The Prototype

This is a first draft.  The second draft will be written a little differently and submitted to a critiquing service.  The final draft will be published on Amazon under a pen name to avoid YouTube and internet trolls. 

The party swelled and swayed with strange young dancing bodies in the pulsating black lights as it merged with the music like a scene from some dark supernatural world. It was here that Raymond's young nephew Josh had talked him into going two hours earlier. The fact that Josh left him here to dance with some young woman did not lessen Raymond's concern that some unpleasantness would likely occur concerning his nephew every time he thought about the young man being out of sight, which left Raymond with a sense of grim expectancy.

Here constructed the whole unreal scene. It was oppressively and ludicrously theatrical. The apprehension of years of being rejected by women was in his nephew's stare. The high pitched voice of a premature adolescent that would always be his pleaded pitifully in his ears, occasionally offending his senses. The misshapen face of thick skin trapped the scars of dozens of skin graphs, forever reminding Raymond of his failure to protect the boy from his addiction to alcohol was like a never-ending rant from an abusive spouse. The illusion of slimy swishing things glided and crawled and wiggled under his clothes whenever he moved. The boy's body never healed right after the car accident. Although he was twenty-eight years old, he looked like a boy of fourteen nearly burned to death. So Raymond guiltily allowed him to test the prototype VR headband that he had developed. The boy's voice changed to the vibrant base of a powerful man. His height and weight altered to that of an athletic track runner.  The headband compensated for his movements, and he seemed to be able to move with the coordination of a dancer. As if on cue, the scars and injuries that never healed right vanished, and he appeared to be the most handsome version of himself possible. Then suddenly, his clothes warped into the latest style of men's wear. His nephew laughed with laughter that seemed almost like music and told him that he should observe his invention in the field. He mentioned that he overheard the woman he had been admiring would be at a private club party.

Although the idea of Josh being around alcohol again filled him with dread, he couldn't wait to see how his invention would function around other people.

Raymond was very skilled at manipulation, using his genius to subtly implant suggestions when interested in observing the behavior of others –but Josh was one of only a few that seemed immune to his manipulations.

Yes. Josh was immune to his abilities at convincing him to alter his paths once he was determined to do so. He could reverse the process and persuade Raymond to do things. It filled Raymond with a fascination that crept upon him like a sentient, mortal being — and then that weird, ironic desire, to study why it was so, accelerated his descent into his nephew's will. Raymond put away his lab coat and donned a sport coat to accompany his nephew, who was now wholly disguised under an illusion breathtaking beauty and grace. They arrived in Raymond's Camero at the party and parked a block away — looks and stares of appreciation mostly from young women did not escape Raymond's notice.

He took note of the woman that Josh had desired to meet. Josh walked up to her and feigned bumping into her. The usual awkward stammering and nervous speech patterns that were Josh's norm came spilling forth. But what came out was poetry spoken from the lips of a male fashion model. The program scanned the environment and subjects and analyzed all the data it could and then searched the global net in milliseconds for the best response possible to ensure both psychological and physical results were optimized and then combined for the highest chance of success. Cluelessly the young woman and her friends bought the illusion as Raymond observed his perfect craftsmanship. Josh was a hideously disfigured man condemned to awkward solitude and looks of sympathy, now an Adonis, in form and speech, surrounded by beautiful females, and admired and envied by his fellow man.