Nothing At All

Nothing At All

Chapter 4 - Deliberation

By Chimpso

"Plans are our way of making ourselves think we are in control."

Even though her own forelegs did not make the most comfortable of pillows, she had grown tired of resting on the grass, and there was no cloak to put herself under that morning.

Morning? Yes, Aurea concluded that it must have been morning, at least half a dozen hours since they had arrived at her park, but she had not spent those hours the same way as her friends. They had elected to sleep on arrival, after agreeing that they would face their problems the next morning. Aurea on the other hand didn’t find herself desiring rest, especially considering what she had been reading in those many hours.

With a good book came  a great sense of obligation. There could be no half jobs when the words had a direct link to your mind, imparting with you the knowledge and wisdom they contained. The link needed to remain intact, and so Aurea never put a good book down until she was done. There had been countless times where she’d sat on her bed, never being able to find a comfortable sitting position, and turned page after page as the hours drifted by. When she reached the end, or made a compromise to call it quits at least after finishing the section she was reading, she’d dive under the covers to gain a few sparse hours of rest, half of which would be her tossing around as her mind regaled her with the information she had just consumed.

Last night however, her turbulent mind gave her no time for rest. The amount of knowledge that it had been imparted over those last few hours kept it constantly asking questions and raising point after point after point. Aurea turned onto her back and rubbed her temples fiercely. Her eyes wanted to close and she wanted to let them, but they just kept flying open, insisting on action and thought.

Giving in, she sat up on her haunches, only a little too fast. Rubbing her forehead to ward off the dizziness, her eyes stung as they adjusted to the light of the rising sun now just making its way above the mountains. Crawling over to the chest-high stone wall that separated her from the fall below, she slumped her forelegs over and rested her head on the cold stone surface. It was a new day.  A new, unpredictable day; almost something she would have wished for previously had she already not grown tired of the events of the night before.

Sliding off, she sat back and rested her head against the wall. Turfy and Ember were asleep on the other side of the park. Turfy had taken off her dress, ruined from the jump into the shrub, and the two were curled up on it, fast asleep, though they wouldn’t be much longer. Once the sun rose high enough to hit their closed eyes, they would likely stir.

Aurea reflected on Ember and Turfy for a moment. Their relationship had been a long one; she had known him before Aurea knew her, but time had certainly not eroded them. They had their differences, but that had never been a bad thing, and there were times when Turfy’s stubbornness and Ember’s drive for her to succeed clashed, but it was nothing that would stay sour once a new day rolled over.

 Aurea thought about that for a moment. Perhaps that was one plus to sleeping: waking up less sour than you went to bed.

Shifting her focus from the sleeping pair to the grass under her haunches, she let out a sigh as she gently brushed her hooves along the greenery. She never thought she’d ever have use her park as a safe haven, nor had she ever believed that she’d bring another pony into it. The mere thought before had been sacrilege, but then again, much had changed in the last day.

Finally managing to stand up and not fall flat as soon as she did so, she hobbled over to the grass patch that she had attempted to sleep. Since it fortunately had been so warm a night staying in the open air hadn’t been uncomfortable, though the lack of sleep certainly had been.

Scooping up‘Earth and Sun’ again, her mind drifted once again onto how she would explain it to her friends; it would have helped if she were able to explain it herself. Most of her father’s longhand sentences ended with question marks despite explaining things in great detail. It had clearly been a long project of his, and it documented conversations and meetings that he’d had discussing the work in the papers. Most of these meetings, he noted, provided him with nothing substantial.

It was a diary and a compendium of the work he had done on the topic. It not only contained notes of information, but locations and people he went to meet, followed by what information they had provided him with. The last thing that had been written, sitting innocently at the top of a blank page, simply read: “See Shearfield, Shearfield Apparel, Ponyville”

Shearfield, that was most certainly a Canterlot name, and Aurea was fairly certain that only a distinguished shop in a village as small and down-to-earth as Ponyville would title itself ‘apparel’. It wasn’t a name that she’d recognised. Her parents had traveled to Ponyville many times and she herself had gone along on several occasions to enjoyed the vibrancy of its community. Ponyville’s greenery made it a relaxing reprieve from the stone and concrete of Canterlot, but its night sky wasn’t as impressive.

His work ended on that last line, that was what he planned to do next. Aurea flicked back through the previous pages, being met with diagrams and labels. They were powerful on their own, but she knew what her father was trying to do: prove himself wrong, trying to falsify his hypothesis as he should. But if the work and notes were any indication, his theory had held up to observation, and he was looking for an explanation.

An explanation, the contents of the papers most certainly obligated one. Once again, she wondered how she was going to explain what she had found to Turfy and Ember. If sleep was going to avoid her, she might as well focus on that. Having three minds working on the issue would be better than one.

Trenchcoat could barely remember the last time he had watched a sunrise.

They were always inspiring occurrences, though he couldn’t understand why. Watching the blazing orb slowly rise over the horizon had helped him many times in the past, being a gateway for ideas when things went awry.

It had been a long, long time since he had needed a sunrise’s help.

He recalled the last time he had observed one; a foggy morning on the roof of that Manehattan skyscraper, waiting to deliver more bad news to their wealthy client whose office sat up there. That was a long time ago, but he remembered that job well; how could he forget it? They had been contracted to hunt down a thief who had stolen a necklace belonging to the client’s wife. They were to bring back both the necklace and him, though why the client had wanted the thief he didn’t know. Following several leads, he and his team constantly tracked down the thief down, but every attempt at capturing him was foiled; he had one-upped them every time. It took an incredible stroke of luck for them to finally snag him, but not after an exhausting and frustrating few weeks which tarnished their previously flawless record. They had turned the necklace and thief over to the client. What became of that elusive stallion, Trenchcoat did not know.

He remembered it all too well and was in no mood to see it happen again. The pegasus they was after had eluded them twice, twice. She couldn’t have possibly seen them coming the first time, and her venture into the house the night before was incredibly foolhardy and should have been an easy snag for them, yet she had escaped again.

But that wasn’t his primary frustration – yes, she had escaped, but things like that happened. What frustrated him most was the key difference between the pegasus and the thief: The thief knew what he was doing. He had played them for fools, setting them up to fail again and again. He obviously had a great deal of experience when it came to fleeing and had manipulated them again and again to further the distance more and more. The pegasus, she was not like the thief. She had no skill; was not a criminally savvy and agile pony, she was an astronomer. How could an astronomer have escaped them not once, but twice?

Trenchcoat could only think of two possible explanations. The first was that the pegasus had simply been lucky, that her escapes were mere flukes and not of any direct fault of him and has team. The second – the one that troubled him the most – was that he and his team were messing up. He knew that he couldn’t fight against luck, so that left only the second option to work on.

Stepping off of the balcony and back into the study, then over the splintered door into the hallway, Trenchcoat knew he had to pull his team together if they were going to catch this pegasus. He had let them get overconfident, he had let himself get overconfident. He remembered the days when they would pursue each contract with an almost undue amount of prudence. It was time consuming, but they always got the job done properly. Now, time had eroded their patience, and their cutting corners was coming back to bite them in the flank.

As he began to descend the steps back to the ground floor, he noticed the scorch mark on the wall. He was sure that unicorn’s spell had signed some of the hairs on his nose. Perhaps that was another one of their failings; this pegasus had friends, and their tunnel vision wasn’t doing them any favors. Where had their prudence gone?

Bristle was asleep, sprawled out haphazardly on her stomach on one of the large lounge sofas. Tinker looked as if he had just woken up, and had helped himself to some of the food in the captured house. Trenchcoat had decided the night before that going after the pegasus on a whim would likely lead to further disaster. With so many routes their prey could have taken it would have been near impossible to find them, not to mention they had no idea where they could be going.

Trenchcoat moved over to the kitchen table where Tinker was munching lazily on a breadstick, his mane a frazzled bedhead. “Plain breadstick? I never took you for the lazy one Tinker,” Trenchcoat remarked, Tinker grunted as he took another bite.

“This house has nothing good to put on it. I swear, these prissy Canterlot ponies are...”

“Where is Lexic?” Trenchcoat asked, cutting off Tinker’s groaning.

“Upstairs, I think. Got up hours ago, searching for some clues in the parent’s room.”

Trenchcoat was surprised. Lexic may have been his second, but that because he knew his magic, not because of his initiative. Briskly taking the steps two at a time as he hopped back into the hallway, Trenchcoat heard a shuffling sound that he hadn’t noticed on his first trip down. It wasn’t coming from the parent’s room however.

Pushing open the door to the daughter’s room, he looked down to see Lexic sitting on the floor, papers arranged neatly around him as he looked up from what he was currently reading to see Trenchcoat standing in the hallway, “Morning boss.”

Trenchcoat just nodded as he entered the room. The small light crystal illuminating the room gave off just enough light to allow reading from wherever one was sitting. “Actually working Lexic? What’s got you so fascinated?”

“I was just looking through her stuff. Know your enemy and all,” he replied.

Trenchcoat moved over to him, glancing at the paper in his hooves. “What have you found out?”

“Well, her name’s Aurea as we know. Astronomer; took after her parents. I tell ya’ boss,” Lexic indicated the charts on the floor around him, “This girl is good. I don’t know what any of this even means, but it looks really complicated.”

“A zip-lock bag would look complicated to you Lexic,” Trenchcoat remarked. “Did you find anything that is actually useful?”

“Well, uh... No boss. Nothing,” Lexic admitted. “Room’s very bland as you can see. If this is where she spends most of her time, she really hasn’t personalised it that much.”

“Which is of no concern to us,” Trenchcoat said. “Our job is to track her down, not find out her life story.”

“Oh, come on boss. You’re not even the slightest bit intrigued? That’s not like you.” Lexic eyed him inquisitively; an almost condescending look that Trenchcoat wasn’t used to seeing from him. He nodded.

“Yes, quite right, and that is because our situation has changed. We have no time to waste pursuing paltry matters. I need you in the main room.”

Lexic sighed and placed the paper he was holding back onto the pile. “Alright then, alright. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Satisfied, Trenchcoat exited the room. Instead of heading straight down the corridor and back down the stairs however, he lingered around the door for a moment, just long to hear Lexic scoff quietly to himself; “‘Paltry’. Heh.”

Returning to the first floor, Trenchcoat walked past the couch Bristle was snoozing on, giving it a swift kick with one of his hind legs that jolted the pegasus out of her slumber.

“Wha–?” Pushing her pink mane out of her face, her eyes cracked open to see her boss staring back at smugly.

“Hurry Bristle, you’ll be late for school,” he teased, the quip visibly ruffling her feathers before she groaned and groggily got to her hooves.

Tinker looked a little more perked up,  his breadstick now near finished as he levitated a cup of water to his mouth and took a sip. “Come on now you two, we’re not on vacation,” Trenchcoat said, before raising his voice so it could be heard from the above floor, “Lexic, hurry up.”

“What’s the occasion boss?” Tinker asked.

“Occasion?” Trenchcoat replied incredulously, “We’ve got a job to do, that’s the occasion.”

Lexic marched down the stairs and joined the two at the table, and Bristle, still rubbing her eyes and adjusting her coat, joined them as well.

Trenchcoat took a moment to take stock of his team. Bristle looked half-dead, Tinker seemed bored, and Lexic appeared to be only mildly in tune. He sighed, first things first.

“Look at you lot, you act as if we’ve just hiked up Canterlot mountain. We don’t have time to sit on our flanks in this house. We’ve got to get moving.”

“Aww, come on boss,” Bristle moaned, “It’s hot out there today.”

“I don’t care if the sun is about to crash into the Earth Bristle,” Trenchcoat replied, “We’ve still got a target to catch who – I’ll remind you again – has eluded us twice. Now, if we’ll all stop acting like children for a few moments, we need to decide on our next course of action.”

“You got a plan boss?” Lexic asked, sounding a little more attentive this time.

“Unlike you lot, I didn’t spend all morning sitting around,” Trenchcoat said, before prodding Tinker with a hoof. “Tinker, hypothetical situation for you. Let’s say you and Bristle are out on a date.”

“Hey!” Bristle shouted, glaring at her boss who simply chuckled. Seething, she sighed, “I thought we weren't going to act like children boss.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hoof.

“Unless it is to illustrate a point, which I am doing. Now, Tinker, you and Bristle are out on a date. You care very much for each other and want to keep each other safe. Now, on your way to the fancy restaurant you plan on having dinner at, you are ambushed by a group of ponies who seem intent on kidnapping you. But you both escape. Now, what is the first thing you would do?”

TInker shrugged, “I’d go to the police.”

“Good,” Trenchcoat said. “Now, what wouldn’t you do?”

“Uhh... What?” Tinker asked, struck dumb at the question.

“Lexic,” Trenchcoat turned to the silver stallion. “What wouldn’t you do?”

“I don’t know boss, what?” Lexic shrugged and Trenchcoat saw that he had finally got his team focused.

“You wouldn’t throw yourself back into danger, wouldn’t you? And you certainly wouldn’t drag your date along and endanger her too, right?” He asked them, watching them all shake their heads. ”Alright, so we all know what we would do; we would go to the police and they would handle it. We would most certainly not go back to our homes and endanger ourselves more, we’d let the authorities handle it. Correct?”

His team nodded, he continued. “Our pegasus went back to her home...”

“Aurea,” Lexic interrupted.

“What?”

“Her name’s Aurea boss.”

Trenchcoat’s hoof met his forehead as he sighed, “Yes, thank you Lexic. Now, our pe– Aurea, went straight home instead of to the police. This is a girl who we can assume is reasonably intelligent, and who almost certainly recognised that she was in danger. Does that strike anyone else here as odd?”

“Well, yeah,” Tinker said, “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I think she did go the the police station, the closest one to her: Fallweather’s.”

“If she had, he would have held her there and told us. That was our plan, right?” Bristle asked, “So if that didn’t happen then she wasn’t there.”

“Or she was, and Fallweather didn’t tell us.” Trenchcoat corrected her. “I fail to believe that she would be so impulsive. She either came back to her house at his urging, or after consulting her. Fallweather knew our plans and our methods, and he knows that there is only one thing she can do. Run.”

“So what, you think he told her to leave the city?” Lexic asked, raising an eyebrow. “That means we’ll have to get a move on, it’s already early morning.”

“Correct,” Trenchcoat said, “We don’t know where she is now, but we know where she will most likely end up heading: Canterlot Station. She’ll take the train out. Walking would take too long and I doubt she’ll fly all on her own.”

“That’s it then,” said Lexic, nodding. “We wait at the train station.”

“Not quite.” Trenchcoat turned to Bristle. “Fly down to Fallweather’s station. Tell him to provide the addresses of Aurea’s two friends. Then come back here.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Tinker interrupted, standing up from his chair. “If Fallweather helped her escape, how can we trust him?”

“And what are we going to do about him?” Bristle asked, grinning mischievously and clopping her hooves together.

“Bristle, if you want to beat up a police chief in the middle of his station then be my guest,” Trenchcoat said. “But to answer the question, no, we can’t trust him. So make sure you take a look at his archives yourself and ensure that he’s giving you the right addresses. Don’t bring anything up about him helping her. If it’s true, letting him know that we know won’t help us. We’ll hopefully be done with him soon.”

Trenchcoat sat down on one of the dining room chairs and leaned back, letting out a breath of air. “Go Bristle, and be back quick.”

The Pegasus nodded and did as she was told, exiting out the back door and taking off into the humid morning.

“So... what is the plan then boss? Are we gonna take her friends and use them to lure her in?” Lexic asked.

Trenchcoat chuckled, “No Lexic. Her friends are a bonus. If we are going to grab the three of them, we are going to need them to be together. We need information, for all we know, the three of them could be doing the exact same thing we are right now.”