Chapter 1: Mirror of the Gods, Needle of Regret
Ports
The air in the locker room was a physical thing, a warm, wet blanket soaked in ammonia, cheap body spray, and the iron tang of effort. Steam curled from the shower drains, fogging the mirrors except where a hand had swiped a clear track. Bear leaned into one of those streaks, his breath still coming in ragged pulls that hit the glass and bloomed into fresh mist.
He watched the phantom of his old self dissolve, replaced by the man he’d built.
Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead, casting a sickly pallor that couldn’t dull the definition in his shoulders, the cable-thick veins snaking down his forearms. He flexed, and the biceps swelled into hard, cantaloupe-sized mounds. The transformation still occasionally shocked him. The lanky kid who could barely lift the bar was gone, buried under layers of carved muscle. But the map of that rapid conquest was etched right there on his skin, if you knew where to look: faint, pink lightning strikes of stretch marks creeping up from his deltoids, a silvery network across his lower back.
“Admiring the merchandise?”
Bear didn’t turn. He knew the voice. Toby, one of the few who remembered the ‘before’. In the fractured mirror, he saw Toby’s reflection dump a gym bag onto the bench, right next to Bear’s stuff.
“Just taking inventory,” Bear said, his voice lower, steadier than it used to be. He finally stepped back, running a towel over the shaved landscape of his head. “Gotta make sure the assets are appreciating.”
Toby snorted, peeling off a sweat-soaked shirt. He was fit, but in a normal, functional way. A runner’s body. “Assets. Right. You sound like a car brochure.” He nodded at Bear’s torso. “You’re gonna pull something just standing there, tense like that. Relax.”
Bear forced his shoulders down. The trembling in his hands started then, a fine, electric vibration. Not from fatigue, not really. He clenched them into fists, the knuckles blooming white, until it stopped.
“Just pumped,” he muttered.
His eyes flicked to his open gym bag on the bench between them. On top of his clothes, wallet, keys, lay a small, leather zip-case. Unassuming. Beside it, a single used syringe, its plastic barrel empty, waited on a folded paper towel.
Toby followed his gaze. The easy humor drained from his face. He was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the drip of a distant shower and the thump of bass from the gym floor.
“You’re still on that cycle?” Toby’s voice was careful, low.
“It’s a cruise dose. Maintenance.” The words came out defensive, rehearsed. Bear grabbed his deodorant, applied it with more force than necessary. “You don’t get it. This,” he said, gesturing at himself with the can, “doesn’t just stay. It’s a constant investment. You stop putting in the capital, the dividends disappear.”
“Dividends.” Toby shook his head, zipping his jeans. “Dude, it’s not a stock portfolio. It’s your endocrine system. You remember Jason? Who got the back acne that looked like a topographical map and started crying at dog food commercials?”
“Jason didn’t know what he was doing. He bought garbage from some freak at the car wash.” Bear’s tone was dismissive, but he turned away, starting to methodically pack his bag. He placed the used syringe into a small, hard plastic container, then tucked the leather case beside it. His movements were precise, ritualistic.
“And you do?” Toby challenged, leaning against the lockers. “You, the guy who used to have a flowchart ranking Star Trek captains by logical consistency?”
Bear froze for a second. A flicker of the past—his past—crossed his face: a smile that was too quick, almost shy, then gone. Smoothed over by a practiced, neutral mask.
“That’s the point, Tobe. I know what I’m doing. I research. I measure. I execute.” He slammed his locker shut, the bang echoing in the tiled room. “The world doesn’t pay a kindness tax. It pays for confidence. For a look. This,” he nodded at the closed locker, at himself, “gets me in the room. The brain gets me the deal.”
“What brain? The one currently telling your testes to take a permanent vacation?” Toby shot back, but there was less bite in it now, just a worn-out concern.
Bear slung his bag over his shoulder, the weight of it solid, familiar. The brief tremor was back in his hand where it gripped the strap. He hid it by clenching tighter.
“The shoot for Apex Athletics is Thursday. They want granite, not pudding. This is just part of the process. A tool.” He met Toby’s eyes in the mirror. The friend saw the conflict there, the weird disconnect between the brutal physicality and the hesitant, almost analytical light in Bear’s gaze. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
He wasn’t convincing either of them.
Toby just sighed, a long, defeated sound. “Whatever, man. Your funeral. You gonna be at trivia night? Molly’s asking. She thinks you’ve gone full clone.”
A genuine laugh burst out of Bear—short, surprised. It sounded like his old laugh. “Trivia. Yeah. Maybe.” He adjusted the bag, the shadow of the syringe case pressing against his side. “Tell her I’m just… upgrading the hardware. Software’s still the same.”
He gave his reflection one last look. Not at the muscles, but at his own eyes. He searched for Bartholomew, the lanky nerd, and found only Bear, the construct. The product. He gave a sharp, definitive nod, as if sealing a deal with the guy in the glass.
“Later, Tobe.”
He pushed out through the heavy door, leaving the humid, confessional air of the locker room behind. The corridor was cooler, lined with posters of grinning athletes and supplement ads promising mythical transformations. His footsteps were loud on the linoleum.
Alone in the sterile hallway light, he stopped. He unzipped the top of his gym bag, his fingers finding the leather case. He didn’t open it. He just rested his hand on it, feeling its outline. The tremble in his fingers transferred to the leather.
For a second, his shoulders slumped. The impeccable posture faltered. He looked down the empty hallway, then back the way he came, toward the muffled sounds of clanging weights and grunts. His kingdom.
He took a deep, shuddering breath that had nothing to do with his workout, squared his shoulders until the joints protested, and walked on, his grip tight around the future he carried in his bag.
He took a deep, shuddering breath that had nothing to do with his workout, squared his shoulders until the joints protested, and walked on, his grip tight around the future he carried in his bag.
The gym’s main floor was a cathedral of clatter and grunt. The rhythmic thud of deadlifts, the shriek of sled pushes across turf, the guttural shouts of men pushing past failure. Bear moved through it all like a shark, nodding at a few familiar faces, his expression a closed loop. He was almost to the glass doors when a voice cut through the din, high and melodic and utterly foreign in this place.
“Bartholomew? Holy shit.”
He stopped. Only one person ever used that name.
He turned.
Penny sauntered in, her ample breasts constrained in the sports bra. Peter, now Penny, was a bombshell: big DD boobs, a narrow waist leading to childbearing hips, and a big, pert bubble butt. Even his face was transformed into a seductive mix of Sabrina Carpenter and Madison Beer as he’d instructed the surgeon. The transformation was absolute, surgical, and dazzling. Her hair was in a perfect, sweat-proof ponytail, her makeup intact despite the humid air. She looked like a TikTok influencer who’d wandered into a war zone.
“Penny,” Bear said, the name feeling strange on his tongue. They’d met in a support group two years back, of all places—a weird, church-basement gathering for people “optimizing their physical selves.” Peter had been pre-everything, all nerves and technical questions about electrolysis. Bear had been fresh off his first cycle, talking about aromatase inhibitors like they were sports stats. They’d bonded over being architects of their own bodies.
“Look at you,” Penny breathed, her eyes doing a quick, appreciative scan of him. It was the same appraisal he was used to from scouts, but it felt different coming from her. She knew the cost. “You’re practically a monument. How much are you weighing in at?”
“Two-twenty. Lean,” he said automatically. Then he blinked. “You look… you look incredible.” It was an understatement. She was a living filter, a perfect rendering of a specific fantasy. It was unnerving.
“Right?” She did a little spin, her butt swaying. “The hip-to-waist ratio was a bitch to calculate, but we nailed it. It’s all math, Bear. Just like you always said.” She leaned in, dropping her voice. “The girls in the locker room hate me. It’s fantastic.”
Bear just stared. He’d seen her transition photos online, but in person, the effect was destabilizing. Here was another person who’d torn their old self down and rebuilt from the studs out. But her project seemed… joyous. His felt like a grim siege.
“What are you doing at The Pit?” he asked. This was a hardcore gym, all chalk and rust and torn calluses. Not the usual spot for someone in Lululemon.
“Needed a leg day that wouldn’t quit. Plus,” she smirked, “the scenery is better than at Bliss Fitness. All those bored housewives.” Her eyes lingered on a guy straining under a squat rack. Then they flicked back to Bear, sharper. “You’re jittery. Still on the juice?”
He stiffened. “It’s a protocol.”
“Uh-huh.” She popped her gum. “Your eyeballs have a little pressure going on. Watch the blood pressure, Bartholomew. You can’t flex a stroke.” She said it lightly, but it landed with the weight of a dropped plate.
“I’m fine.” The tremor in his hand started again. He shoved it into the pocket of his sweats. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Sure you do.” She didn’t sound convinced. “We’re still on for coffee Thursday? You can tell me about the Apex shoot. I want details. Especially if the photographer is that guy from the Vantage campaign.” She winked.
The mundane plans, the gossipy tone—it was a lifeline thrown from the world he’d left behind. A world where people worried about photographers and coffee, not estrogen rebound and kidney strains.
“Yeah,” he said, the word coming out softer than he intended. “Yeah, Thursday.”
“Cool.” She gave his arm a pat, her fingers cool against his pumped, feverish skin. “Now go eat some chicken and rice. You’re looking a little catabolic, big guy.”
She sauntered away toward the hip abduction machine, drawing every eye in the place. Bear stood there, anchored to the spot. The scent of her perfume—something sweet and tropical—cut through the gym’s funk and lingered in his nose.
He looked down at his bag, at the hidden leather case. She’d done it. She’d become exactly what she’d envisioned, with a surgeon’s scalpel and a prescription pad. He was doing it with a chemist’s precision and a constant, thrumming fear. Both of them had left someone behind in the wreckage. Peter was gone. Bartholomew was a ghost.
But Penny seemed to like her ghost. She wore it like a feather boa.
Bear pushed out into the blinding afternoon sun, the gym bag suddenly feeling like it held lead, not syringes. The image of Penny’s flawless, manufactured smile hung in front of him, a funhouse mirror reflection of his own ambition. He’d wanted a challenge, a transformation. Standing on the hot pavement, he wondered, not for the first time, what happened after you won.