The last protectapony of the group fires its laser at Gearing as it tries to steady itself in the now completely flooded hallway as the stream of water pushes against all of them. But the shot doesn’t dissuade Gearing from his attack, as he angles one of his wings and redirects the deadly beam of light in another, more harmless, direction. Little bubbles come from where the water is instantly heated into steam as it travels and begins adding another scorch line into the wall plating in this segment of the hallway. And Gearing keeps his wing positioned to redirect the fire from the protectapony’s weapon until the laser finally stops firing.

Which only happens once Gearing finishes wrenching the automaton’s head off of its shoulders with his forelegs by twisting it off like a Sparkle Cola’s bottle cap.

Gearing stares into the robot’s optical sensors as the lights go out, and when it’s finally gone dark he drops it to the side indifferently and continues down the hallway. Bubbles form along the surface of several of the crystals of Gearing’s wings, some generating them faster than others, as the heat caused by the recent fight dissipates into the surrounding water.

Sound carries in a strange way underwater, warping it yet making it carry further, and it just makes matters worse for him. He’s not happy about being down here. Underwater. But each slow step that he takes reminds him that he’s actually in a hallway. And not walking across the muddy bottom of some body of water. He tries to put out of his mind the fact that he’s entirely submerged. Logically he knows that he’s not at the river again. Nor anywhere else where he could get stuck into perpetuity. He’s on solid ground. Walking on steel reinforced concrete. A material so sturdy that it can even support his weight, in its entirety, even without his implant. He just happens to be doing so while underwater.

But it doesn’t stop that nagging fear on the edges of his mind that cautions against each and every step. He can’t help himself. So step by step he taps on the floor, testing its strength, and then adding more pressure to it slowly before he actually commits. With each and every single hoof step. So his advance to the elevator is even slower than it would be normally. Because of his own fear induced paranoia.

At the elevator door, he notices that the way is blocked by the corpses of all of the robots he’d already eliminated and got swept down this way. He starts grabbing them and chucking them to the side, causing the strange pinging noise that always accompanies metal hitting stone underwater. After a few of the bodies are moved, one of the protectaponies at the bottom of the pile shifts and turns its head towards him. As the focus for its weapon begins to glow, Gearing gives a swift stomp downwards with a hind leg, while still holding another’s corpse aloft, and stares as the lights dim and blink their last blink finally.

Gearing grumbles and bubbles his irritation. There are so many hostiles in the tunnels now, that every direction is just a wall of red as he looks at his EFS. And it’s hard for him to figure out what’s close and what’s not. He unceremoniously chucks the last few metal husks out of the way and climbs into the elevator car again. He hops up and down a few times, just barely missing the elevator escape hatch in the roof with each attempt. And after his third failed attempt, he sits down and starts bubbling a string of obscenities at the hatch for apparently growing out of his reach. After giving it a rather rude combination of gestures using his forehooves and wing, he starts piling up tools and equipment that the maintenance crew had in the car with them, along with some of the robotic corpses. After getting a sufficiently high stack, he hops on it, then hops up and grabs the elevator hatch. He pulls himself up onto the roof and quickly starts looking around in the actual elevator shaft.

Gearing’s PipBuck light swings back and forth until he’s covered the entire roof, repeatedly. Then he starts looking up. He trails his eyes over the elevator shaft, carefully eyeballing it, as he tries to find what he’s looking for.

You gotta be shitting me! He mentally swears at the universe.

The little blue pegasus in his head pokes its snoot out of the safety of its steam chest just enough to meekly remind him, ‘The cables snapped, remember? They stopped a ways up there…’

Gearing walks around the perimeter of the elevator looking at the walls, and trying to grab any of it, before realizing that the shaft is basically perfectly smooth all the way up. With nothing to hold onto. Even the rails are too far apart for him to try and wedge himself between them to climb up that way. And the corners just aren’t an option with how far up he has to go. That’s simply too far to go to risk falling especially when he’s already soaking wet and he’s pretty much guaranteed to fall. Traction is important for shear wall free climbing.

After sitting and staring at the walls of the elevator shaft for a few moments, and realizing that there’s no way on Equs he’s going to be able to climb this sheer pony-made cliff wall by himself, with nothing to help him, he does the only thing he can do at the moment.

Which is throwing a completely undignified and foalish tantrum as he flops back onto the elevator’s roof and just starts screaming at the top of his lungs at, and into, the abyss while wildly rolling back and forth and flailing his limbs about with no real aim to it. Though any noise he makes in the process is warped, by the water filling the elevator shaft he’s in, into a weird reverberating deep echo.

The glow from his PipBunk seems to flash like a club’s strobe light as his legs flail around. All of the thrashing about generates even more bubbles that twinkle in the glow of the light as they slowly do what he can’t: ascend to the surface.

After yelling at the universe and telling it exactly what he thinks of it, he dejectedly sits up and slowly looks around at the flooded elevator shaft around himself.

This would be an absolutely amazing time for a friendly aquatic creature to give me a lift…

‘Like a sea serpent or an octopus even… it could just grab us and just suction cup its way up the walls with its other limbs… At least enough to get us out of the water,’ the little pegasus in Gearing’s head comments as he starts climbing the walls of his mind with hoof mounted suction cups.

That’d be great. Gearing mentally sighs.

‘Fantastic even!’ the little pegasus agrees.

They both sit staring at nothing in particular for a few more moments before Gearing mentally scolds himself, Right… shitting and wishing and all of that… I’m just wasting time waiting for something that’s never gonna happen.

After giving up on the universe giving him a break, and for something ‘miraculous’ to happen, Gearing taps out a message to Handy and Swift on his PipBuck.

[I’m fine. I’ll find another way out, we’ll group up later.]

He doesn’t even wait for a reply before he turns around and heads back through the crushed elevator and into the hallway. In truth, he doesn’t even know if they are within range. The water’s filled up so much of the elevator shaft, and it’s so dark beyond that, that he can’t even see where the waterline is. Assuming it didn’t just keep filling up until the upper areas were full as well. And if that was the case, for Swift and Handy to have had any chance they would have had to keep going until they hit street level again.

As he’s walking down the flooded hallway with one strange sounding hoof step at a time, he takes note that the water pressure seems to have finally stabilized. It’s not pushing against him, nor is it pushing the debris in the hallway anymore. And, given the water had come from a distance, the hallway is now littered with far more debris than it was originally. And not simply the smashed and crushed remains of the robots that’d come after them.

When he reaches the bent inwards security doors, he carefully walks over them instead of hopping over them. If he wasn’t submerged in water, he’d probably just flutter over them for good measure. But with the hallways being flooded, he doesn’t trust any of the ground any more. As he’s coming back down the other side he starts walking over the twisted remains of a few of the robots that he’d had to deal with while the door was closed and still holding. His gaze falls on one, and he keeps staring at it as he’s stepping over the protectapony corpse.

Gearing gives an annoyed snort, causing bubbles to come out of his nostrils, before he stomps down with a hindhoof and crushes the bot’s head. And then a few more rapid kicks for good measure. That one particularly annoyed him as it had shot its laser at him constantly while he was fighting one of the hovering bots. He’d directed the beam away from himself with the crystal from his wing, so it wasn’t particularly dangerous. But given how he’d had to fight all the others at the same time, he had limited angles he could direct it to, so it did considerable damage to the door behind him in the process. By the time he’d grabbed it and wrestled it to the ground to finish it off, it’d already cut a hole clean through the door.

But the fight hadn’t been a complete waste of time, so he has that much going for him. True, he’d managed to buy Swift and Handy enough time to get out of there before the water caught up to them. He was worried about that. But since there’s no fresh corpses in the elevator or shaft that means they got out. Especially Handy with his metal armor, he’d sink rather readily. And Gearing himself might be stuck down here without any present way out, but that can still be fixed. Eventually he can figure something out or find another way out. He has time. And thanks to that fight he now knows that there’s no one in direct control of the bots. Someone, somewhere, is sending them orders for things to carry out, and they do.

Which will give him a wide zone to exploit because mindless automatons don’t think for themselves. Not truly. And he can use that to his advantage. He knows he just needs to stay off their sensors, and avoid any cameras he can, so whoever tried to kill them won’t notice they’ve failed and try something else.

Something more effective this time.

Gearing knows if he’s lucky, the ones in question will assume they’ve done the job and managed to kill him and the ones with him. If that’s the case, security should be rather lax. But, he also knows his luck and knows the probability of that happening is about as high as the probability of Celestia herself popping up, kissing his hooves, and begging forgiveness for everything.

Not far from the ruptured security double doors, Gearing finds another door that’s been crushed and broken in by the water pressure. But, as he’s walking by it, he takes note that he’s pretty sure it’s some sort of supply closet and nothing more. A few of the items float lazily in the water near the ceiling where their natural buoyancy tries to rescue them from the flood waters. As he’s watching they slowly spread out from the confined space of the small closet and into the hallway. Gearing glances up at the debris floating above him, and can’t help snorting in annoyance.

‘Never thought I’d be jealous of an empty plastic bottle,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head grumps as they both stare at the various floating bits of stuff above them.

His eyes are drawn back forward in the flooded hallway by a glow that’s decidedly different from the remaining lights in the hallway. He keeps his eyes on it as he’s about to pass, and can’t help but smile as he stares at the terminal’s screen. Even completely submerged, the terminal seems to be in fully functional capacity. His eyes trail over to the left of the terminal and he starts studying the doorway. The door itself is definitely one of the thicker varieties, and is used as a combination of fire or flood control and security doors. The multi ton of force the door is capable of is actually potentially dangerous for ponies to get caught in. But, as the reality in front of Gearing attests, the strength and thickness of the door has its uses. Especially at containing fires and floods. Gearing slides over to the side and starts working on the terminal. A moment later and the screen changes giving him an opportunity to unlock and open the door. He unlocks it, and steps over in front of it to peek in as he clicks the open button. Instantly the water gushes in and drags him into the opening under the door that is created as the door starts lifting up. As he’s slipping in he grabs hold of the door frame, and hits the door button on the interior side as he’s flailing around against the current as quickly as he can.

Although, regardless of what he might say later, hitting the close button was done entirely accidentally as he was thrashing around and trying not to get swept away with the water and just happened to hit the switch while trying to grab onto something. While still struggling against the gush of water, Gearing activates SATS. Because, given what’s going on, he needs to make the most of every second he can as he tries to process what’s going. And, with the world hyper slowed down to a crawl, he toggles an important setting to help get himself oriented again.

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix: Deactivated

And it’s after those affects begin to wane when he cancels SATS. Instantly his body flops down onto the ground as gravity reasserts its dominance over his form even before the door changes directions and starts closing again. The pressure against his body doesn’t subside, although its effects on him do as he’s no longer getting thrown across this short hallway and is left laying along the metal plating that seems to cover this entire room’s floor. Gearing starts pushing himself back up onto his hooves as he keeps his eyes on the door he’d just entered through and watches as it slowly shutters and reseals this room. He stands up completely and looks around as he notices that, even as short of a time as the door was open, the gush of water in managed to fill the hallway almost half full and the water’s still up to his chin even though he has his neck as straight up and his head as high as he can go without rearing up or jumping. He’s pretty sure that had the door actually opened up entirely the room would have ended up completely flooded as well. Although, the air pocket between these thick security doors gives him a bit of hope as he heads over to the other doorway by simply walking across the bottom.

From this side of the doors it’s only a hoof-friendly lever-operated rotary switch twist away and the other security door starts rising up. The faintest crack of a smirk crosses his muzzle as he stares down at the metal plating by the security door and watches as the water gets released and practically sucked out of the small room as it spills into the hallway beyond. Before the security door has even risen out of the water, even as quickly as the water level starts dropping, it already confirms to Gearing that the flood that assailed them was localized and, apparently, did not affect this new sector of the tunnels.

Which, in his mind, is both a blessing and a curse for Gearing.

On the positive side, if he finds another elevator shaft, or other way straight up, he can simply fly out of there. It’d make getting around and finding supplies, or simply transversing certain areas, much easier as well. Though he’s certain the bots would have a much harder time in, and escaping, the water compared to him. He’s already had a bit of recent experience with that particular truth. And, now that he’s not submerged, he can fly at will. All of those are definitely things to be grateful for now that the water level has dropped down to barely dampening his hooves as the rest of what had made it through with him has spilled out and into the connecting hallways becoming little more than nuisance puddles.

The down side that makes Gearing grumble is the fact that this means what was done, was done strategically, and with purpose. They could have simply flooded the entire network. Not that it’d really do much more than inconvenience Gearing, but they couldn’t have known that. No, they did this as a surgical strike. Causing as little collateral damage as possible as they tried to remove an, admittedly, serious threat to their network.

Which means they aren’t idiots, and are capable of doing more than many others as, despite what would be in Gearing’s best interest, they obviously have the ‘breathing and thinking at the same time’ skill mastered. And considering these individuals, because he highly doubts it was just a single creature, have access to all of the controls, he knows he’s potentially in for a lot of trouble. He’s going to need to be careful and take his time. He’s going to need to try and minimize his presence. He’s going to need to practically disappear.

Because if he doesn’t, and he draws too much attention to himself, they might just get serious and unleash on him a force that he would stand no chance against. The same exact force and using the resources that he’d had hopes for utilizing for the betterment of Equestria. That which he’d hoped he could use to rebuild Equestria, could easily destroy him instead. And he knows very well that they can do just that if they get the mind to do it. There’s a small, tiny, miniscule possibility in his mind that they might not be aware of The Core’s full potential. But to hope for that would be foolish. It’s been a long time since he’s had actual hope for a positive outcome that wasn’t backed up by favorable statistics and properly loaded dice.

Back when he was shorter, the skies were more friendly, and his friends hadn’t all gotten killed yet.

‘This isn’t a time for leaving anything to chance…’ The little pegasus in Gearing’s head comments. ‘Quick. Cold. Cautious. Calculated.’ He pulls out a pair of stone cubes from a pouch at his side and says flatly, ‘Load’em up.’

Before taking another step, he toggles his implant back on to get every little edge he can muster to mask his presence.

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix: Activated

As he feels the magic take hold of his body, he gives himself a few quick shakes as he flings the water from his wings. Happy to no longer be submerged, he hops into the air, just barely, and starts hovering for a moment. After getting that tangible bit of confirmation he lowers himself back down to the floor and begins standing in the shallow water as quietly as he can.

The little pegasus in his head breathes a sigh of relief before it starts bounding around in his mind space. ‘Yup. See. They work. They’re fine. We’re fine. It’s just the dumb ole water being dumb. Just gotta stay out of the water and we’ll be fine…’

Gearing looks down at the puddle under himself, that is only fractions of an inch deep, but frowns as he stares at the rippling golden image looking back at him that has an unmistakably worried expression on it.

‘More water than that, I mean… A little water’s okay.’

A little water can turn into a lot of water real quick. Gearing mentally moans.

‘Just don’t give the bitches any more ideas and we’ll be fine.’

Gearing slowly steps over to the left side of the doorway, leans sideways, and peeks the opposite way out through the open door and down the hall as far as he can, before doing the same thing from the right side of the door frame.

After still not seeing, nor hearing, anything nearby he quickly zips his head out the door, gives a quick scan, and pulls his head back in to think about what all he’d seen. The glance was only measured in fractions of a second, but was more than enough. Especially since the hallway on the other side is long in both directions, rather repetitive in nature, like most of the place, and, most importantly, there was no movement that he could notice. He quickly sticks his head out again and starts paying a bit more attention to the other doorways in the hallway that he’d seen when he first looked out, and after a bit of back and forth, he steps out, closing the door behind himself, and heads to the right.

Gearing passes a couple of doors before he reaches another door that he’s willing to even touch let alone do something with. The first couple had some form of stronger security on them. One was not only a thick multi-ton pressure capable door used for both security and fire containment, but had a computer next to it that was obviously locked, judging by the screen that was asking for credentials. And, given what he’s trying to do at the moment, he doesn’t want to risk making his presence known too soon. He needs a spot to hunker down and think. Something inside of the dangerous area, but not too dangerous. He quickly looks at the standard door set into the side of the hall and fishes out a couple tools from his bag as he stares at the lock.

It’s difficulty is insultingly low for Gearing, judging by just looking at it, but hopefully it’s going to hold exactly what he needs behind it, right now, and the only way to find out is to open it up and look for himself.

In a short amount of time he has the door unlocked and the door already cracked open, after having checked around its frame to make sure that there weren’t any alarms or anything else sneaky. After being sure there are no traps, and his tools are stored away, he dares to open it up and peek inside carefully. Being increasingly encouraged by the second the more he sees, he dares a smile as he sees exactly what he was hoping for and quickly slips in.

Once inside the small room, he locks the door and slowly starts examining his new surroundings.

He’s not sure exactly what this is supposed to be, but he’s pretty sure it’s not any kind of maintenance closet. It’s got too much in here. A hodgepodge of supplies that seems more like some lazy pony just chucked their deliveries in here for someone else to deal with instead of actually doing their job. But, intended miscellaneous storage or no, the room has just what he needs. And, for once, it’s not one of the items on the shelves nor anything inside of the crates and barrels that have been stacked in the room.

Gearing slowly looks the storage closet over, and then walks around and behind a few of the supply crates. He gently grabs one of the large crates that are placed in the back corner, and spins around with it, switching positions with it in the process, before squatting down and setting the large wooden box in front of him next to one of the large metal drums that take up the left side of the room. After making himself his own personal fort-like cubbyhole made of supplies he slowly sits down as he takes in a long slow breath, and then releases it with a raspy cough as he forces out some of the water that had been sitting in him still. This is exactly what he needed.

A place to sit, collect his thoughts, and figure out exactly how he’s going to get himself out of this mess.

This has gone from a simple information fetch errand buck job, to a deep behind enemy lines serious fight for his life. And the whole situation turned on its head rather quickly. Probably one of the fastest flips he’s ever experienced, at least in areas where he didn’t really expect there to be too much of a problem. He shivers and shakes at the thought of what had just transpired and, in more than a small amount, is glad that no one can see him right now. He’d managed to get out of that river, but only with the help of a large group of ponies that actually gave a shit enough to throw him a line.

He’s not going to have that now. Not here. He has no real support he can count on. And the resources he’d hoped to garner and twist for his own uses, have instead been turned on him. Gearing closes his eyes and starts focusing on his breathing as he tries to think things through. He’s been in tough spots before. He can manage. He always has. But he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that’s only going to happen if he sits, calms down, and thinks everything through. He has to figure out his next move. Carefully. And it’s nowhere near as simple as ‘just get out of here’ despite how much his instincts keep screaming at him to do exactly that. There’s a lot wrong with this, and he has to take this as seriously as possible. Because someone is working against him. A dangerous someone. Because unlike the slavers, raiders, bandits, junkies, and crazies he’s run into thus far, these individuals have true resources and power. Of world shaping magnitude. And he knows that he has no choice but to respect that and everything it means with his plans.

Or he might never see the light of day again.

So, using one slow breath after another, Gearing begins to center himself again. To clear his mind. And try to get himself into the correct mindset.

The mindset that’ll let him to, if not succeed, at least survive.

A green stallion in an Equestrian Defense Force army uniform slowly looks up from where he’d been staring at the array of baked goods held inside of the glass display cabinet that functions as this small coffee shop’s counter.

The peach unicorn cashier behind the glass display cabinet tries to give him a warm smile, but the worry is clear across her face before she asks softly, yet again, “Is there anything else I can get for you today, sir?”

“Huh?” the deep toned stallion asks as he tries to focus on what she’s saying.

The cashier frowns and looks down into the cabinet as she asks, “Did you want any muffins or anything else to go with your coffee? … You’ve been staring at them for a while … and…” She looks behind him at the individual standing behind him and sighs. “A line’s forming so I need to…” She trails off her voice as she looks back at him and notices the thousand yard stare had returned to the green stallion’s face. “Need to… finish our transaction so I can help other customers…”

A young green buck, wearing a full bodied tan trench coat and a wide brimmed hat upon his lime-green-maned head, walks up from the side as he chuckles, “Hey. I know that look.” They all turn to look at him, the soldier included, and he nods as he says, “Relationship problems.” He leans over and grins at the cashier, “You mares will never know the power you have over a stallion’s heart.” He gives her a wink as he quickly slaps down some money onto the counter. “Here’s for the sergeant’s drink, and I’ll take one of theeeese…” He quickly nips out one of the candy canes from the glass jar on top of the counter and flicks it up in the air as he looks at her. “And you can keep the rest for yourself, gorgeous.” He catches the candy cane in his mouth, then tilts his head and gives her a wink as he playfully works the treat around with his tongue.

The cashier smiles warmly, a true warm smile, in gratitude for the turn of events. More so at getting rescued from the awkward situation than from anything else. Although the exuberant tip didn’t hurt matters either.

The green pelted soldier grumbles his thanks as he grabs the cup with a forehoof and starts walking away. “‘preciate it…”

Somepony picking up tabs for a service member isn’t unheard of, so none of them think anything of it as the two walk away from the counter.

But the trench coated buck trots quickly around and to the side of the sergeant as they walk down the street. After they get a bit further away, and the soldier still hasn’t said anything, the trench coated buck says cheerfully, “Some crazy times we’re living in, ain’t it?”

The soldier doesn’t even reply.

The green buck in the trench coat pulls a bit further ahead as he says, “Shame what happened to your marefriend…”

The sergeant doesn’t even look at him as he grumbles with his deep voice, “Look, thanks for the coffee. But I don’t care what newspaper you’re with. I’m not doing any interviews. No quotes. No comments. Nothing. So just leave me alone.”

The trench coat practically flutters as the younger buck chuckles and practically prances along down the street, “Well, I don’t blame you for that. Paparazzi… am I right?”

They keep walking down the sidewalk in silence for a while longer before the unknown green buck in the trench coat comments, “As far as accidents go, that was one hell of a doozy… Applejack’s lucky to be alive… Wouldn’t you agree, Sergeant Applesnack?” He trots ahead and spins around as he looks at Applesnack and starts walking backwards.

Applesnack snorts and hits the ground with his next few steps harder than normal to get his point across as he grumbles his reply, “I’d agree with you getting away from me… and quickly.”

The annoyingly chipper buck plays with the candy cane in his mouth some more and shrugs as he stops walking near an alleyway they are walking in front of. “Alright… alright… fair enough.”

As Applesnack is walking by, and taking his first actual sip of the coffee he’d just gotten, the other buck continues playing with the candy cane in his mouth as he says with a slight chuckle, “Though the only ‘accident’ involving that elevator… was that Applejack survived…”

Applesnack stops dead in his tracks and slowly turns his head as he looks at the trench coat wearing pony smirking at him around the candy cane. “What did you just say?!”

He turns, stretches his neck out towards Applesnack, and smiles widely around the candy cane with a toothy grin. “I said her surviving wasn’t part of the pla-”

Applesnack drops his coffee and lunges at the buck as the younger green buck jumps back into the alleyway they were just passing. But the maneuver isn’t nearly enough as Applesnack is quickly upon them. He grabs the smaller buck, rears up with him, and slams his back against the stone wall of the alleyway. Applesnack holds the other buck there by his throat as his normally deep voice reverberates with an even deeper menace. “Stop toying with me or I’ll break your sorry neck!”

Despite apparently getting choked, the green buck grins at him around the candy cane. He twirls it around in his mouth with his tongue, while staring at Applesnack, and as Applesnack’s anger clearly starts growing across his face, the buck asks, “Do I have your attention now? Can you actually hear me now, Applesnack?”

“You’re about to have more of my ‘attention’ than you’ve bargained for!” Applesnack holds up his other forehoof as he asks, “What was that about the elevator?!”

“Good, you’re listening…” Applesnack’s prisoner looks around and then leans his head towards Applesnack as he says, “How much do you know about elevators?”

Applesnack’s readied forehoof starts shaking as he’s having a hard time controlling himself. “Stop with the twenty questions, and start talking, while you still have teeth.”

“Well, I know a lot about elevators. So let me share something with you,” the apparently unphased buck says as he stares Applesnack in the eyes. “Elevators have been designed with a variety of safety mechanisms built into them. Precisely to stop what happened to Applejack.” He shakes his head. “And that’s not even factoring all of the additional safety measures that were put in place with that elevator.” He tilts his head and says quietly, “She’s a Ministry Mare, and that was her elevator.”

“What of it…?” Applesnack asks as he narrows his eyes at the younger buck.

“Do you have any idea what the likelihood of all of those failsafes having a catastrophic failure, at the exact same time, would be?” Applesnack slams him into the wall again, by his throat, and causes the younger buck to roll his eyes. “Okay, that was a rhetorical question.” He shakes his head. “Look, I know machines. I’ve looked into this the moment I heard about it. The likelihood that the motor and cable control system failed, at the same time the emergency brakes failed, all of them, shortly after a Ministry Mare stepped into the car is so statistically minute that it’s not fucking possible! It’s statistically impossible!”

Applesnack loosens his grip a bit before he snorts, “That doesn’t prove anything…”

Applesnack’s prisoner leans forward towards him as he grins and wiggles his eyebrows. “No… but it’s enough of a ‘coincidence’ that it’s worth looking into more, wouldn’t you say?” To Applesnack’s raised eyebrow the buck adds, “In my line of work, there’s no such thing as ‘coincidences’… so it was worth looking into…”

“What’s your point?” Applesnack snaps.

“My point is this… Who all knew that Applejack was going to be on that elevator, at that exact moment?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s another piece of the puzzle I want you to see…”

“Nopony… We were alone when she found out. So just me and her... and…” His eyes start going wider as he thinks it through.

“Wingright…” his prisoner replies with a silky smooth tone.

“How do you know that?” Applesnack pulls back, letting the green buck down as he says, “That’s… that can’t be right…”

“Wingright is Applejack’s personal chariot driver. She was going up to meet him, and since she’d just called him, he was fully aware of when she was going to be on the elevator.”

Applesnack looks around as he says, “You’re saying her own driver tried to kill her? Why?!”

The green buck reaches under his trench coat, and offers Applesnack a rolled up magazine. He waves it at Applesnack and, as Applesnack reads the barely visible cover declaring Fixit Brother’s Repair Tips and Tricks the younger buck says, “You’ll find page twenty-four particularly informative.

Applesnack snatches the magazine, unrolls it the rest of the way, and flips it open. His eyes go wider by the moment as he sees that, despite the first few pages being typical magazine fodder of worthless advertisements, the majority of the center of the magazine reads more like a dossier. As he flips through the pages he finds that, in fact, the magazine is a dossier, with a variety of information all pertaining to one individual, but printed and placed into the magazine like any other article. He quickly jumps to page twenty-four, and a snarl appears across his muzzle as he narrows his eyes at what he’s reading.

The green buck reaches over and taps on the page near a cartoonish chart as he says, “Quite the sudden windfall of money… don’t you think…” He taps on another spot as he says, “And there’s another large payment… notice the dates…”

Applesnack glances up at him and starts looking him over closely. “Where the hell’d you get this?” He waves it at the grinning buck. “How can I possibly trust this, you obviously had this made up, this could all just be a hoax to stir up trouble?”

“I have access to a lot more information than your average buck… But, as for making it up…” The younger buck shakes his head. “I could… but it’s the truth.” He shrugs. “I highly encourage you to use some of your own back channels to look into this. Maybe get a hold of some of Applejack’s family or friends to get access to the bank accounts. The records are there. Quite clearly. And he has zero excuses for how he could have gotten that kind of money legitly.”

“Why haven’t you gone to the police with this?” Applesnack asks as he raises an eyebrow and waves the magazine at the younger buck.

“Well… for a variety of reasons. But, considering the investigation is ongoing, they couldn’t make any moves on Wingright.” He shrugs. “He’s too small of a fish, and they want the bigger fish…”

“The ones that paid him and actually set this all up?” Applesnack asks.

“Clever pony,” the younger buck says with a condescending grin. He takes off his hat and lets his lime green mane spill out as he fiddles with the hat. “But, in regards to that, we’ve already got enough of a lead on them that Wingright isn’t necessary…”

“So you’re just going to let him walk?!” Applesnack asks as his eyes jump wide open.

The younger buck puts his hat back on as he chuckles. “Oh no… No, no, no, you misunderstand.” He looks up at Applesnack and grins. “There’s no walking away from this. A traitor that’s willing to take part in an assassination simply for a fatter wallet?” He shakes his head. “No, in my line of work, they do not get second chances to do it again.”

“If you’re just going to kill them anyway, why bother showing me this at all?” He lifts it up and raises an eyebrow. “Trying to earn some browning points or something? You expecting to earn some favors from me over this?”

The younger buck grabs the magazine and puts it back into his jacket as he shakes his head. “Nothing like that…”

“Then… what? What’s your angle?”

The younger buck grins at him and goes back to playing with the candy cane. “Well… in normal situations… someone like Wingright would be a starting point. And he’d be dragged in to find out who he’s working for, and then we’d work our way up the food chain until we got who’s really responsible for everything and bring them to justice.”

“But you said you don’t need Wingright?” Applesnack asks as he narrows an eye at him and grumbles.

The younger buck nods slowly. “That’s right…” He leans in and grins as he says, “Because we’ve already got a bigger fish further down the line… Which makes him a useless loose thread that needs to be dealt with, but won’t give us anything valuable.”

“And…?”

The green buck looks him over and sighs before he says, “If you care about Applejack as much as I think you do, I figure you wouldn’t mind taking matters into your own hooves… Probably even happily so at that.”

Applesnack’s eyes go wide as he asks, “You’re asking me to kill him?”

The green buck shrugs. “You’ve been on the front. Killing an enemy of the country and its people, and a known threat to ponies around him, should be well within your morality limits. If you’re not interested, I can arrange something else. But, either way he’s going to die. I just figured I’d let you in on it, give you a chance to exercise some vengeance by exacting justice on the traitor. And at the same time I wouldn’t have to waste any time on it myself. Because he’s got to go before he sells anyone else out…”

“Not that I’m agreeing… but… did you have any ideas?” He grinds his forehooves into the ground as he snarls. “If what you’re saying is true, and I’m not agreeing it is, but, I’d like to pummel him into the ground myself, but that’d cause problems and would be hard to justify…”

The younger buck’s coat moves as he reveals one of his wings that had been hidden at his side the whole time and grins at him. “Well… He’s a chariot driver… and I think one good ‘accident’ deserves another…” His grin turns malicious as he adds, “And, as a pegasus, I can tell you… cross winds on a stormy night can be dangerous. Especially around large buildings… Why… if you hit one, you could break a wing…” He waves his wing at Applesnack slowly as he says, “And, if that were to happen… say… on the edge of a building… The poor pegasus would have nothing to do the whooooole way down, but think about things… before they turn into road glue.”

The young green pegasus grins even wider as he plays with the candy cane again. “Such a tragedy… It happens from time to time you know. Hazard of the job.”

Applesnack looks around at the ground as he gives it careful consideration. He glances up at the green pegasus and asks, “And what about the ones really behind it?”

The green pegasus pulls the candy cane out of his mouth and twirls it with his wingtip a bit before he says casually, “Oh… them? Well…” He pops it back into his mouth before he looks over at Applesnack. “Just to let you know, in advance… it’ll never be proven, so no one’s likely to go to trial over it. But I can tell you, it’s getting handled.” He chomps on the candy cane, breaking it in half and pulling it into his mouth with his tongue before he says, “In a very permanent fashion… so there will not be a second attempt made…” He takes off his hat, places it to his chest, and dips his head a bit in a bow as he smiles, “So I’d appreciate it if you not dig too much into that… let the public forget about it, and let others do their jobs.”

Applesnack smirks as he asks, “So… you’re throwing me a carrot by letting me have Wingright… so I won’t keep digging to find the others?” He shakes his head a bit before asking, “Just who do you even work for?”

The green pegasus shrugs and says, “I’m not here in any official capacity…” He grins widely at Applesnack before he adds, “Officially I’m not here at all… so who I work for doesn’t matter… Just know that you and Applejack have friends. And your friends are looking out for you.”

“Uh huh,” Applenack grumbles with his typically deep voice. “And just what’s your name, ‘friend’?”

The green pegasus shrugs as he grins. “Call me whatever you want…” He flares out his wings and turns further down the alley. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting to get to… but… remember,” he lifts off and grins at Applesnack as he hovers in the alleyway, “One good accident deserves another… Take care, Sergeant!”

As Gearing’s mind jumps around from one thing to another, he can’t help having a brief thought about another elevator shaft that had tried to change the course of history. Slowly a smirk forms on his muzzle as he realizes that, in that case too, the architects of the disaster had failed.

And in a strange way, that actually starts filling him with a bit of confidence and hope. But not too much hope. Just a realistic amount of hope based on what he already knows to be true and possible.

Although, at the same time, there’s something else that crops up and starts bugging him. There are many ways he could go from here. He could go back and sit at the bottom of the elevator shaft and just hope to be rescued by Swift and Handy, but that’s not really something he wants to bet on. As well intended as they are, it’d be a huge problem for them to even attempt. Because he doesn’t know how far the water got before it stopped. Another option would be to go through and head to the heart of the problem.

Into The Core itself.

This could potentially reap the greatest rewards for him. On one side, he could come muzzle to muzzle with whoever just tried to kill them, have them explain themselves, and, failing a good answer, have a bit of fun sending them running from a rushing wall of water and see how they like it. He gives a snort of annoyance as his emotions start creeping in and telling him that it would be a great idea, despite what his logical mind knows to be true. Because to get there he’d have to cut through the thickest portions of the security net. And, considering he knows for a fact it’s not exactly sitting there unwatched, that would be a bad idea. Because at a moment’s notice they could unleash the entire security system on him, and then it would be all over for him in a short period of time.

It’s the highest risk, but the highest reward potential too. He knows he could probably sneak around through the Green Line, and bypass a lot of the security with the train tunnel system itself. But that has its own risks with security and the area itself.

A computer screen flashes across his mind as he remembers the things he’d learned from Billiard and his friend.

I can only imagine the number of ponies that made it down into the tunnels. It’d make sense for being the safest place from the bombs. But they weren’t prepared for the fire and radiation. There’s nowhere for them to go, and won’t be enough supplies down there.

Bill, I hate to be this way, but desperate ponies are capable of horrible things. Don’t take any risks.

Fiz, you were right. Don’t tell Annie about this, but I saw some ponies like you’d described in the tunnels. Flesh burnt beyond belief. Practical running corpses. Discord having a playdate is the only way this makes any kind of sense to me.

Fiz, they’re starving in the tunnels. I saw. On the camera. A group of the burnt ponies chased down a group that didn’t look so bad. They fought for a bit, and one of the pony’s that still had their hair got knocked to the ground. The rest of his group ran away.

While the burnt ponies ate the buck while he was still alive.

“Uhg,” Gearing groans quietly, “I don’t really want to have to deal with ghouls… and all of those ghouls? Even a tunnel full, what could they do? On their own, not much… Trying to eat me is one thing but then it’d be likely I wouldn’t be able to simply get away from them either and they’d end up leading security right to me. And not to mention there’s always problems with them being just a bit too interested and-… wait…” Gearing’s eyes go wide as he thinks about it for a moment and the thought of an ‘interested ghoul’ sparks a completely unrelated wire in his brain.

Gearing quickly lifts his PipBuck up and starts sorting through his items again. And, again, it takes him some time to look for what he’s trying to find. It’s as if the thing itself doesn’t want to be found, and not just a simple matter of him glancing over it out of training and reflex. But, no, there it is.

He carefully withdraws the little module from his bag and quickly starts looking it over. In the same way he’d mindlessly twirled it while Handy and Swift slept, he starts fidgeting with it again: holding it between his hooves, by opposite corners, and spinning it as he’s looking at it and thinking.

The little module turns slowly as he twirls it and focuses on it intently.

The little blue pegasus in his head starts zipping around and squealing with joy as he screams, ‘This is it! This is exactly what we need! We’re getting out of here!’

Gearing slowly nods his head as he whispers, “Yeah… I’ll need to figure out the right path, and find a sure fire way to get out before using it… but… it’s a piece… a large piece.” He cradles it and holds it to his chest as gently as if it were a newborn foal as he looks down at the floor and thinks it through. “Its charge is limited, so I’ll need to be careful and hurry once I activate it, but all I need now is a clear way out and I can just… go…”

The little blue pegasus starts waving pom poms around as he gushes, ‘I swear I’m going to kiss that gorgeous ghoulie lady caravanner right on the lips when I see her! I bet she’s going to freak when she finds out that the little extra gift she gave me was so useful and important.’

Gearing smirks as he says softly, “Know what… I’ll kiss’er wherever the hell she wants after this… I felt bad about flirting so much before, but with this… Yeah, she’s earned whatever ‘quality time’ she wants.”

‘Just make sure Sable’s not around.’

“Of course…” Gearing says with a chuckle and a sigh as he stows the precious little item back into his bags. “Now what’s the best way to go about doing this…”

Being entirely re-energized by having an actual edge, the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head starts flipping up one poster after another with a list of pros and cons and quickly ranks them. ‘We could try The Core first, not to actually get into The Core, but to get closer to it and find an elevator shaft up. The closer to the inner city, the more of those surface elevators there are. And we only need one. And they probably won’t expect us to make a beeline straight for those, so they’ll probably be the least guarded while they try and keep the outer perimeter… Which we are already behind, I might add…’

“The ‘Closer to Danger, Further From Harm’ tactic… Risky, but might work,” Gearing mutters to himself.

‘There’s also the Green Line. Same principle. But once we break into there, we can just turn and head straight out. Eventually we’ll come out. In that case we’ll just keep going as fast as we can and just avoid what we can but not worrying about it too much. It’ll be a bit on the rough side.’

And there’s the guarantee of ghouls, as Billiard had warned, so that’s going to be a problem as well… I mean they can’t eat me… I don’t think… but they’ll still be a hindrance, Gearing mentally adds.

‘The other option is to keep wandering around aimlessly through these tunnels until we find a method that goes up…’ his mental sidekick grumps at him.

The problem with that is we don’t know these tunnels, and we could get stuck down here permanently. And, to make matters worse, it guarantees we’re going to have a run-in with security eventually, and draw the asshole’s attention, meaning the rest of the security system is going to be focused on us when they realize that not only did they not kill us, that we’re actually deeper in than we were before… Gearing mentally groans as he can clearly see how that would play out if it happens.

‘Well, what are we going to do?’ the blue little pegasus asks as he starts looking the posters over one at a time and genuinely seems to be struggling with the best way to go about it as none of the options are particularly appetizing.

Gearing takes in a deep breath, and looks down at his hooves as he slowly lets it out. After the little exercise that gives him, he whispers to himself, “Let’s try the one that has the highest chance of success… Forget everything else… our goal is to get the hell out of here. We’ll figure out something later, but right now there’s not much we can do. We’re not prepared enough to be trying to do anything else. And we can’t accomplish anything later if we get ourselves killed down here…”

‘So…?’

“Trying to get to the Green Line seems like the best option, if I can find it. And then just follow it the hell out of here through the tracks, maintenance access hatches, air shafts, or something... Failing that, any methods with The Core’s surface elevators as a backup plan… And if even that doesn’t work we’ll just start causing a ruckus and distractions until I can get a path out of here somehow somewhere someway. If it takes me shoving my hoof so far up that bitches ass I can use them as a sock puppet to get me out then I’ll do it. I’m not staying down here forever,” Gearing starts grumbling and gets a bit louder than intended the longer he rants and the old anxiety of being permanently trapped starts nipping at the edges of his mind.

The little blue pegasus cringes as he asks, ‘You’re not going to try and dig our way out of here… are you? That’d take forever!’

No, because with my luck, I’d dig right in under the damn river and get buried in silt and another flood…

At the mere mention of the thought the little blue pegasus dives into his steam chest and starts shivering and shaking. ‘No, please…’

“Right,” Gearing groans before he throws himself forward and sets himself back up onto his hooves again. “Time to try and find a way the hell out of here that doesn’t involve getting gooed, turned to pudding, or buried alive…”

The steam chest in his head simply rattles in response.

Gearing grabs the box he’d used to hide behind, picks it up with his forehooves, and spins around with it to exchange places with it one last time. He carefully sets it down, barely making a sound as he releases it to its original resting place. But, now that he’s out of his little hiding place, and not typically being one to miss a golden opportunity, he starts looking over the supplies that are in the supply closet with him. He gives each shelf a discerning eye, going item by item, as he tries to figure out what, if anything, would be useful to him.

And, in a lot of the cases, the answer is ‘yes’. Especially if he’d be able to get this back to Stable 68. But, unfortunately, not much of this would really be helpful for him given his current situation. There’s a lot he could use, but not much of it would help get him out of the tunnel system. Plenty of chemicals to mix for offensive or defensive purposes. Plenty of things to clean with. In fact, the entire closet seems to be the maintenance departments storage hub for their cleaning supplies. At least it was before the other random boxes and deliveries were dumped in here. And those he’s too apprehensive to try and open to check their contents. Just in case they get randomly checked by the maintenance bots who might detect tampering. It’s paranoia at this point, but given the circumstances Gearing feels perfectly justified in indulging himself with it.

‘Too bad we can’t clean out the muck from here with all of this cleaning crap…’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head quips as he looks over the last crate of Abronco Cleaner.

“With enough mixes and a few toys I could make some ‘boom’ with this. But given everything going on, I don’t want to carry any more with me than I need… If I need it, I know where to come and get it…” He turns and starts heading towards the door as he adds, “There’s a reason they keep volatile chemicals away from other places… spontaneous accidental ‘boom’.”

‘Instead of a very merry Gearing intentional boom?’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head says with a giggle as it holds its belly with its forehooves and rolls back and forth in its steam chest.

“Quite,” Gearing comments aloud as he unlocks the door. He waits for a moment before he slowly opens the door and starts carefully listening out through the crack. Again, after not hearing anything, he pokes his head out and makes sure the coast is clear. And, again, finds that, yes, the entire area seems to be devoid of any threats.

So he quickly steps out and shuts the door behind himself. He politely locks the door behind himself to help hide any traces that he was even in there in the first place. And in the process not only help keep anyone off of his trail but, hopefully, give him a known safe place to fall back to in the event he needs it again.

He starts carefully walking down the hallways, checking each of the doors as he goes, to try and find a direction that he might be able to go without attracting too much attention. He knows the general direction he needs to go, up, and that he needs to head towards the Green Line. But, unfortunately, he’s painfully aware that sometimes the fastest way between two places isn’t a straight line, but instead a corkscrew that makes you back peddle a lot to get to where you need to go. Why? His official stance on it is: ‘Ask Luna and Celestia because fuck if I know why my luck is like that’.

He slows his walking as his ears pick up the unfriendly sound of metallic hooves moving in a very mechanical and predictably well-timed pattern. He swears to himself under his breath and zips ahead, towards the sound, as he sees an alcove set into the wall. When he gets there, he sees a lot of metal barrels filled with some unknown chemical. Unknown because some heartless individual ripped all the labels off long ago and any one guess as to their contents is as good as any other. But Gearing is able to zip between them, and swing around to crouch behind a few as the noise of approaching metallic hooves gets louder and louder. As he’s crouched down, he peeks out through the gaps with an eye and focuses on watching the opening to the little alcove.

A short time later a protectapony walks by, just as Gearing had anticipated. And then another. And another. And after the fourth one crosses his vision Gearing starts getting more than a little worried as he realizes that’s more than a normal work detail. Then there’s the added concern that they have been organized in an atypical formation for some other purpose besides simply going from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’.

Fuck, again they’re smarter than I’d hoped, Gearing mentally swears.

‘They’re still looking for us… But why are they just now getting here?’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head asks as it eyeballs the metallic pony doppelgangers suspiciously.

Probably because there’s a lot of area to cover and they are simply spreading out. From The Core areas.

‘D-doesn’t that mean we need to get the hell out of here even quicker, before the whole area is filled with security?’ the little blue pegasus asks nervously as it nibbles at its forehooves

Fuck, Gearing mentally agrees with his quickly panicking mental companion.

And then both of their eyes go a bit wider as another sound greets his ears now that the noisy protectaponies have continued past far enough away to let the fainter sounds to be captured.

“You gotta be shitting me…” Gearing faintly groans.

He peeks through the gaps between the barrels, and his shoulders sink as his suspicions are confirmed with only a quick glance. Behind the protectaponies is a floating multi-limbed robot with a talisman working away to keep the bot hovering, but giving off that distinctive sound of its thrust in the process. However, as similar to CURE from good old Stable 68 as this robot may seem like, it’s not anything like a nurse bot. And it’s certainly not a maintenance bot either.

The little blue pegasus groans as it holds it’s head, ‘That’s an Equestrian military grade combat variant… Didn’t they call them ‘Mr. Buckys’?’

Gearing’s eyes trail over the saw that’s on the end of one of the bot’s limbs. It’s far more than would be necessary for preparing food or cutting wood and is not only exceptionally sharp but with far more teeth on it, making it able to easily cut through flesh and bone. And on another of its limbs is a small magical energy weapon, capable of gooifying a target on a lucky hit… and then there’s the combat variety of flamer on its other limb. It’s not simply for getting rid of weeds, or cooking, that thing can immolate a creature in short order. And, he knows, it’d be a bad idea to underestimate those pincers on the end of its ‘unarmed’ limb. They’ve been strengthened with the equipment capable of applying a considerable amount of force. Not only can it grab and manipulate lots of things with them about as well as any gryphon can with their paws, but they can also squeeze hard enough that they can practically become scissors.

And then there’s the enhanced hardened frame over the entire robot that makes it able to shrug off loads of damage and overall take a beating before finally going down. Compared to a maintenance robot, its residential civilian forbearer Mr. Handy, these things are monsters on a whole new level.

Gearing keeps looking it over as long as he can as it’s passing, which isn’t long, before it’s out of his line of sight without moving and risking drawing attention to himself. And in doing so he simply confirms to himself, That’s a Mr. Bucky Sergeant variety… A real pain in the ass, but still manageable. Now if we run into an officer class that’s going to be another nightmare entirely.

“Another glorious day in the Equestrian Army!” a gruff robotic voice declares proudly.

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he hears the sound of the hover talisman getting louder and louder, as its owner has turned around and seems to be coming back in his direction.

He quickly hits and activates SATS as he tries to work through his options.

‘Shit! They could just be coming back the other way, and just reached the end of their patrol route and are turning around?’ the little blue pegasus in his head offers unconvincingly.

What’s the likelihood of that?, Gearing retorts.

‘Not zero!’

Factoring in our luck?!

‘Zero, definitely zero!’

What are we going to do?! Shit, I can’t let them find me this early.

‘How about the old ‘Switcheroo Hey-Look-Over-There’ gag?’ his little pegasus offers.

You got to be kidding me?

‘Sometimes a good defense is an overwhelming offense... At least this way we can bluff our way into a position that means we’re not trapped in a room full of unknown, potentially explosive, barrels,’ his mental companion says flatly with his eyes narrowed at him.

Well when you put it that way!

Gearing drops SATS and takes in a deep breath as he looks up at the sky and mutters, “You can’t ream me if I’m not around to ream, you horny bitch. So you better decide what you want more…” Then he hops around the barrel he’d been hiding behind and screams as loud as he can as he starts running out of the small alcove.

“Heeellllp! Help! Security! Help!” Gearing jumps out into the hallway, panting and scrambling as he’s running, and he runs straight up to the floating robot, who spins around to look at him with all of his eye stalks. Gearing scrambles towards him and skids to a stop as he starts waving his forelegs around. “Sergeant, thank god you’re here! Intruders! There’s intruders in the tunnels!”

“Step forward and identify yourself!” the robot demands. And as Gearing is coming to a skidding halt in front of him he stares at him and asks, “It looks like it’s my lucky day! Who are you? Vandal? Saboteur? Mercenary? Changeling?!”

Gearing snaps to attention as he says, “Sir, Sergeant Bucky, sir, I’m a member of maintenance and I was sent down to repair the elevator, but there’s intruders! They’re wrecking the place!”

“Halt! Step forward, present identification, be recognized, and state your business.”

“Sir I’m just a maintenance pony, I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that Intruders destroyed the security doors in the next sector and now the whole area’s flooded.”

“Soldier, please provide proof of your identity. Be advised that I’m authorized to use deadly force if you fail to comply.”

Gearing stares at him for a moment before he asks, “Identification?”

“Yes, muckraker, identification… 73% of confirmed zebra infiltrators deny being zebra infiltrators prior to being apprehended with deadly force! So do you have it or do I get to kill you in the name of Luna?”

“Uuhhhhh,” Gearing groans and the pitch of his voice just gets higher by the second as the robot’s limbs start aiming all of their weapons at Gearing.

“Well, muckraker? If you’re really a member of maintenance, you have identification…” the robot asks reasonably. Then it’s voice seems almost giddy as it asks, “Or are you just a slimy zebra infiltrator? Maybe a changeling?!”

The little blue pegasus bucks Gearing upside his head and points at his bag repeatedly as he tried to get his attention.

Gearing jerks upright and grins as he says, “Sorry, must have got some water in my ears!” He leans over and starts kicking the side of his own head and, sure enough, splats of water come out and hit the floor, actually drawing one of the hovering bots eye stalk’s attention for a moment before Gearing straightens up and says chipperly, “Identification, sure, I have that. Why didn’t you ask sooner!”

The robot revs up his saw as he growls, “I did ask already, muckraker, so how about you stand nice and still so I can carve you up and-” It stops mid sentence as Gearing flips up a security card and waves it in front of himself.

Gearing waves the card a bit side to side as he says, “See, here’s my ID card. Everything’s good, right?”

The eye stalks try to focus on the card for a moment, but then the claw actually zips out, snaps it out of Gearing’s grasp, and holds it up close to its eye stalks as it examines it. There’s a delay as Gearing debates on the merits of pulling out his rifle and shooting this robot in the face while it’s distracted, or simply pony piling on top of it with his true weight and inflicting as much damage to it’s weapon systems as he can before taking off. He’s sure this isn’t going to work and the robot is simply letting everyone else know exactly where he’s at. And just when he’s about to jump at the bot and activate SATS, the bot finally moves again.

It spins its limb around and presents the card back to Gearing as he says, “This identification card is for a member of maintenance… For the next section over!” It leans a stalk closer to Gearing as it asks, “Just what are you doing in this section?! You’re out of your Ey Oh, soldier!”

Gearing takes the card and snaps to a salute as he says, “Yes, Sergeant, but as the Sergeant is aware a good soldier must follow every order that his superior officers gives him, right, Sergeant? For the glory of Equestria!”

The robot nods emphatically as it bellows, “You’re damn right you better follow orders!”

“Sergeant, I was ordered down to fix the elevator,” Gearing says as he stays straight faced and stares at the hovering robot.

“Then why aren’t you fixing the elevator right now?!” the robot asks as he periodically revs up his saw blade menacingly.

“Sergeant! Standing orders for the great Equestrian army are that, and I quote, ‘Any and all suspicious activity is to be reported immediately to security’!”

“Yeah, and?!” the hovering bot demands.

“There’s intruders! Vandals! Saboteurs!” Gearing bellows as he waves his forelegs around. “There’s stinking zebra-sympathizing freedom-hating changeling shenanigans ahoof! They’ve already destroyed the elevator and the security doors to the elevator!” He hops around as he screams indignantly, “You’re security, aren’t you, Sergeant?! I was ordered to find the closest security personnel I could find, and tell them what all I knew,” He stops hopping around and sheepishly grinds a forehoof into the floor as he says quieter, “And then I was ordered to stay out of the sector, until I was told by my superiors that it was all clear, so I wouldn’t be in your mane and get in your way.”

The robot focuses on him with all of his eye stocks, and weapons, as he says flatly, “Analyzing vocal patterns… confidence interval… 92%... Excuse… Accepted.”

Gearing waves his forelegs around as he asks with a pant, “Sir, what about the intruders?!”

“Slow down there muckraker!” The robot bellows. Then he chuckles as he says, “That’s a good soldier, I’ll make sure your See Oh hears of this!” His eyes whip around as he asks, “Where are they?! Where are they?!”

Gearing points back the way he’d come, straight at the door off in the distance that leads to the flooded area, and says, “Their last reported position was at the security door that they breached. The zone is flooded now and I can’t override that.” He snaps to attention and gives the sergeant a salute. “Good hunting, Sergeant!”

But the hovering combat robot has already disregarded him and spun around as he yells out, "Alright maggots, listen up, I want this infiltrator found yesterday! Move it, move it, moooove it!" The group of protectaponies turn and look at the Mr. Bucky before watching him charging off down the hallway the way Gearing had pointed and following as he screams, “Somepony find me something to shoot at!”

Gearing stands there watching them leave for a few seconds and then slowly sidesteps over to the wall to make it harder for them to see him and get out of sight quicker, if they did turn around, before he looks down at the access card. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help!” He slips it into his pocket as he looks around and starts wondering just how many he can fool with this.

‘It’s not likely to work with any of the officers,’ the little blue pegasus in his head reminds him. ‘And it certainly won’t work with anyone that’s actually in direct contact with anyone at the central office. At least not more than once. Querying the database is fine, but if any of those fucks in control of the system catch onto how old this card is, they are going to cancel it instantly.’

Gearing turns around and quickly starts walking down the hallway as he tries to find the fastest route going towards the Green Line. There could be plenty of times that he could try and bluff his way past the security, and succeed, but he doesn’t want to risk it. He’s only going to try that again if he has no other choice in the matter. And, thankfully for him, he has more than enough other options as he continues slinking down the hallways.

In a few instances he has to slip into side rooms as a patrol is coming. In others he quickly darts into an adjacent hallway and finds a way around the patrol. Other times he hides among the supplies in the hallways and just waits for the patrol to get out of sight before climbing out of the barrels or boxes. For the most part, things are going pretty well.

Until he gets to a protectapony group that seems to be doing actual maintenance. And, in an ironic twist, them simply doing their job proves to be the biggest hurdle he’s had to deal with since managing to trick his way away from that Mr. Bucky Sergeant. They aren’t simply patrolling, they are trying to do something to the walls and circuitry behind a panel with one of the hover bots with them manipulating the cables and such.

Gearing watches carefully from a distance, trying to get a sense of timing or the like, but, there’s none. They are doing a task that has no even movements to it and, unfortunately, this seems like the only way to get past them. His only other option is to double back and increases the likelihood of getting caught by one of the patrols that he’s already slipped by.

The little blue pegasus in his head stands on one hindhoof in a ridiculously complex pose and starts throwing little cloud balls at the ground as he says, ‘Poninja vanish!’

Gearing mentally groans at them as he mentally retorts, I’m not using that yet, there’s no clear path out. And this isn’t a comic book I can’t just poof out of sight and- He pauses mid thought as he looks over at a crate full of packing moss and a smile crosses his muzzle as he mentally adds, Or… maybe I can…

Gearing yanks the crate around the side of the corner into the adjoining hallway and quickly empties it right onto the floor. Both housekeeping and his mother would be very disappointed if they saw the kind of mess he’s capable of producing but at the moment he doesn’t care. The contents had long since been removed, so all that was left in it was the soft moss. He quickly flips the crate over himself, and squats down into the large box.

‘This thing is little more than a cardboard box,’ the little blue pegasus groans as he floats around and looks at it. ‘This is never going to work.’

Never know unless we try… Gearing mentally rebuffs.

The box, as sturdy as it is, has quite a few tiny gaps in it between the boards, and provides just a hint of a view of his surroundings from the inside. He starts slowly walking forward. Very slowly. The entire time he advances he has the box held aloft using his wings so that the box is just barely off the ground as he advances back down the hall. He carefully comes up to the corner at a snail’s pace, walking up, and stopping, before looking down the hallway through the cracks. As soon as all of the bots have their sensors pointed at the wall again, he scurries across the hallway, and into the section, before slowly starting to tiptoe down the hallway in their direction. Step by step, and inch by inch, Gearing slowly advances down the hallway that is not nearly as wide as he would like to be trying something like this. When any one of the bots starts turning in a direction he even thinks they might notice him and the box’s movements, he comes to an absolute dead stop until the next time he’s no longer being watched. When he gets closer to the bots, almost behind the first one, the maintenance protectapony suddenly turns its head and looks directly at the box Gearing is in. The two stare at each other for a few moments, as the bot tries to figure out if that new object has anything to do with his current task, before it goes back to working on the wires inside the wall panel.

‘Nopony heeeere… no one here but us shipping crates,’ the little blue pegasus says with a nervous grin.

A moment after the bot has looked away, Gearing starts twinkle hoofing it again and a split second later the bot’s head whips back around, almost looking directly behind itself, as it stares at the box. This time a bit of plastic getting bumped by the box drawing its attention. The bot stares at it again, then goes back to work, only to whip its head around spontaneously and stare at the box menacingly as the plastic had crinkled again.

Gearing stares out of the gap at them and mentally swears, I fucking hate plastic… I swear if wrapping paper is going to be the end of me I’m going to be very cross.

The robot spins around and starts walking over towards the box as it says, “Alert: Unsecured Storage detected. Object located in a hazardous zone. Object does not meet the minimum safe distance from an active work zone.”

The robot grabs hold of the box’s sides and lifts it straight up off the ground. One of the other protectaponies that had come over to assist looks at the box, and the plastic on the ground under it, and comments, “This cargo container is in the wrong zone. Team Lift cargo verified. Logging event. Logging improper storage location. Initiating managerial inquiry into unsafe work practice.” The two bots start walking down the hallway, beyond the work zone, with the box held aloft between them.

All the while Gearing is playing with a delicate balance between applying enough force that he can stay wedged inside of the open ‘bottomed’ box, yet being careful to not apply too much force that it ends up breaking the wooden storage crate as it’s hefted down the hallway by the two protectaponies.

Gearing does his best not to move at all, not a single gear, as the protectaponies haul the crate, with him in it, down one hallway after another. The one thing Gearing does do, besides straining his ears to their maximum potential to listen to everything around him just in case his ruse is discovered, is pay close attention to the floor passing under him. He watches very closely as the floor under him slides by with each mechanical step of the protectaponies as they march down the tunnels in sync with each other. Had this been in most other environments, he’d have an even harder time trying to keep track of where he is, but with the metal plates on the ground he can pretty accurately judge in which direction they are walking, the speed at which they are walking, and when they make turns and shifts. It’s not that easy to tell by inertia itself, because the bots are doing an excellent job of minimizing any of that kind of force on the cargo as they walk. But the plates on the ground let him mentally picture where they are taking him. The one area he has an exceptionally hard time placing what they are doing with him, and admittedly is the one place he actually loses all sense of direction, is when they pass over a large section of concrete that has been polished smooth to the point that any imperfections are so far apart he can’t use them to judge relative distance anymore. And that, added with how long and how far he’s being carried, starts filling him with a deep dread. He starts wondering if it’s in fact him that’s been fooled, and not the robots. If the robots aren’t actually taking him to some area where he can be ambushed and attacked. Or, maybe, just thrown into a security cell outright, complete with magical shielding, until he’s willing to talk or they decide what else to do with him.

He starts having a hard time controlling the little voice in his head that keeps telling him to bolt, and the nipping nagging feeling between his shoulders just grows and grows as the panic starts welling up inside his chest. As he’s trying to make up his mind that, one more section, just one more security checkpoint, and he’s going to break out and make a run for it or not he hears things that really dissuade him from rash action. He’s been hearing more and more bots as they continue on and he can’t help imagining that a horde is gathering up with his pole bearers and that at any second he’s going to be the center of attention for a few hundred magical and light based weaponry.

But then a dim room the robots walk into, momentarily lights up as they are stepping in. A few moments later the box is set down onto the ground. And done so with a level of care that no day laborer would have ever done unless they were being actively watched by some member of management. The bots turn around and start walking away as one beeps and announces, “Logging Event. Wayward cargo secured in staging area. Cargo is ready and awaiting inspection by Receiving Crew team members.”

A few moments later the lights dim again and the door slides shut behind the two protectaponies as the last one out comments, “Returning to assigned repair duty.”

His companion chimes in, “Power levels outside of optimum range. Returning to recharging pod. Alerting shift replacement and logging incomplete work order. Transferring. Complete.”

Gearing stays there, wedged into the bottom of the overturned box using every limb available to him as he listens very carefully. After a few moments of nothing else happening, no lights coming on, no alerts, no weapon’s fire, nothing tearing the box apart, Gearing slowly lowers one hoof at a time to the floor and gently tests it. The smooth stone is cold, but welcoming to Gearing. As stone is nice and solid. And, what’s more, it doesn’t trigger any kind of alarm. All encouraging signs. And he quickly drops down, uses his wings to lift the box up as he pokes his snoot under the bottom edge, and looks around to try and figure out where he’s at and what might be waiting for him on the other side of his tiny wooden sanctuary.

Unlike everything that had crossed through his mind, and every prediction he had made, the bots had, in fact, taken him to a storage area of some kind. He slowly slips out from under the box and looks around as he tries to figure out what’s going on, and can’t help but smiling when he sees the chipped paint across the one wall that proudly declares: ‘Shipping, Receiving, and Sorting’.

He quickly opens his PipBuck and starts looking around at the map in the dimly lit room as he tries to get his bearings, and his jaw almost hits the floor as he sees where he’s at.

The bots had taken him most of the way to where he’d needed to go anyway. Entirely of their own accord. The staging area he’s in, at least he’s pretty sure it’s a staging area, is one that has a direct connection to the train system. There are a few offshoots, if he guesses right, that run straight to the train service lines and the trains would unload their cargo that was headed to the maintenance tunnels through here.

He looks back over his shoulder and a large smile crosses his muzzle as he realizes that the bots, through their dedication to their own task, had managed to get him past a long string of security checkpoints by simply hiding in a box.

The little pegasus in his head starts prancing around as it giggles, ‘Happy little accident!’

Gearing sits down slowly and looks at his map again as he starts reevaluating what he should do. If he can get into the Green Train Line, he could just follow the tracks straight out of here. And even if some are collapsed, there’s bound to be side tunnels that will take him to the similar level that Swift and Handy are at. Assuming they haven’t gone to the surface. After that it’s just a simple matter of meeting up and getting out from underground together.

Again the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head chimes in with the same three options he’d brought up before. Now that things have changed, it needs to be reevaluated.

Green Line?

The Core?

But then before the third option shows up, the paper gets shredded and thrown away as the little blue pegasus comments, ‘Bit too far in for this one to even make sense anymore…’

And Gearing agrees.

Gearing looks around as he audibly groans. “I’m so close. I’m probably near the wall…” He looks over at the area on his map where he knows the Green Line is at as he sighs, “You know, if I go through that way… I could go ahead and try to get into The Core through the Green Line… Then just backtrack if that doesn’t pan out… It’s a straight shot… that should be fine… right?”

‘As long as nothing else goes wrong, sure, but do we really want to risk it? We don’t know what else those bitches have set up and active to fuck with us.’

Gearing groans as he looks side to side at a couple groupings of doors. Through one set leads directly towards The Core, at least, in the right direction, the other set leads to the landing station where the trains would bring cargo and drop it off for the rest of the maintenance tunnels to use or for it to be transported to strategic locations. Depending on what it was.

Gearing slowly turns around as he looks at the stacks and stacks of cargo crates in the room and his ears droop as he realizes that the amount of equipment that might be in these boxes, that could very well be right in front of him, might be enough to fund a small army. From combat boots, to helmets, weapons and ammo. It’d just be a matter of digging through all of it to figure out what could be used.

‘But… getting it all out of here would be impossible…’ the little blue pegasus comments as he raises a hoof.

Gearing closes his eyes as he groans, “And I didn’t come here as some kind of looter… There’s a time and a place for everything. And I have work to do.”

‘Business before pleasure?’ the little blue pegasus offers with a weak smile.

“Business before pleasure”, Gearing agrees before he turns his head pointedly towards the Green Line access doors. He starts walking towards the large metal double doors that interlock with each other and eyeballs them as he tries to figure out the best way past them. Sure, they’re big enough for a tank to go through… or two… tightly, but that doesn’t mean there is a tank down here in the tunnels.

That would certainly change the threat matrix on what he should be doing, where he should be going, and how quickly.

Which would be, in his estimates: Running away, anywhere but here, and as quickly as possible. In that order.

That annoying itching feeling that’s been increasing across his entire body just gets worse the closer he gets to the doors and his paranoia alarms start going off as he scurries over towards the glowing terminal set into the wall next to the doors. He sits down, brings up the debugging menu, and quickly gets to work trying to bypass the security’s password. He shifts around uneasily as the nipping and annoyance gets even worse by the second, and it causes him to screw up and misclick a few times, or at least that’s what he keeps telling himself, and forcing him to close out and start over. By the time the computer shifts to the confirmation screen, after he’d finally guessed the ridiculously long password, Gearing is practically vibrating as he’s fidgeting so uncomfortably while sitting there on the ground. He quickly opens the door, and scurries over to the doorframe as he scrunches down, hides, and waits for the door to finish opening for him to decide what to do. But the entire time, despite his normal temperament, he keeps randomly moving a leg or shoulder as the itching annoying feeling just keeps nipping at him.

Once the door opens entirely, and the noise from it dies down, Gearing stays absolutely still as he awaits some kind of response. But, nothing. No alerts. No alarms. Nothing. So he inches forward, peeks around the doorway, and instantly frowns at what he sees.

Another giant door just the size this one is, about 30 yards away.

“Of course… a double security door… uhg…” Gearing groans as he rolls his eyes, stands up ,and trots inside. He walks over to the other door, finds the controls to the door, and begins the process of opening it. His head jerks over and he starts running back to the first door as it starts closing. But his movements are off kilter and he’s having trouble getting his stride right. He stumbles and trips with the edge of his hoof getting stuck in a grate and causing him to tumble as the doors overlap. He pushes himself back up as he glares at it and groans, “Great… walked right into a fucking trap, just my damned luck.”

But, the moment the door closed, the door on the other side, the one he’d tried opening, starts sliding open.

Gearing’s head whips over, and he starts running towards the door, hoping he’s not being toyed with, and as soon as there’s a gap big enough for him to make it through he jumps through. He lands on the other side, with a grinding skid, as he looks behind himself and watches the door open to its max size. Gearing frowns as he says, “Well, that was an unnecessary amount of excitement.”

‘At least it wasn’t a trap… right?’ the little blue pegasus comments and tries to console him.

Gearing rolls his eyes and scolds himself for getting so worked up over it. “A one at a time security door… They’re so common, why the hell did I freak out?” He scrunches down and shakes his shoulders a bit more before he yells, “And why the hell am I still freaking out and feeling all creepy!?”

The little pegasus in his head’s eyes bug out and he slaps a hoof to his lips as he shushes Gearing.

Who, likewise, feels appalled at what he’d just done. He quickly slinks over to a wall, next to some trash, and quickly starts trying to take in the scenery.

Although, it doesn’t take him long to realize that he’s just made such a spectacle of himself, if there were any hostiles in the area, they’d already have his brass ass.

He was expecting a set of train tracks, or maybe a loading station, but what he wasn’t expecting was a practical small station. The area outside of the shipping area has several smaller tunnels going in a variety of directions, with notes along the walls telling anyone who notices which way to the train tracks, which way to shipping, and other interesting destinations those in the tunnels might like to know. But it’s done so openly that he’s sure it has to be some kind of more general use and less of a security area.

Which actually brings a smile to Gearing’s face as he realizes that he may have just hit the jackpot and will no longer have to worry about a swarm of murder bots coming after him. He quickly checks his PipBuck and finds that he’s gotten exceptionally close to the Green Line train tracks. He hops up and starts following one of the tunnels that’s marked ‘Delivery Tracks’ and hopes it’ll bring him to where he needs to go. The train track station has considerably more litter than what had been in the maintenance tunnels. And that probably has a lot to do with the amount of bots, and the amount of ponies, being through the areas recently. The amount of litter gives Gearing the distinct impression that there was an influx of individuals, but no one has bothered to take the trash out since.

His shoulders and back continuously bothers him as he takes one step after another through the off white hallways. The hidden sconces, set decoratively into the walls, gives him a decided impression that this area was, at one time, deemed important enough to at least have the façade of some kind of a ‘modern’ aesthetic. At least what had been considered ‘modern’ before everything got a new coat of balefire bomb fallout green paint. And the area is a great example of what he’d been telling Handy not long before. The lighting levels increased pretty well as well, except for the lights that are no longer functioning because of neglect or damage. After a gentle curve starts, Gearing slowly starts following the curve the rest of the way as it morphs into a practical spiral staircase that descends and takes him down and under the station. A bit further beyond the bottom of the staircase and the hallway suddenly opens up into a waiting area that, apparently, once had a huge egg shaped hall, with the tip gently guiding ponies to where they could board the trains once they arrived, where ponies could lounge around and wait for the next train to come by. But, as he’s getting closer to the tracks, he realizes that this is most decidedly not the Green Line.

The tracks seem to be made for a train that’s more for passengers than it is for cargo. Or, if it’s for cargo, it’s not for industrial level cargo. The ceiling just isn’t high enough over the tracks for it. He walks over to the side of the train station platform and slowly looks around as he tries to take in the view. Indeed, the same motif of the off white walls continues even along the train tunnel. He’s not sure why that would be necessary, and it quickly dawns on him that’s because it isn’t necessary, that it was done for looks purposes. The entire tunnel system going to his left is lit up as it fades into a single point as it curves away. And the only sign of any dimness around there is from lights that have blown, been destroyed, or are currently covered in one kind of filth or another from either pony or some other creature. He looks to his right and he takes in the view as the tunnel seems to open up quickly right past the station. He leans out with his neck far out into the train tracks as he sees that, yes, that area is not only wider, but is more industrial than the rest of the other direction.

Gearing screws his face up one way then the other as he looks back and forth and the only thing that makes any sense to him is that this is the supposed ‘End of the Line’ for the common folk, and that beyond here is where the tracks get more serious for goods transporting and where function matters more than looks. He can’t help but snickering as he wonders if that tunnel to the left leads straight to the Ministry of Image hub, as she’s the one that’s more worried about image more than any others.

He gives his PipBuck a quick glance again before hopping out onto the track and starts trotting his way towards the right. No, it’s not the fancy direction. But considering it’s more open, and more industrial, it’s more likely to have more access ports and doors for maintenance and side tunnels. He’s pretty sure if he went the other way, there’d probably not be another opening until it reached its destination, and he didn’t want to have to deal with that. Especially if some psychotic bitch in charge notices him and sends a train down the tunnel after him just out of spite.

‘Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel, is a train fixing to run you over,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head grumps.

“Ain’t that the damn truth,” Gearing mutters to himself as he leaves the station, by walking along the tracks, and keeps his eye out. He stops dead in his tracks just past the end of the station as he looks at the dirt off to the side, under where that curved staircase had been, and sees a collection of property that has been piled up in a very specific manner. He slowly starts walking over there, looking at the bit of pink that he can see on the other side of the low wall of suitcases, and walks as quietly as he can. After he gets close enough that he can vector at an angle to peek around the luggage, he does so, and instantly his ears droop.

He changes course again, and heads straight for under the stairwell, as he stops even trying to be quiet.

There, under the stairwell, huddled like they were hiding from the world itself, is a pair of equine skeletons. Judging by the clothes that contain the majority of the bones, it would be an older mare, and a younger filly. They’re huddled together, wrapped in each others hooves, but the only thing left of them is dingy dusty bone. He slowly looks over the scene, and can see where they’d laid out a couple of their belongings, or things they’d scavenged, and huddled up under the stairs together on a pile of clothes they’d pulled out of the luggage. Judging by the clothing the mare is wearing, she was well to do. Or, maybe, she just found the dress and decided that if she was going to die she was going to do so as pretty as could be. But, then again, that pair of diamond earrings laying around her skull lends credence to the former idea.

Gearing slowly looks the scene over, and sees how they’d used the luggage stacks as a sort of privacy screen. And, judging by the number of empty wrappers, cans, and other filth, this had been their home. For a while. But not for terribly long either. He doesn’t see any signs of trauma to either one, at least not evident by their bones, and none of the options he can think of would have been pleasant ways to go. Starvation. Dehydration. Radiation. All of the above. There’s no telling. All he knows is that a filly and, presumably, her mother died in the dirt hiding under a staircase.

Gearing slowly walks over and looks at the bodies, as they sit there, huddled together, and still, despite being dead, look absolutely terrified. He leans over, grabs the faded dirty blanket that has a variety of cartoony animals all over it next to the filly, and leans back away from them. He gives the blanket a vigorous shake, snapping it and flinging dirt around and away from him, towards the tracks, before he comes back and flicks it out with his teeth and wings. He carefully lays it over the pair, which is just big enough to cover the filly entirely, along with the mare’s head and torso, as he says, “No matter who we are, we can’t take it with us… I hope you two found peace, wherever you are.”

He steps back slowly and looks them over as he lets out a sigh. He’s not even sure why it bothers him. He never knew them. He’s pretty sure of that. They’ve been dead for hundreds of years. It’s like getting choked up over ponies that had died during the unpredictable weather before Equestria became a nation. They died horribly, many from malnutrition and or cold. But he doesn’t sit there staring at their graves wondering what he could have done to help.

‘Because we didn’t fail them, and there actually were things we could have done to help these two,’ the little blue pegasus says as he glares at Gearing like he’s stupid. ‘You know that. I know that. The only ones here that don’t know that are the two sitting there, and telling them isn’t going to do anything to help.’

Gearing turns and starts walking away as he mutters, “No… but eventually they’ll find it out. And I only wish I could apologize, but regardless of whatever happens, that’ll never happen.”

‘Nope,’ the little blue pegasus says as he floats around inside of Gearing’s mind space. As Gearing turns and continues down the tracks the little blue pegasus starts using a hind leg to scratch at his own shoulder and back of his left ear. ‘I swear if I didn’t know any better I’d think we had mites or something… This annoying stuff is bugging the shit out me and driving me up the walls!’

“Mmhmm” Gearing grumbles as his face sours considerably. “I don’t know if there’s some kind of contaminant in the air or something. I mean, I don’t taste anything other than normal dirt, moisture, and the normal mildewy smell of the tunnels… with a bit of exhaust mixed in for spice… but there’s gotta be something down here causing this.”

‘Maybe that’s what killed the pair?’ the little blue pegasus offers quietly.

“Maybe,” Gearing mutters, “It’s a good thing Swift and Handy aren’t with me then, because if that’s the case it’d probably get them as well.”

The little blue pegasus gives a weak shrug as he comments, ‘Hey… there’s some benefit to this living hell at least…’

---

Footnote: !!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

Unknown Index Reference. . .

Please Stand By. . .

Please Stand By. . .

Next Chapter: 72 Green Means GO! Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 44 Minutes