Nick knocked on the closed door. He tapped exactly three times. The security guard opened; the code was the right one. Two other brought in a dead body and placed it onto the smelly bed. The men noticeably held back their reaction to the stench and the puss covering the floor. The body was of Takeda's stature and age. The decoy was a sad thing to see. Before the doctor or his patient could react, the men dropped the body in the bed as if it were a bag of dirt.

“Who is this?”

“You now have his face and his younger body. You think I would regenerate your old ass? We needed a person your age and build where we still had some of his cells at twenty. The source had to be young.”

“You changed my DNA?”

“Big words. Your brain and nervous systems is still hounds. It’s fantastic how we can program stem cells.”

"I," ventured Takeda.

"Shut up," snapped Nick on the way out. "Wait until we're in the car." Nick handed Takeda a black sweater with a hoodie. “Cover your new face for the cameras. The bitch must be watching.” On the way out of the building, the group walked in a tight formation. As they entered the parking lot, Takeda thought he heard some crackling sounds and smelled gas. The sprinkler system and the fire alarms of the Ridge were not working. Takeda was pushed into the limo in the back of the parking lot.

While Takeda's mind should have been busy with the situation at hand, he could not brush-off a feeling of joy. It was caused by the drops of rain on his new skin, and the wind in his hair. He looked behind to throw a look at the building in which he had spent the last decade. It blew up in a comically massive explosion set for movies. There was no stopping the blaze. The parking was empty except for them. The blast blew him to his knees. Then, the structure, if possible blew up sky high as if the basement was filled with plastic explosives. Every piece of wood went a hundred feet in the air.

Nick clapped his hands in excitement. "I told that moron it could work. What an idiot," he grumbled. Nick looked at Takeda, "What? It's mine, I can burn the shit out of it if I want." The ghost was back to his normal grumpy and rude self. Nick often anticipated questions. The old man handed him a bag. "Gerry, your orders are in the bag on the front seat of you limo." He pointed at the Sixth car in the procession. It was the smallest car money could buy.

"Gerry?"

"That's your new identity. You will enjoy the character. Look in the wallet when you have a chance." Takeda was in no mood to joke.

"Back there you hinted there would be side effects. Did you give me the META virus?"

The guard sitting in the front seat turned around and handed Takeda keys. He pointed at a small yellow car in the back.

"Yeah, side effects. A fucking boon, I love you!" he repeated. "There is no turning back now. Next time I see you, we will be stuck together for a long time." Nick closed the limo door and rolled down his window. "Instructions in the bag. Good luck. Don't fuck this up. Glad to have you back old friend."

He then added, “By the way the Electronic bitch is onto us.”

“Who?” Nick laughed as he realized the man had been in a coma.

“Big brother, Orwell’s big fucking brother. It goes by the sweet name of Marilyn Monroe.”

Takeda was barefoot, in a cold parking lot holding a pair of keys to a cheap car. In the backpack were his marching orders. He was in the body of a young adult, and felt like he had just lost a boxing match.

The limo delegation left with its precious escort. Nick never acted directly; he always used layers upon layers of intermediaries. Seeing him today was somewhat of an honor. It was evidence the mission was critical.

It was almost morning, and the sun was ready to rise above the trees in the distance. The storm had passed, but the sky was still a dark. It was an ominous half-light. Takeda did not know precisely where he was, or even what year it was. He fell into the coma on his 91st birthday, back in 2059. Below his feet was wet cold asphalt. The cold felt great on his body. He was so hungry, and for some strange reason, he was horny as well. He attributed the feeling to the complete shock felt by his body. A cocktail of hormones was rushing through his veins. He knew his bones were still strengthening. He observed his hands.

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There was no greater excitement to a virologist than to feel, first hand, deep within his own body, the effects of some new biology altering organs and tissue. Biologists spent their careers asking others to describe diseases or feelings they themselves would never feel. His body had just been regenerated by decades in a matter of a night. Closely upon that thought, he wondered at just how high the cost of this miracle would be.

The parking lot was empty, which was strange for any health care facility. Then, hundreds of yards behind him, what remained from the structure, mostly the basement, blew sky-high. A column of smoke rose. Not a single stone stayed in place. The force blew him to his knees. Bricks and stones rained down around him for a minute. One even landed on the roof of his car, bounced and cracked part of his new windshield.

In the air, the virologist smelled a trace of sulfur. This was beyond a doubt some residual bonding agent of the explosives. Takeda knew sulfur oxides and dioxide radicals were produced when high energy blasts occurred. The sense of smell of his young body was fantastic.

He needed to leave this open space before someone arrived. The car key worked; he started it and took off. On the keychain was an indication the car was a rental from France. He probably was still in Austria. The license plate and the window sticker on the car were also from France. Knowing the old ghost, this was no coincidence.

Below the steering wheel were three pedals. Takeda was frustrated; he always had trouble driving a manual transmission. The car stalled twice, but Takeda managed to drive it out of the parking lot just as firemen began to arrive on the scene. In 2072, exploding buildings were not routine occurrences, and fires were also extremely rare. The fire truck was followed closely by journalists, police and other responders.

As Takeda drove in a random direction on the small country road, his body was slowly sending him signals. He felt warm, then cold as his thermoregulation system adjusted to the new skin. He was hungry, then tired, and the next moment he needed to puke.

There was one thing he needed more than anything: sex. This new body had a healthy production of hormones. They played on his lower brain functions, and frankly, he now realized he had missed it for longer than he cared to remember. The only problem was with the type of images that came to his mind. He tried to push the images away. Once at a safe distance, he stopped the car on the side of the road, and inspected the bag.

There was a wallet. He looked inside. He was now Gerry Garcia, a U.S. citizen living in Paris, France. He was a lab technician. The detail and attention that went into creating the identity were spectacular. The wallet included a picture of him in this young body next to a second man. It was a wedding picture. There was even a condom and several membership cards to gay bathhouses. No surprise Nick was proud of the identity. Nick had, in the past, criticized Takeda over his personal weaknesses. He'd been a womanizer, in particular. Something had changed, though. He knew he liked the other sex now. He felt as much deep within himself. There was no time to worry about the sexual orientation of his new body, Takeda was no homophobe, but somehow the ghost had altered his chemistry and switched his sexual drive to men. He was young, in great shape, but he felt like his body was different in several ways.

He looked deeper into the wallet. Gerry had a security badge from a hospital on Rue Daguerre in Paris. This badge was different. He was not a lab technician, he was a security guard. Security guards did have access to strange places. They could be outside, late at night, without calling attention to themselves.

In the back of the car were two full changes of clothes, street clothes and Gerry's security guard outfit. He quickly changed into the street clothes. Not surprisingly, Gerry's clothes were extremely tight. The pants were nothing more than black tights, the underwear was colorful, and the shirt was rather revealing. He could hear the ghost laugh. He felt vulnerable with so little clothing, but if he was to hide in plain sight, this was brilliant.

Takeda drove off without reading the instructions. He stopped at the first highway restaurant, walked in, and ordered several items from the menu. As he ate, most of the pain was fading. But Takeda did not really care. He looked down, controlled his sex drive and took a couple of deep breaths, and opened the envelope. There was a single piece of paper. On it one typed paragraph:

You have to deliver a weaponized airborne virus that kills 99.9% of the human population. It must be undetectable and show no symptoms. META virus holders must be immune. You may design an antidote. Death must be instant and painful and on command with a sound. Deliver to apt. 5, 12 Rue Lalande, Paris, France. We stocked a hideout for you and a handful of friends at 222 West Lane, Stocktown, Pennsylvania, USA. You will have 2 days after the deadline to reach this hideout. If you do not deliver by the deadline of noon, November 18, 2072, you will be killed. You may not give the antidote to anyone except yourself without approval.

He doubted he had more than a year, therefore by deduction he was in 2072. The bastards intended to clean the world of humans, or needed some leverage against the government. His task was nothing less that global inhalation, a painful one at that. The request was a strange one. Why insist that a terminally ill person suffer? That is why they wanted him. This was impossible.

In the meantime, he looked up. The guy he had spotted was looking at him from another table in the restaurant. The look was... flirtatious. Takeda felt the cocktail of hormones rush to his brain. He smiled back.

His dead wife was also probably laughing. Takeda knew he had an important role to play in the upcoming events, he just had no clue what events laid ahead.