The New Recruit

The newspaper office was absolutely buzzing as reporters organised their information, interviewed ponies they'd called in, and a limitless cacophony of clicking typewriter keys and the dings of carriage returns. Soarin had to wonder how anypony managed to hear anything. He couldn't even hear the presses. He'd never been down here before, as he'd always had the journalists come to him. Today was another story.

A rather large pony suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder. He hadn't even heard him approaching. "You my two-thirty?" he asked with a very thick Manehattan accent.

"Are you the editor-in-chief?" asked Soarin.

The stallion gestured to his chest. "What do I look like, the queen of Griffinstone? Yeah, I'm the editor."

"Then I'm your two-thirty," answered Soarin. "Where do we need to go?"

"My office," he answered, pushing his way through the crowd, ducking and weaving expertly through the sea of ponies. Soarin had a bit of trouble keeping up, but made it to the office a few seconds after the editor. "Now then," he said as he closed the door, rendering the room completely silent. "What was it ya needed? And just for my own benefit, I'mma have breakfast while we talk."

Soarin looked up at the clock. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. It was time for a late lunch, and the editor seemed to only be halfway through his first biscuit, and his gravy was drying up.

"Come on, kid. Time is money, and I'm not inclined to wasting either."

"Right, sorry," waved Soarin. "I'm looking for a photographer. The one that took this picture." He pushed the paper forward.

The editor took one look at the photo, then tossed it back. "Sorry, kid. Can't help ya."

"You printed the photo. Surely you have a record of the photographer?"

"Sure. Stir Depot is a pen name. We use it whenever photos come from anonymous sources. Usually mail-ins from actual anonymous sources, and sometimes ponies that say they wish to remain anonymous."

"So you can't confirm the origins of this photograph?"

"Origins? No. Validity, yes. We had three of the ponies that found the body confirm that this is an accurate representation of what they found."

"I was one of them, yes," answered Soarin.

"See there? It's accurate."

"It's not, though." Soarin picked up the paper again and pushed it forward. "I looked at it closer, and this is not how we found him. This photograph was taken hours before we realised he was there. I was on the scene for almost twenty minutes, myself, before the body was found, and no one went to where he was to take a picture, and as soon as we found him, rather than taking snapshots, our first priority was moving him to the infirmary. Once we found him, there was no way for this picture to be taken, and judging by the damage, this photo was taken sometime between midnight and one AM."

The editor sighed and walked over to his file cabinet, taking out a large folder full of papers. "Monday, right?"

"We found him on Sunday morning."

"That may be when you found him. I need to know when it was printed."

"Oh. That's Monday, yeah."

The folder flopped down on the desk. "Here's the raw files. The original photograph should be in there."

Soarin flipped through the pages until he found the photo. They'd cropped out the time and date, but the picture was taken Saturday, eleven-fifty-eight and thirty-two seconds P.M. Also printed in the corner was the exact model of camera used. Paperclipped to the photo was a note:

There's a big story to be found at the Wonderbolts Academy. See attached proof.

"As you can see, they didn't give their name," said the editor through a mouthful of biscuit. "I can't tell you who took that photograph, but I was required to: A; inform the guard, which I did, and you can check that, B; send a reporter to check and see if the story was true, which you can confirm personally, and C; verify that the information given was correct before I could print the photo."

"Well, we know now that the photo was taken just before midnight," said Soarin. "We discovered him like this several hours later, so whoever took this picture , we know that they left him to die. Every student and teacher at the academy has a duty to assist a pony in danger, a higher burden of duty than is assigned to most citizens, which would be a duty to report any noted crimes or danger to a guard. That they left him sitting there for several hours, barely clinging to life as he bled out instead of running to tell somepony is criminal negligence." He stood up. "I'm going to need to take this photo and the attached note as evidence."

"I have no intention of standing in the way of your investigation, lieutenant," he smiled. "There is, however, one more thing."

"What?"

"I want first rights to the story."

Soarin looked him right in the eye. "Excuse me?"

"Look, you have your job; to protect the citizens of Equestria. You go remove from your ranks the rogue element that gave your boy, there, a thrashing and then took a picture to serve as a trophy of his or her kill. You go make Equestria a safer place to live. I have my job; to report to the public the various goings-on of the whole country. You want a bad guy to bust. I want a story of a bad guy bein' busted. It's in my best interest to protect my best interests. All I want from you is a story, before another paper scoops it out from under me. You let my reporter in, and all's good."

"You do know that withholding evidence is a crime, right?"

"Who's withholding? You have your evidence, I ain't stoppin' you from leavin'. I'm askin' you for a favour, in recognition of how we've been cooperatin' whit you on this."

Soarin took a deep breath. "I'll call for you when we've settled this. If there's a story to be had, you can have it. Rather, Headline Flair can have it."

"That's all I ask. Have a nice day, lieutenant, and please shut the door on your way out."