First, he goes to consult a lawyer.. err, well, a law student on how to best proceed.

The lab was quiet now - eerily so. It felt as though the room itself were holding its breath, stunned by what it had just witnessed. Coils of wire slithered across the floor like ivy in a forgotten greenhouse, looping around instrument racks and vanishing into matte-black machines that blinked their sleepy LED eyes. Against the far wall, a whiteboard bore the remnants of madness: equations scribbled in a frenzy of red and blue marker, half-legible, half-dream. Dr. Jon Kekyll had written them three nights ago in a kind of fever. He hadn’t slept since.

Now he stood in the center of the chaos - barefoot, taller than he’d been two days ago, his long grey lab coat swirling behind him like the cloak of some half-formed legend. He looked not so much like a scientist, but like the echo of one - someone who’d walked into a transformation and not quite come out the other side.

He gathered his phone, wallet, and the RAC - the device now cradled inside a weathered leather satchel, its power mercifully dormant. His jeans fit tighter than they had yesterday. The sneakers protested slightly as he slipped them on. One last glance at the room, and he flipped the lights.

Darkness fell with a click. The machines murmured to sleep, but in his mind, the current only grew stronger.

Outside, spring had seized the university campus in a riot of color and motion. Trees lined the cobblestone paths, their early leaves trembling like shy debutantes. Students dotted the lawns: sprawled over grass and textbooks, murmuring over coffee, laughing too loudly over things that wouldn’t matter tomorrow. A trio of squirrels waged a loud, scrappy war over the spoils of an upturned trash bin.

Jon walked briskly, past the engineering quad, skirting the Philosophy building like a guilty thought, and made a beeline for the southern end of campus. There, squatting in brutalist defiance, was the law school - a fortress of concrete and quiet ambition. Just beyond its stone steps nestled a familiar place from his postdoc days: The Brief Café.

The name had always been a subject of undergrad debate. Some said it was a pun on legal briefs. Others insisted it was underwear. Either way, the espresso was good.

He stepped inside. The air smelled of roasted beans and old paper, a scent that hit him with the **** of nostalgia. Mismatched tables, threadbare armchairs likely salvaged from dorm dumpsters, and the same barista behind the counter - moody, tattooed, and perpetually unimpressed.

Scanning the room, Jon spotted what he’d come looking for.

Tucked in a back corner, hunched over a binder thick enough to stun a moose, sat a student. Tortoiseshell glasses, blazer over hoodie, and an aura of righteous exhaustion fueled by espresso and sheer willpower.

Perfect.

Jon approached with the caution of a man testing a live wire. He paused beside the table, cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” he said, tone polite, practiced. “Mind if I run a legal hypothetical by you? It's... a bit sci-fi adjacent.”

The student looked up slowly, warily. Sharp eyes behind thick glasses, calculating whether this was nonsense or gold. “Time travel? Because I just finished a paper on paradox liability.”

Jon blinked. Jackpot.

“Tempting, but no,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Jon. Dr. Jon Kekyll.”

“Walter,” the student replied, shaking it. “And unless you're bribing me with caffeine, I’m mid-cram for torts, so this might be brief.”

“I’ll buy your next cup and thank you in my inevitable Nobel speech.”

Walter smirked, gesturing to the chair across from him. “Now you’re speaking my language.”

Jon sat, adjusting his satchel as he eased into the seat. “Okay. Imagine this. Hypothetically: someone invents a device that can rewrite small aspects of reality. Personal reality. Nothing that alters the world at large - just themselves.”

Walter blinked, already intrigued. “Define ‘small.’ Cosmetic? Personality tweaks?”

“Everything,” Jon said. “Height. Intelligence. Mood. Even deeper changes. Erase heartbreak. Reinvent identity. Suppose, hypothetically, you could transform into someone entirely different. Maybe even someone modeled after a public figure - a model, perhaps. The look, the vibe, the essence. Not impersonation, exactly. Just... becoming.”

Walter snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Honestly? Forget the legal stuff. If it’s internal and self-contained, it’s not a courtroom problem - it’s a mirror problem.”

He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “What matters more is: why? Why become someone else? Are you escaping something, or chasing something? The ethics are way messier than the law here.”

Jon tilted his head. “So you don’t think there are legal concerns?”

Walter shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not the real danger, is it? The real issue is whether you’re doing this in good faith - with intention. If you copy someone’s likeness without care, even if the world bends to accept it, you’ve still taken something. But if you’re building something new, something honest, then maybe you’re just evolving.”

Jon nodded slowly, absorbing each word. “So the goal should be to create something original. Draw from inspiration, sure - but don’t copy wholesale.”

“Exactly,” Walter said. “Make it yours. Borrow the threads, but weave a different cloth. That’s not theft. That’s authorship.”

Jon smiled, energized. “That’s incredibly helpful.”

Walter took a sip of his drink. “Glad I could distract myself from torts for five minutes. Just make sure I get my reward when you crack whatever mad-scientist mystery you’re chewing on.”

“You want a free reality edit?” Jon asked, mock-serious.

Walter grinned. “I helped steer your existential crisis back toward the ethical light. I think I’ve earned a weird-science makeover.”

Jon extended his hand again, sealing the deal with a laugh. “Deal.”

They shook on it.

Walter returned to his binder, muttering with a smile, “Law school’s weird.”

Jon was already at the door, satchel swinging at his side, murmuring to himself, eyes alight with possibility.

Outside, the campus bustled on. But inside his head, a new identity was already forming.

A clean slate. An origin story.