As the gas slowly filled the booth Giuseppe started to have doubts about the whole thing; he had a good life, good friends, a family who loved him (although they didn’t know about his bisexuality) and a bright future. What in the name of all saints had driven him to step into this booth and have all that stripped away from him?
He remembered also that he had no saying in what he would be transformed into, for all he knew some sadist might turn him into a hobo or make him terminally ill or 80 years old. He felt a cramp in his chest, even with the requests he had made; sure it was sometimes incredibly stressful and even boring to be a privileged university student and he envied people who could just shut off their minds and work with their hands, but he was not so sure anymore that he really wanted to spend his whole life as a construction worker or be forever trapped in the shady world of biker gangs. He panicked, he felt blood and adrenalin rushing everywhere as he strained in vain against his constrains. There was sweat on his face, his breath started to grow short, he was trapped! Trapped and completely helpless in the hands of whomever decided to transform him!
Giuseppe coughed as he accidently breathed in a huge amount of the gas. It tasted unpleasantly of chlorine, but...it did its job, it calmed him down. By the time the gas cleared Giuseppe felt his muscles relax and his breath growing even again. He still had all the concerns and fears from before but the gas prevented them from actually worrying him. There was a pleasant numbness in his head as he smiled at his reflection for the last time.
The first thing Giuseppe noticed was the weird sensation of feeling his growing rapidly, fast enough to cause friction between his skin and the smooth, cold plastic of the chair. Luckily the straps adjusted along with his body; otherwise the whole thing would very uncomfortable. In the mirrored wall he could see his reflection growing and giggled at the funny sight. He supposed he was now 6 foot tall.
Next Giuseppe noticed his body growing denser. More and more of him was there was mass was a added to his body, not fat, but solid muscle. Giuseppe opened his mouth in amazement as he watched his arms and legs bulging and becoming defined with rock hard muscles. All fat from his torso melted away as, one by one, his abdominal muscles started to push outwards against the skin until he had a nicely toned six pack, and above it the same happened to his pectorals.
Giuseppe admired his new physic which was much more athletic and handsome than his old one; he was not obscenely large like a body builder, but finely chiselled like a swimmer or soccer player. As his skin tone darkened to light olive Giuseppe thought that he might not have to worry about this at all. This was a body he could impress men and women with, this was a body he could win bar fights with.
The sensation of growing older was less pleasant. It felt like nothing as much as having his life drained from him. Even with the gas’ effect keeping him placid it was very upsetting to Giuseppe to feel year after year, month after month, even day after day of his life sucked out of him. Years he would now never get to life. His skin aged and lost some of its smoothness and youthful brilliance as a few wrinkles appeared besides his mouth. His nose and ears grew a bit larger and his hairline receded ever so slightly at the temples. He had not aged too much, perhaps ten or twelve years, placing him now in his early thirties. Giuseppe felt considerable relief that he hadn’t aged any farther.
But Giuseppe did not have long to evaluate that as he soon felt the muscles of his face squirming about. He looked at the mirror to his side, which was closer to him than the one in front. He was treated to the sight of his own face pulsing, squirming and shifting about like it was some sort of goo. The features eventually settled into that of a complete stranger who, together with his olive skin, looked like he came from somewhere in the south, perhaps Sicily or Calabria. And then, in the depths of his brown eyes Giuseppe saw a slight green colour expanding outwards, turning his eyes hazel. A slight black stubble appeared on his cheeks and chin. His new face was angular and manly, he looked good!
His hair was the next to change. Its lost its hipster haircut and grew out into a slightly longer, much more elegant style. Slowly, starting at the roots, the blondy-brown colour started to darken, first into chestnut, then into raven black, while the tips of his hair started to twist and bend inwards. By the time the change was done Giuseppe had a full head of shiny black curls that brushed elegantly past his ears. Giuseppe grinned; yes this was definitely the best decision he had ever made in his life!
Yet the changed were not done. Giuseppe was torn away from admiring himself by a series of sudden, sharp cuts he experienced on several places of his body. Looking in the mirror he noticed that cut-like scars appeared on these places, there was a frightful one on the left side of his abdomen, and another one on his right biceps and several on his lower arms. Giuseppe started wondering about that as he felt the worst pain on his right shoulder; it felt like his arm was exploding and hurt down to the bone. He looked at it and saw a crater-like scar. He gasped, he knew enough about forensics to recognize a gunshot. Who was he becoming?
It took a while for Giuseppe to notice that he was not completely naked anymore. He could feel snug, comfortable fabric brushing against his ass and genitals, he looked down to see a black pair of Armani underwear fixed to his pelvis and wiggled his toes inside the black socks that appeared on his feet. Next a black, long sleeved t-shirt faded into existence, covering his scarred torso and arms. Giuseppe was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t look at his new body naked anymore, but the t-shirt was tight enough to see the bulges of his muscles and six pack below it.
Black dress boots appeared on his feet and from beneath them something black and shiny started to spread up across his legs. Once the garment solidified its appearance, feel and smell identified it as a pair of black leather jeans. Apparently that material was going to make up a considerable amount of Giuseppe’s new wardrobe because a pair of expensive looking, black driving gloves materialised and slid themselves onto his hands. They were unlined and very tight, smoothening themselves out and moulding around his hands like a second skin. Giuseppe grimaced and flexed his hand uncomfortably, he had always liked seeing other men in leather gloves, but he himself disliked the tightness and the feel of them. He had never even worn gloves in winter.
Wondering what type of man would wear leather gloves in late spring Giuseppe, suddenly felt a weight on his shoulders. He held his breath as he noticed a pair of gun holsters fixed to the side of his torso. A pair of handguns was sheathed in them, nice ones, with custom made handles of black with a red “G” on each of them.
As his ensemble was completed by a short leather coat(perfect for hiding those gun holsters), Giuseppe slowly begun to realise that his new life would be spent on the wrong side of the law. Even without the gas keeping him placid this made him smile, he had often fantasied about something like that. Deep down he knew that it was wrong and horrible to consciously become a criminal, but there was nothing he could do about it anyways, so why worrying?
The mental programming helmet lowered down on Giuseppe’s head anticipation and fear rushed through his mind as he realised that he was just experiencing the last moments of his old life. Pictures, smells, sensations and emotions flooded Giuseppe’s psyche as his old self was overwritten with memories of a life never lived.
At first those new memories were pleasant, a childhood at the beach in Sicily; the warmth of sun on his skin, the smell of saltwater in the wind. Then suddenly pain as he, aged twelve, stood by his dying mother’s bedside. Old grief and anger long buried filled him as the new memory told him that his mother had painfully died of cancer because the family was too poor to afford proper treatment. A troubled youth came next, nights at bars, drunkenness knife fights, arguments with his father and grandmother who declared that he was on a road straight to hell. Finally, somewhere on the mainland he had caught the attention of the wrong people and had started his descend into the underworld. He saw himself kill, shooting someone, over and over again as he realized that he had killed dozens of people. Giuseppe’s old self was filled with dread as he realized that he was becoming a professional hitman, a hired killer! He lived through each murder, some of the people had deserved to die, but others had been innocent; random people who had seen too much while on their way home from work and had to be eliminated, bystanders who had gotten in the way of bullets during assassinations and others yet that he had killed because taking their place as hotel page, waiter or delivery man was an easy way to get to his targets. Giuseppe felt tears running down his eyes; that was not what he had wanted!
As the programming progressed, however, Giuseppe’s guilt was gradually replaced by a feeling of professional indifference, his new self saw killing as his job and had long since purged any feelings of guilt, sympathy or pity from his soul, according to him nobody was innocent. Instead he even felt pride now at many of the assassinations, especially of difficult, political targets. He retained his bisexuality, but his libido increased. This had a simple reason; he had snuffed out so many lives, so he himself clung to this world, eager to cram as much enjoyment into his existence as possible before someone would kill him. He was now the textbook example of a hedonist.
As the new identity took control of mind and body the helmet and straps removed themselves and the booth released the newly created hitman into the world. Giuseppe the law student from Rome was gone, lost irrevocably and his place now stood Gino Alessi, also known as the Angelo della Morte (the Angel of Death), the best hitman in the whole of Napoli. He smoothed a crease out of his trademark Fratelli Orsini leather gloves and petted the guns holstered beneath his leather coat. He was in Rome on a job to eliminate the rival of a good client and he’d better get going.