Chapter 122. The Blue-Haired Problem
I stood over the sleeping Stephanie, regarding her with an impassive stare. Her drool, generously mixed with cheap martini, had soaked straight through the pillow that had once been mine. Somehow, the girl was also managing to smile stupidly in her sleep and occasionally mumble something that sounded vaguely like “Le-o-on.”
A perfectly pragmatic plan occurred to me: walk to the bathroom, fill a bucket with ice-cold water, add a couple of handfuls of ice from the freezer, and dump the refreshing cocktail over her blue hair. Then I could politely ask her to clear out and go sleep at her own place. No revenge involved, purely concern for her safety. She was far less likely to run into an intelligence colonel in her own apartment. If I happened to enjoy the sight of her stomping down the stairs to the first floor, soaking wet and furious, that would only be a minor bonus.
“Don’t even think about it.” Maggie appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, giving me the kind of look usually reserved for dangerous repeat offenders. “Step away from the girl, you jerk.”
“What makes you think I was planning anything?” I asked, my expression not changing in the slightest.
“Tom, I know you way too well. My brain works exactly the same way now,” she replied dryly. “You don’t zone out or lose touch with reality. If you stare at someone in silence for five whole seconds instead of doing something, that means you’re already running through your options. And considering your ‘deep affection’ for Stephanie, those options definitely aren’t going to involve humanitarian aid. I’m telling you again: don’t hurt the girl.”
“I’m just figuring out how to make it clear that we’re gone,” I lied without even blinking. “If she wakes up to an empty apartment before we get back, her immature behavior could easily push her into doing something stupid again. We don’t want her burning the place down, do we?”
“Oh, my God, Tom. You treat her like she’s five years old.” Maggie sighed, walked over to the dresser, and pulled a notepad and pen from a drawer. “Fine. I’ll leave a note: You passed out at my place, I went for a run with Tom, there’s food in the fridge, wait for me to get back, and don’t go looking for trouble.”
“Add another line: don’t go looking for Leon until we get back.”
“Good point.” Maggie pressed the paper flat against the tabletop and started writing with the ballpoint pen. At first, the letters came out a little crooked, but a second later, her mental superpower kicked in.
[The Trainer’s Presence is correcting your movements for maximum efficiency.]
Maggie’s handwriting instantly straightened out. The letters became perfectly neat and uniform, identical in height and slant, as though they had been typed on a typewriter.
“Wow.” She lifted the pen and stared at her own hand in amazement. “Where were you when I was in school? I could’ve avoided so many lectures from my teachers about my handwriting...”
“I wasn’t part of the project back then,” I reminded her dryly, watching the process. “Be sure to draw three skulls next to the part about Leon.”
“You’re serious?” Maggie fixed me with a sharply arched eyebrow. “You really think she won’t get the message without little pictures?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head in mild disapproval, clearly taking note of just how little faith I had in the blue-haired girl, but she drew the skulls anyway. Neat, precise, and thoroughly ominous. A rational decision.
The note went onto the nightstand, right in front of her face. If Stephanie still felt compelled to go looking for trouble after such an obvious warning, there would be only one possible conclusion: medicine had failed her.
We left the stuffy apartment and stepped out into the cool Los Angeles night. It was close to eleven. The city was gradually winding down, filling the air with the hum of distant freeways and the chirping of birds.
“Phew.” Maggie let out a quiet breath as the heavy entrance door slammed shut behind us.
“I’m detecting an emotional spike.” I turned to her. “What caused the relief?”
“An empty bench.” She gave a slight shrug and adjusted her collar. “I was worried your colonel had set himself up out here waiting for round two of his harassment routine. He’s got such a creepy face and such nasty thoughts.”
“Unnecessary concern.” I shook my head. “Stuart’s an obnoxious thug and a provocateur, but he’s not a stalker. His time is worth too much for him to sit in the bushes waiting to pull another stunt. Besides, I made it quite clear that using terrorist tactics against me was a bad idea.”
“It’s still creepy out here.” She hugged herself against the chill. “Let’s get in the car and go.”
“That wouldn’t be efficient. The gym is exactly a mile and a half away. I’ve already mapped out the optimal route on foot. Running there will take less time than warming up the engine and dealing with the traffic lights. Besides, it’s the perfect warm-up before a long training session.”
“You know there’s no point arguing with you, right?” Maggie met my stony gaze and sighed. “Fine. Give me thirty seconds to stretch my calves...”
“Not necessary. After your evolution, it’s not just your central nervous system that stays in a constant state of readiness. Your entire muscular system does as well. Your tissues are continuously supplied with oxygen, and your circulation is faster and more efficient. Try kicking your heel straight up toward the sky. You’ll see.”
Doubt flickered across her face, quickly replaced by restrained curiosity. Maggie stepped beneath the yellow pool of a streetlamp. The light caught her bright pink hair, which stood out sharply against the stylish black suit with its neat stripes. She had chosen it specifically to match her hairstyle. I had to admit, the combination of pink and black looked great.
I glanced briefly at my own gray, utterly unremarkable Walmart outfit, bought strictly for durability and comfort, not aesthetics. The difference in our approaches was obvious, but I was perfectly happy with mine.
Maggie suddenly kicked her leg straight up without so much as a warm-up. Her heel did not quite reach a perfect ninety degrees. Her flexibility still left something to be desired. Still, the result was respectable.
“That’s nothing,” she said, lowering her leg and letting her sole slap lightly against the pavement. “What was I supposed to feel?”
“Pay attention to your muscles. Do you feel any pain or even the slightest cramp?” I gave her a faint smile as I watched surprise turn into understanding on her face. “If you’d tried that yesterday, without the evolutionary restructuring or a proper warm-up, you would’ve felt a sharp pain shoot through your thigh or pulled a muscle. Right now, you’re ready to jump into a fight at a moment’s notice. Now let’s run.”
I set the pace slightly ahead of her, taking on the role of navigator. Maggie followed right behind me without missing a beat.
For the first half-second, our movements felt slightly awkward, but almost immediately, the Trainer’s invisible calibrations smoothed out our strides, synchronized the movement of our joints, and regulated our breathing, turning us into living machines with the efficiency of professional runners.
[The Trainer’s Presence is correcting your movements for maximum efficiency.]
A soft night breeze brushed my face. The broad roads and freeway interchanges gave way to quiet, cozy streets in a residential neighborhood. To my embarrassment, despite having lived here for quite some time, I had never noticed these convenient little shortcuts before.
I had to deliberately cut my speed almost in half, keeping the pace within her current capabilities. According to her metrics, Maggie was still at the baseline level of an ordinary person who had never taken sports seriously.
Name: Margaret Ross
Age: 20
Occupation: Unemployed
Phobia: Spiders
S-Power: 0/0
Race: Human (Homo sapiens)
Attributes:
Strength: 5
Endurance: 5
Agility: 5
Current Effects: No negative effects.
Less than ten minutes of brisk running later, we turned toward an elite athletic complex where professional athletes trained and where I had once pushed my own physical conditioning to its peak. But the real achievement was not even how quickly we had covered the distance.
“Holy crap...” Maggie pressed a hand to her chest, drawing deep, steady breaths. “I used to get a little winded just walking up a regular flight of stairs. Now we’ve run a mile and a half, and my heart isn’t even trying to jump out of my chest.”
“Your cells are adapting their gas exchange to an entirely different level,” I explained as we walked. “You’ll notice even more benefits once we start training. Let’s go inside.”
The moment we stepped through the doors, cool, filtered air from the air conditioning washed over us. The reception desk was deserted, and I had to rap my fist against the counter several times before a sleepy-looking guy finally emerged from the back room, rubbing his eyes.
“How can I help you?” he mumbled, struggling to focus.
“We’re the Rosses. We have a reservation for the private training room.” I placed our IDs on the counter.
I noticed Maggie watching her new driver’s license in his hands with obvious anticipation, as if she were afraid he might catch her with forged documents.
The gym employee, however, was hardly the type to scrutinize a photograph or check whether every letter was perfectly aligned. At the moment, he was barely capable of doing any careful work at all.
The guy was barely awake. His fingers kept fumbling across the keyboard, the mouse wandered into the wrong windows, and the letters stubbornly turned into meaningless strings of symbols. A procedure that should have taken seconds dragged on for nearly five minutes.
“Have a good... workout.” He finally handed me a plastic key card and yawned so widely that I thought he might dislocate his jaw. “Anything else?”
“No, thanks.”
The employee immediately disappeared back into the staff room to finish his nap, and we headed for the stairs. When the doors to the VIP gym closed behind us, a pleasant wave of nostalgia washed over me: the spacious room, the perfectly arranged rows of equipment, and absolute silence. No one else around. Perfect conditions.
“Listen carefully,” I said, turning toward her and holding her gaze. “I’m going to activate a [Special Command] on you now. For the duration of the workout, you’ll completely lose voluntary control of your body. From your perspective, the whole thing will be over in an instant.”
“So I’ll just blink, and all the hard work will be done?” A smile of anticipation touched her lips. “Isn’t that the dream?”
“Exactly. One more thing: I’ll be training at the same time. Since my limits are higher, I’ll need more time, so I’ll be here longer. As soon as you regain consciousness, send me a quick text and go home to keep an eye on Stephanie. There’s no need to wait for me or try to pull me out of hyperfocus.”
“Got it, Mr. Ross.”
[Special Command: Maggie, perform an effective full-body workout.]
I watched from the side as the tension smoothed from her features and her personal will faded from her eyes, replaced by absolute mechanical precision. She had become a perfect biomechanical puppet. With a stone-faced expression and eyes beginning to glaze over, she walked over to the dumbbell rack, then moved on to the treadmill. The sight was slightly unsettling.
For the sake of an experiment, I picked up a heavy rubber-coated dumbbell and dropped it onto the floor a step away from her with a dull thud. Maggie did not even flinch, continuing to execute the prescribed movement pattern. Apparently, only a threat to her life could pull her out of this state.
After spending another minute analyzing her metrics and finding no abnormalities, I pushed the extraneous thoughts aside. It was time to work on my own upgrade. For the first time in a long while, I was going to push my newly evolved body to its absolute limit.