Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 37: Benefits Package
One central function of satirical humor is to comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable – a fact that is, in some instinctual way, understood by the common Equestrian. There is a long tradition in Equestria of pranking the upper classes.
Disappearing ink gets snuck into researchers’ quills. Cardboard manticores get launched from behind shower curtains. Sometimes, they get quite spectacular: Famously, a royal gardener planted zap apple seeds in the Canterlot Gardens, then scheduled the Canterlot Garden Party to take place at the same time as the zap apple harvest – which meant that the party was plagued with crows flying in odd formations, sudden trees, and a timberwolf pack. While this pack was rather quickly immolated by Royal Guard mages, it did result in quite a lot of garden fertilization.
There is evidence to suggest Celestia herself actually quietly encourages this as long as it doesn’t go too far, and has been known to participate in little “Gotchas” herself. While definition of “too far” may be at issue, as it is suspected that she personally orchestrated the mayhem at the L.R. 1 Grand Galloping Gala, she has a good reason for her stance.
Outside of very brief and localized experiments with communeighsm, the forseeable future will have some form of division between rich and poor, and where divisions exist create great opportunities for disharmony. To prevent this and release class tensions, such barriers between ponies must be broken from time to time.
Such breakages are rarer in Detrot, especially the more spectacular forms of prank. Canterlot has enough safety nets to allow what would be dangerous pranks in other zones. Canterlot can deal with timberwolf attacks and irate dignitaries. Detrot would be Monstertown without its defenses. A prank that, in Canterlot, would have started and ended with somepony getting egg in their mane could – and did - culminate in a diplomatic incident with a high ranking griffin ambassador that ended in the incidental and unrelated withdrawal of mercenary protection from an outlying pony colony that just happened, a week later, to get destroyed by Tatzlwurms.
Because Detrot gets fewer such outlets, when the lower classes do get a chance to act without obvious repercussion, the temptation is to take it as far as it will go.
-The Scholar
“Detective, I just finished hoofcuffing one of my favorite actors while he tried to lick my cutie mark. While I might have enjoyed something like that in different circumstances, I sincerely hope you have a plan for getting us out of here,” Geranium said, kicking at a piece of the broken statue of Nightmare Moon.
“I think you might be a little unsure of what the word ‘us’ means to me, sweetheart. I have a plan to get ‘us’ -- that is me, my target, my driver, my partner, and my librarian -- out of here,” I said, poking Geranium in the chest with one hooftip, meaningfully. “Whether or not you get included in that will be determined by whether or not I think you’re going to stab me in the back the instant we’re out the door.”
The lawyer scoffed and swept my hoof away. “I’m helping, dammit! It’s not as though I can fight you with this rock in my gut, now can I? What’s the next part of this brilliant plan of yours?”
“I’m still working that out,” I replied, with a coy smile. “I’ll be sure to let you know when I have something I need you to do.”
Geranium let out a frustrated snarl and marched off towards the rows of sitting cultists. One of them tried to tug at her suit with his teeth and she gave him a good wallop across the side of the head with the back of one hoof.
I admit, I was taking perhaps a little too much joy in needling the prickly solicitor, but she was still technically my enemy and the last individual I’d wanted to tear in half had been torn in half by my driver. That left me with a dearth of targets to take out my irritation on.
“Hardy... she’s got a point,” Taxi murmured, trying to get one knee under herself.
“Sweets, I swear, if you don’t stay right there, I will cart your sorry flank to that nutty doctor of Stella’s for healing,” I replied. “Rest. We’re not out of this particular set of woods just yet.”
Her leg slid a little, then she sighed and tucked it back under her chest. “It’s just... I mean, I know we came in here on a search and rescue, but we can’t let that bunch over there go, can we?”
Before I could formulate an answer, Limerence’s head popped out of the hallway leading to the secondary control room. He quickly took in the shackled cultists at the back, the tipped statue of Nightmare Moon, and Taxi’s condition.
I waved him over and he trotted towards us. A small white medical kit levitated along beside him. “Ah, Detective. Can I assume my ‘patient’ didn’t take the advice to keep activity to a minimum?”
“Did you expect her to?” I replied, stepping down off the altar so he could take my place.
Taxi started, “I’m-”
“If you say ‘fine’, I’m pistol whipping you,” I said, cutting off her objections. “Now, stick your leg out and sit still until we’re done.”
Frowning irritably, she offered Limerence her bandaged leg. He quickly unwound the wrappings around the bloody hole in Taxi’s leg. They were saturated right through. Shelling open the medical kit, he sifted through the contents, scrutinizing each piece. Finally, he plucked out a very expensive looking stone talisman about the size of a bit attached to the back of a sticking plaster.
“Ahhh, fantastic. Miss Skylark did not skimp on her personal medical kit,” Limerence mused, peeling the back off the bandage. Turning to my driver, he applied the bandage carefully over the wound. She hissed and shut her eyes, tightly, tears leaking down her cheeks. “Although, I suppose considering what sort of ‘activities’ she got up to in that little lair of hers, I am not surprised.”
“Activities? Please tell me it wasn’t something more depraved than cutting off bits of ponies…”
“No, nothing quite so mundane, I’m afraid. I’ll show you in the control room in a moment. Is the cult...restrained?” he asked.
“For the moment, yes, I think so. If I know Beam heads, they’re going to come down and half of them will fall asleep for the next ten hours.”
“What about Miss Cerise, then?” He nodded in the direction of the girl who was still laid out on the floor a couple of meters from the altar. Her hooves weren’t hobbled, but her horn was locked off and somepony had found a mostly clean robe to pull over her.
“Honestly, I think we’re best off leaving her where she is until we’re ready to leave,” I replied, thinking. “I don’t want to carry her and this room will be reasonably safe and secure for longer than just about anywhere else once we’ve got the cult upstairs. She’s not likely to wake up, is she?”
“Not a chance,” he replied, examining his hoofwork with the bandage. Lowering his head, he pressed his horn against the talisman and fed it a quick burst of energy.
Taxi's pained expression melted immediately. She let out a happy sigh as the tightly coiled muscles in her shoulders relaxed and the healing spell got to work. “Mmm...oh that feels lovely…”
“There is a mild soporific in the enchantment. I am loathe to consider how many bits Skylark spent on that particular piece of magic. We will still need to have the shot removed from the muscle, but it should allow you to function until we can find surgery,” Limerence answered. “That is, if the blood loss is not too severe.”
Setting her jaw, Taxi heaved herself to her hooves and took a careful step on the injured leg. When the pain didn’t immediately bring her to her knees, she slid down off the altar and pushed her head through the strap looped over her cannon, settling it around her neck.
“Hey! Geranium!” I shouted, and the mare poked her head from behind a boiler. Unhooking my shotgun from its mountings, I tossed it on the altar. “Gun. Keep the cultists covered and if any of them decide to get frisky, blow their brains out.”
Several of the cultists cringed against one another at that. Most seemed too shell-shocked to really consider much more than basic self-preservation.
“Are you out of your ever-loving little pony mind, Detective?!” Geranium yelled back. “I don’t know how to use a gun!”
“It’s easy! Pull the trigger and this end goes boom!” I said, indicating the barrel.
“Detective, I am going to... to... grah! Fine! You utter, utter bastard! I hope you live just so I can make you regret all of this one day!” she snapped, marching towards the front of the room and sweeping the sawn off shotgun up in her magic, then stomping back toward the crowd, keeping the weapon levitating in front of herself. She took up position at the back of the room, sagging onto her rump in the doorway and glowering at any of the cultists who tried to turn around to look at her.
Taxi leaned a little closer to me and said, in a low voice, “Empty gun?”
“Of course. You think I’m an idiot?” I replied, rattling my pocket which was full of all the remaining shells.
“The jury is still out on that. I’ll be deciding based on whether or not we get out of here.”
****
We followed Limerence back to the control room, leaving the sullen lawyer to guard the cult.
Swift was poking around the wall of bones at the back of the room, her notepad out and her pencil in the edge of her mouth. The acrid stink of vomit was everywhere in the tiny space, but she’d had the good grace to pick a corner.
One edge of the sheet over Astral Skylark was flipped back, revealing the peacefully resting face of the dead priestess.
“Sir?” Swift said, looking up as we filed in.
“Hey, kid. What’s our status? Learn anything useful?” I asked.
She scratched at her ear with one wingtip. “Um... useful can mean an awful lot of things, Sir. I nosed around where I could, but it’s... it’s like some kind of weird shrine or something. All this stuff is about Princess Luna. All the newspaper articles are about Princess Luna.”
She picked up one from the altar that only had a spot of blood on it and read it aloud. “Princess Luna has a new stallion in her life?” She snatched up another. “Princess Luna, sweet on a mare from Trottingham?”
Before she could pick up another, I put a hoof on her leg. “Alright, I think I’ve got it. What’s the story with these so-called ‘activities’ Limerence was going on about?”
Reaching around behind the altar where Skylark’s body lay, she latched on to something and started hauling it out. Inch by inch, a chest of some kind slid out from where it’d been carefully concealed.
It reminded me loosely of Ruby Blue’s travel chest, although of a much cheaper model with none of the durability enhancements or garnish. The corners were busted and the top had a broken clasp. Shipment stickers from every corner of Equestria coated the sides, though most seemed to come from different sections of Canterlot. Featured on one side, a black, smiling kitten with one paw stuck down in the bottom of an open purse leered out of a faded poster.
“I found this. I think it’s Miss Skylark’s, but I didn’t open it yet.”
Taxi limped over to the box and ran a hoof over the tiny cat. “Astral Skylark used to be ‘Ebon Kitten’, right? Funny that she’d keep something that links her so directly to who she used to be.”
“A con artist is a con artist, whether they’re stealing nicknacks from the rich or picking pockets,” I murmured. “Something tells me she wasn’t exactly full of remorse.”
Limerence moved to the body, pulling his kerchief to his face as he drew the sheet back. Thankfully, the side facing us was the one with a wing still attached. “That sounds like an excellent supposition. These are most curious, as well. She was not an alicorn. She had none of the powers of an alicorn... however, the wings or horn are the most immediate sign of transformation. I admit I am at something of a loss. The musculature here is... odd.”
“The muscles are wrong, is what you mean,” Taxi said, pulling her jeweler’s goggles over her head as she gently nosed me sideways so she could get to the body.
Swift paused in her furious scribbling and looked up. “Like... wrong, how?”
“Well, to begin... I think these wings are probably from a stallion,” my driver flopped the broken limb backwards over Skylark’s back and Limerence gulped as the broken bones scraped against one another. “Funny this... it’s just attached.”
“What do you mean ‘attached’?”
“As in, these wings could never fly.”
I stopped breathing for a second, processing that as my eyes roved over the broken wing structure.
“The magical channels are all dead,” Taxi continued, “The musculature is completely atrophied, if it was ever there to begin with. I doubt she could even have kept this from dragging the ground.”
“That would explain why nopony seems to have seen her in public without her robe on... well... ever. Still, are we... seriously saying she stole somepony’s wings?” I asked, rubbing the bridge of my muzzle as I thought back to the Museum. The thought of having been inches from somepony who was cutting horns, hooves, and wings not more than a few days ago made my fur crawl.
“Stole? Very possibly,” Limerence murmured, glancing over the body and the wall of bones behind it. “There are no less than four interlocking magics at work here. The ritual she performs on her victims, this spell core, the zebra alchemy, and the magic of Supermax itself. This is an extraordinarily complex spell system for even a knowledgeable unicorn, much less a former thief. Each part meshes with some other. I would go so far as to say that not one iota is of Astral Skylark’s design.”
“What makes you think that? Isn’t she the one who wanted to transform herself?” I wanted to know.
“Yes, and if I read the runes on it correctly, it would have certainly helped with the grafting of wings to her back and perhaps even muscle development, given time and enough magic,” Limerence replied, stepping over to the spell core and running his hoof over the surface. “This was not, however, designed to help her become an alicorn. Without cracking it open, I have only the surface runes to read from, but this is zebra rune work and... it is incomplete.”
“Incomplete how?”
He touched the core, moving his toe underneath each rune down the side. “These are control runes. Each one is designed with a specific amount of arcane current. Once that amount of power is met, the next rune takes over. They are missing a transitional rune which would allow them to step up to maximum power, safely. I can only think it is an intentional omission. If I had to guess, I’d say this spell core was designed to cast its spell and then explode.”
I took an involuntary step back from the box. “You mean...detonate? It’s not still ticking, is it?”
“No, not at all. This room, however, is far from ‘safe’,” he murmured, pointing towards the wall of bones with his horn. “Those... I do believe, are phylacteries. Phylacteries torn from... living... ponies.”
I tilted my head, puzzled. “Pardon, I’m afraid I’m not entirely familiar with that word.”
“Soul containers,” Taxi murmured. “The zebras I went to stay with once used to make them. They don’t anymore, but they would honor their elders by preserving their souls so they could watch over the village after they were gone.”
“Indeed,” Limerence went on. “These are nothing so noble, nor so kind, I’m afraid. Astral Skylark contained the souls, memories, and energies of those she killed. Her ritual would simply drag the entirety of a living or recently deceased pony into some part of their anatomy -- usually one with many magic channels -- then allow her to hack it off and keep it. They contain enormous magical energy.”
Swift inhaled sharply. “That’s more necromancy, right?”
“The blackest of necromancy. Not even the raising of the dead is so foul an act. If we had a death penalty in Equestria, this would garner it. As it is, life sentence to Tartarus without hope of parole is the best somepony who commits this crime can hope for.”
A thick silence fell over the room as the four of us considered exactly what we’d found ourselves in. I’d expected a bit of hocus pocus, and maybe some nutbar killing ponies for the ‘glory of heaven’. That sort of thing isn’t entirely unheard of.
Murder for spellwork in an attempt to turn oneself into an alicorn was a fresh flavor of sick.
“I... mmm... Sir? Can I ask something?” Swift put in.
“Kid, I don’t see how anything you could ask could make this situation worse…”
“Oh... um... Sir, I think you’re wrong about that,” Swift said, laying her pencil across the top of her notepad.
I rubbed my eyes with both hooves, trying to soothe the pounding ache that had taken up residence behind them. “You’re probably right. Let’s hear it anyway.”
My partner’s lips drew down into a thoughtful frown, then she shook herself and asked, with some trepidation, “Are... are the souls still inside those horns and wings and stuff?”
Oooh, how I wished I could strike the words ‘nothing’, ‘could’, ‘make’, ‘this’, ‘situation’, and ‘worse’ from my vocabulary. I’d be happy to lose each and every one of them, just so I could never string them together in that particular sentence again.
There was another protracted silence as all eyes turned on Limerence. His eyelids fluttered and he took a step back, then swallowed a lump in his throat. “I...I do not know. It is... it is possible certainly...”
“Is there some way of finding out?” I asked. “I think we’d all kinda like to know.”
Limerence hesitated, wetting his lips before moving over to the wall of bones. Forcing his trembling hooves to stillness, he lowered his forehead to one of the severed unicorn horns. The particular one he chose was short and a little stubby, the color of a chicken egg.
His horn shone, then the other responded with a spurt of violet sparks.
Limerence’s pupils shrank and he pushed himself back, clutching his hoof to his chest. “Oh… oh dear...”
“I’ll take that to mean we’ve got a whole heap of victims still in the room with us,” I murmured.
“Yes. Yes, these souls have not been burnt. They are still...occupied.”
Taxi covered her muzzle with her hoof and Swift’s pencil hit the floor with an audible ‘click’.
“Crap on toast,” I muttered, idly kicking at my trigger bit.
It was a long few moment before anypony could think of anything to say.
“So... lemme get this entirely straight in my mind.” My driver put her hooftips on the sides of her head, massaging in little circles. “What we’ve got is an entire room full of this city’s great and good out there, stoned out of their gourds and looking to hump the night away. and a murdering priestess in here with a machine for making alicorns. Anypony we call in for support from official sources is going to make the situation worse.”
“And... we’ve still got one of those moon guns unaccounted for. Speaking of those, Swift, did you-”
“I picked them all up. I put the moon weapons in a box behind the altar, and I counted them.”
“Smart kid.”
Taxi was up and poking at the wires on the wall, lightly tracing the connections between the wing bones, horns, and hooves that made up the strange symbol Skylark had been using to store the energies of her spell.
“So, exactly what is this spell core supposed to do if it’s meant to blow up afterwards?” she asked, nudging the cords that led around to the control station, then under the altar. “This all looks like a mess…”
“That is an excellent description,” Limerence replied. “This... bodge was largely hacked into the original magic draining enchantments with... well, nothing short of arcane villainy and amateur electrical work. There are wasted voltages everywhere. Still, it is a very impressive piece of barn-door wizardry. It functions, in spite of its inefficient design.”
“Alright... so, if we remove it, can we at least give Tourniquet some better control over this place?” I asked, thinking about the number of cultists who probably still remained upstairs.
“Oh, I do believe so,” Limerence said with a slightly maniacal gleam in his eye as he levitated a pair of insulated pliers with red handles and a book titled ‘Electrical Work For Psychopaths’ out of his saddlebags. “Removing it should be a simple matter of disconnecting the extra parts, hooking the original wiring back together, and restoring power. It’s all rather helpfully color coded. It will take some time, however, and I cannot guarantee Tourniquet’s comfort if she is awake.”
“Yeah, well, shutting her down isn’t an option and I’m pretty sure she’ll be happier once it’s done. Isn’t that right?” I asked, addressing the air above my head. The ladybug in my mane buzzed a quick agreement.
“Then I will begin. I estimate some success within an hour or so. In the meantime, I will require silence and I think it best the rest of you leave this area, in case I inadvertently cause an explosion.”
“Is that likely?” Taxi asked, glancing around the control room with a certain nervousness.
“Do you wish to find out?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Point taken,” I said. “Alright, Swift, Sweets... saddle up. We’re heading upstairs. We need to handle the prisoners and get back to Tourniquet to see about arranging our exit. In the meantime, Limerence, you see what you can do for Tourniquet’s control of this place and check Skylark’s box for traps. I want to open it when I get back.”
Limerence snipped at the air with his electrical pliers. “Of course, Detective."
****
Geranium hadn’t moved from her position on the stairs, the shotgun propped against her shoulder as she scowled at everything and nothing simultaneously. A few of the cultists were finally sane enough to be trying to talk to her, but she knew the score and seemed to be ignoring them. One portly, orange stallion in particular, with a big, ingratiating smile who I’m pretty sure I’d seen at a police event was trying to explain how it was all a big misunderstanding.
“-really, Miss! We’re just here for a bit of fun. We had no idea Miss Skylark was capable of so much violence. If you’ll just let me make a call, I can have this all cleared away and nopony need ever know what happened,” he said, winking and trying to elbow in her direction. “There would probably even be a nice check in it for you, if you help us against those crazy ponies. They’re not police, you know.”
The lawyer caught sight of us and rose to her hooves. “Thank Celestia... if I have to listen to these idiots blather for another minute, I’m going to shoot one just on principle! What are we doing?”
“Securing the prisoners,” I replied, then turned to the crowd and raised my voice so I could be heard in the back. “Alright everypony! On your hooves. We’re heading upstairs. You will survive tonight, if you are smart. If you are stupid... well, you will still probably survive tonight, but you’ll do it without kneecaps.” I stepped back and rested my hoof on Swift’s shoulder as I continued, “My partner here is a pony who values cooperation. She will be watching closely to ensure this little stroll we’re about to go on goes off without a hitch. She will also be claiming the kneecaps of anypony who would consider creating hitches. Whether she shoots them, or chews them off will be up to her discretion.”
“Ch-chews them o-off?” the hefty stallion stuttered.
Swift gave him a toothy grin and the entire crowd let out a collection of terrified gasps and whimpers. My partner’s grin spread a little farther. I was gladdened, not for the first time, that she was on our side. Those teeth could scare the scales off a crocodile.
I leaned down to her ear and stage-whispered, loud enough for everypony to hear, “If any of them decide to be stupid, shoot the fat guy first, alright?”
“Yes, sir!” Swift replied, chipper as a chipmunk.
Chunky, as I was starting to think of him, hunched lower in his seat.
It was rudimentary herd psychology which works beautifully on criminals of all stripes; if you make the ambitious, clever, or confident ponies the first one to take a bullet when a group is considering rebellion, they’ll be your biggest supporters when locking the lot of them away.
“Everypony up and march!” I directed. “Two by two, and I want to see every chin up good and high! Anypony lowers their head, I will consider it a sign they’re going for a weapon! No talking, or I will consider it planning for an escape. You obey me, and you will live through tonight.”
The order was followed by lots of groaning and crying as the remains of the cult hauled themselves to their hooves, waking the friends they’d been tethered to who’d fallen asleep and helping get them up as well. Coming down off Beam to find yourself chained to somepony else’s legs is not the best way to rise in the morning. More than a few restrictor rings popped and crackled as waking unicorns tried to wrench some magic through them.
I gave them a few minutes to get situated in two lines, most managing to keep their heads up although some were nodding so badly I doubted they could go for a weapon even if they’d had one.
Taxi and I took the back, while Swift and Geranium lead our little procession. Two by two, the cult of Nightmare Moon trotted up the steps, sometimes half-carrying their stoned brethren, but none of them willing to be the first find out just how serious I was about having my partner shoot or gnaw on them.
At the top of the stairs, I whispered to the ladybug in my mane, “Queenie, are we clear on this floor?”
My mane hummed.
“Alright, brilliant. Tourniquet... could you open the door to the sub-basement? We’re coming out.”
A sucking sound and the hiss of releasing gases accompanied the heavy security door swinging out of the way. I tensed, ready for one of our little posse to try something stupid, but Swift had things well in hoof. She turned to face the front of the herd, her trigger in her teeth and Masamane leveled at the foremost pony, who just happened to be Chunky.
“In groups of four, I want you into the cells on either side!” I shouted, making the back row nearest me jump. “Four to a cell!”
“Be real, Detective…” somepony started to say. I didn’t catch who.
“Swift, somebody back here wants to argue!” I called forward. “Go ahead and shoot Chunky, then we’ll figure out who it was!”
I heard her gun’s hammer ratcheting back and Chunky backed up into the pony behind him, then snarled over one shoulder, “Anypony wants to be dumb will answer to me! You hear me back there, you idiots? You know I can make every one of your lives a living Tartarus!”
There was some shifting and muttering amongst the crowd, but no complaints after that. I was half inclined to find out who he was, but after tonight, it wasn’t likely to matter all that much.
“Good, good! Swift! You can let Chunky keep his knees, for now!” I yelled.
I heard a muffled ‘Yes, Sir!’, then nudged the nearest mare in the flank with my revolver’s barrel. She let out an indignant yelp and staggered into the pony in front of her.
“Like I said... spread out, get in the cages, and nopony dies tonight.”
For all my good intentions, I was damn tempted to give somepony an incentivizing shot to the flank considering all the hoofdragging that went on.
It was the work of a further twenty minutes to prod, poke, and corral the hobbled bourgeois into the open high security cells on either side of the long, empty hallways of the Secure Wing. Plenty of them grumbled, but nopony decided to raise a fuss, particularly since Swift saved Chunky for last, keeping him to one side with Masamane’s barrel never wavering from a spot just above his front right knee.
Just as we finished shoving Chunky into his own cell, Tourniquet’s mechanical voice rang out from a speaker overhead.
“Mister Hard Boiled! Miss Queenie figured out my nervous system so now I can watch you! Gosh you need a bath…”
“Thank you for reminding me. What’s your status up there?”
“I can control things again on most of the floors. Um...I think I can…-” She paused and I heard distant banging sounds echoing down the halls. “Yes! I can do it! I just put the top three floors in lockdown mode! You should be okay to move around.”
“Good work, girl! I was worried we were going to have to lock these ourselves. Can you shut all the cell doors on the Secure Wing?”
“One moment. There’s lots of stuff still busted, but I think so.”
I leaned against the wall, listening to the quiet mutterings of the cultists as they sat in their cells. With a heavy clunk, the doors all along the walls rattled into life as the decades-old machinery took over, slowly sliding them closed. I saw a hoof appear in the crack of one door, then quickly withdraw before it was clipped off as the cells slammed shut with a pleasing finality.
The hallway fell into a peaceable silence.
Swift finally let her trigger bit drop and Geranium wiped her forehead off with the back of one hoof, then cracked open the breach of her shotgun with her magic. Her eyes popped.
“Empty?!” she exclaimed. “You gave me... an empty…”
I smiled and snatched the shotgun out of her levitation field with my teeth, tugging my coat back to fit it into the holster before readjusting the duct-taped stock.
“Yes. You guarded the prisoners quite a treat for having such limited tools.”
“Gah! You are insufferable! Insane! A complete bastard and I would pray for your death, but I think you’ve probably already made for damn sure that’s going to happen soon anyway! I just hope you haven’t killed me along with you!” With that, Geranium stormed off down the hallway, turning into one of the bathrooms towards the other end.
I heard a stall door slam and called out, “Don’t go far! I might need you to do something!”
The reply was muffled, but it could either have been ‘Yes, Sir, Mister Hard Boiled, Sir!’ or something about my mother and an Ursa Major.
My driver exhaled a slow breath. “She’s got a point, Hardy. How are we going to get out of this? I mean, all those dead cultists... and then there’s somehow carrying Cerise out of here, and convincing the Chief not to fillet us alive.”
“None of which was helped by you killing Astral Skylark, Sweets,” I added, softly. A part of me hoped she’d let that pass. I knew she wouldn’t, and I’d known the confrontation was coming, but that didn’t make me any happier about it.
“Wait just a damn minute, here Hardy. Are you seriously telling me you wanted her alive?” she sputtered, taking a couple steps back.
I rounded on my driver, putting just a couple of inches between her and the end of my muzzle. “Taxi, please tell me you didn’t lick up so much of that Beam it’s addled your wits.”
“Sir-” Swift started, but I put my hoof on her muzzle without breaking eye contact with my driver.
“Kid, this needs to be said,” I said, then turned my attention back to Taxi. “You want to know what this all looks like, Sweets? You know what it will look like to anypony who isn’t the four of us? This looks like we snuck into a private religious ceremony, took up strategically significant positions, then butchered the participants with highly advanced magical weaponry at the behest of a mobster... and then chased down the leader of the religion into her private sanctum and assassinated her.”
Taxi’s eyes widened. “How can you say that? All those witnesses-”
“All those stoned, frightened Beam-head witnesses who were friends of Astral Skylark? Are we claiming them as witnesses? Or maybe the ladybugs? Could we possibly claim Tourniquet as a witness? The powerful, secret, magical construct who the damn Academy would love to rip to pieces to see how she works before handing whatever broken bits were left to the Essy office?”
“H-Hardy…”
“If she was alive, we could have paraded the psychopath out into the public square and every one of those scumbags back there would have turned against her to save their own skins from prosecution for necromancy. They’d have named names! The Lunar Passage would have come crashing down, and she’d have been alone, with nobody to turn to. If nothing else, if she were still alive we could have gotten the names of her patrons out of her! You... Sweets... you just made her a martyr! A dead, useless martyr. So we are not discussing what I wanted, because that didn’t matter to you. You wanted her dead. You killed her. You or your therapist will have to deal with that if we survive, but right now, you’ve left it for me.”
Ugh.
It felt like tossing a kitten in a blender.
Tears had started to run down her cheeks as my driver sat there, her mouth hanging open. I wanted to run to her, comfort her, pet her mane and tell her it was alright. I’d been doing that my whole life. She’d been there when Juniper died, to pull me out of the bottle.
I let my eyes slide closed and moved away from her, resting my head on the wall as I tried to still my pounding heart.
I don’t know anyone who likes taking their friends to task and there is no guide book when somepony’s best friend murders someone.
No, it wasn’t even a murder.
It was an execution. It was revenge for the dead at the expense of the living.
Swift and Limerence were gaping at me, but I ignored their uncomfortable stares and turned to look down the hallway.
“I’m... Hardy, I’m sorry... I... I wasn’t thinking…” Taxi stammered out, her eyes fixed on the stone floor.
“Doesn’t matter, Sweets,” I replied and she trailed off. “We’ve got to clean up this mess and get Cerise home safe before, in all likelihood, we go to jail for the rest of our lives, however short those may be.” I turned to our Archivist. “Now, Limerence. What are our options regarding the pieces of minotaur manure we’ve managed to bag ourselves? Can we use the wall of bones for evidence at some point?”
“Ahem. Not... immediately,” Limerence sighed, forcing his normally very rational mind back onto the tracks. “Any evidence of necromancy on this scale will inevitably lead to the involvement of Princess Celestia or Princess Luna or both. I doubt we can entirely avoid it at this point, either. As to our prisoners... mayhap our best bet is simply to let them go.”
“I don’t know how you can say that's an option, Lim,” I said, sourly.
“This collective of ponies going missing will prompt a massive search. While I doubt any of them penciled in ‘prison basement murder and orgy’ with their staff, we are unlikely to hide their absence for long.”
“Sir…” Swift asked, biting her lower lip. “I don’t... I don’t know why we can’t just leave them here...”
“Kid, there will be ponies looking for them,” I replied, raising one eyebrow at her.
“So? I mean, the Church won’t want the police looking here, and... and if we do this right, anypony who comes to look will find a locked, abandoned prison. Would you tell your secretary you were ‘going to Supermax’? They couldn’t have been doing this for long enough to get all those... those parts of ponies if they didn’t have a system worked out to keep anypony from finding out.”
“Hmmm... that’s not bad, kid. I mean, it’s got some issues, but... it’s not bad. Alright, we need to go find Tourniquet.”
“I’m right here, Detective,” Tourniquet added from overhead. “My door is open and the prisoners are okay. Oh, this is fun! I never got to do this when Mom was around! I... only got the doors upstairs locked. My internal defenses are still off.”
“We’ll be right there. Sit tight,” I replied, then shouted towards the bathroom where Geranium was hiding. “Hey! Finish wiping and get out here!”
The bathroom door slammed open and Geranium stalked out, her horn glittering dangerously. Her light blue face-fur was damp and she’d wet her mane so it would lay down a bit. She was very cute, for somepony who was giving me death glares. Maybe even because she was giving me death glares.
“Detective... I don’t know what this rock in my stomach can do, but it would be almost worth it to find out if it meant I could break your stupid head!”
“Yes, I’m sure. Now come on. We’re heading to Tourniquet’s control room.”
Geranium stopped dead in her tracks, then backed up.
“Wait... you mean... you mean you want me to come with you in there?”
I shrugged. “You’re coming with me, or we’re sticking you in a cell and you can wait for me to figure out what I’m doing with the rest of this lot.”
The lawyer cringed against the floor, eyes darting in both directions. “I... I... I can’t. I mean, I... I know you told her about me. I tried to be n-nice to her, but she’s just a m-machine...”
“Sweetheart, she’s a filly. She calls the Jailer of Supermax her mother. That’s not an exaggeration. That isn’t just some Essy-toaster oven a nutty scientist whipped together sitting down there. She used to be a pony. She still is a pony.”
The fear in her eyes masked a powerful guilt.
“I can’t see her again! She’ll... she’ll…” she cried.
“I can hear you, ya know,” Tourniquet said, her voice making the floor vibrate under our hooves.
If she hadn’t just been to the bathroom, I’m pretty sure there would have been a wet spot on the floor under Geranium.
“Please... please! I swear, I was just following her orders. She’d have killed me if I didn’t!” she begged, throwing herself on the floor and covering her head with both hooves..
“I’m mad at you, but I’m not going to hurt you. Sheesh!”
Lowering one hoof from her head, the mare hesitantly peeked out. “R-really?”
“Yes! Now, could you please get up off my floor? You’re making me feel silly.”
It was a full minute before Geranium gathered her courage to get back to her hooves, wiping a hoof over her business suit to clear a bit of dust as she tried to gather her dignity.
“I...I really want you to know I’m...I’m sorry. I feel like I wronged you more than anypony else here,” Geranium murmured. “I don’t even really remember what happened.”
“Thank you, Miss Geranium. That...that helps to hear. Now come see me! Miss Queenie has been letting me watch television!”
****
The four of us variously limped, staggered, and trotted our way down the empty, quiet corridors of Supermax. They seemed, somehow, a little less threatening on our second journey than they had on the first.
I held Taxi’s hoof as she walked, helping her keep the weight off of it. Though she claimed the enchanted sticking plaster had done wonders, she didn’t turn down the assistance.
Our trip was only interrupted so both Swift and I could make use of the ‘facilities’.
I’d finished urinating, and found myself just standing there in front of the metal mirror, staring into my own reflection. I looked like three kinds of crap. Bags under my eyes. Fur stained and matted with blood. My coat was likely to make any laundromat in the city call the police the second I presented it to them.
Truth be, I looked old.
A pony into his thirties shouldn’t look that old.
Twisting the handle on the sink, I ran some water in the basin and splashed it on my cheeks. It immediately turned ruddy brown as it swirled down the drain.
Celestia save me, I’d seen lots of death for one night. Too much.
“Oh, come now, boy... you’re not throwing the towel in, are you?”
I glanced up and found Juniper giving me his cocky smile from behind the mirror’s surface. It was a measure of exactly how shagged out I was that I couldn’t bring myself to be surprised.
“I was wondering what you were doing with yourself. Still looking over my shoulder from whatever corrupted hole you’ve managed to dig out in my brain?” I asked, scratching a flake of somepony else’s blood out of my eye.
“Yes and no. It’s been an exciting few days, hasn’t it? You mind if I ask why you’re worried about the girl?”
“Who? Tourniquet?”
“That sweet kid you’ve got following you around.”
“Swift,” I said, then my breath caught in my throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Damn me. If I was any sort of decent pony, I’d send her back to her grandmother, promise or not. Let Stella handle the ruckus she’d raise, but make sure she was safe...”
“Not your place, Hardy. You know it isn’t. Your place is to make sure she lives, but not to live her life for her. She’s where she wants to be.”
“Even if it gets her killed?” I asked, studying his olive face and scruffy, five’o’clock shadow.
“Not enough ponies get to do what they want to do with their lives. I did, right up until the very end, and... if I’m honest, I don’t regret even that part. It was worth it.”
Grabbing a handkerchief out of my pocket, I wiped my muzzle with it, immediately turning the cloth a fouled brown. “I’d planned on you and me sitting in the home for old cops together, pissing and moaning about our custard and how the orderlies wouldn’t give us a happy ending after our sponge baths. That was what I wanted.”
“Can’t all have what we want, but you know if you send her back to her grandmother, Swift will never forgive you. Worse, she’ll never forgive herself if you die out there and she couldn’t be there, whether or not she could have prevented it. She’ll always be that little filly who was too weak to go along.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could be. You could die, and she could have saved you... and then you’d be dead, and there’d be only one green-as-grass rookie with no partner and no sense of self-preservation to finish all of this.”
I tossed the ruined kerchief over the edge of the sink and left it there.
“You’re a smug prick when you’re right, Juni.”
“I know, baby cakes. Them’s the breaks.”
****
The control room was just as we’d left it, minus the monitors, which all displayed a picture of a cartoon cat.
Tourniquet’s secret door was wide open.
There’s something strange about seeing a hidden doorway left ajar. It just tweaks something in the mind that likes to see the world in proper order.
Geranium paused at the bottom of the stairs. I stopped beside her as Swift darted on ahead like a puppy going to see a good friend, vanishing into the darkness of Tourniquet’s chamber.
“I-I-I d-don’t think I can d-do this,” she muttered. I realized her chest was heaving. Truthfully, I’d been smelling the fear off her since we showed up.
“Awww dammit…” I groaned, reaching over and throwing one leg around the lawyer’s shoulders. Irritating as it is, a panic attack doesn’t respond to snarky comments. “Deep breaths, sweetheart. Come on, breathe with me.”
I inhaled slowly, pulled my hoof to my chest, then exhaled slowly, pushing it away just for demonstration. Geranium’s shaking took a while to still as she fought to follow my actions. Taxi leaned against the wall, one eyebrow raised as she watched me try to calm the other mare’s nerves.
After some time, she started to relax.
“A-alright. I’m fine. Just kinda cold. Stupid sprained ankle,” she grunted, taking a heavy step on one leg.
“You’re probably in shock. Try to keep breathing,” Taxi said.
“I know I’m in shock,” Geranium grunted. “I just need to be out of here, back in my own little apartment with my cat, my television, and a box of pecan cookies.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
****
Tourniquet’s room was lit up like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree.
The snakes of cables stretched up to the ceiling were pulsing much more quickly, although the overhead lights had been lowered just enough to conceal the dead dragon attached to the wall. A constant breeze blew through the room as the ventilation system did its level best to push the stink of bodies out. Whereas before the room had seemed like a place of death, with the power systems operating it was almost beautiful.
Dozens of ladybugs swirled around Tourniquet and Swift like a strange cyclone as the two of them sat together, their front hooves resting over top of one another, deep in conversation. That they were almost the same size gave the impression of two gossiping foals. My partner was smiling properly for the first time in hours.
As we came in, I thought Geranium might make a run for it. Panic attack over, she still looked ready to bolt if Tourniquet so much as glanced at her.
“Detective!” Tourniquet called out, raising her head. “Miss Geranium!”
“Hey, honey. How goes?” I asked, trotting down the empty area between the door and the mechanical filly. The girl was looking much better. Her crystalline eyes moved with their own internal light. Even her funny plastic tail seemed a bit livelier. She looked much less like a broken doll and more like a pony.
“It’s going amazing!” she squeaked happily as the wires on her back lifted her suddenly off the ground. She swung across the room and dropped right in front of me, bouncing up and down on her hooves. “Detective, I can see! I mean, my cameras outside are working again! I’ve got access to the doors and locks. The sensors around... um... around... wherever you are... seem to be a little weird for some reason, but I can see lots of stuff! I’ve been watching you downstairs, except when you went into the Mechanical Room. I really kinda wish I had cameras down there. I heard the fight, though! Was it amazing?”
She paused in the stream of words and took a quick step back, looking at my bloody trenchcoat. Sniffing at the air, she went ‘phew’ and hopped away. “You stink!”
“Yes, I’m aware. Trust me, it would be impossible for me not to notice how I smell right now,” I replied, glancing around as a couple of ladybugs dropped down onto Tourniquet’s ears. She ignored them, her wide smile managing to bring one to my face. “Are you... you know... feeling better?”
“Much! The ponies upstairs realized something was wrong a couple of minutes ago when I closed all the cells, but most of them are... well... stuck in their cells. Some tried to cast some spells, but I can take that magic without draining it directly from them or having my symbol on their bodies.” She hesitated, then lowered her ears as a look of sadness crossed her face. “I...I managed to boost my receiver range long enough to get a signal from outside. My antenna is broken, but I can still get some signals. It...it really has been fifteen years...”
“Yes, honey...it has. I’m sorry.”
Tourniquet glanced over my shoulder at Geranium who was cowering in the doorway. “You can come in. I... I know you’re not working for the bad ponies anymore.”
“I-If it’s all the same to y-you, I’d... r-rather not,” the lawyer stuttered.
“If you don’t, I can’t take the stone out of your tummy. Do you really want to try to...uh...’pass’...that?” the filly giggled.
“Take...take it out?” She backed up a couple of steps.
“Oh stop being a silly filly. It won’t hurt,” Tourniquet assured her, waving her forward.
Geranium hovered for a second between flight and surrender, but finally the desire to avoid a stomach pump got the better of her. She trotted forward, lowering herself beside the mechanized filly.
“I’m really, really sorry. I swear, I wouldn’t have done any of this if I’d had a choice. They were going to kill me if I disobeyed them,” she murmured.
“Meesh, could you stop apologizing so much? You didn’t eat my dog or something. I used to run the most secure prison in the whole world! I’ve read way, way worse things in my case files,” Tourniquet sniffed, waving a dismissive hoof. “Now stand still and try not to breathe in too deeply.”
“W-why not?”
“I’m only used to doing this on dragons. I don’t wanna accidentally attach your lungs to your stomach or something,” she replied.
Before Geranium could consider a rebuttal, Tourniquet placed her metal hoof on the mare’s side. The moon symbol began to glow, then to surge brightly as power flowed down the cables in her back into her leg. Biting down on her lip, the lawyer shut her eyes, forcing herself to be still as the girl worked.
Minutes crept by as Swift, Taxi, and I watched with interest.
At last, Tourniquet hummed a short tune and her hoof flashed. As she pulled it away, a solid mass came with it, and Geranium let out a soft moan, sinking onto her stomach.
“There we go! That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Tourniquet said, holding up the control stone. “Not bad for not having done that in fifteen whole years, now was it?”
“How’d you do that?” Swift asked, nosing at her new friend. “C-can you perform like...surgery without cutting a pony?”
“Oh! Hah! I have no idea. I totally wish I could, though. That would be a really neat superpower,” Tourniquet dropped the rock and wiped her hoof off on the floor. “Oooh, yuck... I forgot they come out sticky…”
Geranium drew in a deep breath and pushed herself back to her hooves. “Wow, that felt...really weird.”
“You’re lucky you aren’t a dragon! I’d have had to pull it out of your head!” the filly said, snickering behind her hoof.
My driver pulled at her braid with her teeth. “Your mom used to do that...didn’t she?”
“I... yeah. Mom... Mom did bad things to those... those dragons. She said they deserved it, but I never...I mean, she was my Mom...” Tourniquet lowered her eyes and her tail tucked between her rear legs.
“It’s okay, honey. Nopony here is judging for stuff that happened back then,” Taxi said, easing a hoof around the little filly’s shoulders, carefully avoiding the cables.
She gulped and bobbed her head. The lights in her eyes flashed and flickered with a pattern of blues and purples that seemed to indicate worry and sadness. “I...I know. It’s just hard, you know? I mean, I miss Mom, but... but I know she wasn’t really a good pony. I’m not dumb or anything. I had to remove the stones before we sent the dragons home, but that was before the fake control room was built, so there was a big hole they could stick their heads through and-oooooh! Oh no! Not that on-”
Tourniquet sat up straight and her eyes began to swirl more violently. Overhead, the cables spreading out across the ceiling flared and the low buzz of magical interference started to make my ears ache.
Before any of us could respond, the secret door began swinging shut. Swift took a running leap, but even at her speed she had no hope of reaching it before it sealed itself closed.
“That can’t be good,” Taxi muttered, looking all about.
“What? Honey, what’s wrong?” I asked. The girl didn’t respond. She didn’t even seem to see me. Raising one hoof, I waved it in front of her face.
“What’s wrong with her?” Swift exclaimed, gently pushing her muzzle against Tourniquet’s cheek.
Everypony jumped as speakers somewhere in the walls screeched, “Detective! This is Limerence! Can you hear me?”
Recovering quickly, I shouted, “What is it Lim? Tourniquet’s just gone sort of...blank. What’s going on down there?”
“Ah! Good! I didn’t know if this microphone connected to yours, but it appears Miss Sausurrea wished to leave herself a means of directly communicating with her daughter. I believe we may be in a bit of bother.”
“Don’t say ‘bother’. If we’re screwed, I want you to say screwed, dammit!”
Taxi held up one hoof. “Wait... Hardy, do you feel that?”
I looked around, then raised my eyebrows. “I don’t feel anything, Sweets.”
“Yeah...exactly.”
My breath stuck in the back of my throat as I realized what was missing. The persistent, worried buzz of the ladybugs had masked the sound, but now that I was paying attention I could feel it, or rather, not feel it.
The breeze had stopped.
“Detective, I’m showing the entire ventilation system has shut down. I don’t know what precisely is going on, but I think we may be in some form of... reset... mode.”
“Well, what was the last thing you did?” I asked, pulling my coat under myself and sitting on the carpet.
“Hmmm...I was simply slicing a section of cable free from...oh...oh dear. Yes, I see,” Something heavy shifted on the other end of the speaker as Limerence’s horn sang over the open line. “I had to cut loose what I believe is the control protocols for the construct’s body and mind to remove a portion of the jury rigging which appears to keep Miss Tourniquet from making full use of her internal structural controls. It would seem it was also attached to a secondary system which I didn’t notice.”
“So, are we screwed or not?” I snapped.
“Give me a moment, Detective! This is brain surgery on a brain the size of a building! I refuse to rush!” the librarian bit back.
It should be noted that I hate waiting.
I am well aware I am impatient. It’s not a great trait for a cop to have, particularly when a huge section of the job is hurry up and wait. It’s especially irritating when trapped in the basement of a dangerous super-prison with its magical heart stuck in some kind of autistic mode and the air running out. I’d no desire to die choking on the stink of dead dragon.
It didn’t help that Swift was frantically nuzzling Tourniquet’s cheek, one wing tucked around the other girl’s back as though that might actually do something.
“Tourniquet... can... can you hear me?” she whispered, her eyes wet as she tried to coax some life out of the metal filly.
“Kid, she’s out for the count...” I sighed, rubbing one fetlock across my forehead.
“Yeah, but maybe she can hear me!” Swift snapped, glaring at me. “She didn’t look like she wanted whatever Lim just did, so just...just hush, Sir!”
I forced myself not to smile. It was not the appropriate time for smiles. I still had to bite my tongue as Swift wrapped her other wing around Tourniquet and buried her face in the girl’s plastic mane.
“Detective!” Limerence called, sounding jubilant.
“Is that good news, Lim? Tell me that’s good news!”
“Yes... well, it may be good news. I have determined the source of the fault and I can restore power to the control protocols!”
“Fantastic, Lim! Do it”
“Errr...this may have had an unfortunate side effect. There are memory crystals embedded in this portion of the control system that have been without power for more than a minute.”
“So... what? Tourniquet just lost her memory? Is that what you’re saying?” I barked and Swift clutched her friend more tightly.
“No, nothing of the sort!” Limerence replied. My shoulders relaxed a little. “Her memories are stored within the construct’s body, which seems relatively homeostatic. I believe these crystals relate in some way to... authorization and security. It will be impossible to know how without restoring power.”
“Yeah, well, we’re stuck in a room with a quickly dwindling supply of air, so I think there ain’t much we can lose!”
“I am certain you will regret those words at some point, Detective. Please, stand by. I’m restoring power now."