Starlight Over Detrot Chapter 12:
Gentlecolts, You Can't Fight in Here! This is the War Room!
How do you secure a location against every possible route of entry? Can earth ponies break down the walls? Can you keep pegasi from breaking in on higher floors? What if they use disguises and pretend to be building maintenance, do you have countermeasures against that? What if they pay off the guards?
And that doesn’t even begin to cover magic. Do you have spells to prevent unicorns from teleporting in, turning invisible, shrinking for portability, or any of the other innumerable, devious ways magic could be used to grant access? What if they have the counterspells to those spells?
And how do you balance all this against the need for the building to function for its intended purpose?
It’s a set of questions that has baffled security experts for as long as there have been things that needed securing. Not because the answers don’t exist, but because they keep changing. Security is a continual arms race between infiltrator and protector, with countermeasure begetting countermeasure begetting countermeasure.
In fact, there is exactly one building in Equestria that can be considered perfectly, timelessly secure: A bookstore.
The proprietor had been driven into a security-obsessive paranoid state by a few periodically stolen (or possibly merely misplaced) copies of the then-popular Daring Do and the Neighcronomicon. Since said proprietor was a rather powerful unicorn, this store eventually became the recipient of a completely staggering number of protective enchantments; ultimately, it became physically impossible for any being to enter the building.
It stands today as an ironclad monument to those who would trade sanity for security, and deserve neither.
--The Scholar
A police operation planning session is generally characterized by a bunch of officers sitting around tables with their ties loose and note-pads on the tables in front of them. The doughnuts are gone by the time you arrive and everypony’s hooves are lightly dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Sometimes, if it’s a truly massive op, they might drag you into a little classroom full of desks made for grade-schoolers. The doughnuts will still be gone when you get there.
It’s a very purposeful sort of environment, even if the op is targeting some two-bit drug dealer working a particular street corner just a little harder than his local precinct wants to let slide. For homicide, there’s almost always big pictures of the victims in eight by ten glossy tacked to a board at the front of the room.
It should also be said that apart from the few minutes in which you personally are relevant, an operation planning session is roundly and soundly one of the dullest things you will ever sit through in your entire life. Some of the cruder elements of the Detrot Police Department have commented that those meetings would have been vastly improved by the presence of hookers.
I can now say: They weren’t wrong.
The room we’d chosen for our briefing wasn’t in use and mostly picked because, for some unfathomably perverse reason, one of the green-painted walls was enchanted to be adhesive. Scarlet cleared the various ‘toys’ attached to it into a cardboard box, dumped them in the hall, then went about the process of carting in a half dozen bean-bag chairs and two huge boxes of various pastries from the Vivarium’s kitchens.
After Glow soon followed, levitating a dozen cups of coffee and sharpening a knife on a whetstone at the same time just so nopony thought she was doing secretarial work.
Haymaker and Svelte came in last. Our spy was using her associate’s flanks to hold herself up. The boxer had refused to leave her side, supporting her in the short trek down the hall. He lead her immediately to one of the squishy seats, then sat on the floor beside it. She took the nurse-maiding with good grace, as though it was expected.
Taxi and Swift collapsed into their own cushions, my driver putting her hooves behind her head and wiggling down until she was comfortable, while the rookie went about ever more note-taking.
Scarlet returned after a short delay, wheeling in something that resembled a cinema projector from my dad’s era. The mechanism looked mildly like the ones the newsponies used, but with a lot of extra, obviously magical bits tacked on and no reel for the film to be fed through. Scarlet began fiddling with one of the panels on the side, but nothing happened; he grew gradually more frustrated with the device until After Glow trotted over and gave it a firm smack, which sent it whirring to life.
“Scarlet, ah swear, if the com-gems were any more complicated ye’d have found some way to turn yerself into goo with one,” the elder unicorn commented. “Yer lucky yer cutie-mark is somethin’ besides fixin’ stuff.”
“I fix stuff! I fix lots of stuff. You know arcanotech just doesn’t like me!” he pouted, adjusting something on the machine until it gave a low whine. He leaned up and spoke into a piece of wire mesh attached thereto: “There... Mistress Stella? Can you see us clearly?”
The dragon’s voice came down from speakers in the ceiling. “I see you, dear colt.”
I saw the glint in Scarlet’s eye just before he turned around, lifted his tail and backed up to the projector’s forward facing camera lens. “How ‘bout now?”
“Oh, yes, I see quite clearly!” Stella purred.
With a rustle of heavy fabric, Swift grabbed one of the beanbag chairs in her teeth and lobbed it at Scarlet, who caught it right in the face and toppled over on his side. Crawling out from under it, he impishly stuck his tongue out at the pegasus then curled up on the pillow.
“Why do we need that thing? Can’t Stella see everything that happens in here?” Taxi asked, touching the camera’s rear leg.
“Those are just security spells.” Scarlet explained, pointing at the ceiling. “Low resolution. This machine is as good as being in the room!”
“Ahhh, alright.”
I went straight for the box of pastries, stuffing my cheeks with lightly crisped bagel and exquisite cream cheese. “Oooh, that’s good.” I hadn’t realized precisely how hungry I was until food was available.
I spent a few moments indulging my vacant digestive tract with perfectly warm coffee before I walked in front of the camera, pulling the diary out of my pocket along with the picture of the sisters, then hesitantly laid them on the wall. As I touched the surface, it felt like gravity changed directions for just the tip of my toe, creating a slight pull on my hoof. I frowned appreciatively; it was certainly more useful and a lot less flashy than most enchanted conveniences.
Granny Glow levitated Svelte’s listening device and put it just below the diary and the picture. My partner then added her notes from the murder scene, before both of them took seats on the floor behind the camera.
“We are short of time so I’ll get straight to it.” I began, setting my hat on the wall in one corner. “Miss Svelte, where is King Cosmo’s personal complex?”
The spy wiggled onto her stomach, letting all four legs hang over the sides of her chair in a sultry pose that had Hay Maker blushing. “Oh? I suppose you would not be aware of that. King Cosmo operates the Monte Cheval.”
“What?!” Taxi leapt up, her black and white mane flying. “You’re joking! None of my records say anything about that!”
I felt my butt hit the floor as the issues facing us went from ‘difficult’ to ‘nearly insurmountable.’
‘They’ say if you want to find your horse in organized crime, you follow the money. 'They' also say you can’t fight City Hall. ‘They’ are only right about half the time on either count. Most often when you follow the money you find it leads off a bridge, and only discover this while you're on the way towards the water wearing concrete horseshoes. Equally, when you fight City Hall, you'll often discover just what a bunch of cowardly prigs high society ponies are when confronted with a pair of hoof-cuffs. And, just as often, you'll discover just how vengeful they can be when they're the ones signing your paychecks.
The Monte Cheval was a very recent development within Detrot. It was a mix of pleasure complex, casino, and nightclub on par with the Vivarium. Possibly even larger. It’d been built, seemingly overnight, in place of an old strip of condemned government housing just outside the Heights a little less than a year prior. The vast construct was a gleaming bastion of finance; a daring plan to rebuild the shattered economy of my washed out burg on the backs of addicted gamblers and tourists seeking a respite from more heavily regulated parts of Equestria.
In spite of the whisperings from within DPD’s mob unit that the shadowy proprietors must have purchased the land with interference from Canterlot royals or some illicit source, the Monte Cheval had the blessing of City Hall to do whatever it damn well pleased so long as it could bring the bits. That Taxi hadn't heard anything about its actual ownership, even from our notoriously gossip-happy mob unit, was a sign that somepony high in the government hierarchy had their hooves up to the elbow in money I would have preferred not to follow.
“How’d he manage that trick?”I muttered, scratching my chest.
“Mister Cosmo is under the hoof of somepony who knows how to ensure he is not investigated,” Svelte asserted, her tail wagging languidly back and forth. “I do not know who, but perhaps you will discover that yourselves. The least of it is that he has made certain you are all running about like roosters with your heads cut off trying to stomp out small time dealers or his rivals. Somepony in the government who sets investigative priorities simply let him slip between the cracks.”
My brain was feeling like a fried egg left in the sun too long. I needed a refocus. “Then let’s start at the beginning. Miss Svelte, what precisely was your purpose here?”
“My purpose?” The white mare leaned her head to one side. “Is that not obvious? I was sent to gather embarrassing or damaging information from the customer base.” She directed her horn at her busted hacking device. “I am not paid to ask questions of my employers. In this instance, I was not paid at all.”
“So ye just did it then?!” After Glow snarled, pausing in her knife sharpening. “That bastard has got a complete account of us for the last however long?”
Svelte nodded, shrugging her slim shoulders. “A bit over five months, and yes, he does. I doubt it will do him much good anytime soon, but it is in his possession at least.”
Miss Stella spoke from wherever she was listening; the room vibrated slightly. “Please explain further. Why would this not do him any good?”
“Well, I record only the direct, unfiltered feed onto crystal drives. You have everything encrypted and the only way to get anything from it is to watch the output live. It must be decrypted first, as well. It is five months worth of information on everypony here, sleeping, eating, and working.” She explained, miming the act of putting food in her muzzle and resting. “The vast majority of it is completely worthless.”
“Alright, so it’s not an emergency yet, but it could be pretty quickly. What if he were to find out you’d turned coat?” I inquired.
Considering this, Svelte went to the table and got herself some coffee and one of the bagels. She sat herself back down beside Hay Maker and used his broad back for a table, resting her mug between his shoulders.
“Then he would immediately begin decrypting and viewing, gather as much blackmail-worthy information as possible, and I believe make an attempt to destroy or control this business.” She said, matter-of-factly.
I heard Swift take a quick breath, her note-taking skipping a beat. After Glow dabbed the edge of her cigarette on the table, shaping the ash into a cone then shaking it off. "That ain't gonna happen while Ah'm suckin' air.”
"Vows aside, you are unlikely to be able to stop him at present." Our spy lazily shifted about on her pillow until she could face the ancient guard. "You would need to destroy the structure funding the Monte Cheval, as well as convince his legitimate investors that they are helping fund illegal activities. That would require the elimination or exposure of his secondary funding mechanism and the reacquisition of the crystal drives I have already delivered, as those drives contain material that could be used to indefinitely fund his business ventures."
Taxi raised her hoof for attention. "Wait, his secondary funding? You mean his drug business?"
Svelte bobbed her head. "That is correct."
"I... I think I get where you're going here!" My driver exclaimed, leaping to her hooves and rushing up to the wall. "I need some paper or something."
Scarlet produced a stack of blank paper from someplace and a pencil, dropping it at her hooves before going back to his place. Snatching it up, Taxi began tearing one piece into small bits, writing words on each one. She began tossing them up on the wall, arranging them in a pattern.
"My teacher in the Ze-Do said every problem should be looked at as spider's web in which we are caught. We can struggle blindly like animals and further entrap ourselves, or use our will in the process of freeing ourselves one piece at a time." She spread out the bits. One with Cosmo's name was at the center. "What sort of margin of profit does the Vivarium operate at?"
Scarlet opened his mouth to answer, but closed it hard at a dirty look from After Glow.
It was Stella who finally answered, "Considerable, though during our early days it was... less so. Our escort service makes up a smaller percentage of our bottom line each year."
"Any new business, but especially casinos, operate at a loss their first few years." Taxi put a piece of paper beside Cosmo with the word 'Monte Cheval' printed on it then 'investors' beside that. "They've got a huge chunk of seed money but that's all. Stella, your hoard was the seed money for the Vivarium, right?"
"That is... correct. It was far smaller in those days." The dragon replied, his voice holding a bit of nostalgia. "I wasn't ever one for amassing more than a comfortable bed's worth of gemstones. These days, it is largely wrapped up in deeds and bank notes which are not plentiful nor so pleasant to sleep upon."
“Well, if Cosmo is operating the Monte Cheval off of his drug business, then he’s keeping that information somewhere. No matter how big that drug business is, he had to take out a loan from somepony.” Taxi stated, placing a piece of paper with the word ‘ledger’ on it on the other side of Cosmo’s name. “He’ll have some kind of ledger to track his finances. He’s an earth pony who doesn’t like unicorns, so he’s probably not using memory spells. It won’t be at the Monte Cheval, in case he’s raided by the police. He’ll have it somewhere else. If we can get that and expose his mob ties, he won’t find enough investors to stay above water. His creditors will eat him alive!”
“How then, do you intend to do that?” Svelte asked, getting off of her chair and meandering up to the board. She stared at it fiercely then remembered her horn wasn’t in operating order and grabbed a piece of paper. Obviously unused to writing with her teeth, it took her a bit to remember how. At last she attached the paper to the wall, which said ‘Monte Cheval Security’ in badly unpracticed script.
“I designed their security procedures to be impenetrable-” Her ears slide down on either side of her head. “-even to myself. No magical scrying, far-seeing, or divination spell that exists in the public archives will work within the confines of the Monte Cheval.”
“Now why’dja go and do a dumb thing like that, girly? Even Stella and Ah got a damn back door!” After Glow sniffed, derisively...
“I was paid a considerable sum of money at the time and hoped never to associate with Mister Cosmo again.” Svelte replied sharply.
“So we flip one of his managers. No problem.” Taxi waved her hoof as though the issue had been resolved.
Spilling onto her back across her beanbag, Svelte kicked her rear legs a bit then said, “His top level staff are all trained in counter-interrogation and have been warded against every sort of aggressive enchantment I could find counterspells for, then counter-warded to set off an alarm if somepony tries and fails to cast on them. You won’t be ‘flipping’ them even with your little ‘secret weapon.’”
“Speaking of that, Miss Svelte, I must ask how you know about our dear sweet Master Snow?” Stella’s voice was curious, but with an edge; that it was disembodied and its source somewhere in the undercarriage of the club couldn’t take away the slight menace.
“Oh? I know your draconic memory cannot have failed so quickly, despite your age. I’m certain you remember the group of rapscallions who made a scene some months ago?” The spy asked, her words thick with sarcasm.
Stella let out a rumble that made my legs turn to jelly as she answered, “I remember... and comments about my age will cost you, little filly.”
“Cost me what? You don’t hurt ponies, you ridiculous old-”
Before Svelte could finish, After Glow’s knife had flashed out and shaved a healthy swatch of fur off of the younger mare’s fetlock before slicing into the beanbag, sending a puff of white fluffy beads into the air that landed in her mane. Hay Maker didn’t even have time to react. Svelte put a hoof on his back and pushed him back down before he could make some entirely futile protective gesture.
“Sorry, mah magic ain’t so good anymore. Ah ain’t so young as Ah used to be.” After Glow grinned dangerously, yanking her blade out of the chair.
Touching her freshly shorn foreleg, Svelte brushed the fur off, trying to look nonchalant. I almost believed she hadn’t been unsettled in the least; the mare was a consummate actress. I almost missed the subtle shaking of her hoof..
“I... take your meaning.” She murmured, more subdued. “Well, those ruffians were sent at my request. I needed to see how your guard has managed so perfectly to disable all those who have attempted invasion. I planted bugs on them. I must say I was amazed, though I think painting obscenities on them and hanging them from the Academy flagpole was excessive. They were as docile as kittens after that treatment by... Master Snow Cow, was it?”
“Snow Coy... and Ah’m half tempted to git yer ass in front of his eyes just to cure yer smart lip, honey.” Glow threatened, gathering up the white beads from the chair in her magic and sweeping them into a garbage can. “This ain’t helping with how we’re gonna git the damn recordin’s back.”
“If sneaking isn’t going to work, we could always try the direct approach.” I sat forward, shifting my badge out of my collar. “Dress your Stilettos up as cops and storm the place. Make it look like a police raid. We’d be in and out before Cosmo knew what hit him.”
Taxi leaned over and lightly tapped my wounded shoulder. A pain like having my leg lightly roasted over an open fire with a nice brace of stoked kippers had me stumbling and trying to shake the tingles out. My driver only gave me a disapproving look. “Hardy, King Cosmo is prepared for a real police raid... do you honestly think we’d find what we’re looking for that way? This requires subtlety. I realize you’re as subtle as a fart in an elevator-”
“I can be subtle!” I nipped at her, rubbing my shoulder. “Fine, we can’t do direct and a caper is out of the question. What’ve you got?”
“I...” Taxi considered this then shook her head, braid lashing her forelegs. “Okay, I just want to say this: if I were given this operation profile back when I was working for the DPD, I’d tell the Chief to find somepony stupider to pull it off.” Putting her hoof on the sticky wall, she brushed a scrap that said ‘blackmail’ over beside another with ‘drug operations’ scrawled thereon. “Even if we were to re-acquire the recordings before they can be usefully examined, we still have to eliminate Cosmo’s businesses or he’ll just be back later from another angle.”
“I may have a useful piece of information for you.” Svelte cut in, a mercenary gleam in her eye. “It will... have a price attached, however.”
“Yer right, lass!” After Glow brandished her knife, marching towards the spy who tumbled off her chair and scrambled backwards. The bodyguard started to rise again only to find himself squashed against the floor by a field of glimmering magic. “Let’s see what it’ll cost ye to tell me jes’ what yer thinkin’. An ear mebbe?”
“I just want to leave!” Svelte cried, raising her chin to avoid the weapon twisting against her throat. “I just want to get out of this awful city! I want an air chariot ticket!”
“Miss Glow-” Stella’s speaking her name from on high brought the security pony up short before she could practice any creative amateur surgery and undo all of Doctor Pickle’s hard work. “-lets hear what this filly has to say. If it is of use, I will guarantee she will leave the city safely and with a small but adequate fund that she can start over elsewhere.”
“Yes, yes! Please!” The spy begged.
Using nothing but a knifetip and a healthy dose of fear, Glow forcibly lifted the girl’s lovely head.
“You know, I would speak right now if I were you, Miss Svelte.” I said, moving up beside the older pony, but making no move to stop her. “That is the best deal you’re likely to get. Cosmo doesn’t need a failed spy who can point to him in a blackmail attempt on some of the most powerful ponies in the city, if not the region.”
Her eyes still held some of that feral cunning which made my cutie-mark positively wriggle, but it was mixed with the kind of self-preservative fear that shortens irritating cases down to plea-bargained confessions.
“Mister Cosmo has someplace he stores important things.” Svelte started. “I noticed a... call it a ‘deviation’ from my security procedures. The Monte Cheval contains a private office for Mister Cosmo accessible only from the street. He takes guests there sometimes. There is a phone line there which I did not authorize. Whenever anything he needs stored comes in, he calls this phone then puts the object in the safe under his desk. It... ‘goes away’ from there. I don’t know how or where..”
“How exactly did you find out about this ‘deviation,’ then?” I asked, squinting one eye at her.
Svelte gulped, then forced a weak smile. “Cosmo tends to treat mares as furniture. I was in the room.”
“Alright then. I want to look him in the face and tell him about the investigation of the death of Ruby Blue. I believe we could... combine direct and subtle. You say magical spells won’t work?” Picking up a second bagel off the snack table I jammed it in my mouth. “Whash aboush... libbing shurveillanshe?”
“Come again?”
I swallowed quickly. “What about living surveillance? Did you cover living beings actively sitting, watching and listening?”
“Errr... no?” Svelte’s uncertainty heartened me somewhat. “Why would I? What could possibly watch from inside a safe?”
“I know that sort of magical lockbox.” Taxi put in, making a square shape with her hooves. “They’re used by banks and casinos to move money around, though I’ve never heard of somepony having a private one except... well, criminals. There’s no law against it, but they’re brilliant for moving things you don’t want somepony to intercept. If Cosmo is working on his ledgers himself, there's no more excellent way of moving them around.”
“So what if we give him something that he’s likely to put through that system?“ I held up Ruby’s book.
Svelte sucked her lower lip. “That book... I suppose it seems to be a diary... is clearly magical. I take it then, Mr. Hay Maker, it was hidden?”
“Yes, ma’am. I dun missed it.” The boxer replied, shamefacedly. “I’m sorry...”
“It is no issue. You have done as well as might be expected with the information available.” She patted his big, maroon head. “I doubt a book is what Cosmo seeks, though it may lead him to whatever that object may be. Alternatively, it may contain evidence which could point to him as the culprit behind the filly's death. I... imagine if it were to find it's way into his hooves, it might be considered valuable enough for him to transport it to his secure location.”
“If we could keep eyes on that book when it went into the safe-” I began.
“I have just told you that no artifact or scrying magic will work!” The spy huffed, impatiently. “Those shoddy little bits of scrap and gems you police ponies call bugs will die the instant they cross my wards.”
“Heard you the first time. I think I know who can help us.” I said with an enigmatic quirk of the muzzle before turning to Taxi. “You still have that contact with the Liaison office?”
My driver’s eyebrows tried to climb up onto her hairline, then she hopped up as comprehension set in.
“You’re not thinking of who I think you’re thinking of-”
I shrugged. “Hey, if you have any better suggestions, now’s the time.”
Taxi leaned close and whispered in my ear, “I know we need surveillance, but... Hardy, you know what they’re like!”
“Alright, so ye got somethin’ the nasty git wants.” After Glow said, shifting her weight from one set of knees to the other. “Ye gonna trade it to’em fer the recordings and a promise to leave be? Seems awfully weak to me.”
“Oh, no... I wouldn’t take a promise from a mob kingpin.” I gave a self satisfied flip to the brim of my hat, turning to look at our little matrix on the wall. “No, we’re going to do business with him. More specifically, I am. I have... well, I think we can get the location of his drug production facility and wherever he is keeping his valuables. Two birds, one stone. I’ve might have an idea how we can do that.”
Stella spoke from overhead. “We have trusted you thus far, Hard Boiled Junior. You do your father proud. You’ve got his lovely mind... and his lovely hind end.”
Maybe it was exhaustion, but as I realized where my buttocks were aimed, something inside me finally snapped. I threw my rear legs out and kicked the innocent camera in an arc over everypony’s head. It hit the rear wall, spilling cogs and bits of metal; letting off one last crackle of energy it went dead.
“That's the last crack about my flanks I'm taking! The next pony to make one will be taking a bullet in the knee!”
****
There wasn’t much to be said after that. We’d determined to set everything in motion on the coming day, and set off back towards the front of the club. The evening had crept up quickly and I was finding myself more exhausted than I’d thought equinely possible. My eyelids were starting to feel like they were sagging around my knees.
Swift was, if anything, in worse condition. After a day punctuated by intense terror, violence, and a mountain of note taking, she’d given up on trying to keep her wings from dragging the carpets. She simply trudged behind us, trying to unkink her jaw from it’s writing position.
Taxi, who'd managed to avoid nearly all of the excitement, still hummed cheerfully to herself as she trotted at my side.
After Glow did offer to let us sleep in one of the spare rooms but for some reason, my partner vetoed that, saying something about ‘Scarlet waking up everypony up with kisses’. Instead, the aforementioned effeminate nuisance took Svelte and Haymaker off to one of the private rooms, presumably for a shower and something to eat. The two of them were getting a bit ripe.
I wasn’t much better. I could still taste embalming fluid from the coroner’s office, blood and bile from Hay Maker’s chest crushing charge at Ruby’s apartment, and sawdust from the attack in the bowels of the club - but there was no pain. Against all odds and in spite of the various ponies intent on doing me harm, my body was merely exhausted; whatever other choice words I might have had for that sadistic rat-bastard Pickle, he’d reassembled me.
We stumbled and staggered through the undercarriage of the Vivarium, meeting nopony besides some quietly respectful Stilettos who were keeping our path clear of the evening crowds. After Glow shoved a door with the words ‘Fire Exit’ printed in big red letters on it and I caught a hard face-full of Detrot’s Special Rain Number 6: the driving downpour with a hint of car exhaust and cloying depression.
There was a loud poof as After Glow opened a huge umbrella and levitated it over our heads. The cab was parked outside with a zebra Stiletto standing watch over it, another umbrella clutched in her teeth. Those velour, incense scented car seats had never looked more inviting.
I felt like a slug crawling under a rock as I lifted myself into the back, then made room for the rookie. Taxi shifted her yellow tail end behind the wheel and pressed the ignition. The engine thundered comfortingly as I slammed the door and shut out the storm. We turned out of the parking lot of the Vivarium and onto the calm streets of the Heights. After a day that'd felt like it refused to end, all I wanted was to fall onto my bed with a beer and a half eaten carton of fried rice.
****
"So, what's the plan?" Taxi asked, breaking me out of my half snooze. The cab was halfway out of The Height's shopping districts. You could feel the difference in the quality of the roadworks as we drove out of the upscale neighborhood and back into Detrot's gritty inner city streets.
"Plan? You call your friend and ask if our 'surveillance' is interested in this case. Plan is I talk to Cosmo, get the recordings back, and we shut down his drug operation. I've got to make a couple phone calls tomorrow morning." I said, hoping to shut her down before she could get into 'planning mode.’
"That's not a plan. That's a goal." She replied, expertly pulling us in behind a couple of carts passing down an alley. "I'm talking specifics. If you want to do business with a drug baron you need a fresh identity! You know he's going to do checks on you."
Swift's ears lifted, slightly. "Identities? Are we going to do undercover work, sir?"
I shook my head and put a light hoof on my driver's seat. "I'm not going undercover. It's handled. Just make the call. Have them meet us in the morning if they want to help. Otherwise, we'll come up with something else tomorrow. This is just an intellgience gathering mission, for now."
"Hardy... ugh, never mind. I'll work out the logistics." Taxi pinched the bridge of her nose then peeled off down a side road to escape a slow moving carriage.
The weather was only worsening with each passing minute as we got closer to my apartment. The weather factories should have been down for the night, but periodically they had been known to handle emergency orders from other cities and regions by drowning Detrot in truly wild rainstorms.
"Kid, are you going to be able to fly in this?" I inquired whilst nudging Swift, who seemed like she was verging on unconsciousness. She pulled herself together long enough to raise her soft orange head over the edge of the window.
"Oh... I..." Her lower lip quivered then she lifted her wings and gave them a slight shake to work the impending sleep out. "I'll be fine, sir."
It was a good little show of toughness, but I could still see the quaking in her pinion feathers.
"You got a friend nearby you can stay with?"
"She could always spend the night at my studio-" Taxi started to offer.
"Sweets, your place is a closet and it smells like a zebra temple after an attack by potpourri demons."
My driver lifted her nose indignantly, but didn't deny it.
Swift thought for a few seconds. It looked like a real effort. "If there's a cloud hostel in the area you could drop me off, sir. I bet I can make the rooftops, at least."
I smacked the seat. "Screw that, kid. You're coming home with me. We're close to my place. You can use the couch. Might not be as soft as clouds but it'll do for a night."
She started to object, but a convenient, heart-stopping crash of thunder left our ears ringing. Images of a smoking pegasus tumbling out of the sky shot through my brain; I could see she was also thinking along those lines.
"Yes, sir."