//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - You People All Look the Same // Story: Fallout Equestria: Ctrl+Alt+Delete // by DreamsOfCheese //------------------------------// "Git movin'!" One of the slavers hit me on the back of the head with the butt of her machete, causing me to stumble and nearly trip over my shackles. It really was a poor design choice, those things. All four hooves were attached in one form or another by a steel chain, making it extremely easy to trip over. Not to mention that these were the flimsiest excuses for manacles ever. I went through three sets already by tripping; the metal links of the chain stood no match for the same hooves that had previously bucked down metal security doors. The other slaves didn't share my opinion. There were five others, trudging slowly along with me in a double-file line. Each side was flanked by two slavers, with an extra one heading up the front. Heading up the back was the huge guy I mentioned earlier. After overhearing some conversation, I found out that his name, I kid you not, was "Well-Read". Fucking "Well-Read". The irony of it was that the entire three or so hours we'd been walking along, I hadn't heard him speak in a complete sentence. It was always a single word or phrase, like "Move" or "Shut up". I would've laughed if not for the severity of the situation. The other five slaves were somehow more malnourished than the ponies on the train tracks. Two mares and three stallions, all skin and bones. Except for me, of course. I still didn't feel the slightest bit tired or hungry. Not to mention that I looked relatively well-fed compared to the rest of my company; I imagined it would raise some eyebrows by the time we got to...wherever we were going. Which was taking an obscenely long time, might I add. It was nightfall at this point, and at several points, I heard the slavers discussing setting up camp. Every time, however, they were instantly vetoed by Well-Read. Thankfully, the Goddesses were watching over us. Further up the path, we discovered that a recent rock slide blocked us from proceeding. Huge red boulders blocked our path, spread out in a way that there was no hope of walking around without everypony dropping dead from exhaustion. Well-Read growled angrily. "How the hell did this get here? This path was clear when we came the first time." The mare who'd hit me replied in faux concern. "Oh, well," she sighed. "I guess this means we'll have to set up camp after all." Well-Read gave her a glare that should've made every molecule in her body combust, which certainly made her shut up. "Fine!" He spat. "Set up the tents in the shady area over there." He snapped his gaze over to another slaver, which actually made him jump. "And you! Go find something we can burn. If we're setting up camp, we'll have to make a fire." The other slavers nodded quickly and scrambled off to get everything done. Meanwhile, Well-Read shoved the slaves and I into the middle of the area where the tents were being set up. We sat in the middle of that area for a good half hour before everything was set up. Towards the five-minute mark, the slave that was shackled next to me whispered: "You don't seem like you've been out here too long." I blinked. "What do you mean, 'out here'?" "The wasteland, stupid. Fresh out of a Stable? I don't see no PipBuck on you." None of these words meant anything to me. LEONaRD? [Stables are large underground bunkers built at the end of the War to shield any surviving ponies from the Megaspells. While most of the Stables have long been opened, a select few still remain, oblivious to life on the surface.] Must be nice... The file switched. [PipBucks are hoof-mounted devices commonly used by Stable-Dwellers. They are small, multi-purpose terminals that attach like a gauntlet to the right or left forehoof, covering only the ankle. It functions as a map, database, inventory sorter, vital scanner, and more. In the wasteland, they are rare, and of very high value.] Oh! Looks like LEONaRD did successfully update before the connection was severed! "Umm, hello? Still with us?" I shook my head and found the pony I'd been talking to giving me a weird look. "You kinda zoned out there." "Oh, sorry. Umm, yeah, I'm new." Eager to change the subject, I asked: "So, umm, what's your name?" The stallion still wasn't so sure I was completely normal, but decided to forget it. Hopefully. "Blowtorch," he answered. "how about you?" I didn't really have anything else to call myself right now, so I just told him the same thing I'd said to the slavers. "Uh, Spark Plug. Where...where are these ponies taking us, exactly?" Blowtorch sighed loudly, earning a hostile look from Well-Read. He swallowed and continued in a low voice, "Well, you must be very new. These ponies are slavers. In all likelihood, we'll be taken to a smaller holding camp, and from there to a place where we'll be put to work." I answered in an equally quiet voice, "I assumed they were slavers of some sort. Why do we need to go to a holding camp first?" Blowtorch shrugged, glancing off in the direction from which we came. "It's incredibly far away. The slavers who captured us don't have the supplies at hand to go straight there. Once we hit the holding camp, we'll probably stay a night or two. Afterwards, we'll all be packed into a few wagons and towed off to the mining site." Mining? "What are they digging for?" I paused. "And how do you know so much about this?" Blowtorch rubbed his eyes and muttered, "Ask too many questions and I'll strangle you with your own chains." What a nice guy. To be honest, I wasn't that worried about getting sent into slavery for some reason. I'd handled every other situation so far; perhaps LEONaRD had a way out of this one, too. A really shitty excuse for not being worried about that, I know, but I couldn't really put my hoof on the reason I wasn't worried. Not to mention I seemed to automatically know that these were slavers. Perhaps it had something to do with whatever I got from the Terminal? At the end of that thirty minutes, Well-Read stepped upon a small boulder, as if he could tower over everypony else even more. "Listen up, because I'll say this a single time. At 6:00 sharp tomorrow morning, we're burning this camp, going all the way around these damned rocks, and continuing to the holding camp. We will get there before sunset tomorrow. Stragglers will be shot, am I clear?" The entire camp nodded incredibly quickly. With that, Well-Read disappeared into his tent. The slavers followed suit, leaving the other slaves and I sitting in the middle of the circle of tents, illuminated only by the campfire, and held in place by several clamps that attached into the ground. If I wasn't so sleepy, I probably could've ripped those right out of the ground. But at this point, I was so tired that even LEONaRD was telling me to get my sleep. [Sleep deprivation could have serious adverse side effects on your body, including but not limited to...] Thanks, bud. I'll get some shut-eye. Just...shut up. He finally stopped talking. So, I closed my eyes completely, for the first time since I emerged from the Ministry of Wartime Technology. LEONaRD's pleasant voice sounded in my ear one more time: Sleep mode activated. Initiating Dream Program... [***00110000 00110000 00110101***] Just like last time, the world rushed into existance, and I found myself in another stallion's body. The same one. Somehow, I could tell. Different place...or, maybe just a different room. I couldn't tell. The pony whom I was looking through the eyes of was sitting at a desk. A messy one, at that. It was covered in papers, unorganized folders, books, and more. All the while, "I" was mumbling to myself about...something. I honestly couldn't tell, because while I WAS looking through his eyes, I couldn't consistantly read his thoughts. Whatever he was saying was completely unintelligable. There was a knock at the door. "Come in." I growled. The scientist from the original dream, Thermite I thought, walked into the room shakily. "I take it #45 didn't make it." I sighed. Thermite nodded slowly. Her breath was erratic and she looked very shaken up. My view panned down to the blood covering the front of her lab coat. "How'd he go?" "One of our instruments p-pierced his throat due to a m-miscalculation." Thermite stammered. I stood up suddenly, startling her. "And who exactly made such a miscalculation?!" I demanded. Thermite opened her mouth, then closed it and stared at the floor for several seconds. "Well?!" "I-it was Owl Wing, sir." She choked out the name as if she had just killed him herself. Unfortunately, it seemed like "I" had that covered. "Well," I said angrily, "looks like we've found our #46. Maybe this time he'll be able to do something right. Convert him and report your results." Thermite blinked back a few tears, nodded, and sulked out of the room. I sat back in my chair. "Fuckin' idiots can't do anything right..." [***00110000 00110000 00110101***] 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010101 01001100 01010100 The hours proceeding our wake-up call (which, by the way, consisted of Well-Read standing in the clearing and firing an automatic shotgun into the air) consisted of pretty much exactly what we'd been told. We walked parallel to the rock slide until we found a path through that Well-Read perceived as safest, and walked through there. And I have to say, whatever caused the rock slide was no natural event. What remained of a large cliff overlooking the path had been completely obliterated, turned into rubble. And deliberately. LEONaRD was jabbering at me about how the patterns on the boulders indicated a controlled demolition. And for some reason, the thing that bothered me the most about this was the fact that LEONaRD wouldn't. Stop. Talking! On and on he yammered about sediments, blast patterns, the personal information of the various slavers (?), detecting more ponies, and....wait, detecting more ponies? [Warning: Several armed life signals detected. Preparing to determine alignment...] He never got the chance. Out of the blue, the slaver directly to my right got her head blown off. The other slavers cocked their weapons, and Well-Read yelled, "Raiders!" What followed was total chaos. At least seven ponies emerged from the rocks, all firing guns. For minutes, every other sound was drowned out by gunfire and shouting. The slaves and I hit the floor, hoping to the goddesses we weren't hit by a stray bullet. Surprisingly, it didn't look like they were even aiming at us. Eventually, I dared to open up an eye. Our assailants were losing. Badly. Already, four of the seven had been shot and killed. All that remained was the sniper that started the fight, a badly-injured unicorn, and the pony standing over him. Wait...that wasn't a pony. The creature standing over the wounded raider had a narrower snout than a pony. It also thinner legs, thinner...everything, really. Instead of regular nostrils, it had a wet, black nose, and cloven hooves. Instead of a tail, it had a small puff of fur, and upon its head were two relatively small, backwards-facing antlers. A deer. Judging by the antlers, it had to be a male. Odd, the picture of deer floating around in my memory had much less puffy fur, unlike the thick coat of this one. Not to mention he seemed awfully small for a buck. He also didn't seem like much of a fighter, and more like a medic, trying to heal his fallen comrade using a foggy, sparkly magic that floated around his antlers. Eventually, the pony in his hooves bled out and the sniper, ironically, got his head blown off. The end product of the fight was two dead slavers and six dead raiders, with a leftover deer. Well-Read held his hoof up as a signal to cease fire. "Deer!" he called. "You're outmanned and outgunned! Come down peacefully and surrender, lest we blow your head off and sell the ivory!" "Lest". Add that to the non-existant list of words that could possibly identify him as being "Well-Read". To my surprise, a high, clearly female voice called back: "I'd rather die than submit to you!" There was a moment of silent puzzlement in response to the antlered female. Well-Read chose to ignore the anomaly, and let off a single shot from his pistol which caught her(?) in the shoulder and sent her tumbling down the rock pile, landing right at Well-Read's hooves. Now, I could get a close look at her. And yep, definitely a doe. But how? Does don't have antlers! Well-Read seemed to share my curiosity, but shook his head and turned to one of the surviving slavers. "You. Chain her to that one," he barked, pointing at me. She'll need to lean on something that won't become exhausted." Oh, so I'm not the only one who noticed that. Just as he'd demanded, the newcomer was chained next to me. This created an odd, unequal line. What had previously been three rows of two, was now two rows of two and one row of three, since I had Blowtorch to my right and now this 'doe' to my left. She struggled to keep her footing, relying heavily on me as a rest for her wounded shoulder, which helped a lot. What definitely didn't help was the fact that we were up and moving again, forcing her to put her entire foreleg around me so she didn't have to put weight on it. While we walked, I muttered to my left. "So...I've never seen a deer with antlers who wasn't a buck." She shot me an offended look that caught me off guard. "What? Did I say something wrong?" Her voice was high and squeaky, but somehow still controlled. Which, by the way, sounded ridiculous. She replied to my apparently insensitive comment with a sharp retort: "I'm an elk, thank you very much." "Huh?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm an elk. Not a deer. All elk have antlers, even the girls. Just...smaller ones." LEONaRD felt the need to add to this: [Elk were found up north in the mountains before the War began, heir thick fur adapted to deal with the cold climates. They were peaceful, and unassociated with Equestria. During the War, however, they were conquered by the Zebras for territory, and served as a site from which to bombard Equestria with Megaspells. Two Megaspells were launched from this location, targeting higher areas due to their newly-acclaimed height advantage. After they were conquered, they dispersed. There is no record of their activity afterward.] "Oh. How...rude of me. Sorry." I replied half-sarcastically. To my surprise, she instantly snapped out of her pouty state to chuckling softly. Due to her high voice, however, it sounded more like a giggle. "It's okay. Most ponies don't even know what an elk is. I'm Jade." "Spark Plug." I took a glance at the empty space a dead slaver left behind, and continued incredibly awkwardly. "So, umm...you...attacked us." And I thought she'd been taken aback the whole "deer" thing. This time, she responded with defensive, near shout: "We weren't--" she got a glance from Well-Read and lowered her voice. "We weren't attacking you," she hissed. "We were attacking the slavers, trying to free you. It's what we do." I tilted my head in puzzlement. "What for? What's in it for you?" She seemed to be taken aback by this as well. Was there anything this deer (sorry, elk) wasn't offended by? "Is there something so wrong with doing the right thing?" Jade demanded. And honestly, I didn't know how to respond to that. In the 24 hours or less I'd been out in the wasteland, I already felt changed from...whatever I was before. There was just an unconscious understanding that doing the right thing was redundant in this world. But still... "I guess not." I replied. And, honestly, I wasn't sure if I agreed with myself. 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010101 01001100 01010100 The "sub-camp" everypony had been griping about looked a lot less "sub" than I imagined. Huge stone walls surrounded a large rectangular area with a guard tower at and between every corner, six in total. From the ground, I could see at least two snipers in each tower, and some peering over the edge of the wall, indicating a catwalk running along the top. Standing before our group were a pair large metal doors, flanked on either side by a guard. These particular guards weren't like anything else I'd seen yet: they wore heavily padded armor and helmets, making me question how they could even breathe. At their sides were two saddle-mounted rods with glowing gems at the end. I didn't want to know what those did. Well-Read approached the gates and addressed the guard on the right. "Apologies for my lateness. We encountered a group of raiders on the way back, ended up losing Fisheye and Voice Box." This news warranted no reaction from the guards other than a shrug. "On the bright side," Well-Read continued, "We did catch ourselves a deer." He tossed his head back in Jade's direction. "Elk..." she muttered. The guard on the right looked at Jade in interest. "Could get a good price out of that one. All right, come on in." He and his friend each pulled a lever. With an ear-destroying metal groan, the doors slowly swung open. "Make it quick, we want to make sure those raiders didn't follow you." Well-Read ushered us in hastily, and the doors slammed behind us with a loud BANG! Interesting design choice, I found myself thinking. The doors close much faster than they open. Jade's wound was much better now; a few hours after the attack, she was commanded to heal everypony up. Using an eerie combination of magic mist-stuff and potions that she had been carrying with her, everyone's wounds simply disappeared. Except mine, of course. I didn't have any wounds. We were taken over to a group of cells towards the back of the complex, comprising of a metal-barred door and stone walls. Inside were nothing but dirty food and water bowls. "All right!" Well-Read barked. "You will each get in a cell with the person next to you." We were all unhooked simultaneously by one of the unicorn slavers. What else could we do? Jade, Blowtorch and I began to walk to a cell, but Well-Read interrupted us. "You." He pointed at Blowtorch. "Come with me." The stallion cursed under his breath and reluctantly followed the enormous slaver. Jade and I exchanged glances, but were shoved into our cell before we could say anything. With a clang, the cell doors closed. For the fifteen minutes, Jade and I didn't even speak. She was sitting in a corner, and I was too busy asking LEONaRD anything and everything. To Jade, it looked as if I was pacing around and talking to myself like a mental patient. "LEONaRD," I muttered under my breath. "Could I break out of this cell like I did the doors in the Ministry?" [Affirmative. The structural integrity of the walls and door would easily fail if met with less force than you are capable of.] Well, that was easy. As I geared up to buck the wall down, LEONaRD continued after a nearly-comedic delay: [Breaking out, however, would not be advised. Hostiles surround this area on all sides, some harboring equipment you are not currently equipped to deal with.] "Oh. Damn. Okay, umm..." Out of the blue, Jade's voice piped up, with a completely unrelated question that almost knocked me off my feet. "Are you a robot?" I spun around, looking at her in shock. "No! What makes you think that??" Jade got up, and shifted her hooves uneasily, as if trying to tell me there's something on my face. "I don't think that's such a good idea..." she began. "Tell me." "I don't want to." "Come on!" "No!" "NOW!" "Okay, fine..." she began slowly. She inhaled deeply, then suddenly let it out in a rapid-fire manner. "You don't really get tired, you're talking to yourself as if there's somebody else there, you're obscenely strong, there are bullet holes in your chest but no blood, I think I can see metal through those holes, and we've been in 90-degree weather for hours and you haven't a bead of sweat." Before I could pick my jaw up off the floor, she pushed the water dish over to me. "And...no offense...have you looked at yourself lately?" I didn't want to look at that bowl, because I knew exactly what I'd see. But I did anyway. I had to. I peered into the dirty water, getting a glimpse of myself for the first time. For the most part, everything was normal. Messy dark-blue mane, light-ish brown fur with several bullet holes without even a drop of blood in sight...and then I got to my eyes. I had thought it weird for them to cast light, but now...I couldn't tell if I was looking at eyes or screens. Each of my bright-yellow eyes not only glowed, but had odd wires running through them, and tiny metal devices seemingly implanted in them. A thin layer of static covered my eyes entirely. For the first time since I'd seen that filly, I was lost for words. So many things in the Wasteland I'd been free to snark about, to be sarcastic to. But I had nothing to justify this. So, of course, I choked out the lamest excuse I'd ever make. "M-maybe...they're contacts?" I was trembling. Trembling with the fear that I didn't exist, that I was a machine. With the fear that I had been made, not born. With the fear that nobody would care if I was smashed to pieces. "Spark..." Jade began gently, but I didn't let her finish. I slammed my hoof into the bowl, sending water everywhere and my hoof through the bowl and into the floor. I ripped my hoof back out, taking chunks of the floor with it, and reeled on her. For the second time, my eyes lit up red, casting a menacing shade of crimson onto the back of the cell where Jade was cowering. "I AM NOT! A ROBOT!" I bellowed, realizing too late that my voice was far louder than a megaphone. The entire camp went silent, slavers and slaves alike staring at me through the bars of our cell. After a few minutes of no noise whatsoever, the camp resumed its activities as if it had never happened. Evidently people yelled a lot there. I turned back to Jade to find her, with a heaving chest, backed up against the far wall of our cell. My eyes returned to their normal color, and I sat down, feeling defeated. "...Sorry." She didn't respond. Instead, she got back up, walked over, and put her hoof on my shoulder. "It's fine, Sparky..." She soothed. "I understand." I was a combination of relieved that she didn't hate me and angry that she called me "Sparky." I got up and looked back through the bars. A few guards had their hooves on their weapons, but nopony seemed to care about my outburst. "We need to get out of here," I murmured, hoping that a non-sequitur would make me think of something else. "Any ideas?" "I'm as stumped as you are. But our best chance will be tonight, 'cause they'll move us at noon tomorrow." I gazed at the setting sun and turned back to her. "We'll have to hurry, then." I said affirmatively. "Blowtorch seemed to know a lot about this place. If he comes back, maybe he can help us out." As if on cue, Well-Read stomped over, swung our cell door open, and shoved Blowtorch into the cell with us. As soon as the massive stallion slammed the door and stalked away, Blowtorch shot up and looked at me in mock concern. "Make sure you don't lose your voice, bud." He clapped me on the shoulder and turned to Jade. "What are we talking about?" Jade gave him a look and answered, "Figuring out an escape plan. Any ideas?" Blowtorch grinned deviously in reply, even giving us a short, maniacal laugh. "Glad you asked," he chuckled, "I happen to have a bit of intel, as it were. Good ol' Well-Read over there wanted to know how I knew so much about how the slave process worked, and I gave him some bullshit answer so I could get the hell out of there. On the way there and back, I picked up a few things, but I won't elaborate further into how I...came by such information. But, anyway. In the main control room, at the base of the far middle tower, there is a terminal. It's password protected, but I'm sure Sparky can hack into it." Was "Sparky" going to become a thing? If it was, I sincerely wished I'd picked a better name. "After the terminal is hacked, the controls on a panel to the right will be unlocked. Under a small glass shield is a red switch. Pressing the switch will automatically open all of the cells in the compound. After that--" "Hold on." I interrupted. "I don't think these doors are automatic, just hinge-based. They're not wired to anything, not even a pulley." Blowtorch rolled his eyes impatiently. "That's because it uses a talisman to magically open them. Now, as I was saying, the cells will open. Once you hit that switch, make sure you press the yellow button on the top-right of the panel to disable the alarm. There are more slaves in this holding area than there are slavers, and most of the guards will be asleep anyway. We can easily overwhelm them as soon as that happens. During the chaos, you can use the green switch directly next to the red one to open the main doors, and we can get the hell out of here. All of our stuff will be in the vault, which is at the top of the tower across from the one you're beneath." Jade narrowed her eyes. "How exactly do you know all this?" she asked suspiciously. "Let's just say this ain't my first time escaping." Blowtorch answered grimly. "Fine, fine." I interjected. "How am I supposed to get over there without getting myself killed? I can bust through the wall, but that would make way too much noise." "Hmm..." Blowtorch put a hoof on his chin as if thinking. "You have a plasma cutter in there somewhere?" "What do you mean, 'in there?'" I demanded. Blowtorch looked confused about my response. Meanwhile, Jade's eyes widened and she shook her head wildly at him. This caught Blowtorch's eye, and he nodded slowly. "Alright..." he continued carefully, as if not to provoke me, "Do you, by any chance, have a plasma cutter with you?" I couldn't even respond for a moment because of how angry I was at both of them. About five minutes ago, I was being treated just a normal pony. And, now? I was being treated like a dangerous animal. I seethed, and stomped over to the bars. "Well," I spat over my shoulder, "let's see what the fucking Spark-Plug-5000 can do to help!" Leonard, do I have a stupid plasma cutter? [Affirmative. Equipping tool...] A short metal rod with a small, white-hot flame at the end extended from my left hoof. I angrily began melting a clean, pony-size hole in the bars. Jade was trying to talk to me, but I honestly have no clue what she was saying, because I tuned her out. I had no interest in whatever she was saying to cheer me up; I just wanted to get out of here so I wouldn't have to talk to these assholes again. After an hour or so of cutting through the actually-very-strong bars, I was so focused on roasting them in my head that I almost let the circle of metal I'd cut out clatter to the floor. Thankfully, I was able to catch it with the SRTG before I gave away our entire plan, and silently laid it on the floor. I poked my head out, dimming my eyes as much as I could. Weirdly enough, there were no guards. I looked back at my cellmates, and whispered "No guards. I'm going to go for it." "Alright," Jade answered sincerely. "be careful." I gave her my best go fuck yourself glare and slipped through the opening, carefully setting the bars back into the gap. They wouldn't stay for long, but it would have to do. I crept along in front of the cells, earning myself several stares from the other slaves ranging from anger to confusion to desperation, some of them whispering urgently for me to take them with me. I did my best to ignore them, which wasn't that hard; by this time it was dark. Very dark. I couldn't see anything, and I didn't want to risk turning on my eye-lights and getting caught. [Vision impaired by darkness. Activating night vision...] Suddenly, everything turned green, including my now-dimmed eyes. It was still much darker than I would've liked, and the night vision was not nearly as useful as the eye-lights, but it was definitely less conspicuous. Now that I could actually see, the fact that there were literally no guards to be found became more and more suspicious. Don't get me wrong, I could see the silhouettes of a few armed slavers farther up the compound, but nowhere near the slaves or my objective. At best, this is a trap... I tiptoed behind what was probably an armaments vault, judging by the racks of guns I saw behind some barred windows. Probably best to remember which building this is, in case this escape goes sour... [Waypointing Armaments Vault...] Whatever that means. Probably something robot-related... I thought grimly. And then...I lost it. I just had to think about that, didn't I? For the past 20 minutes, I'd been trying to forget that I was probably a machine. Now, one of my own sarcastic comments had wrecked my entire thought process. I stumbled backward in a sudden state of panic, and fell onto the dry, cracking stone floor of the compound. I just sat there like a boulder, hyperventilating, for minutes and minutes, staring at my hooves and trying to think of excuses for why I definitely wasn't a robot.I CAN'T be a robot! Look, these are flesh-and-blood hooves! I'm not a machine! I'm not a machine! I'M NOT-- Thankfully, I was jarred out of my debilitating state of terror when heard a loud CRASH! Moments later, a gruff, male voice accompanied it. "Don't drop it, dumbass!" Worried how close I just came to giving away my position, I flattened myself against the vault, snuck to the front of the building, and peered around the corner to where several crates of guns were being loaded onto a set of carts. The voice belonged to a unicorn stallion who was helping to load the crates on. With him was another unicorn stallion and an earth pony mare. The other unicorn picked up the crate he just dropped and heaved it onto the cart. "What does Merek need with a bunch of fucking weapons, anyway? We need these more than he does!" "Be quiet, Spur." The mare scolded firmly, pushing out another crate with her head. "If Merek wants a bunch of fucking weapons, he gets them." The unicorn, apparently a delivery pony of some sort, scoffed. "And remind your friend what happens if he doesn't get what he wants." "I know, I know!" Spur interjected grumpily. "If he doesn't get what he wants, he gets us." The delivery pony gave a satisfied nod. "That's right. Are we done here? It's cold and dark." "We'll be done when we're damn well and ready. Have some fucking patience." Spur retorted. "Why, you--" The argument continued. I wasn't listening, though, because I couldn't get my mind off the name "Merek". It didn't sound like a pony's name...or that of any other nationality I could think of off the top of my head, for that matter. Not only that, but, like many things I'd run across so far, the name sounded annoyingly familiar. I really wished that would stop happening. My time to reflect was cut short as I heard approaching hoofsteps. In a panic, I dashed as silently as possible (Which was difficult to do in the silent dead of night) around to the opposite corner. The delivery pony, Spur, and the mare walked directly past where I'd just been standing, pushing/levitating crates. I had no idea where they were being taken, but it mattered little. I snuck behind them and across the docking station. 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010101 01001100 01010100 Finally. I approached the metal door of the far middle tower. I tested the door, and oddly enough, it was unlocked. I creaked open the door and tiptoed in. The tower was pretty much empty on the first floor, save a stone spiral staircase leading directly upwards. After sneaking to the top, I found another unlocked door, that was even open a crack. I peered inside through said crack. ...Really? One guard? That's right, there was a single guard slumped lazily in a swivel seat directly in front of the control panel. I silently swung the door open, snuck up behind him, raised my hoof, and sent it diagonally against his head. With the near-humorous sound of what seemed like being hit with a frying pan, he tumbled off his chair and hit the floor. I couldn't help but snicker at how slapstick that sounded. I sat in his chair and scanned the panel until I found a port I could hack into. I activated my hacking wire, put it into the port, and... Oh. Right. The end of the wire was still no more than a bunch of frayed wires from when I updated at Sugar Cube Corner. As if I needed to be told, LEONaRD piped in: [Right HoofWire critically damaged and offline.] "Thanks." [Activating Left HoofWire...] An exact copy of the original wire snaked out of my left hoof. "...Thanks." I inserted the wire, and a small green LED on the adapter flashed a few times. I stood for a few minutes while LEONaRD did all the work. [This terminal is easy to hack given your current hacking skill. Beginning decryption...complete. Locating correct system...complete. Breaching firewall...complete. Hacking Emergency_Panel_03...Complete. Opening panel...] The control panel beeped and opened up small sub-panel, housing several secret buttons. I retracted my HoofWire and rolled my chair to the other end of the control panel. I located the switches Blowtorch had referred to, right where he said they would be. Before pressing anything, I looked behind me to make sure I wasn't caught in the act. After being absolutely positive that nopony would sneak up behind me, I lifted the little glass shield which protected the red button that would open all of the cells."Alright," I mumbled to myself. "Here goes..." My hoof got about a centimeter above the switch before it froze in place. Literally. I couldn't move it. I almost thought I'd been caught before LEONaRD's voice sounded. [Control panel scan complete. Automatic Failsafe Locking Mechanism activated. Please do not make any further attempt to press the button.] "Oh, come on!" I whispered to myself indignantly. "We're so close! Why not??" [The switch you have intended to press is linked to several tons of TNT beneath the tower.] ...What? Alright, maybe Blowtorch had gotten that one wrong. I tried the yellow button that supposedly disabled the alarm, and my failsafe lock activated again. [The switch you have intended to press would sound the compound's alarm.] I tried the other buttons I was told to press, and as it turned out, every single one of them would definitely kill me or get me caught. Blowtorch needs to check his sources occasionally...LEONaRD, can you point out which lets out the prisoners? [No such button exists.] Okay...disables the alarm? [Button located. However, I cannot point it out. The Heads Up Display is offline.] Dammit. Well, Blowtorch clearly got his "intel" from the wrong pony. There was no point in pressing random buttons and hoping I don't set something off, so I decided to leave...There was, however, the dilemma of the unconscious guard in the middle of the room. I picked him up easily and tossed him onto my back like a sack of flour, walked him over to one of the supply lockers in the back of the room, and shoved him inside. Hopefully he wouldn't wake up until morning. I trotted down the spiral stairs, looked outside and dropped my jaw. Airships. Five huge boats attached to blimps floated in the air, circling the compound like sharks. I wasn't sure if they had been there the whole time or not. What I did know is that they bore the same mark as the crates being moved: The red letter "M" dipping with blood in front of a flame. No doubt, this was the symbol connected to this "Merek" guy. They seemed dormant in the air, but I wanted to get a closer look. Thankfully, LEONaRD had my back. [Zooming in 2000%....] My eyes focused, and now I could see far enough that I could make out distinct features of some of the ponies onboard. Each of the airships were equipped with at least 30 broadside cannons per side, possibly more. On-deck were several manually-operated mounted machine guns, flamethrowers, rocket launchers and tons of other unsettling toys. My eyes zoomed back out. They couldn't possibly have just gotten there, I must've missed them. It was pretty easy to ignore, to be fair. I had enough things on my mind, including, well, a serious identity crisis. Not only that, but the permanent cloud cover that stretched from horizon to horizon slightly obscured them. The only reason I now noticed them was that they were hoisting up crates via pulley onto the deck of a huge airship from the top of one of the storehouses. As I said before, they were kinda just sitting there. I guessed that the four smaller ones served as a vanguard for the massive one in the middle that was hoisting up the cargo, which would make sense. The middle one was massive, about the size of one of the other airships plus another half. They would probably leave once they had their cargo, because I definitely didn't see them when it was light(er) out. I decided to ignore them for now, and made my way back to the cell. 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010101 01001100 01010100 "What do you mean!?" Blowtorch asked incredulously. "I got that info directly from a guard I tricked!" "Maybe he was smarter than you thought," I offered. "Not everyone's an idiot." Blowtorch was having a difficult time understanding how the information he got could possibly have been wrong. He was being very defensive about it, in fact. Very defensive. "Still! It doesn't make sense." He insisted. I didn't respond, because I was still trying to figure out how Blowtorch could just "trick" the guard into giving him information that specific..."It doesn't matter." Jade cut in. "What's important is that we now know what each of the buttons do, and we can make a new plan--" And then Blowtorch suddenly became aggressive. "Did you even try any of the buttons, huh?" Blowtorch demanded, sizing me up. "Maybe your stupid computer brain is glitched." "Blowtorch!" Jade protested. Unfortunately, at this point, there was nothing she could do. I didn't want to go into another panic attack about the whole 'robot' thing. So, of course, I let it out in a much different fashion: anger. "Oh, don't worry, Jade," I said venomously, getting up in Blowtorch's face. "Ol' Blowjob here knows all about pushing buttons. It's what you've been doing the entire time, isn't it?" "Spark..." Blowtorch gave me a scoff and a smug look that made me want to fucking choke him. "I can assure you, I haven't pushed any of the buttons you've got under that fake fur." He put a hoof on my chest as if searching for one right now. "Don't touch me." I warned, swatting his hoof away. Letting it out like this definitely wasn't the best idea. I knew that I needed to get myself under control; I could already feel my eyes beginning to change color. "Maybe I will press one," he continued foolishly, pushing me back a bit. "and hope it's a self-destruct switch. Who would care? It's not like you're programmed to feel." I snapped. "Spark, no!" Jade cried, but it was too late. My eyes went red and my hoof slammed into the bottom of Blowtorch's jaw with a sickening CRACK, sending him tumbling backward into the opposite wall. He struggled back to his hooves, only to buckle and faceplant back onto the stone floor. Jade ran over to his unconscious form and began inspecting his wounds. Meanwhile, I just stood there, all red-eyed and unstable, panting like a madman, staring him down as if he could still see me. "It looks like..." Jade began with a bit of anger in her voice, "with one punch, you somehow broke his jaw, shattered several of his teeth, gave him a concussion and fractured his skull." And then, I said something completely uncalled for. "Good," I spat. "I hope he starts something again so I can rip his fucking head off." Jade stared at me in shock. This brief moment of silence gave me the chance to realize what I just said. My eyes slowly faded back to yellow. "N-no, I..." I insisted weakly. Jade didn't want to hear any of it. "What the heck are you thinking?!" she demanded. "I can do all I can for him, but without my magic-" she pointed angrily to the magic inhibitors attached to the base of each antler. "-I can't fully heal him! He could DIE if gone untreated." She turned her back on me and resumed working on Blowtorch's injuries, completely ignoring the unintelligible mumbling coming out of my mouth. I was at a loss for words. I couldn't justify my actions. The only reason I had hit him was that I'd lost control, and that wasn't a good answer. Instead, I hung my head and sulked over to my corner of the room. I felt...ashamed. A new emotion that I hadn't felt since before I left the Ministry of Wartime Technology. I didn't like it. [Sleep mode activating....] 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010101 01001100 01010100 "Rise and shine, R2-D2." I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and looked towards the offending voice, and saw something that made me suddenly very awake. I my head shot up and I scrambled back to the other side of the cell, where Jade had just woken up and met the sight before us with a similar reaction. Blowtorch's clearly-not-at-all-broken jaw exchanged grins with the two slavers flanking him. "Looks like we woke him up pretty good." He pulled an electric prod off his back. Which, might I add, was strapped to the back of a slaver barding identical to that of everypony else in the camp. Jade looked at him and squinted, as if she wasn't seeing correctly. "B-blowtorch? But...you were..." "...healed up by my buddies!" he finished, gesturing to a unicorn next to him. "With a bit of unicorn magic and a few healing potions, I'm good as new!" As if things couldn't get worse, the other slaver standing next to him was Well-Read. "Wait..." I sputtered. "You were a slaver?? The WHOLE time?!" My eyes turned red and I reared up, preparing to lunge at him, but I was met with a swat from the prod. For the first time, I felt pain. My vision fuzzed up like a broken television, leaving me blind for several seconds. I lost all feeling for a moment, except for a searing, intense pain that arced throughout my entire body. When I could finally regain a bearing on my surroundings, I saw that one of Blowtorch's "friends" was struggling with Jade. "You...knew those buttons would kill me? Why bother?! I thought you needed slaves!" Blowtorch shrugged as if that was a fair question. "Here's the thing," he said. "you are, by far, the most advanced and dangerous self-aware robot we have come across thus far." The word robot send a pang through my head. Blowtorch continued. "We were thinking of keeping you, but we needed a better idea of what you were capable of. So, we followed you for a little bit, and decided we needed first-hand experience. When you plugged into that terminal, it was a perfect oppertunity to impersonate a slave, and gain your trust on the way back after we caught you. After I reported to Well-Read upon arrival, we came to the conclusion that you were too dangerous. So, since we don't actually know how to kill you, I figured an explosion would take you out. Just didn't count on you scanning it beforehand." I looked over to Jade, who had lost the struggle and was getting the shit kicked out of her. I had to jump in before Blowtorch started monologuing again. "Leave her alone!" I roared. I leapt at him, my eyes once again turning crimson. He simply laughed, turned a dial on the prod all the way up, and slammed it into my head. Pure, burning agony laced through my body. LEONaRD suddenly piped in. [Potentially lethal quantities of uninsulated electricity detected. System overloading. Scanning for source of electricity...confirmed. Three hostiles detected. Forcing reboot of automatic defense mechanisms...success. Engaging primary weapon system.] What?! My vision suddenly cleared, and I lost control of my body as LEONaRD took over. I shot to my feet and stared down at Blowtorch and his buddies. And then everything turned into a blur. Two spinning gattling guns, each about the length of my torso, folded out of two hatches on my back. I desperately tried to lock them down, but to no use. All I remember from there is gunfire rattling my ears, four surprised faces, three bodies hitting the floor. Blowtorch, Well-Read and the other slaver's bullet-riddled corpses collapsed onto the stone beneath them. Suddenly, I regained control of my body, and retracted the guns quicker than I'd ever done anything, ever. I collapsed to my knees, paralyzed by the fact that I had just killed three ponies. Three living, breathing ponies who had their lives ahead of them. I'd just taken away millions, billions of experiences that would now never happen. Jade yelled in my ear, trying to snap me out of it, but it was no use. I was lost in my thoughts, paying no mind to the dull wail of the compound's siren echoing throughout the camp. 01010100 01001000 01000101 01011001 00100000 01000100 01000101 01010011 01000101 01010010 01010110 01000101 01000100 00100000 01001001 01010100 Footnote: Level up. New perk: Shoot From the Cutie Mark -- Switch into Combat Mode 20% faster. Systems back online: Primary Combat System, S.A.T.S.