Despite her reservations, Alex was enjoying her time in Tokyo with her new friends. After spending all day with them, they seemed to have a lot to offer in terms of friendship, which was something Alex always yearned for. The best part was, they treated her as an equal, even teasing her on occasion. It was actually refreshing to be treated as a regular person rather than as a celebrity.
At the end of a long day, Alex had seen a lot of the city, and was pretty worn out. She and the rest of the gang were now back at Yuri’s place. She and Aris got ready for bed, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell fast asleep.
In the morning, Alex was late getting out of bed, which was unusual for her. This time, Aris even awoke before her. While still lying in bed, they both decided to chat before getting up and joining the others for breakfast.
“So today’s your big day — the first annual Alexandra Gray Day. Do you know how you want to celebrate it?”
“I honestly haven’t given it any thought.”
“Oh come on, Alex, people all around the world are throwing you a big party; it would be rude if you didn’t go.”
“I have no problem going and checking things out if that’s what everyone else wants to do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you think a lot of people will show up?”
“Of course! Alex, do you not realize how famous you are? Everywhere in the world, in every city, people of all ages will flock to the streets in celebration. Bands will perform, children will have their faces painted, there will be fireworks, balloons… and perhaps most importantly of all — there will be copious amounts of alcohol for us to consume.”
Alex let out a deep breath, subduing the burgeoning anxiety. “What could go wrong?” she asked rhetorically.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We have our disguises and our fake names — it’ll be like we’re superheroes with secret identities!”
Alex stared at him with a blank expression.
“I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be crazy if you stood up in the middle of the crowd and revealed your identity? People would go nuts.”
“If people knew how much help I had, they’d be going nuts over you too, Aris.”
“Hey, I don’t mind if you tell them.”
“Believe me, it’s not worth it. You’re better off being able to blend in like you do.”
The two eventually stumbled out of bed and trotted downstairs to the kitchen. Yuri was eating alone, but had his robot Akino with him, awaiting orders.
“Good morning!” Yuri greeted with enthusiasm. “Happy Alexandra Gray Day — or in other words, Happy You Day!”
“Thanks.”
“It should be called Alex and Aris Day,” Aris said, “…I helped too.”
“Here, have a seat and let my slave bot serve you a special breakfast on your special day.”
Alex and Aris happily took their seats at the table, and Akino got to work right away.
“So, Alex, if you want to get started on the grinds, we can do that after you eat breakfast. I can even cut your hair while the transformations take effect.”
“How long will the so-called transformations take?” she asked.
“It’ll take no time at all. By the time I finish cutting your hair, you’ll officially be a grinder.”
“I can’t wait,” she said somewhat unconvincingly.
“So you’re just changing hair and eye colour?” Yuri confirmed.
“For now — just to see how it goes.”
“I wasn’t sure if you wanted the immune booster or not, but I’ve prepared it for you anyway.”
“Immune booster?” Alex repeated.
“Yeah, it’s pretty basic stuff — you’ll never ever get sick again, and whatever fatigue or ailments you have in your body, it’ll fix those too.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
“When you’re done, I recommend spending a few hours in my hyperbaric oxygen chamber.”
After breakfast, Alex and Aris joined Yuri in the grind lab. Yuri told Alex to have a seat while he hooked her up to a machine that he and his team had designed and built. Yuri and his friends had the science perfected and were quite confident about their abilities. This, in turn, inspired confidence within Alex. She let out a deep breath before stretching out in the recliner chair. The whole time Yuri was speaking to her, guiding her every step of the way.
Following Yuri’s instruction, Alex closed her eyes and began to relax, similar to how she would download information from the global knowledge database. Once she was relaxed, Yuri uploaded a computer code to Alex’s access pod, which was different than what she had downloaded the day before. The code contained a set of systematic and predetermined instructions that were downloaded into Alex’s chip and that would trigger the patch she had downloaded previously to initiate. From there, the patch would complete a complex sequence of changes to her cells.
While the process was underway, Yuri got to work by cutting off most of Alex’s long hair. His vision was radical, and would completely change her look, which is what she wanted. Aris watched as the large strands piled up on the floor. He wasn’t sure if Alex would like it, but figured it was only hair and nothing permanent. Besides, her hair was typically covered at all times anyway.
After only one hour, Alex opened her eyes.
“How do you feel?” Yuri asked.
“I feel fine.”
“Do you want to see your new haircut?”
“Of course.”
“Before I show you, I just want to make sure you’re prepared. I took a lot off so don’t freak out, okay? I figured if you don’t like it, nobody would see it anyway.”
“Now you have me nervous.”
“Don’t be, you still look gorgeous,” Yuri said.
Alex stood up and walked to the bathroom mirror. When she saw her new haircut for the first time, she was actually quite shocked. She hardly recognized herself. The hair on top of her head was cut ridiculously short, while the hair on the sides of her head was even shorter.
“So do you like it?” Yuri asked.
“It’s interesting,” she responded, checking out every angle. “It’ll definitely take some getting used to. I’ve never had hair this short before.”
“Not bad for my first time, huh?”
Alex ran her fingers through her hair and even played around with different styles. “I think I can work with this.”
“Just think of this as Alex 2.0.” Yuri said. “Once your hair and eye colours change, you’ll look like a completely different person and you’ll be able to show your face in public without wearing all those wraps.”
“I don’t know about that, but the haircut alone definitely makes me look a lot different.”
Over the course of the day, Alex wasn’t feeling like herself. Naturally, she associated it with being tired from having overslept. She went outside to get some fresh air, but started feeling much worse. Thinking it was somehow related to the transformations taking place in her body, she tried not to get herself worked up about it.
Now in Yuri’s lounge area, Alex and Aris kept the lights low and were lying on opposite ends of a large couch.
“How would you describe the feeling?” Aris asked.
“I don’t know. I feel physically fine… I have my usual strength and am showing no symptoms of fatigue anywhere else, but my brain feels sluggish. It’s really hard to describe.”
“Do you need to rest?”
“That’s the weird thing, I have energy, but it’s like my brain is walking through mud.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’ll ask Yuri to double check the diagnostics to make sure nothing went wrong.”
“Thanks, Aris.”
“No problem. By the way, I can see your eyes are already starting to change colour. Wait until they fully change, then you’ll look like a completely different person.”
“Thanks for the encouragement, but I think I have a ways to go before I can feel comfortable in public without my disguise.”
Yuri walked in to check on Alex to see how she was feeling.
“Still not feeling any better?” Yuri asked.
“Still feel the same,” she replied. “I have a splitting headache and my brain feels sluggish, almost like gears that are all gummed up. But on the bright side, at least it’s not getting worse.”
“Maybe try spending a few more hours in the hyperbaric chamber and see what that does for you.”
“I’ll try that, thanks.”
“We were thinking that something went wrong with the bio-hack,” Aris said. “Have you guys ever experienced anything like this before?”
“No, nothing like this,” Yuri said, looking puzzled, “but everybody’s different. You only made three transformations — hair, eyes, and—”
“What is it?”
“The immune booster.”
“What about it?”
“Something I’ve never really considered before was that it heals ailments in the body. On normal people like me and my crew, it makes us healthy and fixes any problems we may have. Aris was telling me you have something called synesthesia, so maybe the upload is ‘fixing’ your condition and making you more… normal.”
“You think that’s what’s happening?” Alex asked.
“It would make sense. After uploading the immune-booster hack, that’s when your brain started to feel sluggish. So maybe you’re just experiencing what it’s like to have a normal brain for the first time. That’s why the feeling is so foreign to you.”
“Is there any way to reverse it?”
“Probably…”
“But?”
“We don’t really hack the brain — if we could, we’d all be super geniuses like you. The most we can do is enhance the brain’s neurochemistry through the frequency enhancer modulator that I showed you earlier.”
Yuri thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, rest for a few hours and I’ll talk to the team. We’ll put our heads together and try to come up with a solution.”