> The 200-Story Mare
>  by Yonder Strange Things
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 - The Big Mistake
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the biggest mistakes of my life caught my by surprise.

Sometimes fate would smile on me, and let me see it coming. Give me time to try and move out of the way.

But I hadn't been so lucky this time. Or maybe I had, and hadn't realized it soon enough to do anything.

On the maps, Canterlot was one city. But it was really something more like two entirely different worlds.

Canterlot Proper, as it was called, was a whole spread of towering skyscrapers, packed sky-ways, and streets always so alive with samples of cultures from the world over. Every material thing that a pony could want in life seemed to always be there at their fingertips. Provided they had the bits to pay for it all.

And when the sun started to sink down low and catch all the glass in that skyline just right, it made for a glittering lightshow over the real Canterlot so many miles below it all.

Tourism pamphlets didn't show the towering concrete walls that acted as a shore between the rich elite and their army of office drones, and the sprawling slums that spread out from that perimeter into the grasslands below. The part of Canterlot that the aristocrats in the heart of the city pretended wasn't there, all while funding the sprees of their trust-fund babies walking its streets every night.

The Canterlot slums were a den of sin, villainy, and vice. The discerning mare could have her choice.

Every Runner who had been in the game for more than a day had spent some time in the slums. Catching a red-eye flight out of Manehattan for a job and getting a front-row view of the sprawl from a mag-lev ride gave perspective. It made you realize just what sort of life you were leading and what kind of risks you had to expose yourself too in this work. A Runner's life was always changing.

I'd paid my dues spending time in the slums what felt like ages ago now.

So I'd made a few promises to myself the day I left that old coffin-cube apartment.

The first promise was that I was never going back to the mess that was the damn slums.

Yet all it had taken was some soft eyes and a pretty face to snap that promise clean in half.

"Ah don't like this one bit, sugar cube. Too exposed."

My ears perked and I caught the other mare's words just as she racked the slide of her shotgun. When I turned I could watch as Applejack finished inspecting that heavy shotgun of hers for the umpteenth time since we'd arrived at the market. She adjusted her ever-present stetson while walking around to find some excuse for cover behind a stand that, according to its sign, apparently held sweets and candies during the day.

"You and me both, AJ." I muttered in reply, "Our contact is late."

It was almost instinct when I reached under my coat to touch on the grip of my pistol. It was reassuring when calloused fingers met plastic. I just hoped I was done using it for the night.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie isn't concerned." The group's resident 'mancer tossed her mane over her shoulder and scoffed disdainfully, "She thinks you all must be nervous after that last - scuffle."

"I don't know." The voice that piped in next was too young for this line of work, "It - it seems real fishy to me."

I looked to Scootaloo and watched her run a hand through her mane. Her eyes were too wide and starting to show fatigue as they darted around between all of the windows and alleys that surrounded is in the open-air market. She was a jumpy filly who I'd met when she was younger. She'd held me as some sort of hero back then and had pleaded for me to help her become a runner.

I hadn't been heartless enough to tell her to just buzz off when I realized she wasn't a cop. So three years ago I'd made the stupid promise that when she was older, I'd help her run a job or two. And now I'd just watched her breeze through corporate firewalls and security programs like they'd been written by a high school drop-out. And on her first run no less.

But that firefight on the way out of the warehouse? Your first kill could break you fast if you let it.

I came close to her and put a hand on her shoulder, "Hey. Kid, you okay?"

Scootaloo managed a shaky smile, "Y-yeah, RD. I - its just - "

"Trixie is sure she's fine. Why dote over her so much?"

The three of us turned to look at the former showmare as she dusted what I was sure was just imaginary dust from her shoulder. Out of those three, I was almost surprised when I realized that Scootaloo had been the only one glaring at her. The young mare tightened one hand into a fist and I squeezed her shoulder. A wordless caution to think first. The look on Applejack's face told me she could feel the sudden spike in tension, too.

Scootaloo was gritting her teeth, "If you've got something to say, say it."

Trixie hummed and shrugged, "The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't have anything to say. Though I'm sure Dancing Blades would have a complaint. Would."

Applejack began to squint at Trixie. I frowned. And I could feel Scootaloo wince before she started to scowl.

That had been one hell of a shot below the belt.

There had been five of us when we'd started the night. I'd been leading the crew, Trixie had been our magic support, Scootaloo had been our Line-Walker, and AJ and Dancing Blades had been our muscle in case things got bad. But now only four of us were waiting at the meeting point and whatever was left of Dancing Blades was going to be mopped up by the morning janitor in a few hours.

And just like that there was ice in the air, and Scootaloo had venom in her words, "Why not just come out and say it, show-off?" She tried to step towards the group's mage before I squeezed her shoulder again.

I notice Trixie flick her eyes to the darkness before looking back to Scootaloo, "Trixie thinks you're far too young for this. Maybe too innocent and out of sync. We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you."

So there it was in the open now.

"So - so its on me? Not a bucking chance, 'mancer." The young mare was almost growling, "But I think one of us bucked over the whole show."

I started to pay more attention to everything going on as I stepped more between Scootaloo and Trixie. I could see AJ's ears perking up like she might have heard something while she scanned the darkness, and at the same time I could watch Trixie flit from looking in my direction to watching the alleys and streets around us.

I didn't have to prompt Scoots to continue.

"I walked that system way too well, RD. They never knew I was there and there were no alarms in the system. And I wasn't the only one with a shot on that goon." Her eyes narrowed sharply at Trixie, "What was the matter, Trixie? What slowed you down? I've seen you slings spells as fast as RD can draw a gun."

Trixie visibly scowled and squared her shoulders. Jabbing at her magic talents seemed to get a rise out of her.

But this was the first time she'd stopped looking over my shoulder since the exchange started. Something about the whole mess clicked inside my head.

"Keep us here long enough, Trix?"

Even I blinked when the words left my mouth. AJ looked back over her shoulders with a hard frown and I could feel Scootaloo tense up under my hand. Trixie shifted from scowling to frowning at me, but only for a second. As if she'd been trying to keep up the act but had realized it wasn't going to work.

She gave me an almost pitying expression, "Its really nothing personal. Rubes don't pay enough."

At that point I moved more on instinct than on active decisions. I turned to face head-on with Trixie and my hand shot under my coat for my pistol. A flash of light on her fingers told me she had gone for magic before the air around me began to crackle with a building heat and energy. I flared my wings and threw myself back, hard, into Scootaloo to get us both clear.

The air where my head had been exploded in a flash of light and heat, and in the few seconds it had taken for Scootaloo and I to hit the ground I'd suddenly gone deaf and blind. A 'flasher' spell generally wasn't lethal - unless it was set off inside somebody's head.

But for now I just couldn't see anything and there was a dull ringing in my ears.

I rolled on the ground totally blind.

-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-

"Get the buck - "

-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-

"- we need -"

-reeeeeeeeeeeee-

I managed to start blinking the lights out of my eyes just when I realized hot brass was pelting me in the face. I swore and swatted at it, rolling back again into Scootaloo to try and get away. My vision and hearing started to clear up just little by little.

The first thing I noticed was Scootaloo in front of me on the ground, hands clamped over her ears, and eyes squeezed shut. Then I realized that AJ was standing over us and emptying a magazine. Wood and plastic was splintering around us, and ceramics and glass shattered as somebody returned the favor.

"Scoots." I groaned and slurred the word, "Scoots, come on you gotta - get - get the buck up."

I groaned as I pulled myself up to my knees and drew my pistol. Looking around, I could see what looked like corporate goons pulling up in cars and vans around us. Paragon Design grunts: the sorts bits-a-billion rent-a-cops who wore all black with ball-caps like it was the clothing that made the guard.

But bucking Celestia, they could put out a volley of rounds.

That's when I peered over the stand Scootaloo and I laid behind to see something.

The form of blue and purple running away. I scowled and drew aim with my pistol: sights centered on the bitch's back as she kept running from the mess.

And then the vid-phone started ringing.
> 2 - ¤500,000 Bits
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there I was: staring with bleary eyes at the ceiling of a shit-hole apartment, with a vid-phone ringing at me.

The dream may have been shit, but even a shitty dream was better than being awake in downtown Manehattan. Even as I tried to blink the sleep out of my eyes I just couldn't stop the vulgar string of wishes to fuck phones, fuck whoever invented them, and fuck whoever was calling me at --

I looked to the clock beside my bed.

Three in the morning.

But I was still driven enough to toss the covers aside and swing my legs off the bed. Downtown Manehattan, and all that. Somewhere along the way I managed to get my hands on a shirt before I reached the console. Right away I didn't recognize the number that was on the screen but I could recognize a Canterlot area code well enough. Celestia herself probably knew how much I'd come to hate seeing it.

I tapped the screen and flopped down into my computer chair with a sigh, "This is Da - "

The kid's voice nearly cracked, "Hey, RD."

Scootaloo looked miserable. There were bags under her eyes, her mane was frazzled, and she kept fidgeting around and twisting her fingers together. It looked like the girl kept wanting to glance over her shoulder like there might be somepony with a gun waiting in the corner. I suddenly felt cold as I swallowed hard.

"Hey - uh, hey kid."

"This is a recording, Mom. Just - I know its awkward and everything, but it'll make sense. I promise."

A recording? What in the hell was she sending a recording for? And why the buck was I suddenly her mom?

I leaned forward and the chair squeaked from the shifting the weight, while on the screen a haggard Scootaloo took a breath to steady herself. A hand reached in from the side and squeezed her shoulder - somebody in a suit, white fur. Whoever it was got a nod from Scootaloo before the hand retreated. Then those eyes were back on me. Or the camera really, I corrected myself.

"I should have listened to you, Mom. I didn't have it for this sort of work and if you're hearing this then I really should have gotten out earlier. But I fell in with a crew for just one more job. College isn't cheap, ya know? And we ended up stumbling onto something a lot bigger than we were paid for."

That hand was at her shoulder again and she gave whoever was at the other end of it another nod.

"I can't explain it all here, okay? Just - listen to the details. And go from there, okay?"

That was when the camera panned to her right and I could finally see the hand that had been at her shoulder. A white-furred stallion with thick blue mane and a needle-thin mustache on his lip. He was wearing an expensive looking suit and adjusted a monocle - who wore a monocle? - and cleared his throat.

"Ms. Dash, I am Mr. Fancy Pants, and I do wish you were hearing from me under better circumstances. You see your daughter recently contacted an associate of mine to arrange a life insurance policy. However she has left very specific instructions that you be notified via the transmission of," his expression turned sour. "a 'Dead Mare's Switch' connected to her Deck."

Listen to the details, she'd told me. As if that would just explain away all the worries. And instead here I was staring at the monitor wondering what in Tartarus the girl had been getting up to that she put a Dead Mare's Switch in her skull. And that just led to a more uncomfortable question about just why the message was sent.

I wasn't dumb enough to miss the plain truth of it. I just wanted to know who had done it.

I realized that Fancy Pants was still going on with his legalese about everything, "Attached to this message will be the coordinates where you are to head at the earliest opportunity. You will be appraised of the details of the policy in order to withdraw the  ¤500,000 arranged for in your daughter's policy."

My hand was shaking more than I particularly liked when I grabbed my cigarettes from off the console. It was shaking enough that I cursed when I tore the first cigarette just past the filter and had to steady myself to try again. The video had stopped and the coordinates were sitting on the screen in glaring red text and a sinking feeling in my gut told me where it was.

The kid had been going South Canterlot Tech to try and make it as a legal Decker.

I still played with the lighter long after I had the cherry burning, and I kept the screen in the corner of my eye.

Fucking kid . . .





I'd been right when I punched in the coordinates. Of course I'd been right.

A ticket for the red-eye out to Canterlot from Manehattan had been easy enough to grab on short notice. Three hours after I'd gotten the message I was getting on a plane to go halfway across Equestria. Four hours after that I'd stepped out into the sun outside Canterlot International.

An hour after I'd dealt with inter-city traffic I was in the slums and moving for the signal from the Switch.

The whole time it felt like there was lead in my stomach.

I could see the red-and-blues on the buildings before I could even see the actual police. The light clashed with all the neon signs, Hearthwarming Eve lights, and the other typical decor of the slums. But when I turned the corner they made up for it by looking like just about any other scene of cops in the slums.

It was in a parking lot shared by a pair of strip malls and a bunch of stand-alone vendors. It was tucked between the two malls with a pair of patrol cars parked at angles with road barriers and caution tape to warn ponies away from getting too close, while big stallions with bullet-proof vests and heavy pistols on their hips walked the scene with those blank faces they were so famous for.

I tapped out a fresh cigarette and slid in a roll of bills to replace it before starting down the block. I couldn't see anybody who looked like they were handling photography or taking any sorts of notes, so either the detectives had already passed through once before or they hadn't arrived on scene yet. I was gambling on the former and on the cops on-scene being willing to work with me a little bit.

When I started to walk up to a gap between the cars, the cop standing between them stepped up to play.

"Excuse me, ma'am: this is a restricted area."

I didn't stop until I was in front of him, "Long day, officer?"

He gave me a noncommittal shrug, "Just another day, another bit." He sighed.

"Shit, son. They pay you guys a whole bit?" I gave him my best friendly grin and put my new cigarette to my lips while offering him the pack, "Want a smoke?"

The moment of truth came just then. I watched those blue eyes flick down to the cigarettes and back up to my face. We locked eyes and for a brief second I was expecting to get a tazer in the gut. But then he gave me a smile and drew the bills and a cigarette next to them from the pack. It was an amateur trick of the hand when he tucked the hundred bits inside his vest before balancing the cigarette between his lips, "Spare a smoke?"

Well he hadn't beaten me down so the least I could do was spare him some lighter fluid.

I took the moment while he was puffing on his cigarette to speak, "So what's the scene?"

He glanced over his shoulder, "Young mare. Local barista found her when she showed up to open the shop this morning. I wasn't here before the van from Headstone's hauled the stiff off, but they said it looked like somebody took her down with a pistol to the head. Apparently it wasn't a pretty sight."

"Shit. Mind if I take a look around?" I tried not to shiver at the mental image.

I saw him hesitate for a moment before he sighed, "Just be quick, eh 'detective'? Got more friends on the way."

I gave him an appreciative nod and then he stepped aside. None of the other cops who were walking around the scene bothered to look in my direction when I stepped past him to take a look around.

The whole scene didn't interest me too much so much as just one particular part of the alley. The back end was taped off a ways down and just before that I could see a chalk outline poking out from around a large dumpster. A dark crimson streak from roughly the center of the alley arched over in that direction. A splash of gore was on the ground maybe half a meter away from where the trail began.

I gave a sigh and stepped closer to inspect the splash.

I wasn't a forensics expert but I'd killed enough mooks and other Runners to know what the signs of a gunshot wound looked like. When I knelt down next to it I could already tell that whoever shot her had been close: nearly on top of her before they'd pulled the trigger. It made me feel sick to realize I could see what had to be skull and gray-matter in the mess.

Amid all of that a small black and green chip caught my eye: the Dead Mare's Switch. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me before I reached out with a gloved hand to tuck it in my pocket. Only government spooks and Runners had any need for something like a Switch, and the moment they suspected she might have been a Runner was the moment the cops would stop giving a shit about finding her killer.

I got to my feet with a tired groan and a pop in my knees to walk for the dumpster.

The scene behind the dumpster wasn't much better. A few over-full trash bags were smashed down or busted open and blood stained the plastic before it ran down in rivulets to the concrete. Clearly it hadn't been too long since the local Headstone van had picked up her body. And the thought of that had me swallowing down the lump in my throat from earlier that morning.

They wanted to hide her body, but they'd done a poor job cleaning up after themselves.

Something told me that hiding the body had been a simple after-thought, or the killer had been rushed for some reason. I had crouched down for a closer look when I heard the sound of a car pulling in nearby and doors slamming. At first I didn't spare it my attention until I looked from around the dumpster to see a pair of ponies standing at the entrance to the crime scene talking to the cop I'd been talking with.

One was a tall unicorn stallion, broad-shouldered, sharp blue eyes, and a blue mane. He was wearing a leather jacket but it was open wide enough that I could see a gold-colored bullet-proof vest. A sign to anybody that saw it that the man wearing it was a member of the Royal Guard. His partner was a smaller earth mare with a curling blue and pink mane, and I couldn't make out her eyes behind her sunglasses.

I could just overhear the cop, "A pleasure to see some of Celestia's finest coming out to help, Captain. But I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'll tell you the same thing I told our gal: body already got pulled away. But other than that the scene hasn't been touched much."

The Captain spared a glance my direction and I looked away to make like I was still more interested in the trash.

"At least that's something, officer. Can we pass?"

"Of course, Captain."

If I could have spoken more than one language, I would have been swearing a whole lot more as I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I did my best to keep my composure and summon my inner bullshit artist as I rose to my feet and turned to greet them. I nearly had a fist stuck in my chest before I could get a word out, offering a handshake. I showed the bloodstained glove in kind and he got the idea to drop his hand.

He put both hands on his hips, "Detective. I'm Captain Shining Armor and this is my partner: Lieutenant Bon Bon. We're with the Royal Guard." He said that as if it hadn't been obvious when he walked up.

I gave him a polite enough nod, "Detective Spectrum. Its a pleasure, Captain."

"Likewise. So what do you make of things so far?"

Oh Celestia had a bitch of a sense of humor. I stepped past the two of them so I could hide the grimace that I couldn't quite hold back and moved out towards the where the blood trail started.

"The boys here on scene told me that the vic was a mare, young. No ID on the perp just yet." I couldn't help but feel dirty talking so clinically about the kid's death like this, "Ice wagon came and picked her up before I could get on scene, so I'll do some digging around to see where they're keeping the body. But based on what I was told and," I motioned to the blood. "all this mess: it looks like our perp caught the girl while she was walking. Close range through the head with a firearm. Maybe a pistol but if it was then they picked up the casings."

The Lieutenant piped up, "What about magic?"

Still winging it, I shook my head and drew on my smoke, "We haven't swept the area yet so we can't rule it out."

Both nodded and the Lieutenant tapped away at a datapad she drew from under her coat.

The Captain glanced at me before looking back to the blood, "So where are you taking things from here?"

A good question. At least I didn't have to lie for this one.

"Honestly? I can't get much done until I've seen the body. Maybe she had something on her that'll tell us what happened: an empty wallet or something. So I need to dig around on that."

"I'd try one of the closer Headstone franchises if I were you, Detective."

"Yeah. If anything comes up I'll get in touch with your boys up in the palace." I pinched out my cigarette.

Just as I turned to leave I felt a hand come down on my shoulder, "Detective, wait."

My heart skipped a beat. I thought I might turn around to waiting handcuffs or a question I couldn't answer.

But instead I turned around to a business card being held out to me.

He offered something of a friendly smile, "I'll cut out the middle man for you. My card."

I returned the smile and turned to leave. I had to school myself not to power-walk away until I was already well down the block from the crime-scene and I'd turned the corner. Thankfully I had more work to do so I didn't have to stew on how incredibly lucky I'd just been to bullshit my way through that whole mess on one bribe.

I drew out my datapad and started a search for the nearest Headstone Mortuary.