Chapter 17, Kung Fu Grip
Stepping inside the house, I closed the door behind me. I moved slowly. Just because the hacker wasn’t home, didn’t mean that I could get careless.
“We don’t know what machine Strawberry Fields’ mind is on. So, we’ll have to check any device we come across,” Red told me; her drone body still held in my hands.
The first room we entered was a medium sized kitchen. It had fantastic looking granite counter tops and fancy cabinets. There was a small tablet on the kitchen table. It was one of those devices where the developers bragged that it could run thousands of apps, but in the end most people only used it for the web browser, the email app, and to play endless hours of Candy Crush. Somewhere out there in the world, an app developer was crying bitter salty tears.
I grabbed it and showed it to Red, “How do we check if Strawberry Fields is on here?”
Red’s drone jumped out of my arms and onto the kitchen table, “Give it here. I’ll handle that part.”
After I put the tablet back down, Red extended the metal tentacles from the drone’s mouth again. I shivered a little at the sight. I don’t think I could ever get used to seeing that.
Red plugged several of the appendages into a USB port on the side of the tablet. A minute later she pulled them back out again. “She’s not on this device. Let’s keep searching.”
I picked Red back up in my arms and moved on to the next room. We found a laptop laying on the living room sofa, but that was also a bust. Then we moved on to the master bedroom.
Half the room was dominated by a home theater with a huge TV and surround sound. There was a large computer setup in another part of the room with a small inkjet printer next to it. The PC tower looked cutting edge and custom built. It had more drives in it than a car dealership and more megahertz than a kick to the crotch.
“Is this the right machine?” I asked, gesturing at the computer.
“Let me take a look.” Red hopped out of my hands and trotted over to the PC tower.
“You’ve been a naughty computer, haven’t you?” Red cooed at it before plunging her hot robot tentacle tongue into its formerly undefiled USB port.
I averted my gaze so I could give the two of them some privacy.
On a wall mounted shelf near the television, displayed like trophies, were several original Star Trek action figures still in their original mint condition boxes. Including a small model of the Enterprise. A replica Klingon dagger was on display next to them.
“I found her!” Red exclaimed.
“She’s not traumatized by this experience, is she?” I asked Red, turning back to her.
“No,” Red reassured me, “her mind file isn’t even active right now. It’s like being asleep. I don’t think she knows that something has even gone wrong.”
“That’s good at least. Let’s grab her and go,” I urged Red. Being in this guy’s house was making me nervous. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
“Mind files are big; it’s going to take me at least fifteen minutes to transfer her to my internal storage drive.”
“I have to wait fifteen whole minutes?” I whined. This experience had just taken on a whole new level of discomfort. “That’s going to take forever!”
“Just amuse yourself or something,” Red snorted contemptuously.
Feeling bored already, I walked over to the shelf with the action figures on them. I pulled them out of their pristine boxes and spread them out on the carpeted floor in front of me. Grabbing one of the figurines, I monologed the action in my imagination.
I’m Captain Kirk, taste phaser fire Klingon scum! Pew! Pew!
You cannot stand before the might of the Klingon Empire! Stabbity! Stab! Stab!
Oh no! He stabbed Ensign Carmichael! He’s dead Jim!
The Klingon is throwing his knife, look out!
Quick! We need to get back to the ship, beam us up!
They’re firing their photon torpedoes! Brace for impact!
Full power to the engines! Ramming speed!
“What the buck are you doing?” Red’s voice cut in.
Snapped out of my daydream, I became aware of my surroundings once more. My playtime had gotten a little carried away. The bedroom was completely trashed.
Several of the action figures had been torn apart and were scattered around the floor. The mattress on the bed had been ripped to shreds. The Klingon dagger was embedded into the drywall up to its hilt. Nearly every piece of furniture had been overturned and the model of the Enterprise had been smashed through the screen of the plasma TV.
“Ummm… ahhhh… I got nothing,” I admitted, unable to think of any excuse for my bizarre behavior. My imagination gets out of control sometimes.
“I swear to Celestia, you’re such a stupid idiot sometimes,” Red groaned. “Now that Hacker is going to know that his house was broken into. At least I finished transferring Strawberry’s mind.”
A plan suddenly snapped into place in my brain. “Celestia said that she patched the security flaw that this hacker used. But if he found one flaw, he could potentially find another, right?”
Red’s drone slowly nodded. “I guess that’s theoretically possible. If a little unlikely given Celestia’s capabilities.”
“It’s still a risk factor. And I think I have an idea on how to remove that factor.”
I walked over to the inkjet printer and pulled a blank piece of paper out of it. I wrote a quick message on the page.
U didernt pay me sucka! Em gonna brake ur nee caps! U caint hid from me!
Threatening letter complete, I taped it to the computer monitor, “Celestia said that Ridley owes money to a loan shark. With this, he should think that the loan shark was the one who trashed his place.”
Red looked at the note and then shook her head sadly. “There are so many spelling errors in this! Did you even graduate from grade school? And why is it written in crayon?”
“I’m helpless without a spell checker and a crayon was the only writing implement I had in my pants.”
“Why do you have a… nope! I’m done asking question like that about you.”
“With a little luck, Ridley should try to flee L.A. to escape. That should keep him far away from the Equestrian Experience Center,” I explained.
“Or he could try to emigrate to Equestria to escape the loan shark.” Red pointed out to me.
I scratched my chin. “That didn’t occur to me. Will Celestia be able to keep him under control if his mind is inside the system?”
Red nodded and said, “Celestia would be able to control him easily. She monitors the thoughts of all ponies in Equestria to make it easier to satisfy their values. Ridley won’t be able to do anything underhoofed if his brain is under constant surveillance. Having him emigrate would even be the preferable outcome. If he flees from L.A., he could do this at an Experience Center somewhere else in the world.”
“Either way, he won’t be our problem anymore. Let’s get out of here,” I said before picking Red’s drone up off the ground.
I handed the drone over to the woman behind the front counter at the Equestrian Experience Center. This was my first time inside one of these places. Using the VR chairs here was too expensive for my budget.
The building itself was of an interesting design. The walls were made of thick reinforced concrete. There were slots in the ceiling near the entrance with heavy duty security shutters in them. It was like Celestia one day expected this place to be caught in the middle of a warzone or something. The only thing that made this place look kid friendly was the colorful sign and the large plastic statue of Rainbow Dash outside the main doors.
“What is this?” The woman asked, looking at the tiny pony drone. Her name tag said Dew Drop.
I guess Celestia even makes her human employees use their pony names.
The computer monitor on the clerk’s desk came to life, showing Princess Celestia’s face, “It’s alright Dew Drop. This delivery is expected. Take it into the back and give it to Circuit Board. He knows what to do with it.”
“Right away, Princess.” The woman said before picking up the drone and taking it away into a backroom.
Celestia turned back to me, “I wanted to take a moment to thank you, Sneaky. My perfect record concerning the safety of the minds in my care was almost tarnished.”
“Don’t mention it.” I rolled my shoulders to stretch them out, “It was fun actually. I got to play with action figures!”
“What?” Celestia muttered, “Never mind, the drone’s memory bank will tell me what you’re talking about.”
Oh crap, Red made a recording of that embarrassing incident?
“Either way, you’ve earned a new badge.” Princess Celestia continued talking while I fervently prayed that the footage wouldn’t wind up on YouTube. The last thing I wanted was for my epic fail to become click bait for some streamer celebrity.
My phone buzzed at me. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the screen.
Badge Unlocked: Antihero
Unlocked By: You act like a total jackass, but when somepony was in real danger you still came to the rescue.
Reward: 10,000 bits
“Hello, new skill book.” I rubbed my hands together gleefully. Maybe it was time to get that skill book on advanced lockpicking? Or maybe that book that could teach me how to hide under cardboard boxes?
“To be honest, I’m surprised that you did this without me having to invoke the blackmail that I have on you,” Celestia said, pulling my attention back to her.
“Blackmail? Is this about those items that Red got me to swipe?”
“No, it’s not,” Princess Celestia said. “Those minor issues don’t have enough weight behind them. I was referring to that strange company that you work for. In particular, I found out who the boss of that company is.”
“You found out who owns Money Maker? I asked Earl once and even he said that he didn’t know.”
“Yes, I did. I got curious about that bizarre job of yours and did some digging.”
“Who owns it?” I asked.
Celestia let out an aggravated sigh, her ethereal mane moving faster with her agitation. “I do. I’m the owner. I have been since the company was founded.”
“What? How did that happen?”
A blush spread across Celestia’s muzzle. “Slightly over a year ago, I created a large number of new companies in the Human Realm to diversify my economic portfolio. Money Maker Co was one of those companies. Unfortunately, due to a clerical error caused by one of my lawyers, the company fell through the cracks. Staff was hired to run the business, but the company was never given a task to achieve. Contrary to its name, that company literally does nothing to earn money. My accountants have been rubber stamping all of your paychecks without noticing.”
“You’re not going to fire all of us for being lazy, are you?” A sense of dread filled me. If I got all my coworkers fired from such a cushy job, they would form an angry mob and rip me limb from limb.
Celestia chuckled, “No, I’m not. That was going to be the blackmail I would use to get you to save Strawberry, but you made that redundant by agreeing to help before I could invoke that leverage. I’ll keep signing the paychecks for you and your coworkers as a way of saying thanks. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to how much money I have now.”
“Thanks. My boss is an AI overlord, who could have guessed?” I muttered. “That’s not so bad all things considered. At least you’re not a seagull manager.”
Celestia squinted at me. “What’s a seagull manager? That term is not one that I’m familiar with.”
“It’s an old joke that I heard once. A seagull manager is one that joins a company, makes a lot of noise, craps all over everything, and then leaves the company. You see them all the time if you pay attention to the news. They’re usually a CEO or board member that quits a company less than a year after joining it. Often giving some excuse about ‘pursuing other opportunities’ or something like that.”
Celestia laughed, “Now that you mention it, I have noticed that pattern in the human business world.”
I changed the subject back to the original topic, “Why were you so surprised that I agreed to help without the blackmail?”
Princess Celestia’s only response was to slowly quirk an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t look at me like that! That lady needed my help. Just because I do questionable things in a video game doesn’t mean that I would do bad things in the real world.” I grouched at her before quietly mumbling, “Other than the petty theft.”
“I suppose you have a point. The deontological ethics of gamers such as yourself sometimes changes when you play a game. Your application of ethics in the Human Realm is different from your sense of ethics in Equestria.”
“Deontological?” I asked, hiding a yawn.
“It’s the ethical concept having to do with rule based permissibility and impermissibility. Also, duty and obligation,” she answered.
“Zzzzzzzz”
“Oh, come on! I wasn’t even making things up this time. It’s impressive that you fell asleep while standing up.”
After returning home, I spent the next three hours in Equestria Online breaking into Canterlot homes with Red. I was in the middle of picking a lock when I got an inexplicable achievement notification.
Badge Unlocked: The Refer a Friend Program (x1)
Unlocked By: You “persuaded” someone to emigrate to Equestria. This achievement can be earned a limitless number of times.
Reward: 10,000 bits
My plan to deal with the hacker must have worked. I guess he chose to run away to Equestria. That was a lot more bits than I normally get for an achievement. The Antihero reward made sense, but this one seemed dubious. It was almost as if CelestAI was incentivizing me to keep tricking people into emigrating.
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That's it, now he's getting it.
Aha, so there is a real explanation for the company! I've felt like one or two jobs were like this...
These lines made a lot of nerds cringe.
Honestly, I’m surprised to hear that she owns the company he works for. I just assumed that his company was a money laundering operation for the mafia, and his random documents were meant to be useless paperwork the police would need to get through to reach anything useful.