Chapter Six: Hardware Failure
~BlackRoseRaven
Thorn's eyes opened, the colt gazing up at the ceiling of his room before he reached up and silently rubbed at his shoulder. He carefully rubbed down it to the metal-lined socket in his stump, closing his eyes tightly and shivering a little as he traced around it, feeling a distinct tingle before he gave a soft sigh. Horses of Heaven, he'd been such an idiot...
He shook his head slowly, then finally sat up, saying quietly: “Lights on. Main screen, turn on.”
There was a beep as the lamps in the ceiling came to dim life, and then the large, glass screen mounted on the wall beside his data manager clicked on, images and statistics spilling across the glowing screen. Thorn frowned a little at these, then rubbed absently at his eyes before he sat up and brushed his covers back, asking nervously: “Computer, what are the current power readings?”
The screen flickered, and then a large pie graph appeared, and Thorn frowned as he wiggled forwards across the bed, studying the image intently. A squiggly line graph appeared as well, but the colt ignored this as he instead muttered: “Why are the generators running so low... and why is so much power being siphoned to Genesis... unless...”
Thorn shifted quickly to the side, hopping off the bed and landing with only a little bit of awkwardness on three legs. He stumbled only a little as he made his way quickly to a large rack only a few feet away from his bed, the unicorn's horn glowing and carefully lifting his silver-steel prosthetic limb free.
He set it carefully down on its steel hoof in front of him, then he stepped forwards and shifted his shoulder so that the plug on the end of the limb pressed against the empty socket. Then he grunted and dropped his weight forwards as he yanked upwards with telekinesis, wincing as it popped loudly into place with a crackle of electricity.
Thorn rubbed at his mechanical limb for a few moments, and then he stomped the hoof absently a few times, feeling the complex machinery gearing up, responding to his thoughts and movements. He honestly had no idea how it really worked: he just knew that Hecate was a genius, and he trusted her when she said that it would work just as well as his natural leg would. The only difference was that, well... no matter how advanced the technology became, he would likely never able able to truly feel anything through it, ever again.
It was powerful and durable and self-repairing: some kind of magic or technology would make any minor damages done to it simply vanish within a few hours, and he could speed up the process by polishing it with a special goop that Hecate had given him. He had been wearing it every day for the last few months, and so far he hadn't had to bring it in for any repairs: Hecate really had outdone herself, he thought.
Then he shook his head quickly, clearing his thoughts before they could become bitter. There was something more important to focus on right now, anyway: something was going on at Genesis, and he had to find Hecate and find out what that was. There weren't any scheduled events he knew of, and Hecate would have warned him if she'd planned something, unless some kind of other emergency had occurred...
“Main screen, turn off!” Thorn called as he headed to the door, and the glass screen shut itself off with a click as the colt used telekinesis to press the button for the exit.
The door whirred weakly, and Thorn blinked and watched as it rose a few inches... then stalled with a clank, and Thorn winced as the lights of the room flickered weakly before they suddenly went out, the machinery in the door cutting out and leaving only an inch or two of space between the bottom of the door and the floor.
The colt winced and leaned down, looking awkwardly at the gap before he sighed a little before he reached forwards and carefully wiggled his mechanical hoof into the open space. He gritted his teeth, then hauled slowly upwards, wincing as he heard the machinery grinding and groaning inside the frame of the door.
He carefully let go of it once he was sure that the door wasn't going to fall, and then he quickly ducked through the space before yelping and leaping forwards, looking over his shoulder with a wince as the door slammed closed behind him.
Thorn looked uneasily up through the corridor as lights flickered weakly throughout the hall, Thorn absently biting at his metal hoof for a moment before he shook himself out and hurried down the corridor, every now and then tossing little, worried looks up at the ceiling.
Something was definitely wrong. Thorn stumbled a little over his own hooves as he made his way quickly down the corridor, tracing the now familiar route to the facility's exit. With the power flickering in and out, it took him a little longer than usual to navigate the confusing corridors and find better ways down than the malfunctioning elevators.
Of course, once he reached the doors, he found himself with another problem: they worked off a motion sensor, which currently wasn't functioning thanks to the low power. The colt awkwardly knocked on the doors, then hopped up and down in front of them uselessly before he looked nervously at his prosthetic leg, flexing it slowly before he mumbled: “I... well...”
Thorn bit his lip, then he leaned forwards and levered his mechanical limb firmly into the narrow space between the doors, making the machinery in the doorframe squeal before Thorn gritted his teeth as he slowly forced the door open, wincing as he felt the machinery in his foreleg grinding together before he hurriedly leapt forwards and through the heavier-than-expected doors.
He stumbled a little over the street, then turned his eyes quickly down the road, frowning nervously as he noted the dimness of the streetlights, and the fact that quite a few of the buildings didn't seem to have any power. But he could vaguely hear the sounds of machinery in the distance, and it was getting louder the closer he came to Genesis.
Thorn reached the castle after a short trot, and his eyes widened as he found a mass of Dogmatists and several enormous drilling machines all hard at work. To Thorn's shock, it looked as if part of the front of the castle had collapsed.
Except as Thorn hurried forwards, he realized that something else was wrong: Genesis was strangely... slumped, he thought. The colt bit his lip as he hurried towards a portable stage, where Hecate was standing with several screens floating around her, the mare's mechanical hands moving quickly over these as she said calmly: “Dispatch another team of Worker Drones to quadrant A-3. Make it priority. And send another Chimera Type into the breach. I need an uplink and I need it now.”
“What's going on?” Thorn asked quickly, and Hecate frowned a bit, making Thorn wince and mumble an apology.
“Scan the area. I want both visual and thermal scans, and I want them all assessed and analyzed within three hours.” Hecate ordered, and then she dismissed the screens around her with a sharp wave of a hand before she turned towards Thorn. “A Dogmatist made an error and stored thermal reactive explosive next to an exposed pipe.”
“The pipeline tests were scheduled for today... oh Horses of Heaven. Was anyone hurt?” Thorn asked worriedly, and Hecate scowled, making the colt wince a bit. “I mean... what are the estimated damages? How much has integrity fallen?”
“Genesis itself is at a critical point. Unfortunately, because of our excavation and the fact we've been using the castle as a means to access the Clockworks beneath Decretum's surface, part of it has already collapsed into the machinery below. We have to shut down the master gear and reroute power from other active sectors as soon as possible.” Hecate said calmly, scowling as she looked out over the ruins of the castle. “Once that's accomplished, we'll begin demolishing the face of Genesis.”
Thorn nodded hesitantly, biting his lip as he looked over the ruins of the castle before he asked hesitantly: “Can I help?”
Hecate scowled over at him... but after a moment, it turned thoughtful, the mechanical mare studying the colt for a few long moments. Because of her... promise to his parents... she didn't want to put him at risk. But at the same time, her logical mind said... “Yes. You should still be small enough to follow the fissures down to the sublevels. I want you suited up, Thorn, and then I will send you with a security orb to trigger the overrides. Can you handle this for me?”
Thorn trembled for a moment, eyes widening, feeling a mix of elation and fear... but then he forced himself to nod quickly and salute, whispering: “I won't let you down, Mom.”
“Queen Hecate, when we are on business, Thorn Blackfeather. Keep your emotions and duty separate.” Hecate replied calmly, but she was smiling a little all the same... and she felt worry as much as she did confidence that Thorn could handle this; more importantly, was the only capable pony on hoof who could not only reach the sublevels, but who would be able to follow her directions to deal with the override procedure. “We've already set up a data link here. Patch in to it and requisition your equipment, Thorn.”
“Yes, Queen Hecate!” Thorn nodded again with a smile even as his eyes betrayed some of his worry, chewing on his lip before he leaned forwards, concentrating as his horn lit up. Hecate watched with perhaps the smallest bit of pride as Thorn brought up a wavering holographic screen in front of himself: his mechanical arm had all the necessary components to link into Decretum's data points, but it was actually powered by Thorn's own magic, to avoid making the synthetic limb too heavy or to put too many compromising parts in it.
Thorn reached up his mechanical limb, swiping his metal hoof along the image to scroll quickly through various maps and data fields before he finally settled on an updated map of Genesis. He tapped on this, and Hecate watched with interest as the colt started to sweat a little, his horn's glow stuttering: it was strange but very interesting to her that while Thorn had such difficulty focusing his magic, his telekinetic powers were already exemplary.
Hecate softened a little as she thought of the data orb that Thorn had managed to bring up out of Decretum: he'd thought it was some kind of specialized security drone or prototype, but really, it was a system control node, which ran AI systems and logged data. But that made it even more valuable to her than Thorn could have possibly realized. It had shortened her own work on AI construction considerably, and it would allow for much easier implementation of both the virus that would flush the Clockwork King programming from Decretum, and establish her own AI design.
The mechanical mare crossed her steel arms as she watched Thorn start to stumble through the crowd of Dogmatists, trying to multitask and head for the equipment registry even as he went through the authorization process to sign the equipment out. His magic was flickering, his gait was unsteady, and yet Hecate smiled ruefully all the same. Thorn was still trying, after all.
She shook her head slowly, and then she forced herself to refocus on the task at hoof, eyes returning towards Genesis. The damage was much worse than she had told Thorn: part of her was tempted just to scrap the entire castle, and build some new structure in its place... or perhaps even convert it to an open pit that would stretch down into Decretum's depths, for material loading and unloading.
But that would be giving up, and it felt like she would be making a concession to Valthrudnir's idiotic plans and the ugly world he'd built. And furthermore, Genesis was supposed to be the crown, the centerpiece, to Imperia: a city she had built almost from the ground up. Admittedly, that was why they had gone much faster with its construction, since the Drones and Dogmatists had much less difficulty building than repairing...
No, she wasn't going to let Canterlot be taken away from her again. Hecate scowled at the castle, then summoned a holographic image with a wave of a steel hand, looking down at it and quickly scrolling through structural information as other data appeared on her lenses, along with calculations made by the computer part of her brain.
The mechanical mare studied these quickly before she heard a quiet beep in her mind, frowning slightly as she tilted her head down and images began to scrawl over her right lens. Structural changes, abnormalities that had been detected, continuing damages... yes, there was what she was worried about, and what would pose the biggest danger to Thorn. Even if power was being disrupted and rerouted, some of the systems were still operating on a 'never-off' principle and refusing her overrides. These machines were pumping energy throughout Genesis, trying to keep broken machinery operative... but with how the castle had crumbled, the dangerous chemicals used as fuel were instead leaking everywhere throughout the castle, and bare wires and broken machinery were sparking and steaming with almost-malicious lightning, just waiting for a victim to fry.
She paused the replay of the images the security drones had gathered, and started to quickly organize them in her mind, as her mechanical hands tapped rapidly along the holographic screen in front of her, mapping out the most profitable route for her ward to take. But it would still be dangerous for him: protective suit or not, she had no idea how some of these chemicals might affect him if they made contact with his body, in particular thanks to his father's peculiar heritage.
Hecate scowled a little as a strange thought whispered through her mind: not just worry for Thorn but... hesitation. She wasn't used to feeling hesitation, or any kind of doubt about what she was doing. She didn't like that the emotions she usually kept repressed and compartmentalized were now interfering with her logical mind, and she didn't like that she was having idiotic thoughts about 'protecting' Thorn by sending some drone to do this job for him.
But every drone had failed, and she knew that Thorn would succeed. He was small, nimble even with his prosthetic leg, and... adequate at following instructions. And with a security orb with him to scan out dangerous areas and map the route he was taking, he would be in minimal danger.
This made sense. This made Thorn useful. This worked to everyone's advantage. And yet all the same, Hecate felt... distracted and uneasy. She was sending Thorn down into the place where he had originally lost his leg, putting him into danger, making him deal with security protocols that she should have someone trained in engineering and mechanics modify, not a little colt...
She was asking a colt who didn't even have his cutie mark to do something that she would never have asked Thesis to do at the same age.
Hecate closed her eyes tightly for a moment as she saw her son in her mind, smiling happily up at her, proudly wearing his cadet uniform. He was strong, and smart, able to do anything and everything he put his mind to: he was honorable and happy and everypony liked him, she thought.
A flash, and she saw what Thesis had become, the stallion clutching his head as he tried to fight the mental programming and the chemicals that were pumped through mind and body by the exoskeleton on his back. He looked desperate, terrified, agonized-
Hecate's eyes snapped open, and her mechanical body shuddered before she quickly returned her attention to the holographic screen in front of her, tapping over it and scowling as she dismissed the useless memories. Thesis might have been perfect in a lot of ways, but he had always had a weak will. Thesis had been a genius, but he had never had much common sense. Thesis had been flawed. Thesis, ultimately, had been weak.
She looked coldly down at the screen, trying to drive the memories of Thesis away, even as she felt a gear strip in her chest. But she ignored it, her mechanical hands instead working quickly along the holographic projection as she plotted the simplest and least-dangerous route she could find for Thorn to take..
Thorn was agile for a foal... but he still stumbled, slipped, and lacked stamina. Thorn was smart, but he didn't learn as fast or retain information as well as plenty of ponies did. He was strong... but that was in part because of his mechanical foreleg, which he had taken to relying on far too much. He was enduring... but he dealt with his pain badly, always crying a little or whimpering even as he pushed through the pain. He was talented with telekinesis... but he couldn't move a great amount of weight, and nor was he very good at magic. He tried his best, but he rarely exceeded Hecate's expectations of him. And sometimes, he didn't even manage to meet them.
But Thorn did have one thing that she had rarely witnessed in a foal so young: a stubborn, strong will. Thorn couldn't be dissuaded by candy or gifts, couldn't be distracted by flashy images or lights, couldn't be ordered not to do something when he got it in his head that he needed to do it. He was always striving to prove himself, always pushing himself to do better: that was why, in spite of his mild pain tolerance and his tendency to try and deal with more than he was prepared for, Thorn all the same tended to struggle his way through any task he was given.
That reminded Hecate of his parents. His parents had been a lot of things, good and bad: chief among their worst characteristics was their tendency to be stupid, and their idiotic pride. But one of the best things about them had been their stubborn refusal to let anything slow them down: it was that strength and endurance that had made them the strongest ponies she had the not-always-pleasure of having known.
Hecate smiled wryly: and now here he was, calling her 'Mother.' Well, fine. If it suited him, she would allow that. He was an impressionable young colt, still, and in all likelihood he had been told before his parents had left to treat her like another mother. Perhaps Thorn didn't even have a real grasp of what that word meant, considering the family unit he'd grown up in.
Hecate paused, replayed her own thoughts in her mind, and then she scowled a little as she moodily made a correction in the course she was plotting through Genesis. She was a lot of things: ruthless, cruel, cold, and bitter. But she was rarely so childishly spiteful. She shook her head in disgust, feeling a strange reminder of the mare she had used to be dance through her mind: so obsessed with making everything pretty and perfect, who had calmly discussed 'bad things' she had no concept of, as if she had any right to judge...
She still didn't judge. She aspired to help with the order and structure of a flawed universe that too often favored idiots and chaos, but she did not seek to pass judgment. She didn't care if someone was 'good' or 'bad;' she only cared if they posed a threat to the natural laws of balance. She wasn't here to say this world or that ideal was better, but to preserve the worlds as they were: if those worlds rose or fell under their own power, she would allow it. But her watchful empire would intervene if there was any interference in these worlds from any outside source, be it another realm of ponies or something more malignant.
Sure, Valhalla and Helheim both did what they could to protect the realms: neither realm wanted to see their supply of fresh souls drying up, after all, as the energy harvested from living creatures and the bioelectric phenomenon known as 'souls' was what kept Heaven and Hell running. But Heaven and Hell had plenty of their own troubles to contend with, and they tried to keep their hands out of tampering with the physical worlds: the realms of Midgard were treated as their own territories, and left to be responsible for their own actions and the consequences thereof.
Hecate paused, then glanced down and grunted, quickly tapping on the authorization request from Thorn that finally came through. It had taken him long enough... but she noted that at least he was also already at the tent where the emergency equipment had been set up, so she couldn't complain he was wasting too much of his time.
She didn't bother to check what he'd requested, verifying his request and permitting the handler to pass out whatever it was Thorn wanted: the colt was smart enough to know what he'd need, and if he wasn't, well... he would just have to find alternate paths. And speaking of which...
The mechanical mare brought up Thorn's data bank, then uploaded the map she'd just finished to it so that he could bring it up on his own data screen. As the data was compiled and transferred, Hecate absently stretched her free arm out, a hidden plate sliding open in her armor before it ejected a security orb into the air, the glass ball gleaming as it sparked into life and floated for a moment, awaiting orders.
Hecate glanced up at it, then gestured moodily outwards, saying calmly: “Active eye mode. Find and accompany Thorn.”
The orb gleamed, and a moment later, translucent images appeared over the lens on Hecate's left eye, letting her look down at herself as the little camera in the orb transmitted everything it was seeing to her. The image was distorting and a little jarring, but Hecate was well-used to this by now as she smiled thinly, saying shortly: “Proceed to task.”
The security orb spun around, homing in on Thorn's last known location to 'escort' him. If necessary, Hecate could relay her voice through the little orb as well, to give Thorn orders, scold him or 'encourage' him if he froze up.
Meanwhile, Hecate turned her attention back to monitoring what the drones and Dogmatists were doing, while at the same time running an analysis on the structural integrity of Genesis. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to be weakening further: yet all the same, if they could just shut down the master gear beneath this quadrant and the accompanying generators, she was sure that they could stop the decay of the castle and stabilize it.
Hecate paused briefly as a pony was highlighted on her left lens, and she gave a slight smile: Thorn was already suited up and heading towards the castle entrance. Well, at least it was nice to see the colt was taking this seriously.
Thorn glanced up curiously as the security orb revolved quickly around him before he smiled in relief: he was actually happy to know that Hecate would be keeping an eye on him. He knew that she would warn him if there was anything wrong ahead, and the security orb would have a much easier time finding climb and travel points than he would.
Still, the colt was afraid, and on multiple levels: there wasn't just the fear of being hurt again, but also the fear of screwing up and making Hecate disappointed in him... and in his mind, which for all its maturity was still the mind of a twelve year old colt who had come to idolize his mechanical matriarch, that was much worse than losing another leg.
The colt did his best to keep focused, striding forwards and breathing slowly as he kept his head up and his eyes forwards. He slipped back and forth through the crowd of Dogmatists and drones, not letting the sights or sounds distract him as he headed for the gaping entrance of Genesis.
He had already memorized the initial entry plans: some of the rails still seemed to be intact, so he would hopefully be able to just slide his way right down into Decretum's lower levels. Engineering and the workshop areas were heavily reinforced, so they would likely still be intact, and as long as he made it down there he would be able to follow the rest of whatever route Hecate had planned out for him.
Thorn glanced over at the security orb, then gave a hesitant smile before turning quickly back ahead and hurrying onward to the lip of the entrance. There were lines of Drones going back and forth here, but everything was surprisingly neat and orderly... even if now that he was here, Thorn could see the extent of the chaos that Hecate's order was trying desperately to stop from growing any worse.
The castle had been reduced to something near ruin: Thorn had thought the outside had been bad, but the interior was in complete ruin, the floor little more than jagged and half-collapsed stone. The colt frowned uneasily as he shifted back and forth on his hooves, noting that the parade of drones was passing for the most part along bridges and marked areas of flooring that had been fortified or otherwise patched.
Thorn stepped nervously into the ruins... and winced as the floor immediately shifted under his hoof. The security drone beside him only buzzed impatiently ahead, however, and Thorn grimaced before he hurried across the floor, wincing and whimpering a little as pieces of floor shifted and creaked beneath his hooves, the stallion breathing hard as he made his way quickly towards the cracked archway where the security orb was floating. And then his eyes widened in surprise as the orb instead veered to the side, heading towards a large fissure in the wall, and the colt began nervously: “Wait, shouldn't I-”
The orb beeped at him insistently, and Thorn winced but then nodded quickly, scurrying after the hovering, gleaming ball. He winced as part of the floor shifted, making him stagger a little before he caught himself near the edge of the archway, then hesitantly straightened and stepped carefully forwards to poke his head into the fissure, gazing nervously down through the shaft.
The colt watched uneasily as the orb dropped through the shaft, the glow surrounding it brightening and lightning up the narrow passage. Thorn realized after a moment it was some sort of broken drainage pipe... but it looked as if the only thing that had passed through it for quite a long time now was dust. It also looked like it would be a rough climb down, but Thorn could see a few ledges here and there... and well...
He glanced at the satchel of equipment on his side, then reached back into it to pull out a thin, magnetic hook on a long black cable, which fed into a thick, band-like device he slid around his mechanical leg. The colt took a breath... then simply hopped into the passage, letting himself fall into the pipe as he slung the hook to the side with a wince.
It clanged loudly into something, then sparked as it sealed itself against the steel, while Thorn gritted his teeth as the cord unraveled rapidly behind him... but then it snapped taut, and Thorn was left hanging with a wheeze from the cord before he rubbed uneasily at his mechanical foreleg.
He carefully released his grip on the cord, simply dangling from it by his metal limb, and the device around his steel wrist clicked before it started to gently lower him. Thorn's horn lit up as he looked back and forth uneasily, casting an eerie blue glow around him as the security orb whizzed down through the pipe: a pipe that now seemed far deeper and eerier than Thorn had thought it would be at first.
He touched down after almost five minutes of slow descent: lowering into the unknown didn't make him nearly as nervous as the fact that every now and then, he could feel and hear the rumbles running through the castle around him, and once he even saw part of the pipe crack as the whole structure had shifted. He felt apprehensive as he carefully tested the pipe beneath his hooves... but this felt more solid, at least.
The colt looked up, then he pressed down on the device around his wrist before he yanked hard to the side, and there was a sharp buzz before, high above, the magnetic hook clicked loudly as it fell. Thorn nervously looked skywards, his horn glowing as he created a telekinetic net above his head... but even though he was expecting the hook, he still yelped when it dropped out of the darkness, startling him... although thankfully not enough to dispel the psychic net he had caught the hook with.
He shook himself out, then tapped another button on the side of the device, and a small motor began to whir inside the device as it sucked up the loose cable. After only about half a minute, the long cable had retracted, leaving only a little loose along with the hook. This was half-draped over Thorn's neck as he turned and began to stride down the pipe in the wake of the impatient security drone, which was beeping at him insistently in the distance.
“I'm coming!” Thorn finally said as he approached, and the beeping from the security orb finally cut off with an almost huffy sound, the colt smiling lamely. “I want to stay prepared, that's all.”
The orb only beeped when he drew close, then it spun around and shot onward, Thorn sighing and following the glass bauble as he said hesitantly: “Hey, don't... go too far ahead, okay? The footing here seems really uneven, and-”
There was a crack, and Thorn froze up, biting his lip for a moment before he slowly looked down to see that part of the floor had bent out of place beneath his hoof. He shifted nervously, then made a natural, if foolish, error: he tried to shift his weight to his mechanical leg.
His metal limb pushed down and tore through the thinned metal like paper, Thorn yelping as he fell and slammed face-first into the metal pipe, the impact causing him to tear through the steel and drop through the worn-out piping. He barely had enough time to realize he was falling before he slammed down into the ground, however, crying out in pain... but thankfully, the tough body suit warded off the worst of the sharp edges and broken pieces of metal he landed on, even if he still felt distinct pain as some of the broken steel all the same penetrated the armory bodysuit.
He shoved himself quickly up, gasping as he shivered and hugged himself, scratched and bruised. The security orb quickly shot down to him, scanning over him as Hecate's voice said sharply: “Thorn!”
“I'm okay, Mom, I-”
“Queen Hecate. And you're an idiot.” Hecate snapped, and Thorn dropped his head between his shoulders... but he thought that all the same he could hear relief in her voice as well. “We've talked about this in the past: your mechanical leg is calibrated for gentle movements, but that means you cannot push with it when trying to shift your weight. Use it as an axis, not as a support. Understood?”
“Yes, Queen Hecate. I'm sorry. Am I off course?” Thorn asked quietly, and there was silence for a few moments before the security orb turned and buzzed quickly ahead, then beeped once, and Thorn smiled as a light shone out from it, indicating the way to go. “Thanks... I mean, thank you. I'll keep on course this time.”
The security orb only beeped grumpily at him, and Thorn dusted himself off before he touched a rip in his bodysuit: it had already sealed itself, but he thought that he was bleeding under his clothes, and he felt a distinct pain in his shoulder...
Well, there was no time to check. For now, Thorn forced himself to walk forwards, breathing slowly and making his movements measured and controlled. A dull ache throbbed through his body... but after a few minutes of walking, it loosened.
He had apparently fallen into some kind of service corridor: the walls looked like they were starting to buckle under the pressure from above, but the floor seemed strong and stable, apart from the occasional crack. Yet all the same, the security orb was hurrying him along, and Thorn had the sense that something had either shifted in the last few minutes, or Hecate was detecting something outside that was starting to make her nervous... neither of which were good things, obviously.
Thorn halted as they reached a fork in the hall, but a moment later, but the security orb whizzed around in a circle before it glowed, and a moment later projected a holographic map, complete with their current location blinking quietly on it. He studied this thoughtfully for a few moments, then murmured: “Okay. I see where you want me to go.”
He took the left passage, and he soon found it starting to slope downwards, biting his lip nervously. The slope was surprisingly gentle for one that also clearly wasn't natural: it looked like a jumbled pile of rocks and stones and broken plates of metal, forming a slipshod path down into a canyon of broken cement.
The security orb buzzed on ahead, then suddenly halted and beeped as bright light shone out of the orb, lighting up the wreckage ahead and pointing out a large fissure in the floor. Thorn slowed as he approached this... then he stumbled back with a yelp when there was a gasp of steam out of the hole.
He slipped and hit the slope hard, and broken rock and plates crumbled immediately under him, breaking free: in panic, Thorn grabbed wildly at the slope, but his panicked movements simply tore more of the loose slope free and sent him skidding down to the hole in the ground. The security orb beeped wildly, zipping back and forth, but it was helpless to do anything as Thorn slipped over the edge and fell into the chasm.
Steam vomited out over him from a broken pipe, and Thorn cried out in pain as he twisted away from it in midair... only to hit a ledge chest-first. He gasped in pain as the sharp edge tore through his clothing, then he flopped backwards and crashed into something else, a pipe jarring out of place and black chemical splashing out over his suit, Thorn only able to cry out again as he spilled helplessly forwards.
He hit the ground, prosthetic-first, and he felt an agonizing blast of pain through his shoulder as the mechanical limb sparked violently and whirred loudly. He felt something hot, and wet, spreading slowly over his back, and Thorn whimpered quietly before he slowly tried to reach forwards... but his mechanical limb gave another sizzling squall, and Thorn weakly turned his head to see that the prosthetic was sparking violently, covered in sticky black chemical that was eating slowly through the metal and had apparently already gummed up or destroyed the gears inside.
He breathed quietly in and out, then instead wiggled his other foreleg forwards and grasped into the ground, half-yanking himself along the gravelly floor. His mechanical limb buzzed and crackled as it dragged uselessly behind him, and Thorn shivered a bit as he stumbled up to his hooves... then whimpered as he looked back over himself, seeing his bodysuit torn and covered in more of that reeking chemical.
He reached up and touched his face, trembling: he could smell it, feel it in his hair and over his features, too, but... it wasn't burning there, at least. He shivered a little, then looked nervously at his mechanical foreleg, which was still steaming and buzzing away: was it was some kind of special acid that only ate metal...
Thorn nervously reached up and touched his mechanical limb... then yelped and drew his hoof quickly away, shaking it out in surprise. It had actually felt quite hot...
He shivered a bit, biting his lip for a moment before looking up as the security orb shot down towards him, quickly twisting around the stream of black fuel spilling down from the broken pipes above. It scanned him quickly, darting back and forth around him, and Thorn lowered his head almost as if ashamed, whispering: “I'm sorry, Queen-”
“Enough.” Hecate's voice cut off curtly, and then she said in a quieter tone as the drone started to float away: “This is too dangerous. There's a chemical storage room ahead sufficiently strong enough to act as a bunker. Stay there until I can have a Dogmatist retrieve you.”
“N-No.” Thorn blurted, and the security orb swiveled towards him, as if surprised. “I... I want to finish this, I just...”
Thorn looked apprehensively at his damaged mechanical foreleg... and then he bit his lip before reaching up and untangling the loose grapple hook from around his neck – not realizing how fortunate he'd been not to end up choked by it during his fall – and then he carefully pressed a short pattern along the edge of the prosthetic, closing his eyes before he grimaced a bit and twisted.
There was a loud hissing, and a moment later, his mechanical limb fell free with a clank, sparking uselessly on the ground. Thorn clutched his stump for a moment, shivering a little before he hesitantly touched along the socket, murmuring: “I don't think this was damaged at all.”
“Thorn. You are not strong enough, and you are not trained for this. You cannot succeed with three legs. Go to the room ahead, and wait.” Hecate ordered.
The colt looked at the security orb for a few moments... and then he took a slow breath before raising his head and stuttering: “N-No. I'm... I'm going to go and finish this b-because... because I must be below engineering, r-right? I... I want to go down into the Clockworks.”
There was silence for a few moments... and then the security orb buzzed almost disconsolately before Hecate said moodily: “There's an air vent ahead. You can use that to access one of the turbine chambers, and take another vent passage down to the Clockworks. Take your rappel.”
Thorn smiled and nodded hurriedly, turning around and quickly wiggling the device off the abandoned prosthetic. He used telekinesis to slide and secure it onto his flesh and blood limb, then quickly hung the loose cable and hook around his neck.
He stumbled his way carefully down the hall, careful with how he shifted his weight along on his three legs. But every night, he exercised his limbs and worked on his balance, both with and without his mechanical leg: only now Thorn was really starting to understand precisely why Hecate had always been so insistent on that, though.
The colt found the grate he was looking for without much trouble: it was already most of the way out of the wall, thanks to shifting of the castle. Thorn used telekinesis to carefully wiggle it the rest of the way free, then gently set it aside so he could duck down and crawl into the vent, the security orb floating behind him almost apprehensively as Hecate said moodily: “Be careful, Thorn. You don't have much further to go, but you are...”
She stopped, and Thorn paused in the vent, looking curiously over his shoulder at the security orb before Hecate sighed and said in suddenly-soft voice: “Just be careful.”
Thorn smiled, then he nodded and turned, breathing slowly as he wiggled his way carefully forwards through the vent passage. He reached the other side, and half-fell off a short ledge into the room beyond with a wince, flinching in pain. Then he awkwardly rolled up to his hooves and pushed himself up to a standing position, looking nervously at the massive turbine in the center of the room.
This was an air circulation chamber, used to pump air down into the Clockworks: most of the Dogmatists and plenty of the other servants of Decretum still needed to breathe, after all, and the air down here tasted stale even when the turbines were running at full power. But this one, at least, was shut down: Thorn wasn't sure if Hecate had stalled it, or if the shifting of the castle had caused a rupture in its power grid or something similar.
The floor beneath him was grated, letting him gaze down an empty, wide shaft that led down into the Clockworks: Thorn studied what was below for a moment before Hecate's security orb said irritably: “Here, hurry up. Stop wasting time. Structural integrity is dropping.”
Thorn nodded and quickly staggered his way over to a hidden trapdoor. He scrabbled at it for a moment, then gritted his teeth and instead used telekinesis to heft the heavy hatch open, wincing a bit as he managed to lever it up before he caught it with his hoof, then grunted and slowly pulled back with both his foreleg and telekinesis, finally managing to yank it open.
It clattered down with a bang, and Thorn looked nervously into the hatch before Hecate instructed sharply through her security orb: “Lower yourself slowly. Slowly, Thorn. The machinery below is malfunctioning and working erratically.”
Thorn nodded hesitantly, then he carefully shrugged off the hook before gently tossing it a foot or so away. It clattered against the metal grating, then simply laid there, and Hecate sighed in exasperation. “Hook it into the grating, Thorn. The magnets won't activate automatically with this patterning of material.”
The colt blushed, then he stepped forwards and picked up the grappling hook, carefully working it down into place before wincing when the hook sizzled and then clanked loudly as it secured itself to the steel floor. Thorn pulled absently on the cable, then he hesitantly began to step backwards before Hecate said quietly: “Remember. Keep a firm grip, Thorn. And don't just hang. Your foreleg doesn't have environmental adapters.”
Thorn nodded a few times, taking the cable into his hoof as he stood for a moment at the trapdoor, and then he took a slow breath before leaping forwards with a wince into the open air. The cable caught against the corner of the trapdoor before it gave a rude jerk on his forelimb, the colt wincing and penduluming, almost losing his grip.
But after a moment, he caught tightly onto it, swinging weakly back and forth and making a stuttering descent into the Clockworks as he winced and forced himself to look down, flinching only slightly when a blast of steam vented out of a ruptured pipe. He looked nervously back and forth before the security orb whizzed down beside him, revolving once around him before Hecate said coldly: “You do not have a clear landing zone beneath you.”
Thorn quickly looked straight down, then winced and pulled on the cord he was dangling by as best he could, slowing his descent to a crawl as he said nervously: “I... I think that I can make it...”
Straight beneath him was a large piston, which was smoking and clanking up and down rigidly, with no visible pattern to its movements. Thorn bit his lip as he looked uneasily at this, but while the piston was moving erratically, it was also moving slowly: it didn't seem capable of jerking more than a foot or so up or down.
“Thorn, swing over to that gear.” Hecate ordered, and Thorn grimaced a bit... but then he nodded hesitantly as he looked towards the gear in question: it was tilted slightly and jammed by several chunks of debris, and he could probably reach it...
The colt drew his hind legs back before kicking them hard forwards, swinging himself out... but then he realized dumbly that he had no way to actually grab onto it while he was holding on to the cable, thanks to only having one foreleg. But it was still a little beneath him, and he thought that maybe he could actually swing himself onto it if he built up enough momentum...
He swung backwards, then kicked hard out, swinging himself forwards as hard as he could. Then he winced as he came up just short, flailing his rear legs at the enormous gear but coming up just short, the colt whimpering under his breath.
He swung backwards, then looked up with a curse as the cable twisted in his hoof, the colt kicking his legs uselessly before he looked over his shoulder... and stared in horror at the sight of the broken piping and sparking electrical cables he was swinging towards, the colt kicking his legs wildly before he quickly snapped his horn forwards and unleashed a powerful blast of telekinesis.
It rebounded off the wall and smashed into him, but in his panic, Thorn had lashed out with much more power than he'd meant to, sending himself swinging sharply backwards and spinning out of control as his hoof slipped from the cable: the result was that Thorn ended up slamming back-first into the edge of the gear, the colt crying out in agony as he bent painfully before his rear legs kicked over his head and he ended up landing in a painful bellyflop on the enormous cog.
He gasped weakly, trembling for a few moments as his foreleg clutched convulsively at the edge of the gear... and then he clenched his eyes tightly before he slowly forced his trembling limbs under him, even as his whole body shook with pain and tears ran down his cheeks.
The security orb buzzed quickly around him, scanning him... before it suddenly bleated and shot upwards, looking towards the ceiling as a rumble passed through the room. “Thorn, structural integrity is still declining!”
“Show me where to go.” Thorn whispered, and the security orb floated down in front of him, and Thorn could almost feel Hecate staring at him through it as he looked silently into the glass ball, before smiling faintly and whispering: “I trust you.”
The security orb buzzed for a moment... and then Hecate growled in irritation before her voice muttered: “This way.”
The orb spun around and floated quickly over towards a counterweight that was jaggedly moving up and down, and Thorn took a slow breath before he used telekinesis to quickly yank off the device around his wrist, tossing it away. The grapple would be useless down here, anyway: there were too many moving gears and erratic machines. He was just going to have to take it slow...
Thorn watched as the counterweight descended, then stopped and sparked before rising again: he noted that even though the speed was variable, it still had to ascend or descend all the way before it could start jerking in the other direction. Then he glanced at the security orb in surprise as Hecate said moodily: “The control box you're looking for is on a lower level. Fortunately for you, that means moving down through the mechanisms, not up.”
Thorn nodded hesitantly, then he bit his lip before whispering: “I can do this.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Hecate said quietly: “I know.”
The colt smiled faintly over at the security orb, and then he took a slow breath before turning his eyes ahead, carefully setting himself. He looked uneasily at the counterweight, watching as it ascended in a burst before clanking, then starting to drop...
Thorn readied himself... then jumped the moment the counterweight fell, landing on it with a thunk and stumbling on his three legs with a gasp of pain before he half-fell into the greasy rail the counterweight moved along. He winced and straightened... then yelped when the counterweight jerked to a stop, steam hissing out beneath it.
“Jump left!” Hecate shouted, and Thorn didn't question her, only turned and threw himself blindly away from the machine. He fell, for long enough to wonder if he'd missed his mark... then crashed painfully down onto the surface of a large, slowly revolving plate, gasping in pain.
“Thorn! Get up!” snapped Hecate from the orb, and Thorn began to drag himself to his aching hooves before his ears picked up the sound of hissing...
He looked over his shoulder, and stared in horror at the sight of the electrical grid the wheel lazily revolved through... and he was heading right towards. Thorn hurried to his three legs, then broke into an awkward, staggering canter, gasping in pain as he yanked himself along as he headed to the edge of the disc before his eyes widened.
The security orb had shot down to a set of pistons that were arranged side-by-side, pumping in broken rhythm. But it was narrow, and he was scared, and the distance was so far and he...
He had no choice.
Thorn threw himself into the air, kicking off with his rear legs as hard as possible... and he crashed down on the first piston in the row. But it stuttered under his landing, and Thorn fell forwards, bouncing off the second piston before he crashed off the side of the hot steel pipes beneath him.
There wasn't even enough time to cry out before he collided with several cables, and Thorn managed to wrap one of his legs around one of these with a whimper, dangling from it and trembling hard. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he breathed harshly in and out, his whole body aching, his body trembling, and there was nothing but darkness and spinning gears beneath him, waiting to crush him, destroy him, swallow him up...
“Thorn.” The security voice floated down in front of him, and Thorn whimpered as he looked at the glass bauble as it seemed to stare resolutely back at him, before Hecate said quietly: “You can use this cable to pull yourself across to one of the distribution towers. From there, it should be easy for you to reach the control station for this quadrant's master gears and power supply.”
“I.. I can't...” Thorn whispered, trembling as he looked up at his hoof, which was desperately clutching the cable. “Mom, I'm... I'm gonna fall, y-you... you have to send-”
“Then you fall.” Hecate said callously, and Thorn whimpered a little at this, staring disbelievingly at the security orb before Hecate said calmly: “You got yourself into this situation, Thorn. If you want out of it, then you get yourself out under your own power.”
“B-But-”
“Enough, Thorn. You heard me.” Hecate said icily, and Thorn whimpered and lowered his head before the mare said in a quieter voice: “Every second you waste leaves you weaker. You know what you have to do.”
Thorn bit his lip, and then he took a slow breath before swinging his legs back, then kicking them upwards with a whimper. The first missed, and Thorn dangled, trembling and shaking... but after a moment, he repeated the movement, and this time managed to kick his legs high enough to wrap them around the cable, leaving himself dangling by all three limbs.
He breathed quietly for a moment, eyes tightly closed before he gritted his teeth and began to shuffle his way slowly down the line. The security orb followed him, Hecate watching silently through the device as he crept his way carefully along the line.
After almost twenty minutes, Thorn finally reached the massive pillar the cable stemmed from, the colt looking down at the platform some ten feet below. He shivered for a few moments, gnawing at his lip before he carefully let his rear hooves drop, dangling by his one foreleg until he finally dropped and landed with a bang on his hooves, gasping in pain as he felt his limbs quake beneath him.
But after a moment, he managed to pick himself up and shake himself out, breathing hard before Hecate's security orb circled the walkway around the pillar, then said calmly: “ Go down three levels to access the mainframe. I'll give you instructions once you get there.”
Thorn nodded a few times, then he took a slow breath before he nervously circled the walkway, looking for the easiest way down: there was a ladder, but the hatch was jammed and Thorn didn't think that he had the strength to open it.
So instead, Thorn nervously approached a set of cables that was hanging just past the railing that surrounded the walkway: the colt was able to reach out and hesitantly test their strength before he carefully wiggled himself over the railing, wrapping his foreleg around the cables and taking a slow breath before he hopped off and let himself slide down the tangle. He had to pause a few times to carefully work his way past several knots in the wires, but then continued carefully downwards.
Most of the cables terminated just above a larger platform: the one that Thorn assumed he was supposed to land on. He carefully hopped down to the ground, wincing in pain as he landed on his hooves before the security drone buzzed by and stopped beside a large, rectangular device that rested against one side of the pillar. “Here.”
Thorn hesitantly approached, biting his lip before Hecate instructed: “First, shut down the power grid. Then remove the plugs.”
The colt nodded a little, reaching up and grasping the oversized power switch, yanking it to the off position. He winced as there was a spark of electricity, but then simply stepped back from the control panel and lowered his head forwards slightly, his horn glowing and pulling loose the half-dozen, large metal plugs one after the other from their section of the device.
There was a faint beeping, and then another section of paneling opened, Hecate instructing: “Unplug nodes two and four, and switch the position of the alpha and gamma cables.”
Hecate's instructions became steadily more complicated, but Thorn followed all of them closely, not making a single mistake thanks in part to his telekinetic ability. It took almost ten minutes of changing wires, switching nodes back and forth, and a little bit of tearing and pulling... but finally, Thorn was able to throw the main power switch back to the 'on' position.
There was a tremendous boom throughout the Clockworks, and Thorn yelped and looked up in shock as the lights went out, thinking for a moment that he was about to bring the whole castle down on top of his head... but a moment later, red light washed over him as the emergency lights kicked in, and the security orb glowed brightly as it descended in front of Thorn.
The colt gave a lame smile to the security orb as the machinery all around him ground to a halt, and then Hecate said quietly: “All power has been diverted away from Genesis, and the clusters that power the fuel pumps have shut down, forcing the fuel lines to divert away from Imperia. We'll lose a few tons of fuel, but Worker Drones are already constructing a pan array. They'll catch most of the waste in this and then burn the carbon out of it.”
Thorn nodded a little, before the security orb floated down and Hecate said in a gentler voice: “Just stay here for now, Thorn. I'll send a Dogmatist down to retrieve you and bring you back to your room at the Enlisted Outworlder facility. I'll have you treated there.”
The colt nodded again, trying to smile up at Hecate, but the security orb was already flying quickly away. And yet all the same, Thorn felt like Hecate was still watching him, making sure he was safe as he settled back and closed his eyes.
He was safe. And he had done what he had promised to do.
He just hoped that he had made his mother proud.