Seasaddle’s docks were a tangle of steel and ships. Massive overhead cranes shifted steel containers the size of small houses from one cargo ship to the next. Like all great advances in technology, no one could agree on a standard, and from where she was perched on top of one of the cranes, Loopy could see a half-dozen different types of container, each of them requiring its own specialized hook and rigging to move safely.
“I can’t see anything,” she complained. The radio in the armored cowl crackled to life.
“Try switching the image mode,” Lyra suggested.
Loopy hesitated. “How do I do that?”
“There should be a touch panel. Try tapping it, uh…” Loopy heard papers shifting around on the open radio line. “On your right temple?”
“Like this?” Loopy asked. She touched the helmet, and everything brightened up. “Oh, hey, that worked!”
“Great,” Bon-Bon said. “Can you make out the police from up there?”
“Yeah. They’re closing in.” The Seasaddle PD were well-trained. They’d silently formed a perimeter and cut off almost every avenue of escape. No sirens, no bullhorns announcing their arrival. They moved more like a military unit than a civilian force. "We've got maybe two minutes."
As for the unlucky ponies they were closing in on, there were only four of them. They’d pried open one of the shipping containers and were tossing things aside, obviously looking for something in particular.
“This should be an easy job,” Bon-Bon said. “Just drop in there before the police spring their trap. With that suit, it should be foal’s play.”
“Why is SMILE so interested in a robbery?” Loopy asked.
“The way the SPD is handling this is strange,” Bon-Bon said. “My superior thinks it needs to be looked into. They’re attacking with overwhelming force, and a lot of the paperwork that they should have filed has been classified for public safety reasons, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Let’s find out,” Loopy said. She activated the suit’s wings. Fog sputtered out of the generator on her back. She frowned and tried again. The hoofblades on her rear hooves popped into place, scraping on the steel truss she was clinging to.
The third time was the charm, the cape going rigid and turning into a flying wing like a hang glider. Loopy kicked off, letting the storm winds catch her as she flew towards the robbers.
“I am never going to figure out this suit,” Loopy said.
“Sorry,” Lyra said. “I’m doing what I can with the notes I have. I’ve never been magical tech support before!”
Loopy grunted and twisted in the air, going into a dive. She was going to have to hurry to beat the police to the punch. The criminals didn’t see her coming. Instead of aiming for any of them, she went for the case they were carrying, slamming into it and letting the impact take it out of their hooves. The two ponies carrying it cried out in alarm, one of them going down and staying down, writhing on the ground.
“You should have been lifting with your legs, not your back,” Mare Do Well rasped. Or at least Loopy tried to rasp. The cowl’s voice changer was on the wrong setting, and she sounded like a filly who’d taken a deep breath of helium.
“Idiot! You almost killed all of us!” shouted a pony from the shadows, one of the two who had been watching instead of working. Orange lines of light like a spider web or city streets appeared around their head, a lion’s mane of strange magic.
“If you surrender, I promise none of you will get hurt,” Mare Do Well said.
“You’re the one who’s going to get hurt,” the glowing pony said. She stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing all white, tight latex and plastic in an outfit somewhere between a lab coat and a ballerina’s bodysuit. A collar around her neck and bracers around all four hooves glowed with runes and more of the odd orange lines, the collar projecting them into the air.
“Try this on for size,” Mare Do Well said, raising a hoof and launching a net at her. It actually worked on the first try, which surprised her more than her opponent.
The orange lines around the pony’s neck lengthened, twisting through the air and taking sharp corners, grabbing the net in mid-air and holding it tight. After a moment, another line joined them like a rapier stabbing through the tangle, hitting the floating net and burning it away.
“What?” Loopy had never seen magic like that, and she’d seen a lot of strange magic. The pony in white looked like an earth pony -- it had to be some kind of trick, like the armor she was wearing.
“You two, take care of the sample!” the strange pony shouted. “I’ll handle this annoying distraction. And don’t break anything! I need it intact!”
“I’m not letting you take that anywhere,” Loopy said, finally getting the voice changer under control. “If you really care about not breaking it, surrender.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ll be doing that,” the mare said. She tapped her front hooves together, and lines of orange light snapped along the ground, twisting along invisible corners towards Mare Do Well before lunging off the concrete and striking like a viper. Loopy jumped off the container, barely avoiding the strange spell and with absolutely no desire to find out what it would have done to her.
She landed hard, stumbling. When she tried to catch herself, something in the suit pushed back. It was like a pony trying to help her steady herself and getting it exactly wrong, overcorrecting and tossing her forward without even a moment to prepare herself.
The pony in white raised a forehoof and lines formed in the air around it before twisting together in a buzzing, rushing mass, like a glowing orange chainsaw.
Mare Do Well raised a hoof in reflexive alarm, trying to block the attack. The biting chainblade came down on her armored forehoof, digging into the hoofblades, chipping away at them and starting to slice into the armor itself after only seconds.
“You don’t have any idea what you’re doing,” the mare said. “You’re a foal playing with toys she doesn’t understand!”
“More like I’m too old for this,” Mare Do Well growled. “Let me guess, you’re going to make a speech about how you’re an unappreciated genius and you’re going to make them all pay?”
“I suppose it isn’t original,” the mare said. “But it’s honest. Sometimes the best results come from refining an idea, not reinventing the wheel!” She leaned into her attack, and the blade on Loopy’s gauntlet finally shattered. She twisted away before it could cut deeper, ducking back and forcing herself to stay in control and not let the armor push her around.
“So what do you call yourself? Cut master? Slicer?”
“Just call me Spellchecker,” she said.
Before they could banter more, spotlights snapped on.
“This is the Seasaddle Police Department! Drop your weapons and get down on the ground!” echoed a voice across the docks.
“I thought I’d have more time…” Spellchecker and Mare Do Well said, at the same time. They looked at each other.
“I guess I don’t have more time to play around with you. Sorry, boys, can’t take it all with me.” She stomped her rear hooves and a circle formed around her, thick lines filling in quickly before small, intricate details started weaving between them.
“What are you--” was all Mare Do Well had time to say before the air distorted and Spellchecker vanished in a flash of light and a boom of inrushing air. “Oh. Teleporting. Great.”
“I said drop your weapons!” the police shouted, as they rushed in. Loopy sighed as they surrounded her and the thugs.
“I’m technically with SMILE,” she said. “You can check with your superiors.”
“We know who you are.” A mare in a trenchcoat stormed up to her. “You’re the mare who just bungled a major operation and let the perp get away!”
“I’d love to refute that. At least they didn’t get what they were after?” Loopy motioned to the box.
“If they’d gotten that, we wouldn’t be having this nice conversation,” the mare said.
“What’s in the box, anyway?” Loopy asked, watching two ponies in sealed plastic suits, the kind one might wear to, say, a toxic landfill, run up to the steel box and check it for damage. They whispered to each other, and she could just make out the company logo on their gear. A star inside two rings. She tried to activate the hearing enhancements in the cowl, and the spotlight on her chest popped on, right in the police mare’s face.
“Gah!” She yelled, rubbing her eyes.
“Sorry, uh, new suit. I’m still figuring it out,” Loopy said.
“Figure it out somewhere else!” the mare snapped. “Get off my crime scene!”
“That was a disaster!” Loopy snapped, trying to dramatically tear off the costume’s cowl and failing.
“Hold on,” Lyra said, running over to help. She poked at the underside of the chin. “You’re putting too much pressure on the-- there we go.”
The mask came off, and Loopy shook her head, taking a deep breath of what should have been fresh air but was in an old subway station, so wasn’t actually all that fresh despite the scented candles Lyra had bought for the lair. Philtrum's old lair had proven to be a great rent-free place to operate out of. The mare had chosen it well.
“I would have been better off going after them naked,” Loopy said. She held up the damaged shoe. “Can you help me with this?”
“Oof,” Lyra hissed. “That’s nasty. What happened?”
“Some mare calling herself Spellchecker. Unlike this pile of junk, her tech worked perfectly.”
“It’s not a pile of junk. Philtrum was able to use it perfectly well,” Bon-Bon said.
“She obviously knew something I don’t,” Loopy grumbled. “Can you get a message to her to find out where it came from? Whoever made it has to know how to make it work properly.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Bon-Bon said. “The therapists are still working with her. Last I heard they’re keeping her away from Mare Do Well. She was a little obsessed.”
Loopy looked around at the museum they were standing in.
“Yeah, a little,” she agreed.
“We might be able to figure it out on our own,” Lyra said. “Anyway, that mare you fought, what was her tech like? I wanna know what can slice through armor like that.”
Loopy stepped out of the undamaged boots, pulling the shapeshifting mantle and cape off and setting it aside.
“It wasn’t anything like this,” she said. “These are just fancy gadgets. What she had were more like… she was casting spells, almost. There was a big light show, then it was just like a unicorn. Telekinesis, teleporting, magical blasts.” Loopy nudged the damaged boot. “And a magical blade.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Bon-Bon said. “Maybe they were some kind of unusual enchantment instead of tech…”
“Sounds like technomagic,” Lyra noted. She prodded the broken blade and the sliced armor, holding it up to eye-level to get a better look.
“Like what?” Loopy asked.
“What, you don’t follow the journals?” Lyra asked. She put the boot down, then walked over to a pile of papers and magazines and shuffled through it, eventually pulling out a glossy magazine and floating it over to Bon-Bon and Loopy. “Did it look anything like this?”
A full-page photo showed a pony wearing a bulky, thick bracelet. Dim orange lines of light orbited around it, and a few of them traced around an egg, levitating it gently in front of the attractive stallion showing off the tech.
“It’s something that’s been showing up at all the major tech shows,” Lyra said. “It’s supposed to allow any pony to cast spells, but it’s one of those things that’s always five, ten years in the future. They pull out the same tech demos and keep making promises.”
“That looks like what I saw,” Loopy agreed. “But it wasn’t a demo. She almost killed me with it.”
“It says here that it’s being developed by Supernova Solutions,” Bon-Bon said. “We could go over there and ask around. Maybe they’ll at least have a lead.”
“Good idea,” Loopy nodded. “But if they’re involved, they might try and hide it. We need a pretext so we can get on their good side.”
“How about this?” Lyra asked, holding up the damaged boot.
“Thank you again for agreeing to this on such short notice, Miss Piton” Bon-Bon said. The meeting room was so plush and pleasant that it almost made Loopy forget that she was wearing a suit that was so poorly-tailored she’d had to resort to shifting her disguise around just to fit in it properly. It made her itchy.
The smiling unicorn sitting across from them was perfectly well-groomed, wearing a navy blue suit that not only put SMILE’s government-issued uniforms to shame but probably cost as much as the organization’s annual budget. She had the aura of a mare who had grown up bullied as a second-rate nerd and spent an inordinate amount of bits trying to seem interesting and attractive now. Her mane was dull brown, except for the dyed streaks of color, and her coat was an uninteresting shade of dusty grey that she hid under the expensive suit. The mare’s designer glasses couldn’t quite hide how thick the lenses were, and her carefully chosen jewelry had been so carefully chosen to give the viewer something to remember since her features were almost entirely unremarkable.
Loopy was impressed. If the mare had been a changeling, it would have been a flawless disguise for infiltration.
“Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure,” the mare said. “You know, I just got back this morning from a trip to Prance. Have you ever been? Wonderful place, absolutely amazing history and culture. The ponies there are so quaint!”
Loopy smiled and nodded along. Anypony that used the word quaint with that tone thought they were being sophisticated instead of insulting and didn’t like being told otherwise.
“We were hoping to talk to you about some technology,” Bon-Bon said. “I’m not at liberty to say where we acquired it, but we need somepony to evaluate it for us.”
“Now you’ve got my attention,” Miss Piton said. “I do love getting a sneak peek at what other ponies are working on.” She leaned forward, flashing a smile that cost more than some ponies’ entire college education.
Lyra unwrapped the bundle she was carrying, putting the damaged gauntlet on the table between them. Miss Piton picked it up with her magic, flipping it around and nodding appreciatively.
“It’s too bad about the damage. It’s mostly superficial, but this is really interesting work. Did you have the material analyzed? I’d bet this is some kind of ceramic metal. Maybe aluminum carbide of some kind. Really tough stuff, but lightweight.”
“Any idea who might have made it?” Bon-Bon asked.
“Well, the integrated tech is definitely a one-off,” Piton said. “Looks like bespoke parts, hoof-adjusted. Had to be a real craftsman. My guess is a small shop somewhere, maybe a hobbyist. If you want to leave it here, I might be able to run it past my techs.”
“Unfortunately it’s part of an ongoing investigation,” Bon-Bon said.
“That’s too bad,” Piton sighed. “Not really in our wheelhouse, but I do appreciate quality work.”
“I apologize for wasting your time,” Bon-Bon sighed. “We thought it might have something to do with technomagic, and your company leads the field there.”
“Oh, we’re twenty years ahead of our competitors!” Piton agreed. “This is just more of a magical device than technomagic. The way I explain the difference to the press is, a device, everypony’s seen one of those. The magic is just a battery. You could do the work yourself turning a handle, but a device is usually smaller and more convenient as long as you don’t mind recharging it once in a while. Technomagic is a unicorn on demand, casting fully formed spells at the wave of a hoof. A device might wash your dishes, but technomagic will wash your dishes, make you a sandwich, and give you a backrub.” Piton laughed. “Who even needs a stallion at that point, am I right?”
“That sounds impressive,” Lyra said. “Even if it’ll put me out of business.”
Miss Piton laughed. “No need to worry too much. Can I assume you’ll keep this confidential?” she waited for them to nod. “It’s not gonna happen this financial year. The demo units work great, but they use some exotic materials. Too expensive for consumers. Right now my teams are working on finding novel alloys to work around the issues.”
“So they’re not ready for field use?” Loopy asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Miss Piton shrugged. “The bench units are amazing work, and we’ve got some of the best engineers in the world working on the issue, so it’s really only a matter of time. And hey, the government is probably going to be an important customer, so if you have any questions, I’d love to hook you up with the answers.”
“There are always government grants for research,” Bon-Bon said. “We’ll make sure a kind word goes up the ladder.”
Miss Piton smiled and stood up, reaching over to shake Bon-Bon’s hoof. “That’d be lovely. Depending on who asks, we might be able to set up a personal demo for some VIPs, fly in some champagne and caviar, get the works going and make a night of it, you know?”
Bon-Bon nodded. “Thank you again for this meeting.”
“It’s no problem. I just wish I had more time. I’ve got to run, got a meeting with the rest of the board, but if you need anything else while you’re in town, you find my PA and it’ll be taken care of. She’s amazing!”
The three were escorted to the elevator, more hooves were shaken, and they parted ways with Miss Piton.
As Loopy, Bon-Bon, and Lyra rode the elevator down, muzak playing softly, they looked at each other.
“She’s hiding something,” Loopy said.
“No duh,” Lyra snorted. “She was awfully fast to tell us her most important tech wasn’t working.”
Loopy nodded. “Next time we visit, I’ll wear my other suit.”