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T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
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CROSS THE AMAZON
By Chatoyance
Chapter Two: Nursery Songs
Stratigraphic Palynology is a branch of biostratigraphy - applying geological and evolutionary principles to the understanding of sedimentary sequences and the geological record. It is also a very poor alternative to three solid months of what amounted to paid vacation at the bottom of a mine.
Dr. Calloway Kotani was doing what he did best - playing SlaughterStrike 5. Three was great, four was a terrible disappointment with all the intrusive in-game ads and government propaganda - plus they nerfed sniper rifles - but 'SlaughterStrike 5' was uber. The game featured modern tracking and guided ordnance, sniping was back better than ever, and the ads were gone. The new MicroSony Mk. 6 Mindsets had neural reciprocation, which meant that - to a limited degree - the sensations of touch and smell were included. Never had napalm smelled so much like victory - or smelled at all. It was incredible.
While Dr. Kotani danced in his exceptionally comfy chair, looking about madly, holding his hands out at odd angles, a food replicator was busy manufacturing him a pastrami on rye. The printing head noisily burped out nanostructed pseudomeat paste in controlled patterns. Soon another layer of pastrami would be completed. Once the bread was printed, the completed sandwich would be selectively processed, providing for hot toasted bread, but cold pastrami slices. Calloway preferred yellow mustard to deli, a terrible flaw in his personality that he felt properly embarrassed by.
The sandwich meal pattern included a pickle, already manufactured, and a Coke in a glass bottle. The coke was being printed in Kotani's beverage printer, the bottle was almost done. Glass took longer, but Calloway preferred the verisimilitude - and everything was on the Worldgovernment credstick in any case, so it wasn't like there was any reason to not splurge.
Next to the food printers were several bins overflowing with empty bottles and plates, forks and spoons and not a few hashi. Kotani had the latter printed in neowood, the most expensive variant. Again, government credits, why not? The bins were never going to get recycled - this part of the planet would, eventually, someday, become part of that Equestria thing. Saving resources was pointless anymore.
Inside the virtual battlefield, Commander Rockbiter - Calloway thought his handle was clever and literary - scrambled over the burning ruins of a walking tank and draped himself over one of the machine's six legs. It was an excellent sniping position, the tangle of broken legs and pressure hoses created a visually complex background for him to vanish within. His virtual body was clad in skin-tight adaptive camouflage, automatically it matched the pattern of the walking tank exactly.
The enemy in the latest Slaughterstrike was an A.I. uprising. The artificial intelligences used robot bodies based on extinct animals like panthers and lions - they were fast, dangerous, and very sneaky. But the enemy side also used holographic bodies too, and countless other cutting edge tricks. Camping had gone from being something loathed to a standard and accepted practice. The player that ran about served only one use - to tell his watchful team where the monsters were.
The monsters, for their part, were controlled by other players all around what was left of the globe. Slaughterstrike 5 was an asymmetrical war - the human team camped and crept, slowly and carefully, playing a suspenseful hiding game. The robot army player enjoyed fast movement, quick strikes, strong armor, and the death of a thousand nibbling ducks. Because no player's position was ever revealed, not even when capped, the game was tense, risky, and balanced between stealth and ferocity. Calloway loved the new iteration.
Kotani - Commander Rockbiter - looked down and around at the weed-covered hills. His position was well hidden, but all it would take is one mechanical snake, or spider, or big cat to julienne his fries. Carefully he raised his intelligent sniper rifle to his eyes, and sank into the very private world of fragging-at-enormous-distance. He became the watchful eye that brought wrath from nowhere. He had become death, implacable, unseen everywhere and nowhere, the ultimate doom of all...
Startled, he dropped the rifle, the intelligent scope electronically crying 'WHYYYY?" as it fell into the weeds. He was under attack! A machine cat! A robot snake! All over, it was all over... god that felt real. There it was again! He was being poked and prodded! Oh sweet Buddha, the neural feedback was incredibly realistic and... wait a minute...
There was absolutely nothing around him. He looked up, down, all around... nothing. Just the destroyed walking tank, and the endless sea of dead weeds. A glitch? Was there an error in the Mindset? Ow! That one hurt! Right in the breadbasket. Ulp. What the friggin' hell? Something was physically in the tunnel with him! It was jabbing at his real body! AUUUGGHH!
Calloway tore the Mindset from his head. As his ears cleared the helmet-like device, he heard an overly cute, unhuman voice.
"Doctor Kotani! Calloway! You've just got to... oh! Come on! Hurry!"
Calloway stared in surprise and not a little disoriented shock. The fear that a giant mutie-rat had been trying to get through his clothing in order to dine on his liver resolved into annoyance. The voice belonged to a diminutive unicorn mare. Blue-gray with a mane of some shade of strawberry blond with orange highlights. Her magenta eyes looked impatient and worried. Calloway carefully set the Mindset down. "Excuse me?!?"
Dropspindle stomped her hoof. "Doctor Kotani? Are you doctor Calloway Kotani?" The mare's ears flicked with annoyance. "It doesn't matter who you are, you're still human... listen to me carefully: the Barrier is coming!"
Calloway slumped into his comfy chair, now doubly annoyed. His heart was still pounding. It was some pony trying to convince him to get Converted early. God how rude. He was right in the middle of his game. Never sneak up on a person in VR! It scares the shit out of... sigh. "I am certain your heart is in the right place... whoever you are... but I assure you that I fully intend to Conver..."
"NO! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Dropspindle's tail snapped at her hocks like a whip. "We have to run. Flee. The pegabus won't wait any longer, the Barrier is..."
"Pega...bus?" This wasn't the usual 'Go Home, Go Pony' proselytizer Calloway might run into in the market when he went for treats and supplies. How long had it been since he'd even gone up to the surface? Time was different at the bottom of a mine. Long time. Weeks. Maybe months? The pegabuses weren't supposed to come until the very last... uh oh. "What day is it?" Kotani shook his head. "Month. I mean month. What month is..."
"COME ON!"
The little unicorn mare had actually grabbed his hand and forearm in her hornfield. They weren't supposed to do that to humans. Pony telekinetics could leave thaumatic burns. Calloway's arm began to itch. "Hey!"
The field fell instantly. "Sorry! But you have to start running. Now! The pegabuses are leaving. It's the last day!"
Calloway Kotani looked around his installation in the mine tunnel. His desks, his quantum deskset, the food replicators, his Mindset, his games, the twin cases of real, actual vodka that had been a gift from an upper executive. The piles and piles that overflowed from the trash bins. In the dim lights everything appeared just like it had always been for a seeming forever of time. How long had he been drifting away down here? He'd quite forgotten everything but his enjoyment. No troubles, no demands. In a mine, time itself just vanished into the darkness.
"It's really the last day? Already?" Calloway stood up, shocked at how he could lose track of time so completely. The A.I. in the quantum set should have... oh. Yeah... he'd shut the thing up because it nagged... great Buddha of compassion... this was... he had overslept for the end of the world!
"RUN! NOW!" Dropspindle had suffered entirely enough of this filthy, rather smelly human. His clothing was stinky with old booze and artificial food competing for dominance with his own primate odors. Hygiene had not been a priority for this cave-dwelling ape.
Calloway found himself running. He still wasn't entirely sure why, or what was going on. He felt like he was awakening from a very long dream.
"W-what... what... who are you anyway?" One moment Calloway had been playing, the next there was a pony in his space and now he was running somehow.
"Dro... my name is... Dropspindle. I came... came to get you! You're still human!" It was hard to breathe, it was always hard to breath, Huancabamba was very high above sea level and somehow, in the human's world, this meant that the air would be thin. For some reason. The human's realm was insane. Who would make a universe where there ever wouldn't be enough air to breathe? Insanity! "Do... do you h-have one of those... kits?"
Kits? She must mean an emergency transport flask like the Blackmesh carried. He hadn't been given one because he wasn't actually supposed to have been in Huancabamba long enough to make such a thing necessary. He'd been abusing his contract in order to enjoy a stolen vacation. "N-no! No Kits!"
"Wouldn't... have... time anyway." Dropspindle barely avoided the broken minecart and sidestepped it only at the last moment. "N-need like... half an hour... anyway... to change. Don't have it."
Kotani ran a little faster. Not even a half an hour? What the flying hell? The Barrier couldn't possibly be that close! Could it? "Y-you're... you're not kidding... are you?"
Dropspindle couldn't even shake her head. She could only run, her lungs burning in her barrel.
The human and the pony ran up the incline of the floor of the tunnel, past blocked-off side passages, until sunlight burned their eyes. Blinking and struggling to see clearly, Calloway stumbled into daylight for the first time in at least three months. God, had it been that long? "The sky..."
"That's not sky. Now KEEP MOVING!" Dropspindle raised a foreleg and gave the human a prod on the flank. "Go!"
Kotani was running again, clumsily. Everything was much too bright, and the gray of the smog layer had been replaced with a remarkably clear sky divided in half. One portion was blue, a blue he had only seen once, during a visit to Bogota. The city had entirely gone pony, and the pegasai had cleaned the sky entirely.
The other half of the sky was not sky at all. At least not earthly sky. It was pale teal, a bluish-green realm with strange, spiraled clouds and a truly yellow sun larger than a hand held at arm's length. The alien sky shimmered and rippled as if it were under water. The Barrier. He was staring at the Great Barrier of Equestria.
And it was near. It was near in the way that hurricanes should never be, in the manner that one sees a raging volcano for the Very Last Time. It was on land, it was rushing towards him. The air felt thick, the pressure rising as the Barrier crushed against the very atmosphere of the planet itself. The hairs on his arms stood up, as if under the force of static charges. No human being should ever witness the Barrier this close. Kotani began checking his arms for black spots, for thaumatic burns.
"We don't have time for that! RUN, you foolish monkey!"
Calloway ran.
The pair made it down the hillside, and to the edge of town. They ran through the yards of abandoned shack houses. Both had to stop by the road that ran around the outskirts to catch their breath in the thin Peruvian air. Panting, they sucked at the sky like dying fish on the land. Finally, the searing within their lungs calmed. They ran again. Down the street, through an alley shortcut that Dropspindle indicated, and then down another street. They stopped again, heaving with exhaustion. Their limbs ached, their hearts felt as if they would burst. The altitude was murder. It seemed only the natives ever truly got used to it.
Around the corner by the Vergin Del Carmen. Across the broken boulevard. Down the main street, past the empty bar, around the final corner, gasping, into the huge lot where...
The pegabuses were not.
I know that the ponification process is controversial for what it does to the mind. I know that some people say that it strips you of your essential humanity, while others say that only the unnecessary parts are changed, and it's the same "you" inside. For my part, I've always been ambivalent; I honestly don't know if the ability to kill is or is not a necessary part of being who we are. But please--Oh please!--tell me that the potion, in the glory its cross-world innovative techno-magic, can right this wrong, can fix this flaw, can correct this gross error of a cruel mechanical universe toward one of an ordered magical one:
6133044
I was going to say sadly no... but then I remembered that real life pony noses are 20,000 times more sensitive than human ones - and that I have portrayed Newfoals as gaining this incredible new world of sensory input when they become Equestrians. It's part of what makes First Meal As A Pony so spectacular.
So, with that said, yes. I think Calloway, as a pony, would definitely prefer deli mustard on his
pastramidandelion and watercress sandwiches.OK, so we have a not-terribly-athletic unicorn (she's pooped out already) and a couch-potato who just spent the last few months eating junk food and playing video games at the bottom of a mine. They have to run across the Amazon Desert, complete with mountains and other fun stuff, staying ahead of the Barrier. Mountain climbing is slow, so they'd better make good time before they get there. When (if?) they get to the other side... um, I dunno? They're even further out in the Exponential Lands then, so they can't just go through the Barrier even if they find some Potion. I guess they have to find a settlement that hasn't been evacuated yet and get on a pegabus, with a minimum 30 minute lead-time to get the conversion done. I hope they have some extra seats left.
...
Hey, I've seen this movie! It was the Crematoria sequence in Chronicles of Riddick!
6132181
Ah well that explains why you didn't start back up with Fiddler's Green. Still it does make me want to ask two questions now. If its not too much of a bother.
1. What kinda trouble you referring too? Sorry but I didn't quite understand what ferret nothing new though I don't understand half of this stuff. Just not my area of expertise.
2. When you say last novel does that mean that after that one your gonna stop writing conversion bureau stories? (if so I'm sorry to hear that I always loved your stories and to think the end is in sight makes sad )
Anyway I thought you said before that for the most part people ate these nutribar things in this time period, but now you show Calloway possessing something akin to a Star Trek replicator so now I'm a bit confused.
6133044
Some forms of blindness transcend the boundaries of sapience and good taste, and for those afflicted, the conversion process is still a crap-shoot, a desperate wait to see if one will still prefer the yellow abomination to the zesty goodness of REAL mustard. As a Montrealer, I weep for those who would desecrate a good Smoked Meat Sandwich (or even its lesser incarnation, the pastrami on rye - and it HAS to be rye) with anything lesser than deli mustard. Oh, the very thought of it!
Great chapter, Chat! Of course I saw the end coming, but the whole vision of our pasty little gamer galumphing IRL to the long gone pegabuses did pull at my heartstrings, a nostalgic reminder of my own parenting years when our home would reverberate with the sweet phrase "Get your butt in gear - you're going to miss your bus!" in three separate languages.
Dr. Kotani should be ashamed of his taste in mustards. Some things are sacred, regardless of the deities or lack thereof of a given universe.
Rockbiter, eh? Appropriate. After all, his world and his good, strong hands will soon be lost forever due to circumstances far beyond his control. Though in this case, from an Equestrian perspective, the Nothing is the one getting wiped out.
As far as "oh, crap" lines go, "That's not sky" is very high up there. As is the last line, in this context. Let the race begin!
6133431 As a New Yorker, the same. Would such mustard be suitable for a knish? And even a pony could eat a knish.
6133397
Oh, no, not a Star Trek replicator. A food printer. Like the devices now, only better - they work like the replicators that spray plastic dust and then utilize lasers to melt and solidify it into shapes. 3D printers are often called replicators. Likely after Trek... but nothing like that level of tech. There's no matter conversion - just dust crap into patterns and then steam, bake, or laser it solid.
Kotani's food printer uses food goop instead of plastic, but the principle is the same. Such devices actually exist right now, by they way. The food they make sucks, but that's not the point. They show what could be.
Kotani is an upper level Twoper. He's blue level, not like characters such as poor Tikvah Feinstein from Teacup, Down On The Farm, or even the green level Twoper Gwen Boik from Recombinant 63. He gets an expense account, and he can order goodies from Googlezon. Why? Because Palynologists find oil and other resources that the elite desperately desire. Kotani interfaces with lesser elite clients. He has, in the Bureau future, a very desirable place compared to most people. That is why he can get away with stealing a free vacation from the Worldcorporation.
6133449
You must have the most amazing life experiences stored up. Truly you are... Dafaddah.
6133431
Goddess, but I miss a really good pastrami on rye with a touch of deli mustard. They don't have any delicatessens where I now live. The horror. The horror...
I may never taste borscht again.
The hoooorrrrrroooooorrrrr.
Hodor?
6133864
A potato knish! Fried in onions and serve with fresh cream cheese! The ponies would go
apehorse over it!6134048
You had already told me of your deprivations since moving, but Chat, I had no idea! At least tell me you can get a real croissant. (Shudders)
6133397
I noticed she didn't answer your questions. To speculate on the point of question 1: One does not expand a universe from the planet-sized to the galaxy-spanning size Equestria does in seven years without attracting unsavoury attention from the multiverse at large.
6133397 Shame on you for not answering him, you made me wax speculation.
6134449
Yeah I know she didn't my guess is that at least in regards to the second question the reason she didn't is cause she doesn't want to give away what she's planning. Anyway my guess is that after Fiddler's Green the focus of her tcb stories is gonna shift to the threat she is alluding to in that story and away from actual conversion stories and new foals adapting to there new identities. I think it will be that plus her exploring her version of Equestria. At least that's what I think
Either way probably shouldn't speculate on it just yet since we don't know how many stories she has lined up before she finishes Fiddler's Green. It could be years tell she get's to the point given her usual pace of writing.
As far as what you suggested that actually makes a lot of sense if other beings like Celestia and Luna exist in this version of the multiverse. For all we know the rapid expansion may attract all manners of malevolent beings. Example maybe Cthulu and the great old ones will drop in on Equestria or something.
Also Westphalian it might help if you reply to her for the second part of your message rather then to me again.
6134035
Ah I see well I guess that makes. Although suddenly I feel far less compassion for Calloway then I did before (he lives high on the corporate hog while most people struggle to survive, disgraceful he is without honor)
Anyway interesting I didn't know we had such technology in existence right now. Although I imagine said device is extremely expansive, is ginormous and barely works.
6134623 Fecal matter, I thought I'd done that. Editing messages doesn't send out a notification, so...
6134035 As I said above, shame on you for not answering the gentleman Nine Tail's questions, leaving me to wax speculation.
6134205
Actually, I sort of can. Not the best I have ever had, mind you, but decent, and as far as I can tell, made with actual butter. Oh Celestia, but I miss a knish. You just made me hungry for a nosh. A knish-nosh worth the dosh. Gosh!
6134623
For objects manufactured on the desktop:
https://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html
Food:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/05/us-israel-meals-on-demand-tracked-idUSKBN0NQ1PG20150505
YUP!
6134623
Not only do 3D printers exist, but the prices have been coming down fast. The Tiko 3D will sell this fall for cheaper than a consumer color laser printer (under $200), for example. The state of the art in GOOD food printing is sugar and chocolate printing, cause it's far easier and the taste is defined by the raw materials. There is even a basic food printer that appears to be coming out at $1300 soon. Prices are most definitely coming down on these things.
Regardless of the state of the art, or the price... I'll leave you to drool at this!
icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/3d-systems-chefjet-3d-printed-sugar-cake-topper-blue-china-1-1500x1000.jpg
That is one tasty, sexy cake topper!
Dropspindle should have left Kotani. He would have died in blissful ignorance. The Chatoverse TCB has established in other stories that being vaporized against the Barrier is about as pleasant a way to go out as one could hope for. Maybe that's not common knowledge, though. I mean, how would the information ever get back to anyone?
Of course, if she'd left him, we also wouldn't have much of a story, now would we?
6135271
Holy Luna that is a beautiful piece of foodprinted artwork! I would feel bad daring to eat it! Wow!
Thank you for showing us that!
6135281
Ah, that infinite Dunbar number my Equestrians possess. Dropspindle could no more leave poor Dr. Kotani to die - even painlessly, like gentle leaves of ash on the wind - than she could have left her own beloved mother... or herself.
"And that is what separates the apes from the ponies, boys - your basic shaved ape is about as likely to leave you to your doom if nobody is watching and helping is inconvenient as they are to rip you off in any financial deal. Which is to say pretty much always. Man is in it to win it, whatever it takes. But your essential pony - now there's a queer beast! - your basic pony would no more leave an unfortunate to fate than they would rip out their own eyeballs for sport. Ponies just can't do that, and that is why we will win!" - Leonard Reich, Northamerizone commander of the Human Liberation Front.
6135386
Well speaking through the voice of my avatar Tristem Saris I have this to say to Mr. Leonard Reich:
"And that is why you failed. A group or any organization who's members cannot work together and give up on there own selfish desires is doomed to fail at any goal it pursues. Instead of emphasizing how you were different from the ponies you should have instead took a page from their book and used their tactics. A great war strategists should never hesitate you adopt their enemies weapons and tactics and use them." - Battle Mage Tristem Saris Nidowan Union special forces "Radical Dreamers" CN 1,034 (3284 AD)
In case your wondering what this is Tristem is a character from a group of stories I wrote back when I was a teenager the series aim was to try and envision what a future space faring human civilization would look like although as you can see I mixed fantasy elements in as well. Sadly I've lost all of the writings on that at this point. I am trying to revive it as of late though.
6135361 Oh, don't worry, you can always print another!
6135751
I am very sorry to hear that you lost your writings. That is a terrible thing to happen. I've lost artworks before - some to a hard drive crash, some to moving, or to water damage (depending on the media!) and... losing something you've worked hard on is a tragedy.
I agree with Tristem - your battle mage is a wise warrior. It sounds like you too have read the Art Of War, or perhaps the Book Of Five Rings. Good on you.
6138029
Equestria is a steady-state pocket universe that wraps around in a finite-but-unbounded way. The dome of the sky is the lowest layer of the ground. Dig down far enough and you would fall from the dome of the sky. The 'shape' is - I believe - an elliptic paraboloid with Canterlot Castle at the vertex, or perhaps the focus. Please forgive me if my terms are rusty, which I am sure they are. It's possible I am describing a pseudosphere instead.
Basically, it is an elliptical cone of finite area where the underside wraps hyperdimensionally to become a sandwich layer over the initial surface. The sky is the underside of the conical area. The 'edges' of the cone are capable of expansion, the focus of the cone is not and remains stable.
If you can more correctly define this, please do! My math is my weakest component. I suck eggs at math, even as I am entranced by the pretty shapes. Especially the shapes with more dimensions than are possible in our world. Help, if you can.
6138170
Ah so basically its like a Minecraft world that's interesting to know.
6136027
Anyway sorry I never responded to your previous comment couldn't really think of anything to say, I apologize in advance if it comes off poorly. to confirm your assumption yes I have read the Art of War. Although that particular piece of tactical knowledge which my avatar quoted is actually from old Roman Legion tactics. The Romans were often notable early on for there adoption of their enemies weapons and tactics at least during the time of the early republic. Anyway just thought I'd share that since you seemed interested.
Also no worries about losing those stories fortunately I remember most of them. So who knows one of these days I might rewrite them.
6135856 I was gonna say!
6138170 I'm not sure of the 4th dimensional math either, but if it wraps around like that, Canterlot could be at both the vertex (point of highest curvature on the ground) AND the focus (point off the curve/surface with a particular mathematical relationship to it depending on the type of curve).
6135124
I know I'm catching up on this (life's been a little rough lately with work), but I saw the bit here about knish...
Would this be of any help? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sarahs-knish/
6135386 I feel like Jack "we don't leave our people behind" O'Neill would have words for this 'commander'. I wonder how a crossover between TCB and SG-1 would turn out, given the obvious alternatives to 'convert or die' the Stargate presents.
Well, at least Calloway wasn't playing your setting's equivalent of Sid Meier's Civilization, else I don't think we'd have much of a story as he couldn't stop taking turns. I also all-too know how he feels about having people come up on you when you're focused on a game hehe.
Typing of Civilization; just one...more...chapter!
...and I greatly misjudged the character of our protagonist. He's a slacker.
A really, really dumb slacker.
A really, really dumb and really, really careless slacker.
Seriously, I know this guy has to be intelligent, he's some kind of archaeologist, not that it matters now, but he doesn't have a lick of common sense.
A really, really dumb and really, really careless and totally bucking bucked slacker.
11502825
This made me laugh. It reminded me of a radio sketch called 'The Ballad Of Irving'.