Chapter 13:
When we returned to the hospital we were greeted by two things, a very smug, very content Crackshot, and an exhausted CB.
“She...she ran me ragged.” CB panted, tearing down the hall to us and collapsing at my hooves, crawling behind them and glaring out at Crackshot from between them, like they would somehow protect her. “Said I couldn't...stop till you...came home...”
Crackshot wandered down the hallway. She was in no rush. Her armour looked completely spotless.
“Aw poor thing, didn't like the day I had planned.” Crackshot laughed.
“She made me clean her armour!” CB cried, “and I had to run laps around the floor, and she kept singing loudly and she's really bad at it. She said I couldn't stop until you came home and now you're home so I can stop right?”
“I've got no problem letting you stop now.” Crackshot said. “I've got nice shiny armour now.”
“Well then I suppose you can stop.” I nodded.
“Finally!” She crawled out from under me and wandered over to the couch, collapsing in a heap.
“So how did the trip back go?” Crackshot asked. “I see you're down one changling and up one pegasus again.”
“It was...exhausting.” Brutus said. “We brought back all the resources we could, Cane gathered up all the computers that still worked...”
“I'm gonna have to rebuild the whole server database.” I interrupted, sighing deeply, wasn't looking forward to that...
“We also buried EB.” Brutus said quietly.
“Oh, I'm sorry.” Crackshot said.
“Well I'm glad we got the chance to do it.”
Ruby left them talking and wrapped a wing around me, guiding me along to the couch, sitting down beside CB. I sat down on the other side of the filly and she sat up straight slowly. “Did you my mom?” She asked softly, though her face was impassive.
“Yeah we did sweetie.” I said. “We buried her outside by the cliff, when we get a chance we'll go see her.”
“That'll be nice.” CB leaned against Ruby and sat quietly for a few minutes, looking off at nothing before speaking up again. “So how are your wedding plans going?”
I cringed a little but Ruby didn't miss a beat. “Actually we've made a few big decisions already.” She started slowly, looking down at CB. “For starters we decided we're going to get married in a few months.”
“Why not sooner?” CB asked, obviously disappointed.
“We need to focus on getting the Collective organized again.” I replied. “We don't want to split our attention between that and the wedding at the same time because then neither will have our full attention and won't be as good as they could be and we want them both to be the best they can be.”
“And weddings take a lot of time and planning.” Ruby added.
“Well, alright.” She sighed but nodded and smiled softly. “If you can wait I can wait.”
“I need to get to work on rebuilding the servers.” I said. “Do you want to come help me? If you aren't too tired I mean.” I asked CB.
“I dunno, it sounds egghead-y to me.” She sighed.
“I promise I'll keep it as simple as possible and you'll learn a minimum of stuff.” I smiled.
“Well alright.” She said, pushing herself up off the couch.
“You wanna come too?” I asked Ruby but she shook her head quickly. “Alright your loss.”
CB and I headed downstairs, passing Crackshot and Brutus, who were deep in discussion, Crackshot's face a mix of 'I knew it' smug and loving gratitude, I had a feeling I knew exactly what they were talking about...
When we reached the sky wagon there was just two techs unloading it slowly. We weren't operating at even 10% capacity so it wasn't a surprise. I grabbed the crate of computer equipment and we headed to an equipment room, CB grabbing up all the cables, casings and pieces I needed and we were off again. One of the main floor rooms, which seemed to have once been an ER, had had it's door marked with my name, since it would be the new temporary home of all my work.
“Alright, put the computer monitors up over there.” I pointed to a desk on the far wall and she started off to set them up. I popped open the crate and started unloading the hard drives, inspecting them properly in the good lighting of the room, sorting out the drives that had worse damage than I'd first realized. I'd come back to those later. Taking the empty computer casings I started lining them up along the wall
“Okay the monitors are all plugged in.” CB said. She had taken the 10 computer monitors and arranged them in a 3X3 arrangement, the 10th monitor sitting on the desk still, in a nice bank, using her magic to embed them in the wall and run the cords out.
“Wow, nice set up.” I whistled softly and came over to the desk with one of the intact computer towers floating beside me, my personal computer from my office, I had never gotten around to hooking it up with all the initial effort I had put into the decryption program, but with this being my new office I was going to get as set up as I could. Along with it I brought a few other parts and started hooking it all together with my magic.
“It's like how they were set up in the security room back home...” She said, leaning in to watch me. “What's that?” She asked, pointing to the box I was hooking the monitors up to.
“I thought you didn't want to learn anything because it's eggheady.”
“I'm just curious.” She shrugged.
“It's a box that'll let me hook all these monitors up to this one computer, that way I can use all the monitors at once for one computer, or look at 10 different things at the same time.” I finished hooking up the cables to the box and then ran a cable from the box to the computer. “Now watch...” I hit the power button after plugging in the tower and the monitors all flashed to life, each one showing the same boot up screen, then it switched to one picture, split up between all the monitors of a DNA Double Helix superimposed over top of a small binary grid.
“Isn't that your cutie mark?” She asked, pointing to the picture as it switched to a log in screen.
“Yeah it was.” I sighed, looking at my scarred flank and shaking my head sadly.
“I'm sorry Cane.” She said quickly. “I haven't had my cutie mark for very long but I'd be heart broken if I lost it...”
“It's okay...it doesn't change who I am.” I said, snapping myself out of the funk I was slipping into. “That is my cutie mark, and the other one is my brother Venture's. We built this computer system together when we were young, we made the program that runs the whole computer and made it easy to use so we could sell it to lots of ponies. Then when the war started, we used it to build robots so that real ponies didn't have to go out and fight.” She nodded, more interested then I would have expected in what I had to say.
“This computer is one of my babies.” I said, patting the tower. “She's my custom built tower that used to sit in my office.” I plugged a microphone into the port on the back and tapped it gently. “Wake up sleepy head.” I said into the microphone and the login page vanished.
“Good evening Doctor Cane.” The computer said through the speakers. “It has been 110 hours since your last terminal log in.”
“Wow it talks?” CB asked. “Who's voice is that?”
“It's my old marefriend Rosalea.” I said, a twinge of sadness passing quickly, I was back to having no marefriend, no romantic prospects...least I had my friends now.
“Oh, she has a pretty voice.” CB smiled. “Do you have any pictures of her?”
“Of course I do.” I nodded. “Computer show me the open folder of Rosa's photos.”
The computer chirped and a folder opened, thumbnails displaying on the monitor on the desk. I tapped on the keyboard for a moment and a number of the photos shot up to the bank of monitors. A picture from her birthday, our family and friends all around as she blew out candles on a cake, the one of me proposing to her, the two of us at the ribbon cutting of the facility, and finally one of her in a beautiful shimmering green dress with a floral patterning on it that made her look all the more like her name. “That's when we went to the Grand Galloping Gala.” I opened another picture from the same night, me sitting at a table looking very uncomfortable in my tuxedo but still managing a smile, Rosa beside me with her head resting on my shoulder, a wing tucked behind me to keep me sitting straight for the photo. On the other side of her, leaning into the picture, looking much more comfortable in the formal wear was my brother. He looked so normal, smiling his goofy smile, making sure he was in the picture to spoil the romantic look of it, not a hint of malice or anger or anything he seemed so full of now...
“Here let me show you something else.” I said, closing out the pictures quickly before I got too carried away over thinking it. “Computer, open new user control profile, name Concussive Blast, standard user permissions.”
“Acknowledged, prepared for new user input, Hello Concussive Blast.” The computer said.
“What?” She looked at me dumbly and I just gestured my head towards the computer. “Uhh...Hello computer?” She said slowly.
“Hello Ms. Concussive Blast.”
“You can call me CB.” She said.
“Acknowledged, user profile name updated Concussive Blast to CB. This is your first log in to this terminal please specify duties or required tasks.”
“Computer,” I interrupted, “show her the games?”
“It has games?” CB grinned. “I've heard of computer games but I've never seen them.”
A list appeared on the screen, literally hundreds of games populated in the list.
“Wow! You really have all these games?” She asked me. “I don't even know where to start.”
“Well just ask the computer for a kind of game and it'll narrow down the list for you, but I need to start putting together these other computers so you behave yourself while I do that alright?”
She just nodded and turned back to the computer. “Show me adventure games?”
I smiled a little and walked off to get to work on the servers.
//////////
I got lost in the work for hours, occasionally looking up when I heard CB yell at a game in frustration. I was about half done when I was interrupted by a loud AHEM. I pulled myself out from under the desk I had been running cable under and looked up at a very angry looking Ruby.
“Something wrong?” I asked slowly, sitting up.
“Do you know what time it is?” She asked flatly.
“Uhh...” I glanced down at my Pipbuck and saw it was 4AM. “Oh geeze, I'm sorry I got lost in my work.” I said pushing myself up to my hooves quickly.
“You I don't care about, her on the other hoof...” She gestured to CB, who I realized for the first time was no longer sitting at the desk furiously trying to figure out another game, but was instead curled up on the chair asleep.
“Crap I'm so so sorry...” I said, moving to the desk and gently lifting CB up in my magic grasp and setting her down on my back, keeping her balanced with my magic. “Computer save and shut down.”
“Of course, good night Doctor Cane.” The computer said, closing the programs and shutting down.
“Alright, lets go.” Ruby said, yawning and heading to the doors. “I'm exhausted and I can't believe you kept her down here this late.”
“I said I was sorry, I get lost in my work, you know that, if no one came to check up on me I'd probably have worked through the night and into the day.”
“I know, but if we're going to be responsible for CB, YOU need to be more focused on things like bed times and making sure she eats.”
“I'm SORRY.” I said firmly. “I don't know what else you want me to say.”
“I don't want you to be SORRY, I don't want you to do it again, you're a father now, you need to grow up.”
“WHAT?! I've been a 'father' for all of 12 hours, you've gotta cut me some slack, and what do you mean 'grow up'? I'm not down here foaling around, I'm assembling a hundred hard drives into a RAID array so I can try and figure out what my brother was working on and stop him before he destroys what little is left of Equestria.”
“Would you two pipe down I'm trying to sleep!” CB snapped, squirming free of my magical grip and jumping down off my back, stifling a yawn. I immediately felt bad, and more than a little awkward at the whole 'father' discussion, but it seemed maybe CB missed that part. It still amazed me how easily she managed to break out of a magic grip, most ponies were stopped hard for at least a minute or two. “Seriously who argues so late at night?” She muttered angrily to herself, starting down the hallway.
“I'm sorry Sugar.” Ruby sighed, yawning herself and shaking her head. “I'm just very tired and worried about making sure CB has as stable a life as possible while we all recover.”
“I know I'm sorry too.” I said quietly. “I spent a lot of time fighting with my parents about my computer work. So did Venture. Until we actually started making money off of it they always told us to quit wasting our time, or to think about real jobs, or to grow up...mostly that was our father, our mom always phrased it much more delicately, 'think about the future just in case it doesn't work out,' things like that.”
“Hey guys I think somepony is in trouble.” CB said, hurrying down the hallway back to us. “I thought I heard somepony try to say 'help' but it was really quiet, then I heard shuffling and a bang.”
Ruby and I hurried up the hallway to her and I saw two indicators appear on my EFS, one green one red. “Shit, there is some threat up ahead.” I said, drawing Ebony and Ivory slowly. “CB stay here.”
I moved up the hallway slowly, stopping at a doorway when the threat indicator swung towards it and threw the door open with a burst of magical energy. Inside an Earth pony I recognized as one of the guards, stood with a pegasus mare pinned to the bed. She was unconscious and his intentions were all too clear. He wore a filter mask like the Pyro ponies and looked up at me with murderous rage, his eyes glazed over and unfocused. “Get out!” He snapped. “You can have her when I'm done!”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Get off her NOW and back the fuck up or I'll put a hole in your head.” Of course the Earth pony just laughed and pushed up off the bed, starting towards me. I leveled the guns to take the shot but a green shell wrapped around him and he was stopped dead in his tracks. I turned and saw CB and Ruby in the doorway, CB was glaring at him intently, her horn glowing brightly.
“Hey! Let me go!” He roared, thrashing against the shield, but it was useless. I grabbed the mask in my own magical grip and pulled it off. “Give that back! I stole it from one of the attackers! It's mine!” He seethed with rage and thrashed helplessly in CB's hold, screaming and fighting, but his breathing slowly calmed and his eyes cleared. “What happened?” He muttered after a minute, then saw the mare on the bed. “CHERRY! Lemme go lemme go lemme go!” He started fighting again desperately, the rage of before replaced with terror and panic.
“CB let him go.” I said after a moment.
She released him and he darted to the bed, lifting the pegasus into his hooves. Her head was bleeding, but not badly. “What happened?” He asked, looking up at us.
“You don't remember?”
“No, I...I was walking down the hall with Cherry, I was showing her the mask I took off one of the attackers back at the base. She thought it would be fun if I wore it while we...” He trailed off, looking up at CB then back to you. “...You know...”
“Yeah I do.” I nodded.
“So we ducked in here, I put on the mask and I remember this wave of numbness, then anger, then it's all a blur and the next thing I knew I was restrained.”
“Ruby, you and CB should go get help for Cherry.” I said to them. She just nodded silently and guided CB out of the room. The filly didn't even try to protest.
“You were in a mad rage when we got here.” I said to him once the others were gone. “You were getting ready to rape her...”
“I WHAT?” He gasped, hugging Cherry all the tighter. “She's my wife, why would I even do that? We were going to have sex anyway...that doesn't even make sense...” He was holding her to his chest protectively, tears running down his cheeks. “Oh Cherry I'm so sorry...” He whispered to her.
I stood guard over them until the others arrived. Two guards took him into custody while some of the medics carefully put her on a stretcher and took her away. Once everypony else had cleared out it was just me and Ruby, she had sent CB to bed with Crackshot when the ghoul had come looking for us. It was almost 6AM now.
“So what do you think?” Ruby asked, sitting down on the bed beside me.
“I don't know...” I was turning the mask over in my hooves, inspecting it, but as far as I could see it was just a rubber respirator. The tubes that came off the sides weren't hooked to anything, the tanks that normally linked to it were worn on the battle saddles of the attackers so there was nothing to them in that regard.
“Maybe he just had seriously repressed sexual issues.”
“I want to say I doubt it, but what do I know? They're married, if he's telling the truth, and she sounded like a very adventurous partner, so I have trouble thinking he wasn't getting enough or had desires he didn't get to fulfill with her...” I floated the mask out of my grip to put away in my saddlebags but stopped when I saw a glint from inside the mask. “Hey look at this...” I brought the mask close again, inside was an intricate glyph, glowing a faint blue, it matched the colour of my magic. “These look like Zebra markings...”
I held the mask out for Ruby to look at and she looked at it curiously. “Huh, weird.”
“Can you read it Ms. Archeologist?” I smiled.
“Some of it.” She nodded, ignoring my sarcasm. “This symbol in the middle means 'male' and the symbol intertwined with it at the bottom means 'female'; I'm sure of that.” She pointed to them with a hoof. “And this one under them means 'rage', I think this one means 'desire' or maybe 'passion', Zebra glyphs are tough to read at the best of times, and these things look like they're an ancient dialect...we should go to town, I'm sure Firebird will have books I can reference to figure these out.”
“What are you two still doing down here?” Brutus asked, coming into the room.
“We're studying the mask the guard was wearing when he attacked the pegasus.” Ruby said simply. “It's got weird Zebra runes in it that you can only see when you hold it in a magic field.”
“Oh? Can I see?” He asked, coming over to the bed.
“Yeah here.” I said, holding it out to him.
He took it in his grip and the glyph vanished for a moment before reappearing, this time in orange.
“Oh that's weird.” Ruby said, pushing close to Brutus now to look into the mask. “It changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Now the male symbol is intertwined with another male symbol.” She muttered, more to herself.
“Makes sense, since Brutus likes the lads not the ladies.”
He grumbled a little but didn't complain like he usually did.
“I suppose it does yeah...'Rage' is still the same but it's not glowing as brightly as it was when you held it. The 'desire' glyph is the same. This one I couldn't read before says 'impurity' I think.” She sighed and sat back. “I just don't think there's anything else I can do with it right now.”
“Well look lets get some sleep and we can go into town early tomorrow. You promised to meet those two back on the road and help them get a new start in town remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Ruby nodded. “That feels like forever ago instead of just two days ago.”
“Well a lot has happened in that time.”
Ruby got up and we headed back upstairs to the section we'd sort of taken over. We talked quietly while we did, though most ponies were getting up now, getting ready for their shifts, or to go into town, or whatever it was they were doing. CB lay on the couch in the main room, curled up asleep. Crackshot sat at the table lazily playing with cards.
“Took you guys long enough.” She said when we get back.
“Sorry, we ran into some delays.” Ruby said, yawning and shaking her head.
“Well go get some sleep.” Brutus said. “I'll make sure I'm kept in the loop about what's happening right now with the guard and I'll make sure they don't do anything rash until you two can finish looking into that mask. I took more of the masks from bodies back at the base. I'll have them brought up so you can take them with you to study too.”
“Thanks.” Ruby nodded. I opened the door to the room we'd laid claim to and stepped inside.
Ruby followed but came up short. “We...should probably sleep in different rooms shouldn't we?” She asked.
I cringed a little, I'd forgotten that particular problem. “Yeah, probably.” I sighed. “You go ahead and take this one, I'll find something else.” I said, hurrying out of the room before she could argue it. I wandered back into the main room and Crackshot looked up from the table again.
“Problem?” She asked.
“Yeah if Ruby and I aren't going to be together we thought it was kind of weird to share a bedroom.”
“Fair enough.” She shrugged.
I was too tired to really put any effort into searching for a proper room so instead I just grabbed a blanket from a cupboard and crawled onto the couch beside CB, adjusting her a little so she didn't take up so much room, then cuddled up next to her and happily fell asleep.
Footnote: 75% to level up.
This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.
You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily
The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect.
If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan
The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.