A Hidden Warehouse in Town, Tweaked Via Code to be AWESOME, Friday Afternoon

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison	This whole thing was adorable, it really was, but Hardison had officially Had Enough. Were they seriously using a computer sim to keep him on lockdown? Seriously? Hardison was taking this a personal goddamn insult. What was next? Were they gonna lock Parker in a vault to keep her outta trouble? "Aww, hell no, they don't even know who they're messin' with," Hardison grumbled, using a computer to rain digital fire down on the ship and everyone on it. He was uploading every single home brew virus he'd ever created or even heard of. It was like a hydra of viruses and with every strand they manged to isolate and destroy, it replicated two more. This thread uploaded porn onto every device. Weird stuff, the kind found on the weirdest edges of the internet. That thread hijacked any available speaker screaming out explicit song lyrics over every genre and language. This thread borrowed a bit of Fandom's own madness to send random incendiary messages between people and start a fight. This thread did nothing but nag at you in Gilbert Gottfried's voice. This worm ignored individuals in favor of messing with every traffic light across every sim, creating vast snarls of traffic. That one just affected the life support mechanisms, raising the temperature to somewhere around 'sweltering' and this other one over here turned off all the water. If it was electronic, Hardison took owned it and turned it to his will. He couldn't control people, the way Nate and Sophie and even Parker could, no, but they didn't need control right now. According to Flick, they needed anarchy and lots of it and that was his specialty. "Age of the geek, baby," he whispered to himself as he brought chaos down on the sim from within their own computers.
Pinkie Pie	And there was a pink pony, peering over Hardison's shoulder. "Whatcha doooooooooin'?" she asked in a sing song voice.
Hardison	It was a good thing that Hardison didn't have any orange soda or his hacker rebellion would have been over with almost before it started. "Ahh!" he screamed, flinching away. "The hell--don't do that, I got a weak heart an' stuff, yo!"
Pinkie Pie	Pinkie gaped at him. "Really? I'm so sorry! Usually ponies just make funny noises and sometimes faint like a goat when I do that."
Hardison	...He might have been exaggerating the weak heart thing. Just a bit. "Goats faint?" Hardison was from Chicago, what did he know about goats? Also, he was fairly easily distracted. "Wait, no, how'd you even get in here?"
Pinkie Pie	"Well, yeah. Haven't you ever met a goat?" Everypony had to have met at least one goat, right? "I came in through the door, of course." Pinkie pointed a hoof. "So! Whatcha dooooooooin'? I like your shades!" She reached for her own pair of sunglasses in order to match, then pouted as she fruitlessly patted herself down. Right. Her imaginary Pinkie bag-of-holding still wasn't working properly. Nuts.
The Zin	"I should have known that allowing computer terminals in the simulation was simply asking for trouble," Zinyak sighed. He held a chalice of the finest beverage in his hand as he looked down upon the square projection of the small room that held hacker and pony. "I suppose I am too much of an optimist. Are all humans so much of a bother?" He gave a little wave of his hand. "Let's teach them a lesson, and then perhaps I will simply wipe the entire computing revolution from this simulation." Back in the simulation, someone banged on the door.
Hardison	Hardison had let all of his Hollywood!hacker aesthetic out to play when it came to designing his current hideyhole. Screens and tablets were everywhere; some raining flashing green text, others showing graphic interpretations of his computer viruses running amok through the ship's systems, still others spewing out code faster than most people could type. Even Hardison looked the part, wearing his mirrored shades and a long, black leather coat, rather than his usual colorful scarf and T-shirt combo. So hopefully Pinkie would understand and excuse him his response to the knock on his door was to grab for her and hissed, "Were you followed?!" rather than, say, anything productive or normal at all.
Pinkie Pie	Pinkie let out a noise like a squeaky toy when she was grabbed. "I dunno," she said. "That would be bad, right?" She was having trouble following the trope, what with her not being able to quick change into character, here. "Don't worry!" she cried. "I'll protect you!" And she bounced into position in front of the door and growled.
Hardison	...Well, that was unsettling. "Yo, I just need you to buy me some time for me to upload the rest of the virus to the network!" he said, hunkering down in front of a computer screen to type even faster. "Once I can pull down that firewall an' access the mainframe, I can overclock their inputs with a backdoor handshake I just wrote up for their rootkit." Later, Hardison would remember some of this nonsense and pour himself a good stiff drink. Possibly cry about it, too.
The Zin	The door didn't so much fly open as disintegrate. It gave way to several aliens who were, for reasons beyond knowing, dressed in black suits and wearing black sunglasses. (Except for the one who was, inexplicably, dressed as a traffic light.) The alien at the front roared back at Pinkie.
Hardison	Because aesthetic, that was why. "Gimme one sec an' I got your back, mama!" Hardison yelled to Pinkie, swapping to another keyboard while his first one displayed an upload bar slowly filling. "Let's see how these guys appreciate a bit of black IC to play with!" A few swift keyboard strokes suddenly there were multiple, identical Hardisons coming up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Pinkie Pie. As one they smirked and gestured the aliens forward. "Do you want to play a game?" they asked, voices slightly robotic sounding.
Pinkie Pie	"Well that's unsettling," Pinkie said, looking back at the suddenly multiplied humans. "And nifty!" She turned back towards the roaring alien and popped up on her hand legs, circling her front hooves like a boxer. "C'mon! Put 'em up, put 'em up!"
The Zin	Put 'em up, put 'em up? Traffic Light Alien fell into a boxing stance of his own, waving his metal fists at Pinkie. The Aliens In Black eyed the guy. Really? Really? ... then they tackled the multiple Hardisons. In unison.
Hardison	"Come to papa!" he whooped, keeping his eye on the upload bar. The first row of Hardi-bots opened their mouths in a wide smile--and tarry substance spewed out all over the rushing aliens. Those that actually made contact with the IC anifestations found their arms and legs sinking into the goopy liquid, making them slow and sticky. The more they fought, the more tangled they got, until there was nothing left of the first line of defense, save a yawning pool of pitch surrounding the AiBs.
Pinkie Pie	"Ewwwwwww," Pinkie said, distracted from her streetlight boxing by the spectacle and leaving herself quite open for a cheap shot.
The Zin	His buddies were incapacitated. That meant it was all up to the streetlight. Who headbutted Pinkie. With the light.
Pinkie Pie	Pinkie staggered back, obliquely disappointed by the lack of stars circling her head. "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww." She stumbled past the pitch on the floor, managing somehow not to get any on her hooves, and right into one of Hardison's innumerable computer displays, knocking it over and smashing it to bits as she went, sending sparks flying. Into the pitch. She'd apologize for that, later.
Hardison	If there was a later! Dammit, Pinkie! Chemically-treated pitch was highly flammable. There was a whump more felt that heard as the pitch caught and the spark grew from a flame into a bonfire within seconds. Hardison tried to tell himself that the popping noise is just the fire and not the aliens caught within it, but he was far too smart to be that stupid. "Pinkie!" he roared over the noise of the the flames. "Pinkie, we gotta get outta here! There's too many flammable things in this room!" Like, y'know, them!
Pinkie Pie	"Omigoshomigoshomigosh," Pinkie said, prancing in place in her panic. "Quick!" she decided. "Through the window!" And she took a running leap -- and disappeared through a newly appeared hole in the programming.
Hardison	Well, that made his job a lot easier. With the only other person here that he cared about no longer in the line of (literal) fire, Hardison was all ready to go himself. The file on his tablet let out a slight ding to let him know it was fully uploaded; in a swift move, he pocketed the USB and ran for a window. Outrunning explosions was a hell of a thing to have experience in, but he couldn't deny it was handy. Diving through the window in a shower of glass, Hardison tucked and made himself go as limp as he could, Parker's tips for hurtling oneself through the air whispering in his mind. That kid had asked for some mayhem. Never let it be said Hardison didn't deliver.

[follows this!]