Gearing looks up in the direction of the voice that he’d just heard, without actually focusing on anything nor anyone, and tries to figure out if he actually heard anyone at all or not.

A moment later the tan security mare that he’s seen patrolling so often asks again, and her voice comes across more clear and recognizable as she does, “You okay? What happened?”

Gearing stares at her for a moment, and sees genuine concern on her face, before he lamely asks, “Huh?”

She cringes a bit as she points at her eyes, “The last time I saw somepony with their eyes like that, they were about to fall over from a heart attack caused by an overdose…”

“You really do not look well,” comes a buck’s voice from the side.

Gearing looks over at the source of the voice, and is momentarily disoriented as the tan mare quickly shifts over sideways, to stay between the two, as she quickly holds up a hoof and says, “He’s just here to talk, not start anything, so please don’t either!”

Gearing notices Lodestar and, as he’s trying to figure out what’s going on, Lodestar quickly grabs a small mirror from the vendor’s table near them, and points the reflective surface at Gearing so he can see himself.

And Gearing barely recognizes the face looking back at him. It practically looks lifeless. Motionless. And the eyes are all wrong. While he can see fine, mostly, his eyes have warped to show way more pupils than they would normally. Like they’re focused on something far away, and struggling to see through the dark to do so. The infamous ‘thousand-yard-stare’ worn by so many during the war. Or, similarly, the quintessential ‘dead eye’ that many get after shedding their mortal coil and going on to whatever is after.

‘Distractions, distractions, we need distractions!’ the little pegasus bellows in Gearing’s head. ‘Diagram of a completely disassembled laser pistol! Calculate the minimum safe distance for a model t-45 suit of power armor to reach to avoid a matrix crash when a sabotaged water talisman used in a residential home goes critical and explodes! Here’s a diagram of a thrust control module circuit board, find the missing piece!’

“Safe distance is a nonlinear step function of charge time before going critical and the grade of the talisman… and the mosfet transistor is missing in the bottom right quadrant…” Gearing mutters so quietly it sounds more like the passing of a light breeze.

Gearing closes his eyes and focuses hard on the expanded diagram of the laser pistol, mentally rotating it and examining it from a variety of angles as he physically scrunches down and tries to get a hold of himself. He keeps picturing the diagram, focusing on that as much as possible as he asks flatly, “What do ya need, Lodestar?”

Lodestar and the tan mare exchange worried glances before Lodestar replaces the mirror back on the booth’s table and replies, “I wanted you to know that I’ve already given my portion of our agreement to Bottlecap. She came to me after you’d left and we worked out a deal. Have you had a chance to speak with her about it yet?”

Gearing takes in a deep breath and then opens his eyes as he says, “Yes and no.” He blinks a few times and then taps on the side of his head on his left temple a couple times before he actually directs his eyes to looks at Lodestar. “I just talked with her, and she let me know she has it and ready whenever I am. But, in case you’re wondering, I haven’t exchanged anything yet.”

Lodestar’s eyes go a bit wider before he asks, “H-have you changed your mind?”

Gearing shakes his head a bit. Then shakes it a bit more violently before he goes back to looking at Lodestar and at least appearing more like he’s actually here than he looked like he was just moments before. “No. We really need those parts. But, a few other things have cropped up that have needed immediate attention by me and Bottlecap… Individually…” He waves a hoof dismissively. “She’s got shit she’s gotta tend to, and I have a couple more things I need to have done before morning so we can head back home before checking out wherever this place is you’re sending me to this time.”

Lodestar nods lightly as he looks him over. And still has a bit worried expression on his face before he asks, “Are you really good for traveling for all of that? It’s a bit away, and, I know you’re tough, and at the risk of my own neck, I think you really need to slow down.” He trails his eyes over the still plainly obvious damage on Gearing that’s still at least somewhat visible from the ambush he performed on the slaver convoy. His look of worry slowly transforms into a warm smile of admiration as he looks Gearing in the eyes. “I’ve already heard about all of those folks you’d saved today… You’re something else. But you’ve been going non stop since you got here… so…”

Gearing rubs the top of his head with a hoof and then drags it down his brassy face before he looks at Lodestar blankly. After a few moments of none of the trio saying anything, Gearing breaks the stalemate. “Look, Lodestar…”

“Yes?”

“You gave your end to Bottlecap, right?”

Lodestar gives a single nod of his head as he raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Well, then you can take a breather…” Gearing says before he takes in a deep breath. “You’ve done your part, so, as Bottlecap has put it, the timer’s stopped.”

Lodestar blinks a few times before tilting his head. “What?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Gearing replies matter-of-factly and receives startled stares from not only the pair, but a couple of ponies that were just walking by and minding their own business but somehow still felt Gearing’s killing intent despite what he was saying. “I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. And, by all that is still good in this world, I hope that you’re on the up and up and this was all just some fucked up chain of horrible coincidences so I don’t end up having to.” Gearing lets out a sigh as he looks over at the mirror again, but this time the angle is off so it’s making him see the reflection of the giant security turret on the ceiling named Gun.

Gearing looks over at Lodestar and says quietly, “Melon was very fond of you. She was more worried about you than she was about her own life. All she wanted was to get you out of there. And she did what she could to make that happen…” He shrugs. “That kind of loyalty is born of compassion… not fear… greed… or any of those other methods some of these assholes have been using to manipulate people to do their bidding.” He flicks a hoof off to the side in the direction where he sees the previous parade of snobs walking on their own business. “So, that gave me a lot to think about. And I have been doing a lot of thinking about it. And, honestly, my luck sucks. The universe hates me. So it’s very possible this has been all one huge joke at my expense curated by the horn headed fuckwad twins…”

Lodestar and the tan mare both look at each other as they try to figure out where this is going. And the mare gives a slight shake of her head and shrug of her shoulder as she’s completely clueless.

“I’m sorry about your people, Lodestar. And if my luck had anything to do with all of this, I’m sorry about that too… But I was serious about what I said. So, if the place you’re sending me to is another trap, I’m going to have to retaliate. But, if you tell me, and I mean right now, that you changed your mind, that I should not go there, and to forget the whole thing, then I will. I’ll take the data I have, and try to trade it for what we need elsewhere, and I’ll certainly never trust you again, but that’ll be it. You won’t have to worry about me doing something none of us will like. But I need to know, and I need to know now… Otherwise, even if I don’t come back, Big Daddy’s going to have to make an example of you just on principle… understand me?”

The tan guardsmare cringes as she looks to the side and mutters, “Yeah… that’s right, those two are Reapers… oooooh that’ll get real ugly real fast...”

Lodestar gently pushes past the tan mare, gets right in front of Gearing, looks him in the eye, and says flatly, “I swear it’s there. And it should have enough salvage in it to make a small fortune. I can’t guarantee the condition of any of the parts, but that should be OBVIOUS. It hadn’t really been disturbed, and locals complained about small critters nesting in the cave it’s in. But, that just confirms no one’s there. And, short of a fully operational stable, it’s your best chance for the parts you need.” He raises a hoof and points it at Gearing’s snoot. “Just remember to let me know when you’re done, so we can get the rest…”

Time practically stops as Gearing glares at Lodestar, yet Lodestar doesn’t even wince from the scathing eye contact.

With SATS activated, the little pegasus in Gearing’s head flutters around and looks Lodestar over. He pulls out a magnifying glass and gives every facial feature the scrutiny of a pawnshop broker looking at a ring. ‘Well… isn’t that something… He’s not afraid. At all. Even knowing we could, and have, yanked him off the floor by his neck with a single hoof. This… this is confidence. He’s not worried because he’s sure of what he’s saying…’

Or he’s a really good actor, wouldn’t be the first to be able to tell a lie straight faced like that, Gearing mentally muses.

‘I don’t think so… even trying to provoke him into some kinda reaction by mentioning the Reapers didn’t do it. If nothing else, it seemed to fill him with more confidence…’ The little pegasus looks back at Gearing and shrugs. ‘I think he’s on the level… or at least thinks he’s on the level.’

He’s betting his life on it, Gearing adds.

‘Yeah, and he seems to have said ‘I’ll take that bet’ without reservation…’ The little pegasus flutters around and looks at the tan security mare. ‘See here, she’s already doing the math. She’s already picturing Big Daddy busting in here to get him if things go south, and realizing that she’s going to either have to willing get out of the way, or get trampled under hoof from the whole Reapers herd…’ the little pegasus waves back and forth between the tan mare and Lodestar. ‘Two entirely different reactions… she’s unsure of how things will go, but fully aware of the consequences, he’s also aware of the consequences… yet he’s the picture of stable…’

Gearing finishes the thought for him, Which would imply he has a high confidence in how this thing is going to go…

‘So?’ the little blue pegasus asks as it flutters around in the hyper slowed mental space of Gearing’s head. ‘How’re we doing this?’

We’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt. And stop shitting on him and trying to provoke him into revealing something that may not exist… At least until he gives us a good reason to distrust him. Directly, Gearing replies and cancels SATS while it still has some charge left.

As time resumes to normal for Gearing, he maintains hard eye contact with Lodestar. The tan mare gets visibly nervous at not just Lodestar’s apparent boldness, but Gearing’s unyielding stare.

But then, Gearing actually cracks a smile. “If you’re that serious about it, then, damn, maybe I’ve caught a break for once.” He quickly reaches up and gives Lodestar a brohoof by slapping the end of the hoof Lodestar had pointed at him, startling the other two in the process. Then he starts carrying on down the aisle as he says, “The transfer should be done by morning, and we’ll be headed out around daybreak… Expect me back with information in a week or so.”

As Gearing is just getting passed them, the tan guardsmare yells, “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Gearing looks over at her and she asks with a raised eyebrow, “That’s it!? You go from ‘rampaging dragon out for blood’ to ‘don’t worry about it’ just like that?”

Lodestar looks at her and narrows his eyes for a moment. “Considering it’s my blood he’d been after, I’d thank you to not unnecessarily draw attention to that fact… Please and thank you.”

Gearing smirks as he waves a hoof nonchalantly. “I only kill when it’s necessary. He’s fulfilling his side of the bargain to keep his hide intact. So not only would killing him be a waste of time, it’d be counter productive for my own goals. I wasn’t kidding. I really do hope I don’t have to kill him. I mean, you’ve seen the bounty sacks I’ve brought in, so you know I can and will if need be… But until then… yeah… ‘that’s it’… Sorry if you found it boring and anticlimactic or whatever.” And, personally seeing the topic done, he continues on his way as the other two stay behind and try to process everything that just happened.

Noticing that the crowd that included the rescued ponies, while much smaller, was still taking up a substantial portion of the front section of Megamart, Gearing goes out of his way to backtrack and cross over towards the Megamart cots that Handy and Swift have been staying at. He doesn’t want any of the crowd to spot him and drag him into any further uncomfortable conversations tonight. Things have taken a weird twist and he needs time to process everything before adding anything more onto whatever is left of his psyche.

As Gearing gets onto the aisle that runs right along, and then into, the Megamart ‘motel’ Gearing’s eyes are drawn to the only pony who’s not currently in motion going one way or the other. Down closer to the motel entrance, is an orange unicorn mare caravanner who has taken up a position in front of a closed booth. And, judging by the pile of cigarette butts in the sparkle cola bottle she’s using as an ashtray, she’s been there for a while. And the atypical behavior really draws his attention even more as she seems to be focused in at the motel, a certain area in the back specifically, but then looks around herself every now and then.

‘Is she on a stake out?’ the little pegasus in Gearing’s head asks as it flutters along lazily. ‘She’s doing a horrible job of trying to be inconspicuous if that’s the case…’

Gearing looks over into the motel when he gets further along enough to get a good view of what she could be looking at. And a frown covers his muzzle as he notices that she seems to be staring at Swift, and or Handy. Given their location and the direction her eyes are focused.

‘Think she’s an Ironhoof fan and just trying to work up the courage to say something to her?’ the little pegasus asks.

But the orange mare turned her head to her right, looking towards the front of Megamart, and leans forward a bit to try and see even further around the other folks and booths. And, while being just as blatantly obvious about it, she turns her head and does the same the other way. In Gearing’s direction. Except this time her head stops mid turn as she obviously sees exactly what, or who, she’s been looking for judging by the practical twinkle in her eye and the massive grin that explodes on her muzzle.

As the orange mare and Gearing make unquestionable eye contact, Gearing and the little pegasus both exclaim into his head space ““Fuck…’””

She steps out away from the closed booth a bit, as her magical aura envelopes the sparkle cola bottle and she rapidly sucks down the last of the cigarette before putting it out in rapid fashion. All before Gearing manages to get very many more steps closer to her.

‘Should we just say fuck it and run?’ the little pegasus asks as it frowns and doesn’t like where this might be heading.

Fuck it, lets at least hear her out, Gearing mentally replies as he continues down the walkway. He keeps his pace the same casual rate he’d been in before catching eye contact with her. And he can’t help but smirking a bit as he notices how she seems to be fidgeting a lot and fighting with herself as she gets herself situated and prepares herself for whatever she has planned. And, to help matters, Gearing doesn’t simply burn a hole into her face by staring at her. He’s kind and civil enough to casually look around as he’s heading in her direction, and gives her the time she apparently needs to get herself presentable. A fact he finds both amusing and curious as she mindlessly brushes at her caravanner’s coat with a hoof to bat around one wrinkle or another.

As he’s getting close to her, and a couple paces from actually passing her, she steps out just enough to make sure he’ll see her as she calls out cheerfully. “H-hey… Fixer! Y-you got a minute?”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he steps to the side, next to the stall, and directly in front of her. And the smile on her face instantly jumps to one that could only be described as beaming with optimism. Gearing takes in a deep breath before asking, “Hey, sure. What’s up?”

The orange mare looks around quickly as she seems to try and figure out what words are again. Then she grins and waves a hoof towards the front of Megamart. “Well.. I just- I mean I just- well, first of all, congrats on your success tonight… Great job… You did great. Yeah. Good job. Great even!”

Gearing’s smile remains just as it was when he greeted her, but internally he’s groaning like a whale falling in slow motion. And the little pegasus in his head really doesn’t like where this might be going. “Uh, yeah, thanks.”

She looks around as she smacks her lips. Her eyes dart around quickly before she suddenly jerks towards him, with her muzzle pointed towards the closed stall, and then starts talking in hushed tones. “You, uh, deal in information… right? I think I got some information you would especially be interested in…” She glances sideways, getting eye contact with him, before pulling back and looking around as she tries to not look so nervous. “Got time tonight to go over it? Not here… I know a spot… but… too many ears… here… ya know?”

Gearing looks around and sees that most of the ponies don’t seem to give a lick one way or another about them standing where they are. But, every now and then, some do look at them and acknowledge their presence. And, given how nervous the mare seems to be, he can guess what she might have to say: something potentially dangerous. Gearing looks her in the eye and nods. “Yeah. I’ve tried to make that as common knowledge as possible… Just let me know where.”

Her face lights up as she quickly pulls out a folded piece of paper from her caravanner jacket. “Great! That’s- that’s great… here… I made this up in advance. How about an hour from now?”

Gearing takes the piece of paper and doesn’t even look at it as he carefully stows it. “I’ve got... at least… two more meetings I need to hit first. How about two hours from now?” He double checks his PipBuck for the time and nods as he looks up at her. “Two hours should be enough to get through everything and get there.”

She grins even wider as she giggles. “Buck, you are buusssssss-EY! Huh?” She nods as she looks around again. “Two hours. Great. See you there, third floor, in two hours.” She turns and trots off, around and past him as she keeps giggling. “Thanks for hearing me out! I look forward to it!” Then quickly skittering away.

Gearing raises an eyebrow and waves at her with a wing before turning his attention to the piece of paper quickly. He pulls it out and opens it just enough to see the whole interior, and activates SATS.

The little pegasus in his head zips around looking at it as he starts guesstimating distances. ‘Hey, actually, that’s like… south… west? Of that Pony Joes that Dandy warned us about on the way to take care of Cookie, right? Looks about right given the other buildings and the direction she has on here… well done map really.’

Gearing mentally agrees, and then cancels SATS. He quickly closes the paper back up and stores it again, before opening the map function on his PipBuck. To the rest of the world it appears he barely opened the paper before closing it again a fraction of a second later and stashing it in his pocket. He glances around on the electronic map of his PipBuck, going by memory of the drawn map, until he’s pretty sure he sees the building he’s supposed to meet her at. And just to make things easier on himself later, he places a marker on the general location before closing out of the PipBuck and finally going on over to the cots.

Again it isn’t hard for Gearing to find Swift and Handy, as they are not only in the same spot they were previously, but others seem to be actively avoiding them. But it doesn’t give off the vibe of them being afraid, it actually feels more like a respect type thing. Which Gearing can’t help but puzzling over as he’s walking over to the two in the far corner.

Gearing takes note of the pile of used rags near Handy’s cot. And since they both seem to be awake even if they’re laying down he doesn’t feel too bad about calling out, “Feeling any better, Handy?”

Handy doesn’t even look at Gearing as he replies, “A bit actually… Still feeling crunchy and tired but now that the sinus pressures dropping it doesn’t feel like Discord is fucking my face with a giant red wood…”

Swift’s already lifting her head at Gearing’s voice, but snickers and looks at Handy with a giggle for the description. “Yeah, we’ve just been resting all day. Really needed it after those tunnels. So we’ve just took it easy today. Though you’ve been gone all day and we were starting to get a bit worried about-” She stops speaking as she turns her head and looks at Gearing. “The hell Gearing?!” She sits up in the bed and looks him over as she scowls. “What’d I say about not going off and starting a war without me?!”

Handy turns his face to look and see what Swift is talking about, and slowly his eyes open to their max as he actually sees Gearing. “Uh, busy day, I take it?”

Gearing nods as he points back towards the front. “Saw some slavers while I was stretching my wings… so… dropped in… dropped them… then brought the folks they had all collared up back here.”

“Uh huh” Swift replies as she narrows an eye. “And you just happened to run into a large group of them that had enough firepower to do that to you?” She waves a hoof towards Gearing’s chest. “Just all willy nilly like that? Huh?”

Gearing grins as he says, “Hey, you said as long as it was a small skirmish, it’s fine… I haven’t started no wars.”

Swift puffs her cheeks up a bit, but then laughs. “Got me there… but… you sure that wasn’t a war? Looking a bit rough… Need some potions?”

Gearing shakes his head and waves it off nonchalantly. “Nah, not this time. I’m healing fine now. No reason to waste the potions on me. Save them for when we really need them.”

Almost like his body is trying to prove the point, a plate on Gearing’s chest makes a slight ‘ping’ sound as it straightens out more and knocks a piece of embedded shrapnel off and onto the floor.

Handy takes in a deep breath, coughs a couple of times, and stretches out more in the cot before he looks at Gearing and asks softly, “So, really, what happened after you left us last night?”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he rolls his eyes. “Well, given I just strangled Lodestar and pissed off the security mares I figured it’d be a good idea to go cool my hooves somewhere… I got some stuff from Patches, and found out there’s been a problem with scorpions stinging ponies, so I talked with Bonesaw and he told me where it was happening. Went there, dug around, found a huge nest of the bastards in a culvert. Destroyed the whole nest… Caught some air and snooped around. Saw a group of ponies with bombs on their necks getting dragged off. So took the slavers out, removed the collars, and they told me about another group coming through they’d heard about… So, I had them follow me, and I led them through slaver territory and worked on coming here. Kept having them hide while I went ahead and took care of problems and scouted. One of the pit stops we made, I ran across the slave transfer they’d mentioned. At least I think it was the same transfer… well… anyway… That turned into a real fight. I managed to take a couple of them down without getting noticed, but then dumb luck struck and the one looked back just as I was carrying off another. The next second bullets were flying everywhere. The SMGs were annoying, but the real problem was the assault carbines on the one buck’s battle saddle. Fucker was good. He’s the one that did the majority of the real damage on me… Once I was done with the slavers, I got the bombs off, hid the bodies to give us a head start, and led the whole herd back here… The biggest delay with it was having to lead that whole group of earth ponies back here. While keeping them safe and avoiding more trouble… Which was hard given there was twenty-one of them.”

Handy lifts up a bit and looks at Gearing as he asks, “Whoa, hold on a minute… you did all of that… Just since you left? Last night? In a single day?!”

“Uh… yeah?” Gearing asks with a crooked smile.

“Holy shit, you have been busy… no wonder you’ve been gone so long..”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head’s eyes go wide as he asks ‘Really? I was worried it wasn’t enough considering the actual giant time period I dedicated to fucking with Red Eye and Usury… Was worried he caught on to the discrepancy and we’d have to bullshit some schedule filler, guess not…’

“Legendary.”

Gearing turns to look at the source of the voice, behind and to his right, and sees a yellow young colt sitting on the floor and staring at him. The colt sips on his sparkle cola before he asks, “You’re the one that really did all of that? Bust all of those ponies out by yourself?” He waves towards the front of Megamart blindly as he keeps staring at Gearing. Gearing smirks, bobs his head around before giving the young colt a slow nod. The colt grins and raises his bottle in Gearing’s direction. “Awesome! Freaking legendary! Wait till I get back to Chapel and they hear this, they’ll never believe it and be sooo jealous that I met you! Like a comic book character!”

Gearing chuckles before he waves it away. “I don’t know about all that… Just right place at the right time it seemed… Really lucky for them I was in the area and could help.”

“I’d say!” The colt giggles before taking a bigger swig from his drink. He waves the bottle at Gearing as he says, “Hey, by the way, one of the shop ponies sent me to find you. Said you’d be easy with your armor to spot. They weren’t kidding! Anyway, they said a few of them are keeping an eye on your stuff at the front door. And no ones gonna make off with it. But they sent me to say they hope you do something with it soon because… yeah… you shouldn't just dump stuff off and expect ponies to not notice it sitting there.”

Gearing nods as he says, “Thanks. And tell them sorry. I just had to hurry up and meet with Bottlecap and a couple others. We’ll deal with it in a bit.”

The kid puts the bottle in his mouth and waves with both forehooves as he says while taking a drink, “Mmmhmm!” and turns and hurries off back towards the front of Megamart.

“‘Stuff’? What ‘stuff’?” Swift asks as she starts eyeballing Gearing.

Gearing looks at her and gives her a sheepish grin. “Well… Raiders are good for filling saddle bags… turns out, slavers are too.” He smirks as he says, “Got more stuff for you to sell.”

Swift starts laughing as she flops down on the cot.

Gearing’s ears perk up at a thought before he walks over to Handy. “Hey, Handy… Here, let me show you that comic book cover.”

Handy looks up at him with just his eyes without moving otherwise from where he had laid back down. “What?”

Gearing stoops down and starts sorting through some of their things as he says, “Remember? When we were on the way to Chapel? You asked what I did and comic books came up and I said I’d show it to you when we got back to Megamart?”

“Uh… yeah? What about it?” Handy asks with a sigh.

Gearing carefully pulls out the old treasure, and holds it up at an angle so the lights above can do as much justice to it as possible. “Check it ooooooout…” He tilts sideways to look at it while being closer to Handy. “That’s something, ain’t it? A full wrap around cover, and in such good condition too! Too bad it was just the cover, I figured it was too much to ask for it to be the whole thing. But, can dream right? Well, this just means that I need to find the rest of it, and that’s going to be a long trek, I’m sure. Maybe I can find intact pieces and just piece a whole one together? Maybe if I made a trip to Manehatten to the publisher’s head office they might have the rest of it. OUUUuuu or they might have others too! That’s an idea!”

Handy slowly lifts himself up, to look at Gearing eye to eye. He can’t help a smile forming on his own muzzle, despite how bad he feels, as he can practically feel the excitement coming from Gearing. “You’d seriously fly all the way to the ruins of Manehatten, just to dig around for some old comics?”

Gearing looks back and forth between him and the comic cover as he sheepishly starts putting it away. “I mean… not when busy, and got more pressing matters… but when things tone down and I can manage some extended free time… Why not? I’ve gone further for comics before…”

“Oh, really?” Swift asks from her cot with a gleam in her eyes. “How far have you gone for comics?”

“Uuummmmm...”

In the Stormfront’s personal maintenance bay, things have progressed considerably since Gearing was added to the roster. Equipment had been getting cycled back into service quickly enough to the point that many bays were routinely left entirely empty. Given everything that was going on, and never ones to miss opportunities when they were discovered, the decision was made to dedicate an entire bay to Gearing. His work and education. Simultaneously. Here Gearing would be able to run the gauntlet of crash courses for his education, but in a way that helped the unit even more. He’d regularly get guidance on how to do things. But, they also came to a compromise by giving things that they are sure he can handle on his own, so he can work at his leisure even while not being directly supervised, when he wishes. Especially at night or down hours when the majority of the others would be resting. If nothing else, the Vertibuck incident made this change mandatory for the highly motivated little pegasus.

In what has become the norm during evening hours since the allotment was made, Gearing is sitting in his little maintenance bay turned workshop working away. This time on a circuit board. He’s not sure where it came from. He’s not even sure if this thing is really supposed to work. But they handed it to him and told him to find out what was wrong with it and fix it if he could. He’s gotten through so much of his work that he’s starting to wonder if this is either some kind of busy work. A thing just to give him something to do while they are elsewhere so they don’t have to worry about him since he’ll be too busy to do anything anyway, or if it’s some kind of test of his abilities. At some point it crosses his mind that maybe part of the test is simply to admit you don’t know what you’re doing. But, he hasn’t reached that point yet. He’s tracing one electronic line after another, testing each and every capacitor, every component, and he’s going from bottom to top. All without a circuit diagram.

A task worse than putting a puzzle together that has no edge pieces and with no picture to know what it’s even supposed to look like. But, still, it’s a puzzle that he feels is worth doing.

A puff of black smoke appears above him and, without looking, Gearing twitches his ears and says quietly, “Hey, Skip, what’s up?”

Skip’s soft musical voice carries down to Gearing before he uncoils and hangs upside down by his tail in front of him, “Besides me?”

Gearing smirks and spares him a glance as he nods. “Yeah, besides you… And the ceiling, and the sky, and the moon.”

“You forgot the stars,” Skip quips with a giggle.

Gearing continues working over the electronics as he says, “If I have to start naming off heavenly bodies, in full, I think I’m going to just quit instead.”

“Lookie what I gooooot,” Skip’s voice musically calls down as he stretches out a hoof in front of Gearing.

Gearing’s eyes trail up for a second, then he drops his tools as his mouth hangs open. Apparently getting the response he was looking for, Skip slowly swings his hoof side to side, watching as Gearing’s head seems to turn into an amusing turret as it keeps his muzzle pointed at the small paper bound magazine in his hooves.

Gearing’s muzzle splits into a growing grin as he slowly leans in, rapidly tapping on the table he’s working on with his fore hooves, as he asks excitedly, “Is that the latest Power Ponies?!”

“Uh HUH!”

Gearing looks up at Skip as he asks with a raised eyebrow, “I thought production and release was delayed because of Ministry of Image concerns?” He looks at the comic book in front of his muzzle as he grins. “Did they change their mind?”

Skip shakes his head, “Uh uh.” Gearing looks up at him with an arch of his brow and Skip giggles as he says, “This is an early edition!” He waves it around again, giggling as Gearing’s head again does a turret impersonation. “Ministry of Image hasn’t gotten their grubby little hooves on it yet.”

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he asks, “You mean this is the real version!?” He slowly looks down at the book as he says, “They’d already confiscated the entire production line… How’d you… ?”

Skip drops down, flips around, and lands near Gearing in a smooth transition as he sets the pristine comic on the table next to Gearing. “Ohhh… you say that like locked doors and ultra security in a government building means anything to me and dark places.”

Gearing rapidly taps his fore hooves together as he squeals. “Ouuuu this is so amazing, thank you!” He reaches for it, but stops as Skip puts a hoof over it, barring Gearing from taking it. Gearing’s grin fades as he trails his eyes up Skips foreleg to look at his face. Which currently has a massive grin across his muzzle.

“Just one condition…” Skip says as he looks over at the smaller technician.

“Oh drat…” Gearing grumbles as his ears fall down. “What is it?”

Skip taps on the book as he says with a grin. “We read it together. I’m not going to let you run off with it, and then spoil it for me with all your jabbering.”

Gearing’s ears spring up, as does he, and he kicks his legs around in excitement as he momentarily hovers in place. “Deal! Deal, deal, deal!”

Skip grin and flips the page, and they both, simultaneously, lean in and take in a deep whiff of the comic’s opening pages. Skip lets out a chuckle as he says, “I love that new comic smell!”

“I know right?!” Gearing blurts as he quickly starts reading over the pages one at a time.

They start going page by page, word by word, side by side. But, at a pace set by Skip. For one, Skip’s not nearly as fast of a reader as Gearing is. Secondly, Skip likes to take in the art of the comics on a page by page basis. Whereas Gearing likes to blast through the comic as quickly as possible, absorbing the story practically through osmosis, before immediately coming back and giving the comic a second read, where he carefully goes over the various art and layout of the actual comic. To give it the proper appreciation that it deserves.

As they are getting near the end of the comic, Cross walks around the corner on her way to the far end of the maintenance wing. She turns her head towards the inside, hearing the giggling taking place as the pair read, and can’t help but stop walking as she looks in. “Hey…” She starts walking forward towards them as she asks, “What’s so funny? What are you two up to this time?”

“Reading,” Gearing says flatly as he carefully turns the page without even looking up the moment Skip indicates he’s done by taking his hoof off the bottom right corner of the page.

Before Skip gets his hoof back on the book, it glows with Cross’s magic as she picks it up to look at its cover as she asks, “Oh? What’s so good that has you so enraptured?” Her eyes go wide for a moment before she asks, “Hey… They told me at the comic store that this one was delayed for like two months…” She lowers it back down to the counter before she looks between the two. “How’d you two get a hold of a copy already?”

Gearing waves it away with a hoof as he looks at the comic. “Production wasn’t delayed… the books got made… They just got intercepted by Ministry of Image goons before it hit shelves.”

Cross eyes go wide for a moment before she instantly whips her eyes over to glare at Skip. Who, unapologetically grins back and jumps his eyebrows a few times as he’s clearly not even going to deny what she’s about to ask. She lets out a sigh as she asks, “Did you seriously bring contraband into the facility?”

They both look up at her for a moment, as Skip’s grin just gets wider before he says musically, “Yeeeeeesss… Yes, I did.”

Cross slaps a hoof over her eyes and growls as she says, “You’re supposed to say ‘no’! When a superior rank asks you if you're playing with contraband you’re supposed to say ‘no’! Dammit!”

Gearing stares at her for a bit longer before his muzzle breaks into a big smile as he replies, “No…”

She looks over at him, and smirks. A moment later she summons up her phantasmal folded paper and pops him on top of his head once with it with a smile before she starts walking away and waving the whole thing away. “I heard a ‘No’ That’s good enough for me…. Enjoy you two brats.”

The pair give dismissive waves of their respective fore hooves as they go back to reading.

A couple pages later, more than enough time for Cross to have gotten well out of hearing range, Gearing asks softly, “So… about that new crossover comic from the indie artist?”

Skip shrugs as he says, “No telling where they hid it at. They seem to have completely confiscated that with no intention on ever releasing it… modified or otherwise.”

Gearing keeps looking over the artwork on the page without flipping to a new one as he comments evenly, “Well, if I find it, you get’em?”

Skip slowly turns to look at him. Ever so slowly his eyebrow raises. “Just how are you going to find out where they shoved them off to?”

Gearing waves a hoof dismissively. “Oh, please. Their security is a joke. And their discipline is even worse… The last time I was in their office, they had their damn passwords written on pieces of paper and taped to their desks. The ‘cleverest’ among them taped it under the keyboard. Taking a peek at their manifest lists is less challenging than actually going to the comic store on new comic day…”

A grin slowly grows across Skip’s muzzle. “What’s this?! Has my little Nitro been up to some extracurricular activities? Hmmmmm? Maybe putting his government funded training and skills to use for personal reasons?”

Gearing looks over at him and grins. “It was an exercise. Extracurricular. But still an exercise.”

“An exercise in what, hmmm?” Skip asks with more than a bit of amusement in his voice.

“An exercise in teaching them not to steal my shit. Shoulda kept their grubby little hooves off my mail, and they wouldn’t have to spend a week manually going through paper hard copies because their catalog system was down…” Gearing replies with a grumble.

Skip’s jaw drops before he points a hoof at him. “That was you?! Nitro, that made the news! There was a huge stink trying to track down if it was a hardware failure, software, or both. And all of the companies were blaming the other company manufacturers about it!”

Gearing rolls his eyes as he groans. “Don’t remind me! That’s why I had to break in again… to fix it for them… I mean it was such an easy bit, I figured their people would sort it out in a day, maybe two, and be back at their grubby hooving ways… But nooooo they’re apparently too stupid to figure it out, and it just kept going and going… Next thing you know there’s talks about inter ministry inquiries… special counsels… massive investigations… CEOs getting dragged in to explain themselves… A whole ordeal… So I just popped in, fixed it, and popped out.”

Skip leans over and gives Gearing a hug. “Ooohhhh I’m so proud of you! Your first bit of unsupervised espionage started a national incident!”

Gearing smirks as he’s being hugged by the bat pony and asks, “Is this really something you should be proud of me for? I mean… the felonies? Sooo many felonies...”

Skip turns Gearing’s head to face him and grins. “Gearing! Your affinity for technology is amazing! I’m going to recommend they add some networking security and some real deep dive training to your curriculum. You’ve got too much talent to not take advantage of and nurture it. Both software and hardware sides. It should harmonize with your Stable-Tec coursework beautifully!”

Gearing grins as he perks up. “That means more books!”

Skip nods. “Yup!” He tilts sideways and leans against Gearing as he asks quietly, “How soon you think you can find the location of that book?”

Gearing leans against him and looks at him sideways as he replies just as quietly, “Couple days. Easy.”

“What about other books they’ve hidden good enough we haven’t even heard of them yet?”

“Still easy. They use the same database on the back end. For all of it… Five minutes uninterrupted at their terminals and I can have the whole manifest list…”

“Do it. I’ll get whatever you can find.”

“Deal,” Gearing replies with a grin. “What’s a few dozen felonies between friends?”

The two, while giggling and leaning sideways against each other, reach out with a fore hoof and bop their hooves together in a joyful brohoof celebrating their little conspiracy to liberate ill-gotten literature.

Gearing looks between Swift and Handy as a coy grin crosses his muzzle. “I’ve done some reeeeaaaaal shady shit for comics before.”

Handy snickers before he says, “Somehow I don’t doubt that.”

Swift quickly follows up by asking, “Not going to give us anything more than a teaser, Gearing?”

Gearing grins at her and shrugs. “Maybe later. To fully appreciate the scale of my tomfuckery, would take a lot of explaining. And I gotta meet up with a few ponies in a bit and get some more information. Hopefully a few more leads.”

Swift narrows her eyes before she asks, “Let me guess… more leads that’ll end up with you hauling back a lot more shit you’ll want me to sell for you again, right?”

Gearing waves a hoof as he gets a sly grin across his muzzle. “I meeaaaan… you’re not wrong… probably…”

Handy snickers more and Swift slaps a hoof over her eyes before she grumbles, “With all the crap you keep bringing back, why don’t you just open your own store already?!”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Handy comments quietly as he’s laying on the cot and looking at the ground.

Both Gearing and Swift look over at him, expecting him to go on.

“Seriously?” Swift finally asks.

Handy shrugs as he keeps looking at the floor. “I mean, I like fixing things. It could be a steady source of income without having to get shot at… or sick…”

Gearing slips over and sits next to and a bit in front of him, drawing Handy’s attention, before he says, “You know. That’s not a bad idea.” When Handy looks up at him and raises an eyebrow, Gearing continues, “Even at the height of everything, there wasn’t enough repair ponies. Always in high demand. Even as far back as I can remember, even the small independently owned shops did good business. Ponies made damn good livings even on small appliances like toasters and radios. Fast forward to now? With manufacturing being all but gone, and repairing being the only choice?”

Handy actually smiles as he stretches out. “I get what you mean. Could take things others would see as salvage or just junk and turn it into repaired goods. Sell it for far more.”

Gearing eagerly nods. “Yeah, and, because of that, you could easily make some deals with other shop owners. Go by commission, or just sell to them outright.”

Handy slowly rubs on his chin as he comments, “You know, I already have the maintenance section back up…”

Gearing leans closer as he says, “And I do enough spelunking anyway. I could start bringing back the smaller appliances and we could see where that leads us…”

Swift had slowly positioned herself to lay onto her stomach as she watches the two talk and directs her attention towards them. She can’t help but finding the sight so endearing. Especially with how passionate they both clearly are about the topic. It’s all over their faces. And the more they talk, the more happy she gets. She can’t help getting the feeling that she’s seeing a friendship truly start to bloom. She’d hoped they would reconcile, and at least get civil to each other. But, in her heart of hearts she hoped they would become actual friends. They have so many similarities, even if neither of them would ever admit it. The two of them huddled together conspiring together over a passion project is almost too much for her to enjoy.

Then the topic came up of naming the shop.

Swift’s ears jump up in alarm as she realizes how deep and how quickly this ‘little chat’ has gone down a proverbial rabbit hole.

“Why’d I encourage this?” Swift groans and deflates into the cot as she moans, “I’ve made a mistake…”

But the other two are oblivious to Swift’s despair as their excited chatter continues unabashedly.

---

Footnote:

Retrying, Please Stand By. . .

!!!ERROR!!! Synchronization Failed…

Please Stand By. . .

Please Stand By. . .

Please Stand By. . .

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