//------------------------------// // Chapter 7. Conspiracies // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// Brown level was actually pretty cool, and I wasn't referring to the lack of heating or the dry air. The level was a storehouse of all sorts of interesting stuff not suited to being kept elsewhere. It was amusing that I had bypassed their security so easily! I soon found a ladder and dragged it out to the elevator doors, which, like had been done above, were held open by the nearest piece of junk I could find to jam in between them, on this occasion an unmarked crate. While I was there, I started checking through the cupboards, looking for anything that could help me. Largely, they were packed with assorted archaic equipment the functions of I could only guess at. It was hard to tell if they were secret devices, or just ordinary devices that were used in the operations of Central's secret bureau. Given time, I would have loved to played with some of the devices, but time was a luxury I didn't have. In fact, I was using more time than I should have just looking around down here. The third cupboard I opened contained row upon row of what appeared to be small food dispensers, going by the markings on them. They were molded in a wonderful array of muted retro colors. Some had cracked cases, which was interesting, because the ones I had seen had always been so strong. Curious as to how the marvels worked, I extracted a powder blue one, as it appeared to be the most damaged. If I could look inside one, I might be able to work out how to connect these to the distribution system. Assuming I could find distribution points below, taking one with me would solve my food problem. That, of course, was assuming I was correct and that these were in fact old food distributors! Unlike the larger food distributors, which dropped your food onto your plate, or into its integral bowl, this one's bowl was at the top, with no obvious way for the food to be put in it. Perhaps it was for cooking? That was something of a lost art, with the exception of restaurants. I soon found there didn't appear to be any way to connect the thing to the distribution system either. Perhaps I was totally mistaken as to its purpose. I reread the identification place on the bottom. It was definitely by the same company that made the food distributors. "Aneki, what are you doing?" 4J2 asked, probably puzzled by my extended silence. "Huh?" "You've been quiet since you found the ladder. Is anything the matter? Have you managed to get the doors to Red level open?" "I'm still down on Brown level, poking around," I admitted. "I'm hoping to find some tools or something that will help me when I leave." "You'd have better luck on Red level. That is where the maintenance ponies are based," 4J2 informed me. "I have found something interesting here. It looks like it was made by the same company that makes the food distributors, but is a lot older and not as strong," I stated as I wiggled at the broken casing. It came apart in my hooves, revealing all of its works, not that there was much in there, and what was in there was truly bizarre. The core of it was a familiar looking solid spiral that was made of what appeared to be ceramic. Attached to that was a band, running right around it, and bearing scripts written in very fine print, almost like a computer printout. A listing? No, it was some sort of program. What was a program doing attached to this ceramic replica of the bony disfigurement I had sticking out of my forehead. Hang on... it wasn't ceramic; it was bone. "What the??" I muttered. "That doesn't sound good," 4J2 responded, "Has something gone wrong?" "I've got the case off one of these devices..." I subvocalized. "Oh," 4J2 said. That was all he needed to say for me to know he was well aware of what was going on here. "Why do these distributor things have the bony growths of dead ponies in them? What is their purpose?" I asked. "That... would be difficult to answer. It is classified," 4J2 answered. "So am I, so spill it, secrets boy," I growled. "You are correct. Those are ancient portable food generators." "Generators? Not distributors?" "There is no such thing as a food distributor," 4J2 admitted. "Those things you have in your homes are generators. They convert raw materials into edible food via magic." I laughed. "Magic? Come on, stop trying to lie your way out of this," I admonished him. "I'm dead serious. They use a rare unicorn's horn that has been programmed with scripted spell to do the conversion. You place any organic matter in the bowl and activate it. It scans you, works out what your body needs, and converts it into a suitable food. The portable ones do have limitations though. They can only work with what you put in them. If you don't have enough matter, it simply can't make enough food. The modern ones are linked to a recirculating system of nutrients, so don't have that shortfall," 4J2 explained. "So if I take one, it will help, but only if I can find organic matter to dump into the bowl first?" I sought confirmation. "Exactly. So take a dump in it," 4J2 said. "Pardon? Did you just tell me to relieve myself in my potential food bowl?" I asked. "That's pretty gross!" "It's no different to what you are used to. Waste gathered from toilets and garbage collection is broken down and mixed with water. That is then fed through pipes to the food generators," 4J2 revealed. "Admittedly there are a few stages in between, such as filters to remove solids and so on. The portable ones just do it all in place." "Oh, yuck. That is disgusting," I muttered. "So you won't be taking one then?" 4J2 replied, and I was sure I could feel him smirking though the comms interface. "No, I won't be taking one," I replied, as I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a dusky pink one, and a pale jade green one. "Wimp," 4J2 teased me. "I'm taking two," I snapped. A quick inspection proved both to be intact. I would test them later. Chances are at least one of them would be functional. I stuffed one into each of my saddle bags. An afterthought had me pushing the broken blue one in to a bag as well. I wanted to have a closer look at it later. Concluding the rest of the stuff down here would probably be more interesting than actually useable, I decided it was time to leave the floor, and see what I could find up on Red level. "Now tell me about the spiral bone, and how it is magic. And what the hell is a rare unicorn?" I asked, as I walked towards the elevator. "You are," 4J2 answered. "You have a horn." "I have a deformity poking out of the middle of my forehead," I responded. "There isn't anything magical about it." "It would have been if you hadn't been exposed to a modifier at birth. We can't have unicorns running about H'ven causing all sorts of trouble. We give you fingers. We take away your magic. It's a fair exchange," 4J2 offered his view. Oh wonderful! Why didn't this surprise me? "And the doctors are in on this too?" I asked, beginning to wonder just how far through H'ven society this conspiracy went. I stepped over the crate holding the doors open, then pushing the doors apart a little, kicked the crate out of the way, so that the doors could close. "The doctors are clueless. In all medical texts and training, horns are described as harmful growths. The doctors are taught that administration of a specific drug at birth will save the affected from a painful and early death. And when a unicorn dies, the 'harmful growth' is removed, and used in one of the many systems in H'ven." "Let me guess. This drug is another one of your class one modifiers," I muttered, "It must have taken centuries to get enough horns with us being so rare and all." "Indeed, it is a class one modifier. As for the unicorns, they weren't always so rare. There is currently a class four modifier present in H'ven that attacks pony reproductive systems with the specific task of aborting any unicorn foetuses. No, we weren't responsible for it. It has been around for many years," 4J2 stated. "Somehow, despite that, you made it to full term and were born." "The more I know, the less I like this place," I stated darkly. "You have to admit that despite the less than savory side of all this, it has led to a successful and sustainable society. Imagine the difficulty in keeping life balanced in such a relatively small space." "By calling H'ven a relatively small space, you imply there are larger spaces in existence, as though you know there is more outside the shell of H'ven, as if there isn't simply nothing out there," I observed. "As far as we know, there is nothing outside, but not nothing in the sense that you can't go outside the shell, but in the sense that if you went out there, it would be deathly cold, totally dark, and there would be no air to breathe. Nothing." "What? A vacuum? That's scary, but more comprehensible than the 'non-existence' that is taught. It also supports the H'ven is a sphere argument. So in theory, if we had the engineering skills and enough material, we could cut though the shell and expand out there," I suggested. "In theory, yes, that is what Central currently believes. History is such a mismatch of half-remembered facts, rumors and superstitions. Even our best minds can only guess. So far no pony is willing to try breaking through the shell as it could kill us all. Hell, we don't even know what is down below, under the sub-levels." "Hell, we don't know what's down in Hell," I retorted. "Pretty much sums it up," 4J2 agreed, with a chuckle. "I'm going up to Red level now," I announced my intentions. 4J2 didn't reply, so I turned my attention to positioning the ladder so it leaned just below the closed doors of the level above and climbing up there. Allowing the doors to Brown level to close had robbed me of my stronger light source, but even this far down below the doors open several floors above, I could see what I was doing well enough, although color seemed to be missing from my vision in this lower level of light. Again I used my fingers to pry the doors apart, and push them back far enough for me to fit through. It seemed leaning against one door was enough to hold them both open. With my free hoof, I grabbed the ladder, and pulled it up and into Red level with me. As soon as I released the door, it closed again. "Okay, I'm up on Red level now," I told 4J2, "and I'm taking that." I added, more myself than him as I grabbed a convenient tool and stuffed it into a saddle bag. "Taking what?" "Just a tool I found," I responded. "Now, where are these lockers?" "First door to your left after you come out of the elevator," 4J2 informed me. I headed for the door, opening it without trouble. Either there was no security on it, or the ID cards I were wearing were enough to satisfy the requirements. "Jay, why are you helping me?" I asked. "Obviously, you risk getting into trouble over this. Somepony is sure to work out this was an inside job." "Maybe they will, but I don't think it will be too likely. The worst they could do would be reprimanding me for administering the wrong drug, but even then, I didn't leave any evidence of that. After I left the lab, I bagged up my isolation suit, the syringe, and vial, and took them to the plasma arc furnace myself, like the hard working, rule abiding staff member I am. It will probably be assumed that your Hellspawn body grew resistant to the drug we were using. Explaining how you ended up with the mapper may be harder." "2EQ thought I may have been lying on it all along," I commented, "but if I was vivisected, it would be clear that I wasn't lying on it for weeks. It would have been noticed." "2EQ wasn't privy to what happened. All he knew was from what he saw when he went to remove you," 4J2 stated. "While he does have the required clearance to see what happens around here, he isn't of high enough rank to be informed about what he is seeing. Basically he is trusted to keep his mouth shut in public. It is the same for his apprentice. Even if 2EQ keeps quiet, 5D3 will probably blab to the investigators." "Good luck with that. Anyway, you've haven't answered what I really wanted to know. Why are you helping me?" I tried again. "Well... I like you. You think," 4J2 stated. "So many ponies who live in H'ven are like mindless drones. They live the pointless lives Central have set up for them. All they do is mark time for the species, passing their genetic material onto the next generation, but leaving behind nothing else of real significance." "That makes you wonder at the purpose of H'ven, or even the purpose of life itself," I pondered. "And it isn't as if I've made any great mark on pony society." "You are a structural engineer," 4J2 stated. "That alone leaves a mark, but given time, I think you would have been able to go beyond that. You may have even been recruited by Central." "You say that as if it is a good thing," I said. "The chance to expand on what you have learned today, to voice your opinion, to make changes to how this place is run: that is a good thing," 4J2 told me. "Too late for that now, isn't it?" I asked, not expecting an answer. Ah, personal lockers. That's what I was looking for. "Now, you aren't going to be a silly mare and go spouting all this classified information to the ponies on the surface, are you?" 4J2 asked, swinging the subject to security, and any possibility of me talking. "I'm not stupid," I informed him. "As you said, officially, I died weeks ago. I don't exist. I won't even attempt to leave some sort of last farewell to my poor parents. They will be better off grieving for me for a while longer than they would be fretting over whether they would ever see me again, and destroying their lives trying to fight Central so they could. While I do have friends, none are particularly close. They will recover sooner than the folks, and get on with life as if I was never even there." "Smart girl," 4J2 said. "And what if I want to contact you?" I asked, not entirely sure why I would. "I don't know. Maybe I will leave the channel between our comms units available or maybe I will permanently purge the ID of your unit from the system. If it looks like they are onto me, that will certainly be the case." "What about the rest of your department, though? Will there be a witch hunt? Will packs of ponies descend to the lower levels trying to eliminate me?" I queried. "Even if they don't realize how much I have learned, I am still one of those undesirable Hellspawn creatures, which, according to what you have told me, are always caught and vaporized." "They may. I really don't know. I will suggest they limit any searching to near ground level though. Seriously, the sheer size of the underlevels will make searching for you practically impossible," 4J2 assured me. "Thank Luna for that." "I have to leave you for a while," 4J2 suddenly apologized. "If you can't get the code for the exit, there is nothing I can do to help you. From the beginning, all I could offer you was a slim chance of escape... and... sorry." With that, I felt the connection go quiet. Something felt odd with his reasons. Maybe he did like me, really like me. Maybe that was the only reason... but that last sorry felt loaded. Something had been left unspoken. Pondering that, I turned my attention to finding 2EQ's locker and hunting for any passcodes he may have hidden within.