The factory whistle howled, and the room burst to life. Rainbow Dash’s eyes shot open at the hollow screech, and she rolled out of her cot onto all four hooves. Around her, a dozen other ponies all followed her example, jumping out of bed in urgency. She quickly slipped on a white jacket and pinned the buttons on, ignoring the number of grease stains that marred the otherwise pure garment. She was off shift in another week, and could do laundry then.
In the corner of the room came a lilting voice of a mare; one of Dash’s coworkers, Melody, had jumped out of bed and was dancing lightly in place while she put her own uniform on, singing a worker’s ballad. Dash smiled, enjoying the waving tones from the cream-coloured pegasus. Days in the factory were long, but Melody’s songs always made them more bearable.
“Fifteen years a fact’ry worker
Ain’t a long much time
Fifteen years a rainbow mixin’
Course ain’t a very long time
Some pulling on their lifeline
Some pulling ninety-nine
No, fifteen years a fact’ry worker
Just ain’t a long much time.”
One of the joys of Melody’s songs was that they didn’t have to stop to listen to her. There wasn’t even time to yawn in the morning, nevermind sit around and sing along. Melody had never made out the door first, but nopony minded. So long as they had her music, all was well.
Dash looked around the cramped crew quarters, catching the eyes of her coworkers. There were glances exchanged, the type of eye contact that passed entire conversations, ones had a hundred times before between workers who had seen it all. Another day at the grind. Twelve hours until we’re free. Don’t get yourself killed today. She slipped into thick rubber boots and then turned and trotted towards the door. Second in line today, she realized, and silently she cursed herself for her slowness. Tomorrow she would wake up faster.
When the dozen ponies had lined up solemnly at the door to their barracks, the one in front pressed open the door and marched forwards. He was a tall, heavy-set pony, with a staticy dark gray coat and a white mane that had somehow faded. Dash was still chastising herself for not being the one to open the door each and every day, but took comfort in his presence. So long as Pipe Wrench was around, she knew her day wouldn’t be a complete disaster.
They moved forward out of their room into the main Rainbow Mixing wing of the weather factory, and then turned the corner to a small canteen set into the wall out of view from the tourist-accessible area. At Dash’s turn she grabbed her allotted breakfast; a condensed oat bar and a waterskin, and a single--though large and fresh--apple. She nodded in thanks to the bagged-eyed mare behind the counter, and continued on in single file after Pipe Wrench back towards the mixing room.
They reached the elevator, and Pipe Wrench punched the call button. There was a clatter of chains and metal, and after a minute an old lift settled into place, the grating pulling back to allow access. Pipe, Dash, and two other ponies got on and hit the button. Dash took advantage of the time the rusted grating took to shut to start eating her oat bar, and was the first to break the silence.
“What’s on the agenda today, Pipe?”
The huge pegasus barely turned his head to glance down at Rainbow Dash, and he grunted. “There’s an order of a thunderstorm due for Canterlot that needs to be shipped out today, so liquid thunder, cloud blackener, cloud thickener, and hailseeds need to be prepped and packed. The Director of Lightning Production is on day shift this week, so we don’t need to worry about the thunder or the blackener, but the hail and thickener will be our crew.”
Dash nodded. She noticed her legs were shaking slightly, and she shifted her weight to stand a little taller, projecting just how brave she was. Or wanted them to think she was, at least.
She had only been in the upper factory for a month, and already it was starting to change her. She expected the extended days and endless shifts, and she even knew that the industrial nature of weather production lent itself to difficult, brutal work. She wasn’t prepared for just how dangerous it was, however. She had witnessed some minor injuries already, but what really got to her were the near misses. The halls of the upper factory were cramped with miles of thick pipes that hissed and rusted, levers and valves and gauges that stuck out randomly in just the right spots to be caught on a hoof and twisted, causing some caustic chemical to vent inches from a coworker. Steel smoked and copper sparked, and on one occasion she had even witnessed cloud melt. Not into water, but into something else entirely, something that shimmered with a deeply purple and green rainbow that burst into flame seconds later.
She thought again about that cloud burning and shuddered, and unconsciously rubbed her back with her wing.
“You’ll be alright,” Pipe Wrench said, still not really looking at her. He was glancing out through the elevator’s cage as it lifted past the last floor with windows, craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse of the still-rising sun before they were plunged into artificial light for the rest of the day.
“Who said I’m not?” Dash said sharply. She glanced around and looked at the other two ponies in the elevator. One of them was lazily chewing their apple, and the other was leaning against the wall, their eyes still opening from sleep.
Pipe Wrench chuckled. “Dash, you’ve only been here a month. I’ve been here for a couple years now, and this place still scares the Tartarus outta me. Now, I know you’ve been shooting through the ranks, and you pick things up quickly. Atmosphere says you’re a shoe-in for the Directors in a year or two if your drive keeps up. I’d say you could make it in one, from what I’ve seen. You’ll be alright.”
“...Thank you,” Dash said quietly to the floor.
The lift rattled and lurched to a stop, and the outer door slid open with a screech before the inner gate rocked open. Dash and the others shuffled out into the factory, following directions marked on the floor grating in worn, yellow tape. They turned into a break room of sorts, where a coffee machine was sputtering out the last few drops of a new pot, and Hide Atmosphere was sitting on the couch, reading a newspaper.
Dash noticed that he looked tired, as if he had worked all night. This was odd to her, as she hadn’t seen him or the other Directors the whole week. They mingled about the room silently, afraid to disturb the head of Lightning Production, and waited for the rest of the workers to make their way up and into the room.
When the twelfth worker slid into the cramped office and shut the door behind him, Atmosphere smacked his newspaper onto the table and leapt up.
“Right, fillies and colts! Some of you know that we’ve got an anvil heading for Canterlot by Tuesday. Standard production quotas have been met, so we’ve got all the clouds and rain we need for it. However, we’re down on hail and thunder. Gauge, you and your crew will come with me for the liquid thunder. There’s a main that’s cracked down in the transfer room, and we’ll need to patch it before we can ramp up pressure. Rainbow, have you worked with the hailseed pots yet?”
“Yessir, two weeks ago. We refreshed the exchange coils and scrubbed the gunk out of them.”
“Right, then. Pipe, take Dash and show her the ropes on the thickener. It should be all set for extract, but you might need to force a condenser phase if any of it’s evaporated.”
“Right boss,” Pipe Wrench said.
“Three canisters should cover the storm, so make four just in case. The rest of your crew, head on the hailseeds. We need two pallets worth by this evening. Any questions?”
The blood-red stallion looked around and--when no pony spoke--nodded curtly, then affixed his small, half-moon glasses, and trotted out the room. A brown stallion with long blonde mane and a pressure gauge on his flank followed him out with 5 other Pegasi in tow. Pipe Wrench waved a hoof to the four other ponies in the room, and they filtered out, leaving just the two.
“He seems pretty high energy despite how he looks,” Dash commented.
“Strangest thing, that. The day or two after a round of flight tests, he always looks beat half to death, yet bounces off the walls.”
“Weird. I’ve heard some Cloudsdalians watch those things like sporting events, though. Maybe that’s it?”
Pipe Wrench gave another signature grunt. “Could be. Could be more to it. There’s a night shift that runs for the week after them tests, too. All the Director’s meet up, and the head of Rainbow Production works shifts on the floor instead of in the office.”
“Huh? What night shift? I haven’t seen any other upper factory workers outside of the twelve of us.”
“They have bunks one floor up, and stay here. Emergency on-call, basically. If something runs down catastrophically, they’re on it before the whistle could even think to wake us.”
“Must pay well.”
“Who knows? I don’t think they get out much to spend it.”
Pipe Wrench led Rainbow Dash out of the break room and down to the left of the hall. They passed the elevator, and she gave it only a cursory glance, realizing it was futile to think of quitting time so early. They had work to do, and while memories of days spent skipping work to spend time with her friends tickled her thoughts, she was grown up now, and cared deeply about what she did.
They walked together silently, but not in silence. The factory was rife with noise, so much so that when she did get off shift for the day, the world outside would sound muted and dull to her for the rest of the night. There was an ever-present hum that ran throughout the factory, a cumulative buzz of all the vibrating pipes and machines that ran constantly under high pressures and higher demands. Pipes shook and groaned, release valves hissed and shrieked, motors growled and roared. They turned off the main hallway into a large room near the center of the factory and the train whistle screech of hurricane force winds obliterated any chance of hearing anything else. Dash looked at the Cyclone Generators in awe, marvelling at this ancient technology that was powerful enough to force air to move almost faster than the speed of sound. Massive metal plates covered all the output pipes, and at the moment the cyclone was entirely contained. As a result, it was the loudest Rainbow Dash had ever heard it.
Pipe Wrench tapped her with a wing and she tore her eyes away from the captured storm. He was indicating a door off to the right, and she nodded and followed him. They entered the room and closed the door behind themselves, cutting off enough of the wind’s howl that they could talk again.
It was a cramped room, closer to the size of a walk-in closet than anything. The walls were lined with tubes of steel that were stained with rust and welded a hundred times over, attached to the reinforced cloud walls with carriage bolts that were half eaten away by oxidation. They all lead into three cylinders manufactured out of stainless steel that stood tall at the back of the room. They were connected at the tops and bottoms, with the centre one featuring a glass panel showing two chambers of a thick-looking white substance. The leftmost cylinder was mainly hollow, with hose and a regulator dangling from the top of the cavity. Scattered amongst the floor were heavy tanks that looked like fire extinguishers to Rainbow Dash, only three times as large.
She recognized these tanks as the cloud thickeners Atmosphere had mentioned, and was fascinated to see the origin of them. Just a couple years ago she had used them herself when she ran the detachment in Ponyville, and she remembered just how high a pressure they were kept under.
“These are hoof-filled?” she asked incredulously. It was yet another shock to her since her promotion. There was a lot of potential for automation that she could see, though she was grateful the Corporation relied more on hired labour. It might have been more expensive, but it kept good Pegasi busy and fed. She felt a warmth in her heart at the thought of her beloved employer. One more reason, she felt, that the work was worth the danger.
“Each and every one,” Pipe said, looking at the first and second cylinders and frowning. “This isn’t nearly as full as Atmosphere said it would be. Something’s gone awry.”
Rainbow Dash laughed. “Do you even know what awry means, Pipe?”
He snorted. “Keep that up and I’ll awry the feathers out of you. Do you even know how to run this thing?”
“Er, uh, no sir,” Dash replied, chuckling nervously. Pipe Wrench chuckled softly himself, and then stepped to the side and motioned for Dash to move up and join him.
“Sos, this here is the thickener synthesizer. You might know that cloud thickener is really just essentially hot ice--and if you don’t know, don’t ask how, ‘cause I have no idea how it really works. In general it pumps in supercooled water, triggers the nucleation of the ice, and then broils it while also ramping up pressure using some extracted cyclone from the next room over. The pressure keeps the ice from melting, and then the heat causes some sorta change to the crystal of the ice.”
Rainbow Dash nodded intently while he spoke, absorbing everything as best she could. Anything she didn’t pick up immediately she would look up later, after shift. There wasn’t much time for training in the upper factory, and gaps in her knowledge of her work was something she abhorred. For the most part, it made sense to her. Kind of. A little.
“...To the phase isolation chamber, which tempers it until the altered crystal is at room temperature. Then we inject it into the canisters for use in the field. Any questions?”
“No,” she lied, as she was expected to.
“Great. So, the problem is, the phase isolation chamber only has enough in it for one canister, and ideally we don’t run this thing empty. Causes all sorts of damage with the pressure. So we’re gonna have to force the condenser phase, like Atmosphere said.”
“Sure. How come it’s low though?”
Pipe Wrench scratched his chin, and a frown came over his blocky face.
“No clue. Sometimes a shake or something in the phase isolation chamber can cause sublimation, but usually not in great quantities. Maybe it’s been a while since this has been run, too.”
“You really know a lot about this sorta stuff.”
He glanced back at his cutie mark; a caricature of a large pipe with a classic red shut-off valve; and then to Dash’s lightning bolt. “Some of us are born into it, I guess. Others just need the money. What about you?”
She thought for a moment, and took the time to stand up four empty canisters next to the extractor. “I needed something to care about. The Corp was supposed to be a temporary thing until I found something more permanent, more personal. But…” she trailed off, fiddling absently with the regulator on a canister. “But I found the more I cared about the company, the more it cared about me. I was always aiming for being a Wonderbolt so I could be, you know, important to the ponies of Cloudsdale. And then I kinda realized I could be so much more… Kinda… Well, I could contribute to the city in a way more valuable and practical way with this.”
Pipe Wrench nodded while he worked, pulling a couple levers on different incoming pipes and glancing back at the synthesizer between each step. “I know whatcha mean. I don’t think any of us are here for fun, and it certainly ain’t glamorous, but there’s a certain glory to keeping the weather running. Honourable work, I think,” he finished, and then grunted as he pulled a flip switch down. The rightmost cylinder started to shake.
“So,” he continued while Dash watched, “this ain’t the right way to start this normally. Typically you’d just open up the water line in, wait for the indicator to light, then shut the line and kick on the gas to the heater and pull this switch to get the thing running. Leave it alone for a shift, come back the next day, and it’ll be full. Anything excess gets vented into the cyclone, where it can depressurize risk-free. But we need it full now, and we only have about thirty minutes before we have to start filling those canisters to meet quota. So what I’ve done is open these lines here…”
He went on, giving a mock repeat of the levers and the order he had turned them in. Dash followed the lines with her mind, predicting and guessing what exactly it was doing that was different. Pipe Wrench finished, and then sat down and watched the isolation chamber fill up.
“So you run the heater and pressure with the water line open? How do you prevent a backup?”
“Prayers, though if you’re not religious… No, actually, I think you’d have to pick something to believe in, ‘cause all I know is prayin’.” He glanced over and caught Rainbow Dash’s incredulous expression, and then burst out into a full on laugh. It was deep and hearty, and Dash felt it would have shook the room if the cyclone outside wasn’t already vibrating it to excess already. “Well, that ain’t true. It might back up, yes, and then we gotta fix that, but it’s easily reversible. You just pull this shut off lever here.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and let herself laugh then too. Deadly work and outdated equipment be damned. She had fun in this job.
The isolation chamber was about half full when there was a sharp ping to Rainbow Dash’s left. They both turned to the source of it, and a half second later Pipe Wrench checked Rainbow, collapsing his body onto hers and knocking her into the canisters. They fell and clattered, one of them bouncing off Dash’s skull, and her vision exploded with stars and newly discovered colours.
“What the f-” she got out, before another ping rang out, followed by a dreadful wrenching screech of shearing metal and a blazing roar that was loud enough it felt hot on her mane. Dash shook her head and craned her neck from under Pipe Wrench’s barrel to see what had happened, and a suffocating mix of fear and relief filled her lungs. Or maybe it was the stallion’s weight; regardless, she found herself having difficulty breathing as she stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
One of the pipes feeding gas to the heater had warped and cracked, and the stream of fuel had quickly ignited itself from friction alone as it raced past the widening gash. There was another ping, and Dash cringed, covering her head with her forehooves as another sickening crash filled the room. She risked a glance a moment later when the new noise settled, and found that the first cylinder had blown open. It was likely as a result of the still-increasing water pressure mixing with the sudden drop in temperature, a quiet, undisturbed voice in her head said. Luckily, in as best a sense as the word could be used in this situation, all that was leaking from the cylinder was a steady spray of subzero water that gushed onto the grating and leaked into the void below.
Rainbow Dash shook her head again, and shifted her back. “Alright, Pipe, get off so we can fix this.”
The stallion didn’t respond.
“...Pipe?”
She wriggled and twisted, trying to slide her body around enough under the dead weight to be able to see his face. She scraped a leg on the gripping metal under her and swore, then gave one final painful heave and flipped onto her back. She looked at Pipe Wrench and then looked away, taking a moment to keep her meager breakfast down.
His quick action had saved her from instant death, but in the process, one of the falling canisters had connected with his head much as one had Rainbow Dash’s. She had seen a gash in his cheek where the regulator had clearly connected with his muzzle, and his lower jaw was open, loose, and at roughly thirty degrees off of where it should have been. She grimaced and turned back, examining his injury in more detail. Blood was pouring from his mouth and tongue, which was partially severed about halfway down. It was a steady stream, but it seemed to be flowing outwards, and she held a hoof out and felt hot air come out of his mouth.
Rainbow Dash braced her knees on the grating, clenched her own jaw, and then flexed. Slowly, while her flesh dug into the thin metal on the floor, she lifted Pipe Wrench off of herself and, when there was finally enough of a gap, she pulled herself out, dropping the heavy stallion to the floor as gently as she could manage.
The room was still in chaos, but likely nopony outside had even noticed. Even the deafening roar of the burning gas would have been eaten away by the Cyclone Generators. Rainbow Dash wasted no time gawking, however, and set to work tracing the pipes knitted into the walls of the cramped room. She found the shut off valve for the gas pipe and, clamoring over the unconscious pegasus, reached up and twisted it off. Only when the flame sputtered and died did she finally realize she hadn’t taken a breath since she had slithered out from under Pipe Wrench.
She quickly turned the synthesizer off and then turned around to consider her next issue. Pipe Wrench was still unconscious, and the blood had shown no sign of slowing.
There had been hours of safety training videos and seminars, days worth really, over her entire career in weather management. She knew that seconds counted, and that despite attempts at first aide training, her talents did not lie in healing others. But she was fast, and with that in mind, she bent down and heaved the bulky pony over her back. Her legs shook and her breathing became almost impossible with her back almost crushed by Pipe Wrench’s mass, but she didn’t falter. She shifted him once so his broken jaw stayed open, allowing the life essence that flowed out of him to run down the side of her stomach rather than pool in the base of his lungs, and she ran.
Every step hurt like hell, but the pain didn’t register on any higher level. She knew she had to get him to help, and they were on the other side of the factory from the rest of the staff. Her head throbbed, a budding concussion mixed with the exertion of carrying a pony twice her size, and her vision started to cloud. She paused for only a moment outside of the cyclone room to take as deep a gasp of air as she could manage, and then bolted on, balancing her jilted running with keeping Pipe Wrench stable.
She raced past the elevator and then the break room. She slowed, saw no one was inside, and carried on. There was a pony on Gauge’s crew named Patches who she was fairly certain was good at putting things back together, and she prayed that that included ponies as well.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she spun around a corner and passed through two swinging doors into the Thunder and Lightning quadrant of the factory. She spotted Atmosphere and Gauge at the end of the room, speaking casually, and shouted.
“Help! Some pony help!”
Atmosphere and Gauge turned, and while the Director grimaced and sighed, Gauge had already jumped into the air and soared towards Rainbow Dash and Pipe Wrench, dropping down hard in front of them.
Rainbow Dash bent her right legs, and Gauge unloaded the still-knocked-out stallion from her back onto the floor.
“Patches! Somepony get Patches from the blackener chamber! Move, damnit!”
There was a rush of colours and wings as ponies swamped on their position, checking over Pipe Wrench and hauling in satchels filled with medical supplies. Rainbow Dash stood back for a moment, unaware of how hard her legs were spasming.
“Ms. Dash. Are you alright?”
She turned, her rose tinted eyes locked wide open. It was Atmosphere, and he was holding a concerned hoof on Dash’s back, shaking her gently.
“Ms. Dash?”
Rainbow stammered softly, unable to think of anything aside from the word “I”, and glanced back at Pipe Wrench. A grey eye lifted open, just a fraction of an inch, and locked eyes with her. Yet another one of those unspoken conversations passed between the two of them; this one short and simple, yet somehow of great impact to Dash.
It was a thank you.
It hit her, and the concussion followed suit, washing her, infusing her with exhaustion.
“Miss Dash!” Atmosphere yelled into her ear, shaking harder. She turned back at him, and finally spoke.
“Oh, Mr. Atmosphere. Y-yeah, uh, everything, everything’s… It’s fine.”
And with that settled, she collapsed, letting sleep overtake her.
Rainbow Dash awoke on the taut and scratchy canvas of her cot to the sound of singing. She went to open her eyes, only to find that her eyelids vehemently protested this action. The brief moment they had fluttered open had sent a searing bolt of pain into her brain, and she decided that perhaps they had raised a good point, and relented. She didn’t need to see who it was, of course. It was Melody, and Dash let the dulcet tones directed towards her suffocate the pounding in her skull.
“Oh she’s high above the surface,
Got a storm up in its place
As she swings her hooves and legs
The sweat drips off her face.
Oh she’s tired, weak and weary,
Two hours have rolled around,
But she’s got six more to suffer
Till she gets back undercloud.”
She was rubbing Rainbow Dash’s legs absentmindedly, swaying back and forth to the shanty she was singing. Part of Dash’s brain objected furiously to this treatment, feeling as if she was some infant being rocked to sleep, but she quickly shut that thought up. Her legs ached, but with each stanza they seemed to recover just a bit more.
Melody’s song came to an end and the rocking gently stopped, and with this Rainbow Dash attempted to open her eyes again. They resisted, but not nearly as badly as before, and she locked gaze with the mare who sat next to her. Their eyes were quite similar, she noticed; Dash’s a rosy pink, with Melody’s a glowing burgundy, and they smiled at each other. Melody spoke, and the difference between singing and speaking struck Dash as humorous. On shift, Melody could belt out a tune loud enough to be heard over the hailseed pots. Her speaking voice, however, was soft and unobtrusive. It reminded Rainbow Dash of Fluttershy, and the realization stung in her heart for a brief second.
“How are ya doin’, hon?”
There was the Applejack, Rainbow Dash realized; the country dialect of a pegasus from outside of Cloudsdale, come to the city when all other options ran out. She didn’t know this was the case for sure, but it had happened often enough that the idea stuck in her mind as soon as the light accent touched her ears.
“I’m alright, I think,” Dash croaked back. “What did me in?”
“Concussion, dear. We couldn’t get a story from either of ya, ‘course, but that lump on yer noggin did a lot of talking.”
It took a moment for the ‘either’ in that sentence to sink in, but the moment it did Dash started scrambling to get up from the cot. Melody held out a hoof against her chest, pushing her back down. It was not forceful. Dash could have easily knocked it aside, but there was an intense compassion to be felt in that lightest of touch, and she complied, laying back down--though breathing more rapidly.
“Where’s Pipe Wrench? Is he…?”
“He lost a lotta blood, hon,” Melody said slowly, “and was out for quite a while. Patches did the best he could, ‘course, but end of the day he’s still an engineer and not a doctorin’ kind. Pipe’s jaw is as close to center as he could figure it, and he’s breathin’. Mainly we been lettin’ him sleep in one a them upper factory bunks, where it’s quiet and the Directors can keep an eye on him.”
Dash shrunk. “So he’s still alive…”
“Thanks ta’ you, hon. Patches figures if ya hadn’t brought him right to us, he’da kicked the bucket halfway ‘fore we got back.” She giggled, and Dash felt a flutter in her chest. It was not a romantic flutter, nor anything particularly challenging to her. She heard that laugh, and somewhere in her head she decided that Melody needed to be protected at all costs. She was special. Not to Dash, specifically, but to the crew. Every pony needed a Melody nearby. “Makes ya a hero, it does. Now close yer eyes again. Ya got sick leave ‘til you’re good to stand again, then ‘course yer gonna need to pick up and cover for Pipe Wrench where you can ‘til he gets better. That’s the price of bein’ a hero, don’tcha know? More work.”
She laughed again, and Dash joined her. Melody picked up into a new song, and this time her subconscious did not object to the treatment, letting herself be lulled back to sleep.
It was about a month later when Pipe Wrench finally returned to work. The crew was relieved to find that he hadn’t sustained any permanent brain damage, but unfortunately, his jaw had set wrong. It was almost in the right place, but it had fused, bone locked in place by ridgid scar tissue that would not give way to stretches and heat. His tongue had mainly healed, but from what he could describe--and as best as everyone could understand him--he couldn’t feel it, nor taste anything any longer.
Rainbow Dash found that it hadn’t actually meant much of a change to his personality. Save for the times he had trained her to use the various machines around the factory, Pipe Wrench hardly spoke. She suspected he might even be a little grateful, now having an excuse to grunt and point instead of being considered rude like others had thought before.
It had become a game amongst the crew to come up with different stories as to the origin of Pipe’s new speech impediment, and each tale they had spun was quickly superseded by one that was just a bit more ridiculous, a bit more adventurous, and a bit more unbelievable. Pipe Wrench didn’t seem to mind; whenever a lower factory worker had seen him and asked about what had happened, he would defer to the closest pony on his crew to supply an answer, and agree with whatever they had said.
Dash preferred not to say much about it. She wasn’t ashamed of her part she had played in the incident, nor did she feel blamed by Pipe or anyone else for that matter. She wasn’t proud of it either, though, and while the Directors had thanked her for her heroism with a small bonus and a plaque, it wasn’t something she wanted to parade or keep bringing up. Modesty was a fairly new suit to wear, but she found it vaguely comfortable, and decided to keep it on.
It was a cold morning a few months later when she had stepped confidently into the break room towards the end of the shift, and found Atmosphere on the couch, pouring over textbooks next to an empty pot of coffee. She sat down next to him and rested her eyes, breathing steadily.
Atmosphere glanced at her from the corner of his eye, and then closed the heavy book and sat back, clapping his hooves together.
“Still two hours left on shift, Ms. Dash,” he said, eyeing the clock.
“Yessir,” she said, covering the waver in her voice with a light layer of cockiness. They might have gotten to know each other a little better over the half-year Dash had worked up here, but he was still management, and she was an employee. “I was waiting for you to have a break in your studies to ask. My team and I have completed all the currently assigned tasks.”
“The low pressure winds?”
“Packed and ready for Logistics to send off.”
“Snow and sleet?”
“All systems have been prepped for the beginning of Winter, and are operating at a hundred percent capacity. Output is currently ahead of quota by a few dozen cloud’s worth. Not much, but breathing room.” She looked out the open door as Melody walked by, wearing a saddlebag overflowing with screwdrivers and wrenches, humming some ditty Dash hadn’t heard yet. “Ice generators have also been scraped down and recharged, too.”
Atmosphere grunted and pushed his small glasses up his nose, and sat forward on the couch.
“Well, there’s always cleaning…” he trailed, not really serious in the suggestion. Almost as if to answer him, another two ponies walked by the door, hauling buckets of sudsy water and scrub brushes in their muzzles. “...Ah,” he said, discarding the thought entirely.
“Yeah,” Dash replied.
“Well, then, I suppose you’re wondering if you or your crew can take off for the weekend early, eh?” He stood up from the couch and scratched the white stubble on his chin. “It’s not entirely unheard of, but not common, either…”
“Oh, no sir, not at all. Maybe the crew, if they wanted it, but I was going to ask you if there was any additional training for me.”
Atmosphere laughed. “Ah, yes, I forgot who I was speaking too. That drive of yours is going to get yourself into trouble someday, Dash,” he said.
“How do you mean?” she asked, casually hopping into the air from the couch and hovering in place.
“Well, it’s the sort of thing that impresses Directors. Especially the Executive Director. If you keep learning every nook and cranny of the Corporation, they might make you run the place. Poor me, for example,” he said, indicating the jumble of books and papers on the table, “mentioned I was curious about pursuing a doctorate in engineering, and they went and paid the tuition-- so long as I finish the course.” He shook his head. “Ambition is punished around here with success, Dash.”
She frowned at him. “That’s not the kind of motivational speech I would expect from a Director, Mr. Atmosphere. Forgive me if it’s inappropriate, but is everything alright?”
The stallion glanced at the newspaper buried underneath all the thick science texts, and its front page article about the recent flight tests, but then met Dash’s gaze with a cold, steely stare that caused her to drop an inch in the air.
“Ah, no, thank you, I’m fine. Buried in work is all. You would be a welcome addition to the upper echelons, I would say. If any Director position opens up, you have my support for it. Come, fly with me, will you?”
She tried to suppress her gleeful smile and failed miserably. The thought of her managing an aspect of the company that had given her so much meaning, had taught her so much, had brought her so much closer to Scootaloo, resonated in her heart like a pipe organ. She zipped up to Hide, saluted, and then waited for him to lead the way.
They moved about the cramped hallways of the upper factory without speaking, towards the Thunder and Lightning wing. They passed through those same swinging double doors, and Rainbow Dash noticed a splash of blood from Pipe Wrench still stained the paint. She grimaced, and then tapped Atmosphere on the shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“Looks like that was missed, sir. Would you like me to have that cleaned up?”
“Ah? Oh.” He followed her pointing hoof and caught the dark red splatter near the bottom of the metal. “No, I don’t think so. The rest was cleaned, of course, but something like that…” His voice drifted away here, and Rainbow Dash had to fly a little closer to him to pick up his words. “I think it’s good to have a reminder of the sacrifices we make. Up here, Ms. Dash,” he said, flying up to a scaffolding above the main lightning bottling plant.
They settled, and he rested his forelegs on the platform, looking out across the large room. Melody walked in then, noticed them and waved, and then headed over to a large furnace where she started to check various gauges and thermometers. As they watched, she began to sing. It was quiet, intended likely to be for herself, but the high ceiling and round lightning furnaces amplified and projected her song to the ponies up above.
“The likes o' me was put to air as soon as we could fly,
Ta’ catch the silver linings for the folk under the sky.
With half a mile o' distance ‘tween the nimbus and the ground,
And half a score o' years between the cradle and the mound.”
“She makes a good point,” Atmosphere muttered.
“Sir?”
“What precisely are you looking for in regards to advanced training, Rainbow Dash? Circumstance helped aid you to foreman a crew six months earlier than we normally allow it, and talent let you keep it when Pipe Wrench recovered. Everypony on the shift seems to get along with you, well enough for any group of Pegasi cramped into the same room for a week straight anyways, and you’re efficient to the point it’s becoming almost an issue. What’s your end goal with the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation?”
Rainbow Dash was blushing and turned her head to watch Melody make the rounds about the furnaces.
“Oh, well, thank you sir. Uh… You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”
“You don’t know the first thing about crazy,” Atmosphere said coldly. Dash laughed, but his tone was as far from joking as she had ever heard, and she moved on.
“Well, uh, this company… this factory… It feels more like home and family than my actual house. The last month or two I’ve found myself eager to get back to work on my days off, as if time spent away from these pipes and wires were bad for me. I don’t really… I don’t get it. I feel like I belong here, more than in a sense of working here. I have this nagging urge to just, give everything I can to the Corporation. To improve it and grow it beyond the servicing of the major cities around Equestria. I think the company can be so much more, Mr. Atmosphere, and I know that I can be so much more too.”
Atmosphere thought about this for a moment, but said nothing until Melody walked out of the plant, taking her soothing notes with her.
“You are an avatar of the Element of Loyalty, is that true?”
Dash coughed nervously, and then sighed deeply. “I don’t really know. We had a falling out years ago that we never recovered from, and the Elements themselves stopped responding to us. I still value loyalty higher than pretty much any aspect, though, if that’s what you’re wondering. Come to think of it, it’s likely why I feel this way. All my hard work here always seems to be recognized and repaid, and I have no doubts that that’ll always be the case.”
“Well, then you definitely sound like a shoe-in for Rainbow Production, I’ll admit. That’s a relief, honestly, I was afraid you’d go after my position.” At this, he did laugh, and Dash joined him with a nervous chuckle. “Director Cirrus is getting old, too. Still able to perform his duties, but still, getting old indeed. Eventually the work will become too much for him. You cannot tell him I said this to you, of course.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Rainbow Production is more difficult than you can expect, Rainbow Dash,” he cautioned. That same chill from before tinted his voice, and Rainbow Dash shivered. “It’s much more than paperwork and the odd shift once a month. There are trade secrets behind locked doors that make the rest of this place look like a daycare.” He dropped down from the railing and stared hard into Rainbow’s eyes. “Before I can give you any preparation for applying for a Director’s position, I need to know. Which is more important to you? Your honour, or Cloudsdale’s?”
It did not take Rainbow Dash long to come up with her answer.
She was back in the Cloud Thickener room a few weeks later, awkwardly holding an increasingly heavy metal canister up at a cocked angle while the synthesizer filled it, when she heard the shout. She started, and then locked eyes with Gauge, who was forcing the cycle through. They still hadn’t figured out the source of the isolation chamber leak yet, and she had been ruminating on what might be the cause when the shrill alarm reached her ears. She stared at Gauge, whose wide-eyed expression answered her forthcoming question. He had heard it too, over the gale of the cyclone room, behind a solid steel door, atop the cacophony of the synthesizer.
Gauge acted fast, shutting the whole thing off and venting the entirety of its contents into the cyclone, letting Dash drop the canister and bolt out the door a microsecond later. She flew towards the general direction of the shout, a rainbow blur chasing her as she raced. It had to be close, and was likely just outside the cyclone room in the main hallway. Whoever it was, it had to be bad for the noise to make it to them.
She burst out of the deafening room and stopped dead, dropping hard to her knees as she suddenly forgot to fly.
There, twitching on the floor ten feet in front of her, under a spray of superheated steam ejecting from the sheared housing of a valve, lay Melody--or most of Melody. The mare lay flat on her side, knocked over by the incredible force of the boiling air, and a bleached white skull shone brightly, framed with bubbling skin and the stain of flesh that had melted off instantaneously. The eye socket, completely void of its regular tenant, was leaking steam of its own from blood oozing out onto the still-hot bone.
She had died almost as fast as the pipe would have burst-- but not fast enough, Dash realized. She still had the time to scream.
Gauge finally made it out of the cyclone room and he stumbled upon spotting the gruesome sight before Dash, faltering backwards before muttering a series of curses. He spun around and ran down the hallway, finding an alarm switch that had been installed after Pipe’s accident and smashing it.
Dash stayed on her knees, unable to look away. She stared at the lifeless mare, begging silently for this to be some sort of nightmare she could wake up from, a dream she could leave to start her day to another one of Melody’s encouraging ballads. She closed her eyes as tears started to well up, counted to three, and then opened them again to no avail.
A death in the factory was not unheard of, but it was the first for Rainbow Dash. There was not much in the form of a funeral. Once the Directors had been informed, and the incident reports started, Melody’s body had been transported to a first aide office. Dash and Gauge volunteered to move her, having already seen the state of their coworker and friend, and they placed her down on the cold table and covered her with a cloth; as decent a resting place as they could give her until the Cloudsdale coroner’s office arrived.
Director Cirrus ordered the factory shut down all non-essential equipment for the next forty-eight hours. The cities of Equestria would have a day of unplanned sunshine in Melody’s honour, natural consequences be damned. Once all was said and done, and the crew had solemnly witnessed the two medical ponies haul out the black burlap sack that contained their friend, the eleven of them wandered into their bunk room, and lay down on their beds.
They were silent, and for once, they were in silence. The ever-present hum of the factory had settled for the day with the shutdown order, as if it too were giving Melody its own moment of silence. The idea scratched at Rainbow Dash’s brain, an irritating thought that would not go away. Now, more than ever, with all the shaking pipes and hammering machines asleep, should the Factory--no, the whole of Cloudsdale--echo with the cheerful folk tunes from that cream-coloured mare.
It was an insult to let there be silence, and Dash tossed and turned fitfully, having emptied her eyes of tears hours earlier in the first aid office when she said her goodbyes. She hadn’t taken the time to learn by heart any of Melody’s songs, and it ate away at her. Where was Melody now, to sit by her cot and to lull her to sleep like a babe, when Dash needed her most?
There came a noise then from the other side of the room, and her ears perked up. It was one of the stallions on Gauge’s crew, one she still didn’t know all that well, but he appeared to have been thinking the same thing she had.
“Well I’m a weather pony
and I’ll tell you no lie,
We sweat and toil with steam and oil
to bring your brilliant sky…”
Two other ponies, one on her crew and one on Gauge’s, joined in.
“The lightning blinds me daily
and always threats to maim.
We spill our blood and lose our friends
to bring the summer rain.”
Like a key in a lock, a memory opened up; a song that Melody had sang about whenever the shift had been shaken by a violent near miss or almost-accident. She had called it The Weather Worker’s Song, and through swollen throat Dash joined in on the chorus with the other ten ponies. Even Pipe Wrench, his eyes shining with tears, joined in quietly; his shattered words doing nothing to detract from the song that now belted out of the crew quarters and into the Rainbow Factory outside.
“An’ it’s on the job we go
making weather for the land.
An’ if we fail the world shall too
and so we work on, damned.
Oh the thunder rumbles constantly
and there’s poison with every breath.
For when you work the Factory
You flirt and dance with death.
I’ve stood knee deep in lightning
Burned my legs on hailstone mix
A weather worker’s never done
For there’s ne’er nothing to fix
An’ it’s on the job we go
making weather for the land.
An’ if we fail the world shall too
and so we work on, damned.
An’ it’s on the job we go
making weather for the land.
An’ if we fail the world shall too
and so we work on, damned.”
Author's Note
All the songs in this story are inspired by, but not copies of, coal mine and chemical plant folk songs. These are parody adaptations of (to the best of my knowledge and research) copyright free songs (save the last one), of which the originals of the first 3 can be found at the Library of Congress's website.
The last song is a parody inspired by The Chemical Worker's Song by Great Big Sea. The original lyrics have not been used in this fiction.
