We'll Dismember It For You, Wholesale!

Chapters

Chapter 1: Odd Jobs
Chapter 2: Snapperdoodles
Chapter 3: Overtime

Chapter 1: Odd Jobs

"Greetings, my — Oh for Sun's sake! One day, Gilda, I should like to walk into our apartment without becoming an accessory to murder."

"Oh. Yeah. I need your help with that."

Trixie stared at the bound stallion hanging lifelessly from a noose in the middle of her kitchenette. "Really? It seems you've been quite thorough."

Gilda rolled her eyes, rising from the sloppy futon and slouching towards the kitchen area. Opening up a cupboard — Trixie noticed that she’d finally got off her rump and fixed the hinge — she spilled an armful of ingredients out onto the dirty work surface, and started making a sandwich. "The body, you dweeb. Cinderblock wants him disappeared, not a trace."

"What, now? It's a week from the Summer Sun Celebration. And it's Wednesday. Gilda, this is going to be arduous. Why did you take this job?"

"Money. Your share's on the refrigerator," she said, tapping it as she opened it up. She took some lettuce, cheese and beetroot from the fridge, and shoved it between two mustard-slathered slices of rye bread.

Trixie yanked the coinpurse on the fridge towards her and examined the contents. She scowled at Gilda. "Where's the rest of it?"

"I shtuck a groth of your share an’ a groth of mine in the rent boxth,” said Gilda, spewing crumbs across the floor before swallowing. “That's the rest. I didn't stiff you, Trixie. I ain't you."

"Hmnph. Fine." Trixie glanced back at the hanging corpse. "Why is my hat floating in front of his hips, like it’s been hung on....” Her eyes went wide with comprehension, then glowed with venom as she realised the arrangement between her beloved hat and the deceased pony.

"Why?" she growls at Gilda.

"I got bored and started playing ring toss."

"My hat!"

Gilda held up her claws. "I was going to put it back."

Trixie stared at her flatmate with every ounce of contempt and anger she could muster, levitated the hat into the air, and turned it to dust with a thought. She summoned a carrier bag from a kitchen drawer, stuffed the floating ball of dust inside, and deposited the bag into the bin.

“Don’t know why you’re being such a sourpuss,” said Gilda, opening the fridge and pulling out a can of hard cider and a can of carrot juice. She threw the carrot juice to Trixie, who caught it in her grasp. “Hay, why don’t you just turn the dude to dust? We can skip all the bullshit and go out drinking, first two rounds on me, eh?”

“Why yes, that’s a fantastic idea, Gilda,” said Trixie, pausing a moment to open her drink and take a sip, “I’ll turn a pony to dust over a period of days, absorbing him into my latent magical aura and displacing him, and while I’m at it I’ll conjure up a siren to scream ‘I am a murderer who murders ponies and disintegrates them’ because that’s what it will sound like anyway to any unicorn who comes within thirty feet of me. You’re an absolute genius, have you considered applying to absolute genius school? They’d give you a Celestial Scholarship, I’m sure, and a sloppy rimjob to boot.”

Gilda rolled her eyes, leaning back against the crumb-strewn countertops. She guzzled the cider, pouring it straight down her throat, crumpling the can in her claw as the last of it trickled out. Then, she let out a loud belch.

“Whatever,” she said, wiping her beak, “Are we gonna do the job or what?”

“Fine. Get the travelling case.”

* * *

By the time Gilda and Trixie were stuffing the stallion into the large, plaid travelling case, rigor mortis had set in considerably. With some straining, Gilda snapped his left hindleg to fold it into the case, but his right one wouldn’t budge. Having no desire to cover the apartment in congealed blood, Trixie settled on wrapping a bright pink scarf around the offending hoof until it was entirely covered, and then left it to poke out of the zipper.

“Mother was always so much better at packing neatly than I,” muttered Trixie, “I will ask her how she does it the next time she visits.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Gilda, “It looks like we’ve got an, uh, stormball stick and we didn’t want the top getting scuffed.”

“Hmm. Yes.”

“And, y’know, it’s bulgy but it ain’t distinctive. We did a pretty good job with the packing peanuts this time. Not like with Short Change.”

Trixie winced. “Heavens, no. You could see his face through the sack-cloth. I still have nightmares about that subway ride...”

The trip to the rooftop garage was uneventful, except for Gilda dropping the bag while pulling it up the staircase, breaking the stallion’s neck with a rather ghastly crunch. Their neighbor, a heroin addict, popped his head out of his door to investigate the noise, but went back into his apartment as soon as he realised there was no heroin involved.

The moon was high as they walked along the rooftop to Gilda’s spot. She fumbled for the keys as Trixie fumbled with the zipper, trying to stop the stallion from sliding out under his own weight. When his entire right foreleg slid out of the bottom, taking a few handfuls of packing peanuts with it, she looked around in a panic. Seeing nopony else in sight, she huffed and set to work covering as much of the dull-orange limb with her scarf as possible.

Gilda’s garage door opened with a rattle, revealing the sleek autochariot inside, her pride and joy. She grabbed the front handle and pulled it outside. As Trixie lugged the travelling case into the trunk, Gilda moved into the driving seat. A complex crystal apparatus was fixed where a pegasus would normally stand, six glass mobius strips held in place by brass pylons, arrays of copper-wire twisting and curling every which way. With a flick of a switch, a thaumatic shield sprang to life around the engine, and a pair of spectral wings glowed faintly in the dark at either side. Gilda grinned.

“Chrome spokes. Two wheels. Zero horsepower.”

Trixie hopped into the passenger seat and flopped back with a groan. “I still think you wasted money on this contraption, but dear Luna these seats are heavenly.”

“I know, right? Didn’t cost a bit extra, either.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Remember when Split-Lip, the idiot, got that hot idea of stealing luxury limousines and then found out nopony would touch them? I broke into his place while he was chasing his tail trying to find a buyer and just yanked the seats straight out. Took ten minutes and an allen key. Got the gearstick too.”

The gearstick was distinctly classier than the rest of the interior, a walnut and silver tip resting atop a burnished steel shaft.

“You could bludgeon someone over the head with that thing...” said Trixie.

“Yeah. My friends back in flight school called me a dweeb for listening in shop class, but look at me now. I bet their seats aren’t even half as comfy.” She wiggled where she sat, sinking into the plush fabric. “So, uh, where are we taking him? The farm?”

Trixie shook her head. “No, it’s bingo night for the pigs. Not the slag factory or the crystal rendering plant either, not this close to the Summer Sun Celebration. It’s Acephalous Construction or the harbour.”

“Harbor. I’d kill for some fish right now.”

“Excellent. Shall we?”

A jolt later, the pair and their cargo were up in the air, flying above the Fillydelphia skyline. Gilda fiddled with a dial in front of her, and after a few seconds of static, a lick of heavy rock blared through the speakers.

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

Trixie grimaced. “Really? This?”

“Oh c’mon, tell me you don’t love this song!”

“Well, yes, I do, but it doesn’t fit the mood. You might as well be playing a dirge at a birthday party. If you want to perform dazzling feats of disappearance, you need the right tone, you can’t just scramble willy-nilly for anything that pumps you up, listen—” she said, flicking the dial with her magic.

‘...is GFFM, Fillydelphia’s finest talk radio station. Up next, Grits Cornpone and Goodmane Combs discuss the new education plans from Canterlot: are they a treasonous conspiracy, or merely a liberal menace? Then Brick Lane with the weather report...”

“We are not listening to talk radio.”

“I know, I know...”

“...it’s like that *huh* and that’s the way it is...”

“Hey, I know this band,” said Gilda, “New band. Run CMC.”

“Oh?”

“They’re from Ponyville. Turn that shit off.”

“Way ahead of you,”

“...I stuck around in Unicornia, when I saw it was a time, for a change...”

“Sympathy for Discord,” said Trixie, triumphantly, “this is exactly the song we need.”

“I see where you’re coming from,” said Gilda, cranking up the volume. “Harbor?”

“Harbor.”

“...stole the food, freed the windigoes, Clover the Clever, she snarked in vain...”

And with the music thrumming through the thin canvas rooftop, they set off.

* * *

Two songs later, Trixie sat up. “Gilda, a detour. We need to stop at Lugnut’s All-Night Hardware.”

Gilda glanced at her and grunted, “Why? You’ve got the kit.”

“We need hacksaw blades.”

“No, we don’t. We’ve got a spare. I checked.”

“Yes, we have a spare, and I don’t trust the one in the saw, it looks stressed. Do you want to be left in some shack in the harbor with a half-dissected corpse because we had two snapped blades in a row? Because I’m not staying with it while you wander off to buy the wrong part from an idiot.”

“Oh come on, that ain’t gonna happen,” huffed Gilda.

“It’s happened before...”

“Midden, like when?”

“Like repairing the wagon last year, like — look, I’m not going to play this foolish game, featherbrain. Will you honestly tell me, that in all your hours of fixing things and shop classes, that you’ve never had two parts break in a row?”

“Yeah, but that’s...” Gilda groaned. “Fine, we’ll go to Lugnut’s.”

“Good.” They were silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to annoy. I’m just, concerned.”

“I know.”

“It’s a dangerous job, after all, with risks that we have to prepare for. We’re like the ponies in hazard suits at the High Energy Magic plant, or food and hygiene inspectors in Manehattan.”

“I know. Chill out. We’ll get the part. I know you worry about this shit, sorry for trying to brush you off.”

“I — thanks. Thank you. I can be a perfectionist, I know.”

“Hah, you’re a regular Photo Finish,” said Gilda, a smile working across her beak as she made a turn. She groaned again. “Oh, no.”

“Nein, fraulein?” In Trixie’s seat sat a middle-aged mare with a turquoise coat and a shockingly white fringe. “Fashion, it is nutzink to be afraid of, my DAHLINK!” she announced, making a grand gesture with her hooves.

“Impressions...” growled Gilda.

“Ah, ze impressions, zey are like a skylight into the soul, zey show all of your wants, und desires, und dreams, und sex, ja, die geschlechtsverkehr, und sex und sex und sex und sex...”

Gilda cracked a grin. “Okay, points for accuracy. Better than your Fancy Pants, at least.” Trixie shifted back to her normal form, and gave a small bow. “Hey, you hungry?” asked Gilda.

“Some food would be welcome, I think,” replied Trixie. She raised a brow, “You ate a huge sandwich not ten minutes ago.”

“Yeah, beetroot just makes me hungrier. I’m craving something with grease...”

“There’s a curry stand half a block away from Lugnut’s.”

“Poppa Dom’s? Yes. I love that guy, eating his food is like mainlining butter.” With a sharp turn, the chariot descended into a cramped street filled with stone buildings leaning towards each other, colorful awnings nearly touching from either side. Warm summer drizzle pattered off the fabric and glanced off the magic sheen in front of the chariot. “We’re here.”

They parked up and made their way through the crowd of drunken students towards the hardware store, and soon the smell of oil and paint thinner cut through the thick, delicious smells of late-night hay fries and beanburgers.

“Twelve inch blade, twenty TPI...” muttered Trixie as she walked through the aisles. After selecting four blades — all twenty-two TPI, but buy-one-get-one-free — she turned to talk to Gilda, who was nowhere in sight. She found her after a minute of searching, browsing the shower fittings section.

“Showers?” asked Trixie.

“Yeah. This one,” said Gilda, tapping an imposing chrome phallus.

“...a tad ostentatious.”

“True, true. But the pressure settings are awesome, all the parts are easy to replace, and the head has a slot for adding essential oil or solvent capsules. Makes preening an absolute breeze.”

“I see the price tag reflects the quality.”

“Yeah. And the manager would probably steal our deposit if we put one in,” she said. Then, she sighed. “I’m sick of renting.”

“Yes. Sunflower Heights is a hole, and the last three places weren’t much better.” She paused. “You know, interest rates are low these days.”

“I hear banks are big on ‘reportable income.’”

“That is a problem, but we have some savings. Maybe it’s time to look into a front business?”

“Not a restaurant.”

“No?”

Gilda shuddered. “Wings. Grease traps. Never again.”

“Hmm. Perhaps a chariot dealership?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can see that, I can definitely see that,” said Gilda, her face visibly brightening under fluorescent lights overhead. “Y’know what, first thing I do after we’re back tonight is make some plans, we can figure something out — oh, do you got the blades?”

Trixie replied in the affirmative, and the pair paid for their purchase. Ready for work and hungry for food, they stepped out into the rain.

There was, of course, a police officer standing next to the chariot.

Chapter 2: Snapperdoodles

Gilda and Trixie felt some measure of trepidation as they saw the uniformed mare peering into their chariot, mostly on account of the dead body stashed in the trunk.

“There’s a cop by my ride,” muttered Gilda.

“Shut up, she’ll notice us,” hissed Trixie in response.

“She’s looking inside, why is she looking inside?”

“Shut. Up. She will notice— she’s noticed us, walk towards her and act naturally.”

“What? You’re crazy, why are we walking towards the cop—”

“You’re not acting natural act natural act natural!” whispered Trixie, a rictus grin carved into her face as she approached the officer.

Gilda nudged Trixie to speak first, and Trixie nudged Gilda to speak first, and they nudged each other twice over before the officer stared straight into Gilda’s eyes and asked, “Is this your chariot?”

“Nnnyes. Yes.” Gilda cleared her throat, her feathers ruffling without her consent. “Yup. That is an, uh, yes. Affirmative.”

“What is your name?” asked the officer, placid as a summer lake.

“Grizelda.” The mare looked at Gilda expectantly. “Redbeak!” she blurted, “Uh, Grizelda Redbeak. I go by Gilda, though, um. But it’s Grizelda. It says Grizelda on forms and stuff, like, my passport and my lease, I think, and—”

“You’re parked illegally. Ground vehicles only on this street. I have to apply a magical clamp until the towponies arrive. Two days impound, and a one-hundred and fifty bit fine to recover your chariot.”

“No!”

“Excuse me, griffin?” The officer’s expression became less placid.

“Whaddya mean ground vehicles only? This baby runs just fine on the ground, and I don’t see no signs about that or nothing anywhere!”

“Multipurpose vehicles count as airborne for the purpose of parking statutes, as outlined in chapter seven, section four of the Highway Code,” she said, a clear edge to her voice now, “and as for the sign,” she lifted a hoof and pointed to a plaque on the closest wall, the size of a handbill, stating ‘ROLLERS ONLY’ in embossed lettering.

“Oh that is bullshit, that thing’s at tail level on a crowded street! We ain’t been here five freaking minutes, and you’re harassing me over some sign I couldn’t fuckin’ see?” Gilda’s voice was raised, too fearful for shouting, too surprised for snapping, the hair along her spine and tail raising as a chill shot through her.

“That is the law, beakface, and I suggest you watch your tone if you don’t want hauling to the station in hobbles for causing a breach of the peace and obstructing a police officer in her duties.”

“What the fuck did you just call—”

“Officer, please,” interjected Trixie, visibly sweating from panic, “Forgive my friend for her ignorance; she’s new to the city—”

“She’ll calm down right now or she’ll be new to the Fillydelphia prison system.”

“Yes, yes, of course, yes, my apologies, of course, yes,” blabbered Trixie, “Gilda’s going to calm down, you see, yes, calm, very calm, yes?”

“Calm.” Gilda’s voice was deadly flat. Trixie could just barely hear her friend’s beak grinding together. She prayed the policemare couldn’t.

Trixie was about to speak, to allow a perfect, uninterrupted stream of silver-tongued smoothness to slip from her lips and persuade the mare to leave them be, when the policemare shone a flashlight in her eyes. She stopped, mouthing wordlessly like a beached fish.

“I remember you.”

Trixie’s mind was a fearful blur of panic and attempted recollections. “She knows me. Where? The Yak-Uza exchange? The hit on the taxi service? A dead ender for Marlon Maccaroni? The blackmail at the Guardsmare’s Ball? The horse from—”

“You’re the magician from my niece's birthday party two months ago. ‘The Amazing Trickso,” right?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” she corrected, her mind a blur — two months ago might be three birthday party did two birthday parties one was a colt other a blue filly name Star something Star Shine Star Shimmer Star Light — “Your niece Starbright, no? She was enthusiastic about magic, very good at telekinesis for her age, I recall. A lovely filly.”

“Hah, ‘spoiled brat’ more like. I never got no fancy magician when I was her age, I dunno,” muttered the officer. “She had fun, though, and I think she’s still got your poster.”

Trixie smiled warmly. “Always glad to have a fan. Wait,” she said, taking off her saddlebag. She opened it, with her muzzle rather than her magic, rooted around and slowly pulled out a small paperback book. She opened the cover, summoned a pen, and deftly signed it ‘For Starbright, from G&P Trixie.’

“Better Cantrips, second edition,” said Trixie, presenting the book to the mare, “It helped me greatly as a foal. I hope your niece finds it as useful as I did.”

The policemare barely glanced from side to side as she took the book. “I’m seeing her next weekend, I’m sure she’ll love it,” she said.

There was a short pause as she put the book away. A street vendor carrying two trays of cigars and lighters walked down the street, and stopped nearby to sell his wares. A lightweight banner was mounted on his back, listing his prices. It completely blocked the parking plaque from view.

“There were quite a few vendors on the street when we parked, officer,” said Trixie, “And I don’t believe the sign was visible at the time. Is... is there any way you could at least waive the towing requirement? We can pay the fine, but I have work tomorrow evening, and we won’t make rent if I can’t attend, so...”

The officer glared at Trixie, then glared at Gilda, then glared at the car, then glared at the vendor, who tensed up before skittering off. Then she glared at Gilda again.

“Can I see your license?”

“It’s in my glove compartment.”

“You don’t have it with you? You should always have your license with you when operating a vehicle,” she said, sternly.

“No, it’s in my glove compartm— It’s in the chariot.”

“You said it was in your glove drawer.”

“Yeah, in my glove compartment, uh, inside my chariot.”

“You have a compartment for gloves in your chariot?” asked the mare, looking at Gilda askance, “What, is there a sock drawer in there too?”

“It’s a griffon thing, okay?” said Gilda, too frazzled to snap. She trudged around to the passenger side door, entered the chariot and took out a small cloth wallet. She retrieved her license and presented it to the mare, who looked it over. The mare took out her notepad, jotted down a few chicken scratches, and snapped it shut.

“In light of the circumstances, I’m giving you a formal caution with no other fines or penalties at this time. No parking multipurpose vehicles on t-junction streets with commercial purposes. You should know this. Understood?”

Gilda glared right back at her. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Thank you very kindly, officer, we’re ever so grateful, aren’t we, Gilda?”

“Grateful.” She grunted as Trixie surreptitiously kicked her in the shin. “Much... appreciated?” she said, her face twisting into the same rictus grin that Trixie wore earlier.

“Good evening, mares,” said the officer, who turned to look at another vendor. “You! Show me your sales license!”

A minute later, Gilda and Trixie were back in the air.

“Fuckin’ cops, mare,” spat Gilda.

“That was very close,” said Trixie, eyes still wide.

“Did — did you fuckin’ hear what she said? She called me a beakface, right in front of me, hay, right in front of you! I mean, what the fuck?”

“I thought you were going to kill her...”

Gilda laughed balefully. “Hah. Never kill a guard, unless you make it look like another pony did it. Bad news for every griffon in Filly, otherwise.”

“Yeah.”

Gilda squeezed the steering wheel, hard enough that her talons dug into the rubber grips and her knuckles turned white. Then, she let out a great, shuddering sigh. “Sorry. I freaked out back there.”

“Think nothing of it. I know the feeling.”

Gilda snorted. “Hah. What-the-fuck-ever.”

“I’m serious,” said Trixie, scowling, “Not in Fillydelphia, and I certainly don’t have claws or stripes or big floppy ears, but the carny folk have a certain reputation in Equestria, a rather unpleasant one indeed. There’s a reason I worked so hard on my accents...”

“I guess.” Gilda slumped in her seat and let out another sigh. “It’s Fillydelphia. The guard ain’t this bad in Manehattan, definitely not this bad in Cloudsdale or Los Pegasus, and even in Canterlot the guards won’t give you shit if you look like you’ve got money. Even Baltimare wouldn’t be this bad.”

“No, Baltimare is always worse. Always.”

“...yeah, you’re right.” Gilda let out a great breath of air, throwing her head back and deflating in her seat. She stretched her neck, sat up, and played her claws over the steering wheel, deep in thought. “Still. I hear things are pretty good even for non-fliers in Los Pegasus nowadays.”

“Mmmhm. I have some contacts there in the entertainment business. I’d need a little capital to succeed in a city like that, but nothing we couldn’t manage.”

“Eyrie prices aren’t bad up there, if you don’t mind walking a few dozen flights of stairs every day. Not much cloud based stuff, not with the heat. And a lot of bouncing work, especially for griffons.”

“If we started to look for a place now, we wouldn’t have to spend another winter in Fillydelphia. In fact, we could pick up some property listings from the public library after we’re done.”

Gilda’s face lit up, looking genuinely cheerful. “That is a freaking sweet idea. As soon as we’re done with this dork, that’s what we’ll do.” As she reached for the gearstick, her stomach rumbled loudly. “Uh. We never did get that curry...”

Trixie looked down at the street longingly, but steeled herself. “Let’s not jinx ourselves. Besides, we’re sure to work up an appetite tonight. If we stuff ourselves now, we’ll give ourselves a stitch just moving him.”

“Eh, you’re right. Harbor?”

“Harbor.”

* * *

The night air had settled in the harbor, thick and warm, and suffused everything nearby with the stench of rotting seaweed, acrid crystals and dead fish. The moon couldn’t penetrate the clouds, the only source of light was the sodium lamps along the harbor. Under the dull orange light, the sea looked like a lake of black tar, sloshing against the quays. Lumps of foam and litter glinted in the light like tiny islands.

Gilda and Trixie flew over the piers, over Montaron’s Import and Export Emporium, over the hundred seaweed-farming ships moored in the docks, until they reached a chunky square of a building with a glass dome on top, like a huge fondant fancy in glass and limestone. Their chariot descended, parking behind an overflowing dumpster under a broken lamp next to the building. They had reached their destination, the Fillydelphia University Research Aquarium.

The zipper on the corpse-carrying travelling case had fallen apart entirely by the time they opened the trunk. Trixie fiddled fruitlessly with it as Gilda held an umbrella overhead, only managing to spot-weld the pull tag in place with her magic.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said. Her tail twitched in annoyance as a droplet of cool summer rain landed on her muzzle.

Gilda reached down and gave the zipper an experimental tug. It snapped off in her claw. “Huh. Yeah.” She shoved the body, seeing if it would fit in the split case. “We’ve got gaffer tape and cardboard. You wanna try patch it over, keep it stuck with tape, just long enough to get him inside?”

“Hmm. That would work,” said Trixie, “but I’m not sure we should risk it.”

“How so?”

“...well, I rather like this case. There’s a crafts stall on Trippeny Avenue, I’m sure we could get the zips fixed for bits on the diamond. But if the whole thing falls apart...”

“I see what you’re getting at. Hey, I got an idea,” said Gilda, passing the umbrella to Trixie and then rifling around in the part of the trunk that didn’t contain a corpse. She found a black bin-liner, and pulled it over the corpse’s head and down the body. Then with some effort, she moved the body around, and repeated the process with his hind hooves and a second bin-liner. The two bin-liners overlapped around his midsection. Taking a roll of gaffer tape, Gilda sealed the two black bags together, creating a total shroud over the corpse.

“That’ll do,” she said, grunting as she hefted the plastic-clad cadaver onto her back, “You get the tools.”

“Already in my saddlebags,” said Trixie, “time to work my magic.”

Gilda strained a little to get the body into the back entrance, but soon they were inside, surrounded by the dim auras of hundreds of fish tanks. They walked past sleek tuna, schools of minnows and curious cephalopods on their way to the east wing. As they pushed the sealed double doors open, a wave of warmth hit them, even more so than the sultry summer night outside. They had reached the reptile enclosure.

Past the hissing of caged insects, they heard the soft clomp of hooves on carpet. Gilda’s claw went for her belt knife, and for a moment Trixie seemed to disappear, though when Gilda glanced in her direction she was stood in place, letting out a sigh of relief.

“It’s only Rupert,” she said.

“Hullo, girls,” wheezed the unicorn as he shuffled towards them.

“Good evening, Rupert,” said Trixie, “How’s the back?”

He chuckled, strands of his greyed mane frizzing out from under his watchpony’s cap. “Old as ever, my dear. What brings you here tonight—” his eyes darted to the black lump on Gilda’s back, and his eyebrows rose as his mouth made an ‘O’ of understanding, “—ah. Say no more, say no more.”

“We didn’t mean to barge in like this,” said Gilda, contritely, “The whole thing was kinda short notice.”

Rupert waved them off. “Think nothing of it, Gilda, I owe you two a dozen drop-ins by any account. Besides, you’ll save me from having to feed the snickerdoodles tonight. One of the whelps darn close took my hoof off last week,” he grumbled.

“They’re greedy little gits all right.”

The old guardspony shook his head darkly. “If you need to prepare, there’s the furniture closet over there. Just a few folded-up tables to move.”

“Thanks, Rupert. ‘Appreciate it,” said Gilda, glancing at the closet.

“Have a good night, you too,” replied Rupert as he turned to leave, “I’ll see you at Dante’s on Thursday, it’s been a fortnight too long since I’ve kicked your rumps at cards!”

“Bah, I’ll take your damn shirt, old pony!” said Gilda, grinning.

“Not if I’m dealing, kiddo! You take care, now!”

“You too, Rupert!” said Trixie, as he slouched off, lighting the way with his horn.

Gilda and Trixie set to work in the closet immediately. It smelled of dust, MDF wood and furniture polish, and a harsh fluorescent tube overhead lit the tiny room. Trixie conjured cellophane to cover all the floors and walls as Gilda set up their tools and took the body from the bags. They both donned disposable aprons, and Gilda took out a traditional griffon tool.

“Nothing like a good ol’ butcher’s knife,” said Gilda, putting on a long pair of gauntlets. “Hold the head?”

Trixie moved the body into position, placing the neck over a fold-out chopping board. Her blue aura held the stallion at the shoulders and the jaw.

The blade thudded into the stallion’s neck, sinking three inches deep, and coming loose with a wet flap. Gilda struck again, her aim perfect. The third strike was off, barely. After six strokes, she was through the bone, and severed the head from the neck with a final slice.

Trixie lifted the head into the air, with her magic, examining the perished pony closely. Then, she turned it to face Gilda.

“Wooooooooooooo, I am the ghost of Shortstop, and I shall haunt your very soul for my murder,” said Trixie, working the jaw of the severed head, “I shall set a horrible curse upon ye for dear vengeance, but as ye are already cursed to be slothful in thine ways, to have no ambitions, to mangle your words in a brutish patois and to carry the stench of fish and rancid beetroot wherever ye walk, I am not sure where to start—”

“Gimme that,” said Gilda, snatching the head from the air. She took a knife and made a hole under the chin. Then, she stuck her talons into the throat through the base of the skull, and her thumb through the incision. “There’s no puppet show like a griffon puppet show. Hello, Mr Head!”

“Hello, Gilda,” said Gilda in a strangled falsetto, working the jaw and covering her mouth with her free claw.

“I’ve got a bit of a problem, Mr Head!”

“Oh, what’s that now?”

“My friend Trixie is a total dork, Mr Head!”

“A total dork, is she? Do you know what to do with her, Gilda?”

“I don’t know...”

Gilda turned the head to the side. “We know what to do with her, don’t we, children?”

Mimicking a cub’s voice and putting her claw to the side of her mouth, Gilda replied, “Yeah! Put bees in her vagina!”

“Plant trees in her vagina?” replied the head, “Well, there’s certainly room, but...”

Trixie sat there, forelegs crossed, giving Gilda a flat stare. “This is why you could never be my assistant.” She wrenched the head from Gilda’s grip with a grim *schlick*, and held it aloft as a splot of ichor dripped from the neck. “Besides, this is clearly a head for musical theatre,” she said, clearing her throat.

“We could have been anything that we wanted to be,” sang the skull,

“But don’t it make your heart glad,” joined Trixie,

“That we decided, the thing we’d take pride in,”

“We’d be the best at being bad!”

A siren screamed overhead, and Trixie dropped the head in shock. A second later, the siren began to fade into the distance. Gilda and Trixie sucked in deep breaths.

“I think we should finish up,” squeaked the illusionist.

“I think you’re right,” said Gilda, wide-eyed. She glanced down at the body, “All this work is making me hungry anyway. Guts?”

“Ready when you are,” said Trixie, opening up a bin-liner next to the body.

Gilda took her knife and slit the stallion from groin to sternum, then pulled the flesh open. With her knife and gloved hands, she began to pull the stallion’s innards from his abdomen, severing them from the thews with a paring knife. The stink of shit and offal was overpowering as she removed his intestines, but they were too lost in concentration to care or notice. The liver dropped into the bag with a resounding slap. Soon, only his lungs remained.

“You got the goggles?” asked Gilda.

Trixie donned a pair, and placed a second on Gilda. A hoofheld circular saw floated from the pack. Trixie then held the body in place as Gilda lined the saw up with the stallion’s sternum. The tool whirred to life and screeched as it cut into thick bone and flesh. Specks of red and white and fur splattered everywhere. Gilda shut the saw off with a click, and pulled the chest apart, revealing the lungs, heart and esophagus inside. With a few select cuts, they all came out and into the bag.

Next came the limbs. Trixie took a hacksaw and Gilda took her butchers knife, and they set to work on his hind legs. They cut off his hooves at the fetlocks, then his calves at his knees, and then his thighs from his hips. Both of them were breathing hard now, and opened the door to let some fresh air in.

“I like having a job that keeps me fit, y’know?” said Gilda, “I, uh, — huh — I did a lot of racing when I was a kid, and I’ve seen way too many flight school buddies get some freakin’ desk job and turn to fat a year later.”

Trixie sipped at a flask of water. “It’s not hard to stay in shape. Calisthenics, a moderate diet—”

“There’s where you’ve got no soul, my friend. ‘Moderate diet’ hah. That’s like putting your soul in a gimp suit.”

“Gilda, that’s what I love about you. Sometimes I fear I’m prone to overexaggeration and histrionics, then you say something like that and prove I’m well-balanced merely by ways of comparison.”

“I don’t know what at least one of those words means. Are you speaking gypsy again?”

“It’s the carny’s cant and if I’d known you’d slander it by association with gypsies, I’d never have revealed its existence in the first place!” snapped Trixie.

“Whoa. Calm down, Tilt-A-Whirl.”

Trixie glared at her. Then, she rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m not rising to your taunts. You’re obviously in a cantankerous mood from low blood sugar. Let’s finish up and get out.”

They picked up their tools, and it wasn’t long until the body was in pieces and ready for feeding time. His body had been quartered, all his limbs cut at the joints, and his innards sat wetly in a plastic bin liner. The pair packaged the pony parts, and headed over to the snapperdoodle enclosure.

“Oh mare, they look hungry. I think they can smell it.”

“No, they can hear us,” said Trixie, “Hear our hoofsteps. Look how their feelers are pressing against the ground. They use them as little external eardrums to figure out where their prey is coming from.”

A dozen of the eight-legged reptiles could be seen poking out of the foliage in the pit below them, but they knew there were dozens more hiding nearby. The pit was covered with a plexiglass dome, with a hatch for feeding and cleaning. Gilda slid the key into the hatch and opened it up. The creatures below stared upwards, waggling their tails and eyestalks in anticipation of their meal.

“Dinnertime,” she said, dumping the entire binbag of offal down into the pit below.

The pit erupted. Snapperdoodles swarmed over each other in a hissing, spitting frenzy to get to the food, stingers stinging and fleshhooks snapping. A few snapperdoodles turned against their own and devoured each other, often simultaneously like a voracious ouroboros. Tongues dripping thick mucous slathered over each other and the floor, slurping up every drop of blood and bile. A minute later, there wasn’t a fleck of flesh in sight. The snapperdoodles looked domeward, hungry. One let out a squeaky burp.

“For the second course: rump roast,” said Gilda, holding half of the stallion’s bottom aloft. Trixie shuddered.

“What?” asked Gilda, “You’re fine with cutting a stallion up and feeding him to snapperdoodles, but not with the words ‘rump roast’?”

“It’s just something about the words, it’s too—” she shuddered again. “It’s the difference between knowing that yes, your mother probably gave your father oral sex once, and having your mother describe in detail the warm, gooey sensation—”

“Okay, okay, cut that shit out!” said Gilda. “You’re one messed-up dweeb, you know that?”

“I was only making a point.”

“And the first place your brain goes is ‘parental intercourse’? You’re gonna make me lose my freakin’ stomach,” she said.

“A shame, because the snapperdoodles just ate our spare. Now hurry up and feed them.”

Gilda gave Trixie a gentle push, then chucked in the hunk of meat. It lasted less than thirty seconds. In five minutes, the entire torso had been devoured. Bit by bit, they started to toss the legs into the enclosure.

“I had a pet snapperdoodle when I was a cub,” said Gilda wistfully, as she threw the final fetlock into the melee.

“...you must be joking.”

“Only a whelp. Lots of parents get their cubs snapperdoodle whelps as pets. It’s a griffon thing. They’re great for teaching kids about responsibility.”

“How on earth are snapperdoodles good for teaching foals about responsibility?”

“Well, you have to kill them when they start shedding their skin. I crushed mine with a rock,” said Gilda, pride tempered with sadness clear in her voice. “It was cute, though.”

“...that explains rather a lot,” muttered Trixie. “Well, we’re done here. Let’s go clean up.”

They closed the hatch and went back to the closet, ready to wipe down the polythene, pack away the tools, clean off their fur and prepare to leave. Gilda opened the door, and a severed head stared up at her from the floor.

“I knew we’d forgotten something,” muttered Trixie.

“I’ll get the pliers,” said Gilda.

Trixie held the stallion’s mouth open as Gilda prepared to remove the teeth, which would pass straight through a snapperdoodle’s digestive tract and leave Rupert with some uncomfortable questions to answer.

“Ew. Clearly a smoker,” remarked Trixie, eyeing the yellowed teeth. Grunting, Gilda yanked out an incisor. Then a second. Third. Fourth. A molar, two molars, three molars, four.

“I don’t know how you guys put up with teeth,” said Gilda, taking out tooth after tooth, “They creep me out.”

Trixie raised a brow. “What’s wrong with teeth?”

Gilda shrugged. “I dunno, they’re just weird. It’s like, no, couldn’t just have a tongue, a beak, and plates. You have to have like, a hundred tiny beaks inside your mouth to rip everything up. You guys don’t even eat meat!” A sickly crunch came from inside the stallion’s mouth.

“Calm down, Gilda, it’s just a tooth,” scolded Trixie.

“Uh. I don’t think that was me. I think something’s wrong with that tooth.”

Trixie opened the mouth wide and shone a light into it. There was one lone molar in the back. Even through the blood, it was obviously unhealthy. One corner had cracked off where the pliers had grabbed it, revealing a hollow core with an unhealthy brown tint. Thick, black tartar surrounded the tooth where it met the gum, practically oozing up around it.

Trixie paused. “Hmmm.”

“Teeth shouldn’t look like that, right?”

“No.” Trixie paused, again. Her mouth opened, and then closed. “Hmmm.”

“What you thinking?”

“Pass me the needlenose pliers”

Gilda did so, and held the mouth open for Trixie to examine. The unicorn levitated the thin pliers into the stallion’s mouth, and with some fiddling, got a secure grip on the tooth.

“I think it’s solid, here. One, two, three—”

She gave a yank, and not only did the gums refuse to relinquish the tooth, they seemed to actively suck it back inside. Trixie frowned. Then she growled. Then she twisted the tooth, sharply. Something fleshy inside came loose with a snapping sound, like a tendon being split in two. With a little effort, the pesky molar came loose.

“There. Now that’s done—” A jet of fluid sprayed from the stallion’s mouth, a little hitting Trixie on the cheek.

Gilda stared. “That doesn’t look like blood—”

The smell hit them.

Blighted potatoes left to ferment in a hollowed out corpse of a syphilitic gorilla. Sharp, acid tones like week-old lemon rinds and month old parmesan left to sweat on a hot summer day. The cheesy, meaty smell of meat that maggots have feasted on. The smells, the horrible stenches, didn’t simply combine into one overawing reek, but played a cacophonous medley of notes hitting every panic neuron and nausea trigger in the equine brain.

Trixie removed the splot of pus from her cheek with her magic. Then she threw up.

“It’s not that bad,” said Gilda.

“*Bleaauuuuurrrrrrggghhhh*” chundered Trixie.

“You’re being a total weanling.”

“*Blaaauuuurruuurrrrggghhhhaaahhh*”

“It’s only a bit of pus.”

“*Blahhghh* — *cough* *cough*”

“You didn’t even eat that much.”

“...I hate you so much.”

“Suck it up.”

“He had... a dental abscess...” groaned Trixie, “Why oh Celestia oh why did he have a dental abscess?”

“That’s why.”

“...that’s why what?”

“That is why teeth are creepy.”

* * *

“I don’t think this is going to work.”

The severed, toothless head had been lying in the center of the snapperdoodle pit for fifteen minutes now. None of them were going near it.

“Wait, look!” said Gilda, “There’s one!”

A lone snapperdoodle had broken cover, and approached the head. It touched the nose with a feeler...

...sniffed at it...

...then made a ‘fleh’ noise, and scuttered away.

Gilda cleared her throat, awkwardly, and looked down at the ground. She had a bag of tools to one side, and a bag of polythene for the incinerator on the other. To Trixie’s left was a paper bag, filled with her vomit.

“I think we’re gonna need a trip to Acephalous,” said Gilda.

“Yes. Wait one moment, let me just...” Trixie’s brow furrowed and her horn lit up, and slowly, wobbly, the severed head ascended from the pit, and floated in front of them. She put it in a second paper bag.

“This really ain’t our night.”

“No,” said Trixie. “Well, we might as well make a move.”

Gilda glanced at the vomit bag. “...I really don’t want that in my ride.”

“What? Oh.” Trixie shrugged. “I was just going to throw it into the sea outside.”

Gilda grimaced. “Seriously? People swim in there.”

“Not in the middle of the night. The tide will wash it away anyway.”

“Better idea.” Gilda opened the enclosure hatch, grabbed the vomit bag, and threw it into the pit. Half a dozen snapperdoodles leapt out, and devoured the bag and it’s contents in seconds.

“Gross,” said Gilda. Then, her eyes lit up. “Brainwave!”

She grabbed the head and stuck a talon in the mouth, getting a little pus on it. Then, she wiped the talon under Trixie’s nose. Trixie squealed, then cried, and then retched, letting a little vomit spew out into the bag which Gilda held under her muzzle. As Trixie worked in a panic to clean off the pus, Gilda put the head back in the bag, coating it in vomit. Then, she dropped the vomit-coated head into the enclosure.

Gilda gazed down into the pit, frowning, as Trixie lay on the floor, breathing hard.

“...did it work?” panted Trixie.

“Nah. They just licked the sick off. Head’s still there.”

“...damn.” She got to her hooves, and levitated the head from the pit once more, wobblier this time.

“Yeah,” said Gilda. “Sorry. I really thought that would work. I’ll buy you curry and a beer to make up for it?”

“Beer,” said Trixie, “Definitely beer, then maybe curry. But job first. Acephalous Construction.”

“Rock on, then.”

Chapter 3: Overtime

If the lanes of the Market District were the hyperactive, drug-addled brain of Fillydelphia and the business district its beating heart, South and Industrial were its liver: a lumpy, ugly mass that filled a thousand functions the city needed just to eat, breathe, and shit.

Acephalous Construction was a madcap sprawl of timber, scaffolding and machinery on the outer edge of South and Industrial that spanned an area three miles wide. Half of it blended into the scrubland outside of the city, a grey, parched span of rocks and thistles that had been stripped of trees long ago, and the weather team never touched.

Acephalous was the seed for the greater sprawl that was Fillydelphia itself, where the skeletons of buildings were dreamt of and prefabricated before being transported by teams of earthmovers, where whole new floors for skyscrapers were pieced together delicately like spun sugar sculptures, ready for pegasus masons to lift skywards and simply place on top of old buildings, and then molded into the original structure in hours by unicorn engineers.

“Zephyr, I hate this place,” muttered Gilda as she pried the metal grate from the ventilation shaft. The air was humid and thick with silence in the otherwise-abandoned building site. Gilda and Trixie cast no silhouettes on the rooftop of the fabrication facility. “We come here twice a month, and it still takes us half an hour to find the damn building. I swear they freakin’ move it or some shit...”

“They do,” replied Trixie.

Gilda was already halfway into the vent, hindlegs first, but she craned her neck to look back at her companion. “Serious?”

“It’s a publicity stunt for investors and clients,” said Trixie, “they do so love to demonstrate the amazing modular capabilities of their structures and materials, and what better way to show it off than to reconfigure their whole site at short notice?”

“What, serious serious? So you just turn up to work and find your new digs half a mile away?” asked Gilda, “And the dweebs here put up with that?”

“No, they’re on strike. Just as well, more space for us.”

The pair slipped inside the building. The interior was a single room built around the brick fabricator, with catwalks above it to allow access to the control panels and input levers. Several large pipes led from the outside, so ingredients could be poured in at a massive scale. There were also input hatches for small batches of custom concretes and bricks, like cloudcrete, thaumic shielding material, and everfrost pykrete.

Gilda pulled the severed, toothless head from a plastic carrier bag, tossed it into the gravel input pit, and then shoveled several buckets of coarse grit on top.

“Do I gotta fill the rest up?” she called to Trixie, who was scrutinizing the main control panel up high on the catwalks.

“No, they’re stocked already. Just stand back, and watch the magic.”

She pressed a button, and the giant machine churned to life, groaning and creaking and grinding before spitting out a single layer of bricks onto a pallet below. When the machine calmed, Gilda grabbed the pallet truck, removed the bricks from the dispenser, and examined them closely.

“Did it work?” asked Trixie, descending the catwalks, “There isn’t half a horn sticking out or anything, is there?”

“It ain’t staring back at me or anything. Y’know, sandstone grit was a pretty good choice. You wouldn’t see the blood color even if you looked.” Gilda paused, and grimaced. “Wait, they’ve moved everything around and I didn’t see the brickyard on the way here. That means we’re gonna walk around with a pallet of bricks until we find the freakin’ place, doesn’t it?”

“No, I don’t think so. A new pallet of bricks, not logged and not signed for, in a striking storage yard will just be suspicious. It’s enough fuss removing our traces from the machine. We’ll put them in the chariot.”

“Oh. Good. What?”

“A corpse is fine, but two dozen bricks are not?”

“Bricks are heavy; they’ll mess up the handling.”

Trixie rolled her eyes theatrically. “It’s hardly permanent, featherbrain. We’ll drop them into the ocean before we go home. Besides, it’s no heavier than the original corpse.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. My chariot is freakin’ sweet. It has custom seats, a built-in radio, a glovebox for extra driving control, a roof, demithaumatic windows and red racing stripes. Stuffing a body in the trunk is straight gangsterism, ergo it’s freakin’ cool, and I’m cool with it. Putting bricks in the trunk like some flabby, filthy, middle-aged cowpony builder is lame.”

“Oh for sun’s sake, of all the stupid—”

Gilda waved her down, “I’m still gonna put the bricks in the trunk, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t like it is all.”

Trixie rolled her eyes again, and the two went back up onto the catwalk. They spent twenty minutes fudging dials and logbooks until there was no indication they’d ever been there. Just as Gilda was loading the bricks into a burlap sack, Trixie had a sudden thought.

“Who was that pony?”

“His name was Slick Dealer, I think. Croupier.”

“Right. Why did Cinderblock want him dead?”

Gilda chuckled softly. “‘Medical condition,’ he told me. ‘Chronic backstabbing disorder.’”

“Ah. An unfortunate malady.”

“Yup. Cinderblock said he betrayed, ripped-off and alienated everyone he knew, he was maybe a week from blabbing everything to the guards, getting a deal and disappearing into nowhere. So, time to die.”

“I see.” She gazed ahead at nothing in particular as Gilda packed away the last of the bricks.

“Something up?” asked the griffon.

Trixie’s brow furrowed, and then she shook her head. “No. I’m just being paranoid, I’m sure.”

“‘Kay.” Gilda closed the drawstring, and slung the sack over her shoulder with a grunt. She turned to face Trixie. “‘Bout what?”

“It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, but what?”

Trixie huffed. “I said, it’s probably nothing.”

“How do I know it’s nothing if you don’t tell me?”

“Gah! Every time I try to bring up a reasonable concern you dismiss it as neurotic or paranoid, and the one time I tell you something probably isn’t a concern, you just have to know!”

“That’s ‘cause you usually tell me what’s up when you think something’s up, and I can freakin’ figure out for myself if it’s a thing or if it’s you being you. But if you don’t freakin’ tell me I can’t freakin’ figure it out, so just freakin’ spill already!”

“Nightmare, you’re insufferable.”

“Just tell me.”

“Fine. I’m telling you though, it’s nothing. If this were a setup, we’d already be—”

“Whoa, whoa, you think this is a setup? And you didn’t freakin’ tell me?”

“I thought of it barely five minutes ago!”

“You know what takes less than five minutes? Getting stabbed.”

“Yes, and that would probably have occurred ten minutes ago, hence why it’s nothing. I just thought...”

“What?”

“...does Cinderblock know about the harbor? I mean, the research aquarium specifically.”

Gilda blinked. “...no, I don’t think he does. I think that’s just between me, you and Rupert. Why?”

“Well, it’s a week from the Summer Sun Celebration. And it’s Wednesday. He’d have to know there aren’t many places you could get rid of a body at short notice, at least, not without a trace. It’s just the harbor and Acephalous. And if he didn’t know about the harbor...”

“Huh. Acephalous is pretty big though.”

“Yes, but how many places are there to completely disappear a body, without any witnesses? Three, four if you’re risky about it? Easy enough to watch all of them, and easier still to wait for your targets when the site is empty and the targets are carrying a body with them.”

Gilda shifted the sack across her back. “I see where you’re coming from. Still, you’re right. A dozen ponies would have burst through the doors and ceiling half an hour ago if this was a setup.”

A dozen ponies burst through the doors and ceiling.

Trixie sighed. “Well, fuck.”

The pair found themselves surrounded by a cadre of brutal-looking pegasi and earth ponies. On the catwalk ten feet above them stood Cinderblock, flanked by his personal killer, Baby-Face, and his donkey bodyguard, Delaney. Cinderblock was a white-coated unicorn with a slicked-back grey mane and beady, piercing blue eyes.

“Now. Just WHAT do — we — have here?” bellowed Cinderblock, “Looks to me like we’ve found a pair of RATS that walked right into a trap.”

“Erm,” said Trixie, as the ponies around her pulled out some truly vicious looking weaponry, “I’m quite sure there has been a misunderstanding of some sort—”

“You shut your whore mouth. There AIN’T been no misunderstandings, mis-overstandings, standing — ovations — or standings of anything else for that matter. And you!” he ejaculated, pointing a hoof at Gilda, “You MUST’ve thought it was half-bird-half-cat day.” He glanced at his Baby-Face, and asked, “It ain’t half-bird-half-cat day, is it?”

“Naw boss,” said Baby-Face, “It ain’t half-bird-half-cat day.”

“...is this about helping ourselves to the pizza at Gigi’s?” asked Gilda, “‘cause that’s not just us. Lots of other ponies do that too, when you make them wait in the kitchen while you’re busy on the telegraph or whatever.”

Cinderblock barked out a laugh. “Don’t PLAY games with me, Gilda. You fucken’ well know what this is about. What you two have done is beyond the pale,” he cried. “I am a reli-gious pony, and I. Do. Not. Say such a thing lightly, but what you have done is un-for-fucken’-giveable. So whadda gotta do with you?”

“Talk this out like reasonable adults?” suggested Trixie.

“Nah, that ain’t it. Delaney, whadda gotta do with these JOKERS?”

“Ee, you gotta slot the fucken’ bastards,” whinnied the donkey.

“Damn fucken’ straight, Jackson,” he said, drawing a gleaming dagger with his telekinesis, “We’re gonna feed you two into the machine, inch by inch, but not before I ram this shiv through your beak!” he thundered, slinging it at Gilda with incredible force.

Gilda snatched the blade from the air. “Hah! Reflexes! Fuck you!”

Cinderblock laughed madly. “Ain’t no fancy CLAW tricks gonna save you now, birdbrain! Macaroni, Ravioli, Tagliatelle, get ‘em!”

Three massive pegasi lumbered towards Gilda and Trixie. Tagliatelle, the green coated elder sibling, drew a blade as he approached the unicorn.

“What’s orange and bad for your teeth?” asked Gilda.

“Huh?”

Trixie’s magic slammed a brick into his face with frightening force. As soon as Ravioli glanced in his injured sibling’s direction, Gilda smashed her sack over his withers. She felt the satisfying crump of a shoulder joint being forced too far into its socket.

“Run!” she yelled.

“Way ahead of you,” cried Trixie, throwing half a dozen grey cubes onto the floor around her. With a flash, they all turned into a mass of choking smoke.

Gilda barrelled out of the door seconds later into the night air, followed by Trixie. They ran screaming through narrow corridors formed by gigantic stacks of lumber. Thunder crackled overhead and a deluge fell on Acephalous Construction, drenching the pair and their pursuers. Trixie dropped a dozen caltrops as they twisted and turned through narrow alleys, hunted by hulking ponies on the ground and pegasi in the skies.

They turned right into a gigantic storage lot for massive concrete pipes. Trixie let off another half-dozen smoke bombs as they ducked into one of the tubes. They ran through them like ponies possessed, their steps ear-bleedingly loud as they echoed around the concrete.

“Zephyr in flesh, how long is this freakin’ pipe,” panted Gilda, still hefting her sack of bricks.

“It goes on forever!” wailed Trixie.

“It’s like pegging Discord!”

A dim glow appeared in the distance, a light at the end of the tunnel. They both sighed and laughed with relief, redoubling their speed. Seconds before they reached the exit, a shadow blocked the end of the pipe.

Baby-Face stood at the exit, holding a savagely barbed club, grinning like a maniac. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment, Gilda, but Cinderblock always held me back. It’s just you and me, now—!

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed Gilda, as she barrelled headfirst into Baby-Face, slamming him in the stomach and taking him onto her back.

“Gilda!” cried Trixie.

“What?” cried Gilda.

“There’s a maniac on your back!” cried Trixie.

“I’ll kill you all!” cried Baby-Face.

“I know!” cried Gilda.

“Get rid of him!” cried Trixie.

“Die!” cried Baby-Face, wildy reaching for his hoof club, unable to get any leverage.

“Help?””

Trixie looked from side to side as she galloped, panicking. They were in a giant scrapyard of unused prefabricated buildings, leaning over and into each other like an abandoned shanty town. Gilda ducked under a low building, smashing Baby-Face’s baby face through a layer of plasterboard. He yelped, but kept his death-grip around Gilda’s withers.

Trixie yanked a small object from her cape, and aimed it at Baby-Face. With a foosh, the tiny firework slammed into his ear, knocking him off Gilda with a yelp, and then ricocheted up into a prefabricated roof, where it exploded into a shower of green sparks.

Then the roof burst into flames. And the roof next to it. And the building the roof was attached to.

“Dear Celestia, fire!” screamed Trixie.

Gilda looked overhead, where angry pegasi were scanning the ground, ready to swoop down with brutal hoofblades. “Fire is awesome!” yelled Gilda, “Make more fire!”

In a panic, Trixie set off more fireworks in every conceivable direction. Pegasi above screamed as the flames licked at their wings, and choked on the noxious smoke. Gilda looked at the conflagration around her in terror and amazement.

“Why are these prefabs burning so easily? And in the rain!”

“Because fuck Fillydelphia is why, Gilda!”

Gilda wept with relief as the office building they’d stashed the chariot near arrived in their view. “Did we lose them?”

“I hope so, I hate running,” gasped Trixie.

“Fuckers,” panted Gilda, “Hope they burn.”

They laughed with joy as they saw the chariot, still concealed in the shadows under a set of awnings. After a cursory check for explosive runes, they stuffed the bricks into the boot, hopped inside, started the engine, and geared off into the sky.

* * *

Gilda wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow. “This night. This freakin’ night.”

Trixie glanced into one of the wing mirrors, wincing at the massive inferno raging a mile behind them. “I didn’t realise timber and cheap building materials would burn so well. It seems obvious in retrospect...”

With a twist of the gearstick, the chariot descended to street level, down into a dingy row of cafes and dive bars surrounding a halfway house. “I figure it’s time to get back to the apartment, run the two-minute drill, and go lay low for a while in somewhere that isn’t freakin’ Fillydelphia.”

“I have some coupons for three nights at the High Dressage in Manehattan. We could stop there, get our supplies, and then on to Los Pegasus.”

“The High Dressage? Ehh. What sort of coupons?”

“Eighty percent off. And free use of the spa.”

Gilda worked her claw against her shoulder, and shuddered. “Yeah, I’m sold.”

They drove in silence for a while as the dingy dive areas made way for dingy student areas.

“Catching that knife was rather dazzling, by the by. I didn’t know you had it in you, Gilda.”

Gilda grinned, and produced the blade. “Yeah. Old military academy trick.”

“Another one for the collection?”

“Nah, I’m pawning it,” said Gilda, looking at the knife with derision. It gleamed even in the dull orange of the streetlights. “Just look at it. It’s too... fancy.”

Trixie raised a brow. “‘Too fancy?’ I thought you loved weird knives.”

“Yeah, but they look cool. This looks like jewelry. I mean, a chromed blade you could use as a signalling mirror, a bunch of useless serrations that would just get it stuck inside the first idiot you stab, Cinderblock’s freakin’ crest and initials embossed on the hilt,” she said, turning it over for Trixie to see, “and Zephry, the grips. I’m not carrying a knife with freakin’ pearl grips. I’m not a whorehouse piano player.”

“I see your point,” said Trixie.

“Yeah. And Cinderblock’s,” said Gilda, grinning, “Geddit? ‘Point?’”

“Very amusing.” Trixie frowned. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why on earth does Cinderblock want us dead?”

“No idea. He was crazy about it. Acted like we fucked him over or something.”

“We’ve done nothing of the sort! Well, I know I haven’t at least.”

Gilda shook her head. “Me either. I’m a professional about this stuff. I don’t shit where I eat.”

“It’s plain bizarre. We haven’t done anything he’d want to kill us over.”

“Damn it, we haven’t done anything he’d bother to chew us out for! It doesn’t make any sense!”

The pair gazed ahead as weather teams constructed a thunderstorm above, rain crashing from the sky and beating a low, heavy drone against the roof of the chariot.

Trixie opened her mouth once, closed it, turned to Gilda, and then spoke. “Maybe... maybe that’s it. He’s gone paranoid. We did something innocuous that inconvenienced him in some way, or that he simply didn’t like, and him and all his poisonous little advisers blew it out of proportion.”

Gilda scratched behind her neck, mulling it over. “Huh. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Y’know what I bet it was? Buybacks at Chasers. We always give the bartender great tips, and every other night we get a bunch of free shots, sold us cheap drugs, made a few introductions. Maybe the bartender was ripping the boss off big-time, and the boss figures we must have been in cahoots with him the whole time.”

“Hmmm.” Trixie’s face scrunched up in thought. “It could be, but it feels too small. If that was that and that were us, he’d send ponies like us to deal with us and that would be that.”

Gilda looked at her. “Yeah. I think. No giant showdown in an abandoned building site, that’s for sure.” She lifted her head and snapped her talons. “I got it! The rigged five-card game at Montaron’s. Gnocchi was there and lost two grand plus his sapphire codpiece. He’s one of the colts from Neighples, and if the little dork told Tagliatelle about that, they’d have been spitting down Cinderblock’s ear until he was ready to skin us.”

“I don’t think the Neighples boys would have done that,” muttered Trixie.

“Why not? Hoelun knows they’re crazy enough.”

“Oh that I don’t doubt, I just don’t think they’d have done it over that. It’s not the worst thing we’ve done to those idiots.”

“Shit, yeah,” groaned Gilda, “Like when we firebombed their limo company garage.”

“...we did? I don’t remember that.”

“Serious? It was like, a month before Springturn — wait, no, that was me and my cousin. We got drunk and made cocktails. I never told you?”

“You firebombed the Linguini Limo Co’s storage garage?”

Gilda shrugged. “We firebombed a limo garage. We were pretty wasted.”

“...that explains the bottle of naphtha in the liquor cabinet,” said Trixie. “But no, I was thinking of the big heist switcheroonie.”

“Hah, that was awesome. Three gangs and a corrupt detective all angling for the score of a lifetime, and what do they get? Three crates of telegraph-books and a bank siege while me and you stroll out of the police archives with a dozen dossiers in our saddlebags and our police files replaced with Beanburger Palace coupons.”

“And Tagliatelle’s dear brother Vermicelli is still in the dungeons.”

“That wasn’t our fault. Not really. How were you supposed to know he was colorblind?”

“You think they’ll see it that way?”

“Probably not.” Gilda tapped her claws against the wheel with worry. “See, I don’t think it’s them. They’re not sneaky like you, Trix, they’re like me. They’d have come straight at us, not snuck around whispering to Cinderblock. It’s gotta be something closer to him.”

Trixie grimaced. “There was one thing, but I have no idea how he could even know about it, let alone know it was me.”

Gilda perked up, and Trixie continued, “Saddleblankets, the gentlemare’s club we supervised last year. Cinderblock owned it, but the manager was a drunken idiot who could barely function without help, I knew half the performers there professionally, and, well, I may have skimmed a little.”

Gilda clenched the wheel a little tighter as her eyes went wide. “Oh.”

“Nothing major, of course! Certainly nothing I didn’t deserve. I fudged a few tax documents, did a bit of cucumber-cutting with the alcohol suppliers, gave the dancers some clients without putting it in the club books. Nothing compared to the work we were doing just keeping the place afloat of course. I couldn’t have been taking more than a thousand bits per month, and with the money that was coming in and the shambles of an accounting system they had? Why, I’d have needed to skim more than double that to be noticeable.”

“Uh. About that.”

“...what?”

“I was kinda skimming too.”

Trixie blinked, and said nothing for a moment. “Well, I’m sure it can’t have been—”

“About three grand a month.”

“Luna above.”

“I tried to be subtle, back in like, February, but nopony had said a word and I got kinda greedy.”

“Three thousand bits a month? Didn’t you think somepony would find out?”

“I dunno, I figured I wouldn’t be in Fillydelphia by then! I’m a bird of action, Trixie, not some chessmaster dweeb,” muttered Gilda. “Besides, that can’t be it. All the records went up in flames when the place burned down. It was awesome timing, come to think...”

Trixie stared on, lips pursed. “Ah. I may, ah, have had a part in that. I couldn’t risk anything as brazen as taking out a separate fire insurance policy, but, well, upgrading it was well within my purview. I just... left the old paperwork in it’s place, so that when the payout arrived, I could pocket the difference, forge a letter, and nopony would be any the wiser. And after Peach Fuzz and Rock Slabchest left to start their own escort service, well, I knew the money would dry up soon enough, and so...”

“Nice. How much did you bag?”

“Um. Sixteen, maybe seventeen... thousand?”

“...and you didn’t freakin’ tell me? What the fresh hay?”

“You didn’t tell me you were bleeding the damn place dry either, birdbrain!”

“But I — yeah, that’s fair,” admitted Gilda, “So you think it was that, then?”

Slowly, haltingly, Trixie shook her head. “No-o. I think it was more personal than that. In fact, I think it was the gelding, Cherry Blossom.”

“Huh? What’d we ever do to him? He’s a cool dude, we’re friends.”

“It’s not so much what we did to him, it’s more that Cinderblock would likely disapprove of some of the things we helped him with.”

“How so?”

“Well, he is Cinderblock’s lover.”

“Really?”

“...you must be joking.”

Gilda shrugged. “I’m serious. I knew they were tight, but I never knew they were getting it on.”

“How — the why on — but how? How could you miss that? The way they nuzzled? How Cinderblock practically swallowed Cherry’s ear?”

“That’s how you greet Cherry.”

Trixie blushed. “It’s different for me, I’m a gentlemare. But for Sun’s sake, Gilda! The tattoo he had on his ear?”

“He had his own initials tattooed on his ear. Weird, but—” Gilda paused as Cinderblock’s knife was levitated in front of her, and she saw the crest. “Oh. That’s where I recognised it from. But c’mon, do you really think Cinderblock would go all kill crazy like this just because we were pimping out his lover— I just answered my own question.”

“I think it’s worse than that. Remember when we got drunk with Cherry and we all thought it would be funny to poison Cinderblock’s consigliere?”

“That was just high-jinks though. A little poison joke in the soup never hurt nopony.”

“...he was at a state dinner at the time.”

“Yeah, there was that.”

“The Russic ambassador wasn’t happy at all — turned out he’s afraid of tentacles — and that’s why vodka’s so expensive nowadays.”

“And Cinderblock freakin’ loved vodka. Y’know, that reminds me. Remember back in Montaron’s, like, four months ago when we were getting lit up on salts in the bathrooms, and that lawyer dweeb wouldn’t shut up about these ‘super-high-quality’ salts he had on him?”

“Yes, I remember. I pickpocketed him while he was droning on. Very satisfying.”

“And then later on, we’re doing more lines in the bathroom, he sees us and rants that we stole his shit? And you get this awesome idea to tell him that somepony had just sold them to us?”

Trixie laughed. “Oh yes! His eyes popped out and he demanded to know exactly who had sold it, and we just popped our heads out of the bathroom, pointed to Brick, and he went storming over to confront the Crime King of Fillydelphia’s eldest son!”

“Yeah! And Brick freakin’ battered the dweeb!”

“He did.”

“Like really, seriously laid into him.”

“It was quite impressive.”

“Broke three of his legs.”

“That’s Brick for you.”

“The dude was in a coma for a month.”

“I heard he’ll never walk again.”

Gilda chuckled. “Yeah. And Brick went to prison. Ten years, no parole.”

“That did surprise me. He’s never been caught before.”

“Yeah, I snitched on him. Testified against him, too.”

Trixie stared at the griffon. “What? Why on earth would you do that?”

“Parking fines,” said Gilda, grimacing, “They were just piling up, and it was easier than paying them off.”

Trixie relaxed. “Oh, I understand. City hall are total zealots, they just won’t let a ticket or two go.”

“Ain’t that the truth. You could move to the Crystal Kingdom under a false name, and still get a bailiffs letter the next morning.”

“Very much so.”

The pair mulled everything over in silence for a few minutes, driving through dimly lit back streets as the glowing column of smoke behind them shrunk into the distance.

“I still think Cinderblock overreacted,” said Trixie.

“Ponies, right?”

“And donkeys too, ye mad feckin’ gee!”

A form lunged from the darkness of the back seats into the front of the chariot, and Delaney was upon them, biting and kicking and braying in a drunken frenzy.

“Sweet Zephyr where did he come from?” screeched Gilda as the donkey wrapped his forelegs around her neck. The chariot veered wildly across the road as Gilda lost control of the steering wheel.

“Gilda, the road!” Trixie dodged a wild kick and yelped as the chariot crashed through a closed falafel stand.

“Get him off me!”

“With how?”

“I’ll kill the feckin’ both of ye!”

Gilda scratched and clawed at the enraged donkey’s face as he tried to slam her head into the steering wheel. “Use magic or some shit!”

Trixie conjured a rope and snaked it around Delaney’s neck, pulling it tight with all her magical might. He gave a dry roar and pounded his hooves into Gilda’s body, the veins on his face popping out with rage.

“It’s not working!”

Gilda spat blood from her beak as she slammed a fist into Delaney’s nose, feeling it crunch under her claws. He didn’t even slow down. “Hit him with something!”

In a panic, Trixie wrenched the heavy steel-and-walnut gearstick out of its socket and let it fly into the donkey’s head. Delaney shouted as it crunched into his skull, leaving an eight-ball sized dent as she pulled it free to strike him again. He turned to face Trixie, one of his eyes solid red and dripping blood.

All three of them tumbled towards the passenger side as the chariot scraped up against the curb. Delaney flailed madly, turning towards the illusionist and snapping at her like a beached shark. Trixie screamed, sparks flying off her horn as she tried to strangle and batter him at the same time. Gilda grabbed his face from behind and yanked, raking her claws across his face.

“Gllrrrk!” gurgled Trixie as Delaney choked her with a hoof. “Gllrrrk!” she repeated, pointing to a glinting object next to the steering wheel.

Gilda turned, grabbing Cinderblock’s knife. She punched Delaney in the kidney, causing him to shout and rear back, and turned him to face her. “What stinks of whiskey and bleeds internally?”

She slammed the knife into his stomach. His eyes went wide and his limbs went stiff, pushing feebly against Gilda as she twisted the blade.

When his struggles died down and his forelegs fell away to the side, Gilda gently pushed him into the backseat, gulping down heavy breaths. She looked around. The chariot had skidded to a halt next to an unlit newspaper stand on an empty street.

They both tensed as a tiny groan came from the backseat. Delaney mouthed a gurgle, struggling to speak, and then whispered:

“...all I wanted was to win that feckin’ race...”

Then his eyes fell open, and he died.

Trixie shook gently as she composed herself and surveyed the wreckage. The phantasmal wings in front of the chariot were covered in falafel mix and chilli sauce, sprinkled with dust and broken plasterboard. There was a watermelon-sized dent in one of the doors. The interior of the chariot was splattered with blood where the heavy gearstick had crunched into Delaney’s skull, over and over.

The bloodstained gearstick had fallen into the passenger hoofwell. Trixie straightened up in her seat, and placed the gearstick back into its proper place with her magic. She wiped something off her muzzle. Phlegm. Not hers.

Gilda and Trixie looked at one another. They were both covered in blood and sweat, mussed up, breathing hard. They looked at the mess around them. Then they looked back at each other.

Trixie giggled.

Gilda muffled a snort.

They threw their heads back in hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. Their lungs burned and sides cramped as they lost themselves laughing, tears streaming down their faces, hooves and claws pounding against the seats and dashboard.

“Seriously,” said Gilda, still giggling even minutes later, “fuck this night.”

A baton tapped thrice against the passenger’s side window. The harsh light of a torch shone inside.

Gilda’s blood turned to strychnine. Trixie gave a keening yelp, cut short as the baton tapped thrice again. She barely felt in control of her own body as she rolled down the window with her telekinesis.

“Evening, gentlemares.”

It was the same policemare as earlier.

Neither Gilda nor Trixie spoke.

“I thought I recognised your chariot,” continued the officer.

Trixie gulped, loudly, and squeaked, “...oh?”

“So I just thought I’d come over and apologize. I used some very inappropriate language towards your griffon friend. I wanted to say I was sorry.”

“That’s... quite... alright? Officer!” Trixie’s horn was still sparking involuntarily.

“Yeah, s’cool,” said Gilda, her rictus grin returning.

The officer turned her torch off, and glanced at the figure slumped over in the backseat. “Your friend here have a little too much to drink?”

“Yeah,” said Gilda. “Don’t wake him. He’s dead tired.”

The policemare made a soft ‘o’ with her mouth, and nodded. “Well, I wish you two a good evening, stay safe and—” She stopped, peering closely at something within the chariot. “Wait a second. Those seats...”

Gilda strained to stop herself making a dive for a knife. “Uh.”

“Those seats are fantastic,” gushed the officer, reaching a hoof through the window to give them a testing poke. “That’s practically Cloudsdale quality. I’ve only seen seats this cushy in limousines.”

“Ha ha ha. Yeah. They’re great. I love them.”

“Hey, you know what? I have about a months wages saved up, and the seats in my cruiser back there are just terrible,” she gestured with her baton to a heavily modified police chariot with a distinctive blue non-standard-issue racing stripe over the roof and hood, “and my partner’s been nagging me to get better seats since Hearth’s Warming. He’s on vacation, and I wanna make sure he comes back to seats that feel like sinking in a warm vat of honey. So tell me. Where’d you get these seats done?”

“I got them done,” said Gilda, drawing out every syllable, “at ah, a place.”

The policemare laughed. “Well, you didn’t get them from nowhere, did you? Where was it? One of the big garage’s? Chop’s Shop? Motorheads?”

“Noooo. No. Nyope. Wasn’t, uh, wasn’t at a garage,” said Gilda, swallowing audibly, “Nope.”

“Oh, you got a friend to do it?”

“...yes?”

“Can I have their name so I can get in touch?”

“No.”

Trixie twisted her neck to stare at Gilda, horrified. The policemare frowned. “Excuse me?”

“No?”

“Funny. Why not?”

“He’s shy.”

“He’s shy for a fortnight’s wages? Don’t be stupid. What’s his name?”

“Rainbow Dash,” blurted Gilda.

“For fuck’s sake, Gilda!” hissed Trixie.

The policemare glared, then sighed, holding a hoof to the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to impound your chariot and detain you both on suspicion of receiving stolen property until we can check the serial numbers on the seats and make sure they’re legitimately purchased. We have records at the station, so it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two, but you need to get out of your chariot and come with me. Your friend too,” she said, gesturing with her baton to the corpse slumped over in the backseat.

Gilda and Trixie looked at each other, horrified. “Please, officer, he’s sleeping and it’s very late. Can’t you just take our details and we’ll come down to the station tomorrow? I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

“I’m sure it is, but it’s procedure to bring you in. If the furnishings are legit, you can go home by sunrise. Now come on, out. I’m being polite, but I’ll drag all three of you out in hoofcuffs if you make me. You in the back, wake up!” she snapped, drumming her baton against the back window. The corpse failed to rouse. She grunted. “Ma’am, please wake your friend,” she ordered Trixie.

“Haha yes officer I’ll wake my friend come on wake up wake up!” Trixie made a show of jostling the deceased donkey’s shoulders with her telekinesis, barely suppressing a high-pitched whine as Gilda’s claw inched towards a concealed blade...

The officer huffed, “Right, I’m dragging him out, he can sober up in the cell,” she said, reaching for the back door, “You two get out and place your front hooves on the— hey!”

The policemare’s head snapped away from the chariot. Gilda and Trixie instinctively followed her gaze, and saw a donkey, too old to be a child but still too young to truly be called an adult, crossing the deserted street. He froze in terror.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, ass?” screamed the policemare, “You think you can brazenly fucking jaywalk in front of an officer making an arrest you floppy-eared piece of ghetto shit?”

“I — please, ma’am, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t talk back to me!” She swung her baton, neatly hitting the back of the donkey’s hindlegs, knocking him prone with a braying squeal. In a flash she was on him, yanking back his ears with telekinesis and pushing the end of the baton into the flesh below the tail where muscle met bone.

“P-p-p-please my mom’s ill I’m j-just bringing her some painkillers—” he stuttered, his strong West Equestrian accent showing.

“Oh, you’re a drug mule, this gets even better!”

“No, I didn’t mean—” In the dark, Trixie and Gilda couldn’t see what the policemare did with the baton. They only heard the teenager give a broken scream before he burst into tears.

“I grew up in this city before lawbreaking little fucks like you came here, bringing disease and crime and stinking of rotten potatoes,” growled the officer, “I want my city back, and I’m gonna get my city back. I’m about to show you exactly what you’re worth to me, and I suggest you relax so it doesn’t hurt more than it has to...” The baton moved in the dark, barely illuminated by the glow of her telekinesis.

“Uh, officer?” said Trixie.

The policemare twisted to look at them, still bearing her weight down on the donkey beneath her. “What? Oh, you. I’m making an arrest, get the fuck outta here,” she said dismissively.

“So the chariot—”

“Yeah whatever don’t do it again,” she snapped, “Go about your business, I’ve got crime to stop.”

Gilda didn’t need to be told twice. She revved up the engine, turned the chariot, and they quickly departed from the policemare and her sobbing captive.

The pair drove for a mile, taking the chariot above the clouds, both lost deep in thought. Trixie sighed softly, and with a wince, used her magic to clean off the blood and hair from the gearstick. Gilda just drove.

It had been a long night.

Trixie pulled out a pack of cards and began to cut and shuffle them. Gilda just drove.

They were only a mile from their apartment when Gilda said, “Mare, I’m hungry.”

“Mmmhm. We should have stopped for that curry.”

“We should get one now — ah piss, the body. How the hay do we leave the apartment to get rid of a body and come back with another? I wanted to disappear the last one, not trade it in. Shit, are we gonna have to go back to the harbor again?”

“Ah, that.” Trixie frowned, and then a curious smirk of sorts appeared on her face. “Well, we’re not being paid to disappear this one.”

“Yeah, but ponies tend to find dead bodies that you just leave laying around.”

“That’s true, but... that is Cinderblock’s knife lodged in his gut,” she said, magicking a small cloth to wipe clawprints and detritus from the knife-handle and the body, “We just have to find a nice, prominent place to dispose of the body, and we can bake two pies with one oven...”

* * *

Delaney’s corpse plummeted like a dead albatross and crunched on top of a police cruiser with a familiar set of blue racing stripes over the top. The entire driver’s side caved in, and blood splattered onto the pavement, both congealed and fresh. A young donkey crawled out of the wreckage, and hobbled away from the bloody scene as fast as his shackles would allow.

“Three pies,” said Trixie, wiping sweat from her brow. Rigor mortis had set in, and removing Delaney had been a struggle, though a thoroughly rewarding one at that.

Gilda slathered a poppadom in chutney and crammed it into her maw. “Fuckin’ A,” she sprayed. She glanced into the backseat. All their bags were packed. They’d left their keys in the apartment manager’s inbox, left their furniture at the kerb, and left a few thousand bits with their “lawyer” to have their suicides faked.

There was no need to outstay their welcome, after all.

Trixie flicked on the radio. The rock song from earlier came on a second time, now far more appropriate.

“Los Pegasus?”

“Los Pegasus.”

END.