Fallout Shelter Fourteen
Chapter 5 - The Margin Of Error

The following day I was waiting in the hub, it was 14:00. I was there talking with Officer Oliver. He was the only Officer that monitored the hub, there was simply too much ground to cover on this floor. And fortunately, he was the only pony there that I particularly wanted to talk to. I would have left this plan for dead had it been any other guards that scanned the Hub.

Sure enough, when 15:00 rolled around, Shade had shown up. And a group of ponies started to form around him, from half of my age, to a few years older than I was.

“Dakota, you should go join them!” Oliver insisted, “I haven’t seen you play in ages. I mean, I gotta do my rounds soon.”

“You know, I think I will.” I said, I continued watching Shade. He normally organized Hide and Seek. We used to play Cops and Robbers, but the Overseer had a few things to say about it.

“Alright,” Shade said, “We’re doing another round of Hide and Seek, standard rules. I’m sure you all know them.”

I suddenly blurted in, “One, two, three! Not it!!”

The group of ponies all looked up at me (A sight I wasn’t use to). And in near perfect unison.

“Not it!” They all said.

Shade was quick enough not to be last. I didn’t care who was, only that Shade wasn’t the seeker. They had already disembarked from the group and went to count.

I would have to make this game go on for an hour and a half. And I knew just the perfect way how.

“Count to one hundred and then go.” I said aloud. I was still on the second floor.

I heard the counting start, and then ran off, to the maintenance office. Fortunately nopony followed me. I grabbed Engi’s throwing arm thing and put it on. Engi was left hoofed, I was right hoofed, fortunately he designed it for both.

Then I ran off to my awesome hiding spot of awesome. And waited.

And I waited.

And waited.

For one hour and twenty five minutes.

I returned to the hub, surely enough...

“There she is!”

And the seeker caught me. Before anypony could say anything.

I shouted, “One, two, three. Not it!”

The group of younger fillies and colts all did the same. The former seeker even managed to not be it. And to my luck (for once) neither was Shade.

The seeker went off to count. Shade stuck with me, as I predicted.

“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please? Dakota! Please?”

“What the hay is that supposed to mean?” I asked, I knew very well what he wanted. I just wanted him to beg.

“Please show me, please. Come on!” He begged.

“Well, alright then. But I wanna try out your baton”

Everypony dispersed, with Oliver gone on his rounds, the hub was completely empty.

Shade was taken aback by such an odd request. I smiled at him.

“Okay, but only for a minute.”

Perfect.

I went up to the second floor, across from the Overseer’s window. I held my hoof out.

“You wanna see it now?” He asked.

“Yes, I do. Time’s ticking away.”

In the distance, I could hear whoever was counting. ‘45, 46, 47, 48...’ And apparently he could hear it too.

“You’re wasting time.” He said.

“No, you’re wasting time. I know where to hide. You don’t.” I wasn’t the most charismatic individual, but confrontational speech was my speciality.

Reluctantly, he withdrew his baton and gave it to me.

“Thanks.” I said. Then I threw it has hard as I could at the Overseer’s window, Engi’s thrower thing device doing it’s job perfectly.

*CLATTER* The noise that the baton made smacking the window. Maybe I threw it a little too hard? Hmm... Nah.

Damn near instantly afterwards I jumped off the railing and started running.

It looked like she was just turning around to open it as well. She opened the window and looked down, seeing the green baton, that EVERYPONY in the Stable knew who it belonged to, and surely enough right across from the window was Shade, standing there in staring blankly at the Overseer. I think he was in shock.

I couldn’t have asked for things to go any better. I heard her running across the upper deck of the hub, she was furious. I was looking at my watch on my PipBuck.

4:29:57

Wait for it.

4:29:58

Wait for it......

4:29:59

Waiiiitttt for itttttt.....

4:30:00

Right on cue, Oliver walked back into the hub from the upper floor to see the Overseer tearing Shade a new one. Since nopony was around in the hub to see, and everypony that was in the lounge was busy. Oliver didn’t have a choice but to abide by what the Overseer was saying and brought Shade with him down to the Security Office, and to what little luck I had, the Overseer went with.

I returned to the hub, but heard “99, 100. Ready or not, here I come!”

Oh shit. Shit, shit, oh shit.

I ran as hard as I could up the stairs to the second floor. One of the ponies in the lounge closed the door while the Overseer was yelling at Shade.

Sorry Shade. Actually who was I kidding? I thought that was HILARIOUS. I hopped the railing and edged over to the window before clammering inside. I closed the blinds behind me. That should block out all the light. I thought about it for a second, I had just found the second best spot to hide for hide and seek.

I immediately scrubbed that thought from my head. I was wasting time. The Overseer had left her computer logged in, and boy, Oliver was right, it was hot in here.

I immediately started downloading the contents of her terminal to my PipBuck, I couldn’t read them on my PipBuck, but I knew a terminal that could. It took about 30 seconds to transfer everything onto my PipBuck. And I had to do that with all the remaining terminals. That was something Olver was wrong about though. There was only 4 other terminals, but they were maneframes I’d have to access, and to my fortune, again, they were all unlocked.

The amount of data I was downloading was enormous and straining my time. I wasn’t sure how long I had. Depending on how bad a mood the Overseer was in, would dictate how much time I had; I’m not going to joke around here, she was always in a bad mood.

Engi had done a soft-patch on the the PipBuck 3000 we were all given, he just hadn’t openly distributed it. He called it the 3.30.09 patch. I guess he had more spare time then he let on, if he was able to access the base code of our PipBuck’s and update it. But he did give me a list of changes to read through. One included better compression, meaning I could store more data. He also told me about the slot at the top, which allowed me to hook up my PipBuck to terminals and download the contents, it was done through a SATA cable, and they were supposed to be faster? Everything I knew used PATA.

I was making quick work of the maneframes, I had two left to go. I could feel my heart racing, but I couldn’t even pace around trying to calm my nerves, the length of the cable was limiting my ability to let out my nervousness. I kept an ear out for sounds of the Overseer returning through the window. Come on, come on. This wasn’t copying fast enough.

I had moved onto the last maneframe, this was was a doozy, estimated 3 minutes to copy all files. They were mostly text documents anyway, the odd audio file, and an assortment of images. I could tell by the file marker at the end of each copied file; doc, mp3, or jpg.

2 minutes to go. Oh please, please, please hurry up. I needed to get out of here. I was feeling hot, and it wasn’t just the all the air being pumped out by the computers that was making me sweat.

1 minute to go. Almost there, come on. It was just downloading txt’s now anyway. I might need to cut this short. No, I couldn’t, it would pick up that it hadn’t finished transferring. I’d have to stay for the duration.

“Look, ma’am, I’ll deal with him. But I need you to calm down and let me do my job. He’ll be disciplined. I just need to find out what actually happened first.”

Oh fuck, not now! I could hear them crossing the the metal platforms on the second floor. You had to learn to listen to it though, years of living down here deafens you out to those sounds. The clatter of hooves on metal, the background hum of the mane reactor, which had been absent as of recently, or the slight clicking the flickering lights became ambient and ignored. All of these you eventually tuned out and had to actively force yourself to listen for them.

20 seconds. I was cutting it pretty close!

10 seconds, I heard the door to the lounge open, they would be opening that door any moment.

1. 4! 3!! 2!!! 1!!!!

I unhooked the SATA wire from the maneframe, not bothering to disconnect it from my PipBuck. I bolted across the room, raised the blinds and hopped out the window. I prayed she hadn’t noticed they were down. I fell the 8 feet to the floor, I wasn’t sure if I had hurt anything, but I ran as hard as I could for the library anyways. My heart thumping in my chest. I thought I was going to pass out.

Past the restricted sign, down the stairs, through the vent. Into the library. I looked up at the window to the Overseer’s office. The blinds were shut. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I trotted around the library to the back room, and used the SATA cable to download everything to the manifest terminal.. Looking at my PipBuck’s watch, it was 16:41. In less than fifteen minutes I had busted into the Overseer’s office and downloaded the entire contents of every computer she had in there. Over a year of planning, lead down to an operation that lasted less than half an hour for the part that mattered.

Time efficiency: 0%.

SHUT UP BRAIN.

I would have to wait and see what the fallout of my actions would be over the next few days. I was so nervous that I was getting chivers. I was hyped on adrenaline, and kept taking deep breaths. I didn’t even wanna leave the library incase anypony of interest came looking for me. The only loose end would be Shade, and it would be my word against his. All the evidence lead to him throwing the baton. Not me. But what would really matter is if the Overseer found anything out of place in her office. I hadn’t really had time to take in the ‘lovely’ view of her office. I just jumped to each computer and started downloading the contents, under that much pressure I wasn’t really processing anything else in the room.

For all I knew, I might have left a mess, in one form or another.

Once the transfer was complete from my PipBuck to the computer manifest terminal, I wiped my PipBuck clean, left the SATA cable in the library, and Engi’s thrower thing as well. I’d have to think of a name for it later.

I relaxed, closed my eyes, I wasn’t out of this yet. I got a chill again, and shook my head, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I became aware of another sensation throughout my body, not a chill though, it was my head. My eyes jolted open, there was light emitting from my horn!

The realization hit me harder than the Overseer could have. Well, I’d imagine she could hit pretty hard. I wasn’t sure.

The mane magical reactor powered the suppression device on level 5. It wasn’t just security that was out, it was the device as well.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do here, I didn’t know how to use magic. Hadn’t my entire life, but here I was, horn a-glowing. I stared blankly at a chair in front of me, it was enveloped with my magical aura. It was light metallic blue. It shimmered, I didn’t know what to do. I just looked away, the chair stopped being coated in an instant.

It was too bad Engi would have the reactor working again soon, he’d be released from the clinic tomorrow, the day after at the latest. But I wasn’t sure I could live with this, even for a short time. From what I had read, untrained unicorns can’t control their magic. And it comes with practice, not age. Now that I was aware I could use it, I wasn’t sure I could safely ignore it.

I couldn’t believe I was saying this, but I hoped Engi would get the mane reactor working again, quickly. Before my horn painted a bullseye all over me.

Dammit, how do you shut this thing off? Did I just ask nicely? What do I do? My initial confusion was turning into an alarm. I shook my head violently. Nothing.

Well, this is great. Now what? I sat down, and thought about it.

My horn turned on when I had finally relaxed. Did I unintentionally think about it? I thought to my self ‘off’. That didn’t do anything. Maybe I really have to want it to go away? Sure this was making me nervous, but it was equally exciting.

Did I know the entire time my horn would work while the manes were down? Just to realize it consciously now? Maybe.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. It was everywhere. I didn’t like maybe’s. They weren’t a definitive answer.

What was bothering me was, I couldn’t do anything. Referring to both, shutting my horn off, and do anything with it. I couldn’t so much as lift an object. That’s what happens when you’re deprived of something for your entire life.

I thought about some of the books I had read. Magic was a conscious thing. But it could also be a reflex. I had definitely done something to ignite it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t read much on the subject because of the obvious: I couldn’t use it even if I knew how.

It was around this time I remembered we were still playing Hide and Seek. I had to go, or somepony would get suspicious. Then I remembered I still had to deal with what happened with Shade, pray that the Overseer or Oliver didn’t believe him, and hope the Overseer didn’t find anything out of place in her office. All these thoughts hit me at once.

And like a light, my horn went out... Good.

I left the SATA cable in the manifest computer where had long since finished downloading my PipBuck’s contents, as well as Engi’s launcher thing on the same table. Shutting the terminal off, I left the library.

I purposely allowed myself to get caught by the seeker after I left the library and put some distance between myself and the stairs and hub. I went down the to Maintenance office to do some work (partially to make myself seem legit), before I went back to my family’s room and went to sleep. It was 20:00 on the dot when I went to bed. Tomorrow I would work on finding the door terminal password in that pile of data I downloaded.

Author's Note

This is just the first five chapters. The rest of the story will be released over the next few weeks, however, the story isn't completely finished yet, and with school and what not, I can't say for sure this'll be finished before I'm finished the story in actuality.
-ReachNetwork out.