2057: The Shadowless Shadow by TheBaldestOfThemAll

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The icy fists of New Zurich released their grip as I entered the tropical rainforest of the atrium. The securitor approached and extended a bionic hand to retrieve my coat. Its movements were seamless. It was programmed to be perfectly human. I allowed it to take my overcoat with little more than a nod of acknowledgement. It scanned me and produced a brilliantly bright blue-white light from its optics. I did not have any weapons at the time as I had left them in the agency’s aerodyne, so I was allowed into the skylift. I paused before a gaussed Dimensions mirror by the doors. I put my hand on it to degauss it. I wanted to study my reflection for a moment before my appointment. The cold had clung to me in the form of white ice crystals entangled in the darkness of my hair and beard. I shed them silently with a few methodical strokes.

I entered the tempered glass skylift and inserted the data chip my handler had given me into the reader. The doors slid closed. Within seconds, the city of gold and white-hot neon disappeared fast under my feet. 88… 89… 90. The doors opened to the rejuvenation clinic. ‘The finest in the world,’ my handler said. My watch read 18:20. The agency had my appointment scheduled for 18:30.

The city was silenced to a whisper nearly 100 stories in the sky, the neobaroque ambience of the reception area undisturbed except by the water flowing from the replica of the Fontana di Trevi. Beyond the tempered glass and the gray storm clouds was a view of the city’s grandiosity. The Kreis of Old Zurich and the Limmat were far off into the distance. Seated in their white velvet chairs were the 1% of the 1% from the upper echelons of society. They were wearing sleek, high-end attire and bleeding-edge cyberware. If they were not engaged in exclusive conversations, they sat in silence, reading the newest of their holomagazines or typing away at their Altus decks. Some had a hot cup of coffee in hand. It was real coffee, and not the synthetic s**t the proles are relegated to. The scent of 100% Arabica travelled from their cups and through the reception area. Bittersweet. A hostess was serving a selection of canapés, exotic meats and cheeses, fruits, nitrogenated RealWater, teas, and yes, real coffees to the guests while they waited for their appointments.

The receptionist looked up from his Altus, which he had been typing away at as well before I entered the reception area. "Good evening, sir. Welcome to Institut Genese. How may I assist you?" he greeted me with professional courtesy. It was tinged with an artificial warmth. He had an accent. Faintly French. The receptionist was a lean man who looked to be in his early 30s. His hair was styled in a sleek slickback style. A dark brown that was almost black. His face, clean-shaven. His eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes were all painted a holographic black-gold. Very distinctive. He was dressed in a restrictive uniform that revealed the lean musculature of his form. I scanned the gold-plated ident on his lapel with my Voyant optics. His name was Zephyr. There was a familiarity about him, but what it was, I was not sure. His green optics lingered on me for a few seconds too long. Voyants as well.

"I am expected. They have arranged a treatment," I stated, my voice devoid of warmth or menace. I slid the data chip across the desk with calculatedness. I made sure the agency’s insignia was displayed. It was unmistakable to those familiar with it. His smile faltered as she glanced at the chip, and then back at me. His fingers trembled slightly as she inserted the chip into the reader. His movements were a silent admission of his fear.

He nodded curtly and motioned for me to follow. "Right this way, Mr. Volkov." He led the way through the immaculate corridors. His façade of professionalism faltered with every glance he cast my way. He was too anxious. He had no reason to be anxious.

We stopped before room A19. "Here you are. A lead technician will be with you shortly." His initial artificial warmth faded. It was replaced by a subtly cold uncertainty in the presence of the unknown. The tension in the air spoke volumes. It was a testament to the effect I had on him. My mere presence. He retreated from the scene. His heels echoed down the corridors as he did.

Inside room A19, the air was dense. It had a clinical scent that masked any trace of human presence. Antiseptic hung in the atmosphere and intertwined with the sterility of cleaning agents. The state-of-the-art console on the ceiling in the center of the room, the hum of high-tech equipment, and the immaculateness of the room boasted privilege and technological prowess. It was luxury and cutting-edge technology in material form. Every detail had been carefully curated to convey a sense of exclusivity. The exclusion of outsiders. Outsiders like me.

I sat on a velvet chair in silence while I waited for the technician. I shifted in the seat. It was not because the chair was unaccommodating, but because the three-piece kevlar suit I had tailored just last week was too small already. The Atlas-X system the agency had implanted was susceptible to excessive hypertrophy of the muscles.

I heard a knock on the door. Three quick thuds of a carbide I was familiar with against the gaussed glass. "Come in," I said in response to the knocking.

The door slid open. A young man who looked to be in his early 20s entered. He was tall. Dressed in scrubs and a pristine lab coat that hung off his slender figure. He had an overconfident gait that marked him as the lead technician. He ran a hand through his platinum-blond quiff. I scanned his ident. His name was Andreas. He was young for someone who had the position he had at an exclusive clinic—the youngest technician to ever work here, let alone lead. I was informed by my handler he graduated at the top of his class at Switzerland’s top mechanomedical school at 16-years-old. He was brilliant, but had the life skills of a boy who had no life outside of school. On occasion, he had an ego too big for his own head. She also asked me to observe the man-boy during my appointment with him. To assess him.

"Dobro pozhalovat," Andreas greeted in bad Russian, extending a bionic hand for a handshake. "We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Volkov. My name is Andreas, and I’ll be your technician this evening. How was your journey from Leningrad on the aeroway?"

"Good," I stated. I returned his handshake. Firm, but almost too firm with his unnatural grip. Somehow clammy.

"Good, good… I’m happy to hear that. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way."

"Thank you."

He slid the door closed. "You’re here for a full removal, yes?" he inquired.

"Yes," I nodded in response. "I trust you are aware of the specifications of the agency’s request, Andreas. The agency demands strict adherence to protocol."

"I’ve been briefed on the specifics of the request," he said, his Swiss accent smooth and precise. More pleasing to the ears than his attempt at speaking in Russian. "The procedure will take approximately one hour given the extent of the coverage." The technician began explaining the procedure in a calm and professional tone. He outlined the steps and potential side effects within 10 minutes.

"Would you like one of our attendants to escort you to a changing room and assist you with your clothing and personal belongings, Mr. Volkov?" he offered.

"No."

"There’s a personal Secustore over there for your belongings." The boiserie slid open to reveal a safe. "Please undress and have a seat on the chair underneath the console when you’re done. I’ll be with you shortly," the technician instructed, taking off his own coat and revealing his bionic arms. I undid my polyleather dress shoes and took off my suit methodically. I was finally free from its confinement. Liberated. As I stripped, Andreas stripped off components of his arms and replaced them with others. He made adjustments to the attachments of his fingertips. I was clad in nothing but my briefs, but silently, I took those off as well. I could not help but detect the technician’s prying optics fixed on my body when he assumed I was not paying attention. As long as he remained professional, I could not care less what he thought. My body was a weapon to the agency. Modesty served no purpose for a weapon.

"Hui..." Andreas murmured to himself in German, "you’re bigger than I anticipated," I assumed he was referring to my… height and weight. He whispered to himself in what he thought was confidence too frequently. A liability. He was under the assumption there was no one to listen to him. There was *always* someone listening, now that he was affiliated with the agency.

When I was done undressing, I put my belongings into the Secustore. I sat in the reclined chair under the console and waited for the technician to complete his connections. When he was done, he approached me from behind. He was hooked up to the console. Cables were running down his back and at three points of his arms.

"I’ll need to get some biometrics from you so that I can calibrate the laser to your body’s unique physiology, so I’m going to jack you into the console. You *may* feel a static sensation." The technician pulled out a retractable cable from the console and inserted it into the port at the base of my neck. The insertion was as familiar as a handshake. I felt a surge throughout my body as my neuroprocessor interfaced with the console’s processor.

‘CONNECTED’, my Voyants alerted in Russian.

As numbers and charts scrolled across the monochrome monitor in white, the technician murmured. He was addressing both me and himself, but mostly himself as if I was not in the room two meters away from him, "Good… good. Remarkable recovery times, your metabolism runs like a reactor... such resilience." He paused. His eyes grew wide. "Your genetics… hui…"

"I trust that you are skilled at what you do, Andreas." I wanted to test him. "I was told you graduated at the top of your class in biomechanical school. At the Universität Neues Zürich. At the age of 16, no less. Very impressive. I expect your work will reflect that."

Andreas nodded. "Absolutely. I may be young, but my colleagues and I have performed this procedure many times, on many operatives sent by the agency, and I assure you, you're in safe hands." He smiled with too much self-assurance. "There’s a reason your agency has contracted with our clinic to carry out these procedures on operatives such as yourself. We’ve perfected our craft to a fine art."

"I enjoy the fine arts myself. I should expect nothing less than a masterpiece from you then, should I not?"

"It will be a masterpiece of a masterpiece. You have my word," he promised, extending his hand.

I shook his hand. "I take a man’s word very seriously."

Andreas’s optics became a brighter electric blue. Excited. "Mr. Volkov, did you know that on average, humans have about 5 million hair follicles on their bodies? That includes approximately 100,000 scalp follicles." A three-dimensional wireframe model of a man’s body filled the monitor in front of us. It was familiar. Superimposed onto the model were points of data. Stars in a pitch-black sky. Millions of them. White-hot. They blinked in and out of existence.

"This is a map of your hair follicles. As you can see, you have a far higher follicular density than the average person. You have an unusually high number of terminal hairs. Higher than average. Not only that, but your hair… it’s twice… no, thrice as thick as the average person’s hair. With your androgen levels, I would’ve expected you to be bald by now, but somehow…" He paused. His humbled tone indicated the challenge of this. "I’m talking too much. Anyhow, the procedure will take approximately two hours instead of the one hour I anticipated. My apologies for the inconvenience."

I nodded. My optics were fixed on the millions of data points on the map. "Do not apologize. I am not an impatient man. Time is of no concern to me, as long as the job is done right the first time. There will not be a second time. Do you understand?" I reviewed the coordinates of the targets to be eliminated in Andreas’s own contract with the agency. Andreas was skilled enough at his art to be entrusted with this contract, but he wasn’t irreplaceable. No one working for the agency was.

"Of course," Andreas nodded. As young as the technician was, he was a professional who worked with the high-profile clientele of this clinic. He always had to wear a mask. Always. Still, it was not difficult for me to see he was disturbed by my demeanor. He cleared his throat. "Do you understand the implications of this procedure, Mr. Volkov?"

"It is necessary for my line of work. The agency needs me untraceable. Unrecognizable. No hair means no DNA to trace back to me. No one to trace back to the agency."

"It will target every hair on your body, terminal and vellus. Indeed, you will become untraceable, but you understand that this procedure is irreversible, yes? Would you still like to move forward with it?" He was making the final adjustments to the laser attachments on his right hand.

My optics remained fixed forward. My body was still, like I was a part of the machinery I was connected to. "Again, it is necessary for my line of work, Andreas."

"Understood." The technician adjusted the controls of the console. They were numerous. The white neorexine chair I was sitting on rearranged itself uninterruptingly to become a clinical bed. "Please assume the supine position, Mr. Volkov." I complied with his directives. The technician projected the map of my body onto my Voyants. All five million plus of the targets pulsated in and out of view.

"I’m going to begin with the hair on your chest," Andreas forewarned. "You may feel pain at the beginning of the procedure, but it should subside as your neuroprocessor modulates your pain transmission pathways. For your safety, please let me know if you need me to stop at any moment during the procedure." The lasers hummed to life. A blinding blue light radiated from all five fingertips his right hand. He began the process of eliminating my hair follicles one by one as a contract killer would. The lasers, blue-hot, made contact with my skin and sought out targets to destroy. I tensed my jaw, but the burning sensation was milder than I expected. He directed the lasers over my chest and assaulted my follicles with clinical efficiency. He was cold-blooded in his methods.

"You’re handling this very well," Andreas said through the droning of the lasers. "Most of my clients, they would’ve been complaining about the pain by now."

"In my world, one endures much, much worse than this. This? This is nothing." My optics were fixed on the LED lights overhead. Memories of my past and present flickered through my mind.

The pain started to subside when the technician directed the lasers over my armpits 5 minutes into the procedure. The burning sensation became a sensation of warmth that pleased my body. Within half an hour, all of the follicles on my torso had been eliminated. It was indicated by the pitch-blackness of that area on the map in contrast to the white that remained everywhere else. The death of the follicles meant cutting off the blood supply and support to the targets. The death of the the hair at the root made the affected area as barren as the Siberian wastes. 82% of my follicles remained. The technician turned off the lasers. With the comb attachment on his left hand, he cleared away the formerly formidable strands of hair in their defolliculated state. They fell to the ice-cold floor without any resistance to reveal the true extent of my musculature. I touched the now unnaturally smooth skin. It felt unfamiliar to me. Alien. I ran my hands over the scars I acquired through my work.

"Would you like to schedule an appointment for a full dermal repair as well?" Andreas offered. His optics were fixed on my body and the numerous scars that disrupted its now otherwise smooth surface. Some scars were from years ago. Some recent. The severity of damage varied between the scars. Most were as minor as abrasions and lacerations. The most severe was a gamma burn on my right oblique.

"No. That is unnecessary. It is not required by the agency."

"How does it feel?"

"What?"

"The skin I’ve lasered, I mean. How is it? I’ve never had a client as… virile as you, so I want to ensure my calibrations are optimized for your body."

"Very smooth. I must admit, Andreas—I am impressed with your work so far."

"Thank you, Mr. Volkov. That’s too kind of you to say," he said with the smile of someone who was too sure of himself.

"‘Never sell the bear’s skin before killing the beast.’ Are you familiar with this saying, Andreas?"

"I— I’ve heard it before, yes." His smile faded.

"Good." I allowed myself a wry smile of my own. "This is an old proverb I live by with my work. Do you live by this proverb as well?"

"I try to…"

"In my world, to only ‘try to’ is what gets one killed."

With that, the technician continued the procedure without another word. The lasers hummed back to life. With the completion of the supine sides of my arms, hands, and even fingers, the percentage of hair follicles remaining dropped to 73%. My legs, feet, and toes, 55%. The map of my follicles reflected that. The technician took the liberty of fixing his optics onto me on occasion, but he otherwise handled every part of my body with professionalism. I had to admit—it was exciting to watch the percentage drop lower and lower. To lay in this clinic. Exposed. Entrusting a young man whom I did not know very well to reforge my body into the ideal weapon for the agency. It made me feel an emotion I had not felt in years. The technician directed the lasers over my groin, and as he did, my cock pulsated from the warm sensation that went through it. The sensation made me erect to my truest extent in less than 15 seconds. He gripped my erection in his carbide left hand and targeted the individual strands of hair on my balls with a single fine-focused laser. Within one minute, I came years worth of cum all over myself. Now, I was the unprofessional one.

"Sensitivity is a… side effect in some clients. It’s not common, but it happens, Mr. Volkov." Andreas explained calmly and professionally. His optics were the same excited bright blue that betrayed his professionalism before. He reached for a microfiber towel on the metal table next to the bed to clean my body. As he did, all of my pubic hair came off and revealed my now-smooth groin. 54%. More cum came shooting from my cock and onto my groin. He cleaned my body with a new towel, then put one into a yellow biohazard barrel, and the other one into an unmarked, but otherwise identical barrel. He sterilized his bionic hands before getting back to work on my body.

"I hope you are good at keeping secrets, Andreas," I said, sitting up from the bed and placing a firm hand onto one of his shoulders. Slender. Easy to fracture.

"What secrets, Mr. Volkov?" Andreas asked with smiling eyes and a tone of too much amusement in his voice.

"When you work with the agency, secrets become a way of life. Your lifeblood. Tell me Andreas, are you aware of the alternative to that way of life?" I asked.

The smile in his eyes disappeared. "D-death?" he responded. There was no irony in his response. He was serious.

There was a second of silence between us before I burst out into laugher at his naïve way of thought. "No," I laughed, "we do not kill for the sake of killing." He had an expression of relief on his face, but only for a moment. "They cut out the Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas of the brain. Then they cut out the tongue."

"Is… isn’t that an agency secret in itself?"

"Anyone affiliated with the agency knows this as common knowledge. It is in your contract. It is in all of our contracts." I laughed dryly, rubbing his shoulder. "You have nothing to worry about, right Andreas?"

"R-right… of course, Mr. Volkov," he laughed nervously. "Would you like to move forward with the procedure?" he asked in an attempt to end our conversation.

"I would. We are here for business, not pleasure, are we not?"

"Excellent… excellent," he cleared his throat. "Now… please assume the… prone position." I did as he asked. With only 54% of my hair follicles remaining, the front of my body was devoid of hair, but the back was still as hairy as it had been from the beginning. The technician turned the lasers back on. The bright blue-hot light illuminated the room. The technician worked with the same deathly efficiency I expected of him. With every second came the death of a thousand targets. The pitch-black void devoured the white-hot stars on the map. Within 20 minutes, my back was completely cleared of hair. 54% to 36%. He directed the lasers over my arms and my legs and cleared them completely. He combed through the strands of hair, and they fell to the floor alongside the masses of their fallen brothers.

"I’m going to work on your inner buttocks now, in addition to any other hair follicles I may have missed in your genital area," the technician warned. He made fine-focused adjustments to the laser that was attached to his right index finger before turning it on and directing it toward my ass. With his left hand, he spread the cheeks of my ass open. He inhaled in concentration. He began to destroy the targets one by one. The sensation of the single laser made me erect again. I did not cum, but my cock leaked out a lot of precum. He cleared the last of the follicles from my taint, and the corresponding target on the map blinked out of existence. 9%. I started the procedure with more than 5 million follicles and hair dominating my body. Now, that number had been decimated to less than 500,000.

"I’ve completed your body, Mr. Volkov. Go to the mirror over there. Go ahead, feel your skin for yourself," Andreas instructed. And I did. I touched myself. My body. The agency’s weapon. I searched for any imperfections in Andreas’s art. Any weaknesses. There was nothing. Not a follicle of hair anywhere. There were only the scars I already had, and the unnaturally smooth skin the lasers left behind. Skin that would allow me to serve the agency in ways I would not have been able to before. I had to admit—the technician’s work was impeccable. His attention to detail no matter how big or how small was a very valuable asset to the agency. I looked down at the black and white chessboard floor at the base of the bed. It had been blackened by all the body hair I shed.

"How is it? Going from having all that body hair to none in one hour… it must be a shock to your system, isn’t it?" Andreas inquired with sympathy in his voice.

"I have no objections of my own," I replied, continuing to inspect my smooth body. "If it serves the agency, then it will be done without question." Then I looked at the map of my hair follicles through my Voyants. At the only part of my body that had any hair remaining.

"Mr. Volkov…?" he started to question, "If you don’t mind my ask—"

"Andreas, why am I here?" I countered to cut him off from questioning protocol.

"Y-you’re here because the agency sent you here."

"Yes, but why?"

"Because the agency needs you to be untraceable."

"Am I untraceable?"

"Well… you’re not. Not yet."

"You have a job to do. So do I. We strike while the iron is hot."

"I— I understand… Please prepare yourself, Mr. Volkov, and we'll begin with the final phases of the procedure shortly," he replied, reluctance flickering in his eyes. As he made recalibrations to the lasers at the console, I looked at myself in the mirror. There was a time when I used to agonize too much over appearances. Before the agency. Appearances and a high standard of personal grooming are important in my world, yes, but practicality? Practicality is above all. I ran my hands through my hair. My beard. Today would be the last day they would be a part of my identity in the pursuit of practicality.

The technician adjusted the controls of the console again, and the clinical bed reverted to its initial form as a reclined chair. "Please have a seat whenever you’re ready," he requested. I sat down onto the chair. The chair I was sitting in was not unlike a barber’s chair. Just reclined. Some of the scents were similar as well. Ozone. Laser residue. Antiseptics and cleaning agents. Exotic aromatics. All that was needed were the scents of synthetic tonics and gels, and synth-leather. The technician attended to me as if he was my barber who had cut my hair and beard just last week.

"Would you like a cape, Mr. Volkov?" he offered.

"No."

"Are you sure? You have quite a lot of hair, and—"

"Yes, I am sure, Andreas. Thank you."

"Of… of course." He pulled his stool beneath himself and sat down onto it. He adjusted it so that his optics were leveled with mine. "I’ll begin with your beard. Because the follicles of the beard are so responsive to androgens, and well… you have a high level of them, I’ve had to recalibrate the lasers to be more powerful. You *may* feel some pain again as your body readjusts to my recalibrations, or you may not. With your high pain tolerance, you may not feel any pain at all. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he exhaled, "please try to remain as still as you can." The technician turned on the lasers. A brighter blue than before and humming with more power. His hands were trembling. Whether it was because of the magnitude of power flowing from his fingertips or because he was nervous, I was not sure. Regardless, they were stabilized by the actuation stabilization system. The lasers cut through my beard like like a plasma cutter through steel. I did not feel any pain, but the warmth I experienced earlier on my body was hotter now. More… pleasant. The masses of my former beard fell onto my lap, then onto the floor at my bare feet as the technician directed the lasers over my jaw. 8.5%. 8.49%. 8.48%. My face felt colder as more and more of it was exposed for the first time in years. Today was the last day I would be able to grow a beard. The thought did not bother me because I did not conflate my masculinity with my former ability to grow one. Instead, it made me erect. The technician’s optics gravitated toward it on occasion. When what remained of my mustache fell off and onto my groin, the technician turned off the lasers with a finality. 4.5%.

The technician plugged another retractable cable from the console into the back of his head. Yellow this time. A viewport with input from his optics was displayed onto upper right corner of mine. I saw myself from his point of view. "What do you think, Mr. Volkov?" I pulled his head closer to mine to assess his work. I ran my hand over my face. It had the same unnatural smoothness as my body now. I thumbed the indentation on my chin. I forgot I had one. The last time I shaved my face clean was years ago. When I did, not even the sharpest razor could cut closely enough to eliminate the subtle roughness of my stubble. The shadow. Now, there was nothing at all. Not a trace of shadow. The only indication I had a beard was its tan line, but it was faint. My face was smoother than when I was a boy.

"It is impeccable work, Andreas."

"Thank you. I think it suits you. Typically, we advise against the full removal of facial hair for the majority of our male clients, as most men tend to be more aesthetically pleasing with it. You, however, have the ideal face for this. Perfect structure… the best I’ve seen in any of our clients. Is it natural?"

"It is." I had no need for cosmetic procedures or implantations. They served no purpose other than one’s vanity. Speaking from experience, this cardinal sin has been the downfall of many of my targets.

"If you don’t mind my saying, you look like a sculpture of a Greek god. Beard or no beard, you’re a very handsome man. Still…" He had something on his mind.

"What is it? Speak."

"Oh… it’s nothing, I—" Andreas's reluctance was obvious. "I don’t mean to be unprofessional, Mr. Volkov, but it's a shame, you know," he murmured, not quite under his breath. "Hair like yours—our clients pay hundreds of thousands, if not millions, for it. Yet here you are, so ready to renounce it all for your profession."

"To each their own commodity. Mine is my skill, not my appearance."

"Other operatives I’ve worked on provide the same commodity you do, yet aren’t ready to lose their hair as much as you are. Body hair, fine. But male operatives like you fear the thought of losing their beards. We’ve even had to have one of them restrained because he became so violent with one of our other technicians during his procedure."

"I am not ‘other operatives’. My hair is nothing to me. It is nothing more than an impracticality and a liability that I need to get rid of."

"You know, you’re an interesting man, Mr. Volkov. Would you mind if I ask you one more question?"

"I would rather we continue with the procedure, but if you must," I exhaled deeply, "then go ahead."

"Why do you devote yourself to your agency so strongly? I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as dedicated to his profession as you." The tone of his voice was not one of judgement, but naïveté. "Do you just do everything they tell you to do? Is there anything you *wouldn’t* do? W-with all due respect to you and to the agency, of course…"

"The answer is simple, Andreas," I allowed myself a smile. "Money. They look after me, I look after them. Loyalty is a *very* valuable asset to the agency. The more valuable one is, the faster they rise through the ranks. The more they are paid."

"The more loyal you have to be."

I nodded. "Any breach of loyalty between the agency and me is punishable. But as long as I do what I am asked competently, the agency is satisfied. I am also a satisfied man made a few million rubles wealthier. In my tongue, we have a saying: ‘if you are afraid of wolves, do not go into the forest.’"

"I think I understand. That’s interesting, but you didn’t answer my last question. So… do you?"

"You forget I am human, Andreas. I am not a machine. I do not follow without thought. I assess first. The agency is very reasonable in its demands, so I have no issue following them. It is as simple as that. Some, I prefer more than others, but I do not let preferences get in the way of payment."

"This… what we’re doing… does it align with your preferences?"

"This is a requirement of my new rank within the agency. I have no attachment to my hair, so as far as official matters go, I have no objections. Its removal will complete my reforging into one of the agency’s most effective weapons. The more effectively I can serve the agency, the more I am paid."

"And unofficially?"

"You ask too many questions. But if you *must* have my thoughts on the matter… I am eager to finally get rid of it all."

"You’re… eager?"

"Did I stutter, Andreas?"

"N-no Mr. Volkov."

"Good. We will continue then."

"Of course… Please allow me some time to make my final calibrations to the lasers and we… we will continue." He was unnerved by my unhesitating demeanor. My eagerness. My erection was a testament to that. I looked into the mirror as the technician busied himself with his calibrations. I ran a hand through my full head of hair for the last time. I traced one of my sideburns with a finger. The shorter hair went halfway down my ear and ended abruptly in nothingness. Nothing but smooth skin. Soon, my head would share that same smoothness.

The technician put the last of the attachments into place. The already deep frown on his brow deepened more. "I feel like I’m committing a crime… Murder, to be precise."

"What? You have already killed millions of my hair follicles. Probably billions more before that, with your other clients. What are a hundred thousand more?" I reached up toward Andreas’s shoulders to bring him closer to me. I laughed dryly. "Do not be so dramatic. The agency entrusted you with this procedure because they knew of your skill. The agency wants this. I want this."

"I know, it’s just I—never mind," Andreas inhaled deeply to reinforce his confidence in himself. "Okay, Mr. Volkov. Are you ready for the final phase of the procedure?"

"Yes," I nodded. He reached for the cable and tried to unplug himself from the console. I grabbed his wrist reflexively. His eyes grew wide with fear. "Leave it. I want to watch."

"My apologies," he gulped. With all his determination, he turned on the lasers and they hummed with the same blue energy as before. Still, there was something more different about them now. More bloodthirsty. "With the high density of your hair, I had to increase the lasers’ power to the maximum level allowed to ensure the death of the follicles. With your pain tolerance, you very likely won’t feel anything, but there may be… complications."

"Do whatever you must, Andreas. Just make sure it is all gone. No traces." He nodded. With a determined hand, the technician started at my left temple, across my hairline, to my right. The loss of my hair was not immediate, but instead, gradual. With every pass of the lasers and the comb attachment that followed, my hairline grew thinner. And thinner. And thinner. The once-strong strands of hair fell out of their dead follicles and onto my groin, now weakened. Damaged. Now, there was nothing but untanned skin where my former hairline used to be. It had receded significantly. No less than seven or eight centimeters. It started almost at the top of my head. At my crown. Despite the heat of the laser that went through my body, the skin felt cold compared to the rest of my head because of how exposed it was. Very… sensitive. With every swath of skin that was revealed, my cock swelled to sizes I never knew were possible with one of the only remaining pieces of organic hardware on my body. He repeated this process until the top of my head was completely barren. There was only a fringe of hair in a U shape around my head now.

"How do you feel, Mr. Volkov? Is everything okay? You’re sweating." Andreas wiped the top of my head with another microfiber towel from the metal table.

"I—hnggg—" I clenched my teeth as he wiped my head. Why was it so sensitive? "I am fine. K-keep going."

From the viewport, I could see Andreas’s optics were fixed on my cock, which was leaking with precum. He was performing an emotional analysis on me. 90% arousal. The other 10%, pain. My cock was so hard that it hurt me more than the lasers could. "Would you like me to get your underwear for you? Cover you?"

"N-no…" I struggled, "I... I said keep going. Do not stop."

Andreas had an expression of worry on his face, but also one sharing my arousal. He had a big bulge in his pants. "If you insist, Mr. Volkov. Please let me know if you do need me to stop." He continued to recede my hairline until it started under my occipital bone. He wiped the sweat off of my balding head. It only made me more aroused. Even with my discipline, it took all of my strength to not touch myself in front of him.

"Mmfhh… f***," I cursed in Russian. The technician directed the lasers over my sideburns. He worked around my ears to start clearing away the fringe of hair that was left. It could not have been more than three or four centimeters in width now. The percentage continued to drop as he worked. 2.01%. 2.00%. 1.99% My heart rate was up to 150 beats per minute. After a few more passes of the lasers, the last of my hair fell to the floor. With that, the last of the targets on the map faded from black, to white, to black again one last time. Out of existence. Permanently.

I looked at myself from the technician’s optics. I was a bald man. Sweat dripping down my shiny bald head. Scowling. On my face was the expression of a man who was about to cum. He wiped my sweaty baldness with the microfiber towel again and pulled any desperate strands of hair out of their dead follicles with it. Wiping only made it shinier. Within the agency, our emotions were among the first things we were trained to control. But arousal… arousal was an emotion I could never master my control of.

"F***!" I cursed again in Russian, yelling. I was thankful the room was soundproofed. I came so f***ing hard all over myself. Years and years of white-hot suppression unloaded all over my groin. My face. My head. Andreas’s face. The cum just kept coming out of my cock for at least half a minute. I never expected baldness to be so sensual. So carnal. My scalp was more sensitive than any other part of my body right now. Even my cock. I felt vulnerable for having it exposed, but not in a bad way.

Andreas cleaned my cum off of his reddened face with the same towel he used for the sweat of my bald head. "Mr. Volkov… I- I have to be honest," Andreas started. His voice shivered not out of fear, but out of arousal. The voice of a man who just came. He had a wet spot on his pants where his big bulge was. "That’s the first time a client has ever done that." He offered the towel to me.

I took the towel from him and started to clean myself with it. "There is a first time for everything." I was breathless from the experience. I wiped my groin, then my head which was covered with my cum. It was still sensitive, but I was able to control myself now.

"I think the… hypersensitivity you’re experiencing is because the lasers were set to such a high level. To be honest, my colleagues and I have discussed that level of power, but we’ve never had to actually *use* it on any of our clients before. You’re the first one. We don’t know if this complication is perma—"

"It does not matter to me or the agency. It is all gone. That is all that matters." I took the towel off my head to reveal that it had only become shinier than before I wiped it. I put a hand on Andreas’s head and pulled him in closer to me so I could assess his work on making me a bald man. I put my hands onto it. My palms, callused, onto my scalp. I shivered. The skin was unnaturally smooth but still sticky. There was no shadow. The only memory of my hair left was the faint tan line. A memory that would fade away and be forgotten.

"Yes Mr. Volkov. Your baldness is as permanent as it is on the rest of your body." He paused, his focus on the unnatural shine of my bald head. "Another complication may be excessive shine of the scalp. When you had hair, the oils secreted by the sebaceous glands in your scalp had somewhere to go. Now that there aren’t even any hair follicles, the oils have nowhere to go and will all be secreted onto the surface of your scalp. The high laser levels may have also caused the overactivation of your sebaceous glands. The shine may be permanent, but if this bothers you, there are additional treat—"

"It does not bother me." I rubbed my bald head, covering my hands in its sticky secretions. I tried to wipe my hands onto the hair of my chest, but I only wiped it onto smooth skin. I forgot I no longer had hair anywhere on my body. "Your work is impressive, Andreas. We are almost done." I was focused on the 2500 or so points on the map. 0.05%. Their pulses. They taunted me. These surviving targets needed to be eliminated too.

"A-almost?" he questioned. The expression of confusion on his face became shock when he realized what I meant. "No Mr. Volkov. No. My apologies, but I can’t do that for you."

"And why not?"

"It's just—without eyebrows or eyelashes, most people look... different. Unrecognizable, almost…"

My lips twitched with a wry smile. "Good."

"It isn’t even a requirement. Why would you want to do this to yourself?"

"You are right. It is not required by the agency, but it is not prohibited either. It is a personal choice. My personal assessment of risk. Any and every liability must be eliminated."

He looked defeated. "You didn’t even hesitate. Your dedication to your work is commendable." Andreas paused, but only for a breath. "As you wish, Mr. Volkov." The technician returned to the console to make his absolute final calibrations to the laser. He replaced the attachment on his right index finger with a smaller one before turning it on. As thick as my eyebrows and eyelashes were, they had no chance against the power of the fine-focused laser with precision in millimeters. He directed his index finger over my eyebrows, leaving no trace of the thick eyebrows that were there only seconds ago.

The technician modulated the laser, decreasing the power levels for the most delicate part of the procedure. "Your eyes… I read your biometrics, but I just want to confirm with you—"

"Optics. Voyants. The Z-128s. They are energy-resistant."

"Okay," he steadied himself, activating the stabilization system, "ready, Mr. Volkov." The technician traced the shape of my eyes with the same calculated, cold-blooded precision I expected from someone of the agency. Sweat dripped his forehead as he did. To his lips. He licked them in concentration. My eyelashes fell to the floor one by one alongside their fallen big brothers. Forgotten. Three follicles. Two follicles. One follicle... Zero. The last of the stars was devoured by the pitch-blackness of the void. 0.00%. My body, the nothingness.

‘SCANNING ERROR. NO HAIR FOLLICLES DETECTED. RESCANNING IN [59s]’, the warning on the map alerted.

The technician turned off the laser for the last time and unplugged me from the console. The small current of electricity that surged through my body subsided. "We’re done, Mr. Volkov. Take a look at yourself in the mirror over there." Two hours ago, I entered the clinic with all of my hair. Now, I was hairless. Without the ability to grow even a strand of hair anywhere on my body. My hair. Beard. Body hair. Eyebrows and eyelashes. All gone. I was a shadowless shadow. It was perfect for the agency. Perfect for me. Andreas promised me a masterpiece. He made me into one. The agency’s ideal weapon.

"What do you think, Mr. Volkov? Is it good enough for the agency?"

"If it is good enough for me, it is good enough for the agency."

"Thank you, Mr. Volkov. I’m happy to hear that. You know, this look suits you quite well. Most men would lose their masculinity if they lose their eyebrows and even eyelashes, but somehow, it only adds to yours. Your hairlessness gives you an… otherworldly quality. It’s very attractive, if I’m being honest."

"You flatter me. This… this truly is the work of a master of his art. Thank you, Andreas. I will inform the agency of your services." I allowed myself a rare smile. "I apologize if I was being too harsh before. You have the potential to be one of the most valuable assets to the agency. A diamond in the rough, if I must be honest, but a diamond nevertheless. I did not want that potential of yours to go to waste. You are a brilliant young man."

"Oh… I—" Andreas blushed. He smiled with a sincere warmth. "Thank you, Mr. Volkov. I appreciate that. Working with you was an exciting opportunity. I mean that." He extended his hand, and I returned his handshake firmly. "If you’re available this evening, your agency has upgraded you to our premier package. You have access to our exclusive hotel and spa on the floors above this one. You’ve been assigned the penthouse suite with one other operative. Please take advantage of our many services. We have replicants customized to your preferential profile who would be eager to service you. No obligation, of course. Only if you’re available. In the meantime, you may use this room for as long as you’d like. You can have the prescriptions I’ve ordered for you delivered to your suite if you’d like." He was appreciative, but he looked like he was in a hurry to get out.

The technician said his final goodbyes and left the room. I retrieved my belongings from the Secustore and started to redress. ‘One other agent,’ he said. I was only dressed in my trousers, still barefoot, when the door slid open again. Speak of the Devil.

"Hello, Sergei," a familiar voice greeted. French-accented. One I had heard very recently.

"Zephyr," I greeted in return, putting my button-up shirt on, "or so you pretended to be." I turned around to face the ‘other operative’ Andreas told me about.

The handsome, lean-muscled devil smirked. He ran his hands through his hair, which was not actually his hair, and took it off to reveal to me that he was as bald as I was. The only difference was he still had his eyebrows and eyelashes. "I’m called Apollyon. I come from the Parisian branch of the agency. I’ve heard much about you, Seryozha. Seen much about you as well." He threw his wig onto the chair and approached me. He was looking at me with too much interest, like I was a piece of meat.

"Only bad things, I hope," I said, continuing to button up my shirt. I left the top three buttons undone, leaving my hairless chest exposed to the devil’s prying optics.

"I’ve heard you were a man larger than life. I’m glad to finally meet you in the flesh," he laughed to himself. "I was assigned to the clinic to oversee your procedure. Ensure all went according to the agency’s specifications. You’re one of the agency’s most trusted assets, but we know you’re too capable of handling yourself if you choose to go rogue. I’m glad you didn’t make that choice today. It'd be a shame to have to put a man like you down." He caressed his bald head, then mine. "Hair isn’t something most will renounce. It’s impressive how little hesitation you showed to do just that, if any."

I shivered at the devil’s sensuality. "As I have told Andreas, it is just hair. I do not care for impracticalities."

"Andreas… He’s the one who worked on me as well. A brilliant young man. I have quite a fondness for him, but I have doubts he feels the same way about me. You should’ve seen the look on his face when he learned I was the ‘new receptionist’ for today. I don’t know what I did to scare him." He laughed. "But I’m glad that you and I see eye to eye on this matter. You and I… we have much in common. It’s why the agency has assigned me to be your partner for your next contract in Prague tomorrow."

"Partner? Is that right?"

"I know you’re more of a… lone wolf operative, but," he put a hand on my hairless chest, "I think you’re going to enjoy my company. You might even prefer it to being alone."

"I might."

Apollyon peered into my lashless eyes with his own well-lashed ones seductively. His optics became a brighter green. "I have to confess—it was quite the thrill to watch a handsome man like you lose all of his hair. Your dedication to the agency is a very attractive quality." He thumbed the ridge of where my eyebrows used to be. "Second only to your physical qualities, of course."

The fact that I had an audience was a thrill in itself. "Did you enjoy it?"

"I did. I had a front row seat from Andreas’s optics. I saw everything… heard everything. Honestly, I’ve never witnessed such… virility in my life. I needed to take a break sometimes because it was too much for me to handle." The devil wrapped his arms around my neck and caressed my baldness, dragging his nails along its surface without any resistance. He cupped my erection through my trousers. "You have some very interesting proclivities. If I was your superior, I would consider them," he whispered into my ear before licking it, licking the side of my bald head, "conflicts of interest." He was going to make me cum.

"F***…" I moaned in Russian.

"The night is still young, Seryozha. Come with me upstairs, to our suite," Apollyon beckoned. "I’d like to become better acquainted with my partner before our work in Prague tomorrow. I’d like to know your strengths… your weaknesses. Exploit them and make you stronger." I put my shoes back on, the other two pieces of my suit in hand, and followed the devil up to our suite in the sky for a night I would never forget.

To be continued?

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