Spectric Union Harvester Protocall

The spectric union watches all

My mother told me stories about the rainbow factory when I was a filly, she once had a friend who was taken in their first harvests. The rainbow factory was mostly unknown before the fall, now every pony knows the name. when I was still a filly , the enforcers raided our local block they abducted my mother, and many of my friends. Swarms of enforcer auto chariots flew through the sky, the screeching sound of their chariots engines whined through the air like the screaming of a hundred burning ponies. They override the locks on the apartment doors, then broke in, they grabbed exactly sixty percent of the population in our block and dragged them back into their chariots. Any pony who resisted was dragged on to the walkways and shot, their bodies thrown off the walkways and into the undercity.

I never knew my father, he was taken in another raid before I was even born, and my mother has never even told me his name. I live alone in the apartment, the same room my mother was taken in, the same room my father was in, the same room I was born in, simply waiting for the day I will be abducted too.

I woke from another night of sleep, the warm and stale air of the city blew into my room from the open window, the grey metal ceiling standing ominously above, as white light emanated from the lonely flickering light fixture, casting shadows across the walls.

The bed was old, and rusted, most of the furniture was due for replacement in a month, there was the bed which as I mentioned was old, rusted, stained, and almost on the brink of breaking into pieces due to corrosion, The table and chair was in no better condition, the oven, that only functioned when set to one twenty degrees, and the refrigerator that only had a fifty percent chance of either freezing your food solid, or not cooling your food at all.

I pulled myself out of bed, my back in pain from working in the titanium mills. I started to cough from the smoke that wafted through the room. After falling out of bed, I walked over to the window and closed it before I died of smoke inhalation.

I was half-awake now, and fortunately I had enough strength to trot over to the refrigerator and pull out something to eat. There were no stores in Canterlot, instead you got your food from your local block's food refinery, and you got exactly fourteen food-cubes, two for each day of the week, no pony knew what was inside the food-cubes, but it tasted half like grass, and half like rotten meat, don't ask me how I know what rotten meat tastes like.

After puting the food-cube into the oven, I waited for the cube to melt into the soup-like substance that every pony else eats, Then I went back to the fridge to grab a bottle of water. Unlike food, water is easier to come across, You can find water spouts along each skyway, ponies line up to refill their bottles for the day, sometimes the water spouts break, then you just walk over to another one, there are three in my local block, and i've only ever left the block either on the orders of the enforcers, or to get to work.

When ever the lights break or your power goes out, you simply have to live with it, until your scheduled maintenance day. Once a month a repair pony comes to fix any broken utilities in an apartment, it takes about a day for the pony to fix an entire apartment, but at least it's something. the food-cubes can be consumed without melting them if your power goes out, but they certainly don't go down easier as a solid.

The walls and floors were made of some metal that never rusted, and the door rarely broke. The actual building was built in a way that it never required maintenance, so i've never had to live in a neighbors room, and none of my neighbors had even needed to live in mine.

After about an hour the food cube had almost melted completely, and my meal for the day was almost ready. I looked out the window out into the skyway, The buildings went up and down as far as the eye could see, and no light ever shined down here, it was all drowned out by the catwalks and giant buildings extending into the sky. And ponies falling down into the undercity was a semi-common occurrence, if your weren't a pegasus like me you could trip and fall over the railing, or you could get bumped by another pony and happen to fall off the catwalk, or you could simply feel like committing suicide.

I had thought of killing myself on multiple occasions, but I was a pegasus, and If I fell, my instincts would tell me to fly back up to the catwalk, and I was curious what happened to my mother, and If I were to be abducted I had a feeling that I would find out, but I've been lucky so far, the enforcers have never grabbed my yet, and If I provoked an enforcer they would more then likely shoot me, rather then take me, but my luck will run out sooner or later.

My food cube was melted, I opened the oven and waited for it to cool before pulling it out of the oven, for fear of burning my mouth on the pot. Once it was cool enough for me to pull the pot out of the oven, I quickly slurped up the thick soup of food-cube and then put the pot away, ready for this evening, and the next morning, and the day after that, so on, and so forth... There wasn't much need to clean a pot that you only used for one dish, and the apartment didn't come with a sink to clean it with.

After going to the bathroom and washing up, the water coming out of the shower is only as warm as the room is, they didn't even supply you with soap or toilet paper, and the toilet was only flushing half the times you used it.

I got dressed in my standard work uniform, an orange suit that covered most of my body, and came equipped with an in-built saddle bag. I grabbed my water bottle in my wing and put it securely into the bottle Harness on the suit. After readying myself for the day, I walked out the door and down the hallways of my apartment.

The hallway was made of the same grey metal that my room was made from. All of the doors were locked, most ponied either already awake, or still waking up. Water pipes and power cables lined the ceiling, and the only noise heard in the hallway was the noise of water flowing through the pipes above.

I came to the elevator, and as you could expect it was as grey and as metal as everything else in Canterlot. I clicked the exit floor button on the elevator and It sprung into motion, the elevator car going up to the exit. Once the elevator ride was over the doors opened and I stepped out into the skyway.

I looked up and all I saw was lights and walkways extending upwards, and I looked down and after a couple hundred meters the lights of the city faded, ending in the pitch-black that was the undercity. Larger walkways and smaller catwalks connected all the buildings. It was the time in the day when the walkways were crowded with ponies trying to get to work on time, and many auto chariots flew by, filled with citizens that want nothing but to get to work.

A voice echoed from above "Local block Five, One, Two, One, is under quarantine, any civilians attempting to enter or exit will be harvested. Automated message repeating: Local block Five, One, Two, One, is under quarantine, any civilians tempting to enter or exit will be harvested," The spectric union had drones fly above every local block and spout their messages for the day, sometimes there will be a food shortage, or sometimes workers will have to work overtime, or some times, like now, they will say a local block in under quarantine, that normally means either a terrorist attack, or the block is being raided by the enforcers.

Enforcers, armed with their prism rifles, armored in their dark-blue suits, wearing their creepy respirator masks, and levitating on their hover-disks. The prism rifles of the Enforcers were a long rifle, their stocks were mounted to the saddles of the enforcers. The rifles had a tank of multi-colored spectra mounted to their bottoms, a pipe connecting the tanks to a glowing chamber and extending from this multi-colored brightly glowing chamber was the barrel.

The enforcers wore a dark-blue suit that was armored with grey metal plates, and a saddle that connected to their weapons, their armor also had a gas-mask in the helmet, the face of the mask was a giant plate of tempered one-way glass, and the back of the head was the same dark-blue heavy fabric that the suit was made from, where the pony's mouth would be there was a giant block of metal with two air-filters extending from the metal box, and In the center of the box was a speaker for the pony to talk through. On the enforcers back was a tank of spectra that is used to refill their weapons and there was a small battery next to the spectra tank that is used to power any electronics in their armor.

The enforcers floated around on strange levitating disks, that made a multi-colored rainbow trail from their hover-engines, and had a button panel to their side with an assortment of buttons that could be used for various functions. Two of the functions used most often is one that displays holographic propaganda from a projector in the disk, and the second was an alarm that called an enforcer auto-chariot to the position.

I trotted down the walkways, being careful to not draw the enforcers attention. I walked over to the Industrial sector, which was fortunately only half an hours walk from my apartment. I walked for about ten minutes until the digestive sound of an enforcer auto-chariot drew near.

Enforcers are known to abduct ponies seemingly at random during the morning rush to work. But this one was especially tragic. An older mare caring a foal on her back, a filly, and a colt were trotting down a walkway, their heads lowered, and walking slowly through the hoard of ponies.

An enforcer auto-chariot flew up to the walkway, and all the ponies suddenly backed away from the chariot. Three enforcers ran out of the back of the chariot and tackled to old mare, The old mare was thrown to the ground, and the foal she was caring was tossed over the railing into the under-city. The filly looked confused and started to cry, and the colt ran for his life. Noticing the colt trying to escape, one of the enforcers turned around and with a blast of rainbow colored light, the enforcer shot the foal, the foal collapsing to the ground, a giant hole blasted through his side, his burned flesh glowing with a faint rainbow light.

Upon hearing the colt being shot, the mare stopped struggling, she stopped moving as the enforcers dragged her, her crying child, and the dead colt's body into the back of the auto-chariot. The doors on chariot's back closed once every pony was inside, and the chariot flew away into the sky.

I didn't say a word during the abduction, no pony did, they just kept on walking as if nothing had ever happened, I wondered what was the old world like, Were ponies just abducted off the street like that, were ponies just shot like that, did any pony care when that sort of stuff happens.

I continued on like every pony else, But the colt's scream was still echoing through my mind, I have never seen a family kidnapped like that, at least not since my mother was taken. The whole event brought back some sad memories form the past, of my block being raided, and the only family I had being abducted to Celestia knows where.

The air was filled with smoke, and fiery orange lights shined from through the thick smog. This was the industrial sector. Most of the factories were titanium mills, some were food processors, and there were quite a few factories that I didn't know what they made.

Giant power cables connected the buildings, and cargo auto chariots flew from building to building, delivering resources to the factories and bringing the finished product to where ever it was taken. Ponies wandered to and from the factories on the numerous catwalks and walkways, and enforcers watched from their disks.

I trotted into my mill before a enforcer got the idea that I wasn't working, I entered the mill, the walls, floor, and celing were coated in the fiery orange light of the forge. Liquid titanium was poring from a pipe and into a casting pot, then It was pored into molds and shaped into more finer shapes by machines. My job was to inspect the plates and to ensure that they come out right, also to ensure that the machines don't break.

The day in the forge was a relatively relaxing one, nothing broke, and the other workers did their job without a problem. A few plates of metal needed to be scraped, but for the most part the forge was calm. Normally a pony tries to escape their work, or a machine ceases to function, or the enforcers break in and abduct a worker for some unknown reason, but nothing of the sort happened today, a rare occurrence.

Around noon I got my water break. After showing my permission card to the enforcers they let me go over to the nearest water spout and get a maximum of two pints of water. After drinking one pint, and saving the second for later.

After eight more hours at work, I was finally told to return home. I haven't had a day without a problem in several months, the day seemed almost too good to be true. I entered a relatively quiet part of the industrial sector, It was slightly darker here, and the smog slightly thicker, There were no enforcers around at all, and It was quiet, or at least quiet for the Industrial sector.

I saw the shadow of something move through the smoke, It looked like a pony, a mare, relatively my age, and an earth pony. She was caring something on her back, and walking on a catwalk above me. I walked forward towards the pony in the smog, but then she turned her head, and in a flash of light, she disappeared.

I was confused, where did she go, was she teleported, but she wasn't a unicorn. Then in another flash of light she appeared, on another catwalk some distance away. I chased after her, as she continued to disappear and reappear. I came to a corner where the mare disappeared,a building was in the way so I couldn't see what was around the bend , I ran around the corner, without looking where I was going, and I smacked into another pony.

I was stunned for a second. Whoever I hit, he or she had thick dark blue fur, and was wearing meta-... I looked up and the pony was a pegasus, in a dark blue suit with metal bits, and was wearing a gas-mask.

"Shit," I said calmly when the enforcer looked at me with a confused look, or as confused as he could look with the mask and suit on. He threw me to the ground with his titanium-plated hooves. He looked like he was going to throw me over the edge and into the under-city, but looked at my wings and reasoned to not let me excape. He said something that I couldn't hear clearly, due to my dazed state.

"I've got one... white fur... orange mane... forge worker... trying to enter quarantined area..." He said.

Then after a few minutes an enforcer auto-chariot flew over to the section of catwalk. Two other enforcers stood to the sides of the chariot as the one I encountered tied my legs up, and bound my wings, preventing my from flying away, and then dragged me into the back of the chariot. The doors in the back of the chariot closed, and I was not locked Inside the dark metal box with two other enforcers.