In The Name of Science

In the Name of ScienceChapter Nine: The Science of Bending the Truth

I had found a new guilty pleasure.

Stealing, I learned, was actually pretty fun once I convinced myself that it was for a good reason. Ignoring the fact that taking what isn't mine is wrong, there were a lot of little thrills to be had in the home of Filthy Rich, who--as his name would suggest-- is loaded with tons of nearly useless knickknacks and doohickies that were practically made out of money.

I gleefully grabbed anything and everything that looked shiny or expensive and wasn't nailed down. Gold candlestick? Mine. Big white crystal thingy that looked like a paperweight? Yoink. Gem-encrusted letter opener? I'll take that. Silverware set that was actually made out of silver? It made a funny noise when I stuffed it in my bag. Painting of some important-looking dude? Took it out of the frame, rolled it up, and tucked it under my arm. Fancy brown felt fedora? Not worth much, but at least I had a new hat, and it was just my size to boot. Though, I kinda didn't like the way it smooshed my ears.

I was, in all honesty, drunk with greed, and stealing had quickly became a sort of cycle for me. See. Want. Take. Have. As easy as blinking. There was no one to stop me from doing what I wanted; what was theirs was mine, all I had to do was reach out and grab it. It was... liberating, to say the least. All my life, my parents and I had to fight tooth and nail just to keep our heads above water, financially speaking. All of a sudden I held trinkets in my hands that would have supported a family of four for a year. I hadn't in all of my life owned things so valuable. Things made out of gold, real mother-humpin' gold.

If only I had been able to bend the laws of space and time to take myself back to that shady spot in back in Central Park with the bag. I could've taken a taxi back home to my parent's place and strolled inside like it was just another day. I would then plonk the bag of loot down on the coffee table and say "Check it out, mom 'n dad, we're loaded! Halle-freakin-lujah!"

Alas, I was still permanently stuck in Equestria, which wasn't too shabby when you think about it the right way. You already know this well, but I'll say it again: This place was pretty damn great. Despite the fact that I have on multiple occasions become a bona fide butt monkey, I was having the time of my life. Sure, I may have been electrocuted, drugged, beaten, deafened by unexplainable high pitched noises, and forced into some sketchy situations by some unsavory characters, but I still tried to stay positive when I can. I was sure that things would smooth over after I get settled in to this whole new "life of crime" deal.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. But hey, you win some and you lose some.

Loading, please wait. . .

It took less than twenty minutes for me to fill my backpack to the point where it was nearly ripping apart at the seams. The bag was filled to the brim with all sorts of neat shit that rich people like to just leave lying around the house, begging to be taken. I was sure that my back would hurt like a bitch from lugging it all around when I woke up the next morning, but all that ill-gotten loot was more than worth a little acheyness later.

One thing that I hadn't thought about until then was the ungodly clattering and clanking noise that the backpack made whenever I moved faster than the speed of smell. It was like listening to an orchestra of pots and pans trying to play Beethoven's Fifth.

So, with all that being said, I'd bet you can imagine the sound that it would make if I were to say... drop it down a staircase. Which I did. Yep.

Oh, shut up. I know what you're thinking. "Geez Silus, you're such a klutz lolololololol." Well stop thinking that, even if you weren't in the first place. I had a perfectly good reason to drop it...sorta. I had one of those terrible itching sensations under my tail, you know the kind that felt like being bitten by an army of angry fleas. Well, the sack was too big to reach around, so I had to slip off one strap to get an arm free so I could do some hardcore scratching. Of course, it put me waaaay off balance, and I happened to be at the top of a staircase.

Shake, rattle, and roll. I ended up tumbling end over end down a mercifully short flight of stairs, the content of the bag spewing out and falling with me. It was a clattering landslide of orange fur and loot. I ended up in a heap of sharp metal objects and in a whole new world of pain. Yippe. Thankfully, I only ended up with the wind knocked out of my tin lungs, along with some bruises that I'd discover later. I was lucky enough to be able to get back up and dust myself off before--

"Celestia's flanks, what was that?!"

"Dad, what's going on?"

"No, honey, just stay in your room, okay? Daddy's gonna go check it out."

"Oh, hell in a handbasket!" I muttered to myself.

My mind moved as fast lightning, and my limbs a little bit slower. Two jobs I had done, two times I had awoken somebody. This did not bode well for my thieving career, not in the slightest. I scooped up all of the loot that my hands could hold and stuffed it back into the bag, trying to make it all fit together like it had before. It was like playing a real life game of Tetris, and the game ended when the loot reached the top.

"Screw it!" I piled as much in there as physically possible and left the rest at the bottom of the staircase. Such a shame, but I'd rather be a little poorer than in jail. I threw the bag over my shoulders once more and bolted off like a bat out of hell.

"Hey, wait! Stop!" Came the voice of somepony.

To this day, I don't know why I froze. Perhaps I'm just a nice guy, and if someone asks me to do something as simple as to stop running, I do it. There was no telling for sure what ran through my mind, but there was just something about the way he said what he said. It felt...off. It was like his tone of voice didn't fit what I imagined it would have sounded like.

So there I stood; a pack full of things that didn't belong to me in hand, staring into the eyes of a rich stallion in his cliché money-pattern green pajamas. I looked at him, he looked back at me, neither of us moved, neither of us spoke. We just had a moment... a brief moment when realization hit both of us like a runaway train. He had been robbed, I had been caught. The air between us was thick as pudding.

"Is that my hat?"

I allowed myself a brief glance up at the felt rim of my new hat. I grinned, despite the rather somber mood. "It used to be."

"Wh-why? Why are you doing this?" he asked tentatively, his eyes pleading for an answer.

Eyes. Pleading. I repeated those words in my head. It's not how I imagined him to be. The way I had saw him in my head I after Royal told me of his betrayal was different of how he was in real life. I imagined him like some diabolical backstabbing traitor who wanted to destroy the world with his evil death ray of doom, but no. He looked to me as evil as a sad little puppy dog, lost without his master.

At the time, I thought that it was a ruse; maybe he acted like that to make me let my guard down, but that wasn't it. "Why." I echoed. "Well, I guess it's my job to clean you out. The Family sent me, you know. They wanted payback for what you did to them."

"The Family? As in Thee one and only Family?" He seemed confused, like I had just said that his great grandmother hired me to rob him.

"You know, the Family that you screwed over."

"This must be a mistake, I've been nothing but good to them! They can't just loot my house like I'm some common--"

"Waitwaitwaitwait, rewind." I stopped him. "Did you just say 'good'? Heh, if that's what you call that good, man, then I don't want to see you go bad."

He scoffed indignantly, throwing his nose in the air like you'd expect a rich guy to. "I should have known better than to trust you ponies. Honestly, you all hit a low point and just start robbing anypony with bits in their pockets. If that's the way it's going to be, fine. You can forget about our previous arrangements!"

"Yeah, well you can go-- Wait, what?" Huh? Did he just say what I thought he said?

His face flared up to a shade of red that looked like it belonged to a fruit. "You heard me right, weasel! Even if you pack of wild thieves do get back up on your hooves one day, I'll never even buy a single bit worth of dirty merchandise for as long as I live!"

Okay, now I'm confused. This conversation took a turn for the WTF. I made a capital T with my hands. "Woah there, moneybags, time-out. I'm kind of new here, so just bear with me. You're suggesting that you didn't sell The Family out to Princess Luna?"

"No! What are you, crazy? You're the one clopping me over, moron."

'The plot thickens.' The otherwise silent Pi said.

"Ohh-kay." I wasn't sure what to make of this. Was he lying? If he was, why would he lie about it? Why would The Family steal from someone they're in business with? Why would they send me to do it? When did this get so complicated all of a sudden?

To hell with it. I didn't exactly care at the moment. Better not to ask. "Well," I said, doing an about face and heading toward what I assumed to be the exit. "Sorry about your stuff, bro, but that's just how things work. I'm sure you can afford to lose a few letter openers and soup spoons. Ciao."

 "Okay, fine! Go ahead, keep it all. I don't care" Filthy Rich all but shouted at me as I went. "Just as long as I don't have to see another member of The Family for as long as I live."

I reached up and grabbed the handle of the door, turning to say "I can't make any promises, but I know I personally won't wanna come back here again. This place is too fancy-schmancy for my tastes."

With a dramatic flick of the wrist, I opened the-- "That is SO not the way out." What lay behind that door was not outside, but a broom closet filled with all manner of household cleaning items. "Hey, uh, where's the exit?"

Rich gave off an aggravated sigh and pointed to the opposite end of the room. "End of the hall, can't miss it." That was awfully gracious of him.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Loading, please wait. . .

A trudge through Ponyville later and I had found Royal Blue waiting for me at HQ. He was leaning in the doorway of the shack, the glowing orange candlelight emanating from the many spaces in the building behind him, kind of like a giant wooden Halloween pumpkin.

"Did you get the document?" He asked, as eager for the loot as a child for his Christmas presents. Well, maybe he wasn't that excitable, but he seemed pretty energetic for his age.

"Yeah." I said, gladly letting the overweight backpack clatter to the ground and off of my poor shoulder. I fished out the blue-tinted scroll that I had looted from Rich's safe and handed it to him. He snatched it out of my grasp greedily. Well, that was rude.

"I took a peek at that thing. It looks like floor plans to a freakin' superfortress. Well, a piece of one, anyway. It's been ripped apart."

"I know, I know." He waved dismissively, unable to tear his squinted eyes away from the map. "I was the one who tore it up. Say, let's look at this inside. I can't see a thing in this darkness."

Royal tucked it in the crook of his leg and went back inside. I dragged the loot in with me like it was a dead body, not wanting to carry it on my achy breaky back anymore. I was pleasantly surprised to find that inside the hut was comfortably warm compared to the chilly night outside. That was due to the fact that they had built a fire inside the house. Not in a fireplace, but in a pit right in the middle like a teepee or something. In addition to that, the one and only room aside from the crudely dug-out basement was sparsely furnished. It held naught but a nicked and beaten old table that was pushed against the far wall, littered with that night's plans. Plus, a collection of four hammocks, two in either corner of the room, arranged like bunk beds. Three of them held a sleeping pony and one unoccupied.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, these ponies are poor.

"So," Royal said, spreading the scroll out on the table "did the break-in go off without a hitch?"

"Yep. They'll, uh, never know what hit 'em." I didn't want to tell him. What was I to say? 'Hey Royal, why did you lie to me about Rich? He was actually kind of nice, let me walk out the door with his stuff. I don't think he should blah blah blah blah..."

"So nopony saw you?"

"Not a one. Got in through a window, stole some stuff, got out the same way."

He grinned at me with a smile so wide it could have made The Joker jealous. "Excellent! I knew you had the gift, colt. I'm never wrong about that kind of stuff, you know. I can just smell it on a pony like perfume."

"I'm not a pony." I corrected.

"Indeed you are not." He said absentmindedly, his attention had quickly drifted off to the blueprints. "Ah ha, we have wondrous news!"

"Cool." I said. "I like good news, but wondrous news is even better. So what's up with the map?"

"As far as I can tell, this print has not been altered in any way by anypony since before it was ripped up. Now let us pray that the others are in such good condition."

"What is it, like a treasure map or something?"

"Better!" Blue exclaimed with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader. "It is merely more than a map, my friend, it's plans to a heist. Not just any old boring bank heist, oh no. This little filly makes all other lesser heists pale in comparison."

A heist? I should've figured. What else could a band of thieves want with blueprints? They sure as hell weren't going to build castle with it. But I just had to ask...

"What makes it so special?"

"Special?!" He almost sounded insulted "It is the onl-- Uhm. Ah, well, I, uh, I can't tell you. Heh heh." He rolled the document up and tucked it away, out of sight.

 Because telling me would be too easy. And easy just wasn't a thing that happened to me a lot. I wanted to be mad, I really did. Shouldn't I get to ask questions about what I had just stolen from a very rich (and very easily robbed) pony? Alas, I didn't energy to be upset with him, I just wanted to lay my head down and end the night.

He flashed a half-hearted smile my way. "Sorry, son, only the Mothers and Fathers of The Family knew that this thing even existed. That's how we kept it out of Princess Luna's hooves. We might've been torn apart by a benevolent alicorn, but this Family still has rules. And you know what they say, the rules are rules."

Whatever. I waved it off dismissively. I'll tell him why the rules are crap...the next morning. God, I was so tired. The night before wasn't exactly heavy on the shuteye, and that night wasn't any different. Now that there was no looting left to worry about, nothing could stand in between me and the inside of my eyelids. I didn't even want a freaking cigarette or a cup of coffee, that's how deeply I was focused on getting to bed.

"So," I said, stifling an unsurprising yawn "where do I sleep? Those hammocks looked like the greatest thing in the world right about now. Hell, a pile of rags on a dirt floor would be fine by my standards."

"You can go share one of 'em with Squeaky. He won't mind." Royal gestured to the large rope hammock that cradled a comparatively smaller pinto colt curled up in a ball.

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I give you Squeaky, better known as Pipsqueak Coast, son of Emerald Coast. Yeah, feel free to kick your headcanon to the curb just as I did when I met him earlier. It turns out, he's not actually an orphan as most of the fandom believed. Just because we don't see a character's parents doesn't automatically make them parentless, you cruel bastards.I'd bet five bucks that Scootaloo isn't an orphan either.

So, point is, he not without a father figure in his life. Though, said father is a career criminal, but then again so am I. And Royal Blue. And I'm pretty sure that Winter Wheat chick that follows Emerald around is one too. Not to mention how he was born into a metaphorical family of thieves as well as a literal one. I think it's safe to say that larceny was in his blood.

For those of you who don't like the idea of Pipsqueak being a thief, go jump in a hole. In the couple of hours that I spent with him, I saw the kid pick a practice lock... with hooves. I couldn't imagine how hard that would be without two thumbs and eight fingers. And he did it faster than I could by like three whole minutes. This kid was born to steal. I know, right? Who knew?

Anyway, I hauled myself up and made myself comfortable among the tangle of ropes. Pip was already dead asleep, and I wasn't far behind. If I slept sideways, there was enough room in the hammock to lay comfortably without being right up in each other's faces.

"G'night, Royal." I said.

"Hm?" He looked up from the scroll he had unfurled once more. "Oh, good night, Silus."

"You can call me Si, if that's your thing. Most of my other friends did."

"Alright then, Si. Congratulations, by the way. You're an official part of The Family now. Welcome home."

"Yeah, thanks."

With that being said, I kicked my feet up, put my hands behind my head, closed my eyes, and thanked god that I was finally able to get some damn rest. It didn't take long to call asleep, maybe a minute or two of silence and I was off to dreamland.

And so ended day three in Equestria. Wow... It didn't really feel like just three days that I had been here, it felt more like one big one. Everything was a blurred mishmash of new experiences to the point that it was almost sensory overload. This was one of the few calls and quiet moments that I had, and I spent it sleeping my ass of.

Everything I had done in three days... was this how my new life was always going to be? Heists, rickety shacks, gold, and petty theft? I can't say that's how I pictured making a new life for myself. But hey, I'll take what I can get. Maybe a career with The Family wasn't so bad. They seemed nice once I've gotten to know them, and their cause seems just. But one thing still nagged me; why did Royal lie to me? Did it matter whether or not I thought he was a bad guy to steal from him? Eh, maybe. I sure did feel better about cleaning his safe out thinking that he was a traitor.

Oh well, I could've just pretended I never met him, it was probably easier that way. It didn't really matter, no harm no foul and all that. Tomorrow was another day, and I decided to be more concerned about that than what already happened.

After all, what's past is past, right?