Starlight Over Detrot
Act 3 Chapter 3: A Scientist Should Be The Happiest of Stallions
In Equestria, there are two great disciplines recognized by the Royal Academy as ‘True Sciences’. They are considered equal, but are kept as separate as equinely possible.
They are Methodical Science and Mad Science.
Dating all the way back to the days of Starswirl the Bearded, Methodical Science has ever been the pursuit of Truth via rational inquiry. It is hypothesizing, theorizing, experimenting, and drawing conclusions from a data set. Many of our finest modernities have been the result of Methodical Science pushing the boundaries of what is known.
Marea Cure, the greatest of Crusades era minds, saved the lives of thousands when she developed her theory of thaumic radiance. The ideas of Tesala Coil, griffin mistress of storms, eventually lead to the grand design of our modern electrical grids.
Their contributions can never be understated and they, along with the many thousands like them, have grown Methodical Science in ways that have shaped the future for the betterment of all sapient species.
Understanding all of this, why then, does Equestria require two disciplines?
The ultimate reasoning goes back to that first moment, when Star Swirl’s rich mind alighted upon the notion that he could, by observing the universe, begin to shape it. His first thought soon thereafter, as written in A History of Equestrian Sciences - was something along the lines of ‘Now, I wonder if I can make it explode’.
To understand why, I present you a quote from one of the progenitors of the form when he was asked (or rather someone with a bathtub lodged in their roof demanded to know) the reasons he did what he did.
“Mad Science is the pursuit of Truth via awesome inquiry!” - Aleister Cowly.
(Not to disclaim the factuality of his statement, but it should be mentioned that the good Doctor Cowly was a known salt addict and was last seen in low orbit over the Crystal Empire. How he got there is a point of ongoing debate in many circles. Bovines are not generally known for their aerodynamics.)
Mad Science has often been proclaimed as a combination of inspiration, brilliance, and emotional instability that produces results that would defy a sterile laboratory environment. Some might remark upon the fact that the population of mad scientists in Equestria is much lower than the population of the more traditional variety, but this is mostly a matter of attrition rather than a lack of interest. It is, after all, the practice of doing something using the scientific method because it sounds excellent when you’re sitting on the toilet before your first cup of coffee.
Since, during the war, the timeframe between bowel movement and next cup of coffee could sometimes be measured in weeks, Equestria relied heavily upon thinkers of questionable sanity.
By way of example, the Scale Cracker Dreadnaught began life as a late-model hearse owned by the famous Doctor Curious Amity, who was known to stroll the palisades of Canterlot while wearing a duck costume.
Even today, Mad Science maintains as a bastion of new developments in basket weaving, spoon defenestration, face melting, and - once in a great while - something useful.
- The Scholar
Wandering into the tent city, I made in the general direction of the Morgue, not really paying attention to where I was going. Strange as it might sound, I was a bit uplifted by what I was seeing of the citizens of my haunted burg. The asphalt felt fantastic under my hooves and the air was crisp, if a bit cool.
I peered into a tent where two nurse ponies were changing an IV on a sleeping unicorn and moving her onto her side to prevent bed sores while a stallion I presumed was her father—judging by the similarity of their pelts—sat beside her cot with a book. In the next one, two foals played a quiet game on the concrete floor while a young mare held the hoof of stallion of similar age, staring longingly into his closed eyes.
Activity was everywhere and as I strolled along, enjoying the morning hours (insofar as we could be said to have a morning), I found myself feeling an odd sense of calm.
People continue. Isn’t that the way of things? Even with their Princesses lost, their capital missing, and their army broken, ponies would not give up. Not just ponies, either.
A pair of zebra healers, male and female, heavy packs of herbs strapped across their backs, were moving from along the rows of
tents offering prayers and consolation to those who were awake and taking readings from their unconscious friends and family.
I had to wonder how many poor souls hadn’t been found in time to get them here. It’d been a week. Even in a coma, the body needs water after a few days.
Shaking off these distressing thoughts, I headed toward the door of the Morgue.
----
Thalassemia was sitting behind a card table just out front with a heap of clean scrubs, bandages, face masks, IV bags, and a slightly melty cheesecake. She had a whole stack of clipboards in front of her and a file cabinet behind.
“Hey Thal!” I called out as I approached.
Her eyes came up and she all but leapt from her chair, rushing around to throw her paws around my chest. I brushed my hoof over her fluffy ears, smiling as she clutched at me like I’d been gone a year.
“D-d-detective! I th-thought you were going to be d-d-dead again!”
“Eh, I’m sure it’ll happen at some point. How are you?”
She shook her head. “T-tired. S-since they c-closed off Uptown to m-most ponies, th-the hospitals are sending all their re-resources here, so it’s b-better than it wa-was during the first couple of days.”
“Closed off Uptown? I...ugh...I’m going to need to sit down somewhere and have a drink while I get the whole story. Can I get a cup of coffee?”
----
Thalassemia led me into the Morgue which was, if anything, more active than the parking lot full of tents outside. The lobby was packed with ponies, smoking, drinking coffee, and generally relaxing in the atmosphere of quiet camaraderie. Most were looking haggard and wore loose face-masks or rumpled scrubs.
As we came in, they all looked up. A couple of jaws dropped and I heard one pony whisper something that sounded like, ‘Is that...him?’
I put on my best ‘please-ignore-me’ smile and strode between them, hoping I wouldn’t end up making a scene. They made room, respectfully stepping out of my way. A skinny mare with two ear-rings in each ear reached out and lightly touched my coat. I danced to one side, peering at her and she blinked a couple times, then blushed and ducked back into the crowd.
Thal made a little shooing motion at the nurses with both paws. “T-the D-detective needs his sp-space! You bunch n-need to do bed ch-checks!”
I glanced at her nervously, then headed to the elevator as quickly as I could. She followed me, leaving behind a worrying silence and nopony seeming much inclined to hop to it.
As the doors shut, I had the impression that not one eye had left me the entire time.
“You want to tell me what that was about, Thal?” I asked as I pressed the button for the factory floor.
She wrung her paws a little bit, giving me a pensive look. “Mayor S-Snifter is really unpopular right now and...um…”
“What? What is it?” I asked, sitting on my haunches.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a folded piece of paper and passed it to me. Unfolding it, I examined the page.
It was a ‘Wanted’ poster. The reward was more bits than I’d make in five years on the force and my name was right across the top, with a picture of Swift alongside, Taxi from her days in uniform, and a shot of Limerence that was obviously taken from television; probably the day I’d been round to see Astral Skylark outside the Museum. The reward was exclusively for ‘alive’, but that didn’t strike me as especially encouraging. There were lots of definitions of ‘alive’ that didn’t include ‘unharmed’.
Crimes included the murder of Ruby Blue, treasonous activities, and blah’de’blah’de’blah. It was a ham-hoofed tactic, but one that would be pretty effective in the right circumstances. It mentioned conspiracy, and that we were somehow knowledgeable about the disappearance of Canterlot.
That said, there was no Royal Seal. The number to claim the bits was formerly the P.A.C.T.’s tip line for sighting dangerous monsters.
“How much interest has there been in claiming this?” I asked.
Thal shook her head. “A-after Uptown sh-shut down and Canterlot disappeared? It's d-destroyed the ec-economy. Bits are w-worthless right now.”
“Yeah, but...I mean—”
“It’s more than that, Detective. Somepony out there is t-t-telling stories. I heard a bunch of th-them. How you were the o-one who put down King Cosmo and how you saved the lives of the g-griffins at the Moonwalk. Even a crazy one about y-you bringing down those Lunar Passage ponies for doing n-necromancy...” She shivered, right to the tips of her whiskers. “If that wasn’t weird enough, there’s p-ponies calling you funny names, t-too.”
I rested my cheek against the cool metal wall of the elevator. “I’m used to ponies calling me funny names, Thal. Can’t be any worse than some of the names The Chief likes to use.”
“I b-bet not these kinds of n-names...”
Pushing off the wall, I gave her a skeptical look. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’re they calling me?”
She took the poster from me and folded it back up, stuffing it in her pocket. “Th-they call you the Crusader, Kingpin Slayer, Bulldog, High Justice, Detective Dead H-Heart...”
I took a couple of unconscious scootches backwards until my back was pressed against the side of the elevator.
“Who in Equestria is coming up with that stuff? Worse! Who is spreading it around?! It makes me sound a comic book...character...oh.” I groaned, putting my face in my hooves. “Swift. Dammit. I told her to lay low, not go about spreading around a list of our criminal adventures…”
“Some of it’s t-true, right? I think the D-Dead Heart thing came about because somepony found out you d-died. It can’t all be your p-partner, though, can it?”
I shook my head and got to my hooves. “No, I’m certain there are some wagging tongues with a few of the other groups I’ve gotten myself involved with lately. Whatever. If it gives me some measure of protection from City Hall, I’ll make use of it. How safe do you think I am here?”
Thalassemia let out a ladylike sniff as the elevator doors slid open and we stepped out into the hall down from the morgue’s main examination theater. “Those ponies wouldn’t d-dare cross the Doctor. Y-you’re his guest and h-he doesn’t have to do wh-what he does, particularly if they were to t-turn you in for a stupid stack of b-bits. He’s the reason their children a-aren’t crying themselves to s-sleep every night.”
----
The operating theater had a half dozen bodies laid out on gurneys under white sheets, with preservation talismans all over them. I gulped and glanced at Thalassemia for confirmation that Limerence wasn’t amongst them.
Rather than answer, she pointed her slim paw at another door on the other side of the room. The sharp neon lights made the whole place feel emptier than it really was as we navigated the maze of bodies. I fought the urge to check under those sheets for anybody I knew. Nothing good could come of that. Focus was what I needed just then.
Thal produced her keyring and unlocked the door, pushing on through into the laboratory of one of the maddest scientists the world had ever known.
The Laboratory of the Good Doctor Slip Stitch reminded me of a carnival attraction I’d seen once where somepony claimed they’d discovered the secret to reversing old age. The walls, ceiling, and even some parts of the floor were a mass of intermeshed technology, some of it bodged together from things I recognized and others looking as though they’d simply grown out of the walls. Lights flashed, tubes of glowing liquid bubbled, and little tesla coils spat occasional sparks onto big metal balls.
Every inch of the space radiated a sensation of grand potential energy held carefully at bay by the highly questionable ethics and morals of the city’s coroner. Every inch that wasn’t strobing or popping was taken up by all manner of exciting toggles and switches. One said ‘Gravitonic Recombobulator’ and another ‘Torque Extender’. The only exception was what looked like an over-sized barrel attached to the far wall that seemed to run to some sort of generator.
In the center of the room, laid out on a table that was much too big, my librarian was tucked beneath a sheet covered in multi-colored puppies prancing around a field. His hoof was connected to an IV bag full of nutrients. He looked a little thinner than he had when last I’d seen him.
Trotting over to his side, I rested my hoof over his; it was cold, but I could feel his pulse. Heavens, he looked young. Younger than he ever did when he was awake.
“T-The doctor will be down s-soon…”
“How come he hasn’t run this experiment already?” I asked, still studying Limerence. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea for him to start getting ponies up?”
Thalassemia nodded towards the room behind us as she gently disconnected the IV from my friend’s leg and put a sticking plaster over the needle-mark. “H-he doesn’t w-want to get anypony’s hopes up if it f-fails. He couldn’t simply p-pick a pony from up there. We k-kept the idea to ourselves.”
“That’s...very Slip Stitch. So, what is all of this?”
Thal opened her mouth to reply, but the door to the private laboratory slammed open and Slip Stitch hustled in, grinning beatifically.
He paused there for a moment, eyes closed, then let out a slow breath. Opening his eyes, he spotted his assistant and myself.
“Detective! Lovely! Excellent! You’re just in time!”
I blinked at him. “Just in time? Weren’t you waiting for me?”
“Of course! Hence, you’ve arrived at precisely the right moment. Do keep up!” he replied, sweeping off his stained labcoat and tossing it over Thal’s outstretched foreleg. She passed him a clean one and he shrugged into it. “So, now then—”
“Where’s Mags?” I asked, before he got going.
Stitch nodded towards the room behind us. “She’s inspecting the corpses. No griffins. Don’t worry, I made sure.”
“You left her to look at dead bodies?!” I choked, charging by him and back into the autopsy room.
Mags was standing beside the nearest table, poking at the body on it with a metal stick. As I came in, she glanced up. “Oh! Har’dy! This one’s eye came out! It’s so cool!”
I put a hoof over my face and sighed. “Mags, go back the way you came and find someone your own age to play with, please?”
“Can I—”
“No, you can’t take the eyeball and no, you can’t bring them back down here,” I said, sternly. “You know how to read a clock?”
She rolled her eyes and nodded. “Duh! Griffins be having clocks.”
“Alright, you can be out for an hour. Then I want you to meet me in the lobby. Is that clear?”
With an affirmative chirp, Mags hopped down off the gurney with the corpse on it and marched back the way she’d come towards the elevator. I leaned against the wall and groaned.
Slip Stitch cleared his throat and I jumped, then bopped him in the shoulder.
“Really, Stitch? Did she need to see that?” I grumbled, yanking my hat off and wiping my forehead with my leg. “I’m, at some point, going to have to pay a very nasty piper for all the stuff that poor kid has seen and you’re not helping!”
The coroner smirked, turning on his tail to trot back into his lab. “Detective, you were her age once. What would have been neater than getting to poke a dead body with a stick, then go brag to your friends about it?”
I opened my mouth to try to come up with some kind of rebuttal or counter-argument. There were lots of words like ‘appropriate’ and ‘trauma’ and ‘responsibility’ floating around, but they refused to make sentences.
My childhood had a few specific occurrences that shaped me, but Mags and I didn’t even share a species. She was so different in so many ways that really getting a hoof on what would and wouldn’t give her nightmares was all but impossible. I tried to feed her a piece of broccoli while we were at the Warehouse and she didn’t talk to me for three hours, but offer her an artifact that gave the sensation of having hands like a minotaur instead of feet and she couldn’t get enough.
Besides, Stitch was right. I’d have given a foreleg when I was nine to do something like that.
I shoved myself off the door frame and headed back into the lab. Thalassemia was waiting just inside with a spare labcoat in her forelegs.
“Ca-can I take your c-coat, Detective?”
“Uh...sure? Why?”
“It’s en-enchanted, right?”
“It’s got a couple of pocket dimensions, some durability spells, and something to keep the rain off, yeah.”
“Can I have i-it? Don’t want any extra s-spells messing with the experiment.”
I shrugged out of my trenchcoat and she took it from me, folding it up and stuffing it into a tiny locker off to one side that was covered in all manner of runes. As she closed the lock, the jewel on the top flashed a couple of times, then went out.
“What about your weapon?” Stitch asked, gesturing at my gun.
I laid a protective hoof on the Crusader. Another fleck of the paint on it had come off, revealing more strange patterns on the barrel. “This thing is so enchanted I think you might be better off leaving it in the next country. I doubt a nullification box will keep it from leaking. Besides, if this is going to mess with something, I’m most worried about my heart.”
Stitch’s eyes lit up and he pranced in place. “Ah! I have just the thing, Detective! A little experimental piece we tried a few years ago when I was trying to improve the police issue bullet proof vests! It turned out to be a bit...mmm...expensive, but we do have the most basic model.”
Darting back into the autopsy room, I heard the doors swing shut. Less than ten seconds later, they banged open again and Slip Stitch skidded to a halt in front of me, a large metal box on his back. Tipping it off onto the floor, he tore the top off with gusto and raised a leg in a pose I’d seen mares in skimpy outfits use on game shows when they were presenting the ‘grand prize’.
Leaning over the box, I picked up the strangest looking bullet proof vest I’d ever seen.
“Behold, Detective! The Maresketonic Spell Safety Armor Mark One!”
Police armor comes in a few flavors, from the simple stuff with plates of high density ceramic or dragon scale, right up to the monstrosities that bomb disposal units use that might give you a hope of surviving a point blank blast, then on to the bulky, anti-magic armors used by battle-mages which might have a prayer of stopping spell-fire.
The piece of fabric in my hooves was none of those things. It was thin, for one. The whole garment felt strangely heavy, despite being a bit wispy, like it shouldn’t really fit in the amount of space it took up. It was a midnight blue, darker than police issue, with metal thread running through it. A series of what I’d first taken for studs turned out to be gemstones in various colors, cut and fitted into the fabric.
“What exactly am I looking at here?”
“Ah! Glad you asked,” Stitch chuckled, lifting the armor over my head. I doffed my hat, sat, and put my legs up, so he could wedge it down over my neck and pull my mane through. The strange armor didn’t cover near as much of me as I’d have liked. My flanks and hips were completely exposed, along with most of my stomach. “Short of armor enchanted by our dear Princesses, this is the best there is against hostile magic! It stops very nearly any aggressive spell-form, up to and including unicorn telekinesis, spell-fire, and enchanted lightning!”
I rubbed the soft fabric on my chest. It felt surprisingly comfortable. A pony could almost forget he was wearing it once you got used to a bit of extra weight.
“What’s the catch?” I asked.
“Ah! Well, sadly...I cannot vouch for that armor’s ability to stop bullets, knives, flying hooves, bomb fragments, ballistic pie—”
“Okay, I get it. Not good against non-magical things. Why am I wearing it right now?”
Stitch waved in the direction of my unconscious librarian where he lay on the examination table. “You may keep it, if you like. I think it might extend your life considerably should you come up against unicorns or other magic users. As to your question, any good experiment eliminates as many variables as possible! I know I shan’t convince you to abandon your weapon and you’ll want to be here to see this, but if you slide your pistol inside, that vest should stop most influences it might cause, along with protecting your heart.”
Pulling my revolver off my leg, I tucked it into the vest, then stood to one side as Slip Stitch pulled a pair of ridiculous goggles down over his eyes. Thalassemia offered me a similar pair, her whiskers twitching with anticipation. I put them on my muzzle and found the world cast in a very slightly blue tinge.
“Now, then! Detective, if you don’t mind standing to one side, we have a bit of work to do here,” Stitch directed, and I backed up almost to the doors as he and his assistant went about the vast banks of machines, flipping switches, plugging plugs into different sockets, and generally doing all the most exciting elements of science which I’d never been smart enough to get to.
After several minutes, Thalassemia hopped into the giant barrel that was attached to the wall. It rocked back and forth a little, but she got herself stabilized and shucked her labcoat, bracing herself on all fours, waiting patiently for some signal from the coroner. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her without her labcoat before. It was a strange, slightly lewd feeling since she was always so careful to keep the coat on. Somehow, it made her less alien, and without it one had the strange cognitive dissonance that comes with being in the presence of any truly massive rodent.
Slip Stitch was hovering over Limerence, attaching strange things to his horn that looked like jump-leads for the Night Trotter’s spell core.
I put my leg in the air for attention. “Stitch? I’ve got a silly question here. Do you mind?”
Pulling his head out of a box with the words ‘Quantum Dilator’ drawn on the side in crayon, Stitch cocked an ear in my direction. “Yes, Detective?”
“Are we about to cook my librarian?”
“Yes, Detective! Shouldn’t be long now!”
“Oh...um...alright…carry on, then.”
A few minutes later, Slip Stitch stepped away from his machines with a broad smile on his face. His hair, ever a mess, seemed even wilder, spreading out like a mighty thunderhead glued to his skull. The ever present mania in his eyes had grown into a full blown attack. He seemed unable to keep still, his back hooves doing a little dance of their own as he trotted over to stand beside a giant switch on the wall.
“Now then, Detective! As you may or may not be aware, unicorns use their horns as a focus for a series of magical channels that draw energies from the world around them, much like your lungs draw breath. Earth ponies have something similar in their hooves and Pegasi in their wings.”
“Magic 101, Stitch. What’s wrong with all these unicorns?”
“Well, insofar as I have been able to tell from the small number of autopsies I’ve been able to perform, it would appear that their leylines are no longer absorbing energy from the outside world, but rather are draining it directly from their own brains and metabolisms,” he replied, waving his hoof over Stitch. “Not enough to kill them quickly, but this condition is inevitably lethal. I could not tell you what manner of spell could cause it, however I don’t believe this was anything more than….eh...a side effect.”
I glanced at my unconscious friend, then back at the coroner. “Something coldcocking I don’t know how many—”
“A third.”
“What?”
“A third of the unicorns in the city, roughly.”
“Right...that’s...that’s an awful lot. So something is putting down a third of the unicorns and that’s a side effect?”
Stitch nodded, resting his hoof on the switch, stroking it like a lover’s leg.
“Yeees. Magnificent, no? If the spell had been any more powerful, you and I would most likely not be having this conversation. Our leylines are less sensitive than those of unicorns, but enough magic of this sort could have left a city of sleeping ghosts. Anyone without magical shielding, most likely. The most powerful of unicorns seem most severely affected, too.”
I scratched at my mane for a minute. “So why wasn’t Iris Jade put down?” I asked.
The coroner tapped his lower lip with his toe, contemplating. “I wouldn’t dare postulate on the function of our sweet Chief’s brain, Detective. Still...it’s amazing, isn’t it? All these unicorns unconscious and it is merely one tiny piece of a grander conundrum,” he replied, seemingly drifting off into thought. After a moment, he snapped out of it and spun around. “Thalassemia! You may begin!”
Thalassemia wiggled her hips and dug her paws into the carpeted interior of the barrel. After a moment it began to turn and a cheerful smile broke out on her pointed muzzle as she began to run in place, the barrel spinning around her. A spark spat from a pair of forks tied together with a bit of string above the machine, followed by an arc of electricity that leapt up to the ceiling and spread out in glowing streamers through wires embedded in the wall.
“Ah, nothing like the smell of experimentation in the morning!” Stitch declared, then poked a button on the wall. Music started up from hidden speakers, blaring out a symphonic sound mixed with a techno beat that I could feel in my stomach. Steel-string guitars added a counterpoint that could have shredded skin if it were just a few decibels louder. Images of angelic figures sweeping in to do battle with demons filled my head.
“Is that really necessary?” I shouted to be heard over the rattle of the hamster in the dynamo and the music, bracing myself on the wall.
“Yes! One mustn’t do science without the proper accompaniment!”
As the machines began to spool up, the air seemed to grow somehow heavier, like the power from the dynamo was trickling into the space itself. I swallowed, clutching the magic-proofed vest to my chest a bit more tightly, hoping Stitch’s pitch about its protective abilities wasn’t overblown.
Grabbing the switch in both hooves, the coroner gave me a look that was two parts psychosis and one part ecstatic lust. I wasn’t inclined to look between his back legs, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had an erection.
I had the irrational urge to find a bomb shelter somewhere on the other side of the planet, but it was too late. To the pounding of mighty drums and the thump of a bass that felt like a god trying to escape my skull, the coroner yanked down on the switch.
Power surged through the machines, sending every needle I could see on the various readouts spinning. An explosion of bright blue energy burst from the point where Lim’s horn was connected to the machine and washed through the room, nearly lifting me off my hooves as I felt tingles of something unfamiliar sweep up my hooves. Despite the protection of the vest, my heart was suddenly pounding like a train engine in my chest as I danced in place, staring open muzzled at where my friend lay.
Limerence’s eyes popped open, followed by his mouth. I could see a white shine behind his pupils, which were almost the size of marbles as he arched his back, flailing at the air with all four hooves.
“Detective!” Slip Stitch shouted. “Hold him!”
I swallowed and forced myself to move, taking a cautious step forward, then another, before breaking into a run until I was beside my friend. His hooves slapped at the table, and at his body until I grabbed them in mine, pinning them to the table. Thankfully his strength was still that of a bookish unicorn without terribly much time in the field. He fought, arching his back and banging his head as light poured from his muzzle. The heat coming off his horn was enough to singe the fur on my face when it came close.
All at once, he went limp and the light vanished.
A curl of smoke rose from his mouth, ears and horn, but his frightened eyes were open wide, like a wild animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t seeing me.
“Hah! Excellent!” Stitch cackled as he stood beside his switch. Thalassemia was climbing out of the dynamo and tossing her labcoat back on.
“W-was it successful, D-Doctor?” she asked.
“Most successful! Also, theory proven I should say!”
I glanced back at him for a moment. “What theory?”
“Oh! Did I not mention?” Slip Stitch coughed, nervously for a moment, covering his muzzle. “Well, it doesn’t matter. It was—”
I gave him a look that should have peeled the skin right off his nose. “No, Stitch. Tell me. What theory?”
“Erm...well...had we channeled that amount of magic through his body if his energy channels weren’t reversed, we would probably be cleaning bits of brain out of our manes for a second time this month. Well, it would be your first time, but-”
“Don’t want to know, Stitch! I really don’t want to-”
Before I could add any of the encyclopedia worth of cuss words on the tip of my tongue, a soft croak from Limerence brought my attention back around. He was blinking his crusty eyes at me, weakly lifting one hoof in my direction. His mouth worked soundlessly and he tried to swallow several times. I leaned close and he put the leg around my neck, putting his cheek against me. I felt something warm and wet soaking into my pelt as he took in deep gasping breaths of the stale air of the lab like he hadn’t had anything so sweet in his whole life.
“I-Is this r-real?” he whispered.
“Real enough, Lim,” I replied, gently laying him back on the table. “Rest easy. You’re...well, you’re as safe as you ever are with me around.”
“Oh thank Celestia,” he moaned, his voice scratchy as he flopped onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “That...that place…” He gulped a couple of times, then began to peer around at his surroundings. Thalassemia moved to his side with a glass of water in her paws and he took it gratefully, almost drowning himself in his eagerness. As his eyes met hers, he calmly put the empty glass down beside himself and lay back again with a quiet sigh. “Mmm...that’s a new one. Helpful giant hamster. Must say, I haven’t had this particular nightmare yet. Well, at least it’s a break from the howling. I wonder when that will start again.”
“She’s real, Lim. Same as I am,” I said, quietly.
The tears streaking his cheeks were quickly drying as his gaze swiveled in my direction.
“Detective, ‘she’ is a rodent. She’s the size of a pony and she’s wearing a labcoat. I’ve awoken laying on my back in a laboratory that I’m fairly certain was featured in ‘Island of Dr. Vivisect’. The coroner is here for some reason and appears to be eating popcorn whilst wearing ridiculous three-dee glasses. Ergo, I am still asleep.”
I let my chin fall onto my chest and exhaled. “I’ll admit reality hasn’t been a kind mistress lately, but I’m afraid we’re a tad short on time, so—” Without warning, I gave him a solid whack upside the head that dislodged his spectacles from the end of his nose.
He squeaked and rolled over, tumbling off the operating table onto the floor in a heap with the sheet tangled around his rear legs. Laying there for a moment, he gradually got his hooves under himself and heaved in the general direction of ‘up’. A week laying on his back hadn’t done his muscles any favors, but Thalassemia was there to catch him before his nose hit the floor.
“Eh...thank you, Miss Hamster,” he murmured, bracing himself against her as he forced his knees to lock and raised his head. Thal reached down and picked up his glasses, hooking them behind his ears.
“Y-y-you’re we-welcome, M-M-Mister Limerence,” she stammered, her paw on his chest.
He frowned. “Talking hamster with a stutter. Mmm...Detective, are you sure I’m not asleep still?”
“Pretty sure. I can’t say as I’m a perfectly reliable source, though.” I turned to Stitch and asked, “You want to give him a once over?”
Setting aside his popcorn, Stitch trotted over to Limerence and lifted his hoof, then tugged my librarian’s watch out of his pocket. Counting off heart beats, he nodded after a moment before giving Lim a little poke in the knee that made his toe jerk. Dropping the leg, the coroner shrugged and stuffed a hoof-full of popcorn into his mouth.
“Seems fit enough. No dehydration. A bit of light muscle atrophy that’ll probably be fixed up by a few hours of exercise. If he tries to use magic, his horn will feel like it’s being char-broiled for a couple days until his magical channels recover. Granted, if my calculations were off, he might still be dead in the next few...hmmm—” Stitch checked my friend’s watch again, then looked at Limerence intently, then back at the watch. After a solid twenty seconds had passed, a pleased grin broke out on his face. “Congratulations, my boy! You dodged two bullets this morning! A bit of a shame, I suppose. I did want to see what your brain looked like after it'd been through this process. Still, I'm sure I'll have an opportunity at some point!”
Limerence carefully tugged his watch away from the coroner with his teeth and tucked it away.
“I...am feeling somewhat light headed,” he murmured, sinking onto his bottom. “Mightn’t I get a cup of tea, some information on
what’s been going on that led me to wake up in what I presume is the Morgue, and...maybe an explanation for the hamster?”
----
Three ponies and one hamster sat around an empty gurney, surrounded by bodies covered in stasis talismans.
The coffee service was impromptu and I was drinking out of a mug that said ‘Death is only life’s way of letting you know when to slow down’ in friendly letters down the side. Limerence held a tea-cup with a chip in it with his hooves, slurping softly. I wasn’t up to telling him about Canterlot just yet, so I’d let Thal tell her tale first before launching into that last day.
It wasn’t until I started on what’d happened to Canterlot that he finally reacted.
“This mare was there and something happened to their broadcast. They finally got it working again and...awww, I don’t know how to say this. It’s all gone, Lim. Canterlot, the mountain, the lot of it. Whatever spell knocked you and a third of the unicorns in this city for a loop wiped out the whole area. Last I saw there’s just a big expanse of grey dirt...”
Lim’s ears pinned back against his head and he quickly set down the tea. “Canterlot. Someone made the entirety of...oh. I see. Yes, I see.”
“What do you see?”
He tapped a hoof on the gurney as Thal refilled his cup. “Pardon, it’s something my father taught me to say when I am moments from panic. It was his technique and it makes it sound like he has something of a grip on even the most outlandish situations. To my knowledge, he never panicked.”
“Is it working now?” I asked.
“No,” he murmured, then picked up his tea again and stared into the bottom of the steaming cup. “Detective, the weight of energies required to destroy or move an entire city in a single blast—particularly one as heavily enchanted and fortified against such action as Canterlot—are simply beyond the scope of equine arcanists. I can’t even imagine what could do such a thing.”
“Imagination is simply a matter of distracting oneself from reality long enough to see bigger pictures, my friend,” Stitch put in, his eyes glittering with interest. “I am curious. You mentioned when you woke a ‘howling’?”
Limerence shuddered and his mane seemed to stand on end. “Something in my dreams, I suspect. A voice out of darkness, and strange lights—”
“And a city made of teeth?” I finished.
His muzzle clicked shut for a moment as he regarded me suspiciously. “Y-yes, actually. How did you know?”
“Funny thing,” I murmured. “I usually forget it by the time I’m awake. I’ve been having that dream for months now. Juniper seemed a bit surprised, too.”
Limerence gave me a look I was getting far too used to. “Your...dead...partner seemed surprised?”
“Yep. Leaving aside that he’s dead, he’s been...well, if not helpful, then at least comforting during the bleaker moments. He seems to think something is keeping Detrot off some kind of ‘cosmic playing field’ for the moment. I don’t really understand what he was going on about, but it sounded bad...and it comes with dreams.” I squirmed in my seat and added, “Nasty, nasty dreams.”
Thalassemia rested a paw on my shoulder and I patted it lightly, feeling my shoulders unwind a little. A big hamster is nothing if not comfortable to rest against; particularly one who used the same shampoo as my mother used to.
“Most intriguing, Detective.” Stitch hummed to himself for a moment. “Well, it is something of a pity then that my little experiment shan’t be useable on everypony who is unconscious upstairs. I would dearly like to spare them such horrors.”
“Why not? Seemed to pep him right up,” I said, gesturing at Limerence.
“Oh, I didn’t say it wouldn’t be useful, and we may have saved many lives here today. The elderly and infirm may have to stay where they are. The best I can hope for without the resources of the Academy on my side, however, is to get a fair few of those who are unconscious back on their hooves. It will at least stabilize our situation such that we aren’t running out of resources.”
Thalassemia let out a little whimper. “I-I’m not going to h-have to do all the r-r-running, am I?” she asked.
Slip Stitch rolled his eyes. “Of course not, my dear. We’ll rope in volunteers. I learned quite a bit from this—at least, I will have once I get to look at our data—and I believe I can tune the voltage so it doesn’t have such an...heh...animated...effect on future participants.”
“Alright, that’s...one less worry, I guess. There’s still an awful lot of ponies who’ll die if we can’t fix the situation, though. Tell me about what’s going on Uptown,” I said.
“Eh...I fear there isn’t much worth the telling, Detective. I haven’t been able to get access to Uptown, nor the entire area surrounding it for almost four days. The Castle is on the other side, but Iris Jade has more or less stopped sending out patrols into the rest of the city.” His expression dimmed slightly. “I have no less than twenty police officers in my freezers…”
I gulped, audibly. “Twenty?!”
Stitch got to his hooves, trotting over to the row of meat-lockers and resting his toe against them. “Yes. Some were victims of violence as one might expect. One, an angry mob. Another crashed his vehicle. Another died of a heart attack during the Darkening. Nothing inexplicable there. It was...well, the rest...” He trailed off.
Rubbing my temples, I said, “Strange wounds and throats torn out?”
He nodded. “I thought you might have seen something of the sort. The bodies were mutilated. Crushed and torn to pieces; all very theatrical. The same as quite a few of the mobsters I’ve taken in recently. Deaths via something they call ‘Biters’. I’ve been icing the corpses as fast as they come in. The big freezer downstairs is almost a third full.”
“I...ugh...I don’t want to live here when this is all over,” I muttered. “I’ll be going to funerals until the sun goes out.”
Stitch gave me one of his sad smiles, indicating the rows of cold lockers.
“Detective, the sun has ‘gone out’.”
“Yes, I did mean to ask something about that a moment ago,” Limerence stated, hopping in before the silence could become awkward. “What happened to the eclipse? Have the solar cycles continued?”
“No. The eclipse is still going on...and as far as anypony has gotten out of Detrot, it’s covering the entire region,” Stitch replied, settling back beside us with his tea-cup that looked like a rubber-ducky.
“That’s...impossible,” Lim replied. “Even the widest eclipse couldn’t cover all of Equestria. Not based on the accounts I’ve read!”
“Yeah, well, this wasn’t exactly a planned-for event,” I grumbled. “Stitch, I need to go get Swift from Sky Town. I’m assuming she’s still there, since nopony has made any big public announcement about the capture of a wanted felon to try to lure me in.”
Stitch chewed on his lip. “Many parts of the city have become their own little fiefdoms, cut off from the rest. Power and water still flow, but I couldn’t tell you why. It’s as though somepony is...down in the sewers, keeping it all running.”
Smoothing my new anti-magic armor with one toe, I considered that for a brief moment, then replied, “I’ve got a pretty solid idea who is taking care of that and they’re trustworthy. Crazy, but trustworthy. I don’t guess you’ve got some idea of how to get to Sky Town, do you?”
He patted his labcoat and the keys of Big Betty jingled. “Not a problem, Detective. Many of the groups holding points between here and Skytown may be generally hostile to outsiders, but I hear whisperings of your reputation everywhere, believe it or not. Some Jewelers with whom I am acquainted seemed to believe you’d somehow made several of their number think they’d been skinned with a glare and a sharp word. That said, the griffins handle their own dead for the most part. I can get you there. I can’t get you in.”
“Stitch, I know this is a stupid question but, how are you on gossiping terms with Jewelers?” I asked.
Slip Stitch chewed a tea-cake as he replied, “Everypony needs a safe place to bury their kin and gather when one of their loved ones has died. My only condition has always been that when you celebrate the dead with me, you leave their deaths at the door when you leave.”
“Are you the one who kept the gangers from going into open warfare last week?” Limerence inquired, tilting his head back so his glasses slid further up his nose.
“Regarding the alleged killings of their leadership by unknown assassins with sharp teeth? Yes. There were a few isolated incidents, but they took my word for the most part that both sides were experiencing these deaths. I do wish I’d gotten to examine your partner's muzzle more completely. I suspect they may have a relation of some kind. Sad to say, I have been...busy, this last week. Few of those below have gotten their parties and without my intervention the gangs of Detrot seem bent on making me run out of confetti and napkins.”
----
On the way out to Big Betty, I filled Limerence in as best I could with what other information I had and he seemed to take it well. He didn’t scream or curl up in a ball. That was good.
He did ask if he might borrow my gun so he could shoot himself in the hoof, just to be certain he wasn’t still dreaming, but I made sure it wasn’t loaded before I gave it to him.
That said, he did pull the trigger.
----
Mags was waiting for us by the truck just out front of the Morgue with a little gaggle of other young creatures. She was wearing some kind of goofy red cape with a foal printed on the hip. I’d had a similar one as a kid, though I couldn’t remember what, exactly, it’d been for.
“Har’dy! Har’dy!” she squeaked, darting up and throwing herself up onto my back, chattering like a chipmunk. “Look see! Look see! Now I be Crusader like you!”
I snorted and ruffled her mane of feathers. “A cape makes you a Crusader, huh? I should try that. You have fun?” She nodded and threw her forelegs around my neck as Slip Stitch waded in amongst the children, giving them hugs and passing out candy from his pockets.
“Aye! I be telling them about you! How you be a ro’bot who runs off a plug and how you be saving me from the monsters!”
I cringed internally, but managed to keep my smile from faltering. “I’m not a robot, kiddo, but I suppose I can’t argue the rest of that. We’ve got to head out to Sky Town to see some other griffins. You want to stay here or ride along?”
Mags gave me a critical look. “You be not leaving me with other griffins iffen I goes, yeah?”
I want to say I wasn’t even considering such a thing, but the thought had crossed my mind. She was a sweet-heart when she wasn’t destroying public tax records or poking around ancient artifacts or eating so much ice-cream she took over the bathroom for forty minutes, but the fact that she was a child hadn’t left my mind completely.
What Slip Stitch had said was still simmering in the back of my head, though. Mags had climbed into my bunk and hugged me all night sometimes when she was having nightmares. I’d found her snuggling my hat more than a couple times when I was busy. She’d never cried, though. Not so much as a single tear, even when she was scared.
“No, kiddo. You and me are sticking together for awhile yet,” I murmured. “At least until you decide otherwise.”
Mags didn’t reply, but instead flipped onto her back, her wings spread out for balance as she wrapped herself in her new cloak and went about her favorite activity: napping in an inconvenient spot.
----
“Crazy days in Detrot, my friends. Gypsy is here to bring you as much up-to-date information as I can get from what’s left of our city.”
I leaned back in the passenger seat of the giant ice truck, putting my hooves up on the dash as Limerence sat between Stitch and I. Mags was huddled in a lump under my coat with just her head sticking out of the collar, snoring in my ear. We were just leaving the Morgue, heading in the general direction of Sky Town.
I’d tried a half dozen stations, finding static on almost every one of them. Somepony was either jamming most of the transmissions or two thirds of the DJ’s in town hadn’t shown up to work, but when I heard Gypsy’s sultry voice I relaxed.
“Now then my ponies, since the Darkening I know things have all gotten a bit strange, but I’ll always be here, spinning the tunes and keeping you informed as best I can.”
“First thing’s first, from the desk of Chief Iris Jade—and don’t ask me who I had to fellate to get this—due to sightings of presumedly hostile dragons in the area, anypony who lives on the far east side should heavily consider moving closer to midtown. Avoid the areas surrounding Centralia Street up to Charter Place. The fires there have been contained, but the explosion at the gem factory has scattered magical contamination over a four block radius.”
“Reports keep coming in of intermittent fighting and violence, but things seem to have calmed down significantly since the fourth day. It’s not good out there, ladies and gentlecolts. For safety’s sake, don’t go anywhere alone or unarmed. If you have family in other districts of the city, leave them be. Most of the city phone lines to the west side appear to be down and the Heights is largely cut off since the telephone exchange in the third ward burned. We’ve gotten a few notices of large sections of that side of town being deserted, though it does seem an armed camp of some kind has sprung up surrounding a twelve block square nearer to the Bay of Unity. Even the Black Coats are steering clear.”
I glanced over at Stitch. “Who are the Black Coats?”
“Hmmm? Oh, that’s the term that a few of the more rebellious characters in the city have chosen for the P.A.C.T. patrols that seem to be moving about. For the most part they keep to Uptown and the area around the P.A.C.T. Compound or the Shield headquarters, but now and then we’ll get groups coming to do...something.”
“Something?” Limerence prompted.
“Oh, the usual foolishness for any set of steel-hooved idiots with a breath of authority,” he replied, waving a dismissive hoof at the sky outside. “They make demands. They’ve busted down a few doors and apparently carted off some ponies; a mare calling for Snifter’s ouster on street corners with a megaphone, some fool distributing conspiracy papers, and so on. They peppered the Morgue with those silly fliers offering bits for the capture of various individuals. Most of what I hear is hearsay, rumor, and lies. I really am too busy for it.”
I sat back and turned my attention back to the radio.
“—not much to hear out of Uptown. Barricades and interdiction fields around the largest neighborhoods are making it tough to get anything in to take a look around and the locals seem to be under the impression there are marauding hordes out here. Not that there haven’t been a few...hundred cases of minor...alright, major looting, but the richies seem happy to just sit up there with most of the food depots and toast themselves while the rest of the city goes straight to Tartarus. Thankfully, the coffee is plentiful and yours truly is safe enough for the moment.
A soft tune faded in from the background. It was a familiar song from my youth that I’d spent far too many summer evenings bopping along to during those glorious years before the blood and violence. I found myself wearing a smile, even though I couldn’t have told you how it’d gotten there.
“Now, you know how I like to end lately. This goes out to our hero. You know him. You love him. Detective Hard Boiled, the Bulldog of Detrot, he who will never stop no matter what is thrown at him! We know he’s been trawling the darkness for answer! Wherever you are, your city needs you! If you’ve got any words for the people, you know where to reach me. Same time, same channel. This is your Queen of the Signal, Gypsy, all night, all day.”
I reached out and carefully lowered the volume. “Thanks for that, you damn record-churning witch...” I grumbled.
“She is right, isn’t she? Your actions have been somewhat heroic.” Stitch chuckled good naturedly.
I gave him a reproachful look.
“No. My actions have been pragmatic and frequently suicidal. I get enough of that crap from Swift, without some wacky DJ adding to it by making me sound like some sort of folk hero. Folk heroes die screaming and on fire more often than not.”
“True, but I would never underestimate the power of a reputation, Detective,” he replied.
Ahead, we were coming to the end of the ‘safe’ zone around the Morgue. Six ponies were manning a makeshift blockade made of bits
of sawed off plywood propped nailed into something that might have been called a fence if you had poor eyesight. They waved us forward and a young unicorn, barely into her teens, with a pair of machetes strapped to her sides leaned up. She swaggered up to the door and reared up, resting her hooves on it as Stitch rolled the window down.
“Where you headed, Doc?” she asked, pleasantly, smacking on some bubble-gum.
“I’m delivering my friends here to Sky Town, Tulip,” he replied, giving his head a little tilt in my direction.
Tulip wrinkled her nose. “You’re usually bringing ponies in. Why would you—”
I leaned over to where she could see me and tipped my hat.
The little mare’s eyes almost popped right out of her skull as she stumbled back onto the curb. “D-D-Dead Heart…”
“You mind letting us through?” I asked, smiling. “Got places to be.”
I thought for a moment Tulip was going to ask for my autograph. Instead, she shook herself and her horn lit up, yanking the plywood gate open. Several of her fellow guards were quickly approaching and one of the pegasi took off, peering in at me. She quickly waved them back towards their positions.
When her gaze turned back to me, it was confused and a little pleading.
“Miss Gypsy keeps saying you’re going to find the Princesses. Are you really going to find out what happened to them?” she asked, plaintively. Gone was the tough-mare gate guard. She was just a scared little girl keeping her home safe. I had to fight the urge to get out of the truck, take those machetes from her and send her to her room. Nopony that young should be on the front lines of any sort of conflict.
I forced down a guilty lump in my throat and answered, “I’m on it. I promise, whatever happens, I’m going to figure this out. Keep these ponies safe. I’ll be back this way at some point and I’ll need the Morgue still standing. Clear?”
She gave me the clumsiest of salutes and a goofy grin spread across her face. “Yes, Sir, Detective Boiled!”
“You can call me Hardy, sweet heart,” I said, tipping my hat.
A blush sprung up on her cheeks and she ducked her head, darting back to her companions with an extra bounce in her hips. Slip Stitch put his hoof down and we tooled on through the checkpoint as I settle back, laughing to myself.
“You know you didn’t help your desire to avoid a reputation just now, right?” Stitch chuckled.
I shot him a skeptical look. “I gave her a little hope. She might sleep better tonight. I didn’t do anything particular.”
“For you, that might have been nothing, Detective,” Limerence said, casually wiping the face of his pocket watch with a kerchief held on his toe. “Everypony she speaks to tonight will hear of that little exchange.”
“They’ll tell their friends ‘Detective Dead Heart’ is on the case,” Slip Stitch added, reaching over to stroke Mag’s cheek as she snoozed on my back, “The Bulldog who never lets go of a bone won’t rest until the Princesses are safe. She’ll tell that story twenty times before the day is out, sitting around the fire or her dining room table. It will give many more people hope than I think you realize...”
I gulped and felt a tremor in my back legs.
“I’m going to spend a month drunk when this is over. There better be booze on the other side, too, or I’m going to be pissed.”