Fallout: Equestria - Wasted Innocence

Chapter 1: Stable 82

"Just do what you need to do and don't make yourself noticable."

"My job isn't that bad, y'know, terrible pay but flexible hours, plenty of time off, health, dental, and vision covered. Sick leave, housing is paid for, and best of all: paid vacations."

"Bullshit, Cyan, we don't get any of that. If anything at all, we might get a 15-minute break and some coffee."

"Well, at least I get to work with three other earth ponies from time to time. Most of the time, you guys just have to take turns with me," I joked as a pony known as ManeGage looked up at me with a blush.

I looked back down at the two stallions standing at the bottom of the ladder I was perched on top of for just a moment before we all broke out in laughter. We had been joking about those three 'taking turns' with me in so many different ways ever since Blacklight brought it up almost a year prior. Everything from work to relaxation to other various means, and the joke only got funnier once we got to work that ManeGage had something of a crush on me.

Twisting the last wires together and biting the connector clamping it into place, I knew the job was done. That day’s repair was to fix the circuits that ran the stable's ceiling fans in the cafeteria. I really didn't mind being one of the only mares working maintenance in Stable 82, I just didn't get any respect for being the only pegasus in Stable 82 aside from those three.

"Alright, GreyCloud, throw the breaker!" I called to a pony in the other room. With a pop and crackle, light sparks showered from the ceiling as all of the fans in the Cafeteria began spinning all at once. "Well, at least ponies will be eating comfortably from now on." I turned my head, hearing hoofsteps entering the door. Seeing a security pony standing there holding a clipboard, I knew it couldn't be good. I hated reassignments.

"New orders from the overmare, you three: the Spark Generator down on the lower living quarters is down again, and she wants it fixed immediately."

"We just fixed that damned thing last week!" GreyCloud calls from the back room. I was surprised he could hear the conversation back there with all of the circuits humming all at once. I swear the pony is like a hermit, always staying out of view of everypony else. He's also got excellent hearing—it's like he's part batpony or something.

"Orders are orders, and you are maintenance ponies; if it breaks, you four fix it. It's been that way for over 200 years—get over it." The security pony turned and left.

Climbing down and off the ladder, I sighed and turned to the other maintenance pony standing at the bottom of the ladder. He was stood to attention, saluting with his foreleg up and by his brow. I shot him a very confused look. "Uhh, what the hell are you doing, Blacklight?"

"Ma'am, the overmare has summoned up to fix a spark generator, ma'am." He looked so stupid like that, an orange earthpony standing to attention and covered in dust and grease. They should have given us black and yellow Stablesuits to work with instead of blue.

I j chuckled and pushed him aside lightly. "Let's go, asshole—and grab that toolbox, ManeGage."

Making our way down to the Generator control room, the door slid open with a hiss and clunk. The room housed the Mane Six generators used for the main sections of the stable. The large round turbine generators were behind large doors of their own; it was easy to find the one that was down due to the large red flashing light on it and the fact it had a sign on it flashing “OFFLINE”.

"Six generators and we are always fixing number four. What is the point of these generators anyway, when the power to the stable comes from the main reactor room?" I asked, looking back at ManeGage. He just shrugged at me with the handle of the toolbox in his mouth.

I hit the switch on the wall, opening the door to generator four. The door unlocked with a hiss and slowly rose, exposing the spark generator. The turbine wasn't spinning, and it was clear it hadn't been running for a while; it was cold in the room, despite how those generators got HOT. I took a wrench from my tool belt and laid it on a flat surface on top of the front of the generator, preparing myself to crawl underneath it. Being a slim and small pegasus, I was one of the only ponies in the stable who could fit under it, Last week they had me crawling through a ventilation shaft, and the week before that I was up in the ceiling crawling around to find an electrical short.

That was the part of my job I hated: being squeezed into tight spaces I could barely move in, all because I was a slim pony and my wings took up a lot of my body mass.

I shimmied myself on the floor between the generator and the wall. Scanning over the bottom of the turbine housing, I couldn't quite see exactly what was wrong with the thing. Not being able to move much, I raised my hoof and, luckily, was able to use the light from my pipbuck to give me just enough light to notice a wire had come loose. With a wiggle and a click, the wire went back into place, and the generator came to life with a hum and began running in perfect order.

"What was it?" I heard ManeGage ask as I began to wiggle myself out.

"Just a loose wire. I swear this stable is beginning to fall apart on us."

I tried to wiggle myself out, and I was almost out when I heard a shrieking screech and the generator began getting very hot very fast. I slid myself out in a panic to find ManeGage just staring at the thing. My ears drooped and fell flat as I slowly turned to see the small square box in front of the turbine beginning to smoke, and I noticed the turbine wasn't turning at all. The turbine groaned and creaked as it tried to force itself to turn, then, with a snap, sparks began to shoot off from the shaft of the turbine, and smoke dumped out of the metal box, all within seconds.

"Cyan, we need to get out of here! Let go!" I felt a tug at my tool belt as I was pulled out of the room. I fell to the floor and the door slammed shut in front of me. I waited for just a moment, staring at the 'ONLINE' light until there was a muffled yet still very loud boom from the other side of the door.

"What the fuck was that?!" Blacklight yelled as he ran into the room, standing between ManeGage and myself. From the corner of my eye, he stood still, staring at the door as the smoke seeped out, completely enveloping the metal door in a light haze of smoke. "What did you two do?"

"Luna-damned gen’ blew, that's what happened," ManeGage said under his breath, but still loud enough to hear him. He was clearly in shock at what had happened. I was in shock myself. I couldn't even react to the conversation. I had just been under that thing. Only Luna knows what it would have done to me if it were to have blown while I was under there.

"Who was the tech inspecting the generator?" Blacklight asked a clearly out of it ManeGage. "Hello, 'Gage, I need you to talk to me. Who was it?" Blacklight then looked over to me. "Please tell me it wasn't you.”

All I could do was nod, not wanting to admit I may have just messed up big.

"AW, fuck. How?"

"Just a loose wire, Blacklight. I just plugged it back in, that's it."

An automated voice came over the Stable's PA system, giving us bad news. "Lower Living Quarters now offline. Auxiliary power now online." My heart dropped when that message came out loud and clear.

"That can't be good," ManeGage said quietly. "What do you think that means, Cyan?"

"That means our names are definitely in the raffle now. That's what that means. We. Are. Fucked."

Just the thought of being condemned to the outside made my stomach turn. They only held a raffle on three occasions: one, somepony was just born, two, the annual drawing, and three, somepony messed up badly. I was that somepony that time around.

Manegage looked at his pipbuck quickly, then sighed. "Look, here's what we are gonna do: we were never in there. The generator blew before we even got here. Understand? They can't hold a pony accountable if there is no pony here to stop it from happening. Just go back to your Quarters and get your head straight. I'll deal with the overmare, and maybe we might have a chance."

Looking back at the generator door and seeing the smoke seeping out of it, I knew there was no good explanation for what had happened. I had no clue, so if I had no clue, then how would I explain it? Internal malfunction? Not checking it thoroughly enough? Spontaneous combustion? Yeah, that would go over really well. My heart sank even lower into the pits of my stomach when the stable alarms began going off.

"Look, I can only protect you If you get going now. As your senior technician, I am ordering you to go to your Quarters and stay there."

"I'm not sure that will be enough, but I'm with you on this one, 'Gage," BlackLight said with a sigh, staring at the door still. Whatever was going through his head couldn't have been much different than what was going through mine.

I just nodded and began walking toward my living space. Passing ponies in the halls all stopped what they were doing and looked at me with great disappointment. Some shook their heads at me and others turned away from me. The worst were the ones who threw comments at me as I walked the halls.

"Back to your room again, Cyan?"

"What did you do now?"

"Why did they even let a pegasus be a technician in the first place?"

"You'll never fit in here."

Trying to ignore their voices, I broke into a gallop and didn't stop until I got to my room. The grey metal halls and dim fluorescent lights made the stable seem like more of a place of torture than one of paradise. Repeatedly slamming my hoof against the door controls as quickly as I could, I opened the door and shut it behind me. My thoughts all came to the surface at once, and I choked back the tears, unbuckled my tool belt, and let it fall to the floor with a metallic clatter and thud. I had seriously messed up somehow, and there might have been no way of fixing it. I swallowed hard and tried to keep calm the best I could.

"Mom, Dad, I'm home," I whispered as I walked into the living room and sat in front of a picture on the table. It depicted both of my parents holding me as a filly. "Today was a complete shit show. I short-circuited the door leading to the atrium, I fried the water heaters in the stallion’s bathrooms, I did fix the fans in the cafe, but then I blew up a spark generator, and everypony hates me and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I can't do anything right, I can't get the hang of this maintenance thing, and, and I miss you guys so much." I laid my head on the table, breaking into a full-fledged sob.

I must have cried myself to sleep and woke up the next day. I slowly raised my head and wiped some drool from my mouth. Looking down at my pipbuck, the screen was covered in drool as well. I sighed at the sight of it and wiped the screen on my blue and yellow jumpsuit. The time was only 14:35. Okay, so maybe only a few hours later and not actually the next day.

Getting back onto my hooves, I shakily walked over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Goddesses, I was a wreck. My blue coat was covered in dust and oil, my bright blue and green mane and tail were unkempt… I was a mess. The thoughts of everything that had happened earlier that day all came back at once, and my stomach knotted up all over again.

A knock on my door broke my train of thought, and my heart about stopped. I inhaled deeply and slowly walked to the door, then stood on my mother’s hoofmade semi-soft welcome mat.. I was shaking a bit; it felt like my insides were convulsing. I had no idea what to expect, but I expected something bad. I slowly pushed the button until it clicked, and the door hissed as the pneumatic lock came loose and the door rose upward. Standing there was a Stable guard. Well, that is it: the moment they would throw me out of the stable.

"You've got a job from the overmare: polish the stable door. That is all." The security pony turned to walk away.

"W-which door, sir?"

"The big one shaped like a gear. What else? I swear, you get worse at this job every day."

I didn’t mean to be bad at my job. I wanted to go into Stable-Tek science, but, just like the rest of my family, we were always put in the worst jobs in the stable; it something to do with my family making a deal with the overmare some 210 years ago, but that history was lost to time. I just knew my family had always been punished for basically nothing.

It only took about 20 minutes to get my stuff together. My saddlebags had to have weighed a ton, and my tool belt didn't help either. Leaving my quarters, I took a route I very rarely took. Walking through the halls felt like it took an eternity, and it wasn't until I began walking through the atrium that I started getting the feeling that someone was watching me. It was probably just the overmare keeping me in sight to make sure I actually did the job right. Looking up through the catwalks of the multilevel floor of the atrium, I could see ponies walking back and forth, attending their duties as posted for that day. Somehow, it didn't make it seem all that bad, even though they had to share a stable with a pegasus—me.

The next metal door slid upwards with a hiss and a clunk. I slowly walked into the decontamination room, attempting to look through a dust-covered window into the next room. Everything in it was dusty, and it looked like it hadn't been used in years apart from some fairly fresh-looking hoof tracks on the floor, one’s probably left behind from the previous raffle drawings. I did everything in my power to keep my thoughts supressed . I reached up to a control panel just beside the other door and pulled the lever, and the door slowly rose with some dust falling off of it. I reluctantly walked through.

There it was: a 10-foot-tall steel gear-shaped portal into hell. I stood and stared at it for a moment, observing the working of the door, and was immediately impressed at how simple the door was to operate. A large hinged arm on the ceiling with a screw-threaded rod on the end of it, the door itself, and a control panel that only had a lever on it. I guessed it wasn't so bad in there, not much of a threat. What could happen? It's stable, right?

The Entrance room. Ironic name if you ask me, since it was used for more than an entrance. The one thing that stood out was a large poster on the wall directly across from the door that read 'An Obedient Life Is A Happy Life - Stable-Tek'. So that is what everypony saw when they first walked into that room 200 years prior.

I turned my head and looked at the massive steel door in front of me. I thought It would be better to get to doing my job and get out of there as quickly as I possibly could.

As I made my way down the stairs in between the walking platforms, each hoofstep made a metallic clunking sound. And with each step, the gear-shaped door got larger and larger. I never thought it would be so big. I got about five feet away from the door when I heard a collective set of hooves walking on metal from behind me. I turned my head to see the overmare and two security ponies standing at each side of her, as well as one already standing at the stable door control panel. I instantly thought I was going to be sick. I looked at the door and back at the overmare, putting the pieces together in my head. I knew what it was, and I knew what was about to happen.

"Oh." It was the only thing that I could get out as I hung my head low.

"Cyan Skies, I regret to inform you that, due to a population crisis in the stable, we had to hold a private raffle drawing, and your name came up. I hereby sentence you to life outside the stable."

"What population crisis? We just had a drawing last week," I fired back, trying to give myself a fighting chance. "Population control does not mean you get to control the population."

The overmare began pacing back and forth, looking at me with a stern, serious expression. "Your friend came to me claiming that the generator had been blown before you got there. This I know not to be true. I disregarded his plea for your innocence and reassigned him to work in clean-up duty around the stable."

"It wasn't my..."

"You are missing a wrench from your belt, aren't you?"

My body stiffened as I reached for my tool belt and felt an empty tool spot. I never misplaced my tools. "I-I must have dropped it in my room. I'll go back and get—"

A metallic clank rang throughout the Entrance room as a bent wrench covered in scratches and blackened to an iridescent color landed at my hooves. I didn't get it at first until, upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn't just a wrench, it was my wrench.

"I don't understand." Feeling confused, I stared up at the overmare.

"Oh, I believe you understand what is going on here. You never were good at anything we ever assigned you to do, then again did we assigned you to fix things all around the stable with broken parts and defective tools. And those generators—they don't power anything, Miss Cyan. I shut the power off for the Southern living quarters; The generators down there are mainly used for training purposes and to give the maintenance something to do to keep their skills sharp. I just wasn't expecting you to blow up a generator that wasn't connected to the main power grid."

I felt extremely sick to my stomach. "I followed all of the rules. I tried my best. I did everything you told me to the greatest extent. Why would you set me up? Is this about that stupid feud from over 200 years ago?"

While I had my focus on the overmare, I jumped a bit when the stable door alarm sounded and the yellow rotating lights tracked a yellow rotating streak across the wall and the hinged arm slowly lowered into place, moving closer to the door right over my head.

"You can't be fucking serious. I haven't done anything wrong!" I took a step forward and the two security stallions drew their guns. From the look of it, they were aimed directly at my head. I could hear the screw being attached to the door over my head and become attached with a hiss. I looked over my shoulder to look at the door again—a big mistake. Within a split second, both security stallions had me restrained by both of my forelegs and dragging me backward toward the door. I was too shocked to say anything at that point.

The stable door slid open with a screech and a squeal that could break glass, sending sparks flying from all around it. It only rumbled for a moment. Looking back again, I realized they only opened it enough for a pony to slip through. I didn't think they could stop it from opening fully. Panic hit when the security stallion started to drag me to the opening.

"Wait wait-wait-wait, I'll do better and I won't get in the way! I'm small and don't take up much room! I'll live in the storage bays! Just don't throw me out there! Please! Please don't do this, overmare! Please, overmare!"

I felt my hooves being dragged across the metal gear-shaped shrouding of the door, and I was thrown outside to the ground. I slid through the dirt face-first. My tools dumped out of my tool belt and saddlebags, some hitting the back of my head and others falling to the ground all around me. By the time I got back onto my hooves, the door had already rolled back into place. I rushed over and slammed my back against the door and dug my hooves into the ground while the door slid shut with the ear-piercing screech pushing my body into an upright position. The pneumatic locks clicked into place and the alarm stopped. What had I been thinking? As if a small pegasus like me could push the door back open.

I was… outside. Outside. In the unknown. "This isn't real, it's not real, it can't be." Looking down a short concrete tunnel, the only light I could see was a small red light directly over the stable door. It only provided enough light to show the stable door and its number; the rest was pitch-black. I was shaking hard enough I couldn't keep my pipbuck stable enough to use the controls. I curled up on the ground, staying as tight against the stable door as I could get, and shut my eyes. If I couldn’t see it, it didn’t seem real.

Laying on the ground, I only peeked up every once in and while, looking back up at the door and looking over the large 82 painted in yellow and bathed in a dim red light. I must have laid there for an hour before I decided to try to make my way out of the tunnel and to wherever the thing would lead me. The only source of light I had was the dim green glow from my pipbuck, but it would have to do.

Getting up, I gathered the tools I could see on the ground and began walking into the black abyss. My nerves were shot, I was scared out of my mind, and I had tears in my eyes, at least from what I could feel. I continued through the tunnel until another large metal door which reflected the light from my pipbuck revealed itself in the dark. That door was different; it had a handle and the words 'push' painted on it. Swallowing hard, I pushed the handle, and with a creak, the door swung open. Immediately, a huge gush of air rushed into the tunnel, and a blinding light flooded everything around me. I couldn’t see a thing for what seemed like a long time. I stood in the doorway until my eyes adjusted, and what I saw I couldn't believe.

"What the hell is this place?"