Szczesny controlled his ears with his mind, amplifying the sounds around him.
He heard the tremor of surgical instruments coming from the modification chamber, and his eyelashes, turned from gold to black under the influence of the Gene Father, quivered faintly.
Szczesny was a little dazed, feeling as if he were still on the operating table.
Ever since his modifications had begun, that feeling had come over him from time to time. Even after he had advanced not long ago to Sequence 8, "People of Fury," he still could not adapt to such violent changes.
His mind drifted. He did not know how much time had passed before the sound of footsteps rang beside his ears.
"Szczesny, get up and move around. We're going to the Star-Dome Deck."
Bukayo's voice rang out. The "Midnight Poet" liked to give poetic names to the things around him; he called the deck where the candidates exercised the star dome, because when they moved about there, they could see the stars of the void and wake from their half-asleep, half-awake state.
"Coming."
Szczesny braced his large hands against the bed board and sat up.
He froze for a moment and put his hands in front of him. Like the rest of his body, they were growing larger.
Szczesny knew that along with the food he swallowed came stimulants and promoters, making the muscles all over his body swell and bulge bit by bit.
Sometimes, those disproportionate limbs and overly thick muscles made him feel like a Rodent Octopus monster that deserved to be thrown into the Coral Sea to wait for death.
More often, he felt that he had become incomparably powerful and needed to find some way to vent the strength and energy filling his entire body.
The way of the "People of