Something shifts in Voss's expression—not quite pleasure, but the calculating satisfaction of a chess player recognizing an opponent's mistake. She turns to the equipment cart where a technician stands rigid, his fingers white-knuckled against the steel edge.
"Robert, the primer injection," she says without looking at him.
The man—barely thirty, with the nervous energy of someone still new to horror—retrieves a pressurized injector from its sterile housing. His hands shake as he passes it to her.
"You want specifics?" Voss examines the amber fluid within the cylinder, holding it up to the laboratory's harsh fluorescent lighting. "Your physical restructuring involves comprehensive cellular modification over forty-seven hours. We'll restructure bone density, redistribute adipose tissue, reconfigure hormone production at the genetic level. The end result will appear as a young woman, approximately twenty-three years old, Han Chinese ancestry with features suggesting Jiangsu province origin."
She approaches your restraint chair with measured steps. "But the neural work—that's where true artistry lives. We don't simply suppress English. We remap your entire linguistic architecture. Mandarin becomes your native tongue, with some Shanghainese dialect for authenticity. You'll dream in Chinese. You'll count in Chinese. English won't even register as language anymore—just meaningless sound."
The injector's cold metal presses against your carotid artery.
"This is approximately eight percent concentration," she continues, her clinical tone never wavering. "Enough to demonstrate proof of concept. The full protocol is something else entirely."
The hiss of compressed air. Then sensation floods your nervous system—not pain exactly, but wrongness spreading through neural pathways like freezing water through pipes. Your vision stutters, each fluorescent fixture suddenly too bright, too defined.
"Language centers respond within twenty seconds," Voss narrates. "Watch your own transformation, Mr. Wayne."
You try to speak, to demand she stop this, but your throat produces sounds you don't control. "这是什么?" The Mandarin emerges flawlessly, tones perfect, but completely against your will. Your thoughts remain in English—crystal clear, perfectly formed—but the connection between intention and speech has been severed. "你对我做了什么?"
"What did you do to me?" Voss translates unnecessarily, leaning closer. "Exactly what I said I would. Your Broca's area is temporarily remapped. Comprehension remains intact—you understand everything—but speech production routes through different pathways now."
You concentrate every ounce of will into forming English words. Your mouth opens. "我不明白... 让我说英语!" The frustration is visceral—your own body turned traitor at the most fundamental level. "为什么我不能控制?"
"Why can't I control it?" Her grey eyes study your face with detached fascination. "Because control is an illusion, Mr. Wayne. Your identity, your sense of self—all of it reducible to neurochemistry. This effect fades in ninety minutes. Tomorrow's transformation is permanent."