5: The system*
“NOBLE TROY!” A voice thundered through my bedroom doors, startling me awake from my restful slumber.
“I’MNOTINTHEARCADEMACHINE!” I yelled out, visions of the dream I had been having moments prior prevalent in my head. “Uh, I mean who’s there?!”
“I’m a lieutenant in the guard. Gold Brace, at your service sir!” The voice, Gold, informed me. I quickly rose from my bed and searched for my clothing. They were hanged on the wall next to the door, freshly cleaned apparently.
“Give me a moment!” I shouted through the oak door. Quickly I dressed before I opened the door to see a red stallion, with red eyes and a blond mane with bangs. His cutie mark was a black shield that had been pierced by a shining white sword.
“Ah, good to meet you sir noble Troy.” Gold addressed me, his choice of words leaving me confused.
“Noble Troy? Where did you pick that up from?” I asked before my encounter with two specific annoying nobles returned to my memory.
“Nobles Jet Set and Upper Crust were ranting in the streets about you.” He stated plainly. Though I admittedly found the whole ‘noble Troy’ thing rather amusing I wanted to save it for Jet Set and Upper crust themselves. “Princess Luna asked that I come and escort you to the dining room for breakfast as you would have no idea where the room would be located.”
“Oh, well thank you, I appreciate it. By the way, just Troy is fine.” I told him as we both left the room and traversed the halls of the royal palace. It was slightly unnerving that at every corner a guard was stationed, observant as possible to detect any threats.
Soon we arrived at a plain door just barely tall enough for me to fit through. I opened the door and found everyone I had met so far inside. Cadence met my eyes and immediately blushed, she saw me hurrying away last night it seemed.
Unfortunately, I had to sit right across from cadence and next to her husband Shining Armor, as that was the only free seat.
“Oh good, you’re awake. I hope you rested well last night Troy.” Luna said to me and I just smiled back and nodded, not wanting to talk until I had eaten. For royalty, the breakfast was surprisingly simple, Cereal. Mind you, I would probably prefer it to anything fancy. As I sat down I placed my phone on the table.
We all sat around the table, enjoying our breakfast in relative silence. For a while, there was only the sound of crunching. I did rather enjoy the cereal, shame I had no idea what brand it was. Eventually, the quiet atmosphere was pierced when Rarity’s eyes shone and she hurriedly got up while addressing the table.
“Sorry everypony, but I forgot something terribly important in my room.” Rarity said quickly before galloping out the room.
“Ah wonder what’s getting her all fussy?” Applejack wondered aloud what we were all thinking, she looked around the table to see if anyone knew but everypony shook their head no. I just shrugged and went back to eating.
We continued to enjoy our breakfast when the most unexpected thing of all happened. The table vibrated for a second, scaring everyone, the next second the light on my phone went on. Finally, and worst of all, my ringtone for when someone was calling me started playing.
My ringtone was a rock song which was already pretty embarrassing while eating breakfast with royalty, but what made it even more embarrassing was that it was a song called ‘yer majesty’ by a band called Shinedown.
I quickly scooped up the phone and touched an icon on the screen that had a green phone on it.
“Hello?” I asked, and everyone stared at me like I was crazy before we all heard a voice talk back.
“Troy?! Where the hell are ya, man?!” A slightly gruff voice asked, it belonged to a friend of mine from earth called Jason Lee, he was the one who had gotten me the phone. He sounded worried about me, which I suppose was fair.
“That’s…complicated.” I told him looking around at the ponies all of whom looked quite shocked. “Listen, JL, I’m sorry for not being around this last week.”
“Week?! Dude, it’s been like 5 months!” His words kept playing over in my head, yet it took me til the tenth time before I actually comprehend what he was saying. I looked around and all the ponies looked either sad or shocked about the revelation.
“FIVE MONTHS?!” I yelled into the phone, scaring everyone. “NONONO, that can’t be right! It’s only been a week… Wait a minute, if it’s been five months how come you’re phoning me right now?”
“It was on the off-chance that someone would answer, didn’t expect your sorry ass to answer.” Jason informed us, and I swear everything went black for a second. “Seriously, though, If you still kicking, you might be better staying outta the way anyways.”
“Let me guess.” I could guess why, because it would anger my so-called parents and we couldn’t have that, oh no because they totally deserve to be happy!… I apologise for getting worked up.
“I knew ya would…but there’s also something bigger.” Jason got me stumped with that one, I had no idea would could possibly constitute me not returning home. “Ya don’t quite…exist anymore.”
“How could somepony not exist?” Twilight asked in a hushed voice, and I immediately put my fingers on my lips to tell her to be quiet.
“You’re legally dead right now, and you know what the systems like. Anyone who ain’t kicking, in the system they ain’t sticking. Freakin’ brutal man, just cause they need storage in the machine they wipe out every last part of a person’s life. Social accounts, bank accounts and even your frickin’ birth certificate. Deleted and incinerated.”
“So, I’m a ghost now?” I inquired, ghosts were a big thing in the city I came from, people who had their entire lives ripped away, no longer a citizen in the world. Only people who aimed for that was hackers. “Era of the internet, aka the era that’s a pain in everyone’s ass!” I exclaimed, smashing my head onto the table in frustration.
“Yeah, I feel ya. Listen, if ya do decide to come back, Sal’s will be the only safe place to go.” He told me, a friend of ours who worked in law enforcement named Sal. “It’s cause of this messed up system Sal couldn’t do anything about you know who, Sal despises the thing for it.”
“Got it, listen, if anyone starts asking for some reason, this call never happened.” I told him, I couldn’t risk my parents find out. Not that I expect my parents to have special world jumping powers but If I did end up back on earth they would hunt me down for sure.
“Got ya, listen, good to hear from ya but I gotta go now, that chucklehead ‘T-bone’, as he calls himself, is coming this way and ya know me and him don’t get along.” Jason explained to me why he would have to hang up, and I nodded before realising he couldn’t see me.
“Yeah, I get it, adios mi amigo.”
“...Adios.”
A beep sounded from the phone before the entire room was engulfed in complete silence. Suddenly the door burst open and Rarity rushed open.
“Oh, I do apologise for…Oh, did I come back at a bad time?” Rarity inquired when she saw us all, no one answered her verbally, but I got up and punched the wall in frustration, letting out an angry shout in the process.
“Oh, my!” Fluttershy exclaimed before rushing over and checking my hand, which fortunately was not badly damaged. “Are you alright, Troy?!”
“Yeah… I’m fine, just dead!” I let out a sigh of frustration before sitting back down. Rarity had a rather confused look on her face, likely from my choice of words.
“Um, could someone please tell me what happened?” Rarity asked and Twilight answered her.
“We’ll tell you when we know for sure. Troy, what’s 'the system'?” Twilight asked me. I sighed once more, looking up at the others around me, pondering what to say. I decided the whole truth was all that would suffice.
“A terrible idea implemented by privacy hating idiots who just want to control everything they see. The system gets your information plugged into it when you’re born and then the system tracks you for your entire life. No matter what you do it’s recorded on the system…I personally hate the thing, like many others. It’s nothing other than a breach of privacy, and not even for security reasons! People’s lives have been screwed with by the people who own the thing!” I ranted angrily.
“And...uh, what's a ghost?” Rainbow piped up.
“Someone whose details have been erased from the system, which means you don’t exist, hence the name. Unfortunately, the system is limited in memory, so those evil…vile bastards delete your profile and voila, you're now no longer a member of society, it’s impossible to get a legal job and if, for whatever reason, you become…disenchanted…with the local authorities, they are legally authorised and fucking encouraged to kill you on the spot!” I had heard gasps around me both times I swore, however, they all seemed to understand why and let me get the anger out of my system.
“That’s…terrible…” Cadence couldn’t seem to find the words to describe and thus her words came out rather blunt.
“Excuse me for a minute…or ten, I need to lie down.” I said, walking back to my room, Gold Brace rushed to my side to escort me.
As I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceiling two thoughts stuck in my head.
I might as well just stay in Equestria for the rest of my life.
and
wonder what Rarity was all fussed about.
for those of you wondering, 'yer majesty' IS a real song.
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Well, that "system" needs to go down
T-bone, hackers, System? Once I read that, It reminded me of Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs 2, but also of the System in Metal Gear 4
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I'll confirm it, this was a massive reference to Watch_dogs 2, I just completed yesterday and lost an entire 24 hours to it at one point so it's quite prominent in my memory plus this got me out of a situation later on
7829760 I completed the story a few days ago, A good game but the final mission is disapointing compared to the final mission from the first game
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I wouldn't know, I couldn't get into the story of the original game. Also, something I forgot in my last comment: Putting a guy called T-bone in was a complete accident, I just went with the first gang-type name I could think of and it was that.
7829876 But still a good idea
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Quick straw poll: Should I have a schedule?
http://www.strawpoll.me/12016476
NOTE: If I have to adhere to a schedule, this story will not be updated until all its chapters are finished. it will take about 2-3 months minimum, at max, It'll be a Christmas gift for this year.
EDIT: Schedule decided upon, (though not by the poll as it evened out!) Every Sunday, a new chapter will come out.
7838419 Hmmm.
I find that my ideas tend to fall into place in their own time, but that's just my thought about it. You are, of course, free to set or not set a schedule.
7838423
That's why there's a warning about it stopping until December. I feel evil going at one point here's two chapters 3 days apart then 3 months till it continues. Plus it may ultimately be better in the long run cause all (well, most of) my free time goes into this story. Couple that with getting ready to (properly) finalise my patreon page and that I'm sticking with my FiMFiction stories as the entire selling point of said page and then a schedule, while maybe not necessary, could be handy for keeping ahead of posts there.
Everything hinges on whether or not readers care, and I thought it should signify that with a straw poll.
Thank you for taking a few minutes to vote, though!
7838506 Oh, oops. Sorry, missed the link
7838579 Oh, it's fine, I simply thought you had voted as there was one vote in and you had put up your comment about keeping the erratic schedule which was the same as the vote.
7838675 I did.
I voted chicken
Maybe the way I image it in my head is at fault, but sometimes such actions look rather weird if I think he maye waited that long till he suddenly walked to a walk and screamed once.
It probably really only is the way I image it, if I think about it a bit longer than I can at least actually image it happening.
7838675 What country is he supposed to be from? Because, if it's America, then you clearly have things mixed up... unless it's an AU Murica, or something.
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He really isn't supposed to be from America. I am not American either so I knew I would get many things wrong if i tried to make him into one. so he is the same as me, Scottish (though still an AU version)