All of the failures help to fuel success
The Rainbow Factory: Checkmate
The screams of the mare climbed high into the air. The grey thundercloud walls caught the sounds of her agony, twisting them strangely, warping the noise until it hardly sounded equine at all.
A stallion bent low over her. “Gentle — Gentle, look at me. Stay with me.”
The mare howled again, her spine arching as another wave of pain lanced through her.
“It’s alright, it’s alright,” the male murmured helplessly, clutching her hoof in both of his own. “Just keep calm. Keep pushing. That’s what you’re meant to do, right?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” the mare panted, her breath coming raggedly. Eyes wide with panic, she stared at the huge mound of her stomach — an alien thing now, swollen beyond recognition. It no longer seemed like it was really part of her. “Celestia’s wingfeathers, it hurts.”
The stallion’s eyes were filled with compassion, and he stroked the sweat-tangled mane back from her forehead. “It’s alright,” he said for the third time. “You’re doing so well. There can’t be much longer left.”
Gentle tried to answer, but another shuddering contraction ripped through her. She gritted her teeth, trying to hold the screams in; she had chosen the most remote corner of the Factory she could find, but even soundproofed walls had their limits. She had not come this far — hiding her growing belly for more than a year — just to lose her hold on the secret now. Her foal would not be taken from her.
But then the next fiery surge seared her brutalised body, and she screamed anew.
The room was small and white. Thirty-two steps along every side; it was a perfect square. One hundred and twenty eight steps all the way around, eighty-three if you trotted, and less than fifty if you cantered. Calculating how many steps it took at a gallop was still a work in progress; building up speed in such a confined space was difficult, and taking the corners without slowing your pace was even harder.
The walls were plain: years ago a few childish drawings had been scratched into the teflon-reinforced cloud, but they had been patched over years ago, and they had not been repeated.
The furnishings were sparse and spartan; a plain metal bed, white sheets on a steel frame. A small table, a chair. A chess set arranged atop the table was the only hint at domesticity. All else was stark, white and barren.
“The Philidor defence,” murmured a voice, small and frail in the large room.
A figure leaned over the chess board, pushing a pawn slowly across the squares. Her wings spread out to either side as she moved, and a pale blue ringlet fell across her face before being impatiently pushed aside.
“E-five, D-six.” She whispered the words like a prayer. “And then white counters; the pegasus knight. And the celestial bishop retaliates.” The scrape of wood on wood as she moved her bishop to position. “It’s passive, but solid. A strong defence, but without much hope of winning.”
She hopped down from her chair and trotted to the other side of the table, looking down at the board from the white perspective. Her eyes narrowed in thought, and she rested her cheek on a hoof.
“And then I bring in the Zukertort…the pegasus knight goes here…and like that, the Philodor is undone.” She chewed her lower lip. “There must be a counter to the countergambit. I just need to find it.”
She padded back to the chair and the black side of the board, scrambled back into the chair and rested her head on her forelegs. Her red pupils focused on the pieces, and she fell silent, lost in thought.
With no windows, the air was very still. The filly was motionless. The slight rise and fall of her ribcage was the only movement.
The child stared at her chess board, and though her body was as still as stone, her mind was racing.
“Cozy, sweetheart?”
The foal looked up with one sharp glance, red eyes moving like lightning to the single door that marred one wall. The grey of the material was the only break in the empty white.
The door opened slowly, and the foal moved quickly. Forsaking the table and the chess board, she took wing and darted across the room to the bed, where she hastily wrapped herself in the blankets and shut her eyes.
Soft hoofsteps sounded on the floor and there was a small sigh. Cozy Glow blinked sleepily and yawned. “Mommy?”
“Hello, baby.” A gentle kiss on the forehead from a gentle mare. “Were you asleep?”
“Mmhmm.” Cozy stretched, catlike, before settling onto her haunches and smiling up at her visitor.
Gentle Butterwing smiled back, unable to resist. “I’m so glad the nightmares are going away.”
Eyes big, Cozy Glow nodded. “Me too, Mommy. They got really scary.”
“But you haven’t had any more of the monster dreams?”
“Nuh-uh!” Cozy smiled brightly. Nightmares were a very useful bogeyman to trot out when she needed something. Gentle had once confided that she suffered from nightmares herself, and they had served Cozy wonderfully ever since. “I think it’s all the books you’ve been bringing me to read, Mommy. They’re so good — they give me lots of things to think about.”
“That’s great news, baby.” Gentle was beaming; readier than ever to slip into their familiar domestic charade. A mother and her daughter, home together after a long day. Cozy Glow didn’t miss the slight smear of red on Gentle’s barrel — just low enough that it wouldn’t be easily visible in a mirror. All Gentle wanted was to pretend. To escape the work she did.
“I’m hungry, Mommy,” smiled Cozy, tapping the bulging saddlebag Gentle wore. “What did you bring for dinner?”
“Your favourite!” replied Gentle. “Hay fries and grassburgers.”
“Yay!” cheered Cozy, jumping into the air and performing a little loop-the-loop. It served two purposes; firstly that it sold the lie of a happy childhood a little better — and more importantly, it showed off her increasing capability in the air. She wanted Gentle to see just how good she was getting.
Sure enough, Gentle clapped both her hooves together. “Goodness! You’re getting so good.”
Cozy beamed. “I bet I’d even be good enough for real flight school, Mommy.”
It was a risky thing to say, a little too close to the line of what Gentle was usually prepared to discuss, and sure enough, the smile left her face.
“You won’t be going to flight school, Cozy. You need to stay inside, where it’s safe.”
Instead of arguing, it seemed safer to simply move along. “Okay, Mommy!” she agreed blandly, and went to rummage in the saddlebag for her grassburger.
Relieved, Gentle settled back onto her haunches and they ate in companionable silence, broken here and there with a few snatches of small talk that Cozy didn’t need to devote much brainpower to respond to.
The meal was quickly over, and Cozy was turning over the potential repercussions of inviting her mother to a game of chess — would Gentle be pleased if she beat her, or angry? — when Gentle surprised her by standing to leave.
“Mommy?”
“Sorry, Cozy, I can’t stay long tonight.”
“Do you have to go?” Cozy tried to sound plaintive, vulnerable. The little-girl schtick worked on Gentle like nothing else.
“I do, baby.” Gentle was regretful, but she was still moving towards the door.
Cozy bit her lip. Gentle was leaving, and she still hadn’t extracted anything of use from her. No promises for more reading material; nothing. Hastily, she hopped down off the bed and trotted after her mother. Gentle turned to look down at her, and though it made Cozy’s skin crawl, there wasn’t really another option. She threw her forelegs around Gentle’s leg and hugged her as hard as she could. “I’ll miss you every minute you’re gone, Mommy.”
Gentle softened at once. “Oh, Cozy, sweetheart.” She bent down, wrapped both of her own hooves around her daughter and lifted her up.
Cozy Glow bit her tongue and willed herself not to struggle. She had to endure it, and so she would. It was a necessary move, part of her endgame, and if she wanted something to drive away the stifling boredom, this had to happen.
“I’ll miss you too, baby,” promised Gentle. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay any longer. There’s a leak in the methane tanks in the hurricane production unit. They’ve shut off the pipes for now, but it needs a quick fix, or we’re risking fire and who knows what else.”
Cozy Glow didn’t whine; Gentle never responded well to tears. Cozy theorised that it reminded her mother too much of the other foals in her life; the terminal ones, who screamed and cried and protested until their last breath — for all the good it did them.
So Cozy made a point not to be like them. For Gentle, she was always chipper, always smiling. Always full of love for her wonderful Mommy. She had pushed the pathetic foal act as far as it would get her; any more and it would just drive Gentle away faster.
“Okay, Mommy,” she said obediently, sitting back in her mother’s embrace. “But will you promise me to bring me some books to read next time? Or repair manuals? Anything really — I don’t mind what I read.”
Gentle laughed and bopped her lightly on the snout. “My little bookworm! You’ll get bored of all those dusty old instruction books if I bring them to you.” She considered for a moment. “But we got a newspaper in the break room last week and I think nearly everypony has read it now. I’ll bring you that instead, okay?”
“Awesome!” cheered Cozy, clapping her hooves together. The display felt juvenile, but it was good news. It had been nearly four months since she’d been given any material from outside the Factory. Information on Cloudsdale and the world beyond — places she had never seen — were worth more than gold dust.
“One more thing, baby,” said Gentle, placing her carefully back on the floor. “I checked the guard roster, and there’s a patrol scheduled up here in about two hours’ time. So be quiet, alright? Quiet like a little mouse.”
Cozy giggled and folded her hooves under her chin like tiny paws. “I’ll be super quiet, Mommy. I promise!”
“That’s my baby girl.” Gentle chucked her under the chin, kissed her forehead once more, and then was gone.
The door clicked shut behind her, and Cozy’s face slipped back to impassivity. She brought her forehooves back to rest on the floor and listened to the door lock, expressionless.
It was almost an hour before Cozy Glow’s door opened once more. A different figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, red fur and grey hair. As she always did, Cozy ran a quick scenario in her head — calculating her odds of success if she just made a break for it now.
Low, of course. Atmosphere was quicker than Gentle, and he wouldn’t be inclined to believe whatever excuse she made up if he did catch her. And beyond that, even if she did manage to outmanoeuvre him, how far would a lone foal get in the Factory, of all places?
No. If she wanted to make it out there, she needed allies. It was a slow burn, and not what she would have preferred. But nopony had offered her the choice, and realistically speaking, it was her only option.
“Hello, Doctor Hide!” she chirped instead, pasting a smile onto her face. “What have you bought me to read today?”
“Nothing much, little one. Just a book on thermodynamics. Left over from my university days; it’s quite advanced stuff, but nothing you can’t handle.” He set it down on the table and smiled at her, before reaching over to ruffle her mane.
Cozy Glow endured it without complaint — a new book was worth the annoyance. “Thank you,” she said politely.
Hide Atmosphere sighed and settled himself down onto the floor. “Tell me how your day was. I see you’ve spent some time on your chess problems again?”
He patted the floor beside him, inviting her to sit there, but Cozy impatiently waved the gesture aside. He’d had his quota for the day; she’d done all that was expected of her. She wasn’t inclined to get near any other ponies after all of Gentle’s cloying affection. And she knew Hide well enough to be certain that he wouldn’t take umbrage and storm out if she refused to hug him. He valued honesty more than he wanted to see the childlike persona she donned for Gentle’s benefit.
“Indescribably boring. I finished my last book three days ago, and you haven’t even bought me any repairs to do.”
That earned her a chuckle. “Is the chess not enough to keep you entertained for a while longer?”
No! Cozy wanted to scream. No! I’m atrophying in here, my brain needs fueland you’re starving me!
She smiled instead, like he’d made a joke. “I only had the one book of chess problems to go on,” she said lightly. “Another one would be wonderful.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I’m scheduled another trip out in a week or so — though I’ll have to be careful. I don’t think the Executive Director would believe I’ve developed a sudden and abiding interest in chess this late in life.”
Satisfied, Cozy Glow nodded. “Thank you.” Then, before he could move the conversation along, she took control. The mention of the Director was rare, and she didn’t want to waste the opportunity to ask about her in a natural way. “Executive Director Rainbow Dash, you mean?”
“Exactly.” His smile widened, and she thought that if she had been closer to him, he would have tried to ruffle her hair again. “Not much gets past you, does it?”
“Have you given any more thought to maybe telling her about me?” Cozy Glow tried to say the words like they had just occurred to her, but she wasn’t sure how convincing a job she did.
Atmosphere’s face closed up at once. “You know that’s not possible, Cozy. Dash hates the foals in this place with a passion. If she knew we had an extra one up here…” He tailed off.
“I know,” she said impatiently. “It’ll be straight into the Pegasus Device with me. You think I haven’t heard it all before?”
His brows lowered, and Cozy hastily dialled it back before he could cross the line into genuine annoyance.
“Uh — what I mean to say is — well, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something for a while. A proposition.”
His expression shifted back into amusement, and Cozy relaxed a little. He liked to hear her use long words; he felt some sort of pride in how precocious she was. Like he had trained her, and her cleverness was all down to him. A bit pathetic, but definitely workable.
“Go on,” was all he said.
Cozy took a deep breath, and then launched into the speech she had prepared. “I want to contribute to the Factory,” she said, trying to hit the right inflections in her voice. Earnest and heartfelt, that was what she wanted. Atmosphere was smart, much smarter than her mother — but one of the things he held closest to his heart was his loyalty to the Factory. If she could convince him she felt the same she stood a fighting chance of getting out of this tartarus-blasted room. “I know there’s a leak in the methane tanks. I’m assuming they’re the same GasMaster 3500 units as I read about last year in the manual you bought me.”
He blinked in surprise. “Your memory is good, little one. You only had it a few days, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” It only ever took her a single read-through; ponies never seemed to grasp what exactly a photographic memory meant. “I know how to fix those tanks, Hide. I know what thickness of aluminium it needs. I know how to weld it. I know exactly how to seal the breach so that this doesn’t happen again.”
He watched her with an entertained smile, and she pressed on, hoping this was a genuine opening.
“I’ve done it before, on smaller things you’ve brought me. You’ve told me how well ‘your’ repairs have been received. How impressed everyone was with the work. Your big clumsy hooves, suddenly capable of detailed work.” She paused for breath. “And you know I’ll do a better job than Gentle. She shakes when she has to do a task longer than ten minutes — and we both know the methane tanks aren’t a ten minute job.”
His smiled widened, and Cozy Glow took another breath and played her trump card.
“I’ve read the specs for the tank. I know how wide the access port for the pipe is. And listen — if I remove the pipe altogether, I’m small enough to fit in through the opening.” She spread her wings, eyes carefully widened so that he would see the truth of what she was saying. “That means I can repair it from the inside. And that means there’s at least sixty percent less chance of further failures than an external patch. I’ve done the maths, Hide. It’ll work, and I’m the right pony for the job. Give me the chance to prove my worth to the Factory.”
She finished her statement and waited, wings still spread, for his reaction. He had to see the sense in what she was saying.
But he was shaking his head, and she felt all her hope crumble and slip away. “I’m sorry, little one, you’re just too young. You look just like one of the failures. The staff would kill you on sight — and Dash would be very unhappy to find out I’ve helped hide you so long.”
Taking in a sharp gulp of air, Cozy fought the swell of anger back down. It wasn’t fair. She was twice the worker any of those louts down there were. She had ten times the brains of anypony else in this goddess-forsaken Factory. But she was the one kept prisoner.
“I’m not like the failures,” she snapped. “My wings are strong. I would be an asset to the Flock.” If anypony knew I existed.
That earned her a chuckle, and he reached out a hoof to touch her extended primaries, which had finally finished growing in. “They certainly are strong, little one. And they’ll get stronger still if you keep practicing the exercises I gave you.”
Grinding her teeth, Cozy Glow swallowed her retort. A chess book next week. That was something, wasn’t it? Baby steps. It was all just baby steps.
“I will, Doctor Hide. I will.”
“And he said to me, run, Contrail, run nimble-quick and helter-skelter and hurdy-gurdy — and then when you’ve finished running, run some more! When you’ve run the corridor a hundred times, then you won’t hear the screaming no more.”
The blue stallion’s voice was alight with hope, and Cozy Glow nodded and smiled. She had never met another foal, but she imagined that Contrail was about as close as one could get. He was an imbecile. It was like carrying out a conversation with a rock.
“What a helpful ghost!” she said, feigning delight at the conclusion of his indeterminably long story.
“He was!” Only half of Contrail’s face was visible through the keyhole, but his grin was unmissable. He sighed and leaned against the door. “I like coming up here to talk to you. Of all the ghosts, you’re the nicest.”
“Thanks, Contrail,” she chirped. “Say, you know how we’re friends?”
“We are?” He sounded thrilled. “I haven’t had a friend in the longest time.”
“Well, I was just thinking — golly, wouldn’t it be great if I could come out to play with you?”
There was a beat of silence, and she pressed a hoof against the door, ears straining for his response. She wasn’t sure just how far the foal comparison extended; perhaps ‘play’ had been the wrong carrot to offer.
“Come out?” The bafflement in his voice was genuine, and Cozy relaxed infinitesimally. The fish hadn’t fully taken the bait, but he hadn’t slipped the hook, either.
“Out from this room,” she explained. “If you can find me the key—” like I told you to the last ten times you came here, halfwit, “—Then I’ll bet we can find all sorts of fun games to play.”
He hesitated. “I don’t like games all that much.”
Cozy Glow shut her eyes. Count to three. Take a deep breath. Screaming at him like all his other ‘ghosts’ won’t get you out any faster. “Well, we could wander round and explore. I know you like doing that. Wouldn’t you enjoy showing me all your favourite places and introducing me to the other ghosts?”
She had sometimes wondered if Contrail’s other ghosts were real ponies too. Other secret foals, or ex-employees run madder than even he was. Or perhaps they were just the signs of an overactive imagination gone to seed.
“I guess it would be nice to have somepony out in the Factory who likes to listen,” Contrail agreed slowly. “Nopony listens like you do, Lilypad.”
“Oh, golly gee,” she smiled, putting her hooves against her cheeks. Even though he couldn’t see her, the inflection still needed to be just right. “Thanks, Contrail.”
Giving him a fake name had been a calculated risk; this way if he ever rambled about his ghost friend Lilypad and Gentle or Atmosphere happened to hear, she wouldn’t be implicated.
“So do you think you could find the key for me?” she pressed, after a moment’s pause. “I think Engineer Gentle has it with her.”
“I…I don’t know…” His hooves were shuffling against each other. “She’s real nice most of the time, but when she gets mad…”
Cozy Glow ground her teeth together. Trapped by cretins and halfwits, and even the mad refused her aid. “She wouldn’t need to know, Contrail — not if you were careful.”
“I gotta go.” His voice was already fading. “I’ll see you soon, Lilypad.”
She pressed her hooves against the door, listening to his receding hoofsteps. “Just — just think about it!”
Then he was gone, and Cozy let out a shuddering breath. Would she never escape? Everypony here — with the exception of Atmostphere, perhaps — was less than her equal. But she was small, and weak, and they kept her locked up like an animal.
Contrail had seemed like a gift from the universe. A malleable idiot, hers for the bidding. But even he defied her.
It was frustrating; it was enraging. But she would get out.
And then she would show the Factory what she could do.
The darkness was absolute, and the filly’s wide red eyes stared unseeing and unseen into the blackness beyond her bed. She was utterly still.
Her breaths came one after another, slow and measured.
The lights on the seventh floor of the Rainbow Factory went out at exactly ten PM every night. It had been three hours, six minutes, and thirty-four seconds since then. Cozy knew, because she had counted every one.
It was soothing, in a way. The regular passage of time. Seconds ticking inexorably on, one after another. Dependable. Predictable. No contingencies needed, no plans to make. No need to think on the hoof and try to guess what action would secure the most favourable reaction.
Night time was Cozy’s favourite time. It was the only empty time. When she could sit, perfectly neutral, and do nothing. Feel nothing. No playacting, forcing a succession of alien, bewildering emotions across her face, one after another.
But resting was…not useful. Not in the long run. So Cozy got to her hooves, held out her forelegs, and her face split into a wide smile.
“Mommy!” she cried, into the empty room, her voice alight with joy. “Mommy, I missed you so much!”
A pause. A rustle as her stance changed, her wings tucking in close to her sides, her thin shoulders hunched.
“I hurt my hoof, Mommy,” she whispered, a sob suddenly shaking her fragile frame. “I fell off the bed, and I…I…it’s bad, Mommy.”
She held out an uninjured hoof, trembling with pain and fatigue, before narrowing her eyes. Tears should come first, probably. Before the speech.
She bowed her head, and more tears fell. “I…I…fell, Mommy. I was flying, just like you showed me, and—” She cut that option short. A flight accident was much too close to a failure.
Running a hoof over the peach fur of her hind leg, she wondered what it would feel like to break it. It would be easy enough, on the technical side. Tuck it in between the bedframe and the wall and just twist until it snapped. But there was no guarantee it would secure the outcome she wanted. A broken leg might just as well end in a botched first aid attempt from Gentle instead of a trip to Medical. Or if the plan worked — well, what was to stop the first worker they passed from releiving Gentle of the injured filly and putting her with the other failures?
The comfort of counting the passing minutes was forgotten as the filly paced her cell. Her mind was buzzing. Turning this way and that, like the cornered animal she knew she was. She wanted out.
That was the crux of the issue. How to reassure them all that she was not a failure. Gentle and Atmosphere’s preferred solution was to have her wait until she was fully grown before bringing her out to join the other workers.
Cozy had no intention of waiting that long.
“And that’s the story of Bigwing Bobbin!” Gentle shut the book with a flourish, closing away the saccharine illustrations of the bumbling pegasus for another day.
“Hurray!” cheered Cozy, trying hard to make sure the enthusiasm on her face was as real as it had seemed the first time her mother had read that goddessforsaken pile of trash to her. Bigwing Bobbin was inept; incapable of completing the most basic construction tasks — and it was ridiculous to expect even children to be charmed by his inadequacy. And if they were…well, Cozy was not surprised that the Factory was stuffed so full of failures. Literature like that was practically encouraging mediocrity.
As Gentle gleefully restored the book to her saddlebags, Cozy watched her mother’s mane falling away from her unprotected neck and wondered idly if she was strong enough yet to maintain a chokehold until Gentle lost consciousness. Then she pricked up her ears. Were those…wingbeats? Nopony ever came up here. Certainly not while Gentle was here. She chose her times too carefully.
But the pony flapping down the corridor towards them was flying with purpose. Fast and deadly as lightning. They knew exactly where they were headed — towards Cozy Glow’s room.
The options filed through Cozy’s mind like neatly typed bullet points. She could hide, but there was no way Gentle could explain away a room full of child-sized furniture. She could try to fight — but she wasn’t even confident of her chances against Gentle, let alone a different adult. She could scream for help and hope that this was finally her ticket out; but there seemed little point of that. The newcomer clearly knew where they were, and Cozy’s existence and imprisonment would not be a surprise.
The optimal choice seemed to be to just…wait. Stand beside Gentle and hope that between them they could brazen it out.
Gentle’s own ears finally twitched with the sound of oncoming wingbeats, and then they flattened against her head. She turned to Cozy with eyes white with panic, but barely managed to get out half a sentence. “Cozy Glow, you need to—”
—And then the door ricocheted back on its hinges.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the glow of the fluorescent lights, her glorious prismatic mane still billowing in the receding wind of her landing, was a figure Cozy had only seen in grainy photographs. The Executive Director. Rainbow Dash.
While Cozy’s mouth still hung open in a round ‘o’ of shock, Gentle moved more rapidly than Cozy had ever seen, dropping her wings low and wide to shield her from the other pony’s view.
“Gentle?” asked the Director, puzzlement plain on her face. “What’s going on?”
“Going on?” Gentle’s laugh was high and brittle. “I don’t know! Nothing’s going on.”
Rainbow Dash peered in at the room — the plain white walls, the table with the chess set. The neatly made bed. “Why did I get a letter through my door signed ‘Anonymous’ telling me to come look on the seventh floor? It was very obviously Contrail’s mouthwriting — the moron seems to think everypony spells ‘seven’ with two V’s, but there you go.”
She snorted in derision, and Gentle laughed again, somehow sounding even more manic than her previous attempt.
It was at that moment that Cozy Glow shoved her mother’s protective wing aside and stepped forward, staring the director right in those fuchsia eyes. Hiding was pointless; it would only prolong the inevitable. There was noway Rainbow Dash wouldn’t spot her.
Immediately, horror dawned on the Director’s face. “You’ve been keeping a child up here? Gentle, is this — is this one of the failures?” Her tone was aghast.
“No!” Gentle said quickly. “She’s not a failure—”
But the Director was not listening. She shook her head and took a few quick, furious steps. “This is a betrayal of all of our values. This is the most cowardly, disloyal thing I’ve ever…none of the failures can be kept alive, you know that. What possessed you to—?”
“—Ms. Dash!” Gentle insisted. “She isn’t a failure.”
With an impatient jerk of her head, the Director flipped her multi-hued mane out of her face. “Then just what is she?”
“She’s…” Gentle took a deep breath, “She’s my daughter.”
A shocked intake of breath from the Director. “What?”
“Cozy Glow is my daughter,” repeated Gentle, gaining a little confidence as she said it.
“That’s impossible,” said the Director flatly. “Everypony who lives in the factory is fitted with contraceptive devices. I know the employees have their…recreation time, I’m not blind. But breeding is impossible.”
“Not for me, apparently.” Gentle gave a small, shaky laugh. “It must have happened soon after I arrived, I think. All the confusion with the—”
“—I know,” Rainbow Dash said sharply. “Those two little brats nearly cost us everything. No need to rehash it.”
“I didn’t see Medical till I’d been here nearly a month,” said Gentle. “And by then…” she gestured mutely to Cozy, who narrowed her eyes slightly and drew herself up. She wanted the Director to see how strong she was.
“When did you find out?”
Gentle shrugged, having clearly decided that full disclosure was their best option. “Not until I was six months along. Too late to do anything about it at that point.”
“You should have informed your superiors,” the Director said flatly.
“I was fond of her by then,” Gentle answered, glancing sideways at Cozy Glow, her expression softening just slightly as she did so.
Dash snarled. “Familial ties are left behind when you enter the Upper Factory. You know that.”
Undeterred, Gentle glared back at her. “We all have our weaknesses, Director. Even you.”
Rainbow Dash’s hoof came down with a crack upon the floor. “Do not talk to me about that. Nopony is to talk to me about that.” Her wings flared and she advanced on Gentle, one fluid step after another, like a cat stalking a mouse, until her muzzle was pressed against Gentle’s own. “Do I make myself understood?”
Gentle’s ears tipped back, and her tail tucked between her legs. “Y-yes, Director.”
Cozy stepped forward. “I’m not a weakness, Director.”
Her mother gasped, and made as if to pull her back, but Cozy stepped sharply aside.
“Oh?” Rainbow Dash’s voice cooled, becoming silky and dangerous. “And what are you, then, exactly? A trespasser? A stowaway? A failure waiting to happen?”
“No,” Cozy answered with equal coolness. “I’m an asset to the Factory. I’ve been waiting all my life to be of use.” It wasn’t strictly true, but the Director was obviously obsessed with the Factory and its ideals.
Rainbow Dash scoffed and swung back to Gentle. “You were a good worker, you know. You had a promising career ahead of you.” She shoved a hoof through her mane. “Who’s the father?”
A shaky laugh from Gentle. “I don’t know.”
“You mean you won’t say.”
“I don’t know.” The same answer Gentle had always given Cozy. Privately, Cozy had suspected Atmosphere — why else would he be so invested in her upbringing? But it could have been almost anypony, and she could guess Gentle’s reasoning for staying silent on the matter. The father would be in danger too, if he were revealed.
The next question followed immediately. “Who else knows?”
“Who doesn’t? Everypony loves Cozy.” Gentle’s eyes were too wide, and she was beginning to shake. Cozy took a careful step away. If her mother was a mare condemned, she wasn’t about to be dragged along for the ride.
“You mean I’m the only one who wasn’t—?” The Director’s teeth ground almost audibly. “—Forget it. You know what, Gentle? You’re done. I can take insanity, I can take stupidity, I can put up with almost anything from my employees. But I will not,” and here she jabbed Gentle hard enough in the chest to knock her back onto her haunches, “Tolerate disloyalty.”
She pressed a button on her cuff, and the crackle of radio static filled the air. “Boss?”
“Three guards, up here on floor seven, room 6B.”
Gentle began to tremble in earnest. “D-Director?”
Rainbow Dash was already turning away. “You’re a failure. You failed the Factory, and you failed me. You have no loyalty, and you have failed.”
“What are you doing?” Gentle Butterwing took two shivery steps after her. “What will happen to me?”
“The same thing that happens to all failures.”
The Pegasus Device.
A frisson — half excitement, half something that might almost be fear — ran down Cozy Glow’s spine. She had been fighting all her life to be free of this cursed room and the ponies who kept her there, and in five minutes the Director had accomplished her life’s work. This was a powerful pony. A pony to be feared.
Suddenly, Cozy Glow knew exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Almost tripping in her eagerness, she hurried to interpose herself between the Director and the door. “Wait. You don’t want me to put me in with her.”
“Cozy—” Her mother gave a half-strangled gasp from behind her, but Cozy Glow ignored it. Ignored everything but the rainbow-maned mare at the heart of the Rainbow Factory.
The Director sniffed. “Why shouldn’t I do the same with you?”
Cozy Glow spread her wings and smiled. “Because I haven’t failed anything, Director. I can pass the Flight Test.”
Rainbow Dash scoffed. “You? You’re years too young.”
“Try me.”
Clear.
Cozy Glow’s hoof impacted on the final cloud with a soft whump, vanishing it into nothingness. She arced out of her contact path and curved around the wall, following it with precision. Hundreds of hours of flying in confined spaces meant that this test was…well, it was nothing. She could have done it with her eyes shut.
Fly.
It was a risk, but she did just that, closing both eyes and soaring through the four rings laid out for her, one after another. It was much less foolhardy than it looked, of course. She remembered the exact location of every ring with minute precision, but the shocked intake of breath from below told her that her showponyship had resonated with the audience.
Fall.
This bit was one she didn’t dare leave open to any element of chance, so she opened her eyes and triangulated her position before she folded her wings. She plummeted down, and with careful attention to the exact length of time she counted the allotted seconds. One. Two. Three. An extra half-second, just to be sure — and then she snapped open her wings, whipping out of her dive with less than a meter to spare before soaring back to where she had started.
She alighted gentle as a falling feather before the watching adults, and waited.
Complete.
She tossed her mane and wiped her forehead, the fur slicked with sweat. Atmosphere beamed at her, and even the Director cracked a small smile.
“Well done, kid,” she said, softly enough so that only Cozy could hear, and for once the smile on Cozy Glow’s face was a real one.
“Thanks, Director.”
“You can call me Rainbow Dash.” The Director grinned, and just for a second, Cozy Glow saw a flash of the Rainbow that the outer world knew. The Element of Loyalty, best friend to the Princess, the star of the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash the hero, not the bogeyman Gentle had built her up to be. “Gentle didn’t do a bad job, after all,” Rainbow said, in an aside to Atmosphere. “Who woulda guessed?”
Hide smiled noncommittally, and Cozy assumed that meant he hadn’t told Rainbow of his own involvement in her childhood. Probably best to keep it that way; the stallion was still a useful ally.
Rainbow rested a hoof on Cozy’s shoulder. “You see? This is what the youth of the Flock should be like. The flight test isn’t hard. I could have done it in my sleep when I was a foal. And Cozy’s what, four years too young for it? But she managed it literally with her eyes shut. How do so many of these wastes of space manage to flub it?”
“Impossible to say,” murmured Hide.
“I’ve got to go to a meeting over in Air Production, but come by my office later, Cozy? We can have a chat. And Hide, will you show her around in the meantime? Give her the lay of the land.” Now that the spectre of failure was removed, the Director seemed eager as a foal to show off her home to a new friend.
Cozy Glow watched her leave, a spring in her step, rainbow tail swinging jauntily behind her. Friends with the Director? Yeah, that was something she could get used to.
“The rec room’s just through that door.” Hide’s smile was jovial, but the strain in his voice gave lie to the expression. “But before we go in, Cozy — there’s something you need to see.”
Cozy turned to him, curiosity on her face.
His eyes glittered oddly with moisture as he pulled something out from beneath one wing. A jar, filled with a strange iridescent liquid that curled and swirled in the glass almost like a living thing.
“Cozy…” his voice caught in his throat. “This is…I thought you should have the chance to say goodbye before I added her to the shipment.”
Her eyes flicking back to the jar of spectra, Cozy’s eyebrows vanished for a moment beneath the heavy blue ringlets lying against her forehead. Then she shrugged. “Oh. Thanks for showing me.”
He gave her a stare blank with incomprehension, and then he put a hoof on her cheek. “Little one, don’t you understand? This is—” he choked, “—This was Gentle.”
Cozy Glow watched the blue and purple swirl though the orange and red, and then she smiled brightly up at him. “I know!” She was done pretending. She was out now, and she wasn’t going to playact anymore.
He sought in vain for words that would not come. “Little one — don’t you — don’t you care?”
Her smile widened. “I’ve got a meeting with the Director, Hide. I’ll see you later, okay?”
The filly turned and flitted away, the red rook on her flank catching the glare from the fluorescent bulbs as she went. Behind her, the red-furred stallion stood alone, the jar of rainbows still held in one outstretched hoof.
“For real,” Rainbow said again, pleasure radiating out of every pore. “Well done. Honestly, it’ll nice to have a kid around the place. A real kid. Not like those…” she waved a hoof. “Anyway. You did well. You remind me of somepony I knew, once. She was determined, like you are.”
“Thanks, Rainbow,” Cozy’s mouth lifted at one corner in a little smile.
“I want to offer you a reward. What do you want? Hide says you like to read.”
“Huh. And it can be anything?”
Dash chuckled. “Anything feasible. My power’s not limitless, kid.” A thought occurred to her and she leant forward in her chair. “And before you get any ideas, you are not leaving this factory. Nopony who knows gets to leave.”
“I know that,” Cozy snorted. “No, it’s simpler than that.”
“Then — what?”
“I want Contrail.”
The statement was simple, but Rainbow’s brows drew together in confusion. “What?”
Cozy steepled her hooves together, and smiled. “I want Contrail.”
Rainbow huffed. “You already said that. What do you mean?”
Cozy Glow blinked, long and slow. A deliberately unsettling gesture, like a reptile. “He claimed to be my friend. And then he betrayed me. I want…a little payback.”
“What sort of payback?” Rainbow crossed her hooves.
Cozy Glow’s smile widened, exposing all her small white teeth. “I want to gut him like the stinking little fish he is.”
That took the Director aback. “You want to…what?”
Pausing for a small mouthful of air, Cozy tried to get a read on Rainbow’s reaction. But the pale blue mare wore only an expression of polite bewilderment. Cozy took another breath. If anything would prove her worth — her real talent — to the director, it would be this. And if there was anypony she could be herself around, it was this mare. “I want to take a knife to his ribs and slit him from throat to belly,” she whispered. “I want him to suffer for what he tried to do to me. I want him to cry and scream and shit himself — and then I want to feed him to the Pegasus Device and extract every bit of spectra his worthless hide has to offer.”
Rainbow Dash waited, her face unreadable.
“Think about it,” said Cozy. “What is Contrail? He’s mad, he’s unstable. He’s worse than useless most of the time. Couldn’t fix a broken teapot, let alone complex meteorological equipment.” She paused for effect. “He’s a failure.”
“Contrail is a loyal Factory worker,” Dash said at last. “He’s served me for years.”
“He’s not fit to be called a pegasus,” Cozy insisted. “And worse, there’s scores of workers and ex-workers in this Factory who are just as crazy as he is. You just dump them down on the lowest floor near the Main Theatre Room, and let them drain valuable resources from us. Food, water. Spectra. Useable spectra, right there for the taking.” She pressed a hoof down on the table. “Can’t you see? We could revolutionise the Factory.”
At last, there was a glimmer of a smile in Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “Is this motivated by personal revenge? Contrail betrayed you, but he proved his loyalty to me by reporting you.”
“A bit, yes,” Cozy shrugged. She had come too far, revealed too much, to be troubled by a little candour now. “But I’m more concerned for the Factory. You process juvenile failures, yet you harbour adult failures by the dozen. I’m offering you a new management style. More efficiency. Less waste. A leaner budget with increased output.”
The smile spread across Rainbow’s muzzle. Her teeth gleamed white. “You are a very interesting filly, Cozy Glow.”
Cozy Glow shrugged modestly and looked away. “I like to think I have management potential. I’m a child of the Factory, after all.”
Her first attempt at friendship had been a catastrophe. But Contrail had been weak. Insane, with other loyalties all entangled around the thread connecting him to her. And there were other ponies, other friends. The Executive Director might not be a bad place to start.
She met Rainbow’s eyes again, red looking into bloodshot pink, and she returned the smile.
Friendship…well, it had a lot of possibilities. There was a whole world out there of potential friends. And Cozy Glow intended to meet them all.
