Fallout: Lavender Wastelander

Chapter 23: Cold Case

Cold Case sat at his desk, telekinetically placing his mug of steaming coffee back down. It was straight black, the way he preferred it in the early morning as he waited for the Manehattan Daily to arrive. It was eight A.M., and just like clockwork, the newest issue of the newspaper arrived through the mail slot of his office. It landed with a thump on the doormat before he could catch it in his magic. He levitated the paper over and flicked it open to read. Massive bold black letters practically screamed the headline on the front page.

‘PRINCESS SPARKLE SPOTTED IN PONYVILLE!’

Cold Case reread the headline several times before simply staring in shock at the photo of the Princess of Friendship under the headline. Her horn was snapped off about two-thirds of the way up. Cold Case winced in sympathy, averting his gaze from the snapped horn to take in other details.

Being a private eye meant that he needed to have an eye for details.

Princess Sparkle was dressed in a tight purple and red suit that looked like it could be leather or a similar material. There was a bulky black device around her left foreleg, a medical brace on her back right leg, and a pistol holster on her front right.

“Even a Princess needs something lethal on the other side,” Cold Case mused, scratching his chin. The last thing he noted before switching to reading the article itself was that Twilight’s holster was different from the one he had tucked away inside his trench coat.

After the Butcher Pete incident, everyone in Manehattan had wanted a lethal weapon. Even the kitchen knives in the supermarket were sold out, but Cold Case knew a pony who knew a pony who could get things discreetly.

“And just as soon as she’s back, she’s gone,” Cold Case muttered, finishing the short article. Princess Twilight hadn’t stayed long, which was probably a good thing. If she was back in the other world, then maybe she would stop the criminals from crossing over. It would lighten his load a little, at the very least.

And as if thinking about work summoned more to be heaped on him, there was a knock at his door. Cold Case scowled, folding the paper up.

“It’s open,” he said, pulling himself closer to the desk so he could lean on his forehooves. His secretary should have stopped any visitors until nine A.M, and she always announced herself after knocking.

The door slowly swung open. If it had made a sound, Cold Case likely wouldn’t have heard it as he was distracted by the fact that one of those zombies turned zombie-pony from the other world opened the door. He nearly drew his revolver on reflex, but stopped as he realized the zombie wasn’t a shambling monster.

Still, even with the clean, tailored suit, the stallion’s smell preceded him. Cold Case’s nose wrinkled, and he took a deep breath before the unicorn entered the room.

“Can I help you, mister?” Cold Case asked, wasting a little of his fresh breath.

“You can call me Capone,” the rotting stallion said, his voice as ragged as sandpaper. Red flesh was exposed under his gray, almost furless skin. The tuxedo and fedora he wore barely helped offset his nightmarish appearance. He shut the door behind him with his magic, which was red like his eyes, though they were hard to see under the milky film. “Don Mozzarella requires your services.”

Cold Case frowned. The don was calling in the favor already.

“What’s the job?”

“Last night someone iced one of our guys right in front of him,” Capone said. The zombie leaned close, the air growing thick with the stench of carrion to the point Cold Case could smell it, even though he tried to not breathe it in. “Skull fragment of the poor guy ended up lodged in the don’s shoulder.”

“Sweet Celestia!” Cold Case exclaimed, wasting the rest of his held air. Ever since the other-worlders had come, obituaries were far too common. “Who’s in the pine jacket? Alfredo, Fettuccine…?”

“Starry Stripes,” Capone said, scowling. “Good kid, and way too young to get whacked.”

“I knew of him,” Cold Case said. A twenty-something year old earth pony stallion who was pretty reserved, had the air of an ex-royal guard, and loved going to the same jazz bar he did. That was about the extent of his knowledge, though. “Do we know who did him in?”

“We don’t,” Capone said, shaking his head slowly. A small piece of skin flaked off like dandruff, revealing the necrosed meat underneath. Cold Case swallowed down his breakfast creeping up his throat. “It’s why we need a private dick to do some poking around.”

“So why me?” Cold Case asked, leaning back in his chair to try and get away from the zombie’s smell. “The cops should handle murder cases.”

“You’re the only private eye who won’t spill Family business to the authorities,” Capone said, waving a forehoof around casually. “That .44 magnum you have also ties you to us. You wouldn’t want to risk the cops taking your new toy, huh?”

And who would be the one to tell the cops he had an illegal firearm. Cold Case knew a threat when he heard it.

“I guess not,” Cold Case said, shaking his head. He patted the space in his trenchcoat where his holster and gun were. “You sure the target was Starry and not the Don? Not to disrespect the dead, but Starry was a pretty average stallion.”

“We’re sure,” Capone replied. “I was on guard duty when he came running up to the mansion in the middle of the night, shouting that someone was after him and that he needed to see the don. Once we get him inside to meet with the boss, there’s a flash on a roof about six hundred yards away. The window shatters and his head fuckin’ pops. That close and we should have heard the gunshot, even indoors. It was a professional killer with a silencer on a rifle. They aren’t in the business of missing. Especially if they could hit him through a window.”

“You saw the shooter?” Cold Case asked.

“No, just the shot they took and the aftermath,” Capone said. “We don’t know who did it or why, which is why we’re coming to you. We don’t even know if the kid had any enemies—from what I was told, he’s only been with the Oregano Family for about nine months now.”

Capone’s mouth twitched, like he had to force down a smile.

“You okay?” Cold Case asked.

“Sorry, just the Italian puns,” Capone said. He opened his suit jacket and pulled out a long, thick brown paper stick stuffed with leaves and stuck it in his mouth. He lit the end opposite his mouth on fire with his horn until it burned ember-orange. Acrid smoke rolled off the thing as the zombie puffed on it, then blew the smoke out. It was at least preferable to the smell of rotting meat. “Anyways, we’ve been talking too long. We’re going to Starry’s home to see if you can dig up anything on him or his killer.”

“We,” Cold Case scoffed at the implication, shaking his head. “Sorry pal, I work alone.”

“Not this time, Detective,” Capone’s tone of voice implied there would be no alternative. He wagged the burning smoke-stick around with his magic and grinned. “Don said this was non-negotiable.”

“Fine,” Cold Case said with a bemoaned sigh. “But after this, tell the Don we’re even for that time I let him off for smuggling pizza past customs.”

“Sure, sure,” Capone chuckled. “You ponies are so damned cute, you know that?”

<>~<>~<>

Twilight stepped around a pothole in the muddy, half-buried road. The road twisted and coiled like a snake up the rocky hills, which were closer than ever since she and Daniel had found the road and started using it to make better time, rather than trekking through the swamp of mud.

They had found the road shortly after their stop at the large fallen tree, and despite nearly an hour and a half having passed, Three Dog still played the music brought from Equestria in a non-stop celebration of their introduction.

Twilight hadn’t stopped smiling and bobbing her head to the beat since the radio had come back on. Her plan was working, at least on Three Dog. Offering the people of the Capital Wasteland gifts that would show off Equestrian culture, and that Equestrians were inclined more to help than harm, could go a long way to win over the opinions of wastelanders. Or at the very least keep bullets from flying at her people when they arrived.

Daniel walked beside her. He had been picking up every object he could manage as practice, and smiled in child-like joy as he slashed a muddy stick through the air like it was a sword while making ‘swoosh’ sounds.

“Enjoying yourself?” Twilight sarcastically asked with a grin.

“Heck yeah!” Daniel cried out. “I think I’m getting good at this.”

He indeed was, though, she wasn’t going to ruin his joy by explaining that telekinesis was a unicorn’s first spell. Even babies like Pumpkin Cake could levitate their toys around.

“Good enough to stop me from doing this?” Twilight asked, grabbing the stick from his magic with her own, then poking him in the shoulder with it.

Daniel gasped in mock horror, grasping at the spot she poked him, mouth agape.

“How dare you!” He recovered after a split second, grinned, then flared his horn, snatching the stick back with his own magic.

Daniel was getting good.

“I wonder how far I can throw this,” Daniel said. He didn’t wait for a reply before he tossed the stick towards the edge of the road. Twilight watched it arc through the air before it clanged against something metal on the side of the road. “Huh, did you hear that?”

“No, must have been the wind,” Twilight rolled her eyes in time with the joking response. “Maybe an old road sign?”

“It would be the first here,” Daniel said. He started to make his way towards the side of the road where the stick lay, and Twilight followed. “We haven’t seen anything like telephone or power lines on this road. Not even half-buried stuff, either.”

Twilight hummed. It had been sheer luck that they had stumbled across the road poking through the mud in the first place.

“Now that you mention it, yeah,” Twilight said. They both arrived at the side of the road, and Twilight saw that Daniel’s guess was right. The stick had impacted a tipped-over and half-buried, rusted, and very faded sign. Twilight squinted her eyes and bit her tongue as she pieced together what it said.

“Car Tunnel, Northbound,” Twilight read aloud. "That's as much as I can make out."

If a tunnel was ahead, then that meant there could be an easy way through the mountain. That would be good, Twilight was tired of walking uphill, and the idea of rock climbing wasn't one she held any enthusiasm for.

And once they were past the rocky hills, it would only be a short trip to the Dunwich Building.

<>~<>~<>

“God-damnit, that isn’t cute,” Capone cursed under his breath as another taxi driver ran away. Capone violently shook his right foreleg in the air in time with his thick smoke-stick dancing in his teeth. “If I still had fingers you’d be seeing my middle one… prick.”

“This happen often?” Cold Case asked. He stood about a half-dozen hooves away from the stallion. Even in the open air of a Manehattan street, Capone was pungent. “I mean, you are a zom–”

Capone wheeled around to glare at him, cutting him off as he stared Cold Case in the eyes.

“Say the Z word and I eat your face, capiche?” Capone growled, sending Cold Case jerking back and nodding. “I’m a ghoul, not a zombie.”

“S-sorry,” Cold Case said, his ears pivoting back as he faced the ground. “Didn’t mean to offend. I didn’t know.”

“Right,” Capone said with a heavy sigh, stepping back and wiping his suit jacket with a hoof. “How would you know? Maybe I should do an interview for the papers so ponies know that not all of the ghouls coming over want to eat your brains.”

Cold Case had seen the tabloids. They had covers like ‘Sewer Zombies are Real!’ and other attention-grabbing front pages. It was easy to hate a ghoul for how they looked and smelled. Cold Case could honestly admit that he was just as guilty as the tabloids in that regard.

“Let me hail a cab,” Cold Case said, stepping up to the edge of the sidewalk. He waved for another taxi, which veered their way. “If this one runs off on us, we can walk.”

Capone said nothing. Cold Case didn’t want to walk all the way to the east side of Manehattan, but he would if it meant solving a case.

As he waited on the cab, Cold Case decided to keep the conversation with Capone going, “That interview doesn’t sound like a bad idea. There’s a reporter I know named Hot Press who would love to write a piece.”

“You’d do something like that for me?” Capone asked skeptically. The taxi stopped, and while the puller of the cart gave Capone a wary look, they didn’t run away.

“I would,” Cold Case said as he nodded sadly. Capone’s world must have been rough if it was doubt-inducing that a stranger could be kind. It was rough. From what little that Cold Case knew, it was rougher than rough. It was an absolute nightmare. “It’s what ponies do for other ponies… even if they’re squishy and smell a little off.”

<>~<>~<>

The car tunnel had to be just ahead. Twilight could see three massive white dishes on large metal constructions peaking over the crest of the mountain.

With every step her anticipation grew at the prospect of no longer walking uphill. Even with the enchanted brace, her right leg still felt wobbly. But they needed to keep going.

She and Daniel rounded a bend in the road and finally laid eyes on their destination.

Twilight’s anticipation disintegrated like a popped balloon.

“Collapsed!” Twilight screamed in sudden, incandescent rage. The Wasteland couldn’t throw her a break, could it? Just a teeny tiny break to let her walk on level ground. Heaps of rubble blocked the entrance to the car tunnel, spilling out into the road beyond to form a tiny hill of boulders and cracked concrete.

Grinding her teeth, Twilight took the first step to start pacing, but Daniel placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Maybe we can make it through there?” he offered, pointing to a metal door half-hidden by the fact it was at an angle to them. The door was set into a small cinder block shed off to the side of the collapsed tunnel, with the shed itself extending into the mountainside.

Twilight’s sudden fury petered out as rapidly as it had come. She let out a sigh and facepalmed at her rashness.

“Oh… yeah,” Twilight said. She was so tired from walking that her exhausted brain had leapt to the defeatist conclusion. Even Equestria had maintenance shafts and emergency exits in their tunnels in case of a collapse. It would make sense if humans built some in their tunnels if they were reinforcing them for a nuclear war.

“Let’s hope it isn’t locked,” Daniel said with a shake of his head. “I suck at lockpicking.”

Twilight chuckled as she walked towards the door with Daniel, opening her backpack with her magic as they walked. Since she had packed the bags, she didn’t even need to look to extract a black metal case the size of a cigarette pack.

“Even if it is, it’s a good thing that I liked to learn about very obscure subjects,” Twilight beamed with confidence as she shook the metal case full of tiny, precision tools. “I got really into the history of Equestrian locksmiths for a few months, so locks became my new crossword puzzle.”

“Twilight,” Daniel said, grinning at her widely. “Did I ever tell you that you never cease to amaze me.”

<>~<>~<>

For as loving and tolerant as he tried to be, Cold Case had to admit that a corpse still stank, no matter if the corpse could still hold a conversation with you. Sitting next to one was almost unbearable. Almost.

Capone had gone quiet after boarding the taxi, allowing Cold Case to dwell on the job thrust on him.

A stallion from one of Equestria’s only crime families had been assassinated right in front of Don Mozzarella by a human weapon—bows and crossbows didn’t produce a flash. The victim had come in the middle of the night seeking protection, so Starry had to know that the killer was after him. Which meant he possibly knew the killer as well.

“I really enjoy Manehattan,” Capone said. Cold Case blinked, coming out of his own thoughts to look at his co-passenger, who stared wistfully out of the carriage window. “Reminds me of Manhattan.”

“Don’t you mean Manehattan? We’re already here.” Cold Case said. Had whatever turned Capone into a walking corpse scrambled his brain? Cold Case was starting to wonder.

Capone let out a weak, broken chuckle.

“Manhattan was a borough in New York City, back home in my world,” Capone said, his voice going extra raspy. “I’m from a slice of it called Little Italy.”

“Our worlds are closely connected, it seems,” Cold Case said. “Baltimare and Baltimore, Fillydelphia and Philadelphia, now Manehattan and Manhattan.”

Cold Case shook his head, working his tongue in his mouth after saying so many similar yet slightly different names in a row.

“Fucking crazy, am I right?” Capone said, using one of those human curse words as he turned away from the window to stare down at his hooves. “So… you ponies are a lot more open about your emotions, right?”

Cold Case nodded slowly. “Bottling them up turns you into a balloon. Keep going and you go ‘pop’… best to let it out.”

Capone closed his eyes, baring his teeth as he quickly blurted. “I cried my eyes out like a little girl when I saw the Statue of Friendship.” He opened his eyes and faced Cold Case. There were tears there.

“Feel better?” Cold Case asked, placing a hoof on Capone’s shoulder. He fought back a wince at touching a rotting corpse, but Capone seemed like he needed the support. “I assume that if our worlds are similar, you have your own Statue of Friendship, and it reminds you of home?”

“Y-yeah,” Capone stuttered, pulling away from the hoof. “But you just accept that our worlds are so similar with no issue? Don’t you think it’s crazy?”

“I used to live in Ponyville,” Cold Case said, rolling his eyes. “After everything I saw there, a universe mirroring my own isn’t that much of a stretch.”

“Riiiiiight,” Capone drawled, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his suit. “Might have to visit that crazy town. It has a reputation.”

It was a well-deserved one, in Cold Case’s opinion.

The taxi slowed and veered towards the side of the road. They had arrived at the apartment where Starry had lived.

“Looks like we’re here,” Cold Case said unnecessarily. He paid the cabbie a generous tip for being the only one to stop for him and Capone, then turned to the ghoul. “Starry lived in 2-B, right?”

“Yes,” Capone replied, exiting the carriage ahead of Cold Case.

The apartment building was a simple three story brick building with fire escapes jutting off the front of the building like balconies. A couple of ponies were even using them as if they were balconies. Cold Case waved to an old Pegasus sitting in a lawn chair on the second story fire escape. He was drinking a bottle of Apple family hard cider through a bendy straw while soaking his back hooves in an old ice-cream bucket full of water.

“You a cop?” The old pegasus bluntly croaked, looking down at Cold Case and Capone with a sneer that only the elderly could produce.

“No, I’m not,” Cold Case replied. “Do you live in apartment 2-A?”

“If this is about the noise complaint,” The old pegasus growled, “it’s my neighbor in 2-B. They’re—”

The entire second story of the apartment building disappeared in a sudden fiery explosion.