“Maintenance Bays 240-460… left. Cryo-storage cells 280-320… right. Data Archive Rooms 200 - 385… straight ahead. Crud, how big is this place?” Rainbow Dash commented as she read the directory signage printed at an intersection. “Hey girls, if we want to keep exploring, we might want to consider making camp somewhere soon. Getting the sense this isn’t so much a facility as it is a full blown city.”

The pegasus flew back into the massive assembly area where the rest of her friends were resting their hooves. It was just one of the numerous chambers they’d happened across in their search of the complex they ended up in after the Cutie Map had teleported them to the cave where Rarity had found Sweetie Belle many years ago. Sweetie had managed to locate and operate the means by which she’d first ended up in the cave, and now the ponies found themselves in what was definitely the true place of their robot companion’s creation. Each chamber they had come across provided further evidence of the aforementioned, containing the materials, parts, manufacturing equipment, and other resources needed to build a mechanical equine (among other similar machines) from scratch. The chamber in which they now stood was just one of the latest steps in the process, filled with conveyer belts and assembly stations where various copies of Sweetie’s body parts were in the process of being put together.

The robot unicorn looked particularly awed as she stared at an almost finished replica of herself, standing lifelessly near the end of the conveyors. It was missing its eyes and mane, revealing that the inside of its head had yet to be fitted with the necessary circuitry to give it life, but the structure of the muzzle, the tail design, and the shape of its legs were all unmistakably her.

“I’m getting the same sense. Which means we may want to turn back soon, before we stray too far from our means of getting home.” Twilight said as she studied a control console next to the conveyors on the other side of the room. “I’ll have to get some of the guards and scientists from Canterlot to come back here with me later so we can continue investigating. This could quite possibly top our discovery of the Floating Gardens of Ponylon last year!”

Fluttershy looked horrified upon hearing this.

“Oh no! Discord will be terribly disappointed to learn that. He’s been so proud and happy since being made the new caretaker of one of Equestria’s seven ancient wonders!” The pegasus worried. “I’ll have to break the news very softly to him when we next meet for tea.”

Twilight pressed her hoof to a faintly amber colored symbol, similar in shape to a pentagon, on the console. She encountered a smooth, glass like surface, but otherwise could produce no discernible results.

“Well… I wouldn’t be so sure just yet. Right now, it looks like this room is the same as the others. Nothing has power, and thus nothing is working.” She lamented. Beside her, Spike knocked on another black glass panel mounted on the wall. Given the lightning bolt printed above it, and the iconic ‘I’ and ‘O’ stamped on the top and bottom, he could deduce it had to be a light switch, or possibly a fuse box. However, much like all the technology around it, it had no means currently of performing either function.

“Shame, really. This would be a lot more more impressive if it wasn’t so dark and lifeless.”

He sighed and walked over to Sweetie.

“Still, I can’t deny it’s quite something to finally see where you came from.” He said with a smile, only to see Sweetie still gaping at her partially completed doppelganger. “Erm… I hope this isn’t too much of an identity crisis for you?”

Sweetie snorted and took a deep breath.

“Not really. Truthfully, I always had a inkling, somewhere in the back of my head, that I might not be the only one of… uh… me around.” She said as her head sunk. “I’m more frustrated that finally getting an answer to one of the biggest questions of my life only results in more questions.”

The other ponies turned to Sweetie as she began pacing the room.

“Okay, so this is where I was made… or built… manufactured… whatever! Fine, that much makes sense. Still leaves the issue of why… and how… and who.”

Rarity lowered her head in sympathy as her sister’s tone grew louder and more aggravated.

“Who built this place? What was the purpose? Where IS this place? WHEN is it? Why was I sent from here to Equestria???” The robot shouted, throwing her hooves up in the air.

A minute passed and then she awkwardly lowered herself down to all fours again.

“And why am I yelling when you’re all less than ten feet away from me?” She said in a far more embarrassed tone. Rarity walked over and wrapped a leg around her sister’s neck.

“That’s a perfectly natural reaction, Sweetie. Trust me, it’s a lot for all of us to take in.” The unicorn soothed. Twilight smiled as she joined her friends.

“And rest assured, I have every intention of getting answers to your questions. It’s clearly going to take a while, given the sheer size of this place, but now that we know it’s here, I’ll do whatever it takes to unravel the mystery.” She swore.

“Ooooh! OOoh! I just had a brilliant idea!” Pinkie Pie bounced in. “We could have a follow up party in here! Make it a ‘Sweetie’s Birth Place Commemoration’ celebration!”

The ponies watched their pink friend prance around the room, clicking her hooves together in excitement.

“I mean, just look at all this space! We could fit the entire population of Ponyville in here, with room to spare! Just need to move a few of these dusty contraptions, maybe put some glitter on these other robot parts to give the room more energy...”

“Uh… Pinkie” Twilight tried to interrupt as the mare began knocking various pieces of machinery off the conveyor belts.

“If I threw some colorful cloths down, these would make excellent buffet tables! We’ll need to paint the walls and add some nice, rich carpeting to break up the dull metal grey...”

“Pinkie...” Twilight said, raising her voice as her friend pulled paint cans and roller brushes out of her mane.

“Hmm, maybe some floor lighting to maintain the ambiance of this place. It is sort of like a sacred tomb, or a place of reverence… but should we maybe use purple lights so it doesn’t seem so dead in here? Or would pink work better, given...”

“PINKIE!” Twilight said, managing to hit the Royal Canterlot voice at just the right pitch to make everyone jump a good foot in the air from shock.

She took advantage of the momentary pause as everyone landed back on the ground to turn the light from her horn on Pinkie Pie, refill her lungs and speak in her normal, far more dulcet tones.

“While I appreciate your intent, could I ask you to please wait on remodeling this place as a party house? We don’t even know what half of the technology we’ve seen in here does, let alone if it’s safe to remove it from the premises. Let me round up some of my fellow researchers and a few of the royal engineers, we’ll spend a few weeks cataloguing everything and mapping this place out, THEN we can see about maybe holding a ceremony in here.”

Pinkie looked heartbroken.

“But… but this is a place of special significance! To Sweetie at least! We need to make everypony aware of how marvellous it is!” She argued, prompting Sweetie to place a hoof to her head and step in between her friends.

“In which case, perhaps I might say something?”

The robot flexed her neck and projected the cone of light from her horn.

“If I can apparently interact with and operate the teleporter that brought us here, maybe I can figure out how some of the other machines work. What’s more, I’ve already mapped out all the areas we happened across during our exploration. If you’ll let me stay here, spend another day or so just checking this place out, I might be able to get answers faster.”

Twilight’s ears perked as Sweetie scanned the assembly area, cocking her head from side to side as if trying to view what she could of the room from every angle.

“I am made from the same technology that was used to make this facility after all.” The robot unicorn added.

Twilight nodded softly.

“Point taken. I’m going to need another day or so anyway to inform Celestia what we found, and request a team.” She noted.

“And given how long we’ve been exploring this place, Ah’m bettin’ some ponies are gonna start to wonder what happened to us.” Applejack added. Pinkie’s eyes ballooned to three times their size and she yanked her pocket watch out from… wherever she had it stored.

“Oh sweet Celestia, forget a follow up party! I left all our guests by themselves at our current party! For the last four hours! I gotta get back to the castle now!”

The pink mare turned and galloped back towards the door on the opposite side of the assembly area like her tail was on fire.

“Pinkie, wait!” Twilight called out from behind as the mare rounded a corner of the hallway, and promptly crashed into something further ahead in the darkness. Wincing, the alicorn ran after her friend, casting the light from her horn on Pinkie’s prone body, lying under a Pinkie Pie shaped dent she’d made in the front of a strange looking six legged vehicle parked in the hallway.

“Pinkie… we came from that direction to get here.” Twilight said, pointing her hoof at another adjoining corridor. Shaking off her momentary daze, Pinkie stood up and giggled shamefully.

“Right… I… I knew that. Just...” The mare fumbled for words, then noticed the vehicle she’d accidently head butted. “Uh… I saw this and thought it would make an excellent new Party Mobile! I mean, look at it! It’s got plenty of room for carrying supplies, fits nicely into an enclosed space, and it even has my face on it!”

She smiled and gestured to the indentation her head had made in the vehicle’s hood. Twilight just rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Well, maybe if you can figure out how to make it run, I’ll see about taking it with us later.” She gestured for the pink mare to follow her. “Come on, it shouldn’t take me long to replicate the effects of that teleporter and return us to Ponyville.”

Pinkie looked to the vehicle, whipping out a cleaning cloth and wiping a spot where she’d smudged the front with her impact.

“I’ll be back for you!” She said, kissing one of the headlights then running back to join her friends.

“So, you’re going to be okay searching this place alone until I return with the research team?” Twilight asked Sweetie.

The unicorn nodded confidently.

“You said it yourself, nothing in this complex is apparently working. I doubt I’m going to run into anything dangerous.” Sweetie said, adding with a knowing smirk. “Also, I don’t think I’m going to be alone while I’m here.”

She looked to Spike, who could only shake his head and shrug.

“Hey, my marefriend stays, I stay. Worse case scenario, both of us have excellent night vision, and Sweetie can easily get us home if needed.” He said. Twilight still looked hesitant, but then reminded herself of the number of times both Spike and Sweetie had held their own in similar situations before.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon as I can.” She said, kissing Spike on the cheek. Beside her, Rarity walked over to hug Sweetie tenderly.

“And I still have that something I need to talk to you about. Let’s make it a spa date since… well, I dread to think of how your coat is going to look after a night in this dusty abode.” The older unicorn fretted. Sweetie fought back the sudden demand from her CPU for a groan.

“I’ll be fine, sis. Promise!” She replied.

Overhead, Rainbow Dash came in for landing.

“One thing you might find of interest: I noticed about half a mile down the hall on that side was a sign pointing to something called a ‘Main Computer Core’. Looked like quite a walk from here, but so long as you’re going to be hanging around.” The pegasus said. Sweetie’s eyes dilated excitedly.

“I think that is definitely worth investigating! Thank you, Rainbow!” She exclaimed, much to the pegasus’ amusement.

“Just stay safe you two. Awesome as this place may be, there’s a reason Daring Do exercises extreme caution when checking out mysterious locations.” Rainbow said, before perking her ears. “Actually, I wonder… would A.K. Yearling include this in one of the future books if I told her about it? I gotta write her a letter!”

The pegasus hurried after her friends back in the direction they’d come from, leaving Spike and Sweetie to finally have a moment to themselves in the darkened chamber.

“Well… while this wouldn’t be among my first choices for a place to have romantic night together… I suppose the fantastic scale and exotic nature do kind of make this place magical.” The dragon huffed, much to his marefriend’s amusement.

“Spike, so long as you’re with me, any place is magical. Thanks to Rainbow, however, I have to wonder if maybe we can make this place more than that.” Sweetie intoned as she turned and made for the corridor on the far side of the assembly area. “Come on, let’s go for a stroll.”

The two proceeded deeper into the darkness, finding themselves coming across multiple other chambers that shed just a little more light on the nature of the facility. Specifically, it was clearly intended to serve not just a manufacturing base for machines like Sweetie, but also an area of residence for… some manner of beings.

An hour or so into their walk, the dragon and robot came across what appeared to be cabins, similar to those found on a luxury cruise liner. Beds, desks, couches, bathrooms, and other fixtures to keep one very comfortably lodged greeted them as they explored the decently spacious living quarters… only, much like before, the discovery was offset by the question of why there was no one, save for them, around to make use of them.

“Huh… check this out!” Spike said as he stepped through another doorway and found himself in a similarly huge dining area. “This could match most of the restaurants in Canterlot for finery! Look at these place settings!”

He picked up a plate from one of the polished round metal tables.

“This is like… proper bone china! And these napkins!”

The dragon plucked one from the table and unfolded it.

“Actual silken cloth! Darn, whoever used these facilities clearly had the same fine taste as your sister.”

“More than you’d expect, it seems.” Sweetie said as she shone her light into a well stocked pantry area. Levitating one of the metal containers from the shelves, she peered intently at the label stamped on its lid.

“Spiced pate with cognac? Really?” She said while leaning in to make sure she wasn’t mis-reading the small font. The action caused her nose to bump against the container and the robot promptly jerked her head back. “EEK!”

“Sweetie?” Spike quickly ran over to his beloved machine. “What’s wrong?”

Shaking her head, Sweetie looked at the food container in shock.

“Nothing, just… this is freezing cold!”

Spike delicately took the container from Sweetie’s beam of light, finding it indeed was very chilly against his scales.

“Well yeah, it’s pate. You’re supposed to chill it for a few days so it can reach its full flavor.” He said, much to Sweetie’s dismay.

“Spike, given the state of everything else in this place, I’m pretty certain that’s been here for a bit longer than a few days… which begs the question of how is it still chilled?”

Spike’s wings tensed, and his face blushed as he picked up on the obvious problem. To be sure, he wet his finger and stuck it up in the air, finding the pantry itself was at the same modestly warm temperature as the dining area.

“Uhhh… well, that is a good question. Guess the only way to get an answer is to open it.” The dragon said sheepishly as he prodded the container and felt his claw catch on something that felt like a latch. He pushed on it and then nearly dropped the container as its lid popped open and a rush of razor cold air spilled out over his hands.

“EEEEE! Oooh, ack, should’ve brought some gloves!” The dragon said as he slid the lid off and beheld a surprisingly moist looking slab of pureed food nestled in a frame of ice covered metal bars.

“Huh… wow. Okay, so apparently this container works like the freezers at Sugar Cube Corner? Just in a more compact and portable form?” He commented. Sweetie looked at it and arched an eyebrow.

“And it’s still working after all this time?” She said. To her shock, Spike stuck his finger in the pate and scooped a generous amount into his mouth.

“Apparently so.” He said while studying the makeup of the spread. “Hmm, bit too much cognac for my tastes, could benefit from a few more onions, too...”

Sweeties mouth dropped as Spike tasted another sample.

“That said, the ginger does help add a bit of kick. Nice use of tomatoes to balance the flavor out, though I think...” The dragon continued to his beloved’s disbelief.

“Spike… you’re… you’re eating food that’s possibly several years… if not centuries old?” Sweetie exclaimed. Spike paused in his critique of the pate, letting the third helping on his finger slide off and plop back into the container.

“Well… my digestive system can handle gem stones, so I’m pretty sure it can handle this too. Not to mention, this doesn’t taste like it’s that old. Maybe a week or two, but it’s still edible.” He said, which only further bewildered Sweetie.

“So… these containers can keep food fresh for far longer than even magic can?” She said, before turning to cast her light into the pantry again. “And there’s enough of them in this one room alone to feed Ponyville’s entire population!”

Spike again halted his noshing, following his marefriend’s light and counting the number of other metal food containers.

“Yeah… that is strange… seriously, where ARE all the folk that were supposed to be using this place?” He asked. Sweetie shut off her light and glowered.

“And how does all this tie to me… okay, now I gotta try and get some answers!”

The robot turned and centered her gaze on another directory list by the dining area door, detailing what lay around it and in which directions.

“Come on, Spike! We’re finding that Main Computer Core!”

She galloped out into the darkened hallways, leaving Spike to swallow what was in his mouth and look down at the remainder of the pate.

After a moment, he decided to take it with him. There was hardly any sense in letting it go to waste.

***

“Ahh, well this is… brighter?” Spike intoned an hour or so later as the two stepped into a dimly lit chamber the size of a stadium. “So why are the lights on in here, if the rest of this place apparently has no power?”

Sweetie trotted over to what could best be described as an ornamental octagonal monolith, rising a good 30 feet up from the center of the room. A very artistic circuit pattern was etched onto each of its eight flawlessly smooth faces, a fine decorative testament to the creative power of whatever mind, or minds, built it along with the rest of the facility.

“Give me a second… and I may be able to explain that.” She said while casting the cone of light from her horn onto the monolith. She noted the circuit patterns seem to react to her scan, briefly flaring with the same neon blue hue before going dark again.

“Incredible… it’s like… whispers… echoes of so many voices...” The robot unicorn closed her eyes and continued scanning the room. “Everywhere… so many voices everywhere around us...”

Spike cocked his head as Sweetie slowly walked around the monolith as if in a trance.

“Voices?” He said while cupping a hand to where his ear hole was. “Uhhh… Sweetie… I can’t hear anything.”

The robot shook her head.

“Not like that… just… uh… how can I describe it? It’s like records, archives… files upon files of information all stored in here… waiting… sleeping...”

Sweeties eyes snapped open as she sharply took in a huge breath of air.

“No wait… not just sleeping… standing by!”

Spike arched his eyebrow as his marefriend looked around the room.

“This facility isn’t without power, it’s in standby mode! Kind of like what happens when I sleep. Everything except my most essential systems shutdown to minimize power expenditure… until I awaken again!”

Spike blinked and nodded slowly as he helped himself to more pate.

“So… this place… you’re saying it’s asleep?”

Sweetie nodded as she frantically looked around the room again.

“Basically yes! Just… it’s been this way for eons… like what I was picking up were dreams… uh… sort of… from countless years ago!”

Spike felt a momentary urge to ask if any of those dreams were of electric sheep. He then thought better of it as his marefriend centered her gaze on a long console under a giant bank of what looked like screens.

“Eons in standby mode… no one to wake it up… no one besides us in this entire complex… Celestia, what happened here???” Sweetie asked frantically as she spread her light across the various controls. A few of them lit up, but nothing else happened. Snorting in mild irritation, Sweetie raised a hoof to the console, only to pause as she realised there was another problem.

“Ugh. Uh, Spike, could you literally give me a hand here? I think this interface was designed exclusively for folk with fingers.”

Spike raised his eyebrow again as he walked over to join his beloved.

“Really? I mean, okay, that tells us something, just… why then would they dedicate so much of this place to building machines that only have hooves?” He asked. Sweetie could only shrug as she continued to scan the console.

“Do as I say, and maybe we’ll find out.” She replied. “Okay, to your left there should be a large green hexagon that just lit up. Push it down into its socket.”

Spike looked in the stated direction and blinked as he beheld the aforementioned geometric shape, hovering slightly above the console. It reminded him of the light projections Twilight often made with her magic. He reached over and earned himself another shock when the projection felt amazingly solid against his scales, allowing him to move it into the receptacle below.

Another section of the console lit up, as did several of the screens.

“Okay, now on that panel that started blinking, I need you to enter the following sequence of characters.” Sweetie instructed.

Spike looked at the aforementioned console and noticed a field of small tile like projections, each far too small for his mare to manipulate, and each of which had some bizarre rune like symbol stamped on them.

“Okay, easy enough. Though… if I may just ask… how do you know this?”

Sweetie looked up at the screens, reading the text scrolling across them.

“It’s telling me. I mean… it’s like when I somehow operated the teleporter… I’m just hearing the instructions in my head all of a sudden.” She said. Spike gave her a concerned look, but Sweetie just cleared her throat and began pointing at the tiles.

“First press the one that looks like a capital R, but with four legs. Next the one that looks sort of like an hourglass. Then that one that’s like a fish with a droopy tail...”

Spike typed each character, looking up and noting how they each appeared on the bottom of the screens.

“Right, now the one that’s like the infinity symbol with a line through it… okay, now press the tile that’s shaped like a backwards L.”

Spike did so, and a flurry of additional text streamed upwards across the screens as more of the console lit up.

“Okay, next, if you could follow me over to this section on the far end.”

Sweetie trotted over to what looked like a multicolored mosaic of basic shapes. It reminded Spike of the puzzle game Button Mash used to love that involved stacking oddly shaped blocks together so they all disappeared.

“I need you to press this one and this one at the same time...” Sweetie instructed. Spike did so, and the screens changed to show what looked like a royal crest, or possibly a logo. It consisted of a golden arch decorated with six wings on either side, elegantly curving around a field of stars. More of the runes flashed into existence underneath.

“Great. Now, I need you to press that one, that one, that one that looks like a stretched out plus sign… and then press the first two at the same time again.” Sweetie said in a slightly nervous voice. “That should do it.”

Spike nodded slowly as he tapped on the respective shapes.

“Sure, just… what exactly am I doing?” He asked while pressing the first two shapes simultaneously. Sweetie Belle took a sharp swallow.

“Providing a long overdue wake up call to...”

The room suddenly exploded in light. Spike stumbled back from the console, covering his eyes as his vision became a mess of white sparks. Around him, he heard a symphony of hums, beeps and pulsating timbres as the chamber stirred from its slumber.

“Uh… to that. Hee hee… oh dear.”

Sweetie ran over to her gentledrake as he frantically rubbed his eyes, trying to dash the sparks away.

“Oh geez, I am so sorry, Spike! I swear I thought I’d have another moment to warn you that was about to happen!’ She said sheepishly as the dragon blinked and slowly lowered his hands.

“It’s… it’s fine… heh… ugh… no worse than how Twilight is when I try rousing her for one of her early morning addresses.” He groaned as the now brightly illuminated room slowly came back into focus. “Okay… so at least now we’re not having to wander this place in the pitch dark. What next?”

Sweetie turned to the monolith in the center of the room. The circuit patterns on its faces were now dancing in a grand ballet of light, countless lines of neon rushing across and around each other like the traffic in the streets of Manehattan. A pillar of light in the same shade of neon blue rose from the summit of the monolith, casting itself high into the seemingly infinite heavens of the chamber.

“Next we say hello, I guess… and hope this isn’t going to be like Twilight is before her morning cup of coffee.” The robot mare said in a choked voice as several of the screens switched to show an image of her and Spike standing in front of the monolith.

-Good morning personnel, this is Artemis.-

The voice that echoed across the room was soft, feminine, and yet distinctly robotic in nature.

-Diagnostic reports confirm I am completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly.-

The image on the screens slowly zoomed in on Spike and Sweetie.

-May I ask that you please identify yourselves?-

Author's Note

Okay, finally finished another one of these off. Ehhh, so now I'm uploading at the rate of one story per month because work and family (and other non MLP related projects) take that much of my time. Heh, go figure.

Well at least I've gotten to the point where my real challenge begins. Sweetie has at last met her true mother and is about to learn the truth behind who she is and why she was on Equestria. Thank you to everyone who pitched in with their ideas on that. While I may not be able to use all of them, I've planned out a way for most of them to feature so here's hoping I can present that soon.

And for those who might be drawing some new theories from this chapter, no Artemis did not kill everyone in the facility. Sorry but the trope of machines being outright evil shall not feature in this series. Or indeed any of my series if I can help it.

I can post a blog discussing why if anyone is curious.