Like she'd said she would, Drama Heart returned three days after she had left. She was giddy beyond words, all but prancing as she left the train station and made the trip back to her theater on hoof. She was so enthused from the time she had spent back in Baltimare, catching up on time spent with her youngest sister and making sure she had everything she needed, that the news that she would soon be an aunt continued to fill her with energy.
"---walking on sunshine, whoa-hoaaaa, and does it feel good!..."
Even with the sun beginning its evening descent, Drama felt like she had enough fuel to clean the entire theater from top to bottom in the span of an hour. While her emotions didn't manifest themselves as a heartsong this time, a half-remembered tune she'd heard in Baltimare was enough to get others who saw her smiling and nodding along.
And why shouldn't they? I haven't been this happy since the day I got my Cutie Mark! Oh, there's going to be so many fun times ahead! I can just see it now, their "Crazy Aunt Salamandra" showing up out of the blue to brighten up their day! I can't wait, I can't wait!
...
Drama entered the theater through the back door and made her way to the lobby, looking about her as she went. She set aside her familial joy to properly judge the situation. Good, she remembered to keep a few of the lights on. Everything seems to be in order. Nothing out of place. Maybe a mild dusting is all that's needed. If she's this good at house-sitting, I won't need to charge her rent.
She was a little surprised when she got to the lobby, though. Leviathan was seated on the floor near the restrooms, her coat and purse sitting off in the corner forgotten. There was enough illumination for Drama to see that all of Fairy's external damage was just about gone, with a minor dent or two being all that was left. Her white uniform was all but pristine, having mended itself along with her frame. The part of Drama that was enthralled by the Reploid's damaged state was squashed by her more rational side telling her that it was for the best.
Fairy should've been much more pleased with how she was doing, but instead she was staring up at the ceiling, her eyes tired and lifeless. Her pupils flitted towards Drama when she walked into view; rather than getting up, she leaned forward to rest her hands and head on her knees. "Welcome home," she intoned, voice just as quiet as Gray Ghost's stoic child.
"Um... it's good to be home," Drama greeted her, immediately sidetracked by Fairy's mood. "Are you doing okay? You're not mad because I ditched you to visit my family, are you?"
"No," was Leviathan's response, and the unicorn could tell she meant it. "I'm just having one of those... bleh kind of days."
"Understandable." Drama patted her shoulder, giving her what she felt was a consoling smile. She turned and headed for the stairway. "Give me a few minutes to put my things away and get my dinner, then we can talk about it."
"You might want to wait on that," Leviathan said, not getting up.
A bit of puzzlement. "Fairy, I've got to put these away before I do anything. I can't just leave them down here."
"I'm serious, Drama. I really don't suggest trying to go upstairs."
...Oh-ho~? That's just begging for me to find out. Drama approached the door to the stairway, opening it---
...
The entire building shivered at the storyteller's unbridled rage. "Fairy Leviathan, what in Tartarus happened to my stairs?!"
"Gray took them down because I'm grounded," Leviathan murmured, sullen.
Drama tried and failed to parse that, her anger sputtering like a malfunctioning heater. Finally, she spoke the only two words that came to mind. "That's... disturbing."
"Your friend's a monster when she feels her children are threatened," Levi answered, her tone unchanged.
The unicorn contemplated being angry at Gray instead, but got a handle on her temper. However she felt about the matter, it could wait. Hear it out. Remember to hear it out. No point in being furious if you don't hear it out first. "So... long day? Want to talk about it? ...In fact, I'll make it mandatory. Come with me to the auditorium and tell me everything. Come on, up and at 'em."
Leviathan hesitated for a while, her expression making it clear that she wasn't interested in moving. It was only when Drama held out her hooves like she was about to hug her that she sighed and got to her feet. "Alright. Just promise me that you won't want to be mad at me. Or at Gray."
"I can't really put that down in writing until after I hear the explanation," Drama countered, knowing full well her words didn't make sense. Her suitcase, already wrapped in a turquoise aura, magicked itself open long enough to jettison a black-and-orange ballcap. "And here. Got you a gag gift."
Leviathan caught the cap as it was thrown at her and spent a few seconds looking it over. "I'm not familiar with this style or this bird that's on it," she stated, her somber voice starting to perk up a little.
Drama chuckled. "Hence why it's a gag gift." She turned and walked to the auditorium, not having to turn to know that Fairy was following her. "Anyway, start from the beginning. I want to hear everything."
"Suit yourself. Just remember I tried to warn you..."
MID-MORNING, THAT VERY DAY...
My external damage was almost completely repaired when I woke up this morning, but not quite to the point where I felt like discarding my coat. And while the subroutine I'd put in place had made excellent progress towards unlocking my Double Jump, it was a low priority compared to everything else my systems were up to. No need to rush it unless it was an emergency.
"Just a moment."
If Leviathan was upset at being interrupted just two sentences in, she didn't show it. "What's the problem?"
"'Subroutine'. 'Double Jump'. Where'd these terms come from? If you used them before, I don't remember."
"Heh... got a little ahead of myself, didn't I?" Leviathan sat down on the edge of the stage, her host close by. "After you left, I discovered that some of my hardware had been tampered with back home. When I realized what was needed to get them working, I sicced a program on them to chisel away at their protection."
"What kind of protection are we talking here?"
"Passwords two billion characters long, with a provided list of 250 to choose from. Give or take a half-dozen."
Drama's face slowly contorted into something grotesque. She couldn't put a pin on the exact number of possible combinations there were, but she didn't need to; the words 'two billion' were enough to sour her expression. "How the actual---?"
Leviathan rolled her eyes and cut Drama off before she could say something profane. "This is why I typically don't discuss the inner workings of my CPU with those unfamiliar with computer science. There's enough possible combinations there that even if I was immortal, there wouldn't be enough of the universe left to fit in a hypothetical dustpan by the time I finished cracking just one of those passwords. This is why it pays to play it smart."
"Then would you mind dumbing it down to something an organic mind can comprehend?" Drama quipped, poking Levi's arm playfully.
"Sure. There were two things I discovered while poking around and putting the subroutine together. The first was that the password protection was going to let me make as many tries as I wanted. Any programmer in their right mind would set it up so that all access attempts would be logged in a security file, and they would place limits on how much something can be accessed before it just flat-out locks the user out of the system. There aren't any provisions for either." She shrugged. "At this point I can only speculate as to why it was designed that way. Maybe someone wanted to give me a fighting chance at regaining what's rightfully mine, which would make some sense. Or maybe they were just being lazy and underestimated me. Who knows? Those are just guesses. They're less important than facts to me as things stand. And the fact is that I can keep trying until something works. There's a time and place for everything, and now's not the time for dwelling on 'whys' and 'wherefores'."
"Plot relevancy. Gotcha."
An audible blink. "What?"
Drama waved a hoof impatiently. "Less important than facts right now, Fairy. What's the second thing you found?"
Leviathan raised a hand as if to ask again, but sighed and lowered it. "Have you ever heard of a game called 'Mastermind'? One pony has a limited number of turns to correctly guess a four-digit sequence based on feedback from another pony?"
Drama thought about this for a bit. "Sort of sounds like 'Bulls and Cows'," she finally said. "It's fairly popular with pony foals who like to exercise their minds without resorting to stuff like chess. I'm assuming this ties in?"
"Yes. Take away the 'limited number of turns' aspect, and that's more or less what I'm pulling. The completed subroutine starts by generating a completely random password and submitting it to the system. Barring a miracle it's obviously going to get rejected, but the subroutine asks for and gets a list of which characters are at least in their proper positions. The list is analyzed, the correct characters are locked in place, and all others are shifted to the next one in the set I'm using. The password is then re-submitted, lather, rinse, repeat."
A bit more thought on the storyteller's end, and her eyes widened at the end of it. "You probably could've worded it better, but if I'm understanding you correctly... it cuts down on your number of attempts to about 250 at most?"
"Give or take a half-dozen. And once the correct password is given, it should in theory give me permanent access to my locked hardware. I'll have to repeat the process for each piece of equipment, but in the long run I'll be much stronger than I was when I first got here."
Drama's giggling sounded more like it came from her Salamandra persona than her natural self. "Ee-heeheeheehee... the world is really not ready for someone of your mind, Fairy."
Leviathan brushed off the praise. "I'd apply that more to computers in general, not just mine. They're useful tools if they're properly programmed. So, do you still want to know how the stairs got that way, or not?"
Beat. "...Wow," Drama uttered, her mane settling back down from the momentary high she was on. "We really got off topic there."
"Nothing wrong with being curious about it, and it's my own fault for mentioning the terms to start with. So, where were we?..."
I hadn't interacted with Turkey Bowl at all since the day we met, so of course I accepted the invitation he'd sent for me to attend his next match. That takes me to where I am now: Mustang Lanes, the largest of Manehattan's three bowling alleys according to my taxi driver, and the home for the city's EBL bowling team.
Presenting the pass Turkey had enclosed with the invitation lets me into the building. I'm about thirty minutes early, and what seating is available hasn't filled up yet. I see a few suited-up out-of-towners who look like they're the visiting team, sipping idly from some drink or other and completely ignoring me, but no sign of Turkey himself. Probably preparing for the match, or what have you.
"Excuse me? Leviathan, right?"
Well, she gave it a long 'e' sound instead of a short one, but there are worse pronounciations. The unicorn who's getting my attention seems a bit on the statuesque side, though it's hard to determine what that term really means where this species is concerned. Light yellow-cream color, neatly brushed blue mane and a ring around the base of her tail... not too shabby appearance-wise. Pretty stylish, really. "That's me. How do you do?"
"Feeling great today!" She offers her hoof, to which I answer with a fistbump. "I'm Pinny Lane. Turkey Bowl asked me to keep my eyes open for you and answer any questions you might have while he's getting ready."
"Heh. I'm not too familiar with bowling, so I've got plenty." I follow along as she leads me to a table near the spectator seating. "Neo Arcadia did have an alley... kind of hard not to, what with twenty million-plus residents, but I left that sort of thing to the civilians."
"Twenty million all in one city," Pinny comments, shaking her head. "I know you talked about it and all in the paper, but it's still nuts to think you've got that many living in a single location." She gestures for me to sit down. "Population-wise we're the largest city in Equestria, but we still don't come anywhere close to that."
"In all fairness, that was due to extenuating circumstances," I assure her as I try to make myself as comfortable as I can. "Your nation's at peace without any real long-term crises, so there's cities all over the place. There's no need for the entire population to stick together in one spot."
"Still nutty." Pinny shakes her head as if to clear it. "But we're not here to talk about that. Let's talk bowling. What would you like to know?"
"Let's start with how the game's scored. I'm familiar with the basic premise... set up pins in a triangle formation, roll a ball down the lane at them, try to knock them all down... but I've never looked at the scoring system or how the points are tabulated."
"Sure." Pinny looks around for a bit, muttering. "Lessee, scrap paper, scrap paper... there we go." She levitates a piece of paper and a pencil over to the table, proceeding to draw a rudimentary chart consisting of ten columns and three rows. As an added touch, she scribbles her initials next to the chart. "That top row doesn't mean anything; I just like to add a buffer."
She clears her throat and starts into her lecture. "A bowling game is divided into ten frames. You're allowed up to two attempts per frame to knock down all the pins." She writes a few numbers down in the first column. "Suppose for my first frame, I knocked down five pins on my first throw and four on my second. Gives me nine points so far. Simple math.
"Now, on my second frame I throw a strike by knocking down all ten at once." She scrawls an 'X' in the second column. "Here's the part that trips up a lot of ponies when they first start playing. A strike is worth ten points, plus what you get on your next two throws. So we're going to leave this bottom row blank for now."
Pinny fills out columns three and four thusly: another strike, then a nine and a backslash. "Two strikes and a nine, plus my score for the first frame totals thirty-eight for the second. For my third frame, look ahead at the fourth. With what we said in mind, some would think that we'd get twenty-nine here, too. They'd be wrong. See the backslash? That indicates a spare, which means we needed both attempts in a frame to collect all ten pins. So we're just going to add the spare's value to the strike and give ourselves 20 points, bringing our score up to 58..."
"Excuse me, Fairy," Drama interrupted. "Why are you going over the rules of the game? I already know how to play." She added as a muttered aside: "I'm not any good at it, but still..."
"Just going over events for posterity's sake," Leviathan said, having anticipated the question. "If anyone sees my memories in the future and they're unfamiliar with the game, at least they'll know how to play it for themselves."
"I really don't think ponies are going to forget how to play the game that easily," Drama answered.
"Three hundred years ago I'll bet no one thought that people would be unable to open a basic door, either."
A wince. "That's fair. Keep going."
"...so that gives me 122 points after seven frames." Pinny gestures at the eighth. "Now, this zero could mean anything. Maybe my aim was off and I threw the ball into the gutter. Or I committed a foul of some kind by stepping into the lane, or deliberately used magic to steer the ball..."
"Excuse the interruption here," I cut in. "Could you elaborate on that last one, please?"
"Sure. Unicorns are allowed to use magic to hold the ball or make it spin upon release, if that's how they prefer to play." She gestures at one of the lanes. "But you see those black markers on the sides there? The ball has to be actively rolling down the lane before it passes those markers, and you cannot be holding the ball in any way past that point. If those criteria aren't met, then it's an automatic foul. No points for the attempt, and any pins knocked down are reset."
Makes sense. "I'd wondered how unicorn magic impacted the rules." I gesture at the tenth and final frame. "I imagine that the players get three attempts for this last one?"
"In a fashion," Pinny continues to explain. "If you get either a strike or a spare, then you get an extra throw; if not, that's where your game ends. This is also the only frame where it's possible to get more than one strike. So looking at what I have here, then my final total would be..."
"180 points."
"Bingo!" She jots the number down, then sets her items aside. "Now then---"
"HUGS!"
"---time for hugs---" Pinny does a quick double-take. "Wait a minute---WHA!" She stumbles as a blur collides with her side. Huh, that's some nice velocity there. "Careful there, careful---!"
"Hi, bowling lady! You're very pretty!" is the response she gets from a very happy foal. Yes, that's one of Gray's kids again. 'Zig-Zag', I think she called him?
Pinny blushes. "Yes, I get that a lot, but could you please not?" she protests, earning some chuckling from those in the background. "I have to help the nice robot---" Nice? "---learn about bowling, okay? Could you let go of me? Like now?"
I repay Pinny's assistance by prying Zeke loose and scooping him up into my hands. "I'm sure your mother taught you better than this, child. Speaking of, where is your mother?"
Zeke points away from us towards a food counter. Sure enough, Gray's manning it---ponying it?---and surveying the building. On seeing me, she smiles and waves before going about her business. And that's an adorable little hat she's wearing. "Odd job," her foal explains. "Food for bits."
Pinny smooths out the fur on her leg. "As long as you're not unattended," she says with a tinge of worry. "I really don't want to get in trouble my first year in the league..."
A rookie, huh? Explains her upbeat behavior. We'll see how long that lasts. "I didn't know your mom could cook," I comment to Zeke.
The little lovebug shakes his head repeatedly. "Uh-uh. Uh-uh. No cook. She's terrible. Just serving. She's very servy."
"You're not just saying that because you like eating stuff you really shouldn't, are you?" I inquire.
Zeke's response is the same as previous. If he does this enough, maybe I could get him to fan me? "Dad's the cook. Mom can't cook. Cornbread incident."
Does he ever say more than two to three words at once? "If you say so... how about the rest of your squad? Are they around?"
A rapid nod, as opposed to a rapid nope. "Ebony's playing pinball."
...
"What do you mean, 'TILT'?! You bug-blasted machine! Give me my bits back!" Ebony howled at the pinball table that she felt was cheating her out of her allowance.
...
"Energy is energized."
...
"Celestia forbid... that you ever... start drinking coffee," a mare, who was only now realizing why it was never a good idea to run a race against someone named 'Pure Energy', managed to wheeze before collapsing to the floor.
Energy beamed at her as he pranced in place. "That was fun, that was fun! We gotta do that again sometime!"
"Please no..."
...
"Fiver's playing cards."
...
In the same gaming room that Ebony was barking threats at an inanimate object in, three veteran card-players pondered the little filly present at their table. Not a single blink, tail or ear twitch gave away her mood, and the corners of her mouth never budged. Only top-notch gamers were that good at controlling their poker face, they knew. She'd proven herself a fair hoof at the game up until now, and if the rate at which she was improving was any indication, she'd be a terror at the tables when she grew up.
It was a good thing that the only chips they were betting with were those from the snack counter, they decided. No need for anypony to lose their money over what was supposed to be a casual, friendly match. And since they didn't want to get in trouble with the filly's parents for corrupting her, they were careful not to attempt anything that could be seen as such by on-lookers.
Still, they were impressed. A bit intimidated too, but impressed all the same.
One of the players disappointedly put his cards down. "High card. Ten."
"Two pairs. Jacks and sixes," said the second, turning his cards for the others to see.
"Royal flush," the third stated, doing the same.
The three of them turned to their youngest. Sure, she could theoretically match that 'hand', as the minotaurs liked to put it, but the odds were severely against her on account of three of the Jacks already being used. May as well see what she had before they moved on.
Letting her poker face slip for the first time, the filly sighed in vague disappointment as she turned her cards towards them. "...Four twos," she murmured. "...And a joker."
Ponies #1 and #2 felt their jaws hit the table as they realized that Pony #3 had forgotten to remove the joker card before shuffling the deck. Said dealer, on the other hoof, was guffawing when he realized just how the little filly had gotten her name.
Five-of-a-Kind's mouth shifted downwards a fraction, her young mind not understanding why they reacted as they did. "...Huh?"
...
"I'm hugging you."
...
...Wait, what? When did he get his hooves around my neck? "Zeke, seriously. You have to stop making a habit of this."
"No can do," the little pony tells me. "You need it."
And how in blazes does he know that? "Fine, I'll humor you. Why do I need it?"
Zeke fixes me with a face so serious that it's almost laughable. "Fighting too long."
I can feel the coolant rushing through my face again, something which isn't lost on Pinny (or the on-lookers around us). "From the mouths of foals..." she manages to say in-between giggles.
Not bad for only three words: he's not wrong. "Alright, fine," I decide, knowing that I'm going to end up regretting this in a minute. "If I give you a hug, will you please let go and run along? I don't want to take Miss Lane away longer than I need to. The matches begin in about twenty minutes."
"Twenty-three minutes, man," somepony on the opposing team corrects me. I don't bother responding to him; I like to think I was more reliable as a timepiece than anypony else in the alley.
Zeke's face twists, likely to match what's going on in his mind. Finally he nods and smiles cheerfully. "Okay!"
Don't know if I believe him or not, but I might as well go through with it. I place one of my arms around him, holding him close. All the while, I make sure that my face is telling the others that I do not approve of this. Judging from Pinny's continued laughter and the amused snorts from the visiting bowlers, I don't think I'm succeeding very well---
---!
Did... did he just kiss my face? I think he just kissed my face! "Um... Zeke? Was that really called for?" Inwardly, I wince at the lack of force behind my protest.
"Nope," he cheerfully replies. "That was grat... gratui... uh..."
"On the house?"
His face lights up. "Yeah, that's it! On the house!" He gives me another quick squeeze, then jumps down and trots off. "Bye, robot lady! Bye, bowling lady! Enjoy your game! Gonna find Energy!"
"You sure he needs it?" Pinny wonders half-jokingly, watching him go.
I'm not able to correct her belief that 'Energy' is something other than a name, on account of my processor dwelling on what just happened. One hand drifts up to where I was kissed...
...and after a moment, my week-long resolve finally splinters as the unbridled cuteness of the Equestrians overcomes me. "So adorable!" I breathe.
Was that my voice? That squeak couldn't have been my voice.
"Ee-hee... ee-hee... ee-heeheeheeheeheehee..."
Leviathan stared straight ahead at the empty auditorium, her face containing the world's entire supply of 'not amused'. "It's not funny, Drama Heart."
This only served to shift Drama's gigglings into straight-up cackling. "Eh-hahaHAA hahaha-hee~! Oh-hohohoho...!"
...
Outside the building, a passer-by shivered as the echoes of Drama's laughter reached him. As he picked up his pace, he decided never to walk past the Pyre after sundown again. The place was just too creepy.
