Elsewhere, in an undisclosed location, sat C.O.V.N.E.T-- a top secret facility that specializes in extraterrestrials. This facility was run by Ed Singer-- a no-nonsense man determined to find alien life on other planets.
On this particular day, three ponies were on their way for an internship position that they had been waiting weeks for...
...and the day had finally arrived. “This is it, girls! Our first day at C.O.V.N.E.T!”
“I know, I know! I can't believe it either!”
“This is gonna be the biggest story of my entire career!”
Persephone was one out of two unicorns in the group, and her golden eyes radiated in excitement. Her mane was long and braided with colors of light blue, dark blue and black, along with star-shaped glitter in them, and had those same colors and features in her tail. Her cutie mark was a crescent moon and a small star behind it, demonstrating her love of the stars.
Caramel Wish was a pegasus named such because of her caramel-colored coat, along with her light purple eyes. Her cutie mark was a heart over a pencil, because she loved to write an most amazing fantasy series for her friends to enjoy, and she might be able to gain some inspiration for a space-inspired series by being here.
Lastly, there was Journal Heart, an investigative and loyal unicorn with a creamish-white coat, orange-amber eyes, a reddish mane and tail and a cutie mark of a newspaper and a pencil. And since her deceased father had been a photographer for a big newspaper company for many moons, she wanted to take up after him and be a reporter, and she was at C.O.V.N.E.T with her best friends to find the biggest story of her career.
The three mares approached the security gate that morning, and Caramel Wish cleared her throat so the guard could hear her. “Excuse me? Mr. Security Guard?”
“No tourists are allowed here,” the guard said, flipping through the newspaper he was reading. “Go away.”
“But, we’re not tourists,” Persephone clarified. “We’re the interns that Ed Singer brought onboard. A-And we start today.”
“See?” Journal said, lifting her pass. “We have our almost-all-access passes right here.”
The guard came out of the guardhouse and studied the three for a moment before scanning their passes, and the three mares were who they said they were. “All right then,” he sighed reluctantly, opening the gate. “Have a great day, ladies.”
“Thank you!” Caramel said as they stepped through the gate. “Come on, girls-- Mr. Singer said on the phone that General Luft is supposed to be here at 9:30, and that’s in 10 minutes! So we gotta hurry and get to his office before he and the general get there!”
“Well, we know that you’re a wiz with directions, Persephone,” said Journal, “so where’s your intuition telling us to go?”
Persephone closed her eyes and illuminated her horn for a few moments, shifting direction until she felt her horn illuminate brightest down the path they were meant to go. “That way!”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Caramel asked. “Let’s go!”
XXXXXXXX
“I'm glad you three got here before Mr. Singer got back,” Rentro the bear told the trio of ponies as they walked into Mr. Singer's office. “He's been kind of on an edge lately with the general coming and all.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rentro, sir,” said Journal Heart. “We never would have gotten here without Persephone's intuition.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it intuition,” Persephone smiled nervously. “I just... use my magic to tell me which way I need to go. Nothing really special.”
Suddenly, the doors to the office opened, and General Luft and Ed Singer emerged from the outside, causing the three ponies to stand off to the side. “General Luft, welcome,” Ed said to the general. “I’m on a schedule,” said the general. “What do you got?”
“Hard evidence. We’ve finally got them,” said Ed, just before going to the speaker on his desk to talk to Rentro in the next room over. “Rentro?”
“Yes, sir?” answered the bear at the receptionist desk. “The remote,” Ed said simply, hoping that Rentro would get what he wanted, but the bear misunderstood. “The goat?”
“The remote!” Ed emphasized what he said, clearly annoyed by the misunderstanding. “The remote! I thought you said ‘the goat’,” Rentro chuckled as he and Jino looked for the remote. “Over the past few months, we have received some unusual communications-- communications, sir, that are not of this Earth,” Ed explained. The general feigned surprise when he heard this. “Really?”
“Incoming. Ooh. Sorry about that, general. Here's your remote,” Rentro spoke politely as he gave the remote to Ed. “Thank you, Rentro,” Ed spoke, just as he pressed a button on the remote, activating several screens to appear and show different places around the globe, each having the same message imprinted in each image. “We believe that aliens are using a contact on Earth to plan their invasion. Now, this same message, ‘R U there’ has appeared all over the world. We've been lucky enough to capture these instances on film-- the pyramids at Giza… Stonehenge…”
The next photo had an ‘R U three’ instead of an ‘R U there’, confusing the intern ponies for a few moments. “Okay, now this one says, ‘R U three’,” Ed spoke, “but we believe that to be a simple spelling error.”
“This could be vandalism, a practical joke,” argued the general, and Rentro chuckled. “Now, you see that? Ha-ha-ha. That’s what i said, general,” he said. “These photos are, uh... um…”
Feeling the cold stare of his boss on his neck, Rentro moved out of the way while Ed moved the general over to a globe nearby, a spiral pattern forming in red light. “When I plotted these anomalies sequentially, a pattern emerged-- a spiral. Do you see the spiral? Sir, they are out there. They are coming here.”
“Do you have any idea what you have here, Singer?” asked the general seriously. “Sir, I have an inkling,” Ed said, but the general wouldn’t hear it, thinking it to be bubkes (which is another term for having absolutely nothing) before starting to walk out of the room, causing Ed to begin to follow him. “But, sir, we have to take action now.”
“I hired you to find me an alien,” the general told Ed in a threatening tone. “And you bring me doctored photos and a spiral? You are on thin ice, boy.”
With that, the general took his leave, and Rentro and the interns walked over to Ed again. “I gotta hand it to you, sir,” said Rentro, “I thought your presentation was just wonderful.”
But, Ed wasn’t listening-- he was gonna find that alien if it was the last thing he ever did.
That's when Persephone spoke up. “Uh... Mr. Singer? Hi, my name is Persephone, and this is Journal Heart and Caramel--”
“Ah, the interns, great,” Ed rudely interrupted. “One of you can go get my coffee-- milk and two sugars. The rest of you can clean up the office a bit.”
“Oh, uh... sure thing, sir,” Journal spoke with a hesitant nod as Ed turned to go back to his desk. “But, uh... when are we gonna get to the alien part of the C.O.V.N.E.T operation?”
Ed angrily slapped his hand down on the table, causing the three mares to jump in surprise. “Here's the thing, little horses... in my line of work, you have to work at the bottom and slowly rise to the top. For you, that includes small chores that I should be able to do myself, but choose to leave to you. Now... I suggest you get to work while I'm out of the office.”
Caramel gulped nervously. “Uh... y-yes, sir! Right away, sir!”
Ed and Rentro walked out of the office, leaving the three mares alone and quite shaken. “Wow, I didn't expect that to be the demeanor of our new employer,” Journal said with a concerned expression. “Do you... think we made a mistake choosing this as our internship?”
“No... maybe we just showed up on an off day,” said Persephone as she cleared her throat. “Like he said... we have to work our way up to the top in order to be respected around here, especially by Mr. Singer and the general, someday. So... who wants to do what?”
“I can go to get Mr. Singer's coffee,” Caramel offered. “Why don't you two start on cleaning the office before Mr. Singer and Rentro get back?”
“Sounds good to me,” Journal said with a deep breath. “We’re gonna make our mark here, girls... I just know it!”