//------------------------------// // Brüder - überm Sternenzel // Story: The Conversion Bureau: a Perfect Procedure // by FrolicMercury //------------------------------// “Now what, eh?” This was a perfectly valid question. At this point, I really had nothing else to expect in my life, and yet a uniformed figure had stood outside of my cell for a considerable amount of time. I'm a prisoner, you see, and this was too much attention for one of thousands of my kind. Deep in the desert, with live ammunition drones patrolling the perimeter, thermal scanners in every watchtower, with x-ray and microwave scanners for any entering or leaving vehicle… well, you get the idea. Behind four blast doors needed to enter every cellblock, in the third floor of the E block, on the seventeenth cell to the left of the main door, you'll find me I’ve been in this two by three cell for eleven years and... I don’t know how many months. They’ll display a message on the hard plastic that serves as my cell door the day I reach the twelfth anniversary, right above the little slot where my meals come through and where my hands come out to be cuffed when its time for my daily "walk". That means, between other things, that I’ve been in an excellent place to do anything but remember, and I’ve been at it for more than a decade: I’ve built and rebuilt the world inside me with the few artworks I came in contact before I earned this suite. The library of this place has nurtured me, I’ve read enough to know the difference between the fleeting evernew works of performing art and the eternal works of its static counterparts, yet understanding that each aesthetic experience is unique, be it from different people or the same person in different ages of their life. Thus, I’m trapped but not desperate because I’ve grown inside, the only way left for me to grow. In that aspect, I’m free and without any boundaries. Still, I long for even the searing pain that a sight of the real sun may burn in my eyes, things I have only the memory left, yet no hope of actually attaining. That was, of course, until a guard stood outside of my cell. It could always be a random beating, but its taken too long for that, this guy, or someone above this guy, wants something from me. The man himself was a rare sight, really. In this whole compound, there were probably some thirty of them for the thousands of us. The personalized attention only came so often. Following my gut, I’d say that this man had been ordered to do something with me, probably on a tight schedule, and he didnt answer my question. This was a game of power, and I had nothing else to do right now. “Now what, eh?” Still he didn’t budge, not a single muscle out of place, attentively waiting for me to give up my last inch of defiance and answer his silence. It was a losing battle and I knew it, but I´ll be damned if i give up that easily. He could have greeted me or stated right away his business, but he wanted me to be the one to start the "conversation", another subtle example of the cathegoric power they held over every one of us. Seconds would turn to minutes and the only difference would be the chances of someone having spit on my meals if i kept this going, it was an impasse that could only be resolved by capitulation, and because movement is life and I wanted to be alive again... “What is the situation, sir?” “That’s better, 286105. Im taking you for a walk. Put your hands on the slot.” That got him rolling, I’d like to believe that he even flinched a little, but I may just be imagining things And he still left me with nothing to know about what anyone wanted from me. After cuffing me, I stepped away from the wall and, as once a day since I came here, the plastic lifted itself to let me through. He began to lead me with a hand on my right shoulder and another holding the electric baton that apparently wanted to dig itself into my ribs, which was good, because if he got his petty revenge here, there were less chances of the aforementioned spit on my meal. Cell after cell of inmates saw me with my fancy escort. Some looked, some didn’t; but in the end it didn’t matter, hardly anything could be heard from one side of the glass through the other unless the guards wanted to make it so. We were forbidden of interaction with any of our own, and were under penalty if we were to commit the fault of trying to socialize. Hmp! Now that I think about it, this fellow prodding my back could very well be the closest I got to a best friend. Staircases down, past two blast doors and behind a palm and retinal scanner for my bestie, was the infirmary with all the shiny gizmos required to keep us alive, making sure the government kept sponsoring this giant tomb for those of us who they deemed better buried alive than rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. Sorry if I’m being melodramatic, the bastards will probably take this as my daily hour of excercise. There, in his holy white robe was our resident doctor -he who tuned and decided how and when to use the machines and gave the occasional mandatory shot- sitting behind his desk, toying with the pen in his hand and with a bunch of paper sheets between us. He barely raised his eyes to check that his door had opened when he started” “All right, 286105…” He’s not even looking at me “we'll proceed as soon as you sign on the lines of these papers, just fill the empty lines with your name, you can’t miss them, we´ve filled everything else.” Did he really expect me to sign something without even reading it? What’s his problem? He hasn’t even told me what I’m gaining or giving away by signing this! This was a shady deal, and I knew my fair share of them. Was I even a person in his eyes? This was frustrating, yet expectable, but of course, I had to explain my displeasure with eloquence “I won’t fill anything until Ive read the shit you want me to sign. What if a bald fat guy wants my ripped organs, and I’m giving them with this waiver?” “286105, that is only an urban myth. What that paper is, is a nondisclosure agreement on the methods that, if successful, will make you a free man with all of your so called "ripped organs" in less than two months, along with a pack of reparations for any displeasure caused during your volunteering in this… how did they called it? Oh, right! Pharmaceutical testing; of course it doesn’t come without a risk, but don’t worry, you have a very good chance of leaving this poace healthier than you entered.” Sounded too good to be true, and in this kind of things I can imagine that the seller would make the risks look petty and the benefits astronomical. Maybe I could walk out in two weeks, but also maybe I could end up inside a plastic bag, on my way to the big ol’ burner Forcing my options, in their way, both made me free. “One question” “Yes?” “These ‘reparations’ as you called them, if I die during the trials, would they…” “They’ll be passed to your next of kin, or whoever you wish to desi-“ “I’m in” Still, to know exactly what was I getting into, and to spite everyone around me, I took my sweet time reading every single detail of the double page printed, small fonted, space lacking sheets of paper. I found many names I didn’t recognize next to very important sounding charges and ranks of many, many countries. It sounded like the real deal, an organized government funded test trials on prisoners meant we were just one step above the rats, guinea pigs and bonobos they had tested their shit on. I honestly was about to back off, and I probably should have, but the temptation of freedom, the chance to make amends… It was too much to resist for someone who didn’t expect anything else. “All right, there’s only one last blank line remaining, but before I fill it, I have one last question” “Another?! All right, all right, just shoot it, Tony.” “What is this ‘Equestria’ I keep reading about?” Well, take me to the spa, give me a makeover, buy me a dress and call me Shirley. I certainly didnt expect that. Soon, I’d come to believe that what they said about the horses, the barrier, the inevitability and the way out that I’d eventually test, but right there and then, I just believed they were pulling my leg (and every other extremity I had) and keeping the real reason behind the tests for themselves; I mean, what if I lived through whatever they did to me? I would be spilling the beans! But if they didn’t really tell me what it was about, it gave me a little hope that they would really let me go when –or if- I got out of this uhm… let’s call it opportunity. I let them take their blood and tissue tests, toughened myself for their spinal samples, played with the machines they had to try out my reflexes, pulmonary capacity and else, I nearly got into a first name basis with the doc, but it always seemed kind of fake, you know? It was only until I saw an apple in my tray that I began to really believe I could be days away from leaving my tiny box. At the same time it was, and wasn’t, an ordinary red apple they had left in the dessert compartment of my tray. It existed, I could smell, touch and taste it, but it had been so long since I tried one that the flavor seemed unreal. Back then, I believed that all those years without a solid bite at a fruit had made that moment so grand, but now I know that it truly was the goddesses ambrosia; nothing less than the best fruit I had ever tasted in my whole life. Giving me something so great, something that felt so precious made me really believe that I had a value for them, that I wasn’t just some disposable lab rat, that I really had a way out of my cell. That is the moment I really began to hope for the better.That night I dreamed of blue skies and beautiful orchards, but when it dawned, I realized my pillow was wet with tears. Excuse me if I’m being too mushy, let me proceed with the facts: the tests continued, the samples kept coming out and the apples kept coming into yours truly. It even became a routine during those days, until one day I was called earlier than before to the infirmary, told to sit on one of the desk chairs, and to mind my feet. Before I could ask what was happening, a whirring sound came from upside and a circular plastic of the same kind of my cell descended on me, barely missing the edges of the desk. They had trapped me on a transparent panic room or something of the like, did it mean that…? Clip, clop, clip, clop Are those heels? Clip, clop, clip, clop They have to be. Is it then another physician? Another round of tests? Clip, clop. She’s behind the door. It opened. Something came over me. Something I maybe supposed existed before seeing her washed me, and would have thrown me away were it not for the barrier that stopped my back from falling: her aura, a presence so powerful to make a hopeless man, in an instant, believe in everything at once. An angel, a Titania queen in the visage of the combined myth of Perseus and a virginal purity so unstained that it would be allowed on Mother Mary’s lap. The return of the fairies, a descendant from heaven harboring salvation, an angel, a symbol, a living chance to believe in what made childhoods innocent and sweet… I believed she was real the moment I saw her; despite the rational part in my mind screaming that this was just a cruel prank or the poisoned results of a situation I just didn’t deserve or couldn’t be that lucky to live. Now the life had presented me the opportunity to believe again, to really hope for a better future, with my guilt purged and on a brave new world that wanted to welcome me with opened arms. Despite everything I had gone through, I really never saw a tangible proof that this place existed, I had run on a fragile hope that what they had promised could be delivered, and the hope probably existed there because, deep down, I needed something to hang unto. Back then, I had rejected the most beautiful of mirages because I couldn’t bring myself to believe on it; now the problem was that despite nothing my rational mind could believe, I was hoping, and building my very life on that hope. Far behind had I left the point where, if I were told nothing of it was real, I’d shatter. That was, of course, until I saw her on the door, tall and mighty, the lavender goddess.