Eye of the Beholder

by Jake The Army Guy

Prologue: Bury Me An Angel

Pipe Wrench was not a happy stallion.

It was bad enough that he was being forced to work on what was supposed to be his day off—betting a work shift on the New Yoke Nickers winning the biggest game of the year had turned out to be a mistake—but Star Breaker had decided the shift he'd have to take was a Monday morning. This meant that the imposing mountain of trash bags that sat in a jumbled pile at the mouth of a nondescript alley had had all weekend to ferment. For not the first time since he started working for the Manehatten Sanitation Commission, Pipe cursed being an earth pony as he hefted another bag of rancid waste into the giant rusted bin that sat on the street just beside the alley. The plastic mouth liner he wore mercifully spared him from tasting it, but it had the unfortunate side effect of forcing him to breathe through his nose, inhaling the full force of moldy cheese and stale hay fries.

Gripping a nearly overflowing bag, he jerked his neck to the side and launched the bag into the barge. As the bag left his mouth, the side ripped open, loosing a wave of blackish fluid across his foreleg. He gagged and wiped it against his denim work overalls, grimacing in disgust. “Jeez! Somepony want to remind me why the guy with opposable thumbs is pulling the cart while I’m back here picking up diaper bags with my mouth?!”

From the front end of the rusted barge, a beefy minotaur adjusted the yoke around his neck. “If you think you can pull the barge, you’re more than welcome to try.” He flexed his massive arms, grinning down at the chain that connected him to the cart.

Pipe blinked at the chain—it looked to be thicker than his neck—before scowling and hopping back onto the platform. The cart wobbled under his weight, which was admittedly nothing next to the mounds of garbage inside. “Eh, your mother.”

“Hey, it could be worse.” Another large earth pony jumped onto a platform on the opposite side of the barge, wiping the perspiration from his thick brow.

“Oh, do tell, Mick.”

Mick grinned. “You could have just thrown away your last clean mouth liner.”

“What do—” Pipe looked down, the empty satchel hanging from his neck mocking him. “Oh, Discord rut me sideways...”

Mick guffawed, tossing a few plastic liners to him. “Watch it, now. They say he can hear you. If he’s bored with whatever the Princesses have him doing, who’s to say he wouldn’t take you up on that?”

Pipe tucked the liners away. “Hey, as long as it got me off this shift... and he told me he loved me!”

“Ugh, keep your sick mind to yourself, kid.” With that, Mick gripped the railing next to him and kicked the side of the cart with his rear hoof. “Alright, Lunk, move it out!”

The minotaur snorted and surged forward, thick steam erupting from his pierced nose even in the muggy heat of early morning. Pipe flinched as the wheels, rusted from Celestia-knew-how-many decades of muggy Manehatten summers, squealed as they began to turn. After a few more grunts from Lunk, the barge began to swim through the sticky blanket of summer air that choked the deserted Manehatten street.  Pipe Wrench hoped that the movement would drive away the worst of the stench from the cart, but experience told him to breath through his mouth; the cloistering air seemed to trap the smell, smothering them like a blanket of dirty diapers and spoiled milk.

 The suburbs just outside downtown Manehatten were nowhere near as posh as the high-rises and townhomes of the inner-city, but it was still a cozy neighborhood, and far above Pipe’s meager earnings; the Manehatten Sanitation Commission paid a surprisingly decent wage, but not near enough to move out of his downtown bachelor pad. The street was illuminated by street lamps, not the old firefly models, but the newer, fancier—and much more expensive, Pipe noted—thaumatically powered ones which bathed the garbage cart in a warm orange light. Classically designed brownstones sat in tightly packed rows along the quiet street, separated only occasionally by alleys, which Pipe and Mick watched intently.

As the cart rumbled down the road, punctuated by intermittent grunts from Lunk, Pipe kept his eye on the passing alleys, checking if the painted areas designated for garbage collection had anything inside. “Clear left.”

“Clear right.” Mick smirked knowingly at him from his perch on the other side of the cart. “So, Pipe, did you see the game last week?” A loud rumble of bullish, braying laughter came from the front of the front of the rusted barge.

“Ah, shut your mouth. Clear left.”

“Hehehe, clear right! How many times I gotta tell you? Never bet on a Nickers game with Star Breaker! His cousin works for the team. He knows when they are on it," he said, leering, "and when they're gonna suck like an Appaloosan wh—”

“Hold left,” Pipe shouted over the rumble of the wheels and Mick's disturbing metaphor. Up front, Lunk grasped the brake lever, bracing against the ground and bringing the cart to a squeaking halt. Pipe jumped off and made for the mercifully small pile of garbage bags in the marked-off area. He managed to grab two in his mouth and three in his hoof, all of which quickly ended up back in the garbage cart. "All right," he said, hopping back up onto his post. "Let's move out."

They continued in silence for a good while, only speaking to call out clear or dirty alleys. Eventually, the nice brownstones petered out, giving way to smaller, more efficient homes. They were leaving the suburbs and entering the sprawl: the area relegated to lower-income homes. Here, the population was much more varied than in the upper-class areas. Creatures from all walks of life flocked here to be a part of the great Equestrian society. Pipe wondered how many of them actually found it.

As the cart rumbled back to motion, Pipe turned back to Mick. “Okay, so apparently everypony and their mother knows why I took this crummy shift, but why are you two here?”

“Taurian government requires five hundred hours of community service, to ‘prove my loyalty to the new nation’ before they will approve transfer of citizenship,” came the strained voice from the front. “This shift counts as double hours.”

“Jeez, Lunk, the government forces you to work? Clear right.”

Lunk turned his head to face Mick. “Why do you think I’m emigrating?”

Pipe shook his head. “Clear left. Sometimes I forget how much the rest of the world sucks.” He turned back to Mick. “You?”

“Clear right. Rebuilding the nestegg.”

Pipe gripped the support strut a bit tighter as the cart hit a pothole, the rusted suspension letting out a sharp crack of protest. “What, still? I thought they caught that scumbag!”

“They couldn’t convict him. Lack of evidence, they said. Hold right.” Mick hopped off the cart and began hefting trash bags.

Pipe hopped over and began helping with the large pile of bags. "Oh, what bull!" A rumbling cough came from behind him. “Eh-heh... no offense, Lunk.” He gripped a bag in his mouth, carrying it back to the bin. “So, how much did that mook make off with?”

Mick tossed the last bag with a loud grunt, jumped on his platform and banged the side. “Ten thousand bits. The baby’s entire college fund,” he said as the cart moved on.

“I... nrgh... I told you it was a bad investment.”

Mick craned his head to glare at Lunk. “He gave me four references! How was I supposed to know they was all in on it? Clear right.”

“So, this guy makes off with ten large, scot free, and you’re working the graveyard shift to put food on the table?”

“Apparently not! So get this: the cop working the case comes to see me yesterday. A real nice guy, clean cut, always gave me respect, you know? Well, thi—”

“Hold left.” The barge once more screeched to a halt and both ponies hopped off to tackle the large pile of bags.

“Anyway,” Mick says, several bags in his hoof, “he came round yesterday to get me to sign the last of the paperwork, and he mentions that the guy is out on the street without a bit to his name!”

Pipe threw the last bag in the bin and climbed back up, banging his hoof. “Good, Lunk!” He turned back to Mick. “What happened?”

“Apparently where the system failed, karma stepped in. Last week, that scamming piece of crap’s house burned down!”

“Ha! Oh, that’s rich!”

“Clear right. That’s not all. Apparently, not two days before that, the shady insurance company that covered the guy got bought out by some big corporation of something, and got shut down!”

“Get outta town.”

“Heh heh, nope! The poor bastard’s out on his flank without a penny to his name! The Parents work in mysterious ways, eh?”

They approached an alley between two large apartment buildings. Pipe peered in; the lantern above the collection point was out, but it looked to be empty. “Clear left. Yeah, I gu—” Just as he looked away, the lantern sputtered to life. “Wait, wait, stop!”

Both Lunk and the ancient vehicle protested loudly at the sudden stop. “Come on, Pipe, this thing don’t exactly stop on a dime!”

Pipe ignored him, stepping down from the platform and walking towards the lone piece of trash. “Hold up, Mick, it’s just some tarp or somethin', I got it.”

“Well, then hurry up. We got another fifteen blocks to cover before we can turn in, and I’d like to get home before the kids leave for school.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The confined alley channeled the wind into a cooling breeze that washed over Pipe’s face. Quickly, though, a grimace flash across his face, the breeze carrying with it a pungent stench. Pipe grimaced and reluctantly turned his nose into the breeze, trying to place the new smell, far different from the rotted food and used diapers of the rest of the morning: a coppery, metallic scent, one that didn't quite sting, but was still vaguely unsettling. Pipe examined the bag more closely. It turned out not to be a bag at all; instead, it was a plastic tarp, just a bit smaller than him, wrapped up several times so that whatever was inside remained unseen. Pipe gulped and shuffled on his hooves a bit.

“Hey, hurry up, would ya!”

Mick’s voice snapped him back to reality. Shaking his head, he slowly approached the tarp. Once in reach, his hoof stepped in something wet. He jerked back, lifting his hoof to his face. His pupils shrunk to pinpricks. “Ah, jeez! Mick, this is blood!”

“What?”

“Blood! There’s blood in here!”

“Oh, quit being such a scaredy-pony! It’s probably some dog got hit by a cart and crawled in there to die! Just use your hoof instead of your mouth and hurry up!”

Gulping, Pipe nodded and slowly turned back to the tarp before him. Even this close, he couldn’t see what was inside, the plastic reflecting the harsh orange light from the lamp. Gingerly, he reached out and grabbed an exposed corner and pulled. The tarp refused to budge. He pulled again, slightly harder this time. it felt like there was something sticking it to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he yanked with all his might.

The tarp finally moved, but as soon as he tugged, his back hoof found the forgotten puddle of blood. With a loud yell, Pipe fell backwards, the tarp coming with him, unfurling and landing on top of him. He hit the ground an instant before a loud, wet slap sounded from in front of him.

Panicking, he wrestled with the sheet of plastic, desperately denying that the wet substance that was soaking him was not the same as what he’d tripped in. Finally, he managed to fight his way out of the tarp, throwing it aside and taking a deep gulp of air. He opened his eyes and shrieked as he came face to face with a unicorn mare: ivory fur covered in bruises and cuts; fiery red mane in tatters; tongue hanging limply out of her bloody mouth.

“Hey, Pipe, you alright?”

Pipe scampered back, hooves slipping in the slowly growing puddle of blood. "Oh, goddess, oh, Princesses." The cool slickness soaked through his coveralls. "Aw fewwmets, ah goddess..."

"Pipe! You alright, kid?"

Mick's voice came from the mouth of the alley, but Pipe couldn't turn to him, unable to take his eyes off that face, that lolling tongue, and those eyes; or rather, the gaping, ragged holes where her eyes should have been. “M—M—Mick! Mick! This ain’t no dog!”