Changed

Beta came downstairs in his slippers and immediately spotted a little furry creature following John: a beagle on all fours.

He stopped on the bottom step. "What's going on?"

John took fresh milk from the fridge, poured it into a dog bowl, and set it in front of the pup. "Helen's parting gift. In the video she recorded, she said we should try to love things we've never experienced before."

He scratched the puppy's upright ears. "Like raising a dog."

The beagle trotted over at once, pink tongue lapping up the milk as its short tail wagged like a metronome.

Beta wandered over to the kitchen island. "This little guy's bursting with energy. If you don't take him out to run around every day, you can kiss this house goodbye."

John gently rubbed behind the beagle's ears. "I'll walk him every day. Want to pet him?"

Beta stepped back. "No thanks. A dog's sense of smell is dangerous. They can remember my scent."

The bacon began to sizzle in the pan. Beta flipped it over as he asked, "What else did Helen leave in her videos?"

"Why don't you—"

"Just tell me," Beta interrupted. "Did she record them by the day? One video for each day?"

John brushed the beagle's fur. "She recorded them by the week. One video a week, four hundred in total."

His fingers paused. "She said that once we'd watched them all, after 2,800 days, we could start a new life."

Beta poured the pasta into the boiling water. "You didn't do what she said and watch all four hundred videos in one go, did you? Seven years is enough time to turn a person into someone completely different."

The wooden spoon in Beta's hand traced slow circles in the pot. "What was the first task Helen assigned me?"

John lifted the beagle to his chest, its paws paddling in the air. "She wanted you to take a proper vacation. Go surfing in Miami, rent a yacht and take some girls out to sea, live like a rich kid for a while."

Beta clicked off the burner. Steam still roiled in the pot. "That's too ridiculous to be true."

John raised the beagle a little higher in his arms. "The videotapes are upstairs. You can watch them anytime."

"When have I ever needed someone else to tell me what to do?" Beta squeezed a spiral of sauce onto his plate as bacon fat slowly seeped into the grooves of the pasta.

He twirled a forkful of noodles and snapped them off with a crisp bite. "Don't wait up tonight. I'm meeting some old friends. I need to get the gear to Paris first."

John tucked the beagle closer into the crook of his arm and asked, "Need any help?"

Beta's fork hovered in midair. "What, did Helen's videos teach you how to improve our relationship, too?"

John said, "There's only the two of us left in this family now."

Beta kept twirling his pasta. "Just stay put. At fifty, your body can't take much more, no matter how tough you are. Do you think you're still the guy who could take two bullets, get stitched up, and wipe out an entire gang?"

John sat at the dining table, the beagle in his arms stretching its neck to sniff the food on his plate.

Beta finished breakfast quickly. He picked up his car keys and headed toward the garage, then paused. "Take some of the extra food from the fridge to Leon."

"Okay."

The garage door rolled slowly upward. A modified black Ford Mustang sat beside a Cadillac, John's old classic. He was always tinkering with it, fine-tuning its wheels and suspension.

Beta climbed into the driver's seat of the Cadillac. Its huge body slowly backed out of the garage, tires crunching over the gravel driveway. He preferred this kind of car.

The huge Cadillac left the quiet neighborhood of villas and plunged into the congested city. It struggled through streets packed with traffic, inching forward and stopping again and again. Only after a long while did it escape the noisy city center and head toward the industrial district on the outskirts.

Rows of drab, boxy warehouses stood like giant metal boxes. Beta had rented one of the smaller, inconspicuous units to store some unusual items.

The Cadillac drove along a narrow, straight concrete road through the warehouse district. At last, it stopped in front of a roller door marked "10." The engine cut out, and the final scrape of the tires faded away, leaving an almost vacuum-like silence.

Beta got out of the car, and dry air met him. He walked to the huge roller door, bent down, grabbed the heavy metal handle, and yanked it upward. With a harsh metallic rattle, the door slid open, breaking the silence. At the same time, the cold white LED lights on the warehouse ceiling flickered on one after another, driving away the darkness inside.

The warehouse was utterly ordinary, unremarkable. Its walls were unfinished, and the air held a faint smell of dust and metal. Several labeled storage bins were stacked in a corner. Against one wall stood a set of silver-gray tool cabinets and several empty metal racks. Everything was orderly, yet the space felt bare.

Beta pulled the roller door down behind him and locked it with a click. The light from outside was completely shut out, leaving only the cold overhead lights to illuminate the warehouse.

He went straight to the tool cabinet at the far end and opened it.

A full-length rectangular mirror was mounted on the inside of the cabinet door, its polished surface reflecting his figure. Beside it, plastic storage boxes of various sizes were neatly stacked. Through their semitransparent lids, he could clearly see the carefully sorted contents: lifelike dentures in various shades, flexible sculpting fillers for subtly altering the contours of the face by filling out the mouth, and delicate sublingual inserts that could change the way someone spoke and the quality of their voice...

Beta dragged over a chair and sat down in front of the cabinet. He opened the sealed bucket of mask material, put on plastic gloves, and scooped out the half-solid gel. He kneaded it repeatedly in his palms, then slowly spread it into a thin sheet. Next, he took a facial model from the bottom of the cabinet. It depicted a typical middle-aged Mexican man, with a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and sharply defined features.

With practiced ease, he covered the model in strips of gel, pressing them down carefully and joining them so the edges fit perfectly. The material gradually hardened in the air. Before long, a complete mask extending from the top of the head to the neck had taken shape.

Beta lifted the newly formed headpiece off the model. He carefully applied a special adhesive to key areas: the forehead, bridge of the nose, cheekbones, and others.

First, he applied hair wax to hold his own hair in place. Then he slowly pulled on the mask as if putting on a hood. His fingertips traced his facial contours, pressing down every edge that might lift—the sides of the nose, the hairline, the jawline—to make sure there wasn't the slightest flaw. Finally, he adjusted the fit around his eyes in the mirror until his gaze looked natural.

Next came the finishing touch: Beta carefully attached fake eyebrows and a full beard, then used special glue to add a few pockmarks and fine scars.

Once the last strand of the wig was secured, a stranger's face stared back from the mirror: a middle-aged Mexican man with a piercing gaze and a weather-beaten look. Beta had vanished completely beneath the disguise.