4 - Break, Enter, and Find
I looked left.
And I looked right.
Then I strode out onto the freshly mowed lawn before the white, neoclassical farmhouse that dominated the little plateau over the fields. A nice view it had, indeed.
Of course, I firstly acknowledged the windows, who were all darkened and in some cases even had their folds shut. There certainly was no one else at home.
Crossing the grassy yard swiftly, I pressed myself against the house's wall. Peeping into one of the windows, I saw a little light coming from the first story. Everything else lay darkened.
Now, I thought, what did Ian say? 'Take a look around and collect everything you deem important'.
Okay. I thought I'd start right here I guess.
So I took out my camera (a professional high precision model) and framed the garden several times. First the entire garden, then the lawn, then the trees, and finally the little bushes and tulips that were planted in a happy little flower patch. Roses, tulips, and even an infant apple tree. Must be less that three years old, considering its puny size.
Again, the last time I saw a patch like this was at a friend's house. He had a wife and two daughters, and they were infamous for doing such little happy things, like gardening and tidying out the turf, as a family.
Again, I had to wonder, did Brian really plant that apple tree all by himself? Just for the sake of it?
Well, after a few more shots of individual corners of the garden, I found it to be very fruitless in terms of evidence. It was just a lawn with a few trees, individual patches, nothing special. Tactically speaking, the garden area provided little cover - both visually and ballistically, and so anyone ascending the driveway could be seen right away from the windows.
On the ground that ran alongside the walls, I found it to be a sand pit. I was standing in sand with my soles, a cheap and ugly method to fill the subterranean gap between the house's delicate foundations and the garden's turf.
However, what I found more interesting about it was that it wasn't untouched. There were my shoe prints in it, yes, of course, but there was a second set as well. And nobody could leave behind prints if they weren't sneaking around the house by leaning against its walls.
I made some quick pictures of the prints; they weren't very deep or detailed; they had been there quite a time already, maybe a year or two, billowed by wind and precipitation all the way. I didn't know any better than to assume they stemmed from a human, wearing moon-boots or something like that.
Little, circular moon-boots.
Edging alongside the wall, I found the back door two corners away. I knew what I had to do now.
I pulled a pair of black leather gloves over my hands, and strapped those special socks made plastic foil over my shoes and lower trouser legs. They would prevent shoe prints and sediment stains I might carry along with me.
Then, I targeted the little window square that was closest to the door's inside handle. I took out a broad scotch tape roll, and laid three stripes over the window and its frame, as well as three stripes across.
Then, without a moment's notice, I struck out with my right hands elbow and smashed it into the taped pane.
There was hardly a clank as the window shattered.
Carefully, I reached inside, and fumbled my way to the door handle.
I pushed it down.
And I was inside.
I swept aside the shards of glass with my shoes and stepped inside the house. It was dark. The curtains had been pulled before the windows, and there were only a few weak sources of light that helped me to guide my way through the corridor. A slit of sunlight here, a glowing battery charger there, and that was it.
'It definitely was a big house for a single person', that was the first thing that sprang into my head. Why would he buy such a large house only for himself?
Soon, I stood in the back of the central room, the living room, as far as I could tell.
I spotted a sofa and two comfy chairs situated in the middle, as well as a table between them.
A menagerie cupboard rested against one of the walls, filled with photos and some random assortments of beautiful glassware.
I took a closer look at the photos. With a flashlight, I looked at every single one.
One depicted a little, three-year old boy with a mullet, sitting on a cheap, yellow bobby-car in a desolate backyard somewhere in a pseudo-suburban 'pot hole'. Maybe it was a photo from Brian's childhood, a photo from the '90s.
Yeah, times were still simple back then.
The next photo, even though blurred by an overly long exposure time, portrayed a preteen Brian blowing out eleven candles on a feeble, yet succulent self-made birthday cake. To his right, there crouched a woman with brunette locks and perhaps one of the most disarming grins I had seen in a lifetime.
This woman was his mother, alright, apparently highly amused by his grimaces as he tried to get all the candles in one breath.
The way she hugged her son as he bowed over the table toward the cake bore witness to a happy, harmonious childhood.
It may have been very difficult for him once they died.
The next few pictures were very similar. Like the one in which he wrestled with his father, a corpulent man with a bald patch and an apparent preference for motley shirts.. Or the one on his first day at school. Or the one at his communion.
Pleasant. Peaceful. And safe.
The photo series stopped around 2010. When they passed away.
That was the point where he stopped making photos.
Apart from the photographs, there was little of interest in the room. Boring potted plants, a kitschy painting of an alpine mountaintop, and of course the coffee table, surrounded by chairs and a sofa.
I dusted the table with magnetised powder and a thick brush, in hopes of uncovering fingerprints that did not belong to Brian. Just to find someone else I could connect with Brian or this house. There must have been at least one other person in his life at one point or another.
So, where was this person?
The fingerprints on the table told me nothing. Each and every one belonged to the same set of two hands.
Brian's hands.
I moved on. Next to the menagerie, there was a small portal to the kitchen.
The kitchen was a bit lighter that the living room thanks an abundance of panoramic windows, but it was no less a feeble affair than the living room. Some stickers on a pinup board bearing irrelevant, repetitive messages, and a partially consumed slice of apple pie that sat on a ceramic dish on the table next to the stove. A fork still stuck in it.
Sitting at home half of the day and gulping down apple pie. Was that a modern terrorist's life?
Just as I got quite annoyed by the overly uncanny blandness of the place, I threw my focus on the fridge and the dish cupboard.
There were a set of six dishes in the cupboard, and a couple more floated at the bottom of the filled, foamy sink.
Too many dishes for a one-man-household, I figured. Granted, most of the dishes hadn't been used in some time, but still.
Yet, my hunch was quickly destroyed as I threw a glance into the fridge.
Toast, cheese, oats, milk. Breakfast for one. Onion soup, carrots, cornbread, mache. Lunch for one. Spaghetti, tomatoes, quark, herbs. Dinner for one.
No seconds.
What I did next, I don't know why. Maybe it was intuition, maybe it was experience. But I did take a look at the refrigeration, which found itself at the bottom of the bulky fridge. It was interconnected with the rest of the world through a little, fine metal grid, which continuously proceeded to draw in air for the cooling process.
And on that little grid, there hang a single strain of hair. A long, bright one.
I inspected it further, with a pair of tweezers and a plastic bag, and immediately made a photo for the report.
The hair may have been my very first hint that I was not mistaken. Someone else was in this house. Someone else helped him- or herself with the fridge. Someone in possession of brilliant long hair.
Now hang on, I thought.
That hair was quite... brilliant. It had a very noticeable colour.
If I weren't befallen by a sudden fit of colour blindness, I could have sworn that that hair was... red... pink... or purple.
I scratched it with the tweezers; no, it wasn't colour.
Rose hair, hair with the one colour that should not exist in nature. What could be the explanation?
Why, gunpowder, of course!
Old-fashioned gunpowder can dye hair in such a way if comes into contact repeatedly.
That must have been the answer, right?
Right?
Happened all the time in WW1 with women working in the munitions works.
This acquaintance of Brian must have been experimenting with old-style munitions, and lost a single dyed hair during a visit.
Maybe that was the link,... the link to the explosion. I had to find more of it!
The next step led me into the first floor.
This floor was nearly as big as the ground level, which meant that there was in fact more than double the space I had examined already.
This house was insanely large.
And yet, I soon found that every room in the house was, in one way or another, furnished.
The first room I came across, right at the top of the stairs, was the bedroom. It was a large single bed, unmade, green and white beddings hanging to the ground in every direction. A timer stood on the nightstand and blinked away, Brian had put it on mute without ever turning it off.
I took a second to bag one of the brunette hairs that lay scattered across the pillow. One could never know, I thought. DNA analysis was important, after all.
Of course, Brian's hair was completely healthy and natural. No dye, no artificial enhancement. Whatever the other canary-coloured person had come into contact with, he hadn't. No, his hair was clean.
Next to a rustic, 90s TV set, I found a box of DVDs and a player. They too had been neglected for some time; the dust piled on the objects said more than a thousand words. Now, what kinds of DVDs would a person like Brian watch?
Thrillers? Docudramas? Sitcoms?
No.
Apparently, he watched My Little Pony.
I am dead serious there.
He had a staple of sixteen DVDs worth of cute, whimsical, smiling technicolour horses at standby. Eight seasons, 240 episodes, or at least so the cover said.
Why?
Why... why wouldn't... couldn't I possibly find out this guy?
He was 36, a grown, albeit lonely man with a tragic and miserable past.
What would entice him to watch children's cartoons that had apparently only been around since his late teens?
Was he... catching up lost childhood or something like that?
I didn't see that aspect of his private life coming up at all.
Seriously, I don't have a problem with people watching cartoons - I myself fancy an old volume of Batman once and a while - but why, why did it have to be My Little Pony? The very synonym for... for... ugh!
Maybe he was, I don't know, just a part of that ancient internet meme boom with those ponies, the ones that lived on 'til this day. Wow, that shit was popular back then when it came out.
I know little Grace was totally into it back then... even though she was only nine or so.
But she is in college now, for Christ's sake.
College!
Times marches on, as they say.
I made a photo of them - who knows, maybe the local profiler could find a use for this information - and shifted the DVD staple back under the TV.
Then I moved on, on to the paintings that had been framed over and across of the bed.
I was surprised by their... their beauty. I hadn't expected such nice paintings to hang in such a desolate place.
They were tasteful, they were stylistically confident, and they were highly creative.
I especially liked that one on the middle. The one with the great, majestic rainbow spanning over a strange, abstract brick structure that stood under a light, beautiful sky.
What was the artists name? Was there a signature?
Oh, there it was.
M. Sandstrom
That was,... or so I thought, Brian's own mother, Mary Fisher. The woman with the brunette locks and the great big grin.
And, at some point of her life, she started painting pictures. By the dozens, apparently. But what drove her to draw such things?
Had she discovered a personal artistic ambition in her life?
Or was it a way to relieve herself when her life went down in the dumps? What if that famous smile of hers didn't last her whole, cut-short life?
The rainbow in the picture was quite a visionary affair.
It radiated idealism and happiness, but the picture still didn't seem to have some kind of particular message or purpose. It merely a rainbow over a brick building.
Maybe, she had just drawn that rainbow for the rainbow's sake? To manifest her deepest, simplest feelings onto a cheap canvas?
To draw a picture emphasising one feeling and one feeling only.
To give delight and optimism a material shape and a form that she could turn to.
But maybe, the picture also radiated a hint of cruel irony.
Happiness is like a rainbow. It is easy to appreciate its beauty from afar. But to actually pursue it is... well, you know... pointless.
Huh, strange.
Was it only me, or would someone's else's mind also have gone click in that moment?
Would someone else's mind made a sudden, unprovoked connection between this picture and the '14 Fort Pleasant bombings?
The detonations pressure wave, the motley shimmering in the sunlight recorded by various cameras before they blacked out, the various colours that were radiated by the sunlight on the day following the incident...
Was I the only one who thought that it did look a lot like... a rainbow?
I contemplated it as it proceeded to shine above the urban setting at the bottom of the canvas.
Motive? Cause?
Perhaps, just perhaps, this one rainbow had something to do with it.
But gain, I moved on too early, shedding little more thoughts about it. Shame I did that.
A second room lay conjoined with the bedroom via a simple elmwood door.
It was locked, I had to use a little picklock to make short work of it.
The room turned out to be a boring, perfectly untouched office. The same affair like in the rest of the house, with potted plants and all. A bulky computer stood on a mundane writing desk, an Apple computer, and an old one at that. Must have still been from the time before the company filed for bankruptcy in early 2017.
Across from the office desk, there was a cupboard, and a chair that stood in the corner. The former had an unhealthy grey tone in its wood. The latter was a massive platinum plastic nightmare.
Just like an office from the 1980s, only with even less fervour in the outfitting process.
What wondered me most about this place that it stood, just like the DVDs under the TV, at standby, ready to be used at any time... without actually being used all.
I took a look in every drawing board and every wardrobe. They were filled with all sorts of documents, like tax returns and leaflets from a conspicuous real estate company operating under the name of Cel Est. It was nothing of direct importance; he could have just as well used it as scrap paper.
Then again, those papers were stapled and laid out with a precision like no person could control it. Each stack of papers and documents seemed like it was measured out with a ruler and level in advance.
I had my hand travel the surface of the writing desk. It took a considerable layer of grey and white dust with it, revealing a much darker wooden surface beneath it. Thick clouds of illuminated particles drew up around the spot I swept over, threatening to envelop the entire space.
Had this room ever been used?
I was just curious. Why would someone outfit an office, only to abandon it right after?
Was it, perchance, used for something else before it got furnished?
I got myself to investigate further into this. I took fingerprints from the tabletop, just to see what comes out of it.
As I blew away the white dust and the black magnetised powder, I would have to find at least Brian's fingerprints, at least form the time when he moved in and carried the stuff around.
But to my own - for the lack of a better term - startlement, I found none.
And with none, I mean not a single print from any living creature's hand.
Of course, you may argue that he wiped everything, but even then, skin fragments and other prints (such as from the palms) would be left behind in most cases.
But the table was sterile.
And what about the computer, or its keyboard?
Never touched by a human hand.
And the cupboard?
Dusty for sure, but free of any vital signs.
What was going on here?
The only sign I ultimately found that proved somebody entering the room were only two dozen, very old and weak shoe- and footprints which led from the door to the window and back.
Apart from that, the room was impeccably aseptic. There weren't even traces of washing fluid, or any other emulsifiers for that matter.
That meant that the room was indeed positively untouched.
Of course, following this interesting discovery, I photographed the living daylights out of that room. Every corner, every potted plant, every stack of papers and every single flake of dust.
This was a setup of a sort, I was certain. This was the office equivalent of the Potemkin Village, a ruse aptly set up to fool the common eye.
The Potemkin Room.
No, I didn't know yet what the hell had been going on here, but I will find out. Right after Ian hands in these interesting things to the lab.
I made my way back into the bedroom. I let my sight slide over the scene one last time, not to miss anything out.
Then, suddenly, the mattress' edge caught my attention.
I didn't inspect the mattress' underside yet, did I?
Why didn't I?
I made it up quickly, though.
I overturned the massive, heavy mattress, and it rose from its wooden frame like a book flipped open.
And hark, there was indeed something hidden under it.
A fairly simple, light blue money casket with an in-built lock.
Slowly, I lifted it out of its wooden hideout. Then, I shook it carefully. Considering that he hid it under the mattress, it wouldn't contain anything too fragile.
It made a tuneless click-clack noise, like a batch of paper thumping against the metal frame.
The lock was no problem for me. A little bit of persuasion with the picklock and a screwdriver were sufficient to let the box pop open.
And on it's inside, there was a letter hidden, written in a rather sloppy, hurried handwriting. A handwriting which made it impossible to determine whether the author was left- or right-handed.
But already the very first word changed my view on the subject quickly and violently.
Dad,...
Dad?
As in 'father'?
Was... was the addressee, by any chance, Brian himself?
My mind popped.
That old dog!
He was a father! A parent!
No wonder he dressed like one.
No wonder he hadn't allowed himself an external hobby for all those years!
No wonder his garden looked like an agricultural playing ground!
No wonder the house was so large!
No wonder there were dishes aplenty!
No wonder...
Wait.
He had a child?
Where?
And for how long?
The brokers said Brain had always ventured alone, after all.
And why was this letter, of all the important documents in this house, hidden inside this casket?
My hands shook as I ailed to continue reading this letter.
In my nervousness, I practically skimmed it, making note of the most protruding statements.
For fifteen years you took care of me. For fifteen years you loved me, played with me, and made sure I enjoyed my life in a world not meant to house me...
Fifteen? Fifteen years, aha. That shall cover a time before him moving out to here, shouldn't it? Like his life in Fort Pleasant...
And what does the kid mean with 'my life in a world not meant to house me'.
Was it an orphan? A step-child? An illegitimate child?
Okay, continue...
...I love you daddy. You helped shape me ... I want you to know that you did a darn good job of raising me, even if I was a bit stubborn at times and short with you during others...
So he had raised it, alright.
Fifteen bleeding years.
All the time.
Also, if the kid is or was at least fifteen,... where is it now?
...With Celestia's permission, I hope to allow you to keep our photos; our memories, with you so that you will never forget. Again, I love you, and thank you...
'Celestia'? An... interesting euphemism, isn't it?
Maybe the mother,... the guardian,... or maybe an educator?
So, if 'Celestia' did 'allow' her to keep those photos... where are those photos?
...Your little daughter always,
Your little Dashie forever,
Rainbow Dash.
Damn.
A farewell letter form a fifteen-year old child with a hill-billie name who was not 'here' anymore.
It must have been illegitimate.
Never had Brian been married.
Never had Brian carried through a legal adoption.
And if the child still stemmed from Brian's time at Pleasance, it may have been... no, was... a direct link to Brian, and his relation to the occurrences.
It was the link, and it had to be sought out.
But where to start?
The pictures!
There still had to be pictures, and I had to find them.
The pictures of a life... a life which Brian officially never led.
What other surprises would Brian, the little teller from 15th Ave bear for me?
How could he keep this a secret?
Or, alternately, how could we never find out?
Well, I was about to. And I was about to do so quicker than even I would have imagined it.
That's because, before I could skim the letter a second and more detailed time, there were footsteps.
Footsteps that echoed from the same floor, no doubt.
In fact, I was certain there were out on the corridor, outside the bedroom, a mere plywood door away from where I was crouching.
I was frozen with shock, but yet I could shake myself loose from the lethargy.
My mind raced.
I knew that, unless I wanted to take a 27 foot drop onto a hardened sand pit, I had to make my way down the stairs and out the door before I was caught reading a secret note at the base of an overturned mattress and a busted money casket.
Because if that happened, even the most sophisticated plastic shoe overlays couldn't help my case.
I would be but a common thief, and not the government officer that I actually was.
I lifted myself onto my feet, grating my teeth with every grind the wooden flooring gave off under my movements.
And apparently, those little grinds was enough to get the unknown creeper's attention.
The footsteps seized.
Very very slowly, I tiptoed towards the closed door, hoping to be right behind it should it be opened.
I clung on to the poorly lacquered rim of the portal, hugging the wall like a long-lost comrade, in the hopes he would somehow improve my situation.
The silence outside the door prevailed.
On the inside, my racing heart and the flushing adrenaline threatened to give away my humble position.
I felt as the person on the other side advanced upon the door, ready to step in and discover what I had done.
At least the person would have, had it not stopped and directly addressed my through the door.
In a stuttering, squeakish voice of a young woman.
"D-daddie?"
What?
"Daddy, is that you?"
I slowly sank to my knees, my back sliding down the papered wall.
The next seconds passed slowly, way too slowly, as my racing thoughts were continuously interrupted by sensations of excitement and surprise.
The daughter, in her dad's house, right after I had found out about her existence?
I had to be the luckiest fucking guy of the century.
Yet, I chose to stay silent.
The voice on the other side, in the meantime, struggled on and on.
"Dad, I..."
She paused, to let an audible sob escape her trembling lips.
To me, she sounded like she had countless sleepless nights behind her. Something so emotionally strong that it had forced her to return here.
"Dad? Are you mad at..."
A long pause ensued as I stayed silent. And that was probably what she meant.
"Please, dad, are you mad at me?"
Her voice, it was soft, meek to say the least.
That it was before it grew into a desperate yelp of pain and anguish.
"Say something, please!
Were the years that long?!"
A cry, a question, and a demand, huddled into two inquisitive cries.
Quickly, the fervour of desperation abandoned her voice in a bitter sigh. She tried hard to keep her voice coming strong with the clarification, but it turned out to be another valiant beg to her nonattending father's favour.
"I returned, because... because... I missed you."
Those three last words sat heavily for the next few seconds of complete silence, as it was those three final words that were overshadowed by her harrowing whimpers. She barely finished the sentence...
"They said it was a bad idea, they all said it, but I didn't listen!"
With tears in her words, her determination fueled more anger, and that anger fueled some determination back.
"I couldn't... I couldn't just leave you here. Alone."
This was when her voice seemed to be left bereft of all its force, nearly climaxing in raucous whisper of the last word.
"I know it has been only two days. At least, it had been only to days for me.
"It has been... only... two years for you, that I know. I... I know... you wouldn't want me to return just like that. I have thought about it. And it was my sole decision to come back, if only for one day."
I could feel the poetical girl's tension as she waited desperately from a reply of her father. I thought about what she would be thinking at that moment.
But the answer for that came from her herself soon enough.
Slowly, solemnly even, she placed a hand on the door to push it open.
And my heart froze...
But she didn't find the courage to do more than rest that hand against the door.
Because that was the moment where she gradually succumbed to her frustration. She sobbed towards the ground, petting the closed plywood door with her hand.
"Dad..." she began.
"Please open the door..."
It was... hard... for me to refuse her again and again. Certainly, she was tearing up due to me, and me only. But I couldn't open it. I was not her father.
"Let me... at least let me see you once, before I go again..."
Go? Will she leave again?
That couldn't happen. I still had so many questions, answers yearning to be unwound from her.
For she probably was the key to a bigger picture of his life.
"Okay, dad... Good bye."
She gave it up.
"Good bye, and... don't... don't forget."
Her hand slipped off the door, as she prepared to remove herself with a heavy, heavy heart.
I had to act, and I had to act now!
I looked around the room for something to help me keep her here.
Then I saw it. On the other side of the portal, across from where I was crouching, there stood a simple wooden cupboard. And on it, there lay a photograph album... looking at me.
Were those the photos? 'Celestia's memories'?
Slowly, I reached over, and grasped the hefty album, lifting it over to where I sat.
In just a moment, I thought, I would have known how the mysterious daughter on the other side of that door would look. I just needed her to stay a little longer.
I knew what I was going to sacrifice by doing this, but there was an even chance for me to finally close this case.
"Rainbow Dash?" I began.
Within a moment's notice, the young woman was all over the door, pounding it, squeezing it, drenching it in tears of joy and sadness. Yet, I held it shut, there was no need for her to see me.
"Dad! Dad, I..." she squealed.
She couldn't contain her overboiling hope, it took her words right out of her mouth.
"I love you, daddy! I love you so much..."
I sighed, and pressed a frustrated palm on the book in my hands. She didn't know my voice, so she immediately assumed that I...
"Rainbow Dash, please. I... I am not your father."
And the pounding stopped. The young woman dropped onto the ground before the door in shock and retraction. Now, she too realised who she had been pouring her feelings out the last five minutes.
She said nothing. To be fair, there was little she could have said.
"I am not your father, Rainbow."
She stuttered, inbetween some subtle pants of distress and alarm.
"But... who..."
"But I know who you are. And I also know why you came."
Technically, both was true. It didn't take an MIT graduate to figure out why she had returned.
Her voice had suddenly gone hoarse.
"Who are you?!"
"A friend. A friend of your father."
She replied with a voice as if she hadn't talked with another person other than her father, heavily struggling to find and choose the right words.
"But... my daddy... father... where... is he now?"
Until this day, I regretted that I sounded like a hotel receptionist to he grieving young woman.
"Your father is out. He will be back in a moment."
Another pause followed, one that I could almost undoubtedly identify as a pause of relief. Like someone recuperating from a sick practical joke along the lines 'yo old man croaked'.
When I noticed that she didn't plan to say anything to me anymore, I responded myself.
"But you don't have to be afraid of me either, Rainbow. Everything is going to be okay. Your dad still misses you. He still loves you."
I didn't know whether that was even true or not, but I couldn't care less.
"You can tell me everything. And I will gladly tell him."
Her next inquiry surprised me a bit.
"You... you 'know'?"
Know of her existence, she meant? That was probably the last thing she would have have expected, now wouldn't it?
"Everything. There is nothing to be afraid of. We're going to clear this up, you and me."
A pause.
"How is dad?"
"Your dad? He is healthier and stronger than ever. He had hoped for your return."
She nodded slowly. I knew she did.
"I... don't have very much time. Celestia allowed me only that much."
"Neither do I, Rainbow. I, too, will have to leave very soon. But before I do, I wanted to ask you, about your life, and your dad."
She understood.
"And what?"
"When was the last time you saw him? Your father, I mean? It was two years back, was it not?"
"Well,... yes. If only two years for him."
What did she keep meaning with that? 'Two years for him, two days for me'. Was she just being poetical or did she really mean something else?
"So. You have been with your dad for fifteen whole years? How old are you now, Rainbow?"
Again, she paused before answering. Her voice was weary, but not from weariness per se, but from her immersing in past times.
"Eighteen. Or seventeen. I don't know my birthday. My birthday is when he found me."
I nodded.
A foundling, just as I thought.
"I understand that you two have been living together all that time. You have been living here, haven't you?"
"Yes."
Her voice flopped.
"It is such a beautiful place."
"And have all your previous places been this beautiful? Please, tell me of your time in Fort Pleasance."
"Fort Pleasance... yes. It is where he found me. I can't say much about it. It wasn't ugly or pretty. It is where I grew up, full stop."
She wasn't finished, however.
"It was so... different. Different from where I am now. I guess you know that part already.
Well, there those little things I will not forget so fast."
She had decided to open her heart up to me. Her memories.
Then again, if no one else was possibly around, then I understood.
"The first time she gave me a bath, I think remember that. I was, like, zero."
She followed up with a pathetic, teary chuckle.
"Can't ever forget that, you know. Yeah,... but the best part, it came when we hiked out to the greens."
"W-where?"
"The park. You know, with the big green fields."
"The... the park? Chapel... Park?"
A friendly snort came from the other side, as if to tell me to stop nit-picking like that. I obeyed.
Even though I knew that I was approaching the case faster and faster by the minute.
"We'd go out there day after day, and we'd play, and pick-nick, and fly... even 'awesome' alone couldn't describe this. Better than staying indoors all the time so the wouldn't see me."
Brian had hidden her away?
Why would he do such a thing?
"Why? Why did you have to stay indoors?"
Her reply was, of all things, patronising.
"Oh, come on. I mean, just look at me. Daddy wouldn't say it so often, but... where would there be a place for me in this world?"
"Now, now. That isn't true, now is it?"
"Oh you. You're just kidding."
No, I wasn't!
"No, I am not. This world has a place for everyone and anyone. For what other reason, do I ask you, would you have ended up here?"
I really had to watch my words before I got too poetical.
"Gee, you really got a weird sense of logic."
I really welcomed her snarking, it was very uplifting. Even though the sobs and a certain swelling beneath her nose still were apparent in the way she enunciated her words.
"A hike in the park every single day, you say?"
"Yes...". She sighed absent-mindedly.
"I even did my very first rainboom there. I'll never forget that one."
A what? What was that?
"You know, a sonic rainboom. Kaboom and so on. I made my cutie mark on that same day."
Sonic? Kaboom?
Oh my God, she referred to the explosion!
"What day, Rainbow?"
"What?"
"When was it? Give me a date, please!"
I was so close. So very close!
"Gee, don't worry. It was that big thing, broke a few windows. It was all over the news, you'd find lots of info about it easily."
I sat there. And asked,
"You were there, Rainbow? At Chapel Park?"
"Well, duh?"
She didn't mind that topic too long, however. She was much more interested in me. And what I was even doing here.
"But why are you hiding behind the door?"
I hushed.
Her voice was shaky, confused, but frank and inquisitive.
"And why weren't you answering me at first? I thought you were my dad."
"Yes... I know."
She garnered doubt of me.
"Why? What friend are you?"
"A good friend, Rainbow Dash."
"What is your name?"
I closed my eyes. I wouldn't have told her, that would have been simply stupid. I decided to tell her a bit more what I did here, instead. Not he wisest thing, but damn. She deserved that.
"Call the 'rainboom' what you will, Rainbow. But it isn't something to be proud of."
She was dumbfounded about what I said. Certainly, she had taken much pride in it, whatever her role was.
"Why? What do you mean?"
"Eight dead, Rainbow. Several hundred injured."
Rainbow was genuinely shocked.
"What? No..."
"So you didn't know that, Rainbow? Has been all over the news."
Her sobs returned, an aura of regret and grief filling the space between her and the door.
"I... I didn't know..."
"You did."
"I didn't know,... I didn't know..."
"But you know now, Rainbow."
She bit her lips, and asked me once more,
"Who are you?!"
I closed my eyes, and said it all.
"I am the man who investigates this explosion. I am the man to find the perpetrator behind this explosion. I am the man who will accuse the perpetrator."
Now it was her turn again to remain silent. She thought about something, and she thought hard.
"I didn't know... I had no..."
"Rainbow, please. It would be only fair if the person behind this would face... the music. It would only be just if the person who perpetrated this will get his sentence. You understand."
Her words were bitter and hopeless.
"I understand." she said. And it was absolutely convincing.
"Rainbow..." I began,
"Your father. Brian Fisher. Did he ignite the fuse? Did he lay the bursting charge?"
And her reply was swift and quick,
"No! No, no no. No, It was not dad. It wasn't dad!"
"Rainbow, please. There is proof. Evidence, covered on CCTV. Don't lie, Rainbow."
Her voice was shaking, she breathed heavily, her heart was racing at a terrible pace. She had no idea what to do, nowhere to run. What was she thinking?
Apparently, she was thinking that she had to clear this up. To end this... this nightmare.
"I did it, alright?! I did it. It was me..."
I didn't quite understand her. Wasn't she, like, five at the time of the detonation? Why was she lying to me?
"Rainbow. Please, tell me the truth. Did your father explode the bomb?"
"What bomb! What are you talking about?!" she cried violently.
"It was a sonic rainboom, okay? A sonic rainboom!"
And with that word, she pounded against the door with two hefty fists. Or at least I thought it were fists.
"What is a sonic rainboom, Rainbow? Answer me!"
She did nothing of the sort. She collapsed at the door's base, crying uncontrollably like an Accused after a ten-hour interrogation.
Even I had trouble to contain myself. My mood changed from angry hysteria to tragic hysteria and back again. The little girl's cries were grinding me on the inside.
She cried on and on. Nothing stopped the flow of wails and begs for everything to wake up and snap out of this... 'nightmare'. She was hysterical, tearing up again and again. Crying for her father, as well as her own sake.
But was she honestly believing that she did it herself?
Most probably.
I simply buried my face in my hands. I was so close to the solution, and now this? Why? It was much more difficult than I had imagined.
How could she have done it? It must have been an accident, something completely unintentional.
In my head, I played through every oh-so-random scenario, analysing how she could have actually done it.
Shooting fireworks, maybe?
Blowing up a military missile passing overhead?
Telekinesis?
Bullshit! Bullshit!
There was no way she did it.
"Rainbow? What happened?"
I froze once more. A third voice, coming from the same floor as Rainbow and me.
An middle-aged woman's voice. Mature, confident, concerned.
The first word that flew into my head was mother.
"Rainbow Dash, what is the matter?"
Steps passed over the wooden floor towards the broken body that was Rainbow. She petted and soothed her, apparently oblivious to my presence.
"Is it about..."
"Princess, my dad... they... they..."
Princess? Was that by any chance the mysterious 'Celestia'?
The closed album I held in my hands right now were granted by her permission only?
"Let us return, Rainbow. You are tired... and weak. You can tell me everything, once we are in Canterlot."
She had come to take Rainbow with her. But maybe, just maybe, 'Celestia' could tell me a bit more?
I stood up carefully. Through the closed door, I addressed the guardian.
"M'am? Excuse me."
A mild gasp escaped her countenance, and she fell silent in a calming manner.
"Anthony Fitzgerald, FIS. A few words, Miss?"
I prepared to take out my badge. Certainly, she didn't know what was going on yet.
I heard her rise again, keeping Rainbow in her arms or something like that. Slowly and gracefully, she answered me in a surprisingly forestalling manner.
"What seems to be the problem, Anthony Fitzgerald?"
"I would like to speak you for a short moment, M'am. It concerns Brian Fisher."
"Ah."
'Ah?' Is that all she would have had to say about Brian?
"If it would be alright with your daughter, of course."
"My daughter, you say?"
"Rainbow Dash, M'am."
I heard her chuckle lightly, seeking amusement from my apparent misunderstanding.
"Mr Fitzgerald, this may be but a misunderstanding. Rainbow Dash is not..."
She halted.
"Why would Mr Fisher be wanted? Why is Rainbow crying?"
"Mr Fisher is sought as a... a witness to terrorist activity. I believe you can see now why it is so urgent."
The guardian's voice turned a bit more concerned. If not to say irritated by my word choice. What was so irritating about it?
She addressed Rainbow.
"What has happened?"
"The 2014 Fort Pleasance bombings." I answered quickly.
"A... a sonic rainboom, Princess... It was a sonic rainboom..." Rainbow sobbed in a hoarse tone.
Before I could finally the girl to shut up about her stupid 'sonic rainboom', I heard Celestia give her a sound of understanding.
She was quick to confront me about it.
"Sir, do you know what a sonic rainboom is?"
I sighed with a hint of surrendering annoyance.
"No. No, I do not. Would you care to illuminate me?"
Another pause. Then 'Celestia' responded,
"If that is so, Mr Fitzgerald... do you know how Rainbow Dash looks?"
I threw a glance at the album in my hands.
"Well, not exactly..."
With these words, I quickly folded open the album. But there only were photos of Brian, together with his parents.
"Hold on, please."
"Well, if you don't, Mr Fitzgerald, I may understand where your problem is."
I had enough. I was going to find out what was going on here. Even if it meant that I had to show them my face.
"Look..."
I pressed down the door handle to open the door to reveal both of them on the corridor.
But the door did not budge.
I tried again.
The door hung firmly in its frame.
How could that be all of a sudden?
"Why is the door locked?" I asked her, squeezing the handle and pushing my weight against the door, again and again. Becoming more erratic every time.
But the guardian just ignored my question, carrying on with her explanation.
"You see, Mr Fitzpatrick, if you do not actually know whom you have before you, I'm afraid you could not... fathom what has happened, or what you are going to see.
"M'am, unlock the door. Right now!"
"No. Young Anthony, you must understand that some things won't find to be comprehensible. "
Young?
I was forty-fucking-nine!
I kicked the door. Even though it was made out of the cheapest plywood, it did not as much shutter at the blunt force of my soles.
Gradually, I tried to reason, fumbling with my lockpicks meanwhile,
"Please unblock the door. We can discuss this matter or we can't, but you do not lock me inside a room."
"I do not plan to. In fact, I was very well thinking that you already knew. But as it turns out now, both Rainbow and I may have been gravely mistaken."
Was she crazy?
What the hell was she on about? Why did she lock me in here and tell me something about not comprehending this?
I thought she must have been on drugs. That was the only explanation. But perhaps, I thought, I could channel her via the photos.
"Listen, M'am. You are 'Celestia', aren't you?"
A pause.
"Yes. That is correct."
"Alright, 'Celestia', if I may call you so. I found the letter."
"The letter?"
"The one Rainbow authored. The one meant for Brian Fisher."
Now it seemed like both persons on the other side of the door had begun to ponder. Even Rainbow stopped sobbing.
"I know that Rainbow is the daughter of Mr Fisher. Also you were mentioned, 'Celestia'. You allowed Rainbow Dash to keep photographs. You are her guardian, Celestia.."
The guardian's voice had slowly transformed into one of worriment and concern.
"Certainly, I have some things close to being a guardian to Rainbow, but the photographs..."
"The memories, 'Celestia', the memories that Brian was allowed to keep. It mentioned that you had a say in that decision. If you would kindly open the door, I would be willing to discuss it with you in peace."
With slow, determined steps, the woman edged closer and closer to the door, until her mouth was right at the wood.
"Do you... have the pictures?" she asked.
"I hold them in my hands."
I twisted and turned the album in my fingers. From the short look I had taken in it, I merely saw images freaturing Brian and his parents. No other girls, and no other women.
"Are you certain that you have taken a look in them?" the guardian tried to ensure.
I stopped twisting it. But, all of a sudden, a deep nervousness overcame me about opening it again. What exactly would await me on those pages?
A, dunno, a bomb?
"Why do you ask?"
"Open it and glance at the pictures. I hope that after that, you will understand."
"Would you mind when we inspect the pictures together?"
A pause.
"Look at them yourself first, then I will unlock the door. And then I will also hope that your heart will know what to do next."
My heart? Dear God, it had to be drugs. What else could make her ramble such idiocy?
"Alright, I will look a the pictures. But I demand that you let me out right after."
"I swear."
And I opened the book. But this time, I started from the back.
A photo at a motor race. The Indie 500, to be exact. Cars driving past. And there was Brian, clad in a white t-shirt and sunglasses, posing on the driver's seat of his parked car. And behind him, on the left hand back seat, there sat...
No.
No, it can't fucking be.
It's a... a...
It's a photoshop, I mean, come on. Even I could do that.
A blue horse with a colourful mane, wings spread wide- nooo...
It's... uh... it must be the My Little Pony hype that must've gotten the better of him.
That's just laughable. I mean, come on...
I quickly turned the page.
But there was Brian, giving a very young filly with blue fur and a rugged motley mane a bath.
The hair was soaking wet, a crown of white foam rested on her tiny head, her hooves splashed around, completely drenching a squint-faced Brian.
It was such a terribly terribly good photoshop.
So terribly, terribly well done.
I skipped a few pages further back.
The completely disproportionate pony, with brilliant purple eyes, smiled at the camera as she swept cake frosting from her lips with her little, stubby hooves. On the table in front of her, there was a pinkish mess that could only be described as cake resembling a crumbled mud pie.
A child of five years trapped in the body of an equine.
I looked at the next one.
A blue bolt shooting into the sunny, smoggy sky of a greater industrial city, framed from the ground, from a dirty park bench.
Even though the camera seemed top notch, the vision was still blurred by the projectile's speed. It took me a few seconds to realise that this so-called projectile was the blue pony, flying miles high in the afternoon sky.
The picture right next to it showed Brian wrestling with the pony, now grown to its full size, wrestling and laughing about the TV remote on the ground before the comfy chair downstairs in the living room. Much like his father used to do with him.
My God. Didn't I comment on him earlier that he was maybe trying to relive his childhood or some shit like that?
Well, what on earth was I looking at this very moment?
I looked up. I felt slightly dizzy. I was dangerously close to... to... losing my thread. My damn thread.
"What... what is this?"
This all didn't seem very... real.
"What is this?"
No reply came from the other side of the door.
"Celestia? What does it mean?"
I my ears stared into the silence beyond, I slowly pushed the handle down one more time.
And the door, it swung open slowly, as if nothing had ever held it shut. Like the normal door of plywood that it was.
It had opened up to a corridor to reveal a gaping emptiness in a damp illumination.
Where had they gone to?
Shit.
I drew my weapon and my flashlight, and quickly proceeded down the flight of stairs, through the living room and off to the front door. I left all the security precautions, all the training of clearing a room before everything else at the top of the stairs. I was determined to find them, to catch them, to catch up.
I reached the front entrance. And it was shut with three separate locks. From the inside.
I quickly ran out through the fractured back door, trying to deduce in which direction they might have left.
But the only thing to receive me outside was the soothing yellow sunshine, a mild wind and a family of blackbirds who had settled on a lone stump near the building.
They left as soon as they saw me, never to return again.
They... the two couldn't have passed here. The birds, they... pah!
I packed away my gun, I packed away my flashlight.
Then I simply went back into the house.
And found and sat down in the comfiest chair I saw.
No more of that Goldilocks shit for now.
My head hurt severely.
I wondered again and again, and projected the sentence in my mind again and again:
Were those two... on the other side... goddamn ponies?
I knew it was so fucking absurd to think that, but at that moment back then... I couldn't think any other way.
I mean, I saw the pictures, didn't I?
Yeah. Yes, I did.
They were still lying upstairs in the bedroom.
What should I do, what should I not?
The same thing like every other sensible guy would in my case.
If they are outmanned, if they are outgunned... call some fricking backup.
My cell phone was hovering at my ear, the humming of the handset tickling my brain, when suddenly, my call was answered. But not by anyone I would have wanted to hear.
"Follow your heart, Anthony. Do what you think is right."
"Fitz, is that you? Fitz?"
I started up,
"Uh what? Yeah. Yeah, it's me. Yeah, Fitz here. Ehm..."
Helen sounded concerned.
"Are you okay? What's going on? Where are you?"
"Gilroy Farmhouse, where else?"
"Why are you calling, Fitz? What's going on?"
Good question. A very poignant question.
"I... uhm... I need backup. And a forensical unit, asap. I think I'm onto something. You'd all better take a look at this."
"I'm on my way, Fitz. Ian's on his way too. We'll be over in five."
"Roger that, Helen."
"Are... you okay, Fitz? Are you injured?"
"No. I'm alright. I'm just swell. Just come over, asap."
"Okay. Hang in there, we're on our way."
*beep*.
My God. Will they believe it?
A sudden thought overcame me;
I should really take myself some time to take a gander at this... My Little Pony stuff. Because suddenly, it's all the more appealing...
Maybe, just maybe, I trusted this series to be way, way less realistic... than it actually was.
Somewhere in the background, a spring-loaded gramophone jumped into action.
A scratchy vynil record started playing on it, and it played a haunting melody that seemed oh so surprisingly fitting.
I know it sounds strange, but I didn't care too much. No matter how harrowing it was that a gramophone began playing all by itself, I just succumbed to the words that that melody wore, as if an inner voice ordered me to listen to it.
So I did.