Spies Up Your Life
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BURN
NOTICE
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Disavowal Advisory (SF 7935-X)
Issuing Agent: Myrmarachne
Agency: Queen’s Veiled Fang, Region 13 (Covert Operations)
Approved by: _____________________ (leave blank for your supervisor to sign)
Affected Assets: Cover identity “Sweet Biscuit”
All agents and activities of the Hive-in-Exile, be advised that the above asset(s) has/have been irreparably compromised. Any agent in possession of resources maintaining the existence of, related to, or supported by this/these asset(s) shall surrender any contaminated resources to their agency’s Disposal Officer without delay. Immediate action is required. Any agent who disobeys this command will be surrendered to their agency’s Disposal Officer.
Narrative:
You know, I really wish this part was optional.
I originally developed the “Sweet Biscuit” cover identity to infiltrate Canterlot’s fashion industry, but I’d also used the role for a few other missions in Canterlot and Ponyville. She was an attractive unicorn mare with a blond mane, light beige coat, and bright green eyes, all wrapped up in a genuine and tender personality. This mission called for public interaction and persuasion, so it seemed like a good fit for a cute pony who could bat her eyes and talk sweetly until she got what she wanted. Even with everything that happened, I stand by that decision.
The objective of Operation SECRET INGREDIENT was to bake cookies laced with a substance identified only as “Extract” and dispense them to ponies around Canterlot. Baking the cookies was easy, but distribution proved more complicated. Apparently, if you want to give out baked goods, you’re supposed to get a business license, take business classes, and open a shop.
Getting Sweet Biscuit’s license just took a trip to city hall, and I had the lease for a shop near the Grand Park of Princess Celestia (curses upon her name) in a week. For the class, I got into the best business program I could find: a “Diamond Exclusive” course at the Sales, Commerce, Acquisition, and Marketing University, which was run by two business ponies named Flim and Flam. With the business license, lease, SCAMU diploma, and thirty-five thousand bits of student loans in my hooves, I started my mission in earnest.
Or, I tried to. No amount of eye-batting or sweet-talking could convince anypony to try a cookie from the strange new mare on the block, so I went back to Professors Flim and Flam for advice. Luckily for me, they also owned a business that distributed snacks to shops all over Canterlot. The two of them liked the samples I gave them, but said they needed an expert opinion before deciding whether to sell my cookies. They told me they’d hire somepony to meet me at the apartment, taste test a few, and tell them whether the cookies would sell.
The day the expert was supposed to arrive, I scoured the apartment for anything that could blow my cover. My fine-tuned intuition told me the mysterious Extract bottles might arouse a pony’s suspicion, so I hid them with my other espionage gear in a steel safe in my bedroom closet. Then, after checking a mirror to make sure I was in character, I took a seat and waited. When the doorbell chimed, I sprang to answer it, ready for my baking skills to help return the Queen to Her rightful place.
The door opened on a unicorn who was misery incarnate. A pale purple coat wrapped tightly around her knifelike cheekbones. Her ears and mane were pulled back agonizingly tight. A violet cloak covering her shoulders was frayed at the hem. She stared down at me with slivered eyes.
I’d met this pony before, including once when I was disguised as Sweet Biscuit. “Zesty Gourmand?”
“Yes.”
“You probably don’t remember me—” I said before she brushed past. So much antipathy dripped off of her that I gagged from the taste. I had to move into the kitchen to recover.
There was a bar between the kitchen and the living space with a couple of stools lined up along it. Zesty perched on one of the stools and daintily folded her hooves in her lap. “Before we commence with the taste test, Ms. Biscuit, perhaps you could tell me more about your cookies.”
“Oh, there’s quite a story behind them!” At SCAMU, I aced the section on pitches, spiels, and tall tales. “See, the recipe is an old family tradition…”
That got the first eye roll from Zesty. She must have seen through the mushy old family tradition stuff. Part of me liked her more for that. I switched tactics and tried focusing on facts.
“It’s a lot like the basic sugar cookie recipe most ponies know, but a Biscuit Family Cookie has a few tweaks. First, we spice ours with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and…” I leaned in to whisper, “a touch of our secret ingredient.”
Another eye roll. I wanted to tell her that one was true, since even I didn’t know what Extract was at that point, but I had to stick to facts that wouldn’t put her on the Enemies of the Queen list. That list is already long enough.
“They’re also much, much sweeter than a normal cookie. This time, there’s no secret: I just put in twice as much sugar!”
Her tongue jutted out with a sound like her soul leaving her body. Going for broke, I appealed to her inner cooking nerd.
“Most importantly, though, I bake at a lower temperature for twice as long, which allows for fifteen percent more gluten coagulation. The end result is a softer and chewier cookie than any other on the market.”
The cookies were on a plastic-wrapped plate in the kitchen. I picked it up with my magic, tore off the wrapping, and swung the plate under her muzzle. Sugary, doughy scents filled the air around us.
“Now, doesn’t that sound like the most scrumptious cookie you’ve ever sunk your teeth into?”
She levitated one of the cookies to her nostrils and sniffed. Her nose wrinkled. “They sound absolutely revolting.”
“Oh.” Sweet Biscuit would have broken out the water works at that. I prepped for a good weeping spell, but she interrupted me with a weary sigh.
“Then again, all cookies revolt me.”
She, I, and the cookie were silent until I said, “I’m confused. If you don’t like cookies, why did Flim and Flam hire you?”
Her side-eye flicked to me. “Truly, my star has fallen to unfathomable depths if a novice like you does not know who I am.”
“Actually, we’ve met—”
“I was once the undisputed scion of Canterlot haute cuisine,” she continued morosely. “My presence garnered respect, and even a morsel of fear, at every restaurant I stepped hoof in. Mine was the taste of the entire city, and that taste was subtle. Whispers of a flavor so delicately evoked that even speaking aloud their name would demolish their essence. That was the pinnacle of culinary triumph, and I reigned as the arbiter of its success. Then…”
She didn’t need to finish. I’d been there when it happened. “I guess tastes changed, huh?”
The cookie hit the plate with a crash. “Tastes did not change! They atrophied, they lapsed, they…“ She sighed, and her fury burned out. “They reversed. Perfectly. Now the city craves the most outrageous, tongue-slaughtering bevy of flavors possible with every nibble. ‘More, more, more,’ the rabble howls as they ransack the final bastion of high art.” She levitated a cookie back to eye level. “And I, with my incomparable taste buds, can distinguish with absolute clarity the degree of their culinary barbarism.”
What she’d said started to come together in my head. “So you can tell if a food has enough flavor that other ponies will like it?”
She nodded.
“But you don’t like strong flavors.”
“I loathe them.”
“Then…” I gasped, unable to finish the thought.
Zesty could. “The more I hate a food,” she said, “the better it will sell.”
“That’s awful!” I genuinely felt sorry for her. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“Few can dream of the lengths to which a pony must go for a steady paycheck.”
She had a point. On one mission, I spent two months disguised as a mirror in Prince Blueblood’s private quarters.
“I suppose there’s nothing for either of us to gain from further delays,” she lamented. She raised a cookie back to her nose and inhaled deeply. “Pungent.”
My breath caught while her lips parted and the cookie slipped into her mouth. Her jaw clenched. Seconds passed with only the sound of her chewing.
Her mouth stuttered to a stop. Her eyes widened from slivers to ovals, and then to enormous circles. She swallowed, and her ears shuddered.
“I abhor this.”
She snatched another cookie from the plate and took an enormous bite out of it. “Repugnant,” she said with crumbs spilling out of her mouth. “Vile. The obnoxious sweetness, the infernal spices, the asphyxiating icing, it all crushes my taste buds without mercy. These cookies are, by far, the most odious thing I have ever tasted.”
“You hate them!” I cheered as I bounced in place. “You really, really hate them!”
“Ms. Biscuit, these abominations could very well lead to the annihilation of Canterlot as we know it.”
“Oh, that’s music to my ears!” For once I got to applaud that while undercover. “So you think they’ll sell?”
“They will be a cataclysmic success.”
“And you’ll tell Flim and Flam to buy them?”
“I…” Her expression turned furtive, her ears low. The half-eaten cookie dropped to the plate. She smiled thinly, and I half-expected fangs to peek out. “I wonder if we should.”
My heart skipped a beat. I was one snooty unicorn’s say-so away from getting these cookies, and the secret Extract I’d been pouring into them, onto every store shelf in Canterlot. All of a sudden she wanted to play coy?
But I batted Sweet Biscuit’s long eyelashes and smiled like an innocent little filly who definitely was not about to cocoon somepony and take their shape. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“One can only imagine the unconscionable contract Flim and Flam would have you sign,” she said cooly. “Quotas, fixed cost pricing, liquidated damages, fee-scaling. They will hurl at you every connivance in the book they wrote to ensure one outcome: you will do all the work, and they will reap all the profits.”
I shrugged. “That’s business, though. I’ll just be happy to see my very own home-baked cookies all around Canterlot.”
“There is an alternative.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. I leaned over the bar to hear her. “As you can see, the distributor makes all the profit. What if you were the distributor?”
“Goodness, I couldn’t do that, I’d be too busy baking these cookies.”
“In that, I can assist. I am acquainted with the owner of a commercial bakery who operates outside of Canterlot. I could reach a favorable deal with him to produce your cookies in unprecedented volume while you sell them to shop owners with your fetching charm. Combining my connections, your allure, and these reprehensible cookies, we could put Flim and Flam out of business.” She flashed me a toothy grin. “You would only have to share your recipe.”
Her offer tempted me a little, partly because I liked the idea of crushing weaker businesses, and partly because I worried about paying back Sweet Biscuit’s student loans to Flim and Flam. But I had to turn her down. There was no way I could let subcontractors get their hooves on the Extract bottles.
Before I could say no, she leaned across the bar. “Does that appeal to you, Ms. Biscuit?” Her eyelids fluttered, and her breath warmed my muzzle. “The two of us becoming…partners?”
Plenty of stallions and mares had made a pass at Sweet Biscuit, so I recognized all the body language like it was from a textbook. Something disturbed me, though. Whenever a pony had hit on Sweet Biscuit before, I’d gotten a savory taste of love from them. From her, at that moment, there was an utter, barren, nothing.
“N-no, but th-thanks.” I didn’t have to fake the shakiness as I backed away.
She sniffed in reply. “Do as you will.”
As the Queen commands, more like.
Zesty rose from the bar, her chin raised in disappointment. “I will inform Flim and Flam of your success, and recommend to them that they purchase your cookies. You may wish to prepare for the bargaining that will follow. Before I leave, would you kindly direct me to your restroom?”
I pointed her down a short hallway that led to the restroom and bedroom. She’d given me good news all around, and I’d already started thinking about my after-action report. The incriminating safe in the bedroom was the last thing on my mind. Even if she did stumble on it, she’d need a half-hour with a welding torch to get inside.
At least, that’s what I thought until I heard the zotz of a teleportation spell.
I left the kitchen on tip-hooves and crept down the hallway. The bathroom door hung open. From the bedroom came the sound of objects shuffling against each other. My fangs extended as I approached its door and slowly pushed it.
My safe hadn’t moved, but my equipment had been teleported out of it and strewn all over the room. A closed binder with ID cards and passports for a dozen cover identities was propped against a wall. Equestrian bits, Griffonstone gold, and Mt. Aris shells spilled from boxes that had been hastily opened and tossed aside. Darts glistening with toxins wobbled near the bandolier they’d been shoved out of. A Veiled Fang-issued portrait of the Queen lay on the ground.
But I ignored all of that. My eyes were fixed on Zesty, the half-empty bottle of Extract she held, and her smacking lips.
“You devious little charlatan,” she said, “you’ve been lacing your cookies with changeling venom!”
Which raised two questions.
One: how did she know what changeling venom tastes like?
Two: whose spit had I been dumping into the cookies?
She vanished in a flash of light. So did the Extract bottles.
I panicked. My cover had been blown wide open, and my bail bag was scattered across my bedroom floor. If only I’d splurged on the magic-proof safe. I was trying to decide whether to shapeshift into a pigeon or a falcon for my escape when a loud wud-wud-wud rattled the apartment. Outside of the window, a flying machine drifted into view, helmed by Zesty. She smiled wickedly at me.
“I suppose you would be perplexed by what transpired this evening,” she yelled over the raucous sound of her flying machine. “Then again, what would a simple pony like you know about espionage?”
“I… Wait, what?”
“Espionage!” she roared. “Intelligence and reconnaissance! Secrets, betrayals, and lies! For you and the other menial unicorns of Canterlot, it is the stuff of plays and books. For me, it is life!”
“Yes,” I said as my changeling fangs dissipated, “I am a totally menial unicorn pony.”
I walked to the window and got a clearer view of the flying machine, a helicopter with a wiry black frame and a small storage box behind Zesty. However, there weren’t any hoof pedals. Instead, its four blades were pushed in a continuous circle by pegasi, two to each blade, beating their wings harder than the Wonderbolts on drills. I wondered how long they could do that before they got sick.
“I am no average spy, for I do not kowtow to any princess,” Zesty continued. “While entrepreneurs and profiteers clash on the battlefield of capitalism, I ply my craft amidst its shadowy underbelly. From sabotaging product launches to extracting trade secrets, no business is safe from me!”
She wagged one of the Extract bottles at me. “As soon as I tasted your cookies, I knew you’d baked them with more than love and extra sugar. Flim and Flam will be very pleased to learn of your secret ingredient, and to add it to every one of their products!”
“Oh, no. That is the exact opposite of what I want.”
The helicopter banked away from my building, but something about the whole exchange irked me. I cupped my muzzle and yelled, “Why are you telling me all of this? Aren’t spies supposed to be secretive?”
Zesty signaled to the pegasi, and the helicopter drew so close that I felt gusts of wind from their wings. She breathed in so deeply her entire body heaved. Her head whipped back. With a manic look in her eyes, she bellowed her answer for all of Canterlot to hear.
“ADVERTISING!”
Cackling, she flew away into the night.
“When we meet again, Ms. Biscuit,” she called out as her helicopter vanished from view, “inquire about my special for new clients!”
Thanks to my quick wits, Zesty Gourmand did not discover “Sweet Biscuit’s” ruse that night. However, the risk that she’ll eventually figure it out is too great to use this cover identity again. I am therefore issuing this disavowal advisory to preserve the integrity of Veiled Fang operations.
This has nothing to do with the thirty-five thousand bits “Sweet Biscuit” still owes in student loans.