Mike stared at the blue-glass pill for a long, silent second, fingers trembling imperceptibly as he picked it up. He glanced at Joe—half looking for support, half daring him to speak up—and then set his jaw and popped the capsule into his mouth. He swallowed dry with hardly a wince.
Dr. Kelly confirmed with her clipboard, then nodded to the observation door. “We’ll move you to the containment suite for privacy and monitoring. The process shouldn’t begin for about ten minutes.” Her tone was clinical, but there was unmistakable anticipation beneath it.
The suite was bright, sterile, walls paneled with glass and thin mesh; a handful of discreet cameras stirred in the corners. Mike unselfconsciously stripped naked, folding his clothes and setting them on the bench by the wall. It felt oddly ceremonial—like he was peeling away his old identity.
Joe pressed his nose to the reinforced window, grinning. “Go get ‘em, big guy.”
Mike rolled his eyes, but there was adrenaline surging through him, anxiety threading with raw, impossible excitement. He waited. A timer on the wall blinked up the minutes. At ten, Mike wrapped his hand around himself, accepting the absurd trigger. His pulse was drumming already, though, and the tangle of nerves and arousal quickly swept him along.
He finished, and as the wave crested—a different kind of wave began. His entire body lit up with prickling heat, as if a current was coursing through flesh and bone. He gasped, staggering back a step.
The first change came in his skin. A flush of green-grey swept up from his fingertips and toes, crawling in a visible tide over muscle and bone. The pigmentation wasn’t a dye or cosmetic trick—his skin was becoming armor, hardening before his eyes. Where it thickened, dense plates seemed to well up beneath the surface, bubble and click, until his arms and legs swelled outward.
He stared, stunned, as his forearms expanded. Segmented ridges pushed outward, snapping into place with wet, mechanical clicks. His knuckles split and reshaped, blocky fingers encased in articulated metal sheaths. It wasn’t separate from him—he could feel the cool sensation as if it were bone warming, nerves reweaving into circuits under the armored shell.
“Holy shit,” he muttered, voice echoing faint, the words feeling strange in his mouth. “It’s like my whole nervous system is… rewiring.”
His chest bulged as his ribs expanded, breastbone jutting forward before thickening into a sternum of molded composite. The sensation was exquisite—almost pleasurable. His heart stuttered, then began hammering in a relentless, superhuman rhythm. He watched, entranced, as his torso broadened, abdominal muscle fusing to hard panels. Each breath grew steadier, deeper; oxygen felt electrifying. Beneath his nipples, new seams formed, enclosing sensitive flesh in dense, smooth plates.
Joe’s voice came softly through the intercom, breathless with awe. “Dude. You look like some kind of—”
“War machine,” Mike interrupted, the words clipped, efficient. His mind was changing. Old nerves—anxiety, self-consciousness—seemed to flicker away, replaced by a prickling focus, a sense of new parameters. He examined his hand—no longer a hand but something heavier, indestructible, primed.
Around his neck, vertebrae realigned, his skull expanding slightly. Pressure built behind his eyes, then released, as if his sight was recalibrating—every detail in the glass, the room, Joe’s shape on the other side, lined up in high definition. Craning his head, Mike tracked every motion, data registering in strange metrics.
His jaw split at the seam, closing hard, reinforced as synthetic muscled tissue crept across his cheeks, then over his scalp. Translucent matter, gelatin-clear, slid over his eyes, before hardening rapidly; a visor—amber-tinted, perfectly fit—sealed over his features, locking away the last of his human face.
His legs swelled, quad and calf muscles thickening, pelvis shifting, hips locked in supporting cradles. Panels rippled and locked into place, enclosing him in the deep green armor, ringed with black strips and reinforced seams. Cables and connectors nestled into the armor at his waist and thighs, sending silent signals—feedback, readiness, power.
Even inside, he could feel his body beneath the armor—but it was muted, as if his skin and nerves had been reinterpreted. He could flex each digit and sense subtle actuators responding, every joint containing both bone and machinery; his proprioception was rebuilt, as if his consciousness had been mapped into an entirely new operating system.
“Vitals nominal,” he said, automatically, voice low. The words came out clipped, perfectly calm, as though reporting to an unseen commander.
He braced his fist, marveling at the solidity, the shock of strength surging up his arm. He cast a look at Dr. Kelly and Joe through the glass. “Systems check at maximum. Awaiting mission briefing.”
Even as his blood hummed with what must be remnants of adrenaline, something inside—the new pattern of thought—felt wholly unafraid. He was a soldier now, and everything was purpose.
Joe paced at the edge of the glass, worry prickling his brow as he watched the towering armored figure on the other side—utterly alien, yet, under the shell, still Mike.
He pressed the intercom. “Mike… do you—can you still feel stuff? Like, uh… you know, love? Can we, uh, still be close? Or is it all—systems and numbers, now?”
Mike turned, movements precise, lifting his helmeted head to focus his optics on the glass. There was a heartbeat’s hesitation.
“I recognize you. Joe. Records indicate deep personal bond. There’s no corrupted data, no missing tags.” His voice was toneless, a deep rumble out of armored vocal processors. But then, softer—smaller, a hint of something remembered: “I know it’s you. I know—what we shared. I just… It’s like the feelings are archived. Real, but… distant. Recalled as facts and priorities, not… warmth.”
Joe swallowed hard, hand pressed tight to his chest. “But could you… if I came in there, could you feel anything? Could we—?”
Mike flexed his armored fingers, staring at the black-green gauntlet, unmoved. “Sensors indicate close proximity would be acknowledged. Value assigned: high-priority. Physical touch: possible. Organic arousal, however… negative.”
A technician’s voice broke in, uncertainly hopeful. “According to our telemetry, we might have a way to revert. We’ve isolated some kind of neural lock around the transformation process.” She hesitated, then, unavoidably clinical: “Mike, do you still possess—uh, primary sexual organs?”
Mike’s head snapped down to his lower abdomen. A moment’s mechanical re-assessment, then: “No organic tissue detected. Instead—crotch rod installed.” With a metallic shunk, a seamless slit opened at the armored groin, and a telescopic metal rod smoothly extended outward, segmented and gleaming. He angled it towards the mirror and flexed the housing, mechanical whirring echoing in the sterile chamber.
Joe burst out laughing—a high, half-hysterical sound—but there was sadness in his eyes.
The scientist’s tone was clinical. “Mike, for a trial—can you attempt to, uh, use that rod in a self-pleasuring motion? Masturbate, essentially. It may correlate to the original trigger.”
Mike set his feet apart, bracing himself. The rod extended fully, and he wrapped his armored hand around it, sliding it along in a mimic of prior motion, motion smooth and perfectly measured—grip strength calibrated, repeated with metronomic precision.
“Movement... initiated. No sensor feedback matching prior organic patterns. No bioelectric spikes. Cognitive processes steady. No arousal. No… anticipation.” The words came flat, almost cold, but beneath them, a whisper of confusion: “This is function, not desire. Replicating the act has no internal resonance. I remember the intent, but nothing… happens.”
He lifted his head, eyes behind the amber visor meeting Joe’s helpless, searching gaze. For a moment, silence hung heavy, thick with the question neither dared speak aloud: what, if anything, of Mike’s humanity was left, buried beneath steel and code?
Joe shifted uneasily by the glass, chewing at his lip as he studied the imposing armored figure pacing the other side. The sterile, metallic calm of Mike’s new presence left him hollow and twitching with new ideas, longing and fear grinding together in his gut.
He pressed the intercom, voice lower, tentative. “Mike… would it, uh… do anything, if we went further? Y’know, actually had sex? Maybe real… engagement would, I dunno, bring something back? Or break through that flat feeling?”
Mike’s head snapped up, visor glinting as his stance grew rigid. “Negative. Risk factors unacceptable. Armor composition: excessive for safe human contact. Actuation systems far exceed safe human tolerances. Collateral danger: significant. No override for pressure, strength, or temperature. Probability of harm: high.” A pause, softer, old concern surfacing: “Not safe for you, Joe. Wouldn’t risk you.”
Joe exhaled, disappointed and strangely touched. He stared at Mike for a beat, a swirl of worry and envy gnawing inside him. “But what if—what if I changed too? Like, if I took the pill. Maybe something mechanical. I’d be tougher, right? Could handle, uh, more.”
The idea tugged at him now, a wild curiosity building. “What’s it even like?” he blurted, eyes locked on Mike’s inhuman form. “Is it really just… all data and logic? Is there anything good? Is it… freeing, even?” There was hunger in his voice, now—an eagerness not just for safety, but for the experience itself, that sense of raw capability.
Mike was silent for a moment, processing, then finally spoke—voice still flat, but laced with authority. “Physical form: optimal for durability, efficiency, speed. Vulnerability: eliminated. Pain: minimal. Needs: simplified. No hunger, no exhaustion, few threats. Emotional content: archived, not lost. Just… not running as current priority. It is… clean. Powerful. But also—isolated.” He shifted, metal echoing on the hard floor. “You could do it. You’d survive anything next to me. But you’d have to accept what you leave behind.”
Joe nodded quietly, pressed a hand to the glass, and looked at his own reflection. The question grew louder in the air between them, neither able to voice it yet—what is human, and what is enough?