Many scholars in recent times have warned about the oncoming rise of artificial beings whose powers and intelligences vastly outstrip those of pony-kind. The same said scholars frequently miss the fact that there are already several well known intelligences whose powers regularly make equinity look like scurrying cockroaches who’ve had the fridge moved from atop them.
The Royal Sisters are only one of the many altogether dangerous creatures lurking in Equestria’s history whose abilities leave the majority of equine kind in the dust, and most are far more malevolent than they. Still, the history of such beings is usually relatively unknown and the stories or myths that surround them frequently resolve themselves within very neat narrative structure, wherein a paragon of good prevails over the forces of evil.
All that being understood, there is a fear that is unique in the modern age of mass production and technological innovation; the fear of our own creations.
While nopony is particularly minded by the possibility of a psychopathic oven destroying the world by discovering the formula to turn all matter into bread products, much ink has been spilled on the topic of the allowable intelligence of Sentient Constructs and their kin. After all, nopony has yet been childish or foolish enough to make an artificial mind implanted with notions of world conquest, but one should never underestimate the childish or foolish; they are far too capable of ignoring an oncoming train in favor of saving their dropped toy ball. The Princesses have largely kept their generals on tight leashes where the use of Sentient Constructs for warfare purposes is concerned, knowing that any ‘ultimate weapon’ can ultimately be used against themselves.
That leaves civilian Sentient Constructs.
How many of us have been tempted by a broom that understands ‘sweep and don’t miss the corners’? What if some deranged fool were to say, fail to tell his broom to stop? What if that broom only responded to his commands and was thence compelled to sweep every corner it could find across the whole of the universe, until such time as it stumbled into a dimension where the beings did not take kindly to having all their corners swept and they decided to make eternal warfare on Equestria and all of her peoples?
So what then? Ban them until pony kind is a little more evolved?
Sadly, that isn’t a great solution. Since the childish and foolish already exist alongside the knowledge to create these beings, we must make certain that those we create are of a nature amenable to coexistence and who value our continued existence enough to put up with all our many foibles.
Thankfully, that means an activity at which ponykind has proven wholly proficient; we must make friends.
-The Scholar
What is a stallion meant to do in a circumstance when caught in a kiss by his boss’s daughter? Screaming and begging would seem apropo, but keep in mind that I’d worked for Iris Jade for many years. Mercy is not something anyone ever associated with the Chief, least of all myself.
Cerise looked down at my armor - which was letting out a really alarming noise - and took a step back. She wasn’t wearing anything and all that bare fur brushing along my body was awfully nice, but it was only a momentary distraction to my imminent demise.
Her horn lit up again and a bright green shield popped into existence between her mother and I just in time to catch a flying, ballistic paper-weight that exploded into tiny shards. Smiling, she pointed towards the door. Swift was already on her hooves, her bit between her teeth as she slowly backed away from Iris Jade.
“I would love to talk, Detective, if you don’t mind,” Cerise purred, her voice soft and a bit demure. “Unfortunately, I think my mom is gonna try to kill you now. Can we go someplace else?”
There was a thump against the shield that had now expanded to fill a huge section of the room. My armor was still humming, but the noise was considerably softer. I looked back at Cerise’s mother, who was standing on the other side in a swirling ball of pulsating light. Her horn was projecting a cutting blade of energy that made the shield ripple at the edges. Bits of the carpet around her hooves had ignited and I could smell smoke.
Rolling to my hooves, I touched my muzzle. I could still feel Cerise’s lips there. That’d been nice. Horrifying, but nice. She was almost as good a kisser as Scarlet.
‘Now there’s a thought that was going to haunt me for months.’
“Yeah, let’s,” I replied, fighting my brain around to some positive action. “Erm...where?”
Cerise’s shrugged, though it was a with a twinge of tension. A single drop of sweat rolled down her forehead and she wiped it away with the back of her fetlock. I could feel the heat rolling off of her horn in waves as her mother pounded on the shield.
“I’m good with anywhere that’s not here. I can shrink the shield to protect us. I was listening from the hallway,” she murmured, a hint of color in her cheeks. “You have another errand before you leave the city? Is it somewhere safe?”
“Safe is highly subjective around me, sweetheart, but I know a place. It won’t make your mother any less inclined to hunt me down, though.”
She tittered, then cringed as a blast of magic crackled off the shield. The window behind Jade shattered, all of the glass being sucked inward in a thousand tiny projectiles which pinged off the shield again and again at points all across it.
I couldn’t make out Jade’s expression through the luminous glow coming off of her, but I could imagine it well enough.
“Sir? What do we do?” Swift asked.
I considered this for all of two seconds before a large crack formed across Cerise’s shield. “Leg it?”
The shield snapped down into a bubble over Jade, locking her in place as the three of us bolted for the door.
----
Blessedly, when the magic started flying, nopony had stuck around to ask whether or not Jade wanted help grinding my bones into dust. The hallway outside the office was completely empty, every desk abandoned. As we pounded down the steps, I could hear a sound like rending stone coming from above us; the Chief had managed to bust out of her daughter’s shield spell.
While I’d never seen Jade teleport, I wasn’t about to put it past her that she might know how. Maybe I’d simply gotten lucky on previous occasions and she didn’t feel like it. Either way, my adrenaline was up and I didn’t feel like finding out, so the three of us booked it, side-by-side, for the exit.
Bursting out onto the floor in the throne room, I paused, swallowed, and tried to catch my breath. There were crowds of ponies huddled against the walls, all of them staring up at Jade’s office with a mix of terror and curiosity.
A few glanced at us, before looking back at the swirling maelstrom of wild magic crackling overhead. Towards the other end, several officers were calmly, professionally guiding people towards the emergency exits. I thought I heard one of them shout something like ‘The Chief’s at it again!’ and somepony asked, ‘You think she killed him?’
Telly was still asleep, face down on her desk. She hadn’t moved at all.
Cerise didn’t bother with the line of ponies filing out of the door, instead simply lifting them one at a time over our heads, then dropping them behind us as we ran.
“Sir...ah...whoo…what are...we..”
“Not now...kid!” I barked, as we hit the double doors. Then it was back out into the twilight. The air was thick with oncoming rain and the clouds overhead burbled with thunder.
A good-sized herd of officers and civilians was waiting in the courtyard out front of the building, milling about, muttering to one another. The whole ‘The Chief is exploding’ thing hadn’t been entirely uncommon even when I was on the force and most members of the Detrot P.D. had long since memorized the procedure; get out of the building, find a coffee shop, add bourbon to your cuppa, and wait patiently for the throne room to be rebuilt.
They all looked up as we burst from the front door of the Castle, but at the sight of Cerise’s blazing horn, most of them felt the better part of valor might be getting out of the way.
Taxi was waiting by the curb-side. Her eyes widened at the sight of the three of us and she jammed the engine in reverse, shouting something over her shoulder. Limerence threw open the back door of the cab. Mags stuck her head out for a half second before realizing that we weren’t stopping. She leapt back a moment before Cerise jumped into the front passenger seat, followed by Swift in through the back window. I dove in after her.
My flank still hanging half out of the window, I shouted, “Sweets! Drive!”
----
Maybe the order hadn’t come down to chase us quickly enough. Maybe the thought of chasing Cerise when she definitely didn’t want to be chased quelled their enthusiasm. Maybe it was just how hard the Night Trotter is to keep up with in top gear.
Whatever the reason, we were almost half a mile down the road before the sirens started and five miles gone before a hoard of pegasi rose above the edge of the buildings. None of them were shooting, but they were definitely trying to keep pace; failing, but they were giving it their best. We blew by a police checkpoint so fast they didn’t even have time to raise their guns before we were off around another corner.
“What did you do this time, Hardy?!” Taxi demanded, as I crawled into the back seat and pulled a belt on.
I pointed an accusatory hoof at Cerise, who was grinning like a mad-mare as she watched for our pursuers out the back window. “I didn’t do anything! She kissed me! In front of her mother!”
“Oh Luna’s mane! And that said ‘bring her with us’ in your mind?!”
“I didn’t have a choice! She was holding off Jade!”
“Sir, you remember how I said I wasn’t scared? I really need to pee now.”
“Hold it or piss out the window! We’re not stopping!”
----
I don’t think I breathed for a full four minutes after that as we sped away from the Castle. Our pursuit dropped off pretty suddenly as we hit the twenty block mark. I suppose not even the fury of Jade could convince the officers of Detrot Police Department to chase us into Biter territory.
At last, we couldn’t hear any sirens nor see any pegasi in the skies. I exhaled and let my shoulders slump, looking at Cerise. Far from contrite, she was still grinning as she hung her head out the window, letting the wind blow her ears back against her head like a cocker spaniel.
Taxi glanced sideways at her, then flicked on the radio and sat back, one hoof on the wheel and the other rubbing her eyes as soothing music filled the cab. Limerence, Mags, and Swift were all wedged against the far door of the back seat, shooting me glances, waiting for either instructions or an explanation for how we’d ended up with Chief Jade’s daughter riding shotgun.
I was sort of hoping for one of those myself.
“Erm...Cerise?” I began, then my brain stalled for a minute.
“Yes, Detective?” Her voice was sultry and her expression was pure mischief. Her mother was terrifying, but if her daughter was anything to go by, she’d probably been very pretty when she was younger.
I shut my eyes, furrowing my brow.
“Look, I already pulled you out of one life or death situation. What could possibly make you think this was a good idea?”
Cerise giggled, putting her hooves on the window so she could watch the passing buildings. “Detective, my mother owns this city...or at least, before the Darkening she did. Do you have any idea what it’s like trying to have a coltfriend or a marefriend with her looming over your shoulder? Or friends at all?”
“I would think that friends would be a lower priority than survival right now,” Limerence chimed in.
The Chief’s daughter looked at him and rolled her eyes. “You’re that Archivist pony that follows Hard Boiled around, aren’t you? Lemon or something. Mom mentioned you...and…” she hesitated, then blinked at him a few times. “I think I remember you from...from somewhere. Maybe the Temple. Didn’t you have a crossbow? Where’d it go?”
Lim swallowed sharply. “I fear I was...compromised...during the last half of that odious experience and don’t remember. My name, however, is Limerence.”
“Well, since I don’t think I can spell that, you’re just gonna be Mister Bookworm to me...and you see, Mister Bookworm, my last coltfriend caught fire after he tried to break up a fight between me and my Mom. I don’t even like fighting with her, but if I want to do anything...anything, she’s got to be ‘in control’.”
“That’s still not an answer,” I grunted.
“Oh come on!” Cerise huffed, giving me a little flick on the muzzle with her long, green tail. “Can you think of any pony in the whole city who is more out of my mother’s control than you, Detective? You saved my life when my mother couldn’t! She hates you! She respects you, too, but nopony ever made my mom as mad as you!” Her lips quirked in a tiny smile. “Except...well...except maybe me.”
“And that kiss?” I asked. Before I could do anything more than yelp, Cerise whipped around, tugged on the lever to recline the front seat and pinned me against the back with another kiss. Her lips were sweet, and, brief as it was, it was enough to send blood rushing to my cheeks. Taxi tapped the brakes, throwing her off balance such that she almost pitched into the hoof-well, breaking the fur-raising lip lock. I pulled away and wiped at my muzzle with the back of my fetlock. “Stop that! Sweet Celestia, you want me to die of a heart attack?! How old are you, anyway?!”
“Old enough to know a nice guy who could use a kiss,” she replied with a dirty wink, then went back to watching the windows. “I’m also old enough to make my own mistakes. Either way, pissing off mom was probably the only way I’d convince you to let me leave with you.”
I opened my muzzle to rebut, but Swift saved me by asking, “Miss Cerise...do you remember anything else about the Temple?”
She shook her head. “Not much. I remember the day Priestess Skylark came to visit me. She offered me a chance to participate in some kind of ritual of purification.”
“The Church of the Lunar Passage seemed like a bit of a drag,” Taxi observed. “How’d you end up with them?”
“I had some friends who were in the Church. I attended one meeting and… I finally had some ponies to talk to, you know? Ponies my mom wasn’t spying on. Things got kind of hazy after a couple of meetings, especially when they gave me a robe. Then...” She let her eyes slide shut and chewed on her lips. “I...I don’t really remember all that much. Flashes here and there. I remember lots of kneeling and praying to...to someone. I remember going into the Temple...and laying down...and I remember pain.” A haunted look crossed her face and she laid a hoof across her stomach. “Funny, right? When I woke up at the Prince’s place, I was...totally okay. It was weird.”
Taxi was looking at me in the rear view. Lim and Swift were both giving me pensive, side-long glances. Mags was just looking confused.
“Why you ponies look like she say she looking forward to seeing her eggs, but you all cooked them in an omelette?” my ward asked.
Ignoring her, I addressed the Chief’s daughter. “I...eh...Cerise. You don’t perchance remember anything about the fight, do you?”
She turned from the window to face me, sitting on her haunches. “I remember being more angry than I thought it was possible to be. Like my anger was...magic itself. I remember some things that’re like dreams. Nightmares. Ponies dying. Looking at my own intestines. Crazy stuff, you know?”
“Less crazy than you think,” Taxi muttered as she headed up onto the highway.
Cerise’s horn lit up and my badge lifted out of the front of my armor, hanging in front of me as she studied it. “I remember this...and I remember you. You have really kind eyes. I wasn’t angry anymore after I saw your eyes. Then there’s nothing until I woke up with Mister Precious offering me tea.”
“It’s just ‘Precious’ or ‘The Prince’. He’d be offended if you called him ‘Mister’,” I said offhandedly, still trying to get my head straight. “So, clarify this for me. You decided you’d jump me, just to get out of the Castle?”
Dropping my badge, Cerise turned in a circle like a cat before settling down with her hooves tucked under her chest. “Don’t get me wrong...I love my mother. I really do. I want to strangle her an awful lot, but I don’t know anypony in the city who hasn’t, at one point or another. If I’m going to die, I don’t want to do it huddled in that stupid fortress with my Mom hanging over my shoulder.”
“Well, you’re not going to die so long as I have anything to say about it, but you may not be a fan of where our next errand is taking us,” I said.
Cerise cocked her head to one side. “Well, short of taking me back to the Castle or the the Temple, I think I’ll be fine.”
“About that...”
Taxi was just then turning onto the long, empty stretch of road leading up towards Supermax. The buildings dropped away, leaving us with only the vast, magically contaminated stretches of empty dirt signifying the dumping grounds for the disused gem mines.
Cerise’s eyes were slowly getting wider and wider as she realized where we were headed.
“You can’t be serious!” she groaned, slumping over against the window. “What did I ever do to you?”
“What can I say? Should have asked before you dogged me into taking you along. This was our next stop,” I chuckled, putting my hooves behind my head and rocking back in my seat. “You’ll be happy to know the cult is no longer running the show out here, though. We’ve got most of them locked up, or at least we did the last time I was here.”
Cerise looked a bit skeptical. “Sooo...why are we going there? I mean, if it’s empty...”
“I never said it was empty,” I said. “I just said we’ve got the cult locked up. The ponies that own this place now are the kind of ponies you don’t want as enemies, but they make the very best of friends. You want a place your mother isn’t likely to find you? You picked the right car for that, at least.”
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “Alright, I guess I’m in for a bit, in for a pound here. So, where did you all come from? I mean, how did you end up coming into the Temple to rescue me? Mom never said and nopony really knows besides the four of you. For that matter, how did we all get out of the Temple? And...and I don’t remember the tiny griffin being there. Why do you have a griffin chick?”
I held up my hoof to forestall any more questions. “We’ve got a little drive ahead of us until we’re there. I suppose I can tell you some of it. You want a pillow? Just use Swift. She’s fluffy.”
“Not funny, Sir...”
----
Between the four of us, with Mags adding occasional insightful commentary, we managed to lay down the loose outline of how we’d found out Cerise was taken by the Church of the Lunar Passage, then our entrance and subsequent meeting with Tourniquet and Astral Skylark. It took a good twenty minutes before the blocky shadow of Supermax seemed to leap up out of the horizon.
“—and then we crawled out of the lagoon. Lim was still a bit spacy and you were out cold, but we got you out. Be glad you don’t remember that part. After that, we got the cab and took you to Precious. I think you know everything after that,” I finished, smacking my lips to work up some saliva. My throat was feeling pretty dry after that explanation.
Cerise had been silent the whole time, just listening. When she spoke, it was with much trepidation.
“You...um...you never said if I… I killed anypony when I had my power spike. I remember being mad enough to kill, Detective. I remember an awful lot of blood, too.”
Her pretty eyes bored into mine and the comfortable lie I’d concocted died on my tongue.
“You...saved us, Cerise,” I said, finally. “You probably also saved a whole building full of poor, innocent ponies who might have ended up with their horns cut off and their bodies used by those monsters.”
Cerise still looked uncertain, her ears flat against her head. I turned sideways in my seat, pulling my coat off of my cutie-mark. Her eyes flicked at the golden scales on my thigh.
“My talent is finding injustice. Those bastards paid into the Church coffers for the privilege of raping you, then watching Astral Skylark kill you.” I leaned close and rested my hoof on her foreleg. “Cerise...What you did to them didn’t make my talent so much as twitch.”
She exhaled, sliding across the seat and laying her head across my shoulder. “Thank you, Detective. I suppose that’s the best I can ask for. I’m glad I don’t remember...whatever it was...completely. Why are we going to Supermax, though?”
“Not ‘going’,” Taxi chimed in as we turned off the road. “We’re here. Stars preserve us all, I never thought I’d be happy to see this place.”
Cerise scrambled over to the window, looking out at the huge building. “Huh...it...it looks almost like a prison. Who’re those ponies on top of it?”
I felt myself grinning as Taxi pulled us into the parking lot. A dozen pegasi were circling the rooftop with many more sitting up there, holding an array of weapons, all of which were pointed at the car. A few clouds hung low over the prison and I could see more ponies peering over the tops of them, no doubt ready to fry us all alive at the first sign of danger.
“My dear, those...are the Aroyos!”
I threw open the door and stepped out into the parking lot of Supermax, pushing my hat off my head so the guards could see me, not that there are great herds of grey stallions in trench-coats wandering the world in crazy, lightning-spitting taxis.
Overhead, somepony shouted, ‘It’s Crusada!’ then a great cheer went up as a dozen pegasi plunged from the clouds. At their head, a purple mare with a side-mounted foal-carrier around her barrel swept down to land a few meters away, dancing forward in a cloud of dust.
“Wisteria!” I shouted as she threw her legs around my neck. I patted her on the back as she pounded on my shoulder with one hoof. Funny thing, seeing a friend who isn’t trying to kill you. It is a great palliative for the soul.
The head of the Aroyos had a big smile pasted across her face as she stepped back to get a good look at me. “Crusada! We bein’ afraid ye be dead, yet de Ancestors be sayin’ ye still stand!”
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t consider death. You look fantastic, by the way. A few pounds lighter, too!” I chuckled as my companions got out of the car.
“Aye, a few,” she replied, smiling and turning sideways. Tucked into her foal-carrier, a tiny filly with big, round eyes stared up at me with a serious expression on her face as she sucked on her hoof. She was lavender or violet like her mother, with the sweetest face I ever did see and an adorable button nose. “Dis here be ‘Gumbo’. She be waitin’ to meet ye, Crusada!”
Reaching out, I took the little filly’s free hoof and gave it a gentle shake. “Hello, Gumbo. You be nice to your mom, you hear? She’s a hard working mare.” Gumbo let out a giggle and gave me a smile that would have melted solid stone. “Child of the Darkening, then?” I asked.
Wisteria looked off towards the eclipse. “Aye, she be born in a world that be wid’out de sun, three days gone. I be wonderin’ iffen ye be knowin’ any’ting about dat?”
“More than I’d like to, actually.” Before she could start asking questions, I quickly changed the subject. “How are the Aroyos settling in to your new accommodations?”
Wisteria glanced at Supermax, her tail flicking around to drive off a buzzing insect from her hip. “We be settlin’ in right sweetly, Crusada. De Skids be...well, dey be not de place to be lately. De Cyclones be eatin’ up territories. Jeweler stompas gone, but some Cyclones be lookin’ to us. We go underground, down deep, and come here. De Puppet Lady give us a home.”
I parsed that and asked, “You mean Tourniquet? And...if you’re all here, what about ‘the Ancestors’? Are they here, too?”
She slowly shook her head, tapping on the juju bag hanging from her neck. “No...I be arguin’, but dey be stayin’ back, keep de home ground safe. Still, dey gives us gifts!” Tilting her head, she whistled and one of the pegasi behind her trotted forward. He had a weapon strapped across his barrel that was as big as Mags.
Swift, who’d just climbed out of the car, eyed it with a certain amount of avarice. “Where did you get that? Is that a...a chain gun? Oooh, can I touch it?”
The big stallion looked at Wisteria for permission. She nodded and he turned sideways, offering the gun to Swift who eagerly rushed forward. She peered down the sights and ejected the belt-fed ammo clip so she could inspect the bullets. After a moment, a tiny frown appeared on her face and turned to me. “Sir, this...this gun is freshly machined. There’s still flecks of metal in the welds. Somepony built this and it hasn’t been oiled more than once. This is recent construction.”
Wisteria nodded, lifting her foal-carrier a little to reveal her own weapon in a holster underneath. It was a beautifully engineered pistol. I couldn’t place the model or make, but it seemed brand new. “Heh, dat be right! De Ancestors be not willin’ to give dey weapons till de sky go dark.”
I was about to ask about that when I felt tiny claws on my shoulders as Mags swung herself up onto my back, then peeked over my shoulder. “Har’dy...be that pony chick?” she asked, blinking owlishly at Gumbo.
Reaching up, I ruffled my ward’s head-feathers. “Yeah, that’s a filly. You never seen one before?”
She shook her head. “Daddy and I be mostly staying with the eggs. Sometimes foals my age. Never see pony so tiny...”
“Ye be catchin’ ye own little’un, Crusada?” Wisteria asked. “She be right cute!”
“Yeah, she’s cute until you have to watch her eat,” I muttered, and Mags batted me on the hip with one of her wings. “Look, we came down to see Tourniquet. Well, I imagine Swift came down to see Tourniquet. For me, I need to see Queenie.”
Limerence and Taxi had joined us, my driver and partner at my sides with the Archivist bringing up the rear. Cerese was hanging back, shuffling her hooves in the dirt. She kept casting nervous glances at the great doors of Supermax.
My partner tugged her combat vest open an inch or so. The crescent moon on her chest was glowing a soft red. “Sir, Tourniquet is expecting us! She wants to know if we...um...if we want food.”
I gave her a perplexed look. “How do you know that?”
Swift shook her head, scratching at the mark. “I have no idea, Sir. When we got close, I just started to feel a little funny and then I knew what Tourniquet wanted. She’s...uh...she’s listening to everything we say right now.”
Tilting my head back, I looked up at the prison. “Outside?”
Hiking up her foal carrier and chucking little Gumbo under the chin, Wisteria trotted back towards the main gates of Supermax. Her gang-members backed off, most of them taking to the air again to return to their posts. “Bring ye friends, Crusada! Ye be tellin’ me about how ye be findin’ yeself wid baby chick and dis’ new mare, eh? Mebe wid some drink! T’ings be changed a bit since last ye was in de Hole.”
----
I had to go back and herd Cerese towards the building, but once she was moving she made a show of marching forward confidently with her nose in the air. She only hesitated a moment at the tall, open doors of the antechamber before swallowing and plunging in.
The normally sterile interior of the air-lock had a mural across two walls depicting ponies underground, sitting under a darkened sun. Somepony with an awfully talented brush had done some beautiful work. Aside that, a row of lockers had been installed.
Inside the giant air-lock, I set Mags down and shrugged out of my coat, hat, and the anti-magic armor, hanging them on one of the pegs that’d been reserved for the haz-mat suits; they were gone and I figured somepony had probably nipped off to make a bong out of them or something. Still, it was so nice to feel safe, for once. The entire run from the Vivarium to Supermax was waiting for somepony with a gun to get dumb enough to take my head off.
Swift was practically dancing in place as she wiggled out of her combat vest and gun, sighing happily at the feeling of the recycled air on her bare pelt.
“You okay, kid?” I asked.
“I cannot tell you what this feels like, Sir! I feel like...like I just slipped back into my own skin. I feel so...so...alive!” Her ears were twitching back and forth as she looked up at the sky, then down at the floor. “I can see stuff, too. Like...like when I’m using the Hailstorm, except it’s not all visual! There’s somepony upstairs having breakfast, there’s a ping-pong game going on, and there’s two ponies in the laundry...oh!—” Swift’s cheeks turned bright red and she put a hoof over her muzzle.
“Oh...what?”
“Nothing, Sir! Very much nothing!” she squeaked, trotting in a little circle, then sitting down and covering her eyes with her wings. “I saw nothing!”
“Riiight…”
Limerence appeared at my side and murmured, “Detective, this place is positively humming with arcane energy.”
I jerked my chin to indicate the horn on his forehead. “I thought you were cooked?”
“I can still sense magic, Detective, and we are in a cauldron of it.”
Wisteria was discussing something with ‘the Ancestors’ through her juju bag while a couple of her guards removed their weapons, stowing them in the lockers beside the door.
Cerise was still standing just on the other side of the doors of the antechamber. I couldn’t place her expression. A bit of fear and maybe a bit of anticipation, but something else as well. Her eyes were shut and she was taking deep, swelling breaths through her mouth, then pushing them out through her nose.
“Give me a minute,” I murmured and Limerence nodded.
I strolled over to Cerise, trying to move slowly so as not to startle her.
“You alright there?” I asked.
She finished another deep breath, then opened one eye, as though seeing if the room was still there. “I...think so. I don’t know. It almost feels like I imagined everything, or saw it in a dream. My magic is as strong as my mom’s...but they had me helpless. Mom taught me combat magic when I was six or seven, and these ponies had me kneeling and praying like a whipped dog!” Her horn lit up and she lifted a beer can that’d been left beside a trash can in the corner, levitating it up in front of her. She stared at it for a moment, then it began to spin.
“They had an awful lot of the city fooled, sweetheart. Not your fault. Powerful magic or not, the spells they were using...well, let's just say what happened to you wasn’t the worst thing those pricks did.”
“I know all of that,” she growled. The aluminum can was quickly beginning to turn red, glowing with internal heat. “It doesn’t make me feel any less stupid for being a desperate, lonely little bitch who let herself be taken in just because the Church had a shoulder for me to cry on.”
With a wet pop, the aluminum can burst into liquid drops of molten metal. She caught them in a green shield bubble before they could spatter in all directions. The superheated metal settled in a puddle at the bottom, quickly cooling enough that when she released the shield and caught the resulting disk, she could study her own reflection in it. It was one heck of a scary display of magic for somepony so young; I was starting to think better of taking off my armor.
“You’re alive now. You learned your lesson, right? You can leave if you like. Go sit in the car, listen to the radio, and so on. I will promise that if you do, though...this place will haunt you till the day you die,” I said, tapping her foreleg for emphasis. “Bet on it.”
Cerise gave me a look of surprise. “Huh. Most people just tell you that you should be gentle on yourself. Crawl away from the thing that scares you and all that other crap.”
“Yeah, well, I did that. I crawled right down into a bottle after the stallion I loved most was murdered in front of me. I can’t recommend it.”
Her nose wrinkled and that naughty smile reappeared. “You’ll keep me safe, then, Detective?”
“You’re not safe around me,” I said, firmly. “Just keep that in mind. You wanted a place to crash, though, and these Aroyos owe me favors—in the plural. I’d keep your identity to yourself while you’re here, if I were you. I’m not saying you have to, but...I would. ”
“I’d do that anyway. I don’t like being ‘daughter of the Chief of Police’. I hate it,” she muttered, lowering her ears.
I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to find Wisteria standing there holding her juju bag. “I be sorry for de wait, Detective. De Ancestors...dey be sometimes obstinate!” She snarled that last word at the little pouch, then shook her lavender mane and turned back to me, a slightly fake smile in place. “Ahem...de Ancestors be sayin’ ye be going to Canterlot. I and I be tellin’ dem ye be smarter d’an dat, but—”
“No, he’s really that stupid,” Taxi chimed in, trotting over and throwing her leg across my shoulders. I sagged a little, giving her a sharp glare.
Wisteria’s muzzle fell open. “Ye be not…”
I chewed at my tongue for a second before replying. “The method we’ve got of getting out of the city only goes between here and Canterlot. It’s also incredibly unpleasant.”
“Gah...and here, I and I be tryin’ to make ye not sound crezy,” Wisteria groaned, trotting to the inner doors of the antechamber. “Dey be sayin’ ye must be goin’ today, and see dem when ye gets back, or ye be dyin’ quick.”
“Goodie. Yeah, I figured there would be an ultimatum, eventually.”
Wisteria shook her head. “Dat be prophecy, Crusada. Dey be rarely wrong about such t’ings.”
“I was hoping to at least get some lunch before somebody started looking for my death in the tea leaves,” I grumbled.
Limerence, who’d been silently studying the mural stretching around the room for the last several minutes, piped up. “Detective, I’ve been foretelling your death at breakfast for the last month. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that you are extraordinarily difficult to predict.”
Holding out a leg for Mags to climb up, I settled her with her claws hanging on to my gun harness. “Lets hope that keeps me in good stead with whatever is coming when we try to get out of the city.”
I noticed Swift was almost dancing in place. “Sir! Tourniquet is ready for us!”
The giant security doors began to open, letting out a blast of warm air. It smelled powerfully of Zapp, rich incense, perfume, and a dozen other scents that combined to fill me with a sense of strange relaxation.
Danger has always been in the obsessively clean, the foul, or the superficial, but a place where ponies live side by side for long enough to worry about scent and comfort is almost always safe. I breathed it in and it was the smells of civilization happening.
In the giant entry-hall which had once been sterility and asceticism, there was now light and color. A heavy dance beat was coming from somewhere far off, just loud enough to make the floor vibrate a little under my hooves. Woven tapestries, clothes lines, and drying sheets dangled between the railings on the upper floors, lending the space a carnival air. Overhead, the glaring white neon lights had been replaced with all manner of other color, from jungle green to ocean blue; they provided a shifting kaleidoscope that made the whole building feel like a living jungle.
Anywhere there was an inch of exposed concrete, somepony had painted or drawn or graffitied over it. Many of the security doors had been removed, replaced by curtains or bits of fabric and everywhere, ponies walked, danced, and talked to their neighbors.
I noticed Taxi beside me, staring, open muzzled, at the little community that’d sprung up in the old prison. As I watched as a pair of friends flew up from the nearest balcony and met in mid-air for a quick hug before darting back to their own cells, disappearing inside.
“Your kind of place, Sweets?” I chuckled.
“Yes…” she replied, a little breathily. “Oh, Hardy can I please retire here when this is all over? They’re going to put us in prison anyway…”
Wisteria laughed and gave me a light tap on the flank with her wing. “Ye be likin’ what we doin’ wid de place, eh?” She pointed up at a spot on the wall far above where somepony had painted the words ‘Everfree’ in stark black letters. “De Puppet Lady bring us safety. She be askin’ only dat she be not lonely.”
I flicked my eyes at Swift. “Yeah, speaking of Tourniquet—”
“I’m here, Detective!” a voice said, right inside my ear. “Thank you for bringing Swift back!”
One half of my legs decided on ‘flight’ and the other half on ‘fight’, which led to me trying to buck and dash off at the same time. I bounced straight up six inches, then came down on my stomach with a loud ‘Oof!’ as all the air in my lungs rushed out.
Mags, who’d been quietly clinging to my back, screeched and took to the air. She coasted in a circle before landing in front of me. “Be careful, Egg pony!” she snapped, then swatted at my nose with her tail.
Swift covered her muzzle with her hoof, holding back giggles while Lim and Taxi just looked confused.
“Ah, yes...de Hole does come wid de pooka,” Wisteria said, grinning as she helped me up.
“What’s a pooka?” Swift asked.
“It’s a kind of mythological shapeshifting horse that likes to play pranks,” Limerence murmured, unconsciously rubbing the pocket he kept his watch in.
“That’s right, Mister Limerence! I am the ghost of Supermax, after all!” Tourniquet’s voice chirped from a point a couple of meters in front of us.
Cerise - who’d been closest to the spot - let out a yelp and sat down hard, while Mags squawked and took off, flapping a few feet up in the air as she tried to look in all directions at once.
“What is that?! Where’s it coming from?!” Cerise demanded.
“That....uh...hmmm. That’s Tourniquet,” I said, trying to think of some decent way to explain Tourniquet. “She’s mostly harmless.”
“I...I think I heard her voice before,” Cerise muttered, blinking a few times as she searched for the source of the disembodied voice. “She was whispering to me...”
“That’s right, Miss Cerise! I’m so glad you’re okay,” Tourniquet replied, cheerily. “Mister Hard Boiled nearly died like, twenty times while he was getting you out!”
Cerise’s horn lit up and she swung it back and forth, wildly. “Why can’t I see you?! It sounds like you’re talking inside my head!”
“You’re talking to the prison. That’s Supermax,” Swift put in, proudly showing off the glowing crescent scar on her chest. “I’m the Warden here!”
“Aaand that’s a story we’ll have time for later,” I said, firmly, “Kid, you mind leading the way? This place is still a maze to me...”
----
Out of all the public spectacles I’d managed to make of myself over the past day and a half, Supermax was maybe the least unpleasant. As we trotted down the lively halls, the most we got was a lot of eyeballs following us and plenty of paused conversations. At one point, a young colt rushed out of an adjoining cell and dashed up to me, pushing something against my chest before his mother rushed him away.
I looked down at what he’d given me. It was a crudely drawn picture of myself, riding a rough approximation of a cerberus. Pretty good likeness, too, although I seemed to have only three legs.
“Huh...not bad, kid,” I called out, then moved on, leaving him blushing and hiding his face behind his mother’s legs. Redirecting my attention to Wisteria, I asked, “I’ve been hating celebrity status for two days, waiting for someone to take a shot at me. Did everybody somehow miss the wanted posters with my face all of them? This is the quietest reception I’ve gotten all week.”
“That’s my doing, Detective. Warden Swift was feeling tired and hungry, so I asked everypony to leave you alone,” Tourniquet explained, projecting her voice to a point just above and in front of us.
My partner’s eyes lit up and she smiles. “Oh! Thanks! There’s going to be food?”
“Yep! I’ve already asked one of the cooks to bring it to my chamber!”
“Cooks, huh?” I asked. “How’ve you gone about getting cooks? The Skids were one of the poorest sectors of the city last time I checked.”
Wisteria looked amused. “Poor? Aye. Dark be de skies, but de times be good. De Aroyos be never so free...nor so safe! We bring de Skids here. All dem abandoned homes o’ dem rich stompas left wid’ no-one...but dey leaves dey food! Dey leaves dey basements...dey leaves dey sewers and dey warehouses unguarded!”
I scratched my dark mane, then gradually began to understand the shape of what we’d walked into. “You’ve been looting everything from the abandoned parts of the city...”
“It be de Puppet Lady’s idea,” Wisteria coughed, having the good grace to look a tad guilty. “We connects de Hole to de city power grid...and now she be seeing many ‘tings’. De Ancestors gives us dey weapons, de Puppet Lady gives us food and supplies. We rescues any we can; de sick, lost, or dying...and de Aroyos grow!”
Shifting my weight from hoof to hoof, I considered the situation. The Detrot Police department had always taken a dim view of looters, but then, it wasn’t the same world it’d been a couple weeks ago. The Aroyos had proven to be one of the friendlier groups I’d found myself cozying up to. Crazy, but friendly. It wasn’t as though anyone else was using those supplies, most likely. Knocking over a warehouse takes a large crew, too.
“You say the Ancestors gave you those weapons I saw upstairs?” Taxi asked, reaching out and lightly touching Wisteria’s holster. Gumbo giggled and reached for her braid, which my driver let her tug on for a moment. “They’re...freshly constructed, though.”
“Only de finest! Dey be protectin’ de home front so when dis be all over we can all return to de Skids...”
“Return?” Limerence sniffed, straightening his vest. “That is certainly a more optimistic viewpoint than some of us have chosen to adopt. I must ask, how did you tap the city power supply? Are you responsible for the utilities continuing to operate even in these dire times?”
Wisteria pointed towards a full length tapestry that partly concealed a doorway on one side of the hall. “We...be havin’ a hoof in dat. De Puppet Lady explain more. I must be going to handle de patrols! Ye know de way?”
Swift nodded and Wisteria took wing, coasting along with little Gumbo giggling up a storm.
There was a tug on my mane and I tilted my head back towards Mags to indicate she had my attention.
“Har’dy...I be hearin’ kids somewhere!”
Cocking an ear, I could indeed hear giggling children someplace. “Yeah, go have fun. When that voice you heard a minute ago tells you we’re going, you best listen, though.”
She nodded so vigorously that she almost tipped off my shoulders. “I be promisin’!”
As my ward darted off down the hall, my friends and I set off towards Tourniquet’s room.
----
Down another stairwell we entered the lower levels of Supermax. Most of the walls below were also covered in graffiti or paintings, but there seemed to be fewer ponies. I could pick out sections of bare concrete here and there. A few of the cells were unoccupied, but most seemed to have somepony living in them. One had a crib with a mother gently rocking her foal to sleep, while another contained two colts who were apparently arguing over a game of chess. Both were too absorbed in what they were doing to even notice us passing by.
One entire hallway seemed dedicated to the former members of the Church who had gathered together for mutual comfort. None of them seemed to be home just then, or those who were had their cell doors shut.
Tourniquet informed us they were integrating well with the Aroyos, though there had been a few problems early on. Geranium—the cult of Nightmare Moon’s grumpy lawyer—had apparently started helping with the process once she realized she wasn’t going to be able to get alcohol or ice-cream if she didn’t start doing something productive.
That did leave the cult themselves, tucked away in the Secure Containment wing.
“I couldn’t let them go all wandering around! You should hear some of the weird stuff they kept saying to each other in their cells! Some of those ponies were even proud of breaking the law!” Tourniquet complained as we strolled through the final hallway before her door. It was decorated on both sides with a long painting of the sea.
“They were proud of the Cult’s activities?” Taxi asked, raising one eyebrow.
“No, but most of them had no idea there were actual murders going on. They talk about ‘banking deals’ and ‘real estate’ and all kinds of awful stuff they did with money when they think I’m not listening. Some of them talk in their sleep, too. They talk about cheating on their husbands, or killing rich family members for their money, or stealing from the places they worked. Most of these ponies are the kind Mom wouldn’t have let see the sun for a million years, if she had her way.”
“Um...if...if you don’t mind me asking,” Cerise started, hesitantly addressing the ceiling. “How did everypony take the eclipse? The cult...you say they were rich ponies? That must have almost driven them crazy.”
“They mostly didn’t believe me, but I showed them a film reel,” Tourniquet answered, “Then they screamed and cried and ran in circles a lot, then settled down and started demanding alcoholic beverages or narcotics. That’s really what they usually do when I do anything at all. I changed their dinners two days ago to include asparagus, cuz the Aroyos found some in a big freezer warehouse, and they started howling that I was torturing them.”
“Heehee! Oh, that’s great! You should totally add some brussel sprouts!” Swift giggled, clapping her hooves together. “Sooo, did you decide what to do with them?”
Tourniquet’s robotic voice sighed, which sounded like a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner.
“I let them out to interact with each other, because the manuals I had Geranium bring me said ponies rehabilitate best with socialization, but...I dunno. They’re really bad ponies. The Aroyos were all for super-gluing lingerie to the stallions and shaving the mares, then leaving them to the police...but that’s against my protocols. Whatever we do with them though is really up to you, Warden Swift.”
I’m not sure what reaction Tourniquet had expected out of my partner, but it was probably not the one she got. Swift stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes bugging out of her head as the weight of actual responsibility dropped onto her shoulders like a ton of bricks.
“Oog...you had to remind me,” she muttered, then set off again at a more subdued pace. We’d just reached the hallway off of which Tourniquet’s chamber was hidden. “I guess keep them fed and we turn them over to the Princesses when we can.”
Limerence let out a faint whistle, then pulled his glasses off and began cleaning the lense on the corner of his vest. “The number of assumptions that sentence makes is frightening, ‘Warden Swift’.”
Swift rounded on him. “What other choices have we got? I’m not turning them loose and I’m not going to just murder them!”
“Oh, you have many choices. More than you realize, I believe,” Limerence replied, counting off by tapping different spots on the edge of his hoof. “You could strip their will to act in an evil fashion using Tourniquet’s magics. You could mark them with their crimes—a large, obvious tattoo perhaps—then turn them loose and let the city deal with them. Most will make their way to a place of protection, like the Detrot Police Department, where they will be easily re-acquired once we have finished our other tasks. You could ransom them. I am sure some of them are valuable to someone in these times. I’m sure there are plenty of other options of course, none of which will allow those beastly characters to get far from the long leg of the law.”
I pushed my hat back and scratched my head. “You know, Lim, I could sometimes forget your father wasn’t just a librarian and part-time antiques dealer. It was usually right up until he said crap like that.”
“I will take that as a compliment, Detective,” Limerence replied. “Still, the point remains. Moral qualms aside, these are not ponies who deserve mercy, nor would they give us any if they were freed. They would use their resources to hunt us down and most likely see us killed to protect their secrets.”
Cerise—who’d been silent the last few minutes, quietly trudging along, keeping her eyes on her hooves—piped up, “I...I know I’ve only been around a little while and I don’t really know what all happened here, but don’t you think we should be interrogating these ponies? Mom talked about some sort of ‘order’ that went out for the rich to head into Uptown. Maybe they know something about that.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” I said, tapping my chin, then raised my voice. “Tourniquet? There’s a fat guy, kinda loud, kinda stupid, but has a strong self-preservation instinct. He was bossing the other cult members around the last time we were here, keeping them in line. I think I threatened to shoot him. I can’t remember much what he looked like—”
“I actually know exactly who you mean, Detective. Short Sell is his name. If I ever got headaches, I’m pretty sure he’d have given me one. Once he figured out nopony was just going to kill him, he started making demands and hasn’t really stopped. I was tempted to feed him to the daevas, but...you know...protocols. Would you like me to bring him up from Secure Containment? The Warden must authorize prisoner interviews with individuals not considered members of the guard.”
I tilted my head towards my partner.
“Authorization granted, Sir!” she chirped, then hesitated for a moment before asking, “So...wait, I have guards now?”
“Yep! The Aroyos! I’m under emergency protocols, which means I’m allowed to authorize and deputize new guards for you!”
“Whew, boy...this is just too weird,” Cerise muttered.
“You’re one to talk…” Tourniquet said, a little petulantly. “I know who you are, by the way. I monitor outside feeds as much as I can. Isn’t your mom going to be crazy angry with you for running off with Detective Hard Boiled?”
The familiar ground of parental irritation seemed to set Cerise a bit at ease.
“What’s she gonna do? Shoot me?” she asked.
“Considering the way her officers talk about her, I don’t consider that an entirely unlikely scenario,” the construct replied. “Ah! You’re here!”
We were indeed, standing just outside the door to ‘Arcane Control’. I’d lost track of the back and forth turns we’d taken while listening to the conversation, but that’s part of why Taxi drives and I ride. Somepony had painted the words ‘Jambalaya’s Love Shack’ across the sign in little green letters.
The door’s hydraulics hissed and swung open.
I put on my best ‘happy-to-see-you’ smile just as a giant muzzle tried to jam itself through, teeth snapping shut barely an inch from my nose.