Bury the Light

The Factory has made me what I am today. For better, or most might argue for worse, it's what defined me. What shaped my life since the moment I stepped through its doors, never yet to step out again. Never to step out again on my own hooves, if all goes according to plan. And it all goes according to plan here, even when it doesn't.

I didn't leave behind much. I suppose that's why I joined. Why I accepted so eagerly. No strong ties, no plans to travel Equestria, work was always what I cared for most. For the sake of the Flock, for the good of the country, for my own ego as well. A promotion was everything I could have asked for.

I remember the clicking of a pen against a table at my last interview, the one where they decided if I'd work here or be worked on. I remember it because I hear it every day, in every click and tick and flick of every cog and wheel and switch of this machine I've thrown myself into. Some days I wonder if the only thing that sets us aside from failures is how we take longer to process.

Focus. Right. That seems to be getting harder to do, these days. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, maybe it's the lack of coffee. Maybe it's the way the Factory sounds. It's been sounding different than usual for a while, now. That's why I'm here.

No. I'm here because there's a piping section that needs fixing, before a leakage from one of the tubes turns acid and melts the whole thing. Fixing things is my job here, a part of it at least. But it will also fix the way the Factory sounds upstairs. I hope it will, at least. I can't focus right with the way it sounds now, I'm not used to it.

This place is dark. We don't send employees down here, usually, so there's no need for lights. No point to them either, we don't send employees here often enough to keep them checked, they'd all break. A torch is more than enough anyway. There's not much to see, just greyed out cloud walls and dirty dusty signs.

We don't send employees down here, usually. This whole part of the Factory runs itself, for the most part. It used to be the main body, years ago. Back when I took my Flight Test. The building got a lot bigger since then, the old stuff got kinda left behind. I'm pretty sure the only part that's still used regularly are the generators.

I've seen a couple of failures sent to the generators, in my time here. I'm not sure what they do with them, but I'm glad we've got a use for the ones we can't take spectra from.

I'm getting distracted again. Thinking about my Flight Test. Fifteen years ago, give or take half a dozen months or so. That's what the numbers on the calendar said the last time I looked at one. Too many clicks ago to count. Three failures that time if I remember right. I probably saw what became of them the following weeks, without knowing. No one out there knows. Sometimes I still think about what it was like out there.

It's dark in here. That's what the torch is for. That's what it's strapped to my chest for. I hope it doesn't run out of battery before I'm done. It's not completely dark in here, but I'd still rather not be walking and flying around if I can't see where I'm going. Not that there's anything to see besides the stains on the walls. But I think I can still hear pretty well.

But the factory sounds weird down here. There's other sounds I'm not used to. There's a lot here that might need to be fixed, I think. I should focus on what I'm here for, though. I've got the plate to cover the leak with, I've got the stuff to get it to stick. Soldering spray, or something like that. I don't understand how any of it works, but they've assured me it does. I don't understand how anything I don't work on works here, but it all works. I don't need to understand it. I don't really have time to.

We don't have time to replace the whole pipe section, so I'm basically just putting a metal plaster on it. We'd have to shut off or redirect stuff if we wanted to replace it, and send way more ponies here, and no one has time to deal with any of that. There's more expansion to be done upstairs. More new tech to be implemented. New personnel to be hired. I need to get back to it.

There's an old Pegasus Device somewhere down here, I've heard. Probably deeper than I am. It used to be the main one before the place expanded. They shut it off at some point, no one ever told me why. I never asked about it. No point asking questions that aren't relevant to the job.

Am I going the right way? It sounds like it. A little more forward then down again. The pipe should be there. I think I'm starting to hear it, and it doesn't sound good at all. It's no wonder the Factory sounds so bad upstairs. I should make it quick. I have a job to do when I get back.

There are other sounds here. The kind the Factory doesn't make. The kind employees make, or failures sometimes. Not all employees. The new ones, mostly. Or the old ones sometimes. The kind that's off rhythm. The kind that doesn't sound right with the way the Factory sounds. Usually the new ones start making the right sounds in a couple months. It almost sounds like laughing, or crying. It doesn't sound like the Factory.

They say there are employees down here. The ones that went crazy and the Factory didn't want to deal with. The ones that tried to run away. The ones left behind while the place expanded. The Factory is hungry, some say. I think it's all made up. It's like foals telling scary stories to each other. I don't understand why colleagues buy into it. I don't understand why they waste time talking about it. Useless noise.

It's probably some valve that isn't closed right, or some wire that isn't isolated properly. Or animals. Animals would be a problem. I should tell management that there might be animals down here. Can't have them chewing on tubes and stuff. This portion of the factory is supposed to run itself. I think I see some scratches on the walls.

There must have been a Spectra leak here. The walls are all dirty with it. Too old and dry and dirty to recover any of it. There's something in the walls, but I can't hear it right. It's muffled. Distorted. There must be a damaged drainage system, or a broken cooling system, or something. The walls look wet here.

Down another hatch. No stairs here. That's good. We don't need stairs. Waste of space in most places. If we couldn't fly we'd be worked on, not working here. Elevators I don't get either, but they sound nice. They fit the sound of the Factory. I hear them buzzing sometimes, when I'm lying down.

Someone must have spilt some liquid thunder here. There's a hole in the floor, the edges burnt. Maybe a leak. Maybe I should walk around it, just in case. I've seen a pegasus get sprayed with liquid thunder once. She hadn't tightened a valve properly. Her whole left side paralysed, we had to throw her into the Device. She was starting to sound right, too.

She screamed when we threw her in. I remember the scream. I didn't get that. Maybe she didn't get the point. Shouldn't have signed the contract then. You can't waste a good source of Spectra though, and she wasn't useful otherwise. I hope they'll throw me in when I'm done, there's no one to send the body bag to anyway. I really don't get why they still do that with some employees.

I've probably got a good ten more years in me, maybe more. If some newbie doesn't get me killed sooner I can still help. We're still expanding. I wonder what the Factory will sound like in a few years.

Right. I need to fix the way it sounds. I think the pipe is up ahead. This place isn't as dusty as I thought it would be. It's a lot like the corridors upstairs, just a little more worn out. The cloud walls are greyed out, more pipes and wires exposed, the tech looks older. Still feels familiar in some way though. I wonder what the Factory used to sound like.

I think the torch stuttered. I hope they didn't give me old batteries. Not gonna have time to complain about it when I get back up, I've already lost enough time here. It's been...

How long has it been? I can't tell, things sound too different down here. It can't have been too long though. They need me upstairs to work, and the Factory isn't too big. And I'm almost done. I'll just have to go back after I fix this leak.

The torch definitely stuttered there. I didn't blink. This thing better hold while I work on that pipe. I can go back in the darkness, but I need to see to work. I guess I could turn it off now. Stop seeing the red stains on the walls. No. Don't trust it will turn back on later. I shouldn't have trusted them to give me a properly working one with charged batteries in the first place.

Always with the faulty equipment. I don't know who's responsible but I don't get how they haven't been fired already. Saw a pony almost lose his wing after the blade of an angle grinder shot off. He got away with only a cut though, the thing missed him and embedded itself in the wall. I had to fix the place afterwards. Left a mark a lot like the ones here.

I don't get why they even let some ponies in. You can tell they don't belong here. You can hear them. They usually get themselves killed within a few months, or keep slowing down work and throw the whole Factory off rhythm. I don't get it. They teach you the rhythm on your last interview, and you hear it all through the Factory. You must be an idiot if you can't pick up on it.

Not down here though. Down here things sound different. A different tune, but it's slightly off too. I think I could get used to it, though. It's still part of the Factory. It helps with the sound upstairs, too. If things don't work well here, the whole place could fall apart.

It's not just the pipe leak. That's just the extreme consequence. There's a lot more that needs fixing, down here. Right now, when it's minor stuff, when you can take care of it and it's not a real problem yet. I don't get why they don't have someone checking on this place. Someone to at least clean the signs from everything written on top.

It sounds like something wet, suddenly. Thicker than water. It's the pipe leaking, a few drops at a time. It's my hooves stepping into the puddle as I get closer. One click after the other. The torch is stuttering again. Find the gash in the pipe, take out the curved plate and spray it, then press it on. Hold it there for a few clicks.

It's not leaking anymore. I can hear the Factory a little better now that that sound is gone. I'm not sure it will sound well upstairs yet, though, with everything else that sounds wrong down here.

The torch chokes out. That's fine. I don't need it. It's all gibberish on the walls anyway.

There's a valve up ahead that needs to be tightened. There's a tube down the corridor that needs to be nudged into place. There's a lot of work to do down here.

I can't go up now. Things don't sound right yet and they'll put me to work on something else. I can't work right if I can't hear the Factory right. I don't know how any of them think we can work right when the Factory sounds wrong. When the Factory is ill and they only cured the symptoms. And they'll just give me faulty equipment if I ask for that down here.

There's no more leaks I can hear, but I've got no other plasters anyway. I can use the spray to meld some gaps together though. I'm sure there are wounds to close. There's a lot of work to do here. There's a lot of little things that need to be fixed.

I think I was scared the first time I heard the Factory. I didn't understand it. Others looked like they didn't hear it at all. It kept me out of sleep for a while. Then I learned to understand. To follow the rhythm. It was all so simple from there. The grinding of gears through the walls, the whirring of engines and clicking of hooves, the echoing screams of failures whenever they're brought in. It's all a part of the same concert, and it's all supposed to play its part.

And my part is to make sure it sounds right.

There's movement up ahead. Beating fast and off rhythm on the floor, a little wet. Probably an animal, I don't have time to deal with it now. There's a connection between two pipes up ahead, and it's not letting enough oil through from the first to the second. It needs to be opened a little more, so nothing builds up.

The Factory sounds different down here. But it's not completely different. I can still hear the same motif, underneath everything fancier. The same basic tune and rhythm. The same clicks. But there's so much noise, it's all ruined. There's so much that needs to be fixed down here. I can't go back up like this.

There must have been another leak here at some point. It sounds wet as I step through it, deep as I push my way through it. Thick, solid in places. Spectra, maybe. Old, certainly. There's an opening torn in the wall, top to bottom, I can faintly make it out. It must have come from there. There's something beyond it. But they sound right. Moving in tune.

I owe so much to the Factory. It's made me everything I am today. And now I can hear it suffering. I can hear it crying out, I can hear its need to be healed. It just won't sing right, not until someone takes care of it. Until I take care of it. I owe the life I have, and everything I am to the Factory.

Perhaps it's time for me to give back to it.