Chapter Two

Discovery

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
– Sherlock Holmes

It was a day after the talk with Strawberry when I found myself trotting out of the elevator with a deep sigh passing my lips. I was just coming off a twelve hour shift and I was exhausted as could be. Heaving another deep sigh, I thought back on the meeting Sweet Drops and I had with Strawberry the previous evening. It was unfounded paranoia, but still the fear in her eyes had unsettled me so much. Not to mention that outburst from a mare who was normally very composed. Sighing even deeper, I tried to shake off the feeling of unease that was welling up inside of me. Then I paused, suddenly becoming aware that I wasn't in the living quarters section of the Stable. Looking around at the much darker, bare gunmetal-grey walls, I fell to my haunches, realising that I was in fact somewhere in maintenance – a whole level lower than I had meant to go. I was tired and I had been more lost in thought than I usually would have been coming off a shift.

With a loud groan, I turned around to head back the way I had come when my vision was quite suddenly filled with a dark grey that hardly stood apart from the walls. Unlike the walls, though, this mass of grey had a face. Finding myself mere millimetres away from Ground Gears’ face was very worrying. The rather butch head of maintenance had somehow snuck up behind me. A mare her size had no right to be this silent. Unable to help it, I smiled sheepishly at her, remembering my first encounter with the mare where I had thought she was a stallion. She wasn’t as large as Scarlet, but she definitely had a more masculine build, lacking the soft curves that Scarlet had. I swallowed nervously seeing that suspicious – and dare I say cruel – glint in her sea-green eyes.

Taking a few steps back, I tried to gain back a semblance of personal space – something she wasn't willing to offer, it seems, as I found myself being backed up until I felt my flank press against the cold, unrelenting wall. I cocked an eyebrow, and grew increasingly worried as three more maintenance ponies appeared from around the corner. Each of them carrying rather hefty looking tools that you wouldn’t need outside of the reactor room.

I seriously didn't like the cocky, self-assured grin that she wore while literally backing me into a dead end, it was unsettling to see. It didn’t take a socially-savvy pony to guess that it was a grin with intent behind it – intent I didn’t want to ponder or even find out. "So, as long as we have you down here little Melody, how about you start telling us what really goes on up there?" She said in that rough baritone voice of hers. Groaning inwardly, I opened my mouth to reply when I saw the earth pony mare pulling a pipe-wrench from her utility barding. "And you better not give that well-rehearsed excuse that you threw at Strawberry. Or we might have to get… creative."

I winced at seeing the large tool in her grip, it gave me pause from using the usual talk that I threw at ponies who were silly enough to believe this entire conspiracy theory. It isn’t like I am allowed in the lab to see what they do! Taking a deep breath to steel myself I smiled slightly at her "I have no idea why everypony seems to think that there is something going on." I paused for a moment afraid she might hit me, though she didn't. She just looked at me expectantly. "Listen, Gear. I wish I could tell you something, but my mother has me sitting behind a terminal analysing statistics for everyone in the Stable... which is in a separate room entirely. Even I as the professor’s daughter have no clearance for entry." She rolled her eyes at me, and raised the wrench up, swiping it towards my horn.

I recoiled away against the wall, knowing it wouldn't help. Curiously, the implement never made contact. Instead, the hallways filled with the ringing echo of a high-powered rifle being shot, followed by the loud clang of the wrench hitting the floor, and a painful grunt following it. Opening my eyes, I saw the crowd had parted, and for a moment I couldn't have been happier to see the tiny lilac-coated filly in her security barding. She stood on her hind legs and, without skipping a beat, she cycled the bolt action on her rifle to reload with her wing, still cradling the rather comically large weapon with one of her hooves resting it to her shoulder, keeping her aim down the iron sights at Ground Gears. The angle she was holding it at suggested the mare was actually aiming to shoot her in the head. "Gear, this is the third time this month. You can consider yourself officially on report. Get your ass to security. The rest of you? Fuck off before you join her in isolation."

It always amazed me seeing the small filly able to command the respect – and by the looks on some of the faces, fear – of an entire crowd to get them to obey her command unquestioningly. She grinned that cocky grin of hers as they dispersed very quickly, either back to their rooms or their workplaces. Or, in Ground Gear’s case, to the solitary cells in the security wing. "Are you alright, Melody?" she asked worriedly, slinging the rifle onto her back. I nodded weakly, looking down at the filly with a small, thankful smile.

"Y-yes. I am. I can't believe she was actually going to… hit me! On the horn!" I shuddered at the thought of the mare actually taking off my horn. I didn't like thinking about what life would be like without being able to use magic ever again. Sure, earth ponies got by, but even they had ambient magic about them and used that magic in their daily lives on a more intuitive level. A unicorn without magic, though—I could feel myself tremble, fear finally rearing its ugly head as I collapsed to the ground looking at the security mare. "Thank you, Cherry—that—goddesses that was..." I trailed off, feeling her hoof tapping my muzzle to silence me.

"I know. You are safe Melody." She smiled a bit grimly at that, "It’s not just down here... some of the security ponies are buying into this nonsense now. One of them actually pulled a combat shotgun on me." She growled a little. I blinked at her, seeing the lingering fear in her eyes, it was something most unexpected for someone to pull a weapon on one of Security’s elite members.

"They... pulled a weapon out on you?" I asked, feeling a sense of dread well up inside me. This was clearly worse than I had been thinking. A few residents being paranoid was fine, but if things were getting this tense with Security then what did that mean for the rest of the Stable? Would things start to get worse? Could they even get better at this point without things going south? The questions started to pile up more and more. That is, until Cherry cut through it — her voice sharper than before carrying an edge of something I had never heard before.

She nodded slowly "Yes, it was that bastard husband of Gear’s." she said with a roll of her eyes. "He's been getting the lower-ranked security ponies riled up on this bullshit about needing to protect the foals. It's driving Scarlet up the wall. Actually, Scarlet gave him a good thrashing for pulling a weapon on me. The Overmare is washing her hooves of it like a coward." I nodded slowly at her, the thought of Scarlet thrashing anyone was terrifying in its own right – she packed one mean punch. I looked around the hallway before slowly standing up. "You should be more careful, Melody. I have a bad feeling about this." Cherry said as she looked around before closing her eyes in what I can only assume was a silent prayer or something like that.

“Look, if this just ends up blowing over and nothing happens I am so getting in trouble for this. But with how things have been going… well.” she shrugged and reached a wing to her sidearm holster and drew the weapon before offering it to me. "Just carry this with you, and get some supplies ready. Just in case. If things go south, we might have to hide out in one of the maintenance shafts until this blows over. And Melody, I mean it, be careful. You're not the first one they cornered, and you got lucky I was the one on patrol here and found you. If it was one of the lower ranked officers… well, let’s keep it at a mare I know is in medical." She said, very sourly.

Nodding slowly, I took the weapon in my magic, slipping it into the pocket of my lab coat. "I will try Cherry. I should go, I'll be in my room." I said with a slightly forced smile. She nodded, turning to head back and continue her rounds. I sighed deeply watching her leave. I picked up my pace heading directly to the living quarters. I couldn't stand all this tension, it was suffocating, and gave me a pretty massive headache. Security being divided between the lower ranked ponies and the elite Valkyries wasn't anything new, many of the ponies hoped to someday be part of the Stable's officer's clique as they called them, others that didn’t make the cut were resentful of them. The Valkyries aren't actually Security officers — Scarlet being the exception to that, as security Captain — they are by origin in fact the guard assigned to the research team by Stable-Tec. Scarlet always boasted that they were Ministry of Awesome descendants, although most ponies dispute that claim. Even I was quite sceptical about it.

Arriving at my room without delay I swiped my door key-card through the scanner, the door slid open with a hiss and I stepped in with a small sigh. Letting it slide closed behind me, I quickly locked it. My quarters, like all of the living accommodations are the dull gunmetal grey two room apartment style that I thankfully had all to myself. The Stable only having a small population meant that we had rooms in excess The stable could actually support double and – if need be – even triple the population. I threw my lab coat onto the table and then paused for a moment, remembering Cherry's words. I took my saddlebags into the bedroom and started looking around the room. I pulled the first aid kit from under the bed, along with the sealed emergency rations kit. One might call Stable-Tec paranoid, as every room actually had one of each, but it was quite comforting to know they were there in case of an emergency. I made a mental note to visit a few of the empty rooms to at least make sure I had enough medical supplies – just in case. I slid them both into the saddlebags and slipped the pistol under my pillow with a small sigh. "This'll have to do." I muttered to myself.

I slipped back into the living room. With a small smile, I took a seat at my desk, feeling much more safe in my room than I had outside in the hall. Taking a deep breath, I pushed Gear and what had happened aside before pulling out the borrowed PipBuck key to unlock and slip the arcanotech device off my leg. Placing it in between the spare parts. Connecting the device to a terminal, I backed up its contents to the terminal.

Looking at the key I blushed a little as I allowed it to levitate before me. It was such a simple thing, one of the master keys to unlock and crack open the hoof bound devices. How I had gotten to owning one was easy I took it while covering a shift for the head PipBuck technician. He never even noticed one of the keys was gone. Not my proudest moment but I was bored and I wanted to open one up and see how it worked.

I levitated all my tools in the golden glow of my magic. ’Now where did I leave off?’ I thought to myself, inspecting the components one by one. ’Right, replacing the memory banks.’ I smiled and set to work replacing the rather underwhelming work-memory banks that came with the base PipBuck 3000. In short order I replaced them with ones that contained double the memory. Reaching out, I attached the Personal Research Assistant module to it.

I stroked a hoof along the device, a small smile playing on my muzzle. It was my favourite pastime aside from music. Tweaking the technology to be more in line with my personal needs – even though it went well against Stable-Tec regulations. Technology was not to be altered in any way, but that wasn't going to stop me – or any of us, really, considering we already altered all the Research Assistants that were provided for the Stable's Science staff. The most notable change is the wireless connection to the Stable’s mainframe, and the interfacing with the internal messaging system.

I marvelled a little at the device, one of the more fascinating things that I have had the pleasure to work with. They are easily the most powerful spell processing matrices ever made portable. At least they had been when the Stable was sealed. Capable of performing advanced calculations like the ones we have to do, translating more than 10 different languages, and even capable of automagically engaging SATS if the built-in detection systems sense that the wearer is in a combat situation – although that last one had never been tested before – and a whole host of additional functions that are simply too numerous to list.

Opening the smaller internal case of the PipBuck, I held my breath, slowly levitating up the Spell Matrix. With a few quick movements of magic, the original copper connector pins were replaced with golden ones. I placed the Matrix back in place, replaced its casing, and rebooted my PipBuck.

Letting out a sigh of relief seeing that the device still functioned, I started up the diagnostics program, shifted my attention to the Personal Research Assistant module, and carefully opened the casing. I couldn't help but grin seeing the intricate circuitry. I levitated up the chip Sweet Drops and I had been working on and slipped it into the open slot. I quickly closed up the casing and smiled.

"Perfect, only need to have Sweet Drops run her compatibility tests for this." I mumbled, satisfied that the modifications hadn’t burned out any of the other components – or blew up my PipBuck, for that matter. I set the device to run a series of diagnostics on the stability for both devices and leaned back in my chair with a relaxed little smile playing on my muzzle. This was good, all I had to do was get it to Sweet Drops in the morning for her part. Leaning forwards on my desk I slowly let sleep take me.

******

With a groan I opened my eyes to a loud, incessant beeping coming from my terminal. Looking up, I sighed deeply, noting that it was only six in the morning. With a low groan I slapped my hoof at the terminal until the annoying, skull-splitting, headache-inducing beeping stopped. Pushing my glasses up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, noting the slight pain in my back from sleeping at a desk... again.

I quickly slipped on my PipBuck and locked it in place again. Checking over the files, I smiled noting that everything was in its place. And working correctly. "Good Morning, Caramel. What's the message?" I asked with a loud yawn, clipping my earbloom in place to listen to the sweet, melodic voice of the Personal Research Assistant's AI reading out the same standard report of the night shift.

"There is a note attached to it Melody, would you like me to open it?" She asked, I looked at my PipBuck screen seeing the cute 16bit rendition of the AI in the corner of the monochrome screen. I couldn't help but smile a little at seeing the cheerful unicorn's face, and blush a little at the name I had given her when I first activated her. I was a young filly and I didn't know the name was permanent, so I had named her 'Caramel Smooch'. Which at the time I thought sounded absolutely adorable, and if I am to be honest, it still sounds adorable.

"Yes, Caramel, please play the note."

Smiling a little, I made my way outside, levitating my bag of toiletries beside me as I listened to her recite the message in an annoyed tone. "Okay, listen here. This is Cinnamon Crunch. And this note is to the git that seems to insist on going through my desk. These are my personal effects and I swear if I get my hooves on you I am pressing charges with security!" I rolled my eyes with a little groan. ’Ponies and their possessive nature... I swear sometimes it’s like working with foals, mine, mine, mine. It is as if they forget the laboratory's things are communal.’ I mentally muttered.

’Speaking of communal, I should take a shower before I head up to the lab…’ I noted, taking a small sniff of my coat with a light shiver. ’Definitely need a shower.’ I giggled a little and trotted out of the door, starting to make my way down the hall. I couldn't help but smile as I walked. Somehow, even with all this madness going on around me, I was happy that the upgrades to my pipbuck and PRA were almost finished. And we could soon actually put the upgrades to Caramel to use.

I couldn't stop my thoughts drifting to Gears and the encounter in maintenance. Sighing, I let my ears droop a little. I know the mares that believe this weird experiment nonsense are just trying to explain why all of the foals are born with unique talents. I'm no exception to this, I know that much, although my disadvantage is a little less obvious – without my glasses, I am practically blind. They are right in a way, this isn't normal. But it can't be the results of experiments, right? Then Strawberry’s words came to the front of my mind once more and I felt myself shudder lightly. Was it true? I didn’t know. Mother didn’t have many pictures of herself so I couldn’t check. Asking her would just get her cross with Strawberry.

Then my thoughts strayed to Scarlet and Cherry, I smiled a little remembering the tiny security mare. Both of them are on opposite sides of the size scale, one being a tall muscular mare while the other is trapped in the body of a filly. I sighed and shook my head – it’s too frequent to be a coincidence. Maybe there was some truth in their claims? No, if there was I would know. I analyse the data, it would be somewhat visible if they experimented on ponies during their check-ups. Again my mind went back to Cherry and Scarlet – the former has demonstrated extraordinary agility and perception, but due to her small, underdeveloped wings she can hardly fly. And if she flies, it's only for a few feet before she has to land and walk. I guess that wouldn’t be called flight but fluttering up and gliding? Scarlet, on the other hoof, shows extraordinary endurance, but due to her size – and, I speculate, due to some internal abnormalities with the size of her lungs – gets easily winded and is a poor flier.

Groaning, I stepped into the communal showers, threw my clothing in a pile on the bench, and slipped into the nearest stall. I hardly even noticed the cold water rushing over me, not that the water was ever past lukewarm in this section. A quick soap and rinse later, I cast a quick spell on myself to dry off and slipped into the ‘armoured’ utility barding I had started wearing under my lab coat. Armoured might be the wrong term, but that was what maintenance ponies called it. It is officially meant for more dangerous maintenance work and is relatively stab-proof. Bullets? Not so much. I quickly entered back into the hallway with a brush still running through my tangled mane. It was a little hot wearing the two pieces of clothing, but the armoured barding did do wonders in making me feel just a little safer – especially after hearing Cherry’s suggestion that somepony wasn't as lucky as me after getting cornered. Then I froze, ear perked as a voice echoed through the metallic halls of the stable.

“NO DON’T!” the words were followed by a primal scream of agony. A horrifying, blood curdling scream of something that sounded wholly unequine. Echos of ripping, more screaming, horrible, haunting wails following it. Then, for the longest moment, silence. Silence, save for the ever-present hum of the overhead lights. I stood there petrified with pure terror, wondering if that had been real or if it had been a figment of my weary, paranoid mind. The events with Gear and Strawberry had never stopped plaguing me, even if I didn’t think of them. Was this my mind playing with me? Then there was the sound of a low sob and the clopping of hooves on the hard metal floor. Venturing forwards I couldn’t help but wonder if this maybe was a dream. I hoped it was one. The sounds I heard were utterly horrible.

My ears perked up hearing the low rumbling commotion of a crowd coming from the direction I had hear that utterly unequine scream coming from. It came from around the next corner, becoming louder and louder as I approached it. A cacophony of muttering and whispers. Carefully, I dared peeked around, in the back of my mind there was the hideous thought that it might be Ground Gears and her group. Instead, I could see a good twenty ponies gathered, some only half out of their living quarters staring out into the hallway. I could barely make out the words of their whispers even as they seemed like thunder to me – or maybe that was the beating of my own heart. All I could gather was the horrified tones of their words. Then it hit me. The sickening, coppery scent of blood. Not a little bit like someone had cut themselves, but a lot of it. Bucket loads of it. Over the din of the muttering I could hear the heart-wrenching wailing of a stallion.

My heart beat in my chest, as worries filled me. Had it finally happened? Had they killed somepony in their goddess-damned paranoia? As I pushed through the crowd, I started to notice the normally clean steel floor slick with running blood. Upon seeing the utterly horrifying scene that was revealed to me, I regretted ever having pushed myself to the front of the crowd. It was a scene so utterly shocking and revolting, something that would forever be burned in my mind. I dare say that the scene changed me.

In the grey hallways on the floor lay a mare that I had seen recently – Strawberry lay in the hooves of her weeping husband. The stallion was distraught, cradling his mare closer and closer, his muzzle buried in her mane. The mare that was due to give birth any day now was covered in blood while more of it was pooling out through a gashing wound at her belly. I felt so sick seeing what she cradled in her hooves. She held the unmoving form of her own foal in her hooves, frantically whispering "He's fine, a perfectly normal, normal colt" over and over again as if saying it enough would bring the dead foal back to life. Her voice slowly began to fade as I stared on in horror, watching her going limp, her bloody knife beside her telling the story more than clearly for me. My cruel mind played through what must have happened moments before I rounded the corner. The sound that had drawn me here made so much sense now. It wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me.

I could see it so vividly, Strawberry arguing with her husband, shoving him away from herself and plunging the knife into her own pregnant belly. I could only whimper at the thought of just how much that would have hurt. The knife looked sharp, but it was by no means a scalpel. Clutching my own belly, the scene unfolded before my mind's eye and I was helpless to stop the mare as she cut and cut until she had ripped herself open and blood spilt forth from the wound along with chunks of gore as she cut open her own womb. I hated my mind. I despised it for constantly needing to fill in the missing pieces as the mare maimed herself, sentenced herself to death, the already dying fetus of her foal in her arms, rocking back and forth with the almost fully-formed foal in her hooves. Sobbing hysterically. Whispering to herself.

The crowd quickly started to disperse as the world faded away around me. I could make out Scarlet with a group of her security mares pushing into the hallway, chasing away the onlookers, even smacking a few upside the head before bellowing out orders that never quite reached my ears. Cherry was suddenly at my side, supporting my weight with some difficulty. I could make out a worried look on her face from the corner of my eye, but all I could do was stare at the horrifying scene, captivated by it. Unable to look away from the macabre sight of Strawberry’s self-mutilated belly, the fetus of her unborn colt held in her arms, what the mare had done to herself, what her paranoia had driven her to.

I saw Cherry talking with Scarlet, but their words didn't register. There was no sound but the beating of my own heart and the sound of quick short breaths. I could only just stare at the blood, wishing I could throw up, wishing I could scream at the insanity of it. The wrongness of what had happened. I wanted to scream at Celestia, Luna, anypony. But instead I let myself be silently led away by the tiny mare. I could hear Strawberry's husband shouting something, shoving the blame on us, blame that should be pushed onto the one who started this insanity. When I get my hooves on that pony... goddesses forgive me for what unspeakable horrors I would do onto them.

It took me more than a few long minutes to even realise that Cherry and two other security mares had led me to the entrance of the genetics lab, not that I really cared or even focused on that. No, I couldn’t focus on anything, I could still see the blood, the wounds. I hated my mind, having an eidetic memory, I utterly despised it as the sickening scene remained there. Cherry and Mother waving their hooves in front of me. They were saying things to me I didn’t hear. All I could hear was the sharp gasps, low whimpers, and sobs as my world turned blurry.

With a start, I snapped back to reality. I looked between the two and instantly wrapped my hooves around Mother's neck. I let it all out, my face pressed into her coat. And I told her everything I had seen, I told her I couldn't handle it anymore... I started to breathe faster and faster, panic welling up inside me. Then there was a small sting to my rump. Looking up to my mother, I noticed her horn glowing, holding an empty syringe of Med-X. "Shhh... sleep, it'll be alright." She whispered as my world around me turned to black.

******

As I opened my eyes, I found myself in a bed that was not my own, in a room that was definitely not mine. It was far too big to be my own room, and had far too many beds in it. It wasn’t dark, but the lights had been dimmed a lot. I could make out the dim glow of a clock showing that it was half an hour past midnight. I was the only pony in the room. A room that, judging by the locked medicine cabinet and the various instruments, was the stable’s medical wing – or more specifically, its recovery ward. The ward was definitely not needed for the one or two accidents we occasionally had. But then the stable was built with a much larger population in mind.

Sighing deeply, I rolled over and carefully removed the IV needle that was in my right forehoof. Slamming my head back into the pillow I let out another sigh, lighting up my horn to levitate over a band-aid. Having covered the small puncture in my skin, I went over events in my mind. Not that I had any choice. I tried skipping over Strawberry, and failed miserably. Everything became blurry and my eyes stung painfully. ’I can’t believe Mother drugged me... again. Best fucking mother, ever.’ I thought to myself. Because that was what hurt me the most. Instead of comforting me she had actually drugged me, and instead of being a mother, this time she had pawned me off on the medical staff.

Eventually my mind gravitated back to Strawberry and her foal. That was the result of the unfounded paranoia, culminating in a mare having a breakdown. Ending up killing herself and her foal in such a way. I didn’t stop myself from crying, it was the most horrible thing to see. It also filled me with the conviction to get to the bottom of this. Somepony needed to. Somepony needed to prove that there was nothing going on and all of this was completely unfounded!

Kicking off the sheets, I slipped out of the bed and gave the clock another glance – only a few minutes had passed. ‘If I hurry, I can use the changing of the watch to slip in.’ I thought to myself with a sharp nod. Leaving the recovery room was easy, it wasn’t exactly a high-security area. I was out past curfew though, so I walked softly, with only the slightest of taps of my hoof on the metal floor. I could feel my heart racing – getting caught after curfew is an offence that actually carries the punishment of a flogging (and not the kind Tia tends to joke about).

The halls weren’t dark, the overhead lights never turned off or even dimmed. It was one of the constants of a Stable. The ever-present hum of the lights. Making it to the maintenance access stairs was a relief, it meant I was about halfway to my destination. Then I froze, the louder clangs of a pony walking started to get closer. Looking around in a panic, I quickly scrambled under the bottom level stairs. I watched wide-eyed and trembling as the Security Captain Scarlet Radiance walked down the stairs with that impassive look on her face. I had to cover my muzzle to prevent from squeaking in fear. Scarlet was probably the worst security pony to find me skulking around, her reputation of being strict was infamous in the Stable.

I watched her trot away towards the atrium with a low sigh of relief. I remained there for a moment until the clunks of her large hooves on the metal had faded away entirely and until I was relatively sure that the mare was actually gone and away. Scarlet had been the one to catch me previously while sneaking around at night, although I wasn’t trying to break into the lab that time. She had punished me all the same, though. Just thinking about the public flogging (and the ensuing scolding I got from mother) made everything hurt again, physically and emotionally.

The first step was hard, the second was harder still. But slowly I started to come out of hiding, the dread of being caught by Scarlet still very much in the back of my mind. Every step was like thunder to me, with every movement I feared that I was going to get caught. To my surprise, I didn’t get caught, and I reached the top. Fear was still in the back of my mind, and I was on edge.

The hallway was much like the rest of the stable, save that one of the lights overhead still wasn’t working properly. It had given out a month ago and maintenance still hadn’t bothered to fix it, whether through laziness or being buried under more pressing issues. The former seemed more likely to me, though.

Sticking close to the wall, I peered around a corner, getting a decent look at the door that was guarded by a single mare. I knew the mare pretty well, she was named Rose Petal. A sweet unicorn mare, and very charming, or so I had been told many times by Sweet Drops. All that I knew about her was that she and Sweet had dated for about a month. Well, that, and her scores on the aptitude test for the Security team, mostly because I was the science observer for it. She was a very nimble mare, able to squeeze herself into places nopony had any right to squeeze into. The only mare who could get into tighter spaces was Cherry.

Having done this before, I roughly knew the schedule. She was going to stand there for a good few minutes and then do her rounds through the top most level, giving me just enough time to get inside. After that, well, I had to hide in my mother’s personal office and hope that I didn’t get caught by the patrolling security mare. It was a simple plan, and one I was relatively sure I could execute this time. Last time I had gotten caught because I was using the terminal and sitting behind the desk. Stupid, really. I had a much better idea now – hide under the desk and use my PipBuck instead.

As Rose Petal started to move away from her post, I grinned and watched her round the corner, using her flashlight to shine into the dark and (mostly) empty rooms that were occupied with various equipment. Most of them were examination rooms, some of them offices for senior staff. As the light of her flashlight faded, I made my move, walking on the ‘tips of my hooves’, as they say, to sneak into the lab proper and up to my mother’s personal office.

The main room of the lab was simple. The centre had a large desk that was worked into the floor. It was a large and sturdy thing with a tiled top, mostly used for working with chemicals. The top was sloped ever so slightly, leading to a drain which was connected to a magical disposal system that neutralised anything dumped into it. The top also had a few Bunsen burners which were attached to the desk, and in extent to another system which provided the gas from a talisman. Over each burner was a small ventilation hood.

To the left there were some other rooms for things I had no idea about. They were sealed and locked by a key only mother actually had. She opened them in the morning and closed them in the evening. At the end of the room to the right was her personal office. The door wasn’t locked, everything important was actually in her safe, and once more only she had the authority to open it.

Slipping into the room, I looked around for a moment. The room was cold, impersonal. She had not decorated aside from with a picture of our family that sat on her desk. Slipping under the desk, I plugged in my PipBuck and started to work on overriding her password.

Five minutes and a lot of retries later and I was in. The password had been a complex string of numbers and digits that quite honestly was overkill. But I was in, and that was what mattered. I could see all the files that were on the system. It looked much the same as my data analysis terminal, except that here I could see all the names and the entire history of the ponies. My eyes fell on the file named “Strawberry Shake”. It wasn’t the fact that Strawberry was on the list that shocked me. No, on the contrary, it was the fact that her file was appended with “Terminated”.

Without thinking, or really caring about being discovered, I slipped up into my mother’s chair and opened the file, staring at it with wide eyes as I read.

******

Subject name: Strawberry Shake
Age: 30 years
Role in stable: Food preparation
Cause of death: Self-inflicted disembowelment under paranoia-induced psychosis.

Case:
Strawberry was one of first of an ever-increasing number of mares who gave into the paranoid belief of there being experimentations on the foals and has refused to allow any sort of checks to be performed on her or the foal. Her refusal was the inspiration for multiple mares to follow suit, spurred on by Ground Gears and her husband who are the instigators behind the entire movement. For the moment ponies think it is unfounded paranoia, but more and more ponies are following Strawberry’s lead on this. The fact that Strawberry is very beloved and trusted within the community seems to be the reason for the influx of mares refusing check-ups. Recommended action?

Recommended action:
Subject is to be eliminated and made an example of to scare ponies back into line.

Action taken:
Subject was given a mixture of Med-X, Rage, Buck, and a specially modified variant of Stampede. The result was as expected, the subject went into a violent psychosis resulting in the mare disembowelling herself – which was perhaps a bit too extreme of a reaction but she was eliminated in a way that gave us plenty of propaganda material to work with.

The body was disposed by the cleanup crew immediately, the reason given was that no medical examination was needed considering the cause of death was so obvious. Her body was incinerated not an hour later by the cleanup crew. Official death report has been filed by the head of research, who was first on the scene and informed medical about the ordeal. The Chief Physician agreed with the assessment and signed off on it, with only minor complaints that the body had already been disposed of.

How to proceed:
We will be using Subject Strawberry’s perceived nervous breakdown and resulting psychosis as a way to dissuade the ponies from worrying like she and her cohorts have been. The scene that was caused in the middle of the residential hallway is a very potent one and we should not waste the opportunity to capitalise on the distressing effect it has had on the other paranoid ponies.

Head-Researcher’s comment:
Recommend lowering the dose of buck and looking into further modifying the Stampede variety. Suicide was the intent but we cannot afford to have such high-risk incidents in the future. We do NOT need to draw more attention to us than is already the case. Sure, this might work as propaganda, but it can also be used in the other direction. This happened a few days after Sweet Drops and Melody visited subject Strawberry. It can be taken as a last chance before we killed her off. Please remember that any deaths are meant to look NATURAL. You’re lucky we got there before the medical team and disposed of the body before they found all the drugs in her system.

I sat there staring for a very, very long time. Just staring at the screen. Reading it again, and again, and again. I refused to believed it even as I read it – again. My own mother had ordered the killing of another pony. It wasn’t just that, though. Looking at the other files, there was a whole lot more here than I got to see on my personal terminal. Experiment information along with their results. The goal of each experiment and what they changed about the foal. It was all utterly disgusting. It was the worst. There was a folder for every pony. From Scarlet, to Cherry, to my best friend Sweet Drops.

But there was one folder that stood out to me, one folder that I didn’t even dare look at. It was a folder with my name on it. Startlingly, it was also the biggest folder on the entire system – double the size of the others combined. I didn’t want to know what was in there. I didn’t need to know – a part of me already did. I had known ever since my talk with Strawberry. The reality of it was that I did not want to accept it. I hated reality so much. Why did it all have to be true? I sighed and pressed the key, opening the folder. I hated it, but I had to know.

What I saw was entirely different. Where most ponies had one or two files, there were ten files in my folder, along with a sub-folder marked “The Genesis Experiment” which was the reason for my folder being the biggest. Curiously, it was also older than my files – the date suggested that it had been created a hundred and fifty years ago. Each file had my name on it, though the most horrifying part of it was that five of the six files had ‘attempt’ appended to them. The following files were an observation log, notes, failures, and modifications. I dreaded even opening any of the files.

I sat there for goddesses only know how long. Staring in horror at what I had found, unable to accept the reality of it. I hadn’t even read any of the files, I just couldn’t get myself to do it. Tears ran down my cheeks as I just stared at the logs. Stared and wondered why she had never told me about this, why she had lied to me about… I slumped forwards. Had anything about my life even been true? I wondered that for what felt like an eternity.

By the time that I left the room, it was almost five in the morning. I don’t remember anything after leaving, not even getting back to my room or passing out, it was all just a blur. I was quite sure that the mare on duty by then had seen me leave, though I don’t remember her trying to stop me. Or maybe she had.

******

Footnote:

Cherry Stellar:
Strength: 2
Perception: 7
Endurance: 8
Charisma: 6
Intelligence: 5
Agility: 10
Luck: 3

Traits:

• Stable Dweller: You start the game with a PipBuck. Your starting Survival score is only (Luck / 2, rounded down) and your starting Poison and Radiation Resistances are 0.
  
• Small Frame: You gain +1 Agility, but your limbs suffer 25% more limb damage. This does not affect actual damage taken.
  
• Grounded: You, for some reason, lack the ability of flight. You can flutter short distances and glide longer ones but you are incapable of generating lift like normal pegasi.

Story perk:
Gifted: You, like many ponies in Stable Epsilon, were born with above-average talents. This has led to you mastering a field, discipline, or craft in one third of what most ponies would spend a lifetime to achieve. This came at a great cost – the depths of which you are unsure of.

Author's Note

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I would like to give a huge thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout: Equestria and making this story possible.

A huge thank you to Shutter Speed who co-wrote this with me.

I would also like to thank Fuzzy Fabricator, Troposphere, Silent Whisper, ScopeEva, and GraveDigger for editing and helping me make this story readable.

I would also like to give a massive thank you to my Patreon supporters:
> Fuzzy Fabricator
> Dr_MindQuill
> Richer19
> Psy Key
> Luminescent Aurora
> Darkaito Bruns
> Shanaar
> sixkiller5

If you like what you've read here, then please consider supporting me on Patreon! The support is greatly appreciated!

I would of course also like to thank you lovely people for reading this chapter!

With that I will sign off,
Happy Hunting everypony!