"You can't be serious! Why don't you just get ponified like everyone else?" Jack whined.

Michael paced across the floor of his basement lab. Various bins, electronic parts, and machines filled the shelves that lined all four walls. It was a proper mad scientist’s laboratory. "Look, when I said I was looking forward to the post-human singularity, I didn't mean this!"

"Why are you so suspicious?" Jack, Michael’s best friend since middle school, asked. "Life in Equestria sounds great! Why do you have to be such a humanist?"

He tightened a couple of screws in the casing of his newest invention, "Are you even hearing yourself? You're human too!"

"Not for long! I can't wait to get ponified."

Michael stopped his work, put down his newest toy, and looked at his friend, sitting there on one of the few stools scattered around the laboratory.

He sighed, "Jack, answer me this: Why are you ashamed of being human?"

Jack rolled his eyes, "Haven't you read the pamphlets?"

"Yes, I have."

"So you know how horrible humans have been in the past! How we are now!"

"Jack, Nothing in those pamphlets or the seminars or the TV specials is new information!"

"So why are you against it?"

Michael ran his hands through his brown hair and closed his eyes. He leaned back against his workbench in the center of the room, the edge of the table pressing against him just above the waist, creasing his white lab coat.

"Look, we know we've screwed up in the past, just look in any history book. And we know we're still pretty messed up as a species. We've killed each other over land and messed up the planet. But we’re TRYING to fix it and ourselves. Some of us anyway. We make ourselves better and survive. That's how we've been doing it for millennia and we're still here, aren't we? Despite the decline, we’re still here."

Jack hopped off the barstool and walked closer to his friend, "Michael, I heard from Irene yesterday. She's helping out over at that new Ponification Center."

Michael snapped to attention to what his friend had just said.

"Irene? Irene Irene?"

"Yeah, Irene. But she's going by a new name now, 'Shimmer Stardust'. Anyway, she says that Equestria is just like in the pamphlets. The weather, the beautiful scenery, how peaceful it all is... everything is just like it is on the box."

Michael squelched the bit of emotion that rose up with Jack's mentioning of Irene. Irene McAllister - "Shimmer Stardust" - was someone special to Michael. Nothing ever happened between the two, but he had always cared for her deeply. It was the saddest day in his life when he saw her walk through the doors into the ponification camp. He could have stayed and saw her afterwards, but he couldn't. He didn't want to have his memory of her beautiful cobalt blue eyes and her raven black hair replaced with... a pastel horse, for all he knew.  

Michael turned and looked his friend square in the eyes.

"Let me ask you something: If everything is SO NICE in Equestria, why are they coming here? They have lush forests, green meadows, WEATHER CONTROL, and MAGIC. Fucking MAGIC! Why are they leaving their PARADISE to come HERE? To the rest of the planet we've so egregiously fucked up?"

"I don't know..."

"That's right. They never say that do they?" Michael started pacing again, "They come around to all the towns, with all the little lemmings practically BEGGING to be ponified. I mean, look at this headline from last month’s paper: ‘PONIFICATION CAMP OPENS; HUNDREDS FLOCK TO JOIN PONY SOCIETY’. Hundreds, Jack! And that was a month ago! Have you taken a walk lately? This town is slowly dwindling. But does anybody even know what they DO to people in there? All they ever tell us is that it's a combination of medical technology and magic. I've tried finding out what happens, but the only thing I've been able gather is that you drink this sort of... super anesthetic, fall asleep, and wake up as a pony! Humans go in, ponies come out, but nothing in between! A huge transformation like that? Overnight? And how do people keep their personalities? Their memories?"

"So you want to know how people get turned into ponies?"

Michael put his palm to his face, "Jack, you're thinking too small.  I don't want to know ‘how’; I want to know 'why'. Why are they doing this? Any of this? And why can't we get in to see this paradise for ourselves? Why do we have to become one of them first?"

"Well, there's a force field around all of Equestria." Jack answered.

Michael sat down and motioned for his friend to do the same, "Yes. Exactly. But, again, you are missing the real question. Why is there a force field around Equestria?"

"To keep humans from coming in before they become ponies."

"Alright," he said, "So what's the difference between us as ponies and us as humans?"

Jack cracked a smile, "No thumbs?"

"Ha ha, very funny," Michael retorted, smirking sarcastically. "But think it through: They say that we screwed up the world. That we were being greedy and selfish. But that's just human nature. So if they are letting us in as ponies, they have to be doing something to us that's making us not-human."

"Michael. They're turning people into ponies. I think you answered your own question."

"I don't mean human as in our species," He pointed at his own head, "I mean human as in up here, in our minds. They're changing us, Jack, but in more ways than one."

Michael thought back to Irene, "Irene, what did they do to you? Are you even the same person I knew only a year ago?"

He had to know what was going on in Equestria. What they were planning. What they did to Irene and all of the others. He was almost done with the preparations, so maybe it was time to get some answers.

Jack spoke, breaking Michael's introspection. "I don't like that look, Mike. What are you going to do?"

Michael sighed, "I can't tell you."

Jack was shocked. Michael usually reveled in telling him all about his "plans" and inventions. Why was this so different?

"What do you mean you can't tell me?"

"I can't tell you. You said yourself that you can't wait to become a pony. I don't know what they do to people in there!"

Jack could hardly believe his ears, "What are you saying?"

Michael put his head down on the surface of the workbench.

"I'm saying I can't trust you right now. What I'm planning is big, and if they find out, they might try and stop me. Hell, our own people might try and stop me."

"You mean the cops?"

Michael let out a sad laugh, "No, Jack. No, worse than that. Regular people. You've seen how things have been going for people like me; People who don't want to get ponified. It's not looking good. We're being turned into pariahs. They are saying we’re holding back humans as a species. Ironic, don’t you think? How do you think those people would react if they found out someone might be doing something that might put their dreams of becoming horses into jeopardy? Might as well hang me now..."

Jack was hurt.

"Look, how many of your secrets have you trusted me with? The time when we were little and you took apart your dad's car, but couldn't put it back together right? Who helped you make it look like it was stripped for parts? And when Mrs. Johansen's cat wandered into the field of that airsoft turret you were building in high school? Who helped you clean up that mess?" He put his hand on Michael's shoulder, "Buddy, I'm your best friend. You have to trust me."

Michael’s heart was breaking, "I'm... I'm sorry man. It's just... Not this time. I'm sorry."

Jack's voice turned to ice. "So that's it, huh? I'm going to become a pony and now you can't trust me anymore?"

Michael bolted up, "It's not like that!"

"Then what is it?! Huh?! You tell me!"

"It's not YOU I don't trust! It's THEM!"

"What? Just because you can't get a couple of answers you think you need to go become some big conspiracy theorist secret agent now?" Jack's tone softened, "Let me ask you something. Once I get ponified, are we still going to be friends?"

Michael's tone softened to match, "Yeah, of course. Don't be stupid."

Jack smiled, "Look man, you need to get past this. Are you sure you can't tell me what you're up to?"

"Yeah. For now."

"But you will tell me once you find out, right?"

This time Michael was the one smiling.

"Oh, I'll tell everyone." Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 54 Minutes