A tense mass of hard muscles bind my torso, like armor. Even my hands which were always stronger than the rest of me, grow more powerful in the concentraction machine. With a simple squeeze, I can pulverize rock Mickey jumped up and down when he saw that. No one shakes my hand any longer. I sleep in highGrav, so that when I move about on Mars, I feel fast, quick, more agile than ever before. My fast- twitch fibers form. My hands move like lightning, and when they hit the gymnasium's human-shaped punching bag, it leaps like it's been struck by a scorcher. I can punch through it now. My body is becoming that of a Gold, one of the prime stock, not a Pixie, not a Bronze. This is the body of the race that conquered the Solar System. My hands are freaks. They are smooth, tanned, and dexterous, as any Gold's should be. But there is a power in them out of pro- portion with the rest of me. If I am a blade, they are my edge. My body is not all that changes. Before I sleep, I drink a tonic laden with pro- cessing enhancers and speed-listen to The Colors, The Iliad, Ulysses, Metamor- phosis, the Theban plays, The Draconic Labels, Anabasis, and restricted works like The Count of Monte Cristo, Lord of the Flies, Lady Casterly's Penance, 1984, and The Great Gatsby. I wake knowing three thousand years of literature and legal code and history My last day at Mickey's comes two months after my last surgery. Harmony smiles with me after our workout as she drops me off in my room. Music thuds in the background. Mickey's dancers are going full tilt tonight "I'll get you your clothing, Darrow. Dancer and I want to have dinner with you to celebrate. Evey will clean you up." She leaves me alone with Evey. Today, as always, her face is as quiet as the snow I've seen on the HC. I watch her in the mirror as she cuts my hair. The room is dark but for the light over the mirror. It shines from above, so she looks like an angel. Innocent and pure. But she's not innocent, not pure. She's a Pink. They breed them for pleasure, for the curves of their breasts and hips, for the tautness of their stomachs and the plump folds of their lips. Yet she is a girl and her spark has not yet gone out. I re- member the last time I failed to protect one like her.
And me? It's hard to look at myself in the mirror. I'm what I know the devil to be. I am arrogance and cruelty, the sort of man who killed my wife. I am Gold. And I am as cold as it. My eyes shine like ingots. My skin is soft and rich. My bones are stronger. I feel the density in my lean torso. When Evey is done cutting the golden hair, she stands back and stares at me. I can feel her fear, and I suffer it in myself. I am no longer a human. Physically, I've become something more. "Youre beautiful," Evey says quietly, touching my golden Sigils. They're much smaller than her feather wings The circle is set in the center of each hand's backside. Wings swoop back along the flesh, curving like scythes up the sides of my wristbones I look at Evey's white wings and know how ugly she must think them to be on her back, how she must hate them. I want to say something kind to her. I want to make her smile, if she can. I would tell her that she is beautiful but she's lived a life of men saying that for some gain or another. She wouldn't believe a boy like me. And I don't be- lieve her words to me. Eo was beauti- ful. I still remember the flush of blood in her cheeks as she danced. She had all the raw colors of life, the crude beauty of nature. I am the human concept of beauty. Gold made soft and supple into man's form.