Sneaking around unnoticed on a cramped ship with five thousand other ponies around is even more difficult than it sounds. Rainbow and I made some plans to mitigate the risk, but we were both aware the kind of trouble we would be bringing on ourselves should we fail.
Well, actually we had no idea. Nopony we knew had ever been charged with stealing laundry.
After dinner, we visit our room to grab our laundry bags. It would look suspicious if we were in the laundry facility without a reason.
The laundry room was three decks below the hangar bay, which meant it was six below our room and seven below the flight deck. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to make a boatful of quadrupeds deal with stairs. It was a lot easier to hover up and down the ladderwells, but I figured I might as well get practice pretending to be an earth pony.
The deeper we go, the warmer it gets, which is a little counterintuitive. You’d think the water would cool the ship, but then again, there’s a lot less airflow. There’s also the nuclear reactor, which apparently puts off a lot of heat.
I grumble a little bit to myself as I begin to sweat. It sounds like Rainbow is grumbling too.
The laundry room is even hotter than the rest of the ship, a blast of moist heat from the dryers practically knocks me back a step as I walk through the door. Sweat starts to drip down my nose.
There’s a bin next to the door marked for dropoff. A few uniforms are already in the pile. Most are incredibly dirty and I can smell them from here. Further into the room, massive laundry machines are spinning and there’s a music beat in the air powerful enough that I can feel it in my chest.
Fortunately, the laundry ponies are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they’re somewhere in the back. Rainbow and I have a quick whispered conversation.
“We can grab some stuff right here.” I point at the nearby bin.
“No way! I am not wearing somepony else’s dirty uniform!”
I didn’t want to do that either, but prefer to have Rainbow be the one to say it. Any chance I get to make her feel like a prissy fashionista, I take it.
“Well, where are the clean uniforms?” I ask.
We both look around. Maybe there are some deeper into the laundry room, between the rows of machines. If we venture into the maze and get caught, we can make up some excuse for why we’re there. However, it would be better to never be seen and get in and out with the goods.
“I’ll stand guard here,” I say. “You go look.”
Okay, with LD guarding the entrance, I should be able to get in and out clean. I just have to go down the really long, creepy hallway lined with double-stacked washers and driers, complete with absurdly loud electronic music thumping in the background… Great.
Ironically, I’m totally surrounded by uniforms, but they’re all locked behind big glass doors. I could just stop a machine and get what I want, but it’s probably better not to mess with anything... My luck, I’d end up somehow breaking something. Guess I gotta go deeper if I want to find some clean uniforms that aren’t in the process of being de-stinkified.
The farther I go, the more intense the music gets. I can’t even hear the laundry equipment anymore, and it’s hard to tell if the deck is vibrating from all the machines, or if it’s the epic-level wubs blasting me in the face. There’s only one pony I know who plays music like this, but there’s no way she’s on this boat. Probably about to do some big, awesome concert in some big, awesome city right about now. Wish I had gotten her number before I decided to run off and join the Navy… Oh well, another scratch on the long list of things I regret not doing.
As I get farther into the room, it starts to get a lot darker. I notice most of the lights are out overhead, which is convenient for stealth, but really odd given how big the Navy is about keeping lights on in the ship. I keep expecting to see a big table full of folded uniforms, or at least some dump bins with freshly cleaned ones, but there’s none to be found… Of course they keep them all the way in the back, nothing’s ever as easy as I’d like. I press on and keep walking, trying my best not to attract attention as I go. It appears that there’s nopony else in the room, which is also a good sign.
Once I really start getting into the darker part of the room, I notice something glowing in the back. It looks like some sort of computer screen or something, probably what the music is coming from. I know it’s not my business, but I can’t resist taking a peek and confirming my suspicions about what’s playing. It sounds way too familiar.
Being sure to keep my eyes open for any signs of other ponies, I walk all the way to the back of the room, confirming that the music was coming from the computer which is connected to a really familiar looking speaker system. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was Vinyl’s bass cannon. That’s really weird... Maybe somepony is making copies and selling them? If so, I have got to get one for myself! At this point I don’t even have to look at the screen to know whose song this is. I know I’ve heard it before, and this setup is obviously made by a fan of Vinyl Scratch.
Now that my eyes have pretty much adjusted to the darkness of the room, I can see a couple of big, metal tables with folded uniforms. Perfect! I trot up to the table and start sorting through them to find the right sizes, trying not to mess them up as I go. Just as I find a size that looks like it’ll fit, bright light floods the room, blinding me for a few moments as my eyes struggle to adjust.
“What the hay? Who the buck is that? What are you doing back here?”
I take a big gulp and turn to face the pony behind me. After my eyes finally adjust to the brilliant light, I”m greeted by a wild, electric blue mane and a very familiar set of red eyes looking back at me.
“V-Vinyl?”
“No way! Rainbow Dash?! Now there’s a pony I never thought I’d see here! What the hay are you doing on this scrap heap?”
“I was gonna ask you the same thing! Why aren’t you out there somewhere making a crowd go wild?”
“Well, you see, some things happened. Nothing major, really. I had a small afterparty in my hotel suite, only about twenty or so ponies. As it turns out, a few of those ponies were holding things that they really shouldn’t have had. Those same ponies were less than subtle about what they were doing, so when the Royal Guard arrived because of a noise complaint… yeah. Since it was in my hotel room, it was technically in my possession. The prosecutor threw out terms like possession of illegal substances, public disturbance, and and mentioned something about jail or military service. I chose the latter. It’s better than being somepony’s pincushion in the pokey.”
“Wow, Vinyl… That sucks. A lot. Especially since you’re all the way down here, trapped in the laundry bay.”
“You know, you’d think this job would suck... But, it gives me plenty of time to work on my music in between loads, and it’s the only place I can actually play my jams full blast without anypony getting pissy about the sound. All in all, it’s not so bad. What are you doing here?”
I rub the back of my neck sheepishly. “Well, I actually came to borrow a couple of blue jumpsuits, if you think you can spare some.”
Vinyl looks around the room, then looks back at me with a deadpan stare. Okay, maybe that was a stupid question.
“Nope, I’m fresh out of uniforms.” She holds her neutral expression for a few seconds before cracking a big smile. “Yeah, I think I can spare a couple of uniforms, Dash. May I ask why a flygirl like you would want a jumpsuit like that?”
Well, this is awkward… Do I tell her what’s going on and risk her accidentally tipping someone off somehow, or do I make something up that she might believe? Better safe than sorry.
I return her smile with one of my own and reply, “Well, me and my bunkmate… she’s kinda into roleplay.” I can’t believe I just said that.
Of course, just as I thought it would, this sparks Vinyl’s interest. “Wait… do you mean what I think you mean? You lucky little filly!” She eyes me up and down, lingering on my flank for a moment before going back up to my eyes. “I may have to talk you into letting me in on the party sometime, Dash.”
Well, now I don’t feel so bad about not getting her number. “I think we might be able to work something out, Scratch. So… about those jumpsuits.”
“What size do you need?”
“Um, one that fits? I really don’t know anything about jumpsuit sizes.”
She grins. “Let me show you around, sailor.”