Burglary at Sweet Apple Acres
“No way! I won’t stand for it! I tell you I WON’T STAND FOR IT!!!” yelled Applejack.
“What’s up mate?” cried Big McIntosh, dashing into the barn.
“The store computer! It conked up again! Now I can’t access my freaking database to see our local stock of fried chicken!!” cried Applejack, shaking her MacBook Air all over.
“Quick! Let me take a look!” cried Big McIntosh.
He grabbed the MacBook Air with his left forehoof and set it down on the floor, then he did some furious typing with his forehooves. The problem was serious: the computer could not boot up without showing a popup that said “Your startup disk is almost full”; even when he tried to empty the trash, he could not do so without causing the entire computer to hang. Forcing restarts proved futile; after about the fifth forced restart or so, the computer turned on with a weird sound (instead of the usual chime) and a picture of (what was once) Nightmare Moon, with the caption in big bold Curlz MT font saying this:
YOUR COMPUTER’S OPERATING SYSTEM IS CORRUPT. IF YOU WANT TO REMOVE ALL MALWARE FROM THIS COMPUTER AND GET IT UP AND RUNNING NORMALLY AGAIN, PLEASE LEAVE 1,000,000 BRITISH POUNDS AT THE EVERFREE FOREST RIVER BEFORE SUNSET.
“AJ! Quick! Come and look at this!” called Big McIntosh. Applejack galloped over and was aghast at what she saw. “You’re not saying we need to call on Alberto again?” she cried.
“We may just well have to do so!” sighed Big McIntosh. “This was just about well unexpected! Alberto is the human we'll need!”
Alberto at the time was in the gardens of Canterlot Castle with Derpy; it seemed that Alberto’s MacBook Air was also having similar problems, as was that of Derpy.
“I don’t get it!” cried Alberto. “I just removed so much data, it cannot keep on saying that my ‘startup disk is almost full’ like that!! I mean, I just trashed a lot of stuff also to help free disk space and not only does it not get emptied, but it screws up the whole fricking machine halfway!”
“Incredible!” cried Derpy. “Same thing here! I was having the exact same problem on my end! And not only that, Alberto; I hope you didn’t get this!” She showed Alberto the startup screen with the picture of Nightmare Moon and the eerie-looking caption extorting them for 1,000,000 British Pounds.
“Caramba!” gasped Alberto. “No, I haven’t got that yet.”
No sooner had he said that than his computer happened to show that very same screen. But before he could react, Applejack and Big McIntosh arrived on the scene.
“Alberto! Just whom we needed!” cried Big McIntosh. “Better come over quick! We need your help to fix our MacBook Air!”
“Don’t tell me it’s this problem you’re having, too?” cried Alberto, showing the two Apple ponies his MacBook Air.
“Blistering barnacles!” gasped Applejack. “This is JUST incredible! We all got this one same problem on the same day!”
“Alberto, let’s go over to the Canterlot and get the authorities to check them up!” suggested Derpy.
Shining Armour thumped his desk in exasperation when he saw Alberto and the three other ponies coming before him with this request. “And I thought you were the security freak here, Don Alberto,” he murmured. “Why now are you unable to solve this issue?”
Alberto could give no answer.
“Let me see all your computers,” said Shining Armour. Alberto, Derpy, and the two Apple ponies put the three MacBook Airs in front of Shining Armour, who inspected them closely. Same exact problem.
“What were you doing just before you encountered this?” Shining Armour inquired.
“I was checking the email yesterday for news from our suppliers regarding stock coming in for some more breadcrumbs for the chicken meat,” said Applejack. “One of the emails I had came from what seemed to be a supplier, but I didn’t recognise the name. I opened the attachment, it seemed legitimate. Then I went to sleep as it was late. Then this afternoon when Big McIntosh and I were opening up the AFC HQ, we suddenly found that our SSD space had suddenly gone down from 30GB free to only 3MB free. Then this problem encountered after we tried to free up space by trashing unnecessary stuff.”
“Ah,” said Shining Armour. A very common trojan, he thought to himself, probably from opening unfamiliar email attachments. “What about you, Alberto?” he asked.
“Well, the previous night I was playing TF2,” said Alberto. “All along there was no problems. While there was WiFi access, I did not play on any server, but my own LAN map with bots. I do not recall opening any unfamiliar emails over the last month or so. This morning when I turned on my com I was actually kind of shocked at how the disk space had dramatically decreased. Hanging problems arose after I tried to empty my SSD by trashing stuff.”
“For me,” added Derpy, “I was just watching some young Russian boys doing half-nude ballet on YouTube; I like watching biped kids when they dance, especially to Tchaikovsky’s music. I also don’t normally open unfamiliar emails. This morning, exactly the same problem as Alberto and Applejack.”
“Hmmm,” said Shining Armour, frowning. “So of the three MacBook Airs represented here, only one had an authentic Trojan. How did the other two get infected? Did you keep yours connected to WiFi all night?”
“No,” said Alberto and Derpy in unison.
“If you ask me,” said Alberto, “something tells me this is not a trojan, but a higher and more severe form of malware. We will have to step up our cyber security all around Equestria.”
“And if you’ll allow me to cut you there,” said Big McIntosh, who had remained silent for several minutes till now, “AJ and I, and Derpy and Alberto, will go and build a fort back at Sweet Apple Acres just in case of an emergency.”
“Granted,” said Shining Armour. “If you need anything else, please feel free to come back to me. In the meantime I will alert HRH Princess Twilight Sparkle on this.”
And at Sweet Apple Acres an hour or so later, Applejack and Big McIntosh were raising another barn, along with Alberto and Derpy helping out. They knew they’d have to do this for the security of all Equestria. As she raised up some beams for the fort, Applejack sang to them:
My boot-scootin’ baby is drivin’ me crazy,
My obsession for the wisdom, my dance floor date!
My romeo, romeo, a cowboy got from head to toe;
Wanna make you mine, better get in line; 5,6,7,8!
Then Alberto sang:
MMMBop, ba du ba da ba du bop,
Ba du ba da ba du bop, ba du ba da ba du, yo yeah!
MMMBop, ba du ba da ba du bop,
Ba du ba da ba du bop, ba du ba da ba du, yeah yeah!
Then Big McIntosh rapped:
Hoof kickin’, forehoof clickin'
leather slappin’, hoof cloppin’
Hit bumpin’, music thumpin'
Knee hitchin’, heel and toe;
Floor scuffin’, hindhoof shuffin'
Big grinnin’, body spinnin’
Rompin' stompin’ pumpin' jumpin'
Slidin' glidin’ here we go!
They had to sing as they did this because there was really no time to waste.
However, this would have by no means taken the evil forces by surprise. Indeed, this new virus, the Nightmare Trojan, had been specially prepared by Sean Brink and his men for the inhabitants of Equestria, in retaliation for the latter’s victory over the Holy Grail the other time around.
Sean Brink was on his private yacht out in the Caribbean Sea just off the coast of Havana, Cuba; at his side was his faithful professional hacker, Aeron Lyovonovich Vartan, the Soviet Armenian. Both were smoking Cocalero cigars.
“They humiliated us big time, Chief,” murmured Vartan. “I am pretty sure that they’d soon find out that this virus that I put into Applejack’s, Alberto’s, and Derpy’s MacBook Airs is but only a Beta version of the actual thing….. cos I still have yet to test and see if there can be any antidote to it!”
“Well, you’ve got to keep working on it, Aeron,” said Brink. “I did mention before that you need a VERY strong trojan that can destroy each and every LAN network in Equestria…. this is after all their final stronghold and one that is extremely valuable to the entire principality’s corporate security, so just think, if WE could bust that final stronghold at last…. we could then rule the entire fandom with our Marxist principles!”
“Alberto Garcia is not so easily taken aback now,” said Dario Perez, walking up with Benedicto Guzmán. “He’s much older but he’s also much wiser. His one weakness right now is his physical frailty and his old age. He’s now 65 and most likely doesn’t have very much longer to live, given his carnivorous diet.”
“If I may say this, boss,” added Guzmán, “this attack we’ll need to make will have to be two-pronged — a cyber-attack AND a physical attack.”
“So far my this beta release of the Nightmare Trojan does not seem to have any flaws,” said Vartan. “But now the question is how to make it more contagious.”
“I have an idea,” piped up Guzmán. “Listen amigos, this is what we’ll do…"
Meanwhile in Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville, night had fallen and the fort was FINALLY completed; not only was there a barn, but also, at Alberto’s suggestion, a secret underground tunnel leading to safety. Alberto knew that the most important thing would be to get sentry guns placed around it. Calling on his friend Scout, the young teenager whom he had befriended when on the quest for the Holy Grail back then, Alberto placed an order for 21 third-level sentry guns to be stationed outside the fort.
“This way,” said Alberto to Big McIntosh, “when the ponies need to rush to safety, they can go inside this fort and underground via the tunnels. There will be little chance that the enemy could penetrate.”
“You’ve done well there, Alberto,” said Big McIntosh. “You improved on my original idea. I’m proud of you.”
“Come quickly!” came Applejack’s voice. “Our safe has been busted!”
It was true. Derpy and Applejack had just discovered that the Sweet Apple Acres safe had been busted big time and that all of the Apple Family’s valuables, including their family heirloom, had been stolen.
“Esto es muy loco!” gasped Alberto. “Just when we’d gotten this fort built and were about to go and relocate all your valuables to the underground!”
The safe was not bashed up, but its lock had been clearly tampered with by some third-party skeleton key. Derpy, ever the sleuth-mare wannabe, did an inspection of the safe and noted, “I suspect it was one of the Peronistas who did this. Note how the way the items were stolen, was done at the time when no-one was around. And they even picked the lock on the safe. Only los Peronistas would be capable of such a feat. We have to conduct investigations into this.”
“First things first, look for any would-be thieves of Soviet descent,” ordered Alberto. “Patrolling of Ponyville starts first thing tomorrow!”
