>>373293She spends some time lamenting her state of affairs, but as she's getting cleaned up, she notices another blip on her Eyes Forward Sparkle. Once again, she assumes it's the missing dudebro, and once again she strikes out. The interloper turns out to be just a mare, who is in the (suspiciously unlocked) emergency supply room for...some reason. However, it turns out everything is in order; she's just in here "getting something" for Rivets.
The mare tells her that she is on Shift C (the current shift), but she's not tremendously convincing. Blackjack demands that she show ID, and she turns and bolts for the door. It is at this point that BJ begins to suspect that something is awry.
She chases her down and kneecaps her with her baton. Once caught, the mare reluctantly agrees to show ID, and at this point BJ makes an interesting discovery: the "mare" is actually the missing stallion in disguise.
>Like all stallions, his cutie mark was a white male symbol with dots underneath it; his had two rows of ten white dots. Below that would go one more dot… though I was never sure why, since after that he'd be heading straight to retirement.This is kind of an interesting detail. I'm assuming the dots are for tracking age: presumably once a male reaches a certain age they are put into breeding, and then taken out when they reach another. However, earlier we were told that a male was retired as soon as a younger one came of age, so...I'm actually not sure what the dots represent. Maybe we'll find out.
Anyway, it looks like I'm not the only one who's a little confused about what "retirement" means. The stallion seems to also be under the impression that he was being put to death, thus his decision to run. Apparently his plan was to hide out down here and steal food from the supply closets.
BJ does her duty and informs him, in the best security-mare voice she can muster, that he his under arrest. He is clearly angry, and for a moment she is worried that this will turn into an altercation, but he ultimately accedes to her request. However, he does make a rather cryptic remark:
>“Like you retired him,” he replied softly, his storm blue eyes darkening as he stared at me.It's not entirely clear who "he" is, but presumably we're meant to wonder for now.
The stallion then accuses BJ, and by extension the rest of the security team and presumably the Stable management as a whole, of being murderers. BJ takes mild offense to this, but otherwise doesn't react. She escorts him out of the storage room and back towards the stairs, when suddenly another security mare appears and busts his leg with a baton.
It turns out the newcomers (there's actually two of them) are Daisy and Marmalade, the two security mares from before, who put the hoofcuffs on Blackjack. We learn that they have been down here for the last several hours, apparently tasked with finding the missing stallion. Though it's been hinted that these two have a history of bullying Blackjack and are not the nicest ponies in the world, at this point we learn that their sadism goes beyond just pulling mean-spirited pranks.
They pretty much jump right into "crooked cops from a 90s hood film" mode: they claim the suspect is resisting arrest, and proceed to savagely beat the shit out of him, with the clear intent of killing him. Once again, the issue of what, exactly, "retirement" means becomes muddy: their justification is that they are just doing what Medical was going to do anyway.
Blackjack now has a moral choice presented to her, within the context of her job as a security mare. On the one hoof, she can stand idly by and let these two lunatics beat this poor faggot to death, or alternatively she can step in and defend him. It's a common setup, where the protagonist has to make a choice between doing what's expected of her vs. doing what she thinks is right. However, in this case there's an extra dimension, as it's entirely not clear what is expected of her in terms of her job function. You could take the side of Marmalade and Daisy, and argue that since this guy is going to die anyway they're not doing anything wrong, and since BJ is security she should side with her fellow security mares and look the other way. You could also argue that these two are way out of line, and that she has both a professional and a moral responsibility to step in and use corrective force against her teammates.
This choice actually seems to allude to something that was brought up earlier:
> If I was lucky, I could get through this shift without any more disasters and, if I was really lucky, talk to Mom and not the head security mare about the rising tension.She specifically draws a contrast between "Mom" and the "head security mare," indicating that they are two different roles for the same character. The function of both roles is similar: they are both essentially supervisory and intended to provide instruction and guidance. However, one relationship is personal and the other professional.
From this, we can probably guess at how BJ is thinking about this choice. The head security mare might advise her to maintain solidarity with her teammates, and to carry out her duty, which in this case means apprehending this escaped male, presumably so he can be killed. If he just happens to die on the way to being killed anyway, it's probably not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. However, "Mom" might have a different take: it's wrong to savagely beat a guy to death, even if he is going to be killed anyway, and you should do what's morally right, even if it means going against your teammates.
There's also another way you could frame this decision. During the card game, Rivets essentially gave BJ another choice: either you're one of us or one of them, as in rank-and-file vs. management/leadership. The choice here is similar: either she sides with management and looks the other way while this guy gets beaten, or she defies management and steps in.