The man in charge of the PER usually didn’t involve himself with the minutiae of its operation anymore. There was a time when he had spent most of his days up to his elbows in electronic circuitry or chemical formulae, helping the organization to achieve the level of technical supremacy it needed to accomplish its goals.
Though he had two degrees in computer software and hardware, one in theoretical physics, and two minors in biology and chemistry, his concerns had gradually become more tactical and logistical in nature. Despite the drain on his schedule, he occasionally made time to visit the labs and keep abreast of projects.
He especially made a habit of doing so when he was stressed or depressed.
He liked to lock himself in one of the laboratories on an upper floor with a good view, and simply work unmolested by more complicated cares and worries; content in the knowledge that he was doing something with tangible, immediate benefits.
“There is nothing you could have done differently.”
The voice didn’t come as a surprise to him. More often than not, Veritas was the only thing that brought him out of his depressive streaks, “Can we really know that? I expected them to eventually go ahead with the program. Its not an unsalvageable situation. I just didn’t expect---”
She cut him off, her tone firm yet gentle.
“Self deprecation and recriminations won’t solve the problems at hoof. You’ve handled worse, so you can handle this. We have a window to accomplish our ends, and the resources to make it happen within that timeframe.”
He looked up from his work; he was soldering a connection in a small disc shaped device no bigger than the palm of his hand, “True. But at this stage---”
She interrupted him again, “At this stage we have a final opportunity to prevent this from devolving into a directly matched up war. Taking that opportunity is the only responsible course. And I believe you can do it. Regardless of the other issues at play”
She paused, “If you need an outlet---”
He interjected sharply, “I do.”
“Well then I have something we might be able to use. I’m sure you know the controversy surrounding cybernetics? Well as it turns out, I was able to find some hard data about...”
She paused short of saying Wrenn’s name, “...about the lieutenant’s implants. Enough to prove for sure that he once had them. We could make good use of it. In the media.”
He set down the soldering pen, and sat back, “You keep reminding me why I love you. How *do* you do that? You always know how to put these issues in perspective, and you always have a plan... where does that come from?”
She tossed her mane, the small but focused light sources in the ceiling creating the illusion that the strands of hair were playing host to a million pinpricks of starlight.
She stepped over to the window, and swept her gaze across the plethora of buildings that made up downtown Manhattan, finally resting her teal eyes on the distant silhouette of the Conversion Bureau, “Like your own talent for words... it is a gift.”
Wrenn had slept well, and he had never experienced such a return of energy in his life.
He was used to running on ‘half tank,’ as most soldiers referred to it. The inescapable, perpetual feeling of having only rested just enough to wake up again without dropping dead. The sensation of being fully recharged and awake was alien.
By contrast, the sensation of sleeping on his chest hadn’t been at all uncomfortable, or even seemed unusual. The changes to his skeleton made any position axially beyond sleeping on his side untenable. At first it kept him awake, simply because he was so used to sleeping on his back, that his brain expected it and didn’t want to switch off until everything was the right way around.
The stubbornness had quickly faded in the face of comfort. He realized his sleeping habits would have to be more akin to those of a lion, or tiger than a human. His rest had been uninterrupted, save for a short but incredibly vivid excerpt from the Conversion dream that had re-visited him in the wee hours of the morning.
The recurrence of the images and emotions didn’t surprise him. After the attack in the Council chambers, he had been ordered to see a therapist to be treated for possible post traumatic stress. Wrenn had asked a lot of scientific questions about the mind, psychology and dreams, mainly as a way of deflecting the therapist’s own lines of questioning.
She had told him that the unconscious mind latched on to things of emotional significance and tended to rehash them repeatedly in an unbridled and logic-free fashion.
Wrenn had neglected to tell her that he suffered, for over a year, recurring nightmares about the incident, to the point of being unable to sleep for weeks at a time. He had resorted to field issue stimpacks, but finally discarded them in favor of purely natural sleep aids when he nearly became addicted to the dopamine highs.
He wouldn’t be needing sleep aids ever again, as far as he was concerned.
Breakfast was a small affair, taken in Sildinar’s office. The press had moved in downstairs, and were all over the first and second floors of the building. Wrenn appreciated the forethought of allowing him a quiet meal, unperturbed by the hassle of answering a million and one questions.
It wasn’t that he was recalcitrant to present himself to the media, he just preferred a controlled environment in which to do so, rather than the crush of four dozen shouting men and women all vying for attention. The crush aggravated every instinct he had; Soldier, Human, and Gryphon.
Celestia wasn’t present, so at the moment it was just four Gryphons and four large portions of synthetic meat strips, fried up into something like bacon, and served with a loaf of bread.
Wrenn glanced over at Sildinar, “What’s the schedule for today?”
Sildinar swallowed the enormous bite of bread he had just taken, and waited for his throat to clear, “Celestia is making some opening remarks right now. We’re all scheduled to appear as a... ‘panel’ I think is the word, to answer questions from a variety of news agencies in turn.
That will take up the morning, with the exception of a short break we’re being given halfway through.”
He sliced off a strip of meat with one talon, speared it neatly, then devoured it swiftly, before proceeding, “We were all supposed to be guests at a lunch with dignitaries and military leaders, but I managed to convince them to put that off until next week.”
Wrenn bit into one of his own meat strips, savoring the subtle, but familiar tang of chemical synthesis that he had strangely acquired a taste for.
Sildinar took a sip from a coffee carafe. Gryphons could use smaller cups, but they were pitiful portions for them. Most of the time, they seemed to like to use either specially made tankards that fit their claws and desired portion size better, or actual serving carafes, when nothing else was available.
“After lunch, they have just you down for an interview alone with two reporters. Apparently it was on the insistence of several Earthgov Councilors. As far as I’m concerned you’re free to refuse if it is disquieting to you.”
Wrenn shook his head, “Nah. I can handle a couple of reporters just fine. We seem to have a penchant for projecting emotions into a room, and I think I’ve seen you look intimidating enough times to accomplish the same effect.”
Sildinar nodded, “Very well. Then after that we are all to be present at another press conference where I will read out the list of names for those in the next batch of test candidates. They all received notification letters last night, so this is just the public announcement.”
Kephic toyed with his carafe lazily, “We’re also going to announce the date when the program goes live at major Bureaus worldwide.”
Wrenn shifted his gaze to the black and white Gryphon, “It’s happening that soon?”
From across the room, Varan grunted in the affirmative, “Three weeks from yesterday.”
Wrenn raised an eyebrow and went back to his meat strips. Keeping the timetable tight was a good move. It would rejuvenate the hype surrounding Gryphonization at just the moment when it might start to decline. He also approved, because having new converts to focus on would take the public gaze off him for a while, and that idea appealed to him enormously.
He suddenly realized that he might not be on Earth long enough to see the change, “So... When do we leave? to go home?”
Sildinar took another sip of coffee, “Two weeks. You need to learn to fly, well enough to make a long trip on your own. During that time we’re also going to do our best to help you adapt your military skills, and learn to swing a sword.”
Wrenn smiled, “I’m definitely looking forward to that. So will we be back?”
Kephic swallowed a meat strip before answering, “I expect so. There is, after all, a war on here. I, for one, refuse to miss more than a month or two of it at a time.”
Wrenn dipped his head once sharply, “Good. I was hoping you might say something to that effect.”
The panel was going to take place in the Bureau's largest amphitheater. The front half of the audience seating had been removed, replaced by a battery of cameras and area-microphones.
The massive theater style holo-screen that occupied the wall behind the stage was set to display a muted, slowly changing, nondescript art deco pattern.
The stage itself was playing host to two curved tables, one short, with space for the four gryphons, the opposite one long, with space for nearly a quarter of the assembled reporters.
Wrenn chuckled grimly as he entered the room, trying to imagine what kind of bribing, yammering, and fit pitching had gone on to get those lucky reporters their seats.
A tech bounded up with a bundle of tiny wireless microphones in his hand, but stopped short and stammered when it suddenly occurred to him that there was nowhere he could easily clip them on the Gryphons standing in front of him.
Wrenn waved him off, “I think we project enough to let the area mics handle it.”
The tech nodded and vanished almost as quickly as he had appeared.
As the four Gryphons took up positions at their table, Wrenn softly queried, “Is there anything I should keep out of the discussion? besides the obvious?”
Sildinar shook his head.
The frenzy in the room escalated as eleven reporters took their seats at the opposite table.
The lighting in the room changed suddenly, as the overheads switched off, giving way to the high power halogen lights behind the cameras.
A technician, clearly the one in charge, motioned from offstage with two hands.
Ten seconds.
The head of the Bureau, Mrs. Sunbeam, took the center of the stage. She had been asked to deliver the introduction since it was, after all, her Bureau.
When the tech’s fingers finished counting down, the lights on the cameras flipped from red to green, and the broadcast went out, live, to the globe.
Mrs. Sunbeam had adopted a radiant smile, and as she spoke, Wrenn began to realize that her name, like many Pony names, seemed to hold double significance, “Good morning one and all!
It is my pleasure to welcome a panel of reporters, and four honored guests, to the Manhattan Conversion Bureau. Over the next few hours, it is our sincere hope that this panel will answer many of the questions you no doubt have after yesterday’s revelations.”
She shot a glance at the reporters, “Our format is informal. We will start by having each reporter ask questions in turn, which any of our panelists might answer, and once everyone has had some airtime for their pressing queries, the floor will be open to each question as it arises.”
She stepped back to a separate seat that had been placed for her, midway between the two tables, “We’ll start with this end of the table.”
The first reporter nearly came out of his seat with anticipation, “This question is for Lieutenant Wrenn! After having gone through the process yourself, how do you feel about the Gryphons’ restrictions on entry to the new program?”
Wrenn put a little extra volume into his voice, not enough to be overly loud, but enough to make it project authoritatively.
“I feel as though it’s a good thing. Not just to maintain balance in our culture, and not just to hold to the honor of our code of ethics, but because it also benefits anyone seeking to become one of us.”
The reporter gave him a curious expression, “How do you mean?”
Wrenn gestured to himself, “I mean that I fit in well with our ideals and mentality.
Ours is a very forceful and strong culture, so these entry requirements, like the ones in the military, if you want a metaphor, help prevent those ill suited to the lifestyle from making a serious mistake; a lifetime commitment that they can’t enjoy or honor.”
The next reporter in line was quick to jump on the moment of silence that followed, “Would any of you mind recounting for us how Lieutenant Wrenn became the candidate for the first Gryphonization?”
Kephic nodded at the rest of the group, and launched into an answer, “We had the good fortune of striking up a relationship with Lieutenant Wrenn. Of all the people we had under consideration, he was the only one we knew personally when the time came, so he was the clear choice.”
The reporter pressed her advantage, “Can you be more specific about the circumstances of your meeting?”
Sildinar shook his head, “Apologies, but no. For now, it would be impossible to discuss the events without revealing classified information. You’ll have to wait for that story.”
The next question cut the second reporter off before she could begin pestering them for an answer, Wrenn mentally braced himself, the reporter in question was Stanley Carradan, “So, does your species really plan to go to war on our behalf?”
Wrenn found himself nodding in concert with the other three Gryphons, but it was Varan who spoke, in his usual clipped tones, “When we make a promise, we keep it. Come what may.”
Carradan quickly slid in another question, drawing glares from two of the reporters down the line, “What does keeping that promise entail?”
Sildinar fixed Carradan with a laser focused gaze, which caused the man to shrink back a little, much to Wrenn’s amusement, “It means we will bring warriors here, who will coordinate with your military to kill or capture every last HLF soldier and every last PER devotee, and we will show no quarter beyond that which is expected for women and children, until either they surrender outright, or there is no one left to do so.”
The next reporter stomped on Carradan’s foot beneath the table, and interjected her own question before he could speak again. The cameras didn’t catch it, but Wrenn did. He found it immensely relieving, to be able to judge the emotions of all the men and women across from him as if they were displaying them on blinking holo signs strapped to their heads.
A nervous tic here, a muscle relaxed there, a tiny hint of tension in the voice, a shift in the eyes...
The tells were endless.
“Despite the difficulties in getting large volumes of information and correspondence across the barrier in a timely fashion, a lot of stories, reports, journals, and such about life as a Pony have made their way back here to Earth. We have a pretty good picture of life as a Pony.
By contrast, we know very little about your kind. Is that going to change?”
Wrenn knew the answer already, so he took the question, “Yes it is. I expect to be returning to Earth, at times, and I will be glad to tell the tales of my life in Equestria. Beyond that, the initial courses and evaluation for Gryphonization candidates will convey great deal of information about us, including a quick primer in history and culture. As the number of converts increases, so too will the various streams of information.”
The next few questions were relatively mundane, and aimed at Wrenn; ‘how did it feel?,’ ‘did you dream during conversion?,’ ‘what was it like to have wings?’
Then the hardline queries started up again, “Why is your species going out of its way to befriend ours?”
Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “Just because we have a reputation as warriors does not mean we are any less amiable than Ponies, to those who can reciprocate honorably in kind.
We see a kinship in humanity; you are innovative, tenacious, and many of you are honorable. Like Celestia and her species, we have no desire to see you pass out of history and die.”
“But there are other motivations?” This from Carradan.
“Certainly. Symbiosis benefits both parties equally. We value the potential new ideas your kind can bring us. You have had thousands of years to invent, and write, and paint, and sculpt, and think in a world devoid of magic. A great many incredible and unique things have come of that, and part of the beneficial trade off in preserving them is having the future use of them.”
The questions went on. None of them trod too closely to the secrecy of Wrenn’s implants, and it became easier to answer them as the reporters became ever more predictable.
A few baited questions were asked, to which the four Gryphons always responded with blunt candor, much to the shock of the media moguls. They were too used to playing games with words, which was not something Gryphons did, especially not in a serious situation.
Several reporters tried to squeeze in an interview during the mid-morning break, but there was a locked room set up for the Gryphons and Mrs. Sunbeam, and the two armed and armored ConSec guards posted on either side of the door quickly discouraged any attempt at interrupting their few minutes of peace.
Wrenn finally got a decent, if brief, chance to talk to the golden colored pony, and found her every bit as pleasant as she appeared to be.
The second round of questions were far less taxing, they mostly consisted of viewer submitted material, and much of it was again simple questions about life as a new Gryphon directed to Wrenn. He enjoyed providing answers, coming up with heartfelt descriptions for his feelings along the way. Several questions went out to the rest of the Gryphons, and these mostly consisted of general questions about the species.
Only one tense question presented itself, and yet again it was from Carradan, who until that point had been mostly shut out by the other reporters, “So, could any of you shed some light on the political opposition you faced as you got this program off the ground? Did you feel any of it was valid?”
Wrenn jumped in before any of the others could answer, “No. I think its better not to coddle the issues facing us, but to meet them head on. The political opposition we faced was an inexcusable, but easily understandable, attempt at maintaining a status quo that died the day this planet did.
The past as we knew it is gone.
Nothing is going to bring it back.
The best thing you can do for yourself, your happiness, your family, and your species, is to invest in the future. Ponification is one option, Gryphonization is another, and if you find humanity suits you more, I’d direct you to the Genesists, one of whom I’ve had the privilege of making my friend recently. Despite the criticisms they’ve received, they are making good and legitimate progress.”
Wrenn glared at Carradan, and was satisfied to get the same unconscious shrinking from him that Sildinar had, “Celestia herself supports them, and as for my part so do I. Someone once called Earth humanity’s cradle... Well we are being kicked out of the cradle now, for better or worse, so buck up and figure out where you want to move in next and what you want to be when you get there. You have choices. Make them and be grateful you can, while you still can.”
That put an end to the hardline political questions, and for the last twenty minutes of the panel Carradan didn’t breathe a word.
Over lunch Kephic and Varan made a point of congratulating Wrenn on his answers, particularly the last thorny one. He did his best to wave them off. He was still a bit shy about speaking publicly, and if he were to tell the truth, also a little nervous about admitting to any oratory skills.
He had no problem with letting loose a modest boast or two over his shooting skills, or knife fight kill count, when it was appropriate, but he found any compliment to skills outside the military to be so alien that it was hard for it to fully register.
Sildinar was nowhere to be seen, but according to Varan, he was meeting with Celestia to finalize some things before she set off for Equestria. She was a monarch, and while her sister was capable of running the kingdom, apparently there was some business about the sun and the moon, and the fact that it was more taxing on her less practiced sister to juggle both.
Wrenn thought he recalled a historical account that might explain why Luna would be out of practice, something to do with a thousand years of exile, but he hadn’t had time to read the full story when he’d seen it. He assumed he would be able to get hold of the document again at some point.
Near the end of lunch, they returned, and Celestia shot Wrenn a glance.
He set down his mostly finished plate, and walked with her out into the hallway.
They had once again retired to Sildinar’s office, and the floor was practically deserted, giving them a moment of privacy.
She graced him with one of her warming smiles, “I just wanted to say a proper goodbye.
It’s been a pleasure getting to know you a little better Isaac. You are going to be a credit to your kinds.”
He was glad of his red feathers, they hid the blush he was sure was suffusing his cheeks,
“I hope so. I’m honored that you took the time to get to know me better. I hope I’ll see you again someday. Preferably soon.”
She inclined her head, “There is as much a standing invitation for your kind to visit my court as for my own. That goes double for my friends, and I consider you a friend. Whatever connotations your kind has among Ponies, I know our species are going to be close allies again. Preferably soon. Farewell.”
He returned her smile, “Farewell.”
As she walked down the corridor to the lift, Wrenn took a moment to stop and marvel at what had just happened. He was a Gryphon, standing in a human building, carrying on a conversation with a being above the standard mortal plane. The status quo of normality truly was a thing of the past.
The exclusive interview was to take place in a much cozier setting, so a low level office had been selected, and quickly turned into a suitable space, with two chairs for the reporters, and one for Wrenn, adjusted down to its stops so that he would only tower over then by a few inches instead of a foot or more.
The first reporter to enter Wrenn recognized, from earlier broadcasts, as Connie Sarrtan.
She smiled and offered a hand. When he reached out to shake it, she only flinched a little, but her grip strengthened when she realized he wasn’t going to impale her wrist.
“Hi. I just wanted a chance to introduce myself, and meet you in person, before the cameras start rolling.”
Wrenn nodded, “It certainly makes it easier to keep things informal during the interview itself.”
She sat down, “Yes, exactly.” There was a moment of awkward silence, “This is the closest I’ve ever been to one of you. You’re a bit intimidating, you know that right?”
Wrenn shrugged, “Why? Because I’m a soldier, or because I’m a Gryphon?”
“Yes.”
“Well, no need to be intimidated unless you’re a hostile target, or a hostile investigator.”
That seemed to break the ice, Sarrtan’s smile became more sincere, and a small chuckle escaped her lips.
“So those talons...” She stared down at one of his foreclaws, now resting on the chair for want of anything to do, “...did it take effort to learn not to spear things?”
Wrenn shook his head, “Some things take adjusting, but for daily tasks the talons aren’t much different to fingers. They’re less fragile, they can be more deadly, and they’re certainly more precise... but they pretty much work fine straight out of the gate.”
The conversation came to an abrupt end as another reporter entered. Wrenn was surprised, and slightly dismayed, to see it was Stanley Carradan. He was even more surprised to see a look of shock on Sarrtan’s face as well.
She glared at Carradan, “Why are you here? Where is my partner for the interview?”
Carradan shot her a wolfish glare, “He... offered to let me take this one. Why don’t we just say he ‘owed me a favor’, and leave it at that, eh sister?”
In some small selfish way, Wrenn was glad to see that the man’s annoying propensity for referring to people as family members in a patronizing fashion was not limited to him.
As a tech entered and began setting up the camera equipment, Wrenn leaned across the space and stuck his beak firmly in Carradan’s face, “If you get hardline with me,” he spared a glance for Sarrtan, “...or smart with her... or inappropriate... or crass, or if you even piss me off slightly, I’ll give you a ride off the top of this building. And I’ll wait till I’m over the deepest chasm I can find in this warren of skyscrapers, then I’ll kick you out, and let you see if the pavement respects the chip in your shoulder. Got it?”
“You wouldn’t!”
Wrenn sat back and smirked, “Yes. Yes I would.”
Sarrtan looked to be on the verge of tears, the laughing kind, and Carradan just looked sullen, with a twinge of respectful fear. The tech gave the minute warning, and both reporters fell to putting on their serious faces.
Wrenn found he had a slight itch in his left wing, and before he quite knew what he was doing, he had bent his head down and run his beak over the feathers like a comb. This not only relieved the itch, but pushed the feathers into a more orderly, well seated bundle.
He stopped and went back to watching the camera tech, but he decided he would have to do some kind of maintenance to all of his feathers in the mornings and evenings, even if it was just a quick preen. He knew enough about birds to know that feathers, and he supposed fur, needed to be kept up with more than just a dash of hot water now and then. He knew for a fact that his feathers were precision control surfaces when flying, so he knew they needed to be in order.
The tech gave the ten second warning, and Wrenn turned his attention to the reporters in front of him. Sarrtan, he decided, was just genuinely happy to have the exclusive. Carradan, however, was the epitome of a news hound. He wanted more sensation, to the point of impropriety.
Wrenn resolved that if he got snarky, he would simply verbally thrash him live on global television. Barely an inconvenience.
The camera’s light toggled to green, and Sarrtan jumped on the silence, “I’m Connie Sarrtan, here with Stanley Carradan to bring you an exclusive interview with the first human ever to take on the wings of a Gryphon. Greetings Lieutenant Wrenn.”
Wrenn smiled and inclined his head, “Hello.”
Sarrtan hurried to keep Carradan from butting in, “So I know you’re probably tired of this question, but what’s it like? This is something you’re probably going to have to describe more than once before we all start to understand, so would you mind taking another crack at it?”
Wrenn did the wing-shrug, and took a deep breath, “Why not? Well for starters there is the constant stream of sensation. There's a lot more to hear, and a *whole* lot more to see, and your brain ignores none of it. But it's not confusing or distracting, you feel as though you can handle it all, and if you concentrate you can even stop to analyze it.”
Carradan raised a disbelieving eyebrow, “What do you mean... stop?”
“”In the time it takes you to ask, if I try, I can change the speed my mind is working at. Accelerate it to the point that I can have relative minutes of thoughts in the span of a second. Here, I’m no good at arithmetic, but anyone can do basic stuff given enough time. You ask me any basic math question, with a complicated twist, and I’ll answer within a second. Every time.”
Truthfully, Wrenn wasn’t sure he could manage it. He was terrible at math. But he was confident he could slow down his thought-time enough to work it all out. Sarrtan pulled a DaTab from her messenger bag, “If it's alright with you, I’ll act as scorekeeper.”
Carradan sat and chewed a nail for a moment, looking pensive, “Righteyo then. What’s 12,628,272.541 divided by 225.16 times 12.12190.”
Wrenn could tell he was just spouting numbers.
He concentrated on the passage of time, and forced it to slow to a crawl, as far as he could push it. He could sense his ability to move, and breathe, fast enough that he wouldn’t feel as mired down as the two reporters looked, but his mind had still gone far beyond his body’s ability to follow.
He perfectly recalled Carradan’s numbers, digit by digit, and visually drew the division and multiplication boxes in the air in front of him. It was trying, exhausting even, mainly because he hated math, but he finally came up with an answer.
At his behest, time and his brain snapped back into synchronization. Sarrtan had just begun to depress the first key on the DaTab. Wrenn blurted out the answer, “4,626.81366”
Carradan gave him a skeptical look, but when Sarrtan finished typing in the numbers and pressed the enter key, her mouth hung open. She held up the DaTab, revealing the answer.
4,626.81366
Carradan looked shell shocked, Wrenn just grinned, “I told you.”
Sarrtan continued to gape, “Unbelievable. You can really do that at any time?”
Wrenn nodded, “It’s unpleasant and jarring if it lasts more than a few seconds. It’s more useful in combat, I imagine, when you do it repeatedly but very briefly each time. I spent about seven minutes in those two seconds that passed for you.”
Carradan snickered slightly, “Can it get stuck? Y’know, can you end up living with a melting clock effect or somethin’?”
Wrenn shook his head, “It takes a little effort to keep it up, actually, and that increases as time goes on, not to mention the discomfort. It’s not an unconscious or uncontrolled thing.”
Sarrtan collected herself and kept up the questions, “Can you explain, in more detail, the requirements for entry to the program?”
Carradan nodded his assent, “Yeah I think everyone’s interested in specifics.”
Wrenn pondered carefully before speaking, cupping the underside of his beak with a claw in a thoughtful manner, “I was never given an exact... rubric if that’s what you mean. I was told, and rightly so, that the main things Gryphons value are honor, courage, and loyalty. The main things we despise are deceitfulness, betrayal, and dishonor; whether by word or deed.”
Carradan leaned forward, “Whaddya mean you never had an exact rubric?”
“I mean I knew the general requirements, but I was never given some sort of list that said ‘if you’ve done this, that, or the other then you’re ineligible.’ I was however asked some moral dilemma questions at random moments.”
Sarrtan rested her chin on a hand, “Can you give us an example?”
Wrenn quickly selected one of the scenarios, “You’ve been taken by the enemy and imprisoned in a dungeon. Across from you, through a set of iron bars, is another prisoner. You have a small bell in front of you, which you can reach, and ring, despite your shackles. You are told that if you do not ring the bell, then you will be tortured, but not to death or in any way that will leave permanent damage, once an hour every hour for ten days. Then you and the other prisoner will be released.”
Wrenn paused for effect. Both reporters were leaning forward now, “But if you ring the bell, you will immediately be set free, but not before they execute the other prisoner while you watch.”
Carradan sat back and waved a dismissive hand, “Yeah yeah, obvious answer.”
Wrenn shook his head, “There are two complicating factors. First, its not asked that way. They want a more detailed answer, and they will judge your emotions. We have a lot of complicated emotional tells in our bodies, and extremely perceptive eyes. Humans? You are an open book to us.”
This made both Sarrtan and Carradan very uncomfortable. Wrenn could see the subtle shifts in their posture.
He forged ahead, “They can tell, even if you can’t for sure yourself, whether or not you would really have the fortitude to carry through with that scenario. The other complicating factor is that they expect it to provoke an emotional response of anger, and for it to occur to you that in a real scenario such as that, it’s on you to escape. No enemy is going to be so merciful as to let you get off that easily.”
Sarrtan sat back as well, “So it sounds as if it’s more of a psychological evaluation than the written test some of us were imaging?”
Wrenn bobbed his head enthusiastically, “Very much so. It is about one of us getting to know one of you, not about a cut and paste set of specific questions. The one unchanging thing is our moral code, so I’ll refer you back to that. If you are an honorable, loyal, courageous person who would be at home as one of us, then you’ll pass. If not, you won’t, and you will be better off for having been denied.”
Carradan snorted, “You keep referring to yourself as one of them... did it really take to you that quickly?”
Wrenn glared, “I say ‘us’ and ‘we’ because I am a Gryphon. Not just in body, they’ve invited me to be a part of their kind in a familial sense, as they will with all candidates who pass. I’m not about to forget my time as a human, or the things I saw, and learned, and did, or the emotion of it all... I'll carry the greater part of my Humanity with me forever. But I’m not physically a human anymore. I’m just being honest about it.”
Sarrtan surprised him with her next question, “So... you don’t see Conversion as any kind of betrayal of Humanity? Some Converts have feelings of regret before the procedure. Not you?”
Wrenn shook his head, “Humanity as we know it had a good run. And the important things, the things that defined the species; art, science, literature... the Equestrians are going to preserve all that.
Heck they have a whole ministry, staffed with hundreds of thousands of Humans, and Ponies, and maybe soon Gryphons, working around the clock to transfer our accomplishments to their museums, their libraries, and their historical vaults. They even went to the trouble to find a way to flash-copy our paintings and sculptures magically from the original to an exact duplicate made of Equestrian material. They’re transcribing every single book. Every last one. They even want to find a way to make Thaumatic computers so they can copy parts of the internet.”
He glanced at the camera, “Humanity in spirit, will survive, but if we face facts, we have to admit that homo sapiens is biologically a step behind, and we're living on borrowed time in a planetary sense. But, if you’re not ready to make such a drastic change, you don’t have to. Councilor Martins is always looking for volunteers to help with the sleeper ships, and I say go for it. The diversity of maintaining the Human form elsewhere is a good thing, if they can swing it.”
The rest of the interview was fairly pleasant. Carradan was a bit grating, but he didn’t ask anything overtly nasty, for which Wrenn was grateful.
Sarrtan just seemed enthused to be able to get some one on one answers.
Near the end, Carradan posed one final question, as the tech gestured that they only had a minute left, “So... You really truly believe that Conversion, whether to Pony or Gryphon, is a good future for most of us?”
Wrenn nodded emphatically, “Completely. I’ve seen enough to know. Take it from me, both are worthwhile futures as a part of an amazing culture.”
Sarrtan smiled, “Well that’s all the time we have, thank you so much for giving us a little personal insight Lieutenant.”
Wrenn reached out to shake first her hand, and then Carradan’s, digging in ever so slightly as he shook the man’s hand. Not enough to cause serious pain, but just enough to let Carradan know he had done it intentionally.
As the three of them smiled for the camera, Wrenn and Sarrtan genuinely, Carradan trying not to wince, Wrenn decided that it had turned out to be a good day. All things considered.