That Maverick With The Dog

by Dan The Man

Chapters

Prologue: Living A Dream
1. Overt Operation
2. Time Marches On
3. Break, Enter, and Find
4. Welcome Home
5. I Know You Know
6. Growth Behind The Curtains
7. The Slim Path
8. Irrefutability
9. Epilogue: In Good Hands
11. Epilogue: Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart
12. Epilogue: A New Record
10. Epilogue: Plausible Deniability

Prologue: Living A Dream

Prologue - Living A Dream

(You may want to play this)

Last night as I lay on my pillow,…

Last night as I lay on my bed…,

Last night as I lay on my pillow,…

I thought you, dear Dashie, were dead.

“Oh, you’re just playing silly again, aren’t you?”

Yes… I mean no. Dashie, please, I really thought that something happened to you. I haven’t seen you for such a long time. Two years, at least.

“Pah, two years flat, dad!”

Oh Dash…

“Mmh? Yeah?”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to do it.

“Do what? I beg you, don’t you do anything nutty!”

I… no, no. I said that tomorrow… I want to go into town. It has been a long enough time.

“Oh yeah, and what will you do there? Have a coffee?”

Dunno. I honestly don’t. But I can’t just…

“Sure you can. You know what they say; if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything!”

Dash. It has been two years. I cannot just sit in my house, eat onion soup all day and wait for a miracle to happen.

“Come on, Dad. You know as well as me that I will return some day.”

When... you return.

“Yeah. Think about it. I can’t just abandon you here on this crazy planet like nothing, right?”

Dash…

“Wait for it… yeah: I’ll bring everypony along, Dad. It’s gonna be great fun. I’ll also get Pinkie. And we all know what’s she’ll do.”

Party?

“Party!”

Dash. What will Celestia… the Princess… say?

“Mmmh… May-be she’ll change her mind?”

Change her mind? Is it ever that easy?

“Why don’t we try it out? The both of us?”

But when?

“When time’s ripe. For Pete’s sake, I sound like Zecora already.”

Heh. Tomorrow, Dash. Tomorrow I’ll go to town, I’m sure they’ll be happy as heck to see me around again. Tomorrow, I’ll do it.

“And what if I come back tomorrow?”

What if not?

“I will. Maybe.”

Dashie?

“Yeah?”

Is… is this a dream?

“What? What do you mean?”

It’s just… the two of us talking… talking about how I have trapped myself in our home for all those months… with Mummy’s pictures,… when you were gone.

“Yeah. Dad, I listened to everything, too.“

Dashie… you are still gone.

“Of course.”

But how can I talk to you, all of a sudden?

“I was just thinking… hey, if Pinky Pie can do it, so should I.”

Dashie… It doesn’t work that way. You know it doesn’t work that way.
But… I still love you. You know that?

“I love you too, dad. Just hang in there, and pitch.”

It was then that I wake up.
A dream, a mellow dream, and it seeps through the fingers of my mind like fine sand.

I knew it. I knew it was a dream, but in the end I still embraced it. I was honestly thinking that Dash would…

That she would… oh come on. Think for a second. Celestia, she would never allow it. It were never supposed to happen, she said after all.

Then, I look out the window, illuminated by bright strips of sunlight, shining on my alarm clock and my green-white covers.
The former had not even rung yet, and the latter really needed a change.
I should just get up now.

Only as my feet touched the ground, my dream came back to me. Tomorrow, I said, tomorrow I will go into town, and I will live my life again. A life without Dashie, without a daughter.

Was something like it even possible?

But she was safe, wasn’t she? She misses me too, doesn’t she?

Shouldn’t I rather feel happy for her?

I rub my eyes. How often had I gone over that question in the last months? A billion times?

I had to get out. No matter what my damn conscience told me, my Dashie will stay my daughter, and will always be, even when I step over the ledge of my house into the outside world.
Nothing will change, nothing at all.

So it’s settled. I will go outside now.
Outside, into a cold, miserable world, full of remnants of once friendly humans. A rarity these days.
I had felt happy around Rainbow, I had felt safe.
Perhaps, I would have never thought about returning to the… real world, as they call it.

Maybe I would have stayed with her until all eternity. I would have been content.

Now, however, I must face the music sooner or later. I know it won’t work out like that. I have to accept, that the rest of this existence will not, cannot centre around my little Dashie anymore.

It felt like an eternity since I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin as I strode down my driveway.
Out of Dashie’s home, out of my home.
And back into the other, 'real' world. Whatever this world may bring.

1. Overt Operation

Chapter 1 - Overt Operation

(You may want to play this)

It was another glorious summer's morning that blessed the countryside of golden crop fields and mighty green brushes, only to be interrupted by a lone tractor harvesting the fields and patches for its rich goods every so often. The sun was orange, and the leaves were green, just as any good June morning should be.

But I simply tapped away on my car's resting steering wheel in a fit of mild frustration, disappointed at the prospect of resting in the nutmegs' shades for another eternity.

I had been sitting there for four fricking hours, concentrating solely on that dirty, earthen strip of dust and sand that formed an obscurely coarse driveway. The one that ran from the tiny country lane not fifty metres downhill (the one that ran alongside the foamy brook), all the way up to the old white farmhouse with that lordly front porch and the magnificent garden.

My dark green Sedan I had parked at the roadside, behind a couple of lush nutmeg trees and a desolate old ruin that seemed to have been the farm's godown some hundred years ago. That way, nobody could possibly see me when heading down from the farmhouse.
Sadly, there was indeed nobody heading down in the first place, no matter how hard I wished for someone to finally emerge from the property grounds.

I just sat and tapped, tapped and sat, feeling how the boredom got the better of me. It wasn't too hot sitting inside the car that point of the day; the air was still cool and a periodical lowering of the windows flushed the interior with a fresh breeze of air and the smell of forest and moss, with a small hint of manure. Because that's what you get when you are in the mellow county.

And the man who owned the lagged old farmhouse knew that too, probably. There must be a reason why he refused to leave his damn home half of the day.

It was too damn nice. Whatever had led him into this hopelessly isolated countryside, it probably had something to do with the view one got from the slight elevation that the house resided on, surrounded by a billowing sea of oats and wild, greening meadows.

The steaming jug of black tea that stood on my dashboard had been waiting to have its contents devoured by my bloated, throbbing throat.
Tea, so I found, was still the best cure against the allergy that haunted me every warmer day of the year. I picked the mug and put it on my pillion, determined to wait a few more minutes so I would have more for later.

Moving the dossier out of the mug's way, I placed the latter on the seat and kept the former right in my hand. I was just curious, and took another look at what was written in there.

The leaves of paper that were clamped to the inside were a fairly simple affair. A typical personal file.
What made this one so special was that it showed whom I was supposed to keep an eye peeled for today.

The photograph of my target person pretty much summed up everything I knew about him already.

Short, unkempt brunette hair.

Meek unshaven chin.

Low aquiline nose.

Sorry brown eyes.

Accompanied by gaping ashen eye-rings.

Clad by a skin with a strangely unhealthy, grey colouring.

A tragic figure, from what I could tell. This was one guy who was not content with life. Quite the opposite, really.
A profile of a man who was sick of life. Bored. Frustrated. Unsuccessful. Aimless.

His name was Brian. Brian Fisher.

They wrote he wasn't always the lonely country lad he was now.
In fact, he was a Fort Pleasance native.

Fort Pleasance, really?

What a shithole of a town.
Seriously, if I would have had the misfortune of being born there, I would be pretty pissed off with life as well.

This boy was a ghetto product. A very, very sad way to start out with life.

I took another look at his personal section.

Age: 36 (*1990)

He was born and raised even before the great industrial boom that Fort Pleasance experienced when Gladwell Inc. moved in. Fort Pleasance was even more miserable then than it was now. 29% unemployment, crime rate 500%,... this kid must have had a miserable childhood.

Occupation: agriculturalist - Private Mercantilist , Woolworth - Cashier (quondam; 38 months)

A supermarket cashier, one of the few jobs available in a dying town like Pleasance. He wouldn't have been too affluent when he was still living back there.
On the other hand, who was supporting him anyway?

Relatives: Gregory Fisher (parent; deceased, 1959-2010), Mary Fisher née Sandstrom (parent; deceased, 1961-2010)

Ouch. He was barely over his legal age when they died. In the same year, no less! To call this man's life miserable would be an insult to Victor Hugo. Brian's life must have been awfully bleak before moving to the countryside.

Criminal Record: N/A

Now, that is one rarity among the Fort Pleasance folks. Not to have a criminal record, that is. How did this man manage to stay a law-abiding citizen his entire life? Especially without any living relatives or a safe job? He must have had a lot of time spent with something else than criminal activity.

I shut the document again and pulled the black elastic strap over it. I had seen enough.

I didn't really need to have seen him personally to know what things he went through.

He was a bright penny in school, achieving high grades, even among his class. But as a son of two workers - white trash, some call them - he was anything but destined to get a proper University education.

He, just like the generations before him, proceeded to shrivel and rot in the terrace house morass of one of the poorest cities east of Bayneck.

Technically speaking, he has the perfect profile for someone I am employed to seek out.

Brian was intelligent.

Brian was poor.

Brian was introverted.

Brian was a maverick.

Brian was depressive.

But was Brian... a terrorist?

It was the 26th of October, 2014.

An explosion rocked the Fort Pleasance suburb of Richmond.
Electricity in a radius of four kilometres simply seized to function; a city-wide power failure ensued, as well as a fire in a near coal power plant.
Four thousand individuals, civilians and law enforcement officers alike, bore witness to a brightly coloured, monumental, mushroom-like cloud plus pressure wave galloping over the skies of the city, shattering windows and glassware.

The epicentre of the detonation could be traced back to a large green in the district's heart, an outsized empty site that cut through the row house settlements like a dagger through flesh; Chapel Park.
A rallying point for little more than hobos and junkies. Even the pickpockets had left for city centre some time ago due to the lack of passer-bys. For some reason, the population shunned the park's premises whenever they could.

This was probably why there was apparently no one present in the park on that one day (at least no one who was conscious). That's right, there was probably not a single witness to the explosion, right beneath its very epicentre. That's just stupid.
And there was no crater, either. There was nothing to remind us of an explosion but the blast wave (captured on 26 individual cameras), 1.500.000 dollars worth of broken glass, and another 5.000.000 dollars worth of personal injury.

The explosion left eight people dead, and another 300 injured.
A man fell down the stairs after his window blew up in his face. One woman was hit by a car while running for shelter. One man, a Cold War veteran, suffered a fatal heart attack while enjoying his sunny, non-nuclear autumn morn. Another man was repeatedly shot by police when he was caught looting.
The electromagnetic blast alone was responsible for half of the deaths.
A woman with a pacemaker, she never made it to work. A man hanging onto direct life-support machines in the local hospital, lost his life before the standby gen set could come on. Another woman received the shock of her life when her hair dryer fused.

What kind of bomb would result in such damages? The official inquiry board turned up empty-handed.
But the unalterable facts were these: The bomb had an astounding size-force ratio. It must have been rather small, about the size of a big suitcase, but had the explosive power of an amazing 500 tonnes. It detonated in four kilometres' height.
It was suspected that the perpetrator used a model aircraft or a registering balloon to elevate the bomb to that height, and then exploded it, right above Chapel Park.
It's still a mystery what the bomb consisted of, though. There was no shrapnel, no fragments or smithereens found anywhere in the blast area. Appropriately enough, the shock wave limited itself to blowing up windows. No persons were harmed by the wave itself; it operated on a purely electromagnetic basis - it took out all electricity, and precisely this was the secret of its devastating success.

That was enough to alert the highest echelons of the government.
For three straight days in a row, a national emergency was declared, with the HOS personally stepping before the press and the cameras roughly four times a day to assure us that everything was under control.
Hell, even the President of the US was quick to summit a few kind words to us, ensuring us their aid and protection right away.
The rescue services, the police, the intelligence, the army; everything was standing at the ready, prepared to be deployed anytime, anywhere.
Unfortunately, the only thing that followed - the only thing after our valiant readying that really caused any more mentionable damage - was some consequential mass hysteria in the south east of the country. Turned out to be a red, vilely flagrant herring, that swallowed another three million of our taxpayers' dollars in terms of pure input costs.

It would probably be superfluous to mention that the person who was responsible for this incident would spend a good portion of his or her life behind bars.

I know, I know.
I know what you'll say now.
'Brian? A terrorist? Pah, lies! Leave that poor man alone!'

But I am saying, 'There is more proof than you think.'

For instance, how do you like the fact that this was the man who picked up the habit to take a walk in that park every single day, starting three years beforehand?
Or the fact that he abandoned this custom right after the explosion occurred?

Coincidence?
Maybe.

On his daily strolls from his home to the park and back, he was caught by three different security camera sets, day after day.

They filmed him the whole first year carrying - no, hiding - something on the inside of his leather jacket. Never picked up what it was, though.

The next two years he had a change in attitude. He had abandoned his conspicuous leather jacket for a raincoat, his skaters for sneakers, and now mostly went outside with a big, ugly, black dog at his side.

A strange dog.
Whatever it was, this dog looked ungodly awkward on the footage. Maybe it was crippled, maybe it was a bit thick, but something about this dog's movement was so... superficial. Its feet movement was somewhat constrained, and it often shook its head wildly, as if it was trying to shake something nasty off.
It's movement was stuck up, reminiscent of a five-year-old trying to walk on high heels. It just didn't look right.

But still, after years and years of taking the strange dog around with him, he ditched it, and never walked it again.
What happened to the dog?

Ever since he got rid of the it, he began carrying either a middle-sized backpack or a big tote bag with him, as if he were walking to a sport session or a pick-nick.

Pick-nicking in Chapel Park?

That comes right after sun-screening at the Gaza Strip.

Anyway, on the day of the explosion, he had been on his way to the park, as usual.
Alone, as usual.
Carrying a large bag, as usual.

Then, the explosion occurred.

The CCTV footage shorted; it never captured him walking home on that day.

And shortly after the explosion, he moved away.

According to his broker, it was when Gladwell Inc. moved into town, and bought the entire district to stomp the living hell out of it.
Then, they built a gigantic biofuel plant right on top of the old neighbourhood. The CEOs had used the post-explosion chaos to do the last people out of their homes. And then privatise them.

I personally find that behaviour inexcusable; abusing a national emergency to relieve a few pensioners dying from shock of their terminal living space.

But they made Brian a fair offer too, the broker said, and Brian was all too willing to accept. He moved within the next two months. Bought the old farmhouse 460 miles outside Fort Pleasance.

The thing is, the broker never said anything about a dog, or any other pet for that matter.

But that isn't important right now!

Stupid dog, nearly distracted me from what really matters; Brian was at the park on that fateful day.

If he really had been in-keeping with his basic rhythm as he had in the last couple of years, he must have been in the vicinity of the park before, during, and possibly even after the detonation.
The stakes were high that he was perhaps the only person around.

That meant that Brian was either a prime witness... or a prime suspect.

In the aftermath of the explosion, the police was painstakingly searching for witnesses to the crime. They were broadcasting their pleas on all news channels, on all radio stations, and printed them in all major papers.
Naturally, no useful eyewitnesses were found at all.

The question is, of course, that, given Brian was innocent after all, why didn't he come forward then?
Why wouldn't he want to become involved?
Did he have something to hide?

If yes, then what? What exactly did he carry in the bag of his on the 26th of October, 2014? A bomb? Or just Subway sandwiches?

Crack!

A sound coming from the undergrowth right behind the trees.

A lone mockingbird sitting in the nutmeg jerked her head in the sound's direction.
With a panicking shriek, she rocketed off into the blue sky.

Now I was sure that this was it!
Someone was leaving the premises. Must have been Brian, who else?

He was destined to pass me and the car in merely a few seconds.

And yet, all of a sudden, I felt completely vulnerable. I know this sounds fucking stupid for a field officer, but I was completely unprepared after four hours of holding out.
Did I remember my cover story?
Right...
Birdwatching, it was.

Yeah, right. Birdwatching.
Inside a green official car, in a tie and a blazer.
That was a stupid-ass idea, wasn't it?

But sadly, it was too late to change anything now.

Footsteps descended downhill, stomping on the gravel route. Coming closer and closer. Probably heading for town, for groceries or something.

Then, they stopped.

I froze, too.

Suddenly, it was as if he weren't there anymore. Standing behind one of the trees...

Silently, I unbuckled myself (I had the habit to keep myself strapped in in case I had to drive away quickly). Then, I slowly slid onto the passenger seat, nearly kissing the dashboard's black leather as I kept my head low.

With a swift reach behind the driver's seat, I equipped myself with my binoculars and stared into the green thicket.
Even with their +500% zoom, I couldn't see shit.

Did Brian notice me? Was he legging it? Did I just blow my own cover?
It were at moments like these I could just punch myself in the face.

Brian was probably aware of the fact that we watched him and had taken off. At the moment, he was probably fleeing through the golden fields that he naturally knew much better than I did, and headed for the closest highway, from which he would then hitchhike to Alaska or something like that.

And I, meanwhile, was still sitting in my car, with my tea, and didn't know in which direction exactly he ran off. What should I do now?
Well, finish my tea, apparently. I leaned back on my seat, silently pillorying my slowness, and began zipping my tea. I couldn't stop wondering what the exact reason was for Brain taking off into the opposite direction, and I didn't want to assume the worst case scenario.

I halted drinking and listened to the birdsong that was ensuing around the grove my car stood in. The thing was, there wasn't any. The bird had not yet returned after receiving the shock.
It was, as if there still was someone close by.

And when somebody knocked at my window, I sprayed the precious herbal liquid all over my gearshift.

With my eyes wide open, I turned around to look into the glaring brown eyes of Brian Fisher. I immediately identified him by his low-hanging aquiline nose and his paling skin.

I did so because there was hardly any other way to identify him. Interestingly enough, my 'patron' had undergone a conversion from the ground up.

He looked quite good, actually.
His brunette hair had been carefully groomed, his chin was shaven clean, and even his skin had assumed a healthy tan from doing some manual gardening labour. His sorry, drooping eyes from back then had transformed into smart and sharp ones that had poise written all over them.

He had bought himself some new clothing, too. He had swapped the black, synthetic raincoat and the sticky, grey sweatshirt of his archive photo's teenage alter ego for a clean and much more comely blue sweater vest over a long-sleeved white shirt.
If I wouldn't have known any better, I could have sworn that this man was a tasked, happy family man; at least he looked and lived like one.
A conversion that would have even put Henry Higgins to shame.

I scrolled down the window, both anxious about changing my approach a second damn time in less than a minute, but happy that he hadn't run away after all.

I tried to smile unknowably, painfully trying to counter his inquiring, scrutinising, wary glare.

"What can I do you for, young man?" I grinned.

He just looked at me, his hands impatiently resting against the lacquered window frame. His stare and distrust seemed not to budge. Granted his reaction fit the one to a man in suit and tie lingering around near your house.
After a short moment of consideration, he asked,

"What are you doing on my property?"

I feigned surprise the best way I could.

"Oh, is this your property, then?" I tapped on the steering wheel nervously. "I didn't know this property belonged to someone."

Again, his countenance nearly burst for the incomprehension and odium he bore against the stranger that was me. He had no intention of replying similarly friendly manner.

"Why are you here? What are you doing on my driveway, mister?"

I quickly reached for my binoculars and presented them.

"Watching birds. I'm watching the birds in this county."

Then I proceeded to point straight ahead. Even though there weren't any birds in that direction.
In a short fit of goodwill, Brian followed my indicating hand, but quickly resumed to his inquiring pose.

"I don't know about anyone else, but I don't usually watch birds while dressed like Gordon Gecco."

My ruse didn't work.
Gee, what a surprise.

"I always go for a drive in the countryside after work."

"At 10:00 am?"

"Yes..."

What should I do now? He looked like he would go after me with a hockey bat any moment.
Instead, he leaned closer to the window and began to make a clear statement.

"Look. I don't know who you are. And I also don't know what you want."

He paused, and closed his eyes for a moment.

"But I don't want any trouble with you, okay? I don't want trouble right now."

I retracted and shrugged,

"But neither do I. I'm just watching birds..."

A pointing finger shot into the vicinity of my face. Brian wanted to show me that he meant it. It worked, even with that meek, boyish voice of his.

"Don't shit with me. I know you're not here for birds. And, hell, I don't even care what you're here for. I want you to know I'm in a fucked mood right now!"

He pointed down towards the country lane.

"So get off my driveway before I call the cops! I give you ten minutes."

"Okay, okay. Cool your jets, I'm leaving already."

"Five minutes!"

With that statement, he resumed on his way down the driveway. His feet stomped the path in an aggravated manner, and his head he held stiff and unbudgingly. His hands were hanging at his side, rolled into nervous fists.

Yet, I then noticed that his eyes still bore some kind of remote tragedy, similar to the ones he wore in the '10s after his parent's death.
It wasn't the same kind of tragedy and sorrow, however; instead, it seemed like something grievable had happened only recently.

Now that I come to think of it, was there some special reason why he looked and lived like a family man all of a sudden?
Maybe, just maybe, that was the reason.

As I said, his broker, but also the village folk never mentioned any dependents. Like dogs. Or children.

Anyway, it didn't take me long before I grabbed hold of the radio.

"Hey, it's me! Fitzgerald here! Fisher is on the move! I repeat, Brian Fisher is on the move!"

Moments later, Helen replied.

"Roger that, Fitz. Suspect on the move. I get in touch with Baker."

"Roger, Helen. Fisher is moving down Coop Street towards east; probably heading for Linlithgow. Got that?"

"Roger roger, Fitz. Please hold the line..."

"Yep..."

I held the line, alright. And soon after that, a male voice answered, which I quickly indetified as my superior.

"Okay, Fitz, we're on him. Moving south towards Linlithgow."

"Roger that, Ian."

"You are currently at..."

"His driveway. 'Birdwatching', of course."

"That's the stupidest cover story I have ever heard."

"Gee, thanks."

"Anyway, are any more persons on the premises?"

"There shouldn't be anyone besides Fisher. Who is gone now."

"Okay, listen up, Fitz."

"I'm listening."

"Right. Make your way up the main house and get a good look on the garden and inside."

I should break in? T'wasn't legal. But it was fine by me.

"Okay."

"And collect all evidence you'd find interesting."

I was about to give my okay, but then I hesitated. Collect 'evidence', he said?

"When, Ian?"

"Now, Fitz. Get moving before he comes back. We'll work on preoccupying him just long enough for you to get a good gander at everything."

I was uncertain. Shouldn't I get, you know, a fricking Warrant for something like that? Next he'll ask me to bug his house as well.

"Is this... you know... legal, Ian?"

But Ian just tsked.

"Fitz... just shut up and do it, okay?"

I sighed. As if I really didn't have anything better to do. What if I was caught doing that? Without a warrant?

Ah well. I guess Ian had his reasons for ordering that. After all, if Brian really was a terrorist, it would he better to collect evidence before he could catch on.

It's all breaking into his house, now. I have, what, an hour time?

Let's see what interesting things I would find in there.

2. Time Marches On

2 - Time Marches On

(You may want to play this)

The TV was actively buzzing away on the ceiling.
The tap was fizzing with white foam in full blast.
The coffee machine screeched and hissed as it emitted its beans' juice.

I turned around. Behind me, at the window table, two farmers were laughing and cheerily puffing away their noon break.
To my left, a bored constable rested on the bar with his elbows, digging around in his dish of pancake, rummaging out one raisin at a time.

Had I done it?

I have dared it. For the first time for months, I had gone out again and dared to live again. Been among other people.
For the first time since... the departure, I had seen the town from inside again.

In former times, I had usually visited the city for supplies for Dashie and me, but after that I had even stopped that. I usually supplied myself with some home-grown stuff, and went into town for the drugstore or groceries. After Dashie left, I felt weak.
Too weak to make the whole way into town. I wasn't too interested in it either, it creeped me out more than it pulled me in.
I preferred to stay at home, inside my very own four walls, to keep the outside world out.

And you know why I was creeped out? It was because of people such as that dick who parked in my driveway. Smug people who were thinking that they are entitled to everything, and then they back down if things get too problematic for them.
Birdwatching? Yeah, sure.
I know exactly who that was and what he wanted. It was one of those no-up-to-good idiot real estate agents, looking out for pleasant homes to buy out from their owners. He may have wanted my house as well. It was good I told him to get lost. Nobody and nothing would take this house from me, especially none of the likes of him. This house, it was one of the very few things that reminded me of Dashie, just like the album or the letter. I wouldn't simply sell it like that!

But even when and while I stayed at home, life was not kind. The house was gaping with emptiness, with darkness and simply with the lack of life. It was by no means the same anymore. I would sit in the living room for hours, somewhere in a state between wakefulness and sleep, listening into the darkness, trying to find even the smallest sign of life. But there wasn't any. Even the dormice backed off, terrified by the grave silence that held reign over my home.

When I would get too frightened myself, I would go out and work in the garden, pull weeds and cut the lawn, to distract myself from the state of things. And while I did all that, I couldn't help myself staring into the distance, enjoying the fir woods and the brightly shining fields. I cannot deny that it reminded me of Dashie. I still have picture of her in my head, as she plays with the clouds in the afternoon sky.
Were those the same clouds that flew over the house at this very moment? They looked all the same. I wondered now as I wondered back then, if Dashie was riding on one of them? But if she was, I could never tell from the ground. The was practically invisible when she did that.
Only then would I remind myself that it was impossible. She couldn't be possibly riding on those clouds if she was back in Equestria. And she was back in Equestria. Not here.
Then I would go inside again, and roll up on the sofa for a few more hours.

I had gotten fond to the loneliness, but I had never grown fond of it. It was like a predator, stalking me, circling around whenever I didn't pay attention.
I felt actually kinda glad that right now, it was impossible for this feeling to return.
I sat among others now. I was not alone.
It gave me a very good feeling, I was happy to be around people whom I could talk to again. My head, my mouth, they were aching for a conversation.

I did what I hadn't done for many many years. I sat down in a bar, to lax my tension, to forget the world around me for once. That was so many years ago. The last time I spent some quality time in a bar was back in Pleasance, right after I found Dashie.
I had to get myself really drunk to make sure I wasn't already.

Maybe today will grant me another such revelation.

But the barkeep disagreed. Smugly sorting out stained shot glasses on a rack, he looked at me through observant lenses, conspicuously mustering my clothes, as well as my presence in general.
I would have tried to smile to shake his stare off me, but I was too much drowning in thought to really mind him.
In the end, it was he who broke the silence.

"So you say that you live up there in the old Gilroy Farm?" he asked, then shook his head.
"You must be living, like, ten years up there. How come I saw you around here not once?"

"I was... up to my ears in work." I stuttered. I didn't even lie there.

"You a family man, Mr Fisher?" he said, bobbing his head knowingly.

"Me? I... no. Not anymore."
It really hurt that I had to put it like that. But again, it was the whole truth. There would have been no use in telling absolutely no one. Maybe it was just because I had grown too estranged to converse normally with others.

"Little kid left the nest, eh?" he smirked.

I froze for a moment. I took me a second to realise that he didn't actually... knew.

"The nest?"

"Yeah. Home. You know, once they feel that they're old enough and brave enough to topple your reign of terror, they pack together their stuff and are off to college. Literally overnight."
Then, he shrugged.
"At least, that's what my kid did."

That was new. I hadn't actually thought about the possibility of Dashie leaving on her own accord. It had always been out of the question for me. It was not possible for her. There was no one out there. She had nobody, nopony on this whole planet but me to care for her.
And she knew that too, of course.
Even when she ran away or flew off for a longer time, and I started worrying, I always had this little grain of hope in the back of my head. It assured that there was no way she could not return. She would come back eventually, and if only to smack me in the face. Not that I didn't deserve it.
Naturally, she returned, time after time. Back to me, and back home. She would not have left me on her own.

One can understand how much I felt this mindset upset when the mane six and Celestia themselves came to take her with them.
That was, and I knew that all along, the only way I wouldn't have abandoned her kicking and screaming. Like when other people would catch on about Dashie living with me. It would have been a horrible thing to happen.

"So, uhm... what about your kid, Mr Fisher? How fast was she gone?"

I smiled desultorily.
"Too fast."

"Over night? Just like I said? Ah well, kids these days..."

I wish I could have told him.
I wish I could have told him that, in his own, limited perception of this world, Dashie would be a lot closer to death than running away from home. And it even felt like that, too.
But I stayed silent. The last thing I needed was empathy from a guy who didn't even come close to understanding what happened to me.

But yes, it was more like that, anyway. I gradually realised that nobody would understand. Understand my grief.
Certainly, there weren't many people out there who would have spent a chunk of their life raising a talking pony, before getting separated from it in one of the most tragic ways other than death.

And the barkeep was no different. Anything I would tell him now, he would simply not be able to believe. You'd have to have seen it with our own eyes to believe a thing like that.
He rather minded the television on the ceiling rather than get into tuff he couldn't comprehend, I could tell that from a mile.

And so he did. The television brought one of its hourly newsflashes, without sound but with subtitles. Right now, it showed a suited man with a rather familiar face standing in from of a grey podium and giving a speech that was apparently so emotional that his face was turning all red. The subtitles said,
'Pleasance County +++ 2014 Pleasance Bombings newly unfurled.'

"You heard that already?" the barkeep asked me.
"They're rolling up the investigations about this botched bombing down there in Pleasance. Urbanite dandies, they just can't let the dead rest now can they?"

Yes, the so-called '2014 Pleasance' bombings.
That's how the local authorities called Rainbow Dash's very own sonic rainboom.
From what I had heard, it had caused a lot of trouble in the town, including some looting and mass hysteria. But I think the damage could be contained to a tee, so it was only half as bad as it could have gotten.

"Goddammit, those damn politicians are so fricking stubborn. Twenty years of War on Terror, and they still kinda try to relate to long gone events. Though, to be fair, this time it was only some kind of tiny fringe group at the Ministry of Defence that tried to get the investigations running again. Well, you can't please everyone, now can you?"

I knew full well what kind of impression Rainbow's little stunt left on the city's population, but as the new investors moved into town, the incident had been forgotten surprisingly quickly. The police stopped searching for the cause incredibly soon. They never got as far as our street, and it was good they didn't.
Dashie was safe, nothing could get to her. I didn't even want to think about what could have happened.

Behind me, the bell rang as the door opened.

"Ah, Ms Tremblay. Nice to see you again."

I turned around. A woman in a smart purple suit and a pair of discrete shoes walked into the establishment, her hair pinned back into a brunette bun, grinning at the barkeep, who smiled back at her.
She shrugged comically and folded her arms in mocked shame.
"I guess you were right. I drove into the perfectly wrong direction. Ten miles down to the interstate, and I couldn't turn around for half an hour. It's a miracle I made it back here."

The barkeep nodded smugly and cleared away the last couple of glasses, rubbing his hands with a rough dishcloth.

As the woman slowly came to a halt in front of the bar and amiably leaned on the counter, less than three feet away from where I was sitting, I discretely sent my stare down at my food and drink, trying not to get her attention any more than needed.
I... I wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing.

But the barkeep apparently wouldn't let me.
He clapped a hand onto the counter next to my drink, sending me jolting from my cowering fixation on my plate with snacks, and attracting the woman's attention onto me.
"That's Mr Fisher, he lives up Coop Street. I think that was the direction you wanted to get to. Right, Miss?"

She was surprised.
"Ah yes, of course."
Then she stretched a greeting hand into my face, giggling and greeting me with a well-meant
"Hi. My name is Ingrid Tremblay. How do you do?"

It... it took me a moment to summarise my thoughts and come up with a reply. With a feeble, hesitant hand, I shook hers and smiled half-heartedly, stutteringly.
"Fisher, Brian Fisher. Nice to meet you."

She leaned onto the bar, facing me and the barkeeper who began leaning towards her in response. Only I stayed rolled up like a porcupine in the undergrowth.

"The thing is, I'm not from here. I'm from Bayneck, and I'm only on my way to the border. I was thinking, 'Hey, how about I spent some quality time in the countryside, do some panoramic excursions or something like that.' Unfortunately I forgot that I don't have a sense of direction. I've been driving around in circles for the last two days." and then she laughed.
And the barkeep laughed.
I smiled quickly.

"I'll take a lemony Martini, please."

"Okay dokay."

She sat down on the stool next to mine, smirking and fumbling with her purse.
"Now that I think of it, I should just get myself a Sarsparilla. I mean, it's still so early in the day." she joked.

I nodded, absent-mindedly making what I thought was a friendly snark.
"I think we'll all need some extra sars for the day."

I only began thinking about what I said when she began staring at me with big eyes. I looked back at her, my eyes as large as hers.

Did I... did I really just quote My Little Pony in front of her? The second thing I ever said to her was a My Little Pony rerence?
I knew that at that point of time I shouldn't have been ashamed of something like that at all, but I still was.
To me, MLP may have grown to be realty during the last years, but to all the others, it was still a kids' show. Something I would never talk about with complete strangers like her.

But she simply smiled, shaking her head cheerily and thrusting me an amiable glance.
I was hoping she didn't get the reference.

"I think you just made my days twenty percent cooler." Then she sneered again.

She got the reference alright.
I squinted my face, trying to make it appear that I was above this sort of thing. It didn't quite work, seeing how she just grinned at me cheekily, with a knowing peer in her eyes.

"You're from the old Brony Brigade, are you not?" she asked.

I winced, like a wrestler who had just accepted his defeat in the ring. I swayed my head around, staring on the ground, subtly acknowledging her remark had at least some substance. She greeted this jest with a nigh-preteen glee.

"No offence. But I'd always know a fan of the... the series when I see one."

Again, I nodded and smiled hastily. I tried to get this theme scotched as quickly as possible, but she was tougher than that.

"Who was your favourite character? If I may ask? Back then, I always had a thing for Applejack."

Applejack? Yeah, I could actually understand that preference.
It was because of the dialect, wasn't it?
Slowly, I began taking interest. Suddenly, she seemed like a much more sympathetic as a person. I looked up at her thin, cameo-pink lips, her rosy celestial nose and lively brown eyes.

I nodded and said, "Yeah, Applejack was... polite."

"Polite?"

I forgot that I was talking out of personal experience. I still remembered how she tipped her hat at me, vouching for the understandably jumpy nature of Pinkie Pie. When they all came to get Rainbow, Applejack maybe even was the first to actually respectfully acknowledge me as what I was, a knowing human.

"Well... I mean... you know, Applejack always knew what was expected of her."

She smiled away at my interpretation, without doubt reliving some glorious childhood memories, who may or may have not included certain fanfics with dissenting interpretations.

"Wow, now that you put it like that... I never really thought about that. But you're right, I guess."
She accepted her drink from the barkeep, took a grateful gulp of the strong contents, and then slumped onto the bar in a soothed manner. She laughed and said,
"You know your ponies well."
She harrumphed and turned to me.
"What was your name again?"

I smiled. Her interest was very comely, and made it all the more easy for me to... to talk freely.
"My name is Brian. Brian Fisher."

She asked right away,
"What was your favourite pony?"

The was right there for me. Still, I took a few moments to answer.

"Dash-... Rainbow Dash."
Dashie, my only favourite, now and forever.

"Yeah, Rainbow Dahs was a great character, too."
She pressed her lower lip for emphasis.
"Even though I have to say she tended to be pretty lopsided."

I stopped. What did she say about Dash?
Why would she say that? Why would she think that Dashie - who was perhaps the deepest and most sincere of all the characters for me - was 'lopsided'?

"You know, steroetypical."

"Why?" I inquired straight away. I really took that little judgement personally.
Too personally, perhaps. She seemed a bit scared and repulsed by my speedy, but somewhat forceful reply.

Her smile slowly faded from her mouth.
"Well, you see, for me she was always a typical jock. Proud, self-centered, and maybe quite elitist."
She followed up with a quick justification.
"I'm from Bayneck, you see. Where I come from, these are the worst attributes of the people around me. I came a long way to loathe them. But still, no offence."

"Oh, no no no. Please, I didn't mean it like that."

"No, it's okay."
She took another zip.
"What is it about Rainbow? What is it that pulls you in?"

A good question.
Judging my the original show's material, the question was indeed a lot harder to answer than with my... my very own experience with Dashie.
Honestly, so what could I tell her?
The truth?

"Rainbow Dash... yes, she reminds me very much of my own little girl."
And I moved up with a smile.
Apparently, she quickly identified as a teary, telling smile.

Nevertheless, she opened her mouth in a fit of surprised laughter, eyeing me accordingly.

"You're a father? That's great."

"Aha."
I consciously didn't share the amusement. I continued right on. Either I share it with someone now, or I stay silent for evermore.
"My daughter; an ace. Sporty and highly athletic. She was proud of it, she devoted her entire life to sports and the strive of success and appreciation. She was a wrestler. She was always in for a good competition, wether it was to the fridge or through the park." I said.
"That's how she reminded me of Dashie... Rainbow Dash."

She nodded friendlily.

"But at the same time, she was a very good p-person. A... a very good... human." I stuttered on.
"My little girl was caring. Oh, she was surprisingly sensitive if you ever were on her intimate side, she was always seeking the truth. She never took it well if she was lied to. I hardly ever had the heart to be anything but honest with her. She had complete trust in me, and I always had complete trust in her."
I shrugged.
"But maybe that's just what we both wished to have, even though we were both perfectly aware that life had different plans for our relationship. But I never lost hope in her ability, her spirit of life, and her extreme pride that would always make her carry on. Even when she was temperamental, I knew that behind this tough facade, there was that highly passionate about her role in this world, no matter how... how nutty some of her ideas seemed."
I couldn't help but to giggle as thoughts of her ploy to view Indie 500 from the clouds flooded my mind. What glorious times those were.
"My girl, she was my very own girl. She... never... had a great big relationship with the outside world."

"Oh? How come?"

"No, don't get me wrong there. It wasn't her own choice, mind you. And no, it was not mine either. It... it were instances that lay outside either of our control."

She combed back some loose hair behind her ear.
"Are you a religious man?" she wondered

I had to smirk, and shook my head right away.
"No. No, no. Believe me, I am really not religious. Not at all. Hell, not even my parents were."
But it was then that I began pondering again, slipping off into the ever-present crevasse of doubt.
"Though I have to admit, it does get more difficult with each year to doubt that there is... a certain power above us humans. I can't explain it, but... some things don't really make sense to me anymore."
Boy, these were words of wisdom if there ever were.

"Was your daughter... was she ha-..." she couldn't bring herself to spit it out at first.
"Sorry, I mean, was she handicapped? Why couldn't she interact with the outside world."

"Well, you could say that she was... different from others at her age, and very much so. It was a hazard for her to be put there in this world. She could never fit in. And even worse; other people, they would never understand. They could not comprehend what she was, or what her... condition... even was."

"Oh dear. I'm sorry about that." she assured.
"I understand what you must have gone through. And what your daughter must have gone through."

I replied, as softly as possible, "Oh, believe me, Miss. You don't."

She tried to make it up right away.
"How old is your daughter? Where is she now?"

I stayed silent. But not for long.
"She is... uhm... not... here anymore. But, yeah, she'd by about seventeen by now. I think."

That statement struck her like a rock to the forehead. I could tell she would have gone into another rant of 'I'm sorry' and 'I had no idea'. But she was too stupefied to go that far.
I just said,
"Don't be."

And she nodded.

"Life isn't fair." I concluded.
"This is what life has taught me. Still, what I do sincerely hope is that my little Dashie is in a much better place now. Maybe, just maybe, life has been kind to her after all."

Again, the woman looked at me, with a glance understanding and confused at the same time.
"Your little Dashie."

No, I slipped!
But she didn't seem to mind.
Instead, she abandoned her drink after taking one slow, respectful gulp from the glass. She clearly needed the sweet medicine.

What she did next confused me a bit, though.
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was an over-boiling level of empathy in her, but she slid her hand nearer to my drink and glass, obviously with the intention to grasp my hand, to assure me her support.
She smiled slowly.
"I'm a psychiatrist." she said.
"I would just like to let you know, that if you need me, if you need succour, whether professionally or discretely, you can always contact me."

"I...? Really?"

"Of course. You can talk about everything with me. I can tell you are having a difficult time, it would only be for your own good. Loosing a close relative is a terrible loss indeed." she explained.
"I have a practice in Bayneck, I can give you my number, if you want to."

Without awaiting a reply, she unpacked a little sticky note and a pencil, and quickly scribbled a number on it.

"Can I?" I asked, and she handed me the pencil.
I took it and wrote my own number on the unused tissue next to my dish. I slid it over to her.
I said,
"That's my number. As the barkeep said, I... live up at Coop Street, 2nd turning. There aren't many houses on that road, anyway."

And what I proposed next surprised me quite a bit. It was as if I wasn't quite myself in that moment.
"I am not too busy today. How about... how about we take a walk to my house and I... I can explain you the direction to the next big city in peace?"

She smiled at my suggestion, but did so with an embarrassed aftertaste. Even I was thinking, 'Why the hell did you invite her over right now?' I wasn't prepared for something like that, and neither was my house. I didn't have anything left to eat for a second person, and the only thong I could possibly enthuse her with was my collection of MLP episodes.

After Dashie had gone, I had taken myself some time to watch all the old episodes, just for memory's sake, so that I wouldn't possibly forget.
Maybe I had the chance now to do so without estranging with the outside world.

However, the woman stayed silent. I don't know what she was thinking or whether she was thinking anything, but it had something to do with my invitation. That, I knew.

A penetrating cell phone rang through the bar, snapping Ingrid Tremblay out of her thought process. Without further ado, she snapped her phone open and pressed it against her ear, looking at me for a second with scared eyes and then turning away on her stool quickly.
She spoke quickly, with a worrisome tone, yet it was more a whisper or a hiss than a regular conversation.
Still, I could understand everything she said, even though I couldn't ear the caller. It sounded all so mysterious.

"Fitz, is that you? Fitz? (...) Are you okay? What's going on? Where are you? (...) Why are you calling, Fitz? What's going on? (...) I'm on my way, Fitz. Ian's on his way too. We'll be over in five. (...) Are... you okay, Fitz? Are you injured? (...) Okay. Hang in there, we're on our way."

She stuffed the telephone into her bag and hopped off the stool, adjusting her blazer and her hair with juddering movements. With the same juddering movements, she spilled a dollar bill and a couple of coins onto the counter and said,
"Thank you, you can keep the change. I need to go it's something urgent."

The barkeep was still dumbstruck.
"So early already? What a shame, we could have come along just fine."

I asked "What has happened?"

"A friend, he... seems to be in some trouble, I have to get to him quickly."
Yet, she took her time to shake my hand and nod appreciatively.
"It has been nice to meet you. I hope we can find a later time to meet up. What do you think?"

"I... I think that would be great. Thanks again."

"No problem, you're welcome."
And with these words, she left the building to get into her car.

"Yeah, typical urbanites. Just what I told you. Cannot keep calm and just sit down for a moment."

But I didn't listen. I just looked out onto the street to espy her driving past. I didn't see her, though.

She seemed very nice, very understanding. A very charming personality. And she even was a fan of My Little Pony to boot.
If she would really keep her promise, I thought, maybe I could even tell her one day.
Tell her about my life.
And tell her about Dashie.
Would she understand? Maybe, I don't know. She appeared to be very compassionate, and understanding. Maybe she would believe me, and not just judge me...

I was so sunk in thought that I didn't notice how the Constable who was sitting to my right intercepted an urgent call on his shoulder radio.
He then gave is 10-4 and jumped up from his pancakes and coffee and strode out to his motorcycle.

3. Break, Enter, and Find

4 - Break, Enter, and Find

(You may want to play this)

I looked left.
And I looked right.

Then I strode out onto the freshly mowed lawn before the white, neoclassical farmhouse that dominated the little plateau over the fields. A nice view it had, indeed.

Of course, I firstly acknowledged the windows, who were all darkened and in some cases even had their folds shut. There certainly was no one else at home.

Crossing the grassy yard swiftly, I pressed myself against the house's wall. Peeping into one of the windows, I saw a little light coming from the first story. Everything else lay darkened.

Now, I thought, what did Ian say? 'Take a look around and collect everything you deem important'.
Okay. I thought I'd start right here I guess.

So I took out my camera (a professional high precision model) and framed the garden several times. First the entire garden, then the lawn, then the trees, and finally the little bushes and tulips that were planted in a happy little flower patch. Roses, tulips, and even an infant apple tree. Must be less that three years old, considering its puny size.
Again, the last time I saw a patch like this was at a friend's house. He had a wife and two daughters, and they were infamous for doing such little happy things, like gardening and tidying out the turf, as a family.
Again, I had to wonder, did Brian really plant that apple tree all by himself? Just for the sake of it?

Well, after a few more shots of individual corners of the garden, I found it to be very fruitless in terms of evidence. It was just a lawn with a few trees, individual patches, nothing special. Tactically speaking, the garden area provided little cover - both visually and ballistically, and so anyone ascending the driveway could be seen right away from the windows.

On the ground that ran alongside the walls, I found it to be a sand pit. I was standing in sand with my soles, a cheap and ugly method to fill the subterranean gap between the house's delicate foundations and the garden's turf.
However, what I found more interesting about it was that it wasn't untouched. There were my shoe prints in it, yes, of course, but there was a second set as well. And nobody could leave behind prints if they weren't sneaking around the house by leaning against its walls.
I made some quick pictures of the prints; they weren't very deep or detailed; they had been there quite a time already, maybe a year or two, billowed by wind and precipitation all the way. I didn't know any better than to assume they stemmed from a human, wearing moon-boots or something like that.
Little, circular moon-boots.

Edging alongside the wall, I found the back door two corners away. I knew what I had to do now.
I pulled a pair of black leather gloves over my hands, and strapped those special socks made plastic foil over my shoes and lower trouser legs. They would prevent shoe prints and sediment stains I might carry along with me.

Then, I targeted the little window square that was closest to the door's inside handle. I took out a broad scotch tape roll, and laid three stripes over the window and its frame, as well as three stripes across.
Then, without a moment's notice, I struck out with my right hands elbow and smashed it into the taped pane.
There was hardly a clank as the window shattered.

Carefully, I reached inside, and fumbled my way to the door handle.
I pushed it down.
And I was inside.

I swept aside the shards of glass with my shoes and stepped inside the house. It was dark. The curtains had been pulled before the windows, and there were only a few weak sources of light that helped me to guide my way through the corridor. A slit of sunlight here, a glowing battery charger there, and that was it.

'It definitely was a big house for a single person', that was the first thing that sprang into my head. Why would he buy such a large house only for himself?

Soon, I stood in the back of the central room, the living room, as far as I could tell.
I spotted a sofa and two comfy chairs situated in the middle, as well as a table between them.
A menagerie cupboard rested against one of the walls, filled with photos and some random assortments of beautiful glassware.
I took a closer look at the photos. With a flashlight, I looked at every single one.

One depicted a little, three-year old boy with a mullet, sitting on a cheap, yellow bobby-car in a desolate backyard somewhere in a pseudo-suburban 'pot hole'. Maybe it was a photo from Brian's childhood, a photo from the '90s.
Yeah, times were still simple back then.
The next photo, even though blurred by an overly long exposure time, portrayed a preteen Brian blowing out eleven candles on a feeble, yet succulent self-made birthday cake. To his right, there crouched a woman with brunette locks and perhaps one of the most disarming grins I had seen in a lifetime.
This woman was his mother, alright, apparently highly amused by his grimaces as he tried to get all the candles in one breath.
The way she hugged her son as he bowed over the table toward the cake bore witness to a happy, harmonious childhood.
It may have been very difficult for him once they died.
The next few pictures were very similar. Like the one in which he wrestled with his father, a corpulent man with a bald patch and an apparent preference for motley shirts.. Or the one on his first day at school. Or the one at his communion.
Pleasant. Peaceful. And safe.

The photo series stopped around 2010. When they passed away.
That was the point where he stopped making photos.

Apart from the photographs, there was little of interest in the room. Boring potted plants, a kitschy painting of an alpine mountaintop, and of course the coffee table, surrounded by chairs and a sofa.
I dusted the table with magnetised powder and a thick brush, in hopes of uncovering fingerprints that did not belong to Brian. Just to find someone else I could connect with Brian or this house. There must have been at least one other person in his life at one point or another.
So, where was this person?
The fingerprints on the table told me nothing. Each and every one belonged to the same set of two hands.
Brian's hands.

I moved on. Next to the menagerie, there was a small portal to the kitchen.
The kitchen was a bit lighter that the living room thanks an abundance of panoramic windows, but it was no less a feeble affair than the living room. Some stickers on a pinup board bearing irrelevant, repetitive messages, and a partially consumed slice of apple pie that sat on a ceramic dish on the table next to the stove. A fork still stuck in it.

Sitting at home half of the day and gulping down apple pie. Was that a modern terrorist's life?

Just as I got quite annoyed by the overly uncanny blandness of the place, I threw my focus on the fridge and the dish cupboard.

There were a set of six dishes in the cupboard, and a couple more floated at the bottom of the filled, foamy sink.
Too many dishes for a one-man-household, I figured. Granted, most of the dishes hadn't been used in some time, but still.
Yet, my hunch was quickly destroyed as I threw a glance into the fridge.
Toast, cheese, oats, milk. Breakfast for one. Onion soup, carrots, cornbread, mache. Lunch for one. Spaghetti, tomatoes, quark, herbs. Dinner for one.
No seconds.

What I did next, I don't know why. Maybe it was intuition, maybe it was experience. But I did take a look at the refrigeration, which found itself at the bottom of the bulky fridge. It was interconnected with the rest of the world through a little, fine metal grid, which continuously proceeded to draw in air for the cooling process.

And on that little grid, there hang a single strain of hair. A long, bright one.
I inspected it further, with a pair of tweezers and a plastic bag, and immediately made a photo for the report.

The hair may have been my very first hint that I was not mistaken. Someone else was in this house. Someone else helped him- or herself with the fridge. Someone in possession of brilliant long hair.

Now hang on, I thought.
That hair was quite... brilliant. It had a very noticeable colour.

If I weren't befallen by a sudden fit of colour blindness, I could have sworn that that hair was... red... pink... or purple.

I scratched it with the tweezers; no, it wasn't colour.

Rose hair, hair with the one colour that should not exist in nature. What could be the explanation?

Why, gunpowder, of course!
Old-fashioned gunpowder can dye hair in such a way if comes into contact repeatedly.
That must have been the answer, right?
Right?
Happened all the time in WW1 with women working in the munitions works.
This acquaintance of Brian must have been experimenting with old-style munitions, and lost a single dyed hair during a visit.

Maybe that was the link,... the link to the explosion. I had to find more of it!

The next step led me into the first floor.
This floor was nearly as big as the ground level, which meant that there was in fact more than double the space I had examined already.
This house was insanely large.
And yet, I soon found that every room in the house was, in one way or another, furnished.

The first room I came across, right at the top of the stairs, was the bedroom. It was a large single bed, unmade, green and white beddings hanging to the ground in every direction. A timer stood on the nightstand and blinked away, Brian had put it on mute without ever turning it off.
I took a second to bag one of the brunette hairs that lay scattered across the pillow. One could never know, I thought. DNA analysis was important, after all.
Of course, Brian's hair was completely healthy and natural. No dye, no artificial enhancement. Whatever the other canary-coloured person had come into contact with, he hadn't. No, his hair was clean.

Next to a rustic, 90s TV set, I found a box of DVDs and a player. They too had been neglected for some time; the dust piled on the objects said more than a thousand words. Now, what kinds of DVDs would a person like Brian watch?

Thrillers? Docudramas? Sitcoms?

No.

Apparently, he watched My Little Pony.

I am dead serious there.

He had a staple of sixteen DVDs worth of cute, whimsical, smiling technicolour horses at standby. Eight seasons, 240 episodes, or at least so the cover said.

Why?

Why... why wouldn't... couldn't I possibly find out this guy?
He was 36, a grown, albeit lonely man with a tragic and miserable past.
What would entice him to watch children's cartoons that had apparently only been around since his late teens?
Was he... catching up lost childhood or something like that?

I didn't see that aspect of his private life coming up at all.
Seriously, I don't have a problem with people watching cartoons - I myself fancy an old volume of Batman once and a while - but why, why did it have to be My Little Pony? The very synonym for... for... ugh!

Maybe he was, I don't know, just a part of that ancient internet meme boom with those ponies, the ones that lived on 'til this day. Wow, that shit was popular back then when it came out.
I know little Grace was totally into it back then... even though she was only nine or so.
But she is in college now, for Christ's sake.
College!

Times marches on, as they say.

I made a photo of them - who knows, maybe the local profiler could find a use for this information - and shifted the DVD staple back under the TV.

Then I moved on, on to the paintings that had been framed over and across of the bed.
I was surprised by their... their beauty. I hadn't expected such nice paintings to hang in such a desolate place.
They were tasteful, they were stylistically confident, and they were highly creative.

I especially liked that one on the middle. The one with the great, majestic rainbow spanning over a strange, abstract brick structure that stood under a light, beautiful sky.
What was the artists name? Was there a signature?
Oh, there it was.

M. Sandstrom

That was,... or so I thought, Brian's own mother, Mary Fisher. The woman with the brunette locks and the great big grin.

And, at some point of her life, she started painting pictures. By the dozens, apparently. But what drove her to draw such things?
Had she discovered a personal artistic ambition in her life?
Or was it a way to relieve herself when her life went down in the dumps? What if that famous smile of hers didn't last her whole, cut-short life?

The rainbow in the picture was quite a visionary affair.
It radiated idealism and happiness, but the picture still didn't seem to have some kind of particular message or purpose. It merely a rainbow over a brick building.
Maybe, she had just drawn that rainbow for the rainbow's sake? To manifest her deepest, simplest feelings onto a cheap canvas?
To draw a picture emphasising one feeling and one feeling only.
To give delight and optimism a material shape and a form that she could turn to.
But maybe, the picture also radiated a hint of cruel irony.
Happiness is like a rainbow. It is easy to appreciate its beauty from afar. But to actually pursue it is... well, you know... pointless.

Huh, strange.
Was it only me, or would someone's else's mind also have gone click in that moment?
Would someone else's mind made a sudden, unprovoked connection between this picture and the '14 Fort Pleasant bombings?
The detonations pressure wave, the motley shimmering in the sunlight recorded by various cameras before they blacked out, the various colours that were radiated by the sunlight on the day following the incident...
Was I the only one who thought that it did look a lot like... a rainbow?

I contemplated it as it proceeded to shine above the urban setting at the bottom of the canvas.
Motive? Cause?
Perhaps, just perhaps, this one rainbow had something to do with it.

But gain, I moved on too early, shedding little more thoughts about it. Shame I did that.

A second room lay conjoined with the bedroom via a simple elmwood door.
It was locked, I had to use a little picklock to make short work of it.

The room turned out to be a boring, perfectly untouched office. The same affair like in the rest of the house, with potted plants and all. A bulky computer stood on a mundane writing desk, an Apple computer, and an old one at that. Must have still been from the time before the company filed for bankruptcy in early 2017.

Across from the office desk, there was a cupboard, and a chair that stood in the corner. The former had an unhealthy grey tone in its wood. The latter was a massive platinum plastic nightmare.
Just like an office from the 1980s, only with even less fervour in the outfitting process.

What wondered me most about this place that it stood, just like the DVDs under the TV, at standby, ready to be used at any time... without actually being used all.

I took a look in every drawing board and every wardrobe. They were filled with all sorts of documents, like tax returns and leaflets from a conspicuous real estate company operating under the name of Cel Est. It was nothing of direct importance; he could have just as well used it as scrap paper.
Then again, those papers were stapled and laid out with a precision like no person could control it. Each stack of papers and documents seemed like it was measured out with a ruler and level in advance.

I had my hand travel the surface of the writing desk. It took a considerable layer of grey and white dust with it, revealing a much darker wooden surface beneath it. Thick clouds of illuminated particles drew up around the spot I swept over, threatening to envelop the entire space.
Had this room ever been used?

I was just curious. Why would someone outfit an office, only to abandon it right after?
Was it, perchance, used for something else before it got furnished?

I got myself to investigate further into this. I took fingerprints from the tabletop, just to see what comes out of it.
As I blew away the white dust and the black magnetised powder, I would have to find at least Brian's fingerprints, at least form the time when he moved in and carried the stuff around.

But to my own - for the lack of a better term - startlement, I found none.
And with none, I mean not a single print from any living creature's hand.

Of course, you may argue that he wiped everything, but even then, skin fragments and other prints (such as from the palms) would be left behind in most cases.
But the table was sterile.

And what about the computer, or its keyboard?
Never touched by a human hand.

And the cupboard?
Dusty for sure, but free of any vital signs.

What was going on here?
The only sign I ultimately found that proved somebody entering the room were only two dozen, very old and weak shoe- and footprints which led from the door to the window and back.
Apart from that, the room was impeccably aseptic. There weren't even traces of washing fluid, or any other emulsifiers for that matter.

That meant that the room was indeed positively untouched.
Of course, following this interesting discovery, I photographed the living daylights out of that room. Every corner, every potted plant, every stack of papers and every single flake of dust.

This was a setup of a sort, I was certain. This was the office equivalent of the Potemkin Village, a ruse aptly set up to fool the common eye.
The Potemkin Room.

No, I didn't know yet what the hell had been going on here, but I will find out. Right after Ian hands in these interesting things to the lab.

I made my way back into the bedroom. I let my sight slide over the scene one last time, not to miss anything out.
Then, suddenly, the mattress' edge caught my attention.

I didn't inspect the mattress' underside yet, did I?
Why didn't I?

I made it up quickly, though.
I overturned the massive, heavy mattress, and it rose from its wooden frame like a book flipped open.

And hark, there was indeed something hidden under it.

A fairly simple, light blue money casket with an in-built lock.

Slowly, I lifted it out of its wooden hideout. Then, I shook it carefully. Considering that he hid it under the mattress, it wouldn't contain anything too fragile.
It made a tuneless click-clack noise, like a batch of paper thumping against the metal frame.
The lock was no problem for me. A little bit of persuasion with the picklock and a screwdriver were sufficient to let the box pop open.

And on it's inside, there was a letter hidden, written in a rather sloppy, hurried handwriting. A handwriting which made it impossible to determine whether the author was left- or right-handed.

But already the very first word changed my view on the subject quickly and violently.

Dad,...

Dad?
As in 'father'?

Was... was the addressee, by any chance, Brian himself?

My mind popped.

That old dog!
He was a father! A parent!

No wonder he dressed like one.
No wonder he hadn't allowed himself an external hobby for all those years!
No wonder his garden looked like an agricultural playing ground!
No wonder the house was so large!
No wonder there were dishes aplenty!
No wonder...

Wait.
He had a child?
Where?
And for how long?

The brokers said Brain had always ventured alone, after all.
And why was this letter, of all the important documents in this house, hidden inside this casket?

My hands shook as I ailed to continue reading this letter.
In my nervousness, I practically skimmed it, making note of the most protruding statements.

For fifteen years you took care of me. For fifteen years you loved me, played with me, and made sure I enjoyed my life in a world not meant to house me...

Fifteen? Fifteen years, aha. That shall cover a time before him moving out to here, shouldn't it? Like his life in Fort Pleasant...
And what does the kid mean with 'my life in a world not meant to house me'.
Was it an orphan? A step-child? An illegitimate child?
Okay, continue...

...I love you daddy. You helped shape me ... I want you to know that you did a darn good job of raising me, even if I was a bit stubborn at times and short with you during others...

So he had raised it, alright.
Fifteen bleeding years.
All the time.
Also, if the kid is or was at least fifteen,... where is it now?

...With Celestia's permission, I hope to allow you to keep our photos; our memories, with you so that you will never forget. Again, I love you, and thank you...

'Celestia'? An... interesting euphemism, isn't it?
Maybe the mother,... the guardian,... or maybe an educator?
So, if 'Celestia' did 'allow' her to keep those photos... where are those photos?

...Your little daughter always,
Your little Dashie forever,
Rainbow Dash.

Damn.
A farewell letter form a fifteen-year old child with a hill-billie name who was not 'here' anymore.
It must have been illegitimate.
Never had Brian been married.
Never had Brian carried through a legal adoption.

And if the child still stemmed from Brian's time at Pleasance, it may have been... no, was... a direct link to Brian, and his relation to the occurrences.

It was the link, and it had to be sought out.
But where to start?

The pictures!

There still had to be pictures, and I had to find them.
The pictures of a life... a life which Brian officially never led.

What other surprises would Brian, the little teller from 15th Ave bear for me?
How could he keep this a secret?
Or, alternately, how could we never find out?

Well, I was about to. And I was about to do so quicker than even I would have imagined it.

That's because, before I could skim the letter a second and more detailed time, there were footsteps.

Footsteps that echoed from the same floor, no doubt.

In fact, I was certain there were out on the corridor, outside the bedroom, a mere plywood door away from where I was crouching.

I was frozen with shock, but yet I could shake myself loose from the lethargy.

My mind raced.
I knew that, unless I wanted to take a 27 foot drop onto a hardened sand pit, I had to make my way down the stairs and out the door before I was caught reading a secret note at the base of an overturned mattress and a busted money casket.
Because if that happened, even the most sophisticated plastic shoe overlays couldn't help my case.
I would be but a common thief, and not the government officer that I actually was.

I lifted myself onto my feet, grating my teeth with every grind the wooden flooring gave off under my movements.

And apparently, those little grinds was enough to get the unknown creeper's attention.
The footsteps seized.

Very very slowly, I tiptoed towards the closed door, hoping to be right behind it should it be opened.
I clung on to the poorly lacquered rim of the portal, hugging the wall like a long-lost comrade, in the hopes he would somehow improve my situation.

The silence outside the door prevailed.
On the inside, my racing heart and the flushing adrenaline threatened to give away my humble position.

I felt as the person on the other side advanced upon the door, ready to step in and discover what I had done.
At least the person would have, had it not stopped and directly addressed my through the door.
In a stuttering, squeakish voice of a young woman.

"D-daddie?"

What?

"Daddy, is that you?"

I slowly sank to my knees, my back sliding down the papered wall.
The next seconds passed slowly, way too slowly, as my racing thoughts were continuously interrupted by sensations of excitement and surprise.
The daughter, in her dad's house, right after I had found out about her existence?

I had to be the luckiest fucking guy of the century.

Yet, I chose to stay silent.
The voice on the other side, in the meantime, struggled on and on.

"Dad, I..."

She paused, to let an audible sob escape her trembling lips.
To me, she sounded like she had countless sleepless nights behind her. Something so emotionally strong that it had forced her to return here.

"Dad? Are you mad at..."

A long pause ensued as I stayed silent. And that was probably what she meant.

"Please, dad, are you mad at me?"

Her voice, it was soft, meek to say the least.
That it was before it grew into a desperate yelp of pain and anguish.

"Say something, please!
Were the years that long?!"

A cry, a question, and a demand, huddled into two inquisitive cries.
Quickly, the fervour of desperation abandoned her voice in a bitter sigh. She tried hard to keep her voice coming strong with the clarification, but it turned out to be another valiant beg to her nonattending father's favour.

"I returned, because... because... I missed you."

Those three last words sat heavily for the next few seconds of complete silence, as it was those three final words that were overshadowed by her harrowing whimpers. She barely finished the sentence...

"They said it was a bad idea, they all said it, but I didn't listen!"

With tears in her words, her determination fueled more anger, and that anger fueled some determination back.

"I couldn't... I couldn't just leave you here. Alone."

This was when her voice seemed to be left bereft of all its force, nearly climaxing in raucous whisper of the last word.

"I know it has been only two days. At least, it had been only to days for me.

"It has been... only... two years for you, that I know. I... I know... you wouldn't want me to return just like that. I have thought about it. And it was my sole decision to come back, if only for one day."

I could feel the poetical girl's tension as she waited desperately from a reply of her father. I thought about what she would be thinking at that moment.
But the answer for that came from her herself soon enough.
Slowly, solemnly even, she placed a hand on the door to push it open.
And my heart froze...
But she didn't find the courage to do more than rest that hand against the door.

Because that was the moment where she gradually succumbed to her frustration. She sobbed towards the ground, petting the closed plywood door with her hand.

"Dad..." she began.

"Please open the door..."

It was... hard... for me to refuse her again and again. Certainly, she was tearing up due to me, and me only. But I couldn't open it. I was not her father.

"Let me... at least let me see you once, before I go again..."

Go? Will she leave again?
That couldn't happen. I still had so many questions, answers yearning to be unwound from her.
For she probably was the key to a bigger picture of his life.

"Okay, dad... Good bye."

She gave it up.

"Good bye, and... don't... don't forget."

Her hand slipped off the door, as she prepared to remove herself with a heavy, heavy heart.

I had to act, and I had to act now!
I looked around the room for something to help me keep her here.

Then I saw it. On the other side of the portal, across from where I was crouching, there stood a simple wooden cupboard. And on it, there lay a photograph album... looking at me.

Were those the photos? 'Celestia's memories'?

Slowly, I reached over, and grasped the hefty album, lifting it over to where I sat.
In just a moment, I thought, I would have known how the mysterious daughter on the other side of that door would look. I just needed her to stay a little longer.
I knew what I was going to sacrifice by doing this, but there was an even chance for me to finally close this case.

"Rainbow Dash?" I began.

Within a moment's notice, the young woman was all over the door, pounding it, squeezing it, drenching it in tears of joy and sadness. Yet, I held it shut, there was no need for her to see me.

"Dad! Dad, I..." she squealed.
She couldn't contain her overboiling hope, it took her words right out of her mouth.

"I love you, daddy! I love you so much..."

I sighed, and pressed a frustrated palm on the book in my hands. She didn't know my voice, so she immediately assumed that I...

"Rainbow Dash, please. I... I am not your father."

And the pounding stopped. The young woman dropped onto the ground before the door in shock and retraction. Now, she too realised who she had been pouring her feelings out the last five minutes.
She said nothing. To be fair, there was little she could have said.

"I am not your father, Rainbow."

She stuttered, inbetween some subtle pants of distress and alarm.

"But... who..."

"But I know who you are. And I also know why you came."

Technically, both was true. It didn't take an MIT graduate to figure out why she had returned.

Her voice had suddenly gone hoarse.

"Who are you?!"

"A friend. A friend of your father."

She replied with a voice as if she hadn't talked with another person other than her father, heavily struggling to find and choose the right words.

"But... my daddy... father... where... is he now?"

Until this day, I regretted that I sounded like a hotel receptionist to he grieving young woman.

"Your father is out. He will be back in a moment."

Another pause followed, one that I could almost undoubtedly identify as a pause of relief. Like someone recuperating from a sick practical joke along the lines 'yo old man croaked'.
When I noticed that she didn't plan to say anything to me anymore, I responded myself.

"But you don't have to be afraid of me either, Rainbow. Everything is going to be okay. Your dad still misses you. He still loves you."

I didn't know whether that was even true or not, but I couldn't care less.

"You can tell me everything. And I will gladly tell him."

Her next inquiry surprised me a bit.

"You... you 'know'?"

Know of her existence, she meant? That was probably the last thing she would have have expected, now wouldn't it?

"Everything. There is nothing to be afraid of. We're going to clear this up, you and me."

A pause.

"How is dad?"

"Your dad? He is healthier and stronger than ever. He had hoped for your return."

She nodded slowly. I knew she did.

"I... don't have very much time. Celestia allowed me only that much."

"Neither do I, Rainbow. I, too, will have to leave very soon. But before I do, I wanted to ask you, about your life, and your dad."

She understood.

"And what?"

"When was the last time you saw him? Your father, I mean? It was two years back, was it not?"

"Well,... yes. If only two years for him."

What did she keep meaning with that? 'Two years for him, two days for me'. Was she just being poetical or did she really mean something else?

"So. You have been with your dad for fifteen whole years? How old are you now, Rainbow?"

Again, she paused before answering. Her voice was weary, but not from weariness per se, but from her immersing in past times.

"Eighteen. Or seventeen. I don't know my birthday. My birthday is when he found me."

I nodded.
A foundling, just as I thought.

"I understand that you two have been living together all that time. You have been living here, haven't you?"

"Yes."
Her voice flopped.
"It is such a beautiful place."

"And have all your previous places been this beautiful? Please, tell me of your time in Fort Pleasance."

"Fort Pleasance... yes. It is where he found me. I can't say much about it. It wasn't ugly or pretty. It is where I grew up, full stop."
She wasn't finished, however.
"It was so... different. Different from where I am now. I guess you know that part already.
Well, there those little things I will not forget so fast."

She had decided to open her heart up to me. Her memories.
Then again, if no one else was possibly around, then I understood.

"The first time she gave me a bath, I think remember that. I was, like, zero."
She followed up with a pathetic, teary chuckle.
"Can't ever forget that, you know. Yeah,... but the best part, it came when we hiked out to the greens."

"W-where?"

"The park. You know, with the big green fields."

"The... the park? Chapel... Park?"

A friendly snort came from the other side, as if to tell me to stop nit-picking like that. I obeyed.
Even though I knew that I was approaching the case faster and faster by the minute.

"We'd go out there day after day, and we'd play, and pick-nick, and fly... even 'awesome' alone couldn't describe this. Better than staying indoors all the time so the wouldn't see me."

Brian had hidden her away?
Why would he do such a thing?

"Why? Why did you have to stay indoors?"

Her reply was, of all things, patronising.

"Oh, come on. I mean, just look at me. Daddy wouldn't say it so often, but... where would there be a place for me in this world?"

"Now, now. That isn't true, now is it?"

"Oh you. You're just kidding."

No, I wasn't!

"No, I am not. This world has a place for everyone and anyone. For what other reason, do I ask you, would you have ended up here?"

I really had to watch my words before I got too poetical.

"Gee, you really got a weird sense of logic."

I really welcomed her snarking, it was very uplifting. Even though the sobs and a certain swelling beneath her nose still were apparent in the way she enunciated her words.

"A hike in the park every single day, you say?"

"Yes...". She sighed absent-mindedly.

"I even did my very first rainboom there. I'll never forget that one."

A what? What was that?

"You know, a sonic rainboom. Kaboom and so on. I made my cutie mark on that same day."

Sonic? Kaboom?
Oh my God, she referred to the explosion!

"What day, Rainbow?"

"What?"

"When was it? Give me a date, please!"

I was so close. So very close!

"Gee, don't worry. It was that big thing, broke a few windows. It was all over the news, you'd find lots of info about it easily."

I sat there. And asked,
"You were there, Rainbow? At Chapel Park?"

"Well, duh?"

She didn't mind that topic too long, however. She was much more interested in me. And what I was even doing here.

"But why are you hiding behind the door?"

I hushed.

Her voice was shaky, confused, but frank and inquisitive.
"And why weren't you answering me at first? I thought you were my dad."

"Yes... I know."

She garnered doubt of me.

"Why? What friend are you?"

"A good friend, Rainbow Dash."

"What is your name?"

I closed my eyes. I wouldn't have told her, that would have been simply stupid. I decided to tell her a bit more what I did here, instead. Not he wisest thing, but damn. She deserved that.

"Call the 'rainboom' what you will, Rainbow. But it isn't something to be proud of."

She was dumbfounded about what I said. Certainly, she had taken much pride in it, whatever her role was.

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Eight dead, Rainbow. Several hundred injured."

Rainbow was genuinely shocked.

"What? No..."

"So you didn't know that, Rainbow? Has been all over the news."

Her sobs returned, an aura of regret and grief filling the space between her and the door.

"I... I didn't know..."

"You did."

"I didn't know,... I didn't know..."

"But you know now, Rainbow."

She bit her lips, and asked me once more,
"Who are you?!"

I closed my eyes, and said it all.

"I am the man who investigates this explosion. I am the man to find the perpetrator behind this explosion. I am the man who will accuse the perpetrator."

Now it was her turn again to remain silent. She thought about something, and she thought hard.

"I didn't know... I had no..."

"Rainbow, please. It would be only fair if the person behind this would face... the music. It would only be just if the person who perpetrated this will get his sentence. You understand."

Her words were bitter and hopeless.

"I understand." she said. And it was absolutely convincing.

"Rainbow..." I began,

"Your father. Brian Fisher. Did he ignite the fuse? Did he lay the bursting charge?"

And her reply was swift and quick,
"No! No, no no. No, It was not dad. It wasn't dad!"

"Rainbow, please. There is proof. Evidence, covered on CCTV. Don't lie, Rainbow."

Her voice was shaking, she breathed heavily, her heart was racing at a terrible pace. She had no idea what to do, nowhere to run. What was she thinking?
Apparently, she was thinking that she had to clear this up. To end this... this nightmare.

"I did it, alright?! I did it. It was me..."

I didn't quite understand her. Wasn't she, like, five at the time of the detonation? Why was she lying to me?

"Rainbow. Please, tell me the truth. Did your father explode the bomb?"

"What bomb! What are you talking about?!" she cried violently.
"It was a sonic rainboom, okay? A sonic rainboom!"

And with that word, she pounded against the door with two hefty fists. Or at least I thought it were fists.

"What is a sonic rainboom, Rainbow? Answer me!"

She did nothing of the sort. She collapsed at the door's base, crying uncontrollably like an Accused after a ten-hour interrogation.
Even I had trouble to contain myself. My mood changed from angry hysteria to tragic hysteria and back again. The little girl's cries were grinding me on the inside.

She cried on and on. Nothing stopped the flow of wails and begs for everything to wake up and snap out of this... 'nightmare'. She was hysterical, tearing up again and again. Crying for her father, as well as her own sake.
But was she honestly believing that she did it herself?
Most probably.

I simply buried my face in my hands. I was so close to the solution, and now this? Why? It was much more difficult than I had imagined.
How could she have done it? It must have been an accident, something completely unintentional.
In my head, I played through every oh-so-random scenario, analysing how she could have actually done it.
Shooting fireworks, maybe?
Blowing up a military missile passing overhead?
Telekinesis?
Bullshit! Bullshit!

There was no way she did it.

"Rainbow? What happened?"

I froze once more. A third voice, coming from the same floor as Rainbow and me.
An middle-aged woman's voice. Mature, confident, concerned.

The first word that flew into my head was mother.

"Rainbow Dash, what is the matter?"

Steps passed over the wooden floor towards the broken body that was Rainbow. She petted and soothed her, apparently oblivious to my presence.

"Is it about..."

"Princess, my dad... they... they..."

Princess? Was that by any chance the mysterious 'Celestia'?
The closed album I held in my hands right now were granted by her permission only?

"Let us return, Rainbow. You are tired... and weak. You can tell me everything, once we are in Canterlot."

She had come to take Rainbow with her. But maybe, just maybe, 'Celestia' could tell me a bit more?

I stood up carefully. Through the closed door, I addressed the guardian.

"M'am? Excuse me."

A mild gasp escaped her countenance, and she fell silent in a calming manner.

"Anthony Fitzgerald, FIS. A few words, Miss?"

I prepared to take out my badge. Certainly, she didn't know what was going on yet.

I heard her rise again, keeping Rainbow in her arms or something like that. Slowly and gracefully, she answered me in a surprisingly forestalling manner.

"What seems to be the problem, Anthony Fitzgerald?"

"I would like to speak you for a short moment, M'am. It concerns Brian Fisher."

"Ah."

'Ah?' Is that all she would have had to say about Brian?

"If it would be alright with your daughter, of course."

"My daughter, you say?"

"Rainbow Dash, M'am."

I heard her chuckle lightly, seeking amusement from my apparent misunderstanding.

"Mr Fitzgerald, this may be but a misunderstanding. Rainbow Dash is not..."
She halted.
"Why would Mr Fisher be wanted? Why is Rainbow crying?"

"Mr Fisher is sought as a... a witness to terrorist activity. I believe you can see now why it is so urgent."

The guardian's voice turned a bit more concerned. If not to say irritated by my word choice. What was so irritating about it?
She addressed Rainbow.

"What has happened?"

"The 2014 Fort Pleasance bombings." I answered quickly.

"A... a sonic rainboom, Princess... It was a sonic rainboom..." Rainbow sobbed in a hoarse tone.

Before I could finally the girl to shut up about her stupid 'sonic rainboom', I heard Celestia give her a sound of understanding.
She was quick to confront me about it.

"Sir, do you know what a sonic rainboom is?"

I sighed with a hint of surrendering annoyance.

"No. No, I do not. Would you care to illuminate me?"

Another pause. Then 'Celestia' responded,
"If that is so, Mr Fitzgerald... do you know how Rainbow Dash looks?"

I threw a glance at the album in my hands.

"Well, not exactly..."
With these words, I quickly folded open the album. But there only were photos of Brian, together with his parents.
"Hold on, please."

"Well, if you don't, Mr Fitzgerald, I may understand where your problem is."

I had enough. I was going to find out what was going on here. Even if it meant that I had to show them my face.

"Look..."
I pressed down the door handle to open the door to reveal both of them on the corridor.
But the door did not budge.
I tried again.
The door hung firmly in its frame.
How could that be all of a sudden?

"Why is the door locked?" I asked her, squeezing the handle and pushing my weight against the door, again and again. Becoming more erratic every time.
But the guardian just ignored my question, carrying on with her explanation.

"You see, Mr Fitzpatrick, if you do not actually know whom you have before you, I'm afraid you could not... fathom what has happened, or what you are going to see.

"M'am, unlock the door. Right now!"

"No. Young Anthony, you must understand that some things won't find to be comprehensible. "

Young?
I was forty-fucking-nine!
I kicked the door. Even though it was made out of the cheapest plywood, it did not as much shutter at the blunt force of my soles.
Gradually, I tried to reason, fumbling with my lockpicks meanwhile,
"Please unblock the door. We can discuss this matter or we can't, but you do not lock me inside a room."

"I do not plan to. In fact, I was very well thinking that you already knew. But as it turns out now, both Rainbow and I may have been gravely mistaken."

Was she crazy?
What the hell was she on about? Why did she lock me in here and tell me something about not comprehending this?
I thought she must have been on drugs. That was the only explanation. But perhaps, I thought, I could channel her via the photos.

"Listen, M'am. You are 'Celestia', aren't you?"

A pause.

"Yes. That is correct."

"Alright, 'Celestia', if I may call you so. I found the letter."

"The letter?"

"The one Rainbow authored. The one meant for Brian Fisher."

Now it seemed like both persons on the other side of the door had begun to ponder. Even Rainbow stopped sobbing.

"I know that Rainbow is the daughter of Mr Fisher. Also you were mentioned, 'Celestia'. You allowed Rainbow Dash to keep photographs. You are her guardian, Celestia.."

The guardian's voice had slowly transformed into one of worriment and concern.

"Certainly, I have some things close to being a guardian to Rainbow, but the photographs..."

"The memories, 'Celestia', the memories that Brian was allowed to keep. It mentioned that you had a say in that decision. If you would kindly open the door, I would be willing to discuss it with you in peace."

With slow, determined steps, the woman edged closer and closer to the door, until her mouth was right at the wood.

"Do you... have the pictures?" she asked.

"I hold them in my hands."

I twisted and turned the album in my fingers. From the short look I had taken in it, I merely saw images freaturing Brian and his parents. No other girls, and no other women.

"Are you certain that you have taken a look in them?" the guardian tried to ensure.

I stopped twisting it. But, all of a sudden, a deep nervousness overcame me about opening it again. What exactly would await me on those pages?
A, dunno, a bomb?

"Why do you ask?"

"Open it and glance at the pictures. I hope that after that, you will understand."

"Would you mind when we inspect the pictures together?"

A pause.

"Look at them yourself first, then I will unlock the door. And then I will also hope that your heart will know what to do next."

My heart? Dear God, it had to be drugs. What else could make her ramble such idiocy?

"Alright, I will look a the pictures. But I demand that you let me out right after."

"I swear."

And I opened the book. But this time, I started from the back.

A photo at a motor race. The Indie 500, to be exact. Cars driving past. And there was Brian, clad in a white t-shirt and sunglasses, posing on the driver's seat of his parked car. And behind him, on the left hand back seat, there sat...

No.

No, it can't fucking be.

It's a... a...

It's a photoshop, I mean, come on. Even I could do that.

A blue horse with a colourful mane, wings spread wide- nooo...

It's... uh... it must be the My Little Pony hype that must've gotten the better of him.

That's just laughable. I mean, come on...

I quickly turned the page.

But there was Brian, giving a very young filly with blue fur and a rugged motley mane a bath.
The hair was soaking wet, a crown of white foam rested on her tiny head, her hooves splashed around, completely drenching a squint-faced Brian.
It was such a terribly terribly good photoshop.

So terribly, terribly well done.

I skipped a few pages further back.

The completely disproportionate pony, with brilliant purple eyes, smiled at the camera as she swept cake frosting from her lips with her little, stubby hooves. On the table in front of her, there was a pinkish mess that could only be described as cake resembling a crumbled mud pie.
A child of five years trapped in the body of an equine.

I looked at the next one.

A blue bolt shooting into the sunny, smoggy sky of a greater industrial city, framed from the ground, from a dirty park bench.
Even though the camera seemed top notch, the vision was still blurred by the projectile's speed. It took me a few seconds to realise that this so-called projectile was the blue pony, flying miles high in the afternoon sky.

The picture right next to it showed Brian wrestling with the pony, now grown to its full size, wrestling and laughing about the TV remote on the ground before the comfy chair downstairs in the living room. Much like his father used to do with him.

My God. Didn't I comment on him earlier that he was maybe trying to relive his childhood or some shit like that?
Well, what on earth was I looking at this very moment?

I looked up. I felt slightly dizzy. I was dangerously close to... to... losing my thread. My damn thread.

"What... what is this?"

This all didn't seem very... real.

"What is this?"

No reply came from the other side of the door.

"Celestia? What does it mean?"

I my ears stared into the silence beyond, I slowly pushed the handle down one more time.

And the door, it swung open slowly, as if nothing had ever held it shut. Like the normal door of plywood that it was.
It had opened up to a corridor to reveal a gaping emptiness in a damp illumination.

Where had they gone to?

Shit.
I drew my weapon and my flashlight, and quickly proceeded down the flight of stairs, through the living room and off to the front door. I left all the security precautions, all the training of clearing a room before everything else at the top of the stairs. I was determined to find them, to catch them, to catch up.
I reached the front entrance. And it was shut with three separate locks. From the inside.
I quickly ran out through the fractured back door, trying to deduce in which direction they might have left.
But the only thing to receive me outside was the soothing yellow sunshine, a mild wind and a family of blackbirds who had settled on a lone stump near the building.
They left as soon as they saw me, never to return again.

They... the two couldn't have passed here. The birds, they... pah!

I packed away my gun, I packed away my flashlight.

Then I simply went back into the house.

And found and sat down in the comfiest chair I saw.
No more of that Goldilocks shit for now.

My head hurt severely.
I wondered again and again, and projected the sentence in my mind again and again:

Were those two... on the other side... goddamn ponies?

I knew it was so fucking absurd to think that, but at that moment back then... I couldn't think any other way.

I mean, I saw the pictures, didn't I?
Yeah. Yes, I did.
They were still lying upstairs in the bedroom.

What should I do, what should I not?
The same thing like every other sensible guy would in my case.
If they are outmanned, if they are outgunned... call some fricking backup.

My cell phone was hovering at my ear, the humming of the handset tickling my brain, when suddenly, my call was answered. But not by anyone I would have wanted to hear.

"Follow your heart, Anthony. Do what you think is right."

"Fitz, is that you? Fitz?"

I started up,
"Uh what? Yeah. Yeah, it's me. Yeah, Fitz here. Ehm..."

Helen sounded concerned.

"Are you okay? What's going on? Where are you?"

"Gilroy Farmhouse, where else?"

"Why are you calling, Fitz? What's going on?"

Good question. A very poignant question.

"I... uhm... I need backup. And a forensical unit, asap. I think I'm onto something. You'd all better take a look at this."

"I'm on my way, Fitz. Ian's on his way too. We'll be over in five."

"Roger that, Helen."

"Are... you okay, Fitz? Are you injured?"

"No. I'm alright. I'm just swell. Just come over, asap."

"Okay. Hang in there, we're on our way."

*beep*.

My God. Will they believe it?

A sudden thought overcame me;
I should really take myself some time to take a gander at this... My Little Pony stuff. Because suddenly, it's all the more appealing...
Maybe, just maybe, I trusted this series to be way, way less realistic... than it actually was.

Somewhere in the background, a spring-loaded gramophone jumped into action.
A scratchy vynil record started playing on it, and it played a haunting melody that seemed oh so surprisingly fitting.

I know it sounds strange, but I didn't care too much. No matter how harrowing it was that a gramophone began playing all by itself, I just succumbed to the words that that melody wore, as if an inner voice ordered me to listen to it.
So I did.

4. Welcome Home

4 - I Know You Know

(You may want to play this)

"Aw, it's ok. Everything turned out alright, right? I just wish I could have met the Wonderbolts when they were awake." said Rainbow Dash.

"Princess Celestia, I am sorry I ruined the competition. Rainbow Dash here really is the best flyer in Equestria."

"I know she is my dear. That's why for her incredible act of bravery, and her spectacular sonic rainboom, I'm presenting the grand prize for best young flyer to this year's winner, Miss Rainbow Dash!" said Princess Celestia.

"Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh!" said Rainbow Dash.

And the government agent smiled, turned the page of his memo pad, and continued his notes of this sixteenth episode of the first season.

The constable who stood guard in the bedroom door glanced at him as he sat on the suspect's bed before the TV, watching little cartoon horses bouncing on and off the TV-set. He wrinkled his nose, waiting for his federal superior to do something useful instead of watching some children's programme.

Agent Fitzgerald looked up at the policeman, shook his head understandably and waited until the credits appeared.

'So, this is Rainbow Dash?', he thought, 'And 'Celestia'? Princess Celestia? Does she really look like this?'
He knew it was a highly absurd thought to derive the visual profile of a single, lone voice from a cartoon show.
Still, he was more than happy to be able to put a face to the voice. The same for Rainbow Dash. Some of the images he saw in the album were a bit unfortunately framed and blurry. It was a nice feeling to be finally able to see Rainbow Dash in all her - flash-animated - glory.

The agent threw another aside glance at the waiting policeman, slowly realising how awkward this all seemed. The credits flashed began rolling, and the cheery melody filled the room. Slowly, Fitzgerald lifted himself from the suspect’s bed, and clicked off the TV. Slowly, he bent down and eyed the DVD set as he stuck the disc back into its cover.

Again, his thoughts were lost in speculation and doubt.
How could this all fit together?
It was a show, a children’s show based on a decades-old toy genre.
It was a show with script writers, with voice actors, with the creativity of maybe a dozen normal humans behind it.

What the hell was he thinking?
What he heard, on the same side of that door, it could simply not have been any more than a two massively dedicated cosplayers, two fans of the show. Princess Celestia… Rainbow Dash… bullshit. The agent slumped to his knees on the inside. He chided himself, reprimanded himself, teased himself for even supposing for a minute that any of this had a foot in real life. It was not just fantastic, it was absurd, an immature, fruitless waste of time and thought.
His thoughts echoed the words of his superior, advertising the professionalism, objectionalism and pragmatism that his office had held oh-so-dear.

And yet… there still were the photos.

Those bloody photos. The best photoshops he had seen in a long… ever. It were exactly these images that made him believe everything he had seen and heard. The voices on the other side… they were the perfect imitations of the voice actresses of the show. How could that be? Wouldn’t both be, what, forty or fifty by now? More than ten years after the fact?

“Mr Fitzgerald, Sorry there, but a certain Dr Matheson of the FS just came and said that he wanted to take a gander at a certain room.”

Without looking up, the agent sprawled up to his knees and placed the DVD case on top of the TV. In a matter-of-factly tone, he answered,
“Matheson, yes. Tell him its through that plywood door right there.”

As the constable made note of the portal into the supposed 'office', Fitzgerald slid the booklet of the DVD case into his right pocket, right next to his notebook.
As he strode out of the bedroom, passing the policeman in the doorway, he tried to defeat the constable’s doubtful stare, to somehow justify himself before he would go down in that man’s mind as ‘that crazy fed who watches My Little Pony’. Unfolding the booklet once more, he academically skimmed through the colourfully printed pages, seeking out the cast list, printed inside a big brown box on page two, and tipped on it.
“Constable, do any of these names ring any bells?”

Dubiously, the policeman shook his head.
“No. No, they do not.”

Fitzgerald nodded in acceptance, and then proceeded to designate two of the names.
“Look: Ball, Ashley. Oliver, Nicole. Can you go and phone the records department to check out these two identities for me? Their occupations, their residential addresses, their whereabouts in the last 48 hours, et cetera.”

The constable just stared blankly at the page, distracted by a portrait of six ponies and a mare posing in a flowery meadow with a big castle in the background printed on the next page. Right underneath it, there was a very budget-minded advertisement for collectors’ toys, of every single of the featured characters.
“Uh, Just refresh my memory… which agency do you work for again? Please, we got enough shit around here to work around with. Lay off the collectors’ items pranks for the forensic guys.”

The agent groaned. He had expected this kind of response. Without wasting time on letting the constable finish, he interrupted his snark forcefully,
“Just do it, okay? This is part of a criminal investigation. I am serious, give the RD these two names.”

The policeman replied with a grimace that was practically oozing with sarcasm.
“Yeah, sure. I’m right on it.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake – get out of my way, I’ll just do it myself!”
Yanking the booklet away from under the constables wandering eyes, Fitzgerald brushed past him with an annoyed flinch, squeezing his way out onto the corridor, right into the arms of a few waiting familiar faces.
A man in glasses and a puffy white overall, and a woman in a purple blazer and brown hair that was tied into a bun.

“Helen?”

“Fitz?”

"Matheson?”

“Fitz?”

“Good to see you, Matheson. Just go right in and turn left.”

“Okay, I’ll go and get my guys.”

He turned to Helen, his long-time partner in the field. Helen started, nervously adjusting her hair bun.
“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine, just dandy.” Fitz mumbled, surprised to see his long-time colleague arriving so soon.
“Where did you come from?”

“Linlithgow, Fitz. I was keeping Fisher company.” she stated cleary and slowly. She glared at the agent, and inquired, in a hissingly whispery tone,
“Speaking of which… why did you opt to blow the cover? I nearly had him, Fitz. He had important information he wanted to share with me!”

“How important exactly?” Fitz caught on, raising his eyebrows in interest.

“Well let’s start with: Fisher had a daughter during his time in Fort Pleasance.”
Helen anticipated Fitz’s reaction to this statement. She awaited a mighty ‘No way…’ or something similar.

Fitz however, stood there, still looking at her, contemplating what she just said. So it was all true. There was a daughter. Nodding slowly, he said,
“Oh, I know.”

Helen was surprised to hear that. “You do?! How did you…”

Without shedding another thought, Fitzgerald lifted the booklet, and tipped at the image of Rainbow Dash.
“I know… this may sound strange…” he started, but Helen interrupted him right away, sensing a connection to her and Brian’s conversation earlier that day. Three words she had found especially interesting earlier on floated up from her mind, lying on her lips, ready to be pronounced…
“My little Dashie?”

“How did you…”

“Fisher told me.”

Again, the agent nodded,
“What else did he tell you? Did he tell you about the letter? Or the photos?”

“Hang on now, don’t jump the gun. What is this, Fitz? What photos, what letter? I just told you that he had a daughter, how is this connected to…” she took the booklet and looked at the two names Fitz had underlined, “… My Little Pony?”

“Well, uhm…” Fitz scratched his nose in anxiety, and then quickly looked left and right. He saw how Matheson and two of his colleagues in white overalls hauled a pair of heavy suitcases through the bedroom door, banishing the loitering policeman out into the darkened corridor.
“As I said, this may be a bit hard to explain… just come with me. It’ll blow you away.”

The photo album lay downstairs meanwhile, completely abandoned on the cleared coffee table.
Police officers and agents were scattered bustling throughout the room, clearing out drawers, sifting through stacks of documents, taking pictures and dusting doorhandles.
Nobody had yet cared to turn one’s attention to the photo album before it was snatched by Fitzgerald, holding his wondering partner in tow. Carefully, he dusted off the top and solemnly opened to the part with the magical photos. But for all the ‘magic’ they had to offer, they were indeed still there when Fitzgerald lifted it up to the height of his eyes.
He had expected them to be suddenly gone like they were never there, as this was what always happened in fairytales and movies and the such. But no, these pictures were still present, clearly to see for everyone with eyes.

“So Fitz, what did you want to show me? What’s in the album?”

The agent hesitated.
He bit his lip, being overcome with a sudden feeling of doubt. Was this… absurd thing not a bit too much for his colleague to handle? Hell, was he himself even enough to handle this?
He thought about what would happen if this all did in fact turn out not to be just a mere hoax; and when he would give it into the hands of his colleague...
Either, she would take a look at it. She would gasp. Then she would run off to Ian, and Ian would take a look at it, then gasp and send it off to his superior at the Ministry of Defence in the capital. He would take a good look at it, gasp, and phone the Defence Minister, who would then proceed call the HOS personally. That’s what would happen. Oh dear, what kind of implications it would bring…
It would go beyond just terrorism or anything like it. It would challenge the very human perception of what was possible and what was not. What was real and what was not. It would go beyond Fitzgerald’s own authority, or that of Ian, or even that of the head of state. When combined, the photos, the letter, Brian, and the whole damn 2014 bombing affair would imply that, somewhere out there, the creative ideas of other people, of screenwriters and animators, made up entire realities, whatever that would be, alternate realities or otherwise, realities populated by cartoon horses. Horses with immense physical powers and a nigh-human level of intelligence. Able of speech, of flight, and the creation of physical phenomenons that explicitly mirror the effects of nuclear devices. It would be a risk able of putting all of world peace to ruins.
Or...
Helen would take a look at them, and shrug them off. As photoshop works of an overly motivated fanboy. In fact, that was the thing he, in terms of his job’s capacity, should have concluded. Nobody would hinder him of doing so. Nobody would ever penalise him for not investigating into this affair further. Just say; photoshopped, case closed. Anyone can do mistakes, so what would be stopping him from doing that?
Sure, it would set up Brian personally for the whole explosion thing, but then again, he should have paid closer attention of what his ‘daughter’ would be capable of. This whole thing could be swept under the rug oh so easily. It would save many more people headaches than cause them. But still… could he afford of sending one man off to prison to pay that price? And what if everyone else but him would conclude that there was more behind it? He could have his ass demoted for being neglectful. It was his job to investigate further into things like these. And doing so may earn him a promotion.

“Fitz… what is this all?”

He turned to his colleague.
But to his despair, she had long crept around him as he thought things through again, and was looking him over the shoulder. It was too late. With eyes as big as peaches, she glanced upon the pages with photographs of Brian and is Dashie, laughing, working and playing.

“What is this supposed to be?”
Her voice suggested a faint premonition of what these pictures contained. Her eyes were serious, skimming the book without the grin or the ridiculing eye-rolls that would have been made by any other person. She treated this seriously, critically.

Fitzgerald quickly tried to explain it to her, in the most harmless intonation he could muster,
“I found these in his bedroom. He certainly likes his cartoons, doesn’t he?”

“Mhmm…”
Helen looked at the photos, slowly feeling over each one of them with her hand, as if to find glue strips of colour markings on the surfaces of the images. She was thinking about Brian, and the affection he felt for his daughter, and how much he liked to compare her to Rainbow Dash. She briefly looked up at Fitzgerald, and then at the booklet he still held in one hand.
“Fitz… do you know what this means?”

Fitzgerald scratched his head, awaiting his partner’s judgement.
“Tell me.”

“Well… his daughter,… and Rainbow Dash…” she begun, but stopped in mid-sentence, thinking of a way best to summarise it.

“…are one and the same?” Fitz asked.

She rubbed her forehead in realisation. It wasn't necessarily the same as Fitzgerald's, though. Instead, she saw a distinct problem Brian may had with his mental state.
“It all makes sense now. The poor bastard.”

Brian closed his eyes as he turned his face towards the sun in the sky. The wind played with his clothes, and the water in the icy creek played beneath his feet. The poorly paved country lane smoked a little as he tread on, feeling a lot lighter and more content than when he came into town. He wanted to go home and change his clothes so he could, dunno, go for a hike in the woods or maybe even follow the road by the creek down several miles. He had never done that before. So why shouldn’t he do it now? A very refreshing, agile burst of adrenaline flowed through his feet, and he needed to think of a way how to best spend the energy.

He had to admit, it felt good to be among others of his kind again, and the acquaintance he made at the pub today proved it all the more. This was what he needed; a much-relieving talk with someone who knew professionally how to converse. Maybe he should visit her practice and talk to her again, just as she proposed it. Psychiatric help would really help him in his state. He wanted to make amends with the things he had to go through in the last two years. He wanted to make clear that this time of sorrow and mourning – which had essentially been the depression that had caught up with him after these 15 years – had gone for good.
So, how about Wednesday? He had time on Wednesday. He had time all week! He could really take himself a week or two to re-organise his existence into a more presentable form. Who knows… maybe Ingrid could be a part of this new start.

However, as he rounded the corner to walk up his coarse driveway that led uphill to his house, he felt that his past had summoned all its momentum to give him a mighty punch in the face.
In his driveway, somebody had parked his car sideways, blocking the path to everyone else intending to enter the property.
No, it wasn’t the green car from that thug in the suit from earlier today. Even worse; it was a police car. Behind it, a constable stood by its door and conversed with his shoulder radio.
Brian stood frozen with shock, daring neither to breathe nor to talk. In all those years, he had hoped never to see something like this. Never had he hoped, that Rainbow’s and his secret could be imperilled by policemen knocking on his door, for whatever reason.
Now however, they were in his house…
He broke into a panicked jog up the road, approaching the road block, squeezing his hands and breathing erratically. He knew that he had to get in his house and get rid of all the proof of Dashie as fast as possible, before the police could catch on.
How would he ever be able to explain any of that?

The constable looked up, “Sir, this is a crime scene. Can I ask why you are here?”

Brian went up close to the car, frantically looking for a way around.
“What do you mean, why I'm here? I live here, for Pete's sake!”

The policeman nodded acknowledgingly and pressed a hand against his walkie talkie.
“You must be Mr Fisher then. Please, follow me.”

“Follow you, what! What are you talking about, I live here! That’s my house behind there! Can I ask why are you here?! What happened?”

With a distancing, soothing hand directed at Brian, the policeman explained,
“There has been a break-in. The perpetrator may still be near. Please, come with me. We have been waiting for you to arrive.”

Brian froze at the mention.
"A... break-in?"

He unlocked the passenger door on Brian’s side.
“Come, I’ll drive you up.”

But Brian saw how the policeman slowly pulled up the walkie talkie to his mouth, eyeing him actively all the way. If they would take him in for some sort of questioning, he would never get a chance to snatch the photo album before it was found.

“Bullshit! I need to get to my house!”

Brian snapped, very much in panic. He jumped over the police car’s cooler and swept past the constable, heading straight for his front door. The policeman ordered him to stop, but Brian knew he had to get into the house now, before it was too late.

...

Helen shut the album, still wound up in thought.
Fitzgerald told her his view on the whole situation.
“Either, Helen, we have a case here of a strong imaginary friendship...”

“I know.”

“… or Rainbow Dash... is in fact his daughter.”

Expectedly, Fitzgerald earned himself an askance, if somewhat delayed, stare from his long-time partner.
"What was that?"

"Helen... The daugther... I spoke to her. She was in this house, surprised me in the bedroom."

Helen was in awe.
"You... you spoke to her?! Dear God, Fitz. Fisher insisted that she was dead. Couldn't you have told me that any earlier?"

"What would that have changed? At least now we know now that our friend Fisher has a daughter who is both real and alive."

Helen eyed him awkwardly.
"But didn't we just establish that his daughter was Rainbow Dash?"

Fitzgerald sighed. What now?
He answered, as dryly and sarcastically as possible,
"Well yes. Yes, Helen. His daughter was Rainbow Dash."

His partner knew she couldn't exactly follow. Unsure of his intent, she rolled her eyes and asked slowly,
"As... in the show? In My Little Pony, as in the booklet you're holding in your right hand?"

"Yes... the one as in the booklet I'm holding in my hand, Helen."

She didn't know what to say. A worrisome look on her face betrayed the doubt she got in her partner's well-being...
"Okay, Fitz. Are you... feeling alright? Maybe you should just... you know... sit down..."

He swept away her worries with a determined gesture of his hand.
"I'm okay, Helen, I already told you! Fact is, I spoke with this 'Rainbow Dash' character. Then I spoke with someone called 'Celestia'. Either you tell me if that name tells you anything, or you can wait outside."

"Celestia?"

"Or Princess Celestia, if you will."

"Like in..."

He grinned manically,
"Like in the show, Helen. I spoke with two cartoon characters! Does it still all make sense to you?"

"Fitz, you know that what you're saying is that Rainbow Dash is real. A cartoon character who is real."

"I know. But you know what, I don't care. I really don't care.
What I do care for, however, is the fact that this Rainbow Dash, whoever she is, cartoon character or not, said that she was there, at the site of the explosion! Er... no, even better, she said it was her very fault to boot!

Helen pulled a hand through hair, finally understanding what Fitzgerald meant. Not that it made any sense...
"So you say the explosion was..."

He waved his hand impatiently,
"...her sonic rainboom. Come on Helen, why so slow? I thought you were the expert on this field."

She shook her head quickly, "What? No..."

"Oh please, the whole department knows you're into this show. Go on, prove my facts right. Remember that I have hardly ever seen this show before, so I couldn't have possibly made it up. Right?"

"So you say none other than Rainbow Dash is the key to the whole explosion."

"It all boils down to it, so yes. If we find Rainbow Dash, we find the cause for this explosion. Only then we can determine, if Brian Fisher is guilty as suspected! We need to find out about the whereabouts of Rainbow Dash, preferably from Fisher himself..."

Bang!

Speaking of the devil, an exhasperated Brian Fisher had bounced open the terrace door, and stood panting, glaring at the two investigators. Before he could take another step, two policeman sprang up behind him and nailed him against the doorframe, searching him while squeezing his arms against his back.

"Fisher!"

Brian needed a minute to identify the two people who stood in his living room. It were the man in the green car and Ingrid Tremblay, the psychiatrist from the pub.

"Mr Fisher..."

Brian felt like the ground was sagging away from under him. It were the same red cheeks and brown hair that had given him new hope today, ensured him with a sensible voice a new future, a break from his catharsis. She was a symbol of his newly-found peace.
But there she was. Standing tall as one of the people he had wished not ever have to face his whole life with Dashie. He could have teared up. But then there was the smug-faced guy in the suit. Brian chastised himself for not suspecting it sooner. He was loitering boldly in his driveway, with a pair of binoculars. Of course he wasn't an estate agent. Of course he was a cop. And he, Brian, did not see the obvious, even after watching all those movies. He looked back to 'Ingrid', but did not put any effort in appealing to her for a favour. He stared at her in an accusing manner. Even as the police had him pinned against a wall, his stare maintained its power. Helen looked away, she had not expected to have to reveal her real work to him like that.

In the awkward silence that ensued, Fitzgerald looked back and forth between his partner and the suspect. He saw what was going on here. He tapped Helen on the shoulder, silently suggesting that she should go and join Matheson upstairs. Slowly, she turned around and walked away, turning around not once for Brian.
Fitzgerald stepped forward, putting on his most affable smile as he approached the entrapped young man. 'Mayhaps I don't know when enough is enough' he thought, 'but I am going to get to the bottom of this mess anyway. Because if this really is what I think this is... then Fisher is going to tell me.'
He turned to the constables.
"Leave Mr Fisher alone. It's his home, after all."

Brian unsnapped himself as the police officers eased their grasp. Fitzgerald extended a hand to greet him, in the hollow hope that it would be shaken.
"My name is Anthony Fitzgerald, FIS. Nice to meet you."

Brian did not shake it. He was too angry, too anxious, too scared, too uncertain.
He would have preferred to punch that agent for being inside his house. But then again, with two policemen standing behind him, he reconsidered swiftly.

"Welcome home." Fitzgerald said, with a sarcastic intonation.
He looked for a reaction from Brian, a reaction that would determine whether he had something to hide within the vicinity of this house. It was a simple test, but a highly revealing one. He sought eye contact with Brian. Brain avoided it; he didn't notice it himself, but he was preoccupied with his own thoughts, trying to judge whether they had found something in his absence. He looked on the ground, fearing the worst. Fitzgerald followed his stare. He saw it; Brian's mind was as heavy as a sack of bricks. By breaking into his home, they had stepped right into his intimate sphere, and in their profession, that usually meant a lot.

"Well, Mr Fisher. I regret to inform you that your house has been invaded. A petty burglary. We are doing our best to find the perpetrator."

Brian believed it not for a minute. Not after seeing two such familiar faces.
Whatever they wanted here, they wouldn't get it. Brian knew he was clean. Whatever they were looking for, even if it be Dashie, they wouldn't find anything thanks to Celestia's magic.
Except for the photos.
But where were those photos?! Upstairs, surely!

"Mr Fisher I just ask you to come with me for a second to process some formalities? You know, for the insurance coverage, to determine if anything is a..."

Brian's objection came immediately.
"What if I don't want to go with you?"

Fitzgerald let out an artificial sigh.
"Well, what would your little Dashie have to say to that?"

'My Little Dashie?'

Brian froze at the mention. The agent saw also this. Brian shook his head slowly, unsuccessfully trying to object,
"I don't think I know what..."

"We mean your daughter, Mr Fisher. Your little Dashie."

Brian suddenly felt a bit faint. He hid his shaking hands beneath his waist. Did he just... was that it? Did he find the photos? Or the letter? Had they... had they caught on? After all those years?

"Well, would you like to sit down now for a moment, Mr Fisher?"

5. I Know You Know

5 - I Know You Know

Brian felt muted, he felt weak. After they entered his kitchen, the suited thug and him, he would have cleared away the dish with the stale apple pie from the table himself. But the agent beat him to it, and cleared the table with a careful sweep of his arm. Then he turned to two other investigators who were busy taking dust probes from the air conditioner.

"Ahem. Excuse me, gentlemen. Could Mr Fisher and I have this room for ourselves for an hour or so? It's something confidential, you understand."
The two agents looked at the exasperated countenance of Brian and nodded, and silently began collecting their probes.
After they shut the door behind themselves, the kitchen was immersed in a stifling silence.

Fitzgerald took seat on the opposite side of the table, and looked at Brian in an expecting way. Brian, on the other hand, just sat in a huddled pose, looking at the dish with squinted eyes, as if he were completely oblivious to his counterpart.
Before the moment of silence grew too long, Fitzgerald harrhumped and started the conversation.
"Well. Mr Brian Fisher. What can I say about you?"

Brian remained silent.

"A nice home you bought yourself here. How many years was this ago? Twelve?"

Brian looked on the ground, wound up in thought. 'When will he finally start the torture?'

"Ah well. Not important, I can always look it up in the registry. Are you feeling content at the moment? Are you happy with your existence, your overall situation?"

Brian closed his eyes, as he thought how his life would continue from now on, dogged by secret agents and amoral scientists, black vans and black helicopters, just like in the movies.

“Let us talk about the things that worry you right now, Mr Fisher. Or may I call you Brian?”

Finally, Brian spoke up. For all the anxiety, he hated it to be patronised in such a way.
“No, you cannot!”

“Okay, okay. I won’t call you Brian then. But let us talk about your familiar situation for now.”

“My familiar situation.”

“Exactly. I mean, your house, it is big enough to house an entire clan, right? Do you have a big family?”

Brian looked down. What was there to say but,
“No. I am the only one left.”

Fitzgerald knew that, but he wanted to hear it out of Brian’s mouth. Also concerning his daughter. Hadn’t he told Helen that she were dead, too? When he talked to ‘Dashie’, hadn’t she implied that he knew she was merely gone away?
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, you know. See, I haven’t got a family too big either. I have a sister and a niece, and that’s about it really. However, my little niece, she had always been a bit like… like a daughter to me. Do you know what I mean?”

Brian didn’t even look up. But his eyebrows betrayed that the it still irritated him somewhat.

“Yes, I know how I would feel if my little niece would… simply disappear from one moment to the next.”

That was when Brian looked up. He eyed the agent with much contempt and hatred, enraged by his all-too-simplistic attitude towards the disappearance of his loved one.
He shook his head, slowly but forcefully.
"You don't. You have no idea how it is to lose your family."

Fitzgerald listened up.
"How come? What makes you think that?"

Brian clenched his fist under the table. Not necessarily out of anger, but out of spite, out of frustration, out of pure, undistilled anxiety. If this man had come because of Dashie, if he had seen the album, then there was little more to lose. It was over.
And if that was the case, Brian wanted to take the first step. The last thing he wanted to do now is to show weakness. He wanted to wear his Dashie with pride, a secret longing that he had beared for the entire length of her life and absence.

Because no matter how it could be twisted and turned, no matter what Celestia, Hasbro or sanity and reason told him otherwise, he knew and felt just how much Rainbow was his daughter, his work, his responsibility and legacy.
Carrying these words in his head he raised a hand at the agent.

“Cut. It. out.”

This even came to a surprise to Fitzgerald himself.

“Stop playing your little mind-games. Stop beating around the bush. You’re just wasting your time.“ His hand shook lightly under the adrenalyne.
“I think… I think we both know why you are here. What you want from me. I think I can clear your conscience when I say that you can spare us all these little nice euphemisms and small talk. I think that you have seen it already. When you searched my house. Burglary my ass, who were you kidding? Maybe that wannabe-Mata Hari who stalked me in the town and played psychologist with me?!”

Fitzgerald, still taken aback by Brian’s snap, changed his approach quickly. ‘Two can play the game, smartass.’
“Alright, Mr Fisher. Enough about you. Let me tell you a bit about me.”

Brian wanted none of it. Winged by his swelling pride of desperation, he cut him off again.
“No. No! Just cut it out.”

“I will now tell you why I’m even here. If I were you I would like to goddamn know, so shut it. And listen.”
Brian lowered his hand concedingly. Yes, he also wanted to know, and badly so.

“Well, Mr Fisher. I may not have to explain to you what FIS stands for.”

Brian shook his head.
“Fuck it smile?

“Very funny. Federal Intelligence Service.”

“Aha?”

“I have a profession that has two main tasks. Finding people. And finding out people. First the former, then the latter. Do you know why I found you, Mr Fisher?”

Brian didn’t move or speak.

“You lived in Fort Pleasance, on 15th Avenue from October 1994 to December 2014. You moved away after the bombings occurred, is that correct?”

Brian lowered his eyebrows.
“The bombings?”

The agent grew slightly impatient.
“Mr Fisher, Even though it is, strictly speaking, my duty to find persons of interest, the responsibility that springs from that is a far far bigger deal, a part of a far far bigger picture.
It is the safety and the wellbeing of this country, Mr Fisher. It is my duty to prevent and seek out enemies of the state, whether domestic or otherwise. People who mean harm, who are a threat to the integrity of you, of me, of innocent families and this country as a whole.”

Brian hesitated. He had no idea what his counterpart was on about. He was certain, that he would be questioned about Dashie, not about some terrorist conspiracy.
“What are you talking about?”

“The 2014 Pleasance bombings.”

The sonic rainboom?
Now it all started making sense to Brian. Hadn’t he heard something about that in the news back at the pub?

'The greatest example of EMP-based terrorism of all times.'

“You mean the big blast? Isn’t it all…” he nearly let out a raspberry, “…long barred already?”

Fitzgerald lowered his eyebrows.
“If it were, I wouldn’t be here, wasting my time with you.”

Nigh absent-mindedly, Brian nodded. He saw the agent’s point, but he couldn’t help but wonder what the big deal was about. Rainbow had performed a truly wonderful physical phenomenon, one that made that one day probably one his life’s highlights. And, as he remembered it, the affair was quickly dropped when the investigators ran into multiple dead ends.

Right after Rainbow has descended back onto the ground after her rainboom, Brian had grabbed her, under the influence of a strange emotional cocktail of euphoria, shock and pride. He literally packed her under his arm, and made his way back to his safe home, wading through a sea of glass shards and loose twirling paper.
Locking all doors, lowering all the blinds, he hid his Dashie, still shaking and breathing heavily from her accomplishment, from the sirens of passing police cars and fire engines. He thought a long time about turning on the TV, especially when Rainbow was around.
He was too afraid of the effect it could have on her, seeing her accomplishment on air... her pride could easily turn against her. It would intimidate her. Brian was therefore much relieved when he found that the TV, as well as the radio, were similarly affected by the blackout.
Rainbow did not see the on-the-scene reports from Chapel Park, the political speeches of the mayor and the head of state, the sessions of the investigative board and the scenes of mass panic from the capital in the following few days.
Neither did Brian, and he was remotely glad that he didn’t. If he would have, it would have been uncomfortably close to lying to Rainbow for him.
But now, this petty ignorance had ultimately caught up with him.

“The ‘big blast’, as you call it, cost the lives of no less than eight people. Wounded another 300. Started a fire in a power station. It caused seven digit collateral damage. It was far from as innocent as you think it was. You may take it as a joke, but, as every joke, someone is at the butt end.

Brian sat still, unsure what to say.

Eight people?

Eight?

He wished he had known as little about it as before. He felt guilt boiling up once more.
Dashie, she was his responsibility, his legacy.
He should have known better, even though he was just a fickle teenager back then!
He knew that the sonic rainboom would have happened sooner or later. He should have moved outside the city. He should have come here earlier. It would have been safer for both Dashie and for him.
And now, this agent was sitting opposite of him, looking at him with a scrutinising glare.
Brian kept thinking of what he should tell him. After all, there was absolutely no hard proof that either Dashie or he had anything to do with it. What did they want to tell him? That they got their facts from a children’s TV show?
They didn’t have anything. No evidence at all.

“So?” Brian stuttered.

“So?” the agent spat out.
“So? Is this all you have to say to that?”

“What do you want from me?”

The agent retrieved a small, book-shaped electronic device from his jacket. He placed on the table to his right. Pushing a small button, he initiated a small red light on top of the box, and another push of a button set off an electronic beep.
He folded his arms again, and looked back at the frozen Brian.

Brian glanced at the thing, and then blinked with his eyes nervously.
“What is that? What is that supposed to be?”

“What do you think?” He folded his fingers.
“I would like to inform you that this conversation will be recorded from now on.”

Before Brian could spit out another exasperated ‘What?!’, he was overturned by another wave of cold, vibrating shock. What does he still want?

“Is… this supposed to be an interrogation or something?”

Fitzgerald began without as much as flinching.
“When were you on the 26th of October, 2014?”

“Now wait a second! How come you think I’ve got anything to do with it?!”

The agent looked at his recorder, and then back at Brian. Sarcastically, he answered,
“No one actually. I’m baffled as to how you came to that conclusion.”

“What do you want from me then?! Come here and play your Gestapo games, asking where I was and what I did? You think I’m a terrorist?”

“No. But you are a ’witness’.” He looked at a piece of paper.
“The police of Fort Pleasance was requiring any and all witnesses to the detonation to attend questioning. You were seen at the scene of the crime, directly underneath the epicenter of the detonation, at the time of the detonation.”

“S..so?!”

“Why didn’t you come forward? Your observations could have been vital to clearing this case.”

Brian knew why he didn't come forward.
All the painful denial he was now demonstrating, it was all in vain. He couldn't have made it more clear to him just how much it actually was his fault.
He just wished that the agent would simply go away and never return. He was tired of lying and denying everything.

'Dashie.' he thought.
'Where are you? Do you appreciate what I do for our secret? What, what would Applejack say?'

Fitzgerald watched on. Brian was as guilty as a 3 dollar bill. He also saw how Brian was wearing down, unable to keep the charade up for any longer.

"Brian. I know you don't want to do this."
He put his pen down. His voice was still serious, still demanding. But he tried to see reason.
"I know you want to talk about it. The guilt, the implications, what lead up to this event. You know why we came. What I want."

Brian closed his eyes.

The agent had him.
What counted now was solely Brian's statement of what happened back then.

What version would he go with?

Would he go with the quote-unquote truth?

The truth that he made amends with his life as an upright citizen, that he accepted money and explosives from a second-generation radical islamist cell, or maybe an previously unknown fifth column group, an organisation interested in shutting down all power in the city, and that he was the closet sociopath solely responsible of initiating a fantastically powerful bomb in a industrial city's suburb?
The truth that everyone would like to jump at and bathe in? The truth his superiors were solely interested in hearing after twelve years? The truth that could go into a criminal register just as every other conventional crime?

Or... would he go with the truth as it actually happened?

That truth that would clear him, him and his conscience, but reveal that he had nurtured and fed and raised a creature that was beyond this planet, a highly motivated but naive sportsmare, who proudly and confidently triggered a fatal natural phenomenon never heard or recorded before in this reality?
A mighty blue-coated pegasus pony as it could only be thought up by a toy producer? A creaure that might overthrow the very definition of the word 'reality?'
The truth that no one would want to hear?
Or acknowledge?
Or even merely accept?

"Brian, I would like to give you the choice."

He turned the piece of paper upside down and slid it towards him. His pen swiftly followed.

"Either... I want you to write me a list of names, adresses, the whole lot."

Brian stared limply at the paper's blank backside. he looked up, murmuring,
"Of whom?"

"The one who was your contact, the one who supplied you with the explosives, the one who gave you your instructions, the one who supplied you with the electrophysical know-how, the one lent you the rocket or registering balloon... give me 'their' names."

Brian's hand flinched under the table. He was appalled by what the other one expected from him. He knew this was all nonexistent, the contacts, the plot, the attack... the agent just had subtly begged him to let his fantasy play, just so he could hold on to his own perception of what was real.

Brian felt remotely pitiful for the agent, in a very awkward, backhanded way.
This man never experienced what Brian experienced. Just like everyone else. Like the barkeep, like the psychiatrist, like his parents, like his friends. Just like all of the other reindeer.
It was cynical approach, yes, but it was still true. They never talked to cartoon characters, but he had.
And Brian had a feeling they could all see that. Perhaps they, in one way or another, now knew that he was not just a mental case.

A sudden action of the agent snapped Brian out of his thoughts.
One click of the button, and the agent’s red button on the recorder stopped working. The humming stopped.
Glancing at the door behind him and out the windows, Fitzgerald continued,
“Or,… go on. Tell me about your Dashie.”

(You May Want To Play This.)

6. Growth Behind The Curtains

6 - Growth Behind The Curtains

(You may want to play this.)

„Princess.“
The blue pegasus looked up at her regent with teary, wasted eyes.

„Yes, Rainbow?“
The white alicorn opened her concerned eyes and looked down at her subject, cowering sorrowfully next to her on the ground, next to Celestia’s writing spot in the study.

„What has happened?“

„What do you mean?“

“Dad… Brian… What will happen to him now?” Rainbow inquired bitterly.
“How did this… all come to be?”

A single life is like a wooden pole. A clean slate of wood, perfectly round, varnished, of a fair, but constant thickness and made of only the densest fibre the earthly material can possibly offer.
The density, the colour, the state of the wood along it’s length can, no, even will differ. The essence of life is diversity, after all. Like the rings coiling inside the trunk of a tree, or the layers making up an ancient, impenetrable glacier, one can read off every single sore, burn, or tarnish, what turns this one life took, what dangers and changes the lifer faced and overcame, what moods or situations left their marks on the clean slate.
Anything was possible, any combination of variation of events could be found on such an otherwise slate.
The only thing such a slate would, or rather should never ever do, is to sprout branches.
In reality, there could ever be one slate of wood.
In one reality, that is.

The Princess of the Sun sighed. Explaining this entire event, the fate of Brian, the ongoings in that other world… it meant explaining the universe. She could not possibly express how this should not have ever happened. The notion of one universe clashing into the other in such a subtle, yet momentous tragedy… a simple personal tragedy… it may be too much for such an ambitious young pony to comprehend.

“Princess…”
Rainbow pressed her head forcefully against Celestia, as if to hide herself away from the things that lay behind her. Celestia leaned in on her, so that the young pegasus’ tears were quickly wiped by her own white coat.
“I have done… I have done wrong. I have done wrong.”

Celestia just shook her head.
“You did nothing of the sort, Rainbow. None of this is your fault.”

“Yes it is! It is…” Rainbow wailed, her voice muffled by the alicorn’s coat.
“The sonic rainboom it… people died, Princess! They died, the rainboom killed them…”

A sonic rainboom. The best example to illustrate just how much of an ironic tragedy this incident was.
In one world, a rainboom was a magnificent natural phenomenon, a colourful display of light and energy, a symbol for the coming-of-age, for progress and determination, as well as a bringer of luck and positive thoughts.
And in the other world, the alien universe, it was plainly a destructive entity, powerful and highly consequential, unbridled and unprecedented power. A tragedy. Whose fault was it? Not Rainbow’s, certainly. How should she have known? Just like in her ‘real’ youth, this was an inevitable achievement for a incredibly gifted pony like herself. Something to be proud of, and to be achieved through hard labour and deep devotion.
But what was it worth now?
Torment and guilt, anxiety and fear? It should not be.

“A sonic rainboom, Rainbow, is something completely natural. You could not have known what it would do.”

“What it did… was to… to accuse Dad. My dad. Daddy…”
She was overcome by another fit of sorrow, but more of the weakening, somber and melancholic kind, and soiled Celestia’s neck anew with freely flowing tears.

In the last forty-eight hours, Celestia had thought long and hard about ending it. About putting a stop to this entire obscure trilogy of events. About letting her horn touch Rainbow’s forehead and erase these haunting, troubling memories of the event the same way she had cleared her home of all the traces of her existence.

After all, conventionally speaking, Rainbow Dash had never existed in this other world. She was not born there, she never grew up there. She grew up in Cloudsdale, her parents were Spectrum and Aves Dash, two proud athlete Pegasi and devout believers in the idea of dedicating to one’s own principles for a lifetime, a trait they took great pains to raise their young cloud blossom with. What had occurred with their poor daughter – something Celestia, so she dreaded, she had still explain to the couple, still oblivious to their daughter’s two week-long absence. She was a grown mare already, after all.

Her youth, her parents, her friends and her committed hometown were only one more part of the reason to rid Dash of her knowledge of her parallel existence, her second, completely different youth. It did not synchronise with her life in any possible respect. With her one, solitary, true slate.

So what kept her from possibly cutting off the renegade branch, down at the root of the main pole, and be done with it? The answer was more than merely palpable. The branch could be severed, but it existed on, beyond the actual source. It had begun dying off very much on its own, due to the lack of exercise and tending. And now, the rot began to become evident.
A pungent smell, an entire metaphor of its own, came seeping back into the vicinity of the initial slate, where it all had begun.

What would it change? Cutting out the apostate foreign body, it may only destabilize all the life situated above the incision point. Apart from that, when was it ever morally defendable to cut off a sprout?

This was, she had to painfully admit, yet another life. Severing it would not only be dangerous to Rainbow’s current situation, it would be downright murder.

The alien, the foreign creature, who had tended to her so passionately for more than a quarter of a life… it would be cowardly to simply burn down the bridge and try to forget. Erasing memories simply takes, but it does not mend. Her existence, her mingling in the parallel reality, whether her fault or not, had left him in a predicament in his own actuality.

“Let me go back.” Rainbow suddenly said.
“Let me go back, let me… stand straight for what I did. I should, not Dad! They should punish me! Not dad!”
Celestia knew she would not allow another precipitous visit to that other world. The last one, where she had gone soft on Rainbow’s avid pleas, already did enough harm. And of course, she could and would not allow Rainbow to punish herself for that.
Those humans, they did seem so similar to her own ponies. Anytime anything happened, the search for the ultimate guilt ensued. Too often Celestia herself had to witness the ferocity, with which some of these hunts ensued. Accusations were exchanged and imposed like free candy.
And now, or at least so it seemed, humanity was in the search of their own scapegoat for this incident. An incident that should not have even happened in reality, and yet did. This essentially meant that the guilt and the culprit had to be just as real. The difference to Equestria was, that in Equestria, one would see reason sooner or later. What about the other earth’s inhabitants?

“Rainbow. Tell me, what would happen to Brian if he were accused?” Celestia asked her young subject slowly, yet determinedly.

Another soft sob escaped her nostrils before Dash could answer.
“They… they lock him away, Princess. They will try him. Just like… on TV…“

“Will they judge him justly, Rainbow? Will they seek to shed light on the truth?”

Rainbow froze and thought for a moment.

“Because if they will, he will have to fear nothing. Isn’t it so?”
She looked for Rainbow’s approval.
But the Pegasus slipped her head meekly towards the ground.
Who could know humanity, if not her?

+++

It was silent in the office. Matheson the forensic drew over the surface of the top of the desk, pulling strains of dust and grime along. Helen stood in the doorway, her arms shrugged in front of her, looking on the ground, slowly contemplating the situation.
“Are you waiting for something, Helen?” Matheson inquired calmly, kneeing in front of the table, and looking up at her for a short moment before vanishing beneath it.
“You didn’t find anything yet, did you?” Helen counter-asked, her voice lame and uninspired.
“No, nothing in particular.” Matheson declared from under the table.
“Save maybe some… uh… magnetising powder on the desk. Probably from Fitz. The dirty amateur.”
Scrambled back forth and looked up.
“But apart from that, not a single thing that suggested that this room was ever in use.”

“Strange, huh?” Helen said and looked around. Though her conscience was still gnawing at her tone a little bit, she could not shake the immensely strong feeling of suspicion that came with Brian. She tried to ignore the talk they had in the pub, it was not that relevant. Hopefully not.

“Yes. We know for a fact that this room didn’t come with the house, the last people living here passed away in 1975. This room was Fisher’s doing, alright.”

“Do you think it’s relevant?” she asked and nudged uncomfortably. Remotely, she still felt some hope that the things she saw here were not what they seemed to be. He may have been mentally scarred person, but not really the terrorist type.

“Depends. I’d have to rip open the walls and carpets to tell you that.”
He probed the file cabinet with a gloved hand.
“I did see something like this before. Ten years ago or so, some perps rented out a five-room loft in St Giles. Used three of the rooms, and stuffed the walls of the other two rooms with more than a ton of amphetamine and small arms.”
He unpacked a pen, and tapped on the wall’s ugly beige tapestry.
“But… there were many of them. Four guys at least, as well as the carpenters that were in on it, another four guys. But our guy, Fisher, is a loner, a complete hermit. Not exactly a likely ‘quartermaster’ for anyone.”

Helen stepped forward unsurely and looked around. She glanced into the file cabinet.
“What are those?”

Matheson shrugged pathetically.
“Scrap paper, by today’s standards. And it’s definitely not Brian’s. Copies of account statements, tax returns and company notices.”
Taking out one of the leaflets, he underlined the header, located next to a logo of a sun, radiating wavy strings of light
“Cel Est. That doesn’t sound familiar, right?”

Helen froze at the mention.
“What?”

“Cel Est.”
He showed her the leaf and pointed at the sun.
“Green energy, maybe…”

With drooping eyes, she looked at the sun. She knew that sun. Celestia’s cutie mark, for sure.
“No.” she exclaimed flatly, almost automatically.

“Told you. We have to find the company tied to the name and logo, obviously. But I bet this all is still from the previous owner.”

Helen didn’t nod. She took the paper and quickly made her way out of the room. She left so suddenly Matheson nearly didn’t note her until she was gone.

“Wait, Helen, wait! If you go downstairs, take this for me, will you.”
He reached in his overall’s pocket and threw her a little plastic bag.

She looked at it, and identified a lone string of hair in it.
“What is that?”

“Some of Fitzgerald’s ‘irrefutable’ evidence.” He said in less than subtle derogatory tone.
“Send him my regards, sulphur-poisoning produces canary-yellow hair, not canary-red! This hair came from a wig. Either that, or it’s dyed or something.”

The federal agent looked closer.
Yes, this hair was red. But not any kind of red. It was more a hue of rose.
But again, not any hue of rose…

She went through the bedroom, slowly, thoughtfully passing the DVD collection, out the door and down the stairs. She only made a halt in the living room. An investigator in a fluorescent yellow jacket had sat down by the tea table and held open a chemical utility case. He looked up as Helen approached him.

“Are you a forensic?” she asked right away.

“Yes. I am Laurence, from the Fire Marshall’s Office.” He explained. “I was called here for…explosives detection, right?”

“Not only.” Helen handed him the piece of paper, with the bag string of hair on it.
“Can you tell me two things?”

“Not before someone pays me my lunch.”
He tapped away on the maltese cross on his coffer.
“Just kidding, what is it?”

“Can you tell me whether this hair is real? And if yes, is it dyed? And with what?”

A silver pincer picked the hair out of it’s container, and led it before a magnifying glass.
“Well, I can tell you right away, it’s genuine.”

Helen urged on.
“And?”

The forensic moved it up and down the lens.
“Also, it’s not dyed.”

Helen breathed in slowly. And held it.
“Then why is it pink?”

He put the hair down, and shrugged lightly.
“I can’t tell you that. I’m just a chemic. I have probed hair before, if you mean that. Maybe rose hair exists in nature, maybe not. You’re asking the wrong guy.” He bagged it again, and picked up the fax paper.
“Anything else?”

“Can you tell me which ink was used in printing this paper?”
Helen gave him an impatient glare.

“Yes… eventually.” The forensic agent slurred.

“You mean ‘yes’?”

“Yes. But… but it will take me ages without a lab. I’ve got a few chemicals here. And the internet database. I’ll need at least an hour or two.”

Helen nodded nippily and added.
“And can you tell me what animal this hair belongs to, too?”

A stern grimace took hold of his face.
“I don’t think you know what a Fire Marshall does, right?”
But then he sighed leisurely, and reached for his mobile phone.
“Hang on. I know someone.”

+++

Hello, it is I, the author.
I sincerely apologise for the long wait, but...
I had been held up by my first university semester since my last post, and I admit I lost this story a bit out of my focus. Yet, II felt really uncomfortable about calling an hiatus on this until now, because I cannot predict when how soon I start writing again.
Sorry again for the lengthy wait. Though I have some more on the way, I am not sure when the next time will be.
So to be on the safe side, I put this story on official 'hiatus' mode until the next post.
Good evening.

7. The Slim Path

7 - The Slim Path

“What is there to tell?”
The counter-question was pathetic, obvious even. Brian knew that as well as his interrogator.

Both parties committed a series of uncomfortable shuffles before Brian finally answered.
“What do you want to know? What her favourite food was? Or what her sock size was? What her most favourite place in the world was? Or what her wackiest stunt was? Or her greatest achievement, the single largest achievement one of her kind could reach?”

“Sonic rainboom?” The federal agent stated instinctively.

Brian nodded. He closed his eyes, and bit his lip. It was difficult for him to see the wonders and marvels of the rainboom in this situation. The bitter aftertaste was present, to say the least.

The next minute was spent in an eery silence of waiting. Brian was waiting for the agent to make his next move, and Fitzgerald tried to predict the suspect's current state of mind.
The sonic rainboom, he thought. What kind of impact did that sonic rainboom have on Brian in the first place?
He began to think something up. The cartoon world's sonic rainboom, what could it lack compared to the 'rainboom' in Pleasance?
Was that perhaps the key to Brian's own perception of the explosion?

Fitzgerald, intrigued, wanted to give that line of thought a shot. He simply wanted to see what Brian would come up with for an answer.
“Mr Fisher. Would you be offended if I would speak of ‘cartoon worlds?”

Brian opened his eyes again.

“You ought to love them.” The agent commented and shook his head.
“Cartoon worlds. Existing in their own little cartoon realities. Populated by cartoon characters. Do you know what I think is so plain wonderful about cartoon worlds, Mr Fisher?”
He looked at Brian understandingly, and smiled weakly.
“Let me get this straight; I am not a fan of My Little Pony, flatly and plainly. I am a man who loves to live reality to its full potential.”

“You don’t say.” Brian slurred. The detestability in his voice was blatant.

“However, I understand you. Why you watch it.” He scratched his mouth with a finger.
“I have given this whole… situation some thought myself. And my conclusion is, the thing that makes cartoons so immensely superior to the world that we live in… is the absence of one simple physical law: Action, Reaction. Isn't it?"
That’s the law that defines that anything and everything that happens, regardless of where and how, always will have consequences. The action is followed up by a reaction, see?”

Brian had folded his arms, mystified by the agent’s inference.

“Cartoons don’t have this. And if they do, then only if the creator wants it.
Action: Someone, say, falls down the stairs. Reaction: Bruises, twisted limbs, strained ligaments, broken bones, psychological trauma. Weeks, months worth of recuperation. Years, maybe. Maybe no recuperation at all.”
He crossed his legs.
“And now, what would happen in Ponyville, Mr Fisher? Action: Down the stairs, as before. Reaction: Dizziness, stars, googly eyes, optionally even a flat face. It's funny!”
He snorted in amusement at the thought.
“And Recuperation? Unless stated otherwise… one scene. Maybe one cut. Maybe one whole episode, if you’re lucky. No long-term repercussions on any sanity whatsoever.”

Brian was about to say something. He had a faint idea of what the agent meant, and he wanted to nip it in the bud immediately.
“You can’t compare-”

“Exactly” Fitzgerald exclaimed.
“You can’t compare it. It would be crazy to start drawing comparisons between real world and cartoon physics.”
He folded his fingers smugly, kneading them.
“Which doesn’t mean that I can’t compare the following… Action: A creature of stupendously high agility and insane flying capability sets in motion a physical domino that triggers the discharge of an extraordinary amount of energy in form of a pressure wave.
It’s like when you drop a dollar coin into a bowl of watery soup.”

Brian sat still, looking at him with a face that seemed to retrace this tidal wave, rolling over the group and colliding with everything in its way.

“Reaction, Brian? What is the reaction?”

But Brian wasn't about to go and play his game.
“It wasn't just a one scene gig, you know.” he suddenly said in slow, heavy diction, looking his counterpart in the face with a nearly uncalled-for seriousness.
“You're talking about the Sonic Rainboom, aren't you? I told you you can't compare it.”
He folded his arms tighter and exhaled.
"It wasn’t just some half-assed plot device, it kicked off the story’s timeline as we know it. And it was a good thing. It stood for something. It marked a certain point in all our lives, when everything would change for the better. It was an awesome when shown for the first time, and good God, it was a crowning moment when it was shown last, back then in season 9. It wasn’t minor, and it wasn’t treated as some out-of-left-field gag. Which makes your argument is invalid.”

The government agent’s smirk faded away once more.
“Was it as 'magnificent' when you saw it for yourself then?”

“Yes. Yes it was.” Brian said, quick like a shot and without wasting a breath. He was cut short by what sounded like a faint snivel.
“How could I have known, that… what… would happen?”

“How you could have known?” Fitzgerald asked in a ridiculed tone and tilted his head.
“How you could have known? You yourself said that it was in ‘canon’! You sit here and preach to me about the magnificence and the power of this ‘rainboom’! So how could you, of all people, just ignore the implications it might have?! What damage it could cause, should it happen? When you first noticed your little Dashie, I dearly hope you caught the detail that she was, you know, real. Three-dimensional. Breathing. That she packed hair and keratin, consisted of flesh and blood! That she ate when you fed it, that she used up food and energy, like… like any other living thing on this planet!”
He folded his hand on the table and pointed at Brian.
“Why would it ever be different with a sonic rainboom? How long did it take you to catch on, that she was in a wholly different 'medium' now, eh?”

Brian shot him a vicious dagger of a glare.
“Like I could have known! Did you ever have to care for a cartoon character? Sure as fucking hell I never had!” he hisses, and also slumped his hands on the table. He began to knead them again in frustration, began tearing at his skin with his nails, to contain his anger.
He looked away, first left, then right, and sniffed.
“I did what I did, because I had to do it… to care for her, and to protect her, and damn, I am proud. So proud.”
He looked back at him, but now his eyes had reddened quite a bit, and they looked even more wasted than they already did.
“Rainbow didn’t belong here, that one thought entered the equation from the very beginning. This world, she… how could she ever cope with it? She couldn’t, this world was too different for the likes of her, too vicious and dangerous. There were risks and dangers on every corner. People wouldn’t understand. That's not a life...”
He threw Fitzgerald a wary glance.
“God knows what the likes of you would have done to her, if you had known about her. I don’t even want to know…”

Fitzgerald rolled his eyes at the thought and raised his voice in amusement.
“What do you think we would have done to her? Vivisect her in a top-secret underground bunker with badly accented clipboard-carrying scientists and cigar-smoking Generals scurrying around the place and demanding results?”

Brian was not amused.

“Oh come on.” the agent murmured, not bothering to close his mouth again. After a short pause, he continued in the same patronising voice.
“This is the 21st century, Mr Fisher. And this is a democracy. Do you think our top priority would be to hunt some abstract, otherwise non-existent fringe creatures? Aliens are not exactly classified as quote-unquote ‘menaces to society’. Ditto, they aren’t exactly very high on our priority list. We can and do use our assets for more worthwhile, far more common-sense tasks.”
He propped himself up against the lean of his chair and carried on.
“You may be right, though. This world is cruel enough as it is. Terrorism, extremism, organised crime, substance abuse. These are the real dangers our country faces now. It is in the human nature to obstruct any and all laws and regulations. So it’s up to the state to hold them on a leash for the good of many.”
He leaned back, silently patronising him some more.
“Still…” he added slowly,
“In this case, your little ‘Dashie’ herself was quite a danger to society, obviously. To be fair, she couldn’t be any less dangerous to this world if she were a talking tapeworm. She may have brought along some physical... peculiarities that flat-out defy earthly scientific laws. And that’s really serious in any case, because this is both unprecedented and should be, in the truest sense of the word, ‘impossible’. Who knows… for all we know, it could have wiped our whole sense of reality out in an instant.”
He leaned in closer again and sniggered.
“And you… are seriously suggesting that we, the humans, are a danger to her?”

Brian slitted his eyes.

“I mean, Brian, it’s not like we’re the ones who can literally summon outrageous loads of energy by flapping our limbs.”

“The good of the many…” Brian repeated, slowly progressing the words of the federal agent.
“Is it possible… Is it possible that you just proved my point?”

“Did I?”

“Yeah.” Brian nodded. Then he shook his head himself.
“Humanity. Humanity, Mr Fitzgerald. Isn’t it like we’re programmed to cause each other problems and be menaces to each other.”

“We are.” Fitzgerald agreed flatly.
“And that is completely instinctual, natural, normal. It’s the principle of the Survival of the Fittest.”

The young man didn’t let himself get put off by this. Idealistically, he continued straight on to drive his point home.
“We humans can be cruel, and we can be bitter. We can be deceiving and untruthful. We can be ignorant and hypocritical. We can be perverse, as well as perverted. We are not a good example of a perfect society. We are just a population of brutal animals, who, just as you said, cannot even manage to keep ourselves at bay.”
Now it was his turn to lean in, with his hands decisively folded on his lap.
“And you know what? Here’s an action-reaction for you, Agent Fitzgerald.
Action: The world is an unfair, bleak and violent place. Many humans are disadvantaged, unhappy and unfulfilled. Reaction: They try to escape, they try to shape their own world. A world, which is superior to the one they’re living in. A world where poverty, crime and hate play little to no roles, where the denizens live in friendship and harmony, in happiness and content, where the rulers are wise and just, selfless and committed, and where the greatest virtues of the intelligent mind surface to great effect. A world where anybody in his right mind would give a lot to live in.”
He paused.
“And guess what, Agent. This world is real. It became real, I don’t know where, I don’t know how, but it is somewhere out there.
And this world is Equestria.
I know it may not make sense, but I know what I saw. I am not lying, and I am not insane either. It is real.”
He smiled. It was a teary, melancholic and very fragile smile, but a genuine one nevertheless.

“And you say that Rainbow Dash, as a product of your ‘ideal’ world, is very much in danger of falling to this world?” the agent asked, in a much more stale, perhaps even haughty tone.

“Was. She was.”

“Mr Fisher. Why am I getting the impression that don’t understand, what Rainbow Dash always was to this world? Every minute she spent on this soil?”

“But I understand.” He retorted.
“A second chance. A chance to make this place a better place. A light, a flame of intense colours to illuminate this inhuman, dreary place...”
He halted when he noticed just how bad his word choice was.
"Like a light tower in the midst of a reef."

“More like a doom white.” The agent snapped back.
“She was probably the one thing that could have made this world fall off it’s hinges completely.”

“There you have it.”

“No, you don’t get it, do you? It isn't a good thing!” Fitzgerald snapped and spread his hands over the table.
“Of course these are reef-infested waters, Brian, they have always been. Reefs, icebergs, wrecks, call them what you will. It’s always been like that, and it will never ever be any other way. Not in this timeline it won’t.
One of his thumbs pointed at his chest.
“You know what made us humans so special, Brian? That we managed to do something no other creature on this planet did. We bested these obstacles. We made these waters safe! We learned to navigate around them, we learned how to get the better of them, we took this wild, uncivilised mess of a world and we cultivated it to an extent that has never been achieved.
Of course it isn’t perfect, it is never perfect. Einstein already said it; 'Everything in this world is relative'. Nothing is absolute. And it would not be, even if we tried for a thousand years. You make it sound like we are climbing a mountain and collapsed halfway before reaching the very peak.
Well, guess what. There is no peak. We are just responsible for making it up as far as possible. And even though every step up is a hell lot of work… look just how far we did make it up, in only forty thousand years. And the sooner humans can look this barren, blunt fact in the eye and accept it for the sober reality that it is, the better.”

Brian looked at the table, breathing slowly after the agent’s rant.
“Agent. I knew a time where many people thought as you.”

“Good times.” Fitzgerald agreed.

But Brian snorted.
“I remember that kind of was the time in which the world around me continually began to slow down.”

The agent looked at him, nonplussed.

“When life began to bleaken and grey out, when the past became rosier and the future became shorter. Less to look forward to in life. I remember the present mattering less, too.”
He eyed the agent, tears summoning just below his eyelids.
“Do you know what Fort Pleasance was when I was small, Mr Fitzgerald?”

“A wretched urban hive.”

“Not really. It was a thriving hive. When people still lived there, when they could wake up every morning and be glad to have a family, kids, and work. The sun on the street shone richly and brightly, dying the bricks redder and the trees greener. There were still shops, with grocers in front of them, and we had traffic, traffic that could keep you in the same place for an hour. That was one busy place, the centre of the world. And then, by the time I grew up, ready to enjoy these feelings, breathe the air, go to work,… they were gone. Just like that, steadily and slowly.”
He looked out the window.
“Not just for me either. Take my dad, for example. I don’t know when it began, but at some point the only colour he was still able to enjoy was the brown of the stuff in the whisky bottles. Once his factory closed down, and most of our good friends and relatives moved south, the present became empty. So I can’t blame him for not taking it too well. Even as a kid, I remember the news. The big folks from the capital meant ‘So what? It’s a low, and life is full of highs and lows. It’s something we have to accept and move on.’ And I remember the mayor, not saying, but most probably thinking, ‘Poverty, unemployment, crime? Well, the world is kind of a shithole anyway, so why try? We wouldn’t win a ‘city of the year’ award in a thousand years, so why bother?’ In the end, even dad was saying, ‘No job, no competition, no stress. What’s next, no life? Hey honeybun, why so shocked? T’aint too much of a shame now, not with this kind of life.’”
He paused for a moment, chewing on his lips.
“And then he ran that red light. With mum on the passenger seat.”

Fitzgerald had quieted down completely, abashed.

“It’s ironic. I mean mum was there, right next to him.”
He smiled melancholically.
“Even though mum was on the opposite lane from him all her life. In a way. Even while dad found a new penchant, and discovered humbling new world views, my mum would stand in the living room, in front of that easel, a white screen propped up before her. And she would paint. And draw, and colour.
She said it was pronouncing her dreams, and it was opening doors. And she would never get tired. Never become discouraged, and always keep up the effort. She would paint on those screens, fill them with those bright colours. Impressions, visions, and hopes.
Rainbows, she painted rainbows. It was like magic, at first she painted dark red brick houses and plane grey asphalt streets and some rotting wooden fences… and with one, two, three swipes of colours above them, she would make it all seem like the most beautiful place in the world. And she said that is what we could create, and what we should aim for.”
He gulped and breathed out.
“And this is why she never gave up, until the end. And what made it so special was she was probably the last to do so. Back then, years earlier, this is how most people around here thought. Aiming for the stars… this was what helped them through many bleak times.
Call it the spirit. Call it faith.”

The federal agent looked at him for a second, then he straightened up and cleared his throat.
“Your view on the economy in all honours, Brian, but I don’t follow this. How is this relevant? Where does Dashie fit into all this?”

Brian looked back, his countenance deadpan, yet determined and collected.
“I grew up just in time to see my father’s predictions come true. No family, no work to speak of, a desolate home. The bottom of the greyscale.”
The brought forward another smile.
“And Dashie… was my rainbow. As simple as that.
Shining from above, brightening up my world. She gave my home meaning. She gave my work meaning, she gave my entire remaining existence… meaning. A herald from something better. A beacon of light and purpose.
Somehow… somehow I already knew then that bringing Dashie up was, in one way or another, to bring myself closer to her world. The world of perfect harmony. And when such a world exists, Mr Fitzgerald, and if Dashie could bring me there… Why not the rest of this world with it?”

Fitzgerald could, no matter how intrigued he was, not help but to roll his eyes at this. The levels of idealism in his counterpart were strong, very strong. So strong they could be even seen as threatening.
“You know what I think of this? Instead of humanity finally stopping to moan about 'how we can't be a utopia' and a hundred percent perfect, and making peace with this fact that we have achieved what we have achieved, and abandon these completely fantastical notions of ‘the peak of the mountain’ and absolutes,… all of a sudden… as you put it, a herald from a ‘perfect’ world, a world which in no way could be compared with this one, and makes this world simply seem inferior by comparison. Do you call that a fair fucking comparison, Brian?”

“So are you saying that Rainbow Dash, that her existence, is too good for this world?” Brian scorned.

“I’m… no, I’m saying that it is not even applicable in this world! She represents a set of morals and ethics that does not exist here – cannot exist here! She brought them with her from her world, two-dimensional and black-and-white as it is! A world where things like ‘true goodness’ and ‘true evil’ exist, and where anything can be achieved if the right amount of work is out into it! These entities are non-existent on planet earth, no matter how much some people wish for it to be, we will never have world peace, we will never keep our planet clean and prosperous. Wishful thinking is all there’s to it.
We are… we are simply much too complex for this kind of thinking. We just don't know how complex we are...”

Fisher put his arms on the table and folded them upright, concocting a ridiculing grin at the agent’s supposed ignorance.
“But… when your so-called wishful reality actually does exist? Cartoon physics or not! If it exists, how can it then not be possible? How can Equestria, not be possible on earth? When it does exist?”

Fitzgerald promptly retorted without further ado,
“Just because it exists, it doesn’t mean it’s possible…”

Brian hesitated.
“What?”

“It doesn’t exist. Not here. Not on earth. As far as earth is concerned, Equestria is not possible.” he set with a shaking voice and shout one hand nout to one side, as if to push something away from him.
But he knew not what to add to this statement beyond this.

The kitchen chair creaked over the over the tiled floor as the agent slowly drew away from the table and lifted himself. He took a few steps around the kitchen, under constant surveillance of the supposed suspect, and clamped a hand over is eyes and forehead, as if to detect fever.

“And according to you… Rainbow Dash came… here?” he affirmed one more time, picking his words slowly and clearly.

"Yes..."
Brian still looked up at him, slowly brooding over what the point of the question was supposed to be.
“What are you driving at?”

“I ask you once more. Brian. Rainbow. Was she here? Tell me the truth. Was she here?”

Brian tried to say yes, but his mouth refused to follow suit. So blatantly obvious was the answer that he was actually shocked. He felt like he had missed out on something. Of course Dash was here, of course. Of course.

“You’re lying.” The agent clearly stated.
Something went click in the government agent's mind. A rush of irritation, of confusion, of anger.

Fitzgerald felt like the loader that was his mind set into motion and emptied itself of all the proof, all the doubt he had carried with him the entire, long day.
The photos, the hair samples, the sterile room, the hoof prints in the garden, it was all gone, it was now all marginal and incidental, not to be brought up again as serious proof.

Because it did not make any sense.

It did not make sense.

No sense whatsoever.

What did make sense, however, was that Brian had invented Rainbow Dash.
Yes, to cover both the fact that he had an illegitimate daughter and that he was behind the bomb in Pleasance. And he failed at that spectacularly to boot. Because he was either insane enough to believe his own lies, or simply stupid ejnough to think anyone else would buy it.

That was the only logical possibility.

The only serious, realistic possibility.

“You son of a bitch. You made it all up. You made it all up.”
He crowed nervously. It was so deranged it even scared himself, sending shivers up and down his trembling spine.
“And I stupid fuck, I fell for it.”
He crossed the kitchen, and leaned in on the closed window, resting both his hands’ palms and his forehead on the glass.
“I, fuck, I fell right into it.”

His head began to swirl. He felt like he was losing his balance. He felt nauseous. His stomach was about to twist on him.

Meanwhile, Brian stared, perplexed, at the agent’s overly tensed form. He knew not what to say. He did not even know what to think.
On one hand, he understood. He understood perfectly.
But it hit him painfully to see just how hard it hit the agent. He had not really expected many other reactions, but none was… like this.

It seemed strange, that, how relatively collected this person seemed all the way, was suddenly was about to break down.
But Brian had also never seen anyone other than him tread on the slim path between pragmatism and idealism, a path that Fitzgerald had hoped never to have to tread on.

(You may want to play this)

+++

The idealist sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
The realist sees a locomotive entering the tunnel.
The pessimist sees a train roaring towards them, bullbars blazing.
And the engine driver sees three fools sitting on the tracks.

8. Irrefutability

8 - Irrefutability

The naturalist with the grey stubble beard bowed over the hair sample, resting on a petri dish under a portable microscope.
With a giddy look, he mumbled some thoughts to himself as he analysed the piece of fibre.

Helen stood behind him, slowly swaying from side to side, awaiting his judgement with her arms still crossed.

"Now... the first thing I have to say about this hair is... get ready for this."

"Well, Mr Derry?"

He tapped on his thighs with his hands as he leaned back a bit oin the sofa he was sitting on.
"I personally cannot believe this, but this hair is a hundred percent real. It's mammalian, the follicles have perfectly naturally raspberry - the colour, mind you, not the fruit - pigmentation, it's apparently curly by nature as well, and it's from an equine."

Helen couldn't believe what she heard.
"Are... are yo absolutely sure?"

"Missy. 64's the diploid number of chromosomes in this strand of hair. So it stems either from a horse... or from a chinchilla, a fennec fox, an echidna or a spotted skunk - the former three of which do not exist on this continent, and the latter of which does not live in these latitudes."
He shrugged.
"In other words, it must be from a horse."

The government agent curiously stepped closer to the microscope, and looked into the rose thread in the petri dish.
"But is there even such a thing as raspberry horse hair?"

"Damned if I knew. Not anything I'm familiar with, however. It's awfully interesting though, isn't it? One explanation is that it's mutated - a product of multi-generational breeding and genetic manipulation. And even that isn't sure!" he explained, exhaled, and put his sunglasses back on.
"And if I were you, I'd think about sending this to the Institute of Biological Studies, or maybe the Department of Environmental Affairs. The choice is yours. Both'd be hard pressed to find out more about this... specimen."

"No, but thanks. I think I can handle this." Helen said immediately. Who was she kidding?
"Thank you for your professional opinion."

As the pudgy next-door naturalist in the shorts and the polo shirt was escorted back out of the house, Helen took one last, in-depth look at the hair before turning away.
So it was all true. That what she had suspected, seemingly out of nowhere... it was true.
Strange, that she didn't seem any more 'flipped out' by this. She felt underwhelming.

Did this mean that there had in fact been creatures in this house that had never been seen before on this planet earth?
Maybe her colleague wasn't bullshitting as much as she had thought. Maybe Brian wasn't beeing as metaphorical as she had thought.

It may not have made sense, but the proof was there.

Where were Fisher and her colleague, anyway? Were they still in the kitchen? How long were they in there.
As she thought about it, she moved absent-mindedly, like in a trance, to the door of the makeshift interrogation room. Determined to tell everyone of this newest breakthrough, no matter how absurd it was, she knocked and opened.
"Fitz? I... uhm..."

She saw her colleague standing at the window, slightly bent forward, head drooping, leaning with both arms on the windowsill. Brian still sat at the kitchen table, looking at Helen with the surprise of the moment.

On one hand, Helen still wanted to avert her eyes from the suspect, but on the other hand, she wanted to return his gaze. After all he had been through... she now was all the more interested in seeing who he was, and how he was...

"What?" her colleague confronted her roughly, ripping her out of her thought.

"Can you step out for a moment? I want to show you something."

"Yeah."
At first, Fitzgerald hesitated, but then he swiftly let go of the windowsill and moved to his colleague in the doorway, combing his hair back nervously as he went. He ignored Brian as he swept past him energically, abandoning him at the kitchen table without as much as a glance.

Helen held the door open for him. She looked Brian one last time in the eyes. He looked back at her, his eyes inquisitive, somewhat forlorn, seemingly having forgotten how mad he should be at her.
Then she gently closed the door to the kitchen.

Fitzgerald paced back and forth in the living room, as if he tried to digest something as it slipped down his food tract with agonising slowness.

"Fitz?"

"Yes?" he replied as he jerked his head towards her, like he had been snapped out of light sleep.

"I think we may have something here."

"Yeah. I also think that."

"Really?" Helen asked, her eyed widening in surprise.
She pointed at the mobile laboratory on the desk behind her.
"I had the-"

"We have something, alright." he repeated, interrupting her, pacing down again near her.

She felt his tension. The unease heightened with each of his steps.
"What is wrong, Fitz?"

He gave the closed kitchen door a disgusted aside glance.
"Fisher. That son of a bitch." he hissed.
"He has been blowing us hot and cold. Blowing me hot an cold!"

"Why? What did he say?"

He ignored her question.
"Look here. This is what happed. This is what actually happened in Pleasance.
This guy is a loser, a wreck. He sits in his shithole of a hometown, with an illegitimate daughter, and no future prospects. He is a loner, antisocial. His parents died away from him years earlier. He is obsessed with this show you're so obsessed with, My Little Pony.

"Now hold your horses, Fitz." Helen tried to stop him.

"Let me finish. Right now, in there, he has given me a five minute lecture about the symbolism of the sonic rainboom in the show. It's about... uh... coming of age, it's about maturity, about times changing, changing for the better. Bear with me here. He also very apparently has a complex with his late parents. An obsession because his mother was a dreamer, an idealist, just like him. She drew pictures of rainbows. One of them is hanging right there, on that wall over there. He cried me a river about how his life reeled out of controlled after she died. And he is think it's only the rest of the world that has spiralled out of control. Do you follow?"

"No. Not one bit." Helen said strictly.
"What are you talking about? How does this pertain to anything?"

Fitzgerald took a step closer.
"He wanted his old life back. His mother's rainbows. He somehow acquired this daughter I told you about, named her Rainbow. But not after his mother's work, but after the one in the show. He wanted to his world to change for the better, to be a happier place. So what does he need? A sonic rainboom, that's what!"

"Fitzgerald!" his partner barked fretfully and glared at him.
"What is this?"

"It's the motive." he remarked, with a strangely hyped smile.
"The motive to all of this. The orchestrated explosion, his lost, estranged daughter. He just had to build up this... this mythology in his life based on that of the show, so that he could experience what the characters in the show have experienced. It all makes sense. The rainboom!"

"Bullshit." Helen said slowly.
"Th... think about what you're saying. You're saying this all isn't real!"

"It's real to none other than him, Helen. Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying."

"Then how did he make the bomb? Where did he get the materials from? The knowledge? Think about it!"

"I have." Fitz simply said.
"We will get this little shit. We're so close I can smell the explosives."

"Well, there are no explosives." Helen said exasperatedly.
"Matheson searched everything; the cupboards, the floor, and the walls. There were no explosives, and no detonators. We don't have anything on him. Not even a goddamn pistol!"

For a split second, Fitz was put off.
But not put off for long, as she stumbled to continue his thought.
"Then we dig up his garden, his acres! Yes, I'm sure he planted more things there than just baby trees! He is guilty, and I know it!"

"Jesus, let it slide!" she reprimanded him, like she was restraining a snappy dog.
"He is clean."
She turned and pointed to the microscope.
"He is afflicted, yes, but not in the same way. Let me show you this instead."

Fitzgerald followed her pointing hand indignantly, staring at the assembled lab for a long moment.

"This is real, Fitz." she assured him, a tad gentler.
"Just like you said earlier. And I didn't believe you then. But this... I had the hair under the refrigerator examined."

For a moment, it seemed like Fitz had stopped in his tracks. One moment he still seemed jumpy, furious even, but now he seemed to have little more left in his hands to rave about.
"This... is not real, Helen." he persisted, although silently and hoarsly.
"Don't tell me I ever told you something different."

"I had the hair samples tested. They're equine, and naturally coloured."

He looked at her blankly.

"Here's the proof. Right under that microscope."

"Proof..." he huffed.
"Spare me."
Then he simply turned around, and walked out the door.

"Fitz."

Before she could stop him, he was in the garden in front of the house, beckoning several policemen to him.

Helen didn't know what had happened that her colleague could have snapped so violently. But she had to find out more about this truth somehow. She had to see Brian, before the colleague decided to haul him behind the house to continue with the interrogation.

Brian was still in the kitchen, slumped over the kitchen table, holding his head in his arms. He was at the end of his wits.
Carefully, Helen crossed into the kitchen, and pulled up Fitzgerald's chair across from him.

"Mr Fisher..." she spoke as she sat down.

He didn't respond. His face was still buried in his hands.

"Brian..."

"What do you want?" he hissed.

"We... we found bodily material under the fridge, which... which indicated that there really were creatures here that... do not seem to exist in this world."

"Oh?" the suspect remarked scornfully.
"So tell me. Was the letter and and the photo album not enough of a dead giveaway already?!"

"With that, Brian, I mean that we believe you. I believe you..."

"Oh, good."

She shuffled her legs. It must have all seemed so blatantly obvious to him, no matter how new it appeared to her.
"I know there were no... explosive devices involved."

He shook his head slowly, his eyes popping up from behind his fingers.
"So what now? I know that I'm screwed either way. You don't need to come and tell me in which way."

"How come? Why do you think that?" Helen inquired.

"Either, that psycho boyfriend of your's is going to have me thrown in jail for fucking terrorism, or... everyone will know about Dashie. Everyone..."

"But didn't you... didn't you tell me your Dashie was 'safe'? Where is she now?"

"Somewhere where you can't hurt her!" he answered spitefully.

"But if she is safe, why do you worry?"
She bowed in closer, trying for a more emotional approach.
"Brian, let me assure you. I doubt that anything is going to happen to you. You are not a terrorist. We cannot incarcerate you for something you didn't do."

"Oh, Agent Fitzgerald begs to differ though."

"That isn't a problem. Agent Fitzgerald is... somewhat under pressure right now. In any case, he want just the same thing as me. To keep this country safe from danger. Of course, if there is no danger, there is no reason for you to be worried."

Brian finally put his hands down on the table. His tired eyes looked down as well.

"Officially, Brian, the only thing that connects you to any of this is that you were there at the time. Nothing more."

"I think we both know there's more to that than that."

"Yes. And yet, we can't fault you for that in court. As far as the law is concerned... Dashie does not exist."

"I got it." he slurred.

Brian looked out the kitchen window. He noticed someone scurrying around the garden, carrying a spade on his shoulder. He directed some of the constables roughly with his hands ordering them to spread out on the premises.

Helen followed his stare, then returned to him.
"I think Agent Fitzgerald didn't believe you. I think he didn't want to believe your story."

Brian nodded slightly.

"Tell me. How did it all come to be? Dashie, I mean? Where did she come from?"

He stifled a smile.
"I found her sleeping in a cardboard box on 7th street. She was about..." he raised his hand a foot over the table top, "...this high? The box had a message, that whoever finds this, should good take of her."

"In a box?" Helen said, and smiled a bit herself.
"How do you think she got there?"

"Would you believe me if I told you it was because of a botched experiment conducted by Twilight?"

Helen giggled.
"Yes. Yes, I would. And when you said she was at 'a better place' now, what did you mean? She didn't... pass away, did she?" she asked and looked at him with an awkward expression.

"No no. I meant Equestria. She went back there. She was... well... rescued, per se."

"And by whom?" Helen inquired, thinking back to the pink hair under the fridge.
"Pinkie Pie?"

"Pinkie Pie... Fluttershy... Rarity... Twilight... and Applejack. And Princess Celestia."

"Wow... even Applejack." she sniggered, a bit overwhelmed by all the presences.

Brian raised his arms a bit.
"I know, if I told something like this to anyone else, they'd have me committed straight away!"

"No, please." Helen insisted.
"Tell me more."

He glanced through the opened dor to the living room.
"One day, they stood in front of my door. All six of them. After only, what, fifteen years of waiting?"

"Waiting?"

"I looked forward to that happening. In a way, I expected little less to happen."

"But why did they take fifteen years?"

"Well..."
Contemplatively, he rested his chin on his arm.
"I know it's definitely not true... but in a way, maybe they wanted to grant me some time with her. Well, maybe not they themselves, but... the universe. Call it poetic justice." he added with a smile.
"I didn't need more time with her, no matter how often I tell myself how much I wanted more."

Helen nodded.
"I think i know what you mean. Do you think it had some kind of... purpose that she was here?"

"I don't know. But I have learned so damn much while she was around... about family, friendship, authority, responsibility, protection, faith, pride, love, determination, happiness,... it does almost seem like it, doesn't it? Not to mention, reality. I see the world from an altogether different angle now. I see it... from third person view, if you know what I mean."

"I dare almost say, there is little that could still surprise you, now."

He shook his head.
"No, no. I think it taught me to never stop being surprised, and always to expect the totally unexpected. Because exactly that can fuel a life."
He hesitated. Helen noticed ow his lip quivered for a short moment.
"I should have gotten out sooner. Damn it, what was I doing?"

Helen looked at him quizzically, trying to determine an answer.

"After Dashie left, I... I guess I just stopped living. Coping with the new life it took in about all my time. So much for the lesson I was taught. The change shouldn't have come too quickly or early for me. But I wasn't used to much else but Dashie. A life with her was all I knew to do right."

"Brian. Nobody's perfect. Not even you. You did a good job doing what you did. Expertise in anything needs time. And what you need now, is help, that's all. You can start a new living... as soon as all this has blown over, of course."

"Help..."
Brian hesitated for a moment with an answer. Then he looked at her with a disbelieveing raised eyebrow.
"Wait a minute. When you were in town and you old me you were a psychologist, you weren't just bullshitting me, were you?"

She simply smiled, and swayed her head thoughtfully from side to side while looking for a suitable reply.
"Yes, and no. Though I do have an adress in Bayneck, just in case. So not everything I told you was bullshit. In my line of work... you pick up a lot of psychological know-how the more you interact with other people. You understand."

"You mean poor arseholes... like me?" Brian snarked.

"Yeah... more or less. Though they aren't exclusively poor."

He replied with another stifled grin.
"So you still want to help me... once this 'blows over'?" he attempted to clarify.
"Why?"

"Because, while some things will blow over... like most of the suspicions against you... others, won't." She nodded at the open kitchen door.
"I cannot guarantee how we would continue with the evidence we found here. You may be out of the woods, but I know how much it still concerns you."
She pointed at him with a finger.
"She is your little Dashie."

Brian looked back down at the kitchen table.
"I... thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Heavy shoes vibrated on the ground as they moved towards the room. In a matter of seconds, Fitzgerald's form stood in the doorway. In his hand, he still held the spade, even though now it was plastered with earth. He held the same sore, bitter glare as when he left. So he still didn't find what he was looking for.

Helen nodded at him slightly, then looked back to Brian.
"I mean it though. Don't mention it." she said quietly. Then she reached into a pocker under her blazer, and pulled out something metallic.
She laid the pair of hinged handcuffs onto the table, between her and her suspect.

Brian froze, with a scared expression on his face.

"Brian..."
She motioned discretely at her partner.
"I'm afraid you must still come with us, for one or the other formality."

"And why the cuffs?" Brian inquired nervously.

"Well..." Again, she discretely directed him to her colleague.
"It would save us all some some work, if you could just... slip those on for the way."

'Let them believe what they have to believe.' came back to his mind, flashing across his inner eye.
Brian turned to look at the expecting, nearly hungry eyes of the other government agent knifing him in his back.
'Grab him!' they shouted. 'Grab that bastard and don't let him go!'

Then he slowly reached out for the cuffs.
"Alright. I get it."

"Thank you." 'Helen answered nearly voicelessly. Despite that, there was legitimate gratefulness and humility in her thanks.
Slowly, she got up, and walked behind him, cuffing his hands behind his back under the watchful eyes of her partner.

+++

Brian closed his eyes and breathed heavily as he was led out of the kitchen by two very different hands. One, meek and small, held on to his right shoulder, and the other one, forceful and cramped, grabbed on to his left. In the living room, the policemen were looking at im with sneering faces, the same way one would smile at a mighty tiger that was trapped in zoo cage, as he was paraded past them.
The merciful afternoon sunlight descended on his face as they reached the doorstep of his house. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a man in a uniform jacket drawing his camera and framing him the side - shortly before the camera was jerked away by the exasperated agent Fitzgerald's other hand with a short curse.

Brian and the two government agents reached a green limousine that parked several meters down the driveway. Helen opened the door for him, and Fitzgerald seized his head and pushed him into the seat, before roughly gurting him to it.

A last time, Brian looked out of the car's dyed windows, and let the spring blossoms of the oaks and acorns above him sink into his psyche. Celestia's beaming sun was still reaching inside the car, breaking through the dark-brown windows and touching his skin like a soothing, warming hand. Slowly, he relaxed his muscles and sunk back into his seat with an almost apathetic content. It was all goind to be okay.
All would be just right.

He mumbled an almost inaudible 'Thanks...' before the car door flew shut with a forceful thud.

(You may want to play this)

9. Epilogue: In Good Hands

9 - Epilogue: In Good Hands

„Well, ladies and gentlemen, congratu-fucking-lations to you.“ The bony man with the turtleneck sweater said as he placed his coffee cup on his desk and took a seat behind it.
„Wasnt that an epic backfire, if there ever was one.“

Fitz and me stood uncomofortably in front of him like he was a judge and we were at a show trial. I glanced at the guest chairs standing in front of it. Wasn’t Ian going to ask us to sit down or something like that?

„Don’t even think about it. Don’t bother taking a seat, I’ll throw you out in a second anyway.“ He said in an acidic tone.
„Just know this, Helen and Fitz. I have had the honour to preside over my lifetime’s share of fuck-ups, and this one sure as hell is one of them. You – especially you, Fitz. You broke into that guy’s house, and decided you like it so much that you invited half the Linlithgow PD to join you? Are you fucking nuts?“

„Fitz had a lead. A really good lead.“ I tried to defend him.

„No, I didn’t...“ Fitzgerald growled in a voice resembling that of a chain smoker.

„Shut up. Both of you. But he’s right. You did all this because you found a fucking hair? A hair and this...“ he struggled to find a word for it,
„This album with kiddie photoshops? You had strict orders; Fitz. Go in the house, find anything of value and get the fuck out of here. Not play fucking CSI and get a forensic team over. That this guy is a ... whadyacallit...“

„Brony?“ I suggested.

„Thank you, Helen – a brony, is not, and has never been valid proof to suspect him of terrorism.Hell, it shouldn’t even be remotely relevant! Especially not to let the trap spring and send the cops over to finish it. And you, Helen, you were supposed to hang onto Fisher. And what did you do? You abandon your target and go back to the house. For what?“

„Ian!“ I shouted.
I nearly scared myself with what force I opted to interrupt him.
„We collected a whole bunch of perfectly solid evidence. We had every reason to suspect there was something going on there. I... I will not simply stand here and let you hang me and Fitz as incompetent assholes, just because you refused to look at our stuff any further! What about the hair sample? What about the pictures? And what about the letter? You can’t tell me this doesn’t account for anything strange! This has to mean something!“

Ian looked at me for a second with skeptic eyes, before turning to Fitz.
„Fitzgerald?“

„Yes...?“ he said as he looked up.

„Get out of here. Leave Helen to me for a second.“

Fitzgerald protested, trying to fumble something out of his coat pocket.
„But... Ian, I need to discuss something with you right now.“

„Get out! Now! You can tell me in ten minutes.“ our boss ordered.

Fitz turned around hesitantly and left.

After he shut the door behind him, Ian looked back to me and beckoned me closer to the table with a finger.

„I don’t care what you’re going to say, Ian. I stand by it.“ I re-asserted my position, trying not to impede myself by stuttering.

„Helen.“ Ian said, almost softly.
„You cannot expect me to present... this... 'evidence'... as proof for an act of terrorism. You can’t expect me to go to the Ministry of Defence and say, ‘Hey, guess what, this is we all we have. Can you work with that?‘“

„For the last time, this was not an act of terrorism!“ I persisted, glaring at him.
„I thought you read my report. I wrote down everything right in there. All about ‚Dashie‘... and the explosion, and Brian being the bystander... it was all an accident.“

„I did read it, and by God I hope I never heave to read such a piece of... trash again soon.“ He commented drily.
„Luckily for you, dear Helen, I took care of that report personally."

Took care?
I froze.

"I don't think you would be still standing here if it would have fallen into the hands of one of those Internal Investigation shits over in capital. And now I would like to warn you not to repeat something like that ever again... It just makes you look like a complete schizophrenic.“

„Where is my report now?“ I inquired.

„In good hands.“

„And what about the things I based my report on? The evidence Fitz and I collected? The papers, the foot prints in the garden, the whole lot?“

„In. Good. Hands.“ Ian repeated slowly.
„I want you to know this matter out of your hands now. Just as a reference for the future, do not expect your direct superiors read such a pile of speculation. You know what happens to employees who can’t keep their act together. So don’t mention it again.“

I didn’t really know what I could say.
Was he really going to declare me schizophrenic for what I had honestly written? I understood that he didn’t believe me - it was one of those things that wasn't very easy to believe...
But why was he trying so hard to drive me away from my conclusions?
„What’s going on, Ian? What are you hiding?“

He waved my question off and took a big gulp from his coffee.
„I hope you get me. You don’t have the evidence anymore, and you don’t have the report anymore. Deal with it. It’s all stored in the archives now, where no-one can meddle with it any longer.“

„What archives?“ I asked.

„Military Intelligence Archives.“ he answered innocently.

„What?“

Ian rolled his eyes. He propped himself up against his chair and looked me in the eyes.
„Send in Fitz when you leave. And should you try and ask anyone about this fucking evidence again, I will have a certain somebody's pink slip over lunch.“

It was difficult to leave the office without asking another question. But I knew that Ian probably wasn’t joking. He could be very consequential if the situation called for it.
I didn’t know whether it was just because he didn’t take me seriously, but I was about the only one who could tell him in his face that he was full of shit and get away with it.
I needed a few minutes to connect the dots of what he just told me. He wasn’t suggesting to shut up about this topic because the others would deem me crazy... It was the other way around. I was sure I wasn’t going to get that report I wrote, the only document in which I ever spelled out the whole truth of what Brian told me on that day, back ever again.

It has been almost a two months now. Brian was detained and tried by the state court for... well, for whatever my boss Ian had deemed to be 'believable' and 'appropriate'.
And the things about Dashie and Celestia and the photos and the letter... they certainly were neither. I felt good for Brian. I didn’t know whether he was going to get away unscathed from the trial or not, whatever the thing was he was being indicted with.
But in any case, his Dashie was safe. The secret was safe. Whether or not Dashie really existed somewhere out there, and whether or not Brian had told me the full truth about her back then - whether he now was a loving, mourning father who was the keeper of the perhaps greatest mystery on earth, or just a poor, deluded lunatic who really wanted to believe in his fantasies - he was probably never going to get troubled about her again.
At least that thought was very relaxing.
As long as those files lay in some godforsaken government archive, they were not going to destroy anybody’s life. Neither Brian’s, nor mine, nor that of Fitzgerald.

Or at least that's what I expected; as I opened the door into the corridor, and spotted my partner slumped on one of the waiting chairs, his hands massaging his eyelids, I could feel that he was in a predicament of his very own.

„Hey.“ I said softly.

„Hi.“ He answered, weakly.

I knew I should have sent him in right after me. But instead – I don’t know whether it was sympathy, empathy, shame or anger – I sat down with him, carefully scrutinising his face. It was the face of a broken man.

„You wanna talk about it?“ I asked him.

„About what?“ he inquired and went back to massaging his face with his hands.
„I have nothing to say.“

I was straightforward in my questions.
„Do you believe in Dashie?“

He froze what he was doing.

„It’s a simple yes or no question, Fitz. You believed Fisher’s story as well, didn't you?“

He snorted. But he could not quite follow up with a snide comment.
„Bullshit... You heard what Ian said. It’s all some kind of creepy roleplay.“

„But Ian wasn’t there, Fitz. You were there. And as far as I remember it, you were the first one to jump at me with the proof of Dashie's existence, as giddy and excited as you were.“

„I was behaving like quite an idiot, wasn‘t I?“ he said with a soulless smile.

„Dashie exists. I know you may be telling yourself the opposite. But I'm sure you don’t even believe it yourself.“

„Whatever you say, Mulder.“ He snarked weakly.

„I’m serious.“ I said and edged closer to him.
„You know how I could tell that you were believing Fisher all along?“

He tried to ignore me.

„Because when you were claiming you weren’t, you couldn’t even look him in the face. That’s how obviously you were denying the undeniable.“

„It...“ he finally broke in a shaky voice.
„It cannot be possible. Physically, logically, biologically... no living creature can fly like that...“

„But it is.“ I countered simply.

„It’s not allowed to be possible, Helen.“

„But it is.“ I countered once again.

And he answered no more. He shut his eyes instead. I saw how something went click in his mind. As if he had felled some kind of difficult decision through my words.
If I had only known earlier what this decision was .

He rose from his chair.
„It’s my turn with Ian now.“
Walking past mem he left me behind and walked right into the office.

+++

As I went home that day, I chose on reflect on the past few days.

Weeks had passed.

Endless weeks that were spent either in complete lethargy or non-stop work.
Ian had sent me into compulsory leave for twenty days. He apparently didn’t me want me around a the offices, going around and asking uncomfortable questions.
I didn’t disagree with that decision. I think, this leave gave me some time to think over the matter some more. It answered me more questions than even the longest day spent at work would have.

I thought about Fitz. After some time, he had stopped showing up for work in the offices. I did wonder where he had suddenly gone to. Ian had just mentioned that he had been 'relocated' to analysis, and that it was the right place for a man like him.

I also thought about Brian. Whether he was serving time now, or whether he was free to go. If that was the case, he still had my number. And yet he hadn’t called me yet. Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe he had decided to move on. Or maybe he had just given in to his despair about Dashie.
I didn’t know. I just kept waiting. I wouldn’t have thought I would expect his call even more fervently than he would have expected mine. I had, after all, promised him to keep him informed about my government’s taps on the Dashie investigation.

I returned to my home on bayneck, a flat just above my 'psychiatry praxis', when my phone began ringing.
'Couldn't be him', I thought of course. Why would he call only now?

I picked up, automatically answering with a dull 'Ingrid Tremblay, Doctor of Psychology. Who am I talking to?'

If only I had known whose voice I heard on the other end of the line...

(You may want to play this)

11. Epilogue: Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart

Epilogue: Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart

I got into his car.
Why did I do that?

That maniac of a fed proposed to take me home. Was I even supposed to get into cars of strangers?
Did I really hate the public bus so much that I was willing to let this guy drive me?
For all I knew, he could drive me into a back alley and beat the living crap out of me. The last time we saw each other, less than two months ago, he certainly looked like he would do exactly that.

Was I really that desperate to get home?
Yes, I was. On that one day, all my worries and efforts to rebuild my life were gone. I just wanted to go home, sit on my couch in the living room and... wait.
But for what?
No one would be waiting for me after all that happened.

Carefully, I looked at Fitzgerald as he directed the car through the inner city traffic onto the highway en route to Linlithgow.
"You know you could have just taken the train." he quipped.
Fitzgerald looked a bit calmer and more peacefully inclined than the last time I had seen him. He certainly hadn't been sleeping every night since then. Despite that, he still seemed to be a bit on edge. Was it because of me?

I nodded. Perhaps I should really have taken the train. Now that it was too late for that sort of thing.

He noticed how I stared at him. I quickly looked out the side window instead.

"Mr Fisher." he said slowly and scratched his nose.
"How are you feeling?"

"Are you kidding?" I hissed.
"What do you care?"

I had spent several weeks in detention awaiting trial. That was worst of it, though.
The trial itself was short and painless. Not much was going on, just the prosecution parading one piece of supposed evidence after another, indicating that I had something to do with the rainboom, only to be squashed by the judge.

When everything was over, the judge declared I was free to go and shook my hand. It was over before I even noticed it was over.
"Nothing I couldn't live with." I answered.

"Speaking of which..." he then said.
"How's that other thing you couldn't live without doing?"

I looked at him skeptically.
"What?"

He harrumphed.
"You know what I mean. Rainbow Dash."
His voice had sounded quite uncomfortable as he pronounced Dashie's name.

I should have expected him going back to that. But I didn't. After the last time, where he suddenly began to insist that it was all a pack of lies, I thought he would have never wanted to speak of it again.
Even he looked like he didn't expect to speak of it again.
"What, how she is doing?" I asked. What kind of a question was that, anyway?

"I know you couldn't stop talking about her two months ago." he commented innocently.

"In the last two months, Agent, I think Dashie was the only thing that kept me on top of myself. That kept me together."
It was true. Whenever I was lying in my cell, waiting for something to happen, whenever the police investigators came in to interrogate me, whenever I was dragged into court for yet another hearing...
The only thing that kept me from breaking down in tears and anger was the feeling of something seizing my hand.
A comely, warming cyan hoof. Whenever I looked up, I would see Rainbow giving me a wink. It wasn't that tragic, she told me. It wasn't all bad. It was going to be all over one day.

"I thought so." the federal agent commented sparsely.

I could only imagine how much he was annoyed by my words. That's why his next reply surprised my so much.

"When was the last time you saw her? Two and a half years now?"

I nodded my head slowly. Two and a half unbearably long years.

"Would you have ever though you'll see her again? That she'll be back once?"

Of course I did. Even though I did know it was unprobable, that it wouldn't make sense for her ever to come back. Being in Equestria among equals, safe, sound, and dearly missed by everypony there. There was no way she would ever want to return here. It was as easy as that.
But I didn't care much about logic or sense. I just wish that she would come back one day. At nights, I dreamed of her teasing, promising to return, joking around, feeding me sweet nothings and empty promises, then making me wake up.

No, that wasn't Rainbow though. I shouldn't be blaming Dashie for that. It was just me. A grieving guy's slipping mind playing nasty pranks on his expectations.
But that was the last and only version of Dashie I would ever come across. It hurt.
The real Rainbow Dash would never come back. I just should have realised that a long long time ago.
"No."

I noticed the corners of the agent's lips folding into a subtle smirk.
"You really never expected her to miss you or something?"

"She probably can't even... remember..." I stuttered.
Saying that hurt even more.

"Not remember you? Boy, wouldn't that be cruel? Didn't you say you took care of her for, what fifteen years? Where's the thanks?"

"You suppose this is all a joke, don't you?" I snapped.

"Mr Fisher, I don't suppose anything." he corrected me, looking a bit like a teacher addressing a student, like someone who knew more than me. The smug bastard.
"So you wouldn't think she'd come over for Christmas or something like that? Like a good daughter should?"

"Look, just stop it." I begged him.
"If I wanted someone to take the piss out of me, I'll give you a call. I'm really sick and tired of this. You don't believe me? Fine! I got it. Just drive me home."

"What if..." he sighed.
What if I told you, that I believe your Dashie exists..."

"Aha, sure." I growled cynically.

"...because I met her myself?"

I hushed.
But it didn't take me longer than a second to call bullshit on that.
"Okay, you know what... stop the car. I'll find my own way home."

The agent sneered.
"So you're saying Helen didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?!" I hissed. I seriously didn't want to take up with his bullshit any longer. I reached to my left and unlocked the passenger door.

The agent addressed me in a commanding tone.
"Lock the goddamn door, Mr Fisher, we're on the highway. I'll take you home, alright."

"I've had it up to here with your shit. If you say something about my Dashie again, I'm going to punch you in the face!" I spat.

"Two days in Equestria are two years over here. Guess who told me that." the agent said.

I couldn't remember him telling anybody this.
"I... I didn't tell you that."

"No, you didn't." he said, completely serious.
"Your Dashie did."

There was no way he wasn't bullshiting me. The only question was how he found that out...
"I don't know what your game is, Fitzgerald, but I am not interested in this."

"You're not interested in how your little Dashie is doing in Equestria? Fine, be my guest."
Once again, his voice showed dangerously little humour or ridcule.

"You're trying to tell me Dashie told you this personally?" I asked carefully.

"Yes. Not that I believed her, at first." he explained.

"Oh, and would you mind telling when you met her?"

He explained it to me point blank, even emphasising his words with hand gestures on the steering wheel.
"On the day you went to Linlithgow, two months ago."

I still couldn't believe it. I don't know why, but first reaction was,
"So you son of a bitch were in fact in my house?"

He didn't know what else to say.
"- Where I came across Rainbow Dash? Yes. Either you want to hear what she told me, or you don't. The choice is all yours."

Hadn't I established that there was no way Dashie would ever come back here?

"Look, if you don't believe me, let me show you where exactly it happened!"

+++

We spent the rest of the trip in complete silence.

I was still very confused. What was he going to show me? Was he just the one who hallucinated things right now?
The agent steered the car off the highway and onto the road alongside the stream, his face revealing a strong determination to prove his point.

I myself was determined to not let the excitement or hope get the better of me any more, lest the disappointment would hurt all the more later on, when it should turn out just to be another cruel joke or a simple misunderstanding.

We drove of the gravel driveway to my homely four walls. Its white wooden walls shimmered in the afternoon sun already from afar. The agent parged his car in front of the door and turned off the ignition.

He turned to me with a serious expression.
"Listen, Fisher. Just for your information, no, I don't know how this all makes sense. According to my agency, this all may just as well have never happened. Don't ask me for the logic behind all this - it's just what I saw myself - or rather heard in there."

We got out and walked up to the front entrance. The agent took out a sharp key and cut through the big police seal glued across the door. The police had sealed my home after I left. I determined that to be a good thing. Though they probably still searched it, as the dug-up garden behind me clearly evidenced.

The house smelled mildly off acetone and stale food. The police hadn't even bothered to clear out the fridge before moving out. Before I even had a chance to plump down on the couch in the living room and sink into thoughtful melancholy, Agent Fitzgerald lead me up the stairs to the bedroom door. Behind it, my mattress was still turned over, the blanket and pillows were still on the ground, and the MLP DVD-collection was still lying in front of the TV.

"What are we doing here now?" I inquired.
I didn't want to admit it, but my interest did seem to have peaked a bit.

"She was here." he stated simply. He harrumphed uncomfortably.
"I was on the other side of the door, so I didn't see her..."

Here?

According to him, she was here?

In front of my bedroom door, waiting for me, on the one day I was not at home?

No.
No, that just...

I stepped forward, stroking the door. I felt the outside, as if I was trying to find anything that would have still reminded me of her. A dried tear, a single strand of hair stuck between the splintered white lack... any proof of her presence.
The door felt remotely sticky. Could that have been a tear? Was she crying at this door?
Why?

I turned to the Agent.
"What happened here?"

He was quite hones when he said.
"She mistook me, for you."

My head grew a lot heavier all of a sudden. My breath became heavier too. I grew more nervous. If this guy was telling the truth, and yet I didn't knew any of this...

She just walked by, and I didn't as much as notice it?

What other times could she have tried to come back to me without me catching on?

All the days, weeks, months I had spent in this house, waiting, hoping, despairing...
Was it all for nothing?

I slumped against the wall, leaning, staring at the door.

She was here, right here, so close to me... and yet, she was far away again. I had missed her, if only barely; I missed her.
God, how could I have let this happen?

Forlornly, I looked at the Agent, who looked back at me with an equally clueless expression.
"What... what did she say?" I asked, hoping that she had said anything at all.

He thought for a moment.
"She said that she is missing you. That she still loves you. That you shouldn't forget her." he then said solemnly.

So she still knew who I was. After only what were two days two her...
I thanked the heavens that she could still remember.
"Was she alright? Did she look good?"

He shrugged.
"As I said, I couldn't see it. But she sounded well. She seemed fine."

I nodded.
But I needed to know more.
"What did you say to her?"

He grew even less comfortable at the topic. combing through his hair with a hand, he explained.
"I asked her about the sonic rainboom. She had no idea about it, did she?"

About the eight dead? No, she didn't.
I sunk into my knees even more. I shook with fear. Did she know all about it now?
"She had no idea... I..."

"So I figured." the agent said and sighed.
"And Celestia was there, too." he then quickly added.

Princess Celestia? I was surprised.
"What did she want?"

"It seemed like she was there to protect her. To comfort her."

"Oh God."
I closed my eyes. Why the hell did I decide to go out on that one day?!
How should I have known?

"I also told them about you though." I heard the agent say.

I looked up, horrified. What could he have told them about me?

"I told them you still care about her. That you're happy for her. How you're healthier and fitter than ever, that you could live on your life." he explained, looking down at me.
"Even though the latter three are quite debatable... In any case, they were happy for you."

I breathed in deeply. My head began to feel warmer and heavier than before. A headache was approaching.

"Did... did she say when she would come back?"

Fitzgerald stayed silent. He shook his head.

As I stayed slumped against the wall, trying to make more sense of things, trying to realise anything I might have missed, I heard the agent preparing to depart.
"You're welcome, by the way." I heard him utter.

As he was about to walk down the stairs, I tried to ask him one last pressing question.
"You didn't tell me about all this earlier? Why tell me now?"

He shrugged slightly.
"Because I didn't believe you earlier. But I thought you might be interested in knowing."
He looked at the bedroom door long and hard.
"Who knows, maybe you're the sane one, and I'm the maniac who'se been seeing ponies lately."
Then he went downstairs.

After a few minutes, I also stood up.
I went into my room, cleaned up the disks, made my bed. Dashie's letter was still lying on the bedside table, so I locked it back into the little tin box.
I also looked for the photo album in my book rack. But I couldn't find it. The cops had probably seized it. Was I ever going to see it again?

On the ground story, I could still hear the agent's shoes shuffling across the wooden parquet floor, trotting about, looking around. As if he hadn't had enough of a chance to look around the first time he was here!

Although, after everything he did, the least I could do was show him the door.

The casket in hand, I went downstairs, finding him in my living room, looking at some family pictures. Pictures of my parents.
Really, the more I thought about it, I could hang my pictures with Dashie right next to them - nobody would believe it anyway. Who knows, maybe they won't even notice.

"Agent." I said.

"Yes?"

"My photo album... I think your colleagues took it. Is there any chance I'm going to see it again?"

The thought long and hard.
"I'll see what I can do."

He took a second to turn to the nearby record player I had standing around, and carefully fiddle around with the needle.
"That's a nice grammophone you have there." he quipped.
"Really old, but goes like a clockwork. Though this darling does tend to go off at the worst of times..."
After ridding himself of those mystic words, he walked over to the open front door.

I followed suit.
As he stepped out, and I was about to close the door on him, I could not help myself but ask him one more thing.
"Do you believe in Dashie now?"

He looked at me indignantly. But he couldn't find the right words straight away.
Sighing, he said,
"The government says no. I say no. I told you, this world has its very own, unchangeable, unimitable logic. That's the logic I would like to follow. Not Dashie. I told you, she's still dangerous. I just hope this is the last I will ever hear from her. For the sake of us all."
Then he scuffled back towards his car. But on the way, he turned around once more.
"But as for you?"
He shrugged.
"I don't know. I should be wishing you well, but in the end it would only serve to screw your world's logic. I mean, maybe, if you're just lucky enough, Dashy'll come back, with Celestia, and they'll take you along to their own perfect world. I'm sure that would suit you."
He smirked. But this smirk it wasn't as sardonic as it was sympathetic.
"Maybe, just maybe, you will have your own happy ending. If you're into that sort of thing, that is. Take care."

I drew one last breath and closed the door.

The door clicked as it fell shut, I heard something behind me click as well.

I froze.
Something had definitely just made a sound behind me.

"Dad..."

I twisted around immediately.

A sob.
"Dad. I don't know if you can... uh..."

I saw nobody in the living room.

"Rainbow." I shouted.
"Rainbow!"
I stumbled forward.
"Dashie, where are you?!"

"I don't know if you can hear this, Dad..."

I turned around. The voice did not come from the kitchen. It didn't come from upstairs. Where was she?

"I was here. I missed you. And I still do."

I turned around.
I saw the record player in the corner running.

"I know what you're thinking... after all I have done... how could I... risk to come back..."

I stepped towards the machine, and slowed the disk down my my hand. I remembered which record I had played on it last, and it certainly was a different one.
This record itself was unmarked. But it was different from the other ones in my small collection. It was obviosuly new, and had hardly any dust on it. Also, it was a bit thicker than the others. It was also heavier, and less shiny. Like it was from a completely different place.

This house has been sealed for two months. How did that record get in here?
After a few seconds of trying to connect the dots, I chose to let it play on.

I sat down on the couch, my stare still focused on the running grammophone.

"I feel horrible. Dad. What will they do to you? If you can hear this, thank Celestia you do!"

Oh Dashie. My poor, sweet darling. Whatever impression she had received when she was here on that fateful day...

"If I had known... I wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know. Does that make it okay? The rainboom, it was such a great... grand moment for me before. Always when I looked back on it, it made me so happy. Does this make me a bad pony, dad? I don't know."

It was a recorded apology. I didn't know how it got here. I didn't know when this record was placed on my parent's old phonograph...
But it wasn't important at all.

"I really wish you could be here with me. Everyone's so happy and peaceful in Equestria... It's almost like I have been there my whole life... somehow..."

I knew what I had to do next. In the kitchen, I found the note that 'Ingrid Tremblay' had given me in the pub down in Linlithgow. Her phone number was still on it.

Quickly dialling her on the living room phone, I didn't even bother to press the muzzle against my ear. Instead, I just put the muzzle down and pressed the intercom button. I sat back down on the couch, and waited until the beeping stopped and Helen picked up the phone.
Rainbow still talked and explained as I waited.
Then there was a click, and I heard Helen saying,
"Ingrid Tremblay, Doctor of Psychology. Who am I talking to?"

I didn't say anything.

I just let the record on the player turn and turn, and Dashie's kind voice reverb through the living room.

There was a momentary silence on Helen's part.
"That... isn't that... oh my God."

Now she could hear for herself that it was true. It took a load off my mind, to be able to admit it freely to someone.

I picked the muzzle.
"Helen, hi. It's me."

"Brian." she answered, completely captivated by Dashie in the background.
"Am I hearing this right? Is she really..."

"Dashie?" I answered and closed my eyes.
"Yes, she was. Dashie came back."

(You may want to play this)

12. Epilogue: A New Record

Epilogue: A New Record

"Rainbow." Princess Celestia said softly.
"I know you wish for more than that. Believe me, so do I, but this is the most we can do now."

The little pegasus with the rainbow mane nodded slowly.
"But will it help?"

"Of course it will." she heard a voice behind her promise.
It was the voice of Twilight, who was busy putting a small box on the table of Celestia's study with the help of Applejack.
"At least it's safe." she continued.
"You simply tell him everything you want to say, and we put it in his house."

She was joined by a white pony with a carefully groomed purple mane.
"Twilight and I. It will be a mere cakewalk, darling. We go in, put the record on, and are back here again in no time."

“There is no way he’ll miss that.”
Carefully, Twilight magically lifted one of the records in her Princess' library over to the table. Unlocking the box, she opened the player with the microphone attached on top. She fit the record inside and put the grammophone needle on it.
"Now, Rainbow, be sure you talk into this thing only. Try not to breathe too much."

"If you say so." Dash replied and stepped forward nervously.
She spotted Fluttershy sitting in the far corner of the room, careful as to not disturb the recording. Even Pinkie Pie, loud and brash as she usually was, kept her company with a vigilant expression, and quiet as a mouse.
She sighed, and concentrated on the mic sticking out before her.
"This is for you, dad."

Twilight's horn flickered.
The grammophone's mechanism sprang into action, beginning to turn, carving the miniscule scratch into the wax plate.
"Ready when you are." Twilight whispered, bearing a warm smile.

“Okay…” Rainbow uttered in a trembling voice.
She harrumphed. Then she began.
“Dad… Dad. I don't know if you can... uh...”
The words became stuck in her throat.

She felt AJ’s comforting hoof on the back of her head.
“It’s alright, Sugarcube. Take a breath, and go right on.”

Rainbow’s head slumped. The she took a big, sating breath through her swollen nose, and resumed.
"I don't know if you can hear this, Dad... I was here. I missed you. And I still do.
Her mind skipped, jumping right to the core of her worries.
"I know what you're thinking... after all I have done... how could I... risk to come back..."

She saw Princess Celestia sitting nearby, softly shaking her head, telling her not to despair. But Rainbow could not comply just yet.

"I feel horrible. Dad. What will they do to you? If you can hear this, thank Celestia you do! If I had known... I wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know. Does that make it okay? The rainboom, it was such a great... grand moment for me before. Always when I looked back on it, it made me so happy. Does this make me a bad pony, dad? I don't know."
Her mouth scrounged up as another wave of pain overtook her.
“You didn’t tell me…about the destruction. Maybe you knew, maybe you didn't. I don’t know how… if I should thank you for that. Would it have been that much better if you did?"
Her head slumped a little towards the microphone.
"Oh dad, I really wish you could be here with me! Everyone's so happy and peaceful in Equestria... It's almost like I have been there my whole life... somehow...”

It was so obscure. She knew she was here for much longer than just two agonising days. She had family here. Parents. A home. She knew it, she knew it all to well… and yet, in some way, so was Brian and his home her home. She had spent a good portion of her life twice, and in wo completely opposite envrnoments. She felt confused. The forlorn feeling of stalessness was indescribable, almost too unbearable, like a vacuum of emotions, something foreign and unfamiliar lingering in the direct vicinity of her mind. Her memory was almost a curse, not a gift.

“It has been almost two days. For me. It has been two years for you, I still cannot believe it. You still have my pictures, the ones Celestia gave you, have you? I tried to explain everything in that letter I gave to you before I went. I hope it cleared everything up. Oh, I have so many questions I want to ask you! I want to know how you feel, how your life went. Two years is a long time. It’s not fair, why can’t I know? When I was here, only two hours ago, and came across your ‘friend’… at first, I was so happy. I thought that you had told someone. That someone else knew. That secrecy wasn’t such problem anymore. That’s some crazy wishful thinking, huh? I had a lot of such thoughts recently. I don’t know if it was the same with you… Every night, I was dreaming that somehow, every difference between this world and… and my world was simply lifted, and I could come and go as I liked. And you too. I feel so bad for leaving you behind there, especially after this… this...” She gulped.
“Dad, I came back because I simply couldn’t take it. The dreams came every night, every day, I could not close my eyes and sleep without… the experiencing whole torture from scratch. I begged Princess Celestia that I could finally come back and be done with it… just for a few minutes, to make sure you are alright and catch up on times… How would you have felt about it? If you had known? These trips inbetween the dimensions, as Twilight called it, they’re not easy to maintain, they are dangerous and complicated. I begged just for one more try. So I can leave my… past… in peace. Would you have approved?"

Rainbow fell silent for a few seconds, as if the was expecting her 'father's' reply.

"Dad, I am talking to you to tell you; I still love you. I miss you. And I am sorry. If I have done something wrong that I should feel about, there you go. I am sorry then. But I still cannot, despite everything, write off our time together as a disaster…”

She smiled weakly, much to the joy of her friends who were listening.

“It was the best time of my life for me, if only of our life together. Because there are two, two lives for me, which I always have to remind myself of. But still, I would not trade in those memories for anything. Not a single one of them. I couldn’t bear to do that. Princess Celestia, Dad, she proposed that, to make it... easier for myself. She said, that she could clear my mind, erase the memories... throw off some ballast, in a way. She said that I belong here, not on earth. She is right, dad, but I said no. Maybe it’s true than I can barely live with the knowledge that I have lived through my life twice… but I sure I could not live at all without it. I thanked Celestia that she would do something like that for me, but I also thanked her that she understood."
She paused for a moment.
"Dad, I was thinking. If we already lived through this life together halfway, what about the other half? Perhaps, I was just thinking, we can in fact meet again. Even though the time portal is occasionally unstable, it’s not impossible to maintain. I would like to see you again. Properly, this time. I'm afraid that otherwise, I won’t ever be at peace. At least one more meeting, nothing more. How about tomorrow morning? It’ll be about four months for you, dad. Twilight said, that she can tell me the time even more precisely.”

Rainbow shifter her glance over to her lavender friend.
Twilight whispered something.

“She said, it would be any day from the first of of October to the 15th… half a month. I could come, be inside the house at any hour, really. Can you wait, dad? Can you afford to stay at home for fifteen days? We may have to watch out for each other. Who knows, dad, maybe you can even invite someone? Someone who knows about…"
She bit her lip.
"I’m sorry, I’m citing my own hopes again. Scratch that. Also, dad, I understand if you do not want me to come, at least not on those days. If you can listen to this before October, this record probably passed through the portal, just like I could in four months. As you can see, it’s no problem, and not even that dangerous. With that said, dad…”

She became a bit more silent, her brightened, hopeful countenance, freezing a little bit in fear and nervousness.
“If you don’t hear this in time, because you chose not to, or…” she closed her eyes at the thought.
“… you aren’t even there to here it… then you can just tell me… by… not being there when I’m there. I told you, I'd understand. As you know, I never was that good at planning things…”

She looked around herself, at the expectant faces of her friends from Ponyville, and that of Princess Celestia. Then she turned back to the microphone.

“I guess that’s all I have to say, dad. All I had to say for now. I know there is so much more I would want to talk about. But let us do it another time. You know, properly.”

Again, she smiled a little.

“Dad, I send you the best wishes from Twilight, from Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity, and Princess Celestia. I thank them for being so understanding. They were all well aware of the dangers of these trips, and yet they’ve been doing everything in their power to support me. They also want to support you, dad. We are not alone in this. We can make it.”

Solemnly, she placed on of her hooved on top of the microphone, giving her absent father a hoofbump.

“Soon, dad. I love you. Bye.”

That was it.
Under Twilight’s power, the needle slowly lifted from the disc with a thwack sound.
The record floated through the air, and carefully lowered itself into Twilight’s saddlebag.

“We're ready.”

(You may want to play this)

Author's Note

A postface.

Hello, dear Readers.
Finally, after a long time, we have found our way to the end of this story. It's been more than a year. More like one and a half years, ever since I came up wth the idea to write a follow-up to My Little Dashie, a hybrid of drama and thriller, treating a subject what I have always seen as bit of a plot hole in the original - the sonic rainboom.

In those 1.5 years of writing this story, I must say I have lived a more or less turbulent life - school, graduation, moving to another place, university, a part-time job... I can recall periodically writing on this story in a high school classroom during exam prep, on a beach in southern France, in a hotel room in Sweden, on a park bench in front of a fencing club, in a seafood restaurant in western Turkey, in an Austrian auditorium during a lecture, on a historical town square in central Czechia, in a coffeehouse on the Dutch coast, in a shared apartment with overly loud classical music - it's been a small adventure.

But enough about me.
You may ask yourself, could I have concluded this story any faster? 40 thousand words in 18 months aren't exactly a record-breaking pace. The first story I ever wrote (the one before this one, Nation Shall Speak Peace Upon Nation), was finished in a grand total of less than two months, even before publishing.
So what gives?

Well, the thing is, this story has been the one of dozens of concepts and ideas that I kept juggling in my mind at that time (not that it has gotten any better) - and it was the one I ultimately chose to write down. And I must admit, there have been times where I lost control of the story in a way.
At the very beginning, I was motivated, hyped, and I felt like I could write a hundred thousand words of this... but then, the impact of the story and the characters gradually began to dawn on me. I began to feel that I may have been a bit too reckless and naive with what I planned to write. I began to realise that I hadn’t gone quite the right path – that certain characters required more intrusive characterisation, that certain plot points needed more, or rather less focus. I was afraid that the story would end up featuring too little pony for its own good. I quickly became jumbled in the mess of thinking of what steps to take to further the plot. I completely lost track of my priorities – even the easiest of steps became seemingly insuperable obstacles. He process of me continuing the story ground to a halt with every new chapter.

And at one point, I lost faith in the story completely. I didn’t know what I could still do to save it, to bend it just right.
So, for a time, I began to pay attention to other concepts that I deemed more promising. I currently have six stories in varying levels of completion resting in my archive – and only two of those have been published.

But thankfully, it didn’t stay this way. After a few months, I gradually found my way back. Even though my expectation was less high than when I began, I was determined and positive that I could continue where I had left off. I wanted to finish it in a good way, with a mindset as close to the one I began with as possible.
And lo and behold - in the end, I felt that it was still absolutely worth it.

Now, you may ask yourselves just as much as I do:
Could I have done the story any better?
Could I have created more immersive characters? Could I have concentrated more on Dashie and Equestria's side of the story? Could I have tried an a bit less obscure approach to the plot?
Probably. But in the end, it wasn’t so. Why?
I know that to claim that a story was just a ‘grand experiment’, a test of the author’s writing abilities rather than a fully fledged, genuine, serious story, is perhaps the most overused and shameless excuse of all times.
So I won’t claim that this is what it was. But it is still only the second notable story I ever finished. I am not completely pleased with it, of course. I don’t know whether anyone else isn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I may have done mistakes and encountered some shortcomings, but I am glad I did so now instead of later.

And while I am happy that I could finally move on and devote my attention to do other stories with a clear conscience, I must say that I still enjoyed writing the ending to this. It has always been quite an emotionally-laden story, and some chapters were written completely on an emotional high time.
Completing this story has been more than just ‘completing another story' for me. Regardless of what level of literature it may be, and what it was to you, its readers, it symbolises the end of a certain turbulent time for myself. Completing this story meant starting a new chapter in life.

Anyhow, dear reader:
What did you think of the story? Was it to your liking? Which parts, do you think, really stood out, and which ones did not quite do the rest justice? Was there anything that didn’t make total sense to you? I’ll be happy to clear up any confusion.
And of course, the ever-dreadful grammar.

What’s more, I am already deep into yet another story what I managed to start in the meantime.
That’s all that will be said about that for now.

I bid you a nice evening, everypony.

10. Epilogue: Plausible Deniability

10 - Epilogue: Plausible Deniability

"It's my turn with Ian now."

The words came tumbling out of my mouth as if they weren't even my own. Icy air travelled down my lungs, a cold shiver was running down my back as I stood up and headed back into the office of my boss.

Every day for he last two months, the same six words hammered the same question into my mind:
What had I gotten myself into?
I remembered how less than a hundred days ago, my life was straightforward and easy... Then I just had to break into this damned house.
I wonder how this things would have gone if I just had decided not to break open his bedroom and take a gander at his photo albums. Was it really that difficult to resist?
If I had decided not to answer to... who or whatever came to surprise me as I did just that?

Did I believe it, Helen asked me just now. It wasn't the first time she asked me that, nor would it be the last time. Why was she asking me things I could not answer?

In any case, her words did nothing to prevent my decision. In fact, I think she just gave my the doubts the coup-de-grace.
Almost resolutely, I closed the door behind myself as I found myself in Ian's office.

"Okay," he began.
"It better be important. Because, really, I don't want to talk about this issue anymore today. You should only be happy Fisher chose not to press charges, no thanks to you."

I harrumphed.
"Yes..."
I reached into my inner blazer pocket with a hesitant hand and placed the piece of paper on his desk.

He leaned over and looked at it.
"And what is that supposed to be?"

"It's my..." I stuttered.
"I want to resign."

Ian looked up at me with hatefully squinting eyes.
"Fitz, get back to your desk before I end you..."

He didn't take me seriously... I stood my ground, then I recited the reasons for it as I had practiced them in front of some mirror earlier.
"I mean it. After some self-reflection concerning my actions during the last assignment, and the errors to which it lead, I have come to the conclusion that I am uncapable of carrying out my duty to a degree of professionalism that is considered adequate by this agency."
I wasn't even lying. This was exactly the conclusion I had come to again and again since then.

Ian, however, had other plans.
"Do you know what shit I had to go through to pull you out of the bureaucratic quagmire that you yourself moistened?"

"Yes." I answered and closed my eyes.

"Do you know how deep I had to crawl up the judiciary's arse to ensure that you and your no-good partner came out of this unscathed? The Fisher trial is coming to an end today at 3 pm, and neither your name nor the name of this agency had even once been mentioned. You can thank me that we can all live our lives on as before."

Live our lives on? Who was he kidding?

"And you asshole seriously want to tell me that you still like to resign now, despite all."

"I cannot do this anymore." I tried to explain.
"I have been working here for years already, and, you see, I have always been trying to follow my own logic. But what I saw in Fisher's house that one time..."

"What about it?"

"I..." There came the loss for words again.
"I understand what you're saying, Ian. Don't get me wrong, you are completely right. WHat Helen has been suggesting is ludocrious. It is nonsensical. It is fantastic and highly unprofessional. I agree with you completely. And yet still... the whole body of evidence made me think... there is something very wrong with this after all."

"Didn't I tell you to forget all about it?"

I nodded begrudginly.

"They why the hell didn't you? I told you, this case, Fisher, 'Dashie' or whatever, it's done and dusted. Now I want you to throw away this resignation statement before someone sees it, get back to your desk and wait until I send you next fucking case files."

"I can't do that." I said.
"As much as I wish I could... and I really do... I don't think I can completely accept the result of this investigation. Too many things still haven't made sense.
How else could I have explained it to him?
"Many things have stopped making sense to me now, actually. The rules have changed, Ian, and I can't seem to follow up."

"Forget about it." he repeated roughly.
"You'll never hear of this again. It's over. And if you don't think you have acted completely professional back then, well, tough luck. Just don't fuck up in the future. Don't follow your guts, you idiot, follow your heart."

I nearly choked on my own heavy breath.
"W-what?"

"You heard me." he simply said.

"What do you mean with that? 'Follow your heart'?" I inquired uneasily.

"What?" he asked skeptically.
"Brain. I said, 'follow your brain'. How the hell did you come up with heart?"

Heart... Follow your heart, Anthony. Do what you think is right. I remembered those words from somewhere. Who said that?
Was it me, my own subconscius telling me what I was actually thinking? No, it couldn't be, I couldn't make something like that up if I tried.
I imagined a motherly voice, a mature woman's voice speaking to me, telling me this. Why a woman? Who was she?
The memory came creeping back, syllable for syllable. Then it occurred to me. This woman, this voice... although i had not shed a thought on it ever since that day two months ago. I din't think i had any recollection of her voice left, even during records department session, when I was asked to reconstruct what I heard for the other investigators.
Celestia.
She was the one who told me that. Even though I don't remember exactly when or how.

"Fitz?" Ian beckoned me with an exasperated voice.
"Do you want to talk about anything else, or will you get out already?"

Suddenly, I was thinking about something completely different. Something very urgent. For an instant, I hardly even remembered what I had come here for in the first place, so quickly was another pressing issue dominating my thoughts.
"Ian..." I said and scratched my forehead as I tried to sort my mind out anew.
"There is something really urgent I have to do. It's important."

"Good for you." he answered sarcastically, his joy about me finally leaving was unmistakable.
"Just don't be back before 5, okay?"

I nodded haply and went into reverse, heading for the door.

"Fitz!" I heard Ian shout.
I turned around just in time for him to crumple my resignation and throw it at me.

+++

Through the corridor (Helen was already gone, though I hardly noticed), down the stairs and out onto the parking lot next door.

As I sat in my dark green Sedan and adjusted the rear mirror, I took a second to take a deep, yet straggling, breath of the warm June air. Cars rumbled by on the nearby alley, pigeons skipped from one highrise above my head to the next one, and somewhere far away, a lone airplane was crossing the sky.

And today, Ian said, was the last day of Brian's trial in court? Today was the day in which he would or would not be sentenced. I knew it was all taking place at the District Court right now.

I knew, I had to go there. Though I didn't know why, yet. I just had the urge to speak to Brian again. No idea about what, and no clue why, but I just had to.
Following my heart. Brains and guts were out to lunch.

The District Court was less than ten blocks away, near city centre. The session was public, but it was still a small company. Brian had no friends or family left to attend court and support him. The trial was not highly advertised. No relatives of the victims. No press was there to cover the trial of a suspected terrorist - probably as a result of FIS' inervention - they wanted to hush up this entire scandal as much as possible.
There would only be a dozen people attending, and that included Brian, the judge, the aldermen, the defence counsel and the prosecutor.

I parked before the main entrance, but did not even get the chance to get out.
There was Brian, standing between the marble columns of the court's entrance, shaking the hands of two elderly men with suits and suitcases. A single photographer was fluttering around like a moth, taking pictures here, calling for posing there, and generally anticipating to get back to the editors out of sheer boredom.

It was over. I had missed the trial itself, it had ended sooner than even we had expected.
In any case, Brian had gotten off scot-free, just like we had predicted. There wasn't enough evidence to convict him of any crime really - the judges settled on fining him 8,000 for obstructing police investigations in two cases. And that was that.

Brian himself didn't look too good though. He smiled at the judge and his lawyer, but his smile was weak, uninspired and worn out. He closed his eyes for a few moments every few seconds and began rubbing them. He wore a cheap grey suit with an unsipid beige tie which he got from some warder.
He was free, but he was punished.

I waited in the car until the crowd had scattered a little bit. I immediately spotted Brian rushing away, eager to get back to his own four walls, like a mole trying to get back below the earth. As pathetic and squishy as he looked in that moment, I really had to wonder how I could have ever doubted that he wasn't a terrorist.

He ran out onto the street, trying to hail a taxi.
Yeah, I remembered, he didn't own a car to begin with.
After a few minutes of fruitless waving, he sat down on the bench of a nearby bus stop.
Now that he was alone, I finally summoned the courage to go to him.

He saw me approaching him, and at first, he didn't want to believe it. When he looked in my direction a second time, he looked angered, scared and confused at the same time.
It was just me, the least subtle fed in the world, trailing a subject that had just been acquitted. How insane I must have seemed to him.

Before he could try to get up and quickly walk away from me , I raised my voice.
"Mr Fisher."

I noticed him beginning to breathe erratically, hiding his hands in his pockets.

"Mr Fisher? A word, if you have time."

"What do you want?" he spat.

I needed a second. I looked around awkwardly, trying to seem casual.

"What, do you want to apologise or something?" Brian commented cynically.

Why should I, I thought.
"I was only doing my job." I tried to justify.

"Sure." he uttered and looked away again, trying to ignore me.

What should I have said. Then I suddenly knew it.
Something I should have probably told him much earlier.
"Look, I need to talk to you. I think you might also find it interesting."

He still looked away.

"Also, I can give you a lift, if you like."

(You may want to play this)