The holographic sign faded as the uniformed man flicked off the GPS display in his contact lenses. He thumbed the buzzer on the Skin Deep intercom and waited for the receptionist to respond, leaning forward a little to address the microphone.

"Good morning, my name is Detective Stanley and I am here to meet with the establishment manager."

The outer doors opened with engineered precision, and he walked into the minimalist reception area. A well-tended eyebrow lifted in anticipation as he walked in, and the perfectly manicured young man behind the reception desk directed the detective's view to the smartly dressed woman striding towards them. The faint smile on her lips as she approached reduced the severity of her businesslike appearance and Stanley instantly responded with a smile of his own.

"Good morning ma'am, I'm Detective Stanley. You reported a burglary?"

"Thank you for coming so quickly, detective. Yes, we've had a piece of equipment stolen from one of our treatment rooms. My employer isn't too worried about it being used, as it is inoperable outside the lab, but he would quite like it retrieved as it is full of valuable components some of his industry competitors would love to get their hands on."

Stanley flipped open his auto recorder, activated it, and hung it from the front of his uniform. He checked the red lights were blinking steadily so people could see he was recording audio and visual, and continued.

"And what exactly was stolen Miss...?"

"Ms. Hines, officer. It was a piece of experimental equipment to do with the dermatological work we do here at Skin Deep. I think I'd better let the Doctor explain it to you more fully though. Er..."

Stanley paused as the smartly dressed woman appeared momentarily flustered, and looked her in the eye.

"Is there something I should know Ms. Hines?"

She sighed. "He's a good man detective, but he's a bit... um... odd."

"Odd?"

"Yes, he's... odd." She blew out her cheeks in frustration. "He's incredibly bright and sometimes gets a little lost in his own mind, which is sometimes brilliant, sometimes a bit like the inside of my grandmother's handbag. I'm afraid you'll probably have to put up with him meandering off on a few tangents before you manage to get what you want out of him."

Stanley chuckled quietly. "So you're saying he's a bit of a mad scientist, but a decent fella, always carries a tissue and occasionally offers you a sweet from a tin?"

"Yes, yes, that's it. Well, sort of..."

"Okay ma'am, any particular tack I should try to get him talking?"

"Perhaps just ask him about his work. He gets very talkative when he's in science mode, then you could maybe steer him around to the equipment and the robbery. That might work, but I warn you, he remembers things very differently to anyone else, and quite often remembers things no one else would think are important."

"Thank you, ma'am, I'll remember that. Now, as I understand it the crime scene tech bots have swept the place and didn't come up with any DNA traces or fingerprints or any other telltales?

"No, our thief obviously knew what he was doing. He bypassed the security here with ease before getting what he came for."

"Ah, that's a shame, so it's all down to the good Doctor then. Through here?"

He pointed at a nearby door with 'Laboratory - Doctor Romanov' stenciled neatly on the glass and she led the way, knocking quietly prior to ushering him through the door and into a spotless laboratory.

Expecting, for some reason, a rather timid and small man, possibly with several pairs of glasses tucked into an Einsteinian halo of mad hair, Stanley almost jumped out of his skin when a deep male voice boomed out from behind a fume cabinet, a glass flask smacking messily into the wall a few seconds later.

"Blasted stupid piece of... oh hello there. Are you the new cleaner? Just in time. I can't seem to make coffee properly in these silly things. Ms. Hines refuses to let me have more than two cups before lunch, and that decaffeinated rubbish is utterly pointless. Lovely girl, but bossy as hell. Welcome to my teaching lab."

Stanley, slightly stunned by the rapid-fire and somewhat effusive greeting, looked the man over as the Doctor removed a thin rubber glove from his massive right hand. He was built like a rugby player and sported the cauliflower ear and broken nose to back up the initial assessment. Messy blond hair sat like a haystack on the man's head, and a firm grip pumped Stanley's arm enthusiastically in greeting leaving him feeling a little bruised. The man gripped him firmly by the elbow and propelled him towards a cupboard in the corner of the lab.

"There you go lad, all the cleaning gear you need in there. I don't think you'll be dealing with anything more serious than a bit of spilt coffee this morning as we haven't got any lessons booked following our burglary, so it's a good day to start..." His eyes drifted down to the detective's recorder which blinked redly at him through LED eyes.

"Oh bugger, it's the fuzz. Er... I mean... Hello officer, how can I help you?" he said brightly, nonchalantly closing the cleaning cupboard door behind him.

"Dr. Romanov, I presume?" said Stanley smiling. "I'm Detective Stanley."

"Stanley eh? Very good, nice introduction too. Yes, I'm Doctor Romanov, but please call me Gus, I don't tend to stand on ceremony."

"Gus?"

"Yes, my father was a pillock and called me Augustus for some reason. Could've been worse I suppose, could've been Everard or something equally stupid. Now, where were we? Fancy a coffee?"

"I suspect Ms. Hines would object sir... er Gus."

"True. Ah well she's probably correct. How about some peanuts?"

"Peanuts?"

"Yes, salted. None of that artificial salt nonsense either. Proper, honest salt and fat: terribly bad for the heart and blood pressure. I made a batch earlier out the back before she got in to the office. She won't let me have coffee as I mentioned and I do love a good peanut, bugger the arteries."

"Er... no, thank you Gus."

"No? Shame. Ah well, more for me. Now, what can I do you for?"

"You've had a robbery I believe..."

"Gosh, yes. I'd clean forgotten. See that's what lack of coffee does for you! I keep telling her but she won't listen."

Stanley decided to take a slightly different tack on his questioning. "Gus, what exactly do you do here?"

"Skin, dear boy. Skin! It's marvellous stuff you know, stops all your organs flopping around on the floor, but is in fact an organ in its own right. This room is where we teach young dermatologists and technicians from the industry, but that is just a small part of what we do here. Mainly, it's all to do with repairing and fiddling with skin, fascinating material to work with."

"Material, Doctor Romanov?"

"Yes, material, it's utterly unique and you can do so many things with it. Now call me Gus detective, please, I insist. And what's your given name?"

The detective cringed slightly and sighed. "Accrington, Gus,"

"Accrington Stanley eh? I suspect your father may have known mine by the sound of it. Perhaps I'll stick to 'detective' then. Now, where were we?" The doctor peered at him expectantly.

"Skin?"

"Skin! By the way, you have very good skin detective, always good to see a man who moisturises. Yes, we're here to talk about skin." The detective watched open-mouthed as the doctor in his long white coat bounced energetically to the other end of the laboratory. Looking over his shoulder, Stanley noticed Ms. Hines looking in through the glass door at him and shrugged his shoulders in resignation. He wasn't entirely sure whether the returned shrug concealed shoulders shaking with mirth, or if it was just his imagination.

"Come on detective, I've something to show you."

"As long as it's not a complete human skin, I really don't mind," muttered Stanley trudging the length of the lab to a smaller office off to one side.

"Ta da!" said the doctor gesturing wildly at the wall over his desk.

The flayed skin was encapsulated in plastic and pinned to the wall, mainly pinkish skin with several large black areas.

"Er... pigskin?" guessed Stanley.

"Very good detective, most people seem to think it's human and accuse me of being a nutter."

"My grandfather kept pigs, Gus. That one you have pinned to your wall looks like a Gloucester Old Spot."

Romanov raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Dear boy, I'm impressed. Your grandfather was obviously a man of taste."

"This is all interesting Gus, but what does the pigskin have to do with the machine you had stolen?"

"Ah, and that's where it does get interesting detective. See, on your Gloucester Old Spot," he waved vaguely at the wall behind his desk, "you have dark and light patches of skin which makes it a useful test subject. It's not perfect but very few humans like to be a guinea pig when some mad bastard is pointing a thing that looks like a Flash Gordon style cannon at them, certainly to start with at any rate. And yes, I'm fully aware that I come across as a bit of a nutter, which is why I ask Ms. Hines to warn people before they come in. I take it she did?"

"She did."

"Good girl that, very intelligent, organised as hell, and also has lovely skin. Damn bossy though sometimes. Now, where was I?"

"Pigskin and cannons," supplied Stanley, grinning. He was thoroughly enjoying himself despite being confused backward. He checked his recorder. Yup, the guys at the station were going to love this later on.

"Ah, yes. Good man. So, different skin colours or pigments, if you'll pardon the pun." Romanov interrupted himself and grabbed a pen. "Actually that's rather good," Romanov beamed at Stanley and scribbled something on a piece of paper. "If I don't write it down I'll forget to tell Ms. Hines later, she loves a good pun."

"I'm sure. Pigskin and cannons," supplied Stanley again, shaking his head slightly to try and clear the barrage of predominantly one-way conversation.

"He he, sorry old boy, I rather tickled myself... Now, where was I? Ah yes. There is a condition known as vitiligo, not to be confused with vertigo unless the sufferer has both, which affects pigments in human skin, or rather produces a lack of pigment cells. All sorts of treatments have been tried in the past with varying degrees of success. Some of the side effects of the drugs used are pretty horrendous too, and ultimately it seems the only real treatment is to depigmentise the remaining skin so all the skin is the same colour. Or rather colourless. This, however, leaves the sufferer utterly white, and prone to sunburn and melanoma for the rest of their lives. It is of course entirely unnatural too.

"So, I invented a cure.

"I started out on pigskin, because of its similarity to human skin, and then moved on to test on human skin; cadavers at first but then living human subjects. Once I had proven some basic success to the ever-skeptical and often jealous scientific world, I abruptly had a large number of volunteers call me up. You have to understand detective, vitiligo can be a particularly disfiguring thing to suffer from, but is merely a change in skin colour. I say merely, there's more to it than that, particularly if you're a sufferer, but it's not immediately life-threatening and so is largely ignored by science as only about one percent of the human race suffers from it. If you have it though, you cannot ignore it as it's with you every time you look in a mirror, or when someone meets you for the first time. It is very noticeable the darker your skin, and of course particularly on the face or hands where it seems to be most prevalent.

"There have been some successes in the past with UV treatment and various drugs but I managed to develop a direct treatment that worked. It's not the DNA you see; it's something else, something within the skin itself. I won't go into full scientific details as quite frankly I'd like you to stay awake. But, in essence, we caress the pigments back into life and restore natural colouration to sufferers.

"Many of those afflicted recover almost instantly from both the vitiligo and the various side effects of the condition, the most common of which usually includes depression to some degree. We're doing good things.

"Still with me?"

Stanley nodded and Romanov continued enthusiastically waving both his still-gloved left, and naked right, hands around like an orchestra conductor.

"Recently though we've had a few surprises and have noticed that our machines can do things that we really hadn't considered possible, or even useful, until now. I myself am a case in point."

The doctor slowly, and with a sense of theatre, lifted his left hand into the air in front of Stanley's face and peeled off the remaining glove, grinning broadly at the detective as he did do. The hand Stanley had shaken when being introduced to Romanov was olive-skinned and healthy looking. The left was also healthy looking, but much darker and with one stark white finger.

"I had to be sure the technology worked and didn't have any long-reaching effects. This right hand is entirely natural. I am right-handed and didn't want to lose that one in case things went wrong. This left arm has been a test subject for thousands of treatments. The skin remains normal and healthy, but has been a variety of different shades from almost black to near white."

"You can change skin colour?"

"In simple terms, yes," said Doctor Romanov, "but it extends further than that now. We're currently doing research on a number of additional applications including pigments in the eyes and other skin conditions.

"As I said though, this was originally a treatment for vitiligo and now I offer anyone with that particular condition free treatment. But, now our research grants have disappeared we have to make our money slightly differently."

He rather dramatically rolled up his left sleeve to expose the forearm. Above the wrist, the darker skin of his hand abruptly gave way to a simple Celtic pattern of whorls and swirls, the design made from pigmented skin rather than a tattoo or dye.

"By happy accident, I was trying a more focused approach to the vitiligo condition and refined the beam so tightly that the treatment was almost instantaneous. Think of it detective, right in front of your eyes, a condition that has blighted your life disappears as you watch.

"There are few things more satisfying in life than watching hope change to joy detective, and that is why we do the vitiligo treatments for free now. Joy is payment enough for me. We have however turned into body artists to make some money as you will see. Come along, detective..."

Romanov jumped off the desk where he had perched, still with one sleeve rolled up and the other flapping loosely around his right wrist, and moved away swiftly causing Stanley to scurry to keep up. The doctor marched along a corridor and stopped outside a small treatment room, the front wall of which was glass, floor to ceiling. Through the glass, Stanley could see a man lying face down on a bed with another man bent over him creating a similar pattern to the one on Romanov's arm but in massive scale on the man's back.

"A non-permanent tattoo," breathed Stanley. "That's very clever."

"It is isn't it?" said Romanov beaming at his new favourite pupil. "It's painless, clean, disease free and, if the overpaid young man with the art degree makes a ball's up, he can simply erase it and try again. You can't do that with a tattoo. We can remove them too."

"Remove tattoos?"

"Yes. Got any old girlfriends you'd like scrubbed off your backside detective?" The doctor laughed at Stanley's expression, looked slightly worried for a moment as he looked at the recording device, and then shrugged before carrying on with his monologue.

"I removed my only tattoo as a test and it's never come back. I was rather pleased actually. Having 'Hell's Angels' tattooed on your forearm is a great idea when you're eighteen, but when you're supposed to be a responsible man of intelligence and science and your tattoo artist was dyslexic, 'Hell's Angles' makes you look like a demented mathematician, or a moron.

"We took a couple of pieces of inkwork off that robber of yours actually?"

Stanley, who had been only half listening and watching the body artist with interest, abruptly snapped his head around to look at Romanov.

"You did?"

"Yes. We had an article posted in several well-known ezines recently and he'd obviously decided he needed fewer identifying marks on him if he was to continue robbing people successfully. He mentioned he'd seen the article on what we could do and decided to pay a visit. The tattoo removal process is slightly different to the Skin Pigmentation Ultrasonic Device though."

Romanov shook his head in disgust. "I really do need to think of a more catchy acronym for that thing: SPUD just doesn't cut the mustard, and it's inaccurate, doesn't even use ultrasound. It puts off the competition though."

"When did he come in to have them removed?" Stanley asked desperately trying to keep the Doctor on subject.

"At the same time he stole my equipment. Did Ms. Hines not tell you that?"

"Er... no... I think she was assuming you would tell me everything."

"Ms. Hines should know me better than that. This is why I hire people to do things; they have memories, I have ideas. I can't do both. I hired Ms. Hines for her intelligence and organisational skills. She has nice skin too..."

Romanov paused. "Er... prompt please..."

"The robber, tattoo removal..." supplied Stanley.

"Ah yes. Your man wandered in after everyone had left one night. Some silly bugger, probably me, had forgotten to lock the door and he nipped in and found me on my own. Big tall chap he was."

"What did he look like Gus?" asked Stanley, leaning forward in anticipation.

"Big, tall. I just told you that."

"Did he have any distinguishing features? Moustache? Scars? Anything like that?"

"I've no idea, he had a facemask on. Ah, I forgot to mention that bit didn't I?"

"Yes, Gus, you did, but don't worry. You mentioned he had tattoos, how do you know that?"

"He asked me to remove them. He had a blaster you see, so I felt obliged to do what I was told really. Never argue with a chap who can disassemble your head into its component parts.

"We went into one of the treatment rooms and he stripped to his waist, but kept his headgear on. The main machine was in bits as I'd had to do some work on it, well I was working on it as he walked in, so we had to use the one in the experiment room out the back. He locked the door and I started the treatment.

"There was one tattoo on his upper arm which looked a little like a stylised scorpion, and another one on the other arm with the name 'Claire' on it. His skin was white and there were a few dark hairs where some depilatory treatment hadn't fully worked, but I didn't see his facial features.

"Any more details Gus?"

"He was very lovely," said the Doctor blushing slightly as the detective looked at him. "I don't usually have much to time get out and about these days, and so I haven't had a date for a while, but he was stunning, er... buff I believe is the expression. He'd obviously spent a great deal of time in the gym and had manscaped himself rather nicely. I don't remember much else about him I'm afraid detective. Sorry I can't be more help.

"Okay Doctor, that's been useful, thank you for your time." Stanley reached up to turn the recording device off but stopped as he saw the look of deep thought on the doctor's face.

"He will have much darker skin now though..."

"You changed his entire skin colour?" said Stanley in amazement.

"Yes. He asked me to. He told me to set up the machine to change him. I mentioned he'd have to be entirely naked for the process and that for such a large area the machine settings would have to be altered so that the effects would take a day or so to take hold.

"He seemed happy enough with that and, once I'd set the machine up, he tied me up, positioned my finger over the 'Start' key, and blindfolded me, telling me he'd free me once I'd zapped him and he'd got dressed again."

"So in about an hour's time, we'll be looking for a black guy, not a white guy?"

"Er, yes."

"With no identifying marks?"

"No."

"And no description other than 'he was big, tall, and buff'?"

"No detective, I am very sorry." The doctor looked abashed and glanced down at his shoes, the laces of which were frayed and resting on the floor.

Stanley sighed and tried a different tack again. "Ms. Hines noted he would not be able to use the machine he stole. Is that correct Gus?"

"Yes. Before you can use it has to be connected to the computers here which are all encoded. It also has to be plugged into a USB key which is fixed to the stand and disconnects when the machine is removed. All he has now is something that looks like a Flash Gordon cannon and conceals a very expensive set of components that could fetch a good price on the black market. All the software and information behind the thing is still here so he can't use it. There doesn't look to be much hope detective does there?"

"There's always hope Gus. Could you please give me a moment to think?" As the doctor nodded, Stanley paced down the hall and stopped, thinking desperately. As he took some time to himself, a lab technician walked past him and handed Gus a reading tablet.

"Your results from yesterday's testing Doctor Romanov."

"Thank you, Ellis."

As Romanov began flicking through the screens of information, he absently rolled up his right sleeve to join his already folded left and began muttering scientific terms under his breath, seeming to forget Stanley who leant disconsolately against the wall nearby.

After a few minutes, Stanley looked over at Romanov who had magically produced an electronic pen from somewhere and was busily making notes on the tablet.

"Doctor?"

"Yes? Oh, sorry detective I'd forgotten about our little tour. Did you see everything you wanted to see?"

"Um, I think so. Just one thing though, why have you got a tattoo on your right arm, I thought you said you'd removed yours?"

The now exposed pale flesh on the man's right arm showed a startlingly bright, fist-sized, cobalt blue circle between wrist and elbow and Romanov looked at it in amazement for a few moments, then began to rapidly flick through the information in front of him.

"These are results from yesterday's trials and include the run I did on our robber. I zapped myself with the machine by accident when I was setting it up for our robber yesterday," he mumbled absently as he flicked through. "I was a bit flustered you see and didn't really think anything of it at the time. Ah, here we are...

"Blimey..."

The doctor sat down suddenly on a nearby chair.

"Gus, are you alright?" Stanley moved over to offer support which the doctor waved away absently.

He peered at the spot on his arm. "Well, that is a surprise...

"Ms. Hines!" He bellowed. As his assistant appeared next to him almost instantly, he beamed at her and waved his right arm. "Look Olivia, we've done something oddly wonderful."

Hines gave Stanley a long-suffering look and smiled at Romanov. "What's that then Doctor?"

"We can do colour now. Isn't that lovely? Have a chat with the overpaid doodler in the treatment room over there and see if he can do something useful with blue."

"Yes, Doctor." Hines looked at the somewhat bewildered detective and took pity on him as the doctor carried on looking through the printouts.

"Come on detective, I'll get you a cup of coffee, and no Gus, you can't have one. You know what it does to your blood pressure. And I've thrown those manky-looking peanuts out too."

"Oh, Olivia, I must protest, that's most unfair," he said looking up from his lab data and standing swiftly.

Ms. Hines silenced the Doctor with a look that left the man scuffing his shoes like an errant schoolboy, and Stanley stuck out a hand with a grin.

"Thank you Gus, it's been a pleasure," said Stanley shaking the crestfallen doctor's hand.

"The pleasure has been all mine Accrington, er, oops, I mean Detective," noted Romanov as Stanley winced slightly at the use of his given name and cast a concerned look at the once more shaking shoulders of Romanov's assistant who was making her way toward the coffee machine, thankfully facing the other way.

The doctor cast the detective a shrewd look and smiled. "Lovely girl if you're inclined toward the fairer sex..." he said softly.

"But a bit bossy?"

"Only if you have high blood pressure detective. She is a brilliant businesswoman, looks after me wonderfully, and is smashing company. Good luck with your investigations by the way. At least the robber should be fairly easy to spot now."

Stanley looked at him quizzically. "Sorry? I thought we'd discussed that Gus. How the heck are we going to find him now that he's changed so completely?"

Romanov waved his right arm in front of the detective's eyes. "Colour detective. In the future Mardi Gras is going to be far more colourful. People with blue, green, purple, red, or even rainbow skins. We may even be able to mimic nature and do fluorescing implants. The possibilities are endless."

Stanley looked puzzled and the doctor carried on. "But I digress. I cocked up the settings yesterday Detective Stanley, this mark on my arm was the first of two mistakes I made yesterday. One was on me, the other was on our would-be robber.

"May I suggest you start looking for a rather buff, six-foot tall gentleman, bedecked in blue. For now, I suspect he'll be the only one and, unless they're doing yet another remake of The Smurfs, he should be relatively easy to find."

The End