#connect four

[ Chess Tournament ]

Here we go I actually read the comments this time!

Something most people don't know about Klingons is how much they enjoy Connect Four

Fantastic Four

Chapter 1

Any airplane descent is always a jarring transition from one manner of existence to another, but today it felt like the world itself was being compressed. I pressed my forehead against the cool plastic of the window frame, watching the flat plains suddenly manifest mountains and the Denver metro area. My heart was doing a frantic, irregular dance against my ribs that no amount of deep breathing could suppress. I was twenty-eight years old, a surgical resident who had held human hearts in my gloved hands, yet the prospect of stepping off this plane and meeting a man I had only known through a video feed felt more precarious than any surgery.

I caught my reflection in the dark curve of the window as the flaps groaned, preparing for touchdown. My dark hair was a mess from hours of restlessness and nerves, and my eyes looked sunken, shadowed by the perpetual exhaustion of my residency. I shifted again in my seat and I was all too aware of the nervous sweat slicking my palms.

For six months, Devon had been a face - several faces, actually - on the other side of Zoom. We had met on a niche masking forum, a place where people like me — people who felt more comfortable behind a second skin than in their own — found a community. Our connection had been instant, fueled by my fascination with anatomy and his obsession with materials chemistry. Devon was thirty-two, an organic chemistry professor who spent his nights 3D-printing the future. On screen, he was a comforting presence: sandy blond hair, a broad chest, and green eyes that seemed to look right through the pixels and into my core.

We had spent dozens of hours talking. I would be in my cramped apartment while he sat in his lab, surrounded by huge printers and bottles and vats. We talked about everything — the ethics of facial reconstruction, the molecular structure of elastomers, and the deep, driving need to be someone else, even if only for an hour. Sometimes, the talks turned darker, more visceral. I’d watch him pull a translucent sheath over his hand, the material vanishing against his skin until it looked like he’d simply grown a sixth finger or a patch of scales. My pulse would spike then, just as it was spiking now as the tires chirped against the runway.

I gathered my carry-on, my movements robotic. Every person I passed in the jet bridge was a blur of wool coats and rolling suitcases. I was looking for sandy hair, green eyes, and the broad shoulders I’d memorized from a dozen different angles.

As I emerged into the terminal, the noise of the airport — the chime of announcements, the frantic chatter of travelers, the whine of children too exhausted to even sit - pulled me back to the present. I made the steady march out through the terminal toward baggage claim, scanning the crowd, eyes darting from face to face, searching.

Then I saw him. Or rather, I saw me.

Standing near a concrete pillar was a man dressed in my favorite outfit: a charcoal gray hoodie pulled low over his head and a pair of worn-out, slim-fit jeans. He was lean, his posture mimicking the slight, defensive hunch I often defaulted to when I was tired. I froze, my breath hitching in my throat. It was like looking into a distorted mirror. The man reached up and slowly pushed back the hood.

I felt a wave of profound, dizzying disorientation wash over me. It was my face. The same high, slightly hollow cheekbones, the same narrow bridge of the nose, the same dark, deep-set eyes that looked like they hadn’t slept. The skin was perfect, an identical match for my own pale tone, appearing entirely natural under the harsh, buzzing fluorescent lights of the terminal. There were no edges, no tell-tale ridges of a mask, no hint of anything synthetic. It was as if I had stepped out of my own body and was now standing ten feet away, watching myself watch me.

My doppelgänger tilted his head, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corners of his - my - mouth. "Jake," he said. The voice wasn't mine. It was deeper, slightly more resonant, with the familiar cadence of the man from the video calls. My brain struggled to reconcile the visual input with the auditory. My heart hammered against my sternum, a frantic rhythm that made my fingertips tingle. Suddenly and violently, a sharp heat bloomed in my gut, a wave of arousal slamming into me hard. It was voyeuristic, a strange, narcissistic thrill that I couldn't look away from. This man had spent weeks, months, mapping my face, printing my features, and now he was wearing me like a trophy.

"Devon?" I managed to whisper, my voice cracking.

He stepped forward, his movements confident where mine were usually hesitant. He didn't say another word. He simply reached out and took my hand. He leaned in close, the scent of him overshadowing the stale airport air. He didn't kiss me. He leaned his mouth toward my ear.

"I missed you, Jake," he murmured. "I wanted to make sure you felt at home the moment you landed."

He pulled back, and for a second, I was lost in my own eyes. It was a psychological vertigo I hadn't prepared for. He turned, still holding my hand, and began to lead me through the terminal. I followed him like a man in a trance, my gaze fixed on the back of his head, on the way the dark hair brushed against the nape of a neck that looked exactly like mine.

We didn't head for the exit. Instead, he led me toward a side corridor, past a bank of non-functional payphones and toward a set of restrooms that looked largely deserted. He pushed the door open and led me into a room tiled in cold, sterile white, smelling faintly of bleach. He didn't stop at the sinks, but led me straight into the largest stall at the end of the row and slid the bolt home.

The space was cramped, the air thick with the sudden, sharp tension between us. I stood with my back against the metal door, my chest heaving. Devon — masked as me — stood inches away. I could see the microscopic pores on the surface of the mask he wore, the subtle variations in pigment that mimicked the tiny burst capillaries near my nose. It was a masterpiece of biological mimicry.

I had to touch it. My hands were shaking as I reached up, my fingertips grazing the cheek of my own likeness. It felt soft, yielding, yet possessed of a strange, underlying tension. It didn't feel like rubber or plastic; it felt like skin that had been perfected. I traced the line of his jaw, my thumb dipping into the small cleft in the chin that I’d always been self-conscious about. Through the material, I could feel the heat of his actual face, a radiant warmth that blurred the line between the wearer and the worn.

"You’re beautiful, Jake," he whispered, using my own lips to form the words.

The absurdity of the statement, the sheer, delicious wrongness of it, broke something loose inside me. I grabbed the front of his hoodie, pulling him toward me. When our lips met, I expected a barrier, a sense of artificiality. Instead, there was only the sensation of a deep, hungry kiss. The material was so thin over his lips that I felt nothing out of place, just eagerness and lust. It was my mouth, but the hunger behind it was all Devon.

I felt his hands slide under my shirt, his fingers cold against my ribs. I gasped into the kiss, my eyes fluttering shut, only to snap them open again when I remembered I was kissing myself. The visual was too potent to ignore. I watched as my own eyes narrowed in pleasure, as my own skin flushed a subtle, printed pink.

Devon dropped to his knees in the narrow space, his movements practiced and fluid. The sound of my zipper was loud in the quiet of the restroom. I looked down, the sight of my own face hovering at my crotch sending a jolt of electricity straight to my brain. It was the ultimate subversion of identity. He looked up at me, winking with an eye that was a perfect replica of my own, before his mouth — my mouth — closed around me.

The sensation was overwhelming. I could feel every nuance of his mouth — suction, the swirl of his tongue, the slight pressure of his lips. But it was the visual that pushed me over the edge. I was watching myself perform this most intimate act, a loop of self-desire that felt like it was rewriting my neural pathways. I reached down, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. I watched my own cheeks hollow as he increased the rhythm, his eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that was pure, unadulterated Devon.

He was methodical, his precision manifesting in the way he used his hands to stroke the base of my shaft while his mouth worked the head. I felt the build-up, a tidal wave of pressure that I couldn't hold back. My breath came in short, jagged bursts. I leaned my head back against the stall door, the cold metal a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from myself and the man below me.

When I came, I did so with a sharp, muffled cry, my fingers clenching in his hair. I watched through half-lidded eyes as he took every bit of me, his throat working as he swallowed, my own face looking up at me with a redirected, predatory satisfaction.

He stayed there for a moment, his forehead resting against my stomach. Then, he stood up, his movements graceful. He smoothed down his hair where my hands had tangled in it and then he was just as perfect as when I'd seen him for the first time. He reached out and adjusted my shirt, his fingers lingering on my chest.

"Welcome to Denver, Jake," he said, his voice thick with a dark, playful mirth.

He leaned in and kissed me again — a soft, lingering taste of myself and him — before reaching back to slide the bolt on the door. He stepped out first, checking the mirrors to ensure we were alone. I followed him, my legs feeling like lead, my mind spinning in a thousand different directions.

As we walked out of the restroom, I felt a strange sense of displacement. I was walking behind myself, watching the swing of my own shoulders, the familiar gait of my own legs. People passed us in the hall, and none of them looked twice. To the world, we were just two men, perhaps brothers, perhaps just friends. They didn't see the rubber that made the man behind the mask into the man who followed him.

We exited the terminal, the biting cold of the Colorado winter hitting us like a bucket of ice water. The air was sharp, smelling of salt and exhaust. Devon didn't slow down. He led me toward the parking garage, his hand finding mine again. The grip was firm, possessive.

As we stepped onto the concrete of the garage, the shadows stretching long and distorted under the yellow sodium lights, I realized that the man I had been three hours ago was gone. I had seen myself through someone else’s eyes, and more than that, I had felt myself through my own skin on someone else's body.

He led me toward a black SUV parked in a corner spot. He opened the passenger door for me, a courtly gesture that felt strange coming from my own image. I climbed in, the leather of the seat cold against my back. Devon walked around to the driver's side and slid in behind the wheel.

He didn't start the car immediately. He turned to look at me, the mask of my face illuminated by the garage lights filtering in through the windshield. In the half-light, the realism was even more terrifying. He looked exactly like me, yet the spirit behind the eyes was something entirely different — something broader, deeper, and infinitely more dangerous.

"Ready to go home?" he asked.

I nodded, unable to find my voice. I wasn't sure what "home" meant anymore, but as he started the engine and the garage began to recede, I knew I would follow that face anywhere.

The drive out of the airport was a blur of lights and highway signs. I sat in the passenger seat, my eyes fixed on the profile of my own face as Devon navigated the traffic. Every time he checked his blind spot, every time he adjusted the mirrors, I saw a movement I recognized as my own, yet executed with a confidence I didn't possess. It was a psychological dissonance that was as exhausting as it was arousing. I was a medical resident, a man of science and hard facts, yet I was currently being driven into the night by a man wearing my skin, and all I could think about was the moment he would finally take it off.

I reached out, my hand hovering near his neck. I wanted to find a seam, a place where I ended and he began. My fingers brushed lightly over the skin just below his ear, searching for a ridge, a bump, any hint of a transition. There was nothing; the material simply faded into the flesh of his neck, a gradient of color and texture that defied the laws of anatomy as I knew them.

"It’s a perfect fit," Devon said, not taking his eyes off the road. "I spent three weeks on the adhesion alone. You won't find a seam, Jake. Not unless I want you to."

I pulled my hand back, a flush of realization running through me. I wasn't just a guest; I was a participant in an experiment I didn't fully understand. But as we turned onto the darkened roads leading away from the city, the silence in the car felt less like a void and more like a promise. I watched Devon's hands gripping the steering wheel, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Chapter 2

The hood of Devon's charcoal hoodie was pulled back, and the overhead lights of the highway flickered across his mask of me in rhythmic intervals. Every time a streetlamp passed, the light caught the bridge of my nose, the curve of my jaw, the specific way my brow hooded my eyes. It was just perfect. He had mapped me so completely that he could wear me through a crowded airport and not a single person had suspected he was anything other than a man in his own skin.

I felt a surge of heat in my lower belly, a sharp, pulsing arousal that was intertwined with a deep, intellectual fascination. This was the intersection of my two worlds — the cold, clinical precision of surgery and the dark, hidden heat of my own desires.

"I can’t stop looking at you," I confessed. "It makes me feel like I’m disappearing."

Devon finally turned his head to look at me as we exited the highway and slowed for a red light. His eyes were dark like mine, reflecting the dashboard lights. He reached over with his right hand, his large fingers curling around the back of my neck. "You aren’t disappearing, Jake," he said, his voice low. "You’re being celebrated. I’ve lived in and out of your face for the last three days while I was finishing this. I know every line, every pore. I’ve memorized you from the outside in."

The light changed, and he pulled away, turning the SUV onto a narrower, winding road that climbed up toward the hills. The city lights began to recede behind us, replaced by the deep, shadows of trees and drifted snow. My breath was uneven, a little ragged, a little hungry. I wanted him to take off my face, but I also never wanted him to stop being me. I wanted to see the man underneath, but I was addicted to the sight of myself being handled by someone so much more powerful.

We pulled into a gravel turn-out, a secluded overlook that stared out over a dark, shimmering expanse of water. The engine cut out, and the sudden silence was heavy, filled only by the ticking of the cooling metal and the sound of our breathing. Devon turned in his seat, unbuckling his belt.

"The reveal is the best part."

My mouth went dry. I watched, mesmerized, as he reached up to his eyes. With practiced, steady movements, he pinched the dark contacts from his eyes, one after the other. When he blinked, the transformation began. The dark, familiar eyes I saw in the mirror every morning were replaced by a startling, vivid green. It was the first break in the illusion: those green eyes were bright, intelligent, and currently burning with a focused intent that made my toes curl.

"Now," he said, reaching into the center console and pulling out a small, amber glass bottle with a dropper. "This is the release agent."

He tilted his head back, letting the dim dome light of the car illuminate the pale column of his throat. He applied a few drops of the clear liquid to the very edge of the silicone at the base of his neck. The smell hit me instantly — it was a sharp, clean scent, vaguely citrusy, medicinal and yet strangely intoxicating.

I leaned closer, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might bruise my chest. I watched as he massaged the liquid into the invisible boundary. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the edge began to lift. It didn't peel like a sticker; it looked as if the skin itself was deciding to part ways. A thin, translucent line appeared.

I felt a wave of dizziness. I was rock-hard now, the fabric of my jeans straining painfully. I watched as Devon slid his fingers under the loosened edge below his Adam's apple and began to work the mask upward.

The material gave way with a wet sound, reflecting the reality of heat trapped inside the rubber of the face he'd been presenting. As it lifted, I saw my features sort of crumple inward, life and form collapsing out of "me" in a way that was pretty unsettling. He pulled it up and off over the back of his head, his own sandy blond hair revealed, ruffled and damp from sweat.

Devon was more striking in person than the screen had ever allowed. His jaw was broader, his brow more prominent, and his skin had a rugged, healthy glow that my porcelain pallor lacked. He looked at me, a soft, triumphant smile on his face, holding the crumpled, hollow version of my head in his hand.

"Hi, Jake," he whispered.

I couldn't speak. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I touched his actual cheek. He was solid, real, heat radiating from him. The dissonance of the last hour collapsed into a singular moment of connection. The fantasy had been a bridge, but this — the real man, the maker of that fantasy — was the destination.

"You're even better than the mask," I breathed, my voice barely a whisper.

He laughed, a warm, low sound that vibrated in his chest. "I should hope so. The mask is just an outer layer. A really fucking hot one, I might add, but an imperfect layer."

He set the mask aside on the dashboard, where it sat like a discarded soul, and reached for me. He pulled me across the center console, his large hands finding the small of my back and pulling me flush against him. Our kiss was different now. There was no barrier, no thin slip of silicone between us. It was the raw, hungry contact of skin on skin, the taste of him — coffee, the scent of the solvent, and something uniquely his — filling my senses.

I felt a desperate, clawing need to be closer to him. My hands were all over him, tracing the lines of his shoulders, burying themselves in his thick hair. He groaned into my mouth, a deep, guttural sound that sent a jolt of pure electricity through me.

"Wait," he murmured against my lips, his breath hot. "Move to the back."

I didn't need to be told twice. We scrambled over the seats, a frantic, clumsy tangle of limbs in the confined space of the SUV. The back seat was spacious, the leather cool against my palms as I pushed myself into the center. Devon followed me, his presence filling the space, casting a long shadow over me in the dim light.

He reached for the hem of my hoodie, pulling it up and over my head in one fluid motion. I felt the cold air hit my chest, my nipples hardening instantly. He followed with his own clothes, stripping off the hoodie and the t-shirt beneath until we were both bare to the waist. In the faint light, his body was a map of hard muscle and functional strength.

"You are so beautiful, Jake," he said, his green eyes scanning my pale chest, my ribs, the line of my stomach. "You really are the perfect canvas."

He pushed me back against the seat, his weight a heavy, welcome pressure. He started at my neck, his kisses slow and deliberate, working his way down to my collarbone. His tongue was warm and rough, circling my nipples until I was arching my back, my breath coming in jagged gasps. I felt his hand slide down to the button of my jeans. He stripped me efficiently, his movements sure and quick. When I was finally naked, he looked at me with a gaze that was both clinical and worshipful, as if he were memorizing my anatomy all over again.

He reached for a bag on the floor and pulled out a tube of lubricant. I recognized the label; it was a medical-grade formula he’d mentioned in our chats, designed to mimic the body’s natural fluids without degrading the silicone he worked with. "I'm going to take care of you, Jake," he promised.

He stripped his own pants and sat me up, pulling me onto his lap so that I was straddling him. My thighs were pressed against his, the hair on his legs tickling my skin. He reached between us, his hand slick with the lubricant, and began to massage my ass. His fingers were strong, his touch confident as he worked the muscle, his thumb tracing the rim of my hole.

I leaned my forehead against his shoulder, my eyes squeezed shut. The sensation was incredible — the rhythmic pressure as he began to slide a finger inside. I felt my internal muscles clinch and then relax, yielding to him. He added a second finger, stretching me slowly, his other hand on my hip, holding me steady. "Oh god, Devon," I whispered against the skin of his neck.

He didn't rush. He was methodical, his surgical precision manifesting in the way he prepped me. He was watching my face, reading my reactions, his green eyes dark with a mixture of focus and desire. He leaned in, his mouth finding my ear. "I’ve thought about this every night for weeks," he whispered, his breath hot and damp. "Thinking about how you’d feel, how you’d sound." He withdrew his fingers, and the sudden absence made me whimper. I felt him shift beneath me, then he gripped my hips and lifted me slightly, guiding himself to my entrance. He lowered me slowly, allowing my body to adjust to the sheer size of him.

I felt a sense of immense fullness, a stretching that bordered on pain before blooming into an intense, radiating heat. I gripped his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin as I took all of him. He was thick and hot, a solid anchor that seemed to fill every empty space inside me. He stayed still for a moment, letting me catch my breath, his hands heavy and warm on my waist. Then, he began to move. It wasn't the frantic, desperate pace of his mouth in the airport stall; this was a slow, deliberate rhythm. He pushed up into me, his hips meeting mine with a soft, wet slap.

The sensation was overwhelming. I started to move with him, finding a counter-rhythm that made him groan. The SUV rocked gently on its suspension, the only sound the rhythmic creak of the leather and our synchronized breathing. He increased his pace, thrusts becoming deeper and more forceful. I leaned back, my hands finding the headrests of the front seats for leverage. I was wide open to him, my head lolling back as he hit my prostate with every upward surge. The pleasure was a bright, white-hot line that ran from my crotch to the base of my skull.

"Devon!" I cried out, my voice overwhelming in the small space.

He started to hit a specific spot, a rhythmic pounding that made my vision blur. I felt the climax building, a pressure that was impossible to contain. My internal muscles were pulsing around him, a frantic, rhythmic gripping that seemed to drive him even harder.

"I’m close," he gasped, his voice straining. "Jake, I’m—"

"Me too," I choked out.

I felt him swell inside me, his body tensing as he came, a series of deep, powerful pulses that seemed to vibrate through my entire frame. As if triggered by his ecstatic moan, I felt my own release, a warm, messy overflow that spilled across our stomachs. I collapsed against him, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my heart racing. He held me tight, his arms wrapped around me, his face buried in the crook of my neck. We stayed like that for a long time, the only movement the slow, steady rise and fall of our chests as our heart rates began to return to something resembling normal. The air in the car was thick and humid, smelling of sex, leather, and the lingering citrus of the solvent.

After a few minutes, Devon pulled back just enough to look at me. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were shining with a quiet, profound satisfaction. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead.

"Worth the wait?" he asked softly.

I couldn't help but smile, a genuine, unburdened expression that felt foreign on my face. "Beyond worth it."

He kissed me — a slow, sweet kiss. Then, he gently helped me off him, his movements careful and tender. We used some of the towels from his kit to clean up, the mundane act possessed of a quiet, domestic intimacy. We dressed again in a comfortable, easy silence, the weight of what had just happened settling over us like a warm blanket. Devon climbed back into the driver's seat, and I settled into the passenger side, my body feeling heavy and pleasantly buzzed.

He started the engine, the low hum returning to fill the cabin. He looked over at the mask on the dashboard — my face, hollow and empty — and then back at me. "We have a lot of work to do," he said, a playful glint in his eye. "But first, let’s get you home." He pulled the SUV back onto the road, the gravel crunching under the tires. As we drove, the scenery began to change again. We left the winding forest roads and entered a more secluded, affluent area. The trees were taller here, the houses set far back from the road behind stone walls and iron gates.

Finally, we turned into a long, winding driveway that cut through a dense stand of pines. At the end of the drive, the house emerged — a stunning, modern structure of glass and dark wood. It was built into the side of a hill, with wide, cantilevered decks that seemed to float among the trees. The interior lights were soft and warm, glowing through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows.

"It’s beautiful," I said, leaning forward to get a better look.

"It’s a lab, a home, and a sanctuary," Devon said, his voice quiet. "And for the next week, it’s yours." He pulled the SUV into a large, multi-car garage that was as clean and organized as I would have expected. The journey that had started months ago in a dark apartment in Boston had finally reached its peak. I was here, with the man I had dreamed of, in a place where the boundaries between reality and fantasy were about to be erased for good.

Chapter 3

I woke up slowly, my body heavy with the lingering exhaustion of travel and the visceral connection of the night before. The sheets were cool against my skin, but as I shifted, I could still feel the phantom sensation of Devon’s weight against me, the ghost of his hands on my hips.

I found him in the kitchen, already dressed in a simple black t-shirt and dark trousers. He looked refreshingly real, his sandy hair still slightly damp from a shower, a contrast to the high-tech nature of his home and the mask he'd performed for me at the airport. He handed me a cup of coffee without a word, his green eyes warm as they tracked my movement across the room.

"Did you sleep?" I asked, my voice still rough with sleep.

"Enough," he said, his smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I spent a few hours in the lab. The printer was running a test on a new batch of elastomer. I wanted to see how the refractive index held up under natural light."

I took a sip of the coffee. My medical brain was already pivoting, awakening a clinical curiosity about the tools he used to create the doppelgänger that had greeted me at the airport. "Can I see it?" I asked. "The shop?"

Devon’s expression shifted, a flicker of something intense and protective crossing his face before settling into a quiet pride. "I was hoping you’d ask. It’s a bit different in the daylight."

He led me back through the garage to a reinforced door. When he entered a code into the keypad, the lock disengaged with a heavy, satisfying thud. We stepped into the lab, and I felt my breath hitch. One wall was dominated by a series of 3D printers, their transparent housings revealing complex, multi-axis armatures that moved with a silent, hypnotic fluidity. In the center of the room stood a raised circular platform surrounded by a ring of high-definition cameras and laser emitters.

"This is where the magic happens," Devon said, walking toward a workstation covered in three massive monitors. "Or rather, this is where the math happens. The magic is just chemistry with a better PR team."

He beckoned me over, and I saw a 3D rendering of my own face on the screen. It was the digital blueprint of the mask he’d worn. I leaned in, my medical training taking over. I recognized the specific curvature of my orbital bone, the slight asymmetry of my philtrum, the way my skin pulled tight over the bridge of my nose.

"It’s incredible," I whispered. "But I saw you looking at it in the car. You weren't completely happy with it."

Devon sighed, his fingers dancing over the keyboard, rotating the model. "It’s a limited scan, Jake. I built it from the photos and videos you sent me, but I had to interpolate a lot of the micro-anatomy. Look here, at the corner of the eye."

He zoomed in until the pixels became a landscape of pores and fine lines.

"The mesh density is too low," he explained. "When the material stretches during a smile, the tension isn't distributed evenly. It creates a shape that isn't authentic to your real face. And the nose - I was off by nearly two millimeters on the bridge. To anyone else, it’s you. To me, it’s a caricature."

I felt a strange, fluttering sensation in my stomach. Being scrutinized with such clinical intensity should have been unnerving, but from Devon, it felt like the ultimate form of flattery. He didn't just want to look like me; he wanted to understand the very mechanics of my existence.

"So, how do we fix it?" I asked, already sensing the answer.

Devon turned to look at me, his gaze dropping to the collar of my borrowed t-shirt. "We map you. Truly map you. I need the laser to see every pore, every hair follicle, every subtle variation. I need to know how your skin responds to light, how it holds heat, how it moves over muscle."

I didn't hesitate. I reached for the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, dropping it onto a stool. My heart started to pick up speed, a rhythmic thumping in my ears that matched the low hum of the machines. I stepped out of my sweatpants and stood there, naked in the center of the sterile, brightly lit room. "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille," I joked. Devon chuckled.

"Step onto the platform," Devon said, his voice dropping into a lower, more focused register.

I obeyed, the circular metal plate feeling cool against the soles of my feet. I stood in the center of the ring, my arms slightly away from my sides.

"Stay as still as you can, Jake. Don't speak. Don't even try to control your breathing. Just be." He returned to the workstation and initiated the sequence. Suddenly, the room dimming slightly as the ring of cameras and emitters came to life. A thin, horizontal line of emerald-green laser light appeared at my feet and began to rise slowly, tracing the contours of my legs.

I watched the light move up my body. I knew I couldn't actually feel it, but it might as well have been a physical touch, a cool, phantom sensation with a slightly sinister undertone, like it wanted to skin me alive. As the light passed over my knees, my thighs, and my groin, my eyes flicked to the monitors across the room, where I saw my own image begin to coalesce. It wasn't a photo; it was a point-cloud of millions of data points forming a perfect, translucent version of myself.

The light reached my chest, and I felt my nipples harden with anticipation as the laser flickered across them. I couldn't help but look at Devon. He wasn't looking at the screens. He was looking at me, his eyes tracking the green line as it moved over my skin. His expression was one of profound concentration, his lips parted slightly. When the light finally passed over my face and disappeared above my head, the rig retracted back down to floor-height and the room fell suddenly quiet.

"Done," Devon said, his voice a bit strained.

I stepped off the platform, my legs feeling a little shaky. I walked over to the monitors, and the sight was astonishing. On the screen was a rotating, life-sized model of me, but rendered in such exquisite detail that I could see the tiny mole on my shoulder, the faint scar from a childhood injury on my shin, and the exact texture of my skin.

"It’s perfect," I breathed.

"It’s getting there," Devon replied. He pointed to a section of the digital mesh on my torso. "See the way the light scatters here? That’s a sub-dermal mapping. I can use this to program the haptic transparency of the next suit. I’ll vary the thickness of the elastomer so that when I touch you through it, the sensation is identical to skin-on-skin contact, but the material itself will be reinforced where we need the structural integrity."

For a moment, we just stood there admiring the mesh rotating on the screen, me in digital form. "So," he said finally, "now that I have your map, what should we build first? I have a few ideas, but I want to know what you’ve been dreaming about."

I looked at him, the memory of our long video chats flashing through my mind — the hours we’d spent talking about transformation, about the thrill of becoming something other than myself. "Anything. Everything."