Breathe.

Adrian dragged in the coarse air to the passageways that led to his lungs, feeling the stale warmth tickling his nose. A subtle vibration reverberated in his chest before the released air came rattling back out quietly, like a content sigh shared in a lover’s embrace.

Darkness enveloped him.

The medical lab he’d… commandeered... for the night was pitch black at this hour, all non-essential electronics and light sources were off. At first he had considered going to a recording studio for the improved acoustics that would accommodate his need for silent observation, but he opted for a lab in the end out of necessity.

His enhanced hearing picked up a gentle sloshing from across the room.

Adrian’s lips slightly tugged upwards at the fleeting thought.

Rich had been invited to help as his medical attendant, but really the majority of the time he just sat over by the window sipping on an IPA and reading a web novel on his phone. Adrian had to commend him; his friend was much more quiet than usual - probably out of respect for what he knew they were trying to accomplish tonight.

Other than that negligible sound which he chose to ignore, Adrian appreciated the fact that the space was nearly entirely silent. This was important, so he refocused his mind. He needed to feel and hear the thrum of his blood pumping through his veins, flowing like a Spring of Life to each nerve and vessel, replenishing nutrients and vitality to his being. Adrian’s entire focus was concentrated on wrapping his mind around each and every movement, calculating flow and pressure, composition and distribution.

If it was before, he would have been like any other person, woefully ignorant of his bodily processes. Now, however, since he’d woken up a day ago, he’d had this intimate feeling of intricacy when it came to his body. It was an entirely unexplainable perception, like he was suddenly made aware of another Sense that was specific to all things happening within him.

What he was striving to do now was take advantage of this newfound information, because it wasn’t too far of a stretch to hope that he would be able to exert some level of control over those bodily processes. On an engineering level, that excited him to no end.

Human biology was something that was fine-tuned over a long stretch of time, honed by various climatological and dietary limitations. Fat had to be stored for warmth and energy reserves for periods of time where food was more sparse and hard to gather like winter or in harsh geography. Muscle groups were built up and atrophied back down based on the physical exertion that was required on a day to day basis. The human body is an incredible testament to biological adaptability, shifting and changing to contort to the lowest and most efficient energy state possible.

As some scientists are fond of saying, it always comes back down to Physics in the end. But that’s a discussion for another day.

In the modern era, though, there was no longer a need for such a passive and wide-reaching take on adaptability. Dietary trends changed enormously and at a rate that biological evolution couldn’t mimic. Lifestyle habits and working conditions quickly shifted away from merely surviving to a more steady, sedentary way of life.

Humanity conquered nature. At least, on the outside and in a limited survival sense. Within, they still understood too little to be able to do anything about the age-old adaptive functions of the human body that were now not as efficient as they wanted.

Adrian intuitively understood that his upgrade was an opportunity to build a bridge over this gap.

Just like his programming that he was so adept in, the human body was a program operating off of a source code that he’d just been given access to. Right now, the parameters were far apart, encompassing a vast host of possibilities that could occur to the organism. If he could change those parameters at anytime he wanted, however, wouldn’t that be better than his body dumbly thinking, “Gotta create some more fat since he’s eating a lot. Probably saving up for winter hibernation again?”

He groaned internally. The nickname ‘Bearcat’ was a double-edged sword.

In any case, he was pursuing the idea of an active adaptability rather than the traditional passive nature of biology. In order to achieve that goal, he had to completely understand his body to a cellular level and then manipulate the processes that govern it through the use of his brain. No matter how advanced he got with his cognitive function, the fact would always remain that, as long as his body closely resembled that of a human, he would be unable to extend his consciousness to anything beyond his own mind.

Certain novels he’d read in the past had liked to theorize that it was possible for a consciousness to leave the body or even travel around within. In truth, this was scientifically impossible if attempted by a human with a normal biology. No, the best possible explanation for physical introspection, which was what he was currently engaged in, would be mental simulation. He trapped himself in this room so that he could singlemindedly focus on all of the variables and data that his body was telling him.

However. Adrian was still woefully incapable of doing it all by himself right off the bat. He was catching on quickly, yes, but one does not attempt to fly an aircraft just because they’ve seen one land before from a distance, right? He needed help from Rich and Raide in obtaining certain number figures that still escaped his capacity for accounting. It was for this reason that Raide would periodically supplement him with data so that he could draw statistical and probabilistic trends to explain the various minute changes in his body.

Only then would he be nearer to the start line where he would be able to begin manipulating his body. It was a previously impossible task, but one his A.I. had made possible.

Another breath escaped his lips, fogging in the dark room.

Feeling his internal clock chime, he brought a section of his attention away from the inner workings of his body. A tightening on his arm momentarily distracted him before he was snapped back. The earpiece that he was beginning to develop a habit of wearing softly crackled, Raide’s melodic voice saying, “Systolic pressure 119, diastolic 82 mmHg. 50 bpm. Capillary action increased in sectors 12, 25, 2003, 42,500…. Metabolic rate increased .003%.”

He paused for a split second and a slight pain came from Adrian’s waist and then another from an apparatus on his elbow which drew blood. Rich appeared at his side and removed the vial, taking it to a nearby workbench for analysis. A short while later, he quietly relayed, “Blood glucose levels hovering at 16.01 mmol/L. RBC of 5.52 trillion/L…”

He continued to rattle off a lot of numbers and Adrian mentally called up a 3-dimensional schematic of his body in his mind. The figure was as nude as could be while the entirety of his skin’s surface area had been marked and numbered in a grid format measuring 1mm x 1mm for each individual block. The still figure quietly referenced each of the areas that the A.I. was listing for him and made slight mental calculations.

Adrian sighed as he tweaked the system of equations. To be truthful, he wasn’t even really at the level yet where he could even readily influence any of the bodily processes. Sure, he could blindly make changes to different areas of his body and thus produce some biological effect, but that would be useless to him since it was a blind change. What he desired - what he needed - was to understand his body intimately. Thus, he very, very carefully watched.

Control is only achieved through true understanding and manipulation of cause and effect. What exactly causes the temperature of a certain patch of skin to rise? What was the precise correlation between a certain muscular system’s usage of energy and the increase of metabolic work achieved? Only by observing would he able to establish a baseline to attack this insurmountable goal of controlling the bodily processes.

Just like how he was able to incorporate knowledge to observe wind and heat in a visual format, he was also improving on his knowledge to one day be able to translate all of the billions of trillions of changes in his body every second to a format that he would be able to actively influence. It would take time. His perfect recall helped immensely, but still he’d need around a month to completely internalize and commit the data to rote memory.

Another measured exhale expunged CO2 out into the room.

One breath at a time, he would learn and acclimate to the new awareness brought on by the upgrade and then… then he would transcend the biological shackles that bound him.

***

Bradley lazily rolled his eyes and looked at the fearsome, petite agent beside him. She was currently lambasting a manager behind a desk that looked too frightened to speak, much less dial the correct extension number number for his boss. If he had a hole, Bradley was sure he would have crawled into it by now.

“Look, we just want to chat with her briefly to ask her a few questions. What’s so hard about that?” Amy pressed intensely.

The balding man dabbed a tissue at his perspiring forehead. “Like I’ve told you 10 times now, Agent Matthews, when we’re told not to disturb, we don’t dare to barge in. She’s left word that she’s working on something important, so she will be indisposed for the foreseeable future.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. This includes the scenario when federal agents come to investigate one of your labs being bombed?”

The manager’s eyes went wide in nervousness and looked at the phone, before ultimately steeling himself and looking back at the annoyed agent.

Seeing the determined avoidance of his boss, Bradley was starting to understand just how much these workers feared their boss. This wasn’t leadership, it was tyranny. He paused. But if that was the case…

He opened his mouth, “Ok, fine.” Amy shot him a look, but he gave a signal with his eyes and turned back to the relaxing manager. “Perhaps you can help us, then. Fair?”

It was like a huge weight was lifted from the low level manager’s back. Mustering a visibly relieved smile, he said, “I’d be more than happy to answer your questions.”

“Good.” Bradley nodded and then took out a photo of Valerie Womack. He was banking on the fact that this grunt hadn’t been briefed on anything, or told how to act when certain subjects came up. Blocking was his purpose. If Bradley could wheedle out some information that the manager didn’t realize he needed to keep to himself, they could maybe gain some leverage for a search warrant.

He handed over the photo. “Do you recognize her?”

The manager’s bushy eyebrows furrowed, before a hint of recognition flashed across his eyes. Without giving him any more time to ponder further, Bradley pressed him, “Well?”

“Oh?” He shook his head. “Yeah, I remember her. That’s Valerie. Bright girl. She was one of our best genetic engineers before she got headhunted a couple years ago.” He looked up and an inquisitive glint came to his eye. “What does she have to do with this?”

“We’re sorry to have to tell you this, but Valerie died during the lab incident.” Amy answered up and Bradley silently applauded her for choosing to withhold the nature of her death and about the possible treason. “We’re just trying to figure out why she was there in the first place. When was the last time you saw her?”

Here it is.

Bradley watched with interest as multiple realizations wracked the poor man’s mind. He could see a war raging between fear of the tyrant and fear of going to jail if the manager lied. It was almost too obvious that he’d seen her recently. The analyst flitted his eyes to the side while he waited for the man to gather himself. Outside the corner office’s window that looked over a floor of workers, Bradley saw more than a few furtive glances towards their room.

Turning his head back, he said soothingly, “If I’m understanding the situation properly, you’re probably scared of bringing down the wrath of your boss on your head. Don’t worry, if you help us, we’ll pretend to not have gained anything when we leave. Even if something does happen, we can protect you against losing your job.”

The camel’s back broke and a shaking breath escaped the manager’s lips. He looked back up and then sighed. “I have seen her. It was quite recently in fact. I was here late one night a few weeks ago, trying to catch up on some paperwork, when I saw Ms. Harris walking with Valerie out of the lobby together. I thought it was pretty weird that Valerie would come back, but then I remembered that she was Harris’ protege, but still I got… curious.

“I ended up sneaking to the break room before they passed by and I overhead Valerie saying something about how the lab was making great progress and that the ‘telomere’ research should be completed inside of a month or two.”

“Pretty ballsy move for how terrifying Ms. Harris seems to be to you,” Bradley noted with his eyebrows raised.

The man laughed self-deprecatingly. “Did you know that Marjorie Harris is the one that recruited me to work for Biolink? Ever since then, it’s been its own special little brand of hell working under her. I wanted something to at least protect myself... Turns out I was right to try and listen in.”

Amy nodded. “This really does help us. Thank you.” She took out a card and handed it to the man. “Just give us a call if you remember anything or have any issues. We’ll see ourselves out.”

Bradley challenged the gazes of the few nosy employees as he stepped out into the hall. He heard Amy’s voice echoing out, “Please tell Ms. Harris to call us the moment she becomes available, or if you remember anything.”

The manager and Amy appeared in the doorway and he nodded amiably like he’d just pulled one over on them. “I’ll be sure to tell her that you stopped by, and you’ll be the first to know if I think of anything.”

Bradley and Amy nodded their thanks and then walked through the line of cubicles towards the elevator. Once they were clear of any prying ears or cameras, Bradley threw an amused grin at the girl. “What do you think, Barbie? Enough to bring her in for questioning?”

Amy grimaced at the nickname jab, but chose to ignore it. She replied, “Let’s call Walters. It may not be enough for us to bring her in, but it certainly is enough for a search warrant.”

Bradley smiled at her, the corners of his eyes creasing as the two stepped onto the elevator down.

***

A cool, crisp Ka-cha rung out in the room. All the monitors were off, save for the central TV which was showing a Futbol game - the only source of pale light in the dark apartment. The smell of hops lingered on the air, Adrian’s eyed tuned to the cool foam and carbonated mist that spiraled upwards when he popped off the top of his beer.

Lazily looking towards his side, he sighed and then asked, “Why do you have to be such a little bitch?”

Rich groggily looked over and slurred, “I don’t wanna hear that from the Prime of Bitches himself, Bitchcat.”

“Prime Bitchcat, huh?” Adrian mused. “Does it come with a crown?”

“Yep, along with a throne of melted swords that stab up your asshole.” Rich quipped.

“I’ll pass then.”

“Thought you’d say that. Really living up to the title there.” He grinned smugly.

Adrian started and then slapped his knee. He pointed at his friend with the occupied beer hand. “That throne of swords reminded me! What happened with Lexi the Licker?”

Rich shuddered at the reference and then finished his beer. He stacked it neatly beside the other eight bottles he’d already polished off. A small grin floated to his face and he shook his head in recollection as he cracked open a new one. “Let’s not go there, Bearcat.”

“She really seemed to dig you man. All of you.”

“Stop it.”

“What was her job again? An excavator operator?”

“God, you’re lame. Stop.”

“Heh.” Adrian grinned smugly, taking another swig from his beer. The pair locked eyes for a split second before he kept going, eliciting a groan from Rich.

“I mean, I just think you should really treasure someone that looks after her man to such an extent. I really admire her. Such a hard-working attitude… If I remember correctly, weren’t her favorite flowers Chrysanthemums? Such an odd choice...” he trailed off suggestively.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?” A thought occurred to Rich and his grin turned slightly malicious. “Where’s Heather these days, or better yet… the Rabbit?”

Adrian coughed mid-sip, unintentionally sucking some carbonated liquid up his nose. Spluttering, he coughed twice and rubbed his burning nose with his t-shirt. He shot a glare at his friend with a tinge of smile mixed in. “That’s low, even for a piece of shit like you.”

Rich just shrugged, satisfied he’d deflected the course of the conversation. “You care too much about them still, man.”

Adrian drained his beer and muttered, “Yeah, I know…”

A side monitor near Rich’s face at the end of the couch came to life abruptly, scaring the ever-loving shit out of the duo.

“What the-” “Jesus-”

Raide’s face appeared and he shook his head in confusion. “I really don’t understand why you are talking about those two. It’s been years… not to mention, you already have a new hopeful on the radar.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Raide.” Rich took a breath and then froze. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘new hopeful’?” He turned his head to Adrian. “What the fuck does he mean by that?”

Adrian was confused for a second until it dawned on him. “Wait just a minute. We don’t have that kind of relationship!”

The A.I. followed up nonchalantly, “But you do have a relationship.”

Rich’s eyes were serious as he sent a tell me or die look.

Adrian shook his head exasperatedly. “Raide, you tell him if you’re so intent on working up this theory. I want no part of it.”

“Sure thing, boss. Look here, Mr. Hobo, I’ve got a perfect reference photo…” Having received ‘permission’, Raide quickly brought up a picture that Adrian had never seen before. It was of him and Nova at the coffee shop in Underground Atlanta that one day. From the angle, it was obvious that somebody had taken it from the bar area.

“What the fuck is this?” Adrian exclaimed, his eyes wide.

“This would be a photo I confiscated while I was screening the radius of your surroundings,” Raide replied smugly. “I monitor all cell phones, security networks, TV signals, wireless data access, radio, and telecom 3G and 4G waves. This lovely treasure came from some sorority girl who decided she had to snap one of you two secretly to show her friends. I copied the file, blocked her “OMG, would you look at this cute couple I found while getting coffee!” Instagram post, and subsequently deleted all traces you ever being there.”

Adrian held up a finger in the air. “One, never do that girly voice again, it was terrifying.”

Raide squinted at him. “But that’s her real-”

“Two-” He interrupted and held up another finger. “Good job on the surveillance, but don’t go randomly caching weird stuff.”

“I refuse. This classifies under my data-mining algorithm permissions, already established on lines 265344444 - 265344467 of my source code.”

“Fuck! Whatever. I’m too lazy to mess with this.” He turned to Rich and said blankly, “She’s an old acquaintance from my hometown. I think she may be recruitable in the future, so I’ve been meeting with her every once in awhile to feel her out. Uh, I mean... get a read on how she thinks.” He nodded to reinforce the change.

Rich’s eyebrows went up as he snidely drained another half of a beer with a chuckle.

Feeling the desperate need for a change of topic, Adrian sighed and looked back at Raide who was looking like someone had just stolen his favorite toy. “I really won’t mess with your source code, don’t worry.”

He rolled his eyes at the look of relief played on the A.I.’s face and continued, “What’s the status on the list I asked you compile?”

Like a light-switch, Raide’s personality flipped. “Going strong on the search, but still incomplete. I’ve actually only completely vetted 1% of the businessmen and women in America. I’m ahead with the politicians at 23% since their files are more easily located. As for the list itself, I have a total of two hundred names that fit the criteria you mentioned to me a few days ago.”

Rich had a thoughtful expression on his face. “Is this the…”

Adrian nodded without waiting for him to finish. “Yeah. Raide, scroll through them for me. Memorization pace.” At his behest, the A.I. started cycling through the files just fast enough for Adrian to glimpse them once. These days, that was all it took for him to memorize something and be able to reproduce it perfectly.

After he was done comprehending the last file twenty minutes later, Adrian cursed in a low breath and then said, “We really need manpower. It’s only when truly getting a glimpse at a person’s life that you start to understand the burden of trying to forcefully correct hundreds of people's’ greed and corruption.”

Rich questioned, “Wait, how forcefully are we talking?”

“As much as each person needs,” Adrian replied calmly. “If they can be reasoned with, great. If not, I’ll put them down. Raide bring up the dossier on Senator Grant Ward.”

A handsome man in his 40’s appeared on the screen and Adrian waved his hand in indication. “This will be the first target. Before he campaigned for one of the two Ohio seats, Ward managed a manufacturing plant in Trumbull County where he made his fortune off of a deal that led to the termination of 1200 jobs in 2007. The upper management like him were the only ones to get away with massive profits. The loss of the jobs sent the county into a micro-depression that is still struggling to recover. He managed to pin the blame on his cohorts and came away looking like a hero caught up in a bad situation. He even went so far as to donate his significant salary for the last two years to the families who lost their jobs. The ass.

“Generally speaking, this isn’t entirely unreasonable in the modern world, but the fact remains that he completed disregarded the fate of 1200 families. This is not an acceptable behavior in the world that we’re trying to create, especially from one who is meant to represent the people.

“His other movements are a bit… strange, and they speak to large character flaw, to put it mildly. In his free time, he likes to hire prostitutes and abuse them in a number of perverse acts. There seems to be some connection between him and the hotel that he frequently visits, but their security feeds are on a closed loop. What little time Raide has had to work with has yielded small kernels of intelligence on the outside, but nothing more.

“To me, the most sickening thing though is that he plays house with an unassuming, loving wife and family, while going to church every Sunday to keep up appearances.” He shook his head, and tried to heave a deep, stabilizing breath. “To be honest, I had no clue that we had someone like that serving in our Legislative body. It makes me sick.”

There was a subtle throbbing that started behind Adrian’s eyes after he read that. He shook his head to clear the fogginess brought on by it, but failed. Unconsciously, his muscles would flex and relax, back and forth, like his body was readying itself.

Rich asked cautiously, “What are you going to do to him?”

Adrian chuckled briefly and then hurriedly replied, “Talk to him of course.” The throbbing intensified.

Silently, Rich nodded, not deigning to mention that Adrian’s electric blue eyes had started intermixing with pools of pulsing maroon.

Adrian calmed down a bit and turned. “Raide, where will he be two days from now?”

“His schedule is blank, sir, but his phone’s GPS data says that he routinely visits an upper-class private bar on Thursday evenings. Following this pattern, he then always relocates to the aforementioned hotel called Emerald Lakes Resort & Spa for a duration of 2 hours before returning to his home on the city’s outskirts. I can only assume it’s to engage in the previously mentioned sexual acts.”

Clenching his fists, and then proceeding to crack his knuckles, Adrian’s voice started to drip acid, “Perfect.”

Standing up and heading back to his workbench, he picked up the construction blueprints that were unfurled there. “Raide, book my round-trip ticket and a ticket to the opera in a nearby city for cover. I’ll meet with the contractor you found tomorrow to go over our new home’s design and then leave the morning after tomorrow.

“Rich, try reaching out to some of the guys from back in our early days of Tech. I have a feeling one or two of them could feel at home with what we do here. Finances are not an issue.”

The two nodded at the commands. Adrian could feel Rich’s eyes boring into his back, questioning the ferocity that he was seeing from his best friend, but, in a way, Adrian no longer cared. Why hold him back? Why restrain the feral when it’s aimed at an appropriate target? There was some scum on this earth that just had to be purged.

Laws be damned.

Civic Justice be damned.

Time immemorial has proven that that way does not work.

He would be the one to craft the balance that this country so desperately needed.

A short distance away, Rich felt a despairing chill creep across his spine, threading and biting along the skin like a poisonous snake. He caught a glimpse of his best friend’s now fully red eyes as the man turned to grab a tool at the workbench, a sight eliciting the hair’s on Rich’s neck to stand at attention. It seemed that the things to come would not be so peaceful.