The Story of Aperture

Aperture was gaining strength rapidly, and Nurse Hope escorted him from the chamber. The two took a rough down the winding cave tracks, deeper inside the mountain. He was impressed at how easily Hope navigated the twists and turns of identical rock, as if it were just a stroll through the park.

“You’ve been called to HQ” said Hope in response to the unasked question.

“Bowdler says we don’t get many unicorns, so he needs your brain power in the control room, ASAP” she called back to Aperture, who was lagging behind. He’d noticed that although some excavation had been done, the tunnel looked to have originally been formed by an underground river.

“Where’s all the water?” Asked Aperture, “Should be flowing through here, these caves have been recently underwater.”

“We’re damming it” came a reply from the shadows. A Pegasus pony walked out and greeted him warmly.

“I’m Kestrel” he introduced himself. “I’m one of the leaders of this here resistance”. “You can call me ‘boss’ if you want…”

“I’ll stick with Kestrel if it’s all the same” said Aperture, dryly.

“Suit yourself” huffed Kestrel, instantly on the defensive.

“So…” Aperture realised his blunder “you mentioned damming the river”

“Oh yeah“ said Kestrel, forgetting his sulk of moments earlier. “I helped to put it in. Once every couple of days, we bring everypony into the bunkers, and open it. That way we get no excess build-up of water.”

“Smart idea” Aperture replied as they walked. Kestrel beamed from ear to ear, it wasn’t often a Pegasus received an intelligence based compliment from a unicorn.

“We also have the perfect hideaway from the sanctum. They’d never think to look in what appears to be an active underground river.”

“The sanctum?” Aperture quizzed. He had heard this more than once, and didn’t fully comprehend. The trio rounded a corner and were faced with a huge cast iron door.

“You’ll find out later” Kestrel teased. He knew more than this unicorn, and he was going to embrace it for all it was worth. “I think we’ll become good friends, you and I” he added as he reached out and tapped on the door, 4 sharp beats, close together. He then broke into a huge beam, and tapped out the first few lines of ‘Don’t Stop Belivin’.

A burly earth pony opened the doors “Kestrel!” He boomed “If you don’t stop doing the wrong password, I will open this door and personally snap your neck!”

Solemnly, Kestrel bowed his head, and walked through the door, but when he turned back to Aperture, his lopsided grin had re-appeared.

“Just showin’ the new guy the ropes” He replied to the guard, smug as ever. “Needed to teach him how to open the doors round here”.

“Well teach him right, or he’s gonna get a severe ass kicking from yours truly” grumbled the guard, returning to his post.

Aperture followed Kestrel through the tunnels, they were getting noticeably more reinforced, better lit and warmer. Obviously they were getting close to base control.

“What got on that guys nerves?” asked Aperture as they walked into the central chamber.

“Oh, I went out with his sister for about three months” replied Kestrel, matter of factly. “He’s just a bully who thinks his muscles mean he can do or have whatever he wants”.

He turned to see the entire room was staring at him with a bemused look about them. He quickly ran to a computer monitor, pointed out figures in the streams of data, and attempted to look deep in thought which looked even funnier to everypony else in the room, as Kestrel was NEVER deep in thought.

“So, welcome to the nerve centre of the resistance” Came an echoing voice from across the room. Aperture recognised Bowdler immediately as he cantered over. “Pretty flash, huh”

Aperture took in the grand scale of the room; it was huge, rounded like a cone sloping up into the darkness above. Like a cathedral, obviously of natural formation, but had been converted to a much more practical purpose. The walls up to about 5 meters high had been coated in stainless steel panelling, and riddled with computer terminals, huge monitor screens with scrolling diagnostics operated by many pegasi or earth ponies. Trailing wires connected each terminal to the next, and to the oddly shaped apparatus and equipment that dotted the room. Aperture realised that this was actually familiar to him; he had had some similar equipment in Canterlot castle’s lower floors.

“Is that electo-mass spectrometer?” Queried Aperture, gesturing to a device that looked like a drill with a glass inspection panel and an illuminated button display.

“Sure is” replied Bowdler proudly. “One of our members works in the Manehattan project, so she can ship this teck down to us for use.”

“You should probably meet the team” Bowdler gestured to himself with a hoof. “I’m Bowdler. I help with practicaly everything that keeps this place running. I direct movements and co-ordinate our strikes. I also try to keep the dub asses from hurting themselves, but that’s easier said than done. I’ve been fighting alongside the Royal guard for a while now, but I’m not actually a member. Though I suppose I could get in if I asked nicely.” “That brings us onto our intelligence expert, Lieutenant Dasher.”

He looked up into the dark roof and Aperture followed suit.

“Dasher, get down here. You’re missing the party” he called up, his voice echoing in the cave like a megaphone.

A dark blue pony spiralled down from the dark and landed nimbly next to Bowdler combat knife in mouth, flexing his leg and wing muscles as he did, causing Aperture to rear up in shock.

“Dayum Bowdler, you know I’m a sucker for a good party” He spoke dryly, his voice layered with sarcasm.

“I see you’ve already met Kestrel” He added, gesticulating to where the green flame haired Pegasus was leaning on the wall with a bottle of coke inexplicably held in one hoof. He realised he was being watched and looked buisy.

“And there’s Lightning, but he’s out on patrol” Added Dasher. ”Seems to like being outside. Any opportunity to stretch those wings of his” The last part of the sentence was barely audible over the noise of Dasher grumbling.

“And to complete the team, there’s Matrix, our IT and armoury expert.” Finished Bowdler, and looked to the side. There was nopony there. “Hold on a sec” he said patiently. “Lieutenant, kindly tell Matrix to get his butt over here before I hand it to him on a plate.”

Dasher flew over to a workstation near the door, at which sat a strong maroon earth pony, with a set of sliver headphones clamped neatly over his ears, and a mouth piece in place. Aperture noticed, with a chuckle, that he was playing Tetris on his monitor. Dasher strolled over, the imposing figure of authority. He took hold of one side of the headset, stretched it out, repeated Bowdler’s exact words into his ear. Then let it drop back into place with a painful sounding smack.

But if Matrix felt any pain, he hid it like a pro, instead pausing his game and plugged the headphones into a smaller tablet computer that he strapped to his wrist, and walked over, Greeting Aperture in a loud but friendly manner of somepony who is talking whilst occupied with more important things, in this case, beating his high score on Tetris.

“Oh, if you go anywhere, make sure you where this” He handed Aperture a small clip on earphone.

“There’s a little Mic too, so we can all keep in contact though the subnetwork. I’m broadcasting it as 85.2 hertz, so nopony can hear us. Though I keep getting some interference... This catchy little song…” Matrix Walked back to his workstation, humming out of tune ‘Still Alive’.

“So, now you know us, can you introduce yourself? Just start with your name.”

“Well” he began “My name is Aperture, and this is where is goes a little haywire”.

So, they stood listening closely as Aperture began to tell his tale…