"So let's start at the start," Jackie began, pacing a small circle around Sunset and looking her over. Her expression was tough to read, though she seemed to be searching for something. Whatever it was, apparently she didn't find it, because she quickly relaxed.

The others all backed away, retreating towards the statue of King Richard. Then, like three of the most skilled unicorns Sunset had ever seen, each of them produced a chair of some kind from open air. The short one named Bree produced a squishy sack larger than she was, which appeared in a flash of green light and swirling leaves. Robbie gestured at the ground, and it rose in regular segments, forming itself into a throne of grass and rocks. Noah just touched his GIO, and a comfortable-looking couch appeared where he was pointing, without any fanfare.

Sunset stared at them agape, her mind reeling at the magic she'd just seen. "B-but... h-how... where'd you get the energy for those? I've met unicorns who needed an entire day to prepare just to transfigure equivalent masses! Did the Builders solve Clover's Compression Conundrum?"

The assembled group of Builders only stared, though no two had quite the same perplexed expression on their faces. She'd seen that very same expression on Celestia's face when she asked why no dragons were invited to the Grand Galloping Gala.

But where Celestia could be graceful about it, these "rough" types had neither the interest nor the inclination in being kind. She wasn't sure which one started laughing first, but soon all four of them were, pointing and snickering to themselves.

Sunset could feel her face burning, her hands wringing together awkwardly. She wasn't sure exactly what had been so funny about what she said, but she hoped they finished laughing at her soon.

"You people must get up to some fascinating things on Luna," Bree said, the first to stop laughing.

"Alright, so I don't know what the hell you just said." Jackie rested one hand on her shoulder. "Clearly you weren't paying enough attention in class. Either that, or you didn't wait long enough before calling us."

"I was!" Sunset put her hands on her hips, glaring at Jackie. "But they kept talking about pointlessly abstract stuff. I don't know what the 'Great War' is, and I don't know why I would need to have a whole class about it." She gestured at the chairs each of them had summoned. “I want to learn the stuff you know—I want to learn magic! Like that spell you just cast: where did those chairs come from?”

"Ah, I see," Noah said, wiping a few tears from his eyes. He'd apparently been quite amused with her. "She's never had edit permissions before. We'll have to doctor her GIO."

As one they all turned to Bree, who glared defiantly at them all. "Why's it always got to be my keys?"

"Because you're the one who has keys," Jackie said, extending a hand towards the orange-haired human. "Come on then. Let's get Sunset doing "magic." Do your good deed for the week."

Sunset watched, silent, as the girl produced something from within the folds of her voluminous dress. It looked like a chunk of pure starstuff, bright silver and glowing with a radiance that hurt when she looked right at it. Numbers and symbols flashed along its surface, constantly shifting and changing as she watched. "Is that 'key' what lets you do magic?" she stammered, eyes transfixed by the object. "Some kind of technological phylactery..."

"Yeah, sure." Jackie rolled her eyes, then took hold of Sunset's arm and pulled, so that the GIO around her wrist was exposed. Sunset didn't resist, though the sudden jerk nearly knocked her over. She was too enthralled to complain or to fight. If she did that, Jackie might decide not to share with her after all. She held her arm perfectly still as Bree pressed it through the screen. It passed through without resistance, without anything more than a few faint sparks. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched—she had no idea something so powerful had been in her possession all this time!

The "key" wasn't done with its work. The shape of Sunset’s GIO began to change, shrinking and slimming, so that it was little more than a thin piece of metal with a screen that curved around her arm and rested pleasantly cold against her skin.

"I can't just print these," Bree said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. "You can't just fabricate valid blockchains. Each one we use is gone forever."

"And each one we use makes a new friend, so shut up," Jackie said, releasing her arm and lifting her GIO up to where it was within easy reach. "And now you've cheated. Congratulations, you're a pirate! Or the unwitting recipient of piracy, anyway." She seemed to see Sunset's horrified expression because her grin only got wider. "Don't worry about being caught. Everybody does it, and nobody cares."

"Unless you steal a knight's sword right off his ass," Robbie called, grinning. "Ask Jackie about how great she is at picking her marks. Did she tell you there's still a knight looking for her yet?"

"No, I didn't," Jackie spoke before Sunset could. "I'm going to hook you up, Sunny. I'll give you our whole suite, on the condition you swear undying loyalty to the Murciélagos. Which is us, obviously."

"Obviously." Sunset shook her head. "I can't do it no matter what you offer me—I'm already loyal to Equestria."

"You ride horses?" Noah asked, barely glancing up from what he was doing. He'd produced a floating keyboard in front of him, a slightly transparent surface filled with flashing lights, but he'd apparently been listening close enough to hear that. "I didn't know they put rich girls into the dirty Sims with the rest of us."

"She's not rich, she's just stupid," Robbie argued. "If some noble UEF family had converted, they'd have a damn technocrat or something to do this tutorial. They wouldn't have dropped her into autoprocessing."

Every time Sunset opened her mouth to respond, she found herself interrupted by one of Jackie's friends.

"Shut up!" Jackie shouted, and at once they did.

Jackie’s friends froze, as if in mid-breath. They didn't blink, didn't twitch, didn't move. Sunset might've been afraid that Jackie had cursed them, except that they still looked the same as they had a second before. Not only that, but Jackie's GIO was glowing. Almost like a unicorn's horn while they had an active spell. "Sorry about that, Sunny. The Murciélagos are an energetic crew. And they mean well, but they're clueless when it comes to people. A bunch of losers who volunteered for the upload long before the Tower started..." she trailed off, turning away from Sunset and walking a few paces away.

"This is a time dilation spell, isn't it? You can do what the classrooms do?"

Jackie nodded. "We already went over this, Sunny. Guess you haven't had Tower Economics, have you?"

Sunset shook her head. "What would that have to do with magic?"

"Magic magic magic magic magic." Jackie cut through the air with one dismissive hand. "Okay, Tower Econ in one minute. Every citizen gets one time credit per processor cycle. Cycles can vary wildly, depending on how things are going in Meatspace. When things are tough, Kingman slows things down, but when things are good he'll speed things up again. All you gotta do is tap your GIO with two fingers, and you'll see your credits. Go ahead and try it."

Sunset did, and was surprised to see a number flash in front of her face. A very large number, in the billions. The smallest digit was slowly ticking down, not up. As soon as she released her fingers, the projection vanished. "It's not going up."

"The only currency that matters is time credits, or just 'creds' when most people say it. Every sim costs creds—the more intensive the sim, the more expensive the creds you pay. If you fork, the creds for what your fork does come out of your balance. Since we're in fasttime, you're spending credits faster than you're earning them."

The weight of her words sunk like a brick through a frozen lake. "Y-you're telling me... the Builders use time as their currency? If you can spend credits to go faster..."

Jackie smiled slightly. "She's getting it! Here in the Infinite Realm you can have anything you want. I mean, none of it's real anyway, right? But what you can't have as much of as you want is time, because time fundamentally gets back to the hardware running our minds. So instead of the rich having fancy houses and toys to play with, they're hundreds or thousands of years older than the rest of us. Well... the ones who don't know how to cheat." Her grin got a little wider. "But that's beyond your first lesson, Sunny. How about--"

"What do you mean 'none of it's real anyway’?" She gestured around them with one hand, back at the school. "I know the people in there are constructs; I wasn't fooled. But what else could you mean? This is your planet, isn't it?" All Sunset's previous efforts at secrecy were now forgotten, and she spilled everything she had come to say, her voice a rush of emotion.

"This is the planet of perfect peace and harmony where magic has cured death and compassion is might. You're the ones who promised Clover you'd be coming to save us from invasion and usher in the golden age. Well we already won that war, but there's another one coming. I'd like to learn some of your magic, so maybe we'll have a chance of surviving when Equestria gets invaded again." She stopped, breathing heavily for a second from the emotional exertion.

Jackie didn't laugh. Her expression grew distant, and she stared off into the town. Away from the school, away from her friends frozen in place, as though she could see something Sunset couldn't. "You're not from Luna, are you?"

"No," Sunset Shimmer said. "I'm not the Mare in the Moon. I don't know how anyone would even visit, given the strength of a thaumic field is the inverse of the square of the distance between the objects that produced it. No magic, no life."

"No... magic..." Jackie trailed off, staring at her GIO. "Where compassion is our strength?" A little of the mocking had returned, though it was nowhere near as hostile as her friends had sounded. "Someone sure piled you up a plate of shit, Sunny. But why would you eat it?" She shook her head, then abruptly took Sunset's hand, tugging her away from her friends, away from the school.

"Come with me, Sunny. Forget the magic lesson. There's something more important for you to learn first."

This time Sunset did try to resist, but fruitlessly. Jackie was much stronger than she looked, and she tugged so hard it felt like she might rip Sunset's arm right out of its socket.

They passed over a sidewalk and across the empty street, walking past several buildings as they left the school behind. After only a short distance, the sidewalk no longer led alongside the public-looking buildings of the school, transitioning to houses of various sizes and designs.

"Alright then, Sunbeam. I'm sorry whoever filled your head up with lies about the Tower didn't tell you the truth, but I will. I'm gonna drop this Morpheus shit like it's hot, so you better be ready for the red pill."

Sunset jerked her arm free, with such force she could feel her joints straining to muster the effort. "Stop." It wasn't a request, and Jackie did stop. "I'm not going another step with you until you tell me what we're doing."
When Jackie spun around, she had pity on her face. "The school is monitored, but the further we get from it the less likely we’ll be noticed. I’m taking you far enough to show you what you’d never believe if I told you. Then maybe you can tell me the truth."