//------------------------------// // Comedy = Tragedy + Time // Story: Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Jack // by Estee //------------------------------// The bundle of chemicals crouched high in the shadowed rafters of what was no longer successfully passing as an abandoned dockside warehouse, and continued to wonder what its name was. The chemicals were vaguely aware that in the majority of cases, a name was something you didn't choose for yourself. It was also generally something people said upon seeing you and while that gave the chemicals a fair number of choices to work with, it somehow didn't feel that it was going to make a lot of progress during the loaned hours of its life if it went around introducing itself to potential friends as 'Mister Oh My God It's That Thing!' or 'Sir Keep Away Him Away From Me!' Handing out calling cards adorned with the smiling features of 'KILL IT!' definitely seemed to be in the realm of rather questionable taste. And so the chemicals, having no true name of its own, had been spending some time thinking about the problem, because a name seemed to be something it needed. It had thoughts and feelings to go with what it personally considered to be an incredible sense of humor and some rather dashing good looks, even if that last oddly didn't seem to be to everyone's taste. A name would just -- finish off the package. And so it thought about the matter whenever it got the chance (which wasn't often: most of its scant time was tied up with other things, and this had recently included tying things up), along with searching for inspiration and keeping its ears open, because there was always that off-chance that eventually, someone it was about to render into an unconscious sack of bad intentions would call it something good. For now, there was time to kill, right up until the moment there would be people to not-quite-kill. Shortly before arriving at the warehouse -- in fact, just a little bit before learning that the warehouse would be the best of all possible places to arrive -- the chemicals had made a brand-new acquaintance. This made it happy. The chemicals loved to meet new people and have long talks with them about the city, their perspective on the world and their place in it, plus did they happen to know where something interesting might be happening that evening? Admittedly, it was still trying to perfect the finer details of small talk, like the part where you tied your new acquaintance up in a manner which guaranteed he wouldn't be wriggling off to tell anyone about the meeting until long after there had been a chance to make more passing acquaintances. It felt itself to be developing quite the network of contacts, as the chemicals had been meeting a lot of people over the short course of its life. However, unless he saw fit to send them out into the field again once the injuries had healed, the majority had been once each, and for those who were his, none of them ever seemed happy to see it again. The chemicals guessed it could understand that. Really, when you were happy to see someone who beat you within (but never over) an inch of your life, there was probably something very wrong with you. And yet it was still disappointing. Painful, almost. It made the chemicals glad to have friends, because it felt it truly did, even if some of those friends really hadn't acknowledged that yet. And of course, there was nothing like having someone to love -- -- chains began to grind: someone giving the crank a signal from outside. The large front doors slowly began to open. Well, more time for thinking about names later, if it lived. (It would do its best to live, of course, for life was important, and loaned hours had to be paid back.) The chemicals glanced up at the skylight it had come in through, made sure there were no extra cracks of moonlight streaming down. Small details were also important. And then it listened. The van stopped, about fifty feet into the huge, not-quite-vacant floor. A near-silent transmission hissed, then dropped into its own form of temporary death as a bulky driver forced himself out, then walked around to the back doors. Two nearly-equally-heavy passengers came out from that side, and the chemicals briefly wondered how they'd all fit in there. Perhaps they knew each other well enough to share laps, although that would have left at least one with a gun sticking into a rather sensitive area. "Ready?" asked the driver. "Yeah," grumbled the more muscular of the passengers. "To unload. And... what are we doing after we unload, again?" The chemicals would have sighed if it hadn't known better. He didn't have all that many intelligent people working for him. There was probably a superiority complex at work. (The chemicals had been learning about complexes, since at least one new acquaintance had accused it of having every last one of them.) "Bleeding them," the driver said in a lightly exasperated tone. "Slowly. While we put the cooling stuff in." A nod to a large vat, right next to the gleaming surgical tables. "The doc should be here to take the organs by the time we're done. Better be. Should have been here already..." The chemicals, who knew the physician would be a little busy for the next few months with healing himself, might have laughed if it hadn't known the sound would give it away, and if its laugh hadn't been so -- special. But it didn't, because it had also spoken to that new acquaintance at length, which included the one of dropping that well-met party almost all the way off the building, and so it felt the other emotion starting to build again. "They're testing the organs now?" asked the slightly-smaller passenger. "For what?" "For whatever he can get out of them. After what we heard from the other place about the blood..." The chemicals were suddenly on very high alert. "Other... place?" The thug who was only three hundred and fifty pounds looked nervous. "I... don't like that place. Even if they can't get here, just hearing their voices... knowing what they are..." The driver looked -- sympathetic. Briefly. It reminded the chemicals that the driver was human. Somewhat. "Yeah. I know. But -- maybe we won't talk to them again. He's been trying for the last few days, and -- it won't connect. The boys say there's just been static. He doesn't know what's happened, and -- well, he ain't happy. So let's make him happy, okay? Get ready: I'm gonna open this." "...why wouldn't it connect?" asked the heavier and stupider, moving into position. "Maybe they broke their end. Or --" there should not have been a smile, and there was "-- maybe their end broke. Here we go..." The van's doors were flung open, and the thugs scrambled inside. Seconds later, the first of the pony children was dragged out. The chemicals watched, forcing borrowed lungs to work slowly as fur and mane colors, far too bright for this dingy warehouse, for this world, were led out under harsh electric pools of illumination and thin shafts of moonlight which brought no promise of protection with them. Ten foals in all, none old enough to have started into adolescence yet. Three had their horns covered in cones of thick metal, while two had been bound in such a way as to leave their wings locked into their sides and their legs barely able to shuffle. All had their snouts wrapped in muzzles, and yet soft, terrified neighs filled their part of the foreign night. Huge eyes stared at the men who were talking about the upcoming deaths with just as much caring as they might have discussed the swatting of a mosquito. Frantically twisting ears understood none of the words, and all of the intent. It's just what the doctor said. They're going to kill them. For science. For exploration and discovery and, oh, let's face it, it's all about finding profit and if there's none to be had, then grumble about the bills, bury the bodies, blame someone else for everything and never, ever care. But he didn't say it was on the advice of this -- 'other place'. How rude! After all we'd been through together. All the sweat. All the tears. All of it his. But why here? Why not wherever he brought them across, wherever that is? Is that a logical question to ask? A sane one? Better yet, is this the time to ask that question? It's certainly the place, or almost so. Maybe at slightly -- lower altitude. Ten foals. They were herded, with pushes and shoves and kicks against flanks. Some of those last were aimed at the marks. The thugs laughed at the ponies who could barely move, then yelled at them in words they didn't understand, cursing them for barely moving when they were the reasons for it -- and that was followed by more laughter. The thugs, the chemicals felt, did not truly understand comedy. And they weren't all that good at opportunity, either. Or rather, the avoidance of creating one for it, because after all ten of the foals had been herded towards the surgical tables and their ropes had been temporarily bound to improvised hitching posts, all three men went back to the van in order to close it up. The chemicals didn't understand why, as it only took one person to lock a door, especially if they used a remote for that too. Maybe they just wanted a few seconds where they were away from the desperate whinnies which indicated innocent lives about to end. The chemicals didn't understand why they'd done that. (It didn't understand a lot of things about people. It had questions. 'Why won't you stop screaming?' was frequently at the top of the list.) All it knew was that the temporary arrangement of all parties provided -- opportunity. It touched a special place on its belt. A tiny vial dropped into its hand. Bleach-white fingers moved. And you really couldn't say the thugs never knew what hit them, because as soon as the human-choking cloud of dark purple gas erupted from the shattered glass, they knew exactly what was about to hit them. "Oh God, no!" the driver screamed. God? The chemicals briefly considered that as it dropped down to ground level, which would have been a rather impressive thing to see for anyone who still could: legs weren't supposed to casually absorb a twenty-foot fall, and its -- well, that wasn't casual. The action actually stung quite a bit, and it automatically, silently apologized for what would be felt later. But still, the chemicals could do it. Which didn't make it God. As a potential name, 'God' struck it as being a little too egotistical. More suited for him, at least when it came to the ego. Fortunately, the implied power level was still just a little bit short. "Gentlemen!" the chemicals happily greeted the thugs who were stumbling around in the gas, barely able to see him, each other, anything -- but still reaching for weapons because they always did, they would fire off in all directions without caring and that just might hit each other, the foals, or the chemicals. Something not to allow, then. "What brings you out here at this hour? The sightseeing potential? The rental prices? The never-realized non-hipster irony of it all? Or did someone happen to mention the old carousel which he had taken out to make room for this place, and you just got entirely the wrong idea of pony rides?" The words were steady. The movements were not. The chemicals understood something about bobbing, weaving, moving ahead of the aim -- and it could see in the gas, where the thugs could not. It could breathe, for what it insisted was its true face had a few special tricks built in, although the chemicals felt it needed a few more standard ones around the mouth. And so as it spoke, it rushed through the cloud, brass knuckles already in place, and it hit and it kicked sensitive areas and it did any number of horrible things which really shouldn't happen to anyone who was good and therefore, the chemicals were glad they were all happening here. And of course, it did the worst thing of all, or so it had been told by all those who just hadn't appreciated the action. It laughed, because the thugs looked funny stumbling around in the dark. It laughed because the look on someone's face when they were about to solve all their problems with a gun and then had it fall from their hand after the pain from a just-broken wrist made them oddly clumsy -- well, that was just funny. You had to laugh, if you had any sense of humor at all. The thugs didn't, and the ones whose hands were still working had them automatically go over ears. This incidentally meant those hands weren't in a position to fire guns. The chemicals grinned. It often did. It couldn't help it, really. And it moved. It had to move quickly, and so it did. The chemicals could move faster than a normal human: an appreciable increase, although nothing really special when you understood what a few other people could do. It was somewhat stronger than it strictly should have been, more durable: additional side effects piled onto the one which was its entire life. But it could still get hurt. It wasn't bulletproof. (Its clothing was -- resistant. Or was supposed to be. It really didn't want to test that, especially as it might ruin the lines of the fine suit.) It also had many, more people-standard abilities built into its borrowed life, and the one it really didn't feel like testing was the one for bleeding out, no matter how special that blood might be, especially since that would actually be a double homicide -- -- it didn't move quickly enough. A short knife stabbed through the mist: switchblade. Its right wrist, one of the very few exposed areas and only when it was punching its hardest, was cut -- -- sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, I'll take care of that before I -- -- and blood sprayed out. Some of it went into the driver's eyes. He screamed. The humor of that bad luck made up for the pain. "Oh, I am sorry!" the chemicals apologized. "I know all your friends -- you do have those, right? -- might have told you about my acid tongue, and you might not have thought about the implications of that, because anyone who thought wouldn't still have this job..." The chemicals caught sight of the foals at one point. No bullets had been fired in that direction: none had been fired at all. The pegasi, it knew, could see the radiance of all their heat moving within the cloud: the others would have no way to know what was going on. But all of them were scared. They had been taken from their homes, stolen from their families and loved ones and world. And if the chemicals knew him -- and it felt it did, just a little -- at the moment before they were removed from Equestria for what was supposed to be the rest of their lives, the last seconds within the magic which allowed them to understand human speech, they would have been told they were going to die. They had every reason to be afraid, for the new world was something which held nothing but fear. However, that meant they were likely afraid of the chemicals too. The chemicals hated that. Fortunately, it knew a fix. It dropped another vial. The counteragent spread through the air, and the mist cleared. The chemicals stood over the fallen driver. Hard-heeled (but fashionable!) boots were currently crushing the fingers of the driver's left hand, because the knife was still there and really, a perfectly nice suit had been just ruined by bloodstains. Strange things happened to fabric when the chemicals began to borrow their hours, and it had been so hard to find something which would come up just the right shade of purple. A hue which got lost in the night. Which was a good thing, because the start of those hours also did odd things to skin, and that was not lost in the dark. It was the opposite of lost, and that was why the fashionable suit came with a hood. "You're breaking my hand!" the driver screamed. "Really? Well, one more thing to think about when you're considering stabbing someone," the chemicals shrugged. "The possibility of having your hand broken. Don't you think that if you really took a moment and considered the choices which led you to this point in what's oddly turned out to be your life, you might come to the understanding that this is all your fault? You stab someone and then bad things happen to your hand. Someone ties you to train tracks and strangely enough, your cause of death on the autopsy? It gets listed as 'heart attack.' Because you freaked out thinking about oncoming trains." It risked a quick glance back at the other two. They seemed to be out cold. It hoped they were truly out cold. The chemicals had learned a few things on its own, and one of the faster lessons was that people were a lot harder to render unconscious than the movies made things seem. (The chemicals had never seen a movie. It had something which almost approached memories of a few. It mostly knew movies existed, and that knowledge was as borrowed as the hours.) The thug was staring at it, or would have done so if he could still truly see. "It is not," the chemicals grouchily declared, "a perfect metaphor. If you have a better one, let's hear it." Ten foals, staring at the humans. And the chemicals. Especially the chemicals, because those who were terrified in a foreign land would latch onto anything even remotely familiar, and it had at least one minor viewing point to offer. "And my eyes..." "Oh, your eyes, your hand... fine, let's just make sure this movie's star is taken care of..." It grabbed the driver's wrists, dragged him over to the surgical tables, past the staring foals. "Now let's see... working to preserve organs, which means some truly nasty stuff around, and that should indicate -- yes, here we are! Eye wash station!" It got the man more or less upright, made sure the swollen orbs were fully splashed. "Honestly, your own tears would have done it in a few hours, but someone of your size who makes a living through slaughtering children just can't take a little pain --" The chemicals bounced the driver's head off the edge of the sink. The man screamed. "-- because those who can't take, teach." The chemicals frowned. "Those who can take, teach? Those who..." It raised an inquiring, hopeful finger. "...suggestions from the studio audience, please..." "You're -- you're crazy --" Bounce. Bounce. "You kill children," it quietly said. "But I'm crazy. I suppose you feel the difference is that you're getting paid for it. In cash." Admittedly, the chemicals were also paid. In time. Hours, minutes, fleeting seconds of life. "Why here? Why were you going to kill them here? Why not where he's bringing them across?" "I -- I can't --" Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Ten tails were now bobbing to the rhythm. "...decentralized," the driver gasped when he could speak again and most of the teeth had been spit into the sink. "Can't... keep the entire operation in one place. That's what he says. Trying to spread out..." "Very wise," the chemicals decided, because time could always be spared to say something nice, even about him. "And where is the transfer point?" Another glob of blood landed in the sink, along with part of a bicuspid. "...I can't." "Maybe you should." "You..." The driver swallowed what was left of his courage. The chemicals wondered if it made for a nourishing meal, especially as it never seemed to supply any calories to the brain. "...I've heard about you --" "-- have you!" The chemicals brightened. "Anything interesting? Any gossip making the all-ears, no-brain circuit? Was there perhaps something about a name --" "-- you won't kill me." Its posture sagged a bit, as the foals huddled closer together. As much as the horrible ropes and bindings would allow. "No," the chemicals eventually said. "I won't." "And..." The driver forced his head around, and the chemicals allowed that to happen. Reddened eyes focused, offered their only possible plea. "...he won't kill... won't kill me.... The chemicals sighed. "No," it agreed. "He won't." Bouncing occurred. Once it was over, the chemicals took a few minutes for mop-up work. The thugs had to be verified as still being completely unconscious, and then they needed to be bound. (It was getting good at that last part. It sometimes became overenthusiastic. It had recently taken out one of his in a hospital and, upon seeing all the bandages it could work with, had just about created a mummy. It wasn't sure how it knew what one of those was.) Then there was the matter of yet another burner phone, which would be left behind in its wake: it never got more than one call out of the things and mostly asked for selection based on color. The call itself... well, the police would come. And before it had met one of his new friends, depending on the current bribe level of the squad which actually showed up, their first duty would have probably been either apologizing to the wounded or asking what charges they wanted to press. But these nights... "Hey! Guess who! Well, it's not as if you have to guess. Or maybe you do, since you can't set me up with a recognized number. Or name to appear when that number calls. By the way, speaking of -- oh? Right. Dockside. Number forty-seven on Sprang. Can't miss it. It's the warehouse with three of his waiting to make bail. Please make them wait a while. Wife okay? How's the girl -- oh." It looked at the foals. They stared back. Legs and wings were still stretching out from where it had removed the ropes, because it was going to do that anyway and as long as it was tying the thugs up, might as well try out some irony. Not to the point of bleeding them out and saving their organs (although a trio of never-used brains probably had some value on the open market), but it appreciated the mini-joke. However, none of the muzzles had fit. At least, not over their faces. "He hung up," the chemicals sighed. "Disconnected, really. No one hangs up any more. I'm not even sure what that means. But whatever it is, he usually does it. And yes, I know you can't understand me." Its tones softened. Gestures emerged: slow, graceful weaving of talented borrowed hands. "Also that you couldn't understand that. Not yet. But you haven't run. Maybe because it's the whole world is strange and you don't feel like you have anywhere to go. I understand that. Every night, for the nights I have. Or maybe it's because -- some part of you knows? Why I'm here?" One of the little unicorns took a tiny step forward. She sniffed the air. Nickered. "So," the chemicals gently said. "Shall we?" One more vial. Not the most special. But as unexpected gas clouds went... it was deep blue, and billowing. It smelled like -- well, the chemicals weren't sure: it never scented much of anything. The price of its face. It never really got to eat, either. But judging by the way the ponies were taking deep, wonder-filled breaths, it had to smell pretty good. It took its time about filling the little area. Too much time, in some ways. A friend had timed the process: twenty seconds to reach their limits, and then nearly a full minute for transition. The trip back was faster, but -- almost eighty seconds total, which made it just about impossible to drop into a group of kidnapped foals and simply get them out. Nearly eighty seconds of shots fired and knives slashed out and... It had to take care of that arm, before the loan ran out. That was part of the promise. Part of the love. Nearly eighty seconds, and then the gas dispersed, leaving the chemicals and foals atop a Sun-lit hill in a green land. It could see buildings in the distance. Help was close. Families were nearby... "Welcome home," it said. All of the foals, already near-capering in place at the sights and sounds of the familiar, trying to find a way past the disbelief, realizing they'd been saved -- they turned, at the sound of words they could finally understand. Stared at it, with the nature of that stare slightly changed. The little unicorn filly looked up at the chemicals. It knelt down in front of her, to make things easier, and she slowly, slowly approached. Brought a shivering foreleg up, and it bent forward to meet the touch. "I... I really like your mane," she whispered, running her hoof through green hair. The chemicals smiled. "Thank you." Really, it couldn't help that. At all.