Introns

Buzzing in lazy figure eights in the sweltering heat, the fly seemed to have forgotten where it was going. For a full minute it had spun lazily in place. Its insistent wing strokes were the only sound in the cramped, heavy room. But Gyroscope forced herself to keep her eyes on the prize. Even if that prize was such an unseemly pony such as Slack Jaw. Sitting behind his desk, hunched over a small sheet of paper, his bulk almost seemed to engulf the chair beneath him. As the monstrous pony adjusted his weight, the chair whined in protest.

Come to think of it, thought Gyroscope numbly in a heat-induced fever, Slack Jaw was quite a feat of nature. How this obese, thick-skulled pony managed to keep himself from keeling over from the unbearable heat was beyond her. Nothing but a thin trickle of sweat between his beady little eyes showed his awareness of the summer heat. The pathetic fan in the corner wasn’t doing much to keep them cool, to be sure. Its rusted blades clearly hadn’t moved in ages. And the air conditioning unit loosely attached to the slats of the window wasn’t helping either. The smell of sweat and moldy sandwiches was starting to give her a headache.

The fly seemed to agree with this. It gave on more unpleasant buzz, then plopped down to the desk to take a well-needed break. The sudden silence was deafening. Slack Jaw blinked his thin, leery eyes and coughed. Gyroscope jerked to attention as he brought his meaty foreleg up on the desk to recline on. His jowls wiggled slightly as he talked.

“One thousand bits,” he said slowly. Gyroscope blinked incredulously.

“One thousand bits? Are you kidding me?” she scoffed angrily. “Have you even seen the condition your cranes were in, Slack? It’s a darn miracle that I even managed to get them turned on, much less actually working. One thousand is crap and you know it. Fifteen hundred.”

Slack Jaw didn’t say anything, chewing something in his mouth dumbly. It was like watching a cow chew its cud, and it was starting to get on Gyroscope’s nerves. With a low grumble, Slack Jaw looked down at the paper again, slowly reading again the extensive list of repairs Gyroscope had done on the dock’s loading cranes and hydraulics systems. He looked up again.

“Twelve.”

“Fifteen.”

“Thirteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“Fine, fine,” grunted Slack Jaw, his weight shuddering back as he ran a hoof down his face and caught the drip of sweat right in its tracks. “Fifteen it is. But that’s as good as I got. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” said Gyroscope with a satisfied smile. She didn’t offer a hoof, nor did he. Instead, he fumbled for a crummy checkbook in one of the crammed file cabinets. With a grunt of effort, he ripped a page free, sending grimy slips of paper fluttering in the moist air, and wrote methodically on it. Double-checking his work, he pushed it across the desk towards Gyroscope with a grunt, as if parting with the check pained him. Smiling pleasantly, Gyroscope took it from him and slipped it into her saddlebag. As she hopped out of her chair, the skin of her flank peeling uncomfortably from her chair, Slack Jaw grumbled under his breath.

“Shoulda got a professional. Woulda been less ‘spensive.”

With a flick of her tail, Gyroscope gave Slack Jaw a withering look as she pressed her hoof against the door.

“If this deathtrap was up to code, Slack,” she said primly, “you could’ve gotten a professional.”

The dense pony didn’t argue as Gyroscope slipped through the door out of the oppressively hot office. Stepping outside, Gyroscope closed her eyes and reclined against the doorframe. Finally, she could breathe.

Well, as best as one can breathe during the blazing summer at the Manehattan docks.

Contently placing the check into a discreet pocket of her saddlebag, Gyroscope reached down and grabbed the handle of the bulky red toolkit she had used for the job. Her jaw strained slightly as she pulled it upwards, tools clattering inside. It was like music to her, the sound of a getaway from the commonplace and the droll duties of home.