After climbing back to the surface, we returned to the PRS at once. By the time we reached Traders’ Lane, night was beginning to fall, so we found a hotel outside of the main city, where our caps still had value. As per usual, I took the room’s bed and Rare hunkered down in her armor. She’d had the opportunity to remove her outer skin when she was being held captive by the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers, but hadn't taken advantage of the chance for fear they’d never let her put it back on. Two weeks had passed since we’d last visited the Vanhoover MWT Hub, and she had been wearing her armor all that time. All things considered, she didn’t complain about it too much, which I supposed came with being a Steel Ranger.

In the morning, we headed into the PRS and made our way to the Western Block’s district ministry hall. Overall, we’d been quite fortunate here. This wasn’t a small settlement like Burnside or Crate City where one could track down the town leadership in hours or less. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was probably the closest thing there was in the Wasteland to an actual city, and it had actual governmental structure, not just a patched-together makeshift leadership. Despite all that, we had found a way to catch the attention of Strict Step, who may not have been the settlement’s leader, but was still much higher in Stalliongrad’s hierarchy than we’d expected to get on our first day here.

“Before you begin, let me see your visitor pass,” he said as he let us into his office at the top of the ministry hall.

I didn’t know his intent, but I didn’t argue, and floated the pass across to where his magic took over. Sitting down at his desk, he tapped something into his terminal before producing a stamp, adjusting it, and stamping a new number on our pass.

“The information gained from the encrypted maneframe is phenomenal,” Strict Step explained as he passed the visitor pass back across the table, and I looked in surprise at how large our balance of contribution credits now was, “The contribution you made was far greater than the information I gave you in reply, so I’ve rectified the issue. Now, what is it you wished to speak with me about?”

“What do you know about Stable 76?” I asked as I tucked the pass away in my saddlebags.

“Ah, Stable 76, one of the failed Stalliongrad Stables,” Strict Step said, thinking back to his history lessons, “What interest do you have in it?”

“With the information you gave us, we tracked down Mr. Bucke, but he’s locked himself inside a bunker connected to Stable 76,” Rare Sparks answered, “You know about the Stable, so you must know how to get in.”

“Indeed, I do, but it could prove difficult for you to get there,” Strict Step said, “Though much of the Stable is not built under the Ponies’ Republic, I believe the main entrance is in the Stacks. However, that entrance is inaccessible to anypony, buried and sealed. The only other way in is through the tunnels connecting it to the other Stables, but those are off limits to you. Actually, they’re off limits to everypony at the moment, but that’s another matter.”

“Isn’t there some way for us to enter?” I pleaded, “It’s essential that Mr. Bucke not be allowed to escape.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s just no way,” Strict Step shook his head, “The only way in is through Stable 124, the original Stable. I may have been able to get you into Primary Square, but there’s no way I’d be able to get you through Towers and Stable 124.”

The printer on his desk suddenly began to clatter away, taking Rare and me by surprise, but not phasing the morale officer. Apparently, it was supposed to print things without him typing anything into his terminal, and he waited patiently for the printing to finish before pulling the sheet of paper off and levitating it in front of him. His face furrowed into a frown as he read whatever had been printed. When he finished, he trotted over to the door of his office and yanked it open with his magic.

“Is this somepony’s idea of a joke?” he demanded of the other morale officers.

Nopony had time to confess before the phone of Strict Step’s desk began to ring, which did manage to startle him. Shutting the office door, he trotted back over to the desk, slamming the printed page down on the surface.

“Hello, are you the one responsible for sending me that unauthorized pass?” Strict Step shouted angrily into the receiver as he picked up the phone, but the blood quickly drained from his face as he heard the response, “Chairpony Peach Cream! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was you. Yes. You did? You do? Right away, comrade chairpony!”

Strict Step appeared shaken as he set the phone down carefully.

“The chairpony wants to speak to the two of you … in Stable 124,” Strict Step said in disbelief.

The document that Strict Step’s printer had produced was a special pass allowing Rare and me temporary access to Primary Square, Towers, and Stable 124. After attaching it to our visitor pass, Strict Step escorted us through the Western Block and Primary Square. Our guide was only a medium-level party member, and was thus not allowed in Towers, so we were passed off to a squad of Stalliongrad soldiers at the gate to the district. Towers was even more impressive than Primary Square had been, looking almost like the War had never touched it, but we didn’t get much of a chance to take in the sights as we were hurried along to Stable 124.

Primary Square had been so-named because it was the first section of the city that the PRS had taken over after the Stable 124 residents emerged into the Wasteland, and it was a perfect square with the Stable in the center. Later, Towers had been walled off as the southeast quarter of Primary Square with Stable 124’s entrance in the northwest corner. The walls towered up around an old train station that had been restored and partially rebuilt by the PRS into their central government building. Within the train station was the entrance to the Stable, the giant, gear-shaped door rolled open permanently.

Other than the color scheme, which was even more drab than usual, and prevalence of cameras, Stable 124 was pretty standard for a Stable. We weren’t allowed to see much, but I was still able to identify familiar areas like the classrooms and the atrium. The chairpony’s office was exactly where the Overmare’s office was in other Stables. At first, I’d thought that the chairpony was just a natural extension of the Overmare position, a title taken on after striking out into the Wastes, but the glowing sign over the door clearly read Chairpony’s Office, and it didn’t look like it’d been replaced since the Stable had been built.

Chairpony Peach Cream was waiting for us when we entered the office, seated behind the curved desk typical to Overmares’ offices. The chairpony was a unicorn mare with a white coat and a pink and yellow mane and tail. She gestured us to seats in front of her desk as the soldiers who’d escorted us took up positions around the room. I took mine and Rare pushed hers aside while Peach Cream watched with amusement.

“You wanted to speak to us?” I asked as the silence dragged on, unsure if she was waiting for us to initiate the conversation.

“Yes, the two of you caught my attention, and it seems my interest may prove useful,” Peach Cream said in measured tones, “I understand you want to enter the Stable network?”

“We need to get to Stable 76 before the pony we’ve tracked there escapes,” I answered.

“Yes, your ‘Mr. Bucke.’ I’ve been watching you carefully,” she said, and for a moment a shiver went up my spine as I wondered if there had been cameras in the MoM maneframe vault I hadn’t seen, “Well, as Strict Step suggested, the Stable network is currently off-limits, and has been for several years.”

“You wouldn’t have called us here so urgently if there wasn’t some way you could let us in,” Rare spoke up.

“You’ve surmised the situation quite astutely,” Peach Cream said with a nod, “Strict Step never told you why the Stable network was closed up, and for good reason. Most ponies don’t know the specifics, but several years ago, a creature burrowed its way into those tunnels and began killing. We tried to kill it time and again, but the cost became too high, and we sealed the other Stables off to protect the rest of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.”

“You’ll let us into the Stable network if we agree to kill the creature for you,” Rare Sparks guessed.

“Correct again,” Peach Cream said with another nod, “Even if we were not to repopulate the Stables, there are a great many supplies trapped down there, including many PipBucks on the corpses of those the creature killed.”

I had noticed in our journey here that the ponies in Towers all wore PipBucks, differentiating them from those in the other districts of the PRS. Peach Cream’s own foreleg-mounted computer glowed as she rested it on the desk. It was strange. I had my PipBuck, of course, but other than Rose, I hadn’t seen anypony else in the Wasteland wearing theirs. The vast majority of ponies alive today had ancestors who’d emerged from Stables, so where were all the PipBucks? In some cases, like Stable 57, it made sense to discard them, but had everypony else just gotten rid of them after leaving their Stables? They were so useful, I didn’t see how that made much sense; then again, the Wasteland wasn’t often in the habit of making sense.

“You specifically mentioned PipBucks,” I commented, “Is there something special about them?”

“Indeed there is. Have you heard the history of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad?” Peach Cream asked, and smiled slightly when we both shook our heads, “Well, it’s a very long story stretching all the way back to before the War. You may have surmised that we are different from other Wasteland settlements. That is because we are an equalist state. In our ponies’ republic, every pony is treated the same and knows their place. Every pony does work fitting to their ability and receives what is fitting to their needs.”

“The philosophy of equalism began in a small, isolated village known by the ludicrous name ‘Our Town.’ Our philosophy’s founder, Starlight Glimmer, was also an avowed sameist in addition to pioneering equalism, and magically stripped away every resident’s cutie-mark so that nopony would be different from each other. Her project eventually failed, the commune’s inhabitants nearly starving to death by the time Equestrian agents raided it on suspicion of sedition against the government during the War, but the idea of a fair and equal society lived on.”

“While the War consumed thousands of the lives of the poor sent to fight zebras over a trade dispute, and factory conditions for workers at home became progressively worse, the opinions of two figures began to circulate in newspapers and pamphlets throughout Equestria. They went by the aliases Stallion and Trots, and both had ideas on how to revive the philosophy of equalism. At first, they seemed in agreement, but a division in their philosophy soon became apparent. Both saw that the incorporation of sameism was the downfall of Starlight Glimmer’s project. Ponies could not survive if all traces of individuality were stripped away; talent had to remain in order to keep society from collapsing. Trots, however, was an idealist, who believed that everypony would contribute to society of their own free will. Stallion had a more pragmatic approach, and knew that without enforcing contribution to the state, there would be no way to guarantee the state would be successful enough to care for its citizens.”

“Though their opinions continued to grow ever more divided, Stallion and Trots did agree to create the United Equalist Workers’ Party in order to organize in Equestria. This, however, proved to be a trap, when a demonstration of the UEWP was cracked down on by Ministry of Morale troops, and Stallion later revealed that Trots had tipped the MoM off. Though some still clung to the traitorous pony’s ideals, many flocked to Stallionism, and began to secretly make their way to Stalliongrad to prepare for a revolution.”

“Then the unthinkable happened. The megaspells fell, and the ponies of Stalliongrad flocked to the Stables. The equalists were wary of entering something constructed by a greedy corporation, but knew that their philosophy would end with their lives if they stayed outside. Then, something else unthinkable happened. Apparently, somepony within Stable-Tec was an equalist sympathizer, for three of Stalliongrad’s Stables were to become equalist states.”

“We would later learn that these Stables were connected through the Stable network. Near the city center is Stable 107, modeled on the ideas of Starlight Glimmer. Just like her experiment with Our Town, Stable 107 failed dramatically, as nopony was able to do their jobs well and everypony within had perished by the time we reached the Stable. To the west is Stable 76, modeled on the ideas of Trots. By the time we reached them, they were still alive but struggling, since there were many ponies in the Stable who refused to work if they were going to receive rations anyway, placing undue stress on the others who did multiple times the work they were able to do well just to keep the Stable from dying. We whipped them into shape quickly.”

“Stable 124, which you are within now, was modeled on the ideas of Stallion. Everypony within the Stable received what they needed, but only if they contributed according to their ability. The cameras throughout the Stable ensured that, as did the crediting of contribution credits to their PipBucks upon completion of their work. The Stable’s maneframes ensure that contribution and reception are always in balance for every individual, and we still use it and the contribution credit system today. It is more difficult without the PipBucks, of course, and paper records of contribution are susceptible to abuse and counterfeiting, so the more PipBucks we have, the better the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad can function.”

I blinked a few times after realizing that Peach Cream had finally gotten back around to answering my original question. It was quite a lot of history to absorb in one sitting, and I was amazed it had all been preserved. I was always eager to hear about Equestria’s lost past, but at the moment, the future was more pressing.

“So, we can get to Stable 76 by passing through Stable 107 then?” I asked, and Peach Cream nodded, “What about this creature? What is it?”

“The truth is that we’re not sure,” Peach Cream said melancholically, “Nopony who has encountered it has survived. It’s known only as the Beast, and from what little we’ve heard over radios before the untimely deaths of our scouts, we know it’s a fearsome creature with claws and a stinger. It’s quite likely that it escaped from the basements of the Ministry of Magic Hub where they were doing tests with some dangerous classified material identified only as IMP. You’ll have your work cut out for you, but with a Steel Ranger, you should be able to manage.”

Peach Cream rose from her seat after that ominous description and motioned to her guards.

“They will escort you to the entrance of the tunnels,” Peach Cream said, “Good luck with the Beast and with finding Mr. Bucke. Also, make sure you deactivate the cutie-mark repression field before you enter Stable 107. It could be quite unpleasant for you otherwise.”

It didn’t take us long to reach Stable 107. The darkened tunnels branched and twisted at several points, but there were usually signs to point the way. Once, Rare and I did head down the wrong path upon reaching a junction where the section of the wall that usually held directions was torn off. We had yet to encounter the Beast, but there was evidence of it all around. Huge claw marks on the walls bore testament to its presence, as did the discarded bones and scraps of Stable jumpsuits from its victims. The tunnels were black as pitch, the ceiling lights either shattered or deactivated. I wondered if the Beast had chewed through some wires somewhere. Rare Sparks and I progressed with only the lights of my PipBuck and her headlamp to illuminate our surroundings.

The Beast wasn’t the only living thing in these tunnels. Armored radroaches and radmoths often startled us as we trotted through the dark. They were easy enough to dispatch since they only came in small sets, but every time we encountered them, we were convinced the Beast had finally found us. Soon we were tremendously on edge, and almost forgot to stop before entering Stable 107.

I remembered Chairpony Peach Cream’s warning before we’d left. I didn’t know for sure what a cutie-mark repression field was, but I could guess, and it would be most inconvenient to lose our special talents now, even if mine didn’t match my cutie-mark. A large doorway that showed signs of damage marked the entrance to Stable 107, a terminal set into the wall next to it. There was no need for me to hack it, since the Stable 124 ponies had done that ages ago when they’d discovered this place. However, I did make sure to deactivate the cutie-mark repression field, and also managed to reactivate the Stable’s lights and download a map of it onto my PipBuck.

Even though Stable 107 was now lighted, we kept our own lights on. Just like in the tunnels from Stable 124, many of the lights were completely broken or damaged to the point of flickering erratically. I levitated my submachine gun ahead of me as we carefully made our way through the Stable’s hallways and rooms. There were more irradiated bugs here, which we dealt with, along with more signs of damage from the Beast. We’d have to kill the creature eventually if we wanted Peach Cream to let us out, but for now we needed to hurry on to Stable 76 and Mr. Bucke’s bunker before he escaped. As we passed the Stable’s clinic, something else gave us reason to make haste.

“Attention!” the damaged speakers hanging from the ceiling crackled, “The cutie-mark repression field has been deactivated! The field will be reactivated in thirty minutes!”

I checked my PipBuck’s map. We had time to reach the exit to the tunnels to Stable 76, but we’d be cutting it close. As static continued to emerge from the speakers, roars began to echo down the corridors. The roars grew louder as Rare and I made our way through the Stable, more cautious now. We were approaching the atrium, and though prudence advised us to avoid the source of the roars, especially given our time limit, we had to pass through in order to reach the exit.

We carefully entered the atrium and immediately spotted the Beast. It was truly an intimidating sight, a heap of muscle nearly the size of six full-grown ponies. The Beast appeared to be a gigantic mutated cross between a bear and a wasp. Its torso was very bear-like, except that it had six limbs, two heads, insect wings, and an enormous stinger. The body was covered in patchy fur, except for the stinger, which was smooth and striped with glowing yellow and black stripes. The Beast was striking out with its fearsome claws at the speakers placed around the atrium, the static apparently bothering it.

It hadn’t noticed us yet, and Rare and I put some distance between each other before attacking. I took a metal apple from my saddlebags and carefully removed the stem before throwing it at the Beast. Just before the explosive reached the creature, Rare began firing her grenade launcher. Faster than should have been possible, the Beast escaped Rare’s attack, also either intentionally or unintentionally striking my metal apple out of the way as it did so. Both heads gave an ear-splitting roar, and it flew toward me. Only Rare’s minigun saved me from being impaled on the stinger as her fire forced the Beast to dodge away from me.

I fired my submachine gun into the air as the Beast flew around the atrium, but it seemed to have little effect. Some of my bullets hit, but all they did was make the monster mad. I switched to my magical energy rifle, hoping for immolation, and the Beast took notice of the energy beams lancing around it. Spinning around as it avoided Rare’s bullets, it squirted a glowing globule of something out of its stinger at me. I dodged easily, but I didn’t like how the floor hissed where it landed. My PipBuck suddenly began beeping for my attention. I was a little busy at the moment, but ignoring its warning could be dangerous. The radiation I was receiving wasn’t much higher than usual, but a different warning was displayed on my screen.

Warning! Taint detected! Do not allow yourself to come in contact with Taint! No known remedy if contact occurs! Vacate area immediately if possible!

Well, that was just great. I assumed that this Taint was whatever the Beast had shot at me. I’d already intended to avoid being hit by it at all costs, but it was discomforting to know that if I was hit, there would be no cure for whatever it did to me.

“Watch out!” I yelled to Rare Sparks as the Beast prepared to fire another globule of the ghastly stuff, and she got out of the way in time.

I cast SATS and aimed my magical energy rifle at the Beast’s semi-transparent wings. With the spell’s aid, I managed to get some hits in before time returned to normal, burning holes through the membrane. The Beast wobbled in the air before plummeting and taking out a catwalk as it fell to the floor. Rare fired her grenade launcher at the creature while it futilely tried to use its wings to right itself, but its hide was extremely tough, and even the grenades had little effect other than tearing clumps of fur and skin off.

As the Beast staggered to its feet, I grabbed my last metal pear and threw it at the creature. With its surprisingly fast reflexes, it caught the magical energy grenade in a paw. At first, I was afraid it would throw it back or toss it at Rare, but I’d overestimated the creature’s intelligence. It held on to the metal pear until it detonated, taking off two of the Beast’s limbs and burning half its body with the blast.

The Beast screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor in shock. Rare Sparks fired a grenade that tore more flesh from its wounded side, opening up what my metal pear had cauterized. Glowing blood began to leak from the Beast, pooling on the floor. Before we could finish it off, the Beast scurried along on its remaining legs, taking off through one of the atrium’s many doors. Even in its severely wounded state, it was surprisingly fast, and it soon disappeared from my EFS. It couldn’t escape, however, not when it was leaving such a clear blood trail.

“Attention! The cutie-mark repression field will be reactivated in ten minutes!” the one intact speaker in the atrium blared.

The Beast would have to wait; Rare and I had to get out of this Stable before we lost our cutie-marks.

Fortunately, we were able to kill two birds with one stone. The Beast’s blood trail led us to the Stable’s western entrance and continued off into the tunnel to Stable 76. We were once again in the dark, the long walk tenser this time now that we knew what we were facing. The tunnels weren’t very wide, which could be both good and bad for us, depending on whether we found the Beast or it found us first. I had my metal apples ready, which could actually do some damage to the monster now that it was wounded.

We would still have to avoid being stung by the Beast or being hit by its poison in any way. Rare Sparks knew what I was talking about when I told her of my PipBuck’s warning. Apparently, Taint was one of the most dangerous substances in the Wasteland, though she’d never heard of it existing in Northern Equestria before. Hopefully the Beast was a unique case.

“Huh, that’s odd,” Rare commented as we trotted down the tunnel, “Wasn't everypony down here killed?”

I saw what she meant by her statement a second later as I checked my EFS and noticed that a friendly mark was on it. The bearer of that mark soon came into sight as we continued down the passage. A gray-coated earth pony mare with a frizzy mane was wandering down the tunnel toward us, looking a bit lost. Nopony could possibly be alive down here, so was she some kind of phantom? EFS didn’t lie, but I didn’t know if it was capable of detecting ghosts.

“Ah, good, other ponies,” the mare said in a voice quite unlike what one would expect from a phantom, “My, but you’re heavily armed.”

“Who are you? What are you?” I asked, not caring if it was rude. There was no way this pony could be here, and we deserved an explanation.

“You can call me River, or Dr. Song; I answer to both,” the mare said with a smile, “As for what I am, I’m an archaeologist who’s a bit disoriented at the moment. Would you happen to know where we are and what the year is?”

“We’re in the tunnels beneath the Stalliongrad ruins,” I answered her odd request, “The year is 1503 ACL, 153 years after the end of the Great War and the Last Day.”

“Oh dear,” River said with concern, “It appears I’ve skewed off into a divergent timeline again.”

She began fiddling with a device on her foreleg similar to a PipBuck, though smaller and more advanced.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said before I could ask what she meant, and she vanished with a flash from her foreleg.

Rare and I stood stupefied for a few seconds, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. Eventually, we both came to the same conclusion. Strange things happened all the time in the Wasteland, and if they didn’t affect you, then there was no point in worrying about them.

“What a strange pony,” Rare commented as we continued on.

The Beast’s blood trail led us all the way to Stable 76’s entrance. There was no cutie-mark repression field to nullify here, but I still stopped at the terminal outside the door. With a little tweaking, I managed to get the Stable’s speakers to broadcast static. It would bug Rare and I too, but nowhere near the extent it enraged the Beast, and it was better to know exactly where it was than to be comfortable. The work paid off quickly, as the roars of the Beast came from somewhere within the Stable.

The sounds led us once again to the atrium, where the Beast was trying to take out the speakers all around the room. This time, it was wounded and couldn’t fly, which gave us an advantage. Rare and I entered on the second floor of the atrium after I hacked the local network to seal all the doors out of the first floor. The Beast was now trapped in a pit.

I threw a metal apple at it, mindful of my dwindling supply, and the Beast once more reacted more quickly than it should’ve been able to. Rare stuck to her minigun, firing her grenade launcher less frequently now that she was running low on ammunition for it. With my submachine gun, I fired at the Beast’s damaged side, which seemed to be regenerating faster than possible. It wasn’t as fast as what a healing potion could accomplish, but it was still impressive, even if it would take several days before the monster was fully healed, regrown arms and all.

It was quite well aware of what we were doing and turned its body to shield the injured side while it shot globules of Taint at us with its stinger. To get a better angle on it, I galloped across a catwalk, which was a tremendous mistake. The Beast lunged toward me and missed, but its claws latched onto the railing, and it pulled the catwalk down with it as it fell. I had not been able to make enough distance to avoid the same fate, and tumbled down the catwalk into the pit we’d trapped the Beast in.

The Beast lunged toward me with a claw supernaturally fast, but I used SATS to move supernaturally fast myself. I drew my ripper, and the implement roared gleefully as it chewed through the monster’s arm. With a heavy thump, the appendage landed next to me, glowing blood oozing from the stump.

Giving a tremendous roar as SATS wore off, the Beast swung its remaining arm at me, and I had no defense this time. The long claws speared me through both my doctor’s coat and Stable jumpsuit, and I felt several organs puncture. My magic was shaky, but I managed to keep control long enough to swing my ripper around and cut off the Beast’s last arm.

As it staggered backward in shock, both heads roaring, I dropped my weapon and desperately opened my saddlebags. If there was an ytime to use the restorative potion I’d been hoarding, it was now. While Rare continuously pelted the wounded Beast with her minigun, I forced the claws out of my body, nearly blacking out, and drank the restorative potion. My vision went blurry, and I felt dizzy for a few seconds as the magic coursed through me, rebuilding my impaled organs and mending my flesh.

I was soon right as rain again but was given no respite. To avoid Rare’s constant attacks, the Beast placed itself over me and tried to impale me with its stinker. I rolled out of the way each time it brought it down, but my saddlebags were still unfastened, and my belongings rolled across the atrium floor, some of them being trod upon by the monster. I rolled into my combat shotgun and grabbed it with my magic as the Beast prepared to strike again. Using SATS to time my shot, I fired upward into one of the Beast’s heads, the shot tearing through the vulnerable bits of soft flesh.

The Beast reeled at that, and I was able to get out from under it, though not without leaving a surprise behind. Disoriented, the monster tried to spear me with its stinger, but it struck the floor again, right next to a metal apple. The grenade exploded, tearing off the point of its stinger and causing Taint to leak out onto the floor. Rare fired a grenade at the Beast while it was stationary, striking the broken part of its stinger and causing the whole thing to explode in a gush of flesh and Taint. The Beast stumbled back, spasming until concentrated minigun fire tore open its ribcage and it finally lay still.

With the Beast dispatched, Rare and I felt much safer traveling through the Stalliongrad tunnels. Now we could see to our true target. A short span of tunnels connected the Overmare’s office of Stable 76 with Mr. Bucke’s bunker, and we trotted through it with anticipation. There was a branch off the tunnel that worried me, but the Beast had never escaped through it, so it was probably collapsed or sealed. The Beast had never escaped into Stable 124 either, though, which was what gave me cause for alarm. It had obviously never learned how to open doors that weren’t flimsy enough for it to tear apart, but any capable pony could do so, and Mr. Bucke had proven himself more than capable.

At last we arrived at the bunker, which was apparently a private hideout/armory for the Overmare’s use only. The entrance was locked, but I was easily able to hack it from our end, and we entered the bunker. It was built much like the Equestrian Army bunker I’d discovered north of Vanhoover, with one large room and several smaller side rooms, most of which were locked. Rather than go poking around in them right away, it seemed wiser to look at what we had in the main room first.

Besides crates with the Stable-Tec logo on them, there were also plenty with the NLC’s symbol, though they were unfortunately either empty or filled with old business suits. Piles of burned documents littered the floor, made completely unreadable by fire. Even so, I had to check the bounty of filing cabinets around the room to make sure that there were no clues surviving within them.

Catching Mr. Bucke here had been our goal, but unless he was within one of the side rooms, he’d managed to escape again, probably through the side tunnel I’d noticed on the way from Stable 76. We couldn’t be too far behind him, which was evident by how sloppily he’d covered his trail here. At his Vanhoover hideouts, it hadn’t been immediately apparent that he’d destroyed his documents, but here it much easier to tell. The file cabinets were empty except for a few drawers that didn’t hold much useful information other than sheets of figures that meant nothing to me, and he’d burned the other documents in plain sight. He’d left behind clothes, food, and caps, taking only what he could carry with him. He'd smashed the screens of the terminals around the room instead of wiping them. The terminals weren’t a completely lost cause, though. I found one that wasn’t too beat up and still connected to the bunker’s maneframe through a port in the floor and plugged my PipBuck in, using its screen as the terminal. I was shocked to find that Mr. Bucke actually had wiped the maneframe before leaving, and only one audio file remained accessible.

“I am Mr. Bucke,” that same oily voice I’d heard in the Republic of Rose played through my PipBuck’s speakers, “If you find this—oh, who am I kidding, of course you will—then you’re an utterly persistent and annoying pony. Why couldn’t you just leave me be, remaining completely oblivious to the world around you like the rest of the Wasteland’s ponies? The plan is perfect, and ponies will come to accept the new order, but you seem intent to disrupt the plan at every turn, undoing months of work! Well, I can’t have that anymore. You’ve gotten much too close, but no more. You meet your end here. Oh, and if you’re not the indomitable Wasteland Doctor, then that’s you’re misfortune. Mr. Bucke, bidding you a not-so-fond farewell.”

Four of the doors to the side rooms suddenly slid open, and I realized we’d walked into a trap, a trap I’d just activated by accessing that audio file. I should’ve checked the spell matrix of the maneframe for triggers first, but it was too late for that now. I quickly unplugged my PipBuck from the terminal as four military robots like Jolly from the Equestrian Army bunker rolled out of the side rooms and began shouting threats.

Rare Sparks turned on one, firing her grenade launcher, and took out one of its legs, immobilizing it. I cast SATS, firing in the other direction with my magical energy rifle. The beam sliced several times through the robot’s faceplate, frying its internal circuits, but not before it managed to graze me several times with its minigun. Rare was thrown to the side as a grenade fired by a third robot struck her armor. Only because I turned to see if she was all right did I manage to avoid being hit by a grenade from the fourth robot. That grenade sailed over me and struck the robot that’d hit Rare, tearing off its side panel. I fired my magical energy rifle furiously into the machinery until it sparked and melted, the heat eventually getting to the ammunition magazines and detonating them spectacularly. Through sheer luck, I managed to avoid being hit by another grenade from the last standing robot. We traded fire, I with my magical energy rifle, it with its minigun, but ultimately my agility won out and I was victorious, though not without a few close calls.

An explosion behind me cause me to whirl around in shock. The robot that Rare had knocked over was still active, and the grenade that had hit my companion had knocked her into a position where it was able to fire on her. I quickly dispatched the final robot, but the Steel Ranger had sustained significant damage and wasn’t rising from the floor.

“Rare! Rare, are you okay?” I yelled as I ran over and stooped down next to her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice hard to hear since her helmet’s speakers were inactive, “The armor’s medical suite will fix me up, but I’ll need some scrap metal to fix the armor itself up.”

“Well, at least there’s no shortage of that, here,” I said, looking around at the destroyed robots.

Level Up
New Perk: Aftereffect (1) – All potions and chems now last 30 seconds longer, at 10% strength.
New Quest: Needle in a Haystack – Find Mr. Bucke in Stalliongrad.
Energy Weapons +3 (74)
Explosives +3 (59)
Lockpick +3 (56)
Medicine +1 (57)
Melee Weapons +4 (49)
Repair +1 (31)
Sneak +2 (65)
Speech +3 (57)