As was his custom, Hexel knocked on his own door twice before opening it. He stepped inside and moved to hang up his outer cloak and hood with a sigh. A sound came from the interior of the apartment: a thump of something moderately heavy dropping, followed by a patter of hoofsteps. Then a small face poked around the edge of the entrance alcove.

“Hexel! You’re home!” An Applebloom unit stepped into full view. Hexel immediatelynoticed that she was nude save for a thin red bow- -as Appleblooms customarily wore- -and a simple plaid apron.

“Where you expecting someone else, Jilly?”

“Yeah. That big hunk Nikolosov. He always comes by when you’re working late on Thursdays. Hence the cute apron.”

They both stared at each other and then burst into laughter.

Jilly ran to Hexel and nestled her head in his chest. Compared to him, she was tiny. Then she looked up at him and they kissed. “You actually believed me for a minute, didn’t you?”

“No, but the vision did stun me for a moment.” Hexel shivered.

“But seriously,” Jilly looked up with a serious expression, which due to her tiny filly sizemade her seem almost absurdly adorable. “Why are you home so early? Did something happen at work?”

Hexel sighed. “When doesn’t something happen at work?”

“Did you get fired?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not that bad!” Jilly punched Hexel playfully in the arm. “Now come on! Ask it!”

“Ask what?”

Jilly rolled her eyes and struck a pose. “Apron?”

“You’re making apple fritters.”

Jilly looked shocked and then annoyed. She punched at Hexel’s arm again. “How’d you know?!”

“Because I could smell them from the ground floor. And when do you make fritters that aren’t apple?”

Jilly sat down and crossed her front legs while making a face. “It’s no fair! You ruined the surprise!”

“Well, that’s what you get for marrying an enforcement investigator,” laughed Hexel. He put his muzzle against Jilly’s neck. She tried to maintain her composure but then started to giggle.

“Hexel! Stop it!”

“Why? I like you’re apron. It’s so cute!”

“I didn’t wear it to be cute, I wore it so that I wouldn’t get fritter in my fur again!”

“Then why didn’t you wear anything underneath?”

Jilly looked up at Hexel and blushed. “Well…”

They barely made it through the kitchen and to one of the rear rooms before they fell to the floor. They made love. It was a passionate and even violent affair, as they were both accustomed to. Their difference in physical size presented challenges but nothing that they could not overcome. When they were done, they both lay on the floor, with both Jilly’s apron and Hexel’s Aetna-Cross uniform strewn out across the floor.

Jilly lifted her head from Hexel’s chest and kissed him on the cheek. Then she reached behind her head and removed the cables from her neck.

“Where are you going?”

“The fritters will burn!” She laughed as she ran toward the door.

“Don’t you want your apron? You’ll get fritter on yourself.”

Jilly giggled and struck another pose that showed the full shape of her filly flank. “If I get a little messy, you can help me clean up.”

Hexel laughed and Jilly left to attend to her fritters. His laughter did not last long. He stood up.

“I have to look at something in the study,” he said. “It will only take a second. When I’m done, I’ll be out.”

“Don’t be late!” called Jilly’s voice from the other room. “The fritters’ll be cold!”

Hexel smiled and left the room, heading toward the rear of the apartment. As he did, he stopped in one of the changing rooms to get a new set of clothing. It was identical to the uniform he wore normally, save for the fact that no armor plates had been installed in it. Uniforms were the only clothing he owned.

The apartment that he and his wife shared was spacious. Vastly so, even, by most standards. It had been designed for humans instead of ponies, so the ceilings were high and the space airy. All of it had been made possible by Aetna-Cross. Hexel Shining Armor was just another tiny cog, a small piece of a single precinct in one city in the great geographical range dominated by the Aetna-Cross Corporation. Enforcement itself was only one of hundreds of departments in everything from insurance to mining. The majority of it was run without workers, processed by nonsentient AI programs that drove the corporation along.

Enforcement was different, though. It was not a matter of processing files and handling code that represented pointless quantities of vod that would never exist as anything more than a number in a book. It meant something, and it produced something. It was the job Hexel had been born to do, one passed down from his father and his father before him through twenty six rounds of Genesis mitosis. There were even rumors that his earliest ancestor had served in the Adorable Revolution alongside Twinkleshine Prime herself.

The study was in the rearmost portion of the house. It was a simple room, the one Hexel spent most of his time in doing various tasks for work- -or for things that were best left unknown by anyone around him. As he approached it this time, the same as he had so many times before, he felt a strange regret. He realized how much time he had spent in that room while Jilly had walked about the house, attending to various things that made Hexel’s life possible. He regretted not having spent more time with her.

He entered the room and sat at the desk. For a long time he did nothing, and then he sighed. Then he reached into a drawer of his desk, one that only he was able to unlock. Inside was a gun and ammunition, one designed for use by pony hooves. He did not reach for it. Instead, he put his hoof into the rear of the drawer and removed a cube-shaped object roughly four inches wide. It was black, and as he set it on his desk he noted that the front facet was decorated by a trio of angular sapphires linked by a circle of silver. It was personal insignia of Lynnette O’Toole Rarity.

“Damn it,” sighed Hexel. He reached into one of his pockets and removed one of the auxiliary cables that he had just used to connect his own ports to Jilly’s. He was not a technomoancer, and had never had the slightest desire to attempt to become one. His port architecture was what ponies referred to- -much to his chagrin- -as female.

When he opened the cube, though, it immediately demonstrated that his cable would not be necessary. Its own cable snaked out, a glistening port ready to imbed itself in his neck.

Hexel rolled his eyes. “Of course. It’s Lynnette, isn’t it?”

He grabbed the cable and pushed it into his neck. The port went deeper than most, but he had expected that. Then he closed his eyes and reached out to the cube.

Morgana suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence.

“Ms. Twilight?” said Forth, turning toward her along with Elrod and Twilight. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes. Someone just linked to me. Long-arc path.”

Forth nodded. “You can take it in your office.”

“No. I need you to see it too. Hold on.” One of Morgana’s eyes turned forward and the pupil narrowed. The air was illuminated with several streams of light that resolved into a monochrome hologram with a pink-violet color. The resolution of the image it formed was far less than Morgana’s projection capacity, but adequate for her to recognize who it is.

“Hexel,” she said.

“Morgana.”

“Shining Armor!” cried Twilight. “Shining Armor, is that you? It’s me, your sister, Twilight!”

Hexel looked at Twilight, and then at Morgana. “Should I even ask?”

“Why are you using this channel, Hexel?”

“Purely out of necessity. You have no idea how uncomfortable it is.”

“I know exactly how uncomfortable it is. You’re not rated for deep arcs. Leave. Now.”

“No.” Hexel’s digital eyes met Morgana’s. “There’s been a development. One youneed to know about.” He looked around. “I’m projected? Good. You probably all need to hear it. Especially you.” He gestured toward Elrod. “Lynnette’s actually been looking for you.”

“I think I’d rather not know who that is.”

“What do youmean ‘development’, Hexel?”

“Imean Aetna-Cross just put a price on your head. An immediate euthanasia order.”

“And you’re telling me this by communication? Even a long-arc- -”

“Do you think I’m a moron? Don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure Aetna-Cross is watching me. They think I’m a ‘liability’.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I took precautions. This is something Lynnette made. It’s refractory. No one can trace this. Except her. She’s listening right now.”

“And just how much do you trust Lynnette?”

“There is no living being I trust more.”

“And this is the same Lynnette who tried to kill me on three separate occasions?”

“Wasn’t it four?” asked Forth.

“The fourth one was self-defense, so I don’t count that one.”

“That’s not the point, Morgana!” cried Hexel. “The point is you’re in terrible danger!”

“I know that. What are my options?”

“Not much. Even if you could get out of Bridgeport, you wouldn’t make it far. It’s not just Aetna Cross.”

“Who else? GE? Lockheed?”

“All of them.”

Morgana inhaled. “Come on, Hexel. You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Swearing,” muttered Twilight.

“I’m not. I have no idea what you did, Morgana, but you stepped in shit severalhundred times deeper than your fat little body.”

“Since when am I fat?”

“Since always. There’s no way out. Even if you did, every corporation in the world put competing bounties on your head. The entire world is after you now.”

“Fuck me,” hissed Morgana. “Fuckme fuck me fuck me fuck me.” She pointed suddenly at Twilight. “Don’t tell me, I know. But I’m PISSED. I’ve already got this fucker,” she pointed at Elrod, “and Forth is out of ammo. I’m fucked harder than Hexel’s girlfriend.”

“Wife. We’re married.”

“And you’re a pedophile.”

“She’s older than me!”

“I don’t- -” Morgana suddenly stiffened. “Why are you helping me?”

“What?”

“This isn’t right. You hate me. You’ve always hated me. Either this is a trick or an angle.”

“An angle?” asked Twilight.

“It isn’t,” said Hexel. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, look, to be honest? I’m dirty. You know that. We all know that. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of and a lot of things I should regret but don’t. I hate you, Morgana. More than any other pony. But you’re also my friend. And I’m not going to turn on a friend.”

“And?”

“And because this whole thing stinks, doesn’t it? There have literally been wars between those vassals, and suddenly they all want you out of the picture? Something isn’t right. I aim to find out what.”

“So do I,” said Morgana.

Hexel nodded. “You have me on your side, for now. But I can only do so much. Lynnette can do more. She’ll find you. I’ll do what I can.”

Morgana’s eyes widened. Her mind reached out into Hexel’s transmission. He did not notice, but something was wrong.

“Hexel…”

“You’re surrounded. We’re not an arms company. It’s an ambush.”

“Hexel, something’s wrong.”

“They’re waiting for you to make the first move, you have to- -”

“HEXEL! There’s a secondary bypass on your transmission! It’s being intercepted!”

Hexel’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible! Not even a technomancer- -”

“It’s empirical, goddamn it! I know what I’m talking about! It’s bypassed! You’re compromised!” Morgana took a step forward. “Listen to me! Get out of there, right now! Get yourself and Jillian out of that apartment NOW!”

Hexel tore the connector out of his head before the transmission could even finish. He was panicked; had he been organic he would have been breathing hard. There was not much time- -in fact, there might have been no time, but he had to try.

“Jilly?” he said, opening the door.

“The fritters are almost ready!” she called back. “I’m gettin’ them off the pan right now!”

“No, Jilly, we have to go!” Hexel ran through the back hall of his apartment, trying to get to the kitchen.

“Go? Hexel, I’m not even dressed- -”

She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Hexel froze. He hoped he had imagined it, but the knock came again, exact and precise. Three taps.

“Oh!” cried Jilly in surprise. There was a thump as she jumped off the step-stool she used to reach the oven. “Hold on a second!”

“Jilly! NO!” Hexel sprinted toward the kitchen, but he was too late. Jilly had put on a housecoat and had just started opening the door. Hexel came to a stop just in time to see a pair of tiny luminescent orange irises staring directly at him, and a Lyra unit standing in the darkness of the doorway.