//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8. Damn It. Let Me Out! 
// Story: H'ven Sent 
// by otherunicorn 
//------------------------------//

As I had come to expect, the decor was the same standard cream color used throughout this facility, and much of H'ven for that matter. The staff lockers were beige, which was a pleasant tonal change. They were subject to the same sort of security as everything else around this place. Fortunately, I had the ID cards needed for the lockers in which I was interested, specifically, I had the ID cards to the two ponies that had intended to stuff me into the plasma arc furnace alive.

These lockers were of a fair size, large enough for a pony to stash several changes of clothes, personal tools, and so on. Each locker had a card sized slot in its door, next to the handle. While 2EQ's locker was the most likely to contain a copy of the pony's passcode, I opened 5D3's first, mostly because I felt bitchy towards him for his voyeurism. I pulled out each of his items of clothing, checking them over for any codes he may have written on them, but found none. The clothes themselves weren't that special; blue overalls, a light sweater, pale green in color, for H'ven's ever-so-mildly cooler winter, and a black, brimmed hat. I stuffed the overalls and sweater into my saddlebags, which were getting quite full now. After all, these bags were only meant for a mare to carry around a few personal items. I missed my survival saddle. That had some decent storage space in it. 5D3's hat I trampled. Hats like this were a stupid fashion statement. It wasn't like there was anything a pony needed to protect their head from in day to day life. Now he would probably be obliged to feed it to the plasma arc furnace.

I discovered another set of saddlebags on the lowest shelf, and extracted them, emptying 5D3's possessions all over the floor. Most were useless to me, so I trampled them for good measure. The few tools I found went back into his saddlebags, now mine, which I tossed across my back. With everything finally removed from the locker, I looked over each of the shelves and panels for any signs of a recorded passcode. There was none. I guess that was no surprise, as 5D3 did seem to be the sort that worried about every rule, much to 2EQ's annoyance.

That left 2EQ's locker. I inserted the card in the slot and turned the handle... or tried to, but it didn't budge. Bugger! Why did everything always have to be difficult. Before I tried smashing my way through the solid looking door, I thought I'd try the card again. I pulled it from the slot, and stared at it for a moment. 5D3 was written on it...

"Wrong card, you stupid mare!" I chastised myself, removing each of the other cards I was carrying from around my neck until I found the correct one, dangling from its grubby looking lanyard. I pushed that into the slot and was rewarded with a satisfying clunk as the lock released. Opening the door, I immediately began searching for a code, starting with the rear of the door itself. Bah! The bastard had smutty pictures taped up there. Carefully (much to my distaste) I removed each image of debauchery so as not to damage the paper, studying both sides of each for any hidden codes. Finding none, I would rip the image apart and toss the pieces aside. The door itself was also devoid of any clues. His clothes were next. A formerly white overcoat was the first item out. I stuffed it in one of my saddle bags, despite it being grubby. Next were the expected pair of overalls. They had no redeeming features, so they went over my shoulder to land wherever. Most of the rest of the items in his locker were also useless to me, in that they neither held the required code, and appeared to be every discarded piece of crap he had saved instead of throwing away. Worn and broken tools, bags with holes in them and safety goggles with scratched lenses were typical of the garbage he had gathered. They all went over my shoulder to join his overalls, well, sometimes. Sometimes they hit other things with varying sound effects purveying the damage they did when landing.

Nothing. After all that, nothing! Not a Luna damned code scribbled or hidden anywhere! I was screwed. Dead. My conversion into gas in the plasma arc furnace was certain. Despair overtook me, and I settled to the floor, my legs curled up under me. What would I do? What could I do? I gently rocked myself, wishing my brain to devise an answer for me.

I started considering the alternatives, if I could call them that. Getting back up to the higher levels would be difficult, if not impossible. I didn't have the code needed to open the door to the stairwell. The elevator was stuck up several floors, where I had left it, prevented from moving by the doors I had jammed open. If it was still mobile, it would probably ignore me anyway. Even if it did come down here, all it would give me would be access to the floors on which I had been trapped earlier. What's more, I could not access the floor on which I had been held, so I had no way to approach 2EQ himself. That in itself would be an act of extreme desperation. "Dear would-be killer, please help me escape." Yeah, right.

As for the door that exited from this floor to sublevel six, I doubted I would be able to break through it even with the tools available to me here. I had only glimpsed it, and it was substantial. What the hell was I going to do? I did not want to die. Maybe I would have to get more violent next time I encountered a pony, and force them to let me out of this cursed place. And that pony would no doubt be one of an armed squad sent to deal with me, when the alarm was eventually raised. Bah, that couldn't work either. Reaching out, I slammed 2EQ's locker shut as hard as I could and sat, staring at it. I wondered if 4J2 would have any other ideas. It was too bad he wasn't contactable at the moment.

"Dear Jay, please throw away your life for mine. Please come down here, and open the door for me. I'll even let you come with me. How would you like a life on the run, hunted by the very ponies you used to serve? Come on, it can't be too bad. After all, that's the life you've given to me. It is only fair that I share it with you."

Of course there was no answer from the dead comms channel.

My eyes wandered back to 2EQ's ID card, and its grubby lanyard with grotty spots spaced about it... hang on.. was that grotty spot actually a number written on the lanyard? Would he be so stupid as to record his passcode on his lanyard? I whipped the card out of the slot and examined the dirty band of cloth. Spaced well apart from each other where five digits, written in black marker on the grimy, dark blue and green material. 25723 it looked like, or was that 28724? The second and fifth characters were somewhat blurred and faded. It was a start. It was hope. Maybe I would get a lockout for entering the wrong code. Maybe I would get lucky and hit the right one. There was only one way to find out, and that was to try the door.

With renewed enthusiasm, I leaped to my hooves and scarpered across the floor towards the exit on the far wall. As I got closer, I realized just how futile any attempt to break through it would be. I didn't think bank vaults would offer that much resistance. The door was imposing, very imposing, constructed from machined, heavy plate metal. Actually, door wasn't quite right. I would have described it as a hatch. It was circular, and was pivoted from an arm constructed of the thick plate metal, attached to a substantial but fully enclosed mechanism mounted above. Hatch? Who was I kidding. This thing was more like a giant plug, designed to withstand huge pressures from within the facility. Heavy rivets were evenly spaced around the outer plate of the hatch itself, attaching it to some form of sealing ring. A smaller, thicker concentric plate was mounted to that first plate. The lower portions of the hinge mechanism were attached to that. I doubted explosives would be able to budge it, let alone my kicks. It made me wonder just how damn thick the outer walls of this facility were. I could almost believe that a hatch like this would be used to block an exit from H'ven itself, out into the nothing: the hard vacuum. Maybe my thoughts on explosives were correct. If a dangerous experiment exploded down here, all of the damage would certainly be contained within the facility itself. Perhaps the hatch predated the building's current use.

To the side of the hatch, attached to the equally impressive bulkhead, was the control box, complete with a slot for an ID card and a numeric keypad. I pushed 2EQ's card into the slot, and the keypad lit, awaiting my lucky numbers. Okay... 2. Beep. One lamp lit. 5. Beep. Another lamp lit. 7 2 3. Three more beeps and three more lit lamps. A loud long beep emanated from the box, and all of the lamps went out. No other action occurred. Well, bugger.

I looked harder at the messed up writing on the lanyard. The top of that five was a bit too rounded. Maybe it was an eight. The final character was also near impossible to read. Was it a three? No, again maybe a five. My earlier thoughts of it being a four were wrong, as the straight bit of the marking was just plain old grease. The top was also too rounded. Perhaps it was another eight? Damn it. Here goes. I tapped in 28728 and waited for the very short eternity to pass. This time the lamps went out, but there was no beep. Okay... Better? Maybe. I scanned the panel again, before starting over, and noticed two of the other buttons had now lit. I read the text beside them. One read Lock in open position. The other read Automatically close after preset delay.

Success! I danced on the spot in glee! Time to go. I glanced back at the laden saddlebags draped across my back. I had some water, food, clothing, some tools, a flashlight and some food generators. Actually, I had more than that, but the ones I just checked off were the important items. Once out of here, I wasn't going to risk coming back in. I tapped the button for the second option, and the panel beeped at me again, but nothing further happened. Damn, what now? The slot into which the card was inserted was flashing.

Oh! It wanted me to retrieve the card. I whipped it out of the slot, and was rewarded with the sounds of heavy servos operating. Moments later, the hatch backed out of the hole it plugged in the wall, then lifted clear. The air that came through smelled a little different, and I could see light. Yay, the under-level lights were working, on this floor at least. I hung the lanyard back around my neck, in case the door got pedantic about me passing through without the ID card, and stepped through, to freedom. I was right about the door, hatch or whatever, actually being a plug. The bulkhead appeared to be a couple of hooves thick. The hole through it was gently tapered. The corresponding part of the hatch was a truncated cone, machined to fit the hole precisely. Both were made of high quality, corrosion resistant metal.

"You have five seconds to return through the door, or you will be locked out," a recorded voice warned me. I stepped away from the hatch, and kept walking. I heard some warning beeps, then the whines of the servos as they closed the hatch behind me. I looked back, watching the thick slab of metal plug the opening, blocking out the light that had been coming from within. There was something about watching that door close that was very final. That was it. My old life was locked away forever.

"Goodbye, Jay, and thank you." I said, mostly for my own benefit. I wondered what he looked like. I would probably never know.

And so began my life in exile. For the moment I was truly alone, more alone than I had ever been before. I wondered if I would look back on my past life fondly, cursing the misfortune that had befallen me, or if I would consider my conversion to one of the Hellspawn as when my life really began. Would I encounter that shadowy figure from my shock induced nightmare? That was possible. They had helped me before. Perhaps they would help me again. Would I discover the secrets of the Hell: the unknown under-levels? Would there be other interesting answers down there? Perhaps I could find records of our lost history? Would the true name of H'ven be revealed? Would I discover why there was nothing outside the sphere, or indeed if the nothing was just a local barrier, beyond which other spheres existed? What else could be out there? As my mind filled with wonder at the possibilities, I realized I was looking forward to it!

I was standing in a pool of relatively bright light, although apart from this patch, the light levels were not the greatest. The lamps were spaced quite some distance apart, and were of low power. I could understand that. Even spaced out like this, there must have been thousands of lamps needed to light the under-levels, and that would be a huge waste of power. The brighter light here probably meant that there was a camera covering the area, which did make sense outside the door to a high security facility. For that matter, where did all of the power come from? In school, we were taught that power came from somewhere down here. Professionally, I was told, it was need to know only information that I didn't need to know. Maybe I'd solve that mystery for myself too.

My first priority was to get to a lower level. 4J2 had told me the facility exited onto sublevel six, so that was presumably where I now was. My adventure had begun with my long drop from sublevel fifteen, and had ended up down on sublevel twenty-one. That was where I had apparently met the Hellspawn that helped me. Damn it! Hellspawn this, Hellspawn that. I was still a pony, albeit a modified one. Double damn it! Every pony in H'ven was modified to some extent or another. That meant Hellspawn were ponies, and that was the way I was going to think of them... us.

Sublevel twenty-one seemed like as good a first destination as any. I didn't have priority access to the elevators, which was tantamount to having no access at all, so the stairs were the most likely way I would be descending. Of course, if I found any open shafts or direct openings between levels, I would probably jump and bounce my way down. That would be a great way to add distance between me and any pursuer, not to mention a stack of fun!

Before I set off, I checked my mapper was no longer configured to transmit details of my travels to anypony else, and saw that it, like the comms unit, had been cut off from the communications system. Actually, being cut from the comms system was probably what had disabled that function. That suited me fine. I didn't want it sending out any here am I messages while I was on the run. At least the mapping function was independent of that, reliant on markers hidden within the structure of H'ven itself.

Now, how many miles was I from the nearest set of stairs? It wasn't as if though I had any maps starting from this point of reference. While it did have maps of more or less everything above ground level, my mapper did not contain full maps of the under-levels. In fact, I didn't think there were any map sets available for the under-levels. If Central had any, they weren't sharing them, even with their contractors, although they had let me get the enhanced map set that gave the locations of the entry points to the under-levels.

Okay, let me think. I knew where the under-level elevators were at ground level. Their locations were part of the enhanced map set. Stairs were usually near the elevators, although there could have been others that I did not know about that didn't go all the way to the surface. Stairwells, after all, were cheaper to install and maintain than elevators. With over three hundred square miles of area at ground level, there had to be more ways to get between the levels. There had probably been more elevators when ponies used to live down here, but they would have been stripped for use above, much like everything else. Perhaps the shafts remained. I couldn't say I fancied bouncing down seventy five levels of shaft though! One slip and it would be back to where I was a number of weeks back - splattered on the ground. Perhaps there were even ramps.

The mapper suggested that elevator twenty-eight was the nearest, so I set that as my destination.

"Bye bye!" I waved for the camera before I trotted in the general direction my mapper suggested.