Phillip opened up the envelope and shook the contents out onto his experiment table. A single metal tin of breath mints, the label torn off long ago, tumbled onto the table.
“Now, let’s see,” he breathed, reaching over and placing the needle of the phonograph into the spinning record. The record hissed and crackled, then a slow clarinet began to play. Phillip swung the standing magnifying glass over and adjusted the focus to study the tin.
“Looks like some of the label is still there,” he muttered, leaning down closer. “Bit of a red border...Neightoids breath mints, possibly.” He turned the tin over. “Tag on bottom...price tag. Most of it’s gone...red marker, two and something bits. Could try to find out where it was bought.”
“You really plan on...what, checking every store and comparing price tags?” Daring commented, sitting at the smaller writing table opposite him.
“Will have to narrow it down,” Phillip commented, opening the tin up and studying the dozen cigarettes placed neatly inside.
Daring snorted. “Kind of a crazy plan,” she commented, turning back to the typewriter and placing her hooves on the keys, tapping away rhythmically.
“As crazy as cutting your foreleg based on an ancient legend?” Phillip commented with a small smile.
Daring glanced down at her foreleg, any sign of the injury long erased by Twilight, and allowed herself to grin. “Fair point.”
“Hoof rolled,” Phillip noted as he carefully undid one of the cigarettes and unrolled it, exposing the silverleaf paper and wads of heavily perfumed tobacco. He gently scraped the tobacco into a plastic dish so he could study the paper.
“Manufacturer’s markings in the paper,” he commented, turning and walking over to the bookshelf. He pulled out an encyclopedia and started flipping through it, eyes darting back and forth between the book and the alpha, omega, and star symbols embossed into the paper.
“Here,” he finally declared, hoof settling on a single page. “A&O Printing in Trottingham. Will send them a letter later, ask for deliveries. G’day, what’s that?”
He adjusted the magnifying glass, focusing on a small discoloration on the outside of the rolling paper. Placing the paper on a microscope slide, Phillip bent over and pressed his eye to the scope.
“That’s a bit of brown paper,” he commented, plucking at the tiny scrap of paper with a pair of tweezers.
“Could be from the original package,” Daring commented as the typewriter dinged. She moved the paper up a line and reset the carriage.
“No, they come in cardboard,” Phillip stated, studying the tiny scrap, barely larger than an ant, under close magnification. “Somepony wrapped it in brown paper after collecting it.”
“Why would they do that?” Daring asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“A disguise, I suppose,” Phillip stated. “If a pony figured out that Zugzwang was using this paper in his cigs, they could track and follow the package. Ah, aces, there’s some dirt on it.” He filled a small plastic tub with distilled water and dropped the paper sample inside it.
“Still working on your story?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Daring replied, pausing to consider the sentence she’d just typed down. “Hmm...should Compass Rose rescue the stallion in distress from piranhas or jaguars?”
Phillip raised an eyebrow with a small smirk. “Jaguars. And you sure about not publishing this?”
“Well…” Daring hesitated, her hooves hovering over the keys. “I haven’t really been looking for a publisher, but I’ve been...kinda thinking about it. I only really started writing it when I was laid up in the hospital out of boredom, but now...” She looked down upon the sizeable stack of typed papers next to her. “I have to admit, it’s kind of fun.”
“I really think you should,” Phillip said, turning back to his work. He ran the water through a sieve and started scraping the soil and mineral samples onto another dish, which he then replaced under the microscope. He rummaged around in a drawer and produced a thick green notebook; flipping it open revealed that every page was filled with scrawling hoofwriting, notes crammed into the margins, and shorthoof markings next to sections of a city road map.
For half an hour, he worked in silence, the music of the phonograph mixing with the clacking, clicking and dinging of the typewriter as Daring typed away.
“Okay,” Phillip nodded. “Soil’s from the Industrial District, near the southwest border. Must’ve dropped it on the ground at some point. That should narrow it down.”
He then turned to the tobacco and began sifting through it with a long metal scoop, sniffing at the mix of scents and herbs.
“Saddle Arabian tobacco...with vanilla, chocolate, and…” He sniffed deeply. “What is that?” He separated a few small clumps of pale white-yellow particles from the tobacco and placed them in a rack of test tubes. He then started to add chemicals and potions from various containers and jars to the test tubes, the jars clinking musically as he picked each up one at a time.
The reactions were wide and varied. One tube, originally filled with a watery blue liquid, turned a dark orange within moments. Another started bubbling and turned the color of urine, and a third crystallized into snowy white powder.
“Ah. Honeysap drops,” Phillip nodded. “That’s a rare ingredient; bloody expensive.” He took out a brown notebook and started flipping through it; each page had a small plastic bag with a little pinch of tobacco in it, accompanied by notes on composition, flavor, and scent.
“Aha,” Phillip finally declared, stopping at a page towards the back. “Dhahabi tobacco.” He let out a snort. “Fifteen bits per gram, crikey. Helps that Zugzwang has expensive tastes.”
He continued examining the cigarettes, his remarks trickling down only to occasional grunts or one-word comments and questions. The record ended and he paused briefly to flip it to the other side; Daring ran out of paper, paused to take a smoke break and watch the stars from the back porch, and got a new sheaf of paper while he remained at the experiment table, hunched over the evidence.
“G’day,” Phillip suddenly muttered, adjusting the magnification of the microscope as he studied the contents of the second to last cigarette. “Is that... hair?”
After some careful sifting and prodding, he finally separated the tiny fiber from the tobacco. “Yup, that’s a hair,” he nodded. “Definitely pony...light blue. Looks like stubble, so from a male. Probably fell in the tobacco when he transferred it from the original package. Suunkii should be able to find out more.”
He paused, then yawned loudly. “What time is it?” he wondered out loud.
Daring looked over at the clock on the wall and blinked. “Holy shit, it’s almost midnight.”
“Crikey, no wonder I’m stuffed,” Phillip said, rubbing his face. “Right, I'll write some letters for Dhahabi and A&O, then it’s bedtime.”
“One more page?” Daring asked, pouting and giving him wide eyes.
Phillip stared at her for a bit, then rolled his eyes with an indulgent smile. “One more page.”
The morning dawned with a cool gray spreading across the morning sky, a thin layer of clouds refracting the sunlight.
Phillip and Daring were laying in bed, Phil’s arms wrapped loosely around Daring’s barrel; their soft snores mixed together in quiet music.
The music was suddenly interrupted by a murmur from Daring as she twitched in her sleep, face creasing in a deep frown. She was still for a few moments, then twitched again. Soft mumbles, the distress clear in every syllable, began to flow out of her mouth in a stuttering river.
Roused by her movements, Phillip blearily opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times, looking down at the mare. “Daring?” he groaned.
“Sparks…” Daring whispered, shivering and clutching the pillow. “Sparks...don’t go…”
Phil firmly grasped Daring’s shoulder and shook her. “Daring, wake up. You’re dreaming.”
A moment later, an elbow crashed into his cheek as Daring woke up with a gasp and a jolt like she’d just been shocked, instinctively lashing out at his touch. He yelped and jerked backward, tumbling off of the bed in a heap of tangled sheets and limbs.
“Phil?” Daring cried, leaning over the bed. “I’m so sorry, I was—”
“It’s—ow—okay,” Phillip grunted, untangling himself and rubbing his jaw. “You were having a dream. You alright?”
Daring looked down and blinked, her eyes glittering faintly with tears. “I shouldn’t have left her…” she muttered, staring down at her right hoof, the hoof marked with the cursed brand shaped roughly like a ring of keys that marked her and Bright Sparks as a member of the Family, as a thief and killer. “None of this would’ve happened if I’d taken her with me…”
Phillip sat up and grasped her hoof with both of his. “It’s not your fault, Daring,” he reassured her, gently rubbing her limb. “She made her own choices; Scarlet tricked and corrupted her.”
“There has to be some good left in her,” Daring stood up and climbed off the bed.
“Are you sure?” Phillip asked. “I can’t ask anypony else to put themselves at risk for her.”
“You can’t,” Daring replied, scowling at him. “But you don’t have to. She’s my sister; I’ll take that risk. Besides, you took that risk for me,” she snapped, thrusting her right hoof at him, forcing him to look at the rough burns.
Phillip closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment, silently pondering his words, before finally looking up with a sigh. “I understand,” he nodded. “And whatever you choose, I’m right there with you.”
She smiled feebly and pressed her forehead against his. “Thanks.”
He nuzzled her and gently kissed her on the lips, holding her hoof. “It’s what I’m here for.”
Their growling stomachs quickly forced them downstairs to begin breakfast. As they were preparing toast and hash browns, the telephone rang.
“Finder and Do,” Phillip said into the phone.
“Hey, hey, yeah. It’s Vinny, how you doing?” a voice said from the other end.
It took Phillip a couple of seconds to recognize the voice of Vinny Gamble, the attorney who had helped him last winter. “G’day, Vinny. What’s up?”
“I, uh, I got some bad news for you,” Vinny sighed. “I assume you remember Gear Shift?”
“Yeah,” Phillip said, his stomach clenching slightly as a shiver of premonition washed down his spine. Daring looked up from her hash browns.
“Well, I was hired as his defense attorney while he was making a deal. See, he was gonna talk about his gang and everything, but, um…” Vinny sighed. “He was killed last night. Somepony stuck a razor in his throat while he was sleeping.”
Phillip sighed, deflating like a balloon that somepony had untied. “Dammit. Do they know who?”
“Your buddy Red is working on it now,” Vinny explained. “I’m gonna be meeting with the DA to see what we can do with what information he gave before he, uh, kicked the can. It’s not that much: I’m guessing that he didn’t want to talk too much before he had a deal made. But he did mention Scarlet Letter a couple times. We might be able to build something off of that, so, hey, not a total loss.”
“It’ll have to be good to get past her lawyers,” Phillip replied. “Keep us posted.”
“Hey, I will. Vinny keeps his word,” Vinny said. “Talk later!”
Phillip hung up with a sigh, mopping his face with a hoof. “What happened?” Daring asked.
“Gear Shift is dead,” Phillip reported.
A scowl crossed Daring’s face and she slammed a hoof down on the table with a crash. “Dammit!”
“He’s given us something to go on,” Phillip assured her. “We build up the case against Scarlet, bit by bit. Her days are numbered, just like Silvertongue and Monopoly.”
Daring scowled even more, letting out a huff through her nostrils. “Maybe I should go out and…”
“Daring,” Phillip interrupted. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. It’ll just get you into trouble.”
Daring looked down at the cursed brand and sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Dammit,” she muttered again.
The telephone rang again and Phillip raised the receiver to his ear. “Finder and Do.”
“One-fifty-nine Oak Tree Road,” Night Waltz’s voice whispered from the other end. “This better not come back to me.” And with that, he hung up with a sharp click.
Phillip hung up as well, his face settling into a neutral mask. “We have an address.”
One-fifty-nine Oak Tree Road stood near the end of a long, winding street that was covered in so many potholes, it looked like the no-pony’s-land between two trenches following a vicious artillery battle. Trees that gave the street its name lined both sides of the road, the leaves on the groaning branches so thick that parts of the sidewalk were covered in night-like darkness.
The house itself stood in the shadow of a trio of massive trees that cast the brown two-story cottage in darkness. The flickering neon lights of a House of Tongs stood to the west across from a tall brown fence and a side street, a few ponies wandering in and out the glass door. From the north came the dinging of a trolley bell and a clattering of heavy wheels as it pulled into the stop.
Dressed in her floppy sun hat and dress, Daring wandered past the house, studying it from out of the corner of her eye. The front door was shadowed beneath the roof of an enclosed porch. A unicorn mare sat on a wicker-back chair on the porch; her eyes were shaded beneath the Ponyville Manticores cap she wore, but Daring could feel her gaze following her. Even from this far away, Daring could see the stock of a shotgun poking out from the bag laying on the floor next to the mare, and the walkie-talkie on the table next to her, standing up next to the mostly empty cup and saucer.
As Daring watched, a jack trotted out the front door with a steaming cup and saucer gently held in his mouth; Daring’s eyes went right to the distinctive bulge beneath the coat he wore even in the approaching summer haze. He placed it on the table next to the mare with a shy smile, which she returned with an appreciative look. He said something quietly, and the unicorn laughed softly.
Daring turned her attention to the other windows, every one covered by a curtain. In each one, she spotted a snake-like wire reaching up to a small circular knob. Repeller alarms in each window; they’ll shock us if we try to break the window or open it from the outside, she mentally noted as she passed.
She pulled out her hoof mirror as she walked by and pretended to check her makeup, studying the reflection of the western side of the house. The oak trees stood sentinel along the perimeter of the neighbor’s house (which, judging by the newspapers scattered across the lawn, was empty), another section of fencing standing between the trees and the target cottage. Could use that for cover, Daring considered.
She paused and waited for a minute, then walked back at the same pace, keeping her eyes forward. As she walked past again, Daring’s eyes spotted a faint circular outline etched into the ground around the house; a few sections of sand were brushed away to reveal a thin metal layer poured into a trench. Extending a wing out slightly from beneath her dress, she realized that she could feel a faint, tingling numbness across her feather as she passed.
Anti-flight charms, she scowled. Okay, that makes things harder.
The mare on the porch frowned at her as she walked past. Catching her eye, Daring gave her a friendly smile and a nod, but the guard did not acknowledge the gesture.
Daring walked around the corner to the western side of the house, pressing her back against the privacy fence. Phillip was waiting for her, crouching against the wall and using his own hoof mirror to look over the top of the fence.
“That’s the window where Professor Tome was,” he stated, studying the reflection in the mirror. Daring studied the reflection as well, eyes on the top left window.
“I don’t see any sign of Tome in there,” Phillip stated.
“Even if he was moved, there might be some clues in there,” Daring said.
“Question is how to get inside,” Phillip muttered.
As she watched, a figure moved from within. A moment later, the window opened and a young earth stallion with a messy red mane leaned out of the window, mopping his face.
“Stupid fucking air conditioner,” the two ponies heard him muttering as he turned away. “We’ve got budget for all that gear, and can’t fix that thing?’
“That could be our way in,” Daring whispered.
“We should get police first,” Phillip stated. “Keep this above board.”
Daring scowled. “I’m going to keep saying it: times like this, being good sucks. I could just get in there and snoop around for a bit…”
“Do you know how many ponies are in there?” Phillip replied. “It could go arseways in an instant, and they could just as easily call the police on you. You wanna go back to a cell?”
Daring growled. “And I hate when you’re right,” she muttered.
Phillip’s ear twitched. “Hang on, there’s a phone ringing in there.”
He stood up straight and closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. He forgot the concrete beneath his hooves, forgot the warm air that ran through his tail and the weight of his vest pressing down on his back. He forgot everything except for the sound of the speech filtering through the open window.
“Yeah, we’ve still got him,” the male’s voice was saying. “He still says he knows nothing about Lazarus…” There was a long pause. “Are you sure?” the stallion asked in a quieter tone. A longer pause, then a quiet grunt of resolution.
“Okay. We’ll get him cleaned up.” There was the click of a receiver and then a sound that made Phillip’s eyes fly wide open. The distinctive cli-click of a slide being racked.
“Change of plan!” Phillip declared, jumping up and vaulting the fence. “They’re going to kill Tome!”
In a single gesture, Daring swept off her disguise, revealing her cargo shirt and pith helmet. “Boost me up to the window!” she shouted, surmounting the fence in a single bound.
The two sprinted up to the western wall, Daring flinching slightly as the cold numbness of the anti-flight spell washed over her wings; nopony seemed to notice or attempt to stop their approach. Phillip stopped beneath the window and crouched down, tightening his muscles. Daring leaped onto his back, then pressed off against his head and sprang for the window, grasping the ledge. She hoisted herself up and pushed her head through the curtains.
The room inside was the same as when they’d seen it through Tome’s eyes, the same bed and bed stand, but there was nopony inside. Daring pulled herself through the window, panting in the sudden heat of the enclosed room.
Outside, Phillip took a few paces back from the wall, then sprinted at it, climbing up the wall in a couple of steps. He seized the window ledge and hauled himself through, landing softly.
Daring trotted over to the door and shoved it open. They found themselves standing in a narrow hallway. In front of them was a table with a telephone sitting atop it; to their left was a stairway landing. The red-haired pony from before was leaning against the railing of the landing, mopping his sweaty face.
He looked up as they entered the hallway, and his blue eyes widened in shock and fear. “Oh, shit, it’s Find—!”
His cry was cut off as Daring crashed into him as fast as lightning, hoof impacting against his jaw. He stumbled, grasping at the railing to try to keep himself up, but Daring’s elbow crashed down on the back of his head, knocking him out.
The front door burst open and the jack and the unicorn mare burst inside, guns drawn, but Daring had already thrown a smoke bomb towards the door. The little sphere impacted against the ground and detonated in a burst of fire and smoke; the guards staggered, coughing and choking. Phillip pounced from the second floor, landing atop the mare’s back; she was crushed to the floor with a wheeze of pain, eyes bulging as she gasped for air.
Roaring with fury, the jack smashed into Phillip, ramming into his stomach. Grunting in shock, Phillip rolled backward across the floor and popped back to his hooves as he flicked his wrist. A shrill whistle pierced the air and his boomerang crashed into his target’s wrist. A snap of bone mixed with a cry of pain and the clattering of the pistol tumbling to the floor.
Closing the distance with a forward somersault and catching the boomerang as it returned, Phillip swung his baton upward, the impact of his trademark weapon crashing into the guard’s chin shuddering down his foreleg. The jack spun away, teeth and blood flying, and crashed to the floor, landing atop the mare and pinning her to the floor again. She coughed and wheezed, trying and failing to push the jack off her.
Phillip dashed over and pinned her head to the floor with a hoof, where she squirmed helplessly like a bug on a tack.
“Where’s Tome?” Phillip growled.
“Go to hell!” the mare snarled, her horn sparking like a lighter.
Before she could cast her spell, Phillip brought his hoof down like a jackhammer next to the mare’s skull, the impact crashing like a thunderbolt and sending a small splinter of wood flying off the ground. The mare yelped, flinching away from the strike. “Downstairs!” she cried, eyes clenched shut. “In the basement! There are two guards!”
“Thanks,” Phillip nodded and knocked her out with a single blow to the temple.
He and Daring quickly located the basement stairs in the back of the house and descended the narrow stairway to the second landing, dimly lit by a flickering bulb. Pausing at the landing, they pressed their backs against the wall and paused to listen.
“I know you’re there!” a male voice called from below, every syllable marked by heavy pants; the same voice that Phillip had heard on the phone. “You come any closer and I’ll blow your brains out!”
Smirking, Daring readied a smoke bomb, watching the lightbulb’s flickering. As the light flickered out, Daring tossed the bomb around the corner of the wall. It impacted with a sharp crack like a muffled musket shot, and then there came the sound of startled coughing and hacking.
Rounding the corner with a flap of wings, Daring charged forward. The bottom of the stairs led to another hallway, bordered by walls on both sides. A pegasus stallion stood in the smoke-shrouded hallway, staggering and wiping his eyes. A large revolver was clutched in his hoof, aimed down towards the stairway.
“Watch it, Phil!” Daring warned as she dived, chest scraping against the concrete as she flew, wings tucked in tight to allow her to glide across the narrow pathway. The gun barked and a bullet zipped over her head in a blind shot; a moment later, her forelegs crashed against the pegasus’ knees and he sprawled over her in a tumble of limbs, grunting and cursing in surprise. Bracing against the cold concrete floor, Daring bucked backward, her hooves hammering into his chest; ribs crushed and broke beneath her blow, and the breath whooshed out of her foe, leaving him lying stunned on the ground as Phillip rushed up.
The doorway to the left was slightly ajar and light came from within, along with scuffling and muffled struggling. “Help!” a male voice called from within. “Help me!”
“Shut up!” another voice barked; Daring and Phil both recognized the grunting of the green earth pony that they’d seen using the Ring. “I know it’s you, Finder and Do!” the voice called, high pitched with terror. “You come in here and this old bastard is dead! You hear me?!”
“You think this is gonna end well for you?” Daring shouted through the door as Phillip crouched down by the doorjamb, extracting his hoof mirror and carefully pushing it through the cracked door.
The room inside was small and bare save for a cot in the corner and a bucket. Two ponies were backed up against a side wall, just barely in his view. One was Professor Tome, his coat filthy and pale, sweat dripping down his face. The green earth pony with the Cerberus tattoo had seized him in a chokehold, his back pressed against the wall. A .50 Filly M1912 was pressed against the professor’s head.
Phillip looked up and noticed another padlocked door further down the hallway, leading to a room that would be right behind the wall that the hostage taker was using for cover. He pointed to the padlock. Daring nodded and extracted her lockpicks from the hidden pocket, selecting the finest tipped picks and inserting them into the lock.
“There’s no way out of this, bogan,” Phillip called through the doorway, continuing to watch the hostage-taker through his hoof mirror. “You’re trapped, and police are on their way by now. Just give up!”
“Not a fucking chance, flathoof!” the Cerberus mercenary barked, the tip of his gun shivering as he tightened his chokehold on the professor. The unicorn gasped and flailed helplessly, tears leaking from his eyes.
There was a click as Daring opened the padlock. “Keep him busy,” Phillip growled to Daring as he proceeded to the second door. Inside was a storage room with stacks of boxes, a couple of which appeared to be full of guns. Phillip proceeded along the wall on silent hooves, breathing slowly and evenly.
“Hey, asshole, you think one gun’s gonna stop all of us?” Daring shouted as Phillip entered the second room. “We just carved through four of your buddies; how long do you think you’re gonna last?”
“Fuck off!” the stallion cried, his voice rising another half-octave in terror. “Just fuck off or I’ll blow—!”
On the other side of the wall, Phillip heard his voice and lined up his shot. He inhaled, winding up, and then lunged forward. His hooves crashed through the thin drywall, dust billowing from the fresh holes, and his body followed through the wall as he seized the stallion’s hooves, yanking hard. The stallion cried out in terror, the gun barking loudly and bullets thudding into the ceiling; Professor Tome dived to the ground and curled up into a ball, covering his head.
Phillip squeezed hard and the Cerberus mercenary screeched in agony as his wrist was crushed like a soda can. Yanking the gun off of his enemy’s foreleg, Phillip spun him around by the shoulders and grabbed his throat, slamming the kidnapper against the wall.
“No, no!” the stallion cried, hooves scrabbling as he desperately and futilely tried to shove Phillip off him, spittle and sweat spilling off his mouth. “No, please—!”
Phillip growled and drove his elbow into the pony’s temple. He went still as fast as a switch being thrown and slowly slid down the wall and spilled into a heap on the floor, groaning. Panting, Phillip glared down at the scum before him for a moment, then turned away with a grunt.
Daring entered and crouched down over Professor Tome, laying a hoof on his trembling shoulder. The stallion looked up at her, his green eyes shining.
“It’s okay, professor,” Daring reassured him. “We’re going to get you home.”
“The Ring…” the professor gasped. “It worked?”
Daring nodded with a smile and took the High Priest’s Ring of H’eylr out from her pocket, holding it close for him to examine. His eyes widened in awe as he studied the eye-shaped jewels.
“And some ponies say learning history is pointless,” Daring chuckled.