Three days later, Lawrence texted me a photo of himself at the gym. Or not himself. Mike. The caption read: "Still getting used to mirrors."
I didn't respond. I was in the middle of recalibrating the thermal array after Chen's latest adjustments, and I didn't need the distraction. But I looked at the photo longer than I should have. Same face I'd watched emerge from the tube, now smiling in natural light, holding a cocktail glass .
He called me that night. I was at my apartment, sitting on the couch with a beer that had gone warm.
"I did it." Still Mike's voice, that low rasp, but with Lawrence's cadence underneath it. "With Mike ... well, the real Mike."
"And it was..." He laughed, and I could hear the disbelief in it. "It was insane, Raf. I mean, I knew he was probably a good lay. I've seen the videos. But feeling of him being inside me? Having him look at me like that? And he knew just all of this body's turn ons!"
"You are. I can hear it. You've got that tight thing you do with your jaw. I know you, Raf."
I didn't say anything. He was right, and we both knew it. I was jealous. Not just of the sex, though I wasn't going to pretend that didn't factor in.
"So when are you swapping back?" I asked.
"I don't know." He paused. "Mike's actually... we're getting along. Better than I expected. And the company offered him a spot in the beta trial. I think he's going to take it."
"I know how it sounds. But hey, its his decision. And Raf—I don't know when the last time I felt this good was."
I didn't have a response for that. I said goodnight and hung up, and sat there in the dark for a long time.
The next morning, I called up my son Roman. He answered on the third ring, sounding like I'd woken him up, which I probably had. It was eleven-thirty. When I'd been twenty-two, I'd been awake at six every day, either at the lab or dragging myself through my dissertation. Roman's generation was different.
"Hey. You free tonight? I need to talk to you about something."
"Everything's fine. This is... work-related."
"You never talk about work."
"I know. That's why I'm calling."
A pause. I could hear him shifting around, probably sitting up in bed. He'd been crashing at my place less and less since he moved in with his friends, but the spare bedroom was still technically his. I kept it clean. Kept his old posters on the wall, the ones from when he was fifteen and obsessed with some band I'd never bothered to learn the name of.
"Okay," he said. "I'm free. Your place?"
"My place. Seven. I'll order Chinese."
He showed up at seven-fifteen, which was early for him. He'd dressed up, or what counted as dressing up for Roman—clean jeans, a button-down shirt that he hadn't bothered to tuck in. His hair was getting long, falling into his eyes the way it had since he was a kid. He looked like his mother. Same sharp cheekbones, same stubborn set to the jaw. I'd loved her once, in the way you love someone when you're young and don't know any better. We'd split when Roman was nine, and I'd spent the next thirteen years trying to be a good father in half the time.
"So," he said, sitting down at the kitchen table with a carton of lo mein. "What's the big secret? You finally going to tell me what you actually do all day?"
I set down my chopsticks. I'd rehearsed this in my head a dozen times, and none of the versions sounded right. So I just said it.
"I work on a machine that can change your body. Genetically. Completely. We can take a sample from one person and rewrite every cell in your body to match theirs. Bone structure, muscle mass, everything."
Roman stopped chewing. "You're joking."
"Dad. That's... that's not possible."
"It's possible. We've been doing it for months. Human trials."
He stared at me. I could see him processing it, the way he did when he was a kid and I'd explain something mathematical, his eyes narrowing while he turned it over in his head. He'd always been smart. Smarter than me, probably. He just hadn't figured out what to do with it yet.
I pulled out my phone. I'd recorded Lawrence's transformation—strictly against protocol, but I'd done it anyway. I showed Roman the video. Lawrence stepping into the tube. The fluid rising. The drain cycle, the reveal. Roman watched the whole thing without saying a word.
"That's Lawrence?" he asked when it was over.
"He looks... he looks like a completely different person."
"He is a completely different person. Genetically, anyway."
Roman set down his phone. He was quiet for a minute, picking at his food.
"So, why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"Because the company wants to run a beta test. A longer-term observation. Three weeks, under controlled conditions. Strength training, cognitive testing, the whole thing. And they're looking for subjects."
"And you want me to be do it?"
"I want you to have the opportunity, yes."
Roman leaned back in his chair, trying to hide his interest.
I smiled. "And we recently got access to a sperm bank's catalog. Thousands of samples. You could pick anyone. Any body you wanted."
His eyes widened. "Anyone?"
He spent three hours scrolling through the database on my tablet that night. I sat on the couch with a book I wasn't reading, listening to him mutter to himself. Too short. Too old. Too skinny. Then he'd stop on one and read the details out loud.
"Okay, so there's this guy, Luciano," he said, turning the screen toward me. "Thirty-one, Brazilian, professional soccer player. Look at those legs. But he's only five-foot-eight. I don't know if I want to go shorter."
He kept scrolling. "And this one—Dmitri. Russian, twenty-six, some kind of model. Face is unreal, but he's built like a twig. I want to feel strong, you know? Not just look pretty."
Then he paused for a long time. I looked over. The screen showed a man with dark curly hair, a strong jaw, heavy brows. Built thick through the shoulders and chest. Olive skin, dark eyes that looked directly into the camera like he was daring it to look away.
"Zayd K.," Roman read. "Twenty-nine. Fitness instructor. Lebanese-American."
He zoomed in on the photo, then out, then in again. I watched his face, the way his thumb traced the edge of the screen. I'd seen that look before. In the mirror, mostly.
"He's my favorite," Roman said quietly. "Out of all of them. I keep coming back to him."
I looked at the photo. Strong neck, broad shoulders, the kind of body that came from actual work rather than just genetics. "He's a good choice."
"I think you should pick the one that feels right."
Roman stared at the screen a little longer. Then he set the tablet down and looked at me. "I want this one. Zayd."
The beta trial was already well underway by the time Roman came in for his procedure. We'd run thirty-one subjects before him, with six more scheduled after.
The company had expanded the program fast—too fast, maybe, but the board was pushing for data and the subjects were lining up. Lawrence and I and the rest of our team were to handle the procedures themselves, and we'd hande off the day-to-day observation for three weeks to Dr. Park's group.
Roman showed up nervous. I could tell by the way he kept checking his phone, the way his knee bounced under the table while we ran through the consent forms. He'd signed the NDA, the liability waiver, the medical disclosure.
He looked at the tube. It was clean, waiting, the glass gleaming under the overhead lights. "Yeah. I'm ready."
Lawrence helped him with the sample prep. Roman's own semen, banked for reversal, went into the cryo-storage unit. Then we loaded Zayd's sample into the sequencer. The machine hummed to life, running its diagnostic. Green lights across the board.
Roman stripped down and stepped into the tube. He looked small in there. Younger than twenty-two.
"You good?" Lawrence asked him.
"It feels weird at first," Lawrence said. "Like static. Then you don't feel much of anything. Just... let it happen."
Roman nodded. I could see his chest rising and falling, fast and shallow.
"Initiating sequence," I said. "Subject: Roman Marro. Target: Zayd K., donor #4471. Sample verified."
The fluid pumped in faster this time. Chen's latest adjustment to the reservoir pressure. It rose over Roman's ankles, his calves, his knees. He shivered when it hit his waist, then took a deep breath as it climbed to his chest. I watched him close his mouth as the surface closed over his head.
The blue lights kicked in.
I didn't watch the whole thing. I'd seen it before, and I didn't think I could sit through two hours of my son's body dissolving and rebuilding without doing something stupid. Lawrence stayed by the observation window, taking notes, checking vitals. I busied myself with paperwork that didn't need doing.
Around the ninety-minute mark, the lights shifted to amber. Lawrence called me over.
I did and I didn't. I went to the glass.
The drain cycle had started. The fluid was receding, and what it revealed wasn't Roman anymore. The shoulders were wider, the torso thicker through the chest. Dark curly hair where Roman's had been lighter, straighter. The jawline was different—heavier, more pronounced. By the time the fluid dropped below his waist, I could see the new muscle definition in his legs, the way his hips had shifted and filled out.
The tube chimed. Roman—Zayd—stepped out, shoulders broad and chest heaving.
"Holy shit," he said. His voice was deeper now, rougher. He touched his face, his chest, the dark hair that trailed down his stomach. "Holy shit, Dad. This is... this is me?"
"Genetically, yes. That's Zayd's body. Your mind."
He laughed, and it was Zayd's laugh, confident and warm. "I feel... I feel strong. Like I could run a marathon."
Dr. Park's observation team arrived an hour later. They took Roman—Zayd—into the residential wing, ran him through baseline tests, strength assessments, cognitive screens. I watched from the observation room as he bench-pressed more than he'd ever lifted in his life, his new arms steady and sure.
He caught my eye through the glass and grinned. I grinned back.
When the last transformation was done and the last subject was settled into observation, our team got a week off.
I went back to the lab at 11 PM, the night after the final trial subject had been processed. The building was supposed to be empty. Our team was on vacation, Park's team had the night off between shifts, and the security guard at the front desk was a guy named Eddie who I'd seen sleeping through his shift more than once.
I was allowed to do a trial if I wanted to. That was the thing. The company had made it clear that team members could participate, that there was no conflict of interest in experiencing the technology we built. But I knew how it would look. A father becoming his own son. There was something wrong about it, something that sat in my gut like a stone. Especially if Roman didn't know. Especially if I was doing it while he was three floors up in the residential wing, still walking around in Zayd's body, still grinning at me through observation glass. Especially if, for a fleeting few days, I would be the only Roman.
I told myself I'd explain it later if something went wrong and I got caught.
The lab was empty. The machine stood in the dark, standby lights pulsing soft and red. I went to the cryo-storage unit first. Roman's sample was there, labeled and logged, ready for whenever he'd need it. I pulled it out and set it on the counter.
Then I found my own sample. I'd deposited it a few weeks ago. I peeled off the label and took a blank label from the drawer, wrote Roman's name on it, and stuck it over mine. I had handwritten most of the other labels anyway so nobody would know the difference from looking at it.
And it was just for the records. Something in the system so nobody would notice for a few days. I'd come back and fix it later.
I loaded Roman's sample into the sequencer. The machine ran its verification. Green lights.
I stripped down and stepped into the tube. The interior was cold against my skin. I pulled the door shut behind me, heard the seal engage. The restraints clicked into place.
I entered the command sequence on the interior panel—I'd installed that feature myself, a failsafe in case the external console failed—and hit execute.
It was different from the outside. Lawrence had said static, and that was part of it, but it was more than that. It felt like time was breaking apart. Like the moment stretched forever and compressed into nothing at the same time. I felt my cells shifting, my bones restructuring, my skin tightening and loosening and tightening again.
And I was euphoric. I knew what was happening. I was aware of every change, every cell rewriting itself to match Roman's blueprint, and the knowledge of it—the certainty that I was becoming him, that I was sliding into the body I'd watched grow up, that I'd helped create—sent something warm and electric through my chest that had nothing to do with the fluid temperature.
My chest narrowed. I felt my shoulders pull inward, the muscle mass I'd built over forty-seven years of just existing melting away. But it wasn't just loss. My waist shrank, my stomach flattening in a way it hadn't been since my twenties. The grey at my temples tingled, then went silent, and I knew it was gone.
I felt smaller. Younger. The fluid was everywhere and nowhere, and I was dissolving into it and rebuilding from it, and I couldn't tell where I ended and the machine began.
Then the lights shifted. Amber. The drain cycle started.
I carefullly unlatched the door and stepped out, careful not to slip on the residual fluit. My legs were different—shorter, leaner. I looked down at my hands for half a second, at the fingers that were mine but not mine, and then I forced myself to move. No time to admire anything.I needed to be gone before anyone showed up.
I cleaned the tube fast. Wiped down the seals, checked the reservoir levels, made sure there was no evidence of an unauthorized use. Then I pulled on the clothes I'd brought—Roman's clothes, jeans and a t-shirt that I'd grabbed from his drawer at my apartment. They fit. Of course they fit.
I was at the door, hand on the handle, when I heard footsteps in the hall.
I dropped. Crawled under my desk, pressing myself against the wall, heart hammering in a chest that felt too small, too fast. The door opened. Light from the hallway spilled across the floor.
Chen. I recognized his shoes. He walked to the filing cabinet, pulled a stack of folders, muttered something under his breath. Then he turned and left. The door clicked shut behind him.
I waited two minutes. Three. Then I crawled out, stood up, and walked to the door.
The hallway was empty. The facility was dark, just the emergency lights glowing green along the baseboards. I walked out the side entrance, the one the janitors used, and into the parking lot.
The night air was cool against my new skin. I got in my car—Roman's body, Roman's clothes, but my keys, my car—and drove home.
I didn't look in the mirror when I got there. I wasn't ready for that yet.
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