Chapter 2. Going Down
So here I was, nineteen levels below ground level, standing in total darkness, listening to the unsettling sounds of Luna knows what groaning and moaning. There should be nothing alive down here to moan, well, other than me if I kicked my shin in this dark. A shriek, followed by a series of rapid clicks just about made me jump out of my skin. It didn't exactly smell great down here either, the air filled with the taint of corrosion, age and must. If this place really was called Heaven, I figured I must be heading down towards Hell.
Shuddering, I blinked a few times. The head-up display of my mapper dimmed to almost invisibility so as not to dazzle me in the darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed a faint, red glow. It wasn't enough to see by, just enough to be tantalizing. Its brightness pulsed regularly. I glanced about for the source, discovering it was the floor indicator for the elevator. Well, that would do as a night light, but it wasn't much use for anything else. The pulsing stopped, leaving a red zero glowing. The elevator car was back on the surface.
Think, girl. Alternative light sources. My survival saddle had some lamps built into it. Of course, finding them in the dark would be difficult. Ah, the mapper itself. It had a light in its display (the non head-up one). I extended my fingers from my hoof, pressed the appropriate combination of buttons, and the mapper lit up. Okay, that was better, now I could see my hooves. Another quick glance about convinced me that I wasn't about to be eaten by an imaginary creature, so I breathed a sigh of relief.
I reached back to the survival saddle, opening its front hatch. From within, I extended the emergency lights. One reached out past me, sitting just in front of my chest. It cast a reasonable beam ahead. The other light curled up above my head, where lit the general area. Neither was particularly powerful, but you could read or repair things by them.
My next problem was to find my way down to sub-level thirty-six. The indicator showed that the elevator was still up at the surface, held there by the override. It could be a while before it started down again, so I doubted I would be able to use it again any time soon. That meant using the stairs. My comms unit crackled. Interference, I guessed. I walked over to the door to the stairwell and opened it, only to find it was totally dark in there too. Today, I hated my job.
I was about to start down when the comms unit crackled again. I checked the display and saw that there had been two failed connections. Maybe the communication relays were out as well as the lights. Perhaps a wired connection would work better. I returned to the elevator, or more specifically, the control panel beside it. Opening a hidden panel, I extracted the coiled cord and plugged it into my mapper. After a number of messages about failed relays scrolled past, it indicated it had found a working one.
"Boss, have you been trying to call me?" I asked.
After a moment, the reply came. "Ah, Aneki, good. Thanks for calling in. Where are you?"
"Standing in the dark at sub-level nineteen."
"What are you doing there?"
"The elevator called priority and spat me out."
"Ah, I see..." The boss paused. "Your being there actually works to our advantage. Forget about your mission for the moment. Something has happened in your area, plus or minus a level or two. I want you to explore the area north of your current position. There was a pretty big disturbance there a few minutes ago. That may be why your trip down was terminated. Hmm... Let's see. Yes, yes, it looks like Central are assembling their own team to come down and investigate this one. They've put out a request to all of their contractors for any information we can provide them. Any clues you could give them would be appreciated."
"I can tell you this much already. The lights are out on this level and in the stairwell," I said.
"That's concerning."
"And, I can hear something moaning, groaning and clicking. It sounds like something structural is in distress."
"Thank you, I will pass that on to them immediately. Please report back when you have something more concrete."
"Comms are also down. I had to resort to a hardwired connection. Even then, I was lucky to find even one working communications relay. I'll have to come back to this hardwired connection to report," I said.
"Understood... Hang on." The boss fell silent, allowing me to I heard some distant cracks and a deep thud that I felt as well. "I'm getting more readings on the seismograph. What's going on down there?"
"More cracks and a thud," I said. "Something has just collapsed."
"Don't risk your life, but get in as close as you can. Report back as soon as you can. You are clear to sign off."
"Signing off." I disconnected the wire and allowed it to curl back into its compartment. "Well, it's just you, me and my sore legs," I told my lamp. "Let's go see if we can shed any light on the problem."
Immediately I trotted north, along the corridor, constantly looking around as I did. I was watching for cracks in the floor, walls or ceiling, openings, obstructions, or anything that could be causing the noises. I didn't think I was close enough to the problem to warrant traveling slowly considering the urgency of the situation. The boss hadn't needed to spell that out for me. I was a qualified structural engineer after all. I knew that if things down here were failing, collapsing, the damage could spread to the point where ground level, and all that was on it, was in danger of collapsing, too. After all, the honeycomb of structural members and walls down here was what was keeping the city up there.
After a couple of minutes trotting, the darkness and loneliness started taking their toll, and my overactive imagination began to create all sorts of horrors for me find. Usually such tribulations were limited to annoyed ponies I ticked off by demanding access to their homes, or whatever, but the darkness gave my unfounded fears something in which to take root. Eventually I came to a junction, so I stopped, listening for clues. A quick check of the mapper confirmed it was tracking my route. After a moment, some more creaks and groans sounded, the louder ones coming from my right. East, it was. I trotted off.
I soon came to another junction, pausing again. The sounds drew me north again.
To call these passages through which I was trotting corridors didn't really do them justice. These were the service ways and streets of the ponies who once lived or worked here, and in some instances, still did, like me, right now, for example. The width varied every so often, as one area had encroached on the shared space, or another had retreated. Now all that remained were the stripped walls, discolored and mismatched areas of paint, screw and bolt holes showing where equipment had been removed. Lines left in the paintwork and empty racks suggested at the former routes of cables and pipes, the latter salvaged to improve the lives of ponies on the surface.
Some cables had survived, such as those that were meant to be powering the distantly spaced lights. The cables were still there, even if there was no current flowing through them at the moment. Once this place must have been full of bustling ponies going about their daily lives, as if living down here was no different to living anywhere else. Doors usually survived. Most were closed. Down here, windows had no reason to exist.
I suddenly caught my breath, collapsing in a coughing fit. That was unexpected. Clearing my throat, I reached back into my survival saddle for my water container. A couple of swigs helped. I sniffed at the air, immediately coughing again. Okay, something nasty was in the air, mingled in with the other smells of age and decay. I returned my water container to the saddle, and retrieved my filter mask. I pulled it over my muzzle, checked for a good seal, then took a deep breath. Ahh, that was much better.
Wearing the mask would deprive me of odoriferous warnings, but being able to breathe was worth the trade off. The unbreathable air was a warning in itself anyway. I continued on my way, trotting a little slower this time. As the boss had said, the disturbance could be a level or two above or below the nineteenth sub-level. It was possible I may find nothing. I doubted that would be the case, as something had disturbed the dust, or whatever it was that was fouling the air.
Because of the dust, it was getting harder to see further ahead now. Before now, looking ahead didn't reveal much because my forward-facing lamp simply had insufficient power to show up much, so all I would see was the floor, walls and ceiling fading into an impenetrable black zone in the center of my field of vision. Now that area was getting hazy, milky, reflecting back some of the light. After trotting slowly through the haze for a couple of minutes, it appeared to thin, and I thought I was through it when, something smashed me hard in the face, then the chest. With the figurative world spinning, I went over backwards, and thumped onto the ground, stunned.
Arrrrrgh! There really was something nasty lurking down here! Even in my impact-induced addled state, I knew I could be in serious danger from whatever had floored me, so I weakly tried to push myself away, but with little success. Realizing I was doomed, I froze and waited in the silence for the killing strike. As seconds passed, my brain finally managed to push the swirling confusion away, allowing me to gather my thoughts.
Let's see, what did I know about my situation? First, something had hit me hard. Second, it didn't attack after the initial impact. Third, I was assuming something would strike at me to kill me. Why would it want to kill me? That was just my fears having fun. These tunnels should be deserted. After all, they were off limits to ponies who didn't work for Central either directly or, like myself, indirectly. Perhaps greeting whatever it was would result in a better outcome.
"Look, I'm sorry for running into your territory, but I have been assigned by those above to find out what's going on down here. I mean you no harm," I offered. Apart from the reverberation of the tunnels, there was no response. Well.... that could have gone better, but at least the situation hadn't got any worse. "I'm getting up now," I announced, carefully climbing back onto my hooves. Reaching up to my face, I poked at it gently, where my filter mask had dug in. More bruises. Great.
Ah, yes, I wasn't alone, was I? Deal with the other, whoever or whatever it was, then worry about bruises. Looking ahead, I found myself facing the corridor wall. I must have been disoriented by the impact. That was no surprise. Glancing at my mapper's head-up display. I realized I was facing west instead of north, so I turned that way, and found myself staring at the same darkness I had seen before getting clobbered. Nothing was there, just solid blackness.
Huh? That didn't look right. That blackness was a little too solid looking. I took a cautions step forward, reaching out with my hoof. There was no reaction, apart from the sound of the hoof striking whatever it was. I tried again, with the same result.
I extracted my fingers and felt about. Solid blackness indeed. There was something there. As I felt about I found it stretched from one side of the corridor to the other. I tried scratching at it. The result was as unexpected as it was revealing. My fingers left a series of parallel reflective stripes as matt black paint peeled away to reveal metal. Realization dawned.
"Oh, you stupid mare!" I said. "You just ran head first into a fricking wall!" At least this time I had an excuse. It was dark.
What idiot had painted it in non-reflective paint? In the dark it was practically invisible. Oh, that was right, there were meant to be lights, and they weren't working. Some more scratching on my part made it more obvious there was a barrier here, although stepping back from it, my efforts looked like floaty, glowy lines. Approaching it again, I inspected the barrier closely, noticing the welds where it joined the corridor walls. This had been done, either to keep anypony from going into the area beyond, or as a reinforcing measure.
Another creaking groan echoed through the tunnel, seemingly coming from a few paces back. So I had passed the source? It was hard to be sure, with the sounds being transmitted through both the structure of H'ven and through the air. I backtracked a dozen or so paces, and hunted about, looking for any opening I may have missed. Another series of groans allowed me to zero in on a closed door, done in rusty gray and black spots. No, not spots. Holes. It was made of perforated steel. A tug on the hoofgrip unlatched it, and it swung away, causing glittering eddies to form in the milky cloud. Okay, so the cloud was definitely made of particles. Fine dust? And why wasn't it settling?
I stepped through the doorway, and into a slightly thicker cloud of the dust. The area wasn't exactly a room, as towards the rear it extended out to the left, with some heavy pipework that came in through the ceiling going off in that direction. While waiting for my next audio clue, I spent a few minutes examining the pipes, bolts, flanges and mountings, and none seemed to be in poor order. While not brilliant, they were quite serviceable. Leaning my ear against the pipe I listened, and was greeted with quiet gurgling. A water pipe, perhaps, and not that high a pressure either. It was probably a return pipe for the water systems up at ground level, and this far along the pipe, any air had already been thrashed out, leaving just the liquid flowing.
I followed the pipes a few paces into the tunnel and was confronted with a barrier, made of the same sort of mesh as the door into this place. Fortunately I'd found this obstruction with my eyes, and not my nose. Retrieving the appropriate tool from my saddle, I undid the fasteners that held one of the panels in place and moved it aside. No sooner than I had, more clicks and groans echoed through the space. The noise was definitely coming from the direction in which the pipes ran, so I stepped through the opening and walked in that direction, stepping over the remnants of old bolts, brackets and other protrusions that dotted the path. Running here would be doubly painful. If I stumbled, I'd end up with my chest and legs full of sharp-edged metal.
After a few minutes of following what was essentially a very consistent and boring tunnel, the wall suddenly angled, and closed in around the pipe. That was poor engineering! I moved closer so my lamps could light up the obstruction. No, this wasn't the result of poor engineering at all; it was damage, perhaps the problem I was actually looking for. The way it was pushed in, something substantial must have leaned against or hit it. Where it narrowed, the floor became rippled, even concertinaed the further the intrusion pushed in. This wasn't merely a damaged wall. It was serious structural damage. No wonder things were creaking and groaning. This may well have been the source of the structure-shaking thud I had heard and felt while talking with the boss.
Wondering if I could get a look at how far back the damage went, I dropped onto my stomach, and wriggled my way under the pipes, my second lamp folding itself down now that it didn't have the space to remain extended. I reached back and reluctantly put it away. I didn't want it snagging on anything. In fact, I didn't want the survival saddle to snag on anything either, but that wasn't going anywhere. Without it, I was literally in the dark. Checking above me as I crawled, I was able to see the pipes themselves were intact, and more or less undamaged, which didn't surprise me. If they had been damaged, I fully expected I would have already been soaked.
The condition of the floor itself however was a different matter. Rippled, twisted and downright scrunched, it was hard to move across. Its structural weakness allowed it to flex a little, which was disconcerting. I would have expected the ripples would have added to its stiffness. I was about to give up after crawling about five body lengths when I noticed the damage seemed less. Perhaps I was past the worst of it. I moved forward a little more, feeling the damage to the floor with my hooves before committing myself to moving along further. One spot felt a little too flexible, so I gave it a slightly harder push.
With a screech, it parted company with itself.
Uh-oh.
What should have been solid steel floor plating tore like paper, and it tore from where my hooves were pressing to right back under my chest. I half plunged through the resulting gap, my rear legs and survival-saddle keeping me from falling all the way through. Eeeeek! Despite my reflexes trying to kick in, I froze.
An eternity passed. Probably about three seconds, actually.
My brain calmed slightly, and I realized that not only were my head, forelegs and chest stuck through the hole in the floor, but my lamp was too. While I was down here, I might as well check out what damage I could see, while I sought a way out of this predicament. I looked down to see how far I would have to drop to the ceiling of sub-level twenty, the level immediately below this one, and if that failed to hold my weight, to the floor below that, not that I would be able to see the floor if the ceiling was still in place.
It wasn't. I could see the skeletal supporting beams, and it appeared as if though something had been eating them. The ceiling itself had long since given up holding on and had fallen, but it hadn't stopped when it hit the floor of sub-level twenty though, or any of several levels below that either. I could see a few ragged edges of what should have been ceilings and floors, but, below me, I could see nothing in the range of my lamp to stop me if I fell. Looking to the left I could see the main structural member that had failed. Its twisted form had assorted extra pieces of steel welded to it in what appeared to be a very amateurish attempt at strengthening it. What had happened here? A fire? An acid spill? Leakage from the pipe causing corrosion? I stared at the mess in the very dim light, pondering my next move.
For Luna's sake! This was an old repair! No wonder they had blocked off the corridor in which I had been traveling earlier. It stank of cover-up though. Instead of doing the repairs properly, they had done as cheap a job as they could, then sealed away the evidence with some nice new walls. I would get to the bottom of this. If the repair team that did this still worked, or hadn't died of old age in the meantime, I was going to have their heads. Of course that didn't help me in my current predicament at all. I spent a few more second enjoying the thought of stuffing each and every one of them through this exact hole.
What was that about not risking my life? Derp. Well, I certainly had something to report now. I tried my comms unit, just in case it had decided to work. Of course it didn't. That would have been way too convenient. Maybe I would have to wait for the crew from Central to help me out. No doubt they would find their way here. I felt myself lurch a little deeper as the floor tore a little more.
Waiting was out. I had to get myself out of this damn hole right now. Feeling around with my rear hooves, I wasn't able to find anything convenient to wrap my legs around. Damn annoying, really, because there were many risers supporting the pipes. The pipes themselves must have been strong enough to not be adversely affected by having lost the structural integrity of the floor under several of its supports. I wiggled my rear a bit to the side and tried again. A fresh bruise indicated success, so I wrapped that leg around the riser. Yay. Anchored.
Extending my fingers, I reached up above my head, feeling around for some floor material that still had some strength. Finding a couple of patches that felt more substantial than tissue paper, I gripped hard, and tried to lift my front half back through the floor. I was about eye level with the floor when the two patches I was gripping decided to tear off, and with a scream, I flopped back through the hole which was now that much larger.
Something creaked. I held my breath,
With a sudden twang, the riser my rear leg was wrapped around parted company with the pipe, and joined me in a sudden downward motion into the black maw below. Desperate scrambling failed to halt my passage through the failed material of the floor.
I screamed, realizing I may well be on my way down to sub-level thirty-six without the aid of an elevator.
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Heehee. This kind of things is exactly what I love about your writing style
Reminds me of looking for caves in Minecraft by digging towards the sounds of moaning zombies, heh
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I've not played Minecraft, so any similarity is merely coincidental!
This story is good. It has my approval and guarantee of continued readership.
I'm enjoying this quite a bit so far. I think my favorite thing (besides the spunky protagonist) is the way they have no incoming resources in the city, on account of being in a bottle. So they have to just re-purpose old paper and old recording tapes and such, over and over, forever. It's a cool rationale for why they don't have a running history.
Ungh, this chapter, particularly toward the end, is making my stomach knot up in tension. Well done.
Hawt damn O-O on to the next chapter.
I am really trying to figure out how this works.
Prepare your anus... if I am not too tired.
This is very interesting so far. I like the Sci-fi aspect of it.
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Three black "tentacles" that curl up, hidden within the hoof wall. The wall can "unlatch" from it's natural position and be pulled back, out of the way.
6373380 Why does this sound like genetic engineering for ponies that will be in a low magic environment?
Interesting twist. Not the lazy repair crew, that's too real.
I mean her getting hurt for it the way she did.
💀
She in trouble now! Mmm-hmm!