The Other

	The video store absolutely oozed with sleaze. It was dark, dusty, unclean. On the “New Releases” shelf, there stood movies that had been created years ago. Horribly disorganized, movies stood in the wrong genre section with an air of patience, as if they were faithful that some attendant would come along and sort everything out, even though the thick layer of grime on them stated otherwise. Some movies laid on the floor, having fallen from their ranks, and they had cracked cases and dirty footprints on them from apathetic costumers. The cashier stood as if he was ready to pounce on your purchases, and calculate any price, only he stared at a single point, somewhere on the ground, with the intensity of someone who was really fucking high.
	There was only reason why this video store hadn’t been knocked down yet- it catered to a special kind of costumer. No one cared about the new releases, no one cared about the staff’s incompetence in organization, no one cared about the dejected, cracked pieces of plastic on the floor, and no one cared about the cashier who looked like a caricature of Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Costumers only paid attention to the little sign next to the door at the rear of the store:
	ADULT SECTION AND “OTHER” IN BACK
	Why people called it “Other” instead of “people being turned into ponies” was a mystery to Edgar, although there was a certain logic to it. In the 1950’s, Caucasians were scared of calling people with darker skin “Humans”, so they called them “Colored”, or “Niggers”. Maybe people were just scared of other people, ones that had used his invention. Edgar rather liked that idea.
	He was dressed in a trench coat, ill-fitting for a man of his girth, a scarf, a hat, glasses, and more or less anything that could keep people from recognizing him. Not that it was likely that anyone was here at this hour.
	Edgar opened the door, only to notice that someone else was standing at the “Other” section already, a thin but fit young man in a suit, with sideburns and brown hair that jutted out above his forehead like a cliff, and was otherwise rather short. He had big eyes that looked even bigger now that the look of panic had crossed his face. He mumbled something and walked out.
	“We all have our needs, son,” was Edgar’s reply.
	Edgar was working for assorted film studios now, trying to make the same technology work for them, but ponies really took the cake. Hasbro’s business had boomed, and they earned millions and millions of dollars when the Engine first came out. They still did, but it was quietly, and the Hasbro logo had been removed from the Engine since, and MLP had been canceled, for political reasons.
	He looked over the selection of movies. Most of them were about once-human ponies being pets, maintaining diaries, and had boring plotlines. The whole appeal of “Other” movies was a desire to be sweet and innocent and young again, before you learned about sex, and drugs, and using other people for your own needs. Before each day became just a variation of the last. Before you forgot about your dreams, and your sole purpose in life became to be a respectable citizen who made lots and lots of money. Indeed, that was the whole appeal of My Little Pony. Everyone wants to love, and be loved.
	And then there was the merging of the Adult and “Other” sections. Pornos which, instead of having humans, had ponies. People just loved to corrupt something as innocent and pure as ponies.
	That wasn’t why Edgar rented a few of the “Other” movies picked out at random, though. Edgar rented those movies because he loved to see the chaos he wreaked upon the world.
*	*	*
	Johnson took his eye away from the telescope. The door to the shoddy apartment opened, and in came a thin but fit young man in a suit, with sideburns and brown hair that jutted out above his forehead like a cliff, that was otherwise short. He had big eyes that looked even bigger now that he was awaiting news. Johnson smiled and thought, Damn, I gotta start writing some of that shit down.
	Toby, the guy who had just walked in, asked “Any news?”
	“Nope. The fatass is still off the radar.”
	“Shit. Any clue why boss sent us to monitor this fatass?”
	“Nope. He better have a really fuckin’ good reason to track him, ‘cause this week is just wasted time.”
	At that moment, the phone in Toby’s pocket rang. He picked it up.
	“I do. Do you know what the ‘fatass’ does every day?”
	“Of course, boss. We spent seven goddamn days watching him.”
	“Do you know who the ‘fatass’ is?”
	Toby glanced at Johnson with a panicked look, then decided against it and just answered, “Nope.”
	“He’s Edgar McSillian. That’s right. The fucker who came up with the Ponification Engine. Got that?”
	“Who is it?” Johnson whispered to Toby.
	“Edgar McSillian,” Toby answered with a cupped hand around the phone.
	“On the fucking phone?!”
	“No, you dumbass, Edgar McSillian is the fatass, boss is on the phone!”
	“As soon as you retards are done with the conversation, I’ll tell you why you spent those days,” the voice emanated from the phone.
	“Yeah, we’re good,” Toby answered.
	“Alright, so I need you two to find him at his most vulnerable time of the day.”
	“Yeah, and?”
	“And try to figure out as much as possible about the Engine. Get plans if you can, or just the general idea of how it works if you can’t. Use it if possible.”
	“What’s your plan, boss?”
	“What’s my plan? My plan is to make as much money this as possible. Ponyfags are fucking stupid, they’ll spend a lot of money on this.”
	The phone became silent as the boss hung up.
	“Well? What’d he say?”
	“He said to find this Edgar fucker, find out how the Ponification Engine works, find the plans, and to use it,” Toby answered, and then quickly added, “On you.”
	Johnson cocked his head to the side. “Did he mention why it had to be used on me? Because I mean, it’s obvious I’m the superior in this partnership. I’m more experienced. I can do shit without-“
	Toby interrupted Johnson’s spiel. “Oh, and that’s the first fucking question you think of? What about ‘Toby, when are we going to find him?’, or ‘Toby, why does he want the Engine?’”
	Johnson waved it away. “See? This shit is exactly why I’m goddamn superior in this goddamn partnership, I fucking know the answers to those questions already.”
	The argument lasted long, until they fell asleep as the sun was coming up.
*	*	*
	“What time is it?”
	“10:30”
	Johnson shifted his weight uneasily. “He’s gonna go off the radar soon. Just puts on some clothes, goes into one of the blind spots and disappears.”
	“You’ve told me that thirteen fucking times,” Toby said.
	“Alright, whatever he does, shut the fuck up, and let me do the talking.”
	“You’ve told me that seventeen fucking times. I know. I’ve kept count.”
	An awkward silence spanned the next few minutes, until Toby spoke up.
	“What apartment is it again?”
	“Apartment 638. I’ve told you that fifteen times, and I know because I kept count.”
	Edgar made sure the stack of movies was securely hidden under his coat, and crept out of the apartment, and down the hallway. Meanwhile, at the other end of it near the stairwell, Toby and Johnson whispered viciously.
	It didn’t take long for Toby to recognize Edgar’s identity-hiding getup.
	“Shit man, he went to the video store yesterday! He goes off the radar and to the store!”
	“You went to the video store yesterday?”
	“Yeah, on the burger run. Sometimes a guy needs his Jurassic Park, you know.”
	“Not when I send him on a burger run. When I want my burgers, I want them fast. And what were you doing with that burger salad? Who the fuck orders a burger salad?”
	In reality, Toby had spent far too long at the video store, and had ordered everything by hastily pointing at the closest edible object. But he couldn’t tell that to the stuck-up fool next to him, no.
	“They’re healthy!”
	“No they’re not! They’re just burgers with extra lettuce, soaked in vinegar!”
	Edgar had progressed to the elevators. There was a theoretical danger that he might go to the stairwell and encounter the duo, but No, thought Johnson, he’s the type of guy that uses elevators. Edgar went past the elevators, though and to the stairwell, and he was close enough to hear what the boys were saying.
	“Shit Toby, he’s coming over here! Act natural!”
	Edgar slowly plodded towards the stairwell. He rather liked walking. It made it easier to think, and muse on the rest of the plebeians around him called “humanity”. Or, now that times had changed, “humanity and ponykind”. There were two men at the stairwell. One was the young man he had seen at the video store the night before, and the other was a black man, with a large afro and moustache. They were whispering to each other talking about…vinegar?
	Johnson said, quietly, respectfully, as if this apartment complex was a church, “Yeah, and I’ve tried vinegar with uh… salmon. Tastes nice.”
	Toby, his pale white face quickly reddening, forced out, “Y-yeah. You tried b-b-burger salad?”
	Johnson, the better actor, replied “Absolutely magnificent.”
	Strange couple, thought Edgar, must be gay or something. He stopped, turned to them, and reached out a friendly hand. “I don’t think I’ve seen you boys around here before, you live here?”
	Toby stared at the hand as if it were threatening to castrate him. This was one of those situations, like asking out Audrey Tenoss to prom in high school, where Toby wished he was far away, wished he’d never agreed to do this, wished he’d never taken this life, wished his mom decided it would be better to abort him. Just…just find a way to worm yourself out of this, and everything will be okay, he thought.
	Unfortunately, Toby’s self-reassurances and aversion to the hand caused an awkward, eerie, silence that had alienated Edgar. Johnson picked up the slack. “No, our aunt lives here.”
	Toby recovered from his temporary social anxiety, decided to work with Johnson’s creation, “Yeah, in room six-thirty…” Johnson shot him a glare, “…two.”
	“We’re taking her to a political convention…”
	“That’s why we’re wearing these suits…”
	“To talk about… um…”
	“Pony’s rights.”
	Yup, thought Edgar, definitely gay. Still, he maintained his smile, although it probably wouldn’t be seen under the scarf. “That’s nice,” he said flatly, and headed on down the stairwell.
	Toby and Johnson quickly relaxed as the plump man slowly made his way out of sight. Toby threw up his arms. “We should’ve gotten him right there and then!”
	Johnson cringed with Toby’s naivety. “Are you fucking insane? Half the building would’ve heard, and then the fucking narcs would come!”
	“Whatever. Let’s fuck with him at the store. You ever been to Floyd’s?”
	“Nope.”
	“Well, no one’s there at this hour, and the cashier’s stoned out of his mind, so no worries about witnesses.”
	And off the couple went, to the elevators.
*	*	*
	Edgar was in a good mood. While every other human had just spitted at the homeless pony living on the corner near Floyd’s, he had tossed the unicorn a penny. It had looked up at him, a hopeful, even fearful, and animalistic look in its eyes, like someone had roused a great beast that was only just awakening. Thankfully, the momentary spark of life in its eyes had gone out, and the great beast had become dormant and placid once again.
	He went through the door to Floyd’s, momentarily glancing at the tattoo parlor across the street, and smiled. Another reminder of the Engine was present in the window, in the form of a flickering neon sign that read “WE SERVICE PONIES”. Like the video store, the only thing keeping the tattoo parlor afloat was its extra-special registry of costumers.
	That was… a problem. When someone became a pony, Edgar couldn’t control what they would look like, or what race they were, or, most disturbingly, the cutie mark. However, tattoo parlors like this could always change the cutie mark, for a slight fee.
	Edgar carelessly tossed the stack of movies on to the counter, where it went unnoticed by the cashier, and proceeded through the door into the back room. Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder, which was unexpected given the time, and turned around to find himself staring down the barrel of an exquisitely decorated revolver, and a pistol. On the other end of them stood the gay couple from before.
	Edgar raised his hands, and stuttered out, “I-i-it’s you! The gay couple!”
	Johnson and Toby looked at each other. Johnson sighed and rolled his eyes, then said, “I don’t know about my colleague Toby here, but I sure as fuck ain’t gay.”
	“W-w-what do you want from me?”
	Johnson motioned for Toby to go around, Edgar, so they were guarding him from both sides. “Are you Edgar McSillian, sir?”
	Edgar nodded his head. To check, Johnson pulled off his head gear to see that it was indeed him.
	Johnson squinted and expressively proclaimed, “Well, someone who’s really important wants to have your plans for the Ponification Engine. I’ll give you three guesses as to why we’re here.” He paused a bit, as if Edgar needed to think the question out before answering, then added, “You just peacefully lead us to the closest set of plans for the Engine, and you won’t find yourself full of lead.”
	Edgar tossed the innocent and scared victim act, cocked his head and asked “Do you seriously fucking think I keep a full set of plans with me at all times? We’re gonna have to go back to my apartment.”
	“Well then looks like we’re gonna follow you back to the apartment , you going all peaceful and quiet-like or tomorrow everyone’s gonna hear about how some dumb nigger got put in jail for shooting a famous inventor.”
	At that moment there was a knock on the door, and the cashier peered in. “Mr. Sir, sir, these two fellows came in looking for you, and I just wanna know whether you found each other all right.”
	An awkward silence ensued. No one was really sure how much a drugged-up cashier was able to absorb. Johnson steadily holstered his revolver, while Toby made sure his pistol wasn’t seen from behind Edgar.
	Johnson, put his hands together, and licked his lips. “Yeah, we found each other… inside this relatively small room…”
	The cashier looked around the room, and saw that the room was indeed relatively small, and said, “Oh it seemed,… a lot bigger,” and then, upon seeing Edgar, “Holy shit, are you Edgar McSillian?”
	Edgar answered with “Ummm…yes.”
	“Such an honor to meet you, sir! If I had known it was you, I’d’ve gotten rid of our bat infestation, the little guys practically clogging the air in here, nasty little fuckers!” and then the cashier burst out into a big belly laugh. Edgar joined in with some hesitant and faked laughter.
	“Now you run along now and get back to your post, soldier!” Johnson said, and after he left, said to Edgar, “Nice handling of the situation there. Now let’s get back to your apartment.”
	Walking outside, they walked past the homeless pony living on the corner next to the video store, and it shivered and shrank away from Johnson.
	“Why did it do that?” Edgar suddenly asked.
	“No fucking clue. Now move along, before Toby pops a cap in your ass.”
*	*	*
	Fifteen minutes earlier, Johnson met the homeless pony for the first time. He did the customary spitting on it, but then noticed the words desperately scribbled in sharpie on the ripped cardboard next to the pile of blankets the pony was sitting on that it called a home.
	“PLEASE SUPPORT THE WONDERFUL MARCUS FINNIGAN,” read Johnson from the sign, “Hey, Toby, you remember Marcus?”
	Toby stopped. “Who?”
	“Marcus Finnigan.”
	The unicorn stirred and shook his cup of change. “Yes, mister. That’s my name. Will you donate? Please?”
	“Huh… oh yeah! Two fuckin’ days before the Engine came out!”
	Johnson laughed and looked at Marcus, on that pile of blankets. “Damn Marcus, you’re a crazy nigger!”
*	*	*
	Several years earlier, Johnson met Marcus Finnigan for the first time.
	Johnson sat at the driver’s wheel, honking incessantly at the unmoving traffic ahead of him. Toby sat shotgun, relaxed and casually chain-smoking out the window. Marcus sat in the back seat, babbling.
	“Look, look at that billboard over there,” Marcus said, with wide, frightened eyes, “Ponification  Engine. Comes out in two days. I’m gonna be first in line. I have to be.”
	Johnson gave an exasperated sigh. “Not if the boss wants you, you ain’t.”
	“Why, am I in trouble? I hate being in trouble. I remember one time I got in trouble in Ms. Cheerilee’s class and she, and she-“
	Johnson looked in the rear view mirror at Marcus. “Marcus, let me put it this way. When a guy like our boss wants to meet a guy like you,” he looked straight at Marcus, with no rearview mirror involved, “You bet you’re in fuckin’ trouble.”
	Marcus shivered, even though it wasn’t cold, and quietly stared out the window. For a few seconds. “I wanna g-g-go. I wanna go home, to Twilight’s tree library, and stay there for a while. I don’t wanna be here in this traffic. I hate traffic. It makes me feel bad, like I’ve done something wrong, and I just want everything to go away.”
	“Marcus, rest assured that not one the three people in this car right now wants to be here.”
	Toby interrupted. “I want to be here. It’s the only place I can chain-smoke. Everywhere else, the smoke clouds up and fucks up everything, or it’s a public place where you can’t smoke.”
	“Shut the fuck up, Toby. And Marcus? You have done something wrong, or the boss wouldn’t have fucking sent for you.”
	Marcus hummed a nameless tune for a while, then said, “I just want everything to go away, you know? All the problems, just swept away. Just keep wishing family members stop randomly dying, or people just…just stop killing each other randomly. You see this?”
	He had pulled out a card from his wallet. It showed the center of a cartoon town, in front of giant tree that had been converted, by the looks of it, into a library. In the center of the frame stood six ponies, and in the bottom left was what looked like Marcus’s rendition of the signature of someone named Celestia. It read:
	I hope you get here soon, my student. Your loving teacher, Princess Celestia.
	“Downtown Ponyville,” said Marcus, “look it up sometime. It’s a place so unlike Earth. A place with love, where you’re valued by how good a person you are. Nopony cares if you don’t make that much money. I wish I was there right now, instead of here.” His widened eyes drifted off into space and he was no longer conscious of his surroundings.
	“Marcus, shut the fuck up, please.”
	Toby said, “Nah, Johnson. He’s just venting, that’s all.”
	Marcus’s eyes snapped forward, to attention. “Guys, I have a plan. How to get rid of this trouble. So you two double up on your boss-“
	Johnson groaned. “Oh, fuck.”
	“-guys, listen to me. Are you listening?-“
	Johnson turned on the radio.
	“Guys, listen to me, please-“
	Johnson sighed. “Oh listen, is this the Electric Six? I love this song!” He cranked the volume up to maximum.
	“You’ve got to listen to me-“
	“WE’RE GONNA START A WAR!”
	“Please!”
	“WE’RE GONNA START A NUCLEAR WAR!”
	“Listen, please!”
	“AT THE GAY BAR GAY BAR GAY BAR!”
*	*	*
	Several years later, Johnson recalled this conversation, and squatted down in front of the now pony Marcus.
	“You still batshit insane?” he asked to Marcus.
	Something momentarily flickered and flittered in Marcus’s mind. “Depends on how you define ‘insane’, and how you define ‘batshit’. But I suppose,” he looked down, at the blanket he was sitting on, almost the only thing he had left, and the cardboard underneath it, and silently wished to go home, far away from here, “I still am batshit insane.” And his eyes changed back to the look of deadness and animalistic desperation they had worn for so long.
	“What did the boss want from you, Marcus?”
	The unicorn shivered. “I-I didn’t pay the rent f-f-for one of h-his apartments.”
	“And he requested you for that?”
	“F-for s-s-seventeen months.”
	Johnson’s face changed to a sympathetic look. “Oh. Tell me, Marcus. What was your living before you lost your job?”
	“I w-was a s-s-sound engineer.”
	“Hard to lift up those boom mikes with hooves, isn’t it?”
	“I h-have a horn.”
	Johnson flicked the horn. It didn’t hurt that much, but Marcus sniffled. “Oh, was that a sniffle of regret? If you had just paid your rent and kept away from the Ponification Engine, all of this,” Johnson swept his arm around, gesturing towards Marcus and his blankets, “could be avoided!”
	“I wanna go h-home,” Marcus whimpered.
	“And then,” Johnson continued, “You’d have a home to go to.”
	Marcus sobbed.
	Toby had seen enough. “Come on, Johnson, let’s go.” Johnson spit at Marcus again, then got up. “Let’s go,” he said.
	Toby lit up a cigarette. He looked at Marcus’s shivering, sobbing figure. Marcus, without looking up, shook the change cup.
	“P-p-p-please donate?” And he looked up at Toby. Toby stared deep into those wet eyes, perhaps to catch a glimpse of what had gone wrong with this man, what his mind was like, what he thought about when jangling that cup of change. He tossed the pony some change, and saw a flickering, like the lighting of a candle, somewhere deep within that soul.
	“You still chain-smoke?” Marcus asked, slightly nasally but his speech otherwise unimpeded by sobbing or stuttering.
	“No,” answered Toby, “I quit.” Then he took out the offending cigarette in his mouth, and looked, puzzled, at it. “I think.”
	As Toby and Johnson walked to the video store, Johnson kept ranting about something, while Toby stared at the cigarette in his hand, and wondering why he’d lit up for the first time in years.
	“I’ve got no problem with people, mind you, I mean, I’m not a fucking sadist, “Johnson was saying, “But I fucking hate ponies.”
	Was it stress?
	“I mean, people who become ponified take the pussy’s way out with insecurities.”
	Why would it be stress? Johnson had been mean to plenty of other people before.
	“Look at me. My sister’s Tara Steel, I mean, she’s won Oscars! And here I am, running fucking errands for a boss who doesn’t care about me.”
	Maybe it was that the boss didn’t send Johnson to harass Marcus.
	“Do I feel bad? Sure! Do I wish things had been different? Sure!”
	No, that was fucking picture book level thinking.
	“But I don’t fucking go press a big ‘Reset’ button on my life! I try to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, man, know what I mean?”
	Shit just didn’t work like that in real life.
	“Toby, are you listening?”
	Toby blinked. “Huh? Yeah.”
	And off they went, to harass Edgar McSillian at Floyd’s Video Rental Store.
*	*	*
	Forty-five minutes after the duo’s encounter with Edgar at the video store, a man stood in front of an apartment. The man was sweating profusely, and was using the edge of his hoodie to wipe the sweat off his face. It was definitely the drugs, or rather, the body trying to get rid of them, causing the sweating. It wasn’t hot in the slightest, and he felt okay. But wiping his face was really annoying. Maybe I should just go cold turkey, he thought, just to stop this fucking sweating.
	He had a bony face, with thin inklings of a moustache under his nose. He wore golden rimmed aviators with orange lenses, and what looked like a fisherman’s hat on his head. He also wore khakis, and beaten-up sneakers. He looked like a hilarious, comedic, interpretation of a modern Raoul Duke, of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
	A voice spoke from within the apartment, animatedly and quickly. It spoke like the guy everyone listens to, like the kid who became most popular without trying and without being mean. It spoke with feeling, and when it stopped talking, it waited for a second, then said, satisfied, “Episode’s done. Uploading now. Come in, anyone who might be outside.”
	The man walked in to the apartment, which was split into three sections, all completely different, and only slightly mingling together. There was a part which was filled with empty boxes of processed food, stacked video games, limited edition figurines, assorted consoles, animes, and movies. There were crumbs everywhere, and the whole thing was messy and delicately balanced, as if pulling out anything would cause the whole room to collapse on itself. At a dual-monitor display, his feet propped up on the enormous box of a machine that was the customized computer, sat an Asian person, who wasn’t exactly fat, but big, since he had been blessed with a body that coated his torso evenly with fat, instead of having a potbelly. He seemed to be deeply immersed in some shooter.
	Another section was also messy, but in a strange way, as if the owner had very carefully placed everything down to make it seem messy. Various comics sat on the shelf, and posters were hung up on the wall, so many that some were covering others. There was also assorted weaponry, sharp daggers and other blades, pistols, both bi-bi and real, and various martial arts equipment, like nunchucks and staffs. A now-empty bowl with a few bits of cereal and some milk left in it lay at the foot of a futon, where a dark crimson earth mare with a messy black mane was laying down, silently reading a comic. Her cutie mark was an extremely complicated design, with lots of curves and interweaving lines. The cutie mark was completely useless to identify her special talent, unless you knew what her special talent was, in which case you thought it was genius.
	The last one was clean. Not spotless, but clean enough. Various cameras and technological equipment lay on a desk, but only behind the view of the webcam on a laptop sitting on the desk. Don’t let the viewers see the clutter. On the shelf were various political magazines with headlines circled in red pen. These headlines read COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST MACDOLAN’S, or PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED, or the ever-important PONIFICATION ENGINE RELEASED: NORMAL CORPORATE VENTURE OR ATTACK ON OUR WAY OF LIFE? or anything that would be podcast-worthy. A lime green pegasus stallion with a curly, fire-orange mane that reached down to what would be his shoulders, if he was human and with a radio as a cutie mark, sat in the chair, designed specially for a pony to sit on.
	The pegasus was blogger Jeff Waltrowski, and one of the few ponies who could be mentioned in human conversation and not be spit at. He was the current leader in blogging, because of his demeanor. He gave off the air of being what was right and accepted by everyone, and the feeling that you could be the same. He reported the news vividly, yet somehow without betraying any emotion in political grey areas. His facial expressions and the way he told his viewers what he was doing at this event or that fundraiser made it seem like his viewers were the most important thing to him in his life, and oftentimes, they were. He was an angel on earth.
	Jeff turned to the man in the doorway. “What’s up, Pierce?”
	Pierce said, “Not much, I guess, but I did see Edgar McSillian at the video store about an hour ago. Sometimes the graveyard shift isn’t all that bad.”
	“Uh-huh,” said Jeff, and searched up a news site on his laptop to see if anything had happened that he hadn’t made a video about yet. Pierce reported almost daily about spectacular things he had seen, and most of the time he had unusual, illegal things circulating through his bloodstream when he saw them.
	Pierce continued, “He was in the back, with all the pornos and ‘Other’ videos, and he had two of his friends with him. They wore suits. Wonder who’s friends with Edgar McSillian.”
	Jeff stiffened, and frowned, and looked closer at something on the computer screen. “Uh, Pierce, could you describe his… friends?”
	He shrugged and obliged. “Well, one of them was black, and he had this big afro, and moustache, and he looked kinda angry.” His eyes widened. “Holy shit, he looked almost exactly like Samuel L. Jackson!
	“The other guy, he looked kinda thin, but I don’t know, he had a suit on, so he could be the buffest guy this side of the KFC down the street for all I know. He had this weird hairdo, I mean, like, bitchin’ sideburns, and this really straight hair that jutted out over his forehead like a cliff. I guess he looked like David Tennant, but less awesome.”
	Jeff abruptly turned the laptop around so the screen faced Pierce. On it was a sketch of a face, and above the sketch, a headline.
	EDGAR MCSILLIAN SHOT TO DEATH; SUSPECT ESCAPED ON FOOT,
	SAYS PEGASUS MARE CLAIMING TO BE RAINBOW DASH
*	 *	 *
	Ten minutes after Toby and Johnson’s encounter with Edgar at the video store, the three of them stood in Edgar’s apartment in a room on the other side of a fake bookcase.
	The room was coated in wires. All kinds of wires. Thick wires, thin wires, wire just coated in black, and color coded wires.  In the sea of wires, stood different metal containers filled to the brim with different chips, and more wires, and strange electronic devices, metal prongs sticking out at odd places, some attached to a wire and some not, green silicon and neon color-coded things and silver metal were all blended together in this great symphony of technology.
	“This, folks,” said Edgar, “is one of the latest prototypes of the Ponification Engine. I’m sorry, it’s the latest one I have. I could give you the plans to the current one, if you want.”
	Johnson stared, amazed, at the messy room. “And now it all fits into one fuckin’ box.”
	“Eh. Most of the things in here don’t actually do anything, they’re just things we set up and were too lazy to remove when they didn’t work.  I bet if you took a hammer and banged randomly on something in here, it would still work just fine.”