Fallout Equestria: The Manehatten Project

Showtime

"It's showtime, boys!"

I followed the flow of the crowd to the atrium and looked around. Ponies were milling about trying to weave through crowds to get back to the mundane tasks of stable life. I looked towards the south end and saw the mock stage they were setting up for the concert tonight. It was shoddy in quality and crude in looks, but it did its job well enough I'd suppose. I turned away from the rickety structure and followed a small clique downstairs. I stayed silent as I trailed behind them. They dawned their hardhats and kept moving downward at the first sub-level; I however, hung a right and began to progress through the labyrinth of hallways. One right, two lefts, straight, double left, single right, and the second door on my left.

I stood in front of a small door labeled, "Maintenance access only: Generator One." And as I said before, if you're gonna break the rules, don't get caught. I checked my six, three, nine, and every digit in between. deciding I was good to go, I opened the mechanical door and stepped out onto the metal catwalk; letting the door softly whoosh closed behind me. I listened to the rumble of the turbine as I thought. "Okay, my bag should be somewhere 'round here." I said to nopony but myself. I turned to my right and nearly jumped out of my coat as I looked at the buck that seemed to have manifested from the warm air around us. There was something off with the earth pony stallion. His cyan coat and navy blue mane seemed to glow with a faint orange aura, and the four-leaf clover on his flank

"Whatcha lookin' fer, Laddie?" The buck asked in a heavily accented, yet upbeat voice.

"I-I'm looking for a bag." I stammered. "It's small, about yea big." I said as I held my hooves about two tin cans' length apart.

"Ah, ya mean this?" he asked as he pulled out the bag and held it between his teeth. "I was about ta turn it into one of them hounds, I haven't got tha faintest idea o' what's in 'er. She's got a fine weight to 'er though." The buck said as he hooved my bag to me.

"Thanks." I said as my light brown aura surrounded the bag and floated it beside me. "Could you do me a favour not tell the Hounds about this?"

"Tell the Hounds about what?" Came a gruff voice behind me.

I jumped and did a 180 degree turn and looked up at a pissed looking Lookout. He seemed a lot smaller from a distance, or when standing next to the overstallion, but the overstallion makes anyone look tiny.

"Me laddie came down 'ere ta chit chat." The maintenance stallion said to Lookout as he pointed at me. "I 'ope that's not a problem."

"Trespassing into a restricted area is a problem...?" Lookout said as he looked down at me.

"Ahhh... Shamrock." The stallion said looking up at Lookout with a nervous grin.

"Right..." Lookout said before returning his attention to me. "Come with me kid, I gotta lock you."

"Well, Lookout, judging from the wrinkles in your suit and the fact you're working overtime down in the sub-levels, I assume you're in need of some bits; I'd be glad to send some your way." I said trying to buy my way out of trouble.

"How much?" Lookout asked without skipping a beat.

I took a moment to think and recall the bartering lessons an ex stable member. Bartering in Sixty-Six was normally done in terms of hundreds. Quid being a hundred half being fifty, quarter being twenty-five bits, oct as twelve and one half bit, and so on and forth. "Quarter and a half." I said with a grin.

"Double quid." Lookout retorted.

"Double quid?!" I repeated in disgust. "Quid quarter."

"Quid half."

"Quid quarter and triple oct."

"Round up?"

"Naturally." I said with a smile.

"Deal." He said with an outstretched hoof.

"Deal." I repeated with a smile as we shook on it.

I pulled out my pouch of bits and counted out his 138 bits and gave him his money. "Right, well, I should go clock out. See you at the show tonight." He said as he walked out the door.

After thanking Shamrock for covering for me and explaining that, yes I am in fact "That one popular music guy," I walked out the door and made my way back to the atrium.

Flat; sharp; flat; flat; rest, two, three, four, one. Natural; octave; slur; tie, three, four, one, two three, lift... and hold. Taktstock placed his baton on the podium and like robots the orchestra's arms dropped. We were a sextet really, but we didn't go by that for obvious reasons. The audience erupted into a thunderous applause that reverberated throughout the atrium and the halls. The acoustics were garbage to say the least, but this is an assembly room, not a concert hall. We took our bows and carried out things backstage. As I was packing my double bass away I heard somepony walking towards me, so naturally I looked up and immediately regretted it as I made eye contact with Rosin.

Rosin was a... pretty mare. She had a long, soft, and wavy burgundy mane and tail,  and a snow white coat. She held her head high and at a subtle angle so she'd have to look down to see you. Her posture seemed to suggest, "I'm incharge," and "I'm the queen; you're all peasants to me."

"Concerto." She spat venomously.

"What do you want Rosin?" I asked with a sigh.

"Do you think I want to be here either?" She asked reading my mind.

"Stop reading my mind and just cut to the point. I'm still able to get you more jail time and you know it, little miss mind reader." I said with a scowl as I continued to pack up my bass.

"Look, sorry I cheated on you, now can we drop this and move on?" She asked with a frustrated sigh.

"I know you're not sorry in any way, but yes, please move on." I said shortly.

She sighed. "Whatever. The director wanted to give you this." She said as she levitated me a sealed envelope.

I took it and put it in my bass case with my sheet music. "Thanks, mail mare." I said as I levitated my bass onto my back, secured it, levitated the small sack from the maintenance, and headed off down the corridor.

I unlocked the door in front of me and it slid open with a quiet hiss. I stepped through and I let it close behind me as I tucked my bass away in the back corner of the living room. I swung open a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of water. I took a drink of the room temperature liquid and set it down on the coffee table in the middle of the room before opening the door separating my pigsty of a room from the tidy living room and stepping through.

I entered the room and kicked some papers out of my way, set the sack down on my desk, and carefully slid out the contents. There was a terminal hard drive and a Black case with the Stable-Tec logo carved into the shell. I set the hard drive aside and opened the black case. I ,levitated out the parchment on top. I carefully unfolded it and read it.

"Dear Doctrine,

We, my brothers and I, will no longer be researching and or designing Pipbucks, neither privately or publicly. In the contract we had to sign to achieve our position it stated, 'Upon the deconstruction of Stable-Tec, you are to halt all design and production of any Stable-Tec device, research, and reverse any and all in progress construction.'

The bombs have fallen and Equestria and Stable-Tec have been destroyed. So, to honour our contract, consider this Pipbuck 4500 Lambda to be our final creation and our symbol of resignation.

Sincerely,

The Ex-Pipbuck Project directors -- Ohm, Volt, and Ampère.

I refolded the parchment and carefully set it aside. I levitated the out the true gem, the Pipbuck 4500 Lambda. I grabbed it in my hooves and ran a hoof over the polished titanium surface and the reinforced glass. "Wow..." I whispered contently.

But before I could play with my new toy I had to set it up. I took the back casing off of my terminal and extracted my hard drive and replaced it with the one that came with my Pipbuck. I booted up the terminal and it loaded a string of text.

Awaiting Lambda connection...

"Connection? I didn't see a port on it.." I mumbled to myself as I turned back to the case. "Oh, look, instructions..." I said as I levitated out the leaflet and opened it to the "Setup" page. I sighed "Of course..."

I pulled out the set of tools that came with my new toy and opened the almost invisible access port. The metal cover swung down on a hinge to reveal the uplink port. I took out the uplink cable and plugged everything in. The prompt continued on.

Lambda found.

Installing... 01 Percent...

As exciting as it sounded I wasn't going to sit around and watch the number slowly tick up. So, Instead I cleaned my room, ate a snack, and laid in my bed. I stared up at the concrete ceiling and I slowly... began... to... fall... asleep...

I awoke an hour later to an electronic beeping. Groaning I slid off of my bed and walked over to the terminal. I read the string that was printed on the monitor.

Select Pipbuck UI: A (Amber), C (Cyan), G (Green), W (White)...

I looked down at the keyboard and hit the "W" key. Strings of text sped across the display and as soon as it had started it had finished. I looked down at the Pipbuck and saw a white Stable-Tec logo on the display before it flashed away and displayed the status screen; it was empty for nopony was wearing it. I powered down my terminal, took out the hard drive, and set it down on my desk. I rifled through my desk drawers and pulled out a black permanent marker. I quickly marked the hard drive with an "L" before I put it in my desk drawer with the marker and the casing the Pipbuck came in. I opened the drawer above and I looked up and around the room having the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Brushing it off as nothing, I pulled out my tools and got to work. In ten seconds flat I had the Pipbuck's clasp open, and in another ten I had the device secured around my foreleg.

It was a bit heftier than your average Pipbuck and was about six times as comfortable. I ran my Pipbuck through a start up test to ensure everything was working. I clicked my EFS on to check if it was working, but no marks came up. I shrugged then switched it off; everyone was probably doing something, and besides it wouldn't do me any use down here.

I walked out into the living room and levitated my bottle of water over to me, but stopped as I saw a drop of water drip off the plastic. I examined the bottle and noticed the layer of condensation that had formed. "No, that's not right."I muttered to myself.

As I looked around the room I noticed other minute differences; misspelled book titles, colour differences, ect. little things a pony would normally overlook. I trotted over to my bass and unzipped the pocket that contained my blank pieces of paper? That's when I realised it, I was stuck in an illusion. The room around me faded away and I tumbled down through a void of empty space.

When I opened my eyes I examined my surroundings. The room was dimly lit and undecorated. On the wall to my left was a two way mirror. To my right was a bare wall, and in front of me was a table with a thin file placed atop it next to a bottle of water; the wall beyond was bare as well. I looked down at myself and saw that the Lambda was still attached to my foreleg. I checked the chronometer; it read 20:54:45. Exactly fifteen seconds later I heard a door open and close behind me. There was the sound of hoof steps and the overstallion sat down on the side opposite of me. "Concerto," He said in an official tone, "as of 20:55:00 you are on trial."

I spoke the one and only thing that came to my mind, "Shit."

Footnote: Level up.

New perk: Computer Whiz -- You gain an additional four attempts at hacking any terminal after it has been locked down.