The Conversion Bureau: Dominance

by Barrobroadcaster

Experiment

Sandra hadn't slept well that night. She sat at the small work desk in the corner of her dark apartment, forcing herself to work. The small, one-bedroom apartment had always felt small to her but after the relocation, it began to feel bigger. She still remembered purchasing the property with her husband. Painful memories like that forced her to stay awake and keep working, experimenting with the serum sample she stole from the conversion center to find a cure.

The serum was only designed to do one thing: transform human beings into ponies. That meant there was only one way to study its effects.

Rubbing her right arm, she pushed herself away from the desk and walked over to her kitchen sink once again. She hadn't counted how many times she'd done this in the past few hours but the stiffness in her arm was beginning to get uncomfortable. She sterilized the needle once again with the chemicals in her kitchen, cleaned a new spot on her arm and jabbed it into herself.

She withdrew a vial of blood from her arm. She then mixed her own blood in a petri dish with the ponification serum to see its effects. If she could understand how it worked, she could try to develop a vaccine or even a cure. But after going through slides for the better part of the night and the day before, she was no closer to understanding how it worked than she was to getting her husband back.

She sighed as she waited for the two chemicals to interact. She kept most of the lights out in her apartment; partly because she didn't need them and partly because she didn't want to be reminded of her marriage.

Sandra remembered the day she and her husband fled the apartment; it actually wasn't that long ago. She remembered how they'd waited almost until the last minute, watched as their friends and families fled without them or embraced ponification. Even a few of their more close-minded friends had chosen none of the above; deciding instead to allow the barrier to simply advance over them. Sandra had regretted that some of them had made the decision... but a part of her understood why. Those few peoples' homes were now on the other side of the barrier.

She and her husband had chosen to move at the last minute. They were fleeing the city they'd been captured. Pegasi had practically lifted their car, her husband's black SUV off the ground in order to get them both out. They'd been hauled to a conversion bureau but this one had been different. Instead of offering them ponification, they were informed that it would be forced upon them.

Sandra and her husband had been separated, placed in different rooms across from each other. They both had resisted conversion up until then but at the last moment, they almost gave in. As Sandra herself was about to be ponified, she saw an opportunity to escape and took it.

Her husband was not so lucky. Sandra still remembered watching her own husband transform into a pony while she was powerless to do anything about it. Separated by a door and a window, the image of him reaching out to her in his last moments of humanity before hand turned to hoof were burned clearly into her mind. She'd escaped conversion that day... but she had lost the one person she'd loved more than anything else. That is why she swore she would get him back. No matter what it took.

She walked back over to her desk with a new slide. As she examined the sample, the light from her desk lamp casted a reflective glare back into her eyes. She pushed it out of the way. Once again, she was unable to discern how the ponification molecules interacted with human blood. There were no chemical signals or indicators on the cells themselves that determined what they did and it didn't behave like a virus.

It was almost as if the ponification molecules had minds of their own. They acted as if they were motivated by some unseen force, an energy that was invisibly guiding them throughout the liquid suspension they were in. No matter how she tampered with the serum or her own blood, the results were the same. Every single time.

The lamp's light bothered her again and she had to slide it away from her. It was getting annoying.

"What? I just wanted to see what you're up to," a voice said. She looked around, searching for the voice. She got up immediately. Who was in her apartment with her? What had she done wrong? One of them must've followed her home. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to find whoever it was that was spying on her.

"I... I'm not the only one who knows!" she exaggerated. "If you don't leave me now, I'm going to the press with this and-"

"What's all this about? I'm just curious as to what you're doing here," the voice said. It sounded like the voice was near her. Some strange part of her felt like she was hearing it from inside her own head. She turned back to her desk to see her desk lamp had moved and was now over the microscope. Like it was looking through it at the slide. Slowly, the lamp turned to her.

"What in the-" The lamp spun around rapidly. It twirled through the air off of the desk and took on a different form, one Sandra didn't recognize.

"I'm interested in what exactly it is you're doing here." A bipedal creature materialized before her from the lamp. It folded its arms and looked at her with a confident smile.

"Who... what are you?" Sandra asked, backing away from the thing. "Are you one of them? A pony?"

The creature chuckled. "I'm quite a lot of things, really and lately, I even find myself being things I don't want to be. Like a security guard or a lapdog. You can call me Discord and right now, I'll be the one asking the questions," he said, stepping forward.

"I have friends. I told them about your operations," Sandra lied. "If I'm missing, they'll go to the police with what I've told them."

"Relax. I'm the only one who knows you broke into the center. They're more interested in the other one, the boy you escaped with," Discord explained. He looked at the microscope, placing a claw over the eye piece, almost caressing the device. "I really have to admire you humans. So radical... reminds me a little bit of an old part of myself."

Sandra remained silent. The creature called Discord examined the slide under the microscope, adjusting the eyepiece so it was in focus.

"You're examining the ponification serum... why?"

Could she really trust him? What did she have to lose?

"I... I'm looking for a cure. I'm studying its effects to see if I can create a cure of some kind."

Discord looked up. He smiled. "Studying? That's what she's probably doing right now with her friends on the other side," he chuckled.

He turned to her. "You're willing to do anything to change your circumstances. Fighting against a form of control, a form of oppressive change even when the alternative is... so severe. Truly, you aliens are inspiring," Discord said. "You're using blood though. That's not going to be enough to find a cure; the serum changes more than that. You need to be studying the results on live subjects."

Studying the results? Did he mean ponifying other humans? She was disgusted at the thought of forcing others to undergo that transformation just to research them. But she was a scientist. Discord did have a point.

"The boy that escaped with you, you know where he is?" Discord asked.

She hesitated. "Why?"

Discord pointed to the microscope. "He's immune to the ponification serum. The director of conversion came to the center. They don't know about you taking a 'free sample' but they know the young man you were with escaped. For some reason, he didn't transform when he took the serum."

Immune? She had to know more. She wished now she had taken the kid all the way to his house. At least she remembered his name.

"I know where I dropped him off after we escaped."

Discord put a claw to his chin. "I'm supposed to bring him back for conversion. The director ordered the center to manufacture a gas version of the serum. They're planning on using it on the city."

Gassing the whole city? If she didn't find a cure quickly... and that kid was immune? If only she had known then, she could've saved all this time!

"We can go to his neighborhood and look for him. His name's Nathan... Nathan Sheffield. If we can find a way to duplicate to study his immunity, I could create a cure for ponification," Sandra said.

Discord cupped his clawed fist. "All we have to do is find this kid and get him back to the conversion center. Do you think he's told anyone about what's happened there?"

Sandra thought for a moment. "He was pretty shaken up but I told him not to tell anyone or anypony. He's just a kid; chances are, he's forgotten about it already."

Comments

[Barrobroadcaster]

2959520 Ask yourself, what is a human? What is a pony?
The answer's a little deeper than many realize.

[Runner]

Poor Nathan damn those ponies.