My Only Familiar Is Me[A Late-Blooming Evolution Story]

“You’re saying Omega Plus is ready?” I turned the news over in my mind, fitting it into place. “That’s impressive progress. Nice work, Selina.”

“And that’s it?” She crossed her arms and tilted her head, studying me. Disappointment flashed across her face, mixed with unmistakable suspicion. “Where’s the Tom Ross who used to breathe down my neck and demand I squeeze every last drop out of this formula? Maybe I wasted all those late nights in the lab chasing your ambitions.”

“I really am grateful for everything you’ve done,” I said, keeping my tone calm and matter-of-fact. “But let’s be realistic. Your breakthrough would’ve come at the perfect time when I was stuck at the Corps training camp. Back then, I had a predictable schedule, a controlled environment, and most importantly, plenty of free time to spend a week recovering in the infirmary after one of your experiments. Now I’m a civilian, and I’ve got things on my plate that rank a lot higher.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” She swept a sarcastic glance around my modest kitchen. “Because from where I’m standing, your entire agenda today seems to consist of sitting on that stool and hanging out with the stove and coffee maker.”

“I could ask you the same thing.” I met her eyes. “What’s the Corps’ chief engineer doing in my apartment? Don’t you have a fresh batch of cadets to lecture?”

“My contract for that rotation is finished,” she said crisply, accepting the challenge without looking away. “Every one of my students passed. The ones still at camp are busy scrambling to make up deficiencies with the tactics and weapons instructors. As far as the Corps is concerned, I’m not needed this week.”

“So you’re officially on vacation.”

“Exactly,” she said, her voice hardening. “And instead of flying to the coast and drinking mojitos, I spent my personal time and used official transport to bring you a gift. In return, instead of champagne, flowers, or basic courtesy, I get a pretty clear hint that I’m not welcome here.”

“You showed up at the right time for business and the wrong time for everything else,” I replied honestly. “I’ll gladly let you test your new serum on me exactly seven days from now. Not before then.”

“You want to leave a finished steroid sitting around for an entire week?” Selina’s voice jumped an octave, her eyes widening as if I had just suggested burning her degrees. “Tom, what happened to you over the last few days? Where’d the pragmatist go? The guy who would’ve drank poison by the gallon if it boosted his immune system?”

I winced. Her raised voice grated on my nerves, and I immediately activated the peripheral interface to check on Mom. Her status was stable, but just to be safe, I applied a [Special Command] to reinforce her deep-sleep cycle. That guaranteed this little kitchen showdown would not wake her up.

“What could you possibly be doing that’s so important?” Selina pressed on, conducting her investigation with relentless focus. Her eyes swept across every inch of the room. Finally, they settled on the drying rack beside the sink. Blender components sat there drying, and nearby, neatly lined up on a shelf, were containers of concentrated amino acids and heavy-duty vitamin supplements. “Hold on. Why do you need all this? Your stats already hit the genetic ceiling. Regular performance supplements are useless to you. Unless...”

A look of pure feline triumph spread across her face. Langstrom’s engineering mind put the pieces together with processor-like speed. I waited in silence for her to voice the conclusion, careful not to give anything away.

“You activated a [Familiar] contract on your mother!” she blurted out victoriously, leaning forward. “That’s who all those vitamins are for. You’re putting an elderly woman through the same ordeal you went through yourself!”

“Let’s skip the drama, Selina. We’re not talking about Corps training. She’s sixty years old, with three decades spent working over a stove and a laundry list of chronic health issues. Trying to force her into assault-trooper standards would be stupid. Her heart would give out before she finished her first workout. My priority is a complete overhaul of her body’s core systems.”

“Now you’ve got my attention.” The familiar spark of obsession lit her eyes instantly. The arrogance vanished, replaced by pure professional excitement. “Tell me everything. I want to hear about every [Special Command] you’ve used on her so far.”

There was no point hiding the structure of the experiment from her. Selina was a top-tier scientist with an unconventional mind, and her assessment might expose blind spots I could easily miss with my accountant’s way of thinking. I walked her through the entire timeline, step by step, from the moment I bonded the second [Familiar] to the ongoing cleansing of blood vessels and cellular receptors.

“Large-scale detoxification and forced cellular lysis...” she murmured, tapping her chin with a perfectly manicured fingernail. “You know, Tom, I’ll give you this. For a guy whose greatest achievement used to be an annual financial report, you handled this surprisingly well. I’d have gone with exactly the same reboot strategy.”

I gave a short nod. Approval from the woman responsible for equipping the entire Corps carried real weight.

“All right, let’s say you finish this rejuvenation and tissue-regeneration phase in a week.” Selina leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table as her eyes narrowed. “What comes next? What’s the end goal? You’re not planning to stop at turning her into a healthy American retiree, are you? You’re thinking bigger than that.”

“What exactly are you talking about?”

“Tom, think about it. You’ve got full administrative access to her biological code. You can rewrite the parameters of any tissue in her body. You could alter the pigmentation of her irises and make her pupils adapt to the ultraviolet spectrum for enhanced night vision. You could modify keratin synthesis and increase the density of her nails to the level of carbon steel. Hell, you could reinforce her bone matrix until small-caliber rounds wouldn’t even penetrate it. The number of possible modifications is practically limitless.”

“I ran through those scenarios within the first hour after assigning the second [Familiar],” I said, taking some of the wind out of her sails. “The problem is that the theory crashes headfirst into the interface’s hard-coded limitations. Every time I try to direct cellular development beyond the boundaries of normal human anatomy, the system throws a critical compatibility error. To get cat eyes or claws, the body would need to undergo a genuine species-level evolutionary transition, and we don’t have access to that tier of permissions yet.”

“And thank God for that, Tom.” Selina immediately straightened in her chair, her voice turning crisp and authoritative, the same tone she used with cadets. “You remember our agreement, don’t you? You promised me you wouldn’t run any radical, unauthorized genetic experiments until we’ve completed our deal.”

“My brain works like a computer now.” I let out a breath as I mentally skimmed through perfectly indexed memories. “Every word is on record. No evolutionary experiments until we’ve settled the fertilization issue. I’m sticking to our agreement.”

“Good. It’s nice to know you’ve still got some common sense left.” Selina relaxed slightly and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You have to understand, I want our child to be a healthy, normal human being. No genetic nightmares, no tails, no extra limbs.”

“Our child,” I corrected, putting emphasis on the word.

“Obviously.” She waved the distinction away as casually as if we were discussing what wine to serve with dinner. “Actually, that’s the second reason I’m here. The legal side of things. When are you going to be ready to meet with my representative and finalize the shared-custody agreement?”

“Not yet. I’ve only started digging into the laws and relevant case history. But even a quick review uncovered a major issue. For an agreement like that to be legally enforceable, we both have to be residents of the same district. Where are you registered?”

“Washington.”

“And as you’ve probably noticed from the luxurious surroundings, I’m stuck in Los Angeles.” I steepled my fingers and looked at her over them. “So there’s our first logistical roadblock.”

“Is that really a problem?” She looked at me with mild amusement, like a professor explaining something painfully obvious to a struggling student. “Just move to Washington.”

“You’re not the first person to suggest that.”

“Then it sounds like intelligent people are reaching the same conclusion.” A smug smile tugged at her lips. “Tom, let’s be honest. The capital is objectively a better fit for your situation.”

“Go on.”

“First,” she said, raising a finger, “my lab is there. You’ll be able to work with me directly, and we’ll finish your evolution program much faster. Second, if they approve you as an instructor at the Corps camp, you’ll end up living in the capital sector anyway. Third, all the important Corps resources are there. Fourth...” She paused. “Washington simply suits your personality better.”

“Explain.”

“Take a look around.” She gestured dismissively toward the window. “Los Angeles is a loud, flashy playground full of nightclubs, movie stars, and every possible temptation. You’re not getting much out of living here. Washington is a boring, orderly bureaucratic anthill. The perfect habitat for an obsessive accountant like you.”

I ignored the jab. She wasn’t wrong. In fact, I had already come to the same conclusion. Los Angeles was a dead end. Once Mom completed the rejuvenation cycle, questions from neighbors and everyone who knew her would become inevitable. Starting fresh in a new city would make it much easier to conceal what I had been doing.

“Your proposal makes sense,” I said after weighing it carefully. “I’ll add it to the plan. I’ll think it over and get in touch once I’m in Washington.”

“Don’t wait too long.” She briefly bit her lip, and for an instant I caught a flash of concern before she buried it. “I’d like to get all the legal paperwork wrapped up before a portal pulls you away.”

“Speaking of portals,” I said, steering the conversation elsewhere, “any insider information on when deployment might happen?”

“The situation’s messy. Every known portal has already been assigned to other teams.” She shook her head. “New portals appear unpredictably. The one allocated to your group still has to be surveyed before they start sending rookies through. Based on what I’ve heard, you’ve probably got about two weeks.”

“Got it.” I stood, making it clear the conversation had run its course. “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

“I’m not planning to stay,” she said with a dismissive sniff as she adjusted her glasses. “Straight to the airport, a couple hours in the air, and then I’m home.”

We exchanged quick goodbyes. Her departure was every bit as swift and businesslike as her arrival.

I checked on Mom one more time in her bedroom. Stable condition. Deep sleep. She didn’t need active supervision yet, and the refrigerator was stocked with everything she could possibly need. Most importantly, I was maintaining the required forty-meter radius to preserve the metabolic bonus without fail.

It was time to focus on myself.

I left a note on the kitchen table with a few simple instructions so Mom wouldn’t panic or call me over every minor issue, then locked myself in my room.

[Special Command: Activate continuous cycle of instantaneous S-Power discharge followed by regeneration during sleep state. Maintain maximum intensity until peak efficiency is achieved.]

Back at the camp, I’d limited myself to one-hour sessions because I had to work around the rules. Now it was time to find out where the real limits were. What would happen if I let this process run twenty-four hours a day without interruption? I was about to find out.