//-------------------------------------------------------// An Existential Nightmare in Equestria -by Query- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// A Call in the Night //-------------------------------------------------------// A Call in the Night An Existential Nightmare in Equestria Chapter 1: A Call in the Night Music: http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=cSqZZHhQa_I I have a lot in common with the page I am writing this on. It too has been folded many ways. Folded like... Well I suppose there are subtle creases running through all of us, riding along the razor thin edge of what is possible. I still envy the page, though. It has the same species and gender it was born with, has never been struck by lightning, demolished a floor with its own face, or gotten stuck on an escalator. Alas, I think I am getting vague already. This is a story of madness and intrigue, of great self-discovery. It is the story of how I came to be so appallingly loved and accepted that I still shudder to think of it. It is my story, and the story of those who were swept up accidentally or otherwise in the wake of confusion I dragged behind myself for so long. So where do I begin? Even when you've only lived a short time, it's so difficult to tell where one tale ends and another begins. I suppose I'll start with Saturday morning. *EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* I heard a sound that made me queasy just thinking about it. A quick glance at the clock by my bedside showed it to be 1:13AM. "NO! Anything but this!" I screamed inside my head. I knew it could only be one thing: a very specific ring I had assigned to a very specific number. I hobbled out of bed and walked across the room to find my phone in its usual place on the desk, but I had missed the call. "Maybe it won't ring again..." I thought. *EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* The phone screeched out its high-pitched alarm once more. Oh bother... "Hello... Alfred?" The cheery voice of my boss chimed. "Eh... morning Max." I managed to rasp out through my midnight stupor. "Sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but one of the burn-in stands at East Rivermouth is reporting a UPS failure and you're the closest technician." He said apologetically. "Really... on a Saturday?" I asked. I sounded a bit more exasperated than I would have liked. "I know, but East is getting ready to ship high-energy X-ray apertures on Monday and they're not going to if the tests all fail this morning." He responded, keeping an air of authority. I paused for a moment, feeling seriously bummed. "Alright, I'm going. I hope my alarm code is still good." "It is. And, Al...?" "Yeah?" "Thanks, Al." "Heh. Well. No problem, I guess." I hung up the phone. My boss was perhaps one of the nicest people I regularly had to work with, but almost too much so. He was one of those people who'd be okay with anything and never get mad. Seriously... I bet I could have pushed the guy down the stairs, and he would have just smiled and apologized. (and then told me what to do, of course) I was really powerless to disagree with him, and so, in the blackened haze of the night I turned on the upstairs lighting and proceeded to the bathroom. "Gonna have to do something about that..." I thought as I stared at a grey cartoon character of my own design which was printed on my t-shirt. A polo shirt and matching tie pulled over it did the trick. I put on a belt and attached a BlackBerry along with every other conceivable type of electronic device to it. Car keys? Check. I took one last look in the mirror and tried to rub the bags out from under my eyes with little success, my early-twenties blonde male visage looking particularly resentful of being awake just after midnight on a Saturday. I turned out the lights and proceeded down the stairs very quietly, not wanting to wake anyone. I was still living with my folks while I saved money for a house or an apartment. The relatively high cost of living in what constituted a vacation town meant that I would be saving for a long time. The very fact that I had managed to find a good job as a computer technician in such a place was a small miracle. It was an exciting job, too, with particularly interesting projects to be had (except for when they decided to call me on a Saturday morning). Have I made it clear that I really, really, REALLY didn't want to go anywhere at 1AM? I didn't. Of course, despite the way I was feeling I found my way through the darkness and out to my Nissan in the driveway. I put my luggage and test equipment on the passenger seat and turned the key in the ignition. It had just started pouring rain. "You gotta shaaaaaaare! You gotta caaaaaaare! It's the right thing to do..." A VERY happy voice chimed from the stereo system. I had forgotten that I left my MP3 player plugged into the stereo. "It's a good thing no one else drives you, sweetie!" I said sarcastically as I tapped on the dashboard. That car really was my prized possession. It represented freedom (and didn't leak like the car I drove in high school). It cost me quite a lot, as well. After getting halfway down the back road I lived on I remembered to toggle the headlights and suddenly things got a lot easier. As the stereo cycled through the complete works of WoodenToaster, I came nearer and nearer to my destination. Pinkie Pie on my radio... Sheesh... That reminds me of the time a client unexpectedly followed me out to my car to discuss something about their new workstation. I remember starting the car, checking the A/C, fooling with my water bottle, and then there was a knock on the window. I rolled it down as if by reflex. "You gotta sha----click" My hand shot to the power button like a dignity-seeking missile just as the radio kicked in. I smiled nervously and continued the conversation. I remember the whole thing. I could recount it, but it was boring. In a nutshell, no, there is no way to prevent other people from locking your computer if you leave it unattended. I guess I'd always been a closet-geek when it came to cartoons. I loved anything cool or cutesy (preferably both) with an emphasis on anything with adorable talking critters. I wasn't picky in that I'd watch pretty much anything with pleasing animation, or characters, or just an interesting story. I always seemed to be immune to the youthfulness of certain shows. Oh, but then... then one fateful eve I stumbled across the holy grail of uncomfortably adorable cartoons and became a closet brony overnight. I woke up first thing every Saturday to catch the latest episode. There was something about happy, singing ponies that could bring me out of a funk even after a long soul-destroying week of paperwork and getting blamed for every equipment failure. I guess adorable cartoons had always been my escape vehicle from the pressures of the everyday and the mundane. Enough of this tangent, though. After about an hour of driving a sign that read "East Rivermouth X-Ray Technologies Ltd." loomed in my blurry field of vision. I'd have known that place anywhere. It was easy to pick a parking space since nobody was in sight, so I unceremoniously overtook the nearest visitors' space and approached the front door after a lengthy fight with my laptop bag. "This is going to be a blast on no sleep at all." I thought to myself as I eyed the front door. After swiping my card I'd only have a minute to disarm the alarm system, or I'd be stuck apologizing to the police and the fire department and slamming my place of employment with a hefty fine. *beep* I was in the lobby, and the alarm terminal had begun issuing its warning chime. Uhh... I punched '9194' on the keypad. No luck. "Dammit!" I shouted aloud. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit and salute the 'Don't Panic' sign someone had positioned over the alarm terminal. Nervously keying '9094' on the number pad cooled my nerves as a calming 'DISARMED' flashed across the screen. Crisis averted! (...and to think that I thought the worst thing that could possibly happen was done for the evening) The East Rivermouth X-Ray Technologies Ltd. campus consisted of several like buildings spread across the town. They were actually segments of independent technology companies which were bought out by a conglomerate. I worked for all of the segments as a mobile computer technician of sorts and although I was no engineer, I usually became quite familiar with the test equipment between facilities. Most of the systems designed to test or certify products were controlled by typical desktop computers, after all, and I was a sultan of computer hardware and the many flavors of Linux. If it isn't already obvious, it's very appropriate to say that I was, and still am, a nerd of great clout. If it had been any morning other than Saturday morning, I probably would have still been awake when the phone rang with my head buried in the glow of a terminal screen. Was I too quiet? Antisocial? (I hate that word!) ...and I really don't think so. I did nothing in my daily life but deal with people. People, people, people. Regrettably, and in retrospect, I think many of my friendships were forged out of necessity rather than just for the fun of it. I mean, having a lot of friends in the field was great, but a startling quantity of my relationships were just to do with my place of employment, not that I didn't have family members I was close to. It's funny how something right in front of your eyes can become a ghost of the past in double-time, but that's what it's like to speak of another world. It was dark inside the lobby. I did the sensible thing and fumbled for the hallway lights. This was the largest of the three buildings which housed most of the offices as well as the main factory floor. As I walked in past the server room, *BOOOOOM*, a brilliant flash and a clap of thunder echoed throughout the place as the rain picked up. Thankfully the power decided to hold. We only had about 20 minutes on backup in case of an emergency. It was then that I realized just how soaked I had gotten from head to toe. I noted to myself that I would someday submit to owning an umbrella. Also, I was no wimp, but some places are just plain eerie when they're empty. The building was so busy during the day that it could have been likened to a mall. I rarely saw it in such a state of peace. I shuffled tiredly past three blocks of offices before coming through the large double-doors leading to the manufacturing floor. This was the cool part of working for a science company. (In fact, just being there made me feel about 20% cooler, but it could have been more like 25.) After turning on the floodlights, I was left to behold a floor crowded with workbenches and tanks and flashing monitors. Almost every visible surface had a breadboard on it with some work of electronics half cobbled together. In fact, the state of some of the work seemed to suggest that the engineers were eager to get on with their weekends. ...and there it was: In the back corner of the room, I could see a large testing rig as well as hear the familiar squeal of a dead uninterruptible power supply. I hadn't gotten very close to this particular testing rig before, but it was already looking really cool! Cool, cool, cool. I'll say it again. It was like something out of a science fiction movie, except I was going to get to mess with it while I was half-asleep. A battery of 50 or so large x-ray tubes were stacked within a homemade mount about four feet off the ground. They were pointing down a long stretch of wall toward an array of sensors on the opposite side of the room and were boxed in by long, thin metal sheets running the entire length. A veritable umbilical cord of cables ran over and around a large semicircular desk with various computers and monitors on it. They were off, by the way: Undoubtedly a side-effect of having no power. It was then that I realized I'd forgotten to bring my radiation exposure badge. At least nobody was around to yell at me for it. (These systems were surprisingly safe to work on, as long as you were willing not to stick your tongue on anything important.) I begrudgingly stuffed myself in the crawlspace behind the desk and reached about for the UPS. It was in almost as bad a mood as I was, and thus required some very foul language to come unplugged. The only problem with it was a dead battery so I found a replacement in the IT department. Isn't that just the way things always go? A ten-dollar battery was going to stop us from shipping one-hundred thousand dollars worth of tubes. Eventually I had the thing rewired and powered up the computers. This is difficult for me to admit, but I think it's possible that I always spent a little too much time around computers. So the thing was fixed. I had done my duty as a midnight runner and was feeling quite accomplished despite the solution being somewhat menial and silly. Of course, the tests were now stopped. I knew I couldn't just walk out of the place without getting the tests back in action no matter how desperately my head yearned for the sweet embrace of a pillow. Mark was the test engineer who built the stand. It would have been his head if the maiden voyage ended in a late shipment, so at least I would get the chance to pass on the gift of sleeplessness. "Oh Mark, you're gonna loooove me." I thought to myself as I keyed his number. "Eh... What?" A tired voice mouthed on the other end of the line. "Mark, this is Al with the IT department. Sorry to wake you up. I'm calling because your X-Ray test stand powered down in the night and I was called to fix it. It's just a battery thing, so don't worry. I'm sure nothing is wrong with the equipment." I began, very officially. "What? What?!? You've got to be shittin' me! Right when things are down to the wire, EVERY TIME, it's your equipment that fails. You guys are never doing your jobs and-" An angry Mark shouted. At least he was awake now. While I was busy digesting how grateful he was for my midnight mission of mercy, I took the liberty of logging into all the computers at the stand. "I'm logged in, by the way. Just waiting for instructions on how to restart the test." I said blandly, cutting him off in mid-rant. "Well you're going to have to do this fast, so pay attention. It's your head if you blow up any of those tubes, Mr. I-can-fix-anything. This is a Linux system, so I'm going to have to hold your hand-" Mark began, condescendingly. I could almost see him twirling his villain mustache on the other end of the phone. Mark was relentless. I guess he was just naturally unlikable if I could wake him from a dead sleep and get this sort of treatment. "Actually, I'm quite well-versed, thank you." I chimed. "Whatever. Start by power-cycling all the DAQs. Turn all the meters off and then on again. Wait for them to zero out." He said. I walked about the test area and did as he requested. "Now, the computer on the left is there just to read the test results. Everything here has to be in real-time, so we used separate computers for everything. Start 'testmon' on the system to the left." Mark added. My dialogue with the machine looked something like this: TEST1 Login: root Password: **************** Linux 3.2.0-24-PAE x86_64 root@TEST1:~$ cd testmon root@TEST1:~$ ./testmon TESTMON V1.0ALPHA by Mark Alaconni (East Rivermouth X-Ray Test Services Ltd.) 2012 Calculating test vectors... Initializing DAQ #1... Initializing DAQ #2... Initializing DAQ #3... Initializing DAQ #4... Please start the transmitter, and press any key to begin recording... "Okay, it looks like it came up OK." I said. I swear I actually heard a sigh of relief from the other end of the call. A real emotion from him? Nah... "So now you'll need to run my other program, 'xmit', on the right PC. It takes a file with random seed data as its input parameter. You'll have to find some junk to pass to it. Take the index page from a random website or something." Mark explained. He sounded actually nervous. Honestly, I wanted to just tell him off and storm back to bed at this point, but I knew better. Well, that's a bit of a lie. I thought I knew better. At any rate, my dialogue with the other machine went something like: TEST2 Login: root Password: **************** Linux 3.2.0-24-PAE x86_64 root@TEST2:~$ cd xmit I chuckled as I decided where I would get my seed data from. root@TEST2:~$ wget http://equestriadaily.com -O random.dat root@TEST2:~$./xmit --seed random.dat XMIT V1.0ALPHA by Mark Alaconni (East Rivermouth X-Ray Test Services Ltd.) 2012 Reading random seed... OK Hex Preview: 00000000   3C 21 44 4F  43 54 59 50  45 20 48 54  4D 4C 20 50  .