• Published 18th Sep 2012
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Flash Fog - Kwakerjak



Fluttershy must deal with an unusually thick fog as it approaches Ponyville.

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September 1 – 6:05 AM

Considering how important it was to Cloudsdale’s economic structure, not to mention the impact that the decisions made within had on everyday Equestrians, the Central Weather Office Building didn’t have a very prestigious-sounding name. Then again, it didn’t exactly look very impressive, either. Instead of grand columns and impressive flourishes, this was little more than a hollowed-out cube filled with bureaucrats and office furniture. That said, as he stood outside staring at the front door to his workplace, Pencil Pusher couldn’t help but feel a little bit intimidated. After all, there was a lot that needed to get done before his appointment at Caligo, and he wasn’t just trying to get to his next paycheck without a reprimand from Greg—he was trying to impress a mare.

For a few moments, he just stood there, taking several deep breaths. “All right, you stupid rectangle,” he said, twisting his neck to address the thin red line on his flank, “it’s time to work your magic.”

September 1 – 6:07 AM

“Hey, Pencil Pusher. Did you finally get off of ‘volunteer’ duty?”

Pencil Pusher rolled his eyes as he walked up to his coworker’s desk. “Laugh all you want, Cloud, but you’ve never met Fluttershy.”

Cloud Storage had a pale red coat and a black mane that was flecked with streaks of grey, and he had been the DOW’s head archivist since before Pencil Pusher had started working there. Pencil set the first of his bulging manila envelopes on the stallion’s desk. “Mind filing that away for me?”

“I take it from your tone of voice that it won’t be going under ‘Great Triumphs in Weather Management,’” the old pegasus said wryly as he opened the envelope and leafed through its contents. In theory, the Department of Weather filed away reports on all of its activities for future review, in case similar situations came up again in the future. In practice, the only ponies who ever read the darned things were journalists looking for easy accolades by uncovering government incompetence and the occasional office worker who needed to look like he was doing something important for an hour or two. “Do you need anything else filed away into oblivion?” Cloud Storage asked.

“Not in the archives,” Pencil Pusher replied.

The old stallion chuckled. “Oh, right. I suppose you’re going to have to drop off all of the specialist’s paperwork.”

“Not just that—I sort of promised that I’d do what I could to make sure it all got processed quickly. You know, to make sure that there aren’t any complications later on.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Cloud replied. “This mess is stressing out everypony here, so you’ll have your work cut out for you.”

“I was afraid of that,” Pencil Pusher said with a sigh. “You seem to be handling it well.”

“That’s just because I’m too old and jaded to care,” Cloud replied with another chuckle.

This time, Pencil Pusher joined him. “Heh... take care, Cloud.”

“Same to you!”

September 1 – 6:22 AM

“Look, Pencil, I get that the mare’s going to need some help, okay? But that’s true of most of the cases I deal with. This is Worker’s Comp, after all. I’m sure she can just sit tight for a bit until the paperwork goes through.” Sudsy Waters was a plump blue mare with a curly white mane who worked in the Department’s workers’ compensation division. She was normally quite cheerful for somepony who had to deal with miserable ponies all day, but it seemed that the stress being caused by the fog was getting to her, too.

In fact, on most days, Pencil Pusher would have accepted this explanation and moved on to his next task, but this was not most days. On this day, he’d promised Fluttershy that Flitter would get special treatment, and Fluttershy was single and cute. “Come on, Suds, can’t you make an exception? I mean, this fog is big news. If she doesn’t get the medical services she deserves, it’s going to leak into the press. They’ll have a field day.”

“They’ll also have a field day if it gets out that I let her jump in line just because she’s a high-profile case.”

“Can’t you just squeeze her in over your lunch break?”

“Are you kidding? That’s when The Young and the Flightless is on,” she said, gesturing to a nearby radio. “Exotica is due to come out of her coma any day now. I’m not missing that.”

Pencil Pusher bit his lip as he frantically tried to figure out how to change his coworker’s mind. However, a glance at the clock on the wall made this answer abundantly clear: if he was going to get everything done in time, he’d have to jettison his dignity and crank up the melodrama. “Oh, well, that’s alright, I suppose, it’s just that...” he trailed off, deliberately breaking eye contact with the mare to give the impression that he was becoming emotional (and to give himself a chance to glance over Flitter’s profile).

“What?” Sudsy asked with a note of concern in her voice as she unconsciously leaned forward.

“Well, the more time she spends waiting to get all the various procedures done, the longer she’ll have to go without working. And... well, she has a sister... and from what I’ve heard, the two of them are very, very close. But...” Pencil Pusher trailed off again, praying that Sudsy would fill in the blank with something tear-jerky.

“She needs to take care of her sister?”

“It doesn’t really matter what her sister needs her to do at the moment,” Pencil replied. “Not with her hoof in this condition.” He opened opened up the folder and pulled out the rather gruesome photograph of Flitter’s worst injury.

Sudsy clapped a hoof over her mouth. “Oh, Celestia, no! Does she... do they live on their own?”

“I’m fairly sure of that,” Pencil Pusher replied. “Her sister is the only family member listed here.” Granted, if Flitter’s parents had retired to Las Pegasus, they were unlikely to be listed as her emergency contacts, but actually pointing this out would probably break the mood.

“All alone with only her little sister,” Sudsy muttered softly to herself.

Pencil Pusher nodded. Cloudchaser may have been a fully-grown mare, but he was almost certain that he’d heard that she was the younger of the two.

Sudsy, meanwhile, looked over the form for a few seconds before she paused. “It says here that she may need skin grafts.”

“Well, she was pushed into a bonfire.”

Sudsy gasped audibly as her face contorted in anger. “Was her attacker arrested?” she asked with in an indignant tone that suggested that she would have readily joined whatever mob had rushed to Flitter’s aid.

This question took Pencil Pusher off guard a bit, but he managed to recover: “Huh? Uh, no. It was the fog that pushed her. She was injured in the line of duty, after all, doing her best to protect her friends and family.”

When the mare looked up and made eye contact again, she was blinking away tears. “Was she... was she beautiful?”

“She was,” Pencil Pusher confirmed with a somber nod, not bothering to mention that that hadn’t really changed. At least, he was pretty sure it hadn’t.

Sudsy’s words were beginning to be interrupted by audible sniffles. “Does... does her sister know?”

Pencil Pusher sighed. “I’m not sure if she’s been told yet.”

“But she can still fly, can’t she?” Sudsy asked, her voice becoming more earnest.

“Not while she’s in a hospital bed. As for the future, well, who can say?” Pencil Pusher stared at the floor as he worked up a few tears for added effect. “I just hope that she can hold out until all that paperwork gets filed....”

When he looked up, tears were streaming down Sudsy Waters’ face. She pulled the forms in front of her, and without a second thought slammed a large rubber stamp on to them. “She’ll have the money by this afternoon,” the mare said as she tried in vain to keep her lower lip from quivering. “I promise you.”

Pencil Pusher reached forward and gently patted the mare on her hoof. “Celestia bless you, Sudsy.”

September 1 – 6:34 AM

Pencil Pusher blinked as the first rays of Celestia’s sunrise shone through the window into Cardsharp’s cubicle. Normally, he enjoyed the company of the white pegasus stallion, though he’d long ago learned the folly of playing poker with a pony who had a royal flush for a cutie mark. Now, however, Cardsharp was as overworked and stressed-out as anypony else in the building, and unlike his poker games, his job allowed for very little tolerance of questionable tactics.

“Look, Pencil, I appreciate your efforts to make things easy on us in Pony Resources. I really do. But you can’t just make up a fantastic creature and create an alleged nonprofit around it and expect it to fly with the higher-ups.”

“I didn’t make it up. SPHERE was already in existence, and they agreed to help out. They’ve even got all the paperwork filed with the ERS to qualify as a nonprofit.”

“Uh-huh,” Cardsharp replied, unconvinced. “And how exactly does helping out the DOW have anything to do with these hoomin things?”

“It was part of a membership drive. They raise awareness of their cause while helping out the community.”

“Couldn’t they just pick up litter in a local park or something? Why would they volunteer for something complicated like this?”

“Um, well, I think some of them might think that humans had something to do with the fog in the first place.”

“And you didn’t bother telling them otherwise?”

Pencil Pusher scratched his head nervously. “Actually, I was asleep when most of this happened. Besides, some of them don’t seem like the type who’d let evidence get in the way of a good theory.”

“Oh, so they’re crackpots.”

“Not all of them! Just the ones who think humans are real.”

Cardsharp looked really confused at this. “‘The Society for the Prevention of Human Exploitation in the Realm of Equestria,’” he read aloud from the form. “Doesn’t that mean all of them would have to think that they’re real?”

“Er, not really. Some of them are opposed to the abstract concept of human exploitation, even if humans don’t actually exist.”

Cardsharp didn’t look impressed by this. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Look, Pencil, I’d love to help you out, but my boss has really been clamping down on stunts like this. They want everything by the book now. Maybe if this was a legitimate group—”

“But it is legitimate,” Pencil Pusher interrupted. “I already told you that the ERS classified them as a nonprofit, didn’t I?”

“It still looks fishy enough to mean lots of headaches for me.”

“And filing information on eighty or so new volunteers won’t? At least this way, you only need to deal with one form.”

Cardsharp answered with a sort of noncommittal grunt that Pencil Pusher interpreted as a sign of progress. He moved in for the kill.

“Look, do this for me, and I can give a little boost to that request for vending machine upgrades for your department’s break room once everything settles down back in Requisitions.”

Cardsharp’s eyebrows slid up his forehead. “You mean we’ll get the kind that dispense hot drinks? No more bickering about whose responsibility it is to refill the coffee pot?”

“Maybe...” Pencil Pusher said with an exasperatingly coy smile on his face.

“Okay, you win,” Cardsharp said, rolling his eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.”

September 1 – 6:48 AM

Pencil Pusher was extremely familiar with the requisitions division; after all, this was where he spent his time while performing his actual job: going through stacks of forms, approving or denying the use of resources to ponies he’d never actually meet. He’d saved the task of getting approval for the extra clouds to feed to the fog bank last, as he’d assumed that it would pose the least difficulty. Normally, this was the kind of task that Greg would blindly shove onto Pencil’s desk so that he could go back to doing whatever it was he did when he was alone in his office.

Unfortunately, this was anything but a normal day.

“No.”

Pencil Pusher blinked rapidly several times as he tried to process his surprise, which was partly due to the abrupt denial, but mostly due to the fact that couldn’t remember the last time Greg had made a decision like this himself. “No?”

“No,” Greg repeated.

Since no further information appeared to be forthcoming, Pencil Pusher then asked the obvious question: “Uh, why not?”

“Enough problems already without diverting resources. Clouds in the area should be enough,” Greg said curtly. The paunchy stallion scowled as he stared out of his office window. Clearly, Greg was feeling unusually irritable today, and something told Pencil Pusher that the rogue fog bank north of Ponyville was only partly to blame.

“But they’re trying to oversaturate the fog bank until it condenses to rain. Where are they supposed to get the clouds to do that?”

“Fog,” Greg said simply.

“Uh, okay... and how do they get clouds from the fog?”

“Carve them out.”

Pencil Pusher massaged one of his temples as he tried to formulate his response as tactfully as possible. “You think they should take clouds from the fog so they can put them back into the fog?”

“Of course.”

“Sir, if we could do that, wouldn’t it be easier to just spread out the clouds in the sky?”

“Even better idea. Tell the specialist to do that instead.”

“Greg, this is construction-grade cloud we’re talking about here. It doesn’t dismantle that easily.”

“She’s a specialist. If she can’t make fog break apart, it’s not my problem.”

“Actually, DOW guidelines say it is your problem, because right now, we’re all supposed to assume that she knows what’s best.”

“An airheaded model lucky enough to have powerful friends. That’s it.”

Pencil Pusher was not by nature an outspoken pony. Usually, he meekly put up with Greg’s stupidity, deeming it more trouble than it was worth to correct him. This, on the other hoof, was something else entirely. He slammed a hoof on his superior’s desk, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, “Look, Greg, I don’t know what your problem is, and what’s more, I don’t really care. Right now, I’m working for Fluttershy, and my job is to make sure she gets what she wants. And the fact remains that the fog specialist wants more clouds, and she has the authority to get more clouds, so whether or not she actually needs them is beside the point. If you don’t want to approve it, I can just head upstairs and talk to your boss about it.”

Greg seemed to freeze in place; his mouth was hanging open, as though he’d been about to begin dressing down his insubordinate employee. For several seconds, he stared at Pencil Pusher, as if he couldn’t decide whether the bureaucrat had just made a legitimate threat.

For his part, Pencil Pusher didn’t wait for his boss to regain enough of his faculties to formulate a response. Instead, he stood up, walked to the office’s door, and pushed it partway open. “Your boss’s name is Fussbudget, right?” he asked, turning his head back towards his boss. When no answer came, he opened the door completely and stepped out of the room.

“Wait!”

Pencil Pusher had never won an argument with his boss before. It was a very satisfying experience.

September 1 – 7:03 AM

There was a broad smile on Pencil Pusher’s face as he descended the stairs into the Central Weather Office Building’s lobby. It was hard not to, given that he’d just experienced the most unequivocally successful fifty-eight minutes of his entire life. Everything had gone more or less as he’d hoped it would, and he’d dealt with the few setbacks he’d encountered with relative ease. He’d even gotten to hear Greg whimper like a scared little colt on his first Nightmare Night, which was totally worth the extended misery his boss would doubtless subject him to once this fog business had cleared up. Best of all, there was still plenty of time to get to his next destination before his meeting with Jasmine Breeze.

He exited the building with a notable spring in his step, trotting merrily out into the sidewalk. After glancing around to make sure that nopony was watching, he looked at the thin rectangle on his flank once again. “Okay, cutie mark,” he whispered. “You win this time.” With that, he took off towards the headquarters of Caligo Manufacturing.

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