I'm not quite sure how I should start this story. How can you start a story like this? Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess... I'll start with when I woke up that morning.

I yawned and stretched, feeling my joints groan and ache due to sleeping cramps. I looked around my room. My sleeping pod lay behind me, dirtied with crayon scribbling and rude language, courtesy of my sister, no doubt. Nuts 'N' Bolts use to be the kindest little sister, and she would giggle, and be cute, making me forgive her drawing on my pod, it's glass roof dirtied with her sloppy kisses and dirty messy hooves. Then as we grew older, she just... Changed. She grew angry and bitter, and we had had a rivalry ever since.

I shook my head. Now wasn't the day to dwell on stuff like that. Today I was finally starting my career in the Stable, a repair pony. I had gained my Cutie Mark, binary code, after Mother's PipBuck malfunctioned yet she didn't have the money to pay for it to get fixed. I offered to help, and as I reprogrammed it and sorted through files with broken data, I gained my Mark.

My room was silver, all metal, with a single window to the outside. In the back of the room I had three computers, where I would hack and mod different StableTec games to make them more interesting. I mean, a game where a circle collects dots? How stupid is that?

Two doors stood across from my sleeping pod, one with the bathroom sign, the other regular with no markings. They were both silver sliding doors that went up as you entered. I entered the bathroom, reaching down into the cabinet, grabbing the red, blue, and green dye from under the counter. I had a silver mane, but I dyed my hair to make it look like wires and metal. I liked it. It went green, silver, red, silver, blue, silver.

"Chip, stop dying your hair like a pretty boy and get your fat ass out here!" An impatient hoof knocked on the door. I sighed, happy I locked it. Nuts 'N' Bolts had awoken from her slumber. Prepare for death of brain cells and destruction of sanity.

I opened the door and glowered up at her. Yes, up. She was taller than me, which was utterly infuriating. Her blackish coat definitely matched her personality, her purple mane matching her purple eye shadow and lipstick. Her horn stood proud while I had to do with useless wings. Who flies underground? Her Cutie Mark consisted of a bottle of glue.

We still don't exactly know what it means, or why she got it when she gave relationship advice to her friend. Cutie Marks work in mysterious ways. "What do you want, Bolts?"

She poked my forehead with a hoof, pushing me back. I hated being smaller than her. I was the average height for a 17 year old stallion, and at 15 she was a head above me. She grinned evilly, and I groaned. It was going to be one of those days.

Surprisingly, that wasn't the case. "You better hurry up, Mom doesn't want you to be late." My head swiveled to my PipBuck, checking the time. It was 7:15. My job started at 7:30.

I flew down the corridor, finally thanking my wings instead of cursing them. I almost slammed into Father, who levitated his coffee cup above him as I zoomed forward. I screeched to a halt, zoomed into the kitchen to grab my own cup of coffee, and zoomed downstairs, past my sister's room. I found Mother sitting on the couch patiently, knitting with her hooves. My mother was an Earth pony.

I gulped some coffee and nearly spit it out as it burned my tongue. My Mother looked at me in concern. "Chip, dear, are you all right? You don't have to go for another hour, you're usually never out of the bathroom this soon."

My eyes widened incredulously, and I showed her my PipBuck. "We have to go now, it's 7: 20!" I watched as my mother sighed and rolled her eyes, and it clicked. I was suddenly angry and yelled up the stairs. "BOOOOOLTS!"

"HA! Loser!" Her voice cackled. I adjusted my PipBuck to the right time. My mother said, since I hadn't noticed that my mane dye was still in my gray saddlebags, matching my coat, I could use the downstairs bathroom to finish. I was thankful that my mother understood. Yet, she was an only child in her family, unlike my father, so she didn't have to deal with sibling troubles like I had.

My grandmother, Remote Control, had been like a second mother to me; caring, loving, gentle, and warm, despite her memory loss and creaky joints. Then, her expiration date came closer, a countdown clock waiting to tick to zero. We had all been with her before... Tears sprung to my face. Before she was decommissioned, permanently. I wiped them away and finished dying my hair, and straightened it into a mohawk with some gel. Luckily it had taken much shorter than usual.

I sipped from my coffee as I walked back into the living room. Did you know walking with only three hooves is surprisingly difficult? That's not the point. Anyway, I sat on the couch, and if my Mother or Father heard all the things I was cursing my sister with, they'd probably give me a bit more than a time-out.

I looked at my PipBuck once again and opened one of the hacked files I had secretly downloaded from when I fixed Mother's PipBuck. She had been to exhausted to notice. Fixing a PipBuck takes forever.

I plugged in my earblooms and listened, pretending to bob my head to music. "This is DJ-Pon3 comin' to you live with all the sweetest hits. Today we've got for you a song by an up and rising star, Octavia Melody!" A classical tune played through my head. Huh, I suppose this time the broadcast led straight to music. I had gotten to know this DJ-Pon3, somehow. I learned he loved wubs, and I believed he had a crush on this girl, considering how joyous he got introducing her songs, and how he played them frequently.

Where my Mom got these files, and why they had been corrupted on her PipBuck, I didn't know. I didn't know of any DJ-Pon3 or an Octavia, though I guess I didn't know everypony either. My father came downstairs, his lake blue coat brushing against the walls. He adjusted his glasses, and I knew his gaze was directed at me, so I turned off the broadcast and pulled out my earblooms. "Chip, it's 7:00 now." My eyes bulged.

Did dying my mane and listening to one piece of music seriously take that long!? "BYE DAD MOM LOVE YOU GOTTA GO BYE!" I flew out the door, nearly crashing into it mind you, and soared down the street. I watched as one of the holograms displayed the motto of Stable 48. "Stable 48! The most technologically advanced Stable this side of Equestria!"

That was no lie, and the PipBucks and holograms were all the proof you needed. I saw the Repair and Mechanics Facility and flew over. I checked my PipBuck. 7:29!? Why does time flow so fast!? I was so worried I literally crashed into somepony, producing a metal clang. I gathered the metal tools that had spilled from the pony's bags and started gathering them, repeating "Sorry!" over and over again.

I heard them chuckle, and deduced it was a male. "I suspect you're the new employee?" His voice sounded husky, as if he yelled a lot. And then he outright laughed when my wings pomfed. I... May or may not have a thing for husky voices.

I squealed with embarrassment, like I was a filly, and stood up, blushing. "U-Uh, hi, I-I'm Computer Chip, Ch-Chip for short, I-I was assigned here."

He had a goatee, and I tried not to squeal. He was a deep blue with a brown mane and tail, as well the brown goatee. His eyes were a deep lavender. I hoped the quiet "eeeeeee" I heard was from a piece of machinery. By the way the stallion was holding a hoof to his mouth to stifle his laughter, and failing, I presumed I was wrong.

"Well," He breathed out, still grinning from ear to ear. "That just happened." My ears folded and I turned even redder. He put a hoof on my shoulder, and I forced myself not to react. "Relax, I'm just joking with you, I'm Hard Wire." His saddlebags covered his Mark, and goggled rested above his lavender eyes.

He led me inside, and I could tell he was teasing me as he strut through the corridor. I could tell because he laughed each time I stumbled over my hooves staring at his- Ahem. Anyway, we arrived in a room that contained a whole bunch of other workers. They were making and fixing simple machines, and I gloated to myself when he led me past, explaining. "Since you have obviously shown your skills with PipBucks, we're gonna have you work there for now and try to move on up to harder jobs."

I was nearly bouncing. I finally got my dream job. He took me to an unassigned table and lifted a bucket with a PipBuck that looked fine at first glance, but once he showed me how the wires in the back were all messed up, I understood why it needed to be fixed. "The client needs those wires fixed and to make sure all the data is till there. I presume you can do that."

I nodded, smiling brightly, and Wire gave me a white lab coat. "Great! Try this on. I have to go bring somepony to his next station on the lowest floor. I'll see ya later, Ch-Chip." He made fun of my stuttering from earlier, resulting in me blushing and him cackling as he strode off.

I sighed and turned to the PipBuck. As I worked with the wires, I noticed how high-tech it was. I wondered, Who could be it's owner...? I don't really know too many members of the uptown ponies. The uptown ponies were very rich, and had the second to most bits, the Overmare having the most. Therefore, their PipBucks had better mechanics and better data.

After I repaired the wires, I turned on the PipBuck to see if I could save the corrupted files. My brow scrunched, noticing all the files with peculiar names, like one called 'VRP'. Weird, I thought, What could VRP stand for? Very rocking proud? Vaporized rare ponies? Okay, no, that last one was ridiculous.

I didn't check in the file, because I'm pretty sure somepony would get suspicious if I took to long just staring at a screen and fiddling with buttons. I finally finished and gained another proud smile. I loved fixing this kind of stuff. I heard someone's voice behind me. "Ahem, excuse me, sir, but that PipBuck belongs to me."

I turned around. "Sure, here you gooooooooooooooooo....." I trailed off. I had just fixed the PipBuck of the Overmare herself, Fire Wall. I numbly gave it to her, and she put it into her foreleg, the metallic locks snapping together.

Behind her were four guards. What? Didn't think that Overmares had guards, not just the Princesses? These guys definitely had no royal armor, yet they were just as serious. She smiled at me. "Sorry for the intimidation, but we need to go visit the lower levels. It's rumored that somepony down there is near their expiration date."

Ha... I didn't connect the dots back then. That might have been my mistake. No... It was my mistake.

I smiled and shuffled my hooves as she walked off. As soon as she was out of sight, I sighed in relief and turned around to go to my next project. Only... I didn't have one. That was the only thing to fix Wire had given me, so I sat there in silence, fiddling with my hooves. I shrugged. I had nothing to do, so I plugged in my earblooms and started listening to the next broadcast by DJ-Pon3.

"Hello everypony, DJ-Pon3 here with some rather serious business. Due to the war with the zebras... Moon Rock Crater, where Princess Luna was teaching in her precious school, has been... Demolished. Let's take a moment of silence to remember all the ponies there." There was no noise for a couple of seconds. "Alright, well, before even I shed some tears, let's get straight to the music! We've got 'I Kissed A Mare' by the one and only Sapphire Shores!" I blinked. I knew of the war between the zebras and ponies, yet... This was new.

I looked up, and jumped back in alarm as I saw everypony was frozen. Not in ice, no, but just stopped moving. I scurried over to a light blue mare and looked into her eyes, jumping back in alarm. They had blue-screened, same as her PipBuck. I was about to take out my earblooms when everything exploded, and something sharp pierced the back of my head.

When I woke up, 'I Kissed A Mare' still played through my earblooms, looping as if I had never turned it off. My eyes opened, and the lenses in my eyes focused, unfocused, and refocused before my vision was normal. I saw Hard Wire above me, and he soundlessly sighed in relief. I put a hoof to the back of my head and felt metal plating where the sharp thing ruptured my head.

He gestured to my PipBuck, and I saw a new message, immediately checking it. "Alright, if you're seeing this, you're awake. Which is good. That pony I went to check on? He was near his expiration date, and refused to be decommissioned for parts. He released a program called the VRP, Virus Release Program, that produced a sound that bugged out everypony, giving them fatal viruses. The only reason me and you aren't affected is because as soon as I heard the Overmare shout at him to not play the sound, I put in my earblooms, and you have your earblooms in for your own reason. Luckily, you weren't severely hurt from the explosion. As soon as the virus was played, everypony stopped working, so ponies who were welding just made things hotter ad hotter until a collective explosion blew this place to smithereens. We're in a backroom, however, that wasn't exploded, and the virus is still playing. We have to stop it."

My eyes widened in alarm. I quickly typed a message and sent it to him. "WHAT!? Oh Goddesses... If I had stopped listening one second earlier... God, I would be dead!"

Oh. I just realized I forgot to mention a very important detail. The reason this Stable is the most technologically advanced? We're all androids. Androids are very similar to ponies, in some ways. We get Cutie Marks, we feel emotions, and we look like ponies. That is, if you don't take a closer look. We are made from flexible metal that is tougher than pony skin so that we don't get hurt easily. The reason we even feel is something that might surprise you; we each have a shard of the Element of Magic.

That's right. The Element of Magic had been shattered so that a shard coup be put inside each of us to give us emotions and natural magic. Without it we were AIs with no true emotions. Our SRP, Sound Recognition Programs, equal regular ponies' auditory nerves, and our VSCL, Visual Sensors and Camera Lens, are our eyes. Each pony had an expiration date so that we didn't run out of shards. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a familiar PipBuck, that was slightly charred, and my eyes watered with gear lubrication. He sent me another message. "Here, this is the Overmare's PipBuck. You should wear it. I'll wait while you download the files in your PipBuck into there. Then we'll go see if we can shut down the VRP."

The Unicorn walked out of the room, leaving me with the two devices. I couldn't believe the Overmare was dead. It was surreal. I was just happy he didn't bring me any other parts of her. For a second I wondered, Was he going to keep this for himself if he hadn't found and saved me...? I shook my head, now wasn't the time to think like this. I transferred the data from my PipBuck into the Overmare's. It felt wrong, some simple stallion taking her PipBuck.

I took mine off and plugged the new one in, metal locks clicking. Walking out of the room, my (metaphorical) heart sank as I viewed the facility. Twisted and broken pieces of androids littered the burning and charred facility, wires sparking. I felt a resolve, and I grew serious. I was going to honor these ponies by doing something others would seem monstrous. I would take their shards.

I traveled to each pony and carefully opened their chest compartments, removing the purple shards. I stored them in my saddlebags, and silently mourned each and every pony. I finished collecting from the top floor and my floor, and went to meet up with Hard Wire. He gave me a sad look, shook his head, and started walking downstairs to the lower levels.

On the next level there were remains of more high-tech computers, and the... I nearly sobbed. They were foals being made for the families of those who requested them. That meant the next level would be ponies who already had shards that were on the fritz. I could feel Hard Wire's eyes boring into me as I gathered all the shards I could find.

He was disgusted in me, and I felt sickened that I didn't feel disgusted in myself. I removed one from a newly created foal, and gear lubricant trickled down my face. I walked back to Hard Wire with shaky hooves, and he didn't say a thing as we went down to the next level. It was heart-breaking to remove so many shards yet I did it anyway.

We finally got to the lowest level, where we recycled old androids. This was where the main explosion happened, and purple glowing shards littered the charred black ground. After picking them up, he led me to a broken catwalk that led to the VRP. A message appeared on the Overmare's- No, my PipBuck. "You have wings, that's why I recruited you. You can fly across without falling."

I nodded and soared over the charred metal. I found the device, a frozen and blue-screened stallion. This time I wasn't upset over taking his crystal. I pressed the button, and I turned to Hard Wire grinning. He removed his earblooms, about to cheer, and then froze.

He blue-screened. No, no, no! I mouthed, I-It's still on..! I flipped around and found that I forgot an important detail- The stallion still had his PipBuck connected to the machine, playing whatever sound had spread the virus. I broke the PipBuck and the machine.

With shaky hooves, I unplugged my earblooms. And I cried lubricant tears of joy as I heard nothing-Before they turned to tears of sadness as I realized heard absolutely nothing. I flew over to Wire, grabbed the poor stallions crystal, and flew into the city.

Silence.

I won't describe the pain removing shards from every foal and grown-up in Stable 48, silence echoing in my ears. I won't describe the hours I cried seeing my parents and sister frozen, Fatal error detected! flashing in their cold blue eyes. After this I flew in silence towards the giant door. I entered the code I found in my new PipBuck. SBxBM. That's a really weird code. Anyway, I stepped into the hallway that led to the outside world, shard pounding with anticipation. I reached the door, and took a deep breath.

I couldn't stay in my home anymore, it was filled with nothing but silence and memories of good times, and staying here would turn me insane. I was built for interaction with other ponies, it was what I was made for. And now it was time for a goodbye. I took my first ever steps out of Stable 48.

Footnote: Level Up
Quest Perk: Heart As Cold As Metal: You have a higher defense rate and have more dialogue options.