April 10, 2027
Baltimare – The Hungry Ursa
Saturday Evening
Quantum splashed on an extra thick layer of stallion musk, slicked back Draw’s mane, and strutted from his room with a now practiced air. It was probably overkill for a magic show, but she still felt a desire to look nice – if she couldn’t do it her own way, she’d have to do it the stallion way. She couldn’t help but feel a small jitter of excitement rolling to the surface of her consciousness. When she was a foal, her mother’s magic was something to be amazed by, and she remembered spending many a night dazzled by all the fireworks and pretty colors. It would be a wonderful thing to see it all again, even if she had to pretend she was somepony else. As she meandered down an empty hallway, a sheet of white light appeared and vanished beside her. Her ears swiveled like satellite dishes to pick up the familiar sounds of beeping and booping.
“Nice figure you’re cutting,” Hal appraised, floating in place on his wings. “And you’ve even got the swanky grin down. I’m a better teacher than I thought.”
Quantum shook her head, ruffling her mane, and caught a glimpse of her dapper stallion self in a mirror as she passed. “When in Baltimare, do as the Baltimarians do, right?” She puffed up with pride. This was the city she grew up in, after all. Who was anypony else to get in her way?
“Gonna snuggle in front of somepony’s cozy hearth?” Hal grinned, “Good mare. I knew you had it in you.”
“Nah,” Quantum replied smugly. “Going to the show.”
“The what?”
“My mom is doing a magic show tonight,” Quantum grinned. “I’m sure everypony will be there. It would probably look bad if I skipped it, right? Plus the opportunities for intel…you know?”
Hal’s smile vanished. He flitted into his classmate’s path, causing the minty mare to reflexively stop short. “Your mother is not why you’re here. Stop wasting time with her.”
Quantum felt a swathe of indignity slither up her neck and ooze onto her muzzle, contorting her expression. “It’ll be fine, and I don’t recall making you the boss of me. Cozy Hearth will probably be there. After the show I’ll talk to her. Promise.”
“Probably?” Hal repeated, booping buttons liberally. “Would you like me to tell you what the percentage chance Cozy will be murdered two days from now is? Because it just got a little higher. Not that you apparently care.”
“That’s not fair. Of course I care what happens to Cozy Hearth. I just…” as quickly as Quantum’s eyes narrowed, her brows rose. “Hal…please. Just let me have this, okay? I realize that twelve years from now my mother is going to become a homicidal maniac, but…I have to know why. Even if the numbers say I can’t do anything to help her. Plus,” the minty mare suddenly found herself staring at the floor, “…I miss her magic shows.”
Hal’s determined jawline quivered slightly. Letting out a deep sigh, he landed on his hooves and took a step out of the way. “Just don’t get distracted. If what you told me about that ‘white space’ wasn’t a hallucination, there’s a lot more riding on this than we thought before.” He paused, somewhat uncertainly, and tried to offer a reassuring smile. “Be careful, okay?”
“I will.” Quantum nodded. She made for the stairs and heard the whooshing noise consistent with Hal’s departure behind her, but his voice came to her hears one more time before she picked up the portal closing.
“Cutie…try not to get upset. Head and hooves in the game.”
“Huh?” Quantum turned her head just quickly enough to see…an empty corridor. Scrunching her muzzle in thought, she eventually shrugged and continued down the four flights of stairs to the parlor and bar area, this time preparing herself for the wall of cigar smoke that caught up with her two flights before she got there.
The large room wasn’t as she remembered it. The bar was still there, but all the tables and cushioned seats had been rearranged and gathered closer to the stage. The green felt was gone from the tabletops, replaced by a lacquered, sumptuous wood grain the matched the bar itself. Dipping her head just long enough to peer, Quantum noticed that the green gaming felt was on the underside of each table, suggesting the furniture could be modified for convenience. The lighting in the room was diminished even more than usual, such that each table had a small lamp upon it, paired with a tiny vase supporting a single, fresh red rose. Most of the tables were occupied with patrons who looked as much like the riff-raff Quantum was getting used to seeing at the Hungry Ursa, with a few more nicely dressed ponies and a fair number of working mares sprinkled in. Quantum proceeded into the room with her teeth grinding under her lip. How many local mares needed to seek employment in a place like this?
As soon as Quantum noticed the table containing Short Stack and Slow Play, she gravitated towards them and shared some pleasantries, forcing herself to grin too much at the nameless mare who put a drink in front of her. There was little left to do but sit wait until the stage curtain went up.
“Nice, uh…nice turn out,” Quantum observed, levitating her drink and moving it around just to hold it.
Slow Play guffawed through his buck teeth, “Always is when Twiggy’s playin’!”
Quantum, stars in her eyes, ohhed at the quiet stage. “What does she play? A cello? A violin? I bet she could play three violins at the same time with her magic…”
Short Stack snorted. He really did sound more like a pig than a pony. “Yeah, heh. A cello. Bet that’s what the bow is for. A cello!”
The minty mare turned golden stallion felt a hoof slap her withers yet again; the blow punctuated by cackling laughter from her own table and the two nearest. She tried to laugh along, but confusion bent her voice out of shape and left her with nothing but a croak to work with. She thought about trying to get some more information, but a sudden, drastic lowering of what little lighting there was in the room drew her attention to the stage. Swizzle, caked in makeup and decked out in her cabaret finest, was standing at a microphone, smiling broadly.
“Stallions, mares…nags,” several voices in the audience rose in laughter, “I know all you sugahcubes out there don’t wanna her me croakin’ along up here all night. So I’ll get right into it. Tonight, we have the distinct pleasure of the company of one of our very own, the very best hocus-pocus of the Great and Powerful Twiggy!”
The crowd roared. The curtain rose.
Quantum gaped.
There, wrapped in a long, silken black cape with a high collar, red liner, and matching wide-brimmed, pointed hat, was Quantum’s mother, Trixie Lulamoon. The cyan mare was sprawled out on a posh chaise lounge, bedecked in an overabundance of eyeshadow and blush to match her violet eyes. She batted her curled lashes at the audience and shifted her body under the cloak; her provocative movements drawing cat-calls from the assembled patrons. In a dark corner of the stage, a brown unicorn was levitating a saxophone to his lips and leaking out a steamy, lurid tune. When the music swelled a bit, Trixie ignited her horn and blew the cape away, exposing her usual ‘work uniform’. To the tune of the music, she then began to saunter around the stage, moving with a slowness and poise that made her daughter blush. When Trixie reached the microphone, her high-pitched, melodious voice joined the song of brass and created something Quantum would have found beautiful, had it not been so utterly and painfully devoid of any sense of taste.
Quantum felt her cheeks turn into small volcanoes. Caught in the spotlights, she stared openly at her mother as the older mare clopped around the stage and then moved out into the audience with the levitated microphone; drawing her hooves under chins and making cooing noises that were once only meant for a certain little filly’s bedtime. When Trixie started sitting in laps, Quantum was digging a hoof into the carpeting so hard that it was scraping against the subflooring. Short Stack leaned in.
“I know why ya want Twiggy, kid,” he squawked, “Ain’t no pony here that can blame ya. She’s somethin’ else, eh?”
The younger Lulamoon wasn’t listening. When the elder Lulamoon slithered by her daughter’s table, she favored both Short Stack and Slow Play with beckoning glances. She was about to do the same for Draw Out, despite how she had acted towards ‘him’ earlier, but Quantum’s visceral glare actually made Trixie flinch and back away to another table. Soon after, she retreated back to the stage entirely to finish her sultry number. Quantum heard a by now familiar whooshing noise that no other pony could hear, accompanied by a momentary bright light no other pony could see.
“I told you not to get upset,” Hal hesitated from somewhere behind Quantum’s left ear. “Cutie…you know what kind of place this is. You…know what ponies who would come to a place like this would want to see.”
Quantum said nothing. Her deepening grimace spoke for her. Hal’s eyebrows peaked in the center of his forehead.
“Cutie,” he warned, “You have to keep it together. Don’t do anything stupid. A mare’s life is at stake. A mare with a family who depends on her. Just calm down. Twiggy—I mean Trixie—”
That name. That infernal pet name borne from dirty, scummy ponies that weren’t fit to pour pee out of her mother’s heels had been drilled into the elder mare’s head so completely that even she was calling herself ‘The Great and Powerful Twiggy.’ It was insufferable. It was appalling. Quantum thought back. Back to the future, where her broken mother had said those cryptic words about having everything, including her purity, taken away from her.
Now the minty mare knew what those words meant.
Before Trixie could clear the front row of tables, she was swept off her hooves by a certain familiar looking, creamy coated, hungrily grinning unicorn. Tilt had a feral look in his eye, and the crowd was making ‘oh la la’ noises. Tilt drew in close. Trixie giggled.
Quantum saw the slightest, easily missed hint of hesitation in her mother’s face. It was all she needed to see.
Calmly, evenly, the stallion known as Draw Out rose from his seat and clopped towards the stage. Every eye followed his approach, save for those of Tilt and Trixie. With a stygian stillness on her borrowed muzzle, Quantum made Draw Out tap Tilt patiently on the shoulder. The moment Tilt’s face was in view, Quantum spun on her front hooves, snapped her rear knees like a mousetrap, and bucked him as hard as she could, right in his clammy, lecherous face. Tilt’s neck snapped back, and he was flung backwards into the stairs so hard, he crumpled under the impact. The music stopped.
“Wh-what the hell are you doing!?” Hal shouted amongst the shocked murmurs from the audience. “A fight is what causes this whole problem to begin with, and you’re picking one!?”
Tilt didn’t move again, but Quantum couldn’t see anything but white hot anger before her eyes. She loomed over the muscular stallion she’d felled with a cheap shot, and was ready to capitalize on his helplessness by rearing up to pound him again, when three other large, ruthless-looking unicorns were suddenly between the minty mare and her quarry. The lead thug fixed Quantum with a murderous stare, dug his hoof into the carpet, and pushed a powerful breath from his nostrils that was visible in the smoke-filled haze. All three of their horns were glowing.
Quantum, heedless of the danger, ignited her own often-unused magic in response and stood her scrawny ground, ready to pounce upon whichever of her adversaries flinched first. Hal was shouting for her to back down, but as far as the minty mare was concerned, Tilt’s cronies could have numbered in the thousands. Somepony had touched her mother. Back home, Quantum had already blown ponies up for less than that. The lives of three sniveling thugs, no matter who their mommies were, added up at that moment to one hundred percent of zero when reflected in the minty mare’s blackened stare.
The lights rose. Before Quantum was able to rise to the attack, a midnight-coated earth pony with age wrinkles and a violet mane was standing in her way. Behind Swizzle were no less than half a dozen positively huge earth draft ponies, with expressions hewn from solid granite. Tilt’s thugs, large in their own right, were easily dwarfed by the new arrivals and the odds were now two-to-one. Swizzle waved her hoof at Tilt and barked at his now uneasy looking attaché.
“Take that outta here,” she ordered. “And don’t you come back in my place tonight!”
Quantum smiled with relief as the unicorns went to gather up their leader. She opened her mouth to offer her thanks, but Swizzle shut her down cold with an equally commanding air.
“And you!” The dowager matriarch preened, “Just where do you think you get off bustin’ up my customers? I don’t care who’s got a problem with who out on the street, but you do NOT bring your testosterone-fueled stallion pissing contests into my club, or so help me, I’ll have you run outta here so hard and so fast, you’ll won’t have enough pride, prowess, or the parts to please your next lady-friend, ya damn gelding!” She pointed at Tilt’s now empty table, “Now you park your ritzy rump down on that seat and mind the pathetic excuse for manners your poor old momma tried to give you until I allow you to go to your room!”
Quantum flattened her ears and sat where she was told to. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Short Stack. On his hooves, the grizzled, fat purple stallion was flanked by a group of ponies that seemed to have melted out of the very shadows to stand at his side. He held his hoof up and his troops backed down, disbursing along with the rest of the night crowd to the bar or various other attractions around the room.
Patrons began to go about their business. Some flipped tables back over to the gaming side and called servers for drinks as if nothing had happened. Others moved to the bar, sat talking amongst themselves, or just left altogether, while still a few more headed for their rented rooms. Some were disappointed by the apparent abrupt ending of Trixie’s ‘show’, and weren’t afraid to put these feelings into words. One young, brash looking colt reached out to try to smack the back of Quantum’s head in passing, but one of Swizzle’s bouncers stared him down.
Quantum sat in her place, her mind in turmoil over what she had witnessed that evening, until Swizzle and her guards slowly petered off to see to their establishment’s well-being. Just as she was thinking of getting up anyway, a hoof clamped softly down on her shoulder. She turned to the next seat, and found the forest-green, classically made up face of Cozy Hearth, who was favoring her with a worried look.
“Sweetie,” Cozy began, “What’s gotten into you? Are you sure you’re alright? I know you’ve been in some scuffles before, but if Swizzle’s bouncers hadn’t been there, Tilt’s cronies would have hung you out to dry. Even you wouldn’t bet on odds like that. Why do you keep provoking him?”
Quantum, her brow heavy, looked away from Draw Out’s consort. “…stop worrying so much about me. You’re cute. You’ll find another meal ticket if needs be.”
A second later, the minty mare’s face was introduced to a half-drunk quantity of foul-smelling turnip rum. Cozy Hearth rose to her hooves and bristled, flexing her wingtips like switchblades.
“You…you hornycorn jerk!” She sputtered, sniffling sharply. “Is that all I am to you? A cutie-marked rump to hump!? Did it ever occur to you for a single, solitary moment that you’re not the only stallion here a mare can make a dirty bit off of, and even with your poker winnings, you can’t hold a candle to the real sugar-daddies out there? Did you ever even bother to wonder why I spend more nights in your room than I do with my own children!?”
Quantum’s morose, self-pitying expression faltered when she looked into the vermillion eyes of the forest green pegasus before her. The words had been harsh, but the windows to Cozy Hearth’s soul were calling her a liar. Shame spread through the minty mare like fire engulfing a dead, dry forest, when she realized what Cozy was really trying to say.
“I,” Quantum started, “…wait, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean—”
But it was too late. In a crushed huff, Cozy Hearth flexed her wings, lifted herself to the stairs, and took them up and away at a gallop, leaving the minty mare turned golden stallion with nothing but a coat soaked once again in alcohol. Slightly behind where she had been sitting was Hal, poking gingerly at his control device.
“Congratulations, Cutie. You did it.”
Quantum cocked her head quizzically, glancing at the stairs out of the corner of her eye. “What?”
“It.” Hal repeated. “You just knocked forty percent off of the likelihood that Cozy Hearth will die two days from now. Tissy says that the most likely outcome by far now is that Cozy won’t even be there when the fight breaks out.” Hal paused, looking up at his classmate without raising his head. “But Draw Out? Draw Out is a goner. Ninety-three point seven says that sometime in the next two days, Tilt and his thugs are going to come for you. Cozy was what was preventing Draw’s death. So long as she doesn’t give enough of a pony’s behind to intercede on your behalf, you can kiss yourself goodbye. And if everything you and I have talked about is correct, this being the new causality with the highest percentage of occurring, you won’t vault until it’s resolved. So you either figure out how to keep Draw alive without going back to the original dilemma of Cozy Hearth dying instead, or chances are you’ll die with him.”
Quantum looked back at the stairs. “I…I didn’t mean to hurt her…” she murmured, “…I didn’t think she felt…”
“Felt what?” Hal scolded, slipping his device back into his pocket protector. “Like she had feelings for Draw Out? Are you an idiot? Do you need some colorful buttons to tell you that she’s head over hooves for him, even if he is a pig, and that she’s hoping once he realizes how she feels about him, he might just turn his life around and make her truly happy? She’s lonely, Cutie, and you,” Hal reached out and phased the tip of his hoof through Quantum’s nose, “are all she has, other than her children, to fill that huge, gaping hole right through the middle of her.”
Quantum looked down at her hooves, sighing, “Did Tissy find all that out?”
Hal shook his head at his device, which was sleeping peacefully in its sleeve. “No. I just told you, it’s plainer than the muzzle on your face.” He eyed his friend, never taking his gaze away, even when some random pony clopped right through him on the way to chat with some friends. “So what are you going to do now?”
Without Swizzle’s permission, Quantum glanced at the route to the upper floors, rose from her seat, and started clopping…towards the backstage entrance. Hal sputtered.
“Dammit Cutie! Enough with your mother! You’re doing to die! D-I-E! Doesn’t that mean anything to you!?”
“Hal…just leave me alone.”
“You stubborn daughter of a—fine!”
Quantum climbed the steps and wormed around the abandoned chaise lounge without looking back to watch her friend depart.