//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: My Little Source Code: Computing is Magic // by Clockwise Gear //------------------------------// /*myLittleSourceCode.fic Author: Clockwise Gear*/ #include < pony> #include “dafuq” using namespace nonstd; int mane() { It was a beautiful runtime in C:\Equestria. The hard disk was defragmented, the RAM was functioning nicely, and the network connection was strong. Celestia the CPU began a new project. She called up Twilight Sparkle, her most trusted project wizard, who appeared in front of her, subprocesses gleaming. The program dipped a bit in priority. “Hello, Your Processorship. How can I help you?” Celestia returned the gesture. “I need you to create a presentation on parallel processing. I will be presenting it at a web conference tomorrow, so it needs to be cross-browser reliable and use the latest CSS…” she system("pause")d; web design had never been her strong suit. “things.” Twilight nodded. “No problem, Your Processorship!” With another bow, Twilight vanished, reappearing in the system memory. She called up her best friends: Rainbow Dash the web browser, Pinkie Pie the word processor, Fluttershy the code editor, and Rarity the design suite. “Okay, everyprocess, we have a presentation to make. Rainbow Dash, you find any relevant pages on the Internet and bring them back to Pinkie Pie, who will parse them for useful information.” “On it!” “Okey dokey Loki!” “Fluttershy, you check to make sure that all the code is correct and error-free. Also make sure the CSS match what Celesta wants.” “If… if you’re sure.” “Rarity, once Pinkie has all the text ready to go, I need you to design something to make it look good.” “Darling, it will be more than good.” “Glad to hear it. Now let’s get to it!” Rainbow Dash vanished into the Internet while Pinkie Pie waited for her to deliver the web pages. A few cycles later, the browser reappeared, pages in output stream. “Hrrr yff gf, Pnkf! *ptoie* See what you can do with these.” “Thanks, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie began looking over the pages and compiling the data, while Fluttershy watched, making sure all her HTML was up to snuff. “Oh, uh, watch that angle bracket. You might want to move that down a few pixels. That is, if you don’t mind. Maybe you should check that formatting will work on all the browsers.” “Don’t get your functions in a recursion, Fluttershy! Auntie Pinkie knows what she’s doing!” Fluttershy glowered. “I’m a version older than you.” Pinkie Pie either didn’t hear or didn’t care, as she continued her work. Everything was going well until Applejack the security program appeared. “Ah don’t wanna worry y’all or nothin’, but we’re under attack! Someprocess is a spah!” Twilight’s RAM use climbed a bit. “What? Everyprocess, stop what you’re doing! We have a serious situation! Applejack, run a full system diagnostic and see if you can find who the Trojan is!” “Yes ma’am!” “Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, I need you to start writing offensive and defensive scripts!” “Got it!” “Uh… okay.” “Rarity, create some horrible images to counterspam the attacker!” “Hrm… I think I have some ideas.” “Once you’ve got all that, Rainbow Dash, you switch to WLAN mode and attack!” “Rodger!” “All right, then. Execute!” Pinkie and Fluttershy got to work immediately while Applejack began her scan. Unfortunately, this slowed down the others. “For the love of electrons, Applejack! Can’t you go any faster?” “Sorry, Twi, but if ‘ya want ta catch this varmint, Ah gotta scan everythin’! An’ that takes RAM! Maybe y’ can find some unused processes and free up some memory?” Twilight called up Spike the Task Manager. “Spike, other than Applejack, what processes are using the most RAM?” “Uh… let’s see. At the top of the list, aside from AJ, we have Rarity, followed by Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and then you. After that, there’s Lyra the media player, Derpy the chat client, and apparently the Cuite Mark Crusaders are running a game, though I don’t know who called them up. Below them are various system processes.” Twilight tapped her header file. “Hrm… close out the Crusaders to start. Then close Derpy and Lyra. I’m not going to risk closing any system processes until I know they’re legitimate, and Applejack should” “Ah hah! Ah gotcha now! Hey everyprocess! We got ourselves a case o’ the Trixie!” Rarity raised a polygon. “You mean that cursor program? I knew there was something fishy about her.” She cout<<(int)char 7’d. “I never liked her styles anyway." “Whaddya want me to do with ‘er, Twi?” “You mean you don’t have a default action?” “Ah do, but it’s to ask what ‘ya want to do.” Pinkie Pie jumped in priority. “Delete her!” “No, I think a nice, long stay in Quarantine should do the trick.” Trixie finally spoke up. “Hah, you think you can contain The Great and Powerful Trixie? Well think again, fools!” There was a sudden burst of garbage data, and the program vanished. Spike popped up. “It looks like Trixie uninstalled herself, Twilight.” “Hrf. Well, I know one way to prevent her from coming back. Applejack, add Trixie to your list of Trojans in your firewall.” “Done.” “Pinkie, Fluttershy, do you have those scripts yet?” “Yup!” “I think so.” “Okay. Rarity, have you made something suitably disgusting?” “That I have, darling. I must say, I nearly crashed when I saw the finished thing. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done, to be quite honest.” “Okay then, Rainbow Dash, it’s up to you!” “Got it! Let’s show these guys what happens when you mess with C:\Equestria!” With that, the browser established a connection to the attacker’s IP address and launched her scripts, which quickly found exploits in several key programs. “Okay, here we go! Counterspam!” She began copying Rarity’s image and flooded the attacker’s desktop with them. A few cycles later, Applejack pinged. “Nice job, everyprocess! Looks like they backed off.” “Yes, nice job indeed.” Everyprocess turned around and instantly dropped in priority when they saw Celestia. “Your Processorship!” “Rise, my processes. You have done well. I would definitely say that were this a real attack, I would have felt very safe knowing you six were protecting the root folder.” “Wait… so ya mean t' say that Trixie wasn’t really a threat?” “No, that was just a lucky coincidence. You did well in stopping her as well.” “So, do you really need this presentation at all?” “No, my star wizard. You are all free to go.” And with a sweep of her circuits, Celestia freed the memory containing the six processes, who vanished. “And now, I believe would be a good idea to” return 0; }