“Where are you going with that SPG imbecile?” popped up in the chat window.
Shit, I was just driving my self-propelled gun right into the fray of heavy and medium tanks. I just couldn't focus on the game, my teeth chattering from emotion. I turned the vehicle around and headed towards some bushes.
All games were recorded, and I would upload my gameplay, lousy as it was, to create a record of what I was doing. Lot of good would it do if they found the mare in my room. And if some night owl spotted her on her way and reported it to the police?
Was that the squeak of the gate? I forced myself to keep sitting and playing. The reticle slowly concentrated on the unsuspecting tank destroyer. Click, four seconds of delay, and...
“Cowardly clickers!” my victim raged in the chat window. With forty seconds until reload, I stood up and ran to the door.
There she was, trying to fit into the narrow stairs.
“Celestia...” I whispered.
She replied with a quiet nicker.
I moved back in, letting her enter through the tiny vestibule into my room.
“Be right back, I'll just lock the gate,” I said, finding keys in my pocket. I dashed to the backyard gate and locked it, then I ran inside, locking the door after me.
She stood there, taking the interior in. She'd barely be able to turn around, but all in all, she had a little more room than in the narrow stall in the stable.
I stood for a second there until she pulled me with her chin. I hugged her neck.
“Alright, I need to go to work in the morning. I should catch some sleep...” I glanced at the clock, near the screen where the smoldering remains of my SPG spelled defeat for my team. Nearly three AM. “You catch some sleep too. I put a spare comforter on the floor; better get used to it until we find a better place. I'll tell you about the place in the morning. It will be tight, but we'll manage.”
Her hug only tightened.
* * *
I unlocked the door with a pounding heart. “Celestia?”
A quiet nicker answered me from inside.
I hung my anorak on the hook and entered from the vestibule into the room.
Celestia lay on the floor surrounded with large sheets of paper covered with equations in that fancy script of hers. Several of my computer-related books lay stacked to the side, “Perl – Introduction” set aside. My PC was switched on, and she was typing something, pressing the keys on the keyboard with the eraser of the pencil. I looked at the screen.
No, she hadn’t hacked my password. The PC was running under Knoppix, booted from a DVD she must have found in my stack of disks. The screen was occupied by the console, with a lengthy row of random sequences of digits and numbers, interspersed with either 'y' or 'n' under each.
She just finished typing another sequence and pressed Enter. The computer didn't react for a couple seconds, then an 'y' appeared. She turned to the tablet, adjusted some numbers in the form in it was displaying, and pressed a button marked 'Bet High'. Some numbers milled fast, and a green sign “You BET HI so you win 0.80653765 BTC!” appeared below.
“I see you've made yourself at home.” I chuckled. “May I ask what you're doing?”
She scrolled the page up. “Freebitcoin. Win free bitcoins every hour, no strings attached!” appeared, in the page filled with ads. She scrolled lower. That particular page was “Multiply your Bitcoins playing a PROVABLY FAIR HI-LO game!”
She pointed to the green number in the corner of the screen. It showed “3.23673421 BTC”.
“Wait... how much is it in some normal currency?”
She pointed to the corner of one of the sheets littering the floor. The conversion rate for bitcoin was written there.
“Holly moly, you just managed to earn my monthly salary in a day!”
I'd swear she smirked. She opened the paint app in the tablet. “SAVE PROGRAM PLZ. NEED YOUR BANK ACC#”
Oh. I found a pendrive in my pocket, then proceeded to save the program running on the PC to it. I couldn't help peeking into the code. Maybe thirty lines of Perl, but filled with maths that would give Einstein a headache.
I opened Firefox, and – surprise-surprise – there was no network connectivity. Obviously Celestia didn't have the access to the router to set up networking under Knoppix, and that's why she was using the tablet for Internet connectivity, retyping the hashes.
I quickly configured the network, and soon I was viewing the 'freebitcoin' page myself. I clicked the “PROVABLY FAIR” link.
“HMAC-SHA512.” I read the name of the cipher used. “I don't even have a clue what that really is, but it sounds quite sophisticated. And you just cracked it.”
She wiped the screen of the tablet, and wrote just one simple equation.
I felt a little sweat on my back. You know, when Einstein wrote E = mc², he still didn't know the significance – that the letters of the equation in fact spelled the words 'nuclear weapons'. That the equation meant the creation of weapons capable of wiping out all life on Earth. His equation could be called 'the Sword of Armageddon.'
This equation was different though. It is known by all mathematicians in the world, and they all know what it meant. The devil is in details, in the proof, which nobody has, which made it only a useless theory. The proof, which Celestia apparently knew. That equation could be called 'the Skeleton Key', capable of cracking any cipher, opening any digital lock and vault, intercepting and modifying any communication.
P = NP
Feeling a little dizzy, I sat on the bed.
Celestia stood up and nuzzled my face.
“Celestia,” I said, somberly. “Do you know what that means? I really considered finding some reasonable scientists and getting them to learn about you, letting them take over, let you cooperate with them in developing a way to get you back home. But with this...” I pointed at the tablet. “There will be many people who would gladly kill you so that this wouldn't ever leak out. If it got into the possession of certain individuals, they would gain immense power, a power capable of a lot of evil. And if it leaked out to the public, there would be a crisis which would cripple the world economy and security for decades. Nobody must know that you know this. Do you understand?”
Celestia bowed to the tablet, but instead of the 'save and wipe', she picked the eraser icon.
With several flicks of her mouth, the equation vanished from the screen.
Then she wrote something else.
“HUNGRY”
I smiled. “Sorry, I don't have anything suitable for you right now. I ran back from work as fast as I could to check if everything's alright. I'll go buy you some apples for now. Fine?”
Instead of answering, she turned to her side and picked up the pictorial dictionary book. She placed it in front of her and began flipping pages. Moments later I saw her knocking the picture on the page with the tip of the pencil.
A cake.
“Celestia, you can't be serious. Horses don't eat cake.”
She snorted, annoyed.
“Look, maybe in your Equestria there are cakes suitable for equines, but I assure you Earth horses would get colic. A bad tummy ache. Very bad, dangerous, can kill.”
So downcast. So sad.
“Alright, I guess a small slice won't kill you. But you better look up treatment and medicines to take in case you get colic after all.”
And then I was lying on my back on the bed, squeezed under her chest. She held me with her front legs and squeezed.
“Okay, okay! Let go! No need to be this clingy! Apparently cake must have been a big part of your life!”
She nodded vigorously.
* * *
“Let’s see how it works.” I began taking my shoppings out of my rucksack. “Horse coat shampoo. Mane and tail shampoo. Soap. Three different brushes for fur and a comb for the mane and tail. Two sponges, a rough one and a soft one. A hoof pick. Hoof oil. A sheet of plastic to lay over the comforter, and three clean bedsheets to place over it, for you to dry out. I'll get the comforter washed afterwards.”
To my surprise, Celestia wasn't reluctant – she was practically enthusiastic.
I removed the floor mat from the bathroom, leaving bare tiles sloping slightly towards the drain. One of the advantages of living in the basement: you won't flood the neighbors below. Of course, I risked moldy walls, but oh well... The flat would need renovation soon anyway. Besides, Celestia would not even fit her rump into the tiny shower cabin.
“First, let's get rid of that caked old mud so that we don't clog up the drain.”
She nickered her approval.
I guided her backwards into the bathroom by tugging on her tail. She fit more than half of herself, so it would do.
I grabbed the stiff plastic brush and got to the cleanup. She'd twitch every time I got over a hard clump, but she withstood the treatment. I worked patiently.
“We've got to make a small stockpile of supplies. Mother may call me home any time, and you'd need to get through two days all by yourself.”
She gave a small snort which I had learned to understand as a reluctant agreement.
“Have you managed to unlock the door by yourself? In case something happens to me, I'd really hate to think you'd starve to death locked in here.”
This time her confirmation was more than a little irate.
“Look, I'm careful, I don't take stupid risks, but first, my health is sub-par, stuff like heart attacks happen at my age, and besides, we're on Tresher's bad side. Things happen to people who get on his bad side.”
She just dropped her head.
I moved to her other side and got to removing caked dirt there.
“Your casino trick got us out of a pinch financially, but we will need something more sustainable. Find you a place in some trusted stable run by good people, or something.”
She knocked her hoof twice. A negative.
I worked in silence for a while, then, when I judged the part finished, I ordered Celestia to turn around. She walked out, then she turned and stepped in holding the tablet in her mouth. I took it from her. Slobbery. I wiped it with some toilet paper.
“You get your slobber in that, it’ll break.” I picked up a toothbrush and stuck it in her teeth, then I held the tablet for her to write.
“OWN FARM”
“Do you have any idea how much these things cost?”
She nodded.
“Got any ideas yet how to go about getting home?”
She nodded.
“What would you need for that?”
She underlined the writing in the tablet.
“Alright. But how do I get this kind of money?”
“I WILL.”
Then she added another line.
“TRUST ME.”
I hugged her head.
“I would trust you with my life. I just hate going blind.”
“1. FUNDS
2. SAFETY
3. PLACE”
She sent the three signs to archive and continued on a blank page.
“4. RESEARCH
5. CALL S.O.S.
6. GO HOME”
I put the tablet aside and got back to brushing her coat. “That's fairly... nebulous. Does your plan have any finer details?”
She nodded.
“I'll trust you. Just tell me what to do.”
She nickered her approval.
I worked in silence for a while, until the worst of dirt was removed. I took the hoof pick and proceeded to clean her hooves. Luckily she hadn’t spent long enough there for them to develop anything bad. I wondered how she'd react to a farrier.
“Okay, back off. I need to sweep this.” I looked at the floor, which was covered with more than a little dried mud.
Broom, dust pan, three full dust pans of that crap went into the trashcan. Next, guerrilla plumbing. Using copious amounts of duct tape and two meters of garden hose, I extended the shower head hose to reach across the bathroom. I spread the plastic over the carpet in the room and the comforter while Celestia danced around to make room for it. I stripped to my underwear, leaving my clothes on the bed. I secured the towels, the tablet, the toilet paper and anything that would suffer water damage in the bathroom on a high shelf.
Finally, with lukewarm water running from the shower head (and the two duct tape joints), I invited Celestia back in. First to wet her coat, then the soap to get the worst of dirt, then the shampoo, and her fur gradually turned dazzling white. I applied the mane shampoo to her mane, then I rinsed her thoroughly, watching the dark grey water flow down the drain under my feet.
She turned around, and I got to washing her rear side.
“I can't get these yellow stains off your rump,” I grumbled, rubbing them hard with the rough sponge.
There was no reply. I looked towards her head.
She was gasping a little.
Oh my.
I began scrubbing closer to her back, and I observed the tail wandering up as I approached.
I rested the shower head over the small of her back, and let the water flow around her tail base and down between her legs. The tail was now up and to the side, and I was scrubbing the back of her thigh.
Suddenly, the tail clamped tightly down, and she gave out a quiet snort. She stomped two times.
“Celestia, be reasonable. It needs to be washed too. Mares get bad infections from bad hygiene back there.”
She turned her head, her look stopping on my boxers. Dammit, busted. She snorted.
“I can't help it. You are a gorgeous mare.” I shrugged.
She shook her head slowly.
“Besides, your tail is just filthy. It needs to be washed. Come on.”
She didn't move.
“Look. I won't do anything untoward. And I know I probably look repulsive to you, and even if we were the same species I wouldn't stand a chance with you, but please, just bear with me, I'm really doing it for your health. I won't look, I won't touch with my hand, just the water and the sponge.”
Reluctantly, the tail went up. True to my word, I worked fast and gently, and without looking.
Well, at least until I got to washing her tail in a bucket of water with the mane & tail shampoo later. I couldn't help a few glimpses, but I didn't move beyond that.
Celestia was acting difficult around her teats again, but at least this time she didn't mind me looking. They were pretty much in plain sight anyway.
I got to washing her legs, and when I reached the fetlocks, she went rigid again.
“Do they have some special meaning in your culture? Because here they really don't mean much. And you didn't mind me grabbing them when I was cleaning your hooves. I mean, not that yours aren't beautiful, but what the heck?”
She lowered her head and bit her lip. I wiped my hands and brought her the tablet, squeezing by her through the door.
“PHEROMONES,” she wrote. “SCENT AROUSES STALLIONS”
“Well, I've got news for you: Human sense of smell is crap.”
She snorted a little.
“So, okay for me to wash them?”
She nodded.
I got back to work, and soon the whole rear half of Celestia was all squeaky clean, except for the two yellow stains.
I asked her to leave the bathroom and flushed the soapy water down to the drain, chasing it with a mop. Then I spread the bed sheets over her “lair” area. She lay on them, folding her legs neatly. She rolled onto her back, then onto her other side and flexed her back to rub her side against the sheet. Her leg kicked into the wardrobe, leaving a deep dent in the smooth laminate over the particle board. Well, crap. It wasn’t like it was the first or the last of the damage. I'd pay for it... somehow.
She rolled back in the opposite direction and lay, extending her legs. I brought a piece of cloth, the hoof oil and the tablet. I found a pencil and left it for her to pick up.
“How did you get these stains on your flanks? If I know I might be able to do something about them.” I poured some of the oil onto the cloth and got to rubbing it into her front hoof.
“RAISED THE SUN.”
So much for a clear answer. It was my turn to reply with a snort.
“BACK HOME THEY ARE SUNS”
I met her gaze, and my confusion made her amused. I had to snort with laughter, imagining Celestia raising her rump into the sky.
“IMAGES OF SUN.”
“Oh, okay. Some kind of custom?”
“MAGIC.”
She explained the idea of cutie marks and special talents.
I finished with the hooves and got to cleaning up the bathroom, when I heard a knock of her hoof, calling me.
“LATER. LIE BY MY SIDE.”
Gladly, I obliged. I lay by her, leaning into her moist fur.
“YOU ARE NOT REPULSIVE”
I raised my eyebrows.
“BUT LOSE THAT BELLY.”
* * *
“Phew.” I dropped the rucksack on the floor. “That hay is heavy. Got a bale, a dozen oat cookies and a cupcake.”
Celestia's ears perked up at the last item. She tore her gaze away from the Polish for Foreigners textbook she was reading and shook her head, shaking an earphone out of it.
I peered at the screen of the PC. Celestia had changed her tactic: instead of gaming the casino, she got to mining bitcoins. The patched bitcoin 'miner' program ran on some server in Germany. Twenty-five bitcoins every hour. She could get twenty-five per ten minutes, totally dominating the network, but that would cause people to panic, and the value of bitcoin would sink to zilch, so – just to avoid the “51% attack” suspicion, she played it safe. Currently, her bitcoin account displayed a neat 1281BTC, worth about a third of a million dollars. Unfortunately, exchanging that amount to cash without crashing the bitcoin market would take a week or more. Still, selling at reasonable pace, I was already a wealthy man. Though Celestia was free to use my bank account as she'd see fit.
“Any other business?” I asked while unpacking the box with the cupcake. I couldn't help grinning, seeing how Celestia's focus locked on the sweet thing. She was drooling a little.
I held the box to her, and she nibbled the cake, bit by bit, savoring the taste, her eyelids half-closed. Still, she ate like a lady, little neat bites.
Two minutes later, the cupcake was gone, and Celestia licked her lips, an expression of delight on her face. She nickered quietly and turned to the tablet.
“MUST SPEED UP. ATROPHY, NEED EXERCISE.”
I sighed and nodded. “Just tell me what to do, captain.”
She produced a print-out with a list of addresses. There were short notes by each of them. “Old farm, three hectares of pastures, barn.” “House, animal barn, hay barn, 6ha in several pieces.” “Summer cottage, 3ha of pasture, 1ha of forest, check possibility for building a shed/stable.” “Old hut (not habitable), barn, 6ha.”
“Lots of places. It will take several hours to visit them all.”
“1ST SUITABLE”
“Decent neighborhood, privacy, good, fast net access, basic comforts, decent access road. Will we have enough to buy it?”
Celestia just nodded.
I unpacked the bag of oat cookies and put them on a plate in front of her, taking one for myself, then I shook the hay bale from the rucksack.
“Okay, so I'm on my way. Anything else?”
She looked towards the corner of the room. A big black trash bag, half-full.
“Horseapples...” I muttered, picking up the stinky bag. I tied it off and took it to dump in the trash container. Before heading out, I took a look at the list of places to visit. The taxi driver would be a happy man.
* * *
“Celestia? I'm back.”
A quiet nicker.
“Gawd, it's so good to see you. My mother drives me crazy. I'll tell you about it later.” I stepped in, dropping my bag. Celestia pulled me into a neckhug, and we stayed like that for a while. I stepped back at last, looking at her pretty face.
“Yellow goes well with your complexion.”
Celestia gave me a sheepish look. She wore the new & shiny brightly yellow halter, with a small black gizmo attached to it near her cheek and a kind of lever going to the corner of her mouth. The new toys arrived by mail before the weekend, and the controller for people with spinal cord injury was one of them.
...The weekend, which I’d had to spend away after my mother, trying to be macho and doing things one was not supposed to do at her age, injured herself, forcing me to take care of her basic necessities and tasks which she would have been perfectly capable of, had she not injured herself. And of course we got into an argument about her being irresponsible. At least I could count on Celestia being responsible and smart...
“Okay, okay. So what's up?”
The letters in a box in the corner of the screen of a brand new notebook soared rapidly, as she used her mouth to control the cursor with the device attached to the halter. “Me bad,” it said.
“What did you do now?” I sat by her. “Lost the fortune?”
She shook her head “no” and used the new gizmo on her head to pull up a browser window. She loaded up some page. “Wholesale market,” said the header. She flipped through some tabs and left a page for me to read.
It took me a while to comprehend what I was seeing.
So much for Celestia being responsible and smart.
“So you say I own... three and a half thousand tons of tungsten, nine hundred tons of cobalt, twelve tons of palladium, seventy-six tons of iridium and nineteen tons of... bananas?”
“Typo,” she wrote out. “Meant bana...” she forced the dashing letters to reverse direction, erasing the end of the word. “Barium.” she finished, driving the cursor cautiously.
“How much is it worth?”
She opened an extra column. It took me some time to count all the digits.
“So I'm a billionaire.” I rubbed the sweat off my head.
The letters flowed again. “Got excited. I didn't watch the totals while trading.”
She opened another page. 'Stock market'.
A list of corporation names. Again, she displayed the sum of current values. Over a billion and a half in stocks again.
“So much for staying low-profile,” I muttered.
“Sorry.”
At least she apologized instead of arguing with me. Let's be thankful for the small blessings.
"How did you do this? I understand that you didn't invent the methods of cracking the hashes of bitcoin, you just used techniques devised by pony mathematicians ages ago; that I didn't so much teach you mathematics, as just the Earth transcriptions of what is taught in every university in Equestria. But this isn’t something that can be described by a handful equations. How did you do this?"
"My special talent. Understanding societies; spotting relations, gaming the common vices of people. Sociology, psychology, observation and association skills; subtle influences. Princess' job."
"Let me guess. You missed it as much as cake and went on a little binge?"
Horses can't blush, but all of her other body language signs shouted about Celestia's embarrassment.
“Any plans about what to do with that money?”
“Hired help.”
She opened Thunderbird. There were at least forty new unread emails, but she scrolled the list and opened one of the emails she'd already read. Iustix. A local law firm, congregating several lawyer offices.
Dear sir, blah blah blah, following acquisition of our company, blah blah blah, looking forward to meeting you in person to finalize the transaction. Signed, blah blah blah.
“You bought a law firm,” I deadpanned.
She opened another email. Colt Security. A rather large security company, contractor to several largest businesses in the area. Convoys, bodyguards, corporate security etc.
Another one, Abacus, an accounting firm.
“You worried about taxes,” she wrote. “They are taking care of it all now. You will need to sign some papers though.”
"You couldn't have just subcontracted them? You had to buy them?"
"Safer. Tresher could bribe owners."
The doorbell rang.
I looked to Celestia with fear. She smiled sheepishly.
Trying to choke back my fears, I headed out, to the backyard gate.
Three people were waiting by the fence. A balding, thin guy in a gray suit, with a briefcase; a tall guy in his forties, grey hair, bushy mustache; and a tall lady with narrow glasses, about my age, 'blonde from a bottle', hair in a bun.
The man in the grey suit spoke first. “Can we see Mr. Ecker?”
“That would be me.”
He waited for me to unlock the gate. I stepped outside, locking the gate after me.
“May I see your ID? Sorry to sound distrustful, but you... don't really look the part.”
“And may I know who's asking?”
“Dawid Gutmann, Iustix. I'm the unofficial president of the company, officially presided by the owner, but he lets me handle just about everything for him.”
I pulled out my wallet from my pocket and showed my ID to him. He studied it for a few seconds, comparing it to notes on a phone he held. Apparently everything checked out, because he smiled, pocketed the phone and extended his hand to me. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ecker. May we enter?” He motioned towards the gate.
“Uh, no. It's... under renovation. The conditions...”
He didn't buy a word of it, but his smile expressed full understanding.
“Mr. Ecker?" the guy with grey hair spoke. "Jan Zabierski, Head of Operations, Colt Security, on behalf of my boss. Soon-to-be-former boss.”
I shook the extended hand.
“I took the liberty to deploy a discreet security detail in the area, if that's fine with you.”
I looked around. The street was almost empty, just some distant car moving, a group of teens walking. He chuckled. “Discreet, sir. You won't see them.”
“Thank you.” I nodded, then turned to the lady.
“Klaudia Mirek, Abacus, owner, founder and head accountant... for now. Your partner offered quite generous conditions, and I was rather pressed for money, so I agreed to sell it. Supposedly I'd still be running it, just answering to you, if that's okay with you.” She curtsied, wearing a fake smile.
“Nice to meet you.” I shook with her. "Of course, don't worry. We need the firms for their services, to manage and protect rather sizable assets we have obtained, so don't worry about generating profit from your customers. I'll be your primary customer, and I'll be paying more than enough for the services."
“Well." The lawyer looked around, rubbing his hands. A light drizzle was starting to pick up. "Do you have some alternate place in mind where we could conduct the business?”
I pondered for a while. “There's a small bar four blocks away. The room upstairs should be empty at this time of day. It's a pretty private place.”
“Will you follow me to the car, please?” He motioned me to a BMW parked across the street.
The accountant followed us, while the security guy headed to his own car, a Mercedes van.
The five minutes of travel, the silence interrupted only with me giving directions, ended soon enough, and we were climbing the wooden stairs in the small bar. Wide couches and armchairs around low tables were quite comfortable; I had drunk quite a few beers here, sketching things from memory. The security guy remained downstairs, chatting with the barman... or at least it looked like chatting, I guessed.
I sat in one of the armchairs, while the lawyer and the accountant occupied a sofa.
“First things first, let us finalize the trade.” The lawyer opened his briefcase and pulled some papers from the top. The purchase contract for his firm, as I read the headers. “The moment you sign this, I can start calling you 'boss'.”
I read the contract cautiously, but everything seemed to be pretty standard, brief and to the point. “I, uh...” I tapped my pocket.
“Here, take mine.” He handed me an elegant pen with golden tip.
The contract was already signed by the other party.
The security guy climbed the stairs and joined us.
“Excellent, we have our two witnesses to sign as well.”
I finished reading and signed, shaking my head a bit. That crazy horse.
Next followed contracts for the other two firms, then contracts with two banks about opening new accounts, more appropriate for handling billions of dollars than my puny free “Internet bank” personal account. The lady passed me a bunch of tax forms, then some papers for registering the firms with various departments and services, and after the thirtieth or so page I ceased paying attention to the papers, just signing away whatever I was given.
When I was finally through the mountain of paperwork, the lady picked up most of the papers, only leaving some copies for the lawyer to deliver to their respective entities, like the former owners of the other two firms. She packed them up and left, explaining herself that she was to hurry if she were to arrange everything with their respective offices before they closed for the day.
“Now...” the lawyer folded his hands together. “I received a notice from the mysterious associate of yours that you have a certain problem connected with some... peculiar action of questionable legality you have performed. He or she was very vague on details, but now that we are your employees, we're here to help. Jan here will take care of the practical side, and I will take care of the legal issues, but first we need to know what happened and what needs to be done.”
Damn you, Celestia, dumping things on me like that! I cursed under my breath. I pulled my phone out. “Allow me to contact my partner, please.”
“Of course.”
I opened the TorChat app in the phone and selected the connection to Celestia.
“What should I tell them I did?” I wrote.
“You stole a horse,” came the reply a couple seconds later.
“I stole a horse,” I said, putting my head in my hands. Now this was embarrassing.
The two looked at each other. Their gazes told it all: “Why couldn't it be something normal?”
“It's still at your place, right? In the basement flat?” the security guy asked.
I just nodded.
“Not a good place to keep a horse,” he muttered.
I just nodded, sighing.
“You may want to get another flat for your own needs. No offense, and I don't mind it the least bit, I worked with horses before I took this job, but... your scent kind of gives you away. And keeping that horse there is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“I’ve purchased a nice plot of land, with an unassuming house and a good stable and a pasture, a discreet location. The stable is being renovated now. The horse needs to be relocated soon.”
“Excuse me...” the lawyer interrupted. “The simplest, most sure-fire solution to the legal side would involve returning the horse to the owner.”
“Out of the question.”
“Okay, just mentioning it.”
“What kind of horse are we talking about?” the security guy asked. “A pony, a draft stallion?”
“An Arabian mare.”
“Estimate value?” the lawyer asked.
“Honestly... no clue. I know the range of values of Arabian horses, but I don't have a clue about her.” I paused for a while, thinking. “Wait... lower end, just a couple thousand. They were using her for recreational rides for kids. You don't put a million-dollar horse to that kind of work.”
“And you stole that horse?” the lawyer asked, his skepticism audible.
“She's...” I hesitated, “extremely valuable to me.”
“Who was the owner?”
“Tresher.” I gave the riding school name. The lawyer wrote it down.
“Is she well-behaved?” the security guy asked. “Loading into a trailer and such?”
“Very well-behaved.” I snorted a bit. “Except when she tries to be funny.”
“No need to tell me,” the mustached guy smiled. “I know horses have a quirky sense of humor.”
My mind wandered to Celestia. How many tons of bananas? Yes, quirky, definitely. She could have sold the bananas as soon as she purchased them, so of course keeping them was her kind of a joke.
“Alright,” the lawyer said. “I'll need to check on the progress of the police investigation, and so on, and so forth. I believe we can create several leverages which would prevent Mr. Tresher from pursuing the legal action and throw some wrenches into gears of the investigation as well. When I know the current image of the legal landscape, so to speak, we'll talk about a good, believable cover story. 'I stole a horse' is definitely not something you should say if the police ask. For now, let me just ask what kind of budget we can direct towards the operation."
I pondered. How could I put a price value on Celestia? "Priceless" would leave the lawyer clueless about how much I could afford. How much might that cost? Pessimistic variant?
"Ten million," I said. "And if that's not enough, contact me."
The lawyer whistled quietly. "That would be all I needed to know for now. You two arrange the moving operation.”
We shook hands, and the lawyer left.
Jan leaned into his armchair.
“So, you'll be moving out. I know a discreet moving company, we'll choose a rainy day, extend a tarp to protect the furniture from rain... the horse will need to be sedated.”
“That won't be necessary.”
“The horse will need to be sedated.”
“That won't be necessary. When I said she's very well-behaved, I meant it.”
“You're the boss, but if she bolts, we'll have a lot of trouble, and horses tend to panic at sight of tarp, with wind and rain...”
“She won't.”
“The flat will need to be sanitized if you plan to vacate it.”
“I plan to keep it. It will make a good server room. The network connectivity is excellent.”
“Still, it should be sanitized before you move the servers in.”
“Sure.”
“Is there anything in particular my boys should be watching for?”
“Uh... government or corporate agents or such? My partner has... caused a little storm in the stock market recently. Really big trades. Nothing illegal, mind you, but the scale...” I winced a little. “Well, I guess things spun a little out of control. Some megacorporations might be a bit upset.”
“A bit?”
“A bit. It's not like we have bankrupted anything important, but their quarterly reports may be half a percent below the expected curve.”
“Megacorps? Care to name some, so that I know the scale of what I'm dealing with?”
“Kyocera, Siemens, British Airlines, Nestle...” I recalled some names from the list.
“I'm afraid...” the guy paused, “...this is a bit over my head. If they decide to step in, all my expertise and the two hundred people Colt employs won't make a squat of a difference. Just what kind of trouble have I gotten myself into?”
“An adventure.”
* * *
My phone rang. I put the few knickknacks I held into a box and answered.
“Gutmann, Iustix. I've got good news and bad news.”
“Good news?”
“There is no investigation. No missing horse was reported to the police. They don't know anything, maybe some gossip, but they aren't looking, even unofficially. Legally, you're clean.”
“And the bad news?” I kept putting things in the box with the other hand.
“Tresher knows it was you, he knows your name, and he will know your address any minute now. And he has a van of thugs just waiting for that address. Better call Jan to send a few more men.”
“Thanks. How did he find out?”
“I don't know yet, but my guess is hay traders. A single small hay bale every two days, packed into a rucksack, that arouses questions. His men know all of the traders in the area. Then you were probably followed, and if you made any purchases with a debit card, he could get your name from his friends at the bank with just the time and place. They'd get your address too, but you didn't update your record when you moved. They probably lost you, but his man asked the people in the census and excise for your home address. Luckily you're not registered at your current address of residence, but you're bound to have left your address somewhere. IRS, the courts, your phone company, who knows? He's got a lot of contacts, and he's looking.”
“IRS. I’ve heard some horror stories about how they approach people who fail to register at their true place of residence, so I updated my records.”
“I can't help you, then. He put his aunt on a rather high seat there, and I have no way to stop her from giving him your data.”
“Well then, I'd better call Jan and finish packing. Hopefully he doesn't have the new address yet. Very few people know it. A driver from Echo Taxi may know; you might try to make sure they don't give it out.”
“Yes, I can take care of that. Good-bye, then.”
“Bye.” I pressed the red earphone button.
Celestia was putting books from my bookshelf into a box using her mouth. I found Jan's number and called him, while packing things with my free hand. He picked up after the third ring, and I reported the situation.
“I'll be there with the moving company in half an hour, but I'm sending a team to reinforce the two men at your place right now. They should be there in eight minutes,” was his reply.
Hurriedly, we continued to pack the last of what was still to be packed in the room. I picked up another box and moved to the bathroom, dropping soaps, shampoos, all that stuff into the box, without care for order. Towels went into a plastic bag, along with the floor mat.
I heard a whirr of metal being cut with an angle grinder. It came from the front gate side. Clangs. Multiple loud steps. Someone cursing at the front door, jerking at the handle. A loud crash, then another.
I ran out back into the room, looking frantically for anything that could work as a weapon. I noticed Celestia standing with her back to the vestibule door.
Another crash and scratching sounds as the flimsy front door gave in. Loud expletives expressing approval at the destructive skills.
The vestibule door was pulled open violently.
Two hooves swung into the newly opened doorway, producing a muffled thud. A crash, some curses, some laughter.
“I'll fucking kill that fucker!”
“No, you retard, boss wanted the horse alive.”
“Zdeb, you got that bull prod?”
Loud crackles of electricity sounded.
Then running steps approaching from the gate, more curses and sounds of fighting outside. Hits, shouts, dull thuds of kicks.
I ran around Celestia to my backpack and dug in its side pocket for my pepper spray.
“You wouldn't fucking dare. Put that toy away,” came from the outside. I stopped for a second, but then another voice answered. It wasn't about my 'toy'. “Try me.”
“You'll rot in the can for exceeding the limits of necessary defense.”
“And you'll be dead.”
“Guys, carry on and let the bozo keep waving his boomstick. Leave him alone and he won't dare to pull the trigger.”
I leaned into the doorway, reaching as far as I could, and pressed the cap. The spray hissed as I kept the cap depressed. There were loud curses, coughing. The loud electric crack of the bull prod. I saw its tip prodding into the vestibule — it was the long type, a long, thin rod with a split tip. I withdrew my hand as he tried to shock me; he leaned in to reach me, his eyes half-shut in the cloud of spray. I dropped the can and grabbed the prod by the long shaft. I pulled hard, yanking it out of his hands. He tried to grab it back, stepping into the vestibule, and got his face full of hooves, flying in a wide arc onto the driveway.
“Playtime's over. Get that gun off that fallen guy. Boss didn't say the horse is to be undamaged.”
“The moment you put hands on that gun, I'm pulling the trigger. I don't think the court will say I exceeded the limits of self-defense.”
“Hey, you!” I recognized the voice of Stargazer — my landlord — from the balcony above. “Get out of my property.”
“Or you what?... Oh fuck, is that a Steyr AUG?”
“Fuuuck, man, the cops are gonna love hearing this. An assault rifle in private hands. If he pulls the trigger, that will be ten years at least.”
Several popping sounds in rapid sequence sounded. “Ow, ow, ow, that fucking hurts! What the fuck?! Hey, stop it!”
“I'll keep shooting until you leave. I've got three hundred BBs in here, and another five thousand in the room.”
Eh, too bad my Kalashnikov had a broken gearbox from all those times Stargazer had tried to get me into airsoft long past.
Another series of cracks, and several thug voices cursing in sequence. They ran around the corner of the building, one hid on the stairs under the small roof of my entrance.
I turned the bull prod around and sneaked into the vestibule door. I reached around the corner quickly, pressing the trigger. I felt resistance of the tip pushing against a body. The electric crackles came out muffled.
“FUCK!” roared the thug, backing away from the reach of the bull prod. The AUG sung from above, and the thug, cursing loudly, crawled on all fours behind the corner.
I went back and looked through the closed drapes. I saw movement outside the window.
“Look, that's a window to his apartment.”
“Slab, did you take that Molotov?”
“On a skirmish? Are you fucking stupid? Someone hits it and I'm all soaked in gasoline.”
“Frank, go fetch the angle grinder. We'll cut the bars.”
“You go yourself.”
“The fuck?”
“You've got hair. You got any clue how much these things hurt on a bald head?”
“Fine... pussy.”
Steps running. Another burst from the AUG.
A moment of silence, then the sound of a lighter. Window opening. The cracks of BBs being launched at some six hundred FPS right onto heads of the thugs. Curses, steps running around the corner. “Not inside!”
For a second Celestia stood only on her front hooves as her hind legs swung in a graceful arc. A dull thud. Have you ever seen a smug horse? Imagine a smug horse. And now imagine it being twice as smug. That was Celestia at the moment.
Shuffling. The thugs were hiding under the roof above the stairs, crowded together. I peered through the door. That's three down... Five more to go?”
A smug voice from one of the thugs. “Don't you use that gun on me. Just passing by... What the f-”
Several thuds.
“Who's next?” I recognized the security guy's voice.
“Let's rush that guy and get that angle grinder.”
Something crunching. Voice of the security guy: “The one with the broken disc?”
“Asshole.”
I prepared to go into the vestibule with the bull prod again, but Celestia stepped in my way, blocking the doorway with her rump. She shook her head "no".
For a minute or so nothing happened, the thugs trying to form a plan.
Then I heard a car revving up. The screech of wheels. Car doors, sound of boots.
A new voice. “Pick up your buddies and get lost.”
“We can still get you five down.”
A hiss of spray and some loud curses. “I won't repeat myself.”
Squealing. “Fuck, that shit burns!”
“Military-grade mace. Who wants to be next?”
Yet another voice. “Or would you prefer to try a taser?”
“Fuck fucking fuck. Do what he says."
Shuffling, crunching of gravel, yelps of pain, curses vanishing into the distance. Celestia moved out of view.
I peered through the broken door.
“You okay in there?” A young face met me, the black uniform in impeccable order.
“Yeah, we've mounted a solid defense. Should I call an ambulance for that guy there?” I peered out, seeing one of the bodyguards crouching over a fallen colleague.
The one on the ground lifted his head. “I'll be fine, boss. Just broken legs. My partner will take me to the hospital.”
"Thanks for your help. You can count on a good bonus."
Others helped to carry the hurt bodyguard to the car, and soon I heard the sound of the engine vanishing in the distance.
I sat on the bed, wiping sweat off my face. I felt the prickly whiskers of Celestia's face on my cheek. I reached with my hand and leaned into her silky nose.
Then she turned her head to the door, perking her ears. The remains of the door creaked.
“Knock-knock?” Stargazer peeked in.
Well, shit.
