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FoE: Do Robot Ponies Dream of Electronic Bunnies
Chapter XXIII: Discovery
“Shut the fuck up, fat man. This ain’t none’a yo goddamn business.” - Jules Winfield, Pulp Fiction
System Report: 0000000023
Unit Status: Active
Location: Cape Unicorn, Zebrion
Satellite Signal Status: GPS active.
Begin data dump to external off-site memory back-up:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - Done.
Preparing visual report: Done.
Date: --/--/2212, 200PA (+66 days activation)
Time: 0820 Local
Cape Unicorn? A pony city in the middle of the zebra wastes? Anyone else’s bullshit alarm go off? Something didn’t add up.
We’d landed around 4 am. Dragon said we were near enough our destination that we could walk the rest of the way. Spent some hours giving Chef Sandy a decent funeral, then headed on. AC felt kind of wrong with how quickly we were moving on, but he didn’t complain. He just hung his head as we stepped into the ruined city.
At first glance, you couldn’t tell there was a secret development facility in the city. It looked pretty urban, with some basic office buildings in the center of town. Dragon promised we’d be safe, the bugs and ghosts don’t go near the city.
“So, where is this place we’re looking for anyway,” Scratch asked as she glanced around.
“This city is of pony design. I’m as foreign here as you with my kind.” I thought Zirc was gonna work on his Equestrian. Or maybe he just didn’t trust us enough yet. Zebras have a weird cultural taboo about the way they speak. Won’t talk normally unless they know you really well.
“Verse,” Night Rose said, looking at me skeptically. “You do know where we’re going, right?”
“General direction,” I replied. “I’m watching a signal from the place. It’ll get stronger as we get closer, then I can pinpoint it.”
“So long as we know where to go,” she said, glancing back at AC. He walked sullenly alongside Frieda, who tried her best to ignore his mood as she scanned the area around us.
“Think I should take to the air,” she asked. “Provide a little recon maybe?” I could tell she wanted to get away from AC, and worse, so could he. His ears pined tightly against his head and his tail drooped even lower as he looked away, visibly shrinking a bit.
“Not right now,” I told her. She looked at the effect she’d had on the red pony, and instantly regretted the suggestion.
We moved further into the city. I took point, keeping my focus split between the sine wave indicator on my HUD and the road ahead. It was… difficult. The damn thing kept doing a roller coaster impression; up then down then up then back down. It even did a loop. Never gonna explain that one. After about an hour of this I finally gave up watching it. The signal was apparently coming from everywhere.
A sniffing at my side brought my head down. Swiftpaws was nosing at the side of one of the houses. I was about to ask what he was doing when a panel of the wall shot upward. He yelped and jumped back next to Scratch. Eleven guns were suddenly pointed at the opening (Zirc, Night Rose, Frieda and everything I had that wouldn’t kill us all on detonation.) We stood there for a moment, waiting. When nothing emerged, Swiftpaws moved forward and poked his nose inside, sniffing furiously.
“I smell metal,” he said after a few seconds. “Smells like Verse, only bigger. Metal and plastic and something I can’t identify. I also smell… death.” All our ears perked at that as he continued. “Rotting, decaying, but not quite dead.”
“So either zombies or ghouls,” Frieda said. She’d taken up a protective stance in front of AC, who thankfully had snapped a little bit out of his sorrow for this and was watching intently. “Either way, what do we do?”
“I’m going in,” Night Rose said as she put her helmet on. She looked at me as if daring me to stop her, but I nodded my ascent. Like I could do anything to stop that mare. More likely be able to raise the sun and the moon. She nodded back and disappeared into the hole. To say I was tense was a bit of an understatement.
“So why aren’t you going in after her?” I turned and looked at AC. It was the first thing he’d said all morning. “Go on, get in there.”
I mentally bucked myself in the face, then dove in after her. It was completely dark. The path went downward after a few feet. I switched to thermals and found my marefriend a few meters ahead, staring down at something. I quick ultrasonic pulse revealed what she’d found. Steel Ranger armor. It gave a rough return, which meant it was rusted over. The design was off as well.
“Now that’s interesting,” I said aloud. Night Rose jumped and nearly smacked me in the face with her rifle. I could tell she was scowling at me as I continued. “This was an original model… old style circuitry… what’s this antique doing here?”
“Let’s keep going then,” Night Rose said. “Call the others and tell them it’s safe.”
“We don’t know it’s safe,” I replied immediately. “We’ve only gone a little way in and this tunnel could go for miles.”
“Well we can’t leave it unexplored. And we can’t split up. What do we do, then?”
I sighed and thought. We could probably separate. The only indication I had of life were the blue bars that marked my friends. But that didn’t mean squat for anything past fifty yards. On the other hoof, covering this city as one group would take too long. Splitting up for the moment seemed the most logical choice. Maybe an aerial recon, like Freida’d suggested.
“What about your signal,” Night Rose asked, interrupting my thoughts. “Is it stronger?”
“It’s stronger,” I replied. “In all directions. It’s like this whole city is transmitting the signal and I keep walking past emitters. Only reason I’m not getting a headache from it is it’s a low-fi signal.”
“So we could be going straight towards it,” she said thoughtfully.
“Or we could be walking away,” I finished with a nod. I told her what I’d been thinking, and she reluctantly agreed. A quick trot back to the entrance and we split into two groups. Frieda took to the air and acted as scout and cover for Scratch, AC, and Swiftpaws. Zirc followed Night Rose and myself back into the tunnel. Night Rose lit the lamp on her head so the zebra could see better. He was the only one in our group without enhanced sight. The walls were painted a sort of off-white. I’d heard somewhere that the color tope was supposed to be soothing. I wasn’t all that calmed by it.
We came to a T-intersection. No signs told what was in either direction. Night Rose and Zirc took the path to the left while I explored the right.
“Call if you need me,” I said as they walked off.
“You too, metal butt,” Night Rose called back, and I saw Zirc chuckle as he turned away. I shook my head and couldn’t suppress my own smile as I was dropped back into the dark.
I decided to try the same trick I’d used back in Trottingham, combining radar, ultrasonics and thermal imaging. It gave me a pretty good impression of the hall, but nothing else really. Not like I’d expected anything more than two walls, a ceiling and a floor. A little ways down, I found a door with an electronic lock. The lock was glowing red, so it still had power. One scan later and I knew how to get in. I brushed my front left knee across the front of the lock, activating the passkey component hidden there (I was still discovering things about myself. What’s next, a flame thrower in my ass? I hope not.)
The lock cycled and clicked, and the pad changed to green. Silently, the door opened inward. It took a fraction of a second to know what was in the room. It was mainly empty save for a desk and a terminal. I trotted over to it and plugged myself in. Within seconds, I had a floor plan for this level. It was labeled as B-1 of… 99. Swell.
This brought back to my mind that building in the last town we’d stopped in. It had been deceptively deep too. Was this a trend for Zebrion? Build a mysterious facility in each town to discourage an attack? If you didn’t know you were hitting the right one, what was the point, or something like that? Strategically, it made sense, but everything here was of pony origin. Zebras didn’t use this sort of technology. Maybe we’d wrestled it from them in the war and set up shop. But then, that didn’t make sense either. If you’ve got something special to work on, you don’t put it in a contested area. It’s kept in the back until it’s ready to deploy.
My head was starting to spin again, and I unplugged myself. This terminal had nothing else in it. But that just brought another set of questions. Why was that the only thing on this thing? And what was it doing in a room with nothing else?
Confound those ponies and their conspiracies.
Most of the rest of the floor was uninteresting. No signs of life, no threats. No nothing. After having a good look around, I headed back toward Night Rose and Zinc. They shortly appeared ahead of me, coming my way.
“This place is dull,” Night Rose said as we met up. “Nothing here at all.”
“I expected more than just gray walls,” Zirc put in. “I was hoping for something with more balls.”
“Since when did you get glory hungry,” I asked incredulously.
“When one is expecting a major fight, to be denied it does not feel right.”
“Yeah,” Night Rose said in agreement. “I thought this was some sort of R&D site. Where’s the R&D?”
Probably 98 levels down,” I replied.
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish. Found a floor plan listing this as 1 of 99.”
“Brilliant,” she said, and if she hadn’t had her helmet on, she’d probably have spit. Not that I could blame her. “So now what?”
“I say we skip a few levels. This place is too big to cover all of it.”
“I agree, that would be wise. The building above belies its size.” Zirc’s head suddenly whipped around. Instantly, Night Rose and I had weapons out and aimed in the direction he was looking. Unfortunately, he was staring at a wall.
“What is it,” I asked, scanning intently .He didn’t answer immediately. He just stared at the wall as if it were about to attack. Finally, he shook himself.
“It is nothing, pay me no mind. We best move on and not fall behind.” He looked expectantly at me. I nodded and stored my weapons, then led them to a set of stairs.
We’d gone down maybe thirty levels, stopping occasionally to check things out briefly, when we finally hit something new. Giant cables leading from one wall into another. The second wall was more convex… and didn’t seem to be attached to the rest of the room. Exploring another room yielded no answers, so we went a few floors further down. The stairs opened up onto a catwalk going around a large area. I looked up, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Well, this is dull,” Night Rose commented, still looking downward. “Just a big empty room with some pillars that go up… to…” Her voice died as she looked upward, her lamp illuminating what I saw. Zinc offered a prayer in Zeebraneze, his eyes looking up in wonder.
Before us stood the biggest mechanical pony I’d ever seen. Its head was crested with a large spiny fin that ran down its neck. At its shoulders were massive cannons and hanging from its chin were what looked like two high-powered energy turrets. Further back I could see heavy artillery guns mounted on its rump, and what could have been a massive plasma cannon on the flank closest to us.
“Verse,” Night Rose said shakily. “Wh-wh-what is that??”
“I have no idea.” I was furiously scanning my military index but came up blank. “It must’ve been made after I was.”
“Correct,” a voice boomed. It startled us and we thought it came from everywhere. As it continued, we realized it was actually coming from the mouth of the mecha. “This unit was created approximately two years, five months, and ten days after your… episode. It was also done in secret, here, outside of Princess Luna’s authority.”
I knew that voice. It couldn’t be.
The eyes of the mecha lit up, and I found myself looking at the degraded face of a unicorn I’d once loved. A unicorn who’d helped me and programmed me.
Moonshine stared back at me, eyes full of something I couldn’t place, but the rest of her face seemed to be all anger.
“Been a long time, Alpha,” the ghoul said, hate seething through the speaker. “Good to see you in such good condition. It’ll be so much better knowing I don’t have to track down any more of your tech after I destroy you.”
Wait. What?
Footnote: New Quest – Stompy Must Die: Your creator has survived as a ghoul and now seems intent on ending your life. And she has a big-ass mech to do it with. Defeat her and find out why.
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