//------------------------------//
// Chapter 20 
// Story: The Parliament of Dreams 
// by Wheller 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 20


At 1925 on the dot, (Local time, of course), the Madame La Salle glided into dock in Manzanares, Hispaña Third Republic. Sparky and company gathered up their things and made sure that they would be one of the first ones off the ship. They didn't have a lot of time to waste, before they knew it, La Police Internationale arrest alerts could be circulating throughout the Manzanares Azaña Aerodrome, and they couldn't count on Mister Happy's suppression of them to last forever.

Unfortunately, they were not the only ones who had the idea to be off first. Amarilla and Juan Carlos showed up at the exit hatch at roughly the same time they did. The two groups stared awkwardly at each other for a few moments while one of the flight crew opened the exit hatch. Sparky wisely allowed Amarilla and Juan Carlos to exit before them, lest she incur the gryphon's wrath from doing otherwise.

They walked down the boarding ramp of the Madame La Salle's docking tether, following behind Amarilla and Juan Carlos towards the terminal. While security presence was rather heavy, consisting of several dozen guards armed with assault rifles, going through security was rather simple, and mostly a formality. Bag checks were far more rigorous at departing locations.  Anything that had been let onto the Madame La Salle in Ponyville was most likely to be all right here.

Sparky did her best to not show her nervousness while she went through security. Luckily for her, security had chosen to do a random full search on Juan Carlos, and allowed Sparky and the rest of her party to go ahead through unopposed, Sparky garnered a dirty look from Amarilla as she stood off in the corner, waiting for Juan Carlos' check to finish up. Sparky offered the hispaña mare an apologetic smile, but it turned out to be nothing more than a waste of time. Amarilla turned away from her and rejoined with Juan Carlos as he came through security.

As Sparky and company stepped into the main terminal, she looked around, discovering that many signs were attached to the wall, unfortunately, she was not able to read any of them as they were all in hispaña. As an international port, one would think that the signs would have been printed in multiple languages, actually they probably were, Sparky noticed smaller print below the main signs that was too small to make out, but likely, they repeated what the sign said in a couple of different languages.

Something else caught Sparky's attention too. Nearby, there was a rather large group of ponies standing in the corner, all of them wearing identical black pullovers, and speaking in a language that Sparky did not recognise. Sparky wasn't paying attention to where she was walking, and accidentally bumped into another pony, this one too, was wearing a black pullover. 'Smotretʹ kuda vy idete!' he shouted at her as he passed her.

Sparky frowned and opened her mouth to respond, when she noticed that something had fallen out of this pony's pocket. It was a small metal canister that looked something like an aerosol spray can.

A small red light lit up on the canister and Sparky heard a quiet electronic whine fill the air. 'What?' Sparky asked as she looked at the device in confusion.

The canister suddenly exploded, and the room filled with a blinding flash of light. Sparky's ears began to ring and she could no longer see. She fell to the floor in disorientation, she tried to cover her ears as the sound ate away at her brain, she still couldn't see, spots of light blinded her completely, but as the sound began to fade, it was replaced by screams from others in the Aerodrome.

Suddenly, Sparky felt a hoof smash into her face, she fell back down, hitting her head on head on the floor, and losing consciousness.

…

Sparky opened her eyes, at least, she thought they were open, she open and shut them several times and was unable to notice a difference between the two. She turned her head to the right and felt cloth rub up against her nose, there was a bag over her head. She tried to reach up and pull it off, but she discovered that her legs did not want to move with her, they were tied up. Sparky frowned, she didn’t dare try to use telekinesis, without being able to see what she was doing, she would just be doing more harm than good.

Oh what wonderful things she was discovering, she thought to herself sarcastically. She opened her mouth, and discovered that nothing was obstructing it. She could speak. 'Hello? Is anyone there?' she asked.

'Sparky?' another voice came back. 'Sparky is that you?'

'Shortfuse?' Sparky asked.

'Yeah! It's me!' Shortfuse said. 'Can you move?'

'No', Sparky said with a frown. 'I'm tied up and I have a bag over my head'.

'Yeah, yeah me too', Shortfuse said sadly. 'Do you remember what happened?'

'Yeah... ' Sparky said. 'Bright flash of light, and then someone kicked me in the face'.

'I think that might have been me... I'm sorry if it was', Shortfuse said. 'Is anyone else here?'

Another voice spoke up. 'Sparky? Shortfuse?' Dizzy asked from the darkness.

'Dizzy? You all right?' Sparky asked.

'Tied up and bag over my head, on the plus side, this isn't the worst situation I've been in!' Dizzy said, oh she was ever the optimist.

'What was the worst situation you've ever been in?' Sparky asked out of curiosity.

'Well I was tied up and gagged in a back alley in Olde Towne by three earth pony drug addicts who were ready to violate my chastity', Dizzy said with a small chuckle. 'Earth ponies, they never see that levitating-something-really-big-and-really-heavy-up-behind-you trick coming', Dizzy added, though Sparky couldn't see Dizzy's face, she could tell just by the tone of voice that she was smiling. 'Chastity intact after that encounter too'.

'Is anyone else here?' Sparky called out.

'You...' hissed a voice from behind Sparky. 'This is your fault!'

'Amarilla?' Sparky asked.

'Sí', Amarilla hissed. 'Juan Carlos? ¿Estás aquí?' she asked.

'Sí Señora', Juan Carlos said simply from somewhere else in the room.

'Juan Carlos is here', Amarilla said.

'No kidding?' said another voice, this one belonging to DC Hopely.

'Would you all shut up?!' Grandma V shouted out. 'I have a headache and you all talking is just going to make it worse!'

All of them fell silent as they heard the sound of a large steel door open and shut from the far corner of the room. Hoof steps approached them, and Sparky held her breath instinctively.

Suddenly the bag was ripped off her head, and Sparky realised that the person who did it was the same person she had bumped into at the Aerodrome, The same person who dropped the canister. 'You?' she asked.

'Zatknisʹ suka', the pony said, raising a hoof and smacking her across the face.

The door opened again, and another pony entered the room. 'Oleg! Etogo budet dostatochno!' the other cried out.

The pony in front of Sparky turned around, and backed off.

'Snimatʹ povyazki', the other pony said.

Oleg huffed loudly and moved over towards DC Hopely, pulling the bag off her head. DC Hopely looked up at the other pony that had entered the room. 'Yuri', DC Hopely hissed at him.

'Hello Anastasia', Yuri said with a smile.

'Anastasia?' Shortfuse asked, looking over to DC Hopely in suspicion. 'You've got a Cossack name?'

'I'm not Cossack', DC Hopely said flatly. 'My parents didn't make a great choice when I was born'.

Yuri smiled at her mockingly. 'Anastasia is such a beautiful name! There is no need to be ashamed of it'.

'Yeah, no need to be ashamed if you're a communist', DC Hopely hissed at him.

'You say that as if it is a bad thing', Yuri said.

'It is!' DC Hopely snapped back at him.

'We shall debate another day', Yuri said. 'You wished to escape from DCI Auditore? I have saved you'.

'You kidnapped us', Shortfuse cried out.

'Details', Yuri said dismissively. 'We have something that needs doing, and you are in no position to say no'.

Sparky frowned, she had been afraid of this, when she had first heard that Yuri was NKVD she knew that strings would be attached, they always were. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘I assume you have heard? Tragedy aboard Discovery One spaceship?’ Yuri asked with a grin on his face and a gleam in his eye, this made Sparky all the more nervous. The NKVD was the Præsidium’s intelligence service, they had to know that Sparky and Shortfuse were FutureTec employees that both worked as part of the ground control crew for the Discovery One mission. Sparky could only guess that he wanted information on the project, possibly secrets about the design of the ship, or maybe information on the Hannibal-Class VIs.

Sparky’s face turned to a frown, and then to a look of horror. The Hannibal-Class VIs, he wanted to know about their instabilities, which unfortunately, happened to be something that she knew about. ‘I’m not telling you anything!’ Sparky cried out.

Yuri raised an eyebrow, in confusion, and chuckled in amusement. ‘Tell? No, I do not want you to tell anything. I have something bigger in mind’, he said with a grin.

Sparky swallowed hard, her and her big mouth.