Shadowtrot

Chapters

Chapter 1: A Light in the Shadows
Chapter 2: Just a Trot in the Park
Chapter 3: Life of the Party Crasher
Chapter 4: The Storm After the Calm

Chapter 1: A Light in the Shadows

Life was a game that came without instructions. There were dice, tokens, and a stack of little cards with life-changing events that ran the gamut from winning a beauty pageant, to finding yourself carried away on a stretcher with two broken legs and a bullet in the chest. Doc was sadly aware of two facts about the game of life—one, the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card had never fixed broken legs, and two, there were always house rules.

<“Stocks for international medical giant Crash Carriage dropped another two points at the close of the market today, amid fears of lower than expected third quarter sales for the corporation’s western branch. The corporation’s CEO assures investors that the quarterly growth projections will be met for the year.”>

Doc let out a snort at the trideo hologram. The ghostly newscaster floated before him like a miniature specter, a realistic-looking image that existed only between the television’s three-dimensional screen on the wall and the tiny projector within his glasses. He gulped down the remains of his beer, an amber swill as bitter as Doc’s faith in the news. The hologram blurred into a miasma of colors as the translucent newsroom morphed into a three-dimensional projection of a large sports car, the new 2071 Mustang GTX. Around the vehicle darted videos of its performance. It even drew a little brown pony—in the likeness of Doc—behind the wheel of the vehicle as a gimmick to entice him into buying one. However, for only thirty-six grand, he was pretty sure the curvy mare sitting on the hood wasn’t included. He tapped the right side of his glasses. The holographs of his Augmented Reality system turned off and left him visually naked in the real world.

The bar he sat at bore the many scratches and stains of a lifetime of service to drinkers both hard and casual. The scent of alcohol imbued the aged wood. Above the old bar hung dim yellow-white lights, weathered by the caked smoke of several thousand cigarettes over the years.

Doc listened to the cacophony around him; ponies bemoaned about the realities of their weary lives and cheered at their favorite teams playing on the dozen or so trideo TVs around the bar. Somewhere among the crowd gathered here, Doc overheard someone whisper the words Crash Carriage. It was a rumor, nothing more, that the company’s research data was stolen by a group of Trotters. Such rumors floated around a lot in this city; thieves, mercenaries, spies. An underground network of deniable assets for hire. Doc had heard of these ponies. Heck, he had patched more than a few at his clinic when they showed up full of bullets. Still, it all sounded more exciting than his life right now.

He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small, rectangular device—his commlink. Doc tapped a small button on the side and the commlink’s smooth touch-screen awoke. Lights and shapes came together and formed a program that displayed the bar’s available menu. He pushed a digital call button on the screen to get the bartender’s attention.

The bartender walked over with a smile wider than his red tie was long. “Another beer? We can toast to Crash Carriage’s financial troubles,” he offered.

“I don’t see a reason to be happy about that,” Doc said with a dismissive nod. “You know they’re just going to lay off some employees to meet their bottom line.”

“Sure, but come on, Vardo! Wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall of that boardroom meeting?” The stallion circled a hoof in the air excitement. “To see the CEO sweat in front of the stockholders?”

“Harvey, how long have we known each other?” Doc asked him. “Two years? Three? In all that time, why do you insist on calling me by my first name? You know I hate that.”

The yellow stallion smirked as he cracked open another cold one for his friend. He leaned against the bar. “Yes, and in my line of work, two years is plenty of time to get on a first-name basis with a regular customer. Cheer up, chummer. If you can’t take a little satisfaction in the misery of others, then you’re never going to be happy.”

Doc slowly shook his head and sipped the beer. His straight face then broke into a small grin. “You give lousy advice.”

“Yes, but that’s not why my customers come here,” Harvey retorted. He then held up a hoof. “One moment, need to send my new waitress on break.” The bartender placed a hoof to the side of his head. His lips twitched in silence as he stared at the ceiling, eyes out of focus.

Doc never understood the appeal some ponies had with an implanted commlink inside their brain. Any physical repairs or upgrades required additional brain surgery. Poking one's brain matter too many times led to complications. Several tables away, Doc saw a server check her commlink and then wave to Harvey. She trotted off to the back room.

The bartender returned his attention to Doc. “Say, Vardo, how did that blind date go last night?”

Doc hesitated, his eyes looked down at the bottle. “Uh, I rather not talk about it,” he replied.

The bar's front door flew open and banged like a gunshot against the frame. A hush came down over the patrons as eyes looked toward the entrance. Doc saw two rough unicorns stroll into the building like an autumn chill; one was a tall, brown stallion with a frayed biker jacket. The other was a chubby green mare with her mane done up in pigtails. They both openly carried small, tarnished pistols on their belt holsters.

The green mare looked around the room for a solid minute before she spoke. “I’m looking for the rat-bastard called Vardo Wagon!” she shouted.

“And that would be why,” Doc whispered. He put his beer down and shrank down on his seat. Part of him hoped they wouldn’t see him among the crowd. The other part knew he was an idiot for foolish hopes.

The room went silent as the two ganger unicorns walked over to the bar. Their long, lion-like tails held upright resembled those of cats stalking prey. Doc’s eyes met the green mare’s. Her face scrunched tightly into a scowl. She stood up on her haunches, which caused the metal bangles around her legs to clink together several times.

“I can’t believe what you did last night, Wagon!” She jabbed her hoof at his face several times.

Doc took a deep breath. “I apologize, Penny. Was the restaurant’s food really that bad, or was it the movie?” he asked calmly. “It was the movie, wasn’t it? You’re not into romantic comedies?”

“I got two friends who saw you patch up that dreck of a Nighter!” she continued to shout. Her tail twitched back and forth.

“Uh oh. Which member, if I may ask?” Harvey inquired.

Penny glanced at the bartender. “Blood Fang.”

Harvey gave a careful nod. Doc felt out of the loop here. “And Blood Fang is… important?” he asked.

“He’s one of the high-ranking lieutenants in the Nightmare Nighters gang,” Harvey answered in a whisper. “What’d you do, Vardo, make a house call downtown?”

“Wait, the unicorn with the skull makeup?” Doc’s ears shot up straight. “Now hold up! He came into my clinic! All I did was pull a few bullets out of his back and sew him up. Why—”

Penny grabbed Doc by the chest hairs. His lungs seized up with the agony of every stretched follicle as the unicorn yanked him forcefully off his stool. Although he wasn’t a very tall stallion, Doc was still looking down at a very angry pony that seemed stronger than she looked.

“We Discordians spent months planning his murder, you stupid stallion!" the mare shouted. "And you saved his life!”

“Is a public admission of attempted murder really wise, my dear?” Harvey asked.

Doc adjusted his glasses. “Let’s be fair, Penny. He was a paying customer and rent these days ain’t exactly cheap.”

The other ganger drew a pistol and pointed it at Doc’s head. Chairs around the room suddenly squealed across the floor. Several nearby patrons were up, and they held firearms of their own. Doc was pretty sure many of the patrons here had hooves on their gun holsters. It was ‘that’ kind of bar, and a big reason Doc preferred to come here for drinks.

Harvey waved his forehooves wildly in the air. “Whoa, whoa whoa! This is not how we conduct ourselves in my bar! Sir, put the piece away,” Harvey said in a stern voice to the stallion ganger. The pony complied, and in turn the patrons holstered their guns. “Thank you. Blood is a pain in the ass to to clean off the stool fabric. Look, Penny, I’m pretty sure Vardo was mostly unaware of who—”

“Completely unaware,” Doc interrupted.

“Completely unaware of who Blood Fang was. More to the point, if the stallion was able to crawl his way to Doc’s chop-shop after getting shot, he was gonna to survive anyway. Hurting my friend here isn’t going to do anything but make me angry and leave an unpaid tab on my books.”

“Gee, thanks,” Doc flatly muttered under his breath.

Penny stared into Doc's eyes for several seconds. She then released her grip on him. Spared from the threat of having his brains painted all over the bar, Doc watched the two gangers stomp out of the building. Their hooves echoed off the walls. Penny threw the front door open as she left the building. It banged against the frame once more and then returned to its closed position. The silence exited the room after the door shut as the patrons returned to their conversations and drinks.

Doc rubbed the soreness on his chest where Penny had grabbed him. “Well, that happened.”

The bartender sighed as he leaned against the bar. “I guess Penny won’t be returning your calls for a second date.”

“No shit? Wouldn’t have guessed that,” Doc said with a snort. He picked up his commlink. “So much for trying those cheap blind-dating websites. I’m just glad I have a friend to keep me from getting shot by these crazy gang mares.”

Harvey shrugged as if it were nothing. “Eh, you’re a decent guy. Maybe a bit too nice when you don’t ask questions of anyone who walks into your shop with three bullets in the back.”

Doc chuckled. He touched a few digital buttons on his device and electronically paid off his night’s tab, plus tip. “Reckon I ought to add that to my patient questionnaire.”

“Hey, as long as you keep treating my gout,” Harvey stated, “You’ll always have a safe place here.”

Doc let out an amused snort as he got up from his seat. “Nah, staying here with all this hooch is a bad idea.”

“You going to be alright getting yourself home? You want to borrow my gun?”

“...Nah, I’ll be fine. I’m not actually unarmed,” Doc said as he slid his commlink into his jacket pocket. He walked towards the front door.

Harvey frowned. “Could’ve fooled me!” he shouted after him.

As Doc reached the exit, he looked over his shoulder at his friend. “I just have to fool the gangers.” This confidence, however, assumed that he was inherently smarter than the gangers.

Seaddle buzzed, growled, blinked, and glowed with life under the cloudy night sky. The big neon sign above the tavern that read ‘The Wallbangerz’ was one of many that basked everything around in bright, flashing colors. The streets were lined with aged cars; their headlights illuminated groups of rough-looking ponies that shared cigarettes and chatter with each other. The thick, black clouds in the sky threatened a potential drizzle of acid rain. The sulfur smell was unmistakable.

Doc tapped the right edge of his glasses and the AR system came back online. Holographic objects sprouted up from nothing and overlaid themselves on his surroundings. As he looked around, each digital object his eyes panned over spoke to him in icons and text. He saw public profiles from the commlinks ponies used, the business hours of Harvey’s bar behind him, and even a weather report that pointed to the clouds above.

Then the ads showed up. The intrusively bright digital objects zipped and swooped in from Doc’s peripheral vision. They wiggled and danced for his attention to show the current sales and new items at each respective storefront they represented. Doc walked down the street and avoided eye contact with the hounding virtual objects.

He made a mental note to upgrade his ad-blocking program tomorrow.

Several blocks down the street, Doc turned the corner. The road here was quieter, with fewer cars and ponies milling about. The few sleepy holographic objects around lazily floated by him as he walked up to the bus stop. A faded sign marked the location, one with ‘245’ painted on it. A nearby rusted stump marked where a bench had once been long ago. He looked up at the bus sign. A little icon of a cartoonish blue bus yawned to reveal the current bus schedule. Doc scanned down the holographic chart for his route. He found it, but the information depressed him. Bus 245 was running fifteen minutes late. Doc let out a sigh as he dismissed the schedule with an eye roll. The bus always ran late.

The sound of an engine rumbled from behind. An old, rust-colored Mustang convertible with four passengers drove up to the bus stop. Doc recognized the two Discordian gangers from the bar in the back seats. The group jumped out of the car and walked over to him with a casual swagger. Doc took a couple steps back, but the gang was clearly there to grab his attention.

In the most literal sense of the term as they surrounded him.

“You waiting for the bus, chummer?” the unfriendly-looking driver asked.

Doc adjusted his glasses. “Yeah, but it looks like the short one arrived.” He bit his lip. This was one of those moments where he immediately regretted that his mouth ran faster than his brain.

The driver swung a forehoof at Doc’s face. It connected against his cheek and he staggered backwards into the pole with a soft thud. Then a second swing caught him in the stomach. The air violently popped out of Doc’s lungs. He stumbled sideways several steps, but raised his forehooves to block as he gasped for breath. Doc reached inside himself mentally. There was an invisible field of energy he knew how to tap into, to manipulate. He grasped this energy to create an effect. The scent of ozone permeated the air around him and a faint light emanated from his forehooves as he pulled this mystical energy together.

Penny leaped on Doc’s shoulders and the two tumbled to the cold, dirty concrete. One of Penny’s bangles clattered away across the floor when their legs scraped against the rough ground. The glow in Doc’s hooves winked out like an unplugged lamplight as he was pinned underneath the mare.

“You’re a damned mage?!” Penny shouted out. She thumped Doc hard on the head. “How the drek did I not notice that?”

Doc tried to get up, but the other three gangers grabbed him. He was still winded from the earlier blow and his lungs burned with each labored breath. Too weak to resist, he muttered, “Well, that’s what foreplay is for—”

“Shut it, dirt horse!” the driver interrupted with a hard kick to Doc’s shoulder. “The hell you doing working with Nighters?”

“Hey, it’s like... my friend said,” Doc answered, this time carefully, “I didn’t know who... who Blood Fang was. I’m just a street doc. Figure... I’ve patched up plenty of your friends, too.”

Penny spat upon the sidewalk. She limped as she stood up. “Yeah, well maybe you should get to know the gangs around here. We ain’t too keen on ponies helping our rivals. This is our territory, and helping the enemy makes you our enemy too!”

“Yeah. I reckon that much is clear,” Doc replied with a nod.

“I don’t think you do,” Penny countered. The mare waved at the youngest ganger. He walked over to the Mustang and pulled out a length of iron chains from the back seat. The other three pulled Doc up on his hooves and shoved him up against the bus stop pole. This was about the point where he regretted not resisting a bit more.

“Uh, is this really necessary?” an alarmed Doc asked.

“No,” Penny replied with a dark smile. “I just think it’s funny. Also, it’s payback for the ‘short bus’ comment.”

She leaned closer with the limp still noticeable in her step. The unnatural-looking smile bothered Doc; he saw nothing sincere in it. He failed to notice Penny wind up a hoof. She punched him hard in the gut.

Doc sputtered and coughed. The street spun around in his blurred vision.

The commanding rumble of an engine interrupted the beat-down. A gray and rusted pickup truck turned the corner and drove toward the group. Its high-beams flashed several times. Doc turned away from the dazzling light in his eyes. The gangers ducked down behind their vehicle. Doc pulled against the chains. The metal links creaked against one another, but he was held firmly in place.

The vehicle slowed down as it passed the gangers. A mare with a pumpkin mask and a pistol hung out of the passenger window. With a hollering ‘whoop whoop!’ she fired three shots into the Mustang. Flecks of paint burst from the holes where the bullets struck the car. The rival vehicle sped up and thundered down the street. The gangers hastily jumped into their damaged car to give chase.

“Hey, what about me?!” Doc shouted.

“What about you?” the driver replied without looking back. He slammed the gas pedal and the engine gave mighty roar. The tires shrieked loudly and spun until they found traction. The Mustang sped off to give chase.

Doc strained some more against the chains, but was unsuccessful. Fatigued, he resigned himself to his fate for now. “Well. Not the worst ending to a date that I’ve had.”

The street was quiet again. Minutes passed by Doc without regard. There was no help to be found around him. He couldn’t reach his commlink in the jacket pocket, and his AR display uselessly told him that his bus was still delayed. At least the predicted acid rain hadn’t come down.

After several more uneventful minutes passed, none of which Doc bothered to track mentally, he felt the cold barrel of a large caliber gun pressed against the back of his neck. This caught his immediate attention, as guns pointed at him often did.

“Commlink’s in my left pocket,” Doc blurted out. His heartbeat pounded in his chest. “Might be easier to loosen the chains first.”

“Are you a doctor?”

It was a mare’s voice, one that was deep and firm. Doc turned his head to look at her, but he couldn’t see more then the shoulder of a dark gray pony. “Yes ma’am. Sure as my cutie mark is the Rod of Asclepius.”

“Rod of what? Oh, that snake on a stick?”

Doc felt the barrel of her gun lift away and then tap his cutie mark. He gave her a nod. “Yeah, that’s the mark. If you’re curious as to why I’m currently tied to this post, well, it’s a funny story.”

“I really don’t care,” the mare replied. “I just need a street doc. Are you available or not?”

Doc tugged at the chains, but they still refused to yield. “That depends entirely on your generosity at the moment.”

The mare fiddled with the chains. They clanked against the pole several times and then finally came loose. Doc let out a sigh of relief as his binds fell unceremoniously onto the concrete ground with a metallic ring. He turned around to get a good look at his savior.

She was bigger than Doc—a dark gray unicorn with a torn, sleeveless denim jacket. Her purple, spiked mane had long bangs in the front that flanked the notable crack running halfway down the tip of her horn. The injury spoke to him in a way only a doctor could hear; a hard blow, delivered by a blunt object. There was dried blood all along the edges of the laceration.

He had dealt with horn fractures plenty of times. In his medical experience, it was one of the more painful injuries for a unicorn to sustain. That was his professional opinion though, as this mare steadily held up a sawed-off shotgun with her hooves.

Doc adjusted his glasses and pointed at her shotgun. “Mind letting me see your horn? I assume that is why you need a doctor.”

“Yeah,” was the simple reply from the unicorn. She slowly lowered her weapon.

He stepped closer and reached up to brush her bangs aside. The mare flinched. Doc held up a hoof to assure her and continued his observations. “Just taking a look at the damage. Hmm, it doesn’t look too bad. No chipped pieces, and it ain’t oozing anymore.”

“But you can fix it, right?”

“Well, my schedule has been… freed up, so yes. I certainly can,” he said, tongue in cheek.

The mare let out a loud sigh. “Stop with the jokes. I’m not in the mood.”

Doc smiled and motioned at her to follow him. His apartment was a good distance away, but at this point the bus wasn’t going to show. “I find a little humor to be good medicine. It keeps my patients’ mind off their troubles. Name’s Doc, by the way. Doc Wagon.”

“Doc? A street doctor named Doc?” she asked as she followed. “You know how stupid that sounds, right?”

“Yeah… my parents weren’t very creative with names,” he admitted with an embarrassed grin. Doc was lying, but he hated his actual given name. “How about you? I like to make introductions with all my patients. The job’s easier with some small talk.”

The mare hesitated with her answer. “Switchblade,” she finally said. The mare stuffed her shotgun into the backpack she carried.

“Mighty interesting name. I take it that’s your gang name?” Doc caught a glimpse of the bag’s contents under the passing street light. There were reflections of several tiny metallic objects bundled together under a mess of knotted wires. It looked like a mass of black spaghetti and tangled tools.

“Yeah, the Nightmare Nighters. So you best respect the name,” Switchblade warned.

Doc held in a small laugh. The beating he received by one angry gang was more than enough for tonight’s quota, so this ‘respect’ concept was worth a try. Something else he thought to try later was to move to another neighborhood.

[]-----[]-----[]

The apartment buildings where Doc lived didn’t look dilapidated, but they certainly looked their age; the cracked brick walls, the peeled grayish paint, the dirty windows... The paint along the trim wasn’t even a consistent tint. The dark iron bars over the windows created an atmosphere of imprisonment. Several of the street lights flickered with a dull electric gasp. In the distance Doc heard the occasional rumble of a car down a side street. He stopped to look, but no vehicles turned down this particular road.

Switchblade said nothing for the entire walk. Doc asked a couple of questions earlier about her medical history, but she gave no answers to either of them. Ponies that came to him were often unwilling to answer personal questions. After all, most of them were gangers and he was an unlicensed doctor. Trust rarely factored into that.

Doc turned and walked into an alley behind the building. The wide passage ended at a small, barely lit lot. Broken glass and torn food wrappers lined the sides. Four old and junked cars sat quietly in the lot like tombs. The faded tarps over the vehicular husks twitched with a passing breeze.

The stallion reached an unmarked metal door. Beneath the peeled black flecks of paint were long stains of rust. Doc carefully pushed an empty glass bottle out of the door’s way and slid his key into the lock. The hinges groaned as he pushed the door open into the darkness beyond. “Pardon the location,” he told the unicorn. “It’s not much to look at from out here, but I promise the inside is clean.”

The first room beyond the door was small and plain. It looked like a waiting area, with a single, faded blue couch and three folding chairs. A stack of old magazines sat neatly on one of the chairs. With no windows, the only light in the room came from the lamppost outside. The dim yellow light gave the room a sickly look. Doc walked across the room to a wooden door. He slid this one to the side, the door much quieter than the previous one. He reached into the darkness and flipped on a light switch. Two white lights above illuminated a cozy and tidy little clinic.

“Drek, thought you were kidding about the clean part,” Switch whispered.

It was a simple setup—a dentist-style padded chair with trays of surgical tools sat beside a long, plastic bed covered in exam table paper. To one side was a long countertop where dozens of tools, jars, and bottles sat in a meticulous order. The cabinets above and below were ajar and filled with packaged medical supplies. At the far corner was another door beside a tall metal device used to administer an I.V. This little clinic was nearly immaculate, a point that Doc took pride in.

“Okay, so… what’s first?” Switch asked when she stepped into the clinic. She seemed apprehensive, and kept her distance from the furniture.

Doc turned on an overhead light on a swiveling metal arm and pulled it over the bed. “Please lie down here on your stomach, and I’ll patch up your horn. It’s a simple procedure, I’ve done it plenty of times.” He opened some drawers and assembled tools from them on a metal tray; cotton swabs, clamps, sewing needles, superglue, and gauze. From another drawer, he unwrapped a syringe with a sizable hypodermic needle.

Switchblade dropped her backpack and retreated three steps. “Whoa, hey! What is that for?”

“Tetanus shot. I give one to all my new patients on account that most don’t have immunization records, but often have intimate contact with sharp metal bits,” Doc explained.

“Is there an alternative?” Switchblade asked.

He gave a light shrug. “Let your horn get infected. Then saw it off and live life as an earth pony.”

“Ugh, that’s worse. Fine, gimme the shot.”

“Harsh,” an indignant Doc commented.

Switch laid down on the bed slowly with her shotgun by her side. Doc ignored the firearm and took a seat for himself on a wheeled stool. With his commlink out, he started the bed’s sensor suite to monitor Switchblade’s vitals for him. A holographic chart of green numbers appeared in the upper-left corner of his glasses’ Heads-Up Display. Beneath the chart a tiny graph drew out her heart rate. It was faster than normal, but not a concern to him.

The silvery tray gleamed under the light as Doc brought it close to him. He unwrapped an alcohol wipe to clean his patient’s fur over her right deltoid muscle. He then picked up the syringe and stabbed the rubber cap of a small glass bottle. A clear liquid flowed into the syringe as Doc pulled back on the plunger with his teeth.

“Alright, just look away now. It’ll hurt less if you don’t watch,” he said as he gave the syringe a tiny squirt. Doc jabbed the needle deep into Switch’s foreleg muscle with steady hooves. The serum injected so smoothly that she didn’t react until Doc removed the needle.

Her reaction was to jump back and kick Doc in the head with a hind-leg. “OW!! Damnit, that shit hurt!” Switchblade yelled.

Doc wheeled back on his stool, left temple clutched in a hoof. He didn’t see where the syringe tumbled off to, but at the moment he didn't care. “Right, I forgot that needles are supposed to tickle,” Doc countered with an eye roll.

He got up and grabbed the metal tray before it fell off the bed. With a sigh, Doc pulled his stool back into place. He rubbed the sore spot where he was kicked. “Switch, please lie back down. The next shot isn’t going to be as bad—”

“What is it?!” the unicorn interrupted. She leaned away at the far edge of the bed. Her tail stood straight up like a pole.

Doc held up a second syringe. “This is an anesthetic. I don’t have to inject it very deep into your horn, and it’ll numb the pain while I patch it up. That sound alright to you?”

Switch gave the needle a good hard stare before she finally lay back down on the bed. Doc heard her grumble something about his WiFi as she pulled out her own commlink to use.

The numbers on his AR display jumped up a few points, an indication she was still very nervous. Doc found it amusing that a big, tough ganger was afraid of needles, but he reminded himself that it was a very common fear. No one enjoyed being stabbed by sharp objects. Doc injected the anesthetic near the wound with steady hooves and then got to work on the damage.

He cleaned out the laceration and then used a pair of clamps to hold the crack closed. He pondered what had happened that landed this unicorn with an injury like this. His first guess was that she had gotten involved in a gang fight somewhere and took a baseball bat to the horn.

“So, what do you do for a living?” Doc asked her as he applied a gel-like glue to the wound.

“Mmph, I fix stuff; drones, cars, computers...” Switch still sounded mad, but her eyes were focused on the mute Matrix game she played.

“Ah, so you’re a mechanic then?” he followed up. “Well that’s honest work. Which garage chain; Pep Colts? Maneke?”

The unicorn laughed at his question. “Pfft, as if! I don’t work for any chump garage chain that treats employees like parts. I fix stuff for the Nighters. They respect me, and I get a cut of the extra loot they sell in the Shadows.”

“The… Shadows?” Doc had heard the term many times before, but usually from patients filled with bullet holes and shady cyberware in their bodies. Asking those patients questions about the Shadows tended to get dirty looks and the business end of a gun barrel pointed at him.

Switchblade actually looked up at him this time. “What, you never heard of the Shadows?”

Doc nodded his head. “Oh, I have. I just don’t know much about it, other than that’s where Trotter mercenaries who make more money than I do come from. I try not to pry into the lives of my dangerously armed patients.”

“And yet you’re chatting away with me.” Switch tapped her shotgun.

Doc paused what he was doing, hesitant to continue. “Er...”

“Sarcasm, Doc. I’m only messing with ya,” Switch said with a little grin. She motioned for him to keep working. “So, turnabout is fair play; what do you really do?”

“Um, is it not obvious? I’m just a street doctor,” he replied in confusion.

Switch tapped some buttons on her commlink’s screen. “Really? Says here you got a couple pretty old contacts in Crash Carriage. And one for a... Harvey Wallbanger? Ooh, this one is labeled ‘parents’.”

Doc put his tools down and grabbed his own commlink. “What in tarnation? Did you just—” Before he finished his statement, he shut his commlink down. The digital vitals disappeared from the HUD display in a blink.

“Aww, but Mom left you like, three messages,” Switch teased.

Doc let out a frustrated huff at the unicorn. He tossed his commlink on the countertop and picked up the tools to finish the procedure. “I get it, you’re also a savvy hacker. You don’t need to mess with my personal stuff to show off.”

Switch poked him in the chest. “Oh, don’t be such a shirt. You’re just to easy to mess with. Most street docs I’ve met are cold bastards that work out of blood-soaked chop-shops, and they always take payment up front. You’re like… nice and stuff.”

Doc gently wrapped the last of the gauze around her horn and held it in place with a cloth sleeve. He tossed the clamps onto the tool tray. “Well, you did save me from my earlier predicament at the bus stop, so I reckon this is just repaying the favor.”

“See? What kind of street doc lets a little favor get in the way of profit?” Switchblade asked. She sat up and gently prodded the dressing wrapped around her horn. She then wiggled her head a bit. “Well, you got the skills. How come you don’t work for an actual hospital?”

“It’s a long story,” Doc replied. He dumped several tools in a jar of blue liquid and washed his hooves. “I’d rather not get into it. Anyway, your horn will be fine. Keep the gauze clean and change it out daily. I have some more here if you need them. I figure your horn will be fully healed in about a week.”

“In a week?! Geez, that’s going to cut into my nonexistent modeling career.” She slid off the bed onto her hooves. “Well, maybe I’ll send my friends your way next time they get their asses kicked. You do body mods?”

“Not really,” Doc answered. “I mean, I could do minor alterations, but I just don’t have the tools for installing anything fancy like cyberware.”

Switch shrugged. She picked up her things and slung them over her back. “Well, guess you’re alright. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Doc walked her to the door, where she gave him a light jab in the shoulder on the way out. Neither said a word, but he watched her disappear quietly into the alleyway shadows. The creaky door groaned as he shut and locked it tight. Doc went back to his clinic and retrieved his commlink from the counter. He booted his device up again. Sure enough, there were three video messages awaiting him, all from his mother.

The older cream mare had dark circles under her eyes. That was his mom alright. She rarely slept well.

<“Hello Vardo! It’s mom calling. I wanted to see how you’re doing. Your father’s here too, he just got back from the doctor’s office. He’s got a lot of nerve damage in his leg, probably gonna lose it soon. We’re trying to finance for a prosthetic one, but you know how insurance is. I dunno, we’ll work something out. So, how have you been, sweetie? You getting enough to eat? I haven’t heard from you in a while, so I thought maybe you found a nice mare and you’re spending all your time with her. I hope that’s the case! Well, call me when you can, we miss you lots. Good night!”>

Doc abstained from playing to the remaining two messages. He was sure they were more of the same, so he typed himself a note to call his mom tomorrow.

As he looked around, he felt that his little clinic was now out of place. It was too clean to be called a back-alley chop-shop, and Doc had plenty of training to be above the usual medical dropout ‘butcher’, but... this place felt too small and awkward to be a respectable clinic like those among most hospital networks. Why was he struggling to get by in his life?

Perhaps what Switch, and Harvey earlier, had said about him rang true; he was too nice. Was that so wrong? Doc shook his head. He refused to let himself get caught up in self-doubt this late at night.

He turned off the lights and used the brightness of his commlink to reach the far door in the corner of his clinic. On the other side was a narrow set of old, wooden stairs that led up into darkness. Doc climbed the creaking staircase and at the top, he flipped a switch to turn on the lights of his little studio apartment.

It was a cluttered living space; the central room served as both his living room and bedroom, separated only by a heavy curtain. To his left was the small kitchenette and to the right the bathroom. The little alcove beside the bathroom door served as the world's saddest-looking closet. Boxes of unused medical supplies were piled high against the walls all over the apartment. The bed was unmade, with one of his two pillows up against the sole window in the apartment.

Doc walked to the kitchenette to make a quick sandwich. The droning hum of the fridge was the only sound that competed with the clip-clop of his hooves on the linoleum floor. He unwrapped a bag of sliced bread and dropped two pieces into his old toaster. At the push of a lever, the little filaments within heated up to a soft orange glow. Doc then retrieved the block of soy cheese and a bag of tofu cubes from the small fridge. It was then that his toaster spat out the bread onto the countertop, untoasted, and angrily sparked in protest for having been misused.

Which, if Doc understood it, was anytime he tried to make toast.

He reached over and unplugged the malfunctioning toaster. Startled, he sat down on one of the two chairs by the miniature table in the corner to ponder his evening. One hoof idly scooped a few tofu cubes and shoved them in his mouth as he thought.

After getting blacklisted thanks to his last job at Crash Carriage, no respectable hospital in this city would hire him despite his qualifications. It was a black spot, a mark of death on his career. Corporations only cared about their bottom line, and Doc was labeled as a threat against that. He had been cast between the cracks of the medical field, forced to live as an unlicensed street doctor that took in mercenaries, gangers, and possible killers to make rent each month. Perhaps he needed to consider embracing a darker side and work more closely with the mercs?

Well, servicing these shady folks had taught Doc a few things about the Shadows. He also already lived in the danger of getting shot, beaten, and arrested for providing them with medical aid. All successful Trotters lived by their sharp wits... but Doc had to be realistic. He survived primarily by luck. He hesitated to join the criminal element, but one big aspect of the business enticed him—the Shadows paid a lot.

[]-----[]-----[]

Harvey’s bar was busy as usual; the haze of smoke wafted through the air, and the murmurs of conversation dripped off the tables. The smell of food and drinks rolled around as servers brought trays of prepared soy-based meals to their hungry guests. It was nearly five in the evening, and the bar was filled with patrons. The events and thoughts of the previous night had brought Doc back here for some risky information. He pulled up to a stool at the bar and waved for his friend to come over.

Harvey did a double-take when he saw Doc and galloped over. He smiled at his friend as he leaned up against the bar. “Vardo! Glad to see you’re still kicking around, chummer! What brings you here so early? Slow day, or is Penny still harassing you?”

Doc shook his head. He whispered to his friend. “I’m looking for a fixer, the ‘Shadow’ kind.”

The bartender’s joyous expression quickly melted off. He glanced around and then lowered his head. “Uh, Vardo, why are you looking for one?”

“I need a silhouette repaired,” Doc replied in a flat tone. “Why do you think, Harv? I’ve decided to become a Trotter.”

“No... you, a Trotter?” Harvey looked quite skeptical. “You sure about this? Do you even know what they do?”

Doc nodded confidently. “They’re deniable assets. Hired by anonymous suits to perform various tasks of corporate espionage.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow. “Did you just Google that?”

“I might have,” Doc replied, tongue-in-cheek. He cleared his throat. “Look, you know what Crash Carriage did to my reputation. I’ve been living here two years and can’t even strike a job with an after-hours clinic. My so-called chop-shop gets broken into every six months, and soon my pop’s gonna be a tripod because his insurance won’t cover a prosthetic leg. I need the money.”

“Well yeah, I know all that. Err, not the part about your father’s leg,” the bartender said. He opened a beer bottle and served it to Doc. “It’s just… well, this is a real dangerous profession you’re undertaking. I mean, you could easily get fragged on one of these jobs. And that’s not the worst that can happen to you. Are you sure you understand what you’re getting into?”

He wasn’t a gambling pony, but Doc believed that Harvey knew a bit more than he was letting on. “I reckon you could tell me exactly what I’m getting into from personal experience.”

“Yeah, I could…” Harvey trailed off.

The two stared at each other for several seconds. Harvey broke eye contact first and sighed. “Yeah. I could.”

Doc crossed his forelegs together. “I believe we have an understanding, then,” he said with a sly grin. “So, can I count on you? I just need one job, enough to help my dad out. I reckon you get some kind of finder’s fee out of the deal, so it ain’t like you’re doing me a freebie.”

The bartender snorted. “Alright, but I’m charging my full rate for this. I consider you a friend, but this is business.”

Doc nodded in silent agreement.

“Well, let’s get down to brass tacks,” Harvey stated. He straightened up and crossed his forelegs. “You got any skills besides handling a gun and a medical degree?”

“Yeah, I know a few tricks.” Doc pulled out his apartment key, took a deep breath, and with a quick motion he scraped the key across his foreleg. Pain shot up his leg, but he grimaced through it. He watched Harvey’s reaction as blood appeared from the cut Doc inflicted on his own leg. His friend remained silent.

Doc put the other forehoof over his cut and closed his eyes. He mentally reached out to the invisible energy that flowed all around him. He grabbed wisps of this energy and shaped it together into a specific form. He focused this shape on the cut he had given himself. In his mind, Doc envisioned that the energy was thread and he stitched it across his wound. A faint green glow appeared under Doc’s hoof. It was warm like the morning sun on his face. When he completed the spell, the light faded. He lifted his hoof and revealed his leg, uninjured. The cut had been completely healed. Doc felt a little tired after that, but he looked up at his friend with a proud grin.

“Okay, that… that’s a pretty decent trick,” Harvey stammered, his eyes wide as he gave a low, appreciative whistle and poked at Doc’s rejuvenated skin. “When did you awaken?”

“It was years ago,” Doc answered as he reminisced. “Real early in my college days. This silver mane of mine? Not even my original color. I awoke during a weekend-long cram session without sleep. Totally messed up my dorm room and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. It took me a few years before I found a mentor to teach me how to use even just the basics of magic.”

Harvey tilted his head. “Really? It shouldn’t have been hard for you to find a teacher. Lots of earth ponies awaken. It’s common knowledge.”

Doc gave a slow shrug. "Yeah well, the government and all megacorporations require you to register with them; you get put on a list. I just don’t like the idea of some watchdog agency keeping track of me cause I can heal a paper cut without a band-aid. I wasn’t even a registered mage with Crash Carriage. I’m damn lucky they never found out,” Doc explained. He took a deep drink of the beer. “I’d probably spend the next five years in a ten-by-ten cell block for dodging their stupid laws.”

Harvey shook his head. “Fair enough. Any other surprises about you that I should know?”

“I know a couple combat spells,” Doc answered. “Nothing flashy, just something that can stun most ponies. I only studied defensive magic under my second mentor during my medical residency.”

“Alright, well, give me a minute to check with some contacts.” The bartender excused himself for a moment and left the bar.

Doc took a couple more sips of the beer. He glanced around; hopefully his spell was subtle enough that no one noticed. The patrons around him appeared to be involved with their own conversations. If someone spied on him, Doc couldn’t see them.

A few minutes later Harvey returned with a commlink. “Alright, Vardo. A pony of your skillset is pretty valuable in the Shadows. I’ll hook you up with a Johnson.”

Victory was in Doc’s hooves, though it felt too easy. “Oh? So you are going to be my fixer?”

“I’m retired,” the bartender snapped at him. Harvey typed something into his commlink. “My cutie mark is a drink mixer, not a... whatever a fixer’s mark would look like. Still, even when you leave the job, it never leaves you. Goes the same for Trotters.”

Doc looked on with excitement. He hadn’t predicted that he would jump into the Shadows this quickly. “I expected that you’d try a little harder to talk me out of this idea. Why’d you cave in so fast?”

Harvey put his commlink down. “Take a quick glance at the unicorn sitting alone at that table behind you, the one wearing the overalls. He’s an undercover cop waiting for a bribe. The zebra at the end of the bar is planning to elope with her marefriend to Cali. The pegasus in the corner wearing the fez? Yeah, he’s been Googling the history of cummerbunds for the past hour. I’m a bartender, Vardo. Personal info is my business. I know things, like how stubborn you are. I’d rather get you started on an easy job instead of watching your body bag show up on the morning trideo news.”

“Huh. History of cummerbunds you say?” Doc commented as he glanced at the pegasus. He looked back at Harvey’s commlink. “I thought your commlink was in your head?”

“Keep your legit business separate from the Shadows, trust me,” the bartender warned him. “Now, I’ve put out some feelers for light work. If I get a bite, I will call you with the info. Until then, go put on something nondescript. Wouldn’t want a rent-a-cop ID-ing you on private property.”

“Thanks, Harvey,” Doc said as he got up.

The bartender shook his head. “Yeah, yeah. You’re welcome. You know, it probably would be safer for you to go on a second date with Penny.”

Doc thought to respond to Harvey’s statement, but in all honesty, he felt pretty sure that statement was true.

[]-----[]-----[]

The drizzle of rain upon the Seaddle streets glowed with a sheen under the neon lights. Water flowed down city streets like miniature rivers into drains beneath the walking crowds of ponies and umbrellas. Cars sped by; their tires splashed puddles as they traveled. The city bus rumbled to a stop outside a small corner diner. The digital driver system clicked and whirred as it watched the raindrops slowly streaked down the windshield.

Harvey’s message said to arrive at this diner by ten o’clock and Doc was only minutes from missing the deadline thanks to another late bus. He hopped off the vehicle and held his black jacket over his head as he trotted into the establishment. It was a typical generic diner; plastic potted plants hung off the ceiling, faded posters on the walls depicted faraway pastoral scenes, and the gray, tiled floor had a permanent grease-like scent. The place was nearly devoid of customers save for two tables at the front with a couple of ponies at each one. The patrons spoke in hushed tones.

The old waitress at the podium leaned lazily against it. She looked up from her commlink to address Doc. “May I help you?”

He nodded. “Yes, I’m with the Johnson party.”

The waitress looked down at her commlink and fiddled with the touch screen. She pointed him to the long booth all the way in the far corner. “Last table there, hon.”

“Thank you.” Doc walked past her towards the booth.

The single lamp light that hung above the table gave a yellow glow to the face of the three ponies that sat here; to his left were a zebra stallion in a brown serape and a pegasus mare with a pirate hat. On the right, a young earth pony colt with goggles. Doc sat down on the latter side and gave the group a friendly wave. The zebra nodded, but otherwise no one said a word to him. After a third of a minute, he decided to break the silence with an introduction.

“Name’s Doc. I’m a medic and an awakened pony,” he whispered with his forehooves together on the table. “I uh, know some defensive magic to help the team.”

“Bah, you’re no big deal,” the pegasus scoffed in a gravelly voice.

Doc wanted to ask her about the hat. She also wore a heavy patchwork jacket and an eyepatch that hung around her neck, but that pirate hat stood out like it came from a costume party. Underneath the clothes, she appeared to be a short, skinny orange pegasus with a long, wavy red mane.

“Well, what’s your name?” Doc asked. He chickened out on the hat.

“I am Springboard Jackie!” she proclaimed as she sat up. “Mighty pirate and the deadliest pegasus with a wingblade this side of Seaddle.”

“Riiight…” Doc doubtfully noted. He shifted his attention next to the zebra. “And you are?”

The slouched zebra brushed back his blond mane. “Manco Correo, señor,” he replied politely.

Doc paused a moment to recall his college school Espoñol classes. He thought he heard a Mexicolt accent in the zebra’s voice. “And what is it you do?”

“I am a mail pony. I deliver the mail,” Manco answered.

’Are these Trotters or did Harvey set me up to get punked?’ Doc thought. He noticed that Manco’s eyes had thin, copper-like wiring instead of veins; a subtle tell that the zebra had cybernetic eyes. It was a very common modification that ponies got these days, but real-looking cyberware like these eyes were quite expensive. They moved as fluidly as natural eyes did.

“¿Que pasa? ¿Tengo algo en mi cara?” Manco asked him.

“Uh, no. It’s just... no one sends mail anymore. Well, packages maybe.” Doc stopped staring at his eyes and turned to the remaining member, the young earth pony. “Anyway, how about you?”

The blueish-gray colt barely looked fourteen, although he did have his cutie mark—a pair of keyboards. His attention was invested in some kind of game on his commlink. The colt paused it long enough to look up at him behind his goggles. “Ghost Hoof. Decker.” He returned to his game without further elaboration.

Doc wanted to ask him what a decker was, but a new pony sauntered up to the table.

A middle-aged earth pony mare stood before the group; she had a sandy coat and a long, brown mane combed to one side. Her well-fitted black business suit looked quite out of place in a cheap diner such as this. Doc felt sure that she was the Johnson the group was waiting for.

“Evening. You may address me as Mrs. Jay. Now, let’s get down to business,” the mare said calmly as she sat down next to Doc. “The job is a simple recovery operation. I need a team to discreetly enter a warehouse and recover some medical records for my client. I assume no one here has reservations with breaking and entering?”

Everyone shook their head no. Doc followed in kind, even though he had second thoughts about planning a robbery in a diner with complete strangers. Was he crazy? Well, crazier than he was usually accused of? Probably.

“Very good,” the Johnson said. She pulled out her commlink. A map of Seaddle’s port district lit up on the display. “Your target is on 55th and E Street. Retrieve the contents of storage bin STR-41235. Message me when you have secured the goods and we’ll exchange payment for the contents in the alley behind the diner. Any questions?”

Jackie was the first to speak. “Sounds like a drek run. How much is the job worth?”

“Five thousand nuyen in total,” Mrs. Jay replied.

Manco held up a hoof next. “How long do we have?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

Doc pondered the objective of the job. He was curious to know who wanted medical records, but one of the tips that Harvey gave him was never to ask for the identity of a Johnson or their client. Trotting was meant to be anonymous. However, he had a good notion on what the records were of, based on the location of the building and the bin number.

“We’ll do the job for six grand,” Doc said.

The other Trotters stared at him, but Mrs. Jay smiled. “What value am I getting for my money?” she asked.

“We’ll have the records in twenty-four hours, and without the owner knowing they’re even gone,” he answered with a confident tone.

Mrs. Jay leaned back in her seat. “Very well, six thousand nuyen for delivery in twenty-four hours. I’m sending you all the relevant info.” She tapped some buttons on her commlink's screen.

Doc's commlink lit up with a request to receive a file. He clicked the accept button and in seconds he had the address of the target and Mrs. Jay’s contact information to arrange the pickup. The other Trotters appeared to have received the same file request.

“I will be seeing you all soon,” the Johnson said. She got up, pocketed her commlink, and left the diner without looking back.

As Doc watched her go, he noticed her cutie mark—a stack of coins on a book. It had caught his attention because hard currency was all but out of circulation in Equestria these days.

Jackie leaned forward and pointed a hoof at Doc. “Alright, Dirk-”

“Doc,” Manco corrected.

“Dick, whatever,” the pegasus growled. “You know something I don’t? Why’d you cut our time in half?”

Doc looked up the address and showed everyone the result on his commlink. “I recognized STR as the prefix code Crash Carriage uses for Seaddle records. I know a little about the company, and what kind of medical records we’re looking for.”

Manco smiled. “Bueno, but how confident are you that we can steal the records in one night?” he asked. “Do you know what kind of security they have?”

Ghost snorted. He showed everyone his screen with the building’s records. “It’s a leased warehouse. I doubt they have more than a basic alarm and a rent-a-cop holding it down.”

“You seem a bit too young to be a professional Trotter,” Jackie said.

“And you seem a bit too masculine to be a bitch.”

Jackie jumped up and drew a butterfly knife from a pocket. Her wings flared out and struck Manco in the face. “Arr, I will cut you, you little—”

Doc interjected a hoof between them. “Hold up! We don’t need to be trading blows here, so let’s focus on this job.” He looked up at the other end of the diner. Two of the customers were watching their commotion. Nuts. He lowered his own voice. “Sit down, Jackie. We got ponies watching us.”

The pegasus let out huff and sat back down. Next to her, Manco appeared unfazed from the face full of feathers a moment ago.

Doc continued, “We’ll go to the site and see what security measures they have. Ghost can check their network and I can look for any magical defenses.”

“You sound like you got half a clue here,” Ghost remarked. He looked up and made eye contact. “Have you done this before?”

“No, but as I said, I’m a little familiar with Crash Carriage. I’ve also patched up plenty of Trotters. You pick up a few things from them if you pay attention.”

“Well, I can deal with any locks on the way in,” Jackie said.

“And I’ll satisfy any Affirmative Action requirements the team needs,” Manco added.

Doc stared at the zebra, unsure where that comment came from.

“Es una broma,” the zebra followed up. “Anyway, I’m pretty quiet, so I’ll follow Jackie inside. You tell us how to find the records we need, Doc. We’ll do the rest.”

“It may be easier if I come along,” he replied. “I can remain out of sight if I need to.”

“Well, sounds like the start of a plan,” Ghost said. He picked up a travel bag from under the table and threw his commlink into it.

Doc nodded. “Yeah, but let’s get going and see what’s actually there. We’ll work out more details then.”

Everyone gathered their things and the ’team’ exited the diner together. Doc reminded himself that these ponies had only met minutes ago. He felt confident he could earn their trust, but he also had to accept that no one was here to make friends. As he stepped outside the diner, he looked up. The rain had stopped, although it was still very cloudy.

Was that considered bad luck for Trotters? Doc needed to learn the finer points of this line of work.

[]-----[]-----[]

At night, the Ellitrot Bay sparkled with the reflection of the lights of the skyline. These luminous motes danced upon the waves and dipped in the wake of huge cargo ships that passed back and forth. Along the coastline, the scent of the salty bay was unmistakable. It covered the old industrial neighborhood like a coat of paint.

Doc walked quietly with his group through alley shadows. Few of the large warehouses were labeled with the names of the businesses that used them. Instead most bore the signs of age with rusty doors and peeling paint.

The Trotters reached the target warehouse from the rear side. A lone chain-link fence stood as the only visible sentry that barred their entry. It was a simple barrier, with nothing more than a rusted ‘No Trespassing’ sign mounted on it.

Ghost sat down behind a cluster of dead bushes. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a long, folded device that resembled a keyboard with wide keys. However, it had extra dials, ports, and a miniature screen built into it. There were several decals on the back side that declared various statements such as ‘Nerds are sexy’ and ‘Hack the planet’.

As the colt set up, Doc looked at the parking lot beyond the fence. It was only a short distance from the fence to the back entrance, but what if there was a camera watching the area? He hoped Manco and Jackie were good at spotting security systems.

The young colt extended a cable from the deck and plugged it into a small jack at the back of his head. “Alright, Crash, gimme a challenge,” he whispered.

“Don’t jinx it, kid,” Jackie said with a frown. She lifted the eyepatch up to cover her left eye. “I’d like to eat something other than ramen noodles this week.”

Manco nodded. “Enchiladas con chile rojo. Mmm!”

“That sounds like spicy food. Spicy food is nasty,” Ghost said. He typed expediently on his deck, but stared blankly into space instead of the tiny screen.

The zebra waved a dismissive hoof at the colt. “It’s good for the soul. The burning will make a stallion of you.” Manco then turned his attention to Doc. “You said you can see magic, right?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” Doc closed his eyes and concentrated on the ambiance of his surroundings.

Magic was a strange and beautiful thing. It was so complex that two awakened ponies could be asked to explain how magic worked and they would give conflicting answers. Doc’s first mentor taught him a very old tradition, that the world was a sapient entity, and that magic connected all living things to this world. He recalled the teachings of how to use his emotions to weave magic into tangible effects; to create heat, light, and sound. Most importantly, he had been taught how to ‘see’ magic.

Doc opened his eyes. There was a slight green glow to them as he viewed not the world seen by visible light, but the astral plane where the flow of magic surrounded all living creatures. Each creature had a unique aura of colorful patterns that reflected their state of being. The more in tune a creature was to magic, the brighter their aura manifested. Nonliving objects appeared as dark, gray surfaces. They were ashen shapes devoid of detail. The parking lot was a barren, colorless landscape dotted with tiny motes of grass and insects. Doc’s team was alone here, for now.

He glanced at his teammates. Jackie was by far the brightest of the three, her aura swirled with a whirlpool of vibrant reds. In contrast, Manco had a dim blue aura that gently swayed like waves in a disturbed pond. Ghost's soft, green aura consisted of flat strokes that faded at the edges.

“Do ya see anything, Doc?” Jackie asked.

He shook his head. “Hmm, no, I don’t. No able bodies, spirits, or magical barriers. I reckon that’s a plus.”

“Their security is a joke,” Ghost said with a laugh. “I can keep the alarms suppressed from here. There’s a cop the next block over, but she’s not moving anywhere right now.”

Doc closed his eyes again and mentally dismissed the astral sight. The glow over his eyes ceased and his ordinary sight returned. “Alright, keep on that and message us if something changes. Reckon we just break in. Jackie, can you pick the lock on the fence?”

“Can I pick the lock? Of course I can!” the pegasus boasted. “I am the scourge of the seven-digit electronic lock. Watch as my flashy moves dazzle and amaze!”

“Um… sure, if that helps you work quietly,” Doc replied.

Jackie swaggered up to the gate in the fence. It was locked by an old numbered keypad, with a single green light that indicated it was on. She pulled out a butterfly knife and unsheathed it with a quick flick. “Yarr, time for this dog to go hunting.”

She jabbed it into the side of the lock and attempted to pry the case off it. The keypad face did not budge, so the pegasus leaned into the knife. The blade snapped in half with a loud crack.

“My favorite knife...” Jackie whimpered. “It’s not flashy at all.”

“Now it’s like a one-legged hunting dog,” Manco commented. The pegasus punched him hard in the shoulder.

The zebra shrugged off the blow with a grin. He rubbed his forehooves together. “Bueno, we’ll just have to hop over the fence then. Zebra powers, activate!” He grabbed onto the fence links and pulled himself up and over the barrier. The only sound was the light rattling of the fence.

Doc reached for the fence, but Jackie poked him in the ribs. “Hey, I’ll carry you. It’ll be a lot faster,” she said.

“Oh, uh, sure.”

The pegasus grabbed him from behind and lifted him into the air. The ride over the fence was slower than anticipated. “Oi, you should lay off the snack cakes,” she whispered to him.

“I don’t weigh that much,” Doc replied defensively.

Jackie dropped him from three feet off the ground and let out an exhausted sigh. Doc landed hard on all fours. His hooves made a loud clip-clop as he hit concrete. He frowned at Jackie, but said nothing.

The three walked quietly to the building. A single dim bulb lit the rear metal door. Rust dotted the hinges and surrounded the electronic lock. The keypad appeared to be similar to the one on the fence.

A text message showed up on Doc's commlink. The words appeared on his glasses' HUD. <“Unlocking the door now.”>

The green light on the keypad flashed twice and then turned off. Manco tugged the door gently and it opened with a soft creak. “Good job, amigo,” Manco whispered.

“Yeah, but... did I give him my commlink number? I don’t think I did,” Doc said, concerned.

“If he’s a good hacker, you don't need to,” the zebra explained.

“Ah, suppose so.” Without further protest, Doc accepted the statement and followed his teammates inside. Trickles of ambient light from the outside street lights peeked through dusty windows set high on the walls. It seemed to radiate foreboding rather than light the interior. Doc turned on the flashlight app on his commlink and led the way. Jackie and Manco followed closely behind him.

The warehouse was sectioned off into tall aisles, labeled by ascending serial numbers. Rows and rows of cabinet bins created a vertigo-like maze well into the darkness. Out of curiosity, Doc stopped once in a while to peek into the cabinets. Some were filled with old medical records in the form of paper files and mini-discs. Other cabinets were filled with an assortment of clothing, keys, expired IDs, and—in one curiously open bin—a mess of used party supplies.

Manco picked up a roll of blood-stained blue streamers from the open party bin. “Great, I’m in Bobo Barnett’s Happy House,” he muttered.

“I reckon stuff in this section are just the abandoned personal effects when patients leave the hospital,” Doc explained.

“Like, in a body bag?” Jackie asked. She pointed at the blood stains.

Doc shrugged. “Well, it’s possible. Unclaimed things become property of Crash Cart, including their bodies.”

The team moved further down the aisles. The commlink was the only source of light at this point. Doc swept the beam at the cabinets he walked passed. The style had changed now; smaller drawers filled with dozens of mini-discs. The serial numbers at this point reached the 41,000s. Doc stopped and pointed down the row.

“This should be it,” he whispered.

Another text message popped up from Ghost. <“Security guard just entered. Watch out!”>

Doc fumbled through his commlink settings and turned off the light. He was nearly blind now, except for his teammates' faces lit by the device's back-lit screen. He texted Ghost back. <“Did they notice us?”>

<“Don’t know yet.”>

“Que lastima,” Manco muttered. He opened a small saddlebag hidden under his sarape and rummaged through the contents for something. After several seconds, he appeared to have given up.

“What were you looking for?” Doc asked curiously.

The zebra shrugged. “Butts. Frosted butts.”

“By the stars, you stallions are useless,” Jackie hissed. She rose toward the top shelves, disappearing into the shadows.

The earth pony attempted to call out to her in whispers. “Jackie, what are you doing?”

No response.

Manco tapped Doc on the shoulder. “I think she went to take out the security guard,” he whispered. “You grab the goods, I’ll back her up.”

“Back her up? To do what?” Doc questioned.

The zebra ignored him and stalked into the darkness. Doc turned the flashlight app back on and quickly scanned the drawers for the right one. He located it, bin ‘STR-41235’. The stallion opened it and found two mini-discs inside. He wondered what records were burned onto these discs for someone to pay a few grand for them.

Doc pocketed both discs, then he plucked two similar-looking discs from another drawer and dropped those in place of the purloined goods. He carefully closed up the drawers and walked back out of the aisle.

There was a loud thud somewhere in the warehouse, as if someone collided with the shelves. Doc hastened toward where he believed the source to have been. He typed a message to Ghost on the way. <“Any updates on that guard?”>

<“Tripped alarm hacking cop’s computer. Gotta jet.”>

<“Damn it, Ghost! You can’t just leave us!”> Doc angrily responded.

<“Sorry.”>

Doc resisted the urge to throw his commlink on the floor. He pocketed the device and felt his way along the aisles in the dark. Each hoof-fall was quiet, but Doc bumped into corners and drawer handles along the way. After several rows, he heard whispers from his teammates.

The faint light hinted at the outlines of his two companions, as well as that of a third body lying on the floor between them. Doc stopped and listened in on their conversation.

“Did you leave the doctor?” Jackie asked Manco.

“Who?” the zebra replied.

“The doctor,” the pegasus repeated.

“Who?”

“The—” Jackie abruptly punched Manco in the shoulder. “Ass.”

The zebra laughed, and Doc stifled a chuckle as well. He took a step out of hiding, but a familiar sound creaked from the darkness.

The back door opened and soft falls of hooves walked into the building. A bright light swept the area methodically. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. Someone was searching the warehouse. Jackie and Manco once more vanished into the darkness.

Alone again, Doc put his commlink down on the floor and squeezed himself into a space between two cabinet units. He waited in silence, but his mind raced in circles for ideas on how to escape. As the shadow crept closer, he made out details of the stranger. A horn on the stranger’s head magically levitated a flashlight, and the unmistakable badge of a Buck Star officer glinted in the reflected light. Doc held his breath as the mare officer walked right by him.

The cop stopped and looked down at Doc's commlink on the floor. She unbuttoned the holster that held her gun. “Come out, now!” she commanded.

“Yarr!”

Jackie dropped on her like a curtain and the two mares tumbled. The flashlight hit the floor with a hard rattle. The officer kicked her assailant away and drew the gun with her horn's magic. She fired the gun twice in the pegasus' direction. Jackie dove backwards and slammed loudly into several bin drawers.

“Arg! What a lousy place to put a Luna-damned filing system!” she shouted. Jackie got up and scrambled into the darkness.

The officer scrambled to her hooves and pointed her gun. “Freeze!” she yelled out.

Doc reached into the drawer beside him. He rummaged for something large and for a moment his hoof brushed up against something soft and woolly. He grabbed the object and pulled it out. He held an ugly green sweater with a large, winged pig printed on the front.

’Someone paid money for this?’

The officer trained her pistol on Jackie and closed in. Doc took in a deep breath and leaped at the unicorn with the sweater. In one swift motion, he pulled the garment over the officer’s face with a hard yank. The blinded mare tumbled over backwards over him.

Clattering of the firearm drew everyone attention. Doc held onto the cop tightly as she attempted to pull free. The mare struck him twice in the face. Doc’s vision blurred and he let go of the sweater. He heard galloping from behind, but was preoccupied with the pain on his face to focus on getting up.

“What the drek is going on here?!” a second unicorn officer shouted. He levitated his own gun from its holster and pointed it at Doc.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots rang out from the darkness. The second cop dove onto the cold floor and rolled to the side. He fired back at unseen shadows. Gunfire shouted like thunderclaps in the warehouse. Sparks burst from the metallic bin doors as they were struck by bullets.

The mare officer saw her gun on the floor and seized it with her horn's magic. Doc brought his hooves together and focused. He reached out to the ambient magical energy around him. He reached for his own energy within and recited an incantation of ancient words. Ozone permeated the air around him. A ball of translucent blue light formed between his hooves.

“Stop!” the mare officer shouted. She brought the gun up close and aimed the barrel at Doc.

He immediately shoved the magical sphere at her. She pulled the trigger. Doc ducked to the side to avoid her shot. Something unseen tugged at his shoulder. The sphere of magic burst into sparks of energy upon impact with the officer. She collapsed sideways onto the ground. Her gun landed beside her with a resounding clatter.

The remaining officer turned his weapon on Doc. “Don’t move!”

Jackie leaped out from the darkness like a bat and kicked the officer’s floating gun to the ground. Her outstretched wings struck him in the back of the head. Dazed, the officer swung at the pegasus. His hoof connected with her coat and he tried to hold on. Jackie replied with an uppercut from her other wing. The cop tumbled over backwards and hit the concrete. He stopped moving.

The mare officer groaned. She stumbled to get back up, but two more shots from the dark struck her in the chest. She dropped to the ground again. Doc scooped up the dropped flashlight and pointed it to where the shots came from. He saw Manco, half hidden behind a cabinet drawer, around the aisle corner. The zebra waved hello with his pistol.

“Frag, did you kill her?” Doc asked in a panic. He scrambled over the body and checked her for vitals.

Still alive.

Jackie walked over to Doc's side. There was a slight limp in her left hind leg. “Oh, sure, check on the cop, but not the teammate,” she said with a growl.

“I don't want any cops killed... just for some records,” he countered. Doc realized he was breathing heavily from the fight.

“Cálmese, Doc,” Manco assured him with a grin. He held up his pistol as he approached. “I used gel rounds. Rather difficult to kill someone with something rubbery. Well, I suppose if it were big enough, like a bat. Or maybe a long, thick-”

Jackie stretched out a wing in Manco’s face to cut him off mid-sentence. “That’ll be enough of that, zebra. So, did we get the junk that our Johnson wanted from the bin already?”

“Yeah, I grabbed two discs from there,” Doc replied.

He checked the other officer and found no serious injuries. Finally, he attended to Jackie. Doc looked her over and found a few minor cuts from her flight into a cabinet. “Hold still a moment,” he instructed. He recited the words for his healing spell. His hooves glowed a soft green as he cast warm energy into the pegasus. Her wounds closed up in seconds. As he finished, Doc stumbled. He leaned against a nearby cabinet.

“Nice,” Jackie said with an approving smile. “Yeah, do that thing more often, okay?”

“Magic is draining,” Doc replied in protest. “That magical stun spell I threw took a lot out of me.”

The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know how that kind of magic works. Just saying, stick to the healing trick. Get a gun if you want to hit something.”

Doc let out a tired sigh. “Well maybe next time, Jackie, don’t split up unless it’s part of the plan, alright?”

“Savvy,” Jackie responded with a grin. She headed for the exit. “Well, let’s see if the colt is still hiding outside and sail on back to the Johnson. I’ve got a date with a real veggie burger at the Stuffer Shack.”

“I doubt he’s still around, amigos,” Manco said. “He said he had to go, and he didn’t seem to be the kind of colt to stay when there’s danger. Eh, one less hoof to split the money between.”

“He’s just a colt though,” Doc argued. “I’m a bit concerned about someone that young working as a mercenary.”

“Pfft, he’s a hacker, or a decker I think he said,” Jackie replied. “Weren’t even in the thick of danger like I was.”

Doc snorted. “You jumped at the danger, though.”

“Flew, actually,” Manco unhelpfully corrected.

“Aye, you should’ve seen how I swooped down on that guard before he even raised his gun,” the pegasus boasted. “Gave him two strikes before he had fully hit the floor. Springboard Jackie, stealth pirate!”

“Maybe when you’re not chatting away,” Doc muttered as he noticed the tear in his jacket’s shoulder.

Jackie wrapped a wing around his neck in a headlock. “Yarr, I’ll make ya walk the plank for that. Better yet, pay for the drinks!”

Doc pulled himself away from her. She laughed as he stumbled backwards into Manco. The zebra chuckled and bumped him back.

"Come on, let’s get out of here," Manco said.

The three exited the warehouse through the rear entrance. The lot appeared empty so they returned to the fence and climbed over it once more. Doc followed behind the other two. He felt as if the shadows watched him. As if another Buck Star officer would jump out of the night and arrest him. He wasn’t a paranoid pony before, but he now felt this new sense that sprung up inside him. He hated the feeling.

[]-----[]-----[]

An old, yellow bulb ill-lit the diner’s back alley door. The years of greasy food waste left a permanent stench in the air. A stain that became the essence of this alley. The faint muffles of car engines waxed and waned from the streets on the other side of the building. Doc and his teammates (he would call them friends, but he wasn’t sure if they’d throw such a word around freely) walked around several pieces of grimy trash toward the door.

Two shadowy figures awaiting them. One was their Johnson, who wore a simple dark brown coat over herself. The other figure was a tall and muscular earth pony in a black dress suit. He looked like an executive's bodyguard that got lost.

Doc pulled out the two mini-discs he acquired and held them up for the Johnson to see.

“Impressive. It seems my money has been well invested,” Mrs. Jay stated. She leaned to one side as she looked the group over. “Hmm, weren’t there four of you earlier?”

“The decker fled the scene without us,” Doc answered.

Jackie brushed the hair out from her eyes. “Aye, the colt decided to turn tail when things got too hot for him,” she added.

“Nothing too complicated, I hope?” the Johnson asked.

“No, señorita,” Manco answered. “Only a little security we needed to get around, but we took care of them.”

“Yeah, fed them a good helping of an ass-kicking casserole,” Jackie boasted.

Doc stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “They were knocked out. Discreetly.” He glanced over to Jackie when he punctuated that last word.

The Johnson tiled her head as if she weighed the answer. “Very well, then. I have your payment ready. Six thousand nuyen, as agreed upon.” She motioned her bodyguard and he stepped forward towards the team.

Doc held up the discs and the large stallion pulled out a small, tapered credstick. They exchanged the items and the bodyguard returned to the Johnson's side to give her the two discs. She held them under the dim light and nodded after she read their labels. Doc assumed it was approval.

He then plugged the little specialized drive into his commlink. The monetary information held within flashed on his screen. It was all there. Doc showed his teammates the funds and they both brought up commlinks of their own. Doc entered a few commands to split the money three-ways with them. Everyone's devices flashed an icon that indicated a successful wireless transfer of money.

The Johnson turned to leave. “I will assume our discretion of tonight remains intact. Fare thee well, Trotters.” She walked away towards the other end of the alley with her bodyguard.

“Bueno! Time to go down a couple cold ones tonight,” Manco said with a big grin.

Doc had a hard time looking away from his screen. Two thousand nuyen in one night! He never made that kind of money before. “Hey, Manco, Jackie? I know a pretty good bar up north if either of you aren’t against a little walking. It should still be open.”

Jackie waved him off. “I have wings, why walk? See you grounders laters. I gotta date with some real food.” She took off into the air before Doc could reply to her.

“Gracias, but I also got plans,” Manco said. “Have to see a couple ponies before morning. Maybe next time?”

“Oh, alright then. Want to trade contacts at least?” Doc asked. He typed up a text message with his number for the zebra to copy.

Manco nodded and sent Doc a text with his own number. “Adios, amigo.” The zebra trotted off into the night.

Doc looked at his account again. It only now dawned on him that every nuyen of that money was made by breaking the law. Yet, it sat fine with him. Perhaps he still harbored resentment against his former employer? However, the more he thought about it, the less appealing the money became. There was certainly the danger of getting caught, and he had assaulted a police officer. With magic!

He dashed those thoughts from his head. No, Doc couldn’t dwell on this. He needed the money and this job turned out okay. He was going home to sleep it off. In the morning, he could contact his mother and send this money for his dad’s prosthetic. Then he would go back to his quiet life as if nothing happened.

Well, maybe he’d keep a little money to get that toaster of his fixed.

Chapter 2: Just a Trot in the Park

If you gave Doc a choice on what type of bullet to be shot by, he’d prefer an armor-piercing round. Such bullets were most likely to pierce straight through the body, rather than get stuck somewhere inside a mass of delicate tissue and require surgery to remove. The doctor had treated many gunshot wounds in his time, and his current patient was another typical case of the latter. Luckily, the bullet didn’t lodge itself to close to any delicate arteries in her thigh, because Doc was running off only four hours of sleep.

The day had started out quite ordinary; the clinic opened without any fuss, patients trickled in for help with their ailments, and Doc did his best to administer care to their needs. However, he was quite nervous after last night’s escapade in the Shadows and that kept him up until well into the early morning hours. His fatigue showed in the disarray of his clinic; Blood heavily stained the bed that the patient laid upon. Various tools were scattered around the room instead of aligned neatly on their trays, and he barely paid attention to the holographic numbers that tracked the patient’s vitals on his glasses.

His medical skills continued to serve him with passable accuracy, but the cleanliness of his clinic was, as he bluntly assumed, a catastrophe.

“Alright, Martha, here’s your little tag-along,” Doc said. He held up the deformed bullet for his patent to see. “Looks like a .22 round.”

“Well... guess that’s not too bad,” the red-colored mare remarked with a wince.

“I reckon any bullet in you is a serious matter,” he countered in a dull tone. “You really shouldn’t pick a fight with gangers. Armed gangers, particularly.”

Martha shrugged. “Eh, they were only a couple of punk teens. At least I stopped them from jacking the Bimmer parked on the corner.”

“Yes, by shoving one of their faces through the driver-side window, according to your story,” Doc pointed out. He picked up a small device and used it to staple her wound shut.

“Eh, whoever owns that car—ouch—probably has insurance,” Martha said with a strained voice. “You don’t buy a Germane car on our kind of salary. Ow.”

Doc made an agreeable ‘hmm’ sound. He rolled some gauze around her leg and secured it with a clip. He then put his hooves over the bandaged wound and whispered the arcane words for his healing spell. The soft green glow bathed Martha's thigh in warmth. Since the wound was pretty deep, Doc concentrated a little extra energy from himself to ensure it would heal quickly. Once the spell completed, he leaned against the bed with a weary sigh. Poor sleep and spellcasting were a bad combination on his health.

“There you go. Keep the weight off it and take these antibiotics for a week to ensure it doesn’t get infected.” He reached to the counter and grabbed a small bottle that contained large pills. He double-checked the label to ensure he had the right bottle before he gave it to his patient.

“Geez, these are buffalo pills,” Martha said as she sat up. “Well, thanks a million for the fix, Doc. What do I owe ya?”

“Just fifty nuyen for the drugs and supplies. Generics from Ahuizotechnology are pretty cheap right now.”

Martha pulled out her commlink and browsed something on it with a few swipes of her hoof. She then frowned. “Well, I’m a bit short this week. How about thirty-five and I bake you a tofu lasagna casserole tomorrow?”

“For your lasagna, I’ll go ahead and take the next bullet,” Doc said with a sleepy chuckle. “Alright, then I’ll look forward to your cooking. You just avoid gangers for a while, okay?”

“No, I don’t plan on repeating this morning,” Martha said with a sigh.

She tapped her commlink screen a few times. Doc saw a transfer request on his device and accepted the deposit. He got up and helped the mare limp out of his clinic. He then turned to the bloody bed and the scattered tools in need of a good wash. He pondered the idea to sleep though lunch.

Doc stripped the paper covering off the bed and wadded it tightly before he threw it in the trash. The clinic door then opened with a squeaky flourish. The unannounced customer walked inside with a big goofy grin that Doc recognized immediately; It was his friend Harvey.

The older stallion trotted over to Doc’s dentist-like chair and hopped on. “Keep it tight on the sides, styled forward, but lose the bangs.”

“Stop,” Doc commanded.

Harvey chuckled as he leaned back in the chair. “What? You have razors but didn’t complete your doctorate degree. Historically, I believe that makes you a barber surgeon.”

“And annoying me with stupid trivia like that while I’m working makes you an asshole,” Doc countered. He shook his head, but he wasn’t really mad at his friend. He knew Harvey liked to rile him up from time to time for the reaction. Doc was rather used to it by now, but sometimes he still yelled at him.

“I got word that your little foray went well last night,” Harvey said in a softer tone. “How was it?”

Doc paused in the middle of cleaning up his tools to think. He gave a slow shrug. “It was… alright, I suppose. The kid hacker that was hired abandoned us halfway through after he accidentally got the attention of a couple cops.”

“A kid hacker?” the bartender questioned. “You had a young troublemaker on the team?”

“Yeah. He was baaad.”

Doc’s bleat made Harvey laugh. He laughed too, his exhaustion made his own terrible jokes sound funnier. Doc closed his drawers with the clean tools inside and sat down on his stool. “Alright, so the kid left us just before a pair of officers walk into the warehouse. The two other Trotters I worked with end up starting a fight with them. Can you believe that? Assaulting a Buckstar officer is like… three years minimum. Six with a weapon.”

“Well that’s how it is in the Shadows,” Harvey said without a smile. “You’ll have all sorts of young, old, violent, and just plain crazy folk trying to strike it rich. You’ll meet your usual problem ponies, but you can also find some good lifelong friends. Which brings me to why I’m here.”

“I was wondering,” Doc said with a raised eyebrow. What he actually wondered about was when he’d get to his pillow upstairs.

Harvey pulled out his commlink and brought up a picture of a middle-aged mare. “This is Bellini. She’s an old flame of mine back in my Trotter days. Kept in touch now and then, but probably not often enough. Well, found out this morning that she died in a nasty car wreck three days ago.”

“My condolences.”

“Eh, maybe undeserved. I didn’t do enough to keep us together,” the bartender said in a sad tone. He took in a deep breath. “Well, she was a fixer back in our heydays, and a good one. Apparently, she kept a lot of her old contacts and resources because she forwarded me an encrypted file, saying it was her will. She wanted to give me something important from a past job she had set up.”

Doc tilted his head to get a better look at her. “Uh, she sent it before she died, right?”

“No, I got the file last night!” Harvey exclaimed as he sat up. “She had set up a proxy account to hold it for a week before delivering it to me. And get this—Bellini’s last coltfriend was found shot dead in a retention pond yesterday. I think she got into something bad.”

“I’ve watched spy movies with less setup than this,” Doc remarked. “So, what can I do to help you? Did you need a doctor outside the system to run an autopsy on her body or something?”

Harvey shook his head. “Nah. Her body is in police custody. The only way I’m going to get a hold of it is with forged documents and surviving a two-hour Q-and-A session with Buck Star wanting to know everything about her, me, our relationship... yeah, no. I'll pass on that. Instead, it’s about the file she sent me. Word of her death has gotten around among other fixers in the area. Several others got a similar encrypted file as I did, so we got to talking. We each might have part of the encryption key within our files. If so, we can decrypt and read the full will if we bring the files all together.”

Doc shook his head. For a moment, he almost went cross-eyed from the story just told. “Okay, I… think I follow that. So where do I come in?”

“Well, we’re all meeting up in Kerry Park this afternoon to read the will,” Harvey explained. “Fixers are all about contacts and connections, Vardo. It’s our lifeblood. If this is Bellini’s paydata from her life as a fixer, then invited or not there are going to be a lot of folks showing up. Folks that might be related to her untimely death. I want you to come with and… well, I need you to keep an eye out around the park for suspicious ponies.”

“Hmm, suspicious ponies in Seaddle. Yeah, that’ll be a narrow group to look out for,” Doc remarked in a flat tone. He leaned back against the operating table. “So, do you really think there was a conspiracy to kill Bellini because she knew something?”

Harvey nodded and leaned forward in the chair. “Yeah, and that’s why I came to you. Come on, Vardo, you love conspiracies, don’t you?”

“Didn’t desire to be part of one,” Doc countered.

“Her boyfriend was shot dead yesterday, she sent an encrypted will to her most trusted friends in advance of her death, and now we’re all gathering together in a public location that everyone knows about,” the bartender listed. “If I don’t go, I risk losing face with other fixers. Or worse, maybe I’ll get shot next by whoever had Bellini and her lover whacked.”

Doc raised a hoof to interrupt. “Alright, you made your point. I’ll tag along and be your bodyguard. I reckon you’re vetting me for my magical skills, which probably suit this job.”

“Yes, and I’ll pay you like this is a Trot.”

“Damn right you will,” Doc replied with a hoof pointed at his friend. “When is your little shindig going down?”

“Four o’clock,” Harvey answered. He stood up and put his commlink away. “We’re meeting at the main pavilion. I assume other fixers are going to hire their own guards, so be wary of that.”

“Shouldn’t you all coordinate security together?”

“Assuming we all actually trust each other and none of us is the killer?”

Doc’s eyebrows lifted up. “Nevermind, that’s a fair point,” he remarked.

He shook his friend’s hoof and walked him outside. Once Harvey had left, Doc checked his schedule and blocked off the evening after four as ‘park ranging’. Well, he wanted to work in the Shadows. Maybe he was going to take that bullet too.

[]-----[]-----[]

Daylight slowly faded to orange as the sun sank to the horizon. The rush hour traffic lined the streets that surrounded the small public park in every direction and it wasn’t rushing anywhere. The smell of exhaust from the slow-moving vehicles filled the air, but deep within the park the filthy smell didn’t hold against the well-manicured trees. The leaves were still mostly green—only their tips hinted of the coming fall weather. The grass was still lush and tall to the point where a squat, wheeled drone drove in lazy circles over the lawn. It was a small sanctuary of nature deep within the tall and bustling city of steel and concrete.

Doc arrived at Kerry Park in a hustle. The zipper on his jacket jingled with each quickened step of his hooves. It was nearly four o’clock due to the late arrival of his bus. The HUD on his glasses lit up with a message about the park’s hours and what facilities were available. There was a note that the main pavilion was rented out to a ‘private party’ today, a sure indication that he was in the right place.

He trotted over to the pavilion where a large group of ponies had gathered. The well-maintained brick building stood alone at the top of a slight hill, with two concrete walkways that approached from opposite sides. It had only a few windows, all of which were covered up from the inside with dark fabric. It stood out in the center of the park, even if those inside would have privacy.

Doc saw Harvey in conversation with two other ponies outside the entrance and decided to walk up to the group. He waved and panted, his lungs out of breath from his trot over from the bus stop.

The bartender looked relieved and broke away from the conversation. “Doc! I’m glad you made it, chummer. Cutting it a bit close, you know?”

“The bus was held up... traffic,” Doc explained in between breaths. He looked over at the two ponies present. One was an amber-colored mare and the other a light green stallion.

Harvey stepped forward and gestured toward the strangers. “Doc, these are old colleagues of mine, Brandy and Rickey. Everyone, this is Doc, a long-time patron at my bar.”

“Doc, as in doctor?” Brandy inquired.

“Yes,” Doc replied with a smile. “I practice general medicine.”

“He’s independent, and fairly skilled too,” Harvey added, “So if you want good care outside corp hassle, look him up.”

“Well, who am I to turn down a recommendation from Harvey, eh?” Rickey made a wide grin.

The crowd began to quietly file into the pavilion. Brandy cantered inside, while Rickey shook Doc’s hoof with a nod before he followed. As other ponies continued to enter, Harvey stepped over to Doc and pulled him aside.

“Once the doors close, don’t let anyone in,” he whispered. “Every fixer who got an encrypted file is already here and then some, so if somebody claims to be running late, they’re lying. I’ll leave the rest to you. Just keep us safe and undisturbed.”

Doc acknowledged with a nod. “Alright, that I can do.” He shook hooves with Harvey and watched his friend enter with the crowd.

Once everyone entered, the two large doors of the pavilion were pulled shut. They closed with a deep thud that Doc felt shake through him. The distinctive sound of a lock engaging was heard right after, and then it grew silent inside. Doc stepped a little closer, but he could not hear anything beyond the heavy metal doors. He turned around and surveyed the park around him.

There were a few joggers still about and a couple colts playing on the swings at one end of the park. Beyond that was a busy street filled with cars that moved slowly through traffic. Further still, a convention center stood among the hotel buildings. Large swaths of ponies entered and exited the convention center, but none were interested in paying this park any attention. It seemed like another typical day in Seaddle.

A galloping stallion grabbed Doc’s attention. The blue unicorn wore a heavy brown trench coat, had a greased-back mane, and wore several little personal effects of feathers, beaded jewelry, and gaudy hoop earrings on him. He raced toward the pavilion at full speed, and the strange attire sat poorly with Doc's instincts.

He closed his eyes and muttered the incantation to activate his astral sight. With the veil beyond mundane sight pierced, Doc opened his eyes. The park was full of soft green and blue waves of color; an island in a sea of dead gray and black shades of the city structures. He focused on the unicorn and saw a vibrant orange aura around him. Furthermore, streaks of brilliant gold connected the unicorn to his unusual effects like a spider's web. It was an unmistakable visual clue.

‘Crap, he’s a mage.’

Doc quickly blinked a second time to dismiss his extra sight before the unicorn noticed it. Unfortunately, the unicorn hesitated in his approach. He stomped his hooves and his face melted into a scowl. Doc took a step back into a defensive posture as the unicorn marched up into his face.

“You rude little dirt horse! I saw your stupid magic trick. Do that again and I'll gouge your eyes out!” the unicorn threatened. “Now stand aside, I am late to my meeting.”

Doc gulped down the saliva in his mouth and stood his ground. “My apologies, friend, but I cannot allow anyone else inside.”

The unicorn’s demeanor soured further. “What?! You will let me through, Equestrian filth! I am Renaldo, the most important fixer in all of Seaddle!” He shoved his way toward the pavilion’s front door.

“I ain’t budging!” Doc countered. He outstretched a hoof and pushed back. He tried to sound firm, but some of his nervousness cracked his voice a little. He never considered himself intimidating and... well he really wasn't.

Renaldo’s horn lit up with an ugly maroon color. His magical ponykinetic force seized Doc around his collar and brought him snout to snout with the furious fixer. “You. Will. Move!”

“¡Perdóneme!” a voice above them called out.

They both looked up at a zebra that slid off the angled roof of the pavilion and land beside them. Doc recognized him—Manco! The zebra had a compact assault rifle slung over his shoulder. He held up his hoof to the fixer.

“My friend here told you to scram. So, either you turn around and walk away, or I’m going to have to get rough,” Manco warned. “And to show you how serious I am, amigo, I will take you down without the magazine clip.” He removed the rifle’s ammo clip and then cycled the chamber.

The distinctive ping of the ejected round against the concrete floor deafened Doc’s ears. Manco stared at Renaldo with unwavering eyes. Renaldo was agape. He lifted a hoof... then lowered it. Without a further word, the unicorn turned around and walked away.

“Phew, thanks for having my back,” Doc said to Manco once the fixer was a good distance away.

The zebra picked up the dropped bullet and inserted it back into the clip. He attached the clip and cycled the rifle's chamber. “De nada, mi amigo,” he replied. “I take it you’re here to babysit the meeting too?”

Doc nodded. “Yeah, hired by my own fixer. It seemed easy enough.”

“Oh, that’s how they all look at first,” Manco replied. His smirk seemed somewhat forced. “Then you’re roughed up by a gang and need help getting to a doctor. Now I’m repaying a favor I owe from my last fixer’s job. Yeah, it seemed easy enough then as well.”

“Well, I reckon working together will help make it easier for the two of us,” Doc said. “Worst case, you don’t have to go far for a doctor.”

“Jajaja, es verdad,” Manco said with a chuckle.

Doc looked out to the busy street where Renaldo had disappeared to. The unicorn was gone, and hopefully for good. He glanced further down the road to the convention center, but then noticed that Manco was studying him. He took a step back. “Err, something the matter?” Doc asked.

Manco shrugged. “Well, you’re only carrying a derringer. Do you want to borrow something with more than one bullet in it?”

Doc was impressed that Manco could tell he had such a small weapon under his jacket. “Do you think I need a bigger gun?”

“En mi experiencia, siempre quieres el arma más grande.”

“I don’t know that I want to stand out like you do.” He pointed at the assault rifle the zebra carried. “I think I’ll just stand behind you and let you handle the guns.”

A young earth pony mare in a tan overcoat approached the stallions. She cleared her throat as she walked up very close to them. Doc heard Jazz music from the wireless headphones around her neck. He backed up a step to regain some of his personal space.

“Excuse me, gentlecolts,” she said in a soft tone. “I happened to notice that you two seem to have some interest in idling outside this pavilion. May I inquire on what this is?”

The stallions froze up on a response. After a pause, Manco blurted out, “It’s a building.”

“But what is inside it?” the mare prodded.

“It’s a building,” Doc echoed.

The mare frowned. “What, is the building a nesting doll?”

Manco nodded. “Si. Building, building, building… and a janitor with a candy bar.”

“I’m sorry, who are you again?” Doc questioned the mare.

“My name is Rita, underground journalist and Trotter.”

The response made Doc do a double-take. “Oh, so are you hired to…?” He trailed off his question and pointed to the pavilion.

“Yeah, I was hired to watch over the fixer meeting here, same as you,” she responded. “I wasn’t sure at first if you two were Trotters or weirdos.”

“I answer to both,” Manco stated.

“I’m sure,” Rita replied, “But considering you’re openly carrying a rifle this close to a huge event full of cops, maybe the more appropriate word is crazy.”

She pointed at the convention center across the street. Doc thought back a moment to today’s date. His eyes widened as he understood what she was talking about, but Manco looked confused.

“What’s going on over there?” the zebra asked.

Doc did a quick search on his commlink. “Hold on, it’s a police event... yes, here it is—the West Coast Police and Security Convention, also known as COPCON.” He held up his commlink to show the event’s homepage.

The zebra’s ears lowered as he looked Doc in the eyes. “¿Que? ¿Hay policías al otro lado de la calle y no me lo dijiste?”

“I’m sorry! I forgot that it was this week,” Doc answered. “You probably should put that away.”

“Uh, yeah.” Manco disassembled the stock from his rifle. He flipped the end of his sarape over the rifle parts and partially covered them up.

Rita sighed and looked down her snout at the stallions. “Try not to get arrested.” She walked off to the other side of the pavilion without looking back.

“Well, she’s charming,” Doc whispered to Manco.

“Like a splinter.”

Minutes passed by Doc without an incident. Few ponies were around, which was a good thing for the mission at hoof, but the lack of anything happening bothered him a little. Perhaps Harvey oversold the danger? Doc heard the laughter of several fillies and colts over by the swings. He watched them take turns, then he studied the nearby parents who chatted with each other. He glanced over at Manco nearby; the zebra watched a different direction of the park silently.

Movement from the bushes near the swing set caught Doc’s attention. An elderly stallion rose up from behind the brush like a ghoul. The earth pony stumbled out of the hidden spot with only one shoe on. His tattered, dirty clothes hung loosely on his body. The stallion was aimless in his direction until he and Doc exchanged glances.

Well, it was more like stares.

The old pony walked over to Doc with a slight limp. His five o’clock shadow appeared to have been extended for a good two months, but it was the stallion’s repugnant smell that caused Doc to recoil. The odor was a strong, but unusual, mix of grass and gasoline.

“Have you seen my friend Lanna?” the old pony asked. His voice sounded quite wheezy.

Doc looked over to Manco for a cue, but only received a shrug. “Well, what does Lanna look like?” he asked in return.

“She’s just a youngin’; short and round, kind of gray. Usually runs circles around me while I feed the pigeons, but I haven’t seen her today.”

“Well, if we see Lanna, we will let her know you’re looking for her,” Doc assured. He detected a hint of alcohol on the stallion’s breath.

“Oh, and she loves eating the grass,” the old pony continued. “Real appetite that youngin’. Long grain, short grain… she isn’t picky.”

“Is she a pony or a cow?” Manco whispered to Doc.

“Depends on what this guy’s been drinking,” he whispered back.

The stranger appeared not to have noticed the whispers and kept talking. “One time she chewed up a shoe of mine. Didn’t mean too, really. Lanna just likes shoes, you know?”

Manco frowned. “To wear or to eat?”

“Oh, I like ’em a lot myself. But Lanna has such spunk, much like my old Ram truck back in the day. Vroom-vroom!” The old pony made gestures that resembled revving up a motorcycle. “Off-road, on-road, didn’t matter the surface conditions.”

Doc back away. “Okay, well—”

“Ram’s a good truck, you know! Yep. Ran over my ex-wife with a Ram truck.”

“Gracias, but we’re really busy right now,” Manco interjected. “¡Adios!” He grabbed Doc by the sleeve and pulled him away from the crazy stallion.

The two trotted down the paved path. Leaves littered about on the ground, their dried, yellowed edges crunched underhoof. The two ponies finally stopped at a grove of trees. Doc looked back at the strange pony from beneath the branches that twisted into each other. The old stallion walked away, toward a flock of pigeons. Doc leaned against one of the trees and kept an eye on the pavilion from this distance.

“Well, that was a thing that happened,” he said to Manco.

The zebra chuckled. “Yeah. Didn’t want to hear what he had to say about his ex.”

“Probably flat as a pancake,” Doc joked. His smile faded some a moment later. “Poor guy. He must have had a hard life to end up like that.”

“I’m sure drugs are involved. Do you often see folks like him? As a doctor taking in patients, I mean,” Manco asked.

Doc scratched his ear. “A few show up now and then, yeah, but my little clinic isn’t equipped for rehab. Most of the time they’re just looking for a quick hit. Back in Manehattan, I worked for a hospital that had a whole ward for users. I remember it was always full of wasted ponies that needed help.”

“Why did you come out here?”

“That’s a… pretty long story,” Doc replied, “But the short answer is don’t date your patients.”

Manco frowned, but he remained silent for a minute. He stepped closer and looked Doc straight in the eyes. “Did you get somepony pregnant?”

Doc shook his head vigorously. “No, nothing like that! The Trojan company still has some quality control,” he said in a half-assed attempt at humor. “I mean, yeah, we fooled around, but we were careful. My problem was that her father is… well, he was less than thrilled with who she picked for a lover.”

“Clearly, you're a monster,” Manco said, tongue-in-cheek. “If my daughter was dating a decent-looking stallion doctor, I’d be jealous. How dare he—”

A warning message popped up on Doc’s HUD like an unraveled holographic scroll. Manco stopped talking and stared at the ground. The message warned of a drone live-fire demonstration in the immediate area, but that everyone should remain calm and enjoy the show. Doc pressed a button on his glasses. The holographic message folded itself up and vanished from his view.

“Does this happen often?” Manco asked as he looked up to the sky.

“Every year that I’ve lived in Seaddle,” Doc replied. “It’s part of that cop convention. A bunch of companies like to show off military drones that they’ve retooled to be usable by law enforcement. They’ll have them buzz over something nearby and then shoot it on a return pass.”

“With live ammunition?”

Doc scrunched his nose. “Well... they use gel rounds.”

A low-pitched buzzing sound emanated from the sky. Doc and Manco looked up and saw a large, bulb-shaped drone with rotors fly overhead. It zipped over them at a very low altitude. Leaves scattered from the tree tops as the large machine came within inches. Many ponies in the area looked up with excitement at the vehicle, but the zebra’s eyes went wide.

“That thing has a large machine gun!” Manco exclaimed.

“It’s fine. The ammo isn’t deadly.”

The zebra pointed at the drone as it circled back. “In a weapon that big? Shit, that’s like giving a cop a fifty-thousand-volt taser and still calling it nonlethal!”

Spectators cheered as the drone made its second pass over the park and across the street. A loud, saw-like sound roared as the machine gun pelted a parked car. The force of the bullet spray shattered the windows and left significant dents in the roof and doors. Cars parked in the adjacent lot blared their tripped alarms. Ponies applauded the drone as it returned to the convention center.

Manco gave Doc a hard stare. “Nonlethal, right?” He turned and walked toward the pavilion.

Doc followed alongside him back to the building. “Okay, so it’s nonlethal overkill,” he said, corrected. “You have to admit, though, that only in Equestria can ponies make such a thing happen.”

“It’s made in Equestria?”

“No, Silver-Crown Heavy Industries built that one. Saw it on a commercial last week.”

Manco raised an eyebrow. “So, it’s a Germane-built overkilling flying drone marketed as a domestic product?”

“Yes, and what can be more Equestrian than that?” Doc responded with a grin.

The zebra snorted, but Doc saw a little smile appear upon his face.

The pavilion’s facade took on an orange tint as the late day sun crept closer to the horizon. Doc squinted his eyes from the glare that reflected into his eyes. He yawned and seemed content that everything was quite peaceful at the moment; the park goes continued to walk the trails quietly, and traffic continued to crawl along the adjacent roads.

He heard someone gallop up to him from behind. The sound of hoof steps was accompanied by the familiar shout of the old homeless stallion. “Lanna! She’s come back to us!”

A dirty, dome-shaped drone zipped back and forth along the grass on its way up the hill toward the pavilion. The Lawnba mower was unusually agile and silent on its small wheels; It made the zig-zag turns at a frightening tight pace. The smudges that covered up the ‘B’ explained why the old stallion called it ‘Lanna’.

“I think that thing should be driving around in slow circles and not heading right for us,” Doc pointed out.

Manco pulled out his rifle and reassembled it hastily. “I can fix the latter problem.”

“WAIT!”

Rita galloped over to the stallions with her commlink out. She performed several quick motions on the device and it beeped in response. A moment later the lawn drone’s actions became erratic; it shook itself, spun around, and jerked in random directions.

Manco looked over Rita’s shoulder. “Are you trying to make it do the pee-pee dance?”

“Shush,” the mare growled. She focused on the commlink’s app. “Shooting the drone is going to attract a lot of attention, so I’m trying to disable it remotely. Besides, it might have a bomb inside it.”

“Maybe you ought to drive it away from us, rather than just stopping it?” Doc suggested.

The drone ceased its turbulent movements and came to a halt. Rita proceeded to walk over to the machine. Doc and Manco followed her closely. “Hacking isn’t as easy as you think,” Rita stated. “I prefer using social lock-picks to get into things.”

There was only a soft hum in the air when the group approached the drone. Doc looked at the jagged path it took up the hill. He noticed the grass wasn't cut at all by the drone. That made him very suspicious. He took a picture of the machine and the grass with his commlink.

Manco produced a pocket knife and removed the screws to the drone’s top cover. “Amigos, maybe you all should stand back in case there’s an explosive in this thing,” he recommended.

“And what are you going to do?” Rita asked with a pointing hoof.

“Find out if there’s an explosive in this thing.”

The homeless stallion walked over to the trio and watched Manco tinker on the machine. “Poor Lanna. I bet she’s all tuckered out and hungry from getting lost out there. Anyone got a spare shoe?”

Manco popped off the top cover. Where the motor for the blades should have been was instead a bundle of four off-white clay sticks with wires and a cheap commlink attached to it.

Rita and Doc jumped back two steps. The homeless pony seemed unfazed. “Is that Play-doh?” he asked.

The zebra traced out the bomb’s wiring with both fore-hooves. “It’s only a full-sized brick of plastic explosives hooked up to a commlink as the detonator. No big deal,” he calmly stated.

“No big deal?” Doc echoed. “Well sure, up until it goes off. At that point—”

“¡Callate, Doc!” Manco barked out.

Doc stopped talking. He looked around the park for witnesses. No one paid particular attention to them. At worst, there was a couple glances his way, but no one seemed curious at what the group was doing with this drone. This was one of those rare moments where Doc was grateful for the indifference of the average city pony.

The deep buzzing sound of motorcycle engines in the distance caught Doc’s ears. He looked outward to the streets. Two stallion gangers on heavily modded bikes turned off the road and drove through the park field. The distinct mixed-and-matched gaudy clothing gave Doc the impression that this pair belonged to the Discordians. The pit of his stomach tied itself into a knot.

Ponies screamed and jumped out of their way. Several shouted profane words at the two teenaged bikers that harassed everyone. Two victims picked up rocks and threw them at the gangers. One stone landed a solid hit on a biker’s back side.

The gangers stopped their joyride and turned their bikes around. They each pulled out hoses from a secondary gas tank on their bikes and sprayed out streams of fire at the scattered crowd.

Doc’s eyes widened in horror when the flamethrowers ignited everything in their path; Ponies screamed and fled in all directions, clothing burned and trees caught ablaze with a hot intensity.

Manco had two wires pulled out and was working on a third. He didn’t look up from the bomb. “¿Doc, podrías encargarte de eso? Estoy ocupado.”

Doc yanked Rita by the foreleg and raced to intercept the gangers. “Come on, we need to do something!”

“Do what? Just call the police! Aren’t flamethrowers illegal?” she asked as she galloped to keep up with the stallion.

“Yes, on every planet!” Doc replied.

Against his better judgement, Doc stopped and drew his derringer out of his pocket. Rita followed his lead by pulling out a small pistol. He felt his heart race as his mind searched for how best to take down the gangers. Doc had one bullet available to him and he wasn't a crack shot to begin with. He should have brought more ammo.

The teens noticed them and changed course to charge on their bikes. Doc grabbed Rita by the shoulder pulled her back before she could take aim at one of the gangers.

“Drek, this is a stupid idea,” Doc whispered.

Rita pulled her foreleg away. “Yeah, I could’ve told you that, stupid!”

The gangers fired streams of flame at them. Doc pushed Rita in one direction and he dove in the opposite. The flames missed Doc by inches. The searing heat licked at his heels and shot pain up his legs. The gangers drove in between them, shouting incoherent words.

Doc turned around and fired at the bike of one of the gangers, but his bullet missed the mark. He stood up and cursed himself for not taking up Manco’s offer for a gun earlier.

He helped Rita up and then pulled her along by the leg again. They galloped away from the crowds and stopped by a metal trash can to catch their breath. The tow gangers made sloppy turns on their bikes for another head-on pass. Doc’s head swam with uncertainty. The thumping of his heartbeat pounded hard against his chest.

Rita panted to catch her breath. “Okay, first… stop yanking me around!”

“Well... eventually they’re gonna… run out of gas,” Doc replied as he panted, “So we could… you know, keep running.”

“Screw that... I’m too tired,” she replied. “Gonna just… take a shot. You got a gun?”

Doc snorted. “Pfft, no. It’s okay... still got a trick up my sleeve. I’m good for one.”

The gangers lined up side by side on the opposing side of the field. They revved their engines and charged straight toward the two Trotters. The rear wheels roared with a fountain of dirt sprayed high behind them. Vehicle sirens whispered in the distance, but grew louder into a cacophony swarm of screeches. Shouts and screams were drowned out by one another as ponies ran away from the park grounds. Doc realized he never did ask how much he was being paid to put up with this crap.

“How’s your aim?” he asked Rita.

“Good,” she responded. “I mean, I could hit one of them. Probably.”

“Okay, you shoot the left one, I got the right one.”

Doc took in a deep breath and concentrated hard on the ambient life around him. He mentally gripped the energy from within and weaved it together into a tight, cylindrical bolt of white, crackling light between his fore-hooves. He flung the spell at his target’s motorcycle as hard as he could muster. Beside him Rita unloaded several rounds at her target.

Two bullets connected with one ganger’s shoulder and he lost his balance. The magical bolt impacted against the other’s bike and twisted the front wheel sideways. The motorcycle on the left drove on without its rider while the rider on the right kept going without his motorcycle. It ended in a haphazard tumble of riders and bikes over one another. Both gangers flopped to a stop on the ground, covered in dirt and bleeding gashes over their bodies.

The blaring sirens and flashing lights of a firetruck was the first responding vehicle to the scene. Firefighters leaped off their vehicle and unraveled hoses with a professional choreography. Across the street, several Buckstar police officers exited the convention center and raced toward the park chaos. Ponies outside the park stopped to gather around the area.

Rita hid her gun under her overcoat. “Make yourself scarce,” she whispered as she walked away.

“Uh, right,” Doc muttered. He galloped back to Manco and the homeless pony. His lungs burned to catch more breath.

The zebra pocketed the disabled explosive and the detached commlink. He frowned at the converging crowd of firefighters, cops, and bystanders to where the two gangers sat. “¿Qué es esto? I disarm a dangerous bomb, and you throw me a parade by inviting the police?”

“Yeah, it’s like Buckstar actually does their job... or something around here,” Doc commented with a wobbling wave of his hoof. He took a few steps past the disabled lawnba. “We should probably go hide... before someone points out I was throwing spells around. I left my mage registration card in my other doesn’t exist.”

The homeless pony picked up the large drone. “I’ll introduce Lanna to them. She’ll explain everything!” He trotted off in an awkward gait toward the gathered crowd and shoved past them toward the police.

Doc glanced over at Manco with a look halfway between concerned and confused. The zebra only shrugged.

The pavilion doors opened wide and the occupants exited the building. They stopped to watch the nearby commotion. Doc looked on as well. The two teen gangers were arrested and the fire department put out several trees. Many among the crowds of onlookers pulled out their commlinks to film the scene.

Harvey walked over to Doc and discreetly stuffed a small, tapered object into his pocket. “I’ll ask later,” Harvey whispered. “The meeting’s done, so take this credstick and skedaddle on out. It’s got two grand in there.” He gave him a gentle push.

Without a response, Doc walked away from the park. He walked slowly, so as not to catch attention.

Manco winked at him. “I’m up for drinks later,” the zebra stated.

Doc nodded, but continued to make his egress from the park. Barely within earshot, he overheard the homeless pony scream something about a changeling conspiracy from within the government. This was abruptly interrupted by the sound of tasers.

[]-----[]-----[]

Doc took a swig of his beer. The bitter taste burned as it went down his throat. Harvey’s tavern was full of patrons tonight; ponies that chattered, and drank, and shouted, and ate. The atmosphere drowned out the commentary of the combat biker games on the trideo screens. Near the largest screen, several patrons held a betting pool on which team would score the most points. The cacophony was a perfect backdrop for Doc to talk with Manco about the park job earlier without being overheard.

“So, what did you do with that bomb?” Doc asked.

“It’s in my saddlebag,” Manco replied. He reached in to pull out the device.

Doc froze in place as the zebra pulled out… a commlink. He breathed again and elbowed Manco in the shoulder. Doc was not amused by the deception.

The zebra chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “Nah, I took it home,” Manco confessed. “Maybe I can find out whose it is.”

“Would be nice to know who tried to blow us up,” Doc said as he scanned the room. “Though, where did you learn how to defuse bombs?”

“I pick up stuff here and there on the matrix.” Manco finished off his beer and then slowly peeled off the label.

Doc narrowed his eyes on him. His gut feeling told him that the zebra did not pick up such a skill online.

Manco browsed to a specific page on his commlink and showed it to Doc. “I think that chica at the park was a journalist.” He tapped a button on the screen and sent Doc a link. “I saw this on my news feed an hour ago.”

Doc pulled up a news article on his glasses’ HUD. It was an opinion piece about the rising rates of gang wars in Seaddle. It specifically mentioned the two gangers in the park today, armed with flamethrowers, but the article made no mention about Doc’s presence. He didn’t even appear in any of the page photos. The author’s signature read ‘R. Ita’.

Doc let out a snort. “Yeah, I guess that’s her. At least she was nice enough to leave me out of the pictures.”

He pulled out the credstick in his pocket and plugged it into the data port of his commlink. The monetary data that loaded displayed a certified balance of two-thousand nuyen, ready for transfer into whatever account Doc wished. He moved the money into his own bank and then pocketed the empty credstick.

Harvey walked up to their table and sat down with three bottles of a Neighpon imported beer. He seemed to lack most of the positive vibe today that Doc had known him for. Harvey twisted the caps off with his hoof and passed the bottles around.

“Gracias,” Manco said as he grabbed a bottle. He took a large gulp.

Doc put his half-finished beer down to try this new one. It tasted quite a bit better, though maybe not that much better now that he got a look at the price tag. “What’s the occasion?” he asked his friend. “Not like you to pass around a few freebies.”

“Yours is free. Your friend’s beer is double the price,” the bartender stated with a nod to the zebra.

Manco smirked and continued to drink.

Harvey leaned forward. “Anyway, I was right on how to decrypt the file to get at Bellini’s will, but the will itself was a bit odd. It left me a few of her contacts, some old gear, and a bank account. At least, that’s what I thought it was at first; the bank doesn’t exist and the account numbers are gibberish.” He showed Doc his commlink screen. The data appeared to be corrupt, with the file name of ‘BANK513RD’.

“Maybe it’s an address?” Doc suggested. “RD could be the abbreviation of ‘road’.”

“I thought about that, but there’s no Seaddle street numbered 513,” Harvey said. “I think this account file is encrypted separately from the will. I’ll call up a friend later to take a crack at it.”

Doc rotated the bottle in front of him. “Think it might be related to her, ah, passing?”

“Probably,” the bartender replied. “Course for all I know it could be an account full of laundered money from the mafia. She was always hanging out with bad folks. Pain in my ass… I still miss her, though.”

“Qué triste,” Manco said as he stared up at the ceiling. “To love and lose someone so close.”

“Hmm,” Doc muttered. “Reckon we all know what that feels like.”

Harvey nodded. “I suppose it’s a life lesson we all learn the hard way. Well, no sense dwelling on the past too long. It’s good for business, but bad for repeat customers.” He raised his bottle up to the others and cleared his throat.

“Gentlecolts, to the mares we love, and mares that love us. May the two never shall meet.”

Doc clinked his drink against his friends’ bottles and then gulped it down. He could almost smell the frosty pink mane of the one he lost in that beer bottle. Maybe he had one too many drinks tonight. He wasn’t sure.

Chapter 3: Life of the Party Crasher

The sun rose slow and steady over the eastern mountains upon the city’s first Saturday in October. A warm, orange-yellow light bathed the skyline. Most residents of Seaddle awoke to their usual routines as they would any other Saturday morning, but those with a nightlife opted to sleep in a little more.

Light invaded Doc’s little studio apartment through the sole window by his bed. The weather outside felt quite crisp through the glass pane, so he wished to use this opportunity to sleep in under the comfort of a heavy cotton blanket. Doc groaned and flipped over to face away from the bright morning light.

‘Mmph, freakin’ sun. It’s too early.’

He curled his hooves together under the blanket. Doc felt at peace with the sun on his back. His only discomfort was the gentle waft of stale breath upon his snout that came from the pony laying in bed with him.

Wait.

Doc opened his eyes. He found himself nose to nose with a familiar red-maned pegasus who wore nothing but a huge, cheeky grin.

“Morning, sunshine,” Jackie whispered in a sultry voice.

Doc jumped up to a sitting position. “Whaa! Why are you here? How are you here? Really, just… what the hell?!”

The pegasus laughed and slid off the bed. “Relax, Doc. I just got here. Didn’t lay a hoof on you, in case you were curious.”

“A small comfort coming from the mare that broke into my home,” he growled. Doc picked up his glasses from the nightstand and donned them. “So… from the top; why are you here?”

Jackie wandered into Doc’s kitchenette in the next room. “After that job we did together at the warehouse, I kept seein’ cops circling the block in my neighborhood. I think they’re looking for me. One of the cops we took down must of recognized my pretty face.”

“That job was four days ago,” Doc stated. “I reckon if they were looking for you, they would of knocked on your door by now.”

The pegasus raided Doc’s fridge. She opened the carton of soymilk and took a gulp from the spout. “You’d think that, but remember—I’m Springboard Jackie, mighty pirate! I could take two of them on at once, so I bet they’re casing my apartment building for a massive raid.”

“Or maybe they’re cops on their usual patrol and you’re being paranoid?” Doc countered. He got up and put on a plain black shirt for warmth.

“I didn’t want to take that chance; I grabbed what I could and flew the coop last night. In a literal sense, I suppose. So then I asked myself, ‘Jackie, who do you know that is a relative nobody in the shadows that you could lay low with for a few days?’” She pulled two slices of bread out of a container and dropped them into the toaster as she relayed her story. “And then I remembered you from our little adventure that one night.”

“Okay, let me stop you right there,” Doc interrupted.

The toaster exploded into sparks. The pegasus jumped back from the counter, wings spread wide apart. Bits of burnt breadcrumbs showered the kitchenette floor. The appliance made a distinctive electrical ‘snort’ and went silent.

“Guess I should’ve stopped you sooner,” he lamented as he hurried over. Doc unplugged the toaster without hesitation. He then flipped the appliance upside down and shook out the remains of the bread. Two surprisingly charred slices fell out onto the countertop. “Alright, so you decided to come here and hide from the cops. Fine. Next question—how’d you find me?”

Jackie slowly folded her wings. She stared at the toaster for several seconds before she answered. “Well, I know a pony or two that lived in the shadows for a while. I asked them for a list of street doctors in the north part of town. Your place happened to be number three on that list.”

“So you got lucky, then?”

The pegasus slouched. “Eh, if you’re gonna make it sound so dull...”

Doc’s commlink rang with Harvey’s image on the caller ID. He picked up the device and answered the call, but kept it facing away from his ‘guest’. “Hello?”

The bartender’s face came up on the video feed. “Hey, Vardo! Sorry if I woke you,” he greeted. He wore a large smile. “I recently reconnected with an old associate of mine, and she has an urgent job that you might be interested in.”

“Vardo?” Jackie asked with a smirk.

Harvey’s eyebrows lifted up. “Who’s that? Do you have company over?”

“No, that’s just—”

Jackie jumped right beside Doc and waved. “Hey there, chummer! Name’s Springboard Jackie, skilled Trotter! I worked with Vardo on a past gig.”

Doc pulled the commlink away. “Company like a bad cold,” he remarked. “Anyway, what’s this about a job?”

Harvey looked amused by Jackie’s presence. He continued, “Do you know about the art dealer, Al Fresco?”

“Can’t say that I do.” Doc replied.

“Not a problem if you don’t. Al was a ‘black market’ kind of dealer; he used to buy and sell stolen artworks until he did some time in Cali. He’s local these days and seems to have gone legit. However...”

Jackie snickered. “Once a pirate, always a pirate. Right, matey?”

“Exactly,” Harvey answered, “And now he’s gone a step farther down the slippery slope—ripping off his clients. My friend recently paid about sixty grand on a painting advertised as the real deal. Turns out it was only a high-quality reproduction.”

Doc needed a moment to process the price tag. “Why would she pay sixty grand for a painting?”

“I dunno, maybe she likes art that isn’t a couple red lines on white canvas,” the bartender replied. He switched the video from himself to an image of the painting in question beside the reproduction. The art piece was an oil painting of a chubby white mare on a swing that hung from a tree branch.

Jackie leaned over Doc’s shoulder to get a close look. “Is this one signed ‘I. C. Wiener’?”

“Pfft,” Doc huffed at the inane comment. He kept focus on his friend’s story. “Well, Harvey, why can’t your friend just go to the police?”

The bartender came back into view. “Cops ask too many questions, especially if they suspect you knowingly bought stolen art. Either way, she’d never see the genuine art piece or her money. However, she is a Johnson.”

That last line made Doc sigh out loud. “I see where this is going. You want me to join a Trotter team that’s going to steal the painting from Al Fresco.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“We’ll do it!” Jackie shouted out loud.

“Whaddya mean ‘we’, feather-head?” Doc grumbled at the pegasus. “What if I already decided that the Shadows aren’t my thing?”

The sound of a door chime rang out in the room. Doc swiped Harvey’s video aside on his commlink and opened a second window to see the camera feed to his front door. A tall, thin unicorn mare in a dark gray trench coat and wide-brimmed hat stood there.

Harvey chuckled. “Ah, that must be her. Well, if you aren’t interested, you can let her know and we’ll find someone else for the job. Gotta go, Vardo.”

“No, wait—”

The call ended. Doc ran a hoof through his mane, upset that his morning was out of his control. “Luna damn that stallion. Stay here, Jackie. I’ll go talk to her.”

“Ha! Like skittles I’m gonna just sit here, matey,” Jackie rebuked. “I could use the cash if I gotta relocate.”

In a hustle, Doc lead her down the stairs and through the clinic. He flipped the room’s lights on without a glance at the switch’s location. When he reached the front entrance, Doc paused a second, took in a deep breath, and then he opened the door. Before him stood a well-groomed unicorn; soft light blue coat, lavender mane, polished hooves. The mare smiled and presented herself with a bow.

“Good morning, I’m Mrs. Johnson. Would you happen to be Doctor Wagon?” she asked.

“He is!” Jackie answered. “I’m Springboard Jackie. Heard that you—”

Doc put a hoof over the pegasus’ muzzle and pushed her back inside. He then returned his attention to the unicorn. “Please, come inside,” he offered.

The mare walked in and followed him over to his clinic. Doc offered her the dentist chair, the most comfortable seat in the room. She sat down without a sound and removed her hat. The Johnson then fluffed her mane back a couple times. Jackie sat on the stool and Doc leaned against his examination bed.

“Thank you for hearing me out, doctor,” the Johnson began. “I believe my associate, Mr. Wallbanger, has filled you in on the high-level details?”

“Yeah, he said you need a team to steal a painting that you already paid for,” Doc answered.

The unicorn nodded. “It was my painting to begin with, in fact. Stolen from my galleria nearly two years ago.”

Doc exchanged a curious glance with Jackie. He was moments from politely declining this job offer before he even heard the full story. Sure, Trotters could potentially make a lot money in the shadows, but the risks included getting arrested, crippled, or shot dead. Yet, despite the known danger, Doc could not help but offer this mare a glass of water and another five minute of his time. He filled a small plastic cup with filtered water from the sink and held it out to her.

Jackie remained chatty as ever. “I like jobs where the cops aren’t involved. That’s still a thing, right?”

“Correct, the police were not called because I live a complicated life. The law complicates that further,” the Johnson explained. “The money I paid was akin to ransom, but Al reneged on the deal after I wired him the money. I don’t want justice, I want my painting back.”

“Well, I reckon that’s a fair statement,” Doc agreed, “But I’m not experienced with breaking into places quietly. Jackie here is more a match for your job.”

The Johnson shook her head. “Doctor Wagon, your friend referred you to me because you are a sociable pony. Tell me, do either of you have good etiquette?”

“Only when I’m drunk,” Jackie replied.

Doc rolled his eyes at the pegasus before he answered. “Yeah, I’ve attended a fancy party or two in my college days, mixing with elites. Used to date a… socialite. Why?”

“Those are the skills that I require for tonight,” the Johnson explained. She took her first sip of water. “Interested? I’ll pay you twelve grand to recover my lost artwork.”

He raised an eyebrow at the sum presented. Doc felt conflicted between taking a job that involved grand theft, and taking a job that would pay him several thousand nuyen in cash. He settled into negotiations that he hoped he wouldn’t regret later. “It’s mighty last minute, ma’am, so it’s gonna be a bit costly for me to set up. Sixteen grand,” Doc countered.

The unicorn grinned. “Fourteen, with four grand up front.”

Doc considered the proposal, then added one last condition. “I’ll accept the offer if I get to vet my own team.”

Jackie gave him a wide-eyed glance that he read as ‘Please pick me?’

“But of course, Doctor Wagon. I agree to your terms,” the Johnson said. She pulled out her commlink and sent a request to wire four thousand nuyen to his account.

Doc completed the transfer and shook her hoof. “Thank you. Where do you wish to meet up for the exchange?”

The Johnson stood up and placed the glass of water on the chair. Her horn glowed and a pen levitated out from her vest pocket. It scribbled a series of numbers on the cup. “I’ll swing by your neighborhood later tonight. Message me at this number when you are ready. Oh, and you’ll want to have these.”

Her horn glowed again, and this time a plain manilla envelope pulled itself free from inside her coat. It floated over to Doc. “Good luck, doctor. I am counting on you to deliver.”

Doc grabbed the floating object and then waited until the Johnson left his clinic before he opened the envelope. Inside were two photographs. The first was Al Fresco, the target of the theft job and a portly stallion with a long, swept-back auburn mane. The other pony was Al’s personal assistant, a petite white mare with a short black mane and thin glasses named Penny Inkwell. In addition to the photos, there were two gold-leaf invitations to an art gallery showing at Fresco’s residence tonight at 8pm. Formal attire required.

Jackie let out a cheerful whistle. “We get to dress up fancy and attend a party?! Yes!” She did a little jig right there on the stool.

“Huh… I’m not sure if I should be excited or worried,” Doc stated.

“So who else are you going to bring on? Not too many Trotters I hope. Hate to split the money too many ways.”

“I have Manco’s number, so I’ll give him a call,” he replied. “If your shadowy friends know the local gangs, I’d like you to track down a Nightmare Nighter unicorn named Switchblade.”

“A ganger?” the pegasus questioned. “You planning on trashing the party?”

“On the contrary, she’s a hacker. My gut tells me she’ll work well under pressure, unlike what happened with Ghost.”

Jackie tapped a hoof to her chin. “Alright, but can you give me something more to work with, like a description? Does she have a job?”

“She’s tall, with a gray coat and a spiky purple mane,” Doc answered. “She said she fixed things for the Nighters. Maybe there’s a repair shop somewhere she works out of?”

“Bah, there’s as many shady ganger spots around town as there are coffee shops. This could take a while, but I’ll see what I can find out.”

Doc nods and waves to the door. “Well, you better scoot along, then. We don’t have a lot of time to plan, and you’re gonna need to pick out a dress, too.”

The pegasus let out a pleased laugh and trotted out of the clinic.

Doc called up Manco on his commlink. He thought back to the question of whether he was excited or worried. In truth, both applied; excited to attend a fancy party that would return somepony’s rightful property to them, and worried that the Johnson fabricated her story in order to play on his sense of kindness.

The zebra answered the call and appeared happy to see him. “¡Buenos dias, Doc! What can I do for you?”

“Actually, I got something to offer you. How do you feel about art galleries?”

[]-----[]-----[]

Downtown Seaddle sometimes reminded Doc of his childhood in Manehattan; the streets were lined with tiny shops and food vendors, while hundreds of pedestrians cantered along the dirty sidewalks beneath brightly colored AR advertisements.

The bus braked hard and lurched to a stop. Doc grabbed the seat in front of him and braced himself before his face hit the cushion. He frowned at the pony-looking robot at the front of the vehicle. It greeted boarding passengers with a stiff hoof wave. He disliked self-driving vehicles, and held a particular disdain for this specific automated bus that drove with all the aggressiveness of a Neigh York taxi driver.

The bus drove onward once more and sped through a yellow traffic light. A mare’s voice spoke up from the bus speakers above, “Now approaching the Arcology Commercial & Housing Enclave.” Next to Doc, Manco leaned against the window with wide eyes. The bus approached the city’s largest building; an enormous flat-top pyramid structure set on the shores of Elliott Bay.

Manco picked up his commlink to get a picture. “Madre de Luna, ese edificio es enorme,” he muttered.

Doc elbowed the zebra. “First time seeing the Roanraku Arcology up close, huh? That’s what an over nine-hundred meter tall monster looks like. Can you believe it’s only the eighth or ninth largest building in the world?”

“Only?” Manco replied as he looked at Doc. “It’s big enough to be its own city.”

“Aye, probably was when it first opened,” Jackie interrupted from the bench behind the stallions. She poked her head in between them. “The mall at the base of it is, like, seven city blocks and five floors tall.”

“What else is in there?” the zebra asked.

Doc shrugged. “There’s about two hundred floors of public housing for the poor. Everything above that has been sealed off for years.”

“I bet the military still has all those bodies that died from the shutdown disaster,” Jackie whispered to them. “Using them for sinister cybernetic experiments.”

“I doubt there’s a hidden lab up there,” Doc said as he rolled his eyes.

Jackie pointed an accusing hoof at him. “Hey, would you miss a few dozen homeless bums now and then squatting among thousands in there?”

“I heard of that incident,” Manco said. “That happened on Hearth’s Warming a few years back, yes? All the computers crashed together?”

Doc winced a little. “Well, that’s... really understated, but yeah. A lot of folks died in that.”

The bus pulled into the ACHE’s public transit terminal and slammed on the brakes to a full stop. Half the passengers were thrown out of their seats onto the floor. The squeaky doors opened up and the synthesized mare voice chirped, “Welcome to the Arcology Commercial & Housing Enclave. This bus will depart in five minutes to its next major stop, the Seaddle-Tacoma Airport. Enjoy your day.”

The trio pushed their way out of the bus along with the other passengers. Jackie took to the air as soon as she exited and hovered over the shifting crowds. Other pegasi had the same idea, which made flying around equally as crowded.

Doc’s AR display flooded with dozens of pop-up advertisements; store sale listings, restaurant lunch menus, and ads for employment opportunities. He grunted, then closed the entire batch of unwanted holograms.

“Come on,” Jackie said as she urged her companions to follow, “I know a great soy ice-cream shop here.”

“Oh, eso parece bueno,” Manco chirped with a grin.

“We can’t linger for the sights,” Doc warned them. “We gotta find Switchblade and hire her on, then we need to buy ourselves nice clothes for tonight’s party.”

The pegasus lowered herself to eye-level with Doc. “I could tell you that you’d be missing out on the best ice cream served this side of downtown, but I could also tell ya to go to hell and I’m buying it anyway.”

“Do I get a choice?” Doc asked in a flat tone.

Jackie stuck her tongue out at Doc. She flew in front of the stallions through the crowded station and into the mall. They passed a large, blank steel sign that hung above the entrance. All that remained of the message were faded marks in the paint where letters were attached. The trio entered into massive food court. The open-floor plan gave a clear view of the mall’s first three levels.

Hundreds of ponies sat at the tables to eat. Hundreds more moved around them haphazardly. Nearly every fast food stand and cheap restaurant chain was found here.

“Where do we find this chica?” Manco asked as he looked at the different food stands.

Doc looked up at the second floor. “I think Jackie said there’s a Nighters-run repair shop upstairs?”

“Aye, a friend of mine said it’s the biggest one in downtown, and mostly legit,” the pegasus explained. “There’s only like… a dozens other gang around that cause ‘em trouble. It’ll be fine.”

Manco furled his brow. “Define ‘mostly legit’.”

“Fun and games until we get stabbed,” Doc commented. He headed towards the nearest stairwell and began the climb. Dozens of other ponies pushed their way in both directions. Doc kept an eye on the wallet inside his jacket pocket as he followed the ascending crowd. On the next level he pushed his way out of the crowd.

The shops on the second floor were comprised of small, square booths lined up in rows around the food court. They were individual businesses that dealt in little niche products; blown glass jars, hoof-made soaps, fitted car seat-covers, etc. The affair operated more like a flea market than a proper mall. Doc noticed many of the booths had changed tenants since the last time he came. He stopped in front of a store that sold little fish as pets.

‘Hmm, maybe a Betta would look good in the office.’

Jackie let out an audible gasp. “Yar, there’s the soy ice cream shop down there!” she shouted. Before Doc could protest, she dove off the railing and sailed over to get in line.

Doc looked down at the crowds and let out an annoyed snort. “Need a leash for her, honestly. Think she’ll cause trouble on this job?” he asked Manco.

The zebra looked down. “Creo que no,” he replied.

Several ponies below collided. An older mare fell over and screamed as a teenaged colt grabbed her purse. The two struggled for the item, but witnesses backed away instead of helping the old mare.

“Oh come on!” Doc grumbled. He looked back to the stairs, but the high traffic would make it hard for him to get down in time to help. “Shit, we should do something for her.”

“You have steady hooves, right?” Manco asked him.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

The zebra trotted over to a trashcan and reached in. A moment later he pulled out a glass beer bottle. Manco jumped up on railing and leaned out precariously.

“Hold me Doc, I don’t want to fall,” he instructed.

Doc grabbed him around the waist. “Okay, we’re doing something crazy.”

“Sí, somos.”

Manco held the bottle up high and then pitched it hard at the teenaged thief below. The bottle flew in a tight arc and shattered against the thief's back. He howled in pain, but let go of the purse as he stumbled away. The crowd seemed to be oblivious to the incident.

Doc helped Manco down off the railing. “That’s some aim you got.” he remarked.

The zebra smirked. “That’s some grip you have.”

“Pfft, sure.”

Jackie returned and landed beside the two stallions. She held a paper bowl full of mint ice cream in her hooves. “Did you see that? Someone was throwing stuff. I think they nailed some kid down there,” she said between licks of her treat.

Doc rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we saw.”

“Mmm, look,” Jackie said with a mouth full of soy ice cream. She pointed with a wing.

A large storefront not far from them stood out from its neighbors with a display of spooky-looking posters of ghosts and pumpkins. Several tables flanked the entrance, all filled with an eclectic, but organized mix of electronic devices. The sign above the entrance read ‘Brix Fix’ in clean, well-lit letters.

“That seems worth a gander,” Doc stated. He walked over to the store and looked around for the employees.

There were two earth ponies behind the counter, and a third who showed several used commlinks to a customer. Doc walked past them, toward the back area. He saw a door that might have led to the back room, so he inched up to it and peeked inside.

A pair of gray forelegs grabbed him from behind in a tight headlock. He flailed to break free, but couldn't get a good grip on his assailant. However, he recognized the wristbands and stopped resisting.

“Hey… Switchblade…” Doc gasped out.

The unicorn let Doc go. He gasped for breath and rubbed his neck. Nearby, both Jackie and Manco stood there with dumbstruck looks on their faces. Jackie had stopped eating her food to watch. Doc waved at them to relax.

“It’s okay,” he said breathless to his teammates. “This is Switch. She’s cool.”

“Never heard anypony in a headlock describe their attacker as ‘cool’,” Manco commented.

Jackie laughed into a wing. “Aye, that was hilarious.” She continued to eat her treat.

Switchblade slapped Doc on the back. “‘Sup, Doc? This your squad?”

“Yeah, sure, we’ll go with that.” He adjusted his glasses. “Switch, this is Springboard Jackie and Manco Correo. Squad, this is Switchblade.”

Jackie waved a wing as she kept eating.

The zebra bowed. “Es un placer conocerte, señorita Blade.”

“What?” Switch asked after hesitating.

“He said it’s a pleasure,” Doc translated. He noticed that Switch’s horn had fresh bandages wrapped around it. Instinctively, he reached up to check the dressing, but she slapped his hoof away.

“It’s a bit sore, no touchy,” Switch warned him. “So, you here to buy something or to bother me?”

Doc leaned a little closer and whispered, “To hire, actually. Do you have someplace private we can talk?”

“Yeah, sure. One sec.” Switch turned to the two ponies behind the counter. “Taking a break, Chisel!” she shouted at them.

“When you coming back?”

“I dunno, I’m not psychic,” she replied.

Switch opened the door to the back room and waved everyone inside. It was a cramped space with shelving along all four walls. Musty cardboard boxes overflowed from the shelves to haphazard stacks on the floor. Doc walked in and found a stool to sit on. Manco and Jackie did the same while Switch closed the door and locked it. She shoved a box off a table. It clattered onto the floor with a metallic sound on the inside. Switch sat down on the table’s edge, close to everyone.

“Alright, this better be worth my break time.”

Doc rubbed his hooves together and leaned forward. “We’re attending a fancy party tonight, and I need somepony skilled with subverting security networks to watch our backs while we swipe something valuable. Interested?”

“Trotter work?” Switch asked.

“Yeah,” Doc confirmed. “Already negotiated payment and got the info on the target. You want in?”

The unicorn crossed her forelegs. “Well, babysitting you lot seems easy, but cracking a good security network takes a lot of effort.”

“How about for two thousand nuyen?” Doc asked.

“You got the money on you?”

He pulled out his commlink and showed her an account with the full amount offered.

“Well, then I guess somepony is gonna get hacked,” Switch said with a grin. She gave Doc a friendly jab in the shoulder. “Alright, Doctor Evil, what’s your plan?”

“First, we go shopping,” he replied. “We’ll all need nice clothes and some new looks. After that, we’ll need to rent a fancy car and get a streetview of the location.”

“You just need me to hit a network, right? Do I need nice clothes for that?” Switch asked. She motioned down at her basic attire; a frayed sleeveless jean jacket, studded wristbands, and a spiked metal collar.

Jackie nodded. “Well yeah, you’d be pretty naked at the party without clothes.”

Switch raised a hoof and cuffed Jackie in the back of her head.

“That’s the least of high society’s concerns,” Doc commented, in reference to the unicorn’s ganger attire. “Switch, you only need a basic dress shirt. We’ll borrow the rest of the outfit later.”

“Okay, I’m a bit lost,” she interrupted. “What exactly are you planning here?”

Doc adjusted his glasses. “We’re smuggling you in as ‘furniture’. I’ve only got two invitations to the party, so to get you and Manco in, you’ll need to pose as part of the service staff. You like hors d'oeuvres?”

“I was about to slap you for the furniture comment up until you mentioned food,” the unicorn said. “Do go on...”

Doc loaded several files on his commlink and showed them to the unicorn. “Alright, we’re infiltrating a fancy party hosted by this stallion—Al Fresco. He stole a painting from our Johnson and we’re getting it back.”

The commlink displayed images of both their unicorn target and the painting to collect. “Switch, here’s his address. I want to know who’s catering so that you and Manco can go undercover as staff from the catering company. Meanwhile, Jackie and I walk in the front door posing as wealthy socialites.”

Switch pulled out her commlink and tapped something on the screen.

The zebra pointed to the painting. “How big is that?”

“The notes that our Johnson left says it’s roughly a meter squared,” Doc replied. “You and Jackie are the best infiltrators among us, so I’ll need you both to first locate it. Once we know where it is, we can plan out how to grab it. Maybe hide it under a serving cart if it’ll fit.”

The pegasus sighed. “Yar, I wanted to be the distraction. Doc, don’t you have some magic tricks to help you stealth about?”

“Mr. Fresco’s security probably includes at least one mage watching the astral space there. If I use magic, I’ll light up like a beacon and attract bad attention. However, I have another idea.” Doc swiped to the next picture, that of a young earth pony mare. “This is Fresco’s assistant, Penny Inkwell. I’m sure she knows where all the collections are kept. I can try to talk it out of her.”

“I found the catering company on the matrix,” Switch said. She turned her commlink to show a site with the information. “They’re called Black Tie Flair. They got pics of the uniform the staff wears, too.”

Manco leaned in. “Tengo una pregunta—what kind of party are we crashing?”

Switch pulled up another site. “He’s showing off some old art stuff he acquired from Everfrost. Heh, love how ponies post all their plans on social media.”

Doc frowned when he heard the word Everfrost. “So it’s a gallery of Viking relics.”

“You been there?” Jackie asked him. “I heard it’s a real pretty country to visit.”

He shook his head. “No, never been. I try to avoid islands where the main cuisine includes fermented shark. Anyway, that’s the framework of my plan. I understand it needs some details hammered out, but I reckon we’re a flexible bunch and can get past any complications down the line. So, what do y’all think?”

“Let's see, make more money in one night than I do all month working this dead end job?” Switch replied. “Yeah, screw this place, let’s go.”

“Your coworkers going to be okay with you bailing on them?” Doc asked.

“Pfft, what, you think this is a legit repair shop?” she countered. “Try finding a serial number on anything we sell here.”

Doc’s ears stood up. He looked at the items in a nearby box and then nodded. “Ah. Fair point.”

[]-----[]-----[]

Doc had not been behind the wheel of a vehicle in about two years. The car he rented was a fancy six-cylinder Cattillac, a vehicle worth more than he ever earned legitimately. He pulled into alleyway with an excess amount of caution because of this fact. A scratched up the rental car won’t impress anyone at the party, and they had to appear to belong.

Manco leaned out of the passenger-side window. “You’re awfully close to the wall on this side, amigo. Why don’t you let the car park itself?”

Okay, so the second-to-last thing Doc wanted to do was to scratch up the rental car. The last thing he wanted to do was to let a computer make all the decisions in a moving vehicle.

“Nah, I need to get a feel for how this thing moves,” he replied without averting his gaze on the alley. Doc’s hooves turned the steering wheel and pulled the BMW away from the wall. “The car ain’t going to break the speed limit on its own, and if we need to leave the party in a hurry…”

“Es verdad,” Manco agreed with an understanding nod. “Did you buy their insurance coverage too?”

Doc snorted. “Of course! Otherwise one bullet hole and we can kiss our paycheck goodbye.”

He parked the BMW beside a broken-down pickup truck. The two stallions got out, removed a large tarp from the trunk, and covered the fancy vehicle. The car blended in well with the other junked vehicles here that were covered in rags and tarps. Manco grabbed a canvas bag from the trunk before he closed it. Doc clicked a button on the car key and the vehicle’s alarm engaged.

Bwoop-Beep.

The two entered Doc’s apartment and went upstairs. At the top, Doc smelled the juicy aroma of warm soy-burgers from the kitchen. Hungry, he walked in to find the source of the food.

Switch sat on the only chair Doc owned. She dyed her mane black and slicked it down to either side. She also had one of Doc’s white towels wrapped around her neck to soak up the excess dye drips. Well, in all fairness Doc didn’t own any black towels.

She slid a bag with the giant ‘S’ Stuffer Shack logo across the countertop toward him. “Here, I bought you two something in case the party is serving fermented shark.”

“¡Gracias!” Doc exclaimed, the stained towel issue forgotten for now. He reached into the bag and pulled out a warm soy-burger.

Manco did the same. “¿Dónde aprendiste espoñol, Doc?”

“I grew up in Manehattan,” he explained. “More ponies speak espoñol there than in Pinto Rico.”

“Hmm,” Manco mumbled. He devoured his burger in four bites. Ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise dripped down the corners of his mouth. He wiped the mess with the back of his hoof.

Doc took a big bite of his burger and savored the flavor. What he enjoyed the most about Suffer Shack’s food were the liberal amounts of condiments they put into it. If the burger didn’t drip all over you by the second bite, it wasn’t done right.

He watched Switchblade concentrate on a cup of fries in her hooves. The mare’s horn flickered slightly with an aura of aquamarine. The same brief aura appeared on several of the fries. They twitched for just a moment... and then nothing.

“Eager to use your horn magic again, I see,” Doc said. “Well, don’t push yourself. It’s still healing.”

“Not fast enough,” Switch growled. “I don’t know how you can stand lifting everything with your hooves alone.”

Manco shoved his snout into the Stuffer bag and pulled out another burger in his mouth. He dropped it onto his hoof. “No, we use our teeth too.”

The unicorn narrowed her eyes at him and put down the cup. She picked up her burger and bit into it. The buns made a toasty crunch between her teeth. The bread looked quite charred around the edges.

“Did you use my toaster to heat your buns?” Doc asked her.

“No,” Switch replied.

The toaster violently popped sparks into the air. Manco and Doc both jumped back in surprise. The angry appliance discharged an electrical buzzing sound as the sparks scattered across the floor.

“Mostly no,” the unicorn added.

Doc stepped forward and unplugged the appliance before it did that again, or worse, started a fire. The sparks dissipated and left just a hint of ozone-flavored toast in the air.

“Where’d you buy that fire hazard?” Manco asked.

“I suspect it wasn’t purchased so much as summoned to this world,” Doc answered. “The toaster was here when I rented this apartment. Can’t make toast, but it’s great when I need to test my smoke detector.”

Jackie walked in from the bedroom. She had colored her mane auburn and done it up in poofy waves. She wore a tight-fitting black cocktail dress, slipons for her rear hooves, and a simple silver necklace. The pegasus leaned against the kitchen doorway and sniffed the air.

“Is it smokin’ in here, or is it just me?” she asked in a sultry voice.

Doc swallowed his food. He admitted to himself that Jackie was definitely the better distraction. “Wow, you look great with your mane up.” He glanced over at Manco to see his reaction. The zebra stared at her with his eyebrows hanging up high on his forehead.

Switchblade got up and slapped both stallions on the back of their heads. “Shouldn’t you two finish eating so that you can get ready?!”

“Right, sorry,” Doc apologized. He stuffed the rest of his burger in his mouth and went for the cup of fries.

Jackie let out a soft laugh. “Thanks for the compliment, but I’d rather have kept my dashing good mane as it was. No stallion alive can resist the red.”

“Sí, and the police won’t hesitate to arrest the red if they recognize you later on the streets,” Manco countered.

“Eh, wouldn’t be the first time.” Jackie dismissed him.

Switch walked over to the counter and picked up her commlink. “Alright mares, you’re all pretty. Anyway, I compiled an app that encrypts audio. We can converse as a team without anyone eavesdropping on our conversations.” She sent an upload request to everyone’s commlink.

Doc downloaded the app and started it up. The barebones program had a simple interface—volume controls for microphone and speakers, a mute button, and a list of everyone connected together by the software. “Testing, testing,” Doc said into his device. His heard his voice on everyone’s commlink.

“Yeah, it’s working,” Jackie confirmed.

“Nice idea. You got a name for it?” Doc asked Switch.

“I dunno,” she replied with a shrug. “Call it whatever you want.”

“How about Team Chat?” Jackie offered.

Manco nodded. “Me gusto. Easy to remember and use in conversation without sounding strange.”

Doc put his commlink down and walked into the bedroom. He felt Jackie’s wing tickle the back of his ear as he passed her. He shivered, which elicited a chuckle from the pegasus.

The zebra sat down on the floor and opened his canvas bag. He pulled out several small devices and passed them around. “I have earpieces and hidden microphones for all of us. This way we can talk to each other and keep our hooves free.”

“Nice gear,” Switch complimented. She looked over one of the tiny microphones before she clipped it to the towel around her neck. “Where’d you get these?”

“Things I have laying around my apartment,” Manco replied. “I also brought guns and a few grenades—”

“No grenades!” Doc warned from the bedroom. “We’re infiltrating a mansion, not occupying it.”

Jackie snickered. “Technically we’d be occupying the premises once we’re inside.”

“Shut up,” Doc growled. He grabbed a towel from his closet and walked into the little bathroom for a quick shower. The splatter of auburn dye in the sink and several orange feathers on the floor annoyed his sense of cleanliness.

He wiped up some of the mess with toilet paper and tossed it into the trash can, the one clean thing in the bathroom. Someone knocked on the bathroom door, even though it was still open. Doc looked up and saw Switch there.

“Hey, I found some info on Fresco’s property,” the unicorn spoke up. “He’s got a commercial fire alarm installed. I could disable the alarm’s ability to call the fire department and then we could set it off to clear the building. ...If you want to use a false alarm as a big distraction, that is.”

Doc scrunched his nose. “My worry about setting off a false fire alarm is that with this group it’s not going to be a false fire alarm. Still, it’s not a bad idea. We could save it as a backup plan.” He tried not to sound dismissive. “I just want ‘Plan A’ to be subtle. The best way to get that painting out of Al Fresco’s hooves is by him not knowing about it.”

“Well that’s my plan too!” Manco shouted from the kitchen, “Only with more gun play and explosives.”

Doc closed his eyes let out a sigh. “Manco…”

Switch patted him on the head. “He’s messing with you,” she assured him, “But only I get to do that, so you want me to punch his lights out?”

He looked up at her with a confused frown. “No, why would I?” He saw Switch break into a giggle beneath her failing facade of seriousness. Doc rolled his eyes and closed the door. These ponies were going to drive him crazy! Are they going to follow the plan? Are they going to end up shooting someone? Did Jackie use up all the hot water?

He undressed and climbed into the bathtub. “Just concentrate on the job, Doc,” he told himself. “They’ll pull through when we’re actually on the clock.” He took a deep, calming breath and turned on the showerhead.

To that earlier third question—Yep.

[]-----[]-----[]

The city lights glowed like a raging fire at night. Doc sat in the driver’s seat and stared at the car’s computer. It drove itself using the city’s Grid Guide system to navigate, but despite it’s high safety rating, Doc remained nervous. The road-implanted sensors that fed the car directions did on occasion fail, which would have meant the car’s computer would have had to think for itself. He distrusted computers that thought for themselves.

Jackie sat to his right. She applied eyeliner using the rearview mirror. She offered Doc the brush once she finished.

“No thanks,” he said.

The pegasus shrugged and looked behind her seat. “Manco, Switch, either of you need some touchups?”

The zebra tried to comb his mane, but the black dye had made it clump together. He shook his head at Jackie and continued to fix his hair.

Switch covered her horn’s bandages with a black ribbon. She then looked for a mirror, but didn’t find one in the back. She leaned forward. “Just put a little on the top for me.”

Doc glanced at his mane with the car’s left side-view mirror. The chocolate brown dye suited him. He flicked a few loose strands with a hoof. The tux that he bought felt a bit tight around the waist, but he blamed years of beer and cookies for that problem.

Once finished with the makeup, Switch turned to Doc. “So why did you ask me to join your team? We only met that one time on the streets.”

“I don’t know any other hackers,” Doc answered without hesitation. “Well, there was one on colt from the job I did with Jackie and Manco, but he abandoned us after accidently alerting the cops. You seem professional enough not to screw up and bolt.”

“Lot of assumptions there, Doc,” Switchblade warned with a grin, “But no, I wouldn’t toss you all under the bus and run. If a Nightmare Nighter did that to a fellow gang member, they’d get shot for it.”

“Interesante,” Manco commented. “Does your gang have a code with non-gangers?”

“Yeah, don’t talk about the gang code with them.”

The zebra sat back. “Ah.”

“We will arrive at your destination in five minutes.”

The car’s voice sounded a bit too cheerful when it spoke. Doc looked back at his teammates. “Alright, we’re almost there. Switch, Manco, counting on you two to sneak around behind them like we planned. Jackie… follow my lead. And please be gentle?”

The pegasus smirked, but said nothing.

Doc took control of the car from the computer and pulled over to the side of the road. They were several miles from their destination, but the area here already looked like luxury high-living. No home anywhere around stood shorter than two stories or lacked a covered pool. Best of all, lots of tall bushes and trees to hinder anyone noticing what they were about to do.

Everyone got out of the vehicle. Manco and Switch trotted up a grassy hill toward the well-manicured bushes. Meanwhile, Doc popped the hood and lifted it up. He stared at the engine for several seconds.

“So…” Jackie trailed. “We just sit around and wait?”

“Yup. This is the easy part of the plan.”

Several minutes later, a catering truck approached on the road behind them. Doc flagged the driver down and approached the vehicle’s driver side. He saw two mares in the front seats, but couldn’t tell if anyone occupied the back. He attempted to look relieved from worry.

“Excuse me, I hope that you could help us,” Doc explained to the driver. “Our car broke down, and we’re late to our soiree. Would either of you fine ladies be able to assist us?”

The two mares in the truck glanced at each other. The driver checked her watch before she replied. “Sorry, but neither of us know anything about engines. I could call a tow truck for ya, but that’d be about all we could do.”

Doc tried to think of a plan to stall. “Perhaps if we tried to jump start it? Could be the battery.”

“Well, we don’t have any cables for that,” the passenger stated.

“Not a problem, I have a set in the trunk,” Doc offered.

“Sorry, chummer,” the driver stated, “But we’re on a tight schedule. I’ll call a tow truck, but we gotta go.”

Jackie sauntered up to the passenger side. She threw the two mares a flirty glance. “Are you two sweet things sure you couldn’t just pull up and give us a little... spark?” The pegasus flapped a wing once to accent her question.

The passenger mare opened her door and got out. “Well, guess I can’t say no to a pretty face,” she said.

Doc watched Jackie put a wing over the mare’s back as she walked her to their car. He mentally praised the pegasus for her ploy, but felt embarrassed that he couldn’t charm the mares himself.

The delivery truck engine stalled out without warning. The befuddled driver looked down at the console of lights behind the steering wheel. Three gunshots struck the driver in the head. She collapsed against the wheel like a sack of potatoes.

Hoooooooooooonk!

Jackie spun around and in one solid hit with her wing knocked the other mare with her to the ground. She followed up with a downward hoof-thrust to the forehead and clocked her out cold.

Doc threw the driver door open and pulled the mare away from the wheel. The horn abruptly stopped. He checked her head and found three red welts against her temple; impacts from nonlethal gel rounds.

Up on the hill, Manco stood up and waved a small pistol. He and Switchblade trotted down to the delivery truck’s back door. Doc grabbed the truck’s keys and followed them.

“Let’s see if we got any more passengers,” Switch said.

Doc threw her the keys and took a step back. He focused magical energy in his left forehoof while she unlocked the door. Switch yanked them them open and jumped back. There were no other passengers inside.

With a sigh of relief, Doc let the partial spell dissipate harmlessly. “Good work stalling the engine remotely,” he complimented.

“Feh, told you it was easy,” Switch boasted. “The Bit Jockeys who program these vehicles can’t patch security loopholes for shit.”

Her eyes widened as she got a closer look at the contents in the truck. The unicorn hopped inside and picked up a small container. “Shiny! They got real chocolate in here!”

Jackie and Manco collected the unconscious caterers. Doc helped them undress the uniform vests and load the bodies into the back of the truck. Meanwhile, Switch helped herself to a couple eclairs.

“Forget the nuyen, pay me in these!” the unicorn exclaimed before she shoved one into her mouth.

Manco tossed Switch one of the vests. “Put this on, horn-head. You can stuff your pretty face later at the party.”

Switch snorted at the zebra and shoved the rest of the second eclair into her mouth. She slipped on the vest and pulled the ends together… but wasn’t able to button it due to her size.

“Here, suck it in,” Jackie said as she attempted to help get the vest buttoned.

“I am sucking it in!” Switch complained. “Manco, give me the bigger vest.”

“You have the bigger vest,” he replied.

Doc cleared his throat to interrupt the bubbling argument. “Here, use my collar expander.” He loosened his tie and removed a small looped button that widened his collar. Doc placed the expander around the top button of Switch’s vest and buttoned it together. The whole thing looked tight, but it held.

“There, it looks fine now,” Doc said.

Switch growled. “Not a word from anyone about my weight or I will kick in your teeth! Hmmph. Come on, let’s just go.” She slammed the back door shut.

“Creo que voy a conducir,” Manco whispered as he walked to the driver’s seat up front with the keys.

Doc walked back to the car with Jackie. As he closed the hood, the pegasus let out a giggle.

“What?” Doc asked, curious to know why she laughed.

“Nah, just amused by what you did back there,” Jackie responded. “I think you insulted Switch’s weight by putting a collar extender around her waist.”

It took him a moment to understand what she meant. “Oh… drek, I was only trying to help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him as they got into the car. “She’ll get over it after a couple more pastries. Come on, let’s ride to this party.”

Doc nodded and drove the car himself toward their destination.

[]-----[]-----[]

A pair of large, swaying spotlights lit up the beautiful three-floor mansion. Several crowds mingled on the manicured lawn and watched the passing cars to see who arrived. Doc drove the rental between the squared hedge sculptures at the front entrance, while Manco drove the truck around the back where other catering trucks were unloaded.

The rental came to a soft stop and a valet attendant opened the door for Jackie. Doc got out and looked around. The place threw the word Fancy around liberally. He saw several servers with trays of hors d'oeuvres he didn’t recognize. One mare held up a tray with wine served in wide glasses.

Doc threw the young valet the keys. “Be gentle on the brakes,” he advised.

The attendant drove the car away and Doc took a ticket from the other valet present. Jackie waited for him to take hold of her wing. He stood confused at first, being a wingless earth pony, but he caught on and hooked a foreleg around it.

“Seems awkward this way,” Doc commented as he led her to the front door, “You know, since I’m not a pegasus.”

“We all can’t be perfect,” Jackie teased him.

At the entrance, Doc gave the doorpony two invitations with their falsified names, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher. The dye job that covered up his cutie mark looked something like a bow, so he came up with the surname off that. Jackie’s replacement mark, on the other hoof, looked vaguely like a shaggy wolf. Or a dirty throw pillow. Well, no one on the team had art skills.

They were ushered in with a nod. Doc looked around the large, spacious room and for a moment felt a sense of vertigo. The giant chandelier that hung from the vaulted ceiling sparkled under the many soft yellow-white lights that hung between its crystal ornaments and from the walls. The AR on his glasses lit up with a map that detailed where events went on and what areas were off limits.

“Switch, Manco, we’re in,” Doc whispered to a hidden mic in his collar. “Where are you?”

“Manco’s unloading the truck for other caterers so they don’t find the bodies,” Switch replied over the team’s private voice chat. She sounded clear through the earpiece. “I’m cracking the network right now.”

“Good. We’re moving from the main hall toward the ballroom,” Doc described as he led Jackie onward. “The art gallery is adjacent to that, and I see… one guard at each of those two rooms.”

Jackie tugged at Doc’s leg with her wing. “Hey, I think I see that assistant Penny talking to mare in a coat-tail suit by the kitchen entrance. She looks important.”

“Hmm, she might be the house butler,” Doc theorized. “What’s a mare butler called? A butless?”

Jackie turned and stared at Doc with a raised eyebrow. The voice chat also went silent.

“I’ll pay you all fifty nuyen if you ignore that,” Doc quickly whispered.

“Done and forgotten!” Manco exclaimed over the chat. “I finished unloading the food. I’ll be coming around with drink service in un minuto.”

“Okay, keep us apprised,” Doc replied. He noticed that Jackie stared at a crowd by the ballroom’s wet bar. He assumed they were all gossiping there. “If you want to mingle, go ahead. Just try not to make a big deal of it.”

“I am a big deal,” Jackie countered with a smirk. She trotted off to the crowd with a big smile.

Doc walked over to the gallery and stood in front of a large showcase of several small metalworks. The thick glass protecting the exhibit looked like it would resist several shots from a moderate-sized handgun, and the whole thing probably weighed enough to prevent nicking the entire display. Secured in the case were four old works of copper-gilt art, forged by long-dead Norse smiths. The popup AR window on Doc’s glasses listed what each of the fours objects were called and where they were unearthed. Two of them were from the small island of Everfrost.

“That collection is worth millions,” a deep voice next to him stated.

Doc turned and saw a rotund red earth pony beside him. He appeared middle-aged with a thinning mane. Doc nodded at his assessment. “I’m surprised that Everfrost would even allow their culture to have a price tag.”

“The government doesn’t,” the stallion agreed, “But they cannot keep track every work that exchanges hooves these days. They’re more interested in tourism revenue, so on occasion such masterpieces… mmm, shall we say, slip through the lax regulations at customs. The name’s Rosario, by the way. Appraiser by trade.” He held out a hoof with his introduction.

“Fletcher, sporting goods,” Doc replied. “I’m somewhat familiar with the ancient works of Everfrost. Was there some months ago on business, but I always make the time to see a culture’s art. I think it helps to know the roots of your customers.”

Rosario grinned. “Yes, that is sound strategy. Quite relevant in Everfrost; Unicorn supremacism is still quite strong there from what I hear.”

“Oh, I have some personal familiarity of such.”

The rotund stallion turned his head to look toward the ballroom for a moment. He then leaned in closer to whisper, “Well if that’s the case, I should warn you that I have seen Joar Ragnahild earlier at this party. I assume you’ve at least heard of him?”

Doc’s hooves went cold. “Sir Joar Ragnahild? The crime boss of Everfrost?”

“Well, a mine boss publically,” Rosario said. “I wouldn’t go throwing such rumors around lightly when the richest stallion in the aluminum industry is attending the same party I am.”

Doc covered his mouth, shocked at his faux pas. He brushed down his coat and tried to recover from this news. His heart beated hard in his chest. “Of course, yes. I shouldn’t believe things I read on the less reputable matrix sites,” he said to wave off the concern. “Well, it would still be an honor to meet him, but perhaps later... I still need to pay thanks to Mr. Fresco for this lovely soiree.”

Manco walked up to Doc with a saddle-tray of champagnes and wines on his back. “Would either of you gentlecolts care for refreshments?”

“Dear Luna yes,” Doc whispered as he snatched a champagne flute. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Rosario.”

“Of course,” he replied after he plucked a glass of wine for himself. “I will hope to talk more about Everfrost culture later. It is a fascinating subject.”

Doc nodded. “Yes, of course! It is a beautiful island, ha ha...” He trailed off with a stiff laugh. He then walked away from the conversation and gulped the champagne down. Doc let off a cough as the alcohol burned his throat. Huh, this wasn’t the cheap stuff.

Manco caught up with him and trotted alongside. “Hey amigo, everything alright?” he asked.

“At the moment, yeah,” Doc lied. “Everything’s shiny so long as I don’t bump into the one chance meeting that’ll tank this job.”

“How so?” the zebra asked.

Switchblade spoke into their earpieces, “Doc apparently knows a unicorn named Sir Joar Ragnahild. Owns Everfrost’s entire aluminum mining operation, making him the island’s most powerful stallion.”

“Sir?” Manco questioned.

“Knighted by the Queen of Great Breton herself,” Switch answered. “He’s also got six children. Probably because Everfrost looks like a boring place to live...”

Doc frowned. “You were listening in on my conversation?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s what you’re paying me for, isn’t it?” Switch questioned him. A faint chewing sound followed.

“Fair point.” Doc shrugged.

Manco stopped walking and allowed a pair of mares to grab champagne from his tray. “¿Ragnahild está aquí? Is he here?” the zebra asked the team after the mares walked away.

“He’s not on the guest list,” Switch answered, “Unless he’s using another name.”

“He’s got powerful enemies, so I reckon that’s the case,” Doc affirmed, “But why would he be all the way out here in Seaddle?”

Switch hummed out loud for a moment. “I’ll watch the security cameras. If I see him, I’ll let you know where so that you don’t bump into him. Until then, how about you all make like mice and sniff out that cheese we’re after?”

“Thought it was a painting?” the zebra asked with a grin.

“Manco…” Switch warned.

Doc cleared his throat to get their attention. “Alright, let’s get to work. Jackie, you following this conversation?”

No answer.

“Switch, if you can get Jackie’s attention with a loud sound into her earpiece, do it and tell her to search around the galleries,” Doc instructed. “Manco, you and I will start on the second floor. Everyone should have the image of the painting on their commlinks. Call once you spot it and don’t blow your cover!”

Doc headed for the stairs. In the distance, he faintly heard Jackie cry out ‘Oww! What?!’ He couldn’t stop the smirk that appeared on his lips.

The AR display on Doc’s glasses lit up with a miniature map of the second floor once he ascended the stairs. A large ballroom space had been dedicated to gambling, but the rest of the floor remained off limits. Guests lined up at several tables to play Blackjack, Poker, and Roulette. They tracked their earnings and losses not with poker chips, but through commlinks and holographic AR displays.

Doc walked along the tables, curious to see the games played. A mare with a green mane gave him a dirty look, but Doc ignored it. One of the Blackjack dealers waved at him to take an empty seat at his table, but Doc shook his head and continued on.

The ballroom and adjacent hallways were sparse when it came to works of art. A few tiny paintings decorated the area, but Doc didn’t see any empty hooks or floor stands that might have suggested that more art had been packed away for the party.

Doc also didn’t see the pegasus mare that tried to cross his path with a tray of Tuna Pâté. They collided, and the two ponies both grabbed the tray together, losing only half the contents to gravity.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir!” the mare apologized. She brushed off the tuna from her skirt and then sat down to pick up the mess on the floor.

“No, no, was all my fault,” Doc countered. He helped her clean up the dropped snacks off the floor. “I was musing to myself that Mr. Fresco’s walls were rather bare of his art collections up here.”

“Oh, that’s the way he prefers it. He’s a private stallion; keeps most of it upstairs.”

Doc gave the mare a warm smile. “Well, I reckon he doesn’t need to show off works of art when he’s got a lovely staff working for him.”

The mare’s wing dealt a playful slap on his shoulder. “Bah, I’ve heard that one a dozen times tonight alone,” she said. The mare turned around and walked away, but after a few steps, she glanced back at him.

Doc followed her out into the hallway and to the far end where the servants collected the trash. He watched the mare dump the ruined food. Once she finished, she turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Name’s Fletcher,” Doc introduced with an outstretched hoof. “Again, sorry for making a mess of your fine Pâté. I’d buy you a drink, but that would probably be more work for you.”

The pegasus snorted, but face wore a fine smile. She walked over to him and stood nose to nose. “I’m Twistee Treat. You’re not one of Mr. Fresco’s regular guests. You have a sense of humor.”

Doc felt her left wing scratch him behind the neck. He raised an eyebrow. “I’m from the east coast scene; Bolton, Phillydelphia, Jennet City. I can tell you all about it later if you got a break coming up.”

“Well,” Twistee began to say, “Give me a couple minutes to freshen up, and maybe I’ll be curious to learn what an east coast stallion is doing out here in Seaddle.” She turned and walked away. Her tail flicked in Doc’s face.

Manco walked up alongside him, his serving tray empty. “Who were you flirting with?”

“One of the servants, I reckon,” Doc answered. “She let slip that most of the art is up on the third floor. I’m going to see if I can get any more details out of her.”

“Ten cuidado,” Manco warned. “She might be expecting you to make a bad move on her. Don’t give her a reason to shoot you in the face.”

“Wasn’t on my list of things to do tonight.” He glanced back in the direction Twistie walked off to. “You think she’s got a gun? Must be a tiny one.”

The zebra nodded. “Yeah, probably between her legs.”

Doc narrowed his eyes at him. “You… you’re kidding right?”

“No, serious. You’d be surprised how easily a mare can sneak a gun under a dress.”

“You know, I’m just gonna take your word for it before the topic gets weird. Now go find a way up to the third floor.” Doc started walking away, but he stopped and turned back to him. “And Tell Jackie, too. Need you both searching.”

Doc continued down the hall to find Twistee Treat. The AR map didn’t show any restrooms in this direction; There were rooms to either side with just a sparse collection of furniture in them. He stopped to contact Switchblade.

“Hey, Switch? Looking for a mare here.”

Something grabbed the commlink in his pocket. Doc reached down to stop this robbery, but his attacker shoved him into one of the rooms. Doc tripped and tumbled to the floor. The door shut behind him with the assailant in the room. He looked up and saw the green-maned mare.

She turned off Doc’s commlink and approached him. “Vardo Wagon?” she asked.

Doc heard a thick Scandineighvian accent in her voice. He stood up and answered her. “Fletcher, actually. Is this a robby, or does the service around here take after Stuffer Shack?”

She pulled out her own commlink. Doc watched her swipe through several images. She then held the screen up to him. Doc saw a picture of himself from four years back. Beside him stood a unicorn, a mare with a long pink mane and an eggshell coat. He frowned, confused as to where she got this photo. Was she a stalker? A cream-colored stalker with a long green mane that showed slight pink roots…

‘Oh.’

“Your dad’s here,” Doc said in a dry voice. “I didn’t expect he’d bring you along.”

“I know, and he did not bring me. I ran away from home.”

Doc scratched his head. “Okay, then I’m confused, Freya. Why would you want to be at the same party as your father?”

“Fresco stole priceless artifacts from Everfrost, Vardo. I think my father helped him steal them,” she replied with a scowl, “And do not use my real name! I am Mirror Armor here.”

“But you used my… wait, are you a Trotter?”

Mirror tossed Doc’s commlink back to him. “Trotter? I am spying on my father. Is that the same thing in Equestria?”

“Well, there’s more to it,” he answered. He turned his commlink back on. “Trotters are mercenaries hired from one corporation to spy and steal assets from another. I’m one, and I go by Doc now.”

A heavy pause lingered in the air. Mirror then let out a laugh. “You? No, you always followed the rules. Why would you want to be a mercenary?”

“Eh, it pays pretty well,” he said.

The door unlocked and flew open. Manco stepped inside in one stride, pulled a gun on Mirror, and closed the door with very little sound made. He kept his gun pointed at Mirror’s chest. The mare froze in place; her ears and lion-like tail stood up in fear.

“And I’ve made some friends,” Doc added.

The zebra studied the mare. “¿Amigo o enemigo?” he asked.

Doc held up a hoof. “Friend, actually.”

“Hmph!” Mirror protested. “Was more than that last time we talked.”

Manco lowered his gun. “Oh? So were you two… ah! I bet you’re the mare Doc talked about at the park. I’m Manco Correo, friend of Doc here. You are much prettier than I imagined.” He turned toward Doc. “Aren’t you the lucky diamond dog?”

“He is also an idiot,” Mirror said in a deep growl. “Left me without so much as a goodbye.”

“I had two broken legs because of your father!” Doc protested. “I left because I was fond of the remaining two.”

“You could have called!” she countered.

“Yeah, like your dad wouldn’t screen your calls?”

Manco stepped in between the two ponies. “Mirror, I know Doc is pretty pony, but we have a job to do. Would you like his number? You two can catch up on old times after we’re done and paid.”

Switchblade’s voice spoke up in Doc’s earpiece. “Well this argument is interesting and completely stupid. Alright colts, Jackie confirmed a big collection of paintings stored up on the third floor. If we’re ready to be grown adults again, take the stairs at the end of the main hallway on your right. I’m going to loop empty hallway footage on the cameras as a cover for you two.”

“Right, we’re on our way,” Doc said. “Let’s go, Manco.”

The zebra nodded. Doc walked three steps to the door, but Mirror grabbed his sleeve with her ponykinesis. He pulled his leg free and looked back at her.

“Vard—I mean, Doc. Please take me with you,” Mirror requested. “I will help you on this job if you help me get proof that Fresco stole that Everfrost art.”

The offer surprised Doc. “You’re willing to work with me on this job, even though we left on rocky terms like… three years ago?”

“Yes. You know I can be helpful,” Mirror replied. “You get paid, I get proof. Deal or no?”

Manco addressed Mirror. “One question, señorita, what can you do to help us?”

“I am a good spellcaster,” she answered. “I know how to fight with spells and summon spirits; many different things with magic.”

Switch snorted over the call. “She’s not getting a share of our pay, right?”

“Your eclairs are safe,” Doc assured her with a straight face. He nods to Mirror. “Alright, you have yourself a deal. Come with us to the third floor. I’ll show you what we’re after when we get there.”

The zebra leaned over to Doc. “You sure about this?”

He shrugged. “Well, she knows her magic, better than I. She might know a trick more useful than Plan Z.”

“What’s Plan Z?” Manco asked.

“You streaking naked across the gambling tables as a distraction.”

Doc opened the door and pointed out the path to the stairs that Switchblade mentioned. He watched Mirror dart into alcoves as she moved along the hall, hidden from the gambling rooms. Doc followed in a similar manner. He walked with silent steps and utilized the shadows to make himself harder to spot. He stopped for Manco to catch up only once.

The three arrived at the end of the hall. Around the corner a small stairwell led up to the third floor. Doc ascended the stairs first. He looked up to check for security cameras, but the path seemed clear. Halfway up the stairs, Mirror stopped.

“I have an idea,” she whispered. “I could summon a watcher spirit to alert us if someone comes up these stairs.”

Doc shook his head. “No, bad idea. Any security mage on sight would easily see it with astral sight.”

“What’s a watcher spirit?” Manco asked.

“It’s a… fairly harmless magical being,” Doc attempted to explain. He wasn’t versed in summoning spirits, so words failed to form on his tongue.

Mirror interrupted. “Watcher spirits are summoned creatures from astral space. They are small and weak, but suited for simple tasks like scouting and delivering messages.”

The zebra tilted his head to the left. “Ah, okay. We call them something different in my language.”

Doc cleared his throat. “Magic lessons can wait. Come on.”

He lead the other two up the remaining stairs. The lights from the hallway chandeliers were dim up here. Doors lined both sides of the hallway, and interspersed between them were large paintings that depicted maybe exotic locales around the world. Security cameras were present; motionless and unblinking.

“Switch, which room is Jackie at?” Doc whispered into his mic.

“Uh, from the stairs go down the hall to the... fourth room.. the...”

“The? The what?” Doc asked. There was no answer. “Switch, still with us?”

Manco touched a hoof to his temple. “I hear nothing from her end.”

Mirror glanced back at the stairs and let out a sigh. “Should we go back?”

“Frag it all,” Doc grumbled. “We press on. Let’s be quick about searching the room. Switch might of been noticed by security and hid somewhere.”

Doc trotted his way down the hallway to the fourth door on either side. He tried the doorknob on the left. It opened up to a huge and lavish bedroom. A king-sized four-post bed sat in the middle of the room, with a small hot tub and bathroom to the right, and a closet on the left that dwarfed Doc’s apartment. The walls were decorated in paintings of nude mares laid on various beds, posed in saucy, compromised positions.

“Too bad we can’t steal that bed,” Doc remarked. “The mattress alone would cover half my apartment floor.”

Manco smirked. “What do you want to cover the walls with?”

Mirror slapped Manco on the shoulder. “Drool later. We have things to find.”

The door opposite the bedroom opened. The three startled ponies jumped into the bedroom. Jackie poked her head out from the opposite doorway. She looked around and then stepped out.

“Hey, you three aren’t as quiet as you should be,” Jackie stated with a frown upon her face. She stared at Mirror for several seconds. “Alright, who’s the pretty lass?”

“Her name is Mirror Armor,” Doc answered. “Did you find the painting yet?”

Jackie pushed the door open further. “Not yet, but come inside. There’s a bunch of paintings stored in here.”

Doc motioned for Mirror and Manco to go first and he followed. They walked into an unfurnished bedroom. Heavy red drapes covered the windows, while the floor was only half covered in new wood paneling. To one side stood a half-bath with sealed cans of paint stacked on the floor. Opposite that in the room were two dozen cardboard boxes in haphazard stacks. Three were open.

“A lot of rooms in this place are empty,” Jackie stated. “Must have been one heck of a yard sale.”

Manco stroked his chin. “I smell a front for smuggling art.”

Doc looked inside one box and saw paintings of various sizes and subject matter, each wrapped in bubble wrap. He flipped through the packaged collection for his mark. “Well, one way to find out. Everyone grab a box and get to it.”

The team opened boxes and perused the paintings inside.

Jackie tapped the shipping label on one of the boxes. “These are all going to the same address overseas to Neighpon. Rather eclectic collection to ship there, don’t you think? There’s no theme to any of these boxes.”

Mirror squeaked. She pulled out an old painting that depicted a longboat with several figures standing in it. The unicorn turned the painting around and then took pictures of a placard affixed to the back.

“Whatcha got there?” Doc asked her.

“This tag is from a museum in Everfrost,” she explained. “They put it on all their collections to identify them.” Mirror put the painting back and continued looking.

Manco shook his head. “So, señior Fresco forgot to take the tag off that one after purchase?”

“Our museums are state run,” Mirror said. “We do not sell things to anyone.”

“It’s a joke,” the zebra defended. “I’m sure whatever shady character sold him a stolen painting didn’t bother to take their time removing labels.”

Mirror furled her eyebrows. She pulled out another stolen painting and took a picture of the tag on the back.

Jackie pulled out a large painting from one of the boxes. It had a chubby, white mare on a swing depicted as its subject. She held it up for everyone to see. “Yar, this is it, right?”

Manco catcalled the painting. “Hola, señorita.”

Doc smiled. “Yeah, that’s the one. Surprised Al didn’t put that one in the bedroom.”

“Maybe if she was licking a banana,” Mirror said with a frown.

Hoof steps were heard from the hallway. Doc peeked out and saw Penny Inkwell. Two earth ponies in black suits accompanied her. Their eyes met and everyone paused. The two ponies in suits galloped toward the room. Doc jumped back inside and slammed the door shut.

“Okay, slight problem,” he said as he locked the door. “We’re about to get beaten up by security.”

“How bad?” Jackie asked.

The door burst inward and slammed Doc to the floor. He slid several feet across the wooden surface. “About that much,” he wheezed out.

Manco pulled out his pistol and fired two gel rounds into the first suit that stepped in the room. His target staggered to one knee, but the other suit pulled out his own gun and fired back twice. Manco jumped jumped to the side, but caught the second bullet in the shoulder. He winced, teeth bared.

“Hold this!” Jackie tossed Doc the painting before he got up. She dashed forward and swung her wing upward at the suit’s gun. The weapon popped out of his hooves and skittered away on the floor. She then followed up with a solid jab to his face.

Penny reached the room and growled. “I’ve already called the police! Give yourself up and come quietly!” she demanded.

Mirror made several gestures with her forehooves. A stream of water sprung forth from the floorboards and formed a snake-like shape. The watery serpent’s body glistened despite the sparse lighting in the room. It nodded to Mirror.

“Engulf the mare!” Mirror commanded.

The creature whipped it’s body forth and wrapped around Penny. She fell over onto her side; water splashed around her as she struggled to hold her breath inside the creature.

Doc got up with the painting and galloped over to the nearest window. He yanked one of the drapes off and lifted the window pane up. “Jackie, time to go!”

Manco shot the suit that stood over Jackie. The stallion staggered back and took cover in the hallway. Jackie leaped into the air and flew over Doc’s head. She grabbed the painting and then pulled her wings tight against herself as she dove out the window.

The other suit crawled over to the dropped pistol. He picked it up and fired. Doc took the bullet in the chest. He mentally thanked Manco for the bullet-resistant vest under his clothes, but then cursed the sharp pain in his chest from the real bullet that struck him. The suits were not using gel rounds!

The zebra fired again and struck the armed suit in the ribs. He dropped to the floor and curled up. The other suit retreated toward the stairs.

Mirror dashed to the doorway and commanded the water serpent. “Stop him!”

The serpent released Penny and slithered at an incredible speed. It whipped its body at the retreating stallion’s back. He tumbled and slammed his head against the floor. The suit stopped moving and the serpent evaporated in a puff of steam.

Manco pointed his pistol to Penny. She remained on the floor and coughed up water.

“¿Y ella?” he asked Doc.

“Knock her out already,” Doc replied with a stern voice. “We gotta go.”

The zebra took the butt of his pistol and struck Penny hard in the head. She cried out with a short yelp and passed out.

Mirror galloped over to Doc. “You okay?”

“Just fine,” he assured her. “Out the window, we’re skedaddling.”

She made another gesture with her forehooves and then hopped out of the window. Mirror’s spell slowed her descent as she fell. The unicorn still hit the ground hard enough to tumble onto her side. Several witnesses outside stopped to look as Jackie picked her up.

Switchblade’s voice rang out in his earpiece. “Anyone there? I got a damn sec stiff looking for me in the kitchen. A little help?”

He turned to Manco instead of the window. “Did you hear Switch’s call?”

The zebra nodded. “Si. Let’s go save her.”

“Hang in there, Switch, on our way,” Doc spoke into his hidden mic. “Jackie, take Mirror with you and grab the car.”

“You have the claim ticket, dummy,” Jackie radioed back to him. She looked up at the window and shrugged.

Doc grabbed a small painting. He jammed the claim ticket into the frame and tossed it out the window. It landed with a hard crack against the lawn “Now you do,” Doc stated. “Go!”

He galloped out into the hallway with Manco. Doc stopped and grabbed Penny’s commlink. He shut it off. “I apologize on behalf of my friend for the splitting headache you’ll no doubt wake up to.”

Manco whistled from down the hall. “Doc, I’ll take the elevator, you take the stairs.”

“Wait, what elevator?” Doc questioned.

Manco climbed into a dumbwaiter, pushed a button on the control panel next to the door, and then descended down below inside the contraption.

“Ah, that… well, that’s now a thing.”

Doc ran to the stairs and hopped down several steps at a time. He assumed security knew a fight just occurred, so he ditched subtlety. Doc galloped around the gambling tables and down to the ground floor. He headed for the kitchen and pushed his way past the door.

He met four chefs and one zebra security guard in the room. Behind him sat Switchblade. Her forehooves were tied together by a plastic zip tie. Doc took a couple of slow steps to the dumbwaiter, but the guard pulled out a pistol.

“That’ll be far enough, sir,” the guard commanded. “You will come with me for questions.”

The dumbwaiter sounded off a ‘ding!’ and opened. Manco fired two shots and caught the guard in the face. “¡Estás equivocado, Capitán Sánchez!”

The guard hit the floor and dropped his pistol. He writhed in pain. Doc rushed forward and punched at his head several times. The guard stopped squirming and laid there unconscious.

Doc shook his hoof. “I didn’t think head trauma was more prevalent than getting shot in this business.”

“You’d be surprised,” Switch remarked. She pointed to her horn.

Manco climbed out and held the cooks at bay with his gun. “Beautiful meal, to die for,” he complimented.

“Go slot yourself, you striped-face horse!” the head chef growled.

“Tsk, such language,” Manco remarked.

“Don’t antagonize the cooks,” Doc warned his friend. He grabbed a knife from the counter and cut the ziptie off of Switch. He tossed the knife into a nearby trash can. “Alright, let’s bug out of here.”

Switch got up and grabbed the dropped pistol. “Waste not,” she said with a smile. She also grabbed a paper bag from the floor near herself.

Doc lead the way back out of the kitchen. He contacted Jackie on the way to the front door. “Hey, Dread Pirate Robbins, you and Mirror got the car yet?”

“Working on it, ya scallywag,” Jackie snapped back. “Where’d you find this chick, anyway?”

“I am his ex-marefriend,” came Mirror’s answer over the comm.

Jackie paused. She then spoke in a softer tone, “Ah. Yeah, driving up front now.” The call ended.

Doc stepped outside the front entrance. The valets looked surprised that he ran out of the front door in such a hurry with two others. Doc brushed his suit down. “Sorry, just catching my ride.”

“Hey, that pegasus you came with almost roughed us up for your car keys,” one of the valets spoke up. “We thought you got ditched for the pretty green-maned mare.”

“She’s the ‘bring a friend’ part of the evening,” Doc answered. He felt Switch’s hoof slap him in the back of the head.

The rental car pulled up to the front and screeched to a halt. Doc walked over to the driver’s side and helped Mirror out of the car.

“You learned how to drive?” he asked her.

“Nope. Car knows how,” Mirror replied. She got into the back with Jackie and Switchblade.

Manco hopped into the front passenger seat. “And the art?”

“The goods are in the trunk,” Jackie answered.

Doc got behind the wheel. He hit the gas pedal hard and the car sped off the property at a brisk speed. He slowed down to the appropriate speed limit once they were several blocks down the road. He entered his home address into the car’s navigation to let it drive itself there.

“Anyone following us?” Doc questioned his passengers.

Jackie looked over her shoulder for a few seconds. “Nah, we seem to be in the clear. Security will be all over that place like stink on dog mess, though.”

Switch shook her head. “I tangled up their radio channels. They don’t have any communications right now. By the time they straighten that out, we’ll be too far for a chase.” She undid the button on her vest and then pulled out pastries from the paper bag she brought along.

“Bueno, eso fue divertido,” Manco said with a grin. “How are we gonna almost get arrested tomorrow?”

Doc stuck out his tongue and chuckled, but that brought back the pain in his chest. “I think I’ll take a few days off to recover from being shot. Switch looks like she’ll probably spend tomorrow in a sugar coma.”

Switch belched. “I got the better deal here.”

Mirror fanned the air away from her snout.

“Were you hit badly, Doc?” Manco asked. He pointed to the bullet hole in his jacket.

“Hurts like hell.” Doc unbuttoned his shirt. The vest underneath stopped the bullet, but he saw a sizable bruise under his fur. “I’ll live. What about you?”

The zebra unbuttoned his shirt and exposed a blood-soaked shoulder. “Eh, a little less alive.”

“Ouch! I’ll patch you up at my clinic,” Doc stated. “Jackie, call our Johnson so we can meet up and deliver her painting. Mirror, is there someplace you want me to drop you off?”

“No, I will come with you,” she answered.

“Can’t believe you brought her along,” Jackie muttered.

“Manco, let me see?” Mirror asked the zebra. She leaned forward and placed her hooves on his wound.

Mirror closed her eyes and in a few seconds, her hooves glowed with a soft blue light from a spell. Manco grunted. The wound pushed out a piece of metal and closed itself up. The light then faded away.

“I could of done that,” Doc complained.

“Please, you cast one healing spell and you pass out,” Mirror reprimanded.

Doc folded his forelegs together. “Still.”

“Yar, I take that back,” Jackie said with a grin. “Maybe bringing the lass along is a good idea after all.”

Manco stretched his shoulder. “Wow, feels almost good as new. ¡Gracias! Doc, we have to keep her. She knows magic better than you and can summon some kind of water spirit.”

“Uh, hello,” Doc rebuked. “Her father breaks legs. Did you forget that part?”

Jackie let off a snort. “Pfft, what, is he some kind of crime boss?”

“He is,” Mirror confirmed aloud.

Everyone hushed. Doc shook his head at the silence. He took control of the car from its computer and changed over to the fast lane.

“Don’t worry gang, broken bones heal,” he assured with a smirk on his lips.

[]---[]---[]

The Johnson scrutinized the painting under the light of the flashlight that hovered beside her. The dim street light outlined the Johnson’s body and the car parked next to her on the street with an eerie yellow glow. In the distant sky lightning flickered above the city glow.

Doc stood there in silence with Jackie. He watched the Johnson ‘hmm’ and sniffle every few seconds. He assumed she was looking for specific marks that would identify this painting as hers and not another reproduction. It certainly looked like her painting, but since she paid sixty grand for it originally, Doc assumed she knew more about art than he did. He wanted to be paid, so he patiently waited for the Johnson to complete her examination.

He glanced over at Jackie. The pegasus stood on the tips of her hooves, but otherwise remained quiet. This might of been the longest Doc had seen her hold still.

The hovering flashlight turned off. The Johnson grinned wide. “Yes, this is my painting. Thank you, Doc. You and your team have come through for me. As agreed upon, here is the remaining payment for your services.” The Johnson levitated a credstick to Doc.

He took it and nodded once. “You are most welcome. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“You as well.” The Johnson opened the passenger door of her car and placed the painting in the back seat. She climbed inside and her chauffeur drove off into the night.

Doc shook his head. “Yeah, enjoy an evening with my crazy old marefriend and my crazy new Trotter friends,” he muttered.

Jackie pounced Doc and yanked the credstick out of his hooves. “Haha! We got our booty for a job well done!”

“Yes we did, now calm down,” Doc said in a firm tone. He pushed the short pegasus off him. “We don’t need to advertise this to the entire block. Let’s go inside and divide it up.”

The walked into the alleyway together and reached the entrance to Doc’s clinic. Mirror, Switchblade, and Manco milled about on the steps. Doc fished for his keys and unlocked his clinic.

Switch stood up first. “Well, I’m going to guess by Jackie’s shout of ‘we got our booty’ that we got paid?”

“Ha har…” the pegasus purred. She flashes the credstick for the team to see.

Doc ushered the group inside. “Mosey on in, we’ll divvy it out upstairs.” The group trotted into the clinic and up the stairs. Doc locked each door behind him as he followed the others. Several empty bags and unused gear cluttered his apartment; spare radios, weapons, and AR capable glasses. The kitchen trash can overflowed with empty Stuffer Shack containers.

Jackie held up the credstick high. “Yar, time to live it up like royalty!”

“Well, your highness can first help clean up this place to make it livable.” He pointed to the trash in the kitchen. “You also should save up your nuyen and rent yourself a new place.”

“Bah, why bother gettin’ my own place? Can’t I just crash here?” she asked him.

“You already crashed here. I’m looking for the insurance claim.”

Switch let out a soft laughed. “You know, my gang invests in a few safe houses around our turf. Good place to lay low when the heat is on, and I’m sure it is after we beat up Al’s guards and ran off with a painting. I think they can arrange a place for us to crash in now and then for a small rental fee.”

“Mister Fresco will not call the police,” Mirror interrupted. “His house is full of stolen paintings. He will try to send away all the art now.”

“Hmm, I guess that’s true.” Switch shrugged.

Manco removed several items from his pockets and stuffed them into his duffel bag. “A safe house is still a good idea. Keeps us hidden from the police, and gives Doc back his place so he doesn’t kill us.”

“Pfft, got that right,” Doc agreed. He removed the ear piece and hidden mic. “Y’all good ponies to work with, but this place barely fits one. Plus, I know most folks living in this block. I reckon half of them would sell me out for a case of beer.”

Mirror walked over to him and shook her head. “Vardo, I do not like you becoming a Trotter. I remember you as a very kind and gentle doctor. Why did you change?”

“Because I’m tired of being the only one who plays by the rules!” Doc barked back. He unbuttoned his shirt with a sigh and pulled out his commlink. “Here, everyone come get your share of the take and we’ll call it a night. You can crash up here you want. Just… please clean up after yourselves.”

Jackie gave him the credstick and Doc plugged it into his commlink. He transferred an equal portion to each member of the team, including himself. Once the last transaction completed, he pushed several boxes of medical supplies out of the way to clear the floor space.

“Alright, two can share the bed,” Doc instructed. “A third can make a nest out of the towels and laundry, I guess. Someone can sleep in the dentist chair downstairs. It’s not bad.”

Everyone nodded and claimed spaces to sleep for the night. Doc looked over at Mirror. She stared at him with a look of disappointment. He could tell, he knew how to read her.

Doc walked downstairs to the clinic. Thunder rolled outside with the intensity of a passing train, loud enough that he felt it through the walls. He reclined the dentist chair and pulled out two small blankets from the cabinets. Manco arrived and hopped up on the examination bed.

“You alright, amigo?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Kinda,” Doc replied. “Mixed feelings from seeing Mirror again. I’m happy, but I’m not happy, you know?”

“Hmm.” Manco nodded. “You miss her, but not the memories from when you broke up.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

The zebra leaned back on the bed. “Well, if she hated you, she wouldn’t still be here, right?”

Doc shrugged and sat on the dentist chair. “Unless she’s planning on killing me in the morning.”

“At least you’ll have a good night’s rest.”

“Yeah, but gonna miss that cup of coffee first thing.” He dimmed the lights and laid back.Doc let his thoughts scroll through his mind until fatigue took over and he fell asleep.

Chapter 4: The Storm After the Calm

The front door pounded with a frantic beat. The noise jolted Doc awake from his slumber. He sat up to turn on the dentist chair’s light, but his head met with the lamp’s case first. The lamp casing hummed from the blow in tune with Doc’s newly acquired headache. He fumbled around in front of him and found the light switch.

The pounding continued and awoke Manco. The zebra slid off the examination bed with a pistol already in his hooves. He crept to the door.

“You sleep with a gun?” Doc whispered as he rubbed his head.

“You’re a Trotter, why don’t you?”

Doc raised an eyebrow at the question, but had no inclination to argue. “Fair enough.”

He put on his glasses and turned on the AR imaging as he walked toward the waiting room. The camera feed from outside the front door came into view. It was his neighbor, Martha. She wore only a bathrobe and her mane was a complete mess.

She shouted a muffled ‘Doc, wake up!’ from the other side.

Switch came down stairs with silent steps. She held a bat over her shoulder. “Expecting company?”

“I wasn’t,” Doc replied, “But it’s just my neighbor. I think she’s got some trouble.” He motioned for Manco to stand aside before he unlocked the door.

Martha stumbled in and almost collided with Doc. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were wet with tears. She reached out to hold him. “I need help, Doc!” she cried. Her hooves were shaking.

“Entra,” Manco said. He pushed Doc and the mare to the clinic, then shut the door.

Martha stopped at the clinic doorway. She looked at the two strangers around her. She turned to Doc; a sniffle escaped her snout. “Who are these ponies?”

“It’s alright. They’re friends,” he assured her. Doc sat her down on the dentist chair. He began a cursory examination for any injuries. “Where are you hurt? Did that gang come back looking for you?”

“Please be specific when you ask that,” Switch requested in a hushed tone.

“No, no!” Martha shouted in reply. “It’s my roommate, Kat! Something happened at her job and she’s in real trouble! I don’t know what to do!”

Doc took a deep breath. “Everyone has got problems in this city, but whatever you do, don’t think to call the police,” he muttered to himself. He fetched Martha a cup of water at the sink, then sat down on his stool after he gave her the plastic cup. “Alright, let’s start with some background. What does Kat do for a living?.”

The red-coated pony drank down the whole cup in one gulp. She put it down and brought out her commlink from a pocket. “Kat is a night-shift security guard. She doesn’t talk about it, but she likes her job and it pays her well. She always texts me goodnight on her way to work.”

“Alright, and where does she work at?” Doc asked.

Martha slumped in the chair. “I don’t know exactly. Like I said, she doesn’t talk about her job. Any time I ask, she either avoids my question or told me not to pry. All I could figure out was that it’s something dangerous because she wore a lot of body armor and carried a rifle.”

“That describes the police in any major city,” Manco said as he sat on the counter.

“Well, I did follow her once with a toy drone she bought me on my last birthday. The office she’s at is somewhere off the 520 in Ridemond, near Maremoor Park.”

Switch leaned against the doorframe. “She works in the Ridemond barrens? Doing what, guarding a condemned building?”

“Más importante,” Manco interrupted, “How can we help you? Do you want us to find her?”

Jackie and Mirror came downstairs. Switch moved out of their way into the clinic. The pegasus yawned and looked around. She squinted at Martha. Mirror stayed behind the doorway and watched the group from the shadows.

“This a late night dental appointment?” Jackie asked Doc.

“No, this is my neighbor, Martha. Something happened to her roommate,” Doc explained. He returned his attention to her. “Sorry, Martha. Impromptu sleepover; please continue.”

Martha held out her commlink. “Kat called me minutes ago. She never calls from work! She sounded so terrified. I kept asking what was happening and how to find her, but she kept telling me to be safe and take the money from her account to move someplace better. I don’t… I don’t know what happened! I tried to record the call, but I didn’t get much.”

Doc picked up the commlink. He clicked on the last call recording and hit ‘playback’.

< “—can’t tell you! Martha listen to me! You can’t come find me, okay? I’m gone. I left you a good nest egg. I was… I was hoping to make a better life for us together, but, at least you’ll be cared for.”>

<“Kat, you’re not making any sense! P-Please tell me what’s going on!”>

<“I’m sorry, Martha. Y-You can’t know. I’m sorry. I love you.”>

<“Kat! Don’t hang up! Please talk to me!”>

<“I gotta go. It’s coming.”>

<‘Kat, wait! Kat? What’s coming? KAT!!’>

The recording ended on static. Doc felt a cold shiver down his spine. He looked around at everyone’s expressions; furled brows and downcast eyes surrounded him. Martha’s eyes were full of tears. He put a hoof on her shoulder to comfort her.

Switch stepped forward and picked up the commlink. She fiddled with the controls. “How long was the call?” she asked.

“I-I don’t know. A minute or two, I guess?” Martha answered.

“Hmm, not long enough to trace a call.” Switch watched something on the commlink screen intently. “If we can get close to Kat’s commlink, I might be able to pick up it’s wireless signal.”

Doc’s ears lifted up high. “Oh? You’re wanting to come along?”

“Well, I mean, if Martha here is hiring us to find her marefriend, sure,” Switch said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “I just don’t want to go running through the barrens for nothing.”

“Kat could be seriously hurt,” Doc stated. “It ain’t like we’re asking for a lot of effort to find her job site.”

Martha jumped to her hooves. “I can pay!” she shouted. “Kat left me a lot of money. I’d gladly trade all of it just to have her brought back safely.” She shrank away from her stance.

“How much is a lot?” Jackie inquired.

Manco stood up. “¿Sabes que? I’ll do it for free. Our señorita here is begging us to help find her lover, and we look like burros talking about money!”

“Agreed, we can argue about payment later. Time is critical,” Doc stated. He hurried over to the cabinets and pulled out an assortment of medical items. “If you’re coming, go grab your gear. I still have the rental car from earlier, so we can pile into that.”

“Fine,” Switch grumbled. She gave Martha back her commlink. “You’re lucky I’m curious to see what the hay is in the barrens that’ll cause trouble for an armed security guard. I only know of hobos and third-rate gangers out in that slum.”

Doc scooped the medical supplies into a black bag. “Jackie, Mirror, either of you coming?”

“Bah, I suppose so,” the pegasus replied. “As long as I get paid for me troubles.” She stomped her way up the stairs.

Mirror stared a while into Doc’s eyes. He gazed back with bated breath for her to chime in.

“Well?” he finally asked.

“No,” Mirror softly replied. “I will stay here. You need room in the car for Kat.”

Doc nodded. “Yeah, reckon that’s a good point. Alright, let us know if Kat calls back. Martha, I’ll text you when we find her workplace.” He took out a tongue depressor and wrote his commlink number down on it. He put it in Mirror's hoof. “Here, just in case.”

“In case of what?” she asked.

“I dunno, use your imagination,” Doc explained. “Maybe you and Martha decide to come follow us. You can now call me instead of blindly searching for the one group out there in the barrens that thinks they know what they’re doing.”

Switchblade snorted. “Yeah, they’ll never find us that way.”

[]-----[]-----[]

The Ridemond Barrens was a scar on the edge of the greater Seaddle area. Doc avoided the barrens like corporations avoid taxes. The last market crash many years back killed the area’s economy. Businesses never recovered and instead shuttered for the final time. Residents moved out for other neighborhoods to find work. The barrens were what most ponies thought of when the term ‘Urban Wasteland’ was discussed.

The one perk of such a run-down area was that traffic jams didn’t existent out here. This suited Doc well as the rain began to fall over the city. He wasn’t comfortable driving in bad weather, but the lack of a working Grid Guide system or traffic lights meant that the rental car’s computer wasn’t any better equipped to take over.

Doc exited highway 520 at the first Ridemond exit. The AR road map on his glasses flashed a message that he was now outside the app’s range for directions. He pushed a button to turn on the windshield wipers. “Alright, here we are… the lovely barrens.”

“Turn right at this light,” Switchblade instructed from the seat behind him. Her attention was on her commlink. “Maremoor Park is gonna be the next left.”

Jackie leaned forward in her seat. “Think someone will try and mug us out here?”

“Like who, an awakened squirrel?” Doc asked.

Manco chuckled. “Too open out here, and rarely do muggers want to attack you in the rain.”

The small road curved through the unmaintained park. Trash and uncut weeds blanketed the ground. A large object in the road ahead forced Doc to stop the car. The headlights illuminated what appeared to be a body.

“Eww, please tell me that’s a drunk hobo,” Jackie said with a grimace.

Doc put the car in park. “Reckon I’ll go find out.”

“Iré contigo,” Manco said as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

The two stallions got out of the car. Doc opened an umbrella for them to share and they approached the body. It laid face down on the muddy road. The body’s clothes were torn and stained with dark splatters. Manco pulled out a pistol and held it under his sarape. Doc tapped the body.

“Hey! You alive?” he shouted to the unknown pony.

“Odd question to ask,” Manco remarked.

Doc shrugged. “Well if they answer ‘yes’, then they’re alive. If ‘no’, then they’re drunk.”

The body didn’t answer, so Doc turned it over. It was an earth pony, and he wore a mangled gray uniform with the words ‘Alicorp Security’ on a badge. There were long gashes through the ballistic vest under the shirt which penetrated the pony’s body. There were two empty gun holsters around each side of his hips. Doc took in a deep breath as he stepped back.

He closed his eyes and summoned forth his Astral Sight. Doc looked down at the body again. There was no aura of life on him. Only a still shade of dark gray.

Manco looked at him. “We’re getting close?”

“Yep, we’re getting close.”

They returned to the car. Doc dismissed his magical sight and shook the umbrella before he got inside the vehicle.

“Well, it’s a dead security guard,” he told the mares. “Torn ballistic vest, lost two guns at some point, and his badge said Alicorp. I reckon we ain’t too far from Kat’s workplace.” He drove the car around the body.

Jackie turned around in her seat to look out the back window. “So, we’re gonna leave that body there?” she asked.

“Why, you want it?” Manco questioned in response.

“Bucking hell,” Switchblade muttered. “Just our luck that Kat works for a biotech megacorp.”

“Biotech, genetic engineering, cybernetics, nano-construction,” Doc listed off.

“Yeah, I know,” Switch hissed. “Shut up and park the car somewhere. I’m picking up commlink signals.”

Doc drove the rental car into an abandoned auto garage. He popped open the trunk and everyone got out to claim their gear. The rain fell hard outside the garage doors. It kicked up the smell of mildew in the air. Doc scrunched his nose and pulled out a tarp to cover the car.

“Alright amigos, what are we looking for?” Manco asked. He poked at a pile of junk car parts.

Switch pointed at a small box that hung halfway up a rusted electrical pole. “There. That’s a wireless security camera, and it’s powered.”

Jackie flipped on a nearby light switch. Nothing happened. “Yeah, that seems legit. Hey, is that another one across the street?” She pointed out to another pole with a similar box on it.

“So what are looking at?” Doc queried as he rejoined the group. His glasses found no AR icons in the area to interact with.

Switch angled her commlink to show him. “I've noticed an inordinate number of working security cameras around here.”

“Yarr, so someone has something to hide,” Jackie postulated.

Doc shrugged. “That or Candid Camera is in town pestering hobos. Did we get spotted?”

“Not sure,” Switch answered. “These two weren’t pointed at us, but there could have been more in the park.”

“Hmm, vámonos entonces,” Manco suggested, “Before Alicorp arrives with bigger guards.”

“Agreed,” Doc said. “Switch, can you pick up Kat’s commlink?”

Switch held her commlink up and walked around. “Picking up another signal of sorts. Not a commlink this time. Could be where Kat works. This way.”

Doc and the others followed Switch through a decrepit office. The rain dripped down from holes in the ceiling. A pair of old desks flanked a backdoor on the far side. A broken water cooler sat in the corner. The rest of the room was covered in trash and more broken car parts. Switch stopped and looked at the door ahead.

“Hold on, picking up something new. I think we’re real close,” she announced to the team.

Manco stepped forward and opened the back door. “How close is real close?”

A large, spherical drone on tank treads stood out in the rain. A camera on the top dome swiveled towards them. Jackie reached forward and yanked Manco back. The door slammed shut, then the drone opened fire with a shotgun. Chunks of door blasted into the office.

“Is that close enough for you, chummer?!” Jackie shouted.

A second shotgun blast shattered a hoof-sized hole in the door. Everyone jumped back from the shower of wooden splinters. The drone advanced on their position.

Switch tapped several commands into her commlink. “Okay, mystery signal explained! I’m jamming it from calling anyone. Take it down quickly!” She backed away into the previous room’s doorway.

Doc put his shoulder to a desk and shoved it into the doorway. “Right, and we stop this thing how?” He waved everyone to back out into the garage again.

Manco dropped the saddlebag on his back. He reached in and pulled out a small tube, loaded a cylindrical device in the breech, then tossed it to Doc. “Amigo, I’ll draw it’s fire, you shoot it with this!”

“Okay?” Doc hesitated as he looked the device over. He unfolded a scope. “How does it work?”

“It's a fire-and-forget grenade launcher,” Manco explained. “Pull that trigger to fire, then forget why you didn’t choose a safer line of work.”

Jackie donned a pair of clawed gloves on her forehooves. “I’m faster, I’ll draw its fire.”

The drone shoved its way through the broken door and overturned desk. The unblinking camera on top scanned around the room. Jackie picked up a piece of metal and tossed it at the drone. The object clanked off the armor with a loud hum.

“Oi, point that gun at me, you tin can!” Jackie insulted. She leaped into the air and flew up to the ceiling.

The drone swung its shotgun upward and opened fire. Buckshot filled the air and then rained down around the room.

Doc crouched down and aimed the launcher at the drone. He pulled the trigger as soon as the crosshairs were over the target. A potato-sized grenade popped out of the tube with a resounding ‘fwump’ and arced through the air.

A deafening explosion threw the drone sideways. Doc fell over backwards from the concussive force of the blast. The room filled with smoke and dust. The drone whined and sparked.

Manco darted forward into the smoke and grabbed the machine’s weapon. Jackie dove down on the machine. She impaled the drone’s eye with a clawed hoof. The machine sparked and sizzled, but then went silent.

“Did you hurt yourself, Doc?” Manco asked. He removed two bolts that held the drone’s shotgun and removed the weapon entirely.

Doc fanned the smoke away from himself. “Yeah, my ears are ringing,” he choked out between coughs.

Manco stood up. “And that’s why you always bring grenades, Doc!” he proudly stated with the shotgun over his shoulder.

“Maybe next time teach him not to fire it so close?” Switch suggested. She approached the group with her commlink out. “Alright, this thing is dead. The building next to us should be the source of the big signal I’m getting.”

Jackie peeked outside the now open doorway. It was still pouring out; a cold wind blew inside the dilapidated office. “Looks clear,” she told the team with a shiver.

Doc looked out into the narrow alley. The back door to the adjacent office building sat across from him. Manco pushed past them and kicked the door in.

“Subtlety is lost on that zebra,” Switch remarked.

“I reckon you’re the only sane one,” Doc said. He ran over to the other door and entered the building behind Manco.

The room that the team found themselves in once served as an office kitchen. A dining area stood a bit further in. It contained scattered tables and chairs, but none of the chairs were tipped over. The trash cans were full of what appeared to be recent garbage. Doc opened one of the microwaves. A light turned on inside the appliance.

“Well, this place has power,” Doc spoke out. He looked up at the ceiling for cameras.

“Sure does,” Switch agreed. She opened up an electrical fuse box. Instead of fuses there were wires and several blinking green lights. “This is the signal. Those cameras outside feed through this network box and into a security office I guess.”

Manco opened the cabinet drawers. He reached into one and pulled out a bag of corn chips. “Hay comida aquí.”

“I suppose this is the place?” Jackie asked. She grabbed the chip bag from Manco and opened it. The smell made Jackie recoil. “Blech, not a fan of sour cream.”

Switch snatched the bag from her. “Gimme that. If you don’t want it, don’t open it.” She stuck her muzzle into the bag and chomped down on the snack food. “This has to be the place we’re looking for; abandoned neighborhood, working security, and armed drones. Someone doesn’t want solicitors in a big way,” she said while chewing her food.

“Didn’t Governor Buckhaven say he was going to rebuild these abandoned areas?” Doc asked the team as he continued to look around. “Thought his platform last election was urban renewal.”

Manco shrugged. “No sé. I haven’t lived in Seattle long.”

“Pfft, Buckhaven is a corporate sellout,” Switch spat. “I wrote in ‘sack of potatoes’ for my vote.”

Doc snorted. “Yeah, I wrote Charles Horseton on my ballot.”

“At least you voted for an actual pony,” Switch said.

“But he’s been dead for quite some time!”

Jackie interrupted the conversation with a loud kick against a large, metal door. It looked out of place in a break room such as this. The pegasus pushed some buttons on an adjacent keypad, tugged at the doors, then kicked them again. The stainless-steel doors didn’t even dent from her blow.

“¿Que pasa?” Manco asked her. He trotted over to the freezer.

“Yarr, this thing is locked pretty damn tight,” Jackie answered. “Any of you got a crowbar?”

Doc took a closer look at the keypad. All of the numbers on the pad appeared to be worn, though unevenly. “Heck of a way to stop coworkers from stealing your lunch,” he commented. “Switch, can we get your expert opinion on this?”

The unicorn held up her commlink to the pad and typed in several commands. “Hmm,” Switch mused aloud. She put her commlink in a pocket and shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to be working. I could open the pad up and—”

Manco produced a crowbar from his bag. Jackie grabbed it and shoved the business end between the freezer door and frame.

“—be ignored for a tool,” Switch completed in a dull tone.

Doc joined Manco and Jackie to force the fridge open. “Alright, we go on three; one, two, three!”

The trio of ponies pushed hard against the crowbar. They moved forward, and both the crowbar and door frame bent under the force of their combined strength. A loud metal snap rang in the air and the trio fell forward into a pile. The door swung open and revealed an elevator shaft.

The ponies got up off one another. Jackie held out the ludicrously bent crowbar to Manco. “Here’s your, uh, boomerang back. Heh.”

“Oh. Gee. Thanks,” the zebra replied. He tossed the useless tool on the kitchen counter.

Doc pulled out a pocket-sized flashlight and illuminated the shaft. The team stood at the highest level the elevator reached. Down below, he saw the roof of the elevator itself. It was a good twenty-five foot drop down. Doc noticed a service ladder to his left. Several splotches of dried blood painted the edge of the floor he stood on. He looked over his shoulder at his team.

“Remember that Alicorp guard we found outside in the rain?” Doc asked.

“I’d rather not,” Switch muttered.

“Well sucks to be us, cause I reckon this is related.”

Manco stuck his head into the shaft and looked down. “¿Entonces, vamos a bajar?” He pointed to the ladder.

“Well yeah, we’re climbing down,” Doc confirmed. “Unless you’re wanting to just sit around up here and make out.”

A smirk crept up on Manco’s lips, but Doc gently pushed him toward the service ladder. “No, no we’re not,” he told the zebra. “Now let’s get a move on and see what they hid in their basement.”

Manco climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the roof of the elevator. Doc climbed down next, but the zebra opened the maintenance hatch into the elevator and climbed inside without delay.

Jackie let out a snort. She jumped down and unfurled her wings to glide past Doc onto the elevator’s roof. “That two-toned jackass don’t learn from running off ahead,” the pegasus complained as she slipped down into the elevator.

“Look who’s talking,” Doc countered. He looked up at Switch. “Come on, we need to stick together.”

The unicorn let out a soft whine from her nostrils. “I hate basements,” she muttered. “You can’t get a good signal and that always makes me feel anxious.”

Doc glanced over at his glasses’ AR. A small red icon in the corner told him there were no wireless signals down here. He waved the mare to come down. “Well, we’re gonna need your expertise to break into any computers we find down here. I can’t pay you if you’re gonna sit this out.”

“Mmm, fine.” Switchblade grabbed the ladder and descended.

A red mote of light on the wall adjacent to Switch caught Doc’s eye. He squinted at it, but couldn’t make out what he was looking at. He momentarily turned off his glasses’ AR program, but the light was still there. “Hey, do you see that speck of red light to your left?” he called out.

Switch leaned closer to the odd object. “Looks like a Canternese character. I—wait, that’s not in AR?” She reached out to touch it.

The light exploded in a shower of bright red sparks. The force threw Switch off the ladder. Doc jumped under her and was flattened between the unicorn and the elevator roof upon impact. He grunted as the air was knocked out of his lungs.

“Switch? You alright?” Doc wheezed. He rolled her carefully off himself and checked for injuries.

“Ugh… fraggin’ hell,” she moaned.

“Okay, that’s a start.” He only found some bruises on her legs.

Manco poked her head up from the hatch. “¿Hey, Que pasó?”

Doc held Switch steady. “I think she triggered a magic trap. Stunned her right off the ladder.”

“Magic trap?” Manco reiterated as he climbed out of the hatch. “Doc, shouldn’t you be looking out for those?”

“Yeah, but I’m not an expert at it. I wish Mirror came along because she’s good with magical wards and spirits. Specifically in banishing them.”

Manco raised an eyebrow. “So the spirit doesn't move her, she moves the spirit?”

“In a spiritual sense, yes.”

“Despite my impairment,” Switch growled, “I will hurt you both.”

Doc took a solid cuff of her hoof against the back of his head. Manco backed away from the unicorn’s reach. The two stallions smirked at one another.

“Yar, you ponies done playing around up there?” Jackie called from down below. “I got the elevator door open, but there’s a bigger door in the room beyond it.”

“Yeah, let’s move on,” Doc agreed, “But be careful not to touch anything odd. I got a bad feeling we’re gonna put two and two together about what Alicorp’s got down here and get six.”

Manco tilted his head. “Six?”

“Yeah, more than we want.”

[]-----[]-----[]

The heavy steel door groaned as the team pushed it open. Switch jammed a screwdriver under the door’s gap to hold it in place. Flashlights illuminated the dark and silent corridors beyond; plain brick walls painted white, pale linoleum-tiled floor, and a flat concrete ceiling where light fixtures and wiring hung.

Doc took three steps before his flashlight revealed several splotches of dried blood. He knelt down and studied the smear patterns. “Whoevers blood this belonged to was running toward the elevator.”

“From the guard we found in the park?” Manco asked.

“Probably,” Doc replied, though he wasn’t sure.

He led the group further down the hall where doors on either side could be seen. Doc took interest first at the door labeled ‘Meeting Room’. A dim light glowed from under the door’s gap. He grabbed the handle and tested the lock. It turned for him. Doc pushed the door open at a snail’s pace.

The stench of blood and bile struck the party. The partially lit room was in complete disarray; chairs were tipped over, bullet holes pierced the central table, and the far wall was covered in several blood splatters. There were six corpses on the floor; three earth ponies, one pegasus, and a unicorn, all dressed in lab coats. The final body was a hairless, gaunt earth pony with pale pink skin and jagged teeth.

Jackie jumped back at the sight of the last corpse. “Eww, where’d its fur go?”

“I reckon that one’s a ghoul,” Doc responded. He drew a small pistol and stepped into the room.

Manco followed Doc inside and the two stallions took a closer look at the corpses. Doc checked them for any kind of identification on the lab coats while Manco prodded the hairless body with the barrel of his gun. None of the bodies responded to the prodding.

“These ponies were the senior staff,” Doc calls out. He holds up one of the badges to the dim light. “This one was a supervisor. They all appear to have broken bones and bite marks. Hmm, three of them look like they were also shot.”

Manco pushed the ghoul body over with a hind-hoof. “Can’t tell what killed this thing.”

Switch leaned against the doorframe “Maybe it was looking for brains and starved to death?”

“What is it doing here is my question,” Doc stated. He walked over to the only other door in the room and put his ear to it. He heard nothing beyond silence from the other side. Doc then looked around the meeting room using his Astral Sight. The only auras he picked up were from his team.

This was the first time he noticed Switch’s aura—a vibrant yellow and orange swirl with some bluish-white motes near the top that orbited around the aura. Everyone’s aura was unique, but the motes were a new sight entirely.

“This is a lab, si?” Manco asked. “Maybe they had infected ponies locked away in cages down here and some got out?”

“Yar, my sense of adventure just threw up,” Jackie complained. She stepped into the room, but kept her distance from the dead ghoul.

Switch walked over to the door beside Doc. She frowned at her commlink. “Ugh, there’s no wifi down here. I hate the dead air.”

“Well, power’s out to everything,” Doc commented as he turned off his Astral Sight. He opened the door and found an office. It looked roughed up, and there were trails of blood on the floor in several directions.

“Switch, you like loot, aye?” Jackie asked the unicorn. She held up two commlinks. “If these are execs, then maybe they got notes on what was going on down here.”

The unicorn walked over and rummaged through the commlink interfaces. “Sure, it’s at least something with a signal.”

Doc walked over and watched her work. He witnessed Switch run some unusual apps that he didn’t recognize, but the programs appeared to bypass the password screens on the commlinks. A few screens later, he and his team were looking at several stored documents between the two devices.

“So, do we know what they were doing down here?” Doc asked.

“Kinda. These are research notes on a virus called Krieger,” Switch answered.

Doc’s ears lowered in concern. “Oh crap,” he muttered.

“Krieger?” Manco asked. “That’s the disease that turns ponies into ghouls, no?”

“Yep,” Doc confirmed. “Also known as the type three Pony-MetaPony-Vampiric Virus.”

Jackie pointed to the exit. “Just so we’re all aware, the exit is totally not blocked to us at the moment,” she reminded the team. “That said, how badly are we screwed?”

“Well, as long as you aren’t scratched or bit, you should be alright,” Doc advised in an even tone. “The virus only spreads through bodily fluids, so, keep your distance and shoot to kill.”

“Es más fácil decirlo que hacerlo,” Manco stated. “Ghouls can be smart. They could pick up a gun and shoot back.”

“Doc, we’re gonna have to negotiate hazard pay when we’re done,” Switch added. She browsed several other files on the commlinks. “There’s a stairwell to a lab at the end of the hall, after a security station. Might be the place to search for Kat’s body.”

“Yeah, I reckon we’re not recovering a survivor down here,” Doc replied. He took in a deep breath and waved for everyone to move onward.

The team walked past three more offices. Doc lit up the rooms with his flashlight while Manco poked around for bodies. They found none, which bothered Doc a bit. He wondered if this facility was lightly staffed this night or if more employees had fled into the night before his team arrived. Worse yet, what if they were still here and in hiding? How would he deal with that problem?

The security station ahead was better lit than the previous rooms. It consisted of a crescent-shaped steel desk with two still-active computers that sat on top. Behind the desk was a personal storage locker, to the left was the hallway for the bathrooms, and to the right a set of glass doors, one after another, that formed an air-lock designed entrance to another elevator.

“Finally, someone to talk to,” Switch muttered as she sat down behind the desk. The unicorn pulled out her commlink and began entering commands on one of the computers.

Manco fiddled with the locker behind the desk. Doc and Jackie glanced around before their eyes stared down the hallway to the bathroom. The dim light above the hall flickered.

“Yarr, think anyone hid in the bathrooms during the emergency?” Jackie asked.

Doc raised an eyebrow. “I think that’s for tornadoes, not… loose ghouls in the office.”

A burly earthpony guard burst out from the stallion bathroom door. “E.F. Five, motherbuckers!” he shouted with a pull of his shotgun trigger. The blast caught everyone by surprise.

Doc dropped backwards to the floor; dozens of painful buckshot balls cut into his armor vest. Jackie stumbled to the side and rolled on the ground behind the corner.

Manco responded first in kind. He leveled the shotgun he acquired from the drone earlier and fired back at the guard. The earth pony ducked back into the bathroom under a hail of buckshot.

Switch ducked down behind the desk. “Doc, get behind some cover!”

“Ugh, that’s not easy when you’re bleeding all over yourself,” Doc responded. He rolled over and crawled around the opposite corner from Jackie. “Make sure he’s not calling for backup!”

The earth pony popped out of the bathroom again. His right forehoof crackled with electrical energy. He discharged an electrical bolt at the desk. Sparks erupted in all directions from the computer monitors and Switch’s commlink on the desk. All the electronics on the desk fizzled in a spark of scorched circuitry.

“He’s a fraggin’ dirt-horse mage!” Switch shouted in fury.

Jackie charged the guard. “Hold still, you special snowflake!” She stabbed him in his outstretched foreleg, then took a wild swing at his face. She missed with the second attack, but placed herself as an obstacle against the bathroom door.

“Hey, nothing special about him!” Doc complained.

“I don’t see you shooting lighting bolts up his ass!” Switch countered.

Doc drew his pistol. “I’m a doctor, not an electrician!” he yelled back. He took aim at the guard, but Jackie was in his way. “Jackie, move!”

Manco dropped the shotgun and drew out his pistol as well. He leaped forward to the hallway corner and then fired at the guard. His bullet struck home in the shoulder. The guard flinched from the hit, then shoved Jackie to the floor. The pegasus kicked the bathroom door wide open with her hind-legs.

The guard lost his cover. Switch popped up from behind the desk and fired her shotgun. Doc pulled the trigger on his gun twice.

The guard stumbled to the ground, gunshot wounds bleeding profusely. He cast a spell that formed a small ball of bluish magical energy in his hoof. With force he throw the ball in an arc at Switch. The magical orb landed on the desk and burst in a brilliant white light.

“Ugh, frag all…” Switch sputtered. She dropped down under the desk.

Manco fired again and landed two shots into the guard’s barrel. He slumped to the floor and stopped moving. Manco approached the down guard, gun still trained on him.

Doc staggered to his hooves and shambled over to Switch. Several balls of buckshot fell off his jacket. He felt sharp pains in his chest. “Hey Switch, you alright?” he asked.

“Ugh, head’s spinning,” Switch replied in a weak voice. She pulled herself up onto the desk chair.

“I reckon that was a Stunball spell,” Doc explained. “Sit tight, you’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

The unicorn huffed out loud. “Damn it, if another freakin’ spell comes my way, I’m going to lose my shit! Manco, dibs on his commlink! Mine’s fried.”

Or, she’d be fine in ten seconds flat.

Manco poked the body, but it didn’t respond. “Amigos, we killed him.” He put his pistol away and rummaged through the dead guard’s personal effects. He unbuttoned the armored shirt and checked the body’s wounds. “He might have been injured before we found him. He’s got some old cuts.”

“Yeah, I stabbed the git,” Jackie pointed out. She stood up and collected the guard’s gear.

“In the leg, but he has cuts here on his stomach.”

Doc unzipped his jacket and inspected his own wounds. He was grateful that he wore armor, otherwise a lot more than two pieces of buckshot would have penetrated. He rummaged through his medical bag for the tools to clean out the offending bits of metal.

“You, uh, need help with that?” Switch asked, though she didn’t move from the chair.

The pain of picking out buckshot made Doc growl, but he retrieved the pieces. “Nah, I—grr, I got it.” His breath was heavy and exhausted. Doc used some medical glue to hold the wounds closed. He finished his work with a healing spell to mend the tissue together. He was ready for a nap.

“That looked painful,” Switch pointed out.

“It would be great if digging out bullets tickled,” Doc quipped. He took his time to repack his medical bag. “Anyone else, hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Switch dismissed with a wave of her hoof.

Jackie sauntered over to the pair. She pointed at a cut on Switch’s leg. “Tsk, tsk, Switch. Ya could go to Tartarus for lying. And for theft. Oh, speaking of which, got ya some loot.” She placed the dead guard’s commlink on the desk in front of the unicorn.

Switch shrugged, then she snatched the commlink. Manco picked up the shotgun he dropped in the fight and reloaded his weapons behind the desk.

Doc stood up. “Alright, hope we don’t have another fight like that.”

“Yar, in case we do, have this.” She grabbed Doc’s hoof and placed the late guard’s pistol in it. “Happy birthday or whatever.”

“Oh, okay,” Doc stated. He felt the weight of it and then counted the remaining ammo in it—seven rounds.

“Vamanos,” Manco commanded. “Our time is short.”

Doc nodded and put the gun away. “Yeah, good point. Switch, any way you get those doors open to the lab elevator?”

Switch looked at the two fried computers on the desk. She then pulled out a crowbar from her bag. “Time for another team building exercise, I guess.”

[]-----[]-----[]

The party used the stairs to descend down to the labs. There appeared to be power on this level, but the lights were all out, save a few emergency lamps that still worked. The hall was decorated in blood stains and torn clothing. The dim lighting made every look like the set of a horror movie.

The first lab’s door was left open. Doc led the way inside and looked around. He could tell by the medical equipment lying about what this room was once for.

“This is a cybernetic lab. I recognize some of this stuff from surgical rooms I worked in,” Doc explained as he looked around. He picked up a small device. “Oh, I been wanting one of these. Diagnostic tool for—”

“Focus,” Switch warned. She trotted over to the computers. “There’s power to these workstations. Might be a backup generator still working down here.”

Manco glanced down at a particularly thick splatter of blood on the floor. “For something important?”

“Likely, but heck all if I’d wager a guess,” Doc answered. Once again he peered into the Astral plane. This time he saw something; thin wisps of faded colors that drifted in the air. He remembered these wisps were sometimes seen at the hospital he worked at; the vestiges of life, particular when several ponies died in a given area. Unfortunately glass was opaque in the astral, but he believed he would have seen more in other rooms adjacent.

Jackie looked through a glass window at the next lab over. “What’s in the tubes there?”

Doc returned his sight to normal walked up to the window. The dark room held half a dozen large beds in glass tubes. They appeared to be well-maintained, though splatters of blood were visible on the floor and no the tubes. Each bed had wires that ran criss-cross through the tubes to a dedicated computer, although none were currently powered.

“Those are autobeds--used in ERs to stabilize patients. I suppose Alicorp was doing a bunch of cyber-surgery experiments.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re doing experiments,” Switch spoke up. She pointed at the computer screen in front of her. “I found some project files; cybernetic experiments on ghouls and magically active critters.” As she scrolled down the list, Manco tapped the screen.

“¡Para! ¿Que es esto? What is this?” he asked.

Switch accessed the file. Several documents appeared on the screen as gibberish characters. Her eyebrows furled. “It is, uh, encrypted. Give me a minute to crack it.” She typed out commands into the computer, then on her commlink.

“Madre de Celestia,” Manco muttered with a hoof pointed at Switch’s commlink screen. “You see this?”

Jackie looked over at Doc, then to Manco. “Uh, I wanna guess it’s a cake recipe, but it ain’t cake, is it?”

“It’s never cake,” Doc stated. He walked over to the commlink and studied what Manco was looking at. Seconds later his eyes went wide. “Yeah, no. That’s not cake. That looks like data on changelings.”

Switch wrinkled her snout. “A’ight. For those of us that aren’t versed in cryptic lab notes, either of you colts wanna explain what this creature is and how badly it’s gonna screw us over?”

Doc cleared his throat. “Take a bug, make it as big as a bear, and give it the ambitions of a military dictator. I mean, that’s oversimplifying it, but yeah. I’ve read rumors on the matrix that they’re nasty creatures. There’s a popular conspiracy theory the nuke that went off underneath Whinny City fifteen years ago wasn’t a terrorist act, but a government attempt to destroy a changeling nest.”

“I’ve heard tales of pony-eating insects back home home in Mexicolt,” Manco added. “They wear your face and talk in your voice to fool your family.”

“Okay, those tales sound a bit much,” Jacked stated. “Wearing our face?”

The zebra stared her down. “If it is a changeling down here, it will trap us with it until it eats us or we kill it. If we’re lucky, there might be a rescue party for us. If we’re very lucky, there might be something left to rescue.”

Jackie crept away from Manco.

“Can we just find Kat and go?” Switch interrupted. She brought up a map of the labs on this floor. “Here, there’s a comm signal I been feeling from this room. It’s down the main hall and the second lab on the left. The signal’s ID matches what Martha gave us.”

“Good enough,” Doc stated. “Lets go, cautiously. We don’t know what else might be around, and we were attacked by a crazed security guard only minutes ago.”

“Well, was kinda doing his job,” Jackie muttered.

Manco nodded. “Es verdad.”

“Not helping, you two,” Doc warned. He led the way down the main hallway as Switch pointed out.

The floors were splattered with blood and small chunks of flesh. Doc’s flashlight panned over bits of anatomy as he stepped around them. He recognized most of the pieces despite their mangled state; a hoof, leg muscle, an ear. His brow furled at the death painted around him in red. Yet, what concerned him more was that there wasn’t enough here to reconstruct a full pony. Most of the bodies were missing. Were they eaten by ghouls? Stashed away in a freezer?

He heard Jackie dry-heave behind him. Doc stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You alright?”

Switch rubbed Jackie’s back to calm the pegasus’ nerves. Manco stood nearby, his attention appeared focused on the blood stain patterns that painted the walls.

“I-I’ll be alright, Doc,” Jackie answered. She rubbed the bridge of her snout. “I’m just not used to seeing this much blood, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Doc agreed.

“Thanks, Switch,” Jackie added. She patted Switch on the back with a wing.

“You’re welcome, I guess,” Switch said. “I'm not good at this… touchy-feely stuff. In my gang we punch each other and laugh it off.”

Jackie retracted her wing. “Yeah, maybe try that another time. Like never.”

Manco walked ahead several steps until he came to a door. “Should be this one?”

“Yeah, second lab on the left,” Doc confirmed.

“The blood smear on the floor looks like someone dragged themselves in,” Manco pointed out.

Doc looked at the blood pattern. He saw what Manco was talking about. “Hmm, reckon it could be. Pretty perceptive of you.”

“Si, not the slowest microwave in the break room.”

Manco pushed the door open and swept the room with his flashlight. The lab looked like a triage; several gurneys were lined up to one side with biomonitor screens beside each one. On the opposite side was an examination table, an X-ray machine, and shelves of medical equipment such as gauze, syringes, and saline IV bags.

Two dead ghouls laid on the floor near the middle of the room. Doc approached the bodies and examined them visually. He noticed several bullet holes in each one.

“These two were shot dead,” he told his team.

Switch pointed to the far end of the room. “Is that her?”

A dead pony was curled up against the back wall. It matched Kat’s description; the curls in her mane, her build, and fur coloration. Clutched to her chest was a heavy caliber revolver.

“Pobrecita,” Manco whispered as he walked up. He pulled Kat’s commlink out of the mare’s pocket and gave it to Switch.

“Know what got her?” Jackie asked Doc.

“Trauma from her wounds, pretty sure of it,” he replied. He analysed Kat’s injuries; several deep abrasions, bite wounds, and possibly a leg fracture. Doc’s guess was that Kat fought off the ghouls until she expired from her injuries. The thought of dying alone down here disheartened him. He picked up Kat’s heavy revolver. “I expected she was dead, but it still hits you hard all the same.”

A soft scratching noise echoed from a metal door in the corner of the room. Doc shone his flashlight at it. Manco raised his shotgun in the door’s direction and Jackie crouched, ready to spring forward. Switch stepped behind a bed for cover. The scratching sound continued in what sounded like a pattern.

Doc reached for the door handle and pulled it open. A blast of cold air rolled out into the room. On the floor of a walk-in freezer laid a griffon. Much of his scarred body was replaced with cybernetics. He shivered, but reached up with a clawed hand to Doc.

“Help me get him out of this freezer!” Doc commanded. Manco and Jackie both hurried forward and the trio pulled the griffon clear of the freezer.

“Well, that’s something ya don’t see everyday,” Jackie commented.

“Unless you’re us,” Switch added. She pulled off several blankets from the gurneys and threw them over to Doc. “Here. Hope he doesn’t attack us like the other guy did.”

Doc examined his injuries. “I reckon he won’t. He’s injured pretty bad, doubt he could fight us for long.”

“But he could fight us, right?” Jacked questioned.

“If shouting profanity at us counts, sure, he could do that,” Doc replied.

He gathered some medical supplies from his bag to treat two deep gashes in the griffon’s chest. Whatever killed Kat got this one pretty bad as well. Doc noticed that much of the cyberware the griffon had was quite new. He hadn’t seen such quality ware like this before.

“We should take him with us,” Doc added. “He’s got some real advanced cybernetics in him. Might be more a project than a guard.”

Switch snorted. “I'm pretty sure that trying to keep an experimental cyborg as your pet would violate your lease.”

“Pfft, probably. Manco, help me lift him up.” Doc hoisted his new patient up to a sitting position with the zebra’s help.

The griffon let out a pained moan. His eyes fluttered open, but he made no other movements. Doc watched him scan the room until those cybernetic eyes laid upon him.

“Alright,” the griffon wheezed, “You got a wolf by the neck. Now what, eh?”

“I was hoping introductions would be amicable. My name’s Doc,” he answered. “This is Manco, and over there are Switchblade and Jackie.”

“Springboard Jackie,” the pegasus corrected.

Doc rolled his eyes, but continued. “We came down here to check if a specific employee was alive. Unfortunately she ain’t, but since you are, I’m offering to extract you from this place if you wish.”

The griffon leaned into his own shoulder and let out a weak cough. “Well, since you’re politely offering to drag me out of this Tartarus-stinkin’ hole, sure,” he answered with a wheeze. “You can call what’s left of me Snowfire. So… what’s the situation down here?”

“You tell us, amigo,” Manco said. “Everyone else was already dead or missing when we arrived.”

“Except for that one guard upstairs who could shoot lightning bolts from his hooves,” Switch added. “We had to put him down.”

Snowfire tilted his head. “Lightning? Oh, him. That was my boss.”

“It were self defense, mind you,” Jackie pointed out.

“Yeah, it was,” Doc added. “We would have tried diplomacy, but he was a bit determined to kill us.”

Snowfire shrugged. “Eh, I owed that stallion money. Screw him.”

An unseen metal object in the hallway clattered on the floor. The group turned to the door and clutched their weapons. The trailing silence deafened the room, broken only by Snowfire’s labored breathing.

“Maybe another survivor?” Jackie asked her group.

“Could be a ghoul,” Switch responded. “No new comm signals out there.”

Snowfire coughed. “Or that thing we locked up down here,” he said. “Heard it was from South Equestria.”

“Bueno, how should we find out?” Manco asked.

“Somepony lob a stun grenade into the hall,” Snowfire answered. “That’s the safest way to check.”

Manco pulled out his grenade launcher and a white cartridge. “Mi tipo de amigo.”

“Oh yeah, we’re gonna be fast friends,” the griffon commented with a smirk.

Another clatter of several objects caused everyone to jump. The noises in the hall grew closer with a slow, shambling echo. Manco and Jackie took up positions by the door. They opened it a sliver and watched the hallway outside the room.

Switch fiddled with her commlink. “Can’t do anything from here. Might have to just charge past it and make a break for the exit.”

“Snow here could barely walk, let alone run.” Doc opened his medical bag and checked what medicines he brought with him. “Can you move?” he asked Snowfire.

“I don’t know. Hard t-to breathe right now. Damned asthma, ya know?”

“This might help.” Doc offered up an inhaler with a generic anti-inflammatory.

Snowfire jammed the inhaler in his beak and took two deep breaths. He returned the device to Doc. “Thanks. I don’t suppose you got a gun in that bag I could borrow?”

Doc looked at the contents of his bag. It was an obvious ‘no’, but he remembered that Jackie gave him the pistol from the guard earlier. Doc pulled that out of a pocket and offered it out to the griffon.

“My kind of prescription,” Snowfire remarked.

A tall, lanky creature darted into the doorway. A gnarled, hairless hoof grabbed Manco by his sarape. The creature’s hairless skin was hard and black, but it’s face was a dull green with blood smeared on its cheeks and forehead. It pulled the zebra closer to its glassy, unfocused eyes.

“Please let me in?” it asked him with a hollow smile.

“The buck is that?!” Doc blurted out.

Jackie fought to keep the creature out. “Jus’ shoot it you fools!” Her muscles bulged out as she pushed the door hard against the creature’s attempt to come inside the room.

Snowfire opened fire at the creature. It screamed in pain, then dropped Manco on the floor. The zebra scrambled for his shotgun and fired up at the monster. Jackie covered her head as buckshot tore into the door she pushed against.

The creature yanked itself away and the door slammed shut. The sound of an unsteady gallop faded off into the distance.

“Okay, we’re done here,” Jackie muttered. She shook splinters out of mane and face.

Doc nodded. “Agreed. We have our objective and time’s up. Jackie, help Snowfire walk. Manco lead us out. I’ll cover the rear with Switch.”

“Why only Manco in the front?” Switch asked.

“My instincts tell me that creature won’t try attacking us head-on with our guns,” Doc answered.

Snowfire got up and limped towards the door. “Stupid monster needs to stop skulking and confront us, face to face.”

“It wore somepony’s face!” Manco interjected. “Don’t want that anywhere near us!”

“Less talk, more move!” Jackie added.

The team hoofed it with all deliberate speed back through the laboratory halls. They clamored up the stairs and past the security desk. The dark hallways appeared more sinister to Doc now. The only sounds around them were their own hoofsteps and Snowfire’s labored breathing. The griffon stumbled to keep up. Jackie stopped to pull him over her back. The large griffon draped over the small pegasus looked awkward.

A hiss echoed in the dark shadows behind the team. Doc saw a pair of dull green eyes stare at him. The eyes advanced toward the team at gallop.

Switch fired her shotgun at the charging creature. The eyes darted back into the darkness. “Carry the damn bird!” she commanded.

Manco shouldered some of Snowfire’s weight to help Jackie. The team trotted towards the exit beyond the large metal door. The screwdriver jammed under the door took on a sickly green glow. It wiggled back and forth, then popped out from its spot.

“Aw frag it, that thing has magic?!” Jackie shouted.

The screwdriver flew through the air and clattered on the floor. Doc darted forward and slammed into the door to keep it from closing, but the door’s mass was overpowering him. Jackie pushed out from under Snowfire and joined Doc’s effort. The two halted the door’s closure.

Manco dragged the griffon through the doorway. “Amigo, pull yourself through!”

The creature hissed from the shadows. Switch fired twice into the darkness behind the party. She then slammed into Snowfire and shoved the large griffon out through the doorway. Jackie grabbed Doc and dove outside behind the others.

The team pulled the door closed. The hissing sound continued until the door shut tight and muffled out the noise completely. They collapsed onto the elevator floor, breaths loud and fatigued.

Doc looked up the small access hatch in the ceiling and sighed. It was going to be work to drag Snowfire through that and then up the elevator shaft. “Switch? Any response teams incoming, Alicorp or otherwise?” he asked.

“Not feeling any signals,” she replied as she glanced at the ceiling, “But signals are weak down here. I’ll know better once we get topside.”

“Ugh, I hate elevators,” Snowfire gumbled.

“See, he gets it,” Switch pointed out to Doc. She flopped onto her back. “Ugh. Next time, I want payment up front.”

[]-----[]-----[]

The news of Kat’s death hit Martha hard, as Doc expected. He presented her with Kat’s commlink and heavy revolver, along with the heartbreaking explanation of how Kat died in the facility. Martha didn’t reach out for the objects, nor did she speak. She slumped to the floor and bawled her eyes out.

Doc gave Kat’s things to Switch. He sat down by Martha and comforted her with a hug. Manco sat down on Martha’s other side and put a hoof on her shoulder. Switch looked down at the commlink and appeared to be thinking, or reading the screen; Doc didn’t know what she was doing.

Jackie had turned away from the scene, while Snowfire remained emotionless on the examination table. Neither of them reacted to the scene. Mirror, on the other hoof, walked up beside Doc to offer him some comfort.

“I’m sorry, I truly am,” Doc whispered.

Martha sniffled into his shoulder. “You tried. I-I sort of figured she was gone. At least I know for sure.”

“¿Qué harás ahora?” Manco asked. “What will you do now?”

Martha glanced to the zebra. “Well, I don’t know,” she answered. “She left me enough money to take care of myself for a while, but… I don’t know what else I’m to do. I feel so empty.”

Mirror spoke up. “Your heart will hurt for a time, but that time will also heal your pain.”

Switch held out Kat’s commlink to Martha. “In addition to the nest egg, Kat left you a life insurance policy for twenty-five grand. Could start yourself a better life with that.”

Martha picked up the commlink and stared at the screen. Doc leaned over her shoulder to read the policy. It was already in process of paying out. He wondered if Switch started that.

The grieving mare hugged the commlink. “Oh Kat!” she cried in a soft voice.

“Is the company gonna pay that?” Jackie asked from her corner. “I mean, Kat worked in a secret lab. Wouldn’t Alicorp just erase her existence?”

Switch shook her head. “Whatever disaster happened in that lab, it killed a lot of employees. Loved ones are going to demand answers, and that’s going to generate bad press and nosy investigators. It’s easier to pay for Martha’s silence by faking a generic work-related accident to cover up the mess. Most ponies won’t question it when they’re getting a crapload of money.”

“Seems a bit dark to say that of someone losing a loved one,” Doc stated.

“I ain’t wrong in a general sense,” Switch responded with a snort.

Martha stood up on shaky legs. “Thank you, Doc. I-I won’t keep you and your friends up any longer. I have a lot to think about. How much do I owe your team?” she asked.

“Reckon that’s a good question,” he answered. Doc looked at his teammates. No one met his gaze. He turned his attention back to Martha. “Well, tell you what; forward me a grand for the expenses my team incurred.”

“Alright. You’ll have the payment in the morning.” She took Kat’s revolver from Switch and gave it over to Doc. “I think you will find this more useful than I would. Thank you, again. For everything.”

She gave Doc a firm hug, to which he returned in kind. Martha straightened herself and left his clinic in silence. After she closed the door behind her, Doc leaned his head against a wall.

Mirror ran her hoof through his mane. “You did better than anyone else could. Will you be alright?”

Doc looked up and gave her a weak nod. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. It never gets easier to tell someone that their significant other is dead.”

Jackie let out a sigh. “Alright, well, now that we’re done working for peanuts, can I go take a quick shower in your bathroom, Doc? ‘Cause we just ran through a lab of dead ghouls and I don't wanna wake up with a craving for flesh. Your family avoids you. Your employers stop calling. It ruins the rest of your week.”

“Uh, yeah. Good call,” Doc answered. He waved her away to the stairs. “Take a long one, just to be sure.”

Manco pointed at Snowfire, who had fallen asleep. “What of our new amigo?”

Doc walked over to the cybernetic griffon. He put the heavy revolver on his stool and inspected the multitude of machine parts that replaced Snowfire’s flesh. He poked the griffon gently to awaken him. “I reckon we should have a chat with Snow here. Find out what he knows of the experiments in that lab.”

“I did grab some files when I was snooping around their network,” Switch stated. She walked over and held up one of the commlinks she acquired from the lab. “Soon as I can crack the encryption, I’ll let you know if there’s anything useful in them.”

Snowfire stirred on the exam table. He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head to face Doc. “Why does it smell like rubbing alcohol in here?” he wheezed.

“It’s the disinfectant I use,” Doc replied. “Can’t be a respectable doctor without a clean clinic.”

“Huh, so that’s what competence smells like, eh?” the griffon mused. “Well, guess you ponies aren’t all stupid. You saved my life and got, um, clean standards.”

Mirror frowned. “Doc, big bird called us dumb. I say charge him and then kick him out.”

Snowfire coughed into his arm. “Listen, cutie pie; when you get most of your meat replaced with chrome so you can be competitive in an equine world, your idyllic outlook gets cut apart too.” He reached at the bandage dressing around his torso to scratch.

Doc gently swatted away his clawed hand. “Don’t pick at those. You’re gonna need a good bit of time to heal up.”

“I understand your pessimistic view, Snow,” Manco spoke out. “You lose a piece of yourself with every surgery, just to pay the bills. ¿Es verdad, Doc?”

“Well, if you’re talking about essence, I agree in principle,” Doc affirmed. “There are numerous magical studies about the severing of one’s ‘soul’ from their body when extensive cyberware is implanted. It affects your astral aura; diminishes it. Lose enough of yourself and you could go insane from cyber-psychosis. Death isn’t far behind from there.”

Snowfire rolled his eyes. “Ugh, eggheads.”

Switch shuddered at the explanation. “Yeah, I rather not have metal of any kind stuck into me; bullets, cyberware, or otherwise. Can your essence be regained if you take out the hardware?”

Doc had to browse through memories of his college studies for that question. “No, it isn’t that simple. There are theories that months of gene therapy and cellular regeneration could repair some of your lost essence—”

“Pah, I’ll just steal the essence from foals,” Snowfire barked.

“I-I don’t think it works that way,” Doc hesitantly corrected.

The griffon chuckled. “I’m kidding. Maybe. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna study the inside of my eyelids for a few hours. You can prod me in the morning with whatever.”

“Aright, then. I need to get some sleep anyway,” Doc stated. He agreed out of fatigue from the day. He turned to leave, but looked at Kat’s heavy revolver. He picked it up from the stool. He could feel the weight as he aimed it at the a wall. “Been years since I used a gun this heavy. What do y’all think, is it my style?”

“If breaking your wrist is a style, sure,” Switch replied.

“I can handle it,” Doc argued in self-defense.

Switch snorted. “Fine, we can hit a range tomorrow and you can show us how you handle your hoof-cannon.”

“Psst, buy the colt dinner first,” Snowfire suggested to the unicorn. He wiggled his eyebrows.

Manco laughed. “I like Snow. Can we keep him?”