Once were beyond the outer lobby of the ZBS building, I was quite surprised by how bright the building suddenly became. We had gone from a state of near total darkness, with only a flew flickers of lights to illuminate the gloom, to rooms with reasonable amount of light in them. The light controls were certainly inconsistent around here.

I put it off to what the staff were up to and pressed on. I mean, there was no point in wasting electricity on lighting and cooling a section of a building that nopony is currently occupying. That would be very wasteful, wouldn't it?

I pushed onwards into the structure, following Misty along as she had the night vision goggles. Which she had sitting on top of her forehead below her horn for some reason. Possibly from her tunnel excursion, which I imagine wasn't exactly a section of building lit using natural light. That made navigating a little harder, but still, I was following and she was leading.

As we went deeper into the structure, I noticed the light levels start to change again, which was a bit odd. Was it possible that they were wasting electricity on lighting and cooling a section of a building that nopony is currently occupying? If so, that was very odd. Either they don't understand the concept of electricity meters or electricity was cheap and plentiful. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if these places were mostly powered by solar energy.

As we trotted in, Misty seemed to be having trouble adjusting to the lower light levels, and shook her head. "If only there was a way of seeing in this darkness," she said, looking about her and trying to find something for her eyes to focus on.

I facehoofed internally. There was a way, she just seemed to have forgotten it was there. "There is," I said. "You've got your night vision goggles up around your forehead and below your horn, remember?"

Misty reached up, and then seemed to remember she had them. She pulled on them, and they dropped into position over her eyes. Whilst she now looked like a spy or a special forces operative from a generic movie, there was no denying she was having an easier time navigating the interior of the building.

"Thanks for the reminder, Hitch!" she said, with an oddly chipper tone of voice. Clearly this being pointed out to her had made her day, so that was at least good.

It was still an odd thing to forget, mind.

As we pressed onwards, the corridors began to loop outwards, running round a central plaza where I assumed the welcome staff (or secretaries, as we'd call them in earth pony land) were based, and welcomed staff into the building before asking them where they wished to go within the building and directing them to their destination. Presumably they also gave them lanyards whilst at it- you can't have a modern business without ponies wearing lanyards, after all. It makes employees easier to identify in a world where most people wear business suits.

I checked back to ensure Pipp was still with us. She was, luckily, though all the heavy gear we were lugging along meant that she was struggling somewhat to keep up. To somepony not trained in carrying all that equipment about, a helmet and flak jacket would be very heavy indeed, and I must admit I could sympathise with her.

Back in the day, I was a cadet, and one of the early exercises we did required us to carry massive equipment sacks called bergens. These were larger than some of the recruits, and on a high wind day would easily have enough weight in them to knock you onto your back- getting up after that was always a fun exercise in balance restoration.

Pipp was wheezing a bit, and I don't blame her. That stuff probably weighed a lot, and even the most athletic of ponies would get weighed down by all that kit after a while. I dropped back to help her. "Move slower, and try to avoid exerting too hard," I advised. "If you try to run too hard you'll get even more tired out."

Pipp nodded, and groaned. "I'm a popstar, not a secret agent," she grumbled. "I know I played one in a movie, but that was to fulfill contractual obligations. And my cameo in Pegasus Protocol doesn't count!"

Pegasus Protocol? I assume that's a film. Does this mean that Pipp has a film career, like Elvis did? I can only hope the films she made were better quality than the drivel Elvis was forced to act through. Viva Las Vegas is pretty good, mind, if you can source it somehow.

Anyway, we were soon deeper into the building, so we needed to focus. We stopped, and looked as Misty tried to figure out where we were going. She then spotted the elevator nearby, and punched something. She seemed to be having trouble with the control equipment, so I moved closer to take a look at the equipment.

PLACE HOOFPRINT ON THE READER, OR SWIPE KEYCARD

PLACE HOOFPRINT

SWIPE KEYCARD

Misty tapped option two, and then the display switched again.

SWIPE KEYCARD IN SLOT, THE WAY UP SHOWN IN THE IMAGE

To my surprise, from nowhere Misty produced a keycard and swiped it through the slot on the side of the reader. The reader was briefly quiet, then glowed green, as if to suggest the keycard had been accepted.

KEYCARD ACCEPTED. PRIVATE SKYTRAIL. ACCESS TO UPPER LEVELS GRANTED. HAVE A NICE DAY.

Where had Misty gotten a keycard from? It wasn't as if these sorts of things would just be left lying about for ponies to pick up, which would seem like a very odd thing to do. I mean, that sort of carelessness would only happen in video games, right?

We all piled into the elevator, and Misty set the door controls to take us up. Perhaps she swiped the card from a soldier whilst on her stealth mission?

"This keycard network doesn't exactly seem like the most secure of security systems," I said, as we went up.

"I can only assume it was how ZBS moved its employees about, and they retained it as a backup safety system in case the reader failed," Misty replied. I mean, that makes sense. The system otherwise seemed quite prone to safety failures. I had similar in an old job. A door reader failed, and I used a manual key to get it open. Unfortunately, the door then swung shut behind me and could not be opened using regular means. This meant that I was in a room which could somehow be entered but not exited. Which is pretty pointless for a room, don't you think?

Pipp seemed to agree with Misty's sentiment. "It's certainly handy, though," she said, yawning slightly. Had she had a rough night's sleep? "Beats having to punch loads of number combinations into a keypad! Imagine how long that would take with hooves!"

She did have a fair point. That would take ages, even with the bigger buttons that exist on keypads. Although stuff here is ergonomically designed to benefit ponies, it's still a challenge to operate some stuff. How precisely do you turn dials and adjust knobs without fingers. Hooves just sticking to stuff does produce some imprecise control systems, which can be hard to operate.

Once we were at our floor, the doors opened, and we snuck through some more corridors with Misty once again leading the way. We found the broadcast room pretty promptly, and unfortunately it was packed full of soldiers.

"No way we're getting in there," Pipp said. "Far too many ponies. We'd be spotted and look like Swiss cheese before we could say 'rise and shine'."

I'd heard (or read) that phrase somewhere before, so it clearly resonated with me somehow. But how did I know the phrase at all? "Rise and shine? That's oddly specific."

We'd been so focused on the room, I suddenly jumped when Misty spoke. "I'll get them off your tail," she said, and she suddenly vanished into the darkness. If there's one thing, she's good at suddenly vanishing without anypony noticing.

A few minutes passed, and then suddenly an alarm went off. It was pretty loud, and seemed to be focused to one section of the building.

Soldiers began to pour out of the broadcast room and run along the corridor.

"ALARM'S BEEN TRIGGERED!"

"THERE'S A THREAT IN THE BUILDING!"

"FIND THE SOURCE OF THE NOISE AND SILENCE IT!"

Misty then returned a few minutes later. "Door's open," she said. "The guards are gone."

I sighed a sigh of relief. "Gotcha. Hopefully this won't be too complex to set up."

Pipp glanced to me. "I'll show you how to configure it."

We hoofed it inside, and stopped in position in front of all sorts of elaborate equipment which probably needed specalist training to operate. Hopefully I won't screw this up.

Author's Note

This chapter is intended as an homage to the stealth genre, drawing very heavily on the tone and feel of the Splinter Cell games (which see you playing as a secret agent). It was certainly interesting to contrast numerous types of special ops against one another with this selection of chapters.

Whilst many musicians have also acted in films and TV (recent examples that come to mind are Harry Styles in Dunkirk and the career of Kylie Minogue), the artist most often mentioned when it comes to musicians in films is Elvis Presley. Presley appeared in over 30 movies in 10 years, most of which were of rather poor quality and far removed from the serious dramatic roles he wanted to play. This experience effectively stalled his music career and would have serious consequences on his later life, as he started binge eating to cope with the stress of intense filming schedules. Other musicians looked at this as a cautionary tale; when making A Hard Day's Night in 1964, the Beatles specifically wanted to avoid suffering the fate of Elvis and requested Richard Lester, a director known for avant-garde film techniques, to direct. The results speak for themselves.

Tomorrow will bring the final chapter. Can our heroes make the broadcast succesfully?