STABLE 64 DATA CENTRE:
ENTER PASSWORD NOW:
********************************************
WAITING. . .
CONFIRMED.
TARGET: /G/Inhabitants/TT
FETCHING. . .
DONE.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
~NAME: TICK TOCK
~PARENTS: DAISY BLOOM(DEC.) & EDELWEISS BLOOM(DEC.)
~SEX: MALE
~RACE: UNICORN
~FILE PHOTOGRAPH UNAVAILABLE >> MONITOR INCOMPATIBLE
~S.P.E.C.I.A.L.:
= 3> STRENGTH
= 9> PERCEPTION
= 4> ENDURANCE
= 1> CHARISMA
= 9> INTELLIGENCE
= 4> AGILITY
= 9> LUCK
~PROFESSION: MANEFRAME MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN
~NOTES FROM OVM:
=TASKS REQUIRED OF HIM TAKE AN UNNECESSARY AMOUNT OF
=TIME. VERY IRRITABLE, VERY IRRITATING.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
shutdown
SHUTDOWN CONFIRMED.
GOODBYE!
*** *** ***
2:57 AM (0257): 23rd April 2226 [23/4/2226] : SW Equestria {~42°10’4.143”N ~29°12’1.254”W}
~> TT02572304222642104143002912125400
“Tick Tock!”
I bolted upright, my horn clipping the shelf above my desk. My pot of pens, pencils, and rulers that was sitting on top fell over and spilled its contents over my head. I rubbed my aching horn. Ow.
“Tick Tock!” the loud voice tore through my aching head.
“I told you I wanted this report submitted by eleven! You are late submitting your work for the fourth time in a row. I am giving you until noon to finish,” said the voice.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have it submitted by then, Steam Valve,” I said to Stable 64’s head of maintenance.
“Sure you will,” he said sarcastically as he walked out of my office.
You could hardly call this room an office. It was an old repurposed cleaner’s cupboard located underneath the utility stairway. I heard the noisy clanging of Steam Valve’s hooves on the metal steps above me as he went to upstairs to go to sleep for the night.
As I leaned back in my chair, I stared at the single, dim lightbulb illuminating the tiny room. The walls were grey with a tinge of rusty brown, just like the rest of the stable. The ceiling went at a 45 degree angle upwards from above my shelf, because of the stairwell just above. You could hear a dripping sound, probably from a leaky pipe somewhere.
I looked down at my desk, my terminal still switched on from when I fell asleep a few hours earlier. I rubbed my eyes and sat back until the pain in my horn subsided. I really needed to move that shelf.
I slowly picked up all the things that I had spilled after being suddenly woken up. I had fallen asleep on my desk while working on a maneframe maintenance report. The damn machine needed to be checked up on every month and Stable-Tec demanded that it needed essays written about it. In fact, we wouldn’t need to follow such useless Stable-Tec procedures if it weren’t for our stupid overmare who was always forcing everypony to comply.
In the past few weeks, I had confronted the overmare about redundant Stable-Tec procedures that decreased the efficiency of our work. However, every single time I brought up an issue regarding the amount of she was making us do, she had me dismissed from her office. Celestia-damn it, I hated her. She was always going on about we should be grateful that we have a stable and that it gave us something to do.
Why in Equestria would I need to write a damn essay when I could just look at a checklist and say everything’s okay? Either way, it didn't matter what I thought of it, I still needed to finish it.
The pain had decreased to a numb throb, so I focused my tired eyes on the green flashing lights of my screen.
. . .
The arcane capacitors AG03 through AH78 showed
small signs of wear, while FB15, FB16, and JK24
needed replacing. The control unit was tested
separately, and in doing so, a fault with the conn-
ection CGH342>SDJ879 was found, which requir-
red the complete replacement of the assembly.
The arcadaJKLASDfklJ#IO#jIOEJKDsSDfbasSWKVNK
JSIAOJDOJAETPOQQRPJCNVKnnnnmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
. . .
I deleted the excess characters that my face typed by smushing the keyboard when I passed out and continued typing up my report.
One and a half hours later, it was done. I read through it one last time, checked the data included and transferred it to the stable data centre.
copy home/documents/Maneframe_Maintenance
_Report_22-04-2226.txt => Maintenance/Assignments
/TT/Maneframe_Maintenance_Report_22-04-2226.txt
TRANSFERRING DATA, PLEASE WAIT. . .
DONE.
shutdown
SHUTDOWN CONFIRMED.
GOODBYE!
I sighed a sigh of relief. Finally, I could get some sleep. My shift was supposed to start at eight, but I usually started at nine, much to the annoyance of Steam Valve. I unlocked and opened the top of two drawers that were underneath my desk. Inside were two blankets and a pillow. I laid them out on the floor and locked the door. I did this almost every night, since my room was on the top floor and I had usually been too tired to walk all the way up there. It seemed like I had some sort of hot water pipe that ran underneath the floor, which made the prospect of sleeping here attractive.
I lay down on top of one of the blankets, then pulled the other over me. I telekinetically flicked the light switch and the room went dark. The floor wasn’t very soft, but that was to be expected of metal. At least it was warm.
Two months earlier, I had begun working in the stable. At 15, everypony gets a place to work. I was lucky enough to be given a job that I was decently good at and enjoyed. Although my official role was something like ‘Maneframe Maintenance Pony’, I had become more of Stable 64’s tech support. This meant that whenever somepony was too stupid to figure out how a PipBuck or terminal worked or somehow broke them, they would go to me.
Why me? Well, probably because anypony else who knew anything about these arcano-tech devices would send them to me, giving those ponies the impression that I would be happy to help. The only reason why I helped them was because the overmare forced me to, after I complained about ponies coming to me all of the time. She had threatened me with reduced food rations. What the hell? Is it wrong to allow yourself time to complete the tasks that were already assigned to you?
Anyway, I went a week eating half the amount of food I was normally entitled to, after which the overmare threatened with jail time, unless I started helping the residents of Stable 64. I didn’t understand. Why was she so determined to keep me so busy?
The overmare’s real name was Gold Leaf. She was a white earth pony who always had a perfectly combed dark green mane and tail. She also bore the stable door cutie mark with a small 64. She was rarely seen, apart from when she held speeches in the atrium.
Although, being locked up did sound rather appealing. It would mean that nopony would bother me for ages and I wouldn’t have to work. However, I’d be away from any sort of terminal and my PipBuck would be taken away. I would get really bored. I decided that tech support was only slightly more desirable, so I complied. She then also gave me half rations for the next two weeks as well. She was a complete arsehole.
Since then, I’d been sleeping in my tiny office pretty much every working night. I got one day of break in every seven, a Monday.
*** *** ***
8:24 AM (0824): 23rd April 2226 [23/4/2226] : SW Equestria {~42°10’4.143”N ~29°12’1.254”W}
~> TT08242304222642104143002912125400
A loud bang on the door woke me up. I jumped out of my blankets.
“Tick Tock!” Steam Valve’s voice shouted through the door. Seriously? Him again? To his credit, he did make a great alarm clock.
“Tick Tock! I know you’re in here! The overmare has informed me that she would like to talk to you about sleeping on the job and using your place of work as your bedroom.
The overmare? What in Equestria did she expect me to do? Create a time machine in order to finish all the shit that people throw at me? And she expected me to sleep normally? Besides, why the hell would she care? Why was she so interested in what I did?
“Tick Tock! Are you listening to me?!” he shouted through the door.
“Fuck off!” I said back.
“I am your supervisor! Do not use that sort of language with me!”
At that moment, I just stopped giving a shit. I was tired and angry and I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up straight, went over to the door, unlocked it, and bucked it as hard as I could. The door flew open into the hallway, slamming Steam Valve in the face. He gave a cry of pain and fell on the floor.
“I’ll get you back for this,” Steam Valve hissed, clutching his face.
“Aeyup, sure you will,” I grinned, “And I’m taking the day off.”
He stared at me with loathing I had never seen before. I happily trotted down the corridor. I telekinetically slammed the door shut behind me. I walked up the stairs to the 5th floor, down a corridor and into the busy atrium. The room was filled with ponies chatting before they started their days. I looked up at the round window through which was the overmare’s office.
The overmare was watching over the crowd milling through the atrium. She scanned the room until she noticed me, standing in the centre, staring back at her. She gave me a weird look as if to say, ‘shouldn’t you be at work?’, to which I responded with a smile and a wave. She continued looking at me until something on her PipBuck caught her eye and she turned and disappeared out of sight.
Feeling quite smug, I rushed out of the atrium and down the halls to the canteen. I hadn’t had time to eat breakfast in weeks. As I entered the canteen, a message popped up on my PipBuck. It was from the overmare. Woo hoo! I was genuinely surprised. I honestly had no idea that she had the mental capacity to operate the stable’s PipBuck message broadcast system.
FROM OVM-GL: TT, I have been notified of your vio-
lent behaviour towards Mr. Valve. You have been red-
uced to one third rations for the next week. I will red-
uce it to one quarter if you do not return to maintena-
nce immediately. You will expect to receive jail time in
one month’s time.
Wow! That was fast. Steam Valve must have been really pissed off to tell on me that quickly. I decided to ignore the threat. I didn’t have the capacity to care anymore. That message wasn’t going to distract me from having a nice breakfast. Future Tick Tock was going to have a nice time in jail.
Oh, that reminded me, somepony might try to find me. I quickly pushed and held a small button on the back of my PipBuck. After ten seconds, the screen gave a flash and went dark. There, now they couldn't find me using my PipBuck tag. Not many ponies knew that you could power off your PipBuck in order to avoid being found.
The canteen was a reasonably large room, about the size of the atrium, except the ceiling was much lower. Light strips illuminated the space with a pale white light. The walls were covered in a sick green paint that was slowly peeling off. A number of long tables were set out, each with benches either side .
I walked over to the counter by the far wall and picked up a plate.
“Name?” a bored-looking, green earth pony mare said from behind the counter.
“Tick Tock.”
She pushed a few buttons on a terminal hidden somewhere out of sight.
“Looks like you’re down to one third. Somepony’s been naughty,” the mare said, giving me a curious look. I responded with an sheepish smile.
I collected my measly rations from the mare, realising just how little one third actually was. I sat down at a table and started munching on some delicious hay bacon. A buck with a blue coat and white mane, who looked about my age, sat down opposite me and chowed down on a garishly green apple. All apples grown synthetically by the food processing plant looked like that. I stared at his full plate jealously.
“Oh hey there. You look different today. Have you done something with your hair” said the blue stallion. Great. Now somepony wanted to talk to me. I hated talking with ponies.
I gave the blue buck a blank expression. Why was he even talking to me? I didn’t even know him.
I had a certain reputation in the stable. I was a nerd. Always had been, always would. I didn’t even bother to make friends, because who in Equestria would want to be friends with somepony who spent half their time reading books about scientific theories and the other half staring at a terminal screen. The very idea that somepony would just want to talk to me was utterly inconceivable.
“What is it that you want from me?” I asked.
The blue buck looked at me weirdly, then said, “I dunno, try to have a conversation? I thought you enjoyed chatting yesterday at breakfast.”
Wait, what?
“We weren’t chatting. I wasn’t at breakfast,”
“Are you sure? Because I clearly remember talking to you, Tick Tock, is it?” he said in a confused tone.
“I am certain.”
Not wanting to argue with him any further, I forcefully shoved the rest of my tiny breakfast into my mouth, got up, returned the plate, and headed out the door before he could respond. I looked back to see the blue buck looking at me with a weird expression. Funny. I started back towards the atrium. That was a very fast breakfast.
“Hol’ on a shekondth,” I swallowed the remaining food in my mouth. I stopped in the corridor. How did he know my name? I’d never met him before. Eh, he was probably another pony trying to annoy me, so he found out my name and pretended that we’ve met. I continued walking. It was my day off, so next stop: the library.
*** *** ***
The library didn't look like what you'd initially think of when you heard the word ‘library’. It was a dirty, dimly lit room that smelled of mildew. It was filled with crooked metal shelves that were packed with books. Not very fancy. I had already read about half of all the books in here. Since I was taking a day off and nopony could stop me, I picked up a random book off of a shelf to read that day. Lock picking for Beginners. Interesting. I didn’t know when I would need to know such things, but they could come in useful. I picked up an old-looking saddlebag off of the floor and placed the book inside.
I scanned the shelves for something else that I hadn’t read before. I also found The Theory of General Relativity and You, Funny Quotes From Ponies You Haven’t Heard of ,and The Venusian. I packed all of the books away in my saddlebags.
I walked out of the library, but I halted. I spotted Steam Valve at the end of the corridor, with a small cut on his cheek. He did not look happy. I quickly ducked back inside. I didn’t think he saw me. I did not feel even a little bit of guilt. I did, however, feel a moment of fright. I did not want to have another confrontation with him on my day off. If he saw me, he might kill me.
I heard his footsteps coming towards me. Oh crap. I quickly looked around for any cover in the room, but there were only shelves packed with books. There was nothing to hide behind. I looked up at the ceiling. A ventilation grate. Great.
Okay so, the distance between the door of the library and Steam Valve was about 17 metres. With his hoofsteps timing every 0.1 seconds, meaning a cycle of steps every 0.4 (2/5) seconds. Along with every cycle usually moving him about 1 metre, it would mean he was travelling at 2.5 metres per second. 17 divided by 2.5 means… I had 6.8 seconds to get out.
I telekinetically unscrewed the three screws securing the grate to the air duct above (the fourth was missing) and placed both the grate and the screws up inside the shaft. I threw the saddlebags containing my books through the hole. 4.8 seconds. I climbed up putting my two rear hooves on the lowest shelves either side of me. They bent and wobbled, but didn’t break. 3.4 seconds. I moved up to the second shelf. 2.9 seconds. Third shelf. My heart was pounding in my chest. 2.1 seconds. Top shelf. 1.5 seconds. I gripped the edges of the hole and pulled myself up. I struggled, kicking my legs spasmodically in the air. 0.7 seconds. I tucked my legs inside the duct. 0.2 seconds.
Steam Valve entered the library and looked around.
“Damn it! Where is he? I’m going to fucking kill him!”
Well, shit. I tried to keep my panicked panting as quiet as possible. Hopefully he didn’t notice the missing ventilation grate. I was right about the killing though. Then I heard another set of hoofsteps approaching. Then I heard the voice of the overmare.
“Calm down, Steam. We’ll find Tick Tock,”
“But together with security, we’ve looked everywhere. This is the last place to look and he isn’t here. Where else could he be?” said Steam Valve. Wait, they got security to find me?!
“I told you that without his PipBuck tag it would be impossible to find him,” said the overmare, “Maybe we should just find him tomorrow. Just let him have his day off. It’s not like he can get out of the stable.”
Steam Valve sighed, “I suppose you’re right. I’ll have to make sure that his work will be completed.”
With that, I heard them leaving the library and heading down the corridor. Phew, I was really glad I didn’t meet up with them. What did I do to make them so angry? I mean, I did swear in Steam’s face, refused to follow his instructions, slammed a door in his face, and left for the day. But does that merit such a degree of annoyance? I mean, call security on me?!
I suddenly became very aware of my surroundings. The air duct was bigger than I had expected. IT wasn’t big enough so that I could stand up. It was filled with cobwebs and dust that covered every surface. Bleh. I could crawl through the ducts, but they were disgusting. Instead, I opted for the choice of waiting for Steam Valve and the overmare to get far enough away to ensure me a safe exit. I waited another 75 seconds. It appeared as if they had given up their hunt for me. Oh well, I think that this is a thing future Tick Tock was going to have to deal with.
Slowly, I descended down the shelves. I levitated down the grate, three screws, and my saddlebags. I re-attached the grate to the hole in the ceiling and put my saddlebags on my back. I brushed the accumulated dirt off of my coat. Hwleh bleh.
Simultaneously, I coughed and sneezed as I exited the room and started down the corridor. Snoughed? Cneezed? I didn’t know which sounded better.
*** *** ***
ERROR: DATA NOT FOUND - PipBuck disabled
Approximating data. . .
4:00 PM (1600) : 23rd April 2226 [23/4/2226] : SW Equestria {~42°10’4.143”N ~29°12’1.254”W}
~> TT16002304222642104143002912125400
I lay on my bed in my room. I had already read through two thirds of Lock picking for Beginners and could now reliably pick the lock to my own safe in my room. Lock picking was surprisingly easy. I had found an old, rusty screwdriver in a toolbox that was discarded in a utility corridor. I had also picked up an unopened pack of 50 bobby pins from medical, the ponies working there giving me a weird look when I asked for them. With both pieces of equipment, I was set to be able to pick any lock I wanted.
I quickly skimmed the rest of the book, finding little extra information. I set it down on the floor beside my bed. After my reduced breakfast and lunch, I was still very hungry. Luckily, after my previous experience of reduced rations, I had been secretly stocking up food in my safe. I picked its lock one last time and took out a bag of apple slices.
I needed a break. I went over to my desk and booted up my terminal. Normally, ponies weren’t allowed individual terminals in their rooms, but I had procured mine from the stack of broken equipment stowed away in some cupboard down in maintenance when I started working there. It had a broken screen, but I had replaced that with one from another broken terminal.
LOGON TT
ENTER PASSWORD NOW
*************************
I connected my PipBuck to my terminal through an interface cable. Instantly, the PipBuck’s screen lit up and and turned back on. After a forced shutdown, a PipBuck has to be connected to an external device in order to reboot.
*** *** ***
The head of maintenance lay back in his plush reclining chair, snoring loudly. Luckily for him, he was the sort of pony that you wouldn’t want to bother unless you really needed to. He slept comfortably in his office on the top floor of the maintenance section.
A message flashed on his terminal screen.
ALERT! PIPBUCK 6383249 [ASSIGNED TO TT] HAS COME ONLINE
LOCATING. . .
ALERT! PIPBUCK 6383249 [ASSIGNED TO TT] HAS GONE OFFLINE
LOCATION ACQUISITION FAILED
*** *** ***
My terminal finished running a program that stopped my PipBuck from broadcasting its location. This worked for only about six hours, until the PipBuck’s spell matrix did an automatic reset.
I disconnected it from the terminal and inserted a holotape marked Megaspell Command. It was a game about shooting down missiles containing balefire bombs before they hit various Equestrian landmarks. I lay down on my bed, opened up the bag of apple slices and munched on them as I started playing.
I’ll tell you one thing, Megaspell Command was a very addictive game. In fact, it was 4:25 pm when I started playing. The next time I looked at the clock, it was 7:03 pm. Woops. The game needed a clock in the corner or something. I stared off into a corner.
I looked again at the clock on my PipBuck. 7:04 pm. Wait. The canteen stopped serving dinner at 7:10 pm. Ah crap.
With that, I rushed out of my room, kicking closed the door behind me. I ran down the corridor, down one flight of stairs, and turned left into a corridor. I turned a sharp right that led into the atrium, only to find another pony suddenly appearing and running in the opposite direction.
WHAM!
Arrgghh!
We both bounced off each other and fell to the floor. Something metal clanged on the ground.
“Watch where you’re going!” we both shouted at each other simultaneously. We stared at each other. The other pony, he, was, for the most part, covered in a dark cloak. His legs were bare and were of a dirty orange. His horn was sticking out from under a hood. Who was he? I’d never seen him before. And why was he wearing a cloak? His face was obscured by shadow.
“Oh, bollocks,” he said. Then I noticed something else. There was blood on his cloak. Then red magic enveloped his horn as well as the metal object he had dropped. He levitated up a knife. A bloody knife.
“Oh, bollocks,” I repeated. I scrambled to get up, but he pinned down my rear hoof with a foreleg. Attached to his leg was a PipBuck with a shattered screen. What in Equestria had he done to it? Anyway, the more pressing things at hoof. I struggled underneath him. He put his other foreleg on my back, completely immobilising me. Ah, crap. Lucky for me, he put away the knife.
Then, the mysterious stallion then spun around and bucked me upside the face.
*** *** ***
7:45 AM (0745): 24th April 2226 [24/4/2226] : SW Equestria {~42°10’4.143”N ~29°12’1.254”W}
~> TT07452404222642104143002912125400
I woke up in an unfamiliar place. It was a red room. I tried to get up, but then promptly slipped on some liquid and fell on my face. Ow. My head really hurt. There was a loud banging. I blinked my eyes and let them focus.
Wait. The room itself wasn’t red, there was some sort of red liquid on the floor. I rubbed my eyes, but only got some of the stuff in them. I wiped my face on my leg.
“Oh, shit.”
My eyes widened as I stared at a room covered in blood. I looked down at my hooves, which were covered in blood. A knife lay discarded beside me, covered in blood.
There was somepony else in here… covered in blood…
“OH SHIT!”
My eyes stared at the limp body. Her white coat and green mane were now bloody and her hide had multiple gashes. She was leaning against a circular, now red-stained, window. Hold on, circular window…
The overmare lay dead against her office window, blood still dripping from the several deep cuts in her body. I started panicking. The overmare was dead?! Who could have done such a thing? I stared at my bloody hooves.
“Oh bollocks!”
The banging stopped. Then, a second later, a loud crash was accompanied by a security ponies in body armour smashing through the door and charging into the room. They looked at me angrily, then at the overmare’s body, then back at me.
“It wasn’t me!” I screamed as they charged toward me and tackled me to the ground. Crushed against the floor by their immense weight. I squealed.
“I didn’t do it…” I sobbed.
Author's Note
Right then. Hello there! I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter of Fallout Equestria: Chronos. This is my first ever fic, but not my first attempt. Geez, this is probably my third of fourth try at this, since I’ve found it hard to start writing. Right now, I’m on holiday, so I have plenty of time to work on this. I do not know how much time I’ll have to work on this when I get back to school. If you have found a mistake or have any constructive criticism, please leave it in the comments. Also, I’m from England, so expect some funky spelling if you’re from America.
