An Exercise In Management

by Nameless Narrator

12: Onwards to the cellar!

*Clink clink!*

The police station door finally closes behind us, and I can unclench my spiritual anus. I don’t know what would have happened to me if somepony caught Eight. I should ask at some point, but right now it seems like a terrible idea, because she kinda forgot to tell me one important thing. That, or I forgot.

“Hey, Trunch. You’re up early today. No, let me guess - haven’t gone to sleep yet?”

Truncheon isn’t the sole member of the Wet Soil police force. Behind the receptionist desk sits a female pegasus with black coat and sharply contrasting light blue mane and tail.

“Hi, Slipstream,” Eight yawns, “You’re right. I could use a nap.”

”What is she doing here?”

“...no idea. Thinking...”

“What? Not even a snappy remark? You MUST be out of it.”

“Haha, yeah.”

“Hey, who’s the little guy?”

Three runs over to the pegasus and offers a hoofshake.

“Hello, miss Slipstream! I’m Glowstick.”

“Uhhh, okay…?” Slipstream, confused by the sheer power of friendship in Three’s voice, shakes the outstretched foreleg.

“He’s my cousin. His parents are in Va-"

"Manehattan."

"-Manehattan for a festival or something. He arrived the night before yesterday.”

Slipstream gives Eight a knowing look.

“Oooh, so that’s why you’re making ‘that’ face.”

“Yeah, he's a hoofful. On top of that, the Mayor chewed me out on the way here. I need to check up on the creature downstairs. I doubt it’s in a shape to do anything, but I need to look as official as I can or he’ll have my ass.”

“He always says that.” Slipstream shrugs.

“I think this time he means it,” Eight yawns again, “I’ll have to skip the bar tonight. Sad day, sad day. Say, can you keep an eye on Glowstick while I’m in the cellar?” she leans to Slipstream’s ear, “He really doesn’t need to see that.”

“I’d love to, but with Mayor declaring unofficial emergency and you getting the day shift, lucky bastard, I’m dying to just drop dead. He actually made me go on the patrol at night, that asshole.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I bet you are,” Slipstream rolls her eyes, “I can still smell the swamp gas. Oh screw it,” she pats Three’s head, “I’d like to hang out with you a bit more, Glowstick, but I need to get some beauty sleep.”

Slipstream tosses a keyring onto the desk and looks at Eight.

“The fort is yours, I’m out,” she walks towards the exit, “If I meet the Mayor, I’ll tell him to hire a batpony, the pompous-”

“Calm down, Slipstream. He was pissed off already.”

The pegasus shoots Eight a burning glare.

“Yeah, and whose fault is it, mister Stores-a-keg-of-beer-in-the-office-freezer?”

Eight sighs.

“Good night.”

“You too. Oh, and I fixed the bell on the door so that you have a moment to wake up when somepony comes. You’re welcome.”

She slams the door as she leaves.

*Clink clank clink clank!*

”Holy oozing holes, well freaking played, Eight!”

“...I’m still shaking. This is a job for an infiltrator, not me...”

”You did super well. How much did you know about Slipstream beforehoof?”

“We had a short chat yesterday, that’s all. I had no idea what she was talking about. No special shifts or anything. Damn, some days I regret not being an infiltrator able to chew through a pony’s brain in minute detail. Not for long, though. This way I can beat the snot out of the smug bastards.”

“Awww...” frowns Glowstick until now patiently listening to Eight’s mumbling, “I want to be one in the future.”

“You can always be the statistical error.”

“Uhh… what does static tickle mean?”

“It means that if you’re nice I can… tolerate you wanting to be an infiltrator. We could use one anyway. I prefer punching to talking.”

“I can give you a hoofrub. Is that nice?”

“After a good punching.”

“Does boss agree?”

“...well, do you?”

”Every minute we spend here chatting means a greater risk of somepony coming here for whatever reason.”

“The King says it’s okay.”

“Yay!”

”Seriously, stop screwing around. I don’t feel good. This being in your head thing is… making me dizzy. It’s getting difficult to focus. I can hear tHeM. TheY’rE geTtiNG cLosEr.”

“...King?”

”I'm a mind inside a mind with millions of mind swirling around. We’re like one of those Stalliongrad nesting dolls.”

“...what are those?”

”I don’t know, but THEY do. I don’t want to know, I want MY OWN experiences, not theirs, so please move your tight ass while I can still concentrate!”

“Three, orders!”

“Yes, miss Eight,” Three salutes in a fashion which would make any Royal Guard stab him on the spot out of sheer indignation.

“We’re going downstairs. Run in the back room and get me some paper and a quill.”

“On it!”

He disappears behind a bend in the hallway.

“I hope I didn’t need to tell him what those are.”

”He’ll be alright. It might take a while, but he’ll be back with it. We drones aren’t THAT stupid, you know?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, King. Even I feel… empty without the hive mind. I know how little I know compared to what I used to. Speaking of the hive mind, how are you?”

“The head I don’t currently have hurts like Tartarus, but it seems like they’ve stopped for now. They didn’t speak this time, they just wanted to… push inside. I think we have some time before the next attempt, though.”

“Then we need to recruit the infiltrator to spread the load. When we’re down there, let me do the talking.”

“I thought you were more the punching type.”

“I am, but you are too… nice. This isn’t a job for nice.”

”I got you and Three. That worked out somewhat alright.”

“Infiltrators are different. They are granted more autonomy and won’t hesitate to use you to gain power and influence if you show weakness.”

“Mhmm!”

Three returns with a sheet pad and pencil and spits those on the desk.

“I didn’t find a quill, but I faintly remember this can work too.”

“Good job, Three,” she pats his head.

“Thank you, miss Eight,” he beams.

Eight tears off a sheet of paper and writes down: Be right back.

We walk the opposite way down the hall from where Three ran off to get the writing implements. This guardhouse and police station in one is just a small house, and there can’t be much more room past the entrance, the office in the back, the cells we’re just passing by, and the stairs down. The unmarked door at the end of the hall must be either a bathroom or a janitor’s closet.

The cellar is a single room with half of it barred off to make another cell. The front half is full of stuff carelessly piled up by the walls as if hastily cleared out from the back part to make space for the prisoner.

Huh, that’s something I wouldn’t normally think of…

However, that particular mess isn’t important. The mess in the cell is.

A male changeling is lying there, legs bent and broken, green flesh pushed through wide cracks in the chitin. His barrel is a spiderweb of fractures covered in dried blood, and the sides of his muzzle are ripped, revealing a mouth with a majority if its teeth knocked out.

In short, I would never call a changeling demolished, but this one is close. What is an utter miracle is that when Eight opens the door and leans down to him, I can see his chest slowly going up and down.

She puts her horn to his vastly smaller one, letting a small green spark bounce between them. Then another, and another.

Eventually, the infiltrator’s body tenses up. His legs twist, crack, and return to a shape compatible with quadrupeds, sending drips of blood splattering over the floor. He unglues his one eye not crusted over with blood, and looks up from the floor.

“...I’m… alive?” he croaks.

Comments

[JollieOllieOxenFree]

I feel like i just got blue-balled

[Nameless Narrator]

8521213
I've honestly got no idea what to say to that.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

The police station door finally closes behind us, and I can unclench my spiritual anus. I don’t know what would have happened to me is (if) somepony caught Eight. I should ask at some point, but right now it seems like a terrible idea, because she kinda forgot to tell me one important thing. That, or I forgot.

[Bahamuttone]

have happened to me is somepony caught Eight

if

“Hi, Slipstream,” Three yawns, “You’re right. I could use a nap.”

I guess this should be Eight