The Square Root of Spy

[Carmelita]

Carmelita huffed as she stood in the shadows of a bar, eyeing up each patron as they entered. After returning with the hostages liberated from the Silver Hand, she'd been swift to ask for a meeting with a Guardsman high-ranked enough to discuss her proposal. Upon being denied, she'd decided to try and get their attention with a few more displays of Interpol's finest at work.

That had been a month ago. She'd caught a few thieves, and received a slap on the wrist for doing a guard's work without permission. She'd brought in a list of criminals she'd staked out, only to be told that the majority had died in a brutal gang fight two hours earlier, and that the rest had fled the city. She'd even tried to curry favor with one of the nearby duchies, only to be turned away in favor of a 'more experienced' human detective.

That led her here. She would have given up and left by now, had she not stumbled across a recently used dead drop. Someone had fastened a package to the underside of a bench in an out of the way park in one of the non-human parts of Minas Tirith, and the freshly torn tape had given her a clue. Following that, it had been as simple as asking the groundsman, a spry old squirrel by the name of J'kotter, for descriptions of the last few people to pass by. One of them had been a quadrupedal pony with a scarred eye, a blue mane and tail and an azure coat, the other a seemingly human man whose face was hidden behind a blue mask and wearing a guards uniform.

And that, followed by a little subtle questioning and a few quick words, led her to this bar, hopefully to find out who these two were and what they were communicating straight from the horses mouth, ignoring the pun. So far, no dice. Winged bipeds, a dwarf, a couple of elves, and a centaur, but not a hint of the supposed patron Black Hoof, the scarred eyed pony of blue and azure who came in, supposedly as regular as clockwork, in order to drink a couple of pints of cider and buy a few cubes of salt. Carmelita shuffled the cloak tighter around herself, settling in to wait all night if she had to.

[Carmelita]

Late at night, with the majority of the patrons having left and the barkeep looking torn between bed and profit from the few remaining customers, the door swung open quietly. Carmelita, who’d been keeping herself awake by reading and filing paperwork on her eyepieces, glanced at the door to find that her lead had finally arrived.

Dressed in a light coat, and drenched in sweat, the pony trotted up to the bar and slammed down some coins onto the wooden surface.

“Two ciders and a salt lick.”

The barkeep nodded and began tapping one of the barrels lined up behind the bar. The first mug slid along the surface and was grabbed in the cleft of a foreleg, before being swiftly drained and slammed down on the surface. The second was cradled much more gingerly, the cube of salt being crunched beneath the ponies teeth as he stared at the wall.

Carmelita eyed him up. Black Hoof, assuming this was the same being that had been involved in the dead drop, was a mass of lithe muscle. His hooves were shod in dark grey felt boots, and the black shirt he had on had two grooves or pockets along his back. There were also strips of velcro, indicating that some other pieces of clothing were designed to be attached.

Once his drinks had been dunk and his salt cubes crunched, Black Hoof made his way to the door. Carmelita quietly pressed a thumb to her collar, and as soon as her cloak descended she trailed the pony outside.

She followed Black Hoof for almost half an hour, the pony glancing backwards as though expecting to catch a pursuer. After the fifth time, Black Hoof ducked into an alley, and Carmelita turned to follow.
As she did, she was met with an empty alley. The sound of a tile clattering down from the roof led her to glance up just in time to see Black Hoof disappear across the rooftops, blue tail flicking out of sight. Looking around, there was no way for her to climb up quickly enough to pursue. She’d lost him.

---

Chip frowned thoughtfully as Carmelita described what had happened.

++And you were thinking a grappling hook might be what you need? A mechanical version would be very heavy, even with monofilament wire and a proper magnetic latch.++

Carmelita sighed as she walked along the busy midday street.

“Well, it’s a shame that I don’t know any solutions to that. I mean, it’s not like either of us know how to magically remove the… weight… wait. Would magic be able to help with this?”

++I guess, but I know nothing about magic,++ Chip replied. ++And I’d be willing to bet Al doesn’t either.++

“Well then, I guess it’s up to me to find someone to help us. Talk later Chip.”

Carmelita closed the call and folded the eyepieces back into the earpieces, allowing her an unobstructed view of the streets around her. Blacksmiths, leather workers, bookshops, grocers stalls… what was she even looking for? A voodoo shop? A wizard tinker?

“No time like the present,” she muttered to herself as she set out through the city.

[Carmelita]

Carmelita had been looking all afternoon, walking round three different districts with shops. She had found trinket sellers, enchanted clothiers and widget makers, but none of them had been anything more than very limited magical creations. In the evening’s waning light, she spotted a blacksmiths. One of the weapons on display glowed an ethereal blue, and she entered in the hopes that she had found what she was looking for.

The inside of the shop was ill-lit, the majority of the light coming from the forge that was slowly cooling. A man, presumably the blacksmith, was snoring rather loudly as he rested behind the counter that separated the front of the shop from the back. As Carmelita approached, he gave a snort and sleepily scratched his belly beneath the large blacksmith’s apron he wore.

“Excuse me?” Carmelita knocked on the counter. “Are you awake?”

“Huh?” The man came to rather blearily, and stared over the counter with sleep still in his eyes. “Oh. What do you want?”

“I wanted to inquire about the glowing sword you have on display outside.”

“The magic sword? Well I can tell you that the price is-”

“I mean, the magic behind it. I’m in the market for a magic item.”

The man’s expression fell, and he wrinkled his nose in an unpleasant manner.

“Eh, then you’re out of luck. I got it enchanted to see if it would increase my custom. Didn’t work.”

Carmelita bit back the thought that his lack of customers was less to do with variety and more to do with his attitude, and instead smiled politely.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Might I inquire who performed the service?”

“Some fancy-pants wizard from Dalaran. Made me pay through the nose.”

“Where is Dalaran, might I ask?” Carmelita staunchly continued.

“Great flying city in the sky. Can’t miss it. Now go buy a pegasus flight and bugger off.”

With a little, shallow smile, Carmelita left the blacksmith’s behind. She brought up a few maps from the Dataverse on her eyepieces before scrolling through a few explanations of the omniphysics of flying vehicles and mounts. As she did so, she wandered through the streets until she found a suitably large plaza, mostly empty of people at this time of night.

Put off by her last experience, she had no desire to ride another equine. Instead she closed her eyes and carefully brought to mind the most memorable occasion she had flown in a vehicle: the first time she’d ever really talked with Sly. The blades whirring overhead, the cargo hold big enough for the two of them, the pilot unconscious and the helicopter set to fly in circles for hours on end. The omnilium rainbow flowed out and slowly took shape.

---

Eventually, the police helicopter was finished. After checking that the flight controls were ready, and all systems read green, Carmelita tentatively piloted the vehicle into the air.

The blades began spinning, and the spotlights mounted on the front of the helicopter showed dust flying away as she carefully pulled back on the controls and eased it into the air. Soon she had reached two hundred feet, and began making her way east, the lights of the city vanishing quickly behind her.

The flight quickly grew dull. With little to see below her on the now overcast night, and with no lights to guide the way, Carmelita pulled up above the clouds, startling a flock of what seemed to be tiny fairies made of mist as she did so. One of them flew alongside the cockpit for a bit, pulling faces in the dim light given out by the flight controls, before flitting away. An orange light alerted Carmelita that the cargo bay window was open, but she shrugged it off. She couldn’t get everything perfect on a first try.

[Carmelita]

Dawn was breaking as Carmelita blinked sleepily. Flying through the night had probably been an unwise decision, but without anywhere safe to land, she’d been forced to keep her attention on maintaining altitude and direction. Now, with the sight of a large floating rock in the distance, she could afford to find somewhere to nap.

She descended towards the ground, spotting a rocky outcrop with sheer sides all around. A defensible position to rest at, she carefully settled the helicopter down and spun the blades down. After taking a quick break to relieve herself and summon some food, she curled up in the cockpit and took a quick nap.

A few hours later, Carmelita blinked the sleep from her eyes and started up the rotor again, pulling up towards the massive rock that floated overhead. She circled a few times, looking for the best approach to make with the bustling lifts and pegasi that were taking off and landing from various platforms around the city’s edge, when a splash of colour caught her eye.

Below her, emerging from a few clouds, she spotted a very familiar quadruped with a blue coat and azure mane. Blackhoof, it seems, had been hiding a pair of wings under his clothes, and she followed him at a significant altitude as he made his way towards the city.

Dalaran from the air was an astonishing conglomerate of twisted streets, tall towers and old architectural styles. It reminded Carmelita a lot of some of the more elegant brick streets of London she’d visited in her time with Interpol, or perhaps the soaring towers of some Austrian chateaus. Banking to keep her quarry in view, she saw several omnibuses making their way along a central street, glowing ethereal stallions pulling the wooden double deckers on their rounds.

A backstreet, lit with gas lamp posts and lined with corrugated iron dumpsters appeared to be Blackhoofs destination. Pulling her chopper into a hover, Carmelita summoned her binocucom to zoom in on the building.

From outward appearances, it appeared to be an inn, the worn wooden sign proclaiming it to be the Druidic Dilettante. She shifted her view from the sign to the windows, seeing curtains being opened and what appeared to be a clockwork chambermaid replacing bedsheets.

All of a sudden, her vision was invaded an enormous frown, and she lowered the binocucoms to find her helicopter surrounded by several uniformed guards, each held aloft by a pegasus or other flying mount. The captain gestured angrily for Carmelita to follow them, and she carefully did so.

---

The guards escorted her to a vacated landing pad on one edge of the floating city, and as soon as she’d wound down the engine the captain strode over angrily.

“What do you think you’re doing, hovering over the city in a highly volatile piece of technology without a care for how your presence interacted with the ley lines? Did you even visit the flight approval office? Honestly, it’s not as if this is going to fit in any stables, and unless you were smart enough to call ahead and book a shed, this thing is going to have to be scrapped. Do you understand how lucky you were?”

Carmelita pinched the bridge of her muzzle.

“No, I don’t, Captain…?”

“Captain Flitburgh. Well then, let me explain. There are numerous leylines that crisscross the city, and sometimes the mages need to shift them through the airspace. If you had been caught, in a piece of technology that can’t automatically get out of the way, you could have suffered terrible magical consequences. Now, are you a prime or do I have to call the scrapping service?”

“I am a prime, Captain. Don’t worry, now I understand I’ll take care to discuss flight plans with the office you mentioned. I shall begin deconstruction immediately.”

“Good. See that you do.” At this, the guards remounted and returned to the air, the flight returning to circling the towers.
Carmelita sighed and turned to the chopper, preparing to desummon it.

“Wait!”

A small voice spoke up from within the cargo hold as the omnilium laced field began to encircle the craft. She pulled it back in surprise as a small human child, no older than ten, stumbled out, fear on her face.

“I’m sorry I snuck on board your vehicle, Miss Prime, please don’t hurt me!”

The child was scruffy, with a crop of messy red hair and an ill-fitted tunic of rough cloth. Carmelita couldn’t help but notice that the girl had no shoes, and looked horribly emaciated. The vixen knelt down and used a hand to lift the girls chin so they could look each other in the eyes. Carmelita’s brown eyes met soft green, and she smiled in as friendly a manner as she could.

“Don’t worry, little miss, I wouldn’t hurt you for doing something like this. You realise how dangerous it was, though?”

The child nodded.

“Now, where do you live? I can call the Minas Tirith guard and have them deliver a message to your family.”

“I don’t have a family, or a home.”

Carmelita’s heart fell, and she gently laid a hand on the child’s shoulder.

“Then follow me and I’ll get you something to eat. But first, let me deal with my vehicle.”

The child stood back and watched in awe as Carmelita desummoned the helicopter, slowly reabsorbing the omnilium that she’d used to construct it. After ten minutes, Carmelita took a moment to calm herself from the emotional whiplash before gently taking the child's hand and leading them to find somewhere to eat.