Chapter 27. Clearing the Cache
The moment the door closed behind Danny, I felt my brain turn into a boiling cauldron. Thoughts about S-Power, calculations, growth charts, and ideas on how to break this world apart burst in my head like vivid fireworks. I understood that if I lay down on my own now, I would toss and turn until dawn, counting imaginary units of energy.
So I did not hesitate. I summoned the interface and activated [Special Command] for instant sleep. Reality simply shut off, as if someone had cut the power line. There were no dreams, no restless turning from side to side, only pure, deep darkness that spat me back into the world exactly at seven in the morning.
"Morning, Mom," I said as I stepped into the kitchen, feeling as if I had been reassembled at a factory. Energy practically crackled beneath my skin.
My mother stood at the stove, skillfully flipping golden pancakes. She did not even turn around, only nodded at the sound of my voice.
"You’re surprisingly energetic after Danny’s visit yesterday," she remarked with mild skepticism. "I thought you wouldn’t let that irresponsible young man cross our doorstep ever again. Especially after that incident with Stephanie."
I sat down, inhaling the aroma of fresh coffee and sweet syrup.
"Mom, don’t exaggerate. Danny’s a normal guy. Yeah, sometimes there’s nothing but wind in his head, but he’s straightforward. We might not be friends, but I understand what drives him."
"Showing off," she inserted dryly, finally turning toward me.
"Exactly," I said with an involuntary smirk. "I can’t stand show-offs, but when you understand why a person acts that way, it doesn’t bother you. You just accept it like the weather."
"Unlike Stephanie," my mother said, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose with irritation.
"Yes. With her, it was different. I couldn’t figure out her motivation until the very end. Every word, every gesture felt like part of some murky scheme. It felt like I was dealing with a professional con artist who was about to lift my wallet while I looked her in the eyes."
"She was a con artist," my mother cut in sharply, placing a plate on the table with force. "That girl just wanted to use you as a stepping stone to reach your new star acquaintances, and then toss you aside when you were no longer useful. Shameless thing."
"Well, every cloud has a silver lining," I said, trying to steer the conversation into a more positive direction. "At least thanks to her I improved my Spanish quite a bit. You could say I paid for lessons with my time."
My mother turned off the burner. She placed a plate of golden pancakes in front of herself and a large mixer bowl filled with a thick, viscous gray mass in front of me. My daily ration.
When I first began my transformation from office plankton into Mr. Olympia, I had honestly tried to force down mountains of chicken breast and tuna, but very quickly my stomach went on strike. Eating the same thing five times a day is torture. That was how I arrived at the gray mass, a concentrate of everything the body needs: proteins, proper fats, massive doses of vitamins. This stuff costs a fortune, forty dollars for a bucket of ingredients, and I go through four portions like this a day. If not for the generous payments from the Pentagon for my Awakened status, I would be out on the street begging. Bodybuilding is entertainment for the wealthy.
The only problem with this sludge is the taste. More precisely, its complete absence. It feels like chewing wet cardboard. But I found a solution on the forums: food essences. I bought a box of a hundred different vials and asked my mother to add one at random each time. A small lottery at breakfast.
I brought a spoon to my lips. The smell was sharp, familiar, slightly artificial.
"Coca-Cola!" I exclaimed after swallowing the first portion. "Mom, that’s a perfect hit!"
The taste instantly carried me back to childhood. I could clearly see our old yard and that little kiosk where Megan and I used to buy packs of gummy candies shaped like bottles after school. The same cloyingly sweet aroma and tingling aftertaste.
I quickly finished my portion. My muscles received their building material, but I was in no hurry to head to the gym. There was something else I could not postpone. I looked at my mother, feeling a slight pang of guilt for what I was about to do.
[Enemy Status]
S-Power: 0/0
Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)
Attributes:
Strength: 3 (Struggles to lift heavy grocery bags)
Endurance: 3 (Becomes winded after five minutes of active walking)
Agility: 4 (Standard level for a person far removed from sports)
Current Effects: Critically high blood pressure.
I felt uneasy. The system stubbornly labeled the most important person in my life as an enemy, but I understood that it was merely a dry program classification. The numbers, however, were merciless. Seeing my mother’s weakness reduced to bare statistics hurt. Yet my gaze locked onto the final line.
"Mom," I said, setting the empty bowl aside. "How do you feel today?"
"My head’s been a bit heavy since morning," she replied with a vague wave of her hand. "And there’s this pounding in my temples, like little hammers. Nothing serious, I’ll finish my coffee and it’ll pass."
"I’m not a doctor," I began slowly, looking at the steaming drink in her hands, "but doesn’t coffee raise blood pressure even more?"
"That’s the thing, Thomas," she said, raising a finger in a lecturing manner. "Doctor Roberts said my blood pressure is low. That’s why coffee is my salvation."
"You absolutely shouldn’t be drinking coffee right now," I said gently but firmly, taking the cup from her. "Your blood pressure is through the roof. I guarantee it."
"And where does that confidence come from?" she asked, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. "I don’t see a blood pressure monitor in your hands. Are you diagnosing me by the color of my eyes now?"
"This is a new aspect of my abilities," I said, deciding not to evade the question. "I can now see everything happening inside a person’s body. All hidden threats and negative effects."
"So now you’re a certified doctor?" There was a note of approval mixed with curiosity in her voice. "Well then, let’s test your superpower in practice."
She stood up, walked to the medicine cabinet, and took out a blister pack of blood pressure pills that usually gathered dust in the far corner. She swallowed two with plain water, then sat back down and went still, listening to her body. About ten minutes passed.
"You know…" she blinked in surprise. "I feel better. The heaviness at the back of my head is gone, and my vision feels clearer. The pounding is weaker."
"I can see it too," I said with a nod.
I activated the skill again. The line Critically high blood pressure disappeared, replaced by: [Current Effects: No negative statuses].
"So what does that mean?" my mother said thoughtfully, looking at the unfinished cup of coffee. "Doctor Roberts has been treating me for the wrong thing all these years? A misdiagnosis?"
"Let’s not jump to conclusions," I said as I stood up from the table. "Maybe it’s just a one-time spike because of the weather or yesterday’s stress with Danny. Let’s do this: I’ll check on you every morning. We’ll gather our own data, and then decide what to do about your treatment."
"Now that’s the kind of superpower I like," she said with a special kind of maternal pride, pouring the coffee into the sink. "Healing is noble, Thomas. It’s prestigious, it helps people. Not like puffing up those muscles of yours like a turkey at a fair."
I let out an involuntary sigh, looking at her now clearer gaze. "Mom, it’s much more complicated. My power isn’t a gift of healing in its pure form. I just see what’s broken. I can’t truly heal, I’m only a diagnostician."
"Then maybe you should learn?" She raised an eyebrow, and the sheer amount of common sense in that gesture made me freeze for a second.
The suggestion was solid. I had already been seriously considering diving into medical textbooks. With my current abilities and, more importantly, with the movement correction from the [Trainer] system, I could become a perfect surgeon. My hands would never tremble, and every incision would be precise down to the micron. But harsh reality immediately cooled my enthusiasm: there was barely any time left before military conscription. I simply did not have time for a full residency.
To close the topic and at the same time begin the main experiment of the day, I focused on my mother. I began applying the [Enemy Analysis] skill again and again.
One. Second. Third...
I methodically fired off pulses until the long-awaited notification finally flashed before my eyes:
[S-Power: 0/12]
Danny had warned me yesterday that the feeling of an empty tank was not pleasant. I had prepared in advance: I had thoughtfully lain down on the bed and placed a bottle of water on the nightstand. But it turned out not to be as bad as I had imagined.
It was not physical pain. Rather, I felt a strange, gnawing hunger. But it did not come from the stomach. It originated somewhere deep inside my skull, right behind the eye sockets. A hollow, echoing emptiness, as if all the air had been pumped out of my head. Quite tolerable, honestly. I was certain that if I occupied my thoughts with something, I would stop noticing this mental draft.
I did not have long to endure it. Yesterday’s measurements with a timer showed that one unit of S-Power recovered exactly every twenty minutes. That meant a full recharge would take four hours. And that was where the numbers in my head stopped adding up again.
I grabbed my phone and called Danny.
"Hey, it’s me again. Sorry to bother you, but there’s one thing I can’t figure out. Does one unit of your energy also recover every twenty minutes?"
"Huh?" His voice sounded sleepy, mixed with some background noise. "Don’t know, Tom. Probably. I’ve never seen my numbers in real time, I need to call in HQ specialists for that. But judging by how it feels, yeah, it recovers damn slow."
"Then how do you even train? Your reserve is thirty-three thousand! If it’s twenty minutes per unit, it’d take you more than a year just to fill the bar once!"
Danny let out a short laugh, and I could practically see his smug grin.
"So that’s what’s bothering you... It’s simple, Tom. S-Power fully restores after a good, deep sleep."
"I see... Thanks, that explains a lot."
I ended the call, processing the information. So unlike Danny, I could recharge three times a day just by waiting. Did that give me an advantage? Unlikely. My total capacity was still pitiful.
Twenty minutes passed. The moment the first unit of energy returned, the hunger in my head vanished instantly. I expected the [Trainer] interface to display some kind of notification about energy development, but the screen remained blank. My superpower, which had so effortlessly sculpted my new body, failed when it came to S-Power.
Why? What made this energy different from muscles or memory?
The answer lay in the very title of the status screen:
[Control Panel: TRAINER]
Level: 3
S-Power: 1/12
Everything fell into place. This energy belonged to the Trainer, not to the subject, the Familiar. The system did not care that the Trainer and I were the same person. The Trainer was a manager, an operator. He could improve the Familiar’s body, refine skills, but he could not upgrade himself. The only way to expand my energy capacity was to increase my overall level.
No rapid growth of magical muscles was in sight.
***
Several more days passed. I diligently drained my reserve to zero and waited for recovery, but the number 12 stubbornly refused to change. Fine, at least it did not require any extra effort from me.
Evening found me in my room. A brand-new C2 certificate in Portuguese lay on the table. Another peak had been conquered with ease. My gaze shifted to a stack of fresh textbooks. French. My next target.
Dictionaries were bought, training videos were downloaded. I settled comfortably into the chair and issued the command:
[Special Command: study French until midnight]
The world habitually narrowed to the boundaries of the open notebook. Time accelerated, information was absorbed into the mind like water into a dry sponge. And then... Reality struck the back of my head. I was literally thrown out of the state of hyperfocus.
[ATTENTION FROM TRAINER!]
[Familiar’s mind is overloaded with information. Further strain on memory will lead to degradation of cognitive functions and intellectual abilities.]
I froze, breathing heavily. The warning hung before my eyes, pulsing in an alarming red color, like a computer overheating alert.
Until that moment, I had not really considered that the human brain had a physical storage limit. Over the past two months, I had crammed in what ordinary people take decades to learn: martial arts, three foreign languages, tactical medicine, survival skills, and shooting. My flash drive was simply full.
What now? Look for mnemonic training?
I reached for the computer, then stopped. I would not be able to study mnemonics if there was no space left. A dilemma. I should have prioritized that from the beginning instead of everything else.
If my brain now operated like a computer, then why urgently search for new storage methods when I could simply clear the trash?
At first, I considered getting rid of unpleasant memories, like the recent time at the police station, but dismissed the idea. It was still my experience, bitter as it was, and now I understood how certain police officers operated.
I needed to remove actual informational garbage. And I immediately remembered where to find it.
Forums. Endless, vicious arguments about the Awakened, in which I had drowned throughout my school years. I had long deleted my accounts, but I still remembered the essence of those pointless debates, the trolls’ arguments, even the nicknames of the most persistent opponents. Megabytes of useless junk taking up valuable space.
I focused, feeling like a system administrator of my own mind.
[Special Command: completely delete all memories of forum arguments and spam]
The world dimmed for a moment. Something clicked in my head, like a system reboot.
I listened to myself. I remembered the fact that I had used forums. I remembered spending five hours a day on them. But what exactly had I argued about? Who had been my opponent in a thread back in 2005?
Nothing. A blank slate. Victory.
I opened the French textbook again and issued the command. This time, I immersed myself in studying without the slightest resistance. Knowledge settled onto clean, prepared ground.
The experiment was a success. Tomorrow I would put aside all French textbooks. I would buy mnemonic courses. And I would begin expanding my memory.
It was an incredible feeling. I could cleanse my life of everything unnecessary, all the husk and noise, leaving space only for what made me stronger. Perhaps this was the most useful ability of all.
***
Author note:
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