42

Chapter Eight

“That is a sticky situation.”

BYTE

I looked over the control panel of the stable door. I raised my right… hoof. To the control panel and commanded the link cable to come out. Fingers popped out instead. I looked at the appendages and gave them a wiggle. “This is so odd.” I said to no one. I commanded them to retract and they did. I put my hoof back on the ground and screwed up my eyes to my horn and tried to remember how to get magic to work.
My horn sputtered and crimson light flickered and then went out. “Hmm, maybe something more basic like levitation?” I ask myself then look at a pencil on the ground and focus my horn on it. I imagine it being gripped, trying to pick it up. My horn sputtered and a solid glow of crimson magic enveloped the writing instrument and I lifted it into the air. During this whole process I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until a little O2 gauge popped up in my vision with a percentage remaining. I let my breath out and the gauge started to refill quickly as the pencil clattered to the ground.

“Damn it.” I swore as I caught my breath. So I am out of practice with magic. That’s to be expected I guess. I then turned my attention to the control panel and looked it over and pushed a few buttons. The warning lights came to life and the door rolled back into place being pushed by a pneumatic piston until the locking assembly pushed in to the back of the and pushed it into place making horrible screeching sounds as it whirred and locked the bolts of the cog shaped door in to place.

“Nopony is getting in here.” I say with a nod and turned back toward the door way another door caught my eye. “STORAGE” it said. I walked to it and it refused to open. I pressed the button on the wall with a hoof and it clicked and the servo refused to engage to lift the door.

"Odd." I say and then examine the door I notice the hydraulic line was crimped. I looked to my hoof and popped my fingers out and carefully unkinked the line. I then pressed the button again and after a moment the door ground as it raised in to the ceiling.

"That's better. Now what were you hiding in here?" I asked the space as I looked around. It was definitely a storage room. Only it wasn't quite just a storage room I could see boxes labeled different things that a stable might use and then on the other wall a pressure door not like a hydraulic door like the stable door I just opened. No this one was a straight-up pressure door I walked up to it and I pulled on the lever that opened the door. With a creek the door open swinging inwardly away from me. On the wall opposite me were three signs. An arrow pointing to the left side reactor, the sign in the middle pointing to the right said offices, and the final one said security office.

Definitely not just storage I thought. I proceeded towards the security offices. It was a pretty long walk it must have taken me a couple minutes to walk down that way okay it did take me a couple minutes I have a chronometer on my heads up display. I finally arrived at another pressure door. This is odd I thought why would these areas need to be pressurized?
I then tried pulling the handle to the security office it would not budge. I looked around at the door and noticed a little sign that said pressurized when this knob is out it was just a little bump with a circle. I took a finger and poked the bump it did not retract it gave tension as I tried to push on it.

"Okay why would a security office need to be pressurized?" I asked myself. The most logical answer I thought was a fire suppression system. Maybe halon gas. I checked around the wall looking for some way to release the pressure in the room. I didn't find anything on this side of the wall so whatever pressurized in the security office could probably only be unpressurized on the other side. I made my way back towards the reactor rooms.

I encountered the same problem at the reactor room doors. "Well that's odd." I said out loud to myself. Well let's try the offices I thought to myself and name my way towards the office door. This was also a pressure door but the pressure indicator was not popped out and this time I was able to pull the handle and open the door. As I walked inside I saw a movement and then Phoenix's head popped up over a desk.
"Where did you come from?" He asked his trottingham accent asking in surprise. I looked back at the door, looked into the hallway then looked back at him as I trotted in and I pushed the door slightly closed. The backside of the door was disguised as just a normal part of the wall.
"Apparently I came through a secret door. No idea why they needed that. Have you seen the security office or the reactor level yet?" I asked him.
Phoenix nodded his head as he pulled his hoof out of the desk drawing with it a can of cram. "Yeah I tried getting into the security office but it wouldn't open. It was locked with the terminal and I don't have the best skills with terminals."

"It seems like that would be a job for me then. Which way to the security office?" I asked the bat Pony alicorn. He pointed his hoof back out the doorway he had come through, "go out that door make a right head all the way down the hallway you'll come across one of them big stable tech doors in front of it is a security terminal good luck with it though." He explained to me.

"You didn't lock out the terminal did you?" I asked him giving him a pointed stare. Phoenix shook his head left and right indicating a negative. I nodded my thanks and walked out the door followed in the direction he said and came up to a terminal and I could see why the security door was closed tight and there was another one of those little pressured icons on the door.

"Time to give up your secrets to me." I said as I opened up the terminal and began hacking into it manually. It took me three tries but I finally got the password and of course it would be something so silly "bubblegum."

The terminal screen presented me with four options:

1. RELEASE SECURITY OFFICE LOCK
2. UNPRESSURIZED FIRE SUPPRESSION
3. OPEN DOOR
4. LOG OFF

I typed the number two and pressed enter. A hissing can be heard from inside the door and the little notch dropped him back into the door. The terminal screen changed; the second option was now pressurized with fire suppression. That's so odd I thought. I pressed one and then pressed enter and then pressed three and enter and then I folded the keyboard back up. When the door opened the first thing I noticed was the smell of carbon. So apparently there was a fire in there at some point. As I entered the office I noticed a dozen bodies on the ground, well charred skeletons really. Each one of them had a firearm and one of them had a flamer. Looks like the old weapons in there had been cooked. And the flavor was definitely out of fuel why would a dozen security ponies be in here and decide to cook themselves alive?
I looked around the room for anything that could have survived the blaze unfortunately everything in the room was torched including the security terminals.
Phoenix popped his head inside the door, "well looks like things got toasty in here." He said stating the obvious.

"Yeah I don't think we're getting any answers out of this room as to what happened or why." I said as I trotted it back out of the room.

"Definitely not and it doesn't seem to be anything else of value anywhere else I could find." Phoenix said sounding disappointed. He found a couple of pistols some ammo a couple of snacks pre-war of course. But nothing of interest at least to me.

"So," he began letting his so trail off.

"What?" I asked him.

Phoenix looked me up and down, "how are you dealing with the change? I was thinking we could just get you repaired but I guess Boo had other ideas." He asked me there was actually some concern to his voice.

"I am all right. Just a day ago I was a cat, this is a marked improvement from a cat halfway between fully organic and robotic, a change like this I can deal with after all I was a cyberpony before I went full robot."
Phoenix nodded, seeming to accept my answer.
What was I doing conversing with him there's no point to it. It's not like I was trying to make friends with him, he was just a means to an end just like the Draconequus. But yet… something about him made me feel like I could trust him to a certain extent. Perhaps I needed to get in the habit of trusting merely fleshy bodies again. After all I do recall boo saying something about she would have to change me.
"It honestly doesn't matter what form I am." I said finally.
"This is not as quite as easy to work with. But I will make do with it after all it is nice to be able to breathe again and to taste and see things without the color red obscuring everything." The bat Pony alicorn seem to accept this.
"Well then let's get back to Boo and see what our next step is."
Phoenix started trotting down the corridor and I followed.