Safety First, The Manager said. No Dupe ever listened to it. No amount of effort and nonexistent headbanging from her part could persuade the Dupes to reprioritize their standard operating procedure: Get things done first, breath second, safety third.
In The Manager’s professional opinion, whoever wrote this into every single blueprint had either been an absolute prophet or a complete idiot. It was a brilliant foresight because it’s the only reason her Dupes would ever do any of the ridiculous things she told them to do, like digging right underneath them to make themselves fall or manually opening the door to a magma overflow. It was stupid because it’s the only reason she ever needed to make Dupes dig underneath themselves or manually open the door to a magma overflow.
Alas, there was nothing she could do. So, she instead embraced and made the most out of it. Have fun with it, even.
When Twilight heard the story, she decided that some exaggeration was made. She had once dug straight down and fell into a water tank, sure, but she couldn’t fathom why somepony would build a door to regulate magma flow.
“It’s just down there, you see it?” said Spitfire as she pointed down the cave-like passageway.
Twilight shook her head. “But why a door?”
“What else would you use?”
Twilight was inside a spacesuit again, but this time way down instead of way up. A lump of igneous rock stood next to her, waiting to be delivered back to Bristle Acres to be fed to the hungry hatches.
But first, door.
Twilight jumped down the rough one-meter high stairs, slowly but surely closing the distance between her and an enclosed chamber of molten rock. The neutronium ground underneath her doesn’t give any noise as she stepped on it. This deep inside the asteroid, she could feel its gravitational pull more heavily than on any other level. She wondered briefly if there really were other things below the asteroid’s neutronium core, or maybe it’s back to outer space right on the other side.
But first, door.
Twilight stood by a large automation switch, five meters away from the door it automated. She hit the switch, opening the door and letting magma to flow out into a gap right in front of it. She could see the air greatly distort from the heat and hear the sizzling sounds of crude oil from underneath, slowly boiling into petroleum and sour gas on the other end of the airlock right underneath her. In her mind, she could make out the layout of the structure and see precisely how the magma was flowing.
There was too much magma. The structure couldn’t pump out enough petrol out before more magma came in. Twilight’s hoof stood by, waiting for The Manager to tell her to close the door back.
No commands came in. Twilight stood faithfully as she watched in horror the magma flowing out of the hole and started crawling toward her. Red-hot viscous liquid rock poured over the door, like a very slow ocean wave. Two meters in front of her face, she could feel its heat behind her suit. Fibers inside started loosening and the metal plates started sliding against each other—
On The Manager’s cue, her hoof slammed against the switch and she quickly scrambled up the steps, just in time before the magma’s surface tension broke and spilled its innards to where she had been seconds ago. She heard a muffled thump as the door closed and stopped the overflow from overflowing.
“Manager, you absolute lunatic.”
The Manager gave her a mental shrug.
The trot back from Tartarian Moat to Bristle Acres was tedious. There was nothing of interest but stairs and the occasional Duplicants, smiling at Twilight as they passed by. At one point, Twilight started smiling back. At another point, a Duplicant asked her why she was making funny faces at him. At a point after that, Twilight successfully practiced her face muscles on how to smile on-demand.
At last, Twilight arrived at floor 238. The aisle was decorated right and left with pneumatic doors, all leading to two dozen identical hatch ranches. It was put away from other stables for its low-maintenance and fully-automated feeding and slaughtering systems. The only Dupes that ever needed to be there were ranchers to groom the hatches and couriers to deliver the minerals.
Each hatch ranch was filled with a storage compactor, a critter feeder filled with rocks, a grooming station, and an auto-sweeper to do all the delivery between the storage to the feeder. The auto-sweeper was also used to sweep any eggs the hatches laid and put them on the conveyor belt to be sent to the evolution chamber.
Seven moving stones greeted her as she entered the stable. After maneuvering herself around the yelping stone hatches, Twilight dumped the igneous rock she was carrying to the storage. The lumps of biological rocks around her hooves yelped happy yelping noises at her as she opened and closed the compactor. She found herself fond of their appearances, despite them looking like no more than stones with feet and a mouth.
“Good afternoon, Twilight.”
After calming her nerves and ensuring that she hadn’t gotten a cardiac arrest, Twilight took a deep breath and glared at Fluttershy. “Good afternoon.”
Fluttershy smiled and trotted toward the grooming station. “I see you’ve stopped actively trying to be a jerk.”
“Being a jerk is tiring,” Twilight said as she dropped on her haunches with a deep sigh. “And I’m already quite tired.”
Fluttershy giggled. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”
“That’s the plan.”
“So,” Fluttershy started as she went on grooming the hatches, “how’s your day been?”
Twilight was about to answer that it was none of Fluttershy’s business and that she should be going, but caught herself and started recounting her times from delivering water to the sleet wheat farm in Wheezefreeze, delivering ice from there to an active copper volcano in Bristle Acre’s mines, nearly burnt herself trying to pick up near-molten copper, delivering cooled refined copper from there to a courier from Regoville Frontier, relaying the obsidian he brought to Tartarian Moat, nearly dying when operating an automation circuit The Manager somehow couldn’t switch on and off herself, then finally bringing back igneous rock to the hatch ranch. All in all, it was an uneventful day.
“Did you smile to ponies you meet on your way?”
“Not everypony,” Twilight said, lazily pushing away a stone hatch trying to climb on her lap, “sometimes I forgot. Sometimes I just don’t feel like it.”
Fluttershy giggled. At Twilight’s questioning look, she said, “I see you’re enjoying yourself here.”
“These hatches are artificially manufactured by Alicorn Tech to induce a psychological satisfaction to boost morale.” Twilight patted the stone hatch. It didn’t notice. “Hanging around them is good for a Duplicant’s productivity.”
Fluttershy laughed and continued grooming the hatches. Twilight, meanwhile, decided that she wouldn’t be trotting anywhere anytime soon with so little stamina left, and so she sat down on all fours to recover.
Minutes passed by unnoticed, the entire floor silent save for the occasional yelping of hatches, brushing of brushes, and swishing of auto-sweepers. And never forget the bubbly sounds from the evolution chamber, passively watching over the incubating eggs and helping newborns evolve into their final form: meat.
Twilight perked up as she got a sudden notification, guiding her to a nearby stone hatch. She took out her laser cannon and aimed.
Fluttershy tackled her and sent them rolling down the stable. Twilight’s laser cannon retracted as soon as she staggered, canceling her shot. Roll and roll they go until their angular momentum dissipated and they stopped, Fluttershy ending on top and pinning Twilight down with all her strength.
“Get off me!”
“Don’t attack!”
“But The Manager—”
“It’s probably a mistake!”
“It’s a command!”
“It’s a mistake!”
“But—”
“Don’t attack stone hatches!”
“But the command—”
“Don’t attack stone hatches!”
“They’re food!”
“They’re deadly!”
“They’re animals!”
“They can kill you!”
“But I have to—”
Fluttershy screamed.
Twilight screamed back.
All stone hatches screamed at the same time.
The Manager finally took notice and would've screamed if she had a mouth.
Sure enough, the attack command for the hatch disappeared. With her multitool belt’s Override Software shut down, Twilight blinked, then slowly rose to her feet with Fluttershy’s help. She stared at her.
Fluttershy blushed and smiled. “It’s . . . Uhm . . . Annoying when that happens, right? Heh.”
Twilight shook her head. “I sometimes forgot you Early Dupes have more everything than me, including strength.”
“Don’t feel ashamed—”
“I’m not. It’s just . . . " Twilight rubbed her bruised shoulders. “Goodness, you’re strong.” She glared at the ceiling. “And I’m pretty sure The Manager is trying to kill me.”
The Manager told her that, no, Duplicants are just suicidal by default.
Twilight angrily kicked a nearby stone hatch. It didn’t notice. “Everything’s trying to kill us, even a software.”
The Manager gave her an approving nudge.