"Chalker, Jack L - G.o.d. Inc. 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

think-in', is that the way I really look to Sam and the others? And I started
makin' little critical notes to myself. Fact was, I was kinda cute, though, and
I didn't have much different a figure than she did after all. A little more hip
and thigh, that's all. The face, hair, and skin tone, though, just weren't
right. I looked taller, but that might have been the bush hair.
And then he started puttin' me in his machines. They didn't hurt none, but
sometimes they used drugs and sprays that might have hid just about anything.
They was fast, though. I got the feelin' that if I broke my leg in the mornin'
I'd walk out whole in the afternoon.
At the end of three days, Sam, who'd been spendin' his time with planners for
the mission, was a little uncomfortable. I was changin' more than either of us
bargained for. For the first time in my life, my hair was straight and
silky-black like it'd been born that way, and it was growin' at one hell of a
rate. By the end of five days my hair was thick and down below my shoulders and
was just as big a pain to comb and wash as I always figured. It really changed
my appearance, I'll tell you. My skin was a little lighter and almost a uniform
chocolate brown. A couple of old scars and lots of stretch marks were gone; so
was my vaccination scar, and my skin was a little oilier, almost shiny. I was
also gettin' thinner, back in shape. The doc said the machines used my own body
to do and lock in a lot of the changes, and that it took from the too fat parts.
Not that I was skinny-but she wasn't, neither. Still, every time I looked in the
mirror it was some strange girl starin' back.
It got worse, though, when the dental stuff started. I had more than a few
fillin's, and they was wrong and had to go. They put me under with somethin',
and when I woke up 1 was almost a stranger. The stuff in my teeth, and one or
two new teeth, now felt a little dead in my mouth, like caps might, but there
was no way by lookin' or even X ray to tell that them teeth weren't the way
nature intended. My nose looked different, and so did my smile. My round face
seemed a little more oval. I also always had a deep voice, but they tuned it a
bit-it sounded funny when I talked, a little higher and a lot huskier. The new
face also done somethin' to the way I could talk, too. I had real trouble with s
and r sounds; it was a hell of a lisp. Still, in only five days, when he took
another picture of me and put it next to that one of the other girl and I
stepped away and looked, we was close. Damned close. It was more the way she
held herself, and that idiot's smile on her, than anything you could measure.
"You thure you can change thith all back?" I asked him worriedly. "I nevah
thought 'bout thith kinda thuff when I took the job."
"In the same five days," he assured me. "Except for the lost body weight, of
course. That you will have to replace yourself, if you want to."
"I thure don' wanna talk like thith the west of my life."
Sam couldn't help but make fun of the lisp till he saw how self-conscious I was
about it; then he stopped. "Remember, you agreed to do this," he said. "You
don't like the price you paid so far-and neither do I-but this is the easy
part."
"I know, I know," I grumbled. "I already got to the point where I just wanna get
goin' and get thith over with."
I think what disturbed him most was the last thing they did. It was on the
inside of my left palm, and it was nothin' more than a long number tattooed
there in purple ink. Sam had an uncle and a coupla cousins with numbers like
that, souvenirs of Hitler's camps. And, in the end, that was the bottom line of