The Syndicate

by Blarghalt

The Bookie

Numbers. Owlowiscious' life was numbers.

The owl awkwardly flapped through the night, the sack of gold weighing him down. By cross-tabulation of his average flight-speed and the consideration of local wind conditions, he calculated that his cargo was precisely 6.8 kilograms. This meant that the sack did contain (excepting the .00002% chance that one of the coins was a famous "triple-horsehoe" misprint, which was 2.4% heavier) 1,679 standard Equestrian coins, minted and weighed by Her Majesty's Treasury.

The wind shifted 26 degrees north, which prompted Owlowiscious to tilt his wings five degrees pitch axis to compensate. This change in wind was fortunate, as Owlowiscious now knew that he would arrive at Twilight Sparkle's library exactly forty-six seconds ahead of schedule.

The positioning of the moon suggested that the time was very early in the morning. The chances of Twilight Sparkle in an all-night study session were quite high when Pinkie Pie's party schedule and local economic factors were considered. The characteristic outline of the tree the library resided in rose over the town's landscape and Owlowiscious circled towards the first floor window.

He flapped in front of it for three seconds before he saw that the window had been left often, probably by Spike. Owlowiscious cautiously flew in and tensed when he witnessed Twilight Sparkle in the main foyer.

Twilight's eyes were closed and her head slumped over a thick book. Drool poured out of her mouth as she snored lightly. Spike was just a short distance away from her, his head resting on a thick dictionary. The idiot had likely fallen asleep while trying to bring it to her.

Flying over to one of the bookshelves, he carefully pulled out a copy of Levitation Theory and Application, which was three inches thick from binder to binder. A small click only audible to him sounded upstairs; a small depression in the wood next to Twilight’s bed had appeared, so minute that even Twilight had never noticed it. He acted quickly, only having nine seconds to push it.

With half a second to spare, Owlowiscious pushed the small depression of wood in further with his rightmost talon, which sounded a second click. The countdown until the gears reset on the second timer was much more generous and his flight back downstairs was confident and controlled.

When he returned to the bookcase he had meddled with, a small panel had slid away, revealing a red button. He pressed it with his beak and the entire staircase revolved halfway open. Owlowiscious flew inside the gap. Once he was inside, the door slowly closed itself with little more than a muffle.

Twilight stirred in her sleep. "AJ, if you say one more thing about apples I'll..."

Sack of coins still clutched in his left claw, Owlowiscious traveled to the large table in the middle of the hidden room. A single light bulb hung above it and an abacus was bolted into its top right corner.

The bird dumped the contents of his bag over the table, the jingling muffled by the thick wooden walls. He flew under for a second and came back up wearing a green bookie visor with quill in one claw and a few pieces of parchment in the other. With everything in place, he sat them down and began to take inventory.

This had been a good week. Between Winona's cattle rustling and Angel's expansion of their protection racket, The Syndicate was now looking at an income that would crack the cane of any socialite in Canterlot. In a few years, they could probably just buy Equestria from Princess Celestia.

After he was finished counting every coin, he re-checked the numbers dozens of times. There were 1,678 coins, which was one below what it should have been. The table became scarred in scratch marks and feathers as Owlowiscious went into panic mode over the missing coin. He hurriedly sorted the coins one more time and caught one as he was partway through the pile.

Sure enough, it was a triple-horseshoe misprint.

He scowled at the offending piece of currency. "Who."

All the money accounted for, he put all of the money back into the sack and went even farther back into the room. A pony may have just seen total darkness, but his eyes were able to see a large lever in the shadowed back end of the hideaway. He grabbed onto the top and stopped flapping, allowing his chubby body to force the crank down. It took a full two seconds for the entire ensemble to hit the ground, and when it did, a small trap door opened just one meter away. He flew up and turned the bag upside down to empty its contents.

The trap door fed to a metal tube and Owlowiscious heard them roll for at least half a minute before the sound became inaudible. He didn't know where the tube went and he didn't really care. He was in it for the math.

The only thing to do now was write his transaction down. He went back to the table and pulled a thick book from underneath it. It was a thick brown thing and had "LEDGER" written in very messy wording on the front. Using his talons, he cracked it open, coughing four times from the dust before flipping the pages to write down his most recent deposit. Right below the blackmail money they received from Fancy Pants and the Griffon Prince scheme they had been stringing several Fillydelphians along on, he wrote down the money they received from Filthy Rich.

The owl then closed the book and went to the back of the bookcase. He pressed the large blue button on the back of it, which made it revolve once more.

The noise of the entrance's movement awoke Spike for just a moment and he set his eyes on an owl emerging from a secret compartment in the library. The assistant locked his eyes with the owl’s for a moment before rolling over. "That's it, no more ice cream before bed."

Owlowiscious huffed and and wiped the nervous sweat off his brow. His work finally completed, he took to his perch and drifted into a well-earned rest.

Comments

[Irongalley]

You...

Are genius!

[Clemerl]

Well this took awhile to read,"Nobody said there'd be Math! I BLAME OUR SCHOOLS!"

[Blarghalt]

1613259

Welcome to OBAMA'S EQUESTRIA

[Darkmyster]

This is truly one well-oiled operation they have going on, I wonder whatever got them into the business and who is the big hancho of the Syndicate?

[bahatumay]

I always wondered what the average velocity of a laden owl was....

[Whirring Gears]

"This meant that the sack did contain 1,679 standard Equestrian coins, minted and weighed by Her Majesty's Treasury."

"There were 1,688 coins, which was one below what it should have been."

Just a little error, but I absolutely adore the character you gave Owlowiscious.

[LittleSallyDigby]

He didn't know where the tube went and he didn't really care. He was in it for the math.

Owlowiscious is best mobster.

[AcademicPony]

Odd that he didn't separate out the triple-horseshoe bit and record it as an artifact rather than as currency. It sounds like it would be more valuable as a collectors' item than it would be as a coin.

[Yoshifan30]

So Owlowiscious is like hiding the supplies of the money and everything inside of a treehouse