//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Home! // Story: The Hacker Pwny // by Chetzi //------------------------------// August 4, 2012--Midnight I slowly opened my eyes, but to my surprise, I wasn't in Equestria. I was in... well, I didn't really know. It was dark and I could hear rain outside and there were puddles of water dotted around the black, cold, metal floor. A quick flash of light appeared through a small semi-circle window with bars and then a loud 'BOOM' like thunder was heard. I was crouching with some kind of heavy iron cuffs on my hands connecting them. I stood up and looked around more. It was very dark but I could see that I was in some prison cell because there were bars covering the large opening that led outside of this room. I shuffled over to the bars while still hearing the crack of thunder and looked through them. It was nothing more than a cloud of black nothingness. I grabbed the iron bars and started to shake them. They didn't budge and... my hand... it... had... fingers. I screamed out, "What the fuck is going on!" but I couldn't hear more than hoarse whisper against the rain. Metal started clanking and I looked toward the bars which were the source of the sound. They were open. But I didn't see anyone or anything. I slowly and very cautiously moved toward the now open gate, not making a sound for fear of some unknown presence. I heard a soft moan behind me and I spun around and as soon as I could see what was behind me, a flash of light appeared and for a flicker of time, I saw a human. Old, pale, with a very big evil smile on his face and teeth that were sharper than most knifes. After that brief moment of light, it became dark again and the man or thing was gone with a loud thundering sound to finish it off. Something very demonic was whispered into the wind. It sounded like it said, 'The fear of loss is worse than death.' My spine had chills shooting down it as I decoded the demonic voice. I came to my senses and realized that I was terrified and the only way out of this nightmare was to conquer my fear of... what exactly did I fear? Or I could just wait this out. Let's see, dreams run at a speed of 20 times real life, dreams only happen in the REM cycle of sleep, which, by my sleeping pattern, starts at 5:52 A.M. and I would wake up at 7:36 A.M. That's a total of 2 hours and 44 minutes real time and 2 days 7 hours and 6 minutes dream time. Yeah, no. I'm not spending that long in this cell. I walked out of the dark cell with legs, that I have almost forgotten how to use, and with no fear and my only goals being to survive and explore. Although, then again, if I get scared too much here, I'll go into shock and awake in the real world. This may be a dream, but I have limits. I can't just start spawning things and blow up everything. I'm not in control of this dream. My subconscious is, I'm just playing along. I stretched out my arms and legs and walked forward, toward the darkness. I walked down a long narrow winding hallway in pitch black. When I turned around, there was no jail cell, just blackness. Typical of nightmares. I'm not giving in to fear. I've suffered through too much, I have nothing left to lose. I scream into the hall, "Do your worst, you fucking subconscious!" Oddly enough, I don't like my subconscious. It makes me relive my horrible past. It makes me feel the pain and horror I thought I got rid of long ago. That's not all, probably worst of all, I can't control it at all. I can't plan around it because it's completely random. So, you want to know what I learned to do? I learned how to think when in dreams. Kind of like a lucid dream, but with limits. Even though these nightmares bring me pain and suffering, it's what keeps me going. It's the reason why I never stop trying. The reason why I will never forget my past. I continued through the hallway because I had nothing to lose. My eyes darted to the end of the hall to find a very distant, dim light. That would be my exit ticket. I dashed over to the light still feeling wobbly on 2 legs and I saw familiar shadow appear. I got closer and the shadow became colored and more clear. It was Vinyl. What's she doing here? I slowed down to a walking pace and called out to her, but I couldn't speak. When I got close enough to her, she was crying. When I noticed this, I ran over to her, but she kept getting farther away. I then saw a shadowy hand with a knife appear above Vinyl. The blade was about to kill her. I ran quicker but with each step she got farther away. I tried to scream out one more time, but I fell. And kept falling. Forever. I screamed and screamed for what felt like an eternity then I heard a voice, sounding a lot like Vinyl's, say, "Why did he have to leave me?" That repeated for hours and I stopped screaming and started to answer. When I got the answer, I screamed out, "Because Earth is my home!" Then I shot my eyes open and leaped in my bed. I was in my bed and sweating profusely. It was near midnight and I had no idea what that dream was about. I looked at my hands and I was glad to see that I had my hooves back. I should get back to sleep, but that nightmare... I’ve never had anything like that. I can live through my current dreams, but this... this was different. Was it the fear of losing Vinyl? I know I don’t like it, but losing her shouldn’t be this painful. This world is false and yet, it’s more real than Earth. I have someone close, someone I can talk to. Why did I have to get into relationships? It was so much simpler just writing code. Against my better judgement, I had become attached to this world. Life just won’t be the same once I leave. Dammit! I’ve made my choice. I’m leaving and I will not regret it. I slumped back down into my bed and fell asleep yet again with hope of not having to relive that dream. I woke up with those dreams still fresh in my mind. They had an impact on me. While stretching my legs, I walked over to my door and walked outside, computer parts floating behind me. It was bright outside when I left Twilight’s house. I skipped breakfast, I wasn't hungry. I just wanted off this planet and I needed a different place to work on my MTSC and IRR. I found a shady tree somewhere nearby the outskirts of Ponyville and sat down on the grass and continued on my IRR. It was a nice and quiet day with a slow breeze blowing out, shuffling my hair around. It didn’t take too long to finish it. Just another 2 hours and I wasn't disturbed at all which was nice. Looks like there’s only one more barrier between me and Earth, the MTSC. I’m still not even sure if it’s possible, but, I did not come all the way out here, do all this stuff, and work this hard just to quit now. I’m getting off this pony hell, if it means I get back to Earth or die trying. With renewed determination, I tested the IRR. It used blu-tooth to connect to the computer which has been modified by me and is now a small laptop which I could carry with me easily. I opened up the laptop and it started the boot sequence. ********************** BOOT:root; beta ********************** Starting... Firmware booted successful. Graphics booted successful. CPU Voltage at 56%. Temp. at 24% max. All systems checked and ready for use. Process completed: 1 successful attempt out of 1 attempt. ********************* Welcome user: U:___________ P:___________ ********************* I inputted my username and password into the boxes and watched the magic happen. ********************* Username and Password accepted: Welcome, User: Dylansl > ********************** I typed in the correct commands making sure that I missed nothing. ********************** >Start: Blu-tooth network scan >Establishing Blu-tooth uplink... >Blu-tooth connection found for device: IRR >Would you like to connect? [y/n] >y >Connecting.... >Uplink to IRR succesful. >Transferring firmware data... >Both devices now in synchronization and ready for use. Run diagnostics for system hardware and logic gates? [y/n] >y >Running test#649... >Test succesful. >Results: Array: Working Uplink: Connected Transistor power lines: Non-responsive >Rechecking transistors using backup power paths.... >Alt. path found in J-sector. >Rerunning test#649 Array: Working Uplink: Connected Transistor power lines: Responsive Output signal: pinging.... Ping completed: Sent packets: 10 Received packets: 10 Missed packets: 0 >IRR is fully tested and ready for use. Would you like to view porn? [y/n] >n >Are you sure? [y/n] >y >Really? Are you OK? [y/n] >y >I know how to win this! Would you like to view porn? [y/y] ********************* Eh, fuck it. ********************* >y >Displaying porn... ************************ A video of lesbians came up on the screen and... yeah, take a guess. *********************** >Porn video complete. Any other requests? [y/n] >n >initializing shut down... >Booting down... >Bye bye. ************************* The lights turned off and the fans stopped whirring. I kind of forgot why I put that video in there. Is it wrong that I can recite an HD 3D porn video in Binary from my head? I’ll prove it, it starts off with 010100110110100001100101001000000110010101100001011001110110010101110010011011000111100100100000011001110111001001100001011000100110001001100101011001000010000001101101011110010010000001110111011001010110110001101100001011010110010101101110011001000110111101110111011001010110010000100000011011010110010101101101011000100110010101110010 but it gets really juicy at 01010011011010000110010100100000011101110110000101110011001000000111001001101001011001000110100101101110011001110010000001101101011110010010000001101000011101010110011101100101001000000110001101101111011000110110101100100000011101110110100101110100011010000010000001101000011001010111001000100000011000100111001001100101011000010111010001110011001000000111001101101000011000010110101101101001011011100110011100100000011000010111010000100000011001010110000101100011011010000010000001100010011011110111010101101110011000110110010100101110 and I really like that part with 01010111011010000110000101110100001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100110011101010110001101101011001000000110110101100001011011100010000100100000010001000110100101100100001000000111100101101111011101010010000001110010011001010110000101101100011011000111100100100000011010100111010101110011011101000010000001110100011100100110000101101110011100110110110001100001011101000110010100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110001001101001011011100110000101110010011110010010000001101000011011110111000001101001011011100110011100100000011001100110111101110010001000000111000001101111011100100110111000111111001000000101010001101000011000010111010000100111011100110010000001101011011010010110111001100100001000000110111101100110001000000111001101100001011001000010000001110010011001010110000101101100011011000111100100101110. I’m getting a boner just thinking about it! Just then Vinyl found me and walked up to me and I hid my computer stuff behind me. As she walked to me, she said, "Hey dude. Been looking for ya. What's going on?" "Oh not much. I might be leaving for an... err lengthy period of time pretty soon." "I'm gonna miss you dude. Or, I could come along." "Sorry but you- Wait... what if I..." I could bring Vinyl home with me! No, she wouldn't be able to adapt to Earth's violent cruel culture. I couldn't put her through the pain. "No, sorry it's a trip that only I can do with my skill. It will be pretty boring." "Oh, OK then, but I'll be waiting for you when you get back." This will be harder than I thought. "Thanks, I'll remember you while I'm there." She held something out in her hoof towards me. It was a shiny circle that looked like a vinyl record with the words 'NB + VS' on the edges and a picture of me and Vinyl at the party where we first met. I was tied up in rope. "Here take this. It's a gift to celebrate our randomly picked anniversary day." "It's nowhere near our anniversary." "I know. I just needed an excuse to give this to you." "Heh. Thanks, this is beyond awesome." She blushed a bit and giggled. I took the tiny disc and put it into my pocket. "I should probably head over to Canterlot now for the final preparations. After that, I got to go." "Can I go with you?" I really did want her to come, but these are kind of secret plans of the MTSC. "I'd like it if you did, but you can't. There is some top secret stuff that you have to have high security clearance to see." "I don't know what that means, but fine. I'll just stay here then. Alone. Again." She started to look sad. "Look, don't try to guilt trip me. This is already hard enough to do and I'll be back before you know it." She put on a relaxed smile on again and said, "Right. I expect you to be home for dinner." She chuckled at that and so did I. "You won't even notice I'm gone." I gave her one final hug and walked off toward Canterlot while carrying my tech with magic. I've gotten use to long walks by now and I knew where Canterlot was so I just trotted over there thinking about what has been happening on Earth while I was gone. Humans are far to unpredictable and illogical to even come close to guessing what they would do. I just gave up on trying to do that and thought about Vinyl. I'm going to miss those deep red eyes and perfect smile she has. I made my way to the same building that those nerd ponies were in and sure enough, they were all there... with a certain unwanted guest, Luna. I was nervous around her because she wanted to kill me on site and I imagine that she still does. Better be cautious around her. I walked over to the brown wooden rounded table and put my laptop, IRR and mostly finished MTSC blueprints. Luna had a stern look in her face. I explained how the MTSC worked and showed them each piece and how it will connect to the IRR and what the computer is for. They all looked bewildered at the level of tech I had. Luna had the same scorn look on her face as if she didn't notice the highly advanced ultra complex tech I was explaining. We all brainstormed ideas and eventually finished the MTSC. It would involve heavy magic use to power it due to the lack of tech here and it was rather large, the size of a average 2 story home. Once we finished the designs, Luna said, "Look, this is impressive and all, but why should we waste our time on this?" Classic stall tactic. She was going to tell me something but she couldn't do it just yet so she's stalling by asking me pointless questions. I will not take any of her bullshit. In rebuttal, I said, "Cut the crap. You want to build this so you can get rid of me since you can't kill me. I've been watching you closer than you think and I now have a question for you, who's the one who succeeded in this little 'game' you're playing. I don't know much, but I can put two and two together and I know you’re planning something. You wouldn't just kill me with no reason. You had a good reason. My current theory is that you needed a human to manipulate and to do this you used some kind of spell that teleported someone from Earth to here, but there was a problem. My will to return to Earth was too strong and you couldn't control me enough to make me stay and Celestia found out about me. So you needed me gone and then to try again on someone else. That explains how I got here. And, once you've heard I'm trying to leave, you took that chance as quick as you could. But what I don't know, is who. Who is this puppet of yours? And what do you need him for? And I also bet you decided to play it safe by getting some one who had just died. Someone with a soul but no body. Someone who couldn't go back to Earth. So Luna, how much am I right?" She turned furious but quickly calmed down and said, "You don't need to know about my royal business. I just don't like the idea of humans here, so I want you to go back home, which is your goal also." The other ponies were looking at Luna with worried faces. Luna can't just ignore this. I guess I'm right then. But I'm not done getting the truth out. Right now I just want to go home and I'll get the truth out of her later. "So that's it. You’re playing the 'you don't need to know' card. Fine. It doesn't matter for me anyway. But this isn't over. I will find out the truth." I growled at Luna. The other ponies still looked shocked about this. Well, back to the task at hand. I finished the designs and now I just need to build it. "OK, so who's going to get the supplies?" A slightly shorter, reddish brown pony got up from the table and said, "I'll get them." He walked out of the building and for the time he was gone, there was an uneasy silence in the room. He returned after a few minutes with the necessary metals and conductors being held together with his magic. He laid them out on the table and we all started bending and smelting the fine circuitry into the soon-to-be-MTSC. I was blasting ahead of the rest of them like this was second-hand nature, and it kinda was. Luna just sat there still staring at me and watched what I was planning. We made numerous improvements while building such as now it was the size of an average elevator and it could be started up and used in 2 minutes and then could be used every 8 minutes due to the extreme heat generated by it. It took us all day, about 7 hours or so and it was very late into the night when we finished it. We decided to keep it hidden and locked up so that nopony can use it. Only I had the key. I went to the castle and Celestia was nice enough to give me a guest room for the night. The royal bed was nice, but I had the same nightmare as before. I woke up screaming about 8 A.M. or so and a royal guard came into my room and asked, "Is everything alright, Guest Blaze?" I responded by saying, "I'm fine, just a bad dream." The guard nodded and left. I got up from the bed and trotted out of the castle. I found Celestia at her throne as I walked out. She tried to say 'hello' but I had already left the castle. I went to the same meeting room as before and found about half of the ponies there. Then I said a quick 'hello' and sat down. They all stopped their conversation and looked at me. I got annoyed and said, "I don't have time for this. Let's just get this started. Where are the rest of the ponies?" The same short pony as before said, "Luna has," He paused and gulped."Requested they stay out of this." I slammed my hoof and the table cursed, "Damnit Luna! No matter, I can do this with you few. Follow me." Hmm, what does Luna have to gain from doing this? I led the ponies out to the hidden MTSC and unlocked the door. As planned, they started to shoot magic at the device and it was powering up. The blinking lights on the control panel lit up and a swirling purple and white portal opened up. I was shaking with anticipation when I opened the laptop. I plugged in the IRR to the MTSC and it read the signal with no interference. I watched the boot sequence. ********************** BOOT:root; kernel ********************** Starting..... Firmware booted successful. Graphics booted successful. CPU Voltage at 63%. Temp. at 42% max. ERROR: Video memory conflicting with RAM. ********************* My eyes went wide at this and time appeared to stop. How could this fail!? I waited and held my breath for what might happen next. ********************** Forcing boot static RAM to dynamic RAM... Success. All systems checked and ready for use. Process completed: 1 successful attempt out of 2 attempts. ********************* Welcome user: U:___________ P:___________ ********************* Whew. I almost thought that would have failed. I quickly inputted my username and password into the boxes and hit enter. *********************** Username and Password accepted: Welcome, User: Dylansl >Start: Blu-tooth network scan >Establishing Blu-tooth uplink... >Blu-tooth connection found for deivce: IRR >Would you like to connect? [y/n] >y >Connecting.... >Uplink to IRR successful. >Run diagnostics for system hardware and logic gates? [y/n] >n >IRR is ready for use. >Search: def Earth(): >Searching for Earth.... >Tracking all major solar systems for planets with 50% percent or higher carbon atmosphere... >3 planets found. >Running extra radiation tests... >Earth has been found. >Travel time: 2 minutes. ************************* Wait... WHAT?! ONLY TWO MINUTES? That means... Equestria is near Earth’s solar system. Damn. I never thought we were that close. I thought the journey would take years and span multiple galaxies. And this is still a bad design. I could probability shorten that to 2 seconds if this was made on Earth. This just might mean I could go back and forth... ************************** >Would you like to open the portal to Earth? [y/n] >y >Commencing portal run#423: Earth >Portal opening at lat:4495.43 lon: 4234.95 >Destination found. >Displaying input image. ************************** I could see my room in the portal. It was still dark and messy. Oh, how I missed that room. I looked around at everyone else and they look bewildered at what they had just seen. They were all speechless, just staring at the portal. ************************** > All systems checked and ready for use. >Would you like to open the portal to organic life? [y/n] >y >Enter biocode on eye scanner. >Waiting for input.... >Input found. >Loading biosystems... >Biosystems found and ready for use. >Change Biosystem:Dylan(P) to Dylan(H) >Biomodels linked and ready for change. >Portal now ready for:Dylan(P). Please step in. ***************************** This was it. This would be my last site here. I don’t plan on coming back. Before I could change my mind, I waved and said, “Goodbye all. It was fun here.” I then walked over to the portal and jumped in. I didnt feel anything but I could see all my molecules being split apart and shooting at high speeds through the emptiness of space. There’s Pluto, and the other planets as they fly by. I could see Earth within a minute and I noticed that my molecules started joining together. First my brain was formed and everything joined after that. I was human again. As I looked over my non-neon green skin again and flexed my fingers, I could see that I was standing in my room. Then I just forgot everything. What happened? I feel strange. OK, I’m in my room... oh yeah! I was trying to stop that greedy politician. I hopped on my computer and noticed there was an odd layer of dust on it. That’s odd, it wasn't that dusty a few minutes ago. I woke up the computer and checked the clock. It was August 4, 9 P.M. But... but... how... it was July, 24 just a few minutes ago. How could this happen? No, probably just a glitched clock. But wait, that wouldn't explain the odd amount of dust. Did I go into a coma? No, I’m still alive and not even hungry and haven't been found out. Hmm, I should check the news to see what’s happened over the week. I opened up CNN and scrolled through the articles. Order to launch nuclear missiles at China issued by President. America has started WW3 by order of the President. Politician that has been accused of taking bribes is elected president. Politician has been accused of taking bribes but found innocent due to lack of evidence. Oh... my... god... it’s all my fault. I started WW3. If only I could have been quicker. I doomed the world to an apocalypse all because I couldn't finish my hack in time. No wait, I still had time! I can stop this! I just got to-*SLAM* I turned around and shall someone standing in my door and saw the door being kicked open. He spoke with a heavy Russia accent, “Criminal against state, user dylansl, you’re under arrest for stealing and altering top secret documents through hacking.” Oh fuck. How did they find me?! And why is he Russian? Why would Russia want me? He held up large revolver and cocked it. “Now come with me, or have your brain be all over wall.” “You come into my house and just expect me to give up? Well too bad. 5, 4, 3, 2-” “Counting will no get you nowhere.” “1.” I shielded my eyes and I heard a loud bang go off and a flash of light. My flashbang trap worked. While he was stunned, I ran up to him and did an uppercut straight to the jaw. It connected but he didn't move. I was never that strong. I then wrestled him for the gun but he punched me and I stumbled back. I dived through his legs then rolled forward then got up and ran. He fired two bullets in my direction.*BANG BANG* I ducked instinctively and knew the bullets would miss anyway. I rounded myself up the stairs running on the wall. I looked behind me for a brief instant and I could see he was close behind. I found a window in my pursuit and jumped through it. He fired another two rounds. *BANG BANG* I fell down a story and landed with a roll onto grass and got up while still in momentum and ran. He fired two bullets.*BANG BANG* Both missed and I looked back and saw him chasing me from only feet away. I turned a corner into an alley with a gate and saw a pile of boxes that lead over the gate. I ran up the boxes then I wall jumped and grabbed onto the top of the gate. He was out of bullets and I knew it. If he had only one round left, I would have been an easy target. I pulled myself over and dropped on the other side. Mid-fall, his gun clicked indicating that he was out of ammo. I yelled, “Next time, count your bullets!” As I rounded the corner knowing he wouldn't follow because he couldn't make that jump. He yelled out some incomprehensible word in Russian as I dashed off. Now, I just need to get to my house. As I ran down the alleyway looking for a path back, I felt something in my pocket. Strange, I usually don’t carry anything with me except my phone which I left on my desk. I pulled out a small circular thing. It looked like a small vinyl record with the letters NB + VS printed on the edge and a small photo of a neon green unicorn tied up in rope next to a white unicorn with blue hair and purple glasses. Then it hit me. I remembered everything. Becoming a pony. Meeting Vinyl. Going on dates with her. Building the MTSC. Going home. Everything was back. I fell forward on my hands as all my memories flooded back. A tear was brought to my eye as I realized she was gone. You never truly love something until it's gone. “Vinyl...” I whispered. No. NO. I WILL NOT LOSE HER! LEAVING HER WAS MISTAKE! I WILL SEE HER AGAIN! This will take me going deep into secret laboratories to get the necessary tech and a team of agents, but I will do it. Even if it means I die. This. Is. My. Goal. Live or die.