Fallout Equestria: Dark Shores

by SwimmingEagle


3 Inch Cliffhanger

Pain…

If I could still feel pain then I was alive. My ear hurt, and I smelled burning hair. A little bit of burnt meat too. I was breathing heavily. Must have been running or something. I was standing on something soft. I look down.

That cyborg was under me. My hoof was on her chest and my machete had her pinned to the ground by her collar. Her eyes were wide and dancing about the room. She was sweating bullets. She was crying. I could hear some muffled voices behind me. I thought it was Sorbet. Couldn’t tell. My eyes were on the huge laser the mare had pulled out on me. Three of my knives were sticking from it and it was sparking like crazy. I looked back at the cyborg mare. I leaned in close. She shivered under me.

“I’m going to let you up now, will you play nice?” I whispered in her ear. She nodded as much as my machete will allow. I shifted my weight and removed my machete from her neck. She shakily stood up leaned up against the cool metal of the wall.

I breathed in deep and I polished off a reflective part of the metal wall. The tip of my right ear was burnt. Second degree burns. Meaning it was going to blister and ooze for the better part of a week. I gingerly tapped it with my hoof. It stung like I just put salt on the burn.

“That was a close call If I do say so myself,” I said aloud looking back at the two girls. Their mouths were agape.

“What?” I raised an eyebrow. It took a couple seconds for Sorbet to respond.

“How does a pony with no back legs move that damn fast?” She asked.

“Uhh… Strong abdominal muscles?”

“Rip, look where you were,” she said sounding exasperated. I turned to my starting position and immediately all the color drained from my face. The most of the wall that stood behind me was gone. It was a glowing puddle on the ground. Speaking of the ground, it was blistered and red. I pulled out my canteen and poured some water on the red ground. It fizzed and popped as it turned to steam.

“Well… Fuck,” I found myself saying. Not much I could say.

“Right then, let’s get what we needed to get done. Sorbet, the disk,” I requested. She looked at me and motioned to the mare on the wall and giving me a questioning look.

“I wouldn’t worry about her. She’s been thoroughly neutralized,” I said. I hoped that was the right terminology. Sorbet scowled slightly as she closed it over. I guess she was mulling it over. She finally nodded to herself. She extracted the silver disk from her PipBuck. Walking up to the computer, she looked it over. The computer was in its debug state. With a few short button presses, Sorbet brought it back to its main screen.

She slid the disk into an access port. The screen began to shift. I saw the cyborg mare move. She was looking very intently at both the computer and Sorbet, absorbing every detail she could. The computer screen chimed.

“Access Granted,” a synthetic lady said in a monotone. And then the screen went black. There was a flashing message.

“No… no, no, no… nononono,” Sorbet started ranting.

>No Data

“GODDESS Damn, Son of a- Mother FU-…. AAAAARRRRGH!!!” Sorbet screamed. She kicked the console and stomped away.

“WHY IS IT NEVER EASY!?” She screamed to no one in particular. She fell to the ground and started sobbing right there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Cyborg move.

“Uhh… lady?” The Cyborg‘s voice was a tomboyish and slightly deep.

“WHAT!?” Sorbet yelled back. The cyborg sheepishly pointed back at the screen.

“It’s doing something,” she replied. The screen was pixelated and moving constantly. The screen suddenly showed a mare fiddling with the same console sorbet was. She looked middle aged and very tired. It flickered and audio was started to play.

“… out of time,” a male voice urged off screen. The mare turned away from the screen for a moment.

“I’m almost done!” she said as she looked back at the screen, “Watt, if you’re seeing this, it means we had to bug out. Things are hot right now, and our employer said it’s Endgame. We moved the prototypes to the other facilities. We’re purging all the data and moving it to El-”

The audio shorted out for a moment and then kicked back on.

“…left the directions to the other facilities in your safe. Had to hide them, but even with your mind wiped you’ll find them. You practically memorized that movie and you’d notice anything different. Your memories will be there. Be safe… I lov-” The video feed cut out right then. The terminal ejected the silver disk.

Sorbet sniffed and stood up. She placed the disk back into her PipBuck. Turning around, she sat down.

“Right, let’s assess what we got,” she said to us, “our buried treasure is not where the X is. Our pirates have buggered off with it to parts unknown. Thankfully they’re showing honor amongst thieves and left us some bread crumbs to follow. ”

“You lost me at the pirate metaphor,” I chipped in.

“The clue is in those films you picked up from that safe. Think you can find it?” She asked me. I smirk back at her.

“You know who you’re talking too right?” I smirk back at her. I pull open my saddle bags

“Just gotta slip them into the old Su-” My heart sank. My baby, my Super 8 family home entertainment system, had been snapped in half. I could not control my tears.

“Uhh… Rip? You okay?”

“Allow me to mourn my loss in peace. For an innocent has been taken unjustly from the world,” I sniffled. What cruel and hurtful god would visit this tragedy upon the world? I sucked up my words and marched over to the cyborg mare. I looked her square in the eye.

“You have twenty seconds to explain both what you're doing here and why you attacked us... and two seconds just passed,” I commanded. Her eyes went wider for a moment.

“U-uh, I’m a trouble shooter! I go into ruins and clear out the place so someone else can set up shop in here! And i thought you were pirates, or bandits or... fuck i don’t know! Just don’t hurt me!” she stammered.

“We’ve got a kid with us!” I growled at her.

“That doesn’t mean shit. I’ve seen little foals kill mercenaries before they even had cutie marks! I happen to see a silenced pistol strapped to her side,” she retorted. I rolled her words around my head. It seemed logical.

“I have only one question left,” I said to her.

“Y-yes?” she squeaked out. I lifted my Super 8 out in front of her.

“Ma’am, are you mechanically inclined?” I asked her. She looks at my baby. Her red eyes shrink on it, I can almost hear them whirring as she examined it.

“I can fix it,” she said. I immediately felt the joy of a thousand suns showering me with gentle afternoon rays of light. “Seeing as you decided not to open my throat like a can, I’ll let you use my projector while I fix it. Sound good?”

I stood there and eyed her for a moment. Her eyes weren’t dancing all over the place like before. Her breathing was steady. It seemed genuine.

“Deal. Just remember this. If you try to kill us again, make your first shot count. You already know you won’t get a second one,” I warned her. She nodded sheepishly.

“Sounds good! The deal bit! Not the kill…y bit… Name’s Sugar Rush,” she extended a metallic hoof.

“Riptide, The one with the duster is Sorbet, The little one’s Éclair. Now, I hear tell that you have a projector we can use… mind leading us too it?”


“Hold the fuck on!” Sorbet marched over to us. “I have questions too.”

“What do you need to know?” Sugar rush asked, shrinking a little bit.

“First, you said that you clear out ruins for someone else to set up shop. Who’s your employer?” Sorbet asked her.

“The Mason’s Guild. They handle all the troubleshooter contracts. Someone set up a contract for the whole of Sunnydale and I landed it. Five hundred shillings and first dibs of any salvage,” Sugar Rush explained.

“What else do you know about the contract?” Sorbet asked.

“That I got jipped,” Sugar Rush grumbled, “Pest control and some hacking my ass!”

“Thats all you know?”

“Honest to Celestia,” Sugar Rush said, crossing her heart. “You’d get more info out of the guild than me. They have a privacy thing. They don’t tell us peons anything.”

Sorbet looked her. Her eyes traced Sugar Rush’s body up and down. Sorbet then closed her eyes.

“Alright i’m satisfied, but like Riptide said. You try ANYTHING we don’t like, your ass is grass.” She pointed her hoof in Sugar Rush’s face. I pushed her hoof out of the way and put myself between the two mares.

“Now you were saying something about a projector?” I smiled at Sugar Rush.

“It’s at my place back in diamond harbor. I’ll give you a ride,” she replied.

“Ride?” I tilted my head.

--- --- --- ---

The chromed metal gleamed in the sunlight, illuminating the mare that rode the beast in metallic light. It was long and menacing. A pair of heavy treads strode beside the chassis, with a lone wheel at the front. Bearing a faded war paint, a logo was embossed into the side of it. It depicted a large rabbit with antlers. Sugar Rush smiled from atop the vehicle.

“I see you like my Jack Rabbit halftrack. This is the C22 model, designed for cargo transport and reconnaissance. Didn’t make them for long, but they made enough of them to see a lot of use on the bigger islands.” Sugar Rush described the vehicle while caressing its shiny exterior.

“Sweet! What’s under the bonnet?” Sorbet asked, oddly interested. I had no idea what she referred to when she said bonnet.

“Just a little custom number. I haven’t put it through its paces but I figure it’s got about 40 Bison power,” Sugar Rush responded. I cleared my throat loudly.

“Ladies, we’re burning daylight,” I reminded them.

We piled into its cargo bed and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. This was no mean feat, as it was full of salvage and Sugar Rush’s gigantic laser. She assured me that it was thoroughly busted but I don’t trust anything that could melt me in two seconds. The Jack Rabbit roared into life. It kicked up dirt as we set down the path towards the harbor.

Due to the size, the actual contents of the cargo bed and my general seapony-ness, I was stuck looking at Sugar Rush’s backside. Her cutie mark was a half-eaten chocolate bar. It made me start making assumptions about her habits. To be fair though, her behavior and body didn’t help matters. For example, to put it politely as I can, she filled the front seat of the Jack Rabbit very well.

She turned her head back at us. Thankfully she focused her attention on the two girls. Her staring at me staring at her ass, albeit unintentionally, would be exceedingly awkward.

“So you ladies from the Mainland?” she asked over the engine.

“How do you figure?” Sorbet replied.

“Because there weren’t any Stables built in Oceania and you’re wearing the uniforms under your armor. Snazzy threads by the way. Stable-Tec was primarily focused in Equestria herself. Very little influence out here,” Sugar Rush explained.

“Fair enough, but I gotta ask. How do you know that much about Stable-Tec?”

“Simple, I’m from the Mainland too. Well, above it,” she responded frankly.

“Wait… You’re Enclave? You’re a Pegasus!?” Éclair shouted in surprise. I looked up at her from my position and saw where her robotic arms met her back. There were two jagged scars in the exact spot wings would have been. Curious.


“Yeah, formally,” Sugar rush said back with a shrug. Her robot claws mirrored the motion.


“How in Tartarus did you get through the Storm Wall?” Sorbet asked. She leaned into the conversation, shifting her weight on my tail. I winced but kept my mouth shut.

“I didn’t plan on it. I was just a little thing back then. Probably about her age,” Sugar Rush pointed at Éclair. “It sucked me through and I’ve been living here ever since. I could get into more details but I’m driving right now.” I decided to shift myself around away from Sugar Rush’s posterior and into a more decent position. While I succeeded, it a metal groove was jabbing me in the dorsal fin every bump. Sugar Rush was now glancing back at me.

“I would like to ignore the elephant in the room, but I gotta ask. What are you?” She asked. Here we go again…

“Ain’t you heard the song before? Can’t hardly get anywhere without it,” I said, whistling a short bit of Shoo Shoo Be Doo.

“Yeah, but you’re not real.”

“Now that’s just rude.”

“Are you a science experiment?”

“I’ll let you know when I discover whether or not your innermost chakra falls under the purviews of my agenda.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly,” I said immediately. There is no sense in letting her know about my heritage until I got a better feel for personality. Her face scrunched up in confusion, and she focused her attention on driving.

--- --- --- ---

After a little while, we were inside the confines of the city. The sun was thankfully still high in the sky. We were in the residential areas. I swear to Poseidon these people had it good. I saw not one, but three white picket fences and a freshly mowed lawn! Granted the lawns were a square meter and the paint on the fences was chipping, but that’s beside the point.

“And here we are!” Sugar Rush announced as she rounded the corner with the Jack Rabbit.

I was actually curious to see what her house looked like. A mare like her would obviously have tons of gadgets. It would have automatic doors, and an observatory and a satellite dish and a-

It was a large shack made of welded together sheet metal. Not sure why I expected a mad scientist lab. It was a missed moment of awesomeness and I blame Sugar Rush for not living up to the standard.

She pushed open the door and I heard the rustling of trash and used bottles. Then my nose was greeted by a strange mixture of old sweat, machine oil and cinnamon. We stepped inside. The metal walls were completely covered in pages from hundred year old pinup calendars. The ladies on the pages all had a sort of ‘come hither’ expression on their faces.

With a resounding CLANK, Sugar Rush put her damaged laser cannon on a small weapon rack. It performed its duty with diligence, despite the fact it looked like it would buckle at any moment. She wandered over to a vending machine next to a fridge.

“Please make yourself at home.” She extracted a Sparkle Cola from the vending machine, she popped the cap off and put it in the cap in a jar. Before the cap hit the bottom, she was already halfway done with the drink.

“Thank you.” I walked over to the fridge and pulled it open. I had to stare at the inside for a good minute before I realized what the contents were. It was full of cake. No fruits, no vegetables, no meat. Just five rows of cake. Each cake had a label on it, designating it as either breakfast, lunch or dinner. I recoiled in horror at the implications.

“Sweet Celestia, lady!” I found myself saying, “How on earth is your blood not maple syrup!?”

“Ha, that’s not even my worst stuff!” I heard her reply, “The old world ponies came up with some of the best stuff.” I saw one of her robot claws reach in the fridge past the cakes and pull out a wrapped up bar.

“Chocolate chip cookie fudge ice cream sandwich. Has more calories and sugar than you need in an entire week, and enough preservatives to mummify a large cat. Sold In a box of twelve and oh so good.”

She described the confection with sparkles in her eyes. I swear I could see her mouth start to water. She started lean towards the wrapper, but she suddenly lurched back and placed it quickly back in the fridge.

“That’s for a special occasion. These cakes, however unhealthy they may seem, actually have everything the equine body needs to survive. I made them myself. The icing makes it go down easier,” She puffed out her chest with pride.

“Still, that is a metric fuckton of sugar. How are you not diabetic?”

“You may not believe this, but I am not entirely flesh and blood. In fact, did you know, that I am at least half metal!?” she said in a completely overblown tone of voice.

“Whatever could you mean, my dear? You see every bit as natural as any other mare I’ve met,” I shot back in an equally overtly dramatic method. That got a grin out of her.

“It’s kinda complicated, but to sum up, I had my stomach added to. That addition takes excess glucose… sugar... and converts it for energy for my other metal bits. So yeah, if a normal pony had my diet, they’d be dead inside of a month. But for me, completely normal,” she elaborated.

“That seems… logical. But why not batteries or something like that?”

“Well, magical energy storage is not exactly ubiquitous outside of Dry Dock, my home town, so a more common method of powering one’s cybernetics is usually attached. It also helps I have a sweet tooth a mile wide and I’d eat this much anyways.” She closed one eye and stuck her tongue out a little. She stopped suddenly when Éclair poked her in the flank.

“If your stomach is supposed to suck out all the sugar to your metal bits, then why is your ass so big?” the little filly asked, “Were you born with it? Cause I know some mares have bigger bums than other girls,”Her face was completely devoid of any kind of maliciousness. I could feel the heat radiate from Sugar Rush’s blushing face.

“N-no sweetie… no it’s not supposed to be that big,” Sugar Rush managed to squeak out. Sorbet loomed over the top of Éclair with a deadly gleam in her eye and a scowl on her face. I winced in sympathy pain as the most epic of spankings unfolded. I could see Sugar Rush’s mouth form the word “Ow”. Eagerly wanting to distract myself from Sorbet’s particular form of parenting I quickly pulled out the movie reels from the laboratory.

“So! You said you had a projector I could use?” I asked loudly to drown out the painful memories of my own childhood punishments. She quickly turned to me in a wide nervous smile.

“Yes! Let me go grab it!” She responded in kind, swiftly rummaging through a pile of junk and placed a C-32 Color Screen. It was the kind projector and sound system you’d find in a prewar office and it was primarily used for meetings and slideshows. Not the best for watching movies, that would be the ViewMax 6000, but it sufficed for what we were using it for.

“Let’s see what we got here…” I placed the first reel in the projector and flipped the power switch. An impromptu silver screen was set up by Sugar Rush from a bed sheet on the wall. The images started to form on the screen. 3. 2. 1…

--- --- --- ---

Two stallions were sitting at a table in an outdoor diner of some kind. One wore a sun hat and deep large sunglasses, and was smoking a cigarette. The other was poorly dressed, with shaggy hair, a chubby body, and a mustache. The stallion in the hat just hung up a portable phone and leaned in to his companion.

“They want me to go to Los Pegas at once, and make contact with a Neighponese photographer in the Celestia Casino. He’ll have all the details. All I have to do is check myself into the suite, and he’ll seek me out. What do you think?” he puffed on the cigarette as he spoke to his compatriot.

“Sounds like real trouble. You’re gonna need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to get a very fast car with no top… and you’ll need the cocaine,” the chubby pony said almost bored. The first stallion nodded in agreement.

“As well as a tape recorder for special music… I’ve got pull cord shirts… Get the hell out of L.A. for at least forty eight hours… Blows my weekend,” he said standing up from the table.

“Why?” the first stallion tilted his head in confusion.

“Because naturally I’m gonna have to come with you. And we’re gonna have to arm ourselves… to the teeth.” The chubby pony adjusted his clothes. The first stallion nodded and stood up as well.

“Well, If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. This is the Equestrian dream in action,” the first pony said standing up and walking towards the door.

“What’s the story about?”

“The Dirt 500! Greatest rally of motorcycles and dune buggies in western Equestria! At least that’s what the press release says,” The first stallion said as a car pulled up to the front door billowing smoke.

“Well, as your attorney I advise you to get a motorcycle.”

The two froze as they got into the car when I stopped the film. I rubbed my eyes and laid down on my back. It was by no means a bad movie, but I was on my fourth time watching it in a single sitting. There is only so much hallucinogenic political commentary you could take.

I leaned my head to the right. I saw Sugar Rush writing something down on a pad of paper attached to a bathroom scale. Éclair was on the lone mattress, nestled up next to her mother, softly snoring. I levitated an orange juice box that I found in the back of the fridge to my mouth. I sucked down on the straw. All I got was a bubbly emptiness.

I saw a box lower towards me, identical to my first drink. I followed it up to see it was attached to a robotic talon. Sugar Rush stood next to me, carrying a two ice cold juice boxes in either robot arm. I wrapped my magic around one retrieved it from her.

She sat down next to me. I stood up and arched my back. Lowering the juice box to eye level, I jammed the disposable straw through the box.

“Bored to hell?” she inquired, shoving a straw in her juice box. She winced after taking a sip.

“Memorizing a movie should be an accident,” I sighed, rubbing my eyes again, “If you watch a movie to learn a specific thing then it’s like studying a textbook for one statistic.”

She nodded her head in agreement. I took a big swig from my juice box. The nice cool tangy feeling woke me up a little bit. I felt a small chill up my spine. I followed the chill with my eyes. I could feel a disturbance coming from the left of me. Sugar Rush was staring at my tail very intently.

“If you want, I can pose for a picture,” I said to her. For a fraction of a second her eyes went wider.

“No thanks, you already did,” she replied.

“Wait… you can take pictures with your eyes?”

“Yeah, don’t have a printer though. Couldn’t find a place for it.”

“Okay, hold up. What happened to you that necessitated eye cameras?”

“Nothing. Just thought it would be useful. And kinda cool,” she said frankly. I tilted my head to the side.

“So you swapped out your flesh and blood eyes for robot ones, because you thought it would be useful.”

“Yeah.”

“What about the rest of you?” I pointed to her other obviously mechanical body part.

“Depends on which part you point at. Some was because I lost it, others was because it was better than what I had. To tell you each one would be my life story,” she stated.

“Well it’s better than making my eyes bleed watching this again.” I gestured over to the frozen screen.

“Hrm…” she put her hoof to her chin, “On one condition.”

“That is?”

“You tell me how you got to be fishy.”

“You first.”

“Okay, settle in.” She took a swig of her orange juice, shuddered, and put the box aside.

“First off, you’re an Ocean pony, born and raised. Least that’s what I’m assuming,” she said while gesturing to my tail. I rolled my eyes and nodded.

“Seeing a that’s the case, you’ll need a little history lesson. I’ll be quick. Back in the day, near the end of the war, all the pegasi said ‘fuck this, we’re outta here.’ So they turned the cloud generators to max and closed the sky. And those pegasi made The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Their domain was the clouds over Equestria up to Oceania’s most noticeable meteorological feature: The Storm Wall,” she began.

“Fast forward some two hundred years and you’ll find little baby me at a science facility near the border of The Storm Wall. Why was I there you ask?” I didn’t ask, but i was curious anyways.

“School field trip. It was the first year of Junior Officer School. Essentially, it was kindergarten. Only about half the class had cutie marks. I don’t even remember what the trip was about. Something about the clouds being uncontrollable. Not important,” she continued.

“So we were having lunch on a terrace. I was near the fence having a lolly. A stray wind knocks my lolly on a slightly lower level. Being a little filly, I figured the best course of action was to reach for it. I fell off the terrace and into a test area,” she closed her eyes and nodded.

“Now this may come as a surprise to you, but I used to be a fat filly,” she said to me. I looked back at the fridge that was filled to the brim with cake, then back to her. I raised an eyebrow.

“Shocking, I know. Anyways, this also meant I was too heavy to fly. Now I was in the test chamber, right in the middle of a test. Some bay doors started to open. The Storm Wall was right there, roaring. Then I was sucked right out of there. Last thing I saw of them was a foal from my class reaching out for me. Little red guy, big ass wings. I was thrown around for a good five minute before I was sucked into a mini twister.” She breathed in deep, letting it go slowly. She clenched her jaw. I suddenly knew. This was going to be bad. I reached out to her. She turned me down with a weary look smile.

“It started to spin me. And when you spin around fast, everything inside gets pushed outside. Then my skin started to tear, I could hear cracking. I vomited what was left in my stomach. Then POP! It ripped out both of my wings. Just like that! It wasn’t done though. It then pulled off my left hind leg. Then it took my right. It started to work on my forelegs. That’s when my weight shifted around just enough to throw me out of the twister. I landed on a little lonely raincloud. That raincloud was thrown out of the storm wall like a bullet.”

“I was bloody, and my forelegs were hanging on by their tendons. And I was drifting off over an endless looking sea. I stayed like that for three days. I was living off the moisture in the cloud. When you suck out the water in clouds, it can’t hold as much. So I started sinking. Then I got low enough that I floated over a settlement called Dry Dock. You know anything about it?” she asked me. I shook my head no.

“I got picked up by a group called The Singularity. We... they believe that cybernetics are the next best thing since sliced bread and everybody should have them. They set up shop in a floating naval shipyard. They named it Dry Dock, because you could empty out the water from underneath ships to fix them. Anyways, thats when uh...” She seemed to be searching for the right words. I knew where it was going.

“I think I know this plotline. They took you in, nursed you back to health, and raised you. Then you became a member. Until recently?” I filled in. she shook her head.

“No, still a member.” She smiled and closed her eyes. “No drama or lover’s quarrel, just an adoptive mother that looks like she’s the love child of a tank and a transistor radio.”

“Sorry I asked. I have no doubt in my mind that telling me this was painful. Hell, I’m getting sympathy pain. I don’t even have wing analogues!” I apologized.

“Do you see any of my blood on the ground? I’m fine. Or, rather, I will be. Your turn! What kind of disgusting, and horror filled experience did you go through to become aquatic?” She leaned in eager as puppy with a ball.

“Well, Sugar Rush, when a mare and a stallion love each other very much… or got really drunk one night.” I began speaking in my best ‘dad’ voice. She snorted in response.

“You laugh, but basically that’s what happened. Mom and Dad decided to have kids, and then I showed up. They were kinda confused that I was a boy. They were shooting for a girl.”

“So… no radioactive waste? No experiment?”

“Nope! Just two land born unicorns having a little mutant baby.” I responded.

“Well… no offence, but that’s a bit of a letdown.”

“Well, you’ll like the story better when I mention that there are thousands of us.”

“Probably… Wait, What!?”

“Seriously, ponies in Oceania have been living next to water for two centuries now. You don’t think that’s plenty of time for a biological adaptation or two to occur?” I asked, smirking.

“Well… no, not really. At least not one as… drastic as yours,” she replied.

“Well, evolution is strange bitch.” I walked over to the projector. Sugar Rush’s head tilted to the side.

“More eye torture?”

“Hell no! I’m packing this up and going to bed.” I flipped the rewind button on the projector. The ponies on the screen started reversing the scene movement to movement as the tape wound back up into its spool. It was almost completely rewound when I hit the stop button. I felt my eyes widen.

“You’re leaving it in there?” Sugar Rush Asked.

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“Hang on,” I said, pressing the fast forward button again. I stopped it at the beginning of the last scene before I started rewinding it again. I pointed at the screen.

“There!”

“I don’t see anything.” She said moving closer to the screen. I couldn’t see anything either, but my brain was telling me otherwise. I started thinking.

“Does this thing have a slower rewind or a frame by frame mode?”

“Yeah, just hit rewind twice for slow mode,” she replied. Set it to the beginning of the scene before following her instructions. I started rewinding, staring at the screen. Then I saw it. Plain as day.

“THOSE CHEEKY FUCKERS!” I yelled. I saw motion in the corner of my eye. Sorbet just woke with a start and was looking at me with angry eyes.

“I found the directions!” I said to her excitedly. She perked right up and stumbled out of bed. I reset the tape. I was grinning like a madmare. Sorbet got herself untangled from the bed sheet and stood next to me.

“How did they hide it?” She asked, trying to sound awake. My smile grew when I hit play I walked over to the screen.

“In the film industry, feature length films are put onto multiple reels of film. The projectionist, the guy in the back room, has to switch out the reels at just the right time to provide a seamless viewing experience. To signal the projectionist to switch the reels they use, what they call in the business, cigarette burns.” I pointed to the upper right corner of the screen. After a few moments a black dot flashed where I was pointing. I could see that both Sorbet and Sugar Rush were nodding as soon as they saw it.

“Now these dots have to be put on multiple frames of the film reel in order to be seen. Each frame in the film reel goes by faster than the equine eye can process. Basically, if you put something in a single frame of a film reel; you’ll see it, but you won’t know that you saw it. Now, Sugar Rush, if you could rewind the reel to right before we saw the cigarette burn.” I waited until she finished rewinding the tape.

“Now look closely at the cigarette burns as we play it frame by frame.” I signaled Sugar Rush to continue the tape. The individual pictures of the movie moved top down as it continued. Once the black dot appeared I pointed at it.

“Alright, stop the film!” I ordered. Sugar Rush stopped the film. The frame was stuck on one of the main characters picking their nose. Inside of the black dot was a number. Seventeen. I rushed over to the bathroom and pulled the pencil and pad of paper from the scale. I wrote down the number.

“Go to the next frame,” I said, pen at the ready. The next frame came down. The black dot contained a new number. Twenty four. I smiled. Sorbet walked up to the screen, staring at the black dot.

“Coordinates. These are longitude and latitude! This will tell us exactly where we can find the other facilities!” Sorbet was prancing about like a filly at an amusement park. I continued to write down the numbers as they came up on the screen.

“Thank you, not wasted childhood!” I found myself saying as I swapped out the film reel.