Plotting
They emerged from the holding pens onto the factory floor. The "inspector" had returned to normal. Though his face was disturbed, he was holding up better than Dash. She hung her head, and wiped her face with her hoof. She didn't want to let the others see that she had been crying.
She shook her head. "Do you really need to?"
He lifted her chin with his hoof. "It will be alright. Just let this happen the way it is meant to happen. But please do the job for just a little longer, for me."
He turned and stepped toward the door of the Harmony chapel. "Wait for me," he said, and went in alone. He shut the door behind him.
She stood there feeling hollow. She had poured her heart out to him, and he actually accepted her. Now he was going to leave her alone again. Everything was raw now, everything she had become numb to was painfully fresh again. She couldn't believe everything she had done, and the thought of doing it again, even one more time… she felt like this was the hardest thing he could ask of her.
"Dash," the chief engineer informed, "Generators are running. We've got steam."
"Is everything ready for..." she trailed off. "For a demonstration?"
He nodded, but gestured across the way. "Everything but that backup capacitor."
Gauze Wrap flew in from the back of the area of the main power relays to report, "We just got it hooked up. Instruments?"
The chief looked down at the corresponding panel. When he toggled the switch, the tiny lightbulb next to it came on. "We're green."
"Hold at ready status," Dash answered automatically.
"We'll be ready when you are," he replied.
She stood silently. She stared at the pipes and the rivets, trying to seize on tangible details instead of getting lost in her head. It wasn't really working, her mind was racing, but it was going nowhere.
"Dash, there you are! I received your message." It was Doctor Atmosphere, who had quietly slipped in from a side hall. "So this 'inspector' is no ordinary unicorn, is he?"
Dash looked down. If Hyde already knew, then there was no harm in telling him. "No, I don't think he is."
"At first I didn't believe the measurement on my detector. But thanks to you, I went back and double-checked." Hyde leaned in and whispered, "His cellular harmony is off the charts. His fundamental magic-his rainbow magic-is absolutely pure."
"I thought that was impossible," Dash responded, but without surprise.
"It isn't possible, not for a pony. Even Celestia herself is nowhere near that." Hyde spoke with a mixture of wonder and alarm. "Dash, he's not here to check our papers. He's here to punish us, isn't he? My best guess is that he is angry with us for being impure, sinful. For hurting his precious little mongrels. He wants to destroy the factory, maybe even Equestria."
"Yeah, he is pissed. He's going to destroy the factory, I think. But, I don't think he's evil. Maybe we are." Dash was hoping he would, and that this dark dungeon would crumble. She just needed this to end. But how could it happen, if he were to die here? So many had died here before, in secret, and nothing changed.
"We can't be distracted by nonsense like good and evil right now," Hyde quickly scolded. "We need to think about survival. Whether he intends it or not, stopping us now would doom the world. But there is a way something good can come from this. If he were to be put in the machine, the spectra produced would be immense, perhaps even unlimited, though I will admit the device may not be capable of processing that much. But even if we only manage to properly harvest a fraction, it will sustain Equestria for decades, centuries perhaps."
"You said earlier if we could find someone completely pure to sacrifice, we wouldn't have to use the machine ever again." Her head was spinning. He had found the answer alright. All this time she had tried to save the world. The more she had tried, the less she had cared, slowly giving up on the idea that this would ever end.
"Well, that's possible," Hyde said dismissively. "But think of the services we provide, and not just the rainbows. In the long run we need it for the quality of our gene pool, but in the short term it allows us to give everyone a better life. You're always reminding me of the mares held back by unwanted pregnancies, who wouldn't be able to fulfill their dreams. Pegasus society needs this if Cloudsdale is to become truly great."
Dash finally admitted to herself that she disliked him. "You're really serious about this, aren't you? You'd really keep doing this, just for your utopia?"
"Of course," the red scientist affirmed. "If we save Equestria once and for all with this method, that won't make the factory unnecessary, it will show us how much we truly need it. But that's all a concern for later. If we don't have a plan before he comes out of there, we may be the ones being sacrificed."
"So you're saying, all we need to do is bump him off, and we're done here?" Lobo blurted out loudly. Dash hadn't even noticed him approaching, but he was uncomfortably close.
"Hey, we're having a private conversation here!" Dash objected.
Now everyone was looking at them. Before she could shut him up, Lobo announced, "Hey guys, all we have to do is beat up this one unicorn, throw him in the blender, and we can go home!"
Everyone snapped to attention. Whether they were criminals or conscripts, whether they were remorseful or not, this was a prison, and everyone wanted out. Dash knew right then that she had lost control of the situation.
"Yes, it is true," Doctor Atmosphere addressed them. "This Ironshoe isn't one of us. He's not even a real inspector. But he would make an amazing amount of spectra." He paused, glancing back at Dash before continuing, "So much that we might not be needed here anymore."
She knew that he didn't want to let any of them leave, that he didn't want the factory to close. But he considered Ironshoe an enemy, and he knew what his audience wanted to hear.
Gauze Wrap shook his head. "I should have known he's not the real inspector. He started saying twisted, vulgar things right in the holy chapel. He must be some kind of demon, or maybe a changeling. To think, he's in there right now!" He marched to the door indignantly, and started to reach toward it, but hesitated. Instead he put his ear to the door. "Did anyone go in there with him? I think I hear more voices."
Lobo pushed past his pious coworker impatiently and grabbed the door handle. "I'll just take a peek." He pulled it open just a crack and peered in cautiously.
The voice that had been muffled could now be clearly heard. Yeshua's voice loudly lamented, "Please Father, is there any other way?! I can take the pain, but I can't bear for us to be separated. But your will be done."
Lobo carefully shut the door and turned to the group. "There's nobody else. Who's he talking to?"
"Who knows, probably more blasphemy," Gauze Wrap dismissed with scorn.
Lobo growled, "He's not double-checking our books, that's for damn sure!"
One of the guards from the holding area—apparently one of Lobo's lackeys—addressed him with concern. "Didn't he seem protective around the fillies? When he saw the way you roughed 'em up, he was pissed. Like maybe he knows them, they're related or something, and now he's here to kill us!"
"That can't be. We only take losers, the ones no one cares about," Lobo said, shaking his head.
"Be warned, his magic is extremely dangerous!" Doctor Atmosphere proclaimed, stoking their fears. "But his body is flesh and blood, so you should be able to incapacitate him."
Lobo went to a supply bin, and came back brandishing a piece of replacement pipe. "Then I'm not gonna give him any time to react. You guys." He gestured to the guards and some of the more aggressive workers, who were already gravitating toward him. "I'll get the drop on him, and then you guys all rush in." He grinned. "See Dash, I told you I could handle him if you needed me to."
"Lobo, put it down. That won't be necessary," Dash said assertively, but now with everyone looking at her she explained with less confidence, "I think he's going to do it willingly."
The thug cocked his head, barely registering. "Huh? That's nuts."
"It's the only honorable thing to do, if he has that much magic in him." Gauze Wrap stated with conviction. "He owes it to us."
"I'm not gonna risk getting killed by his magic," Lobo said, as if to end the discussion. "If we stop to have a conversation, he'll probably just teleport away anyway. If he has a death wish, fine, he just won't fight back."
"I agree, we can't take any chances with the future of Equestria!" Hyde chimed in.
"HEY! I'M the boss, and we're gonna do it my way!" Dash insisted in the voice she used to bark orders.
"Oh, yes ma'am," he mocked. "You're the boss for how much longer? This could be our last day! I'm not gonna let anyone get in the way of that, and I think these fine gentlemen here agree."
Dash was furious. He had been putting together his own gang this whole time, trying to get to the top of the hierarchy. This wasn't his first prison after all. She wanted to give him a flying kick. But then she thought of Yeshua's words. He had told her to let things happen, not to start a fight with her whole crew.
Lobo took her silence as an invitation to push further. "Besides, you were making friends with him earlier, I saw it. Do you have some sort of crush on him? How do we know you're on our side?" They all looked at her suspiciously.
"I don't—he's not my friend," she blurted defensively. The words were bitter in her mouth. "Fine, do it your way. But when we're working the machine, we do it like professionals. That means you're gonna take orders from me, so you don't screw it up."
"You've got a deal. Yes sir," he said, but this time he was serious instead of sarcastic. Dead serious.