Author's Notes:

once more, thanks for reading this, like before, this is pre-editor and if you do find some enjoyment from it, I'll let you know in the blog when it has had an editor work it over.

also I want to thank the makers of the fallout equestria wikia, it helped a lot for the small references. That also brings me to the references as well, if you think I got it wrong, or want me to remove it, just let me know, I rather not step on anyone's toes, or if you want me to refrances your story, I'll see what I can do, it just has to be Stable-Tec related.

The city around me expanded passed the horizon, almost as it curved to the sky, into the sky. The sidewalks were empty as the ponies walked the streets. Inside the building the ponies ate dinner, upside down, and on the ceiling. also they were all on fire, looking at me, smiling.

"such silly dreams"

"I told you before to keep the medicine locked up, if any of you ponies develop an addiction, this will be the first place they will go to steal it," I did not recognized this voice, it sounded male, the accent was familiar, but uncommon.

"But what if there's an emergency, unless you give me a key it's going to be hard to help any pony when your off sleeping," that was the high pitched voice of that red flag nurse. Now what was her name, Pop Candy I think.

My eyes opened up, this time having no trouble at all, and my body no longer had the same achenes as before. Looking around slowly I could see Candy Pop, that's her name, holding a first aid box in her magic. Looking around a little more, I could see an old Zebra, which explaind the accent, who was also in a white lab coat. The zebra's black stripes looked a little gray in some spots, and his main and tail were cut short, overall looking nothing like the zebras in all the posters back in Applewood. This was of course when my stomach growled stupidly loud, drawing the attention of the other two in the room.

"Ahh good, looks like your finally awake," the Zebra trotted up to me as I sat up, "and you look much better then when I last saw you." He had a cheery tone to his voice, it reminded me of every doctor, dentist, and any other pony who's job it was to check my heath, "I'm Doctor Lifebeat, and you have already met my assistant Candy Pop," Candy gave me a wink, "I apologize if she did anything unbecoming," she stuck her tong out at the doctor.

This time I carfuly got myself out of the bed, no need to fall on my face a second time in, "how long was I out?"

"For a little over two hours," so it was still the same day, "The boost Candy Pop gave you can have a nasty crash, it's why I don't give her a key to the medicine safes," he looked back as she looked away, acting innocent.

Looking down at my pipbuck, the screen was dark, which was good as the pipbuck could kill me if I messed with it accidentally. I sighed and look back up at the old zebra, "Doctor Lifebeat, was it, I guess I sould go back to the pipbuck lab, can one of you show me were to go."

Lifebeat raised an eyebrow at me before shaking his head sighed to side. "No, no, if you go there now, you will only pass out again. June told me that the pipbuck is safe as long as don't go playing with it, no you need to do something first, befor getting that thing fixed." He taped one of his back hooves twice on the floor, calling Candy Pop over, "you need to eat and drink before you do anything, my assistant will take you to the cafeteria, so get get your energy back up, I don't want to see you on one of thees beds any time soon." That sounded like a much better idea, Life beat was now on my best pony list, well zebra, but still on the list. Candy Pop on the other hand giving me a look, nothing bad, but it did make me a bit worried, she went on my possibly dangerous to my heath list.

On our way I had to quickly use the toilet, I tried to be polite about it, but Candy Pop just told me to go take a piss.

"You do know you didn't have to say it so loud," she just gave me a smile, this made me feel uncomfortable.

"Who do you think was cleaning up after you when you were out, not the robots I can tell you that," I did not like were this was going, "Lifebeat was to important for the small stuff, so I, his assistant, had to with clean the bed every time you made a mess," oh goddesses she is talking about this.

"okay, please stop, I'd by you a drink if I even had a bit to my name right now."

"Fine, I'll talk about something else, that topic was a bit shitty," I don't know what smelled worse, the pun or the toilet, "so you want to know how you compare to some of the others stallions here," now I was lost again, something I felt like I was going to have to get use to.

"Compare like in how, because I know all of you are going to be smarter then me."

"Obviously, I'm talking about in the bone"

"What?"

"The red rocket, the mighty horn, your little you!"

"What!"

"your dick, I'm talking about your dick!"

This mare was too much, and I was too hungry to run from her, "I got that at red rocket! and why would I want to know, and why do you know or what to talk about such things?" Candy Pop had to be just pushing my buttons, this was too much to be real.

She rolled her eyes, "your going to be as boring as the rest of the stallions here, this blows," she then giggled to herself.

"how did you even get a job here?" I felt that this was a valid question, this mare was like hot pink as a funeral... which now I think about it, would not be that out of place, as a lot of ponies have pink coats, but that was besides the point.

"I, I think I broke my proffers nose," Candy Pop's face scrunched up, no longer having that coy look to it, "that's what miss Healing Herbs told me, and, umm, and I, don't... Oh look were here!" I did not expect that kind of response, but before I could ask about what she meant, my stomach announced it's anticipation for food, pushing any questions out of my mind.

Oh sweet Celestia I could smell food, when the door opened up I almost jumped in, my low energy was the only thing keeping calm. The cafeteria itself looked like a classic diner, not as nice as Sleepy Hooves, but it's black and wight checker patter floors and red seats gave the place more life then the rest of the gray on gray rooms. there were a few ponies here, not enough to be crowded, but more in one place then I had seen in this place, but with my stomach leading the way, I only concerned myself with the pony that had on a big wight chefs hat standing behind the counter. The chef was a earth pony stallion, his pale green coat was stained different colors where his apron did not cover him, and his red tail was bundled into to a fishnet hood, like that I seen most cooks use.

"I need food, Doctors orders," I gave the chef a smile, "please"

"ahh good, the newcomer has manners, and I have exactly what you need," the pony gave me a smile as he grabbed a green patty, and put it on the grill, and the smell that met my nose filled me with joy, "this shouldn't take long, names Pear Tart, it's good to see a new face."

"thanks, the names Slowtrot, so what are you making?"

"just a burger, it's made with the stuff the organic matter recycling units puts out, so far I call it a success" he pulled out two green buns, placing a the patty, what looked to be fresh green hay, and some white sauce between them. placing it on a plate before sliding it to me, it all looked very green, though the bits of brown were it was cooked, and the white sauce did add some color to the thing, "try it, it's good."

I quickly looked around me, counting Candy Pop and Pear Tart, there was eight ponies in here, excluding myself. I could tell that they were all watching me, though none of them were looking at me directly, but I could catch them taking glances. Some of them had food as well, apples mainly, but none of them had the same green stuff that was placed before me.

Feeling that my stomach could not wait any longer, I decided to eat this mess of green they called a burger. "bottoms up," the burger was surprisingly soft when I bit into it, and seemed to turn into mush as I chewed. The flavor itself was mostly all the same, not bad, but was nothing like the hay burgers I enjoyed. Before I new it, I was eating the last bite, my stomach finally giving me some peace. The last peaces of the green burger had trouble going down, and before I could wave for some water, Pear Tart handed me a glass, waves of relef passed over me as I chugged the drink down.

"so how was it," Pear Tart pulled the plat from me, placing it on top of a few other dirty plats nearby.

"it was okay, it just all tasted the same, and turned into mush, it could also use some salt. But other then that, could I have some more, I'm realy hungry," the chef chuckled to himself before preparing another one for me, this time adding salt. I sipped on the drink he gave me earlier, it tasted like water with light apple flavoring to it, noting I would say was that grate, but right now it hit the spot.

As I waited for the next burger, a mare sat next to me, she was brown coated earthpony with an orange main and tail. "out of all the newcomers here, your the first to come in on a stretcher," she gave me a friendly smile, "I'm Prancer Dancer, a counselor here in the stable, it's my job to help everyone be happy!" she held out a hoof for me to shake, but when I did, she pulled me in and gave me a hug, "now that your all healthy, let's get your party started," I was left a little confused as she let go of me. Some of the other ponies behind me yelled Cheers as Prancer Dancer hopped out of her seat. "I'll go get your gifts!"

Another plate of green burger was placed in front of me, "Don't mind her, shes former M.O.M." Pear Tart poured me more apple water, and started cooking another burger as he talked, "Prancer was one of Pinky's early agents, back when the M.O.M. was about keeping the moral of every pony up. Truthfully there are a lot of early ministry ponies here, even our acting overmare is former M.O.P. not that shed talk about it."

I licked my lips as I finished the burger, the salt did help the flavor a bit, but it still just did not feel right. "so why would the ministry's let that happen, aren't they super..." my seat spun around, putting me face to box with a ribbon enclosed box.

"Now now, less gossiping and more opening of presents!" I lowered the box to see Prancer Dancer holding it with her two fore hooves, "I talked with June after you first got up, and when she told me that you will be working with us, I just knew I had to get you this," after swallowing a bit of the green burger that I was eating, and gave her a small smile.

Pulling on the ribbon, the box opened the rest of the way on it's own, confetti popping as it did. I was a little surprised by it all, but my current state of binge eating lest be a little dull to react. Looking inside I could see stable barding, and a a pare of thin saddle bags, and after lifting them out I saw that they had R&D printed on them were normally a Stable number would go, "you got them, for me?"

"Of cores we got them for you, can't have you work for the R&D and not have an R&D barding, with the saddle bags is an extra bonus." Looking closer at the barding, It only had one sleeve for my right leg, with the other side made to zipper together.m"It's our newest model for stale barding, as it turns out, who ever made the old stable barding didn't think about getting it and off on with pipbuck on your hoof, now try it on." The barding slid on easy enough, with the tabs long enough for my to grab them with my mouth and pull, the zipper around my left shoulder was about the same, if a little herder to pull. The thin saddle bags were more like hard cases, similar to a M.O.P. medical box, and when I press m hoof inside of the open saddle bag it expand outwards. "That I saw lying around and picking up dust in manufacturing, and if your going to be a courier, your going to need cool saddle bags to hold stuff in." putting it on over my back and securing it around my belly, I started to feel at least a little less out of place. Prancer gave me a smile and nod before walking to the other tables. "well now that you look official, why don't you say high to the others here."

I chose to quickly gulp down more of the apple water before getting out of my seat, I also took another big bite of the green burger, it may be musshy and odd, but damn it I was not still hungry. At the first table sat Candy Pop, a Unicorn Mare, and a Zebra Stallion, "this is Under Bush, and her husband Zaan, their in charge of labs B," Candy Pop explained," Both of them had stable barding that had extra padding over it, giving them a far more armored look.

"they all say security, but the most we ever do is escort the eggheads back to their family when they forget they have lives outside of work." Under Brush had an upbeat wraps to her voice, that seemed to match her powdered blue coat, and black mane combination, she also sported a scar under her left eye, that extended to the left side of her head.

"We got a few funny story's about that, maybe we can tell you them later." Zaan spoke with no accent, but other then that he was, well a Zebra, a coat of white with black stripes that extended to his mane and tail, though his mane seemed to revers the black and white between the left and right side.

Prancer Dancer got my attention with her vigorous waving at the next table, this one also had three ponies at it. All three of them had some kind of grime on them, and all of them earth ponies stallions. "This is Musket Ball, the old codger is the head, and currently the only pony in the arms development lab. Then we have Easy Fix and Stress Test, their our maintenance engineers here in Labs B."

Musket Ball simply grunted, he had a white main, gray coat and a beard that was at least twelve inches long, overall a grumpy old pony. Easy Fix spoke up, "Don't mind him, he's just not good with meeting new ponies, if you visit him at his shooting range, I bet he will talk your ears off as you shoot guns, and drink whiskey all day," I didn't know much about shooting guns, but talking over some whiskey sounded like a good way to pass the time.

Easy Fix had a black coat, and a blond mane, making the stains on his barding the only clear sign that he needed a shower, "It's one of the good things about being in Labs B, as long as we keep things running, the overmare let's us get drunk," Easy Fix sounded more like Easy living.

Stress Test was much bigger then every pony else, with a violet coat, and rust red mane, he gave off a feeling of pride after Easy Fix had spoken. "This jobs the best, and it's because Stable-Tec dose not cut corners, so all we have to do is double check all the weak points, and if there still going on strong, out job is done for the day." Stress Teast let out a burp, "but don't get us wrong, it still keeps up busy, and labs C and D call us down whenever they fuck up," I gess he didn't want me to think he was lazy, not that I would say it, but the job sounded like a fun easy gig, well for a maintenance engineer, of which I was not.

"And that's every pony that is free right now," Prancer shrugged, "we are busy ponies, just yesterday I had to plan for a birthday, but it turns out it was for twins, had to redo everything in an hour before they arrived, but it was a success in the end."

"The cake burst into flames miss Prancer Dancer," A stuffy unicorn mare trotted through the open door, she had normal stable barding on over her white coat, her silver mane was in a braid, and she had a thin framed glasses that sat on the tip of her nose, "I don't call flaming cake a success."

"The two colts thought is was awesome, they told me so, I call that a success miss Dots and Cross." Prancer stuck out her tong.

"Never mind you, I'm here to see mister Slowtrot," she looked at me and used her magic to place a peace of parchment onto the table next to me, a quill floated over for me to take in my mouth. "I need you to sign this here, it's a release form, with it Stable-Tec will not be held liable for any injuries accorded when involved in Stable-Tec busyness." among things I strongly disliked, one was writing with my mouth, I did my best, but my signature barely looked like my name, "Good, with this I advise that you return to the pipbuck lab, and I sould remind you that this dose not make you an employee of Stable-Tec," Dots and Cross grabed the parchment in her magic, trotting out with the same scenes of urgency as she came in with, I could see that her cutie mark was an 'i' and a 't'.

Prancer gave me a little nudge, "That was out local bureaucrat, It's her job to handle payroll, and all the other non fun stuff. Oh and before I forget," Prancer hoofed a few thing into my saddle bag before I could see what they were, "something for the road, you know if you get hungry or thirsty." in the upper left corner of my vision text appeared, sating I now had two Stable-Tech MRE and two B Lab Sparkle Cola in my saddlebag, the text vanishing after a read it, "now you know which way to the lab right?"

Candy Pop trotted over to the door "I'll take him to the lab," oh no, I knew what she wanted to do, "Come on, I heard they got some fun stuff to do with that pipbuck," Okay, I just needed to mentally prepare myself, can't be much worse then what some of the mares I knew would talk about. I trotted after her, prepared for the worse she could throw at me.

I was not prepared, I thought she was going to talk about other stallions, and privet stuff about them, but no she went on about the diseases she had to study in college, I didn't know that their was a tick that can give you a virus that makes your skin fall of, now I do, along with its horrible symptoms that come before your skin falls off.

"what actually kills the pony is dehydration, with so much fluids coming out of of every orifice, it's extremely hard to keep a patient hydrated, as well as not contract the plague yourself," The door to the pipbuck tech lab was right in front of me, Candy Pop was still talking, and I didn't want to be rude, but I also didn't want to hear about any more ways to die from horrible diseases.

"Ahem, Candy Pop."

"Are we hear already, and here I was getting to the good stuff."

"you scare me, you know that right?"

"oh don't make me blush, but if you ever want to talk more, you know were to find me."

Candy Pop waved and trotted off, probably to medical, leaving me with the peace of silence. So I stood around for another minute absorbing the quite stillness.

The Pipbuck lab looked the same as it did before I passed out, not that I remember any real details, but I did take note that the robot was gone. June was still at the large computer, with a few more pipbucks plugged into it, an ashtray sat near her filled with cigaret buds and ash. Cloud bank was at a desk, tapping away at another not as big computer. Emerald Fields was among a bunch of disassembled pipbucks, and from what I could guess she had them all connected to together, though what four I didn't know, I'm no pipbuck technician. "uhh, hello, I'm back."

"Good, we have a some work to finish up first, go take a seat in the meantime, don't touch anything maniacal." June didn't even stop working as she spoke to me, nor did the other, which to me meant that I sould just do as they say.

Looking around the lab, it all just seemed to just bluer together for me, all I could understand was that everything here was to deal with pipbucks, and because I knew nothing about pipbucks, I just felt that I did not belong here. The cafeteria was inviting, calling me to eat, drink, and talk to others, but now that I could take actually take my time to take in the pipbuck lab, it was sterile and cold. I sat at a desk that was a bit further away from the others, as I did not want to distract them any further then I might have, the desk itself had some paperwork on it, something that sould be safe for me to at least look at.

One peace of paper was covered in notes, and had another paper attached to it. 'NO MORE MINISTRY PIPBUCKS!' was what the attachment had written on it. The document itself was a wall of text that I had no interest in reading, but it also had a lot of pink notes scribbled all over that caught my curiosity. The top stated that this document was about a M.O.M. Pipbuck, most of the pink notes were too much of a scribble for me, but there were a few notes that were a bit bigger and more clear. 'durable internal hardware,' 'detachable/reachable components,' 'softer casing,' and 'bigger BIGGER memory space!' there was another not near the bottom that was in red, 'suggest the use of the 2900 over the mass produced 3000, it's more easily customizable.' As I was about to put the document down, I saw that there was one more pink note at the bottom right corner, my eyes could not help but be drawn too, "Prancer Dancer holds such good party's! don't you think! you sould go helper her out tomorrow Slowtrot, it be fun!' I just put the document away, slid it under another document, and put a stapler on top of it.

Another batch of documents sat on the left of the desk, this one was about pipbuck attachments prototypes, as it stated on the top, and was a wall of text of which I had no interest in reading. Each document under the top page seemed to be about a different prototype, some stamped approved, others not. The first one was called a Stealth buck, it was approved, and had a purple scribbled note at the bottom, of which I could not read, but it was signed M.A.S. Another document was for a P.R.A or Personal Research Attachment, approved, it had scribble red note on it, signed by June Log Baird. I flipped through the rest, many of them covered in red notes that I could not see, most having no stamp on it. Another approved was a broadcaster attachment, though this one seemed to have a lot less text to it. There were at least three more I saw that were approved, a Disruptor Attachment, a Wireless Connection Attachment, and a Levitation Attachment, all with walls of text with it. I simply put them all back were I found them.

One other document caught my eyes, pipbuck 2500 stated in bold on top, the pipbuck I was told that I won back at the raffle. The document was another wall of text, but attached underneath was a sketch of the pipbuck: the pipbuck had a far different design to it then the 2600, though both sharing that it covered most of the leg. The lower end was little different from a normal pipbuck 3000, not as bulky looking, and the upper leg part was less like an extra pipbuck, and more of a holder for what looked like an retractable antenna, under the sketch was the words 'search and rescue pipbuck' and a red note next to it stated 'further manufacturing canceled.' The bottom left of the page was signed J.L.B.

"FINISHED!" June shouted, the other two researcher groaned as they continued working, "you two are buying the scotch."

Feeling that it was now safe to at least talk with June, I put the document down and trotted over to her, "umm, I signed a release form, so that was a thing. oh and Umm, I got free stuff," oh why am I so awkward at times.

June just looked at me and rolled her eyes "well at least that means that Healing Herbs might actually get some sleep. Now let's get that pipbuck hooked up and ready." She pressed a button on the upper part of the pipbuck, opening the panel from before, "You know we were worried that the it had actually failed when you passed out," with ease, she picked up a cable with her hoof, and attached it into the pipbuck, "Lifebeat was had a few words to say about dragging one of his patents around just after recovery." she plugged in the second cable to my pipbuck, and returned to her computer.

"that's the first thing he had me do when I got up. I don't think I've seen a real zebra in years."

"oh, if not real one, then what have you seen?"

"the normal stuff, ponies in zebra costumes, the ones with the big red eyes and fangs, scaring the fillies and colts."

June let out a sigh, tapping away at the computer, "it's realy got that bad has it. I remembered when the war started, that such depictions of the zebras could get you in trouble with the law, and now it's the normal stuff." the tone in her voice was more somber, but her hooves did not stop tapping away.

"It's actually hard to find a classic movie in the theaters anymore, or a new one that's not about the war in some way," there was even a musical about a zebra friend of the ministry's that turned traitor, the M.O.M. shut it down after the first day it was shown, "sooo... how many zebras are here?"

June stopped tapping, and swiveled her seat to look at me, I was actually taken aback by it, "and why would you want to know?"

"just curious, like I said, haven't seen a real zebra in years, and today I saw two."

"so you met Zaan as well," she paused, closing her eyes for few seconds before opening them again, "I'll let that be a surprise," she turned back to her computer, I just scratched my head, accidentally hitting myself with the pipbuck.

"Done," another groan came Cloud Bank as Emerald Field levitated her cluster of pipbucks over to the computer and plugged them in, "Looks like your paying for three fourths of the scotch Cloud Bank." he taped away at his computer harder.

"Uhh, I'm a but afraid to ask, but what is that?" I pointed at the cluster of gutted pipbucks she was plugging into the large computer.

"A shortcut," she smiled as she levitated another cable to me, and plugged it into my pipbuck, "that V.I. we installed turned out better then we thought it would. It's actually isolating all the harmful spells, and any ones that could damage the pipbucks systems, so we just have to make a place for the spells to be isolated that is not on the pipbuck." she said with a upbeat tone.

"so, dose that mean you can get this thing safe today?" I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I wanted to know.

"no, not today, but tomorrow maybe. were trying to trick the spells to jump onto another pipbuck, and like the old saying goes, you can trick all the ponies some of the time, but you can't trick all the ponies all the the time." she pressed a few buttons on her frankenpony creation, and my vision blurred for a second. "We sould be able to remove the more problematical ones first, the V.I. wont even let the pipbuck fully operate until we get rid of them."

Cloud Bank walked around me, plugging his pipbuck into the computer, he looked a bit annoyed, "The new code is ready, just start the transfer and the V.I. sould take care of the rest."

"Right, just monitor the systems, if you see any hiccups, unplug everything." the sound of the computer suddenly became louder, like some pony had turned on a spark engine.

The screen on my pipbuck lit up, so I brought it up closer to take a look at it. I could see the symbol of the M.O.P. filling the screen, under text flashed by, and a bar slowly moved from the left to the right. As I watched, another bar appeared, also moving across the screen, but when I moved my head it moved with me. this went on for a few minutes, the bars became butterfly's, and fluttered around the room, I was getting concerned that the pipbuck had messed up my brain. Eventuly it all stopped, and my Pipbuck rebooted agen.

"That was weird" I rubbed my eyes before looked at the others, who were staring at me, "what! I saw green butterfly's flying everywhere, is that not normal?"

Cloud Bank and Emerald Field glanced at each other before looked back to me, Cloud Bank shook his head before talking, "This is why we stopped letting the M.A.S. program our pipbucks."

The pipbuck turned back on, and my vision filled with... stuff. I looks at it all, but other then a compass I didn't know what I was looking at. Emerald Field chuckled a little "Looks like the E.F.S. is working, their sould be tutorial in the systems setting, when you have time you sould turn it on." so all this stuff was called a E.F.S. the compass was easy to understand, though the three small blue bars on the compass were odd, moving my head left and right provided me evidence that the three small blue bars were tracking the research team.

June got out of her seat and walked to the desk that Cloud Bank was working at, the blue bar fallowed her. She picked up a mug in her hoof and smiled at me. "Lets test the new spell out," new spell? oh, right, I agreed that I would help them with their, their research I guess. The other two gave a worried look to each other, which then made me worry. "Slowtrot, stay still and keep an eye on the mug." she threw it at me with a under hoof throw, it quickly flew right at my face, to my credit I did exactly what June told me to do, more out of surprise then anything.

Luckily Emerald had grabbed the mug in her green magic, saving me from getting hit in the head with it. Turning to thank her, the mug then smaked her in the head, and fell to the ground. "uhh, what?" Cloud Bank started bellowing in laughter. "what just happened?"

"could you have just had him pick it up with the levitation spell," Emerald Field groaned as she rubbed her head, "or at least threw something softer." she then started to laugh as well, which made me feel that things were okay.

June took another long puff of her cigaret as she walked back up to us. "we put a levitation spell into the pipbuck, nothing strong, but it sould help you with getting things in and out of your new saddlebags. Just be careful, the spell uses your eyes to target whatever you want to pick up, and will move with them, as well drop when you blink." she returned to her computer, and looking back at me, "We got more work to do Slowtrot, so go find Zaan or Under Bush, one of them can take you to residential and show you around." The levitation was a bit much for me to take in, but the part about geting shown around sounded like a good idea, and maybe the cafeteria had a some more food for me, I was still feeling a bit hungry.

An Icon appeared in the upper right of my vision stating 'map updated' before vanishing. Tapping on my pipbuck, the option to start the tutorial opened up, I looked at the others and shrugged, "I'm going to check the tutorial first, I think this thing has a map." the others smiled a little before going back to work, leaving me to learn how to work on my oversize pipbuck.

Footnote:

Quest Perk: Advanced Pipbuck Modification - The defective 2600 is now working properly, and will not suddenly try to kill Slowtrot when he is using it, he just needs to be careful to where he plug it into. Slowtrot can now use levitation through his pipbuck on a small objects at up to a yard away.