that she’d be even less able in a fight than Foxglove had been at first, and I wasn’t in the mood to foalsit a pony while we prowled through Old Reino. She did have a point about getting the information we needed from the MAS facility though. Having her there with us would save me a bit of a headache when the time came.

On the other hoof, it’s not like I was the only pony that had to look after her, “alright, you can come,” I nodded my head back to the brown earth pony stallion, “stick close to Ramparts, he’ll look after you. I don’t suppose that you’re good with a gun?”

“I had a...basic firearms familiarization course,” she began, and then shook her head, “but I’ve never had to shoot a gun off the range, no.

“But you don’t have to worry about me,” she said, “I can handle myself pretty well,” at my dubious expression she smiled, “I’m really good with magic.”

I cringed slightly, “look, it’s really rough out there, okay? I’m sure you know a few neat spells and all,” Foxglove and Arginine had a couple useful little bits of unicorn magic after all, “but it takes serious skill with a weapon to make it far in the Wasteland.”

Starlight chuckled and rolled her eyes. Her horn flashed cyan for a brief second and I was momentarily blinded by a bright light. When the brilliant illumination faded, I looked around, confused, and noticed that my Wonderbolt barding was back to its formerly pristine appearance. I frowned at the pink mare, “that’s hardly the sort of thing that―”

There was another flash of magic, and I found myself suddenly unable to move or to speak. In fact, neither I, Ramparts, Foxglove, or even Arginine seemed able to move or speak at all. Starlight was smirking at the four of us, “like I said: I’m really good. In fact, I’m only just scratching the surface here. I have my own shelf in the Canterlot library, you know, right next to Twilight Sparkle’s!

“So let’s get this trip started.”

A third flash obscured my vision, but for much longer this time. When it dissipated, I realized that I could move once more. We were also no longer inside the ancient bunker. We were standing outside the entrance, on the surface. I watched as the self-satisfied expression on the pink unicorn’s face quickly shifted into a look of shocked horror. I had to admit that she was, indeed, very skilled with spells, in my estimation. However, she had clearly not been ready for the revelation that was the Wasteland itself.

I stood there next to her, silent, as the mare took in the scenery―such that it was. For nearly a minute, Starlight simply gaped at what she saw, and then finally, “I...what did we do…?”

Before Arginine could render a biting indictment of the ancient ponies that had set the world on this path, I curled a wing over her back and said, “you made a mistake. It happens. I told you it wasn’t pretty.

“We should get going though. We have a lot of ground to cover,” I kept an eye on the pink mare until I saw her nod. I started off, looking back at Ramparts, “you sure you’re ready to go the whole way with us? It could be a while before we’re back around Santa Mara,” assuming that any of us live that long.

“I’m sure,” the stallion nodded.

“Okay then. So we’re on our way back to Old Reino, I guess. Awesome.”

Footnote:...

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