Jenna Daniels and her long-distance boyfriend Zach

When Jenna first arrived in Tokyo for her three-month business trip, she thought she could endure the separation from her boyfriend back home in Oregon. Only a week later, she realized just how difficult the distance between herself and Zachary had made things. The petite blonde had seen Zach every day for three years, and her new routine had put her in a bind. She missed Zach's strong arms around her, his piercing green eyes staring back into her own sapphire blue orbs. She would FaceTime with her boyfriend, but it still felt like they were so far apart when touch was removed from the equation.

When desperation began to set in, Jenna wasn't sure what to do at first. And then she saw the ad for the Hideki Ascend. Her own company often worked with Hideki Technology, so she quickly contacted a few of her coworkers to call in on a favor. One day later, a box with the Hideki logo was delivered to her hotel room.

Jenna bit her lower lip as she pulled out the strange Ascend device, turning it over in her hands as she brushed some hair from her face. The first thing that it reminded her of was the helmet of a character from Tron. The front was smooth, a glossy black, with small cameras placed around the edge. On the inside, there were little spherical nodes, meant to press against the face. With motorized fins on the side and top designed to clamp down securely onto a head, there was a convenient little button under the chin to take the mask off after use.

Taking a deep breath, Jenna pressed a button on the side of the mask, turning on 'Demo Mode' as she held the mask out in front of her. The glossy blank mask lit up all of a sudden with the Hideki logo, before a cute Japanese woman's face appeared on the mask. Jenna gasped, almost dropping the headset when the face appeared. It looked so lifelike! She turned the mask in her head, and the head itself seemed to rotate along with the mask--the effect reminded her of those holograms she saw as a kid where she could turn the image and it would change. The mask used a similar principle to make it look like the face appeared realistic at any angle. All the while, the gleeful demo face continued to talk, describing the mask's features as she looked it over.

The Hideki Ascend she had acquired, however, wasn't for her. She set the mask aside, pulling out the remote unit. It was still a headset, but unlike the sleek Ascend which was designed to look as low-profile against a face as possible, this headset was bulky, looking more like a welder's mask than anything else. It had no display on the outside, but when Jenna peered inside, she saw all sorts of interesting technology almost bursting out of the headset! Similar spherical nodes filled the headset, but these were designed to transmit her intended motions and receive sensory feedback, while the Ascend was intended to do the opposite. It was her control center.

Jenna had so many possibilities floating around in her head. Lying back on her bed, she texted Zach, telling him that she was going to have a surprise for him in a couple days. Her breathing had quickened as she thought about the possibilities! She didn't have enough money to hire an 'ambassador', so she decided she'd either convince someone she knew to wear the mask for her... or...

She would just have to make someone wear it who probably didn't know what the Ascend would be, and just take control all of a sudden. The idea was thrilling--she could just become somebody new, and still be with Zach! Jenna was on the short side, and she was skinny, cute but clearly she hadn't inherited the genes for a knockout body like her mother had. Now, she had a chance to borrow a body like that.

But there wasn't any of her friends or family that she could think of who she could send the Ascend to who would do her the favor of wearing it. So, she decided she'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission. Keeping the remote unit, she put the Ascend mask in a box and mailed it off, anxiously waiting to try out her new body...