Keeve placed the ten samples onto the tray and placed it just out of sight in the other room. The owner was drugged in the mop closet and now all he had to do was wait for the customers. It was actually his benefactor who provided him with the idea on how to test it. The only legal splice shop in Gotham saw a lot of traffic for his test subjects. They would provide their names and addresses and all he had to do was check up on them to see how things were going. He had estimated the transition period to be roughly forty-eight hours from the injection which was a major change from the mere minutes the original and illegal splicing took to complete. It was found that the longer transition period caused an easier change physically and drastically dropped the aggressive tendencies.

He waited in the shop for someone to come in but it was a slow day apparently. Looking at the appointment sheet there was only one person signed up and the appointment wasn't for another hour. To keep the boredom at bay Keeve began to look through the splicing options and formulas, pocketing ones that caught his eye. Most were only cosmetic changes such as the law allowed, anything that would cause a major physical or mental change had to signed off on by three doctors and a complete psychological profile done. Of course if the person really wanted it done there were at least three illegal splicing operations if one knew where to find them. Keeve knew of these places but decided against them.

--

Alex tucked the fake I.D. into his pocket after checking in for the third time in an hour. It was the last one he had and probably the last one he would have since his father no longer was a police officer. The only bad thing about splicing was that he needed to sign in and leave contact information, which would be in a system. All in all it wasn't a bad thing he just hated having records that someone could use. That and if his mother found out she would not be happy. The best thing to do was to get it down and wait to see if the change would take hold and then go from there.

He walked into the shop and looked at the man behind the counter, much to his surprise that man was not spliced. In fact the man was almost completely ordinary to the point of boredom. Aside from a slight hunch and eyes that looked a bit porcine there was nothing memorable about the man.

"Appointment or walk-in?" the man asked motioning for him to sit down.

"Just a walk-in," Alex sat where he was told.

"You are lucky, the first walk-in of the day gets twenty percent off." The man smiled like he had made a joke. "Any ideas on what you would like done?"

Alex handed him his fake I.D. card and watched as he swiped it. The information populated on the screen and Alex tried not to look relieved.

"I was thinking about having blonde hair." He paused as the man arched an eyebrow. "I know I could just dye it but I'm looking for something that is more permanent."

"One blonde coming up," the man reached behind the counter and wiggled his fingers while his eyes searched the rows. "Here we are." The man placed a vial full of swirling red liquid into a needle gun and placed it against Alex's arm. "The change will take full hold in forty-eight hours, you have until then to come back and change your mind."

"I've done the research," Alex nodded.

The needle plunged into his arm and it felt like fire was shooting through his veins. Alex tensed his arm and his eyes watered, this wasn't something that he had read about. The world began to spin much to fast for him, he was barely aware of the man helping him to his feet and out the door. Stumbling down the street he began to wonder why these after-effects were mentioned. As the world started to return to its normal speed Alex smiled and headed home, knowing that now all he had to do was lay low for a couple of days and he would get away with it.