Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14
Nora-Ceph couldn’t move. It was as if someone had frozen her whole body in place, as she watched Felix climb off of the surgery table. Or Pekok? He had talked about himself in the third person, which pointed towards Pekok, not Felix.
He groaned.
”My head feels like I’ve been drinking for three days straight. Does anyone have some painkillers for me?” The medical team, which was still in the room with Nora-Ceph, seemed paralyzed too. Everyone had their eyes focused on their patient, who had unexpectedly woken up.
”How …”, Simon-Ceph whispered. Pekok grinned.
”How did I wake up this fast? Adjust to the situation so easily? Oh, my dear Cephs! This has been my plan all along, ever since I’ve heard what you’ve been doing in your secret laboratories. Who do you think helped you along the way? Do you really think you made all the important discoveries yourself? Please.” He laughed out loud. An evil laugh that made the tiny hairs on Nora-Cephs arms stand up. She shuddered.
”But why?” She asked, barely able to force the words out of her throat. ”Why lie to us? Why not just join us and work together with us?” Pekok scoffed.
*”The Cephs are inferior to me. Even the royal Cephs were. You, Nora, you’re actually a lot higher up the evolutionary ladder than the Ceph you originally belonged to could have ever been. You’re a hybrid, the next step to something wonderful! But you’re also just a prototype. I mean, look at you!” 
She did and then wondered why. There was nothing irregular to see.
”Don’t take me so literally! Sheesh, sometimes I wonder how your kind managed to survive all these centuries. What I mean is, look at you hybrids. You’re still two separate entities. A Ceph brain steering a human body, knowing that one day, it will go mad and cease to be useful. That’s not progress!”
*”But you’re no different”’, Nora-Ceph pointed out. ”You’re also just a Ceph brain in a human body. Just because Felix was your servant and did it …”, she interrupted herself and took a deep breath. ”Just because Felix went through with the procedure voluntarily doesn’t mean you won’t go mad at some point. It’s still not your own body you’re inhabiting.”
”Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, my dear Nora. You see, Felix hasn’t been a human for quite some time now. You would have noticed that if you had bothered to do some genetic testing. Poor judgment by the way, not genotyping the humans you choose as hosts. That can bring a whole lot of negative effects.”
Nora-Ceph tried to understand what he was saying. Felix hadn’t been a human? How could that be? He certainly looked human, and they didn’t find anything suspicious when they had cut him open to remove his brain. What was Pekok talking about?
Suddenly, she noticed that Simon-Ceph had been inching towards Pekok, while the royal had been in conversation with her. Simon-Ceph was holding a syringe with what she assumed was a narcotic. He wanted to knock Pekok out. Nora-Ceph bit her tongue and forced her focus back to Pekok, to not alert him to the immediate danger.
I have to keep him talking, she said to herself. Keep him distracted.
”How did you change Felix?” She asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
”Simple. I changed his genetic makeup by giving him some of my DNA. Gene therapy over several years, so to speak. His body is a sophisticated mixture of human and Ceph DNA, which allowed him to stop aging and develop a greater intellect than any human before him. He wasn’t just my servant, he was my ongoing life project. And he was so loyal! Always knowing that one day, his time would come. He would become perfection. It turned out slightly different than I had anticipated in the beginning, but the outcome is still very much to my liking.” He smiled.
Then he grabbed a scalpel from the desk next to him, turned around and plunged it into Simon-Ceph’s throat, who had just been about to push the syringe into Pekok’s back. With a gurgling sound, Simon-Ceph fell to the ground. His blood quickly flooded the floor, until his heart stopped beating and pushing it out. Silence swept through the room.
”No…”, Nora-Ceph whispered and fell to her knees. ”No!” She started sobbing.
”Did you really think I’d let a mediocre hybrid take me out? Did you really think I got this far without constantly watching my back for betrayal? You should have stopped your friend if you had wanted him to live. This is your fault as much as his.”
Through the tears in her eyes, Nora-Ceph looked up to Pekok who had walked away from the surgery table now, towards the rest of the medical team that was standing pressed against the wall. She could almost smell the fear coming from them.
”I have one question for you”, Pekok asked and looked all of them in the eyes, one after another. ”Do you want to follow your friend over there? Follow him into death, in a futile attempt of standing in the way of my mission? Or do you want to live, serve me and experience the future? What will it be? You have to decide now.”
To her horror, Nora-Ceph watched the others go down to their knees and bow their heads. All seven of them. Including Quelz. They had all surrendered in the face of death.
And then, Pekok turned around, back to her.
”And you, Nora? What is your choice? Life or death? Progress or failure?”
The tears still hadn’t stopped coming, and it was hard for Nora-Ceph to look directly at Pekok. But she did. Standing up was excruciating, but she didn’t want to face death kneeling down.
”I choose freedom”, she said and spat Pekok in the face.
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