//------------------------------// // Chapter 0008 Simply Pneumatic // Story: For the Good of All of Us. // by Caps_Luna //------------------------------// Despite the fact that some of the Pneumatic tubes were flexible, most were made of a steal hard plastic compound. Scootaloo made mental note of this fact as she as her friends were tossed around inside the clear pipe at high velocity. Unfortunately the trio wasn't alone, the pipe was filled with a variety of derelict, but certainly very odd, junk. There were cubes, swivel chairs, strange oval shaped white robots, different cubes with dark glass lenses installed on them, and an occasional desk or two. Scootaloo made note all of this as she climbed over a stack of the metal cubes that had their corners raised and a glowing ring on each of their faces, by far making up the largest portion of the derelict and abandoned objects in the air pipe. The circular pipe was os cluttered with them and a few other types of cubes that to the crusader it felt she was in a small sloppily built tiny house made of the bizarre boxes instead of bricks, and with a constantly moving glass vaulted ceiling. A house that felt like it was in an small, but annoyingly bipolar, tornado. GLaDOS seemed to be having trouble keeping the air flow up, so the makeshift cube room would usually simply drag along the bottom of the pipe; a process that was interrupted by interrupted with sudden jolts where the tube sprang to life and the air lifted the clutter of objects then subsequently died back down, dropping the suspended passengers or packages. In addition, the slow drag sometimes stopped altogether for a brief moment, tossing around the crusaders and all other objects abandoned in the clear transit pipe around. "This is a really weird place to make cutie marks," The pegasus thought as she pushed one of the glowing blocks out of the walls of the 'room' and let it fall. "Oomph." She recognized the voice of her friend. "Apple Bloom?" "Scootaloo?" "You're O.K!" Squealed the scooter jockey, climbing up to the hole she had made and saw Apple Bloom was surrounded by a similar array of junk. "Yah, why wouldn't Ah' be?" red maned pony asked, to be answered by sliding pile of junk coming to another abrupt stop and the cube walls and floor rearranging themselves again. "Oh yah, that." "Yah that. Anyway have you seen Sweetie Belle?" "Na,' not yet," the pegasus saw one of the filly sized blocks that made up Apple Bloom's compartment slide outward like a Jenga piece the promptly fall out of place, striking the earth pony in the back of the head. "Ow! think I found her." Sweetie Belle jumped up onto the cube that had supported the other cube that had just been dislodged and hopped into Apple Bloom's compartment. "Present," the unicorn said, oblivious of striking her friend with the cube.. Scootaloo decided to pull herself into Apple Bloom's space as well, hooking her hooves over the dividing wall and furiously buzzing her wings for additional, but relatively minor support, to do so. After clearing the hurtle, she allowed herself to free fall for the whole entirety of one cube length, satisfied with the metallic clank her hooves made on the mysterious metal cube bellow. "So guys," she asked, "What do you think our special talents are going to be?" "I have no idea," Sweetie Belle answered. "Really?" Apple Bloom answered / asked. "What?" the questioned. "Uh it's nothin' Ah' jus' thought you would get your cutie mark in you know...singin'." "Didn't we already try that?" Scootaloo pointed out. "You know with the whole talent competition thing." "Yah Apple Bloom, wouldn't I have gotten it already from that?" "But..." she was cut of by another voice interrupting. "Please initial landing procedure," The voice of GLaDOS sounded from seemingly everywhere. The AI paused and then corrected herself with, "Oh wait, you are new here. I seem to have forgotten that fact while due to rapid influx of data telling me all about how hopelessly damaged the facility is; I hope we can get those cutie mark conveyer belts running again. Good luck with the immanent high velocity impact. Scootaloo felt the makeshift cube structure shift as the pneumatic tube gave one last labored forceful breath. Then her surroundings exploded away. One moment she had been sitting on pile of cubes with her friends then the next instant she was airborne, along with everything else in the pipe. The small intimate makeshift cube room had become a shot gun blast of blocks and other junk, all falling toward the ground at a... "How far down is the ground anyway" she thought with growing fear. "Everything in this place is so tall we could easily fall forever or... Scootaloo realized she was laying down on the ground, or well a cube on the ground. "Or not." Her new surroundings looked much different from the equipment locker Rick had taken them through. The sound absorbent ceiling panels were there, although incredibly damaged. and the lights inset to them gave off a dim glow that wasn't the best light the young Pegasus had seen but it was leaps and bounds better than no lights at all, particularly since her headlamp had vaporized in the blue light wall. The room was not a hallway either, it was cubic (surprise more cubes) and at least twice as tall. The walls were panels, but ones covered in large sheets of faded peeling orange linoleum. She was unable to see any of the completely ground as it was covered in debris from tube. With no warning whatsoever, Apple Bloom materialized in front of her face. "Some drop huh? What was that, like Two feet?" The yellow filly pointed one hoof at the tube jutting out of one of the walls that was actually a good 2.5 feet from the current ground level. "Yah that wasn't even scary at all," the pegasus lied. "Excellent, I can see al least two of you have survived this impossibly easy drop, which isn't even suppose to be a test." GLaDOS's voice was coming from a very worn out looking rusted steal cased square camera on the wall. "I hope you two are much better at this than subject Sweetie-Belle" As the machine finished, Scootaloo felt herself rise then once again hit the ground as the cube she was laying on was pushed out from under her. As she got to her hooves she saw an exhausted looking Sweetie Belle crawl out of the hole where the cube was. "You were on top of me.... and there is no air down there," the unicorn gasped. "Sorry." "Oh good, Sweetie-Belle is still alive. You really had me worried the pieces that you were dead Sweetie-Belle, because I just care about you three so much. "Well it's good tah' know that you would care if we died," the earth pony commented sarcastically. "Indeed. Anyway your modified Aperture Science Little types Handheld Portal Guns, which I am currently modifying your unique equine morphology, are right behind the only door in this room. All three crusaders looked around to find that there were no doors in the room, which prompted the camera to do the same. "Oh it must be buried under all this useless garbage. Sigh." (the AI said the word sigh rather than making a noise that could be described as such. "I remember when I had my own piece of useless trash running around here, but then I had to let her go. Oh but look at me reflecting on memories no...pony... wants to hear. Anyway let me get the door for you In response to the garbage floor near the far wall sank down in a deep 'U' shaped depression as the now fluid pieces of junk rushed through the opening door. "Well, come on guys! Let's go." Apple Bloom cried before trotting over and into the trash valley "Yah!" Scootaloo joined in while doing the same. At the lip of the trash valley she saw her fellow crusaders yellow flanks squeeze through a small opening that was formed by the top of the circular door and the surface of the garbage avalanche, which made the pegasus decide to follow suit. It was a tight pinch, if only due to her reluctance about exerting pressure on her sensitive wings, but she made it through withe ease. Scootaloo let gravity do the rest of the work and slide her down the slope of derelict objects. The new room was another aged linoleum coated mess, this time though it was a hallway with a blue theme instead of orange. "Excilent now we only need to wait for Sweetie-Belle," came the voice from beyond the walls. And so they waited... and waited... and waited... "Aww for Celestia's sack! What's taking you Sweetie Belle?" Apple Bloom called to the opening at the top of the door. "Yahh it's been like thirty seconds Sweetie!" "Sack?" questioned the AI "And potentially more importantly "Celestia?" "I told you it's 'Sake'!" Sweetie Belle corrected as she pulled herself through the opening. "Ah' still think it Princess Celestia has a burlap sack filled with wishes." "What would an immortal Alicorn princess want a bag of wishes for?" The pegasus decided to let them resolve it this time by themselves. "Well, if Celestia is the ruler of Equestria then isn't it her job to grant wishes." "No, her job is to administrate and stuff like that. And She is the co-ruler of Equestria, don't you remember princess Luna?" "No." "Uhhh." "While I am quite seriously interested in the topic of your conversation, and will press you about its subject latter, could we get back to fixing this facility and getting you your cutie marks? " "You betcha," Scootaloo answered for the arguing duo. "Good, all you need to do is walk to the other end of this long long hallway, for now at least. "AWWW," all three groaned. "does it have to be a long long hallway?" Apple Bloom asked "Do you not want cutie marks." "No, we do want them," the earth pony answered. "More than anything!" Sweetie Belle added. "Then walk to the end of this long, looong, loooong, looooooong, Lllllllloooooooooooooooooonnnnnggggg hallway. ============ Meanwhile at the royal canterlot gardens... That felt weird, let's never do it agin, not that you have any choice in the matter. ============ Luna rounded another corner of the royal hedge maze, knowing full well that her pursuer was right on hooves. To her absolute terror, she was greeted with a shaggy green wall of well trimmed hedge. "A dead end! No! How could this be a dead end! How could this be the end?" the immortal (or was it simply an indefinite life span? You never wonder about these ting until times like this when it matters most) princess thought as panic started to fill her frame. There was the drum of hoofbeats, chasing down the Regent of the Night with a rage unmatched by furry of Tartarus. "Well Luna, seeing as we're about to die, I wanted to tell you again that you're the best friend I've ever not tried to kill," Wheatley glumly informed her. It was two late to respond. Before the Midnight alicorn could respond, her chaser rounded the same bend and pinned her to the ground, sending Wheatley rolling into the bushes. "Luna!" Celestia roared from on top of her younger sister, her eyes replaced with white lamps out of rage. "You have done that which cannot be tolerated! For that, you must by punished!" The younger alicorn quaked beneath the elder. "Sister..." she pleaded to deaf ears. "Silence!" the regent of the sun commanded harshly. "Princess Luna, for your crimes I hear by sentence you..." Celestia paused dramatically while lowering her horn to her sisters her sister's chest. "Nooooooo!" "TO TICKLE TORTURE!" With that, a golden aura surrounded Luna. "No please anything but... whahahahah that. Sister I beg ... pffffft hehehe... of thee to stop this... Bwahaha... Thou knows HA! How much I dis-s-s-s-s-ly-y-y-yke the tickle... haha... tourture." "That's why is called torture, sister!" The bright white alicorn said with playful mock distain. "Wait wait just a bloody minute! We were only running from Tickle torture!" The golden aura dissipated and Celestia let Luna quickly get to her hooves upon noticing Wheatley in the bushes. Both alicorns cheats turned from blue and white respectively to a deep cherry red. "Perhaps I maybe exaggerated when I used the term 'dire consequences'" shyly admitted the princess of the night. "What did you think would happen? That I was going to decapitate my sister over a little prank involving magic removable marker." "Kind of, ya! You still have no idea what it was like where I was from do you? I mean what was the point of all that story telling if you were just... just going.. to. go... to sleep? But you know what all that is besides the point! You can't just go throwing around worlds like 'dire consequences' and 'torture' like they were tufts of lint, or you know whatever you ponies throw around at each other harmlessly. " Both princesses looked down, slightly ashamed of their little game. "I would also feel less mad if, i don't know, SOMEONE GOT ME OUT OF THE GOD FOR SAKEN MUD, it feels like there is a party of snails having tea in my gyroscopic processor." Luna scratched at the ground with one hoof and pulled the core out of the muck underneath the hedges with her deep blue aura. "Sorry" she muttered to the mud soaked core. "Wheatley..." Celestia chewed the word over in her mouth, as if to try to remember if that was his name, "please allow me to explain..." "Please do!" "... See my sister and I have been engaged in a prank war for the last few millennia, minus a recently ended thousand year plus hiatus. We often do these mock execution/takeover things, just for fun. When the opportunity arose of course I went into it full swing and I kinda forgot you existed for a while, though I did meet your space friend he was... interesting." "OOOOH, everyone just loves him, glad to see you like him more than me!" "Oh come on; I was being sarcastic! You're less annoying by a long shot!" "Sure I am." Celestia merely groaned for a second before continuing. "The point is I am sorry if I scared you. Look the point is you seem to be one of the few friends Luna has made in a thousand years, although I must say I thought of Luna's friendships progressing over days and not hours, so don't take it out on her." "Apology accepted." "Please... wait really?" "Yes really. "Huzzah!" Luna chimed in. ============ "Well you've finally made it to the end of this hallway..." "Well it only would have taken us five minutes of Sweetie Belle could walk faster," Scootaloo pointed out to the Ai as she neared a circular metal vault style door. "Hey!" "I'm sure that's true, Sweetie Belle is the physically slowest of your group, though her mental faculties are certainly not the least." "Hey Ah' think you're talking about me there!" Apple Bloom exclaimed glaring angrily at the ceiling, for lack of something else to direct her anger at. She was answered by what sounded like a slow clap, though it lacked the hard rigid sound of hooves, sounding something more like two wet noodles slapping together. "The last hor- pony crosses the finish line again! "Why do you do that?" the yellow filly whined, while putting on her best "puppy dog-eyes" look. "Oh come on! That was incredibly funny! Oh wait you aren't familiar with earth's idioms... never mind I was making a small joke that was obviously not understood. I did not mean to offend you and, If it makes it any better,I have no actual data regarding your intellectual capabilities yet. Nopony moved. "Well I know what will cheer you right up! A portal gun!" The vault-like door rumbled as its internal mechanisms whirled around, unlocking the gateway. The door split in half retracting into the ceiling and floor, revealing a small room the size of a walk in closet with a single Pneumatic tube hanging from the ceiling. There was a whirling noise and an elevator like the one they had previously ridden on with Rick slid down the tube, opening to reveal a set of twelve boots pilled on the floor. Nine of the said boots was made of a hard white plastic with a strange loopy thing at the heal, the other three looked like miniature portal guns with an added plate at the operation end of the device to assist walking. Scootaloo was the first to try a portal boot on, immediately shoving her hoof into the nearest one. There were three smooth buttons at the end, each easily depressed by a conscious hoof movement but not so sensitive that they became a burden while walking. The pegasus experimentally popped a portal on two surfaces, the orange a blue ovals successfully connecting to each other. "This is Awesome!" she shouted with glee. "I thought you might enjoy it. Everypony please grab one hoof held miniature portal device and three long fall boots. Enter the elevator when you are ready." "Ah' hav a question," Apple Bloom stated while shoving her rear hooves into a pair of long fall boots. "That's nice Apple-Bloom." "Why did ya' need to pump us here if you were only going to use the same kind of tube to bring us these thing?" "Wow that is actually a valid question, you have thoroughly exceeded my expectations. The Aperture Science pipe network is dilapidated and not all lines are connected, so I need to find a place for you and the portal guns tp meet, an the most opportune place to do that was here. Now that all of you are ready please step into the elevator. It was a small elevator, perhaps designed to accommodate one pony rearing, and Scootaloo remembered that the last time they had fit into one all the way back with Rick, it had been a tight pinch. Still, the orange filly was undeterred, and hoped into the the narrow can and filled of to her left to make room for the others. Apple Bloom, with similar enthusiasm, did the same on the right, leaving exactly a filly's space between them. Sweetie Belle squeezed her way in tail first, Scootaloo felt herself being squished, one side into the side of the lift and the other into the unicorn. "Why are these things so tall and not wide?" The alabaster filly questioned, wriggling her flanks to affirm that she had no room in which to wiggle. "Ouch stop! We'll jus' have to ride like this," squealed the yellow coated compressed filly "Very good, my little Crusaders. Well not really, but you look like you could use some cheering up. Now we need to turn on a nuclear reactor in the old part of the facility, back in the day when we didn't make cutie marks. Regardless I need that reactor on in order to turn on the main reactor, and since I currently lack any functional reassembly machines, I'm stuck with you. Hang on this may be an extremely bumpy ride. With that GLaDOS activated the tube, pulling the elevator upwards. Scootaloo felt the gees increase as the elevator was overcome by an inky darkness, but they were crammed in to tightly for her to be moved at all by them. She wondered if she even needed her hooves for support anymore, and was about to pull them close her body to see if she would fall or simply hang between Sweetie Belle and the wall. However things literally took a turn for the worst; without warning the Pneumatic tube suddenly bent at a ninety degree angle, shaking the fillies loose and scattering them on the new floor / former wall. The Pegasus felt blindly across the curved surface until her hoof collided with what felt like Apple Bloom's mane. She never could tell though because the "elevator" took another shape turn, on the same plane but in a new direction. Inertia forced the fillies into a sandwich pinned to the former floor. Scootaloo felt her body being crushed between the floor and one of her friends. Just when momentum should have let up, the tube made another right turn. The pegasus was constantly squished and battered from one wall to another like a pinball during the whole short trip. It felt as if the tube and the laws of physics had conspired to kill her. Then suddenly there was relief, and the pain died down to a headache almost instantly. The sensation went further though, going from simply relieving the pain to a felling of weightlessness. The moment didn't last though and the dreaming pegasus slammed into her two friends, suddenly on top of the dog pile. The elevator had inverted itself relative to it's starting position, with the ceiling now acting as the floor. Light would have made this whole process much less scary, but one can't be picky when they are offered free cutie marks. Surpassingly none of the fillies screamed the whole way, for fear that if they let their leave during their scream they would never be able to breath in again. Then the lift stopped. As suddenly and abruptly as it had done everything on its tumultuous journey it stopped. Scootaloo wondered for a moment why their was still no light, and if the door would open again. The crusader was only given a moment to wonder, for in the next the floor that had once been a ceiling dropped off of the elevator like the top peeling back from a soup can. The pegasus foal felt the air rush past her she free fell into an inky abyss, she heard her fellow crusaders screams of terror as they plummeted into the dark void alongside her, she even knew every nerve in her body should be telling her to join them in fright; but the fear never came. Instead something deeper inside her awakened, and she burst into an uncontrollable peel of laughter. Free falling was one of the most awesome experiences the filly had had in her life up to that point! So manny indescribable sensations accompanied the soothingly cool caress of the wind resistance. "This has to be what flying is all about!" she thought aloud. Then the crusader opened her wings into a nose dive, pretending she was Rainbow Dash about to do a Sonic Rainboom. She didn't even have to close her eyes to let her mind imagine, the unmolested darkness of... wherever they were (does it matter!) could do that for her. So she let the air dry out her open blind eyes, only to see what it would feel like to have that happen. Scootaloo wondered if she could ever go that fast under her own power, then did a midair summersault while picturing herself doing a loopy loop. The sensation of weightlessness was exhilarating! Unfortunately the ground always has to wreck everyones carefree decent sometime. "What are you three doing?" the voice of their Ai friend called into the abyss from what seemed like hundreds of speakers, manny rushing by at what would have been a blinding speed if not for the lack of light. "Your long fall boots won't work unless you have all four hooves squarely facing down." A healthy dose of fear came alive again and she did what she was told to, reorienting herself to try mimic standing up normally but in the air. "Sweetie Belle! Apple Bloom! STOP FLAILING YOUR LEGS. If you keep doing that you won't get your cute marks! And you'll be dead!" Scootaloo could only hope her friends did that as she focused on her own controlled fall. Any second now they could hit the ground and if her fellow crusader- *bang* The freeze stopped and the filly felt her mane whip down on her neck. "What that's it? What did they put in these boots? Before she could mentally push the question any further there were two more banging noises, which was much better then hearing something like a splat. Whatever little room they were in was suddenly filled with a thin ray of dust polluted light on three sides, but before the pegasus could process her surroundings the floor gave out, sending them falling again. This time though they were quickly interrupted by the ground, this time in a well lit room. Well, it was a room all right, a massive geodesic spherical room. A little below the equator of said sphere was a murky brown liquid that was hopefully at least partially water. Stadium lights, like the kind used to play cloud ball, rose up from the coffee colored sea and bathed the weathered space with light. However the space was mostly populated with green plywood panels, mounted on rusted steal frames in a low tech analogue of the rooms they had seen above. The structures these panels made had hopefully seen better days, as there were holes in the walls and floors everywhere. Still the surfaces down here certainty lacked the kind of damage afflicting the facility up above, having no dirt or decay visible on them. A brief look up reveled that the cutie mark crusaders had been falling through a square aluminum vent, much like an air conditioning duct only much bigger. A hatch swung to and fro limply on the end of the construct, apparently this was the first floor the crusaders had landed on though was quickly defeated by their weight. The crusaders themselves found themselves and a small platform made of a rusty grate that was connected to the olive drab plywood maze by an equally rusty catwalk. "Oh Good! I was just about to get ready to fill out an unintended casualty report, but once again you three have exceeded my expectations," GLaDOS's voice rung out from several old looking race track style speakers, "Remember the Humans I mentioned before, the species that built me? Lets just say that: Aperture Science has lost a very high quantity of human test subjects that I am not a liberty to disclose due to test subjects not trusting or misusing their long fall boots. Anyway just don't fight your gyroscopic stabilizers or kick your legs and you will be fine, speaking strictly in terms of long falls that is. "So what exactly are we suppose to do here?" Sweetie Belle questioned the Ai while quickly glancing around to take in the ancient sphere. "Good question Sweetie-Belle! Your intellect clearly adequately compensates for your vastly inferior physical abilities. This vent was the easiest access rout into the reactor. As far as exits go, well lets play that one by ear.You are merely two spheres bellow the exit point for this testing circuit, which will grant you access to the maintenance areas of the old facility, so we can get that nuclear reactor online. "Ah' don't even know what a nuclear reactor is though!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "A most invalid observation, Apple-Bloom. You are lucky that your physical fitness levels negate your logical deficiencies. I will be able to communicate to you the whole time, thus negating the need for any of you to be licensed reactor operators for Aperture Science Innovators Fission Reactor# 3. So just push the buttons I tell you two and nothing will go wrong. Ignore me, and all of Equestria is doomed. " "Wait what!" Scootaloo shouted in frustration. "You never said anything about Equestria being in trouble!" "Well not for a couple hundred years or so." The AI's statement was received with confused glances. "Allow me to elaborate. The second nuclear reactor that we are going to turn on, R-37, contains several hundred tons of nuclear weapons grade uranium, which the scientists deemed necessary over normal reactor grade uranium in order to safe money on space. The reactor is currently in 'S.C.R.A.M.' mode, which essentially means it's off. However without the power R-37 rand the reactor down here provide, I will be unable to repair or power the equipment needed to maintain R-37. Thus, a this main nuclear reactor is doomed to structural collapse eventually, which is bound to eventually cause at least one fission sustainable critical mass of uranium to form. This critical mass will cause a runaway nuclear reaction. " The crusaders simply glanced around the spherical room, for lack of a face to direct their confusion at. "So what ecactly..." Sweetie Belle started. "...Does any a' that stuff mean?" her earth pony friend finished. "Huh," GLaDOS electronically groaned in frustration. "To simplify, Imagine a gaint tank filled with magic metal, with me so far?" "Uh-huh" all three nodded in agreement. "And i need you to flip a switch in this tank to make the magic work." The machine paused again to make sure her impromptu employees were following her. "Uh-huh." "And I need this magic to work to fix the tank, and if I don't fix the tank it will break." She paused again. "Uh-huh." "And if the tank breaks... there will be a runaway fission reaction." "Wha'?" Apple Bloom asked, her face scrunching up in confusion. "I stopped understanding at 'runaway fission reaction.'" Sweetie Belle informed. "I think 'runaway fission reaction' was where you lost on the first try," Scootaloo remarked sarcastically rolling her eyes. "There will be an explosion! If we don't get the power back to minimum levels eventually there will be a gigantic explosion that will cause a rain of deadly radioactive poisons! This could end life and therefore test subject recruitment and therefore science as we know it! Please tell me you understand that. "Y-e-e-e-s" Sweetie Belle murmured while shaking in fear of the computers angered outburst. "Good." "Hey GLaDOS I've got a question for ya'." Scootaloo stated nonchalantly, not phased at the slightest by the digital triad. "It's GLaDOS.. ohs, oh wait. You got it right. This is my first record of you mentioning my name and I am frankly surprised you got it right on the first try given that it has been a full thirty seven point five two eight minutes since I told you what my name was. Congratulations. The pegasus waited for the awkward silence to thicken to be sure the computer was done speaking before she addressed her own inquiry. "So while this big picture junk is nice to know, you still haven't told us what we are supposed to do right now." "That was not a question but your intentions are obvious... well obvious enough at least. This is an old derelict testing sphere. These structures built above the water line are test chambers designed to test Aperture Science Intra-dimensional portals, Aperture Science Intra-dimensional portal accessories, and non portal related Aperture Science products. This is where was where science used to happen, here a generation was able to raise the technological tier of the world by what normally would taken centuries to equal. This facility was once the engine of future, and it was left here to rot. Isn't it just crushingly sad what sentient organic lifeforms can do>" "Oh look at me getting off on that old tangent again! Anyway right now all you have to do is find the exits without dyeing. Protocol prevents me from helping you solve these tests, but I can inform you of certain hazards. Besides that and the prerecorded messages you are on your own." "No pressure." ========== Sorry this chapter took so long, I've been doing things productive in school for a change and doing some stylistic rewrites on the previous chapters. remember your criticisms, thoughts on the chapters, and general comments are greatly appreciated and actually very helpful.