The dormitory hallway was a tunnel of quiet, fluorescent-lit and smelling vaguely of old carpet and microwaved noodles. The revelry of the first night back had, by this late hour, mostly retreated behind closed doors, leaving only the hum of the building and the occasional burst of muffled laughter. A figure moved with deliberate silence down the plush corridor, athletic shoes making no sound on the patterned runner. Allison Reed’s form was tense, her—his—eyes scanning door numbers.

Luke stopped before room 412. He listened for a moment, hearing nothing from within, then glanced both ways down the empty hall. Satisfied, he raised a hand and knocked, three soft, deliberate raps.

Inside, Nathan jumped. He’d been sitting on the edge of Arabella’s absurdly plush bed, staring at his—her—hands, trying to quiet the echo of Zoe’s, Tori’s, and Sasha’s chatter that still seemed to buzz in the ornate room. The knock was an intrusion, a potential threat. Heart thumping against the unfamiliar confines of his ribcage—or rather, against the silicone-filled curvature resting upon it—he padded to the door. The feeling of the cool hardwood under his bare feet was another small, jarring novelty. He peered through the fisheye lens of the peephole.

Allison’s face, distorted but recognizable, stared back. The features were calm, expectant. Luke.

A wave of profound, embarrassing relief washed over Nathan. He was not alone. He fumbled with the lock and began to pull the door open.

It only swung a few inches before it met resistance. Luke’s hand, flat against the inner surface, held it firm. Through the narrow gap, Nathan saw one of Allison’s blue eyes, sharp and assessing. “They in there?” Luke’s voice was a low murmur, stripped of Allison’s practiced higher register, sounding starkly male in the whisper.

“No,” Nathan whispered back, the word coming out in Arabella’s soft, accented tone. He hated the sound of it. “It’s clear.”

The pressure on the door vanished. Luke slipped inside, his movement fluid and efficient, and closed the door behind him with a soft, definitive click. He didn’t pause to look around at the opulent room; his mission-scan of it was instantaneous. Then he strode to the bed and dropped onto it, sitting with his legs sprawled wide, one arm braced behind him. It was such an aggressively masculine posture, so utterly at odds with Allison Reed’s athletic femininity, that it was almost comical. The short basketball shorts rode up his thighs, and the tank top strained slightly across Allison’s chest, but the energy in the room had suddenly shifted. For a moment, it wasn’t two women in a dorm room. It was two agents, debriefing.

Nathan leaned back against the door, crossing his arms over Arabella’s chest—a defensive gesture that felt different now, his forearms resting on the soft, full swell of the breasts. “They just left,” he said, still using his normal, lower voice, though it sounded strained. “Thank God. They’re not my friends. They’re Bella’s. I’d rather listen to her economics professor drone on for three hours than hear another minute of who’s dating whom in Monaco.”

Luke grunted in agreement, his eyes scanning the room’s details—the vanity laden with expensive products, the walk-in closet door slightly ajar, revealing a riot of fabric. “Can’t imagine it. My crew’s simple. Gym, weights, drills. Maya and Chloe just want to run plays and talk about defensive matchups. It’s…” He searched for the word. “Clean. Straightforward.” He shifted on the bed, the mattress dipping. “Though there was this one guy. Sitting on the benches, wearing glasses. Didn’t participate, just… watched. The whole practice. Kept looking my way.”

Nathan pushed off the door and wandered to the desk chair, sitting down with more care than he intended, hyper-aware of the way his new body settled into the seat. “A guy? What guy?”

“Dunno. Skinny. Academic type. Didn’t feel right.” Luke’s gaze fixed on a spot on the wall, thinking. Then he shrugged, the movement making Allison’s shoulders roll. “Probably nothing. Just paranoid. Your trio, though… they seem fine.” He said it flatly, a statement of observed fact.

“They seem fine,” Nathan echoed, then caught himself. “I mean, they seem kind. They wouldn’t do any harm. They’re just… rich, and bored, and living in a bubble.”

A slow, familiar smirk spread across Luke’s face—Allison’s face, but the expression was all Luke. He pointed a finger at Nathan. “Seem fine. Yeah, you know who seems really fine? The one with the dark hair. The one with the… assets.” He made a vague, curved gesture in front of his own chest. “Zoe, was it? You get her name?”

Nathan felt a flush creep up his neck. “That’s Zoe, yes. And I didn’t mean it like that. I was making a tactical assessment of her potential threat level, which is low.”

“Uh-huh.” Luke’s smirk widened. “A ‘tactical assessment.’ Right. So you were checking her out. For the mission. Got it.”

“I was not!” Nathan’s protest came out in a hiss. He leaned forward, the motion causing the neckline of his silk pajama top to gap. He yanked it closed. “I’m just… curious. About the way they look, the way they move. It’s anthropological. We’re in their world now.”

“We’re in their bodies now, Nate,” Luke countered, his tone dropping, becoming more serious for a beat. His eyes, however, flicked down to Nathan’s now-covered chest, then back up. A different kind of smirk appeared. “Speaking of which… you gotta stop checking out your own fake ass in every reflective surface. I saw you in the elevator bank. It was pathetic.”

The accusation was so unexpected and so accurate that Nathan sputtered. “I was not—! That’s a structural evaluation! You’re one to talk! I saw you in the gym, you couldn’t stop staring at your own… your own chest!”

Luke didn’t deny it. He looked down at the modest but defined curve of Allison’s breasts under the tank top. “Can you blame me?” he said, his voice a low, amused rumble. “They did a good job. These things are… convincing. Perfect, really.” His hands came up, cupping the forms through the fabric, giving them an experimental, appreciative squeeze. He let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Yours are way bigger, though. Prime real estate.”

Nathan’s jaw tightened. “I have my own set to worry about, thank you.”

“Yeah, but they’re smaller,” Luke said with a grin, still kneading his own chest absently, as if testing the give of a memory foam pillow. “If I had a pair like Bella’s? Christ. I’d be touching them all day. Just… boing, boing.” He mimed a little bounce with his hands. The vulgarity was so casual, so Luke, that it momentarily short-circuited Nathan’s outrage. Then Luke’s eyes locked onto him, sharp and curious. “So? Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Played with them yet. The new equipment. C’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t been curious.”

Nathan’s first instinct was to deliver a scathing retort about professionalism and their vital mission. But the question hung in the air, and with it, the memory of the entire day’s physical sensations—the weight, the sway, the constant, gentle pressure of the bra strap, the way they moved independently when he turned too quickly. He had deliberately not thought about it, had shoved the curiosity into a mental box labeled ‘Later.’

“I haven’t had time to think about it,” he said, his voice quieter. “We have a mission to do. Protocols to establish. Identities to maintain.”

“But now I mentioned it,” Luke said, not letting him off the hook. His gaze was knowing.

But now he mentioned it.

The silence stretched. Nathan looked down at his own chest, at the generous swell barely contained by the thin silk. The mission, the friends, the mysterious watcher in the gym—it all receded for a moment, replaced by a simple, profound, and utterly bizarre point of inquiry. Slowly, almost against his will, he brought his hands up. He hesitated, his fingers hovering an inch from the fabric. Then, with a clinical detachment that was entirely false, he pressed his palms against the curves.

The feeling was immediate and shockingly real. There was a firmness underneath, a plausible internal structure, but the outer layer was supremely soft, giving under his touch exactly as living tissue would. He moved his hands in a slow circle, then, his breath catching slightly, gave a gentle upward bounce.

Boing.

The movement was fluid, natural. A slight jiggle, then a settling. The physics were flawless. The weight was substantial, real. For a few seconds, Nathan just stared, his hands still in place, his mind a whirl of conflicting data: prosthetic, synthetic, fake warring with warm, soft, real. A small, completely involuntary smile touched his lips—a smile of bewildered, scientific admiration.

Luke saw it. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So?” he prompted again, his voice barely above a whisper.

Nathan blinked, the smile vanishing as he snapped back to the room. He pulled his hands away as if burned. “The… the tissue simulation is remarkable,” he said, falling back on technical jargon like a shield. “The density gradient, the subcutaneous layer replication… the inertia is perfectly calibrated. It’s not just visual. It’s a full tactile and kinetic facsimile.”

“Yeah, science is great,” Luke said, waving a hand dismissively. His eyes were fixed on Nathan’s chest with a new, intense curiosity. “Can I?”

“What? No!”

“C’mon. For science. Just a quick feel. Compare and contrast.”

“Absolutely not!” Nathan stood up, wrapping his arms around himself. “These are… these are government-issue tactical prosthetics! They are not meant for you to… to grope!”

“Government-issue boobs,” Luke snorted, leaning back again, his expression one of mock offense. “Fine, fine. Keep your fancy, top-shelf, heiress-grade tactical assets to yourself. See if I let you feel Allison’s perfectly toned glutes.”

Before Nathan could form a coherent response to that, a sharp, melodic trill cut through the room. It was Arabella’s phone, buzzing and lighting up on the glass nightstand, casting a blue glow across the silken sheets.

Both men froze, the previous tension evaporating into operational alertness. Luke was on his feet in an instant, posture coiled. Nathan stared at the glowing device as if it were a live grenade.

“Who is it?” Luke demanded, his voice all business again.

Nathan picked up the phone. The screen displayed a name and a number he didn’t recognize. A man’s name. A lead, a threat, a mistake—it was a door swinging open into the unknown heart of their mission.

He looked at Luke, his expression mirroring the grim focus he saw on Allison’s face. “I don’t know,” Nathan said, his voice steady now, the voice of an agent holding a clue. He held up the screen so Luke could see the unfamiliar name glowing in the dark. “I have no idea who this is.”