The Conversion Bureau: Behind those Walls: Prologue

The Conversion Bureau:

Behind those Walls

Prologue

The sun is shining into the room, the birds are singing. All in one, it is a wonderful morning. But not for the guy who still sleeps in his bed, trying to ignore the beams of sunlight.  The young man turned away from it with an grunt.

*Beep, beep, beep... click* “ Good morning Hamburg! Hier ist RSH with Smooth Talk!”, “And Peter Morgen!”  The voices came from the radio aside of the bed on a little shelf. “It’s six o’clock, August the 15 Monday morning and the sun is rising in a cloudless day, thanks to the pegasi  from the weather patrol!” An short applause followed , played by some machine. “That’s right  Smooth. And that means that you lazy people and ponies should rise and shine now or you gonna miss an beautiful day!”

All that raised in this room was a hand which the young man used to make the radio silent again. He rolled around and onto his back, buried his face under his hands to wipe the sleep out of  it.  “Ugh... morning already?” he whispered to himself. He peeked over to his clock.

*6:02*

‘Coffee’ was the first real though that came in his mind.

Finally, his body reacted to the orders of its brain and he bowed forward until he was in a sitting position. With a little twist, he shove the first leg over the edge of the bed, followed by the second and placed his feet on the ground. With a loud yawn he fiddled the feet into some slippers and raised , stretching every limp and some pop noises where to hear. He grimaced a bit and  took an deep breath, relaxing his body again.

He smelled warm coffee as he got through the door and into the kitchen what made him smile. It was just a little one, but still a sign of life. A whispered ’thank you’ came out of his mouth, aimed to the one who created those automatic coffee brewer. After some more shuffling over the floor, he opened the cupboard over the washbasin and took one of the cups, placing it aside of the coffee brewer.

He waited until the last drop of the brown liquid has landed into the coffee pot before he grappled  it at the handle, holding it for a while under his nose and smelled the warm elixir that will bring back the life in this lazy body.

He poured the substance into the cup and placed the pot back under the machine, took the now filled cup in his hand and lifted it to his lips, taking a little sip.

Now his smile was growing even bigger and gave a sigh of  relief, followed by the words “Aaah,  that is some good stuff.”

After some more sips, he felt even more awake. His head worked better and so he turned around, eyeing  the room he was inside.

It was a small kitchen, fitting into the small apartment. He took another look through the door. The living room was quiet a mess. Well, that was an understatement. It looked more like someone let a bomb blown up in there. Several clothe parts, bottles and files are lying around on the floor, table, chairs and TV.

He don’t really care about it. He could clean it in no time, but he don’t want to. This was his little mess and he was more or less proud of it. His little kingdom.

Sipping the last bit of coffee out of the cup, he walked to the fridge and opened it, scanning the inside with his eyes to catch something eatable.

But all he found was some milk and two apples. ‘damn...’ he though, ‘forgot to buy stuff yesterday. ‘

The young man sigh at that and took both of the apples out of the fridge and put on of them into his mouth to have a hand free to close the fridge again.

He bite a piece out of the apple and munched it. The taste was sweet, but mostly blocked by the coffee he could still taste on his tongue.

“Curse those ponies, the make me to life healthy.” he mumbled while chewing.

It’s almost five years now since the pony race showed up in the world. Or better, as some people found them. More or less by an accident. Scientists from the new European Federation and the USA used a giant scanner in a mountain and some new satellites to search for some new energy forms in the universe to understand it better and maybe to find a new energy source.

And they found something. But not from outer space. It was and unknown energy, something they never see before. And everyone who knows about humans, knows that they are pretty curious about the unknown.

After adjusting and recalibrating the system and the high-tech research satellite with almost the same capability, they found the source here on Earth. Or better, in the  middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A research expedition was send, with some ships of the U.S. Navy and the EU, most of them from France and Germany to protect them. Even Russia sent some of their best research ships to help out, after some political discussions.

It was an  almost one week travel before they got close to the source. An drone had been send out to scout ahead, but the signal was lost after it hit some kind of  dome, shining in a blue light, like the water itself was forming the walls.

Several other drones had been send to try to get behind it, but it mostly ended in the same result. Those who got through got lost, or didn’t sent enough data to get any results. Thus the politicians and military set up and blockade and research ships began their work to figure out why there is a wall, what is it made of and, more important, who made it. Some people got pretty nervous about it because there was no way to hide such a big deployment of military and civil research ships from the media. That means that there was no other choice.

The media got involved.

After this big story had been send all over the world, the people... well, some got excited because they thought they will meet aliens, other reacted to this with panic.  Streets full of  citizens who want to know how long the government had known about it and other crap like that. And some just didn’t cared that much about it and continued to live their lives.

Days became weeks, and weeks became month. And then, in the third month, something happened. Not on the ocean, but on the land. All nation which sent ships, the USA, the European Federation and Russia, all became an letter. But not over the official way. The letters were on the table in the offices of each leader of those nations.

No one had been seen who could have brought them. All that had been found was a little rest of the same kind of energy on the letters like the one which creates the wall.

He don’t know what was written in those letters exactly, no one ever told him.

He didn’t cared that much about such things at this time anyway. He was an soldier in this time, followed orders. More important, he was one of the first who saw what happened at day X, close and personal. Because he was an war hero of the European Federation he had to be there to greet the leader of this new world which popped up from nowhere.

What an honour.

The meeting was in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.

Everything had been prepared in a rush, always checking again if everything was ready, food, tables, microphone, speakers, all in front of the building. And then there it was, in the horizon.

Wars, riots, aid projects... but nothing could have prepared him for this day.

A pure white shining, like the sun itself was coming to them. It became weaker and then he saw a golden cart, pulled by two pegasi which wear golden armour. He slapped himself to check if he was dreaming.

He talked with the security and air control later, but no one saw or detected something until it was already within sight. His head aches for weeks every time he tired to understand how that was possible.

But today he had to laugh a little as he though about it. Everyone was expecting something like a space ship, or a teleportation device or other high-tech but not an cart pulled by two winged horses and especially not magic. Sorry, he mean ponies of course.

Almost five years and he is still not used to it.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember every part of this day. He saw in his inner eye how the cart landed on the in front of the building, surrounded by reporter, civilians and military personal. It was a nice view, no doubt. But what cached his eyes even stronger was that figure in the cart.

The leader of Equestria, her highness herself. And, damn, what a eye catcher. Don’t judge him. When do you see an pony with the size of a horse with wings and a horn on the forehead, a completely perfect figure, without imperfection or flaw, her fur completely clean and well kept, and her eyes just the right mix of caring and commanding, giving off a regal air? If he didn’t had that amount of discipline he had that day, he would have stand there with open mouth right in front of her. She introduced herself as Princess Celestia and with her was her faithful student... what was her name? Something with Twilight. Twilight Sparkle. He probably forgot it because it made him thinking about that old movie with some kind  of sparkling, emo vampire. She wasn’t such an eye catcher like the princess, but still cute. A little, pretty talkative and inquisitive pony. He liked the little chat he had with her, even tough she was bombarding him with questions. But he did never told her why and for what he got all those medals on his chest. He didn’t wanted to ruin the mood too soon. With her was a baby dragon named Spike. He began to like that little buddy as he showed the same happiness about to be here just as Alex did. They talked for a while and after some time a real man-to-man friendship was build between them. They even talked about girls, a topic where Alex wondered how such a baby dragon knows that much about them anyway. He will figure it out someday, maybe.

The meeting was over after five hours of talking with the diplomatic representative of the world nations and a little dinner in the end. Thinking about it, maybe it was a little unpleasant to have meat to dinner when the guest is an powerful pony who is also the leader of a nation. They were able to get around that topic luckily.

Swallowing the last piece of apple he tossed the rest of both into the trash. He missed his days back in the military some days. He left, one year ago and wanted to have some time to relax, getting his though together.

He picked up his pants on the floor in the living room on his way back to the bedroom. He wonders how it ended it up there, slipped into them and tries not to fall on his way. In the bedroom, he put on his shirt and vest, pat down each poked to make sure he got everything where is belongs.

He stopped as someone knocked on the entrance door, followed by a voice. “Hey, Alexander! Are you awake already or still dead?”

He know that voice, thus he had no problem to response that question with “Halt’s Maul, Gaul!”, and closed the belt of his pants. It was easy to hear the giggle even through the still closed door.

“Come on, hurry up already! It’s almost 7:00! You know that the taxi comes today!” Alex sighs at that.

Mumbling something, the human walked to the door and pushed the handle down, opening it to let his friend in.

He wasn’t surprised that his friend looked like a pony. A brown earth pony with black mane and tail, and a pony on his flanks who wears an karate outfit which represented his cutie mark. Around his neck was a silver necklace. He was once an human like Alex, but he got converted. Sometimes he asks himself if he should ask him why he did that step, but he don’t want to open up old wounds. ‘Some day’, he thought.

The conversion was an option Celestia was offering to the humans to get into Equestria. They said, Equestrias magic field was dangerous to the health of humans, but that was never been tested. He wondered if there is any trough behind that. After five years, there were only 2 million people converted. More or less. No idea what those ponies thought as they opened those conversion centers. Each cost a few thousand dollars, and now many of those just standing around in the cities, empty and abandon.

“I hope you are ready Alex, I don’t want that we have to run to the taxi. Again.”  Alex gave him an little evil glare but nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Everything is ready.” He walked into his bedroom again and returned with two big suitcases. Filip noticed how Alex gave him a look, then at his suitcases, then back at him.

“Hey, Marc, would you like to...”

“...no.”

“But they are heavy, and you are a...”

Filip gave his human friend a stern look, one that could melt ice in seconds.

“I said no. I almost broke my back the last time I agreed to carry something from you.”

Alex just raised a eyebrow at him “Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You jumped on my back!” the pony screamed at him. Alex couldn’t hold back and laughed for a moment. “Heh, yeah. You was like, ‘Oh no, my back, my poor back!’ And I was like ‘Take it like a man!’ He sighs happy. “That was awesome...” Filip just shook his head “You are crazy.” Alex smiled wide and nod “Yeah, I am.... But enough of that. Just let me prepare my home and then we can go.”

Filip nod. He turned around and walked through the door again, leaving Alex alone. “Just hurry up already.” Alex gave him a little wave and trotted back in his bedroom. He let his eyes wander, checking if everything was prepared for his long trip. The flowers and other plants getting regular visits of his neighbour who got a second key, every electrical device, clock, TV, computer is turned off...

He made his bed quick and moved through his living room into the kitchen and did the same there. His fridge is empty and turned off, everything was clean. As good as it can be, at least. It’s a apartment for singles, what do you expect?

The bathroom was done fast, there wasn’t much to do as just to turn of the water. Last station was the living room. After he make sure that everything is prepared, he took his suitcases and did on last look around. He gathered many memories about his life in here. Some good... others not so good. His eyes stopped at a picture of his family. His mom and dad, and big brother and little sister where on it. And he between them. He was not older than 17 as they made it. The year he joined the army. He misses them.

Which reminds him of the taxi. Not that Filip don’t want to talk with him anymore just because he missed it. He grabbed his cases at the handle bar and got through the door of his apartment. They made a loud noise as he put them on the ground again to close his door. He turned the key twice and put it back in his vest. With the cases back in his hands, he slued around. Marco waited already with his saddlebacks and got on his hooves again, walked with Alex at his side towards the exit of the building.

A apartment in the first floor, how many people can say they where that lucky.

It was just a short walk and both didn’t anything. The only thing that remain was the smile on Filip muzzle and the expressionless look on the face Alex.

They walked through the double door and the taxi was already in front of it. The driver waited outside and leans against his car. He raised his head to the pair which just walked out of the building. “Bauer and Branco?” asked the men, somewhere between the thirty and forty. Alex nod “Yeah, thats us.” The men walked behind the taxi and opened the trunk. Alex and Filip laid their luggage into it. Then walked Alex to the passenger door, Filip to the side door, behind Alex, who opens it for his four legged friend.

“Ladies first.” he said with a smile.

Filip gave him another stern look. But he did a little jump into the car, and laid down on the back seat with his side. This taxi was one of the older ones, not designed for ponies. Alex put the seatbelt over Filips belly. After making sure that his friend won’t fly around by a crash, he closed the door and took his seat aside of the driver, also strapped with the belt.

The taxi driver turned his car on again and asked “So, where does it go?”

“To the Hamburg Airport, please. Channel 6.” answered Alex. The driver nod and pushed the gas pedal down with his feet. The electric motor came to life and the car moved slowly forward while the driver pushed a few buttons on a screen, starting the Taximeter and the GPS.

Filip looked at his friend. “Hey Alex... are you alright?”. Alex didn’t look back at him, he just turned his head a bit until the side of his face was to see. “Yeah... it’s okay.” Then he turned his face to the other side, looking out of the window. “Guess, this is it... right?”. Filip thought a bit about it before he said “... it’s just one year. It will be over in no time.”

Alex did a long sigh noise and leaned back in the seat. ‘One year can be pretty long’ he thought. ‘Especially when you have to live with some childlike and colourful ponies.’

The taxi drive towards the uprising sun, and to a new, unknown future for human and pony kind alike.

“...Filip...”

“Yes, Alex?”

“Stop kicking my seat.”