(story extract)
 
Ah, back inside the wonderfully pleasant blue glow from Stable 34’s Reactor, affectionately named ‘Bruce’ by generations earlier. There’s just something so curious about how the damn thing works - every few years or so, they have to take these large silvery-metal slugs and drop them into place in the fuel rods. Last time they did that, I was still a blank flank, hard to imagine… huh. Yanno, maybe that’s why I’ve got that mark of a helium atom. All it is is just an alpha particle with two beta particles in orbit, after all… or it could’ve been because I may have inhaled a bit too much helium at Tablet’s cutecienera. You can’t blame me, I thought it’d make me fly better - I was just a colt at the time, for cryin’ out loud! Caught sight of the fuel rods when I was down recovering in the infirmary, strange things they were back then, and they still are now. No magic running them at all, just their unstable atoms shedding off a few pounds in the form of an alpha or beta particle. Plop them into the core, they heat up some coolant fluid, the coolant boils water, water makes steam, steam runs generators, generators power ninety percent of the Stable. Just pure science… I wonder if all Stables have the same thing? Can’t take out an electrical talisman with an Anti-Magical Pulse when there aren’t any talismans wired on the grid in the first place!
 
Being one of those deep-water reactors, Bruce is a rather reliable workhorse, so to say. Hardly ever have to fiddle with the graphite moderators, fuel runs out slower than it takes a bone to heal, very self-sufficient design. Most days I wind up doing more reading than repairing, just sitting on the lip of the reactor pool near the terminal bank and occasionally glancing up at the screens to make sure nothing starts screaming at me in RobronCo code. Worst day so far was when they found Junebug’s pet rabbit Mr. Skritters’ remains lodged inside a cooling vent - poor kid. Wish I could’ve told her that he went peacefully, but, well, nuclear heat and radiation just don’t work that way. Let’s just say it was a closed-box funeral. Try to not think about how many ways somepony could get hurt messing around this reactor, just have to be glad that nopony ever really comes down here. Just have to-…
 
Was that the bulkhead opening?
 
Tossing the copy of ‘Daring Do and the Temple of Boom’ inside the reactor manual binder aside, I scanned over the screens, trying to find any alerts, alarms, or frowny-faces - In other words, trying to look busy. The sound of hooves clacking against metal scaffold and floor drew closer as I closely examined a few lines of code that looked suspiciously like a smudge on the screen, nudging the novel further into the binder with a free hoof and sliding the whole ordeal over some extraneious papers.
 
“Twintails? Have a minute?” Peeling my eyeballs off of the Cathode-Ray screen, I was greeted by the sight of the aging soft-blue mare with the neon-green mane that had tutored me for the longest time. Streaks of gray cut over her coat and mane, some faint spots where her profession had it’s impact showing thinning all over her body. She trotted over to a second chair, sitting herself down easily as I followed her with my gaze.
 
“Yeah, Gamma? What is it?” She stretched lazily as she turned to look at myself, returning a gaze of curiosity as she faintly smiled. I sat myself up, leaning forwards in the chair, wings folded.
 
“You know… you know how all of the little colts and fillies always say that they’re going to be the first ones to step out of the Stable? Well…”