“How do I manage to mess up a room in two weeks?” Karyn asked herself as she tidied up. She wouldn’t normally call herself a neat freak, but she didn’t want to have Derpy think ill of her in any way. At the rushing sound of air and magic, she took the pile of clothes she had in her hands and threw it into a hamper, then ran to sit herself on the bed so as to look nonchalant.

Derpy finished popping into existence and said hello.

“Hi to you too,” said Karyn. “It’s good to be back in the dorm where we can talk without whispering. And to not have Princess Celestia’s letter hanging over our heads.”

Derpy looked up. Karyn added, “Metaphorically speaking.”

“You should end your sentences with that phrase more often. But speaking of getting back to normal, and speaking of letters, I got one from Dinky.”

“Oh, yeah? How’s she doing in magic school?”

“Good. She promises to wow me with some spells she’s learned. Not that I can’t show her a thing or two, right?” Derpy patted her saddlebag. “But more importantly we’ve got a date set. Three weeks and she’s coming to Ponyville for a visit. And you’ll be there, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Either one.”

“That’s good. Maybe someday, years from now, she and your daughter can be friends and visit each other the same way we do.”

Karyn rolled her eyes. “A lot of years from now. I haven’t even begun thinking about starting a family. And even if I did, there’s a fifty-fifty shot that I wouldn’t have a daughter.”

“I know. But it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. In any case, before I can worry about my family, I’ve got to get this whole career thing under control. Which means getting it started.”

Derpy’s face fell. “Uh oh. I know you. This is a prelude to one of your ‘here’s why we can’t just hang out today’ things.”

“I’m afraid so. Who schedules an internship on a Sunday anyway?”

“A what now?”

Karyn went over to her computer and pulled up an e-mail. “OK, I’ve told you all about what I’m studying as far as computers go, right? Well, one of my uncles already works with them. He set up this one-day thing where I can go and watch someone else running a center for IT. I tried to beg off, because I’d much rather, as you said, just hang out with you. He replied to me: ‘Karyn, I had to pull a lot of strings to get you in, and this is one of the most modern sites that’s running in this state. Plus the contacts you make will help you when you’re trying to find a job.’ And it goes on from there. So, I’m kind of stuck.”

“But you’re going to let me come with you incognito, right?”

“You can come in whatever clothes you feel like.”

“No, incognito means in disguise, as in using my invisibility—“ Derpy said, but cut herself off when she saw Karyn laughing.

“I know that, Derpy. I just wanted you to feel what it was like for once.”

Derpy’s eyes narrowed into slits, and Karyn was afraid that she had offended her friend, but Derpy joined Karyn in laughter a moment later. Then she said, “So tell me what sort of thing we’re going to see in this place.”

“Well, depending on how much access we get—and this is at a bank, so it might not be a lot—we should go beyond the end user area like this,” Karyn said, pointing to her own computer, “and see all the guts that make up the network.”

“Well, let’s get going,” said Derpy.

“We can’t walk there. It’s downtown. Even if we could manage the distance, the traffic there is annoying. Crossing the big avenues takes five minutes.”

“Then how do we get there?”

“Light rail,” said Karyn, packing up and heading out to the street. A block from the campus, in a different direction than they had been before, there was a small station. It was a little like the simple stations of the Equestrian rail, but it had a plastic cover for the rain and automated ticket machines.

“I’ll ride on top as usual,” said Derpy. “So I don’t get bumped into.”

“Not a good idea. These are powered by cables overhead. You’ll get knocked off or electrocuted or both. But don’t worry, this time of day on a Sunday, there shouldn’t be too much of a crowd.”

A train arrived right then, and they shuffled into it. As Karyn said, it was nearly empty. Derpy plastered her invisible face to the window and watched as they made their way to the city hub.

The sun was particularly bright that day, and Derpy had to shade her eyes as the train went around a bend. Although the city had the university to boast of, there were only four tall buildings in the downtown area. Still, even that was enough to impress Derpy.

The train approached another little station, and Karyn tapped Derpy on a wing to wave her out. They walked a block and came to one of the large buildings.

“Now here’s where this could be a little awkward,” said Karyn. “This is the bank’s office, but it’s Sunday, and banks are always closed. Still, let’s ring the bell.”

The bell was actually an electronic intercom. She pushed the button and heard the chirp, but no one answered. “Looks like no one’s here,” said Derpy. “Back home and have fun?”

“I wish.” Karyn took out her cell phone and sent a text message. “My uncle gave me the guy’s number. I let him know I’m here.”

The man who came down was not the stereotype of the IT professional, but clearly tried to act the part. His beard was not wispy but the shave was uneven, his glasses had frames that were at least fashionable at some point, and his blue jeans had a collared shirt tucked into them. He also carried a bottle of diet cola with him instead of the more traditional Mountain Dew.

“Call me Jim,” he said. “You’re Karyn?”

“Yes, and this is. . . where you work?” Karyn was about to introduce Derpy, and thought that she covered herself nicely.

“Yeah. Come on in, I’ll give you the tour.”

“I hope you didn’t come into work on a Sunday on my account.”

“Nah,” he said. “I do out-of-hours work once a month or so, and I take time in lieu. That’s the first lesson of IT work, by the way. Never do anything for the company without compensation. It sets a bad precedent.”

Karyn nodded.

“I also get a chance to dress down for once. Just because we have a branch here, they make me wear a shirt and tie for the customers. Not that they’d see me other than walking in and walking out, but what can you do with the bosses?”

Karyn again grunted assent, but did not have a good first impression of Jim. As they reached the elevators and Jim pulled out a pass card that opened the door, she got an idea.

“Do you mind if I take the stairs?” she said. “I always like to get the exercise when I can.”

“It’s the seventh floor, but go ahead, knock yourself out.” He slid the card through the other reader, and the door to the stairs opened.

“Is that safe to have the stairs locked?” Karyn asked.

“Only this floor is. They’re not worried about people getting out, only in.”

Karyn started climbing the stairs, which gave her the chance to talk to Derpy. “Guy’s kind of a loser, don’t you think? Talking about what he can get before what he does.”

“Could be, but if you’re long in a job, you get to think that way. Hey, you want to play a prank on him?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Derpy spread her wings. “Let’s beat him up to the seventh floor. Hop on.”

Karyn took a second to realize what she meant, then looked up to the small gap in the stairs. She felt her way onto Derpy’s back, and they soared up six stories in a few seconds. Karyn leaned against a wall outside the elevator and adopted a smug look. The door opened and Jim stepped out.

“Wow, you are in shape,” he said. “Maybe I should start taking the stairs.”

Karyn said nothing and just kept smiling. She followed him down the hall to a gray-paneled room.

“OK,” Jim said. “This is where we run everything from. It’s important to have one of the best machines here for monitoring and control.”

He gestured to his machine, and Karyn did feel a little bit of envy. Two wide-screen flat-panel monitors sat on a corner desk, below which was a sleek tower that looked like it would be pretty good in flight. The chair plugged into the machine itself and wouldn’t have been out of place in a man cave. It had pads for heat and massage. The whole setup was like the bridge of a starship.

Jim flipped the monitors on, and Karyn saw a program that showed the output of two dozen servers. “Most of the time,” he said, “I can sit here and check on status all over the company.”

“How many people are on your staff?” she asked.

He grimaced at the double entendre, but said, “It’s really just me and a relief guy, plus the help desk.” He flipped a light switch, and behind a pane of glass that looked bulletproof, the server room became visible.

“I came up through the help desk,” he said, “and I don’t want to go back. That’s what I like about servers. Beyond what they’re designed to do, they’re also specifically designed to not fail. The two things most likely to fail on any computer are the power supply and the hard drive. Each of those servers has dual, redundant power supplies plugged into a backup loaded with heavy batteries. They have six hard drives that are double and triple mirrored. If those fail, it’s important not to lose anything. Whether it’s the web site or the e-mail or the payroll server. Especially the payroll server.”

“Can I go in and see it?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t. Not too long, and don’t touch anything.”

He swiped his card through, and Karyn opened the door wide to slip in with Derpy. She checked for security cameras and, finding none, proceeded to whisper a conversation

“Well, whatever he’s like, he is passionate about his work.”

“He is,” said Derpy.

“And at least he hadn’t hit on me.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that. If I’m right, he’s a homosexual.”

Karyn looked through the thick window, but Jim had his back turned. “How do you know? Do you have some kind of pony sense that tells you?”

“No, I just saw a picture of a boyfriend on his desk.”

Karyn cursed her lack of observancy and examined the servers. She pointed at the two thick power cords coming from each and the six bays with air vents. “There’s the redundancy he was talking about.”

“I see it, but he’s wrong in his methods. There’s one other key point on all of these that’s not backed up.”

Karyn was about to ask what she meant, but Jim called her back from the office. “Come and take a look at this.”

She went back through the security door and looked at the monitor. “What have you got?”

“This program not only reports status on all the equipment, but also age on the parts and when to do certain tasks and preemptively replace stuff. I’m going to do a monthly reboot on the building maintenance server.”

“Cool.”

He ran a pen down a long list of information and muttered to himself. “Looks good to go. You want to push the button?”

Karyn chuckled. “Sure.” She winked to Derpy and held her hand over the mouse, but actually guided the invisible hoof. “Here I go.”

They watched as normal Windows shutdown appeared remotely on the monitor reflecting the same thing as an expensive server rack behind the glass. It ran through the startup and stalled out.

“Hm,” Jim said.

“What is ‘hm’?”

“Oh, it’s nothing you did, I’m sure. But it’s a substitute for swearing.”

He messed around with the keyboard for a bit, and Karyn tried to follow what he was doing, without success. She tried to stay out of the way.

After ten minutes, Jim said, “Can you do me a favor? Go down to the fourth floor and I’ll call you.”

“I’d like nothing better.”

She took the elevator back down and let herself and Derpy into a large open-plan room filled with desks. They were set up in plus-sign patterns of four desks each with no walls between them.

“I can see his point about an office too,” she said to Derpy. “I’d hate to work here with no privacy and everyone looking at you.”

“I know what you mean. It’s one reason I love carrying the mail, and why I like less the sorting and meetings in the post office. Whenever you’re being supervised, there’s always that nervousness that you could be doing something wrong. But when I’m out flying from house to house, nopony looks and, if I want to fly a little slower or just sing to myself, nopony knows.”

The phone on one of the desks rang and Karyn picked it up. “Hello.”

“Hey. Go ahead and turn on the computer in front of you. I’ll give you a login and password and I want to see if you can get on our network.”

The computer was old and slow and took its time about getting to the login screen. She put in the name and password Jim gave her.

“Well, it’s on,” she said to the phone. “But it’s running slow.”

“Hey, Karyn,” said Derpy. “Why don’t you just tell him to look at the—“

“Hang on,” she said, holding up a finger. “Yeah, I can get on the Internet.”

“OK, but try our e-mail. It’s the one with the bank logo that says ‘E-mail’.”

She muted the phone and said, “Yeah, I could have figured that out. Tech guys all think no one else knows anything.” Turning it back on, she said, “That’s failing.”

“That’s what I figured. That workstation is for the head of maintenance. All right, just hang out. I may ask you to try more things.”

Karyn didn’t know if he wanted to hang up and call back or leave the line open, so she put her end on mute. “Well, I guess I don’t mind this. This is how I’d like a job to be. Just relax while someone else does the work.”

“Heh. I think we all want that,” said Derpy.

“But if what he says is right, that it’s mostly about preventative maintenance, I can handle that. I’m the type that likes to get everything done as soon as possible and then relax with no worries. That’ s why I like getting up early to see you. I take care of everything on Saturday and do nothing on Sunday.”

“So does that mean that you don’t want to tell him what’s wrong?”

Karyn was about to ask what Derpy meant when the phone came to life again, and this time Jim was swearing. More for the sake of Derpy’s ears that her own, she picked it up and said, “Problems?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize this was on,” said Jim. “Sorry. But we’re now kind of on time pressure. See, when the environmental controls went down, it kind of shut off the air conditioning in the server room. If I can’t get this working, it’s going to get to about a hundred twenty degrees in here, and that means more failures.”

“I see.” Karyn muted the phone again.

“We’d better tell him then,” said Derpy.

“You keep saying that. How do you know what’s wrong?”

“It has to be this. He said that there were two things most likely to fail on a computer, the hard drive and the power. But there’s a third thing: the networking. That can fail because it’s not really part of the machine itself. The cable could break, or whatever the other end of the cable is plugged into could fail. The thing he’s looking at is probably fine, just isolated.”

Karyn looked at the phone, then at Derpy. “You really have learned a lot about computers.”

“They’re not that hard, but they’re not obvious. I can see how the average pony might be confused. But I think different.”

“Heh, that was the slogan for one computer company a while back. Anyway, how do we let Jim know?”

Derpy flew over to the closet that had that floor’s networking hub. “Could we tell him that the lights are out on this thing? I know that they’re not, but it might make him look at the same thing up there?”

“That might work, but what if he comes down to look?”

“He won’t. He sent you down here specifically to avoid the walking. I think he’s a bit lazy, if you ask me.”

Karyn took the phone off mute. “Jim, it looks like some of the lights are out on the hub down here. Or at least they’re blinking steady instead of random. Could the network be down between that server and the rest?”

“Probably not,” the voice on the phone said, “but feel free to reset it.”

Karyn headed over to the closet, but Derpy had already pulled the plug.

“This hub has one thing odd about it.”

“What’s that?” asked Karyn.

“It doesn’t say who made it or where it’s from. There’s no logo on it.”

“No hub logo is always a good thing though.”

Derpy looked confused, and Karyn decided not to explain the inside joke. The plug was put back in and the lights started blinking.

“Now I bet you that in ten minutes he calls back to say that it’s all fixed, but that it was some other reason.”

“Oh, Derpy. There’s no need to be cynical.”

They waited a while and played on the internet. When Karyn heard the central air kick on, she nodded to where Derpy was. “At least it’s working,” she said.

The phone rang five minutes later. “You can go ahead and come back up here.”

They took the elevator back up. When they reached the server room, Jim was in a better mood. “So it’s all fixed?” said Karyn.

“Yeah, nothing to it. Just needed to change a few settings and reboot again and it worked.”

“So it wasn’t the networking?” she asked, noticing through the glass that there was one white data cable in among the many black ones she had seen the first time.

“No. Good guess though. Just goes to show how much experience counts. It’s a good learning experience for you.”

Karyn felt an invisible stare burning a hole in her head. Perhaps Jim felt something similar, because he continued. “Although, you certainly did help by saving me from running up and down the stairs to check when it was up. I’m going to put in to have you paid for the day.”

“Really? Thanks!”

“Yeah. No one’s around today, but stop by tomorrow and I’ll have accounting give you a hundred bucks. Maybe ninety-nine, since I think they can do that through petty cash instead of making you wait for a check and have to fill out tax forms and get a 1099 next year.”

Karyn shook his hand, and he told her to go home while he finished tying up the loose ends from the failure. She and Derpy got back in the elevator.

“Wow, a hundred bucks!” said Derpy.

“I know. Not bad for half a day’s work.”

“How much is that in bits?”

Karyn blinked. “I don’t know exactly. As an annual salary it wouldn’t really be great, not long-term anyway. But for Sunday work, I’ll take it.”

“We should go out and celebrate.”

“But I don’t actually have it yet.”

They had reached the front door and there was a sound that Karyn couldn’t tell whether it was the automatic door or Derpy sighing. “Someday,” Derpy said, “I’m going to have to sit you down and make you learn about budgeting and receivables and all that. Then you’d know that you’re free to spend because you’ve earned.”

“I don’t want to blow the whole thing. I should save some.”

“That’s a good value as well. But found money is meant for fun.”

“Well, how about muffins and coffee back at the dorm?” said Karyn.

“Works for me!”

They made their way to a street corner with many stores. Karyn bypassed a convenience store for a fancy bakery. When she came out a few minutes later, she had a heavy bag. The muffins she had bought were the extra-large ones.

“Let’s race back to the dorm and have them while they’re still warm.”

“Nice rhyme, Zecora,” Derpy said jokingly. “We can get there real fast if you’re willing to fly.”

“With all these people here? Not on your life!”

“I was kidding.”

Karyn nonetheless quickened her pace toward the dorm room. When they finally arrived, Derpy appeared and started digging through the bag for her muffin.

“I got chocolate chip and double chocolate,” said Karyn. “Pick whichever you want.”

“But I want both!”

“I guess I should have gotten four. Then you could have had one of each. Of course, we’d both put on ten pounds, but it would be worth it.”

“Yeah,” said Derpy, still staring at the two muffins and trying to decide between the two.

“I know. I’ll perform a little magic of my own.”

“Huh?

Karyn smirked and covered the two muffins with her body. Derpy tried to peek around her, but Karyn shielded them from view, even when Derpy flew up in the air. Once she had settled down, Karyn revealed what she had done. The double chocolate muffin top was on the chocolate chip base and vice versa.

“There. Now it’s the same either way.”

Derpy started to object that there was still a difference, but Karyn picked up one of the muffins and started eating. Derpy shrugged and ate the other one.

“So we still have a few hours,” said Karyn. “Free to hang out. What do you want to do?”

“Finish my muffin!” said Derpy. They had a good laugh. Even though there was nothing else of note they did that day, at least there was no more work to do.

Author's Notes:

There's not a whole lot I can say about next week without giving away the secret, but here are a few lines!

“Hey, Derpy. Do you think we should write or go see the Princess? Tell her that we don’t really appreciate this?”

“We did say that we would help. Is it really so bad?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That’ll be twenty bits.”

Karyn ran through it in her mind. She remembered that sometimes the vendors were willing to haggle. She wasn’t experienced at negotiations herself, but it seemed to her that, if a bit was about a dollar, that twenty was overcharging. “Twenty? For one pound?”

Can't give away any more, but be sure to be here to read it next Wednesday!