Midnight Patch
Twilit Legacy
Chapter 01 - Midnight Patch
“Good evening and welcome to ENN’s Headline News! I’m your host this evening, Jett Howlitzer.
“We begin this evening by noting the upcoming sad occasion. Two days from now, we will recognize the anniversary of the day on which Princess Twilight Sparkle vanished without a trace.”
A sleek purple motorbike zipped along the freeways of Manehattan, weaving in and out of cars as its rider made his way further into the heart of the city, his destination being the tallest tower,the most obvious silhouette in the cityscape.
In the midst of the many skyscrapers and other buildings, one large tower of glass stood higher than the rest, the tallest building from base to top in Equestria. In bright white letters on the top left-hand corner of every side of the building was the word ENCOM.
The black-clad rider glanced up at the building for the merest of moments before he revved his engine, yanked his bike to the right toward an exit, and sped under the highway, ignoring lights and other vehicles as he went.
“Our younger viewers may not be familiar with her, but her mark on Equestria cannot be ignored. Mrs. Sparkle spent the first several years of her life as the personal student of Princess Celestia, before the Princess sent her to the hamlet of Ponyville to make friends and ultimately turn the Elements of Harmony on the being Nightmare Moon and restore her sister, Princess Luna.
“Sparkle spent next few years in Ponyville studying magic and adventuring with her new friends, occasionally rising to Equestria’s defense against entities such as Discord or Queen Chrysalis. In time, Twilight Sparkle demonstrated qualities our princesses were looking for and she was crowned the fourth Princess of Equestria, establishing her home in Ponyville.”
The motorbike was hidden quite easily, and the young man stashed his helmet in a bush nearby.
Irritated by the flatness of helmet hair, he reached two hands up and tousled it quite vigorously, fingers brushing his midnight-blue hair back and forth, occasionally mixing the purple and magenta streaks he kept in his hair as a tribute to his mother, before it all seemed to fall right back into its natural messiness.
Satisfied, he reached back and stretched, briefly shutting his purple eyes, and working his thin jaw around. It was going to be a long and fun night.
Once he was ready, he hefted his backpack, laden down with everything he was going to need for the evening, and ran off toward the shipping ports in the back of ENCOM headquarters.
“Despite being a princess, Mrs. Sparkle’s greatest achievement was her development of the computer, the machine that revolutionized Equestrian society like never before. She created it in the basement of her castle in Ponyville, keeping her project under lock and key for nearly three whole months. Once it was developed, and she demonstrated what it could do, she relocated to Manehattan and founded the company that would soon become a juggernaut: Equestria Networking and Computers, better known as ENCOM.
“Under Sparkle’s leadership, ENCOM flourished like few other companies have, developing more and more commercially-affordable computers for public use. Of course, her time as CEO was not without controversy, as some of our older viewers will recall the scandal involving then-ENCOM Head of Public Relations, Trixie Lulamoon. In short, said scandal appeared to involve her hacking Equestria’s national defenses, though Twilight Sparkle was able to prove her innocence. No culprit was ever found.”
Diamond Tiara yawned as she leaned back in her chair. They were just under ten minutes away from the release of their newest operating system, something she’d had a heavy hand in developing, and she was greatly looking forward to its release. As head of the Operating System Development Team, she had been awarded this spot in the “small council,” as they had all taken to referring to it as, to watch the release and its feedback.
Across the table, texting on her smartphone, was the Head of Security, Trixie Lulamoon.
Age had been very kind to her. She had few wrinkles, her hair had yet to have any grey in it, and she looked almost no different than she had when she was still in a position of actual relevance on the Board.
No doubt she was texting her daughter or husband, letting them know she was going to be late because Diamond’s father had only just insisted on her presence at the meeting rather than let her head home for the evening. Diamond rolled her eyes at the recent memory. If the boy wanted to get in and wreak havoc, nothing was going to stop him. He was second only to his mother in ability.
“Welcome to the War Room, everyone,” announced her father, the sharply-dressed businessman sitting at the head of the table, directly in front of a large screen with the word “ENCOM” sitting in the direct middle. “Tonight, we celebrate the release of ENCOM Operating System 6. EOS6 will be live in approximately seven minutes, so let’s all get ready for a memorable evening.”
“In the years after founding ENCOM, Sparkle married one of her guards, one Lieutenant Flash Sentry, and the two had a son named Arcturus. The last known time anyone saw her was when she and Trixie Lulamoon appeared in public to call for a press conference that was to be held two days later. Sparkle vanished later that night. While foul play was suspected, no perpetrators were ever implicated, nor did there seem to be any trail left behind to follow.
“Sparkle’s disappearance left a gaping hole in ENCOM’s leadership, as well as Equestria’s. Trixie Lulamoon, as the next-largest shareholder, took up Sparkle’s CEO position, though due to plunging stock, she was forced to relinquish the seat to one Filthy Rich, one of ENCOM’s highest investors, who was able to save the company from bankruptcy and restore its prestige.
“Sentry took Arcturus back to Ponyville to grow up away from the spotlight and the city, and he returned to a quiet life. Arcturus, however, graduated from his secondary studies early, entering university at the age of fifteen, and excelled in the realm of computer science, demonstrating aptitude for the subject few could have predicted. His future was bright; many were even convinced he would take the helm of ENCOM for himself to succeed his mother, but upon his graduation, Arcturus Sparkle completely left the limelight.
“Few can say where he is or what he is doing, but both Sentry and the Princesses have assured the public that he is alive, and simply wants to be left alone. Sentry also respectfully asked not to be bothered for comment on this anniversary.
“We wish him, Arcturus, and all who ever knew Twilight Sparkle all the best, and extend our sympathies on this difficult night.”
The shipping port featured a giant slab of metal with a keypad on it. It was supposed to be for authorized personnel only, but they had made the mistake of leaving a port in it for Arcturus to plug his laptop into. He slung off his pack, yanked out the light and thin machine, plugged it in, and within seconds, he had fudged the security code on the door.
With a loud clang, the door began to swing outward, revealing something that almost looked like a wedge.of metal, complete with bars to (normally) keep it locked tight.
“Now that is a big door,” Arcturus observed dryly, before slipping inside.
After his many forays into ENCOM, Arcturus knew the building almost literally like the back of his hand. In this building, he could come and go as he pleased.
Filthy Rich had tried to stop him from doing so. Multiple times, actually. But Arc was just too good. Looped camera feeds, alarms in completely different sections of the building…
But tonight was gonna be special.
So, without a care in the world, he quite literally strode right in front of the camera on his way to the main staircase.
“In other news, ENCOM will be releasing the newest version of their flagship operating system, EOS6, within the next few minutes. ENCOM has drawn criticism when it was revealed that there would be a notable lack of discounts for academia and students. Early beta tests of the new EOS were promising, with an increase in security being a top priority.
“ENCOM CEO Filthy Rich went on record saying, ‘EOS6 is our most secure and advanced operating system to date. I am sure everyone will find the cost a very small price to pay compared to the peace of mind and functionality you will be receiving. I know not everyone will agree with our decision, but it would allow us to set our sights on bigger and better things in the long run.’ Rich’s daughter, Diamond Tiara, has a prominent place on the System Development team, which drew a considerable amount of criticism due to apparent nepotism, but Tiara has served to silence critics on all sides with her active role as leader.
Stay with us, and we will bring you live coverage of ENCOM’s EOS release as well as initial reactions from all around the tech industry.”
Night Watch, as his name implied, was on the night watch at ENCOM HQ. He had been specifically instructed by Mr. Rich himself that no one was to spoil their grand big wig party or whatever the hell was going on upstairs. Night Watch wasn’t invited, so he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about was making sure he didn’t get fired.
He had been on duty all four times that little brat had pranked them. The looping camera feeds had been the worst, because it took two whole days to get them back on track.
Speaking of camera feeds…
Night Watch glared at one of the screens as the punk himself walked right in front of it on his way up the stairs.
His hand was already on the walkie-talkie but he stopped. What was he planning? It had so be some kind of trick; there was no way he’d just brazenly stroll right in front of a camera he knew very well was there without some sort of plan.
“Guys, this is Night Watch,” he finally said, speaking into his mic.
“Copy Night Watch,” said one of the others on the line.
“Can we get some guys out to the camera feed database? I’m concerned the hacker might have tampered with it.”
“Hacker? Is it that kid again?”
“Think so,” Night nodded, still watching the camera. The damn punk was actually waving at the camera now. “Camera feed is showing him waving at us, the fucker. He’s too smart to make a rookie mistake like that. Feel it’s best if we just take every precaution.”
“Roger that. Should we send someone up to the high security rooms?”
“Not just yet,” he replied. “The entire board is up there. We don’t want to cause a scene. It’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to get by the board anyway, since they have eyes watching the halls. Still, let the boss know.”
“Copy that.”
Night Watch, however, glared at the screen, where their usual prankster had vanished.
“On second thought,” Night said sharply, “I’ll go on up myself. Just to be safe.”
“Copy.”
With that, he grabbed his necessary equipment and charged out toward the staircase that led to the Conference Floor.
What are you planning?
Arcturus arrived at the top floor, where he could already see the board preparing for their new release. He smirked. Aside from his Aunt Trixie and Diamond Tiara, he was going to enjoy seeing the looks on their faces.
He had been preparing for this for a long time. His second ever prank hack had even involved patching a backdoor into the EOS5 software just for this very moment, since he knew very well ENCOM were too paranoid to upgrade all their computers to a new OS early, for fear of what he had done or would do to it.
Based on a quick glance through the glass door of the boardroom, it looked like they were a mere five minutes away. Plenty of time. But they correctly predicted he was heading for the main server room, and had eyes watching the halls.
Fortunately, they hadn’t seen him yet. He quickly pulled out his smartphone, connected to the local host, and opened his own backdoor to get into the computer the presentation was being made on.
And suddenly…
Filthy Rich’s eyes bulged. Trixie managed to stifle a laugh, even as she looked up from the alert from one of her top guards that the hacker was up to something.
Meanwhile, she noticed that the two agents watching the outer corridor suddenly looked away from their duty to see what the noise was.
While Trixie was all for taking Rich’s ego down several pegs, she did have a job to do. Nevertheless, she didn’t exactly make too much of an effort to point out the shadow that dashed past the door while everyone was too busy trying to get the Rickroll off their screen.
“How the hell did he even manage to get in!?” thundered one of their younger board members. Trixie thought his name was Dillinger or something. The turnover rate in this place was through the roof and it was getting hard to keep up with everyone’s name.
“This is your first experience with him, isn’t it?” Diamond Tiara asked in a rather calm voice, in stark contrast to her father and most of the other board, who were in turmoil around them. “He does this every year around this time,” she sighed. “Not even Mrs. Lulamoon’s top men seem to be able to catch him.”
“What is he even going to do!? He could upload a virus to the mainframe, steal all of ENCOM’s reserve funds, download Windows Vista onto our work computers, or--”
“With all due respect, Mr. Dillinger,” Trixie rolled her eyes, “shut up. We don’t know what he’s after. Panic isn’t going to help.”
“Quite frankly,” Filthy Rich spoke up before any of them could continue bickering, “he’s having his fun. Let him. Diamond, you did ensure his annual prank couldn’t affect our product?”
“I took every precaution,” Diamond nodded, “but this is her kid we’re talking about, Father. No matter what we plan for, he always finds a way to subvert it.”
Filthy scowled slightly, but said nothing. Trixie, however, knew that, no matter what Arcturus was going to do, it was already too late to stop him. Just by virtue of him being in the building, things were already going according to plan. Even while the rickroll continued playing, she sent a text to her daughter letting her know what her old friend was up to.
“ENCOM’s spokespeople do not appear to be available for comment at this time, but there do appear to be some technical issues inhibiting communication with their board. More on this development as we receive more information.”
Arcturus ducked into the main server room, where he knew they kept all the important files stored away on their most private, most secure servers so that people like him couldn’t get in.
Except he was about to get in anyway.
It didn’t take long for Arcturus to duck his way in toward the back of the room, pull out his laptop, plug in the USB cable, and start bypassing the security.
It was almost pitiable, how little things had changed. Several years after his first ever raid, and they still hadn’t found the Trojan he had planted.
It took mere seconds to get in, and from there, the game was afoot.
And just in time, too, because a security guard entered, his light illuminating the dark room.
“I know you’re in here!” the man called out. “Listen, let’s make this easier for the both of us. You turn yourself in, you’ll get off with a warning.”
The guard’s footsteps were getting closer. Arcturus’ laptop was set to low brightness, which made it loads easier to stay hidden, but even so, despite the softness of his keys, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay totally hidden for long.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered quietly as he continued sifting through the mess of files and folders, searching for it.
Time seemed to only slow down the longer Arcturus sat there, which only increased his agitation.
And suddenly, he found exactly what he was looking for. It took only a few moments to cut it and replace it with a special little extra surprise, and then to store the entire file on his laptop’s rather large hard drive, where it would be uploaded just where he needed it to go automatically, thanks to a few scripts he had written.
And with it all said and done, he slipped the laptop into his backpack and zipped it all shut.
Now, to get out of here…
Arcturus remembered a story his mom had told him about the time she had faced down Nightmare Moon, and how she had gotten past. Well, it wasn’t Nightmare Moon, but it should work.
He leapt sideways into the main aisle. The large security guard jumped, startled by such an obvious move, and Arcturus chose the moment to charge him, lowering the shoulder as if to slam into him.
The guard, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped into a defensive stance, ready to grapple him, only for Arcturus to snap his fingers in a burst of purple light and reappear on the other side, continuing on his way.
He was out of the main server room, into the roof stairwell, and dashing up the steps two at a time. The guard had to be behind him now, but Arcturus was confident he could get to the roof before the guard could catch up.
With a grunt, he pushed his way through the door at the top of the stairwell, coming out on the roof of the ENCOM headquarters, where an antenna was situated near the edge, with a catwalk next to it that extended over the streets below.
Arcturus could feel his heart hammering. The security guard was on his way up behind him now. There was nowhere left to run.
The board were in turmoil. The situation with the intruder had only gotten worse, because they couldn’t seem to get the video down, which meant they had no way of tracking their prized product.
Trixie was in contact with her security staff, who had informed her that one of them was chasing an intruder out of the server room.
You can’t stop him, she thought, hiding her amusement. If he wants to escape, he’s going to escape.
“EOS6 is supposed to be going live momentarily!” Rich snapped at them. “Someone get this damn video off our board!”
“Got it,” said Diamond Tiara, calmly entering a few keystrokes into the computers housed within the table. Instantly, the video vanished, replaced by the countdown to release.
Which was only ten seconds away.
“Just in time,” breathed Rich. Trixie was inclined to agree. Filthy Rich wasn’t a bad boss, but whenever his big projects went sour, he became… unpleasant.
The clock ticked down, and after several seconds of hushed breath, it finally hit zero, and the window containing the number of downloads popped up to track how many were purchasing and downloading their product, as well as total revenue.
Except it wasn’t that.
Trixie could already see the bulging tendons in Rich’s neck. Diamond Tiara’s eyes widened, Dillinger openly gaped at the screen, and the board in general completely froze.
“The EOS file,” said Rich in an incredibly low voice. “Where is the EOS main download file?”
Trixie immediately pulled up her tablet to search for news, and what she was seeing from tech blogs didn’t bode well.
“It’s…” she swallowed, “it looks like it’s on the web.”
No one moved, no one said anything. Rich just stared at the screen, and Trixie could feel an explosion coming.
But to her surprise, he did no such thing.
“Trixie, Dillinger, the press will have some questions,” he said in a deflated sort of voice. “I trust the two of you can make a positive spin on this?”
Trixie blinked. Head of security, doing PR? It was like she had just been handed a quick ticket back to her old job!
“Yes sir,” Trixie nodded, her mind already buzzing with ideas on how to spin the incident. Dillinger was looking daggers at her, but she merely gestured and stood up.
“The night is done,” and here, Rich sounded just resigned. “Have a good weekend everyone, and Diamond, I would like to speak to you for a moment.”
“Yes father,” Diamond nodded.
As the board exited, Trixie and Dillinger entered an elevator, which began the slow descent.
“Your guards failed,” Dillinger immediately said scathingly.
“The guards always fail when he wants to prank ENCOM,” Trixie rolled her eyes. “Edward, he is always three steps ahead. I will be interested to see what he did this time so that we may get ever closer to figuring out other ways to keep him out--”
“Only for them to fail,” scowled Dillinger. “You prove yourself more and more irrelevant to the board. I honestly don’t have any idea why Mr. Rich keeps you on.”
“And that’s probably why you’re the head of PR and not the Chairman of the Board,” replied Trixie icily. “And yet at his request, here I go to do your job for you.”
The elevator door dinged and slid open, where Trixie left Dillinger to sputter while she made her way to the press conference room. When she was sure he couldn’t see, she allowed herself a satisfied smile. Oh, the night was only just beginning.
Up on the roof, Arcturus was slowly backing up on the crane.
“Look, kid,” the guard who was advancing on him was lowering his flashlight, “not gonna lie, you’re in serious trouble, but it’s not worth jumping off a skyscraper over.”
Arcturus glanced down at the ground underneath him..the streaks of light as cars and other things whizzed by below. It had to be at least a thousand feet! Maybe even an extra 500 on top of that!
Arcturus smiled giddily. Maybe the adrenaline was getting to him.
“I dunno. Have you ever jumped off a skyscraper?” he asked back at the guard, as four more came running out onto the roof. “Very liberating experience. Almost like flying, for those of us who aren’t Flyers.”
The guard grabbed his commlink and whispered “Get a couple of Flyers up here on the double, and add a Spellweaver. We’ve only got Earthens right now, and the kid might jump off.”
“They’ll be too late,” Arcturus told the guard sounding almost bored. “And they won’t stop me.”
“Look, kid, are you really going to throw your life away over this?”
“Well, I already have, haven’t I?” Arcturus replied, meeting the guard’s eyes.
The guard had nothing to say to that.
“Look, if it means that much to you, I’ll get down from here,” Arcturus continued, holding up two hands as if to calm the guard. “Just answer me a quick question.
“Sure,” the guard said cautiously.
“Who’s ENCOM’s majority shareholder?”
The guard shrugged. “I dunno him personally, but he’s the Princess’ kid. Why do you…”
The guard trailed off and his eyes bulged. Arcturus held out his arms in a sort of flourish.
“How’s it going, guys? Enjoying yourselves?”
The other guards all tittered in disbelief, but the one trying to get him down just gaped.
“You’re… you’re Arcturus Sparkle!”
Arcturus smiled.
“Call me Arc.”
And then he fell off the tower.
Diamond sat on the table, arms crossed and very much wanting to leave behind the board room like everyone else had. There were things to do, people to visit, drinks to be had…
“What’s the damage?” Rich asked, staring out a window. Due to the darkness of the room, Diamond couldn’t see his face.
“Finances aside, almost none,” Diamond replied. “I haven’t gotten a chance to see the full fallout, if you can call it that, but early posts and reactions are showing that EOS6 is everything we promised it would be, and then some. ENCOM stock is very much on the rise, and posts are saying that Trixie and Edward managed to spin this as part of the plan, with ENCOM deciding to allow free downloads for a full month, after which special concessions will be made for the government, academia, and so on. All in all, it seems as though it will be a long-term gain despite the short-term loss.”
Rich nodded. “Good. You and your team outdid yourself, Diamond.”
“Thank-you father,” Diamond replied.
“But this cannot be overlooked,” Rich continued, turning to face her, and she could see the hard lines on his face that indicated his anger. “This was supposed to be a record-breaking release. We were projected at well over a billion in revenue. And all of that to waste, because Lulamoon’s guards couldn’t keep that damn kid out for just one night!”
Diamond didn’t know how to respond. On one hand, her father was right. Trixie’s guards had let them down yet again. But on the other hand, this was Arcturus Sparkle they were talking about, who had never failed to gain entry whenever he wanted. There was only so much the guards could do.
“Starting Monday, you’ll be working on a new project,” Rich continued. “I’ve given it some thought, and tonight has only further resolved me to do this. We’ll be bringing back one of our older programs and completely redoing it as a security measure.”
“Which one is it?” Diamond asked. There were several options to choose from, especially the older ones.
“Tomorrow,” Rich waved his hand dismissively. “For now, go home, rest, and come back ready to work, because we need this particular one to be perfect to avoid messes like tonight.”
“Yes sir,” Diamond nodded, before tossing her hair. “Am I excused?”
“Yes,” Rich nodded back. “Tell Silver I said hello.”
“Will do father,” and with that she slid off the table. But something in the window outside caught her eye before she walked out.
That something was a strange shape flying toward them. It almost looked… human.
Rich noticed, because he turned around to see what she was looking at.
As it got closer, she could see that it was human, a person attached to a parachute that just dropped into view. And that person was floating into viewing distance.
Purple eyes, pale skin, midnight-blue hair with a purple and magenta streak in it… She knew only one person alive with that profile.
Arcturus looked Rich straight in the eye and gave a mocking salute, just before gravity took him out of view.
For one moment everything was still, but then Diamond was out of there before her father could react.
“We’re minutes after the free release of ENCOM Operating System 6, and public opinion of the company is skyrocketing. Former head of Public Relations Trixie Lulamoon was seen at the press conference, likely to honor the anniversary of her disappeared friend, where she laid out the details of ENCOM’s plans with EOS6 alongside current head of Public Relations Edward Dillinger.
“ENCOM stock has risen a full bit and 51 pence in the short time since release, and it is projected to continue to rise for the next few days. ENCOM’s future looks bright, and their release tonight appears to have set them on a path to market domination for the foreseeable future.
“Well, that wraps it up for the night. We wish all of our viewers an excellent evening. This is Jett Howlitzer signing off.”