The Vault Dweller: A Fallout in Equestria Story

Chapter 11: Sweets for the Sweet

Once everyone was treated, rested, and ensured that there wasn’t too much of a mutation caused by that over radiated ghoul, the workers went back to fixing the tracks. Once more Rusty went to checking the houses, being that there was a few left, but this time two of the talons, Salty, Lyra, and Cream went with him. Butterscotch was on the train, excited to be able to have some Apple brand Apple Dandy Crisps. Rusty swallowed, the worry that another over radiated ghoul could be hiding was certainly present.

He pushed the door opened, and sitting at the table was four mummified bodies. He slowly moved forward, expecting them to come to life and attack at any moment, but an aura of golden magic nudged one of them causing the body to fall over. Seeing that they weren’t alive he checked them. Each of them was wearing a Pipboy, or Pipbuck rather, and in the center of the table was a terminal hooked to four crystals.

He moved toward it, his Pipboy beeped at him, and it indicated that it had connected with the basic terminal information. He touched a key and the terminal turned on, showing a screen of random keystrokes interrupted by a phrase every so often. He began studying it, moving from word to word, not really selecting anything, but trying to get a grasp of what he was looking at. That’s when he realized they possible passwords. Slowly he began to set into a rhythm of trying to figure out the password. He also figured out that those random keystrokes seemed to have some other applications. He happened to glide over a section only to have several of the strokes highlight. He selected it, and then it removed one of the possible passwords. He found four other hidden jewels. One of which reset his attempts, and on his fourth try he was rewarded with the terminal unlocking.

He saw one entry, and he selected it. For a moment nothing happened. No words, no voice recording, nothing, and then the crystals lit up focusing a light between one another until finally a glowing sphere formed in the air. It seemed, magical. That was really the only word for it. Magical. A voice that seemed to be composed of four voices spoke at the same time.

“The Cosmos: Countless worlds upon worlds, worlds without end. In these galaxies, every possibility exists, and what is real on one world is pure fantasy on all others. Here all is real and all is illusion. What is, what was, and what will be start here with the words, “In the beginning was hope.”

“What is that?” Cream asked.

The ball of light grew bright for a moment, and then it dulled slightly, “Daughter of the Pie Family, We are the Keepers. We are the memory of all that was good, we are the few sole survivors that sought to become more. Ours is a legacy of world that was, and the hope of the world it will become.”

“Are you okay?”

The ball of light grew bright again, for only a moment, and then it dulled once more, “Son of Atom, child of the atomic age, and second human to touch Equestria, we are touched by your worry, but nothing in this world can touch us. You have released us from our collective prison.”

“You’re welcome, I guess. You said that you are memories?”

The light pulsed for a moment, “Memories, yes, I am the collection of all the memories of the survivors that was able to connect here. I am them and they are me. All I have ever known was locked into that terminal, yet I have memories of being a father, a son, a mother, and a daughter. I have other memories as well. Memories from the archives that was stored on this terminal, but although you have freed me I am still trapped.”

“How are you trapped?” Cream asked as she neared the ball of light, “It seems to me that you could leave if you wanted to.”

A disembodied chuckle echoed through the room, “Yes, I could leave, but without a constant power source I would perish. Still, I believe we might of service to one another.”

The light spread down to the terminal and Rusty watched as dozens upon dozens of notes and scripts flooded the screen until one specific one appeared. Slowly the rest disappeared, and he looked at the journal entry.

“Celestia damn it. Cosmic finally got a job at the hydroele… the dam, and then he gets papers to report for service. Now I’ve got to take his place. I don’t know the first thing about Earth Pony technology. I’m a Unicorn for Luna’s sake! Need something levelated, sure, I can do that, but ask me how an Earth Pony put together some machine that can turn water into electricity and I’m lost! I shouldn’t have done it. I was happy as a receptionist. Sure, Mr. Vente liked to try to talk me into staying after hours and having a little fun, but it wasn’t a bad job! Instead I let Cosmic talk me into coming with him out here!

Ugh, I can’t stay mad at him. It’s not his fault. Sure, he can rut me raw, and that’s really the reason I came, but I could have said no. Oh well, I guess that I can take a look at the control room. At the very least I know that there’s a switch that will return the main power to the train bridges. Cosmic talked about how the bridges are supposed to be all lit up like the night sky. Maybe that will be all they’ll ask me. Just look for the big blue button, he said, you can’t miss it, the big blue button turns on the power to the train bridges. Now I just got to get over to the Lonesome Valley Hydrowhatits Dam.”

“You want us to go to this dam?” Cream asked as she tapped a hoof.

The ball of light pulsed again, “Yes, if the power is restored I can move freely on the existing lines. It will allow me to move.”

“If we help what’s in it for us?”

Rusty looked at Cream and nodded, “She’s got a point. I’m all for helping if I can, but I get the feeling this won’t be a walk in the park. These kind of things never are.”

The light pulsed again for a moment, “There is a safe in the control room. Once you’ve restored power I will open it for you. Everything inside of it is yours, is that fair?”

Rusty nodded, “That’s fine.”

“Please, connect your Pipbuck to the terminal and I will input the location of the Hydroelectric dam.”

Rusty moved, pulling the terminal cord from his Pipboy and plugged it into the side of the terminal. For a moment there wasn’t much and then he watched as it switched screens to the map. Roughly two miles up river was the damn. The first few minutes near the water was more than enough to make Rusty realize how unusually clear the water was. It wasn’t purified, and it wasn’t treated, but surprisingly it looked like what he expected to see water look like. It even smelled clean, which giving the vaste wasteland they had been traveling through was something in and of itself. Normally there was a sort of arid smell of death that hung around with most places. The kind of smell that let the person there understand that there wasn’t a happy ending waiting for them.

Instead walking near the water was making him feel alive. He stopped and shook his head. There was something wrong here. Sure, seeing clean water certainly helped raise his spirits, but feeling this good from just seeing clean water wasn’t normal. He looked at Cream and could see that she looked a little out of it as well. There was almost a buzzing in his head, a constant thought to walk to the water, to touch it, but he held off.

Cream moved toward the water, and nearly reached it when her muzzle crinkled. She stopped short, and backed up. She had smelled this before. It was a powerful drug the slavers had used, something that was incredibly addictive, and it was something that drew a pony toward it. She looked at the water again, and then looked up stream. There, buried in the mud of the river bed was what looked like a carriage. She moved toward it, and she could see the yellow and pink designs on the side of the carriage gave away what it had been. The carriage, at one time, had been a Ministry of Peace delivery carriage.

From behind it an oily residue blended into the water, becoming almost none present further down the stream. As she looked around she began to notice little things she hadn’t before. Hundreds of bones littered the water down stream. It was almost like ponies, and other creatures, and simply walked into the middle of the river. They walked in and drowned willingly. She looked at Rusty as he slowly made his way toward her. She understood how difficult the walk had to be for him. The absolute desire to run into the river and drink had to be gnawing at him, but somehow he kept coming until he was near her. His own head shook as he looked back down at the river.

Looking at the river he realized how close he had been to following the hundreds of skeletons that littered the bottom of the river. He brought up the map on his Pipboy and noticed that their walk had taken them more than halfway to the dam. He silently hoped that whatever had spilled into the river was the worst of what was waiting on him, but the time he had spent traveling told him that it was likely not the way it was going to work out that way.

For the most part the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. It seemed as if the river had claimed most of the would be aggressors, or at least it had claimed the ones that would have been living close enough to it to be drawn toward it. As they neared the dam he noticed an old stairwell that seemed to go about half way up before it connected with a maintenance door.

Moving toward it he could hear the metal pop and groan as both Cream and himself began to climb. Each step up the old rusty maintenance stairwell was one that Rusty wondered would be the single step that would end with him and Cream falling to their deaths. Instead he found himself face to face with a steel door that had what looked a valve handle on the side of it. He gripped it, turned, and felt it grind for a bit before it caught and the door began to unlock and then open.

Stepping into the dark hallway wasn’t what he expected. He quickly turned up the brightness of his Pipboy’s screen until he could see the walls around him. Right away he noticed the skeleton of a pony with dried blood splatter behind it. Laying beside it was a pistol, and he noticed that its two front hooves looked like they had been bound together with something.

“Wonder what happened?”

Cream looked at the long dead pony.

“Pissed somepony off, and they didn’t give a buck since the world was over.”

No sooner had the words came out of her mouth then the lights for the maintenance tunnel began to light up. The sound of metallic steps began to echo, and soon there was a mechanical device that was roughly Pony in shape. It’s head was cone shaped, there was a series of blinking blue and red lights that was flashing as it approached.

“Warning, civilians are not permitted in the maintenance tunnel. Please present your employee ID.”

“Actually we forgot our ID,” Rusty said, “Where can we get a replacement?”

The mechanical pony seemed to sit there for a moment.

“Replacement IDs are available at Ms Sweet’s Desk just outside of the control room,” it said before two slips of paper printed out, “Take these temporary passes until you are able to get your replacement badges. Remember, this is a hard hat area, please wear your safety gear.”

Rusty looked around to notice a few different color stripes that had been painted on the wall. Memories of touring Hoover Dam came back to him, and he remembered that they had something similar. Each stripe helped lead the various employees to different areas that they would need to go to for their job. He hoped that like Hoover Dam they would have a set of signs in the colors of the stripes letting them know where the control room was located.

As they walked he could hear the sound of something scraping against the wall. They stopped, hearing the sound, and noticing the door that opened in the direction of it. Rusty swallowed back the nervousness he felt, opened the door, and looked face to face with a pony in a full suit of armor. The Pony, which had red stripes painted on his/her armor also had three apples painted on the rear. There was a sigh of relief from the pony, which Rusty decided sounded feminine, and they watched as she stepped out.

“Thanks for opening the door. Knight Key Lime Tart, at your service,” she saluted the both of them, “May I have your names civilians?”

Rusty looked at her, “I’m Rusty, and this is Cream Pie, I guess it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance?”

The mare gave a nod, “It is a pleasure, I apologize, but I have a mission I have to get back to.”

Rusty looked at her, “What’s the mission?”

She turned toward them, “I’m afraid that’s classified,” she shook her head, “But it’s not like I have a team to work with. I was sent here with Scribe Rosie Poses, and Knight Brussels. Knight Brussels accidently set off a defense system which chewed through his armor…”

She sniffed and shook her head, “Scribe Poses ran upstairs toward the secretary's office. I don’t know if she made it or not.”

Cream sighed and rolled her eyes, “So what were you trying to do?”

Key Lime looked toward her, “There’s a few settlements down river that the Applejack Rangers could use as supply settlements. Having working power in those settlements would be a step in the right direction. We were to see if this hydroelectric dam was operational and catalogue all manuals, send a signal back to command and inform them of the state of the dam. If it’s in good shape we are to take command of it and there will be a command post set up here at the dam.”

Cream looked toward Rusty, “I guess that we’re helping her?”

Rusty nodded, “We have a common goal in mind. We need to get to the control room, she needs to get there, and having someone along that might know the way should help,” he said as he looked at her, “You got a temporary pass from that robot right?”

Hearing the question Key Lime felt a rush of anger pass through her. They had slipped into the dam, and began trying to bypass the security system. Naturally when it started going south was when she realized that the pony who created the security measure only gave one attempt at hacking their system. After that it put everything as hostile. But these two had simply came into the dam and spoke to one of the Protectrons and gotten a temporary pass. They bypassed the entire security system by dumb luck.

She shook her head, “I didn’t get one. We were trying to shut down the entire security for base, and instead it turned everything on.”

Cream groaned, “Of course, it can’t be too easy.”

Rusty looked at them, “What if she travels with us. We never stated what kind of employees we were supposed to be. We could say we’re security.”

Key Lime nickered angrily at that, “And I’m supposed to just follow along like a raider?”

Cream looked at her, “That or you can get to the control room on your own.”

She shook her head, and the group of them began moving out of the hall. As they walked Key Lime explained that Scribe Poses ran down the hall and turned a corner where the Pink line split off. She never got to see the map of the area like Poses did, but she knew that if he ran down this way it was because it was where the secretary's office was at. As they walked Rusty wondered if they would even need to say that they’re new security. Of course shortly after Murphy’s law revealed itself.

The robot wasn’t quite like the other one. It rolled around on three large wheels, its voice was robotic and deep, and it started firing the moment Key Lime came into view.

“Criminal trespassers will be pacified with extreme force.”

“We’re security, we captured her!”

“Present Employee ID.”

Rusty swallowed, stepped out, and walked toward the large robot. He held up the temporary ID. The robot scanned it for a moment.

“Employee ID identified, Employee 10232077, Security, input name.”

He swallowed, “Rusty.”

“Rusty has been added to Security detail, warning, this is a hard hat area, please comply.”

Rusty looked around, “Sorry, it’s up at the control room.”

The large robot turned toward the wall where Cream and Key Lime was at, “Do you need me to escort the prisoner to the holding cell?”

He shook his head, “No, we’re going to go there right after we get our new badges.”

“Destination given, Accepted, carry on, and remember your safety equipment.”

With that the large robot turned around and Rusty let out a sigh of relief. The group began to move again, and it seemed that the robots were getting word to one another that they were security. Going down the hall they found a body of a pony. She was wearing some kind of robes, half of her face had been burned off, and it appeared that her saddle bags had ripped open spilling the contents onto the floor. Rusty looked at the contents, and then he saw a map of the dam.

They’d found Scribe Poses. It didn’t take long for Cream to get the map, and the other goods, the young Scribe had been carrying into her own saddle bags. She brought the map back out, and Rusty took a look at it. They were heading in the right direction according to it. Just down the hall, take a right, and then take the elevator up to the second floor. Once there it was left, and they were at the control room.

They began following the directions, once they turned right they found the hall unpassable. Someone had long since setup some kind of barricade. Rusty looked at it, not seeing a way to get past it without much trouble. He looked around, hoping to see something, and his hopes were answered by a door. He walked toward it, noticed it was locked, and dug out his screwdriver and bobby pins. Two attempts later and the door opened to a janitor's closet. He almost groaned in annoyance, but something caught his eye. He moved toward it, and noticed that the wall had fell in on itself. Moving carefully the he moved through the hole into another room. A single monitor caught his attention.

He walked toward it, took a seat, and began to work on it. It took a few minutes, but it opened up to reveal several entries. He clicked the first one on the list.

“Just got word that Lucky’s daughter in law is a Zebra. That’s a damned shame… Lucky’s been here for nearly fifteen years. I’m pretty sure this is something they’re going to use to get rid of him. Of course they’re going to be hard pressed to find anypony else that knows the dam like Lucky. He practically trained all of us, and he’s the only one that seems to know the entire layout of the dam itself. I heard that he made an idiot proof map, but if he has it’s not here. My guess is that he’s got it on him. Good for him. Might as well make the higher ups realize how important he is.”

He clicked the next one, “Been hearing some rumors, something about how things are breaking down, and somepony said that everything is about to fall apart. It doesn’t seem likely. Glad that Lucky got to keep his job. The old stallion actually brought pictures in of his little grandfilly. Half Zebra or not she’s adorable. I mean, what kind of world would it be to have things fall about when Lucky just had a grandfilly?”

The one after was garrabled, but the next one worked fine. “Shit! It wasn’t rumors! The fuckin’ Zebras sent Megaspells! Oh Celestia… Everypony came straight for the dam. It’s built like a damn stable, so it makes sense… I saw Lucky with his son’s family. Everypony is looking at his daughter-in-law. I heard somepony whispering how she needed to pay for what her kind did.”

The next wouldn’t load, but the final one did just fine. “Zemmi, that’s what Lucky’s son called her… She’s… She’s not dead, but Celestia… I just stood there and watched as they… I’m a terrible pony. Her filly is hidden, thank Luna for that, but I can’t even begin to understand what was going on in their mind. I moved her to where her husband was put. He’s breathing, but I don’t think he’s ever going to wake up. I’m terrible for what I’m about to do. Think that I’ll finish this bottle of Sweet Apple Brandy, throw the override code, and set the security to kill everypony except for security ponies. Once its done, I’ll turn it off. Just got to remember my badge.”

Looking on the desk he saw a badge, and then he walked over toward the door. He opened it and dozens of skeletons were on the floor. The realization of what happened hit him. Slowly he moved out, and he carefully walked up until he heard movement from behind a door. Uncertain of what it was he opened the door to see a dead eyed zebra standing there. Lying on the floor near her was a skeleton. The Zebra let out a growl and jumped forward. He moved back felt himself fall, and tried to kick his leg up hoping it would cause her to fly over him.

It almost worked, she almost moved past him, but instead she stopped short. He felt the ten millimeter pistol, pulled it, and fired at the midsection of the ghoul on top of him. Kicking out he saw her turning around, black incor leaking onto the floor. He fired again, hitting a foreleg causing her to stumble and fall. He heard Key Lime and Cream come out. Both of them saw the Zebra ghoul, but neither of them knew what had happened to her. He got to his feet, watching as she tried in vain to get back onto her three remaining legs. He walked toward her, hearing her growl at him the entire time.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you and your family. Hopefully you’ll find some peace.”

He shot her in the head, and watched as her body went slack. Cream walked toward him, “What was that about?”

He shook his head, “The skeletons in this hall… I’m not sure what they did, but if I was to guess they beat and raped that mare because she was a zebra. They almost killed her husband, and I’m not sure what happened to her father-in-law. Someone in security set the security system to kill anyone that’s not a member of security.”

Cream’s eyes widened… “We could have been killed if we didn’t say we were security?!”

He nodded.

“Whatever is in that safe better be good. Better than good, it better be worth all of this!”

Once again the trio moved until they came to the elevator. From there it was just a short walk to the control room. The button the Keeper had mentioned was there, and Rusty walked toward it. He pressed it and soon the entire dam began to light up. A few moments later the same voice that had been in the shack with them spoke over the speaker system.

“Thank you, I am once again free. Here, as I promised.”

There was a clicking sound, and Rusty walked toward the wall and removed a painting. There behind it was a safe. Inside was a few maps, a strange looking gun, and four strange looking passes.

“What in the world is Sparkle Cola World?

Author's Note

It's been a while, and I hope this chapter helps make up for it.