[TD-002]

  0400

  Lance’s eyes snapped open a full second before the fluorescent lights flooded their room. His brain registered the time without needing to check—0359:57, 0359:58, 0359:59—and there it was. The lights. Always the lights, methodical and merciless, with their artificial dawn. Three days into USEC training and his body had already adopted military cadence. He hated how quickly he was adapting, how readily he was becoming what they wanted. Thirty-one days ago he had been a software engineer with occasional insomnia; now he was a government asset who slept exactly eight hours and thirty-seven minutes per night: the complete arma regeneration cycle according to USEC scientists. Evolution wasn’t supposed to happen this fast. Nothing was.

  0415

  Sheets pulled tight enough to bounce quarters. Corners folded at perfect right angles. Boots aligned precisely one inch from the wall, laces tucked, ready for inspection. Lance secured the final edge of his blanket, fingers working systematically while Diego grumbled Spanish curses from the opposite bunk. Cairo’s frost accidentally glazed Thad’s pillow again. The dance of four men in a space built for two was familiar now—left foot here, right arm there, twist sideways to avoid Thad’s toothbrush as it passed dangerously close to his eye. They’d developed a rhythm, these new roommates, like wolves circling before settling. They’d graduated from wary strangers to something more tactical—four separate weapons learning to work in tandem. At least Lance didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. That was progress of a sort.

  0450

  Boots pound concrete in perfect unison. Ten people, twenty feet, one sound. Lance’s muscles warm with each impact, Energy Circulation pushing oxygen through his system twice as efficiently as before. The morning chill doesn’t touch him anymore—his body generates too much heat, burns too many calories. It’s still dark out, but his eyes adjust automatically, cataloging the positions of everyone in formation. Vicky’s in Oscar Cell, three buildings over, without a doubt radiating enough warmth to melt the frost on the grass. He wonders if she hates him now, after what happened two days ago. After he manipulated her emotions without permission, just like Rick had done. The thought makes his stomach twist. No. That was different. It was an accident. It was—the whistle blasts, derailing his mental train. Time for PT.

  0500

  “Push harder! If you can talk, you’re not working!” Remington shouted while Lance pressed a weighted bar over his head that would crush a normal human. Sweat poured down his face, soaking his shirt in patches that spread like ink blots on paper. The morning PT session wasn’t just brutal—it was scientifically designed torture. Run until your legs gave out. Lift until your arms shook. Repeat. His biceps burned as he completed rep thirty-seven of a weight that shouldn’t have been physically possible. Diego was on thirty-five. He was catching up. The burn felt distant, almost theoretical. Pain Nullification did that—turned agony into abstract data, suffering into statistics. Analyze your form. Check your metrics. Press up. Hold. Down. Up again. Left arm lagging 0.02 seconds behind right. Correct. Adjust. Improve. Ninety-four percent efficiency. Not good enough. Never good enough.

  0620

  The walk to breakfast was worse than PT. Lance’s legs wobbled beneath him as his body desperately tried to replace the calories he’d burned. The muscle fibers in his thighs tore and rebuilt themselves with each step, a process that should take days happening in hours. Dark Resonance amplified the discomfort, turning it into background static that his brain couldn’t quite tune out. Tesia limped alongside him, her own legs still reconfiguring after whatever monstrous adaptation she’d forced them through this morning. “Didn’t even break my record,” she remarked, a shadow of her typical smugness briefly crossing her features. She’d beaten them both again, somehow making her body do things that shouldn’t be possible. Guess they were all becoming monsters in their own way.

  0630

  Lance stuffs half a pancake into his mouth, barely tasting maple syrup before swallowing. Time is luxury they don’t have. Two thousand four hundred calories minimum to replace what he’s burned already, and seventeen minutes to consume them. The math doesn’t work. Fork to plate to mouth. Repeat. Diego’s already on his third plate, shoveling eggs with methodical urgency while discussing probabilities with Thad. “What are the chances they’ll let us sleep past 0400 tomorrow?” “Zero point zero zero three percent, and that’s only if there’s a natural disaster.” “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” Lance ignores them, focusing on the ache spreading through his forearms. Something’s changing again, cells restructuring themselves to accommodate the morning’s strain. Evolution doesn’t wait for permission—it just happens, ready or not. His spoon bends slightly between his fingers. Shit. Need to be more careful.

  0725

  Thirty-seven steps from mess hall to the junction where all paths diverged. Lance counted each one, using the rhythm to regulate his breathing, to push down the anxiety that bubbled up whenever he thought about what was happening to his body. Second Evolution: Stage 3. What did that even mean? Would there be a Third Evolution? A Fourth? At what point would he stop being human altogether? The questions looped through his mind as he walked, as familiar now as the layout of the base. Vicky passed with Oscar Cell, her eyes meeting his for just a fraction of a second. Something passed between them—recognition, maybe. Understanding. They were both changing too fast, both struggling to control abilities that terrified them. He’d give anything to talk to her, to apologize properly for what happened yesterday. But there was never enough time. Never enough words.

  0730

  Cold water streamed down Lance’s back as he rinsed away sweat and grime, giving himself exactly ninety seconds to wash. The shower’s pressure felt like needles against his sensitized skin—another side effect of his evolving nervous system. He cycled energy through his body, focusing on the damaged muscle groups, accelerating the healing process. Left deltoid, minor strain. Right hamstring, microtears along the medial portion. Lower back, compression from squat overload. Each injury cataloged, prioritized, addressed. It was becoming second nature now, this constant self-assessment. This perpetual repair. His reflection in the mirror looked sharper somehow, more defined. Cheekbones that didn’t used to be so prominent. His dark brown hair, still wet from the shower, was longer than regulation permitted. His light brown eyes watched without blinking, calculating distances like targeting software. Even his beard grew faster now—he’d need to shave again before evening formation. The stranger in the mirror stared back, unblinking. Who was he becoming?

  0750

  Left, right, left. No talking in formation. Eyes forward. Back straight. Papa Cell moved as one entity across the parade ground, boots striking asphalt in perfect synchronization. Lance felt the pressure of being watched—not just by officers and drill sergeants, but by cameras mounted on every building, by drones that hovered just at the edge of visibility. Everything measured. Everything documented. He was a lab rat running a maze, except the maze kept changing, and so did he.

  0755

  “PAPA CELL, TENHUT!” Remington’s command traveled across the parade ground as they snapped into formation. Ten bodies, one movement. Lance’s heels clicked together, arms rigid at his sides, eyes fixed on the distant flagpole. They’d only received two hours of military protocol training yesterday, but even Diego had mastered the crisp movements. The morning fog rolled in from the river, diffusing the base’s security floodlights into scattered patches of light. His enhanced hearing picked up conversations not meant for him—officers discussing “containment protocols” and “power dampening systems.” The implications chilled him more than the January air. They were preparing for the worst. They expected failure. Expected him to lose control. Not me. Not today. He wouldn’t be their cautionary tale. Wouldn’t be another reason to fear arma users. The flag waited, limp in the still air, as the base held its collective breath for reveille.

  0800

  Trumpets pierced the morning silence, their notes sharp and clear. The flag rose, a symbol of the country Lance once thought he understood. Now everything was different—the flag, the country, himself. The ceremony felt both ancient and surreal, a tradition from a world that no longer existed performed by people whose DNA rewrote itself daily. As the final notes faded, Lance recited the oath with the others, words about duty and honor that tasted different now. What did allegiance to a flag matter when you had a piece of a dark viscous substance that could harden at will and reshape your very biology beyond recognition coursing through your veins? What was honor when your very existence frightened those you’d sworn to protect? These impossible dilemmas remained as the ceremony ended. The first part of their day complete, they pivoted as one toward the academic building. Another hour, another test, another step toward whatever they were becoming.

  Lance’s eyes tracked Dr. Nazari as she paced the front of the classroom, the thin metal-rimmed glasses perched at an angle on her nose as she gestured toward the projection screen. She looked the spitting image of what he’d imagined a defense contractor would—practical black slacks, sensible shoes, a blazer that had seen better days. The ink stains on her fingers left blue smudges on the paper notes she shuffled. He wondered if she knew about them, or if they were such a constant presence she’d stopped noticing.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The reinforced classroom felt oppressive despite its high ceilings. Sturdy desks bolted to the floor in neat rows faced the projection screen, their metal surfaces bearing tiny scratches from bored trainees idly tracing patterns during yesterday’s lecture. Even the pale green walls, identical to every other government facility he’d been in, seemed designed to dampen both spirits and abilities. Or maybe he was reading way too much into it.

  Papa Cell occupied the left side of the room while Oscar Cell sat on the right, maintaining unit cohesion even during classroom instruction. Lance’s gaze drifted to Vicky, who hadn’t spoken to him since the incident in the dining facility. Her shaved left side still looked badass, even with her blonde hair pulled back severely on the right. She sat rigidly in her chair, clearly trying to minimize any chance of accidental heat discharge. The dark circles under her eyes suggested she wasn’t sleeping well. Neither was he.

  Andrea sat two rows behind Vicky, obvious from the thin fog that hovered around her seat despite her concentrated expression of restraint. Next to Vicky, Carter couldn’t keep his metal skin still—it kept moving like mercury, catching everyone’s attention whenever the projector hit it. Lance recognized a few other faces from shared meal times, but several Oscar Cell members remained strangers. The brutal schedule left little room for inter-cell socializing.

  “Today we’ll be covering advanced arma taxonomy,” Dr. Nazari announced, making brand-new science sound as routine as a grocery list. “I trust everyone reviewed the basic classification materials from yesterday’s session?”

  A few heads nodded. Lance suppressed a sigh. Yesterday’s class had been painfully elementary—like watching someone explain addition to differential equations students.

  The perks of following three brilliant female doctors, he thought.

  Between his time with Dr. Patel, Dr. Rodriguez, and countless hours studying Dr. Blackwell’s detailed gluetube breakdowns of arma classification, he probably understood the system better than some instructors.

  “Can someone be more than one classification?” A recruit from Oscar Cell raised his hand. Lance couldn’t remember his name.

  “An excellent question.” Dr. Nazari’s expression brightened. “While hybrid classifications are theoretically possible, we haven’t documented any confirmed cases. The energy signatures appear mutually exclusive at a fundamental level.”

  Another hand went up. “Does being a Nullifier mean you can cancel any ability?”

  Lance’s jaw tightened. Were they really this uninformed, or was it strategic? Playing dumb to avoid attention? Either possibility was concerning. These people had powers that made comic books seem like documentaries, yet some didn’t seem to understand even the basics of how their abilities worked.

  Dr. Nazari dimmed the lights and pulled up the first slide. A series of graphs appeared, showing energy signature progressions across different arma classifications. Lance leaned forward despite himself. This was new data.

  “What you’re seeing represents newly compiled research from our global monitoring network.” Dr. Nazari’s voice dropped a notch, taking on a more serious tone. “We’ve identified distinct evolutionary thresholds for each arma classification.” She clicked to the next slide, showing a particularly dramatic energy spike. “When an enhanced individual reaches these thresholds, their abilities can undergo fundamental transformation.”

  Lance’s heart rate jumped. The graph showed without question what he’d been experiencing—periods of rapid development followed by plateaus, then sudden, explosive growth.

  “We’ve documented several cases of Second Evolution worldwide.” Dr. Nazari’s eyes swept the room, lingering briefly on Lance and a few others. “The physiological warning signs are consistent: cellular restructuring, dramatically increased caloric requirements, spontaneous energy discharge.”

  Shit. Lance was checking those boxes one by one. His metabolism had been going haywire lately, burning through calories faster than he could replace them. And the energy surges... he flexed his hand, remembering how he’d accidentally bent his spoon at breakfast.

  “The transformation process appears to follow predictable patterns, though the specific manifestations vary widely.” Dr. Nazari advanced to a slide showing brain scans. “Neural pathways reconfigure. Genetic expression shifts. The body essentially rewrites itself to accommodate expanded capabilities.”

  A hand went up from Papa Cell’s side. “What triggers evolution? Is it just time and practice, or something else?”

  “Multiple factors appear to influence the process.” Dr. Nazari adjusted her glasses. “Stress exposure. Intensive training. Prolonged power use. But the most significant factor seems to be reaching critical energy thresholds.”

  She pulled up another graph, this one showing theoretical models of Third Evolution. The power curves extended far beyond current capabilities, into ranges that made Lance's breath catch. Numbers and potentials scrolled past that defied everything he thought possible—humanity playing with fire it could not hope to control.

  “I should note that much of this information exceeds standard clearance levels.” Dr. Nazari’s voice dropped further. “You’re being briefed on a need-to-know basis, given the... accelerated development some of you are displaying.”

  Her eyes met Lance’s again, and he fought the urge to look away. How much did she know about his abilities? About the changes he was experiencing?

  “Unfortunately, evolution events are becoming more frequent globally.” The next slide showed a world map dotted with incident markers. “Intelligence suggests several nations are deliberately pushing enhanced individuals toward evolution thresholds, despite the catastrophic risks involved.”

  The room grew quieter. Lance could hear Andrea’s mist hissing softly as it escaped her control.

  “These are the consequences of forced evolution.” Dr. Nazari’s expression hardened as she brought up heavily redacted case files. “Subject underwent rapid power expansion following intensive stimulation. Neural pathways failed to adapt. Complete biological breakdown occurred within hours.”

  The images, even partially censored, turned Lance’s stomach. Cellular destruction on a massive scale. Tissue literally tearing itself apart as it tried to contain too much power.

  “This is why the USEC emphasizes controlled development.” Dr. Nazari’s tone left no room for argument. “Your training schedule, your dietary requirements, your power use restrictions—everything is designed to ensure safe, stable evolution.”

  Lance’s mind raced. He’d been pushing himself hard lately, testing his limits every chance he got. Had he been gambling with his life without realizing it?

  “The next few slides contain classified data on evolution markers.” Dr. Nazari lowered her voice further. “Pay close attention to the warning signs. Your lives may depend on recognizing when you’re approaching a threshold.”

  She clicked through a series of detailed charts showing energy signatures, biological indicators, and power fluctuation patterns. Lance took mental notes, comparing them against his own experiences. The similarities were unsettling.

  “Questions?” Dr. Nazari asked as she brought the lights back up.

  Several hands rose, but Lance paid no mind to them. He was too focused on the revelation that his body might be on the verge of another transformation—one that could either elevate his abilities to unprecedented levels or tear him apart from the inside.

  Diego’s hand shot up too, practically vibrating with energy. He couldn’t contain himself long enough to be called on.

  “Actually, Dr. Patel explained this whole thing to me last week during my check-up. She said what we’re experiencing isn’t evolution at all—it’s adaptation. Like how muscles grow when you stress them.” He grinned, flexing subtly. “And trust me, I know all about muscle adaptation.”

  Several recruits groaned. Lance sank lower in his seat.

  Dr. Nazari adjusted her glasses, observing Diego with clinical interest. “An understandable confusion, Mr. Ramírez.”

  “So she’s wrong?” Diego’s smile faded.

  “Not wrong, but imprecise. What you’re describing—conventional biological adaptation—occurs within existing physiological parameters.” She tapped her pen against her notepad, leaving another blue mark. “The metamorphic transformational process we’re documenting represents fundamental restructuring beyond established biological frameworks.”

  Diego’s eyes glazed over slightly.

  “It’s neither evolution in the Darwinian sense nor adaptation as traditionally defined.” Dr. Nazari sighed, softening her tone. “But for practical purposes, ‘evolution’ conveys the essential concept—a dramatic, permanent transformation of capabilities.”

  “So Dr. Patel was...” Diego trailed off.

  “Simplifying for your benefit, perhaps.”

  Lance caught the speck of embarrassment on Diego’s face and felt a strange urge to redirect Dr. Nazari’s attention. Neural Dominion stirred within him, and he quickly suppressed it.

  It was getting more difficult to control the power since it had burst out of him to calm both Vicky and himself in the chow hall. Just as Dr. Nazari had explained—he’d been holding Neural Dominion back for so long that it was like a balloon squeezed at one end, bulging unpredictably somewhere else. The more he pushed it down, the more forcefully it pushed back, seeking any path to expression.

  If I keep fighting it, I’ll eventually lose, Lance thought. But acknowledging what I’ve become means accepting that line I crossed. And crossing that line means I’m not so different from the monster I killed. That I enjoyed it. That some part of me wanted to do it.

  “Remember,” Dr. Nazari concluded, “this information is classified. Discussion outside this classroom is strictly prohibited.” She gathered her papers, sliding them into a red folder marked “TOP SECRET//HCS//TK//SAP//NOFORN” before securing it in a lockable courier bag with a numbered security tag. “Dismissed.”