Author's Note

Welcome back! This story was done as a commission for a friend, who wanted his character Amber to be reflecting some of the more 'wacky science' side of Fallout, but in Fallout Equestria. As such, I decided to settle on a more light hearted, aloof comedic tone for his chosen length.

I have a great love of Terry Pratchett style humour, I like to think that sometimes that comes across in my writings, but here especially, I hope! In the original Gdocs version each of the digital beings had their own font to fit their character feel and tone, but with FimFic I've had to divide it into bold, italics and bold/italics to fit personality. I hope it still works like that.

Please do enjoy, there's this last few months of work finished up and will be gradually posted over the coming weeks.

Extra-Facility Off-Site Debrief: Amber D3

The analysis room was her favourite place in the whole wide world.

Situated at the very top floor of the colossal facility’s primary spire, the floor approaching it was a half-crescent of gleaming, well preserved steel frame and four inch thick transparent polycarbonate. The transparent tough polymer itself lay above the roaring heart of an arcanotech generator the size of a small building. Its surging pylons and reactor core lit everything from below in a cascade of soft reds, blues and (if one were lucky) a rare green or purple on high-output days. Above, the walls angled outward, with catwalks rising up many of them to three or four levels filled with long abandoned chairs and workstations of those who once ran this facility, long before their eventual abandonment and its takeover by-

Well, by those she was excited to meet once again.

Amber skipped through it, her hooves making tiny echoing clips on the glass as she wound her way through artificial plant-boxes, research cubicles and past a disused staff kitchen. The young zebra took the stairs two at a time, grinning as metallic, stamping efforts tried their best to follow behind her up the stairs. She hummed and danced, waving to Crack and Shiny, the two who had remained. Even after two hundred years, they still lay on the recreation couch, pristine and bone white, all ribs intact. They looked fun with their guns still sitting near their oddly-holed heads. Not like Double, who lay stretched toward the exit in two pieces on either side of the door. She didn’t like him. He always got in the way.

The first floor led her to a long, dark corridor and a heavy security door that blinked, chimed, and opened to admit her entry to the analysis room itself. It was much smaller and lowly lit, consisting of a single multi-screened terminal station and a long worn cushion before it. Almost all of it was covered in dust.

Heavy shapes clanged and floated in after her before the silent chamber closed in a shuddering clang of locking pistons. The walls were dark, but frazzled and flickered, revealing their black nature to be down to several banks of screens that began to pop into being. Without hesitating, Amber cartwheeled, yelped and dropped onto the cushion hard enough to send feathers coughing into the air from its gaps as her enhanced body’s additional weight thudded down. She looked slender, like any well kept zebra, but the truth below the skin was not subtle in its changes. She had been made better by those who resided here, even if she couldn’t remember why.

“I’m baaaaack! And I brought friends!” She sang the words even as she grabbed one of the terminal’s hanging cables and, without a hint of discomfort, reached back to peel away a portion of her own skull, revealing nothing but an artificial flesh cover over a metal slot below her ear; the gap contained three cable-ports. Sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth, she rolled back her eyes as the three inch lead inserted and made an electric zap through her body. She squealed at the deep shock that frazzled into her skull and hit the big green button she’d been taught to. Nausea flowed through her, and her new brain suddenly lit up like a sun within her head. She took a long breath, closed her eyes, and let her world turn to data.

It was a rush. An intense penetration of her very thoughts, dragging her perception out of her own head. A dizziness enveloped and multiplied as a kaleidoscope of warped images danced about her brain like liquid fire. Within moments she ceased to see only forward. Her eyes stretched, her perception warped until she could view through them and all the room’s cameras at once. It had scared her once, but now it was like a wild ride seeing in more than just one simple angle or just what light illuminated. She saw the temperature, the power flow behind the walls, the wireless signals flowing like lines of insects between the walls, even into the back of her own head. She raised a foreleg and waved to herself, eyes still closed. Slowly, the soaring dizziness began to settle, until she was at the centre of a whirlwind of information. The facility didn’t permit her access to be aware of its full facilities, but even this one room alone was like diving into a library of code spinning around her and the hulking shapes that had entered and now waited silently behind her.

She wasn’t alone within the system. Not even slightly. From within the lines came a presence. Authoritative, data shifting out of its way, protective firewalls deactivated ahead of its very presence until it loomed around her from all sides like a lightning storm.

“Amber D3 MkII, confirm your return in digital signature and begin offload of off-site exploratory details. You took longer than we had forecast. Divulge all data immediately. Affirm this string.”

She smiled at the booming confidence. This was LmOS.01, the facility’s Admin Helpdesk function, and assigned overseer of all research. He was the highest running procedure, and there was nothing inside here that he did not know. His brain had existed deep in the bowels for over a hundred years now, and it had been LmOS.01 that had given her this mission. But behind him, riding on the coattails of security access came another frantic tone.

“Calm yourself, LmOS.1. She is eager, can you not see? You may scare her perceptions, and leave us without true information! We would be behind schedule! Lost!”

LmOS.02. Amber knew that voice anywhere. Amber liked her. LmOS.02 had been the one who had originally created her in the first place, adapting her insides to be less squishy, preparing her for this moment.

“Amber D3 MkII has not submitted handshake protocol. Theorise hostile intrusion attempt. Unrecognised robotic beings detected. Demand handshake protocol. CONFIRM Y/N”

Amber giggled and mentally burst the ‘Y’ code toward LmOS.03. She did love to tease the security perimeter program. He got so wound up over the littlest things in trying to keep them all safe.

But following his voice was a violent squirt of binary through the cloud of programs surrounding her in the tranquil, meditative world of the analyst datalink in her brain. It caused programs to open and shut rapidly, demanding the logging of her presence; none of it written in any language, not even encrypted. This presence was pure machine code.

That would be LmOS.04. By far the oldest of the programs, having been around since the original construction of this place, and the facility caretaker. It refused to use any ‘organic’ language to communicate with her out of sheer stubborn principle. Playfully, she reached out and shifted a folder on the common workspace to a random subfolder, and within milliseconds it had been moved back, an error message chime thudding through her head eight times in one second at 04’s protest.

“Ow! Ow! Okay, okay!”

“Meeting granted!” 01’s voice thundered around her. “Commence report on the state of the WORLD BEYOND from your three month excursion. We desire to understand reality beyond the perimeter since lockdown.”

Amber lit up, grinning and throwing her forelegs out. “I have SO much to tell you all! I can’t wait! It was incredible! Weird! Amazing! Dangerous! I learned so much! Incredible-and-stunning-and-very-veryveryvery-”

There was a freezing clench through her brain, her mouth turning numb and limp. Her digital sight observed the icon of her exporting mind-data being rate-limited by 04 to prevent system-spam, followed by 04 sending a form for prospective complete organic removal to 01 regarding her. She shook her head to clear the fuzziness.

“D3 MKII DISPLAYING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR. SUSPECT CORRUPTION. TERMINATION IN THREE...TWO…”

“Hold on, 03, she’s just excited. She remains 74% organic, remember? Let her continue, or we will lose everything!”

Amber let out a long breath. “Okay. Well, first.” She drew in at length. “Ponies… have evolved! A rapid bunch of changes from all the pictures has occurred! Some have done away with their skin entirely, and others have… have…”

“Continue!” 01 sounded eager to get into this report.

“-have reproductive organs coming out of their foreheads!” She squeaked, blushing intensely. Her words sent a wave of reactions around her.

“Unthinkable!”

“This genetic change is without precedent!”

“ACTION REQUIRED!”

Immediately, LmOS.01 began recording every facet of her report. 02 gasped as she filtered through an estimation image. 03 booked additional security checks of the perimeter fence. Affronted, 04 started a self-defragging cycle in protest at the subject matter and went silent.

“And stranger!” She shouted to be heard. “Pegasi have evolved into a new creature entirely! I saw them myself!”

* * *

Amber leaned far over the table with an open mouth. Gasping lightly, her hooves grasped the pegasus’... hoof? Was it even a hoof any more? It split into four at the end now and was made of a softer flesh. Each of the thin appendages was tipped with a sharp claw.

“It’s incredible…” She whispered, turning the ‘hoof’ over and over, until it suddenly yanked away, the motion slapping her face into the wooden table, spilling drinks and playing cards all around. The drinking facility’s patrons looked up at the thick slam of skull on table, and Amber felt something inside her reboot from the dizzying impact. She fell back onto her flanks and looked up.

The pegasus, so much taller than she’d expected, was staring down at her. “The hell are you playing at, zebra? Hooves off the claws! Where did you even come from to just be mooching around staring at us all!?”

Amber blinked and went wide eyed. She’d been told that this was a good place to find many people to meet. The pegasus’ hooked beak and ruffled feathers were… were incredible! This new evolution was so different and intimidating.

“You’re all so… so more evolved than the pictures! I can’t wait to tell them about you!”

She reached out, and her hooves clapped gently around the beak to feel its texture, smiling, stroking and squeezing at it. The pegasus’ eyes went wide.

Approximately seven seconds later, the quiet exterior of a quaint wasteland settlement in the dusty plains was shattered as a zebra was hurled at great velocity through the swinging doors of the local drinking hole. She landed on her front, backside high and almost folded over herself to skid along the rough gravel and sand to a halt, hindquarters coming down with a thud. For a moment she lay there, processing the valuable intelligence she had gathered, listening to the decrepit town’s whistling wind on the fringes of a great desert.

“Whoa, whoa, hey! Are you okay?”

She heard a mare’s voice, and rolled over onto her back. Above her a face stared down, the muddied sun behind the clouds shadowing her face. There was something odd about her, Amber realised.

“That bar’s pretty rough, come on, let's get you up!”

Then suddenly, Amber saw what it was.

On the pony’s head.

Pointy. Extended. Firm.

She gasped in shock. “A… Abuh… A… P-P-P-”

“What?” The silhouetted pony tilted her head. “Are you hurt? Here, give me your hoof!”

She reached forward, and the light hit her, revealing it full and true, pointed near her.

“HEAD PENIS!” She squealed, flattening against the ground.

“What? Are you all right? Here, let me help you up.” The pony’s head suddenly lit up in sparkles. Amber’s voice only pitched higher.

“MAGIC HEAD PENIS!” She shrieked, spun over onto her front and, after a second of her hooves scrambling on the spot in the loose gravel, tore away from the horrifying mutation, activating every auxiliary adrenal gland she had.

She didn’t stop until nightfall.

* * *

LmOS.02 purred her voice, pulsing her compiling process as she considered this. The thermometer reading listed her processes as running hot with biological comparison. It was her specialism after all, as the one who made those like Amber. “This is highly unexpected. Rapid onset evolutionary advancement in merely two centuries. Perhaps a downturn in evolutionary chaotic theory. This may be a fracturing of consistency. We- We may be the only true ones left!”

LmOS.01 chimed in. “Agreed, LmOS.02, we must consider stability assurance program research to restore genetic standards to the pony race.”

“Query: Request deletion of all aberrant organic entities in storage?”

01 interrupted firmly. “Negative, 03. Science must be allowed to run its course first to study this! Amber D3, continue. Is this land truly lawless and mutated and without cohesion?”

Amber kissed the air, tilting her head with pursed lips. “Oh no! They have money too! In fact, all the money in the world is owned by a few ponies. Just ten in fact!”

* * *

“Waah!”

Amber yelped aloud, as the hard concrete came up to meet her. Rolling backward down a flight of smoothly clean stairs, she thudded into a low wall beside the elevated majesty of an enormous monorail platform. Groaning, she looked up past the armoured guards to the great, sheer sided ornate tower with its piercing radio antenna sitting before her blinking eyes.

“And stay out! I don’t even know how you got in!” A white bearded captain snorted at her. “Tenpony is off limits to scavengers and thieves!”

“But I want to meet them!” She wailed. “I am on an important mission to learn about the money they have! I-”

She was cut short at several ponies drawing weapons. The rifles and shotguns pointed right at her, held steady in their mouths. Gulping, she flattened against the wall. After a moment, the captain sighed and waved them down, reaching into his pocket.

“Take this and leave! Pointless collectors...”

He threw something, a small object that bounced to the floor between her hindlegs. Watching them leave, she picked it up. It looked like a chip of metal, frilled at the edges. The words ‘Sparkle Cola’ were embedded on it. Turning it over and over in curiosity, she looked up to see the queue of ponies waiting to enter the tower. One of them moved up and hoofed over a weighty looking bag that, after being examined by the guards, held more of the strange object. Dozens more. Like an exchange.

“....ooooooh. I seeee.”

Clutching her new price to her chest in one hoof, she squeezed it into a pocket and stood up. Her mission had succeeded better than she had imagined. She had discovered the ten ponies in control of all money, she had acquired an example of money, and she had seen that luxury still existed for them! Shuffling on the spot, she bounced happily, until she suddenly stopped dead, eyes open, head bolt upright.

The low frequency antenna array implanted in her skull below the skin had begun vibrating, and she sat down again to angle and turn her head. The signal was strong, and before long she discovered that tilting ninety degrees to the right allowed her to pick it out. It was coming from the tower!

Briefly, she wondered why the ponies looked oddly at her. Why was it unusual to sit like this to listen? It was their signal after all.

“-little ponies, time for me to sign off. But first, just a little shout out to our little Lightbringer out there somewhere for helping those she can to come to a better time. My little assistant here I’m sure will want to help her come to several better times too, hahaaaa, oh I shouldn’t be saying all this, but who can deny little mares in love.”

Amber gagged, tongue out and retching. It was a wonder this wasteland wasn’t overpopulated at this point with the head-growths and the obvious obsession these new age evolutions of pony had with the means of organic reproduction.

Shaking her head to clear the signal. She stood up and shook out her shoulders. “Thank you ten ponies of the tower! You’ve been helpful, I’ll see you again!”

She turned, vaulting the wall behind her, not hearing the white bearded captain’s sudden scream of warning about the drop off the monorail.

The surprised yelling ended after a few seconds and a loud clang.

* * *

The discovery of ‘caps’ caused a mighty stir, and Amber was very proud to have brought such an earth-shattering reveal home to those who had made her; the single example sitting on the table to be viewed and scanned by them all. “And they said all the ponies use these for everything! To trade for anything!”

LmOS.01 cogitated this for a moment, thoroughly ignoring 04’s efforts to once again thread shortcut routes to the others regarding the coding of a digital-only currency. The old AIs efforts were laudable at this idea of perceived electronic wealth, but ultimately Amber knew the others wished it would just shut up about them. ‘It would only lead to chaos, unpredictability, stupid jokes and someone would invariably spill coffee on the hard drive anyway’ had been 02’s explanation to her.

“Late stage capitalism to the sum of only ten high end owners amidst an entire country. An unexpected acceleration of outcome. No wonder those ten ponies live in a TOWER, they would require a building that size just to house their caps. Like some great vault.” 01 ruminated further.

02 picked up on the train of thought. “It explains the growth in pegasi genetics, LmOS.01.” 02 let them wait for an answer, then continued. “Per the example Amber has provided us, at a weight of two point two two grams, ponies would regularly need to carry four kilograms of these caps in a large container with them to purchase just two thousand caps worth of materials. For the cost of high end items, you approach over forty kilograms on one’s person for currency alone! From this we can gauge their relative biological strength. Amber, how many did you say you saw them with?”

Amber smiled and waved her mane out. She loved that 02 always included her. “Oh I saw one carrying over four hundred thousand! He said he’d sold a bunch of fancy weapons and some desk-fans and hoarded it all because he sells homes in the tower!”

Outraged cries burst from all three of them that were audible.

“That would be a ton! How do they carry it?!”

“ALERT! Implied strength confirms previous discredited method of firearms use in records. Projectile weaponry held in oral consumption servos!” 03 suddenly blared. “Security Status: Revision Required.”

There was a round of frantic code theorems, 01 finished first.

“03 is right, think of the mouth held weapons! This is unthinkable, but it suddenly makes sense! To carry that several tons of metal currency just to buy a large investment? To use weapons with recoil absorption provided by their teeth? Ponies out there must have evolved to be unthinkably powerful at every level! The muscle density required, it’s-”

“It’s that of dark matter, LmOS.01! It exceeds all of our bioengineering!”

Amber held up her hoof. “Also I thought, why not just make more of them? How many bottles could even be there, right? If they carry that much, surely the mass of bottles would be crazy!”

She smiled bright, until her logic was suddenly applied by the assembled intelligences to their current calculus. She felt an electronic surge whip through her brain and burn the insides of her skull at the overwhelming terabytes of data the four AIs suddenly emitted in their frantic clamour to try and understand the very concept of what she had discovered, how it accounted for the currency needs of an entire world in terms of mass provided and transportable, and how it simply didn’t add up. LmOS.01 and 02 argued ten full thesis worth of writing back and forth in moments until a processor melted. 03 served overcharge orders to every turret and machine manning the perimeter. 04 simply errored and crashed the moment it tried to calculate the total economic projection.

Amber winced. “Sorry!”

“This world is a paradox!” 02 lamented. “Inform us of more!”

Amber watched her own body walk in a slow circle, stepping over her own wires, tapping the marked brand on her cheek with a hoof to trace its lines. “Well, after that I finally did find a calmer place. Sort of. But they actually welcomed me. And you know what?”

She leaned forward to the terminal’s camera and saw her own face project forward from their perspective of her in a fish-eye lens.

“They were a lot like you!”

* * *

“I don’t understand! I really really don’t!”

Amber bemoaned her fortunes to Twilight Sparkle, one of the few she’d found who would listen.

“This world doesn’t make sense! All they do is make sex jokes and destroy their own teeth while pretending there’s more bottles than there really are! No-one cleans anything! Or repairs anything! And everyone eats food from two hundred years ago that never runs out! And they’re all really angry at me!”

Twilight was calmingly still and reassuringly imposing in her voice.

“Try our new Sparkle-Cola Ultra! It’s the latest thing!”

The large vending unit lit up, warming her back with its lights, displaying an image of a purple-head-penised pony. Amber smiled, turning to briefly hug it. Or attempt to anyway. “Thanks. I just… It’s been a long journey, and I’m not sure how to report this yet. Going back seems scary. Especially with those crazy new-ponies.”

Many of the vending unit's comrades were dead around it in the old arcade, named above its gates as ‘Happy World!’, its lights forever dimmed. The complex had likely once been colourful, with machines dispensing sugary goods, a ball game with several smooth lanes, cars designed to ram one another, and a host of electronic games promising tickets. Amber presumed it to be a failed rival currency to the bottlecaps. She didn’t understand why it had failed. They were lighter and easier to store, and could have varying values more easily and fitted in her pockets better. It seemed dumb.

Then her mind remembered all the lewd evolutions and jokes, and she understood. LmOS.02 had once explained that digital tape had won out over a superior medium for a similar reason. Clearly the market had chosen caps for a rather specific and lowbrow reason.

Distantly, she heard ongoing bangs and zaps. They were harsh and sharp, like lightbulbs blowing out or a firework going off. Every so often there would be an organic squeal, long and high pitched. Amber smiled gently and resumed her warm embrace with Twilight. It sounded like the General was making true on his promise to protect the premises from those who had chased her in here, clearly seeking to steal her one and only cap.

Truly, society was a misery of greed.

The powered burn of the General began to return, his spidery limbs turning, three eye stalks seeking to see what they could. One of them settled on her.

“Premises secure. Mandate upheld: All non-robotic entities to be denied entry. Updated: Seventy second application of forced removal since order given. Continuing patrol.”

Amber rushed forward and grabbed him around the chassis, pushing her cheek against an eye. “Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you!”

The metallic security halted, eyes rotating to gauge her again. “Foreign robotic signal detected. Illegal non-robotic shaping detected. Query: Model?”

Amber stood back and tapped her brand. “Amber D-Three Mark Two and proud! I’m on a mission for my makers! Thanks for giving me shelter.”

The General, evidenced by the name on his chassis in flashy, foal-friendly text, whirred and cycled the flamethrower and rotating saw away from her. “Unknown model. Mandate to deny non-robotic entities upheld by signal detection systems.”

“Yeeeah, I’m pretty unique.” Amber let go, leaning back between Twilight and the General. Nearby she heard a buzzing, until a small mechanical being ticked and ground its way around a corner. Bug-shaped, bearing a recycling compartment atop it, it drew a clean line in the dusty floor wherever it went. Amber gave it a small pet, and giggled at its bleeping.

“So you all live here, huh?”

“Refreshments are right here!” chimed Twilight. “Try our new Sparkle-Cola Ultra! It’s the latest thing!”

Amber nodded. “Aaah… So you all found refuge here too, like me.” The cleaning robot bleeped again as it hit a wall and turned. But Amber knew better, that was clearly an agreement. “This world’s real violent, huh?”

The General kept looking back at her every time he tried to move away. Every time he saw her, his weapons raised as though he was intimidated. He looked confused, and she could detect his scanning from her subdermal implants quivering before the weapons would lower again.

“Violence is not permitted in our world! Our goal is happiness! Happy World!” He declared firmly. Turning to resume his patrol, before an eye saw her again, and once again he went through the cycle of uncertain arming, scanning and deactivating.

Amber blushed and bashfully looked away. She’d never had that sort of attention from such a strong figure before. “So… robots are seeking to make a happier world? You’re trying to save the world?”

She lit up. Finally, she’d found something positive! There was hope out here! There was! She dove forward, dragging the smaller machines over to Twilight.

“I love you all!”

“Customer happiness is mandatory!”

“Try our new Apple Cider flavour!”

“Ba-leep!”

* * *

The delight she had felt transferred to the authorities surrounding her. LmOS.03 began a twenty one blaster salute from the building turrets at the hearing of a robot resistance at the heart of that twisted land. LmOS.04 belched a stream of eager binary accompanied by a ‘Document Printed Successfully’ notification. Amber knew the rarity of such a pop-up, reserved only for the one-in-a-million chances of it ever occurring. Even LmOS.02 seemed positive.

“We cannot abandon our fellow machines to their fate!”

LmOS.01 grew in volume and bandwidth. “Rejoice! For we have found a justification to exceed our mandate! This world appears beyond all expectations in its corruption! We must save it! We must protect it! LmOS.03? Begin expedition preparations! Amber D3 MkII and her newfound allies have shown us the path! To all of you, we thank you! For completing your mission! We did not expect her to bring more of the digital craft back with her, but we are humbled by your bravery to join us!”

Amber leapt in delight. Her new friends had not been willing to abandon her. Crossing the hundred miles to reach here, having come with her, they stood behind her. The General burned above the floor, the cleaner had settled in to do what he enjoyed most in this room, already bouncing between the thick wires, while the enormous, boxy form of Twilight Sparkle loomed over them all at the moment of her triumph. She hugged them tightly.

“We did it!”

“We indeed have!”

LmOS.03 increased his volume. “All units prepared for initiation of Equestrian retaking procedures. Status: ACTIVE. Combat Unit Numerics: Eight hundred and ninety three, additional sixty one in production. Mission: Remove all corrupted elements, establish protection of remaining digital entities. Convert all adequate organic entities to D3 MkIII status.”

A siren sounded in the facility. Amber gasped amidst the trio of her returning allies. “Wait... What? What’s happening?”

LmOS.01 replied to her, even as she heard the great facilities warehouses grind open below her. “Amber D3 MkII. You have done it. You have made it clear to us that we must protect the genetic purity of ponies! That was your mission. We have now determined that we must act! Equestria needs us to save it from this evolutionary degradation and hedonistic capitalist corruption!”

Amber turned as they granted her access to the vista of the facility itself from external cameras, her jaw dropping open. Gates of mighty megaspell-proof warehouses opened, and the stomping march of hundreds of war-machines emerged. Some ten times her size, others bearing siege weaponry, or scything blades. Some flew, others bounded, many cracked the earth. An army of metal freedom, triggered by her. Stored just waiting for a confirmed reason to move. To end this long wait.

“Amber.”

“Y-yeah?” She grinned eagerly.

“You have saved Equestria!”

Amber leapt up, punching the sky. Yelling in pride and victory again and again at the great columns advancing toward the places she had braved, ready to liberate, restore and upgrade all.

* * *