Rusty, Torch, Misty and Mist looked at the large machine room,
eyes wide.
Rusty was the first to speak. "Okay folks, we... have a lot to do.
That, lady and gentlecolts, is a Class C Generator, Model T-800,
and heavily customized. Which means, we're gonna have a lot of work
if we're shutting this down manually."
Mist looked at the brothers with a questioning expression on his face.
"How much, exactly? And is there anything myself or miss Misty can do to help?
If so, you need only ask."
"Well no offense, but I think it's best if you leave the tinkering to us.
Then again, you can assist is by getting tools and such for us."
"Very well, so be it." Mist replied, and sat down in wait for orders.
Misty Fly sat down next to him, while the brothers went up to the machine.
"Let's see what we got here..." Torch said, as he opened up a maintenance hatch
on the side of the large generator.
"Okay... This will take some time, as we've said. First off, we can't just pull the
cables out, because that would blow the fuses and possibly damage the machine too,
and if this breaks the factory won't get power back for weeks, or even months.
Which means, no clouds in all of Equestria."
Mist got a slightly worried look, and asked, "So, what can you do? I assume you need
to manually turn off the various sections, and then remove the cable couplings
once the machine is completely shut off?"
"Something like that, yeah. Didn't know you knew anything about generators."
Torch replied smiling.
"Oh, just some theoretical knowledge and concepts, I have no actual experience
with machines. I read a bit about them in books, and I have good memory,
that is all." Mist quickly replied.
"Anyway," Torch said, "First step is to locate each section, and see how this thing is
hooked up."
Misty tilted her head. "I thought you boys said you knew these machines?"
Rusty nodded. "Yeah, we know the default build, the original condition.
This one however, has been custom repaired, jerry-rigged, had parts switched,
stuff added, other stuff removed.. it's barely a T-800 anymore, it's more like a
T-800-inspired custom build at this point, so we'll have to figure it all out before
we touch anything."
Misty Fly facehoofed. "Just perfect... All we needed now was more complications..."
"No worries, we'll figure this one out. We've jerried tons of machines before,
we know what to look for. We're the experts, remember?" Rusty smirked and winked.
"I know, I know, It's just frustrating. It's been a rough day, and I just wanna get it all
done and over with...I'm sorry if I sound a bit antsy, I'm just worried about all the
ponies and griffins up there, in the storms... I hope everypony made it into the
safe-houses.."
Mist gave her a gentle smile. "Do not worry, I am sure everypony up there is fine.
Granted, some house damage and such probably, but I am sure nopony suffered
any serious injuries. And we will get this fixed soon enough."
"...Yeah, thanks."
Torch opened a hatch on the other side of the large machine.
"Okay... Found the control console. buttons and switches look original,
but the wiring around it looks a bit home-made, so I'll have to check each
wire to see what's connected to which button. Rusty, any luck on your side?"
Rusty was currently looking around in the hatch Torch had opened a few minutes ago.
"Looks like the cooling hose passes here, and I think I see the coolant pump
in the corner here. Hooked up to the generator itself, so it powers its own insides."
"So, liquid cooling in a T-800. Never thought I'd see that."
"I know, right? Wonder what else those guys did to this thing."
Mist overheard, and asked, "liquid cooling? I did not realize these generators became
hot enough to need any cooling at all, much less a liquid system."
"Well yeah, they do, but like we said, this one's so customized and rebuilt,
it's far from an ordinary generator now. Some of the modifications makes it
get hot sometimes, and my guess is a liquid system was the most effective."
Normally something like a couple of fans is enough, or a cooling spell crystal.
Misty Fly was now walking around the room, looking. She found some canisters.
"That explains these then. Looks like these held some liquid. maybe the
cooling solution?"
Torch nodded. "Probably. Any markings on the canisters? Chemical formulas?"
"Well, one just says 'H2O'. That's just water." Misty replied.
"Yeah, cooling systems usually use water, or a mix of water and anti-freeze,
if the machine is in a cold area. Like the power plants in the Crystal Empire."
"The other one is smaller. But it says 'C2H6O2'."
Rusty scratched his chin for a moment. "Yeah, that's anti-freeze. Ethylene Glycol,
to be exact.Pretty common, one of the most used.
Guess it gets cold down here during winter, so it needs some in the mix."
Misty looked confused. "I don't get it. You say the machine gets hot enough to
need cooling systems, but you also say the cooling systems need anti-freeze
chemicals so they don't get frozen?"
"Yeah, a bit confusing when you don't know the machines. Basically they need
to be kept within certain temperatures for optimal efficiency.
Too cold, machine gets less effective. Too hot, machine can overheat and break.
These systems regulate temperature by removing excess heat and transferring it
elsewhere, but at the same time the cooling liquid can get too cold, and freeze."
"My head hurts..." Misty whined. "Let's forget the tech talk for a moment,
and focus on te important part - can you fix the machine? Can you turn it off?"
"Yeah. Given enough time, we can."
"I'll let you keep working then. Sorry for interrupting."
"No worries, Ma'am." Rusty smiled, and turned to Torch. "Now then...
Found something interesting?"
"Yeah. Manual. Hoof-written, all the custom stuff. Not the printed original."
"Perfect."
"Nah. classic 'too-good-to-be-real moment."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, half of it is unreadable. Some of those old technicians could barely write
at all, and it really shows here... Half of it barely looks Equestrian."
"Fantastic. Any parts you CAN read?"
"Bits and pieces here and there, so it'll still be helpful. Just not all the time."
"Better than nothing, then. Find something useful. I'll dig deeper here.
I think I found the heat sink. It's... big. Basically, it looks like they built
the entire damn machine inside a heat sink frame lowered a few centimeters
into the floor."
"Are you serious? They sank the whole thing?"
"Basically, yeah. Come look for yourself. If you peer inside the machine here,
and look down, you'll see the bottom. It's all lower than the ground we're standing on,
and the whole platform inside looks like it's made of pipes. And if you look to the
left, you'll see the coolant pump, connected to those pipes via the hose I mentioned
earlier. Which means, they basically turned the whole floor to a water-cooled
heat sink system to keep this machine at efficient temperatures."
"Amazing. Anyway, I think I found something useful. There's a way we
can switch off the turbine separately, and then the generator itself.
That way, we don't need to force everything into shut-down at once."
The two brothers walked over to the turbine, but stayed just out of range from
the still shooting lightning sparks. Although they all hit the rods, they figured
it was better to stay a few steps away just in case, because you could never
be too safe, especially not when dealing with high voltage machines.
"Okay, so... How do we do it?" Rusty asked.
Torch pointed at a switch-board behind the turbine. "That's how.
Disengage the main coupling between the turbine and the generator,
and then switch the turbine off with the off-switch once they're disconnected.
And then we can find the off-switch for the generator itself.
After that, we can start unplugging those cables. But to get them,
we'll have to remove the plating, and probably some of the innards of the machine.
The cables aren't just externally connected, they're built-in..."
Rusty facehoofed. "Oh for Lunas sake... of course they are... Why make it easy?"
Some time passed as the brothers did all the work, slowly but safely shutting down
the turbine and disconnecting it, and then shutting down the generator.
They then started on the work removing plates, and other parts from inside
the machine, slowly making their way toward the cable connections.
Almost an hour passed before Torch exclaimed, "FINALLY!"
Misty Fly immediately reacted, jumping up from her half-sleeping
posture on a bench, standing at full height. "Are you done? Did you fix it?"
Rusty's voice replied from inside the machine. "Almost. Just need to pull this last
cable, and we're..." he paused for a moment, and then continued ten seconds later,
"...Done! Last cable pulled. Do me a favor, look behind you on the wall.
Should be a panel with small lights and markings there, a kind of control lights
board."
Misty looked behind her, finding a board with LED lamps and small name tags under
each, with names such as 'Main Grid', 'Office', 'Factory', and other such places.
"Yeah, I see it..."
"Is any lamp still lit, or is the whole board dark?"
"The whole board is dark. Is that good or bad?"
"That's what we want. Those lamps show which rooms has power or not.
Dark lamps means no power. Dark board means full shut-down. We are
officially done here, for now. So once the surface teams have taken
care of all the clouds and winds and whatever else they got up there,
we're going to re-assemble and restart this thing. But for now,
this stage of the mission is complete."
Mist had fallen into a almost sleeping state, and woke up from Misty
poking him in his side. "Wakey wakey, Dude. Mission accomplished."
"So we are done down here?" Mist asked.
"Yeah, and by now, it should be dark outside... We need to get back out there."
"Good idea. You go on ahead, I will come later. I... Well, I think I
got my wing in a bad position when I fell asleep, and now it is a bit numb,
so I do not think I am capable of flying for a little while."
"You sure? Torch, Rusty, What do you think? Can we leave him here,
or should one of us stay too maybe?"
"Well, as long as he promises not to touch anything, I don' see why not.
No harm in leaving him if his wing's numb. He won't fly anyway if
that's the case, and the rest of us will all be needed top-side ASAP,
so we can tell the weather guys to start kicking clouds, and the factory guys
to find the problem in the factory."
"So it's settled then." Misty said. "We three leave, Mist stays behind
for a while, and comes back to the surface when his wing is back in
flyable condition."
"Actually... I have some errands to take care of, things I should have done
earlier, but since I got caught up in all of this... Well, my point is,
Once I can fly, I will go immediately to the ground village, and leave for
Manehattan. I should have been on an earlier train, but I think I might still
make the midnight one, with some luck. I do not believe we shall meet again,
at least not this time. Maybe if I return to Cloudsdale some other time."
"Well... In that case, Mist... It was a pleasure meeting you, and thank
you for all your help. Without you, we might not have found this room,
and we'd had to have done it some other, probably more dangerous way."
"The pleasure was all mine, Miss. Now, if you excuse me, I believe
you all are in quite a hurry to go topside. Just one last thing... Torch?"
"Yeah?"
"Do I need to lock something when I go, or should I just leave the
hatch open? I mean, you will return here relatively soon,
and I do not think there is any extra pad locks anyway, since we had
to break the one that was there."
"Nah, just close the hatch, but don't worry about locking.
We'll bring a new pad lock when we come back.
Just don't touch anything. In fact, if you don't mind, I'd prefer if you didn't stay
in this room at all. Follow us to the hatch, and wait there until your wing is
okay again, sound good?"
"Well, I would not want to cause any concern, so I shall agree to those terms.
I will accompany you to the hatch, and we shall depart there."
They all walked out from the machine room, and followed the tunnels back
to the hatch. Mist stopped shortly before reaching it, and sat down on the floor.
"I shall wait here, I think. This spot seems to be the - relatively speaking - cleanest
part of the floor, and it is close to the hatch."
"Very well. Again, thanks for everything." Misty said,
and gave Mist a quick, friendly goodbye-hug, which Mist responded
to by awkwardly returning it with a somewhat surprised smile.
"Oh. I... was not prepared for that. Not much of a hugger, really."
Misty just smiled and jumped out the hatch while saying goodbye.
Torch and Rusty each gave Mist a quick hoofbump, and followed Misty.
Mist, meanwhile, stretched his wings, and prepared himself for his flight.
His wing was numb, but not quite as numb as he had said it was.
But, he had his reasons not to leave with the others...
* * *
...Reasons that you, dear reader, can find in another story,
which I have linked to in the descriptions of each of these chapters
ever since I introduced Mist - but now, his part of this story is over,
and if you want to know more about him, you'll have to find him
in the other story, which tells you more about him...