Chapter 119. The Boyfriend
“Good morning, Maggie,” I said, standing beside her bed.
I watched her get out of bed and stretch with a lazy little yawn. Her bright pink hair had fluffed up slightly, and the strap of her black tank top had slipped off her shoulder. There was none of the usual morning grogginess, no unpleasant smell from her skin or breath. Even the hairs of her eyebrows had settled into perfect, even arches. It was the kind of flawless, slightly glossy beauty you normally saw only in Hollywood movies, after elaborate makeup and the work of a dozen stylists.
An ordinary person does not wake up fresh and perfectly groomed after sleeping for twenty-four hours. But someone who has undergone evolution is ready for action from the very first second after waking.
“Tom... Is it over?” Maggie clenched and unclenched her fists, carefully examining her slightly elongated fingers. After my own transformation, I had caught myself making the exact same gesture. “How long was I out?”
“Exactly twenty-four hours,” I said, pulling open the heavy curtains and letting the muted glow of the streetlights into the room. It had been dark outside for hours.
Orange light spilled across the bed, desk, wardrobe, and Maggie herself. It was an ordinary, utterly unremarkable bedroom. Unlike my own experience, when Selina had built me a full sterile medical incubator, I had not bothered filling the room with complicated equipment this time. It was not laziness, and certainly not an attempt to skimp on Maggie’s comfort. It was a purely pragmatic, carefully calculated decision. After analyzing the massive amounts of data and telemetry from my own biological shift, I had reached a simple conclusion: antibacterial ventilation, climate-control sensors, and isolation modules were nothing more than excessive precautions. For a subject undergoing direct correction by the [Trainer], only one condition was necessary: no outside interference. Although, according to my calculations, even if something went wrong, the process would simply pause, like a video buffering in a player, and resume as soon as the conditions allowed.
With a burst of childlike laughter and a light flip, Maggie hopped off the bed and landed on the floor with absolute precision. The stunt made me freeze for a second. In all the thirty-plus years I had known her, I had never seen her do anything like that. Before, any sudden movement would send her blood pressure soaring, leave her dizzy, or make her vision go black.
Watching her move with such speed and youthful energy felt strange. I caught myself thinking that I had somehow become a child whose mother had barely finished high school. It was a strange feeling.
“Holy crap! Seriously, not a single hair!” Maggie spun around in front of the mirror, raising one arm and critically examining the perfectly smooth skin of her armpit. “Even that old mole is gone!”
“Because all of that is just glitches and bugs in the body’s basic design,” I explained, folding my arms behind my back. “It is the same category as strong body odor or excessive sweating. Get used to it. Your thermoregulation now works at one hundred percent efficiency. Your body will only release fluid to eliminate heavy toxins or during peak physical exertion. Neither a stressful conversation nor three cups of strong coffee will make your sweat glands malfunction anymore.”
“Goodbye, sweat stains!” she giggled, then flopped onto her back on the mattress, lifting her graceful legs and examining her altered feet with the focus of her enhanced vision. “You know... Four toes don’t look nearly as weird as I expected. They’re actually kind of cute. A tiny flaw in my perfection. Whoa, did you see that?! There isn’t a single crack on my heels. The skin is smooth and firm at the same time!”
“And it will stay that way,” I replied dryly. “Forget blisters from uncomfortable shoes, hangnails, or bruises from bumps and falls. All of those are defects of an outdated design.”
“Tom, you sound like some annoying guy at a cell phone store,” she giggled. “Buy the new smartphone. It’s better than your old one in every way.”
“Our bodies aren’t all that different from complex computing systems. You could say the [Trainer]’s power simply gives us access to the body’s bioengineering settings.” I watched with restrained amusement as her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How do you feel mentally? Have you noticed any changes in how quickly you process information?”
“Actually, yeah. From the second you woke me up, I could feel my internal processor speeding up, if I put it in your terms,” she said, carefully choosing her words. “I already noticed after that first rejuvenation treatment that I could think faster than other people. While Stephanie is struggling to process some cheesy line from a nightclub gigolo and desperately trying to figure out how to turn him down without being rude, I’ve already got three possible responses ready in my head. Memory, reading, concentration... Everything is way above average.”
“That is roughly how people considered natural geniuses experience the world. There is no mystical explanation like the ones gossip magazines love. It is simply more efficient neural circuitry resulting from a favorable genetic combination,” I replied, briefly glancing out the window at the few pedestrians heading home from work. “What has changed now?”
“The baseline speed is still the same, but there’s a new effect... It’s like I get a couple of extra seconds between your question and my answer to fully analyze the situation,” she said, lowering her legs to the floor with a soft slap. “It’s useful. It’s much harder to confuse me or catch me in a lie now. But if this keeps progressing... Tom, are ordinary people going to start looking like slow-moving turtles to us?”
“Then we’ll have to hold conversations with twenty people at once just to keep from getting bored,” I joked, but the attempt fell flat, failing to draw even the slightest smile from her. “Still, we’ll deal with problems as they come. So far, I haven’t noticed any additional mental abilities in myself.”
“What about the physical side? Has anything else changed?” She narrowed her eyes slightly as she studied me.
“Yeah, there have been some improvements, but regular training will take care of those. And, by the way, you still owe me that trip to the gym, unless you’ve conveniently decided to forget about it,” I replied with the same narrowed gaze, watching her reluctantly look away. “But we’ll deal with that a little later. Come on, let’s go to the kitchen. Time to refuel.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Her mood instantly brightened. She jumped out of bed, swung open the refrigerator door with a soft click... and froze as if she had just seen a ghost. “What the hell is this?”
“Exactly what you see.” I pushed aside the pastry barricade and pulled out containers of protein, amino acids, and the ingredients for a proper shake. “We’ve got a serious workout ahead of us today, and that requires the right fuel.”
“What about the cake?” Maggie’s shoulders drooped dramatically as I loaded the blender. “And pizza? Tacos? Shawarma?”
“You can pig out after I’m out the door,” I said flatly and pressed the start button. The blender gave a deep, grinding roar.
A few minutes later, a thick gray mixture with a harsh, artificial strawberry smell was poured into twelve-ounce glasses.
“Maybe we could save this sludge for tomorrow?” she asked hopefully, eyeing the foam with disgust. “Why do I have to choke down protein this late at night? The gyms are closed anyway.”
“The one we’re going to is open twenty-four hours. I’ve already taken care of access,” I said, taking a hefty swallow without hesitation. “We can’t afford to waste time waiting. I’ll be back in Washington for my regular assignment within a week at the latest, and I don’t know when we’ll see each other again. Besides, your body only needs three hours of sleep now for a full recovery.”
“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” She sat there staring down at her glass, looking openly hurt.
“Soon. But you’re finishing that shake right now,” I said firmly, setting my empty glass on the table. “And I’ve got two pieces of news for you. One bad, one better, just like the classic setup. Which one do you want first?”
“Give me the bad one,” she sighed, forcing down her first reluctant sip.
“Margaret Ross, age sixty, is officially dead.” I placed an official death certificate on the countertop in front of her. “She died peacefully in her sleep exactly one week ago. Her body was cremated, and her ashes were scattered.”
“Yeah... It’s a strange feeling, reading your own obituary.” She stared grimly at the dry lines of text on the document. “I knew this was coming, but it still hits like a punch to the gut. Ugh, I look awful in this picture... You know what? I take that back. I’m not going to mourn this life. So what’s the good news?”
“I’ve acquired a second cousin. Maggie Ross, twenty years old.” I set a much thicker envelope beside it. “Inside is a complete identity file: high school diploma, ID card, driver’s license, and all the supporting paperwork needed to make her identity completely legitimate.”
“Wow...” Maggie eagerly began sorting through the plastic cards. “These are brand-new! How the hell did you pull this off? Does the Corps care so much about its people that they’re even willing to take care of their relatives?”
“Something like that,” I answered as vaguely as possible.
I had no desire to get dragged into a lengthy argument with military bureaucracy or explain the finer points of rejuvenating my own mother to some staff clerk. Selina had handled the entire process. Without the direct intervention of the head of the engineering center, paperwork of this caliber would have been stuck in the approval process for months, assuming it ever got approved at all.
My invisible debt to Selina continued to grow at an alarming rate. She might not be the most pleasant person to deal with, but she always came through when I needed her. After thoroughly picking my brain clean first.
“I’ve even got a driver’s license!” she said, delighted. “Finally, I won’t have to sit in the passenger seat listening to someone else’s music! I’ve wanted to drive to the beach by myself for so long.”
“It’s the complete package for an adult citizen with a clean record and no legal violations. The only thing missing is a college degree. I figured you had no desire to go back to working as a cook, and for any other field, you’d have to start your education from scratch anyway.”
“You nailed the restaurant thing. I’m done with the constant smoke, standing over a stove, and dealing with other people’s demands,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “As for school... What’s the point? People get degrees so they can work their asses off for a paycheck afterward. But you’re going to take care of me anyway.”
“And I’ll keep doing that, just like you supported me back in the day,” I said sincerely. “The Corps pays us more than generously, so don’t worry about money. But you understand, Maggie: that money is compensation for the high risk. One day, I might simply not make it back from another portal.”
Maggie swallowed hard and froze with the card still in her hand. No parent, no matter how old they are, is ever prepared to hear that their child might die before them.
“So I strongly recommend thinking about a career you’d actually enjoy, one that can provide you with a good income,” I said, holding her gaze. “Just in case.”
“I’ll think about it, but I’m already tired of working,” she sighed.
After we finished our protein-packed dinner, we changed into comfortable athletic clothes and were ready to head out for a nighttime run.
At that moment, the doorbell rang deafeningly from the entryway.
I walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. Stephanie was swaying drunkenly in the hallway, completely wasted, her face practically glowing with mindless happiness. A heavy male arm hung possessively over her shoulder, shamelessly squeezing her breast through her thin tank top.
The sight was downright disgusting.
The doorbell became a continuous shriek, followed by Stephanie driving the toe of her sneaker straight into the lower panel of the door.
“Open up, Maggie!” she shrieked loud enough for the whole building to hear. “You’ve gotta check out my new boyfriend! He’s freaking amazing!”
I yanked the door open, intending to explain to the drunken girl exactly how people were supposed to behave in civilized society at ten o’clock at night and, if she proved incapable of understanding, send her into the bathroom for a cold shower.
But the tirade I had prepared died in my throat.
The “freaking amazing boyfriend” turned out to be Leon, wearing a smug, cocky, half-drunk grin.