Providential Divergence

Chapters

Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Chapter 0

"Neirin!" There was a long pause, "NEIRIN!"

The owner of the name jolted, as if he had stepped off a small curb, but found the drop to be greater in practice than his eyes had foretold. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and shook himself, "One second, ok? Just... gimme a second."

Neirin stared down at the leaflet he had been reading pre-dosing, before his mind fully engaged and he realized that it was an extreme liability. He snatched up the digipaper and stuffed it into a side pocket just seconds before his roommate entered.

Outwardly, he went through the motions of shaking off his grogginess; inwardly he was wide awake, and his heart was racing. That had been a close call.

"Were you asleep again?" His roommate raised an eyebrow, and glowered as he made his way to the refrigerator, opening the stainless steel door and reaching straight through the internal holographic labels for a synthale.

Neirin paused, then nodded slowly, "Yeah. Didn't get much sleep last night. I should probably turn in early... Mondays are a pain in the ass and tomorrow's is gonna be bad."

His roommate popped the cap of the glass alcohol bottle on the edge of the counter. The kitchen of their London apartment was small; a wall that was part window with a built in screen, part cabinets, and part stovetop looked out onto the street below.

Aside from that there was an island counter that doubled as a work and eating surface, a pair of stools, and a small refrigerator build into one of the small depth-wise walls; the remaining opposite side was an open doorway onto the entry hall.

"I dunno. When was the last time we did dishes? Or laundry for that matter."

Neirin winced internally. 'We' usually meant 'you' whenever it came from his roommate's mouth; Simon worked a hard job in AI neo-psychology. The field was so complicated and narrow that only a handful of people on the planet truly understood it. AI were not sapient, nor even sentient; they lacked emotion and soul. But they did have logical creative capacity, and over time developed tepid Turing-complete pseudo-personalities. Specific experts were often needed to help in the creation stages of the programs to ensure that their future latent traits would work out to be beneficial, rather than a useless drain on processing power.

To make matters worse, Simon spent ninety percent of his waking non-working hours locked in the spare room. Neirin knew that his positronics hobby was an occasional welcome source of windfall cash, given the high selling price for such custom circuitry; but that still left him with nearly all of the housework, nearly all of the time.

He sighed and resigned himself to another long evening, another late bedtime, and another painful workday.

He snorted as he gazed out the window towards the city skyline; in the distance, Nelson's column was barely visible against a foggy backdrop of centuries-old buildings mixed with modern super skyscrapers.

Neirin found it immensely ironic that in an age where machines could do everything a human could, including program and create themselves, that corporations still employed people. Granted, most like him were paid so low a salary that there was little point to the contract itself; the main draw was that the government paid better benefits to workers than the unemployed, allowing them to make up the difference. Most workers anyhow.

He sighed and nodded once more slowly, "I'd better hit the store then eh? We're probably out of a dozen and one things."

Simon glared, "Essentials *only.* We're tight as hell this month; one overstep and we miss the rent. Earthgov won't pay for that oversight a third time."

Neirin winced. Simon's employers paid him well, but the job necessitated that they live in London city center. The proposition of holding down their apartment was, apparently, costly, and neither of them were ever really paid what they deserved.

For those in Neirin's line of work that was par for the course; no one in physical labor, even if it involved complex nanofactory machinery, was paid more than a pittance. Simon, however, was an oddity; almost anyone who understood computers at a high level, let alone AI, was guaranteed a good job. But AI pseudo-psychology was so narrow, that it was more exploitable.

And corporate entities were better at exploitation than anything else.

Neirin ambled to the door, grabbing his coat off the rack as he went, "I'll stick to the budget. Don't worry."

While Simon's salary could have enabled him to pay the rent in full and still have change left over for both essentials and small indulgences, he certainly wouldn't have enough leftover for his hobby. Neirin had met him several decades previous, and taken up residence in a renting arrangement. The required cash was a massive percentage of his salary, but it gave him a spot to live that was a cut above the Earthgov-provided dwellings for manufacturing workers.

The only other alternative that held any sort of allure, also scared him nearly witless.

He sighed as he glanced down at his jacket. The smart-textile was so worn in some spots, that the projected applications couldn't even be seen in those areas. And the resulting softspots also did a poor job of keeping out the bitterly cold English winter winds.

He shouldered the garment, almost as if it were a chore, and touched his thumb to the lone unadorned metal pad on the frosted-glass surface of the door, "Back in twenty."

The aperture beeped, recognizing his thumbprint instantly, and slid aside. He stepped out onto the exterior walkway, shivered as an icy blast of wind hit him, and hurried towards the stairs.

London had, since time immemorial, had a reputation for being dreary. Even before the quantum-climatological cataclysm of the late twenty-first century, before the sun had been permanently shrouded behind a semi-opaque iron sky, the city had been constantly mired in fog and clouds.

Neirin reflect that the city no longer fit its reputation, in spite of the horrid weather it now experienced due to global cooling. London, like most of Earth's remaining cities, was home to more than just humans. And it showed.

The visitors had arrived when Neirin was still in his early years of university. He had dropped out eventually, and had never paid the visitors too much attention after that. In a sense he blamed them; they had made any future human endeavours irrelevant, and managed to piss him off thoroughly in the process.

The little pasted quadrupeds had brought, as far as he was concerned, nothing but trouble. Neirin glowered at the bronze lion of Trafalgar Square as he passed. There had once been a duplicate statue on the opposite side of the space, but it had been destroyed years before.

Terrorists had lit off a bomb at the base of the granite block supporting the sculpture. No one died, their fate had been far worse in Neirin's estimation, but the driving component of the device was still an explosive.

The block had been reconstituted, but the bronze had been a total loss. Earthgov had replaced it with some sort of bird-lion fantastic hybrid; one of the later races that had followed the first visitors to Earth.

There were five races now, Six if one counted one of the close cousins of the first visitors, and nine if one were to split the canids into their three main subspecies. Ten if you counted humans as stubbornly as Neirin did.

Ponies, Gryphons, Dragons, Zebra, Diamond Dogs, Minotaurs. Humans.

As if the arrival of cogent, sapient, talking pastel Equinids, their magic, and their friends from the pages of Earth's mythology hadn't been enough of a shock to humanity, what followed had torn the world asunder.

Neirin didn't understand the physics, and didn't care to. Very few people probably did anyways. Simon had tried once but he had just gotten too frustrated to continue. All he knew was the long and short; the Earth was dying and it was all the Ponies' fault.

Their world was, one centimeter at a time, 'eating' the planet, regurgitating the matter on the other side of an impassable barrier as new land and new life for them. they claimed it was an inevitable process that they hadn't started, and had no idea how to stop.

Neirin agreed with the HLF; the talking horses were clearly bullshitting.

The Human Liberation Front had been one of two initial terrorist extremist responses to the barrier, and the abominations it had created. The quantum membrane was easily traversed in both directions by inhabitants of the Equinid's land; Equestria.

But any time a human, or human-created materials, or anything at all that was of Earth-origin touched the spacial brane, it violently dissipated.

That had left humanity in a lurch; and nearly caused all out war to boot. Neirin almost wished it had; the alternative was sickening.

Conversion.

He glowered at the bird-lion as he passed on his way to the tube station. 'Conversion.' The word sometimes left a bad taste in his mouth just from thinking it.

The word represented a terrifying idea to him; walk into a so called 'Conversion Bureau,' sip down a cup of magically enhanced nanofluid, and drop unconscious. One psychedelic dream later, and you would wake up a Pony, or one of the other Equestrian creatures. Depending on which serum you took.

At first the proposition hadn't seemed so bad. He had even thought about going through with it once. Until he learned that it had the capacity to modify one's identity.

Scientists, psychologists, mages, and politicians had reassured everyone; it wasn't a destruction to one's identity, or even a change to its root; merely an alteration of aspects of its expression. The most common illustration Conversion advocates liked to use was genotype and phenotype.

Supposedly conversion only affected the 'phenotype of the identity and soul.'

Neirin wasn't so assured. His mother had been a convert since the moment it was offered. She had done her dead-level best to shove it down his throat; even going so far as to try to spike his drink with illegally obtained Conversion 'potion.'

That had been when he dropped out of university, and moved halfway around the world to live with Simon. The fact that the man was effectively a stranger was no concern at the time; he was offering a place to stay, and an ideal Neirin could align with.

He inhaled and rubbed his brow as he bumped his hand against the tube turnstile. It didn't cost him anything to ride the metro monorail; as a London citizen with a job, that service was freely available to him.

He shuffled down the escalator and towards the appropriate platform. Neirin liked the tube; most Equestrian races hated being underground, with the exception of Diamond Dogs; who didn't often frequent public transit in the first place.

That meant that subways were a homo-sapiens-only haven.

As he shouldered his way onto a waiting monorail car, Neirin reflected that the HLF probably spent a great deal of time in the tube as a result. They believed in a humans-only planet, regardless of the encroaching barrier, and were willing to do anything to bring that reality to fruition.

Neirin didn't agree with terrorism, but he did, on some level, agree with curbing conversion and Equestrian rights, and establishing some sort of 'right to humanity.'

Neirin was a 'rehumanist.' Regressive-humanists believed that Conversion was dangerous, and needed to be severely limited by rule of law; that schools should teach humanity was superior, and that society as a whole should move to dissuade people from Conversion and bring them firmly towards rehumanism.

While many forms of Conversion had entry requirements placed by their various races, Ponification was still free to all. A fundamental right even.

The PER took it one step further. Ponification for Earth's Rebirth had made their debut with the Trafalgar square attack, and done their best to take away free will on a daily basis every day since. Potion was a powerful substance; even a few grams on the skin could convert a healthy human in moments, and the process was all but unstoppable once begun.

The PER were the first to have the idea to strap canisters of it to bombs, and later sophisticated aerosolization 'dispersion cylinders.'

Neirin often wondered if his mother was PER.

He jolted out of his musings as the monorail arrived at his stop.

"This station is Leicester Square. Change here for the Piccadilly line. Disembark for shops and cinemas."

Neirin forced his way to the doors, and practically exploded onto the nearly-empty platform from the confines of the jammed car. He took a moment to breathe deeply, before setting out back to the surface.

When he arrived, he experienced a strong momentary temptation to duck back into the warm station. The Wind gusting down the street was brutally frigid; it seemed to cut right through to his skin, and soul.

He pulled his jacket tight around his chest, trying fiercely to make up for the broken clamps, as he dashed towards the mall.

Entry granted him a welcome wave of warm air, and he reveled for a moment in the small pleasure of feeling returning to his extremities, before setting off through the central atrium.

To his chagrin, the space was full to bursting with members of every species. The problem, in his estimation, was that one couldn't look at the Equestrians without feeling somehow smaller; more alone, weaker, and more frail.

They all most definitely had extreme biological advantages over homo sapiens, and all seemed to have some sort of smug cultural advantage too. They claimed they needed human innovation and drive as much as humanity needed their forms and ideals.

Neirin believed it, but was still recalcitrant. How could races that inspired people like the PER be worth becoming? Races that led to someone like his mother?

The other problem he had, was that Ponies always seemed to jovial, and outgoing. More than they had any right to be. Sometimes he felt like they were trying to convince him to conform by sheer pressure of happy-go-lucky pastel colors and sunny fields and welcoming tones.

He wasn't buying it; he didn't want to loose his capacity for easy serious violence like most of the Equines did.

He weaved his way through the crowd as swiftly as he could, aiming for the drug store. They usually had what he and Simon needed; shower products, basic foodstuffs, and soda with the best of caffeine substitutes.

With a frown, he noted that the line was nearly thirty people long. He collected the requisite shopping items quickly, and resigned himself to standing for a solid ten minutes. He took a private moment to examine those in the line.

For several moments he became fascinated, in a stomach turning way, with a pair of Equines near the head of the line. The two beings looked so peaceful, and happy. It made him sick with concern, revulsion, and a touch of envy.

He did his best to distract himself by scanning backwards down the line. He paused as he noted a young man with a backpack. The satchel wasn't especially peculiar, but the man certainly was. He was wearing a hoodie, with the top up and obscuring his face.

Neirin found that odd. It was 2118 not 2013; it was illegal to wear coverings that could obscure one's head from any angle, or face, indoors. Such garments could be used to stop thermal imaging security camera's from recognizing a person's face through their head, and could help prevent regular camera's from making a face match.

Ever since he could remember, the hoodie in particular had been branded a hallmark of terrorists and thugs by the mass media. It confused him as to why anyone would ever wear one, and thus open themselves to critique and angry glances at best, and death at worst.

Neirin looked closer, and stiffened as he noted a cylindrical bulge in the knapsack. He turned to glance at the door, and tried to spy the nearest security guard. There was no one in sight.

Resolving himself to act on his paranoia, he dropped his bags, and strolled out of the store as quickly as he dared. He scanned the mall's central atrium, and at last spotted a member of the Military Police.

He forced his way through the crowd, earning looks of anger and distaste as he shoved and pushed, until he finally reached the armored man, "Sir! SIR! I think there's a terrorist in that store!"

Before the law enforcement officer could speak, a hodge-podge description of the hoodie-clad man tumbled from his lips. The policeman frowned, "Show me."

Neirin led him back to the store as hastily as he could, pointing to the suspicious man as they arrived at the entrance.

The officer nodded his thanks, and stepped towards the figure, "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to come.."

The young man threw a wild haymaker, the silver metallic device falling from his pack as he did so. His blow took the guard by surprise, but the loss of his device placed him at a disadvantage.

Neirin found himself frozen in shock and horror, as the young man dove for the cylinder, saw the policeman reaching for his pistol, and thought better of it.

"No truth but FATE!" The man screeched as he pulled a peculiar looking weapon from the center pocket of his hoodie, and dived behind one of the store's support stanchions.

Customers scattered, screaming in confusion. Neirin watched in horror as the terrorist opened fire; his gun looked for all the world like an ancient revolver; but the casing was a modern ceramic, and the ammunition chambers were enlarged.

Each time the weapon discharged, a particle stream of a different color issued forth from the barrel. Five shots, five distinct colors. Four of the wildly aimed projectiles found their marks. Neirin knew what they were.

Potion rounds. the PER had perfected the technology, but he had only ever seen it used to deliver ponification serum. The shots had always been purple hued like the potion that birthed them; not purple, and then gold, red, blue, gray.

Somehow the oddity of the multihued particle blasts shook him from his shellshock. As the policeman returned fire with his rail pistol, Neirin dived for the store entrance. He rolled as he hit the marble floor, and glanced over his shoulder as he came up.

He just managed to catch a glimpse as it happened; the terrorist's final wild shot, a green colored blast, missed the guard and struck the cylinder. Neirin didn't even have time to shield his eyes as the device erupted into a shimmering display of thaumatic radiation.

The blast wave approached swiftly, but he had just enough time to recall a half dozen regrets before it struck, and darkness engulfed him.

Chapter 1

"I suppose the question is this then; is freedom---"

"No! I will NOT allow this kind of---"

"Who are you, and who will you choose to be?"

"Just what the hell did you think you were---"

"No reality but chance. No truth but Fate---"

"The Greek appealed to me---"

"What price truth---?"

"Who are you---"

"---He's going into psycho-cerebral sh---"

"--WHO WILL YOU CHOSE TO BE?!"

Neirin awoke with a jolt; the conglomeration of blinding images, and deafening words still rattling around in his skull. As his vision sharpened from blurry colored blobs, to actual shapes with edges, he realized there was a face above him.

After a few more seconds, he realized that the face was in fact speaking, and he could not hear the words. Just a high pitched whine, like the sound from a tuning fork. The white noise brought him back to the present, and memory of the explosion flooded back into his brain.

He groggily pointed to his ears, and the white armor-clad paramedic nodded. She reached into her kit, and withdrew a hypospray, pressing it to the side of Neirin's neck first on one side, then the other, beside his ears.

Almost instantly, the nano-serum repaired his eardrums. The aural footprint of the world exploded back into his skull with the force of an out of control maglev.

He could distinctly pick out screams, whimpers, sirens, a blazing fire somewhere, and the shocked murmur of a crowd in the distance.

He sat up slowly, and glanced around as the paramedic ran a scanner over him, checking his vitals. The world had been turned all to hash; most of the store was a simply gone; a spherical smooth crater of glass with rivulets of thaumatic static still sparking across its surface.

The rotunda of the mall had been cordoned off, and a military VTOL was hovering over the glass roof, shining lights down into the chamber. The power was out, and every electrical device and junction box in the vicinity was smoking, or blazing.

On the floor near him, a newly Converted Pony, Dragon, Diamond Dog, and Zebra were laid out side by side, unconscious. The victims of the terrorist's more accurate shots.

In a sad twist of irony, a morbidly humorous thought crossed Neirin's mind; the man was probably not, infact, PER. They hated the other Equestrian races almost as much as they hated humans.

He glanced down at his own hands to reassure himself that they were there; ten fingers. He then glanced down at his boots and wiggled his feet inside them; then toes.

He had escaped relatively unscathed.

The paramedic nodded, as if to confirm his thoughts, "You have a concussion and some slight brain hemorrhaging. Nothing serious; I think you'll be fine. I'm going to give you a small bottle of caplets; take one every two hours from now until you next sleep, and one every three hours tomorrow. That should heal the damage, prevent any lasting side-effects, and stem the headaches."

Neirin nodded absently, and shoved the proffered bottle into his left pocket.

The woman pointed over his shoulder to the military cordon, "You have to see them before you can leave. JRSF is taking everyone's statements."

Neirin nodded, and winced as he stood. The Joint Reconnaissance Strike Force were a branch of the military run by all the races involved in Conversion, humans included, in tandem. They were the modern incarnation of 'special branch.' And he morosely resigned himself to the fact that they were likely going to grill him solidly on his experience before they let him go home.

He huffed, and made his way over to the line that was rapidly forming outside the command tent, which had been thoughtfully setup to block the mall's main exit and force everyone to pass through.

"And I thought my life couldn't get any worse..." He muttered.

"Please empty your pockets." Neirin glanced up, removing his head from his hands, and stiffened. He had expected a Pony interrogator; normally the JRSF preferred the Equines' disarming friendliness when dealing with civilians.

Instead, he found himself facing a large and rather awe inspiring Gryphon. He gulped. Neirin had never met one of the beings up close, or even paid much attention to them. They stood nearly a head higher than most humans while on four legs, and often walked on two as well, which increased their stature to towering heights.

The Gryphon inclined his head again, "I'm Philos. I'll be taking your statement. Please empty your pockets Mr.---?"

"Ahh... Neirin." He absently fished into his left pocket, and pulled out the pill bottle, sticking it firmly on the stainless steel camp table in front of him. He then dug into his right pocket, expecting to find only his wallet. Instead, he encountered the wallet, and an unfamiliar texture.

He pulled on the object, extricating it from the wallet as he set the former on the table. He realized, with a jolt, that it was the leaflet he had earlier hidden from Simon.

Philos reached out single talon, and pulled the digipaper towards, him, turning it to read it. He raised an eyebrow, or the area of feathers that was most analogous. His golden eyes seemed to drill into Neirin's soul as he spoke, "Interesting irony."

Neirin blushed furiously. The leaflet was an information handout on Gryphon Conversion. He had, on a whim, snagged it from a stand outside a shop the day before. He had promised himself it was just studying the enemy, but in the end if he was honest with himself, it was curiosity, mixed with other difficult emotions.

Philos pushed the items on the table back towards Neirin and sat down on his haunches across from him, "Can you describe what happened?"

As Neirin did his best to give the account, the avian stared at him unblinkingly; never even so much as looking away once. His golden eyes served to fiercely compliment his razor sharp beak, maroon and sandy feathers, and wickedly sharp silver talons. Neirin found it hard to concentrate under the scrutiny, and the proximity of the awe inspiring leo-avinid, but he finally managed to finish his tale.

In a moment of gut-wrenching fear, he left out the confusing words and images that had haunted his unconscious mind. He reasoned that they were likely simply a result of his concussion.

Philos nodded slowly, "You may wish to come in for further examination. So far, you're the only survivor who reports having actual contact with the thaumatic explosion. Everyone else was affected by the airburst only."

Neirin nodded absently, pocketed his effects, and stood, "Am I free to go?"

The Gryphon inclined his head towards the exit, "Yes. And... Don't forget the leaflet."

Neirin realized, with a start, that he had left the object on the table. He sheepishly reached out and pocketed it, before indulging his curiosity, "Philos? Isn't that Greek or something? I thought--"

Philos blinked, "I'm a convert. The greek appealed to me. It means 'friend.' "

Neirin had no response to the statement, so he shrugged, and awkwardly made for the door. Philos spoke once more as he exited, "In the spirit of my name; if you find you need someone to talk to about what's on that flyer... Or about your experience... Just call the JRSF central node, and ask for my personal extension. Zero-seven one-five alpha-alpha gamma."

Neirin winced, and hurried through the flap of the tent. The offer unsettled him deeply. As he leaned into the evening wind and set off for the tube station, a small voice in the back of his head nagged him and forced him to wonder if the emotion was a result of fear, revulsion, or an insane desire to actually take the Gryphon up on his offer.

It was only after he boarded the tube, and leaned back to breathe and pop his first pill, that he realized the Gryphon's description of his name evoked an intense sense of deja vu.

"What the *hell* Neirin?! You were gone for almost three hours!"

Neirin collapsed into a chair in the apartment's small living room, and groaned. Simon cocked his head, and growled "Did you get into a fight?"

"Does it *look* like I got into a fight?!"

Simon crossed his arms and glowered, "Yes actually. And don't you get smart with me. Where were you. Answer me now."

Neirin glared back, squinting into the ceiling lights, "Incase you had your head buried up to the neck in those bloody circuits of yours; there was a *terror* attack in Leicester Square."

His roommate raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. Neirin sighed, "That's where I go to shop."

Simon unfolded his arms, and his face softened slightly, "Oh. Groceries were a loss then?"

Neirin slammed his fist into the arm of the chair, his emotions finally boiling over, "Well NO SHIT SHERLOCK HOLMES! If you'd like to go back to the five by five glassed CRATER that was nearly ME and a dozen other PEOPLE, and search for the GIBLETS of our shopping? You be my GUEST!"

Simon's face turned fifty shades of red, but Neirin averted his gaze and sighed. He hated having shouting matches with the man, and he hated losing his temper even more. He was on the verge of apologizing, when he glanced up and realized that Simon was no longer there.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled, trying to bite back tears caused as much by a sudden pang in his head, as emotions. Simon poked his head around the door, "Where the hell have you been Neirin? It's been three hours... Were you in a *fight?*"

Simon stepped into the room, and glared, crossing his arms. Neirin's mouth opened, and closed, without making any sound. Once, then twice.

He finally stammered out an explanation, "The.. ah... the terror attack... I was there Simon... I was caught in it..."

Simon unfolded his arms, and shrugged, "Oh. So I suppose the groceries were in it too?"

Neirin squinted and groaned. Simon nodded, "I suppose so then. Noodles tonight. Again. You'd better get started I guess if we're gonna eat at a sane hour. I have to go finish this last circuit bridge... I suppose laundry at least will have to wait to tomorrow. You look like hell."

Neirin groaned once more, and seriously considered checking himself into a hospital, before deciding that the reaction from Simon would be more than it was worth, in spades.

"We lost the device. And Michaelson."

"We lost nothing. Fate decreed that this would come to pass, and so it did."

"Fate is truth indeed then. There is... one other item."

"Oh?"

"One of the unconverted survivors was exposed directly to the thaumatics of the blast."

"Mmm! Indeed? Then perhaps it would be to our benefit to acquire him for study. We may not soon get another chance like this."

"Yes sir. No reality but chance..."

"No truth but fate."

As he stared into the last of his noodles, Neirin realized that he was going to have to reheat Simon's. His roommate had ignored his first five calls to dinner, so Neirin had finally started without him.

As he moved his empty bowl to the sink, he debated leaving the dishes. Or even telling Simon to do them. The idea quickly fell from his mind; the last time he had asked Simon to do a chore, the resulting shouting match had ended with a restriction of his banking privileges for a month, and him feeling like the villain all along.

The task was short, but tedious. Neirin wished he could sleep, but the pair shared a bedroom since Simon's work took up the entire spare quarters. Simon was not the quietest or subtlest of types when he set about preparing to sleep; Neirin had to wait until he was soundly snoring before making the attempt himself, or he risked being woken after only a short bout of unconsciousness.

He sighed and collapsed back onto his stool. His pocket crinkled, and he simultaneously remembered his pills, and the leaflet.

He extracted both, and as he gulped down a pill, he glanced at the digipaper once more.

"Gryphons: We are a proud race of warriors. We value family above all. We live by honor, and faith. We welcome any who can pass the entry requirements; these exist to protect you from being forced into a life you would not easily accept, or desire. We are not a solution for those of you seeking to be able to maintain violent capacity for selfish or immoral reasons. We are an Option only for those who would raise their swords with honor."

Neirin read further, forcing his way past a brief pang of head pain. The act almost felt like a forbidden indulgence; he gleefully chewed through the portions of the pamphlet on Gryphon culture, and biology, his fingers swiping across the paper every so often to page to the next segment.

He was rousted from his revelry only by the icy touch of two fingers on his shoulder, followed by an atonal voice, "What the hell is that?"

Neirin froze. The image on the page was a Gryphon, beside a cylinder of Gryphonization potion. Simon could not possibly mistake the nature of the item.

His roommate calmly pulled the digipage from under his fingers, and silently read the open pages. He then stared down at Neirin, face impassive, "Just what the hell did you think you were doing with this?"

The crippling sense of deja vu Neirin experienced was not enough to entirely distract him from the gut wrenching fear. He shook his head slowly, "Just reading Simon. That's still legal right?"

The attempt at levity did not elicit a smile. Simon calmly crumpled the paper, and flicked it into the waste disposal chute. He continued to stare at Neirin, before pointing to his noodles.

As Neirin dutifully moved to microwave them, Simon perched on his stool, and spoke with an unusually calm tone, "Neirin. You need to stop with this crap. It's called Rehumanism for a damn good reason; unless you want to become your mother? You'd do well to remember that. Gryphons are just Ponies with feathers, who don't have any compunctions about straight up killing those who get in their way. Steer. Clear. Understood?"

Neirin nodded meekly, "Understood."

Simon took the bowl of noodles as it was proffered to him, and dug in. After swallowing his first bite, he glanced up and scowled, "You get pissy when you listen to that crap you know. I think you still owe me an apology for that outburst earlier."

Neirin, more confused than anything, mumbled, "Sorry," as he excused himself. He began to privately wonder, as he switched on the holovision, if his concussion was causing him to hallucinate, and loose time.

Neirin jolted awake to the sound of his watch alarm. He realized, with a groan, that he had fallen asleep on the living room chair. His last memory was downing a concussion pill, and turning on the news at low volume.

He shook himself, and moved to the kitchen groggily. He needed to be out the door by six to make it to work on time, and morning preparations usually took at least two hours.

As he finished pouring the second bowl of synthereal, Simon entered, yawning. Nerin winced, expecting to receive the cold shoulder. Instead, Simon smiled and picked up his imitation-cereal, "Morning. Sleep on the chair again?"

Neirin nodded, a combination of meek fear, and abject confusion robbing him of words.

Simon shrugged, "Well. You shouldn't do that. Bad for your back. And isn't sleeping vertical bad after you've had a head trauma? Anyways. I'm going to go finish this project up before I hit the office. Don't forget; laundry after you get home."

Neirin stood in shock. A slow, creeping suspicion wormed its way into his skull. He reached carefully into his right pocket, and froze. His fingers met digipaper. Fearfully, and with an almost reverent caution, he extracted the Gryphonization leaflet. He gaped at it for several seconds, before stiffening and stuffing it securely back into his pocket.

Either he was hallucinating, and vividly, or something beyond his comprehension was at work.

On an impulse, as if the hounds of hell itself were chasing him, he dropped his bowl in the sink, dashed into the entry hall, nabbed his coat, and slipped out of the apartment in one smooth motion.

Chapter 2

"When is that next piece coming off?!"

Neirin sighed at the inquiry, and depressed the safety lever on his machine, silencing it and tucking the cutting laser firmly behind a titanium safety shield, "Five minutes!" He pulled the lever once more, and pressed 'Activate' on the cutter's touchscreen.

"Assuming you stop frikin interrupting me," he muttered under his breath as he guided the laser carefully across the holographic pattern overlaid onto the sheet-metal at the machine's base.

When the laser finally made the last incision, the scrap fell away, and was instantly whisked to the recycling vat by a magnetic conveyor. Neirin secured the machine, and plucked the finished part out of the housing.

While AI-operated devices could 'route' objects far more quickly, and with more precision, manual CNC work was still needed for two reasons. First; because it increased production, however slightly. Second, and more importantly; because the word 'handmade' could turn even a mediocre brand into a top-credit run of merchandise for a corporation.

In an age where machines could do almost everything, Neirin found it supremely ironic that the most expensive commodities were priced so highly precisely because they had minimal AI involvement in their creation. And people were drawn to that.

Neirin winced as he tossed the completed part into the appropriate chute with a loud 'CLANG.' A pang of stabbing sensations wracked his brain, and he fumbled for his anti-concussion meds. He popped the cap, swallowed a pill dry, then held his head down for several seconds as a wave of dizziness overtook him.

He was yanked abruptly from his attempted recovery by the sound of a car horn. Neirin yelped, and juked sideways as a large sedan swooped past on its silent electric motor. He stood, gasping for breath, in a state of total stock.

The factory floor was gone. In its place was Piccadilly Circus. He had been standing in the crosswalk of the main thoroughfare.

He blinked, and gaped. Before him, surrounded by shops and corporate mega-skyscrapers, was the London Conversion Bureau.

Neirin stood for several seconds before he had the presence of mind to dig in his pockets for the Gryphonization flyer. All he discovered was lint, and his wallet.

Neirin stared up at the gleaming ninety story plexiglass swoop that was the Bureau, and ran a hand through his hair. He began to breathe more heavily, and had to squint and concentrate to avoid going into hyperventilation.

As his faculties slowly returned, he briefly considered going in to work, and trying to cook up some sort of excuse for being late. He dismissed the idea almost instantly; realizing that doing so would make no leeway in explaining what was happening to him. He needed answers; things were getting worse, not better.

He stared up at the Conversion Bureau, his mind and heart torn. On the one hand, going inside would feel like an admission that his beliefs were a lie. On the other; Philos was the only point of contact he had who might be able to get him actual help for whatever condition was afflicting him.

Neirin had always been pragmatic, and ultimately pragmatism won the day. He inhaled a deep shuddering lungful of London air, and started out up the steps to the Bureau.

The entrance was a vast facade of curved plexiglass arches supported by gleaming titanium buttresses, and lit by a bevy of soft blue LED lightstrips.

Neirin paused at the threshold of the automatic doors, once again torn by fear. He feared stepping into the Bureau more than almost anything. Almost. In the end he feared losing his mind more.

He winced, and stepped across the threshold. The lobby was cool and airy; marble floors with carpeted edges offered a striking contrast to the multi-story atrium's glass and steel walls.

Neirin suddenly realized, with a physical jolt, that he had no idea how to find Philos in the massive warren of offices, apartments, conference rooms, and conversion chambers. He made his way sheepishly to the front desk, gritting his teeth as he noted that it was staffed by a Pony.

He bit his lip, but ultimately screwed up the courage to speak to the teal colored male receptionist, "Ahhh... Excuse me. I'm looking for a Gryphon named Philos... He works with the JRSF unit based here."

The Pony smiled, and tapped at a holographic interface; the controls were enlarged and reshaped to accommodate hooves. He shook his head slowly as data scrolled across his terminal, "I'm sorry; I'm afraid I can't tell you exactly where he might be... I can leave him a message though if you'd like Mr...?"

Neirin sighed and waved the receptionist off as he turned to go, "Nevermind. Thanks anyways," He winced once more as he headed for the entrance at a fast clip, mumbling under his breath, "I shouldn't have even come in here..."

"Neirin?"

He glanced up and froze at the mention of his name. Philos was standing in the entrance, his beak fixed in a bemused expression, his ears perked forward in a sign of curiosity, "What are you doing here at this time of day?"

Neirin struggled to find words, his voice cracking with stress induced sorrow, "I... I don't know! I'm having these headaches! And they're getting WORSE! And I'm LOSING TIME! I can't handle it! I don't know... I just..."

Philos placed a comforting claw in Neirin's shoulder, "Come with me. We'll get you sorted. I promise."

"Simon Joerthsin?"

Simon tilted his head, and glared at the man, "Yes...? Who's asking?"

The man shifted, casually placing his hands in his pockets. Behind him, his female cohort leaned on the walkway railing. Both were clad in casual garb; middle class and well kempt, but not overly expensive.

"My sister and I represent a... Well a technological conglomerate you might say. We study the effects of Thaumatic radiation, among other things. Particularly its effects on people. According to our information, someone lives here by the name of Neirin Ellis, with his roommate Simon Joerthsin."

Simon crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe, "Your point? I have work to do, and---"

The man calmly, smoothly interrupted, "Your... 'friend' was in the middle of a serious terror attack yesterday. We believe he was dosed with a significant amount of Thaumatic radiation. We're interested in getting in touch with him to discuss mutually beneficial opportunities wherein we might study its effect on him, and you two might benefit... monetarily."

Neirin stared at the Unicorn with an emotionless interest, as she manipulated a giant cylinder of holographic data. Behind her, the scanning biobed he had been asked to lie on for nearly five minutes, was at last silent.

Philos was pacing slowly between him and the hologram, seemingly lost in thought.

After several uncomfortable minutes of quiet, the Unicorn motioned the Gryphon over, and began carrying out an animated discussion in tones too low for Neirin to make out their exact words.

He shifted uncomfortably; he had no desire to be inside a Bureau medical room, let alone one in which two non-humans were talking about him behind his back.

Neirin finally gave in to his urges and coughed behind one hand. Philos nodded to the Unicorn, and ambled over, "Let's... Let's go to my office and talk shall we?"

The pair exited the medical ward in silence, and made their way to a lift. As Philos thumbed the control panel with one gleaming talon, Neirin sighed. The Gryphon raised an eyebrow, "You're not a big fan of Conversion. Are you." It came out more as a morose statement than any sort of question.

Neirin nodded and stared down at the carpet. It was a pleasing shade of teal with blue patterning.

Philos stood in silence, shifting from claw to claw to paw, before speaking again, "Someone in your family put you off it? Most people who are *this* uncomfortable in a Bureau got burned in some way that relates to family..."

Neirin bit his lip, and then forced himself to nod again. Philos hummed thoughtfully, "PER victimize a member of your family or..." As Neirin winced, Philos' eyes widened, "Oh. So one of your family *is* a radical. How long?"

"Years. Since I was a fair bit younger. My mother." Neirin glanced up at the ceiling, then out the hallway's bank of windows. Anything to avoid staring into Philos' molten gold eyes.

The lift arrived, and the unlikely companions stepped aboard. The ride was brief, and silent, and when they arrived on the desired upper floor, Philos escorted Neirin to his office.

The space obviously belonged to a Gryphon; a suit of gray digital camouflage armor hung on a Gryphon shaped rack by the door, a crossbow-like weapon hung on one wall beside the room's largest holoscreen, and there were several gryphon-sized cushions in one corner beside a small glass-topped table. The space also held subtle implications that Philos was indeed a convert; a model jet was perched on the desk beside its embedded keyboard, and there was a picture of two humans, smiling together over a small child.

Neirin pointed at the image, "Your family?"

Philos smiled fondly, "Mom and Dad, yes."

"Still... living?" Neirin winced as he realized how awkward and inappropriate the question was. Philos however seemed nonplussed.

The Gryphon took a seat on the specially shaped stool behind his desk, and nodded smiling, "Yes infact. They converted when I did; but they went on to Equestria. I volunteered to stay here and be part of the JRSF for a little while."

Neirin sighed in relief, but winced again as the Gryphon twisted the flow of conversation back to him, "What about your family? Still living?"

The man nodded slowly, "Dad, Mom, and a sister. Yes."

The Gryphon gave him a smile that seemed to contain more empathetic sadness than actual joy, "And.. your mother is the one who hurt you? Forgive me for saying so; but the way your inflection changed... Lets just say that while our ears don't hold a candle to Ponies or Diamond Dogs, they are many thousands of times better than yours."

Neirin blinked in surprise, then collapsed into the guest chair opposite Philos, and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, "Why... am I even telling you this?"

Philos raised an eyebrow, "Well I don't know the intentions of your heart and soul... I'm not you. But I'd wager a solid guess that you don't get out much, and you don't exactly have many... if any... friends. I offered to be your friend. I meant that in honesty; and I hope you're taking me up on that offer."

The Gryphon shrugged, "That... and its easy for my kind to read yours. You are effectively an open book to me; your species has no capacity to control their automatic biological responses to emotional stimuli on a micro-level. We have the perception to take in all these changes at they happen; heart-rate, pupils, skin texture, breathing speed, pose..."

Neirin shifted uncomfortably and held up a hand, "I just... want to know why I'm loosing time, and hallucinating."

Philos grunted, "Mmm. Yes. That. Well, the short answer is; you're not."

"Excuse me?!" Neirin gasped, and leaned forward, a note of indignation and fear creeping into his voice, "I told you, and your Unicorn friend, that I was in a factory one moment, and outside this building the next! How can you say---"

Philos held up a claw, and glared, "If you'll let me finish please?" Neirin collapsed backwards and exhaled in frustration. The Gryphon inclined his head, "Thank you. Now please bear with me; have you ever heard of the Disciples of Fate?"

Neirin shook his head, and squinted in confusion.

The Gryphon pointed to the wallscreen, as he tapped out a series of commands on his desk terminal, and called up a plethora of data, "They're a recent outgrowth of the PER. Most of their attacks have been small scale and unsophisticated... so far. They believe, like the Rebirth movement, in taking away human free will; but they do not share the fanatical dedication to Ponykind. Their driving motivation is an atheistic darwinian belief that chance... or 'fate,' is the only governing force in the universe, and that all sapient life will benefit most when it succumbs to the flow of fate rather than fighting it."

Neirin's eyes widened, "So the guy's pistol? The guy who attacked the mall?"

Philos nodded, "It was their first real invention; it works based off of a series of small potion cylinders; opaque and randomly loaded by a machine. That way, whatever the victim is dosed with is utterly 'determined by fate.' But they've been working on dispersion cylinders too, much like the ones the PER are so fond of. What you ran afoul of was an as yet unloaded, untested prototype that was being ferried to one of their training camps to be fully weaponized."

Neirin held a hand to his forehead, and stared up at the ceiling in shock, "Sheeeesh..."

After a moment of thought his brow crinkled, "So... I was affected somehow by the device?"

Philos stood, and began to pace, "Have you ever heard of the Cartier/Thornton Equations?"

"Whatta-who-now?" Neirin raised an eyebrow.

"Quantum physics?" The Gryphon tilted his head in query. Neirin vehemently shook his.

"Sorry. I'm not good with math. Or science."

Philos nodded, "Very well; I'll do my best to distill it. You've at least heard of string theory yes?"

Neirin squinted, trying to remember, "I... I *think* I've run across it in a few novels now and again... Isn't that the idea that every time we make a choice, we create parallel universes where each outcome is true?"

"Correct." The Gryphon held up a talon, "But incomplete as far as Cartier and Thornton were concerned. They believed, and had some convincing math to argue, that the choice does not create one or more new universes. Rather that there is only one multiverse, with one distinct timeline through which all universes and worlds march inexorably forward; none of them are parallel versions of alternate history."

Philos gestured expansively to the air around him, "However, to keep with conservation of information, they theorized that the multiverse records all the information dictating not only what *is,* but what *might* have been, and what might *be.*"

Neirin's eyes widened, but his mouth clenched into a firm line of confusion. Philos pointed at the wall screen, "Let me illustrate; let us say that what you see on the screen is reality. This reality is governed on some level by the color of each pixel, much like our reality is governed by math, physics, and logic, chemistry, and so forth. But if we dig deeper, we find that all that is in turn governed by data embedded somewhere on a hard drive. The universe works the same way."

Neirin began to nod slowly, "And just like the computer stores information on what might be on the screen, what has been on the screen, and what would have been on the screen...?"

"So does the multiverse. Yes." Philos smiled proudly, "Precisely."

The Gryphon returned to his stool, and leaned forward, his expression hardening into one of far greater gravity, "Neirin... as near as Astral Thread can tell, and I've never known her to be wrong, you're..."

Philos snorted, as he searched for words, then snapped his claws above his desk and called a hologram into view. He traced out a line, ending in an arrow, with a talon, "This is the timeline. You're living happily in it like everyone else..."

The Gryphon tapped several controls, and drew two lines emanating from the end of the first; each a different off-white color, intertwining, and ending in arrows pointing in subtly different directions, "When you were caught by the blast, you were exposed to the chaos magic the DoF have been experimenting with to drive the randomness in their dispersion cylinders. Astral's theory is that... well for lack of better terms, that you're still there. You're still lying there in the microsecond after the thaumatic radiation hit you."

Neirin gaped, "The *hell?*"

Philos inclined his head, "The idea is that your consciousness is currently split between two possible realities that are both being temporarily run by the universe in tandem as a result of the detonation of the device, combined with your brain providing for quantum observer effect. Your anti-concussion medications are jumping you back and forth between the two sides of reality as a result of something called Crimexaline, which is a drug that affects the parts of the brain responsible for understanding and keeping track of time."

Neirin threw up his hands, "Right! Ok! So I just stop taking pills then?"

Philos nodded, "You could. If you spend more than a set amount of time... probably approximately twenty hours, in one particular side; the other will undergo quantum waveform collapse, be recorded on the universe as 'what might have been,' and reality will go on as normal."

Neirin held up a hand and closed his eyes, "Wait wait wait... Are you saying... I am the one who chooses?"

The Gryphon nodded once more, "Correct."

Neirin slumped back in his chair, "This is... too much..." He pointed at the Gryphon, without making eye contact, "So if I just go home, go to sleep like I've got one hell of hangover... This will all end?"

When Philos did not respond, Neirin sat up and glared, "This will all end... *right?*"

Philos sighed, "Neirin... unfortunately... The effect is still strong right now. And you've taken a great many of those pills over the last twenty four hour cycle. There is enough Crimexaline in your system to more or less guarantee that several more jumps are going to occur, even if you stop taking the pills immediately. In fact, until the thaumatic radiation bound to your brain begins to dissipate, and drops below a certain level, the best you can do is control the jumps with the pills to ensure they don't catch you by surprise."

Neirin groaned, "So... when will it drop to levels where I can get off this hellish ride?"

Philos inhaled, "Not for at least twenty four hours. Possibly closer to thirty six. No more than forty eight at the outside. After that, you can stop taking the pills and choose one reality over the other."

Neirin groaned again, louder and longer. Philos cocked his head, "Why concern yourself? Hopefully the two timelines are similar enough that there is no major need to choose one over the other in the first place. How far have they diverged currently?"

Neirin stared out the window, looking as if he was on the verge of tears, "In this timeline? I've pissed off my roommate because he saw the Gryphonization flyer, I've had a shouting match with him, and I probably didn't show up to work today given that I'm currently here, now. In the other he hasn't seen the flier, and I went to work, and everything is just... *peachy.*"

Philos spread his claws, "There you go then. Simple choice yes?"

Neirin locked eyes with him willingly for the first time. Philos nodded, "Ahhh. So it's more complicated than that. I see."

A tear finally forced its way past Neirin's guard, "You have no idea."

The Gryphon sat back and folded his claws, "Try me."