//------------------------------// // Act 2, Chapter 5: Home, Home on the Mange // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Starlight Over Detrot Act 2, Chapter 5: Home, Home On The Mange... What's in a name? Well, everything, really. At least for ponykind. Names and Special Talents are delicately intertwined, but not in a very straightforward fashion. The conundrum is that to give a foal a name is to proclaim to the world who that pony is before you have empirically determined anything about them: Most importantly, before you understand their Special Talent. And ponies, unlike griffins, do not have the luxury of hiding behind meaningless frippery like "Gustav" or "Susan." It is not known whether a name determines a destiny, or vice versa. In a magical land like Equestria, either is plausible, and no study has been concieved that could analyze the effects. Despite the lack of any possible data, however, hopeful naming strategies have evolved over time. Some, usually families with a family business or tradition, often know approximately how they desire their offspring to progress, and will name them accordingly. Others hedge their bets, and give their foals a lot of wiggle room with a name that could point to a lot of things: "Starsong," "Rose Quartz" or, in the ultimate example of learned-pony name-hedging, "Waveform." Still others have been known to write to the Princesses for assistance in the matter, but the Princesses have been known to delegate this responsibility to potentially uninterested subordinates, as a certain Mr. Pfft Whatever will attest. Still, it does happen that names and talents mismatch. Ponies can and have had themselves legally renamed when the irony of being an sky-chariot pilot named Terminal Velocity gets to be too much. Even that is not enough for some ponies, however. Tribal traditions and other social constructs could wind up applying a host of additional names - and even those can have their own, subtle kind of power. --The Scholar Stella might have exhibited some brilliant paranoia, but he was an Equestria Games welcoming committee compared to the Aroyos.          The street was so quiet I was soon hoping somepony would drop something or open fire just for a confirmation there was life there besides the five of us: Me, the pregnant Wisteria beside me, Swift and Taxi behind, and Jambalaya bringing up the rear like a sulky shadow. My shodden hoof-falls made the street echo. It’s not that there were no signs of life, however. For all there was graffiti on every surface, there were signs of hidden life in every door and on every wall.          Symbols were carved into most of the weather-beaten doors. Not one of them had the original paint, though a few were colored with the art of some talented tagger. A few of them had fetishes like the dead rabbit, but most were less grisly. Here and there, the signs were more familiar. I saw an upturned garbage can with a chess board laid across it, the pieces still in place. A child’s ball, bright red, with a yellow sun emblazoned on one side, wallowed in a puddle.          I just wished some of it would bother to show itself; With nopony actually there, it felt like walking through a museum exhibit on the horrors of urban decay. I was about to ask where we were going when Wisteria stopped abruptly. We stood in front of what I, at first, thought was just another door on the row of blockhouses, but unlike its neighbors, this one was a perfect, shiny white like it’d recently had a fresh scrubbing. The knocker was shiny bronze and the number ‘7’ above the peephole looked meticulously polished. “Stand still.” Wisteria ordered. “Let the ancestors be seein’ ye.” “Ancestors? What, am I going to meet them?” “Dis be as far as ye go. De ancestors see nopony not born Aroyo. Dat be de rule.” “I thought they were-” “Hush! Ye be in de presence! Ye wi’ stand!” she snapped. I had a sensation of everything around me holding its breath. I felt my temper flare for a second, but it died just as quickly as I reminded myself that I was a guest and these ponies could end me in an instant if they set their minds to it. Turning to the door, I rubbed my hoof on my grey chest fur and waited, watching the peephole. It was covered, for a moment, then whatever was peering out pulled away, only to be immediately replaced by another, then another, and another. There was a soft rattle of the doorknob, then a sweet silvery bell rang somewhere nearby. Wisteria exhaled loudly, wiping her forehead with the back of one knee. She tilted her head at the bag or fetish hanging around her neck, then nodded. “De ancestors say ye stay.” “That’s... fantastic. Thank you,” I said, half turned towards the door. “I and I afraid dat... maybe not all,” Wisteria said with some trepidation, patting her bag. I sat on the sidewalk in front of the white door, my tail slapping against my coat. “You want me to jump through a few hoops? Do a little dance? What?” “If ye is to be stayin’, dey say ye must have a name.” “I... had one last time I checked,” I replied, raising one eyebrow. “Dat be de name ye given by de outside. If ye stay, ye be Aroyo... and given Aroyo name.” Deciding it was another little test, I let my head drop. “Fine... lay it on me.” “Oh, Hardy, would you ease up?” Taxi swatted me on the shoulder. “I spent some time with a zebra clan that had a ritual like this. Granted, I ended up something that I think translates to ‘She Who Hikes Her Tail,’ but it’s just a formality.” “The last ‘formality’ was a big glass of Truth Bloom. That led me to working for Stella. And dying. Don’t forget the dying,” I grumbled. “Sir, are you sure this is the best place we could stay?” Swift whispered in my ear. “This all seems really sort of... weird.” “Says Miss Dragon Teeth herself?” I bit back. My partner stuck her tongue out between two of her fangs before quickly shutting her mouth. “It’s just... what’s wrong with a hotel?” “Hotels don’t have their own dedicated gangs of street protectors and insular paranoia. I need both of those just now.” “Oh...” “It’ll be fine, kid. This isn’t half so bad as it could have been. Keep in mind, we could have ended up staying with Scarlet.” Swift’s ears fluttered, then lay back against her head. “No way, sir. I’d rather sleep on feral clouds than stay with him.” “Why’s that?” “I tried for a little while a couple of years ago. He uses my things without asking,” she complained. “If I left a pair of hoofcuffs laying around, I’d come home to one of his boyfriends chained to the bed.” “Why did you have hoofcuffs?” Taxi asked, squinting at Swift, who blushed furiously, hiding her face under her wing. “Weren’t you a PACT trainee until six months ago?” “I-I... um... I... u-used to play pr-pretend I was an o-officer...” “So you bought actual... wait, you know what? Never mind. Any answers I get to this will either confuse or disturb me,” I said, shaking my head. “T-thank you, Sir.” While this conversation was going on, Wisteria was listening to her bag again. She blinked a little, sucking on her tattooed lip. “You look perplexed. I’ve had enough perplexing things for one day. Can we skip perplexed and get to ‘Place I can lay down’?” I asked. Wisteria dropped the bag against her chest. “I... I and I not sure what dis means. Dey be sayin’ ye name, but is not a Cyclone name and is not Aroyo.” “Yeah, Perplexing? We talked about this. No more of that, thank you.” “De name dey give ye be...‘Cru-sa-der’.” She said it just like that, sounding out each syllable: Crusader. That word flailed about in my memory, trying to find something to connect to. It was having a heckova time in the mess of trauma and violence composing my recent thoughts. Somewhere, I’d heard that before. There were the Cutie Mark Crusades, of course, but I was born years after they’d finished, so that didn’t seem relevant. I just couldn’t place it anywhere else. It’d been a long day. “Alright, so my Aroyo name is Crusader, then?” “Dat be. De ancestors be very strange some days. Come, Crusada.” Wisteria bowed, then stomped her rear hoof three times. Up and down the street, more bells rang, tinkling prettily on the corner of every building. All at once, doors up and down the street began to open and creatures of all shapes and sizes flooded out. Neighbors came back into the street to greet one another and shake hooves, or claws, resuming conversations my presence had probably interrupted as though nothing had happened. I noticed two old griffins, their beaks weathered and bent, stepping from the shade of a thin alley to reclaim their game of chess. There were plenty of curious looks, but with the lockdown apparently called off, most seemed content to accept that we were meant to be there. I wondered if this was mostly by virtue of the fact that we weren’t lying on our backs with smoking fur. Taxi tapped me on the shoulder. “Hardy, close your mouth. You look like a fish.” My jaw snapped shut, but not before Wisteria could catch my expression. “Is de way, in de Skids, Detective Crusada,” the Aroyo explained, holding her hoof an inch above the ground. “De way is be like mouse hiding. Wait out dem what would take de little we have an’ strike when dey back be turned.” “Sir, it’s... this is like the Heights, right?” Swift asked. I contemplated that, then flicked one ear back against my head. “I think this is the opposite. Nopony here is trying to live like they’re ‘normal’. This is...something else.” “Aye, ye be right. We be Aroyo. We be de true Cyclones! We be Ever Free.” Jambalaya declared proudly. “Ye laws be unwelcome. Only law, is law of de Aroyo.” “Which is?” Taxi asked, lips pursed. “Don’t be stompa.” Wisteria chuckled. “De Jewelers, dey kill what dey not control. De coppers, dey not protect us. We protect ourselves. We live free.” “I’ll take your word for it,” I replied, glancing at the roof where one of the pegasi lookouts stood. “You said you had a place for me?” Something rattled behind me and I turned to see a small gaggle of various species of children standing there on the sidewalk. There were maybe ten, all told. A few ponies, a buffalo, a zebra, and three young griffins. They wore a mix of feathers, bits of shiny garbage tied in their manes, and face-paint laid on an inch thick in imitation of the scars and tattoos sported by nearly every one of the older Aroyo’s guards. One of the griffin chicks darted forward, and touched me on the chest with one claw, then dashed back to his companions who all started giggling. Wisteria frowned at him. “Ye, little ones! Be off wi’ ye! Deez be our guests!” The griffin made a rude noise with his tongue, then made to run off. Before he could, Jambalaya levitated a newspaper out of a nearby garbage can, rolled it up, and smacked him across the flank with it. “An’ be respectin’ ye elders!” Wisteria yelled after as the kids scattered in all directions, squealing and laughing. Swift had a tiny quirk to one side her mouth that couldn’t quite be called a smile, but was certainly better than the haunted look she’d worn since we climbed off that water tower. Wisteria continued, “Today? Dey learn to write de words dat matter.” She pointed to the group of kids who were following a tan pegasus down the street. The stallion was carrying what looked like a bag of painting tools towards one of the alleys. As I watched, one of the foals asked him a question and he passed her a spray-paint can with a mouth-nozzle on it. The girl began laboriously spraying the wall with what eventually became an ‘E’, followed by the letters V, E, R, F, R, E, and E. She followed it by flapping her tiny wings and lifting a little distance into the air, flipping upside down and drawing a tiny picture of a cat’s foot. “What’s dat...err...that?” Taxi bit her tongue at the slip, but our companion didn’t seem bothered. “Dat be her name, Miss Shining Eyes.” Taxi stopped in her tracks. “What did you call me?” Wisteria paused, giving my driver a gentle smile. “Ahhh, yes. De ancestors say ye sees wid shining eyes.” “Oh... Sorry.” Taxi continued down the sidewalk as she explained, “My mom used to call me ‘Bright Eyes’ back when I was a kid. She said stars shined in them.” “Dat dey do, Miss. As to ye question, dat be de girl’s sign. Dey what would come after, know dat ‘Cat’s Paw’ marked dere.” Wisteria answered, waving to the foal who raised her spraypaint can high and did a little salute with it. “But... why teach them to write at all? Will they leave someday?” I inquired. “Some, dey leave. Dey want life outside de Aroyo and de Skids. Dey is free to go, so long as dey not join de Jeweler stompas. Most stay. Dey want free, we be free.” **** I’d certainly dragged enough Cyclones in for questioning, though usually fruitlessly. The gang was fractious at best and while they might work together in specific circumstances, there was no central leadership to speak of. You couldn’t properly infiltrate them because, at best, you might disrupt a single operation or nab one truly awful suspect, but after you did the remainder would simply hack off the group which was busted like a gangrenous limb. The rule was simple. Get caught, confess, or get convicted and you lost all status as a Cyclone and had to work your way back up from nothing. It was a damnably efficient system for keeping cops out and the truly knowledgeable Cyclones were hardened street creatures. The Aroyos seemed a more inclusive group than most, but also more deeply insulated from the outside world. **** “How much territory do you actually control?” I asked, stepping around a pale pink street vendor who seemed to be selling some kind of dolls made of sewn rag.          Wisteria scratched her neck, thinking how best to reply. “De Aroyo not control de street. Do ye control de earth? De sky? Dey be molded, but dey not be owned. Ye wi’ die one dey, and go back to sky and earth.”          “I think he means where do most of you usually live,” Taxi rephrased.          “I and I understands, but de question be... not right.” Our guide patted a passing foal on the head as he rushed towards a group of his friends. “We be inside de street. Aroyos run underneat’. We go de places nopony else go.”          “The sewers?” I tilted my head.          “Under city, we moves where we be pleased to move.”          “Your territory is wherever the city sewers run?” Swift stepped up to ask, her ears perked up.          “We not seek de control de other Cyclones be. Dey come here, dey meet Aroyos in dey homes. Den, dey meet death wid swift wings.” Wisteria gave us a slightly maniacal smile. “Alright, where are we going then?”          “We be here!” Wisteria turned down a short pathway between two buildings, shoving open a rusting gate. Behind it, a short walk overgrown with weeds led up to a metal reinforced door with a series of heavy-duty locks. Somepony with a sense of humor and a detail brush had painted on a few extra locks just for good measure.          Putting my hoof on the door, I glanced at our guide. “This? I was expecting an apartment someplace.”          “Dis be better. Dis Aroyo safe place for times of trouble. We have many, but dis be mine. Haven’t needed since de King be dead, so it be yours now.” Wisteria turned to the last of our number who was still glowering like a cat that’s had her toys taken away. “Jamba?” “Mama, do dey have to stay here? De boys and I-” Jambalaya started but her mother interrupted. “Girl, ye little crew can go find yeself a better place to drink and screw! Ye wi’ hand over de key to de Nest or I wi’ turn ye over I and I’s knee!” Wisteria growled. Her daughter blew air through one side of her mouth, pulling a keyring out of her mane with her magic and levitating it over to the door. Expertly unlocking every one of the locks, she swung the door open on a black, empty space. Wisteria smiled and hit a switch on the wall just inside, revealing a short, concrete stairway leading down to another metal door, this one with an inset wheel. “What is this? It looks like some kind of bunker...” Swift murmured, touching the wall and wiping a bit of dust off her hoof. “Dat it be.” Wisteria agreed. “De Skids be poor, but for d’ose dat run de street, it be de safest of places. Now, ye run wid us...and de ancestors, dey would not see ye die again, Crusada. Ye saved Aroyo lives when ye unmade de King’o’Ace. Dis place be yours, now.” She stepped out of the way, leaving the stairway open. “I and I must be goin’ back and makin’ sure de patrols be on dey routes. Jamba, ye post guard on de rooftop across de street. Make sure dey be watchin’! If any comes, ye ring the inside bell.” “Yes, mama.” Jambalaya breathed an unhappy moan, then said to Taxi, Swift, and I. “I be watchin’ de t’ree of ye. Ye watch ye steps. De guards wi’ be watchin’ for ye Night Trotter, but don’t be comin’ and goin’ as ye please. Leave by de way ye came and drive ye quiet. If ye must fly, keep below de level of de buildings until ye reach de outskirts.” “Alright. We’re not looking to make trouble while we’re here and we’ll be out of your fur as quick as it’s feasible,” I assured her, though she didn’t look convinced. Passing me the keys, she shut the rusting gate behind her as both she and Wisteria retreated up the street. Swift settled on the top step leading down below, scratching under one wing. “Sir, do you think this is... I mean, I know we had to have other options, right?” “None that I felt perfectly comfortable taking.” I sat down beside her, resting my rear hooves on the lower step. “These Aroyos don’t seem like a much worse lot than Stella’s Stilettos. Sure, a little crazier, but they’re a gang. Gangs don’t form because they like outsiders. We bought this place in blood and if I read Wisteria right, they’ll protect us.” “But we’re... I mean... shouldn’t we... ugh! This loud voice keeps shouting at me in the back of my head ‘You’re the police!’. Hiding in some... weird bunker feels like giving up.” She used one wing to pat the spot on her leg where her gun would normally have been strapped, then remembered it wasn’t there. “My badge probably isn’t worth the steel it’s printed on right now, though. I left it in Sky Town, with my gun. Darn it. I feel so...exposed. Like there’s nothing safe anymore.” “I know what you mean.” I set my tail on the step beside me and smoothed some dirt out of it. She lifted her head slightly. “Sir?” “Kid, you remember what I told you a month ago at Stella’s?” I asked. “About... not having my badge, but still being a cop?” “Yeah, that.” Swift rolled her eyes. “Sir, you were trying to make me feel better. I know that’s all it was.” Taxi dropped onto the step opposite me, sitting with Swift between us. “He was, sure. It doesn’t make him any less right, though. Cops are in what they do, not a badge or gun. You want to still be a cop, then you’ve got what you need to do it. Granted, I’d feel more comfortable if you still had your gun.” Her nose drooped. “Not that I can carry my cannon with me anyway.” “That thing is still in the trunk?!” I exclaimed. “Did you think I was going to give it back?” she asked, giving me a sideways look. Before I could start on chewing out my driver, Swift asked, “But, sir...I know we have leads, but are we really the ponies to handle this?” “Can you think of anypony better?” “The Princesses?” “Sure... Go tell the Princesses that you got your brain magicked to turn you into a murderer. Just roll that one around your tongue for a minute. ‘My mind was enchanted by a city-wide conspiracy to do... something.’” I got up and started down the stairs, leaving her sitting there. “Sir... I know you’re right... but you’re still a real tailhole sometimes.” “I know, kid. Now, let’s see what this pit they’ve stashed us in is like.” **** Police safe houses come in various flavors. The nice ones have doors and running water, but most cops never get to stay in the nice ones. I certainly hadn’t. The last time I’d been in one while on a case, I had to clean feces out of a ceiling fan and sleep on the witness. There’s a good reason for that. The lower end you buy, the more places there are you can potentially hide. Since most tracking magics are tied to a pony or object, they can be broken fairly easily once you know they’re there. There are exceptions, of course, but usually at the point someone is rich enough to buy top of the line magical tracking, they can afford lawyers good enough to make problems disappear without actually killing the witnesses. Having the anonymity of staying in a real crap-hole is nice for ponies needing to vanish. In no way does that stop it from being a real crap-hole. Thankfully, the Aroyos and the police were about as far removed from one another as it’s possible for two groups to be. **** There was a dirty symbol on the wheel. I brushed some of the grit off with the corner of my coat. It said, in tiny stenciled letters, ‘Detrot Municipal Mega-Fauna Shelter.’ then beneath that ‘Warning, Opening Mega-Fauna Shelter Without Alert Is A Crime Punishable by-” and somepony had scratched out whatever the punishment might have been replacing it with a crude picture of two pony figures engaged in some very creative sexual acts. “Right, then. As expected then,” I grunted, grabbing the wheel in my teeth and wrenching it around as hard as I could. It was on an oiled bearing, so I almost brained myself as it spun around and smacked me in the lower jaw. Swift caught the crank, then gingerly twisted it until we heard the loud clank of bolts being drawn back. Taxi stepped up as I massaged my jawline, pulling the heavy door open. It was nearly three inches thick and the bolts holding it in place seemed to have runes or glyphs of some kind carved into the ends. “Sir, this couldn’t be a... a dragon bunker, could it?” Swift asked. “Probably dates back to the Crusades,” I commented. The space inside was dark, but feeling around the edge of the door I found a switch. Light gems built into the ceiling tiles flickered, then burst into harsh white light that quickly dimmed to a comforting yellow. “Oh Hardy, this is great!” Taxi gushed, bounding off the stairs. Great. Great, she said. I suppose there have been more unlikely places, but it was nothing like I’d had in mind. The bunker’s foyer was a cozy little nest suitable for maybe ten ponies laying next to one another with a hallway behind it that seemed to have rooms off in each direction, each delineated by ragged curtains strung up in the doorway. It showed former occupancy by nearly every species imaginable, though. There was a couch the color of old newspaper sitting in one corner with a bright green, glass blown hookah almost as tall as myself beside it and a television with a broken screen. Piles of pillows covered the opposite wall almost up to the ceiling and a buffalo peace pipe hung from a hook beside them th a dream-catcher dangling under it. In the middle, a low coffee table was fashioned out of an old plank and stacks what looked like manuals for various home appliances propping up all four corners. Taxi was off immediately, poking her head into each of the rooms as she darted off deeper into the bunker. Grabbing the hookah in my teeth, I slung it into the overflowing garbage can positioned conveniently beside the door, then made to go after her. “Sir?” Swift said, bringing me up short. I glanced back to see her still standing in the doorway, scratching one fetlock with her knee and looking at the thick, hoof-woven rugs that covered whatever passed for flooring. “Kid, what is it? Really, you can lay off the preface. If you want something, just ask.” Her eyes remained downcast, but she gave another of those half-smiles. “Can I go get my gun? I’m feeling... kind of naked without it?” “You feeling safe with a gun?” I queried. “I... feel safer with it than without, sir.” She shifted her weight from one rear hoof to the other, leaning her flank on the doorframe. “Do you mind?” “You don’t need my permission to go anywhere, remember?” Swift used her tongue to dig something that didn’t bear thinking about from between two of her back teeth. “I know, but my judgement feels like it’s not all that good right now.” “Still worried your brain might still have some hypno-magic somewhere inside it?” “Y-yes. I’ve been having funny urges since I woke up. Stuff moving too fast near me makes me feel... strange. Excited.” Her eyes wandered up to the skyline briefly, then she hastily amended, ”But, sir, I... I c-could kill somepony just as dead with my combat training, or by kicking a cloud, or by hitting them with my wings hard enough. Not having my gun doesn’t make anypony safer with me.” “That’s... an unpleasantly sane way of putting that and doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable... but, fine, go on. If you need somepony else’s judgement, here’s your orders; ‘Don’t shoot anypony who isn’t very probably trying to shoot you first’. Just remember what that Wisteria filly said. Stay below the level of the buildings when you leave and when you come back, land and walk.” She looked noticeably relieved. “Yes, sir.” As she turned to go back upstairs, I caught her tail in the corner of my mouth for a second, giving it a gentle tug and forcing her to pause again. She looked back, waiting silently for whatever I might say to her. It was a sad sight. A month ago, she’d been so full of life. Seeing her like that was breaking my heart. Maybe it wasn’t original, but I decided it didn’t matter if those feelings were from some phantom of the original organ or the specter in the replacement. “Kid, I’m going to say this and you consider this an order, too. Stop thinking about it. Grape Shot was dead the second he pulled the trigger on me. His death wasn’t your responsibility.” Swift wilted a little and put her cheek against the concrete wall beside the door. “Is it that obvious, sir?” “Yes, yes, it is,” I said, putting my hooves on either of her slim shoulders. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, but she swallowed it firmly along with what might have easily developed into another emotional stormburst. “Swift...Whoever cast that spell on Grape Shot killed your friend. He was just a bullet in a clip to them.” Her back stiffened. “Sir, I pulled the trigger.” “If you hadn't he would have.” Pulling her around with one leg, I looked into her watery, pink eyes. “You’d be somewhere dead on a cloud, your brains all over some roof-top, and he’d still be killing for whoever enchanted him. They fried his brain, kid. I’m pretty sure whatever was left of your friend stopped him from capping you just long enough to save your life... and maybe his soul.”          Her expression didn’t change, though after a moment, she relaxed a hair. “Yes, sir.”          “Now go get your gun.” I bobbed my head towards the open door at the top of the stairs. “We’ll be waiting for you to get back. Then we’re going to go see somepony who might have some answers. ”          Spreading her wings, Swift leapt off the bottom step and was out the door in a blast of feathers, soaring off down the street on a low thermal. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, and rubbed the soft layer of skin over top of the socket on my chest, watching her go. I felt suddenly, very old. My partner. My poor, sweet partner. The kid needed time to relax and process the month’s events. I wished I could give it to her. Detrot is not merciful to ponies who lay down to rest when the race is still being run. A draft on my neck made me shiver, and I thought for a moment I smelled gun-metal and dark coffee. Someplace in my distressed sub-conscious, Juniper was laughing his ass off.          “Hardy, you’ve got to come see this! They’ve got a little kitchen and everything!” Taxi called from down the hall.          **** I’d been born a few years after the end of the war and still remembered the ‘drills’ they were running everypony through back then. We hadn’t been lucky enough to get ourselves a local dragon shelter, but most ponies with enough money to afford a house could at least buy some magical reinforcement on their basements that would probably not have stopped an especially determined draconic attacker, but could keep you alive in the event of a fly-by. During the drills, a siren would sound all up and down the street and everypony in the house had to climb down into the basement, seal the doors shut, and shut down all arcano-electric or gem based power to the building. I remember once, during one of those drills, I’d brought down a shadow projector with a gem inside it. My father was furious, although ‘furious’ means different things to different ponies. In the case of Hard Boiled Senior, it meant a trip to a veteran’s home. For the next month, every one of my weekends I spent reading stories and sitting with ponies who’d lost limbs to dragon fire. It wasn’t the punishment, nor his anger, that really hurt, though. It was remembering the frightened look on his face when the siren sounded and he saw me clutching that little glowing gemstone. It was knowing, if a real dragon had felt the magic from that stone , he might have killed my mother and left my dad all alone. I know how unlikely that sort of thing is, but the years         after the war were a bit of a hysterical time. I never hated dragons, but then, dragons weren’t real to me like they were to him. After all, the only thing I knew about how my grandpa died was that it was ‘in a fire,' but at the time, nopony had ever said it was a building that burned.          **** The bunker was larger than I’d thought it was going to be, but further down the central hallway we came to a second metal vault door hammered into the concrete. After running through the entire keychain, we determined that it was locked with a key Jambalaya hadn’t seen fit to give me. Aside whatever might have been behind that door, there were several chambers, each with a closet sized bathroom, sprinkler system and grooves on the floor where something had been bolted at one time. I assumed it was probably the original beds. Most had a mix of cast-off furniture, reconstituted junk, and hoof-crafts. Guests or not, I decided to bin most of it. “This place is perfect!” Taxi squealed as she heated a can of scavenged baked beans over a little stove, adding some shallots and part of an onion that’d been hours from going bad when she found it in the bottom of the the mini-fridge somepony had dragged down there. “It smells like every drug I think I’ve ever seen and a few I think were invented right here,” I groaned, clutching a broom in one hoof as I swept ashes off one of the rugs into a dustpan that’d had its own layer of dust when I dug it out of a janitor’s closet behind a room which had been used, at one point, for storing cots. Somepony had converted it into an impromptu one-table poker pit. “Shush! I know we won’t be staying here long. Just let me have my dreams, okay? I’d love to fix this place up. I’d like to see somepony try to rob this!” Nothing, it seemed, would spoil my driver’s good mood. I guess she deserved it. She’d gotten me back, charming soul of wit and virtue that I am. **** “Sweets, how did somepony get an entire grilled cheese sandwich down the radiator?”  I shouted this from one of the ‘bedrooms,’ though calling it that was being very very kind. The ‘beds’ seemed to be home-made bean-bag chairs stuffed with pegasus plumage and shed buffalo fur; very comfortable, but it made me shiver to think what creatures had dedicated their collected biological detritus to the project and over how long. “You would be amazed what you can do on enough Zap,” Taxi called back. “I once drank an entire half-gallon of grape juice and woke up on top of a telephone pole with a squirrel trying to stuff nuts in my ear. Anyway, could you find some plates or bowls for us to eat out of?” **** It was several hours later, well into the evening, and our little ‘home’ was starting to take shape. Taxi and I had dedicated most of those hours to making the place livable. We didn’t know how long we’d be there and it never hurts to know your place of retreat inside and out. For all of my protestations about needing to get to the Don, I needed the rest as well. Swift returned an hour after she’d left, panting, armed, and holding a dead pigeon in her teeth as she stood on the top of the stairs. She said something about having an insatiable urge to chase the damn thing which was why she’d been gone so long, but before I could drag any answers out of her regarding that, Taxi shoved her back out onto the street and told her not to come back until she’d found herself a toothbrush and some floss. Twenty minutes later my driver was still grumbling something about ‘Side effects, indeed,’ while the three of us ate an improvised, but surprisingly tasty meal. Sitting together, around that low table in the dimly lit bunker, I felt a thing that I hadn’t since well before my death. Comfortable. I was comfortable. How had I managed that? I supposed the impenetrable magical fortification over my head might have helped, but was that really all that I needed? I’m sure part of it had to do with the job. I remembered Taxi’s hare-brained suggestion back before it all started about going ‘running with the Buffalo’ with her or something like that. At the time, it’d sounded crazy, but something about Cosmo’s ledger, full of the vast sins of my city which I could never touch so long as I remained a member of the Detrot police establishment, had changed all of that. Maybe I’d changed too, but I suspected it was the job that was different. I might have gone back and begged Jade to let me back onto the force. She might even have done it, but the job would have been, from then on, to turn a series of blind eyes to every sin committed by the powerful in my city. It was madness, but the prenatal thoughts simmering down in the ancient, neglected part of my brain that still listened to animal intuition were telling me that I had two paths; one of them lead to my death and the other, probably to my death, but with a slim, incidental hope of maybe doing something worthwhile before it came. PACT, the Detrot Police Department, the Jewelers. All that power vested into all those institutions hung over my head like a mountain and I was a little diamond dog deep in the earth, digging through the dirt. A sane pony would have followed Taxi out onto the plains and smoked the finest Zap and sat in a tent, content to stay as far from the machinations of monsters as possible. Still, knowing all of that, there was the voice. It spoke to me, a constant whisper. Shake the mountain, the voice said. I intended to try. **** “Erg...” Swift patted her belly with one leg. “I think I ate too much.” “I told you four plates of that was too much...” Taxi scolded, tossing her paper plate into the garbage.          “I don’t see why couldn’t I have the pigeon... I caught it!”          “Because... just... ugh, Hardy, help me here!”          “Hey, she wants to eat the pigeon, I say she can eat the pigeon so long as I don’t have to watch.”