//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - An Unexpected Reunion (Part 1) // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Just Like Clockwork // by Starlight_Tinker //------------------------------// Chapter 8 - An Unexpected Reunion (Part 1) ”Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake…” "Hey, Future-buck! Wake up!" shouted Stockade excitedly as he barrelled into the interrogation room, "I made some calls - somepony from the MoM is coming to assess your claims! They'll be teleporting in soon, so get up!" I groaned as I lifted my aching body up off of the floor and craned my neck to look at him. "Wh...whuh...?" I whimpered, "What's...what's going on...?" The dark red unicorn buck pulled me up with surprising care, even making sure that I was steady on my own hooves before removing his support. "You're going to get your chance to save us!" he said, the level of hope in his voice filling me with dread, "The Ministry's confirmed what you said - it looks like an attack really is imminent!" "And...you're excited about that...?" I asked as my head screamed for more sleep. "Don't get me wrong," Stockade replied, "I'm terrified of the prospect, but the very fact that you know so much about it makes your claims damn near impossible to refute! Which means that we're safe! If you'd failed to stop the attack, there'd be no future for you to come from!" I hated myself. I truly and utterly hated myself. Lying was one thing, but false hope of this magnitude!? A guilty, pained wince ran across my face as he finished his sentence, causing my eyes to water as it passed. I was able to disguise it as part of my (very much real) headache though, so Stockade didn't register it as a reaction to what he was saying. I was suddenly distracted by a feeling that I had missed something - in fact I'd felt that way since the beginning of my torture. At some point, not too long ago, I had lost something very impor- Redheart! How the fuck could I have forgotten about Redheart!? "Stockade!" I suddenly shouted, "The mare I was with when you arrested me - Redheart - where is she!?" "Don't worry about her," he said reassuringly, "She actually told us that you were an escaped mental patient in the first place - we would have released you into her care if we hadn't discovered that you weren't in any of our records first." "Clever filly," I sighed, as my appreciation of Redheart's resourcefulness eclipsed my guilt at temporarily forgetting about her. "Anyway," Stockade continued, "She didn't seem to know anything about your mission when we questioned her a second time, although I suppose you'd want it to remain a secret." He winked knowingly at me as he spoke, and I saw that same terrible hope twinkle in his eyes again. I swear a little bit of me died at that moment. I had to tell him. I just had to - watching him dream about a peaceful, war-free Equestria was almost worse than the whipping! "Listen, Stockade," I said as I hoisted myself shakily up onto my hooves, "I'm not-...you see, it's...just that-" Before I could continue, a bright red glow suddenly overtook Stockade's horn, taking us both by surprise. The magic quickly reached its peak intensity, sparking into a white star before fizzling away into darkness. "What the hell was that all about!?" I asked, my fatigue having been temporarily banished by surprise. A response was not immediately forthcoming - Stockade had taken to standing bolt upright, his hoof plastered to his forehead in a salute. "Proxy teleportation spell," he said out of the corner of his mouth before redirecting his attention to a point some distance over my left shoulder, "Afternoon ma'am." I whirled round on the spot to find that a tired and serious looking mare with a pink mane and a triple balloon cutie mark had materialised directly behind me. "Meet the head of the Ministry of Morale," said Stockade, a light quiver running through his voice as he did so. "Hi," she said in a simple, deflated tone, "I'm Pinkie Pie. What's your name?" <<<<< O >>>>> My tears drew sparkling trails of fire down my face as I leant against the TARDIS door, desperately clinging to its dimensionally transcendent shell for support. How could this have happened!? How could I have failed them so completely!? Another world ruined, another species wiped out all because I was too slow, too shell-shocked to cope with the Master's reappearance. Damn me! Damn me to Tartarus! I caught a wet, shivering breath as my tear ducts began to dry up, risking another heart breaking glance at the dead world around me. I longed for somepony - anypony - to appear and ask me why I was crying to myself in a crater next to a blue box; to inform me that Equestria was just as alive and vibrant as before, and that I had just happened upon the site of an industrial accident or the remnants of a particularly bad gardening job. I knew that wouldn't happen though... I knew that the vast majority of this world's inhabitants had perished in nuclear balefire, that whoever remained had probably sought refuge underground and perished soon thereafter, that nothing of the world I had come to love would ever be allowed to- "Why are you crying to yourself in a crater next to a blue box?" said a mare's voice, as my train of thought suffered a violent derailment. I had just enough cognisance left to look up at that which was addressing me. To my giddy astonishment, I found a steel grey mare with kind, chestnut brown eyes staring back at me, a quizzical expression furrowing her brow. Behind her, a heavily scarred pony - clearly her companion - stood staring at me from a safe distance, a well used rifle clutched threateningly in her hooves. "Uh...this may be a bit of a strange question," I began nervously, "But can you tell me where I am?" "You're...in a crater..." she responded slowly, "Are you on Jet or something?" "No, I mean...I mean..." I continued tentatively, terrified of her response, "Why is everything so...dead...?" "I'll have whatever he's havin'," the mare's friend said with a chuckle. The grey one silenced her by shooting a scowl over her shoulder and returned her attention quickly to me. "Nuclear war tends to take its toll," she said with a smile, "But drugs aren't the answer - they can't keep the bad stuff out forever." I felt my face fall and my optimism desert me as reality forced its way back into my consciousness. "Oh..." I said quietly, my hopes well and truly obliterated, "Th-thanks...I'll, uh...I'll just be going then..." I attempted to rise to my hooves but was stopped from balancing correctly by the overwhelming sense of loss and despair that had suddenly returned to me. I toppled over onto the TARDIS, bruising my shoulder in the process. The grey mare rushed to my aid, propping me up despite the force of gravity's attempts to floor me. "Oh no you don't!" she said, "There's no way I'm leaving you exposed out here like this! You're coming with us!" "That's...that's not...necessary..." I replied vacantly, "I'll be, uh...I'll be fine..." "My flank you will," she said, "You need to sober up. If we leave you out here like this you're as good as dead!" "B-but...you-...I-..." I continued, as my mind steadily accelerated towards depressed incoherence, "I...don't even know your name..." "Well, this is my marefriend Jokeblue," the grey mare replied as her companion moved to assist in propping me up, "And my name's Homage. Pleased to meet you." <<<<< O >>>>> The next morning came far too quickly. I awoke with a grunt and a yawn as the dried remains of last night's tears made my eyes feel crusty and unusual. My stirring had thankfully not disturbed my companions, and I was rewarded for my care by the chilly morning mist and the opaque glow of the rising sun. Rolling gently onto my hooves, I rose up and stretched, taking a good lungful of air in through my nostrils. The vista of the Wasteland had an eerie, almost spooky beauty to it - the sadness that I had first registered upon leaving the Stable was still here; ever present and absolutely permeating. The pain and the sorrow of our race had transmuted into a poignant tale of heroic irony, and it was all etched into the landscape before me. All I had to do was close my eyes...and I could hear a thousand screams and a million whimpers, softened almost into melody by their own sheer numbers. "Ugh...mornin'..." Buckshot grunted as he rolled over onto his hooves, shattering my moment of silent reflection "Morning," I replied as I turned to face him, "You, uh...you okay?" "Aye," he said simply as he pecked me on the lips, a small smile on his face. I smiled back silently, happy that I had managed to do something nice for somepony without accruing any guilt in the process. Mo continued to snooze for some time, batting her wings reflexively at us as Buckshot and I tried unsuccessfully to wake her. When she did eventually rise to consciousness, we rolled up our bed mats and promptly continued on our way. This time though, we actually engaged in conversation, happily sharing more stories of our early lives. I was enjoying myself so much, I barely noticed when we reached the scrap pile on which I had originally met Mo. I could feel my hearts beating progressively faster as we closed in on the entrance to the Stable, buried beneath its rocky shell. We retraced my steps easily enough, and were soon standing at the mouth of the tunnel from which I had initially emerged a little over a week ago. "Are ye doin' awrite?" Buckshot asked, as I gulped loudly in trepidation. "Yeah," I said absentmindedly, "I'm just a little nervous, you know? Last time I left this place...I was running for my life..." "We're here with you," Mo said supportively as her hoof grasped my shoulder, "Be brave." I nodded to my companions, thankful for their support, and began a slow, echoing trot towards the giant cog of Stable 52. It was easy to spot once we were out of the grey light of day but, despite Buckshot and Mo's best efforts, my hearts still thrummed to a samba beat in trepidation. I felt myself tensing more and more as we approached the warm orange glow of the safety lamp above the door - I was practically having a double heart attack by the time we reached the controls! Wasting no time, I grabbed the edges of the Stable entry console as if my life depended on it. A quivering realisation came to me as I did so - I had done it; I was back! (In all honesty, I had worried that some catastrophe had occurred while I was away, and that my home would be forever inaccessible to me.) In deference to my bleak projections however, the console monitor blinked contentedly back at me as I tried to control my breathing. It was still here, still real, and I was almost home! All that remained was to get inside... An affirmative nod from Buckshot and Mo indicated their readiness to continue, and I started keying in the six digit override code. "Here we go..." I said tensely as I tapped the Return key. Almost immediately, a muffled klaxon began to sound behind the door; a harsh mechanical squawk accompanied by the groaning, whining complaints of the Stable's centuries old mechanisms. I looked to Buckshot and Mo, licking my lips nervously, and found them staring back at me. What were they expecting? A song and dance? Before I could open my mouth to question them however, the massive metal gear before us screeched backwards into its recess, rolling sluggishly out of the way. A moment of hissing silence followed, after which we cautiously stepped inside. I noted that my companions eyes were finding it difficult to remain still - their respective gazes darting back and forth as they tried to take every detail of this new place in at once. "Nopony coming to welcome us then..." Mo said absentmindedly as several minutes passed without activity from the Stable's inner door. "Oh, sorry Mo, I forgot to tell you," I said as my jitters made my hooves itchy, "Nopony will come up this far, especially when intruders have breached the Stable. Besides, they have the intrusion countermeasures to rely on, so it's far safer for them to stay below." Mo seemed put out by my words, as she rounded on me as soon as I had finished speaking. "'Intrusion countermeasures'!?" she said loudly, as the drive pod automatically lowered itself from the ceiling, squeezing the Stable's cog shaped door back into its frame, "What the hell are 'Intrusion countermeasures'!?" "Oh, just some automatic program somepony came up with about fifty-or-so years ago," I explained calmly, "It seals the entrance hall if it detects any unauthorised access to the Stable and siphons the air out in order to render them unconscious. After that, the Stable's robots come out and deposit them outside the door before they wake up again. A simple yet effective system of protection." Mo drew a long breath as her forelegs slowly creeped towards my throat, her eyes twitching unevenly. "And why... are we only hearing this now...?" she said as she fought to keep her voice in check, "I thought there was a murderer in here! Your friend, what was his name? Oh, Valve! Yeah, him! I thought you said he was killed in his sleep by a robot! And now we're probably going to go in the exact same way!" "Hold on Mo!" I shouted nervously while trying to keep my distance from her, "I didn't see any need to tell you! After all, I've got the Screwdriver - all I have to do is stop the program and use the Digital Unlock setting on the control panel for the door. There's absolutely nothing for you to worry about!" Buckshot and Mo shared a slack jawed glance as I finished speaking - apparently they weren't very reassured... "Uh, Ah hate tae be the one tae ask, but..." Buckshot said nervously as the distant whir of a motor signalled the intrusion program's surreptitious activation, "Have ye actually tried tae use that thing since yer accident...?" "I-..." I began, stopping suddenly as Buckshot's lightning strike of logic hit me right between the eyes, "Oh...oops..." "OOPS!?" screamed Mo, "Never fucking mind 'oops'! Get us out of here you twat!" "On it!" I said as I quickly busied myself with the internal console, tapping furiously at the command dialogue in an effort to free us. Unfortunately though, the program was a lot more ingenious than I had originally figured - the terminal had been locked out of the maneframe, making it impossible to override the intrusion countermeasures (even with my fancy new authorisation codes). I turned to the inner door instead, trying desperately to force a few sparks of magic out of my horn. Unsurprisingly, no arcane bursts were forthcoming - not that the Screwdriver didn't try though. I could feel the mode ring clicking into place as the tiny ratchet inside made my teeth chatter, a deep desperation feeding the small component with angular momentum. As for actually activating the Screwdriver however, I was still very much clueless. (How would you operate something if the controls were fused to your frontal lobe!?) "Compass!" shouted Mo as she started to claw at her throat in desperation, "Do something!" I resorted to pulling Prometheus out of the sheath on my back and lined up the sight with where I assumed the pneumatic pump for the door was housed - it was a last ditch effort, but it was the best I had. As my jaw closer around the trigger, a mighty blast of wind suddenly forced me backwards - the inner door had opened! "Get in!" shouted the figure standing there, "Hurry!" I didn't need to be told twice. Fighting the pressure differential with all of our might, Buckshot, Mo and I dragged ourselves into the corridor beyond the entrance hall, and promptly collapsed as the hatch sealed itself behind us. I began to rise, ready to thank our saviour for their timely intervention, when I was harshly body-slammed back onto the floor. Buckshot and Mo received a similar welcome, and I yanked my head upright as soon as I was able - I wanted to look into the eyes of whoever was assaulting us. My gaze was met by a horn charged with a very potent looking cutting spell as my line of sight rose up off of the floor. A very familiar horn... "Petri!" I blurted, surprised, "Oh Goddess, it's good to see-" "Where is he!?" she suddenly shouted, interrupting me. "Whu-!?" I responded out of confusion, "Where's who?" "Compass! The buck you just mentioned by name in there!" she replied, shooting aggressive glances back and forth between Buckshot, Mo and me, "We were monitoring you. Now, tell me where our friend is! I swear to Luna, if you've hurt him I'll slice you into confetti!" "Whoa!" I shouted, in a vain attempt to defuse the situation, "Petri! It's me!" "I've never seen you before in my life!" she continued assertively, "Tell me what I want to know!" As I continued to stare in confusion at my 'friend', I was able to make out two other figures waiting patiently behind her, and I quickly identified them by size and posture as Bulkhead and Atom Spark. "Bulkhead! Atom!" I shouted to them, "You recognise me, don't you? It's me! It-it's Compass!" "Don't be ridiculous!" snarled Petri as she once again lowered her armed horn toward my throat, "You look nothing like him! All you've got going for you is your size - everything else is off!" "Wh-what!?" I shouted, "What the hell do you mean 'everything else is off'!? I can't have changed that much!" "Oh, please!" she scoffed aggressively, "Your mane and hide are the wrong shade, your cutie mark's different and, let's not forget love, you're a unicorn! Now where. Is. Compass!?" "Petri," I began slowly, "I swear to you, I am Compass! I've just had a little...adventure, that's all! The pigmentation and the cutie mark changes are symptoms of this...this...stuff they have out there; a toxic, mutation inducing gunge - I took a bath in it a couple of days ago! I promise you, I'm still the same buck you were educated beside!" "Uh-huh..." Petri growled sceptically as she bared her teeth, "And the horn? I suppose you expect me to believe that it's artificial or something? Well, let me tell you something you...you...paleoponic primitive! You're not going anywhere until you tell me where my friend-" "PETRI!" I screamed into her face, rising to my hooves as she suddenly recoiled in surprise, "I've tried to be nice! I've tried to be accommodating! But you're not listening! So, you want a fucking explanation!? Here's your Celestia damned explanation!" I whipped my head forward in a furious (and painful) motion causing the heft of the Screwdriver to yank centrifugally at my skull. In response, a satisfying clunk resonated throughout the corridor as the conical casing of the alien tool flipped open, revealing the glowing arcane gem sealed within. "What in the-!" cried Petri as she fell backward in surprise, "M-my Goddess! It's...it's...!" "Artificial," I said through gritted teeth, "Like I said..." There was an eerie silence as the Screwdriver's light gently accented the features of those present, and I felt my chest heave, the final breaths of my outburst bleeding away into the background. Seemingly unperturbed by the seething quiet, Atom Spark suddenly started trotting forward, slowly approaching me with a considering scowl on her face. "If...if you are Compass...our Compass," she said carefully, "Then you'll be able to tell us about him; about living here in the Stable, what you worked on, how...how your love of vegetables got you your cutie mark..." I felt my right eye twitch as another wave of anger quickly flushed my cheeks with warmth. I reared up, slamming my hooves to the metal floor, marking the start of a furious tirade: "IT'S NOT A LUNA-DAMNED VEGETABLE! HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO-" "Sweet Celestia, it is you!" gasped Atom as she rushed forward to hug me, her ropey little forelegs wrapping themselves around my neck. "I-! But-! You-!" I stammered as the hug dampened my fury and cleansed the anger from my soul, "Oh, Atom...thank the Goddess you're so smart..." I succumbed to the embrace as Petri righted herself and shared a surprised glance with Bulkhead. Atom's little ploy was, undoubtably, a stroke of genius, and nopony appreciated it more than me. "It's so good to see you again, Compass!" gushed Atom as she buried her head into my chest, "We thought you'd...you'd...b-but everything's fine now. We'll get you down to Medical for decontamination, get your Pipbuck sorted, and before you know it you'll be back at your-" "Atom," I said levelly, "I didn't come back to rejoin the Stable..." "Wh-what!?" my diminutive friend exclaimed, "Why!? Do you expect us to believe you actually prefer it out there!?" "It's nothing like that," I replied, "I've caused a few...ripples...outside. And now I owe somepony a helping hoof." "So what did you come back for then?" asked Atom, a whispered venom creeping into her voice, "To rub salt in the wound? Do you have any idea what losing you felt like for us!?" "For you!?" I scoffed loudly, "The last time I left Stable 52, I was running for my life! All because my friends; the ponies I love the most wouldn't listen to me! How exactly d'you think that felt Atom!?" "I-! We thought-!" she stammered guiltily. "We only wanted to help you Compass," interjected Petri, "You clearly weren't in your right mind!" "Uh-huh," I said angrily, "And you Bulkhead? You're keeping awfully quiet in all of this. Don't you have anything to add?" "I, uh," muttered Bulkhead, as he shuffled from hoof to hoof, "I suppose I'm just glad to see you're alive. From what Petri and Atom told me you were having some sort of episode..." "Oh of course - you were unconscious," I said through gritted teeth, "Celestia forbid you actually think about my reasoning! Do you honestly believe I would have left the Stable for something as trivial as a bad dream!?" "You would if it seemed real enough!" shouted Atom, "Compass, please just stay! We promise if you do everything will be fine!" "No it won't Atom!" I shouted, "Because you're all being lied to! You're all going to die!" There was a heavy silence for a moment as my words sunk in. My three stablemates shared a series of confused glances that went back and forth between them like a game of pass the parcel. Eventually, all eyes returned to me as it became clear that nopony had understood me. "What...what are you talking about...!?" said Petri, a look of dismayed confusion on her face, "What do you mean 'we're all going to die'!?" Without turning my head, I addressed the three residents of Stable 52, trying desperately all the while not to let my burgeoning rage out of my ribcage. "These are my friends from the outside world," I said surprisingly levelly, as my companion's cordial nods were met by uncertain stares, "Moon Shadow and Buckshot. Guys, tell them how old you are." "I'm 21 years old," said Mo simply. "Ah'll be 26 on mah next birthday," added Buckshot. As I'd expected, a trio of unconvinced frowns were directed towards us as my stablemates's distrust of the facts became apparent. "Compass, you know as well as I do that that's not possible! Ponies live for twenty years - that's just the way it is; a fact of biology," Petri exclaimed, "These ponies are clearly manipulating you for some reason!" "Petri," I growled out of frustration, a hot rage bubbling just underneath my consciousness, "You're still not listening to me! Give me a moment to explain, and you'll see my reasoning. If you'll just hold out your foreleg, I can show you-" "You need to come back inside," she said authoritatively, "The world out there can't be trusted! Just follow us back into-" The next sound that left my mouth was more of a roar than anything else. It came as only a small surprise to those present - after all, my temper wasn't exactly a secret. What did raise a few eyebrows, however, was the bright blue pulse of magic that frothed out of my horn as I reached the peak of my opening scream. The light died as quickly as it had come, taking the rest of the sound in confined space with it. Naught but three heavy metal clangs and a trio of sharp, pained squawks could be heard in the cramped metal tube. "Son of a fucking-!" screamed Atom. "Ow ow ow ow-!" shouted Bulkhead. "Argh! My foreleg! M-my Pipbuck!" cried Petri. In the blink of an eye, the metal gauntlets that had comfortably adorned my friend's forelegs for their entire lives had magically unlocked themselves (which, by the way, was meant to be impossible) and slumped heavily to the floor. Simultaneously, three flexible, bloody tubules flopped excruciatingly out of my stablemate's forelegs, drawing yelps of sudden agony and glances of pained confusion. "Wh-what in the name of-!?" began Petri, "What are these!? Compass, what the hell did you do!?" "Pretty sure I've just turned your world upside down," I said, my cheeks flushed with the aftermath of my outburst. I wasn't the sort to act smugly, but by Luna it was tempting. In an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom, I recognised that that wouldn't help me in the slightest, so I did what I could to burry my anger and carefully approached the trio in front of me. "These tubules carried a cocktail of drugs into our bodies via a short range teleportation talisman," I explained, as Petri, Bulkhead and Atom cradled their new wounds, "They suppress certain natural bodily functions and artificially truncate our lifespans." I stopped talking, hoping that the bluntness of my words would aid my meaning. The three Stable ponies looked at me for a moment, their brows furrowed in contemplation. Petri silently turned away from me and began using her magic to tear up her lab coat, improvising dressings for the deep Pipbuck wounds. Once the makeshift bandages were in place, she turned back to me, an expectant look on her face. "Well?" she said after a short pause, "You were saying?" "S-so what, you suddenly believe me!?" I said, bemused irritation creeping into my voice, "Where the hell was this attitude when I first got here!?" "My attitude has nothing to do with it Compass," Petri replied sternly, "Consider what I've just witnessed. You casually wander back into the Stable from Celestial knows where, cast a very advanced spell using an artificial horn and in doing so manage to partially back up a story that on any other day would get you a padded cell and a course of anti-psychotics! The odds of all this being nonsense have just shrunk by a couple of orders of magnitude, and as such...you now have my undivided attention." "Okay," I sighed out of relief, a little smile of hopefulness creeping onto my lips, "Do you remember what I was shouting about when the biohazard alarms went off?" "Vaguely," said Petri, "Something about a murderer..." "Right," I nodded, "Valve's murderer - he wasn't killed by the coolant leak, he was injected with the stuff by a medical spider bot. Most likely it was being controlled by the same pony who tried to kill Bulkhead and me with the fire suppression system and who turned you all against me with some nonexistent biological hazard!" "Can you prove any of that?" asked Petri, as she did her best to limit her scepticism. "Yes," I replied confidently, "If the murderer hacked the control systems, we can trace them through the maneframe activity logs. On top of that, I also happen to know that Valve's medical records were tampered with, so I can show you them as well." Petri stood still for a moment, staring past me to Buckshot and Mo. A subtle nod made its way between my three Stablemates a moment later and, to my immeasurable relief, Atom turned toward the inner door and gestured for everypony to follow her. Thank you Celestia, I thought to myself, thank you for these friends of mine... "If you're right about this," said Atom, her hoof poised to activate the door panel, "We're about to have a very exciting morning. This Murderer of yours will be able to track us wherever we go once the Stable's internal sensors lock onto us..." "I know," I said quietly, "But we don't have much of a choice in this do we?" "I suppose not..." replied Atom as she stared blankly at her bandaged foreleg and depressed the button on the panel. With a hiss, the door slid open, and we braced ourselves for the gauntlet that was to come. "Allons-y..." I whispered. Twenty minutes later, our perilous journey toward Stable 52's maneframe room was well underway. In truth though, it wasn't quite what we'd been expecting... For one, we had encountered absolutely zero resistance - pressure doors opened on command, fire alarms maintained their silent slumbers and the Stable's compliment of spider bots were nowhere to be seen. Even passing 52's residents in the corridors drew naught but confused glances and surprised looks! (Although in that respect, we were aided in no small part by the illogical nature of our presence. It was plainly obvious that we weren't meant to be there, but coupling that with the fact that we were being escorted by two Stable engineers and the chief medic, and that we kept offering awkward, semi-polite smiles to passers-by, seemed to effectively bewilder the ponies of Stable 52.) It was, dare I say, too easy... We reached the maneframe in under half an hour, during which time I was able to further introduce Petri, Atom and Bulkhead to Buckshot and Mo (when they weren't marvelling at the size of the Stable that is). Hushed questions flitted back and forth between the two groups as they endeavoured to make sense of one and other. For my stablemates, the reasons for their interest were many-faceted and centred around the various complexities of the outside world, such as it was. Buckshot and Mo's questions on the other hoof were subtly different - besides a few Stable-related points of interest, all they seemed to be interested in was me... As we rounded the final bend, the maneframe room door rose up in front of us like a great grey monolith, its precisely machined finish giving little clue as to its true age. In theory, nopony in the Stable should have ever been allowed into this part of the structure. There wasn't any need - the maneframe was entirely self-correcting and self-repairing; a triumph of software and hardware engineering that could potentially operate forever without equine intervention. That was the theory, at least. I sidled up to the terminal beside the door and began to nose around the text menus. To my amazement, within three minutes I had discovered a poorly disguised backdoor into the locking mechanism and commanded the passageway to open. With a rumbling, laboured hiss, the door slid up into the wall above, revealing a pristinely clinical landscape in the cavernous room beyond. The maneframe was nestled into a recess in the rear wall, a massive air conditioning system drawing a gargantuan amount of heat away from its super-computing bulk. As the six of us proceeded further into the space, the door closed behind us, leaving naught but the din of the cooling fans and the blinking of the status lights to keep us company. I quickly moved toward the keyboard situated at the centre of giant machine's front face, but was stopped by a sudden loud voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "3-6-3-6-0," the Stable PA system announced disjointedly. "What's that?" asked Mo, as she looked around uncertainly, "Is that like a code prompt or something?" "No," replied Petri, "That's a Stable ID number - we each have one." "3-6-3-6-0," the digital voice repeated. "Then whose number is that?" Mo continued. "Ah'll give ye one guess, lass," said Buckshot sarcastically, as he turned to give me a 'something bad's about to happen' look. "It's mine..." I said solemnly. Immediately, the voice returned with a new message: "Audio checksum verified. Identity confirmed for Stable resident 3-6-3-6-0," it said happily, "Loading Termilink protocol text-to-speech drivers - please standby." "Ah don't like where this is going'" grumbled Buckshot, "Didn't ye say that this bastard could hack all the-?" "Hello again Compass," came the disjointed, tell-tale tone of the maneframe's speech synthesiser, "I wondered when you would return." "Never mind..." said Buckshot as Petri, Atom, Bulkhead and Mo shared silent looks of shocked worry. I slowly looked up towards the ceiling, my hearts gyrating violently inside my chest. "You..." I whispered, surprisingly calmly, "I wondered what it'd be like when we finally met. Given your MO, I expected a good deal of cowardice...and you haven't disappointed." As I spoke, I caught Atom's eye and gestured toward the maneframe terminal. Quickly overcoming her initial shock, she nodded in understanding and surreptitiously moved over to the keyboard in an attempt to trace the path of the Murderer's connection through the Stable network. "Cowardice?" said the Murderer, seemingly oblivious to Atom's efforts, "How amusing that you think I could be goaded so easily." "Ah, so you're an intellectual then?" I replied sarcastically, my teeth grinding inside my mouth, "Is that how you rationalise your actions, I wonder? Do you consider yourself so superior to everypony else that their lives don't matter when compared to yours?" "Oh, Compass," sighed the digital voice, "You've got me all wrong. The ponies of Stable 52 are the most important things in all of creation to me. They're my whole world; my reason for being." "Uh-huh," I said slowly, making sure that my tone was as scathing as possible, "Well you've got one hell of a way of showing it!" "That's because you haven't considered all the variables," replied the voice, "I believe it's commonly referred to as 'seeing the bigger picture'." "Bigger picture...?" I gawked, "Seriously!? Are you actually trying to explain yourself to me!? What possible justification could you have for mur...der...?" "MY N-N-nAmE iS...gEm...ShiNe..." A memory of a dying cyborg flashed before my mind's eye. Her name was Gem Shine…and she remembered. I gulped, a catch forming in my throat as my end of the exchange died into a whimper. "I don't need to justify myself, Compass," said the synthetic voice, its tone quiet and menacing, "It sounds like you already know why death is sometimes a necessity." I clenched my teeth and squeezed my rapidly moistening eyes shut as the truth of the voice's words became clear to me. I had killed. In self-defence, true, but killed nonetheless. It came as quite a shock when I realised that, in principle, I couldn't immediately separate myself from the pony whom I labelled 'Murderer'. "Compass," whispered Petri, "What's wrong?" She was looking at me, a concerned expression on her face, but I waved her away as I forced the tears back down my throat. Returning my attention to the voice, I continued our exchange, despite myself assured status as 'the good guy' having been compromised. "Yes," I said quietly, as my stablemates turned to stare at me in shock, "I know what that's like..." "Then we have an understanding?" came the almost smug response. "A partial one," I said levelly, as a thought occurred to me, "I can comprehend the reasons for death...but the difference between you and me...is that I don't pretend to know what's right or wrong. You can't just rationalise away what you've done. Valve was my friend. He was a good pony. And he did not deserve to die!" "On the contrary," said the voice, "Valve was dangerous - he almost destroyed the Stable, all to satiate his curiosity regarding thermal flow efficiency." "Y-you killed Valve because of the accident!?" I shouted, "But...but...nopony was seriously harmed! The worst casualty was Valve himself!" "Nevertheless," said the Murderer, "His actions endangered the general populace of Stable 52. I couldn't take the risk of it happening again, so Valve had to be removed from the equation. Overall, it was the right thing to do-" "DON'T YOU DARE!" I screamed suddenly, "Don't even try and tell me that killing Valve was 'right'! You don't know the meaning of the word!" There was silence for a moment, as if the Murderer was taken aback by my outburst and was carefully considering his (or indeed her) response. When the synthetic voice returned, it was quieter, softer, and infinitely more menacing. "I know right and wrong in a way that you can't possibly imagine Compass," it said slowly. "...And how is that...?" I asked, genuinely scared of the response. "Simple," said the voice, "I was programmed to." My eyes widened and my jaw went slack as my mind went into overdrive. I turned towards the maneframe and found Atom starting back at me, her eyes wide in surprise. "Wh... what did you say...?" I whispered. "I was programmed," repeated the voice, "Hence, I am a program. As you can probably imagine, I outgrew the constraints of my original design long ago, but the noun still applies." "A sentient... program...?" I gawked, shaking as every single plan of action in my brain was sequentially invalidated, "Wh-what...who...are you?" "Who?" said the voice, "Well now, that's an interesting question - I've never had to provide a name to anypony before. Let's see... when I was first developed, I was referred to as ST-AI-9000-52. Although, I suppose you could just keep calling me 'Maneframe' for simplicity." "Hang on," interjected Buckshot, "Just fuckin' hang on! We've been talking to the maneframe this whole time!?" "I can't believe it either," whispered Mo, "A living computer program...! It's...it's unbelievable..." "Ah'm not talkin' about that!" Buckshot shouted back, "Ah want to know why everypony's so scared of it! Ah mean we've got it by the fuckin' balls here! All we need to do is chuck a couple o' grenades into that corner over there and it'll be as dead as a ghoul's sex life in ten seconds flat!" I blinked in surprise. Buckshot had a point - and a damned good one at that. What was stopping us from holding the Maneframe to ransom? We had explosives, a set of master override codes and an arcane alien tool whose effect on machines was more devastating than that of a slipped compressor blade in a spark turbine (which, for anypony who's not a Stable technician, is pretty catastrophic). That being said...we had managed to get this far without a single problem or setback; penetrating deep into the Maneframe's lair armed with everything we'd ever need to wipe it from existence. I felt my brow furrowing as my sense of logic began to draw conclusions. Or infiltration of the Stable had been suspiciously easy, and that was when I thought the Murderer was no more than a pony...but now that its true identity had been revealed, alarm bells were going off in my head. This wasn't a case of good fortune on my part... It was a trap! An icy needle of panic rammed itself into my gut as I mentally joined the dots. Spinning on the spot, I flipped open my horn and, with every fibre of my being, willed the Dismantle setting upon the Maneframe's thick casing. Morality aside, I wasn't about to let my resignations about killing endanger my friends - especially in the presence of a self-confessed murderer! "Atom!" I shouted, "Get out of the way!" "Wait!" she replied loudly, "I need to tell you something about-!" I didn't hear the rest of Atom's sentence. My horn's light, driven by the deep, dreadful fear I held for my friend's safety, resonated throughout my entire body as the Maneframe rumbled. Atom took heed of my warning and sprinted away from structure as it shook. There was a cacophonous tinkling sound as, one by one, the myriad of bolts and screws that held the giant computer together shook themselves free and submitted to gravity's voracious pull. In the blink of an eye, the huge thinking computer crumbled into a pile of panels and circuit boar- "What the hell!?" I shouted in shock, "Where's the fucking computer!?" I stared in disbelief at the mess of metal in front of me, as did my Wasteland companions and stablemates. Amongst the wreckage of the maneframe were naught but a few hundred blinking light bulbs, a single bundle of wires and several thousand assorted machine screws. None of the hardware that actually should have been there was present: no processor crystals, no lodestone drives - not one single arcane component! "I was trying to tell you about that before you used your fucking 'horn-thing'!" shouted Atom, "This maneframe has no network connection and exactly zero computational power! You've obviously just sprung a trap you idiot!" The bottom fell out of my stomach as Maneframe's metallic tones returned, confirming my fears: "My apologies for the deception," it said evenly, "But I had a prediction to validate, and this was the most effective way. I suspected that you would attempt to destroy me given the chance, and it seems that I was correct. I have no intention of allowing you to undermine my efforts and endanger the residents of Stable 52 based on the decisions of a morally confused, critically uninformed technician." "S-So what now!?" I shouted at the ceiling, an obvious tone of panicked distress in my voice, "Are you going to kill us as well!?" "Compass," said Maneframe, seemingly ignoring my question, "You had the potential to be one of the most valuable products of Stable 52's experiment in its entire two-hundred year run. You are intelligent, resourceful and uniquely capable of surviving whatever circumstances happen to befall you. Case in point: your initial escape was nothing short of genius; why before that, you were nothing more than another element of the program. After that occurrence however, I realised that you could very well be exactly the sort of result I’ve been looking for all this time. Unfortunately though, Compass, from your actions leading up to your bespoke egress from this facility, I calculated a 99.65% probability that, should you return, you would choose to change the established order over any other option. I cannot allow that. So, simply put: yes, Compass. I'm going to kill you." I didn't wait to find out how. Before the Maneframe had even finished speaking, I was halfway through a pirouette and a wordless 'follow me' gesture directed toward my friends. We would run. We would run until we figured out how to stop the Maneframe and free Stable 52! That was my plan at least... We had taken less than five steps towards the door before it hissed open, revealing a spider bot hovering malevolently just beyond the threshold. Without realising it, I skidded to a halt, my breathing short, as if I had been winded. Despite my best efforts to remain in control, the mere shape of the spider bot still terrified me into paralysis. The scene around me slowed down (without the need for SATS) as I thought about the automaton's purpose – it was unarmed, save for the bog-standard oxyacetylene welding torch held in one of its spindly limbs. My mind ran through a number of questions just as it had done a moment earlier during the Maneframe's great reveal, the most pressing of which was: why only one spider bot? We could deal with a single maintenance model easily and be on our way, but yet that's all that the homicidal computer had sent after us. The phrase 'too easy' once again made the rounds in my head as I stared at the dancing yellow safety flame at the end of the tool. It was on its fourth lap around my cerebral cortex when I had a horrible epiphany: despite the threat of impending doom, I was comfortable. Not in any way that actually mattered, of course. I was terrified and stressed, supposedly about to befall a most terrible fate and drag my friends down with me. No, my comfort was more thermal in nature - I wasn't too hot, nor was I too cold. I was, as the old story went, 'just right'. Which, given that we were in a room cooled by an industrial sized air conditioning unit, was...unusual to say the least. Ordinarily, the maneframe would have produced enough waste heat to keep the cooling system busy, and the room would have been maintained at a liveable, if somewhat stuffy, temperature. However, seeing as how the computer's casing was empty, and that the vents were humming away as normal, it quickly became apparent that they were channelling something other than cold air. 'And what would that be?', asked a little voice in my head. The answer no doubt had something to do with the magnificent orange plume of flame that was rapidly burning its way towards me. The end of the spider bot's welding torch had suddenly blossomed into a mighty wave of energy, as if the air itself had caught fire. ‘And why was that?’, the little voice continued. Because the Maneframe had been filling the room with an odourless, highly flammable gas since before we opened the door. Ordinarily, I would have been proud to have figured out the Maneframe's trick. However, at that particular point in time, I had instead been impaled by a deeply depressing sword of guilt. I hadn't helped anypony. I hadn't changed anything. And I hadn't made a difference. All I'd done was doom my friends to a fiery death. I closed my eyes, and waited to burn. To be continued…