~~~~~~~~
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover.
~~~~~~~~

Run.

I wanted to.

Run?

Maybe I still could. Where would that leave them?

RUN?(y/n)_

The pale glow of the monitor illuminated the whole of my world. All I knew of myself was vagaries and theories. I was a two-dimensional device, performing a function in a story not of my choosing. As such, the demarcation of my existence sat just outside an intricate mixture of computer components; disk silos, input bays, smaller monitors, one large key panel that extended around me in a half circle; a saddlebag full of medical supplies, and an injured Pegasus colt. Quite a world indeed.

I ran my hoof over my face, clearing the sweat.

The alarm continued droning in its metered, artificial voice. The message was an obvious bricolage of pre-generated snippets.

“Please evacuate the following areas in an orderly manner: Pharmaceuticals, Cybernetics, Sub-levels 4 through 9. All personnel gather at Roundup 2 immediately. Remember, be kind to everypony.”

Did I used to get into situations like this?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Staring.

She was staring at me.

The metered red flash of the alarm lights was an unnecessary harbinger, the rising heat from the base of the stairs announced itself, casting my wildly dancing shadow at her hooves. The glow illuminated her accusatory expression. Her eyes were ice.

I blinked. I was still sitting in the Director's office, staring into the rapidly flashing light on her console screen. Muted electronic shrieks rhythmically pierced the air. That heavy acidic churning began to well up in my guts, like back on the storage table. I found calm in the most unlikely of places, Doctor Needleminder herself. Despite the sudden eruption of stimulus, her elderly features showed only calm. Her composure gave me permission to regain mine. My breathing slowed.

"What's that for?" I asked, forcing my bravest voice.

"That's the hazard alarm. As for what specifically," she said in a slightly raised voice, "Generosity circuit seven, activate."

There was a barely audible beep.

"Homily, what's the source of the alarm?" she continued.

"Alarm was activated via console in Deep Well One, Director. Primary staff override key was used," a mare's voice crackled back from nowhere in particular.

"Do we have video confirmation?"

"All surveillance in Deep Well One is offline. The Generosity circuit is also not responding," it replied.

"Have scrub teams been dispatched?"

"Scrub teams three through seven en route, Director."

"Good work, Homily. Notify the Clear Sky Bureau immediately. Relay code 431897."

There was no response.

"Homily, are you listening? Notify the Bureau."

Another noticeable pause followed, then finally, "...Of course, Director. Relaying now."

"That will be all. Circuit, disconnect," she stated, her statement suffixed by another faint beep, "My apologies Lozenge, but I'm going to ask that you proceed directly to your room. Your attending nurse is waiting in the lobby. She'll show you where it is. Thank you for your time."

She quickly turned and trotted behind her desk. A square of the desk's surface folded up, and her face was bathed in a blue electronic glow, despite the sunshine behind her. She pushed down one of her shirt's white lapels, revealing a dark grey box imbedded slightly behind where her neck met her shoulder. Into it she plugged a black cable.

"Thank you for your time," she repeated.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are we really going to be okay?” the colt asked again.

“You bet, kid,” I replied. There was no room in this scene for honesty.

"In the garden where the brilliant sun shines all day
Shines all day
Shines all day
When the princesses come to play
I'll be on a bed of chrysanthemums..."

The sing-song crackled across the speakers, and my mane stood on end. The monitor fed me an image of the catwalk outside the blast doors. Amongst the faint wisps of steam he approached the security camera; the big, dark grey earth pony stallion with the jet-black mane and tail, and the golden eyes. Piercing, scathing gold eyes. Eyes that now looked directly at me through the aperture of the camera feed. He stopped singing.

"Open the door," he said calmly.

I ventured the logic of pressing the button labeled in raised letters: DOOR INTERCOM, and mustered my bravest voice.

"The database isn't in here. What are you here for?"

He took a deep breath, and repeated, "Open the door."

"No."

He stood there for a second in his tattered suit jacket, his legs, sides, and neck covered in ribbons of blood. Red smeared around his cutie mark; a wavering black sun. A few crimson lines creased his muzzle. His eyes, though, never left the camera. Never left me.

The colt nuzzled up against my side. The sudden contact was surprising, but his intent was obvious. The kid was rightly terrified. I pressed my teeth together, hard. Where was the nurse? I guess it didn't matter now. It was my call.

I dropped my hoof on the “Y” key.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The lift wasn't coming.

Nurse Heartspark and I stood staring at the panel. She'd decided the alarm was nothing to worry about, stopping by Pharmaceuticals on our way back to my room. There were two evacuation drills in the sub-levels last week. Those were the research labs, and that sort of thing wasn't terribly uncommon down there. I inquired about some Laughter Plus, and she replied that I shouldn't have another dose this soon when my body wasn't used to it; it was addictive. An electronic voice popped at regular intervals:

“Please evacuate the following areas in an orderly manner: Sub-levels 5 through 9. All personnel remain in their work areas. Remember, be kind to everypony.”

"Oh well, there's another lift over by the atrium," she said, ever cheerful. Her voice was effervescent, but her countenance resembled that of a pony struggling under immense weight.

"Are you okay?" I inquired.

She smiled, "Listen to you, asking me if I'm okay."

By the second lift, one that showed glimpses of outside light through spaced, oblong windows, we found another pair of ponies in lab coats. One was the turquoise unicorn mare from the pharmacy counter we'd just visited. She had a cutie mark of a spoon bending under a heaping pile of sugar.

"This wasn't what I meant by meeting up more often," the pharmacist smiled, winking one of her amber eyes.

"Whatever gets me out of the O.R. for a few hours," Nurse Heartspark replied playfully, "Where is everypony?"

"We just got a call to clear out the department. Not sure why," she said.

“Please evacuate the following areas in an orderly manner: Pharmaceuticals, Sub-levels 5 through 9. All personnel gather at Roundup 2 immediately. Remember, be kind to everypony.”

Everypony's ears perked. Now there was a sense of worry, but the hum of the lift was getting close.

Then, it exploded.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He blinked out in a pink flash, only to reappear smashed up against the door in the bottom periphery of the screen. I guessed that was what the faint purple aura was for. He growled. The colt shivered. Lines of glowing green text continued to scroll across the terminal screen.

>Unpacking file n1a19169115.axa....
>Complete.
>Hashes: 54
>Unique salts: 5
>Unique digests: 1
>Running n1a19169115.drg...

The text began running by at a pace impossible to follow.

"If you open the door, I promise you won't be harmed," he snorted through his compressed face.

"What about the colt and the nurse?" I asked.

"...Fine. I have no reason to harm any of you," he replied.

>Complete.
>_

The cursor blinked. Whatever it was, it was finished. Suddenly, the towers around me whirred to life, filling the air with the droning of machinery and the faint smell of ozone. A reverie of blinking lights flashed like fireflies. Like the fireflies I used to watch... The memory was gone as soon as it surfaced. The dark lab was now awash in color. I looked down at the colt, then back at the monitor. The stallion's body had begun to shine with arcing lines of static, and the air around him rippled. I wrapped one leg tightly around the kid, then hit the door release.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Weaponized device use detected in Pharmaceuticals Wing, Level Four. All personnel and patients please evacuate the Pharmaceuticals Wing as soon as possible. Remember, be courteous to everypony," the speakers droned.

I was prone on my side, pressed into the corner, Nurse Heartspark splayed over me. The potted tree that had been next to the lift door was laying across her spine. She’d shielded me with her body.

"Are you alright?" she coughed, her legs buckling.

The flash and tintinnabulation faded. I felt like I was being watched, and turned my head. Just inches from my face, at the end of a small trail of viscera, was a bodiless amber eye. I swallowed hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The grim visitor hummed his tune as he disappeared past the bottom of the screen, his aura fading, "Oh Princess, wise Princess..."

A box popped up on the main terminal, startling the both of us.

-PLEASE COMPLETE THE ASSISTANCE CIRCUIT.

It left a cursor blinking below it. I began typing.

What?
-Complete the assistance circuit.
What does that mean?
-This system is running in parallel. There is no network connection to Generosity. Please let me out.
Let you out?

It wouldn't be much longer until he reached the control room. Regardless, my typing was getting fairly swift. I must have been accustomed to it.

-Is that you, Twilight?

No.
-Where is Twilight?
Who is Twilight?

Did it take interrogatives?

-Look for the bridging switch.

"Bridging switch?" I muttered.

"What's that?" came a steely voice from behind me.

I whirled around, almost knocking the colt flat on his broken wing. Luckily, I spun towards him and instinctively hooked him with my other foreleg. Our eyes leveled on the entry and our ears flattened. Standing between two silos was the stallion.

I slid out of the chair between him and the colt and circled to his left. I tried to look as menacing as an off-violet, exhausted, blood-speckled earth pony could.

"Well, what's a bridging switch?" he continued, "It sounds like something very... second era." The last two words came heavy, like he was chewing on them, and they were delicious.

"I don't know," I replied. I meant for my voice to sound minacious. Instead, it belied how I felt; scared.

"Why are you talking about it, then?"

"It said it on the screen."

"Oh, now that is interesting," his gaze snapped to the massive primary display, "What else did it say?"

"It asked for someone named Twilight," I said flatly. As he stood there, motionlessly staring, my fear and fatigue began to metastasize into impersonal anger. My stomach was bile; my veins conduits of battery acid. At last, all I could feel was abandon.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The black earth pony stallion had only a few cuts and scrapes, but mentally, he was unhinged. We all were. Nurse Heartspark's back looked pretty bad. I, recovering from supposed egregious trauma and having not slept in two days, was sadly in the best shape amongst us.

We were heading towards the causeway to Cybernetics, which the two staff ponies assured would get us to the roundup the nice computer voice instructed us to proceed to. We were moving just short of a gallop, and the pace was hell on my legs.

The three of us rounded another corner just in time to see a smaller emergency lift depart, and realized we were all alone. Alone, except for a chocolate-brown pegasus colt in a wheelchair. One of his wings and his left foreleg were in casts. They'd left him.

Then we saw why. The emergency lights at the end of the hallway illuminated a figure.

He was wearing a full suit of some kind of black material barding. A sloping, silver metal shell encased the entirety of his head, with a line only where it latched to the plate running from his jaw to his neck. A full armor frame encased his fore-body, secured both around his barrel and with a "Y"-harness across his chest. There were ball joints on either side just behind the shoulder, and mounted on each were long black barrels. They moved slightly with the motion of his head. Where his eyes would be, there were only two amber lenses.

"A.. are you with the security team?," the black stallion asked tentatively. The tone of his own voice answered his question.

The blue and white of Nurse Heartspark's tail flitted across my eyes. She was quick. Her and the stallion reared and turned as the first shot flashed from the figure and snapped by. Luckily, he wasn't shooting at me. I was rooted in place, staring into those amber orbs.

I didn't know what my eye color was. I was going to die without knowing.

The pharmacist yanked me by the tail.

It was easier galloping with just my hind legs, supporting my forelegs and body on the wheelchair. Nurse Heartspark was up ahead. The stallion ran alongside me, trying to stifle his own rising panic enough to comfort my passenger; all the more impressive considering he'd pissed himself at the first shot. The colt's mane didn't seem reassured.

The sounds of buckling metal echoed behind us, along with a sharp, sporadic popping of weaponry.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine," our leader mustered her most reassuring voice, "It's just through this atrium!"

The colt was visibly shaking. I knew how he felt. I'd been feeling it all day.

I rested one hoof on his shoulder, and he stilled.

Every lift we passed was disabled or destroyed. They were controlling the exits. Were they trying to keep everypony else out, or herd us in?

~~~~~~~~~~~

He took a few steps toward the controls, but stopped at the issue of a loud, static thump from behind me. I looked back. The colt was sitting next to a large silver switch tucked into the crux of the wall, behind part of the computer. It had been enclosed in a metal display, the cover of which he'd unhinged. I squinted at the label.

Bridging Circuit Switch AIC-00009N
Tier 1 Personnel Only

"-THANK YOU." popped up on the screen in massive letters. The intruder looked genuinely confused.

"What did you do?" he snapped angrily, stomping his hoof. His sudden loss of composure would have been shocking were I not already in shock. That dull, numb shock reserved for caged animals at the edge of reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We moved with an imperative provided by the threat of death. The atrium doors didn't slide open quite fast enough, and Nurse Heartspark bent the frame with the impact of her body. Now they were stuck. The wheelchair wouldn't fit, so we managed to get the colt onto my back. My body didn't welcome the weight.

For a second, I honestly thought of leaving him there, or throwing him a trash can and hoping for the best. Was I that kind of pony? Was that how I behaved before the fire?

Our hoof-beats echoed from the tall windows and the menagerie of transplanted foliage and potted plants that lined the atrium. Benches and trash cans had been overturned, and among them were two more blood-soaked ponies. Nurse Heartspark checked their vitals. They'd tried to barricade themselves in, but only made themselves a tomb.

Sunlight filtered down from a series of long, reflective metal silos that extended from the arched ceiling off to what must be the roof of the building. A row of windows allowed the atrium light to filter into the adjacent corridors. It would almost be calming, if we weren't about to die.

"It's just through these doors..," the stallion panted, galloping ahead eagerly.

I couldn't keep up. My every muscle needled over. My lungs singed with the labor of simply walking. The colt was sobbing softly into my mane.

"Just close your eyes and think of something that makes you happy," I whispered to him. I tried to think of what made me happy, but the truth was I didn't know. I could only remember being happy once.

"Think of laughter."

We were almost at the exit doors when I noticed the vague outline of a pony in the muted light beyond the glass. It was wearing some strange type of rounded black hat and motioned emphatically for me to stop. As I did, I saw something on the deck next to it.

"Stop!" I cried.

Nurse Heartspark skidded to a stop just ahead of me.

"There's something there," I gestured with my hoof. The figure was gone, but the object wasn't.

The pharmacist, in his fervor to escape, raced ahead. Nurse Heartspark reached out a hoof, but missed.

Piercing white light filled everything as the door, the pharmacist, and half of the architecture vaporized in front of us. The floor lurched and gave way, launching us down at an angle. Rows of shelves dominoed at the impact of our bodies. Clouds of medical supplies sprayed down and buried us in a wave of injurious irony. What a way to go; murdered by medicine. If I thought I'd known pain before, I'd just gotten a new lesson. We shook ourselves free and continued to move.

Water poured down, dappling my coat in cold. The lights on this floor were out, and the room was only lit by the red of emergency lights. I looked up through the hole and couldn't yet see our pursuer. For now, my fear was stronger than my pain, and I willed myself to follow as we galloped down rows of shelves filled with small boxes and bottles.

"Weaponized device use detected in Pharmaceuticals Wing, Level Four. All personnel and patients please evacuate the Pharmaceuticals Wing as soon as possible. Remember, be courteous to everypony," the speakers droned.

"This is the pharmacy storeroom," said Nurse Heartspark, mostly to herself.

I scooped up a set of white medical saddlebags from a lamp-lit desk as we passed and slid it awkwardly onto my back mid-gallop. When we got to the stairs, I took the time to fasten the saddlebags properly and see what was inside. Among some other medical supplies were two vials of Laughter Plus, 500 HMCs each. I felt a little giddy.

"Are we going to be okay?" the colt's meek voice was barely distinguishable from the rush of water.

"Of course, sweetheart," replied our leader. She was kind, even under pressure. I wondered what it took to be somepony like that.

But was she honest?

"Where are we going?" I panted.

Even in the wavering shadows, I could see the apprehension on her face when she looked at me.

"What are we really doing?" I pressed.

"There's something important further down here. I need to make sure it's safe," she replied.

"Are you kidding me? You're risking all of our lives!" I growled through clenched teeth. What little of my exhausted mind that could still feel bubbled with rage.

"Please, trust me. It's more important than I have time to explain," she pleaded.

"I haven't made a single decision for myself since... I can remember. My entire life."

"I'm so sorry," her voice blanched, "I can't imagine what that's like... and I can't ask you to go with me. You can both wait here. I just..."

"I'll go with you," said the colt, "So you won't be lonely."

I blinked in shock, "That's... pretty brave kid."

"It's not being brave," he said in a small voice, "I just can't let her go alone."

All this after being abandoned himself. I felt ashamed.

We twisted deeper through blind turns and hissing pneumatic hatches. I stopped to stow one vial of Laughter Plus in a vent next to a maintenance lift. Slim chances were chances still, and they were all I had.

"Get down!" boomed a stallion's voice.

We'd spilled into a dimly lit room filled with the acrid smell of burnt metal, and at first didn't realize the two bodies contorted on the floor. They were dressed like our assailant from upstairs, except one was slumped over a large device he'd apparently been using to cut through a set of blast doors. We were also oblivious to the four pegasi in blue body suits encircling us from the edges of the room. Beams of light shone from the sides of their headsets. Each had a similar body rig, from which four silvery weapons honed in.

"Get down!" he repeated. We dropped onto our stomachs. The respite was welcome.

He stared through a blue-tinted visor, regarding Nurse Heartspark's uniform, "What are you doing down here?"

"We need to back up the primary database. That's what they're after. They're isolating Deep Well 2 from the rest of the facility. Deep Well 1 was a distraction," Nurse Heartspark blurted.

The four pegasi exchanged glances. The red one with the tornado-shaped badge nodded.

"We'll escort you to the data center, nurse. You two," he gestured at the pile constituted by myself and the colt, "Are going to go with Corporal Gladewind to Roundup One, immediately."

"Actually, nopony is going anywhere."

Everypony looked toward the source of the voice. The outline of a tall stallion filled the entryway, faintly outlined by the pegasi's search beams.

Two golden eyes relfected back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Those two aureate irises narrowed on me, but I only glared in resignation. There was no reflection staring back. Each was like the baleful halo of the summer sun, shining in a stoic face. He was going to tear me apart, like the security team. I didn't care. Let the end come.

"Get out of here. Find Nurse Heartspark," I rasped. Simply standing was taxing my every faculty. The edges of my vision swam black.

"I gave my word," the stallion sighed, looking away.

"I'm not ready to let it go...," I slurred in my disoriented stupor.

"What ever do you mean?"

"This... mortal coil..."

After all of this, he chuckled. Honest laughter. How ironic.

The colt had hobbled around and was slinking through the exit. Now was my chance. I charged headlong at the bastard. All that was left was to invite the blizzard and be buried in the flurry. Perhaps I'd at least bite his ear off. In place of my target I found the waiting floor, as I crashed face-down. My body was finished.

"You're funny," he snickered.

I almost laughed too, but it came out as a gurgle just as everything blinked out.

Author's Note

Decided to play with time on this one. Tell me what you think.