During our short walk and an elevator ride, Candy Pop talking about some of the medical procedures she learned from Doctor Lifebeat. I had given up thinking it was weird, and and chose to enjoy learning about things I never want to witness myself. As it turns out, despite how safe the R&D is, a lot of ponies get badly hurt down here, and Labs C had a hole medical area ready for the worst injury's. Lifebeat and Candy Pop were in Lab B as a first response team, and focuses more on stabilizing a badly hurt pony before sending them to Labs C.

"And because of that, any kind of grande is now bad from the stable." Candy Pop opened the door to the atrium. Fortunately this time it was only filled with a few colts and fillies. Most of them were older then the mob that had climbed all over me yesterday, and were more concentrated around the arcade. "Later Slowtrot, I got to show the little ponies that not all of us adults suck at arcade games."

I watched, Candy Pop trotted off to the arcade with a bounce to her step. Looking around, not much else going on in the atrium. Their was a pony reading in the lounge, and two other ponies had just left one of the sports rooms on the second floor. The round window to the overmares office overlooked the atrium, the dark window reminding me of Phobetor's request.

Looking in the arcade, the small crowd of foals had gathered around the arcade machine that Candy Pop was on. It was the fighting game I saw last night, a filly playing agents Candy stood on a stool just to reach the controls properly. Candy was playing as light gray pegasus mare that moves awkwardly even when standing still, and had a muffin on her head. The filly was playing as a yellow earthpony mare, the character reminding me of farm ponies with her big tan hat.

The match ended quickly, with Candy showing no mercy. The gray pegasus character, dodging most attacks, and landing long combos. The pegasus attacks were weak, but Candy's opponent only managed to get two strong hits in, with the pagasus seemingly dancing around on the screen. The next opponent was a colt, who picked a purple unicorn for his fighter. Candy had a flawless victory. The next colt had better luck with a blue pegusus, but Candy still won with half her characters heath intact.

Feeling that it was better to leave before I was her next victim, I trotted out of sight of the arcade. It was not that I didn't want to play the game, I just didn't want to play it and be crushed in less then a minute. It's what I didn't like about playing fighting games in a arcade, some other pony always had to come in and waist my bit by crushing me like the newbie I was. If I wanted to play the game, I would have to wait until Candy Pop was finished, and the foals were off doing something else.

Looking back up at the overmares window, i figured that picking up whatever Phobetor would be a good way to pass the time.

The hallway to the overmares office, though well lit, made me feel uneasy. I could only guess it was because of how quiet everything was on my way there. Most of the ponies here must work in the Labs, so residential probably emptied out during thees hours.

What made my uneasiness worse was that Phobetor was waiting for me in front of the overmares office. If it was not for her lab barding, her pitch black mane and cote would have made her look like a shadow in the hallway. Her golden eyes looked over at me with an impatient stare, reminding me of a few employers I had that were dissatisfied with how fast I could work at times.

"good, good. It's about time you to show up." Phobetor spoke, but yet it seemed that her mouth didn't move. "Now we can get to business."

"If you were going to be here, then why have me come at all?" something seemed more then just strange about the mare, but I could not put my hoof on it. "And what is it that you needed me to pick up?"

Phobetor looked back at the door. "If I told you, I would ruin the surprise. And if I ruin the surprise, than it would be no fun at all."

Yep, this mare was on the crazy train, it was just a question of if she was at the caboose, or the engine. Not wanting to have a crazy mare be in any way upset with me when I was still stuck down here, I felt it was best to just do as she said. What ever she wanted, it couldn't do much harm, and this stable is full of professional. walking up to the door, I pressed the button to open it, it opening with a soft hiss, and not the same buzz as before.

"Oh Healing Herbs, you mustn't be so forgetful in locking your door." Phobetor's voice had a slight giggle to it. "Now lets go, this will only be a moment." the sound of her hoof steps seemed to be nonexistent as she walked into the dark room.

Stepping in myself, things didn't look any different then from the last time I was here. The only big difference was that Healing Herbs was not here sleeping at her desk, and three empty soda bottles were laying on the desk.

A large terminal stood behind the desk along the wall, it's four monitors were on, but had nothing on their screen. it gave off a green glow from the screen, giving the room an eerie feeling to it. Phobetor trotted to it, beckoning me to follow with her hoof.

Closer, the large terminal looked quite imposing, unlike Junes terminal, that looked the kind a super smart ponies would have. The overmares terminal had a more command and control feel to it. It made me wonder if there was cameras everywhere for her to observe everything. "So... where is this thing you want, you did say I would know it when I see it." I gave the room a quick glance, but saw nothing that screamed crazy mare. "but I don't think I see it."

Phobetor pointed her hoof at the terminal. "It's inside this. You just need to hook up your pipbuck to it, and I'll do the rest of the work."

Finding a cable already connected the terminal, I placed my pipbuck hoof near it. "If it turns out that this something that we souldn't be doing, I'm yanking this out on the spot." this hole request was realy not sitting right with me, but I was sure if this was wrong, at least the others would hear me out. "Ironbuck, plug the cable into the the pipbuck."

A soft green glow enveloped the cable, and opened the panned on the upper part of the pipbuck. Connecting the pipbuck to the terminal, the magic faded off.

"Now mister Slowtrot, simpleton Slowtrot. You will do no such thing. And do you want to know why you will not?" Phobetor's voice took a sharp irritated turn. Not liking her tone, I pull my leg away from the terminal, but found myself unable to move, not even able to respond, or blink. "That's because I will it. Just like how I can control how much you remember. And how much you forget." she paused for a moment to grin. "How amazing are pipbucks, so useful, so full of little secrets. Did you know that you can tap into the E.F.S. of another pipbuck, actually see the world through another eyes. Same with the medical program, being able to feel everything they feel. But the one thing they can't do is get right into their thoughts... except for the one on your leg." Phobetor put herself nose to nose with me. "With that pipbuck, I can get right in. No need to fuss around with dreams, or to whisper sweet lies. I can just dive on in and take what I want."

The memory's flooded back in, Phobetor's true form now fresh in my mind, and fueled how helpless I felt. the stillness of my body was frightening, feeling the opposite of when I was stuck in Thorn's memory. I had no control, but this time I was not moving. But why? Why did she have me come all the way here on my own if she had such control?

Phobetor scrunched her nose "it's because I don't wish for your body, unworthy for one such as I." mind reading, I hate it already. But still, why not just turn me into a puppet. Phobetor already has the power over me, unless she she can only stop me from moving. "The prize goes to the simpleton. yes, I can only stop you from moving, for now. But it matters not, once the deal is done, you will be gone from here. And befor you ask,

The one of Sweetie Belle's songs came from the terminal, but unable to see why, all I could look at was Phobetor irritating grin. She siged, waving a hoof in front of my unmoving eyes. "I am, if anything, fair. For your troubles, I'll let you witness the little secret you just recovered for me." I found my head free from Phobetor's control, but to only have it lock up again when I looked up at the monitors. For what it was worth, she left be the ability you move my eyes, and blink. So count small blessings.

The four motors had the Stable-Tec logo then each. The music sounding much different then on the radio, it feeling sadder then normal. Near the end of the song the images on the motors cut out, replaced by one big Stable-Tec logo, only to cut out again to show the image of Sweetie Belle in a plain looking room.

"That's enough Sweetie Belle, I got the camera working." the voice had faint a farmer pony ascent to it. It sounded cute, if also a bit worn out.

"Are you sure about this Apple Bloom, it's not like it will actually happen." thru the green of the terminal monitors, I could still see that Sweetie Belle looked like she had been crying. Her light cote having dark linse under her eyes.

A second mare walked onto screen, an earthpony in a business suit. I felt it was safe to amuse that she was Apple Bloom. "If things don't end as bad as we think it will, then no it won't. But everything is moving to darn fast, so I have ta do this. Can't leave everything to chance Sweetie. That, and if I leave it for Scootaloo, It will... I just have to do it now."

Sweetie Belle hugged Apple Bloom, the hug went on for a few long seconds before she broke of and walked off screen. Apple Bloom still facing away from the screen took a deep breath. I could see that she was holding a hoof up chest high, and extended the hoof as she exhaled. Turning around, she had a calm and composed look, pretty even, but the bags under were easy to see. I could only guess that Apple Bloom must have not been sleeping well before she recorded this.

"Healing Herbs, If your watching this video, then... then omega level protocol is enacted, and I'm dead. You're now the official overmare of the R&D Stable." she paused to take another deep breath. "But you don't need a video for me to explain this to you, and that's not why I'm leaving this for you. This video is my last will... and also a confession to my crimes." Apple Bloom voice quiver a bit. "You see, I fucked up, I fucked up just as badly as ma sister, as bad as Pinky, as Rarity, and as Twilight." She took another moment to take another deep breath. "And now, I'm leaving you to clean up our mistakes, and that's even more fucked up. I probably just got what I had coming to me."

Apple Bloom spent a moment recomposing herself, slowly taking deep breaths, and long exhales. "To explain. Not all of the stables were made to simply save ponies. No, actually most of the stables are going to fail, and it's my fault for letting it happen. You see, we got it in our heads that we could not only just save ponies, but have it so that better ponies would come out of the stables generations later. So much precious time that could have gone into helping a stable survive better, went into stupid halfhearted philological study's. And that's just the lucky ones. We also made stables that will intentionally fail. Most of those ones will last at most fifty years before things turn bad, a few have ten years at best."

The mare puled out a small box with an antenna on it, and pressed down on a button. The screens flickered and switched to a map of Equestria. "This is were the R&D Stable comes in." many little boxes appeared on the map, each one having a number next to it. "what I'm... What I was planing to do was to fix this mistake. On this file is the location to every stable in and outside of Equestria, along with the passwords to all the doors. I also included a list of stables that will be a top priority for help, with the information on how the stables themselves will fail. The Stables that were set up for basic social engineering will be lower on the list, along with stables that are serving there original purpose."

The screen changed to a map of an island. A small square on the map had 'R&D' next to it, along with two other squares on the map, one listed as 'H1' and the other as 'H2'. "the reason I picked the Marewaii Islands to do this, is because other then the main island, the rest of the islands will be a low priority for any bombing from the zebras. And to make this effort even possible from here, I've had the company build two underground hangers. Both the hangers already have an airship stored in them, along with a full crew living in there. The hangers themselves can be used as stables, and with help from R&D, the hangers sould be able to support a fair sized population. So if possible, direct any survivors on the island to the hangers."

The video cut back to stoic looking Apple Bloom, though it looked like her mascara was starting to run. "I'm sorry to leave you with this burden. And I'm sure you will come to hate what I have done... and what I allowed to happen. The stables were meant to save ponies, but I let a stupid idea take over. I turned the stables into something that will only kill more ponies then we could have saved. But you can at least correct the mistakes, so please save as many ponies as you can, save them from what I doomed them too."

Apple Bloom stopped to take another deep breath. Her exhale was more of a deep sigh. "Sweetie Belle, turn off the camera." the image on the screen shook a bit, but it still continued.

Apple Bloom turned to the side, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, but a ball came flying out and bounced off Apple Bloom head. "I though you said you were going to quit smoking!" Sweetie Belle voice was loud through the terminal.

"I only said I was going to quit because I thought I was..." the video cut out to the large Stable-Tec logo for a few seconds before the monitors faded back to a dull green with the text 'File Deleted' scrolling across.

My body suddenly dropped to the floor. It felt good to move again, if only a little. Pushing myself back up on my hooves, I looked over at Phobetor. She was covering her mouth with a hoof, giggling. The giggling itself suddenly burst out into full on laughter.

Unplugging myself from the terminal, I saw that my pipbuck was on the data screen, listing a bunch of new files on it. It didn't take a genius to understand that anything on the terminal was now on my pipbuck.

Phobetor's laughter came to an abrupt end. "oh this is perfect, just too perfect. I was expecting there to be a dirty little secret, or two. But the keys to every stable, and two airships to get to them, it's all too perfect." She looked over at me, a foreboding grin on her face. "Now don't think about deleting anything from pipbuck." she laughed again. "Oh not that you will remember about it, not until that pipbuck is taken off your leg. That of coarse is only if you remember anything about this at all. And if you do, you will be long out of this stable, to far way to ever bother me again" Phobetor motioned to the door with her hoof. "now begone, I free you of my service."

Phobetor vanished before my eyes, becoming part of the darkness, and answering the question to how see seemed to appear and disperser out of nowhere. Seeing that there was nothing left for me to do, I did the only thing I could do, I left the overmares office, feeling defeated and powerless.

Stepping into the atrium, I couldn't help but feel that I was forgetting something important.

Candy Pop was no longer in the arcade, but many of the foals were still playing the fighting game. So I decided to give up the idea of playing it right now. some of the younger foals were also here, though they didn't seem as energetic as they were yesterday, and fortunately were in less of a mobbing mood.

"Hay hay, mister iron pony!" the squeakily voice sounded a bit familiar. Looking over, I sat a striped unicorn filly trotting over to me. "Mister iron pony over here." she ran in a circles before dashing to the lounge. I felt that I had nothing better to do, so I followed.

In the lounge sat Under Brush and Zaan. The filly, remembering her name was Hydrangea, rested her hooves on her fathers head.

"Slowtrot, you have such good timing. Come sit." Zaan's friendly demeanor was hard to say no to. I realy makes me wonder why Equestria was so dead set on hating zebras.

Sitting across from the family, I could see that Under brush was taking a sip from an A Lab Soda. It looked like self punishment for drinking that moonshine in the middle of the day. "So I'm guessing you already heard about the pipbuck?"

Zaan sighed. "The researchers do have loos lips. It might be why this stable is in the middle of the western ocean. Less likely for an agent from the Solaris company to get to any of the researchers... oh, Solaris is a rival company. They've some success. But from what I've heard, what they make tends to be a catastrophic failure most of the time." Zaan chuckled to himself, and looked over to Under Brush. "Dear, you remember that vacuum you bought from them, the one with the radio in it."

Under Brush groaned and shook her head. "yes, and I member how it blew a hole in the wall. What were they thinking selling that thing as a vacuum."

"What! do we still have it, do we, do we, do we?" Hydrangea had jumped of her father, and was bounding on the couch in excitement.

Hydrangea found herself suspended in Under Brush's magic to stop her from jump on the couch anymore. "No, it got taken back to that company. It was a realy bad idea to give lonely housewives a sonic weapon in the shape of vacuum. Poor Mister Green Sprout, he never saw it coming." placing her filly gently back onto the couch, Hydrangea had a bit of a confused look on her face. "ehh, you will understand when your older."

Well it was good to know to not buy from Solaris, unless I want a weapon that was not made to be a weapon. "ah... killer vacuums aside, what's the likelihood of getting to stick around for a few days... on the the beach I mean?"

"I wouldn't worry about that. The company likes to keep there image as clean as possible. So expect a hole week of sun, sand, and free drinks. There will be some papers for you to sign. The normal disclosure form kind of thing. But other then that, you will have a good time before going home." Zaan's voice had a chuckle to it.

"That, that actually sounds better then I thought it was going to be." A hole week, plus the pay June promise that Stable-Tec would give me over the testing. It sould at least keep me going until next year. Then I can get back to doing jobs that will eventually fire me because I suck at them. It was a sad notion that the best paying job I had was being a test subject, and I did it for less then a week.

"So your leaving Slowtrot?" Hydrangea was giving me the sad eyes. I've seen them before, but mostly at other ponies when foal wanted something. "but you only got here." oh my heart, if I had a filly like her, I don't think I could say no to anything she would asked me to do.

I gently ruffled her main. "Sorry, but this is not were I belong. But I might be around for a week, so if you want to hang out, you have to as your parents to see if it's possible." I looked up at Zaan and Under Brush. Zaan looked away, and Under Brush smiled.

Hydrangea turned around, looking at her parents with the same watery eyes. Under Brush seemed less fazed by it the Zaan was.

Under Brush winked at her filly. "Were going to be a too busy for the next week. But I know Candy Pop and Prancer Dancer are free. We can talk to them about taking you to the beach. Maybe you can take some of your friends as well."

The energetic filly jumped to her mother, giving her a big hug. "Thank you, your the best mom ever!"

Now I didn't like the idea of babysitting a bunch of foals, but I felt like nothing but good could come of it. That and I probably had a hole week to enjoy myself, so one day looking after a few foals didn't sound so bad.

Hydrangea jumped off her mother and then over to me, her eyes still wide. I didn't know what she was going to ask me, but I knew she was going to ask something, and I would be compelled to answer it. To make matters worse, tiny hooves had climbed onto my back, and jumped over my head with a flutter sound. A little pegasus filly softly fluttered onto the cushion next to me. Quick looking around, I had had found myself surrounded by foals. They had me perfectly trapped.

Waving at the other foals to settle down, Hydrangea had taken control of the group. "So mister Slowtrot. Because you will be leaving, can you tell use how you got you cutie mark? Are you talented at riddles, you must be a quiz-mater or something, right?"

I looked over to Zaan, but he was chuckling again. I was on my own in the small crowd of foals. "Well it's nothing exiting. I bet you will find it boring,"

The foals looked at each other, and then back at me with a skeptical look. There was not way out of this. Not without looking like the bad stallion. I took a deep breath, knowing that all their little eyes were on me. "Well if you insist. I got my cutie mark because of one gloomy day at school. Everypony was unhappy because our teacher was out sick for the week, and the substitute teacher just gave us a big load of busywork to do until he recovered. It was all simple stuff, but sadly I'm not that smart of a pony, nor was was I that quick with that kind of work. So I new I would jut fall behind everypony, even if I knew how to do all the work. Because of that I knew I had to think of a way to get out of the busy work, or my fellow classmates would leave me behind. So I went about thinking on a solution, waling around the school grounds a few times before coming up with an idea."

Hydrangea jumped up, holding a hoof in the air. "Did you think up a devious plot to get out of the work, did you steal all the answers all super spy like?"

I even chucked a bit at that. "no, thugh that might have been fun. After spending some time thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I knew no way around the problem myself. But I did know some pony that would. So I went to my teachers house, to ask him. The old stallion was both worried that I had come around when he was still ill, but also happy that I had visited him. I was full and well expecting him to tell me that I had to do the busywork. What he did do was give me one of his books, and a note that exempting me from doing the busywork as long as I was reading that book. The stallion new I didn't like reading, words get a bit mixed up when try, so I felt annoyed about his solution"

"Oh, what book was it, I bet it was a dictionary." A little colt had squeaked "Our teacher dose that whenever we try to get out of doing homework."

I waved my hoof for him to sit back down. "Well the book he gave me was Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet."

One of the other foals jumped up, "I've read that one!" she had a had a prideful looking grin on her face

"Pffff, no you didn't, ya ma read it to you." another foal had chimed in, stealing the grin form the other foals face.

Clearing my throat to get there attention. "So I gave it a shot, and the substitute teacher didn't realy care what I did as long as I was occupied. I had only gotten half way thru chapter two by the time out teacher returned." it took me four days to get that far, not that I would tell anypony that. "But when he got back, he told me that I wouldn't get a pass for the week unless I told him what I learned from the book. Sadly I couldn't think of anything I had learned from it. So not wanting to look stupid, I asked him if I can finish the book first, then I would have an answer."

"so is that when you got your cutie mark?"

"well no, but he did agree to let me borrow the book until I was finished. So I spent two weeks reading the book, and walking around thinking about an answer. When I did return the book, I had two answers ready. My first answer was that I learned that he had tricked me into reading a book. The second was that that even if I have a hard time reading a book, it can still be fun if it was a good book. Well the stallion just laughed and gave me the book Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone to read next. Now I still don't like reading books that much, but a good book, I'll give it a try."

"What the hay! When did you get your cutie mark?" Hydrangea pointed her hoof at me, looking a bit irritated.

I just shrugged. "It happened in the second week when I was reading the first book. I didn't even know it had appeared until another foal pointed it out. I probably had it for a days before knowing it was there."

"but then what dose it mean, what's your talent?" Hydrangea seemed frustrated at my answer.

"Well It represents giving things a long thought. About not rushing in and jumping to conclusions. Taking things slow and steady so you come to the right answer, or at least the knowledge that you only have the wrong answer."

Most of the foals had stop to take thinking positions for a moment. Hydrangea was fist of them to brake the pose, jumping off the couch. "Last one to the dance floor is IT!" she galloped to the Dance room across the atrium. The rest of the foals became a stamped, chasing after her.

Zaan burst into laughter at the sight. "Looks like that last bit of your your story went over her head Slowtrot. The last thing that filly knows how to do is slow down."

I laughed along with him. The foals may be a pain, but they were also fun to be around.

Footnote:

Quest completed: ********