The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Breaking In

A wall of sunlight hit Starlight with a blast as she stepped past the edge of the city, leaving her instantly panting from the heat. Behind her, Blueleaf's fourth level sprawled, high enough to occasionally be warmed by the sun at corners where streets intersected and paths widened or turned east-to-west, and light enough to offer heat, and more colors than gray. Ahead of her stretched a long iron bridge, with thick pipes for railings and a transparent grate floor, reaching out over a sun-baked pit that yawned like a dry lake. Cracked brown earth sat four stories below, in a hollowed-out circle free from buildings in the center of the town. And in the center of that...

Starlight's eyes widened. "That's what the generator looks like?"

A gray metal tower stood, tapering to a cone that ended several stories above the rest of the blue, cloudless skyline. Covered predominantly in large vertical pipes, it looked like a weapon designed to fire or be fired straight up, like the head of a massive spear. Inert exhaust vents filled it surface, and it was ringed by catwalks and ladders for outer maintenance, were any ponies there to provide it.

"Nah," Valey shrugged, swaggering forward. "It's a giant moon laser. The generator is that tiny pebble down there in the dirt."

"This is too the generator," Redshift huffed, scurrying alongside her, determined not to let Valey be the first to the core. "You're just jealous you can't make anything this cool."

Valey raised an eyebrow. "How cool can it be if it keeps breaking all the time?"

Starlight and Maple followed them, Starlight taking note of more bridges spanning out to the city in other directions... the pipes attached to them must have contained power conduits, she realized. Hooves clattering on dusty grates, they quickly reached a central catwalk ring, and began skirting right under Redshift's direction.

"If Braen comes and fights you while we're here," she growled as she lead, "you better not break anything while you fight, got it? We don't need an even bigger mess!"

"What's that?" Valey belched. "An invitation to cause collateral... Oh hey look a door!"

Redshift nodded, coming to a stop in front of an ironclad portcullis with rounded corners, set deeply into a recessed entry tunnel. Valey sniffed at it, thinking. Eventually, she pulled back, and said, "Yup, this thing was definitely added after the generator was built. Sosans are obsessed with their sliding doors, and this one swings outward. Look at the size of this hinge!" She pointed to a thick metal bar on one side. "Only reason for that is if they never made room for it to open their way. I bet Sosa even needed special equipment to make this, or at least couldn't mass-produce it. That, or it was left over from a boat."

With a snort, Redshift kicked a card reader with a hind leg. "Desecrating a boat is exactly the sort of thing the Sky District would do. Now open this so the Spirit can get in and let's leave!"

"Easier done than said!" Valey reached a webbed wing under her hat and popped out a glittering card key, and swung it through the terminal. "Zoop!"

A red light flared in her face, reflecting brown off her eyes. Valey frowned a fanged frown and tried again.

Again, the console beeped red, and Valey kicked it. "What gives?" she growled. "I've got a triple-S clearance on this thing! Open up, stupid door!"

"Hah!" Redshift laughed, pointing. "You're a fraud! Are you sure you're not accidentally using a stolen card, or something?"

"Speaking of stolen cards..." Maple moved forward hesitantly, and produced something flat in her hoof. "I took this from Selma while he had captured me in the Water District..."

Valey's eyes narrowed beadily as she took in the stolen artifact. "That's his key, alright. Wow, Ironflanks. I didn't know you were the type of pony to get away with stuff like that!" She happily nudged Maple's side, taking the stolen card and whipping it through the terminal. "Take... that!"

Red light.

"Oh, come on!" Valey stomped, pouting. "Now that's just rude."

Redshift smirked. "I guess even the Sky District is smart enough to keep you on a leash."

"Can it," Valey muttered, brow furrowed at the console. "I'm thinking... What did you say happens every time you try to get the Sky District to fix this themselves, again?"

"They don't," Redshift grumbled. "Our requests get lost, or denied, or something in their pile of paperwork. We can't trace them except that we either get no response or a 'no.' Once, my father went up there himself and got an appointment to talk to the Chancellor, and as soon as he made it up there, he learned it was cancelled without notice! That jerk just completely ignored him!"

Valey's brow furrowed dangerously. "Sounds to me like if they did send a technician, they wouldn't be able to get through here either, and the council knows it... which means there's something else behind this door besides a broken generator, and it's something they don't want anyone to find."

"Really...?" Redshift tilted her head, processing... and her mouth dropped in shock and suspicion. "They did!" she pouted furiously. "They probably are hiding something! That's stupid and selfish! So they know about our problem and care more about whatever's in here than us, do they?"

"Furthermore..." Valey tapped her chin. "I didn't know about this, which is kinda annoying but mostly suspicious because it's my job to know every last thing that happens in this city. That means whoever's behind this is either so small-time I didn't care about them, or so big-time they can hide stuff from me. If you got to Dior and he said no, small-time is out of the picture, and that doesn't leave many options. My money's on Herman, I think. Though... do you know for sure Dior did the cancelling on your appointment thing?"

"Yes," Redshift insisted. "My father was in his office and everything."

"And your dad also made all these requests, I suppose?" Valey raised an eyebrow.

"Yes..." Redshift nodded sullenly, apparently sensing a trap.

Valey sighed, shrugged, then grinned. "Well, we better add him to the list of suspects too, just in case he's lying about sending all those reports and has his own reason to keep this thing closed. So, who wants to go see what's inside?"

"But you just said it's locked and you can't open it," Redshift protested. "And my dad's a good pony!"

"Not from this side, maybe," Valey said, answering both statements at once. She cracked her wings, pacing to the edge of the catwalk and looking off. "But there sure are a lot of vents on this thing, and I'm willing to bet at least one of them leads inside... or at least could be convinced to with a bit of violence. Here I go!"

She dove off the railing, wings spread... then froze in midair, turning and eyeing Redshift dangerously. "And don't you try anything while I'm gone, now. Do anything sneaky to those two and I'll know before I'm even back. Savvy?"

Redshift stared. Slowly, never breaking eye contact, Valey sunk into the shadowed side of a pipe and was gone.

"...Huh," Maple said after a silence. "I suppose that technically makes her flat, so she can fit through a lot of spaces she wouldn't normally..."

Starlight grumbled indeterminately in agreement. Redshift said nothing. The silence resumed.

A minute passed, and then another, all three ponies looking uneasily between themselves, with more than one degree of impatience. Judging from the sun, they were on the southeast side of the reactor tower, standing on a relatively small portion of the bridge that was shaded, and keeping a far-too-close proximity to each other was preferable to baking in the jungle heat. Starlight sniffed, nose dry. Maple coughed. Redshift tapped her hooves.

Then, with a grinding of metal, the door swung open, and they had to jump to get out of the way. Valey's face poked through, perky and smiling. "Looks like nobody put a lock on the inside of this thing!" she crowed, stepping aside and waving a hoof. "Come on in, girls. It's nice in here."

Comments

[RoboRed]

Welp, time to find out what mysteries lie beyond the generator door...

[Quinch]

Wait, how many esses of clearance does Valey have?

[Alchemik]

A gray metal tower stood, tapering to a cone that ended several stories above the rest of the blue, cloudless skyline. Covered predominantly in large vertical pipes, it looked like a weapon designed to fire or be fired straight up, like the head of a massive spear. Inert exhaust vents filled it surface, and it was ringed by catwalks and ladders for outer maintenance, were any ponies there to provide it.

I'm getting sudden visions of Frostpunk.

"Easier done than said!" Valey reached a webbed wing under her hat and popped out a glittering card key, and swung it through the terminal. "Zoop!"

Hey, a zoop! Classic.

Wow, ok. Shadow walking is really good for breaking into places, whoda thunk it. That's a pretty sweet power.

[bronyheat]

Huh, really thought the card Maple swiped was going to be useful here, now I'm wondering what it will be used to open later.
Hmmm last time ponies had trouble opening doors to a place that needed maintenance it was filled with bombs... Walk softly, that goes double for you, Ironflanks!