Hello… Inspector?
Dash was now sitting at her desk. She couldn't think of anything else she could do to prepare, but she couldn't shake the feeling she may have overlooked something. They would probably demand more production, but they always did, so whatever. She just hoped they wouldn't want to talk too much about her file, about things like that. She squirmed in her seat and felt her chest tighten. Which was irritating, she shouldn't feel like this and certainly shouldn't let it show. Oh yeah, how about another dose just in case… She pulled a medicine bottle from a drawer and tipped a big blue pill out into her hoof. She took a swig of water to wash it down, with effort, but it didn't wash away the bitter taste.
Just then there was a knock on the door and somepony called her name. Lobo leaned in from the doorway. "Hey boss, you got a visitor."
She took a deep breath and nodded quietly. She straightened the stack of papers—something Twilight would have appreciated—and pushed her chair out. She trotted past her underling with a measured pace, as if unaffected.
Below, workers still hurriedly scrubbed at the stubborn blood stains around the Machine. Dash suspected the dark blot could never be removed, and they certainly weren't going to finish in the next few minutes, but she would let them try.
Lobo followed at her side as she headed for the main gate. "I want you to know I got your back," he said sincerely. "If this guy is angling at you trying to take you out, I'll end him for you. Straight up."
"What?" She cut her eyes sideways at him and raised her eyebrow. "Thanks, but I don't think the Princess would like that."
"I can tag along with some of the crew, make sure he feels our eyes on him," Lobo suggested. "Make sure he knows it's our house. I'm serious."
She hid a sigh. He was loyal in a certain way—the way he learned in prison. The other ex-cons mostly followed his lead, so he was a necessary evil. "I'd rather he saw you all working hard."
"True," he agreed, though clearly disappointed. "That's a shame though, I was looking forward to looking at you all day."
Dash stopped in her tracks. "Try it and you're dead. I don't have time for you to be creepy today." She had made it as clear as possible that nothing was ever going to happen, but every now and then he would make another pass.
He put up a hoof in the gesture, as if to say, "My bad."
"I would have gotten rid of you already if you weren't so useful." She said it to put him in his place, but he may have taken it as a compliment. He was really throwing her off. What if he said something stupid in front of the inspector? "Look, I'm actually trying to make a good impression, so just keep your distance."
"Alright, I'm gone," he said, and turned to leave. "But if you need to knock some heads, I'm here."
As Dash arrived at the gate, she didn't have to ask who was who. A pair of guards stood stoically. They may as well have been permanently installed on either side of the vault that sealed the secret area from the rest of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory. Gauze Wrap had already begun to barrage the outsider with friendly platitudes, but stopped as the boss approached. Ugh, a unicorn. He was golden brown with a silver mane. His blue eyes were very intense behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses. He wore a light tan coat, with a small notebook and pen tucked in the front pocket. He looked very middle-manager, kind of nerdy, and very ground-dweller.
How could any ground-dweller understand Cloudsdale? Pegasi are like birds, fly in a flock, live as a flock. The flock only flies as fast and as high as its weakest member. Any bird that can't keep up with the flock, any fledgling that can't learn to fly, is abandoned, doomed to—well, probably doomed to a pampered life in Fluttershy's cottage. That's why Fluttershy left, she couldn't deal with the reality of it. It was good for her to be far away, in her own little world of niceness.
"All ground-dwellers belong at a distance," Dash thought, casting a sharp glance to this… inspector. Every pegasus knows that's why the clouds are so high. But every now and then, some pretentious unicorn would cheat nature with a cloudwalking spell, and strut around the sky city as if he owned it. Just because they have a little magic in their horns, they think they can control everything.
He turned and met her stare directly. She held the eye contact on purpose. She was not one to timidly pretend she wasn't looking. She was determined not to give any signs of weakness. She expected to find him permanently locked in a smug, know-it-all expression. She found instead a familiarity in his eye, as if he knew her. Dash double-checked her memory to make sure they hadn't met before. Definitely not. He was probably just another shrink here to analyze her.
"It's good to see you, Rainbow Dash," he said in a friendly greeting.
"Right…" she responded warily. "So you're inspector Ironshoe?"
"Expecting a pegasus?" guessed the inspector, probably from her tone.
Dash answered flatly, "Well, yeah."
"Does it bother you?" the unicorn pressed, but his voice was more curious than aggressive.
Dash gave him a doubtful look, wondering if he really wanted the answer.
"Please, speak freely," he said.
"Yes," she answered. "Yeah it does."
"Of course it does. The last thing you want is someone who doesn't understand you to come meddle in your affairs. Especially in matters as sensitive as this."
At least he knew what he was getting into, but he was still an inspector from Canterlot. Your whole job is to meddle in our affairs. Putting that aside, she asked, "What do you want to see?"
"Everything," he said with a sweeping gesture. "Not just the paperwork, show me every part of this facility that has to do with making rainbows. I'll also need you to demonstrate your process."
It made sense that he wanted to see how it was done, she was prepared for that, but it was always uncomfortable to have someone new around when they actually do it.
Almost as if it was an afterthought, he turned back to the entrance and gave it a quick flash of his horn. A glowing wheel of unrecognizable symbols appeared across the main gate. It was a seal of some kind.
That literally ruffled her feathers. She didn't usually understand Twilight when she was talking about magic, but it wasn't hard to figure out that no one was coming or going without this guy's say-so. "What did you do that for?"
"I don't want any interruptions," he explained. "Let's get started."
Dash led the way back toward her office. As they stepped onto the walkway overlooking the machine, the floor workers looked up at them. Dash looked sideways at the control deck, where engineers were pretending to mind gauges and switches but really wondering who the new face was and what was going to happen with the boss. Apparently a rumor had gone around that they might not be doing any dirty work that day.
She leaned over the railing and shouted, "What are you looking at?! This is an inspection, not an off day! Get it running and ready to make spectra!"
The workers below scattered, hurrying to their tasks with answers of "Yes sir!" Dash thought "yes ma'am" is something you'd say to Rarity, so she had her subordinates address her as "sir".
Lobo was one of the ponies watching them from below. "I'll get the little skittlebags ready to ride the rainbow," he quipped as he headed for the holding pens. Dash growled under her breath.
She told the chief engineer, "I want a ready report when I get out of my office." She nodded toward the inspector without looking at him, and added, "Just don't start without us."
When she resumed her course, Ironshoe asked in an offended tone, "Skittlebags? Is that how you usually talk about the lives of the foals you have here?"
"Don't mind him… It's hard to do this job without getting numb to some things." Dash was embarrassed, but also a bit frustrated that he would make a deal out of it. "I mean, Public Relations has a really sensitive way to say anything, but inside these walls that just doesn't matter. Why mess around with nice words when…"
"Actions speak louder," he said, finishing her thought. Clearly he had been briefed and knew exactly what the purpose of the Machine was. It couldn't be accurately described with any nice words, but she didn't like his tone, as if they were doing something wrong.
Dash put her hoof on the door handle, but held it shut, blocking him. She looked him in the eye and firmly corrected, "That's true, but these foals don't have lives. They wouldn't be here if they did."