It's My Nature
The trip back was pretty dull, though it did turn out that the General’s three wives were excellent poker players. We played with the national treasury as the pot, and I went bust pretty early on. Not that I was trying hard - as far as I was concerned it was their money anyway.
I was escorted off the airship before it even docked, debriefed in a windowless room for a while, and was wondering just what happened if somepony got fired from the EIS when an Ensign came in with a folder and gave me my answer and a new assignment.
I wish they’d given me time to pack a new suitcase.
Shetland was technically part of Equestria, but only technically. It was as far to the north as Yakyakistan and that was all the average pony knew about it without consulting an atlas. Actually, the average pony heard about Shetland once, during grade school geography classes and then promptly forgot about it.
A scholar, or someone in the intelligence agencies, knew that Shetland had been an Equestrian territory for over a thousand years, when some event had cut it off from easy travel. The details of the event varied widely, from the fantastic and stupid (an entire nation and all the associated roads vanishing overnight in a magical accident) to pointing fingers (it was all somehow Nightmare Moon’s fault) to the prosaic and likely (it wasn’t economically viable and everypony in Shetland was a jerk anyway).
My assignment, as far as I could tell from the papers I’d been given, since my superiors hadn’t even spoken to me about it, was to find a local group pushing for independence and gather information.
There was a note, in very large letters, underlined three times, that I was to take no action without express written orders.
“Fifty bits?!” I would have dropped my duffel bag in shock if I was able to feel my hooves. “It’s just a coat!”
The pony on the other side of the stand looked at me for a long moment. Of course, he was wearing a thick wool coat and had the thick coat of a northerner - he was going to spend all day in the cold no matter what I did, and the idea didn’t seem to bother him. I didn’t think he could even feel it, despite the ankle-deep slush on the ground that was pretending to be fluffy snow until an unwary (or poorly-briefed) pony put their weight on it and discovered the fun of being soaked to the skin in freezing water.
“Fifty-five, now,” he replied.
I rummaged around in my saddlebags, not sure if I even had that many bits.
“This one’s on me,” a familiar voice said.
A bag of bits dropped onto the counter and was quickly snatched up by the owner and replaced by a grey coat.
“Agent Sycamore?!” I blurted out, shocked.
“In the flesh,” he said, dropping the coat onto my shoulders. He was still wearing that same awful shirt, though he had a coat almost identical to mine over it. “How’ve you been, Matty? It’s been ages!”
“I thought you were dead!”
“You should know by now that EIS agents have a knack for getting into trouble,” he said. “And occasionally we get out of trouble too. You can dissolve Tanglehoof glue with strong alcohol.”
“You had that bottle of rum,” I said.
“Bingo. Heard about that thing with the ship. Real tragedy with the General. Couldn’t have happened to a better stallion.”
A new voice cut in from the shadows. “He, like all cowards, fell from grace to bitter end, and soon forgotten.”
My eyes went wide. Guava was leaning against the side of the stall, watching us. I’d have recognized her anywhere, even wrapped up in layers and scraps of fabric that concealed almost her whole body like a patchwork mummy.
“Oh, let me introduce our newest intern,” Timber said. “Actually, you two might have met already.”
“What the hay is going on?” I demanded.
“Long story short, she’s the newest member of the EIS. Things back in Zanzebrica are complicated, and turns out they just really like overthrowing leaders, even if they’ve only been in power for a few minutes. I helped her get out of the country, and in return, she’s assisting the EIS. The Princess was pretty impressed with my report on the whole thing.”
“Your Princess can be... very persuasive, I found. I could not say no.” Guava muttered.
“You talked to the Princess? I just got stuck in a debriefing room.”
“And you must have said the right things because now you’re here!” Timber smiled. “Hope you’re ready to get to work. I’ve got some great leads.”
“On the independence movement?”
“What? No. On the best local bars!” He smiled and trotted off.
“The same side now. I will enjoy being your partner, or perhaps more?” Guava said, shrugging. She paused as she went past me and kissed my ear.
“Maybe this assignment won’t be too bad,” I whispered, a new spring to my step and a warmth in my chest despite the chill.
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I would have liked to upvote this story, but I cannot in good conscience, because it treats waterboarding as a throwaway gag.
Mmkay, this was an Ultra great story. I'm giving it a like and a fave Just 'Cause it was that good. I'm gonna have to wrap up this comment quick since my Power Pack is running out, and I've got an Urgent matter to deal with (I gotta feed the Mongoose of my Brother, Sam, or he'll be Furious with me) but I just wanted to let you now that this story was a huge Success.
9173299
Yeah, I wasn't really comfortable with that either. It's not impossible to make that kind of thing work, but you need to lean hard on the "these are horrible ponies doing horrible things" angle, and this just doesn't go too far enough.
9173531
Actually, in retrospect I think that worse than using it as a joke was implying that it actually works.
9173299 9173531
With all due respect, that's exactly why I think that joke is so effective.
This is about real CIA operations that really happened with real people. Just playing up the "They're bad people doing bad things" completely undercuts the message that we really do this to people. Daily. It should make you uncomfortable that the agents who are just trying to do their jobs just did this, and it was treated as routine. That they thought it justified because it worked.
That's the point of the story where you need to realize no matter what they think, or get told, they're the bad guys. They might not kill people directly, but they do a lot of things that get a lot of people killed - they installed a dictatorship over sugar prices, that's a direct reference to the Batista regime in Cuba, which is why Guava is an allusion to Che Guevera. Then they made an alliance with the dictatorship and tried to cut off the rebellion because of how that would look. A secret alliance made with a military dictatorship.
They were horrible ponies doing horrible things, but it was told from a deeply unreliable perspective. Like, how good is Disposition Matrix actually at martial arts?
Something about a thousand years ago made for a really interesting time. I blame Luna, or possibly give her credit.
That's probably a good idea.
Sycamore and Guava, nice. You know, it strikes me that this trio seems to be positioned to be first on the scene when the Crystal Empire returns, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
That was a great story.
So...Guava has no hard feelings about the betrayals and failed revolution and coup?
Now that I've actually had time to get around to reading the finished product, I think the wait was well worth it. Matty is adorably inept at times, but that just means she's in good company in the Great Spy Game.
9174533 9173299 9173531
Rule 1: The CIA are never the good guys, especially when they're the good guys.
The exploding cigars was a reference to an assassination attempt against Fidel Castro. Arming and training rebels refers to (among other things) the Afghan Mujahadeen during the 80s, which later fragmented into both the Taliban and Al Queda. The CIA installed the Shah in Iran at Great Britain's request because the Iranian government was trying to nationalize BP's operations in the country. That little misadventure eventually ended in the Iranian Revolution, where the American Embassy was famously taken by the revolutionaries. MKUltra (CKMuna) was an experimental mind control program in the 50s and 60s.
Espionage is a messy game where bad people do questionable things to other bad people in the name of Good Causes, and bystanders get to deal with the side effects.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows when keeping the magical land of Equestria safe and secure. Though woe unto the EIS if Princess Twilight ever gets wind of what they're up to. I don't see that ending well at all.
A hilarious misadventure that's best not thought about too deeply if you want to sleep tonight. Thank you for it.