White Mesa

The door opened and Gordon walked into the lobby to the Sector as the door closed behind him. Black Jack walked past the front desk, occupied by a minotaur security officer and a unicorn research member, to the hall that connected to the rest of Sector C. Gordon walked up to the front desk as the minotaur looked up at him.

The minotaur, like most members of his race, was large compared to everyone around him, and the desk he sat at almost seemed like a toy to the hulking creature. Despite this, the minotaur security guard was just as well mannered as any other being, a fact he proved when he spoke to Gordon.

“Hey, Mr.Freecolt, I had a bunch of messages for you, but we had a system crash… I don't know, twenty minutes ago and I’m still trying to find my files,” the minotaur informed.

“Just one of those days, I guess,” he commented.

“They were also having some problems down the test chamber too, but I think that's all straightened out. They told me to make sure you headed down there as soon as you got into your hazard suit,” he added as he put his attention towards his computer screen.

Gordon nodded as he proceeded away from the desk and towards the hall Jack had walked down moments before. As he neared the end of it, Blue Shift, another member of the research team, walked around the corner and saw Gordon approaching.

“Good morning, Doctor Freecolt.” The blue stallion greeted.

Gordon nodded in responce and continued on, rounding the corner that led to a small office complex in front of him and the labs to his right. Two scientists were having a conversation nearby as Gordon walked towards a door to his left into the server room.

“Oh! Would you look at that?” a voice sounded.

Gordon turned and saw Hendrick, a griffon security guard, looking at him with a smile, while Maaz, a scientist from Saddle Arabia, looked at him with annoyance. They were joined by Violet, a zebra, who walked over from the servers.

“Freecolt actually did show up for work this morning,” Hendrick continued, looking over at Maaz.

“Looks like someone here owes me lunch,” he said as Maaz looked ever more annoyed at his lost bet.

“Good morning, Gordon,” he grumbled.

Violet found the whole thing hilarious and burst out into laughter as she walked back to the servers, displeasing Maaz.

“Shut up!” he shouted, doing nothing as Violet’s laughter died down into chuckles. Maaz simply walked away to work on one of the many panels in the room.

“Yep, yep, yep, there's a bacon pizza in my near future,” Hendrick stated, his smile the widest Gordon had ever seen on his beak.

“Yes… Hope you choke on it,” Maaz mumbled.

If Hendrick heard Maaz, he gave no indication as he continued on.

“Gonna get me one of them jumbo sized Rutta Grape Sodas. Hu, hu, hu,” he continued, clearly excited for his upcoming lunch break.

“Hu, hu, hu,” Maaz quietly mocked.

“I’m working up a mean hunger just thinking about it,” Hendrick continued, followed by his stomach growling.

“Finally, you're thinking of something,” Maaz insulted.

“Mmm-mm. Whatta Rutta,” Hendrick finished.

“Who creates these stupid drinks anyway?” Maaz wondered.

“Gordon, come see me at lunch break, I’ll get you something,” Hendrick offered, smile on his beak, while Maaz mumbled some more.

“Sure,” Gordon responded.

Maaz sighed as Hendrick opened his beak to say something more before a beep came over the announcement system.

“Doctor Freecolt, report to testing chamber, immediately,” it commanded.

“See you at lunch, doc,” Hendrick said as Gordon moved towards the door. The stallion nodding in response.

Gordon walked fast down the halls towards the locker room, where the suits were kept. Upon entering, a earth pony sitting at one of the benches fiddled with his tie.

“Why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?” he muttered.

Gordon walked over towards the sinks, near the restroom stalls. A green glow surrounded his horn as a piece of paper towel was ripped off the roll and the sink was turned on. After wetting the paper towel, he wiped it over his hooves, getting all of the small things that would be uncomfortable in the suit off.

“Uhh, hello? Hello? Could someone get me some toilet paper?” A voice sounded from one of the stalls.

Gordon rolled his eyes and levitated a roll of toilet paper into the stall the voice came from.

“Oh thank the gods! I am in dire need of some toilet paper,” the voice thanked.

Gordon walked over to the other side of the room, where a console stood, controlling the various items that handle storing the suit. He pressed a button, causing the glass doors to Gordon’s suit storage to open, letting pressurized air out with a hiss.

Gordon walked over to the suit, levitating all of its individual pieces to him, putting them on one by one, starting with back, and ending with the helmet. After everything was assembled, Gordon used his magic to press a small, almost invisible button on the flank of his suit. This caused his visor to light up.

Immediately, a large amount of information that only programmers would know scrolled to the left of his vision. While in the center, the suit told Gordon to standby for main systems startup.

“Welcome, to the HEV Mark 4 Protective System. For use in hazardous environmental conditions,” a computerized female voice welcomed.

“Automatic Medical Systems engaged,” the suit announced, as a display of the suit, Gordon's weight and height, and his full name came up on his right.

“High Impact Reactive Armor, activated,” the suit continued, while a list of various suit functions came up on his left, slowly changing from offline to online.

“Atmospheric Contaminant Sensors, activated.” The suit, which had been loose so far, tightened around Gordon as it auto adjusted to Gordon’s size.

“Vital Sign Monitoring, activated.” A small number came up in the bottom left corner of Gordon’s screen. A sort of ‘health bar’ so one can determine how in need of medical attention they are.

“Automatic Medical Systems, engaged.” Next to it, was a number that told the user how much energy the suit had for its reactive armor systems.

“Defensive Weapon Selection System, activated.” A list of numbers appeared at the top left of his screen, where weapons would be categorized according to size.

“Munition Level Monitoring, activated.” Another small number appeared in the bottom left part of his visor, where the suit would display how many bullets he had stored in his suit.

“Communications Interface, online.” Simply a more advanced version of the radio used across the world. Gordon had no idea why it was necessary though.

“Have a very safe day,” finished the suit, as most of the information disappeared. Leaving only the health and power meter for Gordon to see.

Gordon walked up to the two power stations in the locker room, plugging his suit in before it started drawing energy from the station. The number slowly climbed from zero as the suit was charged with energy.

“Power level is, one hundred percent,” the suit informed as Gordon finished the charge and made his way out of the locker room. Gordon kept his helmet off to ensure security members would recognize him.

“Ahh, I remember my days in the Hazardous Environment Suit,” a research member commented as he left.

Gordon walked down the long halls filled with glass windows towards the different labs of Sector C, when he came up to a glass door with a pegasus security guard named Griffon.

“Go right on though, sir,” he said upon seeing Gordon, turning around to place a Identity Card into a scanner mounted on the wall. Upon withdrawing it, the door opened and Griffon turned back around to Gordon.

“Looks like you're in the barrel today,” he added as Gordon walked into the glass airlock. The door immediately closed behind him as another in front opened. Taking a hallway to his left, Gordon passed another lab and a zebra named Mizzu.

“Greetings, Gordon Freecolt,” he said with a small bow. The standard greeting from Mizzu’s tribe.

Gordon nodded in response and continued to an elevator, which was large enough to carry the cargo that sometimes went down to the test chamber. Upon entering the elevator and pressing the “Down” button, The door to the elevator closed and it started its journey down.

The ride was short, and upon reaching the bottom, the door opened and Gordon started towards the testing chamber control room, where his colleagues would no doubt be waiting for him.

“Did you catch that last fluctuation?” a unicorn asked a earth pony working at a computer as Gordon passed.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” the earth pony dismissed.

Gordon continued through a hall, tubes containing lasers running its length, where another guard and some scientists were working. The room passed that was the room controlling the power converters for the test chamber. Some greetings were exchanged as Gordon finally made it to the control room. The door opened and Gordon entered.

The room was occupied by Isaac Kleiner, who was watching a screen at the back of the room, Black Jack, who was working on one of the control panels of the room, Pencil Pusher, who was seated at the control panel close to Gordon, and Equinox, who was holding a clipboard between his batwings next to Pencil Pusher.

Kleiner was Gordon's old professor from Canterlot University. The yellow-coated, brown-maned, glasses-wearing, earth pony stallion was a fairly standard Germane pony, aside from his pursuit of physics rather than industry. Pusher was a red-coated, orange-maned earth pony from Manehattan. And Equinox was a purple-coated, blue-maned nocturn (commonly known as bat pony) from the underground city of Nocturia.

“Ah, Gordon, there you are,” said Kleiner.

“Nice of you to finally join us, doctor,” said Pencil, a frown on his face.

“We just sent the sample down to the test chamber,” informed Kleiner.

“We boosted the Anti Mass Spectrometer to a hundred and five percent,” Equinox said, not looking up from his clipboard.

“Bit of a gamble, but we needed the extra resolution,” he admitted.

“The administrator is very concerned that we get a conclusive analysis of today’s sample. I gather he wants to impress the princess,” said Kleiner.

“They’re waiting for you, Gordon, in the test chamber,” informed Pencil, the frown growing deeper as he said it.

“Right!” said Kleiner, Pencil’s annoyance unable to put a damper on his day. “C’mon then, I’ll walk you down,” Kleiner continued, starting towards the door down to the test chamber.

Kleiner inserted a keycard attached to his lab coat into a slot next to the door, causing the scanner to start with a small hum, then confirm Kleiner’s identity with a beep and the door opening.

The two walked into the room, where three glass tubes contained reactions that gave off an impressive light show, along with various other important equipment for the device housed within the test chamber. However, none of this mattered to the two, as they were more focused on the brown-coated, black-maned stallion that stood at the end of the room.

“Greetings, Eli!” Kleiner shouted to him.

Eli looked up at Kleiner. “Morning, Izzy,” he responded.

“I trust this morning finds you well,” Kleiner stated, stopping in front of Eli with Gordon.

“Gordon, good morning,” Eli greeted with Gordon nodding in response. Eli then turned to Kleiner and his face turned grim.

“I’m glad you're here. These last minute changes, they’re a little strange to just—” Eli started, sounding worried, until an explosion caused a locker behind him fly open, with a few computer parts landing nearby.

“Woah! It's about to go critical!” shouted Eli as they ran over to the malfunctioning computer. Gordon could see a somepony turning their attention to the situation from the office above. Gordon watched with concern as Eli used all kinds of controls with his levitation, his horn glowing green as he tried to keep the computer from burning itself into slag.

“What in Tartarus is going on with our equipment?” asked Kleiner.

“It was never meant to do this in the first place,” Eli said as he sighed.

“It’s nothing we can't handle, Eli,” reassured Kleiner as he put a hoof on Eli’s shoulder, causing Eli to sigh again.

“Keep going, Gordon. We’ll be but a moment,” Kleiner told the armor-wearing stallion.

Gordon frowned and called the elevator, the door opening upon its arrival. After pressing the button on the inside, the elevator spun towards the bottom door as it descended. When Gordon arrived, the glass door opened and Gordon disembarked, his concern about the whole thing growing.

“By Nightmare’s ghost! The radiation levels are off the charts!” a scientist exclaimed as Gordon passed.

‘Don't worry, Gordon, everything will be fine. The AMS was not meant to go to one oh five percent anyways. Of course things would be breaking,’ Gordon tried to reassure himself. Though he could not shake a feeling of unease.

Gordon came up to a desk in the corner of the hall, with a white-coated security guard sitting at the desk. After briefly looking up at Gordon, the guard moved his hooves across his keyboard to type something."

“There you are! Everypony’s been looking for you, buddy,” he said as the doors into the test chamber airlocked slid up to let him through.

As Gordon walked in, the doors slid shut behind him. The two scientists inside looked up at him.

“Ah, here he is,” said the unicorn to his left. The pegasus to his right came over to stand next to the unicorn.

“I’m afraid we’ll be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedure today, Gordon,” said the pegasus, seeming nervous.

“Yes, yes, but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us. This is the purest sample we’ve seen yet,” said the unicorn.

“And potentially, the most unstable. This was retrieved in a firefight,” the pegasus mentioned.

“Now, as long as we follow standard insertion procedure, everything will be fine,” the unicorn assured.

“I don't know how you can say that, but I will admit, that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely. I just don't think—” the pegasus was saying, until being cut off by the unicorn.

“Gordon doesn't need to hear all this. He’s a highly trained professional,” he said as he looked at Gordon.
“We’ve assured the administrator that nothing will go wrong.”

“...Yyyyyyes, you're right, Gordon, we have complete confidence in you.” Agreed the pegasus, some of his nervousness leaving his face.

“Well, go head. Let's let him in now,” declared the unicorn. As they both went to the sides of the door and pulled out their ID cards, Gordon put his helmet back on. After scanning the ID cards, the large blast door opened and let Gordon into the massive test chamber. Gordon walked in, the blast door closing behind him.

In front of him was a massive device, with three arms that had an assortment of expensive technology and magic enchantments on it. Above it was an even larger object hanging from the ceiling. To his left was a cage, where the sample would be delivered, and to his right was a catwalk that hung high above. Gordon started towards the ladder that led up to that catwalk when he heard the speakers turn on.

“Testing? Testing?” He heard Kleiner say, then clearing his throat.

“Alright, Gordon, your suit should keep you comfortable in all this. The specimen will be delivered in a few moments,” said Equinox as Gordon climbed the ladder, eventually reaching the top.

“Would you be so good to start the rotors, that way we can bring the Anti Mass Spectrometer to eighty percent, and hold it there, until the sample arrives,” informed the nocturn. Gordon had made his way over to the monitoring panel on the catwalk, where a green button, normally surrounded by glass was blinking. Pressing it, the whole catwalk shook slightly as the AMS started up and three arms came down from the device, holding would looked like metal barrels in their arms as they started spinning. The three arms at the bottom moved from their position to a very relaxed one outside the central point.

“Very good, we’ll take it from here,” said Equinox. As he said that, a small point lowered from the middle of the AMS, while a hum filled the room.

The barrels and point began to emit a small light as Kleiner started speaking again. “Power to state one emitters in three, two, one.” As he finished, a beam connected the point and the barrels, while the large beam shot straight down into the central point at the bottom of the AMS, bathing the entire chamber in an orange glow.

The geiger counter in Gordon’s suit started to tick, and the symbol for radiation glowed in Gordon’s visor, letting him know that it was not safe to unseal the suit at the time.

“I’m seeing predictable phase arrays,” Kleiner informed.

Gordon kept an eye on the monitoring panel, as the power meter slowly going up as his friends in the control room continued to ramp up the power of the AMS. The hum grew more intense.

“Phase two emitters activating… Now,” said Kleiner. Three new beams of orange light connected the barrels to the central point as they spun on the metal arms. The metal arms then let go of the objects and retracted up into the AMS, leaving the barrels spinning in the air. This had left Gordon in awe when he first worked with the AMS.

“Gordon, we cannot predict how long the system can operate at the level we're taking it,” warned Equinox. “Nor how long the reading will take. Please, work as quickly as you can.”

Gordon climbed down the ladder after hearing this, but that meant that he was not around to see a message pop up on the panel, warning of instability.

“Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent,” said Kleiner, as the hum grew the more intense. Gordon's geiger counter rhythmic beeping suddenly changed into a constant squeal.

‘Radiation level raising, recommend evacuate area,’ Gordon’s suit warned.

“Uuuh, it's probably not a problem, probably. But I’m seeing a small discrepancy in…” Kleiner alarmed, but backed down with his next statement. “...Well no, it's well within acceptable bounds again. Sustaining sequence.” His hesitation caused Gordon to frown.

“We’ve just been informed that the sample is ready, Gordon. It should be coming up to you at any moment. Look to the delivery system, for your specimen,” announced Equinox. As he said that, red lights started to flash on top of the cage and Gordon got next to it, waiting for the sample.

When the cart carrying the sample rose from the ground and stopped, the lights turned blue and the cage lowered, allowing Gordon to get behind it and start pushing it with his front hooves. As Gordon pushed the cart closer to the scanning field, he started to feel better. Nothing had gone too wrong, this was just a bad day. As the cart got closer, the large robotic arms lowered into the central point, ready to start scanning.

Gordon made one final push into the field, then was immediately blinded by green light as he felt a sudden force throw him towards the wall. Blinded, all he could hear was the sounds of chaos around him.

“Gordon! Get away from— Shutting down!”

Explosions blasting from above, alarms blaring, red drowned out by the green.

‘radiation levels ex— Somepony get him— Attempting shut down!”

Gordon regained his eyesight to see the power draining rapidly from his suit. The AMS scanning field causing explosions all across the chamber, the field being green instead of its normal orange, and alarms blaring.

“It's not, it's not shutting down!”

“Look out!”

Gordon looked up at the control room in time to see a massive beam of green smash into the window and cause a massive explosion inside.

“Holy shit!” screamed Gordon, fearing for his friends safety.

Gordon had more to worry about though, as he was trapped in a room with a machine blasting apart . Green orbs of light would briefly appear then disappear with a creature in their place. Cats, dogs, even the humans themselves. And those were just the creatures the Gordon could identify!

A beam of green light suddenly slammed into him. It did not hurt him though. All Gordon saw was a flash of light.

“What’s the meaning of this?!”

Gordon looked around to see a dozen humans sitting at a table, a table he was now standing on. There were humans in white on one end, some in black on the other, with others still in blue standing around the room.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” one of the humans in black asked.

Most of the blue and black humans suddenly pulled what Gordon knew were guns and pointed them at him. Before they could fire, another green flash blinded Gordon for just a moment.

Suddenly, Gordon was back at the test chamber, with the AMS still going critical. He only had a second to observe though, as another green flash blinded him.

He was in the middle of a road and saw a large truck driving straight at him! Gordon tried to get out of the way as the driver honked its horn, but just before it hit him, another green flash blinded him.

“—The fuck?!”

Gordon was on a table, where two startled humans sat. Before Gordon could do anything, he was blinded by yet another green flash.

He was back on the table again, with the blue and black humans scanning the room, with the white ones and one black one were speaking.

“—Absolutely certain it was…” the white one was saying before they all noticed Gordon, “...a pony.”

This time, the humans did not hesitate to shoot Gordon, while the others ducked for cover. The suits powered, reactive armor did not last long. As Gordon suddenly felt explosions of pain in his chest and a leg. He was spared more shots as another flash of green filled his vision.

Unable to see and with pain leaving him immobile, Gordon blacked out.