“Allow me to explain,” I said. “And feel free to jump in when I’m wrong.”
Raven’s face had gone two shades whiter than before. She desperately hung onto frozen blankness as her head creaked down in a nod.
“You don’t agree with Canterlot’s policy on changelings. You think it’s unjust and unfair, and want everyone else to see it as the same. But the legislation route isn’t going so swell. Turns out most ponies aren’t comfortable with shapeshifting love-eaters.”
“That’s an inaccurate and insulting stereotype perpetrated—”
“Spare me the speech, sister. I’ve heard it all before. No, you needed a new plan. A way to discredit the whole system. Hit it at its source. The spell.”
She stared at me, but didn’t say anything else. I continued.
“If the spell is wrong, that calls everything into question. In the middle of the scandal, maybe you can push a little harder, gain a little sympathy. Why do we need to criminalize changelings at all? What’s the harm, particularly if we can’t even tell who’s really a pony or not?”
“You’re just making wild accusations,” she said, frost in her voice.
“Not quite.” I spun the vial in my hoof. “See, it’s interesting that you’d have this. Sure, say it’s perfected. Having somepony able to swap skins is convenient. But why go to all the trouble of coming up with a drug? You’re one of the few shops in this city that could easily persuade a real changeling do your dirty work.”
“I assure you, all of our operations are fully legitimate.”
I ignored her. “No. You didn’t need this to get away with something. You needed it to get caught. That’s what’s so clever. This stuff messes with a pony’s genetic structure. Temporarily. And the spell works based off the presence of changeling DNA, biological triggers, that kind of thing. Paisley rigged the test so she’d lose.”
“And what would that accomplish?”
“She’d be caught as a changeling. Unquestionably. But once the juice had run its course, a second test would say the opposite. And what better way to publicly discredit the spell than to have a big arrest make the headlines, only to be followed by an equally high-profile retraction? That’s why she arranged for me to do the deed. So the initial test couldn’t be questioned.”
“You were never intended to be the one to arrest her.”
“In fact—” My ears caught up with my head and my monologue derailed. “What?”
“Paisley didn’t want to bring you in on it. Too honest, she said. Too sharp. We had a pony on the inside, setting the whole thing up. They should have handled it. But we got doublecrossed somewhere along the line.”
I hadn’t expected her to spill so easily, but I wasn’t going to argue “Who was your contact?”
She stared me down. “I don’t think that’s relevant. All you need to know is as good as the payoff was, apparently it didn’t stick. Now they’ve got Ms. Pastel under lock and key and are refusing a second test.”
Of course. “You wouldn’t like the result if they bothered to run it. That’s the thing with a pony with a price tag on their moral compass. There’ll always be someone out there willing to pay higher.”
“Maybe so. Ms. Pastel saw it coming, but it was too late at that point to change course.”
“So she passed me a hail mary in liquid format. In the hopes I’d follow through, work something out.” I paused, thinking. “So then, the recent busts: Silver Script, Jet Set, Blueblood. Paisley called them out as phony. Were those your doing as well?”
“No.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Honest. But they were the final push to get us to move. I don’t know what she told you, but things are getting bad. We’re running out of time here. Who knew if we wouldn’t be targeted for real next?”
“How do I know you’re not lying? How do I know this isn’t all a smokescreen for a real invasion, rehearsal night for another royal wedding?”
She barked out a bitter laugh. “You still think it’s changelings behind this? Really?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Let me ask you a question. In this city, all of Canterlot, how many changelings do you think there are hiding as ponies?”
I ran the math in my head. “Five hundred? A thousand? Most ponies would guess high but I think looking at it more reasonably—”
“Six.”
Her grin was tinged with sadness. But she spoke like the bitter pill was on her own tongue.
“PHAIR makes it their business to know about changelings in the city,” she said. “Even the ones that’d prefer otherwise. And go figure, it turns out that having the government openly hunting down your entire species puts a damper on the immigration prospects.”
“You’re covering for them,” I shot off, but the words didn’t have teeth.
“Most of them are here for family reasons. Not changeling family either. I know you don’t believe me, but a changeling can give love just as much as they receive it. And when your job and wife and kids demand you stay in a city that hates you, sometimes you have to take that risk.”
“Then what about the arrests? This last month alone we’ve had more ponies brought in than ever before.”
“More ponies, you say.”
“That’s an awfully strong accusation.”
“How many have you personally arrested?”
“One. Mare working as a cook in Government Administration.”
Her lip curled up in disgust. “Well, I guess my math was wrong after all. Down to five, now. Ms. Pastel did say you were good at your job.” She sighed. “We occasionally get those too. Young idealists who want to make a statement, accept the challenge, demand to live alongside ponies.”
My eyes skated to the side. For once, even having my collar confirmed didn’t make me feel much better. “You claim the rest are all faked?”
“Don’t you get it? This is why it has to stop. This isn’t a way to protect Equestria. The original invasion was an act of war, but you’ve demonized a whole species because of it. And now it’s moved far beyond that. The changelings don’t matter anymore. It’s control, plain and simple. A way to quietly undermine the guard, to cleanly consolidate power.”
“By who?”
“I don't know.”
“You've got this much figured out. I bet you can hazard a guess.”
“I don’t have any proof.” Her eyes darted to the side. “It's a dangerous thing, making wild accusations.”
“Then what is this, other than jawing about maybes?”
She looked contemplative for a moment, before leaning forward with a gleam in her eye. “You’ve heard about the new Chief they just appointed?” she said.
Rising Star. My lips curled back. “I know him, yes.”
“He’s in this up to his horn.”
“Maybe. If I’m buying what you’re selling.”
“You think he’s clean?”
“No,” I admitted. “And I’ve got my own reasons not to be his biggest fan.”
“If he’s a player in something big, something where he’s in any way disposable…”
I saw the end of that path. “Then he’ll be keeping insurance in case they try to land it all on him.”
“Precisely. We need the smoking horn. And he’s just the pony to give it to us.” She paused. “But it’s a long shot. How do we know he really has something incriminating? Where would he be keeping it?”
“DEqSec,” I said.
She slumped down, holding her head in her hooves. “We can’t trust anyone on the inside. And what kind of pony would be crazy enough to try and break in?”
I stood up. The vial slipped back into the safety of my pocket.
“A pony with nothing to lose,” I said.
She gave me a long, considering look. “Okay. I still have some connections in this town. If you can get me the info, some sort of solid proof as to who’s behind all this, I can get it to somepony high up enough to make a difference.”
“And how high is that?”
“Get me the proof,” she repeated. “Bring it back to the PHAIR offices. The Royals have cleared off by now, and the place is empty. I’ll be waiting.”
I nodded.
“Oh, and… good luck.” She shook her head. “You’re going to need it.”
With Red still presumably covering the front, I decided to duck out the back. Safest play.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had that idea. The big guy was lurking out in the shadows of the alleyway, and he didn’t look thrilled to see me.
“Leaving so soon?” he rumbled.
“Yeah. The adults are finished talking. Run along, now.”
His lip curled back. “Yeah? You think you’re a funny guy?”
“I’d love to hang around and tell knock-knock jokes, but I’ve got places to be. Maybe next time.”
I didn’t give him a second glance. I was already running through my plan for DEqSec as I brushed by.
“I think you forgot something.”
“Huh?” I said.
When I turned, I saw the hoof, and then I saw stars.
“That’s for Ms. Pastel,” I heard over the ringing in my ears. “And this is personal-like.” Another hoof crashed into my ribs and my legs gave out, leaving me in a heap in the alley.
I could taste copper. Must have bit my tongue. By the time the scenery had stopped spinning, the goon was already stepping away.
I couldn’t help myself. I spat red to clear my mouth.
“I still hit you harder.”
He looked back at me, but blew it off with a chuckle, heading back into the cafe.
I grunted as I struggled to my feet and began making my way out of the alley.
“Hey! Are you alright?” a voice called out.
I grunted an affirmative despite my the limp spaghetti of my legs. I swayed to one side, but felt a foreleg across my back and a hoof at my shoulder, steadying me.
It was then I realized two very important things.
First, the pony that was lending a hoof was that green earth pony from before. Raven’s ‘friend’, Weedy.
And second, he had just planted a tracker on me.
I’m not casting shade on his technique. It was a clean sleight, very professional. But translocational magic has always given me an itchy feeling. It’s a convenient allergy for a detective.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Couldn’t be better. Top of my—”
A cascade of sparks burst out of my horn with a series of rattling pops. Then a burst of smoke, acrid and smelling of burnt clove. My good samaritan coughed, waving away the cloud with a hoof.
“You sure?” he said, peering at my horn carefully. “Must have taken a pretty good blow to the head. Need me to call a doctor? Or the police?”
“Just fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I gave him a rough push and continued on.
My pyrotechnics had done their work. See, what most ponies don’t know, even most unicorns, is that it takes a serious break of the horn to disrupt unicorn magic. And even then, it’s more apt to fizzle than pop. But any action movie of the past decade would tell you otherwise. And it makes for an awfully convenient fiction.
No, the light show had been to cover me leaving him a gift of my own. A ring of deactivated magic, very top of the upper right foreleg. Even harder to discover than a permanent unicorn-made crystal tracker, but not as consistent. I’d need to remotely activate it in order to pin him down, and if he had any safeguards or friend sporting horns, the sign of the magic suddenly lighting up might tip my hoof. But it was another card up my sleeve.
He had something on Raven, but he also knew enough to consider me worth tagging. He was in this and deep, but the more players stepping into the light, the less clear their motives became.
I didn’t have time to chase wild leads so I filed the knowledge away. One more puzzle piece, but a middle one. I needed to find a corner.
When I risked a glance back, he had vanished as well. I took the long way through a few busy blocks, head on a swivel for anypony tailing me. Nothing. Weedy must have trusted in his tag, which all the better for me.
It took me a few tries, still dressed as I was in the gutter’s finest, but I finally flagged down a taxi. Catching a ride was a little more anonymous. A little more time to think. And an opportunity to pick through my mane to find the tracker. It was a little burr of crystal, infused with magic to allow its position to be monitored. I wedged it in a crevice in the back seat. Somepony was going to have a swell time tracking a cab back and forth across all of Canterlot.
“There’s a stop I need to make,” I called out. “Something I need to pick up.”
Don’t get me wrong. I was clean. Always had been. At least when it came to the hard stuff – alcohol was a necessary coping mechanism in my trade. Hardly counted.
But I had spent enough time in the seedy parts of town. I’d seen the junkies, wound up tight on cheap jake and lying dazed in the streets, dead to this plane of reality. I knew where to go, the right corners with the right ponies, but had to pay well for what I needed.
All in all, it’s no mean feat coming up with a clean needle in this town, and it was a sad joke, what the pusher had tried to throw in for free. But I knew where that particular alley led. I let him down softly, a final thought striking me as I counted out the bits. After some fast-talking I convinced him to part with the shades he was sporting.
When I returned to the cab, the driver didn’t spare me a second glance. Wasn’t the first time he’d taken this particular trip, and as long as he was getting paid he didn’t seem to care about my choice of vices. I directed him onward.
I couldn’t risk any of my usual hangouts, where my face was known. I settled for a coffeeshop, just across the street from DEqSec proper – one of those bland corporate fronts that saw a hundred ponies a day and could barely remember a drink order for the five minutes it took to brew. I had more important things on my mind than caffeine.
The bathroom was small, clean, and lockable from the inside. I didn’t know what the junk would do to my magic, so once I had the cord around my foreleg, I used my teeth to hold the needle. Fluorescent green shone as I extracted the Chrys from its vial, and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, focusing on the vein throbbing in my foreleg. Couldn’t afford to waste this, after all.
According to Tangled Weave, the worst it could do would be some temporary pain – if she wasn’t lying, if she wasn’t mistaken about the contents of the vial. I knew better than to trust her, but if she was trying to get rid of me, she had plenty of easier methods. I could deal with the risk.
It hurt more than I thought it would. Sort of a hot lead, burning through my bloodstream. I gritted my teeth against the pain, trying to concentrate, to see if anything else felt different. After a few uncomfortable moments of getting to feel my circulatory system, the sensation shifted into a fleeting, jittery euphoria. And then faded entirely, leaving me stone sober in the sterile bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror. Nothing had changed.
Well, I wouldn’t know until I had given it a try. I tentatively felt for my magic first, and was relieved to find the standard-issue glow and lift was as smooth as always.
It took me quite a bit longer to figure out the rest. I was about to pop a blood vessel straining in a generalized concentration when I stumbled upon it. It was a trigger of something, a mental construction, like flexing muscles that I had never felt before. That was it, green flames washed over me.
And I looked the same as always.
It took me a moment before I realized that it’d do better to have a pony in mind. The second time wasn’t bad, but with some doughiness of face and fuzziness of build, a standin for a pony that hadn’t been formed quite right at the factory. A few more attempts sharpened it up.
I cycled through forms, getting the hang of it. Hoping that doing so wasn’t running down my time limit faster. Finally, I halted, right where I wanted.
Rising Star looked back at me in the mirror. That hair, midway between carelessly tousled and impeccably styled. That triple-star cutie mark displayed in back. I slipped my recently acquired shades on, and affected a smirk that completed the picture.
“Showtime,” I said, the voice sounding strange to my ears.