Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 30: A Machine for Ponies
In Equestria, a land where the impossible happens on a clockwork basis, the most impossible-seeming thing may be that there are ponies who still deny things as possibilities.
As an example, ponies have long made rhetorical use of "When pigs fly" to describe an impossibility - right up until the Battle of Applewood, during which an experimental porcine regiment volunteered to be strapped to rockets, stuffed with explosives and fired at dragons. Afterwards, the phrase's use as an adynaton was considered both inaccurate and disrespectful.
Unlike all of possibility, however, the pony mind is finite. Ponies have tried to account for all possibilities, to monitor everything in preparation for impending disaster; the attempt usually induces more madness than it ever prevents. So ponies necessarily deny possibilities, to narrow the frame of reference they have to deal with and avoid keeling over from analysis paralysis.
Yet, denying the wrong possibilities has dire consequences. Most people know there's a kind intelligence raising and lowering the moon, but denial lends the ability to ignore the possibility that said life form might get bored, angry, possessed by a demonic intelligence… or just suddenly decide 'Screw it, I'm going back to bed.'
It's an ongoing problem in Equestria. One just has to push forward and hope that the possibilities one accounted for were the right ones.
-The Scholar
We had to sit for a good ten minutes after our bouts of laughter, huddled in the tiny closet, before any of us felt safe enough to get up and move about. When we’d finally recovered from our ordeal, Limerence got up and stuck his head out into the hallway for a quick reconnaissance.
Stepping back, he said, “We appear to be in a storage room just off the cell blocks. The walls are concrete and the door is solid oak. I doubt we will be heard in a truly compromising fashion unless somepony is immediately outside.”
“Good,” I replied, pulling my coat pocket around so I could dig through it with my muzzle. I talked while I hunted through the odds and ends. “Any motion out there?”
“None I could see, though I heard some voices further away. No way to gauge distance. This building is very unusual,” Limerence murmured, contemplatively.
“Unusual?” Swift asked.
“It echoes. It echoes in places I do not think a building should echo. There is more space here than is immediately apparent.”
“Weird. Isn’t your library like that, though?” Swift inquired.
“It is...different. The Archive’s superstructure may or may not be magical in some fashion. We’ve never actually managed to discover if it is. However, that does not seem to be the case here. Somepony wished to disguise some simply enormous spaces and did so using nothing but additional walls.”
“That’s consistent with what we’ve got from our other sources,” I added, tugging the black walkie-talkie I’d gotten from M6 out of my pocket and fiddled with the controls. It spit static for a second, then I heard a sound that reminded me of a buzz saw working its way through a bag of water balloons; somepony was snoring up a storm.
“Agent Cereus? Agent Cereus, come in. This is Detective Hard Boiled,” I said, tapping the voice box. The snoring continued.
I sighed and banged the walkie-talkie on the wall a few times.
“Buza...wha?!” somepony on the other end snorted, then I heard a struggle and a feminine voice, “Detective! Detective, is that you?”
“Who else would it be? Where’s Cereus?”
“I’m the damn ranking officer. What do you need Cereus for?”
“He doesn’t argue when I ask him to do illegal secret agent things.”
Night Bloom was several seconds in replying to that. She yawned, rolling off of her bed. “What do you want, Detective? I need to talk to you about like I need holes in my wings, so make it quick. I want to go back to sleep.”
“Well, we’re inside Supermax. I need-”
“Guh...one second…” Bloom rattled the walkie-talkie a little, then I heard hoofsteps as she stumbled out of whatever place she’d found to collapse in. “...Sorry, I got a little drunk last night and I could have sworn I heard you say that you’re in Supermax, so I’m going to take a minute here and let you correct that miscommunication while I get myself some coffee.”
I waited patiently until I heard a coffee brewer running.
“Now then. Tell me that my only hope to retain a career after this entire stupid venture finally comes to an end is not currently inside the most dangerous prison in Equestria."
“Miss Bloom, if you keep romancing me like this, people might start to get ideas!” I chuckled.
“Celestia’s sunny ass, you are in Supermax…”
“Yes, yes I am. We need your assistance.”
“We?”
I held out the walkie-talkie to Swift and she tilted her head then said softly, “Uh… hello, spy… bat… lady...”
“Your rookie?” Bloom asked, coolly.
“Yep! Now then, as I said, we’re in Supermax. I need any internal information your sensors can give me.”
The dusk pony snorted down the line at me. “You act like the ones we’ve got will even be working with you there.”
“The magical sensors might not, but you’ve got a couple of old spy cameras somepony snuck in here back in the day. The signal from those is still operating. Anything you can give me will help.”
“Supermax is practically blind to us compared to every other major municipal building in Detrot. That building is deranged!”
I looked up at Limerence and formed the word ‘deranged’ with my mouth. The librarian gave me a little shrug. “Apt description,” he murmured.
“Alright, we’re in a closet on-”
“Cell block one-one-A, if the sign outside is to be believed,” Limerence said.
“Is that the lunatic we picked up with all the knives?” Bloom inquired.
“That’s him. He’s a surprisingly helpful lunatic. Now come on, we’re not working with infinite sums of time. Cell block one-one-A. Anything in the area?”
The soft sound of pouring coffee drifted out of the speaker, then Night Bloom’s hoofsteps as she trotted through the M6 warehouse. I heard Cereus singing to himself somewhere and Sugar Lace took a moment to throw some half-flanked expletives as Bloom passed her cell. I tapped my hoof, waiting for her to get herself settled in the Survey room.
“Ahem...alright. I’m now sitting in front of the magical map. I think I am owed an explanation for why you’re inside that shadow-spawned monstrosity, since I did put some serious trust in you and you seem bent on killing yourself. I thought you were going to have the Princesses raid the place or something! I never thought you’d be dumb enough to go in there yourself.”
I tugged at the brim of my hat. “The short explanation is that we’re trying to keep the city from descending into total chaos and everyone we know and love from dying horribly in a maelstrom of hellfire and violence. Again. If the Princesses get involved, we’ll probably fail to do that.”
I could practically hear Bloom’s eyes rolling in their sockets. “Good, good, yes... now, tell me about your childhood.”
“I beat my best friend’s father into a coma with a baseball bat to get my cutie-mark after watching her flogged half to death with a metal rod in her own bedroom. Incidentally, her father is a magically mutated assassin responsible for an unknown number of deaths.”
“Sure, sure, I…" Pause… two… three. "Wait, seriously?!”
“It’s fine. He’s dead. He died puking up his own organs, yesterday.”
“I... w-what?! What?! No, what the damn what?!”
“You asked. Now. Information. Cell block. One-one-A.”
“You… mercy, Detective, you can’t lay something like that on somepony this damned early in the morning…”
“Time frame! Information!”
“Fine, sorry, jeez...” The sound of machinery being manipulated came down the line. “Uh… yeah, I’ve got a camera in the corridor that’s labeled ‘one one A’. It’s hidden in some brick work and the angle is pretty bad, but it’s pointed towards the cells. Two of them are occupied. The… um… the occupants seem to be asleep.”
“Any movement in the rest of the building?” I asked.
“One of our sensors near the surface is registering lots of movement. Maybe two dozen ponies. They seem to be headed in a general ‘downward’ direction via the service elevators in groups of four or five. None of the sensors below the cell system are still operating. I dunno if that’s your fault or what. Damn, these blueprints are wonky; they don’t match any of the locations we’ve got cameras or sensors…”
“That’s fine. We need eyes on a particular pony. Green, silver mane. Looks a bit like Chief Jade but much younger.”
Bloom flicked through the various images she had available to her one after another, then she let out an unhappy sigh. “I’ve...well, I’ve got three potential candidates. Detective, do you promise me you’ll tell me what’s going on before any of this endangers the lives of the Princesses? Please?”
I drew an ‘X’ over my chest then tapped my eyelid. “I know you can’t see it, but I’m crossing my heart and hoping to fly, sticking a cupcake in my eye. If I think this has gone beyond the place we can salvage it without destroying half the city, I’ll call the Princesses. Until then, I don’t want them in the line of fire. There are some dangerous weapons involved and we’ve no idea if the Princesses are susceptible.”
“Weapons that could… hurt… Princess Celestia?!”
“You understand my reticence?”
“I... um... o-okay... I…" Pause. "...Luna take my wings... Detective, this is insane. All of it.”
“I’m well aware. Go on?”
“Well... Candidate number one is just down the hall from you. She’s in cell A16. Candidate two is on the other side of the building, in cell D171, and candidate three is below you on the floor above ‘Arcane Control’. The camera down there is transmitting some strange interference.”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “Anything more specific?”
“Dammit… I’ve got bad angles on all of them and these cameras are very old. Sorry.”
Taxi took a step forward and spoke to the walkie-talkie before Night Bloom could reply, “Number three. Can you guide us to number three?”
I cocked my head towards my driver. “Any specific reason you want to try sending us deeper into this pit?”
My driver sucked at her lower lip..“I don’t know. Wouldn’t you keep your most valuable prisoners on the deepest level you could?”
I raised one eyebrow, then jerked my chin towards her flanks. She gave the subtlest of nods.
“Alright, candidate three it is then. Bloom, can you direct us that way?”
There was more fiddling with controls, then a faint buzzing sound. I thought we might have dropped the undroppable connection, so I tapped the mic.
“Hold your reins! I’m working!” Night Bloom snapped. Thirty seconds later, she picked up the walkie talkie again. “I’ve...got nothing, Detective. There are signs, sure, but this is going to be miserable no matter how you go about it. This place was designed with internal defense in mind. You know, in case dragons broke out?”
“That’s... damn. Alright, any tips you can give us? Places to stay away from?”
“Why don’t you ask a cultist for directions?” she said, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm.
I was about to make a snarky comment, but it died in my throat. I looked towards Limerence’s saddlebags. “You know… that’s not a half bad idea.”
“Are you stoned, Detective?!” Night Bloom barked.
“I’ll call you back later if I’m alive,” I replied and broke the connection, turning to our librarian. “How is your horn?”
He crossed his eyes to look up at the spiral of bone on his forehead. There was a little charring around the tip. “I’m afraid complex spells will be entirely out of the question. Telekinesis may be limited as well. My silence is part of my talent, but I had hoped to reach the building quickly and endurance casting is-”
“-not your forte. Robes, then. Everypony gets one. Sweets, you’re going to have to-”
“I know, I know…” Taxi grunted and began unloading her cannon.
Pulling the smallest robe out of the bag, I tugged it over Swift’s head. Fortunately, the kid Limerence had bribed with diabetic shock was a pegasus, so there were some convenient wing-holes.
“Oof, this thing is itchy without those enchantments on it…” Swift muttered.
“Yeah, well, suck it up, kid,” I replied, pulling her hood up and finding the ear-slits so it would stay that way. “We’re going to see if we can spread out a little and map the inside. You and me will go together and map this floor. Taxi and Limerence are going to the floor above. Get a feel for the area and map what you can. Nopony goes for Cerise until we’ve got a decent idea of the internal structure on this floor and those above. Since I don’t hear any alarms, I suspect we’ll be able to move around freely, so long as we don’t raise a fuss.”
“And it goes without saying, but I shall emphasize it anyway: avoid groups and at least attempt to look like you know what you are doing,” Limerence added, struggling to push his tail through the hole in the back. Without the use of his magic, he was having a time of it. “My studies on the Church of the Lunar Passage suggest it is a more… casual… group than most religious offshoots but I do not recommend any protracted conversations. If you are confronted, pretend to be new to the building.”
I glanced at my driver, who was wearing her robe as she finished tucking something away in her saddlebags. “We’ll be heading towards candidate number-... wait... Sweets, where’s the cannon?”
“I broke it down. It’s in my bags.” She pointed towards her checkered luggage. “What? You didn’t think I was leaving it here, did you?”
“I… kinda hoped you might, actually. I didn’t know it was that compact.”
“It’ll take me a good five minutes to put it back together, but it fits in my bags. I couldn’t fit the drum-” She nosed the metal wheel still on the carpet. “-but I can load single shells and fire it like that until I get another one.”
“Nothing worse than you having semi-automatic fire with that beast anyway...” I murmured.
“I’ve been practicing! I’m not that bad...”
“You almost shot us tonight when you fired that stupid thing at the neurotoxin launchers, or did you just not notice the arch your shell was about to bounce off of?”
Taxi’s cheeks flushed red and she chewed on the end of her braid, scowling at me.
I stepped back so I could see the rest of my companions, all wearing their robes, all standing at something approximating attention. Swift was a little more ‘attentive’ than Limerence, who was still trying to get his tail situated. “Alright, ponies. We’re in enemy territory. We’ll search the building, try to get a feel for their security, then return here in three quarters of an hour. Agreed? Objections? Thoughts?”
Swift pulled her notebook out of the front of her tactical vest, then let the robe fall back in place. “I’m good to go, sir!”
Limerence nodded. “I am prepared. If you are not here within the hour, Miss Taxi and I will acquire Cerise, if she is here, and make for the alternative escape route.”
“I still don’t know what this ‘alternative escape route’ is…” Taxi grumbled.
“And I believe it best you don’t have time to contemplate it should we be forced to take that option,” Limerence replied before going to the door and cracking it an inch so he could peek out. Seeing no-one, he opened it and stepped into the cell block, gesturing for Taxi to follow. My driver took a quick breath, then adopted a serene smile and went after him. I held my breath as they reached the first corner, then vanished around it.
No alarms went up.
Nopony screamed or waved a gun.
All in all, it was an unsettlingly easy entry, all things considered.
Tapping my hat, I said, “Ladybugs? You still there?”
I felt considerable movement in my mane before a dozen tiny black and red insects buzzed into the air in front of me.
“Bleh! Don’t do that!” I snapped, waving a hoof at them which they deftly avoided. “I am not a bus or a public convenience! Go look around and see what you can see without violating your contract. Alert us if you see anypony who might be important.”
A ladybug still in my mane gave a little wiggle, then the rest zipped out the door.
I drew in a deep breath, held it for the count of five, then let it out.
I wished, often, that I could just sit down and consult with Gale. It’d have been nice to have somepony to talk to who I could just run things by, who I knew was on my side, no matter what. Of course, Swift would probably do damn near anything I asked her to, but somehow it felt wrong to take advantage of that.
This entire night’s insanity might have been avoided if we’d gotten the Princesses involved. Of course, it might also have set off a chain of events leading to both of their deaths. Granted, so might letting them stay where they were. I had no way to know.
Once I had Cerise in hoof, I could deliver her to her mother who would then, presumably, rain down fire and brimstone on the Church and Skylark. With luck, I might find the armor or the Moon weapons, but at the very least we could start the process of disassembling the Church itself. I was determined to leave that to smarter, more capable minds. ‘Rescue the girl’ was a thing I could understand. Fixing a bunch of directionless, brain washed ponies was miles above my pay grade and southwest of my special talent.
“Kid, you ready for this?” I asked.
Swift tapped her gun against her leg and flashed me that excessively sharp and toothy smile. “I think so, Sir. I’ve got six clips for Masamane, two flashbangs, a lock picking kit, some grid paper for the map, a good book in case we get caught, and a whole half a grilled chicken with extra garlic back in the Nest to celebrate if we don’t!”
I shuddered. “If you eat that, you’re sleeping outside until you go through an entire tube of toothpaste.”
My partner smirked, cheekily, and offered me her hoof. I gave it a little bump, then doffed my hat, picked up the last robe and shrugged my way into it before stuffing the fedora into my pocket. I flipped the cloak’s hood over my ears so it hung low over my eyes. Swift hadn’t been kidding; the whole inside of the awful, spangly bastard felt like it was crawling with fleas even outside my trenchcoat.
I tugged open the closet door and stepped out.
I stopped. My eyes widened, just a little, then I covered them with my hoof.
I could almost hear Swift’s jaw hitting her knees as she came out behind me.
“Sir… sir, it’s all... I mean... everything... They even did the signs!” she whispered.
“I’m glad you said that, kid. I thought I was seeing things.”
“Yeah, b-but… sir! Who would paint everything blue?”
I shook my head as I looked around the cell block. “Crazy cultists. Remember?”
Fashion travesties aren’t uncommon in Equestria. It’s almost a defining characteristic. Now and then, however, somepony will find some simple and entirely new method of shocking the eye and when they do, you have to sit back in awe.
Every inch of the Convent of the Full Moon had been painted in varying shades of blue. In a building of ordinary proportions, this might have been merely distracting, but inside Supermax, a former prison with enormous spaces to play with, it was downright upsetting. The ceilings and floors were an off shade of ‘Princess Luna’s butt’ while various hues decorating the walls and fixtures ranged from ‘Luna’s mane’ right down to ‘Luna’s inner thigh, just to the left of her intimates’.
The ceilings were painted with a range of constellations, most of which lived either in the Princess’s mane or in the mind of the demented artist.
Somepony was obsessed.
Blue obsessed.
Luna obsessed.
Knowing the cult, it was probably Astral herself, but there was likely to be a long list of other contenders. The Church of the Lunar Passage, like most religious groups, had a tendency to accept ponies with mental illnesses.
****
I’d sometimes wondered, if the Church were to spring up in Canterlot, what Luna’s official response might have been. Even after sixty years of living in what was, for her, subjectively ‘the future,' she was still a Pre-Classical era diarch. She didn’t take kindly to ponies telling other ponies what to believe, particularly about her. She preferred to let her actions speak for themselves. Often those actions spoke loudly, in the Royal Canterlot voice, and left everypony in the room with ringing ears.
The distance from Canterlot meant the Church could keep a somewhat lower profile, though it was their charity work and -- in spite of their leader’s somewhat eccentric views on Princess Celestia -- well-meaning public face that let them avoid the attention of anypony who might get too curious about their inner workings. Detrot was far enough removed that even the most over-the-top religious leader could find some traction so long as they were doing good works, and Astral was by no means the most over-the-top that I’d seen in my years in the city. The best funded, maybe, but outwardly, definitely not the weirdest.
The most commonly accepted explanation for why Skylark had chosen Luna to be the deity of her particular church and Detrot for the epicenter was Princess Luna’s story; a thousand year stay on the moon for crimes against all of ponykind, followed by a return to glory once she’d served her penance.
It was simple supply and demand. Redemption is popular in a city with lots to redeem.
****
The cell block ran in both directions, off to the left and right of our chosen hiding place. Aside the general ‘blueness’ of it all, it reminded me largely of every other jail environment I’d ever been in with the exception of Tartarus. The cells still had the bars on them and none were more than a few feet wide.
Swift and I paused outside of the closet, side by side, to try to get a feel for the place and maybe listen for anyone raising an alarm. My partner raised her nose and sniffed at the air, then shook her head. “This whole place doesn’t...smell right.”
I took a deep whiff and noticed the odd scent as well. It was faintest of smells, but it seemed to claw at the edge of my awareness. I couldn’t quite identify it. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it reminded me of a pet-shop for some reason.
“Shouldn’t the smell of dragon have... you know... gone away by now?” Swift asked.
“That’s dragon?”
“Oh... you... uh... you don’t spend enough time around dragons to know, I guess. They teach us to recognize the different animals the P.A.C.T. hunts by scent. Especially the big ones. This whole place smells like dragons.”
“How come Miss Stella doesn’t smell like that?” I asked.
“He’s a very clean dragon, Sir, but when he doesn’t have perfume or he’s just finished a big show, he smells like that, too.”
“Huh. Learn new things every day. You’re right, though. We’ll add ‘dragons’ to our list of things to watch out for.”
We moved down the line of cells, side by side, peering into each one. Most were terribly ascetic, empty but for a military-style cot, a shelf, and a hooflocker. The walls were painted in a uniform design to look like a clear night sky. Most were empty, although we did run across a couple that contained sleeping ponies. Considering the hour, that wasn’t surprising. We were half-way down the hallway when we found Cell A-16.
The mare inside was kneeling beside her cot. She had her head down, her hood drawn up, and seemed to be deep in prayer. I paused at her door, considering my options. Her hooves were within the right color spectrum to be Chief Jade’s, but I couldn’t see her mane color. She was a slightly brighter green.
“Erm... Miss?” I asked, softly.
Pausing midway through a mumbled prayer, she turned and smiled, tossing back her hood. “Oh, excuse me brother. I didn’t notice you there.”
She was a little on the heavy side, a blue almost as rich as the walls of her cell. She seemed genuinely pleased to see somepony out and about at that hour. She was also, unfortunately, not Cerise.
“Excuse me… I thought you were someone else,” I began, then stalled as I realized just how poor an idea telling her who I was looking for might be.
“What can I do for you, brother?” she asked, pushing herself to her hooves. Her smile hadn’t moved; looking into her eyes gave me the oddest impression of peering into an empty room.
“We’re looking for…” I thought quickly, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “I’m afraid we’re a bit lost. We’re looking for room... uh... we’re looking for the cafeteria?”
“Nothing new in here. Ponies get lost all the time in the Full Moon. It’s just down the hall. Take a left at the end. There should be something edible still on offer.” She gestured towards the other end of the hallway.
I gave a little bow and my best holy smile. I think it made me look a bit constipated, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Thank you, sister.”
“May Luna be with you,” she said, then turned back to her cot and her prayers.
“Luna be with you, too,” I replied, then hurried past the cell, with Swift trotting along behind me, a questioning look on her face.
As soon as we were out of earshot of that cell, she whispered, “Sir, why are we heading for the cafeteria?”
“I’ve no idea. I just needed an excuse to move us along and now we’ve got a destination in case we get asked again. If we wind up somewhere we’re not supposed to be and somepony confronts us, we can just ask them to take us to the cafeteria. We know where that is in relation to our exit. Say we got turned around. You’d be stunned how often ponies are happy to believe you just got lost if you ask them for assistance. Now we have somepony to corroborate that we’ve been looking for it all along.” I flicked my tail towards the row of rooms behind us.
“Oooh… I see!”
Moving on, we began to scout out the space as best we could.
The floor we were on seemed to contain mostly those same small rooms. Wandering around in the sleeping convent was a genuinely spooky feeling, particularly as it was altogether likely that at any moment somepony might recognize either of us and clap us in irons. Still, vigilance can only last so long, especially when there seems to be nothing going on.
We found the cafeteria with nopony in it and a lovely selection of only very slightly stale muffins sitting beside the breakfast bar. The long tables suggested they might have been original to the prison. Dragging out two stools, we sat down, and Swift pulled out her graph paper. She began tracing our route, as much as we could remember.
“Sir,” she began, holding her pencil in one side of her mouth. “-this feels super creepy. I mean… we’re just… walking around. Shouldn’t they have some security here?”
“Why do they need it?” I said, tucking into a second muffin. “These robes are designed for psychological control of some kind and nopony - besides us - is going to break into a convent. Nopony sane, anyway.“
“I know. It just seems really weird…”
I shrugged and pointed out a hallway she had backwards on the map. “You’ve got to understand, kid...nopony ever escaped Supermax. Not one. To my knowledge...no one even tried.”
“I guess. I just expected this to be... you know... harder.”
“You mean the pit full of neurotoxins, monsters, and eyeballs that turn you to stone wasn’t enough?”
“Mmm... maybe.”
“Don’t wish for trouble, kid. Trouble will find us, if it’s here.”
A tickle of guilt pricked the back of my mind. For morale purposes, I declined to tell her that my cutie-marks had been absolutely singing since we hit the cell block. I’d been forcefully ignoring them, but it’d crossed from irritation into real pain not long after we’d asked directions. I squirmed on my chair, trying to scratch the golden scales on my flanks against the edges of the seat without being too obvious about it.
The walkie-talkie in my pocket let out a short, sharp burst of sound and I scrambled to pull it out and turn the volume down. Putting it into the edge of my robe, just by the collar, I covered it with a layer of fabric so it would look like I was talking to Swift if somepony happened to be passing by.
“Detective. Detective?” Night Bloom whispered.
“I’m here. Seriously, this had better be important. Calling an operative back when they’re in the field-”
“I know, I know! I’m sorry. If you’re still in the area you were in, I see at least sixteen ponies heading downstairs. Big group-”
“Yeah? So? We’re keeping away from groups…”
“That Skylark mare is with them!”
Swift’s head came up so fast her pencil flew out of her mouth and smacked me in the forehead. I very nearly pitched off my seat, scrambling to right myself and clutching the walkie-talkie with one hoof.
“She’s what?!” I hissed.
“Skylark! She’s there, at the convent!” Night Bloom replied.
Cereus said somewhere behind her, “Agent Bloom, ma’am… they’re on the floor above, in the stairwell. I think they’re heading down into some kind of cafeteria. I’ve got an angle on that staircase-”
My partner and I shared a split second look. I barely had a moment to throw my hood over my face before babbling voices filled the room. The door banged open and Astral Skylark, first and foremost amongst the ponies I could confirm wanted me dead, led an entourage of quietly talking ponies behind her.
“-tonight’s events. Is the chamber prepared?” Skylark was addressing a much smaller unicorn filly who trotted along beside her, holding a notepad and quill with her levitation field.
“It is being readied, Sister Skylark. We have a little while yet, if you would care to have some food.”
I held my breath. The last thing we needed was a meal with the witch.
“I will eat when we are finished with this evening’s festivities. Luna preserves us during famine or feast.”
I exhaled, softly, and tucked my tail under myself. The group of blue robed ponies moved across the room, following their leader, seemingly ignoring us. I pulled my hood a little lower over my eyes.
“What about her?” Skylark asked.
“Ah. Yes… She’s… ready, sister. Are you sure this is-”
“Our ascension is nigh. It is necessary, for the work we do. We have information suggesting that...” She trailed off. I could almost feel her eyes tracking across the back of my head. I heard hoofsteps, then a faint breath on neck of my cloak.
“Brother? Sister? What are the two of you doing up at this hour?”
She was standing right behind me. My cutie-mark felt like somepony was stabbing me in the flanks. I shifted on my seat and took a deep breath, setting my lips in a calm, collected smile as I turned to face her. I kept the hood down and it cast a shadow over most of my face. Swift hadn’t moved.
Skylark hadn’t changed one whit since the museum. Fortunately, those piercing eyes weren’t looking at me directly, but rather, at my muffin. I heard her stomach grumble.
I took a quick chomp and swallowed. The lump in my throat made it difficult. “Ahem… a-apologies, sister. I was hungry and my fellow sister of the night saw fit to come along and get something herself. I sleep poorly on an empty stomach. Care for a bite with us?”
I saw Swift tense out of one corner of my eye. She rested her hoof on her trigger bit, ready in an instant to kick it into her mouth.
Skylark cracked a tiny smile. It was almost warm. “I… well…” Peeking over her shoulder at her entourage, all of whom seemed to have fallen silent, she pursed her lips and shook her head. “I will fast. Luna wills our bodies be clear as our minds. Go back to your beds when you are done. Pray, sleep, and dream of our coming glory.”
“I will, Sister,” I managed to choke out, forcing my voice not to shake.
The babble of voices returned as the group of ponies retreated. Skylark bowed her head slightly and then returned to her group, waiting until they were all out the door to resume whatever conversation had been going on.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Swift slumped onto the table, her face buried in her hooves.
“I take back everything I just said about ‘easy.' That… was waaay more intense than I needed just now, Sir…”
“You’re telling me.”
I jumped as my walkie-talkie made a soft staticy noise, then Bloom asked, very softly, “She’s gone, right?”
Pressing the send button, I replied, “Yeah, she’s gone. I almost pissed in my cloak, but she’s gone. Any idea what sort of ‘chamber’ they were talking about?”
“Um… well, if they keep on their present trajectory, the only thing besides ‘Arcane control’ is the sub-basements. No idea what’s down there. That whole zone is blind.”
“We’ll keep it in mind, then. If we get the chance to go down there, we’ll take a look. Keep us appraised if you get anything else on the sensors or cameras.”
“I’m… huh. I’ve got a sensors just above those sub-basements, but no cameras below Arcane Control. The level of magical interference down there is making everything twitch on this end. It’s like there’s some kind of… reactor or something…”
Swift’s ears drooped slightly. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Understatement of the year. Thanks for the warning, Bloom. We’re moving on. We’ve got to meet up with the other half of our team here in a minute, but I want to make a quick stop first.”
I stuffed the walkie talkie back in my pocket.
----
Our map was barely a sketch, but it did give us a general shape and listed the exits. The convent’s side-passages were shaped like a bird spreading its wings. Long, dead-end hallways led out from a central stalk, with a few branchings further on. It was a defensively excellent scenario for somepony trying to bottleneck an opponent in one of those stalks. Fighting one’s way into Supermax was almost as futile as fighting your way out.
The hallways were all broad, well lit, and much taller than what was strictly necessary for pony occupancy, though they’d been artificially lowered in most areas by somepony popping a bit of plaster and a new ceiling in place.
“Sir, if the clock on that wall over there is right, we’ve only got seven minutes before we’re supposed to meet-up with everypony. Where are we going?” Swift asked.
Looking up at the numbers and letters above each cell, I tried to get a general notion of which direction we might need to go. “Call it a ‘stop’ I want to make on the way through this place. I doubt we’ll get another chance, especially once we’ve found Cerise. We’ll need to get her out of here quickly. I just hope that doesn’t mean braining her with something. It’s entirely possible she doesn’t know that she’s a hostage.”
“A stop, though? Are we sightseeing, Sir?”
I shot her a displeased scowl.
“Smart-flanked fillies get their celebration chickens fed to the dog. And no, we’re not sightseeing. We’re looking for...oh! Yes, alright, I think it’s this way.”
I’d found the correct hall and thanked Celestia it was on our floor. I didn’t really want to follow Skylark into the depths before I had to on what was likely to be a silly hunch. My cutie-mark was still aching and the burn would simply not settle down. Something wretched was going on in Supermax; a truly black stain on the rightness of the world. Now if only it would come out and make itself obvious, so I could shoot it!
We trotted, side by side, down the smaller row of cells which followed that particular passage. For some reason, there were very few ponies in that area. Most of the rooms we’d seen had nopony in them.
At last, after two or three more minutes, we stood in front of our destination.
Reaching into my trenchcoat pocket, I pulled out Ruby’s diary. Running my hoof over the jeweled cover, I shut my eyes. A pulse of warmth swelled in my chest, like a tiny ember from what used to be a roaring fire.
I looked up at the placard over the door and sighed.
It said ‘High Security,' and below that ‘12B’.
The bars were open and the room, vacant. The cell looked to have been recently cleaned. The cot was stripped and the hooflocker stood unlocked and empty. I peered into the surrounding cells; all unoccupied. We were alone and, with a little luck, unobserved.
“Sir... is this... Miss Ruby’s cell?”
I nodded, leafing open the pages of the diary to the last page with any writing.
“Alright, Ruby… please let me be right. If I’m not, and you’re nuts, then we’re many, many flavors of screwed...”
I stepped into the cell, holding the book in my teeth as I moved over to sit on the cot. The cot was a scratchy, awful old military brand that reminded me of the Academy. I spread the diary across my foreknees and felt a grin break out.
Swift tapped her fetlock where most ponies wear their leg-watches, and pointed the way we’d come. “Sir, is anything happening?”
“Kid… Ruby left us another message. She knew we’d be coming." I turned to show Swift what I'm sure was a manic grimace. "She knew we’d come here.”
****
We made it back to the storage closet with less than a minute to spare. Checking the hall to make sure nopony was watching us, we crept into the tiny room to find Limerence and Taxi were already there. My driver and the librarian were sitting, side by side, crouched over a second hoof-drawn map of the facility.
Taxi looked up and leapt to her hooves, rushing over and tossing her legs around my neck. “Celestia save me, I swear, when Skylark came down past us and you weren’t here when we got back…”
I patted my driver’s back and set her back a step. “We’re fine, Sweets. Heh...we ran into her. Had a nice little chat. Offered her a muffin.”
My driver gave me a confused look, then glanced at Swift.
“He’s not kidding," my partner replied to the unasked question.
“I’m… not going to ask. You’re here and that’s what matters. Did you get this floor mapped?”
Swift nodded and pulled out her map, laying it down beside Limerence’s.
“Interesting…” Lim murmured, “These floors line up in a very unusual fashion, but the spaces within them do not suggest efficient use.”
“I was looking at that,” I replied, pulling the maps over and laying them one over top of the other. The shape they revealed looked even more like a bird with spread wings.
“Isn’t the building a cube, sir? Why not build normal hallways?” Swift asked.
I pursed my lips, then shrugged. “Dunno. Lim?”
Limerence’s eyes were slowly tracing the patterns, then he suddenly blanched and stepped backwards from the maps. “She... she wouldn’t… Not even Saussurea…”
“What? What is it?!” I demanded.
Reaching back, he pulled a torn piece of cloth out of his saddlebag and tossed it down on the floor, spreading it open. “Look. Look, here.”
It was the ripped out sections of the robe, with the spells still attached.
“Why did you bring that thing?” Taxi asked.
“I...was curious,” he replied. “I wanted to see if I might map the spell if I could see it in a fully powered condition. Immaterial. Please, take note of this part. Does it look...familiar?”
He pointed at a particular part of the threads; they looked very distinctly like a bird in flight.
“It’s... no way!” Swift exclaimed. “The floor plan?! Seriously? She built the whole building as a giant spell?”
“I believe she did. Additionally, the duct work in some portions is decidedly suboptimal for airflow, so it is best to assume that is also a component. I noticed something as well, when we were hiding. Come.”
Opening the door to the hallway, Limerence checked to make sure the coast was clear, then ushered the three of us out and towards an open cell nearby. The cells on either side didn’t have anypony in them, but we still kept our voices low.
“Now…” Limerence murmured, waving his hoof at the ceiling and walls. “Do you see?”
I turned in a little circle, peering at the shapes on the walls. There were beautifully drawn constellations on every surface, though most seemed to be fictitious.
“I… am seeing a lovely mural of stars,” I replied, quietly.
“Check the next cell.” Limerence pointed towards the wall beside ours.
Trotting out, I poked my head through the bars and looked up at the ceiling, then moved back to the first cell, then the second. “Huh. I’m going to assume that nopony would be dull enough to do every room with exactly the same design without a purpose to it.”
I lifted myself onto the cell’s cot and gathered my hooves under myself.
“Not at all, I think. If you damage a spell matrix without knowing its components by… well, erasing parts of it, you run the risk of an explosion or magical feedback. This was done very precisely. I would imagine, once Supermax was closed and re-acquired… somepony realized they couldn’t have visible spell-work out there for everypony to see on every wall. They covered it up. They hired an artist, and made the control spells look like-”
“-stars and galaxies. That explains why somepony decided ‘blue’ was such a brilliant color scheme for this place,” Taxi said, softly. “So, how is this affecting the whole city, then? Those spells can’t just work...you know...here. It’d be pointless.”
“This spell is focused around the red moon. That shape seems to create the effects at whatever point it appears. Somepony in one of these cells, wearing a simple red-moon, gets the effects. Somepony out in the world, wearing the spell in their robe, would get them as well. There is surely a limit as to distance, but... It could be quite large, depending. The spell is powered by something within Supermax that we have yet to encounter."
That was one of those sentences just guaranteed to send shivers racing down my back. I don’t care for ‘have yet to encounter’ when it’s applied to lunch, much less spell frameworks with the potential to control minds.
“We know Ruby was here. She either let them or they forcibly tattooed the moon onto her flank. Could they have made her kill herself with that?” I asked.
Limerence pursed his lips, then nodded. “I... I imagine they might have taken some action here that could have lead to her death, yes. Though that does beg the question, ‘If they could do that, then why not simply order her to return with whatever it was she stole?’”
I patted my jacket pocket. “I... have Ruby’s diary. We stopped by her old cell. She’d... I... mmm…”
How to explain what I’d read in those first few words? No summary would be adequate. I tugged the book out of my pocket and set it on the floor between the four of us.
Cracking it open, I turned to the page I’d left off and began to read Ruby’s final message.
****
She’s gone right now. At least, I think She is. I’m lucid again, or at least, as lucid as I ever am these days.
Detective, I need you to know. Maybe She needs you to know. The Convent is so wrong. Everything. Everything is so wrong. I just wanted to get away from this stupid, awful city.
Nothing escapes. It’s like a giant whirlpool, sucking everypony down. She just wants to be left alone, I think. Maybe not.
I need you to get out of there. If you can read this, you went to my cell there. I keyed this part to appear if somepony was thinking they were inside cell twelve B.
She… maybe She is making me think you’ll do that. Maybe She is setting it up so you will. I don’t even know any more. It’s layers and layers with Her.
I know this. You have to stop them, and get out of there. Stop… Miss Skylark. I can’t. I got away. I have to hide now. I have to hide. Celestia, I am so tired of being scared. I only just got my mind back from Skylark, and now it’s all being taken away, piece by piece.
Last night She let me see something. She still won’t let me say her name. She doesn’t know if it will happen or not. She never knows where you’re concerned. This could all be a trick. It probably is.
It doesn’t matter. You have to decide for yourself. You have to go Down. Down and Down and Down.
Down and back in time. You have to find where it all starts. Where the bad ones came from. The darkness. The puppeteers. The hatred.
Go down Down, to when it was all cold.
My diary will tell you the rest of what happened at the Convent, but first, you have to go Down.
She made me hide Her. She made me hide Her inside my old trunk. You have to get my trunk, and put my diary inside.
Detective, please be safe. Please, be real.
Saying my prayers to Luna felt strange last night, knowing what I know. For all I know, this is the third or fourth message I’ve left in this stupid diary with your name on it. Maybe it’s all Her trying to lead you somewhere. Maybe I’m not really lucid at all.
I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll pray to you. I know that She will steal your name from me again, but right now, I have you.
My Detective.
Yours most sincerely and with all my love,
Ruby Blue
****
“The damn... trunk?!” Taxi snarled, slumping onto her side in a dejected heap. “That piece of magical junk that we tossed Svelte’s bodyguard into?!”
“I’m guessing, yes,” I replied.
“We had whatever they’ve been searching for the whole time?!” Swift moaned, tossing a wing over her face.
“They knew she had it, too,” I affirmed. “When the girl ran from here with… whatever she stole… they hunted her. She hid at the Vivarium, with an apartment in the Skids. What better locations? Both are guarded, not inclined to participate directly in city politics, and with extremely intelligent and benevolent leadership figures. Then, they found her. Svelte was at the Vivarium on her blackmail mission, and Cosmo was being bankrolled by the ponies hunting her. These people, whoever they are, must have sent down the line to look out for Ruby Blue. Maybe it was Skylark, or maybe it was whoever is pulling her chains. They found Ruby on the security tapes Cosmo sent them.”
Swift’s eyes slowly widened. “Why didn’t she leave the city, then?”
I felt the pieces begin to click into place. “She was afraid they’d go after her family. She was probably right, too. If these ruthless bastards had somehow caught wind that her personal effects left the city, or that she did, the first thing they’d hunt down was everyone she knew and loved. Maybe this...whatever it was...she seemed to think was controlling her wouldn’t let her leave, or wouldn’t take the risk. It doesn’t matter. She found something here...”
“But… that trunk was empty, wasn’t it?” Taxi said. “Was there some kind of… secret compartment?”
I chuckled, sadly, putting my hooves over my eyes.
“Ruby mentioned in her diary she knew some kind of spell to make things appear empty.” My voice caught in my throat. “She...dammit. I didn’t even think of it until just now. She used it on a cookie jar, as a filly. It was all right there, right in front of us. She fixed her trunk so she could hide things in it, then left the diary for me or her sister to find. Somehow...somehow she knew. She knew everything. She knew who would investigate her death.”
“You must excuse me for a moment, Detective," interjected Limerence. "I am aware of your capacious ego, and should no longer be surprised by such things, but… are you suggesting this mare killed herself just to get you involved in an investigation of her recent life?” he asked, incredulous.
I sagged, pushing the cover of the diary shut. “I don’t know. Ruby’s story is in this book. All of it. I haven’t had time to read it, but the rest appeared when we went to her cell.”
Limerence’s lips formed a line for a moment, then he shook his head. “Without additional information, our immediate mission is still unchanged. I don’t believe any of us want to sit here whilst you plod through that book. We know what we have to do.”
I got to my hooves, tucking the book back into my coat pocket. “...I hate it, but you’re right. Speaking of that, did you find our filly upstairs?”
Limerence dipped his chin. “No. Unfortunately, while the mare above may have shared the color scheme, she did not resemble your Chief Jade in any other way, shape, or form.”
“Not… unexpected, I guess,” I said, pulling the two maps over and setting them beside one another. “Sweets, does your ‘feeling’ have any helpful tips on how we get down to the next floor?”
Taxi shook her head and shrugged. “We mapped out the stairs on the floor above, but this floor is different. Saussurea-”
“Sir?” Swift interrupted, raising one wing for attention.
The rest of us turned to look at her and she shrank down a little, pointing at the map with one toe.
“Sorry…” she stumbled under the scrutiny, her wings fluttering slightly. “I… um… it’s probably nothing, but… did any of you notice the spaces where the maps don’t match up are… uh… square?”
Taxi didn’t reply, but instead dragged the maps over and laid them over each other again. Flattening the corners with her hooves, she aligned the maps so the central stalk overlayed the one above.
“Hmmm…she’s right. There are large spaces at the ends of each hallway. Each one is a couple of stories. There’s smaller ones in between, but all leading from the middle. It’s like-”
“Really big jail cells,” I murmured.
Limerence shrugged his slim shoulders and sat, checking his pocket watch. It was fairly late in the evening. “We knew there were dragons kept here. Is this surprising?”
I rested my toe on the map. “No, but I... I mean, you remember what you said about that spell? The one inside the robe?”
“Which particular saying are you referring to?”
“You said they were channeling magic and it was going nowhere. They were sending it someplace, though, right?” I asked.
“I… hrm… the structure of the spell does suggest something like that, yes. Dissipating it into the air would be simpler, though how exactly this particular enchantment even operates is beyond me, I’m afraid. Your point being...?”
I poked the map, then pulled out my M6-issued walkie-talkie. “Remember what Night Bloom said? Severe... interference in her sensor network on the floors above Arcane Control?”
“Like a… reactor, yes.” Limerence’s upper lip twitched as he began to gather together the idea that’d been working it’s way up from my subconscious, assembled one piece at a time. “This… structure… is some form of battery. A system for channeling the power of dragons and the ponies locked in its cells… and the ponies out there, wearing these robes. It allows them to be controlled. It siphons off power… little doses and sips… and it sends the power-”
“-here. To Supermax,” Taxi finished for him, with a certain finality. “Downward.”
We all simultaneously looked at our hooves. That eerie feeling of being inside the belly of a giant beast was multiplying, second by second. My cutie-mark was starting to ache profoundly.
Silence reigned for a full half minute while we tried to figure out our next course of action.
“Then Cerise is what we do now. We will… we’ll take her to Stella, get the trunk, then when we’re away, we’ll contact Chief Jade and let her know we succeeded.”
Everypony got to their hooves. Snatching up our maps, I traced us a route which would hit one of the staircases leading further into the prison.
Taxi and I left first, leaving the instruction that Swift and Limerence should follow some minutes later. We’d no idea what we’d find on the floors below, so everyone was weapons free, with the exception of Taxi, who settled for one of Limerence’s knives tucked under her robe.
So it was that we found the staircase.
So it was that we descended; down into the dark.
On the way, we’d encountered nopony awake. Plans going well tend to make me nervous, and there was no hope for getting that lucky.
It was almost a relief, half-way down the stairs, when the hum started.