Figure 11: Turntable
Figure 11: Turntable
From within the bogus taxicab, Piera looked around her with growing apprehension.
What few innocent bystanders there were in Times Square had quickly fled once the situation had become apparent. Of the police which Rarity had contacted—seemingly more concerned with the crime of using a taxi radio to broadcast on reserved frequencies than with the imminent threat to life and limb—there was nary a sign.
Correction—there was a sign, but it was not encouraging. Quite to everyone’s surprise, Officers Gloomfeld and Gruekin had emerged from the crowd dressed in leather and with blacked-up faces. Gruekin had tried to give a speech about how the pony in the cab was too famous to attack without repercussions, and how anyway they were there for a much more important purpose. This last remark was punctuated by pointing out a video camera and transceiver that were mounted on a pole taking in everything that was happening in that corner of Times Square.
The response to this argument came in the form of a single word emitted from a speaker mounted below the camera: “Narcs.”
After that, Gloomfeld and Gruekin were lucky to merely be clubbed into unconsciousness before the angry mob turned once more on the cab. A young man with a shaved head and a baseball bat adorned with numerous nails especially stood out.
As for the inhabitants of the cab, Antonia had produced a pearl-inlaid pistol from who-knows-where, while William’s hair appeared to be visibly turning white, one strand at a time.
As a last-ditch attempt to stave off their inevitable fates, Rarity took over the cab’s sound system. “ATTENTION!” she shouted in the most threatening voice she could muster. “This is the Big City Police Department, and we have the block surrounded! Anyone who puts down their weapons now will be allowed to leave; otherwise, we tear-gas everybody and sort you out at our leisure!”
Piera was impressed to note that the sound from the cab speakers appeared to come from the sides of the square. Unfortunately, two aspects of Rarity’s speech made it impossible for the mob to take seriously: First, a snarling Rarity is still much, much more sophisticated than any New York City cop could ever hope to be—I mean, “at our leisure”? Seriously? And secondly, this was the 1970’s, and no matter how much second-wave feminism had achieved, there was no way that the MPD would let a woman use the bullhorn in a crisis.
The crowd began trying to simultaneously tip the cab over and smash its windows open to grab the valuable prizes inside—any minute now, they’d remember they had guns, and things would get really ugly. As Piera watched the end of her life unfold, she couldn’t help but be massively disappointed in the workings of Fate on Planet Earth. After all, Rarity had achieved an electro-mechanical form of ventriloquism, something Piera had believed to be quite difficult to do, and Rarity had pulled it off on her first try. In fact, by studying the fading soundwaves, the young woman could see just how complex the effect was, considering that it had to fool an audience that completely surrounded the source, as well as deal with the echoes and reverberations of the nearby walls and...
Piera then realized that humans were normally unable to see soundwaves. Fae too, for that matter. She could see all the soundwaves in fact, and knew exactly which gang member or brave/panicked cab passenger had produced each one. In fact, the way that Piera had been able to follow the echoes of Rarity’s projected voice was by “pushing” away any other sounds that got in the way. And that meant...it meant...
Piera screamed, at the top of her lungs. Rarity and the Martins looked at her in amazement, because they couldn’t hear anything coming out of her mouth. Instead, it all came out of the car’s speakers, modulated like Rarity’s to be nearly inaudible at the source, but then rising to maximum volume less than a foot away from the outside of the car, and unlike Rarity’s voice, infinitely more malleable. At her command, a sonic shell sprung up around the car. A second one covered the prone bodies of the two undercover cops, and a third expanded until it reached to the edge of the square, along the way blowing out the lens of the security camera that Gruekin had pointed out. The gang members were now enveloped in a wall of sound, which caused them to all cover their ears and cry out in pain.
Chuckles the Clown had shown Piera a binder once, containing pages that had been photocopied and mimeographed dozens of times. He claimed the original versions of those pages were in the possession of the CIA, and that they consisted of research banned by the Geneva Convention on precisely what different combinations of audio frequencies did to the human brain. An awful lot of them supposedly caused death or permanent brain damage, but one particular combination was guaranteed to cause exactly three hours, three minutes and three seconds of unconsciousness. Piera just had to tune the unnatural sounds she was producing just a bit more, and...
A hundred young men collapsed to the ground in unison. A second later, the sonic shells, invisible to all but their creator, vanished.
Piera stopped screaming, and cleared her throat. “There,” she said proudly. “I believe that ought to do it.” Her voice was possessed of a strange lilt, somewhat but not quite like an Irish brogue.
The others looked at her, and then at the dozens of prone bodies. With a touch, Rarity unlocked the rear doors. Antonia got out first, followed by the others, all but Piera looking around them with unease.
“We’re...we’re alive?” William asked the universe incredulously.
“Y...you didn’t hurt them, did you?” Antonia asked Piera in a hush.
“What? No, of course not. They’re just knocked out. Oh, and Gloomfeld and Gruekin are over there—I made sure they were protected like we were. So, what do you think?” The teenager leaned against the car with a cocky grin.
“Your voice is quite lovely,” Rarity said, turning her head to face her. “Congratulations on finally figuring it out.”
Piera put her hand to her throat in surprise. “No, I...I didn’t mean the voice. I meant my powers. I finally figured out my powers. You never have to worry about being in danger again, because I can protect you.”
Rarity turned fully around to give Piera a critical eye as she continued.
“And whenever you find that ‘center of the universe’ thing that Discord told you about, I can come with you!” The teenager threw her arms wide, her eyes closed as she imagined everything her new-found abilities freed her to do. “From the moment that Buttercup II arrived at the circus, I’ve been wanting to stop her, or even find a way to warn others in a way that they’d believe me before it was too late. You’ve told me so many wonderful things about Equestria and now—”
“No.”
“What?”
Rarity reared back and rested her front hooves on Piera’s shoulders so they would be close to eye level. “Piera my dear,” she said via the speaker on her back, “you are still a filly! You have the opportunity here with the circus to enjoy a wonderful foalhood, and to grow up into somepony absolutely unique!” She took a moment to review her words. “My apologies, I should have said ‘some-fae’. My point still stands, though. You discovered a way to hurt others, Dear. At the moment, you could use that to grow up to be a solider or a proper police officer or...a vigilante, like so many in Applejack’s Old West, and if that is what you truly want and considering the state of this city, nopony should lift a hoof to try and stop you. But you’ve only just discovered the beginning of your powers. That new voice of yours implies that there are things you can do now that will not hurt others, and perhaps that is the direction you should be exploring. At least until you’ve had enough time to process all of what has happened so far.”
Rarity looked away from Piera and dropped herself back down on all fours. “There is also another consequence that you will have to consider if you truly wish to use these powers as a hero.” She pointed a hoof at a nearly thug—the same skinhead with the spiked club that had terrified her earlier—and the thin line of blood that was draining from his ear and down the young man’s face. “This one is more than knocked out,” she commented in a clinical manner. “I’d say you ruptured his eardrum, and without the kind of medical care usually denied to one of his economic status, he may never hear again.”
Piera flinched.
Rarity then waved her hoof to take in the rest of the unconscious crowd. “Most of these others have a chance to do something with their lives,” she said, sweeping the hoof around until it finally rested on the bleeding man again. “They will all eventually find jobs and special someponies, settle down and raise families and put this day behind them, all of them, but not him. I have sadly seen this in the American history I studied to save my friends, especially in the lawless setting Applejack was banished to. For you see, you have given this man a dark purpose without meaning to, a desire to revenge himself on you for your mistake. And he will not be the first. For every hundred people you save, there will be one that you hurt through accident or over-zealousness, and the number of your enemies will continue to grow. That is what it means to be a hero in a world without harmony. I am not saying that being a hero in a world that is mostly cold and heartless is an unworthy goal—it is the most worthy goal imaginable. But it’s hard, it hurts, and it has its costs.” She stopped her speech for a moment while Piera wiped the tears from her eyes. “I just wanted you to know this now, before you’ve committed yourself—before you’ve made an enemy. I’ll take care of this one, though.” And with that, Rarity reached into a hidden drawer built into the speaker on her back and came out with two folded thousand dollar bills held lightly in her teeth. She tucked the bills into the shirt pocket of the bleeding man.
“That’s most of your life savings!” William exclaimed.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, well one of the most important tenets of Generosity is to never advertise how cheap or dear one’s contributions are, but as they always say, I can always make more.”
“That’s a hell of a lot more than I would have put up,” said Gloomfeld, who was now standing behind them. “What if he isn’t the only one who’s deaf? Or brain-damaged?”
Further away, the group saw Gruekin filling a burlap bag with the weapons he was collecting from all of the unconscious thugs.
Rarity looked around her with growing dread. “Are there any others showing obvious signs of permanent injury?”
“No,” Gloomfeld admitted with a mischievous smile.
Rarity and Piera uttered simultaneous sighs of relief.
William stepped up to address Gloomfeld. “So, Officer Gloomfeld—”
“Detective Gloomfeld,” the man interrupted. “We both got promoted.”
“Alright, Detective Gloomfeld, could you answer me this: What are you doing here? Did you finally get that transfer you always wanted to go with the promotion?”
“Yes and yes,” Gloomfeld said proudly. “I finally get to follow in the footsteps of my lifelong hero: Detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle, the hero of the French Connection case. The whole time I was in Passaic, I’d go into situations asking myself: ‘What would Popeye Doyle do?’”
“And most of the time he couldn’t carry them out,” Detective Gruekin interrupted, “because the only two things he could think of was ‘engage in an epic high-speed chase through the streets of the Big City’ and ‘shoot the bad guy in the back who’s about to kill his hostage’.”
“But now that we’re in the Big City, we get to do both of those things!” Gloomfeld exclaimed with a blissful look on his face.
“You do know that I was...nah, forget it.”
“But how did you get transferred?” William asked.
“Well,” Gloomfeld answered, “after the entire Mafia was forced out of the City, the MPD thought they’d have things easy, but—”
“Wait a second!” interrupted Antonia. “Are you saying that the Corraglio’s weren’t the only ones forced out?”
“Oh no, it’s all of them,” said Gruekin, finally joining the group with a very full burlap sack. “They were the victims of the biggest real estate swindle in Big City history. And it was done so well that no one would have realized what happened, if it wasn’t for the work of one reporter, —” And he followed this with a name that none of the New Jersey visitors recognized.
“You know her as Sparks Nightly,” said Gloomfeld. “She uncovered evidence that one mastermind was behind the dozens of fake companies that gave him control of some of the most valuable real estate on Earth. Of course, with the truth discovered, ownership reverted to the city, which is in the process of giving everything back while trying to find an excuse to keep the mob families out for good. Despite her best efforts, Sparks wasn’t able to track down the lair of this mastermind, a man the police have given the name ‘L’, due to the fact that all of his fake company names start with that letter. You probably heard his voice earlier from that speaker over there. Even after he lost his land grab, L managed to take over nearly half of all the security cameras in the Big City, and, with microphones and speakers added, he’s been using them to organize a mob of his own. Once the New York police realized this, they pulled every good cop they could find into their ranks from the tri-state area.” The detective pointed down at the ground. “Right here was supposed to be the biggest meeting of them all, a meet so big that L would have no choice but to show himself, and that’s when we would’ve nabbed him!”
“Oh, that sounds great,” William said, breaking eye contact. “It’s too bad that we got pulled into the middle of everything and ruined your plan.”
Gruekin pulled the broken security camera out of the bag. “You know, depending on how much L saw before this camera went out of commission, it might be a good idea to stay as far away from the Big City as possible in the next few months. At least until he’s caught.”
Gloomfeld stepped forward and posed dramatically. “You mean, until we catch him. Right, Partner?”
Gruekin rolled his eyes. “We did catch him last Tuesday, remember? And then you let him go.”
Gloomfeld frowned. “That wasn’t him. There’s no way it was him.”
“He was in the right place at the right time,” Gruekin insisted.
“That was Popeye Doyle,” Gloomfeld said quietly, before shouting, “And there’s no way that Popeye Doyle and L are one and the same person!”
As the two detectives were arguing, a police cruiser finally showed up in Times Square.
“Dreadfully sorry to interrupt,” William said nervously, “but I believe you made reference to a threat to our lives?”
“Oh, I think you’re probably safe for tonight,” Gruekin said with a smile. “L is very meticulous with his hits. I mean, it took a full month before he started trying to kill Sparks for exposing him.” He tried to ignore the newly arrived police officer, who was rather desperate for an explanation of how a hundred men ended up unconscious.
“By ‘trying’, I assume that he hasn’t succeeded yet?” asked Antonia.
“Yup.”
“Well, I hope you have her under police protection at least.”
“No,” answered Gruekin with an weary shake of his head, “but that’s not due to any lack of trying on our part. Um, excuse me for a second.” With a sigh, he walked off with his evidence bag to talk to the uniformed officer.
“She’s refusing? But why?” asked Rarity.
“She refuses to believe that any of the extremely unlikely accidents that she has barely survived in recent months are L’s work,” explained Gloomfeld. “I mean, the taxi she always takes to work had its brakes cut, and its accelerator stuck, both while the car was moving on the way to pick her up. Now granted, that’s really hard to pull off, but not to a genius of L’s caliber. There have been elevator failures, and safes falling off the sides of buildings, all right when Sparks Nightly was supposed to be in the area. The only thing keeping her alive right now is stubbornness and dumb luck. If you happen to run into her tonight, please try to convince her to let the police do their job and protect her. I don’t care what it does to her career.”
“Well, if we see her, then we’ll do what you ask,” Antonia said, “but for tonight, I think we should head back to our hotel. I don’t suppose we can get any protection?”
“Yeah, I think I can authorize that,” said Gloomfeld. “Aramus and I will be busy cataloging this mess, but Officer Dave here should be able to take care of you. Isn’t that right, Dave?”
“Whatever you say, Boss,” Officer Dave said in a dead tone. It seemed clear that he was used to being ordered around by the two detectives.
“Have you had dinner yet?” Gruekin asked.
The three people and one pony shook their heads.
“Well, we can’t have that!” Gruekin exclaimed. “Take them out to dinner, Officer Dave. I’m sure I can get the precinct to cover, let’s say $100 apiece, especially if any of this evidence or later interrogations lead to the arrest of Public Enemy Number One.”
“Why thank you, Detective! Or...Aramus, was it? I’m sure with the brave Office Dave protecting us, we will be perfectly safe!”
Officer Dave chose not to look at the talking pony. It didn’t make the ridiculousness go away entirely, but at least it helped.
“Stop the car!” Antonia shouted about ten minutes later.
“What, what is it?” Office Dave cried out, as he pulled over, producing a large pistol and pointing it out the driver’s side window. “Did you see a hitman on the corner? Or maybe a bazooka?”
“Oh, um...no,” Antonia said, scooting away from the police officer in the driver’s seat. “It’s just that, well...that’s an Automat over there.”
William leaned over to look. “My word, you’re right! I thought I’d never get to see one of those.”
“What’s an Automat?” Rarity and Piera asked nearly in unison.
“In my childhood, the Automat was the Future,” Antonia told them. “Well...even by then it was a rather faded and tattered future, but still it was something different than the world I grew up in. Instead of the adults pushing each other around, and giving out ‘justice’ to whoever they thought ‘deserved’ it, the Automat was gleaming chrome. Automatic. The same price for the same food for everybody.”
“The same price for everybody—isn’t that every restaurant?” asked William.
“Not when you’re in the Family,” Antonia replied. “The Automat was the only place where I had to pay for anything. And that made it the best place in the Big City. I...I know it sounds ridiculous when we’ve got a $400 budget for dinner, but...could we eat here?”
“Do they have vegetarian?” asked Rarity.
“Vegetable plate for a dollar,” said Antonia, proud that she could still remember, “or a bowl of baked beans for a dime.”
“The place looks empty,” Dave commented. “That makes it safer.”
“Very well,” said Rarity.
“Fine with me,” said William.
Piera simply shrugged her acceptance.
& & &
Officer Dave reached the glass-walled storefront first. After looking carefully through the window, he opened the door and stepped inside. Some unidentifiable piece for a string orchestra was playing over the five or six speakers embedded in the ceiling.
A young man sitting at a stool next to the door quickly rose to his feet and stepped over to a small machine on a pedestal. “Is there anything wrong, Officer?” he asked in a creaky voice.
“No, just thought I’d step in for a bite to eat with my friends,” Dave said, drawing himself up and deepening his voice to try and sound older than he was.
“How does this place work?” asked Piera.
The clerk pointed at the far wall of the narrow establishment, a wall made up of many small windows with knobs attached to them. “The cook’s on the other side of that, filling the little cubby holes with a variety of fresh meals. You put quarters in to open the doors, and I change your dollars into quarters.”
“Oh, so it isn’t automatic, it just looks that way,” said William, looking disappointed.
“What do you mean?” asked Antonia.
“Well, if this place was really automatic, then there wouldn’t be any people at all. There’s be a machine to change dollars into quarters, and the food would be machine-packaged and delivered, perhaps with one of those ‘radar ranges’ that some restaurants use to heat food up.”
“You’re talking crazy talk,” commented the clerk.
“I’m sure this is a nice place,” William said apologetically, “and a reliable way for the working class to get a cheap lunch, but I can see why these places have been going out of business.” He gestured around him, at the cracked and stained linoleum floor, the rows of unoccupied Formica-topped tables with exactly two heavy steel-framed seats apiece, and the yellowing and humming florescent lights. “It’s like this is where Thirties Futurism went to die.”
“You’re wrong,” the clerk countered with confidence. “We play strictly 60’s Musak here. None of that Big Band stuff.” He took a moment to listen to the song currently being played. “See? That’s ‘Age of Aquarius’, from the hit musical Hair.”
William laughed. “Another dead future!” he proclaimed. “I lived through this one. ‘No more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions,’” he sang along to the wordless song. “And what happened when the hippies of America finally had their say? We got this world!” He punctuated his point by pointing at the ground. “Decaying infrastructure, loss of respect for American ideals abroad, betrayed by endless CIA ‘special op’ revolutions and coups that put anti-democratic governments in power all around the world. We get nightmares like this very city, where absolute power worse than anything the Mob was ever able to grab hold of is now available to whichever madman is clever enough to seize it first. So in the end I have to ask: What have the Sixties ever done for us?”
“Well,” a voice at the far corner of the Automat replied, “there was a small expansion of civil rights for women and minorities. And I do like to think we perfected Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
All heads turned in unison, except that of the clerk. Where there had once been what everyone was sure was an empty table, there now sat a middle-aged man with pale skin and silvery hair. He was wearing red wire-frame sunglasses which obscured his eyes, and a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck shirt.
Rarity raced down the aisle until she had her hooves on the man’s table. A portable tape recorder and instant camera sat on either side of a half-finished bowl of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. “Andy Warhol?!” she exclaimed.
Officer Dave at this point made the conscious decision to stay with the clerk and...guard the door. Yes, that was what he was doing, guarding the door. His decision had nothing whatsoever to do with the feeling of unnatualness that radiated off of the quiet celebrity.
Meanwhile, the man in black looked down at the pony fawning at his feet. “I assume you’re Rarity,” he said flatly. “Either that, or I am the victim of an incredible coincidence.”
The man was indeed Andy Warhol, world-famous Pop artist of the 1960’s, mostly famous in the 1970’s for just being famous. He was the guy who thought that taking a photograph of a soup can counted as art, or coloring in a black-and-white photo of Marilyn Monroe. Mostly, though, he was the guy who said “In the future, everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame.” Nobody ever let him forget he said that.
The above paragraph acts as a stand-in for ten full minutes of gushing by Rarity, which managed to cover all of the above points, but in a much more enthusiastic and positive manner. She also went on about The Factory and its movies, but the less said about that topic, the better.
“Why ever did you stop?” Rarity asked, referring to that last subject.
“I got shot because somebody didn’t like one of my movies,” Andy replied laconically, resting a hand on his belly. “It stopped being fun after that.”
“Oh...right,” said Rarity.
See? Bad topic. Also, Andy was lying.
“I’m dreadfully sorry,” Antonia said, reaching down to Rarity’s collar. “We shouldn’t be interrupting your dinner.”
“Oh no, go right ahead,” Andy said with a slight smile. “You must be Rarity’s entourage.”
Antonia smiled self-consciously. “Yes, I’m Antonia Martin, this is my husband William, and back there is Piera, my niece.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Andy said with a slight bow of his head. “I do enjoy meeting interesting people, and I believe Rarity here fills her own distinct category. You’re not exactly from this world, are you?”
Rarity stepped back in shock. “Whatever gives you that idea?” she asked nervously.
“You’re a talking pony,” answered Andy.
“Oh, right...that. Well, I could be a very-well trained pet that the real Rarity is—”
“Yeah, I read that in all your interviews,” Andy interrupted, “and it sort of breaks down. No line of sight.” He pointed around him. And indeed, there was no way that anybody outside the building could possibly be watching this conversation. “And besides, I’ve seen weirder.” He quite deliberately scratched at the edge of his silver wig, which in fact was not made up of silver-colored hair but in fact of thin strands of actual silver.
“You’re a fae?!” Antonia and William asked in unison.
Piera stepped forward and nodded her head. “Yup.”
“I, uh...I’ll get us dinner,” Antonia said self-consciously, before separating from the others.
“Ah,” Andy said, holding out a hand for Piera to take. “Nice to see another one. Have you been causing trouble?”
Piera thought back to the pile of unconscious thugs. “Not exactly...”
“Well, try harder!” Andy said with a genuine smile. “The job of every fae in exile should be the same: undermining illegitimate sources of power. Nowadays, that’s practically every source of power.”
“You’re a revolutionary,” William said incredulously.
Andy’s smile grew even wider. “I’m the best type of revolutionary. Unlike those hippies you were deriding earlier, I’m going to win.”
“But you’re as Establishment as they get! All you’ve done in the last decade is sell your doctored photos of the rich and famous to the rich and famous! How is that revolutionary?”
Andy Warhol stirred his soup. “I don’t like being the center of attention anymore,” he said with a sulk. “I love going to parties, but only if I can stand in a corner and watch. I am not a ‘do-er’. And I normally would never explain myself, not to anyone on this earth that could possibly stop me. But God’s the only one so far that knows what I’ve been up to, and I’ve been dying to tell someone. And you, Rarity, you’re an alien—there’s no better third-party witness to confess to than that.”
“I knew you were my favorite artist for a reason,” Rarity practically purred.
“Me?” Andy asked, putting a hand to his chest in surprise. “I’ve never come near to fashion in my art. Why aren’t contemporary fashion legends like Halston, Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren your favorite? You are a fashion designer like them, are you not?”
“Please!” Rarity exclaimed theatrically. “I am nothing like them, while you, Mr. Warhol! You are the consummate bystander. I’ve read interviews with all three of the so-called legends, and they sound like so many of the designers and artists of my world, inflicting their visions upon the world instead of using their genius to serve the needs of their clients.”
Andy frowned. “In this world at least, successful designers, like all successful artists, absolutely serve the needs of their clients, which is to say the very ‘rich and powerful’ you have so astutely accused me of pandering to, Mr. Martin.”
“Well yes, our designers and artists are exactly the same. I meant to refer to a designer’s true clients, which is to say anyone in need of being reminded how beautiful they are inside, regardless of their...net worth.”
Andy’s smile beamed as he stood up from his chair, revealing that he was wearing blue jeans and black boots. “Oh yes, yes, I indeed have found the perfect confessor. Listen carefully, as I lay out the scheme I devised the day I learned the truth about myself—”
“Which was?” Piera asked quickly.
Andy waved a hand in the air, annoyed at the interruption. “That I’m not the real Andrew Warhola Jr., son of Andrew Sr. and Julia Warhola. The real Andrew Jr. was snatched from his cot as a baby to become a lifelong servant to the Queen of the Fae, selected for his beauty. While I” —he gestured at his own pockmarked face— “was dumped in his place as a punishment for being a fae too ugly for the ‘Benign Perfectress’ to look upon without turning green. That’s the way that changeling swaps work, by the way. Anyway, after being properly grateful that I was living in a country without a monarchy or hereditary aristocracy, I did find one field where a servile worship of money and power still existed, and I determined to end it.”
“Art?” Rarity asked, her mouth agape. “You plotted to overthrow the whole of Art?”
“Well, just the visual part,” Andy admitted. “The musical arts have become thoroughly populist, so I had no problem with that. No, what I didn’t like was the way that the generic-term ‘artist’ was defined in my time. You still had to train with a better artist, just like this was still the Middle Ages. And you had art critics, themselves firmly embedded in the world of the rich and powerful, to declare who was great and who wasn’t. The works of the so-called great were bought and sold for millions, while the works of those not on their very small list were all deemed worthless. There was no such thing as public opinion in art, only the curated opinion of those critics. And the idea of someone taking up a brush or camera to create art with no prior training was absolutely forbidden.
“That entire structure was artificial. The moment that the camera was invented should have been the death of it, but somehow it had still persevered, leaving visual artists in the same boat as Haydn and Mozart when they were forced to write what their patrons wanted instead of the music that would make the entire world sing.”
Andy Warhol sat back down and started sketching something on a napkin. “I wandered around in the 50’s and 60’s, establishing myself, doing whatever it took to get the critics to make me their darling. My only hurdle was that I came from the world of commercial art, but I made that work, by making the subjects of commercial art into the subjects of my art, and getting the critics to see the beauty in designed objects like soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles. But it was in this decade that I unveiled my true plan.”
He turned his sketch around for the others to see. “Do you have any familiarity with how a silkscreen machine works?”
“That’s how they put images on tee-shirts, right?” asked Piera.
“Yes, exactly,” said Andy. “It’s a primitive form of a duplicating machine. What I do for my celebrity portraits is that I take a few dozen photos in a frankly unprofessional style, and then let my subject pick the three they like best. I take those three photographs, color over them again in a deliberately unprofessional style, and then I transfer those color regions into the silkscreen machine, where I apply them on top of a print of the photographs. And then I sign the finished product. But I never get rid of the negatives or the silkscreen masters.”
“Which means that none of your art is original!” realized Rarity.
“Exactly,” said Andy. “All I have to do is set those machines in motion, and all of those works that I’ve been paid $5,000 to $10,000 apiece to create are suddenly worthless. They were only ‘art’ when they were unique.” He looked away. “Now, I’ll admit that the reason I haven’t done that yet is because I really, really like money, which is horribly hypocritical. But I have left strict instructions in my will, so at the very least my death will mark the death of Art as a servant to Power. I foresee a day in the very near future where anyone, no matter how poor, will be able to create any form of visual art they are able to imagine, even movies like I made in The Factory.”
“How?” asked Piera.
“One word, my compatriot: computers. Personal computers. I have seen the future, and it’s in a little place called Xerox PARC in California.”
“That’s...wow. That’s quite an ambitious goal you have there, Mr. Warhol,” said Rarity, clearly at a loss.
“Please, call me Andy.”
“Andy. Well, it was certainly an honor to get such an in-depth view of your...um, inner workings. Now if you don’t mind, we were going to have dinner here before we retire and finish our first...and probably only, visit of this city.”
Antonia put down a set of plastic-wrapped plates on the two tables closest to Andy’s. “All the prices have skyrocketed since the last time I was here,” she groused. “I mean, $2 for the turkey plate? Thirty cents for a cup of coffee? And that kitchen! I caught a glimpse of the cook’s wrist or elbow or something, and it was positively blue! Are they freezing the poor girl just to save money on food preservation? What is the world coming to?”
The conversation stalled for the next ten minutes as everybody ate their dinners. Only Antonia was really satisfied with the taste.
Seeing that they were finished, Andy leaned forward. “If I may ask, how much of the city have you seen so far?” he inquired.
“Well, we saw the Lincoln Tunnel—that was nice,” William began. “Then Rarity was ripped off by a con artist running a fake fashion show, and it sort of went downhill from there.”
Andy stood up, shaking his head. “No, no, that will not do at all. I was here sulking because of a particularly dreadful 50th birthday party, but you should not leave the most human city on earth without seeing at least one of its bright spots. I know—how would you like to see Studio 54?”
“Yes!” screamed Antonia on hearing the name of the most-famous, and most-exclusive disco club on the entire planet.
Her husband merely closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “I suppose...” he muttered.
Rarity looked between the two and said nothing.
“It’s a very...unique...location,” Andy commented. “The only place I know where rock stars, movie stars, political stars, and whichever ordinary people catch Steve Rubell’s fancy, all mix together, totally unself-consciously. It truly is the one place today where anyone can get those fifteen minutes of fame that everybody but me obsesses about. You truly must go there, Rarity. The place could hardly be said to be complete without your presence.”
Rarity hesitated. She had had a truly awful night so far, and she was still worried that Piera’s new-found powers might go to her head. But then her mind found another subject to latch onto. “I suppose I can visit for an hour,” her speaker said, “if you’ll answer a question for me.”
“Ask away,” said Andy, crossing his arms across his chest as he looked down at her.
“It appears that each fae has their own unique powers, similar to a pony’s cutie mark. What is your special talent?”
Andy hesitated for only a moment before answering. “Controlling exactly how much attention people pay to me. It’s why you didn’t see me when you came in.”
“Interesting,” said Rarity. “I suppose it’s the same reason why I’m completely unable to focus on your telltale ears?”
“That would be correct,” said Andy. “Any particular reason for this line of questioning?”
“Someday I am going to return to my home,” Rarity answered. “And when that happens, I would like someone to accompany me with a very specific skill set. Not yours, Piera,” she quickly added. “I need somebody that can affect the power of willpower. Specifically, somebody who is immune to it, and who could possibly break the control of another, who currently holds my land in an iron grip. I...hesitate to even make this request, because I can offer no guarantee that my form of travel, which is in a bit of limbo at the moment, will be anything other than one-way. I am asking for someone who wouldn’t mind becoming a permanent traveler, an alien in a world thoroughly unfamiliar to them. It’s...not a particularly kind thing to ask, I know, but I am not the Bearer of Kindness, and this is far from being the kindest city on this planet.”
Andy reached out an open hand towards Rarity. “I think I know exactly who you are looking for, and I seriously doubt that he will have any problems with the conditions of your offer. This man needs to leave Earth, before it kills him. And best of all, I can practically guarantee that he’s in Studio 54 right this second. So shall we take a trip across town so you can make your case?”
With a cautious smile, Rarity put her hoof in Andy Warhol’s outstretched hand. “I do believe we shall!” she exclaimed.
A few seconds after Dave the Police Officer walked out of the building with his entourage increased by one, one of the little glass windows popped open all by itself. “Did they say they were going to Studio 54?” a female voice from the other side asked. “Charlie, is there any way I can get off work early?”
With a sigh, the clerk walked over to the open window, the newspaper he had just started reading still held in one hand. “You’ve still got two hours, Trixie,” he said. “Despite what that wisecracker who just left might think, this place doesn’t run itself.”
“But you saw her, Charlie. You saw her, right? Another pony like me! Maybe she knows what I’m doing here. I mean yes, I was breaking into her house at night to set up a prank for Twilight Sparkle when that flash went off, but that meant whatever happened was meant for her, not me. I was just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire! Maybe her do-gooding friends are around to take her back—that means they can take me back, too!”
Charlie carefully put the newspaper aside—it might have an article saying where Rarity lived, and so like all the other newspapers, it had to be kept out of the blue pony’s sight for as long as possible. “Look, this is a free country,” he said laconically. “You can walk right out, but it’ll mean your job. And if you can’t find this other pony, if you’re caught out in the open without protection, what’ll happen then?”
“Th...the government?” Trixie’s voice asked nervously.
“Exactly,” Charlie said coldly. “The government. They’ll take you away for stealing jobs from honest Americans, and nobody will ever see you again. Now get back to work, and afterwards I’ll let you hide back there for another night. In return for rent.”
The little door closed without a word.
Yup, Charlie though smugly to himself, I’ve got a space alien with honest-to-God magic, and I only have to pay her 10 cents an hour because she’s too scared to ask for more—I get most of it back in rent. And the City’s too broken to ever track her down. Surely I live in the greatest city in the greatest decade of all time!
Billy Alden was the youngest bouncer in the history of the Big City. He got his job not for his strength, but for his discernment. In short, if you were nobody and you wanted to get into Studio 54, Billy Alden was the guy you needed to impress, because studio owner Steve Rubell never disagreed with Billy’s picks.
At the moment, Billy wasn’t letting in anybody, no matter how trendy their clothes or how high their platform shoes were (that only worked once). Instead, he was scanning the crowd for one particular creature alien to this planet.
Billy had never really believed in the stories his father had told him about their family heritage of aiding time-travelling ponies from another dimension, despite Twilight Sparkle’s little recorded message (“they can do anything with transistors nowadays”), until the night he had idly checked the family watch for “the white one”, and got a glowing arrow pointing right at the area in New Jersey where the next day’s paper revealed the existence of a white-coated pony fashionista.
In the months since, he had tried everything he could think of to get her to the club that didn’t make him look like a total sleaze. He figured he’d have to drive out there to make his case in person, but so far he had been awfully good at making excuses for not venturing into the festering cow pasture known as New Jersey.
Just then, a police car pulled up across the street. Billy signaled to Bruce, the more-traditional “shaped like a silverback gorilla” bouncer, who in turn pressed a button on the wall to inform Management that an old-fashioned bust was incoming. However, the police officer driving the car did nothing other than getting out to let some passengers leave the car, before he was talked into getting back in and driving away. The man doing the convincing was none other than club regular Andy Warhol, while the group leaving the cop car included none other than...
“Rarity the Unicorn!” Billy Alden exclaimed.
“Yes, and I won’t hear one word from you banning her from the establishment,” Andy said, holding the door open to allow the pony and her human companions entry.
Billy Alden thus found that one of his two entire purposes for existing had just been negated...by Andy Warhol. “Yes, sir,” Billy said quietly.
The door opened, and Rarity was hit by a blinding light and the sound of an overpowering rhythm blasted from countless speakers. No, not “a” rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm of Disco, of Studio 54, of the climax of the 1970’s: “I Feel Love”, sung by Donna Summer and composed by Giorgio Moroder.
If Rarity was bipedal, she would have spread her arms wide as she walked into her destiny.
Inside the main floor of the club was bedlam, as patrons and staff collaborated to hide or dispose of any number of illegal or quasi-legal substances in preparation for a supposed drug bust that would never come to be.
One floor down was a place that was a lot harder for the police to get to, and so the process was a lot more relaxed. This was the place where the truly famous gathered among the only group in the world that truly understood what it meant to be alone in a crowd of millions, isolated as something simultaneously more than human, and yet ripe at any moment to be torn down to the level of has-been by any common genius with a typewriter and an axe to grind. This was where Andy Warhol had led his guests.
Rarity looked around her in awe. Milling about her like they were normal people were the likes of actresses Liza Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger (wife of musician Mick of the Rolling Stones), Debbie Harry of the band Blondie, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Grace Jones, fashion designer extraordinaire Halston, writer Fran Lebowitz, and Margaret Trudeau, the estranged wife of the Prime Minister of Canada, who treated her trips to Studio 54 as the perfect revenge on her soon-to-be ex-husband. None of them seemed to have any problem with a talking pony in their midst. The massive amounts of cocaine that had been consumed so far that night may or may not have had a part in that lack of reaction.
“They’re all here,” Andy Warhol said, spreading an arm wide. “All of the most interesting people in the world. Some nights we even get members of the Iranian royal family, all living like it’s Rome in the days of Emperor Caligula. Truly for someone like you or me, this is the center of the universe.”
Rarity looked up at him in shock. “Say that again,” she demanded.
“Well, it’s true!” Andy replied. “This is the most exclusive spot on the planet. Only the best of the best—or whoever catches Billy’s fancy—is let in, and you just made the cut.”
“I did it, I actually did it!” Rarity said, looking back at her three companions from the circus. “Oh thank you, dears. I never could have made it into someplace as exclusive as this without your help.”
“Oh Rarity,” Antonia said with a gentle smile. “We only worked to make you famous as gratitude for what you did for us: making us a family again.” Wife and husband kneeled down to take the pony in their arms, Piera standing awkwardly in the background.
Rarity took in the hug with a huge grin...that is until something occurred to her. “Oh, that is so generous for you to say,” she began with growing nervousness, “but, well...there might be a bit of a time limit in effect. Quick, look around for a portal to Equestria before it disappears!”
Upstairs, the staff and guests still hadn’t realized that the cops weren’t coming. At the center of the storm of drug concealment was Steve Rubell, one of two owners of Studio 54, and the one far more interested in its day-to-day operations. Rubell was the guy who knew everybody’s habits, and made sure to cater to every one of them. He was also the kind of 1970’s Italian American to spend his entire life in shirts spread open to expose as much chest hair as humanly possible—that’s when he even bothered to wear a shirt.
“Steve!” an anonymous Hollywood producer whined. “I just lost a half-kilo of snow in Stall Number 6 to a bunch of Technicolor dogs! And no, I swear I didn’t hallucinate them!”
Steve took the man’s hand in his and patted it gently. “You know what? I actually believe you. And you would have lost that half-kilo anyway, because we’re going to be busted any second now. As for the ‘dogs’, there’s somebody I have to have a word with.”
& & &
After using his personal key to gain access to the elevator, Steve quickly made his way downstairs, where he scanned the crowd for someone in particular. “Andy!” he finally said after running down his quarry. “What did I tell you never to do in my club?”
Andy looked at Steve in confusion. “What, that bit about never calling this place the center of—”
“Yes, that!” Steve said as he put his hand over Andy’s mouth. “Every time you say that particular phrase to whichever semi-somebody you drag down here, you open another portal to Candy Land in the Men’s Restroom. It’s extremely disruptive to our guests.” He removed the hand with a warning glare.
Andy’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t think you were serious!”
“I am. Now stop it.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Rarity said, gently tugging at the bell bottom of his slacks with one hoof. “But could you tell me how long one of these portals stays open?”
Andy put his arm around Steve’s back. “Steve, I’d like to introduce you to Rarity. She’s a unicorn. Rarity, this is Steve Rubell, the owner of the club.”
Steve looked down at the talking pony. Then he looked up at Andy, who merely shrugged. Then he tried to remember how many possibly mind-altering substances he had already consumed that night. And finally he rolled his eyes in resignation before answering the may-or-may-night-be-real unicorn. “Three hours, give or take ten minutes.”
“Oh good!” Rarity exclaimed. “I’ll have enough time for a proper farewell. William, if you can find a piece of paper and a pen, I have some messages I’d like to relay to the rest of the circus, for after I am gone.”
William quickly ran off to find said paper and pen. He did not expect his search to be a very fruitful one.
“So you’re really leaving?” Antonia asked, dropping down to her knees once again to embrace the pony.
“Well, in three hours, give or take ten minutes,” Rarity answered. “And I am ever so grateful for everything you’ve done for me during my time here. It was never really an exile after you brought me into your family.”
“Never forget us!” Antonia cried, her arms still around the white pony.
“You have my word,” Rarity answered. “Piera, are you alright?”
“You’re leaving so soon,” Piera said, her eyes on the ground. “I didn’t think it would be so soon. I thought you’d help me with figuring out my powers.”
Rarity thought for a moment, then looked up at the ceiling, where the booming music from the main floor could faintly be heard. “Mr. Rubell,” she asked. “Is there any chance that my friend Piera here could have a look at your disk jockey booth? She has a strong interest in acoustics and electronics.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I dunno...” He pulled Andy aside. “So she’s not a hallucination?” he asked.
“She’s a highly influential representative from another planet, Steve,” Andy replied with a highly amused smile. “Think about it for a moment: Studio 54—the first club to cater...to aliens.”
“Wow,” said Steve. He then looked over to Piera and sized her up with a critical gaze. “Come on,” he said after making up his mind. “You’d like to see how they make the music here, right?”
Piera nodded, and soon she and her uncle and aunt were accompanying Steve into the elevator for another executive key unlocked trip.
“Now where is he?” Andy asked, looking around him in vain for somebody.
“Who?” Rarity asked.
“That individual you were looking for,” explained Andy. “I assume it’s even more important to you to track him down now, yes?”
“Oh! Yes.”
It was slowly beginning to dawn on the folks on the main floor of Studio 54 that the eminent police bust...was a bust. This led to an entirely different outburst, this one about how many wonderful, wonderful drugs had been dumped down toilets or sink dispose-alls that were no longer available to be used, and how somebody ought to pay for the loss.
The one area on the floor that was still quiet was the bar. For the most part, the bar was populated by ordinary, non-famous people, the sorts of people that Billy Alden had let in for being strange or interesting, but who eventually discovered to their disappointment that they were not strange or interesting enough to steal the crowd’s attention from Liza Minnelli, Halston or Margaret Trudeau. Having discovered this harsh life lesson, they were drowning their sorrows in drink.
And then there was Truman Capote.
The short tubby man in a black tuxedo slammed down a black fedora and black spectacles on the surface of the bar, revealing a balding head of once-blond hair and bloodshot eyes. “Wha’ss a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!?” he demanded in the voice of a petulant little boy.
“You’re on rehab,” the black bartender he addressed replied, focusing his attention on polishing his already dry glass. He was shirtless. All of the male staff at Studio 54 were shirtless. Steve told them that it made a significant portion of the clients happy, both female and male. Considering the size of the tips, the male staff managed to convince themselves that they weren’t being exploited.
“Thosse other famous people can have anything they want,” Truman continued. “I demand the ssame for me...starting with some sherry.”
“No can do,” said the bartender.
“Hey, Isaac, do you know who I am?” Truman asked.
The bartender scowled. “So what, you think that because I’m black and a bartender, I automatically have to have the same name as the guy on the Love Boat?”
Truman raised his pudgy hands into the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don’t go slinging accusations of racism around just because I’m Southern. One of you’s named Isaac, right?”
A bartender with a frizzy brown afro (and equally frizzy chest) waved his hand.
“There, ssee? I’m ssoo not racisst that I can’t tell the differensse between a black and a Jew bartender. So, what iss your name?”
“Mike.”
“Nice to meet ya, Mike! Now, can we get back to the ssubject at hand?”
Mike sighed before finally replying. “Alright, I’ll bite: which subject?”
“Thiss one: Don’t you know who I am?! I was the inspiration for the character of Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird, I re-defined the confesssional novel with Other Voicess, Other Roomss, I wrote the definitive Big City novel in Breakfast at Tiffany’ss, and created the true-crime novel with In Cold Blood. I am, in short, the greatest American author you have ever met!” He slowly lowered the fist he had raised triumphantly at the end of his speech to think over what he had just said. “Did you happen to meet William Faulkner before he died?”
“No.”
“Then my sstatement sstandss! Now give me a drink.”
“No.”
Truman sulked for a few more seconds. He then looked theatrically around him in both directions before whispering, “I’m also a fae.”
“I don’t care,” Mike replied.
“Well, maybe I can try my luck with one of your compatriots.”
“You’re not getting a drink, Truman,” the other two bartenders answered in chorus.
Truman sat on his barstool, his legs dangling, and thought for a bit more, before beckoning Mike the Bartender to come close, a request that Mike fulfilled with the utmost reluctance.
“Out of curiossity,” he whispered, “and it’ss purely curiossity ssince I can’t even get a ssingle drink at thiss esstablishment, how much alcohol would you ssay it would take to kill an individual of my approximate height, weight and age? Kill me stone, cold, dead.”
Mike quickly backed up and gave him the stink-eye.
“Well?” Truman asked with what he thought was a winning grin. “Aren’t you going to ansswer my quesstion?”
“Truman, there you are!” cried a voice from the other side of the dance floor.
Truman spun around with a smile. “Andy!” he exclaimed. “Tell these kind men that I can have one teenssy-tiny drink! They’ll be ssure to lissten to you.”
“No,” said Andy.
Truman spun back to face the bar. “Aw, you’re no fun.”
“Truman, I’d like to introduce you to Rarity.”
Truman spun back around, hopped down from the bar stool, and stalked over to the mildly-nervous pony, his hands clasped behind his back. “Hmm...” he said to himself as he walked around her.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Rarity’s voice said with a degree of caution.
In a moment, Truman had slid down on his knees next to her and had flipped the cape over her head to reveal the speaker on her back.
“I beg your pardon!” Rarity exclaimed.
Truman picked up the speaker and examined it thoroughly, before putting it roughly back on her back with a sigh. He got up and from an inside pocket of the tuxedo removed a fifty-dollar bill. “Alright, she’ss legit,” he admitted with a sigh, placing the bill in Andy’s outstretched hand. He got up and faced the people standing behind Andy. “Now who did you bring with her?”
“Piera’s still up looking at the DJ booth,” said Andy. “Antonia and William Martin, this is Truman Capote.” He rolled his eyes before adding, “Yes, the Truman Capote.”
Antonia was the first to step forward. “Oh, Mr. Capote, it is such an honor to meet you. I loved your eccentric performance in the movie Murder By Death. It looks like the start of a brilliant career in acting.”
“Acting,” Truman said, deadpan. “That’ss all you know me for...acting?”
“Well...sure!” Antonia exclaimed.
Truman closed one eye and turned an accusing glare from Antonia to William, who flinched.
“Hey, I’m sorry I missed your acting debut,” William said. “I’d wish you good luck, although I think your age is a bit too late to start on the path to becoming famous.”
Truman whipped around to face the bartender. “Mike!” he barked. “You sstill haven’t ansswered my quesstion!”
Mike suddenly found he had other patrons to serve.
“Rarity here is looking for someone with expertise in mind control,” Andy said.
Truman sighed deeply before turning around. “I’m done with that, Andy. You know that,” he said, with a tone of disappointment in his voice.
“Truman here used to have the Big City in the palm of his hand,” Andy told Rarity. “And before that, he used his powers to get a hardened criminal to confess his whole life story. But, Truman being Truman, he decided one day to see how far he could abuse his powers, and published a little story exposing the worst secrets of his patrons under the guise of fiction. He’s never been able to get anybody in the City to trust him ever since.” Andy turned to Truman. “Rarity would like to hire you, to help her fight to save a whole bunch of fun-loving ponies from the mental enslavement of an evil mind-controller pony.”
“Not interessted,” Truman said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Ha!” Andy laughed. “I very much doubt the former. Did I mention the part about leaving Earth, and quite possibly never coming back?”
“On ssecond thought, I’m really liking this thought of fighting for the freedom of poniess from the threat of mind control,” said Truman. “When do we leave? And it is we, right, Andy? I couldn’t think of traveling to a strange land without at least one friend at my side, and since Harper left me, you’re the only real friend I have.”
“Now hold on a minute,” Rarity said, coming between the two men. “Both of you are famous! I don’t know if it’s right taking you before you’ve finished your time on Earth.”
Truman rested his hand on Rarity’s head, quickly repositioning it after accidentally landing on the horn the first time. “Trusst me Miss Rarity when I ssay we’ve both passt the point where we really have anything ssignificant left to give to the world. Having us dissappear now will have no ssignificant negative impact on hisstory, and should act to make Sstudio 54 an even more legendary place than it already iss, for being the location where we dissappeared into the Men’ss Restroom, never to return.”
“How do you know the portal’s in the Men’s Restroom?” asked Andy.
“I happened to be in there the last time you set it off.” He turned to face Rarity. “He called it the ‘center of the universe’, right?”
Rarity nodded.
“Classsic Andy,” noted Truman.
“Wait, the Men’s Restroom?” Rarity asked.
Truman nodded.
Rarity face-hooved. “Even after being deposed, that fiend Discord continues to vex me!”
At that moment, the music filtering down from above suddenly became crystal clear: strings, winds, and that strong percussion in 4/4 time that made disco stand out from all other contemporary genres. But each instrument heard was taken from a different source—parts from four different songs were playing at once, yet each could be distinguished from the others, with the acoustic quality of a live performance.
From one corner came the voices of Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog of ABBA: “Friday night and the lights are low, looking out for the place to go.”
In the next corner was Hank Dixon of The Originals: “I just realized: I’ve been wasting my time. Although my baby is gone, I’m moving on.”
In the third corner, Taka Boom, guest singer for The Undisputed Truth: “Please let me turn your gray sky blue, ‘cause that’s what I’m gonna do baby.”
And in the final corner emerged the voices of Philip Bailey and Maurice White of the group Earth, Wind & Fire, singing “And we will live together, until the Twelfth of Never; our voices will ring forever...as one!”
The New Jersey visitors had raced for the stairs from practically the first note.
& & &
Rarity emerged from the stairwell to see dozens of people dancing on the floor, with the occasional brave couple or individual taking the lit center stage to strut their stuff. High above in the DJ booth could be seen Piera, wearing a pair of dark purple shades and matching earphones, and pumping her fists into the air in triumph. The pieces of audio equipment around her were performing miracles never dreamt by their designers, and the sound coming out of them was under her complete control. Tears of joy could just be made out leaking from the edges of those shades.
And the disco remix continued, sounding even more glorious here than before:
“Bags—I’ve got ‘em packed. There’s no turning back. And consider the rest—repossessed!”
“And when you get the chance...”
“I’m gonna dust off my heart and my hat and shoes...”
“You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen...”
“Find someone, to help me lose these blues. I’m takin’ my body down...down down down to Love Town.”
“Come to see victory, in a land called Fantasy. Loving life, a new degree, bring your mind to everlasting liberty...”
“You plus me...equals love and harmony!”
Seeing the newest additions to her crowd, Piera pointed down at Rarity, letting her know that this song was her farewell gift to the pony who had done so much for her.
“That!” Rarity exclaimed, pointing back up at the booth. “That, Piera! That was what I was hoping you’d find! A way to bring beauty instead of pain.”
The Martins embraced.
“Oh, Frankie,” Antonia sighed. “If only you could have been here to see this...maybe that would have been enough to get through that thick skull of yours.”
William looked down at a low desk right next to him, with pens and stationary decorated with “Studio 54”. “Oh, I found the supplies you were looking for,” he told Rarity.
“...And finally to Chuckles: may you finally succeed one day in changing the world for the better, without anybody ever figuring out that it was you.” Rarity finished her dictation of her farewell to the circus. “Well, I do believe this is it.”
There was quite a large crowd gathered in front of the door of the men’s restroom. Several of the more impatient ones had wandered in to take a picture of themselves next to the swirling anomaly located in Stall #6.
“Let’s see, am I forgetting anything?” the pony asked herself. “Officially, the speaker goes to Chuckles after I leave, although I’m sure that he’ll give it to Piera if he knows what’s good for him.”
William blanched at the authentic tone and accent Rarity gave the Mob catchphrase without realizing it.
“Now Antonia,” Rarity continued.
“Yes?”
“In a couple of years, Piera will discover Punk when it goes mainstream, and your relationship with your niece will become quite unpleasant. However, you have my word as a predictor of fashion that that phase can’t possibly last more than a couple of years before going underground again, and she’ll emerge on the other side as an excellent disk jockey. If she wants something Equestrian-inspired for a stage name, tell her that she can have ‘DJ P0n-3’, as I am confident that the original holder of that name will approve.” She put a hoof to her chin as her eyes wandered. “I do believe that is everything.”
William looked from Rarity to the two aging men standing on either side of her. “Rarity,” he said as he crouched down next to her ear, “forgive me for asking this again, but are you sure that these two men are going to help you save your world?”
“Absolutely.”
“Huh,” William said as he stood back up. “Andy Warhol and Truman Capote are going to save the world.” He rolled the sentence around his mouth like it was in a foreign language that he was trying to get right. “If it were any other decade besides this one, I wouldn’t believe it, but for the 70’s...alright, sure. Why not?”
“Your expresssion of ssupreme confidence in our abilitiess is duly noted,” Truman said, deadpan.
“Just go,” said Antonia with a sad little smile and one arm wrapped around Piera’s shoulder.
Rarity put on a matching smile of her own and shrugged out of the speaker, leaving the cape still around her neck. “Goodbye, everyone,” the voice from the speaker said, fading in volume as the pony and her two companions passed into the restroom stall. “I’ll never forget any of you, or your wonderful fash...”
And with that, she was gone.
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That's it--an extra-long chapter to end the story. I'm putting up an afterward tonight to tell you the fates of the various characters, followed by the usual credits & acknowledgements section.
I've said it before, but this is one of the most delightfully unique stories I've ever read.
This is so damn weird.
Dan poor trixie Feel sorry for her. Oh good she got back
Alondro glances at modern 'factory-produced' pop music. "Dude, you picked the wrooooooong target. But then, you're only fae. When you reach perfection, THEN you'll be able to scheme as well as I can!"
Also, the Fae suck. And they know I think they suck. But they can't do anything about it cuz I'm all-powerful and stuff.
Oh that movie... it was not one of the better genre deconstructions I've seen. Was it meant to be self-mocking? I couldn't tell if the plot developments were deliberately self-contradicting and implausible, or if it was just sloppy story-telling. "Clue" was much better constructed, much more subtle in its deconstruction of the noir murder mystery genre, and had far better comedy timing and broad use of slap-stick, word-play, and reversal of expectations.
Frankly, if one wishes to poke at the more popular figures of a genre, one has to first tell a BETTER story than they could... not just throw robot maids in and all manner of plainly impossible things which aren't even used well for comedic affect and instead just feel like very puzzling additions tossed in at random.
Fun story. Reminds me of Vineland. I wonder if the author and Andy Warhol hold similar opinions about art?