A loud beeping filled my ears, my left leg vibrating violently. I grunted, rubbing my eyes as I sat up in bed. The lights blinded me for a faint moment, as I looked down at the blur that was my Pip-Buck and flicked a little switch on the side. The alarm switched off and the image of the little colt on the screen waking up flickered out to be replaced by a mess of blurry words. Looking over to my bedside table, I picked up my glasses and slid them onto my face, prompting me to blink as they magnified the lights overhead, my eyes eventually adjusting and the room coming into focus. I rubbed my temples, throwing aside the covers of my bed and making way to the dresser nearby; oh, let’s see, what should I wear today? The Stable-Tec Stable 76 Standardized Jumpsuit, the Stable-Tec Stable 76 Standardized Jumpsuit, or the Stable-Tec Stable 76 Standardized Jumpsuit?

Slipping into one of the jumpsuits, I managed to drag myself over a short plug extending from the wall, hooves heavy on the floor. I slipped my mane aside, revealing a small jack on my temple. Right, just slip in the plug, and... oooooh, yeaah, that's the stuff. The electricity flowed through the wire and into my head, the tiny wires, talismans and coils clicking as they powered up, the very faint hum returning to my ears as my horn gave a spark, my magic returning to full strength. I unplugged the wire, a shiver running through my body - oh, electricity is -so- much better than caffeine.

The door slid upwards as I approached it, the hallways quiet, aside from the occasional echoes of the hooves of a security pony changing shifts. I trotted down the hallway, climbing the stairs to the main hall, spotting a few ponies sitting around on some of the chairs, one flipping through a magazine. Entering the cafeteria, I picked up a tray and slid it along the tray line, disinterestedly looking behind the splash guards. One of the cafeteria ponies placed a bowl of oatmeal onto the tray, as I grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter near the end of the line. Trotting myself over to one of the long tables, I idly took a bite out of the apple, taking a curious look at it. I have no clue how they grow this stuff so far underground, but eh, hey, if it works, it works.

As I ate, a royal blue unicorn trotted in; I watched his purple tail swish back and forth as he slid his own tray along the line, picking up a pack of fancy filly snack cakes and giving that soft mane of his a gentle flick. Eyes fallen out of focus on everything else for a moment, I snapped back to reality as he turned to face me, smiling and sliding in on the bench beside myself. “Hey, Minty. How’re you doing?” Cross Stitch rested his forehooves on the table, levitating and tearing open the package of cakes and taking a bite, as I swallowed my mouthful of oatmeal down.

“Alright. Same old stuff yesterday.” I ate more of the bland oatmeal as he chomped down on the other cake, giving a small muffled chuckle of acknowledgement. We ate in silence for a while, before I spoke up again. “Anything interesting happen for you, yesterday?” He shook his head in response, as he finished up with the snack cakes.

“Nah, I was just fixing up some more jumpsuits. Stir Fry’s shot up over the past weeks.” I nodded in response as I finished up my breakfast. “And what do you mean same old stuff yesterday? It wasn’t exactly a secret you broke into the armory again.” He smirked as he levitated the trays onto a pile of dirty ones.

“Can I help it if that’s where the only cool pieces of tech are being stored here?” I asked, grinning. Cross Stitch only rolled his eyes in response, trotting beside me. “Hey, you said it yourself you wanted to check it out sometime.” We walked out of the mess hall, heading to Cross Stitch’s job at the jumpsuit repair room.

“I said I wanted to check out the maintenance areas with you, not get in trouble with the Overmare.” He said as we turned a corner, a security guard walking in the opposite direction to us. “Maybe then I’d get your obsession with those giant boxes of gems.” I gave a roll of my eyes in response.

“Said the seamstress.” I chuckled, Cross Stitch sticking his tongue out at me teasingly. We reached his room, him punching the code in. “I’ll see you later.” I said, smiling, himself smiling back before turning into the room. I trotted back down the hallway, heading towards the maintenance areas, passing another security pony who I nodded to in acknowledgement. He grunted a little, but nothing else. I turned and headed down the steps, my hooves clacking against the metal softly.

I entered the small maintenance office, Squeaky Hinges pouring over some paperwork. He looked up as I walked in, spitting his pencil out of his mouth. “Hey, Minty. We’ve got some complaints about computers losing power, probably just a busted tube. Go check the mainframe.” He waved me away, and I immediately turned around, heading even deeper into the guts of the Stable. The door to the large generator slid open, the mechanical beast rumbling loudly. I snatched up a pair of headphones from the wall, slipping them over my ears with a small grumble, before trotting over to the back of the machine.

My metal horn glowed as the screws undid themselves and I lifted the panel away, revealing the mess of wires, tubes, bulbs and talismans littered throughout. Sure enough, there were a few shattered vacuum tubes near the back, still idly sparking... brilliant. These things burst more often than I can care to keep track of. I unscrewed them and slipped what I could find of the glass into a bucket, pulling out a few extra ones out of the toolbox and securing them and the wires. As I did, an arc of lighting flew from the end of one, connecting with my horn. Gah, mother of Celestia! Why is it they haven’t found a good way of insulating body parts yet? Rubbing my horn gingerly, I used my mouth to screw the panel back into place, as my magic throbbed.

I soon found myself trotting out of the noisy room, emptying the bucket of broken vacuum tubes into a trashcan, setting the headphones back onto their rack. As I trotted back up to the office, a little niggling feeling poked at me, stopping me in my tracks, and making me look to my right. Down the hall was another secured door, the lights behind the sign “Armory” flickering slightly above it. I glanced back up the stairs to the office - no one should be coming down soon, right? The generator’s fixed, Hinges should see that on his computer, and he didn’t need anything else today. I looked back down the hallway to the armory, an ear twitching slightly. Slowly, I walked towards it, checking over my shoulder that no one was coming.

Trotting up to the terminal beside the door, I took to inspecting it. They probably beefed up the security system on this thing since my last break in… Even with all those misspent days of hacking into the systems, before I got my job, probably wouldn’t help much. I pulled out the screwdriver from the toolbox and a bobby pin tucked in my mane - good thing that wasn’t the only thing I misspent my days on...

I bent the bobby pin, carefully sliding it into the small keyhole in the door, using my screwdriver as leverage. I placed my ear against the door and jiggled the pin around, sliding it left and right. It didn’t sound too difficult a lock… honestly, it should have been a lot more complex for an armory door. Listening as a few tumblers clicked, I twisted the screwdriver, and the latch popped open. No blaring alarms? This is my lucky day! I slipped through the door, shutting it behind me before I looked over the Stable's positively loaded armory. I giggled a little to myself as I saw the myriad of weaponry, pistols, revolvers, a few grenades, but the cream of the crop lay on a large metal table near the center. I lifted up a small brass gun in my aura, looking over the various wires and cathodes attached to it.

The plasma pistol’s cool casing shone slightly in the light as I twisted it this way and that to look it over. Oooh, what I could do with this little thing… I glanced over my shoulder again, the door to the armory still shut tight. A smile crossed my face as I pulled out a small screwdriver, pliers, and other various tools. I began to undo the casing around the plasma emitting hull, and levitated over a nearby laser pistol, beginning to unscrew the front end. The prism was soon glittering in the Stable lights, the laser emitter distorted through it. I carefully lifted it out and laid the laser pistol case on the table, looking back its plasma counterpart.

The cool plasma warped in its glass container, various magnets and heating elements hooked up to it, keeping it live. I looked over the gun, trying to figure the best way to fit in the prism. The glass should be able to withstand the heat, those lasers weren’t too much cooler than good old plas-

I froze in place as I suddenly heard hoofsteps outside the door, sounding like they were trotting closer. They stopped outside the door, my heart stuck firm in my throat - fuck me... I could barely hear the beeping of the terminal as the door slid open. Security officer Kevlar looked in, sighing before trotting herself up to me, irritated. “Minty… how many times are we going to have to do this?” My ears lowered as I set the guns down on the table, gathering up my tools. Last time I tried to put up a fight I received a large dose of high-voltage electricity through my horn… definitely don’t need that again.

Kevlar escorted me out of the room, locking the door behind her. She lead me through the halls, and I glanced into Hinges’ office as we passed by, who didn’t seem to notice us. “You know the Overmare’s not going to be happy about this. What is it, the eighth time this month? She really needs to boost the security down there already.”

We trotted up the stairs towards the Overmare’s office, Kevlar opening the door and stepping in behind me. Bonbon looked up, only to see me and sigh, her expression immediately going sour. “Please, for once just tell me this was for vandalizing a soda machine or drawing graffiti.” Kevlar shook her head, Bonbon sighing. “Minty, you know we’re not allowed to give access to the armory to anypony but security officers. It’s bad enough knowing those that we give those roles could get a wire crossed and start killing people off without some tech obsessed colt breaking in every day too!” She was growing steadily angrier by the minute. Welp, yeah, I messed up big this time...

“Every day I keep getting reports back of failing augmentations and ponies needing to be put down and now you-” She stopped short, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. I stepped back a bit, staring at her in disbelief. Augmentations… failing? Ponies dying? Bonbon looked over to Kevlar, who glanced nervously between her and me. Bonbon’s expression became stern again. “Take Minty back to his room. Have his room confiscated.” She turned back to me - this certainly did not seem like it was going to be a slap on the hoof this time... “You are hereby under solitary confinement for an undetermined amount of time. Your room will be guarded and your job duties revoked until further notice.” She lowered her voice, giving a firm glare that ratehr well hammered it in for me. “If you tell anypony about what you've just heard, I’ll see to it you won’t be heard from again.”

Twintails' Story: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11495398/