Part 1: Where shit went wrong
January, 08, 2277.
"Quicksilver, wake up." I opened my eyes and looked around, my vision blurry and my mind dazed. There was a blotch of shadow looming over me, as my eyes came into focus the blotch came into the shape of a mare, with large light golden eyes and a long light orange mane, and the walls turned from a grey haze to the all too familiar walls of the infirmary, I realized the mare standing over me was Dr.Balm. "You got shocked again, Quicksilver." She said in her usual calming tone, her voice was always strangely soothing, it’s a shame she was far too shy to sing in front of anypony. This was the third time this month i have gotten hurt while working on the machinery and passed out having to be dragged the medical ward.
I rose slowly, almost falling right back down from the dizzyness. "You're going to get some serious nerve damage if you keep getting shocked like this, Quicksilver." Dr.Balm said while looking at her pipbuck. The medical variant of the Pipbuck can actually tell you the condition of those near you by wirelessly linking to the other pipbuck via broadcaster, the doctors used this feature to examine their patients all the time. Now, my job was to work and create spells and programs for the terminals and pipbucks and other things that needed software made for them, and yet i had just about no fucking clue about the spells that let the pipbucks link with other pipbucks like that, that feature was the idea of Cipher, an actually competent Hardware engineer whom I've looked up to since i was a filly.
"I'll be fine, doc." i said and gave her my best tough-mare face. She, of course, saw right through it. She went over to one of the wall-mounted medical cabinets marked with a yellow cross with three pink butterflies in the center. She opened the cabinet and with her mouth pulled out a small, clear plastic bag filled with a purple-ish fluid, a healing potion. Dr.Balm trotted over and gestured for me to take it from her. I used my horn to levitate the bag into my mouth and bit down until the plastic broke and contents of the healing potion seeped through the breaks. After drinking it my dizziness had faded and my head became clear. I levitated the empty plastic bag back to Dr.balm and She caught it in her mouth and Trotted over to the waste bin. I tried to walk out quickly before she noticed but of course as i was almost out the door i heard her voice behind me. "Quicksilver!" Ugh, great...
"While you're here we might as well give you your injection." It always seemed creepy to me when she said things like that in her cheery and soothing voice. Reluctantly i trotted back over to the table i was lying on and held out my front right hoof and Dr.Balm placed a small canister gently on my leg and after a sharp hiss and the familiar pain it was over and i left. I always hated the injections. Everyone in the stable was given a monthly injection of a special mix of chemicals that was said to stop you from developing dementia. This was because around twenty years ago, a year before i was born, there was an incident where the previous Doctor that in the stable tried using non-effective traditional methods when ponies began to grow claustrophobic and soon most of the ponies began getting violent trying to get out of the stable. This whole incident killed over 100 ponies and injured even more, so ever since then the injections are completely mandatory to everypony with the penalty of being executed for refusing to take the injection.
So i trotted out of the infirmary and took a look at my pipbuck, my shift was already over, shit i must have been out for hours. Though my shift was over I still wanted to head down to where i was repairing one of the heating talismans with Cipher and see how it was going. I began trotting away from the infirmary and began moving through the winding halls to the stairwell. It's kind of strange how I've come to memorize the halls despite their extreme complexity, but i guess when you live in one place all your life you will memorize it no matter how intricate.
To get to the stairwell i had to go through the atrium, which one the largest room in the Stable, it's roof at the top of Level 1 and the floor at Level 4, and windows from every level lining the walls. On the wall to my left was a massive circular window, on the other side of that window was the Overmare's office on level 2, I've always wondered what it looked like from that window, the view of all the stable ponies trotting so far below.
It seemed that the Stable was unusually busy today, the atrium was much more full than normal and the windows were alive with the movement of ponies. As i trotted by the several groups of ponies that were peppered through the Atrium the voice of the Overmare boomed through the atrium. “All security ponies are to report to the armory immediately.” This announcement sent a wave of fear that i quickly managed to repress, never in all my life have i heard the overmare’s voice with such a panicked tone to it. I tried to just shake it off and keep moving.
After i managed to get through the atrium i began descending the stairs to the dimly lit halls of the lower levels where the sounds of the busy upper levels became muffled and distant. Trying to shake the creepy feeling the dark and poorly maintained halls were giving me i trotted up to the door to the room me and Cipher were working in.
I clicked the release on the panel next to the door and it slid up with a hiss. Sure enough Cipher was still in there, standing in front of one of the large metal canisters that held the talismans and other various machinery, several power tools flew close over his light yellow mane, cased in the pale glow of his telekinetic spells.
“Hello, Silver. Your shift is over, you can go back to your quarters.” Cipher didn't shift his gaze from his work, his light brown eyes fixed on his work.
“so, did you hear the announcement the Overmare sent out a few minutes ago?” I inquired. “Uh, yeah, yeah i did.” Cipher lowered the tools hovering over him and he turned to me. “You think it’s something serious?” He shifted his gaze all around the room for a moment
“I uhh, found something that I probably shouldn't have. The OverMare’s Terminal was malfunctioning and whilst fixing it i stumbled across a file, the password for the Stable’s door, with another file linked to it, you need to see this.” He began pressing various buttons on his Pipbuck with the tip of his hoof. “Wait. You copied a file off the Overmare’s terminal and now you want Me to get dragged into that too?! Do you have any fucking clue what they would do to you if they found that on your Pipbuck, have you lost your fucking mind Cipher!?”
He stopped for a second to look at me directly. “Alright, first, keep your voice down, second, there is some serious shit happening in the Stable that nopony is aware of except for the OverMare and security. I copied this file because we need to get the fuck out of here as fast as we can, Silver, and when i was called in to repair her terminal it was the perfect opportunity to make a move.”
I can’t believe things escalated to this so quickly, not two minutes ago i was walking in here to see what Cipher was doing, and now he’s talking about leaving our home and going outside. Nopony in the Stable even knows what the outside is like, there’s only rumors about the outside claiming it to be a massive desert-like place where no life can last very long. Some say that maybe the outside is full of lush trees and plant life and that we are only sitting in the Stable out of our own fear, I never knew which to believe because honestly i didn't care, but I digress. Stable 224 was my home, it was all i knew and now Cipher wants to leave for some bullshit reason.
My head was spinning, my hind legs felt weak and they refused to support me and I fell into a sitting position, staring at Cipher. “You’re serious, you want to leave, we don’t even know what’s outside Cipher!” He looked straight into my eyes, he looked tired but still had that down-to-earth look in his eyes. “I know this is crazy but the OverMare is treating us like lab rats for some sort of fucking experiment and I can’t let us stay here knowing that.”
This can't be happening, he can't possibly be serious about this. I have to reason with him somehow. "So me and you are gonna do what, Just walk out the front door? Do you really believe security would let us leave like that?" Cipher's gaze grew a bit colder, staring at the floor. "You're not the only one I've told about this, we've been organizing a precision strike for months now, me along with a good fifty or so others are going to fight our way to the door tomorrow morning."
I felt my face go pale under my smoky grey coat when he used the word 'fight'. I don't even know what to think about this anymore, I'm just some pony from engineering, I live a simple life in the stable, and now the person who has been like a father to me is trying to convince me to abandon it all and go run off to only Celestia knows what. I tried to think of something to say and a simple question came to mind "So you've been planning for months and you decide to tell me about it now?!"
Cipher kept staring at the floor, almost refusing to look at me. "It was agreed that you were not to be told since we feared that you would..well..that you would crack and tell security or the OverMare about the operation." Cipher seemed to spit those words out as if it put a bitter taste in his mouth to speak them.
Despite my anger from hearing that the feeling of shame was far greater, the others thinking I'd crack under the pressure, whoever these other ponies were. I shifted my gaze from Cipher to the floor, letting my icy-blue mane fall over my face, my bangs almost long enough to touch the floor from my upright position. This was far too much to process in such a short time, and i just want time to think more than anything in the world right now.
As is on Que the door slid open and in ran three stallions, one of them moving awkwardly with a large bag slung over his shoulder, he trotted up and dropped the bag at Cipher's hooves. "Cipher, we've been discovered. The OverMare gathered security and now their sweeping the Stable killing anyone who she believes is involved. We managed to snag these from the armory after they left." Cipher unzipped the bag and within it were several pistols, sub-machine guns, and two or three shotguns the guns were over a pile of magazines and shotgun shells.
At the sight I pushed myself back with my front hooves until my back hit the wall. Cipher and the other three said nothing, they simply each pulled out a gun and began loading it. Cipher looked over to me now with a concerned look. "Quicksilver, come get a gun, I'm not telling you to use it, but nopony is safe now and we need to be able to defend ourselves in case.." his voice trailed off and he pulled a sub-machine gun from the bag, levitated a magazine into it, slid it across the floor to me. reluctantly, i inspected the weapon, since of course i have never used a gun before or even got the chance to look at one. I looked at Cipher, since he seemed to obviously know more about weapons than I, which kind of puzzled me since he and the others should be like me, knowing barely anything about a gun.
I noticed the guns all had the strangest handle mechanism, it was the shape of what i guess can be described as a really stretched out oval shape. I watched closely as Cipher and the others pushed their front right hooves into the small gap of in the handles and the material of the handle stretched outward until it was a perfect circle over the hoof, secure in place. Reluctantly, I began to do the same, i pushed front right hoof into the small gap and the plastic that the handle was made of began to stretch outward from an oval to a circle, i picked up my hoof with the weapon secure over it, half of the gun protruded from the end of my hoof, the magazine of the gun was almost touching the tip of my hoof, i moved my face close to the weapon and noticed the trigger for it was a small tab that if i moved the tip of my hoof slightly upward i could easily press. Suddenly someponies hoof pushed the gun away from my face and the sudden movement made me jump a bit, my nerves only momentarily calmed by my overwhelming curiosity of the gun.
I blinked and noticed Cipher had moved the gun, he gave me a grim glance and he used his hoof to chamber the first round then flip on the safety. he then pointed to the small switch on the gun "safety, semi-automatic, and automatic, keep the safety on, just so there's no misfires." after he gave me the instruction he trotted back to the other three, Cipher held his right foreleg off he ground, since that was the hoof that bared the weapon. "where are all the others?" Cipher inquired. " Whoever isn't dead is already moving to the door, if we move fast we can get there before security does and get out of here. With those words Cipher pulled back on his gun's slide using telekinesis then released it, the slide flew back into place with a loud clack. "then let's get moving." He then bolted out the door and the other three followed shortly after.
I still can't believe this is happening, but after all that i began to get my wits again, and my wits told me if I didn't follow them I'd likely die, so, I trotted after them too. What the fuck has Cipher dragged me into..?
Author's Note
a lot is going to be changed, so any thoughts anyone has on what should be changed can leave it in the comments, all criticism is more than welcome right now, also some characters names might be changed very soon. (Update: I'm serious about the comment thing i could really use feedback guys)
I can honestly say I have never felt as terrified as i did when i began following Cipher through the halls of the Stable. The minute we stepped out i realized the main lights had been switched off, leaving much of the halls chocked in darkness. the only light came from the few lights that were still on and the red alarm lights that were accompanied by the automated audio loop of the OverMare instructing everypony to go into their quarters until it is declared safe. Cipher and the three others were already half way to the stairs by the time I trotted out into the hallway and I had to gallop as fast as I could to catch up. I almost fell over several times with my foreleg raised off the ground to keep the gun from dragging on the floor.
When I caught up to the group I tried to make myself as small as i could while keeping near them, fearing that at any moment we could be shot at. All I could think about is how getting shot would feel, having the led rip through my flesh and Cipher having to leave me behind, or if Cipher got shot and we had to leave him behind or even if he was killed. It's amazing how fast those thoughts can shoot through your mind when you're afraid. We were almost halfway to the door by now, at least that what i hope, it feels like we've been walking the dark, empty hallways for hours on end. What began to puzzle me is that there were no guards anywhere, like security had just vanished, maybe they were in another part of the Stable.
After a few more turns in the halls I began to hear shouting and even a few gunshots up a head, I poked my head up as high as I could over the group in front of me to see a bright light, the entrance to the atrium, which was where the noise was coming from. It seemed odd that most of the lights were still lit in the atrium but the rest of the Stable remained black. Cipher stopped at the open door to the atrium and the sight made the rest of them stop dead in their tracks as well i peaked over a gain to see a massive crowd of ponies in the mist of a complete riot. It seemed like all the ponies that lived in the Stable were in this one room, including all of security.
A few security ponies were standing on top of the tables scattered through the atrium, firing their pistols wildly into the crowd, the rest of security seemed to be mixed in with the crowd below. I could just see a few of the ponies wearing the Kevlar vest and helmet through the blur of Stable-tech jumpsuits, one of them fighting off the surrounding crowd with a baton clenched tightly in his jaw, his dented and broken helmet on the floor at his feet, another security pony was on the floor curled in a tight ball with his forelegs wrapped over his head, being savagely beaten by several other ponies.
The sight made my jaw drop as I stared in horror at the mass of ponies beating and killing one another. It terrified me that not two hours ago this place was quiet and orderly as it was every day my entire life and things so very quickly went to total shit, this has to be some sort of fucked up dream or something, this can't be real. Cipher just seemed to stare blankly at the riot, not really phased, like he was expecting this to happen.
After a moment he ripped his gaze from the atrium and looked at the buck wielding the shotgun. "You think we should interfere or move around them?" Cipher spoke so calmly, like the ponies fighting and killing pointlessly were just some inconvenience, I moved opened my mouth to say something but tried my best to bite my tongue. "We'd die in minutes if we went in there, let's move around the atrium, we should keep low so security doesn't see us through the windows."
After that Cipher agreed and they began moving, with me trailing close behind. As we trotted through the darkened halls the gunshots and screaming became nothing more than a muffled noise and it became it a bit easier for me to think. Cipher and the others began galloping so that they would move by the windows quickly as to not be noticed.
As i tried to keep up with them i realized that i had begun to move more naturally with the weapon occupying my right foreleg, and it was easy to keep up with them. After what seemed like forever in the dark halls we came to the large metal door that lead to the entrance to the vault, Cipher and the others came to a dead stop at the door. While I took another glance at my gun Cipher looked around frantically then checked his gun. "The door shouldn't be closed, we told them to keep it open until we arrive." Cipher seemed to be speaking more to himself than to us. One of the Bucks trotted over to Cipher and put his front left hoof on the door. "They probably closed it to keep security out, let's just open it and get out of here." Cipher looked at the door as if it would lunge at him if he came too close to it. "Something's wrong, i can feel it."
With that said the buck pulled down on the latch and slid the heavy metal door open, and the buck went in followed by the other buck, Cipher, and Me at the back. Within seconds of us entering the room a foul stench hit me and i almost fell over trying not to vomit. I brought my head back up and when i did i realized that right in front of me was a massive puddle of blood, and my front left hoof was just on the edge of touching the red liquid. I jerked the front half of my body back and let out a scream, then fell over.