In a weird form of procrastination, Gearing does another survey of the R&D department’s equipment. He trots over to a wall of consoles and decides to see inside. The data is already shared among all of the stations, with a link to the primary maneframe to boot. Since so few ponies are going to be working in here, no one else if Gearing can help it, he doesn’t need this many terminals. So, maybe, he can cannibalize them for other purposes. Something more useful. All he’d have to worry about is making sure the data that’d been saved locally is transferred off or backed up before decommissioning them. But, hey, he’s got plenty of time at the moment. Everypony else is asleep.

He starts taking the panels off one of the collection of consoles and checks their contents. He’s pleasantly surprised. The parts all look in excellent working order. An abundance of parts really. In fact, from the side panel, he can’t even see very far into the console. He goes around to the front, and finds a faceplate that’s almost dead center in the middle of the front of the lower section of the console. He uses a couple tools, and eventually gets the panel to pop off. He lets the panel fall to the floor as he stares at the contents it was hiding.

Or, more accurately, the lack of contents.

The panel had been covering a section that looks almost like some kind of void. Mostly solid, but the center part had a parting in it with some material that wasn’t quite as ridged.

“What in the-“ he starts. Tick. Tick. CLICK.

He flops back on his rear and stares at it. His eyes getting wider as a sudden realization dawns on him. “Oh no… Oh hell no… that was supposed to be a joke! Right?!” He jumps into his pipbuck and goes into an area of his data where he’s kept a few copies of files that he had stolen a long time ago. His eyes jump back and forth between his pipbuck and at the visage of horror before him. “Oh… come on! There’s even literal laughing in the notes around this! It can’t be… There’s no way…” He stands back up and looks at the console, and his eyes settle on the console screen directly above the access panel he just removed.

He’d thought it was dead, or a redundant, or one that was simply used as a display from another area of the stable. But, if this is right. It can be accessed.

Gearing’s ears start whistling as the gears around his face and neck seem to move independently of his thoughts, except where he actively wills them to do otherwise. He swallows hard and puts his forehooves on the console. One on either side of the screen monitor, and looks down at the access port. “You’ve got to be kidding me… What kind of fucked up pervert comes up with something like this!?”

He gets down and stomps his hooves on the ground. On one side. The curiosity is killing him. If it works. Well… Damn… That’s a certain level of security that most wouldn’t be able to get around. Really only bucks, and even then only the brave that’d be willing to.

He stomps again as his ears whistle and seem to let out heated wind from deeper inside.

He looks at the console again, sitting down, and staring at the monitor for a while. His eyes slowly start taking in his surroundings. Nopony’s around. No one’s at the door to the decontamination chamber. In fact, he’s pretty sure everyone else is asleep. If there was ever a time to try this… It would be now… He swallows hard as he stares at it, his eyes getting impossibly big. At least no one will know of his shame. Whether this works or not.

The little dark blue winged Big Macintosh knock-off in his head chimes in, Hey! It might be fun! Gearing jack slaps the voice of his subconscious, and locks it back in the metal steam chest in his mind where such thoughts should stay.

Ya prude! The muffled voice screams out from its chest.

“I’m not a prude… just... reserved… I have reasons!” He clamps a hoof over his mouth as he realizes he just verbalized an internal argument.

Yup, if there was any shame and humiliation in this, he just earned every iota of it.

He shrugs, and says in resignation, “Fuck it.”

And he does.

The next moment he’s already hopped up on the console again, and rutted the hole straight to the hilt. His ear’s whistle as he tries to position himself and his eyes dart around, praying that no one’s going to stumble across this horrible act, and no one’s paying attention to the cameras. He stares at a camera and his face turns to one of horror. He hopes as long as he doesn’t say her name, that Nettlekiss won’t have her attention drawn to him. The AI. Sure. But she’s not going to just volunteer this to anyone. That’s one thing he’s sure of.

As he’s rocking side to side, trying to get better footing, and looking down at the console, there’s a click, and he feels something clamp on the left side of his member. He looks down at the monitor, and can’t help but feel a bit of panic as it seems that, no matter what, he can’t pull himself out.

He’s sure of his durability. It’s been tested. Through time, and fire. But this particular area of himself? No. He’s not wanting to see how much like a tank it was.

He whimpers a moment as he wonders about what he should do. He could get seriously hurt if he tries to just force it out. And if he’d call for help… they’d see… and he’d just die of embarrassment. He quickly starts going over the console, at far as he can reach, even using his wings to tap out things on the adjoining keyboards.

Nothing.

In all of his moving around, with his little pegasus trapped inside the console somewhere, he shifts to the other side, trying to reach with a wing to another set of consoles, and he hears another click. His moving around has made him slide laterally just enough to click into place, and he feels something else clamp onto him, on the opposite side as whatever was grabbing him before.

He jerks, and pulls back, looking down at himself in fright, and finds that now, despite there being a pressure where he’d really rather there not be any, he actually has free movement. He quickly withdraws himself to survey the damage, and his eyes bug out at what is before him.

There in full view, a metallic object of some unknown origin and purpose, has been bestowed on him like some kind of twisted marriage proposal. Clamped on, tightly. Not moving or sliding. And causing more than a little bit of awkward pressure.

He looks around again, and turns his back on the entry door as he tries to adjust himself. But, to no avail. It won’t go back down. And the ring won’t come off. Its perpetual hold is keeping him at full mast and there’s no way of getting it off as far as he can tell.

He puts his hooves up to his face as he looks around. The sick fucks that designed this place had some twisted ideas of what was funny. He’s sure that they’re somewhere. Laughing their ass off. Rolling in their graves. That they had finally found somepony dumb enough to actually do it.

He’s not feeling like a very clever pony at the moment. He’s out clevered himself. He’s come full revolution through clever into blooming idiot territory. Curiosity and adventurous spirit are well and good. And it’s all fun and games, until you have a cock ring welded onto your dick and no way to remove it!

He has no idea how he’s going to be able to show his face in the rest of the stable like this. Stairs are going to be a problem. He wonders if anyone will notice the sparks that might pop up? Not that that’s happened before, but, it’s always a possibility, right? Flying’s right out. Lowerish ceilings are bad enough, with his current predicament he might accidentally put someone’s eye out…

“What am I gonna do now?” Gearing moans to himself.

There’s a tub of axle grease in the supply closet… The voice suggests from its chest.

Gearing’s ears whistle as he looks down at himself, then around the room. There’s got to be something to this. He’s just missing it. And then, there, as if his prayers were being answered, or the jokers had an even more sick sense of comedic timing, Gearing notices that one of the panels of the bulkhead, wasn’t actually a panel, but a full length display screen.

One that was currently lit, with a bright white light.

He trots over there as gingerly as possible to examine the screen. The wall was adjacent to another set of terminals, but not being blocked by them. And, just to the side of it, is a smaller panel that currently has a series of lights tracing around it. As he approaches, it seems to sense his presence and slides open. He stands there gaping at the familiar access port that’s uncovered as he has another internal debate.

This could be what he’s supposed to do. Maybe this is really what you’re supposed to access with this thing. Or, it could be something designed to cut off your dick if you were stupid enough to fall for it. Granted, he’d have a bit more chance of coming out of that scenario less mutilated than most, but it’s not something that he’d want to test needlessly. But, what else is there to do? Go running up stairs? Reveal his shame? Both hanging out and what he’s done? They already don’t trust him. If they start thinking he’s some kind of super pervert trying to rape the very stable there’s no telling what they’d do to him.

He really really hopes Nettlekiss hasn’t noticed any of this.

Fuck it. Literally. Again. In for a penny, in for a pound. He rears up, puts his hooves on the glass panel, and rutts the access point for all it’s worth.

He whimpers as, on the very first thrust, he’s stuck in place again. Standing there on his hind legs, spread eagle, and sheath deep in the wall. But, unlike previously, he can immediately feel whatever mechanisms are in the port working. The first stage was getting him to stop moving.

Not a problem given their very persuasive grip on the most sensitive part of his entire body.

The second stage causes the ring to clamp just a bit closer, giving him a momentary worry that it was indeed some dick eating trap that was about to guillotine him, before the pressure is released entirely, and he’s let go.

He quickly pulls himself out, and looks at the damage. Aside from a light scuff mark, and some oddly placed mechanical lubricate, he seems to have come out no worse for wear. And, thankfully, the flag is finally coming down. He looks around again, ears whistling loud as he wonders and hopes no one has seen this. But… his curiosity and sense of adventure, even as reckless as it is, seems to have paid off a bit.

The panel recedes into the bulkhead, and then slides to the side to reveal a room beyond. Having apparently learned nothing from his experience, Gearing taps on his pipbuck and uses its light to examine the interior. In the space beyond is a decent sized room. However, it is crammed beyond any reason at the moment.

He’s not sure how, or even why, but a platoon of protactaponies stand at the ready, side by side and face to flank. Packed in as tightly as they can get. He looks them over and, breathes a slight sigh of relief. None of them are active. They all seem to be in stasis. Or stand by. He tries to get past them, to look around the room beyond them to see if there’s a terminal or any other information he might be able to gather and find out what they are doing here.

And, probably more importantly, how to make sure they’re at least not hostile towards him and the stable’s occupants.

As he’s squeezing past the sixth one in the row, while walking reared up on his hind legs, his forehoof lands on the flank of one of the protectaponies. A moment later he’s surrounded by the humming machinery all staring at him. The lights from their equipment cascade and reflect off of his hide and wings, as all of their targeting sensors focus on him.

Luna, for when daytime ass rapes just aren’t enough. Gearing thinks grimly.

A cable comes from one of the protectaponies on a prehensiled system from its neck and plugs into his pipbuck. He looks at his pipbuck for a moment, concerned at what this thing is trying to get from him, but relieved that at least they haven’t shot. Yet that is.

“Greetings Stable-Tec Technician Gearing. You are not the Crea-tor. Why have you awakened us?” the protectapony plugging into his system asks gruffly.

Gearing looks them over, and then says as diplomatically as he can, “The stable’s been damaged. I was doing an assessment on needed repairs, and I came across you behind a hidden panel.”

The protectaponies beep a variety of signals to each other. Gearing can’t pick up any of what’s going on, but knows the Robronco algorithms enough to realize they are quickly speaking in code using frequencies.

“Understood, Stable-Tec Technician Gearing. What do you desire of us?” the apparent lead protectapony asks.

Gearing looks at the horde around him, and can’t help but smile for a moment. “If at all possible, we could use help with securing the stable. Hostiles have made it inside and caused a lot of damage. Can you comply?”

The protectaponies beep to themselves then another one chimes in, “We would be more than capable of doing so. If the Crea-tor requires it.”

Gearing looks at the one, then individually at all twelve of the pairs of glowing eyes staring back at him. “Creator?”

“The Crea-tor! He made us and sealed us in here until we were needed. Did the Crea-tor send you?” a third one chimes in.

Gearing looks around at the group, and feels a sinking feeling. They probably won’t want to leave the room unless they’re given clearance to do so by whoever put them in here. And, judging by everything he can tell, that individual’s probably been dead for over two hundred years. But, given his own history, and where they are, he might be able to get enough information to fool them into thinking he is the one they seek. Forging credentials was a difficult task, but not impossible. Hell, he might even have known the pony. “Who was your creator? Who made you?”

The voices of all twelve sing out in unison, “The Crea-tor! Handy Hooves!”

Gearing would shit himself if he had the biological ability to do so.

Gearing takes in a deep breath, and tries to calm down. He doesn’t know much about their group. And, it’s true, long term stasis technology was a thing already in use and development. It is possible. But, then, why the hell wouldn’t he have already gotten them out of the stable? A dozen protectaponies with this level of amped up modification would be more than adequate to retake the stable and keep it secure, even if he lost a few in the process.

Something’s not adding up here.

Gearing slowly raises a hoof, as he lowers his head. They watch carefully, intently, for a response. He smirks at them and says, “This is going to be hard to believe… But I think I know exactly who you want to talk to.”

“Take us to the Crea-tor!” the lead robot says as he pushes forward, pressing into Gearing and giving the impression that personal space parameters have been set to ‘0’.

Gearing waves his hoof then says, “He’s been very busy. Let me have my pipbuck back and I’ll get him on the line real quick. He’d be very interested in talking with you, I’m sure.” He gives a little chuckle and says with a smile, “I kinda annoyed him recently, so he’s not always taking my calls as quickly as I’d like.”

The cable retracts from his pipbuck and the protectapony sings, “The Crea-tor! Contact the Crea-tor!”

Gearing nods, and taps on his pipbuck, opening up a channel. After a few moments, and no response, he sends a message to Swift.

A moment later Swift contacts Gearing through the pipbuck, “Gearing, Handy’s not well. He can’t talk right now.”

Gearing looks at the protectaponies, and they seem to be listening intently, as they press in harder. Closer. Unnecessarily so. Gearing says in as calm and leveled a manner as he can, overly so, intentionally, “Swift. I need Handy to get on the line now.”

He hears her sigh but, before she can respond however she was going to, he adds, “It’s a matter of life and death. And I don’t just mean mine.” He keeps the same level tone, and hopes that the juxtaposition of his wordage and it will give her a clue.

And, (Celestia bless the mare! he thinks) she instantly shut off communications and Handy’s pipbuck kicks an open channel to Gearing.

“What’s wrong, Gearing?” Handy asks sounding thoroughly, and understandably, exhausted.

Gearing looks around at the group around him and they start rocking and getting antsy. “Handy… I was digging around down here, and I found something…”

A long groan comes from Handy’s lips before he asks, “What this time?”

Almost every one of the protectaponies heads are leaning in, far extended, as they stare at the pipbuck. Gearing groans as he’s being pressed into the wall side, “Did you misplace some protectaponies?”

There is a moment of silence before Handy asks, “What?”

Gearing rolls his eyes. “I got a group of protectaponies here that say you made them... and… well hell.” He looks around at the protectaponies and shoves the pipbuck towards the head of the one that he thinks originally talked. “You talk to him. He’s your Crea-tor”

“Greetings, Crea-tor! Protectapony squadron Double H, Unit Zero-One here! We request permission to come and see you!” the protectapony says as it rocks side to side.

Handy’s voice comes across softly, after a momentary pause, “What do you want with me?”

All of the protectaponies say, in unison, “To serve the Crea-tor!”

Handy sighs then says, “Okay. Permission granted. Meet me in the Maintenance bay on top level… Gearing, show them the way, please.”

“That will not be necessary, Crea-tor!” The lead bot says as he spins around. “We have already acquired the layout of the stable. We are coming, Crea-tor!”

Gearing presses himself against the wall as much as he can, trying to climb up and out of the way of the herd of protectaponies stampeding out of the small room. After the sound of the protectaponies is muffled by the nearest door of the decontamination chamber closing, Handy says, “They think I’m my grandfather. I hope I can make this work. If not… Well… we’ll just figure it out when we come to the bridge. Thanks for the heads up, Gearing.” And the channel terminates.

Gearing looks at his pipbuck for a few moments, and then shrugs. Well. It’s not his problem at the moment. Those things seemed positively delighted just at hearing Handy’s voice. Though. The pipbuck channel was tagged as ‘Handy Hooves’ so they’d have a good reason to suspect it was who they were hoping. Those protectaponies were interesting though. All custom models. Probably made by hoof. And, whoever did it, whoever this real Handy Hooves was, they knew what they hell they were doing around a wrench and hammer.

He chuckles as he thinks how pissed off the tools at Robronco would be if they knew someone was not only hoofing into their turf, but doing a better job of it than them to boot.

He debates on using the room he uncovered as storage space, there’s not really much in there for sure, but decides against it. At least for now. He’ll figure it out later. For now he has several parts that need fixing. Some of the areas, primarily the area’s that aren’t even needed right now, he’s decided it’s more efficient to zip in, pull out the damaged equipment parts, and bring them back to R&D to fix. After he has a few of them, he’s able to work on them with relative ease, with the complete lack of distractions and threat of attack as he has a pair of reinforced containment doors between him and the rest of the stable.

Healthy dose of paranoia. He’s paranoid. And still healthy. So, obviously, it’s the correct dose.

Given the nonsense that Handy is going to have to deal with, Gearing figures it’s best to make himself scarce.

So he works on the different components and the literal pile of work he’s accumulated in the lab. However, expecting an interruption at any point, he doesn’t engage the Stable-Tec AI in conversation. On one level, probably the most important, he doesn’t want her to ask about what he’d been doing. He knows full well that the AI knew all about it. She’s connected to the system, after all. But that’s not something he wants to talk about right now. He pauses and looks at one of the speakers and wonders if, somehow, she was the one controlling it and that’s why he was getting so felt up in the process. As twisted as the method was. It made a little bit of sense. Like clamping on hoofcuffs. But, it should have attached and let go. Both sides. Simultaneously. Not make him wiggle around until he figured out just the right spot to hit.

His ears start whistling as the train of thought runs away and he realizes the description is a little… too plausible if the AI was doing it for their own amusement.

He shakes his head towards the circuit board in front of him when his Pipbuck starts playing an old familiar tune. He looks at it a moment, wondering if someone’s opened a channel to him, and says nothing. The upbeat music continues on until the sound of an obviously voice modulated female mare comes across it.

He stops what he’s doing when he hears a very familiar phrase, one that he hasn’t heard in over two hundred years.

“Pinkie Pie is watching youuu… For-ev-eeeerrrrrrrrrr.”

He regards the pipbuck for a moment, then taps the controls and looks which channel is sending this old propaganda message that used to blare out of those old spritebot spies Pinkie had roaming the countryside. According to the readout, there are no active signals coming in through the radio.

“There are bad ponies everywhere. Bad ponies get punished! You’re not a bad pony, are you?” the voice continues on autopilot.

Gearing rolls his eyes and continues working. It’s a nice bit of nostalgia. Not because he particularly liked hearing the nonsense so often. But because some of the memories he has conjured up. Especially times when he was paying extra attention to his surroundings, just to block out the annoying bots.

“It’s rude to ignore someone when they ask you a question… Gearing.”

Gearing freezes then slowly turns to look at his pipbuck.

The voice giggles and says, “That’s right. I’m talking to you. Are you a bad pony, Gearing? Have you been doing bad pony things?”

Gearing looks around, his eyes trying to figure out where this transmission is coming from. Is this another joke of some kind? “Well, Pinkie Pie, you’re the judge of that, now aren’t you? I try to be a good pony, and that’s all I can do.”

There’s a giggle and the voice returns, “I’m not Pinkie Pie. But Pinkie Pie is watching you-“

Gearing finishes the practical catch phrase with the same creepy inflection as the voice is using at the same time.

“For-ev-eeeerrrrrrrrrr.”

“-For-ev-eeeerrrrrrrrrr.” The voice giggles again and adds, “You got it!” Then in a more serious voice the bot says, “You should watch out for the others. They might be bad ponies. I haven’t decided yet… But there are bad ponies out there. And close!”

Gearing looks at the pipbuck as he asks, “Who are these bad ponies?”

The sound track changes after a moment, and a variety of voices come through the pipbuck like fragments of different pony’s recorded conversations mashed into one list.

“Raiders,” says a deep voiced buck.

“Red eye,” says a mare screaming.

“Steel Rangers,” says a voice that Gearing distinctly links to someone speaking through the headset of a powered armor’s helmet.

“Ghouls,” says the same deep voiced buck from the first one, but in a different tone.

Gearing stares at the screen for a few moments, before asking the one pressing question that could possibly be on his mind at the moment, “How are the Steel Rangers bad ponies? They’re the good guys, aren’t they? I mean… they were.”

The voice comes across practically angry, “They turned on Applejack. They’re disloyal. They’ve hurt many good ponies just to take their old dirty toys. But they don’t share their toys with anypony. They’re bad ponies!”

Gearing sits down with a hard metallic flop. It’s been a long time. So. Maybe this information is just out of date. The first one alone would earn them an execution as far as he’s concerned. First the pegasi betray Equestria by deserting, then the Steel Rangers? Celestia have mercy on her, I hope Applejack was dead long before that happened. It would have broke her heart!

He drops the screwdriver he’d been messing with on the table before he says in disgust, “If that’s true. They need to be punished.”

The voice giggles and he swears he can hear clapping coming over the radio. “Yes! Bad ponies need to be punished!”

Gearing looks around and puts his forehooves on the table as he asks, “What should I do? About the bad ponies?”

The voice tuts at him. “Just be a good pony!” A moment later the voice changes lightly, to something less jovial and more serious. Flat toned even. “We’ll be in touch.” Then the connection cuts out.

This. This is a problem. They not only have access to his pipbuck through some unknown channel, even to him, but they’ve gained access to the stable’s security system. Those are the only camera’s that she (or he?) could have been watching him from. They may have been trying to play it off as if they were looking through the pipbuck at him, but he knows better. He knows his pipbuck inside and out. That was part of the mandatory training. This model is special. And he needed to be able to care for it. No one else, outside of a select number of his co-workers, would have been able to do it. Maybe that genius Apple Bloom could have figured it out, but she didn’t have the required clearance.

He tries to figure out what to do. However, they have the upper hand at the moment. It’s going to take a while for him to figure out a counter. Possibly sabotaging the various surveillance systems in R&D and bringing down the others for a chat? That’d be a bit obvious. But what else can he do?

He starts working around the lab again. Obviously they’re watching him, so he figures it’d be best to at least seem like he’s carrying on business as usual. After he begins working, his pipbuck starts playing the same music again, and it’s frustrating him the more he thinks about it. It’s like they’re taunting him.

However, he has a bit of an epiphany. If he just thinks about the song, and not the people flooding the communication channels with it, he can get work done a lot easier. Far less stress. Which lets him think about things, and, in a weird way, lets him work on the exact problem he’s trying to avoid while keeping his hooves busy.

By the time he’s pulled apart a console to the point where he’s got his entire front half buried in it, he’s started actually enjoying the music. He’s tapping a hoof to the beat and starts swinging his hips side to side in a semi dance as he tries to find out some burned out piece in a nest of old components. He takes a moment to hit record on his pipbuck, and just lets it record the audio that it itself is playing. He’s not sure how long the song will continue to play, and he can always edit it later for when it loops.

But, really, just how much music is there in the Equestrian wasteland? And Gauge’s noxious farts don’t count.

Abruptly the music cuts out, and Gearing looks at his pipbuck for a moment before stopping the recording and going back to work.

A moment later Handy’s voice comes over the com channel. “Gearing? What have you been doing?”

Gearing raises an eyebrow at the pipbuck before continuing to try and fish out a burnt tube. “In R&D working on repairs. Why?”

“You hear that music?” Handy’s voice responds.

Gearing shrugs. “Not right now.” He pulls out and starts looking around at the cameras in the room.

Handy’s voice comes across annoyed. “Someone’s broke into the system. I’ve locked out all channels except ones I open temporarily. I don’t know how long that will keep them out. We need to find out how they got in. And, oddly, they are using the pipbucks themselves to transmit the signal inside the stable. I don’t understand that… and…”

Gearing sets the board he needs to work on onto his table before he asks, “Aaaand?”

“And.” Handy’s voice comes across as cold. Accusatory. “Stable-Tec has informed me that on top of all of the pipbucks sending out the signal. That you yourself are a potential source. They said the signal started a while ago, and you were the only one at the point of origin before it spread out.”

Gearing rolls his eyes and sits down. “Oh that’s fucking ridiculous. I’ve been down here! And I don’t even have any transmission equipment in here. Not that I know of anyway…”

Handy lets out a loud sigh, “Alright. Well, I have a point marked on my map, I’ll give you directions, and you walk over there, and tell me what you see. How about that?”

Gearing shrugs and waves a hoof at nopony in particular. “Sure. Lead on, boss.”

Handy gives him directions from where he is currently standing, over to a wall a short distance away. Gearing looks at it and his ears go back as Handy’s voice asks, “What do you see? It should be right in front of you. Do you see anything?”

Oh he surely does. It’s a console he’d very much like not to have to talk about. Ever.

“Uh… yeah… A console with terminals,” Gearing says while looking around and trying to keep his ears from whistling.

“What kind of terminals? Anything special about them?” Handy asks flatly.

Gearing looks them over then sighs as he says, “Well. No… They’re just research terminals. The data on them’s already been collected… but…”

“But? Gearing, I don’t have time for whatever you’re doing right now. This is serious.”

Gearing gently grinds a forehoof into the ground as he says, “This console is the one that led me to the protectaponies I sent to you earlier.”

“There was protectaponies inside the console?” Handy asks in disbelief.

“No! I said it lead me to them. I was… working on it… Seeing what I could … get … out of it. And I found ah ummm…”

“A what, Gearing?” Handy asks with obviously lowering patience.

“Sorry, trying to remember the term…” Gearing blatantly stalls. “Access card! Yeah. It was an access card of some kind and I… dug it out, and that’s when I found the hidden panel the protectaponies were behind.”

Hey, that was pretty good! Wish I woulda thought of that! The little dark blue voice in the box of his mind says.

Fuck you and your ‘axle grease might feel good’ bullshit! Gearing mentally screams at it.

That option’s still in the supply closet! It responds.

His ears start whistling as he hates himself so much right now.

“Do you still have it?” Handy asks.

“What? Oh! The access card? Well. No… it’s still in the wall it… Took it from me when it granted access to the door,” Gearing replies.

“Well,” Handy says flatly, “get it. We need to find out what it is. It can’t be a coincidence that that was found at the same time these people got into the system.”

“Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.” Gearing looks around with his eyes getting wider by the moment. “I’ll get right on that and uh, get back to you once I … have. It.”

“Just hurry up already,” Handy says with annoyance in his voice.

Gearing nods. “Yeah. Sure. Sorry. Getting right on it.” He walks over to the wall and starts peeking into the hole. The all too inviting hole according to the boxed voice in his mind. Gearing pauses, and looks at his pipbuck, then asks, “Handy?”

“Yeah, Gearing?” Handy replies instantly.

“You uh… you going to leave the channel open?” Gearing asks apprehensively.

“Yeah. This needs done. And if I close out the channel they might use the opportunity to break in again. As long as I’m using it, they can’t. So hurry up… Why, is there a problem?”

“Oh, no. No problem. I mean. I just don’t know how long this is going to take,” Gearing replies as he stares at the wall and starts wondering what he did to have this nightmare playing out in real life Equestria.

You gave it the ‘D’! The voice from the box in his mind giggles.

“You need me to come down and lend a hoof?” Handy asks, rather innocently.

Gearing recoils and looks at his pipbuck with his ears laid back. “No! I can handle myself. I don’t want your hooves all over my junk.” He stamps a hoof over his mouth and looks at the pipbuck mortified that he’d let that much slip.

Handy replies annoyed, ‘I’m not interested in taking your salvage; I just need that access card!”

Gearing looks at his pipbuck, then his eyes dart around as he tries to put the pieces together. Tick. Tick. CLICK. Oh. Oh! He thinks… oh, well that’s okay. That’s better. Yup. Nothing to see here. Moving along.

Right into fucking the wall again! the voice in the box declares happily.

Instantly Gearing’s ears start whistling again.

Footnote: Internal failsafe activated, please stand by. . .

Component diagnostic protocols loading, please stand by. . .

Running Failsafe diagnostic protocols, please stand by. . .

This chapter uncovers more than just a few mysteries. Thanks again to my pre-readers for helping me get this presentable before posting. The weirdness of the chapter and related incidents isn't simply gratuitous tom-foolery, and will hopefully make more sense as the story progresses.

-Quillsy