dexfarkin

His tattoo name was Electric Dave, and no one remembered what his real name was, even him. Having him take your request for ink was one of the highest honours any tattoo collector in the North-Eastern United States could achieve. When I was in the position that he was willing to provide art to me, I went looking for the past that no one could remember was. After all, I was a journalist, and like being a tattoo artist, that wasn't something to just turn off.

It didn't take long to dig up an actual name, through a little creative research with the IRS, and David Alexander Mitchell was 42 years old, had an exemplary record as a small business owner, and had a degree in biochemical engineering from MIT. That was more than a little odd.

Apparently, Dave's father had been a tattoo artist himself, although something of a struggling one. More than a few weeks of Dave's childhood had been spent sleeping in the needles. Dave had gone the other direction; he'd run off to win a major scholarship and was one of the top graduates; an early doctorate achiever. Based on the records I could find, he went back to his father's shop, and through blinding skill, rebuilt it into the best tattoo shop in the region.

It became a much odder story when regular purchases of UV infused inks and hydroxymethylbilane appeared in his files. When I met him for his meeting, he was very much what I expected; bald, heroin thin, and wearing a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses. It didn't even look all that put out when I mentioned his history, as if I wasn't the first.

"I can understand your confusion, Mister Walsh. Or at least your potential misapprehension. I meet with every potential customer for a reason. I can provide custom ink for you. Or," He paused, rubbing his fingers over his own sleeve tattoos. "You can do something a little different. It will still be ink, and still be good. But, it will be something more. You know much about nanotechnology?"

That was three years ago. Now, I can feel the movement under my skin the odd quiet night; the tattoos that only show up under a blacklight, as a blueprint to the strange machines that grow in the ink slurry that was used to implant them into the power plant of my flesh. Changing the world through art, person by person.