The bright sun was shining in my eyes, marking the beginning of a new day. Covering my face with hooves to escape the blinding light, I turned over and got out of bed. After dusting off my jacket and a little bit of mane in front of the mirror, I took out a new tin can from the red box and ate half the inside of the mass with water.
Cautiously, I tried to lift the bottle in the air, using my magic. There was still a sharp pain in my head, but it was perfectly acceptable to keep something telekinetic, so, I hope, soon pain will go completely.
When I looked in the back of the medicine cabinet, I thought.
"There might be something in here that can help me restore magic."
As I got closer, I started to sift through the colorful jars in it. Now I could study the labels on them more closely, but half the names were unfamiliar to me, so it didn't make it any easier. When I came across a light blue bottle, I already wanted to be happy, because few people do not know the color of the magic potion. After turning it over and looking at the paper with the designation of the contents, I was convinced that this was what I needed and gulped down the liquid that slightly stung my tongue. There was no visible effect.
"Oh, yeah, it’s only just getting started.'
I didn't have anything else to do in this room, so without thinking twice, I went out into the corridor and went to another part of the building, where there should be a small storage room with tools. Yesterday's idea of the restoration of electricity really got me. I can't sit in the dark and cold at night, can I? In addition, the doors of the warehouse, arsenal and other systems needs in energy.
A grey door, almost-in-tone wall, with a faded-out sign, easily succumbed. Inside was a small room, almost like a storeroom in a dining room, except for the presence of a small window with several shelves and drawers.
A couple of shovels, a broom, wire cutters and hammers, some folders. When I went to the drawers, I finally found four portable magic lamps with a crystal inside there. The generator room, where I’m going, is underground and there’s obviously no window to light my way, and my horn is not yet capable of holding the spell for long.
I tried to light one of them, and it was pretty easy, so even the head hardly got sick. It seems, potion working. Taking the other three in the office, I took the lit lamp and went outside.
There was a light but cool breeze outside, even though the sun was right above me and there were no clouds.
'It’s probably because the ocean is so close."
Walking a little ahead, wondering how the road once formed by trucks was not yet covered with grass, I entered a wide building, where was an entrance to the generator room. As I expected, here were no lights or windows, so I could only rely on the bluish-white light of the crystal in the lamp. Walking along the left-hand wall, I came upon open double doors, behind which was a flight of steps leading down, from where dim red light emanated.
First I found myself in a small corridor with half a wall of glass, behind which I could see some cylindrical installations, the purpose of which I could only guess. The light source was a single light bulb above the same installations.
Went to the right, deeper into the room, I found myself in what might be called the control room. Lots of tables, terminals, things like paper. There was a small white bar on the screen of one of the terminals, and right in front of him, on a chair, was another skeleton with scraps of white fabric. My eyes began to darken again, and my head began to spin…
***
A small room with metal walls illuminated by bright white lights. The two ponies in the white robes were laughing at something while I was watching them standing next to the mare unicorn, sitting at the terminal.
"Oh come on! I wish you’d help me." Turning around on the chair, the filly screamed. "Bring one of the officers here, I need to restart the system so you can replace the second power unit."
"Hey, why are we?" One of the laughing ponies, red in color, with a white mane matching the color of the robe, exclaimed in response. "Here, let your stallion go." He pointed at me.
"He's not my stallion!" Green unicorn gave a confusing response.
"All right, all right. Kel, let's go, keep them alone." Another pony winked and dragged his friend into the hallway.
"Hmm, special pony? I wonder…" said I with smile.
"Hey, don't starting," said mare, covering her red face in the hooves,
"I thought, I handsome enough for you," I pretended upset.
"And after this begin rumors."
After a couple of minutes, the light in the room suddenly went out for a second, as did a quiet hum somewhere outside the walls.
"Fleet, what it was?" I turned to my friend.
"Urgh… why they're so long?" She swore. "How to say, this first signal. We have two units in the generator and one of them is out of order. Of course, base can work on one unit, but there may be interruptions, or even a temporary shutdown. And without a card and an officer's code, I can't restart the system so that we can replace it.
I watched in amazement as the filly began to swing her hooves. It surprisingly, this is not the first time I have noticed that when the dialogue turned to some scientific topics, she went into the story completely, and this even made me laugh.
"Anypony ever told what you are very smart?" I admired, not hiding a smile.
"Are you kidding me?" Fleet again confused.
"Yeah!" I cried, laughing quietly. Moment later, she joined me.
From the corridor, I heard how something small fall.
"Eavesdropping – not good," my friend shouted in direction of the sound. "Can’t expect anything from these two…"
***
This time I didn't seem to be lost in my memories for long, and I woke up leaning against the wall instead of on the floor. My head pounded just a little, but now I know what I need to do.
"Thank you, Fleet. You helped me even after your death," I said sadly, looking at the skeleton of the pony, illuminated by the light of the monitor screen and another red lamp.
Coming closer, I pressed «Enter» on the keyboard and a window with some percentage data and several buttons appeared on the screen. Only one button was active — «Reset generator power system». After pressing it, a field appeared on the screen that requires a password.
"Okay, so I need to find the code and the generator blocks."
Where to look for the code I roughly understood, but where do I get the magic blocks? Looking around, I noticed two more doors inside the room. One of them was supposing lead to the generator room I'd seen coming down here, and the other was locked. Next to it hung a panel in the form of two light bulbs with buttons under them and slots, apparently, for a card.
It would be logical to look for the card in the same room, which I did. Various folders of technical documentation, personal things, even a couple of scientific books were being moved from table to table until I came across a blue plastic card with a yellow perpendicular stripe. If I remember correctly, in army facilities the card , depending on the color, was used by military personnel of different specializations. And the yellow stripe indicated a higher admission.
I pushed the card into the slot and received a green light in response, and opened the door. Behind it was a slightly smaller room with pipes, completely filling the right wall, several tables, and a couple of drawers. Along the other wall were locked iron closet. On the tables, in addition to a pile of documentation, there were several closed flasks of unknown liquid and some details of mechanisms.
There was nothing else in the room, so I opened the drawers, bumping into the same parts of various mechanisms, until in one of them I found three heavy cylindrical objects with a bunch of inscriptions and warning labels.
"Looks like, it's really they."
I pulled out two blocks, each about the size of my foot, and went back to the control room, leaving them on the table next to the only working terminal.
"And now, I need see what's happened to old blocks."
Pushed card into the slot of another panel, I found myself in the generator room. The rigs made a faint hum, it seemed to indicate that they were working. There was another terminal in the middle of them, but he didn't work. Going a little deeper, I saw several grilles occupying the entire wall and hiding something, like a turbine and pipes coming from it, to the right of which was a small closed door, and under it a panel and two large holes, from which two block-like objects slightly protruded, with a round handle, resembling the valves of doors on submarines, to reach them.
"And the last, I need to find code and hope what these old blocks will fit."
There were only one captain and two lieutenants on this base. Their rooms, as their offices, were located on the second floor of the base headquarters, so I would start looking for cards there.
Returning up, I first decided to look at what was on the first floor of the building under which the generator room was located. The room inside was quite small, and I met only metal closed cabinets and a table with round details, again… But the passage to the main part of the building was closed by massive steel doors with a small panel on the side. Of course, it did not work due to lack of power.
When I went outside, I had to squint against the bright sunlight, unlike the lamp. Quick looking up, I determined that the sun had recently passed the zenith, which meant that it was now about 1-2 o'clock in the afternoon. Which is weird, the weather was almost clear for the second day, what was very rare, but now it only made me happy.
"I need to find clock and make a calendar to somehow keep track of time."
Finding the stairs, I went up to the second floor of the headquarters, which was no different from the first, only the signs on the doors were different. The wooden floor creaked slightly as I walked down the corridor in search of the base captain's office. It makes sense to start with him, because he should have access to all parts of the base, and there might just be something useful.
The dark wood door of the base commander's office opened and revealed a room the size of two or even three medical offices. The left wall was filled with small filing cabinets, and in the middle of the room was a wide table with four chairs on each side and one at the head, on which, in a once beautiful, but now dirty and in a couple of places torn dress uniform, was the skeleton of the former captain.
There was a faceted glass and an empty bottle in front of him, a pocket radio on the left, and a terminal on the right edge of the table. It seems that the last minutes of his life, the captain spent with his soldiers, though on the radio. He could have ordered him to be the first to fly into the evacuating vertibird, but he did the gallantly thing.
The terminal screen wasn't lit, so I'd have to leave it for later. Finding a lock on one of the four drawers of the desk, I decided to examine it first. Most likely the key is in one of the pockets of the captain's uniform. The idea that you will have to search the deceased pony, there was a strange feeling, but it was necessary. Soon I found a metal key in my breast pocket and used it to open the lock. When I opened the drawer, I saw only two things inside: a red card and a gun.
I shoved the card into the pocket of my uniform and telekinetically raised the weapon in front of me. It was Colt, the bolt of which was engraved with the inscription – «To captain Grayl Spirit. Issued personally by Princess Luna, for military merit».
My conscience wouldn't allow me to take my award-winning personal weapon, so I put it back in my desk drawer. The remaining three contained only folders of various documents, which I flipped through briefly until I came across a blueprint for the same camera that had saved my life.
Parts of the memories were coming back to me again…
***
The three ponies were placed in a large room with several crates and chatting about something.
"By the way, did you see what was brought to the island today?" I asked.
"You mean the four containers with the cold-chamber-like capsule?" Rins asked, lying on two crates and dangling three hooves, and holding four a bottle of Sparkle Cola.
"Yea. Why are they here, and what is it anyway?"
"This is another Canterlot project for their Stables. It's «Life Saving Cameras». Truly, there is no official name yet, so they are limited to LSC-1, LSC-2 and etc." Fleet, sitting to my right, gave a voice.
"Ooogh. When I once read about the side effects: dehydration, temporary memory loss, blindness, hair loss… Then I decided that better to die than to get into such a thing! Hey, the last one on this list was death!" pegasus chuckled. "From a device whose only purpose is to keep you alive!"
I don't know why, but I joined in his laughter.
"These are only the first prototypes. They were written off, and for their own modified," levitating two more cola, said mare-unicorn.
"Thanks," I thanked, taking the bottle that had flown up to me. "Whatever, why do we need them for?" We kind of haven't been turned into a military junkyard."
"When we turn, I'll personally write to Princess Celestia to fire you for croaking!"
In a second silence were heard sound of approaching hooves.
"I knew I'd find you here," a blue unicorn with a white mane appeared. "Again loaf time?"
"Hey, we actually have free time, we do what we want," Rins offended, spreading his wings so that they too were hanging from the crates.
"Anyway, I came for you," the filly said, taking away the half-drunk cola. "Harch to Captain!"
"Okaaaay," said pegasus, flawing off the crates. "But what happening?"
"If I had my way, they'd have already tied your wings so you wouldn't run away and "accidentally " leave the radio in your office. Then I wouldn't have to look for you all over the base!" Ominously uttering the last words, the officer replied. "You'll find out from him."
"I didn't know you'd get turned on by tying games," Rins grinned, then darted through the open doors, running the edge of his wing across the unicorns back.
"Just let me get another one!" following the runaway pegasus with her eyes, she threatened into the void. "You'd better do something, too," the filly turned to us, then left.
"Maybe we can take a walk while we have time?" I suggested.
"I don't mind…"
***
Opening eyes, I found myself half-lying on the table, my head buried in scattered documents. The setting sun shone through the large windows. Looks like, night will soon fall, and I haven't had time to start the generators yet, so I need to hurry up!
Without wasting any time folding up the scattered documents, I left the office, taking the already extinguished lamp and first checking whether the card I found was still there.
Returning to the terminal, I took out a card and entered the numbers written on it: 5.1 — 31.20.16 — 26.10.22.18.
New data appeared on the screen. On the left were two generators, and below them were the numbers 7% and 4%, as well as a warning about the almost finished charging of magical blocks. In the right half was a plan of the base, with a single illuminated generator and an inscription that the system works in emergency mode and at minimum consumption, and under it — a log with the rest of the summary by date. The last report was recorded in 1253.
Entered the room with the installations, I was now able to turn on the terminal located there and use it to unlock the sectors for magical blocks. Putting the new blocks next to me, I began to pull out the old blocks, which was not very easy. With the screech of a damaged shell, the blocks came out of their holders.
The panel above the empty compartments flashed a red light twice, heralding a complete shutdown soon, unless a new power source was inserted. The first block went in easily, but for some reason the second one got stuck in the middle and I had to push it inside with several blows until it also took its place. Returning to the terminal between installations, I confirmed the connection of new units to the generators and it remains only to start them from the main terminal.
After entering the code from the card again, I pressed the button to start the generators. There was a long creak from the next room, and then a slight, growing hum. The red lights went out, leaving the terminal as the only source of light. Looking at the screen, I realized that the emergency mode was turned off and now I could return the system to normal again, which I did.
The lamps suddenly turned on made me light up for a while, and the terminals on the tables alternately emitted short sound signals, warning of their launch. Next, the fur of the legs and mane, not hidden under the clothes, felt a light breeze that ran through the room — the ventilation started working, bringing fresh air.
Suddenly, a siren wailed loudly from the street. I don't know why, but the sound of the alarm, which is probably heard in any part of the island, made me nervous and caused a strange fright that passed through my whole body like a chill. It was necessary to turn it off immediately!
Hastily running through all the menu items, I found the management of external systems, and then how to turn off the alarm announced on the database. It was also there I noticed that most of the control systems were divided between the generator terminal and the central terminal of the base, which was located in the captain's office.
"I need to try to transfer all control to the captain's terminal."
After a cursory review of the rest of the controls, I decided to deal with it tomorrow, or maybe even later, because so far most of this was not need.
The sun was already setting and I only caught a glimpse of the sunset rays as I returned to the headquarters building. It was a busy day and I was feeling pretty tired, but it was only now that I realized I hadn’t eaten since this morning. As a precaution, having ate a full jar of canned food, drinking her half a bottle of water, I stumbled onto the bed with my clothes on and fell asleep.