Tomi, lab assistant

Kekyll stared at the RAC, its softly pulsing screen bathing his palm in cool light. Each success built on the last, each shift more seamless, more intoxicating. Reality wasn’t just bending—it was molding, obedient and malleable beneath his fingertips.

What if she hadn’t just wandered in yesterday? What if she’d always been here?

His thumb hovered again.

He navigated to a hidden submenu—deeper, riskier, still half-coded in dev notes.

[PARAM: PERSONAL HISTORY MODIFICATION]
[TARGET: TOMI JEONG]
[ADJUSTED ROLE: LAB ASSISTANT / DURATION: 1.5 YEARS]
[INTELLECTUAL AUGMENTATION: INCREASED TECHNICAL COMPETENCE (FIELD: APPLIED PHYSICS, DEVICE MAINTENANCE)]
[COMPLIANCE LEVEL: HIGH – NON-AUTHORITATIVE / PERSONALITY RETENTION: YES (DIZZY / SOCIALLY SUBMISSIVE)]
[STATUS: PENDING]

He hesitated for a breath, then tapped Activate.

Reality slipped.

It wasn’t dramatic—not like thunder or strobe-light pulses—more like a new note subtly entering a song you’d always known. A quiet chord, a whispered rewrite.

Tomi blinked, then sat forward and reached instinctively toward the cluttered bench beside her. “Wait, this cable’s fraying again,” she murmured, snatching up a length of thin tubing and a pair of precision snips. “Didn’t I just fix this on Tuesday?”

Kekyll’s eyes narrowed.

She moved with effortless familiarity now, rummaging through drawers, reconnecting electrodes on the secondary calibration unit. Her hair kept falling in her face, and she kept brushing it back absently as she worked, mumbling in an offhand way about resistor drift and dielectric inconsistencies—phrases she couldn’t have possibly known five minutes ago.

“How long have you been helping me with the RAC?” he asked, feigning casual interest.

Tomi paused, blinking at him like he’d just asked what year it was. “Uh, since last spring? After midterms? You had that meltdown over the field generator’s pulse harmonics and threw your phone into the sink, remember?”

Kekyll stared. She rolled her eyes playfully.

“Classic meltdown,” she said with a smile, pointing a probe at him. “I made you chamomile tea and you told me to never speak of it again.”

That never happened—but now it had.

She returned to her work, testing leads, entering passcodes into the auxiliary console, her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth as she focused—then immediately snapping a rubber band onto her own wrist as if to jolt herself back to attention.

Kekyll watched in awe.

She was still Tomi—bright-eyed, a little slow on the uptake socially, and distractible as ever. She hummed to herself as she sorted cables, made up nicknames for the lab equipment, and somehow managed to knock over the same clipboard three times in a row. But beneath the quirky exterior was now a lattice of real technical knowledge—an internal map of this lab and its mechanisms etched directly into her synaptic history.

“Done!” she chirped, spinning a chair toward him. “RAC’s aligned and running at 92.7% field stability. I recalibrated the interface lag, too—it was slowing on menu calls.”

Kekyll opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then finally asked:

“And… how do you feel about working with me? You enjoy this?”

She shrugged with a grin. “I mean, yeah! I’m not, like, trying to cure cancer or whatever, but this stuff’s weird and fun. Plus, you’re, like, intense in a cool way. I like helping.”

He couldn’t help it—he laughed. Not out of mockery, but sheer amazement.

She liked helping. She wanted to be here. Not just compliant, but invested—genuinely interested in assisting. And all while staying herself: spacey, sweet, a little clumsy, but now just as integral to the lab as the RAC itself.

“Good,” Kekyll said finally, recovering his composure. “Because I think we’re only just getting started.”

Tomi gave him a lopsided smile, tapping her temple with the handle of a screwdriver. “Hit me with the next weird idea, Doc. I’ll make the tea after.”