The 200-Story Mareby Yonder Strange ThingsChaptersI - Of Bad Deals and DreamsII - Rainbow Dash and RulesIII - Getting StartedI - Of Bad Deals and DreamsGlittering lights, fast cars, and every attraction that a pony could want to have. Canterlot. The city that never slept without the rich and famous posting on Manespace about it first. When the sun started to go down, it caught the windows of the skyscrapers, and cast a whole flare of colors across the sky. Busy mares and stallions would be on their way home from work or on their way out to dinner with their families. The high society loved every one of their luxuries and never gave up an opportunity to enjoy easy living. Meanwhile, just outside the walls of Canterlot-proper, past the suburbs, and stretching down into the foothills was a basin of poverty that reached out into the grasslands beyond. Dens of sin, villainy, and vice. Plenty of everything, so the discerning mare could have her choice. Catching the red-eye out of Manehattan for a job, getting a front-row view from a mag-rail ride, really makes you realize just how far things have fallen for you: what kind of risks you're willing to take if it means you can put food on the table. It really helped a mare realize the risks of this kind of work. Sometimes you're hot as the sun, schmoozing and boozing at the finest bars, and rubbing elbows with famous folks like the Wonderbolts. Then some days you're living in an apartment so ratty that even the roaches left to find a better place. Everypony spent their time in the Canterlot slums if they're a Runner, and not just for business or pleasure. I'd spent mine what felt like a long time ago, and I can't say I remembered it fondly. I had promised myself two things after that. The first was that I was never going to take a contract stealing from anypony's corporate headquarters, ever again. The second was that I'd never come back to the Canterlot slums. This job had broken the second one clean in half. Meeting up with a few old contacts and some trusted faces, sneaking in to some old warehouse that had a bunch of server banks in it, covering our Line-Walker while she jacked in, and then blasting our way out with a few packets of data that the stallion who gave me the job wanted us to bring him. And then? "Ah don't like this, sugar-cube. Too exposed." I turned and watch Applejack as she checked the magazine in her rifle for the umpteenth time, before stepping behind a table for a stand that, according to its signs, held sweets and candies during the day. The Earth pony adjusted her signature stetson and looked over her shoulder at me before her eyes were back on the surroundings: in the middle of an open-air market with plenty of windows and rooftops around. "Me either, AJ." I reached under my coat and felt the grip of my pistol, just - assuring myself with the feel of it, "Our contact is late." "Trixie thinks you all must be feeling nervous after that fight earlier." The group's resident 'mancer spoke up, "Trixie doesn't think there's any problem." "I don't know." That voice, a mare too young for this work, "Seems fishy to me." I looked back at Scootaloo as she ran a hand through her mane and watched her eyes darting from place to place. She was trying to see out into the shadows but standing under a street-light wasn't doing her any favors. She was a jumpy filly who I met after she'd pulled my description from a Lunar Guard report. She'd wanted to be a Runner and held me as some sort of idol. I wasn't heartless enough to just tell the filly to buzz off once I was sure she hadn't been a cop, and instead I'd made the stupid promise that when she was older I'd help her get her foot in the door for work as a Runner. So now here she was: first gig and she'd been flying through some of the finest security programs bits could buy like they were just another amateur's work. But that firefight on the way out - your first kill can break you fast if you let it get to you. I moved closer to her, "You feeling okay, kid?" She smiled at me, relaxing a little, "Y-yeah, RD. I just -" "Trixie is sure she feels fine. Why dote over her, hm?" Three sets of eyes on the former show-mare as she brushed what I was pretty sure had been imagined dust off her shoulder. Out of all of us, I was surprised when I realized that Scootaloo was the only one really glaring at her. The younger mare tightened her grip on her and I put a hand on her shoulder, a wordless caution. "If you've got something to say, then say it." Scootaloo was nearly gritting her teeth, "I know you want to." Trixie shrugged, "Trixie has nothing to say. She's sure that Dancing Blades doesn't, either. At least, anymore" Applejack squinted at Trixie, I frowned, and I saw as Scootaloo winced and scowled at her. Dancing Blades had been the lost fifth member of the group. I'd been the team leader, Trixie had been our magic, AJ and Dancing Blades had been muscle if things got bad, and Scoots had been our Line-Walker for the job. Well now there were four of us waiting at the meet-up and Dancing Blades was an ash stain to be cleaned up by a janitor tomorrow morning. "Oh, so its on me?" Scoots was getting angry, and I slowly moved between she and Trixie. Just in case. "Face it. You are far too young for this. Trixie thinks you simply aren't right for this at all. Maybe out of synch." "I'm out of synch?" Scoots shook her head, grip on her pistol tightening again, "Not a chance, show-off. I think one of us is, though. Cus' I know I was doing fine." Trixie's eyes darted to the darkness and then back to Scootaloo. Applejack was starting to get even more nervous and I saw the mare's ears perk like she might have heard something. I could see something in Trixie's face. Something - something in the way she'd looked past AJ and I. Something in the way she'd looked at Scootaloo. I didn't look away from her as I took one step more to put myself between the two of them in case things got hot - which looked bucking likely. "What are you trying to say, Scoots?" I asked, eyes darting to Trixie's pistol tucked at her waist. "I'm saying something's up, RD. I Walked that system way too well for them to know I was in there. And then Dancing Blades? I wasn't the only one who had a shot for that goon mage." As Scoots spoke, Trixie looked at her watch again, and then past me - again, "What's the matter, Trixie? Why didn't you toast him, hm? I'd seen your work. You throw spells almost as quick as RD can draw a gun." Things clicked in place. The glances. Checking her watch. Our contact being late. "Keep us here long enough, yet?" Even I nearly blinked at my own words cutting between the pair. Trixie frowned. Why? Maybe hoping to play up her cover just another moment longer? It didn't work and her face turned scornful. "Yes, Trixie thinks she has. The bits and job I was offered are far more than I could earn working for low-life wretches such as you!" I went for my pistol, a quick motion of her fingers told me she went for magic. I flared my wings and jumped just as the ground underneath my feet lit up with a hex. The air shifted and my ear-drums popped. A table started to flip towards me and I kicked against it, flapping my wings: sending the table back towards Trixie and sending me further away. My sight, my hearing. They were gone and time felt like it was crawling. Right until I smashed down through a table and into the ground. The ringing in my ears was fading and that's when I heard the heavy bark of AJ's rifle firing on automatic. Somepony running, towards me maybe, over broken glass and splinters. "Buck me!" AJ yelled the first words I could actually hear again, "I only winged her hat! The bitch!" I tried to blink the light out of my eyes and Scoots was already over me, shaking me, "Come on, RD! RD, you gotta get up!" Part of me wanted to bat the filly away. Part of me wanted to tell her that I was already way ahead of her. I sat up, pushing up off the remains of some poor vendor's table. It wasn't hard to spot Trixie and her ridiculous cape running off down the street. I grit my teeth and swore as I came into a crouch: starting to empty the magazine in her direction. She stumbled and nearly fell. Fucking bitch, "I think I winged her." I called. Scootaloo stood up now that she was sure I wasn't dead, and I heard tires squealing just before she started pelting me with brass: firing her peppy little 7mm off only a foot over my head. AJ kicked over a table for cover, "Its her back-up!" Paragon Design goons. The kind of rent-a-cops who wore all black and ball-caps like it was the clothing that made the guard. But even if they were a bit-a-billion losers, their bullets could still kill all the same as your's truly when they got lucky. "Scoots, get to cover!" I yelled, waving with one hand for the mare to get down. "I've got their heads down, don't worry RD!" She yelled back. I looked over the table I'd taken cover behind while reloading my pistol. The car was stopped, with bullet holes from AJ's rifle filling the front grill and doors, and the front tires were shot flat. A pair of Paragon Design guards were crouched behind the open doors and one of them was trying to blind-fire a shotgun in AJ's direction. Two guards - one as AJ caught one of them in the head when she peaked over her door - wouldn't be any problem. But then I heard a second car come roaring up from the opposite direction. I looked just as they came to a stop with their whole car leaning forward, and their doors flying open. "Scoots, look out!" I jumped up from my cover and caught the younger mare with an arm-bar to her waist to tackle her down behind one of the other knocked over tables. AJ had to reload and Scoots and I were still recovering. No bullets being sent out on our end meant the goons were sending more to compensate. They weren't really aiming but when you were firing on full-automatic, you didn't need to aim too much to suppress somepony. "T-thanks!" Scoots stammered. She was clutching at her shoulder, a small trail of blood staining her orange coat. I frowned and pulled her hand away: finding just what I expected. Nothing more than a deep graze. I patted her arm, and she winced and shied away a little at first. "You're good to go, kid!" I yelled over the gunfire, "Now let's drop these losers!" Scoots dropped the magazine out of her SMG and pulled a fresh one from her webbing. I pulled a new one from my holster and slammed it home. AJ turned to fire at the two new arrivals, and with her keeping their heads down, that left the third pony to Scoots and I. Weapons loaded, rounds in the chamber: I looked to Scoots. Scoots gave me the nod. Then the vid-phone woke me up. II - Rainbow Dash and RulesThe vid-phone was going off at approximately way-too-fucking-early, blaring the new sound of whatever it was that the popular filly of the week screeched into her microphone. I could have changed it, but the Rainbow Dash was just too awesome to waste her time pecking around the settings of her vid-phone all day. And way too proud to admit she didn't know how to change it, yet. "Shut up." I called, face stuffed in my pillow. The vid-phone, little cunt that it was, ignored me. It just kept on ringing. "Shut uuuup." I groaned again, "Call back later!" Funny thing about vid-phones? You had to pick them up for the caller to hear you. It rang on. I grabbed my spare pillow and threw it as hard as I could manage at the Faust-forsaken machine on the desk. It clicked. Unerring accuracy struck again: face buried in one pillow, half asleep, and with my off-hand while using a pillow - I had managed to hit the "answer" button. "H-Hey, RD!" Scoots voice called from the machine. And just like that, I wasn't tired anymore. Somewhere between my bed and the desk, I managed to snag a sports bra, and I faltered in rushing to the phone just long enough to pull it on. And when I came in front of the screen, there was Scootaloo. She looked - tired. Not just from a lack of sleep or something like that, but seriously tired. Her mane was more of a mess than usual and there were bags under her eyes. And the way she was smiling at the camera seemed kind of - hollow. "Its me, Scoots!" Her smile grew little when she used the nickname I gave her, "How are you doing?" I smiled back at her, "I'm doing fi -" She grimaced, waving her hand in front of the camera, "N-never mind. Its stupid. I - you can't really talk to me. So I - I guess I hope you're doing okay." What? "This isn't really me, RD. I - this is a Dead Mare's Switch." No, I thought, only Runners need DM switches, kid. You said you weren't up for Running anymore. But that didn't change anything, "I know, I know I said I wasn't cut out for this, RD. I told you that. You remember? After that bad deal in Canterlot on my first job?" Yeah, I remembered. AJ and I had decided to go out drinking to burn some of the stress off. We'd taken Scoots along, too. I might have drank a bit more than I should have, maybe made a vulgar pass or two at her, and later on the cab-ride back to the motel rooms we'd rented for the night she'd told me how she had realized the Runner game wasn't for her. The news, ton of bricks that it was, didn't hit me until I'd sobered up in the morning. "So, I tried to stay out of it, but college doesn't pay for itself," she laughed nervously. "Anyways. I, uh, I took a job. And I can't really say what all is going on, but RD," and then her eyes grew wide and she looked to the camera, "I got on with some other ponies and - and I think we've hit something big. If you're hearing this, then I must have, anyways." "Please no, kid. Please don't ask me. Don't ask what I think you're about to ask." I muttered with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk, "Please, please don't ask." "I know you said you don't like going to Canterlot, but you have to believe me, RD. Whatever it is that's going on, its huge. You can trace this signal, find - wherever my body is. And from there? All I really want is for you to f-find whoever - whoever killed me." My shoulders sank. "If that's n-not enough, then - then - there's this." The camera view swiveled and I saw a stallion sitting there. He was a white-coated stallion with a blue mane and mustache, and a monocle. His suit was fine-pressed and everything about him seemed socially refined. The Canterlot socialite, through-and-through by the looks of him. He cleared his throat and adjusted his monocle before looking at the camera. "I am Sir Fancy Pants. Its a pleasure, Ms. Dash. Allow me to cut to the point. My client has invested a sum of 100,000 bits into an account with my firm, to be given to you upon completion of her request. Once you've completed the task you can contact us via vid-phone terminal at this number with the case number and evidence of completion." He smiled, "Best wishes, Ms. Dash." The camera came back to Scoots, looking a hell of a lot worse for wear in that short time, rubbing at her eyes, "S-so I h-hope that's enough. And that you can find whoever did t-t- - this to me, RD." She bit her lip over the video. I bit mine as the screen went black. It showed three numbers. One labeled as the case number, another for "FP&F Investment Opportunities", and - the tracking chip that was put in Scootaloo's head. Reading the last one made a little bit of bile rise in my throat. I saved the conversation to the hard-drive and after a few moments scrounging around the drawers of the desk I found an old data-stick. It was a quick copy of the video and I left it on the desk. "I guess you didn't know me as well as you thought you did, Scoots." I sighed and went looking for some clean pants that had to be laying around somewhere. I would have bet hard bits that Scoots' tracker would take me to Canterlot. To one district in particular. Why did I make that a rule if I was going to keep breaking it? III - Getting StartedThe list of people who could get me back into Canterlot just by asking was a short one. I guess Scootaloo wasn't sure if she had been on that list or not. Part of me wondered on the flight in: just where had a college student and one-time Line-Walker gotten her hands on 100,000 bits to set aside, plus the money for a Dead Mare's Switch? What kind of job had she been working on to get that kind of money? What kind of fucking job was she even working where she felt she needed that sort of insurance policy? Another red-eye flight out of Manehattan saw me catching whatever sleep I could on the way in. Past that? My old datapad was tracking the signal code for Scoots chip to - the Canterlot slums. Miles and miles of poverty: the same place I swore I'd never return to more than once and where Scootaloo's first job had gone so wrong. Some part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, it had been me that got her into this mess. That when we first met I should have just told her to stick to school and get a good job working on tech for any one of the corporations with their own mega-buildings in Canterlot or throughout Equestria. But mag-rails travel fast. I didn't brood on the idea long before I came to my stop. My stop found me at the station on the corner of Baltimare and Goldbank Avenue. The rain was coming down in a drizzle that made the streets shine black under the streetlights and a cold breeze nipped at my fingers when I stepped onto the open platform. The rain was drizzling against the metal roof of the platform and only added to the cold. It was five o' clock in the morning. The streets were dead at this hour as I hit the stairs and started down for the sidewalk. In fact that meant that, despite the kinds of ponies who were walking the street at this hour, I didn't come across so much as one hooker in any of the alleys along the seven blocks of my walk. But during the walk? A lump kept forming in my throat each time I looked at my datapad. What was going to be there? What kind of place would this be? Had the cops found her body yet, or would it be right where she'd been killed? Was I just going to find her body - laying in the back rooms of some drug-house full of young mares and stallions doped out on Sunshine? Or covered in trash bags back in some alley, cut to bits? Maybe I was going to have to shoot my way through some serial killer's hideout to get to her. Each heavy, booted thud of my own feet down the sidewalk drew me closer, and brought a more accurate ping from her chip. I didn't know what to expect. To be honest, some of the things I thought of were starting to make me sick by the time I was on the same block. Maybe the building I finally came to wouldn't have been so embarrassingly unexpected if my mind hadn't been pondering - all of those other possibilities. "Headstone's Mortuary Services" A simple-looking one-story building. Adobe brick front that I was willing to bet only served for aesthetics over actual metal walls, flanked on either side by uncharacteristically well-lit alleyways, and a lobby I could see through the doors out front. It looked - morgue-ish, I supposed. Nothing too flashy or eye-catching to draw a pony's attention. Of course that's because the last thing the rich kids coming down to the slums from Canterlot-proper wanted to see while they were cruising for whorses and drugs was a reminder that the few hours of vice and depravity they took for a vacation were a life-draining constant for the locals. No business hours were posted on the front window but the doors slid open automatically for me. I suppose that sort of thing was necessary: the dying didn't have the decency to always limit themselves to only passing away between nine and five. When I stepped inside, my boots echoed on the white tile floors, and with my hands stuffed in my pockets I took in my surroundings. A rectangular room with an unattended desk in front of me. In the right corner was a closed door with a frosted glass window that read "Dr. Tombstone, Funeral Director" and it looked like the lights were off in the office. On the left wall was a single door with a sign marking it as a unisex bathroom. And in the left corner on the far wall was an open doorway with grimy-looking strips of plastic hanging in the doorway and a small gray box set in the wall with what looked like a speaker on it. As I stepped further into the lobby I must have triggered something. A blinking green light came on under the speaker of the box and there was a moment of static. "I'm in the back if you need me." A mare's voice came through the speaker. My first thought was that, I assumed it was Dr. Tombstone speaking, was a very trusting sort of pony. I mean, I could have been anypony coming through the door at this hour of the night. But I had second thoughts when the whirring of gears made my ears twitch and I looked behind me to see a camera in either corner with one focused on me. There was probably a monitor or two set up in the back, not far from the doctor's - work station. I brushed aside some of the hanging strips of plastic and was assaulted by - nothing. No smell of dead bodies. No wave of embalming fluid mixing with equine fluids. Just a clean, climate-controlled back room. As sterile as any hospital ever, and as I took in the bright overhead lights, the several spotless operating tables in the center of the room, and the racks of visibly ordered and well-cared for chemicals and tools I was certainly reminded of - any hospital I could think to name. And then I set my eyes on Dr. Tombstone herself. "Good evening!" The lilac colored mare declared, "What can I help you with, miss?" With a table between us, it looked like she barely sat high enough to put herself head-and-shoulders above the operating table. On the table in question were an array of tools. All of them made of metal shining under the too-white lights overhead. She held a - a laser of some kind, I assumed, and looked like she'd been in the middle of inspecting it when I walked in. "Well, I -" "Oh! Wait! Don't tell me!" She was grinning like a Cheshire cat, "Somebody died!" And she sounded way too happy about that, "That's usually why folks come around. Well, except for the police. They come around acting all tough and so rude, asking questions all the time." She frowned for - I blinked and it was gone before I could be sure it had actually been there, "But you don't look like you've got a badge, and you haven't pulled out a warrant yet, so I can only assume you came here because you were going to be bringing in a body!" She reached underneath the table and I heard a motor whir. She jerked back from the table, turned, and came around. It was then that I noticed she was sitting on a wheelchair. Only metal-capped rounded stubs above where her knees would have been, tail underneath her hanging over the front of the chair as she came buzzing up to me on four little wheels. It looked like under the chair was a lift system to elevate her. "Actually, no. Not - well, I'm not bringing a body in." I fished my PDA from my pocket. And the chip was still reading as in this building even after a double-check. "Oh." she shrugged. "shows what I know. Mom always said 'to assume makes an ass out of u and me'!" She giggled, "Can't be right all the time, huh? So then what brings a pretty young mare like you to this part of town." She pointed with the odd little laser contraption off in one direction, "Most of best whorses are that way, at Berry Punch's place." "No I -" She continued on, turning away from me, "The Dancer's Studio. Cannot miss it." How? How was such a scatter-brained mare a doctor? "I'm here to see a body!" I finally snapped out with a fist in my pocket balling up. That brought her to a stop, blinking at me over her shoulder, "Well. You came to the right place. I think." And she began eyeing me critically from back at her collection of tools, "You aren't pervy, are you?" I blinked. "Because the last pervy pony that came through here locked himself in cold storage. It took three hours for the cops to get him out. Three." She motioned to a thick set of double doors across the room. "No. No I - I'm looking for somepony specific." "Okay, good. Because you didn't look too pervy. I just wanted to be sure." . . . too pervy? I let the comment slide, "A mare. Barely a mare, really. Would have been eighteen. About so high?" I held a hand just above my shoulders, "Purple mane and an orange coat. With -" "Stop." She suddenly declared, "Just - stop." The once smiling mortician looked unnervingly grim now, "I think I know the mare. Would you know her name?" "Scootaloo?" She nodded and backed away from her table again, "Come with me." I stepped further into the room to follow her but didn't have far. I quickly realized that along either of the side walls were off-gray doors with windows frosted so well I couldn't see anything inside them. Above each one was a single light with most of them off save for two others and the one she was leading me to. "We keep them in here for a while. For when the family comes to identify them. For privacy." She explained, tapping into a keypad by the door, "And I'm going to warn you now. You may not like what you see." I'd seen plenty of dead ponies before. I'd even seen a dead filly or two on bad, bad jobs. But her warning was one I took to heart. I may have seen a lot of dead ponies, but none of them had been Scootaloo. The door opened with a hiss, sliding away up into the ceiling. A small, hexagonal room, just deep enough to fit a surgical table in length-wise with a padded bench across from it. The lighting in the ceiling of this room was dimmer than the main room and I could guess it was probably to present a more - forgiving atmosphere, maybe? I didn't know. Words weren't really my thing. It was definitely a mare resting on the table. Or at least the shape of one hidden underneath a pale blue sheet. She was set out straight as a board in the most unnatural pose imaginable. Nobody ever died laid out so perfectly. A small buzzing sound started and I watched Dr. Tombstone's chair begin to lift her until she was sitting at level with the table. She gave me one last look to see if I was ready, not as grim as before but certainly not smiling, and I must have nodded without realizing it because she slowly pulled the sheet back. The dead don't look like they're sleeping. The only dead pony that looks like they are sleeping is one who died while sleeping. Her coat was more pale than I had ever seen it. Her lips had the barest blue coloring to them and looked so cold. The only thing that made the frazzle-mained filly look like she was sleeping was her eyes were closed. "So," Tombstone sucked on her teeth, "you family? Friend?" I set a hand on the table, "I'd - I - how'd she die?" If the doctor was offended then she didn't show it, "Drug over-dose, as best we can tell. Blood tests show she was drugged, first, and there are track marks in one arm and signs of restraint all over. Whoever did this used high-quality, professional stuff. She wouldn't have felt a thing. If that helps." It didn't, "Yeah. Thanks. Any idea - why she was killed." "I don't think you'll like the answer to that." "I'm already not liking any of this." I replied. "Fair enough. But hey, I warned you." Dr. Tombstone reached out and pulled the sheet back further. Faust must have loved me, or at least had some respect for the poor filly. Because somehow I found the strength not to throw up. She was bare. No surprise there: that was how morticians did things. But her belly was - it looked like it had been shaved. And the skin had been cut open. Peeled back to reveal her insides. And I was no anatomy major, but it wasn't hard to miss the void where something belonged. I already had a good guess just what it was. "This is all postmortem. She was gone by the time this was done. And she isn't the first mare that's been found like this." Doctor Tombstone shook her head, "The ponies on the street are calling the suspect the Canterlot Surgeon. Disgusting really." "Is she -?" The lump in my throat robbed my words and I could only point with the hand not holding the edge of the table in a white-knuckled death grip. "Missing something? Her womb. The same as the other victims. Tied, over-dosed, and then - this. Whoever they are, its always mares - young ones - and they always take the womb. Clean cuts, too, like I said." I felt the urge to vomit again and had to fight it back, "Is - are there any leads? On who did it?" The doctor shrugged, "No suspects, no. But likely somebody who knows medicine - or butchery, at the very least. All these cuts," she motioned to the peeled away areas of skin. "are done with a professional touch. And by a scalpel or other metal blade, since there's nothing cauterized along the cuts. So that narrows it down to - ponies who like antique surgical equipment is my bet. These days even the poorest facilities use laser incisions." "And what are the cops doing about this?" I asked as I stepped back from the table. "The Gendarmes? Nothing much. Trying to keep it under wraps and grasping at straws trying to find leads." I nodded. "By the way," she turned to me. "you never answered my question. About who you were to her." "I -" I stopped "- I think we were friends." "You don't know?" "I'm starting to think she wouldn't be here if I hadn't fucked up." "What happened?" I said nothing. She took the silence as I meant it, "Fair enough. So why come along now, out of the blue then? I've never seen you around this neighborhood before. And I'm pretty sure I'd remember that mane if I'd seen it before." "She's got a Dead Mare's Switch. It was set to send a message to me. I didn't know it until my vid-phone went off - a few hours back now. Last night. Asked me to come investigate, and see if I couldn't find who killed her." "I see." Dr. Tombstone nodded, "A Dead Mare's Switch, huh? She a Runner?" "No," I shook my head. "she wasn't. At least - not after her first job." "What about you?" I nodded again. As if I was completely unable to speak while looking at Scootaloo down on the table anymore. "Think you have what it takes to track the Surgeon down?" I reached in my pocket for my cigarettes, something to calm my nerves, "I've been a Runner for a few years now. I'm not a detective - but I can do things no badge could ever do. And I have to. She asked me to." Dr. Tombstone nodded and pursed her lips. Already she'd switched emotions on me so fast I had been questioning her sanity earlier. I couldn't even begin to guess what was going on inside her head at that moment as she looked at Scoots' body on the table. Then she looked up at me again. "Her belongings?" She pointed to a small drawer on the side of the surgical table, one of several, "They're in the drawer. You can pick around there and see if there's not something that could give you a clue. Then - use your Runner friends to find out some things that maybe the Gendarmes can't. I don't know," she shrugged and started for the door again, "not many mares I know would come in out of the blue for a call from a dead pony. So maybe you can at least get a suspect named for the cops, if nothing else." I nodded even though I knew she wasn't looking my way by then. "I'll give you some time alone." She called as I reached for the drawer. I looked to Scootaloo, laying still on the table, and a moment later pulled open the drawer. I wasn't happy to be scrounging around in her things, but it was one small hardship so I could find whichever bastard walking the streets right then had done this to her. Her - underwear rested on top of her folded and otherwise orderly close. That was just the thing I wanted to see when trying to find her killer: the realization that the mare I couldn't see as anything other than a little filly was wearing scarlet, lace panties. Just the sort of thing I needed to know about her. Among the other contents of the drawer was a tube of lipstick, some eyeliner, and a pair of tampons. 200 bits in hard cash resting under her card told me she'd been planning to do some serious spending in one shot. Plus the makeup and - now that I looked at it, the looks of the skirt and shirt folded up in the drawer told me that Scootaloo had been looking to do some partying. That was when I saw her cellphone, sitting off by itself. I grabbed it and tethered it to my datapad to start it charging. Turning it on and letting it draw from the pad, I could see that it hadn't even been locked out. By this point I'd already invaded her privacy so thoroughly and seen her chest cavity so I didn't even hesitate to look into her phone messages. I searched and quickly found the most recently received text. Sent from Sweetie Belle, a friend of Scoots' that I'd met in passing from time to time. "Hey. Heading to Dancer's Studio. Be there at 8? ~ SB" Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I'd gone to "investigate" a whorses' den. But I cringed thinking that Scootaloo had been headed there. In scarlet lace.
I - Of Bad Deals and DreamsGlittering lights, fast cars, and every attraction that a pony could want to have. Canterlot. The city that never slept without the rich and famous posting on Manespace about it first. When the sun started to go down, it caught the windows of the skyscrapers, and cast a whole flare of colors across the sky. Busy mares and stallions would be on their way home from work or on their way out to dinner with their families. The high society loved every one of their luxuries and never gave up an opportunity to enjoy easy living. Meanwhile, just outside the walls of Canterlot-proper, past the suburbs, and stretching down into the foothills was a basin of poverty that reached out into the grasslands beyond. Dens of sin, villainy, and vice. Plenty of everything, so the discerning mare could have her choice. Catching the red-eye out of Manehattan for a job, getting a front-row view from a mag-rail ride, really makes you realize just how far things have fallen for you: what kind of risks you're willing to take if it means you can put food on the table. It really helped a mare realize the risks of this kind of work. Sometimes you're hot as the sun, schmoozing and boozing at the finest bars, and rubbing elbows with famous folks like the Wonderbolts. Then some days you're living in an apartment so ratty that even the roaches left to find a better place. Everypony spent their time in the Canterlot slums if they're a Runner, and not just for business or pleasure. I'd spent mine what felt like a long time ago, and I can't say I remembered it fondly. I had promised myself two things after that. The first was that I was never going to take a contract stealing from anypony's corporate headquarters, ever again. The second was that I'd never come back to the Canterlot slums. This job had broken the second one clean in half. Meeting up with a few old contacts and some trusted faces, sneaking in to some old warehouse that had a bunch of server banks in it, covering our Line-Walker while she jacked in, and then blasting our way out with a few packets of data that the stallion who gave me the job wanted us to bring him. And then? "Ah don't like this, sugar-cube. Too exposed." I turned and watch Applejack as she checked the magazine in her rifle for the umpteenth time, before stepping behind a table for a stand that, according to its signs, held sweets and candies during the day. The Earth pony adjusted her signature stetson and looked over her shoulder at me before her eyes were back on the surroundings: in the middle of an open-air market with plenty of windows and rooftops around. "Me either, AJ." I reached under my coat and felt the grip of my pistol, just - assuring myself with the feel of it, "Our contact is late." "Trixie thinks you all must be feeling nervous after that fight earlier." The group's resident 'mancer spoke up, "Trixie doesn't think there's any problem." "I don't know." That voice, a mare too young for this work, "Seems fishy to me." I looked back at Scootaloo as she ran a hand through her mane and watched her eyes darting from place to place. She was trying to see out into the shadows but standing under a street-light wasn't doing her any favors. She was a jumpy filly who I met after she'd pulled my description from a Lunar Guard report. She'd wanted to be a Runner and held me as some sort of idol. I wasn't heartless enough to just tell the filly to buzz off once I was sure she hadn't been a cop, and instead I'd made the stupid promise that when she was older I'd help her get her foot in the door for work as a Runner. So now here she was: first gig and she'd been flying through some of the finest security programs bits could buy like they were just another amateur's work. But that firefight on the way out - your first kill can break you fast if you let it get to you. I moved closer to her, "You feeling okay, kid?" She smiled at me, relaxing a little, "Y-yeah, RD. I just -" "Trixie is sure she feels fine. Why dote over her, hm?" Three sets of eyes on the former show-mare as she brushed what I was pretty sure had been imagined dust off her shoulder. Out of all of us, I was surprised when I realized that Scootaloo was the only one really glaring at her. The younger mare tightened her grip on her and I put a hand on her shoulder, a wordless caution. "If you've got something to say, then say it." Scootaloo was nearly gritting her teeth, "I know you want to." Trixie shrugged, "Trixie has nothing to say. She's sure that Dancing Blades doesn't, either. At least, anymore" Applejack squinted at Trixie, I frowned, and I saw as Scootaloo winced and scowled at her. Dancing Blades had been the lost fifth member of the group. I'd been the team leader, Trixie had been our magic, AJ and Dancing Blades had been muscle if things got bad, and Scoots had been our Line-Walker for the job. Well now there were four of us waiting at the meet-up and Dancing Blades was an ash stain to be cleaned up by a janitor tomorrow morning. "Oh, so its on me?" Scoots was getting angry, and I slowly moved between she and Trixie. Just in case. "Face it. You are far too young for this. Trixie thinks you simply aren't right for this at all. Maybe out of synch." "I'm out of synch?" Scoots shook her head, grip on her pistol tightening again, "Not a chance, show-off. I think one of us is, though. Cus' I know I was doing fine." Trixie's eyes darted to the darkness and then back to Scootaloo. Applejack was starting to get even more nervous and I saw the mare's ears perk like she might have heard something. I could see something in Trixie's face. Something - something in the way she'd looked past AJ and I. Something in the way she'd looked at Scootaloo. I didn't look away from her as I took one step more to put myself between the two of them in case things got hot - which looked bucking likely. "What are you trying to say, Scoots?" I asked, eyes darting to Trixie's pistol tucked at her waist. "I'm saying something's up, RD. I Walked that system way too well for them to know I was in there. And then Dancing Blades? I wasn't the only one who had a shot for that goon mage." As Scoots spoke, Trixie looked at her watch again, and then past me - again, "What's the matter, Trixie? Why didn't you toast him, hm? I'd seen your work. You throw spells almost as quick as RD can draw a gun." Things clicked in place. The glances. Checking her watch. Our contact being late. "Keep us here long enough, yet?" Even I nearly blinked at my own words cutting between the pair. Trixie frowned. Why? Maybe hoping to play up her cover just another moment longer? It didn't work and her face turned scornful. "Yes, Trixie thinks she has. The bits and job I was offered are far more than I could earn working for low-life wretches such as you!" I went for my pistol, a quick motion of her fingers told me she went for magic. I flared my wings and jumped just as the ground underneath my feet lit up with a hex. The air shifted and my ear-drums popped. A table started to flip towards me and I kicked against it, flapping my wings: sending the table back towards Trixie and sending me further away. My sight, my hearing. They were gone and time felt like it was crawling. Right until I smashed down through a table and into the ground. The ringing in my ears was fading and that's when I heard the heavy bark of AJ's rifle firing on automatic. Somepony running, towards me maybe, over broken glass and splinters. "Buck me!" AJ yelled the first words I could actually hear again, "I only winged her hat! The bitch!" I tried to blink the light out of my eyes and Scoots was already over me, shaking me, "Come on, RD! RD, you gotta get up!" Part of me wanted to bat the filly away. Part of me wanted to tell her that I was already way ahead of her. I sat up, pushing up off the remains of some poor vendor's table. It wasn't hard to spot Trixie and her ridiculous cape running off down the street. I grit my teeth and swore as I came into a crouch: starting to empty the magazine in her direction. She stumbled and nearly fell. Fucking bitch, "I think I winged her." I called. Scootaloo stood up now that she was sure I wasn't dead, and I heard tires squealing just before she started pelting me with brass: firing her peppy little 7mm off only a foot over my head. AJ kicked over a table for cover, "Its her back-up!" Paragon Design goons. The kind of rent-a-cops who wore all black and ball-caps like it was the clothing that made the guard. But even if they were a bit-a-billion losers, their bullets could still kill all the same as your's truly when they got lucky. "Scoots, get to cover!" I yelled, waving with one hand for the mare to get down. "I've got their heads down, don't worry RD!" She yelled back. I looked over the table I'd taken cover behind while reloading my pistol. The car was stopped, with bullet holes from AJ's rifle filling the front grill and doors, and the front tires were shot flat. A pair of Paragon Design guards were crouched behind the open doors and one of them was trying to blind-fire a shotgun in AJ's direction. Two guards - one as AJ caught one of them in the head when she peaked over her door - wouldn't be any problem. But then I heard a second car come roaring up from the opposite direction. I looked just as they came to a stop with their whole car leaning forward, and their doors flying open. "Scoots, look out!" I jumped up from my cover and caught the younger mare with an arm-bar to her waist to tackle her down behind one of the other knocked over tables. AJ had to reload and Scoots and I were still recovering. No bullets being sent out on our end meant the goons were sending more to compensate. They weren't really aiming but when you were firing on full-automatic, you didn't need to aim too much to suppress somepony. "T-thanks!" Scoots stammered. She was clutching at her shoulder, a small trail of blood staining her orange coat. I frowned and pulled her hand away: finding just what I expected. Nothing more than a deep graze. I patted her arm, and she winced and shied away a little at first. "You're good to go, kid!" I yelled over the gunfire, "Now let's drop these losers!" Scoots dropped the magazine out of her SMG and pulled a fresh one from her webbing. I pulled a new one from my holster and slammed it home. AJ turned to fire at the two new arrivals, and with her keeping their heads down, that left the third pony to Scoots and I. Weapons loaded, rounds in the chamber: I looked to Scoots. Scoots gave me the nod. Then the vid-phone woke me up.
II - Rainbow Dash and RulesThe vid-phone was going off at approximately way-too-fucking-early, blaring the new sound of whatever it was that the popular filly of the week screeched into her microphone. I could have changed it, but the Rainbow Dash was just too awesome to waste her time pecking around the settings of her vid-phone all day. And way too proud to admit she didn't know how to change it, yet. "Shut up." I called, face stuffed in my pillow. The vid-phone, little cunt that it was, ignored me. It just kept on ringing. "Shut uuuup." I groaned again, "Call back later!" Funny thing about vid-phones? You had to pick them up for the caller to hear you. It rang on. I grabbed my spare pillow and threw it as hard as I could manage at the Faust-forsaken machine on the desk. It clicked. Unerring accuracy struck again: face buried in one pillow, half asleep, and with my off-hand while using a pillow - I had managed to hit the "answer" button. "H-Hey, RD!" Scoots voice called from the machine. And just like that, I wasn't tired anymore. Somewhere between my bed and the desk, I managed to snag a sports bra, and I faltered in rushing to the phone just long enough to pull it on. And when I came in front of the screen, there was Scootaloo. She looked - tired. Not just from a lack of sleep or something like that, but seriously tired. Her mane was more of a mess than usual and there were bags under her eyes. And the way she was smiling at the camera seemed kind of - hollow. "Its me, Scoots!" Her smile grew little when she used the nickname I gave her, "How are you doing?" I smiled back at her, "I'm doing fi -" She grimaced, waving her hand in front of the camera, "N-never mind. Its stupid. I - you can't really talk to me. So I - I guess I hope you're doing okay." What? "This isn't really me, RD. I - this is a Dead Mare's Switch." No, I thought, only Runners need DM switches, kid. You said you weren't up for Running anymore. But that didn't change anything, "I know, I know I said I wasn't cut out for this, RD. I told you that. You remember? After that bad deal in Canterlot on my first job?" Yeah, I remembered. AJ and I had decided to go out drinking to burn some of the stress off. We'd taken Scoots along, too. I might have drank a bit more than I should have, maybe made a vulgar pass or two at her, and later on the cab-ride back to the motel rooms we'd rented for the night she'd told me how she had realized the Runner game wasn't for her. The news, ton of bricks that it was, didn't hit me until I'd sobered up in the morning. "So, I tried to stay out of it, but college doesn't pay for itself," she laughed nervously. "Anyways. I, uh, I took a job. And I can't really say what all is going on, but RD," and then her eyes grew wide and she looked to the camera, "I got on with some other ponies and - and I think we've hit something big. If you're hearing this, then I must have, anyways." "Please no, kid. Please don't ask me. Don't ask what I think you're about to ask." I muttered with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk, "Please, please don't ask." "I know you said you don't like going to Canterlot, but you have to believe me, RD. Whatever it is that's going on, its huge. You can trace this signal, find - wherever my body is. And from there? All I really want is for you to f-find whoever - whoever killed me." My shoulders sank. "If that's n-not enough, then - then - there's this." The camera view swiveled and I saw a stallion sitting there. He was a white-coated stallion with a blue mane and mustache, and a monocle. His suit was fine-pressed and everything about him seemed socially refined. The Canterlot socialite, through-and-through by the looks of him. He cleared his throat and adjusted his monocle before looking at the camera. "I am Sir Fancy Pants. Its a pleasure, Ms. Dash. Allow me to cut to the point. My client has invested a sum of 100,000 bits into an account with my firm, to be given to you upon completion of her request. Once you've completed the task you can contact us via vid-phone terminal at this number with the case number and evidence of completion." He smiled, "Best wishes, Ms. Dash." The camera came back to Scoots, looking a hell of a lot worse for wear in that short time, rubbing at her eyes, "S-so I h-hope that's enough. And that you can find whoever did t-t- - this to me, RD." She bit her lip over the video. I bit mine as the screen went black. It showed three numbers. One labeled as the case number, another for "FP&F Investment Opportunities", and - the tracking chip that was put in Scootaloo's head. Reading the last one made a little bit of bile rise in my throat. I saved the conversation to the hard-drive and after a few moments scrounging around the drawers of the desk I found an old data-stick. It was a quick copy of the video and I left it on the desk. "I guess you didn't know me as well as you thought you did, Scoots." I sighed and went looking for some clean pants that had to be laying around somewhere. I would have bet hard bits that Scoots' tracker would take me to Canterlot. To one district in particular. Why did I make that a rule if I was going to keep breaking it?
III - Getting StartedThe list of people who could get me back into Canterlot just by asking was a short one. I guess Scootaloo wasn't sure if she had been on that list or not. Part of me wondered on the flight in: just where had a college student and one-time Line-Walker gotten her hands on 100,000 bits to set aside, plus the money for a Dead Mare's Switch? What kind of job had she been working on to get that kind of money? What kind of fucking job was she even working where she felt she needed that sort of insurance policy? Another red-eye flight out of Manehattan saw me catching whatever sleep I could on the way in. Past that? My old datapad was tracking the signal code for Scoots chip to - the Canterlot slums. Miles and miles of poverty: the same place I swore I'd never return to more than once and where Scootaloo's first job had gone so wrong. Some part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, it had been me that got her into this mess. That when we first met I should have just told her to stick to school and get a good job working on tech for any one of the corporations with their own mega-buildings in Canterlot or throughout Equestria. But mag-rails travel fast. I didn't brood on the idea long before I came to my stop. My stop found me at the station on the corner of Baltimare and Goldbank Avenue. The rain was coming down in a drizzle that made the streets shine black under the streetlights and a cold breeze nipped at my fingers when I stepped onto the open platform. The rain was drizzling against the metal roof of the platform and only added to the cold. It was five o' clock in the morning. The streets were dead at this hour as I hit the stairs and started down for the sidewalk. In fact that meant that, despite the kinds of ponies who were walking the street at this hour, I didn't come across so much as one hooker in any of the alleys along the seven blocks of my walk. But during the walk? A lump kept forming in my throat each time I looked at my datapad. What was going to be there? What kind of place would this be? Had the cops found her body yet, or would it be right where she'd been killed? Was I just going to find her body - laying in the back rooms of some drug-house full of young mares and stallions doped out on Sunshine? Or covered in trash bags back in some alley, cut to bits? Maybe I was going to have to shoot my way through some serial killer's hideout to get to her. Each heavy, booted thud of my own feet down the sidewalk drew me closer, and brought a more accurate ping from her chip. I didn't know what to expect. To be honest, some of the things I thought of were starting to make me sick by the time I was on the same block. Maybe the building I finally came to wouldn't have been so embarrassingly unexpected if my mind hadn't been pondering - all of those other possibilities. "Headstone's Mortuary Services" A simple-looking one-story building. Adobe brick front that I was willing to bet only served for aesthetics over actual metal walls, flanked on either side by uncharacteristically well-lit alleyways, and a lobby I could see through the doors out front. It looked - morgue-ish, I supposed. Nothing too flashy or eye-catching to draw a pony's attention. Of course that's because the last thing the rich kids coming down to the slums from Canterlot-proper wanted to see while they were cruising for whorses and drugs was a reminder that the few hours of vice and depravity they took for a vacation were a life-draining constant for the locals. No business hours were posted on the front window but the doors slid open automatically for me. I suppose that sort of thing was necessary: the dying didn't have the decency to always limit themselves to only passing away between nine and five. When I stepped inside, my boots echoed on the white tile floors, and with my hands stuffed in my pockets I took in my surroundings. A rectangular room with an unattended desk in front of me. In the right corner was a closed door with a frosted glass window that read "Dr. Tombstone, Funeral Director" and it looked like the lights were off in the office. On the left wall was a single door with a sign marking it as a unisex bathroom. And in the left corner on the far wall was an open doorway with grimy-looking strips of plastic hanging in the doorway and a small gray box set in the wall with what looked like a speaker on it. As I stepped further into the lobby I must have triggered something. A blinking green light came on under the speaker of the box and there was a moment of static. "I'm in the back if you need me." A mare's voice came through the speaker. My first thought was that, I assumed it was Dr. Tombstone speaking, was a very trusting sort of pony. I mean, I could have been anypony coming through the door at this hour of the night. But I had second thoughts when the whirring of gears made my ears twitch and I looked behind me to see a camera in either corner with one focused on me. There was probably a monitor or two set up in the back, not far from the doctor's - work station. I brushed aside some of the hanging strips of plastic and was assaulted by - nothing. No smell of dead bodies. No wave of embalming fluid mixing with equine fluids. Just a clean, climate-controlled back room. As sterile as any hospital ever, and as I took in the bright overhead lights, the several spotless operating tables in the center of the room, and the racks of visibly ordered and well-cared for chemicals and tools I was certainly reminded of - any hospital I could think to name. And then I set my eyes on Dr. Tombstone herself. "Good evening!" The lilac colored mare declared, "What can I help you with, miss?" With a table between us, it looked like she barely sat high enough to put herself head-and-shoulders above the operating table. On the table in question were an array of tools. All of them made of metal shining under the too-white lights overhead. She held a - a laser of some kind, I assumed, and looked like she'd been in the middle of inspecting it when I walked in. "Well, I -" "Oh! Wait! Don't tell me!" She was grinning like a Cheshire cat, "Somebody died!" And she sounded way too happy about that, "That's usually why folks come around. Well, except for the police. They come around acting all tough and so rude, asking questions all the time." She frowned for - I blinked and it was gone before I could be sure it had actually been there, "But you don't look like you've got a badge, and you haven't pulled out a warrant yet, so I can only assume you came here because you were going to be bringing in a body!" She reached underneath the table and I heard a motor whir. She jerked back from the table, turned, and came around. It was then that I noticed she was sitting on a wheelchair. Only metal-capped rounded stubs above where her knees would have been, tail underneath her hanging over the front of the chair as she came buzzing up to me on four little wheels. It looked like under the chair was a lift system to elevate her. "Actually, no. Not - well, I'm not bringing a body in." I fished my PDA from my pocket. And the chip was still reading as in this building even after a double-check. "Oh." she shrugged. "shows what I know. Mom always said 'to assume makes an ass out of u and me'!" She giggled, "Can't be right all the time, huh? So then what brings a pretty young mare like you to this part of town." She pointed with the odd little laser contraption off in one direction, "Most of best whorses are that way, at Berry Punch's place." "No I -" She continued on, turning away from me, "The Dancer's Studio. Cannot miss it." How? How was such a scatter-brained mare a doctor? "I'm here to see a body!" I finally snapped out with a fist in my pocket balling up. That brought her to a stop, blinking at me over her shoulder, "Well. You came to the right place. I think." And she began eyeing me critically from back at her collection of tools, "You aren't pervy, are you?" I blinked. "Because the last pervy pony that came through here locked himself in cold storage. It took three hours for the cops to get him out. Three." She motioned to a thick set of double doors across the room. "No. No I - I'm looking for somepony specific." "Okay, good. Because you didn't look too pervy. I just wanted to be sure." . . . too pervy? I let the comment slide, "A mare. Barely a mare, really. Would have been eighteen. About so high?" I held a hand just above my shoulders, "Purple mane and an orange coat. With -" "Stop." She suddenly declared, "Just - stop." The once smiling mortician looked unnervingly grim now, "I think I know the mare. Would you know her name?" "Scootaloo?" She nodded and backed away from her table again, "Come with me." I stepped further into the room to follow her but didn't have far. I quickly realized that along either of the side walls were off-gray doors with windows frosted so well I couldn't see anything inside them. Above each one was a single light with most of them off save for two others and the one she was leading me to. "We keep them in here for a while. For when the family comes to identify them. For privacy." She explained, tapping into a keypad by the door, "And I'm going to warn you now. You may not like what you see." I'd seen plenty of dead ponies before. I'd even seen a dead filly or two on bad, bad jobs. But her warning was one I took to heart. I may have seen a lot of dead ponies, but none of them had been Scootaloo. The door opened with a hiss, sliding away up into the ceiling. A small, hexagonal room, just deep enough to fit a surgical table in length-wise with a padded bench across from it. The lighting in the ceiling of this room was dimmer than the main room and I could guess it was probably to present a more - forgiving atmosphere, maybe? I didn't know. Words weren't really my thing. It was definitely a mare resting on the table. Or at least the shape of one hidden underneath a pale blue sheet. She was set out straight as a board in the most unnatural pose imaginable. Nobody ever died laid out so perfectly. A small buzzing sound started and I watched Dr. Tombstone's chair begin to lift her until she was sitting at level with the table. She gave me one last look to see if I was ready, not as grim as before but certainly not smiling, and I must have nodded without realizing it because she slowly pulled the sheet back. The dead don't look like they're sleeping. The only dead pony that looks like they are sleeping is one who died while sleeping. Her coat was more pale than I had ever seen it. Her lips had the barest blue coloring to them and looked so cold. The only thing that made the frazzle-mained filly look like she was sleeping was her eyes were closed. "So," Tombstone sucked on her teeth, "you family? Friend?" I set a hand on the table, "I'd - I - how'd she die?" If the doctor was offended then she didn't show it, "Drug over-dose, as best we can tell. Blood tests show she was drugged, first, and there are track marks in one arm and signs of restraint all over. Whoever did this used high-quality, professional stuff. She wouldn't have felt a thing. If that helps." It didn't, "Yeah. Thanks. Any idea - why she was killed." "I don't think you'll like the answer to that." "I'm already not liking any of this." I replied. "Fair enough. But hey, I warned you." Dr. Tombstone reached out and pulled the sheet back further. Faust must have loved me, or at least had some respect for the poor filly. Because somehow I found the strength not to throw up. She was bare. No surprise there: that was how morticians did things. But her belly was - it looked like it had been shaved. And the skin had been cut open. Peeled back to reveal her insides. And I was no anatomy major, but it wasn't hard to miss the void where something belonged. I already had a good guess just what it was. "This is all postmortem. She was gone by the time this was done. And she isn't the first mare that's been found like this." Doctor Tombstone shook her head, "The ponies on the street are calling the suspect the Canterlot Surgeon. Disgusting really." "Is she -?" The lump in my throat robbed my words and I could only point with the hand not holding the edge of the table in a white-knuckled death grip. "Missing something? Her womb. The same as the other victims. Tied, over-dosed, and then - this. Whoever they are, its always mares - young ones - and they always take the womb. Clean cuts, too, like I said." I felt the urge to vomit again and had to fight it back, "Is - are there any leads? On who did it?" The doctor shrugged, "No suspects, no. But likely somebody who knows medicine - or butchery, at the very least. All these cuts," she motioned to the peeled away areas of skin. "are done with a professional touch. And by a scalpel or other metal blade, since there's nothing cauterized along the cuts. So that narrows it down to - ponies who like antique surgical equipment is my bet. These days even the poorest facilities use laser incisions." "And what are the cops doing about this?" I asked as I stepped back from the table. "The Gendarmes? Nothing much. Trying to keep it under wraps and grasping at straws trying to find leads." I nodded. "By the way," she turned to me. "you never answered my question. About who you were to her." "I -" I stopped "- I think we were friends." "You don't know?" "I'm starting to think she wouldn't be here if I hadn't fucked up." "What happened?" I said nothing. She took the silence as I meant it, "Fair enough. So why come along now, out of the blue then? I've never seen you around this neighborhood before. And I'm pretty sure I'd remember that mane if I'd seen it before." "She's got a Dead Mare's Switch. It was set to send a message to me. I didn't know it until my vid-phone went off - a few hours back now. Last night. Asked me to come investigate, and see if I couldn't find who killed her." "I see." Dr. Tombstone nodded, "A Dead Mare's Switch, huh? She a Runner?" "No," I shook my head. "she wasn't. At least - not after her first job." "What about you?" I nodded again. As if I was completely unable to speak while looking at Scootaloo down on the table anymore. "Think you have what it takes to track the Surgeon down?" I reached in my pocket for my cigarettes, something to calm my nerves, "I've been a Runner for a few years now. I'm not a detective - but I can do things no badge could ever do. And I have to. She asked me to." Dr. Tombstone nodded and pursed her lips. Already she'd switched emotions on me so fast I had been questioning her sanity earlier. I couldn't even begin to guess what was going on inside her head at that moment as she looked at Scoots' body on the table. Then she looked up at me again. "Her belongings?" She pointed to a small drawer on the side of the surgical table, one of several, "They're in the drawer. You can pick around there and see if there's not something that could give you a clue. Then - use your Runner friends to find out some things that maybe the Gendarmes can't. I don't know," she shrugged and started for the door again, "not many mares I know would come in out of the blue for a call from a dead pony. So maybe you can at least get a suspect named for the cops, if nothing else." I nodded even though I knew she wasn't looking my way by then. "I'll give you some time alone." She called as I reached for the drawer. I looked to Scootaloo, laying still on the table, and a moment later pulled open the drawer. I wasn't happy to be scrounging around in her things, but it was one small hardship so I could find whichever bastard walking the streets right then had done this to her. Her - underwear rested on top of her folded and otherwise orderly close. That was just the thing I wanted to see when trying to find her killer: the realization that the mare I couldn't see as anything other than a little filly was wearing scarlet, lace panties. Just the sort of thing I needed to know about her. Among the other contents of the drawer was a tube of lipstick, some eyeliner, and a pair of tampons. 200 bits in hard cash resting under her card told me she'd been planning to do some serious spending in one shot. Plus the makeup and - now that I looked at it, the looks of the skirt and shirt folded up in the drawer told me that Scootaloo had been looking to do some partying. That was when I saw her cellphone, sitting off by itself. I grabbed it and tethered it to my datapad to start it charging. Turning it on and letting it draw from the pad, I could see that it hadn't even been locked out. By this point I'd already invaded her privacy so thoroughly and seen her chest cavity so I didn't even hesitate to look into her phone messages. I searched and quickly found the most recently received text. Sent from Sweetie Belle, a friend of Scoots' that I'd met in passing from time to time. "Hey. Heading to Dancer's Studio. Be there at 8? ~ SB" Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I'd gone to "investigate" a whorses' den. But I cringed thinking that Scootaloo had been headed there. In scarlet lace.
