I wrung my fingers together and cracked my knuckles for the eighty-second time that morning. One knuckle-crack almost every four minutes for five hours straight. Why couldn't they have just opened up all the conversion rooms at once? Have all the graduates convert at the same time? No, that would have required two doctors for every room, six rooms apiece, just for getting through six people converting. That's twelve people taking their time just so I wouldn't be sitting there, cracking my knuckles like a boxer about to enter the ring.
Sorry? You're asking about conversion? Well, I suppose I could explain it to you. Best as I can with what they told me about it. It was simple - on my end at least. All the person being converted would have to do is lie back, drink the potion, and try to rest their head before they went out like a light.
From there, the potion: a mixture of nanomachines, growth accelerants, anesthetic, DNA samples, synthetic enzymes, and spells would transform a person into a pony. It knocked you out, broke down parts of your DNA, replacing parts and combining others, all while the nanomachines used the raw materials of your body, along with the potion, to form a new body. The spells would suspend your consciousness until it could be integrated with the body, and then presto, newfoal.
I cracked my knuckles again and looked over to the clock. The hour had finally passed, and I looked to the door in anticipation. Equestria was pretty big, or so I had heard, and they were literally giving away free land to anyone who converted and was willing to live there. I'd probably have to find a few others to set up a homestead, in case I didn't end up as an earth pony, or at least a pegasus to water the crops. That was my reason for converting, having my own property, living on terms that were more or less my own.
Oh, and the multi-century life-span... That was pretty awesome.
"Okay," I muttered underneath my breath. "Haven't taken any drugs or nanomachine injections in the last seventy-two hours that would cause complications, and I had a big breakfast."
The stainless steel door slid open, and out stepped a unicorn wobbling on his legs, and an earth pony dressed in a light-green nurse's gown that covered most of her pink coat. Behind them was a human doctor adjusting his rubber gloves. They stood at around three feet tall, putting their heads heads level with the doctor's waist. The unicorn blinked his baseball-sized eyes, the whites of them shining in the fluorescent lighting. The pony nurse gave a smile, her lips spreading to show a row of flat white teeth inside her short rounded muzzle.
The newfoal unicorn hobbled over to an orderly who assisted him in joining the others.
The human doctor pulled out a small tablet device and pressed his thumb to it. "Jack Jepsen?" he asked, looking up.
It was my time, my number had been called. I breathed deeply, gulping down the air before I sat up. "That would be me," I answered, walking over to him on my long legs in three strides. "So, uh, Doc, how're you doing today?"
"I'm quite well, thank you, and yourself, Mr. Jepsen?" he answered.
"Oh I'm great! Ready to do the whole converting thing, got my schedule to get to Equestria within the next two weeks." I side-stepped towards the door. "So, can we get this show on the road?"
The doctor gave me a quick nod, then stepped aside to let me in. "Certainly, Mr. Jepsen. It's always good to hear an applicant making plans for after their conversion. I'm Doctor Calaway, and this is my assistant, Nurse Thetic, we'll be monitoring your conversion today."
We stepped into the room. To be honest, it looked like what I imagined an operating room would look like. Tiled floor, fluorescent lights, steel table in the middle, cabinets to the sides. The one feature that caught my attention was a little alcove to the left that was covered with a curtain that matched the nurse's gown. I sniffed in the mild odor of disinfectant.
A hand shot in front of my vision, pointing to the alcove. "In there you can strip off your clothes and put on a paper gown," Calaway said.
"Uh, thanks," I said, side-stepping the hand and making my way to the alcove.
Inside, I sat on the steel bench and pulled off my powder-blue shirt. My skin tingled as I folded the shirt in a swift motion. Shivering as my hand brushed against the cold steel when I placed the shirt to my side. I was going to do a lot less folding clothes from that day out, I might as well have taken some pride in the skill before I had to relearn it over the course of a few days. I lifted my self off the bench and slid down my pants and underwear, but buttocks slapping against the cold metal for a moment before I opted to stand up. I kicked off my shoes and removed my socks, then grabbed a paper gown. I slipped into the gown easily, given it was a generous extra large, and tied off two of the back strings.
"Mr. Jepsen? Are you alright?" called the mare.
Right, it was time to go ahead, sorry brother.
I stepped back into the main room. Calaway was holding a plastic cup at the level of his eyes.
"Don't spill it," the little pink pony next to him said with a bright smile.
"I do believe that's my line, butter-hooves." Calaway smirked and turned to me.
Thetic scoffed, stomping her hoof and shaking her head. "It was one time, and it wasn't even potion: it was some water the patient asked for when they woke up!"
"Regardless," Calaway said, "If you could sit on the table, Mr. Jepsen." He folded one arm across his chest.
I obliged, sitting on the steel table and facing him.
"Now you've already gone over this in the classes, but one more time in case you're forgetful," Calaway said, extending his hand with the cup towards me. "Drink it all at once and lie on the table immediately. No reciting the Gettysburg Address or Saint Crispin's Day Speech after you've drank, and in the name of both human and pony decency, don't gargle."
My fingers wrapped around the cup and I held it there for a moment.
"Though if you really want to say something before you drink it, you can," Thetic said. Her tail curled around her back leg as she nodded and looked at the ground.
"Okay, let's see..." I stared at the far wall for a few moments. "One small step for man, three ounces of cheap grape-flavoring for mare-kind." Downing the contents of the cup in a single motion, I handed the cup back the Calaway and swung my feet onto the table, lying on my back. My palms felt clammy, and my pulse raced against the anesthetic as the room's image faded to darkness.
A blade of grass poked at my eye, and the sun blazed into the other, forcing me to squint. I squirmed, feeling my legs move in positions that were at once both alien and familiar.
"Hey, get up."
My eyes snapped open, and were rewarded with the dual tortures of plants and sunlight violating my eyes. I rolled onto my stomach, and swung my head around. The motion, like everything else, felt strange. Glancing over to my right, I saw a man standing beside me in the field. Eyes travelling upward, I saw his face...
"You're... me?"
"Yeah, I'm you, or at least a part of you, I think," he answered. "I'm not entirely certain, but I think I'm some sort of sub-conscious projection of your self-image or something. I don't know, it's been years since we watched that movie."
"You're a little thinner," I commented.
"Yeah, that's telling, isn't it?"
He pointed at me, and, bending my neck a little more, I stared down at one cornflower-blue wing, the feathers running together in a smooth curtain. It twitched. Looking down, I saw my legs folded underneath me, covered in a fine fur the same color as my wing. The fur reached down and covered most of the hoof, making the limbs appear the same color. I swung my head around to look at my wing's partner on my opposite shoulder. On that side, a dark-teal tail was twitching and moving
"Wow."
"Yeah, congratulations, but let's get this out of the way, shall we? Think you can stand?"
I shuffled my legs underneath me, wobbling a bit, I stood up. "That was easy," I commented.
"Uh huh, right now all the little instincts and and natural skills are being installed, we both sat through that class."
He started walking across the field, legs disturbing wild mustard plants and dandelions as the strode over thick tufts of grass. Looking ahead, I saw a great copse of oak and birch. My ears twitched as even from that great distance in my mind I heard their leaves rustle.
I followed myself and asked, "So what's this all about?"
"You've got some lingering doubts that you don't want to admit." He reached to his left shoulder and scratched briefly.
"Okay, if you know everything I know, you should be able to answer all my questions." I said, kicking the flower of a dandelion stalk.
"And most of the questions you don't want to hear the answer to."
"Alright, where did I - "
"New Hampshire, with three bottles of Tabasco sauce, a can of Sam Adams, and a midget."
I stopped for a moment, and he turned, walking backwards away from me.
"You're good," I said, earning a shrug from him.
"So then, Yoda." I trotted back beside him as he face forward towards the trees. "What is it that's lying in my subconscious mind to claw its way out like every annoying Freudian claims?
"You feel guilty about leaving your older brother back home so you could go to the bureau." He stopped by a tree on the outskirts of the grove. He braced against it, taking a deep breath. "Also," he said, brows growing hard, "you don't like the idea of giving up bacon, but I'm pretty sure that's just everyone."
"I..." Looking down to the ground, I spoke. "He didn't want to go, and every time I tried to he'd say or do something to stop me. I just wanted a life I could live on my own terms!" I looked back up, muscles tensing. "Not stuck waiting for government rations to be handed out! Sure, you survive, but you don't live! Much as I love him, I couldn't let him hold me back. So I left."
"And now you've done it," he said. "You converted, but are you going to explain things to him?"
I felt my wings unfold and flap, causing me to enter a hover. "You're right! Even if he held me back, I owe it to him to explain why I left!"
"Good," he said. "Now that you've got that out of the way, and you've figured out how to fly here...." He pointed at my back. "The rest will be easy!"
His image began to fade as I looked at the tree bark behind him.
"Wait!" I yelled. "Will I remember this?"
He faded into nothingness, but his voice answered. "Don't see why not. Hey that is a thing: most people forget their dreams like two seconds after they wake up. What gives?"
My wings slowed, and I descended to the ground again. I closed my eyes and sighed. The light shining through my eyelids faded to black, and soon, I was awake.
***
I gulped, feeling the wad of spit work its way down as I lifted my hoof up. It had been another week of lessons, a crash course in my new body, sometimes quite literally. The instructors had been patient, the staff supportive - also sometimes quite literally - and over that time all the little tricks and intricacies fell into place, like getting on a bicycle after years of being away.
In three days, I'd be heading to Equestria, unless the conversation I was about to have went very differently from how I expected. I pressed my ear to the door, the cold metal making it twitch as I listened. I could make out a TV program being played, something about housewives and drama. He was home, good.
I brought my hoof down on the door; the door clanged like a bell had been struck. My ears pinned against my head, and I backed away in pain. Things were louder now that I had converted, my sense of taste and smell was pretty acute as well, and reading things from a distance was a breeze.
I heard footsteps approaching the door. "Three, two, one..." the door opened right when I expected it to, and I looked up at my brother.
A bit of five-o'clock shadow clung to where his face wasn't dominated by his mustache. He blinked rapidly, head spinning to look down the hall both ways.
"Hey," I said, immediately drawing his attention, "down... here." I shut up as he squinted at me.
"Can I... help you?" he asked. That hurt, him not recognizing me, but it was understandable, my voice was the only thing to go by, and you could only get so far with that.
"Hey, Ted, it's me, Jack," I said, flapping my wings to enter a hover. He stepped back as his brows arched downward. "I converted, and I figured you deserved to know."
He backed into the apartment, his back hitting the fridge in the kitchenette. A magnet fell to the ground clattering. "Y-you! No! They got to you too?"
"Nobody 'got' to me," I answered, floating into the kitchen as he shuffled across the counter, hands scrabbling on the tile. "I just got tired of living like this."
Ted's foot bashed into the small table at the end of the kitchenette, sending him sprawling on his back. He stared up at me, terror in his eyes. He pointed at me, his long finger pushing itself from his fist in an accusatory manner "You're lying! You're just trying to make me think he converted. Prove you're him!" He scuttled back on all fours, across the rough brown carpeting towards the black couch that he would sleep on, bumping into it.
"Three bottles of Tabasco sauce..." I said.
"No!" He scrambled back to his feet, hands tearing a hole in the couches side. He ran to the right towards a table we had pulled out of a dumpster two years ago. Snatching a remote from the table, he turned to me.
"One can of Sam Adams..."
"Anything but this!" He threw the remote.
I stopped flapping, ducking underneath the black chunk of plastic, then regained my altitude. "Hey! Would you watch it? Is this anyway to treat your kid-brother? Besides, it was really great that you gave that woman directions!"
He ran to the patio door, having nowhere else to go. His hands gripped the handle, and his arms bulged as he slid it open, spinning from the force of it. He faced me. "What do you want!?"
"I just wanted to tell you what happened, and that I just wish you'd stop and consider coming with me!" I followed him out onto the balcony. Snow falling in the early evening swirled as I flapped my wings. He bumped into the railing.
"I knew it, you're here to forcibly convert me!" he shouted, my ears pinned against my head as they started to ring from all the noise.
"No," I said, dropping to land on the balcony's moist and slick surface. "I just wanted to tell you, and let you know what I hoped you would do. I mean..." I turned and faced the balcony. "I came back for you, didn't I? Because you're my brother, and even if I'm a different species, I still care about you."
"It's true," he said, "it does wipe your mind!"
"Yes, because clearly a guy saying goodbye to his older brother and wishing him luck is a sign of personality death." I rolled my eyes.
His wide eyes relaxed, and he shut his mouth. His head tilted to the side slightly. Anticipating a question, I took a step closer.
He flinched. His left foot slid on the wet ground, and his torso, already leaning over the rail to keep his distance, went back even further, sending him tumbling over the edge.
"No!" My wings shot out and I bolted to the edge, only to see his outstretched arm fall out of sight, and an accompanying thud.
"No... I just wanted..."
I sat on my haunches, breathing in and out as tears welled in my eyes.
"What have I done? I just wanted him to understand! To let him know what the situation was!"
"Oww! Why the hell are you talking like it's my eulogy? I fell onto the next balcony!"
Wings unfurling, and mouth hanging open, I entered a hover, and went to the edge. I looked down, tears falling from my cheeks as new ones joined them. There he was, back planted on on the cement patio below.
I lowered myself to him, lips, jaw and mouth quivering. "Ted?" I squeaked, before gulping. "I'm... I'm sorry."
He lay there, eyes staring at me and lips scrunched up. "I'm sorry too."
Landing beside him, I lay my neck across his chest. "Oh, thank you..." I said. He put his arms around my neck, returning the approximation of a hug I could give him. "Does this mean you'll come with me?" I asked.
"Hell no," he answered, holding me there. "But I respect your decision."
"Well... I guess that's all I can ask for," I responded, pulling away from him.
"Hmmm." He propped himself on his elbows and grimaced, shifting to a seated position. "But could you call an ambulance? I hit my head really hard on the way down. For some reason I had the craziest dream about some purple alicorn I had seen on the news. It was nuts."
