A Stranger to the World
Chapter One
Going Down?
Manhattan Island...
The rain pounded the pavement and dark grey clouds hung ominously low in the sky. Lightning flashed off in the distance, silouhetting the skyscrapers as the thunder rolled in seconds later, the sound reverbrating off each of the buildings. The Empire State Building had yet to be touched from this storm, but it had been relatively unscathed in previous encounters with lightning, like the lightning, itself, was afraid to touch it.
And it was right to.
The seconds ticked by on Alex's watch as he sat under the transparent top of a bus stop on the street corner, waiting for the bus that brought him to Midtown. His usually short, shaggy brown hair clung to his pale scalp, wet and limp from the rain. He lazily ran a hand through it to lift the hair from his equally brown eyes. He sighed and pulled out his PSP. "Late again," Alex mumbled. He turned on some Call of Duty and entered the first level, setting the difficulty levels to veteran. The few passerby that happened to be on the street walked by him, each of them lost in their own technology or running to seek shelter from the rain. It was as good as the day could get for Alex, even the weather was what he preferred. He felt that it reflected his daily mood.
Alex looked up when the bus pulled up a few minutes later, and he boarded it, choosing one of the empty seats in the back. There was only one other person on the bus, a man wearing a black trench coat and a hat that covered the man's eyes, but Alex didn't even bother to notice him. He was too involved in shooting down AI to notice much else.
The man glanced back at Alex and grinned. "You'll do," he muttered. "You'll do."
Twenty Minutes Later
Alex disembarked the bus and ran through the downpour and toward the towering structure. The rain poured down the sides of the building in bucketfulls and splashed the sidewalk, making quite a lot of noise in the process. Alex wondered how the building could possibly take the force of it all, but he pushed the small thought from his mind quickly, focusing on his current task. He entered through the framed, glass doors and entered the large entrance room, shaking the rain off of his brown coat as he did. He hurried up to a woman sitting at the reception desk and got her attention.
"Can I help you, sir?" she asked, barely turning her gaze to look at him.
Alex nodded and ulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Yes, I'm here to see a..." he searched the paper, "... Mister Devilin Daniels."
The receptionist nodded and typed some information into her computer next to her. Outside, the volume of the thunder increased, signaling that the storm was getting nearer.
"Devilin Daniels..." the woman read off of the screen, "Floor forty-two. In charge of personel and employee placement for Inter-Dem Tech."
Alex quickly thanked the receptionist and walked over to the set of elevators at the end of the entry hall. Again, he didn't notice the receptionist watching him as he pressed the button to call the elevator down. The doors slid open and Alex stepped in, pressing the button marked '42' as the doors slid shut before him.
'Ding.'
The elevator reached its destination and Alex entered a long hallway with doors located every seven feet. He looked at his piece of paper agan and read it off in his mind, 'Room 4200, eh?' He looked down at the door at the end of the hall. The numbers 4200 were printed in bright gold leaf. "That was easy."
The thunder from outside rumbled again, the storm inching closer.
Alex walked past the doors that littered the long corridor, peeking into each as he walked past. Each room had a different -yet strangely similar- man sitting at a desk, taking notes. What was even stranger was that they were writing with a quill on normal paper, but as he continued down the hall he saw some workers using old typewriters, and as he neared the end they were using normal Apple iMacs.
"That's just weird," Alex said quietly to himself. He shook his head and reached the last door, putting out a hand to grab the handle, but the door swung open ahead of him. "That's even weirder."
He crossed the threshold and found himself in a normal executive office. This was accentuated by the big mahogany desk, large red swivel chair currently facing the opposite direction, and the one, large window that overlooked the Manhattan skyline. Alex gave a low whistle as he looked past the chair and over the city. "Damn," he whispered in awe.
"You approve, then?" came a masculine voice on the other side of the chair.
Alex jumped back, his thoughts returning to Earth. "Wha-?!"
The chair spun around to face him, as did a smartly dressed man in his mid-forties. He had distinguished, dark brown hair, fair skin, and a smug grin that made Alex slightly uncomfortable. His black, pinstripe suit looked to be freshly pressed. "Manhattan is a fascinating city. I, myself, find the view to be somewhat stunning. Relaxing, even. Wouldn't you agree?"
Alex stared blankly before snapping out of his shock and answering, "Oh, uh, yeah. Totally!"
"Uh, huh," the man's grin turned to a slight frown. He leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands and placing them on the desk. A slim, yellow folder sitting to his left. "I take it you're Mister Alex Harper."
The thunder rolled, echoing throughout the island, again.
Alex cleared his throat, "Yes. I am." He was suddenly self-conscious of his jeans and black polo shirt, as well as how they compared to the man's dark suit and tie. 'Damn!' Alex thought, 'I should've seen this coming!'
The man didn't seem to notice Alex's discomfort and spoke, "Hello, Mister Harper. I'm Devilin Daniels." Devilin extended a hand and Alex shook it. "Congratulations," he said, smiling slightly, "You've passed step one."
"Step... one?" Alex asked uncertainly.
"Yes," the Devilin replied, "I like a man who isn't afraid of new things. Like shaking a stranger's hand, for example."
Alex nodded. 'Okay...' he thought.
"I'm afraid that this will be a very short interview. I have some more important matters to attend to." Devilin stated, looking at the folder next to his hands and sliding it in front of him, opening it up to the first page. He nodded his head as he perused Alex's resumé. "It says here that you took an online course in micro-programming. Is that right?" he asked.
"Yeah. I already knew quite a bit, since my mom had previously worked as an engineer. She taught me most of that," Alex explained.
"And your father?"
"He didn't do much," Alex lowered his voice slightly, "but he used to take me hunting upstate. I didn't kill anything, but I learned how to fire twelve rounds at a bulls-eye from one hundred feet away with a bolt-action rifle." Devilin stared at him with a serious expression, unimpressed with his abilities. "That's about it," Alex finished, shifting his gaze to look out the window.
"I see." Devilin turned to the next page and frowned as he read the print. He cast his gaze towards Alex. "I offer you my condolences," he said in a low voice.
Alex nodded. He didn't need to be told what Devilin had just read. It was perfectly clear to him what he was referring to. Devlin skimmed through the rest of the file and set it down next to him when he was done. "So, why would you like to work for my company, Mister Harper?"
Alex swallowed. "Well, I've been looking for a job in electronics and programming for a while, but I didn't have much luck at any of the companies I applied to. Then I got a call from your office, saying that someone had recommended me, but I'm not entirely sure who. I was told to see you and... here I am." Alex laughed slightly at the end, but stopped when Devilin looked at him with a stony expression. "Pretty simple reason, actually."
The lightning flashed outside the window, briefly casting erratic shadows and giving the office a sinister look.
"Well..." Devilin started, "we receive quite a few applicants, and I'm afraid that only a limited space is open. I'll have to consider it, but you seem like a good enough lad and your resumé reflects that. Even if you worked for a cheap Wendy's establishment in the past." Alex winced when that was brought up. "Still, I think you'd make a good addition. If I hire you."
Alex gave a slight nod, "Thank you for your time, sir."
"Don't call me 'sir,'" Devilin ordered. "Just Devilin."
"Sorry," Alex apologized, slightly taken aback at the sudden informality. He turned to leave and was just entering the hallway when Devilin asked him, "Do you like animals, Alex?"
'What kind of a question is that?' Alex wondered. "Yeah. I guess I do." He continued to make his way to the elevator.
"And horses?" Devilin called after him.
'What?' "Yeah," Alex nodded, "I suppose I like horses."
The thunder sounded again, louder than ever. The storm had reached the building.
The elevator doors slid open and Alex stepped inside. He pressed the button for the ground floor and looked back into the executive office. Devilin was smiling a bit... creepily. "Good luck," he said.
The elevator doors slid shut, cutting Alex off from the outside world. Alex stared at them, looking at his own image being dully reflected. "'Good luck?'" he repeated back to his mirrored self.
KA-CRACK!
A bolt of lightning struck the antenna atop the structure, sending the waves electricity throughout the tower.
The elevator sparked and shuddered and Alex fell against the sides. "WHAT THE HELL?!" he screamed. Tendrils of electricity sparked around the metal cell, zipping down the walls and crackling across the buttons. The elevator stopped dead in its tracks, with Alex trapped inside. The digital readout of the floor numbers was black, but some words appeared on it.
'Going down?'
"What the-?"
The elevator dropped down through the floors, free-falling to the basement.
"HOLY SHIT!" was all Alex could shout before he blacked out.
The elevator suddenly began to slow its descent, and it reached the ground floor with a gentle 'thud.' When the doors opened, however, it was empty. Up on the forty-second floor, a man wearing a dark suit and tie stared out of a large window, laughing quietly. "'Going down?,'" he laughed a bit more, "Good one."
Equestria...
The rain pelted the ground relentlessly, and dark grey clouds hung over the small town of Ponyville. The inhabitants hid inside their houses, keeping dry from the torrential downpour. However, a lavender coated unicorn mare with a similarly colored streak running down her dark purple mane and tail ran through the streets, her soaked mane slapping against her neck. She was hurrying home, having stopped at her friend, Applejack's, farm to pick up some apples. The rain had started back there, and Twilight Sparkle thought it best to get back to her own house.
Suddenly, a bright streak of lightning shot horizontally out of the sky, then another... and another. The three streaks joined together and created a small explosion. Then a small ball of light began to fall from the sky, casting an eerie white glow over the town as it headed towards the soaked earth. The unicorn looked up at it blinking away the rain that fell into her eyes as she watched the light quickly disappear behind the cottages in front of her.
She started thinking about the light and began to calculate where it landed, ignoring the downpour around her. 'Present velocity... wind speed and direction... distance from-' she stopped as she realized where it hit. She bolted through the town and ran towards a large tree that served as Ponyville's library, as well as Twilight's home. She burst through the front door and skidded to a halt, nearly falling into a hole in the wooden floor that now led straight to her basement.
"SPIKE!" Twilight called out.
Upstairs, Twilight heard some groaning and Spike appeared a bit later. The small, purple and green dragon came down the stairs slowly, eyes half open and his short tail dragging along behind him. "What is it, Twilight?" he complained, "I was busy trying to sleep." He was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a large, gaping hole in the room.
"You can sleep later, Spike," Twilight stared down the hole and tried to see into the basement, "but right now I need you to take a look at something for me."
Spike groaned again, "Alright! But this time you'll owe me a geeeeeeeeeemmm-!" Spike wasn't looking where he was walking and fell through the hole. "Umph!" The sound of him hitting the ground came from the darkened space below.
"Perfect!" Twilight said, "Now get a look at what's down there."
Spike sat up and rubbed his scaly head. "Thanks, Twilight, I'm fine. But I need some light." A small orb of purple light floated down shortly, bathing the basement in a soft purple hue. Spike looked around the room and came face to face with a large pile of wood and leaves. "There's pile of wood and leaves here!" he called to Twilight.
"Is there anything under them?"
"Wait." It took the small dragon a few minutes before he could get a look under the debris. When he moved enough of the wood away, his eyes widened. "Woah."
"What is it?" Twilight asked.
Spike looked at the... thing... in front of him. "I don't know, but you might want to let the princess know."
Twilight teleported down in a bright flash of light. "Let her know about what?" Then she noticed what had been lying under the shattered bark. "Oh... that."
"Should I take a letter?" Spike asked.
Twilight continued staring, "Definitely."