ShreyF
Check out the side story from the UHT universe. Full PDF version and more available here
The digital stopwatch flashed in crimson: 11.02 seconds.
Chloe crossed the finish line of the high school track meet, her chest heaving, the roaring applause of the crowd blurring into a dull roar in her ears. She bent double, resting her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Behind her, a massive, golden-blonde ponytail swung like a heavy pendulum. It was waist-length, thick, and undeniably her trademark.
Her coach jogged over, clapping a clipboard against his thigh. “Great run, Chloe. You’re shaving off milliseconds. But I’m telling you, you’re fighting the wind. That hair is like a parachute catching the drag.”
Chloe stood up, wiping sweat from her forehead, and flipped the heavy mass of blonde hair over her shoulder. “It’s my trademark, Coach. I’m not touching it. I can pull a sub-eleven with it.”
Later that evening, the stadium lights were replaced by the warm, yellow glow of Chloe’s bedroom. Trophies lined the shelves, reflecting the vanity mirror where she sat. She held a wide-tooth brush, pulling it methodically through the long, golden strands. She paused to rub a drop of smoothing serum between her palms, running it through the ends. She loved her hair. It was a tangible symbol of her vitality. She piled it high on her head, making a messy bun and posing for a quick selfie. She let it down, sectioned it into two thick braids that reached her hips, swinging them playfully. Finally, she gathered it back into its classic, heavy ponytail. It was perfect just the way it was.
To clear her head before the finals, Chloe laced up her running shoes for a solitary cool-down jog through the dense woods bordering the town. The sun was dipping below the tree line, casting long, stretching shadows that painted the dirt path in strokes of gray and black.
About two miles in, the atmosphere abruptly shifted. The chirping of the crickets ceased. A thick, purple-tinted mist began to roll across the forest floor, clinging to the roots of the ancient pines. Chloe slowed to a walk, her brow furrowing. She sniffed the air. The crisp scent of pine and damp earth was gone, replaced by a heavy, suffocatingly sweet aroma.
“Is that… lavender? Out here?” she whispered.
A low, vibrating hum resonated in her chest. She stepped through a thick patch of fog and stopped dead in her tracks.
In a clearing where there should have been nothing but ancient trees, stood a modern, sleek building made entirely of reflective chrome and black glass. Above the sliding automatic doors, a neon sign pulsed with an ethereal blue light, shaped like a pair of open shears.
The glass doors slid apart with a soft hiss. The interior was blindingly white, a stark contrast to the encroaching twilight. Standing beside a plush, black leather salon chair was a figure clad in a tailored silver suit. His face was obscured by a blank, holographic mask that shifted with geometric patterns.
“Welcome, Athlete 702,” the figure said. His voice was synthesized, echoing as if spoken inside a hollow steel drum. “You are here for your optimization.”
Chloe took a step backward, her instincts screaming at her to run, but her legs felt like lead. The scent of lavender was overwhelming now, pulling her forward. “Who are you?”
“I am the Arbiter,” he replied smoothly, gesturing to the chair. “Your Hair Mass Index is critically inefficient for a warrior of your caliber. Mass is resistance. Resistance is failure. Please, sit.”
She didn’t want to, but her body moved on its own. She stepped over the threshold and sank into the leather chair. The Arbiter pointed to a large, circular mirror mounted on the wall. The glass began to glow with a bright, hypnotic blue light.
“Focus on the center,” the Arbiter commanded softly. “Let us reduce the index.”
Chloe stared into the glass. Blue, rotating geometric squares materialized deep within the mirror’s reflection. As she watched them spin, the panic in her chest evaporated, replaced by a cold, floating numbness. Her eyelids drooped. The geometric squares reflected perfectly in her dilated pupils. She was entirely under his control.
The Arbiter moved behind her. He did not reach for scissors. Instead, he withdrew a large, C-shaped gravity blade. The metal hummed with latent energy. With his left hand, he gathered the entirety of Chloe’s thick, golden ponytail.
He positioned the blade just an inch below her hairline at the nape of her neck. With one clean, frictionless stroke, the blade passed through the dense mass. The massive blonde ponytail fell away, tumbling through the air until it hit the pristine white floor with a heavy, dead thud.
Chloe did not blink. She simply stared into the blue light.
Next, the Arbiter retrieved a pair of heavy-duty black clippers. He snapped them on; they purred with a mechanical hunger. He pressed the steel teeth against the left side of Chloe’s head, driving them upward from her ear to the crown. A wide strip of golden stubble appeared, the remaining long hair falling over her shoulders. He moved to the right side, repeating the brutal, efficient motion. Within moments, the sides of her head were buzzed down to a velvety eighth of an inch, leaving only a wide, thick strip of blonde hair running from her forehead down to the crown.
The Arbiter set the clippers aside and scooped a handful of glowing, supernatural white paste from a silver bowl. He slathered it aggressively into the remaining strip of hair on top of her head. He then raised a handheld curing light. As the blue beam hit the paste, the golden pigment in Chloe’s hair sizzled and vanished, instantly shifting into a searing, shimmering platinum white.
“Color frequency stabilized,” the Arbiter noted. “High-visibility. High-efficiency.”
Finally, he picked up a pair of smaller, jagged aero-shears. He moved quickly, snipping and hacking into the platinum strip, destroying its uniformity. He rubbed a generous amount of styling wax into his gloved hands and pulled the hair upward, sculpting it into a short, fluffy, defiant mohawk. He misted it with a fixative spray that smelled of ozone.
The Arbiter stepped back, admiring his work. He snapped his fingers.
The blue light in the mirror died. The chrome walls began to glitch, stuttering like a corrupted video file.
Chloe gasped, her eyes flying open. She was lying face-down in the cold dirt. The woods were pitch black. The chrome building was entirely gone. Two local joggers were kneeling beside her, their faces pale in the beam of their flashlights.
“Hey! Are you okay? We found you passed out,” one of the runners said, reaching out to help her sit up.
Chloe felt dizzy. Her head felt impossibly, terrifyingly light. The air hit her scalp in places that hadn’t felt the wind in years. Her trembling hand reached up to the back of her head, finding only air. She touched the sides, her fingertips grazing the fuzzy, abrasive stubble. She scrambled backward, her eyes wide with terror, until she saw it—lying in the dirt a few feet away, looking like a discarded animal pelt, was her golden ponytail.
A week later, the town was consumed by the hysteria of the “Phantom Barber.” News vans surrounded the high school gym. Inside, at a hastily arranged press conference, Chloe stood behind a wooden podium. The flashes of cameras illuminated the room like lightning.
She wore a large, gray beanie pulled down low. Taking a deep breath, she reached up and pulled the beanie off.
The room erupted into gasps and furious shutter-clicks. Chloe stood tall. The sides of her head were cleanly buzzed, highlighting the sharp contours of her cheekbones. On top, her hair stood in a bright, fluffy, three-inch platinum-white mohawk.
“I don’t know who did this to me,” Chloe spoke into the microphones, her voice steady. “I don’t know why. But they wanted me to be ‘optimized’.” She looked directly into the center camera lens. For a fraction of a second, a faint, geometric blue light flashed within her irises. “…and I’ve never felt faster.”
Across town, in the subterranean depths of a dimly lit music club, the bass vibrated through the floorboards. Maya stood center stage, her fingers flying across the frets of her deep-purple bass guitar. She moved with the rhythm, her eyes closed. Her hair was a striking feature: jet-black, silky, and dead-straight, reaching all the way down to her mid-back. Her bangs were cut in a perfect, sharp line straight across her eyebrows, framing her intense, focused face.
“You didn’t miss a beat,” Leo, the drummer, yelled over the fading applause as they walked off stage. “That new riff is heavy.”
“It’s all about the focus, Leo,” Maya said, wiping sweat from her neck. “If the look is sharp, the sound is sharp.”
In the cramped backstage area, Zoe, the lead singer, was packing cables while watching a small, static-filled television. The screen showed the replay of Chloe’s press conference.
“Total PR stunt,” Zoe scoffed, pointing at Chloe’s glowing platinum mohawk. “Nobody gets their head shaved in the woods by a ghost and likes it.”
Maya stared at the screen, a strange unease settling in her stomach. “I don’t know, Zoe. Look at her eyes. She looks… tuned.”
Later that night, the silence of Maya’s apartment was absolute. She stood in her brightly lit bathroom, holding a pair of professional hair scissors and a fine-tooth comb. She combed her blunt bangs down, her eyes narrowing as she spotted a single, microscopic hair extending past the perfect line. With a clinical snip, she removed it. “Perfect,” she whispered. “Not a single hair out of place.”
She walked into her kitchen, opening her laptop to eat a late bowl of cereal. An article about Chloe’s “Optimization” was on the homepage. Maya stared at the platinum mohawk. “Platinum… it’s so cold. Why does she look so happy about it?”
Suddenly, Maya dropped her spoon. It clattered loudly against the ceramic bowl. She pressed her hands over her left ear, wincing. A high-pitched, digital ringing sound pierced her skull. It wasn’t tinnitus; it was a frequency. It sounded like a digital whistle, a highly concentrated sine wave.
Drawn by an invisible tether, Maya left her apartment. The city streets were slick with fresh rain, the neon signs bleeding colors into the puddles. She followed the sound down a narrow, shadowy alleyway. The smell of garbage and wet pavement faded, entirely swallowed by a thick, heavy cloud of sweet lavender.
At the dead end of the alley, the brick wall had vanished. In its place stood the chrome-and-glass facade of The Silver Shear. Outside, a traditional barber pole rotated, but its stripes were glowing neon blue and polished silver. The door slid open automatically, and a low-frequency hum spilled out into the alley, vibrating right through the soles of Maya’s combat boots.
“Hello?” Maya called out, stepping inside. “Is someone practicing in there? That frequency is incredible.”
The interior was a bizarre mix of antique barber chairs and futuristic silver mirrors. The Arbiter stood by the central chair, holding a white nylon cape. His holographic mask pulsed with equalizer bars that moved in tandem with the humming frequency.
“Bassist Maya,” the Arbiter greeted. “Your fringe is a fraction of a millimeter off-center. Your Hair Mass Index is creating a sonic drag. You are out of tune with the Oversight.”
Maya didn’t run. The sound in the room was mesmerizing. It felt as if the air itself was a physical instrument. “It feels like… the whole room is vibrating. My hair is vibrating.”
She walked forward as if in a trance and sat in the static chair. The Arbiter snapped the white cape tightly around her neck. Blue geometric patterns began to swirl deep within the silver mirror in front of her. Maya stared into them, her expression instantly going flat and vacant. Her hands dropped lifelessly to her sides.
“We will remove the weight of the rhythm,” the Arbiter said. “We will make you a conductor.”
He picked up a sleek, silver spray bottle. He moved methodically, misting Maya’s long, silky black hair until it was completely saturated, heavy, and dripping onto the cape. He took a black comb and precisely sectioned off the hair on the very top of her head. Gathering it together, he twisted it tightly into a small, neat top knot, securing it with a heavy silver clip. The rest of her hair—the thick black curtain at the back and sides—hung down, wet and limp.
The Arbiter unfolded a traditional straight razor. The blade was forged of silver, etched with tiny, glowing blue circuits. He stepped to Maya’s side and grabbed a handful of the wet, long hair hanging by her temple. Pressing the cold razor against her skin, he pulled downward in one long, smooth stroke. A massive sheet of wet black hair detached, sliding down the cape and hitting the floor. He moved around her, his strokes rhythmic and merciless, shaving through the length until the floor was covered in wet black tresses.
Only a rough stubble remained on the sides and back. The isolated top knot sat untouched on her crown.
From a silver bowl, the Arbiter retrieved a brush coated in a thick, metallic-looking white lather. He applied the cold, heavy foam to the freshly shorn sides and back of Maya’s head.
Taking the straight razor once more, he began a second pass. This time, he moved the etched blade upward, against the grain. The razor scraped cleanly against her scalp, removing the stubble entirely. He worked with terrifying precision, leaving the skin behind her ears and at the nape of her neck perfectly smooth, bare, and bald. He wiped the excess lather away with a hot, blue-tinted towel. The contrast between her newly bald scalp and the tied-up top knot was stark and jarring.
“The resonance is clearing,” the Arbiter noted, wiping his blade. “We are removing the interference.”
He unfastened the silver clip. The long black hair from the top knot fell down, draping over her face and the smooth, shaved sides of her head. Using his comb, the Arbiter meticulously sectioned out her bangs in the front, and two very thin strands of hair falling directly in front of her ears.
He set the razor down and picked up a pair of large, heavy-duty shears. Schlick. In a series of rapid, aggressive cuts, he chopped the rest of the top hair down to a mere two inches in length, heavily texturizing it so the damp hair stood up in jagged peaks.
Moving to the front, he combed her famous blunt bangs down over her vacant eyes. Snip. He cut them drastically short, creating a blunt “micro-fringe” high up on her forehead. Finally, he took the long strands in front of her ears and razor-cut them into sharp, needle-like points that reached her jawline.
Her mass was gone, but her transformation was not yet complete.
The Arbiter donned a black glove and scooped out a handful of a deep, glowing purple gel. He massaged it violently into her remaining hair. A secondary blue light overhead flared brilliantly. The black pigment in her hair instantly dissolved, giving way to a vibrant, electric, metallic purple. He used a fine brush to ensure the violent violet hue was uniform across the textured top, the micro-fringe, and the sharp side-feathers.
He stepped back. Maya’s new look was finished. It was a severe, striking Purple Chelsea Cut. The back and sides of her head were shaved completely bald to the skin, contrasting sharply with the short, textured electric-purple top, the tiny micro-bangs, and the menacing, pointed purple side-strands framing her face.
“Frequency: Violet,” the Arbiter declared. “Mass: Optimized. You are now a conductor.”
The shop glitched, the lights shattering into static.
Maya gasped, cold air hitting the wet, bare skin of her neck. She was leaning against a rusty dumpster in the alley behind her apartment. The rain was still falling, but the sweet smell of lavender was gone. She shook her head, feeling an immediate, shocking lack of weight. Panic rising, she reached around to the back of her head. Her palm slid over completely smooth, shaved skin.
“Where…” she stammered, touching the sharp, short purple feathers by her ears. “Where’s the weight?”
The next morning, the door to the band’s rehearsal space slammed open. Maya stood in the doorway, wearing a high-collared silver jacket she’d never owned before.
Leo dropped his drumsticks. They clattered against the snare. Zoe’s jaw physically dropped, her eyes locked on Maya’s head.
Maya walked in, her fingers instinctively tracing the long, sharp, purple side-feathers of her Chelsea cut. The fluorescent lights gleamed off her shaved nape.
“Maya?!” Leo exclaimed, stepping out from behind the kit. “What happened to you? You look like… you look like that track girl, but purple!”
“It’s the exact same type of extreme cut!” Zoe yelled, backing away. “Maya, who did this to you?”
Maya didn’t answer right away. She walked over to its stand and picked up her deep-purple bass guitar. She strapped it on. As her fingers grazed the thick strings, a faint, geometric blue light ignited within her dark eyes. The panicked, confused look she had worn in the alley was gone, replaced by a chilling, serene emptiness.
“I can hear it now, Leo,” Maya said, her voice smooth and devoid of inflection. “The city. The stars. The signal. My hair was just… noise. Now I’m tuned in.”
She struck a chord. The music that poured from the amp wasn’t the heavy, soulful riff they had practiced. It was faster, mathematical, cold, and eerily, terrifyingly perfect.
Miles away, hidden in a pocket dimension that folded into the geometry of the town, the Arbiter stood before a floating digital terminal. A “Standardization Log” glowed on the screen.
Chloe M. – Optimized. Maya R. – Optimized.
