Beneath The Dust

Chapters

a.l. #001 - Descensions
a.l. #002 - Network
a.l. #003 - Doorways

a.l. #001 - Descensions

ALR 662 - Audio Log #001 - Descensions

Warning: warplight decay and antimatter drive core detonation imminent. Evacuate immediately. All personnel report to lifepods for evacuation. Repeat: warning: warplight decay and antimatter drive core…

The tinny voice of the Starjumper warpship’s onboard AI suddenly emanated from all terminals, every speaker system in the ship repurposed to the announcement. The cabins and corridors, cold sterile metal, ignited in a surge of red warning lights, flashing white arrows slicing through the crimson murk towards the lifepod bay. A moment later, screams rebounded across the silent halls, and the rumbling of the engine began to grow louder, less confined. Running hoofsteps blitzed down the halls as the crew ran for the pods.

Me included.

As I approached a pod, I noticed in a detached way that it was Pod #13, and wondered for a moment: wasn't that important somehow? No time to think. Just go. Get in the pod. Don't wait. If you do, only death is waiting for you.

Desperately seeking an escape from the ship, I unsealed the hatch, letting the pneumatics seal behind me as I strapped myself into the memgel seat. The cold metal frame locked itself around me, and the electronic locks dinged into place. A touchpad lit up underneath my right hoof: a single red button emblazoned with the word LAUNCH, waiting for me to touch it.

Beep.

There was a deafening whoosh as the lifepod jettisoned itself from the hull of the Starjumper. I looked through the clear window in the top of the pod as the pods dispersed, scattering off into space. I sighed, averting my eyes as a great light blazed in through what was left of the porthole as the aperture slid itself shut. The first lesson everybody learned in spaceflight school: never look directly at an exploding warplight drive. I dropped my head. Everything had happened so fast. Manipulating the keypad, I activated the thrusters, trusting them to take me to the nearest habitable satellite. This close to Celestia, the planets were pretty much empty.

I frowned. Something was wrong. It took me a moment to piece it together: silence. No engine rumble. My jaw clenched. Something wasn't working right.

The wall in front of me darkened into a screen, and words in cyan scrolled across it. At the same time, they were spoken by the Starjumper’s AI, present on the lifepods as well.

Lifepod 13
Hull Integrity: 72%
Life Support System Status: 98%
Thruster Functionality: Nonfunctional
Power Supply: Indefinite (Sustainable Recharge)
0g Field: Functional
Nutrition Synthesis: Functional, minor damage
Landing Stasis Field: 52%. Moderate damage to emitters.

My jaw clenched. Oh God, no thrusters. I'd have to float out here until I hit something's gravitational field, and if it was something dangerous, I'd be unable to do anything.

A few more taps on the touchpad, and a holographic model of the Celestia system blipped into being in front of me from the ceiling projectors. A tiny red dot demarcated where I was: approximately one hundred fifty miles outside of the orbit of the nearest celestial body, closing fast. I didn't even need to check the label to tell what planet it was: first planet out from Celestia. Equus Veta, birthplace of ponies.

There wasn't a lot that I could do but wait, so I waited. At my speed, it would take about about three hours to enter Equus’ gravity well, so there wasn't much I could do. Well, the 0g field was working, so I could at least take inventory.

Another series of taps on the touchpad and the titanium chair brace lifted, letting me go. The conforming memgel also released me after a moment, allowing me to float freely. I flapped gently off of the seat, fluttering through the artificial oxygen-nitrogen gas cocktail to the storage compartment on the opposite wall, below the screen. Yanking it open, I peered inside at the secured tools; a knife, a plasma cutter, a flashlight, a bioscanner, a bag of hydrocaps, some nutribricks, a high-efficiency CO2 fire extinguisher. All in all, a pretty paltry sum; survival on the desert planet I was bound towards was going to be rough with only those. I grimaced. There should be one more thing…

There it was. A small parcel shifted beneath the fire extinguisher, and I pulled it out, revealing an SCL suit. Keeps homeostatic temperatures up to 150C, withstands pressures up to 5100 PSI, impact resistant enough to neutralize a fall from 10 meters up, resistant to electrical currents and direct fire exposure. I unwrapped it, sliding it on in place of my engineer’s slacks and placing the mask above my head. There was an odd feeling as it sealed around me and a sudden, quickly-fading stab sensation as a needle punched into my neck, then the onboard filtration system began to convert my exhaled breaths back to oxygen, extending my breathing time dramatically. I sighed in relief. At least one thing went my way. Sometimes the staffers forgot to put the suits in the pods.The heads-up display flickered for a moment, then jumped to life, displaying my vital signs; heart rate, blood-oxygen levels, blood pressure, body temperature. All normal, if a bit elevated by stress.

Time passed, and the life support started slowly ticking down: 98, 97, 96%. The lifepods were supposed to have 100 hours of heat, light and air. So as it ticked to 95%, I braced myself; the red blip on the model was now on the edge of Equus’ gravity well.

There was a sudden jolt, and more text scrolled across the screen, accompanied once again by the generic mare’s voice of the AI:

Planetary gravity field entered. Prepare for reentry.

I did so, falling back into the seat, dropping the frame back over me and securing it in place. My teeth clenched as the pod began to rumble.

A field of kinetic energy pulsed outward in stasis from the emitters in the craft's sides, absorbing most of the friction and dispersing much of the heat that went along with it. Nevertheless, it began to grow warm, and I started sweating. A red warning light shot up on the screen, and not a moment later, there was a tremendous blast of sound and the pod jolted. Once more, the AI spoke:

Warning: landing field compromised. Rerouting power to the 0g generator and initiating emergency landing procedures.

I swore. I just could not get a break, could I? First the thrusters, now the landing field...why? I decided to just hope for the best, and hope that the projected 0g field buffered the impact enough for me to survive. Outside of the top window, the world around the pod was red with the hellish glow of reentry, and sweat ran down my coat in rivulets behind the mask as the temperature increased further. If I wasn’t wearing the lifesuit, I think I’d be dead already.

The AI kep talking throughout: 200km to landfall. 173km to landfall. 127km to landfall. 104km to landfall. On and on, the distance ticking down as the heat increased. Half a dozen warning lights popped up, the lifepod exceeding its approved heat ratings as the ablative materials coating the outside burned away. 49km to landfall. I was moving incredibly quickly; with any luck, the 0g field would let me live through the absurd impact force. 1400 meters to landfall. Well. Here we go.

The sound was tremendous. I must've been moving at nearly 40,000 kph. I was tossed like a ragdoll, bouncing back and forth with absurd force. Without the metal frame on the seat holding me in place, I would be absolutely stone dead. I coughed as the pod came to rest, realizing how insanely lucky I was to be alive after all the things that went wrong.

A blue dot on my helmet’s HUD blinked a few times before the onboard speakers broadcast the voice of the omnipresent AI: Location detected as: Veta Equus. System: Celestia. Population: 186 equine bioforms. Adapting to location.

With that, the blue dot expanded into a small holographic image displayed on the screen of a tall pony. I recognized the image well enough, though I’d never seen her myself, and she was supposed to be white, not cyan blue. Still, I supposed it would be rather soothing to hear Princess (still Princess even after all these years; can you believe it?) Celestia’s voice instead of the AI’s. It was kinda jarring too, though. I wasn’t really sure what to think.

The image blinked a few times before speaking in a reasonable facsimile of Celestia’s voice and tone: Be careful, my little pony, and remain inside the lifepod. This planet is listed at Extremely Hostile in database. Planetary statistics have shown a survival rating of 2.76% outside the pod, versus 32.89% if you remain inside. A Veritas Inter-Systemic Trading Coalition recovery crew has been dispatched to your location. Their estimated arrival time is: 12 days.

I tapped a button for the porthole aperture, but nothing happened in response. Great. It probably got busted up in the crash just like pretty much everything else. Still, far be it from me to rush. I was perfectly happy staying in the lifepod. Now that I’d entered a planet with an atmosphere and some ambient magic to draw on, the pod’s life support was basically limitless, not to mention I could synthesize nearly any palatable food substance with the aid of the nutritional synth machine and a slew of nutribricks. Water wouldn’t even begin to factor in as an issue; plus or minus fifty hydrocaps was more than enough to last me twelve days.

To be frank, I hadn’t been altogether thrilled about the possibility of opening that hatch to begin with. I was an engineer, not a survivalist. As long as VISTCO came through on the allotted time, I would be absolutely fine, and wouldn’t need to slog out into the arid heat that surrounded my little self-contained environment. Content for the moment to wait, I relaxed back into the memgel seat and, after checking the readouts on the screen one last time—not a whole lot had changed, other than the status of the Landing Field Stasis Emitters changing to 11%: Nonfunctional. With that, I let my eyes slide shut as the aches and pains from the crash faded away into the background and I fled into unconsciousness.

What time was it?

Wait, no. Better question. Why were the lifepod lights dim? That wasn’t supposed to happen. They’d never changed lighting in any practice evacuations I’d ever taken part in, and nopony had ever mentioned anything of the sort. Was it power conservation? No, it was a self-regenerating manabattery, no need as long as it was on a planet.

I tapped the release button of the seat frame and frowned a moment later. It hadn’t released itself. Things kept going wrong, and that was definitely cause for concern. My survival until VISTCO could pick me was as a house of cards. If any piece of it caught the wind and shifted, the whole thing would come tumbling down. Only the emergency lights were on, I belatedly realized, my eyes following the strip of narrow lights that trailed along the periphery of the floor. The bright overhead light was sparking in a pathetic attempt to reassert itself, and with every flicker, my frown grew deeper. Oh Celestia, what had happened to this pod? Was it breaking down?

Again, something resurfaced in my memory. Pod #13. The number was niggling at the corner of my mind, for some reason I couldn’t quite remember. Was the pod defective? Was there any power? Was I going to die here, sealed off from…

Oh Celestia, oxygen!

I gasped out “Computer, status,” lamely surprised at my ragged, quiet voice. Well, I guess that answers the question of whether or not I screamed during the landing. My throat was so raw I was surprised it wasn’t straight-up bleeding. Maybe it was and I was just too out-of-sorts to taste the blood. I pried up the bars holding me down, and eventually I managed to stand. My legs were shaky and I could barely stand, but with any luck, I would get some strength back into them before too long. As before, the wall in front of me darkened into a screen and words scrolled across it.

Lifepod 13
Hull Integrity: 32%
Life Support System Status: Indefinite (Sustainable Recharge)
Thruster Functionality: Nonfunctional
Power Supply: 37%
0g Field: Functional
Nutrition Synthesis: Semifunctional (Moderate Damage)
Landing Stasis Field: 11%, Nonfunctional

And at the bottom, in bright red instead of the same cyan as the rest of it,
WARNING: 2 Power Cells CRITICAL
WARNING: 1 Power Cell SEVERE
WARNING: 1 Power Cell MODERATE

Ah. So that explained things. Suddenly my options had just gotten a lot smaller. All four of the lifepod’s power cells had been damaged, and the pod didn’t have advanced enough equipment for me to even begin repairing them. The SEVERE one would progress to CRITICAL within a matter of days, if not hours, and it wouldn’t be long until the CRITICAL cells decided that enough was enough, and it was time to fail spectacularly hard.

“Computer, what’s the estimated time to power cell failure?”

The apparition of Celestia took a moment to respond, and as she did, her voice was marred by some sort of strange static interference. It wasn’t the power supply; the lifepod’s AI had been transferred into the electronics in the SCL suit. I decided that on the list of problems, that one was less severe than enormous magical explosions and assured death, so. Estimated time until CRITICAL status power cell rupture: 45 minutes.

I couldn’t help it; I choked. I was expecting something dire, but less than an hour? I needed to get out of here as fast as my legs could carry me.

“Computer, reroute power from main light,” I rasped, watching the light flicker above me, “to delay of power cell failure.”

Confirmed, intoned Celestia’s voice. Estimated time until CRITICAL status power cell rupture: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

I grimaced. A bit better, but not by a whole lot. I had to grab whatever I could and get out of this pod now. A bitter feeling of frustration briefly rode over me. Broken thrusters, busted landing field, explosive power cells. This lifepod just could not cut me a break, huh? I snorted as I trotted over to the storage locker, ripping a few of the tools off and shoving them into my saddlebags. Hydrocaps, nutribricks, that went without saying. Knife. Plasma cutter. Flashlight. Not enough room to fit anything else in the SCL suit’s limited saddlebag space. I wished for a moment I had my engineer’s saddlebags, but I’d left them on the Starjumper, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t getting them back any time soon. Call it a hunch.

What are you doing?

I was so surprised I fell over. A couple reasons why: number one, the AI wasn’t exactly the chatty type. It would respond to inquiries, it would warn of emergencies, it would acknowledge commands, but I’d never heard of a Starjumper’s AI actually asking a question. Was this some sort of anomaly?

Hey! Don’t call me an anomaly!

Alright, yes, please and thank you that cemented the fact that I was going absolutely stark-raving nuts. The Starjumper’s AI wasn’t really an AI, not in the same sense as the supercomputers back home on Planet D. It was a semisentient computer program, intelligent enough to perceive, recognize, and report on threats that ponies wouldn’t be able to catch. Never had I ever heard one speak outside of answers or reports on threats. And never—never—had I heard one refer to itself as me. I jolted suddenly, remembering something: my superiors had told people to not use lifepod #13, because the AI was acting strangely. Did...the the semisentient AI from the ship somehow incubate itself into a true sentience on this dinky little lifepod before being quarantined from everything else? I scraped myself back to my hooves.

Got it in one, replied the surprisingly equine-sounding voice in my helmet, no longer resembling Celestia’s voice. Or any I’d ever heard, for that matter. They don’t like their AI giving them smack talk, so they locked me up. Surprised you even got in the lifepod.

So wait...exactly how did I talk to this AI? Did I just...think at it? That seemed a little weird, even for me. It was probably linked to the advanced monitoring equipment holed up somewhere in the pod. I shrugged and just talked into my helmet. “Not a whole lot of choice when the warplight drive is about to detonate ‘cause of a rupture in the antimatter drive core.”

Oh, so that’s what happened up there, mused the computer. I couldn’t really tell; cut off from the ship’s mother system. So the whole thing blew up?

“Mhmm.” My voice was becoming a little less ragged with use, and I resumed what I was doing, which, at this point, was simply walking to the exit.

Normally I’d caution you against going out there—I feel like I did, actually—but with the power cells going tick-tock as we speak, you don’t have a whole lot of choice.

“I got that, thanks,” I muttered bad-temperedly. I returned to the seat and tapped the display again, poking at it with a hooftip until I found the button that said Release Hatch. Pushing it did nothing, because that would’ve been far too easy, right? Well, not quite accurate to say that it did nothing at all. There was a clunking, grinding sound, and a brief beep, but the point was that the hatch remained closed. I touched it again; the same sound, the same beep. “Hey, computer. Anything going on outside?”

Hmm? Oh, yeah, there’s currently a massive duststorm raging around it. If it keeps going at its current pace the hatch will be buried within about ten minutes tops. I probably should’ve mentioned that.

I choke out a surprised sound. Well, that was one mystery solved; of course the hatch wouldn’t open with that on the other side. I needed a manual override.

I looked around for some time, only to find that there was no manual override in sight. Only about five minutes left until certain death. I looked down, only to suddenly realize something. “A manual override,” I breathed.

Huh?

That was as much as I heard before I slammed myself bodily into the hatch and it blasted open, tossing me out into the...sand? No, it was smooth and hard, a surface that, while largely neutralized by the suit, was still unpleasant to fall down on. I brushed some sand away, revealing something dark and glossy. Was it...glass? Right, of course. The impact force and heat would’ve liquefied the sand. It was already covered by a thin veneer of sand, but I could still feel the heat radiating off of it through my suit. After the dim, yet clean white interior of the lifepod, shot through with cyan blue in perfect order and, but for the voice of the AI, utterly silent, it was complete chaos. Through the winds beating me around—gale force winds, informed the AI, about 93kph—I managed to crawl my way a meter or so away from the lifepod, then struggled to a low standing position, not quite offering enough resistance to be toppled over. I looked up, and my breath caught in my throat. “...Oh.”

So...hang in there, I guess? You have approximately 1 hour and 14 minutes left before catastrophic power cell failure.

“Lovely,” I muttered, shuffling forward at an agonizingly slow pace. Scouring sands whipped against me with enough force that I could feel them, even through the suit. I had no doubt in my mind: if I hadn’t been wearing it, I would be blind, my skin would be raw, and I would be in incredible pain, and I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Sighing in frustration and general annoyance, I began the arduous trek up the shifting sides of the crater my landing had wrought. While the sand had been blasted away and it wasn’t deep, the harsh winds conspired with the thin sand over smooth glass to make walking a grueling ordeal. It was a long, shallow incline, perhaps a twenty degree angle, that stretched out for a good sixty or seventy feet in each direction.

On that note…

“Hey, computer,” I gasped out, “how big is this storm anyway?”

I’m going to say it’s somewhere around the 300 to 350 kilometer mark, though the only imaging satellite anywhere near Equus is at such an angle to the planet as to make exact calculation impossible.

My mouth dropped open. That big? I had no idea what part of it I was actually in, so I could be stuck in this thing anywhere from an hour to three, and I had no way of knowing exactly how long. A grueling trek of nearly fifteen minutes later, and I had escaped the confines of the crater. Without the small shelter that it had imposed, I was fully exposed to the brunt of the sandstorm. I could barely see my hooves in front of me, and I stumbled drunkenly off in whatever was NOT the direction of the lifepod-turned-bomb.

I gamely struggled on through the blizzard of sand, barely able to keep my traction as the capricious masses of sand and dust slid on a whim, shifting beneath me and all too often sending me rolling on the ground, where getting up before the sands could cover me over was a matter of life and death. The wind’s noise was a howling roar, a deep, throated sound that one would normally associate with a bear or something. It seemed hungry.

I’m not sure how far I went, but suddenly the AI spoke: Power cell detonation imminent; I recommend finding shelter. T-minus ten…nine...eight…

I suddenly wished for a unicorn horn instead of the wings that hung uselessly at my side. Trying to fly in this sort of brown wind would be tantamount to suicide. All I could do was put as much distance between myself and the blast as I could. I broke into as close to a gallop as I could come.

Seven...six...five...four…

I slipped on the shifting sands and fell, rolling down a long dune. As I reached the bottom, my helmet bashed into the ground with a hollow thud.

Three...two...one…

I don’t know what it was, but there wasn’t anything else to do. I pressed myself to the wall of the dune, closing my eyes.

Zero.

There was a brief moment of intense silence as I waited, holding my breath, peering over the ridge of the dune. The world was suddenly cast in a glare of blue light that hung silent in the air for the barest fraction of a second, visible even all this way away, even through the whirling, storming sands. It was beautiful, in a way; mana that had been compressed against itself releasing in a bloom of cerulean light that shot skyward with ferocity enough to rival a solar flare.

A second later, the sound hit me.

Boom

Though I was far enough that I couldn’t hear it particularly well, I could feel it well enough. The shockwave blew past me, sending me end over end. I cried out in surprise and swore as I tumbled down the dune. I’d thought I was well past the blast radius, but I’d forgotten to factor in the intact cell detonating along with the three damaged. I hadn’t quite left the area. Once again, the sheer durability of my suit saved me; my ears were ringing, but I was alive. And tumbling.

And as I reached the end of my tunnel, it stopped abruptly.

In fact, everything stopped abruptly.

That same dull, hollow thunk from before, followed by a crash, and then...darkness. Silence. The feeling of falling. A patch of dull brown receded from me as I plummeted down into blackness, the sandstorm above already an afterthought. Little chunks of wood—ancient, solid wood—hovered around me as I dropped. Everything around me was sheer, utter blackness. So black, perhaps, as to be called blank instead. It wasn’t so much the presence of darkness as the absence of everything. Computer yelped in fright. It continued to surprise me, sounding so like an equine.

Gone was the wind, gone was the sand, gone was the neverending howling. I absorbed all of this information in what felt like minutes, but was in reality only seconds, then flipped in the air, snapping out my wings and activating the lights on my suit’s helmet. I dove in a graceful swoop, and as I lay my hooves on solid ground again, they made a muted clank. I was on some sort of metal, and, looking around, I could tell: we were in a tunnel. A massive, tremendous tunnel, stretching beneath the surface of Equus.

I looked ahead, at the looming darkness, and considered: there could be anything in there. Ponies, sewer beasts, any manner of creatures. I shuddered despite myself; if dragon’s hadn’t been extinct long ago, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of going forward. And yet, as I looked up again at the blasting wind and scouring sand, the desert above me, I shook my head. This had to be better than up there.

I popped a hydrocap into my mouth, letting it cascade into a bulging mouthful as I broke the pressure seal, and crammed a chunk of tasteless, cardboard-y nutribrick after it. Then I put a hoof forward, beginning my walk into the dark of the tunnels.

This is a bad ideeeaaaa...said the AI nervously, no longer sounding—or looking, actually—anything like Celestia. She was bouncing on her virtually actualized hooves, looking quite concerned. It was rather cute, actually. I chuckled, and she glared darkly at me. I’m serious, you know. I don’t have any mapping functions in tunnels like this. I’m as blind as you are, and I’ve never been blind before.

I stopped chuckling. I hadn’t considered that before. She was new at this whole sentience thing, and she’d never been alone with a strange pony in a strange place without any assistance from satellites or system grids. I sighed. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “Just let me know if there are any signs of life, alright?”

She nodded her virtual self and blinked out, resuming her state as a blue dot in the bottom-left corner of my screen and leaving my field of vision clear. The tunnel I was in was, in a word, colossal. Even with the lights on my helmet, I still couldn’t quite see the top clearly; it was just a vague gray smudge. As I panned my vision down, I looked ahead instead of up, nerves jangling. The silence was broken only by my own echoing hoofsteps, rebounding off the walls and echoing away into black. It made it difficult to hear anything else; even if there had been somepony behind me, my own echo would drown out any sounds at all. Computer was silent. I assumed that was good news; if it started screaming at me, something bad was probably about to happen.

I had no idea what the tunnel was actually made of. It was some sort of dark, matte, dense metal. Gunmetal gray, if I had to name a shade. Lines of what looked like alumiglass ran along both sides, stretching out an unforeseeable distance. Probably old mana-fueled linelamps that burnt themselves out after ponies stopped feeding them magic. With some investigations from my wings, I’d discovered that the wood where I’d fallen in was likely an anomaly, a patch of some sort. The roof was just as metallic as the rest of it. The air was rather cool, from what I could feel through the suit, and dead still. The silence was still pressing down on me, simply by virtue of its sheer enormity. I’d never been anywhere so quiet but for my own hooves.

That, plus the darkness before and behind me gave me a distinct feeling of isolation. I felt like I was the pony on the world. I very nearly was, actually. More than that, I felt like the only pony in all existence. I was just beginning to grow a bit more relaxed when…

Hey! Equine bioform approaching rapidly from behind you! Heads up!

That was the last thing I heard before I found myself whipping around. The echo of my hoofsteps had done exactly as I’d thought, and had blocked me from any kind of audial cues. There, running at me headlong from out of the darkness, was a pony. I could barely tell what they looked like; they just moved so fast. One moment I was backtrotting, and the next I was pinned to the ground, visor rammed against the metal as a voice snarled into my suit’s ear:

“Going somewhere, dirt licker?”

As usual, the suit protected me from most of the trauma. It also broadcast quite clearly into my mind computer freaking out a bit. I couldn’t quite hear what it was saying over the voice coming from the pony, though.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take that suit off and give it to me.”

“Hang on,” I grunted out, to be rewarded with another smack of my head into the metal, the impact clanging around the tunnel for quite a long time. My voice grew more cross. Despite the lack of any real impact pain, the whiplash still hurt my neck. “Okay, that’s enough. Get off me.”

“Or what?” sneered the mare, “you’ll call your friends at VISTCo? By the time they get here there’ll only be sand left.” I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

“Look, you can’t do enough damage to really hurt me as long as I have this on,” I replied, my voice a perfect example of strained patience, “so why don’t you calm down and tell me a few things first?”

Boss… warned Computer. I ignored it as the mare started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped.

“You...you think I can’t hurt you?” she choked out through her laughter. “Sure, those VISTCo suits’ll keep you safe from the sand,” her laughter died and, with a brief telekinetic glow, she pulled the object off of her back, revealing a massive rifle, barrel glowing with eerie cyan light and pointed straight at my face, “but they damn sure won’t keep you safe from me. Now, the suit.”

I was loath to give up Computer, who was my only company down here on Equus. I hesitated for a moment. She looked like she knew how to use that cannon, and I don’t think I could evade those bolts. Computer piped up.

Hey, boss. I just had a thought.

I didn’t want to speak, and I needed to look like I was doing something, so I made a show of trying to pop the seal on the helmet and failing. It had the added benefit of quite a pronounced nod. It took it as a yes, and continued.

So, she wants the suit, and if you don’t give it to her you’re basically dead already. So, here’s the deal: give her the suit. When she puts it on, then I can do my thing, and she won’t be any position to shoot you after that.

My teeth clenched slightly. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best plan available. I sighed and, with a hiss-pop, actually disabled the seal, letting the helmet tumble to the ground. The light bounced away from me, down the tunnel. All I could see of the mare now was a faint illumination from the glow of the telekinetic magic still pointing an enormous gun at me.

After a grueling battle with the suit’s elastic properties, I stood before her, naked and shivering. The air down here really was cool. Less cool, actually, and more cold. She nodded sharply once, then scooped up the suit and shoved it into a pair of saddlebags, motioning at me with her gun towards the darkness where I’d been going. “Alright, dirt licker. Start walking.”

What else could I do?

I did as she asked, nerves taut. She hadn’t put on the suit. Computer hadn’t thought about that. Why would she want the suit, if not to wear it? I mused. My now-visible feathers ruffled in anxiety, and every second that I spent walking deeper into the guts of this vast tunnel took me further away from the surface. The fact that I now couldn’t see even three meters in front of me didn’t help any.

I honestly wasn’t sure how long I’d been walking when I realized there was a glow in front of me. A faint cyan luminescence, an island of blue light in the nothingness of blackness around us. The hoofsteps behind me sped up, and the mare drew level with me. Her eyes were wide with anticipation. As we crossed the threshold of the light, I saw that the linelights on the sides of the tunnel were lit up. Something was fueling them, which, from what I’d read, took a pretty impressive amount of magic to accomplish. The tunnel suddenly opened up into a wide, round room, from which sprang a series of three more tunnels. A vast hub, carved beneath the surface of Equus itself. The walls of this room were spiderwebbed with more linelights, and the pale blue glow they cast on everything stunned me. I’d seen some examples of magic in the past—the manabatteries that the lifepods ran on, a few oddities on Planet D, the old compression process for warplight—but unicorns, real living unicorns, weren’t all too common where I came from. The few I had met had done some basic spells occasionally, things like telekinesis. Their horns were shriveled and almost nonfunctional. The atmosphere of Equus Nova didn’t quite have the same relationship with magic as this Equus, so it wasn’t friendly to younger unicorns, the ones that hadn’t had time to develop a completely closed magical circuit. I’d never seen anything like this. I’d only ever seen alumiglass linelamps in history books.

In the corner was the presumable source of the magic that fueled the lights. Half a dozen power cells, of a much older and mismatched variety than the ones that ran the systems of the lifepod, were stuck together, jammed into a series of jacks in the wall. They were coated in dust; I could tell they hadn’t been disturbed in quite some time. The readouts on them were a deep amber; one of them had no readout at all. I could tell they didn’t have a whole lot of juice left in them. Despite my circumstances, I was fascinated; what would this pony do after the lights went out?

In addition to the batteries, there were trappings of life in this hub: a small bed in the corner, a chest of drawers, a little hydroponic platform with a few leaves poking out of the likely-artificial soil.

The mare trotted past me, ignoring me utterly and levitating the suit and helmet out of her bags. Then, after heaving a sigh, she turned back to me. “Alright, dirt licker. Start talking. What are you doing here?” Now that I could see her clearly, she was almost the same gray as her suit, with a brilliant green mane and eyes of the same emerald shade.

My ear twitched; I was really getting sick of her calling me a dirt licker. “Well, I fell down a dune in the sandstorm on the surface and—”

She waved a hoof, face writ in irritation. “No, no. Not here, in the tunnels. Here, on Equus. You VISTCo ponies don’t belong on this planet.

“Oh.” Swallowing down my confusion and frustration, I did my best to respond reasonably. “My jumpship’s warplight drive failed catastrophically about three hundred kilometers outside of Equus’ gravity well, and my lifepod’s thrusters were down. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do to avoid coming here.” I bit back an extra snide remark, and waited for her reply.

She stared at me for a moment, then sighed, rubbing a hoof on her temple. “Celestia,” she muttered to herself, “he didn’t even mean to get here?” Another sigh, this one heavier. “Look, here’s the deal: we don’t like ponies from VISTCo very much around here, and they don’t like us. They have this...thing about unicorns.” My ears perked up, and I frowned. I didn’t like the sound of that; there was a lot I didn’t know about the company I’d taken this job for. She went into no further detail about it, though. I would have to ask her more in the future, as long as she didn’t try to kill me. “So I’m going to keep this suit of yours, make sure you don’t call any reinforcements. You got two options: one, you can stay here, live in the tunnels like pretty much everypony else still here.”

I interrupted, curiosity still acting up. “What are these tunnels, by the way? I’ve never heard of a tunnel network underneath Equus.”

She chuckled, but there was no mirth in it, no warmth. “Most ponies haven’t. Why do you think we’re still alive?” A sigh. “Honestly? We have no idea where they came from. There were just...here. We don’t know how long they’ve been here, but it’s a long time; they were here when we hadn’t invented warplight travel. They were just hiding really, really far underground. Once this place went desert, all the erosion brought them closer to the surface. Guess it was only a matter of time.”

“ANYWAY,” she continued, glaring at me for my interruption, “you can live in the tunnels. There aren’t a lot of plants or anything, but there are enough jerry-rigged hydroponics rigs for us to scrape by.” She shrugged. “It’s not bad, once you get used to it.”

“The other option is try to get out of here, and I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one. Last time anypony around here saw a warplight drive was before the exodus. Trust me, we’ve tried. There might be one or two more hidden somewhere in these tunnels, but we’re pretty sure they go all around the world, so it’ll be a long time before you find anything. If ever.”

I swallowed. Neither of those options sounded particularly enjoyable. Still, I didn’t want to live in tunnels for the rest of my life. I swallowed. “As tempting as the offer to live underground forever is, I think I’m going to try to get out of here.”

She shrugged again. “Suit yourself.” She pulled out an oily cloth from her saddlebags and started polishing her rifle. I frowned.

“Where did you get that kind of gun?”

She looked at me curiously. “Found it in the tunnels. It’s not particularly advanced, but it serves. Why?”

“Not a lot of guns where I’m from,” I explained. “The Guard has them, but they’re about the only ones that are allowed to. I’ve never actually seen one up close.”

She snerked. “Seriously, you let them get away with that?”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s peace, isn’t it?” I asked rhetorically.

She laughed again. This time, it wasn’t just lacking warmth; it was actively cold. “Peace? Is that what you want? I should’ve just shot you already.”

My brain froze. “What?”

She shook her head, long green mane waving. “What’s the point of peace without freedom?”

As soon as it became apparent she wasn’t actually going to shoot me, I looked at her steadily. “What’s the point of freedom without peace?”

She stuck out her hoof. “Good answer. I’m Tunnel Dasher, but I hate how long that is so call me Tash.”

I met it with a greeting hoofbump. “Quick Fix.” One one hoof, it was somewhat odd to be hoofbumping someone who pretty much just kidnapped me at gunpoint, but on the other, I’d take that over being shot any day.

She nodded and levitated a few supplies over into her saddlebags, including the suit. “Alright, let’s get going.”

“What?” I replied, confused.

“You didn’t think I was gonna let you fumble around these tunnels alone, did you?” she answered. “Pretty much everything down here is going to want you dead, ponies and otherwise. Plus, I need to make sure you don’t have some other way to contact VISTCo until you’re off planet.”

I sighed. “So I assume that means you’re not going to give me my SCL suit back?”

She smirked. “Do I look stupid?”

I bit back the snide response and sighed. It wasn’t as though I could tell her that there was a sentient AI self-contained in the circuitry of the suit’s helmet. If I did, Computer would probably be either isolated for experimentation, or simply destroyed. If Tash was anything to go by, the ponies around here weren’t overly fond of the tech propagated by Veritas. I would just have to take it from her later. I shivered again. “Can I at least have one of those jumpsuits or something? It’s pretty cold down here.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll get used to it. Now stop whining and let’s go.” With that said, she took off down another one of the colossal tunnels. My teeth clenched. Spreading my wings in the still air, I darted after her.

“Where are we going?”

She looked back at me over her shoulder as I overtook her. “I dunno. You’re the one who wants to go adventuring.” My snout wrinkled at her tone. “I just decided to go into this tunnel. Problem?”

I flapped ahead of her. “You’re the one with problems,” I muttered.

A few minutes of slow flying later, the linelights petered out and we entered darkness once again. “Tash,” I said from the ground in front of her. I’d never liked flying without being able to see. “In the pouch on that suit you took from me, there’s a flashlight. You want to get that out for me?”

“Sure,” she replied, digging into her saddlebag. “I thought I felt something lumpy in there.” After sorting through the assorted objects in the bag and distributing each of us a few hydrocaps and a fragment of nutribrick, she tossed me the flashlight. I flicked the switch on, squinting as the world once again burst into existence in front of me. The tunnels were the same, though I wasn’t much expecting anything else. Something suddenly caught my focus.

“Hey, Tash,” I said, voice echoing off of the walls into forever, “you said there were tunnels like this underneath the entire world.” It wasn’t a question; I knew she’d said it. I just wanted to know what she meant.”

“Mhmm,” she replied. “Big experimental warplight core went boom, blew open a huge hole in one of the tunnels. Must’ve been two or three kilometers down. Since then, we’ve been trying to eke out a living down here. No picnic, let me tell you.” By the end, her voice has dropped into a dark mutter. “Last I checked, I’ve found interconnecting tunnels underneath pretty much every hundred square kilometers.”

That was interesting; not “we” in that last bit. “You, specifically?” I asked.

“Mhmm.” She seemed to say that a lot. “I’ve been trying to chart the tunnels. Not easy without any light. I’ve gone a long way.” Now that I thought about it, she did look rather muscular underneath the jumpsuit.

We lapsed into silence again as we walked forward into the darkness.

a.l. #002 - Network

ALR 662 - Audio Log #002 - Network

I was still shivering as Tash and I walked. It had been several hours, and she'd taken it upon herself to turn off the flashlight to save power. "I know these parts of the tunnels like the bottom of my hoof," she assured me. "That hub where we stopped off is where I was born." I didn't protest; she was right. The flashlight did have limited battery behind it, and underground, there wasn't any way to hook it to a solar recharger. I might've been able to recharge form some of the mana that was burning off back in Tash's hub, but at that point, I was actively avoiding being shot, so the battery of my flashlight—which was pretty much full at that point, anyway—wasn't high on my list of priorities.

So far, we hadn't come across any more ponies, nor active linelights. Not for the first time, I wished I had my helmet back. If not for Computer, then just so I could see again. The emptiness was getting to me, and I couldn't help but try to make conversation. Clearly, the same wasn't true for Tash; she seemed totally at ease. Made sense; this had been her life, and she'd spent all her waking moments in this darkness.

"So, Tash," I began, my chattering teeth fumbling a little over my words, "you said you were born down here. Are there any ponies that still live on the surface, or is everypony underground now? And for that matter, how many ponies still live down here? How many have you met?"

She grunted. "I've met somewhere between ten and twelve, pretty sure there are about a hundred total. Maybe more, but how should I know? Couple crazy old ponies still try to live up there, old cities on the surface and stuff. A few of them are still pretty intact, but there aren't really any good sources of water or anything." A few hours back, we'd found what looked like a water feed; a little trickle of water poured out of the wall, coming from some unseen underground source, and pooled at our hooves. It had been a welcome supplement, and the fact that we didn't need to use any of the hydrocaps was quite the morale booster. There was a very limited supply of those, especially for two ponies instead of one. "I think the only reason those ponies don't come down here is because they can't stand leaving the light." Her tone made it pretty clear what she thought of them, and I winced.

"Speaking of light," I said, abruptly changing the subject, "where do you think we would have the greatest luck finding some sort of warplight drive around here?"

"By not looking around here. If we're gonna get you any sort of ship, you're gonna need to get up to the surface again. That's where we're headed. There's an old access—" she paused suddenly. I wasn't sure, being unable to see and all, but it seemed like an appropriate time to cock your head. Her hoofsteps stopped, and I followed suit, squinting ahead. In the darkness of the tunnel, there were a few lines of blue light far in front of us, and a single bright blue dot that shined out of the shadow.

I frowned. In the distance, rapidly approaching, I could hear something walking. It wasn't a pony, though; I'd never heard that kind of gait. I didn't know what it was—probably related to the blue lights—but I was immediately tackled to the side by Tash and rammed into an adjacent tunnel. "Don't move," she hissed. "Do you best to not breathe, and hope to Celestia it didn't see us. Damn it all, I was hoping we wouldn't run into a walker." The world lit up briefly as she levitated her gun off of her back, then it went dark again.

Cl-cl-cl-cl-click

My jaw clenched. Whatever that thing was, it was getting closer. I could see a watery, faint blue light in the other tunnel, growing brighter with each cl-cl-cl-cl-click. In the faint glow, I could see Tash. Her jaw was just as tight as mine, and her eyes were narrowed. Her entire body was a spring ready to snap. Whatever was making the sound was getting closer. I didn't know what a walker was, but it sounded highly unpleasant. I braced as the cl-cl-cl-cl-click passed the corner.

Whatever I expected, that wasn't it. What it was was enough to give me nightmares for days afterwards.

It was a small sphere, maybe a bit larger than my head, the same gray as the tunnel around us. Little glassy eyes covered it from every angle, slowly swiveling as they absorbed the confined world around it. It was maybe five meters above us, contained in a frame that allowed free rotation. The frame was suspended there from five long, spindly stilts that looked like they were made of something similar to the tunnel. The outer surfaces of these 'legs' were covered in linelight, the source of that pallid glow being cast down the tunnel. Other than the clicking it made as it walked across the hard floor, it was perfectly silent.

Suddenly, the clicking stopped. The walker stopped its motion, standing dead still.

I heard a muffled "buck" from Tash, and then the spherical head rotated towards us, revealing a single eye larger than the others, glowing bright blue from condensed manaflow. I sat there, almost mesmerized. A muted vreeeem sound began to build, slowly escalating in pitch to the point where it hurt my ears.

"Buck it, Quick, move! Don't just sit there!"

Tash's shout knocked me out of my stupor and I bolted to the side. Immediately after—less than a second—a pulse of blue energy came from the eye, scorching its way into the floor where I'd been sitting. The air filled with the burnt-bread smell of raw mana, and the area fizzed with blue lightning for a moment before going dark again.

"What in Tartarus is that thing?" I gasped out.

"Walker," Tash replied tersely. Helpful. "It's a sentry, we think. They've been down in these tunnels as long as I can remember. Damn hard to kill, and no matter how many you kill there are always more." Another sizzling bolt of frothing mana burned its way toward me, and I barely managed to dodge it. Taking the opportunity, Tash rolled under another bolt, then armed her rifle, pointing it at the...thing...and squeezing off a few shots. The arcing blue energy skated off of the walker, harmlessly dissipating against the cold gray shell. Swearing, she kept firing at it to little effect.

All I could do was keep dodging. Anything useful I had would be in Tash's saddlebags and she was too busy to be bothered to open them.

Wait. Never mind. She was a unicorn.

"Tash!" I called. "In my suit pocket there's a plasma cutter! Can you toss that to me!"

"In case you didn't notice," she ground out in between shots, blowing out one of the walker's glassy eyes, "I'm a bit busy!" Still, she complied, pulling an object out and tossing it over to me with her telekinetic glow. I gripped the familiar handle of...my flashlight.

"Damnit, Tash! I asked for a plasma, not a flashlight!"

Somehow, among all of this, I managed to see her rolling her eyes. "I've lived my entire life underground! I have no idea what this 'plasma cutter' thing is, and I'm currently fighting a giant bucking robot!"

Hmm. Well, she had a point there.

I ran over to her and yanked the suit bodily out of her saddlebags, depositing it haphazardly on the ground as I yanked the cutter out and pulled the trigger experimentally. It sparked to life, a stream of white-hot plasma spilling out of the nozzle right on cue. I nodded to myself, steeled myself, and took to the still tunnel air, diving straight towards the thing.

"Quick!" I heard Tash yell, "what in Celestia's name are you doing?"

I gritted my teeth as the plasma cutter came into contact with one of the stilted legs. "I'm making some repairs!" The torch skated harmlessly off the mysterious substance, and I grimaced before trying for another, slower pass.

A scalpel-precise blade, razor-keen and needle-sharp, darted at me, forcing me back and sending me tumbling to the ground. Turns out those luminous legs weren't just for walking and light. Whatever this thing was made of—the same stuff as the tunnel, I thought—I wouldn't be able to get through it with a plasma cutter without at least a few minutes of constant contact. I rolled out of the way of the questing leg, bobbing and weaving and desperately trying to avoid being impaled on the leg. I slipped, and it crashed down a few centimeters from my face, my eyes widening in panic. It snapped into precise focus; I could see how the linelight was integrated into the leg in such a way that it wouldn't interfere with any of the blades, how the inside edge of the slightly-curved stabbing point was covered in hair-thin serrations. It raised the leg again, and I scrabbled for some traction, yet found none. The lethal tip gleamed dully in the blue light, and I realized that I was about to die.

Suddenly, the giant construct let out a sound I would call a digital scream as a bolt of blue energy from Tash's gun blasted into its main eye. It staggered back, legs flailing and clicking against the floor as arcs of blue light crackled across the lens. As it recovered, another blast of light striking it just a few centimeters from the eye, it turned back to her and the vreeeem sound started again before being interrupted by a blast of feedback from the still-crackling lens. It abandoned the idea of shooting her, and instead, recovering from its momentary distraction, bore down on her, skittering on three legs with two raised in front of it like crab claws.

Tash stood perfectly still, the sweat on her brow visible from where I was rapidly hauling myself to my hooves. She sighted down her rifle's barrel as the walker approached her. Then, with an exhalation so loud I could hear it above the clicking of metal claws, she pulled the trigger as a leg descended towards her at flickering speed.

There was the muted thump of a mana pulse coming into contact with an object, and the walker seized up, then crumpled to the ground, eyes going dark. The linelights began dimming, and I could hardly catch Tash wiping her face off, stowing the gun on her back. "Finally got it," she groused. I noticed in almost-shock that the main eye, the one it used to fire its energy blasts that I was pretty sure had left scorch marks on the tunnel walls, was cracked in two, leaking some kind of milky fluid. "Hurry up and start running. I only stunned it; takes a lot more than that to kill it. We've got five minutes tops before it gets up, and we want to be a long way away." She dashed off, galloping deeper into the tunnels.

Well, hard to argue with that. I scooped up the suit from the tunnel floor and ran after her echoes, deeper into the darkness that now seemed ever more oppressive. "How could it chase us?" I panted. "You broke its eye!"

She replied from the darkness ahead of me. "If only. That stuff coming out of its eye? Cocktail of nanomachines or something. That eye was well on its way to up-and-running by the time we booked it out of there. Those damn things are built to last."

I took to wing, following her hoofsteps in the darkness and hoping desperately that by the time the walker got up, we would be long, long gone.

At this point, I was jumping at everything. Every strange sound seemed to me like the dreaded cl-cl-cl-cl-click of another walker, and I was generating enough clicks on my own with my chattering teeth. I'd tried to put the SCL suit on again, but Tash had caught on pretty quick and yanked it out of my comparatively-clumsy hooves with a quick burst of magic. The fact that it was going to waste was really beginning to frustrate me, especially since there was no communications equipment in the suit itself, just the helmet. She stubbornly refused to believe me, deciding instead on keeping it uselessly in her saddlebags.

And that's when another sound announced itself. This time, it was a low hum, constant in pitch and constant in volume, only growing louder as we drew closer to the source. I tensed up, and my hoofsteps grew tighter, faster. Tash turned to me (I think) and tried to assuage my fears. "No worries. This isn't a walker or anything, it's always been here. This is the main computer bank of the tunnels. We've never been able to get it working, so it's mostly just for sightseeing."

I didn't really believe her; everything in these tunnels so far seemed pretty hostile. I didn't respond, other than with a noncommittal grunt, and she sighed, turning with a shuffle of hooves. "Fine, suit yourself. Get all riled up over nothing."

I did just that. Turns out she was right: as we approached the source of the humming, the linelights in the walls began to flicker with life as they entered a magically-powered area. I squeezed my eyes shut; after the nothingness of darkness for hours, it was legitimately painful to even look at the dim light of the barely-functional linelights. As we continued on, they grew brighter and more stable, until we reached the source: true to Tash's word, a large bank of huge computer systems. I didn't recognize the make. Tash had mentioned that they'd never been able to get them to work; I could only assume that they were developed by the original creators of the tunnels.

As we passed a small terminal embedded in the wall—at least I assumed it was a terminal, though it was also largely unfamiliar to me—

Beep

The humming suddenly increased in volume, sounding like a hive of bees that had just been angered.

Tash and I both froze, looked at each other, and then looked at the terminal. The sheet of black metal had revealed itself as a screen, upon which only one thing was written, in the same monotonous mana-cyan that had, at one point, lit the entire tunnel system:

"Please activate genetic scanner for access."

Tash had paled noticeably. "This has never happened," she muttered faintly. "What's happening?"

With a shunk sound, a small panel opened underneath the monitor, and a surface with a tiny needle upon it extended outwards toward us. Tash walked hesitantly forward, pricking her hoof on the needle. With the same sound, the platform returned to the computer. After a moment, more words scrolled across the screen:

"Genetic material incompatible. Access denied."

She sighed, deflating. "What a bust. I've never seen this thing turn on."

After a brief time, the screen cleared back to the initial message and the platform extended again. I didn't really think it would result in anything, but on a lark, I pricked my hoof. The pain faded almost instantly, and the platform shot back into the computer. I stared at it with some form of detached interest. I'd never seen anything quite like this. Sure, there'd been some interest in genetics back on Hooftauri D, but never any kind of identification or security, at least not that I'd seen.

"Genetic material within permissible range. Welcome, Architect."

As one, our eyes shot wide and our mouths dropped open. A strangled "what?" came out of Tash, and the screen lit up, phantom images of incomprehensible systems fanning out for meters in every direction. They were all different; holographic computer images, displayed in concert with each other. Maps, they looked like; maps of the tunnels, at least for a little ways. A tiny blip in the corner pulsed for a moment, and I frowned; wasn't that familiar?

Hello? Anyone out there?

My mouth dropped open again. I knew that digitized voice. "Computer?" I asked, barely able to believe it.

Quick Fix? Is that you? What happened? Where are you? For that matter, where am I? Its voice was a mixture of concern and fright. I wasn't particularly surprised; since the helmet wasn't active, it was unable to do much of anything, really.

"We're still in the tunnels. You're in...well, an ancient computer bank," I finished awkwardly.

"Alright, hang on." Tash cut in, voice rough. "What on Equus is going on?"

I sighed. Might as well spill it now. It wasn't as though Tash could destroy Computer now. "Tash, meet the Starjumper's onboard computer, mutated into a fully sentient AI program. It lives—or, well, lived—in the helmet of my suit. Somehow, I guess it jumped out into the other terminal." I gestured, not that it added anything. "It's the reason I wanted to keep my suit on."

Her eyes had steadily widened throughout the exchange, and now they were threatening to pop right out of their sockets. "You mean this thing," she pulled the helmet out of a saddlebag, her eyes flickering between it and the holographs that now adorned the entire wall in front of us, "has a...pony in it?"

"In so many words, yeah," I replied lamely.

Huh. Never considered myself a pony before, but I can see it. So wait, you said I jumped to some ancient computer or something?

I nodded. "Apparently these tunnels have been here for as long as anypony can remember, way under the surface. Nopony knows exactly who or what made them, but I'm pretty sure they've been here a while." Something suddenly struck me. "Hey, Tash?" I asked. "Are there other computers like this anywhere in the tunnels?"

"Yeah, but none of them have turned on," she responded.

"Then I guess Computer jumping through turned it on." I turned back to the wallscreen, which, to my surprise, had reconfigured part of itself into a life-sized image of a mare. I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Computer! Warn me before you're going to do that!"

She grimaced. Computer isn't really a name, is it? I'm sentient; I think. I'm basically a pony in that sense, so shouldn't I have a name?

That took me off-guard. "I, um, yeah?"

Hmm. Her digital countenance suddenly grinned. Tera Byte! You can call me Tera Byte.

Suppressing the pun-fueled groan that was itching to burst from me, I shrugged and turned to Tash. She did the same. "Tera Byte it is. Oh, and by the way, this is Tunnel Dasher. Just call her Tash. She's the pony that whacked me when I first got down here."

Yeah, I figured. Not that it would be very hard to. Her image squinted as I frowned crossly. Wait...is that a unicorn horn? Like, a real one? The ones from history, not those stubby little things they have in Hooftauri?

Tash nodded, grinning despite herself. "I'm not one of those unicorns you see in the other systems. I'm a real Equus-born unicorn!"

Huh. Interesting! I like it! Her forehead shimmered, and a horn appeared on it. She admired herself for a moment. It isn't functional, but it looks nice!

I was surprised; I'd assumed that Tash would've immediately disliked Com—Tera, simply by virtue of her being made by VISTCo. When I asked her about it, she responded with, "yeah, she might've started as a VISTCo pet. She's as much a pony as you or me now, though. Not my place to take that away from her."

Anyway, now that the pleasantries were over, it was time to get down to brass tacks. "So, Tera," I began, "can you find any files in there on what these tunnels are? Who made them?"

Her image shrugged. I can't even understand most of this. It's written in a language that I've never seen before. I think I translated the stuff you read before into Equus so you could actually read it, but the further I go into the files the more confused I get. All I can really find is the word Architect. She frowned. No files on the language, either, or I could just learn it real quick." The holographic images circled around her. That terminal was clearly more advanced than just a regular monitor, with some sort of interface that let ponies use it directly without the need for clumsy tools like keyboards. "Looks like there might be some more details further down in the tunnels, but I can't get there from here. You'll need to bring me there directly. There's a bunch of sealed doors in the way, though.

That reminded me of something. "The computer said that my genetic code was...oh, what was it...within permissible error or something? And that Tash's wasn't. You know what's up with that?"

She shook her head. Nothing doing. I know that's what got you into the system, but I have no idea what makes your genetics any different from hers. As far as I know you're both Equus equus, and I don't have the means to look at any real variances in your genes. The way this mainframe does it is in a way different form to anything I've ever seen before.

"Well, it's been interesting, Tera," said Tash, "but we were about to head up to an access hatch to the surface, see if we could find an old warplight craft or something."

Tera shook her head. The access door near here is sealed. Looks like it happened recently, but something's blocked it off.
You can really only go deeper at this point.

Tash swore. "Seriously? That's the only access door for hundreds of kilometers. Guess you're really stuck down here now, Quick." Her voice carried a note of apology, and I sighed.

"It's fine. Let's just go deeper. Maybe somepony carried something down into here a long time ago, who knows."

"Yeah, maybe." She didn't sound convinced.

Hey, Tash. Give Quick back his suit. I have a schematic of the tunnels in here, I can display it to his helmet and it'll make it easier for me to go with you.

Grumbling, Tash relinquished my SCL suit. I slid it on, and shivered in satisfaction as the freezing air was rapidly heated by my body heat, banishing my trembling. I popped the helmet over my head, and had the comforting feeling of the heads-up display once again. A glowing blue line, not dissimilar in appearance to the linelight, superimposed itself over the floor, leading off into the darkness of the tunnel back in the direction we came from.

I've given you the most direct route to the door closest, I think, to the deep computer bank with the linguistic files, Tera said, her voice once more coming from the speakers in the helmet. No mapping data for what's past the door, though. Assuming you can even find a way through it, once you get through there, you're on your own.

"What's she saying?" asked Tash, clearly disliking being out of the loop. I pointed into the tunnel.

"She gave me the fastest route to the door closest to the big computer system," I responded. "It looks like it's going to take some time to get down there. You up for coming with me? You seem like you're pretty curious about this whole tunnel thing."

Before I'd even finished speaking, she was nodding. "Count me in. This is my first real chance to find out what this place really is, and I've lived in it since I was born. You couldn't stop me coming if you tried."

I like her, said Tera. She seems like the kind of pony you'd want on your side.

I thought back to the fight against the walker, and how her managun had paralyzed the mechanical monstrosity. "Yes," I muttered back, "yes she does."

Tash tilted her head in confusion. "Huh?"

I waved a hoof absently. "I was talking to Tera. Anyway. We should get going, right?" Tash nods, and I began to follow the blue line, walking back out into the darkness. Into, what I remembered with a shudder, was the direction the walker was in. Lovely. I flicked the headlamps on, and spoke into my helmet, "If anything moves, you let me know."

The high beams illuminated the tunnel. Sure thing, boss. Anything in particular?

"Ponies," I began, "and massive death robots with five legs made of blades that'll try to kill us on sight."

There was a brief moment of silence, and then: Wow. How much excitement did I miss?

"With any luck, you won't have to find out."

Killjoy.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I grumped. "Next time I have to try to fight a massive death robot, I'll make sure you don't miss the action!"

"Shut up, Quick. This is going to take some getting used to," chimed in Tash, a ghost of a smile clinging to her face. "Not to mention I'm the one that did most of the fighting anyway."

Snnnnrkk!

"Who knew," I deadpanned. "Turns out AIs can laugh too." Privately, I was impressed at just how like a real pony Tera was acting. Given that only a few days ago (I thought; time could get a little bit weird down in the tunnels) she was acting pretty much the same as the Starjumper's onboard AI, her casual needling at me was both unexpected and rather welcome. It was certainly more exciting than hearing a computer recite facts and figures. It was a shame Tash couldn't hear her as well.

Actually, now that I thought about it, didn't the suits have some sort of speaker function on the outside for communication in low-air or toxic environments? "Hey, Tera. Can you turn on the external speakers?"

Yeah, for sure. Her voice began to echo, and I realized it was bouncing back and forth off the walls of the tunnels. Tash jumped, looking around like she'd just heard somepony dying.

"Celestia!" she hissed, teeth clenched together. "Let me know when you're going to do that! I swear, if that thing brings a walker down on us, I'm going to ram your skull into the wall so hard they'll hear the pop in the Horsehead system!"

I shrugged, unfazed, and rolled my eyes. "Sure, like Tera is any louder than our own hoofsteps. She's the quietest one of us, and we need her to get down to the deep bank."

Also, chimed in Tera, I've been completely alone since I became self-aware. I need some kind of interaction, right?

"Oh, boo-hoo," said Tash crossly. "I've been alone for almost my entirely life too, and unlike you, I'm not functionally immortal!"

Huh?

Right, Tera hadn't been there to hear that. "Tash was born down in these tunnels," I cut into their spat. "She's been down her her entirely life. Now shut up, we have better things to worry about. Tera, you said that the only word you really recognized was 'architect'?"

Her avatar on my screen nodded. Yeah, that's right. Only reason I knew it was that it's the exact same word in proto-Equid, and it uses a an alphabet similar enough for me to understand a few words. Not quite the same, though, and pretty much all the other words are different.

Huh. That was interesting. "Proto-Equid?" echoed Tash.

The language ponies used way back in the beginning, before real Equus was was created, replied Tera. The fact that the same word shows up in each is pretty interesting. I really want to find out more about these Architects, what they were doing here, where they came from.

I shivered again, though this time it had nothing to do with the cold. It was eerie; these tunnels, these giant, silent tunnels that had been here for centuries, probably even millennia; what did they have to do with proto-Equid? It put some implications out there that weren't entirely comforting: had these..."Architects" talked with us when we were first using proto-Equid and assimilated it? If so, then why wasn't there any mention of that in any of the histories I'd read? I'd read almost all of them, at least the ones that I'd had access to on Hooftauri D, and there'd never been a mention of any creatures that called themselves Architects. Or, going even further down the rabbit hole, did they bring proto-Equid to us? Where did the language come from, anyway? What were they the Architects of? Of the tunnels? That seemed fairly obvious, but was that it, or did the term go deeper, go further back than merely making the tunnels?

I turned to ask Tash something-or-other, and caught her staring wide-eyed, right at me. Upon seeing me, she jumped a little, then turned away. I frowned. "Tash?"

"What?" Her response was practically a snarl, reminiscent of the first time I'd heard her speak.

"Where you...staring at me?"

She harrumphed, turning away and not looking at me. "No! I was...looking at your helmet..."

"What?"

She whipped around, snapping at me. "I've never seen white light not on the surface, okay? It's weird to see the tunnels, and I'm not sure I like it! If you weren't such a dirt licker, maybe we wouldn't need it at all!"

Well. I wasn't quite expecting that. I'd never even considered the fact that spending her entire life exploring tunnels in darkness might make her more sensitive to light. I mentally berated myself for my lack of insight, then, as a show of good faith, reached up and flicked the head lights off, plunging the tunnels once more into shadow.

Immediately, I heard Tash's sigh of relief, and Tera laughed lightly. It didn't echo, so I was fairly sure it was within my helmet. You gentlecolt, you!

"Oh, shut up," I whispered back, bad-tempered.

I heard a muted "thanks" from Tash, and nodded, trying to ignore the patterns of light that immediately began playing over my vision in the darkness, instead focusing on the bright blue line that still led away from me, cutting a path through the black abyss.

Then, abruptly, the line came to an end and Tash stopped moving. I continued, and was rewarded with a smacking sound as my helmet rammed into a wall. Backing up a bit, I looked in front of me, but was unable to discern anything. Muttering a brief apology to Tash, I flicked the light on again, not quite ready to be in total darkness quite yet, and was rewarded with a colossal circular door in front of me, filling the whole tunnel, stretching up past the range of light from my helmet. In the center, barely visible from where I was standing, there was a dim blue glow inscribing some form of symbol, casting a tiny light across the monolithic vault.

Well, said Tera, we're here.

a.l. #003 - Doorways

ALR 662 - Audio Log #003 - Doorways

Tash and I spent a good long while just...looking at the monolithic door. It was truly an impressive specimen of doorkind; perhaps two hundred meters tall, and perfectly round. It was interspersed with ridges like ancient plate armor that centered at the bottom, making it thinner down by where we were. In the very center, pointing straight down, was a hair-thin seam. It looked like once it was opened, it would retract upwards from both sides until only a quarter of a circle was left, pointing downwards. In the center of the door, the symbol gleamed a brilliant blue; it looked like something that I'd seen when the computer was launching, though I couldn't be sure:

"I've been here before," Tash said softly. "It's like that computer bank. Nopony's ever been able to get it open. I don't know what's behind it. I've only seen a few of them across the whole network of tunnels." She shrugged. "Next one is what, six hundred kilometers away? At least?"

Absorbing that little nugget of information and filing it away for later use, I took to wing, darting up to the symbol and putting my hoof against it, frowning. It wasn't a linelight. I had no idea what it was. The surface was seamless. It was like the metal itself was glowing. I didn't know if magic could do that, but if it could, I'd never seen it. After these tunnels, I wouldn't be surprised. It was set on a (compared to the rest of the door, at least) small-diameter disc set into the huge blockage. As far as I was able to tell, it would be the door's hinge, the point on which the rest of the door rotated back and upwards.

"Anything on this, Tera?"

Sorry, nothing. I mean, I'm seeing a lot of that glyph, but nothing particularly meaningful. It's probably just a chunk of whatever alphabet or logography they use. Used. There was a muted sound of surprise from her. Huh. I can still access the computer's mainframe from down here. There must be some sort of linking network throughout these tunnels. Now we just need to get the rest of the damn things working. That's worth remembering. But back on topic, no. I got nothing for the door. There's an image of the door and a bunch of text, but I can't read it, so it's not really useful.

Nothing happened from poking the symbol a few times, so I sighed and descended back to the floor, rejoining Tash. "I'm not getting anything, and Tera's in the same boat."

She shrugged. "Why not try that cutter thing you have?"

I paused. "That's...a really good idea. Give me a second." I yanked out the plasma cutter and checked the power compulsively. Still solid at about seventy percent. More than enough to slash a big hole through metal. Walking up to the door and firing the torch up, I suddenly realized something, and subsequently powered the plasma down. Tash noticed.

"What's up, Quick? Why'd ya stop?"

I gestured to the door. "Look at the size of this thing. It's...well, it's absolutely massive. If it was thin enough for this little personal cutter to get through, there's no way it could support its own weight. It's probably..." I gave the door a once-over, "...five meters thick here, minimum. Probably more. Definitely more higher up. Maybe—maybe—I could get through with an industrial-strength hardcutter from Hooftauri D. This thing's designed to cut through plate plasteel, tops. It has no chance against this kind of structure." I tucked the cutter back into the bag. I promise you'll get used soon, I told it mentally.

Tash and I stood in silence at the base of the door, trying to figure out some way through it, for a good few minutes. She eventually sighed. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Turn that thing off," she motioned roughly at the helmet's light array, "and get some sleep. We're both tired, and we're probably not thinking as well as we could be."

I nodded, sighing heavily, and reached up to my head, flicking the lights off and plunging the world into darkness once more. The only light was the blue shimmer of the symbol; it was like a night-light, in a way. I heard a gentle, fading hum as Tera powered down, going into sleep mode. Easy for her to do. Tossing and turning, I grunted in frustration, punching the ground with a hoof to be met with a muted clank. Over an hour passed, and yet I still couldn't sleep. How am I supposed to get comfortable?

That, of course, got me thinking. I rolled over, turning to where I'm pretty sure Tash was lying—quite comfortably, it seemed—on the metallic ground. "Hey, Tash."

"Mmmmfffrggg," she replied. "Shu' up."

But now my curiosity was piqued. I propped myself up on one foreleg. "You live alone, right?"

She gave up being asleep and sighed. "Yeah. Why? Where are you going with this?"

"Why?" I asked, becoming more and more curious the more I thought about it. "Where are your parents? You seem pretty smart too, despite growing up in a tunnel. How?"

She was silent, and I suddenly realized how intrusive I'd been. "I mean," I desperately backtracked, "you don't—"

"They're dead. My parents, I mean. Walker got Dad when I wasn't more than fifteen, probably less, and some of the other ponies killed Mom for...well, they killed her." She shifted. "Mom and Dad—they were smart ponies. Scientists. They made a lot of the stuff I have that I didn't scavenge from the tunnels. Things like the hydroponics, my thermal suit...Mom made them, mostly. She was good with her hooves and horn. Dad was more of a theory pony." Her voice dropped. "They figured out how to get the linelights back on, too. Wish I'd learned how from them."

I thought back to her hub, and to the manacells shoved into the wall. I'd not taken a close look at how it had been done. Now I found myself wishing that I had.

"Doesn't help that of the ponies around here, not many like me. I'm not 'purebred.'" Her voice had changed, carrying a heavy note of scorn.

"Purebred?" I echoed.

"Yeah. Mom and Dad weren't from this Equus. They came from Nova Equus, over in the Horsehead. Came here for research, and got stuck in the tunnels." She shifted again. "I'm sure you noticed, but outsiders aren't quite welcomed around here. You're just lucky it was me that found you. If it was one of the others, they probably would've shot you on sight."

"They really hate VISTCo that much, huh?" I mused to myself. Tash overheard. It was a silly idea to think I wouldn't be heard; other than us, the tunnel was pin-drop silent, and there wasn't anything else to distract us, what with the total lack of light.

"No, not at all. They just hate ponies that aren't from Equus out of some bizarre sense of pride. I'm the only one that really has it out for VISTCo. Tartarus, I might be one of the only ones that even knows what VISTCo is."

"Yeah. What's up with that, by the way? You mentioned that there was a thing about unicorns, but nothing else."

Tash made a sound that I'm pretty sure was surprise. "You don't know?"

I shook my head, not that it did any good. "No. I'm just an engineer. Got a job on one of their warplight ships."

"Well," she replied, "think about this: VISTCo is fueled by mana, right? All of their warplight drives, all of their lights, all the power cells; it's all mana. Well, here's a question: if there's no ambient magic outside of Equus as they so claim, and unicorns offplanet are born with malformed horns...where do they get all that mana from? 'Cause that's a pretty big chunk of it."

I frowned. "They get it...from...from..." I trailed off. I'd never even considered that, and the implications were unsettling.

After a moment of wrestling with the thought, I sighed. "Where do they get it from?"

"See if you can figure it out," she replied. "If you can't, I'll tell you later, but I'll be pretty disappointed."

I was silent, still puzzling over the mana quandary in pensive thought. "Have a good sleep, Tash," I muttered, almost as an afterthought.

"I was," she replied crossly, "and then you woke me up. Not fair that only you get to ask questions. My turn. What's life like where you come from?"

I laughed. "It's boring. Hooftauri D is one of the more unremarkable of the Trisystem Alliance planets. My parents both work for a small fix-it company in Luna City, one of the bigger cites. Mom is the PR, Dad is an engineer just like me." I looked wistfully back towards my flank, wishing the oil-slicked wrench and gear imprinted thereon was visible. After a moment more, my smile died down some. "The company started going under, so when I got out of the edubloc—"

"Edubloc?" she interrupted, clearly curious. I nodded.

"Guess you don't have those around here. An edubloc is...oh, what did it used to be called...? A board school? Something like that. It's a big complex that foals go to live once they turn twelve. It's basically just an intense school where you gotta go for six years." She made a face.

"That sounds awful."

I winced. "It was. I mostly accepted it philosophically, but that didn't make it any more pleasant." My face cleared. "Anyway, once I got out of the edubloc—we usually just call it the Academy—and realized that the company didn't—doesn't," I amended, almost forgetting that it was somehow still going, "have long for the world, I started looking for jobs."

"And that's when you signed on with VISTCo," Tash finished.

I shook my head, not that it did much, and chuckled. "Are you kidding? It was years before anything resembling a real company took me, and it certainly wasn't Veritas. I worked odd jobs for a while, just fixing up anything that needed fixin'. I only signed up with Veritas a year or two ago, and it's mostly been orientation and training stuff. I even had to go back to the Academy for spaceflight school. Wasn't too happy about that, but hey," I shrugged, "when it's paying triple your last job, you do what you gotta do, right?" I turned over again, finally finding a spot that wasn't totally irritating. "But I think I've told you enough about my uneventful life for now. Night."

"Night. Again," she echoed, still cranky.

At that moment, I wished desperately smiles could be heard so she could hear mine. It would've been deafening,

"Well," jeered a sneering voice, "would'ja lookit what we got 'ere?"

There was a rapid shuffle of movement beside me, and by the time I was even fully awake, I realized that Tash was on her hooves, her manarifle primed and pointed. "Push off, Vix. I have more important things to worry about right now than you." I couldn't quite tell what the light I was seeing her in came from, so I sat there dumbly for a moment before some synapses finally fired and I realized that I wanted to actually be able to tell what was going on.

I reached my sleep-grogged hoof up, turning on my lights. There was a yelp of surprise, and a stocky, shaggy pony reeled away from me. He stood at the head of a group of ten or twelve. All of them were somewhat shocked, but only the leader—at least, I assumed he was the leader—had caught the full beam of the lights head-on. They were all carried weapons. The one Tash had called Vix carried a long blade that looked like it was made of the tip of a walker's leg, and that looked like about the most advanced weapon there. Nopony, it looked like, had any guns or managuns.

I wrangled myself to my hooves, lights still boring full-force into Vix's face. "So who is this joker?" I bit aside to Tash.

A hum came from my helmet, and the blue light blinked. Whoa, looks like I missed something. What's going on?

The shocked look on the ponies' faces—especially Vix, as he recovered from his blinding—told me that she was broadcasting from the speakers.

Tash replied, voice weary and clearly not relishing this encounter. "Quick, this is Vix and his rig. He probably has another name, but I don't care enough to ask, so I just call him what he says. There aren't a lot of rigs over ten down here, so around here—the Canterlot Sector of the tunnels—is mostly his turf."

By now, Vix had recovered some semblance of what dignity he had, and he strutted forward imperiously. "Tha's tur," he confirmed. "This place 'ere's mine." He motioned to his rig. "Gettem bad-blood 'corn ov' here, an' take pet winger an' 'is voicesuit a'grou."

I rubbed my helmet's screen in a poor substitute for rubbing my forehead. "Did...did he just call me a winger?" I asked, somewhat confused by his distorted speech.

Did he just call me a voicesuit? parroted Tera.

"To be fair, you kinda are," I shot back. She harrumphed.

And you aren't a winger?

"I know he called me a bad-blood 'corn," sighed Tash. "This is what passes for conversation down here, you two. Like I said, be grateful it was me that found you."

"Oi! Quitcher mouthin'!" shouted Vix, stepping forward and shaking his walker-leg sword threateningly. His rig moved up after him, pulling out their improvised clubs and pipes. His anger-twisted face was set in a deep frown. "I'll ha'you gnawn ath' met, dirtlickers!"

Okay, it was time to put the serious face on. He was beginning to threaten us properly now—at least, I thought he was; it was kinda hard to tell with what I assumed to be the vernacular of the tunnels—and I got the distinct feeling I wouldn't be talking him down. I pulled out my plasma cutter, pumping the trigger a few times. The plasma flame flared up, igniting the tunnel in a bright blue-purple glow. I must've looked downright demonic; a pony-shaped creature in an ash-gray suit, face hidden by a reflective visor and holding a fire hot as lightning. The rig quailed momentarily, but urged on by Vix, they broke out of their silence and rushed towards us, shrieking bloody murder.

Thump, thump, thump. Before they even came close to us, three of them had fallen on their faces, rendered unconscious by the tuned-down mana discharge of the rifle. Still, spurred on by Vix, who was now leading the charge, they continued their mad dash.

A steel pipe, probably salvaged from the surface at some point, swung at me. I caught it in my hoof , wincing at the shock, and ignited the cutter, quickly running it down the pipe and slicing it off just above the pony's hooves. She stared at it, then at me, in shock, then after a moment screamed and swung the small stub of steel at me, missing completely as I stepped away.

Thump. Another unconscious pony. As the mare swung at me again, I danced out of the way, then turned quickly and reared back, delivering her a two-hoofed buck straight to the chest, feeling something crack. She stumbled backwards, choking out a surprised gasp, and after a moment, she fell over, wheezing.

I was breathing heavily. I'd never been particularly combative; sure, I'd gotten into my fair share of scraps at the Academy, but didn't everypony? As it was, I was feeling quite out of my element just bucking that one pony. I was pretty sure I'd broken a rib, and though at the moment I was feeling nothing but detached, I was fairly certain that later, I would be concerned with guilt.

No time for that at the moment, though. I was rushed by two more ponies. The first, a ragged mare with an exceptionally long, unkempt coat and mane and tail festooned with braids, was holding a spar of metal that looked like it came off of a surface building. She snarled as she swung it at me. The second was Vix, whose walker-leg sword was humming a deadly arc towards my neck. I slid backwards, only to realize I was backed into a corner. Less than a second before the sword sliced me open, I jumped straight up, snapping open my wings and taking to the air.

Luckily, they were all earth ponies; no pegasi or unicorns among them. After taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I began looking around the little battlefield. Tash was beginning to be overrun. In the dark of the tunnel, the only illumination was brought by my sporadic headlights, and without light to see by, she was shooting them based solely off sound. My eyes suddenly widened. One, illuminated by my gaze, viciously sharp knife in hoof, was creeping up behind her. Without pausing to think, I shot down in a steep dive. Right as he was raising his knife hoof to slash Tash's back open, I cannoned into him with a shout, knocking him sprawling. Tash whirled around, nearly whacking me in the head with the barrel of her rifle.

"Thanks," she said shortly as she saw what had happened.

There were only three ponies left; the mare that had come at me, a stallion who was skulking in the back, and Vix. Tash had done her work well; the floor was littered with unconscious ponies. Looking around, Vix revealed himself to be not quite as dumb as he looked. With one final snarl at me, he hissed to what remained of his rig, and they folded back in, backing out into the darkness of the tunnels.

We stared out into the darkness, making sure they wouldn't creep back and stab us in the back. Then, a moment later, Tera chimed in:

So...what do we do with these creeps?

Right. We were surrounded by unconscious ponies who had tried to kill us. As long as they could wake up and attack us any moment, we certainly weren't going to make any progress on the door. I looked at Tash helplessly. I was way out of my element. Hopefully, she'd have a better idea of how to go about this than I.

She slumped down and rubbed her forehead just beneath her horn, ignoring me. "Of course," she muttered under her breath, so light I wasn't sure I heard it at all. "Of course that hateful wretch would choose now to bug me. Like I'm not busy enough already."

"Tash?" I asked, concerned.

She shook her head as though to clear it, and stood straight. "Sorry, sorry. What were you asking?"

I waved a hoof broadly to the motionless bodies, the beam from my helmet lighting up the pile of sprawled limbs. "What do we do with all of these?"

She jumped slightly, like she'd just seen the whole debacle for the first time. Actually, she probably had; my headlamp could only do so much during the fight. A moment later, she seemed to settle down, getting back to business. "It wouldn't be enough to just go out into the tunnels and dump them off. They'd be able to find their way back here pretty easily, they all know the tunnels almost as well as I do. We need something more permanent to get them off our backs." She levitated the rifle off of her back, igniting the mana within. I watched, almost in shock, as the barrel's glow grew brighter and she walked over to one of the ponies.

"Tash!" I hissed. "You can't just kill them!"

"I'm not going to kill them, Quick," she responded, almost in a monotone, positioning the gun over an unfortunate leg. She stared thinly down at the pony, who moaned in his unconsciousness. "I'm just keeping them off our backs."

Thump

There was a scream, quickly cut off into a gargling silence as Tash pressed her hoof into the victim's mouth, choking him back into sleep. Splitting the stream of magic in her horn, she lifted up the severed, cauterized hoof, tossing it over her shoulder. My eyes widened in something between shock, horror and—inevitably, and probably not to my credit—vindictive justice.

"What are you doing?" I shouted, appalled. She turned to glare at me, her voice a hard, harsh hiss.

"Look, Quick. Trust me; this isn't the first time I've had to do something like this. These ponies—they're not really ponies. Not like the kind you know, at least. All they care about is what they own, and what they can take." Her voice lowered some, almost to a whisper, and her face slid into sadness. "What they hurt...who they hurt...doesn't matter to them. I'm just doing what needs to be done. Turn your light off. It'll make it easier on both of us."

I stood up from the slouch that I'd adopted, and made to move towards her. Without even turning her head, she swiveled the gun in the air, the brilliant green aura surrounding it and her horn lighting up the tears on her face. "I said," she snarled, voice noticeably quavering, "turn the light off."

I slowly reached my hoof up, never breaking eye contact, and flicked off the lights. I turned away, and even in the dark, I could see the brief flashes of blue as the manarifle fired its leg-splitting shots. I began to feel nauseous around the sixth, and I abruptly began walking, then galloping, fleeing into the encompassing darkness.

Quick! Quick, get it together! You don't know what you're doing in the tunnels! If you meet a walker, or even Vix, then you're going to die!

My breath came in short, sharp, panicked heaves, Tera's words a buzzing in my ears that I wasn't really considering at the time. My mind was filled to capacity with the image of the hoof sailing through the air, and the dull thunking sound it made upon hitting the metallic ground. The merciless expression on Tash's face, and yet her tears. I didn't even think about where I was going; I just ran. I didn't even think to turn on my lights. Just sprinted, fumbling blindly through the darkness.

Eventually—I don't know how long it was, really—I was spent, and collapsed on my side, choking and wheezing. I didn't know how far I'd run, or where I was. She was probably right, Quick. Think about it. They would've killed you and Tash. You know they would. Tash was just doing what would be best for you in the long run. Tera's calm, logical voice only served to make everything worse.

"I don't want to hear it," I snarled, though the effect was largely lost through my hoarse, weepy voice. I had never seen that kind of violence before. Like I said, my only image of fighting was hoofs-out in the lunchroom at the Academy, not blasting the hooves off of helpless, unconscious ponies, even ones that had tried to kill you.

Stop being a child, Quick. I've only been able to comprehend the idea of concept of emotion for a few months, and even I know you're overreacting. Her voice grew quieter. Besides, I think she needs to do this. Maybe I'm amoral, but vengeance is fine and good by me.

"Vengeance?" I echoed.

Oh, come on. It's obvious what's going here. Think about it; she seems to really dislike Vix and his rig. They're about the only rig around here. They called her a bad-blood unicorn, and she'd just told us what happened to her parents. It's pretty evident that Vix and his rig killed her mother.

Puzzle pieces clicked together in my head, and the fact that she was crying started to make more sense. I rose shakily to my hooves. Nice to see you're not a total idiot, snarked Tera. I'll plot you a course back to the door.

"No," I interjected, to a surprised sound. "No. I get it now, but that doesn't mean I want to see her dragging a bunch of legless ponies out into the tunnels to die. I'm going to stay out here for a while."

Are you sure? Vix is still out here somewhere, with the ponies from his rig that got away. I get the feeling they wouldn't take it easy on you.

Shoot, she was right. Vix could take me apart right now, and the further I got from the door, the more likely it was that I would run into him. I sighed. "Fine, you're right. Get me back to the door."

Got it, boss.

A moment later, the blue line appeared on my screen. I took a few steps towards it, then stopped, confused. It fizzled, as though with some sort of static, then winked out. Panicked, I turned my headlight on. "Tera, what's going on?"

I don't know! she said frantically. Something's wrong! I can't access the tunnel schematics anymore! The computer just locked me out!

Okay, calm down, Quick, I told myself. You've been in worse situations. I can't remember them off the top of my head right now, but you've definitely been there. "Tera," I replied, struggling to keep my voice calm as possible and to suppress the fear-driven quake, "do you remember how we got here?"

I...I think so? I can't remember exactly how, but I have some idea. I wasn't focusing on directions at the time, but I think you mostly went straight, with a few curves. Try walking back the way you came, and I might be able to help you out. Her voice was laced with trepidation.

I did as she asked, rapidly trotting back in the general direction of the door. I waited in tense silence. Without warning, I heard a left! and acquiesced without question, making a sharp turn to the left and continuing. We proceeded like this for quite some time, until I heard her sigh tremulously. Sorry, Quick. I just can't remember from here on out. It's either straight or right, and I can't tell which. You're gonna have to choose.

Screwing up my courage, I did so, striding forward, straight into the tunnel ahead of me.

Hours later, I had to stop walking. By this point, I was pretty sure I'd been going in circles, and was well and truly lost amid the labyrinthine network of tunnels. Tera had gone quiet an hour or so ago. She blamed herself, I blamed myself, and it had snowballed into a tense silence that had us both on edge when I thought of something that I should've thought of from the beginning. "Tera," I began, "can you run a scan for equine life signs?"

Her pony representation popped up on the screen and she nodded silently, closing her eyes lightly. A pulse of blue light washed out from me along the tunnels, disappearing into the blackness. I slowed to a halt, letting my aching hooves rest.

A few minutes later, Tash opened her eyes, pointing off to my right and a little behind me. Ten equine bioforms in that direction, she said, then lapsed into silence again. I nodded, then backtracked to the last right turn and took it.

As I walked, the walls blended into each other, forming an endless, monotonous gray haze over my vision. So imagine my surprise when I suddenly heard a sound out in the darkness ahead of me. A faint whisper that might have been a distant shout:

"Quick!"

"Tera?" I said.

Yeah?

"Amplify my voice."

I inhaled a massive lungful of air, and then belted out at the top of my lungs, "TASH! I'M OVER HERE!"

The voice echoed again. "Is that her?" I asked. Tera nodded.

That, or it's an equoid that sounds just like her.

I broke into a gallop again, ignoring the ache in my hooves, as I grew closer to her shouts. As I cornered an exit to one of the enormous tunnels, I found her standing there, breath heaving, eyes wide. After a moment of staring at each other, she lunged at me, smacking me to the ground. "You idiot!" she seethed. "Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to find you?"

I struggled back to my hooves, massaging my shoulder. Even through the suit, her hoof had hurt. "Nice to see you too," I muttered. She sighed.

"Seriously. Where did you even go off to?"

I shrugged. "Started running, went for maybe half an hour." Her brow furrowed.

"Half an hour? You've been gone for," she checked a small device on her hoof that I realized I'd never seen before, "almost an entire cycle! It's been nearly eleven hours! Couldn't Tera map you back to the door?"

I got cut off from the computer somehow. Quick pretty much had to wander through the tunnels until he remembered I could run a scan for bioforms.

Tash rolled her eyes. "'Course he did. Anyway, get over here. I think I found something at the door!" She was a far cry from the forlorn mare I'd last seen. She was nearly bouncing. I followed her on weary hooves.

"Look, Tash," I said, "I'd love to get through that door right now, but I just walked through tunnels for eleven hours. I'm not used to this. I'm going to sleep first."

She sighed. "Right, right. Mind turning your light off?" I did so, and as we rounded the next dark corner, the glimmering blue symbol of the door loomed far above me. Disregarding everything around me, I lay down, suddenly finding the metal far more comfortable than the last time I'd slept on it. As soon as I closed my eyes, I could feel myself drifting off. I sighed deeply, and let myself fall into the pitch-dark of sleep.

This time, I woke up on my own. Unlike the last time, I wasn't really even aware of my wakefulness at first; when I opened my eyes, everything looked pretty much the same as when they'd been closed. The only thing that alerted me to the fact that I was no longer asleep was the symbol on the door casting a shallow blue glow out into the nothingness when I turned to face it.

"Sounds like you're awake," said Tash from somewhere in front of me, between me and the door. "Come on, let me show you what I found!"

I groaned, nodded, and when I remembered belatedly that nodding was useless, said groggily, "lead on."

I followed her footsteps over to the door, and as her hoof tapped the wall, I reached out to the same place. My mouth hung a little open as I realized it was the same shape and texture as the monitor from the hallway, where we'd initially rediscovered the sentient AI. "Hey, Tera?" I muttered, "I think you'll want to see this."

There was a hum as she woke from sleep mode, and immediately, she vanished from my helmet, my heads-up display going dark. A moment later, the screen lit up:

"Please activate genetic scanner for access."

In the bright blue glow, I looked at Tash and grinned at her, to be met with one of her own. The shunk sound of the genetic scanner echoed through the tunnels, and I pricked my hoof, watching with bated breath as it returned to the console.

"Genetic material within permissible range. Welcome, Architect."

Tash pumped her gray hoof, shouting out "Yes!" I suddenly realized that she didn't have her thermal suit on anymore. Well, that explained why I'd never seen the little device she'd had in her hoof before.

"Hey, Tash, what happened to the suit?" I commented offhandedly. She shrugged, but I could see tension suddenly coming into her shoulders.

"Got ripped up when I was...cleaning up." She was quiet after that.

Alright, came Tera's voice suddenly from the computer, I'm in! I think I can open up this door! I'm starting to get the hang of how this thing is coded.

There was a dull rumbling sound, not unlike thunder, that began to spread through the tunnel, quickly growing to enormous, bone-shaking volumes. The symbol in the door suddenly flared incredibly bright, rotated a perfect hundred-eighty degrees, then winked out. I reached up and flicked on my headlight, and my eyes shot wide. The top of the enormous door was retracting in upon itself. It reminded me of the giant woodbugs on Ht-D, the way is almost curled in on itself. Just like I'd thought, it was folding up like armor. I reached out a hoof and laid it on Tash to steady myself; the floor of the tunnel was actually shaking as the enormous aperture slid into position to open itself.

Beams of light blasted through as the first crack formed in the bottom, blinding me and Tash. I turned the lights on my suit off to save power, fumbling for the switch as I squeezed my seared eyes closed. A few moments later, the light grew less intense, and I resumed watching as the door shook its way open. It was agonizingly slow, ancient gears groaning as they were activated for the first time in...who really knew how long?

Just as I'd figured, it finally rumbled to an earth-shaking stop about two-thirds of the way up either side. As the thunderous sounds abruptly stopped and left us in almost preternatural silence, the symbol on the door once again came on. I turned to Tera, looking aside at the brilliant doorway to light that lay ahead of us.

"You know, there's a metaphor here," I commented, voice dry, "and I don't like it."