Down in the mines, Barnaby and the others had no idea what was going on just yet. He in particular had been far too preoccupied with trying to find the bombs he and Rainbow knew Lord Copper had placed. Unfortunately they hadn’t had any luck yet. Wherever those bombs were they were well-hidden. It didn’t make any sense to Barnaby, Copper’s cronies shouldn’t have had so much time to find places to hide all the bombs they could’ve made. But everypony had reported on finding nothing. Not in the most structurally important parts of the mine, or the new tunnels, or anywhere in the staging area, or anywhere else. The phantom bombs had so far escaped both the constables and miners trying to find them.
Barnaby was riding one of the trams right now into a new area of the mines nopony had checked yet. The tram drivers had been some of the few workers down here who Crom didn’t have evacuate, since they needed them. The four other constables Barnaby had brought along were standing in the same car as him, all of them nervous and worried. The Chief Constable was feeling the same way, but just not showing it to make things worse.
The tram came to its next station and Barnaby and the other constables poured out of it. They quickly fanned out to all the nearby tunnels, most of the area completely devoid of other ponies after being evacuated.
“Keep your eyes sharp!” Barnaby shouted. “We need to find these bombs, there’s no time!”
He said that but in truth he wasn’t sure if they were going to be anymore successful than they already had been. Barnaby quickly jogged down the tunnel closest to him, checking every alcove and every spot a bomb could be hiding before reaching the end, where a smaller elevator went down a mineshaft. Still nothing here but there could be something placed at the bottom of the mineshaft or in the tunnel it led to. Barnaby stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button to lower himself down.
In the meantime he turned on his radio to reach out to Crom and see if he was having luck.
“Crom? You hear me? Have you had any luck finding the bombs?” Barnaby asked.
Bzzt!
“Hey, Barnaby, yeah I read you loud and clear. But we haven’t found nothing yet. And I mean nothing. We’ve been canvassing the whole darn place, checking everywhere they could’ve put a bomb, but we haven’t found any.”
Barnaby bit his lip and pounded a hoof against the frame of the elevator. “We know they’re down here, there must be something we’re missing, or maybe they were all placed in one spot we haven’t been to yet.”
“Maybe. That’d be a monster of an explosion if that happened.”
“Right now I’m in-” he looked at a sign on the elevator. “Area 3-Z. I can take the tram to Area 4 once I’m done here.”
“Good luck... how much time left do you think we have?”
“I don’t know. Rainbow Dash contacted me earlier and said she found Lord Copper but I haven’t heard from her since. It sounded like she was somewhere with a lot of ponies around them, I’m sure he’s planning something so if we’re lucky then maybe the bombs aren’t planned to go off for a while longer.”
“I’m gonna need a stiff drink after this...”
“You and me both.”
Barnaby turned off his radio and sighed. A moment later the elevator came to a stop and he stepped out and into the tunnel it led to. There was fresh equipment and tools that had been dropped all over by ponies who had recently evacuated, along with minecarts full of harvested ore and half-filled crates that would normally be brought back up by the elevator. Barnaby checked every single crate and cart to make sure he wasn’t missing a hidden bomb. The one positive in this situation was the evenly spaced lightbulbs on the ceiling of the tunnel. If there was less light down here he’d be in trouble.
There was a small supply closet down here where a batch of TNT was stored but not an actual bomb. There was a radio station that had been left on but nothing else was around it. There was a barrel full of pickaxes that he rooted around in to see if anything was hidden at the bottom. There was a tarp on the ground that he ripped up to see if anything was hiding beneath it.
In the end though it all came to nothing.
Barnaby angrily kicked over a bucket and watched as the rocks inside scattered across the ground. “Why can’t I find anything?!” Sweat was collecting beneath his helmet and he had to lift a shaky hoof up to wipe some of it away. “Darn it... what’s the answer?”
Finished down in this tunnel, he quickly made his way back to the elevator. The entire time a swarm of negative thoughts and ideas were passing through his mind. Something was wrong. They should’ve been able to find the bombs by now with how many ponies were looking for them and with Crom’s expert knowledge.
Once he finished riding the elevator he started going back to the tram. There wasn’t much distance to backtrot over and he ended up being there before any of the other constables were back. Since it would be pointless to go down any of the other tunnels, Barnaby just scowled and hopped up onto the platform, pacing about in front of the tram. The mines were huge but that also meant that the ponies who had planted the bombs couldn’t have gone too far into them before getting back out before most miners had come in for the day.
Maybe he should have brought more constables along even if it would’ve taken a little extra time to gather them all?
Maybe he shouldn’t have had Crom evacuate most of the miners and had them help look for bombs too?
Maybe there was something else he was forgetting or missing when it came to what Lord Copper had done?
As he was pacing, a buzzing noise suddenly came from his radio.
“Rainbow Dash?” Barnaby wondered aloud and flipped on his radio to frequency 1. “Hello, Rainbow Dash? Have you learned anything new?”
“Not quite,” Rainbow said as she scowled across the way at the frantic Lord Copper. “But something’s going on up here. Lord Silver had Copper Section placed under lockdown, I don’t know why though, but the entrances and exits and the mines are totally sealed off now. But anyways, Copper is totally freaking out about it and I’m about to find out why. I’ll call you right back real soon.”
Meanwhile Lord Copper was indeed having a freakout.
“No, no, this can’t be happening. Why is this happening? I need to get into the mines right now!” He loudly said.
The last guard of his that was still conscious nervously looked around at the crowd and Rainbow Dash. “S-Sir, we need to-”
“Shut up!” Lord Copper screamed at him. “Don’t say a word!”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash said as she finally flew right to Lord Copper and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “I don’t know if you’re responsible for this lockdown too or whatever and honestly I don’t care! Tell me where the bombs are!”
“Y-You’re talking crazy...” Lord Copper’s eyes darted around, refusing to directly look at her. “J-Just let me go, I need to i-inspect the mines, it’s very important!”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him. “Just what are you playing at? And the mines are closed, you’re not getting down there.”
He looked at his watch and his face went white as if finally realizing something. “This can’t be happening... this shouldn’t be happening like this. Y-You need to let me go!”
Rainbow noticed how his demeanor changed as soon as she saw his watch. “You... you already...” Her eyes widened and she started shaking him back and forth. “Copper! How much time is left?! How much time?!”
“Why... why lockdown? Why did you and Barnaby have to do this?” He kept whimpering in her grip.
Before Rainbow could open her mouth again, panicked voices came from all around her. The former mob of ponies was now turning into a frightened crowd again. They didn’t know what to do after the announcement and with what Copper and Rainbow Dash had been speaking about. And especially after what they had all heard Lord Copper just now yelling about. Rainbow saw the confused faces of Eleanor and Abernathy, the both of them looking to her for answers, and she just didn’t have any to give.
“Get to the mines, I have to get to the mines, everypony is in danger,” Lord Copper said, actually genuinely crying slightly now.
Rainbow Dash dropped her hooves from his collar and scowled at him. “You put new bombs in the mines didn’t you? Barnaby hasn’t found them yet or he would’ve contacted me. Tell me where they are so I can tell him.”
Lord Copper whined, shaking his head. “None of this was supposed to happen. I-I didn’t mean to...”
“Just tell me!” Rainbow roared, scaring the crowd too.
“I didn’t... I’m not the one... I-I almost died too, remember?” He tried to convince her, still pulling out the same old story even though he probably knew as well that it wasn’t going to work with her.
Rainbow Dash slapped him, making him wince and hold a hoof up to his cheek. “Enough of that! Come clean and let’s try and set things right!”
Lord Copper froze. He looked at his watch and shook his head. “It’s too late. It’s already over.”
“How much-” she grit her teeth and grabbed his hoof, looking at the watch. “How much time is left, Copper? Just give me a solid answer and we can stop this! If you tell me where they are, maybe Barnaby and the others can stop them in time!”
Tears fell down Lord Copper’s cheeks as he sniffled. “There’s no time left.” He pointed at the second hand of the watch as it started a new revolution around the face of the clock. “They’re about to go off. Why didn’t you just let me past? Why didn’t you let me go down to the mines?” He cried some more.
Rainbow Dash held back from outright decking him as she turned on her radio again to try and reach Barnaby. “Where are the bombs, Copper?!”
He looked at her with empty eyes and then lowered his head, staring at the ground. “The trams. Bombs were attached to the undersides of every tram in the mines.”
A buzz came from the radio as the line opened and Rainbow shook as she yelled into the microphone. “Barnaby! Barnaby, listen to me right now!”
The other constables he had brought with him still hadn’t gotten back from their tunnels. Though he doubted they’d come back with any good news even when they did. It left Barnaby alone on the platform, the tram right in front of him with only its confused and in the dark driver around. His hoof was impatiently tapping on the wooden platform, whether because of his slow constables or annoyance at his own failure he wasn’t sure. He had half a mind to get in the tram and tell the driver to just go now so he could search more.
Bzzt!
Barnaby jumped a bit in surprise and looked at his radio and flipped it on. Maybe Rainbow Dash had gotten something out of Lord Copper. “Rai-”
“Barnaby! Barnaby, listen to me right now!”
His ears perked up at how loudly she was yelling and just how scared she sounded. “Rainbow Dash? What is it? Did you learn something from Lord Copper?”
“Barnaby, you have to get out of the mines now! Tell everypony they have to get out of there, there’s no more time! The bombs are under the trams and they’re going to blow now!”
The Chief Constable of Oreville didn’t answer her. His heartbeat didn’t even increase for the moment. His mouth was stuck halfway open in stoic realization as he blinked and the world seemed to come back into focus around him. With a sharp gasp of air he ran to the edge of the platform and jumped off onto the track, directly in front of the tram. The driver saw him and stood up from his seat, trying to see out the window at what the hay Barnaby was doing.
“Barnaby? Barnaby?!”
He ducked his head under the metal casing of the tram and looked at the undercarriage. Nestled among some of the metal struts and axles were a series of boxes with wires interconnecting all of them and a small clock in the middle. The second hand was just about to reach 12.
“Oh.”
An intense wave of pressure and heat was the last thing he ever felt.