//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Threshold // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// Earth Calendar: 1/18/2102 20:19 GMT Earthgov Council Facility Harrisburg Pennsylvania The steam rising from the unadorned, simplistic, but artful saucers carried a waft of citrus, with the faintest undertones of cinnamon. The unusual Persian tradition of serving tea in such shallow vessels was one of the ways Councilor Innara maintained a constant tie to her homeland. Cal and Konem also privately suspected that she enjoyed using the custom of offering said tea to guests as a way of educating them in an unfamiliar culture, and disarming them. Sulerahmen's latest guest, Councilor Matthas Korvan, was clearly not a run of the mill politician. His ostensibly neutral, but overtly determined expression bespoke a cautious, conniving, sharp mind hiding behind his steely eyes. His ambition was the quiet, subtle, long-burning sort that Innara knew all too well as the hallmark of potential; both for greatness... and disaster. Innara chose her first words with utmost care, "I must admit, Councilor Korvan, your support was unexpected, but most welcome." The suited man fiddled for a moment with his hat; a fedora, an unusual stylistic choice. He sipped the tea lightly from his saucer, wincing unintentionally at its bitterness, "As you so eloquently put it Councilor; we have no choice. Say what they will about the cost." Innara nodded, and slipped a small cube of sugar into her mouth before taking her first sip, eyeing Korvan and noting the well concealed surprise and interest as full understanding of the proper way to consume Persian tea dawned. Korvan indulged himself in a cube of sugar, and a long pull on his saucer, before speaking again. Unbeknownst to him, Cal and Konem shared a private, silent, mouthed conversation from their nearly invisible position at the door, Cal rolled her eyes, "He's a sap." Konem shrugged, "But the suit is nice." "Probably bought it at ten times the value its really worth." "How can you tell?" "Female intuition." Korvan finished the saucer off, and smiled knowingly, "I know your reputation Councilor Sulerahmen, and I've studied your career; you didn't call me here simply for the tea." Innara shook her head, "No. I called you here because I bear no false expectations about the nature of our relationship. You have provided me with a service. I therefore owe you one in return, and rather than try to dodge the issue, I prefer to meet it on my terms." Korvan let out a short sharp laugh, "Frankness.. I appreciate that. Beating around the bush is the nature of the game... but when it can be dispensed with, its a refreshing change." The man sighed, and twirled his hat in his hands again, before setting it down and leaning forward, "You're a Transcendentalist... but I know you have strong military connections. On the other hand, I have strong technical connections. Specifically, I have a scientist. A man I think represents our best chance at getting a line on this disaster quickly..." Innara smiled slightly, "And you have no way of getting him to the site of the event before it officially becomes a military exclusion zone." "Precisely. By the time I cut the red tape at Military Command, we may be facing something large, ominous, and misunderstood." Korvan leaned forward, "When I first met Lawrence Thornton? He had just finished playing seventeen simultaneous grandmaster games of chess with seventeen separate AIs. He won every single game. He did it in fourteen minutes. We need him on-site... and you can make that happen." Innara finished the last of her tea thoughtfully, "I must admit, as political favors go, yours is surprisingly pleasant. Why the sudden push for symbiosis?" Matthas leaned back, "I'm new, you've been at this a while. I want to know how you've turned a dead end position in a ridiculed party into a respected, powerful political instrument." Innara raised an eyebrow, "Patience Councilor Korvan. Patience. Nothing particularly special beyond that. I possess the ambition to endeavour, and the patience to temper it." Sulerahmen stared at a piece of lattice work behind Korvan's head for several seconds before continuing, "Your request is not merely mutually beneficial for us, but stands to improve the situation overall." Korvan smiled, "Good! How soon can we get Thornton to the Azores? He's already on his way to JFK as we speak... could we get the wheels turning by tomorrow? I'd prefer to see him on-location before the end of the week if possible." Innara allowed herself a small grin at Korvan's gross underestimation of the strings she had at her beck and pull, "I will need approximately... fifteen minutes. To make some calls." By the door, an imperceptible snicker escaped Konem's lips. Equestrian Calendar: 2nd Month, 6th Day, Year 1002 PB (Post Banishment) Just Past Midnight Royal Vault, Canterlot The Royal Vaults were seen by few, and storied by many. The space was a literal set of six vaulted chambers that overlapped, forming a huge open space in their center that afforded easy access to all of them. The marble and onyx construction was trimmed in gold and silver, creating intertwining Solar and Lunar motifs. The Central floor was a vast expanse of pink marble, representing a peculiar, eerie sky. Stars were speckled across the expanse by way of small inlaid silver circles. The moon was an intricately engraved silver plate showing off even the tiniest details of its surface. Across from it, the stylized sun was made of gold burnished so smooth that it seemed to glow with its own internal luminance. Intricate silver and gold scrollwork twined about the walls and ceiling, crossing between artfully interconnected patches of onyx and marble and back again. To the adept eye, the scrollwork was a history of the Equestrian Nation, going back nearly two millenia. To the initiated, special nodes in the crossing of the scrollwork represented the invisible latches to hidden, magically reinforced wall slots. The only two beings alive who constituted 'the initiated' were standing in the center of the room, each pacing quietly in their own unique patterns. Luna was the first to speak. Celestia still found it hard to cope with the changes she had suddenly undergone as the majority of her deific power had returned nearly a year ago, most of all her sister's new... or rather old voice often reminded her of the days before she was consumed... days Celestia was trying harder and harder to forget. Luna sighed deeply as she spoke, "Art thou sure?" Celestia shook her head, "Formality sister dearest... *Dispense* with the formality." Luna shook herself mentally, "I am sorry Celestia... Celly. It is no small thing to re-learn a language as not merely an intellect, but a habit." She paused, then turned to face her sister, "Are you sure?" Celestia nodded grimly, "Absolutely. We have no reason to doubt the Octant. Nevertheless, I didn't bring you here merely to inform you, or ask your advice; I'd like you to try it. We may as well be absolutely sure that it is not *my* operation of it that is producing the results." Luna inclined her head, "Agreed. It is better to be safer than regretful." The blue, black, and azure Alicorn stepped purposefully towards the hidden compartment reserved for the artifact known as 'The Octant.' While the Elements of Harmony were the most revered, and discussed magical artifacts in history, there were various and sundry other single items, and sets of items, that possessed great power of their own. Most of these artifacts belonged to the Equestrian Nation; Celestia had spent many of the years that Luna was trapped on the moon hunting down the majority of the known ones, and collecting them in the Vault. The only other places one could find such items were the Gryphon's deepest armories, the hoards of powerful Dragons, or perhaps the most secret hives of the Changelings. That latter Celestia wasn't sure of, and while Dragons were unpredictable, the Gryphons, with their natural immunity to magical alteration, made good custodians of some of the more... corrosive artifacts, which would otherwise erode other beings' bodies, souls, or both. Celestia was content with the situation, save for the uncertainty the Changelings presented. Occasionally she even found an opportunity to barter with a Dragon for a new piece to add to the collection. The Octant was one such treasure. Celestia had acquired it with a rather unique trade; a sculpture from her far away childhood. The Dragon, a large Silver named Tirinel, had amusingly pointed out that an object he did not have the magical precision to power was a fair trade for an object that proved the monarch of Equestria had once been a 'mere foal.' Luna carefully cradled the complex obsidian device in her magical field, the blue glow accenting the dark gray trim that made up the framing. Slowly, she raised the instrument to eye level, stepping to the center of the room as she did so. The device required very little magic to power, but the precision of the input had to be minute, to an unfathomable degree. Luna carefully injected a tiny, carefully resonated burst of her energy into the channels of the Octant. Instantly, with a soft hiss, blue, teal, silver, and green light spilled forth from the device, filling the chamber with intricate interleaved patterns that looked like nothing so much as a complex, artful, and mind bending cartograph. Luna knew that such a description was, in fact, fairly close to the truth. As Celestia had explained; the Octant was indeed a navigational instrument. For worlds. Her exact words had been, "If our reality, like all others, is a ship sailing the seas of existence, then the Octant is our way of looking beyond the sky, beyond the veil, and out into the expanse upon which existences drift." To hear Celestia tell it, the Octant had been a 'must have' for her. Some indellible instinct had been bothering her, for several years on and off, that something was wrong with her world. The Octant had proved the final solution to discovering not merely final proof that Equestria was moving, but discovering what was in its path. Luna peered at the star speckled web of lines, and grimaced, "Unless, dear sister, my magical technique has suddenly become not dissimilar to yours; then you are correct." Celestia slowly, almost reverently, walked across the floor, her golden hoofguards clacking against the marble with resounding finality, and nuzzled the bright pulsing mass of light that The Octant was irrefutably showing as dead center of Equestria's path. A tear coursed its way down the Solar Monarch's cheek, and Luna detected hints of pain in her sister's voice, "Our world... it will...." She found herself unable to finish the sentence. Luna carefully set the glowing, arcane navigational instrument on the floor, and placed a comforting wing over her sister. It wouldn't look it to an outsider; but Celestia was depressed, verging on tears. For a long time, free from the prying eyes of others, the Alicorn sisters; demigods of sun and moon, comforted each other. And wept. Earth Calendar: 1/18/2102 22:00 GMT John F. Kennedy Intraglobal Airport New York "What do you figure most of these cost?" Konem glanced out the window as Cal cut one of her infamous ninety degree no-warning turns, taking their black, government registered sedan from the smooth surface of the access road to the slightly rougher duracrete tarmac. Cal spared an upward glance, noting a passing business jet, its white pearlescent skin gleaming in the light of the airport's massive network of halon spots, "More than you make Ralph. Heh.. more than we'll both make put together in our lifetimes." Konem grinned, "Awww come on! Why you gotta always be shooting down my dreams?" Cal snorted and weaved around a baggage cart in a hair raising maneuver, "Delusions, Konie. Delusions." "You know I hate that..." "Cute nickname?" "I was gonna say bastardized misnomer." Cal flashed her partner a smile, "Very *good* Ralph! two University level words in one sentance!" Konem rolled his eyes, "Says my boss who can't even boot a DaTab without crashing it." Cal grimaced, and slowed the car as they approached a brightly illumined hangar near the end of the tarmac, "I don't trust those things. Too easy to jack in to. Somewhere, somebody is probably sifting everything you say in front of those glorified bugs through an AI..." Konem held up his hands as the sedan came to a stop, "Whoa whoa whoa... spare me the paranoid lecture. Only you, and the weird old cat-lady who lives in the flat next door, have this irrational..." "Logical." "...paranoid..." "Cautious." Konem paused, and fixed his senior partner with a look one part disgust, two parts sad amusement, "...borderline psychotic viewpoint. Catch up a little will ya?" Cal rolled her eyes, and opened her door, standing beside the car and resting her arms on the roof. Konem noted, as he did the same, that she looked relaxed, a little insulted, and perhaps a touch amused. But her eyes betrayed her; they flitted back and forth, never resting. Konem had never seen them cease their constant, acute, high octane scanning pattern. Never once. The man sighed and threw up his hands, "Cal who is it you're worried about? Terrorists? In this climate? They couldn't go toe to toe with a wet roll of TP... much less a railgun on its worst day." She inclined her head and sucked on her lip thoughtfully, "The second you stop being afraid someone is out to get you... they will. There's always someone Ralph. Just pick up a history book." Her expression changed to a slight smile, designed to deflect the conversation, "Maybe you can download one to that little silicon spy drone you're always harping on..." Konem laughed, deciding to once again let the issue at hand slide, "And I suppose you think Steve Jobs was a Terminator?" "Who? a What now?" Konem shook his head, "And you claim to be a history buff? Psssh." The conversation ended on a light note, as the agents both took note of a black Skyrunner shooting a short-field approach. The jet touched down, slammed its reversers into active, and the tires squealed as it cornered the earliest possible taxiway at what must have been an uncomfortable speed, swiftly rolling up to the hangar, and spinning down its turbines. The landing lights momentarily blinded Konem, until the pilot switched them off. Cal had covered her eyes. As the engine backwash, which had tousled the female agent's blond hair, died down, the door of the craft opened, disgorging first a staircase, then a suited man with a severe demeanor, no tie, and a conspicuous military issue rail-pistol. Following him, a man stumbled down the airstair in some horrifyingly garish cross between a lab coat and a trenchcoat, with mussed up sandy hair, and a visage that could have been rugged, if not for the pallor that bespoke a life of indoor work. Konem shot a glance at Cal, and raised his eyebrow, "Seriously?" Cal sighed and exhaled, her eyes momentarily bugging out, "Yeeeeah. Seriously. This is gonna be fun..." Konem stepped forward, and shouted to make himself heard over the uproarious den of the airport, and the still niggling whine of the Skyrunner's own engines, "Lawrence Thornton I presume?" The man nodded, and dashed awkwardly across the pavement, cupping a hand to one ear. His strong British accent came as something of a surprise to both agents, "You uh... you're the suited goonies I'm supposed to rendezvous with, yeah?" Cal drilled the man with a killer expression, "And you're the socially inept egghead? Excellent. Get in." Without further preamble, she returned to the sleek sedan, slamming the door particularly hard as she re-entered the vehicle. As Konem walked towards the curvy, low set vehicle, he shook his head and chuckled, "Lawrence, is it? Now you've mad her angry. And she's the driver." "Aaaaand that's.... bad?" Konem stopped and fixed Thornton with a serious glare, "The last guy who got into a car with her, when she was angry, had to go to the hospital afterwards." The debonaire Asian bodyguard left the bedraggled British scientist standing in shock. Eventually, Thornton turned, and dashed to the car, just managing to get himself and his duffel into the back seat before Cal started the engine. He grimaced when he saw her expression, "Look... was it something I said?" Cal slammed the vehicle into drive, pressing the accelerator so suddenly that Thornton banged his head against the back window as he was subjected to sudden acceleration. "Mother of God! You Yanks drive like *lunatics!*" Earth Calendar: 1/18/2102 23:30 GMT ACV-10 UES Yorktown 25 NM East of the Azores "George? If you do this again, I'm *warning* you, you're risking a forced medical leave to repair *serious* deep tissue damage." Colonel Puller grimaced as the Yorktown's chief medical officer, an older man with steel gray hair, thickset glasses, and a face locked in a permanently kind expression, jammed a massive needle into his upper right arm. Slowly, the glass tube attached to the needle disgorged its shimmering payload. Doctor Wainwright shook his head, "George, nanosupport injections go bad slowly, but the damage is being done from the second you go over your limit. If you'd delayed this one more day? You'd be flat on your back with nanorecirculators plugged into your legs, arms, and chest. For three weeks minimum." Puller glowered, trying not to make eye contact with the man who's ministrations, and dedication, kept his heart beating and muscles churning, every four months. "I didn't think it was *that* bad." Wainwright shook his head again and exhaled, "Well if it hasn't been made clear before, I'm doing it now. For your own good. Do not *ever* pull a stunt like this again. What if you had ended up on-mission? Go a week or two over, and you could die. George you. Could. *Die*." Puller sighed and his head drooped, "Sorry doc." The CMO shook his head, "Don't apologize to *me* Puller, its your body you're allowing to be eaten from the inside out. I'd just really rather you didn't." As the last of the seven trillion, eight hundred forty million nanites entered Puller's bloodstream, doctor Wainwright extracted the needle. The Special Forces marine leapt from the medical table, and pulled his right sleeve back down, "It won't happen again. Promise. Am I cleared for duty, word on deck is we have trouble brewing." Wainwright scowled, "I'd rather you stayed here for the rest of the day. But I'm willing to bet the second I hit the head, you'll be out of here like buckshot, with one of my clearance chits tucked in one of those zillion pockets you got on your pants. Go on, get outta here. Just get back in for a check in twenty four so I can be absolutely sure you haven't lost any deep tissue." Puller smiled, "Thanks." "Don't mention it. Just learn from it." Alarms blared, hatches sealed, and ballast vents opened. In a shower of bubbles, three hundred and fifteen thousand metric tons of submersible supercarrier wended its way gracefully upwards through the lifeless depths of the sea. When the expansive flight deck broke the surface, the displacement wave traveled visibly for eleven miles. Instantly, external lights snapped on, bathing the polycrete tarmac in illumination equivalent to a sunny day. As hatches in the island opened, and flight crews poured forth, strategically placed doors recessed in the deck slid back, revealing rising elevators with Scythes and VTOLs chained to them in formation. Whenever the carrier was in submerged mode, a basic cadre of attack and transport craft were kept in 'ready position.' In short order, the chaotically organized flight crews detached and moved the vehicles, making room for the elevators to descend and retrieve more craft. At the same time, hatches and panels switched positions, opening side bays for VTOLs, concealing torpedo ports that were now above the waterline, and revealing the massive ACV's surface-based arsenal. Not a single corner, corridor, or square foot of deck was bereft of frenzied, but practiced and well oiled action, mostly the result of airmen and seamen filling their positions to perfection; well oiled cogs in a massive machine that was a much man as mechanics. Intelligence and readings flowed in like a tidal wave through the ship's newly liberated LADAR dishes and satellite uplinks, appearing on hundreds of terminals and being processed by several AI. Perhaps the only members of the crew not processing data, moving munitions, or reconfiguring the ship for surface operations, were the fire teams. Colonel Puller barely managed to make the start of the briefing, but he slid into his chair just as the seaman on duty took the dais. The stadium seating room was one of the largest briefing facilities on the ship, only two more were even comparable in size. The seaman clicked his presentation remote, and the wall-sized screen at the end of the room leapt to life, displaying an area map, "Here is all we know; officially, the Earthgov Quantum Situational Awareness Facility has detected a growing, dangerous anomaly in the vicinity of the Azores Islands." A murmur of nervous whispers swept the room, Puller exhaled sharply, forming his mouth into a surprised and distressed 'o'. The seaman continued, "Credible verification indicates it has the potential to expand, and in doing so it is going to release tremendous amounts of hard radiation over the entire area, and potentially do serious damage in other unpredictable ways." The navy suited man paused, as if he couldn't believe was he was saying, "We have received authenticated orders from the Council and Military Command to engage in evacuation operations. We will be assisted by civilian freighters, cruise liners, the transatlantic maglev, and air support from London, Greenland, and New York." Further down, a young airman raised her hand, "You mean we're expected to get three hundred thousand people out of their homes, off their islands, and to the mainland in... how long?" The seaman grimaced, "Opspec defines our max window as two days." The room erupted into quiet, barely restrained worry. Puller stood up and shrugged, projecting his voice, "Well then. In that case... times' a wastin.' " Earth Calendar: 1/18/2102 23:30 GMT Government Facility A52-S429 Location Classified The space, filled with a triangular solid steel table, and gray fabric paneled walls that housed large sleek screens, was widely known as 'The Keep.' The door, usually locked, betrayed the utilitarian defensive mindset of the structure around the chamber, with its riveted and braced surface standing at odds with the rest of the room. At the table itself, sitting at each of the sides, were three men. They sat in such a way as to face the screens opposite them, but also their compatriots. All three were in their mid sixties, all three wore precisely the same suit; Black jacket, gray shirt, no tie, and a small American Flag pinned to the left collar. The old, but still patriotic emblem was a testament to the men's deeply rooted belief in their origin, and purpose. In reality, the presence of the flag was an irony its now-dead creator and supporters would deeply resent. None of the three men knew each other's real names. In a sense, they didn't care about their own original names. Their lives, from the moment they had first set foot in that small octagonal room, so many decades ago, had vanished. Erased utterly. Replaced with a construction designed to intimidate and obfuscate. Some variation of the process befell every member of their organization; it had been that way since the group's inception in the 1920s. The early operations of their field agents had given rise to the term 'Men in Black,' but this was a misnomer at best despite the proclivity of the organization's upper echelons to well tailored old-style suits. Each successive group of three, collectively referred to as the Triumvirate, took a set of related code names, and were never again known by anything else. The men never discussed their past lives, never wrote down anything pertaining to them, infact they trained themselves not to think about the details in any way shape or form. The current Triumvirate were named for pit vipers; Asp, Krait, and Adder. Each had chosen to wear a small silver pin, opposite their flag, shaped like the head of their namesake reptile. Asp's brow furrowed, as he intently watched the screen opposite him. He manipulated the controls before him, the buttons and touchpads, and revolving selector so familiar that he could do it by touch and memory alone. After a moment, he broke the silence, "This has the potential to spiral out of hand swiftly." Krait nodded, "How soon will the Scientist arrive?" Adder sprang into the silence, "Tomorrow, at the absolute latest. I made assurances that he would be brought into play, and fast-tracked the favors that were called in to arrange for his transport.... Are we sure the intelligence can be retrieved?" Asp inclined his head, "We have a placement; Component 93501-A. He is... in a position to feed us the necessary datum." Both men turned to Krait, "What is your estimation of the probability that this constitutes a beachhead scenario?" Krait manipulated his controls for several moments, data flying by on his screen. He answered slowly, "I would place the chances at eighty seven point two six percent." Asp sighed slightly, "We must begin the Nero Contingency." Krait nodded his assent. Adder looks momentarily skeptical, then nodded as well. As one, the men reached out, and placed their thumbs against hidden scanners in their control consoles. The light strip inlaid into the table turned a disturbing shade of yellow. Each man manipulated their controls for several moments, eliciting three atonal buzzes from the room's speakers. The resident VI spoke in its intentionally harsh, and inflectionless bass resonance, "Nero Contingency initiated." As far as the Triumvirate was concerned; the world was on the brink. Extreme measures were necessitated. For the first time since July of 1947; ExCET was being fully mobilized. Equestrian Calendar: 2nd Month, 6th Day, Year 1002 PB (Post Banishment) Just Before Dusk Celestia's Royal Chambers, Canterlot Flux was nervous. Celestia's summons had struck a tone he had never hear issue forth from her pen, or her muzzle. The Unicorn's entire trip to Canterlot had been miserable; fraught with questions and speculation. Had he done something wrong? He hoped not, he always strove to remain within the bounds of propriety and morality in his work. Had some disaster befallen a member of his family? Had some darker event unfolded? The most agonizing period had been the last five minutes, pacing an endless loop before the double doors to Celestia's private office, waiting to be invited in; his only company two stone-faced Pegasus guards. At long last, after what seemed two eternities, and several years for good measure, the door opened, and one of the guards inclined his head, issuing the much desired invitation. Flux stepped slowly, and cautiously, into the rich, but subtle space. Gold and silk were in abundance. As a student, he had been invited into the room several times before, but in every case Celestia had been smiling. Flux noted, in distress, that she was not smiling. He quickened his pace, approaching to a proper distance, then bowed low, his mane sweeping the floor, "Your majesty." Celestia sighed, "Rise my friend. I am weary, and now is not the time for formalities." Flux stood, cautiously, keeping his eyes respectfully lowered, "You summoned me... it sounded urgent?" Celestia nodded, and jerked her head towards the balcony, "Walk with me." For several minutes, the pair traversed the wraparound, railing enclosed strip of cut marble, sparing frequent glances for the glimmering lights of Canterlot below. Flux made a point of maintaining a respectable distance, allowing Celestia to remain ahead of him by a head's length. Finally, the Alicorn turned to face her one-time student, "Flux... I wish to share a secret with you. It will be public knowledge soon enough; but for now it is imperative you keep the sanctity of this information." Flux bowed again, "I swear it on the sun." Celestia nodded curtly, "I'll make this simple. Our world will shortly have.... guests." Flux raised an eyebrow, briefly forgetting his grossly unnecessary overage of etiquette and staring Celestia in the eye, "Majesty?" "I'm not sure I wish to explain further at the moment. But I want you here, on retainer." "May I beg permission to ask why?" The Alicon turned to stare at the sun, which she would soon be lowering, "We're going to need your... unique skills."