The facility ran like clockwork. Every morning, Rarity would wake up in her bunk on sublevel four and proceed down the hallway to board elevator three. The elevator stopped on sublevels six and nine to take on two other ponies—a pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane, and an orange earth pony—and continued its descent toward the lower levels of the facility.
Although these three ponies saw each other on a daily basis, both on the way down and on the way up at the end of their shift, they had never spoken. They each stood in a separate corner of the elevator car and silently waited to arrive at their destinations.
The elevator stopped at sublevel twelve, and the pegasus stepped off as she did every day. The doors closed behind her and the elevator continued down the shaft.
Rarity watched the display as it counted off each floor it passed, ticking up once every ten seconds. Twenty-one... twenty-two... Rarity would soon reach her floor. Twenty-three... twenty-four... twenty-five...
This was different. Every day the elevator would stop on sublevel twenty-four, and Rarity would get off there to carry out her duty in control room three-nine-seven. Something had changed.
Perhaps the facility had decided that Rarity was needed elsewhere today. Wherever the elevator stopped next, that must be where Rarity would go to work today. She took a deep breath. Wherever she ended up, the facility would tell her where to go and what to do. She didn't have to worry.
Somehow, that knowledge didn't seem to help. Rarity couldn't stop herself from wondering if she'd done something wrong, made a mistake during her last shift.
It had been an unusual day yesterday, come to think of it. Although Rarity hadn't given it a second (or even a first) thought at the time, she had received instructions through her terminal that hadn't ever shown up before. She'd been given a key and told to unlock a button that until that day had been sealed behind a clear plastic cover. She had pressed the button, of course—what else was she supposed to do with it? But now she wondered, Was I not told to press it?
Thirty-six...
Thirty-seven...
The elevator continued its descent.
The display panel in front of Rainbow Dash lit up with a set of instructions:
ENABLE SUBSYSTEMS IV, VII, IX, XIV
SET SIGNAL 7B FREQ 1.21 GHZ
SET SIGNAL 9D MODE PWM
SET PWM DUTY CYCLE 87%
Rainbow Dash didn't see these instructions right away because she was busy spinning around in her chair. Her job was boring. Most of her day was spent sitting alone in a closed room with nothing to do except flip switches and turn dials whenever the terminal on her control panel told her to.
The chair came to a stop and Rainbow Dash's head wobbled slowly while she let the dizziness pass. Though the room was still spinning around her, she noticed something on the back wall of the room and got out of her chair to take a closer look. Her legs swayed with each step, but her wings helped to balance out her gait until she reached the wall.
There was a hole in one of the riveted metal sheets that paneled the room. It was rectangular in shape and barely larger than her hoof. A few pairs of thick gauge wire were left dangling inside, their ends fitted with screw caps and wrapped in black electrical tape.
"Is something being installed here? Or was something removed?" She wondered aloud. The words had barely left her lips when a tone from her console called her attention.
Leaving behind the most interesting thing she'd seen all day, Rainbow Dash returned to her chair and spun back around to face the terminal to read the instructions:
ENABLE SUBSYSTEM III
ADJUST DIAL C-13 UNTIL INSTRUMENT 4 READS 15.9 KW
SET SIGNAL 1F MODE SINE
SET SIGNAL 1F FREQ 300 HZ
DISABLE INSTRUMENT PANEL C
Rainbow Dash rolled her chair back and forth along the length of the control panel, her hooves gliding across the myriad switches and dials until another tone—this one sharp and anxious—called her back to the terminal.
E60659
SYSTEM FAULT
REFER TO OPERATION MANUAL
SECTION 27.13.A-2
Rainbow Dash blinked as she stared at the display. She had never seen a message like this before. Tentatively, she tapped on the terminal a few times with her hoof, hoping it might just go away, but after several seconds it beeped again and the message was unchanged. She began looking around the room for the operation manual.
Aside from the control panel, the room was a barren cube. There were no bookshelves, and no books. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash found herself wishing that her job had remained boring.
"Maybe I can find somepony who can help me with this," she said to herself and trotted over to the door.
There was another door across the hall from the room Rainbow Dash worked in. She knocked on it, but nopony answered, so she opened the door to find the room unoccupied. It had a console the same as hers, though the terminal was dark. Out of curiosity, she glanced along the back wall of this room, but there was nothing there—no button or switch or instrument, and no hole with wires hanging out of it. There was, however, something on the floor underneath the control panel: a thick three-ring binder with a loose sheet of paper held inside its clear plastic cover that read OPERATION MANUAL.
Unfortunately, as Rainbow Dash flipped through the pages, she discovered that there was no SECTION 27.13.A-2. The manual went from section 27.13.A straight to section 27.13.B.
"Who the hay is even in charge of keeping these things up to date?!" She huffed and threw the manual back under the control panel where it landed with an echoing thud.
"Excuse me?"
Rainbow Dash wheeled around to meet a purple unicorn mare standing in the doorway and carrying a clipboard. "Oh! Awesome! Maybe you can help me. My terminal said something about a fault and told me to go to the manual, but mine's missing and this one doesn't have the section it told me to look up."
The unicorn smiled. "You're from room two-oh-six across the hall, right?" She checked her clipboard. "Rainbow Dash is it? Hi. I'm Starlight Glimmer. I was actually just on my way there with this." Her horn lit up as she floated out an operation manual from her saddle bag and gave it to Rainbow Dash. "It's an updated manual that covers faults related to the new control switch I'm supposed to install."
Rainbow Dash flipped through the manual while they crossed the hall back into room two-oh-six. Her eyes went wide when she found section 27.13.A-2 and skimmed across the three full pages pages of instructions that followed. "I have to do all this to fix the error?"
Starlight Glimmer shrugged. "If that's what the manual says, I guess so." She set her bags down against the wall and began pulling out the tools and hardware she needed to finish installing the new component in the room. "Or maybe it'll clear itself once I finish installing this if you want to wait. It shouldn't take more than a minute," she offered.
"Sounds good to me. Do you need any help?"
"No, thank you. It's pretty simple, and this is my fifth installation today. You can watch if you like." She grabbed the loose wires in her magic and removed the tape and screw caps, then attached the wires onto the back of the new control and set it into the hole in the wall panel. Finally, she secured it with a star screw in each corner. As soon as she was finished, there was a cheerful tone from the terminal.
FAULT RESOLVED
CONDITION NORMAL
"That was easy. Thank you," Rainbow Dash said as she took a closer look at the new control. It was a large red button locked under a clear plastic cover. "That's it? It doesn't even have a label on it. What does it do?"
Starlight Glimmer blinked. "Huh?"
"The button. What's it do?"
"I... don't know?"
Rainbow Dash stamped her hoof. "You mean to tell me my terminal got mad at me for not having a single button installed. The manual I didn't even have until just now wanted me to go through three pages of instructions to fix it, and you don't know what the button you came here to install does?"
Starlight Glimmer backed toward the door slowly. "I'm sorry. I was just told to bring the new manual here and finish installing the button. That's it."
Rainbow Dash facehoofed and groaned. "No. I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I didn't mean to get mad at you. It's just..." She glanced back over her shoulder at her terminal. "Do you ever wonder what this place is for? Do any of these switches do anything at all?"
"What do you mean?" Starlight Glimmer tilted her head.
The terminal chimed behind Rainbow Dash, calling for her attention again. She sighed and waved her hoof. "Dumb question. Nevermind. We should both probably just get back to work."
Applejack was curious. The elevator always stopped on sublevel twenty-four to let the unicorn mare off, but today it hadn't. They were now passing level seventy-two. Applejack had never known anypony else to ride the elevator as far down as she did.
"Pardon, miss?" Applejack said, clearing her throat.
The other pony jumped slightly as Applejack's voice cut through the soft, droning hum of the elevator's mechanism. "Oh! Excuse me. I'm sorry. I forgot anypony was in here with me," she laughed dryly.
Applejack smiled politely. "That's alright. It's a long ride, and I'm usually alone in here myself. I'm Applejack by the way."
"Rarity. Nice to meet you." She turned her head as if to confirm that there weren't any other ponies in the elevator that she'd forgotten about and nervously chewed her lip before she admitted, "I've never been this far down before. It's striking just how slow these elevators are, isn't it?"
"I suppose I'm just used to it." Applejack hesitated. There was no rule against asking others where they went or what they did in the facility, but it had somehow become a taboo subject. Given that it was only the two of them in the elevator, however, she decided there was no harm in asking, "What floor are you going to?"
Rarity pursed her lips for a moment before answering, "I'm not sure I should say."
"That's alright. I don't mean to pry or nothing. I'm going to ninety-nine, and I never knew anypony else worked that far down." Applejack was ready to finish the ride in silence but she noticed the look on Rarity's face, as if she were equally frightened and curious. "What is it?"
"Ninety-nine, you say?" Rarity leaned closer, and her voice became a hushed whisper. "I've heard rumors about what's on that level. Is it true?"
"Is what true?" Applejack was never one for rumors, so it was news to her that there were any at all about the level she regularly worked on. As far as she was concerned, it was all normal, monotonous, routine system calibration. Probably the same sort of work that happened all over the facility.
"I heard there's a button under a locked cover, and nopony has ever pressed it," Rarity whispered.
Applejack scratched the side of her head while she tried to imagine the control panel she operated. There were plenty of buttons on it for sure, but she had definitely pressed all of them at some point. Arrays of switches, knobs, and dials ran along the length of the console. And then...
"Ah... N-nope! No button like that. None at all. I reckon whoever told you that was confusing ninety-nine with some other level." It wasn't exactly a lie. She had pressed it once.
"Hmph!" Rarity pouted and sighed, and the two continued their ride in silence for another minute. Passing sublevel eighty-eight, she spoke up again, no longer whispering, "Do you ever wonder what the facility does?"
"Beg pardon?"
"The facility," Rarity repeated, waving her hoof around at the dense, expansive network of subterranean halls, shafts, and rooms that surrounded them. "If somepony on, let's say, level fourteen flips a switch or pushes a button, what does that do exactly?"
Applejack wrinkled her nose. She opened her mouth to respond, but caught herself as the question sank in. "I... don't rightly know. Never thought about it before."
"That's just it, isn't it? We all shuffle off to our stations every day like clockwork and all for what? What does any of it—" Rarity was cut short as the elevator lurched to a stop on level ninety-four and the doors opened into an empty, brightly-lit corridor.
"Is this your floor?" Applejack asked after a moment when Rarity didn't move.
"It is." She took a few careful steps forward and stepped into the hallway. As the doors began to close, Rarity looked back over her shoulder. "Nevermind what I said. It was just a silly thought I had. It was nice to meet you, Applejack. Perhaps I'll see you again sometime."
"Likewise, Rarity. You take care now."
The doors sealed and the elevator resumed its descent to sublevel ninety-nine.
Twilight Sparkle glanced anxiously from one terminal to the next, watching for the next set of instructions to come through.
ENABLE SUBSYSTEM XXIX
No sooner had the words flashed across the screen, than the appropriate switch was toggled to the 'on' position by Twilight's Magic.
DISABLE SUBSYSTEMS VIII, XIV, XXI
Again, the switches were immediately flipped down.
Minutes passed without any new instructions. Twilight Sparkle hated those gaps with nothing to do. At first, she had used the time to familiarize herself with the layout of the console. Then, after she no longer needed to look at what controls she was manipulating, she had started memorizing the operation manual. It didn't contain any information about the behavior of the console itself, only long lists of instructions that the terminals would sometimes call for when—Twilight Sparkle assumed—the required operation was too long to fit on the screen all at once. She now knew all the codes and their instruction sequences by heart, and often muttered them to herself out of habit, as she was now while waiting for the next instruction to come through.
And eventually, it did. This time all three terminals flashed a set of instructions almost simultaneously. Switches flipped and dials turned practically on their own. Twilight Sparkle didn't even have to pay attention to the instrument readouts anymore, not since she had learned to listen to the subtle variations of the electric hum that came from each of them.
The only thing holding Twilight Sparkle back now was the fact that she couldn't look at all three terminals at once, and had to keep glancing back and forth between them. Sometimes they would make a sound when new instructions came up, but not always. She had to stay alert at all times.
Another instruction flashed across one of the terminals. Twilight Sparkle barely registered what it had said by the time she'd carried it out. But something different happened this time, something the console had never done before: A door opened up on its surface, and a four-by-four keypad rose up out of it. The keys were printed with the numbers zero through nine and the letters 'A' through 'F'.
Twilight Sparkle spared a few seconds between glances at the terminals to memorize the keypad's layout. Whatever it was for, she was certain she'd be ready for it.
She did not expect a math problem to appear on the terminal, but when "1 + 1 = ?" came up, she quickly pressed the '2' key. A second later another one appeared that read "9 + 1 = ?"
The message didn't go away immediately after Twilight Sparkle pressed '1' followed by '0'. Pulling her eyes away from the terminal, she took a closer look at the keypad. Why were there letters on it? Taking a guess, she pressed the 'A' key. The terminal cleared and after another second, the next prompt came up: "EA60 + 293 = ?"
Twilight Sparkle pondered this for a minute, tracing out numbers in the air with her hoof while muttering "sixteen is ten" over and over to herself before she entered "ECF3" on the keypad. The prompt cleared, and she breathed a sigh of relief, allowing herself only a moment of rest before refocusing her mind to practice doing math with sixteen numerals.
This proved unnecessary, however, as the next instruction to appear was "STAND UP."
She automatically rose from her chair, of course, but part of her wondered if she had actually seen that instruction or not. The terminal was already clear, so she couldn't be sure. Her legs felt stiff, and she took the opportunity to shake them out a little. Before she could start questioning how long she should stay standing for, another instruction appeared along with another part of the console opening up. A small key hung from a hook, and the terminal read only "UNLOCK THE BUTTON."
Twilight Sparkle grabbed the key in her magic and turned around to face the back wall of the control room where a large red button was locked behind a clear plastic cover. She put the key into the lock and turned it, the cover flipping open as she did. She looked back at the terminals and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Twilight Sparkle suddenly felt very small inside the room, as if it had expanded to the size of the entire facility—or perhaps even larger.
"What do I do?" she asked the terminals. "Do I push the button?"
The terminals remained blank.
Twilight began to feel dizzy. There was only one logical thing for her to do after unlocking the button, but she hadn't been told to do it yet.
"Did you assume I would just push the button?"
She began to pace across the room.
"I did everything exactly as you told me to do. Why would I push the button if you didn't tell me to do it?"
Twilight looked away from the terminals and focused on the button. It called to her. It was a button. Its sole purpose was to be pushed. It had been locked away to deny its purpose until this exact moment. "Why shouldn't I push it?"
She approached the wall and stared at that big red button. "What do you do?" Twilight asked it. "Why are you here?"
She glanced back at the terminals, desperate for any instruction—any at all. "Tell me what to do? Disable a subsystem? Set PWM duty cycle? Anything!"
There were no more instructions.
"What do I do? Why am I here? What is any of this for? Somepony tell me!"
There was nopony there to tell her. Twilight Sparkle was alone with that big red button.