The Rescue Service

“This should be it, 413 Starview Lane. Our client made the appointment yesterday evening, with a trigger time of 8 AM. Since it was not canceled by then, per the usual terms of service we have two hours to be here.”

“Then what are we doing here at quarter to nine?” I stifle a yawn. We’re standing in front of a nondescript apartment block in what passes for a middle-class neighborhood in Canterlot, far too early on a chilly Saturday morning that I’ve just discovered is an hour earlier than it needs to be.

“We’re going above and beyond for maximal consumer satisfaction. If it was you who had been stuck in there all night and needed rescue, I’m sure you would want a prompt one. Why are you even on the morning shift if it has to be like this each time?”

Bellchaser, my partner, is always insufferably peppy on these morning jobs. Or perhaps she’s the same all the time, and it’s just me who’s a grump when I’ve been called into work at a time when reasonable ponies are still sleeping in. Oh well, I did sign up for it myself, and the bits are nice enough to earn.

“Yeah yeah,” I admit, and walk through the street door. There’s a resident directory posted on the wall at the bottom of the stairwell.

“It’s supposed to say Warmblood on the door,” says Bellchaser, still reading from the appointment slip.

“Third floor, then.”

She charges up the stairs, and I follow her, idly admiring her butt. She’s not really my type, but I’ve yet to meet a mare whose butt I didn’t like. Hers is round and yellow, with a straight well-groomed green tail running severely down the middle, as if to challenge everyone to try to catch a glimpse of the goodies behind it. She’s a writer, or so she says, though I don’t think she’s published anything.

I, by the way, am just your average pegasus grad student at the Canterlot Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Magic, supplementing my stipend with this slightly less average side job. Name’s Affine Scheme, but most ponies call me Finey.

The usual doctrine is that we’re supposed to knock twice with three minutes in between, to give the client some time to freshen up if they’ve just forgotten to cancel. But as soon as I start banging on the door we can hear faint cries of help coming from the inside. Bellchaser already has the deposited key ready, so we open the door and move in.

Following the voice, we find a living room that has a big solid metal cage standing on the floor. There’s a pony inside it, a unicorn slightly past his best age, wearing a diaper.

“Good morning, sir,” I say. “We’re from The Rescue Service. I take it you need a hoof here?”

“Please,” the client says, hoarsely. He’s also wearing a dog collar, which is chained to one of the top bars of the cage and secured with a bright red padlock. If he’s been there the whole night it can’t have been comfortable, not being able to lie down.

“Okay. So where’s the keys to the padlocks?”

“She has them,” he says. “She just gave me the padlocks and ordered me to lock myself up with them before she arrived yesterday. But she didn’t come.”

“How fortunate that you have an account with The Rescue Service, then,” says Bellchaser. She’s at the other end of the cage, studying the padlock that keeps its door closed. “Afraid we’re gonna have to ruin your cage, though. It’ll be easier to cut than the padlock.” She fetches an angle grinder from her saddlebag.

Usually she handles the destructive rescuing tasks – she can work power tools with her horn, whereas I would be looking at half an hour with a hacksaw. Instead I tend to the client.

“Would you like something to drink, sir?” If he hasn’t had anything since yesterday, he’s in danger of dehydration. I hand him a bottle of hypotonic sport drink from my bag.

He grabs it with his magic and makes a face at the taste but drinks almost half of it before pausing for breath. “Ahh. Didn’t think I’d be thirsty enough to drink that.”

I shrug. “It’s good for the fluid balance, though. You know, we could have been here a lot earlier if you hadn’t specified a cancel time as late as 8 AM.”

“Well, yes, but I didn’t know how long she would stay. She wouldn’t like it if she knew I had an arrangement. Says it shows I don’t trust her enough.”

The thought of her (whoever she is) not liking it is evidently scary to him. I wonder which kind of marefriend wouldn’t want there to be a backup plan in case something happened to her. It sounds very irresponsible, and not just because I earn bits by being the backup plan.

He shifts around in the cage, looking worried. “Do you think that she has . . . that she . . .”

I let him continue the thought himself. Given what we do in the Service, we do come into contact with tragedy from time to time – but most often it’s a matter of canceled trains, unexpected overtime demands, surprise parental visits, mundane things like that. Of course we don’t know what happened in this particular case, and it’s not my job to comfort the client with pretty lies.

“. . . that . . . I should have paid her more?”

I think I manage to keep my face neutral. “I couldn’t possibly say, sir.”

Bellchaser finishes cutting through the cage door’s hinges while I wait for the client to finish the sport drink. She floats a pair of pruning shears into the cage and cuts through the dog collar. It hangs dangling from the top of the cage in its chain and padlock.

“Right, there you go, sir,” she says. “You should get yourself cleaned up and get some rest before you start disposing of all this. Say, can we borrow your phone to call our head office?”

“Of course. In the hallway.”

She goes out to call home. The client gives me back the bottle and backs out of the cage, flopping down on a couch. I’m glad I’m not responsible for the state of the cushions that come into contact with that overnight diaper.

“Pretty high-end service you’re providing here, sending two ponies to pull one out of a cage.”

“Oh, we always work in pairs, sir. It happens that we meet our clients in positions where they’d be, um, easy to take advantage of. When there are two of us to keep an eye on each other, it’s your guarantee that nothing untoward happens.”

“Ah, I see.” He winks at me conspiratorially, tilting his head towards the door Bellchaser left by. “You’ve got a very nice partner there, son. Congratulations! I wouldn’t mind a one-pony rescue team if –”

Why does every other client seem to assume we’re a couple just because we work together? “Don’t congratulate me, sir. For all I know she doesn’t even like stallions.”

“Oh. Shame.”

We’re back down on the street, and Bellchaser is rummaging through the client directory.

“Just so you know, as far as Mr. Warmblood up there is concerned, you’re hereby a fillyfooler.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure he’s devastated. He did look the kind, with that little love nest of his –”

“Love nest?”

“Didn’t you see how the place was furnished? Only the bare minimum of things, plucked from a checklist without any sense of style or soul. That’s not somewhere to live in, just a place to sneak away and rut.”

I shrug. “I assumed he was just a bachelor. Remind me never to let you see what my digs look like.”

“Oh Finey, you’re hopeless. Be glad I like you. Anyway, old Fizzy had a second job for us.”

“Two jobs? On a Saturday morning? Did an airship crash and all the doms perish in fire?”

Now it’s her time to shrug. “She didn’t tell me. But, Finey dear, it happens that I’ve promised to pick up my niece at the train station in half an hour. Could you possibly potentially do that second job by yourself so I don’t have to leave a poor little filly alone, crying because auntie was supposed to be there but isn’t?”

“Huh. Why are you even on the on-call list, then? Sounds like somepony neglected to arrange for a backup plan in case she ends up deserting a helpless pony whose wellbeing she’s responsible for, due to circumstances out of her control. I hear there are commercial outfits that offer such a service . . .”

“Oh, haha. Yes, let’s branch out into emergency foalsitting too. We already handle diapers after all. But really, Finey, you know I need the bits. And, as you said, there’s never ever two morning jobs on the same day. Please?”

“Why didn’t you just tell Fizzy to call in somepony else?”

“I can’t! I did that once already this month. She’d flay me!”

“Like that would ever happen. I haven’t even seen her throw an actual hissy fit, ever. And you know we’re not supposed to go alone!”

“Come on, I know you, Affine Scheme. You’re a completely principled and upstanding stallion, and I know you’re not going to ravish a client just because I’m not there to chaperone you. Please, Finey!”

As I said, she’s not really my type. But she does do the best puppy eyes this side of Smokey Mountain.

“Okay, alright. But you’re gonna owe me.”

“Yes, anything you need. Thank you thank you thank you! Look, I have to run. Here’s the appointment slip and here’s the key. Trigger time was half an hour ago. Thanks!”

Then she’s off, galloping downtown with half of our kit in her saddlebags. It’ll be okay, I suppose. Most of the tools are ones we use only rarely.

I look at the appointment slip. O. Melody, 1508 Ampersand Terrace. That’s up in Camebury. Shouldn’t be a problem. If I fly, I’ll even have time to grab some breakfast on the way.

I take to the air, waving at Mr. Warmblood through his kitchen window on the way up.