The system never worked. It was too big to work. The system was so colossal in scale that small problems were rarely ever registered. And on the occasions when someone did notice, it was too late. The system was reactive and could only try to handle situations where the damage had already been done, like a firefighter pouring a cup of water on the ashes of a ruined house.
The system never worked, and that was just how Masky liked it. He had spent over a decade pulling cons, running scams, picking pockets, and inviting himself inside buildings to pick up whatever wasn’t nailed down.
Thievery was a very lucrative occupation. Running was excellent exercise. He never had to deal with taxes. It introduced him to a number of interesting new people. It really taught him the true value of a bit. And it gave him a reason to travel all over Equestria. The wandering Manehattanite had been to Las Pegasus, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, and, in one particularly impressive stunt, Cloudsdale. It would make for a very impressive criminal record for him if he had ever been caught.
Even in Canterlot, the crown jewel of the kingdom, in the heart of the castle, the shiniest part of that jewel, the only sight of him the “elite” royal guards would see was of his backside as it escaped into the night.
That was the plan up until some sloppy maid neglected to wipe up a spill on the tile floor. Masky hit the wall head first, and the last thing he saw was a troupe of unhappy stallions in armor pulling a black bag over his face.
=¢=$=¢=
The instant the bag came off, Masky began the first step of his escape strategy: Take a first step toward the nearest door, repeating as necessary. His plan hit a snag when step one ended with his jaw slamming on the floor. He yelped, but the crash must have spooked his teeth because they clamped down on his tongue. A groan echoed from behind sealed lips and he picked himself up. He would have to readjust his escape strategy to include finding the nearest door before running for it.
His search for a door coincidentally allowed him to get a look at his surroundings. The floor was a marble pattern of milky whites and dark blues that ended at walls that stretched high above him. The largest windows he had ever seen had their velvet curtains drawn wide open to reveal a starlit sky, the full moon looking close enough to reach out and touch.
Masky had the unpleasant sensation of suddenly feeling very, very small.
It was not hard for him to find the solitary door in the room—it was as big as everything else in the place, on the farthest wall from him. Standing between him and freedom were two chairs, a wooden desk, and the pony sitting with their back to the door.
“Luck has not been with you this night,” spoke the pony, a mare.
“Excuse me, miss? I think there’s been a big mistake here,” Masky said as he walked toward her. “You see, I’m a janitor here on the night shift. I was just doing my job, washing the floors on the west wing, when some bozo charged into me without so much as an apology. I thought he was just rude, but then all these guards came around the corner and tackled me, probably thinking I was the other fellow. It scared me out of my wits, right out of my wits, miss. I’m still pretty shaken up, I bet I could hardly hold a mop straight in this condition. If it is not too much trouble, I think I’ll just head home early tonight.”
The mare did not so much as glance in his direction. Her eyes were kept attentively on the assortment of scrolls strewn across her desk, occasionally marking down something with a feather quill levitating around her. Masky tensed imperceptibly—a unicorn. He wanted to snarl at the self-righteous narwhal, but he was already halfway to the door, he could not afford to blow it now.
“Yup, just gonna go on home. I hope I don’t wake up the missus, she can be meaner than a manticore if she doesn’t get her rest.” He kept his pace steady. Not too fast, or it would look like he was running. But not too slow, or it would look like he was sneaking. A nice, easy trot, the walk of a innocent janitor who had taken being tackled by a squad of guardsmen like a champ. Easy peasy, keep palms greasy.
“You are a very convincing actor, Mr. Masky,” the unicorn said. “If you were not still wearing your mask and if I had lost all memory of having you brought here, you might have gotten away with it.”
Masky immediately reached for his face and felt nothing but fur.
“You are not the only one in this room capable of lying, Mr. Masky.” The unicorn dangled a thin, purple mask in the air. She had a stupid smirk on her face that was in dire need of removal.
“Alright, lady, you listen good,” Masky snorted, his mouth clenched in a scowl nasty enough to scare a gargoyle. “I don’t care who you are, nopony but nopony gets to touch my mask. So you got until the count of three before I get ugly.”
He did not even need to say 'one.' His mask floated over to him and Masky snatched it out of the air, immediately tying it back on his face where it belonged.
“I agree with you. You are much less ugly when you cover up your face with that,” she said.
“How about I snap off that pimple sticking out of your forehead and we see how ugly I can get you?”
“Although you already made clear that you don’t care who I am, I feel I should introduce myself all the same. This being as good a time as any if we are making threats now. My name is Luna, Princess of the Night.” Masky felt small again. “And tonight, I will be acting as an executioner for you two.”
“Oh.” He was quiet for a short while. “Did you say two?”
A green claw waved out from behind one of the two chairs in front of the desk. “Yo.”
Masky stormed over to the chair and tilted it back. “Patsy! I told you to stay with the getaway cart!”
The young dragon stared calmly back at the pony and shrugged. “Six guards told me to leave the cart. They were more persuasive.”
“At least tell me you fought back.”
“As much as you did.” Patsy stuck out a forked tongue at the pony who responded in kind.
Masky let the chair drop back on all four legs and pointed an accusing hoof at the reptile. “All those gems I stole were to keep this little newt fed, lady. He said he’d eat me if I didn’t!”
Luna scribbled something down, rolled up the parchment, sealed it, and placed it aside. She then opened up another scroll and began to write again. This time when she spoke, she did not raise her eyes from her desk.
“You are uncharacteristically loud for a thief.” There was something in the princess’ voice that beckoned to him, trying to soothe him and put his anger to rest. It only made Masky fight back that much harder. He had already lost control of the situation, but a smart pony knew when to fold, when to bide, and when to turn the tables.
He had been in plenty of situations like this before. None quite so dire, but the basic premise was the same. It didn’t matter if they were a mugger, a debt collector, a bouncer, or a princess, everyone started to dance if he pulled their strings the right way. He just had to find them. There were plenty of signs that helped: a small twitch at a certain word; a nervous scratch when asked a question; muscles around the eyes and jaw shifting to forcibly hide an emotion. Most people don’t even realize how much their mouths move when they stop talking to think. It isn’t much, but for a keen eye, it’s just enough.
But this Luna was something else. Trying to find any reaction from her was like waiting to see a boulder blink. Her expression wasn’t blank, those weren’t as challenging to read as people made them out to be. It was the exact opposite: an expression that told of a total knowledge of everything that was happening around her.
This was going to be tough.
“Thief is such an ugly, convictable word,” Masky said as he slid into the empty chair. “I prefer ‘impish rogue’.”
“Do not shy away from your calling. Thievery is your nature, clear as the mark on your fur.” Luna aimed her quill squarely at Masky’s flank. “What is that bag full of, Mr. Masky? Bits? Stolen goods?
“Tricks.”
He figured he answered correctly, since it made the princess finally place her quill down and sit back in her chair. Masky ignored the thought to shift around as she stared him and Patsy down, sizing them up—most likely for caskets. Then she surprised them.
“I intend to give you both a job.”
Patsy dug a claw in his ear and scraped for wax. “Could you please repeat that? I think I had something crazy in my ear.”
Masky accepted the turn of good fortune more readily. “Hey, beats being executed.”
“You misunderstand, you are still being executed,” Luna said. “All this is part of your trial. The two criminals known as Masky and Patsy were brought into this room, tried, sentenced, and put to death for crimes against Equestria.” The quill floated in the air again and signed off on the bottom of the scroll with a flourish. Masky peered over to read the paper. It was a death certificate.
“Officially, you two are dead. What happens next in this room will determine whether or not we bury you.”
Masky imagined he was in better condition than most dead people, all things considered. He was familiar with the phrase “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” But he also was familiar with another phrase: “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” So he made a comment.
“I get the feeling that if your sister caught us, we’d still be officially alive.”
Luna’s expression remained the same as she rolled up the death certificate and placed it next to the other scroll.
“My sister and I have very different perspectives of the world. My sister believes there is some good in every living thing, loves all of her subjects with all of her heart, and favors eternal banishments and imprisonments as a means of recompense. In contrast, I believe that ponies are only good if they believe they are being observed at all times, I expect the worst of most ponies I meet, and I offer deviants the chance for redemption.”
Masky scratched his head. “I don’t follow.”
“I have determined that a criminal’s activities are a drain on society. Each misdeed weakens all of my subjects on every level of life. Leaving them in stone or burying them may keep others in line, but it doesn’t undo any harm. So, quite like a guardian angel, I swoop down from on high and mercifully pluck the sinners out of the darkness,” Luna raised her voice in righteous fervor, an honest smile on her face. A dreamy sigh escaped her lips and she turned her eyes to an empty space above the pair.
“And then I work them like dogs until they wish they were never born.”
The two criminals exchanged a look of concern. This night had already taken enough terrible turns. Getting caught, being arrested, and being executed were lousy ways to end a heist all on their own. Going through all three at once in their short time at Canterlot had made it a pretty awful experience. But now to top it all off, they were being put to work. Worse than that, it was honest work—or at least the closest thing to honest a government job could get.
“Does this happen often?” Patsy asked. Luna’s daydreaming about back-breaking labor was making his scales crawl.
“Very. I am the leading employer of ex-convicts in Equestria,” she said proudly, still never quite looking directly at the two. “Most soldiers in my Night Guard were proficient murderers in their previous lives.”
Masky swallowed a lump in his throat. He had dealt with thieves, crooks, and muggers in his lifetime, not to mention the con artists, hustlers, and cheats. Somewhere deep, deep down, there was still a glimmer of decency and a splash of charisma in all of them that made them agreeable company. Murderers, cut throats, and killers were a much different story. And his new boss surrounded herself with them.
“So most of your boys are killers... What about the rest of them?” He was hoping that she would say they were thieves or ponies that didn’t pay their taxes. Instead, she looked him directly in the eye and raised an eyebrow. Masky had enough. If there was any way to walk out of this mess, he was going for it. “And if we refuse?”
Luna gestured to the door behind her, the door to freedom. “You can step right through there and never hear from me again.”
The stallion pursed his lips thoughtfully and nodded in consideration. Masky carefully got up out of his chair, respectfully shook Luna’s hoof, thanked her kindly for the offer, and opened the door.
On the other side was a creature so large it could hardly be called a pony, whistling a chirpy melody over a stone sharpening wheel. Sparks spouted from the edge of an axe, the only source of light in the torture chamber. The pony, whom Luna knew by the name of Handy Dandy, waved invitingly at Masky.
“I see.” The door shut slowly and Masky returned to his seat.
“The thing about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities is that you only ever get one.” Luna pulled out two tickets and slid them across her desk in front of her new employees. “These are your boarding passes for the train.”
“What is this job, anyway?” Patsy asked. Just because he was working for the Princess of the Night didn’t mean he deserved to be kept in the dark. The dragon patted himself on the back for his wit. He would have absolutely said it out loud, too, if he hadn’t just learned there was a colossal axe-wielding torturer in the next room over.
“You will be investigating a series of murders out west in a town called Appleloosa.” She said it as simply as telling an intern to fetch a cup of coffee. Masky briefly entertained the thought that the princess hired interns, sending them out to murder disobedient forest animals or drag jaywalkers from their homes in the night. And probably get coffee, too, but with blood or something in it.
It did not take long to weigh his options. It was either get on a train and go somewhere he could be killed or simply never heard from again, or go in the next room. The offer was nothing to sneeze at, and Masky never liked to catch a cold.
“You need some snooping done? We’re your guys,” he said with a forced smile.
Luna wasted no time in returning to whatever paperwork remained on her desk. She was enormously eager to give as little attention to Masky and Patsy as possible, so whatever she was writing down was no doubt something she found enthralling. Like issuing a death warrant on the owners of an illegal lemonade stand.
“Your train departs in one hour. You will be escorted to the station by my Night Guards.”
Masky raised an objection. “The ex-murderers?”
“I would hesitate to call them ex murderers.”
“So murderers are escorting us. Alone.” Masky was beginning to wonder if he should have taken his chances with the door.
“They will not be the ones escorting you.” Which meant that his escorts to his death sentence fell under that worrisome category of Luna’s employees: the rest. “Once there, you will spend the rest of your assignment under the eye of your parole officer. Your parole officer may assist you in investigations in any way possible, but your safety is their chief concern.”
“And what happens if they mess up and some rootin’ tootin’ outlaw buries me under a hill?”
“It would be a surprising display of consideration if they buried you. But as you are officially dead,” there was that expression again, “nearly nothing done to you is legally reprehensible.”
Masky never liked Luna’s answers to his questions. He knew he would never like the answer. But for some damned reason, he could not help himself from asking more.
“And what happens if my security officer bites it? Do I get a replacement then?”
This time, Luna looked up at Masky to answer. “If your officer were to suffer any harm, those responsible would be charged for the assault of a government official and be brought to justice by the Equestrian National Guard.”
“But if a few working class ponies get bumped off, then you just send in a thief and a baby dragon to handle it,” Patsy snarked. The threat of immediate death had faded away, so he felt no fear dishing out sarcasm. And if he was going to die young, then he’d go out with the satisfaction of having been sarcastic to one of the most powerful beings in the world.
“A decision I am certain you are grateful for. Though if a situation arises where grievous harm comes to your officer, for any reason, I do not suspect that you will be in good health for much longer. This is something I am very certain of.” It was less of a thinly-veiled threat and more of a politely-worded death sentence.
“And just what kind of safety officer am I being assured here? I’ve got a kid I need to look after, after all.”
“They once kicked a stallion so hard in the face, he broke his back.”
Masky’s mouth fell open in a small ‘o’. “That’s a hell of a kick.”
“I imagine it would have been much worse if they had meant to do it. So be on your best behavior.”
The bag came over Masky’s face again.
=¢=$=¢=
When the bag came off, it was still dark. Masky’s first thought was to escape under the cover of darkness, but seeing the small cadre of Night Guards standing watch on the train platform discouraged him. As a natural night owl, sleep was not an option for passing the time. Patsy on the other hand, was already snoring like a log. So it was up to him to entertain himself. He tried pacing, he tried tapping his hoof, he tried sneaking off a few times just to get a rise out of the Night Guards, and he even tried singing—the Guards acted as if he was trying to sneak off again.
Fed up of waiting, Masky turned to his favorite method of passing time: complaining.
“This is taking forever. Where’s this drip that’s supposed to be babysitting us?”
“Wait,” grunted one of the Night Guards.
Masky stuck his tongue out and turned to pick up Patsy. The dragon had been drooling in his sleep, so he caringly wiped the saliva off his chin with his hoof. The tyke slept like a stone, he wasn’t worried about waking him up by moving around. And there was about to be a lot of moving.
“Hey, mac, I’m gonna take the kid to the bathroom before the train gets here,” Masky said.
“Wait,” grunted the Night Guard.
“Wait for this.” Masky swung his hoof forward, sending a glob of dragon spit right at the Guard’s eyes. Taking the opening, the thief put all his energy into getting away from the train station as fast as he was able. It did not take long before he heard the unmistakable sound of angry ponies chasing him.
The city blocks of Canterlot weren’t far away. No cop alive could catch him once he entered a city maze of alleys and sewers. And for a moment, it really felt like he was going to get away with it.
Then something kicked him in the side of the head and he fell like a sack of bricks. On his way down, he swore he heard someone talking to him in a southern drawl, saying, “Your safety is my chief concern.”