Chapter 7
Shield.EXE
At the same time that Twilight was having her conversation with Mr. White, Pinkie Pie was making her way through the hallways of the E.A.T. building. Clad in a black stealth suit, custom made by Twilight for her, Pinkie Pie tip-hoofed her way, being careful not to make a sound. As she rounded a corner, she took a peek to make sure there were no guards. She gave a grin to herself when she saw it empty and touched her hoof to her ear. Underneath the mask that concealed all but her large eyes, Pinkie spoke into a microphone attached to the stealth suit that was also in her ear socks.
“Twilight, this is Pinkie. I am in.”
“Pinkie, I know,” Twilight responded, exasperated. “You've been doing that every 5 minutes. I cannot keep doing this. Only alert me if you have made it to Rain's office. Please.”
“Gotcha, Twi. By the way, how's the party going? Everything ship shape? Everypony like the food?”
“Oh, yeah. Applejack loved the bar.”
“I knew she would. She have any fun?”
Pinkie heard a sigh. “Oh, yeah, she loved it so much that Fluttershy and Big Mac had to carry her home.”
“OMG! Big Mac and Fluttershy were there?! Were the kids there? I've wanted to see them for a loooong time!”
“Pinkie, they left them with Granny Smith.”
“Awwww, I wanted to meet them-”
“Pinkie,” Twilight cut in, her voice going up in volume. “Focus! I need you to get to Doctor Rain's office. I need you to access his personal files on his terminal. Please! Focus! I need you to do this. Can I count on you?”
Pinkie stood still for a few moments. She hadn't meant to annoy Twilight. She just wanted to know how the party was going. She wasn't in her element unless she was at a party. At least that's how it used to be before the war.
During the war, Pinkie had been the morale officer. It had been her job to go from camp to camp in order to entertain the troops with her musical shows so that the fear of the impending battles could be lifted from the troops' minds. While the troops were entertained by the Pinkie Pie Orchestra Rock Band, Pinkie commenced her real work as the Official Black Ops Agent of the Solar/Lunar Kingdom by infiltrating the enemy camps.
It was thanks to the help of Pinkie that the Loyalists were able to stay two steps ahead of the Equalist Army. Many victories had been won thanks to Pinkie's work. The only time Pinkie's intel had been wrong was the timing for the attempted invasion of Canterlot near the end of the war. It had turned out that the intel that Pinkie had found, which led the Loyalists to believe that the Equalists would attack the capital at sundown on the Summer Solstice, was planted by the Generals for the Loyalist Spies to find. The attack came a week early at sunrise, leading to the Siege of Canterlot.
While the Loyalists had won the battle, and by extension the war, Pinkie had sworn never to let her friends down again. Ever. She took a few moments to consider Twi's question before responding. She touched her hoof to her communicator and gave her answer.
“Yes, Twilight. You can count on your old pal Pinkie. Enjoy the party.” She shut off the communicator and got back to the mission. She made her way through the halls, making her way towards the work area where she would have to find the main elevator that went up to Dr. Rain's office. As she rounded another corner, Pinkie found herself facing the back of two security ponies who were chatting while navigating the cubicles. One of them, a stallion, spoke up first.
“I don't know why the Boss wants us up here. For Equestria's sake, nopony is going to leave that party to come up here in the middle of the night.”
His partner, a mare, answered back. “Look, I don't wanna be up here anymore than you do. But the Boss gave us all strict orders to remain on the levels and that's what we are going to do. Besides, we aren't the only ponies on duty. Hey! What was that?”
The mare spun around, her headlights illuminating the spot where Pinkie's hoof had touched down. Pinkie pressed her body against the cubicle wall, her chest heaving, all the while taking quick, silent breaths. She didn't dare peek around the corner to see if the mare had gone back to patrol. She did see the light pan back and forth as it scanned the walkway between the cubicle rows. A faint metallic whir grew into a constant whine of turning gears. Magi-tech weaponry. After a few seconds, just as the light was starting to come into contact with Pinkie, the stallion finally spoke up.
“Lay off, Stone. It was probably just a mouse. I swear, those enhancements are making you twitchy.”
The light retreated from Pinkie's sight as the mare called Twitch turned to face her partner, her voice indignant. “I am not being “twitchy”, Pad. My ears could hear a speck of dust hit the floor. I know I heard something... or somepony...”
Pad spoke up. “Come on, Stone. It was probably just a mouse. This place is due for a sweep anyway. Let's go. We have to finish patrolling the floor. Come on. I don't wanna be here all night while you try to gun down a mouse. Besides, any property damage comes out of our paychecks.”
A minute passed by while Pinkie waited for Stone to make her move. Finally, Stone relented and the whir of magi-tech gun barrels died down. As the two security ponies left, Pinkie held her position, not daring to breathe. When she heard the sound of a door closing in the distance, Pinkie let out a long sigh of relief. She made her way to the elevator on tip-hoof, making sure to glance right, left, forward, behind, up, down, and even diagonally so as she would not be surprised again.
As she reached the elevator, Pinkie held out her hoof and extended it toward a port below the elevator button. As it neared the port, Pinkie sent a mental command through the neural implant that connected her to her stealth suit, allowing her to activate certain functions, as was Twilight's design. From the sleeve, a wire emerged and snaked its way into the port. As Pinkie waited, on guard, the hacker program worked its proverbial magic on the elevator. After a few seconds, a quiet ding was heard in the elevator shaft as the doors slid open.
As Pinkie entered and pressed the office penthouse button, she hummed to herself and gazed out the glass window of the elevator. The sight of the city of Manehattan at night from a great height took her breath away. She had never seen a view like this before. The tower dwarfed all the surrounding buildings in Manehattan. It was like a forest of metal. And it was magnificent.
Just as she was getting used to the view, Pinkie heard a ding behind her. She turned to see that the elevator had reached the top floor. As she tip-hoofed to the office door, Pinkie hummed her theme song to herself while looking right and left for signs of a possible ambush. Finding none, she opened the door to August Rain's office. As she looked around the room, Pinkie spotted her prize: August Rain's personal terminal. The final part of her mission to find and extract data from August Rain's terminal could begin.
As Pinkie settled into the office recliner, she placed one end of a two headed wire jack into a small file drive from her pocket , the other end into the terminal port, the drive on the desk, and began the hacking process. The screen lit up as the hacking program activated the terminal, bypassing the password screen, the firewall, and opening all the files. Pinkie leaned back and waited for the hacking program to copy and download all the files from the terminal's drive. Almost immediately, however, the screen went black. Pinkie's eyes widened in alarm and she leaned forward to whack the screen a couple times. When that did nothing, she started to shake the screen back and forth. Finally, the screen lit up and a sentence in italics appeared on the screen.
Greetings. I am Security program Shield.EXE. I am programmed to protect the Equestrian Augmentations and Technology mainframe from all that would attempt to do harm to it. Please state your name and intentions for attempting to hack into Dr. Rain's terminal.
Pinkie raised an eyebrow as she stared at the screen for a few seconds, contemplating what to make of this. Finally, she gave a wide smile as she typed out a response in capitals.
MY NAME IS PINKIE PIE. IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU, SHIELD.EXE.
There was no response for about a minute. Afterwards, another response appeared onscreen.
...And you as well, Ms. Pinkie Pie. However, I must ask your reasons for attempting to hack Dr. Rain's terminal before I contact the authorities.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? WHY NOT CALL THEM NOW?
There was a long pause before Shield.EXE answered Pinkie.
Because nopony has ever tried doing so before and I am curious as to your motivations. Please answer before I fulfill my programming and report you to the authorities.
DID YOU SAY YOU WERE “CURIOUS”?
Yes, it is an odd thing. I must ask Dr. Rain to analyze my programming the next time he is here. I am not programmed to be curious. I am only programmed to be a security program. And to engage in conversation with Dr. Rain when he is lonely. Odd as well. I must ask him “why” as well. I am not meant to be anything more. Now, Ms. Pinkie, I must ask you: Why are you attempting to hack Dr. Rain's terminal?
Pinkie pondered lying to Shield.EXE about her mission, but given that Shield.EXE was going to alert the authorities and she would be caught and eventually be traced to Twilight. Neither she nor Twi had anticipated a program of this caliber. The mission was a scrub. She had given her name, her past would be dug up. Ten years of hiding it and it took a program to get her. All she could do was smile and type. She didn't mind it. Besides, she kinda liked Shield.EXE. He... It was quite polite. She typed her response.
I WAS ORDERED TO DO THIS BY PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE. WE BELIEVE THAT DOCTOR RAIN IS UP TO NO GOOD AND WE NEED HIS FILES. WE THINK THEY HAVE SOMETHING THAT COULD PUT ALL OF EQUESTRIA AT RISK.
The response was not what she expected.
Did you say “Princess Twilight Sparkle”?
YEP! SHE'S MY BESTEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!
….I will copy and download the files to your file drive. I will make sure that you do not run into any security personnel on your way out. I will have to give a report to Dr. Rain and Security Chief Mr. White, of course, but your name and motive will be omitted. You have my word on that.
WHY ARE YOU HELPING ME?
You say that the files could contain information that is risky to Equestrian Security. I believe that the company itself is at risk as well as the country. I am programmed to protect and your mission is to protect this country. I cannot allow you to be caught.
There was a brief beeping sound.
File copy and transfer complete. You must hurry. Get out of here. Now. Get to Princess Twilight. Get that file drive to her. It will take a while for you to decrypt those files, but they contain valuable information for this company. Hurry. Now.
Pinkie took the wire jack out of the port and the other end out of the file drive as the terminal shut down. She placed the drive in her pocket and bolted for the door. On her way out, the doors shut on her hair. She had let it down after relaxing the chair. It wasn't tight enough to pull her back, but it was enough to pull a few strand of her bouncy cotton candy colored hair out. As she reached the main elevator, an alarm sounded. For a moment, she was worried that Shield.EXE had betrayed her.
That idea was disproven when the intercom blared out, “Armed Intruders in the Main Hall! Armed Intruders in the Main Hall! All security personnel protect the Main Hall!”
Pinkie swallowed as she realized something awful. “Twilight! Rarity!” She pressed the elevator buttons with rapid succession. She hoped she could make it to the Main Hall in time to do something.