Zachary didn’t open his eyes immediately.

It was – oh, what would you call it? Savouring the moment? Basking in one’s superiority? After all, he knew for a fact that the activation of Profile Swap had been a success. It was self-evident – forgotten mannerisms and learned behaviours were already quickly reintegrating into his current self, tics and thoughts blanketing him in a wave of change. The ideas of yester-year became new once more, and his mind shifted to focus on a new set of priorities; of research and experimentation.

Thinking on it, that was rather silly of me, Zachary thought, the annoyed beratement of his former self growing steadily in his inner monologue as his Mask’s memories returned in full force. Measly little test-tube. Could have caught it with my foot too, if I hadn’t been focused on completing that beaker of modified cancer excitation serum. Should have taken General Tonner’s advice. Padded test-tube covers. Would have solved so many of my problems.

Plus, that experiment would have been so much fun! Promoting the accelerated growth of benign skin cancer in soldiers to combat the cell death from a lethal inundation of flesh-eating bacteria… truly, a perfect union of attack and defense! Oh… it would have worked! Gah, what a waste!

By his sides he could feel the clammy grip of clone flesh on his shoulders loosen, then fall away completely as their controller ceased to exist in the world. There was a muffled shuffling at his feet as the two drones began to choke and struggle. Presumably they were suffocating in the open air without a conscious host to do their breathing for them. Might be quite amusing, to be honest. Watching them squirm about like fish, gasping for air.

Still he kept both eyes shut. There was something else he had to confirm first.

Thought patterns and memories of theories and ideas were all well and good, but what mattered most were those all-important Skills and Status that came with the Mask. While a trip down memory lane was always welcomed when you had effectively infinite time at your disposal, he did not have that luxury this very moment. Reminiscing about his successes and escapades would have to wait; he had to know if it had worked.

Zachary brought his right hand to his forehead. A practiced motion, ingrained by daily repetition when he lived this life. A simple infusion of potential, the strengthening of existing structures present in his body by constructing a web of neural pathways to wrap around his cerebrum. It’d hardly hurt; there were no pain receptors in the brain, after all.

But just as he was about to activate his Skill, he paused, hand frozen mid-air.

What if Profile Swap just… hadn’t worked? This was already an unprecedented situation. The loss and subsequent recovery of something essential to you, Skills, Status; why, one might as well call it your very soul! And yes, one might argue that if you had received a particular portion of the expected result, which in this case were his memories, then you could also infer from that receipt that the rest must have surely followed.

And yet.

What if his abilities just hadn’t made the return trip? Or worse; were altered in some way, diminished or degraded? He withdrew his arm completely. Best not to jump straight to messing with mental faculties. The alterations wouldn’t carry over into his psyche, but rendering yourself a drooling mess would lead to a delay he couldn’t afford, since he’d have to wait for the invalid body to die of thirst. Worse was if some good Samaritan found him like this and tried to nurse him back to good health. He might be stuck here for months! Zachary shook his head.

Let’s start a little smaller.

Slowly, carefully, Zachary redirected his right palm over the back of his left, stroking it patiently, lovingly. There, there, he cooed silently. You’ll be good, won’t you? Of course you will; you’re my left hand, after all. Be a good little appendage and work with me, OK? This won’t hurt a bit.

With a calm, quiet tone, the Reclusive Scientist uttered two simple words.

“Bio Control.”

In an instant, his vision erupted in brilliant colour, as the black of the back of his eyelids was decisively banished by the introduction of a brand-new field of view. Bundles of nerves had snaked down the inside of his body to weave themselves around the back of a newly grown eyeball on the palm of his left hand – a new organ that just a minute ago did not exist.

A success… or was it?

A test, then.

Zachary proceeded to swivel the eyeball with his mind, willing it to swing from side to side. And as expected, it obeyed perfectly, allowing him to view the two fallen Life Models by his side, even as his original two eyes remained closed. Good enough for him. He focused on the eyeball embedded in his palm, and it melded back into plain flesh and blood in an instant.

His abilities were intact. Well, Bio Control, anyways. It’d be a bit hard to test Viral Synthesis here; but Bio Control was always the better skill of the two for his purposes.

“…pu. Pu hu. Pu hu hu.”

Oops; that sort of just slipped out. Oh, what the heck. I’ll let it slide. It’s a celebration, after all.

Zachary allowed himself a cheeky grin. No one else was looking, anyways; there wasn’t any point in keeping up appearances.

Ah, this was it – this was it! That feeling of true power; something most people would never be able to experience. Being able to pervert the design of living beings at will, twist biology to one’s purposes, re-arrange cells to create harmonious jigsaws of flesh and meat, erect spires of skin and hair – to meddle in the domain of God!

“-it’s just the best feeling in the world!”

Zachary let his eyes flutter open, a contented smile plastered over his face. In front of him, strangely enough, laid the collapsed form of the one who had usurped his Mask- one Gordon Higgins, his body still covered in pink lumps of pulsating, wrinkled brain.

Zachary tilted his head curiously, regarding the dead man. Huh. That was a little strange. The geezer’s body still remained, despite having had every speck of stolen power scoured from its being. He strolled over, eyeing over the specimen with a newfound appreciation. Nodding knowingly, he tugged and prodded at the folds on the limp corpse, inspecting it carefully and occasionally letting out approving mumbles.

“Not too shabby… not too shabby indeed! Expanding one’s mental capacity via introduction of external neural modules! Fine work with the nerve threading and neuron management, although that’s to be expected if he had my Bio Control. What for, though? You hardly need thirty extra brains to devise a viral delivery method. Two is enough for most applications. With three, you could probably take over the world.”

Zachary turned to eye the two curled-up masses where he had been standing. “Oh… of course; to accommodate for the increased strain of personally operating additional biological interfaces. Makes sense. Hey, wait a minute… isn’t this- it is! Bio Generative Copy Mark Two! Or well, it’s a fairly decent rendition of it, anyways. I always wanted to get on that someday – the legacy version was never good enough. Joints were all flabby. The eyes always dried out if you left them out in the sun for too long. Was best to just overhaul the entire design… ah, looks like he beat me to it…”

Despite the seemingly high praise just moments earlier however, Zachary soon began to frown.

“A little crude though, no? Sticking a bunch of brains all over your body? Just because it’s the first solution you’ve come up with for a problem, doesn’t definitively mean that it has to be the one you go with.”

“And you picked such a flawed method too! Akin to creating another twenty different distinct weak spots for yourself. A whole bunch of glowing pink blobs that scream, “stab me here, please”. Well, I certainly wouldn’t have done it like this; I’d have done it better. Way, way better. Definitely something to do with external modular systems- no, but if the idea is that you need to be able to personally experience it, personally feel it… so maybe…” Zachary absentmindedly rubbed his chin as he mulled over the problem.

You had to account for the strain, the information streaming in from the thousands of multiple connections, so it would obviously be best if it was offloaded onto mechanical systems, then rerouted through a different interface. Maybe you could do something with recordings and playbacks? RS was good with the biological; that much was certain, but a lot less familiar with the tech side of things. It wasn’t as if he was completely clueless with the necessary engineering required for his day to day tasks, but he did spend this life pursuing the mysteries of biology. So it ended up that he always cheated by getting a different Mask to-

“Ah! I got carried away again!” The Reclusive Scientist exclaimed. He’d caught himself on yet another wild tangent. That was the problem with science – if you could call that a problem, anyways – there was always another fun experiment to run, more results to collect, more things to discover!

Right, right, Zachary nodded solemnly, head bobbing as he forced himself to ignore that tantalising mass of experiment fodder in front of him. There was something a lot more pressing than pondering a dead man’s work. The reclamation of his collection of identities; his proverbial life’s work.

“Alrighty, then.” Zachary slapped his thighs, standing up. “Fun’s over. Gotta get back to business.” He took a deep breath, and focused intently on the grey form he had first assumed upon entering this world.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Profile-”

Then everything went black.

~

“Huh?”

Gordon opened his eyes in confusion, his right arm still outstretched from when he reached out towards Zachary.

Didn’t he… wasn’t he… but if he was, then he’d be… but no, he didn’t- so… was it fine now?

Huh. That was strange.

Apparently, without doing anything at all, he’d somehow survived that insolent boy’s final assault. That smirk Zachary had flashed right at the end there; Gordon thought for sure that it was some sure-kill attack. He'd been in such a panic he hadn't even thought of re-establishing control of the two Life Models by the boy's side and crushing his frail form. He'd reached out with his own body, despite there being a table and something like a few meters separating them.

He relaxed his tensed shoulders, leaning back against his desk, a small sigh of relief issuing from his lips. It was a little weird that the boy had begun to morph, impossibly, into the form of one of his Life Models. But that was simply a last ditch effort by Zachary to mislead and obfuscate. After all, he had two Life Models flanking him; how exactly could he escape? Ridiculous. It was two Life Models, you know? Two of the finest bodyguards one could bring.

Two…

Life Models?

The prickle on the back of his neck returned, one prick at a time, cold sweat beginning to bead around his forehead. It was impossible. He was right there a moment ago. Everything was going well. So why...

Why was it, that right there in front of Gordon, laid two curled up balls of grey clone meat?

And naturally, the boy – Zachary – was nowhere to be seen.

Gordon gripped the edge of his desk with the back of his hands to steady himself, eyes fervently scanning the room. The underground space wasn’t large, but the Life Models were equipped with a multitude of functions. Like Rainbow Chameleon; the ability to shift one’s appearance. Heck, maybe Zachary was still in the grips of the two Life Models on the floor, just playing possum till Gordon left the room to chase after him.

Or… he could be poised behind him, ready to-

Gordon forced himself to suck down two large gulps of air.

Calm yourself, he chided himself. Just another trick; a foolish Hail Mary to preserve his life… there’s no way he-

Then Gordon noticed something… strange.

Well, weird, anyways. Barely worth mentioning, given that he had an enemy loose in his complex. A minor trifle compared to other more pressing affairs. Yet he couldn’t help but drift back to this oddity he’d noticed.

He’d been standing behind his desk, he was sure of it.

But now he was in front of it.

How…?

It was almost as if a small section of time had been cut from his mind, edited out from reality; erased from his memory. And when had he put his shirt back on? His fingers grasped at the fabric, curling around the material to bring it to his face. He realised something. This… this wasn’t his shirt; it was the boy’s Better Life uniform!

Wait-

Wait wait wait.

Gordon lifted the uniform with trembling fingers, and swept under it nervously with his other hand, already piecing together what had happened, yet scarcely wanting to believe it.

Gone.

Gone.

Twenty two brains, the finest supercomputers, mental adaptations suited to the meat cage that was a human body; that enabled him full control of the puppets painstakingly scattered all around Yuna Prime.

Gone.

Removed from his self.

Gordon turned slowly, knowing what he would find; and sure enough, lying there on the ground, motionless… was his former body.

The pieces fell into place.

Obviously the boy had employed some sort of… body switchery to escape his situation, a last hapless strike to reverse the hopeless situation he was in – but it had failed. It was Gordon that had emerged from the battle victorious, now taking not just the boy’s power, but his actual body itself!

Right; the assault! It was still salvageable; his former form was hardly cold yet; maybe he could still wrest control from the body and assume control over the horde of Life Models around the world! It might be cutting it a little tight, but surely it was still possible!

“Bio Control.” A flesh tendril frantically rushed out from his arm, knitted together by his Skill, then faltered, hovering just in front of Gordon’s past self.

No. It was wishful thinking on his part. It was… too late, wasn’t it? His connection had been momentarily severed from the tens of thousands of Life Models around the world – meaning that those puppets would have went limp that very moment, crumpling into grey heaps on the ground. Even if he could reconnect to what few still survived they’d be mere husks drained of vitality, hardly stronger than a toddler after being subjected to massive oxygen deprivation and the cessation of all vital functions.

His massacre had been cut short.

Ended just because of the appearance of that pesky Zachary.

Gordon cursed. Honestly, he could have screamed right there. All wasted. All down the drain. There was so much more he could have done. So much more. He’d drafted up the next three years of torture plans already- and yes, it was mostly just a bunch of maiming and flaying, but still; what a waste!

The waiting flesh tendril was pulled back with a sigh.

Back to square one. And this time it was certain that the people would be cautious about new offerings he might bring. That was one avenue that would have been ended by fear and distrust.

“But still,” Gordon mused. There was a definite silver lining to all this. “After all, that’s one less thing I have to worry about – the original owner of this power is, without a doubt, a member of the past-tense club. I can bide my time, no problem. Bio Generative Copy Mark Two was a failure? No problem – I’ll come up with Mark Three; Mark Four! Mark Two took forty over days; I’ll extend the timeframe and slip in through more established functions. With careful re-establishment of my control over Yuna Prime and proper planning… There’s no way I can’t return to wreak havoc once more! Ha… ha ha… ha ha!”

Oh dear, what a mess. What a mess indeed.

Gordon whipped around as quick as humanly possible. And to be fair, it was a lot quicker than his old, pudgy self might have done. A sharp 90 degree turn, executed with perfection. But there was no one there. Which couldn’t be the case; he’d definitely heard a clear, male voice murmuring right next to his ear, so close that he might have felt the breath of the person speaking.

“…Zachary?” Gordon called out tentatively. “Show yourself. Think about it; it’s over. What more can you do? I’ve already won this fight. Just obediently give up and maybe you’ll get out of here alive.”

They always turn around. Always. And ironic that you’d say that; you think about it for a moment. Why, oh why… would there be a voice so close to you; yet have no owner? What a conundrum.

What was Zachary going on about? Was this the time to speak in riddles, or duel for the privilege of controlling this Mask?

“Fight me face to face, coward! I might have lost control over my stock of Life Models, but I still possess your Skills! You’ve miscalculated, and it’ll be your downfall!”

Come on… It’s right in front of you, just think about it a little. Look, let me spell it out for you; Profile Swap is a skill that returns my essence to me when I call for it, right? So what happens… if someone else is holding on to that essence?

What was the boy going on about? A Skill that would give you back your-

Ah… it dawned on him at last. Now that he'd been made aware of it, he could see it more plainly. That hadn't been a voice at all. Or- well, you could say it was a voice of sorts.

It was simply the voice of his own thoughts, his mind reciting the words of a stranger it was diligently reading from a blue box that had materialised within his mental landscape.

“You didn’t die.” Gordon muttered.

Well, as you can see; obviously not.

“You’ve just trapped me in your body.” Gordon felt the strength leave his legs. “We’re stuck in the same body.”

The blue box in Gordon’s mind’s eye flickered indignantly.

Not on purpose, trust me you.