Genetic Superiority

Ballad peeked through the gap below the door for the shadow's of ponies' hooves. Once she knew that danger has passed, she opened the door and headed downstairs. She kept her hoofsteps quiet to decrease the chances of the guards tracking her. How fickle everything is, she thought. Fate loves playing tricks with me.

Ten minutes. It only took her ten minutes to get the "prison guards" chasing on her tail. The prison's security wasn't very tight; only three or so ponies were guarding each floor, and even the perimeter was loosely patrolled.  The majority of these ponies wore tattered blue clothing and were disorganized and unorderly; they looked far from actual prison guards.

Ballad believed that with such poor security, she would easily escape without causing suspicion. She was shortly proven wrong when a guard had noticed that her cage was opened, which set off the alarm and caused every guard in the prison to be searching for her.

She walked down the stairs to the second floor, peeking from the edges of the gray, concrete walls. The walls deteriorated greatly, the reinforcing metal sticking outward. Ballad had once expected for prisons like this to at least be clean and sanitized; she was a bit disappointed to see that the prison guard bedrooms were not much better and were equally claustrophobic as the prison cells. She honestly didn't care about the fate of degenerate criminals, but she couldn't stand seeing how justice was treated so poorly in return. Guess jail is made to discourage ponies from returning.

Ballad then heard several hoofsteps coming from the hallway, and her first reaction was to make multiple turns and put distance between herself and the guards. But then as she grew more tired, she gained a realization that continuing her chase would inevitably bring her into a dead end; the more she lengthened it, the more ponies will join the group and take her down.

She needed to think in another direction. "They're using the sound I'm creating and following it," muttered Ballad. "Well, I'll give these ponies a trail to follow."

Ballad took a short glance at her back. They haven't detected her yet, but they were catching up. She needed to do something, and do it fast. A metal door at a three way intersection was nearby – a perfect distraction. She had intended to slam the door to cause a loud noise, a diversion, for the guards to hear. Ballad attempting to turn the knob, but it was stuck in place.

She then knew the dreadful fact – the door was locked, and therefore she could not slam the door. Damn it, I don't have time to open this! yelled a voice inside her head. She forced the machinery inside her racing mind to function, and in desperation, kicked the metal door.

"Stop! Don't move!" Deciding that she should no longer waste her time on something so trivial, Ballad was again on the run, taking a right turn to get away from the prison guards' line of sight.

She made several turns and trips up and down the stairs, to throw off the guards. When Ballad was sure that she was unseen, she ran downstairs to an underground floor. It was completely dark inside, the only light being the moonlight shining through the narrow, caged window. I can hide here for some time, Ballad thought, until I've formulated a plan. And when I do, then I can leave this forsaken place.

Ballad moved blindly to an open shower stall at the far end of the shower room. She squinted and put one of her hooves in front of her, swinging it left and right to feel any object near her surroundings. She stumbled, occasionally bumping into walls; Ballad then walked close to the edges of the stalls to maintain her balance and make her navigation in the dark less difficult.

When she arrived at the last shower stall, she went inside, lying against the corner to blend more into the darkness. Her darkly colored mane assisted her in this, but her amber eyes and light blue coat made her more visible. She tried to reduce this by curling herself into a ball, where her mane and tail covered her coat.

She tried to breath through her nose, but the foul stench inside the shower stall burned her nose. Smells like a rathole, Ballad thought, later correcting herself. No. It's worse than that. It smells like the smell of overused toilets and defecated waste. Even the cells aren't as bad as this. Ballad then breathed through her mouth, slowly and silently inhaling and exhaling, hoping that she was not causing too much sound.

An apprehensive half hour passed by, and though weariness was on Ballad, sleep did not visit her, although the silence was in the prison's shower room. Once she had thought she had heard steps in the hallway, and froze in place for several minutes, though not a single pony had entered the shower room.

They're far from done with their search, but it seems like their investigation is becoming less intensive. I can probably sneak outside... Ballad pondered, taking a short glance at the small caged window. Two guard towers could be seen outside – only one tower's lights were on, and a small, sole silhouetteconfirmed the fact that only one prison guard was watching the perimeter. She smiled. "Either they don't have enough ponies around here, or they're incredibly stupid," Ballad commented.

Ballad paused, nearly motionless. There was something approaching the shower room, and she quietly returned back to the shower stall, flattening herself down, and peeking through the edge of the wall, she watched. The thing that was approaching was a pony.

It was a stallion, his body visible due to the illumination from his glowing horn. He was unlike any other prisoners; he wore a distinctively darker navy blue suit with a white collar, and lacked the typical peaked cap that every prison guard wore. His coat was teal, and his mane and tail were two shades of green, one light, one dark. His lime colored eyes reflected in the dark, possessing some kind of unexplainable force that intimidated her. Though he looked a bit frail, he appeared middle-aged.

The stallion eyes were fixed on the ground with utmost concentration, observing and studying it as if he had noticed something different. Ballad, fearful of being discovered, hid back into her corner.

Ballad's first impulse was to charge herself at the stallion and running out of the shower as he approached her hiding spot, but she saw the stallion's right hoof touching a metallic object – a semi-automatic pistol, resting on its holster. It was a unicorn model, which was, unlike other pistols, compact so unicorns can levitate it with ease.

Ballad held her breath. She did not dare shudder, due to fear of being caught. The stallion slowly traveled from stall to stall, checking their interiors. He eventually arrived on her  stall; the stallion's eyes moving down, until they stopped, looking straight forward. Ballad felt her heart stop.

But the stallion merely smiled, walking carelessly toward the other side. The stallion had no problem walking in the dark. His sharp eyes must have uncanny powers, Ballad thought. He had only missed me by the slightest chance.

"Ballad," the stallion suddenly spoke in a cultivated and somehow familiar voice, "As I suppose that you are in the sound of my voice, let me congratulate you. Not many ponies such as you have managed to solve my little puzzle, let alone successfully hide from my guards. I now find you interesting, Miss Ballad, that is, if you are inside this room."

Ballad soon heard the sound of hooves growing fainter and fainter, and she finally exhaled out restrained air from her near bursting lungs. Her first thought was horrible; why had the stallion spoke and turned back? That was when she knew the reason why. She didn't want to believe it, but the truth was crystal clear. The stallion was playing with her, intentionally sparing her so that the stallion could hunt her again.

Another shudder of horror went down her throat as the second thought came to her. Ballad recognized the stallion's voice; it was the stallion from earlier that had seemingly tortured the poor prisoner who was taken somewhere else, somewhere she did not know of. She grimaced when she thought of that unknown place, imagining it as some equally horrifying as that maniacal stallion.

Ballad knew she could two things. The first choice was to stay and remain hidden, though she believed that the stallion would return sooner and later and finish her off, leading her to conclude that to continue hiding was suicide. The second choice was to flee, but she couldn't shake off the possibility that the stallion would eventually find her with ease, which was postponing the inevitable.

She decided to take her chances with the latter choice, and, leaving no time for hesitation, she headed outside. "If the stallion was able to track my trail," Ballad muttered, "then I'll have to give him a trail to follow."

Ballad then smeared and rolled herself on the ground, the dust getting onto her coat. She did not enjoy getting herself dirty and making contact with the presumably diseased surface, but she knew that her life depended on this feat. When she was done, Ballad peeked outside at the hallway, and, without hesitation, ran.

She made intricate loops, doubling on her trail of dust several times. Being careful to not accidentally be detected by the guards, she often hid into supply closets or rooms. Ballad grinned at her cleverness – even with a pony with extremely keen senses could not possibly follow such a complicated trail. But perhaps, the stallion wasn't the natural kind of pony...

When she arrived outside on the prison recreational yard, she patted the dust off of her coat. With the dust trail she left, Ballad believed that it would keep the guards busy and confused for several minutes. The yard was surrounded by two sides by an iron chain fence, the top of the fence tied with curved barbed tape – the other two opposite sides were the concrete walls of the building itself.

Ballad observed the perimeter of the prison, now having a wider view. This time, there were two layers of chain fence on the perimeter, both enforced with barbed tape. On each side, there were four guard towers; a few of the them were unlit. The front gate, which was locked, was patrolled and guarded by two ponies.

There's no way I'm able to get through these fences without either damaging myself or getting noticed, she thought. And escaping from the front door is out of the question... Her eyes wandered aimlessly, looking for something that can assist her escape.

Ballad's first impulse was to make a dash for the lightless tower on the corner; the darkness can be used in her favor to blend in, the same action she had done in the shower room. But she still needed to get through the yard's barbed fence.

She could possibly strike the degraded concrete walls. They were most likely brittle due to aging and damage, and she could create a hole between the fence and the wall and crawl through it. But then again, she didn't have anything to strike the wall with; plus, the noise would attract the prison guards.

Maybe I don't need to make a way out, thought Ballad. She recalled the mystery genre movies she used to see in the Canterlot theater when she was younger, where in some storylines, the detective goes into the visitor's room to search for clues and ask the prisoner to testify.

Visitor's room. She can get out from there. If ponies back then were able to enter the prison, then it could be possibly to escape from that same path. Ballad looked at her paper clip lock pick that she had been hanging on her ear all along; she had almost forgotten about it until now, and she was quite surprised to find it still there. She had expected the paper clips to drop in the midst of all that madness – being chased by prison guards, hiding from these guards, and meeting with a possibly insane pony. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Knowing this fact, Ballad returned to the building, where she saw what she least expected to see. Less than twenty yards away from her was the stallion she had encountered in the shower room, along with several guards.

Stuck in a split-second decision, Ballad took off to the left, again making several turns left and right in an attempt to confuse her chasers. How did the stallion track my trail? was Ballad's first thought. She didn't wait for an answer; Ballad tried to find anything she can throw to slow the ponies behind her down.

Almost miraculously, she arrived at the front gates, which was adjacent to the visitor's room. It was easy to determine, as the several glass panels and microphones, along with it's white walls, distinguished it from anything else in the prison. What amazed her more was that the gates were unlocked. Having little time to be happy that fate was now going her way, she slid the gates open, speeding up to a sprint as she came closer and closer to the outside world.

With little difficulty she was out of the building, and Ballad continued to a dark guard tower where she could hide and soon sneak out. Everything was coming according to her plan, and even she was amazed that it actually worked.

Approaching one of the lightless towers on the corner, she opened the tower's door, which was also unlocked – she wondered if the guards around her were even working properly.

The inside of the guard tower was dimly lit, with only a hanging light bulb offering its weak brightness. The stairs was built against the tower's walls, with only an iron handle connected to the stone slabs with narrow beams offering protection. Ballad rushed up these stairs, nearly tripping on one due to her excitement, and reached the top of the tower.

The tower itself was small and squared. The top of the tower was transparent, giving a panorama of the whole prison. At the center was a circular wooden table; a flashlight and a yellow folder was on it. Ballad neared the table, turning on the flashlight and pointing it at the folder. On it read with a stamped red mark, which only read one word: "confidential".

She suddenly felt cold, and shivered before opening up the folder. Inside it was a document, organized and typed. Several paragraphs highlighted with a black marker, making it impossible to read. Ballad could read some of the words that were visible, but were in incomplete sentences.

"The Central Correctional Facility is now officially abandoned by the county government and moved to a new facility...recent revolt of declassed prisoners has forced military forces to subdue the problem...possible that outside criminals have assisted the prisoners and guards into attempting escape or mutiny..." Ballad's joyful face turned into shock as she continued reading fragments of the document.

"And to answer your incoming question, all of that is true." Ballad stopped, hearing the telltale sound of the hammer of a firearm being cocked. Slowly looking up, she saw the stallion, holding a darkly colored pistol, and he was pointing it straight at Ballad's chest.

"Allow me to introduce myself, ma'am," the stallion proceeded, seeing that she was staring at his firearm. "Do not worry, Miss Ballad, for this is a tranquilizer gun. Non-lethal, really. Anyways, back to my introduction. I am Profonde, and if you do not mind, I shall reveal what is going on in this prison.

"What you see as a miracle is actually one of my mere puzzles I have given to you to aid your escape. In fact, every pony has been given something to help them get out of their cells. But you, Miss Ballad, have thrilled me. You were not only able to find the two paper clips I have left near your cell, but you have also tried to deceive my guards and me.

"Sadly, your clever tricks were not enough to stump me. Even the complex dust trail was predictable. You ran and made prints that were close together, and the real trail had prints that were further away from each other. But nonetheless, you are exceptional compared to other ponies that have attempted to escape this prison. For ponies of a higher class, most of them do not even try, and when they do, they do excessively stupid actions, which I find annoying.

"There was one that had attempted to escape before you. She was quite resourceful, and almost escaped. I eventually had to use my pistol to suppress her, and when I brought her back, she had tried to resist and squirm out of my hooves, I had to shoot her again. Also, I must comment, she has beautiful eyes. Even the sharp and observant eyes I have, not to be a braggart, are not as appealing as hers.

"And now, dear Ballad, you may surrender yourself to me with minimal harm, or I will shoot and take you by force," Profonde finished. Ballad took a short glance behind her. She was sweating and shuddering. Nearly twenty feet below her was the surface, and only a few trees stood not far from the prison's perimeter wall.

Ballad wasn't going to give in to the stallion. At least not now. She was slowly backing up, hesitating as she bumped into the wall. No, she thought. I'll rather take my chances with jumping than giving up. She closed her eyes.

And then she leaped.

Profonde raised an eyebrow, and for some minutes looked outside through the window into the darkness. Ballad was nowhere to be seen, and he eventually gave up on his search. He didn't really care if Ballad was alive or not; regardless of her fate, she was already disposed of.

He looked at the clock that hung on one of the tower’s stone walls. “One fifty-one,” he mumbled. “I’m late for my affairs.”