The Gen

Chapter 19

Angreius, 20th day of the Summer Cros, 3367

Dalek didn't care about the nasty details and allowed Wylog to take away Lariv's earset and to give him a drug that made him unconscious. He even allowed Wylog to put him into a body bag. Amazingly, Wylog kindly asked him for permission, not simply doing it.

Dalek stretched, groaned, and came about. He looked at, Holy Tral, a blue ceiling! He seemed to be occupying a bedroom in an ordinary house somewhere. He lay in light blue sheets. The walls were light beige. A landscape picture of the Kaladren Mountains and an abstract art picture with blue, red, and green lines in it hung at the walls. A fluffy red carpet interrupted the dark-brown, imitation-wood flooring. A wooden table and two chairs stood on the carpet. Opposite the wooden door was a big window with pink curtains in front of it.

Dalek laughed. So much color! He couldn't stop laughing. He crawled out of bed, dragging his heavy new body towards the window. His movements were still agonizingly slow, but he moved, he moved! No immobilizer lamed him. He looked out at a garden, a few trees on a well-trimmed lawn, and beyond that a street with several e-cars parked on it. A girl zoomed by on a toy hover-scooter, a yapping, cute, ear flying dog in her wake. Dalek laughed and laughed. He liked his new voice.

Someone knocked at the door. Nobody had knocked for ages, they all had just entered his cell.

"Yes?"

Wylog opened the door, worried. "You okay?"

"Thanks, perfectly, it's just... color everywhere, a big window, trees, someone knocking at the door. I'd forgotten what that feels like. I reckon everything went well?"

"It did." Wylog smiled broadly at him.

"Can I look in a mirror now?"

Dalek still hadn't seen his new face.

"You'll freak out."

"I won't freak out, Doc. I'm too happy to freak out."

Wylog nodded. "This way."

On wobbly knees and still so slowly, though he was beginning to get used to the reactions of his new body, Dalek followed Wylog into a very colorful corridor, same imitation-wood floor, beige walls, blue ceiling, pictures everywhere.

"Whose place is this?"

"Ours, this is an FTS safe house."

"Wow."

Wylog opened a door for him and bade him enter. Dalek stepped into the bathroom, which had a mirror hanging over the washbasin. He felt queasy suddenly, hesitated for a moment, but then stepped in front of the mirror and looked at his new self. He held his breath. A total stranger looked at him who had tiny green eyes, Dalek's eyes had been blue, thin blond hair, Dalek's hair had been brown. His new face was so soft and innocent. Everything about Kifes Mitsch was fleshy and soft. No hardship ever reached Kifes's clouded mind, no character etched lines into his face. Dalek would have to form this face to make it his own, like a naked lump of clay.

The world started spinning around him and he swayed. Wylog caught him and made him sit down on the bathtub's rim behind him.

Dalek stared up at Wylog. "How is this possible, how can you distill a person, a mind, a soul and put it into another body? How can you have found the soul and learned how to extract it? Who invented this, Jinla?"

"Yes. I don't know exactly how it works either, I only perform the transfer."

"How often have you done this?"