//------------------------------// // Wasted // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: The Detection Chronicles // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// Chapter 9: Wasted There are very few things in the world that bracing yourself does any good for. Heavy lifting, or physical exertion of any kind, being among them. Bracing yourself emotionally? Nigh impossible. There’s no muscle to flex in the back of your mind that makes the rest of it a steel trap from which no emotion can escape. You can’t turn your own mind on and off without chemical additives or some very unique psychological disorders. The rest of us normal folk all have to sit by and hope that whatever it is we’re getting ready to face doesn’t absolutely destroy us. So when a nurse tells you to “brace yourself”, feel free to not bother. But first, let me back up a few moments. Or, more precisely, a few hours. I’d been helping clean up Fluff’s office at the time, putting things back together and doing my best to either be consoling or considerately quiet whenever she felt the need to cry or throw something again. It didn’t look like she’s be feeling better anytime soon, even after we were done cleaning. She was still a kid by the time I left. I’d gotten a call from Longarm shortly thereafter, as if somepony had planned out my day for me and simply forgot to let me know. I hadn’t even finished my doughnut, the bastard. He told me to meet him in front of the precinct and to take Paperweight with me. It was at that point I’d realized I hadn’t seen her all day. Which honestly didn’t surprise me that much. She liked to sleep at home and had said something about doing research before we met up again today. I think it was an excuse to stay as far away from Evidence while I was in it as possible. Which was kind of a moot point, but she didn’t know that. So I drummed up a phone from some desk or another and called her house. I wasn’t really surprised to get an answer. I usually had to try a few different places to reach her when she was being studious. So I dialed another practiced number, and waited. She wasn’t at the office, either. Again, no surprise. She really only spent time there when I did. I think she has trouble reading my thought maps and stuff. Although she’s the only one that understands the filing system, Luna bless her. Once again, I dialed a number I’d rung like a million and a half times. The library. Tried and true resting place of many a book, student, and overly-intelligent secretary. Thee, I got an answer. Of course I did, they have receptionists. “Good morning, Detrot City Municipal Library, how may I help you?” a bright, cheery voice came over the line. One I knew pretty well, I might add. “Hey Bookend, is Paperweight there?” I asked nonchalantly. Really, I’ve called the library more often than my own mother. But that’s another story. “No, sorry, Spy. I haven’t seen her all week. But while I have you on the line, there is the small matter of your late fees-” “OH. Would you look at that. This detective wants his phone back. So sorry, call you later,” I said hurriedly, waving at an imaginary stallion waiting impatiently for the phone. For effect, mind you. I don’t know why I do it when I know they can’t see me. “SPY-” CLICK. Nothing worse than talking to people you owe money too. It’s really a rather terrifying prospect. Having as of yet no way of reaching my dutiful assistant, I made my way to the front of the precinct to wait for Longarm, figuring that when Paperweight needed to find me, she would. She always does. The DPD has always been a rather fascinating place for me. Even without my initial desire to be a police officer, I’d always found the inner workings of the building to be more than a little intriguing. Yes, you have the archetypal and long-established design of rows of officer’s desks, smaller rooms as individual offices for detectives, sergeants, and lieutenants, and the dispatch room, but they way it’d been put together never seemed to amaze me. Most everypony knows about the dispatch station. Telly’s workplace and/or place of residence, it was a beast of a desk equipped (and possibly armed), with such a wide array of communications devices that I was pretty sure half the conversations she had when I was around were to people not even remotely related to the department. Of course, nopony was stupid enough to challenge her on that front. Especially not anypony who really, really wanted to have a go at her between the sheets. A pipedream, that, really. I’d never seen her away from the desk outside of meetings and, well, anything that basically required her to forsake her battlestation for fear of it affecting her paycheck. A strange thing, though. Given that I was convinced she never left her desk, what the bloody hell did she spend her paycheck on? Then there was the Luna-forsaken file cloud. I absolutely loathed that thing, having been one of its... contents, for a time. It’s a long story. Oh, yes, I could understand its purpose well enough, and had seen it in action plenty of times to not doubt its usefulness, but still. Keep that fucking thing away from me. The individual officers weren’t really anything to write home about unless you knew them personally. And really, the only one I knew in more than passing was Longarm. A decent fellow, and I’ve been trying my best to stay out of his way and approach the investigation from an angle that won’t totally buck everything up, but I get the distinct feeling there’s a reason I don’t see him anywhere near as much as the phrase “partner” would entail. Of course, I knew about Hard Boiled. Every P.I. in the city knew his name. Some spat it out. Others used it as a threat. Some just talked about him like some kind of urban legend that made the papers once too often. Things still haven’t recovered from losing him, not entirely, although you wouldn’t know it looking at the place. Then a thought struck me. A rather uncomfortable one. This department, which covers one of the largest cities in Equestria, has several hundred officers. Nigh a thousand, if memory serves. And all the rumors I’d heard tell of how badly Iris Jade wanted Hardy’s head on a stick so she could javelin it through a high-story window. Then how the buck were they short-hoofed? I mean, even with Longarm’s partner out of commission, which I had yet to ask him about, two downed officers does not a broken department make. Of course, questioning this fact would mean questioning Iris Jade herself. Literally. I’d have to ask her these questions, most likely on my own. And that probably wasn’t going to happen. Unless... “Hey, Telly!” I trotted happily up to dispatch, and leaned patiently against a remarkably empty section of desk while she chatted at speeds probably immeasurable by any instruments I knew about. She waved shortly at me, and kept working for a bit. Then, during a rare lull, she turned her attention to me. “Hey Espy. What brings you to my humble abode?” “Well, I’m waiting for Longarm and Paperweight so I can get this trainwreck of a day over with. How about you?” I leaned my elbows on the desk and sat my head on my hooves to prop me up. “Well, aside from all the work I’m doing, not much,” she returned innocently, then spoke into another headset in a language i didn’t know, and pressed a bunch of buttons. I sat up straighter. “Should I leave you alone, then?” She scoffed. “Please, if you were enough to distract me from my job I’d have been fired years ago. You’re fine. Oh, hold on,” she added, as a new headset made its appearance, and she started chatting to somepony. “Well, in that case, I’ve been meaning to ask-” she stopped me mid-sentence with a hoof in the air, so I waited. As I watched her, though, I noticed the color drain from her face. Her eyes flicked to me on occasion, as she asked quick questions and got seemingly quick responses. When she was done, she set the headset down, slowly, and turned to me. “S-Spy...” “What? What’s wrong? Please tell me we don’t have another corpse,” I whined, not ready to deal with more of this psycho’s “artwork.” “N... no. That was the hospital. They... Paperweight was found unconscious at the entrance of the ICU. Her... both her eardrums have been ruptured, and she’s been shot,” Telly explained. It was like all sound had fallen from the world. The more she spoke, explaining what the doctor had told her, the smaller the rest of the world became. Eventually, her words, too, faded away. It felt as if everyone had just left the room all at once and turned the lights out. I’ve never run so hard in my life. ------------ Few things in my life have ever driven me to hate anything. Yes, there’s the natural hatred that comes with knowing the nature of a thing. Hating rapists and murderers. Corrupt politicians. Certain kinds of food. But the moments are few and far between when I’ve known, personally, the source of my fury. Or been close enough to it, at least, that it is a tangible thing to me. Not just a concept that deserves to be scorned or a figurehead to be shunned. But I don’t count most of those things. Sure, I dislike them, maybe hate them, but as an afterthought. A natural response. A passive loathing that I barely notice except in the nature of conversation, when I would say “I hate this stuff”, or “I hate ponies like that.” It’s not very often when I find myself hating, despising, wishing nothing but harm on an individual. I’m not a fighter. I’m an investigator. I’m a facts guy. I don’t hunt people down and drag them in. I collect evidence and take pictures and go to some really dirty places. Except him. This... thing. I’ll hunt him. I drag him kicking and screaming into a dark room with no windows, concrete walls, and blast doors. And I’ll kill him. It was... therapeutic to entertain these thoughts as I ran. I didn’t remember how far away the hospital was, but I remembered how to get there. Or maybe I was just running on instinct and all of my personal injuries acted as a compass to the building I spent more time in than I usually should. I remember running past Longarm on the way. I don’t remember if he was in a car, or at the front steps, or just on the side of the road. But I remember seeing him. And ignoring him. I think a few other ponies called after me. I thought about flying straight there. I even flexed my wings to get ready to take off, when they hit the insides of my hoodie and I realized I’d have to stop to take it off. And I wasn’t going to stop. I didn’t think I ever would, even when I got to the hospital. I’d just run through the halls, run through the lobbies, run into the room, and keep running. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. So I thought about killing him. That murderous psychopath. That deviant with a knife and all the free time and artistic license of an unemployed painter. I thought about what he must look like. What his face looked like. I gave it a shape, just some passing details, enough to ponder what his expression would be once I got a hold of him. I’d take everything from him that I could. I’d kill him. It’s not like he didn’t deserve it. Five dead, in truly horrific ways. We hadn’t even found three of them. No pattern, no sense of direction. A barely tangible association. Me. I didn’t know if he was targeting me, or if I was simply a piece of convenience in whatever puzzle he felt he needed to solve by turning other ponies into jigsaw pieces. I thought as hard as I ran. Part of me was focused on the mental image of killing the “murderer” I’d constructed in my mind, the other racing through all the evidence I could remember. Whatever we were doing, it hadn’t been enough. We hadn’t stopped anything, and now he was targeting us personally. The hospital loomed over the horizon like a finish line, a lighthouse after ten years at sea. A beacon, telling me to move faster, to try harder. I was almost there. And then I was. The front doors stood before me, sliding open with all the patience of a Tibitten monk. I ran through them as soon as I could fit, and almost slid bodily into the receptionist's desk. I obviously wasn’t the first impatient visitor she’d ever had. She looked at me at first with pity, then recognition, then sorrow. Seeming to process the entire situation at once, she didn’t bother asking me any questions. Just rifled through some papers quick as you like until her hoof stopped on one, and she returned her gaze to me. “She’s still in surgery, Mr. Spy. She’s on the third floor, but you’ll have to wait in the lobby until they move her into recovery,” she explained. My mind latched onto only part of her sentence. “Surgery?! What kind of surgery?!” The urgency in my voice rivaled the sirens on the ambulances outside. She glanced over the paper, and flinched. “They’re still removing the bullets.” I don’t know how long that took to sink in, but I can only imagine my expression at the time. Given how it was reflected in the receptionist’s face, I had a pretty good guess. “Bullets? How many bullets?! HOW MANY TIMES DID HE SHOOT HER, DAMMIT?!” She flinched, and shrunk back, but regained her composure. I recognized her, at some point. I’d talked to her quite a few times during my visits. She looked over my shoulder and waved... somepony down. I’m guessing security, after I yelled at their desk clerk. “She’s got a bullet in each of her front hooves, and ruptured eardrums. I don’t know how much more I can tell you without guessing. You best bet is to go upstairs and wait,” she added soothingly, pointing towards the elevators. I took my cue, and marched on. I thought about running, but at that point most if not all of my exertion had caught up with me. A couple of pressed buttons and a door chime later, I was leaning on the inside wall of the lift, catching my breath. The third floor looked much like the first, except replace all the chairs and niceties and front desk with crash carts and heavy metal doors and god knows what else these things were for. I could probably figure it out if I took the time to stop and look. But that wasn’t going to happen. I asked a few ponies, some of whom recognized me, for directions. The ones who knew me didn’t even let me finish, they just pointed and I followed. Eventually I found myself in a small waiting area. A few chairs, a tiny TV behind a metal grate, and another pony who looked so far drawn into himself I’m surprised he didn’t pull his lip over his head and swallow. A passing nurse informed me that someone would let me know when she was taken out of surgery, and again when I could see her. Waiting in a hospital is one of the longest moments of anypony’s life. There’s the last five minutes of class, the two to ten minutes before the bus or train or plane arrives, the wait for the mail, and hospital waiting rooms. If time were truly relative to perception we’d all grow old waiting for the world to catch up. One thing did change as I was waiting, however. Longarm showed up. He looked like I felt, having run all over creation. “What... the hell... was that?” he panted, slumping over a seat next to me. He looked a little like a ragdoll. Being as exhausted as I was, my mind was still flying a mile a minute. Suffice to say my first few attempts were a garbled mess before I could properly explain the situation to him. “Oh,” was all he said, after I was done. He righted himself in his seat and fiddled around for a bit, before looking up at me and saying more. “Spy, I want to tell you that it will be ok, and she’ll be fine, but... I’m not exactly the right pony to say that.” It took me a second to put together what he was saying. “You’re talking about your partner, right?” He nodded. He was quiet for a moment, then, with a sigh that I could only assume was to ready himself for what he was about to say, he started in. “It happened a little over a year ago, on the fifth anniversary of our getting into the precinct...” As he talked, I started piecing things together. His story was long, winded, and he obviously hadn’t told it too many times. But the clarity with which he spoke and the precision in the details told me he relived it more often than not. By the time he was done talking, I couldn’t say I felt any better. But I understood a few things. About my position here. Why Iris Jade wanted me where I was, or, more specifically, how convenient I was for putting Longarm where he needed to be. He made me promise not to tell anypony what he said, but I’m sure someday he’ll tell somepony else. When he needs to. His story had also accomplished something else: more time had passed than I thought. A few moments after he was done, the nurse from earlier came up to me and told me where I could find Paperweight, but that she wasn’t awake just yet. Apparently she’d been resting the entire time we’d talked, and had come out of surgery a little after I’d gotten there. They were just waiting for her to wake up. The walk to her room was long, trying, and didn’t seem to get any shorter, no matter how many steps I took. I was reaching to open the door when it seemed to do so by itself. On the other side, I saw a familiar face: Cross Stitch. Even with my secondary instinct to avoid him, I just sat and waited for him to say something. He looked me over, and, seeing I was waiting for him to talk first, flipped through his clipboard and read off a few sentences in medical jargon. I understood most of it, but the only important thing he said was, “She’ll be... ok. She’ll be able to walk again in a few days, maybe a couple of weeks if her body decides to be stubborn. I can’t speak for her writing ability, unless she uses magic for hat.” I nodded. “Good. She’s probably going to have to rely on that for... well, much more than she used to.” I hesitated in asking, but I knew I had to. “What do you mean?” He gave me a long, hard look. “I mean, we had to surgically remove some broken parts of her ears. She’s never going to hear again. Her balance will be almost trash, her spatial awareness could take months to recover, and she’s going to have to adapt to a whole new way of life. God knows how you two function, but she may need to find either a new way to do her job, or a new job. She’ll recover from her wounds, but she’s not going to be the same pony you said goodbye to yesterday. I hope whatever you said to her last night was meaningful, cause those are as good as last words.”