//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Hook, Line and Sinker // Story: Breakdown // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Breakdown Chapter 14: Hook, Line and Sinker Prisoner Fluttershy got thirty minutes of relative tranquility before our inevitable return. “Surprise interrogation of the prisoner requested!” I bellowed from outside the door. “Surprise interrogation of the prisoner permitted!” Captain Davis bellowed back, before kicking in the door. Again. A bright light flooded into the cell, utterly blinding the pegasus. The two of us then rushed into the room before the dazed pony could react. I unlocked her chains, and the captain picked her up like a sack of potatoes. “Apply hood!” I loudly ordered. The captain looked around for the nonexistent hood, then shrugged. I gave him an obvious wink. “Um...hood applied!” Captain Davis cried out for the benefit of what Fluttershy would assume must be our observers. It was at this point that we realized we had things a bit backwards. All this shouting works so much better if there’s an enormous lead-spewing phallic symbol being waved around at the same time, and Captain Davis no longer had hands free to do that. So I made a grab for— “Negative!” the captain barked. Never get between a man and his gun. His outrage faded after a moment. “Are you cleared for operation of this weapon?” he asked. This unexpected question allowed me another opportunity to confuse my victim. I bowed my head in shame before answering. “I was going to finish training, honest!” I said. “I just never found the time.” The two of us humans exchanged looks. Like I said, somebody needed to be waving that gun around. So that’s how I got to carry Fluttershy. Holy crap, I’m carrying Fluttershy! I realized So of course my legs turned to Jell-O and I collapsed. The captain, an aficionado of slapstick if there ever was one, broke out in a loud guffaw. “Don’t laugh!” I whined. “I’ve been sick recently. I think there’s something in the water.” By which I, the Dr. Franklin in the pit, meant to say: I can feel my life being washed out of me by this endless stream of freezing rain. “Just...go,” the pony in my arms mumbled, clearly disgusted to see that the outfit which imprisoned her was made up of buffoons. Without acknowledging her words, I carried her out of the cell, and lowered her into a Radio Flyer Little Red Wagon. On the side were spray-painted the words “Pink Lemonade, 5 Cents”. Never let it be said that I do not have a taste for absurdism. I took out a large frilly handkerchief and wiped the non-existent sweat from my brow. “Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t have to carry her the whole way!” I exclaimed. I turned to face the elevator and stairs up out of the prisoner’s floor. The captain had finished locking up the cell—because can you imagine what would happen if enemy agents managed to sneak into this compound to poke around an empty cell? “The elevators are out of operation until further notice,” he informed me, sporting a most sadistic smile. Never get between a man and his gun. Slowly I staggered my way up the stairs, the captain waiting at the top with the wagon and staring cruelly down at me. It was not because Fluttershy was heavy—she was a dog-sized creature with hollow bones who had been starved for at least a week. Rather it was the awkwardness of carrying such a creature in both hands while trying to ascend a staircase made up of very high steps. My theory was that it was a way to exorcise the officers’ goose step muscles. Finally, I reached the top and set her down once again in the wagon. “I could have flown,” she said. It was the loudest utterance I had heard from her yet, and it sounded an awful lot like sarcasm. This of course meant that I needed to beat her down even harder. Psychologically, of course. “Why aren’t you keeping her too weak to move?” I demanded. The Captain looked at me with puppy dog eyes. “What do you take me for?” he asked. I rolled my eyes. “I am assigning no blame to you, good fellow. I mean the regulations.” I mean, these are the bad guys. They are keeping the food just out of reach so they can laugh as she stretches her tongue out in vain to get a taste, but there’s not a regulation about how to use malnutrition to keep the enemy docile? “Nope, nothing in the regulations that says anything of the kind,” Captain Davis confirms. I had no choice but to look sheepish. “I really need to review those regulations,” I said petulantly. It took a good ten minutes of pulling that cart—which of course had a squeaky wheel—before we finally reached our destination: Breakroom #3, which thanks to the miracle of butcher paper, black Copic marker, and masking tape, was now officially “Interrogation Room #1”. “Prisoner handover complete,” Captain Davis announced with some relief—we had gotten a lot of weird looks from the men guarding the locked doors along the hallway we had traversed. “Yes,” I said glumly. I was going to miss that lug! And then I looked inside the room, and turned my expression around. That idiot! “Why is the video equipment on this side of the one-way mirror?” I asked. “The power to the inner room was turned off, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it back on,” Davis explained. “I got you that radio, though.” “I see that,” I said, looking for all the world like that radio was the difference between life or death for me. Acting chops, don’t fail me now! “Thanks for everything,” I said, taking his hand with both of mine and shaking it vigorously. “You know, you’re probably the nicest person I’ve met since being kid...starting here. So just in case we don’t bump into each other ever again—” “There’s only the one cafeteria,” Captain Davis said laconically. “Oh, uh...right,” I said nervously. “See you...later, then.” “Later,” said the captain, removing my hands from his. “Like two hours from now, when it’s time to transfer the prisoner back to her cell.” “Yeah...that,” I said. “OK. Bye.” Captain Davis chuckled to himself as he walked away. I waited until there was no one else in sight. As I waited, I wondered if Fluttershy caught my little “slip”. “Um...after you?” I finally asked her, obvious hesitation in my voice. She looked up at me. “What?” she asked, in that tone of hers that could mean anything whatsoever. “Can I get up without being shouted at?” You know, for all of the brony patients of mine who are absolutely convinced that Fluttershy needs them in her life to protect her from absolutely everything in the universe, I have one patient with precisely the opposite opinion. But then, she tends to be jealous of practically everyone in the universe, not excepting fictional characters. This patient is convinced that Fluttershy is faking her fear, and that she is in fact the greatest emotional manipulator in the entire show, with only Princess Celestia as a close second. So when this pony, who remember is merged with a human being, says something like that, I have to wonder if she’s mocking me or if she honestly thinks that I’m the one playing mind games with her. Which, of course, I am. “Sure, I...guess?” I replied. Fluttershy slowly stood, spread out her wings—which looked remarkably intact considering what she’s been through—and then stepped up on the rim of the wagon and glided down the 30 centimeters to the ground. It’s hard as adults to remember the inconvenience of being short sometimes. Also: wings. Enormous butter yellow wings. So beautiful... I followed her into the “interrogation room”. I am forced to use the quotes, because there’s no way on earth that a legitimate interrogation room would ever reek of Funyuns like this room reeks of Funyuns. It’s like somebody took ten or twenty bags from the vending machine, spread their contents out on the floor, and then asked a tame elephant to shove and stamp the substance into every nook and cranny in the entire room. And with those trunks of theirs, I can imagine an elephant can shove those Funyuns into some pretty odd nooks. Fluttershy walked into the room. It was now time for the final part of my deception, the one that would convince her to lower her guard once and for all. I made my way over to the radio. Well, I would have done that, but I couldn’t—because she already had the transmitter clutched tightly in her little hooves. Clever girl! Well two can play at one-upmanship. I fixed her with the terrified gaze of somebody who had just backed into Discord in a dark alley. “C..could I p...please have that transmitter?” I begged. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on one for three months now, and this was the only way I could think of!” “No.” She said “no”. Fluttershy actually said “no”! I backed away until I stumbled back upon the interrogation table. I attempted to find purchase, only to fall hard to the ground. The whole time, though, my eyes were fixed on hers. It was no Stare, but I could not look away—I was far too amazed to even consider it. “I don’t care what you’ve been through,” she told me calmly, dispassionately, “your plan could not possibly succeed. I’m not allowed to die here. I have friends, you see, friends who I value more than I value your life...or my own. To help them I not only need to escape, I need to find out what is going on, and that does not involve you getting us shot in a useless escape attempt. Now sit down and play doctor, Doctor.” It was unbelievable. Here was Fluttershy, in complete command of the situation. Ordering me around. Me, who towers over her. I had to know what was going on in her head, to see on a mental level what the merge had done to her. So that meant it was time to start my sales pitch, to lure her into asking me to enter her dreams. I slumped down in utter defeat. “Fine,” I said in a dead tone. “Do...do whatever.” I then looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Just please, please, I’ve got to get out of here before they make me hurt anybody else.” This broke her reserve. “Hurt...who have you hurt?” she asked me in a near-whisper. I bent my head down and began to mime crying. “I...I see their eyes at night,” I addressed the ground. “I’m...so weak! Why can’t I fight back? Why can’t I...end it all! Put this awful tool out of their hands, once and for all.” OK, that was a bit melodramatic. But did she buy it? “No, don’t talk like that.” It sounded like she was on the ground right in front of me, but I refused to lift my head. “Please, let us do this together.” Now this was sounding more like I expected the Fluttershy of the series to sound. Was her merge not yet complete after all? Because if that was so, I still had a chance of saving an innocent human life. I lifted my head and looked into her eyes. I saw my reflection mirrored in each of her enormous eyes. I looked like a wreck. “I’m a freak!” I wailed. She cautiously wrapped the tips of her wings around my back. I sobbed a couple of times before continuing. “That’s what they always told me, growing up, that I was a freak. I didn’t want to believe them, but it’s true. I can see things...do things, that no normal person should be able to do. Should be allowed to do!” Through her wings, I could clearly feel Fluttershy having second thoughts, wondering just what the hell she had wandered into. (Or “heck”—she’s probably one of those individuals who use “heck” instead of “hell”, or at least, that’s what I imagine pre-merge.) “It...doesn’t matter,” she finally said. Yeah, sure, and that aborted attempt to back away is proof positive that it doesn’t matter to you. “You need to keep going, to...use any difference for good. Please don’t give up.” This last sentence was meant far more strongly than the others. I wonder if either her pony or human sides have been involved in somebody else’s suicide—that’s the kind of feel I got from her. It’s always useful in acting to find ways to channel your true emotions into your performance. I used my surprise at this insight into her relationship with suicide, and tried to use it to make her think that I was truly shocked that a little pony in her position cared at all if I lived or died. “I...I never thought...” I said, pretending to consider her suggestion. “...To build instead of to destroy...” But I didn’t allow that thread of hope to linger for long. “No!” I declared hopelessly. “Surely they’ll catch me. I...” I stared into space, pretending to comb through all of the plans of escape that this character I was playing had been stockpiling for years. “I don’t know what to do.” I said this with an completely empty voice, like I was reconciling myself to inevitable re-capture, torture, and the knowledge that I would be directly responsible for the grisly death of a Bearer. “You have to have hope,” she said. I finally looked up at her. My god! I thought. She seemed like an angel before me, complete with a nimbus of light that was entirely in my own head, but rendered all the more real for that reason, like I had been granted a divine vision. Which would have possibly meant something to me if the religion I no longer espoused was Christianity. Sorry, God, try again on a lapsed Catholic or something. ...And it was gone. But she was still speaking. “You just have to hope that things will work out,” she told me. And she said it like that was it, like that was the central tenant of the religion she was espousing. Unfortunately, that statement had a lot of corollaries to it, that I wonder if she had ever considered. I mean, was this a “perception over reality” type deal, where I would force the universe to give me logical reasons to be happy by first terrifying it through completely irrational displays of happiness? Or was there a god out there in the universe with tremendous hang-ups about violating humanity’s free will, and deals with them by using the compromise of only using miracles to make those of us happy who actually ask for it, in the form of hope. Yes, hope, that nameless non-specific prayer for life to become less shitty. I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I’ve weighed your deep philosophy of life in the balance...and found it wanting. Wait, what if the one I’m unknowingly praying to by hoping is Fluttershy herself? Pinkie Pie could warp reality. In the cartoons, other characters like Spike or Twilight could also do impossible comic things like summon a custom backdrop or door frame without magic, but they never realized that what they did was in fact impossible by the rules of their own universe. If the Elements made their bearers into reality-warping beings, then wouldn’t it make sense for the Element of Kindness to manifest itself through hope-based miracles? I looked into Fluttershy’s eyes in awe, and I seemed to feel myself growing stronger the longer I looked into them. Too bad that I was committed to using that strength against my benefactor. “I need to fix what I have done,” I said, baiting the hook. I looked back down at the ground and addressed my next words to myself, but certainly loud enough for her to hear: “But I can only go into one mind at a time. Where did they move the colts after processing?” I allowed my words to sink in, putting on a look of wild speculation. “Wait,” she asked, slowly putting the pieces together, “what are you...can you enter ponies’ minds? Is that your power?” I lifted my head. For a moment I was taken aback—that was not fear in her face, it was eagerness. But I pressed on. “I told you I was a freak. And it’s not just ponies. Or maybe it’s not ponies at all, but only human minds. I haven’t dared use it on an animal--I’m afraid that if I do I may never make it back out again.” “No, it’s okay,” she said soothingly, taking me into a true wing-hug. “You have been given a way to heal the sick...in a way no one else ever could.” Now the phrasing here was very interesting. It implied belief in a higher power. So was “Fluttershy” a Celestialist, or was “Erica” a Christian? “I...?” She began a question, but then stopped herself. I am convinced that she was about to give me the permission that I needed. But then she backed away from the brink herself, stepping away from me. “No,” she said, once again with decisiveness. “You have such guilt, and you don’t need this.” I mentally did a headpalm. She was about to ask me to go into her head, where I could do anything I wanted to her, and she stopped at the last second because she was afraid that the experience would be too traumatic to me! Before I had a chance to turn this around, she resumed her interrogation. “Who were you planning on calling with the radio?” Really? We’re back to the plan that you yourself correctly diagnosed as hopeless? “The police?” I asked helplessly. “The army? Whoever I could find, frankly.” I decided to build up my backstory, including a true fact or two that she might or might not know. “Surely this isn’t legal,” I said to her. “They told me they were the government when they picked me up, but that’s obviously a lie. They’re just building their own private army out of unicorns and pegasi.” I laughed bitterly. “It’s stupid really. A bunch of kids—how could they possibly think they could succeed?” I hoped she didn’t know about how humans use child armies. Or, that she did know, but believed that I didn’t. “Strength in numbers,” she told me, “throw enough expendable troops at a target.” We shuddered in unison, which I thought was a pretty neat trick. And then she turned on the radio transmitter. Which from her point of view sealed her fate. She looked like she half-expected the radio to be a fake. At the time, I thought that she was blaming P.A.P.A. with saddling me with a dead radio. But no, the machine successfully warmed up, the quiet sound of static filling the room. I stepped forward and began to tune it, sweeping past some foreign language broadcast to reach a hip-hop remix of “Art of the Dress”. I’m not sure if any of the chroniclers of this era in history bothered to note it, but music at this time was fairly drenched in pony influences. The “classier” sources of music stuck to William Anderson’s compositions for the show as it had been released so far, and the more “raw” and “real” sources turned to the fan music scene. But still, this was a hip-hop version...of the one song in the show derived from a Barbra Streisand show tune. I smiled. “You find the weirdest things at 1 am,” I said in amazement. It was perhaps the first true emotion I had displayed since Fluttershy and I had met. I kept tuning through the CB band, and eventually found a couple of truckers making their way...through the rules of Pony, Ponie, Ponee, a Japanese game show based around the episode “Party of One”. You see, if the tower of rocks tumbles during your turn, you have to climb up the ladder covered in slime dressed in nothing but— “Let me talk,” Fluttershy said, and my chance to figure this damn game out failed once and for all. “They should be sympathetic to a female voice saying she has been kidnapped.” She blushed slightly, adding, “No reason to say I am a pony.” Never let it be said that kindness has anything other than an antithetical relationship with honesty as abstract concepts. “Alright, Erishy,” I said, as I handed her the transmitter’s microphone. Yeah, small correction here. Gilda had mistakenly thought that Fluttershy’s merged form called herself “Ericashy”, when in fact the actual name I saw on her records was two letters shorter. I made a sudden, irrational decision at that moment. “I’m Nate, by the way.” That’s what I told her. I gave her permission to use your name for me, George. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I had to be that close to her before I could slip the metaphorical dagger between her ribs. Maybe I only allow my loved ones to use that name, and I only hurt the ones I love. “Thank you, Nate,” she told me, taking the microphone. The tone of trust in her voice felt like scalpels speeding through my heart. She depressed the button on the microphone—the signal for what was inevitably to follow. “H... hello?” she asked. “I need help. I’ve been kidnapped. I’m being held in a farmhouse in a New York City suburb.” “And then the contestant dressed like Rainbow Dash walks on stage, and his job is to drag Contestant 1 off of the purple square, using nothing but his suit’s mouth on her suit’s tail,” the first trucker said to the second, making it abundantly clear that he hadn’t heard one word from Fluttershy. She responded to this by quite expertly taking apart first the microphone, and then the transmitter unit itself, and in a matter of seconds managed to figure out the way I had had the unit altered—without, of course, realizing that it was me who had ordered that the change be made. This was quite obviously what Erica must have brought to the table of Erishy’s merged abilities, rather than Fluttershy. “It’s set to only transmit on a single frequency, no matter how the receiver is tuned,” she said. She looked over at my Rolex. “You know, I could try to wire up an antenna from that fancy watch of yours. Although, to be honest, I’ve never worked on radio equipment.” Fluttershy’s ears drooped. Her endless optimism had finally met its match. And so it was just that this was destined to be the moment that she met her counterpart, the death of all hope. The locked door of the room was obliterated by close-range machine gun fire. # # # This was the beginning of my backup plan, the one I’d be forced to use if I couldn’t convince Fluttershy to let me in on her own. I took my place, bravely standing between her and the forces on the other end of the door. Captain Davis fulfilled his primary duty in life, by kicking in the door. He quickly stepped aside to allow General Walker to enter. General Walker comes straight out of Central Casting, in that he looked exactly like what he was—an evil sadistic SOB. In the movie of my life, he’d be played by Michael Ironside. He was the kind of guy who would shoot his own lieutenant right in front of you as an example, just to show you how little shit he is willing to take from you. From the looks on the faces of Captain Davis and the other guard, they would have been a lot happier at that moment working for anybody else at that moment. Probably because they knew one of them would end up being the example. “Well, well, well,” Michael Ironside declared as he stepped from the shadows into the light. “I’ve long suspected it, but I finally have my evidence of treason from our ever-eager mental specialist.” The man spoke his lines like they were made of butter. Rancid, acidic butter. I should make it clear that General Walker knew that I was here on Discord’s orders, and that he was being instructed to play a role. But at that moment, it sure felt like I’d been working for him for three years, and that he had been secretly fantasizing about different ways to torture me to death all this time—not because he thought me disloyal for the majority of that period, but just because I had the type of face that he liked seeing in agony. Did I mention that he was really good at this part? The general looked over his shoulder at Captain Davis. “Kill Hostage 37,” he ordered. “No!” I screamed. I put my all into that scream, enough so you could just imagine an entire life for this imaginary person who was going to be sacrificed as a penalty for my actions. “I forced him to do it!” Fluttershy protested, pushing me out of her way. “Kill me, I’m the one who is trying to escape. He was trying to stop me.” Fluttershy was following her script to the letter. The general laughed, in that wonderfully sinister way that Mr. Ironside has perfected. “Oh, this is perfect!” he cried. “My superiors have been trying to keep the two of you apart this entire time, afraid that vaunted ‘Stare’ of yours will counteract Agent Franklin’s Dreamwalking. Now I’ll get to see which one of you is truly the stronger!” My veins felt like they were filled with fresh ice melt, given the pure bloodlust in his eyes. “I...I won’t do anything you tell me to do anymore,” I declared, in a thin veneer of courage. “With her gone—” “Well, she isn’t dead yet, is she?” General Walker sneered. Somebody give this man a Best Supporting Oscar already! “Forget it!” I cried defiantly. But it was an act of empty defiance, because I would do anything for her. At least, that was the vibe I hoped I was projecting. “Do it, Nate,” Fluttershy said quietly. No, Erishy said quietly. She was able to stare this man down, while I could not. “If this is what they want, then do it. You’re just following orders.” And that is how I win. “I...” I started to say, before I choked myself off. I gave her a look promising her that I’d make this right, somehow. I was lying through my metaphorical teeth. She looked up at me with Mona Lisa’s smile, before closing her eyes and preparing herself. The technician walked in at that moment, wheeling in a cart full of medical supplies. The hypodermics of “sleepy juice” were already prepared and calibrated for our body masses. “Now remember,” the general reminded me in a voice dripping with false sympathy, “she’s not waking up until you come back and tell us that you’re finished. And if she wakes up as herself...” He glanced over at Captain Davis and his machine gun. I nodded. “Could she at least have something soft to lie on?” I asked. The general rolled his eyes. “Softie.” He grabbed a walkie-talkie from his belt and made the request.