Quantum Vault

by WishyWish

3.8 - Ace in the Hole

April 11, 2027

Baltimare

Sunday – Late Night

“Absolutely not!”

Quantum sat at the vanity in Draw Out’s room, listening to the hum of the artificial lighting outside with one ear, and a toasty orange tirade with the other. “This isn’t up for discussion, Hal.”

“Like HELL it isn’t!” Hal, who was on his hooves in the center of the room, was up to his turtleneck in abject fury. “You gave me your word! If the likelihood that Draw Out gets killed tonight goes up even one more percentage point, you were going to get out of town!” Hal took out his device and shoved his hoof through the back of Quantum’s head, just to materialize the readout right before her eyes. “Well it went up three more points! THREE! You’re not stupid – I know you’re not, so I know you don’t need me to explain it all again. But if you go out there tonight, you’re going to be killed. I’ve put up with your stubbornness before, but this is the last straw. I forbid it! You go out there, and I am DONE! You can figure out your own damn way back home!”

“You don’t mean that,” Quantum said softly, ignoring the device in her face in favor of the desktop, which held something of even greater interest. “Hal, you know I’m right this time. Just look at her. I can’t leave her like this. Not now.”

Hal retracted his hoof and glanced back at the bed. Lying under the stallion-scented blankets, exposed only from the neck up, was Cozy Hearth. The mare’s forest green coat had paled to an almost sage color. She neither moved nor groaned – the only way Hal could even tell she was alive was by the rhythmic rising and falling of the covers, where her chest should be.

“Take her to a hospital,” Hal urged.

“It won’t help,” Quantum insisted. “I know this city. Nopony at a hospital is going to know how to fix zebra potion mumbo-jumbo, and I know whatever that stuff was, it wasn’t normal poison joke. Besides,” she sighed, “hospitals ask questions, and I don’t have time to answer them. Did Tissy have anything to say about her condition?

Hal booped his device. “Only that you’re probably right – whatever Tilt did to Cozy, it’s going to be too late by the time you’d be able to get competent help to her. Tissy puts Cozy’s death at one hundred percent by five am tomorrow, unless she gets whatever Tilt has. The few apothecaries in this city that might be able to help are all in Tilt’s back pocket. And by the way,” Hal narrowed his eyes, “The chance that Tilt will get caught just went way down. You’re meeting him alone, at night, on his own turf. If he murders you, he probably won’t bother to save Cozy, and none of that is going to be easy to pin on him.”

Quantum kept her attention on her work. “I understand. Can I count on you?”

Hal hesitated for a long time. He looked at his friend, and then over at the slowly dying pegasus mare. Finally he let out a small, audible smirk. “We’re both gonna regret this, but I’m in.”

“Your rump isn’t on the line,” Quantum reminded him.

“Oh, it is,” Hal corrected. “I told you Princess Twilight knows about all this. It’s only because of her influence that we’ve been able to keep it a secret. I…don’t know how she’s going to react if she finds out I helped you through a situation where you had this great a chance of dying. What are you doing, anyway?”

The minty mare opened her leg pouch and quickly cleaned her work area into it. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just a contingency plan.” Strapping her patch on and straightening her glasses, she rose to her hooves. “We’ve only got half an hour left. Time to go.”

“Cutie,” Hal began, “I’m a hologram. I can feed you info, but if they rush you there isn’t going to be a thing I can do to help.”

“Tilt said he was going to give me a chance,” Quantum replied. “If he was planning to just kill me outright, he would have poisoned my drink.”

“And you believed him!?”

“He’s a pony’s behind,” Quantum reasoned, “but Draw Out has been taking his money for who knows how long now, and Tilt hasn’t tried to kill him yet. This guy is a gambler – he wants to beat Draw on his own terms. That should at least give me enough time to figure out what’s going down and try to come up with a way to beat him.”

“You’ll forgive me,” Hal replied drolly, “But that doesn’t instill me with a lot of confidence. You don’t even know what he’s planning, so how can you be ready for it? At least take somepony with you.”

Quantum shrugged, “You said yourself that nopony is willing to go this far for Draw Out. Besides, Tilt said to come alone. I can’t take the risk that somepony might follow me if I clue them in.”

Knock knock knock

Both ponies froze and stared at each other. Hal beeped at his device for a moment, but eventually shrugged, staring at the door. The knock came again. Quantum could feel the coat hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

“Draw, buddy!” A muffled voice called, “You in there?”

Recognizing the voice, Quantum spared one last look of confusion on her holographic companion before moving to open the door. Standing in the hallway was a certain red-coated unicorn stallion, with a spiky yellow mane and a cutie mark depicting a rainbow-hued deck of playing cards. The minty mare gaped.

“Hole Card…?”

Hole Card entered the room in a flourish, his stare immediately piercing straight through Hal and coming to rest on Cozy Hearth. “I knew it!” He exclaimed deductively. “I knew I saw you dragging somepony up the back steps!”

Quantum sputtered, “Th-this…this isn’t what it looks like! I didn’t do anything to—”

Hole Card punched one hoof with another, “Where’s Tilt?”

“Wait…what…?”

“Tilt,” the red unicorn repeated. “He did something to her, right? Something you can’t tell anypony about, and now he wants a showdown.”

“How…how did you know that?” Quantum marveled. Hole Card only laughed.

“C’mon man – ponies like me are usually called fruits, not rocks! I heard about the facehoofing you gave him and knew he’d try something.” He pointed at the bed, “But this? This I can’t abide. You’ve got a plan, right? What can I do?”

Hal was booping furiously at his device, “Well I’ll be. I guess Tissy isn’t infallible after all.” He eyed Quantum, “Take him up on it. Two muzzles are better than one, right?”

Quantum frowned at the new arrival. “I’m supposed to go alone. If Tilt sees you there, he’ll drop the antidote in the harbor.”

“And you believed him?” Hole Card replied smugly.

Quantum rolled her eyes, by now tiring of that question. “Can’t afford not to.”

Smiling in his usual carefree way, Hole Card approached Draw Out and touched ‘him’ on the shoulder with a hoof. “Don’t worry buddy. I got your back.” He then spun his hooves in a circular pattern and grinned, “I bet you didn’t know I’m a black-bridle, too!”

“Ookay, well,” Quantum gave Hal the eye and indicated the bathroom with her pupils, “I’m gonna, uh…go powder my muzz—I mean—”

“Take a leak?” Hole Card offered.

“Yes. I’m going to go do that. Hold that thought?”

Quantum shut the bathroom door on Hole Card’s mirthful grin and spun immediately on Hal, who had simply floated through the wall. “I thought you said none of Draw Out’s friends would stick their neck out for him?”

Hal, who had been booping his device constantly for the past five minutes, had a bemused smile on his lips when he finally looked up. He tried to speak, but instead sputtered out a laugh.

“What’s so funny!?” Quantum demanded. In lieu of a response, Hal held the device up so the minty mare could inspect the readout.

“F-fifty,” Hal sputtered, “fifty-eight point four says Hole Card is just as head over hooves for Draw Out as Cozy is, and let me tell you, when you first got here? That figure was not there! Good job Casanova! I dunno what you said to him, but you brought both the mares AND the stallions to the stable!”

Quantum felt her cheeks heat up. She glanced in the mirror, but was met only by the meek gaze of a stallion with a deepened shade of gold on his cheeks. For a time, she lost herself in wondering what things might have been like in her life if she had just bothered to put down her tools and walk outside, but the reverie was short lived. A moment later, she bapped open the bathroom door and fixed Hole Card with a look of confidence so fierce, both mare and stallion blushed slightly.

“We’re running out of time. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

When Hole Card was back in the corridor, Quantum stole a moment to glance at Hal. “Stay here,” she ordered.

“What?” Hal snorted. “Snowball’s chance after wrap-up. You need me!”

Instead of coming back with a snide remark, Quantum offered her most placating smile. She nodded at the bed, “I do need you. I need you here. If Cozy’s condition gets worse or some thug comes looking for her, you can let me know about it faster than anypony on this planet. Hal…I need to know she’s safe. Help me out?”

Hal huffed, floating in place with his forelegs crossed. He turned away when he realized he was blushing. “…be careful. The numbers are still way against you. Cutie…don’t get killed.”

Quantum smiled softly and turned for the door. “Don’t worry. You won’t be rid of me that easily.”

Minty mare and crimson stallion took the back stairs; spilling out into the muggy night at a gallop.

Comments

[Frission]

Woo! Sorry it took me quite a while to come back to read this. Graduation 'n all.

Still I can't believe nobody else has commented! I've said it before but it's utterly criminal how little attention your story's gotten, it's such a great homage to the source material!

Yay, Cutie's got help! Tilt won't know what hit 'em!