As if in a fog, Jon found himself walking down the stairs, wishing stone left behind in his room. He was joined by his sister Zoe, brother Mikey, father Richard and mother Linda, all walking out the front door of their house with the same vacant expression on their faces. The family lined up at the end of the driveway, and Jon could see out of the corner of his eyes his neighbors doing the same. He tried to shift his head to look around, but found his body not responding to his commands.
Before long a fleet of grey vans came down the street and began loading people into them. Jon found himself sitting in the back of one alongside the other Gibson's, and their neighbors on either side, the newlyweds Carla and Peter Stein, and the Drullers. The voice returned, "Please don't be alarmed by your inability to move, this is just a precaution until we can get you to your designated Reassignment and Readjustment Center," its tone oddly chipper despite the frightening situation. "During the course of the experiment, such crude measures won't need to be employed. As you know, Femcorp has bought the entirety of Lakeview and will be allowing your populace the honor to participate in our groundbreaking program!"
Jon was fairly sure no one was excited or honored by this turn of events, and that no company, no matter how large, could completely seize control of a mid-sized town, but it seemed his errant wish on the stone had turned into a real monkey's paw. As the van rolled along in convoy with dozens of others, the peppy announcer continued to explain, "We'll be gathering a wide range of sociological and psychological data from all of our test subjects, but there are two key questions we're hoping to answer. How does the human mind react to a drastic change in social and physical circumstance, and how best to engineer a thriving community. Lakeview was on the decline before we arrived, but we intend to turn it into a city on the rise! To that end we will be remaking it from the ground up, a clean slate if you will; everyone will be assigned brand new identities and a brand new Lakeview social order has already been planned out for optimal growth!"
Jon found himself stumbling out of the van towards a large nondescript building on the edge of town. It was well out of the way from everything else, and looked like some cross between a major hospital and a spa. He could only assume the stone had allowed for the building to be built without anyone noticing. Getting out of the trucks around him, he recognized the McMillans, the Blacks, the Saunders, the Devries the Meadows and others being disgorged from their own transports. Walking in, he passed under a large placard reading Reassignment and Readjustment Center #3, indicating the rest of the town must be split between multiple places. The interior was actually rather nice, a mixture of warm hardwoods and lots of natural light that kept it from feeling too sterile despite the obvious medical purpose. Their legs seemed to know where to go and the vast herd of people seamlessly divided and sorted themselves into different lines heading deeper into the complex.
Eventually Jon's family made their way to a small waiting room, that wouldn't have looked out of place in a regular doctors office. After sitting down, he suddenly felt his muscles untense as he regained motor control, and looking around at Roger rubbing his neck and Zoe stretching her arms out, it seemed he wasn't the only one. He considered trying to make a run for it, but considering the overwhelming power Femcorp seemed to wield, he decided it was best to go along with things until he could try and get back to the stone to undo things.
"What do you think they mean, new identities?" Linda asked in a low voice, while she wouldn't mind a new occupation, currently working as a low level accountant, she was wary of the family being potentially split apart. Roger shrugged his shoulders helplessly, "I know as much as you do Lin," he scoffed. Linda frowned back and Jon pointed looked the other way. He tried his best to avoid thinking about how much his parents fought, and he could see Zoe doing the same across the room. It seemed both of them were about to forget their fear in favor of their annoyance at each other, when the door opposite the one they'd come in swung open.
A tall Hispanic woman in pink scrubs and a white lab coat strode in, a gentle smile on her face. She was followed by a short mousy looking brunette in a conservative skirt suit, who carried a clipboard with her. "Good morning, I'm Dr. Carmen Alvarez, and the five of you will be under the care of my team for the next little while. I'm sure you're all nervous, but I assure you that you'll be receiving exemplary care while you're here."
"What care are you talking about?" Roger asked uncertainly, "The, uh, the lady said were being assigned new identities, surely that just means getting new paperwork, identification, that sort of thing..."
Dr. Alvarez smiled comfortingly, "Yes well, the surgical team is here to help you better fit those new roles. Form defines function after all, and some of your new identities will require some significant, shall we say, alterations. I'm sure Ms. Pekinah can explain more." She gestured to the harried looking woman next to her, who glanced up from her clip board. "Ah, yes, the Gibsons," she began brusquely, "I have your new assignments right here. For the duration of the experiment you'll be..."
