//------------------------------//
// Hello, Old Lady 
// Story: TCB: The Jig Of Life 
// by Madrigal Baroque 
//------------------------------//

She trudged down the cracked and lumpen excuse for a sidewalk, a battered  haversack slung across her bent and narrow back. The elderly Asian was tiny, and drew several curious glances because of her strange, outdated attire. Rather than a functional jumpsuit that was the most common fashion among the gainfully employed, or the rags and bits and bobs worn by the common favela dwellers, this tiny creature with the stern face and narrow eyes wore a high-waisted jacket with long sleeves and a flaring skirt that barely cleared the filthy street beneath her plodding feet. 

Her clothing was clean and crisp, and marked her as someone of some means. This attracted the attention of a few opportunists who thought to relieve the poor granny of her heavy burden, and possibly of those cumbersome clothes as well. Any who approached within a couple of meters received a sudden look from those black pearl eyes that made them reconsider their intentions and suddenly remember urgent business elsewhere.

The tiny old woman looked frail, but she was not. 

She had trained as a fighter from the age of three, the last in a long line of bodyguards, enforcers, and mercenaries. Her oma had often claimed direct matrilineal descent from the famous female palace guards of the Joseon dynasty, years before Confucianism swept down from China to force women into social subservience. 

Whether that was true or not, Eun-sook had certainly lived up to the legacy of those ephemeral ancestors. She was fitter than most women (or men, come to that) a third of her age.

Not that she looked her age. She could pass for forty on a good day. Today was not a good day, but even with her stern scowl and forbidding glare she looked nearer fifty than sixty. In fact, she had seen seven decades and change. 

She had four grandchildren she had never seen, and her daughters had been absent from her life for a quarter of a century.  Her son–

Slam! Close the door on that train of thought and lock it. 

She reached her destination and walked into the big building promptly at 07:26. She joined the small crowd of applicants, filling out the questionnaire with quick and decisive ticks. 

After waiting an infuriatingly long time–almost three hours–in an uncomfortable molded chair, Eun-sook found herself herded into a group of fellow newcomers and dragged along on a tour of the facility. As if she cared about the dormitories, the cafeteria, the gymnasium, the classrooms. She cared only about the place featured last.

The door was made of reinforced plasteel. Or proper steel, perhaps, with better shielding capability. It bore prominent signs, one bearing an equine silhouette, another showing the warning symbol for thaumic radiation. 

This is the room where it happens," the young woman who was their tour guide announced. She waved her hand in a grandiose gesture better suited to showing off a fine painting than a bolted door. She continued her well-practiced spiel, to which Eun-sook only gave part of her attention. Fourteen days was the average stay for an applicant prior to Conversion. She glanced around in consternation. She would have to put up with this merry cast of miscreants for two weeks?

"Does it hurt?" A chubby youth with dark skin asked this question, which Eun-sook thought was rather silly. With magic-fueled nanites reconstructing your entire body, including your nervous system, why the hell wouldn't it hurt?

The tour guide scowled, displeased at the interruption to her practiced script. "We administer an anesthetic adapted to your body chemistry right before giving you the potion. So no, it doesn't hurt a bit."

"I don't want to be knocked out." Eun-sook folded her arms and stood as tall as her 146 centimeters would allow. She glared at the steel-bound door. 

"That's something you can go over with the doctor during your evaluation. Anyway, that's it for the tour." The guide clapped her hands together briskly. "Who's hungry? I know I am! This way to the cafeteria, folks!"

Eun-sook trailed behind the rest of the group,  in the wake of a tall woman in a green jumpsuit. A Green level twoper, electing for Conversion? This early? It would be at least a year before the Barrier reached the coast. What was this girl's hurry? And she was a girl, Eun-sook realized as the tall Green cast a look back at the Conversion Room door. Certainly no more than twenty, or she'd eat her left slipper.

Eun-sook decided to skip the cafeteria. She wasn't hungry anyway. She wanted to talk to this mysterious doctor who thought anesthesia was not merely a suggestion, but some sort of requirement.

Eun-sook had every intention of teaching the good doctor otherwise.

***