//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 22 : Detrot Confidential // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// The Techno-Arcane Eventuality is a point of heated debate for many scholars of both philosophy and science, though very few ponies outside of academic circles have even heard of it and even fewer can comprehend the implications or possible consequences. That is strange for something that is has the potential to affect the lives of every living being in all of Equestria. The Eventuality is, at present, little more than a theory, but it is one that is well supported by things most ponies see every day. It states that, at some point in the near future, we’ll have reached a place where the development of our magic and technology will merge to begin creating new life-forms which could potentially surpass us to become the new dominant life-forms on our world. Whether equine kind survives will be defined by just how friendly those life-forms turn out to be. One might say the ‘Eventuality’ has already happened with the development of Sentient Constructs, or ‘Essies’ to use the layman’s terms, but there has yet to be a construct whose power has grown beyond the ability of ponykind to control. That said, the time will come when we will begin to improve ourselves with both technology and magic. Arcano-tech wings for pegasi, amplified horns for unicorns, and strength boosting exoskeletons for earth ponies are already in the works in several private sector companies, but those are some years from general use. Once we’ve started replacing bits of ourselves and creating new life, can we really still call ourselves ponies? Or will we be treading the territory of Gods? If this is one of our possible destinies, should we embrace it or flee in terror of what we might become? - The Scholar Supermax grew out of the fog like a lighthouse on a stormy night, lit by spotlights which probably dated back to the days of Saussurea’s stewardship. Being illuminated didn’t make the starkly designed cuboid look any more attractive, but it sold the intimidation factor quite well. A few pegasi and griffons were coasting around overhead, but they only seemed to be paying attention to us as a curiosity rather than a threat. One patrolling pegasus wearing a Nightmare Night skull mask buzzed low over the vehicle, floating along beside us just long enough to give me a quick wave. The Aroyos had begun to decorate the outside of the prison with their own aesthetic. The chain-link fence surrounding the parking lot had bones woven into it along with strange symbols painted every few meters and dangling dolls strung up wherever there was an extra inch of space. It might have been purely artistic, but there was a certain regularity to the arrangement that suggested there might be something more to it. As we drove up, the car’s engine was letting out some very worrying noises that reminded me of the time I’d attempted to microwave dinner without taking the tinfoil off it first, and Taxi was nervously petting the steering wheel like a frantic mother patting her child’s head after they’ve burnt their hoof on a hot frying pan. My attention was pulled towards a group of perhaps fifty ponies, griffins, and zebras who stood in rows of ten stretching all the way across the parking lot. Wisteria was standing in front of them demonstrating the moves of a sort of elaborate dance or martial art. For a mare who’d been pregnant until very recently, she looked spry enough to wrestle a minotaur as she leapt, kicked, spun, and ducked through the various steps. Her audience followed in almost perfect synchronization, with the exception of a couple of young foals at one end who were stumbling through the moves. It was strange to see so many people outside after the emptiness of the city streets. A few ponies were tilling small plots of open ground in the corners of the capacious parking lot while others dragged large black bags of what looked to be garbage out to some kind of pit dug a few meters off the road. Guards flew the skies or practiced hoof to hoof combat on the roof. I could hear the very regular crack and snap of gunshots on a range someplace behind the building. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said it looked a bit like a Royal Guard encampment. Taxi slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid a filly in an orange safety vest who’d suddenly darted into the road in front of us. “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” my driver snapped, poking her head out the window. “Sorry!” the filly yelped breathlessly, lifting into the air for a moment on a pair of buzzing wings. “Crusada’ be expected! I be here to show ye where to park!” “We don’t need a parking warden! The lot is empty!” Taxi replied gruffly. “Oh, I and I know! I be tryin’ to get my mark as parking pony!” the filly chirped, wiggling her blank flank at us. She then produced a glowing red baton and waved us towards a section of the lot where somepony had laid down some very rough chalk lines approximately the width of a car apart. “I don’t remember running in front of moving cars as one of the things I did when I was trying to find my talent,” I commented as we pulled into one of the spaces. “That’s a good way to find out your ultimate destiny is to be roadkill.” “Agreed,” Taxi sniffed as she shut off the car and popped her seat belt off. “I can’t blame her, though. I mean, you did something way dumber than that to get yours.” “Ah...yeah, well, there were extenuating circumstances.” Turning to Swift, I found my partner with her eyes shut, standing backwards on the seat beside me. She was staring deep into the vinyl, a tiny smile on her face. “Kid? Are you going to be alright?” She flicked an ear in my direction and nodded, still watching the seatback through closed eyelids. “I think so, Sir. It’s not as overwhelming as last time. There’s so much going on, though! Tourniquet is inside my head and she’s telling me all about what’s been happening.” ‘Nope, never going to get used to that,’ I thought, then shook my head and asked, “What has been happening around here?” “Lots of things! I mean, there’s a baker who the Aroyos rescued from a gang fight who’s set up shop and now the top floor always smells like baked bread, and there’s a school bus with five or six foals and their teacher from one of the villages in the next county who were stranded in Detrot when the Darkening happened and...oh...wait…” Her ears swiveled back against her head. When she continued, it was with a worry in her voice. “Sir, you...errr...you may want to get out and go around back of the building?” “Uh...why?” “Jambalaya has been teaching Mags to—” I threw myself out of the car without waiting for her to finish and sprinted for the back of the building. The words ‘Jambalaya’ and ‘teaching’ were bad enough; the ganger was a tall drink of piss on her best days, but if Wisteria had left her to foalsit Mags, that could only mean terrible things. A few ponies stopped as I raced past and called out greetings, but I couldn’t really spare much attention. Admittedly, some of my haste might not have been entirely related to fear of what Jambalaya was teaching my ward. She was a snoring, grumpy, lazy little mess-maker who ate her meat raw and bit my ears when she was bored, but I liked her. Maybe liked was the wrong word. Eh, not worth considering. She was my responsibility, and I was damned if Jambalaya was going to teach her any more bad habits than I surely already was. I almost plowed face-first into a steel shack as I skidded around the back corner of the building. A dozen similar shacks and lean-tos were erected in rough rows, each with a different purpose and each with a line of people waiting for service. One seemed to be a blacksmith, with a hammer-wielding griffin pounding out metal horseshoes on an old-fashioned forge, while another was a seamstress, knitting together piles of very similar clothing that looked almost like uniforms. There was even—bless the heavens—a farrier. Further back, well away from the shacks, an area of the ground looked to have been dragged clean of contaminated dirt. Bales of hay were set up with clumsily drawn construction paper pictures of monsters on them. At one end, a group of younglings of different species stood attentively in front of a unicorn mare it took me a second to identify as Jambalaya. ‘Breathe, Hardy. There’s only so many horrible things she can be teaching a group of children in a public place.’ I started to move towards them, then stopped as I realized the crowd had yet to notice me. Thinking quickly, I tugged off my hat, shrugged out of my coat, unlimbered my gun, and rolled them up into a ball on my back; no sense being any more recognizable than I already was. I left the anti-magic armor on, but it wasn’t the kind of thing most ponies knew me for wearing. That done, I was just one more slightly dingy grey earth pony; or at least, I thought I could pass for one. Of course, my grand designs for anonymity lasted about two seconds. I heard a shout of ‘Crusada!’ followed by pounding hoofsteps. I turned to flee but was immediately confronted by a wall of smiling ponies, shouting my name, cheering, and ready to slap me on the back until my spine turned to jelly. ‘Horseapples!’ I cursed, trying to return the grins and simultaneously deciding how many of the crowd I’d have to shoot to get away. Before I could decide on any of the slightly rash escape plans my brain was offering up, something brown and furry with sharp claws latched itself onto my face. I was tempted to go ahead and let myself suffocate in the soft fluff, but there was still work to be done. Reaching up, I gently pried the aggressive ball of fur away from my muzzle until I could gasp, “Air! Mags, I need to breathe!” “No, you don’t, Har’dy! You leaving me here for weeks!” “I left for one day!” “Too long!” Around us, there was a collective ‘awww’ from the surrounding ponies that left my masculinity sobbing in a corner with a pint of ice cream. “Ah! Back to de work! Leave Crusada be! He be busy and tired!” Jambalaya barked as she pushed through the crowd. Her horn sparked, and a soft glow of magic prized my ward away from my head, lifting her up onto my back. There were a few groans from the crowd, though most started to wander back to their tasks, still giving me the occasional sidelong smile or cheerful wink. Mags clamped her claws around my upper neck and shoved her face into my mane. “You not going away again,” she mewled, clutching me tightly. It wasn’t a question. “I hope not far anytime soon,” I replied. “Believe me, you wouldn’t have liked this trip much.” I shifted her around on my back until I could pat her on the foreleg... and my hoof contacted what felt like vinyl rather than feathers. Worse, it felt very much like a holster with something in it. I raised my head and stared at Jambalaya, wide eyed. “I’m imagining things. Jambalaya, please tell me I am hallucinating and you didn’t give her a gun!” Jambalaya opened her mouth to reply but was saved by a flutter of feathers as Wisteria landed beside her. Folding her brilliantly purple wings against herself, she glanced between her daughter and I, then over my shoulder at Mags. She must have put together the entire exchange in seconds. “Ye be askin’ we teach her, Crusada,” Wisteria murmured. Her daughter looked noticeably relieved to not have to explain the situation. “She be knowin’ some about guns a’fore she come to us. Ye wish de chick survive in de darkness?” “Yes, but you know the kind of situations I’m going into! A gun just makes her a target!” “She be a target de second ye choose to love her, Crusada’.” Wisteria replied, calmly. I stiffened and felt Mags take a sharp breath. “Ye wish her only to live? Ye leaves her here.” “No!” Mags cried, but I reached up and put a hoof over her beak. “It’s my job to protect her,” I growled, stepping closer to the Aroyo leader. “If you know of someone better suited and more dangerous, I want you to introduce us.” She shook her head, running a toe over the decorative scars on her own chest. I might have been imagining it, but I thought there was a smile there, somewhere. “We be teachin’ her to shoot for dat reason, says I and I. Ye may need de extra bullets before de end.” Wisteria opened a wing in the direction of the target range where the group of expectant foals still waited for Jambalaya to return to finish their lesson. “At least be lettin’ her show ye what she learns. Her sire...he teach her some. Mostly, she be needin’ practice.” “I don’t want her killing. She’s seen enough death already without being the one holding the gun.” “Do ye be thinkin’ I and I wished my foal to learn to kill, Crusada?” Wisteria snapped, pointing at Jambalaya with her wingtip. The young unicorn blushed, backing up a step towards the group of foals to see that they weren’t getting into trouble or maybe just to escape the conversation. Her mother ignored her retreat and continued, “Since de war, de Aroyos be fightin’ de stompas on all sides! Now...will ye see what de little one can do? Or do ye stick ye head in de sand of dis darkened world and hope she be never needin’ to fight?” ‘Retort? Come on, Hardy, you’re not really going to let her put this on you, are you?’  Unfortunately, she’d hit me with a particularly ugly truth that I couldn’t readily deny; if I was any sort of decent pony I’d have stuck Mags in a sack and passed her off to Slip Stitch or Wisteria with a note attached that said ‘please watch this until the world ends’. Could I really do that? No, I damn well couldn’t, and Wisteria knew it. She had outmaneuvered me quite handily and it burned, but no stallion in all of equine history has managed to avoid showing a mare when she’s got him sussed. Picking up my bundled coat, I extracted my hat and popped it back on my head. “Alright. Mags, get down here,” I growled. She slipped off my back with no argument and edged sideways until she was in front of me, puffing out her chest feathers and trying to look confident; it would have been more effective if she wasn’t shaking so badly. I put a hoof on her foreleg, turning her so I could inspect the tiny shoulder holster the Aroyos had slapped together from a few pieces of what looked like old wetsuits. The gun wasn’t much to look at: a claw-operated .22 caliber Colten pistola with a pink grip meant for firing while on three legs. I’d confiscated a similar piece from Swift about two months ago and replaced it with Masamane. Leaning down to her height, I gave her a critical look and rested my toe on the gun. “Your father taught you to use this?” She nodded. “Nursemaid Guild be neutral. Everyone tries to kill them sometimes.” “You any good with it?” She shook her head, then quickly added, “F-father is good. He...” She stopped a moment and quickly swallowed. “He’d fire...um…” Looking down at her claws, she quickly counted off on them, then held up all four talons on one leg and one on the other. “This many tens of tens and hit a coin with a big gun. He’s not a soldier or nothing...” “Tens of tens? Tens of what? Meters?” I did a quick mental calculation. “You mean...five hundred meters?!” Wisteria laughed, sidling over and giving me a nudge with her hip. “De griffins, dey shoot betta den we ponies when we be not usin’ magic. Eagle eyes and all dat. She be a fine shot, if ye be givin’ credit for age.” I turned towards the gun range and set off at a brisk trot. “You have one clip to show me you know what you’re doing or you’re leaving that here. Clear?” ---- The foals standing around the gun range cheered. Mags lowered her smoking gun, pressed the slide-stop, and looked up at me with sad puppy eyes that could’ve turned a heart of pure diamond to mush. Down range at the fifteen, twenty, and thirty meter marks, three plastic milk jugs sitting on short barstools had sprung seven separate leaks. I knew a few officers in the Detrot PD who’d have had a rough time making those shots, particularly with only nine bullets. Her two misses were from shaking claws, but the final shot had still buried itself in the top of the farthest stool. Wisteria and Jambalaya were standing side by side, giving me twin grins of such smug self-satisfaction that I wanted to buck both of them off a building. Reaching down, I carefully extracted the gun from Mags hooves, checked the chamber, ejected the clip, then pushed it into her holster. “Alright. You can keep the gun, but there will be rules.” Her eyes lit up with hope, and she put her claws up on my chest. “You means it, Har’dy?” “Rule one...your gun stays in the trunk of the Night Trotter unless you are cleaning it, practicing with it, or I’ve given it to you. Understood?” She bobbed her chin. “Rule two. You never, ever put yourself in a position you have to use this. That means trying to attack things bigger than you are, like my friend Sykes. I protect you. Not the other way around. You only have this as a last resort.” She grimaced, but nodded again. “Last rule. You can be a chick most of the time, but when you’re holding a gun, you are not. You obey me, period. I tell you to jump, you bounce like a rubber ball. No arguments, no nipping at my ears, no crying or complaining. Clear?” Mags’s eartufts fluffed up, and she threw her legs around my neck. “Yes, Har’dy! I promise!” “Alright, when you’re done with whatever sort of lesson you’re having, I want you to go put that gun in the Night Trotter.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “Where you going?” I squinted over her shoulder at Wisteria and said, very carefully, “I have a...meeting...with the Ancestors of the Aroyos. I need you to stay here. I won’t be going far, and I’ll be back in an hour or two, but I don’t think you want to come for this one.” Rather than argue, she set herself down and nodded. “Okay. I wait, then we go?” “Then we go. I promised Iris Jade I’d let her know when I had my hooves back on the ground in Detrot. That and—” There was a shriek of fury from the other side of the building that made Jambalaya and her mother cringe and exchange worried looks. “—I think Taxi is going to need some time in the Castle’s garage with a wrench and a can of paint before our ride is going any great distance...” ---- Wisteria followed me as I headed back around towards the car, leaving Mags to finish up her lesson with Jambalaya. “De Ancestors...dey say dey ready to see ye,” Wisteria murmured, tapping her juju bag. “Much moves in de city.” “I’m ready to see them, too, I think. I’ve got some new information. Speaking of that, there’s...something you might help me with. My partner shot down a dragon nearby and…” I stopped in my tracks as the realization of what I’d just told her fully hit me. Sitting down in the dirt, I rubbed my eyes with both forehooves. Wisteria was giving me the same look I’d have been giving me if I’d heard me say that. “Look, Wisteria, I am completely aware that that makes me sound like a lunatic, but it wasn’t a very big dragon and Swift is trained in P.A.C.T. combat theory. Just...take my word that she did it, alright?” “Yeees...so de tiny pegasus kills a dragon nearby. What ye wish us to do? Get de head for trophy?” Heaving myself back to my aching hooves, I resumed my walk towards the front lot. “She didn’t kill the dragon. The dragon is out there in the wastes a few miles down the road. Her name’s Vexis, and she’s injured. I made a deal with her for some information. I need you to gather up a few volunteers, a truck, and a trailer, then go get her.” “Den what? We be shootin’ de beast? Mebe stuff it? It be a dragon, Crusada! Why not be leavin’ it in de wastes?” I was reminded—not for the first time—of the brutal world the Aroyos had come about in. The Skids were a dangerous place, even by Detrot standards, and the fact that they’d managed to keep their homes safe from intrusion by the other gangs or the police spoke of a pragmatic but occasionally very violent mindset. “I promised her a place to heal and some food,” I said, finally. “You’re not going to make a liar out of me, are you?” Wisteria ground her teeth and scowled at me, then lifted her juju bag to her ear and snarled into it, “De Crusada wants we should bring a dragon to de Ever Free Prison!” Whatever the ‘Ancestors’ were saying made her expression darken even further. Finally, she slapped the bag down against her scared breast and marched passed me. “De Ancestors t’ink ye mad, but de puppet-lady says we listen to ye.” “The puppet-lady? Tourniquet talks to you through that thing?” I asked, trotting to catch up so I could look at the bag. Tugging on the drawstring, Wisteria opened the bag a few inches so I could see inside. I’d expected something like a collection of baubles and bones or something silly like that. Maybe a bit of her daughter’s tail or a piece of her lover’s mane. Instead, there was a tiny microphone and transceiver wrapped around a bundle of wires with a piece of copper running through the loop she used to keep the bag around her neck. It looked like something a spy agency or a garage tinkerer might build. “So...wait...you literally talk to the Ancestors with that thing? It’s a walkie-talkie.” I groaned, smacking my hoof against my forehead. “Somehow, I was more comfortable thinking you were just a crazy ganger talking to a bag full of rocks.” “Heh. Strong juju be like dat. Ye be thinkin’ me mad and all de fools followin’ anyway?” she asked, cinching up the bag. “A bit.” I swept a hoof up and down in front of myself. “I mean, people seem willing to follow me around, and I’m not exactly a paragon of wisdom and sanity here. So, tell me about these ‘gifts from the Ancestors’ I saw some of the ponies on the roof using: the shiny new guns.” Wisteria shrugged, a little sadly. “De Ancestors had plans for de city after de war. Make it strong, make no enemy set claw, fang, or hoof here again. Dey did not wish to use de guns dey designed in de war for dis, but...t’ings did not go to plan. Dey ended up wid’ de Skids and little else. Too many turned against dem. It be not helpin’ de dragons wish dem dead.” “Who are these ‘Ancestors’ of yours, exactly?” I asked as she turned to continue towards Supermax. “I don’t know why I didn’t ask that a month ago. Slipped my mind, I guess. Too many busy days.” “Dey wish to explain demselves. Come. We be goin’ down below. Dey wished to stay in de Skids, so we be travelin’ de under-roads.” “The sewers?” “Aye.” “Crap.” “Aye.” ---- Taxi’s back half was sticking out of the hood of the Night Trotter as I strolled into the parking lot, and the filly in the high visibility jacket who’d nearly become street-sausage was beside her, an open box of tools balanced on her back. The car was not looking good. Most of the paint on the hood was gone, and what wasn’t had long, ugly scorch marks in it. The front grill was melted right through. I looked around for Swift and Limerence, but they were nowhere to be found. Approaching Taxi, I cleared my throat. “Sweets?” A puff of hot-pink smoke exploded around my driver’s chest, and she threw herself out from under the bonnet, coughing violently around a wrench held in her teeth. Her muzzle was black with grease, and the filly quickly took the wrench from her, then offered up a towel that was only slightly less dirty than her face. “Dammit, dammit…*cough*...dammit!” she cursed, snatching the rag and wiping off her chin. “That stupid dragon...*cough*...cooked the primary spell inverter!” “That’s bad, is it?” I asked. Taxi blinked a couple of times to clear her eyes, only then seeming to realize I was standing there. “Hardy...there you are. I need about eight hours with a fully functional garage, plus some obliging unicorns, stat. The core is bleeding magic. The buffers are holding, for now, but I wouldn’t want to drive hard or far.” “We’re headed for the Castle. You think we can make that?” She held out her leg, and the little filly slapped a bottle of water with a straw into her hoof, then backed up a couple of steps. “Maybe,” Taxi murmured, taking a sip. “I will have to nurse that last mile or two and drive like somepony’s grandmother, though. Any other day, I’d be calling a tow truck, but I doubt it’ll be that simple, particularly if what my little friend here is telling me is true.” I glanced at the foal, who smiled brightly. “What has she been telling you?” “De demons dat come from de skies be eatin’ de police!” the kid replied, cheerfully tugging at the hem of her neon jacket. “I and I got dis from de body of one!” My stomach decided it was time to crawl up my throat, and I quickly sat down, trying to calm my brain. Now that I got a slightly better look at the safety jacket, I could see a few dark spatters here and there. ‘Mercy of Celestia, please let that be mud,’ I thought. “You got that from the body of a police officer?” I asked, slowly, trying to avoid thinking too hard on the implications. She dipped her head. “Yep! We be findin’ de body outside de Skids. De jacket nice, yeah? Ye know, ‘cept dis.” Turning around, she pulled the coat down so I could see a ragged hole between the shoulders. “This...this body didn’t happen to have a badge, did it?” “Nope! Dem badges be good sellin’. Dey get ye in lots o’ places, leastways...dey used to,” she giggled, but then her expression took on a slightly more somber note. “I and I not see de body, but Rabbit see it and he say de demons eat de legs and face.” I looked up at Taxi. “Biters?” “Sounds like it. I don’t want to make the run to the police station without some kind of protection,” she replied, holding out the water bottle. “If not from the Biters, then from the...eh...what’re they calling the P.A.C.T. these days? The Blackcoats?” The little filly nodded, then took the bottle from Taxi and put it back amongst the tools. “De Blackcoats be patrollin’ de inner city. Dey not come out dis far. Dey keep away from de devil dog lands. Ye be wantin’ a way to de Blue Castle where de Blackcoats do not go, dere be de way.” “Devil dogs?” I mused, then lifted one ear. “Wait...diamond dogs? The diamond dogs took a section of the city near the Castle?” Taxi scratched her mane. “Now you mention it, I think...yeah, I remember a report from one of my scouts in the Stilettos that said there was a group of diamond dogs who took over an old tenement about fifteen blocks from the Castle.” I turned to the girl and gave her an appraising look. “How do you know so much? You’re...what? Nine years old?” “I and I be eleven!” she grumped, then ducked her muzzle, bashfully. “I likes to...listen...to dem what t’inks I be too small to hear and understand. De Puppet Lady helps me, too.” “Tourniquet and I are going to have a long discussion about her indiscriminate spying, believe you me,” I grumbled, then ruffled the girl’s mane with one hoof and asked, “Could you help my friend put this car back together? I’ve got to go meet with ‘the Ancestors’.” “Actually going to do it this time, huh?” Taxi asked. “You know these tribal rituals always come with new tattoos, right? I’ve got one in a...a place I won’t discuss from the last meeting I had in the Zebra lands.” “Yeah. No real choice, though. We need the Aroyos, and...well—” I brushed my toe over the lump on my leg under my sleeve. “I want to know what they know about my gun. Besides, you need time to reassemble the car, right? Where did Limerence and Swift get off to?” Taxi picked up a socket wrench from her toolbox and brandished it against her leg, glaring down at the Night Trotter’s engine in a way that suggested imminent mechanical violence. “Lim said he was going to check some kind of ‘Archivist answering service’ spell to see if any of the other Archivists have survived. Swift’s probably...where else? With Tourniquet, having a powwow.” “No reason to bother them with this, then. I should be back before too long,” I replied, then had a thought. “Keep an eye on Mags, would you? She’s in the back learning to use a gun.” “A gun? You gave that little ball of crazy a gun!?” I kicked a pebble between my front and back hooves, a bit distractedly. “It was not my idea, believe me. Wisteria talked me into it, though. Mags’s father apparently knew at least a bit about how to handle weapons, and he taught her the basics. She’s a pretty good shot for somebody whose grammar makes me cringe every time she opens her beak. I’m going to have to teach her proper Equestrian before she ends up with that half-Griffish baby-talk thing for the rest of her life.” “Sure, I guess I can look after her for a few hours. She’s low maintenance, when she’s not hungry.” Reaching through the car’s window, Taxi pulled the trunk release. “You want your shotgun?” “Nahhh, we’re taking the sewers. Since they cleared out the Daevas and the traps, I’m pretty sure the nastiest thing down there right now is Swift’s three-headed dog.” The filly in the safety jacket—who I’d almost forgotten was there—interjected, “De sewers be clean, but de streets be not. Dey run by de stompas from de other Cyclones near de Skids.” I considered for a moment, then opened the trunk and fished out a couple of fresh cartridges for my revolver from the bag of ammunition. As I was about to close the trunk, a familiar piece of rolled up paper stuck in the corner caught my eye. It was the scroll I’d taken from Cosmo’s basement almost a month ago: three words in a dead dialect called ‘Lunaric’. Don Tome had translated it for us as ‘the Web of Dark Wishes’. Picking it up, I held the paper to my chest and wished I could see Tome again, if only to ask him what I was meant to do. Going to speak to his ‘construct’ might help, but I doubted it would do more than stoke my sadness at not being able to see the old stripe again in the flesh. As I was having these thoughts, I felt a subtle burn in the golden scales on my backside: associated injustice, subtle and diffuse. Who was I to ignore a nudge from my talent? I’d been getting few enough of them lately, what with the staggering levels of ambient misery everywhere we went. I stuffed the scrap of scrollwork into my pocket and turned back to my driver and the filly. “Tell Swift I’ll be back soon, would you?” The little filly quickly set down Taxi’s toolbox and smiled. “Okay! One second! I’ll get her!” “You don’t have to—” I started to say, but the foal just held up her hoof and took a breath that lifted her right up on her toes. Her wings kicked up a bit of a breeze as they flapped against her sides a couple of times. Her eyes blinked shut for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were shining with a brilliant inner light. The filly opened her mouth and asked, “Sir? What is it?” Both Taxi and I stumbled back from the kid as my partner’s voice came from her mouth. “Gah! Sweet mother! I thought she could only do that with ponies with a mark on them!” I barked. "Okay, now I am creeped out. Earlier? Not too creepy! This? Too creepy!" Taxi groaned. The filly giggled, covering her mouth with her toe very much like my partner did when she was trying not to show much funny she thought getting one over on me was. “Tinker Tamper always wanted to talk to Tourniquet all the time, so she let her have one of the marks they used to put on prisoners!” Swift explained, quickly. The little girl pulled her neon vest to one side, showing off a bright red moon-shaped scar on her barrel. “The Aroyos have started calling them ‘The Mark of the Ever Free’. A few of the adults have them, and most of the kids.” Too many horrible implications were boiling around in my head, and what nerves remained unfrazzled latched onto one particular detail. “Wait...somepony named this kid Tinker Tamper?” “Um...yes, Sir?” I threw my hooves in the air. “Right! Good! The world is insane! I am insane! I am going to go and drink now. Wake me when everything is over. I demand booze! Booze now! Booze and a carrot, because carrots are good for your eyes and as we all know, eyes are important, because when eyes start to see my partner’s voice talking out of a glowy foal with no sense of when she should and shouldn’t run into the road—” The first punch cracked me across the muzzle hard enough to jiggle a molar. I slumped on the pavement in a heap, weakly kicking one rear leg as Taxi added a quick shot to the shoulder for good measure. “Sir!? Are...are you alright?” Swift squeaked through the little girl’s body. “Yes, kid,” I replied, moaning softly. “I’m perfectly fine, you flashy monstrosity with your crazy face of a tiny girl. How’re you?” My driver gave me a solid kick in the ribs, and I doubled over, clutching my belly as all the air was forced out of my lungs. I felt blood trickling from my lip, but ignored it. Maybe if she’d just added a few more blows to the head, I might have been ready to go for a jog or practice meditation or self-actualize. “Could you stop?! Sheesh!” Swift exclaimed, taking a couple of steps forward as though to place herself between Taxi and me. Taxi rolled her eyes and picked up her wrench, turning back to the car. “He’ll be fine in a minute. I don’t know why it works, but a solid beating helps center him when his brain’s popped a circuit or two. I had to do that after prom, too.” I coughed a couple of times, then slowly sat up and picked up my hat from where it’d fallen, tucking it back over my ears. “Phew...yes. Good. What were we saying?” “You were just...um…never mind, Sir. Wisteria is going to guide you back to the Skids. Message received. Can I give Tamper back her body, now? Tourniquet says this kind of connection makes her feel like she needs to sneeze if we keep it open too long.” “Yes, kid. That’ll be fine. Please...for the love of Celestia, give the foal back her body.” The glow in Tamper’s eyes faded, and she shook like a wet puppy, then smiled. “Phew! Dat itches! What de Puppet Lady be sayin’?” “She said you’re to go straight to your mother and give her a big hug, then go find my partner and put bubblegum in her tail.” ---- The sewers. How much did I miss the sewers since my last visit? Not much. At worst, it was a step up from spending a few hours aboard The Bull in transit, but then, being flayed and given a salt rub was a step up from that. Since Tourniquet had taken over the operation of the city water station, amongst other things, the sewer required a fair bit less maintenance to keep it flowing, but that still left the Aroyos scampering to keep most of the main lines from backing up. It helped that the construct could apparently tell them where a back-up was about to happen before it did, but even then the scent of a sewer in a city under siege still leaves something to be desired. I stepped carefully over a flea-bitten rat chewing on an old slipper and fanned my headlamp across the tunnel behind me. Beyond about twenty meters, there was only the sullen blackness of the subterrane. Wisteria was just ahead, strolling along, humming a cheery tune like we were in a park somewhere rather than a stinky hole in the ground. We’d been walking in silence, for the most part, since we left Supermax via the old secret entrance. “So, what’s the protocol for meeting these Ancestors of yours?” I asked, trotting a little faster to keep up. “De...eh...protocol, Crusada’? Ye meets dem. Dey not be like de Jeweler stompas. None of dem ‘pretensions’.” “Hmmmph. You mind if I ask something that’s been bothering me for a while?” Wisteria tilted one ear in my direction. “Where’d you Cyclones get the accent? Nopony in Detrot outside of the Skids and a couple other Cyclone groups talks like that.” The Aroyo chuckled and swatted me with her tail, then replied in perfectly functional unaccented Equestrian, “Why do you insist on speaking like a cop stiff, when I know you’re not one?” My jaw almost hit me in the kneecaps. “Wait, you lot—” “It be de language of de street. De friend-speak come natural to de young. Dey even make dey own twists,” she chuckled, brushing aside my shock with a wave of her wing as she continued down the tunnel. “I and I likes it well enough. Plenty of years and I don’t be even t’inkin about it. Heh! Have to t’ink to stop! Still, it be helpin’ cement de group together. De Ancestors try many t’ings. I believe dey calls it ‘social engineering’.” “These Ancestors set themselves up as ganger religious icons, arm you with state of the art weapons, and control your social development for...almost...what? Thirty years? Pardon, but that’s insane.” Wisteria paused midstride, and I had to stop to avoid running into her. “Dat...eh...dat be a good word for dem, yes.” “So, why do you all listen to them?” “Dey find us, a broken gang of de soon to be dead livin’ in de slum, tryin’ to protect de blocks. Dey gives us safety. Dey gives us knowledge. Dey gives us tactics. Now, de young be strong, when before, dey only be poor.” Wisteria thrust her chest out, proudly. “De Aroyos be meant to be de future of Equestria! It be de Ancestors’ word!” I cocked my head to one side. “These Ancestors seem like smart ponies. But I see the Skids and it still looks like a slum. Heavily armed, well wired, and maybe with some rules in place, but still...a slum. What went wrong?” “Dat...be de mystery,” she replied, with a tinge of anger in her voice. “Twenty year ago, we be startin’ to take ground. Take five blocks in every direction, den ten. Empty blocks. No big gang owned dem. Dey be only poor, and we be fixin’ t’ings. Suddenly de Jeweler stompas come. Two dozen die in one night. Stallions, mares, foals. Dey say it be a natural fire. Bad wirin’ says de fire marshals.” Wisteria’s jaw clenched, and she snarled, “Do ye be thinkin’ we be having bad wires anywhere?!”  She swiped an unshorn fetlock across her face, wiping away a tear before continuing, “Den de police come, raidin’ for drugs dat did not exist before, but suddenly appears. Den other Cyclones come. We be pushed back, block by block...till de Skids be all we have. Den...for some reason, dey be leavin’ us be. Dey stomp when we tries to be movin’ and we stomp wid dem’ against de Jewelers, but dey be not takin’ de slums we leave behind.” I rubbed the back of my neck, unsure what to say. It was a strange story, certainly, but I’d heard plenty of those of late. The previous police chief was well known to be a corrupt bastard right up to the moment Snifter forcibly retired him to put Chief Jade in his place. He wouldn’t knowingly put police lives in danger, but he wasn’t above calling a raid to line the pockets of the department. I’d been too young and too wrapped up in my caseload to worry much about what those higher on the totem pole did with their time. “You’ve got seriously advanced weapons, though. How’d they...what’d you call it? Stomp? How’d they stomp you out of those territories with those weapons?” I asked. She shook her head. “De Ancestors be not givin’ us weapons till recently. Dey be...ashamed. It be not for me to say why. When de sun go dark, dey decides it be time. Dey gives us de gifts.” Stopping under a sewer grate, she pointed up towards the street. “Come now. We be here.” ----          Ahhh, the Skids. Home again. I’d had my now-burned apartment for years, but it never really felt like home. It was just a place to store my extra casefiles and collection of beer bottles. Granted, anywhere you’re an alcoholic is hard to call ‘home’. Alcoholism is one of those hobbies like amateur car repair; it’s expensive, exhausting, and only makes you feel good for about two hours out of every ten you spend on it. The street was as decrepit as ever, but the tenement blocks on either side of the road were lit up brilliantly. It seemed like everypony had turned on their lights and thrown open their windows to try to illuminate the street as much as possible and drown out the infernal glow of the Eclipse. Considering electricity was probably free at the moment, it wasn’t a bad idea. Few ponies were out and about, but the hour was getting late and there weren’t many places worth going. The tops of the roofs seemed to have been lined with barbed wire, along with most of the windows, making ingress from the air a real bastard if somepony didn’t know where they were landing. “I wasn’t aware there were that many Aroyos,” I murmured, staring up at the nearest roof which had a pony perched on it, watching the sky. “If ye lives here, ye be Aroyo. If ye be Aroyo, ye knows somet’in of how to fight. We be unable to expand out, so we grows down, like tree in a pot too small. De Ancestors say ‘have foals’, we have foals. Our numbers grow and we live closer,” Wisteria explained. “It...be gettin’ a bit tight, but one day, maybe have de numbers to push back de stompas.” “Seems like a stretch, but...I’ll believe it until I see otherwise. Where are we going?” “Ye been dere before.” ---- Two streets’ quiet walk and I stood before the pristine white doorway of the only building which didn’t have an inch of graffiti on it. The ‘7’ on the freshly painted door looked like it’d been polished recently. The last time I’d been there, the Aroyos had given me the name ‘Crusader’. The significance of that name was lost on me then, but now it felt something like a badge of honor. Funny thing, how many badges there were in my life. Wisteria spoke into her juju bag. “We be here,” she said, then paused and listened before adding, “He be havin’ it on him.” “I be having...I mean, I have what on me?” I asked. Edging over, she tapped my gun through my sleeve. “Dey would not see ye wid’out it. Strange, says I. Dat be de revolver there? I and I do not remember it bein' so shiny...” I grinned. “It's the same gun. I’ll explain later if you’re genuinely curious.” “Mmm, I and I t’inks there be a story.” She tapped her juju bag, then nodded towards the white door. “Dey be sayin’ ye can go in.” “You’re not coming?” “Heh, ye be needin’ a foalsitter, Crusada?” “Most everyone who knows me would agree I probably do.” “I t’ink ye be alright. Go! I be here when ye be done. May go get de cup of coffee.” Swallowing, I turned to the white door and reached into my pocket, resting my hoof on Ruby Blue’s diary. It still brought a measure of comfort, even after all these weeks. Trotting up to the door, I rested my hoof on the smooth, clean surface and gave it a gentle push. It slowly swung open on a silent, perfectly oiled hinges. The hallway beyond reminded me of my parents’ home, before they died, if one or both of them had a hundred more relatives. Tiny circular frames hung from floor to ceiling on the right side wall, each with a picture of a cutie mark with a smiling pony beside it. There were mares and stallions, foals and fillies. There were griffins, zebras, and a half dozen other intelligent species. I picked out Jambalaya’s picture near the door and Wisteria’s just above her. Somewhere up ahead, I could hear faint old-timey music, like jazz or maybe swing with a hint of a modern twist to it. I found myself involuntarily bobbing my hips to it. It was the sort of place that can’t be built or cobbled together, but must grow out of smiles, laughing children, and pleasant memories. It was nice. Just...nice. The smell of baked goods and spiced bread drifted down the hall, and I took a deep breath, then walked in feeling significantly more at ease. Once I was inside, the door shut behind me on its own. “Well, don’t jus’ stand out there, Hard Boiled! We ain’t gonna bite you,” somepony called from down the hall. “Just down an’ to the left!” I started down the hall, smiling at the little figurines of ponies flying or having picnics stacked across the tops of the doorframes. There wasn’t a lick of dust to be found on any of them, but it still felt homey. Flickers of firelight poured through the open door, and I could see a couple of shadows cast against the wall. Tossing on a friendly smile, I decided to see what form the spider was taking this time as I strolled around the corner. Maybe another changeling queen? Some undead monsters? Might even be just a particularly talkative ghost. That would certainly have been in line with recent events. Peering around, I blinked a couple of times as my eyes adjusted to the light of the fire. Huh. Somehow, I was a little disappointed. No demons. No beasts. No crazed serial killers. Just three old mares, keeping warm around the hearth. “Took him long enough!” the one nearest me grumbled. She was a greying pegasus who was a few shades darker than Swift, with what must have been a brilliantly purple mane at one time. She leaned against the wall beside me with an irritable scowl on her face. There was something odd about her front legs. It took me a minute to realize they were polished mechanisms of some kind that resembled clockwork. “A month to come see us! A month and his own death!” “Now, now...we mustn’t be ungrateful,” one of her companions murmured in a voice that was downright musical. She was a unicorn and lay sprawled on an expensive looking chaise lounge huddled close to the fire, her pale body wrapped in a beautifully tailored black dress that somehow accentuated her shape in a very attractive way despite her advanced age. Her white and pink mane spilled down across her shoulders like a river. She had the poise of somepony who was used to being the belle of every ball. “You know how much he went through to be here with us and he’s done so very much for our Aroyos.” Her friend let out a snort and turned her head away. “I don’t care. We’re almost out of time, and he was out there screwing around with...with whatever he was doing.” The room’s third occupant spoke up. She was a yellow-ish earth pony, her streaky red mane tucked underneath a ludicrous stetson. She gently rocked back and forth in a rocking chair that looked like it’d seen better centuries. “Awww, come on. Ya know Hard Boiled woulda wanted us to help his grandson as much as we could, right? Don’t forget, Crusaders stick together. Ain’t that right, Scootaloo?”