//------------------------------// // Act 2, Chapter 8: If Only You Had Been There // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Starlight Over Detrot Act 2, Chapter 8: If Only You Had Been There Recent decades have seen an upswing in interest for archaeology, as well as an upswing in ponies being crushed by heavy things. Yes, these are related trends. Unlike a lot of the dynamism of the past six decades, the archaeological surge is one movement with at least one easily traceable cause: To wit, the wildly successful Daring Do intellectual property, which started out as novels, but inspired comics, radio programmes, and movies, as well as numerous fan works, ranging from beautiful creations that could make Canterlot high society weep with envy, to bizarre objects whose very existence provides a disturbing glimpse into the recesses of the equine psyche. Regardless, the character's adventures and dauntless pursuit of ancient riches resounded in the dreams of many a foal. However, becoming an archaeologist requires more than a pick, a whip, and a silly hat; It requires a honed intellect, a good memory... and an instinct for which floor stones will release curiously round boulders directly onto your spinal column. For every talented filly or colt driven to excellence in the field by lifelong dreams of emulating their paperback-wrapped heroine, there were ten buck-toothed hayseeds filled with exponentially more enthusiasm than competence, some of whom soon found significant portions of their anatomy lovingly wrapped around ancient spearpoints. And those who were ended by purely physical traps were some of the luckier ones; The fate of those who bumbled around ancient places of genuine magical power is, for our current purposes, best left to the imagination. Of course, not all archaeologists meet unsavory ends in ancient ruins; Some make it back with their findings to the gates of civilization, where even worse things can happen. --The Scholar          I was halfway to my gun-bit before I realized the griffin looming over me was nailed to the floor. I examined it more closely, realizing I’d very nearly unloaded on a very detailed and likely very expensive wax-work of a tribal warrior.          The fire-exit seemed to be in the back of one of the displays, an open tableau of ancient griffins fighting pegasi, all suspended from wires overhead. Shuffling sideways, I stepped out of the display and down onto the cold, stone floor, ducking underneath a red rope strung across the front. My cutie-mark tingled, but I couldn’t get a bearing from it; Sometimes, following it was kind of like playing Marco Pony using my ass.          The room we’d come out in seemed to be an exhibit on Pre-Classical Equestria. A dozen similar dioramas of various creatures were spaced evenly around the edges. Across from me, Princess Luna held a quill in her magic, signing a peace accord between two of the noble houses of Equestrian antiquity. Beside that, a picture of a meteor crashing to the ground and ethereal, ghostly horses swirling around the sky above it, snow drifting from their hooves. The sign on that one said, ‘Theory of Cause of the Pre-Equestria Ice-age and Following Windigo Infestation.'          Nopony seemed to be about, though considering the crowd outside, that wasn’t surprising.          Swift let out a frightened sound as she stepped in behind me; Taxi had to give her a light push to get her moving. She recovered quickly, hopping down beside me, studying the displays.          “What should we do, sir?” she asked.          “This is Lim's turf,” I glanced at the librarian. “You got a direction for us?” Limerence started towards the shut double doors at the end of the exhibit. “The curator’s office is on the other end. We must check in with security before we proceed, or they will undoubtedly inform your former compatriots in law enforcement. They may also have some information on Fizzle's whereabouts.” “Lead the way.” **** The four of us wove our way through one enormous room after another, some more fascinating to our troupe than others; we wound up having to physically drag Swift past an exhibition on mid-Lunar Fall poetry masters. After ten minutes wandering the deserted Museum, we came to a metal door that said ‘Security’ hidden behind a glass case with a stuffed and varnished timberwolf inside. My partner paused at the tree-beast and bared her matching fangs at it, then giggled at her own reflection in the glass.  I chuckled at my partner’s antics. “Kid, you keep making that face it’s going to get stuck like that.” Swift snorted and gave me a push with one wingtip. “You know this from personal experience, sir?” I blew air through my nose, ruffling her mane. She hopped out of reach and gave me her new favorite grin while Taxi just shook her head at the both of us. I rolled my eyes and rapped my hooves on the office door. There was a scramble of hooves, the sound of something toppling off a table and somepony zipping something before Limerence, disinclined to wait, simply pushed the door in. A chunky, uniformed security pegasus stood there with potato chip dust on his face and his tie loose. His bright green face was a mask of shock as he wiped at his coat with one wing, using the other to hike a pair of dress pants higher on his flank. Behind him was a closet with a tiny desk jammed tightly against the wall. A bank of monitors stretched from floor to ceiling, each one with images of the museum. I saw several pointing at rooms we’d already been through and he could only have missed us if he hadn’t been looking. The gentlecolt’s magazine flopped open on his desk might have been a clue. “How’d you get in here?!” He demanded, his double chins jiggling with consternation. “Detective Hard Boiled, Detrot Police Department. We’re liaising with the Museum as part of an investigation and would like to speak to the curator. Is he available?” I asked. “No, he’s not and I’m buh… busy!” The security pony stumbled over the last word, his eyes twitching back in the direction of the smut rag on his desk. He moved over slightly to block my view. “Pardon, but if I may?” Limerence eased in front of me. “Mister Greener Side? You remember me? My father has relations with the curator and has sent me to-” His swing was clumsy and wouldn’t have broken a mosquito’s nose, but all the same, Limerence ducked out of the way. Taxi grabbed the guard before he could recover enough for a second buck, sliding onto his back easily and pinning him down with one of her painful pegasus-specific wing grips.          “Hrrrg, bastard! Ya didn’t have to tell my boss about my allowance, ya rat!” The guard snarled, trying to shake my driver loose.          I tilted my head at Limerence. “I take it you two know one another?”          Limerence gave Greener Side a coldly appraising look. “I am not at fault if you decided to take money from the donation box, Mister Greener Side. I merely pointed it out. The consequences were yours. Now, my father has relations with the curator and we wish to see him. Will you assi-”          "Go buck yourself!" the pinned security-stallion snapped, then whined as Taxi applied her hoof to his shoulderblade a bit more firmly.          I sighed and shoved Limerence backwards, stepping between him and the guard. I addressed the heavy stallion as he squirmed under my driver. "Mister...Greener Side? We're with the police, working on a case. We will need to see the curator. Can you just point us in his direction and we'll get out of your fur?" Greener Side kicked one rear leg, entirely failing to dislodge my driver. "Taxi, get off him."          My friend eased off of Greener Side, giving him a warning poke in the wing joint. He righted himself, shaking his uniform out as he tried to reclaim some of what little dignity he'd had to begin with. He gave Limerence a look of barely restrained violent intent, but the librarian seemed not to notice. Turning to me, he tightened his tie and patted the pepper-spray canister attached to his belt, just to assure himself that his authority could still be enforced in some world that existed only inside his mind. "I can't take you to the curator. Sorry," he said, shrugging his broad shoulders.          "You can't, or you won't?" Swift asked.          "Can't, dammit!" Greener Side snapped. "I ain't seen Doctor Fizzle in days. He lef’ me here to handle this whole place by myself… again! Prick enchanted the donation box, too!” He held up his left hoof, showing a burn mark on the side of his toe. “Ain’t had a beer in three days...” He grumbled.          “Fizzle… that’s the curator’s name? He leaves you here often?” I inquired.          “Yer damn right he does. Every few months, running off to the Princesses know where and leavin’ everything locked up tight with magic and those monitors recordin’ everything what happens like we was some kind of bank or something,” the pegasus ranted. “I swear, he just leaves me here because he can’t teleport back without somepony to set up his little summonin’ circle. I’da lost my job cause of that jerk-” He flipped his toe at Limerence. “-iffen Fizzle had wanted to take the time to train somepony else.”          “Understandable. I would not have released you from your employment for something so small as theft. The inconvenient and painful removal of your flight feathers would have proven deterrent enough. Temporary as well.“ Limerence said, contemplatively. Greener Side clenched his wings tighter to his body as the thought of having his feathers plucked rooted around right down in the old equine-avian parts of his mind for a shiver to send shooting up his back. “Regardless," continued Limerence, "we do need to see the Doctor’s office. If you would?”  “The Doc ain’t here. Won’t do ya no good trying to get into his office without him here to let you in.”          “We’re on police business,” I reminded him. “Tell you what. Just give us the key. If we can’t get in, we’ll just deliver it back. If we can, I’ll make sure you’re compensated and that the guys outside send up a case of beer. That sound good?”          The guard tapped his chin as though he actually really had to think about it. Then he turned to his desk, picking up a ring of keys and using his wingtip to shuffle through them. Picking one, he unsnapped it from the carabiner and dropped it into my outstretched hoof. “Suit yourself. I expect that key back before ya leave… an’ have them boys outside make sure it’s Buckweiser! If ya need anything else, ya know where I am. Just take the shit-head with ya when ya go.” He used one wing-tip to indicate Limerence, whose eyebrow rose, then whose horn lit to give a gentle, cautionary tug to the end of the nearest feather. “Oh, I will. Don’t you worry. Back in a few.” I gave him what I hoped was an assuring smile, then trotted down the hall.          ****          Nightmare Moon. Everypony knows that old story. The Princess of the Night got her tail in a bunch over ponies sleeping through the night, making her feel unappreciated. After many years, she confronted Princess Celestia and demanded more hours of the day be devoted to the night so she might receive an equal measure of worship. Rebuffed, she swore vengeance and turned into a creature of darkness. The Nightmare.          To most, it’s a fairy-tale. How could it not be? The Princesses themselves are ancient and a thousand years is a long time. Nopony, not even the very best of historians, could ever get things precisely right. Mistranslations happen and while the Princesses did their best to keep history tightly recorded, there are always holes.          Hence, every now and again, it was important to have reminders in physical forms of precisely what happened all those centuries ago.          **** Fizzle’s office was at the other end of the Nightmare Moon exhibit. Taxi and I hesitated outside of the floor to ceiling length black curtain with a sign above it in silver letters that said ‘Welcome To The Nightmare’. Swift put one hoof on the curtain, then looked back at us. “Is something wrong, sir?” she asked. “Curtains,” Taxi murmured. “I don’t trust curtains.” I shook my head and set my heels together, marching purposefully forward. “Sorry, kid. Old cop paranoia. We’re fine here.” Limerence canted his chin, giving me a curious look. “I have not heard of this particular wariness.” My driver rubbed one ear and grumbled, “Most haven’t. Curtains present an awful tactical situation, particularly in storming, invasion, or even inspection situations. They don’t block bullets or spellfire. They don’t block sound. They shroud vision and it’s easy to get tangled in them. Enough years of walking into drug labs, seeing a curtain, then having to duck a shotgun blast will make you start to hate them.” “Ahhh… I suppose that makes a certain sense, then.” Limerence remarked. Using his magic, he snatched the curtain from both sides and pulled it back. “No shotguns. What a surprise. Now, shall we?” The room beyond the curtain was almost pitch black. My cutie-mark, which had been tingling since we entered the building, started to ache. “Sweets, something’s wrong,” I muttered. My driver nodded. “Yeah, I feel… hmmm. Come on.” As I stepped through, gun bit lifting to my mouth, a pair of bright, white horse-shoe shapes appeared on the floor in front of me. They were small, about right for a foal’s hooves. Swift bounced on her toes, giggling softly. “Oooh, sir, I love these!” she squeaked. Stepping forward, she stood on the horse-shoe shapes. A second set appeared directly in front of the last set. “It’s a tour!” “Oh, goodie,” I drawled, then stepped in behind my partner. She started forward, following the marks. Very suddenly, a light on our left burst to life, illuminating a case with two towering figures inside. I jumped, surprised as I tumbled onto my side. The Princesses, Celestia and Luna, stood flank to flank, their flowing manes drifting out behind them in glorious shades of the morning sky. I was momentarily frozen by the beauty of the great monarchs. Their eyes seemed to reflect a calm benevolence, though Luna, the smaller of the two, had a bitter twist to her mouth.          From somewhere overhead, a soothing, masculine voice spoke, “Ladies and Gentlecolts. This is your curator, your master of ceremonies, Doctor Fizzle. I would like to welcome you to history… and to tell you a story of the Fall and the Return of our beautiful Princess Luna. This is a story of all of us. Come with me, while I show you our great leader at her lowest point, before she returned to glory.” I groaned and moved on, keeping to the markings. A short distance ahead, a second case, this one with a map of what must have been Equestria ten centuries past, lit up.          “This is our land, not now, but as it was,” Fizzle continued his oration. “See, Canterlot is little more than a trading village. Look there! Where now there is the Everfree, the old city of the Royal Pony sisters. Their Castle once stood as a beacon of life in the vast wilderness! Of course, there weren’t so many ponies back then.”          “Where is Fizzle’s office?” I asked, angling my head towards Limerence.          “It is off to our left,” he replied, plucking his pocket watch from his vest and using it to wave in that direction. “I’m afraid the spell I use for reading in the dark wouldn’t help the rest of you, so it would be best if we kept to the path for some distance. I will turn us at the correct place.”          We continued, the recorded voice cheerfully describing each of the set-pieces as we passed them.          “Celestia and Luna ruled as equals, loved by their ponies, feared by their enemies. They brought down great evils like the Crystal King, Lord Sombra, and Discord, Chaos itself, during his more rambunctious years. Down through the centuries, they became symbols of faith, of something ponies could hang onto no matter what happened. Sadly, it was not to last.” “On your left, we see the final confrontation. Luna facing Celestia in the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters, realized from a precise description given to us by both Princesses. Ahead you will see the centerpiece of our collection.” Limerence put his hoof out to stop me. “Here. Turn here.” He lit his horn, shining a circle of light on the floor in front of us, then playing it up until it vanished into the black. “Fizzle. Fool must have used an enchantment to make the room properly dark.”          “Seems a little...impractical and unsafe, doesn’t it?” Taxi asked, trying to peer through the darkness at where she thought the walls should be.          “Fizzle lives in a world all his own,” the librarian lamented. “Believe me when I say he worries less about practical matters and more about aesthetic effect. He loves a good show. Considering the unique way the museum is funded, it makes him excellent at his job, but a nuisance to work with.”          “Lately, that seems to describe most of the people I end up working alongside. Alright, take us where we need to be.” I stood back and Limerence took the lead, stepping off the path, his horn providing a weak illumination.          After ten or fifteen body-lengths, we came to the wall. Limerence’s mouth drooped into a stern frown.          “What is it?” I asked.          “The good doctor has the door locked with a simple warding magic. An inconvenience, but nothing I cannot replace once we have finished. It will just take a moment.” The stallion’s horn began to shimmer more animatedly as sparks spurted towards the wall, catching in the grain of the wood and sliding outwards in both directions.          A crackle of lightning sprayed from Limerence’s forehead, forming a rectangle in front of us. Slowly, a vaguely door-like shape began to creep out of the woodwork, resolving like a picture being developed in photographer’s solution.          “Ahhh, here we are.” Limerence made a satisfied noise and his horn snapped back to its cool glow.          My nose began to twitch almost immediately as a tangy, slightly sweet, slightly foul scent hit my nose.          Taxi and I exchanged a look. I could just make out her expression in the dark, but it mirrored mine.          I picked up my trigger in my teeth and Taxi shrank against the other side of the door. Swift sniffed at the air, then hesitantly picked up Masamane’s bit and stacked up behind me. Limerence gave the three of us a puzzled look.          “Is… there something I should know, Detective?” he inquired.          “Get against the wall,” I growled around my bit. I thought he might object again, but something in my face must have stopped him. His horn flickered, then that strangely weighted knife slid out of its hidden sheath. He held it at the ready, floating beside his face. Shaking the key from my pocket, I slotted it into the door, then pointed at Limerence to twist it. He used the barest flick of telekinesis to turn the key, then backed away. I laid my hoof on the handle and gave it a push. A soft incandescent light streamed from around the edge of the door. I fell back, covering my face and Swift almost immediately began gagging, staggering away from the black portal as she tried valiantly not to puke on her bit. Death. The smell of decomposition instantly made my eyes begin to water. Taxi and I held our breaths, partially waiting for gun or spell-fire, and partially because the air wasn’t fit to breathe. When no bullets or lightning was forthcoming, I scooted forward, poking one eye around the side and scanning back and forth. The office might have been Tome’s, if he were a compulsive hoarder. It had that feel to it, of a collector who loved his work more than he loved the money the work brought in. Stacks of yellowing paper and heaps of scroll-cases, dusty books, and flecked bits of parchment were laid in a haphazard fashion on every available surface to a depth of at least three inches. A wide desk, heaped with even more bits of historical detritus, sat in the middle. Behind the desk, a still form slumped sideways. The desk lamp was turned away from it, so I couldn’t make out any details other than that it appeared to be male. On three walls, a book-case with a glass front stretched from the floor right up to the ceiling, packed beyond capacity. I studied the reflection in the glass, checking each corner for potential ambush, before stepping cautiously into the office. I kept my gun at the ready, lifting my hooves high and placing each toe deliberately so as not to set off a cascade of paper from one of the low shelves. Inside, the smell was even stronger; I did my best to breathe through my trigger. After several seconds, when nothing had happened, I let my bit fall. “I think we’re clear. Kid, wait out there a minute. Get your stomach straight.” “Y-yes, sir...” Swift called. “I take it your partner is not possessed of a strong constitution where mortal matters are concerned?” Limerence asked, slipping his knife away as he came in behind me. His nose wrinkled at the scent, but he seemed unfazed by it. “You could say that,” I remarked. “She’s got the stuff when it counts, though.” “I shall, as they say, take your word for it.” Limerence’s eyes went to the shape propped up behind the desk. His horn sparked and the lamp on the desk shined, twisting upwards to point at the face of the still unmoving body. In the door, Taxi let out a faint choking sound as the light played across the pony’s features. “...Fizzle...” Limerence murmured. I groaned, moving around the desk. “Now that is something I had hoped not to see twice in my life.” The corpse, unquestionably the source of the smell in the room, was laying in its chair, head lolling to one side and tongue dangling from swollen lips. Wide, vacant eyes stared up at nothing. As I watched, a fly buzzed off of the dead stallion’s ear, landing on the bridge of his nose. It skittered down to his chin, then took flight once more. Fizzle, it seemed, was an older gentlecolt, his frame willowy and his face heavily creased. He wore a very dapper waistcoat and watch, not dissimilar to the Archivist’s standard uniform. These were all details, taken in at a glance. None of them quite stole my attention like the one that I was certain had made Taxi gasp. Doctor Fizzle, from nose to tailtip, was entirely grey and had a circular wound on his forehead just below the mane-line. The blood had dribbled down his face and splashed onto his desk, drying to a flaky brown crust. “...Most… curious,” Limerence muttered. I noticed a slight tremor in his shoulders as he let the lamp swing back into position. “Curious?” I growled. “Curious is not the word I’d have used.” I’d seen a lot of ponies handle death for the first time, and Limerence was showing all the signs of a ‘first timer,' whether he was turning his nose up at Swift's weak stomach or not. "I… yes. Apologies. My father's work is... sometimes violent, but I..." He trailed off, his eyes locked on Fizzle's dead face. "You don't see many dead," I finished. "No,” he confirmed. “I am uncertain if that is a statistical anomaly, or merely my father trying to keep me insulated from that side of things… but as a rule, we generate few actual casualties, even on our most aggressive missions.” Limerence breathed in and out several times, then closed his eyes briefly. When he reopened them, the facade of cool professionalism was back in place. “Excuse my brief malaise.” “Don’t worry about it. Seeing your first corpse tends to do that to anypony,” I replied and he gave me a nod that seemed… almost grateful. Taxi had moved into the room and was inspecting the body. “Hardy, this is definitely the same M.O.” Limerence’s ears perked. “Same as what? I may be new to death, but I am fairly certain Doctor Fizzle was light brown with a streaky ginger mane, and I know of nothing that would cause a pony, fur and all, to turn… hmmm… monochrome.” I considered for a few seconds how to bring the librarian up-to-date. Any complete accounting probably wouldn’t improve his already low opinion of me. Time for the editor’s pen, then. “A month ago, we were investigating the death of a filly in an alleyway,” I told him. “It led us to King Cosmo.” I circled my hoof in Fizzle’s direction. “Her body… was like his, but we never did find out why. I think I already know the answer to this, but is the good Doctor a unicorn?” “He is,” the librarian said, softly, then added, “though no more, I suppose. It would be impossible for Cosmo or anypony in his employ to have performed this act. I estimate… at least based on what I know of decay… that he could not have been dead for more than a week, at the most.” “Hardy... he’s right.” Taxi had her jeweler’s glasses on, examining the body up close. “This is the same weapon. Whoever did this was here recently.” She cocked her head, then ducked below the level of the desk, coming up with a half-empty bottle of something cloudy and brown. Sniffing it, she set it on the desk. “Vodka, maybe? Vodka isn’t usually that color.” Limerence trotted around the desk, lifting the bottle to his nose. “Mmm… I think that is some form of nightshade. Possibly an extract I believe they call ‘Ace’ on the street. It has been mixed with something to cover the smell. The chemical binding agent seems to have broken down, hence, the color and scent.” A light went off in my brain. “The girl had a bunch of chemicals in her system, too.” My mind began to move, albeit sluggishly, towards the only logical conclusion. “This was somepony Fizzle knew. He let them through the wards and drank with them. Before he died… they did that to him.” I nodded at the corpse’s bloody crown. “Would it not be easier to take a trophy after death?” the librarian asked, setting the bottle back on the desk. “Removing a horn whilst the pony is still alive is extremely painful. Even with intoxicants in his system, the good doctor would have fought back.” Taxi raised one of Fizzle’s forelegs, holding it up. There was a bright purple ring around his fetlock. “They tied him up. Probably drugged him first, then tied him for the procedure.” “This is either a real sadist, or somepony with a purpose,” I mused. Limerence tapped on the side of the vodka bottle. “This, mixed with nightshade, would at least partially nullify the pain. I don’t believe this was intended as a form of torture.” Thinking back, I tried to assemble the grand mass of information still floating in my head into something cohesive. I realized I hadn’t written a report or a single note since the whole mess began. Swift had all of those. “Hey, kid?” I called out. Swift poked her head around the door, swallowing hard. “Sir?” “You remember what Slip Stitch said about the girl, right? What were those drugs in her system?” My partner cocked her head, then patted her vest until she found a slightly wrinkled notebook still hiding in one of the side pockets. She flipped it open, searching for the right page. “Um… drugs for zebra rituals.” “That mean anything to you?” I asked. The librarian paused, as though about to make a painful admission. “I… am afraid that is my brother’s demesne. He maintains a strong interest in the magics of the homeland.” “Then we’ll call him as soon as we’re out of here, right?” said Taxi. Limerence pulled the envelope from his father from his front pocket and shook it open. “Per father’s instructions, our normal channels of communication are closed until this mission is completed. Zefu will not even be checking our usual points of interaction, much less responding to calls.” I buried my face in the crook of my knee. “Dammit, this is a police matter! This stupid test can’t take precedence over-” “You are not, at present, a member of any law enforcement institution, Detective,” the librarian reminded me in a voice just above a whisper. “Nor are we working with the police. If I may put forth a recommendation, we should vacate this space quickly and re-seal the wards.” I stomped one hoof, feeling the old frustration returning. The Don must have had some inkling of what I might find there, but did he see fit to tell me? No, of course not. Unfortunately, the only reason the Don usually ever withheld information was if he believed that having it would be more dangerous than not. Nothing irks me worse than somepony who knows better than I do and won’t let me make my own damn mistakes. He reminded me a little too much of my dad sometimes. I tried to organize my thoughts. Standing over a stinking body, that’s a tall order, particularly for a pony whose brain hasn’t had a great recent service history. In the end, I did what I always do when faced with a situation of too many variables. “We can’t do anything about the body. Leave him. We’ll take a look at the footage from the security monitors for the last several days and see if we can get anything worthwhile. Make sure anything you brought in with you, leaves with you,” I directed, then pointed at the Archivist. “Lim, where are the moon guns?” Pulling his father’s note from his vest, he flipped over to the back side and read it closely. “This would seem to indicate that the weapons are… ah...” Pivoting on one rear heel, Limerence trotted to the bookcase nearest the desk. He tugged the glass back, then pulled a series of identical, dark blue covered books off the shelves. The titles were ‘The Lunar Rebellion,' Volumes One through Six. Opening the first book, he laid it on the desk. Rather than pages, the book contained a red, fuzzy case. Two indentations, top and bottom, seemed to indicate that something had, at least until recently, lain there. “I’m going to take a few steps out on what I’m pretty sure is a fairly safe limb and say that these guns aren’t invisible?” I murmured. “No… no, they are not. They are most assuredly gone.” Limerence pursed his lips, shifting the first book off of the pile and opening the second. That one, too, was empty. Shuffling through the entire stack, he methodically checked each of them then picked up the pile and slid it back into the bookshelf.          “Okay, let’s keep calm. Just how many of these things are in the wind, right now?” Taxi asked.          Limerence waved his hoof over the fake books. “The good doctor was entrusted with the entire collection. Twelve units, all told.”          “Do you think whoever stole these is planning on making copies?” she went on to ask. “We could be looking at some kind of arms deal-”          “If they're planning to reproduce them, then our opponents are wasting their time.” Limerence picked up the stack of fake books, slotting them back into place on the shelf. “The weapons contain magical enneagrams which I don’t believe can be properly reconstituted without… let's call it ’royal assistance.'”          “I’ll put that in the ‘good news’ column, then,” I replied, moving to the door. Swift was still standing against the wall just outside, her face a bit green. “Kid, you still in the game?” I asked. “Yes, sir,” she muttered, dejectedly. “It’s just… the smell…” Giving her a light pat on the back, I jerked my chin at the curtained door out of the exhibit. “Don’t worry about it. Smell still gets to me, too. If that smell ever stops bothering you, then be worried. Anyway, go talk to the security guard. See if you can get him to pull the monitor images for the last week or so.” Pushing herself to all fours she trotted back to the path, heading for the exit. “Will do, sir.” “Oh, and don’t tell him about the body! Tell him we got into the office, but nopony was there!” I called out. “Understood.” Limerence was flipping through the paper on the desk as I turned back to the room. From the pile, a thin black book rose. With a flick of his horn, it opened. “What’ve you got there?” I asked. “The good Doctor’s appointment book,” he answered. “The last day with any appointments was… mmm… five days ago. The last thing on his books that is not marked as having been done is a mane-wash for late afternoon.” “Isn’t it a bit strange nopony thought to look for him?” Taxi inquired, plucking out one of the scroll cases and unrolling it to look at the contents. “No. Doctor Fizzle’s appointments were largely at the whim of his donors. He was frequently called away on a moment’s notice.” “Well, we’ve got a time-frame then. We’ll get what we can from the security system.” I flicked one ear to indicate the door. “I’m curious… how did the pony who did this manage to seal the room up again once they’d left?” Limerence touched the side of his spectacles, pushing them higher on his muzzle. “In all likelihood, he allowed them in, then they laid their wards to mirror his own. These were not complicated. Unless I miss my mark, they were only meant to keep out that odious security creature." “Mmm...so no clue there. Damn.” I headed to the door. “I think, short of dragging the forensics team in here, we’ve got what we can. Seal the room and ward it. Keeping off Jade’s radar just became a whole lot harder.” Limerence nodded as Taxi and I backed out of the tiny office. Shutting and relocking the door, his horn glittered as he began reweaving the illusory magics. Slowly, the portal faded back into the woodwork. We followed the librarian back in the direction of the two white horse-shoe prints, still patiently waiting for the return of we three errant tourists. Annoyingly, the kid had closed the curtain on the way out, leaving the room very dark. The tour only seemed to go in one direction. “Now, ahead you will see the centerpiece of our collection!” Fizzle repeated as we got under way. “Made of an unknown material, this was the armor of Princess Luna during the Lunar Fall. It was reconstituted by order of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna and now rests with us until its next stop on the trans-Equestria tour to commemorate the sixtieth year of Princess Luna’s return.” Taxi cocked her head. “I wonder how they reforged it if it’s an unknown material.” “A good question there, little filly!” The Professor said and my driver fell onto her haunches. “What?! Are you talking to me?!” she exclaimed. “Yes! You may ask this arcane construct any questions regarding the armor of Nightmare Moon and it will provide any answers it can!” “Oh... Lovely.” **** Talking to an invisible, pre-recorded message is never a calming experience, whether you’re attempting to pay your power bill or get yourself a curry. Enchanted messaging systems are notoriously touchy. The idea is noble enough, but it's yet another magical solution to ‘save time’ that actually ends up costing more. You record a set of answers onto a tape or vinyl, then use a spell framework to copy a carefully edited portion of your personality and the messages into runes. Once done, it operates like any other enchantment, except with a very ‘personal’ touch. As you would imagine, any alchemical or thaumaturgic system that can hold a conversation is going to arouse the interest of the Essy Office. Nothing worse than a crazed pony, uncertain how they’d somehow become a room, screaming to be demolished at all hours of the morning. I was brought in some years ago on a case where several hundred ponies had received messages from somepony with intimate personal knowledge, claiming to be their marefriend or coltfriend, which led to two homicides by jealous spouses. The culprit was finally tracked to the Equestria Revenue Service main office, where it turned out a bored prankster had managed to re-program their automated calling system with their own personality, which began calling overdue debtors en-mass. The lesson should have been clear.          Stop sticking bits of your brain into rooms, dammit!          ****          I nudged Taxi. “Go on. You got it talking. Ask about the Moon Guns. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”         Taxi tilted her head back and addressed the darkened room as we moved along the path. “Doctor Fizzle, do you know anything about ‘Moon’ weapons?”          “I’m sorry, but this construct is made to answer questions about Nightmare Moon’s armor. Any other inquiries will have to be made directly to staff.”          “Ah...alright then. I guess it can’t hurt. How did they rebuild Nightmare Moon’s armor if it was an unknown material?” my driver asked.          “A good question there, little filly!” the construct enthused. “The armor is ensorcelled with any number of spectacular magics, few of which we were able to identify. The armor was simply fitted back together, piece by piece, like a puzzle. As it was, it re-assembled itself, every crack sealing and every break repairing right down to the microscopic level.” “Why couldn’t the Princess just tell you how it worked?” I put in.          “A good question there, little colt! Princess Luna’s memory of her time as Nightmare Moon is, sadly, stunted in places. It was, after all, a thousand years ago and her neurology was being affected by extremely powerful magics! Now, you have arrived!” The last set of horse-shoes in front of us sputtered out, leaving us in complete dark.          A powerful overhead light burst to life and, despite myself, I leapt back. The purple titan of the night, the horror that haunts the dreams of every child, the great evil that stole Princess Luna was standing there just a few short inches from us. Her wings spread wide, she arched her back gracefully as though preparing to take flight. One hoof was upraised towards the sky. An arrogant smirk, complete with long fangs, decorated her unearthly, beautiful face. All that separated us was a very thin piece of glass. It was a statue, of course, like the wax-work griffin, but the similarities in style ended there. I could see each individual hair of Nightmare Moon’s muzzle and the sweeping curve of her etheric mane swelling to the ceiling seemed to undulate and flow with hidden breezes. At first I thought the effect was magic, but upon second examination I realized that it was some gorgeously ephemeral fabric being blown about by hidden fans. “That’s...fantastic,” Taxi whispered at my shoulder. “I’m glad you think so, little filly! We’’re quite proud of her. We have had some difficulty discovering the true events which occurred during her defeat and the return of Princess Luna. The ponies involved have been somewhat cagey regarding that piece of our history, however, one of them has sworn before death to release the complete and unaltered truth!” Fizzle gushed, his fatherly voice rising with excitement. “In the meantime, we have been given access to the armor to display while it moves around Equestria! We will be showing this piece for two more weeks. You got here just in time!” There was a faint sound from my other side and I looked over to see Limerence squinting at the glass. His lips dipped at the edges. “Something wrong?” I asked. “I am...uncertain,” he replied, walking in a slow circle around the case before coming to a stop in front of it again. His attention seemed focused on the armor’s breastplate. Tilting his head, he examined it from one side, then the other. “Ahhh…” The librarian breathed out through half open lips. “Somepony has been bamboozled.” Taxi blinked at him. “What?” “Yes,” he confirmed, resting his hoof on the front of the case. “It is possible this is unrelated to the case at hoof, but I believe the breastplate has been stolen.” “What?!” I leapt to my hooves, slipping on the marble floor and falling flat on my stomach. Metal horse-shoes are not ideal indoor wear on slippery surfaces. Limerence ignored my pratfall, shifting his eyes up and down the faux-Princess’s body. “Mmmhmmm… as well, I believe it may have been the only piece of Nightmare Moon’s armor that was ever here at all.” He fell silent again, his gaze roving from the horseshoes to the vestments then up to the helmet before falling back on the chest once more and seeming to lose himself in thought. Pulling myself up, I poked him in the side. “Hey, you want to elaborate on that for those of us in the class who aren’t professional artifact dealers?” The librarian came out of his deep contemplation with a full body jerk. “Ah… apologies.” He let his rear end drop onto his haunches, assuming a tone like a lecturing teacher as he gestured with a hoof at Nightmare Moon’s horseshoes, then at the helm. “Those are fakes.” He nodded his horn towards to the chestplate. “That is a counterfeit.” “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t see the difference.” I grumbled. “I suppose that is a somewhat arcane distinction,” Limerence admitted, somehow managing to sound patient and condescending at the same time, “A fake is simply meant to proxy something and is relatively innocent in its purpose. I suppose 'replica' might be a better word. A counterfeit is designed to make it seem that something has not, in fact, been stolen or removed.” I thought on this for a short time, then asked, “Assuming what you’re saying is true, and you’ll have to give me a moment to digest this... why would the Princesses report that they had the entire armor here if it wasn’t true?” Limerence motioned at the statue as though the answer were obvious. “Detective, surely you’re aware that the armor of Nightmare Moon is an artifact of incomparable power. Pieces like this tend to operate as a set. I doubt it could be made to function piecemeal by anypony save perhaps Princess Luna herself. To have it all in one place would be extremely foolhardy.” He gave the shoes a look of admiration as he went on, “Luna has employed the services of an excellent Canterlot artist to create the copies. I recognize the work. A dear, long time friend of the Archivists by the name of Humbug.” He used his horn to direct our eyes towards one of the whorls on the wax-work’s front left shoe. “If you note, there is a cross-hatched brush stroke carved at the very tip of the shoe which looks somewhat reminiscence of an ‘H.'” Taxi, who hadn’t removed her jeweler’s glasses, was poking around the case. “So...what? Somepony breaks in, steals a bunch of secretly held weaponry and… possibly the most famous piece of armor in Equestria?” She gave an offended snort. “No way. Where are the guards? The wards?” “The Moon weapons needed only be kept out of sight. There is little reason to ward something you are hiding.” Limerence narrowed his eyes at Nightmare Moon as he continued, “However, this… hmmm… let us see, shall we?” The librarian’s horn flickered again, spreading thin tendrils of light in all directions. They crept outwards like vines, a spilling field of wispy smoke that slid through my fur where it intersected my body. I waved my hoof at the light, but it passed right on. As I watched, a few of the lights bisected the case, sputtered, and died immediately with a sound like a chicken full of eggs being squished in a vice. Limerence nodded with quiet satisfaction. “I can assure you that this statue is warded quite heavily. Guards would be almost entirely unnecessary. In fact, I doubt the entire PACT with a legion of Cloudhammers could open that case.” “What then?” I grumbled. “They must have opened it if the real armor is gone.” “Indeed. Only Fizzle, the Princesses, and perhaps whoever they entrusted with the transit of the armor would have the knowledge to open it. Short of stealing the good Doctor’s memories, I can’t see how that would be done, and would be easily precluded by his death.“ His ears drooped. “I suppose... unavoidably... I must say that I ... mmm... I... do recognize the counterfeiter’s work.” “Finally, some good news!” I exclaimed, throwing my hooves in the air. “Praise be to Celestia for providing us some luck. Who is it?” Shaking his mane down over one shoulder revealed that the librarian’s face had fallen into a look of dismay. “There we face… a somewhat difficult issue. while I do know his identity, I do not know how we would get in contact with him.” “Why?  What’s the issue?” “I will just say, he is of a profession that I find… deeply distasteful,” Limerence opined, clenching his teeth as though the mere mention irritated him.            “Counterfeiting isn’t bad enough?” Taxi chimed in.          “I can respect an artisan. What I can’t respect, is a faker,” he replied, his tail slapping against the cracked bell on his rear hip. “While he may have skill at his private profession his… public face is one I’d gladly see impaled on his own flaming swords.”          “Flaming swords?!” I burst out.          Limerence looked uncomfortably around, then swept his hoof toward the curtain. “I…will see if I can speak to my father about where we might find him. Considering your rather irrational methodology, I believe I will keep his name to myself until such time as I am convinced pursuit is worthwhile.”          “Irrational methodology?!” I snarled.          “Yes, exactly that. I don’t wish to get your hopes up if it is impossible. We… have a more pressing matter. Miss Swift has been gone for some time. Shouldn’t we go check on her?”          I squinted at him and he refused to meet my eyes. “Yeees, but you’re going to tell me more about this counterfeiter with the flaming swords once we’re done with that.”          The librarian chewed at his lower lip, still staring at the floor, then gave the barest of nods. “Once I have spoken to my father and determined it is the wisest course of action.”          “Fine.”          As we made to leave, Taxi raised her voice, “Thank you for the tour, Doctor Fizzle!”          “You’re welcome there, little filly!”         ****          Limerence Tome had asked me a question the day before that I never answered.          "Why solve any puzzle?... You've made it your life's work to solve them..."          I started to wonder if maybe my dogged persistence wasn’t just a little bit self-destructive in nature. On second consideration, Juniper had been right. I was being hard-headed. It was part of what made me a good cop and a crappy civilian. Many years of persisting when all sane, rational minds would have given up leads one to the conclusion that if they just crack on, they’ll make out alright in the end. Sometimes that’s even true. But sometimes you end up with a bug’s heart and your partner chewing the local wildlife. *** We came around the corner to witness Swift and Greener Side, locked in a fierce battle of wits. If this battle had anything to do with getting our damn monitors operating or determining the exact location of either the Moon weapons or the armor of Nightmare Moon, I think I’d have been less put out. My partner and the security guard were sitting facing one another over a short night stand. Arrayed in front of them was a dizzying mix of colorful cards spread out in ritualistic patterns. “What in the wide, wide world of Equestria are you doing?” I asked. Swift jumped, her cards scattering across the table and off onto the floor. I stopped one with my hooftip, peering at it. On it was artwork of a manticore festooned in pictures and icons, not one of which meant a single thing to me. I glanced at Taxi, but she shrugged and passed the card back. “Sorry, sir! We were waiting for the monitors to run back to the events of this week! Mister Greener Side said he had some cards and I wanted to play while we waited and I had my cards in my pocket and I hadn’t had the chance in almost a month because I was crazy and-” Swift babbled until I cut her off with a hoof over her muzzle.          “It’s alright, kid. Clean it up and let’s see what we’ve got.” I waved the security pegasus back towards his office and said, “We need to see the tapes from five days ago. You think you can do that?”          He heaved his massive weight off the chair, readjusting his uniform so it didn’t slip down the crack of his enormous rear end. “Weeelp, I supposed I could see my way to it… seeing as there’ll be some beer involved. If there were a sammich comin’ too, I might even be getting you some nice close-ups of a few pretty mares, while we’re at it. Your girl there plays a mean game of Enchantment: The Conglomeration, by the way.”          My partner, who was down on her knees picking up her cards, ducked her head under one wing. “T-thanks…” she muttered.          “That's… good to know, but mostly what we need to see is the armor case for Nightmare Moon and Fizzle’s office,” I directed.          Greener Side scratched the tuft of tangled beard on his collection of chins. “Huh… funny thing, now you mention it. Five days back, the Doc had me go on break for about an hour and a half. That was the last time I saw ’im. Came back and he’d already sealed up his office and left.”          “I don’t suppose you know when that was?” Taxi put in.          “Ehhh, just after lunch, mighta been?”          I pushed open the door of the little security room. “You mind showing us the footage from around that time?”          “Suit yaself. When the Doc gets back, I tell ’em you was by, if you like,” Greener Side replied, waddling around me to the bank of security monitors. He lifted himself up into the chair with a bevy of grunts and groans.          Taxi shuffled her hooves and Limerence coughed, awkwardly. I did my best to smile at the security pony. “If you see him, pass along my regards.”          Greener Side bobbed his head, then swung around in his chair to face the monitors and opened the desk’s drawer, revealing a control panel similar to the one in Snicket’s office, though much less complex. Flipping several switches, he rotated a dial back and forth.          “Here ya go.” He raised his head, jerking his chin at the middle monitor which was showing an image of the Nightmare Moon exhibit as it must have looked with the lights up. “It’s set to the hour before we open until after lunch. The controls is pretty simple. Big button goes forward, little one goes backward, dial says how fast.”                  Opening my coat, I dropped a five bit piece on the table. “Why don’t you go get something to eat?”          His eyes widened and he snatched up the bits. “I am a bit peckish. Alright, don’t mess with nothin’ under the desk, right?”          I tilted my head towards the underside of the security station. Four stacks of magazines lay down there that I’m pretty sure weren’t security related. The top one looked a bit...sticky. “Wouldn’t dream of.”          “Back in a few,” Greener Side said, trotting out of the booth and down the hall.          Taxi sighed, watching him go. “If that’s the best security Fizzle could afford…”          “He might not be a very good security guard, but he has a really good deck,” Swift put in, using her wings to sweep together the last of her cards and slip them into her pocket. “He managed to get an Ebony Trefoil out on the first turn!” “I’ve no idea what that means, but unless it means he’s secretly some kind of fat ninja, I don’t think-” “Security comes in different flavors, Miss Taxi,” Limerence said, softly. “That… creature... is merely one.” “I don’t see why you’d even have a guard that incompetent,” my driver sniffed. “I wouldn’t set him to guard a daffodil sandwich, much less a museum.” The librarian shrugged, pushing himself up and going to the control panel for the security system. "My best supposition is that he is there to meet some sort of minimum insurance requirement that a sapient being be on duty. The museum's real security force is that Doctor Fizzle is… or, rather, was… a master ward-smith. He assisted in the development of the wards which surround The Archive itself. While his office may have been a low priority, largely on the principle that thieves would assume the most heavily warded locations contain the most valuable objects, I would have great pity on anypony who tried to access his displays without permission.”          “You mean besides the one who you seem to think stole that armor?” I reminded him.          "Ah…" Limerence tucked his tail under himself and mentally reconnoitered. “...So it would appear.”          Taxi, meanwhile, had raised herself into Greener Side’s chair and was running the footage from the security camera. The image appeared to be from the corner opposite the curtain, but nothing was happening. She tapped the dial and the video shifted slightly, stuttering as it picked up speed. After a few seconds, a high speed Doctor Fizzle, as he must have looked in life, pushed through the curtain. The dapper stallion’s smiling old face reflected a genuine contentment with life. That’s a rare enough thing to see in Detrot that I felt a twinge of sadness that he would be, just a few short hours later, laying dead in his office. Taxi slowed the image speed back to normal. We then watched as the dead professor wandered through his displays, his horn glowing with tendrils of light very similar to the ones Limerence had used. Each case he passed got the treatment, and in each case, the lights vanished as soon as they crossed the surface of the glass.          Stopping in front of the armor of Nightmare Moon, he gave the statue a jaunty salute before progressing with his test of the wards. Satisfied they were all still in place, he turned to his office and trotted on in, whistling to himself.          For a long time, nothing happened in the exhibition room, then, of a sudden, the image went dead.          “What happened?” Swift asked, putting one hoof on the video and giving it a little tap.          “I am uncertain what... Ah. He’s cast a darkness spell,” Limerence answered, nosing in the direction of two glowing, white hoof-prints towards the corner of the screen.          “Right...that’s going to make this less useful,” I groaned.          Taxi rolled the dial, moving the images forward more quickly. After a few seconds, somepony opened the curtain across the front of the exhibit and stepped onto the white horse-shoes. I couldn’t make out any details other than that one of them seemed much smaller than the other. Several moments later, the statues of the two sisters lit up, revealing a stubbly-faced, fresh-out-of-adolescence colt with a tousled mane and a tiny filly with a big orange bow in her hair. They gawped at the princesses, ears twitching with interest as they listened to Fizzle’s dialogue. It proceeded thus. Ponies came and ran through the tour one after another, in groups and individually. The tour, as it turned out, circled the room in a roundabout fashion to make the space seem larger than it was. Upon coming to the armor, they left again through a second curtain we hadn’t had the chance to make it to. There was a father and his son, two playful sisters, a group of doddering old mares who spent an age over each statue, and dozens of others. I glanced at the time-stamp after we’d watched the video in stops and starts for a good ten minutes; We were about two hours into the day. Swift had her notepad out and was annotating each group with a short description and as many cutie-marks as she could make out.          “Two, stallion and mare, baby bottle, sack of potatoes…school group, children...count nineteen...”          On it went. Faces, cutie-marks, ponies coming and going. As you might imagine, after a little of this, I was starting to get very bored. I slouched over the desk, playing with a pencil, listening with only half my brain to the litany of cutie-marks and numbers. Time passed. Taxi broke out a packet of biscuits. My eyelids were starting to droop and my head to nod when Swift fell abruptly silent. “Bwha...what?” I raised my nose, glancing at the video monitor, then at Swift, before slurping up a bit of saliva that Lady Ennui had lovingly placed upon my lip. “Why’d you stop?” My partner dropped her pencil, working her jaw. “There’s nothing happening. I guess everypony had things to do in the afternoon.” I studied the various screens, but she was right. Everypony seemed to have left the building. Fizzle hadn’t re-emerged from his office. “Hmmm...that’s…” Taxi began, one ear fluttering back and forth. “What is it, Sweets?” “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Lemme run it back a bit here.” Twisting the dial, she let the video go back several seconds, then play forward. “Watch that screen there.” She nodded at one particular picture in the upper left corner. The screen she was indicating was displaying the room with the griffin statues, where we’d come in. “What am I looking for?” I asked. “Just… watch.” She let the picture play. A minute passed, then, very slowly, a very small spider crawled from the edge of the lens, tapping its legs as though uncertain where it might be going as it meandered across the glass. “It’s just a bug. Whatever you thought you saw-” I grumbled. “Keep watching,” she insisted. I sat, crossing my forelegs. “Alright, I’m watching...what’s supposed to be...hap...pen...ing…” I trailed off. The spider had completed its trip across the screen, vanishing on whatever arachnid business he might have had that day. A few seconds after the first had finished its path, another, identical spider, appeared. It made its way across, following very much the same path as the first. In fact, if I’d had to make a guess, I’d have said it was exactly the same. This one finished its walk after a few seconds, only to be followed quickly by another who’d apparently had much the same errands. “Is...there something wrong with the video?" Swift asked. Limerence’s horn flickered and he turned the dial to maximum speed. That same spider leapt across the screen fifty more times in the span of a few seconds. “What it is... is a section of footage which has been magically looped over a span of time,” the librarian stated, matter of factly. “Note the time-code continues to progress.” He was right. The numbers kept counting forward, even as the spider wandered his quiet path again and again. Taxi sucked her lower lip a little. “It’s...kind of amateur, I guess. Good enough if nopony is actually looking for it or if you don’t think somepony is going to have a time-frame. Would have been a lot better if not for that wandering bug." Taxi shrugged. "There’s no way I know of to recover what was there, but... I think I’d rule out Greener Side. Maybe Fizzle or the pony who killed him?” I considered that for a moment, then nodded. “I could see our murderer jiggering the tape, but remember, it was Fizzle who told the guard to go on break. Either of them could have done it.” “Sir, how did they do it? I mean, whoever it was?” Swift asked. “It seems sort of complicated. Couldn’t they have just turned the whole system off?” Limerence tapped at the panel, briefly, letting the video continue running from the point we’d left off. “Shutting off the museum security would have, no doubt, triggered several alarms. I believe it was done simply, however. Considering the timestamp, these changes to the security feed were accomplished before the murder, which suggests to me that Fizzle was responsible. If that it is true, then he recorded a few seconds from the security cameras, then set the input as the output and left it to repeat itself for a certain span of time. Anypony looking at the images later on would assume there was just a lull in the museum activity.” The librarian dipped his nose in my driver’s direction. “We, ourselves, would have missed it were it not for Miss Taxi’s keen eye.” My driver acknowledged the compliment with a flip of her braid. “That leaves us with...why? We know this was probably his time of death and, in all likelihood, the thefts happened simultaneously. Unless Fizzle sold you out-” The Archivist held up one hoof. “Impossible,” Limerence said, flatly. “Fizzle’s life was artifacts. His cutie mark was a magnifying glass and a piece of an ancient tablet which he discovered when he was a foal. Betraying us would be betraying his own talent.” Taxi stiffened, her breath catching in the back of her throat. I put a calming hoof on her shoulder and she forced her back to relax. Limerence lifted one eyebrow. “Have I missed some essential piece of information?” he asked. I added a little pressure to the hoof on her spine and Taxi shuddered, then shook her head. “No,” she muttered. “Nothing you need to know whatsoever.”          "Ah." Limerence shrugged, turning back to the video. “I assume your reaction is in some way related to your injuries? Do remember, I have read your file, Miss Taxi. I am entirely aware of your wounds, and their origin is irrelevant to our task, so you will find attempting to conceal them from conversation quite unnecessary. If it helps, I will avoid casual discussion of talents and cutie marks. Will that suffice?” Taxi’s ears still hovered almost flat to her head, her tail still flicking unhappily as she pulled her attention away from the librarian and back up to the bank of screens. Concealing pain was something my driver was always good at, but some things still snuck in under her radar now and then. "That...will be fine. Thank you." She replied. A new pony had entered the Nightmare Moon exhibition and the spider, it seemed, had finally completed its endlessly circular journey. “Hmmm... it seems the loop ends two and a half hours later. It might have been triggered to end then, or maybe the killer did it.” “I guess there’s no way to know, is there?” I asked, settling my chin back on the edge of the desk, preparing, as per usual, to start the process over and make sure there was nothing we’d missed. “Probably not, no. Not unless you want to send this to the police information labs.” Swift picked up her pencil again and flipped to a new page in her notepad to continue her inventory of potential witnesses. “Hmmm... blue body... red mane… cutie-mark, maybe cherries with a stem-” “What?” I wrenched my head up from the desk, looking around until I found the angle that Swift was viewing. A young unicorn mare stood on the middle-right screen, facing half away from us, her eyes locked on the armor of Nightmare Moon. Her pelt was gentle blue, with a sweeping, almost blood-colored mane of rich curls rolling down her sides. Her cutie-mark appeared to be a cherry stem with three berries dangling from it. Shifting her weight from one hoof to the other, she pulled a piece of paper from her bright green saddle-bags and examined it closely. Her lips moved, saying words I couldn’t hear, as she stared at the statue intently for several seconds then folded the paper away. “That's impossible! This footage is less than week old! It can't be-” I started. Taxi whispered the name that was hanging on the tip of my tongue. “...Ruby…”