Solid Evidence stuck her tongue out sympathetically during an attempt to feed the loop of wire into the small through-hole. With a flash of light from her horn and the wire, it was instantly welded to the board with a satisfying hiss. Iron File rolled his eyes, nudging his friend.
“Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard with this?” he asked, clearly an unwilling part of the party.
Solid rolled her eyes back at him, having listened to all his excuses through the morning.
“Just run with it will you?” she snapped, moving onto the next fixture.
Iron grimaced but followed Solid anyway.
“Sometimes I think you do this to annoy everypony”, he said moving up his trot to a canter in order to keep up with the eager mare.
“No pony has stopped me.”
“That doesn't make it right.”
“Doesn't make it wrong either.”
“I- hmm. No. I'm pretty sure what you're doing is wrong.”
“It’s not wrong if you don't get caught.”
Iron sighed, face-hoofed and slumped his shoulders all at once. Somepony should really bring her around, maybe get her settled down and maybe, just maybe, she'll stop with these conspiracies.
“I don't know why you listen to this Harpie stranger. That pony is just bad news”, he advised, steering clear of a low hanging support beam.
“She’s a genius!” Solid hissed back, teeth clenched.
Iron rolled his eyes. Maybe he should just get them permanently spinning with Solid around. He heard a screech.
“Solid!” he whispered urgently, not knowing why he was whispering, there would hardly be anyone here after dark.
“Oh relax Iron, I just have to move this grating so the other transmitter can have a clear line-of-sight”, she explained, puffing a breath to knock a stubborn mane strand out of her vision.
Iron belatedly counted the felonies Solid had just committed:
1. Breaking and Entering
2. Destruction of Private Property
3. Destruction of Public Property
4. Disorderly Conduct
5. Spying and Breaching of Privacy
6. Grand Theft Cart-o
“Solid as I am”, Solid breathed as the final transmitter was slotted into place, Iron resisted the urge to throttle an innocent pole.
“Okay, we can go.”
Solid clambered out of the side vent leading to the meeting room and trotted out of the maintenance shaft for the air ducts. Iron waited for her on the outside, glancing around nervously for passer-by’s. Of course, there were none at this time of night, but it always paid to be on the safe side.
Solid grinned and gave Iron flick on his backside from her tail, he blushed but clamped down on it, trying to give his best disapproving stare. The cerulean mare simply laughed and trotted to the stolen- borrowed without permission -cart that they were going to return almost straight away. He quickly amended it to Solid. Solid was going to return it. He was just following her and certainly wasn’t an accomplice. Totally innocent.
Iron wasn't really afraid of prison, it was actually quite comfortable there, but the isolation from the rest of the world really does a number on the pony conscious. There were profound repercussions to ponies that have been away from other ponies too long. Hallucinations, dream-like tranquillity, blank stares and varying degrees of schizophrenic symptoms were all recorded effects of being away from other ponies for too long.
That was not to say there weren't ponies that could be comfortable alone, like Daring Do, but they never strayed from others for long and they were never completely comfortable going out alone. Which was why citizens of Equestria were so happy living in their little corner of the world and rarely ever ventured farther than say the neighbouring kingdoms.
“Iron. Iron! IRON!” Solid shouted, snapping Iron from his reverie. “Finally! Give me a hoof will you?”
Solid was struggling to unstick the cart from the mud that surrounded the maintenance exit. The wheel had sunken in during Solid’s foray into the shaft. Shrugging, Iron dipped his head under the yoke and pulled at the cart, hearing a ‘sluuurk’ as the wheel popped out of the ravenous mud.
They both returned the cart with ease and thankfully without being detected, but Iron got the feeling that at any moment the whole scheme would come crashing down. He flicked his tail in annoyance. Solid should really find a better hobby. Her current job as the town archivist was definitely unhelpful, fuelling her obsessions with ancient information readily accessible to link her web of theories together in a pattern of insanity.
As they made their way back to her home to ‘debrief’ as Solid put it, Iron would imagine all the normal things he’d rather be doing, like sleep or eat and then sleep or take a bath, eat and then sleep or…
“Iron!”
“Huh wa-“
“We're here, Celestia you're spacey. Come on, we need to debrief.”
Solid beckoned Iron to come in, she held the door open with her hoof, she rigged the door to close automatically so she wouldn't forget, and it also locked automatically although what Solid had that she had to keep from other ponies Iron hoped to Celestia he would never find out.
Solid led him into the ‘meeting room’, which was basically the kitchen table and sat him down at one of the chairs before drawing out a map and laying it out on the table.
“Okay so that’s the last post designed to pick up background magical resonance”, Solid said, marking out the maintenance shaft on the map. She rubbed her hooves together in delight.
"We'll definitely be able to find the elusive null now!" she babbled.
Iron put his hooves on map to keep it from curling back. Now that they had all the locations marked, the map showed a fairly comprehensive network of measurement posts at all the social hot spots for ponies in the town.
Solid whipped into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat calling over to Iron to ask him whether or not he wanted some fruit. Iron declined, determined to find some flaw in Solid’s plan so they could call the whole thing off. Of course, moral, legal or ethical grounds never really bothered Solid so it always had to be something technical.
Iron considered that at least what Solid was doing wasn’t harming anypony explicitly, if he didn’t count the violation of magical privacy… but at least there was some merit to the experiment, even if it was over a thousand years old.
Somehow, Solid had found a copy (or maybe it was the original, he couldn’t tell) of Star Swirl the Bearded’s Na Linguisto Legislatin abba Illuminata, or translated from Star Swirl’s imaginary speak, ‘the Language Code of Enlightenment’.
Predictably, Solid had returned with tea and the book, setting each down on the table before double-checking the experiment with her head stuck into the book. Iron shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Figuring he had nothing better to do, Iron decided to get a breath of fresh air.
Sauntering out the door, he turned and was greeted by the surprised faces of two royal guards who were just about to knock on the door.
He grinned sheepishly, “Can I help you two fellas?”
The grey pegasus guard on the left cleared his throat before intoning, “In her Majesty’s name Princess Celestia of Equestria, Solid Evidence is to be placed under arrest for multiple acts of disorderly and inharmonious conduct.”
Iron heard a crash and scrambling but put a hoof up before the pegasus stallion could push past him.
“I’ll go talk to her”, he sighed, trotting back into the kitchen. He spotted Solid trying to stuff herself into a cupboard.
“What are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.
“Shh! They’ll hear me! Just distract them and eventually they’ll leave”, she croaked, trying to wedge herself in further.
“You and I both know that’s not going to work”, he replied.
“Traitor!” she jeered, wiggling further into the cupboard.
Iron trotted out and beckoned the two guards to follow. He led them to the kitchen and pointed to Solid’s pathetic excuse for a hiding spot. The two guards rolled their eyes at each other.
“Just come quietly with us ma’am and you will be treated fairly and with respect”, said the grey pegasus.
“Although we can’t guarantee dignity”, Iron heard the other guard mutter but only just loud enough for him to hear.
“Do you think I can accompany you?” Iron blurted, eyeing the two guards. “I mean, as you can see she’s a bit of a special case.”
“I’m right here you know!” she hollered from the cupboard. “I’m not coming with you! You'll never take me alive!”
“Why?” Iron shot back, irritated. The two guards shook their heads from the dialogue cliché.
“Because I’m stuck”, she moaned pitifully.
All three stallions face-hoofed.