A warm summer sun washed over the quiet mesas and sand dunes that surrounded the city of Sundown. It was a shining city of downtown high-rises and surrounded by suburban homes made of sandstone. Further out, massive fields of oil wells pumped day and night, bringing bubbling crude to the surface where it was put into barrels and shipped across the country.

The city clustered around one long highway that stretched across the desert valley. It was the same road, the Red Road, that ran across the country, connecting the cities of Teton from sea to shining sea. Though the modest desert city was not the largest, its choice of location had always stood as a testament to the perseverance of ponykind.

Past the edge of the city, in the shadow of the mesas, was a large camp. White tents were scattered across the rocky valley floor and their flaps blew in the restless wind. Ponies ran to and fro through the camp and around the edge of a large building in the center. It was a squat, metal building with heavy rivets that kept it in place over the ground.

Guards were kept posted outside the building at all times, and kept a sharp eye out for intruders. When they spotted the party walking toward them that day, their backs stiffened and nostrils flared. It wasn't until the oncoming group flashed their badges that the stallions stepped aside from the entryway.

The mare at the head of the small column turned to face her party. She wore a white hat with a wide brim over her golden mane. One teal hoof held it against her head to keep it from blowing away in the wind.

"This is the primary dig site!" she yelled over the ambient noise. "We've been expanding on pre-existing mine shafts and wells to expedite the digging process!"

The mare pointed out the building behind her and the logo on it, a phoenix with its talons crossed. With a smile: "By doing so, we have limited the costs to the university substantially!"

A thin stallion in the back, dressed in a blue blazer that hung off his lanky form, raised a hoof in the air until the mare called on him. "But it still is costing the University of Sundown money, Miss Sunny?"

"That's Professor Sunny," the mare said. "And yes, but we have alleviated some of the larger costs the university was concerned with by funneling them through national grant programs and private investors." Sunny beamed. "With those measures, the Department of Hippology is operating with the lowest overhead of any research branch!"

"Yes, yes, we understand, you're saving us money," a rotund mare at the front said. "But what the university financial committee is here for today is not cost-cutting, but results. We are all aware of your track record, Professor."

Sunny glared at her. The corners of her mouth wavered to keep the smile plastered on her face, but she managed. "Yes, of course you are. But I am here today to prove to you that we have done far more here than we could have ever predicted."

"I'll believe it when I see it," said the rotund benefactor.

Sunny ignored her and led the party through the entryway of the squat building. The interior was lit by bright red lamps to allow for natural night vision should they go out. A platform took up the middle of the room, painted bright yellow and with a security panel on one end. The sound of the crowd's hoofsteps on the metal echoed around the chamber.

Sunny took up position at the security panel and faced her flock. They milled around, looking for some of what they had been promised. The young mare shook her head and pulled a lever on the panel.

"You all may want to steady yourself," she warned. "It's a bit of a ride."

The platform shuddered and, with a high-pitched groaning noise, began to descend. Dull maroon lights built into the surface of the floor sprang to life, lighting the way for the moving rotunda.

A counter appeared on a digital screen attached to the security panel. Two hundred petra. Three hundred. Four. The sediment and rock around the platform warped and changed. It was darker, more packed together.

They passed another at a thousand petras down, then another at three thousand. The lights flashed over the stone and minerals in eerie silence. The benefactors huddled on the middle of the platform and watched thousands of years pass by in the blink of an eye.

At four thousand petras below the surface, the platform passed by the edges of the old coal mine. The walls were smoother, having been cut away by pony machinery. Below that layer, fossils in the wall appeared.

They were familiar to Sunny, but several of the gathered audience gasped at them. A massive dog-like creature that had walked on both four and two legs was one. The other prominent bone structure was that of some sort of hybrid creature: a flying animal with the back end of a mammalian predator.

Sunny looked away and watched the screen on the panel. It showed oxygen, nitrogen, and other gas levels at optimal down the tunnel. There appeared to be no breaks or leaks. The company had been keeping careful since re-opening the old mine shafts had hospitalized several workers. When the screen read ten thousand petras, she pulled the lever again and the platform began to slow down.

The brakes ground on the side of the shaft, filling the air with an ear-splitting screech. Sparks flew and bounced across the metal floor. Several of the delegates grabbed at their ears and cried out. Sunny just stared straight ahead and waited for the platform to come to a screeching halt at the bottom of the long, dark shaft. Looking above them, the ponies could no longer see the surface, just dark walls that spiraled up into nothing.

In front of the platform was a tunnel carved out of the rock, and lit by more red lights. Sunny hopped over to it and beckoned the crowd after her. "Readings from our sensors went off the charts when we were drilling down here," she explained. "We have been excavating here ever since."

She led the group of ponies in a trot down the tunnel, past stacks of excavation equipment and examination tools that lined the passage. Thick wires snaked along the ground, bringing electricity so far underground.

The group emerged out of the tunnel into a chamber in the shape of an upside down bowl. The walls sloped up to meet a point about thirty petras above them, fifteen times the size of the average pony.

"Most of our work has been concentrated here," said Sunny, "though we have a few other branching tunnels to spread the site. So far, none have been so fruitful."

The fat mare coughed and spoke up again. "And just what is so fruitful about this chamber, Professor?"

Sunny glared at her. "If you'll all try to keep up, I'll show you."

She led the party across the chamber, toward a grouping of rocks that jutted out from the center of the hall. The boulders rose like spikes toward the ceiling. Large lamps on stands surrounded the site, and boxes filled with tools were piled around.

Sunny took them in a circle around to the back of the rocks. When they reached the other side, many of the benefactors gasped and murmured among themselves. Sunny smirked and watched them fall over themselves, much of their hostility gone.

There was an object embedded into the center of the largest rock among the group. It was a large, glowing crystal, not unusual in the cave, but what was different was the shape. The cerulean crystal was carved into the shape of a perfect heart. The curves were far too sharp to have been made with anything but tools. Somehow, it glowed even when lights didn't shine on it.

"This is the . . . object you spoke of?" the rotund mare asked.

Sunny nodded. "We uncovered it a month ago while clearing away debris. We've been studying it, but the progress has been slow."

"Has it always been this active?" a stallion asked, moving closer to the heart. It almost seemed to pulse and glow with pale blue light.

Sunny stared at it, and shook her head. "I'm sure it's just, uh, perfectly normal."

The stallion reached out a hoof to touch the heart. Sunny saw and galloped over to him, smacking his hoof away and standing in between him and the heart. "No! We don't touch the artifact!" she barked.

He backpedaled and coughed. "I'm sorry you didn't make protocol clear," he mumbled. "Besides, why do I not get to touch the artifact, but you do?"

"What?"

"You're touching it." The stallion pointed to her hoof that was pressed against the surface. "Right there."

Sunny watched the heart begin to glow and pulse, faster and faster. "Oh, so I am."

A blast of light shot out from the heart, throwing her off and away the heart into a pale blue heap on the ground. She cried out and bit her lip as her hoof glowed bright blue and pulsed with energy.

Ponies gasped and shouted around her. They ran across the chamber away from her, leaving her alone next to the heart. With a grunt, Sunny raised herself to her feet and looked at the heart.

A beam of light extended from the top of the heart to the top of the chamber. Sunny watched as it expanded and rippled. It engulfed the heart and flooded the chamber in blinding light.

Then, the shaking began.

Sunny screamed and hugged the ground. The world convulsed and heaved around her. It spun and thrashed like a newborn child, tossing her in the air before slamming her back into the ground again.

She fought her way across the uneven ground toward the center of the chamber. Her legs threatened to buckle out from under her, so she crawled the rest of the way. The crystal heart spun in the air above her, surrounded by the beam of light.

Sunny grabbed on to a rocky spire and clung to it for dear life. She curled her body around the stalagmite and shut her eyes. She was yelling, but couldn't hear herself over the noise of the earthquake tearing apart the chamber.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, the shaking stopped.

A few spare rocks fell from the ceiling and hit the ground around Sunny's head. She stared at the crystal that drifted down to the ground. It touched a bare area of ground next to her and stood on a perfect point.

"What in hades just happened?" she muttered.

---

The first thing Police Sergeant Carpenter noticed when he woke up was a light fixture swinging on the ceiling above him. The fluorescent bulb flickered and cast a sharp glare on his cerulean coat.

He let out a groan, and the police officer rose to his shaky hooves. He shook off dust from his navy blue uniform and looked around. Slick, tiled floors were cast in a red glow from the hospital's warning lights. He could hear warning sirens going off all around Sunset General Hospital and shook his head.

The memories came slow to him. Carpenter had been sitting in the waiting room when the shaking started, then he remembered rushing to get to his wife in the maternity ward and then . . .

His eyes widened.

Frankincense.

The name of his wife spurred his memory back and he cantered down the hall once more. The heaviest shocks had hit before he had managed to find the room, leaving him directionless.

Carpenter's eyes scanned the rooms, looking for any sign of his wife. The burly stallion bit his lip. Each room looked identical to the last in his eyes, and he started to shake.

"Frankincense!" he yelled. "Someone, anyone, help! My wife's having a baby!"

No reply reached his ears. Carpenter briefly considered the idea that he might have been the only pony in the hospital to survive the quake, but quickly shook the thought away. His hooves echoed in an empty hallway as he ran toward the end of it.

Carpenter ran around the corner and nearly slammed into a group of nurses. They were clustered around an open door and peering inside. When he skidded to a stop in front of them, they all turned and stared at the newcomer.

"Oh thank Solaris," he gasped. "Can I have some help? Please, it's my wife! She's having a baby and—"

One of the nurses stepped forward. "Are you Sergeant Carpenter?" she asked.

He nodded and surged forward. "Yes, I am! Is that my wife in there? Is she alright?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but you can't go in there," the nurse began. "Your child had some, ah, unforeseen complications."

"Complications?" Carpenter exclaimed. "Like . . . like what? He's alright, isn't he? The doctor told us he was going to be a healthy little colt!"

The nurse put a hoof on his shoulder. "Your child is fine, Mr. Carpenter, but right now we're not sure—"

He didn't wait for her to finish. With the assurance that his little baby colt was at least alive, the police sergeant barreled past the gaggle of nurses and into the maternity room. The main lights were off, so the room was cast in an eerie red glow from the emergency lights in the corners.

Carpenter stepped around fallen IV stands and rolls of bandages. His wife lay on a gurney in the middle of the room, away from collapsible walls. Several doctors stood on the other side of the hospital bed, watching Carpenter but not moving to stop him.

The policestallion could see her teal mane matted to her head, his wife's light yellow coat streaked with trails of sweat. To the new father, though, she looked beautiful.

"Honey, honey, I'm here," he told her, standing by her side. "It's okay, I made it."

She smiled up at him and motioned to the bundle of swaddling clothes lying in her hooves. "This little one did too," she said. "I think he wants to see his daddy."

Carpenter bent down and smiled. His wife moved back some of the cloth covering the colt's face. When she did, the new father's expression of joy turned to surprise, then horror.

Sticking out of the colt's tan forehead was something he had only seen in fairy tales: a unicorn horn.

The cold windowpane of a creaky city bus felt cold on Starlight's head. Early morning light shone between towering glass skyscrapers clustered around downtown Gracia. The bus shoved its way through honking taxis and wayward tourists who managed to wander onto the road.

Starlight reached out an ivory hoof and pressed it against the frosted glass. She traced a little music note before drawing away. She smiled at her creation until the bus jerked to a stop and threw her forward into the back of the seat in front of her.

She grumbled and hauled herself back up. Her violet mane fell over her eyes, and she had to push it back behind her ears. Starlight hated riding the bus, but hated the subway more. Riding a clicking and clacking train beneath apartment complexes and thick skyscrapers wasn't her idea of fun.

The bus turned down forty-eighth street and sped toward a towering granite building. Sweeping columns held a red-tiled roof over carved stone steps that led up from the sidewalk. "Gracia Museum of National History," said the gold letters engraved in the building.

Starlight stared at it and groaned. When the bus stopped in front of the museum, she shoved her way to the front of the bus and out onto the sidewalk. Tourists crowded around her, and she had to push her way through them to reach the front steps to the museum. She took them two at a time up to the gold-tinged double doors.

She sprinted inside, her hooves clopping against the museum's smooth tiled floor. She passed by tapestries depicting wars and hunting, and weaved her way through a hall of panoramas detailing the various cities of the Republic of Teton.

A scale model of Gracia, the capital, stood out amongst the others, a sprawling mishmash of gray apartment buildings and colorful skyscrapers. There were models of the fort city Skyhall, built into the side of a mountain and overlooking Amperdam, the city on the river, and of Sundown, a sprawling metropolis in the desert flats.

Starlight passed by them without a second thought on her way toward the back hallway of the museum. She took a sharp corner and skidded to a stop at her familiar door, only to come face to face with her boss.

His eyes peered at her from his wrinkled, light blue face. "You're late again, Miss Starlight," he said. "The children you're supposed to be giving a lesson to are waiting inside, and getting quite restless."

"I know, Mr. Staten, I know," Starlight said. "It's just the bus this morning and the traffic—"

"No excuses." The aging museum curator sniffed. "You may be the daughter of my old friend, but I do not play favorites. Be late again this month and I will dock your pay again. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Staten."

"Good. Now, get in there and do your job, Miss Starlight."

Staten turned on his hoof and walked away, head held high. Starlight sighed and opened the door the museum's rear classroom. Officially an "Education Center," the goal was for Starlight to entertain the kids with history and keep them out of the hair of their parents.

As Starlight had found, keeping colts and fillies entertained with history wasn't an easy task.

The children watched her as she walked to the front of the white-washed room. They sat on a brightly-colored carpet, while she pulled out a stool for herself. She reached into a bookshelf on the wall and pulled out a picture book, one of her favorites.

"Hi, kids," she said in the cheeriest voice she could produce, "today we're going to learn about history! Doesn't that sound exciting?"

The foals kept quiet, just looking at her.

Starlight cleared her throat. "It's a lesson about the founding of this very city!"

She opened the book and began to read.

---

". . . and in 1812, after our war of independence against the Republic of Fiorza, the temporary capital of Applewood was burned down by retreating soldiers. So, instead of attempting to reconstruct the old city, the founders of the new Republic of Teton decided to move their capital to the land previously denied to them," Starlight told them, cracking a smile and making gestures with her hooves in an attempt to make the story seem more exciting.

"So, they moved the homeless ponies out to here and set right to work building this new city. They called it Gracia, as it was given to them by, according to the settlers, the Grace of Adana. Now, today in 2048, this city holds over ten million ponies!"

The foals oohed and aahed at the figure. Starlight grimaced when they showed more interest in the number than anything else. She ran a hoof through her mane, done up in a braid, and turned the page to reveal a simplistic drawing of Gracia at night. The fanciful picture of the city showed it glowing in a million electric lights. The kids smiled and clopped their hooves.

Starlight set the book back with the others once they had calmed down. She looked at the clock. It was nearly one o'clock, almost five minutes after their parents were supposed to pick them up. She groaned. If her gut feeling was right, Booker was late on his tour again.

One of the foals stuck her hoof in the air and waved it around. She didn't stop until Starlight sighed and called on her. "Yes, you had a question?" she asked.

The little filly stood up. "Could you read us another story?" she asked.

Starlight bit her lip. "Maybe," she said, "though it's just about time for you all to go . . . maybe something about Sundown?"

The girl shook her head. "No! Read us something about magic!"

"Yeah!" one of the other foals cried. "About ponies who can use magic!"

"And fly!

"And have pictures on their butts!"

The children began to chatter amongst each other, and their high-pitched voices rang in Starlight's ears. She grit her teeth. Just about the time the foals got to the subject of whether flying or using magic was better, Starlight clopped her hooves together as loud as she could.

"Enough!" she cried. They quieted down and the attention fell back to her. "Those are all just stories," Starlight tried to explain.

"They're wonderful to talk about, but they're not real. This is a museum of history, which means it actually happened. Nopony has ever flown or used magic or had a picture on their flank." A chorus of groans met her and she sighed. "That doesn't mean stories are bad, but you have to remember what's real and what's not."

Luckily for her, Booker chose that moment to arrive with the parents at the end of the tour. The children went streaming out of the room toward their parents and left while chattering about what they had learned, most of which was what they had heard from other classmates instead of Starlight, of course.

Starlight glared at the lithe stallion. "Nice of you to finally show up."

"One of the old couples just wouldn't shut up!" he protested.

"Oh, like you're not late every time. You always just leave me here with . . . with them!"

Booker laughed and started to walk off toward his next tour group. "You know, for somepony who reads to foals all day, you don't seem to like them very much."

He was gone before she could get a word in edgewise, so Starlight just huffed and started rearranging the bookshelf. Oh, sure, like it was easy telling kids stories about the Gold Rush out near Sethton when all they wanted to hear were stories about dragons and unicorns and ponies named after their destiny. Heck, at that age, she wouldn't have wanted to hear about that other stuff either.

Her eyes alighted on one of the books near the back of the shelf. The Case for Celestia. She smiled. Maybe she could spice up the next reading just a little bit. It was a Friday, after all.

Starlight grabbed the book just as another group of foals began to pile in and sit on the carpet in front of the reading chair.

---

It was the second Friday of the month: payday. After work, Starlight lined up with the other employees in front of a swivel top desk in the museum's back room. There, an ancient mare who looked to have been installed when the museum opened slid a check across the desk and let them go home. Starlight was behind Booker, as usual.

The line moved forward and Booker became next to receive his check. The mare across the desk glared at him from beneath her sharktooth glasses, but slid his pay across nonetheless. He took it in his hooves and sniffed it, then smiled at Starlight. "Smell that?" he asked. "That's the smell of the last paycheck before promotion."

"You finally got it?" she asked.

He nodded. "The decision's already been made. Starting Monday, I'll be coordinating all the tours instead of running them." He waved the check in the air. "Soon it'll be goodbye knock off pasta and hello discount pasta!"

Starlight laughed as he left and waved after him. Then, she took her place behind the desk. Though the little slip of paper was the cut the same size of Roger's, she couldn't help but see it as a tiny little thing. Perhaps it was because half of it would be used up before she could even cash it. Then, the rest would be gone to go to pay for her apartment.

She sighed, accepted the check, and walked past the desk. There was an old row of lockers by the exit door. Starlight reached hers and produced a pink wool overcoat out of it, which she threw over herself. The weather pony had said it was supposed to be chilly out tonight.

Most ponies didn't mill around the area very long, so Starlight found herself alone in the locker room. That was, until she felt a familiar, morose presence.

"I heard you did quite the job telling fairy tales today," a raspy voice said.

Starlight turned around to catch sight of Staten, still as old as ever. He looked at her through foggy glasses wrapped around a coat that had started to pale with the years. His aqua mane, too, showed some signs of aging. The grimace on his face, however, was as strong as ever.

"I just figured the children might like to hear some, uh, historical interpretations," Starlight said. "I mean, I thought you would be okay with it since we got that new exhibit . . ." Her voice trailed off and she gulped.

Staten sighed and shook his head. "I suppose if it doesn't stray from the records too far it, then it's alright," he said. He reached over toward a coat rack and pulled off a black windbreaker and matching hat. "Though, I trust that you will keep those stories at a minimum, Miss Starlight?"

She nodded. "Of course, Mr. Staten."

"That's what I like to hear." He coughed. "Oh, and would you remind your father that my offer to dinner still stands? He doesn't seem to have been returning my calls lately."

"I'll be sure to."

"You know, that offer extends to you, too," Staten said. "Outside of work, the daughter of an old friend is always welcome to dinner."

Starlight gave him her best smile. "I'll definitely think about it, Mr. Staten."

The curator gave her a small smile before heading out the door to brave downtown Gracia at dusk. Starlight sighed. Mr. Staten was enough on a normal day, let alone payday.

Starlight hurried to grab her things and whisked her way out the door. Soon she was lost in the crowds walking home from work and just another face among millions.

---

There was a small supermarket shoved between a laundromat and a pizza parlor just a block from her apartment. With her new check in her pocket, Starlight stopped in the squat concrete store to pick up a few things. Her growling stomach, though, called for more than a few things.

A bell dinged as the double doors slid open and she walked through. She took a basket from a station by the door and set out to prowl down the narrow supermarket aisles. Late in the evening, the customers had begun to thin out, so the little corner store was devoid of many customers other than her.

She took her time to pick out her items: pasta, fruit, and about half a dozen kinds of cheese. She rolled her eyes at the new "gluten-free" products that were being offered for all the ponies riding the wave of the latest diet craze. Sure, ponies were supposed to be herd animals, but Starlight preferred comfort foods that allowed her to lounge around on the couch after work.

As she placed the food in her basket, Starlight took a little time to breathe. There wasn't too much noise and she had the aisle to herself, so she closed her eyes and let herself get lost in the supermarket, if only for a moment. Until she opened her eyes again, she could forget about the stresses of her job and stave off what was waiting for her back home.

She tried to think about the icy-green waves that lapped at the rocky shore outside Gracia. To think about when her father had taken her there as a filly, and how she had dove off the rocks into the water. For a moment, Starlight was happy.

Then she opened her eyes.

With a glance around to make sure nopony had seen her, she walked up to the front of the store and placed her basket on one of the checkout counters. The cashier, to her annoyance, wasn't paying much attention. He, like everyone else in the store, was watching the teletube placed up in the corner.

Starlight couldn't hear what the reporter was saying, but she could read the words scrolling by on the bottom of the screen. Something about an earthquake out near Sundown. Nothing big, she supposed, but to her surprise it mentioned something about the IS.

She noticed for the first time that the idle chatter of the employees and customers in the checkout lanes was all focused on that one subject.

"I heard they're closing down the road," said one.

"Well of course they are; it's standard procedure," said another.

"No, no, no, not any roads. The road," answered the first.

"No, they wouldn't!"

"Already have. No traffic getting through the whole city. The IS be setting up checkpoints and everything. I have a cousin out in Amperdam and she told me the whole thing . . ."

Starlight cleared her throat to get the attention of the cashier in front of her. She glared at him, and tapped her hoof on the counter. To her, anything to do with Sundown was unnecessary: far-off concern. Not every pony saw it that way, to her annoyance.

The cashier scanned the items without taking his eyes off the tube. He shoved the items into bags and waited for her to pay.

Starlight pulled out her card from another pocket in her coat and gave it to him. She sighed to herself when somepony turned up the volume on the tube.

The cashier tapped her on the shoulder. "Ma'am?" he said. "Your card is declined."

Her heart sank. "Try it again," she said.

He swiped it through the machine again, then shook his head. "It's still coming up as declined. Is there any other way you could pay?"

Starlight took out her paycheck with a little reluctance and showed it to him. The cashier just shook his head and pointed to a sign taped to the steel register: NO CHECKS.

"But that's not fair!" Starlight cried. "How can you not accept checks?"

The cashier shrugged. "Too many bounced, I guess. It's not my decision. Now, are you going to pay with cash or another card?"

Starlight shut her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. This isn't happening, this isn't happening . . .

She distinctly remembered putting the rest of the cash she'd had on hoof into her account just a few days ago. One hundred rounders should have been more than enough for some groceries and a few snacks.

Then, she remembered.

Anger began to well up inside her. She wanted to scream. Her late insurance payment. A stupid envelope that she had left on the counter one day too late.

"Ma'am, we're going to be closing soon," the cashier said.

Starlight shook her head and began to walk away. "Take it," she said, "just take it. Take it all back."

A few ponies began to stare at her as she walked out of the store, but she returned the look until they found something else to gawk at. With a heavy heart and empty stomach, Starlight trotted out of the store and down the street back to her apartment.

---

Starlight walked down dirty and cracked sidewalks toward her home with her head down. The eyes of passing strangers all seemed to focus on her, silently judging while her empty stomach growled. She looked down and kept her own eyes on her hooves. One in front of the other, carrying her home.

Overhead, thunderclouds boomed and began to spill their cargo onto the city below. Fat droplets smashed into the ground around Starlight, and trickled down her neck. Ponies around her extended umbrellas into the sky, whose handles lit up with bright lights to help them guide their way.

Starlight ignored the rain and turned a corner onto a lonely sidestreet. A lamp post above her flickered on and off in the storm. Lightning boomed in the distance and Starlight picked up her pace. Her apartment building sat wedged between two others that looked just like it near the end of the block. Far removed from the glass skyscrapers and peace of downtown, Starlight's slice of Gracia was scrubbed over with dirt and grime.

Overhead, a police spinner flew by. Its twin rotors buffeted the ground beneath it while it scanned over the apartment complexes with a bright searchlight. Starlight watched it for a moment until it moved on.

The rain began to fall harder, and Starlight trotted down the sidewalk until she reached her apartment building. She noticed a few dark vans parked on the opposite side of the street, but soon turned her attention away. She cantered up the front steps and through the dingy lobby to a silver elevator on the other side.

Starlight leaned against the wall of the mirrored box. She rubbed her forehead and tucked her pink jacket tighter around her. The elevator took her up six floors before grinding to a halt on in a hazy hallway lit only by a window at the other end.

Starlight stepped out and her hooves slid over the worn maroon carpet. She walked down the hall to her apartment as she always did. Her eyes traced over the wallpaper while her mind drifted off to other topics. Her stomach growled and she thought about Mr. Staten's invitation to dinner.

Her hoof reached out to touch the door lever to her apartment . . . then she stopped. She looked closer, and her heart stopped. It was only barely visible, but her door was already open a crack.

The only key to the apartment was in her jacket pocket, so she started to back away. She kept her eyes on the door and moved toward the elevator. Then, the light above the elevator doors dinged, the car was riding back down.

A crash came from inside her apartment, and Starlight scrambled away. With nowhere else to go, she backed toward the window. Then a shout came from inside the apartment.

"She's outside!"

Starlight turned and ran to the window. She gripped the pane and slid it up just as she saw a dark figure emerge from her apartment. He turned toward her and yelled to his partner.

She didn't stick around to hear what he said. Starlight crawled out the window and landed with a soft thud on a rusty fire escape. She reached up and slid the window shut before running down the stairs.

The metal stairs creaked and groaned under weight, but Starlight didn't slow down. She could hear the glass breaking behind her and more yelling. Sweat ran down her forehead and mixed with the rain that poured overhead. She slipped on a bottom stair and nearly fell off the fire escape before catching herself against the railing.

Thunder boomed in the sky above.

The stallions above her closed in on her. They took the steps three at a time, jumping down the stairways in their pursuit. Starlight guessed they were only a couple levels above her by the time she reached the bottom.

She looked behind her once, then jumped down to the alley below. She hissed from the impact and pain shot through her legs. She didn't have time to think about that, however. Her mind ran on instinct.

She ran out of the alley just as the stallions got to the ground. She took a sharp turn and sped away from her apartment building. The pouring rain got in her eyes, blinding her. Lightning seemed to flash around her and the cars sped by at a dizzying speed. She could hear the assailants getting closer and closer, barging through the few ponies on the street with her. Soon, they would catch up.

She turned right onto another street in the hope she could find a place to hide in a crowd. But when she got around the corner, her stomach dropped. The entire street was empty. Not a car, not a pony, nothing.

Starlight sprinted down the street, but knew they would catch up to her soon. Their hooves all over her, grabbing her and forcing her to the ground . . .

A cry escaped her mouth when a strong hoof suddenly grabbed her. Instead of pulling her to the ground, though, she was pulled into a small side alley. The hoof shoved itself against her mouth to muffle her screams while the two stallions pursuing her passed by.

They yelled and called out to her. When they didn't notice her, they moved on and out of hearing range. Only then did the hoof come off her mouth.

She coughed and swung around to face whoever had dragged her into the alley. "Okay, what gives?" she growled. "And who are you?"

With a snort, Staten walked out of the shadows. He was shaking, and his eyes were bloodshot. "Starlight," he rasped, "I'm going to need your help."

Rain beat against plate glass windows that encased a small diner wedged between two office buildings a half dozen blocks from Starlight's apartment. She sat in a red leather booth scooted against one of the windows and watched cars splash through the street outside. A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of her, steam rising from the brown liquid.

A bell above the diner's front door dinged and Starlight's head shot up. She let out a breath when she saw it was Staten walking in. He shook drops of rain off his pale aqua fur and walked across the polished tile floor to the booth. He sat down with a heavy sigh and leaned his hooves against the tabletop.

"We haven't been followed, as far as I can tell," he said. "We should still stay on our guard, however. We can't stay in one place too long. The IS has their hooves all over this part of town."

Starlight shook her head. "I just, I don't get it . . . why me?"

Staten reached across the table and took her untouched coffee. He drank half the cup in one gulp before sliding it back over. "Because the government decided you're a liability. If you hadn't escaped, you'd be in a spinner bound for Lupine right now."

"Because . . . why? What, do I have any unpaid parking tickets that I don't know about?" She shook her head. "And what was that in the alley about you needing my help? What gives?"

Staten tapped his hoof against the table and looked out the window. A bolt of lightning flashed over the city, illuminating the apartment blocks and office buildings in white light for a moment. Thunder pealed a second later, rumbling over the city blocks.

"I got a call from my daugher shortly after you left the museum today. I think I told you about her? She lives out in Sundown." He shook his head. "Anyway, I got a call from her today. She was worried, she thought someone was coming for her, but she didn't say who. What she did say, though, was what they were coming for: the crystal heart."

"Crystal heart?" Starlight asked.

"It's an artifact my daughter and her team found deep under the sands around Sundown. Your father and I had found inscriptions of the heart in our digs out in the Ayanmar Mountains, back in our heyday. Details and legends about its power, buried deep in ancient tombs and catacombs."

Starlight stared across the table at the older stallion. "So the government is trying to get to me because of some crystal at the bottom of a cave?"

"That crystal is an enigma, a legend . . . and nopony knows more about it in the entire world than your father and I. If the IS had taken you, they would have a bargaining chip if Noctilucent didn't want to comply."

"But if they couldn't catch me, then . . ." Her eyes widened. "The IS is going to come for my dad!"

She tried to shove her way out of the booth, but Staten held her back. His strong grip surprised her, and she was forced back down. She glared at him from across the table.

"Stop, there's no point to getting worked up," he chided. "They wouldn't be so foolish as to wait and see if they succeeded with you. Their agents were sent to his house at the same time, I'm sure."

"We can't just leave him there!"

"He. Is. Gone, Starlight," Staten said. "You would just add yourself to the list of prisoners if you tried to go save him, and then you wouldn't be useful to either of us."

"Useful?" Starlight snorted. "Since when have I been useful to you? We both know I got that job because of my dad. Why in Adana's name would you choose me over him?"

He sighed. "When I got back to my house, the IS was already swarming all over it. I got away unseen, but knew they would be coming after the both of you as well, so I had to make a choice . . . I chose you."

"But why? How am I useful to you?"

Lightning flashed outside, closer this time. The lights in the diner flickered overhead. Staten tapped his hoof the table and looked Starlight in the eyes. She felt like he was staring right through her, down into her mind.

"As long as you are free, your father still has hope. He'll stall and give misinformation to the IS for as long as he can, and buy time for me to get to Sundown. If I had saved him, he would have done nothing but try to save you from the IS, and we both would have wound up in the hooves of the government."

Starlight stared down at the even, brown surface of coffee inside the porcelain cup in front of her. Thunder boomed outside and the liquid rippled, sending tiny waves crashing against the sides.

"I just don't see the big problem here. So what if the government gets the crystal? How's it going to hurt anypony?"

"There are legends, dark legends, of events that transpire when the crystal is activated. A downward spiral of chaos and magic that can upturn the world. From what my daughter, Sunny, described, the process has already started."

He slammed his hoof on the table and a couple patrons across the diner stared. "We can't let the IS get to it. They'll seek it's power, and once they try to harness it, that will be end for all of us. Every last stallion, mare, and foal."

"And you want me to help."

"Like I said, as long as you're with me, we'll stay a step ahead of the government. We can do this, Starlight, but I need you."

Starlight took one more look at the older stallion, then sighed. "Beats rotting in a holding cell, I guess. Where do we go next?"

Staten slid out of the booth and stood up. "We go back to your parents' house. They'll already be taken, so the house should be clear. We'll get what we can for the journey, and figure out where to go from there."

"And how do you expect to get halfway across the city without being noticed?" Starlight asked, following him out the door and into the pouring rain.

Staten smiled. "The subway of course."

"Oh. Right."

She sighed and followed him toward a set of stairs that led down to the nearest station, gritting her teeth and wishing the whole night would turn out to be just another lousy dream.

---

Their silver subway train clicked down the tracks, sliding its way underneath the city. Starlight rested with her back against the back of a hard plastic bench seat. Staten sat beside her, his hooves on his lap. Besides them, there was only a single pony napping on the bench at the far end of the car.

Starlight stared out the window across the car from her and watched brick walls fly past as the subway trundled on. Her hooves rested at her side and her mane hung down over one eye. She didn't bother to blow it away, instead tucking herself further into her seat.

She had never liked the subway. Her parents had taken her on it when she was younger and it had frightened her. To be stuck underground in a train that was crowded with dozens of ponies would get her breathing hard if she thought about it too long. When it had come time to attend school, she had been more than willing to take the bus.

A light flickered overhead. Staten licked his lips and opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and shut it again. Starlight did her best to ignore him. She could feel the questions welling up inside, but steeled herself from speaking. If she was going to focus on anything, it would be her parents.

The car hit a bump and Starlight knocked against Staten. She righted herself as quickly as he could and scooted away from him. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"It's alright," Staten replied. He took the opportunity and leaned a little closer to her. "You know, I'm sure your parents are alright."

"I don't remember asking about them," Starlight hissed. "And from the way you talked back in the diner, you didn't think that way, either."

Staten raised a hoof. "I'm just trying to reassure you—"

"Do I look like a little kid to you?" Starlight snapped. "I've been away from them for years. I don't need somepony to remind me my mommy and daddy are okay."

"Just trying to help." Staten sighed. "Your father and I were close, back in the day. I'm sure he told you about the digs we did out past Levan and elsewhere. Those trips were fruitful, but what we found were just . . . trinkets . . . at the time. A stone inscription of a dragon and a pony, things like that."

"So why'd you two ever drift apart?" Starlight asked.

"When my wife left and Sunny went off to college, I fell on hard times. I blamed everypony . . . including my friends. It wasn't a time I like to remember. I—"

Staten trailed off and looked down at his hooves. "I never went back. He offered me, I offered him, but . . . I just couldn't. Then this happened and I—."

"You came for me," Starlight whispered.

Staten nodded. "Your father would have gone to the ends of the world to find you and bring you home. If he couldn't do it, then I could."

Starlight looked away. "You should have saved him . . . I can take care of myself."

The train slid to a squealing stop at Fel Street Station. The granite station was lit by simmering fluorescent lights that cast it in a harsh glow. For all purposes, it was empty and devoid of life.

Starlight hopped off her seat and trotted out of the car onto the solid floor of the station. She made her way to the stairs leading back up to Gracia without a single look back at Staten.

---

Fel Street was like another world compared to the rainy morass that Starlight's apartment sat on. The street was straight and broad, and lined with wooden buildings that were three stories high at their tallest. The arched windows looked out on manicured grass lawns and trees that bloomed in the summer rains. Light came from bulbs burning in ornate lamp posts on the sidewalk rather than spinners flying overhead.

Starlight splashed through puddles on the sidewalk that still gathered in the same places that they had when she was a little foal. The gravel crunched comfortingly beneath her hooves and the air smelled fresh and clean. Despite the situation, she found herself smiling as she trotted down the street toward a blue house on the end.

She could hear Staten's clumsy hoof-falls echo behind her. He grunted as he tried to catch up to her, muttering curses under his breath. Starlight laughed to herself and kept ahead.

For a moment, it almost seemed like a silly little game she had played as a foal. Then she arrived at her house.

Starlight came skidding to a stop when she saw the front of her childhood home. The window that her father had fixed after a wayward ball had sailed through now lay on the ground, its frame broken and sagging. The mahogany door that she and her mother had painted together one cold November stood open, hanging on by its hinges.

Staten caught up to her and stood by her side, panting. When he saw what had been done, his breath caught and he tried to move toward Starlight. "I am so sorry," he began.

Starlight didn't hear him. Her eyes glazed over as she stepped up the front walk. She pushed open the door and found herself plodding through her own house like it was an alien planet. Everything was out of order. The furniture lay torn and on their sides. Vases were broken, pots were spilled, and her father's prized book collection lay on the floor like a pile of trash.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She stood in the middle of her living room, the one place she could call safe, and felt like a stranger. She fell in a heap beside the piles of books. Many had pages ripped out and spines bent. The ones under became a little more wet as tears ran down her face and dropped onto the pages.

She hadn't been on the best terms with her parents, not since dropping out of school, but to see the safest place in the world have its heart ripped out was too much for her. She stared into space and her ears started to ring.

Starlight was vaguely aware of somepony calling her name, but could only just make out the voice over the ringing. She didn't look up, however, until she felt a hoof on her shoulder.

"Starlight!" Staten was calling. "Are you okay?"

"What?" she asked.

"You zoned out," Staten said. "I know this is tough, and I'm sorry . . ."

Starlight shrugged off his hoof and stood up. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She wiped at her eyes and sniffed. "I'm not stupid; they just took my parents to jail or whatever. It's not like they're dead."

"Yes, but you looked like you were taking this pretty hard—"

"I said I'm fine!" Starlight snapped. "Besides, why do you care so much? You caused this."

"I did my best to find you before they got to you," Staten protested.

"I told you before, I'm not a little kid!" Starlight growled. "I can take care of myself. If you had gone to my Dad first, none of this would have happened."

"But you—"

"Save it. I'm going to go check out my room."

Before Staten could get in other word, Starlight turned, stomped up the stairs, and slammed the door to her room shut.

---

Staten watched her go and sighed. He would let her stew for as long as he could. She wouldn't be in any mood to help him at the moment.

He picked his way through some glass strewn about on the carpet and into Starlight's father's study lab. Noctilucent had been one to go to great lengths in keeping every damn surface that he had ever worked on spotless and in order, so to see the neat little office of his turned into a demolition zone pained Staten.

The modest chairs were upthrown, stuffing leaking out their sides, and the massive oak desk that he recognized from Radshapur had its drawers emptied and on the ground. The ancient tabletop was scuffed and chipped from hurried hooves that hadn't cared for its legacy.

Staten found what he was looking for in the middle of the room. It was an oil painting in a gold frame that Noctilucent had commissioned for his family. Even now, his steely blue eyes gazed up from the floor where the police had left it. It was, much to his relief, unharmed apart from being taken off the wall.

"I hope you'll understand, old friend," Staten said to the frozen relief of the square-jawed stallion. "You can take whatever the IS throws at you, but Starlight? No, she . . . she's not ready for that." He smiled a little. "Don't you worry now, I'll take good care of her."

Still smiling, he raised his hoof and brought it down against the glass. It shattered, allowing the aging stallion to rip a hole through the oil canvas and tear it out of the frame.

He grinned when he saw it. There, taped against the back of the frame, was a shiny compact disk. Staten wrenched it out and looked it over.

"Noctilucent," he said, "you were nothing but predictable. A good thing the police didn't bother to get to know you first."

He looked around and retrieved a small burlap sack from the corner. The police had emptied it out for him already, so Staten was able to place the CD inside without a problem. He grabbed some scarves and stuffed them in the sack for padding, then slung it around his neck.

Satisfied, he moved out of the room and closed the door behind him, as if to spare the carnage inside from the rest of the house. He heard nothing from downstairs, so he shook his head and started up toward Starlight's room. Under his breath, he rehearsed what he would say to her, an almost impossible task for what he needed her to know.

---

Starlight was laying on her old bed when the professor showed up again. Her room, like the others, had been ransacked. Unlike the others, it was hard to tell the difference from the state it had been in during her teenage years. The walls were still painted midnight blue and posters of bands and city fairs and shiny metal airframes stretched all over them.

Her bedspread was still the same tacky black rose spread that she had somehow convinced her mother to buy, but looked back on the decision with a small grimace. It was comfortable enough beneath her back, however, while she stared up at the spinning ceiling fan.

She had spent a lot of time in that position through the years. After a hard day at school or at her part-time job, she had lain there and let her thoughts slip away and carry her troubles with them. It had been where she'd laid the night after announcing to her parents that she was dropping out of Gracia U.

Staten knocked on the door. Starlight sat up and blinked a few times before settling her gaze on him.

He coughed. "May I come in?"

"Why not?" she said, laying back down. "It's not like nopony else has today."

Staten sighed as he stepped over an upturned CD rack, the discs scattered amongst the floor. He stood beside Starlight's bed. "We can't stay here for long. When the IS figures out you're not coming back to your apartment, they'll come back here."

"Let 'em." Starlight rolled over. "They've taken everypony else, so why not me too?"

Staten looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. In one swift motion, he grabbed the bed's comforter with his teeth and yanked back, flinging the blanket off the bed and spilling Starlight on the floor.

She yelped and held her head while she climbed back to her hooves. "What the heck did you do that for?" she growled.

"You don't get to make that decision," Staten snapped. "I let your father get captured so I could take care of you, like he would have wanted. It wasn't my choice, but his. So you don't get to lay here and be captured with the rest of my staff."

"It doesn't even matter," Starlight shot back.

Staten walked up to her until their noses were almost touching. "I didn't choose you over your father so that you could get captured too. If you're sitting in an IS jail cell with them, you aren't worth anything. But on the outside, you can fight back. You can free them, you understand?"

Starlight stared at him, at his eyes flaming in anger, and nodded. "Yeah, I get it."

He threw open her closet and tossed a bag laying on the ground to her. "Good. Now, pack up some things and make it quick; we're leaving as soon as we can."

Starlight gulped, then did as she was told. She hadn't seen this side of the professor before. His eyes were crazed in anger and desperation. He looked at her like she was his last hope, and he would be damned if she didn't comply.

She stuffed a couple stray rounder bills and whatever coins she could find into the pockets of a pink coat from her closet, along with a few other valuables. Even her old music player. Then, she took what clothes she could fit in the burlap bag and slung it over her shoulder. She wrapped the coat around herself

When she looked up, she saw Staten in the hall, looking out a window to the street in front of the house. "Is there another way out that's not as noticeable?" he asked, turning away.

Starlight nodded and beckoned for him to follow. She led him to the small bathroom down the hall from her own room. There was a large, fogged glass window on the other side of the toilet. She reached up and undid the bolts keeping it in place, letting it swing open to reveal nothing but the night air on the other side.

She looked one last time at her room, surrounded by her old sanctuary, before dropping down to the terrace below and onto the soft grass of her backyard. Staten followed, albeit at a slower pace, and soon joined her.

There was a tall wooden fence around the perimeter of her parents' spacious backyard, and a gate near the back, built out of the same wooden slats as the rest. Starlight trotted over to it and let it open, careful to peek out before letting it swing away. There was a small road behind all the houses for cars, and it was deserted.

Staten caught up with her. "Nopony's around. Good," he said. He walked past Starlight and started up the street. "We'll need to move fast, though."

"Uh, professor, where are we going?" Starlight asked.

"Just a quick stop-over in Horizon, then out of the city. We should be on the road in just a few hours."

Staten continued on ahead, but Starlight stopped and looked back one more time. Her parents were gone and her home trashed . . . but even on a night like this, there was a faint glimmer of hope. Like the professor had said, she could fight back. She could free them. And, better, get back at the IS and make them pay.

Starlight smiled and trotted after Staten.

Starlight and Staten took the journey to Horizon by hoof. The borough was on the edge of Gracia, near the industrial districts and dockyards. Starlight, even growing up on Fel Street, had heard the stories. The cutthroats, dealers, and smugglers had been regulars for the cautionary tales that parents told their foals.

Dingy tenement buildings leered above them, dark against the night sky. Most were sagging and aging at a rapid pace. None of the construction crews that kept the downtown modern and edgy came to the district. A few rusty cars rumbled down the narrow streets while ponies in long trench coats and low hats walked by, not looking anypony else in the eye.

Starlight became very aware of her bright pink jacket and kept close to Staten. The professor himself hadn’t said much on their journey across the city, just looking back over his shoulder every once in awhile to confirm that she was still following him.

Eventually, they came to a stop under a neon sign that glowed in a language Starlight didn’t know. Drops of rain hissed as they fell on it, though most of the storm had stopped some time ago. The professor leaned against the brick building and looked around.

“Why did we stop?” Starlight asked.

“Just trying to get my bearings,” he answered. “It’s been awhile since I was last here, after all.”

“You’ve been to Horizon before?”

He nodded. “Once or twice. You would be surprised as to what kind of jewels can be found here if you look hard enough.”

Starlight eyed the ruined buildings around her. “You’d think they’d stick out . . .”

Staten shook his blue-green mane, sending drops of water everywhere. More specifically, all over Starlight’s face. She grimaced and spit out what flew in her mouth. “Are you done?” she grumbled.

“There’s a bar not too far from here,” he said. “We should be able to find a smuggler or the like there.”

“Is it that kind of place?” she asked.

The professor smiled. “You can search across this entire planet, but nowhere else will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

“Oh.” Starlight paused. “Can we go somewhere else, then?”

“Just keep your head down and you’ll be fine,” he told her, continuing down the street.

With a sigh, the young mare followed. They turned on a street lit up by more neon and gaudy signs advertising cheap mares. She shuddered a little. The decaying sidewalks, thankfully, were empty.

The only ponies they passed were two stallions garbed in black, matching outfits and smoking against the side of a strip club. Their eyes followed them as they went past, but didn’t do anything more.

When they had passed by them, Starlight leaned in close and whispered, “What was with them?”

“IS agents,” Staten said. “Not looking for us, most likely. They’ll be there to watch out for the corner mares. Pay them no mind.”

When Starlight looked back, though, they were gone. She kept close to the professor for the rest of the journey.

---

The bar turned out to be the imaginatively named “Horizon Cantina.” It was a fat little building with a faded brick exterior and a single door that led further inside. The windows on the outside had heavy iron bars welded over them.

Staten strode in while Starlight did her best to disappear in his shadow. The interior was dark and hazy with cigarette smoke. The patrons didn’t look up as they walked in, but kept leaning forward on the large bar in the middle of the room or in one of the booths.

They walked over to the far end of the bar where the smoke was heavier, but the ponies there were in lighter clothes and at least looked somewhat amiable. The professor took Starlight by the shoulder and looked her in the eye.

“I’m going to go look for transportation,” he said. “You stay right here and go nowhere else, understand?”

“I’m not a kid,” she said. “I’m twenty-four.”

He snorted. “Right, sure. Just don’t go wandering somewhere.”

Before she could say anything else, he left, leaving her to sulk. Starlight leaned against the dirty countertop of the bar and surveyed the place. She’d seen places with worse atmosphere on a few lousy dates, but the clientele here far more lacking.

There was a pony with an eyepatch and a row of empty shot glasses in front of him to her immediate right. He was shouting to a buddy next to him, even though they were less than a petra away from each other. A few patrons glared at him, but said nothing.

Starlight watched as the stallion eyed her and did his best to smile. She ignored him. After a minute of this, though, he grew bolder. He scooted down the bar and nodded to her.

“My friend likes you,” he said.

“Well, that’s great,” Starlight said.

He coughed. “I like you too,” he said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

She perked up a little at the thought. The only ponies who ever seemed to buy drinks for her had been the fat, nerdy types, and that was more for favors than anything else. Favors that she tried not to think about in civilized conversation.

Before she could decide, however, Staten returned.

“Ah, sweetie, there you are,” he said, placing a hoof around her. He smiled at the stallion. “My daughter’s just turned twenty today! Doesn’t she just look so mature?”

The stallion returned the smile and grunted something in return before turning back to his friend. Starlight growled and threw off the professor’s hoof.

“I had everything handled just fine,” she said.

“Did you?” Staten leaned over and tapped an old corkboard hung up on the wall featuring a variety of wanted posters. One near the bottom had a yellowed picture of the same pony with the eyepatch, and a reward of one hundred thousand rounders for his arrest or death.

Starlight’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Anyway,” he continued, leading her way, “I believe I have found us a transport out of Gracia. For a low price, too.”

“Who is he?” Starlight asked.

“You’ll see.”

They started for the other side of the bar, but before they got too close, they found their way blocked by a crowd of ponies. Pushing their way toward the middle, they found that the crowd was ringed around two stallions sizing each other up and preparing for a fight.

One wore a black jacket over a long white shirt that complimented his wavy, copper mane and the roguish smirk that played host on his face. The other had on a plain maroon shirt and brown suspenders over his sandy brown coat and chocolate mane. He was smaller and more rugged, but in the way that a truck looked more rugged than a sports car.

They squared up and grinned at each other. The bartender, from within his labyrinth of mixes and cocktails, called, “Alright you two, break it up!”

The rogue looked up at the bartender while the truck took a swing at him. The blow connected with the stallion’s right cheek, and he stumbled a bit before catching himself. When the truck came in for a kick, though, the rogue was prepared.

He thrust his shoulders into the truck’s midsection, sending them both to the ground and with the rogue ending up on top. With a few powerful punches into the prone stallion, the fight was over. The patrons mumbled and went back to their drinks after rounders changed hooves.

“Well, at least he can fight,” Starlight said.

“Were you watching the same fight I was?” Staten asked. “He just got his flank kicked.”

She whirled around. “Wait, you’re saying . . . we got the loser?”

“Evenin’,” the stallion said in a husky accent, ambling up to them. He spat a mixture of saliva and blood on the wooden floor and grimaced at it. “Damn, must be losing my edge. You get the girl?”

Staten nodded. “Redington, meet my daughter, Starlight. Starlight, meet Redington, smuggler for hire.”

The smuggler extended a hoof and smirked. “Call me Red.”

Starlight stared at it until “Red” sighed and put it back down.  “So you’re going to be getting us out of the city?”

“Just as soon as we get on outta here,” Red said. “You’re looking at the best smuggler in all of Teton.”

“Well, I hope your driving is better than your fighting,” she said. “How much is my dad paying you, anyway?”

Staten coughed. “I have half the money now in bonds and credit, and will give the other half to him when we get there.”

“Speaking of which,” Red said, glancing down at his bare hoof, “it’s about time we got out of here. Not a good idea to stick around the late night crowd around here.”

“Agreed,” the professor said, making his way toward the door. Starlight followed with the smuggler in tow. He took a jacket from a coat rack by the door and put it on. It was an old airframe pilot’s jacket, with the fluffy down collar around the neck and patches up and down the side. Starlight fought the urge to roll her eyes.

Once back outside, Red turned left. “There’s a garage down this way,” he said. “I’ve got the Odyssey parked down there, gassed up and ready to go. Just follow me.” He went on ahead of them, allowing Starlight to drop back with Staten.

“Why, again, can’t we just take an airframe? Or even a train?” she asked.

“Security,” he said. “The IS is going to be watching every station in and out of the city. The only places they can’t watch at all times are the roads, and a smuggler is the only one who can get us through any checkpoints we might come across.”

“Yeah . . . but him, really?”

“I have a good feeling about him,” Staten said.

Starlight snorted. “Like that helps.”

“Don’t be so quick to knock it.” He laughed. “I said the same about you.”

---

A few blocks away from the bar, the trio arrived at a monolithic concrete parking garage that was at least five stories high at first glance. Starlight whistled as she craned her neck up. “Your car is here?” she asked.

Red nodded. “Parking’s cheap here. Too bad about the neighborhood, though.”

Sure enough, as they walked up the ramp to the first level of the garage, they witnessed a couple ponies scurrying away from a car with stolen wheels in tow. Starlight drifted closer to the professor.

The smuggler led them up the wide ramps of the garage, warning them to keep away from the cramped stairwells that any civilized pony would take. His voice echoed through the around the low-ceilinged tunnels.

After a while, Starlight’s legs began to burn and she found herself wheezing under her breath. Staten didn’t seem to be in much of a better shape, but they both managed to keep up with the silent smuggler.

Some time later, they arrived at the very top level of the garage that was open to the night air above. Moonlight guided them across the otherwise unlit surface until they reached the far end, near the edge of the platform.

Starlight stopped for a moment when it became clear exactly which vehicle they were heading toward. Not a sports car, not an off-road utility vehicle, heck, not even a sedan. Instead, just a great, big . . . RV. The ugliest part of an ugly house put on four tiny wheels, painted off-white with a dull brown stripe going around it. The thing sagged and looked to be on the doorstep of death itself.

“What a piece of junk!” she cried.

“Hey, this piece of junk has gotten me from Sethton to Gracia and back,” Red snapped, whirling around. “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts. I’ve made a few special modifications myself. But, we’re a little rushed, so if you two will just get on board . . .”

He made a scene of opening the thing’s door and bowing for Starlight and Staten to get on. Before she did, Starlight noticed the name Odyssey etched into the side of the RV in sloppy red paint. She rolled her eyes.

Red tried to put a hoof on her shoulders and help Starlight up, but she threw him off and got in the vehicle by herself.

Inside, there wasn’t much to see. There were two plush seats in the front for a driver and passenger, a recliner to one side of the midsection, and across from that, a small kitchen table with wraparound couch. A bathroom near the back and a door leading to what Starlight assumed would be a bedroom completed the look. Starlight wrinkled her nose and took a step back from the whole thing.

“Where are these ‘modifications’ you were talking about?” she asked.

“Hey, I know she’s rough on the inside,” Red said, “but under the hood, she is one pretty lady.”

“Sure.” She sighed and shifted her bag to her other shoulder. “Is there at least somewhere I can put this?”

Red cocked his head toward the bedroom. “Throw it back there.”

Starlight, grumbling the whole way, walked on the thin carpet toward the rear of the RV. She refused to even think of calling it the Odyssey; it wasn’t deserving of such a name.

She opened the door to the bedroom and prepared herself for the worst. To her surprise, however, she found that the back bedroom was clean, if only because it was so sparse. Between two whitewashed walls were only a bed and a nightstand with a lamp and alarm clock on it, making the room the first part of the RV acceptable to her senses.

There was a sliding window at the back overlooking the city below the parking garage, and Starlight took the opportunity to look out it after setting her bag on the bed. The lights of downtown Gracia shined over the dullness of Horizon and reminded her that the city wasn’t always bad.

That idea was cut short, however, when she looked down. At the bottom of the parking garage were four police cars, their lights flashing in the gloom. They paused for a second, then started up the ramp.

“Uh, guys?” she asked, emerging from the bedroom. “Is it usual to have police come around here?”

“No, they usually stay away from these places to keep all the criminals contained or whatever,” Red said. “Why?”

“Well, they’re here now, and in force.”

Staten, sitting in the passenger’s chair, started. “It must be the IS,” he muttered, then turned to the smuggler. “How fast can you get us out of here?”

“Woah, woah, you didn’t say anything about being wanted,” Red said. “I don’t do fugitives. Especially not for the money you gave me.”

The professor shook his head. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” he said. “This isn’t just the regular police, but Intelligence Service agents. They’re going to seize this RV of yours too, and I don’t want to imagine what you’ve hauled in this thing.”

Red opened his mouth, then shut it and thought for a second. Without a word, he stuck a key in the ignition and started up the RV. The engine sputtered and coughed for a moment, then roared to life.

“You two might want to buckle up,” he warned.

Staten did as he was told, but when Starlight looked down at the other seats, she noticed none of them actually had a way she could restrain herself. In the end, she sat behind the kitchen table and hoped she could hold on.

The smuggler backed out of the parking space and set the RV in gear, heading down the ramp through the garage. The air seemed to stop moving inside the RV. Everypony clutched their seats and tried to look calm.

It didn’t help that the farther they went inside the parking garage, the lower the ceiling became until the top of the RV almost scraped against it. Still, the ride was normal until they got to the third level. Driving up on the opposite side of them were three cop cars with big searchlights. They were shining them into every vehicle in sight.

“Get down!” Red hissed.

Starlight threw herself down below the table and Staten ducked underneath the console. Red drove right on by the cop cars, keeping a neutral expression on his face. Even though his hooves started to shake, the police paid the RV no attention and let it pass.

There was an audible sigh of relief from the all three of the ponies in the RV once they had gone past. Red accelerated a little bit and zoomed down the ramps toward the exit of the garage.

Starlight watched out the front window for signs of an empty road ahead and freedom, but her heart sank when they came in sight of the exit. Two police cars guarded the entrance, and four stallions stood around them. They stared at the oncoming RV through reflective sunglasses, and held up their hooves to stop.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“The only thing there is to do,” Staten said. “Go on through it.”

Red smirked. “I like the way you think, old stallion.”

He slowed the van down until he was almost at a stop near the exit gates, but then, when the officers approached the RV’s door, the smuggler slammed on the gas and drove right through the police cars. The bulkier RV’s front smashed aside the cars with a grinding and crunching sound of steel on steel.

The surprised police officers jumped out of the way and the trio in the RV were free on the open road. Red gunned it down the street toward the highways leading out of the city.

“Starlight, go check for followers,” Staten instructed. “I have a feeling we’re not out of this yet.”

She scrambled into the bedroom and peaked out the rear window. Sure enough, flashing lights were coming from the parking garage. “They’re on to us!” she yelled back.

She was thrown off her hooves and fell onto the bed when the RV lurched forward. Instead of falling onto a soft mattress, however, whatever she hit felt solid and hard. Curious, she threw off the blanket to find that the center of the mattress had been hollowed out.

Inside, there were a variety of weapons ranging from pistols to rifles and everything in between, including a dozen or so grenades. There were also piles of ammo for all of them.

Starlight’s eyes widened as she looked at one that she thought to be a folded-up anti-material rifle. Before she could say anything, she was thrown against one wall when Red steered the bulky RV around one corner.

A grenade flew through the air towards her and Starlight cried out. She caught and bounced it on her hooves before she realized the pin was still in. She let out a sigh of relief. Then, the RV turned again and Starlight slammed against the bed.

To her horror, she looked down and realized that, somehow, she had managed to wrench the pin out in the last turn. She clutched the grenade to her chest to keep the lever from extending while she looked around for a place to put it.

Her eyes alighted on the window at the back of the RV.

While the smuggler continued to swerve the vehicle in and out of traffic, she scrambled up on the bed while keeping the grenade against her chest. She hung on to the edge of the window before wrenching it open.

The RV turned again and Starlight’s heart stopped as she lost control of the grenade and watched the lever extend out. Reacting as fast as she could, she grabbed it out of midair and slung it out the open window.

Outside, the grenade landed on the street just before the lead cop car that had been following them drove over it. The grenade exploded and sent the vehicle spinning out of control until it stopped, facing sideways and blocking the road. The cars that had been following behind it slammed into the unfortunate officer, further blocking off the road.

Red let out a whoop. “Great shot, kid, that was one in a million!”

Starlight let out a sigh and laid back down on the bed while the RV climbed up a ramp and onto one of Gracia’s outgoing highways.

---

Some time later, as they passed over the suburbs that lay in the swampy grasslands surrounding Gracia, Staten stepped into the bedroom.

“You did good back there,” he said.

Starlight laughed. “An accident, I can assure you.”

“Even so, we are now on our way without the IS. We might just be able to make it after all.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“To Serenity Valley,” he said, “and the cities of Skyhall and Amperdam. I believe you’re familiar with them.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long way.”

“Yes, but we’ll make it one way or another,” the professor said. “We have to. Now, would you like to come to the front of this vehicle and watch as we get on the Red Road for the first time?”

Starlight nodded and followed him up to the front seats. Looking through the massive front windows, she watched as the highway climbed up a hill and merged with other freeways and sideroads from all over the Greater Capital Area to become the Red Road, the massive highway that connected Teton from coast to coast. She had read about it in books before, but never actually seen it.

They crested the hill and Starlight’s breath caught in her throat. There, on the other side, was the massive raised highway that stretched on toward the horizon. Cars of every size and make plowed the dozens of lanes on each side in a never ending flow of traffic. Streetlamps as tall as the parking garage lined it and lit up the boggy surface that had worn black over millions of tires.

Far off in the distance, over grassy knolls and rolling hills that marked the outer reaches of Gracia, the sun had begun to rise.

The Odyssey drove on toward it.

Sunny leaned her head against the back window of the government car and watched it drive past the Sundown Oasis. The massive, spindly dome of steel and glass soared over the city's primary lake and the grass around the edge to keep it safe from the outside desert and allowed the ponies of the city to cultivate it. It was Sundown's biggest tourist attraction and Sunny had walked through it a few times herself.

The IS motorcade moved on past the Oasis and through downtown Sundown, beneath the watching eyes of a row of skyscrapers adorned in lavish ornamentation around sharp, geometric edges. Sunny didn't have much of a choice but to look out the tinted windows, as she was squeezed into the back seat of the sedan with two other government ponies in tacky suits. A fourth sat in the passenger seat next to a uniformed driver.

"Are we there yet?" she whined. "I've got classes tomorrow and I haven't even started writing my lecture yet."

"You will be taken to the Sundown Branch of the Intelligence Service and held there for an undetermined amount of time," the agent in the front seat, who Sunny now realized was a mare, told her. "No further questions will be answered at this time."

Sunny crossed her hooves over her chest. "You all have the nerve to drag me away from my dig site in front of all my colleagues like a common criminal and don't even have the decency to tell me what all of this is about."

"If we deem you fit to know, then you will be informed once we reach the Sundown facility," the female agent answered. "But until then, no questions."

Sunny grumbled and sat back in her seat. Outside, the car left downtown behind and passed into the expansive suburbs that ringed the business districts. Little clapboard houses were done in earthy tones and had rocks for lawns instead of grass to preserve water.

Ponies walked along the sidewalks with umbrellas and floppy hats to avoid the afternoon sun in what was turning out to be a particularly hot summer. At the moment, though, Sunny envied them and their ability to walk around unmolested by the likes of the IS.

The row of four black government cars turned down a side road that was lined by small businesses and a shopping mall. To Sunny's surprise, they turned in, not to some monolithic building, but to a small parking lot in front of a low-slung adobe building that lacked any decoration besides a sign that proclaimed, "Teton Intelligence Service - Sundown."

The four cars parked in a semicircle around the front steps and the doors were opened in a flurry of movement by agents who scrambled to get their passengers out. Sunny hadn't seen them take anypony from the dig site with her, but there was a stallion in a police uniform being pulled out of one of the cars, and a mare out of the other. She was placed in a shiny metal wheelchair with a bundle of clothes in her lap. When the bundle began to cry, Sunny's eyes widened.

"You are to follow us into the station," the female agent said. "Any deviation from that action will be treated as resistance of arrest and punished as such. Are we clear?"

Sunny said nothing and fell in line behind her. They marched her up the concrete steps and through glass double doors into the inside of the building.

The interior of the office was taken up by a number of desks scattered around the room. Various agents sat at them with collars undone and sleeves rolled up while the whirring of electric desk fans filled the room. Light got into the room through half-open blinds, while the overhead lights were switched

One of the agents near the door—a copper-colored stallion in a white, button-up shirt—stood when Sunny's group walked in. The other ponies in the room were quick to follow suit.

"What's going on?" he asked in a gruff tone.

"Ah, you must be Agent Nightcall," the female agent said. "I am Agent Flower from the Intelligence Service Homeland Division, and we have been instructed to secure these . . . ponies of interest . . . by order of the state and bring them here for examination and questioning."

Nightcall leered at her. "Why was I not informed of this?" he asked.

"The information we were given was highly sensitive and not confirmed until mere hours ago," Flower explained. "You will be give a full debriefing once you have secured your prisoners."

"Prisoners?" The male agent stared at the group. "These are your prisoners?"

"Yes, and we will need a necessary facility to house them," the other agent replied, then sighed and looked at the foal wrapped in swaddling clothes in the hooves of its mother. "They may be taken to a more . . . accommodating . . . interrogation room if you so choose, however."

"Right." Nightcall led them past overflowing desks and the scraggly-looking agents who stared as they went by until arriving in a plain, concrete hallway in the rear of the building.

The agent took out a silver key from his pocket and opened a wide metal door to a sparse, white interrogation room. It had a one-way mirror that took up all of one wall, a rickety wooden table, and some equally unstable-looking chairs scattered around it.

Sunny and the police officer were marched in while the mare with the foal was wheeled in. She kept a stony glare on Agent Flower. Nightcall nodded to them, then shut the door behind them with the audible sound of the lock being turned.

With that, they were alone in the room. Sunny sighed and slumped into one of the chairs while the police officer followed suit. The mare in the wheelchair sat, cradling her child in her hooves, and didn't look at the either of them.

After a moment, the officer took his off his service cap and scratched at his indigo mane. He seemed to realize, for the first time, that Sunny was there too. He smiled a little. "What are you in for?" he asked.

She snored. "I wish I knew. Do you? Being with the police and all . . ."

"Nope, not a thing," he said. "Name's Carpenter, by the way. Sergeant Carpenter, Sundown PD. The pretty mare there is my wife, Frankincense."

"Sunny Sky, Professor of Hippology, University of Sundown," she said in return, nodding. "I am sorry to see the two of you put in here with a kid so young . . ."

"Born today," Frankincense muttered. "And they almost took him from me."

Sunny turned in her chair to look at her, but the new mother was back to staring at her foal. The little pony made the occasional cooing sound, but was otherwise quiet, for which Sunny was thankful.

"When the IS showed up, we didn't know what to think," Carpenter explained. "They came into the room and dragged us out of there. They tried to separate us but, well, my wife talked them out of it."

Sunny grimaced and tapped a hoof on the table, which groaned in protest. "Right, but what would they want with the three of you? Especially a police officer, because isn't the police supposed to work with the Service?"

"We knew something was strange when he was born, but for them to just show up like that . . ." Carpenter said.

"Wait, hold on, what was strange when he was born?" Sunny asked. "Was it some kind of defect?"

"He's not defected!" Frankincense growled from her wheelchair. Even with her mane still clinging to her face and massive bags beneath her eyes, her expression was enough to give a trained soldier pause.

Carpenter leaned closer. "He was born with, well, an abnormality," he whispered.

"What sort?" Sunny asked. "I'm in my university's Hippology department, remember. These things are what I live for."

"Well, you see—" he paused, then gulped. "Our son was born with, well, a horn."

"A horn?" Sunny repeated. "A horn. Like, magic and rainbows type of horn? Like, from all the stories and myths type of horn?"

Carpenter nodded.

Sunny sat back in the chair and let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding. Vestigial horns weren't quite unheard of as far as birth defects went, but this was the first she had heard of a government taking an interest in the child. Especially so soon after it had been born.

She turned to the mother. "Frankincense?" she asked in a soft tone. "Could I, maybe, see your child?"

She hugged the baby closer to her chest. "What for?" she snapped.

"Your husband tells me the baby was born with a certain, ah, trait. I'm from the Hippology department at Sundown U; I specialize in these sorts of things." The mother hesitated for a moment, so Sunny added, "I can use my professional opinion to sway the agents that nothing is wrong, but to do that I'll need to see the child."

Frankincense glared at her, but after a moment, sighed, and let the lanky professor walk over by her side. Frankincense cleared away the bundled blanket around the child's light brown head. Its wide blue eyes stared back up at Sunny with wonder and amazement while its little mouth turned in a smile.

Sunny couldn't help but smile back a little, even as she examined his forehead. When Frankincense took away the blanket covering that spot, the teal mare gasped. There, on the baby's forehead was a thick, spiral horn. Not a fleshy pouch of skin like the other cases had been, but a real horn.

"What, is something wrong?" Carpenter asked, springing from his chair.

"No, no, your son is perfectly fine," Sunny said, "but this is something that I haven't ever seen before."

Below her, the little foal cooed and waved one little hoof up at the adults above him.

---

Special Agent "Night" Nightcall of the Teton Intelligence Service led Agent Flower away from the interrogation room and back toward his desk in its solitary position at the front of the spacious main room. The desk, which he had inherited from the previous station manager, was chipped and stained from its years of service, but still clung to usability.

Night dropped in his padded swivel chair and cleared the papers and styrofoam coffee cups off the center of his desk with a sigh. He watched Agent Flower, who regarded him with an apparent disinterest.

"Okay, so spill it," he said. "What's HQ want with some bookworm, a cop, his wife, and their kid? They don't exactly scream 'national threat' to me."

Agent Flower leaned against his desk and raised an eyebrow. "What this Service regards as a 'national threat' is hardly up to you, is it, Agent Nightcall?"

"Spare me the official bullshit," Night said. "I just need to know what's going on."

"We were called out to assist in any way we could with earthquake relief this morning," Flower began, pulling a small order form out of her suit pocket. "While covering evacuation from the afflicted areas via the Red Road, we received orders to seize these ponies of interest and bring them to the nearest Branch for containment and interrogation. That's all I know."

Night grit his teeth. "I don't like this; Lupine Falls knows more than they're telling us. Did they order you to bring in anything else?"

"Just a big crystal from a dig site outside the city," Flower said. "It's shaped like a big heart. Fancy, but the crystal quality is too poor to be worth much."

"So that's what they give us, then." Night shook his head and leaned forward in his chair. "I can't interrogate them in this sort of position. Hell, what would I even say? I don't know anything, and you don't seem to have much of a clue either. What do we tell them?"

Flower sighed. "Let's just keep them as comfortable as we can and prevent anything drastic from happening." A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. "We have a new mother in there; we don't want to piss her off."

"Right." Night nodded and picked up the bright red phone on his desk and held the receiver to his ear. "I'm going to call Lupine Falls and see if I can't get something out of them. You get back in the room and keep them calm. Bullshit as much as you can. You're in my department now, so get going."

Flower hesitated, then did as she was told, scurrying off toward the back room without a word.

"And somepony around here get that new father a damn cigar!" Night barked.

---

A couple hundred petramin inland from Gracia, at the peak of a highway that looped off the Red Road, sat Lupine Falls. Amidst a vast sea of impenetrable forest was a town of simple brick buildings clustered around monolithic factories that belched smoke toward the cloudy skies above.

It was an insignificant city of less than one hundred thousand, save for one defining feature: a massive campus that ran from the hills south of the city and stopped at the first row of houses. Featureless concrete buildings that extended three stories above and four stories below ground marked the headquarters of the Teton Intelligence Service.

Back away from the town, on a hill that was hollowed out and stuffed with offices and personnel facilities, stood a small tower that belonged to only one pony. Some said she was as powerful as President Morrel, though others insisted it was she who had started the rumor in the first place.

Whatever the truth, it was undeniable that Director General Bilhaus Haze, known to her minions only as Director B, was the queen of Lupine Falls.

Atop the reinforced concrete tower, above the hidden networks of air-to-ground missile batteries, was an office with a single window at the top. A pony looking out of it could watch the vast forest pitch and bank until it smashed against the mountains that rose in the west, their rocky peaks capped with ice year round.

As she often did, Bilhaus enjoyed the view from her plush, high-top chair spun around to face the window. A small glass of brandy sat on the glass top of a massive oak desk that dominated the rear of her office. The sun had peeked over the tops of the mountains just minutes ago and bathed the forest valley in tinges of copper and gold that marked a new morning.

It also marked the fourth consecutive morning she had spent in her office. She yawned and took a sip of the brandy. It went unnoticed down her throat, but slammed into her empty stomach like a brick.

The azure-colored mare growled and held her stomach for a moment before it settled back down. Satisfied, she pushed a lock of her ghostly white mane over her ear and tried to enjoy the view for a few more minutes before the rest of the IS caught up to her.

A red button on her desk phone lit up and began to buzz. The Director sighed, then spun her chair around and pressed the button.

"Yes, what is it?" she snapped in her usual haughty tone.

The voice on the other end hesitated, as most did when speaking to her. "The suspects we brought into custody have all been flown into our holding facility," the little black box told her. "The one you wished to speak to, one, uh, Noctilucent, is being escorted to your office as we speak."

"Good," Bilhaus said. "Who is the escorting agent?"

"Agent Fresco, as you requested."

Bilhaus smiled. "Just checking. Report back if there are any complications, otherwise allow them access to my office."

She switched off the phone before whoever it was working the desk could thank her for her orders. She rolled her eyes and pulled another bottle of alcohol from the bottom drawer of the monolithic desk. If there was anything the unruly thing was good for, it was storing alcohol; her predecessors had made sure of that.

Bilhaus turned her chair until it faced the mahogany double doors, far at the end of the room. There was a portion of tile leading from the doors up to her desk that was painted red, as opposed to the uniform black found in the rest of the cavernous office. She had had it repainted so that, by tricking the eye, it appeared that the room widened and her desk got bigger as ponies approached, even if the only thing that changed was the width of the red path. It had been the very first thing she had changed in the office after assuming the Director's position.

The doors slid open with a soft hiss against the glossy tile and two ponies stepped through. The familiar sight of the grey and black-spotted Senior Agent Maxis Fresco was enough to set Bilhaus at ease. The newcomer, however, kept her from any thought of relaxation.

Standing taller than Fresco by half a head, the ivory pony with the inky black mane marched beside the agent without missing a step, even as he approached one of the most powerful mares in the country. His icy blue eyes bore into Bilhaus.

Their footfalls echoed through the empty office that extended far above them. Light streaming in from the windows behind the Director cast the two in an orange glow. They came to a stop in front of the desk and stood before her. There were no chairs, and the desk was angled upward to complete the feeling that Bilhaus sat above where they stood.

She smiled at them.

"How was the flight in?" she asked, her voice echoing around the bare office. "Those spinners can be rough coming over Lupine Falls, but, unfortunately, we had no time to arrange for airframes to bring you here."

The stallion, Noctilucent, looked up with a snarl on his face. "You act like I was brought here as a guest, not as a prisoner," he said.

Bilhaus smiled. "But you are here as a guest," she said. "If you notice, we have not bound you. You are free to leave at any time."

Noctilucent didn't budge.

"What?" she asked. "Do you not trust me?"

"I know your kind," he growled. "You're not letting me go that easy."

The Director turned in her chair and picked up her glass of brandy. "I assure you, it is that easy, Mr. Noctilucent, but the effects it may have upon you could be . . . considerable."

Noctilucent eyes narrowed. "You've already taken my wife and I, what else is there?"

"Mr. Noctilucent," Bilhaus asked with a smirk, "when was the last time you were in contact with your daugher?"

"So you have her too," Noctilucent muttered. "What, is that it? You're going to keep me here by threatening her?"

Bilhaus held up a hoof. "There is no need to get upset," she said. Behind her, the rising sun reflected off the glass window and appeared to project a halo of light around her. "We do not, at this time, have possession of your daughter. Which brings me to the purpose of you being brought to me."

She sighed and took a sip of brandy. "I am a busy mare, Mr. Noctilucent. This country expects me to have my eyes and ears on every square petrabit of Teton without considering that such an effort would require the resources of every nation on this planet. With the recent events in the city of Sundown, my agency is spread thin, and some individuals have slipped through our grasp."

"You mean my daughter," Noctilucent said.

"I mean the stallion who has absconded with your daughter," Bilhaus snapped. "You are familiar with Professor Staten, I would assume. Your former archaeological excavation partner and current curator for the Gracia Museum of History and Science."

Noctilucent raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying that my former partner has kidnapped my daughter?" he asked.

"I would not go so far as to call it 'kidnapping,'" Bilhaus said. "My sources tell me that she was seen willingly fleeing my agents with Staten. It is my belief that he has fooled your daughter into following him."

"But why?"

Bilhaus shook her head, her ivory mane flopping about. "That is unknown at this time, which is why we have called you in. If you assist us in capturing Professor Staten and bringing him in for questioning, then you, your wife, and your daughter will be free to go."

Noctilucent smirked. "No strings attached?"

"No strings attached."

"So let's say you're telling the truth," Noctilucent said. "How am I supposed to track down an old buddy of mine if I have no idea where he's going or why?"

Bilhaus motioned to Agent Fresco, who marched back down to the doors and walked out, shutting them behind him. Once he was gone, Bilhaus reached under the desk and flipped a switch. She grinned and watched Noctilucent's eyes widen when the smooth wooden surface of her desk lit up into a tabletop touch screen that displayed a glowing map of the entire country.

It had been one of the more recent installments to the room, and by far her favorite. No paper meant a clean and more impressive room, as well as a toy to astound visitors with. With that in mind, she had been quick to master it.

"What you are about to see is known only to the topmost individuals in the country," she said. "Revealing this information to anypony except official personnel is constituted as an act of treason against the Republic of Teton and punished as such. Am I understood?"

Noctilucent looked her in the eyes and nodded.

"Good," she said, then touched a button on the map that zoomed in to show a holographic representation of the city of Sundown and the desert around it. "Yesterday morning, as I'm sure you're aware, an earthquake struck outside the city of Sundown, resulting in minor damage to the city and no loss of life." On cue, little red warning signs appeared around the afflicted areas of the city.

"What few know is that, while there is, in fact, a fault line that runs near the mountains north of the city, the quake did not originate there." A red line appeared on the map, not north of the city, but east, out among the open sand. "You may recognize the source of the epicenter as the same area in which your digs with Professor Staten took place, which were continued by his daughter and the university"

Bilhaus switched the map off and brought up a series of digital pictures. Most of them were taken years before, but a couple were much more recent.

She tapped one of the older ones, which had a picture of a large stone tablet containing a rough inscription of a heart on it. "You may recognize this as one of the pieces you and Staten uncovered from the Sundown dig, which was donated to the University of Sundown where his daughter teaches."

Bilhaus brought up another image of the same heart, but instead of a picture on a tablet it was a real, physical crystal. Rougher around the edges than on the tablet, but very real. "What you may not know as the recent excavation of the same piece by Staten's daughter."

Noctilucent shook his head slowly. "No, no, they couldn't, it's . . . it was just a legend. How could they—"

"It was being kept under wraps, only just shown to the investors yesterday. The finding of an old artifact is monumental, of course, but not in any way that anypony could have predicted."

"What do you mean?"

Bilhaus switched back to the map of the city, which now displayed little blue columns that rose at various heights. Around the dig site and the hospital, they were tens of times higher than anywhere else.

"Radiation monitors in the city, left over from the tests farther east sixty years ago," she continued, "picked up massive fluctuations shortly after the earthquake. Though it is perhaps reasonable as to why the artifact was affected, given the circumstances, the event at the hospital is much more . . . perplexing."

The map switched to images of a newborn foal, wrapping in swaddling clothes and lying in his mother's hooves. Noctilucent craned his neck for a better look, and let out a small gasp when he saw the horn on its forehead.

Bilhaus flipped the screen off and it returned to its default state of appearing to be a normal wooden desktop.

"We seized Staten's daughter along with the piece, but we believe she was able to get a message to her father before being taken," Bilhaus said. "Our best guess is that Professor Staten successfully convinced your daughter to come with him to Sundown and fled Gracia before agents could apprehend him. That task, as he travels out of our thinning net, falls to you."

Noctilucent scratched his head. "But why does he have to be caught?" he asked. "What's he done wrong?"

"Nothing, so far," Bilhaus said, "but it's the potential. Since its activation this morning, the radiation levels surrounding the artifact have not gone down like the child, and have instead kept a steady outpouring of radiation in the surrounding area equal to standing at the blast zone of a megabomb. Yet, reports indicate that no harm came to the unshielded civilians who stayed within the vicinity of the artifact for hours."

She leaned back in voluminous chair. "You can see why the Intelligence Service does not wish for power of this magnitude to fall into the wrong hooves."

Noctilucent nodded. "And you will allow me to bring my daughter home safely?"

"You have my word."

He sighed. "I don't really have much of a choice, do I?"

"I wouldn't like to think so, no," Bilhaus said.

Noctilucent thought for a moment, then nodded. "I'll find him, for my daughter and to keep the artifact safe. Don't expect me to be your henchpony."

"Of course I wouldn't," Bilhaus said. "I have Agent Fresco for that. Meet him out in the hallway and he will escort you to the loading station. From there, you will track Staten from the outskirts of Gracia: his last known location."

The stallion turned and walked back down the long path to the door. He kept his head down and did not not look back at the Director. His heart beat faster. He knew the potential of the heart, knew the power . . . and could only wonder if Bilhaus did too. For the sake of Staten and his daughter, he hoped not.

Director B smiled at the back of Noctilucent's head and turned around again in her chair to look out her window.

She reached behind her and tapped a button on the phone.

"Yes, Director?" came the voice.

"Make sure Agent Fresco keeps a close watch on Mr. Noctilucent," she instructed. "We wouldn't want him getting any wrong ideas."

The sun beat down on a vast cement parking lot that surrounded a modest, two-pump gas station and squat supermarket behind it, heating the gray surface. Nestled at the far end of a town called Mayberry, settled on the windswept plains beneath the great shadow of the Red Road, the station was one of the last vestiges of civilization until the Road hit the Andalusian Mountains out west.

Spreading chestnut and poplar trees grew in stands around the aching and sagging wooden houses which lined the road that cut the town in half and connected it to the Red Road. Scraggly front lawns and battered sidewalks decorated the small town and set it apart from the shiny cities to the east and west. It was a quiet place with a quiet dignity that was set apart from society and liked it that way.

Below a vast blue sky with contrails of white that cut through it, resting on that hot cement parking lot outside the supermarket, was the Odyssey. The camper was connected to one of the rusting pumps by a gas line that shuttled the precious fluid into the RV's tanks. Reddington stood by it in his leather jacket, watching the counter on the pump move upwards.

Starlight, meanwhile, leaned against the rickety RV on the other side, looking out and away from the grocery store, past the small town's dusty road, and to the wild plains beyond. The tall grass swayed in the wind like a vast ocean on land, rolling and diving with it. She kept one hoof over her eyes to block out the harsh rays that tried to blind her while she watched.

A chime above the door of the convenience store next to the gas pumps dinged as Professor Staten walked out with a plastic bag in his mouth. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and ambled over to the Odyssey. He wore a loose shirt covered in flowers that he had bought at the same station, along with a new pair of sun shades.

He walked up to Starlight and held up the plastic bag. "I thought I'd get you and I something to keep with you just in case."

"In case of what?" she asked, looking away from the majestic scene and, unfortunately, back to Staten's aging blue face.

He shrugged. "Accidents, death, explosions, you know, the kinds of stuff that's already happened before we even got out of Gracia."

"Very funny. So what is it?"

The hazel-eyed pony reached in the bag and produced a small headset with a wire that ran to a box with bumpers for hooves to press. It was an older model mobile phone; the kind that were bought with minutes instead of some sort of data plan.

"I figured that the two of you could use some phones in case we need to contact each other," Staten said. "I've got my own that's not hooked up to any big phone company, and you two need to do the same. It makes it harder to trace the calls."

Starlight took the phone and looked down at the little box it came with. There was a small screen that, unlike the newer models, only displayed the names and numbers on a monochrome green background.

"I already put my number and the one for our smuggler's phone in there," he said. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks," she mumbled, scrolling through the half-dozen menus, "just what every growing girl needs."

Staten rolled his eyes and went off to give Red a phone. The smuggler had denied owning one, so it was about time that changed. If he was going to work for them, he was going to keep in contact.

Starlight stayed put, leaning against the camper while she fiddled with the thing. She had had one not so dissimilar back in highschool, but the plans had been too much once she started to live on her own. Besides, who was going to call her? Her parents? The professor?

She shook her head. It wasn't like she had missed out on much. Now, all it took was getting chased by the government while traveling with her dad's friend and a crazy smuggler to get her another one. She had to smile a little bit at that thought.

Starlight sighed and looked back out across the plain, but it didn't look quite so peaceful anymore. Instead, it looked vast and empty: a great waste that stretched on petramin after petramin and made their destination beyond the mountains seem forever away. And in between them and the destination could be a thousand different threats like those in Gracia. Or worse.

"What's on your mind?" Staten asked, walking around the RV and shrugging on his jacket. "You look troubled."

Starlight shook her head. "It's nothing. Really."

"Somehow, I don't think you're telling me the truth," he said.

"It really is nothing. Just afraid is all."

"Afraid?" he said. "Afraid of what?"

She sighed. "Well, you got us those phones for 'emergencies' and it got me thinking. That smuggler is the only one here that knows how to shoot a gun. You and I can't really look out for ourselves if we get separated from him, and there's a lot of chances of that between here and the Serenity Valley."

Staten leaned against the side of the RV and smiled. "Who said I didn't know how to shoot a gun?"

"Well I just assumed—"

"Your father and I had quite a bit of fun out in the open desert in our excavation days." He sighed wistfully. "The least I can do for your father is teach you to defend yourself properly."

Starlight jerked her head toward the other side of the RV. "What about the smuggler?"

"What about me?"

Red came walking around the RV with his leather jacket hanging on his back. He nodded toward the Odyssey. "The gas is pumped and we're already paid. We can hit the road at any time if you two are ready."

Staten turned to him. "I was actually thinking about taking Starlight out and teaching her how to shoot. I know you have weapons; I'll pay you for the ammunition later."

"Woah, woah, go shoot my guns and my ammo while I sit here and do what, exactly?" Red asked.

"You seem to have neglected to fill up your cupboards and refrigerator with, well, anything," the professor said. "The supermarket is right over there. Why don't you go fill up while we're out? I'll even give you the money."

Red took out a pistol from beneath his jacket and smiled. "Or I could show the lady how to shoot."

Quicker than Starlight would have thought possible, Staten surged forward and wrenched the gun from the smuggler's hooves. Then, in one fluid motion, he tossed his sunglasses up in the air and shot two neat holes through the lenses. Starlight held her hooves tight to her ringing ears and grit her teeth.

"I'll show Starlight how to shoot," Staten ordered. "You go get the food. Meet us back here in an hour."

Red grumbled but took the money the professor offered and started back toward to the supermarket. He kept his head held low and his pistol once again holstered.

Starlight was left alone outside the RV while Staten smiled at her and climbed up in the Odyssey. He rummaged around for a minute before reemerging with a saddlebag loaded down with guns and ammo.

"I think this might be enough," he said.

"Yeah, for arming the militia," Starlight said, then shook her head. "Whatever, let's just go."

She followed the professor to the edge of the road, then ran across with him when no cars came. They trotted across the ditch on the other side and arrived at a barbed wire fence that separated the fields from Mayberry.

Staten used his hooves to spread apart the fence into a hole large enough for Starlight to climb through, then followed after her. The pair found themselves waist deep in the sea of grass the caressed over them in waves.

"Doesn't this land belong to somepony?" she asked.

"Probably," he said, "but these country hicks won't stop us. Come on."

Starlight sighed and trudged along behind the professor until they were well away from the roads and houses and everything else that made up civilization. They could hear the chirping of crickets and other bugs while birds circled high above.

The professor stopped after what felt like an hour of walking and held up his hoof. "Here is good," he said.

"About time," Starlight grumbled.

He ignored her and shrugged off his saddlebag. From inside, he produced a long barrel shotgun and then took off his floral-pattern shirt. He marched out about two hundred petra from Starlight before shoving the shotgun in the ground butt-first. The barrel stuck up above the grass and he tied the shirt to it until it was whipping around like a flag.

"That's our target," he said, pointing to the shirt. "Let's see if we can't hit it."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say," she said.

Staten pulled out a standard rifle and showed it to her. It had a long, shiny barrel that ended with a dark wood stock that had been smoothed down until it shone. The butt, like all pony weapons, was specially made to lean into the shoulder so the pony's full body would absorb the brunt of the recoil.

With a smile, Staten brought the gun up and aimed down the built-in sights. He brought his opposite hoof up to the lever-trigger and pushed down on it. The rifle barked and spit smoke and fire as it sent its lead bullet downrange.

A single hole appeared in the short as the retort rang out across the fields.

Starlight's hooves leaped to her ears. "You keep doing that!" she yelled. "Warn a pony before you do!"

"Right, sorry," the professor said, giving her a pair of earplugs from his bag.

Starlight popped them in her ears and nodded to him. "Okay, you brought me out here to teach me, so teach."

"Well, first thing," the professor began, taking up position behind her and putting the rifle on her shoulder, "is to get a proper stance down."

---

Reddington tried to ignore the squeaky wheel on the buggy that he rolled through the supermarket lanes. The stuffy little concrete store had him sweating as he pored over cans of corn and fruit that looked like it had been run over by a truck a couple of times.

The few other customers in the store were elderly folk who paid him no mind and did little to get out of his way when he walked down the snack food aisle. After getting dirty looks from a few of them, he made sure to buy as much soda and chips as he could carry. He would do anything to remind the geezers who was the young stallion in the store.

He shook his head when he passed them.

What did they matter? He was a smuggler! Sure, that girl and the professor started to ignore him and didn't seem to think he had any idea what he was doing . . . but that didn't make him an idiot! They wouldn't forget him when they were thankful to have food in their bellies.

Metal fans lazily spun through the air above him, doing little but to move the hot air around a little bit. Red grumbled beneath his breath about it and did his best to get everything they needed.

In the cart, he had piled in, along with the chips and soda, a variety of fruits, canned goods, vegetables, bread, cheeses, and some milk to put in the Odyssey's fridge. That was as much as he could think of at the moment and would be enough to make it to Amperdam, at least.

He pushed his cart to the store's sole checkout counter beneath the thin windows that let in murky light, reflecting off the dirty linoleum floors. Red fought from fidgeting in the unfamiliar, enclosed space and longed to be on the road back in the Odyssey.

There was a small teletube with a bunny ears antenna sitting behind the counter, which a plump mare watched while occasionally doing her job. She hit the side of the machine and the static dancing on the screen cleared for a moment. It was some local hick reporter droning on about crop news and traffic on the Red Road. Red ignored it like everything else in the little town and placed his items on the counter for checkout.

The mare looked at him with disdain for interrupting her show but started to scan the food and place it in bags for him anyway. She rang up the total for him and took his cash without a word. Red started to breathe easy again when she gave him the change and loaded the bags into his cart. Then he heard his name.

". . . a stallion known only as Reddington, interstate smuggler and petty thief, is wanted for kidnapping, assault, assault on an officer, grand theft auto, and treason," the little tube blared. "He was last seen heading west on the Red Road and all towns are advised to be on a lookout for him and his passengers. Here is a police photograph for reference."

To Red's horror, an old mug shot of him popped up on the screen. He'd changed enough since then that he hoped he could pass for a different pony, especially as the clerk watching the tube turned around to face him.

"Have a nice day," she said in a strained voice.

Red nodded to her and did his best to keep cool as he pushed the buggy out the door and back to the parking lot. He could feel the clerk's eyes boring into the back of his head, and he broke out into a run once he was outside.

While he ran, he wrenched the mobile phone from his pocket and put the headset on. He got up the contact list and dialed the girl's phone number. Just as he did, he thought he could see the clerk start to approach him from across the parking lot.

---

"You have to learn to control your breathing," Staten told Starlight after she missed her eighth shot. "Otherwise you will be too shaky to aim anything. Breathe in when aiming, then out before you pull the trigger. Keep both eyes open at all times."

He was standing over her as she struggled with the gun. The thing had enough recoil to send her sprawling without the right stance and was aching against her shoulder.

"How am I supposed to control my breathing every time?" Starlight asked. "That's impossible."

"You have to feel it," Staten said. "Do it until it becomes instinct. Again."

She sighed but raised the gun and kept her eyes glued to the shirt with one hole punched through it. She tried to feel the way the grass around her bent and swayed to the wind.

Deep breath.

She took aim and placed her hoof on the trigger.

Let it out.

She fired.

This time, the gun bounced back instead of up or some other direction, and the bullet flew straight and true. A rough hole was shorn near the bottom of the shirt.

Starlight jumped up in the air and laughed. "I did it!" she cried.

Staten smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "That was a fine job you did. Now do it ten more times and you'll be a real marksmare in no time."

Before she could, though, her mobile started to ring. She had left it in the saddlebag and hurried over to it. Putting the piece in her ear and clicking the answer button, she said, "Hello?"

"Listen, girl, it's me," the smugglerl said on the other end. "I'm going to have to make this quick, but I think the townsponies know who we are. The clerk at the supermarket . . . she saw me."

Starlight could hear sirens begin to wail in the background.

"Shit," Red said. "Okay, I gotta go, but you and the old guy get out of here as soon as you can. I'll find a way out."

The line went dead and Starlight threw off the headset. Staten was staring at her and she shook her head. "Red's in trouble," she said.

"Of course that little fool would get himself into something . . ." Staten began.

"No, no, it sounded like they found out who he was," Starlight said, "and the only way they could have found that out is if there is a bulletin out for our arrest too."

Staten smirked. "So are you saying that we mount a rescue operation?"

"Well I managed to hit one out of nine shots with this thing," Starlight said, shaking the gun. "So why not? It's nothing worse than what we've already done."

The professor laughed. "That's the spirit!"

Together, they sprinted back across the field with the professor lugging the saddlebag with him and Starlight doing her best to cradle the rifle to her chest. Luckily, Staten made her turn the safety on before she shot herself in the face somehow.

They made it back to the parking lot to find the place deserted, but the RV still parked in front of the empty pumps. There was a shopping cart next to the camper that was loaded with food but nopony to attend to it.

"We're too late," Staten muttered.

He paced around the parking lot after setting the bag down. "They'll have taken him to the local police station by now and have probably called in the IS too. We don't have long before they're here, but we're going to be outnumbered by the cops. We'll need surprise, but all we have is the RV . . ."

Starlight shrugged. "A big RV barreling toward me would be a pretty big surprise to me."

"No, no, they could just shoot out the tires or the driver if they felt like it. It won't work as a surprise, but, perhaps, a distraction." Staten got a big grin on his face. "Starlight," he said, "load up all the food from the cart except fruits, vegetables, or anything soft. Then, give me a grenade or two. We're going to have a little fun."

---

The county sheriff was a lime colored stallion with a barrel paunch and thinning yellow hair who was fond of wearing reflective sunglasses and a beefy jacket while he chomped on a cigar.

He kept Red in the front of the town's small jailhouse, located at one corner of the dusty town square, instead of inside. He had told him the IS would be coming and they didn't want any surprises.

The smuggler's heart beat faster. The IS weren't going to play nice if they wanted the girl and the professor so bad. Yesterday, he had been just another smuggler, but now he was valuable.

He tried to wrench his hooves against the shiny, like-new cuffs, but it was to no avail. The sheriff, however, noticed him doing so and laughed.

"Don't even bother; those aren't going to be broken open until our friends at the Intelligence Service get here. I just know they're going to love you."

Red snarled at him. "At least they notice this little hellhole for once."

The sheriff slapped him. "Quiet you," he said. "I'm not stupid. Nopony's gonna provoke me while we wait."

"Fine," he said, looking away.

The sheriff started to laugh. "Oh, don't tell me you're scared! Boy, you're practically shaking!"

"I am not!" he shot back.

"Sure, sure." The sheriff leaned closer to him and smiled wide enough so that the smuggler could see his broken and yellowed teeth. "Listen, let's just make this easy. You tell me where your little friends are and I tell the IS that I never found you."

Red backed up and shook his head. "Never," he said. "As long as those two are with me, they're my crew, and I take care of my crew."

The sheriff shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just hope you'll feel the same way when the suits are done with you. In the meantime, just relax and let my boys keep an eye out for your friends."

Clumped together next to the jailhouse were the four other police of the town. The perimeter of the town square was just a bunch of sagging brick buildings with roads at every corner. There was a small stand of trees with a gazebo in the center. It was deserted at that time of the day and utterly quiet.

That was, until the blasts of a horn filled the empty stretches of the square.

The sheriff laughed. "That must be them. Time to go."

It was Red's turn to shake his head, though. "No, that's a very particular horn," he said. "That's my horn."

Down the side street across the square from them, the Odyssey came barreling down the street, its horn blasting. The mighty vehicle roared across the square until it came to squealing stop in front of the jailhouse, turned to the side to present a larger target.

The hatch at the top opened and Starlight popped out, rifle already raised to her shoulder. She cocked it and kept it trained on the sheriff.

The four police officers raised their weapons as well and pointed them all at Starlight. She tried to keep their aim steady as they came to a standoff.

What the officers, nor the sheriff, noticed, however, was the metal grocery cart filled with fruit that had rolled its way out from behind the jailhouse. Red had only a second to see it before he dove to the ground as the explosion went off.

Gooey extracts of a dozen kinds of fruits and vegetables covered the sheriff and officers in a nonlethal mess that left them sputtering and confused.

Before they could come to their senses, a stallion wielding a big, silver shotgun came walking up from the alley the cart had come from.

"Well look at this," Staten said. "Looks like we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us, Starlight?"

"Big damn heroes, professor," she said.

Staten smiled. "Ain't we just?"

Red stared at the two of them, cornering the town's entire police force. The old geezer and the girl? Really?

The professor walked up to the sheriff and tapped him in the chest with the shotgun. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but you've got something that belongs to us and we'd like it back."

"This is an official police investigation," the sheriff began. "You cannot think to disrupt—"

"You see the mare hanging out of the top of the RV with the really big gun?" Staten asked. "She's one of the criminals the IS wants. She's a convicted killer and we've come an awfully long way and, well, she's looking to kill somepony."

"I never liked this town anyway . . ." Starlight mumbled.

Staten nodded to the officers who put down their now-gooey guns. "Right, so let him go."

"But he's a wanted fugitive," the sheriff protested.

The professor raised his shotgun into the sheriff's face. "But he's our fugitive, so let him go."

---

Refueled and safely out of the clutches of the IS, the Odyssey cruised down the Red Road with a full tank of gas and full fridge of junk food. Minute by minute, the town that would now be swarming with black-suited agents was falling behind them while the mountains to the west got closer and closer.

"I guess we're all wanted criminals now," Red said at last.

Starlight smiled from her chair near the back of the RV. "Yeah," she said, "but it has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

He coughed. "And that was mighty fine of you two coming to pick me up back there. You really saved my skin."

"Don't mention it," Staten said from the passenger's seat. "If we're going to make this journey, we will all have to work together."

He looked out the window to where the Red Road rose up to the mountain pass and where he knew it dropped off into Serenity Valley soon after. "I'm afraid we will be tested on that before long."