I was surrounded by the Cloud again. I ran, but it was always there, right behind me. The cloud was slowly creeping closer to me, touching my legs. The pain was familiar at this point. Like fire melting my legs away.

Once again I was glued in place. The cloud filled my lungs, I couldn't breathe. Gasping I collapsed to the ground. Barely able to see through the cloud I raised my head. Once again there was a barrel aiming straight at me. The trigger was pulled and the bullet shot.

With the flash of the muzzle I was outside, the cloud burned away leaving me alone on the streets. In seconds I could hear buzzing, it was getting closer. I tried escaping, my legs carried me as fast as they could, but the buzzing only got stronger. It was unbearable, the sound was crushing. Suddenly I was swooped off my hooves and flung into the air. It all ended when I came crashing down to the ground.

It was the same thing every night, nightmares. The cloud, the gun. It was getting worse. Every time I woke in the middle of the night. I was sweaty and scared. The only thing that kept me from screaming was that screaming was extremely painful. As was everything.

My eyes were open, but it was dark. I couldn't find my bag anywhere, the goggles were supposed to be in it. The only thing I was able to see was the green crosshair right in the middle. With no things to do and with no ability to go back to sleep I started trying out what M.A.I.F.O.S. could do. Just scrolling through menus and lists. The latest medical scan said that I was steadily getting better, but it would still take some time to get back to normal.

With the medical scan checked I had absolutely nothing to do. Sleep was still out of the question. Suddenly an idea came to mind, I could try the stun spell again to have some sort of light.

It took a lot more time and effort than I'm willing to admit, but after some trying, I had the little ball flying calmly above my horn.

With the light, I could finally see where I was. It was a small room, I was on a bed, the window was boarded up. The door to this room was slightly open.

With a lot of grunting, I got to my hooves. My legs felt like twigs that were about to snap, so I took it slowly, step by step moving towards the door.

With a shaking hoof, I opened the door and waddled my way into the hall. The light of the spell wasn't enough to light it completely. And through the darkness, I saw a little light further down the hall. It was coming from a small gap in a boarded-up window. I wanted to look outside.

Slowly I got myself to the gap and I stood there looking at the light. Somewhere along the way, I dispersed the spell, it was starting to get hard to keep it under control.

I stood there silently looking out. I could see the street outside, nothing special, all the streets in this city looked the same. Brick buildings, measured asphalt roads. It was somewhat hard to believe that towns like Ponyville were the norm some years ago. As far as I knew Stratusburg was just a village before the war, somewhere in the Equestrian West. I'm not sure if it was even marked on the maps. But when the war began Equestria needed cities and towns with industrial production, there wasn't really a place for the small villages.

"Up so early?" Ember interrupted my thoughts, "I wouldn't stand too close to that hole, who knows what critter is out there."

Taking a step back I looked at Ember, she didn't have her saddle gun or her fatigues on. She was standing on my left with a packet of RadAway pocking from under her right wing.

"This should be enough for now," she handed the packet over. The taste was still as disgusting as I remembered. After drinking the last of the RadAway I spoke.

"Thanks. I think it's getting better," it was a lot easier to speak after the RadAway. The aftertaste left a lot to be desired though.

"Yeah, I noticed that taking care of you is costing me a lot. It's good to see you're getting better" Ember responded. I'd been with Ember for a couple of days at that point. Most of that time I spent in bed, my legs weren't broken per se, but something was wrong with them that much I knew for a fact. Neither I nor Ember were trained physicians, so it was anypony's guess at that point.

"Well, sorry about that, wasn't my idea to get half-eaten by a spider," I retorted.

"I hope that wasn't your idea. Tell you what, I've got a few personal scores I have to settle with that spider and if you help me do that I'll call it even. How about that?" it hasn't been even a week and once again a pony was practically making me do stuff for them. It seemed that after the End of the World everything turned into one of those terminal RPGs. It made some sense, of course, it's not like I could just pay her off with bits. And even if I could, what use would bits be without anywhere to spend them?

"Yeah, sounds alright" I agreed with a sigh, "Let's get this over with as fast as possible. What's your plan?"

I could see fire light up in her eyes. She definitely had a plan.

"Follow me," she said with a smile. I followed her downstairs, Ember explained that she already had some things prepared and she just wanted to show and tell.

We got down to the first floor and then to the basement. It was even darker there than upstairs. After Ember flicked a switch the lights turned on and I immediately regretted getting involved. There were boxes with military markings on them and from what I could gather they were boxes of explosives. If a little ball with small lines coming out of it did mean explosives.

"So. Allow me to explain a few things before you start judging me. I know how this stuff works and I know where we can get some more," she said with a large grin, "The plan is simple. Set up a trap, lure the fly-der in it, blow the fucker up and that's about it. There's only one problem, I've never blown up a target this size and I don't think I've got enough stuff. I guess that makes two problems."

She stopped for a second.

"That's the problems I had before I saved you. Now we also need more supplies. And clothes. And guns. We need a lot more stuff is what I'm trying to say," Ember continued, "Seeing that you can walk now I think that we'll be going today. It should be safe and unlike you, I have a couple of RadSafes. Prepare yourself, we're going in two hours sharp."

I was shocked at the idea. Going out seemed really stupid, especially after Ember told me just that a few days back. But if she said that we were going out there wasn't much I could do to protest that. So I prepared as best I could.

Getting back to the room I stayed in I examined my robes along with what was left of my saddlebag. The robes had only a couple of holes, but the bag didn't fare the spider too well. The holes in the robes were in just two or three places where the biggest teeth went in. Guess the magic did protect them from tearing too much. Wish it protected me though.

Going out in a damaged set of robes seemed wrong to me and I had some time before Ember was ready to go, so I decided to patch them up, along with the bag. I wasn't a tailor by any measure, but I knew how to thread a needle, that counted for something, right? As I later found out it did not count for much.

Ember was standing in front of the exit. She was wearing her army fatigues and had the gun strapped to her side. She was ready. Right before leaving we both ate two RadSafe pills, she said that two of them can almost negate low radiation entirely. And the part of town we were going to was quite far from the crater. Or at least that's what Ember told me.

We had three places to visit: two food stores and a hardware store. Skies thought that that place would have something she needed for the plan. The route was simple, go to the food store number one, then hardware, then the second food store on the way back.

In my head, it looked like an hour's walk at most but was I ever wrong. The first store was at least a mile or two away. Which wouldn't have been too bad if my legs were fine.

The town seemed calm, Ember explained that most critters come out closer to the middle of the day and the fly-der didn't hunt in that part of town, so the trip promised to be safe at least.

After what felt like forever we got closer to the first store, "The Barn" or something like that, the sign outside was broken and almost unreadable. Already after a month the store looked run down. The windows were broken, the doors ripped off and from the looks of it most of the stuff there was already taken. But Ember insisted that the place was stocked.

We approached the building from its parking lot, abandoned sky wagons and carriages were strewn all over the place. The entrance was probably blown off by the initial wave. The doors were blown inside the shop, broken glass was covering the floor. The shelves didn't have much on them, only the odd rotten carrot or a crushed box of cakes.

Ember went right past all the shelves and into the back of the shop. The back room was mostly empty too, the only thing there was a wall-mounted terminal right by a storage door. The door had some scratches like somepony tried to get in. Ember simply walked over to the terminal pressed a few buttons and the door popped open.

She walked in first and I followed. There were boxes on top of boxes with magical seals on them. Just looking around I counted at least fifty boxes stacked to the walls and Celestia only knows how much of them were actually there.

Ember just walked to one of the boxes closer to the entrance and opened it. There was a silent pop of the magical seal being broken. She handed me a bag.

"There was a huge delivery a day or two before it all went to shit, all of this was supposed to go to bunkers or the local Stable, I think, but they never took them out of here. Fill the bag and try not to leave anything here, without the seal this is gonna be mush in a week," she said while going to the door, "I'm gonna be on the look-out, bang the door when you're done."

With these words, she left the room and closed the door behind her. I looked in the box. Carrots. So many of them. I haven't seen this much food in a long time. Grabbing one of the carrots I took in the room. If every one of those crates was as filled as this one and they were magically sealed, I was looking at years if not decades of stored food. The room itself wasn't anything impressive, a regular storage room. Although I never was in a regular storage room before, I just assumed that most of them looked similar to this one.

After I finished my carrot I began putting the rest of the carrots in the bag. While I was doing my work I looked the room over again. All boxes had some markings on them, little blotches of paint. The one I was emptying had a white triangle with a line through it. Some others had a white square with a triangle on top. I assumed that they meant what was inside or where the boxes were supposed to go.

Before I knew it the bag was full and there was almost nothing left in the box. With another carrot in my mouth and the bag hanging softly in the air close to me I banged on the door. It quickly opened and Ember took the bag from me. I exited the storage room and she locked the door behind.

Ember grabbed a carrot from the bag as we moved out of the shop. We went out the back door. There were broken delivery wagons there, but they were swiped clean.

We cleared the first shop in less then ten minutes and it was time to move on to the next one.

The tech shop was next. It was two blocks away. It didn't take us long to get there. The shop itself was a part of a three-story building. The upper floors were flats, but the ground one was taken entirely by the shop. The name read "Glimmer Electronics".

It was a small company as far as I knew and it appeared on the Equestrian market some years after the war began. They were supplying cheap alternatives to Stable-Tec and Robronco. And when I say "cheap" I mean it. Some of their products wouldn't even survive shipping, but they were dirt cheap so that hardly mattered.

Ember just bucked down the front door and we were in.

The shop was cramped, every nook and cranny was filled with all sorts of cheap parts. There was a narrow path to the counter, but even it was littered with some components. The sheer number of little computer parts that were there was blocking out the windows. In certain places, I couldn't even see the ceiling, because piles from two sides leaned on one another making an arch of sorts.

"Sit tight and don't touch anything, I'm sure I'll find that damn thing somewhere around here," Ember called to me from somewhere deeper in the shop.

"You sure? It looks like you could use some help," there was too much volume for one pony to cover.

"If I need you, I'll call," Ember Skies' head appeared from under a pile of tech, "Just watch the door, don't want no animals getting in," and with that, she went back under.

I set up near the door on one of the shorter piles. If there was time I would spend it on reading. And as it happened, Astral Sky's book mostly survived the fly-der attack. It lost a few pages and a page or two had a drop of blood here and there, but other than that it was all fine.

So, I just sat at my guard spot and got lost in the pages.

"Um... A helping hoof?" came from the back. Putting the book back into my saddlebag I traversed my way to Ember. After she checked most of the piles it became very hard to move around the shop, you couldn't even see the floor. I found the pegasus trying to open the door to the backroom. Apparently, she was already done with the room we were in.

"The sales terminal mentioned that they had a delivery right before the End and that delivery had the shit I need. It's supposed to be in storage. But this fucking door won't budge. Tried bucking, punching, even checked if it was on some sort of electrical lock, but nothing worked. You have a way in, Fitz?" she explained.

"It's Fritz," I corrected.

"Can you open the damn door or not?" Ember asked again. Not very politely mind you.

"I'll try my best," I walked to the closed door. Astral Sky went over some basics of locks in his book and I picked some things up while reading. The lock didn't look too complicated. Just from a look, I could tell that the core itself was wiggling after Ember struck the door. I focused. A ball of lightning arched from my horn and straight into the lock. It began to shake, I think I even saw a pin or two fly out. In seconds the entire lock body was out on the floor and the door was open.

"Here you go, I think it's a pull, not a push, by the way," I quipped.

"Oh, shut it," Ember pulled the door, "I knew tha-"

"geT oUt OF HERE You ZEbRa-loVinG, cOUNTRy-bEtrayiNg, dirTbAG!" a crazed robot flew right out of the opened door, "i wILL SLicE you uP AND cover MY chassiS wITh yOUr blOoD!"

The bot was some knockoff Mr. Handy. It had a lot of exposed wires and was throwing sparks all over the room. On the only functional arm that it had was a spinning buzz saw. The machine took a swing at Ember, but the pegasus was quick to react and took a step back. Mr. Handy didn't stop though, it went right for me, its saw still outstretched.

I was in no shape to get sawed. My mind was racing, I didn't know what to do. Then it hit me, I could probably stun the thing, it'd just short circuit and blow up. The spell formed with lightning speed, it was more reflexes than actual will at that moment. The ball of energy left my horn when the saw was seconds away from my throat. And it hit. Directly on the saw arm. Immediately the Handy staggered, its saw hand bent backwards.

"wHAt's aLL ThIS theN?" it bleeped before it finally died. The saw slowly stopped spinning. That was a close call.

Ember simply skimmed over the dead bot and went into the back room. I took a second to breath before following.

It was even worse in the back room. The parts were covering the floor, hundreds of parts and components, unfinished robots and half-constructed terminals. Ember Skies immediately jumped into the pile. Parts went flying everywhere, but soon she spotted a working terminal in the sea of parts.

I returned to reading for the time being, but I didn't even get through a page before she called me again.

"That's weird. The terminal says that they had a giant batch of the explosive parts, but I can't find the thing anywhere," Ember said confused, "It says 'We got it in the back', but it's not here. Just doesn't make any sense."

"Well, this place doesn't look like a place with good inventory management," I answered.

"Every other thing they mentioned in the terminal was here. Even the shitty robot was in there, every fucking bolt. For how trashy this place is they kept a perfect record of stuff they had," she explained.

Putting my book back into the bag I got up and started looking. To be honest, I didn't know what we were looking for. Something to do with explosives that much was clear, but what kind of explosives parts would be in a hardware store? With that thought in my mind, I looked around the room.

Traversing the ocean of metal parts and wires was a lot harder than Ember made it look. The sharp metal pieces cut into my legs whenever I would slip below the surface. It's like every step can end up in a hole filled with little knives. And that's not mentioning the wires, those things were everywhere, and I'm almost sure that some of them were still plugged in. The robes helped, but with no cover on the legs, they didn't help much.

There were some shelves on the left side, but with how filled they were it was hard to call them shelves. It seemed weird that somepony would even place shelves in a room that's filled to this extent. I started to look through the shelves, the longer I thought about them the weirder it seemed.

After some digging, I found the bottom of a shelf, a simple sheet of metal. But behind it there wasn't a wall, it looked like a door. A hidden door.

"Hey, I think I found something," I called Ember, "There's a door behind this pile."

Ember jumped out of the pile she was checking and landed right next to me staring at the door.

"Aha! So they had so much stuff that it piled over a door. Get away, I'm opening this one!" she said while kicking at the part of the door that we could see. Hopefully, there wasn't a similar pile on the other side or it would take us a long time to get there.

After three or four kicks the door started to give way, the cheap wood just didn't have much of a chance against an angry pegasus. With the next kick, a part of the door broke off and flew into the next room. With that, I just had to squeeze my head through the hole and somehow open the locked door seeing as none of us could fit through that hole. We also hoped that the door was a push, not a pull because clearing the door from this side was not an option.

With some finagling, I got my head just enough into the hole to see the door from the other side. From there it didn't take long at all to pop the lock open. The door started to slowly open under the weight of the pile, Ember and I pushing it.

The door opened onto a stairway leading down. Strangely enough, the place behind the door was unlike the rest of the shop, everything was pristine, the walls were polished metal, not a spark or a single exposed wire anywhere. After we got ourselves out of the trash that slid into the corridor with us we went down the stairs.

"This looks promising. Maybe they had a secret stash of goods in the basement," Ember said with hope, "Really hope it's not one of the mayor's stupid projects. The damn things are all over the town."

"Projects?" I asked, "What do you mean? From what I read the mayor wasn't really a 'project' kind of guy."

"Oh, he didn't do anything himself, just signed any paper that asked for some space in town for a 'secret' operation. Almost every fucking shop in this town has some sort of government project behind it," she explained, "See, when the war began this was a small-ish village, just like Ponyville, but without the Ministry mares. But after some time Gloomy Shade got hooked up on those projects, just couldn't get enough of them, think he just liked the secrecy and the funding. He was running this town into the fucking ground, all the money went to bullshit like the mainframe in the city center... But I'm getting a bit too emotional. What I'm trying to say is that I hope this isn't a stupid secret lab or some testing facility, I got enough of those back before the End and I'm not keen on doing anything with them now."

By the time she finished her thought we reached the end of the stairs. A large metal door with three letters etched into it. "TSR". The letters were familiar, the same letters that were on my bag. "Thestral Specialized Research", the project that I bumped into a few days back, had something to do with this place as well.

"I've got some bad news for you then. I've seen this logo already. It's some bat pony research, I think. Thestral Specialized Research or something like that. Don't know what the hell they were doing here though," I ruined Ember's mood or what was left of it. She visibly became a little more pissed off.

"And here I was hoping to have a decent day," Ember said sadly. She sighed and started trying to open the door. She bucked it, but the thing wouldn't budge. There was a small console near the door, but Ember clearly wasn't interested in it.

Calmly approaching the console I tried not to disturb whatever the pegasus was doing. I tried pressing the buttons on the keypad, but the screen kept saying "Authorized personnel only". Thinking of how to open the door I set down near the pad. I had an idea or two. I could use the stun spell again to short circuit it, but then the door could just remain locked, the open lock spell wouldn't even work here, what else, what el-

A loud creaking noise stopped my thoughts as Ember kicked her way into whatever was behind the door. The door itself was still locked, but a lower corner of it had been bent inwards just enough to crawl through. Ember pointed at the new entrance.

Looking inside I couldn't see a thing. Just darkness, again. It looked like the stupid no lights policy spread to other facilities as well.

Skies immediately went into there without a second thought. And me being me, I followed right after her as soon as a ball of magical light was spinning right above my horn. The hole was a tight squeeze, but I managed.

Inside wasn't really any different from the other base, the same walls, the same floors. Everything was practically the same, except for the fact that it was a different place and none of the signs on the walls were the same.

With the only light source jumping over my head we started to explore the dark corridors. At first, the place looked empty, like there wasn't anything but the walls and the odd sign pointing towards the exit. But as we headed deeper doors started appearing at the sides, almost completely flush to the wall, the only thing that actually separated them were the signs.

"That's a new one," called Ember as something caught her eye, "Look, this one is bent here and here," she pointed at the slight bends in an otherwise normal door.

"And that tells us what?" I inquired.

"Celestia damn it, don't they teach you anything? A door just doesn't bend on its own. That means somepony was trying to get in. And that could possibly mean that the room has something of value in there," she explained. To be honest, she was right, the door did look as though somepony had tried to break it, with little success. I couldn't even tell what they were using to break in. Some sort of sledgehammer probably.

Skies was determined now that we knew that the door led to something important and we simply HAD to open it. Kicking didn't work here, the door was not giving up as easily as the entrance.

Suddenly, while we were trying to pry the thing open there was a loud noise somewhere down the hall, we immediately froze. Like metal scraping against metal. It continued for several seconds. Ember had her gun ready the second the sound echoed. The M.A.I.F.O.S. blinked a few times and a red dot appeared somewhere down the corridor.

"Threat located. Threat analysis in progress. Advice: flee," a blurb of text appeared on my screen. Since when can it locate threats?

But my question was left unanswered as the red dot started moving creating even more of that horrible noise. A few more readouts appeared in my sights.

"Target size: Monstrous. Target affiliation: ERROR."

All these new abilities would have been useful with the fly-der, but apparently, M.A.I.F.O.S. decided that it wanted to do scans now. Great.

"That thing is huge and we should run," I relayed the information as effectively as I could at the moment.

"What?" Ember proved my point still aiming down the corridor, "How'd you know?"

Another readout appeared.

"Threat analysis complete."

A giant block of text popped up blocking my vision. There were diagrams, temperature readouts, predicted firepower and a hundred more things that I couldn't even read. At the very bottom, there was a line of text that just read "Threat level: critical. Chances of survival: minimal."

This was not looking good. The sound was getting closer and closer. We needed a quick way out. Or at the very least a place to hide from whatever was making the sound. I needed to think again and think fast.

We don't have much firepower, so fighting is not an option, running back isn't a good idea either, my legs are still useless, and that leaves one option, the bent door right next to us. We need a way in and quickly.

The dot was still moving towards us, the sound of tearing metal getting louder and louder with every second. I started frantically pulling at the door with my magic. It screeched, but wouldn't give out. Ember was standing there looking at me in confusion, then at the long dark corridor from where the threat was coming, then back to me. She might have not understood how I knew anything about the threat at all, but she understood that whatever was making the noise was coming.

The pegasus started bucking the door while I tried to get it open the normal way. Each time I pulled at the door I could feel a small metal thing on the left of the door stop it from moving. I tried moving it to one side, then another, pulling, pushing, but with that thing holding the door I couldn't do anything. It must've been the locking lug or the pin.

The sound of metal tearing metal was only about fifty feet away, I could already feel that gigantic thing getting closer. The floor was trembling with every movement that the thing did.

Ember was still kicking desperately at the door hoping to break something important, but she was just hitting random spots... and then an idea hit me like a leg of a giant flying wolf spider hybrid.

"Here!" I pointed at the place where I felt the lug was. Ember turned for a second to see where I pointed and then without hesitation, she bucked the door. A faint clink sound spread through the underground complex. The lug had snapped. I pulled on the door and with a hiss and some whirring, it rolled open. Ember practically flew into the room checking it for anything useful. I shambled there as quick as I could before snapping the door shut. We were safe. For now.

"What in Tartarus was that?! It sounded like a tank trying to drive through a junkyard," she was dashing all over the room, "And how'd you know anything about it? And the door?! Explain yourself!"

She wasn't panicking, more annoyed that I didn't tell her something than anything else, but I was panicking. My vision was partially obscured by the readouts, my heart was pounding... or was it that thing outside? I couldn't tell. I was sitting with my back turned to the door trying to catch my breath when I felt the door shudder. More readouts filled my vision. The metal of the door was torn, the thing was here. Ember stood there aiming her gun at the door. I was trembling unable to move away I heard the thing slowly claw at the door, I could almost feel the claws through the thick layers of metal protecting me.

Then, as suddenly as the thing appeared it slowly moved away leaving me in a mess under that door. After a good minute of silence, I slowly crawled my way closer to Ember who was still on guard with her gun still aimed directly at the door.

Getting to my hooves I tried to get rid of the green text clouding my vision, but with little success. I slowly turned around. The door was torn to shreds, in multiple places I could see the corridor on the other side. What kind of monstrosity were they keeping here?

"Stay here, think up some plan to get us out of here, I'll watch the door," Ember was visibly distressed now, she was holding the trigger guard in her mouth and aiming at the door. She was tense, shaking a bit.

I needed to think, again. It was becoming apparent that getting parts for Ember's revenge could wait. We needed to get out of that place and going back into the corridor wasn't an option, the red dot was still blinking in and out of view every so often.

Looking over the room we found ourselves stuck in I noticed that we were in a small kitchen of sorts. Pots and pans were hanging from the ceiling, a stove and a fridge. Plates were shattered all over the room. It looked like somepony had a fight here, some pots had dents in them and the kitchen table was bent 0.3 degrees out of alignment, the light was shining at 12% power as thou... Why was I thinking so detailed all of the sudden? I heard something click in M.A.I.F.O.S., then I felt a surge of hot pain stub right into my brain.

"Finally, you answered. Please identify yourselves, intruders. And explain how a prototype M.A.I.F.O.S. came into your possession," said a robotic voice in my head.

Who are you and what, in the name of Celestia, are you doing in my head?! I thought as calmly as I could.

"Please refrain from thinking so loud, the system can't handle high volumes," the voice instructed, "The M.A.I.F.O.S. is a delicate tool and uneducated users like you are the reason it never got to production."

I'm Fritz, an EEA a-

"The EEA? Finally somepony useful!" the voice exclaimed, loudly, "You must reach the mainframe at once. The defensive protocols are still engaged and the facility cannot function at peak efficiency while the defences are up."

After that the voice got silent, disappearing as though it didn't just ask me to do something. What was it with ponies asking me to do stuff? Did I really look that competent?

Suddenly the M.A.I.F.O.S. beeped again and I saw a distorted map of some sort. A green mess of walls and doors, the image wasn't as clear as I'd liked it to be, but I could probably still use it. I spent a few minutes sitting there, scanning the map for anything. I could see that we were on the first level out of three. We were in the Robotics Lab, below us was the Augmetics Lab and under it was the Research Center and the mainframe. I could see the lift on this level that would lead right to the brains of this place, but there was a problem. Lifts need electricity and looking around it didn't seem as though this place had any backup generators functioning.

I briefly thought of just legging it to the exit and forgetting this place ever existed, but right on queue the threat from earlier started moving somewhere up the corridor we came from. It felt like the thing was guarding the exit.

This was getting nowhere, even if reaching the mainframe could solve the problem, we still couldn't get out of the room without alerting the monster waiting for us. That is if we could even open the door after it was torn to shreds.

"I have taken the liberty of making your route, there is a small vent in the western wall, you should be able to crawl to the second level. From there I should be able to plan your further course," the voice said out of nowhere, "The defensive systems are malfunctioning, but you must've encountered them already. The second level should be safer, the systems there seems to be functioning at 30% per cent efficiency, which is far below the efficiency required for the successful deployment of the facility's defence systems."

Looking at the wall to my back there really was a small vent, barely big enough to fit through.

"Hey, Ember, I've got an idea, but I don't think you'll like it," I broke the silence, "There is a vent that could lead deeper into this place, but there's no knowing if it's any safer down there..."

"For fucks sake, if it's a vent that we can climb in can't we just climb up the damn thing to exist somewhere above?" she brought up a good point.

Umm... voice? What stops us from climbing up the ducts and out of this place?

"It is sad knowing that a member of her majesty's EEA is willing to abandon a fellow scholar in such time of need. But there are bars in place to stop anypony from using the ducts as an entrance. Or in your case, an exit," the voice answered with a sadness I didn't believe was possible for the robotic monotone voice.

I relayed what the voice told me to Ember, and she became visibly angry that such an easy escape was denied to us.

"It can't ever be easy, can it? So, what's the plan then? We just go down there hoping the thing won't follow?" the pegasus was making good points, we couldn't just go down there without a plan.

"Well, I haven't exactly thought of that..." I answered not knowing what else to say.

"Then think, Celestia damn you! I didn't survive the War and the End of the World just to die in this hole, so would you please think your plans through?" she shouted losing her temper.

So, I started thinking as ordered. No real reason to argue back, she was right. The ducts could kill us as likely as they were to save us. I needed to ask that mysterious voice to figure some things out.

Hey, could you help with a few things? My companion thinks it would be... unwise to use the vent without knowing what exactly is at this second level.

"First of all, yes, I am able to help. Your companion is correct, committing to a task without sufficient knowledge is suboptimal and could lead to further complications. You will be descending down to level 2, the Augmetics Lab. I am however unable to figure out where exactly on the level you will be. There are no precise maps of the ducts. The level itself still has its emergency power generators in working condition," the voice was proving quite useful.

Any information about the level itself? Anything there we should avoid? I asked the voice again. The voice hesitated before answering again.

"The level is used for production and installation of high-end augments. As already stated the production is down, the entire facility is not meeting its quotas and the only place to be working at above standard rate is the mainframe. There are no places that are off-limits, but exploring the level will stunt the progress to the mainframe," it answered again, the robotic distortion somehow relaying sadness, it wanted us to reach that mainframe as quickly as possible.

And the last question, who exactly am I talking to? And why use the M.A.I.F.O.S. for communication and not the PA system?

"Firstly, that is more than one question. Secondly, strictly speaking, you are not talking at all, but rather thinking. I am the production manager of the facility and it is my duty to return the facility to peak efficiency," he responded, "And the PA system is down, there is simply not enough power for it. Using the M.A.I.F.O.S. doesn't drain the generators as much. It mostly drains the internal battery of the device. If this answers all of your questions please proceed to the vent."

At least I knew that he was some sort of manager, an efficiency freak, but still a useful pony in the situation. I was still looking at the green map right in the middle of my view. The duct that we would enter was now marked red, the exit vents on the second level were marked as well, there were at least twenty of them. I had as much information as I could gather and I went back to convincing Ember with it.

"So, I thought about it. There are roughly twenty exits on the level below, we can't know exactly where we'll exit. The level is supposed to be safe, there isn't enough power in the facility to run every defensive measure at once. From there we should be able to find a way to the last level and turn the defenses off for good," I explained hoping that it'd be enough for her.

"Well, how'd you know any of this?" it wasn't enough for her. I tapped the arcane device on my head.

"I've got a map of this place," I tried to explain.

"Fine, but you go first," Ember said giving up and moving away from aiming at the door and now looking at the vent. That was going to be tough. The vent was held on by two screws and it wasn't a problem for me to just take them out. Lighting my stun-fleshlight I entered the dark crawlspace ahead.

The next hour made me realize just how bad a state I was in. I don't think there was a part of me that hasn't been scratched, cut or stabbed by the interior of the ducts. The crawl was slow and painful. Every bit of the ducts was either cold or sharp. Moving in the confined space was a nightmare, there was nothing big enough for me to pull myself by, but there was enough stuff to cut up my front hooves. And the drop, oh the drop. There was this one part where the duct just went straight down and I was stuck there face first. My horn still hurts and I think I left a dent at the bottom of the drop. Ember added a little to the pain by sometimes poking me to make me go faster. All in all, the vents were not too bad, at least there were no murderous monsters in there.

Knocking the grate out I crawled out still bleeding a little and shivering. Ember followed right after me getting out a lot more gracefully than I. She immediately scanned the room we emerged in for any threats, thankfully it was clear. We were in some strange small storage closet with crates lining every wall, the room was barely lit by a couple of dim emergency lamps. Noticing the crates Ember immediately went to check what was in them. With a buck, she tore a lid off of the first box. It was full of high-tech stuff that I couldn't even begin to identify, but Ember seemed to know what she was looking at.

"We've got ourselves some very fancy equipment right here," she pointed at one of the things in the crate, "Even got an army issue drug injector. But nothing to stick in it. Well, I'm taking it anyway," Ember shoved the little gray device into her pocket.

"Any signs of that explosive part?" I asked.

"What? No. These boxes are filled with a bunch of augments and stuff like that. Not what we came here for, but some of these things might be worth taking. Like this for example," she pulled another strange device out of the crate, "A Mk III Cerebral Implant, military-grade, these things can make a soldier out of anypony. To be honest, the targeting systems alone would be useful, but the whole package is a godsend," the device went the same way as the drug injector.

While Ember was rummaging through the contents of the room I tried asking the manager that led us here for information.

"As already stated, the Augmetics Lab is offline, no security systems are activated, automatic maintenance is offline, the emergency generator is at 17%, power will run out in approximately seventeen days. Storage units three through seven are locked, one and two are breached. You are in storage unit two, please refrain from stealing the property of the Equestrian Government," he answered as soon as I thought of asking. I wasn't enjoying talking with my thoughts

"If the EEA agent does not wish to be conversed with the agent should refrain from thinking so loudly," the robotic voice retorted. I tried thinking quieter from then on, whatever that meant.

A route to the elevator or a set of stairs would be very helpful right about now.

"The floor map has already been provided to you. I took the initiative and marked your way through the floor. Please follow the instructions very precisely, diverging from the path may cause the route to become less efficient," the manager answered.

Looking at the map there was indeed a red line running through the level now. It led from the second storage unit across the floor and into elevator shaft 2B. It went through a couple of rooms but mostly stuck to the corridors. I carefully studied the route, while Ember was still stuffing her pockets with augments. She was taking her time with those. After I got a basic understanding of our route I turned to the pegasus.

"Ember, you ready?" I moved closer to the opened box.

"A few more minutes, I'm not leaving these babies here. Plus there's a chance to find something good," she knocked the lid off of another crate and almost threw herself in there. Having nothing to do I sat on one of the crates and resumed my reading. The book was getting more and more complicated by the page, still better than translating Old Ponish though.

What seemed like hours passed by. Ember was opening crate after crate. She had already filled her pockets by that point. It looked like she was looking for something specific, but wasn't finding it. The reading was going good.

I heard another box break, Ember wasn't bothering with tearing off just the lid for the last dozen boxes. The contents of the box spilt on the floor and she started sifting through looking for something. It was quiet at first, until she picked something out of the pile, raised it over her head and cheered in excitement.

"Finally! Found it. Damn it! I almost thought it wouldn't be in here," Ember was throwing out other augments trying to free up space for whatever new thing she found. She was looking a bit happier.

I got up from my crate and put the book back into my saddle-bag. I checked the map of the floor one more time. Out the storage unit, across a short corridor, into an assembly room, then back into the corridors, into the medbay and out into the corridor that leads straight to the elevator. We could even grab some things from medbay, a bandage or two would be very useful. With Ember no longer rummaging through the augments we could head on out of the room.

The door hissed and slid open when we got close enough. The entire floor was lit by red emergency lights. We slowly walked out of the storage only for the door to automatically slam shut right behind us. Other than that the corridors were clear, no sounds of tearing metal, no red dots, no nothing. With a sigh of relief, I led the way.

With no monstrosity trying to reap us limb from limb it was a lot easier to find our way to the first room we were supposed to go through. The assembly room looked cluttered with tables and with a number of augmentations in different stages of construction, from just piles of wires and crystals to full-blown limbs. The red light was here too. We needed to get to the door across the room, but navigating between the tables was like walking in a maze. Ember simply jumped onto the tables and walked right next to me. I, sadly, couldn't get onto the tables, because my legs still felt like wet noodles. Suddenly Ember stopped and stopped me with her back leg.

"I heard something," she whispered, "Above", the pegasus pointed her hoof to the ceiling. I listened. The metal above us started to tear.

Level Up!

New Perks:

• Skilled with the M.A.I.F.O.S. – through your intelligence (or sheer luck) you've become somewhat skilled with the M.A.I.F.O.S. Now you can use its combat features, such as target spotting and threat analyses. Or at the very least you know that it can do that. Sometimes.
• Basic MOM Spells – you've gotten far enough into Astral Sky's book to know the basics. Simple locks and basic mechanisms are no match for you.

Effects:

• Crippled Legs – you suffered a hard blow to your legs! Ouch! Your movement is cut in half and you cannot run!
• Mild Concussion – Getting hit over the head never feels good. -2 Perception and -1 Intelligence.
• Radiation Poisoning – standing in the sun isn't as pleasant as it used to be. -1 Endurance
• Cuts and Bruises – your body is covered in small cuts, gashes, nicks and pricks. Your max health is lowered until you can fully heal.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!