Fallout Equestria: Three Out Of Four
Chapter 1: Stable 64
Stable 64 was supposed to be the most advanced and secure bomb shelter in, not just equestria, but the whole world. Its purpose was to preserve pony and zebra life even if the worst case scenario happened outside. It was built to survive much more than a megaspell, it could probably even survive the entire planet exploding. Honestly, those pre-apocalypse ponies had weird imaginations.
The stable had five times the amount of armouring in the walls than the standard Stable-Tec stable. It even had its own gravity generator in the unlikely case of Equus ceasing to exist. It had a matter re-fabricator, that was basically an alchemical machine that turns waste into useful things like water and various materials needed for repairs and maintenance.
Instead of a reactor to power the stable, we had a geothermal power plant that took the heat from the core of Equus and turned it into electricity. Heck, the stable even had reinforced solar panels built into the outside shell if in the case of it ever coming into contact with sunlight. It could probably even survive being thrown into the sun.
Its door, once closed, could never be opened again. Since it was welded shut after every one of the original inhabitants had entered.
Unfortunately, while highly kitted-out in the way of survival, the stable needed constant maintenance. The air filtration talismans cut out regularly on an almost weekly basis. The geothermal power plant’s water lines were constantly bursting because of the high pressure caused by large power demands. The farming equipment in what we called ‘the meadow’ also needed repairing quite often as well. Power had to be conserved during the night in huge capacitor banks in order for there to be enough during the day for the entire stable.
* * *
“Rifty! Hey Rifty! Come take a look at this! I really need you right now!” shouted one of my two best friends, Ballpoint. He was waving a hoof at me from across the atrium. The room was filled with at least another fifty ponies, zebras and zonies. When I didn’t answer, he trotted over to where I was sitting.
I had been too busy thinking about the possibility of using parts from the matter re-fabricator and power plant to make a powerful engine that could propel the entire underground construction, as well as Celestia knows how many tonnes of dirt and soil there were above us, out of the ground, up into the sky and into a solar-lunar orbit around equus. And then setting it on the L1 lagrangian point between Equus and the sun. Being that close to the sun would solve our power needs forever, if we re-assembled the power plant. Although once there, there wouldn’t be any way of getting back to the surface of Equus. However, with the stable underground, that wasn't really a possibility anyway.“Equestria to Space-Time Rift! Cuckoo cuckoo!” Ballpoint shouted at my face. It finally broke me out of a ‘thinking trance’ that I had occasionally.“Oh hello Ballpoint,” I said calmly as I got up, “How can I help you?”“Were you thinking about that lame-grangian orbit thing with the stable again?” Ballpoint asked me with a slightly concerned face. My mother always made that same face whenever I started rambling, and I had recently noticed that my friends did it too.“Maybe,” I replied innocently. But Ballpoint just rolled his eyes and continued.“Anyway, can you help me with this? You’re the nerdiest pony I know that would help me and, well. Just come with me okay? This is kinda serious and there’s no point of explaining what’s happened because you won’t believe it until you see it”Since I didn’t have anything to for another hour other than contemplate some ridiculous ideas about a potential theory on underground rocket science, I followed him.
* * *
Although my job in the stable was the Stable IT Technician, I was also the main consultant for anything to do with science or personal devices breaking, like toasters or mini-fridges. The big machines like the power plant and matter re-fabricator were too specialised for me. My talent is arcane electronics. I loved tinkering with things and taking everything apart.My family weren’t like me, not at all. Most families have some sort of general talent. My family’s was flowers! I got really bad hayfever whenever I went to the synthetic meadow, which had real plants. My mother, Petunia and my father, Rhododendron worked there too. My big sister, Rose, did flower arranging as a job. I had my name changed shortly after I got my cutie mark, simply because it was too embarrassing for any mortal being to bear. In fact I changed my name according to my cutie mark, which looked like a cracked hole, like in a wall, with little blue 1s and 0s visible through it on the other side. Besides, Space-Time Rift sounds cool.When I was a colt, I had a pretty bad accident. In fact, pretty bad probably isn’t a very good way of describing it. A very bad accident to be honest. It happened when I was fiddling with the door to my bedroom, trying to replace the automatic sensor with a keypad and a code to keep intruders out, like my sister. Interior stable doors work by sliding a sheet of metal, ‘the door’, up and down an oiled door frame. And while I was attempting to fit a locking mechanism into the frame, I must have activated the toggle for the door to close. It had come down on my right foreleg fast, breaking the bone immediately. It wasn’t until ten, painful minutes later that my mother heard my screams and shouts and freed me from the door. The damage was permanent and the leg had to be amputated.Only having three legs was occasionally inconvenient, although I didn’t really mind it after a year or two. I could walk and run as fast as any pony. However, it also meant that I couldn’t really use a PipBuck, since all Stable 64 PipBucks were designed to be fitted to the right foreleg, so I had a small leather holster made for it so I could still have one. The one thing that still bothered me though, is that somepony could just knock out my front hoof from under me, making me fall on my face.
* * *
Ballpoint led me through a few hallways and to the elevator. He was a small unicorn pony with a lime green coat and dark green hair. His cutie mark was of a felt-tip pen and paper. We went up to his apartment and entered through the main door. All apartments were designed to be the same in our stable. They all had a living room, a kitchen-dining room, two bathrooms, a master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms. Ballpoint's parents, Paintbrush and Fountain Pen, were out. Their apartment seemed to get re-painted every month, it always smelled of wet paint.I followed Ballpoint into his bedroom. Sitting on his bed was a sad-looking, pale-pink Pegasus mare. I had known her since I was a foal, and she had always been my best friend. When we met Ballpoint at school, he was very shy and the other fillies and colts were being nothing but mean to him.“Oh good! You’re here.” Interlude said, “We, er um... I need your help,” she looked down at an object she held in her hooves. It was a PipBuck with a smashed casing and a badly cracked screen.“How-wh-wha? You broke your PipBuck?! How in Equestria did you manage that?!” I asked her loudly, “Those things are supposed to be invincible! What did you do?”“Well, I got this really bad itch under it and the PipBuck Technicians refused to take it off, so I snuck down to the fabrication level and put it in a metal crusher,” she replied.“ARE YOU CRAZY?! You could have lost your hoof, or worse even, your whole leg!” I shouted, gesturing to the stub that used to be my right leg.“S-sorry, it’s just,” she sniffed, “It’s just that I don’t really like my PipBuck, I don't like how it looks on me and I barely use it anyway.”I sighed, “Well, you managed to get it off alright. You are incredibly lucky that you didn’t sustain any sort of injury, let alone a life-threatening threatening one. But what’s done is done. I hope you learned your lesson.”She nodded.“Ha! I was right! I made a bet with Interlude that you would flip out, lecture her and talk about ‘lessons learned’. Wow, so predictable. You know, you sounded like you were her father.” said Ballpoint. I gave him the evil eye.“So, you want me to repair your PipBuck so that people won’t ask and you won’t get in trouble?” I asked Interlude. She nodded back.“Do either of you have a spare bag of some sorts? I need to take it back to my workshop on the other side of the stable. I think it would be wise that others don’t see it, because everyone will start asking questions about the PipBuck” I asked my friends.
* * *
The three of us stepped out of Ballpoint’s apartment, with me wearing pink saddlebags with love-heart designs on them. “Interlude, you wear them. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of everyone, besides it would make the other ponies and zebras more likely to ask us.” I said.“Nope,” Interlude replied with a smug look on her face. I put the saddlebags on the floor.“If you don’t wear them, then I won’t fix your PipBuck and you’ll get in trouble,” I said in an annoyed tone.“Still nope, because you can’t stand the thought of me getting in trouble because you didn’t help,” said Interlude, with a huge smile on her face.“Gaah! Fine! But you owe me BIG time!” I said before slipping the saddlebags back on.“Besides, they suit you!” Ballpoint said. To which I replied with an angry grumble.
* * *
I slammed the door to my workshop as soon as I, Ballpoint and Interlude had entered. My face was as red as a synthetic tomato. “I really hate you sometimes,” I said to the laughing Interlude, who was doing flips in the air even with the low ceiling. I unpacked the crushed PipBuck and placed it onto my workbench. I then sat down on my chair and put on the Brain to Computer Interface, something of my own design. The device allowed me to easily control two robotic arms that had been mounted to the wall. I used them to unscrew the casing and take out the internals. All the matrices, micro-talismans and circuit boards had stayed intact, but the screen and casing were damaged beyond repair. I fished out a new screen from a box labelled ‘PipBuck parts’ and connected it to the circuit board. I also took out a new casing, since the old one was dented and couldn’t fit onto a hoof. Once I had re-assembled the PipBuck, I disconnected myself from the BCI and handed Interlude her now-fixed device. “Promise me that you won't put your limbs into industrial machinery,” I said to Interlude, while I was attaching her PipBuck back onto her hoof with a tool.“Fine,” she said with a roll of her eyes.