//------------------------------// // Beggars and Choosers (Act Two) // Story: Cigarettes & Gunmetal // by MonoGlyph //------------------------------// Rarity reached to adjust her ascot, thought better of it, drew a slender cigarette from her suit pocket with a levitation spell, lit it and drew. The somberly-dressed group assembled around the meeting room table exchanged sidewise glances. “Are we to understand that a group of burglars broke into Carousel headquarters due to a security oversight?” asked a portly unicorn. Rarity was annoyed to see that he was taking neat, blocky notes on loose leaf in a fastidiously-kept three-ring. “And that you, the CEO this company has elected, saw fit to hire one of the criminals?” “Yes,” she said curtly. “This is the second time you’ve done something like this,” said one of the mares. “A job offer isn’t the most effective method of discouraging further misbehavior.” “Perhaps not,” Rarity conceded, “but Carousel Industries is in sore need of young talent, don’t you agree? How that talent was previously applied should be irrelevant.” “An employee of such dubious record cannot be trusted,” pressed the mare. “Rest assured that I have taken… precautions.” The pause was inserted consciously on Rarity’s part. She knew it was the sort of hackneyed dramatic flourish that the board of directors expected. “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand your concerns, but the truth of the matter is that Pinkamena’s associates—” A turquoise stallion sporting a muted crimson suit and a slicked back mane opened the double doors a crack and poked his head inside. As one, the directors craned their necks to look toward the disturbance, but the intruding stallion seemed unfazed. “Madam,” he said gravely. “I apologize for interrupting, but you have a phone call.” She shot him a look, but the intention was lost behind the impassive glare of the insect lenses mounted over her eyes. “Not now, Eiffel. I’m in the middle of an important meeting.” “Yes, well,” he looked sheepishly at her, “I’m afraid that this particular call can’t be delayed.” Can’t be delayed? What are you on about? Rarity pursed her lips. “I see.” She looked at the assembled board. “Please excuse me.” Outside the meeting room, a middle-aged secretary handed Rarity the phone, doing her absolute best to avoid eye contact. Trying to hide her exasperation, Rarity wordlessly took the device and plugged the bud into her ear. The gesture wasn’t necessary; it seemed that whoever was on the other end of the line had disabled the video feed. “Hello? Rarity speaking.” “Good afternoon, Miss Rarity.” The serene female voice on the other end didn’t sound familiar. “My name is Raven Four and I serve as one of the handmaidens to Her Ladyship, Princess Celestia.” Her knees almost buckled. She tried stalling. “Can I, ah, can I have some proof of your identity?” The voice continued unabated. “Her Ladyship wishes to inform you that She is very much aware of your company’s transgressions in Canterlot.” She searched for something to say but it was all she could do to continue listening in a stunned, terrified silence. “Are you still there? I am referring, of course, to the violence your people have incited on the streets of the capital when they sought to neutralize the city’s Stalliongrad Mafia syndicate.” Finally, Rarity regained her composure. “That’s quite an accusation. Have you any evidence to support these claims?” “Her Ladyship requires no evidence.” She couldn’t read the voice. It wasn’t smug, but neither was it angry or accusing. It sounded almost completely flat. “Furthermore,” the voice resumed, “it has recently come to Her Ladyship’s attention that your company is developing a potentially lethal artificial intelligence, one that does not conform to current Turing safety standards.” How could she have known about Huehuecóyotl? Even the actual programming team is only dimly aware of what they’re working on. But then, why would Pinkamena’s team know about it? Someone inside Carousel must be leaking information; someone high on the corporate ladder. “A formal investigation into your company’s actions is currently pending approval. I’m sure you understand, but if the results are unfavorable, your company could be dissolved and executives could face charges.” Rarity, once again, found herself speechless. “However,” the voice added, “you may still return to Her Ladyship’s good graces, if you agree to Her terms.” She released the breath she’d been holding and chewed on her lower lip for a moment. If the threats were legitimate, she didn’t have many options. If they weren’t… “I understand. Though I will request appropriate documentation before I agree to anything.” A pause. “That can be arranged,” said the voice. Route ’95 was a huge thoroughfare that bisected Ponyville like a gaping knife wound. The ground highway consisted of multiple roads and bridges stacked over one another in an attempt to ameliorate the crippling volume of rush-hour traffic. A gridlock of Route ’95 was liable to halt ground traffic in most of the city. Air traffic, meanwhile, was sparse enough that it didn’t yet require strict regulation, though Mayor Mare had been discussing how to tackle potential difficulties in the future with city officials. Snake Eyes tutted habitually. “Thanks, assholes. ‘North along Route ’95’ is really fucking specific.” Fluttershy was watching the pipes snake about over them once more. What did they carry? Why had the city not laid out the network underground, like other settlements she’d seen? Corrugated iron tubes running from building to building, through countless rooftop balustrades and facades. And then, a flash of red. “Look!” The manticore had somehow made it onto the pipe network and was quickly making its way along the highway, leaping or gliding from platform to makeshift platform as each terminated into its respective tenement building. Some of the weaker pipes bent and sprayed water or steam as the creature landed, and Fluttershy wondered how these would be repaired. Manny was fast and agile despite his weight; she could see the muscles in his legs ripple with each powerful bound. The teardrop was gaining but only barely. Something shiny was mounted on his back. “Where is he going?” she asked dreamily. Snake Eyes checked the time readout on the car’s dashboard. “If I was a rabid, homicidal monster, I’d be headed for the most densely-populated areas of the city. At this hour, on the way from Route ’95, that’d probably be… the Folk Bazaar.” He tempered the anti-grav thrusters to avoid a collision with a honking cargo barge. The teardrop was close enough that it was physically pulled into the vacuum that the speeding barge left in its wake. Fluttershy hesitated. “Um, okay. Could you, uh—” “The Folk Bazaar is… well, it’s a big public lot, right? Neutral territory. Right on toppa the boundary between downtown and the proper corporate district. People go there to put up job postings and ‘cos you don’t need a vendor’s license to set up shop and… Whatever, it don’t matter, point is, it’s gonna be getting really crowded at about now, and we’re maybe four clicks away from the ramp.” “Can you catch up to him in time?” she asked. He eyed the dashboard and then glanced at the shape bounding over the pipeline ahead. “Maybe. Coolers are shit, though. I go any faster, the engine’s gonna melt.” Fluttershy clipped the trank magazine into place. “Just get us close. I’ll take care of him.” A siren started to wail somewhere behind them. His eyes darted to the rear-view mirror. “Great. It’s gonna be a rough ride, ‘Shy. Might want to strap in and hang on to your rabbit.” A hiss of static filled the quiet teardrop interior and then the radio started to speak. “Driver. Lodestar has reason to suspect that you are transporting a wanted suspect. Pull over immediately or we will be forced to disable your vehicle.” The link was one-way. Snake Eyes hit the toggle, shutting off the radio. Manny’s sprinting form was getting steadily nearer, so Snake Eyes slowly drew the teardrop closer to the pipeline. There was a pop as something bounced off of the rear window: Lodestar were firing electro-magnetic harpoons at them. If one of these devices latched onto the metal of the vehicle, it would fire a localized EMP, disabling the battery. Newer air car models had emergency thrusters that would kick in during a power failure, allowing the vehicle to drift comfortably to ground level, but the 2002 Tsubasa teardrop wasn’t equipped with these safety features. If Lodestar managed to hook onto them, they’d plummet from the sky like a rock. Snake Eyes pulled back as another harpoon shot past, rebounding off of an altitude sign. “Motherfuckers,” he said disbelievingly. “Don’t they care if we fall into the road below?” Fluttershy rolled down her window and took aim. The wind howled outside, drowning out Snake Eyes’ complaints. The trigger lever twitched. She fired. A pipe burst beneath Manny’s paws; he snarled, adjusting his gait to maintain balance, and seemed to notice the teardrop for the first time. As he turned his head to face her, Fluttershy gasped. Half of the manticore’s skull had been replaced with primitive-looking brass and silicone circuitry. Wires ran from a single photoreceptor into his charred scalp, and a hexagonal box made of featherstahl appeared to have been installed directly into his spinal cord. One of his forelegs had been replaced wholesale: a sleek brass prosthetic caught the sun as he ran. It looked like half of Manny’s body had melted around his cyberware, as though he’d climbed out of the fiery depths of Phlegethon itself. Manny let out a roar overlaid by screeching synths: his voice-box had been altered. Snake Eyes spun the wheel away, pulling back as the beast leapt toward the teardrop. Fluttershy watched as the manticore fell away into the street below. A distant air car folded under Manny’s weight and spun out as he lunged toward a parallel vehicle. With a series of near-impossible jumps through and over moving traffic, Manny landed onto their teardrop’s rear bumper. Fluttershy twisted around to look at Manny through the rear window as Snake Eyes shouted curse after curse at the dashboard. Far behind them, the Lodestar transport fired another harpoon. Manny jerked back toward their pursuers almost too quickly for her to register what had happened. As her brain processed the action, she understood: Manny had caught the shaft of the harpoon in mid-transit. Her amplified voice sounded alien in her ears, as though she was listening to someone else screaming: “Get us over something, Snake!” The stallion nudged the wheel toward the closest high-rise a split second before something sparked and the dashboard went dark. An instant later, her internal organs funneled into her throat as the teardrop started to fall. Snake Eyes screamed and she felt Angel digging his claws into her jacket. The high-rise was rushing to meet them at a break-neck speed. Operating purely on instinct, she kicked open her door, struggled clumsily out of her jacket, hugged Angel close to her and leapt out into the cutting winds. Her wings flapped feebly as she tried to slow her descent, but it was of no use. She hadn’t flown in at least two years, and her momentum proved to be far too strong for her to overcome. She tumbled over the rugged concrete roof, feeling one of her wings bend and crack. She laid there for a while, until Angel struggled from her unresisting forelegs and nuzzled her cheek. She got to her feet slowly, carefully, testing each one in turn for fractures. Aside from the broken wing, she seemed to have gotten off relatively easily, though her hip ached and her muzzlepiece was leaking much more profusely now. Her medical gasses would soon run out, and there were several bleeding bruises decorating her body, ones that wouldn’t stop until she was dry. She looked at her foreleg—the Guardian’s lathe was cracked and the catgut hung limp. She wouldn’t get much use out of the crossbow in this state. At this point, it occurred to her to survey her surroundings. The teardrop rested a fair distance away, having nearly slid through the parapet and off the rooftop completely. It was smoking and a spider web of cracks ran through the windshield. Any other car might have flipped upon touching down, but teardrops had a notoriously low center of gravity. She could just barely make out Snake Eyes’ body through the cracked windows, smothered by the airbag. She couldn’t say offhand if he was dead or merely unconscious. Her ears registered a low growl and the post-trauma haze was instantly blown away by the jolt of adrenaline. Manny stumbled slowly towards her. He was limping and his electronic eye was dark. It took her a second to realize that the pulse had disabled his cyberware as well, half-blinding him and reducing one of his limbs to dead weight. As bruised, injured and sick as she was, it was nothing compared to the pain Manny had gone through. Lodestar transports hovered around the building, waiting for something, maybe an order, maybe to see how this situation would resolve. The flashing police lights caught on Manny’s dead implants and winked at her. “Just look at yourself…” she coughed as her muzzlepiece fed the last of the gas into her lungs. “What have they done to you?” Manny growled again, a feral sound with undertones of fury and grief. “I am… defiled. But now… I understand firsthand… the cruelty… of your kin… pegasus.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Who did this?” Manny snarled. “It matters not. Your kind… You are all the same. You will all pay…! As one!” She stepped back despite herself. “But you can’t—! They’ll kill you!” He dashed towards her, limping awkwardly, dragging his prosthetic behind him along the concrete. He was too far gone; he didn’t care whether he lived or died. She kicked out, connecting her hooves with Manny’s facial circuits, only just bouncing away as he tried to claw at her with his working foreleg. Her legs could barely support her weight; she was lightheaded from loss of blood and though she coughed and sputtered, she couldn’t spit the blood from her rapidly-filling lungs. She tried to keep the beast at a distance, but had no plan, no weapons, no cards left to play. At last she collapsed, the scene spinning drunkenly around her. As her sight dimmed she saw Angel leap onto Manny’s back. The beast howled and swiped at the hare, violently knocking him out of her field of vision. Before Manny could get any closer to where she lay, however, his knees gave and he fell, whimpering softly. Fluttershy understood: Angel had taken a neurotoxin-coated flechette from her discarded ammo pouch and plunged it into one of Manny’s arteries. The fast-acting venom crippled Manny’s compromised systems almost instantly, condemning him to a slow, painful death. You and me both—we’re just victims of circumstance. And now look: here we are. Lying here together. Waiting for death. She rolled onto her back, ignoring the searing pain in her wing. The Lodestar vehicles had backed off slightly. Two black, unmarked heliplanes were descending over the scene, scattering dust and debris from the rooftop. News crews? Unlikely—news choppers were flashier and wouldn’t be allowed through the Lodestar cordon. It didn’t matter anyway; it was all only a passing curiosity now. Her eyes fluttered and shut as black-clad figures rappelled toward her from the hovering heliplanes. She awoke atop the high-rise. The heliplanes and Lodestar transports were gone, along with the rest of the speeding air traffic. The crashed teardrop was also conspicuously absent. The city was quiet. There was no wind, no distant voices of the crowd, no hum of passing cars; only the silent glare of the red sun overhead. The Duchy of Crossroads… She was naked once more, and apparently unscathed. Stepping up to the parapet, she looked over the ruinous outlines of the city, a vast empty sprawl decorated with dead neon and peeling paint. “Shusteht!” she cried out, but silence reigned. She stepped over the parapet carefully and let herself fall. Her wings, healthier, fuller than she could recall them ever being, easily caught the still air and propelled her forward over the desolation below. There were no air currents and yet she flew as easily as if she’d been doing it all her life. Route ’95 stretched to the horizon and she followed it, unsure of her purpose or destination. Despite the feelings of liberation that flying allowed her, despite the fact that she felt healthy for once, a pang of melancholy stayed with her as she soared through the empty city. On several occasions she thought she saw a moving shape on the ground below, something big and fast, but when she landed to investigate there was never any hint that anything had been there. She might have explored that city for hours or days, and it was so massive and so utterly devoid of any life that she felt even more alone than she ever did when she was awake. Broken windows leading into empty, barren rooms coated in dust. Stockless, clientless diners in various stages of disrepair. Corporate buildings, possibly even more lifeless now than they had been in her own time, without the benefit of being as clean. No door was ever locked in this city, but no door ever led to anywhere notable or worthwhile. She had to leave this place before she turned the same: lost, hollow and helpless. No options presented themselves to her. After an indeterminate amount of time, she found a small neoclassical cobblestone bridge in one of the antique boroughs in the heart of the city. She curled up to sleep beneath it, though the sun was ever-stationary in the hazy sky. She knew that abandoned apartments were a dime a dozen here, but for some reason the thought of passing time in one made her uneasy. They were so… closed off. Isolated. Sleep was slow in coming, but she did nod off after a time. When she awoke, she found Manny standing over her, gazing at, gazing through her. “You…?” He was virginal, unharmed as she was, his hideous implants gone, his skin mended. He was unnaturally still, not blinking, not even breathing; it put Fluttershy on edge. When he opened his mouth, the voice that spilled fourth wasn’t his own. “Awaken, Child of the Sun. Your appointed hour is not yet come.” Tastefully dimmed loglo tubes shone down at her as she pried back her eyelids and tried to get her bearings. The room was spacious, far too much so to be a part of any economically-minded hospital. No roommate, comfortable context-mold bedding. To her left was a window looking out onto a fanciful sunset beach. The gently rolling tide crashed repeatedly against the white sand, providing a soothing bassline of white noise. She stared out the window for a few minutes, but the bright orange sun didn’t seem to be getting any lower. Her muzzlepiece was gone, replaced by an oxygen mask. Her mouth tasted vaguely of some indeterminate brand of anesthetic cocktail, and she found that she could breathe comfortably without prompting coughing fits. There was a persistent itch in her wing, but she supposed that it was preferable to the pain she felt when it broke. When she tried to sit up she found that she was hooked up to a full suite of monitoring equipment, including an expensive-looking silicon tiara connected to an EEG. The device had picked up a recent change in her brain waves, the transition into consciousness. Whoever was looking after her here, they were aware that she had awakened. She lay in bed for several minutes, patiently waiting. Finally, footsteps sounded outside, followed by a polite knock at her door. The stallion opened the door without waiting for an answer. He didn’t look much like a doctor—no scrubs or lab coat or stethoscope, only a dim red suit and tie. “Miss Fluttershy, correct?” he asked. She nodded. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Eiffel.” He didn’t offer his forehoof to shake. “How are you feeling?” “Good,” she croaked, unsure of what else to say. “I’m glad to hear it. Madam Rarity has requested a word, if you would be so kind.” “Madam Rarity?” The stallion nodded stiffly. “My employer and the mare responsible for your extraction and subsequent medical treatment, yes.” Fluttershy considered this. “Why?” she asked. “That isn’t for me to say,” said Eiffel. “You will have to speak with Madam Rarity for the details.” “Okay…” The zigzags displayed on the EEG subtly changed shape as she tried to remember the confrontation with Manny. “I had a stallion and a hare with me. Up there, on the roof?” “I’m not at liberty to divulge their current status to you. Please speak with Madam Rarity.” She sensed that she wouldn’t get anywhere trying to talk to this suit. “Okay,” she said again. “Will you escort me to her?” “Of course, if you consider yourself adequately prepared. You can disconnect the electrodes and the EEG band. Are you stable on your feet, or will you require a wheelchair?” Rarity’s office was a soundproofed cube on the top floor of the building, overlooking what Fluttershy assumed was Ponyville downtown. Rarity turned off her holo-display as Eiffel entered the room with Fluttershy trailing closely behind. She nodded wordlessly at Eiffel, dismissing him. Fluttershy felt a touch of enmity for the mare as she drew on her cigarette. “Excuse me. Why did you save me?” asked Fluttershy. Rarity studied her through the smoke and took another drag. “You don’t know?” she asked finally. Fluttershy shook her head. Rarity chuckled. “Well, let’s just say that you have a very influential benefactor.” “Influential enough to cover the cost of new lungs?” Fluttershy asked suspiciously. “And pinion bone repair?” “Oh yes. You are extraordinarily fortunate.” The exec seemed lost in thought for a few moments. Fluttershy was quickly getting fed up with all the secrecy. “Fine. Will you at least tell me if Snake Eyes and my hare are okay?” Rarity reactivated and consulted her holo-display. “As soon as we verified that the stallion’s injuries were not life-threatening, we had him moved to Sweetheart Chateau. The hare is being cared for at the Pulaski Veterinary Center. You’ll be able to pick it up there, once we release you.” Fluttershy sighed. “Thank you. Then, is there anything you need from me?” Rarity rolled her cigarette holder from one corner of her mouth to the other. “That leaves the matter of the manticore… Given that you are the one who killed it, the carcass is legally yours. I understand that Mayor Mare and Woodworth & Sons are offering bounties, but I would be willing to purchase it off of you for double the highest competing price.” Fluttershy looked at Rarity, trying to place her. The lenses she wore made it impossible to read her eyes. “Why are you so interested in Manny’s corpse?” Rarity shook the excess ash from the tip of her cigarette into a tray that Fluttershy noted was apparently cut from a single large diamond. “My reasons are purely philanthropic. Our engineers have reason to suspect that the manticore’s cyberware was installed by a group of domestic terrorists known as the Children of the Night.” “Who’s that?” Rarity navigated a menu on the holo-display to bring up several files. “You know of Nightmare Moon, yes?” An unmistakable woodcut of the fearsome-looking alicorn appeared on the display. Her head was obscured by her iconic battle headdress. “That’s a pseudonym, right?” hazarded Fluttershy. “Of Celestia’s sister?” “Princess Luna, correct. What do you know of her?” “She, ah, she led a revolt of some kind, back in the eighteen-hundreds? And Princess Celestia had her killed.” Rarity nodded. Her voice took on the tone and pace of a weary history professor. “Most sources say that Princess Luna was assassinated after staging a bloody coup against her sister, yes. The Children of the Night, composed of modern-day revolutionaries, claim that the Lunar Princess was banished, not killed. Given the Royal Family’s longevity, if this is indeed the case, then Luna is almost certainly still alive. The Children of the Night believe that she is due to return. And,” she sat up slightly, “at the risk of sounding melodramatic, if Luna does return to the political stage, it could spark a war that would make Bridleon look like an international gyroball match.” “That sounds terrible. But what did the Children of the Night want with Manny?” asked Fluttershy. Rarity stopped, presumably contemplating how to answer. “You did well to stop him,” she said after a few seconds. “A remotely triggered pocket nuke was built directly into his spinal column. If it wasn’t for you and that EMP harpoon, a sizable portion of the city would have been reduced to an uninhabitable wasteland.” Fluttershy realized that her mouth was hanging open. “Oh… goodness.” “Now, would you be willing to sell the carcass for further analysis? I am offering eight thousand BC’s.” Fluttershy considered it. Rarity seemed sufficiently trustworthy, at least for a suit, and Fluttershy certainly didn’t want to sell a nuclear explosive to someone like Woodworth. She shrugged. “Okay, well… I don’t really need the money. Send the credits to Snake.” “You’re sure?” “Yes.” When Fluttershy finished the necessary paperwork, Rarity shuffled though her desk drawer and withdrew a single near-blank page. “One last thing, please,” she said briskly. “I have a document here listing four names. If you would be so kind, tell me if any of these are familiar to you.” “Um, sure?” Fluttershy took the page and glanced over it. A generic-looking logo reading ‘HARMONIA’ was printed on the header. Beneath it were six names, two of which had been carefully censored with black marker. She didn’t recognize any of the remaining four. “Should I know these people?” she asked. Rarity shrugged. “I doubt it.” “You’re right.” The exec grabbed a business card from the corner of her desk and gave it to Fluttershy. “No matter. Here’s my contact information if you ever need anything.” She looked away. “That includes medical work—we’ve replaced your lungs but the infection itself is currently untreatable. Regrettably, you will relapse eventually. But until then, I wish you all the best.” Fluttershy got up to leave. “Thank you.” The exec smiled wryly at her. “We’ll keep in touch.”