//------------------------------// // 5. Code Runs Deeper Than Feelings // Story: Arête - Princess Alicorn of Hackers // by Lise //------------------------------// "Who are you exactly, Dinky?" Shady asked. In that instant, I felt both my lives shatter to pieces. What was I supposed to do? He had seen I was a Webber. Hay, he probably suspected I was a hacker. Nopony reads Twicode manuals for research purposes. I could see it now — my secrets revealed for the whole world to see. If I was very, very, very lucky, maybe the Conglomerate wouldn't bother charging me with anything. They would just ban me from entering the Web... for the rest of my life. "Dinky?" he asked firmly. "I'm Harpy," I sighed. No point in denying it now. Maybe I could blackmail him? Or offer something he wanted. I've made all sorts of deals in the Web, half the time with ponies I couldn't stand. None of them knew my real life identity, though. "Harpy?" There was disbelief mixed with awe. "You’re Harpy?" "Did I stutter?!" I shouted. Moving slowly to the the bed, I sat down. Right now nothing had any purpose anymore. Right now even Harpy wanted to cry. "Just state your demands and leave. Go ruin some other mare's life. You seem to be good at that." He didn't move. Guess he was expecting Harpy to be more impressive in real life. To be honest, I was too. "This was supposed to be way different," I went on. Since I'd lost everything I might as well go for broke. "You were supposed to be nice and understanding, the knight in shining armor that every filly dreams of. We were supposed to have a long, awkward afternoon together, ending in something slightly suggestive and a promise to do it again. Then, as you were walking away, I was to sigh secretly, imagine some nonsense, then log on and hack the hay out of an ICE factory." "Well, you know what, Dinky?" He snorted. "You are one pathetic dreamer." He picked up my old headgear from the ground. "You are still Harpy, though. Hay, I have a print of you and DD in my room! I still can't believe it. Of all my friends I was the one who thought you couldn't possibly be a mare. Guess I even managed to get that wrong." I looked up at him, a glint of anger returning to my eyes. Wasn't it enough he tore my guts out? Apparently not. "Half the curses I know I've learned from you," he laughed. "And all this time Sweetie Belle drilled it into my ears to be careful not to say anything 'crude' to scare you and ruin the experience." "Belle doesn't know," I said quietly. "And you did manage to say something that ruined the experience." "Well, that's real life." He shrugged. "You'll still do it, though, right?" I blinked. Several times. This was a joke. It had to be. He was probably feeding me a line, just to make me suffer more afterwards. "You'll still log on and do what you were about to do, right?" he asked again. "After everything you've made me experience, you’re wondering if I'll log on?" I stared in disbelief. "Seriously? That's all you can think of?" "Code runs deeper than feelings, yo!" He did the worst FLT impression I had ever heard. Still, maybe he had a point? The Dinky part of me still hated him for what had happened downstairs, but the Harpy part had just started to like him. It still hurt like Tartarus, but at least I had one life to look forward to. "Just do what you were going to do, and then send me a Web grab." He slowly turned around, then went into the corridor. I could hear him still muttering about me being Harpy every step he made. "Oh, one last thing." His head briefly popped back into view. "You really are beautiful when you actually bother to care about it. This mane style suits you." Wait, what? I suddenly felt a small sun inside my chest. Maybe my Dinky side could forgive him too... eventually. I could almost feel my lips curve into a smile. Before it happened I hit myself in the face. I could always daydream later. The sound of the door slamming downstairs reminded me there was somewhere I was supposed to be. "Please don't lag," I whispered as I put on my headgear. Upon entering the Web, the first thing I saw was DD and Scoots sitting side by side, laughing at something. ‘Awkward’ was the word that came to mind. "Hey, Harpy, you're back." DD jumped to her hooves. At least she seemed happy to see me. "Wings just told me about some amazing stuff about Web deity lore. Did you know that it’s believed that there are eight goddesses in the Web?" "I had no idea," I said, slowly glaring at Scoots. She just waved at me smugly behind DD's back. Way too smugly. Could it be something had happened while I was gone? Surely not! There was no way DD would let that happen! "Anyway," I shook my head violently to get the rid of the thoughts I was having, "now that everypony knows everything, maybe we could finally get going and..." "How did your date go?" DD interrupted. "What?" This caught me completely unprepared. Damn it, DD! Couldn't you let me deal with one set of problems at a time? "Swell, thanks for asking.” I attempted the most grumpy voice possible. "It's not like somepony urged me to Web in right after school, when we could well have done it in the evening." Blank stares. Celestia help me! Apparently DD's obliviousness was contagious. "Let's just go," I sighed as I put in the Web coordinates. Moving from one sector to another in the Web happened in one of two ways — physically going to the connecting nodes and passing through, similar to passing through a portal, or having the nav net protocols teleport the avatar to the appropriate location. In both cases a record of the avatar's ID was made and stored in the Conglomerate's travel data database. Of course there was another way — a clever little script that tricked the system into thinking the user was having connection issues and moving him to what it believed to be his avatar's last location. Since this happened a lot, and no one wanted the system to be cluttered with useless data, records of all such instances were purged every hour. In the blink of an eye, the landscape around me changed. Large snow-covered mountains extended as far as the eye could see. Shivers passed through my body. Snow had a very different meaning in the Web, especially for hackers. For ponies like me, every single snowflake and ice crystal meant capture. When I looked at the endless icescape, I didn't see layers of fluffiness; I saw swarms of deadly, disgusting insects. "Welcome to the ICE fields," Scootaloo said dramatically. "Wings, you have never been here before," I grumbled. A stifled giggle told me that at least DD was amused. "No one calls them 'the ICE fields'. It's lame." "I can make any phrase sound cool," she laughed. I didn't bother commenting on that. "Where was the Web grab made?" I asked. Part of me was still upset that MaDster hadn't told me about this. True, he had many apprentices, in gaming, hacking and Web sculpting. Why had he chosen Scoots before me, though? Undoubtedly, I had potential. Several of the big names had said so. Hay, FLT had even left a comment mentioning me on the main Everfree forum. "That one, right there." Scoots pointed. "He said there was a breach in the mountain that let him go in deeper. There she appeared." A breach in the mountain. Glitches weren't that rare, but this was the very first time I had heard about a glitch in an ICE factory. Those things were built to be ultra-secure. Not even your typical ICE could penetrate inside, let alone anypony using the standard protocols. "You sure about this?" I rubbed my chin by force of habit. "If you’re wrong, then we're not coming back from where we're going." "Absolutely sure." "Well then, thanks for all your help," I said, and started launching stealth protocols. Promise or no promise, I wasn't taking Scoots into an ICE factory, no matter what she said. "DD and I will take it from here. You’d best log out." She gave me a look, that even through her avatar was capable of melting stone. "Or stay here until we come back," I quickly added. "Your avatar just isn't equipped to handle ICE." That was the way to do it — make it about the gear, not the pony. Scoots had no cause to be mad at me. Well, she did, but not in front of DD. "Err, Harpy," DD started in a soft voice. "Actually, her avatar is the best there is." "Twilight-made, baby!" Scoots grinned and tapped her chest with a hoof. "Plus DD gave me some cool protocols while you were gone." "Is that what the kids call it nowadays?" I grumbled under my breath. "What was that?" Scootaloo flapped her wings. "Let's just get it over with." Words could hardly express what I was feeling. Twilight-built avatar... TWILIGHT-built avatar, and I was with a crummy Nightmare 5 that wasn't even mine! Life just wasn't fair. Reaching the base of the mountain was easy enough. The trick with ICE was that unless you triggered a response, it wouldn't do a thing no matter how close you were. A good hacker could fly through a swarm without fear. Entering the factory, though, was a different matter. What most ponies didn't know was that every mountain in any sector was in fact a factory — dormant or otherwise. All the dreaded ICE was created there, then shot out to swarm about in search of anything it identified as an intruder. Many unsuspecting users got their avatars purged merely for wanting to get a better view. A single hoof on a mountainside could be viewed as a potential threat. Time to get to work. Three aether windows surrounded me. I sent out three data pings, then made a clone of myself and launched it forward. It's hooves gently touched the mountain surface, then started trotting towards the top. "Anything on your end, DD?" I asked. "Everything appears calm," she replied, aether windows surrounding her. "Looks like the factory really is cold." "There are no inactive factories," I whispered under my breath. "I know, but this one really seems to be," she said apologetically. "If there are any triggers, I certainly can't find them. Nothing when I do the standard stuff, and your clone seems to be safe as well. Only thing I could think of is to launch a nuke packet and see what happens." Extreme, but possible. If nothing else, that would show us where we stood. "Do it," I said, and braced myself. The effect itself was anticlimactic — a magenta glow covered a small patch of cliff, only to quickly fade away. The terrain rebuilt itself faster than I could perceive even the smallest of breaches. That was not the important part, however. Gluing my eyes to the aether windows, I waited. Everything was green. No reaction from any of the ICE, no wandering snowflakes, not even a warning message. Could it be that this mountain was actually deactivated for good? "Guess we can go." Scoots passed by eagerly, heading straight up. Instantly I grabbed her avatar's tail. "Are you trying to get us disconnected?" I shouted with such strength that for a split second I saw her flinch. "That's why I didn't want you to come! You may have the best gear and reflexes, but when it comes to hacking, you’re worse than a foal! And unless you want to be the reason we fail this, you'll do whatever I say when I say it! Okay?" It must have been incredibly difficult for her to accept. Seeing her turn to look me in the eye, I thought she would kick my avatar out of existence. Instead, she just pulled her tail free, then quietly flew behind me. This was as much as an 'okay' as I was likely to get. The walk up was surprisingly uneventful. At times it was so calm it really freaked me out. DD must have felt the same way, since the number of aether screens around her had surged to over thirty. And behind us both, Scoots was walking calmly, head held high, as if she were queen of the hill! "Any idea where this breach is supposed to be?" I asked after a while. "Right there." Scootaloo pointed a short distance away. Less than a hundred meters by my estimates. Still no indication of trouble on my screen. I launched three pingers, but still nothing. "DD?" I asked for confirmation. None followed. "DD?" I looked at her. She had stopped moving, staring motionless at a single aether window before her face. "Are you all right?" "This just seems off," she said, vaguely aware I was addressing her. "The entire mountain seems to be made of contrasting sets of code. There’s the usual landscape code that makes up the mountain, but also some patches that are Conglomerate standard. It's like the mountain has been forming breaches and they’ve attempted to block them with their own code variant." That was weird. Nothing was supposed to damage landscape constructs! "How many patches are we talking about?" I asked. "Well, I can't be sure..." DD hesitated. "Somewhere around three hundred, I think." Three hundred? Holy Celestia! That meant the mountain had more holes than a Diamond Dog's lair! How come I had never read anything of the sort on the Everfree forums? Suddenly all my windows turned red. The ICE had become active. "No, no, no, no!" I launched every protection and stealth protocol I could, along with two more clones. The ICE swarms ignored them completely, instead choosing to move past. For several seconds I just stood there motionless, as if moving would incur the snowflake's wrath. Then it happened — a star of magnificent blue appeared in the sky above me. Quickly it grew, illuminating the magenta background like a pale cyan sun. And that wasn't the most amazing part of it all! Within the sphere, something else was visible, something I had never expected to see — the physical form of a Triumvir. "Princess Luna," DD whispered in awe. Beside her, I swallowed. No way I wasn't getting a Web grab of this! Quickly I launched two camera eyes and set them on record. Hardly had I done so, when the snowflakes shot upwards. Not moved, not flew, but shot like the confetti of a Pinkie cannon, blotting out the sky. This was surreal! "That isn't normal, right?" Scootaloo asked. I hardly paid any attention. My eyes were fixed on Luna, as layer upon layer of ICE stuck to the sphere surrounding her. Terror mixed with excitement as I watched what was starting out to be the epic battle between a goddess and the world she helped create. In my mind, the outcome was obvious. Give them Tartarus, Princess! I thought. For a moment it seemed that her eyes gave off an intense white glow, but from this distance I couldn't be sure. Beams of light pierced the shell of ICE attempting to imprison her, like a fork through marshmallows. I stood awestruck, barely capable of rational thought. I no longer had any idea if that was Twicode or actual alicorn magic. Moments later, an explosion of light filled the sky, passing through the air like a rainboom. Snowflakes evaporated in an instant, along with every aether window we had set up. "So amazing," I said, my grin so large it would have dislocated the avatar's jaw if made visible. "Did you see that? Luna fried the ICE in an instant! And I'm talking all the ICE in the sector! Just look at..." my voice trailed off. Damn it all! I had jinxed it! Before my very eyes, a new swarm of ICE emerged from the mountains, but not any kind I had ever seen before. "Is that red ICE?" Scoots voiced what was on my mind, as giant crimson snowflakes slowly floated towards the sky. "I've never heard of red ICE..." "That's because it should never be used on users!" DD nearly screamed in panic. "We need to disconnect! Right now!" This wasn't the first time I'd seen DD scared. Ever since our early days in the Web she had been constantly worried about one thing or other. In all that time, however, not once had she suggested we disconnect. Hay, just last night she had jumped in a patch of dream threads in the hopes of getting a single piece of data! I had no idea what these new snowflakes were, but they had her terrified. "Quickly, grant me access to your avatars!" she shouted. Both Scoots and I looked at one another hesitantly. "Quickly!" she screamed. That sure settled it. Instantly I sent her my code. Scoots took a few seconds longer, but followed suit. "Disconnect override protocol," DD began, her voice shaking, "Phoenix Lite." Phoenix Lite?!? Everything around me disappeared. I was spat out of the Web. No warning, no turning hourglass, not even a message that I had successfully disconnected. My entire gear had gone dead, the result of a cold reboot. How in Tartarus did DD have Phoenix powers? I knew of them, of course. Everypony worth their hacks had heard the stories. Supposedly they were only available to Conglomerate VIPs. Supposedly they provided remote access to any avatar. I had had my doubts, but after seeing what DD had just pulled, I wasn't sure about anything anymore. Patiently, I waited for my gear to reboot, then logged back in again. Rosesand sector. Apparently this was considered the last safe connect point. Checking briefly through the Web forums, I saw that five of the snow sectors had gone dark. Well, wasn't that nice? Not a mention of why, naturally. Just a casual 'gone dark'. How stupid did the Conglomerate think we were?! ICE factories don't just 'go dark'. That's the same as saying Princess Celestia just 'got ill'. It's a pretty huge deal, even without mentioning the Triumvir and the crimson ICE systems. A new message appeared in my scrollbox. It was from DD. Schoolyard 7pm. Bring Scootaloo. "Of course," I said out loud. "Leave it to me to fix this mess." In less than three hours Scoots was going to learn who DD really was, and there was no telling how she would react. They say code runs deeper than feelings… but in this case I wasn't so sure it did.