I twiddled my pen in my fingers a few times before tossing it into the air and catching it. At least, I attempted to catch it. What actually happened was that I clumsily missed and the pen bopped me in the forehead.
Then I spun around in my computer chair a few dozen times until I got dizzy. Once the room stopped spinning, I spent the next few minutes staring at the wall of my cubicle. I was attempting to practice my possibly undiscovered ability to set things on fire with my mind. I had already ruled out telekinesis and telepathy, but you never know unless you try, right?
I was sooooooo bored!
I’d finished writing my report filled with random numbers, but now I had nothing else to do with my time. After waking up late, I’d rushed out of my apartment so I could get to work without being late. Unfortunately, in my haste, I had forgotten to bring my PonyPad with me. Even worse, I wasn’t feeling drowsy, so I couldn’t just take a nap in my cubicle.
“Psst! Hey, Sneaky Shadow!”
Huh? Where did that voice just come from?
“Down here!” the voice spoke up again.
Why was there a lady’s voice coming from my pants?
I pulled my smartphone out of my pocket. The screen lit up and Red Hoofed appeared. It looked like she was standing in my cubicle right next to me. She wasn’t really there of course. She only existed on the screen of my smartphone, but footage of my cubicle was displayed behind her. It reminded me of that AR tech that PokemonGo uses.
“Hi, Sneaky.” Red looked me up and down and then cringed, “This is what a human looks like? You look kinda gross. You remind me of one of those naked mole rats if it had been hit with an ugly stick.”
Ouch, my pride. I’ll let that one slide.
“Hey, Red,” I greeted her before changing the subject. “How are you doing this? How did you get on my phone?”
“You installed the Equestria Mobile Companion App to your phone. Since I’m your friend now, that means I can talk to you with it even when you’re in the Human Realm,” She replied, gaze constantly roaming around.
“I remember now. I almost forgot about that thing,” I admitted. That app didn’t appear to do anything when I installed it weeks ago. “This is a really neat feature.”
“Yeah, now I can follow you around even when you’re not in the game.”
I frowned when something else occurred to me. “But, how did you activate the app remotely? And how did you unlock my phone’s screen without the code?”
“That’s not important,” Red said, dismissing my concerns. “Quit being so paranoid. Everypony knows that rootkits don’t really exist.”
I nodded; she was right. It was just a harmless app.
“What is this place?” She asked, turning her attention outwards. Doubtlessly looking around using the camera in my phone.
“It’s my cubicle at work. Money Maker Co, to be precise.” I gestured around me in a way that was meant to evoke a sense of awe and wonder in her.
“Oh, Celestia told us about places like this. You’re one of those humans that’s referred to as a Corporate Butt Monkey.” Red Hoofed was not the type of mare that would hesitate to punch below the belt.
Feeling more than a little pissed off at my new “friend” I spun my phone around in my hand over and over again.
“Hey, quit doing that!” She shouted at me.
I kept doing it, because… of course I did.
“Seriously, stop it! I’m getting really dizzy!”
A few more twirls and I heard the sound of her blowing chunks. Only then did I show mercy and stop. There was a light coating of vomit on her forelegs and a puddle of digital spew on the floor of my cubicle. I think I saw pieces of hayburger in it.
Red glared at me through the screen of my phone, then pointed a hoof at me, “I’m going to get you back for that someday.”
I shrugged, not really caring about the threat. What could a virtual mini-horse possibly do to me?
The blue unicorn lit up her horn with a green colored aura that matched her eyes. The vomit disappeared with a faint shimmer. Clean up complete, she turned her attention back to looking around my cubicle. It was weird how I could hear her hoofsteps as she trotted around, with the sound only coming from my phone.
She hopped on top of my desk and poked around at the various knickknacks. “What are these things?”
“Those are just paperclips,” I said after looked at what her hoof was pointing at.
“They look shiny. You should steal them.” Was her wise advice.
“I’m not stealing something for real!” I blurted out. “Unlike Equestria, actions have consequences out here. Besides, paperclips aren’t really valuable. Contrary to what some AIs may think.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re too chicken to steal it.”
“I am not!” I defended myself, “There’s just no point!”
“Chicken! Bwakak! Chicken!” She taunted me, flapping her forelegs in a chicken dance while she strutted back and forth across my desk.
My willpower eroded; I picked up the small box of paperclips and stuffed them into my pants. My smartphone beeped and a notification appeared.
Badge Unlocked: She’s A Bad Influence on You
Unlocked By: Your pony friend persuaded you to steal something in the Human Realm.
Reward: For legal reasons, I cannot reward this.
“There, are you happy now?” I sat back down in my chair with a huff, “I don’t even know what I’m going to do with two hundred paperclips.”
“I’m a little happy,” she admitted before stretching out her back like a cat. “Now, let’s get out of this boring place and find more stuff to steal.”
“No way! I am putting my foot down!” I exclaimed. “No more stealing stuff in the real world!”
Red slowly narrowed her large eyes at me. It was clear to me that she was contemplating her next devious chess move. Finally, she went straight for the jugular when she said something in a faint whisper, “You’re just chicken.”
I knocked on the doorframe of my manager’s office, then stuck my head inside the room. “Hey Earl.”
“What’s up, Daniel?” Earl asked, looking up from the pile of reports with random numbers on them.
“A pony NPC wants me to go outside and steal stuff. Can I leave early?”
Earl waved me off. “Sure thing buddy! Speaking of ponies, we should group up in Equestria Online at some point. We could invite Howard, have an old fashion LAN party.”
“Sounds great, see you tomorrow!”
Earl turned his attention back to the reports in front of him. Curious, I watched him examine the paperwork. He pulled a single page off the top of the stack. After a minute spent looking at the numbers, he folded the paper. He made another fold, and then another. I swiftly lost track of how many times he folded it. Finally, he pulled his hands away, giving me a clearer view.
He had folded it into an origami crane.
Huh, so that’s what he did with all those reports.
I walked down the sidewalk of downtown L.A. with my cellphone held out in front of me so Red Hoofed could see. I overheard another pedestrian mutter something about me being a Millennial Douche. I ignored him.
“This is so strange,” Red commented as we walked, “the cars and such look fascinating, but your world is so bland in terms of color.”
“It looks normal to me. To my perspective, your pastel world is the strange one.”
Red asked questions about everything we passed. I did my best to answer them. Finally, we lapsed into silence for several minutes as I walked. Occasionally I would move the camera around so Red could get a closer look at the various things that we passed.
“What’s that store over there?” Red finally spoke up again, pointing a hoof off to the side.
“That’s a gas station, it sells… well… gas.” I explained after looking at the store in question, “They also sell an assortment of snacks and lunches. It’s a great place to buy tuna salad sandwiches that have a hint of scombroid bacteria in them for extra flavor.”
“Can we go in and look around?” Red asked.
“Sure, let’s go inside.” I led the way.
The front door made a musical *Bing-Bong* noise when I opened it. There was a surprisingly large number of people inside the store. Red and I walked amongst the aisles, looking at all the snacks on the shelves.
“Sneaky, look over there! It’s a candy bar!” Red pointed out; hoof outstretched at one of the white painted shelves.
I looked at it. Yup, that was definitely a candy bar. It was one of those off-brand kind that almost no one eats. “Yes, and what’s your point?”
“You should steal it of course!” She said it like I was an idiot for not realizing it.
“Why should I do that? It’s not exactly shiny or very valuable.”
“That’s not what’s important this time!” She growled at me, “The important thing, is that it’s candy. Everypony knows that stolen candy tastes better than regular candy!”
It was difficult to argue with irrefutable logic like that. But I was still hesitant.
“I don’t know,” I waffled, “what if I get caught?”
“Don’t worry about that! Even if you get caught, a charge of petty theft is just a slap on the fetlock. Or whatever it is that you humans have for fetlocks,” She scolded me. “Now quit being such a pessimistic asshole and steal that candy bar!”
I looked up and down the aisle. No one was looking in my direction. I looked up at the ceiling. There was one of those bubble shaped security cameras a few aisles over, but there were no cameras covering this area.
Reluctantly, I reached out. My pulse pounded in my ears as I picked up a candy bar and stuffed it into my pocket.
“Stop! Thief!” A voice cried out from somewhere on the right side of the store.
I froze like a deer in the headlights.
Thankfully, lady luck was on my side. Ten random dudes in the store, panicked and ran for the exits. Scrambling over each other to escape. Apparently, I wasn’t the only shoplifter in the store at that particular moment. The store clerk hadn’t even been yelling at me.
This is why I love living in Los Angeles.
With the clerk distracted by chasing the other thieves, I took my time to cram four more candy bars into my pants. Red Hoofed looked like she was proud of me.
By the time I returned to my apartment building, there was a large number of items weighing down my cargo pants. My crime spree across L.A. had netted me an eclectic assortment of stolen junk.
My final tally stood at one box of paperclips, five candy bars, a small lawn gnome, a wad of tin foil (because Red said it was shiny), a baseball card signed by some guy named Babe Ruth, and one lollipop stolen from a toddler.
All these things were obviously worthless, so I threw everything except for the candy into the dumpster next to my apartment.
Red was right. Stolen candy really did taste better than regular candy.
Before I could unlock the door to my apartment, Red stopped me, “Look over there! There’s something else you can steal!”
Looking in the indicated direction, I blanched, “Nope! That is one line too far! I am definitely not stealing that. It doesn’t matter how many times you call me a chicken. I would never be able to look at myself in the mirror again if I stole one of those.”
Red stared at me as if I had just squatted down and pinched out a fresh loaf right there in the hallway. “You will literally steal candy from a foal, but you won’t steal an unguarded package off of somepony’s front doorstep?”
“Poarch piracy is a line that I will never cross. A man’s Amazon delivery is sacred.” I laid down the law.
“Your ethical line in the sand is starting to look a lot like a squiggle,” Red remarked.