I bucked open the door to the shack that I had called home for the last year. I stomped in and bucked the door closed behind me. “Screw the Wasteland. I am so done with this. I am done with the dust. I am done with the radiation. I am done with the mutations. Done, done, done, done, and done!”

The blankets in the corner moved. A yellow face and light green mane emerged, eyes still closed. “Can you do me a favor this time, Dust, and turn off the repeat function on that tape player you’re using?” Muddy Waters sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his slate gray eyes. “What happened this time? Another radscorpion attack? Or was it a bloatsprite this time?”

“You know what, Muddy, shut the hell up. You got a cushy job. All you do is patrol the town and take care of the occasional thief or critter that shows up.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he grunted at me.

I wasn’t really mad at Muddy, it wasn’t his fault that we discovered I had an affinity for Wasteland technology. Shortly after landing down here, we trotted into town and negotiated for our little shack. Our landlord had a collection of odds and ends of technology, one of which included a semi-functional terminal. While Muddy was doing the negotiating, I sat down and played with the keyboard a little bit. When the landlord heard the clacking of the keys, he nearly smacked me across the face. It wasn’t until he saw that I had gotten past the error screen that had been appearing did he calm down. After that, Muddy was able to talk down his rent demands pretty significantly. Unfortunately, word also got out that I had a magic touch where tech was concerned. I was immediately hired to work for a reclamation crew that would scavenge the nearby ruins of Horseton.

Reclamation crews would go into an assigned building and clear out any useful materials we could find. The problem was that the buildings were in states of severe disrepair, usually infested by mutated vermin of all types, sometimes home to several raiders or ghouls, and sometimes irradiated. Horseton was hit by a zebra megaspell, but the magical radiation had subsided quite a bit since the Last Day. Usually a dose or two of Rad-X or a sachet of Rad-Away was enough to keep us safe.

“We were clearing out what we thought was an office building. We got to the cafeteria, which someone must have chained shut and one of my team cut the chain before looking. We were overrun by ghouls. We barely made it out of the building alive and barred them inside the front door. Tomorrow we go back with a fire team to reclaim the building and scavenge. Ya know, a typical Tuesday down here.” I sighed. “I did not expect this when I signed up.”

“I don’t think anyone does. We don’t really know what’s down here, that’s our job, remember?”

I jumped when I heard a knock at the door. Making sure Muddy’s wings at least were under the thin sheet, otherwise we’d be exposed, I went to the door. “Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s Brown Root,” the voice on the other side replied.

“Hold on a second,” I unlatched the door and opened it. The grinning brown face of Brown Root greeted me. As usual, his straw-colored mane was flopped over his emerald colored eyes. I always wondered how he was able to see anything at all. He was large, especially for a unicorn. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was an earth pony wearing a costume horn.

“How ya holdin’ up after ta-day? It got mighty hairy in there.”

“Eh, I’m OK, I guess. What about you? I thought we’d be surgically removing that thing from your leg… or at least building a new guest room onto your house.”

He chuckled. “Ah, that li’l thing? Nuthin’ a little magic couldn’t take care of. See, no injuries.” He held up his hoof, and it was uninjured. “Ya up for some poker tonight? Some of us wanna take back the caps you been takin from us lately.”

“Sure, no problem. Give me a chance to steal some more caps from you guys? How can I say no? Rusty’s place, 8 p.m?” I asked.

Brown Root nodded. “Eeyuuup. See ya then.” He turned and left. I closed and latched the door. I didn’t really enjoy these games, but I was pretty decent at it and it gave me a chance to mine some of the locals for intel.

I went to my side of the room and removed my armored barding. I had to admit that it did work reliably so far for the year I’ve been down here. I haven’t had to test the ballistic properties of the barding (yet), but it had protected me from a few raider knife attacks during some scavenging runs.

But I could hardly show up at a friendly poker game with armor on. In the year we’ve been down, Muddy and I created padded vests that hid our wings, but were more casual wear. They were made out of a green, quilted material that I found during a scavenging run and got to keep since it was essentially worthless. Our gear maintenance training helped us fashion these vests rather easily. I slipped my vest on and grabbed my caps.

Coltington was a nice little town, for a Wasteland settlement. It never ceased to amaze me how resourceful dirt-ponies could be. They crafted a solid little town from scraps and bits of trash from nearby Horseton. It wouldn’t be winning any interior or exterior decorating awards, but it was functional and it was home for these ponies. The only downside to the town was that there was no real idea of a street. At first, I found the layout completely maddening. Every five steps or so, you’d have to change direction or bump into a different building, but I saw potential. There were hidden alleys and alcoves all over the place. I had already planned out several escape routes and hiding places, should the need arise. After my first run-in with raiders, I had also planned a defensive strategy for the town in case we needed to hold out on our own. I was puzzled coming up with an offensive plan, if the need came to take the town by force. Although, that was more wishful thinking since I doubted two ponies could take the entire town by force. All of this planning meant I now knew the town like the back of my hoof, just in case. In any event, I made my way down to the town bar, Horseton House.

I walked in the door and settled down into my home away from home. It was a small establishment, only enough room for a modest bar and a hoofful of tables, but it was big enough for Coltington. It was lit by several bare gemstones, which cast long shadows in the corners. It was awash in a near-perpetual sour beer odor, but you got used to it after a while. Behind the bar was Pot Luck. He was a one-eyed unicorn. His left eye was gored out by a deathhound, or so the rumors say, so he wore an eye patch over it. I think it was all for show, but Pot Luck wouldn’t talk about it or show anyone what was under the patch.

The bar was relatively empty except for a couple of earth ponies sitting at one of the central tables. I walked up the bar, “So Pot Luck, what do you have that’s good today?”

“Same thing that’s good every day around here, nuthin’.” We both laughed; this was our running joke for a while now. “The usual?”

“Yes sir, but make it a single tonight. I’m gonna go kick some ass at poker.”

“When will they learn,” he chuckled. Pot Luck levitated one of the glasses in his green magical field and placed it down in front of me. The vodka bottle floated up next and started filling the glass. He stopped when it was halfway full. I fished out the requisite caps and a few extra for Pot Luck.

“Thank you.” I grabbed the glass and went to my usual spot in one of the dark corners of the bar. I found this spot by accident one night when a caravan was in town. It was the only seat available and I was hesitant to sit there since I was afraid I wasn’t going to see anything. However, I soon learned that it was the best spot in the house. I had a great angle on the entire bar and I could hear almost any conversation if I strained hard enough.

I sipped at my drink. I felt the familiar burn of the wasteland spirits work their way down my throat. It was oddly comforting. A few of the local ponies came for a post-work drink and then left. The big talk of the town was the attack on the scavving team today and how we were lucky no one got killed. There was also mention of a new stable being found and overrun by Steel Rangers far to the north. Those fucks were not anything to be trifled with. Either you gave them what they wanted or you were killed. All operatives had standing orders to avoid them at all costs. There was always conflict between the Enclave and the Steel Rangers; they wanted our tech and we wanted them gone. I would not be able to handle them in a fight as they would severely outgun us, but fortunately we had never faced any of them.

My spying was interrupted when the doors to the bar flew open and in strode Last Stand. There was no mistaking this pony, as his stare seemed to cut right through you. He was also fully jet black, both his coat and slicked-back mane.

“Dust, where the hell are ya! Muddy told me I’d find you here!” he bellowed.

“Over here,” I waved at him.

He trotted over to my table. Even this close, his dark coat blended into the shadows cast around the bar. “Go home and get into bed. We leave early tomorrow. A stable was found under Horseton.” Shit, a stable. Stable work was never good. Every stable we ever went into ended badly. Stable 32 was filled with a raider gang who had claimed the place as their new base of operations. Stable 103 was filled with ghouls. Stable 199 was my personal favorite. It had a malfunctioning, but still active, security system that had no targeting parameters. As such, it fired on any pony that got in range. Guess who got chosen to go first and disarm the turrets to make it safe for the other teams. Yup, you guessed right. “You earn your keep tomorrow since you’re pretty much useless at everything else.” He turned around and stormed away, no doubt going to find the rest of the team. I guess this meant no poker tonight.

If we were scavving a stable tomorrow, that meant all recovery teams would be there. That also meant the security teams would be brought in for additional firepower. Muddy was on night shift tonight so he was in for a long day tomorrow. I decided I’d try to find him before heading home for bed. I went to the edge of town and scanned in both directions. Muddy usually ended up on perimeter patrol since his partner was a lazy ass. I waited several minutes and saw him amble into view. He walked over to me and stopped, “What’s up, Muddy? Poker over already?”

“Nope Stable call.”

Muddy’s eyes lit up. “Seriously? Did you hear anything else about the stable? Raiders? Robots? Radgators?” Muddy loved conflict, perhaps disproportionately so. Our standing orders were to avoid hostility with locals unless it was for self-defense. The only time he ever got to use his guns was when something came up on a security patrol or he was running point on a scavving trip. He was always volunteering for larger runs and especially relished the stable trips.

“No, all I know is that we’re meeting at dawn; you know the place. I’m heading home to get some sleep. See you in the morning.” I turned and headed home.

I entered the shack, latched the door, and took off my vest. I spread my wings and gave them a few flaps just to stretch them out. This was the hardest part of this assignment. We were never allowed to fly except in the most dire of circumstances. Our wings were bound to our bodies for sixteen to twenty hours a day and we were only able to stretch them out at night, behind closed doors. The call of the sky was killing me. The year without flight was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. There was even an entire set of training on the psychology of the loss of flight in pegasi. Even though our loss was self-imposed, and we could technically fly any time we wanted, it still drove some pegasi to the edge. Stories were told about pegasi who went crazy and removed their own wings and others who fell from a height and didn’t fly even to save their own lives.

After stretching my wings out, I lay down on my mattress and pulled the sheet up over myself. This way, if anyone was milling around outside when Muddy got home, they wouldn’t see my wings accidentally. I put my head down on my pillow, and my tired eyes slowly closed and I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to Muddy stripping his submachine gun down for maintenance. He always got restless the morning of a big run.

“G’morning, Dust,” he grunted.”I already took care of your SMG for you… I couldn’t sleep after getting home last night.”

“Thanks, Muddy. I appreciate it.” I really did. As much as I knew how important it was to maintain a weapon, I did not like performing routine maintenance. At least Muddy complemented me in that regard.

“I can’t wait to see what’s hiding for us in the stable. I’m hoping for some action this time. The last time, you had all the fun with the turrets.”

“Yeah, fun, right.” I spit back.

I grabbed and double-checked all my gear before stowing it in the appropriate place on my barding. We trotted towards the muster zone outside of town we used for any large scale scavving mission. By the time we got there, several dozen ponies were already waiting. I let Muddy leave so he could join his security friends while I looked for Last Stand. His jet black coloring usually made him easy to find. I found him and made my way over to my team.

Of course, Brown Root was there. He was our medic. Next to him was Wilted Flower, in her full body armor as usual. The earth pony was the only female among all the scavving crews. There was good reason though. She could pick any lock and disarm any trap that we came across. Because of her, we were able to get into rooms most scavvers couldn’t and found shortcuts that helped us avoid unnecessary danger. She was unusually colored for a Wasteland pony, being a bright, lemony yellow with a light purple mane. She claimed it was because her ancestors were artists. We didn’t know what to believe. She always had a mischievous look in her amber colored eyes. Finally, there was Rusty. He was mainly there for any magical components we ran across, but he was also a pack mule and strong as a buffalo.

“Hey, guys,” I called out.

Everyone, with the exception of Last Stand, greeted me in return. He broke up the greetings, “So Flower, did we learn our lesson yesterday about opening doors that have been secured for no apparent reason?” Sarcasm dripped off his statement.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. How was I supposed to know the entire damn company hid in the cafeteria and were ghoulified?” She snapped back.

“Next time, just look inside before you let all hell loose on us.”

Brown spoke up to break the tension. “Lookee, mistakes were made, but we made it out of thar alright, didn’t we?”

Stand grumbled, “Yeah, only by luck. We should all be fuckin’ dead.” Last Stand then glared at me, “Ready to earn your pay today, Dust?” Last Stand particularly hated stable runs and since they were known for their tech loot, I was actually useful and necessary, which aggravated him more.

“Why doncha lay off him, Stand. He wasn’t responsible for…” Flower started to say.

“Flower, stop right there. I swear, if you bring that up one more time, I will take my shotgun, ram it up your ass and pull the trigger. For the last damn time, I don’t like tech, never will.” A while back, Last Stand lost an entire team when one of them tried to hack into a terminal and triggered the security system. Four ponies died that day, and some say a little bit of Last Stand did as well. “His only job on this crew is tech. He can’t shoot worth a damn and he can’t carry as much as the rest of us. I would leave him here if I could, but I’d get my ass handed to me by the boss since the stuff he can bring in is worth a lot of caps. That’s the only reason I tolerate him. End. Of. Story.” He punctuated each of the last three words with slam of his hoof against the ground.
Flower turned towards me, “Don’t worry, Dust, we all still luv ya.”

Somepony nearby cleared their throat. Outside all the cliques that had formed stood Big Boss. He actually wasn’t particularly big, and he wasn’t the one ultimately in charge. He was the field manager of the scavving company most of Coltington worked for. “Pardon me, ponies. May I have your attention? I’ll keep this short and sweet since we’ve all been through this before. We know nothing about this stable. The entrance was discovered by one of our scout teams. When they breached the entrance, they heard movement within and came back to report.

“Prickly Pear, you and fire team alpha will take the utility wing.” Two ponies nodded in confirmation. “High Ground, you and fire team beta will take the Living Quarters.” Again, more head nods. “Last Stand, you and fire team charlie will take the Administration and Laboratory wings.” We all groaned.

“Fire Team Charlie,” Last Stand said with a huff. Fire Team Charlie had the reputation of having more casualties than kills in combat. The reason was almost all the newbies, inexperienced ponies and those on “punishment detail” were assigned to Charlie. In large deployments like this, any security ponies that didn’t want to secure already cleared areas and that wanted to volunteer for front line duty with a fire team were assigned to Charlie. I knew what was coming next.
Muddy yelled out, “Can I volunteer to go with an entry team?”

“Of course, Muddy, when have I ever said no to you? You know where to go,” Big Boss replied. “Entry and fire teams, we go in 30 minutes. Security teams, you’ll follow when signaled. Get ready, ponies.”

Muddy trotted off to join his fire team. They would meet us at the stable door when the time was right. They would first head to the armorer to be outfitted with some of the better weapons we had available.

“Great, just great,” Flower said. “Not only do we have ta clear the stable, but we gotta babysit the fire team. This should be soooo much fun. Hey Dust, at least ya won’t be the weak link this time.”

“Thanks, Flower. Maybe you can NOT distract the fire team this time when you shake your flank in front of them. They almost let those radgators get us that one time in the flooded stable hallway, remember?” I shot back.

Rusty guffawed and called back, “Dust, calm down… she can distract me anytime!” The rest of the group started laughing. Flower simply flicked her mane and swished her tail.

After the laughing died down, everypony else galloped over to the armorer. I simply found a nice quiet spot to do my work. I usually spent this pre-entry time to complete my routine check of my gear. A pit always formed in my stomach when I saw the armorer break out the RPGs and heavy guns. Other ponies would push and shove to make sure they got one of the big weapons, but I was never one of them. Quickly peering down the sights of my SMG and making sure there wasn’t anything seriously out of whack, my nerves started to calm a little. Let the other ponies have their big guns. I would always prefer the little gun I used. Being lighter and having less recoil than any of the rifles, I knew I could send several rounds into a target in the same time it would take the rifles to get one. It also helped me overcome my less than stellar accuracy since I could just “spray and pray.” I just hoped that, with their larger caliber rounds, one of the other ponies didn’t have a friendly fire accident. After making sure my backup sidearm was in its holster and loaded, I checked my first aid supplies and support tools. My tech kit was filled with small spools of wire, a spare spark battery, and various electronic components. If this was a typical stable, I would have to override a few door locks, hack into several terminals, and bypass damaged systems. The focus on my work was shattered once Last Stand whistled to get all our attention.

Thirty minutes later we were all filing down the cave that led under Horseton and would lead us to the stable. It was amazing to me how many of these entry caverns were exactly the same. It was almost as if Stable-Tec built the cave around the stable on purpose. The light in the cavern dimmed and the air got cooler. It didn’t take long before I saw the characteristic yellow strobe light that signaled the stable entrance. The usual collection of pony skeletons were scattered around the door. Somepony had the sense to at least clear a path through them. The large gear which was the door had already been retracted and we could see the entry room beyond. I felt a shiver work its way down my spine and I felt my stomach become uneasy. Stables always freaked me out. They were so cramped and confining; two things this pegasus was not comfortable with. Muddy did not seem similarly affected.

The entry room was what we expected from a stable. The stable door opened to a small pathway flanked by raised platforms on either side. A door straight ahead of us had a sign which indicated it led to the Atrium. The entry room also had a door marked Utility. The emergency lighting was still active in this part of the stable, so everything was bathed in a red glow, until we all turned on our flashlights. The walls were now swaths of white light amongst a sea of red. Prickly Pear and his team made their way to the door for the utility wing, opened it, and disappeared beyond it. The rest of us headed towards the door for the Atrium. High Ground pressed the button and the door slid open. It opened to a long staircase which headed deeper into the stable. The emergency lighting was still the only active light source and any ambient light from the entrance had faded away by now. Before the door closed behind us, I heard the security ponies filing into the entry room waiting for their signal to secure our path back out.

We got to the bottom of the stairwell and walked into the Atrium. The first thing that hit me was the air. The air smelled so stale you could almost taste it. Apparently, the air handling system wasn’t completely functioning. Next, I looked around the Atrium. This Atrium was just like all the others I had ever seen. We entered onto the upper level. Directly across from us was a doorway labeled “Administration”. Across a small walkway were two more doors, one of which would surely lead down to the lower level. The other door was labelled “Clinic”.

Last Stand looked at High Ground. “You guys got the clinic last time. Our turn?”

High Ground simply grunted an affirmative reply.

Last Stand turned. “OK, my guys, we’ll clear the admin wing first, then come back for the clinic and then we’ll go look through the lab.”

Our team headed towards the door on the far end of the walkway we were on. High Ground and his team headed downstairs. Last Stand got to the door and pushed the entry button which buzzed. “Dust, you’re up, get us in.”

I was surprised the first time I came across a stable and some of the systems were still working. I mean, in many cases it had been two hundred years since anyone had performed any maintenance on any of the systems, yet there was always a door lock or part of a security system still functioning. Hell, even some of the maneframes were still running, even when the other stable systems had malfunctioned years ago. By this point, though, it didn’t surprise me anymore. When Stable-Tec built something, they apparently built it to last.

I walked up to the junction box holding the entry button and popped it off with a quick buck. I had done this dozens of times before and checked the normal problems. Disconnecting the power supply from stable power, which may not be delivering enough, I rigged the wires to the spark battery. Pressing the button on the dangling junction box still only resulted in a soft buzzing sound. Grunting, I dove back into the mess of wiring looking for anything that was obviously out of place. Finally, I found a small section of wiring which lead to the motor control which had shorted out. Quickly bypassing the shorted out wire, the door opened when I next pressed the button. After the door became silent again, it was replaced with a soft, rhythmic thumping sound.

“Heads up,” Last Stand called out. We all drew our weapons and cautiously advanced into the admin wing. Last Stand started whispering orders. “Dust, take a security pony and find the Overmare’s office and find what data you can. Flower, you and an escort go find the Security office and clear that out. Brown, Rusty, and I will find the armory and clean that out. Go.”
Muddy and I did not travel together when it could be helped. As much as we wanted to keep each other safe, we decided a while ago that we could overhear more if we split up. A fire team pony came up to my side. I couldn’t see anything about the pony since most security ponies always wore full barding with helmets and gas masks entering stables. They always overreacted to a stable find. He or she nodded at me and we proceeded.

Whoever designed the stables definitely did not envision incursions, or else they wouldn’t have labelled doors and provided signage to get to important parts of the stable. We walked past the Security office and kept moving. The thumping sound we heard earlier was getting louder. Finally, we got to the last door in the hallway, marked as the Overmare’s Office, and flanked both sides of it. My escort nodded at me and I pressed the entry button. After the door slid open, I heard the telltale raspy growl of a ghoul. I entered first and moved to my right. The only problem was the ghoul waiting right next to the door.

The ghoul lunged at me and tried to throw me to the ground. I sidestepped the initial charge which left the ghoul off balance. I turned and tried to buck the ghoul in the head, but its stumble moved it just enough to turn my buck into a glancing blow. After my miss, the ghoul grabbed onto my leg and bit down. Fortunately, the armored leg piece kept the ghoul from causing any real injury. My escort fired a shot from behind me, which had missed the ghoul entirely. I saw the round spark harmlessly off the wall behind the ghoul. I turned and glared at my escort who was busy reloading his rifle. That was a mistake.

The ghoul had regained his balance and dove at me once again. I only had enough time to turn and present my armored side towards it. The beast hit me with the force of a small cart. We fell to the floor and rolled a few feet. It ended up on top swinging its legs at me. Its jagged hooves opened a couple of small wounds along my face. The ghoul started lunging at my neck with its teeth. Grabbing it by the neck, I pushed it away as hard as I could. Its foul breath washed over me, making me gag.

BANG! The ghoul’s head exploded into bits of dried grey flesh, brain matter, and black ichor. Some of the vile fluid splattered across my face while the rest sprayed across the room behind it. Looking towards the sound of the gunshot, I saw my escort in a firing stance with the rifle aimed in our direction.

“Thanks,” I said to him or her through ragged breathing. He or she simply nodded in reply.

I took several seconds to recollect myself. My escort helped me to stand up again. I glanced around the room to get a lay of the land. It was typical for an Overmare’s office. One wall was dominated by a status board that indicated the condition of the various parts of the stable. It was not surprising that most of the readouts were red. The only systems that apparently were still functional were backup power and air handling. Air handling was functional? You could fool me. The center of the room was dominated by a U-shaped desk with a chair behind it.

My first task was to search the body we just found. Noting that the ghoul was wearing wasteland clothing and not a stable suit, I realized this stable had been discovered already, but who knows how long the ghoul had been here. I searched the saddlebags and found a hoofful of caps, a box of 10mm ammo and some rotten food. I took the caps and ammo. Not taking my eyes off the corpse, I said to my partner, “Go tell Last Stand that there are ghouls in this stable, but they aren’t stable dwellers. I’m hoping there aren’t too many. He’ll radio the others.” I heard my partner trot off down the hallway towards.

Next I glanced at the cabinet and bookcase in the room, but they appeared to have been rifled through already. My last, and probably most important task, was to search the Overmare’s desk and computer.

The desk was empty of anything useful, just like the rest of the room. I sat down in the Overmare’s chair and powered on the terminal. The comforting “Login:” line appeared. I started my work to override the terminal. Most were lightly secured, but this terminal had a more complicated password to hack. Eventually I found the password, “regretfully”, and the screen changed to the main menu. While not strictly worth anything, any intel on the stable we were in could help the mission inside the stable so the other teams could know of anything important. Long term, we might get other stable locations or information on other Stable-Tec facilities.

I keyed into System Operations, but it was relatively useless since any of the systems it remotely controlled were disabled. I went into the Communications folder. Usually, this would take a while, but the Overmare deleted all but one entry. It was marked “Stable-Tec Directive 1.” I opened the document and saw it was dated one week after the Last Day.

FROM: SCOOTALOO, STABLE-TEC VICE-PRESIDENT
TO: OVERMARE SAFE AND SOUND, STABLE 148
RE: STABLE EXPERIMENT
OVERMARE SAFE AND SOUND,
AS YOU HAVE BEEN PREVIOUSLY INFORMED, SOME STABLES ARE CONTROL STABLES AND OTHERS WILL PERFORM EXPERIMENTS FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD WHEN IT COMES TIME TO REPOPULATE. YOUR STABLE HAS BEEN SELECTED TO RUN AN EXPERIMENT TO TEST THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTION TO REPEATED, UNEXPLAINED DIFFICULTIES. IN SEVERAL DAYS, YOUR STABLE COMPUTER WILL START TO RANDOMLY SHUT DOWN ACTIVE SYSTEMS, OR ACTIVATE DORMANT SYSTEMS. THE PROGRAM WILL SHUT DOWN PRIMARILY BENIGN SYSTEMS (E.G. LIGHTING, MUSIC, PA, ETC). HOWEVER, OCCASIONALLY, OUTAGES OF CRITICAL SYSTEMS(E.G. AIR HANDLING, FOOD PROCESSING, WATER PROCESSING, ETC) WILL BE ENACTED, BUT FOR LIMITED DURATIONS OF TIME. YOUR TECHNICIANS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETERMINE A CAUSE AND ALL ATTEMPTS TO REPAIR WILL FAIL. YOU ARE NOT TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH ANYONE BUT YOUR SUCCESSOR.
GOOD LUCK AND CELESTIA’S GRACE.

So this was an experimental stable. Rumor had it any experimental stable ended in tragedy. I would need to tell Last Stand so he could send runners to the other teams to warn them that systems might randomly power down or dormant systems may randomly activate. I flicked back to the Communications screen and entered the Overmare’s journal. I skimmed through the entries. Most entries were mundane stuff, but the last entry caught my attention:

OVERMARE’S LOG: DAY 823
DAMN YOU STABLE-TEC AND YOUR THRICE-DAMNED EXPERIMENTS. WHY WOULD YOU RUN EXPERIMENTS ON UNWITTING PONIES AND PLAY WITH THEIR LIVES? “LIMITED DURATIONS” OF TIME MY FLANK. THE COMPUTER DECIDED TO SHUT DOWN AIR HANDLING. IF IT WAS ONLY FOR A LIMITED DURATION OF TIME, THAT WOULD BE FINE. THE SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DOWN FOR ALMOST A WEEK NOW. CO2 LEVELS ARE RISING AND O2 LEVELS ARE FALLING AND THERE ISN’T ANYTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. I HAVE ORDERED ALL PONIES TO RESTRICT THEMSELVES TO THEIR QUARTERS AND TO LIMIT MOVEMENT AROUND THE STABLE TO CONSERVE OXYGEN. HOPEFULLY THE COMPUTER WILL END ITS EXPERIMENT SOON, BUT I DOUBT IT. OTHER EXPERIMENTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE ON NON-CRUCIAL SYSTEMS, HAVE LASTED ONLY A COUPLE OF DAYS. WHY DO I THINK SOME CODE-JOCKEY MIXED UP THE DESIGNATIONS FOR THE SYSTEMS AS CRITICAL OR UNIMPORTANT IN THE CODE? THIS MAY BE MY LAST ENTRY AS I WILL RESTRICT MYSELF TO MY QUARTERS AS WELL. I WILL RETURN IF THE AIR HANDLING SYSTEMS REACTIVATE. IN CASE THIS IS MY LAST ENTRY, I AM SORRY TO ALL MY PONIES HERE, I WISH THERE WAS SOMETHING I COULD DO.
AND FUCK YOU, SCOOTALOO.

I did not envy High Ground. Unless someone came through and did some spring cleaning, they were going to find room upon room of pony skeletons most likely lying in their beds, the inhabitants having gotten drowsy when the O2 levels dropped low enough, passed out, and then passed on. At least this time it was painless, unlike some of the other stables we had seen or heard about. I glanced back over at the Status Board and saw Air Handling was green. The computer must have reactivated it sometime after the ponies died. But then why did the air smell so stale? I shook my head silently to myself. After shutting down the terminal, I looked at my escort and said, “Let’s go.” By the time I found the armory, I saw that Flower must have finished with Security and was heading to the armory also. “Find anything, Flower?”

“Shit, Dust, you OK? Heard you got attacked?”

“Eh, not too bad… just a few scratches, maybe I’ll look tougher for the mares,” I chuckled as I inclined my head to give a good look.

“Damn, you got lucky there,” she said as she peered at my wounds. “Find anything valuable, at least?”

“Nah, nothin, it was empty. Somepony must have found their way in and cleaned it out.”

We both walked past two fire team ponies and entered the Armory. We both saw Last Stand and Brown packing their saddlebags full of ammo and bundling weapons together. “You three,” he pointed at the security ponies, “take these to the surface and come back here. And hurry, we’re gonna wait to enter the labs until you get back.” All but Muddy grabbed bundles of weapons and took off back towards the entrance.

“Last Stand, you may want to inform the other teams that systems may activate or deactivate while we’re in here due to a computer program running in the maneframe,” I reported.

“Fuckin’ great.” He fumbled with his radio. “All team leaders, be aware that computer systems are malfunctioning. Systems will be responding abnormally.” He clicked off the mic. “Alright, we’re done here, let’s check the clinic and then head to the labs.”

We walked back out to the Atrium. We heard muffled gunshots from somewhere in the stable. Last Stand cocked his head towards his radio. No report was forthcoming. One of the other teams must have run into trouble, but nothing major enough to garner a report.

The clinic was small mostly cleaned out already, mainly due to the fact that somepony had beaten us to it. There was a medical robot in its maintenance bay, but the bay was inactive. The desk was bare except for a terminal. A quick perusal of the interface saw only standard medical records and doctor’s journal entries. The throbbing of my facial injuries made me think back to the attack in the Overmare’s office and gave me an idea. Reading the medical reports more closely, I found that the occupants had not shown any unusual symptoms prior to their deaths. At least it didn’t appear to be a mass ghoulification. The only odd thing we found was a Stable-Tec bobblehead. It was a small statue of Scootaloo wearing a stethoscope and doctor’s scrubs. The base was inscribed with “Medicine”. Last Stand tossed it at me saying, “Here’s a toy for you, kid.” I kept it since it may have some value to a collector.

Once we finished in the clinic, our escorts returned. They fell into position behind us and we all headed downstairs to the lower level of the Atrium. Just as we expected, one of the doors on the lower level was marked “Laboratories”. We walked up to the door, pressed the entry button and were greeted by a soft buzzing sound. I went to work on bypassing this lock.

“Umm, Last Stand,” I said, “Someone has already bypassed this lock and secured it from the inside. And they were definitely outside and broke in. It’s gonna take me a little longer to get in, but we may not be alone in there.”

After some very creative rewiring, I was able to override the lock. Whoever it was had bypassed all the automatic systems which forced me to bypass the locking mechanism completely. Once the door opened, we were greeted by cooler, fresher air. The air handling systems here must still be functioning. At least that explains the green light on the status board. The labs must have been on a different air handling system than the rest of the stable. After a walk down a short stairway, the path branched off to the left and right. It was a curved path, and based on the degree of the curve, it was large. Either way you looked, the hallway seemed to continue for quite a distance. There was also a small hallway directly in front of us which appeared to branch off again at the end. If I had to guess, the labs were arranged in two concentric circles.

Last Stand grumbled, “OK, we’re gonna split up. Each one of you take a security pony and take a hallway. Flower, you, Rusty, and I will go to the inner hallway. Brown, go right. Dust, go left. If you run into anything suspicious, head back here, grab some extra security from upstairs, and wait for the rest of us to return. Everypony called or gestured to one of our escorts, The security officer I got trotted over to me and nudged me. He removed his mask. It was Muddy.
“Looks like it’s me and you, buddy,” he said.

I nodded, and we took off. All the doorways were on our left, and we stopped at the first one and pressed the button. The door slid open to reveal a small laboratory. It was a pretty standard setup: The room was dominated by a large workbench in the middle. Various beakers and flasks were on the table, some with crystallized substances in the bottom. There was also a terminal on the table, but upon a further look, it was inoperable. The back wall was dominated by storage cabinets and bins which held all manner of scientific equipment, but nothing of any express value. We had cleaned out so many of these types of facilities that microscopes and test tubes were virtually worthless. Immediately next to the door was a sink and some other large equipment, usually used for the sterilization of equipment, as well as a refrigerator. We searched the drawers and cabinets in the room and found nothing exciting.

This continued for the next two rooms we came across. As we made our way to the fourth room, I noticed the hallway started to have a downward slope to it.

“Interesting, we’re going deeper,” I mumbled. Muddy didn’t seem too interested. He was still on high alert. We did stumble across a few Ministry of Peace first aid kits, the familiar pink cross and butterflies on a yellow background standing out from the stark gray walls. They each held some healing potions, Rad-X, Rad-Away and bandages, which I pocketed. After coming up empty on three more labs, I said to Muddy, “You go get the next one and call me if you find anything interesting.”

“Ok,” he said, and took off down the hallway. He disappeared into the next lab as I entered mine. Similar-looking lab, similar results; however, this one’s terminal was functional. I booted it up, bypassed the password, and clicked into the Log menu option. There were choices for “Experimental Logs” and “Scientist Logs”. I started with the “Experiment Logs”. I skimmed a few, noting they were doing typical experiments for enhanced food growth, radiation clearing and the like, but then I stumbled across one labelled “Project Clean Slate”.

PROJECT SUMMARY
CLEAN SLATE
ASSIGNED TO STABLE 148.
RESEARCHER SCIENTIFIC METHOD.
PURPOSE: DEVELOP TECHNOLOGY THAT ALLOWS PURIFICATION OF WATER AND SOIL TO ALLOW PLANT CULTIVATION.
PROJECT STATUS: THEORETICAL DESIGN COMPLETE, READY FOR IMPLEMENTATION BY STABLE 182.

Holy Motherbucking Goddesses.

The ponies in this stable figured out how to clean radiation out of water and earth to allow growth of food again? Celestia’s Grace! This could save the Wasteland and the Enclave too!

My entire body started to tingle. I read through the rest of the file save the diagrams and specifics of the spells that would be required. Most of the scientific stuff was way over my head. The only parts of it I really understood were “magical matrix” and “cleansing spells”. The rest of it was about half-lives, balefire residue, magical contamination, and taint. As best as I could determine, it was a real report. Whether or not it would actually work was for the eggheads.

This… this was huge. More than enough to report to our facilitator; every brass pin in Enclave Special Operations, if not the entire Enclave, would want to see this.

Grinning, almost squeeing in excitement, I ducked back into the hallway.. “Muddy! You’ll never guess what I found! This lab has a method for removing radiation from water and soil! Muddy?!” I cried down the hallway.

What I heard back, however, was a faint female voice calling out, “Get off of me! Help!”

“What the…” I asked while I trotted towards the sound. The sound slowly got louder, until I stopped in front of a closed lab door and heard the same cries repeated. They sounded really close, so I guessed I had found the right door. Gripping the firing bit of my pistol in my teeth, I pulled it clear and released the safety. I flanked the door and pushed the button. The door hissed open and I peeked around the door frame and into the lab.

I was first assaulted by a strong musty odor. The rear wall had cracked and the back end had fallen off into a cavern behind it. I heard soft sobbing and, making sure the coast was clear, entered the lab toward the cries. The door hissed shut behind me. As I walked around one of the lab tables, I glanced over the edge of the floor and saw the back end of the room crumpled at the bottom of a deep cavern, at least thirty to forty feet to the bottom. It was only a guess since the open space tapered off to pitch blackness.

I looked back in the lab and saw the source of the crying. Between the two lab tables, I saw a darker pink pegasus with a green mane was lying on the floor, crying into her forelegs. ,She was wearing a body-length coat, which was obviously patched together from various other garments. Typical Wasteland design. The material was thin enough that I saw no suspicious bulges, so I concluded she was not armed. Quietly, I moved back towards the door, placing myself between it and the pegasus in case I needed to make a quick exit. I holstered my weapon, peeked around the table and softly said, “Miss, are y—”

Her head jerked up, and I saw her sky blue eyes open as wide as dinner plates. She began to skitter away from me, but struggled as her hooves slid uselessly against the floor. “N-No! Who are you? Get away from me!” she screamed at me, while still trying to put some distance between us.

“OK, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” I slowly lowered myself to a seated position. “I heard your screams before. Are you hurt? I’ve got a medkit.”

Her body relaxed a little, but she was still frantically looking around the room. “Where did the other pony go?”

I blinked. “What other pony? You’re the only one I’ve seen in this room.”

“He… he was here right before you came in. Where is he?” she cried out. Suddenly, her head snapped to the side. Her wide stare was fixed behind and to my side.

I turned my head to see what had startled the mare. A pony was standing off to the side of the lab. Why hadn’t I seen him when I first came in the room? Startled, I jumped up into a standing position. I had almost drawn my pistol before I recognized a familiar yellow body and light green mane.. “Muddy, how did you… What’s happening here?”

He had an unusual look on his face. He was breathing heavily through clenched teeth.“I came into the lab and found her this way. I was about to start to talk to her when I heard the door hiss open and I thought I’d hide in case it wasn’t you,” he said while pointing towards a cabinet with an open door.

“He’s lying!” the pink pegasus cried out. She moved behind me, keeping me between her and Muddy. “He attacked me and said he was going to hurt me!” she screamed and then sniffled with tears streaming down her face.

“Muddy? Wait, what?” I looked at the cabinet. It was barely large enough for an older colt to fit in. “You couldn’t fit inside that cabinet, especially with our armor on. Come on, what’s really going on here?” I kept my tone level, but my gaze was stern.

“C’mon Dust, you’ve known me, what, two years now? Does that sound like something I’d do?” he tried to continue acting calm, but he was gritting his teeth as he spoke.

Suddenly, from behind me the pink pegasus thrust a hoof towards Muddy, “You can’t believe him! He never hid! He attacked me and only stopped because you came in here! He told me that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to make me wish that I had and then he hit me and knocked me down to the floor.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading with me, “Please help me! Please help!”

“LYING BITCH! SHUT THE HELL UP!” His chest was heaving.

“Muddy, calm down… just tell me what’s going on.” Something felt off and my body was tensing up.

“She’s a lying bitch, she attacked me and—”

“We’ve played poker, Muddy; I know you can’t bluff.” My stance didn’t waver an inch. “You told me you found her this way. Things aren’t adding up. She’s saying you attacked her, but she clearly has no weapons. And she’s too small to…” I turned my head to confirm she was unarmed. That was a mistake.

I felt a foreleg wrap around my neck and a weight drop on top of my back. I started to feel pressure around my throat and it was becoming harder to breathe.

“You had to come interrupt me. I was about to get my revenge. Don’t you see it, Dust? We were lied to. Manipulated and lied to! I was promised things. Things I won’t ever get now! And all because of the fucking Wasteland! They took everything from us, played us like puppets, and left us here to die! To die! They will pay, Dust. THEY! WILL! PAY! You could have joined me. I would have taken you with me, but you had to choose to believe her. Now you’ll pay also, but it’s all going to start with this bitch.” He turned his head to look for the pegasus, but she was gone. My vision was starting to darken around the edges. “Speaking of which, where did she…”

Suddenly I saw a pink streak knock into Muddy and knock him off of me. His legs came free and I sucked in several deep breaths. He landed a couple of feet away from me and the pink pegasus disappeared again.

“Ooohhh, getting brave, bitch! You’re only gonna make it worse for yourself… and for Dust here.” He was glancing around the room looking for her.

Fortunately, in his rage, Muddy forgot some of our hoof-to-hoof combat training. He had put pressure on my windpipe instead of my arteries, meaning that while I couldn’t breathe, at least oxygenated blood was still being pumped to my brain. My vision returned to normal quickly with lungfuls of fresh air. The shadows that had crept in on the extremes of my vision began to withdraw and the bright spots twinkling in my eyes stopped completely.

I was already moving even before then, acting mostly on muscle memory to reach back and draw my pistol from my shoulder holster. However, no sooner did I crane my head to draw a bead on Muddy than he completely filled my vision, followed by his hind hooves, bucking lightning fast straight towards my head.

With only a split second’s reaction time, I ducked, and the twin kick narrowly clipped my jaw—which clacked shut right around the firing bit in my mouth.

BANG!

The pistol kicked in my grip, jerking my head violently to the side. Glassware on a nearby table erupted into a cascade of shimmering shards.. The pistol flew from my mouth and I heard it skitter across the floor, disappearing into the darkness. He was right next to me now delivering blow after blow with his hooves. Backing away from Muddy, I kept trying to figure out some counter move. I had seen Muddy fight before, but never like this. He was like a pony possessed and the attack seemed effortless to him. I took another step back and he advanced. I dodged and he moved with me. I took one more step back and my leg nearly slipped off the edge of the floor into the darkness behind me.

“Aww, did poor Dusty run out of room? I wish I didn’t have to do this. But you are now a liability to me.”

He turned faster than I had ever seen anypony turn before and bucked. His hooves connected with the front plate of my armor. I was pushed back over the ledge and started to fall. I grabbed the edge of the floor with my forelegs. Straining to climb back up on the floor, my legs flailed behind me not finding any purchase. I was kicking empty air.

Muddy walked over the ledge, looked at me and said, “Good bye, Dust.” His slate gray eyes looked empty. “I’m sorry I have to do this to you. I thought we could work together, get back together.” He kicked one of my hooves off the edge. I was still dangling by my other hoof. “But I can’t have you getting in my way.” I saw a tear form in the corner of one of his eyes. He paused before saying, “Mind the gap.” He kicked my other hoof off.

I felt gravity pulling at me as I fell to the ground beneath me, cold air whipping through my mane. Surrounded by empty space, I reached for the emergency release to free my wings, only to hear a single, heart-stopping metallic snik as it simply pulled free of my armor. It was then that I noticed the sharp edge on the cable. Muddy must have cut it at some point.

I felt the impact as my body smacked into the ground. Pain wracked through my body, and then everything faded to black.

Level Up!
Bobblehead Found: Medicine +10
Stats: Science 25
Perk: Polygraph: You have an uncanny ability to see the contradictions in a pony’s stories. You have unique conversation options when interrogating a pony.

Author's Notes:

Revised 3/10/16 - Thanks to Setokaiva!