With considerable dismay, I stared down the stairwell the flashlight had fallen. To have dropped it after the considerable effort to find one to steal from Central, was just sooo... ugh. If this stairwell went all the way down, the poor thing would have fallen to its doom. Chances of it stopping on a step part way down were negligible, because even if it hit one and didn't bounce, it would surely roll. Ah, my poor friend, our relationship was so short. I will miss you.
Was it worth the effort of trying to find it?
Bugger!
As I pondered my problem, I studied the structure down which I would have to climb. That had been the plan anyway. A nice set of complete stairs might have been safer... well, safer until I got bored and started launching myself from the top of each flight of stairs, and bouncing off the wall at its foot, freerunning style. That wasn't going to be possible here, or was it? I still had the walls. Whether or not I could safely land and launch again was a different matter. Too much floor was missing... Hang on, what was going on here? I was plotting a course down a set of stairs that I thought I could no longer see, due to it being totally dark, except I still could see it relatively well, albeit lacking any color. Ah, that was right, I'd experienced a similar effect when I jumped down the elevator shaft at Central.
I raised a hoof in front of my face, and studied the reflections on its shiny black surface. There were two rings of light, distorted by the shape of my hoof. Each showed a hint of color - orange. I moved my hoof around, watching what shadows it threw. There was no doubt about it: the source of the light was my eyes themselves. It would appear that I had glowing irises. Hellspawn had glowing eyes. I had glowing eyes, even though my head had not been converted like the rest of my body... or had it? It wasn't shiny and black, but at the very least, my eyes had been enhanced. I figured I could really scare a few ponies up top by creeping up on them in the dark. I had a quiet chuckle at something I would never have the chance to do. The most likely outcome would be for their glow to give away my position to those that may be hunting me, should I ever be hiding in the dark.
So I could see in the dark... in monochrome. Bugger! I really was going to miss my flashlight.
I decided to proceed down to the next level. It wasn't very far, and the state of the stairwell door on that level might prepare me for what I would find lower down. If there was no other way out, there was little point in taking this route. I carefully jumped from stair to stair until I got to the remains of the first landing, where the stairs doubled back to continue their downward trend. There I had to carefully navigate the mangled door I had propelled down here. Once past that, it was back to jumping from stair to stair, checking before each jump that the next stair really was at the expected position. It would be embarrassing, painful, and quite possibly fatal to try to land where one was missing!
Arriving safely at the landing for the next level, I studied its structure (most floor plates were missing), and that of the door (which wouldn't budge, presumably because it had been welded shut from the other side, much like the one above). Okay, that could be a problem. There wasn't much space to stand, and to get the door to open, I would have to kick it through its frame, and that was a whole different story to kicking a door out of its frame in the same direction in which it usually opened. I carefully positioned myself to give the thing a good kick. Considering how far the last door flew, I was worried about launching myself should the door not budge. I figured aiming for the dead center of the door would be the best, as it was the least supported. I positioned myself so that if I went flying, I would whack into one of the steel beams that supported the remaining steps.
I braced myself, counted down to give me time to psych myself up, then WHAM! Well, it wasn't entirely successful. The door was still there, but on the good side, so was I. Studying the door, I found the impact had distorted it, so I positioned myself again, and let it have a few more good bucks. On the fourth attempt, I felt it move considerably more than it had on the previous kicks, so I turned to inspect it again. It had taken on a decidedly concave appearance, and the edges had pulled away from the frame, implying that the welds had either broken, or the material of the door itself had torn. I gave it one more hard kick, then inspected it again. This time there was definitely a gap along the side. A couple more good kicks would probably knock it clean out of its frame, assuming I couldn't simply grab it and rip it open. As I didn't actually wish to access this level, I decided to declare the experiment a success and return to my descent. I had a good laugh thinking about what the door would look like from the other side, and the questions it would raise in the mind of whoever found it. They would probably conclude it was welded up to keep some sort of monster inside!
Anyway, it was time to get back to the task at hoof - going down. What level was I on now? I couldn't remember. Who cared? I didn't. All I knew was that I wanted to be a lot lower. I wanted to be eighty levels below the surface. It was time to go back to jumping over the gaps and onto the stairs that remained.
Soon I was bouncing my way down again, my mind wondering what I would find on the lower levels, and if the reason this stairwell had been decommissioned would make itself clear. I had quite a nice rhythm going, completely forgetting that a rhythm was bad in a situation where the unpredictable could happen, like the unexpected five step gap I had just leapt into the middle of. I realized my mistake as my hooves failed to land on anything solid. If only I could have gone up physically as fast as my adrenaline levels rose! It was simply too late to adjust my trajectory, or even try to reach for anything nearby as I plunged through the space. Okay, this wasn't the end of the world. There were more steps below to land on, well not that set, I thought as I plunged through the narrower gap a floor below the first step I had missed. My angle was good for the next level down, so I clanged onto the step, crouching as my legs absorbed the energy from the fall. Phew!
I stood there breathing deeply, letting myself calm. It wasn't as if that was the first time I had come unstuck; it was one of the hazards of freerunning on a course with which I was not familiar. Even scouting out a path before I took a run didn't always work. Sometimes a pony would move something into my way, or even simply get in my way themselves. As it was my personal policy to never allow another to become injured due to my freerunning, if there was any way to avoid doing so, I would take it. I had been known to make risky jumps into the unknown to avoid hitting other ponies. I had dropped a storey or two doing that on my old genuine pony legs, and come away uninjured. These bio-robotic things I had now could take a lot more punishment than that. They didn't even ache: not even a twinge.
I looked through the gap beside the step on which I was standing, judging distances. A calculated bounce had me dropping through the opening, and landing on the step one level below. That saved a lot of effort, and was a lot quicker! After trying that again three times, I decided it was safe enough to continue doing so. I figured my rate of descent would be marginally slower than that of a regular elevator. Woohoo!
Eventually a jump brought me onto solid floor. I knew I hadn't descended far enough to be down on sub-level eighty. I figured I was probably closer to sub-level fifty, yet this was where the stairwell ended, so I had no choice but to leave it and explore. Hey, my flashlight was around here someplace!
Five minutes of shuffling around staring at the floor eventually located my poor flashlight, as battered as it was. It no longer worked (oh what a surprise), so I tucked it into my saddlebags to examine later. Perhaps its crystals had been dislodged. I hoped so, because the alternatives were not so repairable.
Now that my treasure had been reacquired, I turned my attention to finding a way to either continue my descent, or to leave the immediate area so I could find an alternative 'snake' down which I could slide. I looked up at from where I had come. It was quite a way, not that I could see much beyond three or four levels above me, and even then, only as shadows varying darkness. I sincerely hoped that the only openable doors were not the two right up there, where I had started. It wasn't a climb I particularly fancied.
And thinking about up there, by now it was likely that Crimson was trying to explain the inspector's demise, and helping to rescue his corpse. I wondered if I had been mentioned, and if anypony would try to find me. This time, I felt no urgency to keep running. If they found this stairwell, they wouldn't be eager to climb down here on the chance that was where I had gone. Even if they were determined enough to follow me, their descent would be perilous, thus slow.
After another brief tour of the area, this time looking up, instead of searching the floor for my flashlight, I found I was in what appeared to be a vestibule for several other establishments. The doors were sealed up of course. The first bore faded remains of a sign that declared it to be the such and such laboratory. I imagined it was signs in this condition that had lead to H'ven getting its weird name in the first place. The dva p'ns eve'nt Labo'ies made just about as much sense as H'ven did. Some of the gaps were spaces, some were missing letters. At least the Laboratories bit was easily guessed at. The next sign had somehow survived in a lot better condition, suggesting that the other had been deliberately vandalized. Celestial Body Simulator Emergency Control Room, it read. What, in Luna's name, was a celestial body?
Surprisingly, both the lab and this control room still had hoof scanners, despite the doors being welded to the frames in a few places. It was time to do some aggressive exploring. These rooms reeked of mystery, and mysteries were what I was chasing. I put my hoof to the scanner to the control room and waited. It took a few moments for it to even respond, presumably because it had to scavenge power reserves from somewhere, or request rerouting, but it did respond, and with the message I was hoping for.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the scanner requested. "Qualifications accepted," it stated after the mandatory pause. The door did not move, but I was expecting that, seeing how it was welded shut and all. "The door is malfunctioning. Standing by for remedial action. Please engage the locking mechanism after maintenance has been completed," the scanner added.
That was mighty helpful of it, I thought as I turned my rear towards the welded door, and applied 'remedial action' with my rear hooves. On the third buck, the welds gave up their grip and the door slammed open. As if struggling from lack of power, some feeble lights attempted to light the room, although at their weak levels, it didn't do much to restore my color vision. If anything, it tinted everything amber. From within the room wafted the stench of ancient, decayed insulation and other smells I associated with stagnant electrical equipment. In this case 'mystery' reeked a little more than I had expected...
Entering, I found myself in a moderate sized room, surrounded by heavy cabling and equipment racks of thoroughly outdated switches and relays. Cables snaked from these across the floor to the central feature, some sort of rotating drum-like assembly, or more correctly some sort of drum assembly that looked as if though it should be rotating, even though it wasn't currently doing so.
As it appeared to be central to what was going on in here, both hypothetically and physically, I approached the drum assembly. Even though it was made of corrosion resistant material, it still exhibited a patina of extreme age and neglect. Within the drum itself was a complex gear-chain, driving concentric ring gears just within the perimeter of the drum. Cams rested on each of these rings. Unfortunately, old oil and grease residue gummed it all together, any lubricating properties of the substances long since gone.
I figured this machine was an elaborate timing device. Looking closer, I discovered regular dark patches in the grime on the rings suggested there were deliberate markings buried beneath the gunk. Rummaging in my saddlebags, I extracted the old lab coat, and using it as a cleaning rag, began to carefully rub at the surface of the rings. It would not do to scrub away the markings in my enthusiasm!
Gradually the symbols appeared as the grime thinned. I was relieved to find they were etched into the surface, so there was no chance I could accidentally erase them. I increased my effort, scrubbing with some enthusiasm. Even so, the rings themselves were locked in place, either by their gear trains or by the solidified lubricants. Finally, with the rings almost shiny, I stuffed the rag back into my saddlebags and set to studying the machine.
One of the symbols on one ring was familiar. It depicted the crescent shape of Luna. Other symbols on the same ring had Luna sequentially changing shape to become a disc, before shrinking down to nothing (represented by an empty circle), before changing back to her recognizable shape again. The axial thickness of an associated ring slowly rose for half of its circumference then ramped back down over the other half, bring it back to its starting height. Could this ring represent Luna's position in the sky? So, Luna was a celestial body, a simulated celestial body? And what of the changing shape? Was Luna meant to change shape over time?
I glanced down at a monitor panel below the timing device. A row of decidedly vintage panel lamps, all unlit, were in a column down the left. To the right of each was a label bearing text with which I was unfamiliar. I could read the words, but what they meant was unknown to me: Sun, Moon, Lunar phases? Star Map, Season. Okay, there were a few words with which I was familiar. But what were sun and moon, and why was Luna spelt wrong? Lines on the panel indicated the moon and lunar phases were related, so Lunar phases had to be referring to the changes of shape of this moon thing. I concluded Luna had to be the popular name for the moon.
With further study and a lot of conjecture, I figured this machine's purpose was to control the various aspects of H'ven's weather. Summer meant the sky dome was lit longer, while the short winter cycle had daylight reduced to less than half of the hours in a day. These changes were represented on one of the rings. Luna's position and shape, or phase were determined on another pair of rings, as well as further rings controlling the star map and another simulated celestial body called the sun. On the panel, somepony had hoofwritten Celestia beside sun. Of this sun, Celestia, I had never seen any sign.
So control of our day and night was all laid out as little rises and falls in a few metal rings. They didn't even use a computer! I didn't know whether to be shocked or not. The condition of this equipment implied that something was seriously wrong with the whole system, H'ven wide, as even though this was some sort of emergency backup system, it clearly wasn't in use when it should be, because whatever was controlling the system now was clearly broken.
For how long had the Hellspawn been hunted? Was the situation so dire that they only ventured out of hiding to repair systems that affected their own well being? I could fully understand why they wouldn't bother with a system that for all intents and purposes was cosmetic, and only for the benefits of those above.
How long had we been trapped in this bottle that collectively, we could forget something as fundamental as the sun and moon, entities deemed significant enough to simulate? They weren't even in legends or breezie tales anymore. They were even more lost than the name of H'ven itself!
It seemed I was discovering more questions than I was answers. I wondered if any of the Hellspawn knew the answers.
I sincerely hoped so.