The Conversion Bureau: Dinner Among Friends

by Mray

Act I: Part II

The Conversion Bureau: Dinner Among Friends

Act I, Part II

A ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’ Fan Fiction by Mray

Original concept from “THE CONVERSION BUREAU” by Blaze

From the Author: Any feedback or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Act I, Part II

-0.28 A.F.C. (Two weeks later) DFW Metroplex, Texas-

Saul straitened his tie as he stepped out of the old Diesel/electric hybrid, hitting the lock button and closing the door behind him as he walked toward the entrance to the restaurant. He squinted his eyes as he looked over the parking lot, the sunlight glinting and reflecting off the few cars and the half dozen bicycles at the nearby rack stinging his eyes, before he smirked, “First as usual,” he said to himself as he pushed against the aging wooden door of the building, stepping inside. He quickly removed his hat and jacket, hanging them on the nearby rack before stepping into the restaurant proper, nodding to the hostess, and heading for his and Alan’s usual booth. As he sat down, David arrived with a glass of coke, a basket of rolls, and two pieces of cornbread, “Thanks man,” Saul smiled, before looking at the drink, “Am I really that predictable?”

“After once every two weeks for six years? Yes.” The waiter smiled back, “Should I just put in you and Alan’s orders now or…?”

“Go with the ‘or,’” The man responded, voice flat, though he had a grin plastered across his face as David walked away. Saul took a long sip of the soft drink, then grabbed the two cornbread squares from the basket at the center of the table and began to spread butter over them.

As he did so, he looked around the rest of the building. The booth’s position, in the corner, on a raised dais, combined with his own seat’s back being toward the wall allowed him to see the entire rest of the dining floor, along with the bar. Despite it being a Friday evening, the restaurant was nearly empty. A pair of families sat at two tables on the other side of the building, along with a quartet of teens at another booth, a young couple off cuddling in a dark corner, and a man at the bar, nursing a beer. Saul’s eyes shifted between each group in turn as he set down the two pieces, waiting for the butter to melt and soak into the porous appetizers, drinking as he did so.

He sat there like that for roughly ten minutes, David arriving with a fresh glass when he’d drained his first, before he saw a blur outside the window to his left, and smiled. Alan burst into the entryway, bike helmet still strapped to his head as he looked to the coat rack and sighed. He removed his helmet and hung it on the rack before entering and heading for the table, “How do you always get here first?” He asked, pushing his eyeglasses up and glaring at his friend, though the corner of his mouth twitched, threatening to turn into a smile.

“It’s called a car,” Saul grinned back.

“Yeah right,” Alan huffed in response, “I left twenty minutes early this time, and you still got here ahead of me. Explain that!”

Saul merely shrugged, sliding the bread-plate with the twin slices toward him across the table, “If it’s any consolation, I saved you first pick of the cornbread.”

“You do that every time,” Alan said, but picked up one of the squares, and bit half of it off as Saul picked up the bottle of honey that came with each basket, squeezed a small amount onto his own slice, and took a small bite, “So,” Alan began, finally smiling as he swallowed his first chomp before casually tossing the rest of his half into his mouth, “Life as a hated man still treating you alright?” He finished, grabbing a roll from the basket and tearing it in half, beginning to butter it.

The other young man smiled as he swallowed, the soft, savory corn-meal practically dissolving in his mouth, barely needing to be chewed. “I keep telling you, I’m not hated. The agency is. I’m just severely disliked.”

“You keep telling yourself that taxman.”

Saul only grinned in response, “At least it’s secure, you know the old saying, ‘Nothing can be said to be certain but…’”

“You’re right, you’re right, I DO know the old saying,” Alan grinned as he shook his head, placing the two halves of roll together, “Seriously though, how’ve you been? I haven’t heard from you since last time.” He asked, lifting the recombined roll to his mouth before pausing, “Is…is it about…”

“No,” Saul immediately said, taking another bite “Well, in a way…but not how you’re thinking.” The human placed the last bit of the cornbread into his mouth, chewing it for the small amount it required, tasting the butter and honey spread across the fluffy morsel before swallowing and washing it down with a gulp of soda.

Alan was silent, taking a large bite out of his roll, waiting for his friend to elaborate.

“I’ve been having a lot of extra work lately,” Saul finally continued, setting down his glass, “Apparently quite a few people are simply up and leaving for the coast to get…what’s the term they’re using for it…” He paused.

“Ponified.”

“Ponified, that’s it! In any case, they’re not setting their affairs in order before they skip town,” He shook his head, “Though from what I’m seeing, that’s part of the idea.”

“How do you figure?”

“What do I do for a living?”

“Oh…” Alan paused for a moment, pressing the rest of the roll into his mouth and chewing it up, “How many?”

“Four in the past week.”

Alan tilted his head, “That doesn’t sound so bad…don’t you go through about nine accounts a week.”

“Those are foreclosures, debt collections, or, at worst, back-tax audits,” Saul rubbed his temples, closing his eyes for a moment before picking up and draining his glass, “Relatively simple. With undeclared ponification, I have to find out what happened to them, fill out the paperwork to have their assets transferred to the Comptroller’s Office of Abandoned Property, withdraw money from their accounts to cover their debt and final taxes or, as was the case with two of my guys, they have too little cash in their combined accounts to pay off the creditors, and I need to fill out the paperwork to have their property liquidated, then to have it appraised, then finding an available, agency approved appraiser, then the paperwork to ask to set the price, then the paperwork to set the price, and…” Saul drifted off as he looked and gave a long, puffed sigh, “Sorry, I’m ranting, suffice to say it’s a lot of work, on top of my regular schedule.”

“You’d think they’d have a new agency to work all of that out.”

“They do, the National Conversion Bureau Commission, in fact, they give you the paperwork right before you check in for conversion” He shook his head again, “But they only have jurisdiction in New England, where the Bureaus are. So, that leaves guys like me at the IRS&DDC to clean up the mess.”

Alan leaned forward, “Is it that hard?”

“No, just tedious and drawn out. Most of the work is research into stuff the mark would already know, and the fact that there’s a lot more paperwork involved with transferring all those funds without the express written consent of the person.” Saul went to drink but found his glass empty, and frowned as he set it down and sighed, “They could literally fill out the forms necessary to cover everything in twenty minutes, without any consequences, where as I need at least twelve hours of research and filling out forms to achieve the same effects...still, I suppose I should expect as much…”

“Don’t start,” Saul’s smile came back at the command, the familiarity of old arguments coming to the fore. He leaned forward, raised his hand up to gesture, his mouth opening…before the sound of two glasses clicking as they were set on the table distracted him. David had returned with a pair of drinks, another coke for Saul and a glass of ice-water for Alan, “Hello Dave,” Alan said, turning toward the waiter and smirking widely as he glanced quickly back at Saul. Saul closed his mouth, his hand dropping to audibly hit the table as he too turned his attention to the server.

“Am I interrupting?”

“No…no, not really.” Saul said, his tone low, but amicable.

“Right, so, the usual I presume?”

Saul nodded, “Yeah but, switch the side to the sweet potatoes.” The waiter nodded scratching down the order on the ticket rapidly.

“Actually…I think I’ll try something new this week…” Saul and David both turned toward to Alan, who’s smile was thinner as his lips pressed together, his hands turning palm-up. Both the other men sighed and slumped slightly.

“Back in half an hour?”

“Yeah, half an hour.”

“Half an hour.” David set a menu in front of Alan on the table, then turned and headed toward the other side of the restaurant, scratching out an already filled in order on his pad.

Saul watched as the server left, then turned back to Alan, outer eyebrows lowered in a pained expression, “At least tell me you have some idea of what you want.”

“None” Alan grinned, eyes pinching together at the outer corners as he flipped open the menu and began to read. Saul picked up the newest glass of coke and began to drink…

-o-

It was roughly twenty-five minutes later, Alan was now flipping back and forth between two pages of the menu, one side of his mouth drawn up tightly and his eyes narrowed. Saul, in the meantime, had remained quiet off to the side, having since finished the drink given to him by David earlier, along with a second, and now half-way through a third, munching on rolls as he did so. He finally sighed and asked, “Any idea?”

“I can’t pick between the ‘grilled veggie sandwich’ and the ‘garlic shrimp pasta’…”

“Here, we’ll let the chance decide,” Saul said, pulling out a quarter, “Heads for the sandwich, tails for the pasta,” He said, setting the coin on his thumb to be flipped.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“We’ve been over this Saul, I can’t accept heuristics for something like this.”

Saul groaned, his palm reaching up to cover his eyes, “Heuristics is all you HAVE for something like this. You can’t choose between two equal, rough unknowns with a statistical approach.”

“First, the two being equal and unknowns is impossible; the two properties are mutually exclusive. Second, the two are neither equal nor unknown,” His eyes turned back to the menu, “I just haven’t found the significant factor that puts one as more desirable than the other.”

Saul sighed again, “On the first point: You knew what I meant, but I should have phrased it better. On the second,” He began, taking a quick gulp of soda, “There is no significant factor separating the two meals,” He gestured at the menu, “Both have roughly the same amount of nutritional value, both come with the same number of sides, and, I know that you’d find that both of those would taste roughly as good as each other. And…” Saul shifted forward in his seat, “There’s also the fact that heuristics is FASTER.”

“…fine,” Alan said, closing the menu and looking straight at Saul, “Flip the coin.”

His friend did so, the tiny bit of metal spinning through the air, catching the light for a moment before landing on the table, “Tails.”

“Ok,” The young man looked across the restaurant to David over his glasses, nodding to him.

David moved over quickly, “Ready to order?”

“I believe so,” Alan smirked, “I’ll have the Grilled Veggie Sandwich.”

“Wha…?” Saul began, but closed his mouth and leaned back in his seat.

The waiter looked back and forth between the two before shaking his head, “Got it, sides?”

“Well let’s see…” He said, beginning to open the menu again.

“No.”

“No.” The two men had spoken in unison, flatly. Alan merely chuckled and set the accursed packet of cardstock down.

“Kidding, kidding.” He said, “I’ll take the red beans and rice, and…the fried okra.”

David nodded and immediately left for the kitchen with the ticket, his legs moving just quickly enough to not be qualified as walking. Saul meanwhile, looked at Alan, who grinned at him, “Let me guess…” The dark haired human began.

“The significant factor was that one went against your forced heuristic decision, and the other didn’t.” There was a beat of silence between the two, Saul glaring at Alan from across the table, before both young men laughed.

“You drive me crazy sometimes. You know that right?”

“Yeah I know.”

Saul finished his drink, setting the cup at the edge of the table, “So,” he said, leaning forward, “Where were we?”

“You were about to beat on humanity for making your job harder.” Alan’s grin remained as he spoke, going for another roll.

“Right,” Saul chuckled as he took his own roll, the final one in the basket, splitting it in two with his knife and buttering one of the sides, “The moment is kind of gone. What about you? I’ve had my turn complaining for the evening, what about you? How’re classes going?”

Alan frowned as he put his roll back together, “I…” He hesitated, taking a bite to fill the silence as Saul looked on, “I actually stopped attending about a week ago.”

Saul’s smile disappeared and his brow furrowed as he leaned forward on the table, “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Because you’re planning to get ponified?”

Alan nodded, “I just…I don’t see the point in spending my last couple of weeks on two legs chasing A’s,” He said, taking a sip of his water, and another bite of roll, “I mean, this…” He gestured to Saul, and to the surrounding room, “Has pretty much been the extent of my free-time since I started on my Master’s.” He set down his roll on his own bread plate, “Plus, I’d like to take advantage of these,” He lifted his hands and bent his thumbs several times, grinning, “for all they’re worth before I don’t have them anymore.”

“Understandable,” His friend lifted the roll half to his mouth and bit into it, slowly chewing and letting the taste spread over his tongue, lowering the half back down to the table as he did so, swallowing, “When are you planning to leave anyway?”

“A week from Sunday.” He answered.

“How’ve your parents taken it?”

“…”

Saul stopped eating, setting his roll down fully on his plate, “Alan…”

“They haven’t.”

“They…what?” Saul asked, eyes narrowing, his mouth opening on one side

“…I haven’t told them.” Saul’s eyes widened, the other side of him mouth falling open at the comment. Alan’s lips pressed together, “I know.”

“Alan…”

“I know.”

“You need to tell them.”

“I know. I know. I just…” He shook his head, “I’m nervous.”

“Nervous?” Saul’s mouth closed and his eyes returned to their usual size.

“It’s just that…well…I’m afraid that they’ll…react poorly.”

Saul was silent for a moment, “…you’re worried that your, YOUR, parents will reject you? Over getting ponified?”

“Well, yeah.” He said, “I mean, wouldn’t you?”

“To my parents, yes. To yours, no. In fact, I’d expect congratulations on being ahead of the curve.”

“What?”

“Think for a moment Alan. These are the parents that simply nodded in understanding when you told them that you didn’t share their faith, the parents who accepted that you didn’t want to go into alternative medicine or musical theatre like they did, and instead go for aerospace engineering. Hell, they’re the parents who, upon catching you smoking weed in your room, only criticized you for not using the bong properly and for leaving the blinds open!”

“Point taken…” Alan shook his head, “I guess I’m just nervous because…well after you…”

The corners of Saul’s mouth fell, as well as those of his eyes, “After I, the Posthumanist, generally in favor of alterations to mankind, didn’t approve of your getting ponified, you’re worried about how other people will react. Your parents included.”

Alan took another bite of roll.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“Yes.”

“Before you go?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll drop it then.” Saul said, leaning back, picking up his knife and buttering the other half of his roll, before picking the already bitten half and taking a bite, “So then, what are you planning to do on your last week with thumbs?”

Alan perked up slightly, “I have a few ideas. I was actually hoping that you’d help me come up with a few more and…maybe do a few along with me.”

“Sounds like a plan,” The friend said, smiling, finishing off his roll, “I have a few unused mental health days to take. What do you say I take Wednesday through Friday off and we have some fun out on the town?”

“Now THAT sounds like a plan.” Alan smiled, as David appeared out of the kitchen, carrying a tray of food, a setup table, and a fresh drink for Saul.