Forced Conversion

by Donald J. Bingle

“I meant . . . I think they were your friends. I know they killed them.” He hesitated before continuing, undoubtedly thankful that her finger was no longer coiled around a hair trigger. “I was there. I . . . tried to give the one we were chasing a chance to be converted . . . but he was . . . killed.”

  That was it, then. Joshua was dead and this man had seen him die. Maria looked at him with distaste. “Better dead, than damned for eternity,” she spat as Kyle returned to the cabin.

  “Them’s fine friendly words to come home to,” he muttered as he looked from one to the other. “Maybe we should sit a spell.” He gestured toward the table and Maria made her way warily to the opposite end from Derek. Kyle casually set a fork and the skillet with the leftovers from breakfast down in front of the girl, then pulled the rocking chair towards the table betwixt the two and settled in.

  “Maybe I should tell you what this feller here ‘splained to me, to get us all on an even keel and all.”

  Maria paused between forkfuls of cold, greasy potatoes. “Don’t bother. I heard.”

  “Well, I mean last night . . .” continued the old man by way of explanation.

  Maria stopped shoveling food for another moment. “Yeah, I know. I heard that, too.” She started to eat again, then stopped. “Thanks for the food. The smell was driving me crazy all night.”

  * * * * *

  Derek watched Maria eat.

  If Derek had thought his tensions had eased when Kyle talked Maria out of her weapon, he was even more relieved by what she had just revealed. He almost chuckled, thinking back, about his lack of worry as to whether the hermit would off him during the night. No doubt this woman could have killed him during the night, but she had not.

  She was apparently a soldier with principles.

  He strove to be a soldier with principles.

  Maybe there was some common ground. Maybe he could convert them both. “Kyle is one hell of a cook,” he said lightly to ease the mood and his task.

  “There’s no reason to blaspheme,” replied Maria icily.

  Crap. They didn’t teach you how to deal with this in orientation training class. And he used to think that exams had been hard.

  Chapter 11

  Kyle shushed them and Maria finished eating in peace. Then the old man cleared the table.

  “So, Maria, jus’ what do you think Derek left out of his explanation?”

  Maria shrugged her shoulders briefly and tilted her head slightly to her right, her dark hair falling somewhat away from her face, thinking about how to begin without unduly antagonizing either of her listeners and without sugarcoating the hideous truth. Finally she spoke: “All the rough edges the victors always leave out of the history books—the blind alleys and failures along the way to their ‘victory,’ the power plays and petty rivalries that shape policy, the thoughtless misery their policies generate, the suffering and violence used to implement their will, and the fact that government policy is the ultimate embodiment of collective ego, that, like all governments from time out of mind, they know what is better for the people than the people do themselves.”

  Derek visibly bristled. “Mandatory conversion was adopted as a policy by both democratic and undemocratic forms of government—it is the only sensible solution to the continuation of life on earth,” he interrupted.

  “Hush, now boy. You got a long spell to speak, now give the little lady her turn,” cautioned Kyle with a stern look toward the ConFoe. “Explain what you mean, honey.”

  Somehow men would never learn that no military officer in any army liked to be referred to as “honey,” but Maria let it slide. The geezer was ancient; he probably hadn’t even seen a woman, except for pictures in thumb-worn old copies of National Geographic, for years. Maybe not even that—he seemed bothered earlier by the references to the influence of the adult industry on the net. Perhaps that would provide an opening in which she could drive the wedge of truth.

  “Well,” she began, “he slid right past how this whole sick business of conversion began with the smut-mongers in the porn business.”

  The old man’s right eyebrow arched markedly. “And how’s that?”

  “At first, the porn sites on the internet just depicted . . .” She hesitated, embarrassed by her faith from getting too graphic in her discussion. “. . . the usual disgusting things they used to show in dirty magazines.” Having moved over the delicate part, she pushed on. “Later, the men would type what they wanted the women to do and watch. But soon after, the technicians in the industry developed virtual reality goggles and avatars and bio-sensing feedback mechanisms that monitored the pleasure senses and altered the scenario being experienced to maximize sensory satisfaction. Gloves and suits for the users began to enable them to feel like they were touching and feeling things that weren’t really there, things that were only in the virtual world of the computer, and they did sick things, things they could never get away with in the real world.”

  “Damn perverts,” muttered the old man. “Pardon my French,” he quickly nodded to Maria. She continued, a slight look of puzzlement flitting quickly over her face, then disappearing.

  “There was a lot of money in that form of ‘entertainment,’ so the smut-mongers funded a lot of the new bio-feedback research and development and implemented a lot of the cutting-edge equipment for their seamy, disgusting businesses, purposes for which the equipment had never been intended by the scientists. A lot of techs first became familiar with the cutting-edge equipment and science by working for the porn companies.”

  Maria continued her explanation. “When scanning technology began to catch up with the ability to craft virtual worlds, the first areas of the brain to be scanned were the pleasure centers and the first subjects to be scanned voluntarily were the sickest of the sickos—creeps that wanted to live forever in pleasure palaces and dungeons where everyone bent to their will.”

  * * * * *

  As Maria paused momentarily to gather her thoughts, Derek seized the opportunity to interject. He wanted to keep some control over the conversation, but he didn’t want to piss off his potential convert. “I don’t deny that the adult entertainment industry had an impact on furthering the technical developments that make conversion possible. But it was inevitable, you know. They just rushed it along. None of the officially sanctioned virtual worlds are anything like what you describe.”

  She looked at him haughtily. “Still, the mark of the devil permeates the process.”

  “Maybe God just works in mysterious ways,” he responded. It was the catch-all response that the ConFoe training manual recommended whenever a religiously-inclined mal made an objection or comment you didn’t have a ready answer for.

  “You have no business talking to anyone about God,” she shot back.

  “Then I guess you have no business talking to anyone about porn.” His smart-alecky response felt good as he said it, but he immediately regretted it. It was tacky and sophomoric.

  “Stop bickering,” warned the old man. “I un’erstand the point that the technical aspects of the process had less than savory beginnings. So does makin’ soap, but it’s the use something is put to that matters, not where it comes from. Why don’t we jus’ move along? Where’d things go from this . . . uh . . . shady start?”

  “What he said,” she began, inclining her head toward Derek, “about the science stuff is pretty accurate. The capabilities of the equipment advanced fast, really fast, and all the guys in white coats couldn’t wait to play God, to create their own little utopias and populate them with real people—or at least the data they derived from real people. The technical types—the really nerdy ones that didn’t have much of a real life—started opting in. Then, the rich and famous with a technical bent—y’know, the ones that always had the latest and best sound systems and vid-screens—they followed the faddish trend like the mindless consumer lemmings they have always been.”

  Again, Derek tried to nudge the conversation toward more favorable ground. He doubted the hermit
was fond of conspicuous consumption. “You’re forgetting about the other early adopters, the people who were dying or in pain that were helped by conversion.”

  “Helped?” Maria scoffed. “Instead of living and dying as God intended, the medical establishment just kept on hooking people to more and more machines—monitors and insulin pumps and implanted dialysis units and fake arms and bones and eyes and hearts, until the people’s souls just became another part of the machinery. Don’t worry. I won’t forget to mention that. It’s what started the whole slide into oblivion.”

  Derek attempted to clarify before Maria could start off on another rant. “Terminal patients, people in chronic, persistent pain, quadriplegics . . . they could all be altered and move into a virtual world where they could live and be whole.” This part of Derek’s orientation pitch—at least the passion of it—did not come from his training, it came from his heart, it came from his own personal experience. “It was expensive, especially at first, but it gave true hope to the hopeless—a place where they could go and live without pain. It also wiped out the quacks and the fakers in the world of treatment. Why go to Mexico for untested medicine or to India for ‘spiritual surgery,’ when you could go to a better world? Your family, or at least most of them, could even go with you.”

  * * * * *

  The sincerity in the words gushing forth from the ConFoe took Maria aback. There were practically tears in the guy’s eyes. Finally, it made sense. “You’re one of them aren’t you? Brother or sister . . .” She looked him over to estimate his age, “. . . maybe a child with a problem.” She considered for a moment. “Not terminal probably . . .”

  She noticed the puzzlement on Kyle face and explained. “It was, like he said, expensive at first. All the big charities got into it. It started with the wish foundations. Why send a dying kid off to see DisneyWorld when, for a bit more money, they could send the kid to a virtual world forever? The support group charities would even fund sending the parents along for the ride. Soon after, the disease charities—you know, the ones for heart disease and AIDS and cancer—they realized that it was cheaper to convert people, than to figure out how to cure them here on earth. The tobacco people started settling all their lawsuits that way, too—you could even collect frequent buyer points on each pack of cigarettes and purchase a conversion with them once the emphysema or cancer struck.”

  The old man twitched at the word “cancer,” but said nothing.

  “It solved a lot of problems,” asserted Derek.

  “It solved problems like suicide solves problems,” Maria retorted, “but with more cost to the human soul.”

  Kyle again stepped in to stop the bickering. “I ‘spect we’ll git to the theology soon enough. Let’s make real sure I un’erstand the history first off.” He nodded curtly at Maria and she took up her explanation once again.

  “Saving money, that was the wide and well-traveled path straight to perdition. You see, Kyle, it saved money for the government, too. Resources were scarce, tax-cheats in ample supply, and population increasing all the time. I mean, why take care of sick and homeless people when you could euthanize them legally?”

  “When you could eliminate their misery in a cost-effective manner,” interjected Derek as a kind of simultaneous translation.

  “That’s when the coercion began,” said Maria with a shiver. “Suddenly, Medicare and Social Security and the socialized medical programs overseas, they wouldn’t pay for operations or medicine, not when they could just convert the patient cheaply and eliminate the drain on their resources. Same kind of thing on the medical research side. Why pay for research to cure something, when you could just convert the victims? Of course, the lack of government and charitable funding for real medical solutions meant that the pharmaceutical conglomerates weren’t making money finding cures or getting new drugs approved anymore. There was no percentage in that. Instead they put their R&D money into software enhancements for the conversion process. A constantly increasing supply of sick and miserable people meant a growth industry for them.”

  Maria make a sick face as she thought of what had occurred. “Misery was a good thing for the bottom line. Spreading AIDS guaranteed favorable demand. Suddenly it didn’t make sense to be careful about anything. Cigarette companies went back to adding the deadly doses of nicotine their clients craved. Vegetarians and health eaters were laughed at, even more than before. Sexually transmitted diseases ran rampant. Risky behavior knew no bounds. If anything bad happened, short of death, the hospital or the government would solve it by conversion of the individual who had made the bad choice. It was a panacea for everything.”

  “Panaceas are only bad if they are false. What’s wrong with an ultimate solution, a final solution to a host of ills?”

  Kyle looked sternly at the ConFoe. “I wouldn’t use that phrase, if’n I were you.”

  Derek shook his head in bewilderment. “Huh?”

  “Final solution. That’s what the Nazis called it when they tried to wipe out the gypsies and the Jews and the Poles. Damn near succeeded, too.” Again, he nodded toward Maria. “Pardon my French.”

  Maria let the comment pass again. She didn’t know French, but he hadn’t said anything that sounded foreign, just rude. Maybe the French were rude people back in his day; she had no idea.

  * * * * *

  Derek hesitated. Kyle’s reference to Nazis confused him. Some mals called the ConFoes Nazis. Derek knew it was a bad thing, without really knowing why. He had never paid that much attention in history class during his school days. He just knew that the Nazis were always the bad guys in old movies. “Point taken,” he conceded without really understanding. He wasn’t stupid. He could adapt to his audience’s sensibilities without really caring why they had them.

  “This particular solution,” intoned Maria, taking up her lecture once again, “was applied on a sweeping scale, even at the level of international conflicts. No more refugee camps, just U.N. conversion facilities. No more starving kids in Africa, just send in the Mobile Expeditionary Conversion Forces.”

  “No more conflict in the Middle East,” declaimed Derek proudly—the training manual always recited this as a stellar example of the successes of conversion.

  True to the word of Derek’s trainer, Kyle’s eyes widened and he rocked slightly back in his chair. “Really? Gotta say, that is one impressive feat. How’d that work?”

  Maria waved her hand dismissively and took back control of the conversation. “It didn’t solve the Mideast situation. It sidestepped it. One virtual world where the Jews control Jerusalem and all their neighbors stay clear of their claimed territory and one where the Arabs control Jerusalem and the Jews are nowhere to be found.”

  Kyle smiled and shook his head in bemused amazement. “That would be the one thing that would do it, sure ‘nuf.”

  “The U.N. solved all the ethnic wars and border conflicts the same way. Taiwan, Northern Ireland, Kashmir . . . you name it,” said Derek proudly.

  “That makes for a lot of these here computer worlds, doesn’t it?” asked Kyle, once again rubbing his beard in apparent contemplation.

  “Yeah. Some are not quite as fully realized as the main worlds. Alpha One, which replicates reality as closely as possible, and Alpha Two, which does the same, but eliminates pain, disease, injury, and the like, are the two biggest. Like I said before, though, computer power and storage capacity are infinite for all practical purposes, so it really doesn’t matter how many there are. I have a full menu with my equipment uphill, when it comes time for you to choose.”

  The last set Maria off like an exploding Ponderosa pine. “You keep using that word, ‘choose.’ Like you give anybody a real choice, a true choice. I hated it when the proponents of this sick scheme called themselves ‘pro-choice.’ The only thing about it that is right is the connection to the historical antecedents in the abortion struggle. Except here, you want to abort humanity as a whole—not just one life at a time.” Her eyes were fiercely intent and
the scowl on her face stole any prettiness that she had once seemed to have.

  Kyle held up his hands to try to stop them, but the two debaters paid him no heed.

  “We’re not killing anybody, we’re converting them!” shouted Derek. His voice conveyed a quivering vehemence that was not dictated by the training manuals. Life in the ConFoes was bad enough. He would not . . . could not . . . be able to tolerate it if he thought of himself as a mass murderer.

  “And just what do you think happens to the souls of these people you ‘convert’ when you’re finished and walk away, leaving their corpses to rot?”

  “Conversion has absolutely nothing to do with religion! You . . . you cults just think it does. Look, the government even created special virtual worlds for the major religious sects, so you don’t feel threatened by the process.”

  Maria glared at him with genuine venom. “You mean, so maybe we won’t fight back. Most of the religious authorities refused to cooperate with the creation of those worlds or even sanction them after the fact.”

  Finally there was a pause long enough for Kyle to get a word in edgewise. “What’s wrong with havin’ your very own world?” he asked. “Don’t think it’s fer me, but what’s the harm?”

  “Don’t you see?” pleaded Maria. “There’s only two possibilities for what happens to your soul when you are converted. Either your soul leaves your body when you die from the scanning process—and that makes conversion murder . . . genocide—or your soul stays with your consciousness and gets converted into the virtual world with you . . .”

  “Of course it does,” concluded Derek, emphatically.

  “. . . in which case, it stays with you there forever, because everyone’s immortal in virtual worlds, aren’t they Derek?”

  “Well, sure. Why would anyone want to die? Of course, every world has an escape hatch . . .” Kyle looked at him quizzically. Derek had to remember that his main effort here was to orient and convert Kyle, not win an argument with this religious fanatic. “. . . Just in case the virtual world is somehow intolerable, there is always a place where you can go to leave it.”