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The next day Max woke up feeling better than ever, the alarm in his suit able to wake him up without the need for harsh noises or loud music. Instead it was a pleasant full-body vibration that was just strong enough to rouse him from sleep, and as he looked at the display on his visor he found the time was exactly when he had set his alarm. As he went about his normal morning routine he was surprised with how natural it had become to wear the new suit, like it was an actual second skin that contoured to his every muscle without bunching up. He was even able to shower in it without having to take it off to avoid once more needing calibrations.

Once he had finished his morning ritual he took the visor and pressed it against his suit, the thin lenses once more melding with the fabric as he checked his diagnostics. Even though everything appeared green something caused him to pause and frown slightly. The glowing icon that informed him the modding program was active blinked in his vision even though he distinctly remembered shutting it down. When he went back into the mods menu and shut it off he found it did so easily, which made him begin to doubt himself as he turned it back on for the day. When he looked down at himself he did realize that his body seemed more toned than before, which for a passive modding program was quite impressive.

Deciding to confirm his observations he quickly made his way to the gym to squeeze in a quick workout before work, switching the suit to his preset design before he did. Once again he got the strange sensation of being exposed to the others he walked past, though if anyone did notice he had on a different suit no one showed it. What he did get was the vid number of a female crewmate that passed by, his head turned to the source of the download as she winked at him while she walked by. That caused a smile to cross his face as he got into the locker room and was about to change into his workout clothes before he realized what he was doing and morphed the suit into a set just like the ones he had almost put on.

Throughout the course of his time in the gym he could feel a noticeable difference in his strength and endurance as he worked out. Once again it wasn't much, a few extra minutes on the track there, another pound or two added there, but in the end he couldn't believe how much of an increase just came from wearing the suit for a day. He reminded himself to leave the body mod program on during the night more often as he finished up and went to work with a spring in his step. When he got to the protective equipment his job required him to wear he was tempted to see if his suit could mimic that too, but instead he decided against potentially damaging the expensive product and shrank the material back from his hands and feet in order to put on the heavy gear.

Midway through the day he felt himself sweating bullets as they worked on a thermal coil for one of the many microfusion cores that helped power different sections of the station. He had his hands around a torque wrench and slowly twisted it forward as the others made calculated venting and calibration in order to get the coil in proper working condition again. The work itself wasn't so bad, it was the fact they were suspended a hundred feet up a maintenance vent in order to do it. Still, everything was under control and they were nearly finished with the recalibration effort.

As Max got the tool completely parallel with his body and began to push it forward his gloves suddenly began to feel bulky on his hands. He tried to readjust his grip on the tool as he waited for a secondary vent, but his thumbs seemed to refuse to cooperate for him. Part of him wanted to ditch the gloves entirely, but with the metal being so close to the proximity of the plasma contained within, the coil it was glowing red from the heat. His arms began to visibly shake as his turn came up once again, the others shouting at him to hurry as he cupped the metal as best he could and pushed forward.

The shouts quickly turned to a scream as the metal handle slipped through his hands and fell out of the coupling, hitting his co-worker in the shoulder before it continued its journey downward. Luckily they were all tied into the safety line, so even when the other man held onto the blistered suit shoulder he dangled safely while the others pulled him up. Max cursed internally as they brought him up to the catwalk and carefully pulled off the plate of body armor that had been damaged. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw angry red skin underneath and little else in the way of damage, though with the immediate health concern alleviated their attention turned to why Max had dropped the red-hot wrench in the first place. Even Max couldn't answer that question, and after nearly an hour of being grilled from everyone up on the food chain and a trip to medical, he left the station with a temporary suspension from duty pending investigation.

"Bureaucratic bastards," Max mumbled under his breath as he got to his apartment and laid down in his bed. As the looked up at the ceiling he brought up his hands and flexed them experimentally, and though they weren't as bad as when he had the bulky gloves on, they still felt somewhat stiff. He also noted that his hands were once more covered in the thin material even though he hadn't consciously brought it back after the accident, something that caused him to pause. Could something in the suit he wore caused his hands to seize up like that?

The potential hope of having something other than himself to blame spurred him on to write an e-mail to Evan, deciding to go to him first to see if his theory was viable. After about thirty minutes of writing, his fingers still stiff even after giving them adequate time to rest, he sent off the message to his friend and then proceeded to lounge around his apartment. The image of him dropping that wrench continued to haunt his memory as he grew angry, what would have happened had he been working on a vacuum seal? Or if he had been in charge of the leader line for anyone outside of the space station? The thought of the possibility of killing someone made Max restless, but he managed to keep himself occupied enough until he heard the ding in his ears that informed him he had mail.

Max had the visor on and had been doing a bit of investigation himself on the suit's settings when he heard it and decided to open the response from his suit. As he read Evan's response his mood went from angry to concerned when his friend said he couldn't understand what he was saying and that the data in the message must have been corrupted. It wasn't until he looked further down at his original message did he truly get worried; while most of the message remained intact, the part where he described the problem he was having with his suit was completely unintelligible. It looked like he had just mashed a bunch of keys in a random order, but then afterwards his words went back to normal again.

"Sorry Evan..." Max said as he closed the e-mail function and brought up the phone option. "Call Suitor Tech Customer Service."

There was a momentary pause and then he could hear the tone of the lines connecting to one another before he heard a voice on the other end. "This is Suitor Tech Customer Service, how may I help you?" the feminine voice on the other end asked.

"Hi, I'm currently beta-testing one of your suits," Max explained. "I just wanted to say that I'm having a problem that is causing my fingers to become stiff."

"I'm sorry sir, what was that?" the voice on the other end replied. "You appear to be having some interference on your connection, is this a station to station call? I know we've been having some unusually high solar flare activity that could be causing a malfunction.

Max swallowed hard as he tried to get out the words that he was having problems with the suit, but despite his best efforts it appeared the representative on the other end wasn't hearing what he had to say. After a few futile minutes he angrily told the phone to hang up and the voice on the other side disconnected suddenly, then attempted to try again with his actual phone in his hand only to get the same result. Finally he sat down in frustration as he tried to figure out what to do, rubbing his rubber-clad hands against his face as he thought.

After a while he decided to go over the electronic manual and see if there was anything he could do short of taking off the suit, but after hours of pouring over and reading dry, detailed descriptions of what it could do he failed to see an answer to his problem. Once it appeared there were no other options he decided to take off the potentially malfunctioning suit instead of still fiddling with it while it was on him. A few hours of recalibration would be worth getting out of it in order to diagnose a potential problem, he reasoned to himself as he prompted the suit to disengage the sealed seam to slide out...

...except the seal failed to open as angry red letters appeared on his viewscreen that told him the suit couldn't be taken off while the body mod program was active. When he went back into the menu he found that it was indeed on, though he thought for sure he disengaged it when he started to have problems, and went into the menu to deactivate the program. Once again another warning popped up on his visor, this time it informed him that sudden termination of the program could result in loss of results and to enter his password to override it.

"I'm definitely telling them about this flaw in their system..." Max grumbled to himself as he put in his password, his anger intensifying when it told him it was invalid. "What the hell?!" he shouted as he tried to put it in a few more times, only to have the same message continue to appear. After the fourth try it told him he was completely locked out and had to either wait an hour or have his companion password in order to open it. Unfortunately with Evan still off the station, and with the apparent inability to tell him what was wrong, Max realized it was unlikely he could get it.

After a few minutes of loud, concurrent swearing and screaming he grabbed his identification card and his phone to leave. In what felt like his first bit of luck all day the morph function still worked on the suit and he used it to go into his casual default, watching the material shimmer slightly before it took on the appearance and feel of stylish but comfortable clothes. Once the changes were complete he noticed that despite the preset not having gloves they appeared on his hands anyway, yet one more glitch he added to his list as he left his apartment and entered the station proper. Once he was in the atrium he got on one of the station transports and made his way to the main spaceship hangar, where he made his way to one of the shuttles that flew people to stations that were only a few light years away. One of those nearby stations contained the headquarters of the company that made his suit, and that was exactly where he was going as his identification was scanned and his fingerprint was analyzed through the fabric of the gloves.

Max found a free seat and settled in with a sigh as he waited for the shuttle to leave, anxiously hoping that he could get to the company headquarters before it closed to visitors. As others continued to board he decided to take out the visor to his suit and check the diagnostics in an effort to gather as much information as he can to tell them. Before he could do anything, though, he noticed that there was a new e-mail marked as urgent in his box; at first he thought it might have been his workplace or Evan, but when he opened his browser the mailing address was a bunch of symbols and letters. Instinctively he was about to delete it when he noticed the subject line...

Want to know what's wrong with your suit?

The question had a chilling effect on him as he could hear it mentally echo through his entire psyche. Someone out there not only knew what was happening to him, but almost seemed to want to taunt him with the information. Nevertheless he had to know what was happening, and despite his reservations, clicked it open and found only a video file inside with the instructions to play it. As soon as he clicked on the little triangle a shadowy figure appeared in the box, almost completely featureless and a matte black color as it began to speak.

"By now you're probably aware that you've been having a bit of difficulty with that new suit of yours," a digitally altered voice said. "You've also probably tried to get help from several sources, all of whom either couldn't understand what you were saying or read what you typed to them. These are not mere glitches or software errors; I have taken full control of your suit, and as such your body. The reason I'm telling you this now is because I want you to try and get it off, and to inform you that the longer you are unable to do so, the more it's going to continue to change you. There is no code, no password, no ransom to pay... you will be mine soon and there is nothing you can do to stop it."

The figure continued to laugh until Max stopped the e-mail and slammed his fist into the seat in front of him in frustration, then remembered where he was and looked around to see other passengers staring at him. His anger was tempered with the flush of embarrassment as he apologized to those around him, particularly to the person whose seat he punched as they glared at him, then focused his attention back to the e-mail... except it wasn't there anymore. Not only had it disappeared from his inbox, but it also didn't appear in his trash or even on his delivery logs. As he felt the shuttle disembark from the docking bay and begin to float out into space he realized that the video had been completely scrubbed, the only version left was the one burned into his memory as the shuttle sped off towards its destination.

The figure's words continued to play over and over again in Max's head as he tried to decipher what the malicious person meant by such a statement. Taken over his suit... and his body? While he wasn't sure that such a thing was possible with the suit, he was almost positive that no one could hack a person. But then he remembered his inability to type in what he needed to say to Evan or to tell anyone on the phone what was wrong with him. It was the very reason he was on the shuttle to begin with, but to think that someone could actually control his entire form sounded like science fiction. More than once he moved his fingers to see if they were still under his own power as they continued on their journey through subspace, the entire ride there wondering what the hacker could have possibly meant by changing...

**********************************************

An hour later after the shuttle and two grav trams, Max arrived at the headquarters of the company, and to his relief there was still a steady stream of people that were entering and exiting the building. When he walked into the lobby he found it impressive, rich wood and marble replaced the usual grey plastisteel of the station walls. Even with it being Evan's workplace he hadn't visited the place himself, but his friend's tales already proved to be an understatement as he walked towards one of the touchpads on the wall to input his inquiry. The fact he didn't have to tell anyone or input anything gave him a sense of relief, with just pushing a few related buttons he could at least indicate that he needed help.

After a few minutes he managed to get close enough to his problem that the computer told him that someone would be with him to service any problems with his suit, then to go to the waiting area until a service technician could meet with him. The sense of foreboding and dread that he had felt the entire time since he received the antagonizing message abated slightly once he sat down in the soft cushioned chair. As he waited silently for the technician to come he shifted uneasily in his chair, unable to get comfortable. While it might have just been nerves or anxiety, it continued to grow unsettling until finally he just decided to stand up.

"Oh my, I didn't even call out your name yet," a somewhat familiar voice said. Max turned to see Albert standing there with a clipboard in hand, giving him the usual piercing look before his gaze went back down to the tablet in his hand. "So from what you put into our computer you said you are having technical issues with the interface of your suit. Why don't you follow me up into our diagnostic bay and you can tell me all about it."

A strange lump formed in the pit of Max's stomach as he followed him towards one of the elevators set into the other side of the building. Even though he felt like he was on the home stretch of his problem, something about the situation bothered him. Could it have been the fact that he was being helped by Evan's boss? Though he had never thought about it before, if anyone could hijack the functions of his suit it would be the one who programmed it in the first place, which meant that he wasn't sure what he was about to walk into as the elevator doors closed behind him.

The only sound in the elevator car was the terrible music they pumped into the speakers as they rode up, eventually stopping when they reached their floor. Once again Max followed behind Albert as they walked through the hallway, his nostrils flaring slightly as he breathed in the sterilized air to try and keep his sense of composure. Even though he tried to tell himself that he was merely psyching himself out it did little to calm his nerves as one of the doors slid open and Albert ushered him into the room. Inside was all manner of scientific equipment that he wouldn't begin to recognize, the room dominated by a large chair with most of the electronics connected to it.

"So what appears to be the trouble today?" Albert asked boredly as he gestured to the chair for Max to sit. "You didn't give anything in your comment section on your help ticket, merely that you had some issues relating to the hardware of your suit. Normally I wouldn't even have bothered with this, but you are wearing one of our prototypes, hence my presence."

Max swallowed hard as Albert connected leads to his suit, which had reverted back to its default state as soon as he sat in the chair. The circuitry underneath the rubbery material lit up wherever they were connected and he could feel the hum of electricity against his skin. "I was just... I needed..." Max tried to say as he felt the connectors press against the sides of his head. "I was worried about my suit... wanted to get it checked out..."

He frowned slightly as the words that came out of his mouth weren't what he wanted to say, the blocks that the mysterious stranger had put into the suit preventing his vocal cords from saying what he needed to say. Nevertheless he was still where he needed to be and was receiving help from one of those who were crucial in the project. The only problem was potentially if he was the one who was doing it all in the first place, but the more he thought about it the less it made sense. After all, if he was the one that prevented him from saying that he was having a problem, then why would he go through the whole charade of testing him in the first place?

"Running a diagnostic check now," Albert stated once he was back at his computer, snapping Max out of his thoughts as he felt the tingling on his body intensifying. "Looks like someone has been extensively enjoying our new body modification feature, have you been feeling any physical discomfort or noticed a difference in your body that you didn't specifically program?" Once again Max knew that the answer to this was yes, but even a simple head nod seemed to be too much for him. Eventually he just shook his head and the researcher continued on with the diagnostic tests.

"I do have a question for you since I'm here," Max said, attempting to bypass the blocks on his speech. "How possible would it be... for someone to hack a suit like this?"

The sounds of keys clicking stopped suddenly and once more Max could feel the dagger-like stare of the scientist on him. "Say that again?" Albert asked.

"I mean it's connected to the net," Max tried to restate, both to clarify his question while continuing to maneuver his way around the block. "Evan told me that anything that can integrate with such things has the potential to be hacked. I was just wondering if that could be the case with something like this."

"I assure you that nothing of the sort can happen with these suits," Albert replied with a hint of distaste in his voice. "Both your friend and myself were well aware of such potential and have provided numerous safeguards against such a thing, and since such things as the connection to your phone and bank account are also protected by the security algorithms of their related institutions, the only thing they could get if they hacked into your system are your vitals and the personal info of your suit that anyone could get with five minutes of searching, anyway. So if that's what you come here for I can put your fears to rest that nothing like that will happen to you."

But it already did happen to happen to me, Max thought in his mind as he waited for the testing to conclude. Not only that, but it was doing more to him than merely looking at his personal information. Unfortunately trying to ask about the possibility of the hackers doing more to his suit than just accessing information was impossible, no doubt the inquiry was too close to what the hacker was trying to block. Instead he just remained quiet and sat there, feeling the vibrations of the suit move throughout his body.

"What's this now..." Albert said suddenly, rubbing his chin as Max suddenly perked up.

"Did you find something?" Max asked hopefully.

"Well it turns out the dampener for your body modification feature was turned off," Albert replied. "We put it in there so there's no drastic changes that can happen to the human body that could potentially stress it out. Prevents people from going to bed scrawny and waking up a bodybuilder that would promptly result in a coronary. I'll reset the setting for you and lock it into place, as well as reset your firewall since you seem so concerned, and other than that everything else came back clean."

The lifting of Max's spirits suddenly had the floor dropped out from under it as Albert gave his suit a clean bill of health, only detecting the tampering that the hacker had done to his modification systems. He hoped that the reset would also give him his ability to talk about his problem, but the second he tried to open his mouth the words once more refused to come out. After a brief lecture on the proper care of his suit for optimal functionality Albert informed him that he was very busy and ushered him out the door. Within a few minutes Max was back out on the streets he had stood only a few hours ago, though hopefully he was in a slightly better situation now that the body mod dampener had been restored. The main question for that, though, was that if it wasn't to keep him quiet, what was the reason the function was even on in the first place?

The question continued to haunt him as he shifted his suit back to his default clothing option, complete with gloves this time, and walked back to the shuttle station. With the immediate crisis averted it seemed he hoped that he could figure out a way to relay the problem to Evan when he got back to the station. While he waited in the shuttle bay for his ride back he couldn't help but open up the suit settings once again, making sure that the body modification program had been turned off. When he saw it was he mentally slapped himself in the forehead when he realized he could have had Albert disable or remove the program from his suit completely. But it was already getting late and he had already given the scientist one vague problem, it would likely not improve the staunch man's mood to try and give him another one... if he even could.

As he got back onto the shuttle to head back to his own space station he found it hard to contemplate that only a few hours ago he had tried to come there in order to find an an excuse for why he had his accident at work. No doubt the hacker wasn't finished with him yet, he mused as the shuttle made its jump, but for now he hoped he staved off enough of the attack to buy himself some time. So many questions remained unanswered; however, like what the mysterious figure wanted from him in the first place, or what his end goal was for him if he didn't comply. Was it possible that the suit had the capability to kill him?

The thought continued to haunt him throughout the entire trip and as he walked back through the terminal, so much so he didn't see the entrance barrier in front of him until he bumped into it. When he got out of his own thoughts and looked up he noticed the customs officer looking at him sternly with her hands on her hips. "Sir, I told you that your print didn't scan correctly," she said demandingly as she pointed down at the biometric reader. "Please place your entire palm flat and wait for the computer to clear you."

Max sighed and took a step back to place his gloved hand to get it read once again. After a few seconds the screen in front of him flashed with an angry red light and said that it was unable to determine his identity. "What the hell...?" he muttered under his breath and tried again, only to get the same result. "What is going on here?"

"If I may have a suggestion," the officer stated. "Perhaps you could cancel any programs your suit happens to be actively running and take off the gloves so we can get a proper reading. Electrical interference, although rare, has been known to happen with certain models."

A sheen of sweat could be felt on Max's face as he tried to think of a way out of his current situation. He knew that there was no way that he could get his gloves off, finding out most of the functionality of retracting his suit was still locked out, but if he couldn't get through the security checkpoint they might bring him in for questioning and he wasn't sure he could explain his situation with the limitations he had. In the back of his mind he wondered how it couldn't read his biometrics since it worked the last time he came through a couple hours ago. Had Albert done something to it that caused him to lose his fingerprint identity?

"I need to use the retina scanner, actually," he blurted out in a sudden burst of inspiration. He heard the sounds of groans behind him as the customs official rolled her eyes and moved him to another area of the checkpoint. While an older piece of tech the retina scanner was still a viable means of identification, particularly if the person had robotic implants or had otherwise lost their arms. It took significantly longer to process, though, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the others waiting to depart look at him angrily as he positioned his face in front of the machine. About a minute later the scan finished and the door leading into the station slid open to allow him access and Max turned back to apologize profusely to everyone before he nearly ran back into the station proper.

Once he was inside Max didn't stop moving until he got back to his apartment and bolted inside. The second he was alone he clutched his head to try and stop himself from panicking as his breath came in short, ragged gasps. As he held his head he felt latex against latex, his anxiety only increased when he realized he had been wearing the suit's hood that covered his head the entire time. When he grew so frustrated he tried to claw at the rubber on his head he felt something sharp press into his scalp and held his hands up to the light he saw what it was.

The tips of the gloves on his fingers had formed into points and extended out several inches past where the digits normally ended. When he touched them they felt hard and strangely connected to his body, as though the suit had taken his fingernails and extended them. Upon closer investigation of the affected area the rubber around it had taken on a scale-like texture along the base of the protrusions and had grown halfway down his fingers. When he tried to retract the gloves back into his suit he found himself unable to even access the menu to change them, and when he tried to use the main menu to work around it a graphic of a toony dragon popped up and wagged its finger at him before it completely locked him out of the suit alteration section of his menu.

"That damn hacker..." he nearly growled as he was about to tear the visor off his face when he noticed that in the corner of his HUD it indicated that the body modification program was once again active. A heavy weight settled in Max's stomach when he not only saw that it had been reactivated, but his access to it had been similarly revoked. How had the hacker gotten past his reset firewall already, he asked himself as he sat dumbfounded down on the couch. If someone like Albert couldn't keep this person out then he knew nothing would... especially if Albert happened to be the hacker.

Even though Max knew he couldn't say anything about his predicament he decided to send another email to Evan to see when he would get back to the station, even though he knew it wasn't for at least another week with the promotional tour. With no way of relaying the urgency of his message he likely couldn't get him to cancel either, which meant he would have to wait until he got back. He wasn't going to sit idly by and wait for his possible rescue to return, though, as he went over to his computer and began to do his own research.

Without having to work the days felt like a big, continuous blur to Max, especially with the long days and nights he put into his computer trying to find something that would help him get the cursed suit off. He still hadn't had any more contact from the irksome hacker, which cemented the statement that there would be no ransom or anything of that nature coming his way. Thankfully his suspension came with pay once his drug test came back negative and he was able to continue to live normally, though as time went on such a concept began to blur slightly.

After the slight changes in his fingers Max took a picture of himself every day and carefully documented them in order to see if anything else was happening to him. For the first few days it appeared nothing else was altered, but after day three he stumbled several times while on his way to the local noodle stand to stretch his legs and eat after a marathon research session. His slightly erratic behavior pulled more eyes towards his direction than usual; ever since he had lost control of his ability to alter his suit he had been essentially stuck in the full-body second skin and had to get used to people taking second glances at him. He had also worn the visor while out in public, too, to cover up what was left exposed of his face to further disguise himself in case someone he knew happened to pass by him.

When he got to his destination he quickly found an empty booth and investigated his feet. In the default mode it would have looked like he was wearing latex slippers with no toes, but as he pressed his hands on his appendages he could see and feel three distinct nubs growing out from the base of his toes. With a little effort he could even move them individually, experimenting with them until an android waiter came by and asked him what he wanted to eat. He ordered his food to go and once he got it he walked home as quickly as possible, though that proved more difficult since the weight distribution in his soles was quite far from normal.

A day after that as the base of his feet continued to expand and the nubs on them had thickened to three thick toes, and as the day wore on he noticed another change in the appearance of a pair of small nubs that appeared on the top of his head. When he saw them a cursory feel of them revealed them to have the same consistency as his new fingertips, and when he touched them they felt like an extension of his own skull. It had become clear that the suit was altering him far more than simple muscle growth or any other physical traits that it could have given him. It should be more than enough evidence, he thought to himself as he paced around his apartment, all he would have to do is show the company what was happening to him and they would know what was wrong without him having to explain it.

"Time to hopefully end this," Max uttered to himself as he brought up the help option for his suit. "Call customer support." He watched through his visor as his communications link attempted to connect to the node on the other side. Part of him wondered whether or not the hacker would even allow him to do so now that the changes were so obvious, but that question was quickly answered when he heard a voice on the other end ask him what he needed help with.

"Could you just take a look at my suit please?" Max asked the technician. "It's... fitting funny."

"I certainly can sir," the technician replied as Max breathed a sigh of relief. "I am starting the remote connection to your suit, you will feel a tingling sensation." Max just waited as the familiar full body shudder passed through his body. "Now this will just take a few moments and we can see if there are any potential glitches in your suit's matrix, if so we can schedule an appointment and... oh dear..."

"What?" Max asked.

"We have detected some unofficial modifications that have been done to the augmentation of your suit," the technician explained. "As such I'm afraid that constitutes a voiding of your warranty. If you are having problems I'm afraid you're going to have to purchase a new suit."

Max felt his stomach widen into a deep pit as he struggled to think of what to say next. It had to have been the hacker, breaking his warranty in order to explain his physical transformations... or perhaps Albert did it while he was checking him out? "I'm... I'm sorry..." Max managed to reply to the technician. "I... uh..."

"I'm sorry that I can not help you further," the technician apologized. "In the future please make sure that you use authorized modifications in order to try and change your suit, even though they don't create the drastic alterations that some enjoy, they are there because they have been proven to be both safe and effective. Have a good day."

The sound of the call disconnecting filled his ears as he felt the blood drain away from his face. Slowly he walked back around to his couch and sat down, his new feet kicking up against the small coffee table with their new length. Even if he had gone back to the main headquarters of the company they would likely turn him away, or worse if the hacker was Albert he'd play right into his hands. No doubt a voided suit would also break whatever beta-testing agreement Evan had set up with them and it likely carried a harsh penalty.

As he sat there with his head in his hands he thought back to the call he just had and what the technician had told him about illegal modifications. At first he thought it was nothing, but the more he thought about it a spark of inspiration began to form in his brain. He quickly stood up and went over to his computer, opening up the research that he had gathered to try and help his condition. It took almost an hour before he found what the technician's advice had sparked; it was a colony on a distant planet that harbored a large group called the modders, those that had taken genetic or mechanical alterations to the extreme. As he read over his notes he realized that with his new body modifications starting to manifest, it may be a place where he could get some help... or maybe even a cure.