The gifts given to those who don't ask are worth more to them than the gifts given to those who do.

Towers. No matter how many times I tried to look away I saw them. Detrot seemed to be some sort of central hub of massive skyscrapers that poked up from the ground and nearly touched the now low fog cover. The snow did not help much in terms of visibility as it whipped and whisked all around us with a tenacity that made the snow as if it were alive and loved to target me. I did not mind the cold much. In all honesty, it was almost the same as Stable 37's generator systems and cooling talismans that kept our surplus food from spoiling. I should know how both of those feel from experience. According to my PipBuck's thermometer it was nearly ten degrees. At some point, my brain will catch up to my body and start telling me that its cold but until that time arrives I'm just going to ignore it like I do with most other things that I did not like. That was getting harder and harder to do as I constantly was looking up at the cloud cover above me it a touch of jealousy. Can we have some sun please?

No?

Okay fine. Go fuck yourself too clouds.

Soon that thought left my brain as some more snow cut across my left side. My Electrician's Barding wasn't doing a justice and the fifteen cap coat was not helping out much either. I need something more substantial.

"Phantom it's way too cold," I mumbled through chattering teeth, "Can we just take a day off?"

She rolled her eyes. She was not a big fan of taking a break for any sort of reason unless either one of us was hurting really badly. Even after the whole Steel Ranger thing she just described my ear injury as "Just a flesh wound". Now that we got a better idea of the situation that we are currently dealing with she gave up any sort of resistance she had before and took us to a small building. It was made of steel and concrete like most other buildings in Detrot but had some slight differences that I could spot even with the snow cutting our vision down to about half of what it should be. The first, and probably the most important thing that we noticed, was the fact that the building was pink. Not an ageing pink but a bright petal pink. Like my stable, it was over-engineered so that something as big as a megaspell could not take it down easily. Hell, some of the windows were still intact.

"This should be good," Phantom Wing said aloud.

"If its out of the snow, I'm fine with anything," I added as I tried the lock.

It was stuck.

"What is up with the locks in Detrot?!" I yelled in annoyance as the door was probably laughing at me.

"Everything is locked here Quantum. Detrot was not only the city of opportunity, it was the city of paranoia."

I stuck my tongue out Phantom Wing. The padlock was crude and simple but above all, it was effective. A shotgun probably would not break it and I did not want to use my Whinnychester, a shotgun slug or the Spire Point that I found back at the Docks. Even if I wanted to use it, I had no idea what gun it would go to it. Actually, it had a higher chance of it fitting one of Phantom Wing's guns than any of mine. The Whinnychester was a Forty-Four caliber gun and the Spire Point looked as if it was a rifle round because of its length, but because it was too big to fit even in Phantom's rifle, I would assume that the gun that fired a bullet like this either didn't exist or would be impossible to find. I pulled the bullet back out and examined it more closely. The recurring clicking of my PipBuck told me that I should not eat it even though I was so damn hungry at this point that I probably would have ate the collar on my barding.

Then I took out the Whinnychester from my leg holster and opened the cylinder. The skirmishes over the past few days have not done anything good with the gun. I had to use most of its ammo a fight after the Steel Rangers and it wasn't like Forty-Four caliber bullets were prominent around Detrot. The little markets back at Foxes who sold Forty-Fours charged a ridiculous ten caps per bullet. Tools of the Talented didn't have much of a lower price for them either. They told me that, unless I buy them here, I have to go and find them and they are the hardest type of bullet to find. Funny how I found a gun that takes Forty-Fours and a full case of it in the same place. Just my luck that the "City of Paranoia" didn't have bullets for the most paranoid pegasus on the ground.

The piece of wood that I took from the Raider was still in my saddlebag. I didn't know what to really do with it. A unicorn wielded it and I wasn't one. Well, if worse comes to worse, it would make a nice impromptu bear trap or paper weight.

That left my shotgun. The Raider who owned it prior to me did not know what maintenance repair is because most of the parts were sticking and the firing pin only worked seventy-five percent of the time. Normally I would ignore that fact, but with Steel Rangers, Aericos, Raiders, and things of that nature floating around Detrot, I wanted to make every shell count. That would go a longer way if the damn gun wouldn't keep sticking to itself.

Then I heard a soft click. I looked up from the clouds of my thoughts at Phantom Wing who was holding a plucked feather and a screwdriver in her talons. She shrugged a bit at my confused look.

"What?" she said throwing the feather aside and giving me a smug look, "Have you ever seen someone pick a lock before?"

"Yeah. One time. When I tried it I broke my screwdriver," I answered hanging my head.

"Did you have a bobby-pin or something like it? Hell, you could even do it with a light bulb filament if you were really desperate for something."

"No. I didn't know you needed one in the first place. I thought it just took a screwdriver and some luck. The last time I tried to pick a lock I had to resort to," I explained as I looked at my saddle bag, "more ridiculous measures."

"What did you use?"

I put on probably the most sheepish and embarrassed look that anypony has ever put on in the history of ponykind. Taking a deep breath I gave her the two words,

"Angle Grinder."

Phantom Wing's jaw went to the ground in both astounding shock and horror. Her eyes just screamed "Why does Quantum have an angle grinder?", "Where did he get the angle grinder?" and "What is he going to do with an angle grinder?" all at the same time. Putting on an easy smile, I answered all three of her implied questions with,

"It comes standard issue with all Stable 37 Electricians."

"Oh..."

After that, the subject seemed to drop like a wet blanket. She did not want to know about the ins and outs of an electrician and I did not want to deal with playing a game of twenty questions with a griffin who probably would never understand the ins and outs of being an electrician. Instead, she opened the door to the little pink building and scanned the area with her beam pistol to see if it was clear. Thankfully, it was. Neither of us needed to deal with anything right at the moment. Even my EFS told me that it was clear. Trust the EFS right? No one ever gotten killed because an EFS being wrong right?

Phantom quickly stormed into the building and put her back just to the left of the door frame while I took to the right with my shotgun. Sure there was probably an invisible Raider or some big insect that I would have to deal with later but hey, we need a place to get out of the cold. While Phantom Wing closed the door behind us I turned on my PipBuck lamp and filled the room with the distinct green glow of light that came with using a PipBuck. The wall became illuminated just enough for me to make out its distinct features. It was what I assumed was a waiting room with many old, velvet lined chairs lining the walls that all pointed forward at a long counter with two still intact windows. Behind those window were the skeletons of two-hundred year old ponies that still held some radiation as per indication from the steady clicking of my PipBuck. Each of the earth ponies were slouched over a stack of very important looking business papers that were colored the same pink as the wall of the building outside. Obviously somepony either forgot to mention that the world was ending outside or that the papers that they were still guarding must have, at one point, been incredibly valuable.

Oh well, time to find out what we just walked into I guess. I could only assume that this building was some sort of prewar pharmacy or something. In all honesty I was hoping that it was going to be somewhere that actually had a bed that I could take a nap in for a while. If either of us got lucky and this was some sort of gun storage I would probably set up shop here. Who knows, if this place wasn't a prewar pharmacy and it was actually a bullet making factory, I could start making my own Forty-Fours and not have to pay for them.

There was only one thing that crushed my hoped on a gun factory though. Why would a gun factory have pink wallpaper and have pictures of parties from two-hundred or so years ago hanging on the pink colored wall?

For once Wasteland. For once can you give me a break?

After Phantom Wing picked the look to the next room I pulled my brain from my clouded thoughts and back to the Wasteland. With a soft creak the door swung open and we crept silently into the room with Phantom Wing on alert and me taking a breather. I don't understand why she has her feathers in a bunch, the EFS says its empty so it must be empty. At least, that it what I hope.

***

True to what the EFS said, the building was unnaturally empty. The only real threat that either of us came across were the few RadRoaches that skittered across the ground and died with a simple hoof stomp. Nothing much in terms of loot and bullets though. If only we could see better but the lights were not traditionally wired to a light switch. They were a magical lighting system that had to be programmed from a central terminal and all of its power must be provided from a central point of origin. With that being as it is, there must be a main breaker switch or a circuit terminal that connected all of the power to a single command. I could tell from the humming systems in the ceiling above us.

"Can you give me a minute to look around Phantom?" I asked the grey feathered griffin as she continued to work open a wall safe with nothing but an empty can of Cram that she ate while she was working it.

"No problem," Phantom Wing answered not taking her eyes off of the lock, "Just don't get lost."

"As long as I have my PipBuck, I won't get lost easily," I reassured with an honest smile.

At that moment I was really glad that I had something else to do other than watch Phantom work because, as soon as I left the room, I heard the sound of the lock on the safe wanting to jam and Phantom Wing letting out a whole dictionary's worth of words that would make even the Overmare cringe. Then there were two gun shots. Not from me or anyone that showed up on the EFS other than Phantom Wing. I guess she just got tired of the whole stealth thing and started trying to shot the safe open.

"If she wastes all of her bullets on a safe then I am not going to look for more," I thought to myself as I trotted down the old hallways and into any room that would possibly hold a terminal I could hack.

***

The more rooms I walked past, the more bodies I found. Mostly unicorns but there was more than one or two earth ponies and even a pegasus. The most disturbing part of it was that they seemed to still be working. Even some of the mummified corpses with skin harder and any callas still looked as nimble and ready to work as the day the world had ended. Forty. At this point I must've seen about forty dead ponies if my math was correct. Forty souls that did not truly see all of the horrors that were outside. Forty ponies who might have had friends or family that might have survived the war in a stable just after Stable-Tech closed them off to the surface above. Forty that never had peace.

The final room on the top level of the building was an open office with a large circular table like the Overmare's with eight other chairs surrounding it. This room in particular was empty of all bodies living or dead. The walls were lined with still functional monitor screens and wires snaking out from a central terminal on the head of the table. That was probably where the power from the magic lights went to. I wanted to be a little happy that I found the source of the magical energy but at the same time I had to wonder; why is it all going here? What is so important about this terminal that it had to have every single ounce of energy this structure could sacrifice in order to...

... stay locked?

"What the hell?" I murmured to myself as I circled the terminal over and over again so I could remember where everything went just in case something bad happened with the lights and I had to switch off the power.

Knowing that I had the mental blueprint, I slowly removed the biggest power cable out of the terminal that made its screen go blank and shut down. After a second I put the plug back in and the terminal turned back on. The lock screen was gone and now I could hack into it. The odds of finding anything worth my time in the terminal was not worth my time but hey, it was something to do.

Getting back onto my hooves I pulled out my RHT and plugged it into the side of the terminal screen and the little devise began to work its magic. Not even a minute later, the RHT let out a resounding beep and the terminal went to all of its main screens. There were three commands,

REROUTE POWER

Y_/N_

ACCESS EVIDENCE LOCKER #283

Y_/N_

PLAYBACK MESSAGES

Y_/N_

The first option was a little tempting at first because I was sick of the dark insides of the building. On the other hoof Evidence Locker #283 might have something worth my while after all. I selected the little Y on the Evidence Locker option and my ears immediately picked up the victorious yelling of Phantom as she said from that little room a story below me,

"That's right you son-of-a-bitch!! You need to try harder next time if you want to keep something from me!"

I sighed and put on a small smile. I was not going to deprive this from her. She had been at it for about fifteen minutes and if I told her that I was the one who actually unlock it...

Best to leave some mysteries alone.

Weaving my way back to Phantom, I heard a faint buzzing sound from the floorboards bel... no. Not floorboards. Tiles. Some rumbled a bit, some cracked, but most others began to slide away from each other with much resistance that the screaming the metal resonated with began the fun cycle of getting a migraine. If that wasn't enough though, through the hissing and the cries of the metal, a generator started to charge up. It was a small one though, not one big enough to provide adequate power to the building but big enough to power something that might kill us. It was probably an Electrical Node Model 9.5. Wait... the only thing those are good for are...

"Shit," I growled at myself as my EFS started to give me little red bars all over the place.

"Quantum!" Phantom Wing cried as she ran out of the room with a black case tucked between one of her talons and her beam pistol firing in the other, "What the fuck did you just do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" I yelled back as I pulled out the Whinnychester and started to look from anything that would look or sound like something that would need a EN-9.5.

Just then a pair of red mechanical eyes cut through the darkness of the room that the PipBuck didn't light up. Two pairs. Three. Four pairs. EN model generators were used for only one thing other than to be a backup generator. They were military grade equipment back before the war that powered some of Equestria's massive war machines. Despite me never actually seeing one in real, working condition and only learning about it from simulations back at Stable 37 the sound of the thing was unmistakable.

"HALT INTRUDERS!" a metallic voice crackled through the darkness.

"SURRENDER AND PREPARE TO BE VAPORIZED!"another chimed in with a more authoritative voice.

"Aw fuck me," Phantom Wing groaned, "Robroncos."

"Ro-what?" I asked as we stood back to back with each other sidearms raised.

The metal clop of hooves punched through the still darkness and an entire body of a robot's body came into my line of vision. It was a tall menacing looking creature with bright red eyes with little yellow cross hairs that I could see in each eye. A targeting laser beamed out of each eye at us with a little metal panel on the top of its head where a unicorn's horn would most likely be slid away and a bright emerald green bolt discharged from it. It struck me first in the chest as the familiar tingling sensation of small electrical components in my barding absorbed most of the blast and sent it out of my body and into the ground. Stable 37's Electricians Uniform was designed with a wire weaving underneath the main clothing in order for it to withstand up to twenty amperes of electrical force or two-hundred volts. That's enough electricity to run two-hundred 100 Watt light bulbs. The Overmare back at Stable 37 didn't think that I needed such heavy duty equipment because I was a pegasus and the only reason why I am wearing it now was the fact that Piston was too stubborn to do anything about it and just let me have the uniform. Who knew that one day the fool would save me from being electrocuted to death from a killer robot?

"How the hell did you do that?" Phantom Wing asked in equal parts shock and terror as she began to fire back at the tenacious machines with her beam gun.

"Is this really the time to start discussing how an electricity-proof suit works Phantom?" I asked back as my shotgun roared with every shell.

The robots were slow and predictable, thank Celestia. Unfortunately the beam gun and the buckshot did little to damage the robots outer casing. They were functioning as if they were straight out of the factory they were made in. There was no bullet, slug, nor energy blast that could stop one let alone four. Then I had an idea.

Without thinking I snatched the beam pistol out of Phantom Wing's talon and pointed it at the floor. At first she gave me a scold but then I pressed and held down the little red trigger button. A red line of energy erupted from the end as it sliced through the tiled floor in a great big circle. With a bone chilling groan the floor gave way and plunged us into the darkness below. As we fell I looked up to see the four robots looking down at us. All I could think of was one dumb song that played over the radio back at Stable 37 that I heard sometimes.

"I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...," I sang as I completely ignored the plummet.

Then the backside of Phantom Wing's talon swung at me from the shadows and hit me in the back of the head. I saw her distasteful look and the embarrassed shake of her head.

"Shut the fuck up Quantum."

***

"Get the hell off of me Quantum," Phantom Wing groaned as I tried to pull myself back to my hooves and off of her.

The fall was about several flights down. Not far enough to disrupt the sounds of the Robrancos wheeling around the hole we fell through but far enough to sent the Radiation Meter on my PipBuck into a ticking fit. When I looked at it, I realized that I wasn't keeping track of it and the little needle was bouncing in the yellow-orange part of the gauge and it was slowly climbing. How I didn't think about it before I had no idea, but all I knew is that if we stayed down here for too long we were going to die of Radiation Poisoning.

"Sorry," I answered groggily, "I did not expect to fall this far."

"What exactly does this accomplish Quantum?" Phantom Wing asked as she picked herself off of the floor and began to look for her dropped beam pistol.

"We can fly. They can't. If we could lure them down here and somehow keep them stationary for only a minute we would be able to fly back up that hole we just made and back outside."

Simple plans bring simple results.

"What was in that safe anyway?" I asked looking at the black case still now lying a foot away from where I landed.

"I don't know and honestly I don't care. If it was something that important two-hundred years ago that someone put it in knockdown and had guards it probably isn't worth much now. Let's just leave it and get out of here," she answered as she plucked a few bloody feathers off of her wings and forearms.

That just made me want to know more about this mysterious little box that she found. I held the PipBuck just over the top of the case and on it was a big pink sticker of a grumpy pink pony with her hooves crossed as if she were merely a foal that did not get what she wanted for her birthday party. Next to the pony, in big blue bubble letters was,

OBJECT CONFISCATED BY THE MINISTRY OF MORAL: LEVEL 9: DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

It said 'Do not open'? Now I REALLY wanted to know what was in the box. I picked it up and, with a soft click, it opened right up for me. It was as if the universe wanted me to know what was in the box. This was better than Hearth's Warming back in Stable 37 where the only thing you got was some more tools that you will eventually need to use to do your job that you were assigned to. Phantom Wing looked at me with a petrified expression of 'How the fuck did you do that' while she continued to take her sidearm apart and repair some internal circuits. I shrugged as I began to lift the lid of the box open. There was a horrid stench of rot and radiation that burst from the case as a pressurized puff of air sprayed over the two of us. My PipBuck had a fit as the little needle jumped from the yellow into the very edge of the red and would have probably gone higher if my PipBuck could've registered it. The dizzy spell that came after it was like being hit with a falling ventilation duct and I staggered so much that Phantom Wing had to catch me before I fell on something and broke something else. She handed me the last of our RadAways and I slugged it down with greed. The little needle was now hovering in the middle of the red but I wasn't going to die right there. That was not my worry though. My real worry was how much radiation she picked up that neither of us could see via PipBuck. She, at this point, had as much as I did but it seemed that she was taking the effects much easier that I would have imagined.

"Well," Phantom Wing coughed, "That was new."

"Yeah," I answered as I got back up to my hooves and took a tablet of RadX.

After the sensation of lethal radiation poisoning had passed, I opened the box the rest of the way to find a crown. A golden crown with two bright yellow-green gemstones inlaid atop themselves inside the gold itself. The box around it rotted away with time and some small RadRoach exoskeletons were bored into the remainder of the wood. If I didn't know any better, then I would have thought that this was Princess Celestia's crown due to its shape. Why would a crown like this be in a rotting box in a pink building and guarded by several sentry robots that began shooting as soon as Phantom Wing took the box out of its safe? If this thing wasn't valuable like Phantom Wing told me before, then this is one big piece of junk that apparently stood up to the test of time.

I wrapped my one hoof around the top of the crown and looked at it more closely. The solid yellow gemstones had an unnatural glow to them that was not like any of the gem talismans back at Stable 37. Most of said talismans were powered with a ruby or an emerald although you will occasionally need a sapphire to run an electrical conductor or generator. These ones looked like they could have been made of the same type of gem but the yellow color was strange. From behind me Phantom Wing said,

"Don't put that on Quantum."

I didn't hear her as every other sound seemed to be drowned out by the Robranco Sentries began firing at us again all at once. They somehow made it down to these lower levels faster than I anticipated and soon had the higher ground. The high ground was for the pegasi not for some metal abominations. Without a second thought I put the crown on and swung the rifle out from the strap around my neck and activated SATS.

Then my brain felt like it was melting out of my own ears. I screamed in pain as I frantically pulled the trigger not even knowing that I was doing it. SATS automatically shut off and I fell to the ground howling in agony. I saw my gun fall away from me and the world started to spin faster than any motor I have ever worked with. Focusing was the most difficult thing to do at this moment as the pain from my head had allied with my Radiation Sickness to further my torment. A few seconds later everything stopped but the pain still surged through my nerves like rivers of fire. My coat and feathers were all glowing a faint yellow that matched the color of the gemstone on the crown and the gold around it. I couched and damnit even my spit was colored yellow! I rolled to my back and gazed up at the flashing green bolts of lightning falling from the sky at me. Good thing that episode didn't ruin my barding.

"Get up damnit!" Phantom Wing yelled as she grabbed me by my collar and hauled me back up completely ignoring my change in hue.

With one glancing touch I fell back to the floor in stabbing misery. I started glowing even more and soon I was as bright as a big, yellow, light bulb. In my vision my PipBuck gave me some new alerts that meant nothing to me at this specific moment in time.

>WARNING: UNKNOWN MAGICAL ENERGY DETECTED

>DNA SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE

>CEREBRAL CONNECTION FOUND

>PIPBUCK CONNECTION FOUND

>EFS DISENGAGED

>SATS DISENGAGED

>CONNECTION WITH EQUESTRIANET SOFTWARE LOST

BEGIN MANUAL RESTART?

Y_/N_

The lightning. The bullets. The noise. The robots. Phantom Wing...

NO!

This was not the time to start shutting down Quantum! Your a pegasus for Celestia's sake! Get back up onto your fucking hooves and get your job done!

I spat a glob of glowing orange blood and gathered all of my strength. With a little effort I stood back up and put on the most tense grin that anypony ever wore in the history of the Wasteland. I yelled up to the robots in some language I have never heard before and the magic yellow glow around my body dimmed down for a second and then exploded with furry. Each of the robots then proceeded to melt into yellow goop leaving only a few sparking components behind. The glow around me seemed to stop and my coat returned to my white color with only a few blotches of glowing blood still left behind. My Rad Detector was now bouncing back in the green but was trying to climb back to the yellow in futility. The sickening feeling from the Radiation Exposure still hit me like a brick wall and I knew of only one thing to try to fix it.

Then I threw up. Yep. That's what I needed. I needed to throw up the glowing dusty brown contents from my stomach. Oh, and a nap. I totally needed a nap. Good thing my brain still functioned well enough to give me that as I staggered to the ground, folded my hooves under my chest, wrapped myself in my warm wings and dozed off. Who knew that not even five days into the Wasteland I would have became a bomb? Who knew...

***

I woke up just the same way as I fell asleep in the first place, in a coughing and vomiting heap of a pegasus. Phantom Wing must've taken the time to pull me back out of the deathtrap below and lay me back down on a hardwood floor. It was not from Foxes Theatre; it looked like some other building. Looking up from my daze and clearing the tears from my eyes I discovered that we were, in fact, in a different building as the effects of Thermomagical Warfare were blatantly obvious with all of the doors covered with some old boards and some duct tape in a last ditch effort to keep the cold out. I spat another slightly glowing glob of yellow phlegm from my mouth and sneezed firing a spray of glowing green mucus from my muzzle.

"Eww...," I croaked feeling my throat as it was somehow more dry than any amount of time that I have ever spent in Stable 37's Generator Room.

"Morning Prince Dumbass," Phantom Wing said sharply next to me.

I turned my head to look at her. She was pissed. A grade A level pissed. The kind of pissed that you see when you really screwed up in such a way that no amount cursing and swearing could express the level of pissedoffness that you are. Giving her a weary smile I coughed,

"That was awesome."

"Oh for Luna's sake," Phantom Wing groaned as she facetaloned, "You almost died Quantum!"

"Yep. I feel sick, almost died, puked my guts out, and became a yellow colored particle explosive. All in all, it was a good day."

"You must seriously be the king of idiots. I told you not to put that thing on. NOW I can't get it the fuck off."

I blinked. She can't get it off?

"Yeah right."

I slowly twisted around and sat up on my haunches to free up my front hooves. My PipBuck was now clicking on the boarder of yellow and green indicating that we were still not out of the woods in terms of radiation. She must've noticed my look and took a tablet of RadX. I chewed one down too. Then I put my hooves around my ears and found that two golden attachments on the crown were cuffed around the base of my ears just above my skull. Then, wrapping my hooves around the crystal part of the crown, I tried to pull up and off.

Nothing.

I pulled up again.

Still nothing.

"Come on," I growled through gritted teeth.

Oh wait. I think its... nope. Still stuck. Damnit. What the hell was wrong was this thing? Get off of my damn head!

"What the hell?" I asked looking up in the air as if it would allow me to see the crown on my head.

"See. Your an idiot," Phantom Wing answered coldly.

"Up yours too," I added glaring at her.

I looked around the room a bit trying to find my saddlebags and get something to eat. I was starving for something. Something sweet. I tried reaching for it but the ten feet of distance between me and my destination was the longest distance I would probably have to travel at this point. Unicorns have it so damn easy.

"Come on saddlebag," I said looking at the brown nylon bag, "Can you do me a favor and move?"

Then it tipped over onto its side spilling a few red shotgun rounds on the floor. Did I just defy Newton's First and Second Laws of Motion? Blinking, I asked the bag to move again and it did without a moment's hesitation. Phantom Wing was now looking at the bag too with awe.

"Move!" I ordered to the bag.

Then the bag went flying over to the nearest wall with such force that it nearly punched a hole into it. Okay to be fair the wall was already mostly broken but it was still impressive. I could move things by command! This was the best thing to happen to me since... well... EVER!

"Now, do me another favor and move over towards me."

The bag then became shrouded in a purple glow and floated through the air towards me into my open hooves. I didn't even think about celebrating the fact that I could now somehow manipulate the fabric of the universe as I opened the bag and dug in it frantically until I found another yellow bag full of sweet and sour candy. Using the same purple magic to tear it open I shook the contents of the bag into my mouth all at once and felt the sharp bite of the sour powder that coated the food on my tastebuds. Within an instant, I felt better than before the trip into the building. I just needed to eat something.

"Quantum," Phantom Wing said slowly in dumbfoundment, "you saw that right?"

I turned to look back at her still chewing on the now sticky multicolored candy in my mouth turning sweet all at once. Nodding at her, I proceeded to find another bag of candy and ate that one just as fast as the one before it.

"You're not worried. Right?"

"Nuh," I answered through a mouthful of food.

"You sure? You're a pegasus with the ability to move things with your mind. I'm worried about what else that thing could do to you if your not careful."

"Shuh Urp. Erm erfectlee fern," I added back trying to send the candy down my throat all at once and finding out that it was more of a difficult task than I originally anticipated, "Jers lert mmeh et."

In one loud gulp all of the food went from my mouth and into my stomach. If it could express emotion, it would probably be happy with me right now. It had just the same feeling as me drinking an entire pitcher of tea within the course of an hour. Great, now I wanted something to drink. Tea would be the most preferred but I could take anything else if it had a high sugar content that made my stomach feel good. Hell, I would drink molasses if I had too. Mmm... molasses... That was an idea I could get behind.

"Have you always had a sweet tooth Quantum or is this something new?"

"Yeah I've had one like this when I was a foal but not to this kind of an extent."

"You're gonna get yourself sick if you keep eating like this you realize that. The Wasteland is no place for sick ponies. It'll kill you right in the middle of your crazy sugar high and you won't know what happened."

I looked at her crossly for a second. I knew how to eat, what to eat, when to eat, and why I had to eat. I did not need my mother following me through the Wasteland telling me to eat healthier or else I'll get a tummyache. Still, I should save some candy for later and maybe go back to Foxes for some more. Either that or I go scavenging for more. Either option works for me in the end.

I levitated the saddlebags back on me and my eyes finally took in the purple color. It was my favorite color, plum. It was my favorite color ever since I learned what color was. Seeing that this magic crown gave me purple magic I grew more and more lenient on the dangers of a two hundred year old crown that can't be removed. If anypony would ask me why I had a magical crown, I would answer with 'Purple Magic' and leave it at that. The shotgun then floated over to me and...

It was broken. During the fight, I guess that it somehow made contact with me when I exploded and it was strong enough to make the barrel melt and the ammo feed fuse shut. Fused shut with three shells in it no less. Doesn't Tools of the Talented have a shotgun for sale?

Oh yeah. It does. A semi-used double barrel shotgun for one hundred fifty caps. It wasn't a pump action, but two shells is better than none. Time to make a purchase I guess.

***

"One hundred twenty-seven. One hundred twenty-eight. One hundred twenty-nine," I said as I counted each individual cap that I needed to make the purchase.

"Ya' know, I could just give it to ya'," Cherry Bud interrupted.

"No. I think you need it."

Tools of the Talented's gun was in a glass box behind the pink pony's counter. While I was doing this Phantom was out looking for some more food and chems that we were eventually going to need later. She proved to be a better haggler than she made herself out to be as she got twice as much stuff for half of the price. With her all of our caps would be going to good use.

"One hundred forty-nine. One hundred fifty. There," I said to the pink pony as I slid the mound of caps in her direction.

Then she smiled at me. That smile seemed to promise good things for me. Good things in terms of pleasure that I did not want to get myself evolved with. She was pretty and her flanks were very cute, but she was not the mare for me. I did not see anything about being a merchant that I would want to take part in. The thought of charging a pony caps for something that they may need to survive did not sit well in my stomach.

"So...," she cooed as she curled a little bit of hair around her hoof, "are ya' free later?"

My brain broke a fuse.

"Oh... um... well um...," I studded as I could already feel sweat leaking from my forehead.

"Oh you are?" she added fluttering her eyelashes at me.

Oh sweet Celestia don't make me need to do this.

"But she is so pretty," Some part of my brain said back to me.

"Shut the fuck up man!" Another voice in my brain ordered as he proceeded to beat the shit out of the entity who made that suggestion with a mental tea kettle until it was nothing more than a splatter of mental goop.

"Uh... you see Cherry. I-I'm not that kind of pony. If I'm going to do something I have to see it through."

"Oh..." she answered with a little sigh of disappointment and hanging her head.

"We can still be friends though. Right?"

She looked back up at me and a smaller smile back on. Then she took out a small key turned to the glass box and began to undo all of the looks that kept it safe from thieves and bandits. While she was doing that, she made sure that I got a nice look at her plot. Sweet mother of Celestia she had a gorgeous plot. This playing with me shit is not fair. Not fair at all. Trying to seduce stallions into bed should be illegal. Same thing applies with the other way around. This was cheating. But I was the pony who just Friend Zoned her so I guess its fair.

Cherry turned back around with the shotgun, a Battle Saddle bit, a full box of Twelve Gauge Shells, a rag for cleaning it, an Allen Wrench for taking the gun apart, and a folded piece of paper. Then she opened a drawer from below the counter and pulled out a bottle of Sparkle Cola RAD. I looked at her, puzzled.

"I only paid for the shotgun though. Why am I getting this stuff?" I asked observing all of the extra stuff that I apparently was getting for free.

"Its on the house," she replied, "for saving those ponies back at the Docks."

Now normally I would deny this offer but the fact that I just basically told her that I did not want to be in bed with her along with my normal attitude would probably ban me from the store. I nodded and put all of the stuff in my saddlebag and popped the cap off of my Sparkle Cola RAD and gave it to her. Then I trotted away wondering why she didn't question me about the crown on my head. Did she just not care or did she not notice? Whatever. I took a sip from the bottle and I felt as if my brain got a jump start from sweet and bubbly lightning. Looking down at the bottle, I noticed the big letters of red text declaring,

IT'S LIKE A BUCK TO THE FACE! WITH RADISHES!!

The crown on my head then sucked the minute amount of radiation from that sip out of me. How it does that I will probably never know and at this point I really don't care. I just went on enjoying my drink and thankful that nothing was shooting at me, exploding near me, or electrocuting me. If this was the way I would live out in the Wasteland, then I would eventually be fine with it. Who knows where I will end up? Who knows where I will go? Who knows who I will meet? At this point, I guess only the goddesses.

***

The double barrel shotgun that I purchased seemed to be more of a formidable weapon that I would have ever thought. It was somehow more accurate than my previous one, more powerful than my previous one, and had a noise that would not hurt my ears a little every time I fired. This however was all at the cost of only firing two shots before reloading. Phantom Wing fixed that problem as she found a belt that I could wear that would hold twenty-four rounds on each side so they would be accessible to me when I would eventually need them. So what if I had to get more "close and personal" with my target? I had a gun that could tear a limb off of a Raider in one shot with a fantastic show of glistening red that I looked a bit forward too.

Only if the thing I was shooting was a Raider of course.

That turned out to be a good thing too as Phantom Wing took up something called a "Contract" while I was talking to Cherry. She said that certain ponies posted requests on a specific wall back at Foxes and anypony who took up the offer would be paid in caps when they completed the job. The things was that it was limited to one contract per pony(or griffin) per day and there were no exceptions to this rule. This rule also applied with groups so that a group of seven wouldn't take the entire wall of good contracts and leave everypony else with nothing but the contracts that nopony wanted. There was no limit on how many contracts somepony could post, but there was a limit to how many times you could post a contract for the same repeating problem. The idea was that it would keep fresh contracts flowing without ponies banking on old contracts that will forever repeat themselves because the Wasteland, terrible as it is, can be predictable at some points.

Our first contract was to clear out a large group of Raiders from a place called Ironshod Firearms R&D on an intersection of Big Mac Street and Oreins Street. I had no idea if we were supposed to be hopeful for this job as it was a mindless killing spree with no regrets that would eventually make us four hundred caps richer and all of the salvage we would find would be ours by Scavenging Rights and we would be getting more caps for it. That made me think about this job for a second while we walked through the streets as I get ever the more familiar with the shotgun with a tight spread.

"If we're getting paid so well for this contract, then why hasn't anypony else have taken it before us? How old is this contract of yours Phantom?" I asked as I fired the second round in my two barrel gun at a fairly emaciated Raider with an old wooden stick

"Its a two month old contract," Phantom Wing answered as she took another shot at a small bug called a "Bloatsprite" with her magical beam pistol and chuckled when it vaporized into blue ashes, "no one has taken it because of the basic fact that ponies are scared shitless of Raiders and anything like them."

"How long does a contract last before it expires?"

"About two months."

I paused and I swore my eyelid twitched.

"They last for only two months... and the contract is two months old? Does that indicate something for you Phantom?"

"It just means that no one has the balls to go and do the problem so the ones who do get easy money."

I glared at her for one long, seemingly unending moment. She grinned.

"Don't make me have to call 'No Balls' on you Quantum. I heard about you Friend Zoning Cherry Bud earlier today and I have to say that I'm a bit impressed at that. I never imagined that you were a dream crusher along with being the only Non-Enclave on the ground. She was a pretty mare and you know it."

"Damnit Phantom! I did not want to toss myself to the Timberwolves like that only two days out. I've had a marefriend back at Stable 37 once and she ditched me when I presented for her for another buck with a bigger set than me. I'm literally paranoid about everything, even mares!" I snapped back at her feeling very hurt and insulted not thinking about any of the words that deluged forth from me.

Phantom Wing rounded on me and looked at me with a hurt frown. Oh great. I hope that I actually didn't just lose a companion just because of my mental disorder. For a second she was a statue that was locked in thought and fighting herself to find what to say that would not end badly.

"You had a marefriend?" Phantom Wing asked looking me in the eyes but still somehow being able to take the head off a Raider trying to position herself in a window looking down at us. How in the hell did she do that?

"Yes I had one and it wasn't a fun experience okay? That is why I have decided to reserve myself until I find the right mare for that wont ditch me because the size of my penis."

That was a total bullshit lie but I did not want to get into THAT conversation. There was a completely different reason for why I dumped my marefriend and it was all political stuff that I, as an engineer, keep myself away from for various reasons; especially if it ended up being the Overmare's idea.

It was now Phantom Wing's turn to pause. While she did I used the crown's purple magic to open up my saddlebags and pull out a box of prewar peppermint chocolates from in my bag. I popped one of the candies into my mouth and chewed happily putting the rest back into my bags for later.

"That's low ball man. Ditching someone just because of the size of their dick? That is really low," Phantom Wing added shaking her head.

"Your telling me. I had to be the one who had it happen to them."

After a few moments of silence we finally made it to Ironshod Firearms at the intersection like the contract had said. Like most of the buildings in Detrot it was an over-engineered monolith of grey concrete and steel siding with a flat roof that probably did nothing be caught rain water now. The few windows that were on the sides of the four story building were so small that you could only fit the end a rife through it but not have enough field of view to see where your seeing. With that being the case it would seem very likely that the workers who were there two hundred years ago trying to fend off the zebra invasion had a PipBuck all of their own and the targeting spell would do the work of aiming for them while they were hiding. Nice idea I had to admit, but really bad execution. With how little the windows were you would have to run about twice as much lights to keep the building lit and that probably was not good for the energy crisis.

While most of the top floors seemed to be untouched, the bottom floor was the polar opposite. The outside walls were textured with hundreds upon hundreds of bullets that bounced and ricocheted off the concrete with some bullets still buried in the stonework. On the same walls were messages written in black paint were epitaphs of a life that's now all gone. Things like 'Faggots', 'Zebra Fuckers', and 'Ironshod, Homes of the Cowards' were all scratched on in big block letters with some being bigger than me and some so big that they almost reached the second story.

The only thing that pulled my eyeballs from the words was the promise of caps and free stuff that we could trade for caps. Breaking open my shotgun and sliding two red shells into the breach I looked at Phantom Wing and asked,

"Are we going for a stealth approach or are we going to storm in like we have a search warrant?"

"Stealth first, then we take them out," Phantom Wing answered as she took one of the spark batteries off of her gun and loaded a new one in.

With a quick flick of my wing the shotgun swung back closed and locked together with a resounding click. Quietly we flew through a missing wall upon the fourth floor and scanned the area for Raiders and things of the like. It was visually and auditorily empty. Nothing showed up on my EFS either so the Raiders were probably on one of the lower floors. If that was the case, then my EFS should still pick it up unless something was jamming it which was already very unlikely. Still, no time to worry about that. There was looting to be done.

***

Alright... this is attempt number twelve of hacking a terminal without my cheat tool. Annnd...

INCORRECT PASSWORD

"Mother fucker!" I yelled at the terminal as I flipped a switch behind it so it wouldn't lock me out before I could get all of its secrets.

"Your still at it Quantum?" Phantom Wing asked as she carried an old bag she found a floor below us full of junk.

"There's a safe here Phantom. Where there's a safe and a terminal there is important data. That and the fact that I could open the safe with the terminal and I'm a partially greedy pegasus that wants to know WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BOX!" I snapped back at her as this was literally the fifth time she had asked the very same question.

"If you don't get it by fifteen, cheat," the griffin added as she walked away to get more loot.

"Come on terminal," I growled grinning at the devise, "DANCE!"

Click.

INCORRECT PASSWORD

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK TERMINAL!?!?" I screamed at the very top of my lungs as I furiously beat my head on the keyboard multiple times with every single word said before a little ding noise heralded the little message of,

ACCESS GRANTED

My eye was twitching. It was twitching so badly that I thought my eye was going to fall out of my head all together. I did not know what to say, mostly because I think I said everything already. Instead I took a deep breath and dumped the memory of the thirteen previous attempts out of my brain all together before I went and killed something out of rage.

"Well," I said taking another deep, shaking breath, "At least I didn't have to cheat my way into it."

There were only a few files in the terminal and most of them were already so damaged that I could not read most of it and the damage was so bad that the RHT could not fix enough of it that was worth my time. The most interesting one was the oldest file that was still not corrupted,

EQUESTRIAN SEARCH UNIT #5

STABLE 37

STATUS: GO FUCK YOURSELF STABLE-TEC

Were done here. There is literally nothing left except the bodies. We left Stable Thirty-Seven as per the Overmare's and Stable-Tec's orders in order to search for any pieces of equipment in order to help fix one of the talismans that shut down not even a week ago and we haven't found shit. Sweet Celestia why didn't they tell us about the Radiation?! Is there something wrong with the RadDetectors on the stable or is it some sort of oversight? At this point, I don't very much care. The team has about a day left of water and food but I fear that they have already been eaten. The Radiation Suits are holding up though. That's about the extent of our luck though. It had been two days since we left and were dead in the water. If anypony is reading this, especially if its anypony from a stable, get back in that damned hole and don't end up like us.

-Terminal Frequency

What?! Stable 37 was already sending ponies outside? Now that I have looked back at the other entry titles they had the exact same title style with it beginning with "EQUESTRIAN SEARCH UNIT #" something-or-other and a message of their status. One of the most recent files like it was ten years ago and each entry goes back to about the same time interval.

My left ear twitched. That made so much sense. In Stable 37 members were elected to be the Overmare's council every ten years. All but the Overmare left office at that time because of the fact that she was the Overmare and that was a job you got for life due to birth rights. Every year eight or so members of the council would leave and never be heard from again. The Overmare would always tell us that they served with dignity and honor and that was that. I would have never imagined that she would send ponies out into the Wasteland like some sort of living probe. In fact, the new positions for the council was almost a month away from now. Maybe Phantom and I would have more members of our group in the Wasteland. That or we would all be dead already.

Time to not think of that now though. After closing the message and transferring it to my PipBuck via the RHT, I tapped a few keys and the safe that the terminal was connected to opened with no resistance. In it was an old revolver that was so rusted it was less than worthless, it's ammo, and a large black coat. I pulled the coat out of the safe and eyed it curiously. It was neatly folded and was tailored with so much precision and care that it would be the envy of anypony back in the stable, including the Overmare. It was crafted with the sturdiest and lightest fabric I have ever seen and the black color somehow went along really well with the dark purple color of my Electrician's Barding.

Slipping it on, I found that it had a few more secrets for me. For instance, there were pockets lining the interior like rows of circuit adapters. In one of those pockets was a glowing ball of glass that I picked up with my purple magic. It was nothing that looked special other than a very elaborate paper weight. Why would something like this be anything that I would need to...

oooOOOooo

Okay, this was new. Some strange thing that I could not rationalize with? It was a nice change. The thing that wasn't much of a nice change was the fact that I was now sucked away from the desk and that goddesses forsaken terminal and into another room with nice, bright pink wallpaper with the same basic format of the room I was in only seconds ago. My mouth wasn't mine, my breathing wasn't mine, and my horn... wait... horn? Where the fuck did my wings go?! I don't like this anymore! I want my wings back!

After a moment I realized something. I was stuck for the ride. Oh well, lets see what happens them.

"You hear about the ideas that Luna has been throwing at us?" A blue coated unicorn dressed in golden armor said next to me as if he was a machine.

I wanted to scream for my wings, a cup of tea, and answers but instead my lips began moving,

"Yeah. She had been throwing projects at us left and right but when we get them done she shut them right back down," A mare's voice answered for me.

I WAS A MARE TOO?!

"Sometimes I wonder if Luna is keeping the Ministries busy or if she's really trying to distract us from something."

"That's treasonous talk Forerunner and you know it," my... guide... snapped back at him.

"It's the truth Ultima," Forerunner hissed through his teeth.

"I know its the truth but I don't want to be the one having to be court marshaled about this. Keep quiet until later and even then stay quiet."

The door that Forerunner and Ultima was guarding then swung open and a pink earth pony with some grey in her mane followed by several other unicorns funneled in. The pink pony sat down and pulled a very long list of something from her desk and handed it to the first unicorn in the group. The unicorn looked at it for a second and crumpled it up into a little paper ball and threw it across the room and coming to rest at the hooves of Ultima.

"Your seriously considering this? You know its dangerous already right?" Another unicorn mare asked the pink pony.

"Yeseree do!" The pink pony said bouncing in the air several inches and taking the chair with her, "Somepony knows something that I want to know and they are held up with some zebras. Those big bad zebras have one of our super good ponies ponynapped and I want them to come back home to us with all of his smarty-smarts for us."

"You understand that Luna is not going to allow this," the second unicorn mumbled.

"Luna doesn't need to hear about this," the earth pony began as she leaned in really close to that pony and said something in her ear that my guide couldn't hear.

"I thought this project was sealed by Luna a month ago, "a unicorn buck piped up, "Didn't she say it was too 'impractical for field use'?"

"That's exactly what she said!" the first unicorn snapped, "You do realize that Project Purge is too big to start, let alone keep it under wraps from the other ministries! If The MWA or the MAS found out about this..."

"They have already given their approval!" the pink pony said with glee as she handed the unicorn two envelopes.

"That doesn't mean that they know what were doing!"

The pink pony sighed and pointed a hoof into the air. Apparently that was a signal for something as Forerunner took the unicorn in his strong telekinetic grip and began hauling it out of the room the resistant unicorn kicking and frantically trying to break herself free.

"Make sure she gets the full treatment!" The pink pony smiled as she waved Forerunner and the frantic mare off.

oooOOOooo

My mind then snapped back into my real body and I immediately felt more sick than I have ever been before. Not sick physically, but mentally sick. I had just seen something that was top secret at one point and was in a safe for the last two hundred years waiting for somepony to see it. Fifteen minutes had passed since my mind was sent to another dimension. If there was one thing that the orb had taught me, there was something very wrong going on in Detrot before the bombs fell and not long after too.

One thing was for certain. I was not in the city of the paranoid. I was in the city of the insane.

Author's Note

LEVEL UP

NEW PERK EARNED

THE NEXT GENERATION

You have a higher chance of successfully hacking a terminal even without a Rerouting Hardwire Tool.

QUEST PERK ADDED

MINOR MUTATION: RAD-BLOODED

While under the effects of minor radiation poisoning, you can withstand subzero temperatures and never get Hypothermia when swimming in cold water.