Fat, heavy drops of rain splattered against the windshield. The sky was overcast and sullen, blotting out the sun and bringing a premature night that the car's headlights barely cut through. The car, an elderly gold Crown Victoria, crawled down an abandoned stretch of road, swinging slowly from side to side to avoid the many potholes. On either side of the worn and rippled blacktop, weeds grew in abundance, occasionally spilling out over the roadway.
"Where are you taking me?"
The driver—a man in his early twenties with scraggly hair along his jaw that he liked to consider a beard—gave a reassuring smile. "We're almost there," he said.
"Seriously, Matt. This is, like, somewhere you would dump a dead body."
The passenger gave a shrill, nervous laugh, as if this were an idea he couldn't quite dismiss. The run-down state of the neighborhood didn't do anything to reassure him, either. Abandoned houses loomed out of the darkness like derelict ships, appearing for a moment before sinking back into the shadows. None of the street lights were on, adding even more to the oppressive darkness.
"Relax, Dan-my-man," Matt replied, using the old nickname from when they'd been stuck in a dorm together. "It's just up ahead. We rented ourselves a house."
The car moved slowly through the rain for a few more minutes before Dan said, "You still haven't told me what this is all about."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Matt looked over and shot Dan a grin. "Look, you trust me, right?"
Dan squirmed in his seat for a few seconds before replying. "I guess. It would be nice to know why you need me, though."
"You're going to be our resident expert. Oh, hold up, we're here."
The house that they had parked in front of had once been the height of class, though that had been long before either of the young men in the car had been born. Now, the best that could be said about it was that it wasn't in quite as rough shape as its neighbors. The paint, possibly once a dark blue, looked black where it wasn't peeling from the frame. The shingles on the roof were curled with age. Still, there was a warm yellow glow of electric light through the windows that weren't boarded up, which was a welcome sight.
Matt pulled his car up in front of the house just as the began to rain let up. There were several other vehicles all parked there as well, none of which looked like they belonged in this rough of a neighborhood. Dan recognized one of them: A bright red pickup truck with gleaming chrome and a bumper sticker that read "I banged your mom."
"Oh, god," Dan moaned. "You didn't tell me Justin was going to be here!"
"Would you have come if I did?" Matt asked, amused.
"No." Dan adjusted his windbreaker, crossed his arms over his chest and sunk back into his seat.
"Come on, he's not so bad."
"He's an ass. He's always been an ass." Dan scowled. "He thinks it's funny to call me a theater fag."
"Well, I'll make sure he's not a jerk tonight, okay?" Matt waited a few seconds, but Dan just sat there with a pout on his face. He sighed. "Look. If he starts anything, just let me know and I'll drive you back. Okay?"
Dan scowled at the dashboard for a while before shrugging. "Fine." As he opened the door, he muttered, "No way this is bullshit is worth only fifty bucks."
The two of them got out of the car and bolted to the house. The open porch sheltered them from the rain as Matt banged on the door. The two could hear activity from inside the house, footsteps drawing nearer. The man who opened the door was in his late twenties, sported a mustache that most people considered ridiculous, and had a cowboy hat slapped on his head. He grinned at the two newcomers.
"Well, how about that? A couple of drowned rats," he said, tilting his hat back on his head with two fingers.
"Shove it, Justin," Matt said, though he grinned as he said it.
Justin laughed and stood aside, gesturing for the other two to enter the house. They stepped inside, Dan taking a moment to look around.
Much like the outside, the inside had seen better days. The wallpaper was peeling where it wasn't missing completely, and some of the plaster had fallen off of the ceiling to show the skeletal lath left behind. Still, the space was clean enough. And, much to Dan's surprise, the living room just to the right of the entryway had all brand-new furniture.
Sitting on the furniture and looking up from an interrupted conversation were three men, two of whom Dan recognized vaguely from around the college campus. If he had to guess, they were both physics majors, like Matt and Justin. The third, with a full grey beard and thick-rimmed glasses, had the look of a professor. They were all sitting around a coffee table, and all of them were staring at Dan, who suddenly found himself even more on-edge than he had before.
The bearded man stood and looked at Matt. "This is your guy?"
Matt swept his arms dramatically, showing Dan off as if he were some prize won at a game show. "This is him!"
The older man gave him a critical look. "So, what kind of qualifications does he have?"
Matt snorted, then reached out and flicked Dan's jacket open. Dan yelped, glaring at Matt as he tugged his jacket closed again, but not before everyone in the room had seen his T-shirt.
The T-shirt in question had a picture of a cartoon pony, blue-colored with a rainbow mane. The caption below it read "Bronies are 20% cooler."
Matt grinned. "Trust me. He's perfect."
~~*~~
The bearded man turned out to be named Professor Steven Johansson, though he insisted on just being called "Professor". The two young men he'd been talking to when Matt and Dan had entered were introduced as Mike and Tom. And it didn't take long for them to get to the point, urging Dan down into the basement. He went reluctantly, imagining that some sort of brutal hazing was coming, or perhaps some weird experiments.
Dan's life up to this point hadn't led him to be too trusting of people. The only reason he hadn't run was because had no idea where he was. He was counting on his friend Matt to drive him home.
"It's down here where the magic happens," Mike said as he reached the bottom of the poorly-lit stairway. He flipped a switch just as Dan reached the concrete floor, illuminating the entirety of the basement.
Much to his relief, Dan didn't see any Satanic-looking ritual circles or stainless-steel operating tables with leather straps. Instead, the basement was filled to the brim with equipment. Six large cubical devices, five feet per side, took up the majority of one wall. Thick bundles of cable led out of the cubes and up into the rafters, eventually coming back down, affixed to the house's support beams. Those cables fed into other equipment, which included several video cameras, a rack of servers and a podium with controls on it. An industrial-sized portable air conditioner loomed in one corner, a flexible exhaust hose snaking up to a window as it ran, blowing cold, dry air into the basement.
In the center of the basement was a steel and plastic frame, about ten feet across and eight high. Thick bundles of power cables drooped down from the ceiling, plugging into it at the top. Bundles of velcro-wrapped cabling ran along the floor from the frame, some going to the bank of servers and the rest going to the podium with the control panel.
"It takes a full day for us to get a shot at this," Professor Johansson said, flicking some switches on a control panel. The steel frame started to hum, a bass vibration that Dan could feel in his teeth. He gestured at the six cubes along the wall. "That's what those things are, by the way. Battery packs. The house can't supply all the power we require at once, so we store it up."
The lights on the frame flickered faster and faster. The hum got louder. Dan took a step back and bumped into Justin, who had been standing behind him. Justin grinned down at him from under his cheesy mustache. Dan scowled and looked back at the steel frame.
There was a glowing point in the middle of the frame.
"It's a gateway, you see!" the Professor shouted over the rising din. "Thank Justin for funding this after the university cut me off!"
The glow spread, slowly at first, then suddenly snapping across the entirety of the metal frame. Dan blinked and looked away, his eyes watering as the "gateway" got brighter and brighter.
"Here we go!" Professor Johansson shouted. He flicked another switch, rotated a dial and, with shocking suddenness, both the loud hum and the bright light vanished as if cut off by a light switch. "Take a look at that, eh?"
Dan, furiously blinking his eyes to clear away the tears, looked. Then he blinked again.
Everyone looked at the light, then Dan. Nobody dared to say anything for a long moment.
"That's not possible," Dan said eventually. "That's Ponyville."
~~*~~
"So, you see why we need you," Matt said half an hour later. "We've been trying to watch the show, but only we only have so much time. None of us are experts. But I remembered from when we were roommates that you loved that show." He gestured expansively. "And, here you are!"
"Yeah," Dan said.
The six of them were sitting around a large, heavy wooden table, eating reheated pizza and drinking cheap beer. Everyone was excited and chattering, except for Dan, who was still feeling poleaxed.
Ponyville. It wasn't exactly like the show, but it was close. The view had been limited to the street and part of an open-air market, the buildings all around blocking out any view of the sky, but the general gloom made it look like the weather was probably extremely cloudy.
Dan had been entranced, staring into the window between worlds, trying to soak in every detail. The ponies were proportioned differently, with longer and thinner legs than he would have expected, but they still had the cute, soft round bodies heads that were in the show. Large, expressive eyes. Coats in a large variety of colors, and manes in even more colors. Cutie marks. The pegasi had wings that actually worked.
Dan had almost hyperventilated. Three times.
He'd seen Rarity, her purple curls bouncing as she walked. The window was too far away to get many details, and there wasn't any sound, but she'd been talking to a pony behind a counter in a stall in the open-air market. And then she placed her purchase into her saddlebags with her mouth and trotted off.
No sign of the other Mane Six, at least not before the window blipped out of existence.
"Need to save up some more juice for another run," the Professor said in between his second and third slice of godawful reheated pizza. "Should be about twenty-four hours until we're ready."
"And they can't see us?" Dan asked. He hadn't touched the pizza after a bite of his first slice, though he was on his second beer.
"Apparently not," Tom said. "And, as you probably noticed, no sound comes through. It's visual-only."
"Visual-only was still enough to make the little guy jizz his pants, though."
"Go to Hell, Justin," Dan said vaguely, more out of reflex than any actual anger. He was still in shock from what he'd seen.
Matt punched Justin lightly in the arm and wagged a finger at him.
"We're trying to figure out how to make the gateway two-directional. To allow physical access between the two areas." Professor Johansson shrugged. "It's been tricky."
"I still say we go public," Mike said. "We've got enough, now—"
The professor shook his head. "I want it at one-hundred percent, first. Full, two-way access."
"I need to lay down," said Dan. "I'm feeling dizzy."
The beds were new, too. Justin, the rich kid, had furnished nearly everything to make this house livable. Probably, Dan thought as lay down, because he knew his portion of whatever riches came out of this research would make him a billionaire.
His phone didn't work. There was no signal. This neighborhood had been all but abandoned years ago, so it made sense that there would be no cell towers anywhere nearby. Dan sighed and put his phone away.
It took hours for him to fall asleep. When he did, he dreamed of ponies.
~~*~~
"I'm only showing what I think are the most important episodes," Dan said. "The ones that really showcase the world or the characters."
The television was brand-new, and much nicer than the crappy little monitor Dan was forced to use when watching movies in his dorm room.
"This one is called 'Winter Wrap-Up'." Dan looked around the room at his audience. "Uh. Have we actually seen the pegasi doing stuff with the clouds? It seemed pretty overcast."
"I don't think so," Tom replied. “But we can’t see the sky, so who knows?”
Dan considered this, then shrugged. "Well, maybe they can control the weather, maybe they can't. Still, it's a good episode, even if it's beyond what they're capable of."
And it had a damned catchy tune. A few hours later, when Dan caught Justin humming the familiar song under his breath, he allowed himself a small, secret smile.
~~*~~
Another day, another gateway. Dan was still wearing the same clothes as he had the day before, and he didn't care. He hadn't showered, either. The water came out of the taps all brown.
Dan stood almost perilously close to the shimmering portal, staring through and trying to absorb every detail. At first, he'd been chastised for getting in the way of the cameras. Then he was given a camera of his own and told to film whatever he thought was important.
"But don't touch the gateway," Mike had told him. "You'll get one hell of a zap if you do."
Ten minutes wasn't enough time to learn much of anything new. It was, however, enough time for him to see Pinkie Pie, grinning around the handle of the huge basket that she had clamped in her teeth. There was a checkered cloth over it, with steam rising up through the cloth.
"So, definitely Ponyville, then?" Professor Johansson asked. "I only ask because it doesn't look identical to the cartoon."
Dan watched as Pinkie Pie pronked away, the basket swaying crazily beneath her. "Yeah," he said. "Definitely Ponyville."
Maybe it was just his imagination that made him think he could smell freshly-baked apple pie.
~~*~~
The days went by quickly. Dan moved into the house full-time on the second day, becoming the one full-time resident. The others came and went, though they were all always there whenever the gate was due to be opened. Dan was the only one without a car, so he was usually stuck by himself. At least the water had stopped showing up as rust-brown after the third day, which allowed him to finally start showering. Cold showers only, though. The water heater was shot.
Dan kept trying to show the others episodes of the show, though without much success. The Professor, citing a lack of time, asked him to simply type up a synopsis of each episode. With the hectic schedules of the others, the only time he could show them episodes was either right before or right after a gateway opened up.
The only one who really made time for watching the cartoon was Matt, who was slowly but surely being brought "into the herd", as Dan put it. They were up to season three, already.
~~*~~
“Weird how the weather never seems to change,” Dan said.
He was once again standing in front of the gateway, watching the ponies go about their daily lives. Matt, who was standing next to him, asked, “What?”
“Judging by the light, the sky is still overcast.” Dan shrugged. “Seems weird, if the pegasi can control the weather. Wouldn’t they have some nice days, too?”
“Maybe they can’t actually control the weather,” Matt suggested. “Or, maybe there’s a reason to keep it cloudy. It could be fall over there, for all we know.”
Dan grunted and shrugged, going back to watching the ponies for a few minutes.
“Oh, look who’s back,” Matt said. “It’s our bossy little friend.”
The pony in question was a grey-green unicorn mare with a sickly yellow mane and hard, angry green eyes. Her cutie mark was a megaphone. Dan's personal theory was that her cutie mark represented her love of telling other ponies off, because every time she popped up, it seemed to be to rebuke some other pony. Without exception, the pony in question would bow their heads and slink off, looking ashamed.
Right now, the grey-green mare was speaking with apparent harshness to one of the ponies manning a stall in the open-air market. The pony in question was starting to shrink down behind her counter, ears dropped down and her head hunched back over her withers.
"I don't like that mare," Dan said.
"Yeah, she seems like kind of a jerk," Matt replied.
The unicorn stalked off, leaving the shopkeeper little more than a huddled mess.
~~*~~
After her third appearance, due to her cutie mark, Matt had nicknamed that particular pony "Megaphone". Currently, Megaphone was chewing out a yellow earth pony stallion for some unknown reason. The earth pony just nodded fearfully every once in a while, and then trotted away.
"How long?" Matt asked.
The professor shouted from behind them. "Making the change in ten seconds."
Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stone.
The gateway shimmered, then the frame started humming once again.
"Go!" Professor Johansson shouted, and Matt's arm whipped forward like he was throwing a baseball.
The stone struck the center of the gateway, hung there for a second, and then fell straight down. It landed on the street in Ponyville. Everyone in the room cheered as if they'd just lost their minds, loudly congratulating each other and slapping each other on the backs. Nobody noticed that every pony in sight of the gateway had suddenly stopped, their ears rotating around for a few seconds, as if searching for a noise.
~~*~~
"Obviously, we should leave first contact up to the government," Mike said as they shared yet another reheated pizza.
"Screw that," Justin replied. "The government would just mess everything up. They'd probably make the whole project confidential and take it all away from us."
"Over my dead body," Johansson growled.
"So, we should go public, first?" Matt asked. "Get it all out in the open. They can't hide it, then."
"I want to present it to my colleagues, first," said the professor. "Especially Doctor Wentworth. The prick."
"Works for me," Justin said as he slid another greasy bit of pizza onto his plate. "We going to bother opening any more gates between then and now?"
"Of course. We've got to make sure we can replicate before we do any kind of presentation."
Dan sat there quietly, not knowing what to say. They'd be able to open a gateway to Equestria. He'd finally be able to see more of it than just that one street and that section of the market. He'd be able to see the rest of the Mane Six, too. So far, every one of them had gone by the gateway at one point or another, with the exception of Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy.
Still, there was a sinking feeling in Dan's gut. His experience told him that, when something he was given seemed too good to be true, it was time to start looking for the hidden traps.
"I bet pony-boy here will be the first one through," Justin said, slapping Dan in the back.
Nearly a month of being in Justin's presence didn't do much to endear him to Dan, who said, "Piss off, Justin."
~~*~~
It was storming again, off and on throughout the whole day. Right now, things were just gloomy outside, with a depressing drizzle of rain. The team was back in the basement again, with Dan in his traditional spot near the gateway, and Matt standing just behind him and slightly off to one side.
Everyone's heart was racing. Matt, in particular, seemed on edge. He was shifting from foot to foot impatiently while the deep bass hum of the gateway ramped up. The gateway snapped into place, and the group was treated to a brand new sight.
Pinkie Pie was dancing around, singing to a crowd of smiling ponies. No sound, not yet at least, but whatever it was she was singing had the ponies in her audience tapping their hooves and bobbing their heads. Dan would have traded everything he owned to be able to hear what she was singing.
“Okay, two minutes,” Professor Johansson said.
Mike piped up then. “Don’t look now, but here comes Little Miss ‘Stop Having Fun’.”
Sure enough, Megaphone had stalked into view, a scowl across her face. Pinkie Pie stopped, looking anxious and scared as the mare approached. When Megaphone started speaking to her, Pinkie’s ears drooped and her head sunk towards the ground. The ponies in her audience all looked away, as if they didn’t want to catch any of the flak.
“What a bitch,” Matt said, wearing a scowl of his own.
“Yeah,” Dan said. He was frowning as well, but only partially about Pinkie being yelled at. Something about this seemed uneasily familiar.
Megaphone stalked off once again, exiting the area from the same direction she’d entered from. Pinkie Pie gathered shuddered before she visibly gathered herself.
“One minute,” came the call from Johansson.
“Hey, what’s Pinkie doing?” Tom asked.
Pinkie Pie was walking with what looked like practiced calm back to where she’d been when she’d first started singing. She stood in that spot for a long moment, her head down and her face unreadable. Then her head snapped up, and a huge smile fixed itself across her face.
“Looks like Pinkie isn’t letting Megaphone keep her down,” Matt said.
Sure enough, the pink pony started up dancing once again, her mouth drawing open as she began to sing.
The voice of the professor floated up from behind Dan and Matt. “Ten seconds.”
Pinkie was whirling through the crowd, looking like her typical happy self, but something about the situation had Dan completely on edge. Something about the way Megaphone had acted, and Pinkie’s reaction.
For some reason, he started thinking of his freshman year, when he’d first decided to be a theater major, setting him off on a different path than most of his friends.
“Five seconds,” The professor called, before starting a countdown.
“Hey, buddy,” Matt said.
“Four.”
“Yeah, Matt?”
“Three.”
“Wish me luck, okay?”
“Two.”
“What?” Dan asked.
“One. Making the change.”
The gateway flickered briefly, the humming of the gate started up once again, and a burst of sound came through from the other side. Pinkie’s song was going on in the background, something about how everypony needed love. Dan would have dearly loved to have been able to listen, but Matt suddenly rushed past him, running straight into the gateway.
“Matt!” Dan shouted, aware of the others shouting behind him.
“Get back here, you idiot!” Professor Johansson yelled.
Matt struck the gate and was held there, as if he were stuck in fly paper. Then, slowly at first, he started moving forward, staggering and almost falling before straightening.
Dan could only stare. His friend was standing in Equestria.
Pinkie’s song cut off suddenly, her wide blue eyes staring blankly at Matt, who was standing ramrod straight and staring back. The other ponies all looked around, freezing when they saw the intruder.
In the show, the sudden appearance of a strange creature in Ponyville might have been the cause of a panic, or at least some curious whispering. Instead, they all stared at Matt as he walked forward with his hands up, their faces expressionless as he waved.
“I come in peace,” Matt was saying loudly as he walked forward. “I want to be your friend.”
Dan shuddered as that feeling of wrongness crept up once again. These ponies weren’t acting right, not at all. He saw Megaphone come in from the side, scowling like thunder, only to stop and stare blankly at Matt like the rest of the ponies.
All background noise stopped, with the exception of the humming gateway. Then Megaphone’s muzzle turned up in a smile. She said something that Dan and the others couldn’t make out, and the ponies of Ponyville started walking towards Matt.
Matt, for his part, had stopped in the middle of the road, rubbing his hands briskly on his arms as if cold. The ponies surrounded him in a half-circle, still staring, and he reached out with a hand toward Pinkie Pie.
Then, without any pony so much as laying a hoof on him, he collapsed. As he lay on his back, staring upwards with the ponies surrounding him, Matt’s voice came through the gateway loud and clear.
“There’s no sky,” he said, his voice slurred, confused and wondering. “Where’s the sky?”
“Close the gate,” Dan said, feeling numb. He had figured out what was bothering him.
“Matt is over there,” Justin protested. “We can’t just—”
“Close it!” Dan screamed. He couldn’t find the words to explain what he’d finally figured out.
Dan’s voice must have carried through the gate, because the heads of the nearest dozen ponies snapped up and stared straight at him. Megaphone’s cruel green eyes met his, and she licked her lips.
Professor Johansson cursed and started hitting switches. The gateway shimmered again as the crowd rushed forward, every pony with a manic grin on their features. Dan shrieked and hunched down on himself just as the gateway blipped out of existence.
Breathing heavily, Dan straightened up, staring where the gate had been, where his best friend had gone through. The reality of the situation just felt too big for his mind to encompass. He felt weak in the knees, his hands shaking with adrenaline. Mike and Tom were standing next to their equipment, stunned. Professor Johansson had slumped to the floor and was just sitting there with his hands over his face. Justin looked just as pale and shocked as Dan imagined he looked.
“What… What was that?” Tom finally asked.
“I… I don’t think they were ponies,” Dan replied.
“What?”
“I just figured it out,” Dan said. “Megaphone wasn’t just being a busybody, she was directing. Which means that the others were all acting out some kind of role.”
“What about Matt?” Justin asked shakily, his face white as a sheet.
“I think…” Dan’s throat locked up and he had to swallow a few times. “I don’t think he made it.”
“What should we do now?” Tom asked faintly. “Can we get him back?”
“No way I’m going to be anywhere near here if you open that gateway again,” Justin replied.
They stood in silence for a long while, each lost in their thoughts. That is, until Mike piped up.
“Does anyone else hear humming?”
Dan shot a panicked look at the gateway. There was a glowing dot in the center. “Turn it off!” he shrieked, falling back.
“It is off!” Professor Johansson sprung to his feet and started smacking the control console. “There isn’t enough power left to start it up, anyway!”
The glowing dot was growing. Though, oddly enough, it was tinted a light green. The humming was getting louder. All five men began shouting at cross purposes, nobody really knowing what to do. Tom ran over and began shutting down the batteries. Professor Johansson started yanking the power cables out of the console. Mike and Justin ran up and started kicking the sides of the steel structure where the gateway was still growing.
The gateway snapped into place. Dan backed away, horrified revulsion making his skin crawl. Every pony he’d seen since the start of the project was just on the other side of the gate, their faces frozen in wide, feral grins under glassy, staring eyes.
Megaphone stood front and center, her horn glowing an intense green. She looked up at Dan and winked an eye just before a burst of green fire traveled down her body. When the fire dissipated, the grey-green unicorn had been replaced by a much taller, more regal figure.
Similar fire pulsed over every other pony a the gate, revealing their true forms. And then, at some unspoken signal, the changelings rushed through with a hungry yowl that mingled with the screams of the humans.
~~*~~
Three months later
The young man stared down at the box on his doorstep. Inside the box, something light blue with rose-colored eyes underneath a rainbow mane stared back at him. She was tiny, about the size of a small dog, and her flank was bare.
No matter how he blinked or shook his head, the tiny pegasus filly was still there, smiling and giving him a look of pure and open trust. He finally accepted the evidence of his own senses.
“My own little Dashie,” the young man said in a breathless whisper.
He looked around for whoever might have dropped the box off, but there was nobody, and nopony in sight. The tiny Dash in the box made a gurgling sound, and the young man felt his heart swell with love.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he carefully gathered up the box. “I’ll take care of you.”
He closed the door behind him, carrying the precious cargo in his arms. And, as he made his way back to the living room, he made a mental note to call someone in to check out his furnace. It must have been malfunctioning. It was starting to get really cold in that old house.
Author's Note
This story came about mainly because I started wondering about changelings coming to earth to feed on humanity’s love of ponies. The My Little Dashie bit at the end is the direct result of that thought experiment. The rest of the story is how I got there, combining a little bit of Project Sunflower’s gateway tech with the “What if?” framework that I had worked up. In this case, “What if the humans going to Equestria opened up a gateway to a fake Ponyville, where changeling were practicing passing themselves off as ponies?”
Changelings having such a mock-Ponyville is not an inconceivable concept. The KGB did it back in the 50’s-60’s, with a model US town outside of Vinnytsia in the Ukraine, in order to train deep-cover spies. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the US did the same.
It was only after I published the story that I realized that this story has a lot in common with one I’d read when I was much younger, called “Window ”, by Bob Leman, an excellent story with a similar plot. Any similarities between these two stories was unintentional, though I can’t deny the strong possibility that “Window” was an influence on how this story came together. Still, I hope that this story is different enough to stand on its own.
Many thanks to Coandco, Ekevoo and Brilliantpoint for editing this story, though I'm thinking now that I should have given them more time to work on it before publishing (I got a little overeager!)
