//------------------------------// // Chapter 9. Chased // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// Freedom! Well, I hoped I was free, permanently. Hanging around in the general area of the place from which I had just escaped would be counterproductive. With that in mind, I increased my pace a little, and within moments, and a minor zigzag of the corridor, arrived at a T intersection. The intersected road was, well, a road, not just a corridor. It was wide enough for ponies to move equipment about. If anything, this road was wider than those of the Mane Way. So, this was a sublevel ring road... Up until now, I hadn't realized quite how close Central's hidden facility had been to the outer wall of H'ven despite having the mapper. My destination, elevator twenty eight, was at the outer end of one of the roads of the Mane Way, thus also near the outer wall of H'ven. I headed right, with the outer wall to my left. That was the wall the lamps were mounted on, again in standard H'ven cream, albeit dirtier, and somewhat underlit. Trotting along, I soon noticed that the lighting down here was not active all the time, as I had initially thought. It merely gave that impression by lighting several lamps either side of the one to which I was nearest. In the twisting and turning corridors of the areas of the underlevels I had explored before, this effect would have been masked by the walls that divided the area up. Out here, on the equivalent of a Mane Way ring road, it was easy to see relatively far in either direction. At nearly twenty miles in diameter, this ring road appeared to be straight at the local level, until you noticed the distant lamps didn't quite line up. I looked back over my shoulder, and could see three lights lit behind me before the darkness overtook the corridor. Three lamps on behind me, one lamp near me, and three on ahead of that. Seven dim lamps were all that marked my presence. As I was staring at the lamps behind me, another group of lamps lit a long way back. Somepony else was down here? Uh-oh. Those light were near where I first entered this ring road, thus near the facility from which I was escaping. They were after me already? Good grief! Like those lamps telling me I had pursuers, I had a set of lamps telling those pursuers exactly where I was! Adrenaline thumped through my body like razor sharp ice, (ah, so that bodily function hadn't changed with my conversion) and my ancient flight instinct kicked in, set to eleven out of ten, perhaps even higher, as I took off like I had powered assistance... I did have powered assistance. These new limbs... I pressed myself even harder, and they responded. Sweet Luna, could I move? Could I move? Wow, I could move! The din my hooves were making would certainly alert them to my presence, even if they hadn't noticed the lights. Some sort of soft shoes would be quite useful now, both to quieten my hooves and improve my grip on these metal floors. I pondered how awesome it would be if I could simply adjust the construction of the hooves themselves, widen the base a little, produce a nice soft pad of a larger surface area that would both distribute the impact, and put less stress on the softer material. Yeah, like that, I agreed as my imagination created the image for me. Huh? I flicked my ears. Something seemed to be blocking them. It was as if I had suddenly gone deaf. No, not deaf; I could still hear my breathing, which despite me belting along at a fair old rate, was still even and strong. With the amount of exercise I was used to, that was no surprise, but why could I hear it so clearly when I couldn't hear my hooves... Unless... I risked a quick glance down at them, and I'd be damned if they hadn't changed to match the mental image I conjured up moments back. Oh, you have to be kidding me. All this crap was a dream? You mean I've lived through hours of imaginary hell because I got a bit hot while sleeping? Falling asleep while wearing the survival saddle could do that. Now I was mad! Screw this. I hated dreams that were harder work than real life. So often I dreamed I was repeating my final year of schooling because my mother insisted I do so, despite the fact that I had already passed with honors the first time through. Even when I realized I was dreaming that was happening, it didn't stop the dream. Instead, I'd simply find myself repeating the year and all its horrors a third time. It was probably time to wake up anyway. Even if it wasn't, I was tired of this crap. I'd get up and have a nice drink or something. I tried to roll over, finding my body a little more responsive than I expected. My running turned into crashing and bouncing off the floor, sliding and skidding before I eventually thumped into the wall, albeit at a gentle angle. Bugger! That was unexpected. Either this dream was harder to shake off than I was expecting, or... I held up my forehoof and looked at it. It still bore the modified pad. My fingers were curled up safely behind it. Nope. This was being too consistent for a nightmare. My hoof should have reverted to its normal form, or become an even weirder shape if I was dreaming. And my thoughts shouldn't be this clear. A second wave of adrenaline thumped through me as I realized my brain was having a little trouble coming to grips with my new reality, and that I was in fact awake, and SHIT, I was being chased! I was back up and running at full tilt before I had even fully sorted out my balance. I had a body that I could modify. I had a body that I could control. I had a body that I could reshape! A couple more glancing blows with the wall stabilized me as I galloped away from my pursuers. My next problem was to become invisible. I could run around this ring corridor all day, but that wouldn't get me away from anypony in the long term. What I needed to do was stretch the gap between us so that they could no longer see the lights lit above me, then veer off on a different course. The gap had to be large enough that the lights on the alternative course wouldn't give me away either. Something like a simple right angle change in direction would fail. Hiding in a room, should I find one, would also fail, unless the system was smart enough to shut off all lights outside a room once its door was shut, but I couldn't count on that, and didn't have the time to experiment. Not knowing the layout down here was a major disadvantage. I could so easily turn down a dead-end, or even box myself in a larger area to which there was only a single entrance. I settled into a rhythm of running hard, backing off, and checking briefly over my shoulder, then going back to running hard, all the time watching the walls and openings that I passed, trying to learn if there was any repeating structure, as well as keeping my eyes out for any variation that could prove advantageous. A stairwell would be good, as it would allow me to change level relatively quickly. It was my ears that eventually alerted me to what I had hoped to see. The was a subtle change in the ambience of the corridor, as if it was opening out into something greater. The lamps lighting ahead of me revealed a large opening to my right. As I got closer, I could see it was a ramp spiraling upwards. That itself wasn't of any real use to me, but shadows implied there was a corresponding ramp, spiraling downwards. Great, a I had a probable way to drop a few levels. As I got closer I could see that the ramps were open sided on their inner curve, just a safety barrier there, with no great central structure blocking my view. It must have been a plaza of some sort in its day. I made plans, based on assumptions I had extrapolated from what I saw. Final details would need to be calculated in a split second. Stuffing this up would be fatal. On the other hoof, it was the opportunity I needed to get away from those who were plotting to kill me. Had they not been there, I wouldn't be quite so rash. Here goes!!! I adjusted the angle of my course, barely slowing, then broke into a hard sprint as soon as I was heading straight towards the safety barrier. A glance up and down allowed me to estimate the distance between the floors, and the diameter of the shaft the ramp encompassed. I did not know how many levels the ramps connected. There may be just one below me, in which case I would hit the floor. If there were more, and I got my timing right, I would land on the opposite side of the ramp three levels below. You love this stuff, Aneki! I told myself as I leapt, easily clearing the safety barrier. Twisting mid-air, I angled myself to allow maximum clearance while fitting through the gap above the safety barrier on the opposite side, or to be ready to plant my hooves and spring, should I miss the gap. I really didn't want to try to jump that... gap.... a..... second...... time....... I sailed over the opposite barrier with room to spare, using my legs to absorb my impact with the far wall. Immediately I bounced to my feet, and ran for the nearest exit, which took me back onto the ring corridor, but three levels below where I had been. I followed the direction the ramp pointed me, now running in the opposite direction to which I had been going before. While it would have been advantageous to use the ramp to go down more levels, the last thing I wanted was a pursuer looking down, and seeing me galloping down the ramp several levels below. I very much doubted they would think to look for me along my current route, one which would soon put me underneath their facility. I would, however, start heading away from the outer wall soon, then twist and weave a new route towards another stairwell. Elevator twenty eight, with its accompanying stairwell, was just too obvious a destination now. That had been quite a run! It was a good thing I enjoyed running across H'ven, because that was how I had spent the last few hours. My modified body held up to the stress of it better than my original one had, and even that would have been okay after a stint like that. I hadn't seen or heard any hints of possible pursuers, so I figured I was 'safe' for the moment. As per my original plan, I had managed to get down to sublevel twenty one. After at least an hour of working my way towards the center of the level, I had come up against a walled area that was different to those I had encountered before. It was a giant box, for lack of a better description, made of metal plate held together with heavy riveting as well as welding, all a rusty brown in color, in contrast to the bluish-grey of the remainder of the corridor. The way its walls interfaced with the floors around it suggested that it wasn't actually attached to them, but rather was held in position with vibration damping mounts. Its sides probably extended both above and below the current level, not that I could see past the soft mountings. The other thing that made this box distinct was that it was noisy. Humming and hissing emanated from it. I pressed a hoof against it, and could feel the low frequency throbbing that the vibration dampers were preventing from being transmitted to the surrounding structure. So this was probably one of those mysteries I was looking forward to solving. If I considered everything I didn't know about H'ven a mystery to be solved, this certainly qualified. What was H'ven? What was its purpose? I could not believe ponykind began here, in this sealed environment, despite what some would have us believe. Curious as to what it hid within, I decided I would spend a little time exploring it, but it would have to wait until I had something to eat and drink. The hissing from within the structure could have possibly been made by escaping steam, and where there was steam there was water. A supply of water was one of those problems I hadn't sorted out yet. Moving to the darkest place I could find in the area, a shadowed area mid distance between lamps, I lay down. Removing my saddlebags, I rummaged through them, pulling out the food I had taken from the staff dispenser, and one of the bottles of water. I devoured the food with some enthusiasm, glad I had brought it along, as my body wasn't yet ready to provide the biomass the food generators required to be able to make more edibles. I suspected any excess water my body had been holding had evaporated way in the form of sweat. After filling myself, I lay there, just thinking about the day, the changes to my body, and 4J2. Eventually, I brought one of my modified hooves up before my face, mentally reconstructed it to its original form, then watched as it changed, and quite quickly at that. I wondered what else it might be possible to form, but didn't have the inclination to actually try anything. Perhaps a hook could help climbing ladders, but fingers already worked well enough for that task. Perhaps I could form blades or weapons, but I really didn't want to hurt anypony. Perhaps it was just limited to traction control. That was a restriction I could live with. Hey, maybe I could make flippers for if I ever found myself in a significant body of water. As I lay there, thinking these things through, my thoughts became tangled, and I let them go, drifting towards the black nothingness of a sound sleep. Everything else could wait until later, whatever it may be.