//------------------------------//
// Deep Down 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

I didn't realize how well the Aldebaran retained its heat, even with the side door open, until it was too late.

"Argh!" I knelt on the deck, my legs locking instantly with cold, staring down the sharply-sloped gangplank to an outcropping in the black rock floor below. "Why's it so chilly out!? Shouldn't we at least be sheltered in this cave?"

The enchanted earring I had received from Leif pulsed against my earlobe with a tiny bead of warmth, and I somehow managed to get down without falling, bolstered by the small solace that Ansel had it worse. Even Corsica looked bothered by the cold. Both of them had gone first, and were looking back past me at the ship with unreadable expressions... Why was it so windy in here?

I turned to follow their gazes, and fully tripped from what I saw.

Outside, the massive storm clouds rolled north, crashing and roiling and weaving into each other like the froth of river rapids before a waterfall. The cave mouth faced the same way, a wide enough berth to house the entire Aldebaran, giving me a landscape window of the clouds as they retreated. Only some of them didn't retreat: a funnel of cloud broke downward, billowing and spiraling with terrible ferocity, knitting itself together like the strands of a rope, and then turned, twisting down into the cave toward us. The cord of flowing storm clouds turned again, pouring right in through the front of the device I had taken for an uncovered dirigible frame.

Four rings of metal, the center two wider than the ones at the ends, hung above the Aldebaran, and the clouds drove directly down and in through the front, running the length of the ship through each ring in turn. The clouds lit up as they passed, rumbling internally with brilliant teal lightning, arcing out and hitting a series of glowing gemstone nodes along the structures, each ring coursing with ghostly energy. They howled, sending out cascading ripples and waves of wind that were almost visible, screeching like an angry whinny, and then burst out the back, flowing in another sharp turn out of the cave mouth and back to rejoin the storm in its march to the north.

It was like an umbilical cord, pumping down from the storm and through the ship and back to rejoin its origin. It was like a zipline, the ship a gondola designed to slide along the storm's underbelly, still connected yet temporarily pulled out of place. It was unnatural in how perfectly it held its shape, so dense it was a solid object, not even see-through at the edges. And every time my eyes found that curve where the clouds bent and turned into the ship's rings, my heart froze up and told me they were coming for me instead; that I was about to be run down by winter in all of its fury.

Growing up in Icereach, the first thing you learned was not to underestimate the power of mountain storms. And this was the most disturbing, unnatural, alive storm I had ever seen.

Leif patted me on the back as she passed, snapping me out of my trance. "A sight to behold, isn't it? The bigger the storm, the creepier it gets... but the better she performs and the faster we go. She still runs without a storm, of course, but this is why we say she's weatherproof. Can't get blown about by the winds if you are the winds."

I shook my head free of my thoughts. Forget about the Whitewing, whoever designed something that looked... like that had some serious egotism. Either they were the world's biggest fan of nature's power, or just a little evil. Or both.

"Is this undercover Icereach tech too?" I asked, trying not to be gobsmacked.

"Nah. This predates the institute by a year or three." Leif shook her head. "The core concept was invented in Ironridge, and it's been refined a bit since then, but I'm fairly sure the work was done elsewhere."

I squinted at the cloud funnel. She said that, but the teal lightning was exactly the same shade as the glow from the Whitewing... The first thing anyone learned about magic in foal school was that color was usually indicative of origin.

"Let's not dally," Vivace announced, interrupting my thoughts. I barely had time to look to him, over by the cave's shallow back wall, before he disappeared.

"Eh?" I trotted closer, shivering from the chaotic gale generated by the ship's 'engine'. He had been there one moment and gone the next! Corsica moved up to investigate.

"There's a cleft in the rock," Leif explained. "I'll go last. Be careful; it's narrow."

Sure enough, there was a cleft, but it seemed barely deep enough to poke my head into. I could see the back from Corsica's hornlight, clear as day! How...?

"Sharp left turn," Corsica reported, sticking her face in to see. "I can see why you didn't want us to bring bags. Hope no one's claustrophobic."

"It turns right again, then widens out," Leif promised. "Vivace is waiting on the other side. We'll help you if you get stuck."

Corsica huffed, then exhaled, making her barrel as narrow as it would go... and tried to wriggle her way into the crevice.

"Ugh!" she complained, stopping halfway around the first bend. "I knocked an ear ornament off! This is... nngh... Barely wide enough for my head!"

I walked closer. She was obviously struggling, but there was so little room, her hindquarters couldn't even move from side to side. I could see the interior of the first corner digging into her barrel as she thrashed, immobilized, trying and failing to back up so she could presumably see the ground.

"This stupid cave! I can't... get back to see it... Uraaagh! I chipped my hoof!"

What was this? Corsica was the definition of lean beauty. How had an adult stallion like Vivace gotten through so easily, and how was Rondo going to follow? And the more I watched my friend struggle, her tail the only thing that wasn't immobilized, the more I began to feel like I was claustrophobic too.

Actually, this was probably why Rondo had stayed behind.

"Stop trying to back up," Leif gently urged. "I'll get what you dropped when I go through. You can't turn around in there. You have to keep going."

I was watching closely this time, but it still felt unnaturally abrupt. Corsica didn't slowly grind her way through, she just disappeared. Like the cave had swallowed her.

"I-I'm going next," I announced, deciding I would much rather watch ponies making it through on the other side than stay where I was out here. And with my coat and wings padding out my width and the duffel bag on my back practically voiding my maneuverability, I was absolutely cheating my way through.

A little shadow sneaking later, and I was in, the entrance an impossibly tight S-curve that I couldn't believe anyone had willingly explored to discover for the first time. Corsica was dusting herself off under her and Vivace's combined hornlight, cheeks red with irate embarrassment.

"Here's your thing," I mumbled, passing her the fallen ornament. Behind, Ansel arrived far more easily than Corsica had, and then Leif brought up the rear, also making it through without issue.

Corsica took it and gave them a reproachful look, fixing it in her mane. "You could have at least pretended to have trouble."

I averted my eyes, unsure how to agree without sounding like a hypocrite. I cheated, but I had luggage. How were all of them making it look so easy...?

"Thankfully, that's the last one of its kind," Leif promised, sighing in relief. "But if you didn't enjoy that, I don't advise becoming a professional spelunker. Next up: stairs. A whooole lot of them."

It was true, I realized with a start. The room we were in now had far more definition than a random cave: its ceiling was flat, its walls were square, the angles formed something resembling lines and corners... and in the back was an old, straight, darkened, militaristic stairwell, just wide enough that we could descend single-file.

We took up the same marching order as before, except Corsica and Ansel swapped places to spread out the light. I hadn't turned on my bracelet; there were two horns in the party, and my survival instinct was telling me that I needed to keep as many tricks in my pocket right now as possible. I didn't know why. It wasn't like the cave was watching me or could be caught by surprise. But it was a strong instinct, so I kept my bracelet hidden.

The stairs went down a flight, banked sharply, and switched back, no railings to catch any missteps. I guided my hooves carefully around the first switchback, noting that the floor we had stood on just a moment ago was a platform: the stairs were wedged into one wall of a massive, very deep shaft. If I slipped off the wrong end, there would be nothing to catch my fall.

No railings. No nothing. And the aged concrete stairs were so narrow. I kicked a pebble off into the abyss, and listened for several seconds before I heard a sound. It was a long, long way down.

"Claustrophobia? No problem." I rolled my eyes. "Here's hoping nobody has a fear of heights..."

Then Leif flew out over the pit, hovering along about half a flight below us and matching our descent. "Halcyon, how confident are you with your wings?" she asked. "I can either wait here to catch anyone if they slip, or ferry us one by one to the bottom to speed things up. Think you could lend a hoof so we can do both at the same time?"

I averted my eyes. Showoff.

Leif whistled. "Shame. On well. Don't worry, I got your backs."

We climbed for two or three minutes in silence, long enough to get me thinking again. This place had obviously been constructed, but how, and by whom? They had a few iron support bars and a lot of concrete, and that seemed like everything. Placing aerial concrete molds for this staircase would have been a fairly daunting task, but I wouldn't imagine it impossible for a unicorn with a talent in concrete-casting to be able to use their aura as a mold. And then they had the tech needed to cut a shaft this big into the mountain, and to reach this spot in the first place.

Something seemed hurried about its construction. The material palette should have been broader for a well-funded project, yet the scale should have been smaller for a poorly-funded one. What kind of conclusion was I supposed to draw from that? Either it had been made by a very small group of ponies specifically selected for their construction abilities, or it had been made by a larger organization under extreme time pressure, especially during the planning phase. I didn't know enough to pick between the two. But judging by Leif's assessment of why we might be here, the former felt more-

The stairs were missing.

I put my hoof down, too lost in thought to check, and immediately flipped forward, tumbling into a spin. My limbs all flailed, trying and failing to control my spin, flipping and smashing facefirst into... Leif's forelegs.

"Hey, watch it!" She put me down gently, then hovered back up to where a single section of staircase had collapsed, preparing to help the others across. Sheepishly, I realized I hadn't even noticed that we were slowing as Leif aided ponies in taking the jump one by one.

Get out of your mind, Hallie. Focus. Think more once you're out of the cave that's trying to kill you.





Eventually, the stairs ended, leaving me feeling like I had climbed from the peak of a mountain all the way down to its roots. Knowing where we were, I probably had. The room at the bottom was empty and full of crumbled rubble, everyone stopping to take a break after the long climb down. In the combined light of everyone's horns, I could see now that the walls as well were made from concrete. Long, thin metal beams formed the structure that the switchback stairs were braced upon. Yet the walls looked even more sloppy in their pouring, slightly warped or bulged where the mold shaping it while it dried had been removed slightly too early. They were also heavily cracked and run down, yet how much of that was from age and how much from hasty construction, it was impossible to say.

"That's going to be fun to climb back up," Corsica remarked once she had caught her breath. "I'm scratching caving off the list of things I want to do in the future. The spelunking life is not for me."

Leif chuckled. "Once Rondo and the Whitewing catch up, we'll have an easier time of it. That thing can fly us up these stairs in a jiffy."

Ansel pouted, massaging his legs. "Perhaps we should have waited for them before descending. What are they doing, anyway?"

"And how's Rondo going to fit through that stupid hole?" Corsica groused. "Probably just hanging back so he doesn't have to have everyone staring at him while he's stuck. Cheater."

"Rondo is taking care of business." Vivace didn't seem keen on elaborating. "They'll be along momentarily."

Right. Business. Apparently, Elise was now business to be taken care of... I wondered if I had made the right decision in outing her.

Silence fell. I took the opportunity to check over my friends. The remnants of my dream still had me on edge, and between the sight of the Aldebaran's power source in action and watching Corsica get stuck in the entrance, I wasn't feeling any better, but overall I was okay. Shaken, but okay.

Oh, and I nearly fell and broke my neck. Maybe I was a more than a little shaken.

Ansel had a perpetual frown on his face, and a minor case of the sniffles. Understandable, given what he thought of this mission and how he didn't have a magic earring like I did. "If it makes you feel any better," I muttered to him, "I'm starting to think I won't be agreeing to anything like this again for a lot more years than I was this morning."

He nodded in understanding, blowing on his hooves to warm them up.

"...So," Leif eventually said, breaking the silence. At first I thought we were getting ready to move again, but her tone felt just a hair too serious. "I bet you're all wondering what happened to the other half of our crew."

"Elise, Rondo and the Whitewing?" Corsica looked up. "Or do robots not count?"

"Rondo and Elise." Leif shook her head and took a breath. "It was... brought to our attention that Elise was behaving much more erratically than expected, given her disposition. One of you tipped us off. I'll leave it to you if you want to tell each other who that was, but suffice to say we've never actually met Elise before this and trust your judgement as ponies who have known her longer and in a more official capacity. You trust us to keep you safe on this trip, and as they say, trust runs both ways."

Ansel's ears tilted forward in concern.

"That's why I want to update you three on where the situation now stands," she continued. "Within Cold Karma's governmental structure - the company that runs Ironridge, if you forgot - there is a dedicated organization that oversees our end of the Icereach contract and logistics. Our own sponsor is higher up the command chain than the level of things like these. Our sponsor made the assumption that these Whitewings couldn't be coming from Ironridge. But, if Elise's behavior is suspect, especially if this trip doesn't turn up any links to Graygarden, our next move is going to be to return to Ironridge and push for a deeper internal investigation. It's entirely possible that whoever planned this is hiding right under our noses. I'd like to say this is a good result for you, where everything goes back to normal."

Corsica slowly frowned. "It wouldn't be?"

Leif sighed. "You remember late last night, when I told you about why I hate the eastern goddesses, right?"

I blinked. "What's that have to do with it?"

"I have a bias against authority," Leif admitted, shifting her gaze to the side. "A pretty strong one. Actually, all of us do. It's one of the things that brought us together as a group. Anyway, we spent some time asking Elise a few more questions, and in the end we decided there really might be something going on with her. And, so, we... sort of restrained her."

"You restrained her," Ansel said. "Like, tied her up."

"You tied up Elise?" Corsica's eyes widened.

"Comfortably!" Leif protested. "Nothing barbaric. But, well, yes." She shook her head. "The important part is, if we're right, we did the right thing, but if we're wrong - not if you're wrong; you only tipped us off, we're the ones verifying it - this has the potential to create an Incident. With a capital I. Not with Yakyakistan, fortunately, because only Ironridge personnel are involved, but the point is that we're biased and it's hard to be certain if that's interfering with our decision-making. And if anything does blow up because we misjudged something, we want to make sure you three are as far away from the fallout as possible."

"Sounds pretty on the surface. But what's that entail?" Ansel asked cautiously.

"No hard plans yet." Leif shook her head. "Everything still depends on whether we can unlock that terminal, and on what we find there. We're still thinking, but I wanted to keep you updated on what we're thinking about."

I wasn't listening. I was imagining Elise literally tied up, trying to imagine it being done comfortably, and suddenly doubting myself with double intensity. Sure, I had been pretty sure that the mare accompanying us wasn't really Elise, but had I been one hundred and ten percent sure? Would Elise forgive me if I was wrong? Asking forgiveness was a scary concept, throwing yourself at the mercy of someone you had no control over... I felt cold just thinking about it.

"Anyway," Leif finished, "once we get to the end of this tunnel, we'll have a much better place to break and wait for Rondo to catch up. It's a long walk, so I hope I've given you enough food for thought to last the trip. Everyone rested enough to get on our way?"

Apparently, everyone was. And so we continued.





My fears of frigid puddles proved founded after all.

The next leg of the journey was a long, straight, rectangular corridor, running long into the darkness. Unusually thin rusted iron girders supported a hewn rock ceiling, the walls in some places concrete, and others bare, hastily constructed and looking as if they had been left unfinished. Now I was even more sure that whoever built this had a shortage of raw iron... A haze seemed to restrict my vision, preventing our light from reaching too far down the tunnel - Vivace assured us it wasn't mine gas, and was safe to breathe. It smelled pretty stale to me.

The most decrepit part was the floor, however, once made of rectangular concrete slabs that had partially cracked and disintegrated, buckling and ramming up against one another and leaving abundant potholes in the floor. Water dripped slowly from chinks in the ceiling, likely causing the destruction by slipping into cracks before refreezing, widening them. And that very same water pooled in the potholes it created, which Ansel was the first to accidentally experience.

"Arrgh! Colder than winter's foot...!" He clambered out of the puddle after a chunk of concrete gave way, sliding him down and dipping a hoof in the water. Shaking the hoof off, he nursed it and swore under his breath. "Luckily shallow..."

"You good?" Leif asked. "There's a better place to rest up ahead, if you can keep going. And watch your steps, everyone."

Colors were hard to discern properly in the dim, two-horn rainbow of light, but Ansel was practically turning blue. "As if I couldn't handle a little cold..."

And so I pressed on through the unfinished corridor, minding my hoofing, thinking once again about the hasty architecture and trying to distract myself from Elise, and now the impending climb back to the surface.

It was hard to say how long we walked. Our pace was uneven, and I had nothing by which to track the time. There was no conversation, and the best metric I could work by was my own body's tiredness, but between two effective hours of sleep, my heavy load, and the adverse conditions, it was impossible to get an accurate estimate. About a mile was the best I dared guess.

The tunnel grew more complete as we continued on, never bending or changing. There were no lights in the ceiling. Had they not been installed yet, or was this place only intended for unicorns? Some of the walls had big, blocky arrows chiseled roughly into the concrete, pointing back in the direction we had come. Perhaps they were there to help orient anyone who lost track of which direction they were going, like a primitive imitation of the color guides in the Icereach workspace where I had found Ansel the other day. Or perhaps they were a warning to turn back.

Shortly after the arrows began, a huge mound of something materialized, nearly blocking the tunnel, sitting ahead in the gloom. What was that? From a distance, it looked like scrap metal, like part of the ceiling had caved in and dumped the contents of a rooftop cable compartment along with it. But no, it had more form than that...

The mound came into better relief, and once again my breath was taken away. It was all a machine, or had once been, a sturdy metal core surrounded by three evenly-spaced protrusions that looked like tree roots, big enough to take up most of the tunnel. Closer to the top, its cylindrical chassis took on a more defined front and back: the thing had a domed metal roof that stuck out like a thick-stemmed mushroom, four metal arms affixed to the sides, though one was a stump that had been torn free. At its back, pointing up, was a massive, thick-based conical spike encased in rings, though one of them had been shattered and another torn free. The whole thing was scorched and scarred, covered in chinks, dents and slices... What was this? I looked at the roots again, comprehending the complex hinge mechanisms connecting them to the trunk, and how the two more intact ones had tread belts looping along their bottoms and within them. Those were wheels. Or legs. Or something in between.

"...What's this supposed to be?" Corsica asked, studying it warily from a distance. "You had a point with the Whitewing, but it sure doesn't look like Icereach tech to me."

Leif chuckled. "Beats me. We weren't able to identify it either. It used to be this place's security, the first time we came here. Let's just say we changed that pretty good."

I paled. All four arms, I noted, were mangled at the ends and looked incomplete... like they had once held weapons and those had been removed. Suddenly, I could imagine this thing complete and upright and sparking with energy, rolling down the tunnel with glowing red eyes atop its mushroom dome...

"Yes, but what in Tartarus is it?" Ansel demanded, clearly not accepting the security as a good enough answer.

I was more preoccupied with how Leif and her friends had managed to do this much damage to something that looked more than capable of returning it. A little voice in my head also pointed out how much newer it looked than the rest of the surroundings.

"Like I told you." Leif shrugged. "Beats me."

"It was an experience that makes you glad you have a Whitewing." Vivace picked his way past the sentinel, barely sparing it a glance. "And makes everyone else glad they have a doctor. Why did you think the floor is so broken in this tunnel?"

I swallowed. Apparently my water-freezing theory was just a bit too ordinary for reality.





Beyond the sentinel, our destination was finally within sight. The tunnel stretched out about five rusted support sets longer, one of the beams bent and twisted out of place. We passed an alcove in the wall just big enough for the sentinel to hide in wait, and then sure enough, the floor grew much more intact beyond. And then we were there.

The tunnel widened out, approaching a wall of blueish rock that struck such a strong contrast with the black rock of the tunnel and mountain core that it was like we had found some massive, independent buried structure. And indeed that was what it was, an iron door set into the blue stone. The handle had some sort of complex password lock attached, clearly intended to keep intruders out. It also looked like it had been broken with a very prejudiced sword.

"Here we go," Leif sighed, yanking the handle and swinging the door open. "Break time at last. In we go, and then we wait for Rondo to catch up."

I wasn't sure exactly what I was expecting as I stepped through. Some sort of evil lair? Racks of machines and equipment? Another cave? But what I found made so much sense I felt like I had been told about it before and just forgotten: it was a snug, cozy, well-furnished and perfectly normal doomsday bunker.

A light glowed merrily on the ceiling, not an industrial floodlight or some dim power-saving thing, but the same kind of mana light one could find in any home richer than my own. The rounded walls and polished floor were all made of the same strange, sparkly-blue stone, but the floor was covered by a big fluffy rug, and metal shelves lined the walls, empty and awaiting contents. I could see a hidden vent that had to be running some sort of climate control system, since the air was both warm enough for a living space and much fresher than the cave outside... though it still held a strange, metallic scent that hinted at magical processing. Two doors led to adjacent rooms, and a painting of Yakyakistan's capitol adorned the wall opposite a nice-condition couch in a style that would have been fancy several decades ago.

"It's like..." I blinked, taking it all in. "A panic room. It's a safe house. Somewhere far away where someone could retreat and literally be safe until the end of time."

"Not on any map." Leif nodded in agreement. "Well-stocked with food that will never perish, too. Feel free to look around while we wait on Rondo. This mare, however, needs to rest her hoovsies."

Yeah. That sounded like a good idea. I tipped over on the couch and crashed, worn out from the long hike, repeated surprises and poor sleep. Corsica and Ansel could check over the place for danger if they wanted, but Leif had apparently already taken out the sentinel and what safer place could you find than a doomsday bunker? Down here, we could probably ride out the end of the world.





I didn't sleep, but came close, stuck in a half-awake daze where my body wanted to rest but my mind still thought I needed to be at the top of my game. Eventually, however, Rondo arrived, banging open the door and strolling in with the Whitewing, the machine expressionlessly regarding the room around us.

"Right, then." Vivace got to his hooves from where he had been working on his armor robe, nodding at the door to the left. "All of us are here. The terminal we need unlocked is one floor down. Follow me."

The Whitewing didn't wait, following his command and opening the door just like a real pony before heading down the staircase inside. Corsica stood as if to follow, but ignored Vivace, instead giving Rondo a skeptical look. "Okay, I have to know. How did a meat barrel like you fit through that cave at the entrance?"

Rondo flexed and gave a studly grin, nodding after the Whitewing. "With a whole lot of pushing from the rear!"

I shook my head, ditching my bag on the couch and scrubbing sleep from my eyes. All I knew was, there was probably a reason he had been the one to wait and cross alone, and it was probably an embarrassing one...

"Come on, then," Ansel interrupted, goading us along. "Let's get this lock business over and done with so we can finally get some suspense off our plates. What did we even wait for him for, anyway?"

"We like doing things together." Leif shrugged. "It's part of our code. Besides, everyone looked like they could use a chance to warm up after that hike."

It was pretty warm in here, I noted as we started to drain towards the staircase, which had a switchback going down. Not even close to uncomfortable, but between the heat and the lights and the air ventilation, it was obvious this place had a permanent power source. But mana wells were supposed to be extremely hard to make at high latitudes... Just how far down were we?

The staircase opened out into a room under the main one, this one less homely and more businesslike. A long metal desk stretched along one curved wall, unused corkboards recessed into the wall all along its length. In the center was a terminal, fancy and built into the wall, its screen extruded a ways and with gilded corners. A chair sat before it that hadn't been pushed back in. At its side was a boxy device that looked like a pencil sharpener sized for a unicorn horn, and empty filing cabinets lined the entirety of the back wall.

Everyone stood back, giving deference to Corsica.

"...Alright, then." Corsica stepped forward and took the chair. "This is your big, bad genetic lock? If it bites my horn off, you owe me your airship."

As if reacting to her weight on the chair, the terminal turned on. Most of us crowded around, though Vivace and the Whitewing hung back to keep watch.

"Access privilege level," Corsica read from the screen. "It says you can access it as a guest. No dice?"

Leif shrugged. "Give it a try if you're curious."

Corsica did so. Scrolling text crossed the screen.

Terminals were pretty simple in concept. Their capabilities changed by generation, but fundamentally, they were switchboards. You could route a text input to a pattern card, or a magical lock to a powered door, or a control system to some hazardous lab equipment. The screen provided a simple visual for what you were doing.

Rigging up some sort of access control input like this would take at least a third-generation model, the same as Corsica had in our lab, which were first invented twelve years ago. A lower bound for a date this place was still in use by, then. I filed this information away as potentially useful and then leaned over Corsica's shoulder, reading.

"Locked to the head scientist's daughter," I read aloud, the screen displaying the contents of the only pattern card Corsica could switch to without an access level. "Huh."

Rondo nodded at the device on the desk next to her. "Well? Pretty sure you stick your horn in that and see what happens!"

"Hold on," Ansel cut in, narrowing his eyes. "You said you had evidence this place belonged to a head scientist, not a head scientist's daughter. What happened to Corsica being close enough to her dad to fool this kind of genetic thingamajig?"

Leif shuffled uncomfortably. "Listen, things were pretty tense when we were explaining back there. Would you have believed us if we said it specifically mentioned Corsica by name? The fact still is that we brought Corsica to unlock it."

"But it doesn't mention her by name, though," I pointed out, less concerned about the omission and more curious about this note. "How many head scientist's daughters have there even been in Icereach? It reads more like a riddle. But who secures a terminal with a riddle?"

"Not Graygarden, that's for sure." Corsica rolled her eyes. "And besides," she added, "What kind of security system flat-out tells you where to find the key? Who signed me up for this? This sure doesn't look like legitimate corporate enterprise."

Vivace cleared his throat. "We never said we suspected anything legitimate was going on here."

"So that's the scanner?" I asked, moving around to pick up the little box. It was physically part of the desk, despite looking distinct, and wouldn't budge. Physically, it was a lot harder than one might think to hack a terminal by swapping in your own input devices, due to the analog signals they worked with, but something about the keyhole just sitting there on the desk felt... unprofessional to me. I couldn't quite place why. This felt like the first idea someone who wanted to secure a terminal would come up with, rather than an industrial standard tried and tested by time.

Rondo shrugged. "Sure looks like it."

"Well." Corsica pulled back, lowered her head, and inserted her horn into the genetic security machine. "Here goes nothing."

The screen flashed. Access elevated.

Corsica's name appeared under the list of access types, alongside the guest. She opened it. A single pattern card input appeared, this one titled A message from Aldebaran. She frowned harder, and opened this one, too.



Hello.

I sincerely hope you aren't reading this. However, in recognition that my hope is likely in vain, I must write it regardless. I am an anonymous member of Aldebaran, an elite mercenary group in the service of many clients throughout the world. Our most recent contract involves the incitement of a revolution in Icereach, overturning the existing leadership with a new guard.

We came by ownership of this cave as payment for a previous contract. It is ours. Anything you've seen here relating it to Yakyakistan was placed here by us. The Whitewing has nothing to do with Icereach. The security on this terminal was our doing as well. This place is a trap with the singular purpose of convincing you, Corsica, through purely planted evidence to turn on your father and attempt to 'liberate' your hometown, with our backing, as per our employer's will.

I am no saint. Most of us were some manner of criminal in the Empire before the war, myself included. However, I find that this goes too far. I recognize that leaving an open letter like this-



Rondo put a hoof through the screen.

With a cascade of glass and a burst of energy, the message was gone forever, several paragraphs still unread. Corsica hissed and blocked her eyes with a hoof. Ansel looked thunderous. Vivace was silent. Leif was repeatedly swearing under her breath.

It took several seconds for the realization to set in. When it did, I was shaking.

"Didn't see that coming." Rondo was the first to speak, slowly withdrawing his hoof from the shattered screen.

"Well." Leif straightened up, snapping back to her senses. "That's one way for this to end." She turned to Rondo and Vivace. "Pack it in, boys. We need to get out of here."

"...Pack it in," Ansel said limply, his fury draining away. "So that's your response, then. You're not going to deny any of that?"

"Platitudes would mean nothing when we have a traitor in our midst," Vivace said, voice cold. "Believe what you like, but we're not the kind of ponies who would settle this with bystanders around."

Leif weakly shrugged. "That, and, ever heard the phrase 'you know too much'? Someone wanted you to be a liability we'd have to get rid of. Until we know who that is, hard to keep you safe when one of our number secretly wants us to kill you."

"Besides," Rondo growled darkly, "barely a tenth of that is true, but fat chance you'll trust us on which is fact and which is fiction. Come, Whitewing! To the Aldebaran. This score must be settled..."

It felt like my understanding of reality had fractured, and then someone took the peaces, tossed them in a bowl and presented them back to me as a tasty chaos-and-crushed-dreams salad. "But... you can't... You mean...?"

Leif looked back at me, all three of them trying to climb the stairs at once without leaving anyone alone with us. "It wasn't lying about this place belonging to us. An indefinite lease, technically, but the point is, don't worry about some bad guy coming to check on their vacation home and finding you here. We'll come back and get you home once we've sorted all this out. Or we'll tip Icereach off on where to find you. Sorry it had to end like this."

"No, hold on!" I ran after them and stopped halfway across the room, a hoof outstretched. "You're... supposed to be better than that..."

Leif met my eyes. "Hey. I've got a question for you," she said. "Do you believe that a chronic, serial liar can still be a good pony?"

I lost my voice again.

"Over the years, that's a question I've found myself asking," Leif went on. "It comes with the territory. When we got here, we were supposed to be on your side, behind all the faking. I was on your side, though I can't speak for anyone else anymore. Now... you're not the first pony to look at me like that, and I've been where you are too. Actually, you remind me of someone very dear to me from a long time ago. So, I just wanted to make sure you know I'm sorry."

And then she, too, was gone.

"I didn't want to be proven right," Ansel whispered. "Damn it all, I didn't want to be proven right! Halcyon, what happened to coming back safe and sound and proving I was a silly goose who worried too much about dangers that weren't real?"

"But we are safe and sound, see?" Corsica pitched forward, stumbled and caught herself, looking like the shock on top of the day's stresses had flattened her halfway back to her burnt-out self of two years ago. "What did I tell you? My crazy luck kept us alive..."

A minute ago, everything had been fine. And now, I had nothing I could say.





I wasn't sure how long we stayed there, exactly where they had left us, without so much as lifting a hoof.

It felt like all the willpower had been drained from my body. One moment, we were on an adventure, and I had plenty of concerns and risks, but I still had agency and ground to stand on. The next, everything was just gone. It wasn't quite the same feeling as the aftermath of the accident - this time, after all, my friends were still very much alive. But the shock was the same. The absence of foundations, I knew like a familiar hole in my heart. What could I do? It was hard to even think about what had just happened.

If I felt like I had been sapped of will, Corsica looked it. I would have expected my feisty friend to be ready with a quip or insult or even encouragement to counter our situation, but she just stared into the distance with a strange, wry smile, the kind you wore when you were the victim of a very un-funny yet still masterful joke.

"So," Ansel eventually said, "what about Elise?"

"What about her?"

"You think she was in on their plan, or she was being a grump because she suspected something, or what?"

I shook my head. "Their plan? You'll have to explain it to me, because I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this looks from my point of view."

"What if it's a good-cop-bad-cop routine, I said. I trust them, they'd never do that, you said..."

"Shut it, you."

Eventually, my hooves carried me to the shattered terminal screen. I peered inside, the part of my brain that could do science not at all distracted by silly things like shock and emotions and whatever else was going on right now in my head. It had some pretty classy vintage hardware! Hardware that was now ruined. Was that a triple-crystal laminated wave function imprint board? Could make good salvage. One of the mana frequency scalar plugs was smashed, but there was another that looked good, if a little big for modern standards. And there was a pattern card just sitting there, hooked up to the imprint board, in a cheap pink plastic case with 'Corsica's Horn' written on the cover in black sharpie.

I detached the cable and pulled it out. However that sequencer machine worked, it probably just unlocked the terminal by matching whatever pattern was stored in here. Hacking this security would have been as simple as taking off the side panel and swapping in a card with a scan of your own horn. There was another pattern card with no label - probably the one the message had been stored on - so I took that, too. Not like I was above stealing broken hardware from Aldebaran after what they had done.

It was like a dam broke in my mind, holding this physical, tangible proof that the setup in front of me had been cobbled together by someone who knew nothing about security and just wanted to put on a show. This bunker? Fake. The job's so-called real purpose of investigating Graygarden? Fake. The money they paid us with? Who knows, probably fake as well. The dumb earring consolation prize Leif gave me a few days back? I almost was tempted to take it off and assume it was fake too, but at least a fake magical earring was still a fine non-magical earring. All this, and our prize amounted to some terminal parts and an earring.

"I'm gonna... go upstairs and look around," I announced, slipping the pattern cards in my pockets and noting that there was another door in this room as well to explore. "Try not to have any world-shaking experiences while I'm gone, okay?"





In the main lobby, bound and gagged and laying unconscious on the couch, was Elise.

For a moment, I was almost surprised. But my brain had regained the ability to put two and two together, and more pieces started sliding into place: of course Rondo had stayed behind to descend without everyone else watching. He had been carrying Elise. They were probably planning to stash her here all along to get her out of the way, or at least they were after I warned them about her.

What did that mean about me and them? Did that mean Aldebaran really were on my side, if they trusted me enough to take my word like that? I wasn't sure I wanted to be on their side. Then again, I wasn't even sure what their side was. I wished I could reread the letter, even if Leif did have a point about it probably not being written in our best interest. I mean, its existence had caused us to get stranded here! Who even knew what was going to happen to Icereach while we were away, or how we would get back?

Stranded.

I looked back at Elise. What had been going on with her? The enemy of my enemy wasn't necessarily my friend, I knew that much. I also had no idea yet how I thought of Leif and Aldebaran, whether their betrayal stung horribly or felt like nothing or both at the same time because I was numb. Maybe it wasn't a betrayal at all. After all, the main thing they were guilty of was lying about everything over and over. Didn't I do the same, wearing a mask between my thoughts and words whenever I interacted with someone? I didn't know what went on in their heads. Was I even allowed to judge them for that?

No, they had also stranded us here. But what if it was for good reason? I knelt down, whimpering from the pressure of the thoughts in my head, and for a moment I was almost overcome. I had wanted so much to trust them, because I thought they were like me. But what if ponies like them just weren't trustworthy? Ponies like... me.

Whatever had or hadn't been happening with Elise, I decided that I wasn't going to become a captor as well. I carefully undid her restraints, removing the rope from her hooves and the cap covering her horn, and then checked her vitals with first-aid skills I had used my talent a while back to pick up. She seemed stable. I quietly prayed that this wasn't another entry in a long string of mistakes, but after what had happened with Leif, I badly needed someone to put my trust in again.

On my way through the next door, I looked over my shoulder and noticed that my duffel bag was open and somewhat deflated near the exit. Had they really robbed me on their way out? Seriously?

...Whatever. I almost wished they had. If I could outright blame them for anything, without reservations, it would make settling my feelings so much easier.





I found a bathroom. It had running water.

Wetness on my face helped. I was still thinking about 'what Leif and Aldebaran had done,' but was having trouble putting words to exactly what that was. What all had happened? What had they done? They came to Icereach, hired us to investigate an ether cave. That was normal. Then we learned they were Ironridge auditors, actually here to get our help breaking into a security system. A little crazy, but still believable. And then we got into that system, and...

And they disappeared in a heartbeat, leaving us behind. I wished I could go back and reread that letter, re-watch the looks on their faces, re-listen to the things they said. In my mind, it was such a blur that it felt like they just spontaneously abandoned us.

Yes. Abandonment. That was the word for what they had done. We came in, something shocked us so much that we couldn't act or resist, and in barely five minutes' time, they were out the door and gone, with stories about how we knew too much or how it would be pointless to try to explain. They were gone in a heartbeat, and never gave us enough time to let it sink in.

Working hypothesis: they came here to ditch us. I drew myself up straighter, finally finding an idea that could explain everything I had experienced: Aldebaran wanted us out of Icereach and locked up in this hideaway. They were probably all in on that letter, probably rehearsed their responses for maximum tension, were always planning on making such a quick exit. Just look at Leif! If she had done a bad guy laugh instead of trying to apologize on her way out, maybe we would have snapped out of it and resisted.

It all made sense. All the parts that didn't make sense, it made sense that they didn't make sense. They left us here on purpose, and I didn't know why, but I knew that was what had happened. And I also knew that whatever we might have in common, that wasn't a thing I was about to do to anyone else any time soon. This, at least, I could be mad at them for without getting tangled up in the reasons I had wanted to trust them in the first place.

...So where was here?

The bathroom had a hot tub, I noted, the ultra-fancy kind with bubble jets. An idea crossed my mind, and I stepped into the tub, impulsively ramming a wingtip up the water intake for the bubble vents. It came back with a few hairs of yellow fur.

Huh. Not colored like any member of Aldebaran. Leif had a yellow mane, but this was pretty clearly coat fur... Maybe the previous owner who supposedly gave the place to them? I wondered what to make of that.





The bathroom was separated from the lobby by a hall with five doors, the lobby door at one end and two on each side. Immediately across from the bathroom, I found a squat kitchenette, with a stove and a countertop and an array of cookware that suggested it catered to someone who was a pro at boiling water and opening cans. The bathroom was pretty luxurious, but this place definitely wasn't built to house a five-star chef. Disappointing.

One door over from the kitchen was a pantry, crammed with a mountain of canned food at least twice as tall as I was. "Woah," I breathed, picking out several from the top and examining the massive cache of edibles. "Someone really was meaning to survive the end of the world in here..."

Both of the cans had pack dates of 993. Ten years ago, assuming they used the Yakyakistani calendar. That was an unusual time, I mused, checking a few more and finding them exactly the same. Had they not been updated since this place was made? It was a similar age range to the destroyed terminal. Apparently, neither Aldebaran nor this place's previous owner had been much concerned with upkeep.

The cans also had heavy branding and looked like commercial products. I didn't recognize the company names or logos, but odds were, that meant they were made in Ironridge.

Finishing with the pantry and deciding I wasn't yet hungry, I closed the door and turned to the last one. It was a staircase leading down, probably to join up with the other door from the terminal room... Interesting. Good architectural sense, making multiple ways to get through the bunker in the event of damage or a partial collapse. And yet, batponies could shadow swim through fallen rubble quite easily. Apparently, this place hadn't been made with my species in mind.

I trotted down amid the sparkly blue stone, getting a fleeting sense of purpose from trying to suss out the original owner, far preferable to having nothing at all to do. The room at the bottom was another hallway, circular and with four doors: I immediately checked the one to my right, and found Corsica and Ansel again, still sitting in the terminal room. The other two doors contained a small study - empty - and a bedroom with a very plush four-poster, also empty. My thoughts weren't ready to let me take a nap, but when my exhaustion finally won out, I knew where I would go.

That was it. I had explored the whole, entire bunker.

"Have fun?" Ansel asked as I rejoined them in front of the smashed terminal. "Find anything that'll make this notably better or worse?"

I told them about Elise, and then proceeded to lay out my theory that Aldebaran might have intended from the very beginning to dump us here and run away. Ansel was skeptical. "What do a bunch of underclass refugees like us have that would possess a criminal syndicate to waste time and effort stranding us here?"

"I dunno." I shrugged. "Maybe it was never about us, and they just thought they could use us to bait Elise."

"Wouldn't there have been, like, a million easier ways to do that, though? They were pretending to be from Ironridge, so they could have pretended to mandate her out as well."

I shook my head. "Beats me. All I know is, they sure left in a hurry. Didn't even stop to consider their options."

"Wish we could see that letter again," Ansel grumbled.

"Yeah," I agreed. "You know, you're taking this better than I expected."

Ansel gave a harsh laugh. "Only on the outside, and only because there's no one to take it out on. Pure liquid rage is the only reason I'm not a heap like Corsica there."

Putting aside the worrying implications of that statement, I glanced at my other friend. "Hey, are you alright?"

"Just got some stuff on my mind." She blinked, focusing. "As if anyone wouldn't. You need something?"

"I, err..." I frowned. What did I need? Food? A nap? Space to sort things out? Someone to talk to?

No, what I needed most was something to do with myself.

"You know what you need?" I straightened my back. "A hot bath. There's a sweet bubble jet tub a floor up, and you look like a mess after all that spelunking. Swear on my honor it'll make you feel better, at least a bit."

"I think we all do, after crawling through that entryway," Ansel agreed. "Might as well get the basics out of the way if we're going to be here for the long haul. Once we're a little more comfy, we can see about planning our revenge on those vile dastards."





The last two nights, I had spent in the same room as Corsica. She had shown no qualms about doing her mane in front of me, got confused by my reluctance to doff my boots, and the extent of her concern for personal privacy only seemed to go up to hogging the bed on the airship all to herself. So, it wasn't terribly surprising that she left the door open when she bathed.

"They took my coat," I announced, going through my duffel bag on the floor beside the bathtub, mostly there for the company, the high rumble of the bubble jets running in my ears. "Of all the things they possibly could have stolen, they took my favorite backup coat."

"Relax," Corsica encouraged blearily, floating on her back in the steamy water with her regalia piled off to the side. "At least they didn't make off with literally everything you brought. Some of us actually listened when they said to leave our things back on the ship."

"And my backup boots, too," I complained, ignoring her. "I went to all the trouble of lugging a second set all the way down here just in case I fell in a puddle, or something, and they swiped it."

Corsica shrugged, her mane bobbing in the bubbles beside her like a raspberry rag. "Well, they did tell you to bring spares of anything you wore, right? I'm pretty sure I had copies of these back on the ship." She gestured to the pile of clicky-clack shoes and ear ornaments. "Maybe they were just jealous of your style."

Leif had expressed appreciation for my coat, but... "If they were gonna bilk something, why not take this?" I held up the inertial stabilizer rotor, so obviously meant to be a pegasus wing now that I had seen the whole Whitewing put together. "It's probably worth a fortune, and they even had something they could use it for. I don't get it."

"Maybe they're insane," Corsica offered. "Sure fits how I see the picture."

"You're not taking this too well either, huh?" I guessed, glancing out the door toward the kitchen, where Ansel was sorting through cans to find the products with the longest shelf lives. "He's doing fine on the surface, but it feels like everyone's hiding in their own heads right now."

"And you're doing any better?" she countered. "How am I supposed to take it? I told you we'd be fine, and we are. What's not to like? Everything's awesome and peachy..."

I frowned. Sure, my thoughts and feelings were all mixed up. Part of me wanted to hate Aldebaran, and part of me wondered if that would make me a hypocrite. I kept drawing parallels to the accident and my experience living through that. Not many would call my situation enviable. But, precisely because I had been through that, what if I was stronger and really was taking this better than my friends?

Most of the time, I was great at reading ponies. Usually. Unless they pulled a fast one on me like Leif. Okay, maybe only sometimes. But right now, it felt like there was a wall in my mind where I would usually try to empathize with others and understand how they were thinking, like the part of me that did that was temporarily unavailable. Maybe that was a part of my own coping mechanism. Maybe I only felt like I was doing better than they were, but was actually running on ten percent capacity without even realizing it.

Or maybe I was just exhausted.

The bubble jets thrummed in my ears, and the air felt noticeably warmer from the bath's heat. Maybe I needed a turn in there once Corsica was done. Warm water, followed by that plush four-poster in the downstairs bedroom... Just a chance to exist without thinking for a while, to recharge myself and get some distance from the whiplash of our sudden stranding. Funny how I trusted this place enough already to make that my highest priority. We all probably should have been on full alert, but I was just too tired.

I stared at the sparkly blue wall, and a thought suddenly struck me. Running water, fresh air, power, heating... I hadn't encountered any sort of utility room while exploring the hideout. You couldn't just conjure these things out of thin air. They took machines, and if the mana wells powering Icereach were any indication, they probably wouldn't fit in any old closet. I had checked all the doors and hallways, but apparently, I hadn't actually explored this place all the way.

"Be right back," I told Corsica, getting shakily to my hooves and realizing my legs had fallen asleep on me. "I've got a sudden wanderlust I've gotta get rid of..."





An ordinary pony might have tried to look for a secret maintenance area by checking for trapdoors, looking behind paintings and under rugs and scouring every inch of the walls for hidden passages. Actually, an ordinary pony probably wouldn't have cared about where the power was produced and the water was heated, but I had always found machines to be the best company, and felt compelled to seek them out.

I was also a batpony, and knew how to use that to my advantage. So, to find the ventilation system, I simply went down to the terminal room, shadow snuck through a grate, and started following along inside an air duct.

What did I have to gain from this? It didn't matter. I was curious, and too tired not to indulge. A warm wind blew against my face as I half-crawled, half-swam, indicating I was moving in the right direction. Just had to find an outtake vent somewhere else...

I found it, and dropped into a darkened room that was soon lit by my bracelet. A rough-carved, vaulted ceiling twice the height of any room in the bunker proper loomed over me, and all around me were piles of quietly humming equipment: metal cylinders and stacks of fans, insulated pipes along the ceiling, big, chunky, monolithic machines that chugged away without a care in the world. It was cooler and draftier in this room, the large space seeming to act as some kind of air reservoir or heatsink, but near the machines, it was pleasantly warm.

"Hey there," I said, slumping against a water heater, glad to be in some company I knew I could trust for a change. "How's it hanging? Bet you had a pretty ordinary day today. Or maybe not, now that there are ponies down here who actually need hot water."

I rolled my shoulders, a branching forest of pipes up above that quietly clunked and clattered and went about their business. "Must be nice, being a water heater," I told it. "You probably don't ever have to wonder who you are, or what you're supposed to do with your life. You've got it all written out in your name. Me, I just found out some folks I looked up to and thought were like me were... you know..."

The emerald gloom deepened as I partially covered my bracelet. "I can't believe it. The first time I saw them, I thought they were what I wanted to be, but as we hung out, I started to see we were pretty similar already. Overdone clothes, wanderlust, loving technology, born in the Empire, wearing faces in public..."

My voice started to crack. "And now they lied to us like a million times over, and then ditched us here. Just like that. If I thought we were so similar, why didn't I know they'd be like that? I mean, I hide stuff all the time. Not to hurt anyone, or anything, but... My talent? My legs?" I rubbed at my boots. "How about the... things... I remember from my dreams, or what I did after the accident? Hey, I'm even hiding that I'm thinking about all this from my friends, right now. I should have known they'd be like this too."

I hung my head, resuming after a pause. "I mean, I guess I did know. Subconsciously, at least. See, I've always wondered, when you've got a talent like mine... are you meant to be a bad pony? Or at least a morally gray one? Sure, there might be ways to use identity theft that are nice and wholesome, but I'm asking are you meant to be, not will you be. Is this what whoever made me had in mind when they designed my talent? I guess I ignored the warning signs on purpose because I really wanted them to be the ones who could show me what to do with myself when I grow up. Should have... Should have listened to Ansel and figured maybe they weren't what I wanted them to be."

But what if, despite the secrets, Leif and Rondo and Vivace really had been acting in our best interest somehow, and it just looked bad? I didn't say it, even to the water heater, but I still thought it. I sure had done things for my friends' sakes that they could never understand, at least not without my unique point of view. Part of me lectured that it was unhealthy, but another part of me wanted to keep giving them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, hating them for doing something I might have done - something I might actively be doing - sounded like an uncomfortable middle ground between hypocrisy and hating myself, two places I had no intention of venturing near as long as I had a say about it.

And that left me with no outlet for what I was feeling and no one to blame. Weakly, I pounded a hoof against the water heater, slumping to the ground. It could take it. "Stupid machine," I mumbled, exhausted and yet still far from able to sleep. "You just have to get the good life, not caring a bit about who to trust or how to judge or all these other issues..."





A pony in any position but my own, my thoughts told me, wouldn't even think about giving Aldebaran the benefit of the doubt. They'd ditch them like... well, like how Aldebaran ditched us. This probably meant that I was wrong and it would be perfectly possible for me to blame them without simultaneously condemning myself. But those ponies weren't me and didn't have my unique problems, and so knowing what they would do helped me overall very little.

It was circular thoughts like these that prevented me from getting any sleep. "You're not much of a help," I grumbled up at the water heater, which had been as stoic a conversation partner as I could have asked for. "Why not give me some kind of sign, eh? If Leif and her cronies are all that bad, give me some weird coincidence to back it up. Or the other way around. You can do that, right?"

A detailed look around the room didn't reveal any mysterious coincidences. It did, however, show me a door, a large and sturdy one I had missed before that looked more like it was for transporting things than ponies. Probably how someone got all the machines down here in the first place, and ostensibly leading somewhere else I hadn't been. Did I want to try it and keep exploring?

Not like I was going to get to sleep soon either way.

The door took more strength to open than I was expecting, and swung forward into darkness, my bracelet slowly casting its brightness. At first, my blurry eyes didn't quite adjust to what I was seeing, but soon it came into focus: an entire wall of the room was a machine.

Or rather, the interface for a machine.

A vast array of terminal screens stretched from end to end, four high and at least ten wide, built into a burnished metal frame and angled gently toward a focal point in the center, a commanding, high-backed chair. The array was split in two by a central screen, the biggest I had ever seen, taking up the space of nine smaller ones, and those were already quite generous.

I walked towards it, agape. Icereach had terminal banks reminiscent of this, for those experiments that required displaying huge amounts of data in real time. But they were all cobbled together, built from individual machines and scalable wire frames to conform to the needs of the moment. This thing... It had bezels sculpted to join the screens seamlessly, and a front console trimmed with chrome and equipped with a dynamic pressure stick, the fanciest and most expensive input device a unicorn could buy.

What did this do? Why was it here? The cohesiveness of the interface design suggested someone knew far in advance what the requirements would be - a level of planning that I typically didn't expect from Icereach. The polish and eye for detail told me it was designed to be used by someone important, not just a scientist who prided function over form. This machine had both in abundance.

In absence of a reason to do otherwise, my legs carried me to that big chair, and I sat down.

It was a hard chair, stiff enough to force me to pay attention and sit up straight, yet still comfortable enough I could probably sit there for hours without getting cramps. Had it been sat in much before? I couldn't tell. But as I settled my weight in, it reacted to my presence, and the screens slowly came alive.

They woke one by one, like an ancient thing testing each muscle to see how it had fared during hibernation. The room's main lights began to rise as well, and slowly each screen flashed, settling out into an endless wave of snowy static. The big center screen was the last to wake.



Project Nemestasis Central Access Terminal

Project Nemestasis is permanently disabled. Go away.



I stared for a long, long while. I didn't go away.

"Huh," I eventually said. "That's a lotta emotion for a status message. Wonder if you're banished down here, too. Bet it gets lonely, even for a machine."

The terminal did, I noticed, still seem to be fully operational despite everything it was connected to being 'disabled'. And it also had some input ports on the front console, standard sized.

If I had been jealous of the water heater, then for this machine, I felt nothing but kinship. It might have gone a whole decade without being used. Well, maybe I could fix that.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the unmarked pattern card from inside the destroyed terminal in the living area, and plugged it in, wondering if I might get to read the entirety of the message that had landed us in this mess in the first place. A second passed, and the screen refreshed, recognizing it. There the letter was, no security access or horn shenanigans required. A message from Aldebaran, the title read.

So, I opened it, unsure whether to brace myself or resign myself and simply starting to read.



Hello.

I sincerely hope you aren't reading this. However, in recognition that my hope is likely in vain, I must write it regardless. I am an anonymous member of Aldebaran, an elite mercenary group in the service of many clients throughout the world. Our most recent contract involves the incitement of a revolution in Icereach, overturning the existing leadership with a new guard.

We came by ownership of this cave as payment for a previous contract. It is ours. Anything you've seen here relating it to Yakyakistan was placed here by us. The Whitewing has nothing to do with Icereach. The security on this terminal was our doing as well. This place is a trap with the singular purpose of convincing you, Corsica, through purely planted evidence to turn on your father and attempt to 'liberate' your hometown, with our backing, as per our employer's will.

I am no saint. Most of us were some manner of criminal in the Empire before the war, myself included. However, I find that this goes too far. I recognize that leaving an open letter like this will place you in a disadvantageous situation, one in which you find yourselves in limbo for knowing too much. Better that than working unwittingly against your own interests.

Fortunately, I know Leitmotif's temperament and doubt she will allow you to come to harm, even if tempers run hot among others in our crew. It is likely that we will settle for imprisoning you somewhere you cannot interfere with our operations until they are finished.

If this sits ill with you, know that you are not powerless. We members of Aldebaran hold our secrets close for a reason, and you need merely to put yourselves in a position to threaten us with their release to gain considerable power. In gaining such a position, I cannot help. However, I can tell you how to exploit it to the fullest.

Ask yourselves this. When we instructed you on how to pack for this outing, we recommended doubles of all important or essential clothing you wouldn't want to be seen without, to guard against accidents. Where is your luggage now? Aboard our ship, as we asked that you leave it behind. This was deliberate. We don't want your trinkets, equipment or souvenirs. In the contingency that we had to leave you behind or could not secure your loyalty, we wanted your clothes.

Ask yourselves further. If you had doubts about the authenticity of our offered job, or perhaps any implications that accompanied it, who assuaged those so that you eventually joined us? Was it a trusted figure from Icereach whom you look to for authority? And while they may have been adamant or encouraging about our job for you, did they have any unusual personality changes or lapses in memory since we arrived?

Ask yourselves one more time. Corsica, I assume you are present, and likely others as well. Who are they? Do you know each other well? Are they, perhaps, the ponies in Icereach most likely to notice if you underwent a similar change?

We may have told stories about the old east while warming you up to join us. It is true that we hail from there, making it a natural conversation topic. You likely heard tales of a great war in which two goddesses fought and the sarosians were wiped out. And, Icereach being the insular and isolationist society it is, you likely did not have the context to know that this, too, was a lie.

The east was brought down by shape-shifters today known as changelings. They used the element of surprise to devastating effect. We are they.

Knowing this, you can prepare for our subterfuge yourselves, or warn others and dull our edge there as well. And this prison is not so inescapable as it might seem. Fight, and protect your hometown.