“Get him stable! Formation Alpha, cover! Move!”
A crisp, calm female voice, laced with an authority that allowed no argument, sliced through the chaos like a scalpel.
Liang Jian was hauled to his feet. He saw that the orders were coming from a tall woman in a black suit. Her blonde hair was tied back in a severe, efficient bun. Her eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, were scanning the rooftops even as she rattled off a string of commands into her wrist mic.
There was no wasted motion. No panic on her face. Only a cold, detached professionalism.
Liang Jian’s gaze fell on her name tag.
EMILY CARTER.
The name flashed in his mind, triggering a vague sense of familiarity he couldn't quite grasp.
“Sir, with me,” Emily said, now at his side. Her voice was low, but radiated power. Her sidearm was drawn, muzzle pointed down, her entire body coiled like a panther ready to spring.
Liang Jian had no choice. Flanked by two agents, he was half-carried, half-shoved through a cordon of security, moving fast toward the backstage area.
His vision blurred and shook. All he could see were black suits and tense jawlines. The roar of “FIGHT!” faded behind him, replaced by the frantic drumming of his own heart.
He was pushed through a corridor, then through a heavy door.
Outside, a black behemoth of a Cadillac was waiting. Its monstrous size, thick armor plating, and tinted bulletproof glass screamed its unique identity.
The Presidential Limousine. “The Beast.”
The door was pulled open, and Liang Jian was practically thrown inside.
With a heavy, satisfying thump, the armored door sealed shut.
The world went silent.
The cacophony of sirens and slogans outside was instantly muffled, distant and unreal. The air inside the car was cold, smelling of expensive leather and antiseptic.
Liang Jian gasped for air, slumping against the wide, plush seat, his mind still reeling.
Emily Carter sat opposite him. Another silent agent was in the driver’s seat. The convoy began to move, accelerating smoothly.
In the sudden, suffocating quiet, Liang Jian finally had a moment. He looked down, trying to make sense of anything.
And then he saw his hands.
They were… old. The skin was loose, covered in wrinkles and the faint brown spots of age. The fingers were thick, the nails immaculately manicured.
These were not his hands.
His hands, a programmer’s hands, had calluses and slightly swollen knuckles from thirty years of typing. They were not the hands of a senior citizen.
A terrible, ludicrous thought, a thought so insane it felt like an electric shock, zapped his brain.
He snapped his head up, looking at the polished wood trim on the car’s interior, a surface so glossy it served as a dark mirror.
Reflected in it was a face.
A face he knew intimately.
A face that was on every news channel, every website, every day. A face that was mimicked, memed, worshipped, and hated by billions.
The iconic, carefully coiffed golden hair. The famously orange-tinted skin. And the blue eyes, now wide with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock.
The Beast drove on, the world outside a blur.
Inside, Liang Jian stared at his own reflection, feeling his soul sink, inch by inch, into a cold, dark abyss.
This wasn't a dream.
He, Liang Jian, a thirty-year-old IT coder from China…
Was now trapped in the seventy-something-year-old body of Donald J. Trump.