Fallout Equestria: Revamp

by midworld1999


Chapter 8: Lambda Complex

Sector: Southern Grasslands
100 Years, 8 Months, 23 Days PSR

The next three weeks were relatively uneventful. On occasion Wick saw figures traveling in the distance, but other than that, every day was samey. Even the songs on the radio seemed intent on reinforcing the monotony of the journey. The same music looped every few hours, always in the same order. After about week Swiss and Wick insisted I wear earblooms.

I didn't mind the radio as much as they did, primarily because I listened just as much for the news as the music. Sometimes I'd flick over to Pon3, but usually I stuck to Radioactive. Over the weeks I noticed his signal (already clear because of the PipBuck's radio quality) was getting stronger. I held a secret hope that we might be able to spend a few days resting at Golden Mike's station, and the strengthening signal only fueled this hope.

I at least had something to keep my mind occupied. My friends didn't. We all soon tired of contrived, forced conversation. Their boredom only increased. At nights this alleviated a bit by the card games and Wick teaching me how to aim my new weapon properly (I never actually fired, as bullets were precious), but even this started to lose its luster.

I considered sharing my hopes for visiting the radio station, but decided not to get their hopes up until I knew it could actually happen. For all I knew, the station could be to the east or west of our path, and we could miss it completely.

In the middle of one of the days, about three weeks following the night attack, Wick caught sight of the buildings.


Wick was a speck in the distance, scouting our path for potential dangers, leaving Swiss and I to our devices a few miles to the south.

I had heavy thoughts weighing me down that afternoon. For some reason or another, my brain decided to focus on Swiss's actions from the night before our escape from Shackle. The kiss in particular. I don't know what prompted this train of thought, but once it was there I couldn't get it to leave.

I kept passing sideways glances over Swiss, wondering if I should bring it up. Certainly Wick wasn't around, so it would be opportune moment as far as privacy was concerned. On the other hoof, he hadn't acted any further since that night, at least not overtly enough that I noticed it.

I was still working myself up over it when Swiss spoke for me.

"Sweet Celestia, you're giving me a headache. Just spit it out, what do you want to talk about?"

I jawed stupidly, caught off guard. "Uhh, what? How did you know I–"

"You're fidgeting," he replied a little too quickly. "Anyone can see you're upset, sheesh."

I tried to figure out where to start. "Uh, that... that night we escaped Shackle. You... uh, you wanted to talk to me after you and Eniac finished explaining the plan. And, uh, you..."

"Is that was this about? That kiss?"

"Yes!" I blurted. "I mean, uh, yes, it's about that."

"Well, what about it?"

"Uh... why?"

"I like you, that's why. Duh. Obviously, though, it made you uncomfortable. That's why I backed off. Decided I might try again later, when you were more at ease to the idea."

"Oh. Oh, okay." I considered how to proceed. "Well, um, I'm flattered and all, but I'm not... gay."

I cringed, waiting for the waterworks to start. But they never did.

"Yeah, I kinda figured from your reaction."

"Oh. Well, uh, good. I'm... I'm sorry it didn't work out."

He flashed me a smile. "Who said it's not gonna work out?"

"But... you heard me say I'm straight, right?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah, and that's fine. Doesn't mean a relationship won't work out between us."

I stopped, trying to process what he was saying. He kept walking, and I couldn't help but feel he was quietly laughing. After a minute I ran to catch up with him.

"Wait, what are you talking abo–"

"Hey, it's Wick!" he said, ignoring my question.

I looked up and found he right. The speck that had been Wick was approaching, and fast. Swiss and I got ready run. The most common reason for a speedy return was danger. But as she got closer, we realized she was grinning.

She landed in front of us, skidding through the grass, kicking up dirt and plant debris. She was still beaming.

"What's up, Wick?"

"I found something!"

"Something."

"Yes, something!"

"What is something?"

"Something is buildings."

"Well, that is something."

"Yup, that's something alright."

"How far away is something?"

"Something is about ten miles north by northwest. I say we make camp in something for the night."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Let's go see something."

The conversation with Swiss abruptly dropped in favor of something, we made our way towards something.


Sector: Ministry of Arcane Sciences: Lambda Complex
100 Years, 8 Months, 23 Days PSR

The complex was in a state on disrepair, but not nearly as bad as we expected. Some of the windows were cracked and bashed in. Grime and overgrowth coated the entire exterior of every building. Some smashed bottles littered the ground and faded graffiti was smeared on a few of the walls. Even so, every building in the complex was standing. It was something.

As we approached, I noticed the sign in front of the facility. I hoped it would be legible so I could find out where we were. My PipBuck beat me to the punch.

"Ministry of Arcane Sciences: Lambda Complex," the device chirped.

"An MAS facility? We're bound to find something good in there!" said Wick, still grinning from the break in the monotony.

I was a bit less encouraged. "Yeah, there could be, but it looks like this place might've been looted already. Don't know what'll be left to find."

"Don't forget to be careful," warned Swiss. "There could still be raiders in there, or old security systems. Don't just barge in."

"Okay mom," snarked Wick.

The buildings were arranged around a circular plaza. In the center of plaza was a mosaic of a six pronged pink star, the Ministry Mare's cutie mark. Paths from the plaza branched off to each of the buildings. We referenced a nearby map to get our bearings.

"Okay," I said, directing my hoof at different portions of the diagram. "That building's Arcane Combat and Tech Development. Let's see... Inter-Ministry Projects, Stable-Tec Cooperative, Public Relations, Security Offices, Archives, Dormitories. Which one do you guys wanna check out first?"

"Arcane Combat Development," said Wick instantly. "I'm a good shot, but you still need work with your aim. Having some combat spells under your belt could be useful."

"Sounds good."

We headed toward the respective building. Its locks had been broken long ago, so we walked right in.

Upon entering I noticed several things at once. Bullet holes in the walls. Shattered skeletons crumpled on the floor. Oh, and the trio of turrets activating at the far side of the room.

"Intruders Detected. Locking Targets."

"Find cover!" I shouted over the rumbling machines. We dove behind sturdy looking desk, hoping it wouldn't crumble to dust the second it was hit. It held, but the sound of splintering wood made it clear it wouldn't be there long.

"Told you!" yelled Swiss.

"Now is not the time!" screamed Wick. "Revamp, I saw a terminal on the far left side of the room. I'll draw their fire, you try to disable them."

There was no time to argue. "You got it. Do your thing."

Wick proceeded to whip out one of her guns and take aim over the top of the desk. Once she had a clear shot, she took it, red fire exploding from her revolver.. The sound was deafening, even louder than the last time now that we were in a confined space. One of the turrets went haywire, spinning wildly and changing directions at random.

Immediately after Wick got her shot off, the remaining turrets aimed for where her head had just been. With their gunfire directed elsewhere, I sprinted to the far side of the room.

The console was in the turrets' blind spot, blocking their view with a cubicle wall. I turned on the computer as fast as I could and quickly began scrolling through the main menu.

>MEMORANDUMS
>SCHEDULES
>PROJECTS
>SECURITY

I selected >SECURITY and got a new menu.

>TURRETS
>OFFICERS ON SITE

I entered >TURRETS. A message popped up.

>MUST HAVE SPECIAL PERMISSION FOR THIS OPTION
>ENTER PASSWORD

Shit.

Back in Shackle, I'd been building the robots from scratch, and passwords had never been a problem, so I had zero experience with cracking passwords. I knew the ins and outs of the programming, but it would take way too long to find a work around.

"Hurry up over there, this desk is getting torn to shreds!" shouted Wick. I could still hear the merciless pounding of bullets on the weakening desk.

"Trying!" I replied. Time was running out and I was getting frantic.

A sudden beep from my PipBuck broke my paralysis. A message was flashing on the screen.

>HACKING OPPORTUNITY DETECTED
>WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE PIPBUCK'S HACKBUCK TOOL?
>YES
>NO

I clicked >YES, and a new screen appeared on the terminal. A series of random keystrokes, a few intelligible words scattered within. There was no time to experiment. I clicked one of the words.

>STAPLER
>1 OF 7 LETTERS CORRECT
>TWO TRIES REMAINING

I tried another.

>CRACKER
>3 OF 7 LETTERS CORRECT
>ONE TRY REMAINING

I scanned the potential passwords for one that might fit. I selected the first one I found.

>CROWBAR
>CORRECT

The turret screen took the hacking screen's place.

>ACTIVATE
>DEACTIVATE
>MORE OPTIONS

I slammed on the second command with my magic. The second I did, the final two turrets sputtered and died. I collapsed to the floor with relief.

"You guys alright?" I called.

"Yeah, barely," said Swiss.

"A couple more seconds and Swiss would've become Swiss. You know, like the cheese," teased Wick.

"Your joke is bad and you should feel bad," replied Swiss.

My head swam.

"Alright, calm down, you're giving me a headache now, Swiss. Let me just look through this terminal before we move on. There might be a map or something."

After a few minutes of thorough searching, I found a backdoor to shut off all security bots in the complex. According to the console, the only one damaged was the Wick had just shot.

"Good news. Security's shut off, so that shouldn't be a problem. Also looks like we're the first ones to get past the turrets, so there should be some decent loot."

Further scrounging through the system yielded a list of projects that were being worked on in the building.

>SPELL ENHANCERS
>ZERO POINT ENERGY MANIPULATOR
>SPECIES DETECTION DEVICE
>BALEFIRE EGG CONTAINMENT

"Spell enhancers look promising," said Wick, looking over my shoulder.

"Yeah, when are we going to need to contain a balefire egg?" I agreed. The terminal had downloaded maps of all buildings in the facility onto my PipBuck, so I marked the enhancers room. "Let's have look."

On our way to the first room, we had to go past a security checkpoint. A poster was hanging beside it, reading "Only you can prevent changling espionage." The warning was accompanied by what I assumed was a changling opening a filing cabinet. As I stepped though, there was soft beep, followed by a cool female voice.

"Equine."

I glanced over the machine. "I guess this is the 'Species Detection Device.'"

"Let me try," said Wick. She hopped through.

"Indeterminate."

Wick shrugged. "Worth a try."

Swiss stepped toward the device, then stopped. "I forgot something in the lobby. You guys go ahead, I'll catch up in a second."

"Sure, take your time."

Wick and I continued on to the first room. Spell Enhancers.

We began searching the room. Swiss joined us a few minutes later. There were what looked like equations scrawled on a whiteboard, illegible by this point. Some vials and empty beakers sat dusty on the tables. In one of the cabinets, I found an audio-recording. After examining it, I found it fit into my Pipbuck. I downloaded the recording and pressed play.

"Spell Enhancers, test results for trial number 42." It was a stallion, his voice young and excited. "Finally made some headway today. Dr. Stream was right. Using two spells at once puts too much strain on the average unicorn. Therefore, the enhancers can't be spells, like our first 41 trials. Dr. Stream inscribed the spell into a talisman, and that seemed to do the trick. We'll still need to conduct a few more tests, but this is our most promising trial yet, and we hope to go into the prototyping stage by the end of the week." The recording cut off.

"Alright, now we know what we're looking for, sort of. Either of you know what a talisman looks like?" I asked.

"It'll be small gemstone. They might be keeping it in a lock box or something," answered Swiss.

Wick ended up finding a safe tucked into the wall, hidden behind the layers of grime and dirt. "Anyone know how to open a safe?" she asked sheepishly.

"Yup," said Swiss. He grabbed a pen and paperclip from the table and set to work. After thirty seconds of angling the two, the safe clicked open.

"Where'd you learn to that?" I asked. "That was kind of awesome."

Swiss blushed. "Just something I picked up before Shackle. Let's have a look inside."

The safe's contents were minimal: a cardboard box and a note.

The note was short.

Hey Doc, glad to hear you got over that bug. Here's the Spell Enhancer for the presentation on Tuesday. The guys in advertising decided to call it Maxi-Spell. Made up a box and everything. Hope the presentation goes well.
-Frayed

The box featured a picture of a small silhouetted unicorn lifting a train. Above the image "Maxi-Spell™" was written in fancy cursive. Beside that was the slogan "Wear, Cast, Repeat! It's that easy!"

I turned the box over and found a set of instructions.

1. Wear the Maxi-Spell™ somewhere on the body.
2. Choose a spell.
3. Cast spell.
4. Whenever you wear Maxi-Spell™, the spell's power (and the wielder's ability to control it) will be multiplied by ≈50.
5. It's that easy!

Pro-Tip: Once a spell is assigned to Maxi-Spell™, the assignment is permanent. Choose carefully.

"This can only be used for one spell at a time."

"Better than nothing, though," said Wick. "You oughtta choose a spell that can be used in combat."

"Might be a good idea to choose something that could have multiple functions," added Swiss.

I had no idea what spell to augment. "I think I'm gonna sleep on it guys. Figure it out later."

"Okay. So, where to now?"


The next building we checked was the Stable-Tec Cooperative. The layout of the building was much like the first, but the listed projects were completely different.

>STABLE LONGEVITY
>PIPBUCKS AND ACCESSORIES
>EFS INTEGRATION
>[REDACTED]

"What do you think?" I asked. "Stable longevity sounds useless, but the other three might be worth checking out. Well, they might be anyway. No idea what 'EFS' means."

"Do you know what 'redacted' means?" asked Wick.

"Edited. In this case, looks like it was removed or made classified," answered Swiss.

"So like, top secret and all that shit?"

"I guess so."

"Revamp, try and check what it is," said Wick eagerly. "Hack it or whatever. If they were hiding something, it's gotta be good!"

"Sure, I'm curious too." I hooked my PipBuck up to the terminal and brought up the HackBuck program. I could've done a work around without it, but this would probably make it go faster. It took me a few minutes, but I finally got to a description page.

"Alright, I think I've– what the hell?"

The screen suddenly went pixelated, then went back, then all the paragraphs describing "[REDACTED]" began to flicker and reorganize. Words blended into constantly shifting clumps of nonsense.

"Okay, that's fucked up. Let me see if I can get any further. How about... I command it to look for the most common words in the original text, minus normal words like 'the' and 'and'. Sound good?"

"No fucking idea," replied Wick.

"Sorry, just thinking out loud," I sighed.

Once the commands were typed in, I hit enter. Five words appeared on screen.

>MANEFRAME
>PONY
>ARTIFICIAL
>INTELLIGENCE
>CRUSADER

I read the words aloud. "'Artificial Intelligence.' 'Maneframe.' A maneframe isn't small, so I think we can rule out whatever this project was as being helpful."

"So that leaves PipBucks and whatever EFS is."

"Yup."

We checked the PipBuck station first.

It was a mixed bag. On one hoof, there were tons of extras for my PipBuck. I managed to scrounge a StealthBuck, a few experimental software chips that I could investigate later, and an instruction manual. Considering that I'd only learned about its hacking tool a few minutes ago, this seemed especially valuable.

On the other hoof, there were no other PipBucks at the workstation. I'd hoped I could equip my friends with them, but looked like that wouldn't be happening today.

"Damn. Sorry guys, you'd think there'd be some PipBucks at the PipBuck area, right?"

Swiss shrugged it off. "No biggy. We've gotten on fine with just the one."

"Yeah. Besides, check out all the stuff you got!"

"Yeah. Hopefully some of this will be useful." I flipped through the manual, just meaning to glance through it, but one page caught my eye. I flipped back to it and began reading.

"Well shit."

"What is it?"

"Eyes Forward Sparkle."

"What?"

"EFS. Eyes Forward Sparkle. That's what it stands for."

Wick gave me an annoyed look. "And it does...?"

"It's the magic that runs my PipBuck. It has a targeting system. Uses..." I read further. "Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting System, or SATS. Comes installed on every new PipBuck."

Swiss groaned. "Fuck me, you mean you've had a targeting system on you–"

"–the whole time," I finished. I grinned sheepishly. "Well, now we know. Plus we can skip the EFS station. I already got one."

Silence.

"Sorry..."


The Dormitories had a cafeteria, so we stopped in for lunch. The lunch room, like the rest of the facilities, were untouched. We found some fridges in the kitchen to get ingredients from. These must've been some quality fridges, because everything in them was fresh. Untainted bread, fruit, and vegetables were a rarity in the wasteland, so needless to say, we pigged out. I think I ate about five daisy sandwiches, and I saw Wick put away at least eight. Swiss ate the least, but seemed happy nonetheless. We downed our meal with Sparkle Cola from machines in the lounge, pocketing the caps.

We investigated the upstairs before leaving. The beds were a bit moldy, and there were a few skeletons lying about, but it was clean otherwise. We decided to spend the night. With our accommodations settled, we headed back out to check the rest of the buildings.

We started with Inter-Ministry Projects. This was by far the biggest building in the complex, at six stories tall. Most of the structures there were built like bunkers, one or two stories, but his one towered above the rest.

"It'll take us forever to go through this entire building. Let me just single out a couple of good places for us to check."

I got into the terminal without a problem and began sorting through our choices.

>MAW: 2ND FLOOR
>SINGLE PEGASUS PROJECT ARCANE SYSTEMS
>ENERGY WEAPONS
>MI: 3RD FLOOR
>FLIGHT VARIANT POWER ARMOR
>MOM: 4TH FLOOR
>PINK CHIP
>PARTY CANNON
>MOP: 5TH FLOOR
>MEGASPELL DEVELOPMENT
>MAGICALLY ENHANCED DRUGS
>MWT: 6TH FLOOR
>STEEL RANGERS ARCANE SYSTEMS

Swiss looked at the list alongside me. "How about we head to 'Energy Weapons' first, gear up, then split up from there?"

"Sounds fine. I'll take 'Pink Chip.' What do you guys want?"

"I'll take 'Flight Power Armor' and 'Steel Rangers,'" said Wick.

"I got 'Drugs' on floor five."

"Alright, everything else looks useless to us. Let's head on up."

We moved on upstairs to where energy weapons were being developed. The room was locked via passcode, but I used the newly discovered HackBuck to get us in.

The far wall had holes punched every couple inches, with brackets installed to hold the guns. There were about forty different guns lining the space. It took Wick a full minute to stop squealing like a little filly. Once she got a hold of herself, she sprinted to the wall and began pulling off guns, turning them over with care in her claws.

Each gun had a tag wrapped around the barrel, as well as a lock around the trigger. I lifted one of the guns in my magic and examined the tag.

"It says 'Stage One Testing.' What does that mean?"

"Probably that we shouldn't fuck around with it. Look what I found," said Swiss. He was holding up an ancient clipboard. "Has a list of all the stages, and almost all the One's have X's next to them. Stage Two's have less, and three even less. I guess One means early development, and Three means later development. The list goes all the way up to Prototype. Those are almost all checks."

"Hear that Wick? Don't shoot with anything that doesn't have Prototype tag."

"I hear you, I hear you," said Wick, still looking the weapon over.

"Sure you do." Swiss and I sifted through the guns, placing all the guns that weren't prototypes in a pile and and the ones that were on the table. With the few good guns singled out, Swiss and I reexamined them. Wick continued to pour over the ones she'd pulled off the shelf initially.

"Looks like all the prototypes were given names," I said.

"Too bad there's so few of them. Only like six prototypes on the whole wall."

"Yeah, and two of them are a pair. Look, those two are the same." I indicated the only pistols of the group. One emitted a glow that shifted color every few seconds, the other a consistent dark blue glow. I read the tags. "Says they're 'Celestial Pistols'. The fuck does that mean?"

"No idea, but they sound badass. Dibs."

"Fine, but I got dibs on that rifle," I said, pointing to a gun with a glowing blue lightning bolt on the side. "'Lightning Streak: #7 of 12 in the Wonderbolt Series. In concordance with Ironclad Industries,'" I read off the tag.

"There's a series of guns named after a flight team?"

"I guess so, or maybe there was going to be. Who knows?" I turned the rifle over with my magic. Just from looking at it I could tell it was high caliber, probably meant for mid to long range. There was a rail to attach a scope, but I didn't see any around. I slipped the gun into my saddlebag.

"Hey Wick, do you wanna take your pick?" Swiss asked our distracted companion.

"Uh, yeah, sure," she said, pulling herself away from the experimental pile. "What did you leave me?"

She looked over the remaining three guns, her eyes narrowing as she picked them over. She picked up the first, a heavy looking plasma cannon, and hefted it over her shoulder. She looked down the sight and swiveled around with it.

"Meh. I'm sure it packs a punch, but it's unbalanced, unwieldy to carry around, and there's no finesse to it. Next."

She grabbed the sniper-looking rifle. It had a scope (welded on, so it wouldn't fit on my Lightning Streak), which was long and had a couple of dials on the side. She put her eye up to it and adjusted the knobs. When she finished with that she wrapped a claw around the barrel and twisted it experimentally. Nothing happened, so she looked for a clasp, found it, unlocked it, and unscrewed the barrel.

"We have a winner. Lightish, could use it while flying in a pinch. Good anywhere from long range to really long range. Compact, can break it down for travel. Me likey."

"You can figure all of that out just by holding it?" asked Swiss in amazement. "I just picked these cause they looked cool!"

Wick shrugged. "Bert taught me a lot. He knew more about guns than anyone I've ever met." She slipped the rifle and its unscrewed barrel into her pack.

While Wick stopped at the next floor to look into its sole project, Swiss and I continued to the fourth.

"Any idea what a 'Pink Chip' is?" asked Swiss.

"Not a clue. Sounds like it could be installed in my PipBuck though. That makes it worth checking out."

"What about the 'Party Cannon?'"

"I'll give it a glance. I mean, it's a cannon. Cannons are big and heavy, right. No good for travel."

"Yeah, I guess. Hopefully I'll find something good in 'Drugs.'"

"Don't do drugs, mmkay. Drugs are bad, mmkay. If you do drugs, then you're bad, mmkay."

My head whirred as I said it, but I couldn't help but laugh anyway.

"The fuck are you talking about?" he asked as we reached the fourth floor.

"No idea," I answered truthfully, opening the door to the Morale offices. "Good luck upstairs."

"You too."

The office had the instant effect of unnerving the hell out of me. This had little to do with the massive ordnance pointing directly at the door I entered through, and more to do with the high concentration of propaganda posters plastering every wall. We'd passed a couple on our way around the facility, and even a few in the wasteland, but this was ridiculous. Not an inch of wall was uncovered. The great majority of posters exclaimed "Pinkie Pie is Watching You Forever," featuring a smiling pink mare staring at anyone who viewed them. One pair of eyes might've been okay, but there were literally hundreds watching me. Like I said, unnerving.

The Pink Chip project had been relegated to a couple small rooms in the back, most of floor instead devoted to the Party Cannon. One look at the artillery told me we couldn't take it with us. The thing was huge, weighed a ton least. It belonged on a battlefield, not with a group of travelers.

The modest Pink Chip offices were free of posters, but I still felt like I was being watched by... something. I tried to ignore the feeling and toss the rooms.

Most what was left in here was paperwork, documentation. I skimmed a few pages, identifying them as lab reports and results. Apparently, these ponies working on the Pink Chip had very little idea of how it actually worked, or even what it actually did, hence the experiments and test results. How they couldn't know was beyond me. Maybe someone gave it to them?

While going through one pile of papers I found an old audio recording. I plugged it into my PipBuck to listen to while I searched.

"Not much new to report today as far as conclusive results go. The damn Chip is still an enigma. We are no closer to figuring out how the thing works, though we might be if someone told us where the hell it came from. Today's test results are in logbook, not that there's any point in looking at them. Still just gibberish for the most part, with a couple of useful tidbits mixed in. Fulcrum posed a theory about the Chip today that's probably worth recording, though. Thinks maybe the thing is operating at a higher... what word did he use... degree...? no, he said tier. A higher tier then we can comprehend. We may be understanding tiny chunks of what it's doing, and what chunks we do understand are brilliant, but most of it is simply beyond our grasp. He thinks it might even be messing with us, might have some form of AI or something patched in. Not sure if I quite buy into that, but anything's possible, I suppose."

After around twenty minutes of fruitless scrounging, I found what I was looking for. The Chip was hiding in metal case being kept inside a drawer blocked by a fallen cabinet. At least it was until I moved the cabinet.

The Chip was about what I expected. Small, rectangular, and pink, of course. The only distinguishing feature other than that was a number "4" printed in blue on the side. It looked like the same make as the chips I'd pulled from the PipBuck room earlier, so it should be compatible with that. Once I had time to look at the manual for the thing, I'd install the Chip. The recording piqued by interest, to say the least.


We met back up in the lobby an hour later.

Swiss's bag was rattling with the drugs he'd picked up from the Peace floor. "Took some healing potions. A lot of looked like it had gone bad or something, so I only got, like, three. Other than that, picked up some bandages and poppers too. Med-X and Buck and... a thing of Mint-als."

Wick came back from her venture empty clawed. "I found the armor, but the fitting was wrong. My body isn't exactly proportional with the average pegasus. Too big for Swiss too. Call it a hunch, but I don't think you would've used it anyway."

Swiss shrugged. "Probably not. Armor's never really appealed to me."

"Any particular reason?" I asked.

"Not really."

"Whatever," said Wick. "The Steel Ranger armor was also to big, meant for a full grown stallion, so it's useless to us. Where to next?"

I checked the map on my PipBuck. "All that's left is Security Offices, Public Relations, and Archives. Might be some ammo we can use in Security, but the other two sound pretty useless."

"Let's check them anyway," said Swiss. "We could split up again. Never know what we might find in there. Worth looking, at the very least."

"Alright," agreed Wick. "But Security first. I want more ammo."

Security ended up yielding more than just ammo.

"Yes, this is perfect!" I squeed.

"What are you doing, Revamp?"

"Check this thing out!"

Swiss looked it over. It was a high quality microphone plugged into box covered in dials and switches. "Intercom, right? Used it to send messages around the facility. What about it?"

"Almost right. It's shortwave. Long distance. They used this to communicate with people outside of the facility."

"Alright. So?"

"So I can take the vital components and integrate them into my PipBuck, allowing me communicate to any station I want."

"Come again?"

"Me use parts to talk to people far away."

"Oh, okay."

"You don't think that's cool?"

"Eh, it's neat, I guess. Might be useful too."

"Neophyte."

Swiss ignored me. "Find anything good, Wick?"

Wick emerged from the gun cabinet she was looting. "Found a few guns, mostly twelve mils like Revamps. Might want to bring one along so you can repair yours. A bit of ammo too, around twenty or so rounds for my carvers, like ten for Revamp. Oh wait," she said, diving back into the locker. "Holy shit, there are twelve energy cells."

"Doesn't seem like much.," I commented.

"Each cell is worth about twenty shots for magical energy weapons. That makes... 240 rounds between us."

"Oh. Damn."

"Yeah, no kidding. Anyway, I that's all I could find in here. Not too shabby."

Wick and Swiss headed over to Public Relations while I investigated the Archives.

I spent about half an hour grazing through the filing cabinets. Most of it was junk, and what little was of use pertained to projects in other facilities. My PipBuck picked up on the names and locations of the facilities and added them to the map. Maybe someday we'd visit another one.

Before leaving I found a terminal and did a quick sweep through the digital archives, It must've been a newly integrated system, because there wasn't too much in the system. The vast majority was useless, but two entries caught my interest.

>[REDACTED]
>[REDACTED]

I selected the first one and did the same word sweep I'd done earlier.

>MANEFRAME
>PONY
>ARTIFICIAL
>INTELLIGENCE
>CRUSADER

Same one as before. Oh well. On to the next one. This one gave a completely different set of words.

>REFLECTION
>MIRROR
>DNA
>PROPERTIES
>EVERFREE
>RADIANT
>HARVEST

Unlike the first redacted file, I couldn't make heads or tails of this one. Maybe some kind of mutation project? What was being harvested?

I closed the terminal. It probably didn't matter. Time to get back to Wick and Swiss.

I found them waiting for me outside the Public Relations building. "Hey guys. You find anything good?"

"Not unless you want souvenir coffee mugs and baseball caps. Think they were for the staff."

"Thankfully, I did," said Swiss, indicating his new headwear. It sported an orange lambda over the brim. My vision blurred.

"You find anything good?" asked Wick.

"Nope. Maybe stuff to look out for if we ever visit another one of these places, but nothing on site."

"Well lets get some dinner and turn in then. I'm bushed."

"Yeah, me too."

"Me three. By the way, I'll cover first watch, okay."

"Thanks Revamp. It'll be nice to sleep in a bed for once."

The day ended without a hitch.