CP. VI: Oldword heirlooms
CP. VI – Oldworld Heirlooms
“Hey Stalker, why so jumpy? Here, sit by the fire with us… let me share a tale with you… comfortable? Now, you’ve ever heard about the Cartographer? He was one of the first stalkers to ever brave the Zone… and his heart still beats. Rumor has it that he was one of the original residents before the… you know, accident. They say he can draw maps of every place of the Zone, no joke! Complete with landmarks and indications of anomaly clusters and mutant lairs… how he does that? How the heck would I know? Perhaps a tight network of informants, a special artifact, a lot of legwork… some nutcases even say that he gone to the Monolith, asked to be able to lead anypony through any path… I don’t know where reality ends and the legend begins… but thing is, if you can manage to find him and have a ton of dough, he can draw accurate maps straight onto artifact motherlodes, secret passages, and all the shit like that… That’s somepony I would like to have a chat with. I betcha he has gone even past the scorcher…”
“You said what to her?”
The azure mare deadpanned at my statement. Of course, a natural reaction. After all, yesterday’s adventure had left its scars (not only the metaphorical ones, mind you) and my eagerness to embark on another one after that was not shared by her, since she was the one who had been closer to death.
“Well… I just thought it’d help us go forw…”
“Think again then. You just took a brief break from the earlier incursion, one I joined against my judgment” Yep, throw that one at me… as if my conscience (I should get rid of it as soon as I can…) wasn’t already berating at me for that “And now, after barely surviving that one, you expect me to embark on another just like this? Now I see that you are missing a few screws.”
I sighed. It was no use, and Lielle was right about it, to much of my disappointment. Strange that she was actually making sense, after all. Getting brain-probed by a bloodsucker is an event that dramatically changes how one perceives its life, so it seems…
I packed my stuff and drew a wad of cash from my saddlebag, offering it to the mare.
“What is this? I’m not convinced by bribery.”
“Our reward for doing the job. The Freedomers were nice enough to hold their end of the deal.”
She grasped the money and counted it, sorting out half of the amount
“Two and a half grant for all that trouble? What do they think we are? Pushover hobos?”
“Actually, all of that is your cut. I’ve already shared it.”
And her eyes widened in unbelief, and she started to do the math by tapping her hoof.
“This means, they have paid us… Ten thousand, exactly. I could get used to that…” And she stored her money.
“And for that one other job, the Freedom leader has promised an equally juicy pay. Too bad you are not interested anymore. Well, it was good while it lasted.”
And as I was leaving, she jumped out of the bed and reached me out.
“Wait, I’m going with you again. Ok, last time wasn’t so appealing, but we can both agree that we’ve both learned something from it, and that what makes adventuring worthwhile. I’ve even added records about the bloodsuckers on my mutant hunter’s notes.”
What can I say? Money is a powerful motivator.
“Ok. If you’re in, I am a bit relieved. I’d hate to go through the rest of the way alone.”
“Too bad you aren’t exactly the charismatic type.”
I let that snarky comment slide, and made my way to Dom’s workshop to retrieve my repaired armor, while she came by to do the same. I’d much as well get my own rifle repaired too.
“So, dreamt about something interesting? You were out for quite a while, you know”
“Nothing much, really” She answered “Again that stupid about baked goods being used as ammunition in intricate weaponry employed by two warring pre-classical era pony factions. Maybe it could evolve into something worthy plot wise. Baker wars or something like that…”
That was a new one; she turned out to be a writer… of sorts. Well, the Zone was so desolate and hopeless that some ponies just HAD to have some way to set their minds off from it, couldn’t really blame her for doing so.
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The ever-welcoming mess of Dominic’s shop still stood with all of its chaotic glory, the place, if nothing, was even messier. Undoubtedly, the fallout from repairing our suits, which he didn’t exactly mind cleaning up.
Dominic himself stood again at his workbench, dismantling a FRAME. He interrupted his work to greet us.
“How it goes, Stalkers? Came to get your stuff back and get back to stalkin’? Just a second, I’ve left it somewhere around…”
And he moved around some of the stuff that filled the other workbench, retrieving a green-olive sunrise suit and a grey-tinted LS-3a body armor.
While my friend put her armor right back on, I handed mine back to Dominic.
“Dom, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go right on, pal.”
“How much would it cost to reinforce all the armor with leather, fur, or anything that would soften impact from hooves?”
Yes, I’ve learned my lesson. You are able to, once in a while, dodge a bullet, but yet, I remain to see somepony who can dodge a bloodsucker’s charge without seeing where the shithead is coming from. (And most of the time, THEY CAN’T)
The unicorn’s face broke in a smile of satisfaction
“Looking to protect yourself against those crazy mutants, aren’t we? Wise choice. I’d suggest leather, its light enough and will keep you warm as well too; I have some of it in stock. This upgrade plus the repairs would cost 1750 bits. Still want it?”
“Yep. Sew it already, please.”
And he took my suit, opened a locker and took some leather from it, and retrieved a skinning knife and sewing material from a drawer of one of the workbenches.
Quickly enough, he set to work on the armor, with amazing focus and precision. He was talented in his trade, I’ll give him that.
“So, how is my PDA going?”
“It’s over that workbench, check it out by yourself. Just don’t interrupt it or you’ll have to wait all over again” He said without lifting his eyes from his work, pointing to the farthest workbench.
I’ve came closer to it. there was some routine running on the PDA, on one of the sides, a vertical bar going up and down labeled “FFE” , and on the another side, another vertical bar labeled “RCV”, going up and down in a different pace. On the middle, a number: 73%. The completion rate, definitely. After seeing it for a while, the program seemed to sync out both of the lateral bars for each letter of the message. It would be a while before it was ready.
“Alright, done here” Dom’s voice brought me back to reality. He tossed the suit to me, which I promptly put on, drawing the hood from it and my scarf as well.
“Spotting something out there, lady?” The technician now faced Lielle, thoroughly absorbed in seeing the landscape. His workshop had quite a view, being on the fifth floor.
“Another miserable, grey-dulled day.” She was right. The skies were starting to be overtaken by grey clouds, depressingly announcing a storm for sometime later this day.
“It’s better than other days when the weather is unbearably hot or insanely cold. It is either one excess of another. Fine, not-too-cold-or-too-hot days happens rarely on the Zone. And thanks to this miserable, frequently inconstant weather, the land inside the zone is unfertile, with most of the food coming from outside, traded by scavenge, artifacts or money”
I approached the parapet too, to spot onto outside as well. “I presume the weather is like this because, or rather, the lack of pegasai intervention?”
“Well, I can’t really confirm it or deny, but I have my own theory about it. Pegasai do not change the weather, period. They “soften” it, like the taming of a wild beast. Without them to act upon it, weather is more prone to daily excesses, either scorching heat or freezing cold. I don’t know the technicalities of it, you’d be better off asking one of them that used to work on the weather control crew, if you ever find one, but like I said, they seem to work over on little details from the weather: a cloud here or there, air currents, and it all adds up, in changing those small details, they end up changing the whole, making an otherwise unbearable weather pleasant. Without their efforts, pleasant days are rare, and when they appear, they are short-lived, because there is nopony to “maintain” them. Even if they could actually fly, there’s even another obstacle for them, discouraging any intervention…”
“And that is?”
“Anomalies, what else? Air bound anomalies, some with the size of a whale! There was this one time, when I’ve spotted the grunts with one of their flying machines, helicopters, they call them. The army boys flew directly onto a springboard, and a big one. It cracked their craft apart like it was a ripe watermelon; it went down spiraling and smoking just to hit hard ground. After that, the royal military guard wasn’t so keen to send crafts loaded with personnel ever again, limiting themselves to only fly around the borders of the Zone. Heh… better for us.”
“Quite a view you have here…I can see little skyscrapers on the horizon…”
“Yep, it is. Probably the reason that I was able to hook up my marefriend for so long, gets really pretty at sunset, when the sun goes down behind Ponyville’s skyscrapers.”
“Ponyville, a city?”
“An abandoned one, set out on the very hearth of the Zone, neighboring the power plant itself.”
“I expect to reach it someday…” I sighed
“Everypony does, kid, everypony does. But yet, there is way too much ground that separates Hoofstok from it. You see these compounds stretching north and east from Hoofstok? The Wild Territory, the abandoned distribution center for the goods produced at the textiles compound which is today named as Hoofstok, the Wild Territory is overrun with mutants, mercs and the occasional Tark.”
He pointed east
“All that goes in that direction is marshes and marshes of… waste. An area filled with so much wildlife and Zone activity, that few ever brave it. The wastes, or Zaton and Yanov, the official names of the subzones of the wastes. Few ponies are tempted to head that way, and none that went that way ever came back, their fate remain a mystery.”
The mechanic pointed at the opposite direction, west, more precisely, southwest.
“There is home of all the wayward and wicked, the misguided and insane, the very worst of the Zone… Duty. The agropony institute, what once was a research facility for agriculture is nowadays used as flocking grounds for that kind of… equines. Their domains extend even further east, embracing the Hoofer dam and bordering a Tark-infested mine. There’s interesting stuff I’ve found out about the dam, it was in the middle of some kind of administrative scandal before the accident; it had to be rebuilt over six times, since it was made of inadequate and frail materials. Well, you get what you pay for…”
The stallion moved his hoof a tad in the north direction
“See where the compounds end? Behind that chain of mountains lies Mirror Lake, used to be a pretty place for leisure and everything. That was before. Now it stands as a particularly murky and dark place, with the eggheads trying to do their research while Tarks and Snorks roam the area in big numbers.”
He then pointed to southeast
“Ah, Dark Valley. Most descriptive name ever. It’s always dark, scary, foggy, filled with dogs, boars, striders and if the rumors are true, even bandits. Not much reason to go there.”
Pointing directly south, he commented:
“The garbage, well, you’ve came from it. There isn’t much more I can tell you about it, it is just what the name says, a big dump that the bandits insist on hoofing. Well, they don’t smell or stink too much either, so we leave them to their devices and they leave us to ours, we have other priorities than them in mind.”
And he pointed north
“There goes the army warehouses, not much. Just an ancient REA base, they’re quite fortified on that base, you know. I wouldn’t mind shifting places with them, they have some top-of-the-art automated security system, I wish I could tinker with it. Near their base, if you believe the stories, there is located a… ghost village. Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but the stories someponies spread… further north, do you spot all those red leaves? That’s Whitetail woods national park. Once a rich preserved forest, now it is overrun by mutants, even more, mutants not commonly seen. The whitetail is like a staging ground for all kinds of misshapen creatures. It’s separated from the army warehouses by a big gap, ghastly gorge. Said gorge extends toward the wild territory, the part that crosses it being concreted, and ends up at… Hoofer dam, where Duty has always had a way toward the center of the Zone, but were unable to use it, due to the brain scorcher.”
“The Whitetail Park is linked with some big urban center – the name escapes me at the moment – on the west direction, and north with Ponyville itself. Now, that city is something to be aware of. Ages past it was merely a village, but someway, a huge influx of cash allowed it to be developed. And Faust knows it was needed… from what I’ve read, the city was, originally, very poorly planned – one in each three roads in that city led to a big cliff drop, and some buildings were made of exquisite materials: gingerbread, cardboard, some really wacko stuff. With cash in their hands, the citizens were able to renovate the whole city, affording apartments, more services, fledging a wide array of commerce and development, all of which, included in a chain that allowed the whole city to dramatically develop in a short span of time. Perhaps to feed that power-hungry city, somepony had the brilliant idea of building a biomagical power plant. They had no idea of the outspread of such action, so ignorant people were back then… well, the city is not safe either. (No place truly ever is…) Packs of mutants coming from the Whitetail Park, bandits, desperados and veteran Stalker daredevils that found one or other way past the scorcher and survived that far compose the city’s regular fauna, also, more radiation than you’ll ever want in there. All in there for the lucky ones who can get past the brain scorcher AND the Whitetail park. And lastly, after that city, lies the ultimate prize, the NPP itself, which few laid eyes on, and none ever came back to tell the tale. Totally out of reach and yet, so appealing… it is almost poetic.”
No return? Surely, if someone had reached the NPP, it would be natural to come back to cash out the stuff he stumbled upon and brag around. The fact that nopony ever returned was an indication that, in itself, there was something fishy about it.
“Well, there’s enough of bedtime tales… now, for all the repairs, the cost is 2500 bits.”
And so, I handed over the 1750 bits I owed him, and Lielle handed over the rest of the amount for payment.
“Have a good day, ok? See you two later on.”
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“Well, six medkits, eight grenades and twenty bandages… this will be 1500 bits”
I paid the trader and he handed over the supplies
“Is there anything else?” he asked with those needy blue eyes
“I need a weapon” My companion said.
“But you already have that perfectly fine viper-5 I gave ya; you didn’t even fire it yet!” I reminded her while the trader glared daggers at me
“And that’s why I need a weapon, this one failed in defending me. I need something good, something battle-worthy… something… LIKE THAT!”
And she pointed to a shotgun mounted to the wall, a mighty SPAS-12. Hell, that thing would be able to open some pretty decent holes through an equine…
“Ah, you have good taste lady. I was saving this one for somepony special, but I guess I could order another one, though it’s going to cost you a bit more because of that… also, the craftspony imbued in this thing is dazzling… 8 rounds of pure stopping power, 12 gauge, pump-action fire, an aluminum stock capable of more positions than the Kama Sutra, and IT IS BLACK! What more could you ask for?”
I saw her eyes gleam like a little kid, and she even drooled a bit… Tinder was digging through it; I suspect that he was hearing coins jingling into his head, kind of fitting considering his cutie mark: a twenty bits note.
“WANT!” Lielle said bluntly
“2500 bits, without the ammo…”
And she slapped the cash onto the counter as the trader finished his sentence, even rounding it up to 3000 to pay for extra slugs.
Tinder loaded the SPAS with ammunition and delivered it to the mare, which, in a short interval, tossed her viper-5 onto the bag, and the SPAS onto the frame, and threw the extra slugs onto the saddlebag as well.
Tinder counted his money while I mused for us to leave.
“Wait, you’re forgetting something!” the stallion said.
We returned to his counter, and I looked curiously to the earth pony while he mouth-scribbled onto a paper, and then, he handed it to Lielle.
I read it over her shoulder:
Congratulations. You just bought your very first shotgun. Before enjoying it, you should know a few things beforehand:
1- Aim away from the face
2- Reload frequently, you’ll never know…
3-Not recommended for use by foals under five, for these, see our Sawn offs and Marekarovs
4- This should not be used as a stealth weapon
Thank you for the purchase.
And on really small letters under those:
To the owner of this document, we provide a warranty for the period of 120 (one hundred and twenty) minutes after the purchase, Tinder’s store. Warranty is void if the merchandise is used improperly
The mare folded the note and tucked it into her pack, as we returned to the slim Hoofstokian alleyways.
Ka-ching!
“Alright. Now I can start blasting out those pests” She stated with an unrelenting smile.
I rolled my eyes while half-smiling as well. It was quite hard not to get contaminated by her mood.
“Let’s meet out Carmelia, the Freedom commander, so she can lay out the details about the job.”
She nodded and went along.
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“So, you use a pitchfork formation when you deal with…”
Knock, Knock!
The Freedom leader raised her eyes from the map, her accompanying squad leaders, Cork, Firepit and Sweetmeal did the same as well, all eyes went down upon us, as we entered the commander’s lavishly decorated office.
“We’ll set out the plan’s details afterwards. For now, have a break, brothers.”
And the three heavily geared veteran Freedomers left the area, the last one closing the door on his way out.
Carmelia casually rolled the map and stored it onto a cabinet by the wall, I noticed that she was quite exhausted, leading a faction wasn’t an easy feat, let alone one as ideologically varied as Freedom…
“Much work lately?” I tried to sound relaxed.
“It’s the toll of my job, all the part of being the commander. Can’t say that I’m one hundred per cent satisfied, but it’s what I do best. Tee hee.”
She sat at her ebon chair and bemusedly glared at us, pleased with having our attention.
“So, I assume you two are here for that job I spoke of yesterday, hmm?” And her gaze fully shifted to my friend. “I’m afraid we’ve been not introduced”
“Not yet. I’m Lielle, always a pleasure meeting new ponies.” She said while offering her hoof
The unicorn shook it in turn, opening a welcoming smile. “Indeed. My name is Carmelia, dear. Glad to meet the mare who is keeping this one” -And she hoofed at me- “In short reins. Goddess knows he needs it, with the wounds he came with last night…”
“Nah, most of the time he is cool… Although he has a quite nasty tendency to, once in a while, hit the bot…”
I felt my face blaze with red and I shot angry glares at both of the mares.
“You two realize that I am still on the same room, right?”
Carmelia’s smile quickly assumed an awkward appearance, but she recomposed herself and started talking at once.
“I take it that you two accept the job, then?” We both nodded. “Good, good… as I’ve said, I need you to retrieve access codes for an automated defense system. I don’t know if you are aware, but to the east of Hoofstok lays the wastes, Zaton and Yanov, separated by a road and a thick forest. A singular landmark is strategically positioned on the way to the wastes, connected by the road. It is almost like somepony wished to place it on the most out of the way, secluded place that he could find. A village, an idyllic, rustic village, back on the day. Thing is, that village is in fact, a cover for a presumably – heh – secret military research and development site. I’ve already sent in five or five squads to the area, while they were successful pinpointing the entrance and barging in, their comms died out. Nopony went out, period. What I want you two to do is access the database and download all relevant data, and then, bring it to me, so that we can devise a way to neutralize, bypass or circumvent the automated defense system being used by the military forces occupying the warehouses’ area. It’s simple enough, I presume. Questions?”
Lielle eagerly raised her hoof
“What kind of enemies we’ll be up against?”
Carmelia held her chin on her hoof, thoughtful.
“That’s about it. We have no data whatsoever on what you will face inside the complex, but on the way to it, expect to meet common mutant wildlife, it has pretty much taken over that sector. And anomalies as well, like that even needs pointing out…”
“N-No bloodsuckers, right?” She stuttered
“Nope, we’ve seen none so far, not that’s an accurate indicative of their activity, you must know the reason…” The azure mare’s eyes widened with panic.
“Hahaha, calm down, I’m just kidding. They – usually – don’t go topside, don’t worry about them.”
“And how do we find out the entrance?” I pointed out
The mare withdrew a wrapped item from her desk and gave it to me. It was a small, telekinesis-drawn map marking the route toward Hoofstok to the village, with a blue “X” marking the entrance to the site, wrapped around a flash drive: a convenient and – relatively- cheap way of storing information taken from other technological gadgets.
“Good luck, and remember, get all the data from the database. I’ll keep the cash ready”
We left her office, crossing the door. As soon as we did it, the three squad leaders waiting in the hallway re-entered the room.
“Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?”
“No, not at all… but then again, I thought the same about bloodsuckers…”
I felt sympathetic toward the mare. Yes, she had been through hell and back. Fortunately, not much from now on would make her go off her guard
“C’mon, don’t be such a pessimistic. Everything will turn out alright. We’ll just face a few normal mutants, no big deal: probably dogs or boars, nothing beyond your expertise.”
She seemed to light up a bit
“That seems more pleasant, yeah…”
And at that moment, while we were trotting along the alleyways, the megaphone system cranked up with those long acquainted voices.
“Hey Tinder, you got the loot over there?”
“What loot, Dom?”
“The box, you dickhead. I’ve sent a deliverpony to drop it by your store”
“Ah, that one? Just a sec, buddy.” *Sounds of a cardboard box being torn*”Well, there’s plenty of marekarovs here, dude.”
“So, how much for them?”
“Are you kidding me? You want money for THESE? C’mon Dom, I wouldn’t buy this type of crap off from you even if I were high on joke AND drunk.”
“Did somebody irradiated your weed stash or what, Tinder? Everything there was reworked to function top-notch”
“If you say so, I suppose I can cut some slack and offer 1500 bits for the whole package”
“You mad? There’s like, forty marekarovs in there. I could get more for it by meting them onto scrap metal, you asswipe.”
“Do you think that’s a shitty price, pal? Here’s news for ya: IT IS! If you don’t like it, then take your crap outta my face and scram”
“Alright then, but you pay the deliverpony this time.”
“As if! Just lift your damn butt and pick these up, dopehead!”
“You and I both know that ain’t gonna happen’. I’m not leaving my workshop, buddy.”
“Why is that such a big deal for you? Just call in your marefriend and she’ll cover for you, dimwit”
“She has her own things to do, asswipe”
“Don’t pull that excuse on me. Everypony knows that the real reason she spends so much time away from you is because you have nothing down there that would impress even a little filly!”
“Like your amorous situation was any better, you fucking midget… you must need a goddamn stool in the rare occasions you get lucky, and don’t even get me started on your length... it probably doesn’t even goes past your belly…”
“As a matter of fact, it does. Which is more yours will ever reach.”
“Then, if it is that long, why don’t you turn it and shove it up your…”
Carmelia’s voice broke the two stallion’s banter at that point
“What the hell is wrong with you two? I can’t believe you two brain-dead morons are seriously arguing about whose’s cock is longer! SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET BACK TO WORK ALREADY, YOU RETARDS, I DON'T FUCKING PAY YOU TWO TO LOLLYGAG ALL DAY LONG!!”
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“See, here’s one right there!”
I trotted a few meters near the anomaly. Yep, it was a springboard alright. Its transparent enormous “bubble” outlay defined it as such.
“How you saw it from this distance? It seemed to have nothing at all just a minute ago”
I shook my head and turned to her. I could see the Hoofstokian structures by the horizon… we had been trotting for one or two hours already, the trip down the road was uneventful, unless you count scaring stray mutant dogs as something worthwhile mentioning.
Broken down construction vehicles, scattered props, half-dug ditches, incomplete structures, dirt… everything there hinted that the road area was originally planned to be an eastern expansion of the compound that now was known as Hoofstok, only that, they were never able to conclude it.
“Yes, they are a tad difficult to spot if you don’t pay much attention. Visibility depends on how the sun rays hit the anomaly. Come a bit closer, you’ll see it better…”
She trotted near the anomaly, instinctively raising her hooves to the eyes.
“It is so… bright.”
“Yeah. If you get too close, it gets brighter and brighter because anomalies reflect light. Also, if I hadn’t turned off my anomaly detector, it’d be beeping like crazy. You should look for landscape clues signalizing the anomaly as well… strange vortices of leaves, dancing clouds of dust, air fluctuation, static electricity, weird-colored fog, and of course, blood stains and torn limbs… I thought it was common knowledge for any Zone traveler … How did you traveled around the anomalies without knowing this stuff?”
She took a few strides back and I followed.
“By observing the animals, silly. They have much more sharp senses than us, they know where the anomalies are, so it is just a matter of careful observation, and then, of tagging the anomalies’ location.”
I eyed her curiously. “The way you put it, it worked every single time? I mean, animals cannot know EVERY anomaly pocket, you’d be probably bound to hit one soon or later if you relied only onto them.”
“Yes, it happened. I hit a springboard… five or six times, who’s counting? And the external rim of a meat grinder just once… well, just a few bruises, nothing really serious…” She shrugged nonchalantly.
“Which kind of makes me wonder… why the sudden interest about recognizing and avoiding anomalies?”
She blinked a few times before opening her muzzle. “It is just that… let’s say that… I want to save on meds! Yes, that’s it. I can’t have a nice cash budget when I expend so much on medkits…”
“Ooookay…” My tone dripped distrust, that excuse was faker than a seven bits note, I could tell it. “Next on… bolts!”
I floated the small bag of bolts from my saddlebag, opening it to reveal numerous iron bolts, some rusted, cracked ones, but they were all good for what we usually needed them. The bag was almost full because I picked a few while staying at Hoofstok.
After cautiously hoofing through the bag, I found a bolt that seemed particularly good: it was not too big or small, it didn’t have any rust and the metal still had some shine.
Using my telekinesis, I flung it to the springboard. The small item went through an invisible wall, outlying a small portion of the springboard’s body with red, orange and yellow tones, like a stone hitting a water body and producing small waves around the critical point, while the bolt itself steamed into a molten red coloration. The anomaly reacted by leaving shockwaves that lifted dust in a circular pattern around its main structure, the springboard left out more three or four shockwaves before returning to a stabilized stance.
“Whenever you tread into uncertain territory, always throw a bolt before trotting on. If you don’t, after four or five steps, you’re history. Try it now. Grab a bolt and toss it into the anomaly. I’m not exactly sure on how you earth ponies do it, without telekinesis, so I’d recommend you try either with your hooves, tail or mouth, whenever you feel better with…Also, serve yourself from some of my bolts, if you want to practice later”
I dropped the bag and gave her space.
The mare approached and nuzzled the bag, picking a hooffull of bolts. After eyeing them, she took her pick. Upon finding an especially promising one, she gripped it with her teeth. With the item into her mouth, she carefully aimed at the anomaly…
PTOOOOOOOOO!!!
She spat the bolt right onto the anomaly. From that distance, missing it would have been quite difficult.
The anomaly, in turn, quickly started its reaction chain again, buffing its deadly gravitational shockwaves a few times before subsiding.
“Say…” The redhead started while eyeing the entire scene “This only happens when bolts are thrown or anything else will do?”
“Any object that is thrown in activates it, but you’d better use bolts or other metallic objects for probing areas…”
“Why? Compared to… say… stones; bolts or metallic objects can be hard to find at times.”
“Because bolts or metallic objects don’t break instantly when thrown into an anomaly, like stones or other frail material, thus, the reaction won’t last so long because the item will break quickly. Also, metallic objects are easier to spot; they shine under sunlight or artificial illumination, so they stand out, all the better for the explorer. Though you should use lightweight objects for obvious reasons: bolts, screws, metal scraps, belt buckles, earrings, bottle caps, or, if you’re all out, coins or even bullets will do the trick.”
“Good point. By the way…” She eyed our surroundings “How far we are from the village?”
“Dunno… let’s check it.”
I took out the map. According to it, we should trot a bit more down the road to find a tunnel north, which was directly connected to the village.
“Not far, just a little bit more walking ahead.”
After I’ve used the telekinesis to recover both bolts, reactivating the anomaly once last time by it, we resumed our pace.
Not much later, we’ve reached the marked spot, a wide tunnel intended for stagecoach, carriage and other vehicles’ passage. Much of the tunnel’s structure was tattered by the passage of time and lack of proper maintenance, having collapsed at some sections. Big piles of rock and dirt partially blocked it, but nothing serious.
The mare turned on her flashlight, and I did the same thing with mine.
Besides being pitch dark and a bit cold, the tunnel was devoid of life as well.
Now, this wasn’t a good omen. That place would be the perfect lair for dogs or boars. The lack of them meant that… something other than those creatures was lurking around, something so big that scared them off…
No, I’m just jumping to conclusions here. Perhaps a group of stalkers has previously cleared out the area or some other explanation, no point worrying about these little details.
After crossing the tunnel, we were greeted by one or other sunlight ray that somehow insisted to sprout among the overcast weather; the clouds were still announcing the promise of rain later on.
The village itself was the cemented road continuing from the bridge, ending down on a flooded structure. At the two sides of the road, cliffs teeming with dilapidated houses and withering plants. Rusty fuel tanks, rotten wooden fences… the village doesn’t looked like everything else in the zone, it looked even more eerie and spooky, like it was abandoned BEFORE the disaster… presumably, with the monarchy helping the evacuation, if there were ever motive for one…
Following the map, there were some stairs that allowed access to the top, reaching the houses, and into one of them, a trapdoor that led to the complex.
Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…
I flung a bolt forward, and it got picked up mid-air, entering a clockwise rotation pattern as it was caught on the Whirlgig’s area of effect, letting out a loud WHOOOSHHH when the anomaly reacted to the foreign object.
“There’s another one, a whir…”
I turned around and stopped mid-sentence. The mare didn’t strayed away this time, but she was facing the other side completely…
She sniffed the air a few times and narrowed her eyes ominously.
“This is… tushkano country.” She said grimly
“Wha…? Never heard of these” I was perplexed… calling out that a group of hostiles was around, suddenly, like that…
“Just stick close, very close…those pests have it coming.” Ka-ching!
Keeping the same controlled anger face, she raised a hoof from the ground, licked it’s sole a few times and lifted it to the air, to feel the air humidity and currents, I can only assume… now how that would help us…
“They are near… very near…” She licked the sole two more times and raised it again… “Around ninety, no, a hundred… more… damn, we’ve hit a big nest… and they didn’t have any food for…” Lielle licked her sole once more “Four hours and…” The mare licked the sole again “Thirty-seven minutes.”
That said, the mare rested her hoof onto the ground.
“Also, the day is partially clouded with eighty per cent chance of rain this afternoon if you ask me, but what do I know? I’m no pegasus” And the azure pony shrugged.
I considered asking her how the hay she did it, but I thought it was best not to. It was probably one of those “earth pony only” things, abilities similar to magic or whenever they were called.
Then, there was shrieking… a multitude of squeals and screeches erupting from the structures, sounding like a horde of cursed souls.
Tumbling around my gear, I retrieved the AK. My grip was shaking terribly… we were outnumbered, surrounded… mother of goddess…
And on cue, the beasts came from the darkness… several bright, devious eyes turned out to belong to…
… Jerboas…
At first, I looked at those pathetic small things with contempt, but then, more of them sprouted from the ruined houses, enough to pose a threat…
“Don’t fire till you see the white of their eyes…” The mare said while facing the other side, we were back to back. When I turned to face her, I saw that the jerboas were massing up on her side as well, the mammals had a specially famine expression. The rodents stood on their two back legs, extending their front claws and teeth in anticipation before leaping.
PWOOT!!! SQUEAAAACHHH!!!
The shotgun shell hit straight into a Tushkano’s head, turning it into a gory mass of unidentified shape, while the other pellets stunned and harmed a hooffull of other Tushkanos positioned too close to the victim.
RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLE…RATTLE… SQUEAA..
I tried to conserve ammo by firing in bursts instead of full auto; most of the beasts fell with one or two rounds
PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! SQUEEASQUEAAACHH!!!
One of the rodents leaped and sunk his tiny incisives at my chest, being hanged to me. I thanked the leather reinforcements that pretty much absorbed the bite.
Then another rodent was successful reaching me, and a third, and a fourth…
While they were too small to reach my face, the only relatively unprotected point, they were hindering me. I shook a few times trying to take them off my back.
PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!
“Stop playing with them, just smack the little cunts” The mare snipped. She was fighting the beasts with an almost obsessive zeal, placing each shot where it pained the most…
I quickly returned fire to the wave of Tushkanos coming to me
RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLE… RATTLERATTLE…
Once a good bit of them were cleaned, I rolled onto the ground, forcibly ejecting the parasites from my armor. And then, I stomped over them. One by one they squealed.
PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!
“Cover me, I’m going to reload!” The redhead mare warned.
RATTLERATTLE…
I’ve turned to the other direction to mow the critters at her side, while Lielle retrieved more shells from her belt pouch and inserted them one by one on the shotgun.
Clickcha, clickcha, clickcha…
RATTLERATTLERATTLE… click click click.
Damn, now I had to reload too… at least a rifle was easier to be refilled…
Clickcha, clickcha, clickcha…
So, I merely floated a fresh magazine from my bag and replaced the depleted one, storing it for reuse.
Clickcha, clickcha… KA-CHINK! PWOOT!!!
Nevertheless our efforts holding ground, there were simply too many Tushkanos. The beasts were coming to us at bunches…
“You know, this isn’t going to work forever…”
“If you know what is good for you mister, you better keep shootin’…” She said while gritting her teeth
PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! SQUEAAA…
RATTLE….RATTLE…RATTLERATTLE….
“We need an alternate plan… there are more enemies than bullets.”
PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!
“I’m all ears” She said while taking advantage of a break in the mutant wave to reload her shotgun.
“We should move out to the complex and lock them outside; otherwise we’ll have a lost battle in our hooves pretty soon our ammo ends”
KA-CHING!
“You got the map, lead away while I mop these mutants off your tail.”
Okay... I withdrew the map and held it, trying to read it…
PWOOT!!!
The entrance was two houses away to the right. I floated the AK into position and rushed into the masses of Tushkanos…
RATTLERATTLERATTLEE… RATTLERATTTLERATTLE
Many of them fell to the bullet storm, several others were trampled under my hooves… good thing my armor protected my fur from these vermin’s’ fangs.
PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!
The mare was keeping up with my pace, leaving either dead or mortally wounded rodents in her path. Unfortunately, for each one that were defeated, two more seemed to take his place.
RATTLERATTLE… RATTLERATTLE…
There… this should be the place. After two well-placed kicks, the old door gave way only to reveal the house’s dusty interior. Among the bare floor, a single trapdoor was closed.
PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!
Once the azure mare crossed the doorframe, I lifted the heavy steel-framed wooden trapdoor.
“Get in; I’ll close it behind me!”
PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!
Not needing to hear it twice, the mare hopped into the passage.
RATTLERATTLE….
After leaving a last batch of hot lead to the mutant rodents that still insisted to sprout around, I subsequently jumped inside too.
Thud!
I underestimated that drop… why the ground has to be so hard? After lifting up and spending a few seconds shaking off the dust, I used my magic to pull the handle, closing the trapdoor. Three Tushkanos made it through in the meantime, while the trapdoor fell upon the torso of a fourth, squishing it.
PWOOT!!! Click, click… SQUEAAACHHH!!!
The earth pony drew her marekarov and finished off the remaining beasts.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“That’s the last of them for now.” She said relieved, and started to reload her weapons
“Care to explain your… eager… to frag these… Tushkanos?”
“Don’t ask. I mean it.” She said in a surprisingly serious tone.
Whenever… all the more to keep focus on the task ahead. Speaking of which…
I turned on the flashlight, flashing a second light on the basement, since Lielle’s was already on.
The small room we were at was just an antechamber, with the only exits being the trapdoor via stairs and a big metallic door opposed to it.
Such door was busted open; the terminal at its side had a foreign device attached. Definitely a door cracker… Freedom’s work.
SQUEANGG!!! *ripriprip* SQUACHHEE!!! *ripriprip* SQUEAAA!!!
A quick look showed me the source of that sound…
The Tushkanos, they were chewing the wood parts of the trapdoor to bust in… such persistent little bastards…
“Yeah, I see it too.” The mare lifted her gaze to the sounds. “Let’s enter the site and lock the door, this way the Tushkanos won’t bother us.”
That sounded good, and we crossed the metal door. Once on the other side, the mare took the reins of the situation and started fiddling with the terminal at the side of the door…
Interestingly, there was still energy. Somepony decided that the things buried here were important enough to require a constant electricity flow; the site probably had its own energy source.
After a few moments dealing with the terminal, the mare succeeded in closing the door.
That was weird… she never showed any proficiency with machines before, well… I suppose that we could credit the ease to the Freedomers’ gadget that already tampered the door’s electrical lock.
I took a quick pause to assess my situation. While the Tushkanos didn’t hurt me at all, my armor suffered some punctures here and there, well, could be worse. Luckily, we wiped the thick of them before they could overrun us.
“BEEP! Equine presence detected! Activating Host routine.”
We both turned to the source of the voice, a small camera with attached sound boxes above the frame of a metallic door, pretty much equal in size and composition of the same we just crossed. This was definitely an identification chamber of sorts.
The “camera” faced a determinate point on the ground, and then, it started producing tiny specks of light. Not like a flashlight, it just generated tons of light dots on a determinate area, then; such dots arranged themselves, building a shape…
A shape more familiar than I’d expect. Dear goddess…
There, in front of us, stood a hologram of…
…Princess Celestia…
“Scanning…” She said with a mechanical voice, launching investigative scanners from her eyes.
“Individuals not matching personnel list. Please, state your visitor password or leave the area. Proceeding further without doing so will activate the Breach routine”
The mare scratcher her head quizzically
“Now, what could it be? I don’t have any idea. Do you, Bosh?”
“No clue either… something related to Celestia herself?”
“Uh, uh! I know one! SUN!”
“Password incorrect. Two out of three attempts left.”
“Let me try it… Monarchy!”
“Password incorrect. One out of three attempts left.”
I gazed at my companion, and she just looked at the ground. Well, what we had to lose?
“Friendship!”
“Password incorrect. Activating Breach routine.”
And the hologram changed to an odd motherly tone while changing to a kindhearted expression
“Hush now, dearies… everything will be just fine. If you two surrender, no harm will be done.”
And the door begun whirring, before stopping on its track and releasing sparks.
“Oh my… some mischievous pony rigged the doors. Please, stay off the site.”
“So, what now?” The redhead aimed her questioning gaze at me.
“We just go ahead…” I stated while seeing her doubts on her eyes. “It is just a machine, not the real deal.”
She nodded softly, but still had a doubtful expression.
Mares…
We crossed through the hologram, while the thing “gazed” at us the entire time, pleading us not to go.
Paying no heed to it, I crossed the partially opened door. The next room was an enormous decayed meeting room, complete with a large rectangular table, pots with grey mass that at some point, were plants, crushed chairs, pretty much, that common look of a forsaken building that the Zone seemed to emulate so well, illuminated by ominous emergency lights… It had three sets of double doors, one, budged open, at the north, another, closed, in the western direction and the last, the one from which we came, at south.
The mare was quick to point at something by the western wall.
A blown up machine gun turret.
As on a terrific synchrony, the Celestia hologram formed itself on the middle of the room. The image had a sad semblance.
“We only do this because we have your best interest at heart…”
Four other turrets descended from the roof, its laser sights picking targets…
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
Ooff!!! Right on the chest! That’s what I get for going first.
Caught by surprise, we did the only obviously reasonable thing… rush toward under the table.
“Targets lost, entering standby mode.” The mechanical voice sounded above.
“This isn’t going to end well” The mare said. “Once that thing keeps us in sight, it’s going to go full auto over our arses.”
“I know, right?” I countered while administering a medkit and two or three bandages to the wounds. “Still, we should go together. The more targets that thing has, the harder it is for it to keep focus. Do you still have any grenade?”
The mare opened her pack, checking her supplies. “Three explosives left.”
“Good. You take the right one, while I blow the turret on the left. Then, we try to trot out as quickly as we can before the other two can open fire.”
I pulled a grenade from my own pack, holstering the AK. I used my magic to envelop the explosive, preparing the throw.
“On my mark…”
The azure mare tucked her grenade onto her crimson tail, facing the right side of the room…
“Now!”
“Acquiring targets!”
I threw that grenade toward the left corner, right below the turret.
BOOM! BOOM!
“Unit #5 nonoperational, rerouting po...BZZT!Unit #3 nonoperational, rerouting power. ALERT, INSURGENT BREACH IN PROGRESS! ALL SECURITY PERSONEL, PROCEED WITH COUNTERBREACH MEASURES!”
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
Ouch… one, two, three bullets… coping up with the pain, we finally made it through that door.
Losing no time, the mare started to hoof around the terminal to lock it…
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
“Close that damn thing already, Lielle!”
“This isn’t as simple as it looks” She said while hoofing a sweat off her forehead.
BRRZZLLL!!! TCHAF!
“There you go… ugh.” She dropped to the ground, with bullet wounds on her forearm and hip.
The mare promptly used one of her medkits to treat her injuries, while I served myself of more bandages, since the painkillers from the med I took a while ago were still kicking.
“We need a better plan…”
“Tell me about it.” My friend said while standing up again. “This place is locked up tighter than a chastity belt…”
I shook my head, agreeing. But there was no way back, at least not without deactivating the system. I’d rather not face those machineguns and the Tushkanos again…
Living with the ever-imminent fear of being either shot or bitten… such was the life of a Stalker.
This room was bigger than the first one. If more than anything, it resembled an assembly line of some kind… of what, only Faust knew. There was a big conveyor belt, and big steel “hangers” with scraps of metal. Burnt materials and mashed electronics were everywhere to be seen, along with depleted blowtorches, screwdrivers, rusted toolboxes, etc. At the end of the line, a weird mishap of rubber cables with some kind of… connectors? The tubes were linked to big tanks held high; my best guess is that was some kind of fueling station. Strangely enough, both the tubes and the console nearby were not dusty, being an indicative of recent (three or four days ago, who knows?) usage… probably by Freedomers snooping around. Thankfully, the room showed no signs of bullet holes or blood either… meaning that the security system wasn’t wired onto it.
The room had three exits, the one linking to the meeting room, one at the west and another at the east direction. The last two were normal wooden doors, unlike the big metallic door we just electronically closed.
Among the north wall, strange cubicles, some sort of confinement rooms… three or four of them, all covered with glass and a control pad nearby… a closer inspection revealed that they were some sort of test chamber, designed to test the resistance of a particular item by submitting it to either fire, bullets or explosives.
Now, what kind of stuff they were creating to require such quality test?
The nearest control pad was labeled “vivisection chamber temp commands”, with buttons for opening and closing the door, a big red “activation” button and a dial for adjusting temperature.
“Found anything?” The mare asked.
“Nope, just old useless machines…” I eyed around the room, placing my eyes upon each of the wooden doors… two ways.
“Perhaps we should split up.”
“Yeah, that worked well last time, doesn’t it?” She grumbled
“No, I mean it. This AI will have a harder time keeping tabs on BOTH of us, this means, it will have more chance of making mistakes or overlook things… we could exploit it. Also, by splitting up, we can cover a larger area and find the database, deactivating the defenses more quickly”
“Hmm… well, it’s your call, really. Right or left?”
Does it matter? If the site was symmetrical (which probably was, after all, the monarchy’s lapdogs were a perfectionist bunch, so eager to please their own rulers…) both sides would lead to the same room at certain point.
My eyes went to that odd mishap of black rubber tubes hanging from the ceiling. I’ll go with the door closer to that thing, that’s the way the Freedomers supposedly went.
“I’ll go left. Take care, ok?”
The azure mare just bobbed her head, shaking her magnificent mane and answered.
“And you, try to get back in one piece.”
And by so, she crossed the right door, disappearing into the dark room.
I braced myself, and after a few moments catching some breath, I opened my door...
It was a mess hall, one that would support twenty, twenty five ponies if it were properly maintained. As it was, it was merely a disheveled and dirty room filled with numerous metallic tables, emptied fridges, cracked tiles and one-hundred years old organic leftovers... spatters of fresh blood at certain sections and a pony skeleton under the northernmost table complemented the post-apocalyptic décor.
I trotted through the room, already expecting my gracious hostess…
I was midway though it when she materialized again, her face filled with so much regret… it was making me feel bad for it, even though I knew it was only a machine, the similarities with the real princess were remarkable… as like the programmer thoroughly studied the princess herself to create something exactly like her.
“Your heart is in the right place, child… you are just a bit misguided. Let me show you the way.”
As in response, tiles among the wall shifted to reveal more automatic guns…
Shotguns…
PWOOT !!! PWOOT!!!
Now I can say for sure that my pity for the hologram was short-lived… the stupid thing was more than able to fend off threats for itself, including me.
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
I softly massaged my flank, exactly where a few pellets hit. A few bandages later, it was almost like new.
Strange… whoever made this defense system didn’t take too much heed to the area. For example, the turrets were useless if the target was hidden, like I was, under a table. And the mess hall was filled with tables; to this regard… it would be way smarter to install some floor-based defense. For what I could extract, the mind (or minds) behind the automated defense system intellectually knew all the technicalities to set up a working one, but lacked wisdom to determine effectiveness by disregarding variables.
Not that I was complaining, hehehe…
“Target onl…” PWOOT!!! Ching… “Target lost, ent…” “Targ…” PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!Ching! Ching! “Target lo…” “Targe…”
Those tables sure were resistant to stand those shotguns’ punch… Luckily, I was able to make my way to the other door… only one tiny problem…
The door stood too far away from the closest table. I would need to rush toward it, exposing myself…
Oh, what the hell…
“Target online, opening fire”
PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!
PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!
Move, stupid legs… move… pay no mind to these wounds…
PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!
PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
Arrrghh!!! My poor little hooves… I’ve got two direct shots and three rebounds… but I’ve made it through.
I seriously hope that Lielle is doing better than me… ack… now, let’s treat those with one, no, two medkits… and a bunch of bandages. Way to go, having serious injuries and pulling them off with half-assed bandaging, painkillers and other drugs whose effect was beyond me…
Goddamnit, I am a stalker. I’ve had worse…
After pulling together my wits, I trotted along the room I was at currently… Some sort of big corridor…
And, as a chronometrically timed psychological torture, the image of Celestia appeared again, reeking melancholy off her wide saucer eyes…
“My sun shines for everypony alike… as every day is a new blessing. Why can’t you enjoy it like everypony else and be grateful for it? Why throw away this precious gift in exchange of a causeless rebellion?”
And she closed her eyes, shaking her head disappointedly.
Sections of the wall opened, giving space to more guns…
FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!
Both the north and south edges of the room were encased in fire, as the flamethrowers laid out all of their propane-fueled flames… too bad I was standing on the middle of the room.
Then, the flamethrowers stopped, and instantly more sections of the wall opened, revealing more flamethrowers…
FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!
It dawned on me, they were boxing me in! The system was designed so that it would hit the enemy at least once, letting the other turrets conserve gas.
And that meant, the next wave was going to be directly on me. Crapcrapcrapcrap… I couldn’t move, not with the wall of flames at my back and front…
The turrets stopped a second time, and sections of the wall, the ones directly at my right and left, opened, bringing forth the weapons…
There was only one direction left to escape the flames.
Down.
FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!
Now, that was probably my most heroic moment… laying out on a dirty floor on fetal position… I am sure that the future generations will forever rejoice in that memory…
As soon as the flames scarring above my head came to a halt, I pushed my legs forward to the exit of the room.
I was lucky that the flamethrowers had such a basic flaw…
They overheat.
FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!
That last wave caught the tip of my tail; I rolled over on the ground to set out the fire. Apart from my broken pride and disheveled appearance, I had no serious injury.
But then, why I felt like crap?
Celestia… that was it. Whoever was the crafty bastard that programmed that hologram, he was one sick evil mastermind. The way it was designed, the expressions matching each situation… it was like that thing… was built to break both my bones and my feelings alike… like I was the bad guy.
I am not the bad guy, am I? Let’s see… I don’t live in an evil lair, don’t have world domination as a goal, neither have a sadistic pleasure on watching others suffer… all that I desire is… to stay alive. Yes, that’s it. The only creatures that could effectively deem my current actions as evil were pretty much dead or had moved on with their lives, their old allegiance, the monarchy, as an institute, having pretty much being thrown into a coffin, nailed and buried after the accident.
And now, where I was? A proper room, not a corridor… but this one was decorated… although most of it crumbled onto dust and decay, naked pillars, paintings turned into mold and furniture into fine powder and trash… all victims of the implacable passing of the years. A double door went further north, while to my right, four single doors.
“So much potential, if only you used your gift for the welfare of your entire species instead of this selfish endeavor…” The image of Celestia softly cooed, tears on its “eyes”…
Why don’t you leave me alone, you disgraceful shade of the past?
Three machineguns tilted off from the ceiling, all of them positioned directly opposed to the set of single doors.
“Target online, commencing fire”
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
Now, how to solve this? I wouldn’t be able to pass directly over those machineguns… they must go.
I dug my saddlebags for a grenade, holding it tight on a black magical hue. I trotted away from the pillar, tossing the explosive on the turret on the middle…
“Target online, commencing fire”
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
BOOM!! Crack!!
The explosion cracked the ceiling at that point, crashing down and crushing the machinegun under it.
“Unit #8 nonoperational, rerouting power… structural damage on the stallions living area, hostile is armed and dangerous.”
Ok, two to go… and four grenades left.
“Target online, commencing fire”
BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
I tossed that grenade to the northern wall, so it would flip toward the northernmost gun… but I got the “math” wrong, and it landed a bit too far from the gun, catching it on its spread.
“Unit #9 damaged, equine targeting system offline…switching to heat signature targeting system”
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
Great lord… now I did it. That crazed-ass machinegun was going to end up hurting somepony. If I could only…
Heat signature, huh? I checked over my saddlebags while that mechanical menace still roared all of its 1080 RPM live-fire action… The pillar was holding… mostly of it.
Then, I found what I was looking for… my portable burner. Oh, how I am going to miss you…
I floated it beside the southernmost machinegun and turned it on. A lively flame appeared on the airborne burner…
“Additional target detected, switching target”
BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
The northern machinegun aimed toward the burner and released its deadly rain, cranking its twin useless on the process… my poor burner…I’ll have to get used to campfire-cooked food… burnt on one side and raw on the other…
“Unit #7 nonoperational. Friendly fire detected, Unit #9 defective, deactivating defective unit.” And the assigned machinegun powered down.
Finally, relief! At least this sector was clear from those damnable machines. After a quick break from the intense battle, I set out to examine the set of doors… there were four of them.
If the AI spoke the truth, I was on the stallions living area, and ergo, I could assume that these rooms were private rooms for stallions. Let’s try my luck with the first door…
That room revealed to be almost entirely crushed… the floor collapsed over it, thrashing the chamber … and there was a small pool of water… at least was water when it formed itself… evidently, a leak, which, when detected, instantly made the AI stop sending water through the damaged pipe.
Nothing of interest in there, everything valuable was either destroyed or missing, taken by the original residents or looters, only Faust knew.
The second door… was budged! I tried really hard to open it, without results. Something on the other side was blocking it. After forcing it worthlessly, I left that damn door alone and moved on to the third door…
Now, the room to which it led was reasonably intact… a bunk bed, a desk, a locker… nothing out of the ordinary…
There was something over the desk…a large blueprint.
It depicted a high-tech armor, labeled as EPA14… According to the document, the armor contained numerous life-support functions and a wide array of weaponry; while the design was specially jarring… the armor was a big hefty bulk of chrome-layered metal, fitted in its interior by servomotors and storage spaces… the drawing resembled an alicorn, because the armor possessed a horn coating, wing coatings (if they were folded…) and was less thick at the hooves, as to fit one’s muscles… like it was designed to fit any of the three races.
One size fits all, I guess…
The locker also had some stuff… a necklace with a pen drive as pendant, I’ll check the contents of it later… and a small rectangular box.
I opened that box; it contained a strange kind of… stick. That’s what it looked like, a small metallic stick with a lot of buttons and indicators… perhaps some tool or controller? Anyways, I’ve dumped both items in my saddlebag and left the room.
The last room revealed to be nothing more than a broom closet… a dark, god-forsaken place that served no purpose nowadays, the last janitor long since gone.
Only one direction to head to…
The following room was filled with rows of filing cabinets, some sort of archive room… interestingly enough, the whole room looked as if it was used for target practice for a mad bomberpony… large explosion debris , breaks on the rows of cabinets and carbonized objects were to be seen all around…
A corridor went north, while a pair of bathrooms was to be seen on my left, their doors missing. Another double door went right…
“There is space in my heart for every little foal… even the wayward ones… let go your hate and surrender, we promise to treat you like a decent equine.”
Yeah, like feelings were hardwired into your damn artificial brain…
Two guns erupted from the end of the hall… oh my GODDESS…
“Target online, commencing fire”
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
That was really; really close… grenade launchers, what the hell? Screw it… I’m trying the other way around.
I raised my head from the cabinet row I was behind, only to discover that the door that I’ve came from had a metal plate wall blocking it… the AI trapped me!
“Target online, commencing fire”
PWLUUUUTCH!!!
The grenade went flying over my head; I used the telekinesis to push it further away…
BOOM!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
By Luna’s insatiable black holes… what to do now, what to do? Both the corridor north and the door at the right were prospective exits… but lest I wished to be blown into oblivion, I wouldn’t stand on those guns’ path without any cover…
The bathrooms… If I could only make a run for it… with luck, they will have a passage to another room…
“Target online, commencing fire”
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
Phew… just a bit more to reach it…
“Target online, commencing fire”
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!
“Target lost, entering standby routine.”
Arckkkk!!! My leg… of all the legs I had, why the one on the right? And the back one at that…
That was a really nasty wound… the leg was now little more than a limping limb covered in oozing bandages. Though the fact the hooffull of bandages and the two medkits that were applied immediately saved me from bleeding to death or having to amputate the limb, I wouldn’t be able to run for a while…
If only one of my front hooves were damaged in its place… in the Zone, a slow pony usually meant a dead pony…
Stupid metallic shrapnel…
Moving my poor leg around the tiny bathroom, I could take a good look at it… no other exits, only an air duct, too high for me to reach, even if my leg was fine…
This was the end of the line… I had no way out; going against those turrets with my limp leg was stupidity. And from here, while they couldn’t aim at me, I couldn’t aim at them either, so no point trying to nudge grenades at them…
At least I could see the set of double doors opposite to the bathroom… and hope that my friend had better luck dealing with the AI.
“Breach in progress, ladies’ quarter. Security system neutralized, alert!”
Speaking of the devil…
Like an answer to my prayers, that set of doors opened, letting inside somepony else…
Too bad it wasn’t a friend. It was one of those… good lord… the spitted image of the armor in that blueprint… and it was coming for me! Obviously, the AI had control over that as well…
Parasprite cunt, pseudodog arses… that demoniac thing opened a section of its metallic back and materialized a rocket launcher, setting its laser sights directly onto… yes…
FWOOOSHHH!!! BOOM!
The bathroom stalls at the back were smoldered in seconds… and, unlike me, they were made of iron! Either way, the AI had got me good…
As I stood there on the darkness, I could hear every “Thud!” outside, each one signalizing a step of that abhorrent machine, each one counting the time that my death sentence drew closer and closer…
There was only one thing left to do…
I trotted out of the room dragging my limp leg, facing the machine with the little dignity I had left…
“That’s enough… you win! I SURRENDER”
The turrets set their laser sights at me, but they didn’t fire…
“Even though you may have acted against our interests, an equine is still an equine, and deserves utmost care… now stand still and await further orders, insurgent.”
The automated armor took a few steps closer, facing me…
It wasn’t intact… a number of scratches and dirt adorned the machine. It was… examining me.
Then, the machine nodded its head strangely, like it was purposely trying to avoid my gaze or something… perhaps a malfunction… it didn’t lasted long. A jolt of electricity coming from the hologram made the thing stand static again.
“Dispose of the following materials:
1 (one) AK rifle, model 74, origin: Zebraria
1 (one) Marekarov pistol, origin: Fillydelphia
1 (one) Bowie knife, origin: Talos
5 (five) Fragmentation grenades, origin: Baghdrag
Drop the determinate items into the nearest disposal hatch.”
And as response, a section of the south wall moved, revealing the disposal system, just a big hole that would send my weapons to… I had no idea…
I slowly trotted to the designated hatch, bringing my screwed leg along in a pathetic slouch…
“Dispose of the items in 60 seconds, failure on doing so will tag you as a noncompliant and hostile individual.”
What the fuck? Now this too? My situation was bad enough already… I jogged to the damn hatch, bringing my leg to higher levels of pain in doing so.
In a few moments, I dumped all of my weapons into that hatch…
“Request fulfilled… proceed to your designated contention chamber “
And at the machine’s beck, the lights at the corridor to the north started blinking…
I trotted toward that direction, the autonomous armor following me…
The AI indicated me to take a turn to the left, and I obeyed its desire, leading me to a dead end. At my right, a locked room with a rusted “security” sign over the doorframe, and in my front, another big metallic door.
Another jolt of electricity hit the empty armor, forcing it to raise his right hoof toward the door. Consecutively, the door itself whirred, opening its lock to reveal a prison…
“Tread on, insurgent… await further instructions from a facility security personnel”
And, without any choice, I crossed into the prison, the door locking again behind me.
At first glance, the room was deep into darkness. But after some time, my pupils grew used to it and I could discern shapes in the darkness… the outline of five other living creatures…
“Pst, I think that the princess’ faithful servant is gone…”
“Can’t hear the footsteps of her shining knight anymore… yeah. And look, he dropped new blood…”
And the creatures began to creep closer… ponies. Three of them were visible now… A turquoise-furred pegasus mare with a colorful violet mane and magenta eyes, wearing a merc armor. One earth pony stallion with yellow fur, tired black eyes and a sky blue mane, dressed in a light Freedom armor, and an earth pony mare with a dark grey fur, indigo mane, and golden eyes… dressing some sort of modded military armor.
“Hey there, newcomer… welcome to our very personal piece of hell” Greeted the pegasus mare. “A loner, I assume?” I nervously nodded. “So as I and Midlight” She pointed to the earth pony mare, which showed her flashlight cutie mark with pride. “This one from Freedom is Ironfuel and my name is Stargazer”
Well, this ought to explain her cutie mark showcasing three white stars, while Ironfuel’s was a rifle mag.
“You all got captured by that thing?”
She laughed with pleasure. “It’s kinda obvious, doesn’t it? That damned thing outsmarted and beat all of us… so, what is your story, pal?”
“The Freedom leader gave me a job to gather a piece of intel from this place…”
“So, they still have interest about whenever is here…” Ironfuel commented “Though we lost numerous lives already… and everypony trapped here surviving in this condition…”
Indeed… I was almost asking how the buck they were able to live in that cramped place…
“The AI is programmed to regularly feed the prisoners, isn’t it?”
“Feeding as in the broadest term of the word…” The stallion pointed to a large upside down water drinker, one that could be used by hamsters, but much, much larger… it was half-filled. And all around of it, colorful packages littered the ground.
I approached the water drinker and picked up one of those packages…
The cover depicted a old lady with green fur and derisive eyes showing a purple-colored tongue. “Ol’ Granny Smith’s homemade Zap apple pies” and the package went on: “New formula, Tastes like rainbow!” and under it, an “Agropony quality seal” and an F&R inc. symbol…
I turned the package to examine the other side… that pie contained an insane amount of preservatives… “This product does not contain zap apples, artificially flavored and aromatized.” Too much for being “homemade”… “May contain sea serpent facial hair, monosodium glutamate, partially processed corn…” “…No more than 7 parts per thousand of mowed manticore dung per 100g …” the ingredient list went on… that thing also had way more food coloring than it would be healthy… and finally, it stated that “This product shouldn’t be used as a sole component of any diet.”
I raised my eyes from the package and the three ponies nodded… every one showed their tongues, each one having deep purple coloration…
“That’s the only “food” that blasted AI serves us…” Said Midlight. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner… every time is pie time.”
“How long have you been imprisoned?”
“We were counting the days, but…” And the pegasus pointed to a wall. Several tallies were scratched onto it, but most of them were covered by a thick mass of purple substance.
“That’s puke” The mare answered after seeing the doubt in my eyes.
“Purple puke?”
“Yes… half-stare over there…” and she pointed to a corner where a big unicorn stallion was sitting. “He got a bit sick from the pies and screwed over the counter… those pies; they don’t just turn your tongue purple… but every body fluid, stalker. I guess that’s why they come in these cheap packages, a “borderline pass” quality product”
That was disgusting… I could only hope that my friend would make it through and help me out of this situation.
“Aside from that, you guys don’t seem to be doing so badly…”
“You know nothing, Stalker… nothing…” Ironfuel said. “Every night that AI shows here and tells us a bedtime story, an incredible, involving story filled with adventure and excitement…”
“And, for Faust’s sake, how is that bad?”
“The AI was programmed to tell seven stories in total, one for each day. But due to a glitch, it stops the seventh one on the middle and loops out.”
“What?”
“Do you have any idea of how painful it is, Stalker? Even if someday, by a wild stroke of luck, I can leave this place, I will never know what happened to that foolhardy, yet, well-intentioned Alicorn prince!” The stallion roared.
“Well well, don’t be rude to our friend, Ironfuel… he is just curious, that’s all…” The pegasus mare calmed him. “Now, come and meet half-gaze.”
And she pointed to the pony by the corner, a dark pink unicorn stallion with a white mane and a pair of binoculars as a cutie mark. He was wearing a Freedom scout armor, while an eye patch obscured his right eye. (The accessory definitely being the reason for his nickname). He looked undernourished and tired…
“Wait a second, aren’t you fi…”
*snip*
And with that sound, in a split second, my saddlebag fell upon the hands of the fifth pony, which was stealthily ripping it off from my body with a makeshift knife.
“Way to go, Trailblazer…” Stargazer congratulated the brown pegasus in a bandit jacket. “Don’t try anything funny, newcomer… we just want the food.”
Sneaky bastards! They were distracting me to get their hooves on my stuff.
The four went through my pack, retrieving all the food, until…
“Hey guys, this one is loaded with booze! You don’t mind sharing with us, do you, Stalker?”
Yes, I did, deeply… that was MY hard-earned vodka, but reason came to me. They were four, and I was one… there was no chance of winning against all of them…
“No, go ahead…” I said while trying to ignore the screaming pain in my heart, which probably was on par with the one of losing a very dear son.
And after alleviating my bags from all the canned food and the booze, they threw it back at me.
“That’s life, stalker. You get dibs on the load of the next one that gets stuck with us” Stargazer said while flipping over a bottle. After a while, the four were drunk.
“Hic! You shee…” Started Midlight “Thish pony knows where to spend his bits. Instead of buying an improved armor, having to choose between being protected against bullets, radiation, scratches or anomalies, he just buys a lot of vodka! This way, it mattersh little if he is… hic! Shot, chewed, irradiated or torn to pieces by an anomaly, because he ish too damn drunk to care! Whee!”
I was going to have to spend some time locked up with these… individuals… until Lielle finds a way through, if she could. Well, I couldn’t do much now. I started to rearrange the stuff on my violated saddlebags, until my eyes went to that little flash drive that I came upon earlier…
I wasn’t leaving the prison anytime soon, so I connected that flash drive to my PDA, downloaded the data to it and started going through it… it wasn’t intelligence, but a diary, with several entries…
1057, January 8:
Finally we got ourselves a real nice place to conduct research and development… the Equestrian Prototype Armor is going well… just thought of a few more functions to add to the unit, we can probably get our hooves into making one prototype in around two month, if everything goes accordingly to the schedule… on other news, my new coworkers are throwing a welcome party at the mess hall, I’ll join and get to know em’ better, since we will be working together for now on.
1057, February 3:
Geesh… this new defense system creeps the heck outta me. I know that Reena, our programmer, got authorization from miss Heartstrings to install it as a part of training for her own project, but the way she programmed that thing, is just… for instance, she picked Celestia as the default AI template. Yes, while it was certainly inspiring to pretend that the actual princess of the sun was watching over us, she overdid it… I don’t know how the buck she actually programmed that thing to be so… lifelike. The hologram’s stare seems to pierce through steel and her voice sounds like a chorus of angels.I don’t know if it is all psychological or such, but… normally, I wouldn’t mind about it, but add her presence on the bathrooms too? What the hay was Reena thinking? Good thing that Heartstrings forbid her of installing automated weapons on private quarters, and she allowed the workshop to be spared too… just imagine if one of those things goes cuckoo? It could ruin my team’s work entirely. No, no… I will rely on our own pony security, thank you very much…
Ah, on a brighter note: I’ve finished the life support system module for the EPA, if it works properly, the user will be able to have all of his needs (hunger, thirst… and other less mentionable physiological needs) satisfied without even leaving the armor.
1057, February 7:
Finally somepony filed a complaint about the AI’s behavior… I almost feel sorry for Reena, if Heartstrings had thumbs, she’d be history now… well, while I can certainly say that I do not partake with her reaction, it was explainable, we almost had a casualty… now that gal is tuning down her system and programming the AI to be off the restrooms… seems like she is going to have some restrictions too…
The EPA is going ok; today we build a compatible station for fulfilling the needs: hunger, thirst and medicines. Once the armor is ready, we’ll test it. Also, I’ve figured out our little energetic problem: The armor will work by power transference from the site’s generator if it is on reach. If it isn’t, a biomagical compound power rod class 2 will provide power for around 3 months of constant use; the armor will be so thick that we won’t have to worry about the radiation, either for the user or for everypony around him.
1057, February 10:
I am at a loss for words… Reena demonstrated her system’s counterbreach routine, AKA shoot first, then shoot some more - at the loading area. Just seeing those dummies enter that container-filled room and one by one hear the most heartwarming phrases while being filled drown with bullets, I could say that for each pound of kindness, that terrible thing unleashed two of hot lead… these southern ponies have a dark sense of humor…
Anyways, Heartstrings seemed reasonably satisfied by it; however she demanded that the AI allows invaders to surrender, and ordered Reena’s crew to build up contention chambers at one of the unused rooms at the back… seems that she believes that in the case of a breach, prisoners would be more valuable than corpses. Also, she promised the mare that if she did everything on schedule, she could choose the monthly dessert… way to go by spoiling her, boss.
As about my project, we finally started making what matters: the guns. As expected, every opinion on my team differed when I asked which weapons we should include. The solution? Add all of them. We developed some really complex magitech materializing system for the armor’s weapons… it works like this: we develop “recipes” for the weapons, program them into the armor, and it builds and un-build them with the materialization system. Pros: ability to contain a wide array of weapons for every situation, and the ability to adapt to any ammo that the armor may have in storage. Cons: only one weapon may be materialized at once, materialization takes time to kick in and we couldn’t add lasers because it would hog out too much power from other functions…
1057, February 24:
No more zap apple pies! Finally… at first, it didn’t seem that bad, but after three or four days, the taste is sickening. How that mare may actually like this dessert is way beyond me, but we won’t have to worry about it anymore, not after somepony told Heartstring that his piss turned purple… yes, I’m not kidding. Purple, PISS! And the cause was those pies’ food coloring. A month’s supply of dessert is going to waste because of that…
Ah, we finally built the hull for the prototype, it looks glorious… able to fit any pony race, made of an alloy of metals more resistant and thick than dragon scales, it fully resisted the vivisection chamber up to 1000 degrees, gunfire and low-yield explosions without hull damage! Tomorrow we are going to install the user interface and life support systems, the weapon system can be put on hold until the prototype proves to be reliable.
1057, February 25:
Had a busy day… tested myself the prototype, I’ve felt a bit claustrophobic in it, BUT IT WORKS! We even tested the life support system, works to a trim! The interface, voice systems, radio, maps, targeting systems! And the interface stick too! I was the first pony to be intravenously fed! That is so surrealistic…
Ah, the interface stick… I was a bit lacking when describing it… it is a tool that automatically opens the life support and ammo hatches of the armor for a resupply of food, water, meds or ammo, it also includes diagnosis tools that helps performing repairs and grants user permissions for such repairs, it does allow the opening of the armor too, since it doesn’t open from the inside. In summary, it is very useful for field use when the EPA is deployed…
1057, March 8:
The weapon system was installed on the EPA today! This is a remarkable day! Everypony came to pay heed to our accomplishment; we materialized a minigun, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a rifle… everything worked! Faust bless magitech!
Heartstring was really happy with the results, I sniff a promotion coming!
On a less pleasant note, she met me later to discuss a few modifications… seems like somepony on the top of the command chain is worried with the fact that the insurgents got their hooves on an smuggled exoskeleton prototype, reverse engineered it and started producing their own! To avoid a similar fact, Heartstrings ordered me to modify the interface stick, so that it will only open the armor after a code is imputed. I modified it to require a 14 digit code input. If the imputed code isn’t valid, the armor will explode, bringing those insurgents to hell along with the poor soul trapped into the armor. A second mod that she demanded was a behavior module! Yes, that’s right! Apparently, some army “volunteers” may refuse to do their duty, or may crack under certain circumstances, so she wants me to program the armor to automatically attack any enemy creature and follow the current mission protocols regardless of the user’s will! This makes the armor almost an AI in itself, why will they need a pony to “command” it after this “update”?
1057, March 13:
Just did a rundown on the bug list of the EPA, I believe that most of them should be gone now, by next week, it will probably be sent for mass production. As demanded by protocol, I sent a copy of all the data pertaining to the project, including a copy of the unlocking code of our prototype unit, to the assigned central backup facility… Now that’s someplace I would want to go to… I’ve heard that it is the monarchy’s most secretive facility, built near the NPP so it could take the surplus power of it…
Heartstrings showed up today, she decided to put me on the IP project! Now that’s a really important project, I am touched by her trust.
And surprise, today Reena came visit me too. She wanted me to give her AI permissions over our EPA unit in the case the counterbreach routine is activated… I allowed it, under one circumstance: that she keeps her project up to date. Yes, her lax attitude was kinda prejudicing our work overall, some guys even threatened to complain to Heartstrings…
I was also able to prepare the first two “friendship earrings” for use in conjunction with the EPA’s behavior module: anypony using those earrings will be tagged as a “friend”, and therefore, will not be attacked by the EPA’s automated behavioral routine. The two of them were given to Heartstrings, she wanted to borrow ‘em to test something…
That was the last entry. While it was an entertaining history, it yielded no answers on how to deactivate the damned AI or how to escape the prison… all my hopes were laying on Lielle’s hooves… please, please Lielle, don’t get sidetracked!
============================== [><]=============================
The silver-eyed mare let out a loud snerk as she crossed the door… Boshan was such an impulsive fellow about some things… she couldn’t fault him for being so, that being a trace of his personality, but she could fault his general ignorance about most of the workings of the Zone… anyway, the stallion would learn soon enough, the mare thought, this might even be fun… like a race. The first to find a way to disable the AI wins!
After a small corridor, she ended up on an enormous room… a few emergency lights by the eastern wall revealed five or six roll-up doors, large enough to allow vehicle passage. The middle of the room contained a large number of randomly assorted containers with different colors… it appeared to be a loading area of sorts…
The mare cautiously trotted through the gloomy room, until...
*Flash!*
A huge spotlight illuminated the exact position where she was… and it followed her as she tried to get off from it.
The princess’ hologram materialized itself above one of the containers, looking regal as ever.
“I am so sorry for this… I’ll be sure to make it up for you if you survive, child, I swear it!” And she let out a prankish wink.
* WREE! * WREE! * WREE! *
A number of heavy-duty machinegun turrets erupted from the floor, each one with a scanning module atop them.
BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!!
The mare could only feel a surge of lead scratching her fur, while she pulled through all the energy she could to dash ahead, seeking refuge among the containers.
Breathing heavily, she pulled out a medkit and quickly administered it, stitching her wounds and drowning the pain in repressive drugs.
She trotted her way around, using the heavy metallic containers as cover, reflecting on her luck that the turrets were installed on the floor, not on the ceiling. Obviously, whoever set them up had in mind an optimal situation for the room: clear of any loading containers.
However, among with providing cover, they also formed an intricate labyrinth on themselves…
BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!!
The guns’ projectiles worthlessly hit the thick metal, missing the mare for inches… as soon as she heard the machines’ reloading noises; she trotted full speed ahead onto the next section of containers.
On that trot, she darted inside an open container, straight ahead her path. She was going so fast that she stumbled onto something…
After a few moments dusting off and silently cursing the accident, she directed her flashlight upon the floor…
The mare let out a small grunt of surprise.
It was the skeleton of an equine… more than that, of a unicorn! The redhead tripped upon the scrambled bones of the creature.
Not much was left of it, most of the deceased equine’s clothing have long deteriorated… however, there was something else… the skeleton was chained to a briefcase.
Letting curiosity overtake her, the mare examinated it, noticing that whenever was held inside, it was protected by a lock.
The azure pony’s first thoughts were about trying to lockpick it, but reflecting about it, she decided it was a worthless effort, she never really had the thievery skills to begin with…
Strange… why that was so clear in her mind, she asked herself. Was it always like this? And if it hadn’t, why and what made it ring now?
She pushed those thoughts aside and set herself to solve the practical problem that laid upon her: a rusted lock.
After a few moments considering her options, the mare withdrew a skinning knife from her pack. The weapon’s blade was slightly marred with dried mutant blood and patches of fur, but nevertheless, it did the job. A few strikes later and the lock was broken.
The interior of the briefcase was completely empty, except for two small metallic hoops… closer inspection revealed that such hoops were earrings.
Even without knowing if these had a function or some meaning of sort, Lielle thought they were kinda pretty, very feminine… you don’t find these on the Zone every day. With that in mind, she packed the earrings, saving them for a special occasion. Before lifting up, she noticed a shiny gleam at the corner… a gold-colored plastic keycard was lying there. The mare promptly claimed it.
Now, returning her attention to the rigged room, the mare cleared the last few meters of the loading bay, seeking the container’s cover to effectively escape being shot.
As the equine entered the next corridor, a drastic change of scenery could be observed.
A crammed corridor without any adornments, except cracked bones and blotches of blood among the walls.
Unusual that most of the blood was on the walls. The floor, except where it intersected with the walls, was almost clean of it. Also, on exactly the middle of the corridor, an abnormally large blotch of blood occupied the aligned wall.
The mare wanted to go on, to trot through along that room quickly and get over with it.
But something was holding her back…
The confused pony probed her own thoughts and feeling until she came upon the answer: an emotion that she hadn’t fully experienced in a long time…
Fear.
Yes, it must have been it. Before, she would jump head straight and carelessly into situations, believing that her luck and “hunches” would be enough. Most of the times, these proved to be right (otherwise, she wouldn’t be there to tell the story) but on one or another, she hurt herself…
At then, she didn’t paid much heed, but now… the mere thought of it brought shivers. Why?
The bloodsucker, whispered her mind. Ironically, only after facing imminent death, one tends to experience life to the fullest. Now, being alive was a special gift, a thing way too precious to be gambled with, like she did before.
Of course, the full weight of the responsibility of such knowledge dawned on the mare. She wouldn’t have the bliss of ignorance anymore, she realized that her carefree, yet spontaneously happy and helpful attitude would give place to cold logic, introspection and mistrust… closer to being a stalker that she ever was and the main reason the mare couldn’t fit anywhere before.
A necessary sacrifice, she bitterly thought.
With that reasoning in mind, she knew that the corridor was rigged… the body remains were clue enough of that. And before traversing it, she should devise a way to bypass it.
More easily thought than done, since she was trying to outsmart an advanced AI, probably built by one of the finest minds of the pre-monarchic era, she thought, it wasn’t such a piece of cupcake like dodging springboards…
Springboards…?
The mare quickly ruffled through her belongings, quickly finding the bolts, the very same that her friend gave to her earlier on.
Lielle picked one of them, faintly sensing the rough texture of the metal. The redhead eyeballed its gleam, the smell of fresh salvage… perhaps; after all, this security system wasn’t so different from anomalies, being just a stupid trap that sprung whenever somepony disturbs its g-spot.
Now, what did Boshan said earlier? Something along the lines of “Find environmental clues, especially blood and equines’ remains, they usually mark the critical point.”
Maybe tricking the AI was, indeed, as easy as tricking anomalies…
And judging the corridor, the sweet spot would be directly the middle of it, exactly parallel to that giant blotch of blood.
Upon spending a few seconds gazing at the bolts, the mare decided that wasn’t the time for subtlety. She stuffed half a dozen bolts onto her mouth, her brain registering the acrid taste of a mix of irradiated metal and rust.
The mare tried her best not to pay attention to it, struggling to keep the bolts circling inside her mouth, until she had enough of shaking them.
PTOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The long-ranged spit sent bolts flying across the corridor, only two of them landing on the middle of it (one by rebound).
Thirty-three per cent of success rate, not bad. The mare thought.
As soon as those little pieces of metal landed on some sensitive tile on the floor, the hologram was summoned.
Celestia was holding a very persuasive smile.
“Time to put our differences behind us, in essence we are all equines. We are meant to aid Equestria together, do not hear those petty rabble-rousers, be my *BZZT* our friend!”
And the image froze into that winning smile, in the same moment that the entire precinct spoke a very different language… it began to tremble.
BRZOOMMM!!!
The redhead quickly retreated a few steps backing away from the corridor, back into the loading bay, and just in time…
The east wall moved! Huge pistons threw it toward the opposite wall, squashing any object larger than a coin, with extreme prejudice.
Once it smashed its structure against the other wall, it backed halfway and squashed again, repeating the procedure eight times before returning to the original position.
The mare asked herself, who, in their sane minds, would set up a defense system so exploitable? It was either set up in a hurry or it was a beta version, not a fully-fledged operational item.
That wasn’t the time to ponder about that, she quickly restrained herself, this AI could be studied better when its defenses were offline.
Lielle chewed another six bolts and spat them onto the corridor… this time, three struck on the middle of it.
The hologram didn’t materialized, since it was already there, frozen with a smile plastered on its face, but the wall moved again…
Wham!!!
Timing her jumps through the steam hydraulics and pushing her legs to clear out the corridor as quick as she could, the azure earth pony was able to reach the other side of the corridor before the moving wall backed to its starting position.
Just as she crossed the doorway to the next room, a big metallic gate descended, blocking her way back… the AI was designed not only to fight menaces, but to trap them in the case they outsmarted it, crafty…
Now, the mare was genuinely surprised with the next room… pink, pink, pink everywhere… the wallpaper, ruined couches, books, flower pots… all the props were delicate and feminine, the mare would have loved them, weren’t for the coloration.
She didn’t like pink… something about the color that she couldn’t exactly put a hoof into bothered her… it seemed too cliché and tacky for her personal taste, like a color that was forced upon every mare’s mentality to represent femininity, and now they were all stuck into using pink not because they liked it, but because it was stereotyped as a “girl’s distinctive color”, like the social bias was more valuated than personal preferences.
Leaving those thoughts for later, she quickly deducted that the room was either the mares’ quarter or resting area… well, besides her feelings for the pink color, it sure helped in divining for what the room was used.
Moving cautiously through the poorly illuminated room, the mare ended up summoning the hologram and the AI’s defenses yet again… just as she expected, no point trying to avoid the inevitable.
“I just want to be your friend… why do you hate me so much? What I have ever done to you? I’m so sorry…” The hologram cried.
Three automatic weapons appeared at the eastern wall, weapons that didn’t looked like anything the mare had ever seen before… just pronged tubes wired to the ceiling, no noticeable ammo containers or any other additions.
“Target acquired, opening fire!”
BZOOONG!! BZOOONG!!! BZOONG!!!
Lielle was able to dodge the first two beams, but the third one struck right onto her back… the poor mare felt like her skin was made out of lit combustible, that laser beam carved a mighty 2nd degree burn in instants, scorching a whole patch of fur on its wake.
“Structural damage on the stallions living area, hostile is armed and dangerous.” The AI informed. Boshan was going head on too…
Moaning from intense pain, the mare moved under one of the turrets, expecting it to be not able to rotate 90 degrees toward the floor.
BZOOONG!!! BZOONG!!!
This time, both beams missed the mare by a few hooves… seems that the AI wasn’t able to continuously recalculate target positions. Another oversight.
Ka-ching! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT!
“Unit #13 destroyed, rerouting power”
Breaking another dash while the AI was busy adjusting power levels and cooling down the weapons, the mare darted to the wall opposed to the broken turret, she had to be as away as she could be from the other two weapons…
BZOOONG! BZOONG!
More beams, colored with a hybrid color between white, blue and green. Another of those deadly beams hit the mare, this time producing a grievous burn onto the foreleg of her front left hoof. No pain this time, the laser burned so deep that it partially destroyed her nervous ligaments; the smell of boiling flesh infested the room.
Another break from the turrets was everything she needed, and while the weapons were cooling down again, she used the interval to finish this once and for all.
The redhead chugged her remaining pair of grenades onto the deadly machines… this wasn’t the time to be economical.
BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!
“Units #14 and #15 nonoperational, breach in progress, ladies’ quarter. Security system neutralized, alert!”
Lielle sighed of relief, turning her attention to the burns. Those were some really, really serious ones, she couldn’t understand how the lasers went right through her armor like it was wet toilet paper! Using two medkits to subdue the wounds a little, she cursed the overpowered weaponry employed by the AI.
After spending some quality time lying on the floor, the mare awkwardly stood back up on all her fours, and soon started to explore the room.
Another one of those metallic doors led further deep onto the compound… another rigged room expecting a foolhardy insurgent, doubtlessly, the mare grimly thought. Instead of moving in, she drifted her eyes to some doors around the western wall.
The first room along that wall had its door missing, somepony was here before…
The room wasn’t in good shape… right on the center of the floor, a gigantic blackened crater extended itself, seeming the likes of the blast zone of a powerful explosive, with ashes forming a circular pattern around the ground zero. Everything else was either claimed by decades of abandon or had its components burned out.
But most revealing, the room’s eastern wall was destroyed by the blast, giving passage to the neighboring room.
Treading her path around the crater room, the earth pony crossed the broken wall to investigate the second room.
Compared to the first, this room was intact… that was most unsettling for the mare, just because it was an incongruity… in the Zone, dust, decay, half-pilfered buildings and the rotten scent of death were so to be expected, to the level that stumbling on well conserved areas could cause mild discomfort on seasoned Stalkers.
Such was the state of that room, no dust, no dirt… flawless green lockers, a lovely pink bunker bed (much to the mare’s disgust) and a black desk with a matching bench.
Over that bench, a corpse…
It still held most of its flesh, although green fungus was growing all over the deceased earth pony mare’s eye-catching coral fur.
Longing for clues, Lielle examinated the body. The cause of death was a machinegun perforation at the thorax. The fungal growth was recent, leading the mare to suspect that the pony somehow sealed itself on the room, suspicion which turned into certainty when she tried to unlock the quarter’s door: electronically locked, to the point that nothing short of a complete mainframe override would crack it open.
It caught her eye that the deceased equine still held a pencil gripped on its mouth. Diverting her attention to the desk, Lielle noticed that the mare was writing a letter, it read:
“Help! My defense system has gone berserk! If this message reaches anypony, know that my PDA contains key information on how to dea…” and the calligraphy trailed off from the paper at that point. The mare clearly passed away while writing the note.
So, the spell has turned against the spellcaster… the redhead wondered how they didn’t saw it coming. At least the note indicated that the defense system could be turned off.
She only had to find that PDA first.
So, the azure mare started to crack up the green lockers, one by one, each of them revealing to be empty… around the eighth one, she found something… a weird blue-tinted goggle and a strange disk, seemingly made of a mix of silver and glass.
Soon enough, the goggle was being worn by the mare, temporarily replacing her NVG. At first, it seemingly did nothing aside than give a bluish coloration to everything else.
But then, the mare spotted something on the corner of her field of vision. The disk was reacting, producing two blue cylinders that clipped out through the locker’s wall.
Curious of what the phenomena was about; she dragged the disk outside of the locked and set it on the floor.
Another Lielle sprouted out of the device. It mimicked every move that the original did. Putting a hoof onto the doppelganger revealed it to be nothing but a hologram. This was possibly a mobile program testing prototype unit that preceded the hologram creation program used by the AI.
Nevertheless, thought the mare, it was pretty cool. And thinking about making a good profit out of it later, she stored the disk and the goggles onto her saddlebags.
The redhead resumed the operation of opening the remaining lockers, which eventually yielded no more loot.
Furthermore, she went on by searching the bunk bed.
Right on the lower one, she found what she was searching for underneath the blankets: the PDA. Not only that, but under the pillow, there was a small arsenal: a desert eagle, some ammo for it and three grenades.
The grenades were nothing like the ones she was used to, these ones were heavier, and probably, more dangerous as well.
As for the desert eagle, it was love at first sight. Everything on that weapon screamed “size matters”, and the thought of having a weapon that imposed respect among the hearts of fellow Stalkers sure held some appeal in her mind.
At the first grapple, she felt a bit clumsy with the massive hoof-cannon; it occupied her whole mouth just trying to hold the weapon’s grip, thanks both to the weapon’s sheer size and considerable weight. However, she took off the marekarov from her weapon necklace and replaced it with the desert eagle anyway. She would have to shake her neck with twice the strength to bring the weapon to her mouth, but it was worth it, the mare pondered.
Dumping the ammo and the explosives into one of her saddlebags, the mare started to fiddle with the PDA… after some moments working out the gadget; she started to read its diary entries.
1057, January 8:
Yeehaw! All those years learning programming and engineering finally paid off! Got meself a job in the monarchy. Too bad pa’ can’t know ‘bout it, he would be mighty proud of me. Heck, everypony down in Appleloosa would be! But I can understand why the secret… with those blasted insurgent fellas scoopin’ around and trying to get their dirty hooves on everything we care ‘bout. Well, they will have theirs coming. When I get this auto defense system out of the paper and set the technical mumbo-jumbo, I’ll be wanting to see them trying to jack our secrets. Now that’s said, I’ll be going to the party. I hope these eggheads have some hard booze around here somewhere…
1057, February 1:
Can’t Heartstrings give me a break? I’ve been busting out working nonstop and yet she wants results, results, results… and now she comes up with this silly policy of having to record our own projects’ progress once in a while… what a waste of time.
But since she is the one I have to please to get paid, let’s get over with it already. I’ve finished the first holodisk prototype; our defense system will use an improved version of that program, with a minor bug fix with the textures and a better image definition. Also, the weaponry shipment arrived today, now we just need to wire them out in every room and give permissions to the AI, so it can manage those… it should take a couple of days to do so if everything goes accordingly to the plan. I guess I’ll leave the instructions and let my crew do the hard work while I’ll add a few sprinkles to the hologram routine, it will look more real than reality. XD. and I just have the perfect graphical avatar in mind for the AI…
1057, February 3:
Great success! Well, almost, at least. The 1.0 defense system is installed and works clockwork! Although Heartstrings won’t let me install weapons in the personal quarters or the workshop. Can you believe it? Faust forbid, but in the event that insurgents breach the compound, they won’t necessarily bust out on a protected room because of that kind of foolishness, and I don’t think that the whackjobs she hired for security are cut out to fill the blind spots. Seriously, I’ve seen manlier fillies in Appleloosa. I’m damn sure that these stallions haven’t picked anything heavier than a microscope with their girly hooves. Anyway, at least most of the team approved the defense system and ab-so-lu-te-ly loved my Celestia… oh Celestia, my masterpiece, my inspiration, my strength!
Oh, and I’ve got to install point-zero energy focus beam dispensers by the girls quarters! How cool is that? Too bad that the laser is kinda weak, it has a hard time going through thick leather and such… oh well… three of them ought to at least cripple an insurgent raid.
Kinda weak, my plot! Thought the mare. Those lasers gave her grave burns in seconds… there was no way they could be low-powered, unless…
She drew her own PDA, searching it frantically until reaching the encyclopedia entry she wanted:
“Mica
The “Fruit punch” anomaly gives birth to this artifact in the rare event it experiences a critical and fastidious collection of external factors, resulting in an almost-transparent and very expensive artifact. It works wonderfully against bleedings, however, in turn, the wearer’s skin becomes much more vulnerable to burns of any kind”
How could she be so careless? She forgot to remove the artifact before dealing with the lasers. Sighing her own foolishness, Lielle continued to read on the dead mare’s PDA.
1057, February 7:
My neck, it hurts so much! Heartstrings looks deceptively weak, I’ll give her that.
And what was the fuss all about? Some stupid visitor forgot his password, and the AI got rampant against him! To top it out, those security dolts ruined three machinegun turrets! Three, can you believe that? Where do they hire these guys? And worse yet, Heartstrings told me that they were coming out of my pay! Oh, the nerve! Like it was my fault… And now she wants me to add a “surrender” routine by the end of the week, to avoid a reprisal… She also said that “all this violence isn’t the image of Celestia we wish to cultivate”… Pfft… Like my pa’ always said: “Speak kind words, but back it up with pounds of lead, just in case”. And to completely wreck this day, somepony complained about the hologram appearing on the restrooms! I bet it was one of the boys working in that stupid armor-thingy that did it! If you ask me, only those that use their bathroom intervals to loaf around and avoid work would feel bothered by being caught by their ruler with their pants down. Oh well, another thing to fix tomorrow. I’ll get a bag of ice and call it a day.
1057, February 10:
All guns blazing! BLANGBLANGBLANG! I so do love live-fire demonstrations! My defense system working at its peak capacity, fighting those tough dummies like they are nothing, just miserable little bags of flour, totally incapable of resisting! The insurgents will get theirs too in due time! And the best part, everypony at the compound saw it and approved with praise! Yes, finally some recognition baby! Even Heartstrings lightened up, and she said that if I can solve the minor issues and have a preliminary version of the system ready for military usage by the end of this week, I get to pick the monthly dessert offered by the cafeteria’s menu! I am almost tasting zap apple pies, the same that my ma’ used to bake back in the day. I guess those are mass-produced now, everything is, technology is bucking great.
I’ll just have to pull my team to work overtime for a while, with the responsibility of refurbishing a room into a contention chamber for prisoners as well..
1057, February 14:
My system has been perfected! It took a while, everypony busted their backs while working at it, but we did so on time! I just updated the data to the compound’s mainframe. From what Heartstrings told me, the monarchy will start producing half a dozen of defense systems already, to boost the REA bases’ security, only that theirs will have a standard AI without hologram functions and just basic targeting systems, very unlike ours… bummers, well, it’s their plot on the gunfire zone. On another successful note, my team completed their assignment of turning the back room of the west wing into a prison… although I still need o program the AI to provide basic life-supporting to the prisoners… don’t want anypony to go through the hassle of having to interact with filthy insurgents, you know, they’re loaded with diseases… But that can wait until next week. I’m also suggesting that Heartstring transforms the annex room into a security station, so that the security dopeheads would have a place to monitor the prisoners, store apprehended material for posterior disposal and eat their donuts without leaving fucking crumbs everywhere. Oh, that reminds me… zap apple pie time!
1057, February 17:
My boss’ stamp of approval, tasty pie, shelter and washed clothes… what more a gal could want? The only thing I could think of as needed is that somepony special, you know… my soulmate, a stallion to call my own… too bad all the guys around here are so… sigh… softsies! Most of them wouldn’t know how to handle properly a real Appeloosian mare like me ;)
Or I’m feeling just a bit under the weather, maybe another slice will cheer me up.
Oh, I was so busy reminiscing and rejoicing on the dessert, that I kinda… stayed a bit behind on my work… Oh, no worries, I’ll compensate tomorrow.
1057, February 24:
Oh Celestia, oh my… what a bunch of drama queens! Now they are whining about the zap apple pies… and, for a change, all the blame is going over me. Yes, I’ve noticed that the food coloring on them turned my teeth a shade more purple than usual, but hey, you don’t see me bitching about it. Guess who Heartstring charged of disposing of the pies? Ding, ding, ding!!! Exactly, now I have to crack my poor little head looking for someplace to store those… Hmmm… I’ll just give them to the prisoners. By filling a room with the pies and hardwire the AI to send them to the prisoners at meal time intervals! Genius! It’s not like they will be imprisoned for more than two or three days, so no big deal about having a proper diet for them, plus, if you are a traitor, you don’t deserve the right to pick meals.
1057, February 25:
My package has arrived, finally at last! I can at last feel safe now. With these douchebags serving as guards, I’ll be safer packing my own heat: Three F1 grenades from Baghdrag, I’ve heard that they spread so many splinters that it can bleed a chimera to death in 10 seconds flat, if that thing survived the explosion! I’ll test them out someday… And, of course, a desert eagle, imported from Eagleland, the good stuff… I wonder why those gryphons are so obsessed with making burdening and large weapons… they must be trying to compensate for something… but, oh well, any weapon that can pierce kevlar like it is cardboard has my love. If only it was lighter… I’ll have to train lifting this bulk before being able to use it properly… good thing I know lots of ways on how to use my tongue ;)
I’ve stumbled on the boys on my way out… looks like they finally get their toy up and running… seems interesting enough, although, not as cool as my defense system :)
1057, March 3:
Some of the stallions came knockin’ on my door, wanting me to get to working. I’ll keep on when I’m inspired. You can’t rush perfection.
1057, March 7:
Okay, okay… done working on the system… the targeting systems are now improved by 10% and firepower has been increased, the usual… No, something new: each software update posterior to this date will have to wait a week to be implemented on the system. So, if one of those insurgents, by a stroke of luck, manages to rig my system, we can check the changes and undo them before they set it in motion. Clever, I thought of it all by myself.
1057, March 13:
Heartstrings sure won’t give me a break… this oughta satisfy her…. A way to deactivate all the weapons that can be done by anyone in the case of, I don’t know, some unlikely emergency that will fade when we turn completely defenseless ? Anyways, the new software change (enabled on a week after today) will deactivate all weapons when the exact phrase is uttered: “The password is password” Let’s hope that is within the visitors’ brain capacity.
I’ve also heard that Silas is being promoted. Yea, after his resounding success with his armor, he will be leaving us in three days. This means, more budget for me! Yay.
I asked him if I could wire my AI to his armor, you know, I hate waste, and a “mobile gun” would be so much better than those security guards… guess what? He conceded. And all I had to do was listen his sermon about keeping up with the others’ working pace… pffft…. What an egghead. I’ll link the armor first thing tomorrow.
That was the last one.
One needn’t to be a genius to put the pieces of the puzzle together… The mare was quick to figure out the whole situation: due to the lack of proper maintenance and updates, the defense system was basically, a disaster just waiting to happen. And when it did happened, hey couldn’t deactivate it, thanks to that stupid “one-week-before-software-changes” protocol. The broken system butchered all personnel and the few ones that managed to escape its wrath and locked themselves out, died of starvation or from wounds, like the mare nearby.
As for why the monarchy didn’t intervene to either rescue or assess the situation, the answer was clear as well: they desired to keep their secret projects still secret. And to do so, a mass scale instant intervention would point it out to the whole world. The redhead was sure that the equestrian royal army had carefully planned a whole operation, being unfounded by the crescent insurgent crisis, the spawning and the growth of the Zone, and to finally nail the coffin, the downfall of the monarchy.
There wasn’t much to do for these equines now, but lament their ill fates, at least now nopony else would die at the hooves of a simulacrum of their beloved princess…
The mare left the somber room, returning to the mares’ quarter.
When she positioned herself right on the middle of the room, she shouted at the top of her lungs:
“The password is password!”
“Emergencial weapon systems override accepted, powering down… please contact the system administrator…”
And so, the mare started to trot her way out, still a bit cautious. Before she even noticed, she was already crossing the big door further on…
The room behind it was littered with junk… raw material, failed or broken projects, outdated machinery… basically, the garbage on a nutshell…
“Oh, I’m soo happy that you decided to pay me a visit, sweetie! Not many ponies trot into here.”
The azure pony nervously turned her head to the source of that phrase.
The hologram still wore its serene semblance, a semblance that in the meantime that she was down there; she learned to associate with cold-blooded and ridiculously painful murdering intentions.
Seeing it like that, devoid of the accompanying apparel activated by the breach routine was unnatural, out of place… like a death threat uttered by a cute filly…
Or perhaps Boshan was a bit right. She saw him scowling back then, perhaps she was really just maintaining a pleasant illusion by feeling sorry and believing that the machine was capable of complex emotions… when in truth, deep down, she knew that it would just act according to its own programming, incapable of free will…
Still, she couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for it.
Eventually, the earth pony left her own reflections and cruised on the next door by her left, ignoring the hologram.
The subsequent room didn’t had any decorations, furniture, or anything at all, it lay bare, just presenting a door to the west and one north, the last one with a shining panel over it with the word “Mainframe room”, and a keycard terminal nearby.
Hmmm…
Lielle didn’t wasted any time in trying the keycard on that lock. The system instantly recognized it and opened it, giving passage to the room.
Most of the mainframe room was occupied by a tremendously huge supercomputer, accessible thought a terminal inbuilt into its body.
And again, she used the keycard to get access. As she suspected, the computer stored every detail about the compound’s current projects and other interesting data… too bad she was outsourced and didn’t had any storing device for these… Boshan was the one with the flash drive. Speaking of which, now that she had beaten him on this gymkhana, she thought it was best to check on the stallion’s condition. Who knows if he got wounded, lost or something?
A few hoofstrokes later, she started to examine the system’s security cameras log…
============================== [><]=============================
Ouch… damn shrapnels… those little things were all over the floor now, reeking in my own blood. Better to feel the pain now than let those things inside my skin to rust and infect the wounds.
I rested a little while looking at the small pile of metal that I was able to extract… not bad for a half-assed job, I could forge a dagger with that much metal, hard to believe that somepony was able to, somehow, stuff that much inside a small grenade along with the powder.
BROOOOOOM!!!! BROOOOMMM!!! Lunch time! Lunch time! BROOOM!!! BROOOOOMMM!!
With that warning, a tube appeared from the ceiling and brought six of those packaged pies.
Just seeing those being dumped one by one reminded me that it was noon now, and I hadn’t had breakfast. So hungry…
Of course, my cellmates weren’t hungry, they had a freaking feast at my expense… the only remaining things were empty cans and bottles of vodka, those, dry to the last drop (yes, I’ve checked them.)
Perhaps just a bite wouldn’t hurt…
“If I were you Stalker, I’d delay having those as long as I could… they tend to leave an aftertaste… besides, if you take the package seriously, rainbows are probably composed of ancient manure and hot sauce” Stargazer laughed.
“Since you guys lived on this, how bad a small bite would be? It can’t be that unbearable… if I’m forced to spend some time around these parts, I might as well do so with a filled belly.”
The pegasus mare simply shrugged, resuming her previous activity, which consisted of fiddling with a bolt. Wow… these Stalkers sure have to cope with a lot of boredom.
So, this is it, just a taste test… I pushed a slice toward my muzzle, biting a nick off the crust…
Not bad, not bad at all… now for a taste of the filling, I took a deeper bite…
The taste wasn’t so bad… it had, indeed, a spicy aftertaste… but I’ve liked it. Wonder if the spicy taste was softened due to the product being over a century old…
Look at me now, eating one-hundred years old desserts and linking it…
WROOOOOTHHHSHHH!!!
The door’s lock resoundingly shifted, opening the prison to grant passage to somepony else. The other prisoners naturally shrunk to the back of the cell, afraid of the unknown.
I was too busy for that…
“Very, very pretty…” A familiar voice sounded. “I’ve been through high water and hell on Equestria to find you, and you are safe and pretty here, eating goddamn pie like it’s nothing! It’s not even noon!” The mare roared to me. “What do you have to say on your defense?”
“Dfhoo youff Wanft Sfoomff?” I grumbled back, letting a lot of crumbs fly on my attempt of speaking with a full mouth.
The mare simply took the rest of the pie from my hooves, and keeping her serious glare, started to eat it.
I’ve never seen before somepony eat a pie while holding a deadpan simultaneously.
“Looks like you forgot to put your sun block…” I commented while eyeing her various burns.
“You don’t seem much better… that leg was used as a chew toy by a pseudo or what?” she asked back.
“You know her, newbie?” Midlight spoke from the back.
“Yes, she’s with me… by the way, thanks for busting me out Lielle… how you managed to cross the AI’s defenses? The damn thing pinned me down.”
“Had a help from a little friend” She brought up a bolt.
“So, it’s offline?”
“The weapons are… everything is alright now, I’ve even found the mainframe. Now you just need to get the data from it and we can leave.”
“About freaking time.” Ironfuel spoke “Ah, did you smacked the metal equine as well, kiddo?”
“Metal equine?”
“A roving armor… On my raid, we were able to short circuit the AI for a while, but that armor has some autonomous energy generating source, it went on us even after the AI was disabled.”
He must be referring to the EPA that the flash drive spoke, the same that “escorted” me to the prison.
“Nope, I just deactivated the AI’s weapons...”
“Then, you best take off the armor before we can move out.”
“What do you mean by “you” ? Why just me? Can’t you people help?”
Ironfuel raised his eyebrows. “Look at us kid, just look... we are malnourished, sick, weak, debilitated... what help could me and my friends possibly offer? No. Bring us our impounded weapons; we will hold this position while you two go hunt that thing...”
“The security station is on the next door.” Lielle said. “All your weapons are there.”
Made sense... a security station near the prison, so that the guards could supervise the prisoners easily...
After a quick stop where I’ve recovered my trusty AK and the other weapons, Lielle and I cruised to the mainframe room. Chances are, if that armor still lurked around, one of the cameras would catch it...
Once in the room, I inserted the flash drive that Carmelia gave me. In seconds, I copied all the data into the flash drive...
Weird, I could only find data about the defense system, no files about the EPA. Guess that they purged the data of completed projects after sending a copy to the backup facility for security reasons.
But there was something interesting too... project IP. Yes, I’ve read it being mentioned on one of the PDA’s entries... probably stands for “internal protocol” or some other network terminology... that didn’t looked very important, but since Carmelia told me to bring all the data I’ve could find, I added the IP folder to the flash drive as well.
Now that the main mission was complete, only one obstacle remained on the way.
The system’s cameras showed that the armor was trotting around the mare’s quarter, aimless as ever.
I didn’t forget how that mindless thing took away my pride, we’ll see who laughs last, you disgusting scrap pile of malfunctioning data and illegitimate motherboards.
Mental note: that last insult sounds way better for organic beings
“You know, now that we have the data, we could just abandon the rest of the Stalkers to their fates and avoid all the work of bringing down that thing…”
“That’s not a very good idea…” The mare replied, as I expected…
“Why? They are just a bunch of assholes, nopony will miss them, I certainly won’t.”
“If they somehow escape alive, guess who they will mention that left them to their own luck? Plus, helping them will bring Freedom’s sympathy for our cause. We could use as much friends as we can muster if you plan to reach the NPP in one piece.”
“So, surviving in this goddess-forsaken world is all about making friends? I might as well throw away my rifle and bake muffins instead… when you put it like that, you know that it sounds like something incredibly stupid? Like our affinity bonds will magically soothe raving beasts, miraculously cure dire bullet wounds in seconds, put multicolored rainbows in the sky and sprinkles on my vanilla ice cream…”
“That’s enough. Yes, I know that it sounds like a foal’s textbook morale, but it makes sense. At least in our present context…”
Might be… “Street cred” is never a bad thing to have in excess… and plus, I would get my sweet, sweet revenge against that pile of junk…
“Any plan in mind?” she asked
“Unload lead and explosive onto that construct until it stops moving sounds a pretty good one.”
“Let me rephrase that… any smart plan in mind?”
I simply ignored the question and went on to the action. The redhead merely sighed and trotted along.
After a short trot through a room crammed with broken machines and junk, the mares quarter’ door lay upon us. Lielle used a keycard to unlock it.
WROOSHHH!!!
I could discern that… thing, right there, on the opposite side of the room. As soon as we got onto its targeting field, it produced two high-powered machineguns on its back, while, at the same time, retreated to a corned and ducked, facing the wall and burying its “face”, as the machineguns were still aiming at us.
Self-preservation routines for a mighty killing machine? Those programmers must had way too much time at their hooves.
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!! RATTLERATTLE!!!!
BLANG! BLANG! BLANG!
My puny rifle bullets hit the armor’s hull like they were freaking jelly beans… Lielle was having better luck with her new weapon, some big silvery-coated revolver…
She must had bought it while we were on Hoofstok… No chance one would find a weapon so conserved lying around. The revolver bullets penetrated the hull a bit, but nothing that could make the minimum effect on the automaton’s attitude.
Thankfully, the doorway provided enough cover for both of us.
Some bullet exchanges later, that thing moved… it ran away from us, going to the other room…
That made no sense… it was a tenacity battle and that thing was holding out much better than us, it just needed to advance and it would mow us down.
Definitely, the armor’s integration with the AI was improperly done, leading to routine errors, bugs, and whatnot software discrepancies.
“That’s not leading us anywhere Boshan… that thing won’t go down unless we use military-grade weaponry against it.”
“Grats for the heads up.” I snarled. “What gave you the hint? The total lack of reac…”
I gasped… incoming idea!
“Wait, that’s just it! Military-grade weaponry! We’ll just use one of the compound’s weapons to knock down that fucker.”
“In case you forgot, the entire base’s weaponry is handled by a homicidal AI, which happens to include the armor on its grid…”
“True, but we can use the testing chambers on the workshop. According to some personnel entries I’ve came around, those were used to test the armor’s resistance…”
“So what?”
“So that it includes flamethrowers for heat resistance testing. The armor can only take up to a thousand degrees… we’ll just trap it and crank the temp up to eleven.”
“Alright, only one flaw…” The cobalt mare shifted her face to a calculating look.
“I would love to hear it…”
“In the execution of that plan, how do you aim to attract the armor to a chamber? Yes, it will probably hunt out targets like us, but to trick it specifically inside the chamber… I don’t see how you can do it without trapping the bait as we…” The mare’s expression changed again to a pleased look. “Nevermind, I have something that rules out the risk factor of the equation.”
“This means you volunteer for being the bait?”
“One of us gotta do it, and let’s face it, you won’t go much far with that leg.”
Point taken… now that everything was properly planned, we only needed to be lucky and clockwork to work everything out.
============================== [><]=============================
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
Soonly after the machinegun orchestra, the cobalt mare dashed into the workshop, the bullets’ source following along.
Of course, outrunning a plated combat armor loaded with whatnot of ammunition and junk probably weighting the minimum of half a ton was an easy feat, and even before that thing entered the workshop, the mare was already on its hiding spot.
And then, the armor came.
It trotted along the room, divided between… what do you take me for, a robot psychologist? I didn’t have any idea… fearful exploration? I would define that way if the subject was an organic being, like when one goes searching, afraid of what he is going to stumble into, but does search anyway. Of course, that’s just an analogy. It’s a machine we’re speaking about, not a rational being.
When it finally looked to the chambers, the thing spotted a smiling and waving Lielle inside.
It wasted no time in rushing toward it, extending its metallic hooves in anticipation, as if it would strangle its victim… how cruel.
What was the machine’s surprise (if it could process the feeling of being surprised…) when its charge went right through the mare, crossing it like it was nothing… it hit the wall at fifth gait, stumbling onto the floor.
More than enough time for us to dash to the console and lock up the armor and the holodisk inside. It went better than I’ve expected…
“See? That’s a good use for these” The cobalt mare commented while taking off her hologram-producing hipster goggles.
“Thank you very much, milady… and now on tonight’s menu…” I’ve flipped the console’s dial. “Roasted circuits, barbecued metal… heh.” And I’ve pushed the blast button.
Four flamethrowers materialized along openings of the chamber’ walls, laying out 1500 degrees’ flames. It wasn’t maximum temperature, I wanted to see that thing slowly smoldering all the way.
Now the armor occupied itself trotting back and forward, flailing its steel hooves and bobbing its empty head frantically… so lifelike, and yet, such a pathetic attempt on being so.
“There’s something wrong with that thing… its way off its rocker, that isn’t natural.”
I simply nodded my head. “The armor’s AI knows that its days are numbered… its all part of its programming.”
“No, that’s not it… it’s like… oh no!” She brought her hooves to the mouth. “There’s somepony in that thing! Stop it!”
“Are you insane? There’s nothing in there but an homicidal artificial intelligence.”
Wham!!!
Oooff… the mare bumped into me, bringing her hooves to the panel and lowering the temp. What the hell?
WHAMMO!!!
“Leave it, that thing wants to kill us!” I yelled while flipping back the temperature to 1500. “It’s better off dead, no matter if there’s somepony inside or not, although I’m sure there isn’t anyp…”
Wham!!
“Stop being such a stubborn mule! Just give me a while to…”
“To what? Enter that chamber and have twenty pounds of lead shoved up your face? Go ahead, be my…”
Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!
The armor was banging on the glass now, other defective routine, no doubt… However the mare merely searched the console, finally finding a push-to-talk microphone that allowed chamber communication.
“Hello, I’m sorry for our… misunderstand. If you are a pony, please knock twice on the glass.”
Yeah, like that’s going to lead somewhere...
Knock Knock!
Celestia be damned… so I was proven wrong…
“Why are you shooting at us? We are your enemies? Knock once for yes.”
Knock Knock!
“See? Two knocks! He’s emphasizing his “yes” answer!” I remarked. “Scorch him!”
“I think that’s a no, stop being such a premature-assumption-taking-precocious-pants and let me do the talking, will ya?”
Like there’s any talking involved on the other part…
“Don’t believe on that thing… It’s a trap, obvious, evident, right-out-of-the-book, TRAP!”
Ignoring my valuable advice, she insisted on a lost cause.
“Can you tell us why you were firing at us?”
Knock Knock!
“No? You mean, you don’t want to, or you can’t?”
Knock Knock!
“There’s somepony in there, now I’m sure of that… and it can’t talk. We should help it out.”
“That’s not out problem. Whomsoever is there, its safer to dispose of him along with that overpowered arsenal.”
“Let me try to help it, please” She pleaded to me.
“Okay, for starters… you don’t even know what is wrong with that… thing, be it pony or machine. And secondly, unless you happen to be wearing a specific prototype technological item shaped as an earring, that thing will go trigger happy all over…”
The mare simply smiled and retrieved something from her bag…
A pair of earrings.
Luna be damned… me and my big muzzle…
The earth pony soon started to wear one and tossed the other one to me…
“I’m not wearing any girly accessories.”
“You’d rather be shot?”
Okay, but I wouldn’t be wearing it for longer than it was needed to…
“Still, no ideas of what the buck is wrong with that thing. Wait a minute; I know the answer for this one! The main issue of that thing is that it is STILL ALIVE! Let’s put it out of its misery!”
The redhead paid no attention to my words; instead, she used the microphone again.
“Say, what is wrong with you? Why you can’t tell us what is wrong with you?”
The machine pointed to itself. Then waved the hoof from its muzzle, like an opera singer…
“Yes, that’s exactly what we want you to do, to talk!”
To which the armor simply shook its head negatively.
The mare seemed to understand. “You… can’t talk?”
And the armor nodded.
“Why?”
Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!
“What that means? Six?”
Knock Knock!
“You’re trying to send some message?”
Knock!
“Six knocks… what could it be? If they were at least letters…”
“Maybe that’s what they are…” Yes, it seemed logical in my mind.
“Those are letters?” The mare asked.
Knock!
“Six knocks, that’s an “F”, right?”
Knock!
“Send the rest of the message then.”
Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!
“You spelled “I”, correct?”
Knock!
“How many letters left?”
Knock!
“One? Send it then…”
Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!
“Did you count that? That’s way too many knocks…”
“F, I, X, correct? That’s what you wanted to say?”
The armor nodded frantically and hopped around loudly.
“Fix, you mean, there’s something broken in you, with your voice? That’s why you can’t talk?”
Knock!
The redhead turned to me, looking triumphantly. “Who is right now?”
“I still say, kill that thing before we regret leaving it alive.”
“At very least, listen to what it has to say, then we’ll see if we kill it or not.”
“Ok, whenever get us to deal with this quicker…” was my grumpy answer.
“By the way, how did you know about the earrings and what they do?”
“Some diary entries about the armor project mentioned it…”
“Cool… I’ve found diary entries about the defense system. What about we exchange them? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…”
Additional knowledge ain’t ever going to hurt… with that reasoning, I turned the flash drive to Lielle and she, in turn, gave me a PDA.
After a while reading through the life details of a somewhat… eccentric appleloosian (whenever that town may be…) mare and experiencing a new insight on the situation, I came to learn more about the AI and what terrible destiny must have befallen over the former inhabitants of the compound.
“What we need is a voice module then…” The mare spoke. “The armor’s one must have broken down.”
For the next minutes, we searched the workshop for a working voice module, with the EPA’s blueprints indicating what we should be on the lookout for, and eventually, I’ve came upon the indicated hardware, positioned behind a ruined shelf.
“Good, good…” The mare spoke. “We can probably use that “interface stick” that was mentioned, if we find it…”
“Or I could just search my pocket…”
And I’ve pulled out the case containing the sick and opened it.
“That expedites things… now to release out locked friend… you got your earring on?”
I shook my left ear, the one that was pierced by the earring.
“Alright buddy, we’ve found a way to restore your voice… just stand still when we release you, okay? We will not harm you, alright?”
The armor just nodded and knocked the glass once.
WHREEESHHH!!!
Once the chamber was unlocked, the armor calmly trotted outside, cautiously, too cautiously…
Definitely a pony inside there… but I still stick with my idea of disposing or leaving that thing. Nothing good would come from approaching an unstable, experimental and dangerous machine.
Not wishing to deal with that thing, I hoofed the stick to Lielle.
Once in her hooves, she approached the tip of the stick to the armor’s back, and it reacted to the stick.
Holograms of options appeared over the armor… the mare tried hoofing through them, and discovered that they led to multiple menus about status, feeding and ammo storage settings, and finally, menus for fixing defects.
“SOFTWARE / HARDWARE” Offered the hologram
Lielle clicked on “software”. The thing, in turn, showed multiple binary lines, separated by dates of implementation, along with logic associations for routines and scripts.
“I’d leave those alone… nopony but a programming expert should modify these, lest you want to trigger the armor’s weapons…”
The cobalt pony merely nodded and returned to the previous menu, choosing “hardware” this time.
The hardware fixes were much more easily done… the hologram simply requested that we approached the replacement device, and once it was on the scanner’s range, it opened a compartment on the back, revealing the broken module, and it disconnected the wires that attached it to the armor.
We replaced it with the (hopefully) working one… we’ll know soon enough. What the mare expected to hear from the trapped one, it slips me… not much that a trapped scavenger or petty criminal would speak, that was the kind of equine that was probably inside.
The system detected the changes and wired the voice module to the rest of the hardware, the menus indicating that the operation was successful, the earth pony having retrieved the interface stick, it was now back to its case and onto my pack… the armor returned to its normal state as well.
That was the moment of truth.
Unexpectedly, the armor… whosoever was inside it, started to sing!
It wasn’t just any song… it was a very delicate and beautiful lullaby, sang by a very smooth soprano tone.
And, as suddenly as it started, the mare (yes, it was a female inside… that we could tell. Now, its race, due to the armor’s triple-fitting shape, wasn’t so easily discernable.) Started to squeal excitedly.
“Oh, thank you very, very, very, very much… I was so afraid not to be able to ever…” she softly spoke.
And while saying phrases too quickly for us to gather meaning or answers in them, she jumped over us, grasping its hooves on a… hug? Not surprisingly, the mare’s attempt pinned us to the ground, thanks to the armor’s weight.
“Sorry” The armored mare spoke. “I forgot how… “Strong” I am now, given my current… situation.” And she started crying.
“Now, now… what is done is done…” The earth pony comforted her. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened to you, sweetie?”
“Where do I start? There’s so much…”
“Start from the beginning… with your name.” Was my suggestion.
“My name is Moonbreeze…” The pony answered. “Sorry for the fit… it’s just that I wasn’t able to speak with anypony for over three months… If I could, then perhaps things might have ended differently…”
“You didn’t act on your own volition; we know that it was the AI’s routines overriding your own judgment.” The earth pony retorted.
The armored mare nodded slowly
“Three months, you say? Tell us your story, how you ended up inside that thing.” What else could I say? I was curious.
“I belong, or rather, belonged, to a nongovernmental agency founded outside the Zone, formed by descendants of the Zone’s escapees, immigrants and the like of ponydom. We always shunned this place of despair, with all its senseless violence, armed turmoil and political instabilities… everything that goes against our doctrines of pacifism.”
“Now, wait a minute there… you say that you’re a pacifier? You’re a thing that foals suck on?”
The cobalt mare was quick to smack the back of my neck.
“That’s not that kind of pacifying… paci-FIST, which means, one who believes in non-violent solutions for problems, such as negotiations between clashing parties, and act to prevent such acts of violence from happening and by abstaining themselves of doing them.”
Was that a joke? I’ve never heard about those pacifist people… no wonder; they were surely useless and anonymous all along the equestrian history. Useless before the disaster because we already had a two-thousand years of peaceful regency, with next to no sensible violence to be spoken of. Although the picture have changed with the insurgent crisis, the pacifists must have remained worthless, since the vast majority of ponydom was either eight or eighty, being diehard monarchy supporters or savage separatist insurgents, with just a tiny, powerless and naïve portion of them believing in a mutual compromise… that’s how society rolls… the ones giving the cards being either over conservatives or radicals to the end. They weren’t much better off nowadays after the disaster, now that violence has gone over the roof inside the Zone. Nopony would treat with respect anybody without an imposing gun, that’s almost like putting a “doormat” sign over your plot and asking everybody to step over it. That’s the kind of world where one of those noncombatants was dead meat straight from the beginning, the only question being “when?”… Oh well, it told me that someponies outside the Zone nurtured the fallacy that this pacifism thing would lead them somewhere…
“Yes, that’s the correct definition” Answered Moonbreeze. “We formed an expedition following a hint that indicated the location of a cache of technology that could be used harmfully, with the plan of disposing of it. Well, on our way to it, our convoy was raided… the bandits couldn’t care less for who we were and what we wanted… we were no match for them, only me and other three were able to run away, we continued to our original target, to here… this building.”
“After sheltering ourselves inside to escape from those rats…” The mare continued “This… monster… dressed as our princess, it called out weapons and started firing at us! I was so scared… I ran inside and hid on the first place I could find… turns out, it was this disgraceful armor. And now, I can’t get out of it. The AI controlled my movements, every time that somepony entered the compound; it made me hunt it… it made me kill it… I didn’t want to… I wanted to yell… I couldn’t… I’ve… killed my friends… it made me do so.” The mare sobbed. “I didn’t had control over the weapons… only when there was nopony else inside… I trotted so much trying to find a way out of this thing… It feeds me by injections… I don’t taste any of the food… It’s a prison, a mobile prison… that’s everything it is…” Moonbreeze lamented. “I’ve lost all hopes of ever being saved… until now. Please, please… tell me there’s a way of getting me out of this armor!” The mare pleaded, kneeling at my feet.
“I… need to talk to my friend” And I’ve pointed to Lielle, which was evidently sensitized toward the mare’s situation… “Privately…”
Moonbreeze nodded and trotted to the cargo bat, leaving us to discuss…
“Don’t tell me you’re giving doubts about helping that poor mare! You don’t even begin to imagine her pain…” She started.
“I’m as touched as the next pony, but we shouldn’t involve ourselves on that… there’s only trouble coming from helping that one, we’d be safer if we went our way.”
“And leave that victim of destiny on its own?”
“Look, bringing her along would imply in so many risks…”
“At least let’s help her deactivate the armor’s AI routine. That’s step one.”
“I’m no programmer… can’t do much to solve that.”
“I never asked you to work with it… just bring her to our Freedomer friend.”
“You mean Dominic? that might work… he may have enough skills to do that job. But after that, we’re leaving her for good, that’s non-negotiable.”
The cobalt mare reluctantly nodded. I wonder why she grew so attached to what was little more than a stranger… hadn’t she seen the risks that particular equine (more specifically, its armor) meant for us? Better get on with it and forget about Moonbreeze’s issue.
Lielle and I went to the cargo bay, meeting an expecting Moonbreeze.
“We’re done here.”
“Then, can you two get me off this thing?” She asked
“It isn’t that simple, you see… I tried to explain. “The armor was purposely worked to lock its wearer, to impede enemies from stealing it, and if they did so, to impede them of opening the armor to reuse or reverse-engineer it. The only way to open it is by inserting an specific code. Thing is, the code isn’t here in this compound…”
“You mean I’m stuck forever into this?” She cried.
“We have an idea where the code may be, but first we should reprogram the armor, so it won’t go picking targets on its own. For that, we wish to bring you to a friend of ours; he knows how to work with programmers stuff…”
“I… accept it. Thank you two for your kindness…”
“You’re welcome.” The azure mare replied.
“Don’t mention it.” I muttered under my breath.
“Since that’s out of our way, we should check on your friends…”
Horseshoes… I’ve almost forgot about the prisoners.
“Okay, let’s pick them up and find a way out.”
The two mares nodded at the same time and silently accompanied me on a short trot to the contention chambers.
“About some freaking time, did you two take the scenic route or some…” Stargazer cut short her rant, raising her hoof, stricken with speechless fear.
“It’s… it’s… it’s… him” Ironfuel gagged, and the rest of them piled around the back of the room, filled with fear for the bloodcurdlingly armor that haunted their dreams…
“It’s okay, she is with us!” Lielle said.
“She?” Midlight asked
“With us?” Trailblazer interrogated. “That thing blew away half of my squad without breaking a sweat! Are you two brain damaged?”
“She didn’t want to… it was the AI pulling the strings all along…” The redhead tried to justify.
Stargazer raised her eyebrows, suspicious. “Still, we couldn’t just…”
“I swear it; I never meant to do any harm to you, any of you…”
“Silence, herald of the shade of Celestia.” Trailblazer inquisitively spoke. “You don’t have any right here… your actions, intentional or not, caused too much pain in our hearts.”
“Enough!”
All the eyes turned to the dark corner on the back of the room.
Half-stare used whenever forces he still had left to speak his mind, which, given his condition, was severely depleting the unicorn.
“Have you all… forgotten that she is… like us?” *cough, cough* “An equine, just like… any of us?” He roared. “Lost, sad, trying to survive… on a world that hates us? In what… she is so different… from you… or you… or you? You should all… be ashamed.”
All the other prisoners fell silent; the truth hurts, doesn’t it?
“Come here, child.” The unicorn asked. “Help me get… on my hooves.”
Moonbreeze approached the old stallion, supporting his body with all the care of the world, helping him stand up.
“Thank you…” She said while embracing the unicorn.
“Targeting systems recalibration complete!” A mechanic voice said within the armor. “Hostiles detected!”
“No, no, no, no, NO, NOOO…” The poor mare cried as a shotgun formed itself at the side of her chest.
PWOOT, PWOOT, PWOOT, PWOOT!
The weapon fired four point-blank shots at the unicorn, bringing quick death to him.
“Please, stop! Take me instead… leave them alone!” Moonbreeze desperately cried as the shotgun disappeared and, in its place, a minigun appeared, perched at the armor’s back.
The other three prisoners were caught in surprise, their faces paralyzed with terror as the machinegun mowed them down.
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!
Now, upon the floor, three more corpses. Two earth ponies and one pegasus.
Trailblazer, the only who weren’t caught by the fire and the one closest to the door, make a run for it, on a furious, fear-ridden dash.
“Sorry, sorry… please, come back! I can fix this, I only want to help!” The miserable mare reached out with her roof.
As a reward to her efforts, now a rocket launcher formed itself on her pointing hoof…
FWOTH!
The fuel-propelled explosive projectile flied away, making the “L” turn, pursuing the pegasus with alarming speed.
Homing rockets… who would have guessed?
BOOOOMMM!!!
I exited the room to see if there was anything left…
Turns out, there wasn’t. The rocked caught its target alright… Trailblazer ran a few meters off, but was invariably caught and blown away…
Just like his squad, he suffered the very same fate.
As I’ve entered back the prison, Lielle was comforting the mare, which was now wrecking in sobs.
I couldn’t know how she could feel sorry for the mare after that display of violence… it happened so quick… I couldn’t move during it.
I didn’t felt anything about Moonbreeze, but fear… yes, it wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t helped much.
I take it back, I’m never going to take off this earring.
I started to examine the bodies… not much I could do, seeing their states… half-stare had his stomach splashed over the wall and tears in his dead eye…
Purple tears…
============================== [><]=============================
Fire… it was strangely soothing.
It crept lively, its flames telling a story of mystery and power that was over five thousand years old, or even older, depending of who was the historian.
How did it emerge? Some wayward troglodyte decided that banging two rocks together was a bright idea? A thunderbolt that struck a tree? Perhaps squeezed dragon glands… some even dare to say that it was a gift stolen from the gods…
No mater where it came from, it played a pivotal role in metallurgic advancements during the pre-classical era, and more recently, was the responsible on transforming highly energetic materials, fuel, into raw energy that was needed by the earth ponies’ machinery…
That was fire, the flame that meant both the beginning and the end, in its quality as the primordial transformer… depending on the strength of the flame, its duration and its fuel, it could atomize even the most resilient of materials, turning it malleable, allowing it to be wrought… worked with… be controlled so that it could assume the form of our wish, become a concrete extension of our imagination, as the material was shaped, our future itself was shaped with it.
The flame was the universal leveler… no matter what was there before; it transformed everything into only one thing, if it had enough time…
Ash. The end and the beginning of all things, philosophically speaking.
That’s what was on my mind as I saw the flames sprouting from the flamethrowers, slowly dissolving four and half of a body into the gray mass. That’s what Carmelia would have wanted us to do. She only didn’t need to know who killed them in the first place.
Hard to believe that instants before, those were living, breathing beings. They had their emotions, loved ones, dreams, desires… now they were just dist, fine dust, just because of a whim from a long dead programmer…
I shifted my eyes to the small pile of scavenged items that I relieved their bodies of. It wasn’t much, Moonbreeze’s terrible artillery crumbled mostly everything, especially their armors, which weren’t at top-notch condition on the first place…
Amongst the usable items, various weapons (both that belonged the dead Stalkers and a few others ownerless ones taken from the security station), a pair of binoculars that belonged to half-stare and cash, around four thousand grant… that should cover up their food expenses…
I don’t know exactly why, but all of a sudden, the thought “That’s the only way a mare will ever buy you a drink” appeared on my mind. Figures…
After the entire chamber was filled with purple smoke, I opened the door, letting the blood-tinted cloud dissolve into the air.
Now that was done, I returned to the former contention chamber, only to find Lielle still hugging the now silent Moonbreeze.
Too much form my hopes that she simply ran away from every other living being in the face of her not so little problem.
“The issue is solved… now everyone that visits this site will credit those to the AI’s body count.” Which, technically, wasn’t a lie.
“Why didn’t you give them a burial? Incineration seems so… crude” The metal clad mare softly spoke. She definitely wasn’t used to the Zone’s customs… I could relate to that… a bit.
“It was needed. This way, nopony can link them and you, misfortunate as it may be, it could dispose Freedom’s behavior toward you, to the point that they turn hostile. And by it, could harm our relationship with them as well. Trust me, you’re going to need them to fix your issues.”
“That’s the friend you spoke of?”
“Yes. Although the armor is probably too advanced for their resources, impeding them to take it off without harm, he can probably deactivate the AI’s auto targeting, preventing further… accidents, until you can find a way out of it.”
“About it… you said that you had an idea where the unlocking code may be.”
“Yeah. Although the armor was developed on this facility, when the project was concluded, all data pertaining to the EPA project was transferred to a backup facility, and the terminal entries about it were purged out of the facility’s system”
“And… you have no idea where that may be located?”
“That, we do.” The earth pony interjected. “Well, kinda. We know it is close to the NPP, a bit coincidental, since that’s where we’re heading to…”
And that’s why you shouldn’t share key info with loudmouths…
“What, the condemned power plant? Nopony sane would go there, to their own death, anything valuable there is surely way too irradiated, and there are mutants and anomalies we can only ponder about, reaching peaks of danger… beats me why anypony would want to go there.” Moonbreeze spoke with conviction. So, the outside world had concrete efforts in monitoring and interacting with the Zone… revealing.
“I’m just going along with my dear friend…” The cobalt mare snuggled on my body, giving no signs of knowing the concept of personal space. “It’s a really nice trip, earning cash, experience, extending my horizons… that kind of enriching thing. And you Boshan? You weren’t really clear with your motives…”
“Ah… you know…” I grumbled. “I got some kind of condition…”
“Like a medical one?”
“Sorta… some time ago, somepony changed my interiors… when I was just… a colt. They changed me, somewhat… took me away from my family and my life with it… they’re related somehow with the NPP, the entries that the loners found on the PDA near they’ve found me told much about the NPP itself… in sum, I’m looking for answers. What they did to me, and how to fix it before I drop dead. And the only place to find the answers I need is there…”
Half-truth was better than a complete lie… I purposely suppressed details to avoid questions, specifically the ones about Limpid Skies and the project Mergequine. They didn’t need to know, and by not knowing, they wouldn’t worry about it.
“How sad… well, that’s life on the Zone.” The redhead said. “We should wrap this up and go home.”
“There’s a few things left…”
“Such as?”
“How to get Moonbreeze to Dominic without doing so in a way that triggers the armor’s weapons.”
”The earrings, duh. Just give one of them to him and we’re done.”
“Nope, that won’t do. Haven’t you heard the radio comms? That stallion won’t leave his workshop for nothing…”
The silver-eyed pony held her head, pondering about a solution…
“If the dragon doesn’t go to the mountain, we bring the mountain to the dragon, of course!” And she extracted the holodisk from her pack. “With this, Dom can watch her hologram and give instructions for us over the radio”
Smart… but what was the range of that thing? No matter, it was worth trying…
“Right, now moving on the list, how to get us out of here? Moonbreeze can’t climb at all; the traphole is out of question.”
“That’s solved too. We’ll just use the cargo bay’s rollup doors.”
“Hmm, okay. Can you stand up Moonbreeze ?”
The mare nodded and got on her hooves, accompanying us.
On the now weaponless cargo bay, Moonbreeze cracked open one of the rollup doors. One of the advantages of wearing a half-ton armor… we found ourselves on a ravine, not too far from the village.
BROOOOMMMMMM!!!
The skies now roared once in a while with thundering fury… everything was black up there now. A quick check on my PDA told that we spent not more than four hours inside… strange… it seemed more. I guess that’s the way the Zone works, you lose track of time when you go through life-risking experiences on a daily basis… and what is more weird, get used to it. Makes me wonder how a Stalker would adapt to the outside world, would he find it, in comparison to the monstrous hardships that the Zone imposed so that one could simply survive, unbearably harmless, drab and dull, with every second lasting minutes, frustrating the tense soul? To the point that It could cause post-traumatic stress? Even enough for a solid, conscious wish to return to this sordid, unforgiving place?
============================== [><]=============================
“Hey, that’s you again, Boshan, right? I take it that your most recent mission was a success, since, you know, you’re still kicking. Ah, by the way, your decryption is complete, pal.”
I nodded to the orange-furred mechanic, looking for a seat around his workshop. It had been an exhausting walk up there; my leg was killing me…
“You should let Patcher take a look at your leg, doesn’t look any good…”
“Yes, yes… but there’s something that can’t wait before that.”
“Ah, the data? Hoof it over to me… I’ll start interpreting it right away, just let me call Carmelia over and she will treat you to your payment. Uh, didn’t you had a traveling buddy?”
“That’s the thing. We found a survivor in that compound…”
“No way! All comms died out, how could it…”
“It’s a very particular survivor.” And with that cue, I took off the holodisk from my pack and set it on the floor before the technician.
“Now, what this could be?” He asked
“Lielle, put her on the hologram now.” I commanded through the radio.
And, above the disk, a hologram of the armored mare appeared. It took Dominic’s breath away, his mouth was agape. I bet that he never saw anything as advanced as that…
“Is that… what I think it is?”
“The successor of the exoskeleton, the equestrian prototype armor” and I gave him two flash drives, one with the diary entries about the EPA and the other one with the data retrieved from the facility’s mainframe.
“Astounding…” He mumbled wile cursorily glancing over the information. “How much for it?”
“It isn’t for sale… the armor locked somepony inside it and we can’t get her out, besides, it attacks anypony nearby thanks to a rather discriminating AI.”
“Thinking better about it, nopony in Freedom would like to sleep inside that thing, yeah… wait… a pony locked inside that thing?”
“Yes. While you probably can’t take her off, I though that you could at very least deactivate the AI”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
And I hoofed over the radio. “Use it to give instructions for my partner, watch the hologram to monitor the results.” And with that line, the holograms showcasing the options appeared, as the mare approached the interface stick on Moonbreeze’s armor.
“Interesting, interesting…” Dom mumbled while directing her to the “software” menu. Once there, he saw the binary lines. “It’s almost alike the exoskeleton’s BIOS… just filter it by date…” He said while bringing the diary entries to the monitor of his own PDA.
And the technician did his tutoring, telling Lielle to either add of remove lines of codes exhaustively.
“This is enough to disable the weapons… you’re right, I can’t open the armor without the code, and I sure as hell won’t try it… but you should call your friend over. I’d love to take a closer look on her armor, plus, we’ll need to grant her user permissions to bring her weapons back online, unless you want to leave a half-ton armored mare totally defenseless” He laughed.
That would be ideal… but it would make her an easy prey, even with all the protective layers and such… she was resilient, not invulnerable. Ahh…. let him do it, we’ll be going our separate ways soon enough, so, there’s no worries about that.
“Can I take my stuff back?”
“Be my guest.”
And I packaged the holodisk and the two emptied flash drives.
“I’ll call Carmelia, she will definitely want to see that armor.”
“When you’re done with that, can you fix my rifle? I’m also thinking about an update…”
“That workbench, first drawer” He pointed. “Look for the AK charter and choose whenever upgrades you want, call me up when you’re done choosing.”
There were so many things that could be updated in that rifle… accuracy, rate of fire, flatness, recoil, detachable stuff… and the prices ranged depending of the update… I looked around the charter, looking for something special, when I finally found a little update that could be worthwhile…
============================== [><]=============================
“This better be good… I’m not fond of having to trot all the way here, especially with this weather… you know, for a change, you should come to my office.”
The sand-colored unicorn gave a very disgruntled look to the technician, who instantly replied.
“You know very well why I can’t leave my workshop alone, Carmelia. One week, one week! That’s how much I had to work to cover for my losses!”
“Oh come on… that was just a fatality, could have happened with anybody. There wasn’t any proof that anypony was involved, and you know better than me that our supplier occasionally runs into defective merchandise… you just had the “luck” of getting a defective groza!”
“You say that, yet, don’t you find it a little weird that the defect was on the grenade launcher? And it was still loaded? And even more, with A FUCKING HYDRA BUSTER? I don’t know about you Carmelia, but, for me, things don’t go blowing up for no reason whatsoever… and I just know who did it…”
The mare cut short his answer by shaking her hoof dismissively.
“All that you know for sure is that Tinder is one forgetful bastard, not some undercover Duty agent lusting for your blood. Spare me of your conspiracy theories, will ya? Any chances you actually tell me why you called?”
“Your contracted Stalker has done his job; he’s right over there, by the window.”
I’ve been watching the rain. It started pouring, little by little, reaching the intensity of a storm in around fifteen minutes.
As I sensed the unicorn mare approaching the parapet, I spilled the news without shifting my gaze from the rain.
“Everything has been already copied to Dominic’s PDA, if you wish to check on it…”
To which the Freedom leader nodded and started to verify the uploaded data on Dom’s PDA.
She begun to nod as her eyes glanced over the acquired intelligence.
“These will do nicely…”
And she offered a wad of money.
“A fair payment for a job well done…”
I counted the money… ten thousand bits again. I suspect that this assignment had higher implications than I’ve first thought… but then, I was helping them on conquering a REA base, I guess that justifies the generous pay.
“One more thing… at this point, it’s just a formality, but… anything about the squads I’ve sent there?”
I gulped… she wouldn’t have any way to find out the truth, so, a lie will convince the mare… not exactly a lie, but a half-truth and omissions…
“Dead, all dead… I’m sorry. The compound had its own defense system.”
The mare blankly looked to the dark horizon.
“I… understand.” And facing the unicorn mechanic “If that’s all, I’ll take my leave, Dominic.”
“Just wait a bit more… there’s somepony else you will want to see…”
This was answered by the mare with a look of polite incredulity, followed by lifting her eyebrows in response.
“Then, I’ll have a seat.”
She didn’t have to wait much. Five minutes later, loud thuds were to be heard, slowly climbing the concrete stairs… took the two mares long enough…
The first to appear was the blue-colored earth pony huntress.
“Hiya Carmelia” And the two exchanged nods. “Dominic, you said that you need to finish the job?”
“Yes, I need to manually interact with your friend to reactivate her we…”
The stallion trailed off his phrase, looking at the heavy armored mare that was now directing herself towards the redhead pony. Moonbreeze’s armor looked especially impressive now that the rain had washed up most of the grime and we could take a closer look to it, outside of a dark hole. The all-fitting shape of that thing gave the illusion that she was some sort of silver alicorn…
Alicorns… there was none of those anymore… the only residues of such creatures… was that project mergequine. But I doubt that they succeeded on creating one. If they did, one would think that they would use them to contain the disaster, suppressing and eliminating all traces of the Zone, and the monarchy would still be shining, right?
It wasn’t our case.
“So, let’s get to working…” Dominic said as Lielle gave the stick to him. “Let’s tap that fine piece of technology… I’ll get your weapons back in no time!”
The mare shivered at the mention of those. “W-weapons? I doubt that’s… a good idea”
“You should get them back, Moonbreeze!” The earth pony interjected. “So you could at least fend for yourself. Who knows what kind of things you may bump into?”
“But… all that they ever brought to me were hatred and grief. I don’t wanna hurt anypony else!”
Carmelia was visibly devolved by the sight of a pacifist… chances were that she never saw one before either, while Dominic was trying to stifle his laughter.
“I’m not talking about shooting ponies! There are far more evil things… mutants, for instance.”
The armored pony drew a long sigh.
“Then, if it’s a must to fend away the Zone’s wildlife creatures, I have no objections. Just as long as I use them to hurt mindless, cruel monsters and not actual ponies…”
“You go get them girl!” The cobalt mare exclaimed while obtaining little success in pushing the way heavier and still a bit reluctant Moonbreeze towards Dominic.
“Hmm… let’s see what weapons you have.” The stallion begun to examine the interface indicators… “Interesting update towards the exoskeleton… the operating system is very similar… yet, with sprinkles, such as enhanced targeting calculators, improved logic, an updated life-support system and this weapon materializing system…”
“That sounds like an interesting update… couldn’t you add that to our exoskeletons, Dominic?” Carmelia asked from the other side of the room.
“No can do, ma’am. It’s way too energetically inefficient. The user would need a backpack full of heavy-duty batteries, like the ones of an aerial barge, to power up that thing”
“And how she has it? I don’t see any “backpack of batteries””
“There’s a class 2 biomagical power rod sealed inside that powers her entire unit, boss.”
“Well… bummers. Would you be interested in selling that lovely thing to us, sweetie?” She asked Moonbreeze with the most pleading eyes of the world.
“I’d love to… but I’m stuck with it.” The mare disappointedly said.
“Nonsense… Dominic can hack into that thing and unlock it quicker than anypony else.”
“Er, boss… that’s a big no, too” The stallion said while still bringing Moonbreeze’s weapons back online.
“Don’t tell me that you finally found your match, a flawless, top of the art, impossible to hack, electronic lock.”
“That’s about it, boss. It only accepts one unlocking code entry, and it must be the right one, can’t brute-force hack it.”
“One entry only? What happens if you insert the wrong one?”
“FIUUUUUUUSHHHHH…… BOOOOOMMMMSHHHH!!!” The stallion whistled on a perfect imitation of how a bomb falling from an airplane would sound like.
“Explode? That isn’t very pleasant… I’m sure as hell wouldn’t wasn’t to lug a bomb around.”
“A bomb?” The armored mare asked, picking up on the chat. “There’s a bomb… inside this thing?” And she looked at us.
Lielle nodded sadly. Moonbreze lowered her head, reflecting on her situation.
“That’s it… one inbuilt eliminator shotgun; twin RP-74s, one RPG-7u, one RG-6 “Bulldog” grenade launcher, one M134 minigun and one inbuilt SGI-5k…” Dominic wiped a sweat from his brow. “That’s a helluva lot of weapons… you should keep an eye on your ammo too… some of those are nearly depleted of it. Everything is back to 100% user control. Why not give it a try?”
The armored equine started to materialize weapons to check if everything was working correctly.
“How much do we owe you, Dominic?” I asked
“Don’t mention it, buddy… it was a pleasure, and plus, I was able to get some data off from her… I’ll be able to add an update on the exoskeleton’s logic. This one service is on the house.”
“So, how do you feel, Moonbreeze?” The redhead smiled to her newest friend.
The other mare dematerialized the twin RPs on her back. So, the armor was working properly and everything…
“I want to ask you two something, Lielle…”
“Go right on.”
“If I am not pushing your kindness too far, could I… join you two? I’d fell a bit less intimidated undertaking a trip to the NPP if I could do so with friends… and well, you two are the closest thing of it that I have right now… I’m sorry, but I just have nopony else to turn to.”
“It would be my…”
Before she could complete that damning sentence, I stuffed her mouth with my hoof.
“You, let’s speak about this, downstairs, only the two of us, pronto!”
And over the surprised trio of looks, I brought the mare downstairs for a little private conversation.
“Are you out of your freaking mind? We had an agreement! Bring the mare to Dominic fix her up, and then, get as far as we can from her!”
“Why the hate? It’s not like she did anything to you. Besides, she wants to reach the NPP too! The more, the merrier…”
“You don’t even begin to understand, do you? Can’t you see the risks implied on traveling with that thing?”
“Risks? She is more than capable of fighting for herself in the case she gets in a pickle, what risks could she offer?”
“First, she is wearing an unreliable prototype that is a pain-bringing arsenal of canned whoopass with a freaking high-powered bomb and a radioactive energy source included! It’s the recipe for disaster! In the very probable event of a malfunction that “accidentally” endangers us, we’re in for permanent crippling or even death!”
“Pfft…. You’re just brewing a storm on a teacup.”
“Am I? Here’s reason number two: she is a pacifist.”
“Seriously? That’s the lousiest reason ever! In what universe does that amounts to be a risk?”
“In the almost certain event that we engage in combat with other equines, she will either do two things: A: refuse to fight them because it is against her nature to do so, and she will merely watch helplessly as we get pounds of lead directly to the head. Or, option two: fight the baddies using an overpowered arsenal, not minding that she was able to use it efficiently so far just because of the AI, and thus, now that is set on manual and she has no knowledge whatsoever in using any kind of weapons for being a fucking pacifist, odds are 50/50 that she will either blow up the opposition or will grossly miscalculate, backfire onto us and grind our plots into dust in a hail of “friendly fire””
“What can I say? Just give her time and she will pick up the ropes of combat situations, don’t go thinking about worst-case scenarios…”
“And the final reason, that armor is anything but subtle. It’s a rare and valued piece of technology with enormous power that could potentially tip the balance between factions. We might be tracked or hunt down… all because of that thing.”
“Geesh… a bit paranoid, aren’t we? Well, if you feel that way, why not tell her about it?”
“And disappoint her; add to my vast list of enemies a fully-fledged armor-wearing mare that could bring me to pieces on a snap of hooves? Showing all the extension of my loathing for her will get me six feet under! Weren’t you listening?”
“Soooo… If you aren’t telling her, I’d best do it in your name…”
Great, just what I needed…
“You wouldn’t dare…”
“Let her come with us or I will.”
“Why are you doing this? It will doom us all.”
“I, for one, would feel a lot safer with somepony like her to watch my back.”
So, this was what it was all about it… the bloodsucker drama and my impotence over it, all over again, guiding her actions and leading her to “acquire” a bodyguard. Damnable is your blackmail, Lielle…
I thought for a moment about telling her to take a hike and traveling on my own, but then… if weren’t for that mare, I’d be flayed and decorating the wall of a maniac bandit, or rotting in that prison. Incredible how much near-death situations a Stalker had to deal with on a short span of time…
What if… An accident happened to Moonbreeze? Yes, it was a big, big Zone. Good ponies died, and things happened every day, things beyond one’s comprehension or control, things that could bring even the most resilient Stalker to his untimely demise. The earth pony certainly couldn’t blame me in that case… I’d just have to deal with that armored mare for a while until I can think about something concrete…
“Alright, alright… let’s take her in for now. And not a word about how I truly feel about her, comprende?”
“Rightsie” She said and flew upstairs like a blue rocket, to tell the good news to her friend.
Now I was plotting the death of a mare I’ve barely knew and that trusted on me… funny how life goes… the things you consider doing just to keep on livin’ it.
When I reached the workshop, the two BFFs and new traveling companions were hugging each other. For Faust’s sake, there’s a place and time for displays of affections. To put those images off from my mind, I set it on the next step of my objective.
“Dom, can we hear the codified message?”
“Sure on, pal.” He mused to the workbench that the PDA was on and begun to set it to play the message…
WAAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Everypony covered their ears at the ghastly scream.
Carmelia gave a censuring look to Dominic.
“Ehehe, sorry… seems I’ve set the RCV a bit high…”
And after a few more moments fiddling with the PDA and adjusting the levels, he was able to playback the message.
The voice that came out of the PDA didn’t belonged to anypony… it was a mechanical, artificial-generated voice.
“North, to the north… Tread the path that we must.
Descent where few be, find what they couldn’t
Under heaps of junk, our history rots into dust.
The way goes far and wide to those able to find it in their first try
However, one must take most care, for which
Brown wings of death comes form above, to suck you dry.
But to those that can outsmart such monster
The maiden of virtue welcomes the dedicated few
Entrance the city where not many enter
And even less come back”
The recording stopped at that point
“So… not much from there.” Dominic said. “You’re stalking a crafty bastard, that’s for sure pal… to conceal his voice on the recording… this one is more slippery than a soapy catfish.”
“And he’s a poet too… any ideas about the meaning of this?” I asked
“He mentioned a monster… perhaps you will have to wrestle another one… rrraaaarghhh! I’m the snork boxing world champ, and I challenge you Stalker, you will never have my fetid champion belt!” Dominic smirked
“It’s a mnemonic message, Dominic. It’s made so that the one hearing it can easily memorize it. It shouldn’t be taken literally. Brown “wings” from above can’t mean a mutant… there’s no flying mutant. He probably means a brown chopper, one that the REA uses…it can mean that the REA watches over the passage.” Carmelia retorted
“Yes, yes… they will even suck you dry if given the chance…” Dominic laughed
“Under heaps of junk, our history rots into dust.” Lielle repeated. “That can only mean the garbage…”
Everypony else nodded agreeing. Yes, it could only be the garbage. Nothing else would fit so well.
“But where exactly on the garbage?” I asked “It isn’t exactly specific about it. The message doesn’t give any other indications about it… only this… “maiden of virtue”, but that’s for the way out on Ponyville… it can only mean some sort of landmark or something.”
“It’s almost definitely an underground way…” Carmelia deducted. “I believe that the message was purposely left incomplete so that one would need additional complementing information to find the entrance, or there’s another underlying meaning, all done as a way to hinder the usefulness of the message in the case it fell on wrong hooves.”
“Great… another dead end. We cannot possibly run a fine-toothed comb over the garbage in search for the entrance… that’s Greyhoof’s turf. We would waste too much time and lives antagonizing the bandits…”
“Maybe you don’t need to…” Carmelia said.
“What should we do, then?”
“I might as well help you, since if you can find the shortcut, there will be no oppositions on your part about Freedom using it for our own purposes, would it?”
I nodded negatively
“So, I shall aid you. Not long ago, we ran over a crew of mercs. Not like the backstabbing fuckers that tends to proliferate on the Zone, no, once in a while, there’s a decent fella that just wants to get his job done. Anyways, we made ties with the merc and his unit. He must have figured out that the best way to successfully keep running contracts on the Zone was to make bonds with its inhabitants to avoid hassles, in the case, us. He even went to the point of rescuing one of my boys’ plot from a REA squad some months back… cutting short, we run a profitable deal: we give contracts, the mercs execute them and we pay them some dough. This particular merc has some sort of flair to track stuff or equines down, especially around the garbage…”
“You think we should give him a visit?”
“I do. We hadn’t had any news from him or his representatives on a while… but he gave me this in the case we needed to contact each other…”
And the mare hoofed over a small paper, unfolding it, I discovered that it was a 15-digits numeral. “That’s a code of sorts?”
“It’s the code to the mercs’ base, an abandoned bunker down in the dark valley… they cleaned it from mutants and use it as their headquarters now. I’ll mark up the location for your group, you should go on there once this rain settles down. But for now, you’d best get some rest and treat that leg…”
And the mare dismissed us , turning to the window and dispassionately gazed at the ever-pouring and melancholic torrent that was often intercalated by crackling thunder…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PDA entry:
The zone encyclopedia
#/filefolder- bestiary
#/filenam – Tushkano
#/filedescript – Often mistaken as a Hamster, Rat or Jerboa, Tushkanos are a small species of rodents that tend to plague the Zone. They behave pretty much alike their less warped relatives: using their sharp claws, diminutive stature and quick speed to baffle bigger opponents, uniting in packs to bring down bigger prey, building extensive lairs with an underground network of tiny tunnels and posessing an omnivore diet, Tushkanos are, in truth, very frail cratures. Despise what their sickening appearance might indicate, these creatures are rather cowardly and parasitory beings, often feeding on what they can sunk they teeth on, from simple plants to ill or crippled stalkers. While one Tushkano is hardly a challenge, they can be quite annoying when they attack in packs. Plus, they tend to act as hosts for several debilitating diseases.
My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.
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Hog, do you realize how long I waited for you to release this chapter? Do you? I can understand since it's 30,000k but goddam man. I'm commenting now so I can get it out of the way but OMFG thank you. I thought you had given up on the series! Dude I can't thank you enough.
Your trying to kill us with wait then give us 30k chapters so we spend 2 or so hours reading it?
could you try to make them smaller but more updates?
Sorry guys... I pinkie pie swear that its not intentional. I just write as much as the chapter demands me to, this is why it takes a while, so I can refine them, make them a bit better here and there, research my sources for accuracy... but I will try to make an effort to shorten them a bit...
also, feedback would be nice, if, you know... you'd like to give it.
This... no matter what you have drawn in life or whenever will still draw, you can't possibly draw anything more awesome than this, PERIOD.
fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/069/a/c/mercenaries_by_appleman86-d4sd1oe.jpg
MERCS MERCS MERCS!
Plus, how long I've waited for someone to draw an exoskeleton...
DUDE
MORE 
pronto pl..plz 