Bats burst through the door to find Noir deep in thought.
“Canterlot just called,” he said as he threw a saddlebag full of gear onto the desk. From behind the glass of Ponyville PD’s only private office, Bats watched as a few officers trickled in through the front door. More would come soon. “Tip’s good. They gave us the entire department.”
McTough nodded slightly.
“Are you deaf? The whole thing’s gone fuck-side up.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said without taking his eyes off the shuttered windows.
“Are you serious?” Bats threw a black vest across the table. His eyes darted around the bag until he found what he was looking for. “They’re giving us the department. We’re in the books. We’re in charge now.”
“I said I heard you.” Bright fluorescent overheads killed the natural light before it could get into the room. It sat on the shutters, neither moonlight nor streetlamplight. Just white.
“Gods in the sparkling city above, McTough, was it you?”
McTough locked eyes with Bats. It was a scary feeling to know a stallion behind a mask. “Me?”
“Did you call in the tip on Noir?” Bats looked at the front door. More officers were coming in. They milled around in the main lobby, chatting and throwing saddlebags across their barrels. Some glanced in their direction. “Did you?”
“A mare called in the tip. Probably just a client who got screwed.”
Bats tapped his hoof and looked away. “Whatever you were hoping for, this just turned into a very sensitive situation.” Noir realized he was counting the officers in the other room. “We’re gonna have to handle this very carefully if we want to keep our jobs. I’ve drawn up a plan--it’s a meat grinder, but it’ll get results. I’m gonna go out there and coordinate the department. You’re gonna call in one of the special guard units from Canterlot. I’ll take the Ponyville plots and we’ll surround Noir’s business. We’ll tell him to surrender, and when he says no you come in with the guard unit and they crack the house like an egg. That way it’s out of our hooves.” He looked back to Noir. “Would you please pretend to be a little concerned here?”
“How many officers are here?” Noir asked.
“Twenty three. It’s the whole department, administrators and all.”
The shadows shifted across Noir’s face as he stood up. He turned around and held out his hoof like he had a gun. “I think there’s a better alternative. Bringing more guards into town will just make the Crystalites nervous.”
“Think we should build walls around his house? Maybe throw together some catapults and wait him out?”
Noir pointed his hoof at a cop outside. The office’s location in the center of the room gave him a clear view of the entire lobby. Fire welled up in his hoof. He swept his hoof from left to right, catching each officer as he want along. He imagined their surprise turning to horror, a split second of pure terror before the fire found them.
With only four officers left before the gunfire reached the other wall, Noir put his hoof down. “Keep the officers occupied until tomorrow morning. Plan something complicated.”
“You’ll get the guards, then?”
“Tomorrow morning, ride up in a big convoy. Make a lot of noise. Turn your sirens on all the way to Noir’s house. Block the place in and walk through the front door. Take Noir’s body out and rule it a suicide.”
Bats groaned and slapped the table. “You can’t keep doing this--”
“Watch it--”
“Sir, gods above, you can’t keep doing this, sir.” Bats jabbed his hoof at the officers outside the room. Most of them clustered together around a communal snack table, smiling and sharing jokes. A few stared worriedly into the office, their faces half hidden behind steaming cups of coffee. “This isn’t about you, this is about our jobs. They’ll put you in the mountain--”
“If they put me in the mountain, I know exactly who I’m gonna be sharing my cell with. For both our sakes, make tomorrow’s raid convincing.”
For the first time in McTough’s memory, Bats was silent. He had such a particular way of staring. The corners of his mouth were dead set, his jaw square, his ears perked but motionless. He had seen the look plenty of times when Bats was working. But McTough had never seen his eyes like this before. There had always been a visor. Now they trembled in the light. At him.
Bats held him there until his gaze was stolen away by the officers in the lobby, who by this time had run out of things to socialize about and had taken to staring at the two EQUIS agents in the office. McTough counted them again. Twenty three.
Finally, Bats broke his silence. “Listen, sir, we’re in this together. Agency’s looking for excuses to can old hacks like us. They don’t want war vets anymore. We depreciate faster. Don’t give them a reason to think we’re liabilities.”
“What has the agency ever done for us, anyway,” Noir muttered, his lips barely moving. One by one, from left to right, he locked eyes with the cops. A few averted their eyes. The rest just stared. It made him sweat. They could see into his eyes. He could feel it.
“That sounds like something Noir would say.” Bats reached across the table and hoofed the telephone receiver to Noir. “Call the guard. If they go in there and he shoots back, you’ll get what you want. If he gives up, he’s still going to jail.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I know he’s not bulletproof.” Bats gave him one final stare before exiting the room. The cops in the lobby snapped into their roles, and the whole place roared back to life. Somewhere in the tango of uniformed ponies, Bats slipped his visor on.
McTough leaned back on the table and stared out the window again. It shouldn’t have been this way. If it weren’t for Noir, it would have never been this way. He closed his eyes, and he was in his autocarriage again, driving towards the old Chicoltgo police station. He imagined the consistency of the air, how it felt as it slipped over his hoof. The carnage was behind him. The blood spoke where words could not. He turned on the radio and rolled down the other windows. He couldn’t possibly know his partner was racing back to the same police station, one hoof pinning a camerabag and a cutiemark concealing jacket to his side, the other three pumping madly through the streets, searching for his carriage in the dark. His eyes flashed left and right, then straight ahead. They trembled in the light.
He couldn’t possibly have known.