//------------------------------// // 35. Sunday Night Games // Story: Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies // by Georg //------------------------------// Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies Sunday Night Games “If you can't control your own emotions, you're forced to control other people's behavior. That's why the touchiest, most oversensitive and easily upset must not set the standard for the rest of us.” — John Cleese on Twitter - - - - ⧖ - - - - Time: 2:30 P.M. Sunday June 28, 2015 Location: Elvis Presley Blvd, Memphis TN - - - - ⧖ - - - - When talking about First Contact, nobody ever expected it to involve a half-dozen Elvis impersonators skydiving onto the Graceland parking lot. The Flying Elvi (call for any events) had to be rescheduled carefully because of the delay in Goose and Widget’s arrival, which turned out for the best because of the parachute group’s delayed schedule also. In any event, the news cameras were there, the local police had their mounted units at the ready, and several hundred cheering locals surrounded the Whinnybago (as it had been dubbed in the media) when it came to a halt in the parking lot. It was generalized chaos, and Dakota Henderson was more than happy to sit this one out in the RV and recline the seat while the ‘girls’ headed out into the party. Since he had been the camera-guy for most of the trip so far, his own face was nearly invisible to the media, much like Elvis’ chauffeur he supposed. Once the parachutists had landed (with Goose determined to keep looking at the ground instead of up in the air) and a very short presentation took place, the ponies headed in opposite directions. Goose dragged Claire on a beeline for the mansion with all the memorabilia, while Widget took Agent Anacostia on a slightly slower path in the direction of the automotive museum. Hopefully, Karla would be able to keep her unicorn charge from disassembling any of the displays, or bringing back any convenient pieces. He was just starting to doze off in the driver’s seat when there was a light tapping at the RV window. There were a pair of men standing there who practically had FBI stenciled on their foreheads, or else they were some sort of masochist cosplayers who liked wearing suits on a Memphis summer afternoon. “Agent Lattimer. Agent Bering.” The FBI agents put away their badges. “I understand Agent Anacostia has some paperwork for us.” “Oh, right.” Kota got up out of the driver’s seat and headed back into the living area. “Gentlemen, if you would care to step inside, I’ll get you a soda and we can wait on the young ladies to finish their tour.” The agents put up a token resistance before slipping into the air-conditioning. They were a mismatched pair, but worked well together as a team. Kota had started to expect that every member of the FBI had played football in school, and Lattimer looked like a tight end with his graceful moves, while Bering was more of a nose tackle who was fighting an eternal battle to get those school pounds shed. “Diet,” said Bering as he sagged into one of the RV’s captain chairs, making Kota swap the Coke he was pulling out of the fridge for one of Karla’s sodas. “This is a rental, so please watch the coasters,” said Dakota. “Here’s Karla’s report, all done up in officialese, and I’m including a thumb drive full of photos for documentation. I’m sorry we didn’t get up here last night. I saw on the way in that there’s an RV park just north of here.” “Good thing you didn’t,” said Bering. “Had a dry goods salesman get mugged there last night. Said he wasn’t looking for drugs, but for ponies.” “Crime here isn’t as bad as its reputation,” said Lattimer, taking a swig of his Coke and looking very official as opposed to Kota in his Red Cross Blood Donor t-shirt, which was at least clean and new. “You’re both armed. Druggies would hit me up in a minute to steal my gear. I live in Commiefornia, so I don’t have any of the weapons from my time in the Marines.” Kota settled down at the table with his laptop, pointedly not mentioning the fact that he had checked Claire’s concealed carry license against Tennessee’s reciprocity laws. Despite the results, he had locked her IWB holster with included M&P Shield into the RV glove compartment before allowing her out of the RV to escort Goose on her tourist expedition. Just because she could carry in the state, did not mean she should carry here, particularly with so many of the press around and the near-certainty that Graceland had a ‘no guns’ policy. “We saw the video of Goose up in KC,” countered Lattimer. “You’re as safe as if you had Rambo by your side. That’s why we’re in here instead of escorting your pony pals around Graceland and the museum.” “But with the radio on,” said Bering, tapping his earpiece. “We’ve got one agent each shadowing your girlfriends. Somebody in Washington loves you.” * * * Agent Hallman was regretting volunteering. Well, there was little volunteering involved in what he had done, but unless you want what’s left of your career to go up in flames, you don’t just say no when Pearlie Litz calls. Now that Hallman was back in the Academy just like he was a green recruit of two decades ago, he was feeling unreasonable regret over not leaving himself a time capsule advising him to take that police detective’s position in New York like he had originally considered. “Darius.” Hallman caught the hefty black agent by one arm as he passed in the dormitory hallway, which felt a lot like trying to stop a train. “You headed over to see the DAG?” “Yeah.” Darius Newton ran one hand over his glossy bald head. “Been cooped up enough that I just can’t work the weight room enough. Thought she’d know more about when we get let out of political quarantine and back to work.” “Free advice. Don’t.” Making a follow-me gesture, Hallman took the conversation out onto the balcony where the hot and humid air of Virginia surrounded them. Pulling the curtains on the suite, he closed the glass doors most of the way and turned his back to the open air. “Paranoid much, boss?” asked Darius, who had assumed the same position to prevent any distant telephoto observation from reading their lips or heard by bugs inside the room. “You’re only paranoid if they’re not out to get you. You haven’t… um… Dreams?” “Tall dark pony with a voice like chocolate.” Darius nodded. “You?” “Not officially. Not even unofficially.” Hallman rubbed his upper lip where he was starting on a mustache to record his captivity duration. “I’ve never been apologized to by the leader of a sovereign nation and a potential deity. I thought she’d be angry.” “Pretty sure we don’t want to see that. Bad enough I got my ass tazed by the equivalent of a housewife.” Darius rubbed his leg. “Didn’t make the report, but Rose apologized too. Did Princess Luna say anything in your dream about Disney World?” “Dress comfortably. It’s hot as Egypt in paoni. I don’t want to think of why she used that as an example.” “I’m puzzled on how she’s going to spring us from the FBI’s tender embrace Oh, I know she’s going to,” added Darius. “I quit underestimating ponies after that polite middle-aged unicorn made me shoot myself with my own taser. I guess we have to wait and see.” “And buy suntan lotion.” Hallman wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I don’t know if the pony princess plans on this being a reward or a punishment.” * * * By the time four jubilant tourists returned to the RV, Dakota was feeling pretty refreshed and ready to drive some more. It took very little effort to turn the driver’s seat around to face the front, and a lot of effort to keep a straight face when the two ponies came prancing in the door to musical accompaniment. “Doyoulikethem!” announced Widget, turning around several times to show off each leg and the glitter of her ‘Elvis’ sequined tank-top. The socks on three of her legs were bright pink with repeating printed images of guitars and Elvis’ profile, but the most striking feature were the strobing blue and pink lights that flashed in sequence with a tinny tune of ‘Viva Las Vegas’ that filled the RV. “They’re not too much, are they?” asked Goose, who followed her protective charge more carefully, and without her own sequined shirt. However, she wore socks on all four hooves, adding to the discordant music. “Absolutely not,” declared Claire, who was following the ponies with her own colorful (although quiet) socks and a new t-shirt. She tossed an Elvis t-shirt to Dakota and flopped down in one of the captain chairs. “You only make it to Graceland once in your life, so I didn’t hold them back too much. They’re still going to have trouble carrying everything back through the portal once we get souvenirs from Disney World. It’s twelve hours of driving, so we should get going.” “Can we make one stop?” Karla Anacostia leafed through a folder she had picked up from the departing FBI agents and regarded the locked iPhone attached to it. “There’s a guy who got mugged here last night waiting for you girls, and Methodist South hospital isn’t too far off our route.” - - - - ⧖ - - - - Time: 5:00 P.M. Sunday June 28, 2015 Location: 1300 Wesley Drive, Memphis TN - - - - ⧖ - - - - It was not just that Dimitri had failed in a fairly simple mission, it was how he had failed that was going to look like slime on his record. The FSB had far less James Bond in the job than Ivan Orlov, writer of boring agricultural reports. Even if he had a Walther PPK last night in the Graceland RV park it would not have done him any good when the grinning negro with a cheap Hi-Point stuck him up in the darkness, then one of his dark friends had hit him over the back of the head from behind. At least he was in a hospital bed instead of a morgue. Nothing like this had ever happened when he was weaseling corporate minions into giving him a copy of their internal reports or checking grain levels at local agricultural cooperatives. It was all grist for the mill, data that he recorded on stacks of DVDs and mailed to his drop in exchange for a monthly paycheck from a mythical US firm. What in the world his intelligence superiors thought they were doing by endangering his cover in order to get pony pictures when there were so many on the internet… Well, it was best not to think such thoughts. “Mister Perkins!” The perky pony in question fairly flounced into his hospital room, chattering away as fast as she could make the words come out. “We stopped by Graceland like we planned and got socks but I’ve got them turned off so I don’t disturb the other patients and we saw all of Elvis’s planes and cars and he had a whole bunch of guns too but they wouldn’t let me take them out from behind the glass to get a better look at them but Karla said you were attacked around there last night and lost your phone and I brought it over only she was not sure it was your phone and here!” His iPhone drifted over to the hospital bed in a glow of pink telekinesis, and Dimitri found himself frozen in place, too afraid to touch it and too curious not to keep watching the bouncing unicorn. Some small section of his paralyzed brain noticed that she was wearing some sort of souvenir socks on three legs and the expected brace on the fourth, which really did not help him recover from the stunning sight. “Oh,” said Widget. “I forgot that not all humans speak the same language. Just a second.” The pink glow shone down from above and his hair under the bandage prickled violently for a second, much as if ants were crawling over his injury. At least when the unicorn started talking again, she was slower, but speaking in his native Siberian-accented Russian. “” “” said Dimitri, thumbing the button and putting in his unlock code, taking solace in a practiced motion with considerable relief at having his phone back. “” he added out of inertia and a vague hope that it would earn him a little employer consideration from the FSB to counter the debacle of getting mugged. “” The iPhone left his fingers and floated away a short distance, and the soft fuzzy unicorn moved up right beside him. “” In far too short a time, Widget needed to go, and bounded out the hospital room door with an eager wave. The smile had not left his face when two tall Americans in suits stepped into the room, looking just as happy. “” said the taller of the two in accented Russian. “” The larger negro FBI agent gently plucked Dimitri’s phone from his nerveless fingers while the Russian-speaking agent closed the hospital room door. “” - - - - ⧖ - - - - Time: 11:45 P.M. Sunday June 28, 2015 Location: The Waffle House College Park, Atlanta, Georgia - - - - ⧖ - - - - The US Midwest had one constant even more than McDonalds or Burger King, so much that FEMA had an actual ‘Waffle House Index’ they used for hurricane disaster recovery estimates. Even in the worst of storms, the cheery glow of an open restaurant was available for disaster workers and tired residents, or at least as long as the generator was running. This evening, a much different group pulled up into the parking lot of the Atlanta Waffle House. A confused group, for the most part, in a Winnebago RV. “So, we’re here,” said Dakota, putting the RV into park. “It’s almost midnight and I have no idea why you wanted me to stop.” “You’re tired,” said Goose, holding her iPhone in the crook of her wing. “I don’t trust Claire to drive at night—” “It’s not my fault,” groused Claire. “That semi wasn’t staying on his side of the road.” “—and Karla is out of it,” she added, giving the snoring FBI agent in the captain chair a brief nod. “That’s why I texted Nick, and he gave me directions.” “Why did he want us at the Waffle House?” Dakota peered out the windshield into the dark parking lot. “And why is that Highway Patrol officer coming over here?” As they had crossed various state lines during their trip, the respective state Highway Patrol vehicles also had been trading off their trailing responsibilities, swapping vehicles as the Equestrian tourists traveled along. Dakota had been comforted by their presence in the rear-view mirror, although it moderated his normal lead foot into something that vaguely stayed generally around the speed limit for a change, more-or-less. The big black officer strolling up to the driver’s side window had a very serious expression when he tapped on the window and giving a gruff “License and registration” once Dakota rolled it down. “No problem, officer.” Dakota reached slowly into his pocket for his wallet, then considered the holstered M&P in the glove compartment where the RV’s registration was stored. “Can somebody wake up Agent Anacostia so she can explain things to Officer—” Dakota glanced at his name tag “—Comena.” The big black Highway Patrol officer grinned. Dakota hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Don! Ye gads, you’re huge!” “My big bro only had pictures to show you when he was in Afghanistan, I suppose.” Dontell cocked his head to one side in order to see further into the RV and gave Goose a friendly smile. “Ah, Nick’s girlfriend, I presume? Mom would love to see you girls for a few minutes. She only lives a few blocks away.” “Why don’t you take us there,” suggested Kota, “and we can park for the night. I’m beat, Princess FBI is sound asleep, and Miss Bruner can’t keep the RV from getting sucked into a semi’s air bubble when she drives.” As it turned out, the very happy Mister and Missus Comena were built on the same rugged scale as their children, and both of them were more than happy to talk with Goose until very early in the morning. Then the happy tourists caught breakfast at the Waffle House and were on the road once rush hour traffic died down. - - - - ⧖ - - - - Time: 2200 Hours Sunday 28 June 2015 Location: Randolph, Kansas. Farmer Bruener’s house, basement - - - - ⧖ - - - - “Thanks, mom. Gotta go. Give Dontell a hug when you see him.” Lt. Comena put down his cell phone and tried to focus on the paper plate that his sergeant had just placed down on the table next to him. The lanky Polish NCO did not take his leave as expected, but continued to stand at the paperwork-strewn table like a waiter expecting a tip. “I’ve got a few more things for you, sir,” said Sergeant Spasowski. “If it’s not too much trouble.” “Would it break down morale if you just called me by name after hours?” said Nick with an exasperated huff, reaching up and touching his gold collar bars. “I was a Marine grunt until last year, so I recognize how important a good sergeant is to a lowly lieutenant. Thank you for keeping the platoon in proper order while I’m dealing with my mother, the upper brass, and the godawful mess that’s dropping on us, but we’re both adults so let’s act like it.” “Sorry, sir.” Sergeant Spasowski relaxed slightly and hooked a chair over, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb the collection of colorful young ponies watching movies at the other end of the Bruener’s basement. “I’ve seen several butterbars go by over the years, and I keep expecting the worst.” “Worst? I had a tank and a tank transport wrecked during an alien invasion under my command,” reminded Nick with a quick glance at his phone, which had just quietly buzzed. “Half the Pentagon and my mother think I’m in some sort of romantic relationship with an alien horse, and God only knows what else can happen before next week and they all go home.” “Starting tomorrow bright and early, there are a number of Headquarters units from DC scheduled to arrive,” said Spaz promptly. “We’ve got a half-dozen military REMF units flying in to Ft. Riley, here to keep us poor reservists looking spick and span. Then there’s a photography unit from Stars and Stripes, a number of representatives from the Army Public Affairs so none of us are in danger of getting in front of a microphone, and last but not least, a section from the Judge Advocate General’s office with Mister Bruner’s son to lecture us on proper discipline and fire control, no doubt.” “I’m in Hell.” Nick closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Other than Jon’s son showing up, is there any good news? Did Harvard get set up yet?” “Colonel Townsend of the Kansas National Guard is now in the main Army encampment up the hill so he can translate the governor’s requests into proper mil-speak,” said Spaz. “Since you seem to be the golden child of the Equestrians, he left unofficial word that if any of the new units try to give you orders, send them to him and he’ll break them in half. Of course, that comes with bad news. Lt. Colonel Clarke is being transferred down from DC as his subordinate. Craig Clarke.” That was worth a brief wince, and Nick looked back up into Spaz’s glum expression. “Carbon Copy Clarke? Isn’t he the officer who got a tank commander busted for returning to base with an incorrect count of main gun ammo?” “After a firefight, yep. The one and only.” Spaz nudged the paper plate full of food, which included a raft of Missus Cake’s potato salad abutting one of Sizzler’s artistic cheeseburgers with crisped onions peeking out from under the bun, and just a trickle of steak sauce running down the edge. “Better eat up. Once CC gets here, it’s MREs and Army chow.” “I don’t have time for this,” muttered Nick, but he did pick up the burger and bit into it. “Ok, maybe this I have time for,” he added while chewing. “I still have to work out contingency plans with the Rangers and that Navy unit we’re not supposed to mention—” “Already drew up preliminary movement orders with the Equestrians for traffic control in case you have to reposition the tanks,” added Spaz. “Then I took initiative to move the—” he coughed once “—squids into a location where they can provide better fire support in the event something comes through the portal that we don’t expect, and I set up an excuse for them to be there.” Nick raised one eyebrow while chewing, and Spaz gave a very low chuckle. “Moved one of the rental RV units across the road into the field and put a ‘Official Photographic Unit’ sign on the door and a ‘Go Army Beat Navy’ bumper sticker on it. That gives them a private shower to cut down the stink, if nothing else. If they got spotted getting into or out of their foxholes, the media would get suspicious, but this way they can photograph our visitors to their heart’s content and nobody’s the wiser.” “You’re spoiling the Navy,” said Nick. “They just had satellite communications, not any SINCGARS units either,” said Spaz. “So I gave them three from the MPs and synced the encryption codes so they’re on the local communications net. Colonel Townsend said he didn’t want to know, so I didn’t tell him.” “Really?” Nick finished off his cheeseburger, licked his fingers, and took the wet wipe that his sergeant promptly provided. “You know, when I was in the Marines, I had an officer tell me that a good sergeant and a lousy tank are ten times better than a good tank and a lousy sergeant. Anything else I need to know about?” “Just that you have a meeting scheduled with Captain Rogers, Lieutenant Forsythe, and Lt. Colonel DeJoya of the MPs in about an hour. Oh, and Colonel Townsend said he doesn’t want to know about any local contingency planning either. Would you like me to finish up your paperwork while you get ready?” Nick finished spooning in the potato salad, collected his empty plate, and tossed the used wipe on top of it. “Thank you, Sergeant. I think you’re going to be the only soldier awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross at the same ceremony.” “Wouldn’t want it, sir.” Sergeant Spasowski swapped places with Nick and began to sort through the paperwork with apparent practice. “I’ll have my twenty in at the end of next year, and my cousin promised me a slot at his insurance firm. Thought retirement was going to be smooth sailing, then God dropped a bunch of colorful horses on us. On the bright side, your friend Dakota said he was going to write his own book about the whole experience, and he’d pay to have some input from here. You know. Since he’s running around the country with your very respectable female friend Goose. Is that all right with you, sir?” “As long as he cuts you in for a percentage.” Nick looked across the basement where a good half-dozen young ponies were entranced by the television, which was showing some sort of monster movie in black-and-white. “And I think a little self-editing might be needed with the facts before he publishes. Like I’m fairly certain none of those particular time-traveling troublemakers were in the original batch dropped on us. That Clover is a lot older for starters, and there’s a Bookworm upstairs in the Bruner family library who looks a lot like her.” “I already put the Bruener house on the exclusion list for the new arrivals, so they won’t intrude on your young video addicts.” The sergeant picked up a fleck of hamburger from the table and dropped it into the nearby trash can. “Cleared it with Jon first. The new arrivals will have to stand in line for Sizzler’s burgers like the rest of us, and since he’s been put on forced rest and only an eight hour day for cooking until they’re gone, that’s going to be a long line.” “My heart bleeds. Where’s the meeting I’m having with the rest of the mutinous bunch?” “Dinner table upstairs. Sizzler left a tray of these little cheese and meat things in the fridge and there’s a case of Sprite on ice. Sergeant Hardhooves and Specialist Grace will be coincidentally in the room but they’re going to restrict themselves to Missus Bruner’s spinach puffs. The couple has already gone to bed,” continued Sergeant Spasowski as Nick shook his head. “Lucky bunch of civilians. Not a care in the world.” * * * “...and SPANK went the spank on Ping’s back.” “Spank,” said Clover, snuggling in between Jon and Maria with a yawn, highlight by the last remaining reading light on their headboard. “Ow,” said Standing Water from the cloud crib to one side of the Bruener’s waterbed. “Spank bad.” “Ping had been a bad little duck,” explained Maria. “The spank was a reminder for him not to be a bad duckling any more. Anyway…” Picking up on his cue, Jon moved his finger to the bottom of the page and said, “Then at last Ping was back with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins. Home again on the wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze River.” “Sixty-eight,” said Clover. Jon took a moment to do the math. “Right,” he said eventually, getting both arms under the little winged unicorn and lifting her over to the cloud crib that had been constructed beside their bed for winged foalsitting purposes. “Now, you two go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, and before you know it, your mother—” Jon gently touched Clover’s nose “—will open up a door and take you home.” “Boom!” said Clover, snuggling into the impossible cloud with her small blue pegasus friend. “Boom, boom!” Jon really did not understand Clover’s reaction for a few days. Then it became obvious to everybody. - - - - ⧖ - - - - Time: Sometime after midnight, Monday June 29, 2015 Location: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. - - - - ⧖ - - - - It was never really dark in the Oval Office, since the curtains were mostly pulled back and the grounds lighting kept an exceedingly dim glow around the room even in the deepest night. There should have been enough light for the security systems to notice the faint glow around an ornate scroll that silently appeared on top of the Resolute Desk, but various digital sensors determined the anomaly was far too small to be any kind of danger. Or at least until the morning security crew walked in and found it. A properly paranoid US Secret Service detail should have treated the unknown item like an unexploded bomb, evacuated the White House, and called for various bomb-disposal technicians who were always on call for just such an occasion, or one much like it. Agent Washington was still a little fatigued from his Kansas trip and too comfortable with pony habits to really work up the level of concern a horseshoe-sealed hot potato should invoke, but he finished his look around the office with appropriate attention to detail and casually left. A few moments later, Agent Washington tapped the doorframe of the White House Chief of Staff’s office and took a look inside at the yawning executive, highlit in the faint rays of the morning sun. “Mister O’Donald? The President just got some mail from the Equestrians. They must have dropped it off in the Oval Office last night, and I thought you might want to discuss it in the morning staff meeting.” “Thanks, Tony.” Dennis took the scroll, then took a second look at it as the weight soaked in. “Is that a real silver seal?” “Probably. The ponies are like that. I need to finish my rounds, Mister O’Donald.” With a renewed spring in his step, Agent Washington strode down the corridors of the White House, thinking about how the job just kept getting better every day.