//------------------------------// // 3 - Computer Science // Story: Return to Equestria // by David Silver //------------------------------// David sank down into the chair of a computer. One thing became clear, ponies expected, overall, bigger seats. They were made so a pony could be seated on their haunches if they wanted without an issue, which means they were bigger than strictly required to hold just a human butt. This wasn't the end of the world. He reached for the mouse and waggled it. It only had one button. Considering what species it was made for, that wasn't too surprising. "Like a Mac?" David decided to assume it'd work like a Mac until proven otherwise. The wriggling was enough to stir the machine out of slumber, and it casually wanted him to log in. Not a username and password, but it had space for that. Much more prominently, it invited him to swipe a card, a time card for visitors of the cafe. Alright. David pushed up to his feet, only to encounter a younger pony before he could get far. "By the deep forests," the colt said in awed respect. "The winds have delivered us a warrior." "Huh?" David raised a hand. "Nice to meet you?" "It is!" joyfully agreed the colt, clapping his hooves together. "What tribe are you from?" "Pony tribe?" "No!" The colt extended his tongue quite far out. "You're not a pony. You're a human! What tribe?" Ah, right, it came together. That game was clearly known to more than Joypad. "The American tribe. Gonna guess you've not heard of that one." The colt shook his head violently. "Wow, a new one! What kind of power do Americans have?" A thousand cynical replies leaped to his tongue. Oh, there were so many American habits he could poke fun at... "This particular one is learning how the computers work, so everyone can learn more about humans." "Wow!" got out the colt breathlessly. "That's so cool." He trotted off, aborting the conversation without a goodbye. He had become a random NPC, and one did not need to say bye to NPCs one happened to click on. What a life. David chuckled softly at the thought, walking with purpose to the front counter, but waiting his turn like any other pony, which he was not. "Joypad." He had reached the front. "Do you have an admin user and password?" "Already on the case?" She brushed back some of the mane carpeting one of her eyes. "Good work ethics, great. I saw you talking with Pipster over there. He didn't bother you, did he?" "The little kid?" David hiked his thumb back towards where he had been. "Nah, just curious. I'd be even more curious if a pony wandered where I could see it where I'm from." "Are you curious?" She eyed him with her visible eye, a smirk on her face. "The mysteries of ponies are deep and vast." She wiggled her hooves. "Just messing with you. We're earth ponies. What you see is what you get." She shrugged and grabbed a pen suddenly in her mouth. She got to scribbling and shoved it forward with a sweep of a hoof. "Here ya go." David snatched the paper up in kind. Yep, two strings of characters, which he assumed were what he needed. "I'm on the case. Let me get out of the way." He scooted to the side to let the next pony advance. Joypad's attention slid right along to that pony very quickly, only a subtle wave of a hoof to the side so say bye with. She was on duty, and ponies needed her. David didn't press that, heading back to the computer he had started with. He had been worried she might not even have that login. That would have raised the difficulty quite a bit, trying to perform IT without admin access. David got to typing, or would have. The keyboard was made for pony hooves, big and round pony hooves, not dexterous human fingers. "Dang it..." He reached for the keyboard with less certainty, examining the two big pads provided. There were no keys, well, besides those two big buttons. Oh! He swept the mouse and clicked, pow, there, an on-screen keyboard, and it even looked the same. Return of Qwerty! How ponies typed, a mystery, and one he set aside for inputting the login information. It wasn't as fast as typing, but it worked. Sometimes, that was more important. Logged in, he was presented with a desktop. It was primitive, but it was a desktop. It had icons. It had menus. The options in the menus made sense enough. Nothing too alien, just working with an older version of the OS he was used to using. Not that big of a deal, really. "Great." He conjured a command prompt and got to typing things in. Some commands worked, some did not, but he was figuring things out. "Good..." "I thought you were joking." Joypad had snuck up on him in his distracted state, an easy thing to do when David was working. "How did you even get that?" She waved a hoof at the command prompt he was working. "And what's that?" Her hoof homed in on the floating digital keyboard he was using. "That is a keyboard." David inclined his head at it. "Where I'm from, they're the default thing you have in front of you." He patted the strange lump of plastic with two hoof-rests. "Not this." "I have one of those." That got David's attention. "The pegasi I bought it, the computers, from gave one to me. They type with their wing-tips. Guess what I don't have." She waved both hooves at David. "So I put that away and forgot about it." "I will work, like, a hundred times faster with that. Can you bring it out?" "No." Joypad leaned in with a coy smile. "But I can tell you where it is and you can bring it out." With a lash of her tail, she turned to the door that led to her apartment. "Head upstairs." She gave the rest of the directions on how to find it. "I have to keep an eye on the store. Taking my eyes off it while it's open is a recipe for trouble." "Right-o." That made logical enough sense. "Be right back." And David was off, hopping up the steps two at a time out of sight. Joypad watched the space he had gone to. "Shoot..." "You got a human!" Pipster popped up from around the corner. "He's cool! Is he like a big promo for the next game?" "I only wish." Joypad shook her head as she looped around back towards her counter. "Just a friendly traveler from another world that knows how to fix computers." "Get out!" Pipster was following after Joypad. "Evermarsh?" "I don't think so." Joypad hopped up into her seat. "Another world, but I didn't ask. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?" "He's not a horse," chastised the colt with a ripe pfft. "Don't be dumb." No, they were the horses, and not gifts. "He is a he, right? Sounded like one." "What I'm guessing." Not like gender dimorphism of alien species was super high on the skill list of either pony. "Now, you here to get your card refilled?" "Oh! Yeah!" Out came a few bits and his playing card. Upstairs, David had reached Joypad's living area. "Huh." It was a gaming pad, but also a girl's area in a combination he didn't see often. "Now where..." He wandered, a bit lost at first, but moving and looking. "A keyboard..." Not having to mouse each letter! He wanted it so badly! Boxes! They were about the right size. He popped one open to find... another hoof-board thing. He nudged it right aside and went for the box under that. No. The next? No. He huffed. "C'mon, rule of threes." It was something of a curse knowing one was in a work of writing. It came with expectations! But he wasn't giving up, working through the boxes one by one. No, it was right at the bottom. "That... makes sense, thinking about it." She had no use for it, so it being farther away than any of the ones she could use? Sure, alright. He began cleaning up the mess he had made, restacking them all neatly, minus the keyboard he wielded triumphantly back down the stairs. "Da dun da da," he hummed in joyous music of item discovery from a game he had played long ago. Only for a pony to start humming another tidbit. It wasn't quite right, distinct enough to avoid copyrights. David let out a little huh as he sat back down at his chosen computer and soon got the new keyboard plugged in. "Alright." And his typing power was unleashed, allowing him to monkey around instead of horsing around, much to his delight. "Dave." Joypad was calling him. "Since you're comfortable, why not actually try fixing one?" She pointed to a computer with a big red sheet of paper over its screen, announcing its out of repair status. Hm. "Well, it's what I'm being paid to do." He wouldn't know how well he could diagnose one that was busted without actually trying it. He worked the keyboard loose and soon had it attached to the sick computer. He wiggled the mouse to discover it was already on, which meant... "Have you tried turning it off?" "What?" Joypad inclined her head, clearly confused at the idea. David brought the mouse over and instructed the computer to restart itself. "Basic IT, restart, reboot, reinstall. If you haven't tried those, you aren't even really trying." The computer made a little cheerful noise. It had rebooted. He got to typing quickly, getting the admin credentials in. "It seems fine..." He'd lucked out. In the future, problems not fixed with basic rebooting would come up, but that day... He logged back out, tossed the red paper in the trash and disconnected the keyboard. "Ready for use." He got out of the computer just in time for a heavyset stallion to crash in front of it and get to using it. "Huh..." The timing... "Any others?" Turned out one of the computers came unplugged from the network, and another had a similar problem with the hoof-pad. The fourth sick computer, however, was a more terminal case. It wouldn't turn on. It would not respond. It as a very expensive brick. "I can't do... much if I can't turn it on..." Not that he wouldn't try! He held down the function keys as he started it, one by one. One worked! A boot menu came up in text. They did have a safe mode! Score! Confident he could at least try to fix that one, he got right into it. "Hey." Joypad had snuck up on him, or he was oblivious to the world again. "Look, appreciate it, really do, but you've been jamming at that for hours now. Don't you want a break?" But he wasn't hungry, or tired. "I'm fine, and I think I'm getting closer on this. Do you have the original install discs?" She looked lost a moment before she clopped her hooves together. "I do!" And off she went scrambling. Which meant the store was busy not being watched. Crap. David went over to the front counter and sat in Joypad's chair, so there was someone there. "More time." A mare slid a card forward along with some bits. Crap, a customer... "Really sorry." David held up his hands placatingly. "She'll be right back. I'm just making sure nothing burns down in the meantime." The mare cocked her head, brow going high. "You aren't Joypad." Apparently a fact she had only just noticed. "Crazy. What even are you?" "That's what I wanted to know!" came the call of a stallion. The mare's question was a cue for others to stare in wonder, questioning David's existence. "You ever play Evermarsh?" asked David with an unsure smile. "Human." Some of the crowd nodded, clearly having played that. Many of them didn't get it, which just prompted the two parts of the crowd to chat, sharing the knowledge excitedly.