Lightning Bug

by QQwrites

Rating: everyone
Tags: Tragedy, Drama, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery
Length: 8857

Weather Service Investigator Quick Quill is sent to determine how a fire started at the Canterlot Institute for Meteorology. Forecasts call for a mystery, with intermittent deception, and a sprinkle of mayonnaise.

It wasn’t the first case—there had been others. But nothing like the Canterlot fire. It wasn’t the what that I think of late at night alone in my tiny apartment, but the who and the why. In retrospect: maybe I shouldn’t have solved the case. I should have let things slide, taken the offer, lived in peaceful ignorance, wrote it up as one more accident in the Weather Service’s history.

But I couldn’t.

Published 2018-07-05 22:40:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-08-09 21:15:16 UTC

Two

The next morning, I went looking for the janitor. Squeaky Clean was an older stallion living in the Canterlot Downs, a district whose road was apparently paved with potholes. His employee file, which was sent over from the CIM Pony Resources Department the previous evening, listed an address and little else.

Janitors don’t get backstories. They’re fixtures in the background of society, quietly wiping away our dirtier habits for a few bits and no thanks. Janitors, trash collectors, sewage workers, farmhands: dirty jobs nopony wants, nopony thinks about, until they go missing. Without them, society would fall apart faster than it was put together.

I was standing in what passed for Squeaky Clean's living space: a squalid little room with stacks of newspapers as tall as the ceiling, yellow jars of mayonnaise, and hundreds of empty tin cans. The smell was horrendous: it curled my nose hair into cheese and spoiled it at the same time. I found myself alternating between nose and mouth, uncertain which was worse.

I pushed through the house from room to room, calling his name. Nopony answered and each room was more of the same: newspapers and jars and cans and mold and the feeling I’ll never be clean again. There were a few pictures on the wall: I saw Squeaky and a mare. They looked happy, then they looked old, then he was all alone and had the face of a fellow who loved too much and lived too long. I couldn’t say why he lived like this or if being alone did it, but that’s all I could find: tattered remains of a life, but no proof it was actually lived.

I knocked on a few doors and checked around with the neighbors. Squeaky had a regular routine: he left each evening for work and came back the next morning. He should have been in his home sleeping at this time for day, they all said. If they knew anything about his living conditions, they had the decency to leave their impressions of it out.

One fellow called me a “G-Pony” and slammed the door in my face. The whoosh of wind was enough to knock my hat off. As I walked away, I saw conspicuous eyes watching me between window blinds. I wondered if the cops got around to this neighborhood often, or if it was like the Manhattan slums of my youth: occupants on the fringe of society, quietly eking out a modest life with modest means. It took more than wanting to escape, you had to work for it and even then, luck played a big role. I was lucky: good job, nice apartment, pretty mares called me “Mister Quill” and flashed me the kind of smiles that made me want to say “I do.”

I grabbed a sandwich and thermos of coffee from a local delicatessen and sat on a bench just outside Squeaky's neighborhood. It was a warm day and I was sweating by the time a messenger landed next to me. The letter she was carrying was a dinner invitation, made out in an elegant script.

I wiped my forehead with a handkerchief.

Dinner came too soon. I had showered twice to scrub all traces of Squeaky Clean's volatile home from my body. From my assortment of drab suits, I picked an old favorite: navy with khaki pants. Good things happened for me in that suit.

I was still wondering where Squeaky Clean might have gone when I arrived at Caramel Gardens, a restaurant slash bakery nestled in the heart of Canterlot's nightlife. The crowds were packed and absurdly diverse: opera lovers shared the walkways with teens causing mischief, soldiers on liberty, and families out for a ruckus.

I spotted her across the room, already seated. Her mane was up and she wore earrings of sapphires. Her dress was long and had just enough sequence to catch the eye politely, as if to say, “notice me, if you please.” She rose as I approached, a gesture which seemed ridiculous but I accepted the compliment as it was intended.

We sat and ordered drinks and a basket of bread. There was a band playing nearby: the bassist was heavyset and his neck and jowls quivered excitedly with each rhythmic slap of the bout. Velvet said little in the beginning. She watched the band and the jowls with the kind of quiet introspection, perhaps moved by one or the other. When the band finished, she applauded and turned her attention to me:

“How are you enjoying Canterlot, Mister Quill? Is it everything the storybooks say it is?” Her voice was gentle, like a kitten’s purr or a tiger’s growl.

“I think it’s swell, if you like cities.” I took a sip of water—it went down well on my parched throat.

“What is there not to love about such a grand city?” she asked innocently. “The buildings are a beautiful marble and the lamps magical. So many precious lights; who could look at them all and say it was anything but breathtaking?”

I was watching her talk, appreciating the way her dress moved as she spoke. The sequence was distracting me: it would glitter just long enough to catch the eye, then dart away before you could focus on it. “’A city is a poor foal’s sky,’” I quoted from somewhere.

I guess she recognized it: “He reads! What a delightful surprise!” It seemed genuine. It all seemed so damn genuine. “Tell me, who is your favorite author?”

The evening was going well. I decided to ruin it: “The local fire chief: his report on what happened at CIM is a nice bit of fiction, with just enough truth to be believable.” Her face scrunched in a way that made me think, after fifteen years of marriage, I would confess it was adorable and the driving force for a decade and a half of bad puns.

“Whatever do you mean?” Formality was a defense: I could see fear growing in her eyes.

“The chief says busted lightning jar. What do you say?” The date was over, the interrogation begun.

“I defer to the fire department in this regard,” she said dismissively. “You seem to have a different opinion.”

“No opinion, just questions,” I said, taking a sip from my glass. “Some things don’t add up: where is the janitor? What was a lightning jar doing in that wing? Why was it powerful enough to blast a hole in the wall? Why was the janitor’s pail still in the hall? Why did you pass through the North Wing to Juniper, when the street runs just outside the East Wing?”

She didn’t like that last one: “Are you in the habit of accusing ladies of impropriety?” There was the promise of venom in her voice, an edge of acid just under her usual soft tone.

“The Director gave me a job. I’ll do a lot worse before this thing is over. You still haven’t answered my question: what were you doing in that wing?” I kept my expression indifferent, like I couldn’t care one way or the other if she knew nothing or everything. Most people want to tell their story, even if it’s a lie—especially if it’s a lie. Velvet was too smooth, too cool to spill her heart to me.

The band had started while I was talking. Velvet turned her attention to it once more and seemed lost. I was going to press her again when she leaned across the table and spoke softly.

“Have you heard of LN-16?” she asked. I told her I’d never heard of it. “Then I’m afraid I can’t say more.”

Our dinner arrived and we ate tensely. Now and then I’d catch her looking at me over a glass. We watched the band play for a while longer, but any magic the evening might have held had died. Even the sequence shone a little duller. Whatever promise was hidden in her voice before had firmly been retracted.

After dinner, we went our separate ways. I went to my hotel room, poured a cup of coffee, wrote some letters, and sat in a chair facing the window, waiting for the sun to rise.

I spent the next day loitering outside Squeaky Clean's home on Pothole Lane. He never showed. That afternoon, I went back in and took the most recent picture of him off the wall. I wasn’t sure how he connected to this, but his disappearance was too coincidental.

The picture itself was unremarkable: a candid shot of an old stallion under a tree in a field. The Canterlot Castle spires could be seen just above the tree line. He looked sad and lonely and his face was eroded by years and chemicals and long empty nights.

When I stepped outside, I took a deep breath. The smell of freshly cut grass and pollen helped wash away the mayo and mold. I turned, half in an oxygen-deprived dream, and ran into a gold breastplate.

The armor's occupant was a tan Pegasus. Blond, tall, with wings that cast as much envy as shadow. She carried a short sword with a decorative hilt. A shield rested on her back and she had the expression of someone for whom surprises were both unwelcome and in mortal peril.

I excused myself and tried to step around her. Local cops will tango, but the royal guard were a different story: they don’t dance; they’re no friends of mine.

“Halt, Citizen!” she commanded. I stood still and breathed little.

“I am Knight-Paladin Radiant of Her Majesty’s,” blah blah blah. They also talk too much and like to exposit their résumé at every opportunity. She eventually got to a question: “What are you doing at this residence?”

I put my voice in my nose and replied cheerfully, “Life insurance, Ma'am! Yes, Ma'am life insurance! Why, you look like a discerning individual who'd benefit from an opportunity, rarely offered, yes Ma'am, for only 100 bits a moon, your loved ones can benefit from your untimely demise! Would you like to see a brochure?” I started reaching into my coat, as if to produce a brochure which didn’t exist.

Thankfully, she replied with an emphatic, if not regal, no. “Did anyone answer the door?”

“No, Ma'am! Not a soul!”

She dismissed me and I scampered before she changed her mind. I rounded a corner and turned back to watch what she did next. Chest out, she banged on the door loud enough to rattle the windows of the house I was leaning against. The neighbors were coming out and I saw the blinds of a familiar house down the lane open. The eyes started at Radiant but found me, were they stayed.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only arm of the government looking for one poor janitor. The Royal Guard—or somepony with connections to them—was involved. This was very unusual: the guard only became involved with the civilian government in matters of state. Maybe things were different in Canterlot. After all, this was the Capitol: you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a statue or poster or commemorative plate of a princess and somebody blew up part of a government building.

But, that was an accident—as the report stated. If that was true, why the guard? Why the interest in one old janitor?

Author's Note

New chapters every Thursday evening, EDT.

Three

The Equestrian Weather Service's Canterlot field office was located on the outskirts of the city, in an office block surrounded by houses, parks, and coffee shops specializing in esoteric blends and inventive uses of the avocado. I had taken a carriage to meet with the Regional Director, a stallion by the name of Trailblazer.

Like most EWS upper management, he was a Pegasus. Uniquely, he was missing a wing—“Tornado!” he yelled cheerfully when he saw me looking at the stump. Trailblazer was also a little deaf, a condition I assumed was self-inflicted. “Got clipped by debris and never flew again!”

I mumbled an uncertain apology.

“Meh! Nothing to be sorry for! Haven’t had to face a tornado since. Nasty things, you know!”

There was something about his optimism which was infectious. Nothing seemed to bother this guy and I liked it. I smiled in spite of myself and before long we were sharing drinks.

Finally, over a pear cider, I got to the purpose of my visit: “I’m looking into the CIM incident. I have these pictures,” I showed him the blackboard photographs, “and someone in the administration mentioned something called LN-16. Know anything about either?”

Trailblazer looked over the photographs carefully. His face screwed up like it was in a vice, before he slacked and gave a heavy sigh. “The formula looks like something I saw at a conference last year. The professor was really something: brilliant unicorn. She was nice enough to repeat herself when I asked.”

“And the LN-16?”

He stood up and walked over to a display case. There were sample jars of different weather phenomenon, suspended in stasis: clouds, tornados, dust storms, firestorms, rain, and lightning. It was an exquisite collection. From the shelf, he grabbed the lightning jar with his one wing and tossed it at me gently.

“Turn it over,” he said after I caught it. Feeling like I was holding a burning powder keg, I rolled the jar upside-down. Stamped in the glass was a series of numbers and letters. One of them was, “LN-1”.

“You’re looking at production line numbers and dates,” he said casually. “But, you asked about the sample code: LN is short for 'Lightning'. The number indicates intensity. That’s rated from weakest—that’s what you’re holding—to ten, the strongest. LN-1 is like a zap from a woolly sweater. Ten turns sand to glass.”

“And LN-16 would mean what?” I asked, looking again at the lightning suspended in time. It was blue and white, arching from the top to bottom, where a tiny model tree was split in two.

He shrugged. “Bull. Scale goes to ten.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah: If LN-16 exists, it’d be pretty dangerous and probably unstable. There’s a reason we stopped at 10. As far as I know, something like that would be purely academic. If you want to know more, you should meet the professor I mentioned.”

I thanked him and he gave me his card. He also gave me one for a Professor Mint Julep who he said lived in the Castle District. I borrowed his secretary long enough to get an introductory letter out to Julep and made my way back to the city proper.

The Castle District is, as one might imagine, where the Canterlot Castle actually resides, its tall, stalwart walls surrounding the keep. Along the street leading to the main gate can be found the homes of the most affluent families in Equestria; sitting at the gateway of ultimate power, they carried a prestige few would ever hope to attain.

The Julep Family estate was narrow at the street, sprawling back and along the castle walls. Little could be seen from the road—it wasn’t until the attendant opened the gates that I saw the mansion on the other side—three storied, plantation style with large white columns set with gems.

Professor Julep joined me in a library as tall as the house, lit by a massive, domed skylight. She was a yellowish paint with white patches and mint-ish mane. She was younger than I expected, around college aged was my guess, but ‘Professor’ is what Trailblazer called her, so I followed suit.

“No need to be so formal,” she laughed. “Call me Julie, please. Do you prefer Quick or Quill?”

“Quill, if you don’t mind. I don’t like the implication of the former.” She laughed at my bad joke. There was a bubbliness to the way she spoke, like it was all in good fun and nothing was worth worrying about. “I was sorry to hear about what happened at the Institute: I have fond memories studying—and teaching!—there.”

“Perhaps you can help me identify the information in these pictures.” I placed them in front of her. She snapped the pictures up quickly and held them with magic, flipping between them excitedly. She started scribbling furiously on a notepad.

“The chalkboard was a walkthrough of converting magic to usable energy. It’s a common practice: light bulbs, fireworks, lightning—specifically the manufactured kind. It’s all magic.”

“Anything look out of place?” I asked, trying to follow her notes as she wrote them.

“A lot of the board is missing, but the values I do see are really high. Like, what would you use it for?” She asked with a shrug, setting the photos down.

I sat there for a moment thinking about it, trying to put the pieces together. Maybe someone was working on a new, more powerful lightning and something went wrong. “The fire chief says a lightning jar busted. An administrator hinted at something called LN-16, which is a rating for manufactured lightning, except the scale stops at ten.”

“Lightning is very dangerous, but not reliability fatal; though the injuries can be long term. I don’t know what application a more powerful lightning would have.”

“I have one more question and I’ll get out of your mane.”

She nodded appreciatively. There was nothing evasive about her: it was all in good academic fun.

“Whoever is making this: do they have to be a unicorn?”

“Not if they have the raw materials! How do you think Pegasi do it? There’s magic everywhere in nature. Just follow the recipe. The institute has all that stuff in stock!” She was still laughing as I left the library and crossed the main hall. In the half hour it took to get back to the street, I couldn’t get the joke.

A package from my boss (and EWS head honcho) Director Maelstrom arrived that evening by special carrier. I sat on the lumpy hotel bed and read a letter clipped to a binding of manila folders. I read it in her even, bureaucratic tone:

Quill,

Enclosed are copies of the employee files for Velvet Melody and Squeaky Clean as we have them here, per your request.

Legal says give Royal Guard a wide berth.

Good Luck,
- Mal

No mention of LN-16. Maelstrom was painfully precise: that she would fail to answer my question was conspicuous.

A newspaper clipping was attached to the reverse of Maelstrom’s note. The title read: Royal Guard Public Opinion Low – Are They Worth the Expense? The date was missing, but from the content of the article, I placed it sometime shortly after the Changling attack in Canterlot. I was living in Manhattan at the time, but the idea that anypony could be an enemy in disguise rocked the community like an earthquake. Opinion was the guard had been next to useless preventing and fighting back the invasion, a blemish which had the Royal Guard had done little to repair.

I set the article down and focused on the employee files. Velvet had a good career: the EWS hired her right out of college as an analyst, then moved her to Public Relations, and finally management. Over all, pretty boring.

Then there was Squeaky Clean, the janitor. His file was long: lots of jobs over his many years. He wasn’t always a janitor: sometimes a cook or a gardener or a laborer. A miner, a taxi driver, a clerk, a hospital clown (volunteer). I recognized some of those jobs as pieces of my own past: menial, exhausting labor which lasts too long for too little.

Squeaky had been working for the EWS about ten years, moving from station to station along the way. Unlike Velvet, his position never advanced: janitor, janitor, janitor all the way to—

Someone had underlined his previous position: Cook, Pinebeard Schoolhouse. The name scratched at the back of my mind. I didn’t know a town or a pony by that name. I made a note to look into it at the library when it opened next.

Four

The morning started with a pounding which, for once, wasn’t coming from my head. The sun was barely breaking the horizon and I fumbled in the dark, knocking my files and clothes to the floor.

The last time a mook banged on my hotel door, I got knocked around for my trouble. I braced for a similar encounter, opening the door slowly.

Velvet Melody stood in the hall. She had come in a hurry, with only a scarf and a hair tie, still looking like a million bits. “Quill!” she exclaimed just above a whisper. “It’s happened again!”

I grabbed my hat and rushed with her down to the street where a fast taxi was waiting. The driver started his run as we got in, making it necessary for me to untangle myself from Velvet and an unexpectedly compromising position. I took the seat across from her, as far away as I could get.

“I’m here. Start talking.” I needed coffee.

“There was another explosion this morning.” She was looking out the carriage window at the shops and houses as they whizzed by. I was watching her closely: her face was taunt and maybe there were bags under her eyes; a couple of long nights without sleep or answers.

“You never answered my question,” I started, my voice as neutral as I could make it. “What were you doing in the North Wing that first night?”

Her eyes slid to look at me, her lips thinned into a hard line. There was enough stink in her eye to make me wish I was in Squeaky's living room. She held my gaze a moment longer before her eyes tracked away, back to the window. She didn’t say a word. I watched her all the same.

The carriage arrived a few minutes later, the driver nearly crashing into a fire brigade tank. Crews were furiously pumping water while others smothered the smaller lawn fires which threatened the neighboring structures.

The entire building was in flames: from top to bottom, CIM was a torch burning brightly in the night.

Velvet and I stood there in silence, absorbing the heat and shouts and the occasional spray of water. The smoke was acrid, even upwind as we were. The fire crews were fighting a losing battle: they pulled back just as the flames hit the West Wing's supply store, which erupted in brilliant colors: columns of bright blues, yellows, pinks, and greens shot into the sky, as if they were festival fireworks which screamed like banshees and popped like balloons.

It took another day for the fire crews to stop the conflagration. Teams from the neighboring districts responded and the Weather Service brought rainclouds to douse the neighborhood, for fear embers would take hold. By the time the tanks and crews were spent, six townhomes, three shops, and the entire CIM complex were destroyed. No serious injuries were reported.

The fire chief, originally quick to label the first incident an accident, was now calling it an arson: a word unfamiliar to many, a concept equally alien. “Who would burn somepony else’s property?” they asked incredulously. This was the work of monsters or mayhem; rumors of rogue dragons, changelings, and all manner of evil creatures occupied the lips of townies, socialites, and bar patrons.

None of it made sense: who would want to burn down a school for meteorologists? I wrestled with the question all while running up a respectable hotel bill. The Director was pressing me for answers and I had none. Just a bunch of photos and formulas and mayo and a picture of a guy I couldn’t find.

Late that evening I was hard up for answers and decided to take a cab down to the EWS Canterlot field office. Nopony worth talking to would be there: just the night shift, running patrols for unscheduled weather passing through town.

I was hoping the familiar surroundings of a weather office would put my mind to ease. I needed the mundane feeling of forms and staplers and rubber stamps. Even the idle chatter, which I usually avoided, would be a comfort.

The building was dark, with a few lights shining from the third floor, where the observation office would be. The security guard at the front door let me in with a flash if my credential card and sat down again at the reception desk. He smelled of sauerkraut and I caught sight of an impressive sandwich as I moved past the desk for the stairs. I paused at the first step and turned to the guard:

“Who’s working tonight?”

“How should I know?” came a surly reply. “Whoever’s on the roster, me, and the new janitor.” He inhaled his sandwich while I held my breath.

“New janitor?” My heart couldn’t decide if it should stop or run like a freight train out of control.

“Yeah, just started tonight.”

“This janitor got a name?”

“Probably,” he said, barely containing his annoyance.

“Does he look like this guy?” I stepped over and showed him the picture I had of Squeaky Clean.

“Hrm, could be. I don’t see too good and my memory, you know, ain’t—” I cut him off.

“Find him,” I told the guard. He started to protest. I grabbed him by the collar and hosted him out of the chair: “Find him or it’s your job!” I thought I caught my reflection in his eyes, like a grey morning fog tainted with fire.

Suddenly energized, he said he’d check the first floor. I ran up the stairs to the second.

The second floor was mostly offices and records, which meant a maze of wood and tile coordinators. I poked my head in any unlocked door, flipped lights on and off, and kept my head and ears on a swivel as I rushed through the building. I wasn’t playing for subtlety: I needed to find this geezer before—

Before what? Could he really be responsible for the fires? No, I wasn’t convinced. Velvet knew something and I couldn’t shake the idea that she was too smart for my own good. Squeaky was the only other one we knew was in CIM that first night; the only one who might know what happened.

I came fast around a corner. At the end of the hall was a shape in the darkness. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust: a yellow trolley with a garbage can and a bunch of brooms. I stepped softly, trying to keep the sound of my shoes as quiet as possible.

A movement, a sound—I slid into an office whose door was still open. There were photos on the wall and a gold plaque: a ten-year service award and a picture with Director Maelstrom shaking somepony's hoof. The camera caught them in profile and I felt a strong desire to cut loose and run home, to the indifferent safety of Maelstrom’s company.

More sounds: hooves on tile, the trolley being pushed away. I poked my head out of the office. Old stallion: couldn’t tell much else with the lights so low. I was going to tail him for a bit when he pulled out a bright bottle of something blue. I thought lightning and rushed him.

He didn’t have much chance to act: I knocked him to the ground and grabbed him from behind, pushing my forehooves under his and locking my hooves against the back of his neck.

“Are you Squeaky Clean?” I shouted as he struggled. He stammered unintelligibly. I repeated the question again, louder while applying more pressure.

“I’m cleaning as best I can, Sir!” he replied. It took me a second to figure the response.

“Is your name Squeaky Clean?” I asked, this time taking the pressure off. He’d gone limp and wasn’t making an effort to run.

“No, no I’m Bristle! I just started!” I let him go and helped him up. Seeing him up close, he wasn’t my guy.

“What’s in the bottle?” I asked as he dragged it off the floor.

“This?” he cautiously placed the cleaner in front of me. “It’s just the floor cleaner they gave me.”

On the bottle was a label:

Linoleum Grime Neutralizer, Grade 16

For the cleanest floors.

LN-16

Five

“It’s completely inert,” the Professor said in her giggly, bubbly way. “Nothing remotely magical. Chemical, but nothing you’d make lightning out of.”

Julie, Trailblazer, and I were gathered in his office in the pre-dawn hours, examining the bottle of LN-16. Bristle had been sent home with all my bits and apologies.

“So, you tackled a janitor and stole his floor cleaner because?” Trailblazer's voice trailed off.

I slumped in my chair, embarrassed and annoyed. “Squeaky Clean is either a witness or a suspect for what happened at CIM. Velvet Melody saw his mop bucket outside the room which exploded. He’s disappeared—hasn’t been home for days.”

“I know Squeaky Clean: he worked at this station up until a few moons ago. Polite old fellow.” Trailblazer mused for a bit. “Kind of melancholy; lost his family way back.”

I pulled my head up and looked at Trailblazer. “I know he had a wife.”

“And a son,” Trailblazer said. “They lived in Forest Grove.”

“Pinebeard,” I said, lost in a memory. “That was the school that—Sweet Celestia.” I said it to no one specifically, it just came out. It was all coming back to me: Forest Grove was founded by a prospector named Pinebeard. He was the first mayor, so they named a bunch of buildings after him, including the schoolhouse.

He lost his son, his wife, his home, his community. Everything gone in a fiery, blazing flash of plasma. The EWS's reputation took a hit, but that’s salvageable. Squeaky lost a family and that’s not something you can just put back together with a song and dance. Could that be the explanation? Revenge? After all these years alone, living in squalor?

The others must have shared my thoughts, because Trailblazer was grinding his teeth and Julie was frowning.

“No,” said Trailblazer firmly, after doing enough grinding to keep his dentist in the black. “I don’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t look good for him, chief.” I said. “Look: he’s got the motive: revenge. He’s got the opportunity: access to the CIM supply room and equipment. Maybe Velvet caught him in the act, so he split then came back to finish the job.” Then what about the run-around with LN-16? Why’d Velvet play games if she had an idea with what was at steak?

“What if Velvet framed Squeaky?” Julie asked, catching me off guard.

“Yeah!” Trailblazer hooked onto the idea like a tick grabs hide. “She has the same motive and opportunity, plus she’s the only one we know was at both fires. No pony actually said they saw Squeaky there.”

“What motive?” I asked, sitting upright and leaning forward; this was the first I’d heard of it and I could feel my eyebrows vying to see which would reach the top of my head first.

“Velvet was the EWS PR spokespony during the Forest Grove incident. She went there with the press and came back really shaken; the EWS even put her on a mandatory sabbatical, so the story goes. When she got back, they moved her to management to keep her out of the spotlight.”

I felt dizzy: this was becoming too much for me. I was a nobody: a glorified secretary sent out on what should have been a simple assignment: report on the CIM fire—the first one. Now, we were talking arson and revenge and it could be one or the other or the both of them, but why? Why after so many years?

I left Trailblazer and the Professor and headed out to Pothole Lane to see if anything had changed. As I came down the street, I saw Knight-Paladin Radiant standing like a statue in front of Squeaky Clean’s home. As I walked over, I amused myself with the thought she hadn’t moved since I last saw her.

She recognized me as I approached and I could feel, if not see, her eyes roll. “Good Day, Citizen,” she said, capitals and punctuation apparent in the stiff formality of her voice. She was working and didn’t want a sales pitch; she was about to be disappointed.

“Hello, Knight-Paladin,” I said in my usual voice. Her expression change: my voice surprised her. “Apologies for the deception the other day.” I showed her my credential card and she scanned it mechanically. “Have you been inside the house?”

I could tell from the way her face turned that she had. I said, “I have a feeling Squeaky has cleared off; he’s not coming back. But to know why he left, we need somepony else. I need your help—if you’re willing.”

She looked at me carefully, with eyes like microscopes. I was wearing my best poker face, hoping it would be good enough to pull at her leash and not, as I feared, get thrown in the slammer for lying to a guard.

Radiant nodded and signaled I should lead. We left the house for the last time. I was glad to put it behind me, even if the stink would never come off.

As twilight was setting in, I was wearing a grey suit and blue tie and my favorite hat. Battered, sweat stained, faded grey with a light purple band, it was still mine and it held a special place on my head. I was riding an elevator to a suite in an expensive apartment where Velvet Melody lived. When the door opened, I walked down the carpeted hall. Dim light scones barely fought back the darkness of the hallway. I felt like a convict walking into Tartarus: abandon all hope, for darkness swallows thee.

I knocked on the door. Velvet answered in a dark evening robe. Her hair was down and she looked like she’d just woken. She didn’t greet me right away, instead she stared at me for a long moment before stepping aside and gesturing I should enter.

The door revealed a wide-open floor plan, with a spacious living room which offered panoramic windows facing Canterlot Castle. I stepped across the room to the window and admired the view. “It’s a beautiful night, let’s have some air.” Before she could respond, I opened the latch and pulled the windows open. I took a deep breath, enjoying the coolness of it all. Maybe one day I’ll be able to breath without thinking of a certain house on a certain lane, with a particular collection of old, yellowed items.

“Mister Quill,” she began in her quiet voice. I still liked it when she said my name. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I turned to face her, my back to the window. The moonlight was coming down on her mane, giving it an ethereal glow. “I wanted to apologize,” I started. “You were the school administrator; I imagine it was hard watching it burn.”

“Is that all,” she asked irritably. “An apology for a burnt-up building?”

“No,” I said, moving to a chair near the window. I gestured she should sit. She didn’t, but she moved closer, which was what I needed. “I came to tell you I figured out what happened. I’ll type the report up tonight and send it off first thing in the morning.”

“Have you?” She tried to sound disinterested, but that to me was more telling.

“It started about ten years ago, when a shipment of lightning jars fell from Cloudsdale onto a town called Forest Grove.” No reaction, I continued. “The town’s volunteer fire crew didn’t have the juice to fight back the blaze, and the town, along with most of its ponies, were wiped out. Among the survivors was a fellow named Squeaky Clean. Now, Squeaky was a gentle fellow: dotting husband and father. Even volunteered as a clown at a hospital. After the dust settles, somepony at the EWS takes pity on him and decides to hire him on as a janitor. All alone, he moves to Canterlot to work at the office in the ‘burbs. Only, see, Squeaky’s in a new town with nothing. He can’t shake what he’s been through and he isn’t much fun to be around, so he goes to work, comes home, goes to work, comes home and that’s it. Doesn’t make friends, or enemies, or nothing. He’s just a machine, now: sweep the floors, eat a sandwich, go to bed, and do it all the same the next day. As far as he’s concerned, he died in Forest Grove with everyone and everything that made him get out of bed.”

She wasn’t looking at me, but through me at some phantom or vestige. If she was asleep before, she was awake now. But, I kept going: there was more to tell and she needed to hear it.

“He’s only a third of the story. You’re another third: you were working for the EWS in Public Relations when Forest Grove turned to barbeque—”

“You are too callous with their tragedy,” she said in a cold, hard voice. I accepted the rebuke.

“Apologies. Anyway, you were sent there to help cool things with the press and show how the EWS was working to—heh—fix what had happened. I’m guessing you saw something that was too much for you to handle because next thing you know, they’ve shipped you off on administrative leave for nearly a year before they think you’re well enough to come back. Then you do, and you wind up running CIM. But, you aren’t better, not really. Whatever you saw is still haunting you to this day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said in a voice as distant as she was beautiful and I could feel her tense as I got ready for the last piece.

“Now let’s talk about LN-16. You put me on that trail after the first fire, when you asked me out on a—was it date?” Surprised, she agreed it was a date. “Thanks. So, you mention LN-16. I went to visit Trailblazer at the Canterlot office and he says it doesn’t exist, Professor Mint Julep—who’s supposed to be an expert on this stuff—says it doesn’t exist, and Director Maelstrom—our mutual boss—won’t say a peep about it. So, it’s three against one here, but see, I got to thinking: when I asked Maelstrom about it, the way she omitted it made me think it was true: you were working on LN-16 lightning and that contract was coming through the Royal Guard.”

There was a thump outside the window, I elected to ignore it. “See, the Guard’s been on the ropes lately, with all the monster attacks making them look like toy soldiers in a foal’s bath. They needed more oomph to fight back the nasties. You agreed at first, but as the project went on and you started seeing the results, you started thinking of a little village and all that pain started coming back. So, you engineered a plan to stop it: you’d blast the research and make it look like an accident.”

She was quivering now, shaking with rage or tears or some other emotion only known to her. I pressed on, I was at the home stretch:

“You knew what had to be done, but you were afraid of being caught and what it would mean for you. You knew about Squeaky—only a few survived Forest Grove—and would have had plenty of opportunity to see him at the Caterlot office. You figured him for the perfect patsy, so you had him moved to your building two moons ago. You waited awhile—maybe you were scared—but every success LN-16 had was another dagger in your heart, so you set it up to look like Squeaky Clean blasted a hole in the building. When the Guard and I showed up, digging into files, you decided the only way to get away with it was to burn the whole building down to cover the evidence. And Squeaky—that poor old stallion—he caught you that first night and booked it, because he saw what you were doing and knew he’d wind up taking the fall for it. Now tell me, Velvet,” I stood up as if to leave. “Did I get all the ducks in the gallery?”

She nodded slowly.

“Let me hear you say it: you did this whole thing, didn’t you? Set Squeaky up to nix the LN-16 project?” I needed to hear her say it.

She looked at me with doe eyes. I wanted her to deny it, to tell me I was full of crap. I wanted to go back to that first evening, watching the sequence dance on her dress, tell her how beautiful I thought she was. “Yes,” she admitted. “It happened like you said: Forest Grove, Squeaky, LN-16. All of it.”

I walked across the room to the door. She followed me with her eyes. “Where are you going?” She asked.

“To bed,” I replied truthfully. I paused in the doorframe. “I’ll make a deal with you, Velvet: go down to the police station tomorrow morning and confess. You do that, I’ll talk to the Director about getting you the help you need.”

I closed the door and hit the elevator and nearly ran out into the street. Radiant joined me a moment later looking like a gilded falcon. “Did you hear all of that?” I asked her, hoping it wasn’t wasted effort.

“I do not care for deception or eavesdropping.” She paused dramatically—guards are good at that, too. “But, yes. I heard your explanation and her confession. I am empowered and compelled to arrest her, presently.” She looked back at the building, conflicted. “Though, I would concede repentance must come from one’s own volition. If she does not confess by afternoon,” she kept talking, but it didn’t matter one way or another to me.

Author's Note

Six goes live 2018-08-09

Six

The trail was overgrown with grass and vines and the occasional spider web, whose placement invariably was exactly at nose-level. It was hot, even under the forest’s lush canopy, and I was sweating uncomfortably. I had only a saddlebag and a hat and a determination to reach my destination before night. I would have made it farther, but the carriage I hired wouldn’t go down the trail, for fear of ghosts or spirits or whatever he had started blathering on about. I told him to meet me at the same spot in two days. I’ll see if he’s as good as his word.

A bridge offered safe passage over a narrow, but rapid stream. I checked my map and compass and verified I was on the right path. I was a city colt, not a camper and this whole experience was about as much fun as I expected: it wasn’t. It was so hot, I couldn’t even come up with metaphors anymore—I hate the outdoors.

I followed the trail for a time longer until I found something blocking it: a wooden sign which had fallen over from neglect. I lifted it and tipped it against a tree. “Welcome to Forest Grove” it said in large, friendly letters.

The canopy slowly broke and I was standing in a wide clearing. The forest had mostly healed from the fires ten years ago and there were saplings throughout the charred remains of the village. Vines and grass were overtaking the ruins, which were barely recognizable as such. In the center of town, where the community building had stood, was a stone memorial. Erected by the EWS, it marked the town and offered what little sympathy granite can offer. Chiseled in the stone were the names and ages of those who perished in what was, like all premature deaths, a senseless affair. I read the names and thought it would be fitting to see those names who had survived, whose lives had been ruined by the tragedy, that maybe Squeaky and Velvet deserved places on this stone—like so many, they never escaped the blaze.

I found Squeaky Clean that afternoon in the ruins of a building I assumed was his house. He had ended where his ending started. I built a cairn atop him, using the stones I found around the village. Next to the pile, I placed a newspaper with a headline: CIM Admin Confesses to Arson. I hoped he’d appreciate the article, if not the funnies buried deeper in the paper.

Camping turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. As the sun set, the forest cooled and the stars came out, one by one. Before long, I was bathed in a magnificent view. Gathered there in the gloom fireflies—lightning bugs, my father had called them when I was young—danced in the clearing like sequence on a long dress. They whispered to me on an evening breeze; words I wanted to hear, promises I wanted to keep.

But, it was over. She was gone, the case was closed.

I slept and was better for it.

End

Author's Note

Quick Quill will return in Singularity, planned for September 2018.

One

The Canterlot train station was like a grand cathedral. Every surface, from the platform to the high vaulted ceilings, was made of exquisite marble stone. You could tell the tourists from the locals by the level of indifference they paid to their opulent surroundings, the former stretching a rubber neck to the breaking point.

It was my first visit to the city and I found its appearance as enchanting as a fairytale might spin it. Every surface seemed to shimmer with just enough shine to get the message across: this was a city of wealth and royalty.

Someone bumped into me: “Hey pal, get outta the way.” I was blocking the train car's door. Apparently, I was playing the tourist.

I hoisted my saddlebags and stepped off train. Coming through the turnstile, I found myself in the station's grand rotunda. I looked up and saw a stained-glass skylight. Light shone through it playfully, basking the train goers in a variety of colors, which seemed redundant.

An Earth Pony in a black suit and black hat stood near the station entrance. He was wearing a smile he bought cheap from a dime store and was holding a card with my name on it.

I walked up to him and tipped my hat upwards in greeting. He jacked the smile up and took my saddlebags without asking.

“Mister Quick Quill,” he said. His voice was higher than I expected, as if his lady had just threatened him with a good gelding. “I’ve been instructed to take you to the institute right away.” We walked outside and I was disappointed to see the streets weren’t paved with gold.

We arrived at the Canterlot Institute for Meteorology, a research and educational facility administrated by the Equestrian Weather Service. I’d seen pictures of the place before: it was an unimpressive, singularly geometric building, whose architect, upon hearing there were shapes more complex than a cube, said “that will do, thank you” and promptly abandoned his studies.

The carriage came to a stop. My driver unhooked himself expertly and opened the door. I handed him a few bits for his trouble and walked towards the building. A crowd of townies had formed, straining to see around the emergency carriages which blocked the street.

A police officer stopped me as I approached a barricade. “The Institute is closed, go on your way.”

“I’m Quick Quill, EWS. I was sent to see the damage.” I showed him my credentials. He made a grunting sound and slid the barricade open enough for me to squeeze through.

I rounded a corner and saw the building for the first time. The pictures didn’t do it justice: it was even uglier in person, only improved by the smoking hole in the North wall. Fire crews and a handful of weather ponies were milling about. Caution tape was laid out like spider webs, warning anyone coming from land or air that CIM was off limits.

Among the emergency crews was a mare, middle aged, in a blue pantsuit. She had thin shoulders and a long mane with eyelashes to match. She wore a pearl broach and accompanying necklace. When she spoke, it was like a whisper carried on a breeze: you strained to hear it but welcomed it all the same. I introduced myself with a heavy tongue.

“Charmed, Mister Quill. I am the Institute's administrator, Velvet Melody.” I caught a hint of music in her name, like a promise or a threat.

“Director Maelstrom sent me to assess the damage and report what happened. Can you tell me how this,” I gestured to the rubble, “started?”

“A dreadful affair, Mister Quill.” I liked it when she said my name. “I was working late last night. I recall it was perhaps an hour past midnight. I was just about to step into a taxi on Juniper Street when I heard the explosion.”

I pulled out a pad and paper and took notes as she spoke. “Did you see anything unusual?” I asked.

“I recall seeing the janitor’s pail in the North wing on my way out. Everything else looked normal.”

I thanked her and she gave me her card: it was a stiff, eloquently penned, and had a lustrous gold trim around the edges. A stack of them would look like a gold bar. Maybe that was the idea: hand out little gold bars to suckers like me who’d never seen one before.

I walked over to the fire chief. He was scruffy and fat and incredibly jolly for a stallion missing his eyebrows. His crew was searching the rubble, which was scattered all over the lawn. There were scorch marks on the ground in jagged, branching patterns.

“Lightning strike,” said the chief confidently when I asked his opinion. “That’s what my report will say, anyways: the patterns on the ground are what you’d expect from a busted lightning jar. They dropped a crate of ‘em from the Cloudsdale Weather Factory some ten years ago: burned a whole village to the ground. Scorch marks look the same here. At least nopony was injured in this one.”

I nodded appreciatively. “The Forest Grove Incident,” I said recalling the news at the time. “So, you say a lightning jar went bust? Where’d it come from and why’d it blow up here?”

“The debris suggests the jar busted inside; see how it spreads away from the building?” I followed his hoof as he drew a path from the wall across the lawn. “My guess is it fell off a shelf inside the Institute and took the wall with it.”

“That’s a lot of power for a single jar. Can I go in and take a look?”

He shrugged. “The building is sound, despite the looks. Just watch your step.” I thanked him and he excused himself, lumbering like a bear to his crew who were still digging around.

I entered the building from the main entrance on the East side and made my way to the North Wing. I paused at a wall directory and found Velvet's name and office: East Wing, second floor.

While the outside of CIM was an ugly square, the interior was a tasteful combination of marble floors and wooden walls. At least inside you couldn’t see the outside.

The North Wing was dedicated to academic research. That something would explode here was unexpected: the EWS and CIM had always asserted the West Wing (were practical testing occurred) would be the first to go (and the insurance coverage was reflective of that eventuality).

I took a right and pushed through the double doors leading into the North Wing. The corridor was empty, save for a yellow mop bucket: the classrooms on either side of the hall were locked tight. The wood doors had frosted glass windows that let you see shapes but no detail. I found a door with sunlight on the other side, near the bucket.

It was locked.

I introduced the door to my shoulder and it gave way—the door, not my shoulder, though the latter would need an ice pack the next morning. A few of the fire crew looked my way but didn’t seem to care what I was up to.

The classroom was a disaster: nearly every surface was either blasted to pieces or burnt to a crisp. The blackboard was partly intact, but the writings were lost on me: joules and watts and numbers in scientific notation. I noted everything in my pad and asked the fire crew to take a picture, with copies going to my hotel and the EWS home office in Baltimare.

On my way out, I told the fire chief where I was staying and asked him to let me know if he found anything. From his response, I got the impression there would be no follow-up on this incident: the chief had a whole city to worry about. CIM was my problem.