Fallout: Equestria - Heart of Nickel

Chapter1: Awakening

>RUNNING STARTUP SEQUENCE

>DAYS INACTIVE: ERR. OVERFLOW

>LOADING .MEM FILES…

>LOADED

>LOADING STATS.PNE

>S.P.E.C.I.A.L. LOADED

>EMERGENCY POWER UNIT: CHARGED

>DEUTERIUM FUSION DRIVE…

>...

>... ERROR; CAPACITY NOT REACHED. RUNNING AT 25% CAPACITY.

>AUTOMATIC REPAIR UNIT: 10% EFFICIENCY

>ACTIVATING...

Eyesight slowly faded back into my eyes, starting blurred, but eventually providing a clearer image. I first looked down at my hands, flexing the fingers, feeling the pistons moving. I had stretched out my arms, hearing the groans and pops of servos and gears not wanting to work after… . how many years was it? I threw up my H.U.D., and, ignoring all of the other information, located the date and time. It was 99:99, 99/99/9999999… the nines trailed off the edge of my sight. oh, goody, I have no clue what year it is. I had stepped out of the chamber that was barely large enough to fit myself, and immediately fell over. Of course, because waking up after hundreds of years is akin to getting up after a long car ride. Curse my robotic body. Having forgotten my own name, thanks to those .mem files occasionally going bad,causing myself to forget things or not remember them as they were, I had looked to the small metal plate next to my pod. Nickel. ah, yes, now I remember. I was Nickel 1, built and designed to emulate the human mind. Why? Why would someone want to build a brain? It was one of those things that everyone says would be nice, but everyone knows that would end in some horrifying way. They did it, though. They did it and I was the result. I wasn’t sure about how I felt about that. “You are the pinnacle of technology,” they had said to me. Sure I was, at least until some new gizmo is invented that allows average computers to store more data than a brain while costing less than a gas station cheeseburger.

I was walking along the small chambers, the tallest being about four and a half feet tall, and each one was dirtier than the last. Having forgotten what my robotic companions looked like, I had decided to make an attempt to wipe the dust and dirt off of one of the pods. I was not ready for what was inside the pod. A small metal horse stared out of the chamber, sending new memories flowing out of the obscure black depths of my mind. I remembered walking through the hallways with these small robots everywhere, my builders explaining to me that the “pony” mind was easier to emulate than the human mind. speaking of my builders, where were they? well, that was a stupid question. if I was inactive so long that my clock was freaking out, they were probably dead. still, it never hurt to check.

As I was walking through the hallways to the offices, my mind had slipped back to that eternal fact. I’m not alive. I will go through my nigh-infinite lifespan without feeling the warmth of a loved one’s touch, seeing all of my friends grow old and die. Never feeling love. I was an immensely expensive computer with legs and arms, and that’s all I’ll ever be. I found it hard to focus on the task at hand as the thoughts began to overtake even basic processes. Despair started to flow over me as a river flows over stones. I sat down, curling up into the fetal position, and began to sob. I sat there for some time as I made the noises of crying, but no actual crying happening. Tears didn’t flow. My robotic body had to deny me the comfort of almost everything, even that of tears running down my metal cheeks.

Several hours passed before I got up from my position on the floor.

Stepping into my father’s office, I had no idea why he insisted on me calling him things like “dad”, he was just a bit odd like that, I had noticed that, on the screen of his terminal, was “pod 354- Nickel 1” with a flashing “activated” next to it. Yep, everyone’s dead. if Dad wasn’t in his office, the world must have ended. Next to the terminal was a note; If you want to survive longer than half a weekend, you’re going to need some backup, armor, and weaponry. In the floor safe is a  pistol, some ammo and some caps. When you have some friends travel west of this facility. All will be explained to you when you get there.

        That wasn’t suspicious at all. Recently activated without half a clue what’s going on and a note telling me to get some friends or die. Well, who am I to question a mysterious person that left a mysterious note? Other than a robot who is able to think for himself. On second thought, maybe I won’t follow his instructions.

I checked the floor safe, and, it turns out, he wasn’t lying. There was a pistol and some caps. Granted, the pistol was in some bad shape, but it was a pistol. I have no idea what compelled me to do so, but I grabbed the note, thinking that it may be useful some time later.

I had climbed several thousand flights of stairs, and was now nearing the exit of the facility. As I was climbing the final steps, many questions flowed through my head. Is it really that bad? Where would I even make friends if it was that bad? To be honest, I was kind of… kind of… nervous. was that the word? Whatever it was, I was feeling it. I was so focused on trying to figure out what word to use, I hadn’t realized that I was upon the entrance to the facility. I opened the door, and stepped outside.