Fallout: Equestria - Just Like Clockwork

by Starlight_Tinker

Chapter 4 - More Questions Than Answers

Chapter 4 – More Questions Than Answers...

“I wonder if it’s a filly or colt!”

A scream pierced my ear drums as if the gag wasn’t even there – by the Goddess, I hated that sound!

Her legs fought the ropes that bound her, and I tried as hard as I could to steady my magical grip on the knife. The bullet had penetrated deeply, but all in all, she had been very lucky – had I charged my rifle properly, she would not currently be in possession of four limbs.

As it was, the projectile had only inflicted a deep flesh wound, but I still had to use every ounce of concentration to extract the foreign object.

“Will you stop fidgeting!? One wrong move and you’re losing this leg!”

Ah! That got her attention. Wincing profusely, but no longer struggling, my captive forcibly calmed herself as I renewed my efforts to remove the bullet.

Suddenly, the knife hit home, and I noted a change in the feedback from the aura around the handle. Digging gently, I worked the intruder out of the bloody crater in her flank and dropped it onto the floor.

We both sighed with relief at the soft clink of wetted metal striking the ground. I cleaned and dressed the wound, thankful that both my poor shot and even poorer medical skills had avoided damaging any arteries or nerves.

I felt an extraordinary mote of guilt throughout the procedure, which was only enhanced by her occasional glances in my direction. Every time our eyes met, a pang of regret rapidly shot through my insides.

Do you know what made it all that little bit worse, though?

Her cutie mark was awfully familiar.

---

I awoke to the taste of carpet, and the pounding of an almighty headache. No doubt I’d have to go to Medical for a dose of painkillers.

I pushed myself up off of the floor, making sure to keep my eyes tightly shut, lest my headache intensify. Realising that I’d slept in my barding again, I shirked it onto the floor and wandered towards the shower cubicle adjacent to my quarters. My coat and mane were matted, I smelt like a broken waste pump and there was an uncomfortable tightness in between my rear legs. And, to cap it all, I felt so tired that I could have sworn I hadn’t actually slept.

Goddess, I felt rough...

What was I doing again? Oh, yeah – waking up...

Casting my partially functioning mind back, I tried to recant the previous night’s curious dream...it was fading rapidly with time, but I was still able to remember bits and pieces. There was a mare...Ditty, or something like that. Lots of shaking, as well.

What had she called me, again? Certainly not my name...

Eh, it could wait. I badly needed a shower. Reaching out to turn on the water, I noticed that the knob felt a great deal more conical than usual.

And how did it come to be covered in ridges? If anything it felt like a-

What happened next occurred in an immensely short space of time.

Firstly, as I’ve already mentioned, I grasped the knob.

That took, at the most, between one and two seconds.

Next, I began to turn said knob...

Another second elapsed.

Then, just over three seconds after I had first attempted to turn on my shower...I realised that I wasn’t holding a piece of the plumbing.

I was holding a unicorn mare’s horn...

Naturally, she immediately snorted awake and proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs.

“What the-! AH! RAPE! HELP, SOMEPONY! HELP!”

My eyes shot open despite my fatigue as she pulled the sheets up over her chest and backed into the wall in panic. The events of the previous night flooded back into my mind – where I was and what I was doing were suddenly thrown into sharp focus.

“Wh-who!? Ah! No, no, no! Wrong room!”

She viciously threw her pillow at me and started rummaging around on the floor; quickly retrieving a miniature version of the pipe weapons I had seen the night before.

“You’re damned right it’s the wrong room! Get the fuck out of here!” she screamed as the device was brought to bear.

“Whoa! Calm down - I’m going, I’m going!”

I made a quick escape, closing the door behind me. That was far too close – even the accommodation in the Wasteland was dangerous!

I returned to my room and sat on the mattress, a fresh dose of adrenaline coursing through my sleepy veins.

The worries and fears I had fallen asleep with floated freely through my consciousness, accelerated by my suddenly heightened state. They began tugging my moods and emotions from one extreme to the other, and I felt an unwelcome maelstrom of thought encompassing me.

What had I done?

Was I mad!?

I’d left the Stable; left my friends to the murderer...left Petri...

A little voice from a different corner of my psyche stepped into the fray, and a feeling of determination filled my chest like a refreshing breath.

No! That bastard knew I was onto him! If I hadn’t left there’d be nopony who knew about the killings! Nopony to help. What I did was necessary! I’m out here to help my friends, and by Luna that’s what I’m going to do!

Agreeing with myself that I’d made the right choices over the past 24 hours, I resolved to ask for Sage’s help with returning to the Stable straight away.

He did say that he was in my debt, after all...

With my barding back on and the day-old scent of exertion, fear and death-defiance gently wafting into my nostrils, I wandered down the stairs into the main room of the pub. Pale sunlight streamed through the windows, highlighting a wispy cloud of strong smelling smoke that was being generated by the small white sticks the patrons were holding in their mouths. Strangely, every one of them stared at me blankly as I walked towards the bar.

Brandy Spritz was standing behind the counter, talking with one of her customers when she noticed my presence. Giggling, she ended her conversation, and turned to me:

“I see you’re, uh, awake. Sage’s been looking for you – he’s on the main road with Caring Heart.” She was trying desperately not to laugh – I could see it on her face. What was so funny?

“Uh...thanks, Brandy. I’ll get that counter repaired as soon as I’m finished with him.” I smiled and made my way out of the pub onto the main road. The sun was warm and pleasant as it breathed its light onto my face, but the cloud layer from the previous evening was still present. I’d have to ask about that – it seemed to go on forever, covering the entire sky...

I could see Trotfell a lot better now that there was a decent amount of light about the place. The main road, once paved with tarmac, had cracked over the years as a combination of continued weathering and plant growth had sought to take the land it covered back for nature.

The City Chambers were as grand as I had observed the previous night, with walls of thick, white marble and beautiful mouldings covering the building’s exterior surfaces.

There were a lot more ponies about the town now that it was daylight - I could make out dozens, all going about their business. I found it funny when I considered that this was just another day to them; some were trading, while others were clearly working. Most seemed to know their way around; some had apparently arrived recently (much like myself).

All the hustle and bustle was a great source of relief for me – that niggling fear of infinite, permanent loneliness from the night before was still present, biding its time in the deeper recesses of my conscious mind.

I stepped onto the road, and was immediately aware of an impending strangeness...

Everypony was staring at me.

Everypony.

Some were giggling like Brandy had been moments earlier; others were scowling. A few even looked angry.

What the buck was so going on?

I noticed Sage and Caring Heart conversing beside an ancient streetlight and began to cautiously approach. Shouting across the street, I greeted them:

“Good morning, you two! Brandy said you wanted to see me, Sage?”

The silver maned stallion turned around to face me as he responded:

“Ah, Compass! Good morn...ing. Ahem.”

Both pony’s facial expressions drooped as they caught sight of me – Caring Heart looked embarrassed and covered her face with one of her hooves, while Sage could only bite his lip to keep down what would have been a riotous chuckle:

“Perhaps you should cover up...or at least take a cold shower.”

“What? I don’t understand...what’s-”

Sage gestured with his hoof; pointing down between my legs.

“What are you looking a- SWEET FUCKING CELESTIA! WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT!?”

As I lowered my head to regard my underside, my gaze was met by a thick, pink tentacle – something had attached itself to me during the night, and was now contentedly dangling between my rear legs!

I snapped my head forward and launched myself at the Caring Heart
“BY LUNA, HELP ME! WHAT IS THIS THING!?”

She stared back at me in absolute shock, her eyes wide with surprise.

A heartbeat later I was on the ground, my eyes crossed and a sickening pain forcing its way up into my stomach. In deference to her namesake, Caring Heart had deftly raised her hoof and slapped the pair of fleshy orbs situated behind the tentacle, producing an absolutely exquisite bloom of pain. My vision blurred as I rolled over and slipped into unconsciousness.

<<<<<O>>>>>

Ooh...my head! It felt like I’d just been hit by a meteorite...

I swear, if I’d collided with that damn DeLorean again...

“Ugh...Doctor? Are you there?” Ditzy’s voice echoed through the TARDIS control room as she groggily came to.

“I’m fine, Ditzy. Just a bit- Ouch! Sore...are you alright?”

“Well, I’m not dead – that’s a good start!”

“Indeed...”

I pulled myself up to the console and felt about for a spongy, pyramid shaped projection. Giving it a squeeze, the lights were restored, and I was able to pick my dishevelled companion up off of the floor. She eyed me accusingly as she regained her equilibrium.

“So where did your ‘turbulence’ land us then?”

“Yeah...sorry about that – don’t know what got into the old girl. Let’s take a look around, shall we?”

I manoeuvred myself over to the scanner and pulled up the particulars of our surroundings, noting that the ship’s Chameleon Circuit had just that moment finished a 1000 mile radius, twelve dimensional scan of the terrain, and had also seen fit to extrapolate a new external shell configuration to conceal us from the locals.

“Heh - a Police barn...never would have guessed that one. Right, then – where are we? Equestria. Celestian era. Local date is...is...oh, come on, you never used to be this slow!”

Fiddling with the eclectic series of knobs and switches on the front of the scanner, I was able to coax a general date out of the TARDIS’ temporal sensors.

“Hmm...looks like we’re not far from your time, Ditzy. Maybe a couple of decades out, but no more than that.”

“Why have you brought us to this period in such a rush, Doctor? Is there something wrong?”

“I don’t know. The TARDIS just sort of...veered off course. She’s always had a good reason for doing that sort of thing in the past...let me see...”
I accessed the vast log of readings collected by the TARDIS’ multitude of sensors and started skimming. Curiously, none of the data was- wait...no, that couldn’t be right!

Ditzy took immediate note of my deepening frown and peeked at the screen over my shoulder.

“What is it, Doctor? What’s wrong?”

My response was a hoarse whisper.

“The...the TARDIS. She’s detected...no, but that’s...that’s impossible...”

The phrase “How?” bounced repeatedly off of the walls of my mind. There was no way; not one single avenue of causality that could allow what I was reading to be true.

“Detected what...? What is it, Doctor? Y-You’re starting to scare me...”

“The TARDIS landed us here in Equestria...because...because it’s detected Time Lord technology...”

<<<<<O>>>>>

My balls hurt.

Never before in my life had I been so easily incapacitated! Thank Celestia Atom Spark didn’t know they could do that – I’d have never escaped the Stable!

Hell, I’d never have won a single argument with her!

Hazily, I rolled over to find myself in Trotfell’s dilapidated hospital; a pale shade of Stable 52’s Medical bay. Caring heart and Sage were nearby, talking heatedly with a light blue mare that I immediately recognised as Mo.

“-but it all fits, Dad! The sudden arrival, the way he speaks, the way he acts! He even has a sonic screwdriver, for Luna’s sake!”

Sage’s tone was one of fatigue and marginal irritation as he spoke:

“Mo, as thankful as I am that you’ve recovered, I will not endure another of your foalish fantasies. The Doctor was, is, and always will be a fictional character. You own most of the TBC tapes, for crying out loud! They’re all voice actors and special effects - what more proof do you need?”

Caring Heart rushed to support Mo, as she sat up in her bed and pointed dramatically in my direction, fixing Sage with a determined stare as she did so.

“They were based on reality! The Doctor’s as real as you and me, and he’s lying on that-”

We shared an awkwardly silent glance as Mo turned to look at me.

“...bed.”

‘Doctor’? That sounded awfully familiar...where had I heard that name before...?

Mo blushed and slowly withdrew her hoof as Sage and Caring Heart changed the mutual focus of their attention. Sage was the first to speak, addressing me with a jovial smile:

“Ah! You’re awake.”

“Kind of...” I said groggily.

“What was that you were saying about a Doct-”

I was suddenly interrupted by Caring Heart, who trotted angrily over to my bedside.

“Right, you! Explain yourself! What the hell were you playing at trying to mount me like that!?”

I felt myself trying to shrink back into my pillow as she accosted me – she was almost as scary as Atom!

“W-what!? I don’t know what you’re talking about! I was panicking over that thing on my-”

Suddenly remembering the reason for my previous outburst, I shot upright and pulled the sheet away from my lower legs. The tentacle was gone, leaving naught but the orbs and sheath I was so used to seeing between my hindquarters.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned back to Caring Heart.

“I was panicking over that parasite thing. Remember, I’m new to the Wasteland – I’ve never seen any of these mutations or monsters! And what do you mean by ‘mount’?”

She raised an eyebrow as she answered me:

“What do you mean by ‘parasite’? There’s nothing wrong with you. Well...apart from your willingness to show off your morning wood...”

“My...what? Wood? I’m not following – I’m talking about the pink thing! The tentacle between my legs! ”

“Uh...Compass...that was your dick...”

Blast these ponies and their Wasteland vocabulary!

“My what?”

“Your...uh...penis. You know...the reproductive organ?”

I stared blankly at her. A reproductive organ? Was she making this up?

Caring shot an uncertain glance at Sage, who was keeping quiet. She continued:

“The...the thing you...pee out of? The thing that gets hard and lets you...mate?”

“Uh...”

“You can’t honestly tell me you’ve never seen your own penis...”

“Yes, I can – I never used to have one! I don’t believe this! Less than a day outside of the Stable and I’m already mutating!”

Sage’s smile had metamorphosed into a squint frown.

“Compass, are you serious? How can you not know about such an obvious piece of your own anatomy?”

Pausing for a brief moment of thought, his frown deepened.

“How...how do you use the bathroom?”

“I...you know...just sort of sit down and...get on with it...”

The pair shared another glance as they faced me; this one involving a great deal more smiling than before.

Caring could barely contain her laughter as she spoke:

“You...sit down to pee...? Pfft! Ha!”

Sage quietly chuckled to himself as Caring hugged the bedside for support. Wiping a tear from his eye, he continued our dialogue.

“Oh, you’re funny. I knew we’d get on from the moment I met you! Ha ha!”

His laughter abated slightly.

“But seriously, though. You can’t just run around with your ‘little friend’ dangling between your legs like that – we take sex crime very seriously around these parts. I mean, you’ve already met Buckshot, and as you no doubt realised last night, he doesn’t much like new-”

By this point in the conversation, the word ‘confusion’ no longer offered an adequate description of my mental state. I could feel that angry warmth starting to stir as my frustration built – I’d have to get some answers before I exploded!

Waving my hooves in front of my face, I tried to regain control of the flow of information.

“Stop, stop, stop! I have no idea what’s going on here! Why are you laughing? What was that pink thing? And who the flying feather is ‘the Doctor’!?”

Sage took a momentary pause and cocked his head to one side.

“Nevermind about the Doctor - you...you’re serious, aren’t you!? By Celestia, I thought you were joking! How did you lot reproduce if you don’t know about your own sexual organs!?”

“Look, I’ve never heard the word used in that context before. What do you mean by ‘reproduce’?”

Caring chimed in, with a tone of surprise similar to Sage’s.

“Make more of yourselves; new ponies.”

Ah-ha! Progress! So that’s what they were talking about!

“Oh, right! You mean birthing! I suppose the last two hundred years haven’t been kind to the Equestrian lexicon. We use Pods, just like everypony else. Now, one of you explain that pink tentacle that I grew overnigh-”

“Wait. Hold on...Pods?”

“Yeah.”

“As in...containers...?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re...what? Grown in these things!?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you, and all the ponies in your Stable, are grown in glass tubes filled with amniotic fluid?”

“Pfft! No, don’t be daft!”

Caring let out a small, sighing sort of laugh as she spoke.

“Heh...yeah, that does sound pretty outlandish-”

“Pods aren’t made of glass – it’s far too brittle a material! No, we use a high tensile laminate composite to...make....what...? Why are you making that face?”

Seemingly dumbfounded, Caring Heart’s jaw had dropped as she absorbed my words. Sage’s face had reassumed his previously skewed frown, and apparently decided to run with it. He spoke slowly:

“You were...grown...?”

“Well, yeah...weren’t...weren’t you?”

Caring edged forward and assumed a telltale ‘bad news’ tone.

“Compass, ponies aren’t meant to be grown in jars. Ordinary reproduction involves one mare and one stallion who ‘mate’, engaging in a process of insemination called ‘intercourse’. Two cells; one from the father and one form the mother, combine and begin to multiply inside a part of the mare called the womb. Then, eleven months later, a foal is born.”

I stared at her for a very long time, unblinking and barely breathing. Her description, although brief, was disgusting! This ‘mating’ process sounded very...inefficient.

“Wow...” I finally managed to say while trying to stifle a nervous giggle.

“Well, at least I know what a foal is now...”

Caring placed a hoof upon one of my forelegs.

“Are you okay...?” she asked meekly.

I smiled back at her.

“Why wouldn’t I be? The Pods allow an adult pony to gestate in a period of six weeks. When ‘ordinary’ birthing uh, sorry – reproduction, takes eleven months, it’s no wonder we stopped using it!”

Caring’s frown deepened even more – how was her face doing that!? Her look of concern was defying the laws of physics!

“Did you just say ‘adult’? In six weeks!? No, Compass, you’re getting the wrong end of the stick here – foals are tiny when they’re born. It takes them about eighteen years to fully mature into an adult...”

Good Goddess! Now I knew Pods were a superior alternative to nature!

“Eighteen years!? That’s...that’s awful! Are you saying that only get two years as adults!?”

Her frown deepened again. Can facial expressions form singularities?

“Uh...no...where’d you get that idea from?”

“Well...the twenty year lifespan of our species for one-“

“Sorry – the what!?” Sage had leant forward, as if I had just said something of vital significance.

“What’s this about twenty year lifespans!?”

“We...only live for...twenty years...right...?”

Another slow, synchronised pair of head shakes were forthcoming.

“But...but all the ponies in Stable 52...they die at the age of twenty...always have...”

“Compass...” Caring was beginning to look emotional – her eyes were starting to water.

“...how old are you...?” she whispered.

A wave of desperation washed over me as I responded:

“I’m seven. Seven years, eight months.”

I gulped as their eyes widened.

“How long do...are we meant...to get...?”

“Compass...”

Her mollycoddling was beginning to infuriate me. It wasn’t fair – the familiar bloom of my fury was suddenly so close to the surface.

“HOW LONG!?”

How long indeed...how long would I be a slave to my ridiculously explosive temper?

Caring Heart, having recovered quickly from my outburst took a deep breath, letting it out in the form of a profound sigh as she hung her head.

“...I’m thirty-two...Sage is almost sixty...”

I blankly absorbed her words, responding only by looking down at my broken Pipbuck.

Sixty years!? How was it possible!?

A pony exposed to the ravages of the outside world had lived three times as long as one specifically developed to be superior and housed perpetually in a safe, controlled environment.

For the first time in my life, I had a thought against my home.

Maybe Stable 52 wasn’t all it was cracked up to be...

“H-How...why...?” I whimpered.

Caring gently lifted my chin with her hoof and addressed me in a soft, calming tone:

“Is that why you left the Stable? Did you learn of this...limit?”

“No...I’d always known about it...I just thought it was...natural...” I blinked back a tear.

“I left because of the murders...”

Sage suddenly spoke up:

“Murders!? On top of the twenty year thing!? No offense son, but Stable 52 sounds like a death trap!”

He was immediately silenced by a scornful glance from Caring. Strangely enough, I felt the genuine urge to giggle. With a distant, almost entirely vacant smirk, I looked to Caring Heart just as she concluded her visual chastisement of Sage.

“So...how long do...will...I have?”

I really didn’t want to ask that...and I think I wanted the answer even less. It had to be asked, though; it just had to.

Caring opened her mouth a measure, and then slowly shut it again. Her eyes tried desperately to avoid my expectant gaze...

The comparatively tiny interval between my query and her response was torturous. I could already feel my stomach churning; bile rising in my throat and trying to enter my mouth.

Finally, after what seemed like days worth of pained waiting, she responded:

“I...I don’t know-”

Her face suddenly changed – her eyes moved back and forth as if calling up a memory; a record of something she’d once read. I knew that face well, and it filled my chest with a glorious bloom of hope.

“-but...if the deaths were drug induced, it could explain your, uh, revelation.” she said while gesturing to my nether region.

“You think we’re all drugged?”

“Well, it would explain why nopony ever noticed or asked about your set lifespans and why you never knew about your own sexual organs. If genetic manipulation’s their game - whoever ‘they’ are – then the ability to reproduce at will would be a serious obstacle. Your medics could have hidden the necessary chemicals in inoculations-”

“No. The head of Medical’s my best friend – I’d trust her to the ends of the Earth.”

“She may not have known, Compass. StableTec could have set this in motion long before you were even bor- I mean, ‘birthed’.”

I thought for a moment. Unfortunately, this was all making sense to me...and I didn't like it.

Not at all.

“But, that still leaves us with the question of how we could all be drugged and manipulated simultaneously for over two-hundred years...”

I stared down at my still non-functional PipBuck, as if the answer would just pop up in emerald text on its dark little screen.

How could this have been accomplished? A constant flow of anatomy suppressing chemicals whose ultimate side effect was an early death! How could nopony notice that!?

The weight of my PipBuck’s cuff weighed heavily on my foreleg. I’d worn this gauntlet my entire life – literally.

What could have been regular enough? What could have been sufficiently proximate to constantly administer such vast amounts of such a potent chemical?

The pods ejected fresh Stable residents with PipBucks already attached. When ponies in Stable 52 inevitably died, the automated recyclers would extract and re-allocate their PipBucks before pulping their corpses and using the reclaimed matter to intravenously nourish the next generation.

It would have had to have been something in near constant contact with the general populace; something we all shared but took no notice of.

Essentially, from birth to death, the PipBuck was a constant companion; never leaving the ankle of its owner.

Whatever delivery system was administering that drug was very, very well hidden. It must have been completely invisible!

As I looked up, I noticed that Sage and Caring Heart were staring at my foreleg, much like I had been moments earlier.

“What?” I asked, glancing back and forth between the pair and my ankle mounted mini terminal.

Sage nodded towards my PipBuck with an expectant expression.

“...What?” I reiterated.

“Compass...your Pipbuck.”

“What about it-”

Something clicked in the back of my mind as a series of previously unrelated facts sorted themselves into a single, uniform realisation.

Said realisation expressed itself thusly:

“...Oh.”

Granted, it wasn’t one of my most eloquent moments, but that solitary monosyllabic utterance seemed to convey the desired meaning.

(Now, why couldn’t I say stuff like that rather than just thinking it?)

Ah, well. C’est la vie...

Caring snapped me back to reality as she continued to develop her hypothesis:

“You Stable ponies wear those things all the time, right? Maybe there’s something built in that administers the drugs automatically – it would be the perfect delivery system!”

Sage suddenly wandered away with a thoughtful gleam in his eyes.

My eyes followed him as he disappeared out of sight, allowing my gaze to end up resting on Mo, who had apparently been sitting up in her bed, listening intently this whole time. Her consistently wide-eyed stare was actually kind of creepy...

From the other side of the room, Sage shouted to Caring Heart:

“Caring, where’s that thing you use to stab me in the mouth?”

Rolling her eyes and tutting, Caring responded to the silver-maned buck in an exasperated tone:

“It’s called a dental pick! Second drawer down. Anyway, why do you need it? Your check-up isn’t for another month.”

“Ah! There you are!” he exclaimed before trotting back to my bedside.

He was carrying a small, thin, metallic tool in his mouth.

“What are you doing with that?” Caring asked.

With a confident smirk, Sage gently rotated my foreleg, revealing a small hole on the underside of my PipBuck.

“What you call a dental pick-“ he said while twisting the little tool.

“-I call a PipBuck key.”

My eyes widened as the perpetual cuff on my foreleg popped open with a soft click. I gently started to pry it off, grimacing as the underlying flesh peeled away from my PipBuck’s interior surface.

I looked up at Sage in wonder. He simply smiled back.

“How did you do that...? I didn’t even know that PipBucks could be removed!”

“Well, it pays to have read the manual.”

I gawked. He’d read the PipBuck manual!? The entire manual!?

“Isn’t that...like...9000 pages?”

Sage gently began easing the PipBuck off of my ankle, only briefly glancing up to meet my gaze as he answered.

“Eleven. Spread across eight volumes.”

“Wow...you must really like read- AH! SHIT! OW! STOP! STOP!”

Sage backed away in fright as I screamed into his face. The discomfort I had felt as he peeled my PipBuck away from my ankle had suddenly bloomed into a sharp, stabbing burn. I carefully looked down at my foreleg, taking care not to move, lest the pain intensify.

Just underneath the cuff was a thin, flexible tubule that penetrated deep into the flesh of my leg.

I looked from Sage to Caring Heart as my breathing stabilised.

“It appears-” I said through gritted teeth.

“-that your theory was correct, Caring.”

---

About an hour later, I found myself wandering listlessly around Trotfell, with neither purpose nor direction.

Following my brief stint in the hospital, Caring Heart had managed to explore the extent of the strange tubule I had found embedded in my foreleg.

Attached to its other end, we had discovered a short range teleportation talisman. According to Caring, it had been feeding me a powerful hormonal agent since the day I was birthed, allowing the complete suppression of my natural - uh, what did they call it, again? Oh, yeah – my ‘reproductive’ functions.

Worryingly, she wasn’t able to tell me how, or indeed if, it had affected my ‘natural’ lifespan.

Between the three of us, Caring, Sage and I had disabled the talisman so that, even if I managed to return to the Stable, the drugs would have no way of entering my system again.

Now, if only we could do the same for the rest of Stable 52’s residents...

Sage had even managed to reboot my PipBuck for me – a backup copy of the original OS was apparently stored on an arcane ROM chip hidden on the device’s interior (naturally, the access panel was in the single most inopportune position imaginable - the underside of the cuff).

Every so often, I’d take another glance at the screen in order to try and take my mind off of the crippling sense of futility I now felt.

Unfortunately, the wan emerald glow of the text wasn’t very comforting:

>>ROOT/BACKUP/OS/SETUP.EXE
>>BOOTING TO BACKUP OS...

>>PIPBUCK OS V 1.0.0
>>COPYRIGHT ROBRONCO INDUSTRIES
>>AUTO-CONFIGURING FOR FIRST BOOT...

It had been ‘configuring’ for well over an hour...

Thank Celestia I’d had better luck with the other article of arcane technology in my possession.

I had tried in vain to occupy myself for a while by repairing the mangled Screwdriver with scavenged parts I’d found in the local workshop.

But, as you can probably gather from my tone, it hadn’t worked. In fact, I had finished in under half an hour (even with a near constant headache stabbing into the back of my eyes).

It was as if I already knew the design inside out; like I’d disassembled and rebuilt it a thousand times...

Despite that strange sense of familiarity, however, I had still marvelled at the device's complexity upon opening it up. The Screwdriver was remarkable: both elegant in its design and ingenious in its functionality. I just hoped that I’d done it justice with my repairs – I had had to improvise...

A lot...

The Screwdriver now featured a large, conic head in place of what had previously been a cylinder. I had managed to repair its innards with a large bundle of wiring I'd found, replacing the strange spell matrix with, of all things, knowledge I'd accumulated from Petri's medical textbooks.

If anything, it now looked less like a Screwdriver, and more like a unicorn's horn, both in external appearance and, curiously, in its internal structure.

I bet Petri would be fascinated to examine my work – I’d have to show her it when I returned to the Stable!

After Sage had applied his formidable knowledge to my PipBuck, I finally got around to asking him for a hoof in returning to the Stable, and had even mused briefly on the possibility of liberating all 36’000 residents from their life-limiting arcane gauntlets upon my return.

Incidentally, did you know that you’re making almost the exact same face that Sage, Caring and Mo made when they heard that number?

Yeah, so, apparently, the standard compliment for a StableTec facility was usually well under 1000 ponies. I suppose that makes 52 special, doesn’t it?

Well, yay for us...

While Mo and Caring expressed what could only be described as shock at the size of my home, Sage had clearly spotted an opportunity.

36’000 engineers, scientists, craftsponies and medics; all with artificially limited lifespans.

Imagine their collective gratitude if it was revealed to them that they can actually live for, at the very least, three times as long as they had originally thought...

Trotfell could be transformed into a metropolis overnight! A powerhouse to rival the factories of the mysterious ‘Red Eye’ of Fillydelphia (whom Sage had told me about the night before)!

His eyes had lit up with the possibilities – just before he rushed out of the ward muttering something about ‘getting back to me’.

I wasn’t sure if he’d realised it or not, but steering clear of Stable 52’s resident murderer wasn’t going to be our greatest challenge.

Nor was the task of liberating the general populace from their artificially shortened lifespans.

No. Getting in the fucking door was our greatest challenge!

That giant cog had kept the Stable’s innards safely isolated for over two hundred years, and now we were just going to waltz through it?

I sighed, trying to push such hopeless thoughts to the back of my mind.

Change the subject, for Goddess’ sake, Compass...

It had been good to see Mo again, despite the fact that she had stayed almost completely silent for the entirety of my encounter with Sage and Caring Heart. I looked forward to continuing the strange conversation we had started after I’d dispatched that Ponitron.

As much as I wanted to get to know her better, I still couldn’t help the oppressive weight bearing down on my mind. I just couldn’t get my head round it - that single, solitary little conversation had completely changed my world view.

And I still didn’t know a damned thing about ‘the Doctor’!

Argh! It was driving me crazy! How did I know that name!?

The moment that Mo was discharged from the hospital, I’d have to-

I stopped in mid thought.

Meandering about the place had somehow brought me up an exterior staircase that let out onto the roof of Trotfell’s pub. Sitting upright on the corner, with his rear legs dangling over the side, was Buckshot.

We eyed one and other for a moment as he registered my presence, before he turned back to the midday vista beyond Trotfell’s modest skyline.

Now, in all honesty, I’d had a pretty shitty time last night (not to mention the events of the past couple of hours), and I’d taken out almost all of my frustrations on the first pony who’d crossed me in what was, essentially, a ruthlessly focussed personal attack.

That wasn’t me, and that wasn’t how I wanted to be known out here.

At the very least, I owed Buckshot an apology.

“...Buckshot...?” I said gently as I approached.

“Whit the fuck do you want?” he replied without turning away from the view.

“I wanted to...apologise. For last night...”

He remained silent, and continued to look across the horizon. Perhaps, I thought, I should let him have this time to himself...

“I, uh...I won’t bother you. It’s just that my temper kind of...gets the best of me from time to time. It’s like I can’t trust myself sometimes...”

I hadn’t been paying attention to Buckshot as I spoke, so it came as quite a surprise when I turned to face him at the end of my sentence – he was staring at me with an intense, piercing expression.

There was one of those foul-smelling little white sticks protruding from his mouth. A small plume of smoke rose gently from its glowing tip as his gaze impaled me. Suddenly reaching into a saddlebag at his side, he retrieved a small paper container filled with more of the little cylinders.

He gestured to a spot on the roof beside him.

“Sit.”

I complied, dangling my rear legs off of the edge like he was. Buckshot pushed the container into my face (I was able to make out the word ‘Cigarettes’ on its surface).

Whatever they were, I was sure I wouldn’t like them. But seeing as how this was clearly some sort of strange peace offering on his part, I acquiesced and withdraw one of the little rods from the box.

Positioning it between my lips as Buckshot had, I leant forward as he lit the tip with a nifty little flame talism- ACK!

By the Goddess, that tasted foul! I coughed so hard I nearly vomited as Buckshot simply continued to regard the town below.

As the tears streamed from my eyes, I tried in vain to regain my composure.

Buckshot exhaled a stream of the acrid white smoke as he spoke:

“Whit ye said before...about...trustin’ yersel’. Did ye mean it?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

Buckshot rubbed his neck with his hoof, massaging what I assumed was an old injury.

“It’s difficult tae get the truth out here in the Wasteland...”

He turned to look me in the eye.

“You’re the first pony Ah feel like Ah can actually believe...I dinnae know what it is about ye...”

I let out a small chuckle as the ridiculousness of the situation dawned on me. I was the most trustworthy buck he’d ever met!? I couldn’t even protect my best friends without getting chased out of my home...

“My rugged good looks perhaps?”

Buckshot suddenly choked on his cigarette, hunching over as a throaty cough emanated from his lungs. He glanced awkwardly in my direction, seemingly only to catch a glimpse of my jovial smile.

Clearing his throat, he sat up straight again and continued:

“Nah, it’s...it’s no that, Compass. Aw that ponies oot here do is lie an’ steal. Naepony can be trusted...” His eyes looked distant; cloudy – he was somewhere else.

“You just told me that ye cannae trust yersel’...”

Buckshot turned to me with watery eyes - somehow, I knew that they hadn’t been caused by the smoke.

“Ye were honest. Nae gun tae yer heed; nae ulterior motives...”

I returned Buckshot’s gaze, unsure of how to respond. Was the Wasteland really this difficult to live in?

“And then there wis last night. Ye...ye cut me tae the core, Compass. Ye knew. Ye knew all aboot me.”

The tears were certain now, carving moist trails across his gaunt face.

“And ye...ye tried tae help...”

Before I could say anything, he pulled me close with his foreleg and pressed his lips to mine.

The rich, smokey taste of his mouth seeped gently into mine as his tongue slowly edged my jaw open.

My eyelids slid closed and my breathing became shallow as he continued to massage my lips with his own. Before long, I became aware that I was mimicking his motions, moving my own lips and tongue in time with his.

Meanwhile, between my legs, I felt an unfamiliar tingling sensation that quickly grew into a sweet, tickling shiver.

All too suddenly, we were interrupted by a raised voice emanating from below:

“Compass! There you are! I’ve got it! I know how we can get you back into your Stable!”

Sage had appeared in front of the pub, and was shouting up towards Buckshot and I. The diffuse glare from the sun was forcing him to cover his eyes, much to my roofmate’s apparent relief – he had broken contact and pulled away the moment he had heard Sage’s voice.

“Come to my office as soon as you can and I’ll expl- Oh, Buckshot there you are!”

Sage suddenly noticed my companion as his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sky. He continued as Buckshot tried to avoid his gaze by shrinking into the corrugated iron beneath us.

“It’s good to see you getting on with somepony! I’ll need you too, so come along as well!”

Buckshot let out a heavily relieved sigh as Sage trotted off in the direction of the City Chambers.

“Buckshot...” I whispered.

“...what was that all about...?”

As if our encounter wasn’t already strange enough, Buckshot managed to weird me out even more by cracking a tiny smile as he turned back to me. He was even blushing!

“Sorry...Ah, um...Ah don’t know whit came o’er me...” He shrugged weakly as he spoke.

I was stunned.

Honestly and truly stunned.

It was as if he was a completely different pony; totally separate from the gruff, defensive buck who had, only hours earlier, threatened to throttle my intestines.

“It’s okay, Buckshot.”

I looked him straight in the eyes.

“If I’m being honest...I actually enjoyed it.”

Whatever ‘it’ was...

I ask you: Wasteland ponies, eh?

His smile widened as he took a deep breath and gently placed his hoof upon mine. We continued to regard each other silently until I made a sudden realisation.

I started to giggle as a memory surfaced.

“Heh...that’s it! I knew you reminded me of somepony!”

“Huh? Who?”

“Warp Drive – the engineer from Star Trot. Your accent’s exactly the same!”

Buckshot just looked at me blankly.

“Eh, don’t worry. It’s a pretty niche radio series from before the war – they only made four seasons. It was good, though – heroic adventurers traversing the galaxy in mighty spaceships! Seeking out new life and new civilisations! Boldly going where no pony had gone before!”

I leant back and stared straight up at the sky - despite the presence of the cloud layer, it was still an inspiring sight...

Buckshot’s mouth curled at one end as he stifled a laugh.

Sighing contentedly, I realised how good this felt and smiled back – I had feared that, after leaving the Stable, I’d never experience interactions like this again. My life such as it was had ended, and my world had completely changed.

Yet, here I was, in an alien land with a buck I’d only known for a few hours.

And I felt safe. Happy.

I gently grasped Buckshot’s shoulder. He smiled back silently.
Rising to my hooves, I made my way toward the stairs - we had a meeting to attend.

“By the way, Compass...” Buckshot called over from his perch.

I turned to face him.

“They only made three seasons o’ Star Trot.”

He smirked as he trotted past me and descended down the stairs.

I just stood there on the roof; head cocked to one side and mouth agape.

Wasteland ponies indeed...

---

Footnote: Level up!

Perk added: Confirmed Bachelor
Bucks seem to have an eye for you. You can now inflict 10% more damage to members of the same sex. Special dialogue options are also available when interacting with certain other males.

Perk added: Life After Birthing
Harmful alterations to your body have been counteracted. You receive an additional 50 hit points and gain 1 point to your Endurance stat!

Perk added: Passing the Screwdriver
You’ve made your own modifications to the Sonic Screwdriver, adding new settings with your ingenuity!

What are they, you ask?

It’s your Screwdriver – find out for yourself!

Comments

[Cadmium]

Oh nice finally an update on this story.
I have waitet long enough for somepony to make a Doctor Who / FO:E Crossover and this one seems to be very good so far!
Now sompony just has to write a FO:E / Prototype Crossover and i would be very very very happy!

Oh i just realized.
FIRST!
since everypony is doing it i might as well get on the bandwagon.

[Deathpony]

ouch Stable 52 is messed up indeed cant wait for the next chapter

[Iron Sides]

... he is... less then knowledgeable about life isn't he?

[Griffomo13]

Man, even the most innocent looking of stables is a horrible, murrder, monstrosity factory.

[volrathxp]

Loving it man. Can't wait for more!

[Starlight_Tinker]

651360

Ooh! Speculation, you say!? What is it, sir, that you think is going on?

651369

Mate, you have no idea how good that makes me feel Thanks so much for the support!

651533

Wait till they actually make it back - it get's worse

652219

He is indeed More low-brow humour is on its way, don't worry!

652601

Like I said to Deathpony, it gets so much worse

654435

Thanks so much man Still working my way through Starlight - you're some sort of fanfic writing machine!

[4n4rchy]

Hmmm...
Is this gonna have the Doctor in it at all?

[Starlight_Tinker]

758152

I'm borrowing from the meta-crisis, but I won't just be a re-hashing it. Promise

The Doctor does feature by way of the flashback scenes (which will become increasingly long and are a part of the main storyline). As for appearances in the 'present' day...well that would a spoiler now, wouldn't it? I will say, though, that if you've read Kkat's original Fallout:Equestria, you might recall a vague mention of a certain time traveling stallion interacting with one of the main characters...

And, by the way, many thanks for the follow, man

[4n4rchy]

Well, how could I not follow such an intriguing story?
And the above mention of the mention of mentioned stallion is what caused yor fic to catch my attention.
But I dunno, curiosity killed the cat.
I'd be rather intrigued if the story followed in the Doctor's footsteps, showing why he wasn't there when equestria falled, perhaps even finding him a broken stallion at the end of the quest, just waiting for his days to end?
What really bothers me though, why wasn't he in the TARDIS?

So many unanswered questions....
Don't dissapoint this old man, now.

[Starlight_Tinker]

799485

Good grief! The writer of Human reading my humble wee fic?

I'm grateful for your both your compliments and your critique, DannyJ. Thanks for reading

I've never been one for long descriptive passages, preferring instead to let the pace of the plot dictate the amount of scene setting I do.

I hope that chapters two through four don't disappoint

[DannyJ]

802364

Huh. I didn't know I was that well known.

Well, having since read them, I can say that they did not. I did not expect the fic to go in the direction it did, (namely outside the Stable considering the TARDIS is still in there and it's obviously a big factor in the story), but I don't have a problem with it. It's kept surprising me so far, which I definitely do like. Especially the revelations about Stable 55 in the last chapter.

Additionally, for the relatively low word count you've squeezed in a lot of subplots and and raised a lot of questions, and given our protagonist a lot of things to do, between the murders and the mystery of the Stable 55 experiments, and of course this whole business surrounding the Doctor. I'd also like to say that I love the fact that while the fic is obviously about the Doctor, him and the things related to him aren't the only important things going on, and the protagonist does have other problems to deal with. It helps with the feel the whole thing.

Other things I like; Compass's naivete about the outside world and even his own anatomy, the opening scenes of each chapter, and Buckshot, in all the instances we've seen of him. I definitely like this character, and hope to see much more of him.

Anyway, I'll definitely be following the rest of this story now. Hope the new chapter comes soon.

[Lesolan - Rest In Peace]

Yes~! YES!!! I knew my MC wasn't the only wasteland Confirmed Bachelor~!
alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/large/misc-freddie-mercury-l.png

[Telly Vision]

hahaha the doctor's TARDIS crashed with doc's Delorean

[StormyVenture]

652601
To be fair, I'd argue that it was more like really weird. It not's really murderous, just disrepectful of a pony's desires. I'm guessing the ideas was that they, the stable dwellers, would have enough time to improve themselves and the stable would utilize some criteria to decide who's DNA it would use for the next generation. So, eventually, you'd have some kind of superpony. The death at 20 years means the stable can keep the population under control and also also speed up the genetic change a.k.a. facilitated evolution.

Has to make you wonder if the TARDIS was confused by the Maneframe or something. It seems to have materialized in side of a disposal unit.

[Recovery15]

I thought stable 99 was bad, but 52...
*shudders*